stoat

I'd just like to let you know that the weather here has been pretty rubbishy for what seems like ages. Down here we're not getting the floods they have oop north, just lots of rain, and indeed yesterday some hail too. This has a vaguely serious side. Clearly, one summer (or lack thereof) doesn't…

It seems that Chris Rapley is moving on from Director of BAS to be director of the Science Museum. He said... I am thrilled at the prospect of taking on the leadership of such a cherished national institution, especially as the task I have been set is to make it the most admired museum of its type…

Thanks to Hank for http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wikipedian_protester.png (in the comments off where you'll never see it). Its a fun site though. I liked regexp; random; godwin and this. And lots of others... fun to browse.

Another interesting entry on the often-provoking RP Sr site. This time a guest post by McNider, who I don't know. He indulges in some giveaway ranting: Climate change alarmists have used the global surface temperature record as evidence of man's impact on climate being "real" yet, as discussed…

So says the Chicago Sun-Times. Oh dear. But what are these claims? For example, Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Does he? I suppose he might, though I don't remember it myself. Whats the rebuttal? Yet the September 2006 issue of the American…

G points out that the IPCC AR4 comments are now available. Presumably due to JA's efforts :-). A quick browse didn't throw up anything funny (the Courntey bit is pathetic rather than funny). I made a minor comment to the historical review section, commenting that "Reference to Hawking unneeded:…

A weird one. Planktos is a for-profit company that appears to intend to sequestrate CO2 by causing algal blooms. Anyone with more info on this is invited to comment. And they will sell you CO2 offsets. For example: The average international flight is 9-20 hours long and produces 2 tons of CO2 per…

Gosh this is fun... you wait ages for a paper on a warm event and then 2 come along together :-). Anyway, thanks to FB for pointing out How unusual was autumn 2006 in Europe? in Climate of the Past. This is almost but not quite the same thing as the 2003 event so I had all the code ready and…

Asks RP Sr's paper in GRL (or rather, ask Thomas N. Chase, Klaus Wolter, Roger A. Pielke Sr and Ichtiaque Rasool). Interestingly, they conclude "not really". This of course is contrary to what everyone knows, so their paper has been ignored, to RP's annoyance. And if I had demonstrasted…

We now know what Vaclav Klaus thinks. And the answer is... some very stupid things. On the "science", he says No in answer to "If it is a reality, is it man-made?" and "if it is a reality, is it a problem?". This is explicit enough. Unfortunately the very next question reveals the weakness of his…

Not quite "we're all going to die" again, but close. But this time by James Hansen, and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society.There is an the Indescribably-over-hypeded write up of it. Featuring: nothing short of a planetary rescue will save it from the environmental cataclysm of dangerous…

A colleague told me about an interesting article I'd missing in the grauniad: The inconvenient truth about the carbon offset industry. Which I fear merely confirms my lack of trust of these things. The main point was that a number of companies are doing offsetting by buying up EU emissions credits…

Prompted by a fight at wikipedia over whether PC is an astrophysicist, a meterologist, a meterological consultant, or something else, I looked at "weather action"s website for his proofs of success (ah, for those who don't know, PC claims to predict UK weather a year or so in advance via a "solar…

Well of course we are - everyone does. But are we all going to die of global warming? Lovelock thinks so, and so does a member of Royalty: we are "all going to die like the dinosaurs and another species was going to take over": to find out who said this, check the comments at Diplomatic incident.

Nature has a brief report on a PNAS paper, "Transient climate-carbon simulations of planetary geoengineering" by H. Damon Matthews and Ken Caldeira. BTW, before I get going, look at the sidebar on the right of PNAS - there is a "google scolar" search link built in. The abstract is: Geoengineering (…

David J.C. MacKay has a draft book out online, http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/ , which is worth a browse. He is due to give a talk here in a bit, which should prove interesting. The book is an attempt to look at renewable energy from a broad-brush numbers point of view (in which I…

Vaclav Klaus says We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough - irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent - for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do…

World oil supplies are set to run out faster than expected, warn scientists but this turns out to be the usual suspects. Its in response to BP: BP's Statistical Review of World Energy, published yesterday, appears to show that the world still has enough "proven" reserves to provide 40 years of…

A reader enquires the right-wing blogosphere and US media is reporting that Al Gore planned a rock concert in Antarctica in July, but when contacting BAS was told that it's mid-winter and a bad time to make the attempt (e.g. this). Well its no secret that What must surely be the coolest gig in this…

At Flickr. And I've been to Hathersage (which is rather a long way from Dinas Cromlech).

Still don't have a full report on Climate change prediction:a robust or flawed process? but I do have a brief word of Lindzens tactics (being a skeptic he has "tactics", of course, unlike the Good Guys who just tell it straight). Which were, apparently, to discuss abstruse points in great detail.…

Or so says the BBC. Predictably enough though there are no hard targets: as far as I can tell all that is promised is a statement promising to strongly consider at least a halving of global emissions by 2050. But I don't want to be too snarky until I've read what was actually said and agreed,…

Old man in a cave has a nice post on the US CCSP draft document out on its website; Climate Models - an Assessment of Strengths and Limitations for User Applications. I've just scanned the exec summary and didn't see any surprises. Hopefully they found something more interesting to say in the main…

The dirt, in this case, is that he was once fairly sensible. In particular, he edited two books published by D Reidel:Global effects of environmental pollution, 1970, which was the proceedings of a Symposium, organised by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Dallas,…

So there was this great Dilbert cartoon, where the PHB asks Dilbert to get something, and to cover his back Dilbert must get the signatures of the VP of marketing, head of finance, and Griffin. Dilbert asks, would that be Griffin of accounts, or the mythical beast? To which the PHB says, whichever…

The Institute of Physics are holding a meeting on Climate change prediction:a robust or flawed process? Why IOP? Who knows, probably a hotbed of skeptics. Though the RMS is advertising it too. That page doesn't list the speakeres; this does: Lindzen and Thorpe. Oh dear, the traditional adversarial…

The logo for the London Olympics, that is. Or maybe "the powerful, modern emblem symbolises the dynamic Olympic spirit and its inspirational ability to reach out to people all over the world".

After a shaky start, Nature's Climate Feedback is staging a renaissance, with two interesting posts by Kevin Trenberth. The first, Predictions of Climate should provide some good quote mining for the septics (none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed…

It is important that the 2007 G8 Summit is addressing the linked issues of energy security and climate change. These are defining issues of our time, and bring together the themes of growth and responsibility in a way that highlights our duties to future generations. In 2005, the Academies issued…

Apologies in advance for this post... latest news story is Four charged over 'plan to blow-up JFK'. Which is only funny because of US Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf. How can you be called mouse head? I'm allowed one of these each year.