In case readers think that Trenberth’s outburst discussed yesterday represents an isolated and unfortunate climate scientist incident, this is not the case. In fact, some of Trenberth’s most objectionable language was lifted verbatim from an article in Nature Geoscience earlier this year. Trenberth here; Hasselmann here.

Trenberth’s copying from Hasselmann came in two forms:

– Trenberth copied one long paragraph verbatim mostly verbatim without quotation marks. While Hasselmann was cited at the end of the paragraph, the fact that the text was lifted [mostly] verbatim was not shown – something that John Mashey will no doubt weigh in on.

– second, Trenberth copied multiple sections of Hasselmann either verbatim or with negligible paraphrase without any citation whatever.

Trenberth’s summary of the UK whitewashes as follows:

Three investigations of the alleged scientific misconduct of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia — one by the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, a second by the Scientific Assessment Panel of the Royal Society, chaired by Lord Oxburgh, and the latest by the Independent Climate Change E-mails Review, chaired by Sir Muir Russell — have confirmed what climate scientists have never seriously doubted: established scientists depend on their credibility and have no motivation in purposely misleading the public and their colleagues. Moreover, they are unlikely to make false claims that other colleagues can readily show to be incorrect. They are also understandably (but inadvisably) reluctant to share complex data sets with non-experts that they perceive as charlatans (Hasselman 2010)

This is word for word identical to the following Hasselmann text, but, as noted above, while Trenberth cited Hasselmann at the end of the paragraph, there is no block quotation or indication that the entire paragraph was lifted verbatim.

Three recent investigations of the alleged scientific misconduct of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia — one by the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee[1,2], a second by the Scientific Assessment Panel of the Royal Society, chaired by Lord Oxburgh[3], and the latest by the Independent Climate Change E-mails Review, chaired by Sir Muir Russell[4] — have confirmed what climate scientists have never seriously doubted: established scientists, dependent on their credibility for their livelihood, have no motivation in purposely misleading the public and their colleagues. Moreover, they are unlikely to make false claims that other colleagues, working independently on similar data sets, can readily show to be incorrect. They are also understandably (but inadvisably) reluctant to share complex data sets with non-experts that they perceive as charlatans.

In the rest of the article, Trenberth repeatedly using Hasselmann tet either verbatim or near-verbatim with no citation whatever.

Trenberth continued:

Scientists make mistakes and often make assumptions that limit the validity of their results. They regularly argue with colleagues who arrive at different conclusions. These debates follow the normal procedure of scientific inquiry.

Hasselmann’s corresponding text was virtually identical:

Scientists can, of course, err. They regularly argue with colleagues who arrive at different conclusions. These debates follow the normal procedure of scientific inquiry.

Shortly afterwards, Trenberth talks about tactics to use against “deniers”:

It is important that climate scientists learn how to counter the distracting strategies of deniers. Debating them about the science is not an approach that is recommended.

Here Trenberth only slightly paraphrased Hasselmann – Trenberth’s variation being to use the word “denier”:

It is important that climate scientists learn to counter the distracting strategies of interest groups whose goal is precisely to deflect from the real problems of climate change.

As noted yesterday, Trenberth’s recommended tactic (as shown in the Climategate letters) was to cast aspersions on the motives of critics – a practice regularly followed at realclimate and similar venues:

So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with nothing better to do seems like a good thing to do.

Hasselmann went on to describe the motivations of climate scientists as follows:

The main societal motivation of climate scientists is to understand the dynamics of the climate system (both natural and human induced), and to communicate this understanding to the public and governments

Hasselmann added:

Individually, most climate scientists have the goal of establishing a scientific reputation and, if possible, attaining more public funding for climate research.

Trenberth lifted the first part verbatim as follows (but, for some reason, left out the part about climate scientists having as one of their goals “more public funding”):

The main societal motivation of climate scientists is to understand the dynamics of the climate system (both natural and human induced), and to communicate this understanding to the public and governments.

Hasselmann continued:

Their [climate scientist] beliefs are centred on faith in the scientific method and the efficiency of the established peer-review process in separating verifiable scientific results from scientifically non-substantiated assertions.

As did Trenberth:

They [climate scientists] have faith in the scientific method and the efficacy of the established peer-review process in separating verifiable scientific results from baseless assertions.

Again read Trenberth here and Hasselmann here. However strident Trenberth appears, his tone and attitude differs little from that of Hasselmann expressed in a leading journal published by Nature.

In closing, I note that copying of text has been subject to considerable recent attention following the USA Today about Raymond Bradley’s academic misconduct complaint that “text was just lifted verbatim from my book and placed in the Wegman Report”. See CA discussion e.g. here here – posts which included criticism of the Wegman Report in respect to its citation of Bradley, while, at the same time, observing that the section in question was “boilerplate” description of tree rings and did not affect the statistical report and that Bradley himself had lifted text verbatim from Fritts’ 1976 text on tree rings.



