Phil Jones Slapdown

This Has to Hurt

The UK parliamentary inquiry into Climategate is now well underway; it evinces thus far a more hardnosed and objective demeanour than the whitewash investigation launched by the University of East Anglia.

Some damning stuff has come out thus far. Firstly, the University of East Anglia was exposed with its pants down trying to "spin" the decision by the authorities not to prosecute its breaches of the Freedom of Information Act due to the time under the statute of limitations having been exceeded. The University's take was that the Information Office had decides its breach was not substantial, nor criminal. The Office immediately responded to the contrary, and the University was slapped down publicly by the Parliamentary Inquiry. Embarrassing and telling.

Another gem dropped last week. Phil Jones, former Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University had defended before the Committee his decision not to release temperature data, saying that some countries had objected to their data being made public and he was obliged to respect their wishes. In particular, he named Sweden, Canada and Poland as nations which did not want their historical temperature data, as supplied to the University, made public.

Sweden responded sharply, according to a report in ClimateAudit.

All Swedish climate data are available in the public domain. As is demonstrated in the attached correspondence between SMHI (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute), the UK Met Office and Dr. Jones (the last correspondence dated yesterday March 4), this has been clearly explained to Dr. Jones. What is also clear is that SMHI is reluctant to be connected to data that has undergone “processing” by the East Anglia research unit. Emphasis, ours

Ouch. Another falsehood exposed.

So, the Swedes had already made their base and raw data publicly available, but refused to allow the release of the Jones "processed and manufactured data". No doubt the Swiss have learned what the Russians discovered: their temperature data had been engineered beyond recognition by the febrile imagination of Phil Jones and his colleagues. Reputable and professional scientists, such as the Swedes and Russians appear to be, want nothing to do with such legerdemain.

The same is not true, of course, with New Zealand's temperature data under the aegis of NIWA. NZ temperature data have been manufactured, massaged, and processed to where they appear to sustain a narrative of global warming--but in our case our government scientists were more than eager to participate with Jones in the charade.

NIWA's defence is to claim their "processing" of temperature data was according to accepted international best practice standards. But apparently the Russians, and now the Swiss disagree. Not so "accepted" after all, it seems.

We will be watching the further proceedings of the Parliamentary Inquiry with interest.