Bishop Hill Diary dates, moving on edition
Dec 18, 2014 Bureaucrats Climate: MetOffice Julia Slingo is to give the Cabot lecture in Bristol on 4 February (details here). Here's the trailer:
The impact of human activity on our climate has become increasingly clear: with the IPCC stating that “Human influence on the climate system is unequivocal”. It has become clear that we are taking the planet into uncharted territory and changing the risk of extreme weather and climate events. Our exposure to these risks is also changing as a result of changes in how we live and a rapidly growing global population.
Climate science is now moving beyond questions of global average surface temperature change, and is now responding to questions about whether extreme weather such as heat waves, wet winters or flash flooding will become more or less frequent as the climate changes. This change in thinking requires the science to move on to more complex and high resolution simulations of what our climate is likely to be like across timescales from decades to centuries ahead.
This information allows society to make informed decisions about climate change mitigation and adaptation, and will help communities to prepare for weather and climate extremes across timescales.
Professor Dame Julia Slingo, Met Office Chief Scientist, will give this Cabot Institute lecture co-organised by Bristol Festival of Ideas and part of Bristol 2015. The talk will include a panel discussion from some leading Cabot academics and an opportunity for questions from the audience at the end. Julia Slingo will be made a special Cabot Institute Distinguished Fellowship in honour of her work in climate science at the event.
You have to laugh at the idea of global warming science moving beyond such simplistic questions as whether the globe's surface is actually warming. No doubt this change of emphasis is unconnected to the failure of the said surface to actually, erm, get any warmer.
The correspondent who alerted me to this event wondered if the Q&A session would consist solely of planted questions, as was the case for Mann's appearance. It's more than likely. Public servants are not there to be questioned by mere members of the public.
Reader Comments (120)
John Shade
Vicky is the first to admit that she got it wrong about the Smith et al (2007) decadal forecast paper.
The farmers weekly article you link to has embellished my paper quite considerably - probably because of getting the story second-hand from the Daily Telegraph who had already embellished it somewhat.
Richard
I had my hand up - so did katabasis. (katabasis asked a tough question at Cook's and I was sitting next to him)
Lewandowsky was hunting around the audience, no doubt recognising faces from the Mann lecture.. he looked through us a few times - not many hands were actually up. not many to choose from
There were less hands up at Mann's, and many fewer questions were asked, because the organiser closed q/a quicker than I think anybody was expecting (much less than Cook's) for booksigning. Perhaps the sceptics were patiently politelywaiting their turn, only 4 people asked questions (some people got 2, and make long statements)
I noticed that the Cabot Institute, have put both Mann and Cook's lectures on line now, but have not shown any of the Q/A in the video..
The Walker Institute, by comparison, with its annual lecture, by Sir Mark Walport, included the entire q/a session, including mine, and katabasis' tough question..
At the Mann lecture, the organizer held the microphone, having learnt not to let go of it at the Cook lecture (ie Katabais had responded to Cook's non answer, and actually had a bit of discussion.
RB:
Does that mean their outcomes are that much simpler and simply less accurate? I mean, when I wrote my Pools Prediction program (all those years ago :-)), if I'd left out the 'goals: for/against' I'm pretty sure it would have been a lot less predictive than it actually was.Without me reading through WG1 AR5 perhaps Richard Betts or anyone could tell me what is the evidence that anthropogenic influence is clearer than in WG1 AR4 or the previous versions. "increasingly clear" suggests a growing body of evidence, whereas I see a declining or at least static body of evidence.
Richard Betts
Why did Michael Mann turn up to his own talk in Bristol?
The speakers fee?
To hear, once again, he was a Nobel Prize Winner?
To boost his own self-appreciation?
So he could boast that he stunned the sceptics into silence with his creativity?
When someone is merrily digging their own grave, why take their spade away? I am sure his performance gave him great confidence, in his own unique skills and abilities, prior to providing his own expert account in court.
Richard Betts
Are you claiming that the GCMs that Julia is talking about ;
- are NOT simplified,stylized representations of highly-complex, real-world processes;
- and that the scenarios they produce are NOT based on uncertain projections about key events and drivers ;
- and that simplifications and differences in their assumptions are NOT the reason why output generated
from different models, or different versions of the same model, can differ;
- and that projections from Julia's CGM's can NOT differ considerably from the reality that unfolds”. ??
Irrespective of any high station, moral, save the planet type of ulterior motive, this is good business strategy.
No USP lasts forever and GAT is no longer in the ascendance, neither in actuality or as a USP.
Good business is to recognise where your USP is in its life cycle and to bring in new strategies before your present vehicle runs out of steam.
The introduction of an extreme weather strategy with its implicit links to the original GAT is a true classic. A finesse any marketing consultant worth his salt would give his eye teeth to have lit upon!
Classic, absolute classic, kudos to whoever. Tugs forelock and leaves stage left......
Richard Betts:
"Yes. The climate is already starting to become different to that previously seen in the instrumental record - not enormously different yet, but changes are becoming evident. And its clear that change (to some extent or other) will continue."
Please direct me to evidence of statistically significant changes in climate extremes based on observational data. Thanks
Richard Betts @ Bitter and Twisted.
The chapter you refer to 'here' Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional (Chapter 10) Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
My v.quick view found that it uses the word 'estimate' 74 times.
Re. Your 'agreed'. No. Let's be certain. I do not 'agree'.
I take my hat off to Sligo. She plays the game brilliantly. Betts, too, in his more modest capacity, is also no mean performer. But both should be recognised for what they are: Sligo as an inexhaustible worker of the government game, her utterances precisely tuned to its needs, in consequence startlingly good at securing ever greater funds; Betts, the worthy, put-upon man of science, yet again forced to bat away the claims of the nuttier deniers, her inevitable side-kick.
The goal, first, last and everything in between, is to reinforce their self-importance by asserting ever more pressing needs for public money, ie yours and mine.
Science plays precisely no role in this sordid transaction except to the extent to which it can be prostituted in the interests of the likes of Sligo and Betts – and of thousands of other servants of the state.
It is properly disturbing. We have a situation in which science as become no more than one other mechanism whereby the self-important can be sustained in the style to which they believe themselves to be entitled.
It costs billions, it achieves nothing, it debases us all.
Dr. Betts, while you are here!
The following question was asked of you recently at Climate Audit:
“Are the climate models (which drive the sea ice models) really going to be accurate enough over that 30-36 year interval (as required by polar bear biologists) to be valid?
In other words, is it possible for those models to be precise within the next 36 years?”
Can you spare a moment to answer even though it's off topic here? I'm working on something relevant and would appreciate a response.
Thanks!
Barry
Sure, I guess it's possible that Lewandowsky avoided Katabasis after the Cook lecture (he is quite recognisable), but avoiding someone is not the same as 'consisting solely of planted questions'. I didn't see the Bish, James Delingpole, Anthony Watts or any of the other sceptics in the audience trying to ask questions.
If everyone wanted to just sit and listen then that's fine - but I just think it's a bit of a stretch for the Bish to claim all the questions were 'planted' just because most of the people one would most expect to have challenged Mike Mann didn't try to ask anything.
Incidentally, what question were you going to ask?
RB
Talking of questions - are you going to answer my question?
Richard
Lew was looking for particular people in the audience. He was scanning the audience both before the lecture and during the Q and A.
Bish,
Was Lew scanning the audience, seeking only those, whose self esteem was spiritually enhanced, simply by being in the presence of a living deity?
Or was Lew simply demonstrating his new, improved skill, of selective science communication? A skill he has proved in his own lunchtime to be 97% more effective than any other brand of whitewash.
Banking the future of your business on the outcome of the weather would in the commercial world be best described as "brave"
However in this brave new post normal world even the ninth year running of no major hurricane making landfall in the US, could be
spun asdeemed extremeWorld’s Second Largest Reinsurer Swiss Re Sees Huge Drop In Losses From Natural/Manmade Catastrophes In 2014!
geiospeculator
In reverse order, yes, and no.
Even though global mean temperatures have been warmer than now in the distant past, there's no exact analogue for the changes we're driving now (different combinations of GHG concentrations, land cover, arrangement of continents etc).
Richard Betts sorry but given you can't even find proxies worth a dam going back thousands of years what chance you when you go back tens of millions ?
Still to be fair , head you lose , tails I win is the standard approch used by climate 'scientists' and it is Slingo who signs off Betts pay cheque , so even if he really thinks she is talking out of her back end he can hardly say so on what Slingo , , who never finds the term problematic, would call a 'denier' site.
Always worth remember that good scientists very rarely end of as the 'head of' anything its those with taste for admin and politics that tend to rise to the top , sometimes because when it comes down to it they frankly are not very good at science in the first place.
KNR, you said it. And never forget the role of grasping politicians, desperate for some claim to lasting significance to offset their limitless ignorance. Sligo and her like are an godsend to them. Ditto almost all government departments, bursting to extend their reach.
Green Sand
This sounds like a win/win situation for climate science. Highly tax payer funded climate scientists predict more damage due to worse weather. Insurance companies up their premiums to take this into account, and then, nothing out of the ordinary happens!! Some insurance companies then pay for more climate science reports making similar predictions! It is pure genius!
Everyone is a winner! Apart from those who had to pay tax, and those who had to pay raised insurance premiums. Please note that people who had to pay for the scam, don't matter, as they might have objected , and must be ignored.
ps
Insurance companies seem to get the best climate science they can buy.
Richard Betts - "Which particular points do you disagree with, and why?"
These:
1) The impact of human activity on our climate has become increasingly clear: with the IPCC stating that “Human influence on the climate system is unequivocal”.
"Agreed - see here."
Nope - my pdf search of that 86 page document only comes up with one hit for "equivocal":
//
Observations alone indicate, unequivocally, that the Earth has warmed, but to quantify how different external factors have contributed to this warming, studies must compare such observations with the expected responses to these external factors.
//
The phrase "Human influence on the climate system is" does not yield any hits - do you have a reference in those 86 pages to support your wording?
2) "Yes. The climate is already starting to become different to that previously seen in the instrumental record - not enormously different yet, but changes are becoming evident. And its clear that change (to some extent or other) will continue."
Nope - three claims in that sentence without any supporting specific references. I disagree and ask you to provide your specific definitions and evidence.
3) "Our exposure to these risks is also changing as a result of changes in how we live and a rapidly growing global population."
Unclear - If "these risks" are "[and changing] the risk of extreme weather and climate events." Please can you provide your definition of risk and evidence of change? If you are claiming that through our use of technology we are able to protect ourselves from general uncontrollable risk I would say for some things I agree, others not. The claim needs specifics to make it meaningful.
4) "Climate science is now moving beyond questions of global average surface temperature change, and is now responding to questions about whether extreme weather such as heat waves, wet winters or flash flooding will become more or less frequent as the climate changes."
Nope - climate "science" is ignoring questions it can't answer and is pretending to be able to tackle others which are also beyond its reach. Again if you have references which demonstrate the success of climate "science" in answering any of the questions you mention, please provide them.
5) "This change in thinking requires the science to move on to more complex and high resolution simulations of what our climate is likely to be like across timescales from decades to centuries ahead."
Nope - I have not seen any theoretical discussion which proves that this should be possible. IMO this is nothing more than wishful thinking - can you point me to a reference with specific metrics which shows the objective of being able to produce "high resolution simulations" centuries ahead is attainable?
Thank you.
As Dr Betts is seagulling here, maybe he can respond to Klein in a guest article:
Naomi Klein runs amok, calls skeptics white supremacists
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/12/naomi-klein-runs-amok-calls-skeptics-white-supremacists/
Golf Charlie
Read it all:-
The $82 Billion Prediction
Richard - you forgot to respond to the bit, where said people were merely waiting there turn! - only 4 people were able to ask questions.
ie lots had gone to the Cook lecture, where there had been a very long Q/A session...
Mann was cut short, just after a question (statement) from an organiser of the People Climate March, so that Mann could get on with the book signing.. it was disappointing not to be able to ask many questions..
Anthony made it clear why he wasn't going to ask questions, not least as awkward for him,due to his hearing loss putting him at a disadvantage. Anyway, he was in the UK for other reasons anyway!
Richard, given your response to my questions, I have one more.
How do you sleep at night?
And perhaps you would like to look at this;
Esper, J., Duthorn, E., Krusic, P.J., Timonen, M. and Buntgen, U. 2014. Northern European summer temperature variations over the Common Era from integrated tree-ring density records. Journal of Quaternary Science 29: 487-494.
http://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb09climatology/files/2012/03/Esper_2014_JQS.pdf
Here is the key quote
"Our new composite reconstruction reveals warmer conditions
during Roman, Medieval and recent times, separated by prolonged cooling during the Migration period and Little
Ice Age. Twentieth century warmth, as indicated in one of the existing density records, is reduced in the new
reconstruction, also affecting the overall, millennial-scale, cooling trend over the late Holocene (0.30 °C per
1000 years)."
Now stop jerking us around- you have lost what little credibility you had.
The impact of human activity on our climate has become increasingly clear: with the IPCC stating that “Human influence on the climate system is unequivocal”. It has become clear that we are taking the planet into uncharted territory and changing the risk of extreme weather and climate events.
Looks like a load of hysterical BS to me.
Golf Charlie
I also pay tax and insurance premiums.
Incidentally, as O Bothe pointed out on Twitter the other day, 'scam' is equivalent to 'denier' in terms of shutting the door on sensible debate.
Bishop Hill
If you say so - neither of us can prove it either way. I would have been more easily convinced if there had been a forest of sceptical hands, but there you go…..
Political Junkie
Well, climate models certainly aren't very precise over a 30-36 year period - uncertainty ranges are quite large. Accuracy remains to be seen - we won't know until we've seen what actually happens. Looking as previous track records over those timescales, the models of 30-40 years ago weren't bad for accuracy IMHO - the models of the 1970s overestimated warming by about 20% but personally I think that's not too bad for the time.
Geospeculator - IAMs are different beasts to GCMs. IAMs are more appropriate for investigating the environmental, economic and social impacts of postulated scenarios whereas the GCMs are attempting to investigate the climatic impacts.
Try here for a starting point - Chris Hope is an occassional reader and commenter at BH:
http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp1104.pdf
http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/faculty-a-z/chris-hope/
Starting point on background (mid 1990s) here:
http://sedac.ciesin.org/mva/MVAUG/ugwho.html
Bitter&Twisted
You are certainly living up to your pseudonym tonight, aren't you? Asking someone 'how do you sleep at night' is just trolling.
But as it happens, I sleep very well thank you. Speaking of which… goodnight all!
Night night Richard.
Interesting paper by Esper, by the way. Thanks for sharing it, although I fail to see why this should cause me to lose any sleep though, or why it affects my credibility in any way.
RB:
"Well, climate models certainly aren't very precise over a 30-36 year period - uncertainty ranges are quite large."
1) With the planet warming and cooling in roughly 30 year cycles recently this suggests the models aren't precise at all
2) When was the last time an AGW study was released with the caveat that its predictions lack precision over a three decade period?
Richard, I sleep at night because I'm not paid to argue that black is white, right is wrong, "extreme" weather is increasing and that climate models can make useful "predictions", "projections", or whatever the current meme of the day is.
This insistence on the integrity of 'the models' for policy making and estimates/forecasts/projections (call it what you want) is thoroughly picked apart by McIntyre et al here: http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/11/unprecedented-model-discrepancy/
The MET doesn't need bigger/faster computers, they need new models that reflect more closely reality ... why, even the simple Calledar model is demonstrably superior. New models will, by necessity, mean different thinking which would imply new staff capable of working within a different paradigm.
Until the talking heads at the MET can be honest with themselves, they cannot be honest with the science.
Richard Betts
Are there any "modules" "elements" "routines" (or any other such buzz words that mean "content") of yours in the insurance-industry-funded models? (for reference pls see my comment at 10.48pm above)
By yours I obviously do not just mean personally, I mean it in a wider sense. Has work done at the MO, Exeter, Reading or for example through the Met Office Academic Partnership been utilised in the the insurance-industry-funded models? Or has the industry, to the best of your knowledge, developed its own models in isolation?
Here’s an interesting experiment. It comprises of a quick and simple filter applied to strip away ulterior noise from a set of data - without any distortion or contamination of its usable signal. So robust is this method - I call it the Rapid Subjectification Filter (RSF) - I propose policy-makers should pass into law the right for any person to accurately subjectify a collective statement (ie, the data) and legally quote it as the author’s own words.
For example, we might be reasonably sure that the first three quarters of the ‘trailer’ for Julia Slingo’s lecture was authored by the Dame herself. After a light application of the RSF to the first paragraph…
'The impact of human activity on our climate has become increasingly clear: with the IPCC stating that “Human influence on the climate system is unequivocal”. It has become clear that we are taking the planet into uncharted territory and changing the risk of extreme weather and climate events. Our exposure to these risks is also changing as a result of changes in how we live and a rapidly growing global population.
… it retains all the author's intended meaning and becomes…
'The impact of other people on my climate has become increasingly clear: with those in agreement with me stating that “Other people's influence on the climate system is unequivocal”. It has become clear to me that other people are taking my planet into uncharted territory and changing my risk of extreme weather and climate events. My exposure to these risks is also changing as a result of changes in how these other people live and the rapidly growing number of them.’
Richard Betts, thank you for your response. I also pay tax, and insurance, and have worked for 5 years as an insurance loss adjuster with a background in surveying, construction and engineering. I accept that insurance is a gamble, and in the longer term the insurance companies are in the business of winning. But stacking the odds so heavily in your favour, by whipping up unnecessary fear, takes the concept of a gangland protection racket or scam, to new levels.
Has a single life been saved by scares over global warming?
I agree that advances in weather forecasting have saved many (difficult to quantify) lives, and as a yottie, I am very grateful for the 5 (?) days notice of a substantial weather system. The eastern mediterranean can turn very nasty, and being able to warn holiday makers in advance of bad weather, prevents too many spilt drinks and broken finger nails.
Ancient Egy.ptians could guestimate the size of a crop harvest, based on the height of the previous seasons Nile flood. Ancient Carthage was a rich fertile land in North Africa. Today it is desert. Either the invading Romans drove Hummers, or the climate just happened to change of its own accord.
Weather is a funny old thing
notbannedyet
CGM's and IAM's suffer from many of the same shortcomings because, in common with a large proportion of models attempting to reproduce the behaviour of complex systems :-
- they are simplified and/or stylized representations of processes that are not fully understood or accurately represented in their mathematical structure ;
- the results they produce are to a very significant extent based on uncertain projections and simplified and/ or estimated input parameters;
- projections from CGM's can , and have already, differ considerably from the reality that has unfolded.
There are inevitably simplifications and a variety of assumptions have to be made made in all mathematical models (so as to make it possible to represent a large number of interconnected variables and data ranges) thus there are error envelopes around large numbers of inputs and even if the mathematical structure of the model were perfect there would inevitably be a very low probability that the output would accurately represent the actual outcome of the real world system(s) being modelled.
Only when the input parameters are known to vey high levels of accuracy and precision and the laws governing the behaviour of the system being modelled are very precisely known and the models have repeatedly been able to accurately predict the future are they reliable - such as, for example, those used for predicting the orbits of satellites and other celestial bodies
Neither CGM's nor IAM's models are anywhere near meeting these criteria.
These constraints are not confined to climate models but also apply to many other models where the same shortcomings exist - remember how off the wall were he the modelled projections of deaths from mad cow disease, bird flu etc.
Richard Betts said;
'So are you going to go along and sit in silence and not put your hand up to ask questions, like you did for Mann's talk? ;)
I very much doubt that the questions were planted. It was more a case that nobody who would have asked him a challenging question actually did so. It was all a bit of an anti-climax to be honest!',
'
Yes, nobody seems to have asked a searching question, whether that was because they were filtered out or not I can't say.
At the Exeter climate conference I was allowed to ask my question of Thomas Stocker. He gave such a poor answer that some paleo guy came over to apologise to me and give me a 'better answer'.. Then you appeared and introduced yourself so I never heard the 'better answer' from the paleo expert.
tonyb
Dec 19, 2014 at 12:12 AM | Green Sand
There seems to some backpedaling by BIGINSURANCE ... Swiss Re looks to be getting the message:
World’s Second Largest Reinsurer Swiss Re Sees Huge Drop In Losses From Natural/Manmade Catastrophes In 2014! - http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.tOr0H5mF.dpuf
Rodger Andrews has a very interesting blog post today ...
The Nature of the “Scientific Consensus” on Climate Change
http://euanmearns.com/the-nature-of-the-scientific-consensus-on-climate-change/
It would seem that on closer examination the climate scientists™ are a little less convinced by the models.
Just posted to the "comments" on the Ideas Festival webpage (and I repeat it here so they can't pretend it wasn't made, besides which I've just seen it it on the web page).
*****
What an extraordinarily deceitful presentation this looks like being.
Here's what IPCC 5AR had to say about various matters:
1. "... the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15] °C per decade) ... is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade)." [SPM, page 3, section B.1, and in full Synthesis Report on page SYR-6]
2. "... an analysis of the full suite of CMIP5 historical simulations (...) reveals that 111 out of 114 realisations show a GMST trend over 1998–2012 that is higher than the entire HadCRUT4 trend ensemble ...." [WGI contribution, chapter 9, text box 9.2, page 769, and in full Synthesis Report on page SYR-8]
3. "There may also be a contribution from forcing inadequacies and, in some models, an overestimate of the response to increasing greenhouse gas and other anthropogenic forcing (dominated by the effects of aerosols)." [SPM, section D.1, page 13, and full Synthesis Report on page SYR-8]
4. "This difference between simulated [i.e. model output] and observed trends could be caused by some combination of (a) internal climate variability, (b) missing or incorrect radiative forcing and (c) model response error". [WGI contribution, chapter 9, text box 9.2, page 769]
In simpler terms, statement 1 tells us that the rate of warming for the 15 years from 1998 to 2012 is indistinguishable from zero; it falls somewhere between a slight warming and a slight cooling. Statement 2 says that 111 of 114 (97%) of model runs predicted greater warming than calculated from observational data from the HadCRUT4 temperature dataset.
Statement 3 admits that models exaggerate the influence of greenhouse gases. Statement 4 says that climate models might be failing for a number of very different reasons (although an obvious omission is that perhaps the models don't accurately include all natural forces).
Now given that the same flawed models are used to estimate the human influence on climate we can reasonably conclude that the IPCC (a) cannot make a credible prediction of future temperatures and (b) can have no credible notion of the magnitude of any human influence on climate.
If Slingo claims otherwise then I think she's being extremely dishonest and should be charged with fraud.
*****
A tip for those wishing to ask questions in forums.
Sit up the front and wear a bright shirt or T-shirt. Best is a bright long-sleeved shirt so that when your hand is raised it is noticed.
Richard Betts
Let's use your bouncing ball analogy and consider the trajectory of such a ball falling from a table onto the floor. Whilst on the table it has a store of potential energy higher than it has when at rest on the ground.
As it falls the PE. is converted into KE.
When it hits the floor, its kinetic energy is converted into elastic energy causing it to rebound, but to a lower height than the table due to frictional etc. losses. This will continue for a series of rebounds, each to a lower height until all its initial kinetic energy has been dissipated.
Now consider Greenland ice temperatures as an indicator of the energy of the ball (Earth) and watch the trajectory of these temperatures over time from the Minoan Warm Period. These (from GISP2) are conveniently plotted as fig.3 in "The Big Picture" on the home page ofClimate4you.com. This fig. also shows the CO2 levels from the Epica Dome ice core.
Each rebound in temperature is to a lower temperature than before. Can you explain why the cause of the final rebound from the Little Ice Age should differ from the previous rebounds? I propose (as have many others) that the observed performance is entirely due to natural causes within the accuracy of the measurements. I also propose, in view of the Epica data, that CO2 has nothing to do with any of the rebounds.
I wonder how many climate scientists are happy with blatant untruth in the first sentence: With the plateau upsetting all their projections and bringing out extensive discussions in the climate community about the extent of natural variability in the system then our impact can only be much less clear. The fact that man can affect local climate systems just by land changes even makes the 'unequivocal' statement just another misdirection.
Of course her job is to secure ever more funding for models that palpably run too hot and so have to be corrected by an aerosol bodge. We can only hope some of this money is spent on studying the jetstream which actually dictates UK weather and which caused these celebrated droughts, floods and snows of the past few years that the Met Office only managed to 'predict' a couple of days in advance, having given very misleading seasonal forecasts.
I was at the Mann Lecture sitting in the front row about 6 feet away from Lewandowsky when the Q&A session started and put my hand up immediately. Perhaps he didn't see me because his eyesight was poor but funnily enough he was able to spot someone in the gallery some 60 feet away who had just happend to have attended an IPCC meeting. The microphone eventually got to me but unfortunately he couldn't take my question as he had to close the Q&A session because they were running out of time.
Richard Betts: "Vicky is the first to admit that she got it wrong about the Smith et al (2007) decadal forecast paper."
That's nice of her. But didn't she make this forecast in 2004? And wouldn't it have been used to shape the Climate Change Act? And has she revisited her input to the IPCC and the advice she gave to Nicholas Stern on the back of this huge mistake she made in forecasting a 0.3C temperature rise by 2014? Power without responsibility.
It's not a simple matter of putting her hands up and saying "I got it wrong" it's people's lives, the cost of energy is deliberately being increased on the back of advice from the Met Office it's a serious business, and frankly, given the propaganda emanating from the Met Office they're not taking it seriously, just trying to win the politico/religious war.
In case you take that the wrong way, I'm not saying that the scientists who measure temperatures for the Met Office, who have been dishonest in the data, that's not the case. But the data has been presented in a way which is intended to sway the politicians, and if you take out the assertion, made by the IPCC with no scientific data, or methodology, that humans caused most of the temperature rise in the 20th Century (when half of it occurred between 1910 and 1940) then the use of the word "unequivocal" is - shall we say - disingenuous . Having said that Dame Slingo thinks your in the woods, so there's a case to be made for confusion.
Many senior civil servants' pronouncements these days are along the lines of "unless you give my department more money the roof will fall in". I don't know why they bother. I'm surprised the politicians don't sack a few of them for their impertinence. Some copper in Lincolnshire was at it the other day. Saying he hasn't got enough money to do the job properly is an implicit criticism of government policy. Sack the blighter. Get someone who will do the job with the tools provided. I should imagine the civil servant would be astonished to be sacked. Not only do they see their role as lobbyists for their department, they are all of the 'indispensable' mentality, ie "I could make 10x this in private sector". OK, go on then. I would love to see a few examples. Its a standard line from the BBC in particular, but its BBC officials who strike me as remarkably unemployable were it not for the BBC.
When I was a lad "extreme weather" was called a "storm." I can see why a term like "extreme weather" might be useful for including damaging weather conditions that do not necessarily involve strong winds, e.g. flash floods, but why should a heat wave or a wet winter be called extreme weather? The summer of 1976 was very unusual. Perhaps a statistician might describe it as "extreme" even though that is not a technical term, but most of us old enough to remember it enjoyed that summer and you do not normally describe things you enjoy as "extreme."
The very wet winter last year was certainly not enjoyable but even if it was the wettest for a century the adjective "extreme" sounds a bit strong. Perhaps those unfortunate people affected by the floods in Somerset regarded it as extreme but to most of us it was typical British winter weather without the intervals of respite that you would normally expect.