By Roger Pielke Sr. on Climate Science Weblog

Lucia Liljegren at the Blackboard has a post Enemies caught in action! with an image depicting several individuals including me [thanks to Lucia for her post!]. The source of this juvenile presentation was in a an e-mail from Tom Peterson to Phil Jones in 2007.

The communication of this reads in part

From: “thomas.c.peterson” To: Phil Jones Subject: [Fwd: Marooned?] Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:10:02 -0500

Warm regards,
Tom

The more serious concern is that both Phil Jones and Tom Peterson have been involved at the highest levels in the assessment of climate science. Phil Jones, for example, was on a National Research Council Committee that reviewed a draft of first CCSP report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”.  Tom Peterson, of the National Climate Data Center, was one of the members of the CCSP Committee. 

During the CCSP Committe process, I completed two reports

Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2005: Minority Report, Comments Provided to the NRC Review Committee of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program’s Synthesis and Assessment Product on Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere. Atmospheric Science Bluebook No. 758, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, 8 pp.

Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2005: Public Comment on CCSP Report ”Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”. 88 pp including appendices.

In the second report, I wrote

“The process that produced the report was highly political, with the Editor taking the lead in suppressing my perspectives, most egregiously demonstrated by the last-minute substitution of a new Chapter 6 for the one I had carefully led preparation of and on which I was close to reaching a final consensus. Anyone interested in the production of comprehensive assessments of climate science should be troubled by the process which I document below in great detail that led to the replacement of the Chapter that I was serving as Convening Lead Author.”

The Editor of this report is Thomas R. Karl, Director of the National Climate Data Center; the supervisor of Tom Peterson at NCDC.

The perspective that Tom Peterson illustrates in his communication to Phil Jones clearly illustrates that he is unable to present a balanced assessment of the climate science issues. Moreover, he does not even accurately understand that I am not a “climate skeptic”.

My view is clearly summarized in our recent EOS article

Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union

where we concluded the scientific evidence supports the view that “Although the natural causes of climate variations and changes are undoubtedly important, the human influences are significant and involve a diverse range of first- order climate forcings, including, but not limited to, the human input of carbon dioxide (CO2). Most, if not all, of these human influences on regional and global climate will continue to be of concern during the coming decades.”

Tom Peterson’s e-mail is not only juvenile but incorrectly communicates my view of the climate issue.

See this report here and other comments on the whistleblower’s emails here.

Icecap Note: My favorite summary of this issue so far from a friend “This suggests fraud on such a massive scale that its makes Bernie Madoff look like he was robbing convenient stores.” Another meteorological friend, Pete Leavitt, commented on the misdirected attention in some of the media on the whisteblower instead of the fraud. He noted that the job of the media is at times to be whistleblowers but it appears “they swallowed their whistle”.  The right of freedom of speech gives them the power to inform and persuade but not the power to compel. When you do so, you cross the line from freedom to tyranny.