climate people

Tim Ball: turned out NN again

stoat — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 18:39:17 +0000

Tim Ball: turned out NN again

Those with long memories for trivia will remember the unlamented second deletion of Tim Ball, judged non-notable by wikipedia - ah, the shame of it. Now he's been awarded the ultimate accolade of being deleted a third time - you don't get much less notable than that.

I've taken an archive of the discussion page of the "deleted" page (technically its not deleted but moved page Timothy Ball to User:Jinkinson/Timothy Ball over a redirect without leaving a redirect (Userfying per result of previous DRV), so its now at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jinkinson/Timothy Ball. But as far as mainspace is concerned the result is the same: he's not there) here, because its likely that the userified page will be deleted in time. Here you'll find the admin who deleted the page explaining why: in essence, nothing has changed since he was deleted last time.

For those who don't know the minutiae of wiki but are desperate to learn: its fairly common for pages to be "deleted", but moved into the userspace of anyone who wants them, so that they can be worked on in decent obscurity. The user gets a reasonable period of time to work the page up, but if the admins think you're just taking this piss and are leaving the page as a sort-of poor substitute of a mainspace page (as Lucy Skywalker did for the equally unlamented Leroux) your userspace copy gets rubbed out too.

Possibly interestingly, the major reason given for re-creating the Ball article was:

while Ball is not notable as an academic, he is notable for other stuff, such as claiming to be the first Canadian to get a PhD in climatology and to have been a professor of climatology (neither of which are true)

That wasn't terribly convincing. Other arguments also failed: The raison d'être for this BLP is that Ball is a notable climate skeptic was met by Well, no. This article was twice deleted (here and here) precisely because Ball is not a notable climate skeptic.

[Update: (Protection log); 23:29:11 . . NuclearWarfare (talk | contribs) protected Timothy Ball [create=sysop] (indefinite) (Any admin can override once they are satisfied this meets the conditions laid out at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 January 3)]

stoat Wed, 01/29/2014 - 13:39

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climate people

Does being regularly written about on Stoat make someone more notable for Wikipedia?

[Debatable. Wiki is fairly fierce about BLP: indeed, many of the concerns for delete were not anti-Ball, they were "but we don't have reputable sources to describe this guy" [e.g. this]. Blogs, in general, aren't reputable sources. Blogs by subject experts are, but only on their subject. So were I to talk about Ball's climate work, that might possibly be usable; but even that is doubtful. Were a historian of science to blog about him, that probably would be usable -W]

I seem to recall that YOU were instrumental in attacking Ball, and you were mentioned extensively in the (Canadian) National Post for rabidly editing Sceptical journalists so much you were dropped from Wikipedia.
You are truly a vision of "Warmist" Extremism

[You're very vague. By contrast, I've provided detailed refs.Let me help you:

* I didn't contribute at all to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tim_Ball
* I proposed Timothy Ball for deletion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Timothy_B… But you're wrong to label it an "attack": I merely suggested that he wasn't notable. The result of that was summarised by the closing admin as

No one was able to refute well enough Guettarda's argument about Ball not being notable as a professor. The vast majority of the keep arguments were extremely weak, mentioning sources that provide little information that could be used to write a sufficient biography. The fact that he is a professor who has won several teaching awards is not sufficient to make someone notable. Mentions of him in US Senate Committee reports are not by any means an indicator of notability. Detailed posts about him in the blogosphere, while they indicate that he is a person of an interest, cannot be used as a marker of notability. Neither can the fact that Ball has presented denialist lectures in the past; we simply don't count that as a measure of notability.

Obviously, you don't agree with that - because Ball is a "skeptic" and so are you, so you "know" he must be notable, and anyone who disagrees with you must be attacking him - but you'll need some kind of coherent argument, rather than mere assertion, if you want to convince people you're right -W]

Apparently, he was very good in 'Hairspray', and who can forget his performance in the 1966 World Cup?

Er..

Old and busted: "famous for being famous". New hotness: "notable for repeatedly being non-notable".

I guess it's the logical next step!

Although not the Wikipedia maven of Stoat level, I'd certainly agree that he is not notable. But I solicit an opinion:
TIm Ball has been sued for defamation, separately by Andrew Weaver (here) and Michael Mann, here, including Slayer chief John O'Sullivan...

These things take years, and the last I noticed was this comment. in March 2013.

Now, the question: could Ball become notable depending on the outcomes of these two cases? At one extreme, he could win both, i.e., get cases dismissed, which would certainly be trumpeted in some quarters. At the other extreme, he could lose both hard, with court rulings that provide good quotes. That would likely get much press in other quarters, as well as some in the earlier group bemoaning judicial travesties, conspiracies, etc.

Anyway, in WIki-land, do such things rise to notability?

[The sueing would be notable to add to an otherwise viable biography. They would also "raise" the notability level of a person - they are, after all, well-sourced events. Sometimes though a person can remain non-notable even though an event in their lives gets its own article (sadly I don't have a good example to hand) -W]

Forgive my ignorance, but what does the abbreviation BLP mean?

[WP:BLP is the "Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons" policy. It can get a bit silly -W]

Thank you Doctor Connolley.

Now, the question: could Ball become notable depending on the outcomes of these two cases?

Let us hope he and fellow Canadian Mark Steyn continue to enjoy the pleasures of relative obscurity.

I was deleted for being too obscure as well. I didn't even know I had a page. I was one of the inventors of a sub-genra of juggling.
If Ball gets a page, I am going to insist that mine be re-instated

Looks like it's back in article space, William.

[Yeeees. With, as far as I can see, no discussion. You just moved it. There's absolutely nothing on the article talk page explaining what went on -W]

But it's been nominated for deletion, again, so perhaps you will have your way and it will be deleted again. I doubt it, though, since I have provided so many reliable sources that weren't there before.

[You thought the previous version had adequate sources; you were wrong. You have the company and support of Yopienso. With friends like that, who needs...? -W]

Another one bites the dust

stoat — Sat, 04 Jan 2014 18:03:49 +0000

Another one bites the dust

After tthe sad fate of Dr* Bob, it would seem that now Lindzen is officially Emeritus. But remember folks, I was there first.

I'm curious as to when this happened. Cato claimed him in August 2013 - perhaps then? No, it was earlier: May 2013. If you look at his wiki page you won't find the E-word anywhere. Perhaps someone should update it?

The article I started with invites you to meet Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT but this is clearly wrong: he's no longer a prof at MIT, he's an E-prof. So he can't be the APS prof. He could be the APS E-prof, but he isn't. Cato gets it right: Emeritus Professor of Meteorology at MIT, where he was the Alfred P. Sloan Professor.

From the article we find stuff like Lindzen has made the strange journey from being a pioneer in his field and eventual IPCC coauthor to an outlier in the discipline but that's not really true. L did a few big things related to atmospheric dynamics: atmospheric tides, QBO - read his wiki page for details - this was all great work, no doubt about it. But after, say, 1972 he's done very little. And the early work, sort-of, was a bit dead-endish. Atmospheric tides: great. But it doesn't lead anywhere. Gravity waves feeding QBO was good, and gravity waves are certainly relevant to present-day GCMs and climate work, and QBO is still an active area, but L's stuff was all a bit to one side; calling him a pioneer is odd; he's been off-mainstream for 40 or more years (also the article's description of his involvement with the IPCC is deceptive; it suggests more involvement than occurred). In fact, as he pretty well says in the article, L is more of a dynamic meteorologist than a climatologist; insofar as those distinctions mean much.

stoat Sat, 01/04/2014 - 13:03

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This, along with the demise of “Dr” Bob, confirms a pet theory of mine that AGW scepticism will die of natural causes in about 20 years time. I first became aware of this following one of those open letters to a newspaper, so beloved of sceptics (it saves them the bother of doing any research after all). After checking the biographies of the 16 signatories, I reckoned that, as far as I could tell, their average age was well over 70 and that it’s fairly likely that in 20 years time, Nir Shaviv will be writing to the Wall Street Journal on his own.

[20 years is a a long time. I expect the implosion much earlier. The level of anti-science and introspection at WUWT etc can't go much higher, but nor can it stay still -W]

So we can change the old comment about opposition to new scientific theories being about the social knowledge and perception of them, not that of actual scientists carrying out cutting edge research.

most mathematical model of complex system fail to make accurate predictions

[Without defining "most", "complex" or "accurate" that's meaningless -W]

Atmospheric tides = Stadium waves

[Tut. They are more like anti-stadium waves. SW are vast collections of phenomena linked by no clear dynamics. AT are simple phenomena with precisely understood dynamics -W]

I was just thinking that The Mysterious Case of Visceral Denier Hatred For the Voyage of the MV Akademik Shokalskiy appears to have the dynamics of a stadium wave sweeping the denier world.

re: age
Seep.12 of PDF @ APS petition.That was organized by Fred Singer, Will Happer, etc to get the American Physical Society to undo its position statement on climate change.

Of 119 signers for whom I have reasonable birth estiamtes:
192x: 26
193x: 31
194x: 45
I.e., 102 of 119 (86%) were born before 1950, about 2X percentage of APS membership.

As Dick sails into the sunset, Wiliam might turn his attention to the nonsense being said about the ' ship of fools' in the Antarctic.

The Spectator, still reflecting the Lawson's editorship, is trying to equate bad ice navigation with worse climate modeling.

Some sober comments might be in order

[I haven't bothered much about that. I don't even know if it was a pile of journos off for a jolly, or just a few journos on an otherwise sensible trip -W]

In some sense (both atmospheric physicists,dynamics, tides, QBO, etc) Lindzen "pioneered the wayt" for Murry Salby, but at least he didn't sneak a bunch of nonsense into an otherwise-credible book. Stoat readers may be amused by my review of Salby's 2012 book via CUP., Among other things, he relies on Lindzen and Choi (2009), which even Lindzen later admitted had ""some stupid mistakes".

That was among the 13 bad arguments that have been cataloged @ Skeptical Science.

"one funeral at a time".

[The level of anti-science and introspection at WUWT etc can't go much higher, but nor can it stay still ]

Depends on the percentage of his income Willard Tony is generating from WUWT. The general pattern of the long con is that to maintain inflow crazy increases.

The level of scientific support for creationism is a fraction of the 3% that climate denial gets, and it's still a strong political force. I think the collapse of scientific support from 3% to 0.3% will help, but it's not enough.

Does being old automatically makes one wiser?

WMC: '[20 years is a a long time. I expect the implosion much earlier. The level of anti-science and *introspection* at WUWT etc can't go much higher, but nor can it stay still -W]'

I disagree with part of this, or maybe this is s UK/US difference in connotations of the word "introspection." I admit I have only studied carefully a few posts at WUWT, but I was unable to find the slightest hint of introspection with the common meaning. It is possible that any such get moderated away by Watts or Stealey, of course.

Unless, of course, by introspection one means echo-chamber groupthink of the highest level. :-)

[Your last line is right; there really isn't a correct word, but introspection is definitely wrong -W]

"introspection": how about "insularity"?

Possession by Morton's Demon, here here tends to eliminate introspection, almost like anti-matter matter, except in this case, there is an infinite supply of the former.

Also, a few of those Demons don't just bar facts, but actively roam around cherry-picking what they like.

Brian Schmidt, but the basis for creationism is much deeper-seated than the basis for climate change. Rejecting creationism generally requires the adherent to reject an entire world-view; one can reject climate denialism and still keep the ideology that led one their in the first place.

Whereas the creationists come from fundamentalist religious origins, the anti-climate change lobby seems to have much more specifically political roots (e.g. Frank Lunz.

Consequently, they are likely to gradually evolve their message from "it isn't happening" to "don't tell us what to do."

"He received the Jule Charney award for “highly significant research” in the atmospheric sciences from the American Meteorological Society and the Distinguished Engineering Achievement Award from the Engineer’s Council in 2009." Cato

One could be forgiven for not noticing that the Charney award was way back in 1985.

Whereas the creationists come from fundamentalist religious origins, the anti-climate change lobby seems to have much more specifically political roots (e.g. Frank Lunz.

Not to absolve Frank Luntz and his employers, but AGW denial is an easy sell if you're an evangelical Christian:

http://www.cornwallalliance.org/articles/read/an-evangelical-declaratio…

One thing should be clear: if Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself, then by signing the Cornwall Declaration you're announcing your willingness to be fooled. Roy Spencer, John Christy and the other signatories with scientific credentials have thereby disqualified themselves as skeptics.

[RS appears quite happy to re-nail his colours to the mast: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/01/science-and-religion-do-your-own-da… -W]

I think I'm going to use RS's "The scientific evidence is increasingly supporting this position" in everything I write from now on. It's so easy to say, so very compelling, and so not needing any references to back it up. Apparently.

Previously, I had only seen it written by creationists and anti-vaccine folks. When someone like RS says it the statement transforms from bogus to Truth with a capital T. The scientific evidence is increasingly supporting this position.

William: "[RS appears quite happy to re-nail his colours to the mast: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/01/science-and-religion-do-your-own-da… -W]"

Fascinating. Spencer says:

[Ethan Epstein of the Weekly Standard] incorrectly assumes that I support the wording of all of the positions of the Cornwall Alliance, as stated in their Cornwall Declaration. But the Director of the Cornwall Alliance knows I don’t. We’ve discussed it.

The "Cornwall Declaration" he links to is not the one on Global Warming, and while it's widely believed he's a signatory to that, I haven't been able to verify it conclusively. If he has signed it, though, he can't really repudiate the key articles:

WHAT WE BELIEVE
We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.
...
WHAT WE DENY

We deny that Earth and its ecosystems are the fragile and unstable products of chance, and particularly that Earth’s climate system is vulnerable to dangerous alteration because of minuscule changes in atmospheric chemistry. Recent warming was neither abnormally large nor abnormally rapid. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming.
...

He believes his god wouldn't allow global warming, so there's no scientific evidence that will convince him it's happening. So much the worse for Science.

Well, the Cornwall Alliance seems to be claiming that he is a signatory. I guess that isn't conclusive, but is rather suggestive.

http://www.cornwallalliance.org/blog/item/prominent-signers-of-an-evang…

Ah! I missed that page. Thanks, ATTP. I had previously stated that Richard Lindzen was a signer, but wasn't able to confirm it, so I had to retract. I can now brand Spencer as a signer without fear of being corrected 8^)!

Who is Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy?

stoat — Sun, 08 Dec 2013 20:11:19 +0000

Who is Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy?

A trick question, of course. The answer is "the author of a blog post at WUWT entitled IPCC’s Report on Climate Change: Myths & Realities". The blog posting itself is a more-than-usually-pointless mish-mash of nonsense, and isn't worth reading. I did anyway, though, and can assure you that "A World Meteorological Organization insider’s view of the IPCC report" is wrong, because it isn't really about the IPCC report at all; its just the usual stuff.

But it is being sold on credentials as "A World Meteorological Organization insider’s view", and SJR claims to be "Formerly Chief Technical Advisor – WMO/UN". "Chief Technical Advisor" sounds impressive, but even more impressive is SJR's stealth-like ability to leave almost no track at all on the web, despite the claim of such a high-profile position.

I found http://www.zoominfo.com/p/S.-Reddy/541694135 which I think must be the same guy, as it makes the same claim. There are misc links to stuff about Hyderabad. His "Employment History" is very brief and laconic: Scientist ICRISAT. ICRISAT really exists, but the connection between the two that google can find is a paper on sorghum from 1984 (that's searching on "site:www.icrisat.org Jeevananda").

There's also a book, Climate Change Myths & Realities dating from 2008. Some of it is astonishingly crude and rough by anyone's standards: try looking at page 80, or page 108, or indeed page 1, which assures us that 0.93% of the atmosphere is organ. There are also a whole pile of pics in there that have clearly been ripped from elsewhere, with no attribution. The few bits about GW that I read were much like the stuff he posted at WUWT; i.e., uninteresting. The pic is from the end of the book, as is his claim to have "published about 500 scientific articles", which is a fair number. Google scholar suggests his count is some way off. And the last ones I find are from the mid-90's: Over-emphasis on energy terms in crop yield models may or may not be a worthy if minor and little-cited contribution; but the affiliation Agricultural Meteorologist (Managing Consultant, Jeevan Agromet Consultancy), Plot No. 6, ICRISAT Colony suggests that he wasn't formally employed at that point. Perhaps he was retired from ICRISAT? He has at least one from 1974.

And his claim to be "Formerly Chief Technical Advisor – WMO/UN"? I can find nothing to support it.

[Update: delightfully, this post is now the #1 google hit for "Jeevananda Reddy".]

Meanwhile, in Ukraine

Far more interesting things are going on.

stoat Sun, 12/08/2013 - 15:11

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climate people

Yes, Ukrainians will live in interesting times. :/

Hey, page 79 is no great shakes either!

You'll love this one, too:
http://www.rainfedfarming.org/documents/JeevanandaReddy_FullReport.pdf

One may note the frequent references to himself; the chapter on climate change shows he's heard a lot of bells ringing, but they may actually be in his head, and not real.

"Scientific non-entity inflates credentials and writes hopelessly ill-informed post at WUWT."

Isn't this what journalists call a dog-bites-man story?

"Isn’t this what journalists call a dog-bites-man story?"

i belive so. i'm sure David Rose is limbering up his typing fingers as we speak.

Dog bites man indeed. A regular for years at DotEarth and blatant self-promoter, not up to the standard of some of the hornets in that nest, worthy of being ignored. I was a little shocked as I would have thought he was beneath notice here, but I guess if he's promoted himself to lead author at WUWT that gives him some standing? However, it might bring some business to his consultancy, lots of money in them weeds.

Things are looking dicey in Kiev. Let us see how Putin reacts.

The biggest surprise was that there were any statues of Lenin left to overturn ...

If you exmine the dead commisar bounce frame by frame , some interesting structural parallels emerge

[I did rather like that one -W]

My pretty-much-random Zotero database of climate-related stuff yielded only two records for Dr Reddy. One was an unobtainable and/or misnamed 1979 ICRISAT article cited in a 2007 study of Turkana droughts,

http://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/575

and the other was this, a comment beneath a Revkin post about cruise-liners:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/more-antarctic-cruise-ship…

Useful? No. But there they are.

He's front and center in Heartland's list of NIPCC fans:

Endorsements of NIPCC and
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science

“I fully support the efforts of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) and publication of its latest report, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, to help the general public to understand the reality of global climate change.”

Kumar Raina
Former Deputy Director General
Geological Survey of India

"Climate Change Reconsidered II fulfills an important role in countering the IPCC part by part, highlighting crucial things they ignore such as the Little Ice Age and the recovery (warming) which began in 1800-1850. Superimposed on that recovery, there is a prominent multi-decadal oscillation. These can explain much of climate change from 1800, including the fact that the warming has halted from 2000, phenomena the IPCC reports do not properly cover. In contrast to the IPCC, which often ignores evidence of past changes, the authors of the NIPCC report recognize that climatology requires studying past changes to infer future changes."

Syun-Ichi Akasofu
Founding Director & Professor of Physics Emeritus
International Arctic Research Center
University of Alaska Fairbanks

“I was glad to see that a new report was coming from the NIPCC. The work of this group of scientists to present the evidence for natural climate warming and climate change is an essential counter-balance to the biased reporting of the IPCC. They have brought to focus a range of peer-reviewed publications showing that natural forces have in the past and continue today to dominate the climate signal. Considering the recent evidence that climate models have failed to predict the flattening of the global temperature curve, and that global warming seems to have ended some 15 years ago, the work of the NIPCC is particularly important.”

Ian ClarkDepartment of Earth Sciences
University of Ottawa, Canada

"The CCR-II report correctly explains that most of the reports on global warming and its impacts on sea-level rise, ice melts, glacial retreats, impact on crop production, extreme weather events, rainfall changes, etc. have not properly considered factors such as physical impacts of human activities, natural variability in climate, lopsided models used in the prediction of production estimates, etc. There is a need to look into these phenomena at local and regional scales before sensationalization of global warming-related studies."

S. Jeevananda Reddy
Former Chief Technical Advisor
United Nations World Meteorological Organization

“NIPCC's CCR-II report should open the eyes of world leaders who have fallen prey to the scandalous climate dictates by the IPCC. People are already suffering the consequences of sub-prime financial instruments. Let them not suffer more from IPCC’s sub-prime climate science and models. That is the stark message of the NIPCC's CCR-II report.”

M. I. Bhat
Formerly Professor and Head
Department of Geology and Geophysics
University of Kashmir

Is that initial "S" real? Maybe he's related to S. Fred Singer.

Or maybe it's like how all the Red Lectroids have the first name "John".

Mann vs Muller

stoat — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 15:11:02 +0000

Mann vs Muller

Michael Mann has an article in the HuffPo, Something Is Rotten at the New York Times. He's complaining about the ill-informed views of Koch Brothers-funded climate change contrarian Richard Muller which is language that would normally put me off. But in this case I looked, and Muller's A Pause, Not an End, to Warming does seem rather objectionable.

Some of it is just a mixed bag:

My analysis is different. Berkeley Earth, a team of scientists I helped establish, found that the average land temperature had risen 1.5 degrees Celsius over the past 250 years. Solar variability didn’t match the pattern; greenhouse gases did.

That's him blowing his trouser trumpet. As everyone knows, the major feature of BEST was that it was boring. In the sense that it produced the same answers as everyone else. Muller's implication that "Solar variability didn’t match the pattern; greenhouse gases did" is a result from his stuff is just drivel. But, at least he does acknowledge it as a result.

But it gets worse:

As for the recent plateau, I predicted it, back in 2004. Well, not exactly.

No, not at all. What Muller "predicted" was Suppose... future measurements in the years 2005-2015 show a clear and distinct global cooling trend. (It could happen.) He didn't predict anything, he merely made a supposition; and the thing he supposed hasn't happened. Apparently, to him, "that’s close enough" (if a clear cooling trend is close enough to a pause, then a clear warming trend must be close enough to a pause, so by Muller's own logic he has nothing to write about).

But the bit where it really gets silly is:

If we mistakenly took the hockey stick seriously — that is, if we believed that natural fluctuations in climate are small...

which makes no sense at all. Muller was suckered by the septics waay back, and in 2004 wrote Global Warming Bombshell: A prime piece of evidence linking human activity to climate change turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics. That was wrong then, and wrong now, but Muller is clinging to it. Not only is the fundamental point of his 2004 piece wrong, but the conclusion he pulls from nowhere - that the Hockey Stick implies natural fluctuations are small - is drivel too.

[Update: just to make that last point more clearly: what Muller is burbling about is the "the [MBH] Hockey Stick shows less variability than other reconstructions" idea. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_graph. And there is truth to that. But there is no truth to the idea that the Hockey Stick in any way contradicts decadal-scale fluctuations; indeed its obvious from the graph that Muller displays in his 2004 piece that these exists. So I really don't understand what he's been smoking.]

stoat Fri, 11/22/2013 - 10:11

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climate people

climate science

I'm always interested in what you have to say. On the whole, it seems to me the main problem with Dr. Muller is ego. The New York Times should not pander to it. These kinds of considerations bias what needs to be an honest conversation, but I don't see any way out of it.

I thought Berkeley Earth was working on ocean temperature data. What's become of Robert Rohde? Looking at berkeleyearth.org, I see Muller on tornados, Muller on hockey, Muller on and on and on.

My initial reaction to Muller's editorial was positive, even if he makes a fool of himself. In the USA you are already happy if someone acknowledges that the temperature is increasing and that the main cause is greenhouse gases.

Now that I read Mann's article, I must admit he is right. I had also not taken Muller's argument about the hockey stick seriously and had seen it as another part where he makes a fool of himself, not of climate science or Michael Mann. On the scale of that plot you can hardly see decadal fluctuations, but that might not be obvious to the average New York Times reader.

[I'm going to update the post to make that last point more obvious -W]

re NYTimes, you also have Nocera flacking for fracking, and DotEarth's Revkin moving to the right (embraced MacIntyre on the temperature record (Shakun, Marcott); Heartland, Heritage, the Pielkesphere, and any other "moderates" that can be found), ignoring renewables, and hosting Marc Morano's twin and his phony oily colleagues in the comment section.

This "can't we all get along together" stuff is just doubt and delay by another name.

Less variations: as I keep saying, spaghetti graphs are usually (unintentionally) misleading, especially when the lines purport to cover different geographies. I would expect to see more variability in reconstructions whose proxies:
a) Are land-oriented, not ocean
b) Are N. Hemisphere, rather than the Earth
c) Are less of the N.H ... i.e., some claim to cover:
0-90degN, 100% of NH OR
23.5-90degN, 60% of NH OR
30-90degN, 50% of NH
Regardless of the quality of data selection, one would expect less variability in the former than in the latter, especially given the stronger influence of the North Atlantic region.

It would be interesting to ask Muller what statistical evidence he has to support his assertion that there *has* been a pause (ISTR Tamino made a similar request of Prof. Curry). It is true that there has not been statistically significant warming since [insert cherry picked date here], but that doesn't mean that there has been a change in the rate of warming, especially of the test has low statistical power. However if you perform a test for the existence of a change in the rate of warming you find that the evidence for that is not statistically significent either. That the tests for the two opposing hypotheses both give insignificant results that is an indication that there isn't enough data to be sure either way, just by looking at the observations. So we cannot say there HAS been a pause, purely on the basis of looking at the data.

However, we don't just have the data, we have some physics, which suggests that there is good reason to suppose that the warming is continuing and the apparent pause is merely the result of internal variability (e.g. ENSO). The physics explaining why there has been a pause in the rate of warming is somewhat conspicuous by its absence.

If someone wants to assert as a fact that there is a pause then they either need to provide statistically significant evidence that there has been a pause (and it can't be reasonably explained as an artefact of the noise) or some physics that can explain (post hoc) both the correlation and the strength of the effect.

Well, Judy says she would hire Muller.

And, of course, just like Michaels over Santer, she says Muller won Mann versus Muller.

[Hasn't she rather got their respective status's mixed up? It would be more a question of whether Muller wanted to hire her. And dislike of Mann seems to be a requirement for such as her -W]

Mann's discreditability and the "pause" are proven by assertion. No thought or work necessary. Just howls about discrimination and no smoke without fire, and the job's done for those who benefit (though why they think it will be a useful and lasting benefit is anybody's guess; the smarter lies demonstrate their authors know they are lies).

And here Eli thought that Judy and Muller had split up?

Eli

stoat — Sat, 02 Nov 2013 19:39:48 +0000

Eli

A occasional series of portraits of notable bloggers.

From Bizarre and vulgar illustrations from illuminated medieval manuscripts.

Phrase of the day (not, I should hasten to add, one that has any relation to the noble lagomorph) arrant gasconading from Houseman. From which comes "insult of the day" (or perhaps "motto of the day"):

...his mind had keenness without force, and was not a trenchant instrument. His corrections, deft as they are, touch only the surface of the text; his precise and lucid explanations are seldom explanations of difficulties, but only dispel perverse misunderstandings of things which hardly any one but Scaliger can ever have misunderstood. When a real obscurity had baffled Scaliger, it baffled Huet...

stoat Sat, 11/02/2013 - 15:39

Tags

climate people

If my history teachers had peppered their classes with things like that I might have enjoyed the lessons :)

Hey, give back Eli's mole whacker!:)

Love it. :)

Notable.

Death of a salesman, part 2

stoat — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:46:49 +0000

Death of a salesman, part 2

Continuing an occasional series on non-notable folk. Marcel Leroux stirred up the septics quite a bit. By contrast, who cares about Tim Ball? He was declared [[WP:NN]] some time ago but then someone recreated his page. And so we have [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tim Ball]] (Tim, Timmy, Timothy, who cares about trivia?). Apart from the giggle-factor, there's nothing very interesting in this; contrasting the first and second AFD's is kinda fun; the level of give-a-toss is so much lower now.

Incidentally, its been pointed out to me, not for the first time, that all this stuff is just incomprehensible to anyone not soaked in the debate, not "in universe". In which case, as a token gesture, I point you at the glossary, Kevin.

[Update 2013/11: the return of the death of...]

Refs

* Hockey stick spotted in BT

stoat Wed, 04/17/2013 - 13:46

Tags

climate people

Does Tim really need elevation to official Unperson status ?

He's already in pretty Orwellian company.

Without wallowing in the Wikipedia rules, I'd be tempted to leave him there until we hear results of both Weaver and Mann lawsuits against him. If he loses, I think that will be a first of this sort, and perhaps notable.

Is there a reliable source of news/updates on the lawsuits? Other than Tim Ball, of course, who has been magically absent from Canadian media for the last while. (I could have my head in the sand, too...)

Here is an update from Roger McConchie, Michael Mann's lawyer:

I conducted an examination for discovery (deposition) of Tim Ball under oath before a Court Reporter in Victoria on Friday, March 1, 2013. I will continue that deposition of Ball in late May, 2013. Michael Mann is scheduled to be examined for discovery in Vancouver by Ball’s lawyer on May 22, 2013. I anticipate conducting discoveries of Ball’s co-defendant Frontier Centre for Public Policy in the near future. Christopher Monckton’s statement about the litigation has no basis in reality.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/03/10/climate-denial-industry-hits-court…

I don't have an update on Ball's lawsuit with Andrew Weaver.

Roger wrote the book on Canadian libel law. I own a copy and it's actually pretty readable and thorough (1000 pages). I had a 2-hour breakfast with him 2 years ago. I would not want to be in Ball's shoes.

WP:NN non-notorious? Surely not

/me ducks

Manley: Climate and the British Scene

stoat — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 17:06:03 +0000

Manley: Climate and the British Scene

From the department for historical research. I happened to be in the Oxfam bookshop trying to empty our house, when I looked down and saw this in the pile of new arrivals. It hadn't been priced but they took a fiver for it, which seems fair enough. Its a very British-meteorologist book, you can practically see him puffing on his pipe as he writes it. I am, of course, going to skip over all the nice climate and weather stuff, and look at the climate change, much to his dismay.

Manley factoid: he is buried in Coton churchyard.

You can read a few pages I've uploaded if you like, but you're better off going to the convenient online copy. My copy is the fourth edition, by Collins / Fontana. It is marked as first published 1952, copyright 1952, but first published in Fontana 1962. The preface says that certain tables have been brought up to date (1961). The online one thinks it is from 1971. Manley died in 1980.

What's the point?

To look at what he said, then, about past variations in climate. Most of the book isn't: its about the actual climate. But on my page 279, in a table of various periods coming up towards date, we have:

About 500 B.C.

Climate again much damper with considerably cooler and more cloudy summers, less evaporation, more wind and rainfall. Rapid growth of peat over previously forested uplands especially where less well drained. Tree-line lowered by perhaps 1,000 feet. Birch increases in lowlands and in damp sites oak, alder and willow especially prominent. Summers perhaps 4^o cooler than previous phase, winters still rather mild due to much wind and cloud ('early Iron Age').

Historic.

Possibly minor amelioration and recession in Roman times; improvement about 7th and nth century, wetter around 1100, again more disturbed after 1300. Minor fluctuations with tendency for colder winters after 1550; tendencies probably more or less similar to those shown by Fig. 64. Minor drier and wetter groups of years in S.E., but uncertainty how far these are applicable in N. and W. Prevalence of colder winters in later 17th century, and recurrence 1740 onward; groups of generally warm summers, e.g. 1772-83; and cool, 1692-1700, 1809-18. Tendency in direction of milder winters since 1850 or earlier but not uninterrupted. Appreciable increase of average temperature in spring, summer and autumn since 1930. Despite 1959, the peak may have been passed.

[I've correct the OCR a couple of times, but otherwise this is copied from the online text. You can't tell from this fragment, but from surrounding text I believe that temperatures are in Fahrenheit (good gracious) and so that 4^o presumably is.]

You'll want to see fig 64, I imagine, so here it is.

Notice that he doesn't share our obession with temperature being of overriding interest besides which everything else pales. And that although he describes cold temperatures around what we'd now call "Little Ice Age" kind of times, he doesn't use the phrase. Of "Medaeival Warm Period" for that matter. And his temperature graph sticks a big upwards spike in "LIA" times.

He doesn't explain these variations, though there is speculation about solar variation, perhaps acting via changes in circulation. The greenhouse effect isn't mentioned; CO2 is, briefly: The atmosphere which envelops us is in the main a mixture of gases ; some of these are the permanent constituents, about one-fifth oxygen and nearly four-fifths nitrogen with small quantities of other gases. Water-vapour is the principal variable constituent; carbon dioxide is a minor variable constituent of potential importance. But the "potential importance" teaser isn't followed up, as far as I can see.

He's also very unclear about what might have caused the ice ages. Milankovitch doesn't get a look in: Other suggestions have been made which postulate considerable variations in the intensity of solar radiation. It has been demonstrated by Sir George Simpson that a small increase in the power of the sun would ultimately give rise to increased cloud and precipitation in highland regions towards the poles; assuming that the land was already sufficiently elevated, the resultant increased cloudiness and snowfall would gradually give rise to an ice cap. He points out the importance of the fact that a widespread cloud sheet, once formed, reflects a great deal of the radiation falling upon it. The elegance with which his theory can be extended to explain the occurrence of cooler and warmer interglacials is attractive; it was published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society for 1934, with some revision in 1957. But unfortunately, sufficient geological evidence is not forthcoming with regard to the relative coolness or warmness of the several interglacials which Simpson's theory would require; interglacial deposits are rare, as they are generally removed by the succeeding glaciation. For this reason the elucidation of the full story of the British glaciations is tardy. Moreover full agreement has not been reached with regard to the number and extent of the several glaciations in other parts of the world.

None of which matters, really: its just an illustration of what people thought, then. And is perhaps some counter to the "Age of Gold" nonsense that some people spout.

stoat Sat, 11/24/2012 - 12:06

Tags

climate communication

climate people

Any hint of who owned the book? Might be interesting

[Good point. No name. It was with a stack of others, which I could have looked at. The others weren't weather / climate (I would have noticed). I think they were other library-of-science type books -W]

I wonder what the others were saying?

This method is a bit inefficient.

I once knew a physicist Manley in Los Alamos in the 1950s. Wonder if they were related.

My copy cost 45 pence, but then I think I bought it either ten or 13 years ago, when charity shops sold books at a low price so I could hoover up 20 of them for a tenner.

It also has a PLayer's catalogue return slip inside, perhaps indicating the rought period when the owner was reading it.

There is a recent update to Manley's 'Climate and the British Scene' volume 22 from the same New Naturalist series. This new work is 'Climate and Weather' by John Kington (ex Met Office and UEA) published 2010, volume 115 of the series. He tries to map out UK weather from 1st century BC to 20th century AD; it is an extremely detailed chronology of the British climate and provides reconstructed pressure maps. The earliest pressure map given is for summer 1310 AD with eyewitness weather reports.

Yes, a fiver is a jolly decent donation to Oxfam and hence a Good Thing.

However the book itself seems remarkably pricy at 9/6, only a tanner short of ten bob at a time when standard paperbacks were two bob. Or 10p in post-decimalisation speak.
As I recall, fish suppers were tuppence under two bob at the time and are now a fiver. So on that scale, the book was approximately £25 in current fish supper money, guess it's not too far out of line for a big glossy book or a textbook. Fontana suggests paperback rather than hardback.

More to the point, I seem to recall stuff about climate change affecting the shift from Neolithic comforts to the dismal Dark Ages and Medieval squalor, as well as vegetation changing to lots of dismal peat. Maybe got that from 1066 and all that.

The nearest that comes to hand is Sun, Moon and Standing Stones by John Edwin Wood, OUP paperback 1980, which suggests the Beaker people may have reverted to more nomadic agriculture "because the climate had improved. During the period from 2500 BC to 1500 BC there was a warm spell and this would have allowed them a more outdoor existence than the Neolithic people had."
Who knew?

For a novel exploration of British climatic and vegetative changes in the last 10,000 years or so, see Martin Palmer's _Sacred Land_, available at Amazon for the price of a good fish supper.

A theologist who used to advise the WWF back in the days when it was shooting poachers beside the Zambezi (and the great grey greasy Limpopo, for all I know), Palmer misdates, mislocates and misattributes as only a bald man wearing a cowboy hat can. As a bonus, he thinks that the Enlightenment was a Bad Thing and that Homo sapiens is a 'grazing species'. We're also a 'narrative species', whatever that means. And we've only got 200-300 years left before we all go belly up.

You can trust him on that. He speaks Chinese.

Badly Eli trusts

Lindzen doesn't like me

stoat — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:05:13 +0000

Lindzen doesn't like me

Which is a shame, because I've defended him in the past. But then he did go Emeritus in 2011 so perhaps this is all to be expected.

Its not terribly exciting I'm afraid. There is a piece of tat in the Euresis Journal, whatever that is, called Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?. Skipping over the rest of the nonsense, the only bit I care about is me, obviously:

The myth of scientific consensus is also perpetuated in the web’s Wikipedia where climate articles are vetted by William Connolley, who regularly runs for office in England as a Green Party candidate. No deviation from the politically correct line is permitted.

This is from Winter 2012, and its wrong, of course: I haven't stood for the Green Party for years now. Not that L cares about accuracy, of course; its just a piece of throw away intended-nastiness. But the head of the article says Original manuscript from November 29, 2008, with corrections and an added postscript provided on October 31, 2011 which is a bit odd - is this really a re-tread of something L wrote in 2008?

Presumably, since the postscript says:

The present paper was written in 2008 (although a few minor corrections have been made to the present version)... On a more positive note, William Connolley is no longer controlling Wikipedia’s coverage of climate, which has become discernibly better.

I wonder why L thinks wiki's climate coverage is now better? There is a bit more of it, but the basic state of the global warming page and associated material is pretty well what it was in 2008. Still, we have no real idea of what L thought was wrong with it in 2008, and no idea of how it is better. L has abandonded science in favour of vague untestable generalities.

stoat Sat, 10/27/2012 - 12:05

Tags

climate people

climate science

emeritus

Perusing Dick's paper, I'd say he has put together enough authentically curious info for a serious sociology of science thesis - social construction happens.

Does anyone know anything about Euresis? Hopefully it ios more credible than JSE, although this does not sound like a good start.

Euresis somewhat recalls the rhetoric of 'scientific culture' that the Ettore majorana Center in Erice promoted through Il Tempo 's science section

"Euresis somewhat recalls the rhetoric of ‘scientific culture’ that the Ettore majorana Center in Erice promoted through Il Tempo ‘s science section"

Thanks, that explains a lot. No, hang on, I didn't understand a word of it.

"I wonder why L thinks wiki’s climate coverage is now better? "

This is now what I call an "internet fact". The actual evidence is of little consequence, enough people on the internet now say it that it must be true.

Enuresis is bedwetting. Close enough

"I wonder why L thinks wiki’s climate coverage is now better".

It is probably just a warm feeling, certainly shared by many others, knowing it (Wikipedia climate info) is not primarily influenced by someone who has particularly strong beliefs in one direction (granted, shared with "the 97%", but perhaps disputed by some others).

"It is probably just a warm feeling, certainly shared by many others, knowing it (Wikipedia climate info) is not primarily influenced by science that has particularly strong evidence in one direction (granted, shared with “the 97%”, but perhaps disputed by some others)."

FTFY

“It is probably just a warm feeling, certainly shared by many others, knowing it (Wikipedia climate info) is primarily influenced by science that has particularly strong evidence in one direction (granted, shared with “the 97%”, but perhaps disputed by some others).”

FTFM

I recall you are annoyed at the high price of journals. Nature has just sent me an offer of 174 pounds off the original price of 210 pounds per year. The special off is only 36 pounds for Nature for a year. That's a huge price cut. Don't know how permanent it is.

I only skimmed the few first pages, but....

What is the point of L building this narrative (gratitude vs. fear)? It seems hopelessly complex to be attractive to "skeptics" and it is such nonsense that nobody serious will even consider it.

I guess it's just a citation and what it says doesn't really matter as long as it says climate science is corrupt.

Harry, is that for Nature or Nature Climate Change. Almost worth taking for Nature @ that price given that it has become too expensive for most university libraries.

Harry, when in Rome read the Roman newspapers-

Il Tempo approximates The Washington Times

[Redacted -W], why are so ashamed of being reminded that you had and still have suuuuuuch a close relationship to the green party?? certainly not only because lindzen wasn't accurate about the year. try to be honest and admit that you still today are extemely close to green activist ideologies, similar to hansen, jones, trenberth, gavin, etc.

please don't lie about your political preferences and confess that you prefer obama to romney

Boris: try the Google on:
"The myth of scientific consensus is also perpetuated in the web’s Wikipedia where climate articles are vetted by William Connolley"

Oddly, one of the hits (citing 2008 version) is At Stoat, with note from WMC, who must have forgotten about this.

[Ha, that's a good catch. I barely remember things from last week, though, so you can't expect me to remember stuff from 4 years ago -W]

Kai:

"please don’t lie about your political preferences and confess that you prefer obama to romney"

And accusing people of reasonableness is supposed to accomplish what, exactly?

And let's not forget Eleusis:

> The mysteries represented the myth of the abduction of Persephone from her mother Demeter by the king of the underworld Hades, in a cycle with three phases, the "descent" (loss), the "search" and the "ascent", with the main theme the "ascent" of Persephone and the reunion with her mother. It was a major festival during the Hellenic era, and later spread to Rome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries

Here is the link

http://www.nature.com/content/nature/impact_octb/index.html

"51 issues of cutting-edge research, global news, perceptive commentary and archive access back to January 1997."

It's not very fair, though. $36 for Americans and 36 pounds for the British.

"why are so ashamed of being reminded that you had and still have suuuuuuch a close relationship to the green party??"

He has told you his relationship. Why not settle for the facts, and stop creating lies.

Don't waste your time trying to argue with kai... He can be found elsewhere on SB claiming that the current (i.e. seasonal) rapid increase in Arctic sea ice extent is evidence that AGW is a fraud. He is quite literally "arguing" that winter disproves climatology. Appeals to reasonableness are unlikely to bear fruit.

$36!

Were do we send the money?

$35.82!

Thanks Harry. It is Eli's experience that scientific stuff is 1:1:1 btw the UK US and Euro, doesn't matter much what the exchange rate is. Same goes for coffee, but then Eli repeats himself.

Kai, you do realize you're attacking a Brit? Any idea who the current prime minister of the UK is?

[Burrowed. Kai, if you want to not be banned (you can be, if you want) you have to not be a total waste of time. If you want to scrawl rubbish on the walls, WUWT is your friend -W]

w, you are, as always, very partisan: no word from you on gator who posed this to me: "Kai, you do realize you’re attacking a Brit? Any idea who the current prime minister of the UK is?"

what is your interpretation of gator's off-topic contribution.

[Oh good grief do you *ever* think instead of just write? Its a response to your own previous stupid comment of course -W]

i also don't like your intolerable arrogance of how you think to be entitled to qualify the contents of the commenters' contributions.

[Tough titty for you, fish face. If you don't like the house style, go somewhere else -W]

[Burrowed -W]

w, can you explain why you have deleted my previous post? was it pure arbitrariness/despotism or some other special reason?

[I haven't deleted it. You need to try reading instead of just writing. I burrowed it. But Eli has it right, as so often -W]

ennui

eli, alors tu parles argot? surprenant, vraiment, pour un agw flic. explique-moi ce que conoly veut contre moi. est-il seulement enragé a cause de mon superieur connaissance - en comparsison avec lui - du climat global? t'avais su qu'on cuba on fait du cacao?

Even in French Kai is a poor troll and doesn't know how to spell William's last name correctly.

mais evidemment, marco, toi tu comprends pas l'argot

Au contraire, Kai, I understand your lingo quite well, and it's the same at all blogs you frequent: huffing and puffing and no contribution to the discussion at all. Just trolling, and a really, really bad one at that.

You're so bad I'm almost willing to declare you are a poe, if not for the fact that I know there are indeed people who are as clinically insane as you are.

Richard Kerr wrote an article about Lindzen back in 1989 (Greenhouse skeptic out in cold Science, 246.4934 Dec 1 1989 p1118).

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me Lindzen's been at the same game since then.

In the 1989 article, Kerr reported that Lindzen confessed to him there was no science behind his critique: "indeed, he describes it himself as an idea of a theological or philosophical nature".

Kerr quoted Mahlman, who had rejected a Lindzen manuscript:. Mahlman said he "recommended the paper be rejected unless he [ Lindzen ] wanted to convert it into a paper about science. It came across as a whiny complaint without scientific justification. Dick Lindzen is a friend of mine so I did not say that lightly." Kerr quoted Schnieder: "does he have a calculation, or is his brain better than our models?".

Lindzen has been singing the same song for more than several decades now. How is it possible that it still matters what he thinks? Whatever Lindzen did to get his reputation, he didn't do it in climate science.

I hear Bozo the Clown has a tremendous reputation for being a clown - does that make Bozo's views on climate science relevant?

kai,

Tu parles pas argot, tu fais juste semblant.

[Burrowed. Kai, if you want to not be banned (you can be, if you want) you have to not be a total waste of time. If you want to scrawl rubbish on the walls, WUWT is your friend -W]

William, what has kai ever scrawled here besides rubbish? It's your blog, and moderation policy is your prerogative, but that [redacted -W] subtracts much value. For the love of dog, what will it take to get you to ban it?

[See WP:BEANS -W]

"eli, alors tu parles argot? surprenant, vraiment, pour un agw flic sale réchauffiste censeur. explique-moi ce que cConolley veut contre moi. est-il seulement enragé a cause de mon superieur connaissancema connaissance supérieure – en comparsaison avec lui – du climat global? t’avais su qu’oàn cuba on fait du cacao?"

http://www.webomix.com/content/maitre-capello-nous-a-quitte-illustratio… (RIP)

And, to answer some questions :
- I don't think Mr Connolley is against you, but I think he considers you as a minor nuisance. Hence the burrowing.
- I don't think either that he can evaluate your climatology "superior" skills from your interventions in this blog. He has to confirm it, but I am unable to do so - maybe I missed a critical post, but I'm quite confident I covered all your "insightful" comments, even the burrowed ones.
- Cuba does not export cacao, as the economy is geared towards tobacco and sugar cane. Unless you refer to this song , in which case I have to tip my hat for your knowledge. Or it may have been said tongue in cheek, the sentence was not clear.
- I don't think that switching to French is the brightest idea overall to insult other people. But I'm a mere commenter here, not the landlord.
- no, Kai is not a master troll, but at best a beginner one. I have to step up as a troller myself to defend the integrity of such a art : mindlessly insulting other people is widely considered as the beginner's step, before going on medium and advanced methods for the lulz.

And, to move back to topic, I am surprised that Mr Lindzen holds such a grudge against Mr Connolley since 2008. I would have thought he has not enough time to care about what happens on wikipedia ... after all, until a recent time, I bet he had a lot on his plate with grant seeking, research ongoing, the usual scientist stuff.
Maybe a sycophant brought this case to his attention ?

(to Mr Connolley : I double-checked my tags, normally everything is allright - but I offer my apologies in advance if I messed up).

a quick follow-up on my previous comment (my apologies) : it worked, but I was using the deprecated definition of . I don't know what tag replaces it in the new html standards ...

It's not difficult to find Lindzen reruns, often w/no notice provided to the reader (or editors?).

Kai's French is truly execrable.

I think even Google Translate would have done a better job.

RP Sr is a tosser

stoat — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:48:12 +0000

RP Sr is a tosser

I haven't had a tosser for a while, but I think its time for a new one. The evidence is all at Open Mind, that increasingly valuable resource who has done such a good job of shredding so many thoughtless folk. And RP Sr's 7-fold updated post neatly puts him into that category. But what wins RP the coveted award is outing Tamino (whose name isn't exactly a secret anyway) under the guise of "professional courtesy". Well done, Wodger.

stoat Fri, 04/27/2012 - 11:48

Tags

climate people

generic stupidity

tosser

I took 1 st mortgage loans when I was very young and it supported my business a lot. However, I require the car loan once more time.

In case people haven't been following along at home:

1. Having a real-seeming name in a venue where pseudonyms are the norm and names can't be verified is paramount. Having actual expertise in a complicated subject is irrelevant and usually just a sign of having a penchant for unnecessary fraud.

2. Using no data and polite words to smear others whose expertise is greater than your own is professional courtesy, as is revealing real names behind intentional semi-anonymity. Honest and angry responses to such, using actual data, is unbecoming.

I really don't get the tone trolls. Anyone expecting science + internet to be polite is truly, hopelessly confused. Unfailing politeness is generally the domain of politicians and salespeople, two groups for whom the truth isn't just incidental; it's accidental.

Note: I have used a real-seeming name so you know I can be trusted!

Reflecting on the series of posts/updates, I don't think Pielke actually read Vinnikov 1999. He certainly didn't seem to be aware of the large section of the paper discussing natural variation in decadal trends and testing trends in obs against those.

I think he just wanted a foil for the claim "the trend for sea ice decline has decreased (significantly) since 1996." Which is a more conservative, sciency version of the frequently recited WUWUT claim (often by the pseudonymous WUWT intern 'Steven Goddard') that sea ice is recovering.

This is really good site I just love it all and great thought of it.
http://www.researchpaperinn.com/

Great post by Tamino !!!

What the?!

-RP

P.S. No harm done, I am neither a Sr. nor a Jr.

[Ah, sorry. In the world of climate, there is but one RP. Or rather, there are two. But diminished nowadays -W]

Skeptical Science has a new article that also addresses Vinnikov & al.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/lessons-from-past-predictions-vinnikov-…

Pretty much the same points are covered.

However rpenner is clearly not an RP as only lower case.

William,

The use of pseudonyms to attack one's colleagues is a cancer growing on the face of science that quite needs to be cut out. It is the height of cowardice to attack the reputation of others while simultaneously protecting one's own reputation with anonymity. Those who do it certainly should be outed. Anonymous comments are fine; anonymous attacks are gutless and that's all there is to it.

[I think that is bullshit. First, Tamino isn't actually anonymous - see other comments here. Second, peer-review has traditionally been anonymous, and Tamino's comments are not "attack", they are effectively review. You only see them as attack because you don't like what he is saying. Third, I think your premise - the "growing cancer" is utter twaddle. You'll certainly need to back it up with evidence for anyone to believe you. Fourth, I don't see a problem with anonymous blogging, or indeed commenting, as long as the name is repeatable. You call yourself AH, and that may even be your name, but you provide no way of verifying it. You may or may not be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alexh19740110, but again there is no way to tell. You have no objection to T's physical address being published, but you refuse to reveal your own; this is just hypocrisy -W]

Good call.

Roger has turned one of his updates into a separate post, wherein he "apologizes". I put that in quotes, because he still won't admit that he's wrong about the core point here. His "apology" basically consists of two things:

(1) Saying he's sorry for not explaining what he meant clearly enough, and

(2) Asking Tamino to do a lot of work that Roger should have done before writing his original post.

[I can cope with the science errors; I wouldn't have made Roger a tosser for that. What I find really offensive is the outing. Its trivia, but its threatening. The thinking is so badly wrong -W]

What I find really offensive is the outing. Its trivia, but its threatening. The thinking is so badly wrong

[Indeed -W]

There was an opera about that:

Die ZauberflÃ¶te
"... the animals charmed by Tamino's first outing ... look like mangy, rejected extras from Planet of the Apes."

Following them more closely than I thought, as I hadn't read the actual "outing" post, but now that I have:

Tamino is G* F* of T* Analytics in G*, M* [h/t Anthony Watts]

"outing" is one of Watts's trademark moves to intimidate those he disagrees with.

[This is one if the reasons I just use my real name; it avoids the worry -W]

While I'm not sure of the precise qualifications one needs to become a "tosser", I think this glowing endorsement of Watts might qualify:

RPSr: I have worked with Anthony and he is devoted to the highest level of scientific robustness

While on the surface, one could conclude he's just being, well, "courteous", assuming good faith or something of that variety, he also has accused (wrongly so) RealClimate and SkS contributors of spreading "misinformation". This goes back a few years. His standards are asymmetric to say the least - not unlike the Watts outrage over "anonymous cowards". It only really applies to those he disagrees with (which would not include most of the roughly 50% of his commenters who do not use a full name).

The Arctic ice argument Pielke is making is not really new. This related post seems to meet the "tosser" qualifications, one that RealClimate responded to.

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/real-climates-misinfor…

dhogaza,

"Outing" is a dishonourable, cheap, reprehensible tactic employed by morally bankrupt bad losers.

FWIW, Tamino outed himself ages ago, to anyone who was paying attention. Though it seems he still prefers to keep his blogging somewhat separate from his real life.

Well yes James, you would be amazed at how uncurious colleagues are, or perhaps not.

I mentioned Tamino's first outing as ancient history. Once it's gone past the first screen, the aggressively stupid won't remember or find it.
Putting up fresh directions invites new attention from them.

"outing Tamino"

Pielke Sr. must be taking advice from Mosher, who also delights in such trifles.

"outing Tamino"

Eh, Tamino's identity is only secret from somewhat dumb people, undoubtedly intentionally. But it only takes one unscrupulous individual with minimal google skills...

RE: Roger vs Grant

I think that Doger really didn't know who Tamino really was.

Thus the backbiting.

Just like Doger doesn't know much about Arctic sea ice.

Thus the backbiting.

IMHO, it's the same difference, Doger isn't dumb, Doger is just ignorant of the facts. :-)

[No, he isn't dumb. But then neither is, say, Dyson. Or Lovelock. But any of them are capable of massive over-confidence in areas they don't know -W]

> Doger isn't dumb, Doger is just ignorant of the facts. :-)

Ah. "Theyâve a temper, some of them ..."

17 W,

IOW Dunning-Kruger can apply to anyone, regardless of expertise in their own field.

Is it possible your desire for a tosser caused a lowering of the standards? Being the umpteenth person to identify the secret identity of someone, whose secret identity is known by one and all, is not outing. More like a wanker.

[Not at all, in fact I'd completely forgotten my series, and then I came to read RP's post and I thought "ZOMG, what a..." -W]

> Being the umpteenth person to identify the secret identity of
> someone, whose secret identity is known by one and all, is not
> outing.

I suppose you have a point. As in, Senior not even managing to be a proper Bad Guy, just to look pathetic while trying

Being the umpteenth person to identify the secret identity of someone, whose secret identity is known by one and all, is not outing. More like a wanker.

But Tamino's identity wasn't "known by one and all" - RPSr was unaware of it, therefore at best you can say "known by all less one".

Given that RPSr was unaware of his identity, he was outing him. If you want to declare an "outing fail" because he was ignorant of the fact that Tamino's identity is fairly common knowledge, that's OK, but he tried his best to do so, and that makes him a jerk.

[My view is that Pielke thought he was outing, he gets the tosser award mostly for that, but partly at least for not realising it was already semi-public. Or did he? He h/t's Watts for the info. But I doubt he read the blog -W]

William, #5:

The suggestion that Pielke did something wrong by revealing Foster's address is absurd.

If you look at the first page of the highly self-publicised Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) paper,

Grant Foster1
1 Tempo Analytics, ... Garland, ... USA

And in the paper one can find the full postal address. Again, in the Washington Post - "...Grant Foster of Tempo Analytics...".

Of course, this is not his home address.

Alex Harvey, don't be an idiot. People who operate under pseudonyms typically are trying to separate two parts of their lives: the part in which they operate under their real name, and the part in which they operate under a pseudonym. The fact that Tamino does some things while calling himself "Tamino" and other things while calling himself by his given name is completely un-notable; the fact that RP Sr. goes out of his way to call him by the un-chosen name is just straightforward assholery. (And this doesn't even get in to the distinction between voluntary and involuntary disclosure of personal information, let alone the distinction between putting some information about yourself in peer-reviewed literature versus putting it on a public website.)

[Obviously the bit about NPA doesn't apply to Eli -W]

[Sorry, I'm going to make an effort to impose the house rule of No Personal Attacks, except by me, obviously -W]

Hmm, I had thought that I understood most of your crypticisms at this point, but I can't figure out what Eli has to do with my previous comment....

[I think I approved things out of order. I'm talking about the one I had to delete -W]

> No Personal Attacks, except by me, obviously -W

Yes. So what's keeping you? How explicit do you want suggestions to be?

[Well, I'd rather keep them to a minimum -W]

Alex Harvey, do you really expect a Wattie to go data mine a scientific paper of all places for a name-address link? Hmm, where did I hear that before?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beefranck/6793390155/in/photostream

JBL, #25:

I am fully aware that these people are trying to partition their lives into two parts. Yes, you are right. Their real name personas are bound by the ethics of professionalism so that their anonymous personas can say whatever they please without fear of consequence. And as I said, there's nothing inherently wrong about this; it only becomes wrong when the anonymous persona is used to attack professional peers like Pielke who are not similarly protected by anonymity. That is gutless. In this case, Pielke was unable to comment at Tamino's blog without being mobbed by inane, abusive comments that Tamino supported from semi-anonymity. It is clear that the professional response would be to encourage that Pielke, a professor of meteorology, be treated with respect. Pielke is right.

[Again, this is twaddle; for the reasons already explained. Please don't just say exactly the same thing yet again. Maybe if Pielke wasn't such a coward as to not allow comments at all on his "blog" people might have commented there instead? -W]

Alex, in my world the ethics of professionalism would not only apply to the supposed invective in someone's comments, but also the appropriateness of one's analysis. In fact, I consider the latter more important than the former.

Apparently, in Pielke's world it is the other way around (but only if he or his minions are the target. He had no problem when Watts accused NOAA of fraud; at least he did not add any angry blogpost lecturing on professional courtesy and ethics).

[A good point, which I wish I'd made myself, and an excellent comment on the "skeptic" methodology and worldview in general. They are unable to see below the surface to the substance -W]

Tamino is not anonymous. He's pseudonymous.

And even if one has been standing below the climate blog parapet with your doors firmly shut for a long while (and so, maybe, make knowing who is who difficult), it really is quite easy from Tamino's frontpage to obtain what is with 99.9% probability his "non-pseudonym". Go on... buy the book! It doesn't take an intellect of the stature that was RPSr's to work that one out, surely.

And anyway, it doesn't matter a jot whether one is anonymous, pseudonymous or birth-certificate-given named in blogging, it's the force of the arguments, the facts and the stats presented that should count. And RPSr was found wanting on that score in this instance. There is not one ad hom comment aimed at RPSr in either of Tamino's "do the math" OPs or in his responses to commenters (so far as I can see).

Perhaps Tamino should send RPSr a copy of one of his books... And I don't mean his "Analyzing Light Curves: A Practical Guide" tome either!

So, Alex Harvey, I gather we are in agreement: RP Sr has acted like an asshole. The difference between us is that you think it's important not to admit that someone you would like to agree with is acting badly, so instead of saying "Why yes, RP Sr acted like an asshole; he wouldn't have done that if he actually were as interested in collegiality as he pretends to be, or if he had a thicker skin about being criticized for getting things wrong," you try to change the subject to commenters at Tamino's blog.

Zbigniew Jaworowski: stiff

stoat — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:33:15 +0000

Zbigniew Jaworowski: stiff

Wikipedia says it, so it must be true.

ZJ is most famous for winning the 2005 Golden Horseshoes, but lucked out in 2006, despite being called a "titan of mendacity". An example to us all. Tim Ball has a glowing tribute to ZJ, and there can be no deeper condemnation than that. It is entirely fitting that TB uncritically repeats some of the self-promoting lies that ZJ told about himself, including the imaginary senate hearing. And he puffs Beck! What more can you ask?

stoat Mon, 11/14/2011 - 09:33

Tags

climate people

Zbigniew Jaworowski

"Tim Ball has a glowing tribute to ZJ, and there can be no deeper condemnation than that."

LOL!

I note that Tim Ball writes: "One reason for nasty personal attacks is when someone is qualified." He adds, in commenting on Beck, that he is another "... whose contributions are measured by the nastiness of attacks on him and his work."

Gee, by that metric, Mike Mann must be an absolute scientific giant given all the attacks he has endured! I can only imagine that Tim Ball is acknowledging Dr. Mann's genius in this indirect fashion. And, er, didn't someone by the initials TB partake in some of those attacks ... and does that mean that those attacks were actually a form of (subconscious) recognition by Tim Ball of Dr. Mann's "effectiveness" (to use Tim Ball's word)?

The mind boggles.

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone and another one gone
Another one bites the dust hey

Seems Wikipedia points to a Polish article, undoubtedly linked by someone understanding Polish. Didn't know he was that old already.

[Google translate did a fair job on it for me -W]

I feel suddenly sad, not so much for J, whom I didn't know except through his nonsense, but for the still poorly understood phenomenon of emerititis (emeritoma?). I am getting on in years, and our lack of understanding leaves open the possibility that it might afflict anyone, including me. Will I notice the onset? Will it hurt? How lucrative is it? Will I still find the residual decency to feel ashamed?

More research is needed.

[Aye, likely we're all headed that way in the end -W]

William, it must be said that your tact and empathy are second to none.

"- stiff"

I ask you!

I originally read it as 'stuff', and wondered what exactly the point of the post was.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
-- Max Planck, A Scientific Autobiography, 1949

[That was the one I was thinking of, Bishop -W]

I thought the "stiff" was a bit rude (though I still chuckled), but then I looked at CA's latest.

All I can say is, there's a new baseline for tastelessness, and you're way clear of it.

[The weird attempt to conflate the sex-abuse stuff? In a way, that is good to see, because it shows how empty McI is. I find it hard to believe that even his dittoheads will lap that stuff up, but I could be wrong -W]

Martin, as of June, Eli will be available for postdocs in interesting places and well renumerated consulting positions. OTOH, Ms. Rabett has always asked what the bunny does with his spare change.

[I never knew you were so wrinkly -W]

So Eli, now you're just a chair impeachment away from retirement? :)

I find it hard to believe that even his dittoheads will lap that stuff up, but I could be wrong

It appears you're wrong ...

John Mashey's analysis found that the physicist-denialists were disproportionately old, so Planck gets still more support.

Too bad a mountain climber couldn't get the facts straight about threats to mountain glaciers.

Re: #6

I'm afraid that refers to controversies without vested interests being involved. Knut Angstrom (the middle one) died and so did his saturation effect, but his idea has now been zombified. The main change involves a decline in quality of the arguments and calibre of the individuals.

William --- This topic is stiff and cold. New post, please.

[I'm not doing a very good job of keeping the crowd fed, am I? Still - would you rather have Curry? -W]

Would you rather have Curry's commentors?

[Quality over Quantity, I say -W]