I have a computer model

I have a computer model, which I use for predicting the weather. The algorithm is fairly straightforward and goes something like this:

It will rain tomorrow.

(Round where I live that's likely to be a pretty effective prediction.)

Anyway, if I run my computer model repeatedly, I find that 100% of the runs give the same result - "It will rain tomorrow". I conclude, therefore, that we can say with 100% confidence that it will rain tomorrow.

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Breaking the frame

Nic Lewis has published another paper on objective Bayesian approaches in climate sensitivity study. This looks at an old but very important paper by David Frame and Myles Allen, which implied the use of an objective approach, but actually turned out not to. Lewis's paper looks at two genuinely objective approaches to the problem and compares the essentially identical results they give to the clearly erroneous and inevitably much more alarming one obtained by Frame and Allen.

A very technical blog post on the subject is up at Climate Audit, and the paper is here.

Climate's parliamentary cheerleaders

The House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee has released its report into the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report. This is fascinating stuff, if only to see all the intellectual contortions that have been adopted by committee staffers in arriving at the required answer, namely that everything is hunky dory with climate science and the IPCC.

The press release is here and consists of standard parliamentary cheerleading of the kind that has "sod the constituents" written all over it (Tim Yeo is quoted extensively, so I guess that follows).

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BBC range free - Josh 282

Another BBC meeting, same old story.

Cartoons by Josh

Allen a'tale

Some readers may have seen Der Spiegel's coverage of the Bengtsson affair a couple of days back. I didn't cover it, as I recall because it didn't seem to add much we didn't know already. However, one interesting wrinkle has emerged today. This revolves around a quote from Myles Allen about the Lewis/Crok report:

Professor Myles Allen, a climate researcher at Oxford, says, "The problem is [GWPF's] anti-science agenda, clearly illustrated by the fact that they refused point blank to submit their recent report criticizing the IPCC 5th Assessment Report to the same kind of open peer review that the IPCC report was itself subjected to."

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AR5 inquiry followup

This is a guest post by Nic Lewis, describing the flurry of activity since he appeared before the Energy and Clmate Change Committee.

My comments on Myles Allen's oral evidence to the ECCC, and his response have been published.

Some things in Myles' response that might be worth pointing out:

1. Under Point 1:  "The IPCC Summary for Policymakers does not give “best estimates” of 2100 temperature, largely because they would not be policy relevant: the one thing that can be said with confidence about best estimate predictions is that the real world will not follow them. A best estimate of a strongly skewed distribution is particularly misleading".

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Myles out of line

The reverberations from the Lewis/Crok report are still playing out in the blogosphere. In particular there are some interesting comments at Ed Hawkins' blog.

One of the memes that is being pushed by our climatological friends is the idea that the Lewis/Crok range for transient climate response (i.e. short-term warming) is similar to that of the IPCC models. Myles Allen was the first to promote this idea, in his comments at the Science Media Centre.

Their 5-95% range of uncertainty in TCR (kindly provided by Nic Lewis) is 0.9-2.5 degrees C, almost exactly in line with the range of the models shown in their figure (1.1-2.6 degrees C).

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Myles' model mystery

The Science Media Centre has put out a response to the GWPF report here. I was struck by Myles' Allen's contribution:

Their [TCR] prediction of 1.35 degrees C is, even if correct, only 25% lower than the average of the general circulation models used in the IPCC 5th Assessment.  A 25% reduction in TCR means the warming we might have expected by 2050 might take until the early 2060s instead.  Their 5-95% range of uncertainty in TCR (kindly provided by Nic Lewis) is 0.9-2.5 degrees C, almost exactly in line with the range of the models shown in their figure (1.1-2.6 degrees C).

Compare this with what is said in the Lewis/Crok report (long version):

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Lindzen broadcast

Last night Al Jazeera broadcast the Lindzen debate at the Oxford Union, which readers may remember took place a couple of months ago.

It is repeated on 13 July 13 at 13:00 BST; 14 July at 02:00 BST; and 15 July at 07:00 BST.

Details here.

PCC throws out complaint against David Rose

The Press Complaints Commission has thrown out a complaint about David Rose's Mail on Sunday article about climate sensitivity. This is the text of their ruling.

The complainant, an environmentalist and the author of greenerblog.blogspot.com, was concerned that the newspaper had published an article on the subject of climate change – both in print and online – which contained a number of alleged inaccuracies, misleading statements and distortions in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

Under the terms of Clause 1, “the press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading, or distorted information”; “a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected promptly and with due prominence”; and “the press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact”.

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Myles' fighting talk

Myles Allen has entered the climate fray again, with an article in the Mail on Sunday which strikes several blows at UK energy policy, and in particular windfarms, carbon trading and carbon taxes.

90 per cent of the measures adopted in Britain and elsewhere since the 1997 Kyoto agreement to cut global emissions are a waste of time and money – including windfarms in Scotland, carbon taxes and Byzantine carbon trading systems.

Unfortunately, he thinks the answer lies in carbon capture, an approach that can best be described as "speculative". However, recognition of the madness is the first step towards a cure, so we should probably welcome Myles' move.

Oxford professors and the poor

Yesterday Myles Allen posted a highly personal attack on Matt Ridley. The Guardian has apparently failed to respond to Matt's requests to allow him to respond (I am reminded of their publication of Bob Ward's hit piece on me back in 2009, when it took days to get them to reply to me and weeks before the response was published). This being the case Matt has asked me to post the following:

Dear Professor Allen,

In your polemical Guardian article on Tuesday you produce no counter-arguments to my Times article. For example, you ask: "Is Ridley right that there is no actual evidence of harm as long as droughts, floods and storms are within historic variability?" You then do not answer that question. Well, am I right or not?

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US reaction to Climategate

Most readers will know from Watts Up With That? that Chris Horner has obtained a substantial quantity of emails from NOAA. Of particular interest are the ones relating to the immediate aftermath of Climategate - they can be seen below.

Of particular interest is the role of the White House in coordinating the US reaction.

All communications on this issue are being coordinated with the White House. Therefore no communications with Hill or Press should go out without [Department of Commerce] coordinating with [White House].

The release also includes emails from Myles Allen and Emily Shuckburgh regarding the open letter from climate scientists that was widely publicised after Climategate.

NOAA re CG

Hide da d.cline - Josh 169

Hopefully you've watched the video, read the posts and comments here and at Climate Audit and Watts Up With That. Basically Myles Allen has been castigating journalists for getting Climategate wrong while getting it spectacularly wrong himself. Nice one Myles. Honest error or disingenuous?

Cartoons by Josh

Climategate and HADCRUT

I'm sure most readers are aware of Steve McIntyre's post on the Myles Allen video. The comments thread is also very interesting. I was particularly taken with Lucia Liljegren's response to a comment made by Myles on the subject of the relevance of the temperature records to CRUTEM. This is what Myles said:

I stand by the assertion that, thanks to the sloppy coverage the affair received in the media, it wasn’t just Sarah Palin who got the impression that the instrumental temperature record was seriously compromised: The Times opened the relevant story with “A science blogger has uncovered a catalogue of errors in Met Office records…”

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