Climategate 2.0 and Me

Back in 2005 I wrote a paper for AEI entitled “Climate Change Science: Time for ‘Team B?’”, which argued that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was so badly politicized that the time had come to emulate the famous CIA Team B assessment of the Soviet Union in the 1970s:

A genuinely independent climate assessment process would need to build from the ground up, recruiting a team wholly independent of the IPCC’s personnel, and funded adequately to conduct original research, computer modeling, and consultations on a scale similar to the IPCC. Congress might consider earmarking a portion of current climate science appropriations for a competitive effort, perhaps in collaboration with Australia, Russia, Italy, Japan, and other nations that have expressed reservations about the Kyoto process.

Well, well, well—my idea turns up in one of new batch of Climategate emails released last week.  Just a week after my piece appeared, Phil Jones, the ringleader of the East Anglia cabal, wrote to Susan Solomon, a NOAA scientist who was the head of U.S. climate change research at the time, apparently nervous about the idea:

Susan,

In case you’ve not seen this, look at Item 4 [my AEI article]. Some of the other items are interesting re Mike Mann, but less relevant. A rival IPCC (their Team B).  They seem to not realise we’re doing an assessment and not a review! Surprised by Zillman’s quote. It is likely out of context as Francis Zwiers one was in the WSJ on the hockey stick. . .

Not sure what Jones means by saying “They seem not to realize we’re doing an assessment and not a review,” as my piece specifically discussed this difference.  But perhaps he didn’t read it very closely.  More interesting is the implication that a “rival” process would present a threat to their circle.

I’m still making my way through as many of the new emails as I can, and will have much more to say about the new batch next week.

Meanwhile: have a look at this New Scientist article just out yesterday, finding that climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide is likely overestimated.  Surprise, surprise.

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