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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reiner Grundmann, writing at Die Klimazwiebel notes the timing and describes it as a political statement. Civil service and the Voice of the Bureaucracy make political statement. Who would have thought it?

Meanwhile, analysis is underway. John Graham-Cumming (got the hyphenation right this time) has already uncovered some funnies in the data.

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.

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.

Update on Dec 7, 2009 by Bishop Hill

Update: Lucia in the comments says the breakin appears to have been last year.  Clearly a conspiracy then.

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.

Update on Dec 7, 2009 by Bishop Hill

Aidey in the comments points out that I've got the nuance of this post wrong. What Aidey points out is that what Cook is saying is that we understand short-term variability (<100 years) but not long-term (>100years). What does this mean about our understanding of the much-disputed medieval warm period though?

Another journalist threatened

In the comments to an earlier thread, this:

I am a journalist and have been "warned", in a manner similar to the one posted, by a social economics professor.

The "offence" was a summary of Lord Monckton's opinion that AGW is diverting resources, causing food price hikes and adds to human misery.

The threat was that the mere reporting of information would be taken as a direct adoption of Monckton's views and the writer and the magazine would be seen as oil industry shills. The prof threatened by phone but refused the invite to write his own two page response in the form of an article, not just in the letters page.

My temper is very elastic, but not infinite. Having recycled (certifiably) my last car in March 2000 and being a 100 per cent bike commuter ever since, I got pissed at being called an oil industry shill.

The lesson- you will be surprised how quickly these people slink back into the darkness when told unequivocally to bugger off. They are also very vulnerable to humor, probably because they are humorless themselves.

I've made a minor change in the punctuation to the first sentence to clarify the meaning.

The antidote to RealClimate

Climatologists Hans von Storch and Eduardo Zorita have started a new blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, gentlemen.

Old habits die hard

Another climatologist threatening dire consequences, this time for a journalist - Andrew Revkin of the New York Times. Revkin's crime? Mentioning the views of two other academics whose views the Hockey Team see as not sufficiently orthodox.

Pielke Jnr (who is one of the heretics in question) explains.

I wonder how many other journalists have been threatened like this? Answers in the comments please.

Climate of fear

I've had some correspondence over the last few days with a well-known writer. We've been discussing people who might want to review my book, but it has not been an easy task.  I thought his comments on this problem were illuminating and I'm reproducing them here (with permission). As you will see, as well as not being able to name my correspondent, I have had to redact a name from the quote as well to protect the identity of the person named. Here's what my contact said when asked for suggestions for reviewers:

Asked for names of potential writers, I feel like an early Lutheran asked to identify his fellow readers of English bibles and knowing that Sir Thomas Gore, sorry More, is reading my letters and tightening his thumbscrews in Chelsea. In other words, like you, I know lots of people who are on side privately but daren't say so publicly. The other day I bumped into ************** at an event and said something about his global warming views (sceptical) and he froze and said `I don't do that stuff now - people would not touch me if I did'.

What can one say to that? I now live in a country where people are afraid to state their opinions on a scientific question. They will have their livelihoods taken away from them if they do.

I sometimes have to pinch myself to ensure that this really is happening and I'm not just living in a bad dream.

Good code analysis

John Graham Cumming is doing some excellent analysis of the CRU code, his conclusions being readily accessible to the layman because he writes well too.

He has found four bugs so far and seems less than impressed with the quality of the coding.

(H/T Tom Fuller)

Unthreaded

Some of the comments threads are going way off topic, so I'm setting up an unthreaded post for people who want to point to interesting stories or put forward their own theories.

More cracks in the facade

In my posting on the lack of any statement from the Royal Society on Climategate, I wondered if a refusal to address the wrongdoing might eventually lead the fellows to take a stand against the leadership. Something very like this seems to be happening at the American Physical Society. This email to a selection of the fellows of that august body was reposted to the comments at Climate Audit.

Dear fellow member of the American Physical Society:

This is a matter of great importance to the integrity of the Society. It is being sent to a random fraction of the membership, so we hope you will pass it on.

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