Tag Archives: Climategate

Phil Jones on modern Global Warming Rates

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Posted by JJ on February 14, 2010 – 4:17 pm
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Q&A Part Two: Prof. Phil Jones on Global Warming Rates

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:

Period Length Trend
(Degrees C per decade)		 Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.150 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes

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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

Accentuate the Positive?

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Posted by JJ on February 3, 2010 – 9:57 pm
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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.

Climate Models and Scientific Consensus – why they prove Nothing

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Posted by JJ on January 3, 2010 – 8:01 am
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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?