climate people
stoat | January 29, 2014 Those with long memories for trivia will remember the unlamented second deletion of Tim Ball, judged non-notable by wikipedia - ah, the shame of it. Now he's been awarded the ultimate accolade of being deleted a third time - you don't get much less notable than that.
I've taken an archive of the discussion page of the "deleted" page (technically its not deleted but moved page Timothy Ball to User:Jinkinson/Timothy Ball over a redirect without leaving a redirect (Userfying per result of previous DRV), so its now at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jinkinson/Timothy Ball. But as far as…
stoat | January 4, 2014 After tthe sad fate of Dr* Bob, it would seem that now Lindzen is officially Emeritus. But remember folks, I was there first.
I'm curious as to when this happened. Cato claimed him in August 2013 - perhaps then? No, it was earlier: May 2013. If you look at his wiki page you won't find the E-word anywhere. Perhaps someone should update it?
The article I started with invites you to meet Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT but this is clearly wrong: he's no longer a prof at MIT, he's an E-prof. So he can't be the APS prof. He could be the APS E-prof, but he isn'…
stoat | December 8, 2013 A trick question, of course. The answer is "the author of a blog post at WUWT entitled IPCC’s Report on Climate Change: Myths & Realities". The blog posting itself is a more-than-usually-pointless mish-mash of nonsense, and isn't worth reading. I did anyway, though, and can assure you that "A World Meteorological Organization insider’s view of the IPCC report" is wrong, because it isn't really about the IPCC report at all; its just the usual stuff.
But it is being sold on credentials as "A World Meteorological Organization insider’s view", and SJR claims to be "Formerly Chief Technical…
stoat | November 22, 2013Michael Mann has an article in the HuffPo, Something Is Rotten at the New York Times. He's complaining about the ill-informed views of Koch Brothers-funded climate change contrarian Richard Muller which is language that would normally put me off. But in this case I looked, and Muller's A Pause, Not an End, to Warming does seem rather objectionable.
Some of it is just a mixed bag:
My analysis is different. Berkeley Earth, a team of scientists I helped establish, found that the average land temperature had risen 1.5 degrees Celsius over the past 250 years. Solar variability didn’t match the…
stoat | November 2, 2013A occasional series of portraits of notable bloggers.
From Bizarre and vulgar illustrations from illuminated medieval manuscripts.
Phrase of the day (not, I should hasten to add, one that has any relation to the noble lagomorph) arrant gasconading from Houseman. From which comes "insult of the day" (or perhaps "motto of the day"):
...his mind had keenness without force, and was not a trenchant instrument. His corrections, deft as they are, touch only the surface of the text; his precise and lucid explanations are seldom explanations of difficulties, but only dispel perverse misunderstandings…
stoat | April 17, 2013Continuing an occasional series on non-notable folk. Marcel Leroux stirred up the septics quite a bit. By contrast, who cares about Tim Ball? He was declared [[WP:NN]] some time ago but then someone recreated his page. And so we have [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tim Ball]] (Tim, Timmy, Timothy, who cares about trivia?). Apart from the giggle-factor, there's nothing very interesting in this; contrasting the first and second AFD's is kinda fun; the level of give-a-toss is so much lower now.
Incidentally, its been pointed out to me, not for the first time, that all this stuff is just…
stoat | November 24, 2012 From the department for historical research. I happened to be in the Oxfam bookshop trying to empty our house, when I looked down and saw this in the pile of new arrivals. It hadn't been priced but they took a fiver for it, which seems fair enough. Its a very British-meteorologist book, you can practically see him puffing on his pipe as he writes it. I am, of course, going to skip over all the nice climate and weather stuff, and look at the climate change, much to his dismay.
Manley factoid: he is buried in Coton churchyard.
You can read a few pages I've uploaded if you like, but you're…
stoat | October 27, 2012 Which is a shame, because I've defended him in the past. But then he did go Emeritus in 2011 so perhaps this is all to be expected.
Its not terribly exciting I'm afraid. There is a piece of tat in the Euresis Journal, whatever that is, called Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?. Skipping over the rest of the nonsense, the only bit I care about is me, obviously:
The myth of scientific consensus is also perpetuated in the web’s Wikipedia where climate articles are vetted by William Connolley, who regularly runs for office in England as a Green Party candidate. No…
stoat | April 27, 2012 I haven't had a tosser for a while, but I think its time for a new one. The evidence is all at Open Mind, that increasingly valuable resource who has done such a good job of shredding so many thoughtless folk. And RP Sr's 7-fold updated post neatly puts him into that category. But what wins RP the coveted award is outing Tamino (whose name isn't exactly a secret anyway) under the guise of "professional courtesy". Well done, Wodger.
stoat | November 14, 2011Wikipedia says it, so it must be true.
ZJ is most famous for winning the 2005 Golden Horseshoes, but lucked out in 2006, despite being called a "titan of mendacity". An example to us all. Tim Ball has a glowing tribute to ZJ, and there can be no deeper condemnation than that. It is entirely fitting that TB uncritically repeats some of the self-promoting lies that ZJ told about himself, including the imaginary senate hearing. And he puffs Beck! What more can you ask?
stoat | November 9, 2011 KK reports on the Tol vs Curry fight. Tol is complaining that Curry is doing her usual: posting about septic junk and then saying "oh but I'm just asking". Tol may have long hair but, unlike Curry, he isn't a bozo, or irresponsible (he did call me rude things in an email once, but I forgive him).
[Update: incidentally, there is an interesting exchange between KK and RP Jr (!) in the comments:
KK> Do you assign lousy, error-riddled textbooks for your class to read?
RP> Yes, absolutely. The Skeptical Environmentalist was a core reading...
It is interesting only because that was a silly…
stoat | November 1, 2011In Memoriam, John McCarthy.
Eeee, those were the days.
[Late update: I've just gone through and re-read that P3 post. To anyone who knows my style and mt's, its pretty obvious who wrote which bits. But anyway, I've found my original email so this was my version:
An appreciation of John McCarthy from sci.environment
Recently two major figures from computing have died: Dennis Ritchie (C) and John McCarthy (LISP). As far as I know, DR had nothing special to do with the environment, but John McCarthy was a denizen of the usenet group sci.environment in the days when usenet was the premier online…
stoat | October 22, 2011 I know, I know, I'm late. Never mind. Gavin Schmidt has won the inaugural "AGU Climate Communication Prize"; RC has a nice toast.
He looks pretty sexy, I think we can all agree, though not well centered (sometimes he looks more like some street crazy). He is clearly right-leaning, unless its a mirror photo. What little hair he has is off the top of the shot; I think they need a better photographer.
I remember now, there was a reason why I wrote this: to point to A Conversation with Gavin Schmidt at Climate Sight. Notice how measured Gavin is about the impacts.
stoat | May 11, 2011Time for some more insult-throwing. And Morgan Griffith is a deserving recipient of just about any insult you might care to throw. As the youtube video is so correctly titled: Climate Zombie Morgan Griffith: Vikings, Mars, And Global Cooling (uploaded by climatebrad, which leads off to the Wonkroom). And indeed, there he is, brain entirely dead, reading out a list of "questions" he has been supplied by some lobbyist, all of which have been answered long ago.
The bit I like is at about 2:00 in, where he says that when he was taught in high school, his text book told him that increasing GHG's…
stoat | October 30, 2010Not that any of the existing ones are that good, either. Anyway: I slagged off her post on attribution a while ago, and then forgot (or couldn't be bothered) to slag off the nonsense she wrote about uncertainty (although my Judith Curry is now blogging, which is probably a good thing, because now instead of nitpicking other people's blogs she is now attempting to say what she thinks. Unfortunately this results in some very strange things is becoming every more clearly correct. Having to make a coherent argument is quite hard; Curry needs someone to read her stuff before she posts it). Anyway…
stoat | July 1, 2010RC has said this already, but perhaps you want to talk about it here. Not great surprise I think; see the press release or the final report.
The Investigatory Committee, after careful review of all available evidence, determined
that there is no substance to the allegation against Dr. Michael E. Mann, Professor, Department of Meteorology, The Pennsylvania State University. More specifically, the Investigatory Committee determined that Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the…
stoat | May 25, 2010SEPP has alwys been a one-man-band, that one man being Fred Singer of course (Do you know the dirt about Singer? He was once sane. BTW, if you're here from wiki, don't miss a post I did on Lindzen).
But being a one-man-band makes it look like you're a wacko (err...) so obviously you need an organisation, and obviously that organisation needs a board of directors, science advisors, you know the kind of thing: pad it out with some names to look impressive. So Singer did, the SEPP website proudly proclaims:
The following serve on the Board of Directors of The Science & Environmental Policy…
stoat | April 29, 2010At last! I have a chance to be nice to Curry, which I've been waiting for. This opportunity is her comment reply to my comment question over at c-a-s, viz:
I find the main text of the WG1 Report to be an accurate assessment of the science. The problem that I have with the WG1 Report is the summary narratives (executive summary, summary for policy makers) where all this is integrated and summarized. My main issue with the WG1 report is that I think that many of confidence levels are too high: there is inadequate scientific uncertainty analysis, and lack of accounting for known unknowns and…
stoat | March 30, 2010The HoC inquiry into the CRU hack has reported. Judging from BBC radio 4 this morning (which interviewed Acton and then Lawson, no, not the wobbly one) the results are good: I say this because Lawson showed a distinct disinclination to talk about what the report actually said :-).
I'll expand this post later with more, so don't complain if it changes. My initial impression is that is is fairly good, and certainly provides the right headlines, but I can't yet endorse it whole-heartedly - it looks like they have made some errors (in the matter of blaming Jones for the data sharing). But I need…
stoat | February 4, 2010Well, he is this one. But not this one. In the news, he is Former IPCC Leader Says Climategate Scientists "Manipulated data." and the "head of the International Technical Review Panel for IPCC's first report".
The latter is what interests me. What is it? I am just about old enough to remember IPCC '90, and indeed I have a paper copy, WG I of course, provided free of charge by the nice Hadley folk. I should have got them to autograph it. In it I find no mention of the said panel. There was the WG I core team co-ordination, who were at the Hadley, but what is the panel? A search of www.ipcc.ch…