Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Non-Science

A Question of Pedantics

The Climate Change Science Obstructers, or “the obstructers”, who style themselves as “sceptics” (or “skeptics” if you are in other climes than the UK of GB and NI), love throwing any muck they can find, hoping that any little drab will stick.

Unfortunately, this does sometimes result in the breaching of semantic spaces, and false meanings can occur. Sadly, this seems to happen most often in the minds of journalists, who then write up the mistakes and publish them abroad widely.

Here is an example from a usually faithful reporter :-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7347658/Climategate-professor-admits-to-withholding-information.html

“‘Climategate’ professor admits to withholding information : The professor at the centre of the ‘climategate’ row, has admitted sending ‘some pretty awful’ emails refusing to send information on to other scientists. : By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent : Published: 02 Mar 2010”

Dear Louise, I’ll have to interject right here : Phil Jones did not admit he refused to send data to other scientists.

Phil Jones explained that is is not “standard procedure” to include all the data in every research paper when it is published. That’s not the same as saying he “refused” to.

Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

True Science Search Engine

Breaking News : a “true science” Internet search engine that you can trust to give you the facts on Climate Change.

In the first stages of development, the new tool, which can help you exclude Climate Change scepticism from your Internet searches, is available online here :-

True Science Search Engine

Yes, it’s powered by Google, but that’s great.

If you find any Climate Change denier-sceptic web articles in the results, do let me know, and I can inform the search engine designers to improve the filtering.

Categories
Climate Change Media

“What’s Nuked, Pussycat ?”

[ NOTE FROM JOABBESS.COM : ALL UNEXPLAINED QUOTATIONS ARE TAKEN FROM TRANSCRIPTS OF THE SIMPSONS EPISODE “FRAUDCAST NEWS”, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED. ]

[ AS AN INTERESTING ASIDE, IT’S CURIOUS THAT THE SIMPSONS CARTOON MAKES MORE SENSE THAN A GREAT DEAL OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA JOURNALISTS WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO WRITE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. ]

“I’m going to change this town’s accurate impression of me – I’m going to buy every media outlet…It’s time to win back the love of those hateful morons.”

Amy Turner at The Sunday Times (“yeah ! I’m a feeeeeature cooooolumnist”), in my humble opinion, makes a really poor show of comprehending what’s really going on in the “Blogosphere” (“now there’s a thousand freaks xeroxing their worthless opinions”) :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article7043753.ece

As the Blogger Tim Lambert (“the pen is mightier than the flaming bag of poop”) at the Deltoid makes clear, her article could easily be criticised as a blatant attempt to frame the whole Blogging world with her own narrative (or probably that of her ultimate boss, Rupert Murdoch), seemingly deciding on her readers’ behalf who to accept as the “big fish” in the Blogosphere, and who to dismiss as “the amateurs”; and then quoting one of her trusted “big fish” Roger Pielke Jr :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article7043753.ece

“…Among these minnows are controversialist bloggers like Tim Lambert, who are professionally unqualified to engage in the substance of most debates (certainly the case with respect to my own work)..”

Categories
Climate Change Media

The Times : Leakey Bucket

Writing about Climate Change Science, attempting to navigate the complexities of the communication of Climate Change, plus dealing with the torrent of disinformation out there, can take people to some strange places in their minds.

Yet again, I have been challenged that I am being too negative, and too down on the Media kids (instead of “down with”). There has been an inordinate level of bad journalism about Climate Change, particularly in the last few months, and I am not the only person whose internal sense of wrongness has been stirred.

But how to express it ? How to constructively make a contribution towards the betterment of the Media ? I do not know the way. All I can do is pick holes and light beacons. Are there any journalists we can trust any more – trust to treat Climate Change Science and the Climate Change Scientists correctly ?

Categories
Climate Change Media

Fred Pearce : Still Crucifying Phil Jones

[ CORRECTIONS FROM JOABBESS.COM : ON THE ADVICE OF inel CERTAIN INFORMATION PREVIOUSLY GIVEN ABOUT THE INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS HAS BEEN REMOVED. ]

I’m sorry to note that Fred Pearce, writing for The Guardian newspaper is still hanging Phil Jones out on a crucifix to bake in the burning Sun :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/01/phil-jones-commons-emails-inquiry

Fred Pearce quotes the withering “coruscating” evidence submitted by one or more members of the Energy sub-group of the Institute of Physics, and demands us to accept that it is adequate commentary on Phil Jones’ behaviour (behaviour that we don’t accurately know, but has been described to us by people misinterpreting his e-mails, which were stolen).

Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Non-Science Public Relations Social Change The Data

The Truth-Tellers Collective

There appears to be a group of reliable truth-tellers building, out there in Web Log Land. The YouTube at the top is from Peter Sinclair and his “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” series. Always worth watching. A calming breath of fresh sane air for the mind :-

https://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610

Categories
Uncategorized

Steve McIntyre Spins Newsweek

Newsweek spins a heart-warming yarn about the “granddaddy of the global warming “denial” movement”, Steven McIntyre. You would be forgiven for adopting his point of view, he has such a homestead glow :-

https://www.newsweek.com/id/233887

“…he says, people tend to use hockey-stick graphs when they are trying to pull one over on you. “Reality usually isn’t so tidy.”…”

Er, no. Nobody could rightly assert that Climate scientists have been trying to trick anybody. Why does Newsweek not decline his argument ?

Categories
Bait & Switch Climate Change

We Love You, Phil Jones

Phil Jones, we are a small, but growing, group, who just want you to know that we love you, respect you, and we think you should not only keep your job, but be awarded an honour for bravery in the face of a huge and nasty smear campaign.

Pay no attention to The Guardian newspaper. They just want to sell more newspapers, and they’ve worked out that giving off an insouciant whiff of Climate Change scepticism is edgy and popular, so they’re playing the field. It’s a dubious game in my view.

Don’t listen to George Monbiot either. He called for your resignation not once, but twice, adding to your woes. He really shouldn’t have. He should have had more respect for your mental condition. He’s been most unfair.

The “liberal” Media trying to take the high moral ground on Science is fine if they know what they’re talking about; but for journalists to mete judgement on scientists is not valid, when the journalists have no clue as to the context in which scientists are forced to work, and no proper appreciation of what the Science means.

Categories
Climate Change The Data

James Delingpole Trusts Known Obstructers

I think I might start using a new term : “Climate Obstructers”, people who make lots of challenges to the IPCC consensus, who have what seems to me to be an agenda to obstruct the course of Climate Change Science.

In his latest Web Log post, James Delingpole attracts attention to a “magisterial report” from Joseph D’Aleo (of web log ICECAP) and Anthony Watts (of web log WattsUpWithThat), which is actually a crock of shambolic fripperies, in my view :-

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100024023/global-warming-is-it-even-happening/
“Global Warming: is it even happening?”

Categories
Big Picture Climate Change The Data

Spikes & Slopes

by Jo Abbess
3 December 2009

One Hot Year

1998 was a very hot year. Worldwide, the land and sea surface temperatures spiked sharply upwards. Scientists said it was supposed to get hot, but not this hot. Yet by the year 2000, things had cooled back down again. In fact, they were a little cooler than 1995. [1] The detailed analysis made it seem like a murder mystery – who killed the heat ? What happened to Global Warming ?

Part of the forensic evidence came from analysis of Mount Pinatubo. On 15th June 1991, it experienced massive volcanic eruption causing an enormous plume in the sky, easily visible from space. [2] [3] The sulphur dioxide in the plume deflected the sun’s heating rays from Earth, and temperatures on the ground plummeted around the world. Yet, despite this cooling effect, land and sea surface temperatures were back to normal by around 1995, just in time for the sizzle of 1998. [4]

It seemed likely that spikes and slumps were just natural cycles; the climate systems moving from one stable pattern to another. For years, big loops of wind will rotate in one direction, and weathermen know what the temperatures and rainfall will look like. And then the whole setup will flip and change, and temperatures, rainfall and winds will all be different. [5]

Research showed that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) created drought weather conditions in 1997, causing massive forest fires in Indonesia that helped drive up worldwide temperatures in 1998. [6]

A “nuclear winter” from the occasional volcanic eruption, or a “fry up” from flip-flops in big climate circulations only have a short-term impact on global temperatures. [7] The Climate is always changing. There are ups, and there are downs, but no permanent changes. Don’t believe the spikes.

Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Big Picture Climate Change Media Meltdown Non-Science Public Relations

Glaciers Melting in the Himalayas

Video Credit : Asia Society

The satellites and cameras do not lie : glaciers in the Himalayas are melting, and the loss of any part of this “third pole” ice cover threatens the freshwater supply for billions.

This weekend’s Media clamour on the subject focuses on the trail of a mis-attribution of a claim regarding the complete meltdown of the mountain glaciers.

Just because somebody’s got their references wrong, doesn’t mean that the glaciers have magically not been melting after all.

Yes, the IPCC process has failed to pick up this prediction error. No, it doesn’t throw the whole of the IPCC reports into the trash can.

Categories
Climate Change The Data

The Burn Goes On

At the turn of every month, I check the websites of the agencies charged with collecting and analysing the available data on Global Warming, to find out what the latest position shows.

Some agencies update their online resources faster than others. For example, as of today, the Hadley Centre of the Meteorological Office has produced a summary of the Central England Temperature (HadCET, or CET) for both December 2009 and the whole of 2009 :-

https://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cet_info_mean2009.html

And so has the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – finally :-

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2009&month=13&submitted=Get+Report

Categories
Big Picture Climate Change Divide & Rule Political Nightmare

Pershing Missile Strikes United Nations

The United States of America have launched their secret bearded missile at the United Nations – Jonathan Pershing – in a direct strike on the international Climate Change negotiations.

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/14/climate-talks-un-sidelined

“America sees a diminished role for the United Nations in trying to stop global warming after the “chaotic” Copenhagen climate change summit, an Obama administration official said today. Jonathan Pershing, who helped lead talks at Copenhagen, instead sketched out a future path for negotiations dominated by the world’s largest polluters such as China, the US, India, Brazil and South Africa, who signed up to a deal in the final hours of the summit. That would represent a realignment of the way the international community has dealt with climate change over the last two decades…Pershing said… “But it is also impossible to imagine a negotiation of enormous complexity where you have a table of 192 countries involved in all the detail.”…The lack of confidence in the UN extends to the $30bn (£18.5bn) global fund, which will be mobilised over the next three years to help poor countries adapt to climate change. “The UN didn’t manage the conference that well,” Pershing said. “I am not sure that any of us are particularly confident that the UN managing the near-term financing is the right way to go.”…”

Categories
Climate Change Media

Richard Betts : Communicating Science

Yes, we’ve all been there. Just idly chatting to someone in the pub, office or outside the school gates, and they say “I don’t rate that Global Warming thing. Look how cold it is today.” Or like a family friend said, on his own, un-tutored authority a couple of months ago, “I don’t think it’s warming up as much as they say it is”.

Don’t fret, Climate Changers, it happens to us all.

The main source of this dissonance between Truth and Deniership is the mainstream media, I’m sorry to say. They really haven’t improved things, when, with just a little more care and attention, they could have done so much to help comprehension of the scale and might of the risks of dangerous Climate Change.

Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Daily Express : Unreliable Sources

Another pretty poor headline from the Daily Express (and we all know that outrageous headlines sell newspapers), but the majority of the article is OK, until the almost inevitable signs of “balance” by quoting Piers Corbyn and Christopher Booker :-

“…Long-term forecaster and trends analyst Piers Corbyn, of WeatherAction, said: “Global warming is a failed science built on falsified data. It is a sham to say that man has caused it.”…”

Most serendipitously, the Global Warming Science that the genuine research community have been slaving away at for the last, ooo, 25 years, has not been undermined by one freakily cold Northern Hemisphere Winter, or they’d all be out of jobs pretty sharpish.

“…Christopher Booker, author of The Real Global Warming Disaster, said: “It is amazing how this scaremongering from climate change lobbyists keeps arising even though they are constantly being proved wrong. Last year there was snow in Saudia Arabia and still they persist in saying the temperature is going up.”…”

As time goes by, and more evidence is collated and analysed and more theoretical branches are investigated, the more Climate Change Science is shown to be accurate, both in projection and qualitative prediction.

Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations Social Change

The BBC Reviews Its Trust

The BBC Trust are to review the BBC’s treatment of Science in the BBC Media. I can’t say for sure whether that’s going to result in anything helpful or not, since it’s going to be effectively an “internal inquiry”. Their quest for objectivity may end up in compromise and playing to the heckling balconies :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/06/bbc-trust-science-impartiality-review

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6941616/BBC-to-launch-review-into-allegations-of-bias-in-its-science-coverage.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241209/BBC-probes-bias-science-coverage.html

Categories
Climate Change Media Public Relations

Central England Temperature 0.63 Degrees C Above Norm

The final calculations have been done by the Meteorological Office for the average Central England Temperature in 2009 and shown in a graph online :-

https://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/index.html

Categories
Climate Change Media Public Relations

Climategate : George Monbiot Fights Back

George Monbiot recounts the Climategate affair with wit, verve and gusto; and then proceeds to suggest a sharp technique for making a fightback against public lying in the Media. Useful if you happen to be trapped in a television studio with a billion watts of stage lighting shining menacingly right down on you. It’s time that every Climate Change Scientist had their own personal Public Relations manager; because somehow the academic community have to keep the messaging Media-savvy. Seen enough geeks turn into dorks in the Press. Need to see a change.

Categories
Climate Change Media

Nature 2010 : More Hard-Hitting

Two articles in the first issue of Nature Geoscience in 2010 should help you sit up and take notice that Climate Science has advanced far beyond public acceptance; and that perhaps it is time for the Media to sharpen up their reporting.

The first is one I have already reported on today :-

https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/full/ngeo706.html

“Nature Geoscience 3, 60–64 (1 January 2010) : doi:10.1038/ngeo706 : Earth system sensitivity inferred from Pliocene modelling and data : Daniel J. Lunt , Alan M. Haywood , Gavin A. Schmidt , Ulrich Salzmann , Paul J. Valdes & Harry J. Dowsett : Abstract : Quantifying the equilibrium response of global temperatures to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is one of the cornerstones of climate research. Components of the Earth’s climate system that vary over long timescales, such as ice sheets and vegetation, could have an important effect on this temperature sensitivity, but have often been neglected. Here we use a coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model to simulate the climate of the mid-Pliocene warm period (about three million years ago), and analyse the forcings and feedbacks that contributed to the relatively warm temperatures. Furthermore, we compare our simulation with proxy records of mid-Pliocene sea surface temperature. Taking these lines of evidence together, we estimate that the response of the Earth system to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is 30 – 50 % greater than the response based on those fast-adjusting components of the climate system that are used traditionally to estimate climate sensitivity. We conclude that targets for the long-term stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations aimed at preventing a dangerous human interference with the climate system should take into account this higher sensitivity of the Earth system.”

The second is an analysis of how little extra atmospheric Carbon Dioxide we need to make a significant change to the planetary climate :-

https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/full/ngeo736.html

“Nature Geoscience 3, 6–7 (1 January 2010) : doi:10.1038/ngeo736 : Palaeoclimate: Global warmth with little extra CO2 : Birgit Schneider & Ralph Schneider : Abstract : In the Early Pliocene, three to five million years ago, global temperatures were about 3 – 4 degrees C warmer than today in the low latitudes, and up to 10 degrees C warmer nearer the poles. Climate simulations and reconstructions of this relatively recent period (geologically speaking) may help constrain realistic magnitudes of future warming.”

Categories
Climate Change

Climate Sensitivity : How Vegetation Matters

We all know by now about the melting ice and the droughts and the changes in rainfall.

But how do all of these things affect plant life ? And how do those changes feed back into further Climate Change ?

Part of the answer has come from Leeds and Bristol Universities in the last month :-

https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/210/earths_increased_sensitivity_to_carbon_dioxide

Categories
Climate Change Meltdown

Arctic Meltdown : Sooner Than We Think

The Pliocene, the era in Earth History formerly known as the Pleiocene, is being treated as a potential “analogue” for our Globally Warmed world.

Several strands of Climate Change Science research have been undertaken in recent months, and they are all coming up with dismal results.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is the latest to unleash data on us :-

https://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2372&from=rss_home

“Arctic Could Face Warmer and Ice-Free Conditions : There is increased evidence that the Arctic could face seasonally ice-free conditions and much warmer temperatures in the future. Scientists documented evidence that the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas were too warm to support summer sea ice during the mid-Pliocene warm period (3.3 to 3 million years ago). This period is characterized by warm temperatures similar to those projected for the end of this century, and is used as an analog to understand future conditions…“In looking back 3 million years, we see a very different pattern of heat distribution than today with much warmer waters in the high latitudes,” said USGS scientist Marci Robinson. “The lack of summer sea ice during the mid-Pliocene suggests that the record-setting melting of Arctic sea ice over the past few years could be an early warning of more significant changes to come.”…”

Feeling strangely perturbed ? That would be your internal paradigms spinning.

Categories
Climate Change

Climate Sensitivity : Higher Than We Thought

Considering the serious risk that Global Warming poses, I trust that Professor Mark Pagani will forgive my cut and paste from his recent research paper :-

https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/abs/ngeo724.html

“High Earth-system climate sensitivity determined from Pliocene carbon dioxide concentrations”
Mark Pagani et al. 2009

“Data and modelling for the middle Pliocene (approximately 3 – 3.3 [Million years ago] Myr) indicate that the global mean temperature was 2.4 – 2.9 degrees C warmer than preindustrial conditions, and approximately 4 degrees C warmer during the early Pliocene (approximately 4 – 4.2 Myr). If changes in carbon dioxide and associated feedbacks were the primary agents forcing climate over these timescales, and estimates of global temperatures are correct, then our results imply a very high Earth-system climate sensitivity for the middle (3.3 Myr) to early (4.2 Myr) Pliocene ranging between 7.1 plus or minus 1.0 degrees C and 8.7 plus or minus 1.3 degrees C per CO2 doubling, and 9.6 plus or minus 1.4 degrees C per CO2 doubling, respectively. If only the minimum estimates are considered, Earth-system sensitivity is still substantially higher than the range of probable ‘fast-feedback’ climate sensitivity often discussed, and implies that the impact of global warming acts to promote other feedbacks that substantially magnify warming over longer timescales.”

Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Non-Science Public Relations Social Change The Data

Climategate : Myles Allen is Confused

Dr Myles Allen, head of the Climate Dynamics group at the University of Oxford’s Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department is confused. “It is odd that we still don’t take climate change seriously”, he writes in The Guardian online, discussing the fact that a good proportion of the British public don’t believe in Global Warming :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/11/science-climate-change-phil-jones

He might need to wake up to the fact that the British Press are being misled, and in turn, misleading the country.

Categories
Climate Change

Untidy Minds #9 : Richard Lindzen (again)

Richard Lindzen makes an ungracious return to this collection of untidy minds, appearing courtesy of The Times, which is rather disappointing. If any editors of any newspaper know the detrimental value of lying propaganda, it should be those at the top at The Times, which is normally the channel for Government-sourced snapshots and snippets, sometimes deliberate leaks.

The number of outright mistruths and sneaky fiddlings in Richard Lindzen’s statement is astounding.

Categories
Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Public Relations

Untidy Minds #6 : Mike Hulme ?

Professor Mike Hulme has been the science chap the BBC nearly always call, of late, when they want to inject an alternate view into a piece on Climate Change.

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm
“Chaotic world of climate truth” Viewpoint by Mike Hulme, 4 November 2006

The author of the book “Why We Disagree About Climate Change” has been bravely trying to reframe Climate Change, not as a problem of science, but a problem of society. To some extent, I regard his work as useful. On the other hand, I find some of his work a mind trap.