Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley was the speaker at the Angus Millar lecture held by the RSA in Edinburgh on Monday 31 October. The Bishop Hill blog has posted the text of his speech on the topic of  Scientific Heresy. I recommend that you go and read it.

I Couldn't Have Put it Better

I cannot recall ever agreeing with an opinion expressed by George Monbiot in his articles in The Guardian. However, yesterday he wrote an excellent article on a topic which, as he points out, should have resulted in greater coverage and discussion. Thus I find myself in a position that I never expected to be in, namely, endorsing the sentiments of and encouraging you to read this.

Petition

If anybody still reads this blog then they will know that I fall into the skeptic camp when it comes to the issue of anthropogenic global warming. If you feel the same then you might be interested in signing this petition.

Blowing hot and cold

Time magazine has an article titled "Another Blizzard: What Happened to Global Warming?" which is an example of a weather-is-not-climate article. I have no argument with people pointing out that today's weather in X neither proves nor disproves global warming/anthropogenic global warming/climate change*. What worries me is that it doesn't make sense. The beginning of the fifth paragraph says:

But as far as winter storms go, shouldn't climate change make it too warm for snow to fall? Eventually that is likely to happen — but probably not for a while. In the meantime, warmer air could be supercharged with moisture and, as long as the temperature remains below 32°F, it will result in blizzards rather than drenching winter rainstorms.

So, warm air becomes supercharged with moisture as long as it is below 32°F? As far as I know, air at less than 32°F will hold as much moisture as air at less than 32°F has always done. Warm air must surely mean air above 32°F in which case it is not below 32°F. In which case this snippet is nonsensical.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1962294,00.html?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz0fETxKg1Z


* delete the terms you don't like.

UKIP and Climate Change

Viscount Monckton, better known as Christopher Monckton, the journalist and author has today joined the UK Independence Party. Read the whole story here.

Temperature

For a very easy to read discussion of the range of temperatures measured at one point on the earth's surface please read this.

Tata Redcar

I was going to paraphrase an excellent blog from EU referendum but I cannot do it justice. Go and read it in situ.

Reflecting on Sunlight

There are some beautiful pictures, here, of the solar power plant in Sanlucar la Mayor, Spain. Reading the captions, I found myself wondering whether the amount of electricity to control the plant and move the mirrors so that they tracked the sun was less than the amount the power plant produced. I figured that nobody would be stupid enough to design and build a power plant that consumed more energy than it produced. When I arrived at the tenth and final image, the caption informed me that "Andalusia is one of the sunniest, driest spots in Europe, with an average of 1,500 hours of sunshine a year". 1,500 hours is an awful lot isn't it? The problem is, do you know how many hours there are in a year? It is 8,760. That means, assuming that this plant is capable of working all the time the sun shines, that the electricity is produced for just 17.1% of the time. Assuming the electricity is only needed during daylight hours, it still only produces electricity for 34.2% of the time. What bloomin' use is that? Can you imagine anyone in the Dragon's Den having a good reception when they revealed that the device they are attempting to market only works during daylight hours and then for only the one third of those hours when the sun chose to shine? When they say that it will provide the electricity for 180,000 homes, equivalent to the needs of the city of Seville, they don't say that they only do it for an average of four hours of every day. I wouldn't want my freezer to be relying on their electricity.

Not surprisingly, the plant was built with the help of 5 million Euro from the EU's 5th Framework Programme (no, I hadn't heard of it either). The EU seems keen on projects like this as illustrated by the EU Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs', comment that "These new technologies give Europe a new option to combat climate change and increase energy security while strengthening the competitiveness of the European industrial sector and creating jobs and growth,". Creating jobs and growth with four hours of electricity a day? I despair.

If Footprint > Ration Then £100.00, ching, thank you

Can you think of one positive comment to make about this? It has left me speechless (write-less?)

I Don't Understand Polar Bears

I am having problems understanding this article in today's Daily Telegraph.
This graph shows the extent of the sea ice in the Arctic. As you can see it goes up in the winter and down in the summer. This year seems pretty consistent with the previous years this century.
This graph shows the daily mean temperature north of the 80th northern parallel, as a function of the day of year. The blue line is at what we call 0 Celsius. AS you can see there are only about 80 days of the year when the temperature gets above freezing.
This chart shows the status of the populations in 2005 and is the most recent I can find. Of the nineteen sub-populations five are declining, five are stable, two are increasing and there is insufficient data on the remaining seven.
What conclusion would you draw?

A Blanket Analogy

I have not, as you might think, been lazy of late but rather I have been uninspired by what I have read in the media and in other blogs. I suspect that it is no coincidence that this is the silly season. However, I did find the discourse at the 'Watts up with That' website titled 'A simple analogy on climate modeling – looking for the red spot' very interesting, I recommend that you have a read.

The Beginning of a Backlash?

The American Physical Society on November 18, 2007, adopted the following policy:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.
The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.
Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

It is indicative of our times that a learned society, whose founding mission was "to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics", has no qualms with adopting a policy that includes the phrase "The evidence is incontrovertible". Any scientist will tell you that nothing is incontrovertible. A number of people thought that this policy was not acceptable and wrote an open letter to the APS urging the council to revise its policy on climate change, see here.

On the 22 July, 2009, the weekly journal Nature published the following letter from six APS members (one can only see the version in Nature if one subscribes)

Petitioning for a revised statement on climate change
By S. Fred Singer, Hal Lewis, Will Happer, Larry Gould, Roger Cohen & Robert H. Austin
We write in response to your issue discussing “the coming climate crunch”, including the Editorial ‘Time to act‘ (Nature 458, 10771078; 2009). We feel it is alarmist.
We are among more than 50 current and former members of the American Physical Society (APS) who have signed an open letter to the APS Council this month, calling for a reconsideration of its November 2007 policy statement on climate change (see open letter at http://tinyurl.com/lg266u; APS statement at http://tinyurl.com/56zqxr). The letter proposes an alternative statement, which the signatories believe to be a more accurate representation of the current scientific evidence. It requests that an objective scientific process be established, devoid of political or financial agendas, to help prevent subversion of the scientific process and the intolerance towards scientific disagreement that pervades the climate issue.
On 1 May 2009, the APS Council decided to review its current statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. We applaud this decision. It is the first such reappraisal by a major scientific professional society that we are aware of, and we hope it will lead to meaningful change that reflects a more balanced view of climate-change issues

That the society is reviewing the statement is wonderful news.

The Royal Society, an institution that is even more venerable than the APS, is a proponent of climate change which has prompted Rupert Wyndham to write a letter to the society's president, Lord Rees. You can read it here. Unfortunately, I don't think we will see a similar review of the Royal Society's stance.

What's in a Phrase?

You may recall that we started with global warming. Then we had anthropogenic global warming which made it all mankind's fault. This became climate change presumably because the earth had inconveniently stopped showing any warming since 2002. What will it be next? Reading 'Climate and Energy Truths: Our Common Future', a report produced by ecoAmerica, I am led to believe, see the bottom of page 6, that it will be the phrase “deteriorating atmosphere". Look out for it being used in the papers or on television. When you spot it then you will know where it came from.

Data Sharing

One aspect of the Scientific Process is data sharing. Following publication, it is expected that a scientist will share the data so that others may reproduce the work. Reproduction is a crucial step in the process of making a theory acceptable. The Committee on Science Engineering and Public Policy in the United States has the following to say on data sharing:

After publication, scientists expect that data and other research materials will be shared with qualified colleagues upon request. Indeed, a number of federal agencies, journals, and professional societies have established policies requiring the sharing of research materials. Sometimes these materials are too voluminous, unwieldy, or costly to share freely and quickly. But in those fields in which sharing is possible, a scientist who is unwilling to share research materials with qualified colleagues runs the risk of not being trusted or respected. In a profession where so much depends on interpersonal interactions, the professional isolation that can follow a loss of trust can damage a scientist's work.

Consequently, when the Met Office was approached for the raw data which underpins their climate change research it was expected that they would comply. Apart from anything else they are a public body and I, as a taxpayer, am of the opinion that that data is mine. When Steve McIntyre tried to get hold of the information he was told that he couldn't have it. What is curious is that this request was for a copy of the data that had been previously supplied to Peter Webster at Georgia Tech. If it was acceptable to supply him why was it not acceptable to send it to Steve McIntyre? Read the whole story here.

Update:
I notice that there is a petition on the Number 10 website that is asking the Prime Minister 'to Force the Climate Research Unit, or other publicly funded organisations to release the source codes used in their computer models', it can be found here.
26/07/2009 08.22

BBC and Climate Change

I am not convinced that the climate is changing in a way that will result in catastrophic scenarios that are predicted. This is in part because I know about chaotic systems and I know about computer programmes. What I didn't realise was that the BBC does understand these things too.

Regurgitation

It would seem that I am not the first to notice the problem with wind turbines. To be honest, I knew that I wasn't but I was surprised to come across Jonathan Leake's article from the Sunday Times a week last Sunday. For those that don't know Mr. Leake is the Environment Editor and I have gained the impression, possibly unfairly, that he is an advocate of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). This common-sense article means that I will have to look more closely at his articles in future.

The Catlin Arctic Survey

Maybe you have read about this; an expedition being undertaken by three people to measure the thickness of the ice around the North Pole. To do this they will have to walk 2,000km (1,200 miles) from Point Barrow, Alaska, to the geographic North Pole; a journey that will take approximately 100 days. The three people are Ann Daniels, a member of the first all-women teams to trek to both the North and South Poles; Pen Hadow, the first explorer to trek solo and unsupported from Canada to the North Pole and Martin Hartley, a specialist polar photographer. They started on February 28th and details of their progress can be found on the BBC website, here.
What I am confused about is why in all the reports that I have read it says something to the effect that they are doing this in order to discover how quickly the sea-ice is melting and how long it might take for the ocean to become ice-free in summers. Since nobody has done this before how can they discover how quickly the sea-ice is melting? Surely all they can do is determine a baseline for future comparison. However, I am then confused because I know that the ice at the North Pole is floating and it moves. So when somebody in a few years time measures the thickness of the ice at 81°55’N, 129°52’W will they be able to compare their measurement of the thickness of the ice at that point with the one taken on this expedition and be able to come up with a meaningful conclusion?

Highly Uncertain

I just love this quote

The outlook for the climate over the 21st Century is highly uncertain. There is a word in the English language to express high uncertainty. That word is "ignorance". And ignorance is not a basis for responsible government action

This is part of appendix 2 of the paper produced by Drs. J. Scott Armstrong and Kesten C. Green which I referred to here. The appendix of the paper can be found at the end of here. I recommend reading it.

It is not a consensus

Curiously news items that do not support man-made or anthropogenic, global warming do not seem to make it to the main-stream media so I will do my bit to raise the profile of two quite astonishing pieces of news. In short Dr. James Hansen's* supervisor, Dr. John S. Theon, has stated publicly that Hansen “embarrassed NASA”, he was never muzzled” and his “climate models are useless.” Read the story here. Then Dr J. Scott Armstrong** makes a statement which states that there are "eight reasons as to why the current IPCC computer models lack a scientific basis." Read that story here.

* Dr. James Hansen is the chief climate scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and is the man who originally raised the alarm on global warming in 1988 in an appearance before congress.

** Dr J. Scott Armstrong is the founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting.

Biased BBC

For some considerable time I have believed that the BBC was biased. The news no longer appears to me to be impartial. I wasn't sure if it was just due to me growing older and becoming more cynical. Perhaps the news had always been like that but I had just not noticed. Anyway, it would seem that I am not the only one to be disturbed by the journalistic integrity exhibited by the BBC.
In the same way that I would not expect an image in a newspaper to be enhanced in such a way to show something that had never existed. By that I mean something like the Iranian photo-shopped missiles. What then if an editor at the BBC spliced together different parts of Obama's inaugural speech, would that be ethical? Have a read of this article at Stinky Journalism and see what you think.
Incidentally, I love the word fauxdio suggested by the bloggers at The Pool Bar.