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Bishop Hill Jan 17, 2012 Climate: MetOffice Climate: Surface With nothing of any great import on the newswires today, I'm going to return to the subject of the Met Office's 2010 briefing to central government. The next statement I want address is this one:
Over the last 100 years the Earth has warmed by about 0.75 degrees Celsius and that warming is accelerating.
Bishop Hill Jan 16, 2012 BBC The BBC's media correspondent, Nick Higham, tweets that David Shukman is to be the new BBC science editor.
Bishop Hill Jan 16, 2012 Climate: other Quotes Royal Society When I’m asked about the science I always start with the measured rise in atmospheric CO2 (the Keeling curve). This rise isn’t controversial; nor is its attribution mainly to the burning of fossil fuels. Straightforward chemistry tells us that the CO2 build-up will induce a long-term warming trend, superimposed on all the other complicated effects that make climate fluctuate.
Martin Rees is seems confused over scientific disciplines
Bishop Hill Jan 16, 2012 Climate: HSI Climate: Mann Steve Connor, the science editor of the Independent has written something of a hagiography of the Hockeystickmeister today.
You would have thought a serious journalist would want to delve into the aspects of Mann's character that were revealed by the emails. As it is, the article reads more like a press release than a serious attempt to analyse its subject.
There's no mention of the Hockey Stick Illusion (surprise, surprise!). I wonder how many of the reviews of Mann's new book will not mention it?
Bishop Hill Jan 16, 2012 Climate: Surface James Annan has posted some details of the new HADCRUT4 temperature series at his blog. He has had these via a third party. The new series will soon replace the legendary HADCRUT3, and apparently has much more robust values for the Arctic than its illustrious predecessor.
And guess what? 2010 is now warmer than 1998!
You could have knocked me down with a feather.
Bishop Hill Jan 15, 2012 Climate: Mann According to an article in the University of Virginia newspaper, Michael Mann returns to his old haunting grounds next week, lecturing at a student-run environment week. I was struck by the comments of the university's dean, James Galloway:
Mike has been an extremely positive force in climate change science for a long time, and it is a pleasure to see that his analytical assessment has prevailed over that period," Galloway said. "It has not only provided a strong foundation for future advances in understanding how humans have altered the global climate, but also provides society with a scientific context to guide how society will address climate change.
This seems to be a different take to that of closer colleagues - men like Ed Cook who, in email 4101, bandies round expressions such as "a bad enemy" and words like "vindictive".
Bishop Hill Nature magazine has picked up on the BMJ survey of research misconduct in the UK - I posted about this a couple of days ago. The article carries the bold title British science needs `integrity overhaul'.
British scientists are fundamentally failing to deal with research misconduct, which is widespread in the country, leading experts have warned.
At a conference in London yesterday, participants were united in calling for more action on the issue.
“There is a recognition that we have a problem,” said Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and one of the driving forces behind the meeting.
I think it would probably help if journals like Nature stopped trying to cover up for the miscreants.
Bishop Hill Jan 14, 2012 Blogs Squarespace appear to have broken the commenting system again, this time in a way that may be terminal. There has apparently been a change to the spam filter. The result of this is that a significant proportion (perhaps a third?) of comments are ending up in the moderation queue.
I've sat and watched the queue for couple of hours, and am going to take a break. So if your comment disappears, you will at least know what happened. I apologise for the inconvenience.
I was supposed to be working on the book tonight.
Not happy.
Bishop Hill Jan 14, 2012 Climate: Mann Michael Mann was on the Chris Hayes show on MSNBC today (from 10 min).
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
If I tell you that Mann was the best thing about the climate change segment, you will get a feel for just how toe-curling it was.
Bishop Hill Jan 14, 2012 Climate: MWP The food fight at Wikipedia over whether there were four rejections of the Soon and Baliunas paper or none appears to have died down, and a decision - a wise one in my view - has been taken to drop the allegation that de Freitas accepted the Soon paper over the objections of all four peer reviewers.
Here's a wrinkle in the story though. Email 1719 is from Jim Salinger, the New Zealander who was possibly the most militant member of the Hockey Team at the time, promoting the disgraceful idea of complaining to the head of de Freitas's university. The email is addressed to many of the usual suspects: Mann, Jones, Hulme and so on.
I have just heard from a member of the department that the Editor who handled the Soon and Baliunas paper that Otto Kinne asked for an explanation of the criticisms. The Editor has given these. Apparently Otto Kinne has accepted these and plans to take no further action.
It is interesting to note that my informant also received the Soon and Baliunas manuscript for review, and strongly recommended rejection.
I may be in position to learn more this evening.
The identity of the informant in Salinger's department at NIWA is not clear. The reviewers of the Soon and Baliunas paper were apparently selected by a paleoclimatologist on de Freitas's behalf. Phil Jones believed that this was a New Zealander named Anthony Fowler (see #3265).
Josh Jan 13, 2012 Josh Apparently the Doomsday clock has been moved to 5 minutes to midnight, so the story about falsifying the evidence that wine is good for you dubbed Winegate over at WUWT now makes perfect sense.
More Cartoons by Josh here
Josh Jan 13, 2012 House of Lords Josh Politicians The UK Goverment House of Lords debated the Green Agenda yesterday and spent some time talking about food, although it was not clear why. Perhaps they thought the subject was about 'greens' and eating enough vegetables.
Bishop Hill Jan 13, 2012 Climate: Surface David Whitehouse has a fascinating article up at GWPF about a bet he made with James Annan in 2007, an idea prompted by a radio show called More or Less.
It was for £100 that, using the HadCrut3 data set, there would be no new record set by 2011. It was made between climatologist James Annan and myself. His work involves analysing climatic data and validating climate models. He accepted enthusiastically as he has a perchant of taking on 'sceptics.' The presenter said that if the global temperature didn’t go up in the next few years, “there would be some explaining to do.”
Later today, January 13th, “More or Less” returns to the bet, which I am pleased to say I won, though I note that this bet, or its conclusion, is not yet mentioned on Annan’s Wikipedia entry despite his other climate bet being discussed.
BH favourite Mark Lynas is mentioned too.
What's not to like?
Bishop Hill Jan 13, 2012 Climate: other Ethics There is a must-read article in the Daily Mail about corruption in British universities. The British Medical Journal have conducted a survey of British academics:
'The BMJ has been told of junior academics being advised to keep concerns to themselves to protect their careers, being bullied into not publishing their findings, or having their contracts terminated when they spoke out.'
(H/T BlackBadged, on Twitter)
Bishop Hill
The F/T has the story too, but in rather more detail.
Bishop Hill Jan 12, 2012 FOI A few days ago, I mentioned a suggestion that 2012 is going to be the scene of a major pushback against Freedom of Information.
As part of this, Universities UK - the umbrella organisation for ivory towers - is pushing very hard for an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act, and have produced a briefing paper for peers on the subject. Their target is an amendment to the Protection of Freedoms Bill. This amendment has been proposed by:
