Gavin Schmidt -vs- John Christy on CNN

Strange that Brits seem to form the core of the Team. Or is it just my observer bias kicking in? Or memories of Beatles movies?

Notable: CNN is calling the emails “leaked.” Finally the message may have gotten through.

A few thoughts:
– John Christy is a good spokesperson
– Why is Gavin Schmidt defending the CRU guys?
– I credit Gavin for moving me to the skeptic side; he reaffirmed here
– The warmists have coordinated talking points
– I’m not encouraged that Campbell Brown is doing the follow up

Christy caught in the headlights just like McIntyre. A pitiful showing. I don’t understand the meekness of the skectics. No wonder the warmers win.

“Strange that Brits seem to form the core of the Team.”
Ah, well, wait till someone at NASA Giss plucks up the courage to release all Hansen’s emails …

I thought Christy showed great restraint and didn’t pull a Watson because I must have told the tv to shut up at least 4 times. I leave it to the reader to guess who was talking at those points.

I think Christy could have done better. In particular, he was twice asked what he thought of the disappearance of the polar ice cap, and missed the chance to say it isn’t happening.

yea Christy came across well, but missed his chance for a broad side on gavin in regards “trick to hide decline”. He didnt seem aware it was in reference to the proxy reconstruction and was a trick too hide the divergence from proxy vrs instrumental record… But still he came across well.

Looked like a draw to me. Gavin Schmidt was a bit better at filibuster and stated conjecture as emphatic fact.
At least we are now seeing open public debate about the issue, nullifying the claim of ‘the debate is over… the science is settled’.
On a lighter and cooler note, Wisconsin’s Govenor Doyle has declared a ‘state of emergency’ due to the 15 inches of snow, high winds, and white out blizzard condition they are currently experiencing. In Seattle WA, the temperatures have not been above freezing for days. Most unusual for early December. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and Minnesota are in the deep freeze. Be sure to ask your liberal, eco-green friends in those places how that Man Made CO2 Caused Global Warming thingy is working out for them! Think of it as grass roots education in action….

Christy came across well IMO. Gavin did nothing to improve my very low opinion of him, in fact he might have made it worse.

I think Christy sounded like a scientist, Schmidt sounded like a politician.

Gavin is a professional sleaze ball. I worry about the reputation of science in the eyes of young people when I watch people like Gavin lie on TV.

I just remembered something. Some time ago a critic of my blog whined that I was just circle jerking when referring to HotAir.com over another temperature controversy. Funny, he included realclimate in his criticism and yes I nailed him for it in my reply.

I also noticed Blitzer asked him twice about the north pole ice…
I was waiting for him to mention:
(a) total global ice had increased.
(b) Arctic ice had declined previously.

Ironic that Gavin uses the forest fire analogy, especially since lack of natural fires has been devastating for forests.
Gavin: “that’s just not true”. Well there you have it. I guess we should never ask again.
Gavin “media storm”… um… which media storm is that, Gavin? You do, of course, mean the amazing cover-up and insanely smpathetic softball questions you occasionally get asked, right?
Gavin’s list of what “we do know” is laughable.
Unfortunately, the note it was left on is still wrong. And I now remember why I stopped watching CNN. Man, I despise Wolf, and Anderson.
Either way, I guess it DOES get more people aware that something is going on…

Christy tried to come across as reasonable and moderate. In doing so, he was destroyed. The fat English dude was more polished. He knew there was only so much time and he filibustered.
In the end, it was a wasted effort. Too bad.

How does this play in Peoria? Well, the Nixon-Kennedy debate comes to mind. Christy looked honest. Gavin looked shifty.

It should be noted that the warmistas have made a living out of smooth presentations of data that lacks credibility. The need to speak in sound bites has been a part of their world for years. It takes practice to deliver and they are good at it. Gavin’s performance is AGW equivalent of “If the glove does not fit, you must acquit”? Remember, OJ walked because DNA evidence that is now a part of every day life was new and hard to understand. The initial leap of the truth into the public conscious is being made by scientists not actors and it is natural that they are stumbling a bit.

Mark (17:49:39) :
“”I think part of the problem skeptics have is that it is much easier to sound bite warmist talking points but not so easy to sound bite all the problems behind the assertions.””
You are so right. Which is why we need to adopt talking points. It’s impossible to teach anyone the science in 45 seconds.
This problem is inherent given the nature of both sides of this debate.
The warmists are prone to generating fake assertions and not explain the method used to arrive at the assertions. Why should they explain anything? They get all the media attention without any need to explain themselves.
On the other hand, Skeptics are prone to walking through fire in order to explain the problems behind assertions. They do this because the burden of proof is definitely on the skeptic in order to get any attention at all.
Don’t worry too much about this. The more our side does this, the better we’ll get.

It seemed to me Christy was a bit uncertain of himself, especially when asked about the Artic. He seemed thrown a bit by the question.
I thought the ice was melting because of the unusual winds in the Artic, not temperature changes (link below). Has there been a determination to what is causing the winds to change?
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
I also agree it seems Gavin was hitting talking points, and not quite answering the questions.

I thought Christy came across well, i thought Wolfen Blitzen gave Schmidt too much
air time but otherwise moderated the exchange well & asked some reasonable questions.

The skeptics need a great communicator. John Christy could be the one. He is not nervous (a big plus) and his voice does not shake. He comes across well. He just needs to take a few lessons from a pro on how to make the most out of a few well chosen words.
Gavin, on the other hand, looks like a devil. I Imagine him with horns.

Something that has been argued against we deniers is that we say there is or there has been a “conspiracy” on global warming/climate change, but what it is misunderstood is that this is a business, and a big one and if we call any arrangement among partners in a business or in politics a “conspiracy” in order to make money or to get power, it is indeed that:a conspiracy, call it that or call it a “joint venture” or whatever among a few powerful and resorceful people who get associated to reach a common goal, it´s just that, and that is perfectly possible and probable, it happens every day.
What has bothered me and perhaps many of you is that, in order to reach that goal, such idiotic arguments as the role of CO2 have been used. They could have used more intelligent arguments but they did what they did because of having the people they had around them.
Now they are obliged to push their agenda almost by force which will undoubtely provoke, according to physical laws, an equal and opposed reaction.

Christy did well…. He came out looking like the Scientist…. Mission accomplished!
People now have a realization that the skeptics are the real, quite, unassuming scientists… Exhibit A: McIntyre. Exhibit B: Christy….
Whilst Gavin Shmidt was nothing more than an obvious PR guy for what everyone is getting tired of hearing and are about to be taxed on….. Gavin was fighting a losing battle. He just didn’t know it.

Gavin Schmidt “models dont prove anything”. So why are we trying to reorganize the world based on them!

Well this sort of exchange is next to useless. CNNC is looking for a sound bite that they hope will make somebody look stupid.
Pesonally I think John Christy knows that you can’t go on public TV and throw mud on people who after all are are colleagues in a snese.
This was my first visage of the famous Gavin schmidt, and I have to say he didn’t endear himself to me. Blitzer asked each of them specific questions; and schmidt saw fit to interrupt Christy on several occasions.
It’s a standard 8th grade debating trick; interrupt the other guy to disrupt his train of thought, and also consume his air time, instead of using your own time to make your own points.
Yes John should have taken the opportunity to just let Blitzer have it and tell him the ice caps are not disappearing.
Addressing the question:- “Does human activity affect climate.” is a losing effort; of course the answer is yes; unless you don’t believe Heisenberg’s Principle of Unbestimmheit (mit ein umlaut).
So does every other living thing on this planet affect climate. Some of them even moreso than the beat of a butterfly’s wing in a Brazillion Jungle.
Gavin protested too much about the hacking of private e-mails. Well of course they are not private; and as Christy said, the code shows exactly how the scam is done. Well yes the incriminating spaghetti is commented out. Well if I had such a time bomb in anything I wrote, of course I would have it commented out until the very moment I came to use it, and it would go Kaput as soon as the run was finished.
The very fact that it exists in those snippets is all the evidence one needs that skullduggery was planned ahead of time.
I’m sure the persons who wrote that code, never have had to write code to go into a chip to make some process happen. those who do that do not have the luxury of storing on valuable chip space any line of code that isn’t doing something useful. You don’t put commented out code onto a chip, unless that one chip makes several products that all share a basic core, but hve a selection of bells and whistles for product discrimination.
The reason why Micro$oft Windows, is the world’s largest computer virus, is because they don’t have to mask that onto any chip; so the thing is like flaky pastry; just one layer of bandaids on top of another layer of bandaids.
Back in the days when computer logic gates were made out of discrete diodes, even the best semioconductor diodes weren’t too reliable; so some genius invented the diode quad, consisting of two serial pairs of parallel diodes. One of these quads was used in each location where a diode was needed. Any one diode could fail op[en circuit or fail short circuit, and the quad still behaved like a diode.
Well so now you have four times as many of those unreliable diodes; well actually you have more than that, because as a result of having two diodes in series when all were good, the resulting logic gat had a lower fanout and fan in tolerance; so you ended up needing a lot more gates to do the required logic.
The result was that the system consumed a lot more power and really wan’t any more reliable. Well the same thing happens when you comment out snippets of code; like scrunching up a piece of paper and tossing it in the trash can. Sooner or later, somebody is going to program a jump right into the middle of that commented out code, and then almost anything can happen. I’d like a dollar for every piece of code I have read that assumes that it knows the initial state of some register or bit, and proceeds on that basis; instead of setting the desired state before hand so it really does know.
It’s Smith’s first law of coding;- “No matter where you start writing code; there is always something else that you have to do first !”
Well I wandered a way from the debate; but John exudes a no nonsense image; and Gavin just rubbed me the wrong way. His description of what computer models do floored me; well they certainly don’t replicate what Gaia does with her models.

The late Michael Crichton offered to debate any of the Carbon Cultists, but only on condition that both sides could use graphics. His offer wasn’t taken up before he died, but it’s still the most important condition. With graphs, the natural up and down of temperature is clear to everyone, and the non-correlation with CO2 versus the excellent correlation with sunspots can also be made clear. Without graphs, it’s just a question of who do you trust or who do you like.

All I have to say about “Global Warming”. It is a lie and the earth goes through cycles every 200 to 400 years. The world started warming during the early 1800’s after the mini “Ice Age”. They need to look at all the information going on now. Only GOD controls the weather not Al Gore and so called Scientists.

Gavin fails…
1:03 – Question “Gavin what do you say?”
“The changes that we’re seeing in the climate are outside of what we would expect under natural circumstances at the moment. The causes that humans are put into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, aerosols, the other greenhouse gases do have a noticeable effect on the climate, we’ve detected it in fingerprint studies, we’ve looked at it all over the world and these things are really happening now.
The issue is not whether these things have ever happened before, but whether we are causing them. The presence of natural forest firest doesn’t mean that arson doesn’t exist. We can still be attribue… we can still attribute our role in climate change even though back in the cretaceous period it was much much warmer than it is now.”
Sure Gavin, you are correct, the issue is whether or not we are the primary cause. However, thus far, your argument has repeated the mantra of “unprecedented global warming” as evidence for mans influence on climate. If you are now saying that the alleged evidence that suggests that this warming is abnormal doesn’t mean anything, fantastic, then we can all safely ignore every dendroclimatological study ever made. Nothing like the man who presented an argument himself invalidating his own importance in the issue.
2:20 –> “Can they Gavin” (can climate models prove human influence on global warming?)
“Climate models are a tool that allow us to understand why climate changed in the past, why it’s changing now, and what that might mean for the future, they’re just tools they dont prove anything in the sense of a mathematical proof. But they do provide us with very good evidence that what we’re seeing now is in fact caused by the things that we know that we’re doing the to atmosphere.”
Very fair Gavin, except the part about equating model results with evidence. That’s a big fail. model results are model results, not data, not evidence. So sorry, lets try again.
3:27
Question—> “…a lot of people are outraged when they go back ten years and read that. and believe that legitimate scientists were trying to suppress other information.
Gavin —> “Well that’s just not true. Ah the uh the words that you have quoted there out of context… if read in their proper context the trick is just meaning a technique its just a way of doing uh a smooth when you’ve got uh a time series that ends in the middle of where you want to do the smooth its nothing nefarious, its nothing sneaky. uhm, the uh decline that they were talking about it was in ah some tree rings {crosstalk}…
WB —> “well let me interrupt for a second, let me interrupt for a second Gavin. because I take it that the uh uh individual the scholar at the head of this institution at East Anglia University has now stepped down because of all of this.”
Gavin —> “Well he stepped aside while the university is looking into these things and I think that’s perfectly appropriate people should be able to investigate these things outside of the media storm that has been created over these e-mails. and let me tell you if you had had 13 years of your e-mails poured over by people who are extremely hostile to you I dont think anybody would survive that unscathed. and this has been very devastating for the people involved anbd it s a huge invasion of their privacy and I dont think we should forget that these e-mails were stolen, these are not government employees, these are things not released under a freedom of information act. These were e-mails hacked from a mail server uh at their university and released completely illegally. I dont think that that is something that you should be encouraging and I dont think that anybody here would really want that even to happen to their worst enemy.”
Nice Gavin, the question was what was the meaning of the e-mails and you’ve played the victim card. LOL. Apparently the context is all wrong, and they weren’t talking about any sort of divergence, they were talking about smoothing out datasets? Leaving aside the fact that smoothing datasets is data manipulation to begin with, and that smoothing a data set shouldn’t hide any sort of divergence… What dataset were they trying to smooth out? And, more importantly, Why were they talking in some bizarre code in their e-mails when they could have just said, “I just completed Mike’s nature technique to smooth out our datasets.” In fact, as someone who’s worked in science, I’ve seen that phrasing used hundreds of times. I’ve never seen the word trick used, nor the words “hide the decline” in any data processing coordination I’ve ever done. It seems to be some unique Climate-Science language you guys have invented here. I’ll remember that for the future. “Trick” means “Technique”; and “Hide the Decline” means smooth a dataset. Interesting stuff here. I’ll try to remember distribute your hacked e-mails in the future Gavin, since its obvious you guys don’t want the world to know about your secret climatology code that you guys speak back and forth.
6:10
“Our ignorance about climate system is very large but we do know some things we do know that greenhouse gasses are increasing because of human activities we do know that the planet is warming we do know that its warming for the reasons that basic physics tells us that its warming there are lots of details and lots of issues that we need to work on obviously we’re all scientists and we’re working on the things that are uncertain no scientist makes a living by going around agreeing with everyone elses work we are looking for the places where there is uncertainty that is where scientists look but when you do that you can’t forget that science is built ona foundation that goes back to the 19th century the shape of that building the whole edifice is not being changed because people are arguing about one or two bricks at the top and whjich temperature record is the best temperature record or not.”
Fail Gavin. This is not one or two bricks at the top. These are the bricks of the foundation. In order for the current changes in climate to be alarming, we need to look at the past record to see if the climate changes that we’re seeing are abnormal. Paleoclimatology needs to definitively show that in order to proceed to the next step, which is discovering the cause of the abnormal changes. Your fundamental question is, “Is the climate changing in an abnormal fashion?” That is your fundamental question, because if it isn’t changing in any sort of unusual fashion, there’s no reason to even ask why. Your primary question is not why, but what. Without a properly formulated primary question, the question of “why is this happening?” is meaningless.
Fail Gavin. But then again, I expected nothing less from a man who censors rational discourse on the internet.

Administration Warns of ‘Command-and-Control’ Regulation Over Emissions
FOXNews.com
The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn’t move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a “command-and-control” role over the process in way that could hurt business.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/09/administration-warns-command-control-regulation-emissions/
With our shaky economy, the last thing we need is to have a pit bull loose in the grocery store.

Open Letter: Peter Chylek
http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/218-petr-chylek-open-letter-to-the-climate-research-community.html

If a TV news station does not report on a given topic three time in a given hour, like the Tiger Woods story, then “it didn’t happen” or it isn’t important, especially to them and they don’t wish for you to know about it. A lack of coverage on a topic of this magnitude completely discredits the station as a worthy source of news, and they know it.

Jeremy:
Great job of deconstructing Gavin’s non-responsive responses. Damn right he failed. Christy was cool – perhaps too cool – and was very strraightforward. I bet you couldn’t find anything wrong with what he said. If you reckonize that some facts are compatible with the warming hypothesis – it is just plain stupid to deny or waffle on them. Arctic ice, for example, is relatively low – it is tough to deny without pulling a Gavin.

Gavin looks like Betty Boop.

Watching Gavin Schmidt shows me once again that global warming is becoming a caricature of itself.

Finally there is a debate happening in public over AGW. And every time that happens people mostly side with ‘skeptics’.
This debate wasn’t perfect but we have to stop expecting perfect.
We are winning!!
I feel so good about that!

Christy got some good points in – particularly about the models. He could have been a bit more aggressive but as someone else said, he came across as cool and calm while Gavin to me looked like the a-wipe he apparently is.
Who would you trust with your life? Your fortune? Your kids? Who would you rather sit next to on a plane for 5 hours? Christy wins hands down. Gavin’s personifies the arrogant, pointy headed intellectual who knows nothing about the real world.

CO2 Realist (17:33:38) :
– Why is Gavin Schmidt defending the CRU guys?
He’s in the CRU emails. He’s in ClimateGate up to his eyes.

Gore at CNN, 50% of CO2 in our atmosphere is human made! The fact is it’s 3%!!!

I am part of the public that has very little experience with science in regards to global warning. I have been lurking on many sites trying to have some understanding of this situation.
My opinion of the debate between Christy and Schmidt is that Christy came off as an honest person. He acted as if being on TV was not a normal event for him, however, I listened more when he spoke. He just seemed honest and open.
Gavin Schmidt came off as someone trying to sell me something. Didn’t sound solid in what he was saying.

I think Dr Christy could have answered the ‘polar ice’ question much better. I think a reference to the fact that it is cyclical, not an ‘unprecedented’ occurance since we know the polar ice cap was equally small or smaller earlier in the 20th century, i.e., Northwest passage was open in 1940 but is closed now would have gone a long way to obliterate the point.

Sorry for the OT.
A MUST SEE
A first look at gridded data from the Met Office Land Surface Temperature Record
http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/12/first-look-at-gridded-data-from-met.html
Open Source, plotted using KML file in GoogleEarth!

TheGoodLocust th (18:51:46) :I watched the IQ^2 debate with Gavin and decided at that point he was a complete slimeball.
I saw the debate where Lindzen, Stott and Crichton took on Gavin and two other warmistas and I remember 3 things from it clearly.
1. No one could beat Crichton on getting a clear message across
2. At the end of the debate Stott put Gavin down like a rabid dog
3. The Skeptics won the debate

IMO the fact that CNN put John Christy on The Situation Room with Blitzer is in itself a fairly significant step in the right direction: That program is definitely mainstream, and a LOT of people watch it.
And I agree with multiple prior comments: Especially given the time limitations of the Sit Room format, on the whole Christy came across as comfortable, confident, and especially:
He sounded like a professional scientist.
Not only Gavin not so much:
The constract between Christy and Schmidt was striking, with Gavin very much looking and sounding nervous, touchy, defensive, and . . . . yeah: Guilty. . . .

GAVIN SCHMIDT: “We do know that greenhouse gasses are increasing because of human activity….we do know that the climate is warming…we do know that its warming for the reasons basic physics tells us that it’s warming.”
Circular reasoning at its best!
He should think about going into politics. He would be right at home!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

If Christy is going to “debate”, he really should take a course. He got run over and he got “filibustered” as one observer noted. If he can’t even think of a reasonable counter to “The Arctic ice is melting”, he doesn’t belong on camera. The AGW crowd should be lining up to debate him.
Really lame!
CH

MSM needs to dedicate like 2-3 hours of debate time for these guys. Let them use presentations and make it similar to a presidential debate. They need more than 10-20 seconds to expand on a topic because the evidence is that detailed that you can’t say, here it is, here is what the code says, here are the results…etc all in a few seconds. MSM just skims over the surface of the lake at about 10,000ft and won’t allow these guys to explain themselves in a way that allows Joe the plumber to understand. Keep up the good work

Roger (17:45:27) :
…but Wolf was aware of Gavin’s habitual blathering using up valuable time, and for what I think is the first time EVER, allowed the Skeptic the last word!
I liked that too.
Gavin Schmidt not only talked over the top of John Christy he didn’t listen to Wolf Blitzer as he tried to interrupt his long winded monologues.

More discussion at CNN
http://campbellbrown.blogs.cnn.com/

DaveE (18:51:59) :
That article was written mid December 1938 -at winter ice extent. That Russian breaker drifting within 300 miles of the North Pole is quite a statistic.
the arctic must have ben very small in those days.

rbateman (18:45:03) :
The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn’t move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a “command-and-control” role
If the Senators can’t stand up to Lisa Jackson and Barak Obama I may start making jokes about certain parts of their anatomy.

Jim (18:55:34) :
Blitzer didn’t ask the multi-dimensional question: Are climate models tools or are climate scientists tools?
Niiicce! 🙂

In part two of that interview CNN showed scenes of the blizzard up north saying winter has arrived two weeks early. What was that thing about getting in the last word? I think Mother Nature got in the last word in that interview.

Was Gavin Schmidt implying that climate science was built on a foundation that goes back to the 19th century, or was he out-and-out stating that science as a whole is built on a 19th century foundation? I guess in that case Galileo and Newton don’t count. However, I guess most viewers would neither know or care. But it does not say a lot about Dr. Schmidt’s understanding.

Ahh Gavin. What a guy. I’m pretty sure that he was on an episode of “Cash Cab” not so long ago. This is probably where he developed his TV skills, although, as I recall, his companion had most of the answers. Gavin was just a guy with a beard, no hair, and a leather coat that he couldn’t zip. Anybody else see this?

I’ve only read a few of the comments here, so this has probably been stated ad infinitum: the performance of both McIntyre and Christy was so tragic that they may as well have been on the side of the alarmists! Very sad – golden opportunities missed.

I think John Christy did a great job he didn’t got sucked into a shouting match with Schmidt, he came over level headed wile Gavin Schmidt had only the usual talking points to offer with no substance.
Get historical like Gavin did and you loss all credibility and the polls show it more and more people aren’t buying the AGW crap anymore.

Not seen the video but I have read the comments.
Christy seems to have acted carefully, not a bad ploy.
The polar ice cap matter is best left silent because…
Strictly no room for wriggle there is no defence either way even though there is zero prospect of losing the ice caps. <—- note the pleural.
The Arctic cap given the changing orbital tilt of the Earth and maybe other processes might even if very unlikely disappear. As things stand maybe 2150 to 2200.
I have been doing a lot of work on the data and I know that something very strange is happening.
There has been a smooth dip and recovery __not the brief loss of summer ice__ but right now there is no way of knowing what next. Now note this: the ice and UAH North Pole temperature track very well. (same for Antarctica)
There was no temperature follow for the brief 2007/8/9 dips in ice, it follows the broader trend which is at normal right now.
Firstly I have shown that sea ice extent and area datasets are the same and for both Arctic and Antarctica. That is based on monthly data. In other words forget area as telling anything more.
Secondly I have successfully created a daily Arctic sea ice dataset by merging NASA stereo and IJIS/JAXA even though they use a different geometry. Fortunately this difference is constant. (they cannot both be numerically accurate!) NASA ceased updating 31st Dec 2007
On removing the annual ice cycle a change signal remains. This too matches UAH just like the monthly data. So it should.
Whether these data will see the light of day remains to be seen. Question ought to be why it falls to an amateur?

I like Gavin schmidt. He let me down. Using the argument to popularity is as far from scientific as could be. If we all study the same corrupted data, why shouldn’t our conclusions be the same? It hurts when some one claims to be a scientist and can’t grasp a coincidental observation doesn’t prove a causal relationship. They could get a little sharper in isolating variables. Our sixth grade genius knows when the sun comes up, the dat becomes warmer and it cools after sunset. It doesn’t occur to the warmists the sun gives heat and when light is blocked, it cools.

Poptech (18:38:17) :
I am familiar with all the old newspaper articles but they do not specifically talk about ice extent.

The current situation is skeptics are painted as unreasonable fanatic science haters. That is why no one has actually checked the science – I don’t check the science of the flat earth society either. I think the best thing the skeptic side can do is come off as calm, reasonable and only there to discuss the science. So I think this interview and the one with McIntyre was perfect, and far more powerful than scoring a point with a ‘yes it is’, ‘no it isn’t’ debate full of wild sounding claims.
The goal isn’t to convince people we aren’t warming like a barbecue, to goal is to convince them to take an impartial scientific look. For once.

finny (20:15:25)
It seems that Mrs Thatcher first funded reseach into Global warming after a speech to the Royal Society, which later set up the Hadley centre (which controls the IPCC)
you could be right

I thought both were OK. Gavin was pretty honest about the role of models (the stuff he knows about) but he also did very carefully evade the issue of exactly how much CO2 actually causes. Christy I thought was not strong enough on the same issue, nor the appalling state of the temperature record that is what the public is fed to “show” AGW in action.

old news (2008), but oddly, this puts climategate into perspective before it happened.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/

Maybe everyone that thinks Steve McIntyre and John Christy weren’t colorful enough (I thought they both were fine) would be satisfied if Ian Plimer were on these tv show (actually I would like that too)

vigilantfish (20:01:39) :
Was Gavin Schmidt implying that climate science was built on a foundation that goes back to the 19th century, or was he out-and-out stating that science as a whole is built on a 19th century foundation?
Don’t read too much into what he was trying to say. He may not be as smart as you think he should be. Lower your expectations and then the picture will clear up for you.
(I may sound rude here I think)

Apparently many people here are new to this debate,
McIntyre and Christy’s performances are exactly the same as they have always been and their personal position on the issue has not changed. Both are low key and professional.
Now if you were expecting shock and Awe you want Monckton or Morano (who people were ironically complaining about).
Gavin is the alarmist’s go to guy to argue any and all positions, his whole Blog (realclimate) was created just for this purpose. For over three years every single “rebuttal” has been through him and his blog or originated there. So there should be no surprise to his demeanor.
Anytime Gavin brings up computer models, someone should ask him if he has a degree in Computer Science = debate over.
I’ve always said that this whole charade will unravel once actual computer scientists start looking at the code.

In the CNN face off, Schmidt’s body language betrays him. When he makes assertions that we know are not true, he blinks rapidly and is eyes dart . Other times in the interview where he isn’t flat out lying his blinks are at a normal rate .
John Christy is the polar opposite. He is calm and his body language is consistent throughout.
Gavin doesn’t even believe himself. He knows he’s lying.

I thought on balance it was a lot of “yes, it is,” “no it isn’t” argument. Schmidt is such an evader and a dissembler to boot. He has his party line down pat. Don’t expect any serious discussion or admissions on any network TV program covering this subject; just a lot of posturing. Is Schmidt a scientist or a politician? Ha, I know the answer already.
I would challenge Schmidt and the other warmists to answer the challenge set forth by the 141 scientists in their letter to Ban Ki Moon of the U.N. today. The warmists need to come up with solid, falsifiable, observational evidence to confirm each of the ten issues identified in that letter.

As far as debates go, they were both pretty good, and, unfortunately, Gavin did a pretty good job of getting the AGW talking points to the forefront.
I’ve been in debates occasionally, and it is nigh on impossible to think of the right thing to say at the right time (always kicking oneself afterwards thinking of what you should have said). That said, I was disappointed that Christy didn’t jump all over the softball that Wolf Blitzer threw at him twice (intentionally?): the disappearing Arctic ice cap. Christy tried to be technical and nuanced, but that is not what was needed. He should have retorted with something close to righteous indignation about such an incredibly outrageous statement, pointed out that it most certainly hasn’t disappeared, that it in fact has grown/recovered significantly over the past two years, etc.

Gavin was rude. There was no need to interrupt.

IMHO I think the scientifically rational side of this debate needs some media management. That is the message needs to be clarified into, if you like, sound bites. And these need to be pushed hard by everybody who debates the AGW Evangelists.
The scientifically rational anti-AGW side tend to want to use a detailed careful approach but unfortunately we are arguing with people who are not careful, detailed, or for that matter scientific. And detail does not sell on TV
Some examples:
1. Climategate is evidence of one of the greatest scientific frauds in history.
2. Climategate is not evidence supporting a conspiracy theory. It is a conspiracy. There is no theory about it.
3. If the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) occurred, and temperatures were hotter than they are today, then the hypothesis of AGW is disproved. End of story, no ifs, buts or maybes. It is dead in the water.
4. Climategate shows clear irrefutable evidence that IPCC scientists made a deliberate attempt to suppress data showing that the MWP occurred.
5. We know that the MWP occurred because many truly reputable scientists from reputable institutions have published proper papers showing that it occurred.
6. “Peer review” credentials now no longer apply to any paper published by the CRU team, or in the journal Nature with regard to climatology. The concept of peer review by these people or in that journal is now so corrupted as to have no meaning. Any statement, report, claim or document citing as support any paper by this team or that institution should be disregarded.
7. The ice caps are not disappearing.
8. Polar bears are not endangered. There numbers are increasing and have been for decades.
And finally a joke I saw on another blog, or maybe this one slightly modified:
A Mathematician, an Engineer, a Geologist and a Climatologist were asked to answer the question: What is the average of 2 and 4?
The answers were:
Mathematician: “3”
Engineer: “3”
Geologist: “3”
Climatologist: “Well it depends…”
I’m sure there are clever media savvy types that can add more and improve on these.

photon without a Higgs (19:08:27) : He’s [Schmidt] in the CRU emails. He’s in ClimateGate up to his eyes.
Yes, but he’s acting like the impartial outsider. I’m going to have to dig into any emails that include Gavin to get a better read. To me, his behavior is much more like PR flack than scientist.

rbateman (18:45:03)
This plays into the bit I just posted a little while ago about restitution colonialism and AGW. American libs want in on this obvious scam for one reason. They want more people on the goverment payroll ( people on assistance with hands out waiting for the free lunch). Well almost free lunch they do expect a vote for the democrats in return. It works like this. America hands over thier
colonial restitution payments( vieled as cleaning up the eviroment) . The dems or libs go after the manufactures for the money. which scares them off to some cheaper none restitution paying country. This puts alot of none educated workers on the free luch program. I think the libs would be looking for numbers like 40% educated high paying professionals paying for 60% of democratic voting americans on the free lunch program. Now in order for it to work They need to pretend thier hands are tied in regards to bringing back these manufacturing jobs due to thier soverenty on energy consuption being in the hands of some euro politician. Setting up every election after that with thier talking points about how republicans will take away thier lunch and there are no jobs out there unless you are educated ( those jobs being slim pickins).The whole time this is happening the dems will work hard to dumb down the free lunch crowds offspring so each generation feels more of an entitlement to hand out. Taking steps along the way to brainwash this voting base into beliving that they are the only party that is looking out for them. Hell they’ll probably still be blaming bush for it 30 years from now. This is what the liberal dems want and they are more than happy to hide behinde Obamas race and let him act out his politicall wet dream on the american public. The mortgage scam was basically plan B AGW plan A either one of those bills will scare of the jobs. Not to worry the dems will pull the plug halfway through on Obamas vision when more than enough damage will be inflicted to create a big enough tax bill to beat the manufactures back with. Of course there will allways be the green jobs for the uneducated but they will also be brainwashed into thinking without democrats there jobs will dissapear. This is the reason why AGW is very partisan and simply just not true. But this picture is alot less scary than Obama being alowed to act out the whole dream. Might be due time for some fire and brimstone.

Polar Bare (20:20:46) :
I have been doing a lot of work on the data and I know that something very strange is happening.
If you want to better understand what has been going on with the Arctic ice cap I would suggest you review this paper
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/research_seaiceageextent.html
and the accompanying animation
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/animations/Rigor&Wallace2004_AgeOfIce1979to2007.mpg
the commentary to the animation includes the following
This animation of the age of sea ice shows:
1.) A large Beaufort Gyre which covers most of the Arctic Ocean during the 1980s, and a transpolar drift stream shifted towards the Eurasian Arctic. Older, thicker sea ice (white ice) covers about 80% of the Arctic Ocean up to 1988. The date is shown in the upper left corner.
2.) With the step to high-AO conditions in 1989, the Beaufort Gyre shrinks and is confined to the corner between Alaska and Canada. The Transpolar Drift Stream now sweeps across most of the Arctic Ocean, carrying most of the older, thicker sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait (lower right). By 1990, only about 30% of the Arctic Ocean is covered by older thicker sea ice.
3.) During the high-AO years that follow (1991 and on), this younger thinner sea ice is shown to recirculated back to the Alaskan coast where extensive open water has been observed during summer.
The age of sea ice drifting towards the coast explains over 50% of the variance in summer sea ice extent (compared to less than 15% of the variance explained by the seasonal redistribution of sea ice, and advection of heat by summer winds).
If you go through the animation frame by frame it is fairly obvious that in 1989 the state of the Beaufort Gyre and the Transpolar Drift shifts from this
http://www.amap.no/?main=http%3A//www.amap.no/mapsgraphics/%3Fevent%3Dsearch%26q%3Darctic+currents
to this
http://www.amap.no/
As the authors point out the old ice that had been retained by the much larger BG circulation declined from 80% of the total ice area to 30% in little over a year and the decline that has continued is mostly attributable to the change in circulation and has little to do with global warming or CO2. The recovery of the Arctic ice in the last couple years may be due to circulation patterns undergoing another shift, which is suggested by drift patterns shown here
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icedrift/index.uk.php
I’ve ended up with quite a collection of links in this comment and I hope it doesn’t get trapped by the spam filter.

I fixed that CNN interview with my Windows movie maker. Sometimes the game is played like this.
Al Gore Destroyed By Mother Nature on CNN 12-09-09

Regardless of who won, I still think that Christy is much more believable in the fact that he is more detached and sounds much more sensible than has an agenda that much be defended at all costs, with no weaknesses mentioned whatsoever in order to make the agw case humble, and therefore more apt to possess integrity.

I am in love with John Christy!!!!! Not only is he handsome (eye candy), his debate style was absolutely flawless! Ear candy!!!!

the links I put in for Arctic circulation maps didn’t work I’d hoped. At the first link the maps I referred to are the third and first respectively.

Schmidt said the emails were stolen.
(We don’t know that for sure).,
And he said that they weren’t released under a FOIA request
(That begs the question because THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN, but CRU stonewalled for years.)
I take Christy to task for not catching him on that and some other nonsense. Why is it the skeptics aren’t that good at putting their case in front of a camera?
Christy was polite, and Schmidt was, like most of his ilk, rude.
As someone else said, the warmers have their talking points coordinated pretty well, actually.

I am a fan of debate technique and John won this hands down with a knockout hit outa the park!!!! Debate isn’t about beating your opponent over the head with ferocious attack. It is more like a delicate surgery on your opponent. Gavin doesn’t even know what hit him.

By the way, When Al says ‘probably’ in the CNN interview shown above in the comments section, Can’t we take that to mean “already decided” as he spent all of the day before yesterday in the White-house with Obama?
This whole thing is so obviously scripted it’s like watching a soap opera….you only need to watch a few episodes to figure out what the story line is going to be for the next 6 months….

This went very well for a number of reasons that I’m sure have been pointed out already by others, so I won’t go into that.
ONE nagging thing is that… Schmidt doesn’t like the media storm, eh? Well, just why, pray tell, should all of us nonscientist people never get wind of this? Yeah. If you can’t take the heat, then stop stoking the fires by telling nature what she’s doing!

I am not sure who posted this link but thanks. It is a major eye opener regarding Gavin and RealClimate. There’s a lot of links throughout the article to sources. It is a must read for those not familiar with him and why he spun like a top on CNN. He’s a mathematician, activist and shill for a radical [left] political organization. Just doing what he’s paid to do.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/07/truth-about-realclimateorg.html

I agree with debreuil. The goal of these media exposures is not to satisfy the needs of those who are already familiar with and understand the sceptic viewpoints. Nor is it to try and score any victories directly, which is unrealistic especially in such a forum. I think the best benefit will come from people who have not yet looked into it deeply, being given enough of an indication that there is more to it than meets the eye, and thus encouraged to look further into it of their own volition. In this context, I think the non-histrionic style as shown here by Christy can be very powerful.

My take on the urgency of getting a deal done in Copenhagen is, this is their last chance at getting a global tax on all of us before Reality smacks those UN global government people and us with a 2 X 4 across the head.

I think that Gavin Schmidt’s immigration status should be reviewed. And the same for Caspar Ammann and Tom Karl. It is time for US science policy to be made by US citizens.

On this one, I’ll go with debreuil. Christy works, Schmidt sucks. Not to pick nits (they be lice, folks), but these threads would be much more pursuasive if the posters would pay more attention to grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Some writers are very good indeed, and others seem to be carried away with the emotions of the moment, but overall it would be good to see some improvement. It may be too late for the punctuation and grammatically impaired, but a simple dictionary is inexpensive and really doesn’t take up that much space on the desk.
The other suggestion I have is that everyone writing should take the time to proof read his/her opinion before posting. Sorry if anyone is offended by these rather obvious suggestions, but credibility is important, and illiteracy doesn’t cut it in the majors. Make the other side the morons, not ourselves.
Imagine a Brit misspelling Britain three times in one post (see above). Next time, we discuss ‘capitalization.’

John Christy gives the impression of being an honest, friendly and solid scientist. As such he is certainly the kind of scientist we like to associate us with here at WUWT. Nice post Anthony, continue to bring in the best scientists that humbly expresses the science of our climate – it’s no need to reply hostile AGW propaganda with anything but honest and transparent science.

Why aren’t they appearing on FOX?
CNN and the rest of the MSM aren’t going to allow a balanced debate.
The sceptics have to unload all their ammuniation in these confrontations.
Make the warmists aquirm.
I haven’t watched the above clip yet.
I’m afraid of being deeply disappointed.

Okay I watched it.
Not as bad as I thought it would be.
But my advice hasn’t changed.
We really have to unload on these charlatans.
Why is that so damn difficult?
1. Arctic is recovering
2. Antarctica is growing
3. temps are declining
4. Warmist Mojib Latif even says cooling for the next decade.
5. The trick is a fraud.
6. FOIA was violated – criminal!
What the hell else does one need?
It’s there on a silver platter!
Why can’t they drive that home?
It’s so frsutrating.
It’s almost as bad as watching the GOP.

I watched that!!!!

John Christy: What a terrible performance on CNN! Talk to the viewers, not to fellow scientists. You justify the alarmism by being vague on the subject!
Use words that can be understood. The main issue is the enormous exaggeration. Your academic speak is useless. In fact, you should NOT go on TV if you do not have the currage to use harsh words. The climategate documents warrants harsh words. Give me a [snip] break with that stupid science talk – it works to promote the hypothesis of a dramatic human influence on climate. Gavin Schmidt totally beat you there – he won that round by a large margin – be a [snip] man John next time or don’t make any more interviews. It was a disgrace to be quite honest – you did a terrible job.
Reply: OK EVERYBODY LISTEN UP! PARTIALLY COVERED X’D OUT SUGAR COATED PROFANITY IS STILL PROFANITY AND IT MAKES YOUR POST SUBJECT TO COMPLETE DELETION. WE ARE TOO OVERWORKED HERE TO HAVE TO GO IN AND SNIP OUT YOUR WORDS. POSTS WILL NOW START DISAPPEARING. ~ charles the moderator

I hope the sceptic scientists grasp that science is going to die with waning public opinion. So when you’re out there on camera, then act and speak like your life bloody depends on it!
Christy looked and acted like he had just gotten off the golf course. You’d have never thought he was dealing with the greatest scientific scandal of all time.
Where’s the outrage?
Frustrating frustrating frustrating.

This is what you have to feature and get out there.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/09/pressure-defend-climate-gate-scientists/
Please don’t post any more lame interviews.
Otherwise I’m not going to bother reading this blog anymore.

George E. Smith (18:27:15) :
“This was my first visage of the famous Gavin schmidt, and I have to say he didn’t endear himself to me.”
In that case, George , you should see the Intelligence Squared debate. It’s in 10 parts:

Gavin is so irritating which is exacerbated by his accent.

Christy looked more comfortable than McIntyre, but his answers were probably too short. I saw Ross McKitrick in another clip, and I think his answers were probably too short, also. It seems to me that if you stop talking because you think you’ve made your point, you’re giving the other guy extra room to hog the airwaves, and you’re also missing some good opportunities. I would recommend that someone taking part in this type of interview should not hand over the baton even half a second before they have to. Instead, they should keep talking – elaborate, repeat, add related points. That puts the other guy at a disadvantage, or at least prevents the other guy from seizing an unfair advantage. Also, before the interview, they should discuss with someone else what points are likely to be raised, and what the answers will be, and what strategy you will use to make sure your most important points are highlighted. The AGW guys have lots of experience of this stuff. They’ve probably even taken media training. The skeptics are comparatively inexperienced.

This guy is good, Professor Philip Stott, biogeographer. He has a lot of experience debating with AGW alarmists; a regular on BBC radio:

To show you how good Lord Monckton is, you cannot even ambush him!
Interview with Lord Monckton re: Hitler Youth comment (Video) (4min)

Are we sure that Gavin and Michael Mann aren’t twins? 🙂