Bishop Hill The headless chickens
Feb 1, 2014 Prince Charles has been sounding off about us dissenters from the climate "consensus", describing us as being like "headless chickens". It's funny to be on the end of such criticism from a man who talks to his house plants, but nobody takes his views seriously anyway, so it's easy enough to shrug off.
I was invited onto the Stephen Nolan show last night to discuss the royal views, but mercifully the conversation was more about the nuts and bolts of the climate than any of the guff emerging from Clarence House. I was up against Paul Williams, a climatologist from Reading. I had taken a quick look at Dr Williams' web page before we went on air and he looked like a real scientist rather than one of the scientivists who normally get picked for these things. This impression was confirmed in the programme itself and, with the presenter letting us bounce things off each other, I think the we produced a pretty informative segment for the listeners.
The audio file is attached.
Reader Comments (156)
Australia is still part of the Empire. Thus, it's alltogether proper the Ship of Fools has a Prince.
Mention of Navier-Stokes stirs some hazy memories.
Back in the slide-rule days we were grappling with NS in the second year of my uni course. After many lectures and tutorials we had been taken right through the whole kaboodle. Some bright spark then asked if we could now tackle designing systems for real-world scenarios to be told that was a whole different ball-game.
I struggled even more after that and moved over to commercial stuff after my degree.
Your Grace
I see a number of commenters are making suggestions as to how one should comport oneself when faced with an on air interview. I am sure Your Grace knows that to make one's point one simply has to remain true to oneself. I would never seek to criticise one whose hem I am not fit to besmirch.
So good on yer mate.
So, we have a man who talks to plants, believes avidly in the power of homeopathy, considers GMOs and nanotechnology to be interfering with nature now saying that anyone that does not believe what climate scientists are hypothesising must be a "headless chicken". Can this be the man who is so concerned about climate change that he insisted that his gas guzzeling car was shipped across the world so that he could use it for a royal visit? It surely can...
Long live Queen Elizabeth II
As regards the 97%, I wonder what percentage of the College of Cardinals believes in the Papacy?
'I'm sorry Dr Luther but the theology is in.'
Surely one of THE biggest problems now facing the catastrophic element of agw theory is the declining estimates for climate sensitivity to the main suspect, CO2?
In AR5 the IPPC have refused / declined / been unable / were unwilling to offer up a best estimate. given the significance of sensitivity it's actually an astonishing admission. That in itself is as good an example of something being 'not' settled as anyone could wish for.
I wonder if Charles would care to take part in a public debate on AGW. If he wants to make statements like these he needs to realise that he can't do it from the priviliged position he enjoys and abuses.
Still, he obviously takes the threat of CO2 seriously, look at the frugal lifestyle he leads.
Hi:
Since this is still a new year I thought I might help with some predictions:
As predicted by state-of-the-art scientific sports models from the turn of the century, Superbowl XCVIII (98) will be won in an upset victory by the London Beef Eaters vs. the Barcelona Moors to much acclaim on February 3, 2064 at the newly reconstructed Bremer Brücke Stadion, Germany. The margin of victory will be so near the predicted score of 31 to 24 as to raise serious suspicions of tampering, collusion or insider fixing such that the sports book will ask the King's court for intervention in spite of the scientific models' certainty. Conditions will be 16 degrees C (66 F), partly cloudy, winds out of the west at 10 KPH (6 MPH) with 95% certainty.
Fortunately, to accommodate both teams, a dome will have been constructed and built to accommodate air-conditioning barely three years earlier, just-in-time for the two teams, one thousand nine hundred and nineteen news people and all thirty-two local fans without a working telly (praise be to Allah, the most merciful).
The grain farmers on the former western Thames will have had the usual two annual record crops of summer corn and winter wheat, for the twentieth consecutive year; from Windsor all the way east to Barrier Park, Eton's skulls be damned. All this prompting Londoners to paraphrase Browning by singing, "Oh to be in England now that winter's here, with amber waves of grain". All this occurring while Americans still embargo British haggis until the Lombardi trophy is returned to its rightful home, the purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain (AKA Denver).
In the mean time, officials are still at loggerheads after 50 years of negotiations as to who decides what to call football or fotbal or even how to spell it, Americans are as adamant and pigskin headed as ever and as expected since Obama outlawed the US legislature in naught 14. God save the King, from sea to shining sea!
H Crawford
Rule 1
Alarmist shouting on the media = PROJECTION
who are the real headless chickens , bullies and science deniers. Whatever accusation they shout at others is merely a projection of what they are doing themselves.
Charles calls me a headless CHICKEN
My reply "shutup you stupid climate DUCK ! quack, quack, with your magic science, and your magic solutions"
"scientific ? Charlie lecturing others about respecting science ! haha
- That the problem with Media Climate Science has thrown Scientific Principles in the dustbin with it's legitimization extrapolating science across the line well beyond the validated"
Yes I was thinking of something like Morano style.
- but you are right if the BBC ever allowed Morano on, he would probably be banned from all future appearances in revenge for making the DramaGreens look like idiots
1. So Good on Bish getting on at all, since we are normally banned under the "false balance rule
Wow they called him, why ?, unusual ,
2. Good on him for not screwing up, cos that what the Greenpeace reporters embedded within the BBC want, so they can play a skeptic screwing up again, and again and say "see we are not censoring"
- However a Morano approach would help put the debate where it should be, whereas with Skeptics now, cos we only get to REACT to alarmists so they drive where the debate is. But we we shouldn't be at their end of the line boring the public with discussions on cloudforcing, but should put the discussion right at the other end of the line, where it should be, because it is big and really important ..it's of the magnitude of a Zombie Apocalypse.
The head of the Nation? Or a pantomime horse?......2014 by Fen Beagle...
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/2014/
Time of The Zombie Apocolapse
Now is not a time UNLIVING zombies taking over the Earth,
No it's the UNTHINKING zombies
.. there is a long chain on them shuffling forward chanting "CO2", "Warming", "Catastrophe", "Think of the children !"
It's like the Sci-Fi : The Tripods where a whole planet is brainwashed.
Madness, quackery, lunacy, zombies that where the debate should be, not focused on "cloud forcing" as that just downplays the magnitude if the whole issue
- Yes CO2 is a greenhouse gas
and yes it effects the climate
- but you'll find most QUACKERY starts off with science and then overextrapolates from there
There are 2 import consequences of this Climate Madness
1. The legitimisation dumping the scientific method
& 2. $1bn per day cost to mankind
1. - Science it great but you can't say that for certain topics we can throw scientific principles of validation in the garbage and get carried away extrapolating beyond the line to say that unproven theories are truth and they predict the future.
2. - The save the planet brigade have simply not delivered on their promises
Gores film promised us runaway temperature rise, yet whilst in the last 17 years
We've spent a $1billion/day on climate change measures *
everything you buy is much more expensive cos of them
yet CO2 has shot up with by 40% and the temperature , the temperature didn't get the message and has stayed the same ..(all ..measures of climate are within the natural range of before industrialisation)
( * I d like to quote substantiation..it comes from all research/propaganda costs plus difference in energy costs between what energy does costs with all the green subsidies and inefficiencies and what it would have cost otherwise)
the alarmists are not with the science
.. the Alarmists are with the DOGMA that needs to be challenged
.... Spot on summary by Mark Schreader over on Jonovas FB page
Yep it's the skeptics who are with the science .. And are not overextrapolating it into dogma
This ignoramus of a prince (with lower case "p") will be the end of the monarchy. His fatuous diatribes on subjects he knows nothing about and can't be arsed to find out about have turned me (and quite a few other people) from staunch monarchists of the "powerless figurehead" mould into lukewarm republicans.
Its patently obvious he has no idea how the world works and surrounds himself with sycophants. I will confidently say he is likely to be the worst monarch since John and yes I include some pretty pathetic specimens like Mary, Charles I and George IV in that.
He is the living embodiment of the proverb:
Better to keep quiet and be thought an idiot then to open you mouth and remove all doubt.
Seems to me to be a good time to learn how to knit.
You won that with ease.
I wrote an email to Dr. Wilson, noting, in the politest term, that his "hottest blah in blah blah blah" was a load of tosh, given that records in fact show that most of the Holocene has been warmer than it is now.
No reply.
I find this all the time, that even the politest queries to climate scientists are blanked. Honourable mention to the dendrologist at St. Andrew's Uni, with whom I had a very interesting dialogue. Apologies to him that I can't off hand remember his name. [Rob Wilson. BH]
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a75431d3970b-pi
Until very recently, Charles's Deputy Private Secretary was Benet Northcote, former Strategy Director at Greenpeace.
Feb 1, 2014 at 1:14 PM | Unregistered CommenterRoyFOMR "
Isn't that the problem? We've moved on from a political spectrum loosely defined as left/right to one best characterised as 'the individual' versus 'organisations' (back to Socrates). CAGW illustrates the power of a bad idea when organisations (state/media/corporates) buy into it. Climategate and the blogosphere see the Emperor has no new clothes but organisations carry on regardless.
Thanks mate : Charles's staff list in Telegraph
- he puts his speeches online .. no other name listed on that that antidenier rant
- I have no evidence of conspiracy yet
Greenpeace, David Cameron, and Prince Charles have all displayed a weak grasp of where we are and what we know about the climate system and our impact on it. They have all been advised by this Benet Northcote chap (h/t Old Forge, yesterday, 11:20 AM). Was he more 'cause' than 'effect'? In other words, was he hired by people who had already made up their minds, or did he make them up for them? A research project for anyone looking for one in the name of improving our understanding into the great climate madness. I hope someone will pursue it. Every piece added to that jigsaw will help future generations protect themselves.
Bishop Hill
As you may have seen, there's been discussion over the past few days over on And Then There's Physics about whether the BBC were right to invite you on to the programme, and other matters arising. You'll see comments by Barry, Paul, Richard Tol, myself and others you know in there.
Someone has pointed our that you said two different things regarding the recent temperature record. First you said:
and later you turned this into a stronger statement:
(my italics)
Can you clarify which represents your real view?
Then you say:
What makes you think it's unlikely that warming will pick up later?
Also, I notice that near the end when Paul Williams talked about the pause in warming you said:
This seems to suggest that you confidently expect global temperatures to either remain constant or even to begin to fall.
Again, how do you know this?
> Feb 6, 2014 at 5:27 PM | Richard Betts
Crickets.
Hey Richard, how are you calling that bet we had on Twitter for a pint of Gunners Daughter?
Willard, that's characteristically pathetic - it's a defunct thread.
Richard
I think you've got bit carried away with the climatochondriacs at the other place.
I guess Bish will speak for himself - but you have to remember that the R5 piece was aimed at a populist audience.
Bish pitched his contribution in a way that reflects the average person's experience of warming - which is non-existent.
To the Nuccitelli's of this world 0.7C over a century or so is a HUGE amount of warming and thermogeddon is just around the corner. To the bloke in the street it's a variation that they would barely notice if it took place over the course of five minutes.
In any case, over the last two decades the warming has been only around a tenth of that and nothing at all on the "uncontaminated" satellite record.
Bish was pointing out the unvarnished truth from the layperson's point of view - it hasn't got significantly warmer in the last 20 years and there's no obvious reason why it should in the future.
Mathews was free to put the climate science case that you all think you've worked out that dangerous warming will recommence at some point - and the listeners were free to decide for themselves.
A perfectly normal piece of journalism - unless you approach from the point of view of an obsessive activist.
> it's a defunct thread.
And when was the time of death, Goose, Feb 6, 2014 at 5:27 PM?
I can only assume that Willard actually has no life at all outside climate blogs. I do.
No - Feb 4, 2014 at 12:29 PM
Do you have reading as well as literacy problems?
I think we are making a difference between warming, which is within the margin of error of the instruments and caculations and the the up up in parallel with the increase in CO2 which is the claim made in Al Gore's film ..the last 17 years has been nowhere near that.
-Saying "there may well have been warming in the last 17 years, but we can't be sure cos it's within the margins of error", is a bit too convoluted for pop radio.
- Strange Richard doesn't comment on the professors much laxer speaking, it makes him look like he is nitpicking for "his cause"
"it got to it's peak (so far) and plateaued"
I don't think anyone is saying it will never ever rise. But the point is there is "rise" and "dangerous rise" and everyone thinks a dangerous rise is well above 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 that you are nitpicking about
-some people seem to have the benefit of being able to post comments in time they are paid to work .. But they are noton the skeptic side
Evening Richard
Re temperature trends, I don't carry the figures around in my head - there are better things to put there. So the first statement probably conveyed my views best:
I agree the second statement was overdone.
Regarding:
What I was trying to convey was the idea that the models are running warm and we have a partial explanation in the shape of the aerosols (clouds and deep ocean heat transport may be others, but I missed raising the latter point during the show). So it's not a case of "wait a bit and we go back to 0.2deg/decade". We should be expecting to go back to rather less. To be clear "that's not the case" refers to "it's natural variability" rather than "warming will start again".
Finally, regarding
I was simply trying to move the conversation on from "it's the hottest decade on record", which came in some years ago as a rhetorical flourish to distract attention from the pause. You and and I both know the shape of the temperature record, and both understand that "it's the hottest decade" doesn't change the fact that there's a pause. But I was trying to convey that shape - a rise followed by a period with little or no rise - to the listeners. I thought "it's plateaued at the top" did that fairly well, acknowledging both the rise and the pause in a way that "it's the hottest decade on record" does not. I wasn't intending to convey anything about what might happen next.
I don't know about you, but I thought it was a pretty informative show for the listeners. Everybody who follows climate science knows there are serious issues with clouds and aersosols. I can't think of any previous occasions when these have been brought to the attention of BBC viewers, let alone politicians.
Do you think it's right to tell them about these issues?
> I can only assume that Willard actually has no life at all outside climate blogs. I do.
I could only assume that you went for dinner:
http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/the-bbc-and-its-balance/#comment-14129
Thanks for the response.
I may only assume that Foxgoose will rationalize away his necromantic comment.
Bishop Hill
I just posted this on another thread. Cowtan and Way's latest data analysis shows no pause at all.
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~kdc3/papers/coverage2013/series.html
Click on "this update for the full text of their paper.
EM
Bear in mind that Cowtan & Way is a Skeptical Science Tree House production, by two of their "secret forum" plotters - a crystallographer who describes his interest in climate as a "hobby" and a PhD student.
An interesting bit of mathematical trickery to infill some missing data perhaps - but don't you find it a bit odd that it's suddenly being promoted by the consensus crowd as the definitive temperature record? - particularly since some of they guys promoting it have apparently spent decades and millions of our money on those boring old established temperature data sets.
I think we all know why of course - it was commissioned to "destroy the pause".
Foxgoose
Paranoia or conspiracy theory?
Unless the Bishop' clip was pre-recorded, I would imagine that anyone might find saying exactly what they intended to say in radio interview quite challenging, when giving an immediate response at five minutes past midnight after a day's work.
How about you, Richard?
EM
No - all well known and verifiable.
Have you ever read the SkS Tree House Forum? Everybody else has and it's well known that both Cowtan & Way were prominent among the plotters.
The quote about Kevin Cowtan's climate interest being a "hobby" is from his own press release ( a vital tool in the armoury of the modern climate scientist).
Don't you ever wonder why so many, oft quoted, scientists in the vanguard of the climate movement are amateurs with no previous publication record in the field - but a history of political activism?
Cook, Nuccitelli, Foster (Tamino), Cowtan, Way - none of them with any previous career in climate science, but all all them activist crusaders in the blogosphere.
Does this happen in any other branch of physical science - can you imagine amateur pundits becoming prominent in nuclear physics, cancer research or particle physics.
It is, of course, a clear sign that this particular branch of science has become part of a political movement.
Something which has frequently happened in the social sciences like economics & psychology - but most of us who spent our careers in physical sciences hoped we were immune from.
Hi Bishop Hill
Thanks for responding (your comment at Feb 6, 2014 at 10:12 PM above, following mine at 5:27 PM).
You said:
Um…. so you went on the radio to talk about climate change, without ensuring that you had the key facts at your fingertips….? :-)
Possibly it was a lack of preparedness which also led you to make some statements which you now seem to recognise weren't very defendable or not well-expressed.
As you'll have seen on the ATTP thread, I defend your freedom of speech even though I often don't agree with what you say. However, I think it's also fair enough to expect you to put forward a coherent argument and not just wing it.
I do agree that uncertainties such as cloud feedbacks should be openly discussed both with the public and politicians - but indeed they already are, hence the IPCC's still-wide uncertainty range of 1.5 - 4.5 degrees C climate sensitivity which arises largely from these uncertainties.
Moreover, in that radio show, and in many of your posts, you go beyond discussing uncertainty and actually seem to come across as being certain of a particular climate future. Indeed you went as far as to use the phrase "Well, you know, it's - it's disproven". More credulous listeners would have been left with the impression that you were claiming that anthropogenic global warming has been disproven, which most certainly is not the case. I don't really think you believe that (do you…?)
You're currently getting opportunities to speak on an important scientific subject on national media, but you might want to reflect on whether this is likely to be sustained if you don't take care with the credibility of your arguments.
Cheers
Richard
Richard
I always thought you were a practical, down-to-earth sort of bloke.
Have you ever listened to Radio 5? - it's sport and tabloid treatment of current affairs. "Alice from Brighton" phones to ask why her benefits have been reduced an her bins haven't been collected.
Do you really think "cloud feedback" or "uncertainty range" would have any resonance with the listeners?
Bish did a good job of putting the observable facts in a way the ordinary citizen understands them - Mathews had an opportunity to put the science consensus point of view.
You sound like a Tory politician complaining that his Labour opponent has mentioned the high cost of living - without pointing out the benefits of economic growth.
Richard
That's a bit of a prattish comment, smiley or otherwise. I was invited on to discuss Prince Charles comments about sceptics. Which figures would you have prepared?
I'm pleased that you think that issues like the aerosols should be discussed. As I said in my earlier comment, this was s step forward for public discussion of climate models because the public heard something other than "the models are great because they are based on fundamental physics", which is the normal line delivered by most climate scientists.
You describe the issues with the aerosols as "uncertainties", but that seems to me to be to misrepresent the situation. The models give a mean AF of -1.45. The observations give -0.73. This doesn't mean our uncertainty encompasses the uncertainty range of the observations and the uncertainty range of the models. It means the models are wrong; the range for ECS is too broad at the top end. And as if we needed any confirmation of this, we have the known issues with HadCM3, whereby the simulation of clouds and of aerosols is so entwined that the model can't even go near the observed values. The Met Office can wave its corporate hands a lot and pretend this doesn't happen, but nobody is convinced. Perhaps you should consider why people think the Met Office are a less than credible organisation when this kind of behaviour is corporate policy.
Re the use of the term "disproven", you should have given the full quote. I referred to von Storch's observation that a pause of the length seen since the turn of the century only appears in 2% of the models. I was trying to explain to the listeners that this is an important observation - which it undoubtedly is. They clearly seem to be running too hot. You suggest that "credulous listeners would have been left with the impression that you were claiming that anthropogenic global warming has been disproven". This seems a stretch since I had confirmed the existence of the greenhouse effect earlier on and I was clearly talking about the models. Neither Stephen Nolan or Paul Williams felt the need to challenge me on the point at the time. It's very easy to infer what a hypothetical credulous listener might or might not take away from something that was said. They might, for example, have inferred from Paul's discussion of the mountain of evidence supporting the global warming mainstream that we had observed some statistically significant changes in the temperature records for example...
Richard, you are being ridiculously picky here, going over Andrew's words and putting one or two words in italics. Obviously those words were just what came out at the time, and if he had received the questions in advance and had time to prepare an answer he might have phrased some of his answers differently.
It is interesting to compare Andrew's comments and your reaction to them, to the false claims about Antarctic ice made by BAS scientists John Turner to BBC listeners. On that occasion you remained silent. Did you advise Prof Turner that next time he goes on the BBC he should "ensure that he has the key facts at your fingertips"?
When people say this without having been accused of doing otherwise I feel I have to remind them that they don't get brownie points for doing this ;)
For the record the reason why people say this thread is dead is cos most of the commenters are over on ATTP 650 comments andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/the-bbc-and-its-balance/ where the argument is that Skeptics like Bishop should be banned from the BBC
2006 Warmists case : "look temperature kinda goes up with CO2 look at Gores graph we have to be very worried"
2005 Skeptics Case : "Calm down, you are overegging"
2014 and the CO2 is what it is ..way up on 2006
..the Temperature is what it is .,almost the same as 2006 , and 1998
That by my book is a massive failure for alarmists "guaranteed 0.3C per decade and it could be more" they should be talking about that
but over on ATTP they are in their parallel universe shouting that skeptics are miskeading by 0.1C
..get a grip guys .
What's the best thing to do ? Do some proper science and make some models which actually come close to reality OR waste 90% of your effort in a PR war against people who quite correctly point out your models aren't very good.
- Ask yourself if you have a skewed perspective of reality.
Paul Matthews
I owe you an apology - just realised I twice referred to Bish's interlocutor as Matthews instead of Williams.
Oops ;-(
Steady on Bish, no need to be rude!
I was just a bit surprised that someone who blogs about climate change every day actually admits that he doesn't have in his head what are arguably the most important figures on the subject - the observed temperature trends.
I'd sort of expected that you'd know these numbers as a matter of course, even if you weren't going on the radio.
I can see that you were invited on to discuss HRH's comments about sceptics, but surely it wasn't too great a surprise that the conversation then turned to the issue behind his comments, i.e.: whether humans are having an influence on climate or not? ;-)
To answer your question, if I'd have been in your situation, I'd have assumed there was a chance I'd end up discussing the evidence for climate change and its causes, and the key figures I'd have brought with me are the following from IPCC AR5 WG1:
Rate of warming 1951-2012: 0.12 degrees C per decade
Rate of warming over 1998-2012: 0.05 degrees C per decade
On HadCM3 and aerosols, we've discussed this before - and when you say "known" I think you really mean "Nic Lewis says"… ;-)
I'm glad you did acknowledge the existence of the greenhouse effect though (as you always have done).
However, I see you're also now bringing up the old red herring of statistical significance, which you also alluded to on the Nolan show ("we can't, in statistical terms, look at the warming we've seen and say that it's doing anything very different.").
We've been round the houses on this one a few times I seem to remember. To save going over old ground, perhaps I can just quote statistician William Briggs who I don't believe is particularly what folks here would call a "warmist":
Paul
I didn't hear the Turner interview at the time, and didn't read the BH article about it until you linked to it above. But in any case, even if I had, how would you know I "stayed silent"? I don't send a live broadcast to Bishop Hill of everything I say.
Which reminds me, I was recently looking through your blog and came across a post that mentioned me, asking if I'd criticise Tom Stocker for only showing the AR5 graph of decadal mean temperatures in his talk instead of the annual graph. The answer is, yes, I would have done, if you'd actually drawn it to my attention!
Hi Richard
Nice to see somebody quoting "actual" data:-
Would you therefore please explain the derivation of the above? Are they Met Office - HadCRUT4 numbers? Or an average/amalgam of various land+ocean data sets? Or are they satellite derived? Or a combination of land+ocean+satellite?
How are the "degrees C per decade" computed? Least squares linear or something different? Does the method of computation change the rate? What is the period of computation? 10 years, 1 year, 50 years, 30 years? You would of course have prepared all such scenarios for a 5 min midnight radio expose?
The "key figures" you choose to bring with you are irrelevant without qualification. There is no IPCC document that does not require numerous qualifying statements. You will benefit science when you stop referring to it as "gospel"
Snarky? Yes Richard, but now more and more people have tracked the data long enough to witness the ever greater evolving mismatches.
Many thanks for your ongoing contributions.
Hi Green Sand
Of course not. But it would be easy enough to say "the recent IPCC physical science report said…." and then interested listeners could easily check it out further for themselves.
See Chapter 2 Sections 2.4.1, 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 and Chapter 9 Box 9.2 for discussion of this, including references for the datasets etc.
Hi Richard
Well there you go, I live and learn everyday! Obviously your Met Office media training is shining through. Not having benefited from such insight I would never have considered that a Radio 5 midnight audience would be clutching pen and paper whilst listening attentively awaiting:-
Stop pulling my leg - you know perfectly well that info was intended for you in answer to your question! On the radio I'd have just briefly mentioned the IPCC report and left it at that.
Once again Richard behaves as though climate is the Bishop's only occupation, as it is with RB.. He is surely aware that blogging is what the Bishop does in his spare time..
Gardening and history are my hobbies and I write about them, but I don't claim to know everything about them or pretend to have every Latin name and plant detail, or historical date and event in my head for instant recall - especially in the middle of the night.
I think the facile criticism makes RB look rather foolish and uncharacteristically mean-minded
Richard - just wondering if you have taken Paul Williams to task for his assertion in the Radio 5 discussion that "the last decade has been the hottest in human history" ?
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20140131_r5
As a professional climate modeller/scientist, surely Williams should know that the last decade hasn't even been the hottest in the Holocene by along way, let along the hottest in human history?
Christ on a bike, a rainy day in Eamian Bognor was probably 2C warmer than the average UK summer temperatures we have had in the last 10 years. EPICA & Vostok ice core proxies. ;)