Following are some remarks about my exposé, “The fraud allegation against some climatic research of Wei-Chyung Wang”.
Wei-Chyung Wang is a professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He has been doing research on climate for over 30 years, and he has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. He has also received an Appreciation Plaque from the Office of Science in the U.S.A., commending him, “For your insightful counsel and excellent science. …”. The plaque resulted in particular from his research on global warming.
I have formally alleged that Wang committed fraud in important parts of his global-warming research. Below is a relevant timeline.
| 03 August 2007 | My report alleging fraud is sent to the Vice President for Research at Wang's university. |
| 31 August 2007 | The university initiates an inquiry into suspected research misconduct by Wang. |
| 12 November 2007 | My exposé on Wang's alleged fraud is published (reference below). |
| 07 December 2007 | Myself and the university's Inquiry Committee have a conference call. |
| 20 February 2008 | The university sends me notification that the inquiry has concluded that a full investigation should be undertaken. (The cover letter adds “This in no way is a conclusion about the merits of the initial allegation”.) |
This web page will be updated with news about the case, as the investigations progress.
Sightings
Media discussion
| • | George Szpiro, “Kreuzzug gegen schlampige Mathematik”, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 October 2007. [English translation here.] |
Media mentions
| • | Michael Duffy, “Cold, hard facts take the heat out of some hot claims”, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 August 2007. |
| • | Jack Kelly, “Global baloney”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 19 August 2007. |
Selected blogs
| • | Climate Audit—on Jones et al. |
| • | DailyTech: Michael Asher |
| • | Gateway Pundit |
| • | History News Network: Liberty & Power |
| • | JREF Forum |
| • | Newsbusters |
| • | The Reference Frame |
| • | Watts Up With That? |
U.S. Senate
| • | Senator James M. Inhofe, “2007: Global warming alarmism reaches a tipping point”, Senate Floor Speech, 26 October 2007. |
| • | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (Minority), “Over 400 prominent scientists disputed man-made global warming claims in 2007”, Senate Report, 20 December 2007. |
See also
| • | Allegations of research misconduct |
| • | Remarks on Keenan [Theor. Appl. Climatol., 2007] |
IPCC (2007), Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (editors—Solomon S., Qin D., Manning M., Chen Z., Marquis M., Averyt K.B., Tignor M., Miller H.L.), Cambridge University Press. [This is the assessment report. Jones is one of the two Coordinating Lead Authors of Chapter 3, on surface climate.]
Jones P.D., Groisman P.Y., Coughlan M., Plummer N., Wang W.-C., Karl T.R. (1990), “Assessment of urbanization effects in time series of surface air temperature over land”, Nature, 347: 169–172. [This is one of the two research papers that relies on the claims that were fabricated by Wang (the other is by Wang et al.); it is cited by IPCC (2007: chap.3).]
Keenan D.J. (2007), “The fraud allegation against some climatic research of Wei-Chyung Wang”, Energy & Environment, 18: 985–995.
Ren G.Y., Chu Z.Y., Chen Z.H., Ren Y.Y. (2007), “Implications of temporal change in urban heat island intensity observed at Beijing and Wuhan stations”, Geophysical Research Letters, 34. doi: 10.1029/2006GL027927. [This argues that a large part of the observed warming in China is due to urbanization effects on measurement.]
Tao Shiyan, Fu Congbin, Zeng Zhaomei, Zhang Qingyun (1991), Two Long-Term Instrumental Climatic Data Bases of the People’s Republic of China, ORNL/CDIAC-47, NDP-039 (Oak Ridge TN: Oak Ridge National Laboratory). [This report resulted from a joint research project by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It contains conclusive evidence that Wang's claims were fabricated. A second version of the report was published in 1997; its Table 1, which contains station histories, is identical to Appendix B in this version.]
Wang W.-C., Zeng Z., Karl T.R. (1990), “Urban heat islands in China”, Geophysical Research Letters, 17: 2377–2380. [This is one of the two research papers that relies on the claims that were fabricated by Wang (the other is by Jones et al.).]
Yan Zhongwei, Yang Chi, Jones P. (2001), “Influence of inhomogeneity on the estimation of mean and extreme temperature trends in Beijing and Shanghai”, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, 18: 309–321. [This demonstrates that, by 2001, Jones knew that some of Wang's claims were untrue. (The meteorological stations studied are #54511 and #58367.)]