Climate Audit is a
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
founded in 2005
by
Steve McIntyre.
In November 2009 journalist
Andrew Revkin
Andrew C. Revkin is an American science and environmental journalist, author and educator. He has written on a wide range of subjects including destruction of the Amazon rain forest, the 2004 Asian tsunami, sustainable development, climate chan ...
described it in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' as "a popular
skeptics
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...
’ blog" run by McIntyre, a retired Canadian mining consultant.
In 2010, a ''Nature'' article described the site as part of the "climate change skeptic community" alongside the Air Vent and Black¬board.
Founding
In 2004
Stephen McIntyre blogged on his website climate2003.com about his efforts with
Ross McKitrick
Ross McKitrick (born 1965) is a Canadian economist specializing in environmental economics and policy analysis. He is a professor of economics at the University of Guelph, and a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute.
McKitrick has authored wor ...
to get an extended analysis of the
hockey stick graph into the journal ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
''.
[ Pearce, Fred, ''The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming'', (2010) ]Guardian Books
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
, , pp. 93–96.[, ]
On 25 October 2004 McIntyre posted comments on climate2003.com about a piece by
William Connolley
William Michael Connolley (born 12 April 1964) is a British software engineer, writer, and blogger on climatology. Until December 2007 he was Senior Scientific Officer in the Physical Sciences Division in the Antarctic Climate and the Earth S ...
circulated on various blogs, and on 26 October wrote, "Maybe I’ll start blogging some odds and ends that I’m working on. I’m going to post up some more observations on some of the blog criticisms."
On 1 December
Michael E. Mann and nine other scientists launched the
RealClimate
''RealClimate'' is a commentary site (blog) on climatology. The site's contributors include climate scientists whose goal is to provide a response to developing stories and a context they feel is sometimes missing in mainstream commentary o ...
website as "a resource where the public can go to see what actual scientists working in the field have to say about the latest issues."
On climate2003.com McIntyre noted this development in a blog post on 10 December, where he wrote "Mann and some of his colleagues have set up a blog at the above address. A couple of Mann's first postings have been arguments against our papers. I'll post up a two quick comments below."
On 2 February 2005 McIntyre set up his Climate Audit blog, having found difficulties with posting comments on the climate2003.com layout.
Judith Curry
Judith A. Curry (born c. 1953) is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, ...
of the
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
has said "McIntyre started the blog climateaudit.org so that he could defend himself against claims being made at the blog Realclimate with regards to his critique of the “hockey stick” since he was unable to post his comments there". She has also referred to this site as one of several "Climate Auditor" websites.
Climatic Research Unit information requests and email controversy
After the
UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) came into effect in 2005, Climate Audit readers were asked to make FOI requests to the
Climatic Research Unit
The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) is a component of the University of East Anglia and is one of the leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change.
With a staff of some thirty research scientists and s ...
(CRU) at the
University of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...
(UEA) for the raw data from
weather station
A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...
s used in developing
instrumental temperature record
The instrumental temperature record is a record of temperatures within Earth's climate based on direct, instrument-based measurements of air temperature and ocean temperature. Instrumental temperature records are distinguished from indirect rec ...
dataset A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more database tables, where every column of a table represents a particular variable, and each row corresponds to a given record of the ...
s, for copies of agreements under which the raw data was obtained from
meteorology institutions, and also for email correspondence relating to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
Fourth Assessment Report
''Climate Change 2007'', the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was published in 2007 and is the fourth in a series of reports intended to assess scientific, technical and soci ...
.
On 12 August 2009, Olive Heffernan wrote in ''
naturenews'' that "Since 2002, Steve McIntyre, the editor of Climate Audit, a blog that investigates the statistical methods used in climate science, has repeatedly asked Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, UK, for access to monthly global surface temperature data held by the institute. But in recent weeks, Jones has been swamped by a sudden surge in demands for data". She described how CRU had received 58 FOIA requests between 24 and 29 July 2009 from McIntyre or others associated with the blog. The raw data was restricted to academics, and the unit's director
Phil Jones said that the data was subject to confidentiality agreements with various governments, but he was seeking agreement to get the raw data available online. He said that “Data release needs to be done in a systematic way.”
The site was one of the first to receive word of the e-mails which had been leaked
from the University of East Anglia with Jonathan Leake of ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' writing, "The storm began with just four cryptic words. 'A miracle has happened,' announced a contributor to Climate Audit, a website devoted to criticising the science of climate change."
Louise Gray wrote in
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
, "Climate Audit was one of the first to post up the stolen emails from the University of East Anglia that led to the 'climategate' scandal".
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...
said of the controversy, "Web sites and blogs including the Climate Audit Mirror Site have carried copies of e-mails, correspondence between climatologists and commentary. In one e-mail cited widely on blogs including Climate Audit, Phil Jones writes about completing “Mike’s nature trick of adding in the real temps” in order to hide the decline."
According to Antonio Regalado writing in ''Science Insider'', Jones wrote e-mails stating that he convinced the university's FOI managers to not release data to "greenhouse skeptics" because Jones believed that they planned to harm the UEA or setback climate science by drawing scientists into disputes, wasting research time.
"Think I've managed to persuade UEA to ignore all further FOIA requests if the people have anything to do with Climate Audit," Jones wrote in 2007.
The
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
' Science and Technology Committee largely vindicated the scientists involved in the scandal, but left consideration of the quality of the science and the conduct of the research to committees chaired by
Lord Oxburgh and
Sir Muir Russell.
Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
said that McIntyre "who also worked at the
IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
and submitted notes to the Science and Technology Committee for its investigation, wrote a lengthy rebuttal of the decision on his blog", and disputed the committee's conclusion that the word ''trick'' "appears to be a colloquialism for a 'neat' method of handling data".
Further investigations by the
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
, the
Inspector General
An inspector general is an investigative official in a civil or military organization. The plural of the term is "inspectors general".
Australia
The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (Australia) (IGIS) is an independent statutory off ...
of the
United States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for bu ...
and the
Office of the Inspector General
In the United States, Office of Inspector General (OIG) is a generic term for the oversight division of a federal or state agency aimed at preventing inefficient or unlawful operations within their parent agency. Such offices are attached to man ...
(OIG) of the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
reaffirmed that the accusations against the scientists were unfounded.
Reception
James Hansen
James Edward Hansen (born March 29, 1942) is an American adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is best known for his research in climatology, his 1 ...
, the former director of NASA's
Goddard Institute
The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is a laboratory in the Earth Sciences Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center affiliated with the Columbia University Earth Institute.
The institute is located at Columbia University in Ne ...
, has dismissed McIntyre as a "court jester".
[Global warming's most dangerous apostate speaks out about the state of climate change science.]
by Anne Jolis, ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', Nov. 18, 2009
"If a single person can be credited with setting the stage for
Climategate
The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (also known as "Climategate") began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) by an external attacker, copying thousa ...
, it's Stephen McIntyre, the retired mining consultant behind the popular skeptic blog Climate Audit," wrote Kate Sheppard at ''
Mother Jones
Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She h ...
'' in 2011.
[Climategate: What Really Happened?]
Mother Jones
Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She h ...
, Apr. 21, 2011 "Emails from this period show the scientists lashing out against McIntyre. He is referred to as a "bozo" and "a playground bully." McIntyre clearly gets a rise out of irking scientists, whom he frequently refers to as 'the Team'—another play on the hockey-stick metaphor. He likes to 'tease these guys and kind of make fun of them,' he says, and their evident aggravation at his inquiries only egged him on. 'I think it was a mistake for them to in effect adopt a fatwa against Climate Audit,' says McIntyre."
[
Patrick J. Michaels, a former contributor to the IPCC and a former fellow at the denialist ]Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Indust ...
, named Climate Audit as part of 'a new “parallel universe” of emerging online publications, manned by serious scientists critical of world governments approach to climate change'. “A parallel universe is assembling itself parallel to the IPCC. This universe has become very technical -- very proficient at taking apart the U.N.’s findings."
Internet voting by the public organized by the Weblog Awards, a right-wing blog sponsored by conservative media group Wizbang LLC, won the website the 2007 Weblog "Best Science Blog" award and it was a runner up in the same category in 2008.
See also
* Global warming controversy
* '' The Hockey Stick Illusion''
* Tree ring
Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...
References
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Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
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''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nat ...
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''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
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''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
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, url-status=dead
External links
ClimateAudit
Science blogs
Climate change denial