I thought I’d seen the README file, but all I had seen was a small excerpt on another web site. (Understandable as the file is a bit long).

This is a long posting. The best parts are just the README text directly. If you are pressed for time, just scroll down and read only the BOLD bits. My opinions can be skipped.

I could just put a link here to the online version, that then it’s not as visible and might just ‘go away’ at some future time.

So, instead, I’m going to reproduce the whole README here, in two parts. This is part one. These are the particular emails where Foia has decided to pull out a quote for observation. I think these need particular attention. What do they say? Why was it selected? To what behaviour does it speak on the part of the Discredited Team? So I’ll be adding a few comments mixed through the README.

For anyone wanting to look at an individual email, or at the README file, they are all located at this site:

http://dump.kurthbemis.com/climategate2/FOIA/

Part 2 of the README file is covered here:

https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/foia-readme-part-2/

Foia – README file

It starts with a preamble, then selected email excerpts each with an email number. We’ll start with the preamble, where Foia sets out some things about motivation.

Substantially Foia says that, IMHO, the money being squandered on the myth of Global Warming could accomplish so much more for humanity that it is, in essence, a Crime Against Humanity to waste the money that way. Given the massive waste we have already seen, he’s got a point. Given what damage this will do to the economies of the globe, and how much poverty it MUST bring, to shut down global production, it really does look like a Crime Against Humanity.

Finally, given the apparent support of oppressive agendas, and a specific reference in at least one of the earlier emails we looked at, that they are, in fact, working to support Agenda 21, it can no longer be dismissed as just another whacky hypothetical idea. When real people, in positions of power and authority, state they are working to support something, that something is, like it or not, real. That, too, IMHO, is a Crime Against Humanity. We are given our rights and our liberties by God, or by Nature, pick your favorite. No one and nothing can change that. Working to compromise that fact is a crime, and it is against all of Humanity.

With that, the preamble

This is the start text, the heading, of the README file.

/// FOIA 2011 — Background and Context /// “Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.” “Every day nearly 16.000 children die from hunger and related causes.” “One dollar can save a life” — the opposite must also be true. “Poverty is a death sentence.” “Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.” Today’s decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline. This archive contains some 5.000 emails picked from keyword searches. A few remarks and redactions are marked with triple brackets. The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons. We are not planning to publicly release the passphrase. We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics such as…

So here we see that the goal is a noble one. To save the poor of the world by preventing the squandering of $Trillions. To support truth and honesty in the evaluation of facts and data, whereas the emails indicate manipulation in support of an agenda. (So we ought to look for evidence of that agenda driven behaviour in the words of the individuals themselves, below.)

Some things are removed or redacted, and a large block is encrypted with no intent to release the passphrase. So there is a deliberate effort to protect things that are not relevant to the “issues” of protecting humanity from an organized manipulation and waste. OK… That is a good thing, IMHO. But why have the encrypted file included at all? Perhaps as an Easter Egg for the future? Decryption always improves over time. Eventually, passphrase or no, that email will be read. A gift to posterity. Perhaps as a Dead Man Switch of some sort. If some machine is not ‘tended’ every so often, will the passphrase be released as Foia has been caught or has passed on? I can see that, too. Each a kind of “completing the future history’.

It may also mean that Foia has no intention to ever make another large release. A way of reducing risk. Any future release can be just a simple phrase, posted to several public places or sent via a paper letter in the probate lawyer’s folder… Read at a probate of estate, or handed to heirs of the estate.

That part of the story will have to wait for “the fullness of time” to be written.

Next lets look at the individual items Foia has chosen to highlight. I’ve noticed that the emails are in a numerical order that is not related to time. I suspect they may be related to the ‘topic key’ used in each key word search (referenced above). If that is true, we may see patterns in the topics. If you notice one of those, perhaps we can figure out the key word used and gain more insight into the what, why, and how of the selections. A cursory inspection of the numbers in each topic area shows some mix of ranges, so that might argue against ‘search key order’ or might just mean that some emails from some search keys ended up in the ‘wrong blocks’. (More observation and thinking required ;-)

My comments about what a section seems to be are not MY opinions of any person or organization; they are my interpretation of what I think might be the opinions held by Fioa-2011 that caused him to make these selections. So if I say “FOO looks like a manipulative slimeball”, that is not to slander FOO, but to state what I think is the opinion of Foia about FOO. My reading of the headings and comments, as interpreted. This gives insight into the person and their motivations in selecting these things; part of “profiling the perpetrator” and commonly done in forensics. You need to ‘get into their mindset’ to understand them. If I get absorbed into the roll too much, well, that’s one of the risks of psych profiling…

This first block is labeled “IPCC Process”, so the key word(s) will relate to that. To my eye, it speaks to the manipulated nature of the IPCC. The lack of “objective science” and the presence of a “political agenda” at it’s core. We ought to find evidence to support those beliefs in the emails. If not, then Foia “has issues” with such coordinative bodies. If so, then Foia has simply observed. In this posting all we have are his excerpts. Those need to be compared to the entire email (and perhaps the context of related emails) to chose between those two interpretations. I’ve put the README text in bold. My comments will be interspersed and not bolded. I noticed that the email numbers were in angle brackets, so stolen by WordPress as HTML. I’ve added them back in, but did not check for all other things that might have been consumed due to angle brackets. See the original for that.

The IPCC and how it is managed



/// The IPCC Process ///

1939 Thorne/MetO:

Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical

troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a

wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the

uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these

further if necessary […]

3066 Thorne:

I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it

which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.



So Thorne, whoever that is (check the email headers) is expressing valid concerns about the presentation being “spun” or colored and that it is based on significant ‘cherry picking’ of the studies to use. If the final position of the IPPCC reports is, in fact, so ‘spun’, we have evidence that Thorne has valid concerns. The do express concern about this being a bad idea, and the tepid nature of the complaint might indicate they are aware it will cause others to heap scorn…



1611 Carter:

It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much

talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by

a select core group.



Carter is being a bit grumpy. “Not a Team Player”. If they were ‘nudged out’ of involvement over time from whatever is the date stamp on this complaint, that would tend to indicate they are very right… We also see evidence of “Pass the bill in order to find out what is in it” as a tactic and a “Select Committee” approach to things. When the pattern of behaviour is in the model of a political organization, it sure looks like a political organization…



2884 Wigley:

Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive […] there have been a number of

dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC […]

4755 Overpeck:

The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s

included and what is left out.

3456 Overpeck:

I agree w/ Susan [Solomon] that we should try to put more in the bullet about

“Subsequent evidence” […] Need to convince readers that there really has been

an increase in knowledge – more evidence. What is it?



Several folks clearly working to spin the product to a point of view, and one complaining about the presentation having some deceptive bits. Again, we could look at who got promoted who got marginalized to see which attitude the Leadership liked. At this point the ratio of pro/con argues for an agenda driven product with a desired manipulated and manipulating outcome. We ought to watch for more of that evidence as we proceed.

For each of these selected emails, it would be good for an individual or two to read the whole thing and evaluate for context. Also using key phrases from that email to look for related emails in the body of the other emails could provide useful context.



1104 Wanner/NCCR:

In my [IPCC-TAR] review […] I crit[i]cized […] the Mann hockey[s]tick […]

My review was classified “unsignificant” even I inquired several times. Now the

internationally well known newspaper SPIEGEL got the information about these

early statements because I expressed my opinion in several talks, mainly in

Germany, in 2002 and 2003. I just refused to give an exclusive interview to

SPIEGEL because I will not cause damage for climate science.



If find this one hard to interpret. Is Wanner complaining that his ideas were left out or downplayed in IPPC-TAR? Or that Der Spiegal manged to pick up these attitudes in some other public presentations? Or both? Now he’s picking and choosing not to talk to Der Spiegal for a goal driven reason of “will not cause damage for climate science”… which looks to me like code words for “the Global Warming Climate Science Agenda”, but I could be ‘projecting’… More context would help.



0414 Coe:

Hence the AR4 Section 2.7.1.1.2 dismissal of the ACRIM composite to be

instrumental rather than solar in origin is a bit controversial. Similarly IPCC

in their discussion on solar RF since the Maunder Minimum are very dependent on

the paper by Wang et al (which I have been unable to access) in the decision to

reduce the solar RF significantly despite the many papers to the contrary in

the ISSI workshop. All this leaves the IPCC almost entirely dependent on CO2

for the explanation of current global temperatures as in Fig 2.23. since

methane CFCs and aerosols are not increasing.



Another case of a contributor complaining about apparent cherry picks in what goes into IPCC and how it undermines the validity. On the one hand I have to praise them for their courage and honesty. On the other, it does say the IPCC creation is weak, biased, and problematic. We have more supportive evidence for the notion that the IPCC is more political and “Given these results, what supporting papers can we select” process driven. “Given these conclusions, what assumptions can we draw?” is politics, not science.



2009 Briffa:

I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of

all present reconstructions, yet sounding like a pro greenhouse zealot here!



Hmmm… We know Briffa is on the Warmista side. We know he is agenda driven (from other contexts and other emails already seen, plus his memberships on agenda driven boards / steering committees). Here he is lamenting that he must choose between an awareness of the poor quality of the reconstructions and his ‘zealot’ leanings. Odd… In public he expresses little of that skeptical nature, from what I’ve seen. Briffa, a skeptic? Who knew ;-)



2775 Jones:

I too don’t see why the schemes should be symmetrical. The temperature ones

certainly will not as we’re choosing the periods to show warming.



I find this one terribly distressing. “we’re choosing the periods to show warming. What could be a more clear statement of bias and an agenda? Again, a search for context is needed to confirm or deny that appearance. Given the other statements by Jones, and his key position as a “Go To Guy” at the top of the heap (evidenced by that email where a US FOIA request ended up in a folks seeking his advice and consent in the UK in another email, 5335?). Frankly, if more like that are found, it is, IMHO, damning evidence of manipulation of the data ‘chosen’ to ‘show warming’…



1219 Trenberth:

[…] opposing some things said by people like Chris Landsea who has said all the

stuff going on is natural variability. In addition to the 4 hurricanes hitting

Florida, there has been a record number hit Japan 10?? and I saw a report

saying Japanese scientists had linked this to global warming. […] I am leaning

toward the idea of getting a box on changes in hurricanes, perhaps written by a

Japanese.

0890 Jones:

We can put a note in that something will be there in the next draft, or Kevin

or I will write something – it depends on whether and what we get from Japan.



We again have selection bias and Jones as the decision maker. Seeking out reports of damage and playing down the contribution of Chris Landsea who claims it is natural. This is a ‘negative space’ thing, so a context check is need to make sure it is not an edit artifact; however, if the Landsea ideas do not make it to the report, while the selected Japanese do, that’s rather clear bias.



0170 Jones:

Kevin, Seems that this potential Nature paper may be worth citing, if it does

say that GW is having an effect on TC activity.

0714 Jones:

Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital – hence my comment about

the tornadoes group.

3205 Jones:

Useful ones [for IPCC] might be Baldwin, Benestad (written on the solar/cloud

issue – on the right side, i.e anti-Svensmark), Bohm, Brown, Christy (will be

have to involve him ?)



What? IF it DOES say? So papers saying “no effect” are not to be selected?

What WHAT? Getting people we KNOW AND TRUST packed into the IPCC? If the context does support that [into IPCC], this is just horrible. “Packing the jury” is an old political technique, not a technique of science. It is a very clear statement of social and political machinations and of a very selected and biased IPCC. It would be beneficial to look into how the IPCC membership changes over time, who is on and how is not, and who does the selecting to either confirm or deny this appearance of corruption. The words, however, clearly speak to a desire for corruption of an objective selection… Then we have a particular laundry list of “desireable” Friends Of Jones… A quick check of who made it on, if it shows those names, pretty much ices the cake… The statement of “on the right side, i.e. anti-Svensmark” is about as clear a bias as you can get. NO desire to let any of the competing theory see the light of day, only those who have ‘written on’ ‘the right side’ poo-pooing it can be pushed forward…

Also we again see Jones posturing as puppet master, choosing who to put forward and what to suppress.



4923 Stott/MetO:

My most immediate concern is to whether to leave this statement [“probably the

warmest of the last millennium”] in or whether I should remove it in the

anticipation that by the time of the 4th Assessment Report we’ll have withdrawn

this statement – Chris Folland at least seems to think this is possible.



So Stott/MetO already knows they will have to withdraw a statement in a future version. Their desire is NOT to fact that now and pull it, but to decide how long they can ride a known wrong statement? That “the warmest of the last millennium” is something they know must be removed, buy wants to leave it in? Then sites another person who also thinks they can leave in something they believe is wrong and will need to be removed in the future? This is just so wrong… One can only hope that the missing context somehow exonerates… (Oh, for a few more weeks to check all the context and search all the other email with related keywords and names for support / contradiction…)

So this group clearly is intended to show the IPCC as a pretty well packed court with folks being chosen for having the “right” papwers, the “right” attitudes, and working toward the “right” goals… I think it does a pretty good job of it. (Again, though, as this is excerpts, the individual emails need to be checked to confirm the context.)

How is “Climate Change” presented?



/// Communicating Climate Change ///

2495 Humphrey/DEFRA:

I can’t overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a

message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell their

story. They want the story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made

to look foolish.

0813 Fox/Environment Agency:

if we loose the chance to make climate change a reality to people in the

regions we will have missed a major trick in REGIS.



DEFRA is, I think the UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. (Shades of the US ‘takeover’ of family farm, food production and the ‘rural environment’ by a variety of regulatory agencies…)

We have what looks like a direct connection to a government department (DEFRA) talking about “political interest” in the “project”. The department wants to “tell there story” warped up in a Climate Change ‘greenwash’… So Humphrey wants the story to be “a strong one”. Well, I don’t know who is rubbing whom here. Both of them seem to be working toward a mutual “interest” and “strong story”… This kind of feedback loop is NOT what I think of when folks say “Science” and “Evidence”… It looks a whole lot more like agenda driven “cheese political food product”… (In the USA, a particularly poor manufactured semi-cheese product can not be labeled “cheese” as it isn’t… It must be labeled “cheese food product” as it does have some cheese in it’s ancestry, is a product, and some folks do consume it as though it is food… despite it’s history and “odd” ingredients.)

I’m not sure what REGIS is. A web search only turned up Regis University in Colorado. A small “dig here”.. Whatever it is, they have a ‘trick’ (strange how these folks like using ‘tricks’… and I don’t think you can pass off ‘missed a major trick’ as normal jargon in science… ) At any rate, we again have ‘goal driven behaviour’ with the desire to make “climate change” (by which they seem to mean ‘fear of warming’) into a big deal; a ‘reality for people’. So they are being concerned about propaganda effectiveness rather than a search for truth? Hmmm…



4716 Adams:

Somehow we have to leave the[m] thinking OK, climate change is extremely

complicated, BUT I accept the dominant view that people are affecting it, and

that impacts produces risk that needs careful and urgent attention.

1790 Lorenzoni:

I agree with the importance of extreme events as foci for public and

governmental opinion […] ‘climate change’ needs to be present in people’s

daily lives. They should be reminded that it is a continuously occurring and

evolving phenomenon



Golly. Have to make it “scary scary” and get folks herded along… Make it need ‘urgent attention’. Have “risks’. Make “extreme events” a focus for “public and government opinion”. Frankly, this is the kind of thing you would hear in a marketing campaign or a propaganda operation. I’m offended that this group of folks think it is there job to control my feelings and opinions. Just present your facts and let me decide, thank you very much. AND they want to control what is the focus of “government opinion”? I though the government was supposed to be given UNBIASED SCIENCE on which to debate and reach their own conclusions? I’m having another one of those “this is just sooo wrong” moments…



3062 Jones:

We don’t really want the bullshit and optimistic stuff that Michael has written

[…] We’ll have to cut out some of his stuff.



So “optimistic stuff” is “bullshit”, eh? Well, can’t have any optimism when you are trying to create a panic, now can you? Need to find out who “Michael” is, where his stuff went, and if his participation got curtailed… (or did he fall in line with Dear Leader..)



1485 Mann:

the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing the PR battle. That’s what

the site [Real Climate] is about.



Oh My. So “Real Climate” is about PR? Who knew? (The square brackets mean a check for correct substitution is in order…) That Mann sees his job as wining a “PR Battle” is rather telling. Science, not so much… Well, at least we know what he values.



2428 Ashton/co2.org:

Having established scale and urgency, the political challenge is then to turn

this from an argument about the cost of cutting emissions – bad politics – to

one about the value of a stable climate – much better politics. […] the most

valuable thing to do is to tell the story about abrupt change as vividly as

possible



Goal: Establish “scale and urgency”. Challenge: move from “bad politics” positioning to a better posturing about “stable climate” value… as though there IS such a thing as “stable climate”… Ice Ages, Glacials, MWP, LIA, Roman Optimum, Green Sahara, California Megadrought of the first millenium… Here we have a clear statement of the motivation for the desire to erase those things from history.

We also have a clearly political agenda driven orientation…

What is “THE most valuable thing to do”? Why, tell a “story”.. a VIVID STORY.. “abrupt change as vividly as possible”.

Um, when did Science turn into vivid story telling? Well, at least we have it in their own words that the goal of the IPCC and communications is not truth nor dispassionate science, but VIVID STORY TELLING.

At this point I need a break… Get a nice beverage, take a few breaths… It’s a painful thing, when icons are clast, and my view of science had been one of folks searching for truth. Apparently not. Looks like it is just a subset of politics. Truth only maters in that you need enough ‘truthyness’ to make the PR effective…



3332 Kelly:

the current commitments, even with some strengthening, are little different

from what would have happened without a climate treaty.

[…] the way to pitch the analysis is to argue that precautionary action must be

taken now to protect reserves etc against the inevitable



What? “the way to pitch the analysis“? “protect reserves” could mean nature reserves or mineral / energy. Need more context ;-)

It is clear, though that a whole lot of folks are comfortable with pitching their analysis… I’m thinking the best thing we could do with it is pitch it. Fast and hard.



3655 Singer/WWF:

we as an NGO working on climate policy need such a document pretty soon for the

public and for informed decision makers in order to get a) a debate started and

b) in order to get into the media the context between climate

extremes/desasters/costs and finally the link between weather extremes and

energy



WWF is likely the World Wildlife Federation (as they sued wrestlers to prevent them from using WWF, and won, despite being in different ‘industries’ which under actual law lets them both use it… Then again, maybe they were being honest. Maybe they both ARE in the business of fictional entertainment…)

So a politically driven “NGO” is soliciting a particular type of document that meets their needs? They need it ‘soon’. They want a 2 step process of ‘getting a debate started’, but with the “media context” set as “extremes”, “disasters”, and “costs”. Then they want a predetermined outcome of linking “weather extremes” with “energy”.

OMG.

Clear desire of “attack energy”. Clear statement of goal: Make energy the evil causing “weather disasters”. Use the scary scary of costs, extremes, and disasters. Well, they have given their marching orders, and The Team looks to have delivered the goods. When you have a list of evidence that runs from influence and request for product, to the product, to the delivered requested result, under color of authority; I think there’s a name for that… One could spend a fair amount of time just filling out this bit. Doing a contact tracking map on the WWF and interlocking steering committee memberships, board memberships, and attendance at “workshops” seems in order; but I don’t have the time or resources to do that. Someone with money, lawyers, and staff needs to follow that trail.



0445 Torok/CSIRO:

[…] idea of looking at the implications of climate change for what he termed

“global icons” […] One of these suggested icons was the Great Barrier Reef […]

It also became apparent that there was always a local “reason” for the

destruction – cyclones, starfish, fertilizers […] A perception of an

“unchanging” environment leads people to generate local explanations for coral

loss based on transient phenomena, while not acknowledging the possibility of

systematic damage from long-term climatic/environmental change […] Such a

project could do a lot to raise awareness of threats to the reef from climate

change



I think that CSIRO is The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation of Australia. So we’re making this a global Team… From the UK to the USA to Australia, with the odd German, Swiss, and others glued on around the edges.

The topic? “Global Icons”. More propaganda techniques. What they suggest is just what we have seen being promoted. The Great Barrier Reef. The complaint? That folks find local causes for local problems. Oh dear, can’t have that. So we’re supposed to just ignore the starfish that are seen to be eating the reefs and the fertilizers who’s impact is blooms of things that suffocate the reef? And even cyclones that are seen to rip up shallow areas. Those don’t matter? We are to substitute a “possibility”? The solution is to be a long term “project” to “raise awareness of threats”…

Yes, that thread needs a lot of context. Is this some particular project, or a broad motivation? Dig dig dig…



4141 Minns/Tyndall Centre:

In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public

relations problem with the media



Well, at least we have one person with enough sense to realize that “hot making it cold” doesn’t pass the Giggle Test.

Their concern? Public Relations problems and media resistance.

These are, I think, in the same email as they do not have their own number:



Kjellen:

I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global

warming

Pierrehumbert:

What kind of circulation change could lock Europe into deadly summer heat waves

like that of last summer? That’s the sort of thing we need to think about.



Yet more ‘create some good doom to use’ attitudes. We have a ‘marketing’ statement about how best to position the product. At least now we have confirmation that there is a coordinating body behind the shifts from Global Warming to Climate Change to Climate Chaos to… Nice to know that someone is managing public attitudes and direction. Wouldn’t want that kind of thing to be left to The People to decide on their own.

Where do they need to focus their thoughts? On objective science and the search for truth? Why, no! We need to think about “lock Europe into a deadly summer heat wave”… So they admit it was a fluke summer heat wave from one year. A ‘one off’. BUT, they want to think about how to emphasize that and play up that {somehow} their creation of {global warming | climate change | climate chaos} can make it a permanent feature… THAT is where they need to direct their thinking?

OK, enough on the ‘communications’ and ‘packaging the product’ thing. It does look to me like we have found where in the middle of the web sits the source of the sudden shifts in focus and verbiage. It would be useful to follow the contact tracing map to see how those then move into public use. No, you don’t need a lot of private emails to do that. We have the dates on these hidden communications. Just do a web search on the term from near those dates, see when it shows up and from whom as ‘early adopters’ and you have your connection. Yes, there might be a missing hop or two, but those can usually be filled in by looking at ‘affinity groups’.

Flattening The Shaft

We’ve already seen that there is an urge to erase the prior natural swings of weather.

( I refuse to define ‘climate’ as something measured with a 30 year period. Climate is based on your altitude, latitude, and distance to the oceans. Things that change in geologic time scales. So the Sahara and the Mexican Desert are at the same latitude as that is where the global air circulation puts deserts. At the same distance below the equator you get the Australian desert and those in Africa and Chile. When continents and mountains move, climate changes. The only exception looks like the glacial / interglacial cycle, and for that the whole earth changes where it is at in its orbit and how tilted on its axis.)

This next block looks at that urge being manifested.



/// The Medieval Warm Period ///

5111 Pollack:

But it will be very difficult to make the MWP go away in Greenland.



OK, I really want to see the context for this one! It looks like it is a response to a request to ‘make the Medieval Warm Period go away’… If that can be confirmed at all, it is damning. If the context only partly supports that, it is still clear that Pollack is TRYING to make the MWP go away and is complaining that the work is hard…

I’d count that as a confirmation of the ‘goal’ we saw earlier. The need to ‘flatten the shaft’ of the hockey stick so the ‘blade’ can be more scary.

This kind of thing is useful for a couple of points. For one, it tells you where the needs for better ‘propaganda’ have overrun the desire to make good objective science. It shows motivation and direction. For another, it shows you where they felt most vulnerable and it tells you where to “Kick Here!”, and hard, to find the truth… As a consequence of these, it means you can look for evidenced of just that sort of activity in the results produced. Find prior art that shows the MWP clearly; then show that after this date the MWP was melted away…



5039 Rahmstorf:

You chose to depict the one based on C14 solar data, which kind of stands out

in Medieval times. It would be much nicer to show the version driven by Be10

solar forcing



Ah, a nice uncomplicated cherry harvesting…



5096 Cook:

A growing body of evidence clearly shows [2008] that hydroclimatic variability

during the putative MWP (more appropriately and inclusively called the

“Medieval Climate Anomaly” or MCA period) was more regionally extreme (mainly

in terms of the frequency and duration of megadroughts) than anything we have

seen in the 20th century, except perhaps for the Sahel. So in certain ways the

MCA period may have been more climatically extreme than in modern times.



Ah, a nice ‘redefine to remove inconvenient words’… need to get that ‘warm’ out of the ‘warm period’… Make it an ‘anomaly’ instead, that could go either way. Then a more amorphous attempt to make it more scary as a ‘megadrought’ and ‘climatically extreme’ thing. Something to be feared, not fondly remembered (as all the history tends to show it.)

Next up? How to settle science. Like an upset stomach, it just needs to avoid certain things and get a load of correcting…

Unsettling Settled Science



/// The Settled Science ///

0310 Warren:

The results for 400 ppm stabilization look odd in many cases […] As it stands

we’ll have to delete the results from the paper if it is to be published.

1682 Wils:

[2007] What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural

fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably […]



Yup, certainly looks like leaving out the irritating bits to me…

That we can’t have “natural fluctuation” is also quite telling. They KNOW what is acceptable and what is not. Rather like folks in the old USSR or Red China…



2267 Wilson:

Although I agree that GHGs are important in the 19th/20th century (especially

since the 1970s), if the weighting of solar forcing was stronger in the models,

surely this would diminish the significance of GHGs.

[…] it seems to me that by weighting the solar irradiance more strongly in the

models, then much of the 19th to mid 20th century warming can be explained from

the sun alone.



Oh Dear! You mean the models are under HUMAN control? That simply changing some “plug number” weighting factor (that we poorly understand anyway) can disappear the entire impact of “Green House Gasses”? Oh My.

At least we have confirmation that the sun CAN do it, per the models, with just a minor change of the parameter that weights the impact of the sun… sort of like that Svensmark theory that is to be kept from view up above, or like that UV amplification via changing the atmospheric thickness that we have observed.



IMHO, this item in particular needs to be pulled out, vetted and confirmed, then sent to every single decision maker world wide who is believing that “the models” say it is all due to CO2…



5289 Hoskins:

If the tropical near surface specific humidity over tropical land has not gone

up (Fig 5) presumably that could explain why the expected amplification of the

warming in the tropics with height has not really been detected.

5315 Jenkins/MetO:

would you agree that there is no convincing evidence for kilimanjaro glacier

melt being due to recent warming (let alone man-made warming)?



Well, a couple of things have not gone to plan… how inconvenient… Need to find a way to ‘fix’ that… maybe with a ‘trick’…

Next up, Jones identifies some problems.



2292 Jones:

[tropical glaciers] There is a small problem though with their retreat. They

have retreated a lot in the last 20 years yet the MSU2LT data would suggest

that temperatures haven’t increased at these levels.

1788 Jones:

There shouldn’t be someone else at UEA with different views [from “recent

extreme weather is due to global warming”] – at least not a climatologist.



Wonder how long Crowley will last? He has the ‘right attitude’, that truth has a certain flexibility about it in the fact of social pressures…



4693 Crowley:

I am not convinced that the “truth” is always worth reaching if it is at the

cost of damaged personal relationships



I like the next one as it shows Briffa knows some of the problems with tree rings:



2967 Briffa:

Also there is much published evidence for Europe (and France in particular) of

increasing net primary productivity in natural and managed woodlands that may

be associated either with nitrogen or increasing CO2 or both. Contrast this

with the still controversial question of large-scale acid-rain-related forest

decline? To what extent is this issue now generally considered urgent, or even

real?



But the concern with “urgent” is odd. It shows a potential concern about ‘fixing’ an inconvenient fact intruding, and then he questions if putting fertilizer on plants really makes them grow faster… I think I hear an attack on “CO2 fertilization” coming on.



2733 Crowley:

Phil, thanks for your thoughts – guarantee there will be no dirty laundry in

the open.

2095 Steig:

He’s skeptical that the warming is as great as we show in East Antarctica — he

thinks the “right” answer is more like our detrended results in the

supplementary text. I cannot argue he is wrong.

0953 Jones:

This will reduce the 1940-1970 cooling in NH temps. Explaining the cooling with

sulphates won’t be quite as necessary.



Where to begin? Crowley seems to indicate that only the accepted truths will see the public light. Nothing that goes against the narrative will be admitted. That doesn’t sound like the competition of ideas that is Science… at least not to me.

Then Steig says there’s a problem with East Antarctic warming, but they can find a “right” answer by picking a result that has been detrended. Not liking the idea of losing some warming, but unable to find a way to show why to keep the warmer set. OK, that’s more or less normal behaviour in science. You have your beliefs, someone else has competing one, you look for how to falsify. No real problem there. However… We have a choice about the warming in Antarctica? It’s a subjective choice to be made? Really?

I also find the attitude of Jones rather troubling. Context needed, yes. WHAT can flatten out that inconvenient natural cooling of the 1940 to 1970 period? WHY do you want to reduce it? Is there no objective reality here? A truth of temperature? From the next sentence, it would appear not. Jones is willing to toss out what ought to be a question of a truth and data, sulphate cooling, based on something else making it less “necessary”? Necessary for what? For WHOM? Either there is cooling or not. Sulphates did it, or not. The amount is NOT something where you hunt around for the amount you want, the “necessary” amount. It looks to me like Jones has the direction in which causality is supposed to flow backwards; at least for science. (He has it the right way for political agenda driven things… )



4944 Haimberger:

It is interesting to see the lower tropospheric warming minimum in the tropics

in all three plots, which I cannot explain. I believe it is spurious but it is

remarkably robust against my adjustment efforts.

4262 Klein/LLNL:

Does anybody have an explanation why there is a relative minimum (and some

negative trends) between 500 and 700 hPa? No models with significant surface

warming do this

2461 Osborn:

This is an excellent idea, Mike, IN PRINCIPLE at least. In practise, however,

it raises some interesting results […] the analysis will not likely lie near to

the middle of the cloud of published series and explaining the reasons behind

this etc. will obscure the message of a short EOS piece.



Osborn points out a reasonable concern in science. “Mike” (whoever they are) had some idea. Osborn says ~’nice, but doesn’t match all the other existing published work’. All as things ought to be. Then blows it more agenda driven ‘spin first science second’ attitude. “obscure the message”? That’s not science. That’s working to an effect first, truth second. Don’t know what an “EOS piece” is, but suspect it is a particular journal. Have your message first, then pick the results that fit it? Somehow I’m becoming less and less idealistic about modern science…



4470 Norwegian Meteorological Institute:

In Norway and Spitsbergen, it is possible to explain most of the warming after

the 1960s by changes in the atmospheric circulation. The warming prior to 1940

cannot be explained in this way.



It looks like the Norwegians are making a fairly neutral statement. How can something be? Normal science. That warming can be caused by atmospheric circulation changes (a normal thing) is refreshing to see. That they are willing to admit there are multiple causes and they can not clarify it all is also refreshing. Settled science? No. But real science. Way to go, guys! (Wonder what it looked like by the time it got into the final reports?)

While I generally don’t like to end on a weak note, that is how the series of emails flows. This is, believe it or not, just about the 1/2 way through the README file.

Part 2 of the README file is covered here:

https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/foia-readme-part-2/

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