Judy, Gavin and me
Apr 18, 2010
Bishop Hill in Climate: Curry

Judith Curry has set the cat among the pigeons, posting once again at RealClimate. Her points are all rather exciting for me:

there are people making politically motivated attacks against climate research (Marc Morano and Myron Ebell come immediately to mind). And then there are people questioning many aspects of climate research and the IPCC process and making arguments based upon evidence (e.g. Steve McIntyre, Andrew Montford).

And this too:

Gavin’s statement “-especially in the light of the tsunami of baseless accusations against scientists that have been hitting the internet in the last few months-“ makes the mistake of dismissing all accusations/criticisms. I agree, it is difficult to sort through all the crazy statements and identify the substantive arguments. So I will help you out. I have seen no mention on RC of Andrew Montford’s (Bishop Hill) book “The Hockey Stick Illusion.” If Montford’s arguments and evidence are baseless, then you should refute them. They deserve an answer, whether or not his arguments are valid. And stating that you have refuted these issues before isn’t adequate; the critical arguments have not hitherto been assembled into a complete narrative. And attacking Montford’s motives, past statements or actions, etc. won’t serve as a credible dismissal. Attack the arguments and the evidence that he presents. I for one would very much like to see what RC has to say about this book.

Unfortunately, RC are not up for this, which is a shame, but perhaps inevitable.

Gavin's response also includes this comment on my world service interview last week.

Montford was interviewed on the BBC World Service the other day and was given copious time to expound on what he thought the most crucial neglected issue was. He chose to discuss McKitrick's problems in getting his repetitive and singularly unconvincing papers on the (non-)impact of socio-economic variables published. If this is the worst example available, the IPCC process is in fine shape.

There is much to take issue with here. Firstly I don't remember being given "copious" time to expound on the neglected issues. It seemed like about 30 seconds at the time, but a quick review of the interview shows that the whole thing lasted just over a minute and a half. But the main point is that I didn't discuss Ross's difficulties in getting past the gatekeepers at all - I said that he had made an accusation of falsification that hadn't been addressed by either inquiry.

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