Bishop Hill Betts off
Dec 10, 2014 Climate: MetOffice Richard Betts has kicked off a small Twitter kerfuffle today, taking umbrage at Matt Ridley's Times piece yesterday.
@ProfMarkMaslin Exactly. If @mattwridley wants to criticise climate policy then he's got every right, but attacking scientists is wrong.
— Richard Betts (@richardabetts) December 10, 2014Matt has responded on his own blog today and I'm taking the liberty of reproducing his comment here.
After this article was published an extraordinary series of tweets appeared under the name of Richard Betts, a scientist at the UK Met Office and somebody who is normally polite even when critical. He called me “paranoid and rude” and made a series of assertions about what I had written that were either inaccurate or stretched interpretations to say the least. He then advanced the doctrine that politicians should not criticize civil servants. The particular sentence he objected to was:
Most of the people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in their views on climate policy, which hardly reassures the rest of us that they leave those prejudices at the laboratory door.
He thought this was an unjustified attack on civil servants. However, if you read what I said in that sentence, it is that (1) people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in support of certain policies – which is not a criticism, just a statement; and (2) that we need reassurance that they do not let that consciously or unconsciously influence their work, which again is not a criticism, let alone an attack, merely a request for reassurance. Certainly there is no mention of civil servants, let alone by name, and nothing to compare with an attack on me by name calling me paranoid and rude.
Is the first assertion true? I had in mind Jim Hansen, who was in charge of GISS, a data set for which serious questions have been raised about adjustments made that warm the present or cool the past, and who is prepared to get himself arrested in protest against fossil fuels. I also had in mind Phil Jones, partly in charge of HADCRUT, who also is not shy with his views. I was not thinking of Julia Slingo of the Met Office, because I do not think of the Met Office as a collater of temperature data, but perhaps I should have been. And then there’s Australia’s BoM. And indeed the RSS data, whose collater, Dr Carl Mears, fumes at the way “denialists” talk about his data. Hardly objective language.
Is my request for reassurance reasonable? In view of the Australian episodes, the GISS adjustments, the USHCN story from earlier this year (see here) – all of which raised doubts about the legitimacy of adjustments being made to the temperature data – then yes, I think I am. Do I think the data are fatally flawed? No, I don’t. I happily accept that all the data sets show some warming in the 1980s and 1990s and not much since and that this fits with the satellite data. But do I think such data can be used to assert that this is the warmest year, by 0.01 degrees, a month before the year ends? No, I don’t. I think people like Dr Betts should say as much.
As of this writing, Dr Betts’s latest tweet is:
If @mattwridley wants to criticise climate policy then he's got every right, but attacking scientists is wrong.
Well, if by attacking he means physically or verbally abusing, then yes, I agree, but I don’t do it. I don’t call people by name “paranoid”, for example. But criticizing scientists should be allowed surely? And asking for reassurance? Come on, Richard.
The WMO “re-analysed” a data set to get its 0.01 degree warmest year. What was that reanalysis and has it been independently checked? I would genuinely like to know. I stopped taking these things on trust after the hockey stick scandal.
The thrust of my article was that the reputation of the whole of science is at risk if bad practices and biases are allowed to infect data collection and presentation, and that science like other institutions can no longer take public trust for granted. A reaction of bluster and invective hardly reassures me that science takes my point on board. For the moment, I remain of the view that
The overwhelming majority of scientists do excellent, objective work, following the evidence wherever it leads. Science remains (in my view) our most treasured cultural achievement, bar none. Most of its astonishing insights into life, the universe and everything are beyond reproach and beyond compare.
But Dr Betts’s reaction has weakened my confidence in this view.
I must say, this seems a bit out of character for Richard, particularly his retweeting of the "Ridley is wrong because Northern Rock" thing put forward by Mark Maslin (the latter declaring, "North Rock the ultimate failure of neoliberalism", thus rather making Matt's about politicised scientists for him). I always laugh when scientists try to poison the well in this manner. It does so damage their own credibility.
Reader Comments (338)
‘Most of the people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in their views on climate policy, which hardly reassures the rest of us that they leave those prejudices at the laboratory door.’
And people who dispute the temperature data are also vocal in their views on climate policy.
The basis for Ridley’s argument is that people who are vocal in their views about climate policy cannot be trusted. But this premise leads to conclusions that are confused and at odds with Ridley’s purpose.
Among other things, his claim implies that:
• Silence on climate policy increases trust. This is surely unfounded.
• Those who voice an opinion on climate policy should not be trusted. But that would include all parties, sceptic and non-sceptic, scientist and non-scientist.
• The distrust would also encompass Ridley, who pushes his own interpretation of climate data and is also is very vocal on climate policy.
In order to achieve Ridley’s ‘reassurance’, we would need to find someone who has never made a public statement on climate policy, and/or someone who has no view at all on climate policy.
Ridley is right because Northumberlandia is vastly bigger than Northern Rock
Richard Betts is the co-ordinatior of Helix
“High-End cLimate Impacts and eXtremes (HELIX)”
“At HELIXclimate.eu we are assisting decision-makers in making climate adaptation more manageable by providing a set of credible, coherent, global and regional views of different worlds at 4, 6 and 2 degrees celsius. We are sixteen organisations funded by the EU to work together to explore consequences and responses to two degrees and beyond.”
Funded by EU FP7 Cooperation ENV.2013.6.1-3: Impacts of higher end scenarios (global average warming >2 degrees celsius with respect to pre-industrial level)
Contact the co-ordinator:
Professor Richard Betts
Chair in Climate Impacts at the University of Exeter
Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre
University of Exeter
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/HELIX
His attacks on Tim Ball and Matt Ridley were unwarranted and a gross distortion of what was actually posted.
But then the Met Office climate 'scientists' are no strangers at distorting the truth - this was Julia Slingo back in December 2010 telling us the exceptionally cold weather we'd been experiencing was 'regional'
'The UK may be cold, but it's still a warm world, says Met Office chief -
Professor Slingo, who is in charge of Britain's biggest research team investigating climate change, insisted that global warming was a reality despite the bitterly cold temperatures and heavy snowfalls that have brought much of the country to a standstill.
"This is not a global event; it is very much confined to the UK and Western Europe and if you look over at Greenland, for example, you see that it's exceptionally warm there," she said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-uk-may-be-cold-but-its-still-a-warm-world-says-met-office-chief-2165492.html
But we didn't just 'look over at Greenland', we looked at the rest of the world, and what did we find -
unusually, snow at Christmas in Australia
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20101220-310043/Australia-swaps-summer-for-Christmas-snow
4000 vehicles stranded on a freeway blocked by ice as severe cold swept southern China
http://www.beijingnews.net/story/720966
intense cold conditions in northern india
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/123129/cold-conditions-continue-northern-india.html
the authorities struggling to cope as huge snowdrifts made the streets impassible in St.Petersburg
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/st-petersburg-icicle-patrol-fights-winter-hazards-20101224-1977d.html
Atlanta with it's first white Christmas for 128 years -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYp56nS8twc
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/st-petersburg-icicle-patrol-fights-winter-hazards-20101224-1977d.html
so not exactly 'very much confined to the UK and Western Europe' as Julia Slingo would have had us believe. The Met Office is very much a propagandist organisation.
Dec 10, 2014 at 10:54 PM Richard Betts
Stephen Richards
You're wrong - I didn't play any role at all in Judy becoming an 'outsider' (to use her own word for herself). I didn't start tweeting and blogging until 2011, a year after all that happened.
You joined Twitter at 3:18 pm on 1 January 2010.
I'm looking forward to seeing Richard's calls for civility addressed to the egregious Greg Laden following this unpleasant ad hom attack on Ridley. He even manages to drag the late watercolourist and politician Herr Shicklgruber into it
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/12/10/mat-ridley-anti-science-writer-climate-science-denialist/
Nobody would have noticed it, but it was brought to our attention (described as an 'excellent post') by Prof. Mark Maslin.
Mark Maslin writes on twitter:
"Brilliant post that says it all an much better than I could http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/12/10/mat-ridley-anti-science-writer-climate-science-denialist/"
So we have a professor at one of our leading universities describing a rant about "anti-science denialists" as "brilliant".
(sorry latimer, didn't read your comment!)
Paul,
Can I clarify something. Your most recent post is a post in which you call a number of people hypocrites, including Paul Nurse, Stefan Rhamstorf, Stephan Lewandowsky, and Chris Rapley (well, and me too, but I don't really matter nor care). So, you object to a Professor calling a post with the word "denialist" in it "brilliant", but you have no issue with writing a post calling a number of other people "hypocrites". Is that okay, because you're only a Reader?
"The WMO did not say 2014 would likely be the hottest"
Dec 10, 2014 at 5:12 PM ..and Then There's Physics
"If November and December maintain the same tendency, then 2014 will likely be the hottest on record, ahead of 2010, 2005 and 1998."
WMO: https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_1009_en.html
Brownedoff
Yep, but I didn't get up to speed on actually saying stuff for a while. Can you to find a single example of me talking to or about Judy Curry before or around the time she became a critic of mainstream climate science? (You won't be able to, because I didn't)
ATTP
miaooow!;)
ATTP
I stand by my post. Take the blinkers off.
I really never thought anyone who claimed to be a physicist could be quite so unaware of the reality.
WMO sent out a press release with the intention of having 2014 hyped as the warmest year and timed to coincide with Lima — as Ridley said.
BOM adjusted Rutherglen without explanation and according to enough observers without valid reason. Eventually they came up with a lame excuse which itself did not hold water — Ridley's interpretation is therefore correct (or at the very least as correct as your decision to take a contrarian view).
I told you to look at the press reports of what Nurse said in September. Ridley's interpretation of whate said is perfectly valid. Only a committed warmist would disagree.
Nobody that knows anything about physics and metrology can claim 2014 will be the hottest year. This will only be mentioned for media spin and propaganda. Yet more evidence Richard is not "Richard", but a whole organisation currently pretending to be a cat. And andtheres is not a reasonable person.
omnologos
No, I'm not the 'voice of the Met Office' here or on twitter - the only exception would be a tweet from the @metoffice account with ^RB on the end which signifies it's from me (which only happens if there's a specific climate discussion happening). It's all my own personal opinions, and nobody ever asks me to do it.
Mike,
You're welcome to stand by your post. In fact you can stand by your post and agree with me, as they're not mutually inconsistent positions. My extremely simple point is that what Matt Ridley claimed the WMO said is not what they actually said. It may well be that they had reasons for saying what they did and that those reasons were poor, but that doesn't change that what Matt Ridley said was factually incorrect. The same applies to what he said about the BMO and about what Paul Nurse said.
As I think I may have said before, if Matt Ridley wants to avoid being strongly criticised by the people he's essentially writing about, he should aim to write things that are factually correct and should avoid using factually incorrect things to imply that science (and climate science in particular) has a problem with corruption and malpractice. It's a free world and so he can say what he wishes. He just can't insist that people don't respond negatively when what he writes is mostly nonsense.
My extremely simple point is that what Matt Ridley claimed the WMO said is not what they actually said.
Dec 11, 2014 at 9:19 AM | Unregistered Commenter...and Then There's Physics
I think what you keep saying is wrong. Please see my 8:59 comment.
ATTP
And as for "they have to listen to science and scientists", give me strength! Who does he think he is? God?What Ridley wrote was factually correct.
What you are doing is trying to claim that what WMO, BOM and Nurse said or claimed to have said or not said represented the facts. They didn't.
The fact is that WMO intended the world to be told that 2014 would be the warmest year, that BOM adjusted the Rutherglen figure without giving a reason (and only subsequently flannelled their way out when challenged) and Nurse is quoted (Daily Mail, 4/9/2014 — and this is probably the most accurate quote I could find; others would put him in an even worse light!)
Richard Betts, [snip] The last couple of weeks have seemingly revealed you for what you are - a propagandist for the CAGW cause. Why else would you be trying to make mileage out of 2014 being possibly the hottest ever year when, in reality, the observations are falling way behind the model predictions, projections or whatever else you want to call them to avoid the embarrassing fact that the real world is JUST NOT RESPONDING to increasing CO2 levels in the way it is supposed to if the CAGW proponents are correct? Why else would you take Tim Ball's piece about the "big lie" out of context in a misguided attempt to counterbalance the use of "denier" by many of the CAGW fervents? Why else would you be aiming snide remarks directly and publicly at Matt Ridley (who is a lukewarmer after all)?
In the past, I have been very appreciative of your input to BH but now you seem to be descending to levels I never imagined possible for someone I perceived as being honest and balanced. Stick to the science Richard. If you think you're right about the science, why sully your professional standing?
Martin,
The If November and December maintain the same tendency is crucial, though. They didn't say it will likely be the hottest. The said this would only be the case if November and December continue the trend we've seen already this year. Think about this for a minute. If I, or Richard Betts, or John Cook, or Stephan Lewandowsky, or Michael Mann, or Gavin Schmidt, or Stefan Rhamstorf had done something similar you'd all be up in arms screaming about scientific honesty and integrity. Someone you largely agree with does it and you brush it under the carpet and ignore it, or excuse it in some way. Matt Ridley's piece misrepresented most of the examples he chose to use. To then cry foul when people criticise it, is just ridiculous, especially coming from someone who is pontificating about scientific honesty and integrity.
Mike,
Your facts are not facts. They're your interpretation of events. You may be correct, but that doesn't make them facts. What is a fact is that what Matt Ridley claims in his article is not correct. Even if the Rutherglen data was adjusted before they provided evidence, doesn't change the fact that they have provided evidence to justify the changes (you can disagree with the evidence, but not with its existence). Why don't you do something novel. Speak with John Kennedy or Victor Venema about this site and their views on the changes. As I understand it, this is their area of expertise. Even if you think you can't trust their views, at least you might discover whether or not actual experts agree with your position.
As far as Paul Nurses's position is concerned, who else should politicians listen to when it comes to a scientific topic? He didn't say they had to do what scientists said, simply that they had to listen to them.
Dec 11, 2014 at 9:02 AM Richard Betts
Yep, but I didn't get up to speed on actually saying stuff for a while.
What was the date of your first tweet?
@ATTP
Gotta wonder why they bothered with a press release on the topic of warmest year at all, then.
Did they produce one at the same time last year saying 'if things go as they are, 2013's going to be a ho hum sort of year temperature wise'?
Or in 1999 one saying 'its OK folks, this year's a lot cooler than the record temps in 1998. Looks like (if things continue as they are) the thermocalypse has been postponed for a bit'?
If so please append the references that we can all see them.
If not, My suspicious mind tells me there was some 'spinning' going on...not unconnected with the climatofest and pissup in Lima.
The WMO were just copying the UK Met Office, they do a 'Hottest year' press release in Oct, then the true figure comes out in Feb showing no such thing but no press release admitting it. Just also like the concentration on Arctic sea ice and ignoring Antarctic sea ice. Confirmation bias in press releases and RB has the cheek to complain when called out.
@Brownedoff
https://discover.twitter.com/first-tweet#richardabetts is your friend
The Met office are about to announce that they have told more lies this year than any since records began and Richard Betts has had more tiresome disputes than any scientist since Galileo fell out with the Vatican.
Dear Mr Betts
We know who have corrupted and poisoned science?
Regarding the criticism of civil servants or scientist for that matter, since when has it been wrong to do so? A bit of special pleading here hey?
I understand your sensitivity which is normal behaviour for anyone employed by an organisation so bereft of competence and which maintains links with CRU. The sooner the Mistake Office is privatised the better.
Take a chill pill :-)
Richard Betts,[snip] You behave quite differently here and among your activist friends.There it was, just a few weeks ago where you were shocked (shocked!) about Tim Ball's comparison of alarmist propagandists with Goebbels. "What about the reconciliation at The Dinner at Nick's place", and what else. And now Matt Ridley is a paranoid conspiracy theorist for raising the obvious points that are bothering everybody who is even neutrally following the debate. And in quite a fair style I think. I'm anctiously waiting for your tweets about the Great Mann being paranoid conspiracy theorist because of all of his "Big Oil" or "fossil fuel funded denialism" tweets. Or your criticism about paleoclimatoligists' shenanigans. [snip]
Brendan H
"‘Most of the people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in their views on climate policy, which hardly reassures the rest of us that they leave those prejudices at the laboratory door.’
And people who dispute the temperature data are also vocal in their views on climate policy."
I wouldn't be vocal if we had anyone in climate who wasn't so desperate to demonstrate their belief in doomsday warming against the evidence
"The basis for Ridley’s argument is that people who are vocal in their views about climate policy cannot be trusted. But this premise leads to conclusions that are confused and at odds with Ridley’s purpose.
Among other things, his claim implies that:
• Silence on climate policy increases trust. This is surely unfounded."
Unlike someone like me who actually has a policy relevant MBA, climate academics are entirely incompetent to speak about policy. I have a science degree, I also have a policy relevant degree, as such I am both qualified to speak on the science and the policy. Almost none of those pushing global warming are similarly qualified yet they claim to be "experts". THEY ARE NOT.
"• Those who voice an opinion on climate policy should not be trusted. But that would include all parties, sceptic and non-sceptic, scientist and non-scientist."
Of course it includes sceptics. And if government were asking sceptics to advise on policy I would be just as horrified as I am seeing activist academics advising on policy. Policy advisors should be neutral, unbiased. That means they keep their mouths shut about their personal views and opinions.
That is the price you pay for being an advisor - NO BIAS
"• The distrust would also encompass Ridley, who pushes his own interpretation of climate data and is also is very vocal on climate policy."
Is ridly a civil servant or equivalent supposedly giving unbiased advice - no!
"In order to achieve Ridley’s ‘reassurance’, we would need to find someone who has never made a public statement on climate policy, and/or someone who has no view at all on climate policy."
There is a perfectly good code of conduct which is applied to civil servants. Civil servants aren't allowed to speak their own views on policy. Instead they have to accept that their role is to implement the policy of the government whether or not they personally agree.
Likewise, climate academics should stick to the science and tell the public the evidence and facts despite their own views.
And finally I have to say it is incredible in my opinion that someone claiming to be a scientist could hold this kind of view. Science only works when it is free of observer bias. As soon as someone permits their own views to taint their public pronouncements, they are allowing bias into their work and cannot by definition be called a scientist
Richard - as explained at length the Met Office does not have to control, vet, monitor, coerce any of your activity. You being the Met Office's voice is just the natural state of things, because you work there.
Yourself might claim otherwise. In that case one could ask to see one or more occasions in your several years online when you disagreed with your employer and stated it publicly. But I can't ask you to do that, as it might risk you some disciplinary action and even dismissal. Back to square one then.
Please all stop the personal attacks on Richard
The argument about which flea owns the dog just goes on and on. In this case the dog is a bull mastiff called China with a yappy chihuahua called Obama and a preening poodle called Europe running around its legs trying to avoid getting pissed on. The fleas (Free Loading Eco-Activist-Scientists) are clamoring to be heard but all that is coming their way is a puff of flea powder if they don't churn out the correct results. Keep muttering about warmest years, Guys, and try and stay with it til you get your pension. If "It is getting colder" becomes a politically expedient meme with more mileage than the lack of significant warming you will be getting your P60's.
P.S. Keep your eyes open for the Caucasian Ovcharka Russian bear dog galloping up behind you. It's got fleas that can swallow you whole. You think the kindly Putin is signing the Russian economy away on your advice?
Please keep to the substance of the article. Personal insults towards RB will be deleted.
Dr. Betts
You say you wish to debate the science but most of the frustration exhibited here is a result of you and your consensus colleagues failing to do so.
First the two main satellite data sets RSS and UHI disagree with the surface based observations and the output of majority of the Models. This is not surprising because of the flaws with surface data collection and more importantly data "adjustment" Comments please.
Do you accept Faynman's statement of the scientific method ?
If you do then as the observation does not agree with the theory that most of the warming is caused by man's emissions of C02 over the last 18+ years the theory must be wrong and some other powerful effects are at work. ?
Finally could you quote the evidence that Global warming is responsible of any of the increase in global temperature since the end of the little ice age. Also would you dispute the fact that this 2000 years of so of climate change is entirely within the natural range of historic climate variablity ? A science based reply would be appreciated. Here is an opportunity to debate the science and empirical observation.
My hunch is that the recent writings of Ball and Ridley have threatened the self-image cultivated for himself by Betts, and that this explains his over-the-top responses. Many have pointed to disconnects between his reactions and what was actually written. He was not reacting to that, in my view, so much as what he sensed was a less-than-awestruck attitude of the authors towards some of what they have found in modern science. This is not to suggest that Betts is guilty of any malfeasance, but rather that his world might collapse if it turned out that much of climate science and many of those who have built campaigns around it (be they religious, financial, or political) can be shown to be seriously unsatisfactory and not deserving of the dramatic influence they have had in recent decades.
Call me naive but couldn't it be said of scientists that scrutiny and criticism are are part of the job description?.
Politicians hate criticism and the Betts tweet is that of a politician, not a scientist.
Latimer,
According to a very reliable source :-) the WMO has produced a provisional annual statement on the state of the global climate every year since 2010. This has always been in either November or December, the earliest date being 13 November and the latest being 3 December. So, it appears that they release such a press release at about the same time every year. Whether or not they say things you agree with is another issue but I would guess that it's virtually impossible to say something that you'd agree with that was also consistent with the best evidence available. We - as a society - just have to accept that some people will simply never be satisfied.
Dear Mr Betts
We know who have corrupted and poisoned science?
Regarding the criticism of civil servants or scientist for that matter, since when has it been wrong to do so? A bit of special pleading here hey?
I understand your sensitivity which is normal behaviour for anyone employed by an organisation so bereft of competence and which maintains links with CRU. The sooner the Mistake Office is privatised the better.
Take a chill pill :-)
Irate demands for exactness... that only apply to others.
If Ridley's article is "wrong" and "nonsense", every single comment against it is utter dribble.
The only possible conclusion is that ATTP and fellow complainers are "deniers", just like the rest of us.
Brute,
Huh? Argument from logical fallacy?
@attp/wottsie
Thanks for the links. They make interesting reading. Here are the opening headlines and remarks for each year:
2013: 'Continuing high temperatures globally and many climate extremes worldwide'
'On course to be among the top ten warmest years since modern records began in 1850'
2012: 'Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt, Multiple Extremes and High Temperatures'
'The years 2001–2011 were all among the warmest on record, and, according to the World Meteorological Organization, the first ten months indicate that 2012 will most likely be no exception
2011 : 'World’s 10th warmest year, warmest year with La Niña event, lowest Arctic sea ice volume'
'Global temperatures in 2011 are currently the tenth highest on record and are higher than any previous year with a La Niña event, which has a relative cooling influence'
2010 : '2010 in the top three warmest years, 2001-2010 warmest 10-year period'
'The year 2010 is almost certain to rank in the top 3 warmest years since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850'
I think it is quite possible to discern the general thrust of the WMO's press strategy from these.
I note with puzzlement that there is no mention of the generally acknowledged pause/hiatus in these alarmist headlines.
Would you care to speculate why the world's pre-eminent weather organisation seems to be unaware of it?
@ceetee says
'Couldn't it be said of scientists that scrutiny and criticism are are part of the job description?'
Exactly. They are all public servants (in one way or another) and should be subject to scrutiny and criticism by anyone.
Today's argument is about the acceptable terms of that scrutiny.
One the one hand the scrutinised would prefer it to be conducted entirely in the anodyne language of the journals that they have considerable control over and are inaccessible to many of the general public. And only by members of the 'climate science community' who can be relied upon to take the proper line (See Climategate for examples)
On the other, the educated public who have little time for the strange conventions of academe and are quite happy to conduct their legitimate scrutiny using the robust and direct methods that they use in all their other day-to-day discourse.
It may be that once upon a time the climate scientists really thought they could keep the genie in the bottle, and that the 'great unwashed' could be kept away from data and methods and understanding. Again Climategate shows us their ultimately futile attempts to do so.
But even in those 5 short years since 'The Miracle Occurred', blogs and twitter and social media has blown that idea sky-high. The genie's escaped.
And with due respect to RB who I believe to be a civilised and intelligent man (if occasionally Nelsonian when it comes to 'misbehaviour') it's really not down to the climos to tell how we should express our criticisms of the work they do on our behalf and with our money. Nor can they dictate the mechanisms we use to do so.
The world has changed. Climate science and climate policy is a matter of public debate. It is not surprising that we use all the mechanisms and methods available to do so. Live with it.
Latimer,
No, would you care to speculate why noone here appears willing to acknowledge the timing of this year's press release might not be particularly suspicious, given that it appears to have been released at about the same time as similar press releases in previous years?
Richard Betts on one hand decries "scattershot attacks" and on the other personalises it to individuals.
So, which is it?
And all this is based on 0.5K per century, none of which was in the last 18 years and all of which looks entirely natural. Sigh!
Now academia are trying to tell us in the Media that falling oil prices are somehow a problem rather than a welcome boost.........because BP might shed some jobs and Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia might be adversely affected. Boo hoo!
Academics arguiing that black is white seems to be the new black.
I have just ploughed through the comments here. I had no idea that the warmest year claim depended on a 0.01 degree difference, and that this smaller than the margin of error. I do not remember the BBC mentioning this when they led with the story. That being so, the elevation of the story to prime time news is nothing less than misleading propaganda.
Can we expect to see the final calculation after the December data is in? Does the WMO routinely provide the final update? Can BH enlighten us when the final numbers are in?
Mike Haseler
most excellent post at Dec 11, 2014 at 10:14 AM
These 2 points go a long way to explain why the country is as kaput as it is.
TC says
I came across a graph posted by Ed Hawkins on Twitter here https://twitter.com/ed_hawkins/status/542637005201756160
We are told the red hatched area is the indicative IPCC AR5 assessed likely range for annual means. You will note on this basis the hiatus could continue until 2035 and still be within IPCC projections. So, on the one hand we can have 35 years of non-warming and on the other hand we can have 3-4C warming by 2050. Fairly wide parameters. Seems the only way the hypothesis can be falsified is by cooling.
It should also be noted that Kevin Anderson’s putative top end prediction would not actually fit on this graph.
For the benefit of Richard Betts, this is not an attack on scientists simply an observation from a citizen trying to make sense of it all.
@attp
You ask:
'Would you care to speculate why noone here appears willing to acknowledge the timing of this year's press release might not be particularly suspicious, given that it appears to have been released at about the same time as similar press releases in previous years?'
A good question. And it reminded me that there is a COP conference every autumn too. And when we examine the dates concerned we see not just one suspiciously timed press release...but a pattern going back at least as far as 2010.
The press releases (as discussed above) are consistently within the first four days of the annual COP conference.
2014: Lima. COP20. 1 - 12 Dec. WMO Press release 3 Dec. Day 3 of conference
2013: Warsaw. COP19. 11 - 22 Nov. WMO Press release 13 Nov. Day 3 of conference
2012: Doha. COP18. 26 Nov - 7 Dec. WMO Press release 28 Nov. Day 3 of conference
2011: Durban. COP17. 28 Nov - 9 Dec WMO Press release 29 Nov. Day 2 of conference
2010: Cancun. COP16. 29-Nov - 10 Dec WMO Press release 2 Dec. Day 4 of conference
I'm the first to agree that correlation ain't causation, but surely its not unreasonable to imagine that some human agency deliberately timed these press releases to coincide with these conferences?
If it was pure coincidence it was one heck of one, especially considering the annual COP conference is one of the landmark occasions in the meteorologist/climos calendar. It can hardly have crept up on the WMO unnoticed for five years on the trot.
Look forward to your reply. And to your discussion of lack of reference to the pause/hiatus.
"Richard Betts @richardabetts
@nmrqip Yes - bunch of idiots. The more distance climate scientists can keep from activists like Romm, the better!
3 years ago "
And who is being quoted here ?
10:10 @1010 Highly Influential
RT @metoffice: RT @richardabetts: Great to have @frannyarmstrong visit @metoffice yesterday to chat about Age Of Stupid, @1010, #IPCC an ...
4 years ago"
Richard, as an open-minded scientist would you care to comment on the latest revelations about the "Hockey Stick" posted here?
http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/04/sheep-mountain-update/
The reason I note this is that
1) it has not been, to my knowledge, picked up by the media.
2) No climate scientist, of any repute, appears to have commented on Steve McIntyre's findings.
Dec 11, 2014 at 12:45 PM | Unregistered Commenteroldtimer
Can we expect to see the final calculation after the December data is in?
Comes out in Feb normally and never seems to live up to its billing so its a quiet announcement ;)
Much like the lack of announcements for the record sea extent for ice in the Antarctica its more of a whisper
Does the WMO routinely provide the final update?
Yes as above
Can BH enlighten us when the final numbers are in?
WUWT is best for this type of monitoring