Bishop Hill Climate cuttings 43
Dec 3, 2010 Climate: Cuttings Welcome to another edition of Climate Cuttings, in which I round up some global warming links you may have missed.
First up is Judith Curry, who has had a letter from Congress following up on her earlier testimony. The theme seems to be - do you think we should listen to scientists who don't release their data?
Things don't seem to be going so well for the Campaign against Climate Change, who are suffering, along with many other charities, from a lack of donations.
David Whitehouse, writing at the GWPF site, notes that 2010's claim to exceptional warmth appears to be based largely on the effects of El Nino in the spring.
The UK's Department of Work and Pensions has spent all of its budget for cold weather payments to pensioners already. No doubt the budget was based on a Met Office forecast.
In related news, the country's grit reserve is half the size that is actually required.
UAH's temperature record for November is out, with 2010 running neck and neck with 1998 for hottest year, but the anomaly dropping off fast.
Now we know that the chief finding of the paper was wrong, people want to know if Damian Carrington will correct his puff piece on Steig et al.'s magnum opus on Antarctic temperatures.
Larry Solomon reports that Virginia legislators are drafting a bill to make it a sackable offence to thwart FOI laws.
Tony Newbery picks up on Brian Cox's lecture on TV science coverage and wonders if it presages the findings of the BBC science review itself.
And lastly, Donna Laframboise demonstrates her remarkable good taste by telling readers she's giving the Hockey Stick Illusion for Christmas.
Reader Comments (37)
Love the last one. But, you are too modest! It should be:
The Judith Curry questions are interesting. Well worth following, or giving her some ideas, which she clearly would appreciate.
RC claimed that Antarctica was both cooling and warming at the same time when Steig's paper was published by Nature. It took only days for that assertion to be demolished by the blogosphere. However over the months that followed the Team fought tooth and nail to prevent a rebutting of Steig's badly flawed paper by abusing the peer review process. It raises a whole series of questions about the journal Nature.
How did bad Team science once again appear in Nature?
What checks did Nature put in place to ensure that were not being tricked again by the Team?
Why have the lessons of Climategate not been heeded by journals like Nature?
How does Nature ensure in the future that Team members do not abuse the peer review system?
That's an interesting title from the Telegraph. Which witch or wizard will be first to the stocks?
Clearly the Met Office has a lot to answer for. Pensioners freeze to death and millions suffer from severe winter weather. Meanwhile the Met Office repeatedly tells us what a marvellous institution it is with its worlwide reputation for excellence. But when its mild winter forecasts lead to deaths and misery, together with huge economic losses, then heads should roll - many of them. Those huge bonuses the top staff received should be returned to the taxpayers.
"And lastly, Donna Laframboise demonstrates her remarkable good taste by telling readers she's giving the Hockey Stick Illusion for Christmas."
Thank you Sir for complimenting my taste also.
I send it to 'journalists'.
"And lastly, Donna Laframboise demonstrates her remarkable good taste by telling readers she's giving the Hockey Stick Illusion for Christmas"
It would not surprise me to hear that Judith Curry was of the same mind.
Congratulations again for writng this outstanding page turner.
Away from the science the politics is even worse
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accord
How can the Saudi's justify getting the begging bowel out for Climate Change !!!!!
Just shows how mad the UK is for signing up to the massive Carbon reductions.
The Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past story is now number one.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/
This "warmest or 3rd warmest year on record" nonsense. I know the MSM didn't cover much of the SH winter, but I remember fish freezing to death in the tropics, a cold Antarctic wave crossing the equator up to 2 degrees N., increasing Antarctic ice, and cooling sea temps. Coupled with a particularly cold start to the year in Europe and N America, snow in Florida, culminating in Spring arriving late, freezing Mongolian nomads, these November chills breaking 100's of cold records in Norway etc.
OK, a few warm weeks in Summer (not exactly 76 tho was it) and the Russian heat wave, but seriously how do they get to the "warmest" - I've read thr GWPF thing, but still, logically and observationally, it doesn't make any sense.
.... do you think we should listen to scientists who don't release their data?
Given the ease with which Team papers are "waved though" at prominent journals and the difficulty, even if they do eventually get through unscathed, of more balanced interpretations making it to publication in the same journals - a time differential in which the UCSP (Union of Catastrophist S**t Peddlers) can, and invariably does, make merry with cynical, tin-rattling hysteria - the answer to the aforesaid question would have to be no.
Without prompt replication, dubious, even unfounded, claims, can persist for years without any meaningful scrutiny. I suggest it's no coincidence that, in that time, debates can be "settled", policy formed, treaties signed and research grants allocated.
I wanna know who wrote 'When did uncertainty become a bid thing in the climate community?', in Question 2a. Was it Judy or was it Congress? I'm spending half the day building a little special display case for that gem.
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Solomon's Virginia news is excellent because it suggests that whomever claimed that records didn't exist at first FOI request may have a guilty conscience about their contents, potentially now to be revealed in the lawsuit.
Given the Piltdown Mann's role as a managing director of the public relations effort, H/t to Moshe, one wonders if he may not be vulnerable in all his venues, not just Virginia. He's been in Connecticut and now is a Nittany Lion in Penn's Sylvan Land. Another junior farm director is now beyond his pale mortal shell.
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Whoever claimed. Sorry, Ma.
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Did you not realise that the CanCun was first staged at the Moulin Rouge?
Not a lot of people know that....
On the theme of 'the warmest year', my friends and family in NZ and OZ had a miserably cold, wet storm-blasted winter. When one looks at the Atlas, a cold South America, cold Southern Africa and very cold Antarctica doesn't leave much of the land masses to be so very warm. Were all the tropical bits just below the Equator red hot?
Alexander K
When there is an "R" in the month, temperatures may be adjusted upwards in the northern hemisphere, however in the southern hemisphere, the rule is reversed, such that upward adjustments are made when there is no "R" in the month
I hope this explains your confusion over the difference between climatology, and observed weather
For those of you wanting to see combative climate change, try the Fox News.
Blam! Kapow! Climate Scientists in Verbal Brawl
Some pics in from the Caccfest. Like this one-
http://twitpic.com/3ct0w5
Green Party banners demanding 1m green jobs now. They still haven't quite got the hang of economics have they? Or science for that matter.
Atomic Hairdryer
Ref your link. They do look a bit miserable don't they!
The banner in the background demands a million "climate" jobs. ????? Just how much electricity could be generated by a million people on treadmills? How much CO2 could be saved by a million motor taxis being replaced with rickshaws? Don't wait for these wasters to volunteer though
Are they miserable because no one gave them a job, that meant they could swan off to warmer climates, to talk about how terrible warmer climates are?
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Can they not see the juxtaposition in the CACCfest banner "carbon cuts not job cuts" ?
Back to the "warmest year" thing, are they counting in Trenberths missing heat, because it's certainly missing around here!
Looking at this jet stream model it looks like the UK is in for another Arctic blast come Wed, there will be a lot more missing heat!
To add to the jollifications PM on BBC Radio 4 this evening introduced Bob Ward as 'a climate expert from the LSE'. He was, of course, sunning himself in Cancun whilst waffling like mad.
I think the 'dont cut benefits, cut carbon' one was also quite good. Poor darlings might have to get jobs if that happened, green or otherwise. Also noticed CACC doesn't seem to comply with ecommerce directives despite soliciting money and trading online. No company or charity registration number that I can find on it's website, and naturally no accounts shown.
Atomic Hairdryer
It's hard, even for someone like me, to understand just how detached from economic reality this lot are.
The business pages are full of stories about the collapse of subsidy-driven employment in the renewables sector in Spain, Italy and Germany.
Vestas recently announced a bleak market outlook in Europe.
UK offshore wind projects are being cancelled (quietly) although to be fair that's just work not being done by Vattenfall (etc).
What in God's name are they talking about? What 'green jobs'? Where?
Perhaps it it unfair to put this question (even rhetorically) to the forum. I suspect it will be better directed at Chris Huhne.
As usual at the mention of green jobs and Huhne, I will have to break off for a few moments of desk-chewing while I calm down.
Sorry, unclear:
'Even for someone like me' means: cynical, unforgiving, unsympathetic b*****d.
Philhippos
How brave of "climate expert" Bob Ward to put his life at risk by exposing himself to a significantly hotter climate. I wonder if he will manage to adapt and survive?
golf charley
It's not the climate you need to watch out for in Cancun. Its the narcos.
I think you're interested in how children are informed/indoctrinated into the creed. L Hickman writes....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/dec/03/children-climate-change-television-santa
I wonder how the catastrophists will spin this one;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/8179400/Venice-flooded-heavy-rain-and-high-tides-leave-much-of-the-historic-city-under-water.html
Presumably with a picture caption of the 'First City Underwater is Venice'.
:-)
BBD, those narcos, are they as dangerous as nachos? Almost choked to death on one once
That CACC article - take no notice, my brother has always complained about lack of money!
Oh, and I've never been "a climbing bum" myself!
golf charley - it depends on the brand of nacho ;-)
http://momento24.com/en/2010/08/31/mexico-drug-violence-reaches-cancun/
BBD, your link leads to this headline "Mexico: Drug violence reaches Cancun"
With 20,000 recent arrivals, the police will take a while to work through the list of suspects.
James Delingpole has a post reminding that again. By now, there should have been a journalist or a blogger pressing David Viner about that old claim. Anyone done that?
O/T but... Wow!!
The Guardian is sticking it to the BOM.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/05/david-mitchell-weather-forecasts-met-office
Your Grace, if I didn't know better, I might be inclined to consider that you might be the Grinch who stole Chanukah ... in this post you write:
But, but, but ... in Graun on best green books I had written [when the post to which I'm now responding was not visible to me]:
And I didn't even get a h/t in your post ... sob, sob, sniffle sniffle ;-)
I think I saw Donna's post myself before I saw your comment, but consider yourself hat-tipped regardless.
Barely two months after the inauguration ceremony for Germany’s first pilot offshore wind farm, “Alpha Ventus” in the North Sea, all six of the newly installed wind turbines were completely idle, due to gearbox damage. Two turbines must be replaced entirely; the other four repaired.
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/12/german-offshore-wind-problems/
Any trawler captains out there what to diversify their income by setting up a 'Green Flag' for the North sea?
I would presume the work is dangerous but the income stream would be very generous and extremely regular!