Robert Shelton weighs in on UA "Climategate" involvement.

This is why it is good to have a scientist as a University president: he knows how to evaluate popular controversies about science.

In full:

M E M O R A N D U M

TO: UA Employees
FROM: Robert N. Shelton, President
SUBJECT: Email Messages on Climate Change
DATE:Dec. 9, 2009

The University of Arizona takes very serious any allegation of impropriety, academic or otherwise. As soon as news accounts surfaced about selected emails that were illegally obtained from a British university computer server and posted publicly, the UA reviewed the material with the full cooperation of UA faculty whose names appeared on some of those messages.

We firmly believe there is no substance to the negative allegations regarding the content of the emails. To the contrary, the work of our professors is contributing substantially to humanity's growing understanding of the origins and nature of global climate change.

As a matter of course, our faculty adhere to the highest standards of research ethics. Their data, once published, are available to other scholars as required by the journals publishing the work, and in most cases are posted online and hence are freely available for download. Their research conclusions are cross-examined through vigorous rounds of peer review. In the case of collaborative research by the UA's Malcolm Hughes, independent studies by other research groups and critical reviews, including by the National Academy of Sciences, have confirmed both the integrity of their research methods and their basic findings.

The research area in question - global climate change - is the subject of vigorous, worldwide debate. The implications of the findings being produced by the world's scientific community are profound. Naturally, there will be those who will not fully understand or be prepared to accept scientific conclusions that may be upsetting. This is an expected part of our faculty's work. Their response is to inform and explain their research methods as transparently and dispassionately as possible.

The UA faculty mentioned in these stolen emails have done so admirably. For that reason, the leadership of the UA has full confidence and pride in both the scientific methods they have employed, and the conclusions they have reached.

Unlike the Arizona Daily Star's false balance--Ross McKitrick is neither a "skeptic" nor a credible person nor one making reasonable accusations--and the Wildcat's parlay of this into an actual accusation by the paper itself of scientific wrongdoing, Shelton nicely gives weight where weight is due. Shelton is not a journalist and not acting as one, but nevertheless, his use of good sense is exemplary and the note is a show of fair-mindedness. Word to the Washington Post and the Star: Impartiality doesn't require you to give equal time (or, in the Post's case, well more than equal time) to the ridiculous. Most of the time, you do not do so!

What we should see from Hughes and Overpeck is a public lecture. They don't owe it to anyone, but it would go a long way to restore confidence, unfairly lost or not.

No word yet on whether or not either scientist plans to hit back. Maybe the Wildcat crossed the line and maybe it didn't--what's "potentially" supposed to mean?--but there have been things written in the blogosphere, especially about Hughes, that are outright libel. Being upset with a scientist's finding does not justify allegations of "fraud", even if one can cite private e-mails out of context to justify this post hoc. "Fraud" is an allegation of fact, not of opinion.

"Climategate" comes to Arizona

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe has sent intimidating-sounding but somewhat vacuous letters to University of Arizona dendrochronologist Malcolm Hughes and paleoclimatologist Jon "Peck" Overpeck. Something a bit more substantial was directed to U of A General Counsel Lynne Wood.

To Wood:

Recently a large number of alleged CRU documents and e-mails were released to the public. These documents and e-mails outline disturbing trend of actions, which, at the least, imply activity to create a false impression of the certainty of climate change science. I will be conducting an investigation into these matters.

I am requesting that you secure, as soon as possible, all documents and records related to the communications or other interactions with CRU. This would include materials directly and reasonably related to CRU documents, e-mails, and its subject matter. Should you discover that other employees in your agency/organization have interacted with CRU or have furnished information which may be used in communications with CRU, please secure those documents as well.

Very interesting doublespeak there: "Released to the public." Meaning "somebody committed a computer crime, downloaded information from a mailserver, and then released the stolen information to the public."

And the e-mails don't really "imply activity to create a false impression of anything", at least not to a reasonable person familiar with academic science, when put in their proper context. The stolen e-mails may contain evidence that U.K. scientists ran afoul of that country's Freedom of Information laws, at least enough to merit investigation. There's nothing in the e-mails pointing to wrongdoing by any U.S. researcher. Claims to the contrary have all fallen apart upon critical inspection.

But to the point: Inhofe is requesting communications between U of A scientists and those at the CRU--and the "and its subject matter" bit can only mean that he is requesting all documents and records pertaining to climatology done at the U of A, from all labs!

The letters sent to Overpeck and Hughes were clearly both showboating and a smear. The stolen e-mails not imply a single act of wrongdoing by either man, but Inhofe's letters serve a way to imply that their activities are suspect without making an accusation.

The request for all information, however, is clearly nothing but an harassment tactic, designed to prevent scientists from spending their time doing science. Can the "legal eagles" clarify to what extent this request must actually be met?

Overpeck and Hughes are both holding their own in the Daily Star. Those who bother to read can confirm: no wrongdoing here.

If you stop at "We need to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period", yes, it looks bad, but stopping there is simply lazy. When reputations are at stake due diligence is a moral obligation. That's something Inhofe doesn't understand. (And I'd love to see him cross the line to libel, so Overpeck can sue him off the planet!) Overpeck makes due diligence easy:

Overpeck said last week that he had searched through his e-mails dating back a decade, and could find none like Deming referred to. Overpeck pointed out that he has written papers dating to the late 1990s saying that various records, including tree rings, stretching back 1,200 years, confirm earlier assertions that the Medieval period was warmer than today in the North Atlantic and northern Europe — but not globally.
"My papers are the record of fact, and in this case, I obviously did not try to get rid of the MWP," Overpeck said. "Instead, I have tried hard to be clear what it likely was and was not."

As I said: no scandal here, just a mal fide twisting of a scientist's words, a treatment of informal private communications as though they trump what Overpeck actually contributed to the scientific record.

If any Arizona scientist ought to be investigated regarding climate it's probably ASU's Robert Balling. Funding sources do not necessarily or even usually control scientific outcomes, but there are clear tail-wags-dog cases, like Fred Singer and the late Fred Seitz, who went from tobacco denialism to ozone hole denialism to global warming denialism. Balling doesn't publish his arguments against the scientific consensus (meaning, consensus of those with current scientific arguments) in the meaningful sense of "publish" but spends an awful lot of time directing them at a noncritical public. Just what is it that the Western Fuels Association pays him to do?

Balling, of course, will never be investigated by Inhofe, because he's a "skeptic". "Skeptic" in Oklahoman must mean "one who disagrees", without the implications of reason, caution, and modesty that the word usually carries. A skeptic, and most scientists are skeptics, who agrees with the only position compatible with what we know now--as Overpeck does--doesn't count. Being a real skeptic, that gets your research interrupted by a showboating Senator who has an ideological or psychopathological beef with the implications of your work.

No word yet on whether Inhofe's request for anything and everything pertaining to climatology has yet hampered research at the U of A. But Arizona taxpayers and donors to the U should be mad as hell. Being a U.S. Senator shouldn't mean that your peculiar form of crazy be nursed, in the form of a frivolous investigation, at the expense of a university.

Have questions? Readers should follow the instructions in Inhofe's letters and direct them to (202) 224-6176.