Dr Wilson, I presume

I very much enjoyed last night's lecture by Rob Wilson and it was good to have a couple of chats with him, both before and after the talk. I found him both charming and very engaging. He even gave my own lecture a plug, which was very kind.

Although aimed at a lay audience, Rob managed to squeeze a lot of science into the talk, and I particularly enjoyed the bits about non-climatological uses of tree rings, which is not an area I knew much about.

Click to read more ...

Inhofe - 'dig deeper'

The press may be reporting that the Commerce Department investigation has given NOAA a clean bill of health, but Senator Inhofe is not so sure. In a press release yesterday he suggested that further investigation is required:

I want to thank the Inspector General for conducting a thorough, objective, and balanced investigation," Inhofe said.  "NOAA is one of the nation's leading scientific organizations.  Unfortunately, in reading past the executive summary, this report shows that some NOAA employees potentially violated federal contract law and engaged in data manipulation.  It also appears that one senior NOAA employee possibly thwarted the release of important federal scientific information for the public to assess and analyze.  Her justification for blocking the release was contradicted by two career attorneys in the Office of General Counsel.  This is no doubt a serious matter that deserves further investigation.

"Also, the IG recommended that certain NOAA-related emails ‘warrant further investigation,' so I will be following up to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent according to federal law, and that the public will get access to the science NOAA produces."

Josh 81

Freeman Dyson interview

Steve Connor, the science editor of the Independent has published an email exchange with Freeman Dyson. I was more struck by what Connor said than Dyson's thoughts. This for example:

As you know these [climate] models are used by large, prestigious science organisations such as Nasa, NOAA and the Met Office, which use them to make pretty accurate predictions about the weather every day. The scientists who handle these models point out that they can accurately match up the computer predictions to real climatic trends in the past, and that it is only when they add CO2 influences to the models that they can explain recent global warming.

And how are the predictions made by these models turning out, Mr Connor?

More on those commenting problems

A reader has written to advise that he fixed the commenting problem by deleting existing BH cookies.

Hope this helps - nothing from Squarespace yet...

Edinburgh Climate Conference

There is a climate conference this weekend at Edinburgh. Speakers include Gabi Hegerl.

The programme can be seen here. It looks to me like a "gee up the activists" kind of thing, so I don't think I will be missing much.

(H/T Cameron by email)

Do you recycle?

There is an interview with Bjorn Lomborg here (H/T Chris by email). Anyone who has followed BL in the past will have heard most of it before, but I was struck by his statement that he still recycles.

Just to be clear, you are still green?
Absolutely. Obviously, I still recycle. I don't own a car.

My impression of most recycling is that it is very wasteful of resources, the chief exeption being aluminium. Given that Lomborg's claim to fame is that he checks out the numbers on these issues, I was surprised to see him say what he did.

Am I wrong? Do readers here recycle (if they can help it)?

Science policy on data and code

This from reader Lance:

The Feb 11 Science magazine (v331, p649) states a new journal policy--they will now require that authors archive not only their data on a website (copy to be held at Science) but also their computer codes!

Think of the time and exasperation that Steve McI could have been spared had the journal that published the Hockey Stick had this policy in place.

On the other hand, the world would have lost the "rattlingly good" Hockey Stick Illusion as well.

I almost think that Science has been listening to M&M, WUWT, and Your Grace.

The new policy doesn't appear to be online. It's certainly welcome.

Climate cuttings 49

Too busy to post much, but there are a few interesting postings around the place that are worth a look.

Judith Curry's focus on hide the decline is attracting a lot of attention. Matt Ridley salutes JC, while Keith Kloor reckons the reputation of climate scientists is not as bad as she thinks.

Another month, another Climategate investigation. The Office of Commerce has found not wrongdoing among NOAA staff - although there is much of interest. The Office of Commerce report is here and deserves careful study.  McIntyre has started looking at the details. News coverage here and here.

Leading insurer RSA has said that it's not clear that weather is any more volatile. Good news for sceptics, reckons the Evening Standard.

And, saving the worst till last, Richard Black's standards have sunk lower than even I thought possible.

Josh 80

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Virginia assembly refuses to block Cuccinelli

The Cavalier Daily, a publication serving the University of Virginia, is reporting that attempts by Democrat legislators in the Virginia assembly to end Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's powers to demand documents from university staff have been blocked. Had they been successful, Cuccinelli would have been prevented from pursuing his investigation into Michael Mann's grant applications.

Climategate - emails were deleted

Steve M is reporting some fascinating new information about a US Department of Commerce investigation into Climategate. As part of this inquiry they have interviewed Eugene Wahl about the notorious "delete all emails" message sent by Jones to Mann, in which Mann was asked to pass the request on to Wahl.

According to the report, Wahl has confirmed his belief that he did delete his AR4 email correspondence in accordance with Mann's request.

Full story here.

Rob Wilson at St Andrews

There was some doubt over whether members of the public could attend Rob Wilson's lecture in St Andrews on Friday. I dropped a line to the organisers and they are quite happy to have outsiders come along. If you're going, see you there.

Weathermen more sceptical

A survey of meteorologists has found that many became more sceptical of global warming in the wake of Climategate.

Among the respondents who indicated that they had followed the story, 42 percent indicated the story made them somewhat or much more skeptical that global warming is occurring.  These results stand in stark contrast to the findings of several independent investigations of the emails, conducted later, that concluded no scientific misconduct had occurred and nothing in the emails should cause doubts about the fact which show that global warming is occurring.

Josh elsewhere

...at Tallbloke's place.