Christopher Monckton of Brenchley replies to readers

Peter of Sydney (13:31:10) :
“I don’t understand how the IPCC climate change computer models have any value at all. It’s like economic models that often get it wrong People still use them and some even make very important decisions based on such inaccurate models. ………………………..the proof now that the models are totally wrong simply by comparing them to observational data. Of course, a few AGW believers go as far to say the observational data must be wrong. How’s that for stupidity? ………
”
While the models help us to test our ever evolving (mis-)understanding of the universe, to hold up their complexity as some reason why their ‘predictions’ must be true – in the face of divergence from observed behaviour too, seems to be missing the point entirely.
It’s difficult for the tax payer to imagine ‘though , when so much has been spent on them, that they are good for little else.
Their value is only maintained while they are being constantly revised to take account of observed reality. When that stops they fall behind what we know & become little more than, albeit very expensive, playthings.
When the Climate fails to match their predictions, has the Climate got it wrong … and does it care ?

Andrew30
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5955955/Weather-records-are-a-state-secret.html
Back in 1990, Mrs Thatcher, temporarily under the spell of the prophets of runaway global warming, authorised lavish funding for the then-head of the Met Office, Sir John Houghton, to set up its Hadley Centre in Exeter, as a “world-class centre for research into climate change”. It was linked to the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, to create a record of global temperatures based on surface weather stations across the world, a data set known as HadCrut. Sir John himself played a key role at the top of the new IPCC as chairman of its scientific working group.
Sir John was a fervent believer in the theory that the cause of global warming is man-made CO2, and the HadCrut computer models, run by his CRU ally Professor Phil Jones, were programmed accordingly. Sir John (and the Hadley Centre) continued to play a central part in the running of the IPCC, selecting many of the contributors to its reports that were the main driver of global warming alarm. He and Prof Jones were also prominent champions of the IPCC’s notorious “hockey stick” graph, which rewrote climate history by suggesting that global temperatures had suddenly shot up in the late 20th century to easily their highest level in history

Mr John Hooper gave it as his opinion that Viscount Monckton is “tarnished by his Thatcher connection”. In that case, so am I, and so are the large number of other people who voted for her in three general elections – all of which she won. I suppose, Mr Hooper, that you’re not tarnished by your Kinnock or Blair connections?
But then, you may be alluding to something else entirely – and, who knows, possibly another Thatcher? In which case, Mr Hooper, I hope you and others will treat this post as being null and void.

In Monckton’s formula: ΔT = (4.7 ± 1) ln(C/C0) could he be too generous with the value of the coefficient?
It is possible that the coefficient of 4.7 is too large.
The IPCC in TAR said the temperature rose 0.6 degrees during a time when carbon dioxide rose from about 280 to 380.
Plug those values into the formula: 0.6 = xln(380/280) or
0.3x = 0.6
X = 2, not 4.7

Off topic – but I wanted to share the following link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=R-hBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q=&f=true
‘History of America Before Columbus’ – published in 1900. (Presumably free of AGW and oil company biases).
Here are some highlights:
…discussing the recorded tribute paid to Rome in 1327 from Greenland – leads to an estimate of the population of Greenland in 1327 of 75,000 people (i.e. more than 2008). This is around page 176.
“There is another way which we may follow in making this calculation of the number of ancient Greenland’s people.
The collectors of St. Peter’s Pence in the year 1327 have left us an interesting record of the exchanges and relative values of northern and of southern Europe’s moneys at that time.”
“Gravier justly remarks that the families of the Northmen were generally large; and, in fact, all Europe was for a whole century wondering in dismay where all the swarms of Northman invaders might come from. We would not exaggerate, therefore, if we should allow ten persons to each family, and estimate the colonial population of ancient Greenland at seventy-five thousand people.”
‘Whatever the climate may be in Greenland to-day, it is the general opinion of the learned and of the people in Iceland, not to say a well-established fact, that it was considerably milder at the time of its first Scandinavian colonization.’
‘The slightest examination of the ruins at Kakortok and in the neighborhood reveals the fact that every building, every residence of the Northmen, had its garden and a portion of cultivated land, which, together with their bays, their table-lands, and wild mountains, provided them not only with the necessaries, but also with many a luxury of daily life.’
‘There was plenty of land for all to provide their animals with grass in summer and with hay in winter, and even to raise for themselves sufficient vegetables, small fruits, and a moderate supply of some cereals.’
‘Bardson concludes his description of Greenland by saying that in these localities as beautiful wheat did grow as anywhere else’

John Hooper (12:15:05) :
I see you’ve done floppy fact checking of Ian Plimer’s facts.
As we all know anything having to do with global warming in Wikipedia is butchered by William Connolley.

Always so informative, WUWT has elicited a uniquely educational experience by publishing Monckton’s articles.
First, I learn that some object to Latin expressions as pretentious and crave plain talk. Possibly they don’t know that over 60% of English words, in one or more of their forms, are associated with Latin roots. Remove those roots from English, the most expressive language on the planet, and the language would be a guttural Northern European polyglot incapable of expressing scientific, medical, geographic, mathematical, astronomical, philosophical, or psychological (did I miss any?) thought with precision.
Now, imprecision of language on WUWT is the single most detracting factor of the endeavor. There we are, avidly on the trail of a well reasoned argument, and CLANG, a language failure. An affect where there should be an effect, an it’s instead of an its, a misspelling, a verb in the wrong person, a malapropism. The train is lost, the effort is wasted, and we must begin again to tease the author’s meaning from the tortured words.
Lord Monckton does not torture us in these ways. His sentences move smoothly, informatively and inevitably to their inescapable conclusions. This is communication rarely understood by those who do not have daily contact with it. Do not condemn it nor its purveyor. Instead, parse it, refer to any reference you require, but understand it before you dismiss it.
Lord Monckton, I applaud your eff’orts, just remember: no droit de seigneur around us Americans, y’all.

Richard S Courtney (15:17:04) : et al….
This has been an enlightening history surrounding Baroness Thatcher.
I, as a kid, was always in awe of her leadership.
No leadership is perfect….and if there was a major reaction from the countless COAL-induced deaths in the UK….it is NOW understood why.
In the modern world, when things like this occur, there is an understanding reaction the other way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog
That being said….we all learn from our mistakes.
The QUESTION is now will we learn or just continue to bicker…
In reality, IF we want to survive as a species [and I’m sorry but just by the Gothic Norman architectural specimens towering on the British Isles alone, Homo Sapiens has EARNED its right to live], but if we want to survive, we need to NOW pay attention to learning how to adapt to Mother Earth.
This, as Mr. Courtney so accurately points out, is BEYOND political differences.
The real issue here is the TRUTH.
And this, like the Scientific Method, cuts through all the chaff and gets down to business.
AS with many others on here, The Viscount is admired for his commitment to just that.
As we say in the USA….. MAD PROPS.
And I am a Christopher, too, though not a Lord. 😉
Chris
Norfolk [the other Norfolk not East Anglia lol] , VA, USA

3×2 (19:19:07) :
Re: “they would rather believe that “the data” is wrong.”
I disagree.
I hear a scientist questioning the data. I would only do this if the model I had developed and tested with all available data, actually ‘worked’ to predict the last 10% of the data in the series based on the prior available 90%. That is to say, I am really, really sure my model works in its predictive capacity.
Having published my model based on this data, I now find that in the real future none of my predictions are being realized. I can not explain it. So I question the data, not the data I am getting now, I question the data I received in the PAST. I read this as the author questioning the past data, not the current reality.
This thing would not need thousands of scientists to be involved. All that was need was for one or two people in perhaps five or six countries to adjust the raw data (as we have seen). Anyone using the data when making a comparison to CO2 would find the results that had been seeded into the data. The scientists would not be aware that they were being played. They would honestly think that their conclusions were correct. Only none of their predictions would ever be confirmed.
Only the ones that actually were in control of the raw data and making the ‘adjustments’ needed to know of the exact requirements of the adjustment needed to seed the outcome into the data. When a scientist begins to say things like “the data must be wrong”, or “data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate”, perhaps they might not have been in on the ‘adjustments’ and they are likely frustrated because their model ‘works’ for the past and recent past. Think about the statement “we can’t account for the lack of warming”, it is an observation that would invalidate the whole theory. It is a serious problem for the author of the email.
The author of that email could not explain it, but perhaps someone else could.
If I ever found out that this had been done to me and my work, well…….