Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
An article by Lord Monckton outlined his involvements with Thomas Karl, Director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville NC. It arose from a publication by Karl and others regarding global temperatures. The article, was apparently designed to influence the public debate as the COP21 climate conference in Paris looms. Monckton identified his appearance on behalf of the Republicans and Karl for the Democrats. According to Monckton, Karl said, “How do you expect to be taken seriously?” Monckton’s response that the data must be taken seriously is appropriate. However Karl appears to be speaking from the power of his position as a bureaucrat who controls the data and the politicians. It parallels a comment made by a bureaucrat after I gave a presentation, “What is your motive?” I replied, “Something apparently unfamiliar to you, the truth” The episodes identifies two major issues. First, the idea that if you accept AGW and the government position as correct you are left of center politically and even if you only challenge it you are right of center. To test this, ask yourself what the chances are of Monckton appearing for the Democrats or Karl for the Republicans. Second, is the power of bureaucrats to control the science and the politicians? For them the science is settled and therein is the problem of bureaucratic climate scientists.
It is time for skeptics in every nation to openly challenge what is going on in their national weather offices. It is occurring in some countries, but a greater effort is required. The public needs to know the extent of their role in the IPCC. They also need to know the level of inaccuracy in their short, medium and long-term forecasts, the latter exemplified by the failed IPCC forecasts. The focus here is on the role of bureaucratic control in climate and environmental issues, but it is part of the larger recovery of control of government. Politicians don’t seem willing to tackle the problem so it has to be a grassroots effort to remind them government is by the people and for the people.
Climate skepticism exists in some larger western nations. Where it does, and is effective, it is actively and excessively challenged. An example is the recent claim that skeptics should be charged under the organized crime legislation, or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Generally, the nations actively involved produced computer models as part of the ensemble of model process, CMIP5, of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This involves 20 models, but approximately 11 countries.
The challenge is in the smaller nations. I recently completed several hours of interviews for Romanian TV. The science reporter involved began writing a book on climate and realized that only the IPCC side was known in Romania. It is the case in most countries. The smaller nations only participate as members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), but are valuable for political objectives as their one vote is as valuable as a larger nations vote. This is the constant problem of the UN in all matters. The Maldives and sea level claims are an example of this exploitation. As Richard Lindzen explained:
IPCC’s emphasis, however, isn’t on getting qualified scientists, but on getting representatives from over 100 countries, said Lindzen. The truth is only a handful of countries do quality climate research. Most of the so-called experts served merely to pad the numbers.
Again Lindzen from his direct involvement with the IPCC wrote:
It is no small matter that routine weather service functionaries from New Zealand to Tanzania are referred to as ‘the world’s leading climate scientists.’ It should come as no surprise that they will be determinedly supportive of the process.
Maurice Strong deliberately set up the IPCC through the UN and the WMO. As Elaine Dewar concluded in her book Cloak of Green[1], Strong liked the UN because:
He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, and control the agenda.
Strong controlled the political and science agendas through the weather offices of every nation. He wanted to create the science to prove human CO2 was the problem and then convince the public that lack of action is catastrophic. Using Weather Departments gave bureaucrats ascendancy over politicians because to challenge them put them in contradiction with their own experts, as the Karl Congressional appearance and comments confirm. They control the flow of information in every WMO country.
In 2007 Director of NASA GISS James Hansen, charged the White House with limiting his ability to speak out publicly. Several authorities challenged his claim, but especially his boss at NASA. The larger question is why NASA didn’t charge Hansen with a breach of the Hatch Act, which is specific legislation to limit political activities of Federal bureaucrats. From personal communication with Hansen’s boss, I know the answer was “word from above”. Ironically, the problem is not political interference, that always occurs and is their role, but rather that more and more bureaucrats are political. Who is in charge? If people can’t see the dangers of control by unelected officials then democracy is doomed. Mary McCarthy explains the problem. “Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.”
Canada
Recently a Canadian headline read “Liberal MPs hold press conference on muzzling of scientists”. As usual, the story is different than the headline. The real story is the growth of bureaucratic power in all parts of government. The more dangerous trend is bureaucrats establishing policy and effectively running governments.
Three Canadian MP’s repeated the views of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, the largest Canadian multi-professional union. The Union held public rallies a week before the MP’s announcement protesting Prime Minister Harper’s government interference. An anonymous bureaucrat explained the protestations.
The challenge, he said, is two-fold: for one, lack of freedom to speak freely with the media; and second, the inability to freely disseminate research to the public in a meaningful way.
“Basically, whenever there’s a call or a need to speak to the public or an opportunity to speak to the public, everything has to be approved at generally a fairly high level,” he said. “Particularly if it’s going to be a national story or it’s going to be something that would be of general interest.”
Though local stories are generally approved, he said he still has to go through a “hierarchy of approval.”
This is a person who either did not read or understand the conditions of employment. Canadian Federal bureaucrats are appointed by the Public Service Commission Board, which requires people “refrain from overt political activity once in office, lest their appearance of partisan neutrality be compromised.” It is perfectly within the government’s purview to control policy and bureaucrats. The story illustrates the problems guaranteed to occur with bureaucratic scientists.
The protesting scientists are, almost all employees of Environment Canada. They are trying to prevent the Harper government redressing the use of that agency for a political agenda under a previous government. That government deliberately excluded Canadian climate scientists from participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
For example, I travelled with eight others to Ottawa for a press conference to contradict Minister of the Environment David Anderson’s claim that they consulted all Canadian climate scientists about the Kyoto Protocol. We announced we were not consulted. At the time Anderson had not announced his climate policy and said he was in no hurry to do so. Suddenly, he said he would present the policy in the House of Commons and by coincidence it was at exactly the same time as our press conference. As a result, few media attended our conference.
The Canadian scientists protesting about government interference clearly don’t realize they are not practicing science. They promote an untested, unproven hypothesis when it is the role of scientists to challenge any hypothesis. Scientists must be skeptics otherwise they are not practicing science. Bureaucratic scientists must produce support for their government’s political positions or risk losing their jobs.
Environment Canada’s IPCC Role And The Damage Done.
Environment Canada was very active with the IPCC and promoting their agenda from the start. It is no coincidence that the Chair of the 1985 meeting in Villach Austria at which the structure of the IPCC was formulated was Gordon McBean, Assistant Deputy Minister of Environment Canada (EC).
It took a massive diversion of funds within EC to pursue their goal. The Auditor General said EC spent $6.8 billion from 1997 to 2005 on climate change. Almost all of this went to people and programs supporting the government position. Diversion of funding to climate change left other legislated requirements incomplete.
To cover these diversions they took money from other programs. There are fewer weather stations in Canada now than in 1960, many replaced with unreliable Automatic Weather Observing Stations (AWOS). Many important activities and data collection practices were abandoned. While I was chair of the Assiniboine River Management Advisory Board (ARMAB) in Manitoba the worst flood on record occurred. We asked Water Resources why they didn’t forecast the event. They said they had no data on the amount of water in the snow in the valley. We learned EC canceled flights that used special radar to determine water content. Savings, as I recall, were $26,000. The cost of unexpected flood damage was $7 million to one level of government alone. Loss of weather data means long continuous records, essential to any climate studies, are impossible.
EC failures caused public protest forcing them to take action. They commissioned an internal study and report titled “Action Plan for Climate Science Research at Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC)” prepared by a group called The Impact Group. This was obtained by Canada’s Access to Information (ATI) provision. Ken Green wrote an article in the National Post on December 12, 2003 identifying some of the issues. Here is the major conclusion of the Impact Report that shows why EC did not want it disclosed.
Elements of an “Action Plan for Climate Science Research at MSC” (obtained through an Access to Information request) indicate that Canada’s climate change science program is being driven by a predetermined political agenda with a clear disregard of scientific needs. The Impact Group observes for example, that Canada collects “less climate science data per-square-kilometer of any other major country.” It observes that “the archiving of climate data is so highly fragmented that it is difficult to find out what datasets are available, let alone how to access them.”
Yet the report shows that our resources are not being directed to remedy those information gaps. Rather, our climate resources are being directed toward finding ways to “mitigate” climate change before it’s even adequately measured. The Impact Group also points out that we are only just beginning “to unravel the complexity of the physical, chemical, and biological interactions that determine climate” and suggests that the manmade component of climate change is still to be discerned. Coming from a contractor to Environment Canada, that’s a pretty sharp divergence from the claims by Environment Minister David Anderson that the science of climate change is “solid” and “settled.”
Gordon McBean was a major participant in the singular and devastating direction EC took. He brought his political view of environmental issues and particularly global warming expressed in a speech to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1995.
As the Canadian government web page noted at the time;
Environment Canada is a strong supporter of, and an active participant in, the IPCC. Dr. John Stone (Environment Canada, retired), holds a position on the Bureau and Working Group II, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Art Jaques, Director, Greenhouse Gas Division, Environment Canada, is a member of the Task Force Bureau on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. As well, over 30 Canadian scientists from government, universities and the private sector are participating as authors and editors for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.
John Stone’s position is critical as the liaison between the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) group directed by McBean and the IPCC. The ACIA Reports are almost the sole source for Arctic coverage in the 2007 IPCC Report.
Green spoke about the exclusion of Canadian skeptics that the Report confirms.
Skeptics of catastrophic climate change theory such as myself have long complained that the way governmental agencies conduct science is badly politicized. We have also complained about a lack of consultation – although some of the most reputable climate scientists in the world work in Canada, they have rarely been consulted or asked to advise the government on the science of climate change.
In 2006, 60 prominent Canadian climate experts wrote a letter to Prime Minister Harper asking for an open debate on global warming. It began,
As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government’s climate-change plans.
McBean orchestrated a response letter with another IPCC member, computer modeler Andrew Weaver. They got 90 signatures, but most were Environment Canada employees or people benefiting from government largess.
Another egregious example of EC’s failure was cancellation of their financial support for a joint program with the National Museum of Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. Run under the auspices of the National Museum of Natural Sciences it was titled “Climatic Change in Canada During the Past 20,000 years.” This program brought together a multitude of experts in all different aspects of climate and climate reconstruction and produced volumes of collected papers, published in Syllogeus by the museum that put Canada in the forefront of climate research and reconstruction. To my knowledge none of these experts was called to testify before Parliamentary hearings on Kyoto or were appointed to the IPCC. EC deliberately excluded Canadian climate experts – something that continues to this day. Climate change became political and unaccountable because bureaucrats at EC controlled it.
But McBean wasn’t done. He also established his post-bureaucratic career by using $61 million of taxpayer money to set up the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS) “Canada’s main funding body for university-based research on climate, atmospheric and related oceanic work.” Its job was to fund climate research beyond EC, he took over as Chair shortly after he retired. CFCAS did what EC did, that is essentially only fund people who agreed with their political position. As Wikipedia notes, “The foundation has invested over $117 million in university-based research related to climate and atmospheric sciences.” McBean continues to serve on the CFCAS Board but is also Research Chair of The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. His work is widely recognized by the insurance industry.
A simple definition of science is the ability to predict. If your prediction is wrong your science is wrong. How good is the “science” these Canadian bureaucrats produce? The answer is, by their measure, a complete failure. Figure 1 shows the accuracy of their weather prediction for 12 months over the 30-year span from 1981 to 2010.
Figure 1
Notice that for 90 percent of Canada the forecast average accuracy is given as 41.5 percent. A coin toss is far better odds.
They are no better at longer forecasts. They spend millions on computer model projections for the IPCC. Several nations produce model projections that are averaged to make claims about future temperature. All the models are wrong, but the Canadian model performs worse than any other (Figure2).
Figure 2
Here is what two climate experts said about the Canadian model.
“The differences between the predictions and the observed temperatures were significantly greater (by a factor of two) than what one would get just applying random numbers.”
As Ken Gregory explained,
They explained that a series of random numbers contain no information. The Canadian climate model produces results that are much worse than no information, which the authors call “anti-information”.
Any scientist or academic who carves a career out of a particular topic or position is in danger of the predicament Tolstoi identified.
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
The problem is even worse for a scientist/bureaucrat, especially those at Environment Canada. Once they convinced the politicians that CO2 and global warming was a problem they were on a treadmill. They could not tell politicians, who based strong public positions on the information obtained from EC, that they were wrong. They could not act, as science requires, by adjusting to new evidence. They set out to guarantee the truth of their claim that the science is settled. Worse, as members of the IPCC they ignored evidence, created false data, adjusted records to create desired results. They effectively said the science was settled, which is never true. If you collect the Nobel Prize together you accept the blame together. This is what happens when scientists are bureaucrats.
Skeptics make scientific critiques showing the errors of IPCC science, but avoid the political issues. That is understandable, but will not stop the corruption of climate science. It is time to change tactics. I know simple logic works. I also know most scientists avoid politics of the climate agenda so here is a very effective message for skeptics using simple science when talking to the public. Point out what the public already laugh about, namely that weather forecasts of even a few days ahead are consistently wrong, yet the weather offices talk with certainty about global warming in 20, 30 and 50 years. The usual explanation is that weather forecasts are different than climate forecasts. Point out that climate is the average of the weather, so if the weather is wrong the climate is wrong.
It’s time for skeptics of every nation to look at what is going on in their weather office. There is something seriously wrong when they can publish completely failed results with impunity and yet still demand credibility over policy. Skeptics need to expose how the bureaucracies are used for a political agenda and do it with inadequate data and corrupted science.
[1] Cloak of Green: The Links between Key Environmental Groups, Government and Big Business, Elaine Dewar, Lorimer Press, 1995.
An abbreviated version of parts of this article appeared here.
Interesting, thanks DR. Ball
Indeed. Thank you, Ball.
Dr Ball is a real scientist.
Your point being…
As the Earth heads towards the next Ice Age, the natural variability tendency in the N. Hemisphere is towards further cooling.
This is partialy counteracted by the increasingly stronger pulses from the North East Canada’s and Scandinavia’s isostatic postglacial uplift, generating the 60 year natural variability in the N. Atlantic’s SST
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NA-SST-C.htm
Natural changes in the N. Hemisphere’s climate are driven by the N. Atlantic, and it is thanks to the as yet unknown cause of the 60 year cycle, that the hemisphere had the clement climate in the last few centuries.
unknown cause of the 60 year cycle
===============
Not a single climate model can explain the Little Ice Age. Yet, the lack of explanation for modern warming is seen as proof of the effects of CO2.
Clearly the LIA cannot have resulted from CO2. As such, the lack of explanation for the LIA argues strongly that modern warming is a result of the same mechanism. Which means it cannot be due to CO2.
Well, you mentioned Canada, so you probably think you were on topic.
Fredberple: that’s an argument I’ve used: if Man had the appropriate data and GCMs fifty years before the MWP, could they have forecasted the impending MEP? And toward the end of the MEP, could they have forecasted the onset of the LIA?
The answer, of course, is no, in both cases. If you can’t forecast what the climate will do absent CO2 warming, then clearly you cannot forecast it with.
But that argument requires the listener to have logic and reasoning skills. They don’t. They operate on emotions. So now I just say, “If you raise electric rates, many poor people will not be able to heat their homes in winter and die, especially children. Why do you want to kill children?” It saves a lot of frustration on my part and irritates the h out of them.
Very interesting. I am glad to see Maurice Strong mentioned as a king-pin in all of this. He is one of the puppet masters among the globalists, but manages to keep a low profile. His involvement in setting up the whole global warming meme should in itself be cause for suspicion. (He was also a former king-pin at the UN and heavily implicated in the Oil for Food scheme.) Interestingly Strong has strong ties to the Liberal Party of Canada. Hence their support for the Climate Change agenda is not difficult to understand. In the brief tenure of Paul Martin, Strong was about to set up an office close to Martin presumably to be a close adviser. Martin was a Strong protegee. Somehow the press misses all of these under-the-table connections, and yet they help to explain so much of the politics behind climate change. I think that Ezra Levant’s book on the Kyoto Accord (called Fight Kyoto) is very informative regarding there being a clear (and in my view sinister) political agenda behind the whole thing.
Reblogged this on Utopia – you are standing in it!.
Thank you Dr. Ball. This needs to be broadcast far and wide. I personally laugh when EC comes out with their long-range forecast and openly opine that the opposite is more likely to occur and so far have been right.
The U.S. Climate Prediction Center is also good for a chuckle. I give them credit for making their Heidke Skill Scores available even though it must be embarrassing for them.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/tools/briefing/seas_veri.grid.php
‘Government supports bad science to further a political agenda.’ This has happened before, but on a much smaller scale.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/04/28/the-disgraceful-episode-of-lysenkoism-brings-us-global-warming-theory/
Now it’s happening on a global scale.
Comrade Lysenko would be proud.
http://b-i.forbesimg.com/peterferrara/files/2013/04/Lysenko_evil_eyes1.jpg
Yes, Lysenko’s ghost seems to be having a ball.
But, some people notice.
See Polar Bear Scientists `Willfully Blind To The Facts’ The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), http://www.thegwpf.org/polar-bear-scientists-willfully-blind-to-the-facts/
The work of “bureaucratic climate scientists” is the equivalent of “collateralised debt deposits” where the fundamental integrity or lack thereof is deliberately concealed by slicing and dicing the underlying elements ( actual science and data or geneuine mortgages or other primary debt instruments) so as to conceal their true quality and be able to then market them as a commodity in their own right to a market that is innocent or ignorant of what they are buying.
The parallels of ‘climate science’ with the financial shenanigans of a decade or so ago are more than passing IMO.
A great read. I especially like the Tolstoi quote.
Tolstoy, I mean!
An all-expenses paid trip to Paris, how bad is that? Mind you, you will have to put up with rooms full of pseudo-scientists and ill-informed politicians spouting mumbo-jumbo, but if it means keeping the grant money flowing……
“….You’ll see them get more desperate, make even wilder claims,
They must keep us all frightened; it’s at the top of their aims.
But the ship they are sailing is now clearly sinking,
As we stop being afraid and together start thinking.”
http://rhymeafterrhyme.net/paris-another-climate-jamboree/
An excellent article that could almost be applied exactly to Australia’s experience from the self righteousness and incompetence of our BOM right down to our Wivenhoe Dam disaster. The thing is there are common processes that have been set up in each of the major nations dealing with this climate change devil. Take for example; the establishment of science media centres that co-ordinate and orchestrate warming media news. also the establishment of so-called independent climate councils and associations to act as lobby groups, official spokesmen, funding bodies and media coordinators; the alignment of warmism with the political left and by default anyone who questions climate change as rightists, nazis, sceptics etc. I used to think this was all co-incidence but of recent times, especially having read Stephen Koch’s, “Double Lives”, I can’t help but think that at least some of may be deliberately planned and that there are those who strategize together to keep this green snake fed. Regardless, I agree with you that much more needs to be done to alert the sleeping public to the dangers in their midst. My greatest fear is that they may not be receptive to this message until there is a major catastrophe such as a severe cold spell, most likely in Europe, combined with a massive energy outage brought on by a weakened grid supply. Thousands may die in a couple of days. At a minimum industry and modern industrial life would grind to a halt for long enough to cause untold devastation. Maybe then both the public and politicians will listen. In the mean time, there are a lot of people such as myself that realise that everything is not right, and will do what we can to spread the message.
“Thousands may die in a couple of days.”
I’m sure the stories blaming possible future events like this on ‘Climate Change’ are already written and polished, and just waiting for the insertion of specific places and details.
Thousands ARE dying daily, right now, because they do not have access to cheap power. For a fraction of what is being wasted on alternative energy, fossil-fueled generating plants could be built and power distributed in many third world countries. There are huge natural gas and coal deposits in Nigeria and South Africa that are unused.
Per a National Geographic webste:
“About 3.5 million people, mainly women and children, die each year from respiratory illness due to harmful indoor air pollution from wood and biomass cookstoves. That’s more than double the annual deaths attributed either to malaria (1.2 million) or to HIV/AIDS (1.5 million).”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/05/130529-surprising-facts-about-energy-poverty/
Cheap electricity would end that problem.
I agree, “spread the message” but what kind of message can we spread?
That they are wrong? All we can do is prove it.
I believe they should be challenged by their false science. For almost two years I have been evaluating the merits of their data. I have found basic flaws in their pier research. These flaws are being used by the “good honest scientist” to develop their own research. That is like shooting theirselves in the foot. I cannot understand why the more basic data such as the weather stations have not been given the scrutiny that floating bouys and intake manifolds have been given.
The glaring problem is the way their automatic data spits our numbers without peer reviews. Does anyone use weather station data that NOAA publishes? I have tried but found it is useless. If you try to do REAL studies of their sea level pressures you can see that a computer reads the instrument, checks it for excessive changes and then publishes it every hour. That is probably good enough for flying an airplane but if you need to see between the numbers to the nearest tenth of a mb or inches mercury to the nearest hundredth, instead of getting a good reading the computer assumes it to be incorrect and spits out the number again. Sometimes it goes for several hours before it decides to provide a number at all.
That is why I went to Wally World and bought me a weather station in a box so the data would be all there if needed, and boy do I use it.
I believe they have intentionally scaled down the accuracy of instrument readings in order to cover up detail information. At least with my own weather station in my back yard, I don’t need to depend or trust that published data trash they have for us to use.
But, what I have found within the hundredths digit would amaze even them. I assume that their research has never even looked at in hi-res.
LeeO
Thank you for this explanation Dr. Ball. It comes timely after the CBC’s Paul Kennedy 3 part series, “Science Under Siege” which took three hours to state that government climate scientists were being muzzled. You effectively and succinctly argue the counterpoint.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? Certain people are continually making aggressive assertions that their world view must be recognized and acted upon, and when there is any sound made similar to questioning or doubt or asking for more non-buzzwordy information, said “certain people” “pivot” (I hate that trendy term) to claims of ‘muzzling’, ‘oppression’, ‘victimization’ and the like.
I remember reviewing the EC 3 month projected temperature and precipitation charts heading into winters (big ski fan here). Every year Jan-March had huge red swaths painted on Canada predicting much higher than normal temps, and lower precipitation. Every year, when you could compare actual to projected, the real temp was normal or below with but a small area above normal. Now I understand why.
Yeah, I use EC forecasts to determine seeding and fertilizing dates. Total waste of time. Better to just go outside and look at the sky (although the radar isn’t too bad).
Similar problems arise in the UK. I’ve seen no evidence that the recently ejected Energy minister Ed Davey, or his immediate predecessors, made the slightest effort to challenge the CAGW meme or seek understanding of its limitations. His successor shows every sign of continuing on the same path. This couldn’t happen without active participation of their scientific advisers and bureaucrats. It’s the difference between simple incompetence (hardly a rare thing amongst politicians) and negligence. And given the cost to the public purse, I’d say criminal negligence.
Tim, I spent twenty years in the arctic [1964 to 1985]. We were required to report weather every 6 hrs at the smaller Dewline sites. About 20 years ago[when I farmed], I drove to Minnedosa Manitoba, to hear you speak. Keep up the good work, it is required. l.d. stowe
Lawrence david Stowe,
Thanks for your comments and efforts. Too bad they let all those weather collection points across the Arctic disappear. I think data collection is the only job government should be doing.
Thanks also for your efforts in farming and producing enough surplus food that creates the surplus time for people like me to keep pushing for the truth.
Thanks for driving to Minnedosa to hear me speak. I spent 40 years driving or flying to rural communities in Canada and the US to speak to farmers, foresters and fishermen: the people in the front line who have to deal with and respect the weather.
Failure of government to provide reasonably reliable short and medium term forecasts for farmers is a tragedy and travesty. They then add insult to injury by doing it with your tax money while telling you how to farm to prevent global warming. Much of the money Environment Canada wasted was on programs for farmers to supposedly manage greenhouse gases. I remember at one meeting in Manitoba of a farmer who produced mostly forage crops who told me he signed on to a government program only to have them come in and dictate his crop rotation and overall farm management .
Tim, that is all history, but extremely important. They had no arctic reporting sites prior to the dewline.
built in the mid 1950’s, except the Hudson bay records, which you researched.
When the dewline closed down, so did the recording sites. Money: why have some one sit in the
Arctic, with nothing to do but record weather ! I was from the east coast of Baffin Island to The Alaskan
boarder [Res x one to Bar one] I was ex AIR FORCE and had to go to Steeter, about a hundred miles out
of Chicago to pass their exams. We had Canadian WX instructor. My electronics was at Clinton Ontario,
in 1956.
The stupidity, by both Canadian and American college students last year, is probably a good example
of how little these educated idiots really know.
regards lds
Presumably the criterion for an accurate forecast is the number of degrees (squared?) between the forecast and what occurred. The graph didn’t say and I confess I didn’t go looking. If that is the criterion, then it would be impossible to come up with a forecast via single coin tosses.
It would be interesting to compare EC’s record against a forecast that is just the climatology. I remember something from the NWS that conclude in low confidence forecasts, e.g. something involving a stalling warm front where it’s uncertain just where it will stall, then forecasting the climatology produced more accurate results than forecasting something based on warm side/cool side of the front.
I agree, the coin toss analogy was weak in this context. He was making a good point but that was probably not the way to do if the audience contains people who have any understanding of statistics.
Modelers constantly harp about how their models are correct, but what they are referring to is the general trend over some period is correct but their actual numbers should not be expected to be accurate.
Figure 2 helps to clarify this where it shows that forecasts were off by about 300%. This would be equivalent to a meteorologist forecasting tomorrows high temperature at 30 degrees warmer and it turns out 10 degrees warmer. It becomes an egregious error if the 30 degrees suggests absolute temperature going from 90f to 120f causing great concern and emergency measures enlisted. Even if the meteorologist stated the forecast was correct in that it was in fact warmer they would be fired if not tar and feathered and run out of town.
So even if modelers were correct that various datasets show varying trends from 1970 to present as warmer, I wouldn’t be bragging about it since the models were very far off in magnitude. Worse demanding draconian government action in 1970 on forecasts which they knew had gross uncertainties was irresponsible and unethical in the extreme.
I wonder where you can order tar and feathers.
Billings, Mt for tar and Polson, Mt for feathers. The rail can be had from Alberta from a salvage company that works with BNSF.
The situation being written about regarding the Canadian models is precisely the sort of ossified self interest that great Canadian, John Ralston Saul, writes about in his book “Voltaire’s Bastards”.
A commitment to formal process which is notionally created in the name of reason but somewhere reality is snipped and flipped to form a kind of Mobius Strip where self interest is linked to form and objective assessment is no longer possible. A can’t see the wood for the trees type of psychosis at best and just plain corruption at worst.
IPCC’s emphasis, however, isn’t on getting qualified scientists, but on getting representatives from over 100 countries
Is this meant to be a repeat of the the Nazi pamphlet entitled “Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein” (A Hundred Authors Against Einstein).
If you recall, Einstein retorted “If I were wrong, one would be enough.”
on getting representatives from over 100 countries
==============
in the IPCC, each country has a single vote. Much like FIFA deciding who will get the next world cup, these votes have value and integrity has a price.
Interesting that you used Romania as an example. I recently travelled up the UK east coast main line with a Romainian aquaintance. She was fascinated by the number of wind turbines we went past.
Mirela: What are they for
Me: Electricity generation to reduce the use of coal and gas
Mirela: Why?
Me: Because the government is convinced that they cause global warming.
Mirela: We don’t have that it Romania…
Speaking of David Anderson, I came across his name while digitizing my archives recently:
The Tri City News, July 2, 1989
Headline: Decades-old crusade drives B.C.’s expert on oil tanker threat
By Anne Rachelle Griffith Staff Reporter
Body:
As he rummages through his large attaché case for decade-old newspaper clippings, David Anderson looks up, an intense expression on his face.
“I’ve got some interesting stuff here you should see,” he says, handing over yellowed newspaper clippings and faded photo-copies.
The articles, dating back as far as 1975, analyze a problem that has been on Anderson’s mind for years — oil tanker traffic.
As special adviser to the province on the question of tanker traffic, and the man who years ago predicted a major oil spill along the Alaskan tanker route, Anderson is B.C.’s expert.
His convictions run so deep, he once sued the United States government to hear Canadian concerns.
“It was great fun,” he said of the three-year legal battle. “The battle was lost and the pipeline was built, but when they made the decision they realized that the environmentalists, me and my friends, were essentially right.”
While his battle with the multinational oil companies has been a long one, his stance is more acceptable now, as environmental consciousness becomes vogue.
“I suddenly find all sorts of people shoulder to shoulder with me remembering well that they were shoulder to shoulder with me 20-years ago,” Anderson recalls. “And I sometimes have difficulty remembering their names.”
His six-month appointment effective May 1, includes presenting public opinion to an oil-spill committee composed of government officials from B.C., Washington and Alaska.
“Tell me what your ideas are, tell me what your concerns are, tell me what your proposals are, and I will make sure to take them to the officials, and also to put that report, what I hear, on the Premier’s desk,” he said.
Public concern at meetings on the west coast of Vancouver Island have so far centered on prevention of future spills, he said.
“People understand that prevention is infinitely more important than clean-up later,” Anderson said.
In the first of 16 scheduled public hearings, people voiced concern about clean-up, adequate use of volunteers, coordination and cooperation.
Anderson said the meetings have emitted a “constructive sprit” so far.
“I don’t regard myself as a blank piece of paper,” he added. “I have 20 years on this issue and I have firm ideas. And the Premier knew my ideas when he appointed me. I am here to ensure a higher level of safety.”
So who has paid for this “20 year long crusade” (but did he actually only begin in 1995? It appears far, far earlier.)
Who pays for his travel? His many speaking tours? His lawsuits? His research? His room and board?
To whom does David Anderson owe his soul? To whom does he owe his self-created “authority” – clearly NOT “independent and non-biased!” Now, he is paid by Canada’s Big Government’s interests. Who paid before his government salary?
The article was from 1989, so the 20 year “crusade” began around 1969, nearly half a century ago.
In the early 1990’s I was doing some work on Canadian GIS. The government project manager lost interest and stated that the new thing was Climate Change, which he clearly saw as the gravy train of the future.
Since when does an employee get to discuss his employer’s business in public? Every employer I have had in the last 40 years has required me to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
That included signing the UK Official Secrets Act .
Government scientists deliver the same quality of service as provided by the government run post offices. Take the opposite of whatever they tell you and you have the truth.
Our local post office (Washington State, USA) has a “quality of service” that is quite good. The postal service does have problems easily described. For example, in the 1970s we mailed hundreds of letters, with stamps, and the cost of those stamps helped pay the bills of the USPS. So far this year we have mailed 3 such letters and one small package. What are your personal mailing numbers?
[I do not now and never have worked for the postal service.]
Fred,
The Post Office is not government run. It is run as semi-private business but under the control of the government which has dictated that it cannot make a profit but must be revenue neutral. There in lies the real problem.
Not to mention the requirement that it pre-fund retirement benefits for 75 years into the future (IIRC), and other requirements that make it impossible to operate within its nominal budget. My personal experience with the USPS has always been positive. There are problems in the lobbies with prompt service, but it always appears to be the fault of insufficient coverage at the counters, and there are unbelievable requirements to close processing facilities, the opposite of what a competing private carrier, such as UPS or FedEx, would do in the face of growing demands on services.
Don: Why is it a problem for the USPS to meet the same financial standards regarding their pension fund that every other company in the country has to meet?
Tom: The problem is that they are a monopoly, and act like one.
Thanks Tim, EC’s bureaucracy has been playing this game for a long time. Thanks for the detail.
As for the claim that sceptics should be charged under the RICO Act, this reflects a need to counter accuse in advance. Everyone knows that all the big green organizations have infiltrated the bureaucracies and corrupted them completely. This is exactly what has happened with the EPA. Big green organizations with their PACs and SuperPacs and their activist members influence the vote and get house and senate members elected who support their “correct” political policies. The favour is returned by the administration awarding contracts to the same green organizations or companies they own for provision of “scientific” research that supports the AGW agenda and keeps the big scary story alive that keeps the donations rolling in. It’s a win/win/win.
When your involved in racketeering it’s better to be the first to level the accusation.
“Point out what the public already laugh about, namely that weather forecasts of even a few days ahead are consistently wrong, yet the weather offices talk with certainty about global warming in 20, 30 and 50 years.”
I am trying to point out to them that variability of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oscillations that largely determine our weather types, are solar forced down to daily scales and highly predictable at any useful range. Understanding then how changing episodes and regimes of atmospheric teleconnections then drive the major oceanic modes would give highly detailed global and regional climate modelling powers. My UK region 2015 forecast is in the comment section here:
http://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2015/04/13/more-warm-weather-this-week-but-whats-in-store-for-the-summer/#comments
Ulric, you are not better than the current babble of CO2 scientists who are say the same thing with only one slight difference. See if this pretend quote sounds familiar and could easily come out of the mouths of AGW research articles:
“Variability of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oscillations that largely determine our weather types, are CO2 forced down to daily scales and highly predictable at any useful range.”
I’ll pile on and say that no one factor controls the North Atlantic and Arctic Oscillations.
It may well be that CO2 and solar variation effect changes but there’s no way of knowing.
And I doubt it’s just two controls either.
There is no discernible effect from CO2.
Pamela, I am actually saying that such variability is solar driven and not internal and chaotic. That is the very last thing that your “CO2 scientists” would like to admit to, and meets almost as much consternation from sceptics. But not so much from the general public. And yours was a poor attempt at ridicule, as there is no correlation at all with rising CO2 levels and NAO/AO status in the last 60yrs.
Ulric, you assume too much. There is no correlation between CO2 and any of our oceanic-atmospheric teleconnected semi-permanent pressure and ENSO systems. I have never said anything else regarding CO2.
Hum???
Appears to have a better correlation then CO2.
Like I commented in an earlier post, hiding the decline was just the tip of the iceberg. The current flavor is hiding the pause. That coolaid drinkers rallied round the Decline Tricksters, opened the barn door and let out all the other politicized scientists and their willingness to descend into ever more outrageous examples of trunk wriggling. Anymore, they don’t even bother hiding their methods behind emails. The tricks are now obvious and openly stated in referred journals. Sadly, the more important question is why the consuming public looks the other way as these officers and soldiers of the cause burn our future away in their modeling and homogenizing ovens.
Dear Jacob Abbadie (Dean of Killaloe, Ireland),
Rise from the dead and remind us of our lemming weaknesses and herd tendencies before we hurl ourselves over our own turning point precipice of tyrannical climate religion acceptance.
“One can fool some men, or fool all men in some places and times, but one cannot fool all men in all places and ages.” (roughly translated from Jacob’s “Traite de la verité de la religion chrétienne (1684)”.
Sincerely,
Pamela Gray
Note: In case you thought Abraham Lincoln was the author of this quote, think again. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/11/cannot-fool/
Thanks, Dr. Ball. Good article.
For our astronomy club we use the Environment Canada cloud cover forecast for the Eastern United States.
See http://weather.gc.ca/astro/clds_vis_animation_e.html?id=se&utc=00
From a few years ago it has lost more and more credibility because of lack of prediction skill. This is a very good weather model, and it requires constant improvement that seems not to be getting, sadly.