Tuesday
Sep182012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Anthony on PBS
Sep 18, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Anthony's appearance on PBS last night can be seen at WUWT, together with a transcript, for those who prefer the written word. I haven't noticed anything particularly new - the show was about Muller and his critics - but it looks to have been a reasonably balanced piece.
Reader Comments (8)
The reporter uses the "97% of climate scientists vs small band of vocal skeptics" meme, but reasonably even - BBC, are you watching perhaps ?
Same pat and misleading story about Muller though:
"The skeptic converted by the inctrovertible cold hard facts".
I thought Anthony did quite well. His dignity and matter-of-fact approach should give pause to those who think doubters and dissenters nutcases. I hope the interviewer was eventually enlightened about the 97%.
Geckko -
Within a limited context, that story is true of Muller.
I wouldn't say he was "converted" from a non-belief in AGW to a belief in AGW, as it appears that he always believed in AGW. However, when he discovered the methodology was weak in one area (Mann's temperature reconstructions), he began to doubt other claims. His distrust of one of the foundational lines of evidence (temperature histories) has been allayed due to his group's research, so in that sense he has been "converted" to having more trust in the evidence put forth in favor of AGW.
Sep 18, 2012 at 1:23 PM | Registered CommenterHaroldW
Harold,
You are reaching perhaps a little to far in giving Muller the benefit of doubt as to his alleged skeptic to believer conversion. Muller's pre-BEST statements showed conclusively that he considered AGW to be a fact. Muller implies that his conversion was due to the BEST project results. This makes no sense as there is nothing in any of the temperature reconstructions, whether flawed or not flawed, that implicates CO2 as the primary driver of the warming. So Muller's epiphany is suspect.
From the recent PBS interview:
RICHARD MULLER, University of California, Berkeley: "In our world, we attribute the warming from 1753 to the present essentially exclusively to humans — not mostly, but exclusively."
There you have it folks, We are 100% responsible for any warming since 1753. Sadly, I think Muller has lost his marbles.
Been reading Anthony's blog for years but this was the first time I've seen him. I thought he comes across very well - sensible, honest, charming.
But did you see the hornets' nest of vitriol his interview stirred up? Clearly he hit close to the mark.
The Stanford Accelerator nuclear chemist, Pat Frank, has independently calculated the error range for the BEST data. He arrives at a +-1.2C degrees. If so, then BEST is hardly the best. But it is practically useless for determining a 20th century surface temperature trend. (See WUWT for more details.)