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Inspector General Report Finds No Scientific Misconduct at NOAA
Yet another investigation into the 'Climategate' non-scandal--this one by the Department of Commerce Inspector General--finds nothing of real scientific relevance. From NOAA's press release:
At the request of U.S. Sen. Inhofe, the Department of Commerce Inspector General conducted an independent review of the emails stolen in November 2009 from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and found no evidence of impropriety or reason to doubt NOAA’s handling of its climate data. The Inspector General was asked to look into how NOAA reacted to the leak and to determine if there was evidence of improper manipulation of data, failure to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures, or failure to comply with Information Quality Act and Freedom of Information Act guidelines....
The Inspector General’s report states specifically:Full report here.
* “We found no evidence in the CRU emails that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data comprising the [Global Historical Climatology Network – monthly] GHCN-M dataset.” (Page 11)
* “We found no evidence in the CRU emails to suggest that NOAA failed to adhere to its peer review procedures prior to its dissemination of information.” (Page 11)
* “We found no evidence in the CRU emails to suggest that NOAA violated its obligations under the IQA.” (Page 12)
* “We found no evidence in the CRU emails to suggest that NOAA violated its obligations under the Shelby Amendment.” (Page 16)
4 comments:
The inspector general also found that eight NOAA emails "warrant further investigation" on scientific integrity issues, that the NOAA suppressed Freedom of Information Act requests, couldn't account for government funding and sub contracts, and gave misleading congressional testimony.
See here
Don't forget that some scientists were found to have emailed a silly cartoon making fun of people such as Inhofe!
Seriously though, the words "warrant further investigation" cannot be found in the report. That's Inhofe's wording, and it is misleading (whether intentionally or not). What can be found is similar, but the difference is important.
"In our own review of all 1,073 CRU emails, we found eight emails which, in our judgment, warranted further examination to clarify any possible issues involving the scientific integrity of particular NOAA scientists or NOAA's data. As a result, we conducted interviews with the relevant NOAA scientists regarding these eight emails, and have summarized their responses and explanations below:"
The eight emails are then discussed individually. In other words, 8/1073 emails were worth even taking a second look at, and the the findings are summarized in the report. Further, neither of the two recommendations at the end of the report have anything to do with these emails.
Let's back up and put this in context. Years ago (2003, actually), Inhofe called global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Upon the release of the CRU emails in 2009, the punditry went nuts claiming that they showed that climate scientists were faking the data and suppressing any contrary opinions. To listen to these people tell it, the temperature records kept by NOAA, NASA, CRU, and others simply could not be trusted because the scientists involved had manipulated them to look like they do. This report provides pretty thin gruel for supporting that narrative.
FOIA and contract issues are important in their own sphere, but have nothing really to do with the science. The congressional testimony was actually right on target (which this report supports), even if the testimony was overly broad at the time.
The reaction to the purloined emails reminded me of the war fever that gripped the U.S. in the runup to our invasion of Iraq.
The conspiracy deepens!
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