Saturday
Jul162011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill A mezzo-soprano on climate science
Jul 16, 2011 Climate: Sceptics H/T to Biased BBC for this quote from the mezzo-soprano Christine Rice speaking on BBC Radio last week. Before starting her singing career, Rice had been a climatologist and described her experiences thus:
I was amazed really by the inadequacy of what we had, because we're talking about climate change which is over tens of thousands of years as opposed to the twenty years of data that we had. So in a way we were putting out a lot of ideas and not really having concrete scientific research to support it, and I suppose at that point I did lose a little bit of my spark, thinking well I could propose an idea and I could probably draft a thesis that would support it and yet I wouldn't really convince myself necessarily.
Reader Comments (29)
It won't be over till the Rice lady sings!
I frequently say that "Life is a Beach.", it carries so many connotations. The Lady reminds me that "Life is (also) an Opera.", this too carries many connotations; though I do more often prefer the beach.
I foresee a great singing career for this bright young lady! Already I like the tone of her voice.
http://www.iop.org/careers/workinglife/profiles/page_37727.html
Patagon, thanks for digging up that quote. In those two sentences, I think she's captured the tenor of the debate quite well. And in the interview, she gives the prime reason why things are not settled -- the paucity of data. I've compared our current knowledge of climate to the state of human knowledge of electricity in the days of Franklin or Volta. In a hundred years, or perhaps even fifty, people will consider current-day conceptions as quaint.
[I make that prediction in accordance with the precept that the time horizon is such that I need never admit that it's falsified.]
There you go, the essence of climate studies - being religious and being stuck behind the computer.
How refreshing. The people are the repository of wisdom, not the government. My hat is off to Ms. Rice.
The image of the "Gaia Model" worshiper sitting at the computer is emblazoned on my mind, sadly.
Better an opera diva than a (climatic) drama queen!
She made a wise career choice. Congratulations to her
Brava!
'Studied Physics at Balliol and went on to do a 'DPhil concerning the reflection of light from clouds'.
http://www.christinerice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=92&Itemid=44
I believe the ultimate at Balliol is to have a Balliol Rhyme (4 line doggerel verse) composed in your honour. Any good poets out there?
Too smart for climatology.
I thought that physics was right for me
and I could add to the knowledge tree
What I found out left me with no choice.
Die of boredom or just use my voice.
3 out of ten I know
I knew the talent was out there.
Maybe Phil Jones should consider a career change to singing aswell.
Walking on Sunshine?
The Heat is On?
The Tide is High?
Hot in the City?
Get Off Of My Cloud?
Bring on the clowns?
She's right. My meteorology prof. at Imperial, Frank Ludlam, a fine man who died too young and too soon to help nip this climate alarmism in the bud. I think he would have utterly detested it. Anyway, we asked him once about the threat of a new glaciation, and what could we say about climate? He came up with an analogy which I hope I don;t mangle too much from my recall: imagine seeing a snapshot of a corner of a football field, and being asked to go from there to predict the course of the game - a game whose rules you have only a weak grasp. That's what it is like, he said, with regard to climate - our good data sets are the snapshot compared to the millions of years of climate history we know so little about. And our grasp of the theory of this hugely complex system is of course modest indeed. We asked how seriously we should take the threat of ice sheets within years. He paused and said if we really must do something, we might advise our children to build their houses 50 metres closer to the equator than our own. What a fine man he was! Oh for the likes of him to speak deep sense and scientific modesty, instead of the semi-hysterical, grossly irresponsible prima donnas and their acolytes who have made such a mess of climate science in recent decades.
Ludlum's metric is
Gauged well by the grandchildren.
Solar, he be all.
========
Toss the Rice, fortune glories corn,
You cope with the crystalline horn.
Chanteuse Nicklauss is all the rage.
Les Contes d'Hoffman sound on the stage.
==================
Climate scientist screening in action. Those who are too smart seek elsewhere. Talk about positive feedback.
@Pesadia
8/10
Think of the issue in another way. Suppose, by careful analysis of the data, it is possible to detect a faint single of a true climate catastrophe - such as the onset of the next ice age. Due to having politicized "scientists" - the modern day false prophets - who are quick to interpret any extreme weather changes as verification for their theories, the signal for the that oncoming ice age will be lost. As a result millions may die, as we will not produce enough coal-fired power stations, or modify our houses, quickly enough.
Clearly, she knows not, of what she sings...
(Sed in jest...)
John Shade wrote:
"He [Frank Ludlum] paused and said if we really must do something, we might advise our children to build their houses 50 metres closer to the equator than our own."
Oh no! You should not have mentioned that. Don't you realise that there is a danger that the government might change the planning laws accordingly? Anything to show that it is tackling climate change!
Roy
Always interesting to see the sociological equivalent of Gresham's Law in action.
"(Relatively) bad people drive out (relatively) good people", where the good people are those whose selfish behaviour is constrained by their personal integrity, and the bad people merely pretend.
The self-serving behavioural strategies available to the bad people contain those of the good people as a subset, so the bad people necessarily have an advantage. The only disadvantage is the (manageable) risk of getting caught, which depends largely on how many good people are around to 'regulate' them. This places a burden on the good people, who find the psychological characteristics of bad people repulsive (c.f the iterated prisioners' dilemma).
Thus internally regulated organisations undergo a process of 'organisational decay', whereby the bad people come to dominate.
The decay of externally regulated organisations is slowed until the process of regulatory capture is sufficiently advanced and the external regulation becomes ineffective.
I guess it's a kind of sociological entropy.
There was a young lady called Rice
Who thought climate study was nice
But the data was poor
Covered twenty years, not much more
When ten thousand of climate's a trice...
Just seen a picture of Christine Rice on Deller's blogsite...
Oh.... my....!
Can't we recruit her to put the sceptics point of view..? I think our support would go through the roof..!!
A Balliol rhyme:
I am the mezzo, Christine Price.
I thought the Team were far from nice.
Now at the Garden I win honours,
Where there are fewer prima donnas.