Next time some irrationalist complains about a skeptic sponsored list, that includes scientists that are not climatologists, saying such lists are irrelevant, show them this. Show them also the unspoken pressure that some signers have worried about.
From The Times (emphasis mine):
Top scientists rally to the defence of the Met Office
The Met Office has embarked on an urgent exercise to bolster the reputation of climate-change science after the furore over stolen e-mails.
More than 1,700 scientists have agreed to sign a statement defending the “professional integrity” of global warming research. They were responding to a round-robin request from the Met Office, which has spent four days collecting signatures. The initiative is a sign of how worried it is that e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia are fuelling scepticism about man-made global warming at a critical moment in talks on carbon emissions.
One scientist said that he felt under pressure to sign the circular or risk losing work. The Met Office admitted that many of the signatories did not work on climate change.
…
One scientist told The Times he felt under pressure to sign. “The Met Office is a major employer of scientists and has long had a policy of only appointing and working with those who subscribe to their views on man-made global warming,” he said.
…
Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which claims man-made climate change has been exaggerated, said the petition showed that the Met Office was rattled.
Complete story here at The Times: Top scientists rally to the defence of the Met Office
Paul Dennis (10:14:46) :
Whats that? A confederacy of dunces?
that is a sign of pure mediocrity. Its like Mozart sending a petition to the courts asking for their signatures to say he is the greatest musical genius, so he can show it off wherever he goes. Trouble is, he’s already painfully aware that his talent sets him apart.
Salieri is the sort who gets eclipsed by Mozart and needs to crawl to the courts for their good words and support.
“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
>>This is starting to feel like an episode of ‘Dad’s Army’.
>> Quote:
>>Your name will also go on the list! What is your name?
>>Don’t tell him Pike!
>>Ah, Pike
>>Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run ,run….
.
Very funny but very British, and I don’t think out Yank readers will understand.
Here it is:
http://www.savevid.com/video/dads-army-dont-tell-him-pike-a6def0.html
Brilliant. Still brings tears to my eyes……
.
Barry Foster (08:43:02) : Has anyone seen anything, like any graph or data, that bears any correlation to the quite sudden rise in temperatures in 1980?
Yes.
It is the inverse of this graph:
http://chiefio.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/thermometer-records-by-year.gif
“The Great Dying of Thermometers” where NCDC started cutting the cold thermometers out of the GHCN data set. You know, that same GHCN that is 98% the same as the CRUT input data? That same GHCN that is 98% of the input data (by area covered) in GIStemp. That same data that, produced by NCDC, is the NCDC product. That same data that is the input to the Japanese data food product.
If you would understand the “land data hockey stick” you must understand the selective deletion of thermometer records. It is only done for the recent data and is strongly biased to cold locations. Leave the Andes IN for the baseline, but take them OUT for the recent past. Leave the Canadian North West Territories and Yukon IN for the baseline, take them OUT for the recent past. Leave the Japanese snowy mountains IN for the baseline, delete them in the recent past. Repeat for the whole globe Gory details here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/ghcn-the-global-analysis/
They delete roughly 90% of the recent thermometer records. This does things like leave the USA with 90+% of thermometers at airports.
I’ve just emailed the Met Office to register that as a scientist, I have absolutely zero confidence in them. I explained why.
I hope they get more than comments like that.
Barry Foster (10:32:17) :
“As Smokey above says, go here julia.slingo@metoffice.gov.uk
and put ‘NO’ in the subject box.”
On occasion or two I was told that I promote ‘pseudoscience’ and as such ‘a danger to society’. So it would be fun to get my name among ‘top scientists’, hence I am sending big YES, whatever that may mean. All NOs will be deleted automatically by the email filtering.
vukcevic,
I had not thought of that angle. But it brought up another thought: how would she react to “Maybe”? Or: “The science isn’t settled”?
MikeE (09:24:20) : Some shock news just in:
10,000,000 British turkeys vote to abolish Christmas (and 50,000,000 US turkeys vote to abolish Thanksgiving).
Ducks and Geese walk out in sympathy… demand end to fowl discrimination…
Pigs, polled on this issues, were “on the fence” Said one: “On the one ham, it would be good to abolish it, on the other, we would hate to see Turkeys given unequal favorable rights under the law via a ‘Fowl Hate Crime’ ruling…”
watt tyler (08:33:54) : I understand why voting UKIP in the next UK GE is appealing – but unless you live in John Bercow’s constituency – it’s pointless.
Farage has the best chance of unseating him – UKIP have zero prospect in any other seat.
Slingo writes in her email ‘request’:
“We are therefore seeking a groundswell of support….”
That’s interesting, I thought a groundswell, by its very definition, came from below, the people on the ground. This is a top sought groundswell. So spontaneous.
News just in: The Royal Society of Turkeys has just released a petition stating ‘Christmas is a totally unecessary festival and should be banned herewith’. There has been a 98% signage take-up among RST members.
It reminds me the “unanimous support” the Soviet scientists expressed in combating genetics and cybernetics, those “whores serving the international imperialism”. My colleagues immigrants from the Union know what I am talking about and can explain it to the colleagues from the first world countries who are re-inventing the “wide support of 1700 scientists” wheel. One can also recall wide spread support the contemporary scientists expressed to Pope in the case of Pope against Galileo. Also, there is an intriguing increase of cases when laymen asking scientists “do you believe…” questions, and scientists… answering these questions! Didn’t we learn from Newton that scientists believe outside the science. Mann et al should be ostracized simply based on their “believe – don’t believe” approach to science and urgency of enforcing their believe. We, scientists, know that Mann et al simply prostituting in order to gain funding and glory. I would add to the list Ken Caldeira from Stanford, who in his 3 minutes of fame declared on NPR that he proposes spreading of sufer particles in upper atmosphere to combat the global warming and cool the Eath. It is time to explain laymen what is going on and confess that most of us, scientists who filled “Greater Impact” section of their proposals for funding are similarly guilty of such prostitution, just on the smaller level and in not so important issues.
The global average temperature could reach a record high in 2010, according to the UK’s Met Office.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8406839.stm
“Top scientists”, those scientists at the top of the concocting climate fraud pot, hiding cooked data soup in it.
Of course they voted yes. It was for the same reason that the population of Iraq always voted for Saddam Hussein.
On the 24th November the British Met office issued a joint press statement on Climate Science. I can only assume this is in the wake of the CRU e-mail hack and was an attempt to assure the public on the veracity and openness of Climate Science
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091124a.html
Authors were those of the highest reputation:-
Prof. Julia Slingo, Chief Scientist, Met Office
Prof. Alan Thorpe, Chief Executive, Natural Environment Research Council
Lord Rees, President, the Royal Society
This statement included the following passage:-
“Year-on-year the evidence is growing that damaging climate and weather events — potentially intensified by global warming — are already happening and beginning to affect society and ecosystems. This includes:
In the UK, heavier daily rainfall leading to local flooding such as in the summer of 2007.”
Anybody reading this passage is left with the strong impression that Scientific Evidence existed that proved the floods of 2007 were caused by Climate Change or were part of likely climate change scenarios for the UK. I am further confused because the next line down says that the summer drought and heat wave of 2003 was also part of likely climate change scenarios. So according to the statement a cool wet summer in UK and a hot dry summer are both indicators of trends caused by CO2 induced climate change !!!!!!!
I was unlucky enough to be directly involved in the 2007 Avon/Severn flooding, I got my feet wet! so I did, out of interest, keep up to date with any science reporting of the likely cause.
An excellent scientific analysis was produced on the 2007 floods by CEH a part of Prof. Alan Thorpe’s Natural Environment Research Council.
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/news_archive/2008_news_item_05.html
And I quote from this report:
Lead author, Terry Marsh, comments: “The river floods of summer 2007 were a very singular episode, which does not form part of any clear historical trend or show consistency with currently favoured climate change scenarios.”
Mr Marsh adds: “The exceptional river flooding last summer fuelled speculation that flood risk is increasing due to global warming. Due to the inherent variability of the UK climate, any extreme hydrological event cannot readily be linked directly to climate change.”
So what do I make of all of that?
At best the Climate Statement passage is a mistake, which coming from such an authoritative source is inexcusable! Or perhaps the authors know of “science” that proves the floods were part of a likely climate change scenario.
At worst some would see this as an attempt to mislead the public. It diminishes the credibility of the whole statement.
I wish the authors to publicly accept this mistake and withdraw this part of the statement. However I expect that they will not! if only just to protect the reputation of the esteemed authors.
Perhaps there is something wrong with Climate Science.! their actions will inform us!
Didn’t the Nazis already try this in 1936 with Relativity?
I seem to recall they published a petition of 1000 scientists refuting relativity.
Einsteins comment on it was “If they could prove me wrong, one scientist should be all thats needed”
Look how far downhill it’s gone. Scientists refusing to release data and methods (so they can’t be traditionally or validated), perversions in the peer review process, journalistic propaganda pieces and politicians (or ex politicians) using a theory as a way of managing their approval level (or lack thereof).
sickening.
Confidence?
Is this about belief or science?
They should really ask how many scientists associated with climate change had thoroughly reviewed the various reports, the underlying “value added” temperature data and it extraction from the raw data and could confirm that the reports are sound and valid.
I bet they’d have a few fewer signatories then.
But if this is about belief, then these should none of them be scientists.
They may ask if they have confidence in the management of the weather centre, but not (in the terms expressed and especially as some are not climate scientists) in the reports or data. That they can either accept on trust or authenticate through their own evaluations.
hotrod (10:48:18) :
Very well put. I was going to post similarly put you beat me to the punch!
As others have said, to any one who is thinking, this whole petition in light of what has transpired only weakens their case.
At the risk of being a little too Al Gore-like, I will quoate Shakespeare:
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Dear Dr employee.
As you know, our great institution has been attacked by those who would do us harm. Please consider signing this paper which validates our support for global warming and the integrity of your institution of employment. Your support at this time is invaluable to continuing our already anemic and strained rate of funding.
Thank you,
the Boss
P.S. In a carbon offset measure for the power consumption of deep black It is office policy to use recycled paper for our TPS forms.
I’d like to see the full content. Does anyone know where I can read the petition ?
I can’t find it on the Met Office site … I did come across this clanger though under “The Age of Stupid – A climate scientist’s view of 2055” “Sea-level rise is projected to add around 20 cm, on average, to coastlines around the world”. Stupidly, an increasing coastline implies a falling sea level.
The UK Met Office site is quite a laugh. If ever you were in doubt, here is the vital evidence in full, proving that man’s CO2 is causing global warming:
“Are you sure there’s a link between temperature rise and CO2
Yes. Temperature and CO2 are linked. Studies of polar-ice layers show that in the past, rises in temperature have been followed by an increase in CO2. Now, it is a rise in CO2 that is causing the temperature to rise.
Concentrations of CO2 have increased by more than 35% since industrialisation began, and they are now at their highest for at least 800,000 years.
When natural factors alone are considered, computer models do not reproduce the climate warming we have observed. Only when man-made greenhouse gases are included do they accurately recreate what has happened in the real world.”
To paraphrase Twain… and when I am far on the road to conviction, and 1,700 men, be they workers in climate science or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the Met’s professional integrity too; and not only seen it but ‘hefted’ it, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire hockey team had testified as to its authenticity.
Perhaps we should all email julia.slingo.
We need to express our feelings that the AGW team has lost all credibility.
If they wish to regain any credibility they need to really open up the review of everything they have done to date and from this point forward.
The review should be “Open Source” similar to the projects that developed LINUX, Open Office, Mozilla, Firefox, etc..
I am sure Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Watts could oversee this effort, of course they have both done way more than most of us and they deserve our eternal gratitude.
Link for the above:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/quick/doubts.html
It also shows Mann’s hockey stick, based on ” eg ice cores “.
I wonder if everyone that studies the behavior of lemmings signed this pledge…..