Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Zwei Wochen lang dominierte der Klimagipfel in Kopenhagen die Berichterstattung in den Medien. Presse, Rundfunk und Fernsehen überschlugen sich mit Berichten rund um den Klimawandel. Verschwindet das Thema jetzt wieder aus dem medialen Fokus? - schreibt der wdr 3 am 29. Dezember 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
'Based on years of experience we have compiled this guide in order to provide both seasoned climatologists, and newcomers to the climate debate with an in-depth guide to hockey sticks, as well as the knowledge required to make an informed choice when looking for the best hockey stick to suit their specific needs.
Over the last 20 years a combination of technological advances, adaptation of the game to artificial surfaces and consumer demand, has led to hockey stick manufacturers producing a wide range of products to suit all skill sets, playing styles, preferences and budgets.'
Over the coverage of 'climategate' and on lots of blogsites the view persists that Mike Mann's hockeystick is the one and only scientific obstactle to a warm (ie as warm as the late 20th century or warmer) medieval warm period.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
What would be the consequences for the estimations of future climate change if the reconstructions of the climate of the past few millennia were wrong? Since estimations of future climate change are presently solely based on model simulations, they would not need to be modified. However, past reconstructions do have a subtle and, for many perhaps surprising, implications in the understanding of global climate, and in this sense they also project into the future.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
An example is provided by the UK-newspaper Telegraph, which ...
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Die Medienaktivität ist unverändert intensiv, aber es mehren sich die nachdenklichen Kommentare.
Friday, December 11, 2009
The recently released Copenhagen Diagnosis assessment has been accomplished by 26 scientist, down from 4000 or so that contributed to the Fourth IPCC Report. These 26 have been described to be 'leading scientists', raising the question ‘what are they leading us to’?.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The UK Met Office has released data from more than 1,000 weather stations ... The decision to make the information available is the latest consequence of the hacked e-mails affair. ...
The Met Office figures indicate that the years since 2000 - the "noughties" - were on average about 0.18C (0.32F) warmer than years in the 1990s;...
Climate "sceptics" have claimed that temperatures have not been rising over the last decade. Of the two widely-used global temperature records, one - the UK HadCRUT3 record - shows an apparent plateau from 1998 to 2008.
But climate scientists point out that this result is achieved by taking 1998 as the starting point. Taking, for instance, 1997 or 1999 as the starting point, they argue, produces a different result.
Welcome to the world of cherry picking! Have a look at Roger Pielke Jr.'s Cherry Picker's Guide to Global Temperature Trends
What I find remarkable about this MET office news is that it combines the release of the CRU related dataset with a statement about the seriousness of the situation. This has to be seen as a political statement at what is perceived as a crucial juncture.
He now has re-examined the historical record for one station in Australia and claims to have found something important:
George Monbiot is back to his usual rhetoric. The environmental journalist mainly writing in the UK Guardian, was one of the first to call for a full investigation of the leaked emails at CRU and confessed that he was shocked by these revelations and had lost trust in the scientists he so long believed in.
Now Monbiot focuses attention on the ‘denial industry’ again. Quoting examples from James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore’s Climate Cover-Up, he warns of the power of big oil and coal who have planted a ‘meme’ into public consciousness. These memes are the ‘familiar phrases and concepts which you can see every day on the comment threads’.
It does not occur to him that other familiar phrases and concepts (such as anthropogenic warming, 2degrees stabilization goal, 2 meter sea level rise, or tipping points) must have originated somewhere, too. Monbiot seems to assume that there is a moral divide between one side and the other because the ‘denial industry’ is being paid. He writes that ‘Dr Patrick Michaels, one of a handful of climate change deniers with a qualification in climate science, has been lavishly paid by companies seeking to protect their profits from burning coal.’ This is hardly news, but does it follow that therefore his views are bunk? If it was all about money, why doesn’t the environmental movement offer the skeptics more than the fossil fuel industry? It would not work, because they believe in what they say. You have to engage with their ideas.
If you search the CRU emails for Shell or BP you will find documented attempts of the East Anglia researchers to get funding from the oil industry. Hardly surprising for a research institution in search for new sources of funding. At one point they get excited that $40m was earmarked to Cambridge University and want to know who benefitted—not to expose Cambridge, but to receive likewise. I don’t know how successful they were, but would such an income stream invalidate the findings of the researchers? Monbiot does not ask this question. Maybe for him it is unthinkable that Tyndall researchers should have reached out in such manner.
Monbiot says: ‘The denial industry, which has no interest in establishing the truth about global warming, insists that these emails, which concern three or four scientists and just one or two lines of evidence, destroy the entire canon of climate science.’
He does not realise that the ‘three or four scientists’ were the leading researchers for the IPCC report at the time. Philip Jones and Kevin Trenberth were Coordinating lead authors for the Fourth Assessment Report, WG1, Chapter 3: Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change. Michael Mann was the lead scientist on the now infamous ‘hockey stick’ reconstruction with which most of the leaked email controversy has to do. These scientists had a conflict of interest when evaluating published research (of which their own of course figured prominently). And they actively sought to suppress other research findings.
Monbiot seems to be back into ‘trusting mode’: he does not examine claims from ‘skeptical’ scientists (in the proper sense of the term) who have been involved in this battle with some leading IPCC figures for more than a decade. For them, the burning question still remains: What happened to the Medieval Warming Period?
(thanks to Brad King, grad. student at UTexas at Austin, for the link).
Climate scientists shouldn't underestimate popular culture; those folks out there are watching you! It is the context, the body language, the subtle pronunciation that make Jon Stewart's comment interesting. After having read dozens (or hundreds?) of comments on the 'trick', maybe one should consider this one as the 'final official statement'? They used a trick to hide the decline. Period. Blaming Inhofe in the end, in my opinion, is his tribute to political correctness, but the comment on the 'trick' comes as a warning. Many millions are watching Jon Stewart (instead of reading the New York Times).
Monday, December 7, 2009
It would be interesting to analyse the type of paper which participates in each of these countries -- a task which cannot be done on the hoof. However, looking at a few examples, it is clear in which countries the elite papers have a greater or lesser involvement.
For the UK, it is no surprise to see the Guardian (it is not the Financial Times, though). There are some so called papers of record, such as Le Monde in France. Less pronounced, but still highly visible are La Repubblica in Italy, El Pais in Spain. Canada has the Toronto Star, the US the Miami Herald and China the Economic Observer.
Usually the position of elite papers is an important indicator of the political climate in a country.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Her is the English version, so far unpublished:
The climate cartel
The Copenhagen conference will commence in a few days, and the parties are getting active. Also on the side of science, where two groups fight for dominance in providing knowledge – which allegedly will determine the right conclusion.
Hans von Storch