Bishop Hill Climate cuttings 35
Feb 28, 2010 Climate: Cuttings Let's round up some of the developments in the Sunday newspapers and around the blogs.
Steve McIntyre gives some of the back story on Geoffrey Boulton's CV. Was it tarted up by the mysterious Nini Yang? And why is Boulton trying to insinuate that sceptics tampered with it when it is clear that this cannot have been so. A commenter on this site notes another appearance of the IPCC in a Boulton biography.
Al Gore himself is in the New York Times, telling us to move along and that there's nothing to see here. Werner Krauss is looking for reasoned responses. The Sunday Times says Gore's hurricane science is wonky.
Booker looks at the steady draining away of credibility at the IPCC and manages to fit in citations of both The Hockey Stick Illusion and Mosher and Fuller's CRUTape Letters.
Much interesting backwards and forwards on the surface temperature records. Tamino says that the "great dying of the thermometers" has no effect on the trend. Lucia agrees. Roy Spencer says he has evidence of a spurious warming in Phil Jones' CRUTEM3 land temperature index.
Benny Peiser's submission to the Science & Technology select committee is very interesting, telling the story of the Keenan fraud allegation from the journal editor's perspective.
Richard North notes that some £11m of British taxpayers money has been delivered or pledged to Pachauri's TERI
It's snowing again.
Reader Comments (31)
It's not snowing in Devon, but pretty miserable. No real sign of spring yet. The frogs showed activity in the pond on Thursday for the first time this year. That's about a month later than of recent times.
Excellent roundup! Now if only I had seen this earlier.
In other words Roy Spencer has evidence of a spurious cooling in his own analysis, and doesn't yet understand why.
Wouldn't be the first time.
Bishop,
Why do you keep making this claim when the reference is to 'Intergovernmental Panels' and not the IPCC?
Frank
I think this has been gone through before. IIRC You think there is another intergovernmental panel on climate change. I don't. This is clearly referring to the IPCC as is the article linked by Peewit on the Boulton thread.
I don't rule out Boulton not being involved with the IPCC, but it is odd that articles keep turning up saying he is.
It's also worth pointing out that while the issue is relevant to the question of whether he is suitable for the Russell panel or not, there is plenty of other evidence that should rule him out.
Bishop,
Regardless of what I think, whoever wrote that CV clearly was under the impression there is more than one.
If so then you should be able to stick to that. It looks like you don't believe your own case when you have to claim that words which plainly say X actually say Y.
FO'D. How do you know which is correct? CRUTEM or Spencer; neither has been verified or replicated.
Philip Bratby
There are several analyses of the raw data now and Spencer's is the outlier. No other analysis has found this spurious trend therefore on the face of it, it is his work that should be checked. Until it is, the issue is best described as spurious cooling trends in Spencer's analysis, which by his own admission is a quick and dirty one.
Also as I said, it's not the first time.
Aside from that there evidence that when it comes to data analysis Spencer doesn't really understand what he is doing.
Plumbing the depths of GW
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8538033.stm
What a complete farce
Can we have one of these every week. I know that you are busy but this will really help us all.
Frank
Can you help us out by pointing to a link to the other Panel, since this is new to everyone except apparently yourself and Geoffrey Boulton? If it ever existed, it can't have disappeared without trace, even William Connolley was unable to make stuff disappear altogether.
Frank O'Dwyer, since I've been visiting the Bishop's blog more regularly these past few months, I've noted that you usually try and present a 'sound' argument. Unfortunately, you then tend to support your points by citing articles from some of the most pro-AWG web pages I've ever encountered and so, to my mind, completely undermine your credibility.
I'm prepared to believe that not all of the information presented on sites such as RealClimate, SkepticalScience, Tamino, etc. is pure 'spin', but most would admit that they are extremely enthusiastic "climate friends" and so can hardly be regarded as neutral or balanced sources of information.
Please believe me when I say that I'm not trying to 'snipe' at you. I'm simply making an honest observation and, in doing so, help explain why your arguments have so far failed to convince me that there's any real substance behind catastrophic AWG theory.
I'm not sure that Lucia would agree with your Grace that she 'agrees'; or rather that is not the impression I got from the intro to her post. That said, there is certainly a spirited discussion ongoing on that thread.
Nini Yang and Boulton appear easily with Google.
http://www.tju.edu.cn/ico_site/International/NSCT/englishnews/200910/t20091028_29602.htm
You guys are aware that George Beddington has, effectively been silenced by the Milliband, right?
Anand: It is evident from Beddington's submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee that he is toeing the Government line. His memorandum is the most pathetic statement from a supposed scientist that I have ever seen. A complete embarassment. The contrast with the IoP memorandum is stark.
FO'D: I'm not going to get into a wrangle about the the different datasets using the same adjusted, biased, cherry-picked etc data; but none of them have been independently verified/replicated. Spencer puts his work out for people to pick holes in. I know from my own work that mistakes get made; open/multiple verification picks them up before damage is done.
Dave Salt,
You're welcome to be sceptical of any source offered but that doesn't make what they say incorrect. The links I offer above simply refer to a well-known error in UAH (which is disputed by nobody including Spencer) and a pretty clear and extremely embarrassing mathematical error in an article from Spencer (which should be clear enough to anyone if you look at the discussion of it).
If I had links to hand where 'sceptics' say the same thing I'd point to them. Maybe there are, but in my experience the 'sceptics' almost invariably fail to spot errors from their own camp, despite having far more opportunity. (Compare and contrast to 'Glaciergate' which was found by scientists and not the anti-AGW crowd)
@Frank
English is a wonderful language and when people write without thinking then they give much away, such as in your case
(Compare and contrast to 'Glaciergate' which was found by scientists and not the anti-AGW crowd)
So 'Scientist' and 'anti-AGW crowd' are mutually exclusive? Isn't that just the arrogance for which the Team is noted? You can be one or the other but not both? It may be a slip of the tongue, but it always seems to be at the detriment of AGW sceptics.
This is exactly the sort of thing that concerns people with Boulton. He claims impartiality, but because of his previous "programming" he cannot leave his prejudices behind even without realising it. Totally independent members are needed precisely because of the properties your ad-hoc comment exhibits.
Anyway my remembrance of Glaciergate was that the problem was floating around for much of the last month of 2009. I am not sure any one person could really claim credit for this. Pachuri attacked the Himalayas correction pre-Copenhagen.
Jiminy: I was thinking just the same thing, but decided it's not worth engaging FO'D. I don't believe he has any scientific brain cells.
Phillip
Could I ask you please not to make personal remarks about other commenters.
Bish: Very, very sorry. I'll try harder in future.
Frank O'Dwyer: (Compare and contrast to 'Glaciergate' which was found by scientists and not the anti-AGW crowd)
If so, it's about bl***y time that the people you are happy to call scientists got up off their backsides and did some checking.
One of the more shocking, but rarely remarked upon, aspects of the Hockey Team's secrecy over data was that few, of the many scientists outside the inner circle who relied upon the data could apparently be bothered to examine it, or even appear concerned that no one else was allowed to either.
Frank O D, Roy Spencer analysis of the GHCN uses raw data with no correction for urban heat island effects therefore in terms of warming it should be a worst case, despite this is it shows less warming than Jones data so calling spurious cooling is not deserved. Yes I know the station selections are different and the data sampling is different.
On a more general point should someone be pressing for the research councils to undertake some independent climate audit along the followings lines? All on the basis of an open data and methodology approach
Instrument temperature records
Palio climate reconstructions
CO2 residence time
Climatic sensitivity from satellite data buoys and soundings and GCM match to this data
I would like to see none Climatic researches involved in the above activities especially physicist and statisticians
All it would take would be a directive from Government to the relevant research councils. Little hope of this with the current or future government
With the James Bond talk of the mysterious Nini Yang "tarting up" Boulton's CV, It was more than a bit disconcerting to realize Nini is a male. In the words of Austin Powers, "It's a man, baby!"
http://www.tju.edu.cn/ico_site/International/NSCT/englishnews/200910/t20091028_29602.htm
I'll save this one for my next visit to the Pshrink's couch.
@Jeff C
There is a picture of Yang here ->
http://www.international.ed.ac.uk/staff/china_office.php
That link you gave has an article that talks about Boulton being accompanied by Yang but the attached photo of Boulton and a chinese man isn't subtitled with any information.
@Steve2
Whew! Thanks, much, much better. You just saved me $350/hour in couch time.
You're welcome Jeff, I feel conflicted and sorry for her now, 'cos, I think whatever the hell was the actuality of the history of her remit from UoE, in this current atmosphere, she is going to get thrown under the bus if it means helping to save the big bearded westerner male scientist ;)
Jeff C, there's always the new tip jar - the Bishop's hourly rates for any counselling that occurs on the premises are excellent I hear.
Although the Al Gore NYT piece is lamentable in almost every way he does for the first time that I've seen acknowledge that CRU scientists may have broken UK FOI. That admission would not I think have been forthcoming before the release of the ICO letter and Richard Thomas' forthright memorandum for the Select Committee. There's a bit of waving goodbye to some old friend there in my view.
"You're welcome to be sceptical of any source offered but that doesn't make what they say incorrect." This is also true of big oil, geologists, nuclear physicists, joe camel, rush limbaugh, sex offenders, etc.
Roy Spencer said he agreed as well. Look in his discussion of New Work on the NH Temp.
Tamimo’s recent analysis of weather stations pre and post 1992, looking at temperature reporting of those stations that were cut out after 1990, seems to show no significant difference in the stations cut out and those left behind. It is also clear and simple enough for me to follow - unlike much of his more involved mathematics.
As a newbie, please forgive me my naivety, but is there anything wrong with Tamimo’s analysis? Does it have an impact on theories that the reduction in stations affects the picture of global warming? I’d really like someone who knows the fuller picture to advise.