Maybe their computer is too small?

Delingpole has picked up on the Met Office's claims of innocence over the issuing of "mild winter" predictions and notes just how much money we are spending on not getting a long-range forecast.

So let’s get this right. We paid for 90 per cent of the Met office’s £30 million computer; we also fund a hefty chunk of its annual £170 million running costs. And now the Met office tells us that it is incapable of providing the effective long range forecasts we could get for a fraction of the price from Piers Corbyn or Joe Bastardi?

Interestingly, the other day I came across this paper produced by Sir John Beddington and his team, calling for more money to be spent on the Met Office. The Review of Climate Science Advice calls for £90 million to be spent on upgrading the Met Office's Hadley Centre, including the purchase of a shiny new supercomputer. Still, it will enable some important questions to be answered...

Q4: How can confidence in the most uncertain aspects of large-scale climate projections be improved? Answer needed perhaps by 2015, although the sooner the better to answer questions such as:
• Are current global climate projections for mitigation decisions accurate?
• What are the sign and magnitude of key cloud feedback processes?
• Is geo-engineering a safe option?
• How can aviation be operated to minimise the impacts of emissions?

I must say I agree that it would be useful to know if current global climate projections are accurate. Presumably not though, if the "sign and magnitude of key cloud feedback processes" are unknown.

Scientists and bureaucrats

Speculation alert.

As one tries to understand the behind-the-scenes manoevres that are driving the climate change campaign, I find myself looking at the actions of bureaucrats far mor often than I do the actions of politicians.The BBC's coverage of today's announcements on science spending is a case in point.

In response to the announcement of deep cuts in capital budgets for science, our old friend Bob Ward pops up:

Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change said that the Chancellor's announcement was misleading:

"Government spending on research will in fact be about 14% lower in real terms," he said.

"Today's announcement confirms that the government is planning to slash capital expenditure for research. It looks like we could be returning to the dark days of the 1980s and early 1990s when researchers were forced to work in laboratories and facilities that were starved of investment."

Other people have questioned Ward's role at the Grantham Institute - it is unusual in the extreme for a university to employ someone to denigrate anyone who might question a particular point of view, as Pielke Jnr has pointed out. Yet here we have a different aspect to Ward's role - attacking the government cuts with a degree of vigour that even the official opposition don't seem to have managed yet.

How then to make sense of this dual role - climate rottweiler and public spending doberman? One feasible explanation is that he is employed to denigrate climate sceptics, but is a "concerned citizen" as regards the public spending round. But then again, perhaps this is all just part of a single role - one in which Ward is simply paid to defend the considerable vested interests of the scientific bureaucracy.

Met Office says they kept mum

GWPF is reporting a press release from the Met Office in which they say they did not predict a mild winter. As far as I remember the Met Office stopped issuing long-range forecasts last year, which would tally with the press release. But I have a nagging feeling that I heard something said about it being mild again this winter.

Does anyone remember anything?

Cold weather payments

I was reading (I forget where) of concerns that the government's budget for cold weather payments to pensioners was being spent far faster than had been envisaged when the budget was put together. Was this, I wondered, something to do with a dodgy Met Office forecast?

So, as is my wont, I contacted the Department of Work and Pensions and got a swift response.

...this year's budget for Cold Weather Payments for Great Britain was based on the average number of payments made over the last ten years and with a payment rate of £25 for each week of cold weather. This year's budget is £76 million. However, Cold Weather Payments will be made to all those entitled to receive them.

The budgeting process does not include a forecast of winter weather.

I guess we should be relieved that the Met Office were not involved. Somebody at DWP probably deserves a pat on the back for keeping them on sidelines. That said, you wonder whether using the average of the last ten years is a sensible metric.

What do you think?

Plus ça change...

...plus c'est la même chose.

This review of Benjamin Greene's Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate is rather interesting.  Take this excerpt for example:

Greene draws upon the private papers of the President and many of his key advisors and argues that, although Eisenhower sincerely wanted a test ban as early as 1954, he failed to obtain one primarily because he allowed policy to be captured by scientists and science advisors for much of his presidency.

...

Greene depicts Eisenhower as a well-intentioned leader overwhelmed by issues beyond his comprehension.

Climategate as a reality check

An interesting interview with Mike Hulme, looking at the changes in climate science and climate policy. (Look for episode 101205 from 5 December 2010).

Part 1 is mainly about the policy aspects of climate, focusing particularly on the change in the landscape in the last twelve months, which Hulme traces particularly back to the failure of Copenhagen with the ensuing disillusion opening the way to a less top-down approach to climate policy.

Click to read more ...

Amazon green bestsellers 2010

Via the Guardian, The Hockey Stick Illusion was number 2 on the green bestsellers list for 2010. There are also several other well known names on the list, but these have release dates in earlier years, so it's perhaps not quite as amazing as it looks. Nevertheless, in view of the failure of most MSM outlets to review the book at all, HSI's performance says something about the power of the blogosphere and the failure of the MSM.

Guardian coverage here.

Interacademies Council redacting like fury

Must-read post of the day comes from Hilary Ostrov who has been trying to get hold of the submissions to the Interacademies Council inquiry into the IPCC. Having asked for the information last summer, Hilary has still not received a thing. Now we learn that the IAC is going to redact the names at the top of each submission.

Now why would they want to hide the source of the submissions?

I wonder if the 950,000 dollars they received from UNEP had anything to do with it?

A timeline

15 December 13:05 GMT: Media Matters publishes its Foxleaks story.

15 December ~21:00 GMT: Largest sceptic blog, WUWT, publishes a response: Clueless bloggers attack Fox News..."

15 December 21:04 GMT: Largest UK sceptic blog publishes a response: Uncertainty? It's old hat.

15 December ~23:00 GMT: Guardian's Leo Hickman tweets: "And still the megaphone climate sceptics are ignoring the Fox memo"

16 December ~14:00 GMT Guardian's Damian Carrington retweets Leo Hickman.

Clueless indeed.

Uncertainty? It's old hat

In the wake of Climategate there were many earnest expressions of concern about the way that uncertainties had been downplayed by many climate scientists. Even some of the people most associated with the CAGW cause were heard to repeat these statements of regret.

Remember that?

Apparently, it doesn't apply any more.

There has been a bit of a kerfuffle (well, quite a lot of a kerfuffle actually) among the same kind of people over a report that a Fox News editor had told his staff to make sure that viewers were told that any claims about temperature trends were based on disputed data. His email apparently found its way into the public arena.

"[We should] refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."

To me though, this looks rather commendable. The data (and indeed the adjustments applied to it) are hotly disputed, so what the viewers were being told was undoubtedly true. And Fox's actions seem admirably even-handed too, with journalists told that statements about both warming and cooling should carry this same caveat.

So why then have all the usual suspects suddenly gone into overdrive as if heresy had been committed?

To me it seems that Fox News are being crucified for failing to make clear statements of faith. And despite all the repentance expressed by the sinners of the past, it appears that no lessons have actually been learned.

Postscript: Tom Nelson notes that Revkin, who has been enjoying Fox's discomfiture, seems to have changed his position on writing about "illegally acquired" material...again.

Postscript 2: This is the Guardian's take on the affair. They seem to have some different threads to the story that are not supported by the email as published at Media Matters - I can see nothing in it to support their position that "Bill Sammon, imposed an order to make time for climate sceptics within 15 minutes of the airing of a story about a scientific report showing that 2000-2009 was on track to be the hottest decade on record."

Climate cuttings 45

Blogging will remain light for the time being, as I try to get on top of the day job and the house ahead of Christmas. In the meantime, here are a few bits and pieces I've noticed recently.

A German meteorologist wonders if we are about to enter another little ice age.

Click to read more ...

Irish Examiner on post-Cancun world

The Irish Examiner takes a look at the climate world post-Cancun and sees a changed landscape. The author sees campaigning against economic growth as a vote loser in the current circumstances. There is also this:

The talk about a "climate change consensus" never was a scientific consensus about climate change but at most as a political agreement to act and speak as if the major questions surrounding climate change had already been answered.

Yup.

Green bank to be scaled back

The Guardian is reporting that the proposed green bank for the UK is to be scaled back, starting life as a mere "fund". This means that it will be unable to raise capital on the markets.

In an interview with the Guardian, Huhne said the government remained committed to setting up a bank and an initial fund was only one option. But the prospect of a delay on implementing this key green policy will dismay environmentalists.

Who knows, maybe reality is slowly dawning.

(H/T Munroad)

Armstrong and Miller on climate

H/T Dellers.

Greens don't like technology

Stephen Budiansky wonders why environmentalists dislike economic activity so much. In passing he notes Prof Kevin Anderson's contribution to this blog the other day, and is very amused.