Where’s the heat? Pielke Sr. has started an interesting dialog

Posted on April 29, 2010 by
Kevin Trenberth: Where is the heat?

Kevin Trenberth: Where is the heat?

I first noticed commentary on a paper by Kevin Trenberth on the blog of Roger Pielke Jr. about 10 days ago:

The Missing Heat

Pielke Jr. wrote about Kevin Trenberth’s (of “it’s a travesty” Climategate fame) recent paper about the “missing heat” in the climate system. This was picked up elsewhere in the blogosphere, but actually started a few days earlier at Pielke Sr.’s blog where he got additional commentary from Trenberth, Josh Willis, and Roy Spencer over the next several days.  Here’s a link to the dialog:

Lots of reading assignments, I know, but definitely worth your time.  What is this?  A real dialog on outstanding issues in climate science?  Who would have thought such a thing was possible?  My hat’s off to Pielke Sr. for getting this discussion moving forward in a postive way.

Another recent article hosted on Pielke Sr.’s blog that is worth a read is this one by Dick Lindzen:

We still have a lot to learn about the climate. Roger Pielke Sr. is helping to move the process along.

Posted in Climate Change | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Fox News Exclusive: Citizen’s Group Plans Extensive Audit of U.N. Climate Report

Posted on April 29, 2010 by
Donna Laframboise, the creator of NOconsensus.org (Toronto, Canada)

Donna Laframboise, the creator of NOconsensus.org (Toronto, Canada)

It appears that Donna Laframboise is following up with a more detailed review of the IPCC report.  I’ve written about her blog recently here and here,  and a link to her blog can be found in the Blogroll to the right (or click her photo above).   Fox News reports:

EXCLUSIVE: Citizen’s Group Plans Extensive Audit of U.N. Climate Report

Some excerpts:

A leading global warming skeptic recruited a group of concerned citizens to fact-check the sources referenced in the U.N.’s latest climate-change bible — and gave the report an “F.” Now she’s planning the nail in the coffin: a comprehensive audit of the entire report.

Getting new data out to the public is the mission of Laframboise, Climate Audit, and the other online publishers. “Many of the volunteers who participated in the citizen audit feel there is more work to be done and have expressed an interest in taking part in future projects,” Laframboise told FoxNews.com. 

“We’re in a position to assess whether the IPCC followed or broke any other rules. Now that we’ve seen how seriously they took the peer-reviewed rule, we suspect that there are numerous other guidelines, that they themselves established, and boasted about following, that were also violated. A number of promising avenues for further research were suggested by the project we’ve just completed.”

I look forward to the results as I’m sure it will be enlightening.  Please pay a visit to Donna’s blog and read what she and the voluteers have accomplished so far.

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Whale poo could help oceans absorb CO2

Posted on April 24, 2010 by
Whale poo a solution to climate change?

Whale poo a solution to climate change?

It’s amazing some of the drivel you find in the mainstream media:

Whale poo could help oceans absorb CO2 – scientists

How many whales are needed for the task?  Too many, I’m sure.

For a real laugh, be sure the click on the link in the article for comments at Newsvine.  One example from R.O. Davis:

“According to the article, seeding the ocean with iron would not produce the same result. The iron normally falls to the the bottom too quickly. Whale defecation retains the iron at or near the the top of the water, until it can be introduced into the food chain at or near the surface. One could argue; the slaughter of the whales may in fact be one of the major reasons for the rise in co2 buring [sic] that same time period.“ 

Emphasis mine.  At least this is an alternate theory to climate change.  LOL.

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Yale Environment 360: Freeing Energy Policy From The Climate Change Debate

Posted on April 24, 2010 by

Yale Environment 360

Take a look at the excellent article on Yale Environment 360 by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger:

Freeing Energy Policy From The Climate Change Debate

Some excerpts:

The reality is that both sides abuse the science in the service of their political agendas.

The use and misuse of climate science by advocates began to wash back into the science itself.

For 20 years, greens and many scientists have overstated the certainty of climate disaster out of the belief that governments could not be motivated to act if they viewed the science as highly uncertain. And yet governments routinely take strong action in the face of highly uncertainty events.

Climate science can still usefully inform us about the possible trajectories of the global climate and help us prepare for extreme weather and natural disasters, whether climate change ultimately results in their intensification or not. And understood in its proper role, as one of many reasons why we should decarbonize the global economy, climate science can even help contribute to the case for taking such action. But so long as environmentalists continue to demand that climate science drive the transformation of the global energy economy, neither the science, nor efforts to address climate change, will be well served.

Good discussion in the comments too.

Posted in Carbon Offsets, Climate Change, Climategate, IPCC, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Excellent discussion at Lucia’s regarding Keith Kloor’s interview of Judith Curry

Posted on April 24, 2010 by
Judith Curry

Judith Curry

There’s an excellent discussion at Lucia’s The Blackboard regarding Keith Kloor’s interview of Judith Curry:

Judy Curry Interviewed by Kloor

The talk over at Real Climate is rude as expected, so I’ve stopped reading there.

When I became interested in climate science a couple years ago, I became very skeptical of the consensus view, much of it due to the behavior of some on Real Climate.  I’ve read many blogs on the topic, and lately my favorite sources are the lukewarmers or those with a more rational view on the topic, such as Lucia’s The Blackboard, The Air Vent, Roger Piekle Sr., Roger Pielke Jr., Roy Spencer, and others (see blog roll to the right). 

I do think there’s still much we don’t know about the climate, and look forward to a rational, non-alarmist discussion.

I appreciate the effort Judith Curry has made to reach out to expand the discussion, rather than the approach by others to stifle the debate.

Posted in Climate Change | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Washington Post: Five myths about green energy

Posted on April 24, 2010 by
Photo courtesy of “SunEdison”: 8.2 MW Solar Electric Installation at Alamosa , CO. December 2007

Photo courtesy of “SunEdison”: 8.2 MW Solar Electric Installation at Alamosa , CO. December 2007

Robert Bryce at the Washington Post has a very interesting look at some of the myths of green energy:

Five myths about green energy

He hits on some key issues I have, including the amount of land used for wind and solar projects and the corridors required for new transmission lines.  For a Colorado example, see here about a proposed transmission line starting near Alamosa.

Unfortunately, many of the green projects have similar issues to carbon based energy sources.

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IPCC Report Card

Posted on April 18, 2010 by
Climate Bible Gets 21 'F's on Report Card

Climate Bible Gets 21 'F's on Report Card

Donna Laframboise and her group of citizen volunteers recently did a thorough examination of references in the IPPC report:

My compliments to Donna and her volunteers.

Update 4/21/2010:  See Donna’s latest posts on this topic: 

Update 4/24/2010:  See Donna’s latest post on the Stern Report: 

Posted in Climate Change, Climategate, IPCC, Politics | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Temperature data: Garbage in, garbage out

Posted on April 18, 2010 by
Climate data: Garbage in, garbage out

Climate data: Garbage in, garbage out

It never ceases to amaze me that there are so many discussions on what statistical method should be used to tease out the human climate signal from the surface temperature data, when that data is pretty much garbage. Anthony Watts’ surface station database, documents many issues with siting and non-compliance with governments standards.  What happens to the data during and after collection is just as bad.  Consider the recent example of the “hot spot” in Finland:

And now Mr. Watts has delved deeper into the source of the issue with this post:

GISS & METAR – dial “M” for missing minus signs: it’s worse than we thought

It is almost unbelievable that someone would design such a poor method of data collection.  Who would use an “M” to signify a negative value instead of a minus sign?  This is Data Collection 101.  What a mess.

And isn’t it at least a bit amusing that errors in the convoluted data collection process would have a warm bias, particularly in cold areas? Conspiracy?  I don’t think so, but what horrible methodology.  I’m at a loss for words.

So tell me again how a particular statistical method is going to fix garbage input data?

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Another “investigation” concludes with a whitewashing

Posted on April 18, 2010 by
Another Climategate whitewash

Another Climategate whitewash

The result of the Oxburgh Panel as expected found no wrongdoing by the climate scientists at CRU.  The panel designed the inquiry so as to not find anything wrong.  Read the report here, read some analysis here:

There’s much more on the climate blogs, but the links above provide a good start. When the inquiry is designed to find nothing wrong, we shouldn’t be surprised with the outcome.  Whitewashing at its finest.

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Greenpeace not so peaceful?

Posted on April 5, 2010 by
Greenpeace director incites intimidation or violence?

Greenpeace director Gene Hashmi incites intimidation or violence?

I was reading Tom Fuller’s piece this morning on the Greenpeace fiasco:

Global warming: Greenpeace abandons reality–lies, libel and scummy behaviour are more fun, I guess

I suggest you pay a visit to the Greenpeace site and read the article by Gene Hashmi, Communications Director for Greenpeace in India,  and be sure to read the comments.  Quite enlightening. 

Will the real ClimateGate please stand up? (part 1)

Will the real ClimateGate please stand up? (part 2)

Here’s how Hashmi concludes his post:

“We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few.”

- Gene Hashmi, Communications Director for Greenpeace in India

The repeated replies to the comments by Greenpeace staffers claim that Gene didn’t really threaten people, but it rings hollow.  And while Andrew, Juliette and Brian are busy defending Hashmi’s comments, we hear nothing from him.  He does have a nice Twitter page, but I guess he can’t be bothered to respond. 

This kind of reminds me of the days right after Climategate broke and Gavin Schmidt spent endless hours on Real Climate defending the emails of Phil Jones and Mike Mann.  Like we can’t read and decide for ourselves.

I used to give money to Greenpeace, as recently as 10 years ago, but stopped when I saw the political animal it had become.

Update 4/5/2010:  A Google search for “Gene Hashmi Twitter” pulls up this:

 

Here’s the link:    http://twitter.com/genehashmi/status/10231913487

There’s also this little nugget:

“someone just said they’re following me for the drugs. Sorry, but you gotta score your fucking own”
 12:45 AM Mar 10th via web

- Gene Hashmi, Communications Director for Greenpeace of India

Update 04/06/2010:  Watts Up With That has a post about an apology of sorts from Greenpeace.

Update 04/07/2020:  The Guardian is now covering this: Greenpeace could learn a simple lesson on manners from George Washington

Posted in Climate Change, Climategate, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment