Climate scientists

Judith Curry appeared on the BBC World Service last night (podcast here, from 19:45). Of course, the corporation's new policy on who is allowed to appear opposite scientists only applies to when the scientist is not criticical of alarmist positions, so they could have picked anyone they want to face off with Judy. In the event they went for Bob Ward but, interestingly, and perhaps keen to lend an air of authority to a mere public relations man, they decided to describe him as a "climate scientist".

I guess we are all climate scientists now.

Mann latest

Over at his blog, Mark Steyn rounds up the latest news on the libel suits he's sharing with Michael Mann. Mann says he can't allow Steyn to discover his documents until everyone else involved in the suits, including Rand Simberg and the National Review, allow him to get hold of their documents. And NRO and Simberg are not going to go through with document discovery while they try to get the case thrown out.

Quite why Mann can't comply in the meantime is unclear, but it may well be that we are seeing the legal process and the endless delays being used as a grinding down tactic by Mann and his "friends in higher places".

Mann on climate sensitivity and counting

Michael Mann, a man who never saw a fray he didn't want to enter, has decided to enter the climate sensitivity fray, with an article published simultaneously in the Huffington Post and Scientific American. Some of it is a bit odd to tell the truth.

For example, take this bit about the IPCC's decision to reduce the lower bound on its estimate of climate sensitivity down to 1.5°C.

The IPCC had lowered the bottom end of the range, down from the two degrees C it had set in its Fourth Assessment Report, issued in 2007. The IPCC based the lowered bound on one narrow line of evidence: the slowing of surface warming during the past decade—yes, the faux pause.

However, those who have read the relevant parts of the Fifth Assessment and indeed those who are familiar with the recent Lewis/Crok report on climate sensitivity will be aware that the IPCC actually gave a completely different explanation for their decision to reduce the lower bound.

The lower temperature limit of the assessed likely range is thus less than the 2°C in the AR4, but the upper limit is the same. This assessment reflects improved understanding, the extended temperature record in the atmosphere and ocean, and new estimates of radiative forcing.

I don't know about you, but I count that as three lines of evidence not one.

Sceptics' new friends

Updated on Mar 18, 2014 by Bishop Hill

The Columbia Journalism Review takes a look at the ongoing attempts to get hold of Michael Mann's emails and revels in the delicious irony of leftie journalists finding themselves filing an amicus brief that will help the evil right-wing fossil-fuel-funded denier conspirators in their nefarious aims.

Organized by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 17 news organizations, including National Public Radio, Dow Jones, and The Washington Post, submitted an amicus brief in November, supporting the group’s rights to Mann’s emails.

“By defining an exemption to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (‘VFOIA’) as broadly as the lower court has done, this Court Would be, in effect, removing almost all public documents from the ambit of the records law,” reads the brief. By exempting Mann’s emails from public release, the group argues, the court is setting what journalists see as a dangerous precedent—making it much more difficult to gain access to public records.

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Up against the Wall - Josh 260

Over at Climate Audit Steve McIntyre's posts on the 'Mann vs Steyn' battle are great fun to read and the comments are very entertaining. The posts are here, here, here, here, here, and here, with another post added today.

Many thanks, Steve, for a great set of posts - the cartoons are queuing up.

Cartoons by Josh

PS In case you are wondering where Mann's attire comes from the reference is here

Blustering bully backs off

Michael Mann finally seems to have had his bluff called. Having referred to Andrew Bolt as someone who was paid to lie by Rupert Murdoch, he has been on the receiving end of a fairly blunt invitation to retract the allegation and apologise or face the consequences.

This appears to have had the desired consequences.

Doctor Mann, I presume?

Steve McIntyre's latest post at Climate Audit includes the extraordinary revelation that Michael Mann's latest submission to the courts regarding his libel suit includes a doctored quote. The offending words purport to be an excerpt from the Russell inquiry report, but, demonstrating a startling disregard for the court, the excerpt has been altered to make it look as if Mann had been exonerated by Russell. However, this has been done so badly as to make the alteration fairly obvious.

Later in the Reply Memorandum (page 19), Mann purported to provide the requested supporting quotation from the Muir Russell report showing that the supposed exoneration was not limited to “CRU scientists”, but extended more generally to “the scientists”, including Mann himself:

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Steyn's counterblast

Well it has all kicked off overnight, hasn't it? Mark Steyn has decided that attack is the best form of defence and has decided to countersue Michael Mann for $10 million.

FIRST COUNTERCLAIM

130. Plaintiff [Mann] has engaged in a pattern of abusive litigation designed to chill freedom of speech and to stifle legitimate criticism of Plaintiff’s work. He is currently suing Dr Tim Ball in British Columbia over a hoary bit of word play (“should be in the state pen, not Penn State”) applied to innumerable Pennsylvanians over the years. Having initiated the suit, Dr Mann then stalled the discovery process, so that the BC suit is now entering its third year – Mann’s object being to use the process as a punishment, rather than any eventual trial and conviction. See Mann vs Ball et al, British Columbia VLC-S-S-111913 (2011) (exhibit attached).

...

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Steyn fights

Mark Steyn has posted an interesting update on his defence of Michael Mann's defamation suit. It seems that Steyn has had differences with the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute over tactics and is now feeling vindicated as the case has become bogged down in procedural argument. And he wants the case dismissed rather than going to trial, as this is what will best protect the principle of free speech:

Defendant Steyn stands by his words and is willing to defend them at trial and before a jury, should it come to that. However, as a noted human-rights activist in Canada and elsewhere, he believes that the cause of freedom of expression in the United States would best be served by dismissing the amended complaint, and that a trial would have a significant "chilling effect" in America of the kind the Anti-SLAPP laws are specifically designed to prevent.

You can see his point.

Into reverse

Anthony reports that Michael Mann's libel suit against the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Review has suffered something of a setback. Last summer a judge blocked an attempt to have the case thrown out, but appeared to blunder by confusing the actions of the two defendant corporations and their writers. This decision has now been reversed by the appeal court.

Cult science - Josh 244

Steve McIntyre has a hilarious post about Lewandowsky and Mann drawing conclusions from of a sample size of zero. So I drew my own conclusions.

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The Secret Science Society

Michael Mann and Stephan Lewandowsky have a typically overwrought article at the website of the Association of Psychological Science. Also on the roster of authors are Linda Bauld and Gerard Hastings - anti-tobacco scientivists from the University of Stirling - and a psychologist from the University of Irvine.

One of the principal themes in the article is that bad people keep asking to see scientivists' data and correspondence. This, apparently, is unacceptable behaviour - not a position for which I have much sympathy, or indeed any sympathy at all.

However, it's interesting to see this cross-disciplinary enthusiasm for secret science. Perhaps these paragons of scientific integrity should form a "Secret Science Society" (although the name is already taken). Most of the scientific establishment would sign up.

More battling - Josh 241

 

The post on Rob Wilson's lecture has certainly caused some seismic activity in the climate blogosphere.

Cartoons by Josh

Update on Oct 22, 2013 by Josh

Now added some mangled Shakespeare to the cartoon. Thankyou Phillip Bratby for the quote and for noticing the hockey stick. I have added Anthony's description of it, also noted by JJ over at WUWT. So a big Hat tip to all three of you!

Wilson on millennial temperature reconstructions

Last week I attended a lecture given by Rob Wilson at the University of St Andrews. This was a two-hour marathon, a format that is excellent if your lecturer is good enough to carry an audience, as it enables issues to be addressed in much more depth than is the norm. In the event, the time shot by, and if you read on you will see why.

Rob was doing a review of the millennial temperature reconstructions, following the story from the First Assessment Report through to AR5. As readers here know, Rob is no kind of a sceptic (a point he repeated over lunch), but on the northern hemisphere paleo studies his position is not a million miles away from mine. In places our positions are identical, as you will see.

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Gore drops Mann

Anthony has a really interesting post from a spy inside one of Al Gore's Climate Leader training programs. Read the whole thing, but I thought this was particularly interesting.

Al Gore himself went through the entire slide show that we are supposed to use as his “Climate Leaders.”  Quite honestly, there is nothing new here, EXCEPT that there is no trace of the “hockey stick” graph that was so central to “An Inconvenient Truth”!! Amazing, considering how central that was to their arguments!