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.
I’m saddened that the UK Met Office is equally entrapped by the warmist agenda.
“There is something seriously wrong when they can publish completely failed results with impunity and yet still demand credibility over policy. ”
That’s the entire point of what they are doing. It isn’t about the climate, it isn’t about CO2, it isn’t about “saving the planet”. It is about enacting policy that fits their geopolitical agenda and they are USING fear of climate change to get people to buy into the policies effecting that agenda. If I can control a country’s CO2 production, I control its economy. If you want to increase the production of ANYTHING, you need to use more energy. If you use more energy, you either create more CO2 or you must go to my pals in the “green energy” business and pay them or you must move your production to an area where there are no restrictions on CO2 (see “global redistribution of wealth” ).
Anderson – still a leech – drawing multiple pensions while biting the hand…..
OT. My Pc since this morning only on the WUWT website is driven ‘nuts’ by some kind of jerky playstation advert. I don’t have playstation and never clicked on an add for it. Text is unstable and the blue ‘Reply’ links are floating all over place. Anyone knows how to get rid of it.
I once raised an issue with WordPress about a couple of adverts, and they said they had no contract with the perps. Some adverts can be hijacking operations. If you use Chrome or Firefox (and clones) install the uBlock extension. Can easily be switched on and off. Generally I leave it off for WUWT and similar services that I support, but occasionally there is an outbreak of drive-by attacks, and I turned it on this morning. uBlock currently showing 13 adverts blocked which is high. For me, WUWT usually has about 4, so if they are well-behaved I leave them alone.
I don’t know if I’d go around calling the instrumental global temperature anomaly “reality.”
Things that actually may work: to convince people how wrong they are re AGW. Add in All the Atmospheric Physicists, meteorogist, Freeman Dyson, ect and you will get people to turn.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/72653
Somewhere, there is an email, “We have to get rid of the pause”….
LOL, Yes, I think so.
Dr. Tim Ball, the links to the McBean open letter all link to dean ends. Would you have a link that works?
thank you.
I meant dead ends
I respect Dr. Ball very much, but I have to disagree with this statement, ” I know simple logic works”. No it doesn’t. ‘Climate change’ is not a logical issue, it is a political one. And in politics it is not the quality of your facts that counts, but rather the power of your propaganda. The same goes for this website, WUWT, which is a fantastic resource, a beacon of truth, and a destroyer of warmist disinformation. But it cant lay a glove on the propaganda machine, and we sceptics never will until we learn to use the same weapons that they do. The warmists use fear, and we sceptics respond by calmly trying to use the facts and logic to dispel that fear. Game over, forget it, they have lost interest. We have to replace one negative emotion with another, and that is why a focus on the greed and avarice of the al gores’ and david suzukis’ of this world is maybe our only effective tactic.
How long can the fear campaign of the warmists pay dividends for them? I asked Lord Monckton this question in Brisbane recently, and his answer was discouraging. He simply pointed out to me that the ‘silent spring’ myth was started more than 60 years ago, and yet every year since then, untold numbers of African children have continued to die from malaria.
I think Tim W’s comments are very to the point and speak to the reality of what is now . Here in WA state, the current governor and the two before him have NO interest in hearing current climate science or solar physics. More to the point, their public appearances are carefully planned and scripted so that they get coverage by a sympathetic media, while speaking to a “favorable” audience. There is NO chance that he will ever allow himself to be caught in a public forum where he will have to answer any questions that challenge the CO2 “agenda” . It IS about power, scripting and propaganda. Bring a knife to a gunfight ?
“Bureaucratic scientists must produce support for their government’s political positions or risk losing their jobs.”
Yeah, this is a foregone conclusion and the main problem we are dealing with in the US and EU. Canada is at least a dissenter along with Russia and Japan on Kyoto 2. This is a good time (last chance?) to maybe have an influence on policy.
In 2007 IIRC, I sent an email to the weather network to tell them that my forecasts were better than theirs by simply knocking off a couple of degrees from their forecasts. Their 14 day trend always curved up at the end and then was forced back down as the time approached the forecast. It was clear that warming was already a factor in their calculations of short term weather. They never replied. McBean, of course, was, years ago a very doctrinaire president of the Public Service Alliance union.
Thanks Gary I have noticed the exact same thing. I also am in contact with EC employees, when I ask questions their answers are almost as if you are in the old soviet era, can’t talk. can’t comment etc etc. It is discouraging and frightening to see people like them being manipulated by pressure, (jobs etc ). I hope some will become whistleblowers. We are paying their wages after all.
you should point out to those EC employees that it will be them held to account as their “bosses” will run at the first sign of a change. If they dont come forward now and blow the whistle, they will be the ones in the dock, and “I was only following orders” doesnt cut the mustard.
Thank you Doctor Ball for your usual erudication.
As a scathological commentator on the Mann Made Global Warming scam, I prefer to take the ‘Michael’ out of the doomster warmists by ridiculing their stances.
I notice that Johanus @ 8/6/15 0403 and Andres Valencia above refer to Lynsko. What a coincidence, as I use that ‘hero’ of the Global Warmists in my bit of doggerel below.
Apologies to the great Neil Sedaka and his lyricist Howard Greenfield who made “Oh! Carol” which I have plagiarized.
Oh! Karol
Oh! Karol you take me for a fool
You see Global Warming,
You deny it’s getting cool
You fake it
Make real scientists cry
No one believes you
For your figures lie.
I never thought I would see another
Crook like Lynsko
Tell me it’s warming
In ten feet of snow.
The UN says ‘we must save the planet’
By stopping CO2
Oh! Karol
You’re among the chosen few.
Oh! Karol
Science you ridicule
Your computer models
Would fail the kids at school
I can’t take it
Your conclusions apple pie
To foretell the future
Were you using scry*
The UN says ‘we must save the planet’
By stopping CO2
Oh! Karol
You’re among the chosen few.
(I hope Neil Sedaka does not sue!)
* To foretell the future by crystal gazing.
“It is time for skeptics in every nation to openly challenge what is going on in their national weather offices.”
Problem is, Brother Tim, there just aren’t that many of them:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/survey-reveals-countries-where-citizens-dont-want-climate-change-action/story-fnjwvztl-1227388408028
Even more so in Canada, which due to its size and location with its major role in controlling the evolution of the N. hemisphere’s climate.
It was place where the last Ice Age stated and ended, it is the country where the Holocene end will be heralded from.
It is technically and culturally advanced country (my closest living relative a proud Canadian citizen for some decades, always bragging about his contribution to the advancement of his new homeland, exalting the Canadian temperature summer winter differential of 60 degree C, while his other half never stopped cursing the cold winters) so it is their duty, I mean Canadian climatologists, as from the ‘climate change responsible country’ (see my comment at the top of the thread, which ended in unintended place, as this one may too) to take a lead and give us a good solid scientifically accepted climate change theory. In that respect we have to welcome the rare and rational voice of Dr. Ball.
So, Village idiot, you and a whole bunch of other village idiots want to change The Global Climate?
If we dissenters are few in number, why don’t all the village idiots just go right ahead and change The Climate to whatever it is that you want it to be?
It would be perfect; you lot could finally stop whining about how the weather doesn’t suit you and we would be struck mute by your awesome climate-changing power.
Meanwhile, Canada is the most exposed to the cooling due to the decrease AMO and the position of the magnetic field (a decrease in solar activity and galactic radiation growth).
http://weather.gc.ca/saisons/animation_e.html?id=month&bc=sea
V. Idiot,
Here is the headline of your link:
Survey reveals countries where citizens don’t want climate change action
That headline could mean just about anything. I’m sure it means something special to you.
Isn’t he just special.
With a drop in solar activity will be polar vortex was located on the Bay of Hudson. Will not help any fraud.
http://oi61.tinypic.com/23uae80.jpg
ferdberple June 8, 2015 at 6:23 am
@vukcevic
“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.”
+100%. If we do not know extent of the natural variability contribution, it is not possible to estimate to any sensible degree of certainty possible anthropogenic factor.
Dear Dr. Ball:
Uhuh, and your solution to the role of politics in driving warmism is to apply politics to skeptisim? You must be a liberal if you think that you solve a problem by doing more of whatever caused it – and that, bottom line, is what this article says.
A key point indeed, Dr. Ball. Skeptical bloggers might win whatever scientific battles they are fighting in – but they lose the war. Climate change is a most important “raison d’être” and the posterchild of the worldwide bureaucracy. The so called civil servants are never going to relinquish control over anything, however pointless it may be. Far too late …
So tell us how it is that if the Greenhouse Effect already accounts for a ~60F elevation of global temperature vs what the earth’s temperature would be without an atmosphere, how can steady increases in CO2 (which account for about a third of the total greenhouse effect) not warm the planet? Which elements in this chain of physics do you accept, and which do you reject?
Water vapor makes up ~95% of the GHE, leaving ~5%, or 1/20th for all the other molecules, not 1/3 for Carbon Dioxide.
warrenlb says:
…how can steady increases in CO2 (which account for about a third of the total greenhouse effect) not warm the planet?
Good question. The answer: it is an empirical observation that the rise in CO2 has not caused any global warming.
And:
Which elements in this chain of physics do you accept, and which do you reject?
That comment is just projection. Skeptics are very different from you. Skeptics accept verifiable measurements and empirical observations. If new facts arise that would make skeptics reconsider our conclusions, we have no problem with that.
But you will only accept whatever factoids support your confirmations bias, while any facts or observations that falsify your belief system are arbitrarily rejected. No matter how many observations contradict your personal beliefs — even 18.5 years of no global warming — those observations are rejected because they do not fit your world view.
FIFA exists to spread the beautiful game. The
International Olympic Committee exists to spread the spirit of the Olympic Movement. The EPA’s top climate bureaucrat was a griffter. The EC appears to be the same.
Corrupt institutions are frustratingly difficult to reform. Better to defund them and be done with.
What real science rejects Warren is that you’ve started with a conclusion, and then you’ve ended with …
wait for it ….
…. the same conclusion, whooo hoooo. How did that happen ?
Why don’t you try putting the data before the conclusion, and see what happens.
(You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?)
The effect of CO2 is logarithmic, so after the first 100 parts per million or so the effect is diminished. The first part caused the greatest effect. Doubling after 400 ppm will never cause 2 deg of warming. Read the following explanation by David Archibald:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-effectiveness-of-co2-as-a-greenhouse-gas-becomes-ever-more-marginal-with-greater-concentration/
There are many greenhouse gases, at varying levels of saturation.
Since CO2 is already pretty close to saturated, adding more of it, has very little impact, especially when you consider that fact that most of the CO2 bands that aren’t saturated overlap with water.
This is basic physics, though I’m not surprised that you didn’t know it already.
it comes as a great surprise to read that anyone in this day and age thinks elected politicians actually “run” anything in any of the developed nations. there is not one single one of these nations that would notice a change in the day to day function of their societies if all the politicians were to disappear off the face of the earth.
elected politicians come and go,the bureaucrats remain the same ,and now they appear to have realised the influence they have and use it to further their own aims,politically and financially . i have said it before,the meek have inherited the earth and currently there is very little that can be done about it.
In the lead up to the coming Canadian federal election scientists in the civil service have protested being gagged by the Conservative government. It is possible they really think this is true. However, the gagging policy is rooted in bureaucratic agenda devised across all federal departments in the wake of the scandals that followed the collapse of the Northwest Atlantic groundfish stocks in 1992.
When Ransom Myers and Jeffrey Hutchings went public to highlight the role of overfishing and poor management in this catastrophic collapse, they were acting in defiance of orders from the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and senior scientists in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They got massive media attention and embarrassed the department, which was insistent that the fish populations had collapsed due to climate change.
The MSM loved this defiance and the argument that the government had mismanaged the fisheries (the Conservative Party under PM Mulroney had been in power at the time of the collapse). In the ensuing months journalists began fishing around for stories of other gross failures in government funded science.
It took several years, but the gagging policy was put in place to suppress dissenting government scientists from challenging the ‘official’ science. Nowadays, journalists seeking to find out even quite mundane information have to wait for weeks to months as individual scientists in charge of certain research or research programs have to have the requests and their responses cleared through successive levels of authorization.
Tim Ball is right – the bureaucracy is in charge. They can arrange things so that the hated Conservatives will take the fall for policies that bureaucrats themselves devised and enforce – such as the elimination of research libraries at the marine and environmental research stations. The scientists will quiet down again if the Liberal Party gets power in the fall election and resumes funding of science (some of which in fact has undeservedly suffered under the Conservatives eg environmental monitoring of toxic wastes, and some of which, like the politically motivated clim-sci, got its just desserts.)
Ah, you only need to read the other article today, on “surprising” non-variability in weathering rates through glacial / inter-glacial periods.
“And now, scientists Kate Maher and Daniel Ibarra from Stanford University (USA), who specialize in using computer models to understand how the flow of water controls weathering, have compiled data on river-to-ocean flow from an ensemble of climate models and have calculated the average discharge from rivers at different latitudes during glacial and interglacial times.”
You see, you haven’t lost any weather data. The “correct data” is now coming from the models, not anything so horribly unreliable as actual instruments in the field. And that flood you mention never happened, it’s just a wet dream (sorry, could *not* resist) of the denialists.
Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
One of the fundamental factors in the basis for my criticism of global warming alarmism is explained in this extract:
“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.”
Another fundamental factor is that the IPCC temperature projections depart from reality, generally sufficient basis for a scientific claim to be invalidated.
Dr. Ball,
I realize I may be asking for more of an opinion, rather than something you’ve specifically researched. So at that risk, I will ask – do you believe an honest evaluation of the terrestrial temperature record will show its been intentionally altered to prove a CAGW case?
(Do t know if you read and respond to these questions, but I would love to hear your opinion).
It has already been shown here and at Goddard’s site.
When ‘they’ hide their data from investigation there is a reason. They only want their comrades to say it is ok, but to others it becomes only hearsay? It is well known in academic circles that one can corrupt the data to suit one’s hypothesis. Statistics is another area of bias. E.G. If one asks a millionaire or millionaires do they pay their taxes correctly, the answer is ‘See my accountant’. Fair enough, they employ accountants and expect them to do their job properly and by the law. Ask some lower income person, and they will say ‘ of course my taxes are paid, my employer takes them out for me’. What does it prove? Accountants are employed so their millionaire pays the least tax they can within the law. Bleeding nothing, according to statistics both groups pay their taxes.
I have a friend who was suffering from an unusually hot day, and they blamed it on climate change or AGW? You can’t argue with her. Are we getting so bleedin’ stupid! Or more easily conned by those who have a hidden agenda. I know a right wing Green, and unfortunately like a lot of hippies is basically anti-establishment. The problem is when they are high on pot, has anyone tried to have a sensible and constructive argument or discussion with them. No you can’t, all you get is a one way diatribe of their opinion. Like the ice sheets are melting. The earth is warming unnaturally (what’s natural) and oil companies are behind all this. What about green or clean energy merchants eh? Are they without sin?
As for why Hansen was not charged with violating the Hatch Act? I was once Federaql employee, and I was told the Hatch Act. It prohibited participating in political campaigns, which meant campaigns by or for (or against) specific politicians and political parties. The way I understood it, campaigning for causes as opposed to candidates and parties was allowed.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/18/anatomy-of-a-collapsing-climate-paradigm/#comment-1886588
A few observations (we formally published most of these conclusions in 2002 – we’ve known this for a long time):
1. CO2 is the basis for all carbon-based life on Earth – and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient.
2. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
3. Recent global warming was natural and ~cyclical – the next phase following the ~20 year pause will be global cooling, starting by about 2020 or sooner.
3. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature at all measured time scales (published in 2008).
4. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society.
5. Green energy schemes (scams) are responsible for driving up energy costs and increasing winter mortality rates.
I suggest that most of the above statements are true, to a high degree of confidence.
All of the above statements are blasphemy to warmist fanatics.
It is truly remarkable how the warmists could get it so wrong.
Regards, Allan MacRae
(Petroleum Engineer / Earth Scientist)
Thank you Tim.
I refer to my post below from February 2015:
For the past TWO winters, both the National Weather Service in the USA and Environment Canada have predicted warmer-than-average winters, and could not have been more wrong – the eastern 2/3 of the North America were bitterly cold, and many cold-temperature and snow records were broken, These two government weather-forecasting organizations have a NEGATIVE predictive track record – they have consistently been wrong, and they apparently do not even learn from their mistakes.
Joe d’Aleo and his colleagues correctly predicted both very cold winters by about mid-year, several months before the onset of winter. Last fall Joe and I warned both our governments about this dangerous situation, which could have seriously increased Excess Winter Mortality in both countries.
Every year, Excess Winter Deaths are shockingly high. There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA, and about 10,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in Canada. About 50,000 Excess Winter Deaths occurred in the winter of 2012/13 in the UK. Even in warmer climates, cold temperatures are the greatest killer – death rates in Australian cities were up to 30 per cent higher in winter than summer. The recent Lancet study confirms this fact, even in very warm countries like Thailand.
Knowledge of Excess Winter Deaths is not new, but has been known for many decades. Furthermore, it is clear that Excess Winter Deaths can be significantly reduced by adaptation, but ONLY IF GOVERNMENTS AND THEIR CITIZENS RECOGNIZE THE PROBLEM AND START TO ADDRESS IT. Instead, governments continue to obsess about the false crisis of alleged global warming.
On May 25, 2015 Joe and I published our paper entitled “Winters not Summers Increase Mortality and Stress the Economy”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/24/winters-not-summers-increase-mortality-and-stress-the-economy/
Our objective is to draw attention to the very serious issue of Excess Winter Deaths, which especially targets the elderly and the poor.
It is hard to believe that anyone could be so foolish as to drive up the cost of energy AND also reduce the reliability of the electrical grid, which is what politicians have done by subsidizing grid-connected wind and solar power.
When uninformed politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer.
Cheap reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society. It IS that simple.
Best wishes to all, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/27/for-the-love-of-models-a-global-warming-allegory/#comment-1873743
Repeating from above:
Matt Briggs’ farce is not that different from what really happened in the past two winters in North America.
The US National Weather Service/Climate Prediction Center (NWS/CPC) and Environment Canada (EC) both predicted a warm-to-moderate winter of 2013-14, and it was bitterly cold in the eastern 2/3 of North America. Both NWS and EC utterly failed in their predictions for last winter.
Again for this winter of 2014-2015, NWS and EC predicted a mild winter and again it has been bitterly cold over the eastern 2/3 of North America. Both NWS and EC utterly failed in their predictions AGAIN this winter.
It is apparent that NWS and EC have NO predictive track record, and do not even learn from their mistakes.
It is notable that some private weather forecasters accurately predicted the last two cold winters as early as July. Both NWS and EC apparently rely on big computer models to do their forecasting. The successful private forecasters that I know use analogue models – techniques that have been utilized for a very long time.
***********************************
All together now, all you frozen folks in New England and especially at the New York Times:
”I BLAME GLOBAL WARMING!”
*********************************************************************
Allan,
If I may, not arguing your point *but*…in a way your comparing apples to oranges. Twice you said NWS/CPC & EC forcasted warm-to-moderate winters for the [whole] CONUS but the eastern section was below normal…which is true. *However*, the trough (cold) that was stuck in the east was caused by a ridge (warm) that was stuck in the west (+PNA pattern). Again, the west was warm & dry while the east was cold & (mostly) dry. Same thing applied to Canada (warm west, cold east). Did it average out? Hmmm….
Just asking
No JK – it did not average out.
This past winter, the lower-48 USA (CONUS) required about 8-9% more energy than the NWS forecast predicted – that is a lot of energy. Fortunately, energy supplies were generally adequate.
Also, these are detailed forecasts by region and the government forecasts were wrong for two years in a row.
Wait for next winter… can the government guys hit a triple?
Faites vos jeux, ladies and germs… …Place your bets here!
This past winter, the lower-48 USA (CONUS) required about 8-9% more energy than the NWS forecast predicted – that is a lot of energy. Fortunately, energy supplies were generally adequate.
OK, now your moving the goal posts. First, your issue was about temperature then you shifted to talk about power usage. There is more population in the east-half of CONUS than there is in the west-half so if there is a dip in temps in the east, of course, there will be more power usage but that has nothing to do with whether the temps in the west, being above normal due to the blocking, averaged out the CONUS temps as a whole.
Do try to stay focused…it’s not that hard
Also, these are detailed forecasts by region and the government forecasts were wrong for two years in a row.
OK – references please
(jeeezzz…) those bolds were supposed to be
Sorry for the confusion
JK you say “Do try to stay focused…it’s not that hard… … references please” :
I have an 18-page PowerPoint that proves what I stated above. However, do you really think that your obnoxious statement is going to motivate me to dig out the sources of all those weather maps? I cannot be bothered with you.
If they still exist, you can go search for the failed long-range forecasts from NWS CPC yourself.
Let’s see how the NWS CPC long-range forecast for Dec-Jan Feb 2015-16 turns out: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/seasonal.php?lead=7
Repeating from above, last Fall Joe and I warned both our governments about this dangerous situation, which could have seriously increased Excess Winter Mortality in both countries. That danger was exacerbated by the fact that the governments’ own failed winter weather predictions seriously underestimated the extremely cold weather that hit the populous central and eastern USA and Canada for the past two winters.
Also repeating from above, every year, there are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA, and about 10,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in Canada. Furthermore, it is clear that Excess Winter Deaths can be significantly reduced by adaptation, but ONLY IF GOVERNMENTS AND THEIR CITIZENS RECOGNIZE THE PROBLEM AND START TO ADDRESS IT. Instead, governments worldwide continue to obsess about the false crisis of alleged global warming.
So YOU try to stay focused:
Sustained cool or cold weather is the greatest weather-related killer in our society – not warm or hot weather. What part of this obvious situation do you not understand? If in fact our climate got a bit warmer, which is unlikely in my opinion, we would be live longer lives. If it gets colder, which I suggest is more probable, we will live shorter lives.
Cool and cold weather, not global warming, is the real problem. Perhaps if you repeat that 100 times…
The G7 leaders just have just adopted a strategy of moving the “climate change fear narrative” over the meaningful time event horizon (2050). The majority of them seem to realize this narrative is really only a political football based on political science. Keep up the good work Dr. Ball, hopefully Canada and Australia can stiffen the spine of the G7 to change the political narrative on the misnomer known as “Climate Change”. Canadian leaders are going to need all the help they can get to take on the coming Paris scary stories and hate/fear mongering.
d’accour, Dr. Tim Ball:
these people are our employees.
We elect them, they life on our taxes.
____
Obama, Merkel live on our substance to – get along.
Needless. *
Hans
____
* best substimate.
my fault:
they life on our taxes.
to:
they live on our taxes.
Hans
mod: youre patience.
Thx. Hans
It seems that fraud and malfeasance really is not tolerated in the public service and government … unless, of course, it involves the pseudo-science behind the flawed global warming doctrine, and the blatant doctoring of climate data to suit the political agenda. In business, it’s commonly known as “cooking the books” – a criminal offence.
I just noticed that in Figure 2, the four trend lines appear to not meet each other at any point around 1979. The surface one seems to need to be upshifted slightly, to an extent that would not detract from the point of the mentioned model runs outrunning it after 2000. It appears to me that such a correction would make the balloon trend agree noticeably more with the surface trend than with the satellite trend. The mean of UAH and RSS lower troposphere weighting curves seems to cover mostly an altitude range where the balloons indicate the 1979-onward warming trend is .02-.03 degree/decade less than the near-surface part of the lower troposphere, according to:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/MSU2-vs-LT23-vs-LT.gif
which is within: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/04/version-6-0-of-the-uah-temperature-dataset-released-new-lt-trend-0-11-cdecade/#comments
Dr. Ball raises the definition of “science” as an issue. The most apt definition for “science” makes it the information that is available for the purpose of controlling the associated system. It is Shannon’s measure of the intersection between two state-spaces and is called the “mutual information.”
Given that the mutual information is nil, control is impossible. The mutual information of each of the CMIP climate models is nil. Thus, control of the climate on the basis of projections from one or more of these models is impossible. The models, then, are worthless for their intended purpose.
A model that provides predictions provides mutual information and the possibility of control. A model that makes projections provides no mutual information and control is impossible. Thus, to conflate “prediction” with “projection” is a grave error. Nonetheless to conflate the two ideas is common among global warming climatologists. See the paper of Kevin Green and Scott Armstrong, circa 2008, for an account of the research that made this finding.
I just looked at their historical accuracy of temperature in summer and the Canadian average is only 35.9%, which is absolutely shocking.