Tag Archives: Bob Ward

IPSO OKs Matt Ridley’s Toxic Pausebuster “Opinion”

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Way back in February Bob Ward of the Grantham Institute complained to the Great British Independent Press Standards Organisation about a Matt Ridley article in the no longer Great or British Times newspaper. According to Mr. Ward:

In a characteristically error-filled article (‘Politics and science are a toxic combination’, 6 February 2017), Viscount Ridley made a number of inaccurate and misleading statements.

He claimed that a blog by Dr John Bates “alleges that scientists themselves have been indulging in alternative facts, fake news and policy-based evidence”. This is hyperbolic nonsense. In fact, the blog does not contain such allegations. Instead, it primarily accuses a former colleague, Dr Thomas Karl, at the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of failing to archive his data for a research paper (PDF) in accordance with strict new rules governing ‘operational data’.

IPSO have now published the findings of their investigation into the matter:

Findings of the Committee

22. The newspaper was entitled to report on the views of Dr Bates, a leading former climate scientist at the NOAA, about the ‘Pausebuster’ paper and the circumstances surrounding its publication. While acknowledging the newspaper’s position that Dr Bates had reviewed the article before publication, the primary question for the Committee was whether Dr Bates’ concerns had been presented in a significantly inaccurate or misleading way.

23. The columnist’s characterisation of the substance of Dr Bates’ claims was very strong: he had asserted that Dr Bates has alleged that scientists were indulging in “alternative facts, fake news and policy-based evidence”. The Committee noted that this appeared on its face to conflict with Dr Bates’ subsequent public statement that there had been “no data tampering, no data changing, nothing malicious”. However, Dr Bates had claimed in the blog that a “thumb on the scale” pushed for decisions that would create a desired outcome, and described the process as a “flagrant manipulation of scientific integrity guidelines”. “Fake news” and “alternative facts” are currently ill-defined terms, and the Committee concluded on balance that the nature of these allegations was such that the columnist was entitled to characterise them in this way. There was no breach of the Code on that point.

24. Dr Bates had made clear in his blog that he considered that the paper had been rushed, and deliberately timed to influence the Paris Climate Conference; he had said that the NOAA had breached its own rules on scientific integrity; he had said that the data had been faulty, because he believed that both datasets had been flawed. These concerns were clearly distinguished as Dr Bates’ claims based on his professional experience, which was explained, and had been accurately reported in the column, as claims. The columnist also acknowledged, albeit critically, that defenders of the paper had responded that other data sets had come to similar conclusions. While the Committee noted the grounds for the complainant’s disagreement with the columnist (and with Dr Bates) in relation to these matters, the columnist had not failed to take care over the accuracy of these claims, and it did not establish any significant inaccuracies in the column’s discussion of these issues.

25. The columnist had been further entitled to express his opinion on the significance of these claims; to draw comparisons between previous “scandals” within the scientific community; and to comment on the wider implications of Dr Bates’ concerns in that community, as well as on policy decisions on climate change. These were statements of the columnist’s opinion. His views, however controversial, did not raise a breach of Clause 1. There was no breach of the Code in relation to his discussion of these issues.

Conclusion

37. The complaint was not upheld.

According to Bob Ward’s analysis of IPSO’s verdict:

It decided not to uphold my complaint on the grounds that its Complaints Committee considered Viscount Ridley’s column to be wholly opinion.

This is consistent with IPSO’s previous rulings about the systematic misreporting of climate change issues by some newspapers, in which it confines itself to assessing whether opinions are accurately represented, rather than whether the opinions are based on facts or falsehoods.

We now eagerly await IPSO’s Complaints Committee’s verdict on a similar complaint by Bob Ward about a similar article by David Rose in the Mail on Sunday

The Great Global Warming Policy Forum Con

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You may possibly be aware that here in the United Kingdom the charitable status of the so called “Global Warming Policy Foundation” was challenged in 2014. As the BBC reported in 2014:

Lawson’s climate-sceptic group hit by charity status row

The climate-sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation is to relaunch in September, after a complaint about its charitable status.

The Charity Commission has forced it to divide into a charitable educational arm and a separately funded political arm.

The change follows a charge that the main purpose of the foundation is political, not charitable.

The foundation said its new structure would make it even more effective.

It aimed to continue to promote debate about the costs of tackling climate change, it added.

But the complainant had argued that its information was often misleading.

The Charity Commission will issue a formal statement on the changes in the coming weeks, but a spokesman told BBC News: “Some of the the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s activities breached what is expected of an educational charity, namely that the material lacked balance and promoted a particular line of opinion. An organisation will not be charitable if its purposes are political.”

The Charity Commission investigated the Global Warming Policy Foundation following a complaint by Bob Ward, a science communicator who works with Lord Stern’s climate change team at the LSE.

He also complained that the foundation breaches charity rules by “continually disseminating inaccurate and misleading information”.

As a consequence of all that brouhaha yet another organisation with an identical acronym was set up. The Global Warming Policy Forum (or GWPF for short). Would it surprise you to learn that the new “political” GWPF is “disseminating inaccurate and misleading information” about the Arctic? If so then please read on.

In an extract from an article by Ron Clutz dated 28th September 2015 and headlined “Arctic Ice Recovering – MASIE Proves Yearly Arctic Ice Recovering” the GWPF prove nothing of the sort. Mr. Clutz claims that:

You will be hearing a lot about 2015 having the fourth lowest minimum Arctic ice extent ever recorded. Here is what they are not telling you:

GWPF-masie-annual

MASIE has very helpfully provided their records for the last ten years. Since stormy weather can affect both maximum and minimum ice extents, emphasis on March and September averages can be misleading. From a climate change perspective, a better metric is the average ice extent over the entire year. By that measure we gain a realistic perspective on the last ten years of Arctic ice fluctuation.

Actually we don’t Ron, for a number of reasons. For example Chris Reynolds summarises your “better metric” as follows:

Claims that there is no ongoing deterioration in Arctic sea ice are totally unfounded, and it is safe to ignore those making such claims as being unreliable due to their lack of grasp of the subject.

whilst “Tamino” points out that:

The data used, from MASIE, doesn’t start until 2006. Which makes it downright bizarre to use this for studying climate, for two reasons. First, we have data (passive microwave from satellites) covering quite a bit more time — starting in late 1978. Second, the MASIE people themselves tell you that their product isn’t the best for climate studies, instead you should use that passive microwave data from satellites.

If you download the data that “MASIE has very helpfully provided” and plot the self same graph so proudly displayed by the GWPF you will see something that looks a lot like this:

GWPF-masie-day-2015365

Amazingly enough this graph is taken from a more recent article by Ron Clutz, also reproduced in part on the Global Warming Policy Forum’s web site. This one is dated 2nd January 2016 and entitled “Happy Arctic Ice Year!“. Ron claims that:

Arctic ice declined in the decade prior to 2007, but has not declined since. What we have seen in the last decade is a plateau in Arctic ice extent, analogous to the plateau in surface temperatures. This year end report shows there is no reason to worry about Arctic ice melting.

For some strange reason the GWPF have thus far not corrected the extract from Ron’s earlier article on their web site, and neither has Mr. Clutz. For some other strange reason he hasn’t gotten around to publishing my comment to his article pointing him and his loyal readers to this graph which is also derived from the MASIE data, and neither have the GWPF:

MASIE-Min

It’s not as though I haven’t tried! See for example:

Selection_608

I’m not the only one to have my constructive criticism censored by Ron Clutz recently. Neven, proprietor of the Arctic Sea Ice Blog, reports over there that:

He’s deleting my comments again (and his own comments to wipe out traces of the fact, which is a cowardly act), so I’m just posting the comments here for reference.

I’ll conclude for the moment with some more words from Chris Reynolds. Someone who, unlike Ron Clutz and the other GWPF Arctic article authors (GWPFAAA for short), has a grasp of physics:

Ice state in the Peripheral Seas region is a critical metric in determining whether the Arctic Ocean’s ice pack is indeed stabilising or recovering.

Here is a plot of compactness for late summer in the Peripheral Seas from 1979 to 2015, where late summer is the seven day average centred on 31 August.

Here’s the accompanying graph:

Nullius in verba, as the GWPF don’t put it.

 

[Edit – February 18th 2016]

I have recently exchanged a few emails about this issue with Dr. Benny Peiser, who is Director of the Global Warming Policy Forum. However Benny has suddenly gone strangely silent, so here is a transcript of the “debate” thus far:

Us:

Hello Benny,

Thanks for your time in our telephone conversation just now.

In brief, here are my alter ego’s initial quibbles about the GWPForum’s recent Arctic coverage:

and

Please do not hesitate to ask if you require any additional information!

 

Them:

Dear Mr Hunt

I wonder whether you have any comments regarding the latest PIOMAS data which appear to show a pause in the Arctic sea ice melt in recent years?

With best regards

 

Us:

Hello Benny,

All in the fullness of time. First of all though, I am waiting to hear your comment(s) on the points I raised in my original email. Here’s where those “Tweets” finish up:

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2016/02/the-great-global-warming-policy-forum-con/

To reiterate, as numerous people pointed out to Mr. Clutz following his first article, MASIE is not fit for the purpose to which he (and hence the GWPF) put it.

To add insult to injury the first MASIE based graph he (and hence the GWPF) published is wildly inaccurate and misleading, and has still not been corrected.

I still eagerly await your comment(s) on this matter,

 

Them:

Dear Mr Hunt

If I understand you correctly you claim that

1. MASIE is not fit for the purpose to assess Artic sea ice extent, and

2. Arctic sea ice has actually decreased since 2007 — contrary to claims that Arctic ice has not declined in the last 8 years.

I have looked into your first claim and cannot find any information that undermines the reliability of MASIE data for Arctic sea ice analysis.

Regarding your second criticism, the latest PIOMAS data appear to confirm Mr Clutz’s main point, i.e. Arctic ice has remained fairly stable since 2007.

Yours sincerely

 

Us:

Hello again Benny,

Thank you for your swift response to my most recent email. I fear that you totally misunderstand me. Regarding your numbered points:

1) Did your due diligence include reading this section of the NSIDC web site concerning MASIE?

https://nsidc.org/data/docs/noaa/g02186_masie/index.html

Can you see the parts where it says?

MASIE may look like several other sea ice products distributed at NSIDC and elsewhere, but its source data and intended uses are different.

Operational ice charts meet the needs of those going into the ice and provide general situational awareness, such as the extent of fast ice or of ice of any concentration greater than zero percent.

If one is interested in long-term trends in sea ice or how it responds to changing climate forcing, generally, it is best not to use an operational product, but rather one that is consistently produced and retroactively quality controlled.

Do you understand what that means? If not please do not hesitate to ask!

2) Where on Earth did you get that idea from? Here’s what I said once again:

The first MASIE based graph [Ron Clutz] (and hence the GWPF) published is wildly inaccurate and misleading, and has still not been corrected.

To see what I mean all you have to do is compare it to the second MASIE based graph [Ron Clutz] (and hence the GWPF) published.

 

Them:

Dear Mr Hunt

I’m afraid you have not addressed my points.

There is nothing wrong with the MASIE data, in particular not when it comes to short-term data sets (although I agree that it should not be used for any trend analysis).

You did not answer the key question: where is the evidence (as suggested in your graph) that Artic sea ice has declined since 2007?

Yours sincerely

 

Us:

Hello Benny,

I’m afraid that in actual fact it is you who have not addressed my points. Let me take you through them slowly once again. Once you’ve understood the first two rest assured there are more.

1 a) According to the NSIDC, MASIE is not a “short-term data set”, it is an “operational ice chart”.

1 b) In addition, please feel free to search the NSIDC web site for any graph based on the Arctic Ice Annual Average of any metric whatsoever, and let me know what you discover

2) Let’s play “Spot the difference” shall we? Please let me know what differences (if any) you can find between this graph:

GWPF-masie-annual

and this one:

GWPF-masie-day-2015365

Thanks in anticipation,

 

[Edit – February 19th 2016]

Us again:

Not having heard from Benny for a while we thought it polite to enquire after his health this morning:

Dear Benny,

I’ve received nothing back from you since your email of 15:22 on the 16th. Are you OK? If there’s anything we can do to help please do get in touch.

We have some interesting news about which we’d love to know your opinion, as soon as you feel up to it of course. First of all, the NSIDC’s global sea ice extent metric fell to the lowest level *ever yesterday:

Global-Extent-2016-02-18

Secondly, are you aware that the February 13th article on the GWPF web site by Pierre Gosselin entitled “Arctic Sea Ice Trend May Have Turned The Corner As Ice Volume Picks Up Over Past 5 Years” currently looks like this?

2016-02-19_1140-GWPF-DMI

Get well soon,

 

Them:

Dear Mr Hunt

Thank you for your latest concern about global sea ice extent

I suggest to monitor global sea ice extent in the next 12 months to see whether the usual recovery fails to materialise (see graph below).

 

Us:

Dear Dr. Peiser,

I’m delighted to discover that you are evidently in fine fetttle!

I am however afraid that your image is invisible at this end, although it appears to emanate from somewhere on the WUWT sea ice page.

First of all can you possibly resend it?

Secondly I highly recommend that you peruse the GWC sea ice resources instead of Mr. Watts’ in future.

Thirdly will you please fix the wide variety of gross inaccuracies concerning Arctic sea ice that still exist on the Global Warming Policy Forum web site, even after they have been brought to your attention on numerous occasions. For your further information please see also:

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2016/02/global-sea-ice-extent-at-lowest-ever-level/#comment-213484

Best wishes,

 

[Edit – February 23rd 2016]

Us:

Good day Benny,

I trust that you had a pleasant weekend?

I note that the GWPF webmaster has still not corrected even the most egregious of Ron Clutz’s errors republished on the GWPF web site in the following article:

http://www.thegwpf.com/arctic-ice-recovering/

I further note that you have also now republished this article authored by Paul Homewood:

http://www.thegwpf.com/maisie-confirms-arctic-sea-ice-remaining-stable-in-february/

which amongst other errors contains the following insinuation:

“MAISIE, of course, only goes back to 2006, whereas the sea ice index dates to 1979. It is, however, easy to see why NSIDC are keen to use the latter as a starting point!”

This is of course inaccurate, as I have personally pointed out to Paul on several occasions in the past. The NSIDC themselves have this to say on the matter:

“The Sea Ice Index provides a quick look at Arctic- and Antarctic-wide changes in sea ice. It is a source for consistent, up-to-date sea ice extent and concentration images, in PNG format, and data values, in ASCII text files, from November 1978 to the present.

The images and data are produced in a consistent way that makes the Index time-series appropriate for use when looking at long-term trends in sea ice cover.”

When do you suppose the GWPF webmaster will be able to get around to correcting the latest piece of Arctic misinformation to be published on your web site?

Best wishes,

 

Us again:

Good morning Benny,

I note that the GWPF webmaster has still not taken on board any of the helpful advice I have proffered over the last few weeks, and has now posted some inaccurate information about “global warming”. Will he or she never learn?

Sticking with our own speciality, please feel free to “print” Snow White’s prediction that CT global sea ice area will post yet another new record of around 14.22 million square kilometers over the next 2 to 3 days.

I followed Ron Clutz’s recent suggestion on Paul Homewood’s blog to “Take it up with Walt Meier”. I interviewed Dr. Meier yesterday and this is what he told me:

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2016/02/dmi-masie-and-the-sea-ice-index-an-interview-with-walt-meier/

Perhaps it is now time to hand your current webmaster their cards and hire a new one?

Best wishes,

 

[Edit – March 4th 2016]

Us once again:

Hello again Benny,

It seems that your new webmaster has yet to republish the latest product of the Clutz/Homewood porky pie production line! Please pass on our congratulations on their perspicacity. However the latest article on The GWPF web site by David Whitehouse has this to say:

“Is the global warming pause over for good — or will it continue once the current El Nino dies down?”

Does Dr. Whitehouse not realise that there was no “pause”?

There is no "pause"!

For your, and Dr. Whitehouse’s, information here is the latest report from the NSIDC on Arctic sea ice extent:

NSIDC February 2016 monthly Arctic sea ice extent

With a new webmaster in charge at The GWPF can we now anticipate an accurate Arctic article appearing on your web site? Please do not hesitate to ask if you would like to republish one of mine.

Best wishes,

 

[Edit – April 4th 2016]

Us once again:

Hello again Benny,

I hope this finds you well? I have been doing as you suggested! Consequently I could not help but notice that you have not been doing what I suggested, and have instead recently republished a large extract from yet another article by Paul Homewood on the topic of Arctic sea ice:

http://www.thegwpf.com/more-of-the-usual-hype-about-arctic-ice/

Needless to say this one is also downright misleading. For your information, here are the actual facts:

Claim – Arctic Sea Ice Holds Firm?

and

More Of The Usual Hype About Arctic Sea Ice

It looks like you’ll have to let another webmaster go, does it not? Don’t forget to tell the new one that my offer of an authoritative Arctic article still stands.

Best wishes,

 

Them:

We’ll keep you posted!

 

IPSO Powerless to Prevent The Great White Con

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In a blog post earlier this year entitled “IPSO, the press regulator created in the aftermath of the Leveson Inquiry, is not up to task” Bob Ward, Policy and Communications Director of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the Grantham Research Institute, made a prophetic statement:

IPSO is also currently considering a complaint I made against another article by David Rose in The Mail on Sunday in September 2014 which wrongly suggested that Arctic sea ice extent has stopped declining. I am not optimistic that my complaint will be upheld, even though the newspaper again breached Section 1(i) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

IPSO have now published their ruling on that complaint, and conclude that:

17. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial Action Required: N/A

Date complaint received: 17/09/2014

Date decision Issued: 16/02/2015

By all means read the ruling in full, but here are our edited highlights:

13. The article presented the author’s view that forecasts regarding the melting of Arctic ice had overestimated the rate of decline. The complainant did not dispute that measures showed that the Arctic ice extent had increased over the last two years. The article had made clear that the long-term trend still showed a decline, and the coverage had included commentary from a number of scientists, expressing a variety of views on the matter, including one who had stated that he was “uncomfortable with the idea of people saying the ice had bounced back”, and warned against reading too much into the ice increases. The article had made clear that scientific opinions regarding the significance of the most recent data varied. In this context, the omission of the information that the measure in 2012 had been the lowest on record, and that 2014 had still been the seventh lowest since records began, was not significantly misleading. The article did not suggest that it had been established as fact that the long-term decline in Arctic sea ice had reversed.

I highlight that paragraph in particular because in our coverage of David Rose’s article here at Great White Con we have disputed that “measures showed that the Arctic ice extent had increased over the last two years”. I wonder what IPSO might make of that information?

The Guardian have recently published an article by Dana Nuccitelli on the IPSO ruling entitled “Ipso proves impotent at curbing the Mail’s climate misinformation“, which now contains this addendum:

We have appended the following response from Rose:

“Like anyone who challenges aspects of the so-called ‘consensus’ over climate change, I’ve grown inured to being called a ‘denier’, as some of the commenters ‘below the line’ claim I am here. It is with some weariness that I must point out, as I did in the article that started this fuss, that I accept that the long-term Arctic ice trend is down, that carbon dioxide of human origin is an important cause of this trend, and that, unchecked, it will lead eventually to ice-free Arctic summers – albeit perhaps not for decades.

“But to be attacked for something I didn’t actually write is unfortunate. The fact remains there are large uncertainties and intense debate among scientists on this and other climate change topics, even if, as has been said, 97 per cent agree that the world is warming and that humans are partly to blame. But that doesn’t take us very far, and there are important differences of opinion. Professor Judith Curry isn’t a ‘contrarian’ but a very distinguished scientist and ice expert with a long record of peer-reviewed publications, though she happens to disagree with Mr Nuccitelli.

We feel compelled to point out to David Rose once again that he actually wrote:

The Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession.

and that this is both inaccurate and significantly misleading.

Mr. Rose’s comments are also of interest to us because despite recently bringing her attention to the matter once again Professor Judith Curry’s personal blog still contains the inaccurate and/or misleading information first published by the Mail on Sunday on September 8th 2013 in an article by David Rose entitled “And now it’s global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year“.

What sort of “very distinguished scientist and ice expert” would continue to proudly proclaim the following inaccurate information after even the Mail on Sunday had retracted it?

2015-04-19_1251_JudyCurry

 

 

 

 

Was 2014 Really “The Warmest Year in Modern Record”

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I don’t usually get involved in debates about “the global warming pause”, but as you will eventually see there is an Arctic connection, so please bear with me. Personally I reckon “global heat” is more relevant than “global surface temperature”, but nevertheless NASA and NOAA issued a “news release” a couple of days ago stating that:

The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists.

The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

In an independent analysis of the raw data, also released Friday, NOAA scientists also found 2014 to be the warmest on record.

The announcement was accompanied by this video:

I figured our old friend David Rose would have something to say about all that in the Mail on Sunday, and I was not disappointed. Yesterday David reported, in bold headlines:

Nasa climate scientists: We said 2014 was the warmest year on record… but we’re only 38% sure we were right

  • Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies claimed its analysis of world temperatures showed ‘2014 was the warmest year on record’

  • But it emerged that GISS’s analysis is subject to a margin of error

  •  Nasa admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all

David Rose includes this NASA video in the online version of his article:

which finishes up showing the Arctic blanketed in red for the period 2010-14. In the body of the article David suggests that:

GISS’s director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted Nasa thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent.

but for some strange reason David neglects to mention this NASA/NOAA “press briefing“, which includes the following figure:

2015-01-18-WarmProbs

or this January 16th “Tweet” from Gavin Schmidt:

all of which was discussed on the NASA/NOAA conference call last Friday, a recording of which is available from the NOAA website:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/advisories/011415-advisory-2014-global-climatehighlights.html

As you can see and hear, Gavin Schmidt’s “admission” was pretty public, and available for anyone doing their due diligence on this thorny topic to see well before the Mail on Sunday published David Rose’s article.  For still more from Gavin see also the second half of yet another video from NASA, which we’ve hastily made embeddable from YouTube since NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center don’t  seem to have done so themselves as yet:

[Edit – 23/01/2015]

By way of further elucidation of the NASA/NOAA table of probabilities above, here’s a new graphic courtesy of Skeptical Science:

WarmestYearNOAAasatJan2015graphic

The probability of 2014 being the warmest year (due to margin of uncertainty and the small differences between years) is almost ten times that of 1998. And the contrarians were very certain that year was warm!

Does that help make things clearer, for those who evidently have difficulty understanding statistics?

[/Edit]

I also figured that the likes of “Steve Goddard” and Anthony Watts would be jumping on the same bandwagon, so you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that they have both, unlike Gavin, blocked me from their Twitter feeds! Venturing over to the so called “Real Science” blog instead I discovered that Steve/Tony does at least read Gavin’s Twitter feed, although apparently not NASA/NOAA press briefings:

 

Them:

Implausible Deniability

Gavin is playing his usual game, trying to cover his ass with “uncertainty” that wasn’t mentioned in the NASA press release.

They get the propaganda out there for the White House and major news outlets, then try to generate implausible deniability through back channels like twitter. None of this was mentioned in the NASA press release.

Us:

I take it you weren’t on the call either Tony? Have you by any chance seen this press briefing?

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings/201501.pdf

 

Them:

I’m amazed you have the gall to show up around here, after saying I should be jailed for accurately reporting and predicting Arctic ice.

Pathetic and quite psychotic Jim. And the NASA press release said nothing about uncertainty or satellites.

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/january/nasa-determines-2014-warmest-year-in-modern-record/

World class wanker

 

Us:

I’ll take that as a no then.

Since you mention it, how did your 2014 Arctic sea ice predictions work out in the end?

 

Them:

Almost spot on.

Goddard-DMI_new-2014-04-23

 

Us:

“The NASA press release said nothing about uncertainty”

I didn’t say it did. I did however answer Daffy Duck’s question for him. What precisely is “pathetic and quite psychotic” about that?

No answer to that question as yet, so……

That’ll teach me to get involved in debates about “the global warming pause”. I can feel another blog post or two coming on!

What do you make of this recent Arctic sea ice extent chart from your beloved DMI?

DMI-Old-2015-01-19
Them:

Sensor error. Happens quite often. maybe you should go blog about and call for people to be jailed.

 

Us:

For once I agree with you, about the “sensor error” in the most recent 2015 data at least.

Actually I was wondering how that data justifies your “almost spot on” claim for 2014 above. See for example:

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/my-arctic-forecast-4/

“The minimum this summer will likely be close to the 2006 minimum, which was the highest minimum of the past decade.”

That’s not really how things turned out, is it?

 

Them:

See “Implausible Deniability of 2014 Arctic Sea Ice Predictions” for further “debate” about Arctic sea ice. Meanwhile back to temperature…..

THE DATA ON WEATHER AND CLIMATE (NASA AND NOAA) CAN BE COMPARED TO THE STOCK MARKET ON WALL STREET, MUCH CORRUPTION AND ALTERING. WE ARE NOT GUARANTEED A CERTAIN TEMPERATURE EVERYDAY; ALTHOUGH, THAT IS WHAT THEY WOULD HAVE US THINK, JUST BECAUSE OF SEASONS IN GENERAL.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/2014-breaks-record-warmest-year-noaa-nasa-experts-say-n287551

 

Us:

What do you make of this bullish channel?
there-is-no-pause

 

Them:

Further to previous correspondence on similar matters, on January 27th 2015 I received the following email from the Personal Assistant to John Wellington, David Rose’s managing editor at the Mail on Sunday:

Dear Jim,

Thank you for your email.

I am afraid the best person to deal with your question is John Wellington who will reply on his return at the beginning of March.

Thank you for your patience.

Kind regards

Poppy Hall

 

Us:

CC: IPSO.co.uk

Dear Poppy,

Thanks for that information, but I am afraid my almost infinite patience in this matter is exhausted.

In John’s absence perhaps I might reiterate a question posed by Bob Ward of The Grantham Institute on Twitter yesterday:

Please would you ask whoever owns the desk on which the buck currently stops for the article entitled “Nasa climate scientists: We said 2014 was the warmest year on record… but we’re only 38% sure we were right” by David Rose to communicate with me as soon as possible. FYI – Here it is:

https://archive.today/SUTA8

As I’m sure you must realise by now, unfortunately it includes some inaccurate and/or misleading statements which as far as I can ascertain have still not been publicly corrected.

Best wishes,

Jim Hunt

 

Post Script:

Bob Ward lodged a formal complaint with the Independent Press Standards Organisation about the Mail on Sunday article. Their conclusion?

The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial Action Required – N/A

Date complaint received: 13/02/2015
Date decision issued: 22/06/2015

Their “reasoning”?

The Committee noted that information about the margin of error had been made available by GISS, but that it was not in dispute that these details had been omitted from the press release. The article had made clear that this specifically was the basis for its criticism of Nasa, and the newspaper was entitled to present its view that this omission represented a failure on the part of the organisation. While the information had been released by Nasa, it had been released to a limited selection of people, in comparison to those who would have had access to the press release, and had not been publicised to the same level as the information in the release. The press briefing images referred to by the complainant were available on Nasa’s website, but were not signposted by the press release. In this context, it was not misleading to report that the information relating to the margin of error had emerged in circumstances where the position was not made clear in the press release. While these details of the margin of error may have been noted in a press briefing two days previously, rather than “yesterday”, as reported, this discrepancy did not represent a significant inaccuracy requiring correction under the terms of the Code.

A Few Players Short of a Great Green Con Surf Team

Satire, , , , , , , , , ,

Shock News! Over in the denialosphere at the (un)Real Science blog I’ve been challenged to yet another Arctic sea ice bet. This one now seems to be signed and sealed, but will probably have to wait a few years before it is delivered:

Them:

Have you come up with the terms of our bet yet? I have yet to find one single alarmist willing to bet their house on an ice free Arctic at any time over the next 20 years, I may have to extend to 30 years, though the amount of cigarettes I smoke, I doubt I will be around that long.

Us:

Having personally discussed the matter with Rear Admiral Jon White:

http://econnexus.org/the-economist-being-economical-with-the-truth-about-climate-change/

and having since publicly stated that I’m more pessimistic than him, how about $1000 in favour of ShelterBox on CT area < 1 mio square kilometers by the summer of 2022 at the latest?

Them:

$1000 on CT area being less than 1 million square kilometres at some point between now and 2022 sounds fine to me, we have a bet. Remember, this is where to send your $1000

http://www.chas.org.uk/how_we_help_families/our_hospices/rachel_house

Meanwhile I’ve been trying to find someone, anyone, willing to don a polar bear suit and then stand up on a surf board. I have yet to find one single “skeptic” willing to accept my challenge to become part of the “Great Green Con” Arctic surf team.  First in line for an invitation was “Steve Goddard” (AKA Tony Heller):

Them:

Within a week, a cyclone will be spreading Arctic sea ice, and extent will flat line or increase.

Us:

I’m following that cyclone with much interest too Tony! What’s your Arctic surf forecast?

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2014/08/the-arctic-surf-forecast-for-late-august-2014/

Do you fancy joining the GGC team?

Them:

[Abject silence]

Meanwhile over on Twitter Matt Ridley has been having a “debate” with Bob Ward about Bob’s latest article in the New Statesman:

Us:

 

Them:

[Abject silence]

Whilst we wait for a “skeptic” willing to stop doing a chicken impression and start impersonating a polar bear to reveal themself, how is the surf in the Chukchi Sea coming along?  There are already some signs of a building swell to be seen. The US icebreaker USCGC Healy is currently bobbing about on a modest swell off Barrow:

Healy-20140822-1801_595

Whilst onshore a modest wave can currently be seen breaking on Barrow beach:

ABCam_20140822_1137

Here’s what that swell looks like on the WaveWatch III nowcast:

alaska.hs.h000h-20140822Meanwhile the cyclone brewing in the Arctic is now forecast to have a central pressure below 990 mb next week, by GFS at least:

gfsnh-0-114-20140822

We’ll keep you posted!

Andrew Neil Fails Simple Maths Test

Satire, , , , , ,

I wandered over to Twitter a couple of days ago to see if I could persuade Steve/Tony to dig a pertinent comment of mine about Arctic sea ice extent out of the “Real Science” spam folder. Whilst over there I couldn’t help but notice that Andrew Neil had been passing comment on recent events in the Arctic too! According to his Twitter page Andrew is:

Chairman Spectator Magazines (London);  ITP Magazines (Dubai);  World Media Rights (New York). BBC presenter.

According to his C.V. on the BBC web site Andrew is:

Presenter of the Daily Politics on BBC Two and the Sunday Politics on BBC One.

In a long career in publishing and broadcasting Andrew has been UK editor of The Economist, editor of The Sunday Times, executive chairman of Sky Television and publisher of The Scotsman Group of newspapers.

Fresh from his controversial BBC interview with Ed Davey, the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change,  Andrew was “tweeting” things like:

Andrew also expressed his views about Arctic sea ice extent:

 

Them:

 

Us:

 

Them:

Andrew has yet to respond to my polite enquiry, so……  

 

Us:

 

Here’s the big picture:

Charctic-AFNeil-20140729Here’s the small print, and here’s the ancient history.

 

Them:

We’ll keep you posted!

The Mail’s Concentration on Sea Ice Extent

Concentration, , , , , ,

Further to our previous communications about what we refer to here as “The Great White Con” I have now received another email from John Wellington, Managing Editor of the Mail on Sunday.

Them:

Amongst other things it says that:

The incorrect figure published by the NSIDC was taken in good faith. Our writer [AKA David Rose] did not expect an institution of its stature to make such an error, so it is not reasonable to expect him to contact NSIDC to check it, specially as the general idea of an increase in the icepack was consistent with more anecdotal information such as the shipping information. You say we did not produce evidence of the NSIDC mistake. I am attaching a screen grab of their web site before they corrected it.

Mail on Sunday screen grab of NSIDC article entitled "A real hole near the pole"
Mail on Sunday screen grab of NSIDC article entitled “A real hole near the pole”

John’s latest email also included the following statement:

The August NSIDC report begins with a diagram (see  attachment). This shows the Arctic ice sheet stretching from Siberia to the Canadian islands:

Another Mail on Sunday screen grab of NSIDC "Arctic Sea Ice News" article of September 4th 2013
Another Mail on Sunday screen grab of NSIDC “Arctic Sea Ice News” article of September 4th 2013

Us:

You will note I have taken the liberty of annotating The Mail’s screen grabs with what seem to me to be reasonable questions for any vaguely competent investigative journalist to ask themselves when reading the NSIDC’s early September update. At this juncture I can only repeat this question from my most recent missive to The Mail:

This raises any number of questions about the Mail on Sunday misleading its readers, such as “Why didn’t The Mail ask the NSIDC about the apparently conflicting information, much like Bob Ward did, before publishing an article relying on that information?” not to mention “Why can’t David Rose perform accurate arithmetic?”

and provide my own screenshot from the “terminology” page of the NSIDC web site in a no doubt vain attempt to provide John and David with an answer to just one of those questions:

NSIDC explanation of the terms "concentration" and "extent"
NSIDC explanation of the terms “concentration” and “extent”

In brief:

Extent defines a region as either “ice-covered” or “not ice-covered.” For each data cell, it is a binary term; either the cell has ice (usually a value of “1”) or the cell has no ice (usually a value of “0”).

 Do you suppose that given their apparent difficulties in performing elementary arithmetic John and David are able to appreciate the difference between “1 or 0” and “low-concentration sea ice (20 to 80% cover) within our extent outline” or even “near-zero ice concentration“?

How about the readers of The Mail on Sunday, or the Press Complaints Commission for that matter?

Humiliating Mistakes by David Rose

Extent,

Today’s headline paraphrases slightly the title of a recent blog post by Bob Ward, who is Policy and Communications Director of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the Grantham Research Institute. In that article Bob finally provides an answer to the question that’s been troubling us about how David Rose arrived at his preposterous “Almost a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year” bullet point in his article published two weeks ago in the Mail on Sunday.

Mr. Rose never responded to any of my communications, but according to Bob:

Rose told me by e-mail that the source of his claim that the ice extent was 60 per cent higher this year was an announcement posted on the website of the United States National Snow and Ice Data Center on 4 September: “August 2013 ice extent was 2.38 million square kilometers (919,000 square miles) above the record low August extent in 2012.

The NSIDC confirmed to me yesterday that the main figure used by Rose for his article was mistyped and that the mistake was corrected on 10 September, showing that Arctic sea extent in August 2013 was only 29 per cent higher than was recorded for the same month last year.

In an email to me yesterday, Natasha Vizcarra, the media liaison for NSIDC, stated:

“When we published the report, it contained a typographical error in the difference between the August 2013 monthly ice extent and the record low August extent in 2012 (and the corresponding square mile conversions). If you subtract the August 2012 extent of 4.72 million square kilometres from the August 2013 extent of 6.09 million square kilometers, you get 1.38 million square kilometers, not 2.38 million square kilometers. Our readers noticed the error and we corrected the typographical error on September 10. There are no plans to make a statement on the change because it was not an error in the data.”

So it seems the raw data was correct, the graph displayed to the left of the “typographical error” on the NSIDC web site was correct, and yet the Mail’s “Arctic expert” David Rose and the thousands who have republished his assertions across the planet never cottoned on to the physical implausibilty of their headline “statistic”, and never bothered to contact the NSIDC to check?

What do you suppose is the probability that the rest of “the climate science” in Rose’s recent articles is similarly flawed? Here’s another bit of simple arithmetic he evidently managed to get wrong:

100 * 2.38 / 4.72 = 50.4%