Bishop Hill You call this progress?
Jun 13, 2013 Climate: Parliament The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee held a hearing yesterday on the UK's progress on its carbon budgets.
As is normal on these things the politicians took evidence from people who could be expected to tell them what they wanted to hear:
- Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute
- Andrew Shepherd, University of Leeds
- Myles Allen, University of Oxford
- Julia Slingo and Jason Lowe, Met Office
I've started watching and it seems quite interesting so far, in a "we're all going to fry" kind of way.
I enjoyed Aubrey Meyer's asking us to worry about viral attacks on carbon-hungry organisms in the oceans. He's a fun guy.
Myles Allen makes some pretty amazing claims about the temperature standstill:
The assertion that temperatures haven't risen as fast as predicted is simply wrong. There was a range of predictions made and in fact the temperatures of the last decade have been pretty much exactly as was predicted for the decade back in the 1990s...
I guess this is a reference back to this argument.
The issue about what these new data imply for the future. There have been a number of papers published recently which suggest that the highest responses of the current climate models - that's the models right at the extreme top of the range of behaviour we're getting at the moment - look less likely, but the bulk of the models are still within the range of uncertainty consistent with the observations.
If he's saying what I think he's saying then I think this is extremely misleading.
I gather there is some discussion of David Rose's article on climate sensitivity, but I haven't got to that bit yet.
Reader Comments (71)
Georgia - I echo Rhoda's comment.
One of the problems with this debate is that much has been argued and accepted on emotional grounds which, when examined with dispassionate analysis, has been shown to be wanting. Like some other commentators here, I write as somebody with experience of both sides of the debate. Your dad has chosen to create a role for himself in this debate so he should be prepared and able to justify that, especially as he has gained influence at a very high level in uk policy circles.
Faulty policy can have a significant negative impact on the future prospects of many people. This eventuality is what many people here are arguing against.
Seeing all 'This Above' maybe, knowing Aubrey Meyer for some time and being 'in touch with his 'Drivers' and what he tries to put across to the global Community and....tirelessly so now for about 24 some & rather 'lonely years' for all to spend a 'good few minutes' here http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/EAC_Real_.pdf and maybe you'll see what this is all about, i.e. Your Future!!! Also this http://www.gci.org.uk/news_June_2013.html is highly worth reading & taking in in context.
With my best from Eternal Rome
Jelle - as you are clearly knowledgeable about Aubrey's work, perhaps you could summarise the key points for us? Last time discussion of Aubrey's work came up I spent some time looking into his claims but they made no sense to me.
Well, I went to the GCI website.
Then I searched Aubrey's prior contributions here and my slight involvement:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/2/26/the-price-of-life-the-ipccs-first-and-forgotten-controversy.html?currentPage=2#comments
There's half an hour of my life I won't get back.
Bish - What happened to Georgia's first comment? Has it been snipped or has she removed it? Any explanation either way?
[Snipped in error by overenthusiastic mod - apologies]
I saw Georgia's original and bravo to her for sticking up for dad. I hope my daughters would do the same for me.
Thanks for the link to the old thread Rhoda, I remember that bizarre episode. Fascinating to see it's the chap in this video.
I have a bit of soft spot for old eccentrics, they certainly add spice to life. But the question remains how on earth did Mr Meyer get close to appearing before a Commons Committee! Can you ask your dad how he got his invite Georgia?
Who's up next, David Icke?
As a hearing, it was pedestrian and lacking in any kind of penetration. A feeble committee, already soaked it would seem in the views of those they had invited to speak to them, merely encouraged further exposition of those positions. As ever, and this seems to be an inescapable feature of their 'side', those giving evidence were profoundly unimpressive. Is this the level of debate and analysis that led to the lunacy of the Climate Change Act? I think it must be. How else could the passage of that Act be explained? That was several years ago, and so this is doubly-depressing since the level of debate and analysis has clearly not improved in the meantime. The banality of climate alarmism on display.
[My apologies for inadvertently deleting this. I took it for spam at first, until I read the comments which followed. Today's Moderator.]
This Bishop’s-Hill thread is discussing the Environmental Audit Committee [EAC] Enquiry into the UK Climate Act. Some contributors here obviously don’t like the Climate Act and want to get rid of it. Well that’s your choice. ‘James G’ even stated it was ‘Contempt for the House’ as it was based on ‘phony evidence’. In others words, as the Act is based on UKMO’s work, James G is saying UKMO lied to the committee and showed ‘Contempt for the House’.
James G’s problem is that he cannot *prove* that charge and nor can any of you. The arguments about climate change are a scientific wrangle that the EAC cannot adjudicate that, they can only acknowledge has a range of conflicting viewpoints.
However, the EAC don’t want to be lied to. They can adjudicate that and may very well pursue any party who shows contempt for the house by lying to them.
Many of you have asked why Aubrey would have been asked to give evidence to this Environmental Audit Committee [EAC] hearing into the Act. It’s a good question and probably his award-winning 25 years of experience dealing with the IPCC is the answer: - http://www.gci.org.uk/ As one of you correctly said, he has had a huge influence on the policy community [and hehas been very polite about contrarians as they have been very polite about him]: - http://www.gci.org.uk/problem-solution-deniers.html
However, back to the here-and-now, I have the feeling that not one of you has looked at the *written evidence* to the EAC by the various witnesses. To be effective you need to do that. Firing grape-shot on a blog about a video a live session to the Enquiry is not likely to have much effect.
Not-Banned-Yet – you asked me to summarise the key points in Aubrey's work. I am assuming you mean on the matter of ‘contempt for the house‘.
To do this you need to look at Aubrey’s *written evidence* to the EAC particularly on pages 19 and 20. It is here: -http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/EAC_Real_.pdf
The key point in this is the *proof* on pages 19 and 20 that the UKMO did intentionally mislead [lie to] the original EAC enquiry in 2009 and that they are continuing with the lie now. This is knowingly misleading the house and when and if the EAC gets its head around that, they will pursue it.
This is what you need to pursue, if you [all?] want to go after the UK Met Office for *provably lying to the EAC*. The UK Met Office is incidentally the UK Government's main 'arm' in IPCC and UNFCCC.
The *lie* is deliberately concealing in 2009 that UKMO turned a major *positive*-feedback in the projected carbon-cycle [fully reported as such in IPCC AR4 in 2007] into a major *negative*-feedback in the model upon which the UK Climate Act [which became law in 2008] is based and not telling the EAC they had done this.
In other words, they sold the EAC a 'Story' which Aubrey Meyer has documented in the written evidence to the EAC and which I sent this blog earlier and which raised 'not yet banned's Question.
I send it again here: -http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/EAC_Real_.pdf
Please do understand, the *sign* of the feedback is a very big deal indeed.
Aubrey says, think of positive feedback in the carbon-cycle as a *bad-thing* [it makes a bad situation worse as more and more carbon stays in the sky as a fraction of the ‘budget-emissions’ from fossil fuel burning etc].
However, think of negative feedback as a *good-thing* [it makes a bad situation less bad as less and less carbon stays in the sky as a fraction of the ‘budget-emissions’ from fossil fuels etc that you are burning].
In fact you can think of a negative feedback in the carbon cycle as like finding the Holy Grail. It is like turning water into wine; in response to budget-emissions, carbon will be falling out of the sky and not adding up in it.
So the 'discovery' by UKMO in their model that what was first a positive feedback was in fact a negative feedback is [at least in their terms] huge ‘good news’.
So on contempt for the House, the issue is not which of these [positive or negative] is true. The issue here [on contempt for the house] is, why would UKMO have lied to the 2009 Enquiry and misled them into believing that this so-called ‘coupled carbon cycling’ was in the Climate Act as very significant positive feedback [as reported in IPCC AR4 in 2007], when in fact you knew [but didn’t say] that using a model called MAGICC the feedback had been turned into a negative feedback in the UK Climate Act at least fully one year earlier in 2008.
Why did they do this? It is something that if anything they would have shouted about. But UKMO didn't say anything about this change of sign. In fact they did exactly the opposite, as the evidence from Dr Jason Lowe [quoted on page 20 of Aubrey’s evidence shows], they continued to make the EAC believe that it was a positive feedback making things worse.
So look in your own (climate) mirror and make up your mind in the light of the evidence provided to EAC last Wednesday if you are more interested in ‘disproving climate change’ or proving the UKMO lied to the EAC - and is now feeding all this into the IPCC AR5 preparations.
For some light relief you can consider the plight of Julia and Winston [Jason] here: -
http://www.gci.org.uk/news_June_2013.html
As I see it, if one is being faced with an ugly, and uglier *reality*, as Aubrey Meyer laid out in a knowledgeable, relaxed, friendly yet firm way before the EAC, the only sensible thing one can do is to *Face this Reality* and not 'beat around the bush' too much as......'it may start burning rather fiercely' and......it does every year more so, ask a New Yorker, Oklahoman, American farmer or a Philippino! Oh and.....ask a Roman as today it is 34 here and.....a good 'biblical 7' above the norm of 27 max!
Jelle
If major positive feedbacks are missing from the models, the divergence between observations and model projections is presumably even larger than they are already?
That is a plausible reason why MOHC would have done this.
Indeed Bishop Hill, you may very well be right in observing, "That is a plausible reason why UKMO would have done this."
But that is not what this dispute is about. It is about experts giving honest evidence honestly. They did not do this. They gave evidence about a very contested area of the 'science' in a completely dishonest and misleading way.
In your words that is not a plausible reason why they would have told the EAC nothing about 'making this change' from what was reported in IPCC 2007, to what they claimed to have done in the 2009 Enquiry [I.E. positive feedback was in] against what they had actually done in the UK Climate Act in 2008 [I.E. Negative Feedback was in].
Read their evidence to EAC 2009 - you can see that is exactly what they said then.
Then to hear Julia Slingo say now that everything "is absolutely untrue" is [what shall we call] a farce perhaps? What do suppose was she referring to? All her own evidence?
Jelle - thanks for you explanation of the UKMO changing the sign. I took this as coherent and credible until I read the last sentence, where sadly you blew it completely. Do you really think that Hurricane Sandy in NY, the recent tornadoes in Oklahoma, and Rome having a warm spell are a result of or evidence for climate change? Given the extensive historical record we have of extreme weather events, particularly in Europe and for the last couple of hundred years in North America and Australasia, it is clear that these are nothing unusual or unprecedented. The only thing that has changed is that we now have larger and more densely populated settlements, and more settlements in areas prone to flooding, tornado alleys and storm tracks. We also have video enabled smart phones and cameras and a gullible and global media industry which likes dramatic footage of floods and storms. Please watch this short presentation for some rational enlightenment and context - Dr. Sally Baliunas on Weather Cooking - a history of people's reactions to extreme weather.
I find the supposition that anybody actually has a grip on the carbon cycle, anybody, UKMO, GCI or anybody else, to be highly suspect. There are conjectures about the carbon cycle. But it isn't like the water cycle, we have a system in carbon where it can disappear for millions of years, or hundreds, or actually go walking about. I don't want my world disrupted on the basis of half-baked theories and models. I don't want the UK parliament to think it has any responsibility to look after the world's climate, especially not informed by someone who has a known solution of sharing out all the stuff which applies to any problem. Everything about this is wrong, I will not engage in arguments about details or who said what to whom or what evil scientific establishment is covering up secrets to aid which international committee.
Rhoda
I'm with you. Added to which this bear of little brain has read this morning's post and then the source material in this thread and barely understands a word of it.
Somebody please correct me where I am going wrong.
The Met Office tells the EAC (or anyone else who will listen) that climate feedback is positive.
Then (according to Hielkema) "...the UKMO ... lied to the 2009 Enquiry and misled them into believing that this so-called ‘coupled carbon cycling’ was in the Climate Act as very significant positive feedback when in fact you [they?] knew ... that using a model called MAGICC the feedback had been turned into a negative feedback in the UK Climate Act at least fully one year earlier in 2008."
I don't understand what this means. Did parliament pass the 2008 Act in the belief that the negative feedback was actually positive? Hielkema seems to be saying that it was known to be negative but it is difficult to get a grip on that (language problem, I'm sure). If so (and I don't believe it) why would the MO then go back to saying it was positive a year later?
And who believes that parliament knows (or cares) very much about the positivity or negativity of feedbacks? The 2008 Act is a political instrument and would almost certainly (at the 95% confidence level?) have been passed anyway since the UK's entire stance on global warming is based on the massive philanthropic gesture that the country needs to give a moral lead to the world.
Misleading the EAC is naughty but in the overall scheme of things fairly irrelevant unless I'm missing something.
Mike - I disagree - if the UKMO misled the EAC then they need to be called out. Instigating and perpetuating junk science is bad enough but duplicity and dishonesty needs to be exposed and those involved reprimanded. The public sector gets away with far too much already.
The question was raised as to what the Meyer predictions are.
A fair question.
The answer appears to be projections rather than predictions.
This user-active animation demonstrates the range of these: -
http://www.gci.org.uk/CBAT/cbat-domains/Domains.swf
Ample room for contrarian affinity group members here it would appear.
Everyone is challenged to come up with their preferred - numerate - projections.
Jun 20, 2013 at 9:06 AM | Crotone
Just saw this 'In Context' of the Meyer---Betts discussion and.....though it was Good Advice, in my books 'equivalent' to the Key Word 'NATURE':
"Consequently, my advice to you Richard is this: - if you want to turn water into wine and drink it, that's fine. Probably many will make merry and drink it with you, unless [that is] you are trying to walk on it at the same time. That is a different matter, because God no-one will know what else is going to be in it."
I think Meyer is being quite clear that this is not science, it is philosophy. He is giving some charts showing probabilities, but it is all intended to show likelihood of change, and is arguing the precautionary principle be adopted to mitigate high levels of scientific uncertainty.
WELL James this may not be the Science we are 'used to' [which has been pretty, and then not so pretty, MISLEADING and at least not transparently HONEST over the past some 20 years or so and primarily in the service of those who think that God is all of a sudden sees tree tops showing up in his Domain] and.....it may be Philosophy BUT it seems at least to be Philosophy of REALITY which stares us all in Our Face and every day more so. So......???!!!
And ......mind you.....there is some Real Science behind what Aubrey Meyer is 'saying and holding out' to the Global All for their Common Good. Good old Pythagoras led the way on that some 2500 years ago and it still 'holds water' with not a leak in sight!
Jelle, Regarding Aubrey Meyer and "philosophy of reality," I respect most people interested in such things. However, I find that anyone's particular philosophical preferences make a loopy pill when they are combined with the "science" word. Poor Pythagoras, I had really though Aristotle removed his hat on this one, but I suppose you're entitled to such opinions, as are Meyer, Descartes, Cheney, etc.
James,
Thnx for 'entitling people to their opinions' even if you made to my mind a grave mistake of adding Dick C. to that list which weakens it considerably. But then.....wasn't it your famous namesake who mistook splendid Sydney harbour for a 'mere insignificant inlet of sorts' and was consumed himself rather miserably by 'indigenous Hawaiians?! Say no more but maybe read him up some here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook . Quite a seafaring scientist himself but then.....'given to.....'!