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Thursday
Dec102009

The Report

Provided the producers decided I didn't waffle too much, I should appear in The Report, tonight at 8pm, UK time. Link here. It should be available on the iPlayer for a while thereafter.

Lots of people think I will have been set up ("They always set up the sceptics!").

Let's see....

 

Thursday
Dec102009

Russell review to be a whitewash

When Sir Muir Russell's inquiry into the goings-on at CRU was announced, many were sceptical of whether the results would be anything other than the traditional civil service whitewash. With that in mind I dropped a message to the CRU press office to try to find out exactly what kind of a review was going to be held.

This is what I asked:

1. Is there any significance in the fact that this is a "review" rather than an "inquiry"?

2. Will the review be open to external observers? Will there be public hearings for example?

3. The first point on the terms of reference in your press release indicate that the review will look at the question of "manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice". This seems very limited in scope. For example, will the review examine the possibility of manipulation of results through the data processing as well as through the data itself? In other words, will it examine code as well as data? Will the review look at the other misdemeanours that are alleged to have taken place, for example attempts by UEA scientists to undermine peer review and other procedures in the journals, rigging of the IPCC review and breaches of its procedures? If not, why not?

5. There is an allusion in one of the emails to the vice chancellor apparently being aware of an attempt to avoid a Freedom of Information request. Will this be considered by the review?
Unexpectedly, I got a very fast response, from a press officer at UEA. This was as follows:

Thanks for your email.

The University has made it clear that all issues arising from allegations as a result of emails stolen from the CRU and published without permission on the web will be considered by an independent review.This will be led by Sir Muir Russell and it is expected that it will report by Spring 2010. Statements regarding the independent review and other related issues are available at: www.uea.ac.uk.

Any further statements will be available from this website and circulated via the wire services.

OK, so we're good on the scope, but we're none the wiser on the nature of the review or inquiry or whatever. I've pressed the, ahem, press officer for a response on the first two points, but he hasn't responded. In seems likely therefore that the inquiry will be held behind closed doors.

I conclude that the intention is to whitewash the affair.

Readers of this blog saw this coming. The results of my survey into sceptic attitudes to Sir Muir were as follows:

I trust him: 2%

I don't trust him: 56%

Don't know: 43%.

This was based on 717 responses, so only 14 people were impressed by Sir Muir's credentials. It was said at the time the review was announced that Sir Muir needed to have the confidence of the sceptic community. It is clear from these results that he doesn't. This, together with the suggestion that he intends to hold the inquiry in private mean that he should really stand down.

He will not do so, of course. He has some whitewash to apply.

 

Thursday
Dec102009

Counting Cats on models

Climate modellers have created a plausible reality, not reality, says Nick M at Counting Cats.

Mathematics is an incredible toolbox and whilst it can be used to understand reality it can also be used to create new realities. For example it is entirely possible - indeed quite easy - to build a model of the solar system and then subtract Jupiter. The same perturbed Keplerian orbits pertain and the laws of motion and gravity are not changed because there is nothing in them to say “A gas giant must exist between Mars and Saturn”.

(H/T Chuckles)

 

Thursday
Dec102009

NERC and climate change

There has been a great deal of interest in the posting I did on the apparent bias in funding for climatologists - the suggestion being that only studies to confirm the hypothesis will get money and the sceptics will be left hanging in the wind.

This idea is not a new one, and several commenters have said that they have heard similar stories. However, it is a testable hypothesis and to that end I've put a FoI request into NERC, the main UK funding body for the environmental sciences. I've asked for details of the eligibility criteria for funding programmes covering climate change, hopefully back to 2000.

In the meantime, take a look at the NERC Council, the body responsible for prioritising funding. Several of these are familiar names, and one or two have been ubiquitous in the media in recent weeks. For example:

  • Bob Watson (of CRU fame)
  • Andrew Watson (of CRU and "What an Asshole" fame)
  • Julia Slingo (recently seen trying to drum up support for a pro-AGW letter signed by scientists)
  • Mike Lockwood (well known to sceptics as the author of a rather questionable critique of Svensmark)

Political scientists or honest brokers? You decide.

 

Thursday
Dec102009

Gavin says the uncertainties are huge

Apart from repeating the spin about "hiding the decline", the most interesting thing in this CNN interview of Gavin Schmidt and John Christy is that Gavin agrees with Christy that our uncertainties about the climate system are huge.

I'm struggling to equate this with the various IPCC statements about it being "very likely" that observed increases in temperatures are due to increases in carbon dioxide.  How can you speak with such certainty about a system you don't understand?

 

Wednesday
Dec092009

Follow the money

This is stolen from the comments at WUWT:

A reader commented as follows:

... it is possible that this is just a big conspiracy by climate scientist around the world to boost their cause and make themselves more important. Though I find it hard to believe that thousands of scientists...all agreed to promote bogus science ...Pretty hard to do without being discovered.

To which another reader, a scientist named Paul Vaughan, responded as follows:

Actually not so hard.

Personal anecdote:
Last spring when I was shopping around for a new source of funding, after having my funding slashed to zero 15 days after going public with a finding about natural climate variations, I kept running into funding application instructions of the following variety:

Successful candidates will:
1) Demonstrate AGW.
2) Demonstrate the catastrophic consequences of AGW.
3) Explore policy implications stemming from 1 & 2.

Follow the money — perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary where a carrot will suffice.

This confirms the stories that I've been hearing over the last few years.

 

Wednesday
Dec092009

Bolt on Wigley

Andrew Bolt dissects some of Tom Wigley's recent pronouncements on Climategate. The warmist web becomes ever more tangled...

[Update - you really have to read Andrew's article, it's bloomin' marvellous]

 

Wednesday
Dec092009

Irony failure

The Graun is reporting that some of the climate scientists at the centre of the email scandal have received abusive emails.

Yuk. I hate it when people behave like this.

I laughed though when I read David Appell's coverage of the story:

A society in which anyone, but especially scientists, are not free to express their findings, thoughts, and opinions (regardless of what they are) without being threatened by death is a society which no longer respect freedom, reason, rationality, or decency.

It goes without saying that hounding them out of their jobs or closing journals to them is quite acceptable (if they are sceptics of course), but abusive emails, no. 

Free speech goes for people you disagree with too.

(As a footnote, now we know that the break-in suffered by Andrew Weaver was a misleading piece of spin (the breakin was a year ago, during a spate of such incidents at the university) I think I would like to see these abusive emails.)

 

Wednesday
Dec092009

Climate contention

Eduardo Zorita thinks we might all be getting a little het up over the email in which Michael Mann says this of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen Northern Hemisphere records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly [2000 years] back--I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2k, rather than the usual 1k, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made [with] regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to "contain" the putative "MWP", even if we don't yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back.

Eduardo notes the context - of creating a new temperature reconstruction - and suggests that the word "contain" must therefore mean "incorporate". I'm not so sure.

If the words are to have the meaning Eduardo suggests, then the normal English idiom would be to have a subject in the sentence. Something like:

...it would be nice to have the reconstruction contain the putative MWP...

or, since we already know wer'e talking about a temperature reconstruction:

...it would be nice to try to have it contain the putative MWP"...

Alternatively, he could have avoided referring back to the subject by using a different word altogether:

..it would be nice to try to incorporate the putative MWP...

This feature of the standard idiom is not seen in the alternative meaning of "contain", which is "restrain". Here the word "contain" doesn't need to refer back to its subject, but sits comfortably on its own.

...it would be nice to try to contain the putative MWP...

just as he said it.

Let's refer back to the original quote.

...it would be nice to try to "contain" the putative "MWP"...

Why does he use quotation marks around "contain"? There is no obvious need to do so, but could it be that this is a way of giving his readers the equivalent of a nudge and a wink? And what then is the meaning of the nudge and the wink? Is he pointing out that he has used an idiom of "restrain", but is implying that, of course, he is talking about "incorporating" the MWP? Or is it the other way round - that it really would be nice to restrain the MWP?

Who knows? Without seeing the "good point that Peck made with respect to the memo" it's hard to say, but of course there will be those who point out that Peck is Jonathan Overpeck, the man who is alleged to have written the infamous "get rid of the Medieval Warm Period " email.

 

Wednesday
Dec092009

The Copenhagen jolly

Reader Andrew K has helpfully provided a searchable list of the thousands of NGOs attending Copenhagen, including links to their websites. I feel certain that "Women in Europe for a Common Future" just had to attend, and the meeting could simply could not go ahead without someone from the Lincoln Theological Fund.

Download it here.

 

Tuesday
Dec082009

More cuttings

Francis at L'Ombre De L'Olivier looks at how climatologists come over all shifty and change the subject when asked a question.

Jo Nova digs a little deeper into the Australian temperature records. If adjacent stations are adjusting the warming trend in Darwin upwards (as Willis E noted this morning) which particular stations are involved? It's a mystery.

 

Tuesday
Dec082009

Met office data

The BBC has confirmed the release of what appears to be a subsection of the HADCRUT dataset. The party line is duly related to the masses:

The first decade of this century is "by far" the warmest since instrumental records began, say the UK Met Office and World Meteorological Organization.

Their analyses also show that 2009 will almost certainly be the fifth warmest in the 160-year record.

 

Tuesday
Dec082009

Willis says he's found it

OK everyone, grab a cup of coffee and go and read Willis Eschenbach's analysis of the temperature records for Darwin Australia. This is very important.

Monday
Dec072009

That break-in

There are reports today that there has been a break-in at the offices of global warming scientist Andrew Weaver.

In one incident, an old computer was stolen and papers were disturbed. In addition, individuals have attempted to impersonate technicians in a bid to access data from his office.

Do you know what I find odd? In none of the reports is there any mention of when these alleged break-ins happened and there are no statements from the police either.

Hmmmm....

Perhaps someone should contact the police in Victoria, Canada, to see how their investigation is coming along.

 

Monday
Dec072009

Quote of the day

Hat tip to Hans von Storch for pointing out this comment in the emails. It was sent by paleoclimatologist Ed Cook to the CRU's Keith Briffa, outlining his opinions on the current (2003) state of knowledge of past temperatures:

The results of this study will show that we can probably say a fair bit about <100 year extra-tropical NH temperature variability (at least as far as we believe the proxy estimates), but honestly know fuck-all about what the >100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know with certainty that we know fuck-all).

Read that carefully people. We know a fair bit about the temperatures in the last 100 years, but only for the extra-tropics. Before that, we know nothing. Nothing.

Nothing.

Read the whole email. It's astonishing.