Bishop Hill Lawson vs Hoskins
Feb 13, 2014 Climate: Surface Climate: WG2 GWPF Nigel Lawson was on the Today programme this morning, up against Brian Hoskins of the Grantham Institute.
Hoskins was reasonably circumspect about the link between global warming and the recent floods. However, some of his peripheral insinuations were seriously dodgy - sea level rise (trend began before global warming), Arctic sea ice (claimed that last year's minimum hadn't been seen for a very, very, long time; and what about the Antarctic?), insinuations that we can detect a changing climate here in the UK.
Good that Lawson got in a pop at renewables.
Here's the audio.
Bishop Hill
Re the Arctic sea ice, Doug McNeall points out that when he said "in the summer" he may not have meant last summer, but something more like "in summers". This is a reasonable interpretation.
Reader Comments (84)
Sea level rise and the diminishing trend in Arctic sea ice are some of the more certain impacts of a warming world Andrew. You won't get much traction on those.
We've been over the differences between the Arctic and Antarctic so many times now - both in the systems themselves, and the uncertainties. I suggest Emily Shuckburgh's comments to the CCC in the IPCC review are a good place to start. You could always read the relevant bit of the IPCC if you'd like to know why there are differences between the two systems.
[I understand that there are differences. I also understand that the prediction was that the Antarctic ice was to reduce too.]
Lawson did very well. I agree that Hoskins pushed speculative ideas as facts. When Lawson mentioned the pause, Hoskins insinuated that the heating was still taking place, albeit not showing up in the temperature record.
When Lawson said that was speculation, Webb of the Biased BBC immediately started shouting him down in support of Hoskins.
I also noticed that the BBC didn't mention Hoskin's Grantham connection.
Good old Lord Lawson. He made Hoskins look like the alarmist and deceptive numpty that he really is. 3 to 5 degree by end of century and 0.5 to 1m sea level rise! I loved the last 10s of it. The heat's hiding in the oceans -oh yes it is fact, oh no it isn't, it is speculation. We need the Pantomine Dame to tell us it's behind us.
Which is this warming world that Doug tells us about? It's not the one I'm living on.
The glib positions of warmists who can explain everything AFTER it happens are not convincing. If Doug would like to hang around and really discuss what is happening, or give falsifiability criteria, it would be very welcome. Otherwise it all looks like a post-hockey stick.
There has been warming since the last ice age. That cannot be blamed on man made climate change.
We need the Pantomine Dame to tell us it's behind us.
Sligo was on TV last night doing just that.
"Sea level rise and the diminishing trend in Arctic sea ice are some of the more certain impacts of a warming world Andrew. "
Strange how many zealots like to talk about the effects of a warming world whilst meaning AGW, but deliberately avoiding explicitly stating it. There is no real argument about whether the world has warmed a little but there is a huge debate as to whether man significantly affects climate.
Insinuation, obscuration, dishonesty, etc are the hallmarks of the climate "scientist"!
"the last 10s of it"
Even Webb had to conclude that it was all a combination of speculation and measurement. Quite a step for the BBC.
Grantham Institute, set up by rich guy hopping to use AGW to make him very rich , exactly the type of money 'conflict ' that we are told is a major issue when it comes to AGW sceptics. Despite the fact there is no actual sign of AGW sceptics being ‘cash rich ‘
But in the name of ‘the cause ‘ all things are justified , is this religion or science you decide?
Good heavens, what motivates people to continue to talk the Hoskins way?
He must be a thinking person to have got to where he is. Yet when it comes to climate change, his critical thinking ability seems to depart,
The dogma says that we have a recent abundance of extreme events. I've not seen this confirmed, or even data to suggest it. I have seen an increase in the number of old accounts of weather being searched and an increase in the number of people looking all over the world for a daily record of hot or cold or wet or dry at some place since some year and by how much, even a lot of extra, recent talk about almost records, up to the 25th on record for goodness sake.
Sir Brian, can't you see that we are hearing more about extreme events partly because many more people are looking for them and reporting them?
Heisenberg, in another world, knew of the dangers of the measurement method upsetting the value. He used the German word for "Uncertainty".
But that was in the days of classical science.
Bish: You may have noticed that towards the end of the 'debate' Justin Webb started going off on what I consider to be the new direction (after AGW morphed into GW into CC): The precautionary principle. He tried to get Hoskins and Lawson to agree that even if it can't be agreed that man is causing 'CC' we should anyway continue with all the mitigation plans, CO2 reduction, and other ridiculous (my word) interventions - just in case.
The Mail yesterday reported on the flooding problems, and the fact that the Thames barrier had been closed 29 times in the last 10 weeks, which is some kind of record.
Of course, the barrier is closed at low tide to provide a low pool on the river side into which the Thames can continue to drain all day, whereas if left open, the tide would back up the river flow as far as Teddington. This river water is then flushed to sea around the next low when the barrier is temporarily opened.
But the caption to a map of flooded London is captioned "How London would be affected by flooding from rising sea levels without the Thames Barrier".
It's got nothing to do with sea level rise! The typical journo obsession with linking everything to climate change!
Perhaps Doug McNeall or Richard, or anyone else, could explain to us the idea that the heat is hiding in the ocean depths without registering any increase in temperature in the lower atmosphere, land or ocean surface.
Not a bad interview, but I was more struck by an earlier BBC R4 program this week, Michael Portillo on the Great War of Words. Not directly CC related, but what interested make was the bit from about 23 minutes in where they talked about the propaganda efforts the German state made in the 20s and 30s to "prove" they didn't start the war and were the innocent parties. Regardless of whether that was right or wrong, the key thing was the academics who were lined up and paid to write books and articles in periodicals supporting the state view and ignoring any documents or evidence that didn't support it. Dissent was impossible in Germany in that climate (heh) at that time.
Anyone who tells you that academics are pure as the driven snow should be forced to listen to it. Very interesting.
"Sea level rise and the diminishing trend in Arctic sea ice are some of the more certain impacts of a warming world Andrew. You won't get much traction on those."
Yes, we are, of course in an interglacial period, Mr McNeall. That might have something to do with it. Rising sea level is mainly an engineering problem in which the Dutch for centuries have shown us the way.
Your warmist discussion points brought to you today courtesy of Doug's Drivebys. Never knowingly understood.
This is reported in the Telegraph
It will be interesting to hear what Climate Change expert Ed Davey has to say about us later today.
Here's the transcript:
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20140213_r4
"Your warmist discussion points brought to you today courtesy of Doug's Drivebys. Never knowingly understood."
Not far wrong rhoda, I had the pleasure of him mocking me with juvenile monosyllabic responses on twitter a few days ago - I guess he thought all his friends would think him a hoot.
Some time back he came up with the notion on his blog that a lack of statistical significance in the climate signal was not the best way of measuring it - gets around the "pause" neatly I suppose, or even the statistical significance of 0.8C change in a 150 year time series. Doug came up with the notion of "scientific significance" which went unexplained, but one has to assume it constitutes some sort of agreement between right minded scientists rather than the cold, unemotional statistical analysis of the data. I'm all for innovation, but a number of questions popped into my mind, one of which was the rise in temperature between 1880 and 1940 scientifically significant? - it was a genuine enquiry meant to tickle out what "scientifically significant" is. Doug responded all right by telling me that that was a very interesting question. Last I'd heard of it till last week when I saw he'd said that statistical significance wasn't the be all and end all and tried to engage him again. Alas, he thought it would be more entertaining to try to make fun of me. More fool me I suppose.
Doug McNeall -
The differences between the Arctic and Antarctic are indeed considerable, and apparent. However, you make it sound as though the effects of these differences are *obvious*, so that e.g., one should expect sea ice to diminish in the Arctic but not in the Antarctic. However, you must be aware that AR4 WG1 predicted large declines at both poles. So the effects certainly aren't self-evident. AR5 talks of "the inability of almost all of the available models to reproduce the overall increase of the Antarctic sea ice areal coverage observed during the satellite era." The conclusion which I draw, is that GCMs aren't quite "there" yet.
What conclusions are you drawing from the Antarctic?
With the Panto Dame in charge at the Met Office, I wouldn't trust anything any of her minions says, regardless of whether or not they've been given one of her awards..
Alex Cull -
Thanks for the transcript. I have to ask -- are you just really good at transcribing (perhaps shorthand?) or do you use an automated system? You're very quick with these.
Geronimo
"Some time back he came up with the notion on his blog that a lack of statistical significance in the climate signal was not the best way of measuring it "
Isn't that what all astrologers do?
I agree that Brian Hoskins is one of the more reasonable alarmists and on a personal basis he is courteous and civilised. However, what cannot be denied is that he fully collaborated with Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, Tim Osborn, John Mitchell, and Miles Allen to frustrate the FOIA disclosure of the dirty tricks done to cover up the retrospective change of rules that allowed Wahl and Ammann to be cited to discredit McIntyre and McKitrick.
Unlike the others, in Hoskins case, his FOIA officer was not aiding and abetting his refusal but was denied all access to his emails by Hoskins despite his repeated requests and warnings of the consequences. After Climategate and the intervention of the Information Commissioner’s Office, Hoskins was forced to release no less than 368 emails. In his ‘release’ email of 20 May 2010 the Universities FOIA officer wrote:
For me, the WGI Omertà is by far the most powerful reason for distrusting the lot of them.
HaroldW,
I really don't mean to imply that the effect of the differences should be obvious, but Andrew and I have discussed the fact that there are real differences before on twitter.
Really, I'm saying that 1) you shouldn't just lump them in together, and 2) there is good information to be found out there on why this is the case.
I suspect that the reason that they *do* get lumped in together is that the differences are not immediately apparent to most people (or indeed me, before I learned about it). Warming == ice melting, right?
geronimo, my apologies (again) if you were offended. I have to choose which discussions to get involved in. So much internet, so little time.
Doug
Sea level rise and the diminishing trend in Arctic sea ice are some of the more certain impacts of a warming world Andrew. "
When was this Doug. You been drinking the cool aide out of the Met Off water dispensers?
Harold
I think Alex went on the same typing course as Bob ‘fast fingers’ Ward...
@ HaroldW and jamesp, thanks! No shorthand, just quick typing - must compare notes with Bob, some day, as to how to avoid RSI...
Have experimented with voice-to-text software, from time to time, but tend to find it awkward and not very fast.
"I suspect that the reason that they *do* get lumped in together is that the differences are not immediately apparent to most people (or indeed me, before I learned about it). Warming == ice melting, right?"
That's why current protestations look like post-facto rationalisation. Don't you see that? If the warmist scientists ever got their predictions right instead of finding convenient explanations afterwards it would increase their chances of evading mockery. Thus I observe that some things are 'not immediately apparent' because they are rubbish.
One of the problems in modern-day interactions is the use of weasel words to subvert comprehension. An example is the 'apology' above: "geronimo, my apologies [...] if you were offended."
I would have a lot more time for the person who can face his/her short-comings and say: "I am sorry for offending you. I shall endeavour not to do it again."
"Sea level rise and the diminishing trend in Arctic sea ice are some of the more certain impacts of a warming world Andrew. You won't get much traction on those."
As HaroldW points out above, these are not self-evident. 'Warming' might have been taking place which you attributed to CO2 (even without saying it).
TO Doug McNeal, the furthest north any normal hulled ship has sailed was in August 1938. I haven't time to search out the data, it was a Russian navy ship. It was reported in the New York Times by their Moscow correspondent during that month.
With regard to sea level rise, almost certainly due to an increasing depth of the warm top few hundred metres, however, the rate of sea level rise has not increased since records started long before any possible effects from CO2.
Arctic sea-ice decrease: under-predicted
Antarctic sea-ice increase: under-predicted
Global temperature stall: under-predicted
Greenland, Antarctic, sea level rise: too slow for anyone to mentally grasp
Since the rate of sea-level rise has been quite steady over the modern CO2-emitting era, it is more - to borrow a currently fashionable metspeak term - "consistent with" a low sensitivity framework. Plenty of traction there for sceptics.
Alex
“voice-to-text software”
This is often claimed (in a strange echo of AGW) to be 95 or 97% accurate, which sounds impressive until you realise that every 20 or 30th word will be screwed up and require manual editing, which utterly defeats the object. Then there’s the punctuation.. :-)
Doug McNeall -
Thanks for the response. I agree with the "Warming == ice melting, right?" comment -- it's a normal first reaction, but needs to be tempered with the realization that few things in climate are straightforward. One sees much the same near-reflexive, sound-bite response in other areas as well, e.g. "Greenland/Antarctica is melting", "Warmer means more hurricanes".
Alex Cull -
No shorthand and no computer-aiding? Very impressive!
I confess that I normally wince when Lord Lawson is on air - he sounds too much like a slightly pissed aristocrat to have any gravitas. But I thought he was excellent here.
By the way, has anyone managed to get past the first page of his book 'An Appeal to Reason'? I keep trying, and failing.I then have to go and read 'Watermelons' again to clear my head.
Feb 13, 2014 at 11:41 AM Harry Passfield
100% agree
"THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED" ran the mantra
then you get a scientist Hoskins on and he talks about the feelings (not science) "I think the reasonable person should look at this event"
BS mate, PUT-UP your science , or SHUT-UP !
Lawson was cut off with interruption
Hoskins : sidestepped direct question ..OK so he's doing PR not science, today ?
LL : "All I blame them for is pretending they know, when they don't." Key phrase
- focus on preparing for actual problems, rather than fantasy explanations (my paraphrase)
Webb: "Well, that's - oh yeah, there is a lot of controversy about that (the pause) "...Em that's an activist speaking not a journalist ..he never talks that way to an anti-fracker, does he ? ...Lawson stood up to him and he had to back down
Hoskins " if we go on like we are - that temperatures are going to rise somewhere 3 to 5 degrees by the end of this century, sea levels up to half to one metre rise" - em that's Alarmist dirty PR talk, not science ..that is not the reality so far, nor the IPCC "scientific" predicitions
Hoskins: (heat hiding in oceans) : "No, it's a measurement (not speculation)".. He just deceived the great British Public ..lie or incompetent ?
Webb: "Well, it's a combination of the two, isn't it".. He too, just deceived the great British Public ..lie or incompetent ?
..If Webb hadn't stopped it Lawson could have nailed them both
Oh Charlie, you disappoint me. An Appeal to Reason is lucid and easy to read, in my opinion, certainly compared to The View from No.11, his pretty massive tome about his time as chancellor. It's a lovely demolition job of Stern, as well.
Charlie Flindt
Nigel Lawson's "An Appeal to Reason" is really a critical [look at] Sterns flawed work. It is looking at the economic consequences of taking measures to combat/mitigate AGW. So you can't expect much science.
Unfortunately, Lawson gets a change in Temperature conversion (from Celcius to Fahrenheit) badly wrong! E.g. page 15.
Brian Hoskins: Absolutely, and we have to be very careful to not say "Oh, there's records everywhere, therefore climate is changing". But we're very sure that the temperature's risen by about 0.8 degrees, the Arctic sea ice has reached a minimum level in the summer, which hasn't been seen for a very, very long time, the Greenland ice sheet and the West Antarctic ice sheet have been measured to be decreasing. There's all the signs that WE are changing this climate system.
Logical fallacy of post hoc justifications
- show us predictions ..or you look like quacks .."ice melting" quack, "oceans rising fast" quack, quack
"sea levels up to half to one metre rise" ..what the hell does that contradiction mean ? Hoskins uses the magic word "upto" and then adds an upper limit
- If I say "Hoskins lies upto 20% to 100% of the time" ..does that make sense ?
also his 20cm sea level rise in the last century does that stack up ?
It sounds like a "sexed up" number not science
..quick glance at graph says quite a lot less eg 15cm globally
Sea Levels:the truth.
If temperatures were to remain steady for years the seas would still rise. Rivers transport billions of tonnes of sediment into the sea. This displaces water causing a rise. Sea level rise is a fact of life.
Alarmists will still throw this into the mix emphasizing that the rise is increasing. WRONG. Sea level rise has had a slight reduction over the last 20 years according to Prof. Nils Axil Morner the world expert on sea levels.
Just clarify something for me. Water expands on freezing and floating ice has the major proportion below sea level When it melts, what volume does it displace? Free floating ice should not have any effect on seal level as it melts in my book. Am I right?
Feb 13, 2014 at 12:59 PM | Charming Quark
Unfortunately, Lawson gets a change in Temperature conversion (from Celcius to Fahrenheit) badly wrong! E.g. page 15.
I had a look and he gets it spot on right to the first place of decimals, which he's quoting it to, (1C = 1.8F ).
Remember he's talking about a shift in temperature not an absolute temperature.
John Marshall
You can't believe a word Morner says. Doesn't he believe in water divining or some such? Anyway, he's definitely not "one of us" so he can't possibly be right.
They all seem to be missing the point which we should press home.
Yes climate change will affect the weather to some degree but there is no evidence that climate change its self is in anyway caused by man-made CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The empirical evidence is that it is caused by natural variations over which we have no control. If we just deny that climate change can affect the weather we would not be on firm ground. The alarmist cleverly link climate change per say to climate change caused by man.
O/T a little but readers here might not know about a very historical and diastrous storm which hit Ireland way back in 1839, even before I was born.
In Ireland it is know as "The night of the big wind".
It does show perhaps, that storms in These islands are NOT unprecedented.
PM
The Night of the Big Windwww.met.ie/climate-ireland/weather-events/Jan1839_Storm.PDFCached
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The 'Night of the Big Wind' in Ireland, 6-7 January 1839. Lisa Shields and Denis Fitzgerald. Meteorological Service,. Dublin 9. ABSTRACT. The notorious storm ...