A whopper from Andrew Montford who casually declares 'a finding that "hide the decline" was "misleading" .
Hang on a minute , I thought the enquiry into the CRU hack had cleared climate scientists over dishonestly manipulating data.
To climate geeks the three most contested words in the english language are probably "hide the decline". *Skeptics* tend to say it refers to a decline in temperatures (indeed they even managed to doctor the original email and get it broadcast on the BBC, but that's another tale) , whilst the author of the phrase Dr Phil Jones says it refers to inaccuracies in modern tree ring data. Now Monty is giving us a different definition.
We can check the allegation 1, and the all important finding 2 . There is no 'finding that "hide the decline" was "misleading"'. That statement relies on the temperature graph on a 1999 World Meteorological Organization Report being synonymous with 'hide the decline' . Muir Russell did have a criticism of the graph , and the 'hide the decline' email was clearly about the graph on the WMO Report. We know that because the subject of that email was Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement. But Muir Russell did not say that "hide the decline" was "misleading". Why do climate *skeptics* find this so difficult?
Interpretation is at the heart of the climategate dispute. If Montford can't stop himself playing fast and loose with the wording of the Muir Russell Report could he be misinterpreting the original emails too?
1 Muir Russell Chapter 7 Paragraph 9
2 Muir Russell Chapter 7 Paragraph 26
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Hmmm seems you are playing fast and loose with it. There has been good research on this and the Muir Russell Report is not worth the paper its written on.
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