Mann cleared (almost)

No great surprise to anyone who's been following the CRU email saga, but the internal inquiry set up by Penn State (apparently in response to being deluged with emails from frothing septics) have all-but cleared Mann of any wrongdoing. The lengthy report (here) listed 4 "synthesized allegations" that were put to him:

1. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data?

2. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?

3. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to you in your capacity as an academic scholar?

4. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities?

1-3 were answered emphatically in the negative, and with reference to the "deleted emails", it is worth noting that Mann actually produced a fat file of the emails that he was asked to delete. Not that it will stop the frothing. He must have deleted the one with Obama's Kenyan birth certificate!

Question 4 was not answered so decisively, and they decided to "further consider this allegation":

An investigatory committee of faculty members with impeccable credentials will consider this matter and present its findings and recommendations to Dr. Henry C. Foley within 120 days of being charged.

Based on what has been dredged out of the emails, it seems to me that Mann actually comes over pretty well. Eg, contrary to the claims that he abused his position as IPCC author to promote his own research, he seems to have gone out of his way to ensure the presentation was widely supported. There are a handful of messages that other writers may not be especially proud of, so especially in the context of "seriously deviated from accepted practices" it has to be odds-on that the last allegation will be disposed with fairly easily.

[jules' pics] 2/04/2010 06:26:00 PM

winter blossoms, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

kawazuzakura (early cherry, pink)
roubai (yellow wax plum)
ume (plum - actually a kind of apricot - white and pink)

How to identify cherry blossom: the flowers grow in clusters on stems out from the tree branch and each petal has a little divot in its outer edge. In contrast, plum (ume) and crab apple (boke) and their relations have flowers which appear to be directly attached to the branches, and the outer edges have no divot. ..there may of course be exceptions... but now you need never again be embarrassed by exclaiming "oo lovely cherry blossom" at an ume tree, as so many visitors shamefully do. Or conversely "oo lovely ume" at the kawazuzakura trees at the front of Kamakura-gu, as several little ladies were doing last weekend...

Identifying the trees when not in bloom: if you see a really old looking tree with broken bark and twisted branches, sometimes quite dark in colour, held together with string, that's probably ume. Cherry trees are typically more robust and youthful looking. Whether this is partly because the cherry are municipally planted by city workers, and replaced when they get fragile, rather than nurtured by loving gardeners for decades, I am not sure - but I think it is just the way the two trees grow.

[all pics taken by j and J in Kamakura in January]

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 2/04/2010 06:26:00 PM

We're still popular

I know it's a bit pathetic and needy to mention it, but I haven't had time to write a proper blog so I might as well fill the void by noting that we are now up to number 3 on the Geophysical Research Letters-Most Popular Articles list :-)

[jules' pics] 2/03/2010 10:07:00 PM

Japanese German Hotdog, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

More James food. This basil sausage hotdog seemed like a good idea, after a hard morning's ume viewing.

The Japanese learned both sausage and beer from the Germans, and I suppose they learned takeaway and hotdogs from the Americans. Only problem is that takeaway doesn't really work in Japan because people don't eat in public, at least not standing up - apart from ice creams perhaps, or in places where there are lots of food stalls an most people are eating. Luckily the Japanese also think food is just as good cold as hot, which gives them time to go somewhere discreet. Not so us: we ate our funny looking hotdogs outside a bijou art gallery selling paintings for prices with several too many zeros. Oh dear, another faux pas...

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 2/03/2010 10:07:00 PM

[jules' pics] 2/02/2010 08:36:00 PM

plum blossom 梅 うめ, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

The runner-up ume blossom on flickr was also taken at Tokeiji, in Kita-Kamakura, but for this one I used my 6.5 foot jointed and extendable bipod with internal stabilisation. These bipods are so cool - if you can get them positioned properly - sometimes it is almost like they have a mind of their own. An additional feature of the bipod is that, with the flick of a few meatballs, it can easily be adapted to carry flat pack furniture.

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 2/02/2010 08:36:00 PM

[jules' pics] 2/01/2010 09:07:00 PM

plum blossom 梅 うめ, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

I could keep people bored for many days with piccies of ume blossom... So that many days becomes just a few I let Flickr decide which are the better ones. This one is winning with: 10 views, 2 comments and 1 favourite... (I have no illusions of grandeur - on Flickr, good pics by good photographers get 100s of views and comments :-) )

[Photo taken at Tokeiji, Kita-Kamakura which is famous for its ume blossom. They were not fully out last weekend so go and visit in teh next couple of weeks!]

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 2/01/2010 09:07:00 PM

[jules' pics] 1/31/2010 11:32:00 PM

simultaneous flowering, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

My habit is to remark on it being a good or bad year for a particular bloom, or leaf colour, or berry, and James' habit is to reply with cruel sarcasm to the effect that I couldn't possibly have any idea or even remember what last year was like let alone have any idea of the botanical long term mean state on which to base my judgement. So I was quite surprised when he asked me if I thought perhaps it was a good year for ume. Maybe it is the contrast with last year, which was quite poor for ume blossom, but the branches do seem thick with flowers.

The white is plum blossom (ume, 梅, うめ) and the yellow the somewhat earlier flowering wax plum (robai). Photo taken in Kita-Kamakura.

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 1/31/2010 11:32:00 PM

Adapt or die

There's an interesting article in Climatic Change which looks at temperature-related mortality in England and Wales in recent decades. They use detection-and-attribution methods to look at the influence of climate change and adaptation.

Given the lengthy introduction citing numerous hyperbolic warnings about the primarily negative and potentially disastrous health effects anticipated due to climate change, it is mildly amusing (though hardly surprising to anyone familiar with the literature) that they observe that temperature-related mortality has decreased sharply over the interval studied. More interestingly, they find that a major cause of this decrease is not even the warmer winters the UK has seen, but rather better adaptation to cold weather. This of course directly refutes the "optimally adapted" meme, since if that was the case, we would expect to see a decrease rather than the observed increase in tolerance to cold extremes as the winters got warmer. But in reality, wealth and technology (eg insulation, heating and clothing) act to increase our tolerance whether or not the climate changes, although the latter may in theory act as an additional stimulus if it were sufficiently important (which it clearly is not, in the UK).

Of course they have to finish off by talking about increases in heatwaves, wondering "whether adaptation will manage to keep pace with such changes". I think it is patently obvious that it will, and would happily bet against any predictions of increasing temperature-related deaths in coming decades.

[jules' pics] iPad - an iPod for the over forties

Today I am wearing my freshly laundered black turtleneck to celebrate the fact that Steve Jobs is still not dead. And a lot more convincing than Barack Obama he was too. Nevertheless, there are many situations in which my new iPad will remain impractical. For example, this photo was taken by my iPhone just before the train got busy. James is always lucky in these situations as he stands head and iPod above the rest which allows him to breathe.

As for the state of the laundry address: there remain issues to be tackled, but I am only half way through the manual, and laundered items are already showing signs of increased cleanliness and fluffiness, and drying times are dramatically reduced. Only in the next quarter will we know whether the new regime will decrease the water usage resulting in lower water bills.***

***(not that Japan is short of water, of course - I make no pretense that the new machine improves eco-ness in any way)

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 1/27/2010 07:46:00 PM

The new Apple iCovet

Apparently it is being unveiled overnight (Japanese time). No-one knows what it is, or what it does, but like a good fanboy, I obviously need one, even if I don't quite know why yet.

I can hardly sleep.