A Climate Scientist's Take on Climategate, Swifthack, or Whatever this Cluster#$&! in a Teapot is Called

In the immediate aftermath of the “Climategate” emails, many mainstream journalists — including some science writers who ought to have known better — blew the story. They didn’t understand what the messages referred to, or the culture of science. They treated as a “scandal” something that was mostly irrelevant. (The exception to this is Phil Jones’ destruction-of-email orders. That was wrong and probably illegal. But it says very little about climate science.)

I asked Ken Caldeira, a Carnegie Institution for Science climatographer, for comments on the emails. My story didn’t come together, but his response was great, and I’m reprinting it here in full. (For more on the emails, listen to this Dianne Rehm show.) Here’s what Caldeira said:

I certainly do not have time to read all of the email, but I have followed up the chain on a few choice quotes:

1. The “trick” to hide the decline.
2. The “travesty” at not being able to explain the decline.
3. Ben Santer wanting to punch somebody.

In all of these cases, it sounds bad when quoted out of context, but if you set the quotes in context, they are entirely reasonable, although often poorly worded.

In the case of the so-called trick, the problem was apparently that the tree ring data show other influences besides temperature so when temperature is considered to be the only factor affecting tree rings there is an apparent unrealistic decline in tree ring temperatures after 1960. The “trick” was apparently to plot the instrumental record on the same chart as the tree ring record, so people could see the observations — there was no attempt to fool people about what the actual record said. They were trying to communicate more clearly.

In popular press accounts, reputable reporters quoted this “trick” phrase out of context and made it seem like scientists were trying to hide a real signal from the public, when in fact the “trick” was to show the instrumental temperature record so that people would not get misled by an overly simplistic reading of the tree ring record.

In the case of the so-called travesty, the “travesty” was that we did not understand all of the drivers of short term climate change, but there was no doubt raised about fundamental climate theory or the reality of global warming. 

In popular press accounts, the “travesty” was portrayed as some self-doubt about the reality of human-induced warming, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The “punch” line was Ben Santer’s way of saying “I am very angry at the way these unscrupulous climate skeptics are harassing you and I am ready to come to your aid in your time of need.”  Anybody who knows Ben knows that this was rhetorical, and that Ben is not actually going to be punching anybody at a professional meeting. This was a private expression of anger and support, not an actual threat of violence.

Yet, in popular press accounts, Ben Santer, mild-mannered scientist, is made out to be some kind of schoolyard bully.

Meanwhile, Pat Michaels and his ilk repeat these quotes out of context to any journalist ready to listen. Pat Michaels and his cronies are apparently happy to use any technique they think they can get away with to harrass and discredit hard working and responsible climate scientists.

I can say there is one thing in the email exchange that was disturbing, and that was the suggestion to quietly delete emails to avoid harassing Freedom-of-Information requests. If they thought the requests were inappropriate legally, they should have fought the requests through legal channels. If they thought the requests were legal, but worth protesting on civil libertarian grounds, they should have engaged in open civil disobedience and deleted the emails openly and forthrightly. There is no place for such secretiveness in scientific matters.

That said, I think this an lapse of good judgment among people who generally adhere to the highest standards of honor.

I think the story should have been about how Pat Michaels and his cronies use every means at their disposal, from FOI requests to hacked computer systems, in their attempt to discredit hard working climate scientists. Unable to win the argument on the facts, they resort to assassinating the character of hard-working scientists. And the popular press were all to ready to sink to the level of Pat Michaels and act as his megaphone, trumpeting far and wide selected phrases from stolen emails.

I think this has been a low-water mark for climate journalism … Every major story that I have read has furthered the agenda of Pat Michaels and his cronies. Not one story that I have read has turned the tables and asked Pat Michaels why he needs to attack the messenger rather than address the message.

The trick that we should be talking about is how Pat Michaels and his cohorts got the popular press to focus on out-of-context phrases by solid scientists rather than their own pattern of harassment and theft. The travesty we should be talking about is how our best science journalists were so gullible they fell for this trick.