climate communication
stoat | February 23, 2007There is a new website called IPCCfacts. Presumably this is a reflection of the fact that the general public can't cope with reading the SPM, much less the full report when it emerges. The "facts" section is a bit thin - lets hope there are more than this to come. Resources, of course, under "Global Warming and Climate Science Experts" references RealClimate. But "myths" looked interesting, and oh yes, they can't resist delving into hurricanes with #2; Myth: The report shows that the overall number of hurricanes is expected to decline, undercutting the argument that global warming produces…
stoat | February 15, 2007If you happen to be free in Cambridge tonight (7:45) , you can hear me talk at the Cambridge Humanist, in between a country walk and a pot luck meal :-). Usual subject...
stoat | February 5, 2007From the washington post on the AR4: Global Warming Unstoppable, Report Says. Hmmm. Which is worse? The press reporting the skeptics saying GW isn't happening / isn't human / isn't a problem. Or the press telling us we're all doomed already (so may as well drive those SUVs and crank up the AC...).
"It's not too late," said Australian scientist Nathaniel Bindoff, a co-author of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report issued Friday. The worst can be prevented by acting quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, he said.
Or
"It's later than we think," said panel co-…
stoat | January 28, 2007More exciting leaks from the AR4, and a tale of two newspapers. Which, I'm sad to say, results in a resounding victory for the US.
The rubbish story is Experts split over climate danger to Antarctica; Scientists challenge 'cautious' UN report; Robin McKie, science editor from the Observer. Its a perfect example of cr*p journalism whose purpose, presumably, is to provide a bit of knockabout to read, rather than to inform the readers of anything useful (am I expecting too much of the papers? maybe).
Rather more creditable is Melting ice means global warming report all wet, say some experts who…
stoat | January 25, 2007There is a r4 prog on Running the rule over Stern's numbers tonigh (8 pm). Apparently I get my 5 mins of fame at some point during it, we shall have to see.
Update:
Well, I was indeed there, for rather longer than I expected. I particularly liked the bit where I say "the A2 scenario, this, err red line here...". If you listen carefully you can hear me laughing gently as I say it. Roll on my TV appearence.
Apart from that, I think this is a good prog: it airs the arguments against Stern I've given here and others have elsewhere, but within the context of the IPCC position rather than the…
stoat | January 23, 2007In the Grauniad this time: "Global warming: the final verdict" (oh good, we can stop work and do something else!).
One for Roger: A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms - like the ones that battered Britain last week - will increase dramatically. Not sure I believe it says that, though.
It also sez the IPCC report's final version is set for release on 2 February in a set of global news conferences so thank heavens we'll get the real report fairly soon.
stoat | January 15, 2007In my review of AIT I deliberately obscured any science message by talking about carbon offsetting :-). But I did say: Pretty animations of 5m sea level rise flooding Manhattan and whatever. No mention of timescale. Its very dubious showing this stuff without saying "and this won't happen in 100 years".. But it looks like a lot of people have been fooled, including certain members of the House of Lords, since (in the aforementioned Antarctica debate) Avebury sez:
In December, an island off the coast of India that used to have 20,000 inhabitants vanished below the waves. It was the first of an…
stoat | January 10, 2007At the third or fourth chance, the convenience of having this thing screened at BAS in the (extended) lunch break was too much to miss, and I've seen it. Its a documentary (I suppose) but a partisan one (maybe they all are...). Nothing really gets any caveats, unlike all my posts (for which see Ms. Rabett's Nude Scientist Exam). It ends with a fervent exhortation to do Your Bit and visit http://www.climatecrisis.net/ - when I did that, the first thing it offered me was the chance to buy the DVD, so clearly this is Consumption for Climate.
How would we stop global warming? Since Gore fervently…
stoat | January 8, 2007I've previously noted that although the UK govts *action* on climate change is fairly feeble, the rhetoric has been good. For example, Blur said: This is the most important report on the future published by the Government in our time in office... What is more, unless we act now, not some time distant but now, these consequences, disastrous as they are, will be irreversible. So there is nothing more serious, more urgent or more demanding of leadership, here of course but most importantly, in the global community. at the launch of the Stern report.
But now he's abandoned that, over cheap…
stoat | January 2, 2007Not my headline, but from The Independent", seeking to keep to its reputation as most environmentally overhyped paper. A combination of global warming and the El Niño weather system is set to make 2007 the warmest year on record with far-reaching consequences for the planet, one of Britain's leading climate experts has warned. Although the actual quote from Phil Jones is El Niño makes the world warmer and we already have a warming trend that is increasing global temperatures by one to two tenths of a degrees celsius per decade. Together, they should make 2007 warmer than last year and it…
stoat | December 19, 2006NERC has a bold new initiative... the NERC Climate Change Challenge. As they say Scientific evidence demonstrates clearly that human activity is changing the planet's climate. But there are still sceptics who dispute the data and its interpretation. If you don't believe the science, please tell us why and we'll respond to your challenge. Or you can have more detail. There isn't much there yet, so I think Lubos should pile in.
Since they lean on the Stern report, I thought it would be fun to ask them about high climate sensitivity. Maybe they will ask James as one of their experts to reply…
stoat | November 29, 2006There is a fun wiki user page collecting a rebuttal of Moncktons nonsense. Mostly I'm impressed by peoples patience in bothering to follow it all through. One thing sticks out to me: Moncktons apparent use of references that totally fail to support his claims for them. For example, Monckton says "From c.1000 AD, ships were recorded as having sailed in parts of the Arctic where there is a permanent ice-pack now (Thompson et al. 2000; Briffa 2000; Lamb 1972a,b; Villalba 1990, 1994)." but apparently T2000 is concerned with hydrology on the Tibetan plateau; B2000 is, as you might expect, a…
stoat | November 15, 2006So says... yes you guessed, its the Guardian again.
My first thought was, oh how typical, not "because its right", but for electoral reasons. But thats probably wrong thinking: if the grass roots are pushing for it, then splendid. However... the details are poor (there is a little bit more here.
The bill will set out a statutory commitment to cut CO2 emissions by 60% from 1990 levels by 2050, requiring annual cuts way above anything the Labour government has achieved so far. 2050 is a fair way off (to be fair rolling 5 year targets of an unknown value are also suggested)... and cuts way…
stoat | November 15, 2006Nude Scientist (thanks Eli) has a feature on wot bits of AR4 will be controversial. Which I think is a bit premature and maybe a bit silly too, but I guess they have to write something in the absence of a quotable draft. Anyway, the bit that stuck out to me was:
Michaels has analysed publications by climate scientists in the journals Nature and Science between mid-2005 and mid-2006. He found 115 articles of which 83 said that the likely impact of the greenhouse effect was going to be worse than previously suggested, 23 saw no change and only 9 said that things were not as bad as previously…
stoat | October 29, 2006The IPCC TAR has gone awol. Try http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm . OTOH http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/ is still there. How odd.
stoat | October 26, 2006Just a quick pointer towards an article in Newsweek (which now appears under MSN? Odd...) Remember Global Cooling? quoting yours truly. The article isn't entirely satisfactory, in that it doesn't really point out the errors Newsweek made then - indeed, it rather suggests that it didn't make errors.
stoat | October 22, 2006Mark Lynas has a posting on this (sadly I can't work out how to link to it directly, so I'll have to tell you its the Oct 19th post), saying that various from the NOC have nipped off to the states in a private jet. Which is probably dubious.
But the disturbing (to me) point about the post was the assumption he appears to have that all climate-related researchers are required to believe in GW and live the life. I thought we were supposed to be doing science in as value-neutral a way as possible and trying to keep our personal beliefs out of it.
stoat | October 13, 2006Someone has kindly sent me the NYT articles that Inhofe references. Lets have a look... but before we do, there are plenty more out there if you care to look...
1895. The headline ("Geologists Think the World May be Frozen Up Again") is as described, though Inhofe fails to note it appeared on page 6 - hardly headline stuff. And the article itself points out that this is probably a periodic phenomenon rather than a trend, citing previous instances.
1933. Appears on page 1! Inhofe quote "America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-year Rise" which is correct (but,…
stoat | October 11, 2006Yes, it was the Holocaust of the fluffy toys. With its explicit mention of "holocaust" it evokes... well, in RP Jr's words: "Let's be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust". Of course RP is actually talking about the phrase "Climate Change Denial" (or possibly Denier, there is some ambiguity), which seems to have arisen from obscurity recently.
But this is all part of the std labels debate: what do you call people who are averse to the std scientific consensus on global warming. "Skeptic" is the std label, which has problems, because all true…
stoat | September 20, 2006Yesterday I noted with approval a letter from the Royal Society asking Exxon to stop funding climate change denial. RP Jr, bizarrely, finds this inconsistent with the open and free exchange of ideas. Its bizarre because Exxons funding of these dubious organistaions has nothing to do open exchange - its all about misinformation and slipping Exxons desired world view in from the side.
There is also a rumour of another letter - though we haven't seen it, only the Torygraph report on it calling for "the UK media to be vigilant against attempts to present a distorted view of the scientific…