After a week of mostly stories of this flavor, “Scientist smacks down filthy climate change denier, film at 11“, this article in the Telegraph by Tom Chivers is refreshing and gets it close to 100% right.
Click image for the full report.
So many stories have been written this week with my name and words in them, and only two journalists contacted me in advance to ask me to comment. The first was Oliver Morton of The Economist, the second was Andrew Revkin of the NYT. I thank them.
Another new report worth having a look at is from AAAS here. Mr. Eli Kintisch was gracious enough to correct an error he made, and very quickly. He interviews Dr. Muller after the hearing, and it is well done.
This contrasts with the Salon.com reporter Andrew Leonard who not only left an error in place (conflating Willis Eschenbach with me) but refused to do anything about it, even when it was pointed out that many bloggers downstream were repeating the error without checking. Then without permission, Leonard published my complaint emails and that of Mr. Eschenbach in a second story. I’m truly disappointed in his lack of basic journalistic etiquette. I’m also disappointed that the salon.com editors have not responded at all to our early emails. Suffice it to say I won’t be talking to anyone at salon.com ever again.
I appreciate Mr. Chivers taking the time to read, understand, and present the situation in a thoughtful way.
The only thing I dispute, and it’s a minor point, is his characterization that I was blaming Professor Muller in my comment “post normal science political theater”. I’m not, and if anyone got that impression besides Mr. Chivers, I say that is why it is always best to ask. My comment is labeling of the event and the situation, not the person(s) involved. Muller was asked to testify, he didn’t go seeking it.
In fact, it may surprise many to learn that Dr. Pielke Sr. and I have been carrying on a constructive dialog with Dr. Muller via email this week. We’ve been in touch every day. Dr. Muller has shared some additional results with me, Dr. Pielke and I have pointed out what we feel are some errors, he’s countered, we are both looking at the issue. We are also both trying to understand the situation about station siting better. While it appears simple on the surface (no pun intended) it is a much more complex problem than I thought it to be when I started out. I hope to have more in a future post. For now I have more important duties, see the upcoming announcement at 3PM PST.
For another look at station siting analysis done entirely independently, I suggest this recent article on WUWT:
An investigation of USHCN station siting issues using a cleaned dataset
Mr. Gibbas (who did that study linked above) has agreed to provide more data, and in a post upcoming soon, the cleaned data he used will be made available online.
“After years of arguments, it looked, recently, as though we might be approaching a breakthrough in the debate over whether or not the world has been warming.” — Tom Chivers, The Telegraph.
Oh, for heavens sake. We don’t need the temp record to see that the climate is warming. All you need to do is look at glaciers melting, crops ripening earlier, tender plants surviving further north than before, etc. etc.
You don’t need to worry about the world’s temperature records (which are a mess), because you don’t need a thermometer to tell you that the dandelions are out earlier than ever before.
Mind, the amount of warming in the past century, somewhere around 0.7℃ (1.3℉), strongly suggests that future warming will be slow, gentle and won’t cause serious problems.
Bst, Pete Tillman
The day that I turn on my heater and the thing ices over, or the day that I turn on my air conditioner and the paint blisters off the drywall in the living room is the day that I subsrcibe to “Global Warming causes Global Cooling”.
Step outside, Berkeley, the Arctic blast in your air today is an illusion.
“For now I have more important duties, see the upcoming announcement at 3PM PST.”
You tease!
By the way I’ve never minded changing my position when PROVEN wrong. But when someone is just refusing to answer questions and giving me the “trust us” line …. next!
It’s an interesting premise to the article, but the author fails to mention one important caveat.
If Anthony is proven correct, will the Al Gores of the world change their mind, or will they poo-poo BEST and say it’s the work of Sen. Inhofe?
Sorry, don’t buy it. Dr. Muller should be publicly apologizing to you and recanting his testimony. He stated that with only 2% of the data being used and without any corrections they supported GISS and the others. This is shameful. He could have just stated what they intended to do and that they were no where near ready to announce any results, preliminary or otherwise. The troupe that Berkley agrees with the others will now become locked in stone.
REPLY: One can be tribal, or one can realize that while nobody likes the current situation, and I’ve made my objections known, we both have more to gain with some continued cooperation. Besides, what we know today isn’t necessarily what will be known tomorrow. – Anthony
Oh, for heavens sake. We don’t need the temp record to see that the climate is warming. All you need to do is look at glaciers melting, crops ripening earlier, tender plants surviving further north than before, etc. etc.
As I look out over our small lake in SE Michigan, I see the last vestiges of ice melting. Everything is coming out about a month later than usual.
I’d say that warming is in the eye of the beholder.
He seems to be slagging you off a bit in the comments Anthony…
We should wait and see what the final results are. But I don’t like this rowing back that Mr Watts seems to be engaged in; it bodes ill.
Do you think you have ‘rowed back’?
REPLY: I can’t undo history, I can only work through it. If I had ‘rowed back’, would I be still be conversing with Dr. Muller and Dr. Pielke on the siting issue?
Peter D. Tillman says:
April 7, 2011 at 1:42 pm
So Peter, is that why precious few of my tomatoes ripened in my garden last summer? And why I planted three crops of tomatoes last spring–the first two were destroyed by frost (the second on the 18th of June no less)? It was about the coolest summer I can remember, with just four days at 90 degrees or above (and three of those were exactly 90 degrees).
I say, dear chap, you may think there are glaciers melting (do you live near one or is it all hearsay?), that tender plants are surviving farther north than before, tender plants surviving further north than before, etc., etc., but I’m not buying it. Not in my neck of the woods at any rate. No sir! I got much better tomato crops 20 years ago!
Last year my lake in northwest WI had an iceout of March 29, quite early….still covered in ice this year on April 7th but a forecast iceout of about April 15th….close to average. I take nothing more from this other than the variability that is springtime in the Upper Midwest. Dandelions be damned!
THERE IS NO SIGNIFICANT URBAN HEAT ISLAND EFFECT ON TEMPERATURE TRENDS! EVEN ANTHONY WATTS APPEARS TO RELUCTANTLY ADMIT THIS. “…the mean temperature has no statistically significant trend difference that is dependent of siting quality…” – Anthony Watts – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/31/clarification-on-best-submitted-to-the-house/#more-36957
Anthony did find a significant trend in nighttime lows which have been getting warmer in cities, and in daytime highs, which amazingly seem to have been maintaining their cool better than the rural sites. Anthony’s study was for the US so the story might be different for other parts of the world, but it seems unlikely. It is also still possible that there has been some kind of trick pulled on the temperature record. But some say the satellites are consistent with the ground records and rule out any more than slight UHI effects on the trend. It’s important to realize that I’m not saying there is no UHI. I’m only saying it appears there was just about as much UHI in cities of the past, and to the extent UHI has increased, it hasn’t increased enough to make much difference.
I still think Anthony is trying to mix his pure vanilla ice cream with Mullers dog droppings …
I understand that Muller was asked to testify, was he also asked to basically toss out science and make stuff up as well ? he could easily have said, “This is what we are doing and how we are doing it”. Period, no results were required of him and if they were demanded he should have said , “No, the work is not done.”
His testimony was nothing more than a fundraising appeal …
It is interesting to hear that you are still communicating via email with Muller but by doing so I’m afraid you are lending him your cedibility and he is simply setting you up to be labeled a “denier” once again.
When you can’t get him to do reasonable adjustments or stick to the science and not continue his political pony shows in the future how do you think he will paint you ? Do you think he will say you’ve agreed to disagree ? I hope so but based on his public performance thus far I see a “denier” label coming your way from the Hon. Mr. Muller.
Are those scare crows or straw men? Chivers seems to have framed the debate as to whether it has warmed or not when it really is about the question of whether man made CO2 emissions have caused warming and, if so, by how much?
I don’t agree….
Tom Chivers reads your blog, he knows Muller lied (Muller knows 1.2 degrees of warming is a lie), and he knows Muller announced his results without even getting started……..
Peter D. Tillman says:
April 7, 2011 at 1:42 pm
“Oh, for heavens sake. We don’t need the temp record to see that the climate is warming. All you need to do is look at glaciers melting, crops ripening earlier, tender plants surviving further north than before, etc. etc.”
One very important thing is crystal and, obviously, needs to be trumpeted to the blogosphere. There has never been a complaint from the general populace about global warming. It has never occurred that ordinary citizens beat down elected representatives doors to demand action on global warming. All the fireworks about global warming have come top down. All the fireworks about global warming have come from professional environmentalists, professional Leftists, professional investors, and the ruling elite. That is why it is so very easy to distrust claims about global warming. If the engineers, the farmers, the man in the street, and all such were the source of fears about global warming then the claim would have much more weight. The vast majority of humanity has no direct evidence that global warming is a serious problem or will become a serious problem. If the global warming scare succeeds, it will show that governments no longer serve their citizens.
Peter D. Tillman says:
April 7, 2011 at 1:42 pm
“Oh, for heavens sake. We don’t need the temp record to see that the climate is warming. All you need to do is look at glaciers melting, crops ripening earlier, tender plants surviving further north than before, etc. etc.”
I don’t live near a glacier so i can’t check; there was indeed a February in about 1998 where i was walking around in a T-shirt – but later Februarys got way colder… The plants around here basically do what they always did; they seem to grow fast these days but i blame it on an increase in CO2 which seems to feed them well. This is what i can say from Northern Germany.
Oh, and the Wind Turbines had a splendid season; they sprout everywhere, and higher than ever before. Did you mean that kind of plant? Nukes seem to suffer, though… maybe they don’t like the warmth, being thermal plants…
My comments were no reflection on you or anything you have done. You’re doing the best you can with the hand you’ve been dealt. I’m just shocked how large the number of dishonorable individuals there are in this field. Doubly shocked that that aren’t even aware of their lack of honor.
Jeff Carlson says:
April 7, 2011 at 2:30 pm
I still think Anthony is trying to mix his pure vanilla ice cream with Mullers dog droppings …
Bravo! Jeff. The right has always been populated by honorable gentlemen (and ladies) who fight by the Marquis of Queensbury rules and never kick an opponent when they’re down. The left however, looks at each encounter, each debate, each election as a gladiatorial blood-sport, a battle to the death where the means is always justified by the end. It’s so unfortunate that good people refuse to understand this basic tenet of socialism.
If all journalists were as even handed as Tom Chivers this scam would not have gone on for so long. I have no problem calling it a scam because there are a lot of people making money off reducing a trace amount from a trace gas.
Pachauri set up an oil technology company called Glorioil which assists oil companies to extract the last remaining bit of oil from oil fields. He is still their scientific advisor. Humbug!!! Al Gore is making millions, some of which he used to buy a beachfront villa! There are many, many more people like this with lower profiles.
Nice article.
I have agreed for a long time with the basic comment that Muller made –surfacestations.org was “crucial” whatever impact it has on our ultimate understanding. Knowing the limits of your data quality *is* crucial. That’s why I participated.
And once Anthony gets his piece published and the data set becomes publicly available, then neither Anthony, nor Muller, nor NOAA will have “last word” on what it means. It’ll be poked and prodded at for many years to come, and continue to contribute to our understanding.
Salon? Isn’t that a place for uniformed gossip? Andy Leonard has proven one thing, he isn’t a jounalist.
Mindbuilder
You may be right about UHI in cities like London where the population is the same as it was 100 years ago, but for Mexico City, Cairo, Sao Paolo, Mumbai and Djakarta both population and energy use have risen dramatically over the last 50 years, compounding the effect. In the US look at places like Phoenix, Las Vegas and Miami where the same is true. It is simply unthinkable that these cities have warmed at the same rate as rural areas. Remember the effects of increases in global population and wealth are multiplicative, oddly enough the best proxy I can think of for the UHI effect is manmade CO2, as there is an obvious common causality.
In reply to: onion says: April 7, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Anthony said: “REPLY: I can’t undo history, I can only work through it. ”
That is why you will never be a climate scientologist, “I can’t undo history”, phhttt.
Why just today we saw some climate scientologist change measurements that were over 20 years old, if they can do that just think of what you could accomplish if you tried.
@David S – It’s not me, it’s Anthony Watts apparently claiming that the result of his own study was that there was no significant affect from UHI on average temperature trends. Amazingly, the urban influence seems to be keeping the thermometers cooler than the rural ones during the hottest parts of the day. Again, it’s not my conclusion, it’s Anthony’s.
Muller should have simply said “I don’t know”. Why? Because he doesn’t know. Saying anything else shows a lack of integrity. Given he has demonstrated this lacking, what makes anyone think he will change in the future.
Mindbuilder says:
April 7, 2011 at 2:27 pm
I’m only saying it appears there was just about as much UHI in cities of the past, and to the extent UHI has increased, it hasn’t increased enough to make much difference.
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You only have to do this a few times to get a 1/2 degree…
…and that’s what we’re talking about, a 1/2 degree
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/hiding-the-dust-bowl-in-iowa/#comments