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Bishop Hill Feb 14, 2010 BBC Climate: CRU Climate: Jones Hat tip to the reader who pointed out this Today Programme discussion with Roger Harrabin, in which he describes his email interview with Phil Jones. No startling new revelations, but there is apparently more to come soon.
And also, did Harrabin's voice crack at one point, or did I imagine that?
Bishop Hill Feb 13, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: Jones There's sure to be some analysis of Phil Jones' comments to Roger Harrabin in the Sunday papers, and I'll post links up as I get them. Thanks to Steve2 in the comments for the first of these:
MAIL ON SUNDAY: Untold billions of pounds have been spent on turning the world green and also on financing the dubious trade in carbon credits...You might have thought that all this was based upon well-founded, highly competent research and that those involved had good reason for their blazing, hot-eyed certainty and their fierce intolerance of dissent. But, thanks to the row over leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit, we now learn that this body’s director, Phil Jones, works in a disorganised fashion amid chaos and mess.
Not Phil Jones, but very funny all the same.
Jonathan Leake is going to turn himself into even more of a hate figure for the green fraternity, reporting today on an interesting paper by Terry Mills that suggests that recent warming is just as likely to be a statistical artefact as a real change in the climate.
Gordon Brown is launching a new climate panel and denounces us all as "deniers" in the process. I guess he didn't get the memo either.
Bishop Hill Feb 13, 2010 BBC Climate: Jones Hans von Storch's comment, the first one in this thread about Phil Jones interview with Roger Harrabin, makes me wince rather.
Same as always - can we rely on Harrabin' report that the various quotes of Phil Jones are correct? I [once had dealings with Harrabin], and he had a somewhat liberal attitude in this respect, I remember. Any chance to verify independently the quotes?
Update: I've tweaked the language in the bracket slightly - see the comments for details.
Bishop Hill Feb 13, 2010 The Scotsman has been reading the blogs it seems, picking up on the work of readers here in unearthing Professor Boulton's background in global warming alarmism. Some recognition of this blog would have been welcome, but such is life.
Professor Boulton makes an attempt to defend himself:
Last night, on being questioned by The Scotsman, Prof Boulton insisted he was a "sceptical scientist" prepared to change his views "if the evidence merited".
...and we must of course take him at his word on this. However, the panellists must be free of even the appearance of bias if they are to win the confidence of sceptics, and it is for that reason that Professor Boulton is unsuitable.
I think there now has to be a major question mark over the whole of the Russell Review. With two of the five panellists appointed having been shown to have been wildly unsuitable, many will conclude that Muir Russell has set out to produce a predetermined result, not to reach the truth.
Maybe they need to start again.
Bishop Hill Feb 13, 2010 BBC Climate: CRU Climate: Jones Well that was exciting wasn't it? I rolled in from the local hostelry at 11pm to find a message waiting for me from BBC News and the most extraordinary pair of articles about Phil Jones on the BBC website.
The BBC were pushing this story, which seems to have been some colleagues telling tales about the state of Jones' office, the spin being that Jones' untidiness is the reason he can't lay his hand on his data. This doesn't really ring true to me. In the emails, Jones was telling his Hockey Team colleagues that he was going to refuse to release the data, not that he couldn't lay his hands on it. If he really couldn't lay his hands on it, you would have expected him to start trying to collate the data anew, wouldn't you? And anyway, what was it that he sent to Peter Webster at Georgia Tech? I'm profoundly uncomfortable about this story.
Far more interesting is this Q&A between Harrabin and Jones, in which Jones announces that the existence of the Medieval Warm Period is still a matter for debate, a step that for most people would be enough to win them the "denier" label. He says only that "there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity". Most of us thought that the science was "settled".
The whole thing is a must-read, but it's also worth standing back and marvelling at Professor Jones' ability to express uncertainty in a manner that will be readily comprehensible to the layman. This is something that we have been told many times is very difficult to do. Perhaps we are getting somewhere now.
Bishop Hill Feb 12, 2010 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other Henk Tennekes, a prominent sceptic, has resigned from the National Academy of Arts and Sciences of the Netherlands. His resignation statement is a must-read.
Bishop Hill Feb 12, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: Russell Benny Peiser and David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation have a piece up calling for a complete overhaul of the review.
They're not wrong.
Bishop Hill Feb 12, 2010 Climate: WG2 Andrew Lacis has thoughts on the wisdom or otherwise of his comments on IPCC WG2 Ch9 FOD (must be precise about what I'm talking about!) over at Dot Earth.
Bishop Hill Feb 12, 2010 Climate: Russell OK, so if Sir Muir and his team are no good, who should be on the panel? - people who are suitably qualified in the areas the inquiry are going to examine, but without the environmentalist baggage. Here's a few thoughts:
IT areas: John Graham-Cumming has suggested himself as a candidate and he would certainly be acceptable to both sides.
Paleoclimate: someone at CA suggested Atte Korhola. Perhaps not acceptable to the other side though.
Statistics: Ian Jolliffe?
Peer review: Harvey Markovitch? Ex-BMJ - expertise in research integrity and peer review ethics
Bishop Hill Feb 12, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: Russell Thanks to everyone who has been adding information about Geoffrey Boulton in the comments to the previous piece. Professor Boulton:
The idea that this man has no preconception of global warming science and has no connections with the CRU is clearly risible.
*This last bit is from that premium Scotman site. The full quote is: "Computer models of the natural climate have been very successful in simulating the changes of the recent past, until after 1970, when they suggest that there should have been cooling, not warming. Add human-produced greenhouse gases to the models, however, and the match between the model and reality is excellent. It shows that, since 1970, the human-induced component has begun to dominate over natural trends. Denial is equivalent to saying: "I don't know anything about science, so given the choice of trusting 99.9 per cent or 0.1 per cent of the experts, I'll go with the 0.1 per cent."
Bishop Hill Feb 12, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: Russell Long-term followers of the climate debate (and those who have read the Hockey Stick Illusion) will remember the NAS panel on the Hockey Stick, and how Bette Otto-Bliesner, the scientist who occupied the office next door to Caspar Ammann, was appointed to the panel, a move that called into question the panel's independence.
We've already had questions raised about the independence of another of Sir Muir Russell's panellists, Geoffrey Boulton, the ex-UEA man who has spoken out in favour of the global warming consensus, but I'm grateful to a couple of readers for filling in some more details.
Cameron Rose makes this observation:
I note that Geoffrey Boulton is based at the University of Edinburgh, with an office at the Grant Institute at the King's Buildings in Edinburgh. Interestingly, Gabi Hegerl, who, I understand, is a member of the 'Hockey Team' and features in the CRU emails, and was a key author of AR4, has an office on the same floor in the same building 3 doors along.
Of course, that does not mean he's not independent, but it hardly inspires confidence.
Another reader points me to an article that Boulton wrote last year (Link- pay site - I'm trying to get a copy) entitled...
Just how much more evidence of climate change do you need?
...while Benny Pieser, writing in his CCNet newsletter, notes this quote from Boulton back in 2005 (I'm not sure of the source)
The argument regarding climate change is over.
I think it behoves me to point out to readers once more the declaration on the review's website:
Do any of the Review team members have a predetermined view on climate change and climate science?
No. Members of the research team come from a variety of scientific backgrounds. They were selected on the basis they have no prejudicial interest in climate change and climate science and for the contribution they can make to the issues the Review is looking at.
Bishop Hill Feb 12, 2010 Blogs Does anyone have access to the Scotman's website premium content? If so can you get in touch please. Contact link at the bottom of the nav bar.
Bishop Hill
Got it now. Thanks to everyone who has been trying to get this for me.
Bishop Hill Feb 12, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: Russell The BBC Newsnight coverage of Philip Campbell's resignation from the Russell Review team is here. Non-UK readers may have difficulty accessing it.
