Mar 172008

THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS

At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.

This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:

Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.

Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.

Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.

(Click the ‘comments’ link below if the input box does not appear)

 

10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”

  1. Peter: groan – after all this time and your repeated failure to answer the key questions, you persist in seeing the matter as the good guys (“established science”) on the one hand and the bad guys (“the paid lobbyists of the energy industry”) on the other. And you still think that science is something determined by the “majority of scientists”.

  2. Peter/Temp/ Pert Minaret

    How about the weather forecasters’ (weathercasters, sic) survey that was discussed on Watts Up?:

    http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/90/10/pdf/i1520-0477-90-10-1457.pdf

    Now before you start, I’m not claiming Wincey Willis, Ulrika-ka or others necessairly represent the acme of intelligence. Also anti-American bias might ‘cloud’ your judgement, but this survey has to be of interest.

    Before you say it, I concur that the fact that E.On or whoever sponsors the weatherforecast means you look very fetching in that foil hat, as well.

  3. Peter M

    You asked Brute:

    But would mainstream science just make up a non existent problem to add to the many other real problems facing humanity? Only a conspiracy theorist would say ‘yes’.

    Brute will respond to your question as well, I am sure, but here are my thoughts.

    First of all you are asking a loaded question.

    Let’s reword it slightly with a slightly different loading.

    Would the IPCC, a UN body specifically set up to assess “the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for understanding the risk of human-induced climate change”, exaggerate a minor virtual problem of human caused greenhouse warming to a prediction of major impending disaster in order to keep itself alive and to support carbon regulation measures and taxes to be controlled, collected and disbursed by the same UN and would these same politicians and bureaucrats provide funding for the computer-simulated “science” that supports this agenda?

    You see, Peter, by asking the question in another way the whole idea becomes very plausible, without any need for an overt conspiracy, just a collusion of interests, human nature and several hundreds of billions of dollars at play.

    And I believe that this may be what Brute was referring to when he wrote that “Global Warming is a hustle”.

    Peter Taylor was a bit more charitable, when he wrote in his conclusions:

    · The proposition that the planet has warmed due to greenhouse gases of human agency and that humanity could in the near future destabilize the global ecosystem and the rich biodiversity of life is a virtual reality created by a small cabal of computer specialists.
    · These specialists had little real comprehension of ecology and in particular of past ecological environments. They were fundamentally mathematicians and physicists, chemists and computer technicians, and prone to all manner of ambitions to further their field of knowledge and make a play for saving the world from what they genuinely believed could be a future threat.
    · Within a relatively short period of time, powerful global interests had allied to this cause, in particular those organizations of a new and truly global mission.

    And so was a virtual computer-generated problem elevated to a major multi-billion dollar business.

    Hope this answers your question.

    Max

  4. Peter

    Leading climatologists are baffled by the stalling in global warming.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662092,00.html

    Perhaps you should give the benefit of your expertise because they seem to be looking for answers.

    If you were to read my #8285 you might find the answer is staring us all in the face-manufactured temperatures starting from the valley of the little ice age. Measuring from the previous warm summits would have given different answers.

    Tonyb

  5. Funding Flows for Climate Change Research and Related Activities identifies the leading suppliers and recipients of government and foundation resources in climate-based research.
    The study compiles and presents publicly available data on grants from the federal government and private foundations. Some of the findings include:

    • Private foundations distribute a minimum of $35-50 million annually to non-profit organizations and universities to comment on or study various elements of the climate change debate.

    • Climate change-related projects accounted for over 25% of the 3-year total reported grants and contributions received by 10 of the top-20 institutions receiving support from foundations. For 6 organizations, climate change grants accounted for 50% of their reported grants and contributions received.

    • The federal government spent nearly $2 billion to support climate change science programs in FY 2004.

    • In 28 of the top-30 R&D performing academic institutions, federal financing accounts for more than 50% of the institution’s expenditures on atmospheric R&D.

    http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/289.pdf

    xxxxxxxxxxxxx

  6. Luke Warmer

    Thanks for link to interesting survey of the weathercasters on IPCC and AGW.

    Some “take-homes” for me:

    45% of the meteorologists agreed generally to the IPCC statement “warming of the climate system is unequivocal”, with 21% neutral and 25% disagreeing.

    So there is not even a clear majority that says it is warming at all.

    Some objected to the IPCC use of the word “unequivocal”.

    Interestingly, Ken Trenberth (IPCC lead author) pointed out that “the term was approved by 113 nations”, which he said was “quite remarkable”.

    This depends on whether the “nations” approving this term were political representatives or climate scientists / meteorologists, a point which Trenberth did not elaborate.

    More pertinent was the response of the weather meteorologists to the IPCC statement “most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced”.

    Here only 24% agreed, 50% disagreed and 25% were neutral. IOW the meteorologists do not “buy in” to the premise of anthropogenic greenhouse warming of any kind (let alone alarming AGW).

    The most damning feedback for IPCC was the response to the statement “global climate models are reliable in their projections for a warming of the planet” (the key for all the IPCC climate predictions for the future).

    Here only 19% of the meteorologists agreed, with 62% disagreeing and 20% neutral.

    The survey also reported:

    Reflecting their trust issues about sources of information, this sample of AMS weathercasters repeatedly expressed their desire to have access to “independent,” “unbiased,” and “reputable” sources of data and information that present “both sides” of the issue.

    Amen!

    Looks like it was a “bad day” for IPCC among the professionals who make their living from predicting and reporting weather / climate on a daily basis.

    Max

  7. to TonyN #8294,#8297
    Of course it’s great to see Steve McIntyre getting some positive press, especially in the prestigious Wall Street Journal, but I don’t see it as a great article. There’s no intimation of how funny Steve can be, how his site, amongst all the forbidding statistics, exudes humanist values. In fact there’s no sign that the journalist has even peeked at his site. Otherwise, why nothing on the “Say my name” campaign or the Starbucks Hypothesis? (which is surely going to enter popular science history alongside Newton’s apple and Benjamin Franklin’s kite).
    Surely the best book that could ever be written on the Global Warming story would be an edition of extracts from the Climate Audit / RealClimate debate, with explanations of the statistics for the layman. I see the debate as proof of the Socratic principle that any intelligent person, without specialised knowledge, can be led to understanding of the most abstruse subjects. I don’t know if Steve deserves a Nobel for science, but he certainly deserves recognition for democratising access to science.

  8. Pete,

    You’ll believe what you want to, but the global warming industry is big business. There are lots of “free” money grabs to be had exploiting this myth. Here are some highlights detailing public largesse appropriated to this “cause”. Private money dollar figures are a little harder to come by, but you denying that agencies, universities and private think tanks profiting from propagating this hysteria is intellectually dishonest.

    For you to assert that the United States people are not “paying their fair share” is also disingenuous. Take a look at these numbers…..This money comes out of MY pocket and the pockets of the the taxpayers……

    http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/house-climate-funding/

    House appropriates increased funding for climate research

    Saturday, June 20, 2009

    Global climate change and sustainability-

    The Committee has provided over $2,000,000,000 in resources to address the reality of global warming climate change and its effect on Earth’s environments, over $120,000,000 over the fiscal year 2009 enacted level.

    Specifically, the bill provides:

    NOAA: nearly $400,000,000 for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, of which more than $200,000,000 is to enhance climate change research and regional assessments; $90,000,000 enhances climate data records and data access and archiving requirements; and $29,300,000 is for climate change educational programs;

    NASA: nearly $1,300,000,000 in climate change programs at NASA, including nearly $150,000,000 to develop and demonstrate space-based climate measurements identified by the National Academy of Sciences and the science community;

    NSF: nearly $310,000,000 for climate change programs at the National Science Foundation;

    Education: over $52,000,000 for educational programs directed at climate change as recommended by the National Academy of Sciences;

    Economic Development Administration: at least $25,000,000 for ‘green’ building initiatives within the Economic Development Administration;

    Global Climate Change Mitigation Fund.—The Committee notes the increased construction costs associated with the incorporation of technologies and strategies that reduce energy consumption and harmful gas emissions and contribute to sustainability. Within the funds provided for Public Works, the Committee recommends no less than $25,000,000 for the Global Climate Change Mitigation Incentive Fund, $8,500,000 above the request and $10,300,000 above fiscal year 2009. The Committee emphasizes that to be successful in today’s environment, economic development must address the effects of climate change, and directs EDA to expand the program beyond Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. This can include renewable energy; energy efficiency; reuse, restoration and recycling; green buildings; the development of green products; the greening of an existing function, process or activity; and the creation or renovation of a green building. The Committee directs EDA to provide a report within 60 days of enactment of this Act, detailing the scope of the fund, the criteria for approval of fund expenditures, and the methodology EDA will employ when reviewing grants.

    NIST: $14,500,000 for greenhouse gas emission standards development by the National Institute for Standards and Technology; and additional resources above the request to enhance the protection of endangered and threatened species, increase habitat restoration and coastal and estuarine land conservation, and monitor mammal adaptation to climate change.

  9. TonyB’s (#8304) link to the Spiegel article on the pause in global warming contains this wonderful quote from climatologist Mojib Latif: “At present, however, the warming is taking a break. There can be no argument about that. We have to face that fact.”
    So, the imminent destruction of civilisation has been put on hold, and we’ll just have to learn to live with it. Some people are hard to please. Doesn’t that say all you need to know about the warmist mindset? And these people are scientists?
    The article also suggests that the Hadley stats are based on just 517 weather stations. Is this right?

  10. Geoff ~8309

    You ask about the number of Hadley stations. Yes, that appears to be correct. The trouble is that they bundle all the stations together into one composite global temperature.

    As you probably know Dr Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (CRU) appears to have unfortunately lost the original data demonstrating his selection and methodology criteria of the weather stations used in the reconstruction of global temperatures to 1850, (before it was scrubbed, washed, and tidied, ready for presentation to the IPCC).

    A little careless perhaps as he was asked at various times over the years to produce it, but you know how busy life can be. Perhaps he just didn’t have the time to look hard enough in the right places until asked under the UK Freedom of information act? Still, who hasn’t mislaid their keys, wallet or vitally important information on which the future economy of the world hinges?

    The Cru record, authored by Phil Jones and Tom Wigley served as the primary reference standard for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) until 2007. It was this record that prompted the IPCC to claim a “discernible human influence on global climate.”

    Consequently the lack of original data has a fundamental impact on how the temperature trail can be properly audited. That there appears to have been a reluctance to share this information –prior to it being mislaid- can be seen in the comment attributed to Dr Jones when he is said to have responded to an earlier request for the information from another scientist with the words, ‘We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?’

    A measured review of the mislaying of the data is here;
    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTBiMTRlMDQxNzEyMmRhZjU3ZmYzODI5MGY4ZWI5OWM#more

    The CRU figures from 1850 mark one of the minima of the Little Ice Age, a protracted period when Eskimos were seen off the coast of Britain, great frost fairs were held and many people froze to death. Extensive and expensive modern scientific research demonstrate that apparently temperatures have risen since. Who would have thought it?

    This surprising news has set climate scientists governments and Ngo’s into a carbon induced panic, which they intend to take out on the general population of the West.

    This is in order to rectify the terrible sins of our forefathers in creating the industrial revolution that sparked such great advances in the humans condition in health, wealth, longevity, learning, freedom from hunger, personal freedoms, equality and other crimes of a modern society. What monsters the British were in creating half a molecule of co2 per 100,000 since 1750.

    Tonyb

  11. From the Speigal artcle:

    But a few scientists simply refuse to believe the British calculations. “Warming has continued in the last few years,” says Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). However, Rahmstorf is more or less alone in his view…..how can it be that scientists cannot even arrive at a consensus on changes in temperatures, even though temperatures are constantly being measured?

    and this…….

    Just a few weeks ago, Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research added more fuel to the fire with its latest calculations of global average temperatures. According to the Hadley figures, the world grew warmer by 0.07 degrees Celsius from 1999 to 2008 and not by the 0.2 degrees Celsius assumed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, say the British experts, when their figure is adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degrees Celsius — in other words, a standstill.

    So Peter (Martin),

    I suppose the “consensus” now is that global warming has stopped (for the time being) even though CO2 continues to rise. Are you now a “Denier”? Since the vast majority in the scientific community now agree with me, you’d be the “outlier”.

    Now that the (formerly) “infallible” Hadley is publicly stating that the temperature rise in the last decade is zero, are they now part of the vast right wing conspiracy to destroy the planet along with the oil companies and “big coal”?

  12. According to the Hadley figures, the world grew warmer by 0.07 degrees Celsius from 1999 to 2008 and not by the 0.2 degrees Celsius assumed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, say the British experts, when their figure is adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degrees Celsius — in other words, a standstill.

    Maybe George Bush “got to” the Hadley guys and influenced them to publicly report the zero temperature anomoly. He’s had a lot of time on his hands lately to influence the Britsh weathermen.

  13. to TonyB #8310
    I’m still not clear whether Dr Jones has lost the original data from 1850 onwards, or simply the metadata describing what he did to these raw figures. If the former, we’re talking about the loss of important historical documents, in which case the police should obviously be called in to investigate the possibility of theft or some other crime. In the latter case, it should be relatively simple for Dr Jones to retrace the steps which lead from the existing original data to his published results. We’re talking about relatively simple statistical procedures like weighting, conducted according to well understood principles, I imagine.

    I note that the figure of 500 weather stations is just half the number used by GISS, and one tenth of the number existing in the seventies. What’s happened to make Hadley so confident that they can produce reliable information from just half the data points of their nearest rivals? A market research company investigating attitudes to dog food would find it hard to justify such an attitude to the hardnosed scientific-minded people in the advertising world.

    On your last paragraph: I know you’re being ironic, and I find nothing to disagree with, but I note that this is a message which would play very well to half the population, but get you labelled with some very nasty epithets by the other half.
    I’m thinking more and more about how to get our message across to everyone, and unlike TonyN and yourself, I don’t find recent semi-sceptical articles in Spiegel and the Wall Street Journal particularly positive. These are journalist sniffing around for the “man bites dog” story (i.e. the story which stands out against the tide of opinion). I don’t see any signs of a desire to find the truth (with the admirable exception of Christopher Booker). Delingpole and Clarkson make me laugh, but they’re basically striking attitudes to please their public. It’s at the interface between science and public opinion, ie in the mainstream media, that this story is going to be played out.

  14. Re Dr Jones et al, there seems to be something of a bombshell that has just exploded; check this out.

    Dynamite, if genuine. Emphasis on the “if”.

  15. Geoff

    The story is that he ran out of storage space and deleted the raw data and thus lost the means to reproduce the original data.

    It may be possible to reconstruct but there is no desire to do that, so it won’t happen. Dr Jones has not been very cooperative.

    As regards numbers, you must remember that Hadley started their record from 1850 so there were physically far fewer stations from which to choose. Hansen selected 1880 as that gave him many more stations as a start point.

    The owners of both data sets came to believe they could represent global temperatures with ever fewer stations and the numbers have dropped massively since the high spot of the 1980’s.

    The numbers are mentioned in my article

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/14/little-ice-age-thermometers-%e2%80%93-history-and-reliability/

    James Hansen believed he could get down to just one thermometer- but seems to have backtracked on this as he has reintroduced some more stations recently(see my earlier post to Brute)

    Of course you can’t produce reliable temperatures based on such few stations. It is not a global temperature at all, but a series of highy manipulated micro climates glued together.

    I agree that this will be played out in the mainstream media, who barely have a proper scientific reporter amongst them, and do not dig very hard. Consequently I think they will go for simplistic eye catching sound bites-we have seen enough of those already in the run up to Copenhagen.

    I do not think we should apologise for the supposed sins of our forefathers. The tiny amounts of carbon we have produced gave us all great benefit.

    Personally I am a fan of(some)renewables but we are whistling in the wind if we think they can replace carbon in the next 20 years or so-especially if nuclear is opposed by those demanding the cessation of carbon based energy.

    Tonyb

  16. Alex Cull

    Re Dr Jones et al, there seems to be something of a bombshell that has just exploded; check this out.

    Dynamite, if genuine. Emphasis on the “if”.

    I’ve had a quick browse of some of the emails, nitroglycerin or maybe nuclear fission I think.

  17. Alex

    This is just one of the quotes:

    “Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

    Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.
    I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

    Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
    for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
    Thanks for the comments, Ray.”

    It hardly seems credible that such information could be put into the public domain (I do not condone hacking-this should have been released under the various FOI requests.

    If true it is dynamite. These temperature datasets are beyond belief as I have been posting here and elsewhere. Lets see what comes out of all this.

    Tonyb

  18. Re: Geoff, #8307

    I think that it’s the last sentence in your comment that counts and the article gets this point across. There are people outside the charmed circle who deserve to be heard, and scientific insiders should not be allowed to monopolise the debate on the the basis of claims of infallibility that are made for them.

  19. Alex – that stuff is dynamite, if true:

    Kind of looks like it negates the comment I was working on but decided to sleep on which began:

    As Geoff and I have discussed before (on various blogs including possibly here), I really don’t agree with referring to this as a hoax or a scam.

    If they are true the ramifications of this will resonate for many years to come.

  20. TonyB

    Der Spiegel tells us that “leading climatologists are baffled by the stalling in global warming”.

    Duh!

    How observant are these guys?

    They should look at the past temperature record (with all its errors, manipulations, ad hoc variance adjustments and after the fact corrections).

    It shows us that the temperature has warmed in several multi-decadal warming/cooling cycles (total cycle of around 60 years), with an underlying slight warming trend, as we have emerged from the LIA in the 19th century.

    We just completed a warming half-cycle (which ended around 2000), and it looks as though we have now entered a 30-year cooling half-cycle.

    It is (of course) anyone’s guess what will really happen over the next two decades, but scientists should not really be “baffled” by the fact that history is repeating itself.

    It just isn’t going according to the theory, but, hey, it has only really gone according to the theory in the late 20th century, so maybe the theory is wrong.

    Max

  21. All you British guys……especially Robin.

    Regarding Alex Cull’s story concerning Phil Jones……

    I’d like to discuss some legalities.
    Isn’t anything that Jones writes on his publicly funded computer or any data that he gathers as a public employee public property? I could understand if he was cooking up doctored data with Mann on his personal computer on his own time……but these E-mails look to be generated by Jones in his capacity as a public official.

    Secondly, would there be any criminal or civil penalties for doctoring information used to bolster or shape public policy? What would the penalties be?

  22. Alex’s bombshell (#8314) is all over the place now (Air Vent, Blackboard, WUWT, Bishop Hill). Sensible commenters seem to concur that it’s genuine (too big to fake, too embarassing to be a honeytrap for sceptics …). The story will presumably go mainstream in the US first. I feel we British bloggers could perform a useful service correcting some of the misconceptions of Americans. I remember the story of Hansen’s testimony at the trial of the Kingsnorth 6 was widely misinterpreted.
    I imagine Booker will cover it ( on the Telegraph website round 7.30pm Saturday, normally). Comments are nearly always sceptical, but often ill-informed. I feel a kind of moral duty to get stop wasting time in the agreeable company to be found here, and get out and spread the word in the big nasty mainstream media. Or am I taking it all too seriously and being too evangelical?

  23. Stil don’t know if all this is true but picked this one out as it relates to my earlier comment about evading the Freedom of Information act requests.

    “From: Phil Jones
    To: Tom Wigley
    Subject: Re: FOIA
    Date: Fri Jan 21 15:20:06 2005
    Cc: Ben Santer

    Tom,
    I’ll look at what you’ve said over the weekend re CCSP.
    I don’t know the other panel members. I’ve not heard any more about it since agreeing a week ago. As for FOIA Sarah isn’t technically employed by UEA and she will likely be paid by Manchester Metropolitan University.

    I wouldn’t worry about the code. If FOIA does ever get used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well.

    Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to deal with them.
    Cheers
    Phil”

    We suspected all this was happening but scarely seems credible this is genuine and out in the public domain

    tonyb

  24. For those who have neither the inclincation or technical ability etc, Lubos has a bit more on the background technical aspects:

    http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/11/hacked-hadley-cru-foi2009-files.html

    “Each subdirectory contains either numerous subfolders or dozens of DOC, PRO, TXT, no-suffix, ARS, CRN, CRNS, DAT, RAW, and other files. I don’t know anyone who could create such an amount of authentic things in a finite affine time. The only alternative explanation to veracity is that the bulk of the files is real and some “cherries” have been added or edited. But that would still require a collaboration of a good hacker with a good person who follows climate science (a well-informed skeptic), or the unification of these two roles in one person. Somewhat unlikely.”

  25. HadleyCRU says leaked data is real
    The director of Britain’s leading Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones, has told Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition tonight that his organization has been hacked, and the data flying all over the internet appears to be genuine.

    In an exclusive interview, Jones told TGIF, “It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”

    “Have you alerted police”

    “Not yet. We were not aware of what had been taken.”

    Jones says he was first tipped off to the security breach by colleagues at the website RealClimate.

    “Real Climate were given information, but took it down off their site and told me they would send it across to me. They didn’t do that. I only found out it had been released five minutes ago.”

    TGIF asked Jones about the controversial email discussing “hiding the decline”, and Jones explained what he was trying to say….

    From: http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/hadleycru-says-leaked-data-is-real.html

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

© 2011 Harmless Sky Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha