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, “Wei-Chyung Wang fabricated some scientific claims”, is sent to the Vice President for Research at Wang's university. |
| 31 August 2007 | The university notifies me that it is initiating an inquiry into suspected research misconduct by Wang. (The notification includes a copy of the university's Policy and Procedures on Misconduct in Research and Scholarship.) |
| 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 the Report of the Inquiry Committee. The Committee unanimously concluded that “there was no data” (thus implicitly concluding Wang must have fabricated data) and that a full investigation should be undertaken. |
| 23 May 2008 | The university sends me a notice: the Investigation Committee has completed its work and found no evidence of fraud. The investigation was conducted without interviewing me, which is a violation of the university's policy. The university asks me to comment on the Committee's report; I am, however, not allowed to see the report. |
| 04 June 2008 | The university informs me that I am not allowed to see the report because they did not interview me when preparing it. |
| 06 June 2008 | I submit comments to the university, listing ways in which I believe the university has acted in breach of U.S. regulations and its own policy. |
| 11 July 2008 | I submit a complaint to the Public Integrity Bureau at the Office of the Attorney General of New York State, alleging criminal fraud. |
| 12 August 2008 | The university sends me the determination for its investigation, saying that there is “no evidence whatsoever [of] … any research misconduct”. |
| 07 October 2008 | I telephone the Public Integrity Bureau and am told that it might be some months before the Bureau begins to review the complaint. |
| 17 March 2009 | I telephone the Public Integrity Bureau and am told that the complaint is under review by an attorney. |
| 18 March 2009 | I file three requests under the Freedom of Information Law of New York State: for a copy of the full report by the Inquiry Committee; for a copy of the full report by the Investigation Committee; and, given that the relevant federal funding agencies are required to be notified when a misconduct investigation is initiated, for copies of all such notifications that were sent by the university and pertain to the investigation of Wang. |
| 24 March 2009 | Given that Wang received funding for the fraudulent research from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and that the DOE has since supplied more funding to Wang, I report the fraud and the university's apparent cover up to the Office of Inspector General at the DOE. |
| 04 May 2009 | I file a report, alleging fraud by Wang and possible malfeasance by Vice President Videka, with the Research Foundation of SUNY. |
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 |
| • | Freeborn John |
| • | Gateway Pundit |
| • | Herald Sun: Andrew Bolt |
| • | History News Network: Liberty & Power |
| • | JREF Forum |
| • | Newsbusters |
| • | Scientific Misconduct Blog |
| • | The Reference Frame |
| • | Watts Up With That? [1], [2] |
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. |
Other
| • | Christopher C. Horner, Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed (Washington DC: Regnery Publishing), 2008. [Pages 287–291.] |
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. doi: 10.1260/095830507782616913.
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.)]