Tom Chivers on trust

Updated on Aug 1, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Updated on Aug 1, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Tom Chivers, the Telegraph's science blogger, has written his take on the Muller paper. Coming a day after the initial furore it's somewhat more considered than many of the initial reactions, although not so considered that he has noticed all the argy-bargy going on as to just how sceptical Muller really was in the past. But that aside, there are some interesting questions raised, not least on the questions of authority and trust:

As a non-climate scientist, I have to accept certain things on authority, as I do with all expert knowledge. This is an argument from authority, but we all do it, and it's vital: if I had cancer, I'd accept the authority of the oncologist and the body of knowledge of the oncology community, rather than try to guide my own treatment with information I'd found on the internet. As Ben Goldacre said long ago in a different context: "you have only two choices: you can either learn to interpret data yourself and come to your own informed conclusions; or you decide who to trust".

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Climategate police investigation - the closure report

Leo Hickman has posted a link to Norfolk Constabulary's official closure report on the Climategate investigation. I don't see anything important in it, but interesting all the same.

When BEST is not quite good enough - Josh 176

Not the BEST

Updated on Jul 30, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Commenters on the climate debate have a tendency to see things in terms of black and white or of goodies and baddies. Typical of this kind of thing is the desperate attempts by MSM upholders of the IPCC consensus to portray Muller as a former sceptic who has now seen the light. This idea only gains any credence at all because of Muller's role as an early supporter of McIntyre's work on the Hockey Stick. However, as has now been documented elsewhere, his characterisation as a sceptic is hard to square with most of his other comments on the climate issue and also with his flat denial that he has ever been a sceptic. It is probably safe to say that he is a firm upholder of the IPCC consensus who is honest enough to state clearly that the Hockey Stick was flawed.

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Counterblast

Rich Muller may have an op-ed out, but Anthony Watts has a publication of his own:

A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.

So now you know.

The passing of the Climate Change Act?

Christopher Booker notes what appears to me to be the beginning of the end for the Climate Change Act.

[W]hat we see emerging here for the first time is an official admission that, in order to keep our lights on and our economy running, we have no alternative but to rely massively on fossil-fuel gas, which will drive a coach and horses through the Climate Change Act’s target of an 80 per cent emissions cut.

Of course, the politicians will deny this, but they can only do so on the basis of wishful thinking. They are not going to get their “carbon capture” or their 32,000 wind turbines, let alone those “hundreds of thousands of green jobs”. In all directions they are screwed. And not the least telling feature of last week’s statement was that it made no reference to the shale gas revolution which has already halved US gas prices in five years, and which could solve our own energy problems by providing cheap gas for centuries.

Of course, the fact that our energy needs will be met by shale gas and that the Climate Change Act will be tossed to the wind doesn't mean that the government will stop funding wind turbines. But there will be a growing realisation that the taxpayers' largesse is not anything to do with energy. It will be seen for what it is - a gargantuan fig-leaf behind which politicians like Ed Davey can hide their cowardice.

Muller in the NYT

Richard Muller's op-ed in the New York Times is now published:

CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

Interestingly, I learn from Anthony that this is not what has caused him to postpone his vacation. There's more news coming later today.

Update on Jul 29, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Just a note to clarify - I am saying that the excitement is not over the Muller editorial. It's not unrelated though.

BEST guess is 1.5?

This may be an indication of what is exercising Anthony Watts' mind: Ronald Bailey at Reason Magazine is reporting a rumour that the BEST project will next week report a 1.5°C temperature rise since 1750.

The rumors say that new BEST reanalysis will show that global average temperature has increased by 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times and will suggest that most of the warming since the 1950s is the result of increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

Cryptic

Something interesting going on at WUWT...

IPCC seeks to influence UK FOI laws

For much of the year, the House of Commons Justice Committee has been conducting a post-legislative review of the Freedom of Information Act, its work taking place in the face of a concerted effort by the bureaucracy to push it into accepting the idea that the Act should be neutered.

The review has now ground to a conclusion, and the news is, on the whole quite good. For example, from the recommendations comes the welcome news that the committee favours a tightening of the legal ramifications for breaches of the Act.

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MSPs misled over Stern

From the Dundee Courier:

Pressure group the Scottish Climate and Energy Forum (SCEF) claims a briefing given to MSPs misquoted a report into the economic cost of climate change, although the Scottish Government maintains the threat cannot be ignored.

In the briefing, issued in December 2008, MSPs were told that temperatures rising by just 2 to 3 degrees celsius would lead to a global reduction in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 5%-20%.

However, SCEF chairman Mike Haseler said the Stern Review — seen as one of the most authoritative studies into the possible financial implications of unchecked climate change — said such a change would only reduce GDP by up to 3%, if at all.

Update on Jul 24, 2012 by Bishop Hill

The Courier article appears to have been taken down. No explanation as yet.

More climate emails

In the wake of Rob Wilson's guest post about the adjustments to HADCRUT, somebody requested Rob's emails on the subject. Richard Betts has now, with the agreement of everyone involved in the correspondence, posted this all up on the discussion forum.

It's a better example of climate scientists' emails than other, better known, examples.

Please note that the thread on the discussion forum will be tightly moderated.

Climate change and literary studies

Philippa Martyr, writing in Quadrant magazine, looks at academic grant awards relating to climate change. Like this for example:

Literary Studies: “The project will devise and develop a new 'cultural materialist' paradigm for science fiction studies and apply it to a case study of science fictional representations of catastrophe, especially nuclear war, plague and extreme climate change.” ($239,000)

Mann's legal case

Already embroiled in a legal tussle with Tim Ball, Michael Mann has now taken it upon himself to threaten the National Review with a libel suit. Much of the Review article was a direct quote of the CEI piece which considered whether Penn State's willingness to cover up the Sandusky child abuse scandal meant that it might also have covered up wrongdoing by Mann. Although the point made by the CEI piece was a serious one, the article's fairly unsubtle linking of Mann with Sandusky has led to inevitable outrage among Mann's supporters. However, in fact the libel threat appears to be based on another part of the Steyn's article entirely.

Michael Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change “hockey-stick” graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.

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Compact, fluorescent, dangerous

Just minutes apart come two tweets about compact fluorescent lightbulbs. First this from Revkin:

Edward Hammer, inventor of helical CFL bulb, has died, age 80.

And then this from Ken Green.

Besides being expensive, undimmable, slow-to-brighten, giving off ugly light, and containing mercury, compact fluorescent bulbs apparently give off UV radiation that will damage your skin.

One assumes the close proximity of the tweets is coincidence.