Bishop Hill Nice sentiments
May 17, 2014 Climate: Sceptics Climate: Ward Simon Buckle of the Grantham Institute at Imperial has penned some nice thoughts about the Bengtsson affair:
Professor Lennart Bengtsson’s resignation from the GWPF Academic Advisory Council has received wide coverage and raises important issues.
Whatever anyone’s views are on the role, motivation and integrity of the GWPF in this matter, it is up to individual academics whether or not to associate themselves with it in an advisory role.
It is regrettable that perceived political stances on the climate issue are apparently so affecting academic activity. The Grantham Institute at Imperial has always opposed such behaviour, believing that scientific progress requires an open society. We try to engage with a wide range of figures, some with radically different views on climate change.
The outcome in this case is probably a reflection of the “us and them” that has permeated the climate science debate for decades and which is in part an outcome of – and reaction to – external pressure on the climate community. But we must be clear: this is not a justification. Concerted external pressure – if that is what it was – on Professor Bengtsson to resign from his GWPF role was wrong and misjudged.
This is all excellent stuff and I share his feelings entirely. I'm glad he feels that Bengtsson should be free to work with GWPF, just as Buckle works with the Green Alliance.
I'm also glad that he was clear that it was the Imperial end of the Grantham Institute he was defending. The LSE end, as readers here know, has been at the very forefront of efforts to smear any scientist showing signs of independent thought on global warming. It is a sewer.
Bishop Hill
The media people at the Grantham Institute (that's you Bob!) need to get their act sorted out. Here, at the website of the Science Media Centre, are Simon Buckle's words being spoken by Joanna Haigh.
Prof Joanna Haigh, Co-Director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said:
“Professor Lennart Bengtsson’s resignation from the GWPF Academic Advisory Council has received wide coverage and raises important issues.
“Whatever anyone’s views are on the role, motivation and integrity of the GWPF in this matter, it is up to individual academics whether or not to associate themselves with it.
“It is regrettable that perceived political stances on the climate issue are apparently so affecting academic activity. The Grantham Institute at Imperial has always opposed such behaviour, believing that scientific progress requires an open society. We try to engage with a wide range of figures, some with radically different views on climate change.”
“The outcome in this case is probably a reflection of the ‘us and them’ that has permeated the climate science debate for decades and which is in part an outcome of – and reaction to – external pressure on the climate community.
It occurs to me that Bob Ward is the PR guy for both bits of the Grantham Institute, so I may in fact be far too charitable in this post.
Bishop Hill
In the comments Tamsin says that Bob Ward is only the PR "director" for LSE and not Imperial.
Reader Comments (123)
My guess is that someone Bengtsson respected suggested that he would be blacklisted by his community, or if not the entire community, enough to cause discomfort in his continuing career. it would only have required one such suggestion. the rest was likely noise.
It was the blacklisting which reminded him of the McCarthy era during which such lists created serious hiatuses in many careers in the arts.
Michel says: We do not have the right to demand heroism, though we should respect it when it occurs.
I like his contribution on the "sociology" of climate science. The various scares have been brought to us by people with credentials, and the scares can probably only be ended or mitigated by people with credentials. A few of these people, somewhat lacking in competence and/or honesty, did work that has been greatly amplified and simplified by the IPCC process, and now they have created something of a monster. Probably even more powerful as motivation than the river of money, prestige, travel, release time from teaching undergraduates etc. is the sense that by being green one has the right friends and the right enemies (no pun intended), even if one's friends make, er, mistakes. That is the power of group think.
"I don't think major parts of climate science are wrong"
Care to get scientific and list which ones are right and which ones are wrong?
Andrew
Richard,
What do you think about the use of Tiljander's proxy data by Mann?
Bad Andrew
Right:
I think it is correct to expect climate to continue to warm over the next century as a result of human influence.
I also think it is correct to expect sea levels to rise and rainfall patterns to change as a result of this.
Wrong:
I think the risk of increased drought, while real in some areas, has been overplayed, including in IPCC AR4 WG1. You'll notice that the IPCC reduced its confidence on this in SREX and AR5. Personally I still think some hydrological impacts studies are still potentially over-playing increased water stress to some extent by ignoring the ameliorating effect of CO2 on plant physiology (reducing transpiration). We did cover this in AR5 to some extent, but there's still inconsistencies and lack of studies at the appropriate scale, and it's hard to be sure how important this effect really is. It shouldn't be ignored though.
I prefer Jonathan's question (3:37 PM) to Bad Andrew's (3:31 PM). I also, from past experience, have a longer fuse than some before delay in a Betts answer causes an explosion. (Written before seeing his lightning-fast response to the first question!) Isn't life's variety grand? I think we should also start to define a Guenier filter. It's always optional whether to use it but applying it here I appreciate the following statements from Richard, independent of whether his science is all good or all bad:
The strange thing is if a Guenier filter is applied this man looks like an ally but without it many consider him a deadly enemy. I won't seek to resolve the paradoxes further.
"I'd need to see the paper to comment in detail, of course. It sounds as if the paper was too lightweight..."
Haha. As if the journals don't fall over themselves to publish any old piece of fluff that reaches sufficiently alarmist conclusions.
Try again.
Of course Bengtsson's paper is weak. They all are.
Climatology is a political football precisely because the science is weak.
Climatologists are about as rigorous in their thinking as the underpants gnomes.
Richard Drake,
I am not expecting a reply from Richard Betts. He made quite clear on twitter on May 8 that he was entirely unwilling to answer questions about Tiljander
blaming political pressure for his reticence
Deduce what you like from that.
Many thanks Jonathan. Poisoned seems one word we can all agree on.
Never mind the rights and wrongs of climate science - let's get the rules of limericks right.
It's:
De dum de de dum de de dum de,
De dum de de dum de de dum de.
De dum de de dum,
De dum de de dum,
De dum de de dum de de dum de.
And the rhyming scheme is AABBA.
The shocking thing about the Bengtsson affair is less that he first joined, but then left the board due to reactions from his peers, but the kind of reactions that elicited. Generally he might have expected reactions like being ostracized. The climate warner community might have decided not to invite him to their conferences, drop him from a few email lists and generally pass over the fact completely. Instead though they, as if on command (from the little that Bengtsson himself lets us know), they started an ACTIVE witch hunt making even fear for his health and security. Now, let me see, when did I last hear of something like that? Ah yes, Islamic apostates or non-believers who penned caricatures of a certain religious figure were the last ones I remember speaking about their plight in a similar vein.
Will commenters please refrain for making personal and unnecessarily aggressive remarks about other commenters and stick to the subject of the post. Any further examples will be cut in their entirety
Mikky said:
I think that is a tidy explanation for why projections are not predictions. The usefulness of models for shaping policy decisions has been grossly oversold either to politicians, by politicians or both. In such circumstances it is welcome when modelers do caution about over-interpreting model output but that is both rare and only a recent development in climate science and climate politics.
Models quickly became a convenient tool for policy based evidence making.
Charlie said:
Well goodness gracious me.
Charlie is that UK for the next Eurovision Song Contest
Just need an ugly beardy in a dress to sing it
I don't remember using a word worse than those used by the crimatologists. Worse than 'denier' ? I must have been tired or we are not getting the balance quite right.
It might be interesting to learn just what definition of the "climate community" Simon Buckle uses when referring to "external pressures" put upon them.
Be that as it may, I'm sure that people "external" to the climate community are also responsible for the vast majority of the community's funding, and hence it's very existence. So it is perhaps not unreasonable that there might be some quid pro quo expected for the burden being shouldered by the external community.
This takes on much more serious implications when so much of the climate community's output commonly appears geared towards producing justifications for re-mortgaging the industrial revolution to fund the utopian strictures of environmentalists and unreconstructed Malthusians.
For what it's worth, I certainly felt great sympathy for the UK Meteorological Community in the aftermath the external pressures generated by the great storm of 1987. I didn't think it was reasonable to expect them to be able to forecast many such weather extremes, and I still see no reason to think differently.
Jonathan Jones
My current understanding, having recently done more reading and talking to people as you suggested, is that Tiljander was potentially influenced by non-climate effects so was not appropriate to include. There was a sensitivity study done later which suggested that excluding it didn't affect the original conclusions much.
I'm not sure why you keep claiming I was "bowing to political pressure". In the tweets you quote, after the Exeter Uni conference twitter Q&A session, I was referring to having spent a great deal of time online showing why Aubrey Meyer (the Contraction and Convergence guy) is completely wrong in his 'analysis' (!) of runaway climate-carbon cycle feedbacks and in his allegations that the Met Office has conspired to downplay the strength of these feedbacks. He think the climate change act does not go far enough, and justifies this on the basis of his misunderstanding of science. Moreover, he has the ear of MPs now, which is why I think it is important that people know he's getting it wrong. This is why I prioritised it over getting into a twitter debate on a issue which I know less about but which is controversial (and hence would take up a lot of time).
So it's not a matter of political pressure, just time pressure and prioritisation. There's only so much time I can spend on twitter, blogs etc, and personally I think it is more useful if I focus on the things I know most about and which are of the most immediate relevance (i.e.: people giving wrong information to Parliament and trying directly to influence legislation on the basis of this).
PS. In case you were wondering, I didn't see your original question at 3:37 PM above when I replied to Bad Andrew - you must have posted it while I was writing mine, and/or after I last updated, and then I went off to do something else.
Richard if Benny Peiser or Nigel Lawson offered you a post at the GWPF would you be too scared to take it?
Sounds like a trick question to me.
I would love to comment but Saint Johnstone have just won The Scottish Cup for the first time in their illustrious history and I am proud to confess that I have imbibed of the carbonated amber nectar probably in greater quantities than any medical professional would recommend. But - hey - only 97% of them can be right at any one moment...
So. I'll get back you later...
A meteo boffin from Sweden
Thought Climate Change dogma misleadin'.
He published his fears
which upset his peers
Who love academic deceivin'.
OT but I wonder if anyone else has trouble with an android phone. For 3 days it has refused to loads WUWT. It load all other websites. I have to use the computer instead.
[Please put O/T comments onto Unthreaded. BH]
Margeret.
Mine works find using Chrome with Verizon here in US.
Same question to Tasmin
Stuck-record on May 17, 2014 at 12:28 PM
"Do you want to be remembered as Galileo or those who mocked and persecuted him?"
The Catholic Church were relaxed about Galileo's theory, as a theory. What they objected to was that he was arrogant enough to say that it was Reality. That makes him more like the Alarmists! He was also located close the Church's HQ. If he had been in Britain, it might have been different.
Not only was the Catholic Church involved with some difficult European politics, so they were in an uncompromising mood, there was also the significance of circular motion being heavenly behaviour: on the Earth objects went up and came down in a sort of curve (parabolic) while the stars were supposed to move 'circles with circles within circles etc'. Galileo was, in fact, making the heavenly behaviour unexceptional, and it was that, that worried the Church.
And, in addition to Galileo's arrogance, he was also wrong. The Earth's (classical) orbit is an ellipse.
I have been impressed how Tamsin Edwards and Richard Betts respond to points made on this blog, not just in connection with the Bengtsson paper but also on other issues. I don't always agree with everything they say but they do make their points in a polite and reasonable way. If all climate scientists and all green activists did the same there would be less heat and more light generated on the political issues associated with climate change.
As BH has said it would be a very good thing if sceptics were equally polite towards those climate scientists who are prepared to discuss things with them.
Richard Betts,
To respect our host's request, I refer interested readers to our twitter discussion which they can judge for themselves.
Your current position on Tiljander is briefly discussed on pages 367-368 of our host's book, and comprehensively demolished by McIntyre at The No-Dendro Illusion.
Dr Betts
Good replies.
I might not agree with you (given the environment {!}, I am {predictably} more skeptical), but you put an arguable POV.
Jamspid
Super model based projected wild ass guess suggests Tamsin has already turned down a previous GWPF proposal, whilst Richard is still awaiting any such communication.
A limerick can have slightly different scansion schemes. The last syllable, for example, can be strong rather than weak. Both the following opening lines are valid:
A buxom young woman from Bolton
u - u u - u u - u
A handsome young man from New York
u - u u - u u -
A humorous parody of the Limerick is this one:
There was a young man of Japan
Whose limericks never would scan.
When asked why this was,
He replied "It's because
I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever I possibly can."
With a quick enough tongue, this can be made to sound like a limerick.
Helpful interaction, JJ and RB. Interesting what emerges with politeness.
It looks like nice sentiments but. . . read between the lines. Buckle's saying writing papers and such is fine but the planet's at stake here and we have to be rigorous.
[Snip - venting]
The fraught and febrile nature of some comments here is but a tiny part of the mess that the climate alarm merchants have brought us. The starvation due to bio-fuels, the terrified children told they are doomed unless they 'act', people in the developing world believing that their weather-related crises are caused by the industrialised world, precious resources being diverted to construct windmills on land and at sea, and a political culture in which eco-zealots seek to thrive and gain totalitarian levels of control over us all. A slightly less tiny part than this thread is the corruption of science and the degeneration of such as the BBC and the Royal Society, institutions which could have contributed to calm debate and reasoned examination but instead plumped for the more vivid, the more melodramatic, notion of CAGW. A notion based almost entirely on computer models of woeful inadequacy, equipped with the forcing wheeze that allows all manner of factors to be included with modest effort by way of conclusions about their net effect rather than by revelation of modelling. Models whose results are taken by politicians and others as dire warnings and predictions, while being classed as mere projections or perhaps illustrations by their owners and operators and sundry very interested parties. Some of whom, it would seem, cannot abide the notion of comparing model outputs with real data - and why would they since the models do so badly? And some of whom see themselves more as soldiers for the cause who cannot abide one of their presumed number going across the line to meet with and advise the 'other side'.
Well, in my view, that 'other side' is where the better people are. I do not declare all others to be bad. I was myself when young convinced by that charlatan of eco-charlatans, Paul Ehrlich, with his talk of imminent doom in the 1970s. I was taken in for a few years, and I can recall something of what it felt like. The self-assurance, the despair that others weren't listening, the sense that people needed to be brought to their senses before it was too late. And of course that 'bad' people were conniving to thwart reform for their own ends. So now I try to school myself to be generous to the young today who have been exposed to far more than I was in terms of eco-scaremongering and forecasts of doom.
These latest scandals - the pressure on Bengtsson and of the apparently politically-motivated rejection of his recent paper - are further evidence of the profoundly unimpressive, in moral and intellectual attributes, nature of the climate alarm camp. And as such, one hopes they will hasten the end of this disgraceful period in science and politics.
John: I'm sure the Bengtsson affair is hastening the end. Trouble is, as we see from the reactions of Mann, Linehan and those in between, those firmly in the dark will 'radicalise' as they lose their grip. Cool heads needed.
Courage in science should be awarded with an updated [snip]
Nobel prize
Careers where someone fought Against ignorant
Consesus.
That leftard nobel prize goes to weasel minion
Nurse is no surprise
Professor Bengtsson’s resignation has been brought about because people wanting to shut down dialogue, so that their beliefs are left unquestioned. There are three aspects to this - the degree to which "climate change" is potentially problematic, the practical questions of whether potential solutions to the problem are available and the ethical/political issues of those solutions. I welcome the comments of Professor Richard Betts in this respect. He recognizes the broad range of positions on climate science and differentiates climate science from policy and ethical/political issues.
It is worth remembering that Nigel Lawson's intent in setting up the GWPF was to encourage the dialogue, and make the distinctions. In the wider world, prejudice, polarized opinions and (non-violent) conflict are often resolved by dialogue, which leads to recognition that there are other opinions that may be valid as well as one's own.
Now we are getting to aGW, it was only a matter of time and perseverance.
Whatever the politics or beliefs of any individual or group that has an axe to grind, science is science it is fact based and the truth will out. Perhaps a fly on the wall in Newton's or Galileo's day could relate tales of similar intrigue, political wrangling, power moves and monetary waste before manns machinations were buried under the weight of reason. In a hundred years the annals will portray a far smoother learning curve than the noise of current knowledge. Warring factions will be multi-decadelly smoothed out and interest lost in the bitterness and disrespect played out on a daily basis so why waste time and energy.
"I think it is correct to expect climate to continue to warm over the next century as a result of human influence."
Richard Betts,
Let's try to stay scientific here.
How much?
Andrew
Richard Betts "I think it is correct to expect climate to continue to warm over the next century as a result of human influence."
Bad Andrew "How much?"
I think if I was discussing the empirical science I think I'd avoid the word "correct". That talks more to a set of rules having been followed in a conventional manner. Maybe: "I think it is likely for the climate to ..." (or something less clumsy).
So the question becomes the likelihood (and its PDF). It moves us on from discussing artificial dichotomies and arbitrary numbers.
We need the insights from "high quality research and analysis to ensure our policy and political choices are as well informed as can be – importantly including social, political and economic research as well as that from the physical sciences and engineering".
It is precisely why there has been so much pressure from those outside the Climatology circus. Lousy science attracts criticism. That is why the climatologists are under attack by physicists, chemists, geologists, meteorologists, palaeontologists and archeologists. At some stage or other the dogma of global warming has involved rewriting science to conform with the theory.
That always attracts critics esp. when they find that data is withheld, and the mildest query met with abuse and censorship. And when the strident calls leave science and proclaim the need for a non-solution using wind or sun, then the engineers join the chorus of disapproval.
Grantham Institute is the same place that employs the attack dog Bob 'fast fingers ' Ward .
In the end Grantham funds these place with the intent to make myself even richer still , that is their task and that is what Buckle draws his pay cheque for . Science comes long way down the list .
http://biasedbbc.org/blog/2014/05/17/a-pause-in-the-bbcs-reporting/#comments
I do note that my comment on the myth of global climate change is being avoided/ignored. Is this, I wonder, because I am talking a load of billiards (feasible) or that it is deliberate, to avoid being pinned down to defining “climate change” (a recent parliamentary meeting seemed to have trouble with that, too) and explaining what the indications that climate change is happening are. My suspicions are that the rather nebulous term, “climate change”, is now being used as the more definitive “global warming”, with which they managed to scare us for so long, is no longer valid.
Still, Mr Betts manages to get in the fallacy of rising temperatures as he does “…expect climate to continue to warm…” (Of which, by the way, there has been no evidence whatsoever for the past 15 years, or so.) So, is the only way to monitor a changing climate by measuring the temperature? Given the complexities of any climate, surely there are other ways? I do find it rather unusual that a senior scientist in the UKMO continues with this meme, which surely must raise the question of the meaning of the word “scientist”, most certainly with reference to “climate scientists”.
Dr Betts
The paper you cite (May 17, 2014 at 3:12 PM) seems to be a classic example of the Millikan effect.
I have long thought that this effect would be seen to operate in the matter of Climate Sensitivity, although in the opposite direction to movement of the historically reported charge on the electron. I also expect the final figure (pace those who dispute the validity of a single number, implying linearity) to differ from even the low end of the implausibly wide range given by the IPCC by considerably more than the ~1% between Millikan's value and that now accepted
Radical Rodent on May 18, 2014 at 11:15 AM
' ...raise the question of the meaning of the word “scientist”, most certainly with reference to “climate scientists”.'
Or Whether Scientist, or not?
Richard Betts wrote...
Speculative changes in the speculative risk of future drought. All very scientific I'm sure.
Well, you would say that, wouldn't you.
RR
I'm not ignoring your hypothesis about climate changing just still recovering from an assortment of random power outages caused by gales that have somewhat limited access to the outside world over the last couple of days!
However, you make no advance on an argument that I have put forward more than once and which also attracts very little in the way of response, namely that climate either always changes or (ice ages aside) can be said never to change.
That last statement needs a bit of qualification since at the margins — either latitudinally or vertically — individual sites that might be considered sub-Arctic at certain times will become Arctic or temperate at other times and ditto for the other climate zones.
That aside the temperature ranges within the zones are fairly wide and within that range appear to remain fairly constant. The alleged global mean temperature (a fallacious construct invented by climatologists for their own purposes, I would suggest) seems to be somewhere in the range 14-15C with occasional excursions towards 13 or 16. The former is bad news because we know from local history and other sources that it means bad summers, extremes of weather and poor crops; the latter generally means better crop yields, fewer deaths from cold and has been the driver behind most of the major civilisations in the past.
It also, so the climatologists tell us, means quieter weather because one of the main drivers of weather is the temperature gradient between tropics and arctic which is less during warming periods.
Except when we aren't scared enough when it suddenly reverses itself and causes (correction, may/might/will/has the potential to cause) such weather "I know not what but it will be the terrors of the earth".
Maybe.
Two things of which I become more certain by the day:
1. Climate scientists generally know naff all about climate (not their fault; how much does anybody "know" about chaotic non-linear systems) but scaring people is a good way to keep them in a job;
2. Eco-luddites generally care naff all about climate but scaring people is a good way to get us to fall in line with the Gaia-worship.
During my lifetime I have lived through some bloody awful winters and some bloody awful summers as well as the incredible summers of 1975 and 1976 and the totall sh1t summer of 1977 that followed. I have watched the MSM get all excited about rivers and aquifers drying up and then watched them take photographs of the same rivers (aquifers is a bit trickier!) nine months later when they're full.
I've been told that floods are unprecedented only to find from the records at Tewkesbury Abbey that they are nothing of the sort. I've listened to rivermen on the Avon (who probably have forgotten more about water management than most EA employees and climate scientists will ever know) who can tell precisely why recent flooding has been more severe than for several decades and "global warming" has nothing to do with it but concrete and tarmac does.
And for every extreme event anywhere in the UK there is a historical record of some similar event equally or more severe. And I have no reason to believe that the UK is any different from anywhere else in this regard and if the "experts" do, then will they please tell us.
Also in my lifetime we have been through about 30 years of stasis/cooling followed by 30 years of a bit of warming and now followed by 15 years of stasis again. Nothing to see there; move along. We have about another 15 years of stasis/?cooling perhaps before we can expect another 30-year bout (which I shall not see) of gentle warming.
The cat fight that is climate science would be highly amusing if it weren't costing so much to no purpose other than making fat cats fatter and tarnishing the good name of science as a whole while providing enviro-nuts, neo-Malthusians, eugenicists and a ragbag of other control freaks with a credibility they don't deserve and a proximity to the levers of power which may be the death of all of us if we're not careful.
I cannot fathom why the so called "climate science community" would not be thrilled to bits to have one of their own, namely Professor Bengtsson, in an advisory roll at the GWPF. Any sensible person would be pleased that they had a representative voice in their supposed adversaries camp. You cannot win by throwing rocks at each other over a wall, only by persuading the opposition to come to your way of thinking. Is it their fear that the truth is not actually on their side and that contact with the "enemy" will not result in their conversion to the "right" side?