Anthony Watts reports that Obama’s visit to the UK produced a joint statement, released in a White house memo.  The whole thing makes interesting reading, and can be seen here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/27/interesting-memo-from-the-white-house-on-science-and-climate-collaboration-with-the-uk/

The memo states that “Recognizing the great potential for productive cooperation in these domains, the Prime Minister and President reaffirmed during the State visit their mutual commitment to strong collaboration in science and higher education”.

It notes specific examples of existing cooperation in those fields.  At the end, there is this statement:  ”They emphasized the importance of data sharing and open science data policies that support climate research and modelling”.

The trouble is, their own warmist poster boys on both sides of the Atlantic strongly disagree.  The British Royal Society honcho, Paul Nurse, must be very angry with them.  He claims that requests for data amount to intimidation, and even claims that people request information from scientists prior to publication of their findings.  He doesn’t say how people know what to ask for before the scientist publishes – I guess the malicious data requesters must be psychic:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/26/nursing-their-wounds-with-salt/

It is possible that data sharing and open science data policies are the last thing he wants to see, and his outburst is simply an attack on those who want data transparency, i.e. those who want scientists to follow the principles of science.

On the US side of the Atlantic, a court battle over the FOI request for the release of Michael Mann’s work-related emails has raged for some time.  The University of Virginia first claimed they had deleted the emails.  After investigation proved that the emails had not been deleted, they then argued that they should be kept confidential in the name of Academic Freedom.  Finally, a court has ordered that the emails must be released:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/05/freedom-information-trumps-academic-freedom

The leaders of the UK and the US both create policies reflecting the views of the AGW-promoting scientists.  The same scientists who refuse to share their working data and working correspondence.  The same “scientists” who do not want their findings scientifically tested.  If the leaders really believe their call for data sharing and open science, they should be taking steps to ensure that scientists comply with the call.

Those arguing for action against the perceived threat they call variously Catastrophic Anthropgenic Global Warming, Climate Change, Climate Disruption or whatever new name they can come up with to try to keep it alive have long relied on the argument that there is overwhelming scientific consensus about it and the “the science is settled”.

In another blog I have argued that consensus has no bearing on scientific accuracy, and that no science is ever settled.  AGW believers say that is nonsense.

Well, it now seems there is scientific consensus that AGW is incorrect, unscientific, fraudulent, and on the data available so far, most probably plain wrong:

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/9035/SPECIAL-REPORT-More-Than-1000-International-Scientists-Dissent-Over-ManMade-Global-Warming-Claims–Challenge-UN-IPCC–Gore (Hat tip to Joe Bastardi through one of his tweets).

In the face of this, look out for AGW supporters declaiming that consensus has no bearing on accuracy…

On March 14 2010, Sciam (Scientific American) tweeted a report called “Climate Change – State of the Birds 2010 Report”.  A link is in the Reference section at the end of this post.

My wife and I are a lifelong conservationists with a special place in our hearts for birds.  In our home country, New Zealand, we gardened organically, without pesticides or artificial fertilisers, and planted native trees in the garden of every house we have owned, to attract, feed and encourage the NZ and exotic birds back into our lives.  People change landscapes, and we feel strongly that we should provide the means for the native wildlife to survive those changes.  So we do just that, and are rewarded by the tuis, wood pigeons, fantails, wax-eyes, goldfinches, starlings, sparrows and other birds that swarm in our garden.  They are so comfortable with us that they pick for food at our feet when we sit on the garden deck.  They will do so again when we return.

Here during our sojourn in the Netherlands, our greatest delight is the splendid variety of birds that grace the trees in our tiny lane in Haarlem, and fill the polders, reserves and wetlands.  We put out seeds, nuts, fat balls and insect blocks this winter, because it has been the harshest for forty years.  No doubt we have assisted the great tits, blue tits, jays, tree-creepers and robins that are outside the window, ten feet from me, right now.  And now that spring quickens the trees and the temperature is finally back above zero, we shall once more roam the cycle lanes in the reserves, among the swans, ducks, herons and magpies.

So how does a Grumpy Old Conservationist react to the report?  By grumping – it is shameless advocacy.  A load of self-serving twaddle riding the coat-tails of the highly exaggerated predictions of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming.  Prediction after prediction in the IPCC report is being exposed as nonsense.  Himalayan glaciers, African crop yields, Amazon rain-forest health are three examples.  These are not small errors – they are critical for the IPCC’s advocacy.  It will not be long before their predicted six-degree Celsius global temperature rise for the twenty-first century is similarly nailed, and nailed conclusively.  Already, scientific analyses of the various bases on which that prediction was based are showing them to be doubtful at best, and suggest that some of them have been shamelessly manipulated.  The leaked emails of the Climategate incident add weight to that suggestion.

Audubon and the other conservation agencies have done a great conservation job of maintaining, recovering and protecting wildlife populations, and will continue to do so.  It is important work, mitigating the environmental consequences of the actions of humankind.  It enriches all of life.  They should keep it up.

It saddens me to see that work, and the agencies who perform it, hooked up in the advocacy of the AGW group.  The predictions of the AGW camp will be shown to be about as accurate as the Jehovah’s Witnesses predictions of the end of the world in 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994.  IPCC and all of those who have promoted AGW will be utterly discredited.  An angry world may well discredit all conservationist groups along with them.

That would be a very great shame.

References:

2010 State of the Birds:  http://www.stateofthebirds.org/habitats

Postscript: Scientific American is diminished.  It used to be great magazine that reported science.  Now it is an avenue for advocacy.

In the wake of “”Climategate”, a British House of Commons panel has held an enquiry into the CRU unit.  Right there before the eyes of the world, they heard what Dr Phil Jones had to say:

• “I have obviously written some very awful e-mails.”
• “I don’t think anything in those e-mails supports any view that I’m trying to, or CRU has been trying to, pervert the peer review process in any way.”
• CRU’s practice, he said, was to release “gridded data” (raw information that had been processed for analysis).
• CRU withheld raw data in part because “most scientists don’t want to deal with raw station data, they want to deal with the derived product.”

Jones is the man at the very centre of Climategate – the man whose emails caused the fuss.  The man who sent an email urging all other associated climate scientists to destroy their data.  The man who, in an email to McIntyre, asked why he should provide data, when McIntyre would try to find something wrong with it.  The man who withheld data from McIntyre on the grounds of confidentiality while at the same time supplying the requested data to a scientist who supports AGW.

After his refreshing honesty in the interview with the BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin, I felt some sympathy for Dr Jones, and said so, in an earlier blog entry.  But Jones has now lost that sympathy.  His answers at the parliamentary enquiry show that he has reverted to obfuscation.  Destroying data perverts the peer review process because it prevents other scientists from testing scientific conclusions. – Jones knows that.  Withholding raw data when it is requested by another scientists cannot be justified on the grounds that most others ask for the derived product -  Jones knows that.  All scientists, when reviewing the work of other scientists, try to find something wrong with it – that’s the scientific method, and Jones knows that, too.

But Jones was not the only witness at the enquiry to apply spin.

UK chief scientific adviser John Beddington said: “I think the general issue that global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activities is also correct.  I think this is unchallenged.”

Julia Slingo, head of the Met Office, said: “We know that (climate change) is unequivocal and that as the IPCC report said, over 90 percent, it’s very likely due to human activities.”  She said that the uncertainty is in projections of future warming, not in the cause.  She at least is right about the uncertainty of the projections.

The cause also is uncertain.  That climate change is caused by human activities is certainly challenged by scientists – by Lindzen, Watts, McIntyre, Woon, and others.  The data gathered so far do not show with any degree of certainty that human activities cause global warming, or that the warming is catastrophic.  We do not know that human activities cause global warming – that is no more than theory.

The parliamentary enquiry and more importantly, Joe Public the voter represented by parliament, deserve rather more than spin and red herrings.  Science itself demands more than that.

References:

NY Times Article on UK Enquiry: http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/03/02/02climatewire-climategate-scientist-admits-awful-e-mails-b-66224.html?pagewanted=1

BBC Interview with Phil Jones: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

Anthony Watt’s blog Watt’s Up With That featured a guest post by Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, on 24 February 2010.  A link is in the references section at the end.

Phil Jones is director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA).  The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin interviewed Professor Jones recently.  Professor Jones’ answers to the first two questions reveal that there is nothing unusual about the rate of warming in the twentieth century.  They also reveal strength of character.

Here’s the question about latest rates of warming compared with other known rates:

Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

Here is Phil Jones’ answer:

The warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

Here are the trends and significances for each period:

.

Here’s the question about global temperature change since 1995:

Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?

Here is Phil Jones’ answer:

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.

Jones is obviously uncomfortable about the implications of the questions (“Yes (I agree), but only just..”).  But he has the integrity to answer truthfully, knowing that the answers cast yet more doubt on the AGW cause, and especially on the IPCC, the CRU and the other organisations that promote AGW.

Because the first proves that there is nothing unusual about the rates of warming we have observed, even though there are now much higher levels of atmospheric CO2 that there were in 1880.  And the second confirms what skeptics have been saying for years – there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.  This is in spite of increased atmospheric CO2, and contrary to the exaggerated, repeated claims of accelerated global warming by NASA, the CRU and the IPCC.  So much for the need for urgent action.  We do have time to investigate properly the climatic effects of CO2, methane and whatever other demons are conjured up.

Now, if we could show that the Medieval Warm Period was as warm or warmer than present-day temperatures, and that it was global in extent, we could finally establish that the present global temperature is nothing out of the ordinary.  And that would mean that there is no need for any action at all – at least, not in respect of climate change.  Refreshingly, Phil Jones does not deny the MWP, and is aware of its impact on the debate.  See “References” section below for another blog on Phil Jones answers to the MWP question in the same interview, and how we can test the its extent and temperature during that period.

There are other real environmental issues with which we should deal, and other concerns about depending on diminishing commodities for our energy.  We don’t need global warming baloney to help us recognise those real issues – on the contrary, all the AGW noise has obscured them.

References:

Phil Jones on the MWP: http://www.herkinderkin.com/2010/02/phil-jones-on-the-medieval-warm-period/

BBC Interview with Phil Jones: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

My word, there are so many reports of “errors” and “omissions” in calculation of global temperature data, or in official reports of the supposedly catastrophic consequences of global warming (sorry, climate change).   Naturally every public announcement by the IPCC reiterates that their science is sound, and that “this isolated incident”  in no way invalidates their main message that we must all take urgent action (and pay big money) to avert Armageddon.  The same line is taken by the politicians who are counting on our meek acceptance of our collective guilt (and the taxes they shall levy as penance).

But worse than that, almost all of the supposedly impartial mainstream media follow the same route.  Their reports usually end with prominent attention to a disclaimer.  Methinks they protest too much.

Here’s but one example, from “The Guardian”.  Reading this, one can almost hear old Bing Crosby accentuating the positive:

“This dramatic revision of the estimated impact of urbanization on temperatures in China does not change the global picture of temperature trends.” (Source: Fred Pearce, published on guardian.co.uk at 21.00 GMT on Monday 1 February 2010.

Oh, good grief!  Of course an analysis revealing a cover-up in one area of a report does not invalidate other areas of the report.  Not scientifically at any rate.  But it is yet another instance of incorrect official information from the climate change experts.  Phil Jones, with assistance from a Chinese colleague, had asserted that the Urban Heat Island effect on reported temperature rise in China is “an order of magnitude” less than other factors.  And that was a key finding of the IPCC 2007 report.  That’s right – information published by the IPCC and used to influence leaders.  And which Jones himself changed as quietly as possible in 2008, hoping nobody would notice.  Changed, that is, from “an order of magnitude less” to “at least 40%”!

Here are some other instances:

• Himalayan glaciers to disappear by 2035 – a key finding in the IPCC 2007 report, since vigorously defended by the head of the IPCC and then retracted with an assurance that it is “an isolated failure”.
• Distortions of records and concealment of sources by Mann, Hansen, Briffa, NASA, GISS and the IPCC
• email-documented collusion between the major players to continue their concealment of their sources
• Continuous attacks on the motives of sceptics (funny, real science thrives on scepticism).  Climate change scientists cast sceptics as the enemy and hence attempt to justify keeping them in the dark.

Now, can you still hear Bing Crosby?  I can’t.  I hear Monty Python’s “Bright Side”, with Penn & Teller in the chorus.

In isolation, each instance is bad.  Put them together and they demonstrate that we should view all communications from these parties with suspicion.  They have relinquished any authority in this field.  Their calls for urgent action are beginning to sound very hollow.

So here’s a Grumpy Old Man’s call for action.  I call for assessment and formal review of the men and the institutions they serve, their research and conclusions, and all the reports they have produced.  By scientific enquiry, as soon as possible.  The terms of reference must be defined by scientific institutions, and the panel that defines them must exclude all politicians, all academic or other bodies connected with the the IPCC, NASA, NOAA or any affiliated group, and in particular, all organisations whose charters involve climate change.  The enquirers themselves would have to be similarly uncontaminated.

I do not need to call for prosecutions.  Given the likely outcome of a scientific enquiry as defined above, they would follow.

The trouble with using models to prove a theory is that they can do no such thing.  The only way to assess a theory scientifically is to devise tests that the theory can fail.  If the theory fails the test, it is almost certainly wrong.  If it passes, it is still not proven absolutely – it merely means that the theory is adequate for the circumstances of the test.

The IPCC scientists employ climate models incorporating man-made CO2 emissions to predict climate changes.  Their argument is to the effect that if the predictions are approximately correct and show an expected trend when CO2 is factored in (to their models), but fail to do so when it is removed, then that “proves” the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory.  AGW theory holds that man-made CO2 causes global warming, and that it will lead to a disastrous runaway greenhouse effect.

Scientists and thinkers have always used models to illustrate their theories about the universe.  The models did not test the theories; they illustrated them.  Yet Al Gore and the IPCC insist that the computer models provide supporting evidence for AGW.  Gore goes further – he says that “the science is settled” (!) and that there is scientific consensus in favour of AGW that proves the IPCC is correct.  As Penn and Teller would say, “Poppycock!” (or some other word to that effect).

Before the sixteenth century, there was almost universal scientific consensus that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that the sun, moon and all the stars revolved around it.  Western astronomers believed it absolutely.  Their picture was the one described by Ptolemy, a brilliant Greek scientist, astronomer and mathematician, who published his work in Egypt about 150 AD.  In his model, stars were on the rim of a large outer sphere which rotated  approximately once each day.  The planets, the Sun, and the Moon each had their own, smaller sphere.  His model was unable to account for an inconvenient truth – the paths of the sun and planets were not what one would expect from them as they orbited the earth.  So he added epicycles, deferents and equants to explain the differences.  Click here for a description of the added constructs.

To put it clearly, it never occurred to him to abandon the theory.  Instead, he tweaked the model.

Craftsmen in Europe built elegant mechanical models and astronomical clocks based on the conceptual model of Ptolemy.  The model didn’t get everything right, it left a few puzzling gaps.  But using it, astronomers could make calendar and astronomical predictions that were more accurate than the present-day global temperature predictions of the IPCC computer models.  Yep, it was a pretty impressive model, supported by the consensus of all of the world’s pre-eminent scientists for over a thousand years.

And one other thing.  Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the universe was flat, plain wrong.

P.S.

The IPCC scientists create the computer climate models with AGW as a given premise.  Their choices of the factors and parameters to include in their models, and the weightings to be given to each, are a matter of scientific controversy.  And then to top it all off, the IPCC scientists themselves are the ones who choose the raw temperature data on which to base the observations, and they are also the ones who “normalise” those data.  Climategate revealed the extent to which the input data for the models have been massaged.  Even if modelling was appropriate as a test of the theory, how could we possibly have any faith in their results?

The IPCC uses proxy temperature calculations based on studies of tree rings, to provide a long-term record of global temperature changes.  And the resulting graph showed global temperatures declining since 1998.   This was the subject of the now-infamous email about “Hiding the decline” in the proxy picture of temperature global temperature changes.   They substituted selected thermometer-measured temperatures for the proxy-calculated ones from 1980 onward.   After the emails from the East Anglia University’s Climate research Unit were leaked by the hackers, their justification was that the proxy data are invalid after 1980, because of a localised drought that caused a lessening of tree growth, resulting in an artificial decline in the temperature estimates.  And of course, the substituted temperature data showed the temperatures continuing to rise.  What would Penn & Teller make of that explanation?

There’s a big, big problem with it.  Tree growth rates are influenced by temperature, availability of water and the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, among other things.  If comparisons of tree-ring proxy-calculated temperatures and measured temperatures show the former to be unreliable since 1980, does that not throw all tree-ring proxy-calculated temperatures into doubt?  Including the ones that “prove” conclusively that there was no middle-ages warm period?  How do we know how many localised droughts have occurred in the past, let alone when they occurred?  There are historical records of a sharp decline on temperature in medieval times in Europe.  There is also anthropological evidence of a marked shift in the majority of the New Zealand Maori population from the fertile South Island to the North Island, closer to the tropics, at the same time as the recorded drop in temperature in Europe.  Given that the Maori at the time wore grass skirts and did not have shoes or tailored clothing like shirts, jackets and trousers, such a move could well be explained by a drop in temperature.  Is it not possible that tree-ring proxies are inherently unreliable as a temperature record?  A record that the IPCC and all of the noisy chicken-lickens want us to believe shows conclusively that we are causing the Earth’s temperature to rise?

Bloody hell!  We all know, without needing to reference proxy records, that temperatures rose in the twentieth century, that ice-caps declined and glaciers retreated during that time.  That’s bleeding obvious!  It has happened many times before – there have been many warm periods in the history of the earth, always followed by cool periods.  We have not found any evidence that the rise in the twentieth century was caused by man, or by CO2 or methane from our livestock.  There is also no evidence that this is a disaster and that we are headed for a runaway greenhouse effect of Venusian proportions.  At various times in the glacial records, we have found evidence of much higher temperatures than we have today,  and much higher levels of CO2 than at present.  Has anybody actually noticed that the earlier occurrences did not cause runaway greenhouse effects?  Nope- what they did was fuel the carbon cycle until the next downward temperature trend.  (Venus has a runaway greenhouse effect because its solar proximity and period of rotation make it impossible for it to support a carbon cycle.  Click here for more information about Venus.)

Interestingly, glacial records show that the rises in CO2 have always followed global temperature rises, not preceded them.  They certainly do not support the hypothesis that rising CO2 levels cause temperature rise.  But they sure could support the opposite!