Bishop Hill Geographical magazine does climate
Mar 22, 2014 Climate: Surface Greens Geographical, the members magazine of the Royal Geographical Society has a climate change supplement ("Climate Change. Here...Now...") out with its current issue.
You know things are bad when you can find things to object to on the contents page, but this is the measure of just how awful it is. There above the contents we see the image that appeared on the cover of Nature when it published Eric Steig's paper that purported to have found warming in West Antartica - a result that a subsequent paper showed to be a function of erroneous methodology rather than the underlying data. It's as if the "compelling image" was simply too good to miss.
The same image appears later, but larger, later on, heading up an article about the Antarctic by a freelance journalist called Mark Rowe. This opens as follows:
The science is emphatic - parts of Antarctica are among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth.
And tells us that
...a recently compiled temperature record for Byrd Station in West Antarctica revealed a linear increase in annual temperature between 1958 and 2010 that amounted to a total rise of about 2.4°C.
This is a fascinating claim, but particularly when put in the context of this old Climate Audit post by Ryan O'Donnell, the mathematician who headed the team that wrote the response to Steig. This reveals that Byrd Station is actually two separate records that may or may not get spliced together. Either way, O'Donnell was discussing trends that are considerably smaller than those mentioned in Geographical. I wonder what jiggery-pokery has been going on with the data since then?
It's a similar story when, in a separate article, Rowe discusses changes in the Arctic. We are told that "scientists are all but certain" the changes in ice extents are "attributable to to anthropogenic climate change" (What? Including the 2007 changes in currents and the 2012 storm?).
There's so much to enjoy here - articles on sea level rise, ocean heat content, spring arriving earlier, droughts, and even an offering from Stephan Lewandowsky, the whole thing interspersed with advert after advert for long-haul holidays.
Reader Comments (33)
It's as if the "compelling image" was simply too good to miss.
The Hockey Stick. ??? as well.
There's one rule of temperature measurement globally which is always found to be true:
The temps get warmer where the thermometers ain't.
I'm sure the long-haul flights are offset by investments in US forests that then can be converted to pellets to fuel UK power stations. All done with minimal "carbon" footprint. So nothing to worry about there.
Presumably some of the long haul holidays will be flights over Antarctica to examine the sea ice extent. It's far better to observe it with canapes and chardonnay at 10, 000 feet for an hour or so rather than ponce about stuck in it for a couple of weeks with the grown up ankle biters and other assorted odds and ends.
Byrd station has only about 10% of actual observations during the 1970s and from 1988-2008 only about 60%. They did what they call reanalysis to fill in the blanks. This is supposed to be done by comparing to observations from other nearby stations. With the two nearest stations about 1100 km away I wouldn't give a plug nickel for their figures.
Here is the monthly result color-coded by type. http://polarmet.osu.edu/Byrd_recon/
Most members of the RGS only join because when they cash your cheque you can put FGRS after your name, they even list it a one of the advantages of joining.
If you see someone who only has the letters FGRS after their name it mans their ego exceeds their CV.
will the Met Office debunk all this garbage now, or shall we wait for when the Daily Mail will include Geographical as a free bonus magazine?
In summary, more persons of negotiable integrity getting paid to write alarmist lies about "climate change".
There's nothing about that supplement I don't like.
According to his web site Rowe also does pieces for the Independent. Buff said!
It's as if the "compelling image" was simply too good to miss.
The image is compelling enough to convince the RGS apparently. Beyond a certain threshold, replicative success of narrative/images will win over verifiability (factual content). Fuel for cultural entities like CAGW.
That's nuff, not buff 😂 , damm predictive text.
"FGRS"
Is Mohamed Al Fayed a member, then?
Why are the polar regions so important to the climos?
Are the poles major food-growing areas? No.
Are they important economically - maybe for minerals? coal? oil? gas? timber? No - not today.
Do many people live there ? No.
Do we know anyone who lives there ? No.
Do we ever drive past there en-route to somewhere else ? No.
This starting to get to the reason why they are so important to the climos.
It's because it's very easy to exaggerate or even lie about what's going on there. Ordinary people just have no idea if the ice is all gone or the polar bears are all dead or the penguins have disappeared. We have no experience of these areas so it's much harder to sense if someone is exaggerating or lying.
Another paper claiming temperature rises was based on model output, it turned out. The data monitors were not found because they were covered in several feet of snow. So the claimers used models and temperature data from outside the region to compute the ''rise''.
GIGO in action.
And once the polar regions become important (even "iconic") then they are important just because they are important. That's how group-think works.
Paging Richard Betts,
He can't be on holiday again already, so I guess he is free to comment/correct.
- My opinion it is the warmists with their tobacco corp tactics again.
...for them it all dirty PR ....not about the science
They have a paywalled online discussion WIRES climate change
- check all the loaded headings in the contents like "stop carbon capture... Reduce fossil fuel subsidies" etc.
The green/left Trojan horse has entered every formerly respected organisation
yourclimateyourlife.org.uk/
RGS operated Climate Change website
aimed at kids
"Humans are changing current climate through the production of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide. In 2004, CO2 made up 85% of the UK’s greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere"
.. don't confuse their little brains by mentioning water vapour
Mar 22, 2014 at 11:58 AM | Jack Hughes
Yes, iconic indeed. And icons align folks, reinforcing a range of pyschological phenomena including groupthink.
The Geographical magazine website
how it sells advertising to advertisers
......our readers "£6,000 = average spend on travel a year"
Top of their list of directories is their : Green Travel Resort Directory
No I am completely wrong as I can see their blog is full of right wing ideas here
latest 3 posts
Is that supplement online?
I cannot find it
They don't even get their geography right.
From the Gornergletscher article:
"Towering above the Alpine villages of Switzerland, Italy and France, the imposing peaks of the Matterhorn and its neighbours have long been a Mecca for mountaineers and explorers alike. "
The nearest French village is about 150 km away, as the Matterhorn is in the Swiss-Italy border, far from France.
'Geographical', 'New Scientist', 'Nature' - not naughty but crude.
Hard porn, for the climate groupies of alarmism, freshers novices/junior NGO officials. Not to mention, the tofu munching University senior
lechers.... lecturers thirsting for departmental kudos on [taxpayer funded] adventure and government sponsored "global warming - it's real!" field trips to theAndes, HimalayasThai beaches or some far flung 5* Hotel in all points North, South, West, East.'Geographical' - get on the climate gravy train and geddit now!
@Patagon , I couldn't supplement online, maybe it's available to subscribers
Yes Geographical is the Sciam, New Scientist low standard ala it's about selling advertising , not real science.. Yes I saw bad science and bad English e.g. "out stunning"
Try this one Patagon
http://view.vcab.com/?vcabid=ghaSelrjjScllchah
yep @Martyn .That's the correct link to the RGS climate scare porn supplement. Hint click thumbs to see a quick overview
- Helps me add to the list of companies that I buycott, cos they support the scam
Bob Koss, thanks for the Byrd data. I can see why they picked 1958 instead of 1957 or 1959 or 1980.
1957 -27.6
1958 -29.1
1959 -27.5
1980 -24.2
2010 -27.3
When the RGS set up a debate with the Spectator in 2011 they were roundly defeated.. Simon Singh didn't do so well, he just used the fallacy of appeal to authority throughout
Carbon Brief
Bish
comment on spectator article ..working Spectator link
Thanks Martyn,
I only had a quick look but it is a bit disappointing to see the repetition of cliché after cliché with no serious thinking behind. The main conclusion is that the world has warmed since the end of the Little Ice Age. Impressive achievement.
Not surprisingly, I like the bit about Patagonian glaciers, "the overwhelming majority is retreating". I wonder if they know that when retreating they are revealing the remnants of fully grown forests belonging to the Medieval Warming Period (http://www.clim-past.net/8/403/2012/cp-8-403-2012.pdf Figure 4).
All in all, more sensationalistic than scientific, but well, it is Geography after all, one of the disciplines that has suffered most the postmodernist corruption of thought.
I Wonder what would be the opinion of the earlier members of the RGS, what would be the comments of Scott or Shackelton.
Delingpole annilatedSinghs performance in that RGS debate
- Singh's reply
(dammed Spectator screwed up all it's hyperlinks)
Bruce,
Good eye. You'd think once in awhile they wouldn't start with the year most favorable to them. No shame I guess.
The elevation differences between stations are also quite different. The two closest stations are Amundsen(S Pole), elevation 2835 meters and Gill, elevation 30 meters. With both being about 1100 kilometers from Byrd which is at an elevation 1515 meters, I find it hard to believe the missing data filled in for Byrd has any validity.
An otherwise very informative and enjoyable monthly magazine is consistently spoilt by the climate change alarmism which infects it. There is a Climate Watch two-page section in every issue which contains only alarmist "news" items with no attempt at balance.
Thanks for the link Martyn.
gotta love Lew, always good for a laugh.
Lew quoted on the CONTRIBUTORS page -
"He says that his research into denial has made him more skeptical about his own thought processes.
"I constantly check whether my opinions are unduly influenced by my world views, and whether I'm overlooking inconvenient data" he says."
with a smirk on his face no doubt, what a guy.
At 12:06 on the 22, stewgreen was paging Richard Betts. I thought he meant the American guitar player Forrest Richard "Dickey" Betts:
Search videos for – Jessica +“allman brothers” –
Had to look up the UK one.