UPDATE: The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley thanks readers and responds to some critics of his title in an update posted below. – Anthony
UPDATE2: A new condensed version of Monckton’s rebuttal is available below
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I don’t have a dog in this fight, as this is between two people with opposing viewpoints, but I’m happy to pass on this rebuttal from Christopher Monckton, who writes:
Professor Abraham, who had widely circulated a serially mendacious 83-minute personal attack on me on the internet, has had a month to reply to my questions.
I now attach a) a press statement; b) a copy of the long letter in which I ask the Professor almost 500 questions about his unprovoked attack on me; and c) the full subsequent correspondence. I’d be most grateful if you would circulate all this material as widely as you can. The other side has had much fun at my expense: without you, I can’t get my side heard, so I’d be most grateful if you would publicize this material.
Links to both Abraham’s and Monckton’s presentations follow.
I’ll let readers be the judge.
Abraham: http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/
(NOTE: He uses Adobe presenter – may not work on all browsers)
Monckton: monckton-warm-abra-qq2 (PDF)
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UPDATE: 7/13/10 6:40PM PST In comments, the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley thanks readers and responds to some critics of his title in an update posted below. – Anthony
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From: The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
I am most grateful to Anthony Watts for having allowed my letter asking Professor Abraham some questions to be circulated, and to so many of you for having taken the trouble to comment. I have asked a good firm of MN libel lawyers to give me a hard-headed assessment of whether I have a libel case against Abraham and his university, or whether I’m taking this too seriously.
I am charmed that so many of you are fascinated by the question whether I am a member of the House of Lords. Perhaps this is because your own Constitution denies you any orders or titles of nobility. Here is the answer I recently gave to the US House of Representatives’ Global Warming Committee on that subject:
“The House of Lords Act 1999 debarred all but 92 of the 650 Hereditary Peers, including my father, from sitting or voting, and purported to – but did not – remove membership of the Upper House. Letters Patent granting peerages, and consequently membership, are the personal gift of the Monarch. Only a specific law can annul a grant. The 1999 Act was a general law. The then Government, realizing this defect, took three maladroit steps: it wrote asking expelled Peers to return their Letters Patent (though that does not annul them); in 2009 it withdrew the passes admitting expelled Peers to the House (and implying they were members); and it told the enquiry clerks to deny they were members: but a written Parliamentary Answer by the Lord President of the Council admits that general legislation cannot annul Letters Patent, so I am The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (as my passport shows), a member of the Upper House but without the right to sit or vote, and I have never pretended otherwise.”
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UPDATE2: A new condensed rebuttal for easier reading is here
I went back to the presentations to confirm that Professor Abraham had not included the customary disclaimer for an attack of this type and ran across a link on one of the slides.
If anyone hasn’t read this, you really should!!!
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Hearings/Testimony.aspx?TID=2097
PS It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. -Albert Einstein
Randy says:
July 12, 2010 at 5:41 pm
It is more than a rebuttal, it is the basis of a case of defamation. There are plenty of direct comments made that satisfy the definition of defamation in most Western countries for Monkton to have a case against Abraham. He has laid out the challenge logically and in each instance has given Abrahams the opportunity to challenge whether his summary is correct. He has given Abrahams and the University a period of in-confidence consideration to apologise and withdraw and now followed that up with a further opportunity. Should they not do so Monkton has a reasonable case for court action. Losing a case like this would do much wider harm to the AGW believers than just Abrahams and the Uni. My guess is the Uni’s lawyers would not let it get to court and the sum of $110,000 will be miniscule compared to what is to come (never mind the legal costs).
Should be interesting.
——————–
As a practising barrister, Lord Monckton’s letter to Abraham looks to me very like a first draft of a cross-examination plan. He asks Abraham to confirm that he said such-and-such. Abraham of course must confirm it, because he is on record as having done so.
After that, all Lord Monckton’s questions are leading questions – that is, their form suggests the answer that Abraham should give.
I think Abraham would be annihilated in the witness box.
I hope Lord Monckton runs a defamation action because, if structured the right way, it will bring the whole AGW case into disrepute. The US would be be best forum, because the press is not as snowed and subservient as it is in the UK and reporting of events in court is wider than is allowed in the UK. Can you imagine the fun Fox would have with Abraham?
Paul Birch
Lord Monckton’s status as a member of the House of Lords is irrelevant to this debate.
However, it has been said that the Parliament cannot lawfully legislate to deprive hereditary peers of their membership of the House. That assertion seems to be based on a misconception of the UK constitutional position. Its constitution is not at all like the constitutions of the US and, say, Australia, which are both written and restrictive.
The legal position in the UK (at least since the Revolution of 1688) is that the Parliament (which includes the House of Lords) can lawfully enact any law on any subject it pleases. The House of Lords Act 1999 section 1 is quite clear and couldn’t be clearer. There is therefore no merit in the assertion that the right of membership (and therefore the right to sit) has been impliedly taken away.
The Act does not destroy the peerage itself. Lord Monckton is still a peer.
All that said, I think Lord Monckton did a dazzlingly good demolition job on Abraham.
Lord Monckton,
Sent a note to Abraham and copied the dean of engineering and the president of the University of St. Thomas. Abraham showed all of his cards in his opening slide when he accused you of being a climate change denier. When have you ever denied that the climate changes? In fact, your presentations are chock full of evidence demonstrating that the climate does indeed change. Keep up the good fight. We are with you.
I would have appreciated Monckton’s rebuttal even more had he rebutted any of Abraham’s assertions. Don’t get me wrong, like most people on here I respond to a list of irrelevant questions positively if the person is saying what I want to hear, but I worry that people who aren’t so biased might be persuaded by the proofs of Monckton’s distortions and lies and therefore I would like to have seen some of these points adressed.
Don’t get me wrong I am not some psycho Marxist liberal and no amount of proof could ever convince me that AGW is real. I just worry about convincing other people who demand ‘facts’ and ‘truth,’ as if these things are at all relevant.
Bill Tuttle says:
July 14, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Smokey
“Americans fought a war over taxation without representation. Even while the war was being fought, the majority of Americans supported primogeniture and entail.”
In that Lord Monckton is on the same side fighting against unfair taxation going to the UN IPCC, something most of us will have absolutely no say in.
John Murphy July 14, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Agree with your conclusions entirely. See my post of July 13, 2010 at 5:32 am .
Pointman
Steve Milesworthy: July 14, 2010 at 11:54 pm
Steve Milesworthy: July 14, 2010 at 8:03 am
“…he is using them as examples to call attention to the fact that you can’t realistically base a long-term trend (a century or more) on short-term observations (less than a decade).”
Not at all. Question 177 Monckton says he used a 9-year trend because Tom Karl “refuse[d] to admit that since the turn of the millennium global temperatures have been on a declining trend”.
So, using a nine-year trend line to illustrate a nine-year trend somehow negates my statement about *long-term* trends — exactly *how*?
I told you!
Monckton is using a 9 year trend – you disagree with using a 9 year trend.
No, I said there is nothing wrong with using a nine-year trend line if all you are doing is illustrating a nine-year trend.
Tom Karl (according to Monckton) is *refusing* to say something about a 9 year trend. You agree a 9 year trend is unimportant.
Wrong. I said “…you can’t realistically base a long-term trend (a century or more) on short-term observations (less than a decade).”
I expect that in reality, Tom Karl may have said what you said, that a 9 year trend is meaningless (particularly when it is the hottest 9 year period in recorded history).
I expect that in reality, you don’t do well in English comprehension in other areas, either.
Paul, since the Parliament, with the pro forma assent of the sovereign can change any of the rules by ordinary legislation, the UK has no constitution in any sense. See for example how the rule that not testifying in your own defense could not be used against you was changed in the 1980s by the Thatcher government.
I note that Abraham is a Mechanical Engineer. Under normal circumstances most on the AGW side would cry foul at first sight because he’s not a (cough) “climatologist”.
Vigilantfish says:
“Re the Monckton-Abraham online confrontation, I just saw the following posted over at Climate Progress (apologies if this info has been given before):
Andy Gunther says:
July 15, 2010 at 10:28 am
Joe (and all):
I sent an email in support of John Abraham to St. Thomas University and he responded with a request that indications of support for his efforts to debunk Monckton be sent to Dr Susan Alexander (slalexander@stthomas.edu), who is managing the University’s response to Monckton. You should follow up on what is happening with Abraham, and I encourage all CP readers to send in a message of support for him to his institution.”
Thanks, Lord Monckton, Anthony,
I think that this is a most brilliant article, and I fell honored to have individual links to it at “Climate Change (“Global Warming”)? – The cyclic nature of Earth’s climate “, http://www.oarval.org/ClimateChange.htm (an other 3 pages in Observatorio ARVAL)
fwiw, Prof. Abraham is a mechanical engineer who specializes in fluid dynamics. GCM’s started out as global circulation models, e.g. the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere, but if you listen to his piece, he doesn’t claim to be an expert on climate, he wrote to the experts and asked their opinion.
Prof. Monckton, OTOH, did not consult the people who wrote the papers he distorted. Now, yes, distort is a middling strong word, but the very people who work Monckton claims back his POV, are those who say clearly that it does not. Pinker, of course, is the funniest such case. It took a long time for Monckton to figure out that she was a she.
REPLY: “It took a long time for Monckton to figure out that she was a she.” I wouldn’t hold that against him, many people still haven’t figured out what you are 😉 – Anthony
The bigcigarette (July 14, 2010 at 9:32 pm) has a point. Lord Monckton’s enthralling, masterful rhetoric, his erudition, his unmatched command of the language arts, as it were, so to speak, if I may say, that the, umm, let us say, sparcity of substantive points of rebuttal nearly escapes notice. But of course such substance would only detract from the devasting, nay, completely annhilating effect of His Lordship’s discourse. So one supposes.
Thanks for the update. I agree that we need to act on this outrage very quickly. Here is what I wrote to the University last night. Please feel free to use this as a template.
Dear Father Dease
I am a private citizen – and a fellow Catholic, for what it’s worth – living in Melbourne, Australia.
I recently heard about your colleague Prof Abraham’s presentation through the BoingBoing website. I just viewed the presentation and I am very grateful for it. I was never likely to be much interested in the assemblage of half-truths peddled by Monckton and his peers but I admire Prof Abraham for seeking to show the true position in a calm, patient and selfless manner. This is real science and deserves to be applauded.
I am dismayed to see that Lord Monckton is now attempting a despicable ad hominem attack on your colleague:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/14/abraham-climbs-down/
I wish to raise my voice in protest at this and give Prof Abraham and you some encouragement. I am sure that your email box will be full of hate mail from Monckton’s mutton; I cannot stay silent and do nothing in these circumstances.
I am sorry to trouble you with this communication and I wish both you and Prof Abraham well.
@NM:
Dear NM, as a german atheist, I still wounder how that issue can be blown up in such a massive conflict on an acedemic level. Although it’s obvious, that the world is heating up a little bit, it’s also obvious that this man-made (anthropogenic, CO2-driven) global warming issue is a nice marketing hype on the tax payers expense. I think, James Follets Movie “The Church of Global Warming” describes it perfectly. And although we german guys are not famous for irony as US or british ones usually do, it is really an irony that an assistance professor of a private catholic US-University comments on that climate issue in a really unprofessional and offending way. Did he do that for the sake of his “climate pope” in Rom/Italy, called Razinger?
Well, all of us should reconsider the videos of Ezra Levant’s fight with the canadian human rights commission of Alberta. We all might loose a little bit more of our rights (namly: freedom of free speech) if both sides (climate sceptics and climate alarmists) do the wrong thing in that climate case.
By the way: do yourself a favour and download GISS data from NASA and compare station by station with the original temperature datas (if publically availiable) of the real stations cited in that data base. Just compare the data. For example: compare the Dataset of the original monthly data temperature data set of klima-potsdam.de with the dataset of the corresponding station data set integrated in GISS. The original data set is in perfect shape and absolutely complete from the first reading 1893 up to 2010. If you simply compare this data with GISS, you’ll see
a) that GISS dropped out all data of the year 1933 (Hanson disliked Hitler’s gain of
power in that year, I assume)
b) and moved that data completely into the year 1934
c) and dropped all data of 1934 instead
d) and dropped many other data also
e) miscalculated the temperatures sometimes
f) added new temperatures in the data set instead of the old and correct ones
in some cases, expecially in the cold period of the year.
g) and if you make a calculation, than about 40% of all data in the GISS-dataset
are not the same temperatures of the original data set.
i) and if you analyze that using graphic plots (or a statistical programm like SPSS,
R, SAS or something other) you can see, that there is a lower increase of warming
in the original dataset, that is pushed up when GISS finished its manipulations.
You might do that (as I do that at the moment) with all german temp stations mentioned in GISS, which data are publically availiable and you might
be a little bit puzzled about the false claims of GISS-based climate alarmists, that
the temperatures are increasing massivly. This is simply not true and GISS is obviously a massivly manipulated and fraudulent dataset. THAT is scientific misconduct on a much higher level …… and everybody (also alarmists) can check
that out if they would not wail all the time because of dooms day but simply downloading ASCII-data and using their Excel-Programms on their PC’s.
The real catastrophy of our time is, that despite we all have access to the WWW,
no alarmist seems to use it. And instead of using original data even scientists use religion to prove something.
Galileo would rotate in his grave, but Leonardo da Vinci, who faked the winding
sheet of Jesus 500 years ago being present in Turin/Italy until today, would still rotate on the floor laughing…… because thousends of naive believers are lying on
their knees praying at him until today. Well, that was a much better trick that that
of Michael Mann, I assume.
Personally I would recommend friendofscience.org as a good start doing climate
sceptic work.
Best regards, Upjohn
@Phil Clarke
Dear Phil, you gave comment on Moncktons membership in the House of Lords using the The Reform Act of 1999, that “could not be clearer… Exclusion of hereditary peers.
No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
(…) Well, he is entitled to his opinion, but it would seem to be something of a minority view…..”
Well, plainly spoken: your statement can be refuted within seconds using Google.
Would you mind to visit the House of Lords Homepage at http://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/history/.
If so, please read the Link to “Reform and Reform Proposals since 1990”.
If you might have a conspiracy theory text about the present situation you also
might look at http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2010/04/12-april-2010-all-uk-legislation-passed.html.
But to be realistic: the climate alarmist claim is, that Monckton is not a member of the House of Lords because of the Legislation Act in 1999. This is plain nonsense. The
search engine of the House of Lords clears the thing up within seconds. Just put “Monckton” into it and you find out within seconds that Monckton was one of the candidates listed for the Crossbench Hereditary Peers’ By-election (as for some others also!). Would you mind to read the paragraph on the candidates for that election, please? The citation is “Those eligible to be candidates are the hereditary peers on the Register maintained by the Clerk of the Parliaments”. And guess what, Monckton (among many others) are listed as candidates, although he is not listed among the 776 Lords of the House at present. So simple strait forward logic helps at any time: a new Lord can only be elected if he is still a Lord?
So I assume, that everyone, who talks about Christopher Monckton’s Lordship in the House of Lords in the way, that he is not a Lord and because of that not a Member of the House of Lords
a) has no idea what he/she’s talking about
b) was incompetend to do a simple google search for the House of Lords
c) was not competend to put the word “Monckton” in the Search Engine of the
homepage of the House of Lords.
To make it absolutely clear. The reform act of 1999, that excluded hereditary Lords
is simply unconstitutional and for that reason not real law. The numbers of Lords is not
limited to about 90 and obviously not every Lord (as Lord Monckton) is using his right to get his passport for the assembly. I think, Christopher Monckton should fight for his right to attend the House of Lords but as a liberal democrate it should not be me to give an aristocrate such an advice. That would be too ironic, doesn’t it?
Why, Phil, did I had to do your research homework? Or the other way round: why do you post such nonsense despite the possibility to check that within seconds before you do it?
I just shake my head….. Upjohn
Steve wrote:
“(…) It’s just proof of the obvious cherry-picking that Monckton likes to do.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_ns_global.jpg”
well, Steve, I’m not a climate scientist. But I have some problems understanding
that picture mentioned above. If one reads the comment on the main homepage,
than the Jason satellite, “launched in late 2001 as the successor to T/P, continues this record by providing an estimate of global mean sea level every 10 days with an uncertainty of 3-4 mm.”
For me, it is quite asthonishing that the graph shows a Delta sea level rise in mm that
is negative before Jason started its measurements (and there’s no information about
the uncertainty of the measurements of Jason satellite). Should I shiver to the bones because of an estimated increase of 3,2 +/- 0.4 mm sea level rise that lies within the
uncertainty range of the whole satellite measurements? Even if this increase is true, than we will have a sea level rise of about 30 cm within one century. That’s nothing to worry about, because that’s the normal increase rate of the oceans within the last centuries because we are not at the end of a warming phase after the last ice age
10.000 years ago.
Well, I often do medical statistics (nearly every day). And if I would be confronted with such a result I would simply think that there is nothing happening at all, because
standard deviation tells a lot about the problem and also precision is not the same as
accuracy.
For example: If you measure something with an accurary of 3-4 mm, than giving
a result like 3.2 +/- 0,4 mm is simply statistical bullshiting. At best you are allowed
to say 3 mm without giving any standard deviation. The cited value is simple woodoo-science or pseudo-precision. To do it accurate: the real way to cope with the data is to give numbers in total millimeters. Why? Because if you say 3,2 +/- 0,4 mm, the assumed result lies within the range of 3,2 minus 2 x 0,4 and 3,2 plus 2 x 0,4 or statistically said: with 95% certainty the result lies between 2,4 and 4 mm. But this is also woodoo-statistics, because the satellite is only able to measure millimetres and not a 10th of a millimetre. So the real mean would have to be 3 +/- 1 mm (or better give no standard deviation/SD at all because it’s only woodoo-SD-statistics).
But the real situation is much more catastrophic. Because the satellite only has an accurary of 3-4 mm, the real result can never be 3.2 mm but at best a mean of 3 mm.
You should always use the worst accuracy (4 mm) so the correct mean would be
3 that has an internal accuracy of +/- 4 mm. And this means that the real result with 95% certainty lies between the result of 3 minus 2*4 mm and 3 plus 2*4 mm and that range of this calculation is -5 mm to 11 mm (check out Wikipedia for free to learn how standard deviation has to be interpreted).
That, Steve, is scientific interpretation of measurements. You might learn that at
first (and please, do that quick) before you cry for scientific misconduct. I didn’t
learn that at university but in a bavarian high school in the 9th class in maths. How bad have been your school teachers that they didn’t tell you the difference of accuracy and precision?
Let’s be honest: the University of Colorado publishes statistical bullshit on its web page, that’s the plain truth. Someone should tell them basic statistics and at first the difference between accuracy and precision.
You will only see a statistical difference, if the mean sea level change is stronger than
the 95%-certainty-range. That means, you need an increase of sea level of more
than 16 mm from one measurement to the other. This increase (assuming that the
increase is really 3 mm per year) might happen within 6 years of measurement. T/P
is online since 2002, so a significant change can be seen not before 2008. I don’t have
the raw data of that measurements (and only one mean value per year helps nothing if you want to do a regression analysis or something like that) so I can not check that problem out directly.
I hope, that I was able to help you a little bit unterstanding the interpretation of scientific results. So don’t hit Monckton with that graph without having an idea of what is really the result of that picture. And the result is: …. nothing happening, because the increase seems to be within the 95% uncertainty range based on the satellites measurement accurary .
And the non-increase is exactly that, what Monckton said. So, where is your problem?
Upjohn
Monckton should correct the 1 foot/year in his numbers 359 and 360 to a more correct 1 foot/century.
[snip- not interested in your personal smears about the site owner ~mod]
Abraham deconstructed, demolished, and destroyed Monckton. He exposed virtually every claim (all unsupported) that Monckton has being travelling the world and making for years. Monckton thouroughly deserves what he has received. And Abraham does this in consultation with the many scientists that Monckton misrepresents.
I would encourage Monckton to sue Abraham. It would be such a case as would set back the denial industry for years as actual scientists rather than the poseurs speak to the questions. Go for it and become the laughing stock to the world that Monckton is to those who do follow the science.
Debate with Abraham!. Monckton does not debate where the other side can produce evidence. His bluster will not get him far.
Someone should look into Abraham’s credentials/qualifications. (A nudge is as good as a wink to a blind bat. Hint, hint.)
Poor Monckton. A spinmeister runs headlong into a scientist, and what do we get in “rebuttal”? Threats of lawsuits. Wrangling over semantics. Ad hominem attacks(something Abraham painstaking avoided in his presentation). Not much science, however. I wonder, given Monckton’s self righteous anger over the fact the Dr. Abraham did not allow him advance notice of his presentation, did Monckton allow Abraham the same courtesy in his rebuttal – or do two wrongs make a right? Did Monckton give Al Gore, for example, a chance to view his presentation before presenting it to the public?
Monckton is no scientist, this much is quite clear from the Abraham presentation. If he wishes to be taken seriously by the scientific community, let him publish his finding for peer review. Talk about taking a “knife to a gun fight”.
“Abraham deconstructed, demolished, and destroyed Monckton”
Yes, because Abraham uses facts and direct dialogue (with the scientists Monckton serves up in his own citations) to get the more accurate interpretation of the data.
Monckton, stuck between a rock and hard place, lashes out with assertions that he is being personally attacked, and he attacks the institution where Abraham works.
To me this is an odd response. Why not show how Abraham’s interpretation of the data is flawed? Academic debate is about the data. You don’t kill the messenger when someone points out your error — typically you thank them and move on to build a better model. Scientists engage in this back-and-forth peer review process all the time. Good science is made even better with this type of dialogue.
So . . . I see no personal attack in Abraham’s presentation — just an academic intellectual using solid research to reveal the holes in Monckton’s “lies”.
Good job Dr. Abraham.
Everyone arguing Dr. Abraham’s credibility based on the “associate professor” title he has been given is an idiot. Associate professor is refurring to him not having having tenure yet. Great arguments, you have some effort. I’ll give you that.