RealClimate

Excellent news. Some climate scientists have started a blog called RealClimate, something sorely needed to correct the disinformation put about by Tech Central Station and the like. I hope they can do for climate science what The Panda's Thumb does for evolution.

One of the first posts is by Rasmus Benestad on the McKitrick-Michaels paper that got degrees and radians mixed up. Years ago, when McKitrick was first working on the paper Robert Grumbine observed that McKitrick had

Treated the records as being independant (I know William knows this, but for some other folks: Surface temperature records are correlated across fairly substantial distances---a few hundred km. This is what makes paleoreconstructions possible, and what makes it possible to initialize global numerical weather prediction models with so few observations.)

Unfortunately, even in the published version McKitrick still treated the records as independent, and Benestad shows that their model is invalid.

And check out my McKitrick guide if you're having trouble keeping all your McKitrick studies straight. This one is the one that purported to show that the surface temperature record was contaminated by economic influences, not the one that purported to destroy the hockey stick. (Michael Mann is a contributor to RealClimate, so we might see something there as well.)

Update:Chris Mooney is also pleased.

More like this

Thanks for posting this link. The site seems to be great.

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 11 Dec 2004 #permalink

Many thanks. Do your really know what you are on about Tim? Holey Moley,

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 12 Dec 2004 #permalink

Alert to another economist pretending to be a climatologist. The EconoPundit is trying his hand after being inspired by the latest Michael Crichton trash. My analysis here.

If McKitrick is a hockey stick, this guy's a hockey puck (to quote Don Rickles).

Alert to another economist pretending to be a climatologist. The EconoPundit is trying his hand after being inspired by the latest Michael Crichton trash. My analysis here.

If McKitrick is a hockey stick, this guy's a hockey puck (to quote Don Rickles).

Alert to another economist pretending to be a climatologist. The EconoPundit is trying his hand after being inspired by the latest Michael Crichton trash. My analysis here.

If McKitrick is a hockey stick, this guy's a hockey puck (to quote Don Rickles).

Alert to another economist pretending to be a climatologist. The EconoPundit is trying his hand after being inspired by the latest Michael Crichton trash. My analysis here.

If McKitrick is a hockey stick, this guy's a hockey puck (to quote Don Rickles).