Sea Ice Stretch Run #2

Jul 23, 2008 – 10:42 AM

Please use links to images rather than images on this thread. Continues http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3229

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General | Comments (911)

The Carl Wunsch Complaint

Jul 22, 2008 – 9:50 PM

Carl Wunsch, whose complaint is considered by Ofcom here page 70), is a distinguished scientist. Wunsch read a copy of our GRL paper prior to publication and commented favorably on it, though he was not prepared to provide any public support. A couple of his papers show the peculiar results that red noise series can produce – an approach arguably similar in spirit to our critique of Mannian PC analysis. (In the discussion of the handling of trends in AR4, the position of Wunsch’s opponents is unaccountably preferred to Wunsch’s.) I met Wunsch briefly in San Francisco; he was a mentor to Peter Huybers, who introduced me to him. Many of his quotes in the Ofcom decision are similar to points that I’ve made here.

Ofcom provided an interesting account of how Wunsch got involved with Swindle, which has obviously been a very radicalizing experience for him.

The issues in the Wunsch complaint were different than the accuracy complaint. They were:

1) whether Wunsch was sufficiently informed about the nature of the film to give informed consent. Here they considered Practice 7.3 which stated:

“Where a person is invited to make a contribution to a programme (except when the subject matter is trivial or their participation minor) they should normally, at an appropriate stage: be told the nature and purpose of the programme, what the programme is about and be given a clear explanation of why they were asked to contribute.”

2) whether the programme misrepresented his views, with Ofcom considering separately at the way “the programme presented Professor Wunsch’s general views and those specifically relating to the presence of CO2 in the ocean.” Here Ofcom relied on Practice 7.6 which states that:

“When a programme is edited, contributions should be represented fairly.”

How Wunsch Came to Be Involved
In Sept 2006, the producers sent Wunsch an email, which Ofcom described as follows:

The Committee noted that Professor Wunsch had been contacted initially by the programme makers via email on 15 September 2006. The initial email advised Professor Wunsch that they were producing a programme “about the climate change debate” and that they had read reports about the “effects of climate change on the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt and the Gulf Stream, and wanted to ask if you agree with the conclusions that they are in imminent danger of shutting down”. The letter went on to say that “We are looking for a contributor to talk to us about whether global warming is having a detrimental effect on the oceans or if it is just the case that we don’t yet have enough information to make it a full gone [sic] conclusion”.

Wunsch promptly replied on Sept 18, 2006 referring to a popular representation of the Gulf Stream as a “fairy tale for grown ups”:

He responded that this was “absolutely not” the case, stating that “you can’t turn the Gulf Stream off as long as the wind blows over the North Atlantic and the earth continues to rotate!” and went on to describe the ‘conveyor’ as “a kind of fairy-tale for grownups”. Professor Wunsch said that “I’m willing to talk about these things. I believe that there are all kinds of things happening in the oceans, many highly troubling, but I also believe that one should distinguish what the science tells us and what is merely fantasy”.

It sounds like things started off on pretty friendly terms. Channel 4 said in its evidence (and I saw no evidence that Wunsch denied this):

the programme makers swapped anecdotes with him about the absurd apocalyptic reporting of the global warming scare in the press and TV. Channel 4 said the programme makers also informed the complainant of other contributors who it said were well-known for their critical views on the theory of man-made global warming

The parties had a a telephone conversation, memorialized in a contemporary email (which Ofcom accepted as a plausible rendering of the conversation):

“We are making a feature length documentary about global warming for Channel Four in the UK. The aim of the film is to examine critically the notion that recent global warming is primarily caused by industrial emissions of CO2. It explores the scientific evidence which jars with this hypothesis and explores alternative theories such as solar induced climate change. Given the seemingly inconclusive nature of the evidence, it examines the background to the apparent consensus on this issue, and highlights the dangers involved, especially to developing nations, of policies aimed at limiting growth.”

“We would like to do an interview with you to discuss the notion that there is a scientific consensus on the effects of global warming on the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift. It has been widely reported that Britain and Western Europe could soon be plunged into a mini ice age, and we would like to show that this is simply not true that they will shut down.

We would like to talk to you about the numerical models and whether they give us a realistic perspective of the impact of climate change on our oceans. We would also like to talk to you about the ‘memory’ of oceans and how it can take varying amounts of time for a disturbance to be readable in the North Atlantic.

Fundamentally, we would like to ask you whether scientists have enough information about the complex nature of our climate system. Do the records go back far enough to identify climate information about the complex nature of our climate system? Do the records go back far enough to identify climate trends, and can we conclusively separate human induced change from natural change?”

So far, everything seems on track. Ofcom also found that the correspondence made it clear that the producers were approaching things from a “skeptical” viewpoint and this had been made clear to Wunsch:

It was also clear from the correspondence that the programme makers intended to do this through exploring theories which went against the scientific consensus and through looking at the potential dangers (in light of the inconclusive evidence of man-made climate change) of policies aimed at limiting industrial growth. The Committee noted that the recorded interview with Professor Wunsch also proceeded on this basis.

Ofcom examined the unedited and edited interview footage. They determined that the topics discussed with Wunsch were in fact the topics listed in the original email and that these were the same topics that Wunsch is shown commenting on:

The Committee noted from the unedited recording of Professor Wunsch’s interview that these were indeed the topics that were raised with the complainant, and were the same ones which Professor Wunsch was shown commenting on in the programme as broadcast.

The Committee noted a number of Wunsch’s statements, which, on their face, are ones that many CA readers would agree with:

“The models are so complicated you can often adjust them in such a way that they do something very exciting.”

“…So there is a bias, there is a very powerful bias within the media and within the science community itself towards results which are dramatisable [sic].”

“I agree that there’s a very serious risk here [with global warming]. But where I begin to disagree is where people say “the data shows” or “my model proves that”, it’s not at that level.

that it is not yet possible to prove that particular changes in our environment are being caused by human industrial activity, and that the media tended to favour those scientific predictions which warned of disaster.”
”

On many occasions, I’ve observed that, unlike many readers, if I were a policy maker, I would be guided by the advice of major institutions, even if I had personal reservations about the quality of work. Wunsch took a not dis-similar stance:

“most of the time consensus is at least operationally the correct way to proceed, it’s [the issue that is] the need apparently for consensus in the midst of the turmoil of science that is advancing rather more slowly…than we would like.”

So Wunsch obviously contemplated that some sort of “skeptic” production was within the realm of acceptable discourse. Rive and William Connolley would still have hated anything along the lines of what was described in the original Wunsch correspondence. But there was obviously some sort of line that Wunsch felt could be taken. So precisely where did things go awry?

Ofcom Decision
Wunsch’s third and most serious allegation, where he accused the producers of coming “close to fraud”, was characterized by Ofcom as follows:

Professor Wunsch said that the programme makers used his contribution, through its context, to imply that CO2 was all natural, coming from the ocean, and that therefore the human element is irrelevant. Professor Wunsch said he had told the programme makers that a warming ocean could expel more CO2 than it absorbs – thus worryingly exacerbating the greenhouse gas build-up in the atmosphere. Professor Wunsch said that the use of his remarks in this way came close to fraud.

This accusation was rejected in its entirety as follows:

However, in the Committee’s opinion Professor Wunsch’s comments in this respect had not been primarily to warn of the dangers of warming the ocean (as Professor Wunsch had suggested in his complaint). Rather the references had been used to make the point that the relationship between carbon dioxide and atmospheric temperature is complicated. In the Committee’s view, it was entirely at the programme maker’s editorial discretion to decide whether to include these comments in the programme.

In relation to Head b(ii) the Committee therefore found that the programme maker’s editing of Professor Wunsch’s comments about the presence of CO2 in the ocean did not result in unfairness in the programme as broadcast. Accordingly the Committee did not uphold this part of Professor Wunsch’s complaint.

Although Ofcom rejected this complaint, Wunsch’s other two complaints were upheld. Ofcom found that Wunsch had not been adequately warned under Practice 7.3 of the aggressive polemical turn that the production itself would take and for which there was little hint in his correspondence and actual interview. Ofcom:

it found no indication that Professor Wunsch had been informed of the polemical line that the programme would take, for example that the programme would state that the public was “being told lies” and the “scientific evidence does not support the notion that climate is driven by carbon dioxide, man-made or otherwise”. In the circumstances, the Committee considered that Professor Wunsch was not provided with adequate information to enable him to give informed consent for his participation.

While Wunsch may well have been naive, the obligation to comply with Practice 7.3 rested with the producers regardless of potential naivete on Wunsch’s part. I’m sure that Wunsch was bullied by climate scientists of all stripes after the fact, but I’m sure that his complaint was not due to this bullying but to a sincere belief that he had not been properly informed. Under UK legislation, he was entitled to complain to Ofcom and did so. The unfortunate outcome of this seems to have been the radicalization of Wunsch, who now sounds as strident as anyone else, and it will take him a long time to chill out.

The final issue related to whether there had been selective editing that breached Practice 7.6 by forming an inaccurate overall impression of Wunsch’s views was conveyed. Ofcom quoted the following comments from the unedited interview that hadn’t been used, finding that the failure to represent this aspect of Wunsch’s position was unfair in the context of the production.

“So it isn’t the consensus per se that is the issue, and most of the time consensus is at least operationally the correct way to proceed, it’s [the issue that is] the need apparently for consensus in the midst of the turmoil of science that is advancing rather more slowly…than we would like.”

“The consensus that emerges through the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] process is generally a reasonable one. But very little of it can actually be proven in the sense that one might say, okay, I can demonstrate to you that Newton’s laws of motion will describe the flight of a ball…”

“I believe a consensus of most scientists who work in climate, given that it is a rather young science, without sufficiently long records, is that there is a very real threat of global warming. Most of the data we have do show that the Earth is warming up, has been warming roughly over the last 100 years. The extent to which this is anthropogenic is the subject of fierce debate. There is a consensus I think of the great majority of scientists that there’s strong evidence that a big part of it, if not most of it, is anthropogenic…And even were it to turn out that it was natural, the threat to humans is very much the same. And one might argue that there has been too much debate about whether it is anthropogenic and whether is it natural and too little attention paid, first of all what are we going to do if this continues to happen? Because there will be real effect on human beings even if it were natural.”

“The healthy science says that, “yeah, there is a working story, but at the same time there are problems with it”, and it’s quite possible that many of the elements that go into the consensus in ten years’ time will be understood actually not to have been true or as accurate as people thought.”

Thus although Ofcom found that the programme fairly represented Wunsch’s view in respect to the matters discussed on air, they found that the exclusion of other views in the context of the program amounted to selective editing. That seems fair enough to me. Lots of people feel that they were ill used in a program but don’t believe that they are in a position to do anything about it. In this case, there was legislation enabling Wunsch to make a complaint. Wunsch did so and received a fair hearing. Would that we’d been so lucky in our FOI requests.

Readers should note that Wunsch’s complaint had nothing to do with the long Rive et al complaint. Wunsch’s complaint was about personal unfairness under Practice 7.3 and 7.6. Ofcom’s findings in respect to Wunsch, which seem reasonable enough to me, have nothing to do with their findings (virtually total rejection) of the Rive complaint – which again seems reasonable enough to me.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish off with a discussion of the IPCC finding, where there is an interesting link to our FOI inquiries.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in TGGWS | Tagged | Comments (49)

David King: Hot Girls and Cold Continents

Jul 22, 2008 – 10:09 AM

Ofcom interrupted their busy schedule ( In re: Sportxxxgirls was the next case on the docket) to consider a complaint by Sir David King, former U.K. Chief Scientist that the programme had broadcast a statement which exaggerated claims he had made in the past regarding the Antarctic, and attributed to him a statement about “breeding couples” which he had never made. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/obb/prog_cb/obb114/

Click to access issue114.pdf

David King’s complaint (as well as similar complaints by IPCC and Carl Wunsch) were considered under Practice 7.11 which states:

“If a programme alleges wrongdoing or incompetence or makes other significant allegations, those concerned should normally be given an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond.”

We are not taking here about misrepresentations (section 2.2) or due impartiality (section 5), but the right of criticized parties to be offered an “appropriate and timely opportunity to respond”.

King’s complaint pertained to a statement by Fred Singer at the end of Swindle:

“There will still be people who believe that this is the end of the world – particularly when you have, for example, the chief scientist of the UK telling people that by the end of the century the only habitable place on the earth will be the Antarctic. And humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic. I mean this is hilarious. It would be hilarious actually if it weren’t so sad”

Ofcom carefully considered whether Singer’s statement amounted to an allegation of “incompetence” or something similar, giving rise to a requirement to provide King with a timely opportunity to respond. Here they considered the allegation in two parts: (1) the “only habitable” place comment (King admitted that he had said that it would be the “most habitable place on earth”) and (2) the “breeding couples” comment (perhaps Ofcom was thinking ahead to the Sportxxxgirls case.)

The “Only Habitable Place”
Ofcom stated that King’s complaint referred only to his original testimony to the House of Commons Select Committee on April 24, 2004 in which he had stated:

“Fifty-five million years ago was a time when there was no ice on the earth; the Antarctic was the most habitable place for mammals, because it was the coolest place, and the rest of the earth was rather inhabitable because it was so hot. It is estimated that it [the carbon dioxide level] was roughly 1,000 parts per million then, and the important thing is that if we carry on business as usual we will hit 1,000 parts per million around the end of the century.”

He complained that the programme had exaggerated his speech by replacing “most habitable” with “the only habitable”.

Channel 4 observed that on April 27, 2004, Sir David gave a speech to Tony Blair’s Climate Group launch, in which he was reported in U.K. newspapers as using the phrase “only uninhabitable continent”. The following quotes were introduced by Channel 4 and noted in the Ofcom decision:

“Antarctica is likely to be the world’s only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the government’s chief scientist, Professor Sir David King said last week. He said the Earth was entering the ‘first hot period’ for 60 million years when there was no ice on the plane and “the rest of the globe could not sustain human life”.
(The Independent on Sunday, 2 May 2004)

Sir David replied that he had used the following phrase no both speeches:

“55 million years ago the Antarctic was the most habitable place for mammals.”

Channel 4 observed that “there was no evidence to suggest that Sir David had been quoted inaccurately as in the three years since the first report in 2004 there was no attempt to correct or challenged them.”

In response, Sir David:

Sir David maintained the programme had clearly presented a distortion of his views. Sir David said that he did not say or imply that the Antarctic was ever the ONLY habitable place for mammals, still less was he making a prediction that it would be the only or even the most, habitable place for mammals if CO2 concentrations reached similar concentrations in the future.

Didn’t I warn you that it would seem like a Monty Python episode (and we’re only halfway so far.)

The issue even recurred on Australian TV in fall 2007 (after the airing of Swindle), where Sir David was asked on Australian TV:

I think you said this in 2004, at least it suggested you did, that there might be a stage when the only inhabitable place on Earth will be Antarctica – do you remember saying that?

and said that he had been “misquoted many, many times” and said that he had merely recommended investments in Antarctic real estate:

I certainly didn’t say that, I’ve been totally misquoted many, many times; always pleased to have the opportunity to correct the statement I made. What I did say was that if you go back 55 million years, it’s in the palæological record that Antarctica was a tropical forest and at that point in time, if you wanted to have some real estate, and these were my words, you would want it in Antarctica because the rest of the world was pretty damned hot. So that has been extrapolated to me saying that if we keep going in this way there will only be people left living in Antarctica.

“Fifty-five million years ago was a time when there was no ice on the earth; the Antarctic was the most habitable place for mammals, because it was the coolest place, and the rest of the earth was rather inhabitable because it was so hot. It is estimated that it [the carbon dioxide level] was roughly 1,000 parts per million then, and the important thing is that if we carry on business as usual we will hit 1,000 parts per million around the end of the century.”

Back to Ofcom. The Committee duly noted the two sides of the story as follows:

The Committee noted that Professor Singer had attributed to Sir David the words “only habitable”, which Sir David said was incorrect as his original statements had used the words “most habitable”. The Committee also noted that contemporaneous, unchallenged reports, of Sir David’s comments, had referred to “only habitable”.

In the end, after all this careful consideration, they didn’t actually refer to this matter in their decision, only referring to the “breeding couples” issue, to which we now turn.


“Breeding Couples”

Sir David’s complaint stated that his original statement made no reference to the survival of humanity depending on “breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic”.

Channel 4 replied that Singer, in fact, was referring to reported quotes of two different scientists: King and Sir James Lovelock, another prominent scientist who had stated:

“Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” (The Independent, 16 January 2006)

Channel 4 argued that Singer did not specifically attribute the “breeding couples” quote to King, and, in any event, the quote would hardly result in unfairness to King given that

the complainant was on record as stating that Antarctica could be the “only habitable place on earth” and “the rest of the globe could not sustain human life”, it was therefore not unfair for the programme to suggest that Sir David was also of the view
that humanity may only survive due to breeding couples in the Antarctic. Channel 4 said Sir James Lovelock’s statement was a natural conclusion to be drawn from Sir David’s reported statement, and in essence the two statements said the same thing.

Even if Singer had conflated the views of King and Lovelock, they observed that “neither Channel 4 nor the programme makers were aware at the time of broadcast that Professor Singer had conflated two quotes from these eminent scientists.”

Ofcom carefully assessed the to-and-fro concluding as follows:

The Committee noted that, in recounting Sir David’s views on the dangers of global warming, Professor Singer had incorrectly attributed to Sir David a comment by the scientist Professor Lovelock regarding “breeding couples”. In relation to this Channel 4 had stated that “neither Channel 4 nor the programme makers were aware at the time of broadcast that Professor Singer had conflated [these] two quotes”.

In the Committee’s view, Professor Singer’s comment amounted to a significant allegation which called into question Sir David’s scientific views and his credibility as a scientist. In accordance with Practice 7.11 therefore, Sir David should have been offered an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond. The programme makers did not provide such an opportunity to the complainant. In the circumstances the Committee found that the failure to give Sir David King an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond to the comment made by Professor Singer resulted in unfairness to the complainant in the programme as broadcast.

David King on Breeding Couples

Since the alleged unfairness relates to the representation of David King’s view on breeding couples, I think that we should consider views on this topic that he has previously expressed.Last year, King opined that, in order to cure global warming, hot young girls:

“who find supercar drivers “sexy”, … should divert their affections to men who live more environmentally-friendly lives.

The right panel shows Jenni Dahlman, a former Miss Scandinavia, with Finnish race car driver, Kimi Raikonnen. This would presumably represent that the type of liaison that must be sacrificed if we are to cure global warming.

Instead of dashing young race car drivers, let’s try to get envisage a world in which the hot car babes were attracted to men who lived “more environmentally friendly lives” – a world that would look more like the one shown below:

kingh38.jpg kingh39.jpg babe.jpg

Clearly the appropriate mea culpa would be for Channel 4 to dryly apologize for holding the Chief Scientist up to ridicule by incorrectly attributing to him Lovelock’s view that humanity would survive through Antarctic breeding couples, when they should properly said that his views on breeding were that hot girls who find “supercar drivers “sexy”, … should divert their affections to men who live more environmentally-friendly lives.”

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General, TGGWS | Tagged | Comments (110)

Ofcom Decision: A Humiliating Defeat for Bob Ward and the Myles Allen 37

Jul 21, 2008 – 11:08 PM

Ofcom, the U.K. television regulator, has rendered a remarkable decision. People interested in what was actually decided will, unfortunately, have to consult the original judgment at Ofcom, rather than the BBC accounts (here, here) of the judgment.

BBC stated:

The Great Global Warming Swindle, a controversial Channel 4 film, broke Ofcom rules, the media regulator says. In a long-awaited judgement, Ofcom says Channel 4 did not fulfil obligations to be impartial and to reflect a range of views on controversial issues. The film also treated interviewees unfairly, but did not mislead audiences “so as to cause harm or offence”. Plaintiffs say the Ofcom judgement is “inconsistent” and “lets Channel 4 off the hook on a technicality.”

Ofcom rendered 4 decisions in relation to the program itself (page 6) and about alleged unfairness to David King (page 36), IPCC (page 43) and Carl Wunsch (page 70) separately. Today I’ll post on the program decision and will discuss the 3 ancillary decisions tomorrow.

As I’ve previously mentioned on the blog, I had no involvement in the making or editing of the production. I chatted briefly with a production assistant in Sweden at the KTH conference in Sept 2006 on a pleasant fall day and agreed to an interview when they visited North America, but the interview was cancelled and I had no further contact with them prior to the show being aired. It turned out that I was mentioned in the credits, but nonetheless, as stated above, I had no involvement in anything to do with the preparation of the program.

When controversy arose about one of their temperature graphics in early 2007, I examined the graphic (reported on at CA here on March 17), identifying the exact error (as opposed to more fanciful explanations). I contacted the producers of the show urging them to fix the error, which they undertook to do. Last fall, they contacted me for assistance in responding to the various complaints, which I provided. One of the complaints was that Swindle had failed to use Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick, a matter on which I felt that the complaint was singularly unjustified and on which I was well qualified to provide technical information. Had the other side asked my opinion on their account of the Stick prior to submitting the complaint, I would have provided it and urged them to avoid this particular issue.

The Program
Ofcom stated that it had received 265 complaints about the Program, the bulk of them alleging misrepresentations (in breach of section 2.2) or a failure of due impartiality (section 5).

Misrepresentations
Among the complainants claiming misrepresentations were Bob Ward and the 37 professors (Myles Allen, Phil Jones et al) who alleged a wide variety of error here and David Rado of the 175-page complaint profiled by BBC here. Ofcom did not uphold any of the misrepresentation complaints against Swindle. Not one. [Update: Three paragraphs down, I state the symmetric point that neither does Ofcom “vindicate” Swindle, which some people ignore. My point here is that Ofcom totally refused to give the complainants the relief that they sought.]

Ofcom summarized their judgement as follows:

In summary, in relation to the manner in which facts in the programme were presented, Ofcom is of the view that the audience of this programme was not materially misled in a manner that would have led to actual or potential harm. The audience would have been in no doubt that the programme’s focus was on scientific and other arguments which challenged the orthodox theory of man-made global warming. Regardless of whether viewers were in fact persuaded by the arguments contained in the programme, Ofcom does not believe that they could have been materially misled as to the existence and substance of these alternative theories and opinions, or misled as to the weight which is given to these opinions in the scientific
community.

Ofcom considers that, although the programme may have caused viewers to challenge the consensus view that human activity is the main cause of global warming, there is no evidence that the programme in itself did, or would, cause appreciable potential harm to members of the public …

Channel 4, however, had the right to show this programme provided it remained within the Code and – despite certain reservations – Ofcom has determined that it did not breach Rule 2.2. On balance it did not materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence.

Not in breach of Rule 2.2.

That’s not to say that Ofcom said that Durkin’s point of view had been vindicated, merely that the complainants were seeking comfort in the wrong bed. Even though complainant Rado said that his complaint had been “peer reviewed” by William Connolley, Ofcom resisted the temptation to opine on scientific truth; instead they did the job assigned to them legislation – to determine whether there had been a violation of Rule 2.2, a possibility that none of the complainants seemed to have considered and for which their preparations were abysmal.

In addition to the general finding, Ofcom selected four major alleged misrepresentations (from the dozens of incoherently presented issues in Rado’s 175 page “peer reviewed” complaint) for individual consideration. Here’s a bit of advice from me to the complainants – you’d have been better off to pick your 4 best issues and stick to them, no matter how interesting the other ones seemed; write a blog on the other ones if you want, but the risk of presenting too many issues to a tribunal is that they’ll end up picking 4 issues to consider anyway and, by throwing too many spitballs against the wall, you end up being stuck with the choices that they make. Were I crafting the complaint, I would not have picked the 4 issues that Ofcom focused on as my priority issues. But the complainants failed to prioritize and got stuck with the issues that Ofcom selected.

The first specific issue related to the use of graphics. And indeed, Swindle contained an error in the temperature graphic in the first program, which was said to have been inadvertently introduced in the production of the graphic. Unlike (say) Inconvenient Truth, where errors have remained uncorrected even when one of their Scientific Advisers supposedly brought the error to the attention of the Inconvenient Truth producers, in this case, the producers promptly replaced the graphic, with changes being made even before the second showing. In the hearing, the GGWS producers candidly acknowledged the error and reported the correction. This undoubtedly helped them with the complaint; Ofcom noted the error but found that this error was “not of such significance as to have been materially misleading so as to cause harm and offence in breach of Rule 2.2”.

The second specific allegation considered was the alleged “‘distortion’ of the science of climate modelling.” Ofcom drolly noted:

Ofcom noted that, although the complainants disagreed with the points made by the contributors in the programme, they did not suggest that the overall statements about climate models were factually inaccurate.

Ouch. Ofcom went on to say (again finding for the defendant):

Ofcom notes that the creation of such models necessarily involved assumptions. The disagreement among scientists about the nature of those assumptions (as described by the contributors to the programme) is not an issue on which Ofcom can adjudicate. Overall however Ofcom’s view was that the passages complained of were not materially misleading so as to cause harm and offence.

Next they considered the claim “that the theory of anthropogenic global warming is promoted by environmentalists as a means to reverse economic growth”. I would have advised the complainants to have just dropped this sort of piffle as a complaint. Ofcom made short shrift of this complaint:

This sequence of the programme consisted of a brief historical examination of the environmental movement in the late 1980s before it had become mainstream. These were clearly views of a small set of people who took a particular position on the political motives of these campaigners. In line with the right to freedom of expression, Ofcom considers that the broadcaster has the right to transmit such views and the audience would understand the context in which such comments were made. The content was therefore not misleading.

The last specific complaint considered were allegations that the program inflated the credibility of its contributors and that they had failed to disclose nefarious links between the contributors and the fossil fuel industry, links which were denied. Ofcom refused to get involved in judging a beauty contest as to whose experts were the more expert or to grasp the nettle of sorting out the validity of internet tattle on supposed links of Lindzen, Singer etc to the fossil fuel industry. They decided the matter on alternate grounds, finding that the amount of contributor background that was reported was an editorial decision:

The credibility of contributors to the programme The right to freedom of expression and the principle of editorial freedom are crucial to broadcasters. The programme used contributors who offered controversial opinions on the issues raised. The decisions by the programme makers not to include all the qualifications of contributors, and not to include more background on them (some of which is strongly disputed), were editorial decisions which overall did not in Ofcom’s view result in the audience being materially misled. … in Ofcom’s view these alleged and strongly disputed links did not need to be disclosed to viewers to avoid the programme being misleading

Alleged Omissions
The Complainants also alleged that Ofcom had misled viewers by “omission of views and facts in a way that materially misled so as to be harmful or offensive”. Here Ofcom observed that the program hardly concealed the existence of a mainstream view – indeed, the program referred repeatedly to the mainstream view, which it criticized, but the audience was clearly apprised that another view was the mainstream view. Ofcom also noted that the mainstream view was well-publicized elsewhere. OFcom:

Ofcom considers there is a difference between presenting an opinion which attacks an established, mainstream and well understood view, such as in this programme, and criticising a view which is much more widely disputed and contentious. In the former case, programme makers are not always required to ensure the detailed reflection of the mainstream view (since it will already be known and generally accepted by the majority of viewers). In the context of this particular programme, given the number of scientific theories and politico-economic arguments dealt with in The Great Global Warming Swindle, it was not materially misleading overall to have omitted certain opposing views or represented them only in commentary. The use by the programme makers of commentary, interviews and archive footage in an attempt to demonstrate the mainstream view on balance, in Ofcom’s opinion, fulfilled this requirement.

In summary, Ofcom considered most viewers would have been aware that the views expressed in the programme went against the scientific consensus about the causes of global warming and were only espoused by a small minority – not least because of the overwhelming amount of material broadcast in recent years based on the consensus view that human production of carbon dioxide is a major cause of global warming.


Due Impartiality
None of the complaints alleging lack of due impartiality in the science portion (sections 1-4) was upheld. Not one. The only bone thrown to the complainants was a finding that there had not been due impartiality in the portion talking about Africa – an issue that Bob Ward and the Myles Allen 37 didn’t even mention. Ofcom’s reasoning here had a fine touch of irony, which will appeal to connoisseurs of irony, as I hope most CA readers are.

In order for section 5 due impartiality requirements to come into play, the issue had to be one “of political or industrial controversy”. The Code explains that these are “political or industrial issues on which politicians, industry and/or the media are in debate.” But if the science was “settled”, as the complainants elsewhere argued, then the matter necessarily ceased to be one of “political or industrial controversy”, leaving section 5 inapplicable. As confirmation, Channel 4 introduced statements from the Stern Commission and the former Environment Minister that the science was “settled” and thus the science matters discussed in sections 1-4 were no longer matters of “political or industrial controversy.”

Rather a bold gambit and one that left the Complainants on the horns of a dilemma. In order to sustain their section 5 complaint, they would have had to reverse the position argued elsewhere in the complaint and argue that the science was not “settled”, hardly something that they wanted to do and a position that they did not adopt.

In their decision, Ofcom noted the views of the Stern Commission and the former Environment Minister that the science was no longer a matter of “political or industrial controversy” and threw out the section 5 complaints in relation to the science sections. Didn’t I tell you that the irony would appeal to CA readers? [Update: Most blogosphere commentators have failed to catch Ofcom’s logic, which is subtle. James Annan sort of grasps it saying “It sort of has a valid internal logic in a smugly complacent middle-class sort of way, but leaves me wondering what OFCOM is actually for.” If Annan is interested in the latter question, he would do well to peruse the Ofcom decision bulletins, which indicate a busy schedule, but one which makes them an inappropriate arbitrator of a scientific dispute, no matter how obvious it seems to the proponents – which is doubtless why they chose not to act as arbiters of scientific matters. ]

The only bone that Ofcom threw the program complainants was a mercy bone in relation to the Africa segment, which was hardly a matter of big controversy, having attracted no ire from Bob Ward and the 37 professors. Ofcom concluded that the Africa segment did involve a matter of policy and that the GGWS producers had an obligation to have been more impartial on this topic.

Summary on the Program Complaint
In relation to the program complaint, it’s hard to imagine a more thorough stuffing of the complainants. They were lucky they didn’t have to pay costs.

Tomorrow I’ll comment on the 3 decisions involving individual complaints by David King, the IPCC and Carl Wunsch, each involving fairly particular matters. In each case, Ofcom rejected important items of complaint, with about the only bone thrown the complainants’ way being findings that GGWS did not give the complainants’ enough notice. I was hoping to get to this tonight, because the David King complaint in particular is really the stuff of comedy, which Ofcom handled with a suitably droll delivery worthy of Stephen Colbert.

A complete stuffing of the 37 professors.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General, TGGWS | Tagged , , | Comments (166)

Another quiet GISS update

Jul 20, 2008 – 7:49 PM

Yesterday I surfed to the Datasets and Images page on GISS, something I ordinarily do only around the fifth of each month as I wait for the latest monthly temperature updates from GISS. The information on that page rarely changes, so I was surprised to see the following addition:

June 9, 2008: Effective June 9, 2008, our analysis moved from a 15-year-old machine (soon to be decommissioned) to a newer machine; this will affect some results, though insignificantly. Some sorting routines were modified to minimize such machine dependence in the future. In addition, a typo was discovered and corrected in the program that dealt with a potential discontinuity in the Lihue station record. Finally, some errors were noticed on http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/temperature.html (set of stations not included in Met READER) that were not present before 8/2007. We replaced those outliers with the originally reported values. Those two changes had about the same impact on the results than switching machines (in each case the 1880-2007 change was affected by 0.002°C).

Now, the thing that caught my eye was the “June 9, 2008” in bold. Perhaps I am reading more into the use of a specific date and boldface type than I should, but I interpret it to mean the website entry was made on June 9. However, I am 99% certain that entry was not on the GISS website on July 5, which is the date I started looking for the July update (after that date I just did a reload of the tab holding the GLB.Ts+dSST.txt file, so I would not have seen updates to the parent page after July 5). I say 99% because I am almost certain I would notice the additional entry as I scrolled down to the GLB.Ts+dSST.txt link, but I cannot say I am 100% certain. We will need to wait a number of months before the internet archives updates the history for that page.

[Update] I found a cached version of http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/200806.html dated June 20 off of Live search. This page is linked directly from and further explains the June 9 update. Thus, I would conclude that the update was made at least as early as June 20. The remaining search engines all have this page and the parent page cached on July 11 or later. [End Update]

Why is this important? For those of you who followed the GISS Step 2 thread on this site, you will recall that on June 19 Steve and I were commenting on a mysterious seventh version of the Chatham Island record. I noticed that the seventh version came from a UK site: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/temperature.html (these days, Google will find almost anything). Furthermore I noted:

Here is where it gets interesting. Looking at the Chatham record on the UK site, it still contains the errors described by Steve in comment #61. The version on the GISS website contains the corrections / changes Steve noted.

Steve dryly responded:

So Hansen and his boys are manually editing data. My, my. This GISTEMP thing really is a pig.

We bumped into this by accident a full ten days after the changes were made, and it seems another 19 or so days were required to post the update notice on the GISS website. Right now, if one looks at the bottom of the GISS page, one will find:

GISS Website Curator: Robert B. Schmunk
Responsible NASA Official: James E. Hansen
Page updated: 2008-07-08

I’d love to look at earlier versions of http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/temperature.html. Unfortunately, they are not archived by the wayback machine. I am surprised changes were made after 8/2007, because the file ends with 2006 and the actual Chatham Islands data ends with one entry in 1998. The next latest entry is 1992. Why would the British Antarctic survey change that one dataset during the summer of 2007?

By goirish | Posted in General | Tagged | Comments (26)

Calibration in the Mann et al 2007 Network Revisited

Jul 20, 2008 – 12:20 PM

In a post a few months ago, I discussed MBH99 proxies (and similar points will doubtless apply to the other overlapping series) from the point of view of the elementary calibration diagram of Draper and Smith 1981 (page 49), an older version of a standard text. Nothing exotic.

One of the problems that arose in these plots is that virtually none of the individual calibrations made any sense according to the Draper and Smith style plot. Since then, I’ve dug a little further into the problem. If a statistical relationship is not significant under a standard t-test of 2, then a Draper and Smith style plot throws up nonsensical confidence intervals. I’ve dug a little deeper into the matter and have determined that if you lower your t-standards, then you can typically “get” confidence intervals for the individual calibrations that at least are intelligible. The larger question is whether a multivariate calibration can overcome the deficiencies of the individual calibrations (the topic of Brown 1982 and subsequent articles, which several of us have been parsing.)

However, before re-visiting that text, I want to re-plot calibration diagrams for all the MBH99 proxies, lowering the t-tests where required to get an intelligible confidence interval. The post title refers to the Mann et al 2007 network because it is the same as the MBH98-99 network. In all cases, I’ve limited my analysis to the verification period mean, since Wahl and Ammann have agreed that MBH has no “skill” at higher frequency. So we might as well see which proxies, if any, have “skill” at the verification period mean. In the MBH99 period (as with AD100), only one “climate field” is reconstructed, so all the piffle about lower order temperature PCs can be disregarded. Continue reading →

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in Statistics | Tagged , , | Comments (23)

Global Administrative Law Blog on the IPCC

Jul 19, 2008 – 5:14 PM

I would like to draw readers’ attention to an extremely interesting discussion of the Wegman Report and the IPCC at the Global Administrative Law Blog on Apr 29, 2008, considering some of the issues from the perspective of administrative law. The author is Euan Macdonald of the Institute for International Law and Justice of New York University.

Macdonald first characterizes the IPCC in administrative law terms, with a comment on the Wegman report (the “independent analysis”) as follows:

It is thus a public body, whose output is intended, indeed expected, to have a significant impact on legislative and policy choices taken at the national, regional and global levels. It is not, therefore, much of a stretch to characterise its activity as fundamentally public/administrative in character. The independent analysis, which focuses largely on the standards that should apply when a public body relies on academic scientific research, makes a number of interesting administrative law-type recommendations:

Transparency
Macdonald then comments on several findings of the Wegman Report first commenting on transparency, noting with surprise that an author upon whose work the IPCC had relied on heavily had viewed “the code that he developed as his own intellectual property that he was no under obligation to disclose to peers”:

The independent analysis found that in many cases in which scientific papers are used as a basis for highly controversial policy documents, “the supplementary material [such as code and data] for academic work is often poorly documented and archived and is not sufficiently robust to withstand intense public debate”; and, moreover, that “[s]haring of research materials, data, and results is haphazard and often grudgingly done”, noting in particular that one of the leading academics in the field, upon whose work the IPCC relied heavily, viewed the code that he developed as his own intellectual property, that he was under no obligation to disclose to peers.

The independent analysis recommended that, where academic work is to be used for controversial policy papers, it must be subjected to a much more intense level of scrutiny, involving, inter alia, more disclosure of codes, data, and funding sources.

The author in question is, of course, Michael Mann. (In passing, Macdonald did not contest the issue of whether Mann was entitled to assert ownership of source code that he developed while in the employ of the Universities of Massachusetts (and perhaps Virginia) under federal funding. I’ve observed elsewhere that, legally, unless Mann had some peculiar term in his contracts, the code would be the property of the University of Massachusetts and that Mann’s assertion of title to the code inconsistent with the title of the true owner would therefore be an act of conversion. I do not have information on Mann’s employment terms and therefore express this only as a hypothetical.)

A point on transparency that Macdonald didn’t mention, but perhaps relevant, is that Procedures governing IPCC adopted by its constituent governments in the relevant assembly require it to be “open and transparent” and impose explicit archiving requirements, which IPCC and IPCC authors have not complied with. (Hence the FOI attempts.)

Statistical Participation
Macdonald noted the strong criticism in the Wegman report of the lack of statistical professionalism in studies relied upon by IPCC.

One of the central criticisms of the independent analysis is that the academic work upon which the conclusions of the IPCC were based, although relying heavily upon statistical analyses, did not interact with the mainstream statistical community in order to test and validate those analyses. It recommends that, where bodies such as the IPCC are reveiwing academic work with a view to basing their conclusions thereupon, they should ensure the participations of specialist, expert statisticians in that process. Clearly, this kind of participatory requirement is intended to increase the “output legitimacy” (i.e. the quality of the results) of the administrative process in question (in this case, the production of the IPCC’s report and findings).

The usual reaction of climate scientists to this particular criticism was to sneer – without fully understanding that people in administrative law using scientific reports are used to the idea that there is a difference between someone who is statistically qualified and someone who isn’t. And that this has implications in administrative law that may well differ from the implications for publishing an article in an academic journal.

Due Diligence
Under the heading “review” (what I usually call “due diligence”), Macdonald construes Wegman as advocating that IPCC itself carry out some form of due diligence, the absence of which is something that surprised me:

Lastly, and perhaps most tenuously, the independent analysis raised issues that can perhaps be read as a form of accountability: recommendations for strengthening the ex post review process. In this case, however, it is not the review of the administrative activity of global body (the IPCC) itself that is in question, but rather a requirement that it act as a reviewer of the academic work upon which it will base its findings. In this regard, the analysis notes simply that “[e]specially when massive amounts of public monies and human lives are at stake”, standard peer review mechanisms are likely to be inadequate; therefore, where it is to be used in service of a political goal, “academic work should have a more intense level of scrutiny and review”. Indeed, the previous two issues, relating to transparency and participation, are in many ways simply complementary to this basic strengthening of ex post review. The report suggests, at least implicitly, that where the global body in question fails to discharge this more intensive review function, its own administrative output (the publication of findings and recommendations intended to influence legislative and policy programmes on climate change) should itself be regarded as lacking legitimacy.

There are many large questions here, most of which have been touched on here from time to time. And I do not know of exact solutions though I have some suggestions.

What intrigued me about the post was the concept of “global administrative law” itself, something that I’d not thought about as such with a proximate interest arising out of the varied and interesting responses of different organizations to our FOI requests.

In legal terms, the IPCC itself, in international law terms, would clearly appear to be an “international organization” under the U.S. International Organizations Immunities Act and similar legislation in other countries with the same immunities as a foreign sovereign nation. So when we face IPCC non-compliance with their explicit obligation to archive all written expert comments, an obligation that is part of a more general requirement that they be “open and transparent”, there is no obvious avenue for redress against IPCC itself other than public criticism, which inevitably escalates when they stonewall. An FOI action against the IPCC itself under U.S. or U.K. law would fail immediately.

However relatively little of IPCC’s work is done by its employees; most is done by cadres of scientists working in institutions that are not exempt from national FOI legislation. This raises interesting questions about exactly what hat an IPCC cadre is wearing when he is working on IPCC business while employed by a national institution. We’ve received varied answers from different national institutions in respect to FOI requests. There is a consensus on only one thing – that no information be disclosed. But each institution so far has had a different reason – each refusal based on a different theory of how one of their employees spends part of his work day doing work on behalf of an international organization not subject to national law. An interesting puzzle that I’ll discuss in another post.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General | Tagged | Comments (58)

Cedarville Sausage

Jul 19, 2008 – 7:02 AM

In May I began a quest to better understand how GISS does its homogeneity adjustment, also known as GISS Step 2. Steve McIntyre took the ball from that scrum and ran with it, producing a set of R tools that nearly replicate the GISS method. Some of the endpoint cases continue to confound those of us trying to understand the source code and how it reconciles – or doesn’t – with the peer-reviewed literature.

As this was going on, Anthony Watts pinged me several times, asking that I look at the Cedarville, CA adjustment to better understand why GISS would apply an urban adjustment to an obviously rural station, a topic which he explored in a previous post. I hesitated, because Cedarville had a lot of “nearby” (as defined by GISS) rural stations, and I wanted something simpler to look at. However, I did not forget his request and I took occasional peeks at the station and its neighbors. Below is an overall site view of the Cedarville station. GISS assigns a “night lights” value of 2 to this station, which is what causes it to go through the homogenization process.

cedarville.JPG

Here is a Google Earth image of Cedarville and the surrounding area with the NASA City Lights image overlay enabled. I am not sure what the NASA sensors are picking up to assign Cedarville the “2” rating.

cedarvillenight.JPG

Anthony says this in his post about Cedarville: “a place with a good record and little in the way of station moves”. Generally this may be true, but I personally am suspicious about the fidelity of a station’s record when I see Batman lurking in the 1930’s:

cedarville.gif

OK, let’s assume for the moment that Cedarville’s record is beyond reproach. Let’s further assume that the Cedarville station is urban, and is cursed with the typical frailties of an urban station: lots of asphalt, little vegetation, and placement near an air-conditioner, strip mall, or jet engine. Certainly the surrounding urban stations are of such pristine fidelity that they can be used to remove the urban noise from Cedarville. Let’s take a closer look at those stations and that homogeneity adjustment. Continue reading →

By goirish | Posted in General | Comments (54)

NSIDC July 17 Report

Jul 18, 2008 – 11:28 AM

NSIDC reported on July 17 what we at Climate Audit have been noticing since the beginning of July – 2008 is way behind 2007. Their daily extent number is even further behind 2007 than the JAXA daily numbers that we’ve been following.

Despite the fact that they report over a million sq km more ice than this time last year, they note that “areas of low-concentration ice are also developing at unusually high latitudes” – though apparently not “unprecedented”. They also note that last year’s melt was very prolonged and that a prolonged melt may be possible this year. Here’s an excerpt – consult the link for a full report.

Arctic sea ice extent on July 16 fell roughly between the extent for the same day in 2007 and the long-term average. The spatial pattern of summer ice loss has evolved differently from last year; this reflects the prevailing pattern of atmospheric circulation. Areas of low-concentration ice are also developing at unusually high latitudes.

Arctic sea ice extent on July 16 stood at 8.91 million square kilometers (3.44 square miles). While extent was below the 1979 to 2000 average of 9.91 square kilometers (3.83 million square miles), it was 1.05 million square kilometers (0.41 million square miles) above the value for July 16, 2007 (see Figures 1 and 2).

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General | Comments (19)

I Guess It Got Lost in the Mail

Jul 18, 2008 – 5:34 AM

A Climate Audit reader in Australia drew CSIRO’s attention to criticism of their data stonewalling here at CA. CSIRO promptly told the Australian reader that the “appropriate CSIRO climate scientists and Communications team have responded accordingly to Stephen McIntyre and David Stockwell directly, in order to address their concerns” and that “some of the direct responses have even been posted on the http://www.climateaudit.org website”.

Well, for the record, they haven’t responded to me “directly” in the sense that anyone from CSIRO actually sent me an email of any sort and, to the extent that they are claiming to be responding to my particular criticisms, it is untrue that “some of the direct responses have even been posted on the http://www.climateaudit.org website”.

Also for the record, I was not a party to any of David Stockwell’s original inquiries and merely read his account of his encounters with CSIRO as any other reader of his blog might have done. CSIRO correspondence with David Stockwell was posted at his website and I quoted excerpts from this correspondence in my previous posts. All of this correspondence pre-dated my particular posts, the earliest of which was on July 14, 2008 and cannot possibly constitute a “direct” response to my posts.

Here is the correspondence:

Continue reading →

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General | Tagged , | Comments (57)