As WUWT readers know, a climatologist who bucked the consensus trend had his profile summarily deleted at Wikipedia thanks to the William Connolley effect as outlined in “Death by Stoat“. It appears that Connolley had to justify his own guilty feelings on the issue by posting an explanation on his own blog titled “Death of a Salesman”. I’m only a bystander in all this, but the Wikipedia deletion did pique my interest and I went looking for some references about Leroux simply out of curiosity over “what do this guy do/not do to merit this”? I think I found the answer; Connolley and his friends simply didn’t like the stinging criticisms Leroux made and sought ways to diminish them. I think WMC and friends have now invoked the Streisand effect instead.
We have a new (but coined long ago) term thanks to a review of Leroux’s book. The reviewer coined the phrase: “Tabloid climatology”. Pierre Gosselin touched on the label last year as well. This is an excerpt from his book, as documented by Thayer Watkins at San Jose State University, reposted below:
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The Critique of Tabloid Climatology by Marcel Leroux
Marcel Leroux, a French climatologist, has written a very interesting and valuable exposé of the climatology that has come to dominate the attention of the media and government policy makers in this era of global warming hysteria. Leroux is an empirical climatologist and thus a real climatology who is a professor at a university in France and the head of a climatological research institute. His book is entitled in translation Global Warming — Myth or Reality? : The Erring Ways of Climatology.
Leroux is outraged at what has happened to the respectable field of climatology in the past twenty years since the U.S. federal government started pouring about a billion dollars a year into global warming research. This level of funding provided the climate modelers each with several million dollars a year and what the U.S. government got was tabloid climatology because those research grants were dependent upon producing sensationalistic, apocalyptic pronouncements. The tabloids do not have to exaggerate these sensationalistic pronouncement; they only have to assert that the apocalyse is coming next summer instead of fifty years in the future.
Leroux’s book is solid empirical climatology but in the introduction he allows himself to express his outrage in some fine rhetoric. For example, he says
Recent happenings in the field of climatology give cause for complaint, as do the approaches of some of its practioners, especially those who, lacking any real qualification, claim to belong to the climatological community, but give it an erroneous image. It is galling to see the media ‘hype’ which ensues every time a meeting of the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] is announced, every time an extra drop of rain falls here, or fails to fall there, or every time a door slams because the wind is blowing a bit more strongly than is ‘normal’. How irksome it is to hear the simplistic slogans, and sometimes barefaced lies, churned out yet again; to have to put up with the Diktat of an ‘official line’ and the parroted pronouncements of the ‘climatically correct’, numbing all reflection. It becomes over more difficult to stomach the kind of well-intentioned naïvety or foolishness which, through the medium of tearful reportage, tugs at our heart strings with tales of doomed polar bears, or islanders waiting for the water to lap around their ankles …Hardly a week goes by without some new ‘scoop’ of this nature filling our screens and the pages of our newspapers. ‘Global warming’, caused by the ‘greenhouse effect’, is our fault, just like everything else, and the message/slogan/misinformation becomes ever more simplistic, ever cruder! It could not be simpler: if the rain falls or drought strikes; if the wind blows a gale or there is none at all; whether it’s heat or hard frost; it’s all ‘because of the greenhouse effect’, and we are to blame! An easy argument but stupid! The Fourth Report of the IPCC might just as well decree the suppression of all climatological textbooks, and replace them in our schools and universities with its press communiqués!
Leroux is not impressed with the output of the IPCC:
We do have to resort to complicated models to tell us that an increase in CO2 brings about, theoretically, an increase in temperature, a simple of rule of thumb, a ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculation, will suffice.
Leroux might have noted that the IPCC managed to leave out all negative feedback effects while included the positive feedback ones. It also manages to justify leaving out dissident opinions. After referring to an example of the suppression of alternate climatological views by a French government official, Leroux says
This process of the elimination of opponents, which is general at all climatic conferences, has been denounced, notably at an IPCC meeting at the Moscow Academy of Sciences in July 2004. Some British scientists, great proponents of the official doctrine, committed ‘intellectual terrorism’ by excluding ‘climato-skeptics’ from the proceedings even though they were internationally recognized: modeller R. Lindzen, entomologist P. Reiter, oceanographer N.-A. Mörner and meteorologist R. Khandehar. One of the principal advisors to the Russian government, A. Illinarinov, called it ‘totalitarian ideology’! And is not the idea of censorship unacceptable in so-called democratic regimes?
Because Leroux knows that the standard ploy of the tabloid climatologists and the religio-political movement they have spawned is to assert that any critic is either a crackpot or in the pay of the oil companies or both. He therefore gives some personal information that ordinary would not appear in a scholarly work. As he puts it:
I was going to omit certain facts, but the passionate nature of the debate suggests that they be mentioned. [I am] Doubly a doctor, from University and from the state, in Climatology, I am a member of the Société Météorologique de France and the American Meteorological Society. As a Professor of Climatology, my employer is the French Republic, which has adopted the official religion of ‘climate change’, to which I do not adhere. I am not beholden to any ‘slush fund’, and my Laboratoire de Climatologique, Risques, Environment (LCRE), in spite of its links with the Centre National de la Rechererche Scientifique (CNRS), has never received any funding from this state institution, certainly by reason of heresy. I am neither a militant nor an armchair ‘eco-warrior’, but I live in the countryside, near the littlel village of Vauvenargues, near Aix-en-Provence, on the ‘Grand Site Sainte Victoire’ (immortalized by the painter Paul Cézanne), a listed and protected area of mountains and wild forests. I grow vegetables in my (small) ‘organic’ kitchen garden. I am naturally inclined to question things, and I am basically a Cartesian, living by Réne Descartes’ primary precept of ‘never assuming anything to be true which I did not know evidently to be such’ (Discours de la Méthode, 1637).
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I think WMC and his friends just didn’t like this critique, and so decided that Leroux must be marginalized. After being marginalized (and dead, unable to defend himself) they made a case for deletion which now appears to be backfiring on them because I have no doubt now that this will be picked up elsewhere.
The deleted Wikipedia page about Leroux continues existence at Lucy Skywalker’s page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lucy_Skywalker/Marcel_Leroux.
You can also get Leroux’s book from Amazon here, but be prepared for sticker shock. Perhaps his estate will find a second publisher so more people can read it.
We also have WMC’s efforts to thank for helping bring ‘Tabloid climatology’ to the forefront of the discussion. Perhaps someone can attribute it’s soon to be widespread use to him on WMC’s Wikipedia page.
Better yet, ask the people who run Wikipedia why WMC was allowed to return after being banned. Nothing has changed and he’s still acting as a self righteous gatekeeper, just as before.
“Leroux is an empirical climatologist and thus a real climatology who is a professor at a university in Francel climatology”
Doesn’t anyone proofread any more?
“We do have to resort to complicated models to tell us that an increase in CO2 brings about, theoretically, an increase in temperature, a simple of rule of thumb, a ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculation, will suffice.”
Unfortunately this very nice, honest scientist does not know to consult with those who understand thermodynamics and the fact that no gas can detectably warm the climate, particularly with such small increases in CO2, the fact that it has been much higher than now, even in the recent past (the 1940s), and the huge negative feedback mechanism of water vapor and the water cycle.
Very simply, there is not enough heat in the upper troposphere nor is it hot enough to warm the Earth’s surface as claimed. A cold body cannot warm a hot body—the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
Jeff Alberts says:
October 11, 2012 at 7:12 pm
“Leroux is an empirical climatologist and thus a real climatology who is a professor at a university in Francel climatology”
Doesn’t anyone proofread any more?
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It’s probably a translation thing, but yes, it does break the flow.
Lucy Skywalker
I took a look at your Wiki sandbox. I wonder about this sentence: Cooling spurns an accelerated circulation while warming will slow the general circulation and exchanges. Should that perhaps read Cooling spawns?
Bradbury didn’t realize it wouldn’t take fire to destroy a written word.
All it takes is a little mean cabal of like-minded parasites.
The English Wikipedia Leroux page has been nominated for restoration (on 11 October 2012) here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Marcel_Leroux
Another page that got corrupted – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming. All the quotations got deleted 🙁
Marcel Leroux (1993) : « The Mobile Polar High: a new concept explaining present mechanisms of meridional air-mass and energy exchanges and global propagation of paleoclimatic changes », Global and Planetary Change, 7 : 69-93
http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/2/32/25/79/Leroux-Global-and-Planetary-Change-1993.pdf
WP are now trying to delete my Sandbox Leroux page. IRWolfie is wolfhounding me, it seems. I don’t think I’ve truly merited a request for deletion this soon. In many ways I am unfamiliar with WP and I can hardly keep up. It feels like speed is of the essence in wikibullying. But I think we are getting seeds for another article. What comes to mind is the lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
Here is what’s been happening:
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leroux_2002_Palmes.jpg is not just deleted now, its link has been removed from the French Wikipédia by US Wikipedian Tarc. With the title of this jpg, it sounds like good visual evidence of Leroux’ “notable” (™ Wikipedia) status. But I was intrigued, who was this non-French wandering in to Wikipédia, who last night also posted on my own Leroux talk page?
(2) Here is Tarc’s own Wiki User page. As you can see, he presents himself as a pit bull, proudly displays the infamous Red Button, and seems to be a master deletionist. Here is what others think of him at WP. So, WP have been calling in the heavies, to cover the tracks, heh?
(3) Charles Bruce Richardson Jr. says: From Wikipedia: [WMC is] prohibited from editing relating to any living person associated with this topic, interpreted broadly but reasonably. He can only go after deceased CAGW skeptics…
(4) Here is a Spanish report on happenings. Leroux’ bio is also intact in the Spanish wiki. This is the only place I could find a picture of Leroux at all (without heavy googling). It’s interesting to see Connolley named as Savonarola there. Cap fits quite closely I think.
Enough for now. I will save my WP sandbox pages as textfiles in case of deletion. The comments there are of course highly revealing, and IMHO still constitute strong reasons why climate skeptics still need their own wiki – which I have started though it still needs templates to enable better porting of WP articles especially biographies – any help gratefully received!
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Lucy Skywalker/Marcel Leroux has been created by IRWolfie on the grounds that
That’s rich. Connolley comes right over to my sandbox Leroux page as soon as he hears it’s been praised by two other WP contributors, and wades right in with deletions of their ongoing work on the grounds that I claimed the artilce was a copy of the article as it stood at the time of deletion.
My sandbox, yet Connolley wades right in with his agenda without checking with me first. In my world, this is unwarranted, intrusive behaviour. He continues with misrepresentations that distinctly feel like bullying because it takes time to answer, so I say this. Then if I understand correctly, because the Talk page has swung somewhat from the actual contents of the article to my simple but rather direct late-night provoked statement of the deeper issues and in particular those of Connolley and Wikipedia, the article itself is proposed for deletion.
WTF?
I’ve amended my late-night outburst, said this should be enough to warrant removal of the AfD label, since the Talk page should not impinge on the article itself! I asked if this is not enough to please tell me what would be. How can I guess what will jump out next? Oh, perhaps it will be the issue Wolfie mentions of “canvassing” – my guess is that he calls my reports back here “canvassing” but I’ve asked him to explain.
All I want is the return of integrity to Climate Science. But I don’t think that Wikipedia, with its No Original Research (NOR) rule, is able to do much more than follow the current corrupt science, therefore is bound to end up with types like Connolley who have to see Leroux as non-notable.
For those who can read french, some scientific papers by Leroux here: http://www.hacene-arezki.com/pages/Publications_telechargeables_de_Marcel_Leroux–2987450.html (this link is in WP french page)
Here’s WMC’s fast reply to my post above, posted on my WP User Talk page since of course he cannot post here. For the first time it’s useful and neutral, so I could thank him. Seems only fair to report that here. Well, if this is a step in healing the corruption of Climate Science, via steps in restoration of reasonable communication between skeptics like me and defenders of “consensus” like WMC, I think that’s a step forward.
1984 – or the old Soviet Union – Apparently, Alarmists are now trying to disappear people as well as inconvenient facts.
Bzzzzt!
It’s a rate of radiative heat-loss kind-of-thing; full understanding takes some knowledge of Infrared Spectroscopy (for starters)
“Thermodynamics’ alone does not ‘set the table’ – provide the full answer given the longwave IR EM (Electro Magnetic) wave characteristics of WV and CO2 molecules.
And YES, a ‘gas’ can detectably change the temperature (and hence climate, in the long, long run) … any meteorologist worth his (or her) salt can describe to you the effects a moist (WV-filled) air mass has over one on a clear night versus a dry (sans WV) airmass particularly overnight …
So, ask one!
.
Problem is : University Jean Moulin (Lyon-III) is not known to be a scientific research institution in hard sciences (let alone harbouring a Climatology Lab.). It is mostly dedicated to Law and Liberal Arts. It also has quite a reputation (deserved or not, I have not studied that aspect) for being a very right wing place where all sorts of denialists (the Holocaust-denying sort) take refuge. Mr. Leroux apparently died years ago, so it is difficult to argue with him about his findings -if any-; he was not well known anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment&oldid=457410987#Request_to_amend_prior_case:_Climate_change
provides more info – especially worth reading is the WMCs statement and statement by user Newyorkbrad
So Connolley, no longer allowed to dispose of the living, has turned necrophagous and is now rummaging through the graveyard in search of his meals. What a repulsive low-life character. A true inquisitorial maggot.
“Leroux is an empirical climatologist and thus a real climatology who is a professor at a university in Francel climatology”
Doesn’t anyone proofread any more?
Looks like a direct translation from the French page. Not a big deal I think.
and thus a real climatology
Please correct.
I read Leroux’s magnum opus 3 or 4 years ago (It cost approx. $110) and was worth every penny. From the book, ” Whatever modellers, with all their skills, might say, it is not the model which is right, but reality, the only possible reference.” Also, Leroux ascribed only the smallest of roles for chaos. The book remains within arm’s length of my desk-tp at all times.
@ur momisugly Jon, Same here.
The Google translation of the French version is fairly accurate and shows that there are several substantial differences between the French version and the original English version that Lucy Skywater has retained. The following are extracts from the Google translation of the French version
“Accordingly, its results oppose the idea of a global average temperature curve as an indicator major climate reliable (in this he is joined by Roger Pielke Sr. , Judith Curry and Vincent Courtillot among others) and are disagree with the assumption that the weather changes observed in the second half of the XX th century were the result of global warming by anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases due to human and industrial activities” .Since the paragraph is reasonably clear I have not attempted to correct the English.
The original English version did not mention Pielke, Curry or Courtillot. More importantly the English version was a very weak summary of Leroux’s strong belief that the while CO2 can, in theory, lead to increases in temperature its influence on climate is purely hypothetical and, as yet, unproven.
“About the causes of climate change, he writes in a section called Conclusion: the greenhouse is not the cause of climate change : “The probable causes of climate change are: well-established orbital parameters on the palaeoclimatic scale with climatic consequences hampered by the inertia effect of ice accumulations; solar activity that some believe to be responsible for half of the increase of 0.6 ° C temperature and any other this increase, which calls for debate certainly an additional analysis, the volcanic activity and aerosols associated (especially sulfates ), the effects (short-term) are compelling, and far later, the greenhouse effect, and in particular that caused by water vapor, whose influence is unknown. These factors combine continuously and it is difficult to establish the relative importance of these different factors on Climate Change. Similarly, it is tendentious to highlight the anthropic factor when it is, clearly, the least credible among all the other factors mentioned above. ” (Leroux, 2005, p. 120).
Elsewhere, Marcel Leroux (2003) summarizes his view on the theory of global warming: “Global warming is a hypothesis [coming from] theoretical models based on simplistic relationships, [which announc[es] a rise in temperature, [forecast] but unproven. There are many contradictions between the predictions and [the] directly observed facts of the climate, the willful ignorance [and flagrant distortions] of these contradictions constitute a scientific fraud. Admittedly, the 1970s represent a fundamental turning [point in the] climate ([which] the models [did] not [forecast]) resulting in a gradual increase in violence and irregularity of [weather], associated with a change in the mode of circulation (fast[er] mode.”
I have corrected the second paragraph of this extract in order to make Leroux’s point as it was made in the original French.
The last paragraph of the French version states that while the concept of mobile polar anticyclones is sometimes referred to in certain works and manuals, the work of Mr. Leroux finds little favour in climatologists. Hence Donal Rapp* considers that Marcel Leroux’s book “Global Warming” is important but its objecivity is uncertain.
* whoever he may be
I read the French version being even stronger than the original English version.
Regarding “Leroux might have noted that the IPCC managed to leave out all negative feedback effects while included the positive feedback ones”:
This is not quite true. I have seen in an IPCC report mention of the lapse rate feedback, noted as a negative one.
I tried a Google search as such:
“cloud albedo” “surface albedo” “lapse rate” “water vapor” site:ipcc.ch. That should find this, except at this moment data transfer rate from hits to me PC is too slow for me to find a cite just yet. Maybe someone where connectivity is better, or at a better time for connectivity to ipcc.ch, can find this. I will try later.
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 12, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Lol this is some funny stuff up in here
Mods, I didn’t post the above. Could you please delete or otherwise tag it and its source please as “not me”
[Working on it. Mod. ]
Thanks Mod.
Like Anthony I too got interested to check the real reason WMC wanted Leroux WP bio deleted. I have now collected ample evidence that Leroux was not just honest and forthright, he was a damn good climatologist who had earned his decoration with his discovery of the Mobile Polar High, an honour that, if not fully equivalent to our knighthood, doesn’t seem to be that far below. I’ve ordered his book Global Warming – Myth or Reality? despite the cost.
Jon Salmi [backed by TomRude] says: I read Leroux’s magnum opus 3 or 4 years ago (It cost approx. $110) and was worth every penny… The book remains within arm’s length of my desk-tp at all times.
so I’m doubly glad I ordered my copy – but is that Leroux’ magnum opus, or is it Dynamic Analysis of Weather and Climate?
But there’s more. Leroux made a trenchant remark that made me think… yet another reason why WP is so misled and why it’s so hopeless a case trying to rectify. Leroux noted how, after Hansen set to work, the numbers of “climatologists” rose astronomically.
All the post-Hansen-scaremongering “climatologist” appointees would have to agree with the alarmist dictum, de facto.
Therefore the Google indexes for academic notability are going to work even less well in climate science than they do elsewhere. And WP admins certainly won’t notice this, if they cannot see transparently that Leroux has no right being deleted. Easier for WMC to pick off lone outliers, one by one, especially when they are, as he calls Leroux, “stiffs”. After 1990 or whenever, all the properly-trained independent-minded truly scientific old school, Moerner, Reiter, Segalstad, Jaworowski, Daly, Leroux, Tim Ball, etc etc are easier and easier for WMC and his WP colleagues like Tarc and IRWolfie to label lone nutters.