| After
several requests by visitors to this website for details of the two
emails which were sent by Phil Jones of CRU, demanding withdrawal of the
articles about recent errors in CRU hemispheric temperatures, the following
exchange of emails was made via a very large CC (110 addressees), with
both of Jones' emails signed in his official capacity as professor at
CRU.
The full CC list is
not shown because most of the addresses are not involved in the
controversy and therefore their details have not been included here.
The emails are given
in date order (those from Phil Jones in blue and from John Daly in brown. Quoted text is shown with a `>' and coloured red)
Subject: Re: PHYSICAL SCIENCE: climate mensuration
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 16:39:21 +0100
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: daly@john-daly.com,
CC: <110 addressees>
Dear John and All,
This is now my second attempt to remove myself from this email list !
Also John, remove what you have on your web site about the CRU cock-up. All is now sorted. No data manipulation has occurred. No numbers have been
altered, just a small piece of code in a program that extracts my files.
I find it amazing and deplorable that you have posted a personal email from me.
I never gave you permission to do this. Remove it immediately. If anyone
else on this group thinks that putting up my personal email to John and a few others
is an honest way to conduct business then you'll probably be happy to stay on. Otherwise,
I would consider you position.
By the way there aren't 40 people in CRU - there are just 15 on the
research staff. All the others are students or support staff. At the moment because it is
August there are only 7 of the 15 here and the web manager is away. We still haven't
solved the problem entirely - that will await his return and the next update at the end of
August.
Also we are not a public body. I suppose the University might be
classed as one, but we are under no obligation to our funding bodies to put the data on
our web site. We do it to try and enable users to get the data without having to
interact with us too much. Why should we bother when we get pilloried for a minor access problem.
So, this is all a storm in a teacup. A complete waste of your time
John. Please remove the page and remove me from your email list. Also get back to discussing
something useful.
Regards
Phil
At 01:10 16/08/01 +1000, John L. Daly wrote:
>Dear colleagues
>
>The full story of the CRU stuff-up, as best as I can determine it, is
now available at
>
>www.john-daly.com/cru/index.htm
>
>Cheers
>
>John Daly
>
>--
>John L. Daly
>`Still Waiting For Greenhouse'
>http://www.john-daly.com
>
>replies to: daly@john-daly.com
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: PHYSICAL SCIENCE: climate mensuration
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 07:05:05 +1000
From: "John L. Daly" <daly@john-daly.com>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
CC: <110 addressees>
Phil Jones wrote:
> Also John, remove what you have on your web site about the CRU cock-up. All
> is now sorted. No data manipulation has occurred. No numbers have been
> altered, just a small piece of code in a program that extracts my files.
I never said there had been manipulation. The error was minor and one any of us could make and do make. What was major was CRU's inability to
see it for 2 weeks or so. Numbers *have* been altered. I have the files to prove it. The alterations were not to the monthly averages (as
I pointed out), but to the 2001 hemispheric averages - "just a small piece of code" maybe, then again most of your numbers could be described
that way.
> I find it amazing and deplorable that you have posted a personal
> email from me.
It was not a personal email. There were other recipients, including someone at the British Met Office, none of whom I know personally or had
any dealings with. You also made a veiled accusation against me in that email. That makes it public domain since any of those recipients could
have sent the email on to others. I only treat one-on-one emails as confidential and personal.
> I never gave you permission to do this. Remove it immediately.
You don't give orders - not outside CRU anyway. An email to multiple recipients does not require permission for reproduction.
> By the way there aren't 40 people in CRU - there are just 15 on the
> research staff.
It's your website, not mine. You sport 40-odd people in your staff photo and staff list. The error I highlighted could have been spotted by
even the most junior staff. Perhaps you should check your website more often, not just the data part.
> All the others are students or support staff. At the moment because it is
> August there are only 7 of the 15 here and the web manager is away.
Which is another way of saying CRU is not up to the job any more if you are understaffed?
> Also we are not a public body. I suppose the University might be
> classed as one, but we are under no obligation to our funding bodies
> to put the data on our web site.
Since CRU's data is given a lot of credibility (unjustified in my view) by the IPCC and some governments, you *are* a public body knee-deep in
the GW controversy, and your university affiliation makes CRU definitely
a public body. If you get involved in public affairs, you become
accountable to the wider public and open to adverse criticism when your work falls short.
Since many sceptics have to deal with accusations of funding, it would be interesting to know who exactly is funding CRU if it is not the
taxpayer.
> So, this is all a storm in a teacup. A complete waste of your time
The storm is coming mostly from you. And my time is mine to waste.
> Also get back to discussing something useful.
Quality control, or lack of, is a serious matter when the data thus produced is used to shape public policy affecting billions of people.
John Daly
--
John L. Daly
`Still Waiting For Greenhouse'
http://www.john-daly.com
replies to: daly@john-daly.com
Subject: Re: PHYSICAL SCIENCE: climate mensuration
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:22:39 +0100
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: daly@john-daly.com
CC: <110 addressees>
Dear John,
Remove my personal email from your web site. Also I would like you to
remove all the pages on this recent incident. I am not going to get into a
slanging match with you anymore. I know how many people work in CRU. I know that our web site
has a few who are only loosely related. Students come and go and we have several
attached academics from within the University and outside.
IPCC choose to use the CRU dataset. I do not force it upon them. By
the way it isn't just the CRU dataset. The work is undertaken jointly the Hadley Centre of
the UK Met. Office. As I have said before I have been to only one meeting related to
the 2001 IPCC report (in 1999 if I remember correctly). I made suggestions for work to
include but wrote none of the words.
I can see why several people have left recently when the standard of
emails drops to this sort of level. You should be discussing the science more as
<name omitted> said a few weeks ago.
Phil
<previous email from John Daly reproduced here>
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: PHYSICAL SCIENCE: climate mensuration
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 17:03:09 +1000
From: "John L. Daly" <daly@john-daly.com>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
CC: <110 addressees>
Phil Jones wrote:
> Remove my personal email from your web site. Also I would like you to
> remove all the pages on this recent incident.
No.
Nothing I have said is defamatory as my it is comprised of proven fact and what Australian law calls `fair comment' based on those facts (my
remarks on quality control etc.). Australian law also allows `robust debate' on matters of public interest (and GW is a matter of `public
interest'), so where an issue is covered by that provision, even normal defamation laws do not apply. Besides, there was no defamation anyway
in either of my articles.
As for your email giving your account of what happened to the CRU data, that went to several recipients, one of them at the UK Met Office, and
one to a US media site. You did not indicate it was confidential, and you signed it in your capacity as professor in the Climatic Research
Unit, not in your personal capacity. That made it an official email and
therefore perfectly quotable. It also included a veiled accusation against me (that I was accusing CRU of deliberate manipulation etc.), to
which I have every right to reply to by whatever medium is available to me - in this case my website.
In effect, what you are demanding is censorship and suppression of my freedom of speech on a matter of public interest.
That I will not do.
John Daly
--
John L. Daly
`Still Waiting For Greenhouse'
http://www.john-daly.com
replies to: daly@john-daly.com
|
