A few new speculative details emerged on the plight of Charles Monnett of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE). Via New Scientist:
In 2004, during an aerial survey of bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, Monnett and his colleague Jeffrey Gleason observed four dead polar bears. In 2006, they noted in Polar Biology that these were the first drowned bears seen since the survey began in 1987 – and speculated that such drownings may increase as pack ice retreats.
So what is Monnett being accused of here? Faking the sightings, manipulating data elsewhere? Your guess is as good as mine.
Update from a reader in comments below: Interview with Monnett linked here.
OK, here’s my guess: the sightings were authentic, but Monnett claimed that the bears had drowned without any evidence or consideration of alternative scenarios. Now oil prospectors working for Exxon have found a suicide note in one of the bears’ handwriting. The note says they’re about to do themselves in out of shame over being such a useless drag on human economic progress.
(And your guess really isn’t any better than this?)
This is from an interview with Monnett.
http://www.peer.org
7_28_11_Monnett-IG_interview_transcript.pdf
From p83-84:
==============================
JEFF RUCH:
This is Jeff Ruch. We’ve been at this for an hour and 45 minutes, and I’m curious, are we going to get to the allegations of scientific misconduct or, uh, have – is that what we’ve been doing?
LYNN GIBSON:
Actually, a lot of the questions that we’ve been discussing relate to the allegations.
ERIC MAY:
Right.
JEFF RUCH:
Um, but, uh, Agent May indicated to, um, Paul that he was going to lay out what the allegations are, and we haven’t heard them yet, or perhaps we don’t understand them from this line of questioning.
ERIC MAY:
Well, the scientif- – well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations, uh –
JEFF RUCH:
Wrong numbers and calculations?
ERIC MAY:
Well, what we’ve been discussing for the last hour.
JEFF RUCH:
So this is it?
CHARLES MONNETT:
Well, that’s not scientific misconduct anyway. If anything, it’s sloppy.
I mean, the level of criticism that they seem to have leveled
here, scientific misconduct, uh, suggests that we did something deliberately to deceive or to, to change it. Um, I sure don’t see any indication of that in what you’re asking me about.
ERIC MAY:
No, no, no further comment on my part. We, we’re – I’m just about complete with my – the interview, so –
CHARLES MONNETT:
Really? Oh, good. That’s it?
ERIC MAY:
Like I said, we receive allegations; we investigate.
CHARLES MONNETT:
Don’t you wonder why somebody that can’t even do math is making these allegations and going through this stuff?
ERIC MAY:
Well, let me, let me finish the interview, and then we’ll, we’ll -.
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See page 60 odd for the “can’t do math” bit.
I’m sure this is obvious to most here, but even if Monnett is completely exonerated and reinstated, this episode will have served its purpose for the denialist right: intimidating scientists working in any area related to climate change.