climate science
stoat | May 21, 2014 Words carefully chosen, as you'll discover. The back story: Lennart Bengtsson has a paper rejected by ERL0 because, amongst other failings, the "overall innovation of the manuscript is very low". In a huff, he joins the GWPF1, which is much trumpeted by the Dork Side. His colleagues point out this is a mistake, and he changes his mind, but blames his colleagues for his error2. LB then leaks a deliberately partial version of his rejection letter to the Times, in order to make it look like he's being repressed3. Not everyone was terribly impressed4. [Update: see also Lacis.]
Aanyway, it was…
Atmospheric Layers, The Biosphere, The Boundary Layer, Microclimate and Inadequate Tim Ball thinking
stoat | May 19, 2014I was - I still am - going to write a post about my recent adventures in "skeptic" land, but I've got distracted by Atmospheric Layers, The Biosphere, The Boundary Layer, Microclimate and Inadequate IPCC Models which is comically incompetent. To a degree that I found hard to believe. There's an open goal there waiting for shots, yet Tim Ball hits every one wide. Lets go: (oh, but don't miss the update at the end)
Milankovitch Effect
TB begins by complaining
During a university presentation I said the climate models do not include the Milankovitch Effect... My mistake was I forgot to say I was…
stoat | May 19, 2014But its topical! We have the bizarre and deeply stupid ruling from the EU re the "right to vanish". But wikipedia has a quasi "right to vanish" too. People use it to sweep their embarrassing past under the carpet. Which brings me to:
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Thegoodlocust.
Ho ho.
Update:
(User rename log); 07:40:16 . . Nihonjoe (talk | contribs) renamed user Thegoodlocust (2640 edits) to Vanished user oerjio4kdm3 (courtesy vanishing)
(Move log); 07:40:16 . . Nihonjoe (talk | contribs) moved page User talk:Thegoodlocust to User talk:Vanished user oerjio4kdm3 without leaving a redirect…
stoat | May 18, 2014It is May, when an old man's thoughts turn to bees. There's been a certain amount of swarm-catching but nothing too exciting. I thought I'd write down where I'm up to, for future reference and perhaps as some light relief from the silliness.
Lesson number one, of course, is that if your hive has a pitched roof you need to make sure that the wire mesh covering the ventilation holes hasn't got eaten away by time. Or this may happen.
The bizarre roof-garden effect is mostly a bird's nest, and either the moss has survived and thrived or the bird got carried away. If you can't cope with tragedy,…
stoat | May 14, 2014 So says the Onion, Germany's finest news source.
This has so many shades of "Chinese academy endorses NIPCC report". The back story: Lennart Bengtsson, sounding somewhere between very naive and emeritus, joins the GWPF, talking the usual nonsense (I believe most serious scientists are sceptics) indicating that either he really doesn't know what's going on, or is deliberately obfusticating. Now, it seems, his various respectable colleagues have pointed out his silliness to him. So he's ditching the GWPF, because he doesn't want to be an outcast. But he hasn't got the grace to admit the foul-…
stoat | May 11, 2014My opinion on the Global Climate Model clique feedback loop was requested by not one but two people, and how could I resist?
The text starts well, by assuring readers of the most important point, which is you don’t know enough to intelligently comment on the code itself which is true, certainly for readers of WUWT, and quite likely for many of my readers too. But already at that point its gone wrong by assuring readers this is because they need to know about computational fluid dynamics and some other stuff. This is about the most common mistake people make about GCMs. Of course they do have…
stoat | May 11, 2014Richard Tol and the 97% consensus – again! Need I say more?
OTOH, he isn't a bozo. [Update: still sane, still a bit of a twat; heading downhill.]
Refs
* Richard Tol is being oppressed!
* Big City Lib on the GWPF (P3) and BCL himself
* The necessity of TOBS - Moyhu
* Flurry Of Scientists, Recent Peer-Reviewed Papers, Warning Of Approaching Little Ice Age - NTZ
* Tol creates new IPCC wiki – anyone can take part
* Richard Tol Stakes Himself on a Hill, Ethon Takes a Nibble - Eli, of course.
* Richard Tol Versus Richard Tol On The 97% Scientific Consensus - at Real Sceptic.
* “Gremlins” caused…
stoat | May 9, 2014It's good to see australiansforcoal.com.au (h/t: MH) because it means they're worried. If it didn't exist, it would mean they didn't feel under threat, much in the same way that the dork side fear wiki. Its also nice that they carefully avoid mentioning climate, or global warming, because again it means they're afraid: they have no arguments to support themselves in that area - obviously they could trot out the usual wacko nonsense, but presumably they feel just keeping quiet is a better idea.
While they don't mention GW, they do mention CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage), in their "suggested…
stoat | May 7, 2014
I don't have anything particularly sensible to say about the Ukraine for the moment, but I like this cartoon (I had thought I was intending to print my wise words every three weeks or so, but I see my previous posts were months apart and ago. Time flies). The Russian bear under the tablecloth is nice, as is the image of Putin as fundamentally non-serious, which I think he is. He clearly aspires to be some great statesman but has not a clue how to behave other than as a gangster. There's a faintly amusing aspect of all this, in the sanctions regime: its possible to imagine that one thing…
stoat | April 30, 2014The denialists don't like wiki, because it reflects the current understanding of global warming. And so they need to construct elaborate fantasies about why it doesn't say what they want it to say. Of course, just like everyone else, whether they whinge about it or not, they use it, because its useful and accurate. So far, nothing new.
But its nice to know, every now and again, that the nutters are attacking it, because if they weren't, something would be wrong. In this case, the trigger appears to be some other nutters attacking it. And the trigger for the trigger appears to be some…
stoat | April 25, 2014 Over at WUWT, AW wondered Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance? To me, that looked like a fairly crude attempt to monetise WUWT and provide some kind of career path for himself. But, it would be a big step, and risk humiliating failure. So he vacillated and started a poll. He doesn't know his own mind, perhaps someone else does.
The results are now in and they present a quandry: there's a clear majority of votes in favour, but a clear majority of those who could actually be…
stoat | April 17, 2014 My previous post Policy? trailed off in the comments in a variety of odd directions, as long comment threads are wont to. So I'll offer you this quote:
For there are some people on the left who keep insisting that economic growth is incompatible with reduced emissions, and that therefore we have to turn our backs on growth. Such people have no power, and therefore don’t do any real harm. Still, it’s worth pointing out that they have a much too narrow notion of what it means to have a growing economy. It doesn’t necessarily mean more stuff! It could be better stuff, or more services — and…
stoat | April 8, 2014 ATTP has a post discussing Mapping the sceptical blogosphere (which I'm sure I read (the paper, I mean) and had the same reaction: "whaat? You mean they're taking these jokers seriously?" But I don't seem to have written it down anywhere). Anyway, ATTP then asks, of the septics:
So, why do these sites focus on the science (which isn’t really up for debate) and not on policy (which – in my view – is up for debate)? Is it because if one broadly accepts the science, it means that we should be taking some of the more unpalatable policy options more seriously?
Its a good question, which has been…
stoat | April 4, 2014 The second Ukraine post, a follow-up to the brilliantly prescient Ukraine: Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation wherein I said:
Miriam says Yes: she thinks “Russian armed forces, on Ukrainian soil, within two weeks” (she declined to say “tanks over the border”, though I think that’s the only way they can do it, if they want to). I say No. perhaps more in hope than in judgement, but my reasoning would be: this is all unexpected. No-one is in place to react quickly. Invading... is very risky, and could go terribly wrong for Putin. Whereas doing nothing except fomenting a…
stoat | April 2, 2014I don't appear to have mocked the NIPCC recently, preferring to consign them to oblivion, but JoNova is somewhat implausibly singing their virtues, so I've noticed. If you read the report you'll see that its prefixed by recommendations from the Great and the Good; and they've been fortunate enough to squeeze in praise from that luminary Jeevananda Reddy, from which I think it is fair to deduce that they were not at all short of Great or Good to fill out their puff list. Google trends is still instructive:
Stoats are still wiping the floor with the NIPCC.
But if you do - like almost no-one…
stoat | March 31, 2014Or so says Auntie, reporting well-known climatologist John Kerry. In fact, I have a guilty secret that I will share with you: I faked this screenshot. But only a bit. Here's the original. My monkey, whilst faked in, is every bit as valid as their monkey. Its from the Rare Animals feed on facebook, which I recommend.
I have another secret I'll share with you: I haven't read the report. Not only that, I haven't really read other people reading the report. But what I was interested in, at least somewhat, was the general tenor of reactions. So the Beeb has Viewpoints: Reactions to UN climate…
stoat | March 26, 2014 From QJRMS (paywalled), in which the Director & the Chief Computer of the British Rainfall Organization discussed the then-recent wet winter of 1914-5:
The year 1903 saw the general adoption of wireless telegraphy, and an anxious public seized upon this as the cause of the great rainfall of that year. But the fact that 1872 and 1853 were equally wet, if not wetter, without the aid of Hertzien waves, and that no year since 1903 has been nearly so wet in spite of the enormous increase of radio-telegraphy, shows the fallacy of the inference
An explanation which has been most readily…
stoat | March 24, 2014 Carbon bubble, it am all de rage. The latest is from Blue and Green Tomorrow. Who say:
Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has warned that its profits are likely to be affected by international efforts to curb climate change, as campaigners say investors should steer clear of fossil fuel stocks. In its annual and strategic report for 2013, Shell says that increasing concern over climate change will lead to new regulations that will hit the company’s production profitability and delay some of its projects.
Well if even Shell are saying that, it must be true, no? It would be if they were, but they…
stoat | March 24, 2014At pattern-recognition-in-physics.com/
There's an editorial which at the end notes The journal will initially be run on private founding, later to be transformed to a permanent publishing house. Or, put another way, currently its a blog, but if they can fool anyone into taking it on, they will.
The editorial also announces the happy re-opening of the journal under a new management. New management? Well the new editorial board is here, and the old (via wayback machine) is here. The new board is definitely slimmed down. Its:
Editor In Chief: - Sid-Ali OUADFEUL
Co-Editor In Chief:- Nils-Axel…
stoat | March 23, 2014I have far too many "interesting" things queued up in feedly, so its time for a dump.
Controversial paper linking conspiracy ideation to climate change skepticism formally retracted. mt is fiercer: Journal’s Mealy-Mouthed Retraction of Lewandowsky Paper. I wasn't terribly keen on the paper myself, though I avoided commenting, but I agree with SL's "the article is fine but Frontiers does not want to take the legal risk" and that this is rubbish on Frontiers' part. See-also Sou.
[Update: the shows goes on: Climate of intimidation: "Frontiers" blunder on "Recursive Fury": Ugo Bardi resigns from…