Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Over at Roy Spencer’s usually excellent blog, Roy has published what could be called a hatchet job on “citizen climate scientists” in general and me in particular. Now, Dr. Roy has long been a hero of mine, because of all his excellent scientific work … which is why his attack mystifies me. Maybe he simply had a bad day and I was the focus of frustration, we all have days like that. Anthony tells me he can’t answer half of the email he gets some days, Dr. Roy apparently gets quite a lot of mail too, asking for comment.
Dr. Roy posted a number of uncited and unreferenced claims in his essay. So, I thought I’d give him the chance to provide data and citations to back up those claims. He opens with this graphic:
Dr. Roy, the citizen climate scientists are the ones who have made the overwhelming majority of the gains in the struggle against rampant climate alarmism. It is people like Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts and Donna LaFramboise and myself and Joanne Nova and Warwick Hughes and the late John Daly, citizen climate scientists all, who did the work that your fellow mainstream climate scientists either neglected or refused to do. You should be showering us with thanks for doing the work your peers didn’t get done, not speciously claiming that we are likeable idiots like Homer Simpson.
Dr. Roy begins his text by saying:
I’ve been asked to comment on Willis Eschenbach’s recent analysis of CERES radiative budget data (e.g., here). Willis likes to analyze data, which I applaud. But sometimes Willis gives the impression that his analysis of the data (or his climate regulation theory) is original, which is far from the case.
Hundreds of researchers have devoted their careers to understanding the climate system, including analyzing data from the ERBE and CERES satellite missions that measure the Earth’s radiative energy budget. Those data have been sliced and diced every which way, including being compared to surface temperatures (as Willis recently did).
So, Roy’s claim seems to be that my work couldn’t possibly be original, because all conceivable analyses of the data have already been done. Now that’s a curious claim in any case … but in this case, somehow, he seems to have omitted the links to the work he says antedates mine.
When someone starts making unreferenced, uncited, unsupported accusations about me like that, there’s only one thing to say … Where’s the beef? Where’s the study? Where’s the data?
In fact, I know of no one who has done a number of the things that I’ve done with the CERES data. If Dr. Roy thinks so, then he needs to provide evidence of that. He needs to show, for example, that someone has analyzed the data in this fashion:
Now, I’ve never seen any such graphic. I freely admit, as I have before, that maybe the analysis has been done some time in the past, and my research hasn’t turned it up. I did find two studies that were kind of similar, but nothing like that graph above. Dr. Roy certainly seems to think such an analysis leading to such a graphic exists … if so, I suggest that before he starts slamming me with accusations, he needs to cite the previous graphic that he claims that my graphic is merely repeating.
I say this for two reasons. In addition to it being regular scientific practice to cite your sources, it is common courtesy not to accuse a man of doing something without providing data to back it up.
And finally, if someone has done any of my analyses before, I want to know so I can save myself some time … if the work’s been done, I’m not interested in repeating it. So I ask Dr. Roy: which study have I missed out on that has shown what my graphic above shows?
Dr. Roy then goes on to claim that my ideas about thunderstorms regulating the global climate are not new because of the famous Ramanathan and Collins 1991 paper called “Thermodynamic regulation of ocean warming by cirrus clouds deduced from observations of the 1987 El Niño”. Dr. Roy says:
I’ve previously commented on Willis’ thermostat hypothesis of climate system regulation, which Willis never mentioned was originally put forth by Ramanathan and Collins in a 1991 Nature article.
Well … no, it wasn’t “put forth” in R&C 1991, not even close. Since Dr. Roy didn’t provide a link to the article he accuses me of “never mentioning”, I’ll remedy that, it’s here.
Unfortunately, either Dr. Roy doesn’t fully understand what R&C 1991 said, or he doesn’t fully understand what I’ve said. This is the Ramanathan and Collins hypothesis as expressed in their abstract:
Observations made during the 1987 El Niño show that in the upper range of sea surface temperatures, the greenhouse effect increases with surface temperature at a rate which exceeds the rate at which radiation is being emitted from the surface. In response to this ‘super greenhouse effect’, highly reflective cirrus clouds are produced which act like a thermostat, shielding the ocean from solar radiation. The regulatory effect of these cirrus clouds may limit sea surface temperatures to less than 305K.
Why didn’t I mention R&C 1991 with respect to my hypothesis? Well … because it’s very different from my hypothesis, root and branch.
• Their hypothesis was that cirrus clouds act as a thermostat to regulate maximum temperatures in the “Pacific Warm Pool” via a highly localized “super greenhouse effect”.
• My hypothesis is that thunderstorms act all over the planet as natural emergent air conditioning units, which form over local surface hot spots and (along with other emergent phenomena) cool the surface and regulate the global temperature.
In addition, I fear that Dr. Roy hasn’t done his own research on this particular matter. A quick look on Google shows that I have commented on R&C 1991 before. Back in 2012, in response to Dr. Roy’s same claim (but made by someone else), I wrote:
I disagree that the analysis of thunderstorms as a governing mechanism has been “extensively examined in the literature”. It has scarcely been discussed in the literature at all. The thermostatic mechanism discussed by Ramanathan is quite different from the one I have proposed. In 1991, Ramanathan and Collins said that the albedos of deep convective clouds in the tropics limited the SST … but as far as I know, they didn’t discuss the idea of thunderstorms as a governing mechanism at all.
And regarding the Pacific Warm Pool, I also quoted the Abstract of R&C1991 in this my post on Argo and the Ocean Temperature Maximum. So somebody’s not searching here before making claims …
In any case, I leave it to the reader to decide whether my hypothesis, that emergent phenomena like thunderstorms regulate the climate, was “originally put forth” in the R&C 1991 Nature paper about cirrus clouds, or not …
Finally, Dr. Roy closes with this plea:
Anyway, I applaud Willis, who is a sharp guy, for trying. But now I am asking him (and others): read up on what has been done first, then add to it. Or, show why what was done previously came to the wrong conclusion, or analyzed the data wrong.
That’s what I work at doing.
But don’t assume you have anything new unless you first do some searching of the literature on the subject. True, some of the literature is paywalled. Sorry, I didn’t make the rules. And I agree, if research was public-funded, it should also be made publicly available.
First, let me say that I agree with all parts of that plea. I do my best to find out what’s been done before, among other reasons in order to save me time repeating past work.
However, many of my ideas are indeed novel, as are my methods of analysis. I’m the only person I know of, for example, to do graphic cluster analysis on temperature proxies (see “Kill It With Fire“). Now, has someone actually done that kind of analysis before? Not that I’ve seen, but if there is, I’m happy to find that out—it ups the odds that I’m on the right track when that happens. I have no problem with acknowledging past work—as I noted above, I have previously cited the very R&C 1991 study that Dr. Roy accuses me of ignoring.
Dr. Roy has not given me any examples of other people doing the kind of analysis of the CERES data that I’m doing. All he’s given are claims that someone somewhere did some unspecified thing that he claims I said I thought I’d done first. Oh, plus he’s pointed at, but not linked to, Ramanathan & Collins 1991, which doesn’t have anything to do with my hypothesis.
So all we have are his unsupported claims that my work is not novel.
And you know what? Dr. Roy may well be right. My work may not be novel. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong … but without specific examples, he is just handwaving. All I ask is that he shows this with proper citations.
Dr. Roy goes on to say:
But cloud feedback is a hard enough subject without muddying the waters further. Yes, clouds cool the climate system on average (they raise the planetary albedo, so they reduce solar input into the climate system). But how clouds will change due to warming (cloud feedback) could be another matter entirely. Don’t conflate the two.
I ask Dr. Roy to please note the title of my graphic above. It shows how the the clouds actually change due to warming. I have not conflated the two in the slightest, and your accusation that I have done so is just like your other accusations—it lacks specifics. Exactly what did I say that makes you think I’m conflating the two? Dr. Roy, I ask of you the simple thing I ask of everyone—if you object to something that I say, please QUOTE MY WORDS, so we can all see what you are talking about.
Dr. Roy continues:
For instance, let’s say “global warming” occurs, which should then increase surface evaporation, leading to more convective overturning of the atmosphere and precipitation. But if you increase clouds in one area with more upward motion and precipitation, you tend to decrease clouds elsewhere with sinking motion. It’s called mass continuity…you can’t have rising air in one region without sinking air elsewhere to complete the circulation. “Nature abhors a vacuum”.
Not true. For example, if thunderstorms alone are not sufficient to stop an area-wide temperature rise, a new emergent phenomenon arises. The thunderstorms will self-assemble into “squall lines”. These are long lines of massed thunderstorms, with long canyons of rising air between them. In part this happens because it allows for a more dense packing of thunderstorms, due to increased circulation efficiency. So your claim above, that an increase of clouds in one area means a decrease in another area, is strongly falsified by the emergence of squall lines.
In addition, you’ve failed to consider the timing of onset of the phenomena. A change of ten minutes in the average formation time of tropical cumulus makes a very large difference in net downwelling radiation … so yes, contrary to your claim, I’ve just listed two ways the clouds can indeed increase in one area without a decrease in another area.
So, examining how clouds and temperatures vary together locally (as Willis has done) really doesn’t tell you anything about feedbacks. Feedbacks only make sense over entire atmospheric circulation systems, which are ill-defined (except in the global average).
Mmm … well, to start with, these are not simple “feedbacks”. I say that clouds are among the emergent thermoregulatory phenomena that keep the earth’s temperature within bounds. The system acts, not as a simple feedback, but as a governor. What’s the difference?
- A simple feedback moves the result in a certain direction (positive or negative) with a fixed feedback factor. It is the value of this feedback factor that people argue about, the cloud feedback factor … I say that is meaningless, because what we’re looking at is not a feedback like that at all.
- A governor, on the other hand, uses feedback to move the result towards some set-point, by utilizing a variable feedback factor.
In short, feedback acts in one direction by a fixed amount. A governor, on the other hand, acts to restore the result to the set-point by varying the feedback. The system of emergent phenomena on the planet is a governor. It does not resemble simple feedback in the slightest.
And the size of those emergent phenomena varies from very small to very large on both spatial and temporal scales. Dust devils arise when a small area of the land gets too hot, for example. They are not a feedback, but a special emergent form which acts as an independent entity with freedom of motion. Dust devils move preferentially to the warmest nearby location, and because they are so good at cooling the earth, like all such mechanisms they have to move and evolve in order to persist. Typically they live for some seconds to minutes and then disappear. That’s an emergent phenomenon cooling the surface at the small end of the time and distance scales.
From there, the scales increase from local (cumulus clouds and thunderstorms) to area-wide (cyclones, grouping of thunderstorms into “squall lines”) to regional and multiannual (El Nino/La Nina Equator-To-Poles warm water pump) to half the planet and tens of years (Pacific Decadal Oscillation).
So I strongly dispute Dr. Roy’s idea that “feedbacks only make sense over entire atmospheric circulation systems”. To start with, they’re not feedbacks, they are emergent phenomena … and they have a huge effect on the regulation of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales.
And I also strongly dispute his claim that my hypothesis is not novel, the idea that thunderstorms and other emergent climate phenomena work in concert planet-wide to maintain the temperature of the earth within narrow bounds.
Like I said, Dr. Roy is one of my heroes, and I’m mystified by his attack on citizen scientists in general, and on me in particular. Yes, I’ve said that I thought that some of my research has been novel and original. Much of it is certainly original, in that I don’t know of anyone else who has done the work in that way, so the ideas are my own.
However, it just as certainly may not be novel. There’s nothing new under the sun. My point is that I don’t know of anyone advancing this hypothesis, the claim that emergent phenomena regulate the temperature and that forcing has little to do with it.
If Dr. Roy thinks my ideas are not new, I’m more than willing to look at any citations he brings to the table. As far as I’m concerned they would be support for my hypothesis, so I invite him to either back it up or back it off.
Best regards to all.
w.
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Richard, that is one of the most ridiculous posts I have ever seen you write.
@ur momisugly milodonharlani
Tasmania used to be considered too cold to grow grapes. Then an Italian, Claudio Alcorso, started making some quite reasonable wines about 30 years ago, or so. Others took it up and started making truly excellent wines. The cool climate intensifies the flavour. Nowadays there’s cool climate wines coming out of the Adelaide Hills and the Macedon Ranges in Victoria. Tasmanian only produces boutique wines that sell for a very healthy premium. They need to; the grapes are all harvested by hand rather than machines.
My friends who are neighbours of Bob Brown make an extraordinary pinot and sell to me at mates’ rates. Otherwise I mainly drink New Zealand sauvignon blanc (Marlborough district). The chap I usually purchase from markets via the Internet. The other week he sold 40,000+ bottles in a day. You can buy Grange for up to $850/bottle and Tony sells the same for $600. Not that I drink much Grange 🙂
You might find some Ninth Island wines in the US. When I’m at my favourite pub I drink their chardonnay. It’s unwooded. I had my first glass at the vineyard before it went on the market about twenty years ago. I don’t know which impressed me more, the wine or the beauty of the vineyard owner’s wife 🙂
dbstealey:
At October 16, 2013 at 9:00 pm you say
I cannot speak for Willis, but ignoring the attack is more than ‘not giving satisfaction’. Ignoring the attack is Willis’ only practical option.
Poptech’s assertions do not relate to the subject of this thread. Clearly, those assertions against Willis have no relevance whether or not they are true. If the assertions were relevant then Willis would have an obligation to address them because he raised the subject of the thread. But his answering irrelevant assertions can only encourage provision of additional irrelevant assertions and discussion of such irrelevant assertions.
This need to avoid encouraging the irrelevance exists whether or not the irrelevance is true. Indeed, the need increases if the irrelevance is false. This is because the provider of irrelevant assertions against a person is fixated on the target of the assertions. Indeed, the fixation is why the irrelevant assertions are provided. Any response to the irrelevance from the target ‘rewards’ the fixation. Thus, a response encourages – almost demands – another irrelevant assertion from the provider. And dispute of the irrelevance is an excuse for further irrelevant assertion.
All Willis can hope is that the provider of the irrelevant assertions tires of his activity or, alternatively, the provider is ‘put down’ by a third party (which would not ‘reward’ the fixation).
Richard
Poptech:
I read your reply at October 17, 2013 at 12:55 am in response to my expression of concern for you. It increases my concern.
Please, if you cannot bring yourself to seek help then discuss things with a trusted friend.
Richard
The argument about credentials is important, but in a round about way. Being an engineer or physicist or whatever, by way of a degree, is not important to your ideas. But having published papers, while is only an form of rudimentary affirmation of the ideas in the paper, also serves as a credential. Credentials and credibility are therefore important and not irrelevant, even for the amateur who decries them. Willis exemplifies the above as he has, at various junctures, pointed to his published papers and comments as substantiating his credibility. You can’t keep switching between “But my ideas are what that matter” and “I do have affirmation of my abilities and I am a published individual”.
If journalists prop up their sources by calling them engineers and computer modellers, Willis cannot defend himself by saying ‘forget the fact that I am not an engineer, it is my ideas that are important’. The defense properly begins by saying ‘No, I am not a engineer, but a fisherman’.
Look at Donna’s new website: fakenobellaureates. Do you believe any of the IPCC scientists are worthy of being Nobel prize winners, or that they are indeed winners of the prize? That is what they’ve been passing themselves off as.
Willis should be saying “I am a fisherman but I kicked scientist butt” instead of letting him being designated as an engineer or computer modeler just pass. There is a great story of how Kary Mullis, the inventor of the PCR reaction and a real Nobel Prize Winner, was called a ‘doctor’ in Nature magazine and how he woke up from that point. http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/1950292
– – – – – – –
Shub Niggurath,
Well written and even toned. So now please discuss if is important or not to have a ‘bend over backwards’ kind of Feynmanian integrity wrt to misrepresentations of oneself from whatever source; which is Poptech’s thrust about Willis, as I understand it.
Which makes it interesting you brought up Donna Laframboise. Is Poptech serving the same hard nosed investigative role that Donna is now famous for? I personally think he is and it is not inappropriate.
In fact, if Poptech were to emulate Donna’s extremely hard nosed professional investigative reporting methods then maybe that is the kind ‘help***’ he needs for his phase two.
*** richardscourtney said @Poptech=> Please, if you cannot bring yourself to seek help then discuss things with a trusted friend. Richard
John
Ah, a blog post. That is what I thought most likely.
Poptech:
re your post at October 17, 2013 at 6:53 am.
Who is Poptech?
According to you everything you write should be disregarded until we know.
Richard
Well we know I am not a computer modeler, engineer or scientist.
While your comment is funny, Richard, there’s a problem with it.
There’s a difference between not giving any credentials and just saying something, rather than leaving claims in major media articles that you are an engineer, a computer modeller, etc., uncorrected (the former was definitely not true and the latter possibly untrue) while referencing those sources and thus bolstering your credibility (in terms of expertise) and social status.
So Poptech is right to point that out.
Nonetheless, you are right that one has to not give Poptech the benefit of the doubt regarding his claimed extensive IT background if he’s unwilling to prove it.
Poptech:
re your post at October 17, 2013 at 8:18 am.
No, we don’t know that. We only know that some anonymous poster on a blog – possibly a bot – says that.
Please apply your own ‘logic’ to yourself. At very least, apply some self-reflection about the matter.
Richard
Am I a bot or a botnet?
Christoph Dollis:
Contrary to your post at October 17, 2013 at 8:23 am, there is nothing “right” in what Poptech is doing.
For no benefit to anybody, in addition to maliciously attempting to demean Willis from behind a cowardly shield of anonymity, he/she is harming him/herself and possibly his/her own reputation if his/her identity becomes known.
Richard
My reputation would only be harmed if something I said was factually untrue.
Poptech:
It would not be possible to more clearly demonstrate your lack of awareness than your post at October 17, 2013 at 8:41 am which says in total
No, your reputation would be harmed even more if something you said were shown to be factually untrue.
What remains of your reputation is being harmed by your posting malicious malicious gossip from behind a cowardly shield of anonymity. Whether or not your attacks of Willis are true, they are malicious gossip which nobody has reason to believe.
I have repeatedly offered you advice that would benefit you, but you refuse to listen. I can only guess at why you are conducting your self-harm by your attacks of Willis.
Richard
Richard,
Show where Poptech has posted “gossip” regarding Willis?
You’re part of stonewalling, circling the wagons, and deflecting, in my opinion. If you want to argue Poptech’s making a mountain out of a molehill, that’s one point of view. Others might think that leaving uncorrected for three years that The New York Times calls you an engineer when you aren’t, yet referencing that article, is troubling. Likewise claiming to be a computer modeller but the work you’ve actually done plugging data into off-the-shelf software with some macros perhaps doesn’t fall into into that realm. People can disagree about how important that is or what is a computer modeller, precisely.
But gossip? I haven’t seen that. Why don’t you explain it, pointing to where Poptech has posted gossip.
Christoph Dollis:
At October 17, 2013 at 9:13 am you ask me
Sat what!? You want me to list every mention of Willis by Poptech in this thread!
Perhaps you are ignorant of what gossip is. This is how the Oxford Dictionary defines it.
“gossip
noun
casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true:
he became the subject of much local gossip
• chiefly derogatory a person who likes talking about other people’s private lives.”
Richard
I can start off by saying something I disagree with: that Willis isn’t a scientist.
He meets my definition. I don’t think you need a PhD or society’s approval to do science. Where he’s an important scientist is a totally different question, but I disagree with Poptech there.
But on the engineer thing, Poptech was right. What is Willis going to say about that? ‘I didn’t notice that they called me an engineer?’ ‘Didn’t think it was worth pointing out back then while I was drawing your attention to the article?’ Whatever he says about it, it’s a legit thing to criticise.
As for the computer modeller claim, well, “What computer models?” is a proper question, as is saying, “That doesn’t support a claim of being a computer modeller,” if you genuinely believe the answer is inadequate.
By the way, a thought just occurred to me. By gossip, you may mean Poptech’s pointing out Willis’s prior hospitalisation and related matters.
If that’s what you’re talking about, then I see what you’re trying to get at. I’m not sure talking about what Willis himself mentioned qualifies as gossip, but it appears malicious.
I actually think pointing it out as partial evidence that, when combined with other evidence, paints a picture of a person’s unstable and ego-protecting and aggrandising nature, or something like that if that’s what you think is going on, may possibly be legitimate … but saying that it means a person is unqualified to do scientific work is daft.
Well, what are those?
Christoph Dollis:
At October 17, 2013 at 9:28 am you say to me concerning the gossip by Poptech
It does not matter what you, me or anybody else thinks is “legitimate” gossip. All of it is irrelevant to the subject of this thread.
And it is nasty. It intends to demean Willis and self-harms Poptech.
Richard
I think that at least here in the US the term “gossip” can and often does refers to small bits and pieces of information that may or may not be true, but which are of no real significance, in whole or in part. In his “Phase 2” post, Poptech (Andrew?) has conglomerated his previous “offerings” and nothing new, illustrating that the whole can be LESS than the sum of the parts.
This is my metric. Take it for what it’s worth.
I was at one time a Research Audiologist in the VA medical system. There was a rather large debate about around that same time regarding who could call themselves an Audiologist and who could not. Hearing aid dealers wanted to call themselves Audiologists. Why? They test hearing, I test hearing. It was eventually decided (if my memory serves me) that in Oregon, only licensed Audiologists with certification from the American Hearing and Speech Association could call themselves “Audiologist CCC-A” while hearing aid dealers could call themselves Audiometricians and/or Licensed Hearing Aid Dealers, depending on their licenses.
Regarding the current debate here. If the common person thinks of “scientist” as a practicing appropriately schooled professional then the moniker fits. But even that needs a grain of salt. Although I have worked in a lab with the title and grant money of a Research Audiologist, generated sound, measured it, collected data, entered data, did statistical analysis on data, published it, and have had it duplicated by others, I call myself an armchair student scientist in climate debate. Why? I am currently not practicing and was only narrowly involved in one field of lab work not related to climate science. If someone were to call me a scientist, I would correct them. I was at one time, but am not currently. Likewise a computer programmer, something I have also done in a lab setting. And the case can also be made for engineer. I diagrammed the face schematics for a series of gated signal generators. None of these flash in the pan endeavors make me a current scientist, computer programmer, or engineer to my way of thinking.
But I do think I am a fair to middling third string armchair climate science student.
Christoph Dollis says:
October 17, 2013 at 9:28 am
“I actually think pointing it out as partial evidence that, when combined with other evidence, paints a picture of a person’s unstable and ego-protecting and aggrandising nature, or something like that if that’s what you think is going on, may possibly be legitimate … but saying that it means a person is unqualified to do scientific work is daft.”
Frankly, this kind of thing is a pet peeve of mine – diagnosing psychological problems cannot be done on the basis of internet postings. We can’t know why someone does what they do based on what they post online. By your own standards, you accept that it is possible that two people can disagree about what makes a scientist and it perfectly possible that people can disagree about whether a certain set of skills or achievements qualify as an engineer or computer modeller or internet psychologist or whatever.
Lots of people “pad” their resumes (if that’s what happened here) and they are not generally viewed as on the verge of a major psychological illness and there is no reason why someone who pads their resume can’t also do good science (unless you have to be a credentialed scientist to do good science).
In any case, you and Poptech have had your say on this thread (to the extent of ~ a third of all the postings on this thread discussing your issue). Maybe there is an anti-padding forum out there you can go to or something but this is a *science* forum. Give the rest of us a break, respect the forum’s purpose and go somewhere else to talk about Willis’ credentials, if you have to. I am bored to tears with it,
Cheers, 🙂
Not very accurately and I’m doubtful that it can be done well in a psychiatrist’s office. However, people’s behaviour forms impressions and sometimes things tie in together. It isn’t really diagnosis as such.
Willis claims to have designed and built a refrigeration unit. I know people who do such for a living and are called variously engineers, or mechanics. Assuming the claim is true, the question then arises: was Willis an engineer while he was… engineering? A secondary question: did Willis cease to be an engineer once the refrigeration unit was completed?
I remember a similar discourse back in the early days of John Daly’s Still Waiting for Greenhouse where John discussed Thomas Lempriere’s measurements of sea level and the eventual striking of a mark at “the mean level of the sea” by Lempriere at Dead Man’s Isle here in southern Tasmania. Dr John Hunter went to considerable lengths to denigrate Lempriere’s work and his aider and abbettor, James Clark Ross.
In Lempriere’s case, Hunter declared Lempriere incapable of performing the work ascribed to him by Daly. After all, Lempriere was a mere stores clerk. He couldn’t have been a competent surveyor, meteorologist, artist, author etc because he wasn’t qualified. The only evidence of his surveying abilities is one excellent, well-drawn map of the Port Arthur penal settlement. The only evidence for his meteorology is the log book he left. The only evidence for his writing abilities are his published books etc.
Hunter went to considerable lengths to destroy the reputations of Lempriere, Ross, Daly and even The Git. In my particular case, he claimed that everything I wrote was a lie. I ended up getting into a p!ssing contest with him and we both came out very much the worse for wear. Hunter demanded I delete the whole discourse from my website. I was tempted because some of what I had written was personally embarrassing, but I declined. I did not wish to pretend that what had been written had not. It was only later that I discovered the Wayback Machine, so erasing the history was in any event impossible.
Hunter eventually found himself banned from a variety of online fora after wearing everyone out with his incessant personal attacks. So it goes…