Bishop Hill Keenan on climate statistics
Apr 4, 2011 Climate: Sceptics Climate: Statistics Climate: Surface 
Doug Keenan has just scored something of a coup by getting an article about statistical significance in temperature records published in the Wall Street Journal. It's a wonderful piece of popular science writing, explaining complex scientific concepts in clear simple English.
For years, some researchers have argued that the evidence for global warming is not nearly as strong as has been officially claimed. The details of the arguments are often technical. As a result, policy makers and other people outside the debate have relied on the pronouncements of a group of climate scientists. I think that is unnecessary. I believe that what is arguably the most important reason to doubt global warming can be explained in terms that most people can understand.
Bishop Hill
Doug tells me that if you Google it you should get free access - Google has an agreement with WSJ. I can't therefore provide a direct link. Try clicking here and following the link to Doug's article.
Bishop Hill Huppert on CCS
Apr 4, 2011 Climate: MWP Climate: Surface Just watching a recording of Herbert Huppert's Bakerian lecture at the Royal Society. Huppert was a member of the Oxburgh panel - one of the ones that Rees and Davies thought would come to the inquiry with "questioning objectivity".
The subject is carbon capture and storage, but there is also a potted history of the global warming hypothesis. I really had to stop having seen this part as it was so interesting. One of the things that struck me was this curiously truncated surface temperature graph...
There was also this outing for the Hockey Stick...
Not much sign of any questioning going on here.
Bishop Hill Echoes of Oxburgh
Apr 4, 2011 Climate: Oxburgh Education Foreign Nick Cohen in the Guardian writes about the scandal of the London School of Economics' acceptance of funding from the Gaddafi regime and the questions that are being asked over its awarding of a degree to the Libyan leader's son. There is an interesting twist though:
The university has appointed Lord Woolf – a retired lord chief justice, no less – to investigate Giddens, Brahimi and their colleagues. He will find out what happened to the hundreds of thousands of pounds the university took from Gaddafi's son, Saif, and whether it was in return for a Phd and academic support for his crime family's rule of Libya. The "independent inquiry" will establish the "full facts", the university says, as it drops heavy hints that it is time to "move on".
Willing though the amnesiac media always are to jump to the next scandal, this story isn't over yet. No one outside the LSE has noticed that Lord Woolf may face a conflict of interest. Some would argue that if he were still a judge in a court of law, he would have to tell the parties to a case that they had the right to ask him to stand down.
Somebody remind me how the Guardian dealt with the appointment of Oxburgh to deal with the UEA inquiry...
Bishop Hill Physics World comes over all sceptic
Apr 4, 2011 Climate: Sceptics Journals Physics World, until now a bastion of conventional thinking on AGW, has come over all sceptic, with the Quanta column featuring all manner of AGW unfriendly stuff.
Bishop Hill Singh's response to Nelson
Apr 3, 2011 Climate: Models Climate: Surface Simon Singh has posted his response to Fraser Nelson. It's still amazingly thin gruel for a top writer on scientific matters. Is he unaware of the existence of feedbacks? And what about the error bars on that 0.6C warming figure?
Bishop Hill Matt Ridley on solar effects
Apr 2, 2011 Climate: solar Matt Ridley reviews evidence of solar effects on the climate.
Carbon dioxide certainly can affect climate, but so for sure can other things, and in explaining the ups and downs of past climate, before industrialisation, variations in the sun are looking better and better as an explanation. That does not mean the sun causes current climate change, but it certainly suggests that it is at least possible that forcings more powerful than carbon dioxide could be at work.
Bishop Hill An uncritical love affair with environmentalism
BBC newsreader Michael Buerk has savaged the corporation in a review of a book by former colleague Peter Sissons.
He accuses the Beeb of being "left-wing", "shallow" and of having "an uncritical love affair with environmentalism".
It's not news is it?
Bishop Hill Nature Climate Change launches
Apr 2, 2011 Climate: other Journals Nature's long-awaited climate change journal has finally launched. It looks as though it's all free in this first issue, so why not take a look?
This article about openness in climate change research was interesting, with several familiar faces interviewed. There is something about the tone of the piece that makes me uncomfortable though - perhaps a slightly promotional feel?
Bishop Hill Another congressional inquiry
Apr 1, 2011 Climate: Parliament The US Congress has decided to look at climate change again. Here are a few links to stories that journalists and bloggers have found interesting.
Steve McIntyre has taken a pot shot at Kerry Emanuel for being, ahem, less than precise with his evidence on "hide the decline". Chris Mooney describes Emanuel's testimony as "powerful" in an enthusiastic review at Discover magazine.
The New York Times notes Richard Mullers contribution, in which he discussed the preliminary results from the BEST project, which apparently confirm warming. The excitement over the BEST project strikes me as overdone. I certainly don't expect them to disagree wildly with CRU and GISS.
Anthony Watts was less than impressed with Muller, who mentioned some of Anthony's unpublished resuts. Anthony has written to the committee chairman Ralph Hall to put him straight.
Judith Curry has a roundup here, in particular defending Muller against Anthony W's concerns and also pointing to John Christy's insider story of how the Hockey Stick found its way into the Third Assessment Report.
Bishop Hill Courtillot
Mar 31, 2011 Climate: Sceptics Lots of people are telling me to watch this - I haven't had a chance yet though. What do you reckon?
Bishop Hill Bishop Hill Global warming grubbiness
Mar 31, 2011 Climate: Surface The LA Times interviews Richard Muller about BEST, his new project to measure the Earth's temperature. Santer and Trenberth pop up with a spectacular display of the kind of grubby behaviour normally associated with the worst kind of political spin doctor.
"I am highly skeptical of the hype and claims," said Kevin Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a university consortium. "The team has some good people but not the expertise required in certain areas, and purely statistical approaches are naive. I suspect they have an agenda."
The Koch donation, to many, confirms those suspicions. "Why would a scientist accept funding from an organization with no interest in advancing the science?" asked Benjamin Santer, an atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Bishop Hill Mann writes doggerel
Mar 31, 2011 Climate: Mann Michael Mann has written to top US newspaper the Payson Roundup defending his honour...
Editor:
An individual named Terry Putnam did a grave disservice to your readers by making false and defamatory statements about me and my climate scientist colleagues...
I always liked the good old days when letters to the editor began "Sir", or perhaps "Dear Sir".
Josh More Spectating - Josh 92
Mar 30, 2011 Josh 