We’ve been posting about the UK Parliament’s Select Committee Hearing on the Climategate Scandal held in the House of Parliament’s Grimond Room yesterday, with the highlight being Phil Jones testifying. We provided you with a link to the video yesterday from the Parliament’s own website, but it’s now on youtube and you can view it larger here, in five bite size chunks.

Witnesses:

1. Rt Hon Lord Lawson of Blaby, Chairman, and Dr Benny Peiser, Director, Global Warming Policy Foundation
2. Richard Thomas CBE
3. Professor Edward Acton, Vice-Chancellor, University of East Anglia, and Professor Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit
4. Sir Muir Russell KCB, Head of the Independent Climate Change E-Mails Review
5. Professor John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Julia Slingo OBE, Chief Scientist, Met Office, and Professor Bob Watson, Chief Scientist, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Press the page numbers at bottom of article for parts 2-5.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Jones’s conduct has already been formally condemned by almost 80,000 scientists from the Royal Insitute of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics who submitted their own reports to Parliament last week.

In his testimony Jones admitted to unlawfully concealing data.

The former chief of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia (CRU) looked bedraggled and forlorn as he testified that it was “standard practice” to refuse submitting data to other scientists who sought to check climate research. Climate skeptics have been quick to pick apart the apparent contradictions in his testimony which contraverts Jones’ conduct prior to 2002, when he first dealt with data sharing requests from McIntyre.

Labour MP Graham Stringer asked Jones why he refused to comply with requests to share data to which Jones answered:

“Because all he [a skeptic] wants to do is find something wrong with it.”

To which Mr. Stringer again challenged Jones:

“But scientists make a name by proving and disproving things, don’t they? The statement seems to be anti-scientific. It is an absolutely clear denial of the man’s attempt to get at what you were doing. He wanted your information and you refused to give it to him? Why?”

Jones’ answer:

“Because we had invested a lot of work and resources in it, and this was before FOI started.”

Despite his damning claim that crucial climate data disproving the theory of man made global warming was withheld due to ‘standard’ practice’ Jones can be shown to have freely obeyed data sharing requests up until 2002.

By examination of revealing correspondence with independent climate analyst, Canadian Steve McIntyre we can reveal that Jones freely submitted data upon all such requests. This was despite Jones’s awareness of confidentiality agreements which he later used as his reason for not releasing data.

In stating to Parliament that it was ‘standard practice’ not to release climate data Jones may have perjured himself as per the following facts.

Respected unpaid auditor, McIntyre has spent much of the last decade investigating the claims of climate scientists and is noted for spotting an error in NASA’s climate data whereby NASA wrongly attributed the warmest year of the 20th Century to 1998 when, in fact, it was proven that 1934 was the warmest year in the American records. NASA grudgingly corrected their facts. Climate skeptics have since exposed other government climate data as false and global warming advocates, such as Jones have been circling the wagons against further public scrutiny.

McIntyre recounts the former openness of Jones that disproves his testimony from yesterday:

“At that time, I was surprised by the promptness of the response and the extra effort that Jones had put into the response. (I think that I noted Jones’ courtesy as a correspondent from time to time in the first years of the blog.)”

Jones had helpfully released to McIntyre temperature data for 5,159 global weather stations, a most revealing act never since repeated. Thus this contraverts Jones’ testimony to Parliament that it was ‘standard practice’ to withhold data. Such ‘practice’ only began after 2002 when skeptics began to uncover climate data irregularities.

McIntyre cites the correspondence he received from Jones on this issue. Jones replied to the Canadian making the following statement that was never honored:

“Once the paper comes out in the Journal of Climate, I will be putting the station temperature and all the gridded databases onto our web site.”

In 2007, when Willis Eschenbach, another independent analyst, also sought station data he, too, was refused under various pretexts. After three or four further FOIA requests Jones partially relented and gave access to just 4,138 of the stations, placing them on the CRU website.

The question not yet asked of Jones is why was there a change of policy that was blatantly contradictory to the Freedom of Information laws, after 2002. The ‘standard practice’ Jones refers to can only be proven to have occurred between 2002 and 2009.

Jones has repeatedly defended his unlawful conduct by alluding to problems created by various countries refusing to make their data freely available. Yet Jones refuses to point the finger at any such countries that continue to stymie FOIA requests.

Skeptics will claim this is proof of willful criminal conduct, or ‘trick’ committed by Jones in a self-serving fashion to ‘hide the decline’ in the standard practice of climate science perfomed at CRU. I would suggest that Jones would be more forthcoming on this issue if he faced stern cross-examination in a court of law, a place where this scandal will surely now be finally determined.

Dean Vernon Wormer of Animal House, or Dean Vernon Warmer of East Anglia?

I’ve heard of people not learning from their mistakes, but not universities. Sounds like the University of East Anglia just can’t seem to figure out that honesty is the best policy.

On February 27, Times Online has an article titled “University Tried to mislead MP’s on climate change e-mails.”

They’re pretty “cheeky” over there.

The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails has been accused of making a misleading statement to Parliament.

They not only don’t tell the truth verbally…they even put it in writing.

The University of East Anglia wrote this week to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee giving the impression that it had been exonerated by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). However, the university failed to disclose that the ICO had expressed serious concerns that one of its professors had proposed deleting information to avoid complying with the Freedom of Information Act.

Professor Edward Acton said:

a letter from the ICO “indicated that no breach of the law has been established [and] that the evidence the ICO had in mind about whether there was a breach was no more than prima facie”.

But the ICO’s letter really said:

“The prima facie evidence from the published e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence.”

and that:

that the university had failed in its duties under the Freedom of Information Act by rejecting requests for data.

The ICO is still maintaining they can’t prosecute becuase of the 6 month time limit on FOID denials, which may not be true.  If that is the case then it’s like the pot calling the kettle black.

I think the administration at East Anglia makes Dean Wormer in Animal House look pretty good.  Maybe they should put themselves on double-secret probation for ahwile.

A panel of independent experts has officially begun its inquiry into the “Climategate” affair. The above video is a BBC television report on the investigation.

Following is an excerpt from the BBC’s article on their website:

The experts, headed by Sir Muir Russell, will investigate how e-mails from the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) appeared on the web.

They will also consider if the e-mail exchanges between researchers show an attempt to manipulate or suppress data “at odds” with scientific practice.

But even before the panel could start work, one of its members resigned.

Dr Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief for Nature journal, stood down late on Thursday because of remarks he had made last year in the Chinese media in which he said the scientists mentioned in the e-mails had “behaved as researchers should”.

“I made the remarks in good faith on the basis of media reports of the leaks. As I have made clear subsequently, I support the need to for a full review of the facts behind the leaked e-mails,” he said in a statement.

“There must be nothing that calls into question the ability of the independent Review to complete this task, and therefore I have decided to withdraw from the team.”

Sir Muir said he understood why Dr Campbell had withdrawn. “I regret the loss of his expertise, but I respect his decision,” he said.

Sir Muir’s panel hopes to present “preliminary conclusions by spring 2010″.

Read the rest of the story here.

Let’s not forget how the university-funded investigation of Michael Mann at Penn State turned out.

If he's the guy, we nominate Dr. Paul Dennis Time magazine's Person of the Year.

The Guardian UK today broke the huge news that it believes Climategate can now put a name to its heroic whistleblower. They say our man on the inside appears to be top scientist, Paul Dennis, Head of Stable Isotope and Noble Gas Geochemistry Laboratories of the University of East Anglia (UEA).

The Guardian reminds of some facts about Dennis:

Dennis refused to sign a petition in support of Jones when the scandal broke. He told friends he was one of several staff unwilling to put their names to the Met Office-inspired statement in support of the global warming camp, because “science isn’t done by consensus”.

University sources say the head of department, Professor Jacquie Burgess, received a letter from Dennis at the height of the email uproar, calling for more open release of data. He appears to have disapproved of the way Jones resisted FoI requests.

Dennis’s own research, which dates fluctuating temperatures in ice cores stretching back thousands of years, does not support the more catastrophic current predictions of runaway global warming.

He has a history of contact with the American bloggers who bombarded Jones’s unit with FoI requests, and were the first to receive the leaks. The ensuing global row led to Jones standing aside from his post. Last week he was rebuked by the Information Commissioner’s office for apparent breaches of FoI rules.

If he is the whistleblower, Mr. Dennis has our utter admiration. But we doubt Norfolk Police will be giving him plaudits and bouquets right now. The police will have taken at least one signed statement from Dennis so that they will have in both black and white and full audio-recorded detail the how and why of why this scientist felt compelled to nobly sacrifice his prestigious career.

But hold on just a second.

Now that we have heard from the Guardian, What does Mr. Dennis have to say? Well, he went public and made a comment today, after the article hit the internet, on the Bishop Hill blog. He denies it:

It’s very amusing to read the many conspiracy theories being put forward by readers on the many blogs and newspaper comment sites. So before we get too carried away let me set the facts straight:

1) I did not leak any files, data, emails or any other material. I have no idea how the files were released or who was behind it.

2) My first knowledge of anything untoward was a departmental email circular saying that emails and files were hacked from ENV (environmental sciences) and CRU (climatic research unit). My interest was piqued so I emailed Steve McIntyre to ask if he was aware of anything. Steve replied that he wasn’t and that if he did find out anything he’d let me know. It was apparently this email that I sent that confirmed to both Steves (McIntyre and Mosher) that the leaked files were authentic.

3) The following day Steve emailed me a single url. It was to Jeff Id’s site. I clicked the link but couldn’t find anything and forgot about it.

4) Next day all hell breaks loose as the files have gone wild.

5) Now stepping back a few days. Prior to the leak, about a week or so, I had sent Jeff a paper I recently published in Geophysical Research Letters on a new study of the Gomez Glacier in Antarctica that had a 150 year isotope record that could be backed out as temperature. I thought Jeff might be interested in it as I knew he was working, along with others, on a new Antarctic paper in response to the Steig et al article in Nature that was published 12 months before.

6) In December the police saw me twice. I described the interview here under the blog ‘Parsing the Police’ on January 9th. The police were perfectly civil and we talked about many things including my research. I showed them round my labs and they came to coffee with me and my research group.

The police had copies of my email correspondence with Steve McIntyre and Jeff Id and a copy of my paper which kind of amused me. They said it was because I had sent the emails that they were interviewing me. I have absolutely no problems with that.

7) Two weeks ago David Leigh of the Guardian interviewed Andrew and Andrew mentioned my name and my contribution to the blog. Fred Pearce emailed me and I directed him to the university press office. Leigh followed Pearce’s email with one of his own and I ignored it. He then emailed saying he was running the story and out of courtesy he wanted to chat about it. Our conversation was about palaoeclimate science, ice cores, speleothems, mass spectrometers and the hockey stick. I told Leigh about the email I had sent Steve McIntyre and the papaer I had sent to Jeff. There’s no mysterious police leak here. I gave Leigh a copy of papaers I had written on ice core, speleothems and a nice little article on a freshwater snail, Lymnaea peregra.

That really is the end of the story. I reiterate that I have absolutely no knowledge as to who did what and their modus operandi. I’m as amused by all the theories, suggestions etc. and I am grateful that many have suggested that I deserve the nobel prize, or at the very least a knighthood but in all honesty I’ve done nothing to deserve either.

So, which is it? He Paul Dennis the whistleblower or not? The way breaking climategate news now comes out hourly it seems, we’re sure we’ll know very shortly.

Whether or not it was Paul Dennis, it seems the police think it was a whistleblower. If this is the case, it is a huge public relations win for skeptics. There’s no way a jury would convict a whistleblower, since the information released were the actual files requested under the FOI, so on this basis it would not fulfill the public interest requirement to bring a prosecution – it would be deemed frivolous. Besides, a shrewd defense attorney would cite mitigation such as the whistleblower was actually complying with the law that the ICO prosecutor officially conceded was broken by the employer. However, feasibly they could prosecute under the UK Data Protection act–this is because, as Dr. Costella tells us, the leak included personal data so that constitutes breaches of data protection law.

Source: Guardian, Bishop HIll

The internal enquiry has found that Mann did not “participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data”. For the full report, click here (pdf).

Nor did he “delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data” relating to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report. One email that has received much media attention was sent to Mann by Phil Jones, then director of the UEA’s Climatic Research Centre, on 29 May 2008. It asked Mann to delete some emails regarding the 2007 IPCC report.

In the months since the email leak, Mann has repeatedly said that he did not heed to Jones’ request. Penn State’s enquiry confirmed this.

The report is not clear about whether Mann’s behaviour has harmed the public trust in science. It cites Penn State’s official ethical standards, which says faculty have an obligation to maintain high ethical standards in order to foster public trust in science. It then goes on to discuss the fallout from the email leak which, it says, may have polarised the public into two camps: one that believes the leak undermines climate science and another that does not.

“After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee could not make a definitive finding whether there exists any evidence to substantiate that Dr. Mann did engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that deviated from accepted practices within the academic community,” reads the report. This final point will now be at the centre of a further investigation.

“This is very much the vindication I expected since I am confident I have done nothing wrong,” Mann told New Scientist. “I fully support the additional inquiry which may be the best way to remove any lingering doubts.”

Who would have thunk it? Five tenured professors find fellow tenured professor not guilty.

Costella’s statements will be seen as an embarrassing slight to former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief scientific adviser, Sir David King. On Monday, James Delingpole at the Telegraph exposed King for blowing off a lot of hot air about some hunch that nasty Russian or American spies hacked into the UEA’s Internet server. The bottom line is that the Information Commissioner’s Office has had to come clean and admit publicly that criminal conduct has taken place within the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, although no one in authority appears to want to do anything about it.

Dr. Costella, in his analysis, “Climategate Analysis,” has now published what is widely regarded as the best review of all 1,000+ emails and other documents contained in a 62MB upload to a Russian Internet server on November 19, 2009.

I asked John to comment on whether he believed it was the work of a hacker or an inside whistleblower that broke this most sensational scandal. He replied, “My only speculation on this comes from the following email,” and then directed me to read email 1228922050 of December 9, 2008 in which U.S. climatologist Ben Santer catches onto UEA climatologist, Phil Jones’s strategy of arguing that a greater number of requests implies lower credibility and validity, rather than the opposite:

Santer:

“I had a quick question for you: What is the total number of F[reedom] O[f] I[nformation (FOI)] A[ct] requests that you’ve received from Steven McIntyre?”

Jones:

“[I h]aven’t got a reply from the FOI person here at [the] U[niversity of] E[ast] A[nglia]. So I’m not entirely confident the numbers are correct. … I did get an email from the FOI person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn’t be deleting emails—unless this was “normal” deleting to keep emails manageable!”

Costella comments:

“Unless Jones volunteered this information to their FOI officer, this intriguing email may indicate that the FOI officer—who will generally have system-level rights to read all emails, as part of their job—may have been monitoring Jones‘s emails, including the one above where he admitted deleting emails. This may lead to the identity of the Climategate whistle-blower, for those who continue to doubt their existence.”

Relatedly, Dr. Costella also confirmed that contrary to widespread misunderstanding, none of the emails were redacted: “The ZIP file I downloaded on December 6, 2009 has the emails intact. The files on my webpage are not redacted either.”

The continued to speculate on the confusion of this issue:

“I think that when some people decided to post them all online, they wrote a program to redact all email addresses to avoid them being picked up by spammers. But by the time I saw them, there were so many unredacted copies on the Internet that I knew it was useless to do that.”

Pointedly, Costella informed me that he found the full email addresses are “extremely useful” in deciphering the affiliations of the alleged climate conspirators. “They are also important in that they show that these people were (almost always) using their OFFICIAL work email, not personal email,” he said.

John left me with a few sobering words that shows that here is a man who thinks with the cool, objective head of a scientist:

“Opinions on likely hackers are mere speculation, no matter how well-respected or honorable the speculator may be… it has been over two months now. Regardless of how the emails were leaked, they have been acknowledged as genuine, and provide evidence of astounding fraud. Investigation and potential prosecution or protection of the leaker or hacker is a separate issue, of no direct relevance to the issue of fraud.”

In this article we have dealt with facts, not the spin that warmists like Sir David King are spouting. Conclusions may only properly be drawn from evidence plainly presented. We have seen very little or any of that from the apologists of climate crime.

Dr. Costella has made a compelling factually-based case that Phil Jones’ unlawful deletion of emails was, he admits, well known to his FOI Officer. Jones was instructed to desist in breaking the law by that Officer. He continued to refuse to comply with the officer’s request. Thereafter, a vast amount of data (62MB) contained within a directory entitled ‘FOIA’ was uploaded onto the Internet. Absent any evidence to prove a hack we may thus infer a conscientious whistleblower, probably the FOI Officer, leaked the emails.”

Were the University of East Anglia emails hacked or the result of inside leak? The UK Telegraph reports that Sir David King, who for seven years was Tony Blair’s foremost scientific adviser, said the “extraordinarily sophisticated” hacking job was most likely an intelligence operation by foreign spies. Not only that, he says the most likely culprit is the Russians…and the Americans…he guesses.

In his interview with the UK’s Independent, King “guesses” that “If it was a job done on behalf of a government, then I suppose there is the possibility that it could be the Russian intelligence agency. ”

But that’s not all–he also guesses that the American lobby system was a “very likely source of finance” for the hack and that “the finger must point to them.”

While we believe the Russians are technically and organizationally capable of pulling this off, we doubt the American intelligence system that has been pussified by the democrats over the years could do anything like this, unless perhaps stimulus money was involved, or course.

Since running the editorial on Dr. Costella’s latest exposé, the Tribune-Review’s (local paper) found its circulation jumped 14.8 percent from 146,520 to 168,218 on the back of Costella’s story. Dr. Costella was clearly delighted with the response, “I’ll give you 168,218 to 1 that it ruined at least one of Mann’s meals!”

Thanks to Costella’s newly re-published analysis of the leaked emails from on the world’s key Climatic Research Units at the University of East Anglia, researchers into the Climategate scandal have been having a field day unpicking 13-years’worth of lies, deceit and fraudulent junk science all perpetrated at taxpayers’ expense. The cost to the U.S. economy for implementing policies based in such junk could run into trillions of dollars.

In the wake of the Climategate scandal has come a flood of other shocking revelations to derail the juggernaut of pro-green climate policy pursued by world governments. After Climategate, Pachaurigate, Glaciergate and Amazongate, now President Obama’s U.S. Administration is expected to be defeated in Congress on its unpopular and expensive climate cap-and-trade bill after Republican, Scott Brown, scored a sensational victory capturing the staunch Democrat seat of recently deceased Edward Kennedy.

The true depths of the climate scandal is causing great interest in the Pennsylvania heartlands of disgraced dodgy tree-ring counter, Michael Mann. Pittsburghers have been fascinated to find that the greatest fraud ever committed in the history of science was being perpetrated within their midst.

Michael E. Mann is famous for his ‘hockey stick’ graph often used by former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore when preaching his sermons on the ‘terrible threat’ of global warming. Mann’s graphs were much trumpeted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) before being debunked as fraudulent by independent analysts.

The impact in the hometown of disgraced climatologist Michael Mann has been so great it will surely add to the pressure on Penn State. The university’s own investigations to root out all the rotten apples in this scandal.

In 2009 Mann was appointed Professor at Pennsylvania State University, in the Department of Meteorology and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. Since 2005 he has been Director of the university’s interdepartmental Earth System Science Center. He previously taught at the University of Virginia, in the Department of Environmental Sciences (1999 – 2005).

John Costella’s study has been accepted by all sides of the global warming debate as a faultless exposure of the trickery and deceit of public-funded climate scientists intent on bolstering the now discredited theory of man made global warming.

Pittsburghlive.com explains,

“John P. Costella, the 149-page report’s author, does a tremendous service by documenting, step by step, how science was perverted to advance misguided ideology, cynical politics and personal and professional interests. Costella proved that there was massive ‘research’ funding — with strings attached requiring production of ‘evidence’ backing preordained eco-wacko ‘findings.’ The fakery that took place in Penn. State Uni. and other government-funded institutions helped spread such venality far and wide among ‘scientists.’ What Climategate reveals and his report itemizes is ‘science’ unworthy of the name — and on a vast scale.”

Costella was ably assisted by retired British nuclear physicist, Dr. Phillip Bratby, who edited and proofread this sterling analysis before Costella presents all the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in precise chronological order, with an insightful scientific commentary. Pittsburghlive.com broke to Costella the news of his article’s succes late into the night, Australian time.

John says, ”I used some of the Australia Day public holiday yesterday to read the SPPI Reprint myself. Although I’ve visited the U.S. three times, I’ve never been to Pennsylvania (the closest I got was D.C.). But if plans to fly me over in the coming months pan out, I will most certainly be visiting the good folk of Pittsburgh. I like them already. “

The SPPI Reprint is at:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/climategate_analysis.html

The original web page is at:
http://johncostella.webs.com/

”The only differences are very small edits and typos that I continue to make to the web page as they are picked up. (The SPPI Reprint seems to have lost all italics, and occasional spaces, but that is of little consequence),” John said.

“However, the SPPI Reprint, with its inclusion of my op-ed piece as an ‘Introductory Essay’, seems to have spread like wildfire, not least of which being an incredible discussion at the legendary Watts Up With That site a few days ago,”

Yesterday, another top climatologist caught up in the Climategate conspiracy — Alabama State Climatologist and UN IPCC lead author, Dr. John Christy — was dismayed at the unethical conduct of Michael Mann and other climatologists, has demanded that the IPCC seek to restore its damaged reputation in their next climate report by providing “an alternative view section written by well-credentialed climate scientists.”

Thanks to John Costella and other brave scientists who have stepped forward, it is hoped a Federal Department of Justice criminal investigation will bring down this blatant racketeering.

Yesterday the London Times broke the latest news on the fate of disgraced British climatologist Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia (UEA). Jones breached the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming. The Times reports that the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided that the UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late.

What the Times and the rest of the media are overlooking is that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), not the ICO, is responsible for announcing the results of the police investigation into the Climategate scandal. The ICO is merely a non-departmental public body which reports directly to Parliament, sponsored by the Ministry of Justice and deals solely with data protection, FOIA regulations, privacy, electronic communications regulations and environmental regulations.

What is not being intelligently reported is that Jones is still liable as lead conspirator in the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and may face prosecution under the United Kingdom Fraud Act (2006). If convicted of the offense of fraud by either false representation, failing to disclose information or fraud by abuse of his position, he stands liable to a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment.

In this article I shall demonstrate that the fuss over the FOIA infringement, although in itself succeeding in achieving no conviction, does demonstrate that the ICO has acted improperly and may have prejudiced the outcome of any prosecution Jones may face for far more serious offenses for false representation (section 2) and failing to disclose information (section 3) under the Fraud Act (2006).

I strongly urge interested readers to study the article shown here, written by Norman Baird, for a fuller explanation of the scope of the Fraud Act (2006) and the implications in the Professor Jones scandal.

Although the offense of fraud may be committed in three ways, we shall only need to apply two in finding reasonable grounds to bring a prosecution in this case. All three forms of the offense require proof of dishonesty and an intention (i) to make a gain for himself or another, or (ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss. “Gain” and “loss” are limited to gains or losses in terms of money or other property.

The forms of fraud directly relating to Phil Jones are:

Fraud by false representation (section 2)

A fraudulent representation is an assertion which is untrue or misleading and which the person making it knows is, or might be, untrue or misleading. ( s2(2) ).Subsection (4) provides that a representation may be express or implied. There are no restrictions or limitations in the way in which a representation is communicated. It may be written or spoken and may be transmitted by email or by way of website.

Fraud by failing to disclose information (section 3)

This form of the offense applies where a person dishonestly fails to disclose to another person information that he is under a legal duty to disclose. The ICO admits Jones is guilty of failing to disclose climate data. The question whether a legal duty exists is a matter of the general law. A legal duty may arise by virtue of a fiduciary relationship between the parties (fiduciary duty is a legal or ethical relationship of confidence or trust between two or more parties).

The CRU Email Evidence

From a full examination of excerpts from leaked CRU emails cited below, it is readily demonstrable that the police and Crown Prosecution Service currently possess sufficient evidence to charge Phil Jones under both sections 2 & 3 of the Fraud Act (2006). I shall cite liberally from Jones’ own email admissions, in conjunction with also citing liberally the much-acclaimed analysis of all the leaked UEA emails by Australian physicist, John Costella. Dr. Costella’s excellent study is available here.

I have used my own judgment to assess which of Jones’ emails are the most damning. Bear in mind that a defendant incriminates himself by any admission he may make.

On January 16, 2004, in leaked CRU email 1074277559 exchange Jones frantically urges Penn State University climatologist, Michael Mann, to delete data:

Subject: Climatic Change needs your advice—YOUR EYES ONLY !!!!!

Mike,

This is for YOUR EYES ONLY. Delete after reading—please! I’m trying to redress the balance. One reply from Christian Pfister said you should make all available!! Pot calling the kettle black—Christian doesn’t make his methods available. … I told Steve separately, and told him to get more advice from a few others, as well as Kluwer (publishers), and the legal department.

PLEASE DELETE—just for you, not even for Ray Bradley and Malcolm Hughes.

Dr. John Costella’s commentary on the above is, “Jones’s blind panic—in private to Mann—speaks volumes. He is so scared of the ramifications that he even asks that Mann destroy the email immediately. Are these the actions of scientists with nothing to hide?”

In the leaked emails of February 4, 2004, email 1076083097 exchange, we read that a large number of climate con collaborators are discussing ways to avoid providing independent Canadian climate analyst, Steve McIntyre, with enough of the computer programs to actually check their results. Linda Mearns, Senior Scientist at the Institute for the Study of Society and Environment at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, writes:

My point about the computer programs is still that “providing the programs” can be interpreted a lot of ways. I have thought about this, and imagined if in one of my larger and more complex projects, I was asked to provide all the programs. I could do that just by sending the pieces with a summary file explaining what each piece was used for. It still theoretically allows someone to see how the programming was done. And I do think that is a far sight easier than providing stuff that can be run, etc. I am suggesting that one could do the minimum. Then the point is, one isn’t faced with garish headlines about “refusal to provide programs”. I think it is harder to come up with a garish headline about “refusal to provide completely documented programs with appropriate instructions files and hand-holding for running it.

Mearns’ argument is effectively this: if we are forced to provide the computer programs, then let’s break them up into the smallest possible pieces, so that McIntyre can see roughly what we have done, but would have an almost impossible task putting the pieces back together again so that it could be used—sort of a “Humpty Dumpty.”

Phil Jones realizes that this won’t fool many: if they had done the science properly, then the computer programs and supporting documentation would be readily available for anyone to use, without any further work.

Jones then replies:

So now it seems that we’re separating “providing the programs” from “running the programs.”

I can’t see the purpose of one without the other. Even if Mike Mann complies, I suspect there will need to be several sessions of interaction to explain how to run the programs, which neither side will be very keen on.

Jones is savvy enough to understand that providing un-runnable programs will lead to an immediate request or demand for assistance in actually getting them to run.

Jones then admits that, even with possession of the programs and the data, a lot of “fiddling” is needed to get to their claimed results:

As I said before, I know that running the programs will involve lots of combinations (for different time periods with different temperature proxies).

Jones further realizes that validating their programs would require validating their mathematical “number-crunching” programs—often shared between different programs, and hence called “library routines”:

Also I would expect, knowing the nature of the mathematical approach that we use, that there will be library routines. We don’t want McIntyre (and McKitrick) to come out and say that he can’t get it to work after a few days.

Jones continues:

So, it is far from simple. I’m still against the computer programs being given out. Mike has made the data available. That is all they should need. The method of calculations is detailed in the original paper … and also in several other papers Mike has written. In other words, the skeptics have a description of what was done which should be enough.

Then this bombshell:

As an aside, Mike Mann is now using a different method from the paper of Mann, Bradley, and Hughes of 1998.

So even if McIntyre and colleagues follow the method described in the 1998 paper, they still won’t obtain agreement with what Mann is now doing! Could there be any clearer argument for providing the exact computer programs and methodology used for each and every published paper? Jones apparently can’t fathom the ridiculousness of his own words.

He continues:

It might appear that they want the programs to check whether their version works properly. If this is the case, then there are issues of Intellectual Property Rights. So, if they get the programs, how do we stop them using it for anything other than this review?

God forbid that any other scientists should be given assistance in researching this issue of critical importance to humanity! Jones’s treatment of their data and research as “private property”, for them to exploit and profit from—to the exclusion of all other scientists—is obnoxious and unlawful, particularly as it is paid for by taxpayers and subject to full FOIA disclosure!

Phil Jones replies to an email from another climatologist, Van Ommen, on February 9, 2004 in email 1076336623 exchange copying in Mike Mann:

Thanks for the email. Steve McIntyre hasn’t contacted me directly about the Antarctic data (yet), nor about any of the data used in the 1998 Holocene paper or the 2003 Geophysical Research Letters one with Mike. I suspect (hope) that he won’t. I had some emails with him a few years ago when he wanted to get all the station temperature data we use here in Climatic Research Unit. At that time, I hid behind the fact that some of the data had been received from individuals and not directly from Met(eorological) Services through the Global Tele-communications Service (GTS) or through the Global Climate Observing System.

We here start to learn about the tricks that Jones and colleagues have used to thwart attempts to get access to the dodgy data that their published claims are based on. In this case, Jones is trying to argue that data provided by individuals does not need to be provided for independent scrutiny—another intent to conceal fraud.

Jones continues:

Emails have also been sent to some other paleoclimatology people asking for data sets used in 1998 or 2003. Keith Briffa here got a request, for example. Here, they have also been in contact with some of Keith’s Russian contacts. All seem to relate to trying to get data that we’ve used. In the Russian case, issues relate to the Russian (Rashit Hantemirov) having a paper out with the same data that Keith used ….The data are different for two reasons. One reason is that Keith used (a mathematical method on the data); and, secondly, Rashit has added some data since Keith got the data a couple of years ago.

Jones is here giving yet more reasons why the original data should be made available. So what will he do?

I’ll just sit tight here and do nothing. Mike will likely do the same, but we’ll expect another publication in the nearish future.

This is clearly the guilty mind legal component, or ‘mens rea’ – intent to cover the fraud by ‘sitting tight’ – refusing to comply with FOIA disclosure – and implies Jones conspired to do so with Michael Mann.

So not only will they ignore all requests for the data—and hide behind dubious loopholes to do so—but they are moreover planning to continue publishing papers based on all this “private” (fraudulent) data, adjusted by their own private mathematical methods!

On January 21, 2005 Jones corresponds again in email 1106338806 exchange.

Phil Jones is confident that it won’t be a problem in continuing to decline FOIA requests:

On the Freedom Of Information Act, there is a little leaflet we have all been sent. It doesn’t really clarify what we might have to do regarding programs or data. Like all things in Britain, we will only find out when the first person or organization asks. I wouldn’t tell anybody about the Freedom Of Information Act in Britain. I don’t think the University of East Anglia really knows what’s involved.

However, he also starts the process of finding loopholes in the legislation with fellow climate scientist conspirator, Tom Wigley:

As you’re no longer an employee, I would use this argument if anything comes along.

Tom Wigley replies:

Thanks for the quick reply. The leaflet appeared so general, but it was prepared by the University of East Anglia so they may have simplified things. From their wording, computer programs would be covered by the Freedom Of Information Act. My concern was if Sarah is/was still employed by the University of East Anglia. I guess she could claim that she had only written one tenth of the programs, and therefore only release every tenth line of the programs.

Another interesting attempt to conspire to fraudulently wrangle a loophole, albeit unlikely to succeed. Phil Jones replies, refining the loophole even further:

As for the Freedom Of Information Act, Sarah isn’t technically employed by the University of East Anglia and she will likely be paid by Manchester Metropolitan University.

Not that she wouldn’t be covered by the Act: merely that she would be paid by a different University!

Jones continues:

I wouldn’t worry about the computer programs. If the Freedom Of Information Act does ever get used by anyone, there is also Intellectual Property Rights to consider as well. Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any requests onto the person at the University of East Anglia who has been given a post to deal with them.

On February 2, 2005 in email 1107454306 exchange Phil Jones writes to Mike Mann:

Just sent loads of … data to Scott Rutherford. Make sure he documents everything better this time!

So it isn’t until 2005 that they decide it is time to document what they are doing?

And don’t leave stuff lying around on anonymous download sites—you never know who is trawling them. McIntyre and McKitrick have been after the Climatic Research Unit … data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the United Kingdom, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone.

Bingo! Proof of intention (mens rea) to commit a criminal destruction of evidence–all we need now is proof of the destruction/loss of data the (actus reus) to have the two requisite components of a crime ( the guilty state of mind and the actual commission of the crime).

Jones then discusses (conspires) to find other way to unlawfully subvert the FOIA law:

We also have a Data Protection Act, which I will hide behind.

Again, “hide behind” reveals intent to conceal the original fraud of falsification of climate data.

Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it—he thought people could ask him for his computer programs. He has retired officially from the University of East Anglia so he can hide behind that….Intellectual Property Rights should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at the University of East Anglia who’ll say we must adhere to the Freedom of Information Act!

Again, proof Jones will “argue” against compliance betraying his guilty frame of mind, in seeking to pervert the law — further deepening his admissions to commit a crime.

On February 21, 2005 in email 1109021312 exchange Phil Jones writes to colleagues, Mike Mann, Ray Badley, and Malcolm Hughes, regarding news reports that Mann will be forced to release his data:

The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here! …

Leave it to you to delete as appropriate! ….PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the Climatic Research Unit … temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the United Kingdom has a Freedom of Information Act!

Again, we have Jones admitting to coercion of others to join him in and conspire to conceal the legal duty he has as CRU leader and hide his climate data fraud.

On July 5, 2005 Jones makes further damning admissions in email 1120593115 exchange where Phil Jones sends an article and a blog entry to climate scientist John Christy:

This quote is from an Australian at the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre, Melbourne (not Neville Nicholls). It began from the attached article. What an idiot. The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK, it has, but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.

Again, Jones’s ability to concisely summarize the key facets of this climate temperature fraud is remarkable. While Jones is admitting to the truth in private, he has CRU making public statements that are knowingly fraudulent under the terms of the Fraud Act. Can you imagine how intimidated the more junior scientists would be?

On August 4, 2005 email 1123163394 exchange Jones now makes a remarkable comment, about something that is elementary to even high-school science experiments:

There is an issue coming up in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Every graph needs uncertainty bars, and having them is all that matters. It seems irrelevant whether they are right or how they are used.

In other words, he is only concerned that they give the appearance of estimating the uncertainties in their predictions, rather than actually getting those (subtle and difficult) vital calculations right –- an obvious deceitful act and thus a further offence under the UK Fraud Act — fraud by false representation (Section 2)

On January 5, 2007, the email 1168022320 exchange from Phil Jones to many:

I’ve added a few extra names in the cc of this email list to see if we can definitively determine where Figure 7.1c from the 1990 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report comes from. The background is that the skeptics keep referring back to it and I’d like to prove that it is a schematic and it isn’t based on real data, but on presumed knowledge at some point around the late 1980s.

Wonderful! Fake graphs presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report—but only disclose that once the skeptics take note of it? More fraud by false representation (see: Fraud Act, Section 2).

Ascertaining Phil Jones’ Guilt

The UK Crown Prosecution Service may fairly construe in their case that Professor Jones et al. continued in their concealment (the act of the offense) throughout the course of those FOIA applications. Thus, this constitutes an offense of continuous unlawful conduct that would, in turn constitute what is known in English criminal law as a “compound allegation.”

The continuing act will continue for as long as the defendant sets about the business of committing or covering up the crime. Jones was covering up his criminal acts right up to November 19, 2009. His concealing of his crimes until that date keeps all such offenses “live” because the act of covering up the crime is, itself, a crime.

The Fraud Act (2006)

The Fraud Act (2006) tells us we must ask the following questions to ascertain the measure of the defendant’s guilt:

“whether a defendant’s behaviour would be regarded as dishonest by the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people. If answered positively, the second question is whether the defendant was aware that his conduct was dishonest and would be regarded as dishonest by reasonable and honest people.”

Subsection (1)(b) requires that the person must make the representation with the intention of making a gain or causing loss or risk of loss to another. The gain or loss does not actually have to take place. The same requirement applies to conduct criminalised by sections 3 and 4.

Subsection (2) defines the meaning of “false” in this context and subsection (3) defines the meaning of “representation”. A representation is defined as false if it is untrue or misleading and the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading.

Subsection (4) provides that a representation may be express or implied. It can be stated in words or communicated by conduct. There is no limitation on the way in which the representation must be expressed. So it could be written or spoken or posted on a website.

Section 3: Fraud by failing to disclose information

Section 3 makes it an offence to commit fraud by failing to disclose information to another person where there is a legal duty to disclose the information. A legal duty to disclose information may include duties under oral contracts as well as written contracts. The concept of “legal duty” is explained in the Law Commission’s Report on Fraud, which said at paragraphs 7.28 and 7.29:

“7.28 ..Such a duty may derive from statute [ e.g. obligation to release data as per a Freedom of Information (FOI) request]”

Section 7: Making or supplying articles for use in frauds

Section 7 makes it an offence to make, adapt, supply or offer to supply any article knowing that it is designed or adapted for use in the course of or in connection with fraud, or intending it to be used to commit or facilitate fraud. [e.g. a computer model designed to falsely represent warming global temperatures]. Subsection (2) provides that the maximum custodial sentence for this offense is 10 years.

Section 8: “Article”

Section 8 extends the meaning of “article” for the purposes of sections 6 and 7 and certain other connected provisions so as to include any program or data held in electronic form.

For a full and detailed explanation of every facet of the Fraud Act (2006) visit this Crown Prosecution website page.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we may determine that Professor Jones’ conduct may be found by a Crown prosecutor to be sufficient to obtain a conviction against him for obtaining services dishonestly (government climate research grant funds) and of possessing, making and supplying articles for use in frauds (climate data, graphs, computer models).

The Fraud Act creates serious offenses of dishonesty and the statute of limitations is six years. Unless the factors against prosecution outweigh those in favour, a prosecution will normally take place. The offense is triable either way and carries maximum 10-year sentence or a fine (or both) on indictment.