Nicolas Lewis and Matt Ridley have written a scathing article in the Spectator (UK) regarding the treatment of O’Donnell et al during the peer review and post peer review process.
I’ve been privileged with receiving an advance copy. Since this is a subscription only magazine, I can’t show you the entire article, but I can say, I think they got it right. There is however, an op-ed by Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator, which you can read in full here.
I expect there will be some damage control in Real Climate tomorrow, or perhaps a letter of rebuttal to the Spectator, or both.
The Team, and climate science in general, comes off looking badly. Here’s an excerpt:
“Nature’s original peer-review process had let through an obviously flawed paper, and no professional climate scientist then disputed it – perhaps because of fear that doing so might harm their careers. As the title of Richard Bean’s new play – The Heretic – at the Royal Court hints, young scientists going into climate studies these days are a bit like young theologians in Elizabethan England. They quickly learn that funding and promotion dries up if you express heterodox views, or doubt the scripture. The scripture, in this case, being the assembled reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
…
“Papers that come to lukewarm or sceptical conclusions are published, if at all, only after the insertion of catechistic sentences to assert their adherence to orthodoxy. Last year, a paper in Nature Geosciences concluded heretically that `it is at present impossible to accurately determine climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide’ (high sensitivity underpins the entire IPCC argument), yet presaged this with the (absurd) remark: `Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century.’Likewise, a paper In Science last month linking periods of migration in European history with cooler weather stated: `Such historical data may provide a basis for counteracting the recent political and fiscal reluctance to mitigate projected climate change.’ Sceptical climatologist Pat Michaels pointed out that the sentence would make more sense with `counteracting’ removed.Science as a philosophy is a powerful, but fragile thing. In the case of climate, it is now in conflict with science as an institution.”
Note from Anthony: I highly recommend purchasing a copy to support the magazine’s efforts at making this issue known, you can purchase the most recent copy here:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/buy-this-issue/5324661/buy-the-current-issue.thtml
What can RC say about climate-gate now that they’re being caught red-handed doing the very things that the climate-gate e-mails hinted they were doing?
How can this debacle (love that word, so rarely use it online) not make them all look like total fools bent on lying to the world?
To re-cap:
1) Alarmists say skeptics don’t have anything peer-reviewed to point to, so ignore them
2) Climate-gate exposes gaming of peer-review by alarmists
3) Alarmists say climate-gate taken out of context, all is well.
4) Alarmists caught doing what climate-gate had previously illustrated
…? The reaction posts at RC in the next few weeks should be as interesting as the initial reaction to climate-gate… that is to say, they’ll probably clam up for a while.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the inclusion of those same “catechistic” disclaimers exactly what happened in the paper on cosmic rays and clouds just covered here??
“…The climatic forcings resulting from such solar – terrestrial links may have had a significant impact on climate prior to the onset of anthropogenic warming, ..”
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/10941/2010/acp-10-10941-2010.pdf
I would have bought a copy had a google account not been required.
Hey Anthony,
Great article, but…
…I went straight to the Spectator site to buy the magazine to show my support (and because I want to read it). Having gone through Google’s payment procedure I get this message:
Request Entity Too Large
Your client issued a request that was too large.
Whatever that means. Anyway, the end result is, I can’t order the magazine online.
Anyone else having this problem?
Already ordered my copy. I wouldn’t want to seem to be in favour of paywalls, but for £1.99 it seems reasonable (and it is presumably not something which is going to be quoted by other work, so need not be public)
That is the kind of paragraph that makes you sit up and think. Very well said.
The analogy with theology students in a theocratic context is also very well judged. When you include the mainfold policies of ‘mitigation’ this has all the makings of another modern political religion – as both Bolshevism and Naziism were, according to historians like Michael Burleigh. And they didn’t turn out well for the ordinary person, to put it mildly. I’ll be buying and reading with great interest.
Live in UK. In no way would I entrust Google with my private information. I will buy the Spectator in my local W H Smith.
I haven’t read the piece yet. But, consider this. They may have gotten things right, but, unless Andy Revkin at the Times also produces something similar, this will simply be dismissed as just another right wing political attack.
The Spectator’s paywall is not insurmountable. Just wait a week and the website will have this week’s mag articles online.
Ordered
I would have bought a copy too if a Google account had not been required.
I’ll try and remember to look for it in the shops.
I would say the anti – Earth bunch are the anti- CO2 group. Plants need CO2 to survice and plants are green, just like Greenland used to be. Increased CO2 levels should increase overall green activity on Mother Earth.
A remarkable consequence of successfully defeating a foolish but orthodox (“consensus”) opinion is continued social disapproval. The “whistleblower” does not receive applause but ostracism – social silencing, a reversal of the ability to speak publicly when the crowd awaiting the public humiliation to be heaped upon the heretic. Any of us who contradict – with data – a warmist at a gathering well recall the chill that descends upon the room and the turning of backs.
When the CAGW alarm goes away, Morano, Watts, McIntyre will be persona non grata more than they are now. The “cranks” will become the boring, annoying fist-shakers proclaiming on soapboxes in Hyde Park. The powerful and social leaders – the Gores, the Romms – may back off on their pronouncements, but they will not be replaced with their detractors. Think of how Paul Erhlich, for all his bizarre pronouncements, still is an honorary director of The David Zuzuki Foundation! Will the researchers who prevail when they demonstrate that polar bears are not facing extinction end up advising environmental movements? I think not.
The social phenomena of the climate change debacle will be an interesting chapter in a future update on the Madness of Crowds and Other Popular Delusions.
Great front cover to counter Nature’s! Could the image of it way down be moved to the top of the post?
Who needs science when you have surety of fact and purity of motive?
http://www.viciousbabushka.com/2011/02/chabad-tackles-climate-change.html
The speaker was Mark Dreyfus QC MP, who is the Federal Minister for Issacs and also a cabinet secretary as well as Parliamentary secretary for climate change and energy efficiency.
Mr. Dreyfus stressed that taking action today on climate change would leave the world a better place for our children.
“Climate change is a huge problem,” he said. “The more people there are the more green gas being released into the air and the carbon emissions lead to climate change.”
———
Yep. The many-too-many people and their green gas are to blame. Now what would be a quick and simple solution to that? Do it for the chirrun!
Oh, wait…
Nature comes off looking badly too.
Ordered!
I think it is important to remember that Real Climate is a Public Relations blog specifically set up to shape public opinion in one way and to provide talking points to the media. PR firms have been retained to more effectively get their “message” out – Environmental Media Services. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/11/warming_blog_realclimate_run_b.html
Hard to put this together with a reviewer making statements just being debating the science.
My order went through easy as pie with Google.
In the interest of fairness/setting readers expectations you should disclose that one of the authors of the Spectator piece is a co-author of the paper with O’Donnell. If one is expecting a balanced piece of reporting you will not find it there.
I ordered it but they only charged the 1.99, nothing extra for the overseas postage. The 1.99 was only supposed to cover local mailings. I’m not expecting to actually get it.
“Science as a philosophy is a powerful, but fragile thing. In the case of climate, it is now in conflict with science as an institution.”
Let’s see just who RealClimate.org is, shall we?
http://www.whois.net/whois/realclimate.org
Admin Organization:Environmental Media Services
Oh look, someone has done the research for me!
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/07/truth-about-realclimateorg.html
Why anyone is surprised by a political / philosophical link, surprises me.
[snip . . . isn’t this all just ad hom?]
Thanks for the link–ordered it via Google account in about 2 steps lasting 30 seconds.
“and no professional climate scientist then disputed it – perhaps because of fear that doing so might harm their careers.”
========================================================
That’s charitable. How about ‘no professional climate scientist then disputed it — perhaps because they don’t understand statistics.’?
It has become clear to me over the last year, after reading the blogs, Montford,s book and now this debacle, that Paleoclimatology is more art than science.
This is refreshing news. It is interesting too, that the play “The Heretic” is mentioned – it seems to be doing OK and is perhaps the first mainstream sceptic play (I haven’t seen it, I rely on reviews). For the acting community to do a sceptic play is quite a big step, I think. I wonder how long it will be before we see a mainstream sceptic film (I won’t hold my breath).
Ockham said:
“It has become clear to me over the last year, after reading the blogs, Montford,s book and now this debacle, that Paleoclimatology is more art than science.”
Well it fits perfectly well into a Post-Normal Scientific world.
The Spectator magazine has organised what looks to be a very interesting debate.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/shop/events/6699018/spectator-debate-the-global-warming-hysteria-is-over-time-for-a-return-to-sanity.thtml
The global warming hysteria is over. Time for a return to sanity
Participants will be:-
For the motion, will be Lord Nigel Lawson, Chairman, Global Warming Policy Foundation and Dr Benny Peiser, Director, Global Warming Policy Foundation.
Against the motion will be Professor Tim Palmer, Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics, Oxford University and Simon Singh, Science Writer.
Should be interesting. I wonder if a recording or transcript of the debate will be available?
In the Oz ABC 7 pm news last night an announcement that “Its true” (human) climate change is causing extreme events. A recent paper in Nature apparently using data and “computer model” has shown conclusively that this is valid. Wow! Amazing.
And in the most recent EOS magazine (Vol 91 No 50 14 Dec 2010) an advert on page 497 by Monash University (Melbourne Australia) for a position as Research Fellow (ARC Super Science) in Atmospheric Dynamics. Quote “ This three-year fixed term position will work on the dynamics of subtropical anticyclones and their connection to drought, heatwaves and bushfires in southern Australia using numerical models run on the NCI supercomputer”
Wow! This going to be ground breaking fundamental research
/sarc
To bad the models are not worth a bees digit and Nature Journal (or is that a magazine) has lost most of its past credibility in my opinion.
Mark S says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:29 am
“In the interest of fairness/setting readers expectations you should disclose that one of the authors of the Spectator piece is a co-author of the paper with O’Donnell. If one is expecting a balanced piece of reporting you will not find it there.”
The intro says that. That O’Donnell and coauthors are writing on behalf of science and statistics but Steig on behalf of the team and Big Warming was established loooooong ago.
Vince Causey says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:44 am
[snip . . . isn’t this all just ad hom?]
Pulitzer prize material, dear boy 🙂
Doug Proctor says:
February 17, 2011 at 10:53 am
“When the CAGW alarm goes away, Morano, Watts, McIntyre will be persona non grata more than they are now. The “cranks” will become the boring, annoying fist-shakers proclaiming on soapboxes in Hyde Park. The powerful and social leaders – the Gores, the Romms – may back off on their pronouncements, but they will not be replaced with their detractors.”
I see that you do not follow American politics. If the present situation in the USA continues until November 2010 then not one Democrat will be elected for anything. There will not be so much as a Democratic dogcatcher. The days of state control are behind us, though some considerable fights remain to take back ground that was all too quickly surrendered.
I’ll buy this off-the-shelf tomorrow.
I hope “The Spectator” finds this to be a rewarding topic of general public interest.
I hope they will do more to examine those quaint scientific practices which don’t really matter when there are no public interest matters at stake, but are not good enough when there are.
If we didn’t have the Steig et al paper and only had the O’Donnell et al paper, which concluded that there was statistically significant warming on the west anarctic ice sheet, what kind of reception would it recieve here?
We have established that the Anarctic ice sheets are warming, now we are only arguing how much.
“professional climate scientist” ???? when someone finds one on the alarmists side let us know …
Wow, in this internet age things are really getting confusing.
Do I buy the digital version, and Save The Planet by using less energy and generating no landfill waste?
Or do I buy the print version, and Save The Planet by sequestering carbon in a form that will be safely stored in a landfill?
=========
I expect there will be some damage control in Real Climate tomorrow…
My apologies, I’m avoiding cerebral depletion by avoiding that site, but what else are they doing these days but various forms of damage control?
D. King says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:41 am
Oh look, someone has done the research for me!
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/07/truth-about-realclimateorg.html
Why anyone is surprised by a political / philosophical link, surprises me.
==================================================
Me too. Thanks for the link – I love rocks like this to put in the bag for later when I’m surrounded by believers.
I will look out for ‘The Spectator’ next time I’m in town; I wish I’d known about it before going to town today.
We haven’t been to the theatre in London for quite some years; it’s all rather a hassle from where we live. We might make an exception to see ‘The Heretic’!
I’m in the US, but was able to buy a digital copy for my Kindle for $2.49.
Link is here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Spectator/dp/B002CVUQ2M
You don’t have to buy a whole subscription, you can just buy the current issue (button on right).
bob says: “We have established that the Anarctic ice sheets are warming, now we are only arguing how much.”
No bob. It has been established that “injecting” different “signals” into Steig’s method produces results which have no meaning or logic. Kinda leading to the conclusion that perhaps – just perhaps – Steig’s methods cannot be relied upon.
That’s an interesting result in itself. But also interesting that Steig’s method made it to publication, that those (ahem) “professional climatologists” did not report the issues as would have been expected from healthy peer review, and the people who did report issues have had the publication of their findings unduly delayed.
Spot any problems in all of that bob?
The implication here is that O’Donnell et al were treated badly during the peer review process. Peer review – isn’t that when you get his lordship to review it? (boom boom)
Anyway, I imagine the thrust of this will be that Steig (as a reviewer) was unduly harsh in his criticism, and demanded lots of changes. But the paper was published anyway. Having read some of Steig’s comments on this, it seems he had legitimate reasons for wanting changes. In particular, it seemed the choice of one parameter by O’Donnnell et al was made so as to minimise west antarctic warming, and that no compelling justification existed for this choice.
As I understand it, when it works well, the peer review process is pretty tough, particularly if your paper is critical of work that preceded it. That it was so in this case is not surprising, and no sign of science being carried out badly. I shall be interested to read the Spectator article once its available for free.
Thanks, I just clicked and bought in under 30 seconds.
“As I understand it, when it works well, the peer review process is pretty tough, particularly if your paper is critical of work that preceded it.”
Yeahhhh – and when the journal reviewer has an interest in making it tough.
Insider dealing can be very lucrative too but, oddly enough, it’s illegal.
It’s normally called “not in the public interest”. If you think it can be played-down as some kind of quaint process among specialists, you’re setting yourself up for a rather rude awakening.
The article talks about science in a scientific world. We’re going past the 30 year mark, into the post-scientific world, by my reckoning. Look at how long all the tom-foolery has been going on in the climate and drug research fields has been going on. (Maybe longer?)
We’re now in an age where opinion and politics, peers, profit and funding are the drivers of our new science. And the funding really only cares about whether a profit is turned, not whether something is “true” or not.
The old science, science that seeks the truth, is dead. Long live the new Science!
It’s one of those irregular verbs, isn’t it?
1. I write peer-reviewed papers which support the overwhelming consensus
2. You publish contrarian science in second-rate journals
3. He is a climate crank.
I don’t see how ‘climate change’ can be characterized as a scientific debate when the response to a single established, but non-scientific event can be so polarised. i.e. ask someone the following: “In your opinion, what was the most important issue surrounding Climategate — the theft of supposedly private e-mails; or the content of the e-mails themselves?”
Warmists overwhelmingly say the former; skeptics the latter. No science involved, but polar opposite responses made on moral or political grounds. How, then, can we expect any attempt at meeting of minds on contentious scientific topics?
Hi Bob
Do you think that is a reasonable summary of the O’Donnell paper? I don’t, and if you were to read the paper, or a good summary of it like that presented in the Spectator, you may be embarrassed by the main conclusion you have drawn.
Kind Regards
Michael
Stephen Brown says:
February 17, 2011 at 12:41 pm
The Spectator magazine has organised what looks to be a very interesting debate.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/shop/events/6699018/spectator-debate-the-global-warming-hysteria-is-over-time-for-a-return-to-sanity.thtml
The global warming hysteria is over. Time for a return to sanity
Participants will be:-
For the motion, will be Lord Nigel Lawson, Chairman, Global Warming Policy Foundation and Dr Benny Peiser, Director, Global Warming Policy Foundation.
Against the motion will be Professor Tim Palmer, Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics, Oxford University and Simon Singh, Science Writer.
Should be interesting. I wonder if a recording or transcript of the debate will be available?
===========================================================
I am hoping it will be videod taped and put on YouTube.
For Jordan and Michael in Sydney
“Notably, though we find warming in West Antarctica to be smaller in magnitude, we find that statistically significant warming extends at least as far as Marie Byrd Land. ”
That quote is from the abstract of the O’Donnell paper, take it for what it’s worth.
Jordan@February 17, 2011 at 3:58 pm you don’t get it.
If a journal receives a paper critical of an earlier paper, then the right thing to do is to get one of the authors of the original paper to review it.
Firstly for the obvious reason that if your work is being disparaged, it makes sense to let you comment on that.
Secondly, because you’ve already taken the trouble to become acquainted with the material in the paper, so you are probably better placed than just about anyone else to review it. It should be noted that the editor of the journal has the final say, and in the end decided that Steig had enough of a say, and did not include him in the final round of reviews of the paper. After all, its the editors journal, and he/she lives or dies by the quality of the journal, so they get the final say – fair enough.
From what I hear, its not easy to get good reviewers, as the review process is difficult. I have a friend in academia who asserts that many published papers should never have got that far – probably because it was too hard to get a reviewer who would take the time to really go into the offending paper.
If someone writes a paper critical of O’Donnell et al, or even just extending their work, then one of the authors of O’Donnell et al should be a reviewer.
bob says:
February 17, 2011 at 1:33 pm
“We have established that the Anarctic ice sheets are warming, now we are only arguing how much.”
You overlook the moral matter entirely. Was that by accident or are you a communist?
Theo,
I am not ignoring the moral matter at all, it is just that from my perspective, I can not entirely justify finding one side or the other in this case to be guilty or innocent. I find it to be more of a repeat of the Mann vs McIntyre and McKittrick fiasco.
In both cases, if you find Mann entirely guilty and M&M entirely guilt-free or the opposite, then I find a lack of objectivity in that judgement.
And in this case, I find both Steig et al and O’Donnell et al, to find significant warming in West Antarctica.
And I spelled it right that time.
Hi Bob
Here is a quote from the Spectator article
“…So has Antarctica been warming? Mostly not – at least not measurably. The peninsula (2% of the continent) shows substantial warming. The rest is patchy: some parts are warming slightly, others cooling slightly. Over the continent as a whole, since 1957, O’Donnell et al found no statistically significant warming trend….”
I know what I would summarize from that and its not “…We have established that the Anarctic ice sheets are warming, now we are only arguing how much….”
Kind Regards
Michael
There have been a lot of posts on a number of sites working around this event.
The key focus of this post is the corruption of peer review.
However I would just like to observe that Steig appears to have won in this whole event.
After O’Donnell10 was published I noticed his very quick response on the Air Vent where he congratulated the authors on their paper and remarked on how it had backed up his conclusion in S09 that there was significant warming in West Antartica.
That was strange in itself, as it was clear that the authors considered their paper as a rebuttal of S09.
As more information has come out it becomes clear that a slick trick has been pulled.
The original paper using TTLS was a direct attack on S09 clearly showing that the use of 3 PCs produced Chladni patterns making the results completely artificial.
Due to Eric’s efforts as reviewer A, this paper will not be published.
After 3 reviews and 2 major revisions, the authors attempting to work their way through the gating procedure had surrendered this clear message and simply run with a clear statistical technique that was without the artificial features.
The scope of the paper was still to demonstrate that a bad statistical method had been used in S09. It was commenting on appropriate statistical tools and not focussing on Antartic warming.
But Eric has managed to derail this message completely – both by his input as a reviewer and then by creating an explosion by attacking the paper “disingenuously” so that all the discussion is about the evil of revealing a reviewers identity.
Moreover, the bottom line on temperature, as RyanO keeps affirming, is that the warming pattern that comes out of better statistical methods is exactly the same as that which was commonly known before S09.
That is – that in all of Antartica, only the Peninsula was showing up significant warming.
The rest of Antartica was a neutral to cooling pattern, and S09 was completely wrong in challenging this common knowledge.
But having forced changes in the original paper and creating a storm afterwards, Eric really can say “mission accomplished”, even if he cops a bit of flack for being tricky with his peer review.
The message is being lost in the noise.
Eric trumpets O10 as backing his conclusions on Antartic warming, while protesting that it is still an underestimate. ie S09 is still the better conclusion!
And now he can mock the new guys as playing dirty with false accusations and betrayal of confidence.
The only way justice can come out of this is if some key “climate scientists” actually try to understand why S09 is a really bad paper that got huge public exposure and make a big public expression to acknowledge this.
DJ says:
February 17, 2011 at 9:38 am
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the inclusion of those same “catechistic” disclaimers exactly what happened in the paper on cosmic rays and clouds just covered here??
“…The climatic forcings resulting from such solar – terrestrial links may have had a significant impact on climate prior to the onset of anthropogenic warming, ..”
Be careful, DJ, you are stepping on Leif’s favorite corn.
“Papers that come to lukewarm or sceptical conclusions are published, if at all, only after the insertion of catechistic sentences to assert their adherence to orthodoxy. ”
Additional example in a study already covered by WUWT : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/01/oh-snap-co2-causes-ocean-critters-to-build-more-shells/#more-13543
The WHOI scientists have everything to conclude that marine life appreciate very much CO2 increase. Then comes the catechistic conclusion:
“The bottom line is that we really need to bring down CO2 levels in the atmosphere.”
There is absolutely nothing in related experiment to support the conclusion!…
Rick Bradford says:
February 17, 2011 at 4:43 pm
I don’t see how ‘climate change’ can be characterized as a scientific debate when the response to a single established, but non-scientific event [Climategate] can be so polarised.
It sounds to me like you might think that, if your premise is true, you’ve just proven that Climate Science’s “climate change” science is not really scientific! That is one possible conclusion from your argument, right? Well, if that’s what you intended, thanks, but while I agree with that conclusion, I don’t agree that you’ve proven it, because your premise is totally irrelevant to the question of whether Climate Science climate change science is real, scientific method and principle, science.
Prior to Climategate it was already very clear that ipcc Climate Science is not real science.
Bob,
you will find the best answer about the Antarctica temperature trend here in the following table:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/28/steigs-antarctic-heartburn/
Reconstruction
1957 to 2006 trend
1957 to 1979 trend (pre-AWS)
1980 to 2006 trend (AWS era)
Steig 3 PC
+0.14 deg C./decade
+0.17 deg C./decade
-0.06 deg C./decade
New 7 PC
+0.11 deg C./decade
+0.25 deg C./decade
-0.20 deg C./decade
New 7 PC weighted
+0.09 deg C./decade
+0.22 deg C./decade
-0.20 deg C./decade
New 7 PC wgtd imputed cells
+0.08 deg C./decade
+0.22 deg C./decade
-0.21 deg C./decade
The most interesting result in connection with AGW is that all trends are negative after 1980, even with Steig’s “method”. The better reconstructions show a significant cooling trend of -0.2 deg C / decade. Antarctica is actually cooling significantly for over 30 years now.
[snip . . . off topic]
Ordered. It’s important to support this kind of thing- assuming they’ve got it right natch# (as i haven’t read the whole thing yet)
I’ll be picking up a copy in Smiths’ today.
Chris
Brian Eglinton says:
February 17, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Thanks much. You or someone should write this up as an article with references and publish it, preferably on this site.
bob says:
February 17, 2011 at 7:16 pm
“I am not ignoring the moral matter at all, it is just that from my perspective, I can not entirely justify finding one side or the other in this case to be guilty or innocent.”
Sorry, Sir, but moral matters have no escape clauses. There are no ties, no rainchecks, nothing of the sort.
“And in this case, I find both Steig et al and O’Donnell et al, to find significant warming in West Antarctica. And I spelled it right that time.”
If you want to say that the importance of getting an article published or stopping it from being published, presumably because of some ideas in it, outweighs the fact that egregious moral blunders were made during its evaluation for publication, then when push comes to shove you are likely to start acting directly and shooting authors before they submit for publication. With the exception of Jeremy Bentham, who was corrected by his student John Stuart Mill, the only folks in the Western tradition who have held that the end justifies the means are Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Alinsky, and their students.
Don’t need the copy.
Did my own research.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
There is no man-made global warming or man-made climate change.
I’m in the US, but was able to buy a digital copy for my Kindle for $2.49.
That was enormously helpful, thanks. One-click, Kindle in the bag next to me. I do wish I could throw it in my directory full of papers, though, but so be it.
rgb
Bought my copy today. £3.20 well spent for a good article.
I see “The Spectator” is staging a debate in London on 29 March:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/shop/events/6711083/spectator-debate-the-global-warming-hysteria-is-over-time-for-a-return-to-sanity.thtml
Re the Spectator debate: do poor Tim and Simon have any clue, I wonder, about just how badly outgunned they are by Nigel and Benny? I hope transcripts or videos are available shortly afterwards.
Thanks Manfred. Right on Target.
Thanks Brian Eglinton – that is how I understood it as well.
Reading Manfred and Brian together, there is some ‘splaining to do by the CAGW community.
The hype/coverion Nature 01/09 is an embarassment to science. Do y’all recall the headingline? “Antarctica is not bucking the trend…” That means they knew it was a problem for the AGW argument. Pointing out ‘a warming trend’ while ignoring 30 years of cooling is all you get from Nature articles, apparently.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: February 17, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Did you mean this type of cerebral depletion ?
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: February 17, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Did you mean this type of cerebral depletion ?
Oops link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Broccoli_and_cross_section_edit.jpg
My copy arrived today, and that article seemed to be the most readable in the whole issue! To me, it seemed to sumarise the important parts of the story, including the insignificance of the actual result. Bob doesn’t find the distinction between the two pictures interesting because he is fixated on warming or not (as is one of the subscribers on the letters page who seems to believe that in 100 years we will be extinct as a result of IPCC projections). Warming exists in the peninsula, and justifications for that vary – but for the rest, it is still in the noise. Seems to me that many people who believe they understand the issues have a feeble grasp of noise, random processes and measurement uncertainty.
Anyway, does the Spectator article talk to the middle ground? Maybe. Is it persuasive for people who are finding the green taxes are becoming noticable (electricity, petrol, house surveys, condensing boilers etc.) – I doubt it to be honest. Do people who don’t already have a firm opinion read articles like this?
Digital version is available on Kindle. Single issue $2.49 but nil cost as part of a one month free trial. Worth a read but the paragraphs reproduced on WUWT and elsewhere include most of the content.
My printed copy arrived today. Good, simple read for the layman but, like Sean above at 5am, I doubt whether it’ll make many waves in the main dead tree press. 🙁
The article now appears to be free on-line (at least in the UK): http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/6705193/breaking-the-ice.thtml