Science by press release

Posted by William M. Connolley on September 28, 2009
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We all hate science by press release which is why we all love the good old stodgy UKMO (now rebranded the Met Office, note no dot) who would never write Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes oh no of course not. The Torygraph has much the same thing. Sigh. They seem to have delegated the pressing to Oxford (the shame; oh no, you can have the UKMO instead but it is equally vapid) and it is all in aid of some conference 4 degrees and beyond; “beyond” apparently in reference to their bizarre typography.

Actual substance seems to be rather lacking; Nurture does its best with thin material. It looks to like A1F1 (i.e. high emissions) and weakening the sinks and who knows what else in order to pump up the CO2. Hopefully they will publish the actual research at some point – though that is so last year, perhaps they will be really “hip” and tweet it instead (bloody hell I was only joking I didn’t realise they would :-().

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Comments

  1. #1 Alexander Ač
    2009/09/29

    So, if I understand the post correctly (though I think I do not :-)), we do not need further warming and warning, in order to limit CO2 emissions?

    Or is the message that the science is not there, where scientists (Richard Betts? HJ Schelnhuber?) or media put it? (you know, media *always* choose the extreme of the story…)

    Or that simply 4°C is “too much”? Or You dont believe that Hadley climate model reasonably represents carbon feedbacks?

    Sorry, too much questions.. :-)

    [My post was supposed to say that it is rather hard to find out what they are seeing as a new problem, since they are rather short on what they have actually done. I think what they have done is, effectively, to push the CO2 levels higher than before so - surprise - it gets warmer. But I'm guessing -W]

  2. #2 Adam
    2009/09/29

    No time at present to listen, but here’s the slides & audio (I assume) of the talk:

    http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/programme.php

    Looks like a comparison of A1B & A1F1. Discusses this in terms of “high end” scenarios.