ClimateGate review 'funded by University of East Anglia' and therefore not an independent study

• BBC: "The review has been funded by UEA"...

That fact doesn't preoccupy the BBC.

• How would they view an oil company funding and staffing an 'independent review' of its own claim forcing a multi-trillion dollar global industry, the overtaking of governments, citizens, and families in perpetuity?

The BBC and the panel are in full knowledge that much CRU data has been lost or thrown out. Obviously all current data is therefore invalid. Is it not either insane or criminally complicit to avoid this conclusion? Who will speak up for the people in this huge fraud? Following, the BBC ignores all of this.

• BBC: "But the BBC understands the panel has taken a hard look at CRU methodology.

It is thought to have focused on statistical methods used by the CRU and the way uncertainties inherent in climate science may have been down-played by government bodies."...

• from 4/13/10 report, "'Climategate' panel set to report" by Roger Harrabin

BBC: "The second of three reviews into hacked climate e-mails from the University of East Anglia (UEA) is set to be released later.

It has examined scientific papers published over 20 years by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the heart of the e-mail controversy."...

• To the BBC: No. They may have some papers going back 20 years, but it is a matter of record that they have lost or discarded many as you note in this article. Missing data cannot be reviewed for accuracy.
  

BBC, continuing: "The panel was nominated by the Royal Society, and climate sceptics forecast it would defend establishment science.

• But the BBC understands the panel has taken a hard look at CRU methodology.

• It is thought to have focued on statistical methods used by the CRU and the way uncertainties inherent in climate science may have been down-played by government bodies."

To the BBC: Why wouldn't the BBC want to establish a judge's credentials? Why would you dismiss that crucial task and ascribe its interest to a group you see as fringe 'sceptics?' You rely on "understanding" and "thought" rather than fact on this issue. Why should anyone accept that? Why do you even have a job?

BBC: continuing: "Global picture

The review has been funded by UEA and chaired by Lord Oxburgh, a former academic and industry scientist.

The chair has been challenged over his other interests. Lord Oxburgh is currently president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and chairman of wind energy firm Falck Renewables.

Critics say clean energy companies would benefit from policies to tackle climate change. But Lord Oxburgh insists the panel did not have a pre-conceived view. "

• To the BBC: That's enough for you, that the judge says he's ok, so it's ok with you?
  

BBC, continuing: "The panel includes Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, who has been examining the way CRU used statistical methodology to develop an average annual global temperature.

It is easy to get a measurement precise in space and time from an individual weather station -

• albeit with uncertainties attached.

But some countries have many weather stations while others have very few, and there are large areas of the Earth with

• no surface measurements at all.

So to build up a global picture by assigning a proper statistical weighting to the importance of the various measurements is a

• notoriously challenging task.

Climate sceptics say CRU's statistical methods have been inadequate, and it is thought the Oxburgh panel will look at this issue.

However, if the panel follows the recent House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report

into the e-mails it will conclude that the scientists involved had no intention to deceive."

• To the BBC: You acknowledge but fail to examine uncertainties, complete absence of weather stations, and shucks the work is notoriously challenging. Fine. Then why was its data used in a UN report submitted for a Nobel Prize, and a blueprint to overtake entire nations and their citizenry without a peep from you?
  

BBC, continuing: "Different practices

The Oxburgh panel also studied how the CRU acknowledged

• unavoidable scientific uncertainties in its work,
  

especially over research into the Medieval Warm Period.

Climate sceptics complain that the summary reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) do not always properly reflect the uncertainties defined in the underlying science, and the panel may comment on this.

It is also understood that members of the panel have remarked on the difference in practice between university science and industry science.

Many climate sceptics in the blogosphere are former industry scientists. In industry it is

• routine for original scientific research data to be archived by a records team and kept safe for as long as it might prove useful.

University scientists, on the other hand, are said to be have been more used to a culture in which

• notes are kept until papers are peer-reviewed -
  

• but then are filed in a less rigorous fashion."

To the BBC: You acknowledge files and papers are routinely discarded as a matter of custom. How can you substantiate this work? How can you keep your job as a reporter? Would you let an oil company get away with this, "well it's ok because we say so and you just shut up?"

• BBC, continuing: "This is an area where the House of Commons committee said that academic science needed to improve - particularly in an issue as contentious as climate change."

To the BBC: Fine, if they want to "improve" in the future. All data to date must be kept but viewed as inaccurate.

BBC, continuing: "Members of the panel

• are said to have
  

cross-examined CRU researchers for a total of 15 man-days.

The final review to be published will be the review headed by Sir Muir Russell, which will, among other things investigate whether the scientists manipulated data."

• Sure. ed.
  

"The panel, whose members were appointed by the university"...TimesOnlineUK