Bishop Hill has a cohort, Josh, that has turned Climategate and the blogospheric response into a running series of cartoons.
During his blogging sabbatical while he turned his attention to mining (not the data kind), I think Steve missed this one, so I’ll present it here.
Some others of interest are:
Continue reading
Remember how Geoffrey Boulton tied himself into knots about his connections to the UEA and the climate science community. Now the emboldened Trevor Davies isn’t even bothering. Alert readers at CA here and at Bishop Hill’s spotted the following 2006 picture of Oxburgh (3rd from right) with Davies (far right).
Caption: Lord Oxburgh and the Vice-Chancellor [of U of Newcsatle] joined a group of delegates for the first of three annual HSBC lectures. From left: Mark Vines of HSBC; Francis Sullivan of HSBC; Vice-Chancellor Professor Christopher Edwards [of U of Newcsatle] ; Professor Keith Tovey of UEA; Lord Oxburgh; Professor Paul Younger [of U of Newcsatle] ; Professor Trevor Davies of UEA. Running text: Lord Oxburgh’s lecture rounded off the first HSBC Partnership in Environmental Innovation Day, attended by representatives from HSBC and the University of East Anglia as well as a number of high-profile business partners and alumni.
We discussed Davies in an earlier CA post here. In that letter, Davies (who has vociferously denounced the public circulation of the Climategate Letters) sent a “leaked” government document to the CRU Five so that they would have an edge over their rivals for government funding.
I now have a leaked document which spells out some of the research councils’ thinking. I will get a copy over to CRU today. Please keep this document within the CRU5, since it may compromise the source.
To my knowledge, no climate scientists to date have spoken out against Davies’ use of a leaked document nor have any demanded that he be prosecuted. I wonder if the Norwich police are working as diligently on this case as they are on the source of the Climategate dossier.
Andrew Montford(Bishop Hill) and Andrew Orlowski of the Register quickly pointed out that Oxburgh failed to disclose that he was UK Vice Chair of Globe International. Bishop Hill reports that Oxburgh is one of four directors of the company.
Globe International is an off-balance sheet “private company” funded predominantly by governments and NGOs. As a private company, I guess that it is unaccountable. It brings legislators together – with a particular concern to the advancement of climate change legislation. Its webpage contains glowing testimonials from leading politicians.
In late October, it sponsored an ambitious lead-in meeting of legislators in Copenhagen, hosted by the Prime Minister of Denmark. Oxburgh is listed one of the participating legislators – together with Ed Miliband of the UK, Sam Fankhauser, Chief Economist, GLOBE International and Principal Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, Yvo de Boer, of IPCC and the UN Framework, Ed Markey (video), Nancy Pelosi by video and others. A list of speakers is here. Oxburgh’s profile says that he is UK Vice Chair.
On March 30, 2009, Globe International launched a major iniative in Washington DC, an initiative attended by Ed Markey who warmly thanked then Globe International President Elliott Morley of the UK (speech here). Morley is one of four MPs recently charged with criminal offences arising from the UK MP expenses scandal.
The participants to the Globe International meeting in Copenhagen were given a warm welcome by the current president of Globe International, Stephen Byers, another UK, MP.
Byers also features prominently in recent UK news. A few days ago, the Times broke a story in which Byers described himself as “sort of cab for hire”:
Stephen Byers, former trade and transport secretary, was secretly recorded offering himself “like a sort of cab for hire” for up £5,000 a day. He also suggested bringing Tony Blair to meet clients.
Byers’ charges were for consultancy per diems. The Times secretly recorded the conversation – see here. Make sure that you listen.
Labour defenders argue that Byers’ influence peddling didn’t “matter’, because he didn’t have much influence – see New Statesman here for example. It’s funny how arguments in those sorts of situations tend to follow the same pattern.
I hadn’t heard of Globe International prior to this incident. Naming an officer and director of Globe International as chair of the CRU inquiry seems pretty insouciant. But Oxburgh’s UK associates at Globe International – Elliott Morley and Stephen Byers – don’t seem to feel that rules that apply to others should apply to them. Perhaps Oxburgh feels the same way about impartiality obligations.
Back online from a short hiatus in blogging (see comment below.)
It’s pretty discouraging that yet another inquiry is tainted by the selection of their panel. The University of East Anglia, seemingly emboldened by getting away with Geoffrey Boulton’s appointment to the ethics panel, have become much bolder in choosing the science panel. Continue reading
Since the last hurricane related post, some news has occurred on the hurricanes front.
Whether the characteristics of tropical cyclones have changed or will change in a warming climate — and if so, how — has been the subject of considerable investigation, often with conflicting results. Large amplitude fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones greatly complicate both the detection of long-term trends and their attribution to rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Trend detection is further impeded by substantial limitations in the availability and quality of global historical records of tropical cyclones. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether past changes in tropical cyclone activity have exceeded the variability expected from natural causes. However, future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2–11% by 2100. Existing modelling studies also consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6–34%. Balanced against this, higher resolution modelling studies typically project substantial increases in the frequency of the most intense cyclones, and increases of the order of 20% in the precipitation rate within 100 km of the storm centre. For all cyclone parameters, projected changes for individual basins show large variations between different modelling studies.
A brief comment on the Knutson “consensus”: …told ya so.
A shout-out for a review of Andrew Montford’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by Matt Ridley in Prospect Magazine.
Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion is one of the best science books in years. It exposes in delicious detail, datum by datum, how a great scientific mistake of immense political weight was perpetrated, defended and camouflaged by a scientific establishment that should now be red with shame. It is a book about principal components, data mining and confidence intervals—subjects that have never before been made thrilling. It is the biography of a graph.
I can remember when I first paid attention to the “hockey stick” graph at a conference in Cambridge. The temperature line trundled along with little change for centuries, then shot through the roof in the 20th century, like the blade of an ice-hockey stick. I had become somewhat of a sceptic about the science of climate change, but here was emphatic proof that the world was much warmer today; and warming much faster than at any time in a thousand years. I resolved to shed my doubts. I assumed that since it had been published in Nature—the Canterbury Cathedral of scientific literature—it was true.
I was not the only one who was impressed. The graph appeared six times in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s third report in 2001. It was on display as a backdrop at the press conference to launch that report. James Lovelock pinned it to his wall. Al Gore used it in his film (though describing it as something else and with the Y axis upside down). Its author shot to scientific stardom. “It is hard to overestimate how influential this study has been,” said the BBC. The hockey stick is to global warming what St Paul was to Christianity.
The rest of the review is here.
Most tasty quote (my emphasis):
Well, it happens. People make mistakes in science. Corrections get made. That’s how it works, is it not? Few papers get such scrutiny as this had. But that is an even more worrying thought: how much dodgy science is being published without the benefit of an audit by Mcintyre’s ilk? As a long-time champion of science, I find the reaction of the scientific establishment more shocking than anything. The reaction was not even a shrug: it was shut-eyed denial.
As readers doubtless realize, I’ve been a bit inactive on the blog during the past week and will be inactive for a few more days.
The Prospectors and Developers Association Convention is a big deal in the world mineral exploration business. I’ll be going to it this week. It’s in Toronto every year around this time and started yesterday. Hundreds of exploration companies are in town, with presentations from all over the world. Yesterday, I chatted with a company with a gold prospect in Yakutia (Indigirka River), a district that we know from tree ring proxies.
I’ve been doing some mining business in the past few weeks and it’s taken time. I’ll likely do more this year for a variety of obvious reasons. One gold project, one zinc project. While gold mines are not exactly ground zero of climate change controversy, the Associated Press has observed in this connection that mining companies produce carbon dioxide. This characteristic of mining companies doesn’t seem particularly unique since even climate change research institutions produce carbon dioxide, but the AP seemed to think that it was worth reporting. Mining companies also produce the various materials that are required to transition to things like electric cars, solar panels, windmills, etc. (Some companies were promoting rare earth deposits, saying that every windmill uses a lot of rare earth in the windmill rotor.)
I’m also making a presentation on Climategate on Wednesday at Trinity College, University of Toronto. I’m speaking for about 20 minutes and having trouble deciding what to cover in 20 minutes.
From an emailed PRESS RELEASE on March 5, 2010
Climate scientist delivers false statement in parliament enquiry
It has come to our attention, that last Monday (March 1), Dr. Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU), in a hearing with the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee made a statement in regards to the alleged non-availability for disclosure of Swedish climate data.
Try here- http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=5979. I got wrongfooted as I couldn’t get the other feeds.
Archived
Start at 4 pm (11 am Eastern). Andrew Montfod (Bishop Hill) has article at Channel Four here with Channel Four feed apparently starting at 11 am Eastern here
BBC feed here.
UPDATE:
Archived feed http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=5979
Report http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387/387i.pdf
Evidence http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387/387ii.pdf
Climate Audit 
Opening Night Reviews in the UK Press
Richard Drake sent in an interesting selection of opening night reviews for the Parliamentary Inquiry from UK parliamentary reporters, most of whom seem to be new to the climate wars and offering a relatively fresh perspective. Here are some excerpts as a teaser – the originals are accessible and recommended.
Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail:
Simon Carr in The Independent:
Simon Hoggart in The Guardian:
Andrew Gimson in the Daily Telegraph:
Anne Treneman in The Times: