Climate Change: 1%+1

When I posted my first comment on this subject on this blog and said I was a climate change sceptic I acknowledged that it was a dangerous thing for me to do. As expected, I have come in for criticism from some of those posting comments, and from others. Much of this criticism uses the language I predicted in that post: I am described by many critics as a climate change ‘denier’. This shows the nature of the approach of much of the climate change lobby.

Firstly, they asserted that the science on this matter was settled. When a number of scientists pointed out that this was not so, they have moved onto the language of religion. Climate change for many of them has become a belief and anyone, like me, who still required proof was a denier-someone who refused to accept a belief or assertion.

I was told in a recent comment on my blog that ‘It has been agreed by 99% of climatologists that global warming is man made.’. I asked the person who posted the comment where the 99% number came from (I could equally have asked for the evidence of global warming, let alone the man made assumption) but have yet to receive a reply. Even if this were correct, which I doubt, the number of sceptics/deniers in the scientific community just gained one rather important public addition.

Last week Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) published a paper claiming to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually. The findings were reported uncritically by BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, and The Economist, and The Washington Post said the BEST study had ‘settled the climate change debate’ and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a ‘cynical fraud’.

But yesterday’s Mail on Sunday revealed that a leading member of Muller’s team - Professor Judith Curry - has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped. Curry states that the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties and now Muller has admitted that the BEST data suggested that world temperatures have not risen for about 13 years.

The full Mail on Sunday article is a must read: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html.

Others have also found misgivings in the BEST paper - http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/4230-best-confirms-global-temperature-standstill.html. “Indeed Best seems to have worked hard to obscure it. They present data covering more almost 200 years is presented with a short x-axis and a stretched y-axis to accentuate the increase. The data is then smoothed using a ten year average which is ideally suited to removing the past five years of the past decade and mix the earlier standstill years with years when there was an increase. This is an ideal formula for suppressing the past decade’s data.”

I wonder if The Washington Post stands by its editorial now? As the BEST report has shown, there is a serious debate still to be had and we should not be afraid to have it.

Comments

[Jane Doe]

It is indeed frightening how so many people I know (including qualified engineers and scientists) are utterly convinced global warming is happening, but they then freely admit to not having read any papers or even basic research on the subject. Pretty astonishing. I get the agenda of not relying on the Middle East for energy supply, which was why Thatcher set up the first UN Panel on global warming in the first place, to persuade people that nuclear was the better option. I am just amazed at how many apparently "educated" people are so violently arguing about something they have not even bothered to research.

[Peter Smart]

Whatever the truth about climate change and its causes, is it not sensible for an earth of finite natural resources be used frugally with minimal wastage to ensure that the resources are available for this and future generations of man and nature.

[Alan Butterworth]

My impression is that among the man in the street far more people are sceptics than supporters of the man-made climate change lobby. The climate change zealots are making their living out of it and have a vested interest strengthened by groupthink. They are supported by governments for whom it is another way to keep the populace in a state of fear and an excuse to levy more taxes. Of course we should look for more ways to reduce dependence on fossil fuels - they are a finite resource - but we should do away with the hysteria.

[Terry Smith]

To Peter

Resource depletion is however a completely separate subject to global warming or climate change. In my view, we are unlikely to get the right solutions to the issues involved in resource depletion by pretending that there is any need for a debate about supposed climate change or its causes or by scientists misrepresenting the data.

[Duncan]

It's interesting that you point to an article by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), an organisation that receives most of its income (£494k out of £503k total income) from donations yet is unwilling to reveal who its donors are. You don't seem to apply the same 'scepticism' to GWPF that you apply to BEST.

[Superplonk]

Terry, you have such an excellent reputation from your day job I don't see why you endanger it by commenting on this other topic. I very much hope that you are able to exert influence on politicians and business leaders in the economic sphere, but I suspect that they will have less patience with your views if they see you commenting where you are not qualified. (Of course they will do the same, but that's not my point.)Thanks for your finance posts.

[Terry Smith]

To Superplonk

How does being sceptical about climate change endanger my main occupation? Is it not possible to survive the heresy of asking for the climate change lobby to display a little integrity? Why do I 'risk the day job'? Because I take the view that life is not a dress rehearsal and we should all seek to right wrongs whether they are in our main area of expertise or not.

[Terry Smith]

To Duncan

How does this alter the facts about what BEST has done? And it seems to me that the main criticism of BEST's actions has come from Professor Curry of err....BEST.

[Jon unia]

To coninue my comments. The data Curry choices to attack the findings are also suspect

So what happened with the April and May 2010 data?  While the March 2010 anomaly was based on 14,488 stations, April and May were based on only 47 stations, all in the Antarctic.  In other words, April and May 2010 should be excluded from BEST data analysis because they are incomplete.

[Jon unia]

Curry herself admits she has not analyzed the data.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/20/berkeley-surface-temperatures-released/
If you look at the data yourself you will see her conclusions do not stand up..
You are an intelligent man..I think you are a sceptic who has not look at all evidence rather than a "denier"- mainly people in the States who want to deny evidence of evolution, and many other things in addition to the increases in global temperatures. Please look at all the evidence not just what you want to see. We need people like you ctiticing the stupid subsidies to the wrong projects and analyzing the best way way to deal with the real issue.
Perhaps you should read a full refutation.
http://planetsave.com/2011/10/31/curry-lost-in-denial-global-warming-still-more-snow/

[Andrew]

Antarctic sea ice has grown since the 1970's. In the northern Hemisphere it probably has got warmer since 1850 but then it probably got colder up to 1850. Pretty clearly this years Canadian north western passage was unusually clear of ice. I live however in Finland where we just had two unusually cold winters. We also got humungous amounts of snow - most since 1960 in Helsinki. More snow could be attributable to global warming but in recent years there has hardly been any snow or long periods of cold in Helsinki and the last two years were pretty solid periods of very cold and large amounts of snow. Strangely though the last two summers have also been unusually warm. I conclude therefore that climate changes, and is not easily predicted with such small amounts of satellite data, but my real worry is that the recent exstremely cold Finnish winters continue. As far as i can see there has been a warming and cooling cycle of about 25 to 30 years for the last 100 years or so. So cooling now for a few decades could be quite likely even if the Earth is warming up over longer time periods.

[Ross Parker]

Terry - If you have not already seen it, I think you might enjoy the transcript of Matt Ridley's recent talk to the RSA, which you can find at this address: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/1/scientific-heresy.html . I am surprised he was not ejected from the RSA for having such views, but clearly there is some hope for the world.

[Lawrence]

Been following Piers Corbyn on WeatherAction for the last couple of years & he seems to fly in the face of these religious climate types on C02 basically stating that it is the sun that controlls the weather full stop.
He appears to have been spot on with his forcasts to the point that the bookies stopped taking his bets .... & they're usually never wrong :)
Don't know if this is true... heard it on YouTube some time back..
It could be that C02 is the 'New Tax' Govts have been looking for and its a bute !