The Dog Ate my Data

I don’t believe anybody has commented on this particularly shocking aspect of the IPCC glacier debacle as reported in the Times:

Times Online

“But Syed Hasnain, the Indian glaciologist erroneously quoted as making the 2035 prediction, said that responsibility had to lie with them. “It is the lead authors — blame goes to them,” he told The Times. “There are many mistakes in it. It is a very poorly made report.”

Professor Hasnain, who was not involved in drafting the IPCC report, said that he noticed some of the mistakes when he first read the relevant section in 2008.

That was also the year he joined The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Dr Pachauri.

He said he realised that the 2035 prediction was based on an interview he gave to the New Scientist magazine in 1999, although he blamed the journalist for assigning the actual date.

He said that he did not tell Dr Pachauri because he was not working for the IPCC and was busy with his own programmes at the time.

“I was keeping quiet as I was working here,” he said. “My job is not to point out mistakes. And you know the might of the IPCC. What about all the other glaciologists around the world who did not speak out?” ”

So, it appears that a scientist who knew the report was rubbish kept quiet because he worked for Pachauri and because you do not point out mistakes if you know the might of the IPCC. This chimes perfectly with the atmosphere of bullying, intimidation and jobs for the boys revealed in the CRU emails.

I am amazed that the grown-ups of the scientific community (mathematicians, physicists, chemists, astronomers etc) seem content to stand back and allow the reputation of science and the scientific method to be trashed in the minds of the general public. It is high time they stepped in and provided some adult supervision.