I can still feel the intense anger when I heard my head of school berate all sceptics, calling them loonies for attacking Phil Jones and I then stormed out of the room in utter disgust.

Sounds like a typical day in the Senior Common Room to me;-). Stress has been shown to reduce the reliability of memory, btw.

I was merely pointing out that for historians there is a hierarchy in evidential quality; signed off minutes would be the gold standard, somebody's recollections a decade later, not so much. I have no doubt there was a 'corporate' reaction to the storm that the email release triggered, how could there not be? And likely as not some heated meetings. But we all reconstruct and filter our memories through the prisms of our world view and prejudices, conscious or otherwise.

But the various enquiries that did review the primary evidence: the emails themselves, attachments, academic papers, archives etc. discovered nothing that rose to the level of a conspiracy, or indeed anything that casts doubt on the reality of AGW.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has examined every one of the hacked CRU emails and has strongly affirmed that it finds nothing more than "candid discussion of scientists working through issues that arise in compiling and presenting large complex data sets".

https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/media-room/press-release-archive/cru-statements/other-reports/epare-report

In addition, insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty—for example, Professor Jones’s alleged attempt to “hide the decline”—we consider that there is no case to answer. Within our limited inquiry and the evidence we took, the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact. We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”

[...]

Even if the data that CRU used were not publicly available—which they mostly are— or the methods not published—which they have been—its published results would still be credible: the results from CRU agree with those drawn from other international data sets; in other words, the analyses have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387/387i.pdf

We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it. Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups their internal procedures were rather informal.

[...]

A host of important unresolved questions also arises from the application of Freedom of Information legislation in an academic context. We agree with the CRU view that the authority for releasing unpublished raw data to third parties should stay with those who collected it.

http://www.uea.ac.uk/documents/3154295/7847337/SAP.pdf/a6f591fc-fc6e-4a70-9648-8b943d84782b

. Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards of honesty, rigour and openness are needed in its conduct. On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.

14. In addition, we do not find that their behaviour has prejudiced the balance of advice given to policy makers. In particular, we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.

http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf

And as for those reports that you value so very much - those reports, with great rigour, excluded every single sceptical voice that might have added any degree of credibility. They were a farce. They brought disrepute upon every single person and organisation that participated in them. The reputation of British science fell of a cliff. I was never more ashamed of being part of it.

What a "primary source" is depends on where you choose to look for a definition. Wikipedia CAN be a very useful source of information, but it is certainly not an infallible gold standard. For instance:

"primary source - A direct source of information or research, a document not emended by a third party." :

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/primary+source

"In research activities, a primary source refers to information collected firsthand from such sources as historical documents, literary texts, artistic works, experiments, surveys, and interviews. It is also called primary data and is very different than a secondary source."

https://www.thoughtco.com/primary-source-research-1691678

No doubt I could find others saying something similar if I could be bothered. The fact remains, on the basis of either of those definitions, Superroll IS a primary source for the events of which he writes.

"Sounds like a typical day in the Senior Common Room to me;-). Stress has been shown to reduce the reliability of memory, btw.
Mar 8, 2019 at 2:08 PM | Phil Clarke"

Are you being stressed by the shortage of free money for professional liars?

Think of all those Democrat campaigners. They will be hoping to get Michael Mann and William M Connolley to stand up and produce some evidence that will survive public examination, across every US State and TV/Radio chat show, justifying why US Energy prices should rise to European levels, so that lying Climate Scientists can rewrite history, science and Wikipedia to match their ideology.

With the supply of Taxpayer funding for Climate Scientists being reduced, it would be great for US voters to decide whether they want to be robbed by liars or vote for Trump again.

And as for those reports that you value so very much - those reports, with great rigour, excluded every single sceptical voice that might have added any degree of credibility

Seriously, have you read them? The authors contain many distinguished scientists at professorial level, it seems unlikely they all got to that position by lacking scepticism (in it's proper meaning). Even if we use sceptical as a synonym for contrarian :-

- Graham Stringer MP, trustee of the GWPF, was on the author panel of the House Committee.

- The Muir Russell report discusses the work of McIntyre & McKitrick at length and publishes their submissions in full.

- The Muir Russell report discusses at length the fraud allegations of Doug Keenan (para 35-38).

- The Muir Russell report took oral evidence from Lord Lawson and Benny Peiser, of the GWPF.

No shortage of sceptical voices, it seems to me. True, their views did not seem to convince much, but that is consistent with them lacking in merit and/or significance, which is in turn consistent with the wider scientific landscape.

Mar 8, 2019 at 3:19 PM | Mark Hodgson

Thank you for the Climate Science Beginner's Guide to Primary Sources. Unfortunately, many of them remain confused with Primary Colours, and their certainty that Green is a Primary Colour. They therefore believe that Primary Sources must all be Green too.

Tut tut Mark, you truncated that ThoughtCo definition:

In research activities, a primary source refers to information collected firsthand from such sources as historical documents, literary texts, artistic works, experiments, surveys, and interviews. It is also called primary data and is very different than a secondary source.

The Library of Congress defines primary sources as "actual records that have survived from the past, such as letters, photographs, or articles of clothing," in contrast to secondary sources, which are "accounts of the past created by people writing about events sometime after they happened"

Anyhoo, back to the topic, in any campaign to convince people that the UEA scientists conspired to corrupt science, Watts' treasure trove seems to be sinking without trace...

PmhinSC March 7, 2019 at 5:33 pm

Although I appreciate all of the above comments, in the grand scheme of things I doubt this treasure trove of information means “diddly squat.”

Mar 8, 2019 at 4:27 PM | Phil Clarke
Is that what witnesses agreed you could write?

https://climateaudit.org/2010/07/07/lord-russell-of-holyrood/

"They adopted a unique inquiry process in which they interviewed only one side – CRU. As a result, the report is heavily weighted towards CRU apologia – a not unexpected result given that the writing team came from Geoffrey Boulton’s Royal Society of Edinburgh."

Mann has already made false claims about Muir Russell and others:

https://climateaudit.org/2014/02/21/mann-and-the-muir-russell-inquiry-1/
"In my most recent post, I showed that Mann’s claim to have been “exonerated” by the Oxburgh inquiry had no more validity than Mann’s claim to have won a Nobel prize. In today’s post, I’ll continue my series on the “investigations” by showing that Mann’s claim to have been “exonerated” by the Muir Russell inquiry is equally invalid."

"The Library of Congress defines primary sources.. "
Mar 8, 2019 at 4:57 PM Phil Clarke

Are quotes from the Library of Congress relevant to information sourced in East Anglia?

https://climateaudit.org/2014/02/17/mann-and-the-oxburgh-panel/

In today’s post, I’ll continue my series on the “investigations” by showing that Mann’s claim to have been “exonerated” by the Muir Russell inquiry is equally invalid."

Except he shows no such thing. McIntyre's claim is that MR cleared the CRU scientists and did not explicitly investigate Mann or mention him by name, therefore Dr Mann is wrong to claim that the report exonerates him.

But MR did examine many of the accusations levelled against Dr Mann, praised the hockey stick (para 21) and answered many of the claims of data manipulation and suppression that have been vigorously promoted by the defendants, in the court pleadings. Mann was a frequent coauthor with CRU scientists and the recipient of many of the emails.

What Dr Mann actually claimed was that :-

Following the publication of the CRU emails, Penn State and the University of East Anglia (in four separate instances) and five governmental agencies [listed] have conducted separate and independent investigations into the allegations of scientific misconduct against Dr. Mann and his colleagues. Every one of these investigations has reached the same conclusion: there is no basis to any of the allegations of scientific misconduct or manipulation of data.

McIntyre's skewed reading of the case is pure sophistry; Mann's legal team is perfectly entitled to claim the MR report contributes to his exoneration.

Mar 8, 2019 at 11:43 PM | Phil Clarke

No. Mann made false claims. Have you checked with your US Legal sources, as US Democrats are about to start asking some tough questions, and they don't want another Clinton, or Trudeau, or Macron, style liability.

Blimey Clipe, would it kill you to provide a sentence or two around your links and copy-pastes?

Here, McIntyre constructs a Straw Man, claiming that

Combining the different assertions, Mann claimed that “all” of the investigations exonerated him of the following: scientific misconduct, fraud, academic fraud, data falsification, statistical manipulation, manipulation of data and even supposed findings that his work was “properly conducted and fairly presented”.

And

In paragraph 24, Mann further states that “all” of the investigations found “no evidence of any fraud, data falsification, statistical manipulation, or misconduct of any kind by Dr. Mann”. In making this declaration, they emphasized that these findings were “widely available and commented upon in the national and international media”, a point that is of particular interest when we examine contemporary reports of the Oxburgh panel.

So, sorry, but I am going to ask you to do a little work, it would be great if you could, in your own words find the text where Dr Mann makes this claim. The relevant document is here. Cos I don't think he does: McIntyre is engaging in crude quote-mining. In fact if you look at para 24 quoted by McIntyre it indeed says:

All of the above investigations found that there was no evidence of any fraud, data falsification, statistical manipulation, or misconduct of any kind by Dr. Mann. 

But the list of 'above' investigations follow detailed descriptions of the OIG and EPA investigations, and does not explicitly name Oxburg. McIntyre has combined text from separate parts of a document to mislead (hardly the first time). He once accused Joelle Gergis of data torture, here he is engaging in word-torture.

I look forward to your response.

Mar 9, 2019 at 12:39 AM | Phil Clarke
So you would be happy for Mann to give evidence in Court to pursue his Legal claim AND on US Television on behalf of Democrats championing New Green Austerity?

But Mann isn't happy about appearing in Court in case of cross examination, so is he going to be cross examined by US Republicans or Democrats if the fate of Climate Science rests on his testimony?:

No. Mann made false claims.

It would a first, but can I invite you to expand on that and back it up with an example or two? Preferably something more reliable than links to Neverending Audit.

Do these alleged false claims have any bearing on the actual science, or are we back on the Nobel Prize sideshow?

Blimey Slimy,

https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/73f3c29c-66cd-4f2e-8fde-cc5c962b620e.png

Mr Clarke (Mar 8, 2019 at 4:27 PM): ironic, really, that you should link us to an organisation initially set up to adventure into space (and, ultimately, the Moon), who then choose to use only the land-based readings in this (undated) article, when they were instrumental in establishing satellites to monitor, amongst other things, atmospheric temperatures.

Actually, RR, NASA's original mission statement included the goals To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers …

But that first one got deleted in 2006 under Pres GW Bush.

Here's a plot of the trend in the 'big four' satellite and land-based (GISTEMP include satellite data in its sea surface temps, but let's not be picky) global temperature datasets. The highest and lowest trends are in the satellite datasets with the land based lying inbetween, although the variation is not particularly high. What do you make of that?

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/offset:-0.29/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.43/trend/plot/rss/offset:-0.13/trend/plot/uah6/offset/trend

Which part of 'in your own words' is giving you the problem? A screenshot of the article you already linked to, which is just McIntyre's mangling of the document doesn't really help you all that much, given his quote-mining.

It doesn't help you. Really or otherwise.

Justin Trudeau Climate science.

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/media/photologue/photos/cache/SW-de_adder-03_05_2019_original.jpg

Phil, I didn't include the Library of Congress definition, because it is one of many definitions, and my point was simply to show that there are other definitions beyond that which you rely on (and there are many definitions which are not in line with your Wikipedia definition and the Library of Congress definition). Also, when did the Library of Congress get to make definitive definitions?

"Mann made false claims.
It would a first, but can I invite you to expand on that and back it up with an example or two? Preferably something more reliable than links to Neverending Audit.
Do these alleged false claims have any bearing on the actual science, or are we back on the Nobel Prize sideshow?
Mar 9, 2019 at 1:14 AM | Phil Clarke"

Neverending Audit being Climate Sciences internal Peer Review system, that has failed so dismally?
Is there any Science to support Climate Sciences faked-up claims?

In terms of actual factual accuracy (a bit of new territory for Climate Science) you could try these:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/14/michael-mann-loses-the-nobel-prize-again/
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mikes-nobel-trick-mark-steyn/
https://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/the-michael-mann-scientists-rigor-and-honesty-quote/

If you are satisfied that Mann and the Hockey Teamsters, (including William M Connolley) have nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about, they will be keen to get behind one side in the US Democrats forthcoming civil war about the New Green Energy Austerity.

Mar 9, 2019 at 8:45 AM | Mark Hodgson

Phil Clarke's definition of being "Economical with the Truth" is in line with zero emissions targets, as required by the IPCC and Peer Approved by Climate Scientists.