Slingo on Bengtsson

Julia Slingo has a letter in the Times addressing the Bengtsson affair:

Your articles on the recent events surrounding Professor Lennart Bengtsson ("Scientists in cover-up of 'damaging' climate view", May 16) are not a true reflection of the way the climate community conducts its research. My position, and my passion, is that all scientists - no matter what their viewpoint - must be free to review and debate their research unfettered and without personal attacks.

Science is about seeking the truth and acknowledging the uncertainties in what we currently know; it cannot be about subjective, unscientific beliefs and personal attacks of the kind that some of us have had to endure.

Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming, neither do the estimates from observations as some in the climate sceptic community would claim.

I welcome scientific debate with those whose research challenges my understanding of climate change and scientists have a well established and robust peer review process for doing this. This process is there for good reason because it ensures the debate is rigorous but never personal.

Comments

[Stephen Richards]

May 19, 2014 at 1:00 PM | Registered CommenterMartin A

Is ,there something you would like to add to your post, Martin ? perhaps /sarc ?

[Martyn]

Did I read Slingo retires and joins GWPF?

[Richard Drake]

The Lennart Bengtsson story

This post is an attempt to assemble the pieces of the recent stories about Lennart Bengtsson that have made front page news, starting with a bit of background. If there are more important links and points I have missed, please put them in the comments and I will add them in. I will also add stuff if/when more things happen. So this page will change and changes won’t be flagged.

Very useful. Here's a succinct take on the second review:

IOP publishes the second review of Bengtsson et al’s paper. The reviewer says that using TCS is “wrong” and ECS would be “right”, which is odd since many climate scientists (eg Myles Allen) are now saying TCS is what matters. There is also a claim that log-log plots should be non-dimensional, which is not true.

Thanks Paul Matthews.

[Turnedoutnice]

Try to get a paper based on standard physics past peer review when that paper shows the 'consensus' is based on incorrect physics.

[Martin A]

"...Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming, neither do the estimates from observations as some in the climate sceptic community would claim.

Weasel word.

What Slingo wants is for it to be read as " as some in the climate sceptic community do claim"..

But pre-empting the possibility of being asked "Who claims that? Where did they claim it?".

It echoes the Met Office skill at using words to convey the climate change fear meme but pre-empting subsequent challenge.

[John Shade]

Well-spotted, Martin A.

[Richard Drake]

Fine-grained deniability.

[Hamish McDougal]

May 19, 2014 at 10:31 AM luca turin & at 11:27 AM Alan the Brit
Nah ... We'll hang on 'til we can guarantee becoming a Baroness.

May 19, 2014 at 10:34 AM & at 10:43 AM Barry Woods
Note: 'predict[ion]' vs. 'project[ion]' or 'scenario' or whatever weasel or deniable (sorry!) buzzword they're using at the moment.

& the rest of you (but esp. geronimo & lapogus)
+1
but she does make herself an easy target.

[pottereaton]

Your articles on the recent events surrounding Professor Lennart Bengtsson ("Scientists in cover-up of 'damaging' climate view", May 16) are not a true reflection of the way the climate community conducts its research.

Of course the Bengtsson affair is "not a true reflection of the way climate community conducts research." It's a true reflection of the way they enforce orthodoxy.

[Bruce]

Ah yes, the Mannian regret; I too have suffered at the hands of the scientifically impure.

So here are a few platitudes to show how reasonable we are and have been.

I am changing my name from Bruce to the Duke of Wellington.

Heee's Mike: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e-mann/climate-contrarians_b_5347614.html

[dp]

"Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming, neither do the estimates from observations as some in the climate sceptic community would claim"

Do you see what she just did there? She denies the alarmist models are used to drive policy, and that the skeptics are abusing the one real truth (observed record) by ... what? Making claims?? Skeptics are certainly not driving policy because we're not allowed in the front of that bus. There is no equivalence between what alarmists and skeptics do with the available information. Nice try, Slingo.

[Billy Liar]

How should a person 'respond' to the 0.3°C potential increase in global mean temperature 'projected' or was it 'predicted' by Vicky Pope in her 2007 video?

The increase in my gas bill has certainly swallowed up any benefit I might have got from that small increase in temperature.

Had the government done nothing (in terms of changing the energy supply structure to 'mitigate' the warming) I might have actually got a reduced bill out of a bit of warming, particularly as it wasn't a cold winter by any stretch of the imagination.

[Hilary Ostrov]

Slingo's self-serving slithering aside, for a moment ... It seems to me that Bengtsson's biggest "sin" is the one that not one of these pseudo bridge-over-troubled-waters types is even talking about!

Also, set aside, for a moment, the fact that the oh-so-noble journal in question, i.e. the IOP's Environmental Research Letters (ERL), has no problem with Gleick on its "Executive Board", this is the very same esteemed journal (and/or Executive/Editorial Board thereof) which saw fit to declare Cook et al's "97%" paper - riddled with mediocrity, as it indisputably is - as “ERL’s ‘Best article of 2013’"

If readers will forgive me for a self-serving "plug", as I had concluded my own post earlier today, the view from here, so to speak is …

Can you even begin to imagine what might happen to the IPCC/UNFCCC edifice (not to mention the profits of publishers such as ERL), if [what I have deemed to be] Bengtsson’s “red letter” claims – noted at the top of [my] post – were to gain further hold in the higher profile discussions in the blogosphere and elsewhere?

[These "red letter" claims from Bengtsson:]

I do not believe that the IPCC machinery is what is best for science in the long term.

[and]

The whole concept behind IPCC is basically wrong.

[Source: Something missing in the “critiques” of Bengtsson’s choice]

[Richard Drake]

Hilary: Misdirection is everywhere in the climate game but you've locked onto the central story they don't want us to consider: Bengtsson and the IPCC. Thanks for the reminder.

[clovis marcus]

If Bengtsson received communications that threatened his career or "health and safety" now is the time to show them.

In my opinion this whole mess has backfired on the sceptical cause. Jumping on the original resignation letter, from which he seems to have backpedalled, understandably, if he wants to continue to work in the field. And also on the "harmful to the cause" comment on the rejected paper which does seem to me to be a misrepresentation of the reviewers actual comments and intent. And ignores the reviewers legitimate concerns with the paper.

My sympathy was firmly with him when all this kicked off, but following the unfolding story I am puzzled.

* It is almost like he didn't know that GWPF is regarded as a sceptical organisation
* It is almost like he did not know the temperature of the debate
* It is almost like he didn't expect the attacks from the true believers
* It is almost like the "harmful to the cause" kerfuffle was put out as a bandwagon for us to jump on...until the wheels fell of when the full reviewers report was published and showed the comment to be less damning than suggested.

There are hidden motivations and manoeuvrings that will never see the light of day. That is certain.

The only thing that will convince me that this is not a manufactured storm to provide and excuse to close down debate further is to see with my own eyes some evidence of threats.

I know this is not going to be a popular view here. I think the sceptical cause is best served by letting this non-story die a death unless and until there is strong evidence that we haven't been led down the garden path.

Flame away. I have a thick skin ;)

[Martin A]

Clovis - These things are always messy - never clear as crystal. But the overall impression given to the world seems to be:

- Climate scientists are under pressure not to air views critical of the orthodoxy.
- Papers questioning the orthodoxy are likely to be rejected for trivial reasons.

We'll continue to pick over the entrails of the affair in the obscurity of blogs such as BH, but invisibly to the world at large.

But I find it all puzzling. If he were someone weak and inexperienced in life in the scientific world it would make some sense. But it's not as if Professor Bengtsson were someone still wet behind the ears:

Professor Lennart Bengtsson has a long and distinguished international career in meteorology and climate research. He participated actively in the development of ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting) where he was Head of Research 1975-1981 and Director 1982-1990. In 1991-2000 he was Director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. Since 2000 he has been professor at the University of Reading and from 2008 the Director of the International Space Science Institute in Bern, Switzerland.

He gives the appearance of doing something, realising that what he has done has had side effects he did not foresee and then doing something else, also with unforeseen (by him) side effects.

The contrast in tone between his resignation letter from the GWPF and a recent press release (U of Reading?) are significant. Not to overlook an air of contradiction between them.

Resigning from the GWPF

"I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. (...) I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc.

I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy...."

Professor Lennart Bengtsson, professorial research fellow at the University of Reading, said:

"I was surprised by the strong reaction from some scientists outside the UK to joining the Global Warming Policy Foundation this month. I had hoped that it would be platform to bring more common sense into the global climate debate.

"Academic freedom is a central aspect to life at University of Reading. It is a very open, positive and supportive environment to work in. I have always felt able to put forward my arguments and opinions without any prejudice."

[Green Sand]

" Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming, neither do the estimates from observations as some in the climate sceptic community would claim."

I think the above statement by Julia Slingo has changed the descriptions/names given to the factions involved and the change is for the better!

" Just as "we" are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming."

Hence to be known as "Modellers"

" neither do the estimates from observations as "some" in the climate sceptic community would claim."

Hence to be known as "Observers"

One relies on models the other uses observational data.

[Martin A]

Green Sand - I think that "some" = "Nic Lewis".

[Green Sand]

Martin A

Point taken but I propose a minor but significant change:-

Julia Slingo thinks that "some" = "Nic Lewis".

However there could be more "Observers" or "Non-modellers" than Julia and other "Modellers" will ever be able to comprehend.

[Martin A]

Green Sand - yes. I regard Nic Lewis as another climate scientist in the sense that he (so far as I can see) accepts the climate science view of the physics. His chief difference is that he is rigorous in the application of statistical methods to climate sensitivity*. So far as I can see, he is labelled 'sceptic' because:

- He is not a paid up member of "The Team".
- His results suggest that AGW is a less serious problem than the Met Office see as their task to have us believe.

* My own view is that, as someone once said, rigorous argument from inapplicable assumptions can produce enduring nonsense.

Separately from what I think Slingo is referring to here is what I am guessing that you have in mind. Thirty-odd General Circulation Models referred to by the IPCCc, essentially unanimous in their prediction of continued rapid warming, and the untold number of people such as you and me who are paying close attention to the fact that the global warming seen between 1976 and 1998 has stopped.

[Cameron Rose]

Post script
A response to Professor Slingo's letter in The Times is carried in the letters pages (£) today.

"Sir,
Much of the response of the Met Office’s chief scientist to the pressure applied to Professor Bengtsson is to be welcomed (Letter from Professor Dame Julia Slingo, May 19).

Nonetheless Dame Slingo’s acknowledgement of ‘the uncertainties in what we currently know’ is followed by her assertion that science is not about ‘unscientific beliefs’. I wonder why she felt it appropriate to use that phrase and who she is associating with having those ‘unscientific beliefs’? I hope not the many who have put forward cogent and thoughtful criticisms of some of the Met Office positions on climate.

Her confidence in peer review also seems to miss the point. Peer review can fail to flag up significant errors in scientific papers and it is not difficult to find instances where there is at least a suspicion it has been used as a means of suppressing scientific dissent from the climate orthodoxy (an orthodoxy of which the Met Office has been a prominent cheerleader).

Indeed, as details emerge of the rejection of Professor Bengtsson’s recent paper on a contrast between climate models and real world data, there are indications that peer review may have displayed the prejudices of one reviewer. The editor of Environmental Research Letters has released the text of the review in which the main reason for rejection seems to have been that it ‘opens the door for oversimplified claims of ‘errors’ and worse from the climate sceptics media side’ (my italics). That does not seem to be a valid reason for rejection of a scientific paper.
Cllr Cameron Rose,
City Chambers, Edinburgh"

the version in the paper has some minor presentational edits from my copy above and the letters editor telephoned to ask me if I would soften my original reference to 'well documented cases where peer review has been the means of suppressing scientific dissent'

[Martin A]

Cameron Rose - good follow-up.

I posted the following on the Met Office's blog though I doubt that many will see it.

"I welcome scientific debate with those whose research challenges my understanding of climate change and scientists have a well established and robust peer review process for doing this."

It is one of the distinguishing features of climate science that many of its practitioners seem to believe that if a viewpoint has not been "peer reviewed" and published, then it is unworthy of discussion.

Outside the climate science circle, the view is that by the time work has advanced to the stage where it can be submitted for publication in a refereed journal, the opportunity for exchange of ideas at the formative stage has passed. Respectful, courteous and lively person-to-person discussion is best way to exchange ideas at the formative stage.

I'd suggest that the Met Office invite Dr Murry Salby to present a seminar on his work in their seminar centre. His research is based firmly on analysis of observational data yet it would certainly challenge "the understanding of climate change" of Professor Dame Julia Slingo and her colleagues.

[Green Sand]

Cameron Rose

Many thanks for penning and posting your letter. The request from the letters editor being apposite of the present day MSM.

[Anything is possible]

Looking forward to Ms. Slingo debating this particular piece of peer-reviewed science :

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/new-paper-finds-climate-models-violate.html

Not going to hold my breath, though.