Where's Mashey?

Michael Mann in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

I’ve been the subject of attacks by climate change deniers for more than a decade now, because of the prominent role that the “hockey stick” temperature reconstruction has played in the public discourse on climate change. This doesn’t mean that I’m numb to the outrageous attacks against me and other climate scientists. But I’m not surprised by anything anymore. There is nothing, it would seem, that the climate change denial industry isn’t willing to do in their attempts to thwart policy action to combat human-caused climate change. While the attacks have been tough to deal with at times, I’ve had a huge amount of support from my colleagues, other scientists, and ordinary citizens who have come out of the woodwork just to thank me for my contributions.

Michael Mann in Britannica Blog

I’ve been the subject of attacks by climate-change deniers for more than a decade now, because of the prominent role that the “hockey stick” temperature reconstruction has played in the public discourse on climate change. This doesn’t mean that I’m numb to the outrageous attacks against me and other climate scientists. But I’m not surprised by anything anymore. There is nothing, it would seem, that that the climate-change denial industry isn’t willing to do in their attempts to thwart policy action to combat human-caused climate change. While the attacks have been tough to deal with at times, I’ve had a huge amount of support from my colleagues, other scientists, and ordinary citizens who have come out of the woodwork just to thank me for my contributions.

H/T Shub in the comments.

Mann goes atomic

Another day, another Michael Mann interview. This is very much in the vein of other recent Mann appeareances, with much griping over "deniers" and whatnot.

It is odd to see all these "journals" - WaPo, New Scientist, and now the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - come running when Mann has a message to convey.

(H/T Shub in the comments)

Climate cuttings 40

There are quite a few interesting links and snippets around this morning, so here, without further ado, is the latest instalment of Climate Cuttings.

Ars Technica uses CRU data difficulties to kick off an article about the problems academics have in storing their raw materials. I'm not sure that this excuses CRU, who of course had access to plenty of data repositories.

Also on the subject of openness, John Graham-Cumming returns to the subject of code availability, knocking back some of the arguments that are made against such transparency.

Click to read more ...

Josh 54

That SciAm survey

The recent Scientific American survey on climatology issues has been widely criticised, and the powers that be at the magazine must be regretting ever launching it now that the results are out. As Climate Change Dispatch reports, 81% think that the IPCC is corrupt and 65% think we should take no action over climate change.

Waxwing irruption

I am told that there have been sightings of waxwings in the village this week.

Waxwings are what is known as an irruptive species, which is to say that they appear in the UK when food is in short supply in their normal, more northern feeding grounds. Their arrival is therefore traditionally taken as evidence of an impending cold winter.

(Weather, not climate, of course.)

The normal pattern of waxwing irruptions is for sightings to extend gradually southwards across the UK, but this year seems to be rather different, with the birds arriving all at once.

This graph (source) tells the story. The red line is this year, with the peak both earlier and higher.

Better lay some firewood in.

Acton speaks on lunchgate

This is odd. Professor Edward Acton has made what almost appears to be an official statement on lunchgate.

Sir John Beddington on FOI

I've just picked up this excerpt from Sir John Beddington's evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. This formed part of the panel's inquiry into the Goverment Office for Science's work in 2009. The session came just after the Russell/UEA hearings. It looks as though Graham Stringer still had UEA on his mind.

Q26 Graham Stringer: What do you think the implications for the Freedom of Information Act are from the reviews into the University of East Anglia affair? Apart freedom of information, are there any other things that you would like to say about that?

Click to read more ...

More Matt

Matt Ridley is taking aim at the ocean acidification scare again.

Before I started looking into this, I assumed the evidence for damage from ocean acidification must be strong because that is what the media kept saying. I am amazed by what I have found. Make no mistake: there are lots of threats to the ecosystems of the ocean, from over-fishing to nutrient run-off, but acidification is way down the list. The attention is deflecting funds and action from greater threats. It is time scientists had the courage to admit this.

Why climate scientists don't release code

John Graham-Cumming has picked up on an article in the magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery, which looks at the question of scientists releasing their code (or not). JG-C makes some interesting comparisons between the reasons for withholding code given by the Real Climate guys and the reasons identified by the ACM.

Read the whole thing.

The story of Curry

There is an excellent profile of Judith Curry in the Georgia Tech alumni magazine.

“Scientists involved in the public debate mainly were trying to protect the UN treaty and were worried my post was going to make things worse. But that’s about policy and not about science. If that’s what was making these people tick, they’re part of the problem. That’s how we got in this trouble in the first place.”

Via WUWT

Nature Climate Change

Nature's new journal Nature Climate Change edges its way closer to launch. There is a puff piece from the editor, Olive Heffernan here.

The journal's policy on data and code is worth a comment:

By ensuring that our authors make their data available to readers on request, the editorial team at Nature Climate Change will commit itself wholeheartedly to promoting transparency in climate research.

I would have thought a wholehearted commitment might involve the authors of papers submitting data and code to the journal at the same time as they submit the manuscript. A commitment merely to ask authors after the event was, of course, behind most of the scandals over climate science data in the last ten years.

Will Nature Climate Change demand that code be available as well as data? Will they withdraw papers if authors refuse to release data and code? I can't say I'm confident.

Where did they go wrong?

Margot O'Neill, a journalist for Australia's ABC, looks back over the history of the reporting of climate science and wonders where it all went wrong.

Previously, media coverage of sceptics had focused almost exclusively on whether or not they believe in anthropogenic climate change, but that is likely to change, the journalists say, because there are many different kinds of sceptics and a range of other debates. Some say they wished they had engaged credible sceptics earlier.

H/T Jiminy in the comments.

Report on the Purdue forum

Many will readers will know that there was a discussion last night between Judith Curry, Andy Revkin, Pielke Jnr and a Elizabeth McNie, a professor of political science and earth and atmospheric sciences.

Boilerplate.com, which looks like it's a newspaper blog, carries a brief report on the proceedings. It sounds as though much good sense was talked. Curry has already posted her speech, but there was also Revkin saying this:

Science is all about what is and the what ifs ... not telling you what to do.

Click to read more ...

UEA/Russell transcript

The transcript for last week's Science and Technology Committee hearing is now available here.

(H/T Pharos in the comments)