February 8, 2010
NIWA quits charade, admits papers were lost
The Climate Conversation Group (CCG) said this morning that NIWA’s confession that it lost the Schedule of Adjustments (SOA) for the official New Zealand temperature record is the latest event in a long-running scandal.
Richard Treadgold, Convenor of the CCG, says he posted a fresh article on the Climate Conversation web site that brings the story up to date. “It will correct misconceptions in many quarters,” said Mr Treadgold, “and should be especially useful for the many NIWA supporters around the country.”
He explained: “When the CCG and the NZ Climate Science Coalition (CSC) asked NIWA for the SOA for the official New Zealand temperature record, NIWA did everything they possibly could to help us, except hand over the adjustments. They now tell us they didn’t hand them over because they didn’t have them.”
“It’s particularly annoying,” said Mr Treadgold, “because we thought at first we were on course to get the adjustments, so we searched everywhere they told us to search. It was all a waste of our time. Our scientists find it hard to believe that real scientists would do something like that; you know, send fellow scientists on a wild goose chase. They are quite angry.”
According to Mr Treadgold, the emails NIWA referred to didn’t come from NIWA, weren’t sent to the CSC and didn’t contain the promised adjustments — “apart from that, they were perfect,” he said, with a strong tone of irony. “None of the scientific papers that NIWA cited in their impressive-sounding press releases contained the actual adjustments either. It was all a pack of lies.”
The main objective of their temperature study (published last November), Mr Treadgold said, “was not to show that the raw data has been tampered with, even though that opinion was emphasised and cannot yet be excluded. It was actually to obtain the SOA. Our objective was achieved upon NIWA’s lawyer Tim Mahood’s admission in writing to the CSC on 29 January that NIWA does not hold copies of the original worksheets. Our study is a complete success.”
That might sound odd, because they still don’t have the SOA, but Mr Treadgold explains that “it means the end of 30 years of unexplained refusal. They have finally responded in the manner of courteous scientists.”
He says Principal Scientist David Wratt is now strangely quiet and lets the company lawyer speak for him. Mr Treadgold asks: “Will David come out of his office and apologise to us, or will he make someone else do it for him?”
The full story is posted at the Climate Conversation Group web site, at
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/ /2010/02/niwa-loses-opts-for-fresh-start/
ENDS
440 words
Contact:
Richard Treadgold 09-479-3396
Email: richard@climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz
