Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
This replaced the previous sticky, and I have this comment about the Economist. Bad form and unprofessional to use the word “denialists”. For WUWT readers who wish to complain: letters@economist.com or use their online form here. – Anthony
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ECONOMIST
On Dec 11th, the Economist published an unsigned article attacking both me and my work. This open letter is my reply.
TO: The Person Unwilling to Sign Their Economist Article
Dear Sir or Madam;
Recently, you wrote a scathing article about me in the Economist discussing my post called The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero. Some of it was deserved, but most was undeserved and false. The URL for your unprinicpled attack is http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/12/trust_scientists … trust_scientists? Trust_scientists?? Have you read the CRU emails?
But I digress … you begin by quoting from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, viz:
A change in the type of thermometer shelter used at many Australian observation sites in the early 20th century resulted in a sudden drop in recorded temperatures which is entirely spurious. It is for this reason that these early data are currently not used for monitoring climate change. Other common changes at Australian sites over time include location moves, construction of buildings or growth of vegetation around the observation site and, more recently, the introduction of Automatic Weather Stations.
The impacts of these changes on the data are often comparable in size to real climate variations, so they need to be removed before long-term trends are investigated.
While this is true, it doesn’t apply. None of the GHCN adjustments are from any of those sources. This is because the GHCN does not adjust for location moves. Nor does it adjust for construction of buildings, nor for any of the other items listed. The GHCN uses none of those to make its adjustments. So all of that is totally meaningless.
Next, you say the “explanation for the dramatic change in 1941 is simple”:
As previously advised, the main temperature station moved to the radar station at the newly built Darwin airport in January 1941. The temperature station had previously been at the Darwin Post Office in the middle of the CBD, on the cliff above the port. Thus, there is a likely factor of removal of a slight urban heat island effect from 1941 onwards. However, the main factor appears to be a change in screening. The new station located at Darwin airport from January 1941 used a standard Stevenson screen. However, the previous station at Darwin PO did not have a Stevenson screen. Instead, the instrument was mounted on a horizontal enclosure without a back or sides. The postmaster had to move it during the day so that the direct tropical sun didn’t strike it! Obviously, if he forgot or was too busy, the temperature readings were a hell of a lot hotter than it really was.
This might make sense if there were any “dramatic change in 1941”. But as I clearly stated in my article, <b>there is no such dramatic change</b>. The drop in temperature was gradual and lasted from 1936 to 1940. The change from 1940 to 1941 was quite average. So that claim of yours is nonsense as well. In any case, the change in screening did not coincide with the 1941 move. In my article I cited a reference to a picture of a Stevenson Screen in use in Darwin at the turn of the century. Perhaps you didn’t bother to read that.
So, to sum up your first arguments, changes in the Stevenson Screens and other local conditions cannot be the explanation for any of the GHCN adjustments because 1) the GHCN doesn’t use local conditions to make adjustments and 2) the timing of the screen change is wrong. In addition, there was no “dramatic change in 1941”.Next, you point out two actual mistakes I did make.
First, in my proofreading I did not catch that I that I had written “the 1941 adjustment” when I meant the 1930 adjustment. That should have been obvious to me, because there is no 1941 GHCN adjustment. My bad.
Second, I had said that the Darwin temperature data couldn’t have been adjusted by using the GHCN method. This method requires five neighboring stations to which Darwin can be compared. Why couldn’t the GHCN method be used? I said it was because in the earlier time periods like the 1930s, there were no such stations covering that time period within 500 km of Darwin. I was wrong, it fact there is one such station.
Neither of these errors of mine affect my point, which is that there are not enough neighboring stations to adjust Darwin using the main GHCN method. The GHCN folks mention this possibility, saying:
Also, not all stations could be adjusted. Remote stations for which we could not produce an adequate reference series (the correlation between first-difference station time series and its reference time series must be 0.80 or greater) were not adjusted. The homogeneity-adjusted version of GHCN includes only those stations that were deemed homogeneous and those stations we could reliably adjust to make them homogeneous.
Unfortunately, they adjusted Darwin anyway. Consider the GHCN adjustment in 1920. To find five stations around Darwin covering 1920, you have to go out 1,250 km. Nor is there any guarantee that those stations will be suitable. You need to have five stations with an 80% correlation with the Darwin record … I wish you the best of luck finding those five stations.
So while my statement about stations nearer than Daly Waters was wrong as you point out (there is one nearer station that covers the 1930 adjustment), my point was correct – there are not enough neighboring stations to adjust Darwin using the GHCN method. The first GHCN adjustment to Darwin was a single year adjustment in 1901. To get five “neighboring” stations for that adjustment, you have to go out 1728 km. You fail to deal with that issue at all. Instead, you say:
“So is it reasonable, if the GHCN is using complex statistical tools to adjust the temperature readings at Darwin based on surrounding stations, that they might come up with the figures they came up with? Sure. No. Yes. I have no idea. And neither does Mr Eschenbach. Because in order to judge that, you would have to have a graduate-level understanding of statistical modeling. … I don’t understand that formula. I don’t have the math for it.”
“Surrounding stations”? We’re talking about stations a thousand km away and more, not surrounding stations.
And while I am sorry to hear of the lacunae in your math education, please don’t make the foolish assumption that others are similarly limited. I have no problem with the GHCN math. If you truly have no idea on the question as you say … then why are you excoriating my ideas on the question?
Nor is it inherently a complex question. The question is, should temperatures more than a thousand km away from Darwin be used to arbitrarily adjust Darwin’s temperature by a huge amount? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.
Next, as an aside you make the scurrilously false statement that I said that claims of damage due to sea level rise in Tuvalu “stemmed from attempts by locals to blame subsidence problems on the developed world, and cash in on it”. I said no such thing nor do I believe it. The claims stemmed from misguided environmentalists.
Next, you say “He makes it sound as if he’s just happened to stumble across this one site whilst perusing a debate over climate change in northern Australia. But as his link to that conversation from 2000 makes clear, Mr Eschenbach is already aware that climate change denialists have been trumpeting the apparent anomalies at Darwin for nine years.” BZZZZT, poor understanding of the implications of chronology. I looked up the conversation after I stumbled across Darwin. How dare you accuse me of lying? As I said, I went to AIS to see if what Professor Karlen had said was true. I called up a list of all of the stations in Australia that covered 1900-2000. Darwin was the first on the list, so that’s the one I looked at. Try it and see. You accusation is both wrong and totally unfounded.
“[Climate change denialists] do so because of that errant data at Darwin from before 1941, which makes it look as though there was a cooling trend there. The fact that climate-change researchers have to do a particularly strong correction on the data at Darwin, because they moved their dang instruments from the downtown post office to the airport, makes Darwin a perfect place to look for support if you want to claim that climate-change scientists are cooking the data.”
While a correction in Darwin is perhaps necessary, it is cannot be because they “moved their dang instruments” in January of 1941. LOOK AT THE DATA. There is no big change in January of 1941. It occurred gradually over the previous five years. So your theory falls apart upon the simplest examination of the facts.
Next you say: “Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand.”
Your understanding of statistics is as poor as your understanding of chronology. The statistics used by GHCN are average college level tools. You are dazzled by the fact that you don’t understand them, so you make the incredibly foolish assumption that no one without “a PhD in a related field” can understand them either. Some of us actually paid attention in class, you know.
Finally, you use your closing arguments to cheerlead for peer review. Curiously, I agree with you in theory … but the peer review system in climate science is badly broken. First, as the CRU emails clearly show, it has been subjected to enormous “old-boy” pressures to pass through bad studies without a second glance, and to deny opposing papers a fair hearing. How do you think we got the Hockeystick and its cousins? Here’s Phil Jones from the emails, talking about keeping peer-reviewed papers out of the IPCC report:
I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
And you give your article the URL “trust_scientists”???
Second, the peer-review system is ripe for abuse. This is because the reviewers often know who the author is, while the reviewers (like you) hide in anonymity. This invites malfeasance. The system needs to be changed so that after the review, the [authors] sign their names to the paper as well as reviewers. At present, we have no way of knowing whether the paper was seriously reviewed by inquiring scientists, or simply passed through by the authors friends.
So I, like you, support peer review. I just want a peer review system that works. It must be double blind during the review period, with neither the reviewers nor the author knowing the others’ names. And the reviewers should reveal their names at the end, so that we know it wasn’t just the author’s best mates doing the author a favor.
Since we have an easily manipulated system instead of a real peer review system, I opt for public peer review by putting my work on the web. This lets anyone, even anonymous innumerates like yourself, register your objections.
Finally, the Economist did not contact me before publishing an article full of false accusations, incorrect assumptions and wrong statements … looks like peer review is not the only system in trouble here. I thought journalists were under an obligation to check their facts before making accusations …
Willis Eschenbach
Well, it was in the ‘Further reading’ section; if elsewhere, I missed it. Sue me. /Mr Lynn
COP15: Milankovic versus the Carbon Theorists
http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/08-12-2009/111000-milankoviccarbon-0
anna v (23:15:14) “[…] Humid nights are warmer than dry ones. It would be interesting to see the high and lows of dry deserts . That is where the effect of CO2 could be untangled from the effect of water vapor […]”
Please let us know if you find anything further regarding this approach to untangling (i.e. for non-UHI sites!)
Nick Stokes (02:17:28) :
The only adjustment I know that takes into account the position of the sun
is the TOBS adjustment. Which according to my knowledge only gets applied to US stations ( I could definately be wrong about this one as other countries may also adjust for TOBS which was validated on a US dataset)
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0450/25/2/pdf/i1520-0450-25-2-145.pdf
I’ve been suggesting a transactional form of record for temperatures, following well-established accounting systems structures, to make the components of every temperature value (raw data, UHI/location/altitude/etc adjustments, overall adjustments etc) visible.
But reading Steve Mosher’s post above, a bleedingly obvious thought has occurred.
What if the major temperature data series are already stored in this form?
What’s made public is the single figure for Tmin and Tmax per day. Could it be that the components of each are actually available anyway?
After all, a lot of the confusion about the temperature data is caused because that single figure is what is ‘disclosed’. But if, under that single figure, lies the sort of transactional series that I’m urging for any open-source replacement, we could all save a great deal of work.
Because one of the amazing things to be deduced from the harry_readme file, is that the CRU have simply no clue about data archiving or versioning, source code control, or in fact any of the things that capability maturity models have been banging on about for over a decade.
Harry was working with a plethora of text outputs, and this is what’s publicly disclosed every time an FOIA or similar request is lodged. But that doesn’t mean to say that, tucked away right at the base of the entire edifice, isn’t a proper transactional data structure.
Seems to me that a bit of digging under the FOIA or equivalent, to establish the core data structures used by the major series, would be very worthwhile indeed.
I posted the following text yesterday, believing it to be quite newsworthy for this site. I think the data had been published on the web only a few hours before. But I see no mention of it here or on CA. Or have I missed something?
Having looked briefly at it, I don’t know which is “true” raw data and which has been derived (using data which is now reported as lost). I think it is will be quite important to provide clear infromation to tell users which is which.
Here is my post:
“The MET office release of a subset of the HADCRUT3 data at the following link:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/subsets.html
From the Q&A:
“1. Are the data that you are providing the “value-added” or the “underlying” data?
The data that we are providing is the database used to produce the global temperature series. Some of these data are the original underlying observations and some are observations adjusted to account for non climatic influences, for example changes in observations methods.
2. What about the underlying data?
Underlying data are held by the national meterological services and other data providers and such data have in many cases been released for research purposes under specific licences that govern their usage and distribution.
3. Why is there no comprehensive copy of the underlying data?
The data set of temperatures back to 1850 was largely compiled in the 1980s when it was technically difficult and expensive to keep multiple copies of the database.”
This is not the end – looks like this is only the start of the homogenising debate.”
steven mosher (11:34:00) :
This looks to me like a correction based on the equipment, which is indeed not a normal GHCN issue – they say they don’t use the historical metadata. But the seasonal oscillation (2:17:28) of varying amplitude looks to me as if someone is correcting for imperfect shading, which underwent sudden improvements with equipment upgrades.
Lest we forget, the EPA has its own whistleblower, Alan Carlin.
————————————————————-
EPA whistleblower’s office on the chopping block
By Michelle Malkin • August 26, 2009
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/26/war-on-watchdogs-epa-whistleblowers-office-on-the-chopping-block/
Following a whistleblower report that criticized a global warming rule, the Environmental Protection Agency is reportedly considering shutting down the agency office in which the critical report originated.
Dr. Alan Carlin, the senior analyst whose report EPA unsuccessfully tried to bury, worked in EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE). According to a story in last Friday’s Inside EPA, the agency is now considering shutting that office down.
CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman was sharply critical of the proposed EPA move.
“Economists are the most likely professionals within EPA to examine the real-world effects of its policies,” said Kazman. “For this reason, the NCEE is a restraining force on the agency’s out-of-this-world regulatory ambitions. EPA would love to get that office out of the way, especially since it has within it civil servants like Dr. Carlin, who are willing to expose the truth about EPA’s plan to restrict energy use in the name of global warming.”
Carlin’s study found that EPA failed to consider recent science data showing that global warming is not the problem the Administration claims. For example, the study found that ocean cycles, rather than anthropogenic carbon dioxide, appear to be the single best explanation of global temperature variations.
————————————————————-
The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic
The professional penalty for offering a contrary view to elites like Al Gore is a smear campaign.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124657655235589119.html
I bring AGW demotivational posters to share with AGW fanatics during these difficult times. Feel free to copy!
http://agwdemotivated.blogspot.com/
Great piece of work, Willis, and now at last it seems we’re getting down to the nuts and bolts of why CRU/GISS/IPCC took great pains to stop access to the raw data. This deception has been exposed in all it’s despicable glory.
3×2 (15:35:53) :
“…Enhancement is the problem. Homogenization [in this sense] should seek only to make a sensible series out of the data available for that station. Enhancement as seen here is otherwise called “fudge”.
As for coastal v inland, I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that a station can only ever be compared to itself and even then only if it is the same station. If my coastal station shows a -0.3°C trend and you decide to “enhance” it using a bit of “inland” warming, you have made “liars” of both stations. Try it with your bank balance if you don’t see my point.”
anna v (23:15:14) :
“…These, and other similar analysis show that there is no meaning in a global temperature and in a global temperature anomaly.
The physics is shaky all over and according to George E.Smith the statistics is absolutely inadequate too.(Nimquist or so).
Temperature measurements are inextricably attached to the location through the gray body radiation which varies from geographical spot to geographical spot. Temperature changes because of radiation, i.e. changes in energy input output ( and convection and evaporation and precipitation), but there is no algorithm to go simply from temperature to energy changes and vice verso, and it is the energy that is important and a constant of the equations and can be summed and averaged the world over.”
Good points from both. Our chaotic climate is fractal and this means that it is only the exact point at which the measurement is taken that it has any information. Move a few hundred yards away, and you will see a different result.
When the supposedly best climate scientists in the world cannot see this, it just shows how bogus the who charade is. Only by summing the observed energy across the billions of three dimensional geographic micro-climate cells in real-time can an accurate climate diagnosis be made. Looking at trends based on the low granularity and the poor quality raw temperature data is a complete and utter waste of time.
This is well worth a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZW-BF70TsI
“Criminal Fraudsters” … they can’t “hide the decline” any longer, they either have to put up their data to real peer review in front of a jury, or shut up and effectively admit they were committing fraud!
And that will bring down the whole Global Warming sham!
Tenuc (13:42:05) :
Great piece of work, Willis, and now at last it seems we’re getting down to the nuts and bolts of why CRU/GISS/IPCC took great pains to stop access to the raw data. This deception has been exposed in all it’s despicable glory.
This is totally muddled. Willis has queried GHCN adjustments to Darwin’s raw data (which have been available for years). CRU and GISS have published their data for Darwin, and it shows no significant adjustment to the raw GHCN data that Willis used. The IPCC used CRU data, not GHCN adjusted.
Professor Bob Carter uses the scientific method on the popular theory with global warming being linked to CO2 levels. He examnines the hypothesis and it fails the test. Inconvenient Truth author Al Gore would find his presentation contradicted by this presentation? Will kyoto`s greenhouse reduction goals be in vain?
AGW-RELIGION RULE ONE
NEVER discuss the science.
Attack the man.
Repeat the mantra
Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 1 of 4
Climate change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 2 of 4
Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – pt 3 of 4
Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause?- pt 4 of 4
re: 3×2 (15:35:53) : et al
Before we try our hand at the same pseudo-science (even though with more honorable motives) we should each try the following physics quizz!
1. Consider a perfect-insulator enclosing two chambers. Each chamber contains “air” and the two chambers are separated by a perfectly-insulating removable partition of negligible thickness. If the two gas filled chambers initially have the following parameters:
Chamber-1 Chamber-2
Volume V1 V2
Pressure P1 P2
Temperature T1 T2
with each chamber in a state of equilibrium, then, when we open the partition, what are the correct algebraic expressions for
a. Total Volume (TV) { = (V1+V2) will be accepted. }
b. Total Pressure (TP)
c. Total Temperature (TT)
2, Assume the same conditions as question 1 above, with the added condition that
chambers 1 and 2 each contain volumes of water W1 and W2 respectively, and the air above the water has humidity H1 and H2 respectively. Again give correct algebraic expressions for TV, TP, and TT. Don’t forget to account for latent heat due to evaporation or condensation or freezing or thawing or sublimation.
Note: You may assume P1 and P2 are in the interval (0.9, 1.1) atm., and T1 and T2 are in the interval (-25,+50) C., and W1 and W2 are sufficient to ensure a liquid (or solid?) water resevoir remains after the mixing.
3. In light of your answers to questions 1 and 2 above, justify the assertion that the “daily average” air temperature computed as follows Tavg = (Tmin + Tmax)/2 is a meaningful metric for the purpose of determining the global atmospheric temperature of “Water World” Earth.
————————————–
If we go to yesterday’s financial page in the local paper, we can add together all the closing currency exchange rates and divide by the number of currencies listed and get a number, but the number cannot be understood as an “average” exchange rate, it has no definable meaning.
robr (17:09:03) : is saying the same thing from a HVAC point of view.
Nick Stokes (14:16:26) :
[“Tenuc (13:42:05) :
Great piece of work, Willis, and now at last it seems we’re getting down to the nuts and bolts of why CRU/GISS/IPCC took great pains to stop access to the raw data. This deception has been exposed in all it’s despicable glory.”]
“This is totally muddled. Willis has queried GHCN adjustments to Darwin’s raw data (which have been available for years). CRU and GISS have published their data for Darwin, and it shows no significant adjustment to the raw GHCN data that Willis used. The IPCC used CRU data, not GHCN adjusted.”
CRU/GISS/IPCC scientist are the ones who lead the deception – I’m sure GHCN have to fall into line and ‘follow the consensus’.
So what about nearby stations in the NT. I did a test on a block of stations in the v2.temperature.inv listing, which are in north NT. I noted that wherever there was an adjustment, the most recent reading was unchanged. So I listed the adjustment (down) that was made to the first (oldest) reading in the sequence. Many stations, with shorter records, did not appear in the _adj file – no adjustment had been calculated. That is indicated by “None” in the list – as opposed to a calculated 0.0. Darwin’s 2.9 is certainly the exception.
In this listing, the station number is followed by the name, and the adjustment.
50194117000 MANGO FARM None
50194119000 GARDEN POINT None
50194120000 DARWIN AIRPOR 2.9
50194124000 MIDDLE POINT 0.0
50194132000 KATHERINE AER 0.0
50194137000 JABIRU AIRPOR None
50194138000 GUNBALUNYA None
50194139000 WARRUWI None
50194140000 MILINGIMBI AW None
50194142000 MANINGRIDA None
50194144000 ROPER BAR STO None
50194146000 ELCHO ISLAND 0.7
50194150000 GOVE AIRPORT None
Great piece of work, Willis, and now at last it seems we’re getting down to the nuts and bolts of why CRU/GISS/IPCC took great pains to stop access to the raw data. This deception has been exposed in all it’s despicable glory.
I guess that if you can use upside down proxies (upside down Mann etc), then why not upside down UHI corrections?
Janama, Willis:
Thank you, my apologies.
So the BOM list of stations has its own gaps, anomalies, and adjustments. Therefore in Australia if we want the correct info on weather stations we have to go to GISS?
OT, last year I asked BOM local office re the CSIRO/BOM report on worsening drought due to climate change. Their own maps and time series graphs show that the bulk of Australia is in fact slightly wetter than it was 100 years ago. The reply was that if you look at the trend since 1970 there is a clear decline. Of course, 50’s and 70’s were unusually wet decades. Trust us, we’re good at cherry picking.
BOM, CSIRO, and WMO all belong in the same bin. Show us the data!
dadgervais (15:04:33) :
re: 3×2 (15:35:53) : et al
Before we try our hand at the same pseudo-science (even though with more honorable motives) we should each try the following physics quizz!
(…)
If we go to yesterday’s financial page in the local paper, we can add together all the closing currency exchange rates and divide by the number of currencies listed and get a number, but the number cannot be understood as an “average” exchange rate, it has no definable meaning.
robr (17:09:03) : is saying the same thing from a HVAC point of view.
robr (17:09:03) :
For example, I have long been wary of averages – if the temp is 10C all day apart from 1 hour in the afternoon when the rain stops, sun shines, and it reaches 20C, does that make the average for the day 15C? Of course not. Also, the trend we are measuring is way lower than our error band anyway – how can that be accurate enough?
It has taken a while to unravel all that and it would have been a much easier job had you simply quoted the relevant bit of whatever I said earlier and then made your point. I think I see your point though I’m still not sure how it relates to anything I had written at (15:35:53). help me out with a simple…
3×2 : (15:35:53)
(….whatever I wrote…..)
Followed by your comment/point/observation
Ta
As I predicted (and probably most here) this ain’t gonna go away. Its what we call positive feedback. I’d venture to suggest… say that in 2 weeks time AGW might in fact be stone dead… or at least that the 36% that believes its caused by humans in the USA will have reached maybe 15% and so on and on. At this stage the polticians will give it up by simply “forgettin bout it” LOL so will the newspapers and maybe even this site will slowly fade away as it will no longer be a subject of interest… AGW that is…
Willis Looking at the unadjusted plots leads me to suspect that there are 2 major changes in measurement methods/location.
This occur in january 1941 and June 1994 – The 1941 is well known (po to airport move) . I can find no connection for the 1994 shift
These plots show the 2 periods each giving a shift of 0.8C
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/2505/darwincorrectionpoints.png
The red line shows the effect of a suggested correction
This plot compares the GHCN corrected curve (green) to that suggested by me (red).
The difference between the 2 is approx 1C compared to the 2.5 you quote as the “cheat”.
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4617/ghcnsuggestedcorrection.png
A contemporary question: Will Steve McIntyre’s FOI requests to NASA be honored and Mann-made global warming be thereby verified?
Here is the difference BOM homozinising has made to Halls creek mean maximums
http://members.westnet.com.au/rippersc/hallscreek.jpg
Data sources
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=wa&station=002012&period=annual&dtype=raw&ave_yr=T
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=002011&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=002012&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
Not that the two series 2011 & 2012 overlap and there is 2 years where the difference is zero and two years where the new site is 0.1 degrees hotter.
I will do the mean minimums later on when I get time.
has anyone posted this:
Spectator: The smoking iceberg
by Melanie Phillips
So how did the Met Office/WMO pull off this particular ‘trick’ (to coin a phrase)?
At least part of the answer would appear to be provided by an amazing set of disclosures by Willis Eschenbach at the Watts Up With That blog….ETC
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5620571/the-smoking-iceberg.thtml