I “hardly” see anything which seems damning at all — Michael Mann

UPDATE:

The headline is from here.

MPaul has an excellent email in #1 below.

————

Phil Jones on the deletion of emails:

date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:51:44 +0200
from: Manola Brunet
subject: Re: Omar’s email
to: P.Jones@uea.ac.uk

<x-flowed>
Hola Phil,

Had a smooth trip, almost everything run on time but Brits trains, as
usual, and I just got to Exeter. So replying from the B&B (quite basic
place to stay overnight, but well) and keen to sightseeing into town 🙂

For me is clear that likely Omar is the only one in WCDMP working in
several fronts and lines of activity, and MEDARE is just one of his
responsibilities. My guess is he didn’t sent at the end in early summer
the official letters of invitation to de PRs, although I can’t be sure
of this because I recall an email from Serhat Sensoy asking me if
another colleague from his office could attend the meeting. I’ll look at
my  email and PC folders to see if I can find any prove of WMO
invitation letters to this WS. Perhaps he’s right and although he had
got the agreement of the local organisers (Malta’s PR), he didn’t send
such letters. If so, still worse because he had plenty of time to do it
(remember our exchange of emails among the SG and I, that they got you
fed up). Another possibility (I think this is more correct) is he spent
the money he got in Jan/Feb 2009 for organising the WS and now has to
ask again for more money! Well, both explanations: Omar is snowed under
work or he run out of money, can be right, but it’s clear he didn’t
realise people have other things to do and have Agendas. I’m
particularly tired of this kind of informality. Yes, please, try to make
Omar understand that he can’t use (dispose) of people’s time !! I was,
and still am, upset with Omar in particular and with WMO in general.
There is no way such stile of working!

[[[redacted: chitchat]]]
[[[original email about deleting appears deleted]]]

P.Jones@uea.ac.uk escribió:
>  Hola Manola,
>     I’ve saved emails at CRU and then deleted them from the server. Now
> I’m at home I just have some hard copies.  I also don’t understand why
> he can’t do anything till Dec 09 and then he has already invited
> people? Dec 09 will likely be too late for some people as meeting
> would be in Jan or early Feb as CCL is in late Feb – or it was when he
> invited me earlier! This is always the same at WMO – leaving things
> till they are too late. In GCOS we have someone who has finally
> understood that people have agendas, so everything is planned months
> in advance – even with flight booking!
>
>  Off to GVA tomorrow for IPCC – they also plan well in advance. I’ll look
> out for Omar!

[[[redacted: chitchat]]]

We shouldn’t forget the history of climategate 1.0.  Recall the discussion about whether emails were or were not deleted?

Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise… Can you also email Gene [Wahl] and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise.
Cheers, Phil

But there is more relevent info on the record as well

But in a surprising new turn of events, it seems that VC Acton sort-of did what Muir Russell was supposed to do – ask Jones whether he had deleted emails. The Guardian reports Acton’s testimony as follows:

Prof Phil Jones told the University of East Anglia’s boss that he did not delete any of the emails that were released from the university last November, despite apparently saying he would in one of those emails.

In the narrowest sense, the very existence of the Climategate emails seems to show that, whatever Jones may or may not have attempted to do, he had not deleted the emails that survived on the back up server.

Phil Jones of Climategate 1 testified:

Phil Jones comments on questions concerning deletion of emails

Mon, 26 Jul 2010

“As I have said on a number of occasions I do delete emails from time to time – this is usually as part of a regular clear out but sometimes as I go along”.

“Most people seem to do the same to keep their email account manageable and because we are regularly reminded when storage space on our email system is nearly full”.

“There is also an environmental and economic cost to storing emails so it seems to me that it is not good practice just to keep everything”

“It would be very difficult to guess what might be asked for in future so I don’t go around deleting emails just because they might be asked for at some point.”

“I have previously confirmed that I have never knowingly deleted an email that was the subject of an active Freedom of Information request and neither have I deleted data”.

Then there is this new email 2440 by Jones:

One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process. Hard to do, as not everybody will remember to do it.

Tim Osborne says it as clearly as even I could:

date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 19:49:18 -0000 (GMT)
from: “Tim Osborn” <t.osborn@uea.ac.uk>
subject: RE: FW: FOI_08-50 ; EIR_08-01
to: “Jones Philip Prof” <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>

Hi Phil!

re. your email to Dave Palmer [which he copied in his response to you and
cc’d to me, Keith & Michael McGarvie, and which has hence already been
multiply copied within the UEA system, and therefore will probably exist
for a number of months and possibly years, and could be released under FOI
if a request is made for it during that time!]… I assume that you didn’t
delete any emails that David Holland has requested (because that would be
illegal) but that instead his request merely prompted you to do a spring
clean of various other emails that hadn’t been requested, as part of your
regular routine of deleting old emails.  If that is what you meant, then
it might be a good idea to clarify your previous email to Dave Palmer, to
avoid it being misunderstood. 🙂

The way things seem to be going, I think it best if we discuss all FOI,
EIR, Data Protection requests in person wherever possible, rather than via
email.  It’s such a shame that the skeptics’ vexatious use of this
legislation may prevent us from using such an efficient modern technology
as email, but it seems that if we want to have confidential discussions
then we may need to avoid it.

I shall delete this email and those related to it as part of my regular
routine of deleting old emails!

Cheers

Tim

Ok.  I’m tired of looking for today.  Can anyone else find any record of deleted emails by Jones et all of em? In my opinion, it is nearly impossible that Jones was forthright with the investigations at this point.