Bishop Hill Sep 28, 2010 Climate: McIntyre Congratulations to Steve McIntyre, who is included in the New Statesman's list of "50 people who matter". The campaign to have Steve elected a fellow of the Royal Society starts here. :-)
Bishop Hill Sep 27, 2010 Climate: Pachauri This is a guest post by Shub Niggurath. Shub followed up on an odd detail in RK Pachauri's expense claims. It could be nothing, but is interesting nevertheless.
The Guardian recently published an article about a "limited-review" of the IPCC chairman RK Pachauri's personal accounts by KPMG, a firm of accountants. This report had widespread play as it followed closely behind the Telegraph's apology to RK Pachauri over its article about his business interests. For example, using conclusions and language from the report, George Monbiot went on to claim that the IPCC chairman had "no conflicts of interest".
Bishop Hill Sep 27, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: IPCC Andrew Turnbull, the former cabinet secretary who wrote the foreword to my GWPF report, has an article in the FT looking at where we go from here:
The UK government should demand the changes recommended are implemented immediately for the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment. Only if confidence is restored in the science will there be the trust with the public which policymakers need. Climate science needs to be less dogmatic, welcoming rather than suppressing diverse views, and candid about uncertainties. It needs also to recognise the strong natural variations upon which man-made emissions are superimposed.
Bishop Hill I really must stop linking to this guy - but some of his postings are just irresistible. I picked this quote almost at random from his current posting, which picks up some of the ideas Matt Ridley puts forward in The Rational Optimist and has a damn good curmudgeonly rant in support of them:
Pessimism is of course a proven fund-raising tool; "save the whales!" is always going to bring in more cash than "the whales are being saved!" But much more than that, we have today the amusingly ironic spectacle of tenured professors with salaries, health insurance, lifetime job security, and excellent retirement plans courtesy of TIAA-CREF being showered with worldly rewards (bestselling books, "genius" awards) for telling us that progress is an illusion and the end is near . . . while still preening themselves as daring outsiders courageously taking on the mighty and powerful. The fact that it takes no daring at all to adopt such an intellectual posture these days does not stop any of the practitioners of this business model from invariably announcing themselves to be the bearers of "dangerous" or "heretical" ideas and congratulating themselves for "speaking truth to power."
Bishop Hill Sep 26, 2010 Climate: HSI Judith Curry is discussing recent climate books at her new website, including The Hockey Stick Illusion. This is what she says:
The value of the book is this: it is a well documented and well written book on the subject of the “hockey wars.” It is required reading for anyone wanting to understand the blogosphere climate skeptics and particularly the climate auditors; it is needed reading for anyone confusing Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick with merchants of doubt. The book is not a rant, but presents a well reasoned and well documented argument. The book has been referenced in at least two scholarly (refereed journal) publications that I am aware of. Apparently the book was completed before 11/19/2009 (the unauthorized release of the CRU emails); a chapter was tagged on at the end related to the emails, and the title was changed. I suspect that if the the title didn’t include “Climategate and the Corruption of Science” that the book wouldn’t have encountered such controversy.
I'm not sure I agree with the last bit: there are plenty of people out there who will want to protect the Hockey Stick no matter what.
Bishop Hill There is dismay across the science community at the prospect of 20% cuts in funding. Martin Rees has been holding forth on the subject:
- 20 per cent cuts are the "game over" scenario, which would cause irreversible destruction and be "very tragic", said Rees.
- 10 per cent is the "slash and burn" option with "serious consequences".
- Constant cash, a reduction in real terms, "could be accommodated".
If only we weren't spending all that money on subsidising the windfarms that scientists say we need.
Bishop Hill Sep 24, 2010 Climate: Sceptics Benny Peiser emails to inform me that Ernst Georg Beck has passed away. Beck was best known for his work questioning the Mauna Loa carbon dioxide measurements. There is an obituary attached below.
Bishop Hill Sep 24, 2010 FOI This is an excerpt from a letter published in the current edition of Nature by Keith Baggerly of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA and seven co-authors. It's not online but many thanks to the reader who sent a copy. The authors describe the investigation leading to the withdrawl of three clinical studies at Duke University, NC. They note that this investigation has taken thousands of hours, and that this was necessary because the source data was not available in full.
To counter this problem, journals should demand that authors submit sufficient detail for the independent assessment of their paper’s conclusions. data are backed up with adequate documentation and sample annotation; all primary data sources, such as database accessions or URL links, are presented; and all scripts and software source codes are supplied, with instructions. Analytical (non-scriptable) protocols should be described step by step, and the research protocol, including any plans for research and analysis, should be provided (see go.nature.com/ UaF2Kv). Files containing such information could be stored as supplements by the journal.
Bishop Hill Sep 23, 2010 Climate: Mann At least according to John Collins Rudolf at the New York Times Green Blog. Mr Rudolf seeks to defend the Hockey Stick, a reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures, by reference to a handful of local and regional proxies. This doesn't strike me as very clever.
Bishop Hill
I tried to post a comment at the NYT. I said that the NRC defence of the hockey stick - that Mann used a biased methodology and inappropriate data but had still reached the right answer - was an embarrassment to science.
They have not allowed it to be posted.
Bishop Hill Sep 23, 2010 Climate: CRU House Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is promising to give a “careful relook” at climate change science in the wake of last year’s “Climategate” scandal if Republicans take over the House.
Full story here.
Bishop Hill Sep 23, 2010 Climate: Pachauri Climate: Parliament Tim Yeo, the deep-green chairman of the UK House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee has called for Rajendra Pachauri to resign.
"I’m afraid I think Dr Pachauri should resign. Firstly he personally has lost credibility, particularly in relation to his claim about the melting of the Himalayan glaciers in the next 30 years," he told the BBC.
He added: "It’s vital that this body is led by someone whose academic and intellectual credentials are unquestioned and I’m afraid that can no longer be said of him."
Apparently Sir Brian Hoskins has also called for Pachauri to step down.
Bishop Hill Sep 23, 2010 Climate: Mann Climate: Statistics Readers will remember McShane and Wyner's critique of the way paleoclimatologists handle statistics, which was widely reported some weeks back. The journal in question has invited responses to the paper and these are now online.
There is one from Schmidt, Mann and Rutherford and another from Tingley.
Bishop Hill Sep 23, 2010 Climate: Parliament Politicians Jonathan Porritt notes Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's almost complete failure to mention environmental issues to his extremely green-issue-aware party conference. I don't know about you, but I think one could interpret Clegg's reticence as some fairly fast backpedalling.
I know it’s a bit geeky, but here are the relevant extracts from the speech:“We promised a re-balanced green economy. There will be a Green Investment Bank to channel money into renewable energy”.“Imagine how it will feel to visit home after home that our Green Deal has made warm and affordable to heat”.And, er that’s it.
Geoffrey Lean expresses similar sentiments here.
Bishop Hill Sep 22, 2010 BBC Climate: other Richard Black has been on the receiving end of a Joe Romm tongue-lashing. Apparently he wrote an article that didn't mention catastrophe anywhere, which I must say surprises me almost as much as it must have surprised Dr Romm. Unfortunately, the cynic in me wonders if Richard B's new-found guardedness about the impendingness of the end of the world mightn't have been prompted by the review of BBC science coverage I mentioned in the last posting.
Remind me though - did Richard ever write an article about Climategate?
