I was rather surprised to see this interview in Physics World with Dr. Richard Muller (h/t to Bishop Hill) with this praise.
“If Watts hadn’t done his work, we would not have reliable data today. The fact that he did that means he’s a hero; he deserves some sort of international prize.”
Thanks for the kind words Dr. Muller, but I don’t think that will happen.
Here’s the full quote plus some other interesting things:
Muller also had four specific concerns with the scientific consensus on global warming, which the BEST project was designed to address. The first – and most serious, he says – is the “stations issue”, referring to a problem highlighted by controversial US blogger and former TV meteorologist Anthony Watts. In 2007 Watts initiated the Surfacestations.org project, which reported that 70% of temperature recording stations in the US were inaccurate to a level of 2–5°C. MulIer says that the BEST team has now cleared up this issue by showing that when it comes to specifically measuring change in temperature, the 30% of good stations are not significantly more accurate than the 70% of bad stations. “If Watts hadn’t done his work, we would not have reliable data today. The fact that he did that means he’s a hero; he deserves some sort of international prize.”
The other concerns are as follows:
The second concern Muller refers to i. the “data selection” employed by the three major groups collecting global temperature data: NASA; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US; and the Met Office’s Hadley Centre in the UK. Muller says that the number of stations being used between 1980 and the present day has dropped from 6000 to less than 2000, with no explanation to be found anywhere in the literature. The third issue is that rapid urbanization in the regions surrounding temperature stations might have led to localized temperature increases, or what is known as the “urban heat island” effect. The fourth concern, which Muller calls “data correction”, refers to the small adjustments that the climate groups make to temperature readings as a result of changes in instruments and locations. Muller says the records describing why individual corrections have been made are very poor.
I emailed Professor Muller tonight, thanking him for the kind words. It was our first email exchange in months. He maintains that he has an open mind on the issues of surface data, and if new data is presented to him, he’ll re-evaluate.
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The problem is;
First they ( The warmistas ) do a press release with all sorts of silly claims. That hits the MSM big time. The “news” spreads all over the western worls as wildfire.
“Its true !The world is warming! We are all gonna die! ”
Next an explanation; ” Well, its only 0.15 degrees…..No we wont put all deniers in an asylumn…..okay maybe the polar bears have multiplied 5 times over…..yes we know, the himalayas arent melitng….okay okay the antarctic is fine…..all right then there is no death spiral…..okay there is an Urban heat effect….yes yes station numbers in non urban areas are removed…..okay okay the sea level isnt rising….I know I know the turds arent getting any bigger…..yes yes birds arent flying into mountains…..I know I know the PMS period isnt getting longer ….no no people arent getting taller…yes yes we know, the worths on teenagers arent increasing……”
But noone mentions the retractions in the MSM. The politicians buys the first story, and The Warmistas has secured next years budget.
I think that we should welcome those, formerly, from the alarmist side of the debate when they recognise our arguments and accept them. This is a welcome sign that the scientific realist side of the debate is winning. The political/alarmist side cannot compete with scientific truth.
George says:
April 3, 2012 at 2:23 am
The Nobel committee lost all credibility when awarded a prize to a politician for the act of simply winning an election (Barack Obama).
=====
Yes, especially when you consider that the year before, they awarded the prize to someone famous for losing an election, and for making a PowerPoint presentation full of “inaccurate” claims about the climate (Al Gore).
Hey, Al Gore (Inconvenient Fairy Tales) and the Pachauri (railway engineer and former Glorioil research advisor) have a Nobel (Peace) Prize so why not you for doing some actual scientific work and observations? 😉
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/
I love Anthony’s graphics, pictures, whatever you call them — I don’t know where he gets them.
“Of the 1313 Australian stations in Berkeley’s site_detail.txt, 878 are (as per the file posted on CA) “very rural” and the other 435 are “other”.
The 878 “very rural” stations include 100+ airports and 111 post offices.”
Thanks Mike.
As always, the devilry is in the details.
That was the PEACE Nobel committee and it had already lost all credibility (IMHO) for awarding the prize to the IPCC,
And BTW, although I think Anthony deserves a prize (or two ,:P) KEEP ON GUARD, We do not have reliable data today. No if they keep contaminatating global temps with urban heat.
Well done Anthony. I’m sure some sort of official recognition is warranted, not least for keeping the debate very much alive when they wanted to kill it off.
But to those above, remember that the BEST dataset shows much *more* warming that HadCrut land. Even if Muller’s “open mind” about UHI (especially in the light of Roy Spencer’s recent analysis) caused him to lower this warming trend it may still be higher than HadCrut….. In other words adjustments to BEST are likely to validate HadCrut. Just sayin’.
People, people, be kind! After all, he did say he’d be willing to consider new data . . . (enigmatic smile)
On the Bishop Hill site you had this to say (Apr 2, 2012 at 5:33 PM ): “Well, he “thinks” he cleared it up. My latest data says otherwise.”
Could you perhaps elaborate on that comment please? Thanks.
All in good time . . . all in good time . . .
I sincerely second Cui Bono at 12:36.
John B says:
April 3, 2012 at 1:54 am
“But Mr Watts, you already have the highest international award, a Noble Award: the accolade of millions of independent people, who collectively visit your blog in vast numbers because they trust you and acknowledge your credibility and science.
None of this is based on narrow ideological grounds by a closed group of smug, self-satisfying, incestuous individuals for political reasons.”…………….
I agree. Well said. So let’s hoist up the John B sail.
Oh that they would take away Gore’s Nobel Prize and award it to Mr Anthony Watts.
All good stuff.
I assume Judith is still in the bad books then?
Although I’d be careful Anthony. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…..
Mark says:
April 3, 2012 at 1:32 am
“.. And you have received your award…sorta. Isn’t the Bloggies Lifetime achievement the equivalent to the Nobel Prize?”
You degrading the Bloggies Lifetime Achievement award with such a comparison.
Watts deserves better than an establishment tainted award, its the establishment and their claque that are backing the ecotard ponzi scheme.
AndyG55 says:
April 3, 2012 at 2:21 am
“the 30% of good stations are not significantly more accurate than the 70% of bad stations”
doesn’t that just make people want to keel over with laughter ! :-)))))
I thought the same thing. So, in other words, all stations are 2-5 degrees C off.
And then Muller does his own study over his summer vacation. Instead of doing something useful like going back to square one and assembling the true uncorrected temperature record (the data that was originally collected) and making it available to the world for analysis, he takes the same old “corrected” data, puts it through yet another analysis that (surprise surprise) agrees with his earlier assumptions and then pats Mr Watts on the head for “ensuring the science was done right.” Big whoop.
Every year since 1901 the NOBEL PRIZE has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award.
The Nobel PEACE Prize is awarded by a committee of five persons who are chosen by the Norwegian Storting (Parliament of Norway), Oslo, Norway.
(My emphasis)
Well, I can only award Anthony the Ottawa Prize – worth $10.
Any other prize givers?
‘the small adjustments that the climate groups make to temperature readings as a result of changes in instruments and locations’
Let me correct that:
”the undocumented and unrecorded adjustments that the climate groups make to temperature readings as a result of changes in instruments and locations, the phases of the moon, the result of the latest model run/simulation, their horoscope, the tips in the Racing Post and anything else they feel may have the correct influence’.
And before anyone challenges my assertions, let them reflect on ‘undocumented’. This is one of the many areas of shoddy and suspicious practice that generates little but contempt when I hear ‘Trust Me, I’m A Climate Scientist’ .
Undocumented and unrecorded changes = Charlatan IMO.
I hereby award Athony Watts the “Texas Attaboy Award” which comes with a heartfelt THANKS! and a tasty beverage of your choice should you find yourself in Houston for some unexplained reason.
Keep up the good work and keep makin ’em squirm.
EternalOptimist says:
April 3, 2012 at 1:51 am
Some people think that Muller is not fit to lick Anthonys thermometer clean.
But I think he is
Would that not create an Oral Heat Island effect?
Yeah, Anthony, the Nobel problem is this: Let’s suppose for just a moment that global temperatures start moving down, as they pretty much have to unless some very basic physics is wrong if the recently observed albedo increase is sustained (whatever its cause). Let’s suppose that the change in sign in the PDO (and eventually the NAO, which is a lot less predictable or periodic) cause this global decrease to be associated with a drop in NH temperatures and strong growth of the Arctic and Greenland ice pack. Let us make the rash assumption that your work, Roy Spencer’s work, and the work of the handful of maverick scientists who have dared to resist the gatekeeping and social and professional ostracism associated with “the cause” is all, completely justified, that it turns out that (say) the Sun or some aspect of the motion of the Earth through the Oort cloud modulating the rates of micrometeorite incidence on the upper atmosphere (and hence the rain of nucleating dust) is indeed a co-factor in global mean temperature that is larger than CO_2 modulation by a factor of three or six, so that the 20th century peak temperature was 3/4 due to non-anthropogenic factors. Let’s suppose that it eventually becomes so glaringly obvious that all of this is true — as we return to near-LIA temperatures in spite of increased CO_2 — that nobody can possibly argue any more that the science and politics mixture that is current “Climate Science” as governed by the IPCC is anything but pure unadulterated bullshit.
Even with all of this true, the Nobel committee would basically have to repudiate themselves to give you or anybody else a Nobel prize for the discoveries on the science side, or (heavens forfend) a peace prize. It would be an “uh, sorry, we were completely and absurdly wrong when we gave the prize to Gore, Mann, Hansen et. al.” moment. The King and Committee would be embarrassed.
At that moment we will see their mettle. In proper science, honest error is never an embarrassment — or shouldn’t be. I still maintain that most climate researchers, warmist or not, are basically honest, and are being misdirected by the combination of selective grant pressure and gatekeeping (hardly the first time for either of these to corrupt science in more mundane venues, actually, although rarely on this grand a scale). The Nobel committee should indeed acknowledge their error and reward the discovery of that error even more enthusiastically than they did the original work. They should step up and say “We were wrong, and thank you for having the courage to show us.”
But will they? Or will they take the cowards way out and simply try to pretend that the past never happened?
My current concern is that for a long time I had a pretty good idea that global temperatures were going to go down along with the solar cycle because the long term data show a strong correlation that made it highly probable, but the mechanism for the decrease was obscure. That is no longer the case. Whether or not climatologists thought that albedo could fluctuate by order of 10% naturally, it is fluctuating by that order now, and that is sufficient to modulate 3K variations of global mean temperature all by itself, a factor utterly neglected in “all things remaining equal” models. Global temperatures follow secular changes by at least a decade if not longer (one or more solar cycles), and Tisdale has fairly convincingly shown that they tend to be quantum drops driven by/slaved to changes in SSTs. We should be preparing for a return to much cooler temperatures not unrestrained heating, especially in the NH.
Speaking of which, do we have UAH for March yet?
rgb
Wolf “praise” in sheep’s clothing.