Top left: David Rose has for many years been writing scientifically discredited global warming skepticism for tabloid Daily Mail. Top right: John Bates is a recently retired NOAA meteorologist who thinks sensational science-denialist tabloids are the place to debate complex data management issues, and that this is how we build better public understanding of climate science. Bottom: today's Daily Mail climate story that will undoubtedly form the pseudoscientific basis for Trump's planetary policies.

Take a good look at the front page of today’s Daily Mail. Yes, children, this august institution is now to be our nation’s primary science source, driving the well-being of the planet and all who dwell upon it:

The House Science Committee’s’ new go-to source for science. The front page of today’s Daily Mail, in which the “ClimateGate 2” story appears. The story may be found after the sex scandal pages.

The House Science Committee today erupted in an ecstatic tweetstorm when the Daily Mail screamed this morning that “ClimateGate 2” had been uncovered: Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data:

The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015. The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers. But the whistleblower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data. It was never subjected to NOAA’s rigorous internal evaluation process – which Dr Bates devised. His vehement objections to the publication of the faulty data were overridden by his NOAA superiors in what he describes as a ‘blatant attempt to intensify the impact’ of what became known as the Pausebuster paper. His disclosures are likely to stiffen President Trump’s determination to enact his pledges to reverse his predecessor’s ‘green’ policies, and to withdraw from the Paris deal – so triggering an intense political row.

The scientific community is outraged, and response has been swift. Zeke Hausfather, climate scientist and energy systems analyst at Berkeley Earth, who worked on providing independent verification of the data Rose attacks, writes at CarbonBrief:

What [Rose] fails to mention is that the new NOAA results have been validated by independent data from satellites, buoys and Argo floats and that many other independent groups, including Berkeley Earth and the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre, get effectively the same results. ... Rose’s claim that NOAA’s results “can never be verified” is patently incorrect, as we just published a paper independently verifying the most important part of NOAA’s results. ...Rose’s article presents a deeply misleading graph where he shows an arbitrary offset between NOAA’s data and the Hadley land/ocean dataset. This is an artifact of the use of different baselines...This comparison ends up being spurious, because each record uses a different baseline period to define their temperature anomaly.

Peter Thorne, climate scientist for the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, writes:

I have been involved in and am a co-author upon all relevant underlying papers to Karl et al., 2015.



The 'whistle blower' is John Bates who was not involved in any aspect of the work… John Bates never participated in any of the numerous technical meetings on the land or marine data I have participated in at NOAA NCEI either in person or remotely. This shows in his reputed (I am taking the journalist at their word that these are directly attributable quotes) mis-representation of the processes that actually occured. In some cases these mis-representations are publically verifiable.

Victor Venema, climate scientist who studies climate variability for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), writes today:

The [global warming] "pause" is based on bad statistics and cherry-picking a specific period, which is bad "science". With good statistics, there is no evidence of any trend change. … Rose gets some suggestive quotes from an apparently disgruntled retired NOAA employee. The quotes themselves seem to be likely inconsequential procedural complaints, the corresponding insinuations seem to come from Rose. I thought journalism had a rule that claims by a source need to be confirmed by at least a second source. I am missing any confirmation. ... It sounds as if he made a set of procedures for his climate satellite data, which he really liked, and wanted other groups in NOAA to use it as well. Was frustrated when others did not prioritize enough updating their existing procedures to his.

Each of the above scientists then proceeds to patiently and factually rebut Rose’s and Bates’ claims, point by point, graph by graph. I encourage you to check out the links to see what the debate is about.

But there seems little point in the general public debating the scientific details. And it’s probably not the priority. Scientists were also refuting Bates’ claims in detail on climate change contrarian Judith Curry’s blog, where Bates personally posted his arguments. But commenter “cerescokid” broke through in frustration and summarized the dark magnitude of the situation perfectly… and ominously:

Forget Rose… The story is not about what Rose may or may not have said right or wrong. And it is not about the particulars of what Bates said properly or not. The public can’t understand the details. And they don’t want to get into the weeds. The story and the 2nd and 3rd derivative of the story is that a whistleblower, from the inside and not just any whistleblower but one fro the epicenter of the climate establishment. This has more significance, not scientifically, but public perception wise than anything that Judith or Pielke or Lindzencan say. Bates is from the government. This is going to be a seminal moment because of the headline value. Every skeptic, politician or otherwise, will get their 15 minutes of fame, again not because of the actual issues surrounding what Bates has said but rather who has come out from the shadows. The original story will get lost. The future stories will be the great divergence between what the climate establishment really knows versus what they they think they know. And that is Judith’s uncertainty monster. Anyone who thinks this is about Rose or about the specifics of Bates statements doesn’t understand the dynamics that will overtake what is being discussed here. Talk about chaos theory.

I agree, this is a seminal moment. How appropriate it comes to us via the Daily Mail, which pull-no-punches RationalWiki describes as “a reactionary, neo-fascist tabloid rag masquerading as "traditional values.”

David Rose has a long history of writing discredited articles for the Daily Mail for years attacking climate scientists. The UK National Weather Service has been forced to repeatedly debunk his claims. Columbia Journalism Review describes Rose’s work as “outrageous” “pseudoscience.” Rose is so known for this garbage that Discover Magazine dubbed an award for bad science reporting the “David Rose Award, thanks to his “flawed and distorted climate reporting.” In 2013, Media Matters named the Daily Mail “Climate Change Misinformer Of The Year,” noting that its claims had been repeated by U.S. Congressmen and dozens of U.S. news outlets.

Dana Nuccitelli published a 2013 piece in the Guardian titled “Arctic sea ice delusions strike the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph,” writing:

When it comes to climate science reporting, the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph are only reliable in the sense that you can rely on them to usually get the science wrong… Based on their history of shoddy reporting, the safest course of action when reading a climate article in the Mail on Sunday or Telegraph is to assume they're misrepresentations or falsehoods until you can verify the facts therein for yourself.

Other past takedowns:

The highly respected American Geophysical Union, on whose board Bates once sat, rebuked Bates for taking his data management concerns to a tabloid, refuted some of Bates’ and Rose’s claims, and linked to two of the above scientific rebuttals:

As to the merits – or lack thereof – of the allegations made in John Bates’ post about data mismanagement, within NOAA, that discussion is and will continue to unfold in dialogue among scientists, such as in this article by Zeke Hausfather from Berkeley Earth and this blog post from the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units. ... AGU believes that the merits of the Karl et al. (2015) should be and have been discussed in appropriate peer-reviewed scientific journals. We note that the main results of that study have since been independently replicated by later work. In the meantime, we will continue to stand up for the credibility of climate science, the freedom of scientists to conduct and communicate their science. ... We are closely monitoring how this will play out among policymakers and influencers. For example, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology issued a misleading press release. These types of statements by policymakers that attempt to take one study/dispute and blow it out of proportion are both unhelpful and misleading. We will be working with the science committee to demonstrate the scientific consensus on climate change and to encourage them not to interfere with the scientific process.

Rose is so delusional he managed to find validation in the AGU’s response, tweeting “AGU is taking John Bates's revelation that NOAA breached its own data rules with Pausebuster paper seriously.”

Sigh.

And it begins. The Republican-led House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology lost its mind in glee in a tweetstorm:

x .@MailOnline: Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data https://t.co/7WgPZCKorM — Sci,Space,&Tech Cmte (@HouseScience) February 5, 2017

x Former NOAA Scientist Confirms Colleagues Manipulated Climate Records https://t.co/q5jqNJ8rHf — Sci,Space,&Tech Cmte (@HouseScience) February 5, 2017

x NOAA's 2015 climate change study aimed "to discredit notion of a global warming hiatus"- Former @NOAA scientist — Sci,Space,&Tech Cmte (@HouseScience) February 5, 2017

x CONFIRMED: @NOAA rushed 2015 climate change study to publication to support Obama's climate agenda despite underlying data issues — Sci,Space,&Tech Cmte (@HouseScience) February 5, 2017

x NOAA sr officials played fast & loose w/data in order 2 meet politically predetermined conclusion on climate change https://t.co/4vTeyFuQFt — Lamar Smith (@LamarSmithTX21) February 5, 2017

You may count on Trump successfully using this tabloid report to shape planetary policy for our future.

Good job, Dr. Bates. You deliberately picked the most trashy, destructive strategy imaginable to settle your score over professional slights. But you knew that’s what sells in the era of Trump, so you wasted no time capitalizing on that. Hope you’re enjoying having the attention and influence that you feel always eluded you. In your bitter retirement you’ve rendered your entire career meaningless, laid waste to your scientific legacy, and screwed us all.