Data Comparisons

Phil Jones Steps Down (Temporarily)

38 Comments

Boballab , and matthew h, Jeff Id broke the news before me:

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.

I’m glad to read there are investigations, and that Jones is stepping aside during these investigations.

Update:CRU announcement.

38 thoughts on “Phil Jones Steps Down (Temporarily)”

  2. BarryW–
    To the extent CRU investigates itself, they will certainly try to whitewash. That’s generally what happens during self investigations done under some external pressure. But to the extent that reporters are watching, they may not be able to really paint things white.

    So…. we’ll see.

  3. My hunch and hope is that there will be an inquiry independent of CRU – perhaps by the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee. And I hope it would fully investigate the alleged behaviour of scientists and any alleged impacts upon scientific conclusions.

    I’d anticipate accepting any criticisms and recommendations such a possible inquiry might make, in contrast to the anticipation of whitewash that has already been expressed.

  4. It’s probably too little too late. Phil Jones will likely stay on at CRU but not as the public face of climate research. He will quietly fade into the background, and climate research will carry on.

    Again, I’m most interested in what the journals will do. Will Mann, Jones, Santer, Wigley et al ever be allowed to do peer review again? If they reject a paper (perhaps with some cause), will the affected authors claim political bias? How about the people that were dissed in the e-mails? I wonder if, sensing that they have nothing to lose, Mann, Jones and company will make an e-mail dump of their own…

  6. It’s not a good day for science. It’s very unfortunate for all concerned that it came to this.

  7. Lucia, we’ll see. But they don’t have to use anyone in their organization to subvert the independence of the investigation, just make sure that they are part of the fraternity that wegman identified.

  8. Strikes me this is tantamount to kicking Phil Jones into the long grass. He won’t be coming back.

  9. It’s not a good day for science.

    Carrick, I disagree. I’ve been using the “trust but verify” maxim to explain peer review and reproducibility; what this shows us is that science is sufficiently robust that a serious attempt to subvert the verification step eventually came to light.

    With just a little luck, that will be a lesson to future generations of scientists.

  10. Dave–
    He seems to still have a job. He’s just not director of CRU. That said: I too predict he will never be director or CRU again. Professor Peter Liss is acting director, and, when the time comes, he may not want to step down. Even if others don’t support making him permanent, organizational politics will work toward making them pick someone else.

    To be honest, I’m waiting to read the announcement they identified the hacker/leaker and explain how they got the material.

  11. The claim, supported by his own emails, is that he was deleting the data currently relevent under a freedom of information request, and that (a far more vague claim) he was actively preventing other researchers publishing opposing points of view.

    The idea that he is charged with overstating climate change – a charge which will merely be countered with the usual “independent studies have ALSO shown…” rebuttal is nothing but a straw man charge, carefully set up to be easily knocked down.

    Cue the follow on any time Phil Jones gets mentioned in the climategate context, that we’ll get in the mainstream media “Phil Jones was cleared by an investigation which found he had not overstated climate change” carefully rewriting the history by not discussing the very serious matters he clearly was guilty of.

    I really would like to know what the IPCC are going to be doing, knowing that their lead authors have been behaving this way despite the demands that the IPCC process be open and clear.

  12. They will have an investigation and find that

    a) personal emails bitching about things are not a crime
    b) there has been full co-operation on FOI, and that vexatious requests have been made
    c) he has been the target of sustained personal attacks and threats that he has had difficulty addressing
    d) there has been no fraud
    e) they need a bigger budget if they are to be able to raise the standards that people are demanding of them
    f) pretty well all of the accusations made against them are just the vitriol that has been stirred up on the internet
    g) most of those attacking them have no idea what they are talking about, and most of it is just rumor feeding on rumor.

  13. I certainly hope the investigation actually looks into whether Phil Jones deleted emails that had been requested under FOIA. From what I can tell, that is the only thing in the emails that really shows him commiting an illegal, or at least unethical, act. Other than that he’s bound to be cleared.

    It’s a good start and hopefully it will at least force CRU to respond honestly to FOIA requests.

  14. Any interest in taking quatloo bets on a date when the other shoe drops for the release of another portion of the emails?

    I bet 5 quatloos that it happens right after the Copenhagen conference and the new revelations will be doozies.

    Thanks
    Ed

  15. bugs, I think you need to be a bit more realistic. Whatever else happens, my prediction is Phil Jones won’t get his former position back, and his reputation will be permanently and perhaps unfairly damaged from this.

  16. Carrick, I hope you’re not expecting Jones’ young swain to think and carry water at the same time. 🙂

  17. bugs,

    You forgot one…

    h) Professor Jones gets a pony

    All wishful thinking aside, this is first and foremost a political issue. So take off your climate-skeptics-are-the-spawn-of-satan thinking cap and consider how the politically minded will allow this to play out. I’m no expert on “temporarily stepping down” history, but I’d wager a year’s supply of quatloos that 95% or more of stepping-downers never step back up. Tainted goods are tainted goods. Anyone have any thoughts on Prof. Jones comeback odds?

    [Nice edit feature by the way. Those typos don’t manifest themselves until after you press submit.]

  18. bugs might have a few problems formulating a response since it seems that the last thing posted on RC was the news of Phils stepping aside and Gavin hasn’t posted anything about it. So he has to wait to get his RC approved talking points first.

  19. Carrick (Comment#25584) December 1st, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    “It’s not a good day for science. It’s very unfortunate for all concerned that it came to this.”

    I disagree. I think it is a very good thing for science. The Team is formally notified that obviously unethical (and possibly illegal) behavior will get them into trouble. How can that be bad?

    So long as the investigators don’t pursue the willful obstruction of FOI requests as a legal matter, Jones will just get a slap on the wrist, and go back to work…. hopefully a lot wiser about interfering with other peoples publications, and with a new found willingness to be open with data.

  20. bugs (Comment#25599),

    Wow. Did you actually read many of the Jones emails? They paint a pretty sorry picture of how he conducted himself. They really do damage to his reputation.

  21. Phil Jones is down. Let’s see who else is fond of lying with statistics using “filter end effects”.

    “Applying the correction in real time in the future will mean that we will always be slightly changing approximately the last 15 years data – because of the filter end effects. Best would seem to be to maintain the present version we have and apply this variance correction every few years ( eg the IPCC cycle !).” – Phil Jones, former director of the CRU (http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=116&filename=929044085.txt).

    Grant Foster (Tamino) appears in 18 Climategate e-mails. His is also fond of “filter end effects”.

    Awaiting moderation on Grant’s site is my finally valid destruction (http://i49.tinypic.com/24cfeas.jpg) of his “filter end effects” Hockey Stick that tortures the longest thermometer record into supporting AGW:

    http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/central-england-temperature/

    NikFromNYC // December 1, 2009 at 7:10 am | Reply

    I don�t need homework to BELIEVE MY EYES: the raw data plot does not support his claim. His smoothing doesn�t follow the peaks except at the ends. I have done more homework and with a bit of help from John Ray I have reproduced Tamino�s work from raw data. The two graphs used to prove his point show the opposite of what honest analysis shows. Not knowing how the black box works didn�t stop me from using sample data to see how setting the big knob on top to its lowest setting effects its behavior:

    http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2009/11/central-england-temperature-series-very.html

    Using Savitzky-Golay smoothing of higher order confirms my point since the filter then follows peaks in the middle instead of hides them:

    http://i48.tinypic.com/28jkvnm.jpg

    Print the raw data plot and ask a kid to trace it with a big red marker to see if he comes up with a Hockey Stick. I can�t. Can you?!

    Not one of the 280 comments mentioned the term �end effect�. Computers were not very fast in 1964 so Savitzky and Golay at Perkin-Elmer who makes spectrometers had to figure out a way to smooth noisy spectra without much computing power. Their paper became one of the top sited of all time. From David I. Wilson�s �The Black Art of Smoothing�: �The SG filters suffer from end effects, but requires minimal storage.�

    Overwhelming evidence may support AGW, but honest analysis shows that the longest running thermometer record does not.

  22. Phil Jones is down. Let’s see who else is fond of lying with statistics using “filter end effects”.

    “Applying the correction in real time in the future will mean that we will always be slightly changing approximately the last 15 years data – because of the filter end effects. Best would seem to be to maintain the present version we have and apply this variance correction every few years ( eg the IPCC cycle !).” – Phil Jones, former director of the CRU (http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=116&filename=929044085.txt).

    Grant Foster (Tamino) appears in 18 Climategate e-mails. His is also fond of “filter end effects”.

    Awaiting moderation on Grant’s site is my finally valid destruction (http://i49.tinypic.com/24cfeas.jpg) of his “filter end effects” Hockey Stick that tortures the longest thermometer record into supporting AGW:

    http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/central-england-temperature/

    NikFromNYC // December 1, 2009 at 7:10 am | Reply

    I don�t need homework to BELIEVE MY EYES: the raw data plot does not support his claim. His smoothing doesn�t follow the peaks except at the ends. I have done more homework and with a bit of help from John Ray I have reproduced Tamino�s work from raw data. The two graphs used to prove his point show the opposite of what honest analysis shows. Not knowing how the black box works didn�t stop me from using sample data to see how setting the big knob on top to its lowest setting effects its behavior:

    http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2009/11/central-england-temperature-series-very.html

    Using Savitzky-Golay smoothing of higher order confirms my point since the filter then follows peaks in the middle instead of hides them:

    http://i48.tinypic.com/28jkvnm.jpg

    Print the raw data plot and ask a kid to trace it with a big red marker to see if he comes up with a Hockey Stick. I can�t. Can you?!

    Not one of the 280 comments mentioned the term �end effect�. Computers were not very fast in 1964 so Savitzky and Golay at Perkin-Elmer who makes spectrometers had to figure out a way to smooth noisy spectra without much computing power. Their paper became one of the top sited of all time. From David I. Wilson�s �The Black Art of Smoothing�: �The SG filters suffer from end effects, but requires minimal storage.�

    Overwhelming evidence may support AGW, but honest analysis shows that the longest running thermometer record does not.

  23. “Wow. Did you actually read many of the Jones emails? They paint a pretty sorry picture of how he conducted himself. They really do damage to his reputation.”

    Getting dragged into the pig pen isn’t pretty. As the saying goes, there is no point fighting with a pig. You both end up getting covered in mud and the pig enjoys it. He wonders how he is supposed to respond to the smears, lies and threats. Being ‘open’ is no solution to those problems, people like the ones he had problems with don’t look to advance the science, but only to dredge for smears.

  24. Bugs you are a very tolerant and forgiving person. I admire that as it is not one of my greatest qualities.

    Question. Purely in the interest of science: If it turned out to be one of President Bush’s advisers who was found engaged in all of these shenanegans instead of Phil at CRU, would you still be equally forgiving and tolerant? In the interest of science of course.

  25. bugs:

    Being ‘open’ is no solution to those problems, people like the ones he had problems with don’t look to advance the science, but only to dredge for smears.

    Events have proven you wrong. Deal with it.

    Open, transparent science is the only way to go. And I suspect forces will be piling up on climate scientists to open up the process far more than they have been accustomed to in the past.

  26. SteveF:

    I disagree. I think it is a very good thing for science. The Team is formally notified that obviously unethical (and possibly illegal) behavior will get them into trouble. How can that be bad?

    They’ve dragged the rest of science down into the mud with them.

  27. Bugs,

    “He wonders how he is supposed to respond to the smears, lies and threats. Being ‘open’ is no solution to those problems, people like the ones he had problems with don’t look to advance the science, but only to dredge for smears.”

    You have heard the saying that when you are in a hole you should stop digging??

    It would have been a good idea for the team to heed that advice.

    He also would not have had problems if he hadn’t been digging such a big hole!! How can we find smears if they are not there?? And there are PLENTY!!!

    Too bad you still can’t recognise that the Team WAS NOT ADVANCING SCIENCE!! They were advancing an agenda!

  28. ivp0 (Comment#25670)
    Question. Purely in the interest of science: If it turned out to be one of President Bush’s advisers who was found engaged in all of these shenanegans instead of Phil at CRU, would you still be equally forgiving and tolerant?
    Bush’s White House was believed to have “misplaced” about 5 million e-mails. Makes PJ’s scale look small.

  29. I am skeptical that any inquiry conducted in the UK will be pertinent.

    I suspect instead that it will focus on whether the datasets were inappropriately manipulated and whether global warming is real – they will of course conclude positively for CRU on both. Of course these are straw-man arguments raised specifically so they can be smashed and the establishment can proclaim everything is OK, nothing to worry about here folks.

    The real questions of course are whether the social behaviour of a set of climate scientists introduced bias into the science? Were they a clique, did they engage in group-think and tribalism, did they spin the science in presentations (WMO graphic), did they act as gate keepers. And if they did may this have created greater cetrtainty than was warranted by the raw science?

  30. Nick:

    Bush’s White House was believed to have “misplaced” about 5 million e-mails. Makes PJ’s scale look small.

    That number is probably exaggerated (those are opposition numbers), but nonetheless, Phil was running a department not a country.

  31. Kuhnkat

    “Too bad you still can’t recognise that the Team WAS NOT ADVANCING SCIENCE!! They were advancing an agenda!”

    And what was their agenda?

  32. re: bugs (Comment#25599) December 1st, 2009 at 5:28 pm

    all of your points here have truthiness except…

    “e) they need a bigger budget if they are to be able to raise the standards that people are demanding of them”

    $19M in grant money awarded over 2000-2006 to Jones as recip or co-recip should have been enough to ensure some data & code archival and integrity with plenty left over to hire a full-time person dedicated to responding pre-emptively to FOI requests by making all inputs to published work publicly available.

    In fact, I would be surprised, given the sums, that the grantors didn’t insist on something like this. Did they just write checks and walk away?

  33. Nick Stokes,

    “Bush’s White House was believed to have “misplaced” about 5 million e-mails. Makes PJ’s scale look small.”

    Funny you don’t mention computer tape backups of the Clinton Whitehouse that went missing after a Judge ordered them to be held as evidence in a case against Bill or that Gore, who invented the Internet, managed to not have his e-mails backed up at all by not using the WH servers!!!

    What does this prove?? Only that you are an apologist for crooks.

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