Monday
Feb152010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The Register on hurricanes
Feb 15, 2010 Climate: WG2 The Register covers an interesting piece in which a researcher analyses the IPCC's claims on hurricanes and compares them to the data. They don't seem to match up.
Reader Comments (12)
Not sure what to say at this point. Beyond outrage...
If the IPCC still exists in the next year+, they may want to refer to their next report as AR4.1.
What a great quote form the article...
'but warns he is neither "a warmist nor a denialist", but a scientist.'
If we could only have as much from CRU/HT.
If you don't like being called a "denier" by Gordon - sign this:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Deniers/?signed=fdefdc2.ebe98e
The author is Les Hatton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Hatton
This is uncanny - I went to a course on computational geophysics by Dr Hatton about 20 years ago. The man is a legend.
Not only that we have both followed almost exactly the same career path - Maths at Cambridge, Computational Geophysics, and a PhD in software engineering
His Wikipedia page says:
"...novel bibliographic search algorithms for unstructured text in order to extract patterns from defect databases.
After spending most of his career in industry, he is currently a professor of Forensic Software Engineering at Kingston University, London."
Forensic software engineering and geophysics, but not alas, a "climate scientist".
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Deniers Better link than above:
Isn't this the exact reason Chris Landsea resigned from the IPCC in 2005?
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
This was the first thing that clued me in to the shenanigans going on. Not even the Science and Operations Officer at the National Hurricane Center, a man very respected in his field, resigning could change the IPCC.
For me the really great thing about this is when you follow through to the web site for the author of the report. The way the data, the code and the analysis are all nicely bundled together so that any one can download it, have a look, try it out and perform their own audit of the code and data is so refreshing after what we have getting shovelled by the highly paid "experts".
After a quick glance at the information disclosed about *this* report, I now propose that Phil Jones, be henceforth and hereinafter referred to as 'Spike Jones', for his great work 'Murdering the Science'. (Unfortunately Phil 'Spike' Jones' work is not as funny to listen to/read as the original works by the orginal Spike Jones, but the new works are, actually, just as satiric and parodic of the genre the work purports to be.)
There seems to be a lot going on at the Grauniad right now
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/phil-jones-lost-weather-data
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/climate-wars-hacked-emails
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/weather-stations-china
Some of these links have an annotation feature
"The annotations - and the real name of the commenter - will be added to the manuscript, initially in private. The most insightful comments will then be added to a public version of the manuscript. We hope the process will be a form of peer review. If you have a contribution to make, please email climate.emails@guardian.co.uk. "
I find it amazing that a tech blog like the Reg (who've been publishing climate articles for a while) can produce a more sensible, up to date and balanced view than the MSM. It's not even their core field and they do a job that's 10 times better than any of the "Environmental Correspondents" who are paid by various TV and news groups to do this as a living.
It would seem Prof. Hatton looked at the data after ClimateGate, which would indicate to me that he took the IPCC data on trust.
That would explain why so many eminent scientists have been silent before ClimateGate: they trusted their colleagues as well, and sided with them rather than with the sceptics, who, as we all know, have been smeared mercilessly by the Team and in the MSM.
I'd like to hope that other eminent scientists, who have also taken the data on trust, will now follow him and do an audit in thier specialities.
His remarks are rather devastating for The Team.
@ JohnRS
"I find it amazing that a tech blog like the Reg..."
El Reg is a full blown e-magazine with a journalistic record to match many in the MSM. A blog they are not.