JOHN MCLEAN

PhD​

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John McLean graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1979 with a Bachelor of Architecture and then undertook a post-graduate IT course, a field in which he has worked for about 40 years.

 

Dr. McLean has been extracting and analysing climate data since 2004. He was an Expert Reviewer of the IPCC’s 2013 Climate Assessment Report and made the most comments of any reviewer of the second draft of the Working Group I (i.e. the scientific basis) of that report2. He was also an Expert Reviewer of the second order draft of the Working Group I component of the forthcoming IPC AR6. 

Dr. McLean conducted and published (in 2018) the first ever audit of the HadCRUT4 temperature dataset used by the IPCC and others. The audit identified more than 70 problems with the data, ranging in scope from impacts on the data from just one weather station to problems with the entire dataset in all months of the 167 years that the set contained at the time.

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His PhD commenced about 2009 on a part-time basis and he resigned from his employment in January 2016 to complete it on a full-time basis. He found that the HadCRUT4 dataset had replaced the old HadCRUT3 dataset and had to repeat a substantial proportion. In March 2016, he identified three problems in the HadSST3 files3, and after notifying the UK Met Office Hadley Centre, the errors were corrected.

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He was awarded his PhD by James Cook University, Townsville, Australia in December 2017 after his PhD had been externally examined.

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Dr. McLean is also the author of four peer-reviewed papers on climate matters.

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He maintains that theories and opinions about scientific matters should take second place to what observations and data show.