'Judithgate' Update

The evolving 'Judithgate' 'consensus of one' 'solargate' 'scandal' has gone viral worldwide with Klimaskeptik.cz now hosting an English version of the original post along with new supporting materials. Included are the original quotes and a letter from astrophysicist Richard C. Willson (head of the ACRIM satellites):

Fröhlich [and co-author Judith Lean] made unauthorised and incorrect adjustments...  He did it without any detailed knowledge of the  ACRIM1 instrument or on-orbit performance...The only obvious purpose was to devise a TSI composite, that agreed with the predictions of Lean's TSI proxy model.

And from Douglas Hoyt (the famous inventor of GSN - Group Sunspot Number indicator) - who agrees with Willson. Klimaskeptic.cz:"The graph tampering done by Judith [Lean] and Claus [Frohlich}was scientifically unjustified. Hoyt must know that. The questionable changes were done to the data from the Nimbus 7 satellite, where he used to be in charge."

Nicola Scafetta. Climate Change and Its Causes - A Discussion About Some Key Issues. (Presented at EPA, Feb 2009) Source 

From astrophysicist Douglas Hoyt's letter regarding the paper by Lean and Frolich: "Thus, Frohlich’s PMOD TSI composite is not consistent with the internal data or physics of the Nimbus7 cavity radiometer."

Klimaskeptic background material on the "incorrect" adjustments Lean and Frohlich applied to the ACRIM satellite data: (Google translation)



Fellow Czech blogger & physicist Luboš Motl (The Reference Frame) has a post stating

This is a typical story showing the character of the [IPCC] "consensus".

Whenever there are questions that really matter, the IPCC minimizes the number of people who have something to say about the subject. The goal is clear, the small number of authors (in this case, a single author) are expected to say that nothing aside from CO2 really matters - so that the important question isn't even discussed. This task for Ms Lean was determined from the very beginning: after all, this task is what the IPCC is all about. She was selected for her ability to fulfill this task in a disciplined way which is what she has done, indeed.

Joe D'Aleo (Icecap.us) has linked the story to his 2007 essay Shining More Light on the Solar Factor, A Discussion of the Problems with the Royal Society Paper by Lockwood and Frohlich:.:

Claus Frohlich, meanwhile, constructed a composite time series from satellite observations of total solar irradiance (TSI) made since the late 1970's. His composite, the so-called 'PMOD' model, modifies the published results of the Numbus7/ERB and ACRIM1 science teams to provide better agreement with the predictions of a statistical model by Judith Lean based on linear regressions against solar emission and absorption line proxies for TSI.  (emphasis added)