Thursday
Jun242010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Bad boys exaggerated my graph and ran away!
Jun 24, 2010 BBC Climate: Mann The BBC Editors' blog gives us a glimpse of their forthcoming Panorama documentary about global warming in the wake of Climategate.
They interview Bob Watson, John Christy, Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Mann, the latter quoted as 'regretting the way his so-called "hockey-stick graph" was put in the spotlight by politicians' (!)
Read the whole thing here.
Reader Comments (31)
An Inconvenient Uncertainty.
====================
Tom Heap is a typical BBC alarmist. No doubt this will be another biased programme. The BBC has never produced anything giving a balanced view.
Of course, he's right. Scientists produce papers and the corporate media and politicians spin it (lie). That's what they do. Mann is of course hardly an innocent, but he can pretend he is, in the context of promotion.
I asked the Guardian to provide articles by real climate scientists to back up their ridiculous scareongering. They obviously didn't. That's why they employ clueless idiots like Monbiot and Hickman.
The one graph we see on this clip is a direct splicing together of the proxy and instrumental data. Mann tells us he 'has done his best to clarify the uncertainties'. So lets see, will hill tell the BBC they got it wrong with this representation of the graph?
Oakwwod (Oakwood?)
Good spot!
So Mann may be obliged to explain the 'trick' to the BBC journalists?!
That will be an amusing email exchange...
I wonder how much time, and research, it took before they decided who to interview and what question to ask without risking getting the wrong answer?
Interesting choice of words in the article - the emails were 'published'!
This version of the graph is not new to the BBC - it is the exact same graph, complete with splice, presented by Iain Stewart in Jonathon Renouf's "Earth: Climate Wars". They've smoothed the curves a bit in this version, but it is the same old splice. There is a certain delicious irony that a programme (presumably) defending climate scientists from climategate should make this type of an error.
The BBC won't care, though.
As for Mann, he was the main promoter of this graph in the TAR SPM back in 2001 in a manner Max Clifford would have been proud of. This little artful piece seems to have a whiff of revisionism to it.
One better:
As the spliced graph is drawn, a reference appears in the dark space above the ice rink:
"Northern Hemisphere Temperatures
Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 (IPCC 2001)"
We keep hearing the splicing is just a nasty distortion by 'deniers'. So what is the BBC up to?
This is quite interesting : had a look on Watson as a 10000% believer in global warming showing no sign of any doubt : hardly a scientist attitude, more typical of an advocacy group, and Christy, showing a more balanced view, in itself obviously closer to a scientific approach.
The choice of questions was smartly done : who would seriouly disagree that some warming took place during the last 150 Y, that everything remaining equal some GH-like effect takes place, that CO2 is a GHG, that man is responsible for some warming (at least through the urbal heat effect) ? structurally any sceptic is obliged to give the impression to make some concessions to the IPCC message. Answers would be quite different if the questions were :
- what warming in the next decades ?
- what is the balance between natural variabilities and the anthropomorphic role in the past warming,
and so on.
Oxburg's farsical review is called an independant review : BBC remains in the main stream ; only Channel 4 at the time was clever enough to give a fair stage to Svensmark's assumption
Is this a case of getting your counter-attack in first before the Russell Report comes out?
Has the world warmed up over the past 150 years?
(Why not 800 years? or 300 years? or 80 years?)
Does boiling a kettle contribute to global warming?
Are tea-drinkers causing the planet to warm up?
Daniel,
When the consensus is being discussed or alluded to the questions and statements are always very carefully worded like that. It is not a coincidence.
Similarly, the constant references to 'deniers', as it can be claimed that such people are obviously deranged, since they deny these self evidently true (and utterly trivial) facts.
It is a useful starting position for the handwaving.
The BBC hockey stick doesn't even show where the splicing between Mann's dendro results and instrumental results takes place - no change of colour or anything. They say the source is Mann, Bradley and Hughes 1999 (IPCC 2001), but BBC have removed all evidence of splicing. The original source was bad enough, but this BBC interpretation is the ultimate deception. Now it's not just 'hide the decline', it's also 'hide the splicing'. What was a questionable scientific presentation from the perspective of scientific ethics has been transformed by the BBC (taking a leaf out of IPCC's book, of course) into shameless propaganda.
Michael Mann is fibbing. Yes, I am using that word. This could simply be because he has forgotten he said before on this topic. This is what happens when you give too many interviews, say all kinds of things and forget about it.
Michael Mann himself believes that exaggerating the impact of climate change is a good thing.
"If you talk about a severe flood or drought or heat wave—if climate change expresses itself in those terms—then people can understand climate change much better. So often those advocating for action, which in my personal opinion is advisable, use those sorts of examples out of context to try to make a point."
-Michael Mann, 2005.
http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/michael-mann-quotes/
Well has the BBC only got that far in the debate? Agreement on the obvious? Bet they wont be mentioning the following imminent little ice age prediction on panorama!
http://www.heartland.org/events/2010Chicago/program.html
Click Habibullo Abdussamatov's name (highlighted in red in the speakers list for Session 2: Track Science 2) for powerpoint (takes a while downloading)
Extract from slide 12
'Any prolonged increase in the TSI remains uncompensated by the energy radiated by the Earth during 15±6 years due to the thermal inertia of the Ocean. This leads to the sequential accumulation of the solar energy by the Ocean and to the gradual increase in the global temperature.
Annual average of the TSI experiences accelerated descent since the 1990s.
We are going through the period of unstable variations when till the 2014
the global temperature will oscillate around the maximum reached
in 1998-2005, then a new Little Ice Age will come.
We expect the beginning of the new Little Ice Age epoch in 2014.
In 2003-2005 I predicted a new deep minimum of both TSI and
sunspot activity in 2042±11 with a deep global temperature
minimum in 2055-2060(±11) and my predictions are
looking better and better with each passing year.'
"I've always thought it was somewhat misplaced to make it a central icon of the climate change debate. It put the spotlight on that work - "
"Wait - what did you do about this?"
"Well, I've done my best, whenever I've been given an opportunity ... to try to clarify uncertainties in our work…"
- I suppose being a lead author would not constitute such an opportunity?
I sit here open mouthed at Mann's cheek and hypocrisy! The guy has no conscience whatsoever!
Seems like the BBC are going to protect their pension fund come what may.
And to think that you living in UK paid your taxes for this propaganda. Why do you stand for it?
At least in the US, they cut the PBS off of the public teat.
Deutsche Welle has just ended a 3-day forum on "climate change" (formerly known as CAGW). this DW piece is hilarious:
23 June: Deutsche Welle: Global Media Forum ends by urging people to learn to live with less
How do we confront climate change in the future? That's the question 1,500 participants (from 95 Countries) grappled with over three days at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn..
US-based scientist Naomi Oreskes pointed out the gap between what scientists say about climate change, and the scenarios depicted in the media. According to Oreskes, that gap is the result of ignorance on the part of the journalists. It also helps to explain why climate skeptics enjoy so much prominence, though the threat of climate change is no longer disputed in the broader scientific community.
In fact, an opinion poll of 13,000 people in 18 countries from all continents, commissioned by the Deutsche Welle and released during the conference, found that the vast majority of those surveyed are concerned about climate change. What's more, the poll found people are ready to adjust their behavior accordingly: Many said they would be willing to pay higher prices for goods produced in an environmentally friendly way...
Confronting audiences with horror scenarios alone is not enough. Journalists must also highlight solutions...
The winner of a photo competition aimed at illustrating climate change was also announced as the Global Media Forum wrapped up on June 23. Entrants from around the world had been invited to document the visible effects of climate change in their own environment. The winning photo, from Sudipto Das in India, shows children bathing in a river – an idyllic scene only at first glance. The children are seen jumping into the water from the roof of a flooded temple.
It would be difficult to find a more dramatic example with which to underline the appeal for urgent action...
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5724306,00.html
sudipto's been there, done that:
Sudipto Das Environmental Photographer of the Year 2007
http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Sudipto-Das-Environmental-Photographer-of-the-Year-2007-6896
24 June: Deutsche Welle: Environment matters from around the world
A balloonist, a psychotherapist and a business executive give their perspectives on climate change at this year's Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum. Swiss pioneer Bertrand Piccard wants to prove that he can fly around the world without fuel; Journalist-turned-therapist Mark Brayne says our species is in denial; and Desertec executive Rainer Arlinghoff thinks the future looks bright after all.
(Rainer Aringhoff – the chief operating officer of the Desertec initiative. It was founded last year by over a dozen firms and aims to revolutionise Europe's energy supply.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5618955,00.html
nice to see Desertec non-profit-of-course Foundation boss being appointed to Council for Sustainable Development by the German Govt and being President of the German chapter of the Club of Rome!
3 June: Desertec Foundation: Supervisory Board's Chairman Max Schon appointed to the Council for Sustainable Development
Hamburg - Yesterday, the Federal Government announced the new appointment of the Council for Sustainable Development. Among the new members of the council is Max Schon, the recently elected Chairman of the DESERTEC Foundation and President of the German chapter of the Club of Rome....
In his capacity as President of the German chapter of the Club of Rome he was significantly involved in the establishment of the Desertec Foundation. In April 2010 he was appointed Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Foundation..
http://www.desertec.org/en/press/press-releases/100603-01-max-schoen-appointed-to-the-council-for-sustainable-development-of-the-german-federal-government/
Great, more grist for the mill. The BBC will fluff up the story, Mann will contradict himself on record, the whole thing will look splendid and everyone can wear smug smiles and pat themselves on the back for a while.
Then the bloggers will pull it apart for arse paper, the telegraph will do a hatchet job, the BBC will get loads of complaints about bias, and it will end up looking like another gunshot wound to the AGW foot... hopefully!
Do you know I've been trying to shape Mann's behaviour into a personality type, clearly he's a bully boy, and he's made some otherwise decent scientists do things they would never have done without seeing his chutzpah. When first questioned he blusters his way through the answers, "Well-funded, shills for big oil", but now it's unravelling, and he clearly knows it will without some divine intervention, we are seeing the modest, mild-mannered Michael, wondering how it ever came to pass that the MBH1998 and 1999 papers became so iconic. "Who did this?" he's asking, "I was busy researching away all these years and now I have become aware of the hullabaloo over my work, I wonder how it came to be so iconic."
He's Harry Flashman! Watch when we reach the final denouement, he will have no self-respect, he'll squeal and point to others as the main perpetrators of the hockeystick, he'll unashamedly plead for mercy and rat on others to save his own skin, just like lovable old Harry.
You wait and see.
I've every respect for John Christy and Bjorn Lomborg (but none for the other two clowns, or the BBC). But even they would admit to being more lukewarmers than "deniers". And both are too gentlemanly to point out that the questions (as has been pointed out) have been phrased in such a way to make them hard to argue with.
Yes, sure there has been SOME warming. Not a lot and not recently and the alleged magnitude of the 'anomoly' is way less than the margins of error. Certainly man has had SOME influence on the climate, if anything fractionally beneficial.
The real question that must be asked is "being mindful of the uncertainties and disputed nature of climate science, is now the right time to spend trillions on moving to a supposedly 'low carbon' economy in the hope that it might actually make any difference?"
That is a question I for one would love to see answered.
Pete Hayes
I've always felt the argument about the BBC's pension scheme is a red herring. The scheme is almost certainly defined benefit, so investment performance is irrelevant to the members. It's up to the employer to make up any shortfall.
Hi Bish,
There is a more subtle point about the BBC pension scheme - often missed. Because any shortfall will be made up by the BBC in the future the fund becomes a plaything for the trustees to invest in their own pet projects.
Does the hockey stick illusion mention Mike's Nature Trick?
If so, I became aware at Arthur Smith's post that Mann has admitted to the trick, in the usual obfuscating RealClimate Way. This puts all the TAR hockey stick graphs as fraud in the conclusions of Brian Angliss.
No it doesn't. One more for an updated edition I guess.
At this question.... "Do you think you ever exaggerated the certainty of manmade climate change", Michael Mann seems to squirm.
Is it uncomfortable for him to be asked these questions because he believes his work is honest or the tell tell signs of a "porky pie"?
As a footnote to the BBC Pension Scheme - they had £31,410,000 invested in BP as at 31/3/10 - probably not worth that now !
The moderation on the Editors' blog would have made Uncle Joe proud. Two of us mentioned David Bellamy and were cut off at the knees...
"Does boiling a kettle contribute to global warming?
Are tea-drinkers causing the planet to warm up?
June 24, 2010 | matthu"
The UK government seems to think so - there used to be kettles in the tea points in the Dept for Energy & Climate Change offices, then signs appeared warning that they used more electricity in 2 minutes that all the PC screens of the floor in half a day or some such guff, then the kettles all disappeared...
All that's available now is 'hot' water that isn't hot enough to make decent tea, or cold water that, as with most London water, has already been through at least 8 recycles before it comes out of the DECC tap. You may think that this puts it in the same league as DECC's policies, but I couldn't possibly comment.