Bishop Hill Slingo on Bengtsson
May 19, 2014 Climate: MetOffice Climate: Sceptics Julia Slingo has a letter in the Times addressing the Bengtsson affair:
Your articles on the recent events surrounding Professor Lennart Bengtsson ("Scientists in cover-up of 'damaging' climate view", May 16) are not a true reflection of the way the climate community conducts its research. My position, and my passion, is that all scientists - no matter what their viewpoint - must be free to review and debate their research unfettered and without personal attacks.
Science is about seeking the truth and acknowledging the uncertainties in what we currently know; it cannot be about subjective, unscientific beliefs and personal attacks of the kind that some of us have had to endure.
Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming, neither do the estimates from observations as some in the climate sceptic community would claim.
I welcome scientific debate with those whose research challenges my understanding of climate change and scientists have a well established and robust peer review process for doing this. This process is there for good reason because it ensures the debate is rigorous but never personal.
Reader Comments (74)
[Snip - raise the tone please]
Good letter. Feet and fire are the words that come to mind from here on in.
the last sentence is as divorced from reality as any MO long term forecast. of course.
millions of working scientists will understand now how personal and politicised the MO and climate science have become.
Really???
Yet again climate Alarmists in the establishment prefer to disregard empircal data and deal with the theory instead.
Is she saying that Bengtsson did not get any flak?
Is she saying that observations should not be used to measure against models? Of course not, but would she care to define when they should? (Nobody has claimed these exercises give a definitive answer, that's a straw man. They do however give an indicative answer.)
Is she saying she won't talk to anybody outside of peer review? That's a bit slow and unreliable. Or has she not heard of pressure on journals to gatekeep the debate? I'm sure I have.
Does she really communicate the uncertainties when talking to policy-makers? 'Cause I know that's what politicians just LOVE to hear.
Something tells me she's going to take early retirement soonish.
There is also an accompanying article article by Ben Webster. Nothing really new in it, but it does reiterate his (Webster's) earlier statements, so those who were expecting a climbdown from him will be disappointed.
Stop the personal attacks, Met Office climate scientist pleads
The Met Office's chief scientist today appeals to all sides in the climate debate to stop making personal attacks on each other....
Her comments come after a leading climate scientist said he was forced to resign from a think-tank because he was subjected to McCarthy-style pressure from fellow academics....
Dame Julia also acknowledges the limitations of computer models....
A paper he co-wrote ... was rejected after an unnamed reviewer said that it could be used by climate sceptics.
maybe she should have a word with Vicky POpe and the Met Office who were making very strong predictions of +0.3C (cf ) 2004 by 2014. and correct all the policy documents that research appeared in..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyDmdcPw7Uw
When Vicky made that strong prediction in 2007 of +0.3C in next 7 years, it was vs 0.8C in the previous 160 yrs!
(no caveats, about uncertainty back then)
http://web.archive.org/web/20080708230357/http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20070810.html
News release
10 August 2007
The forecast for 2014...
Climate scientists at the Met Office Hadley Centre will unveil the first decadal climate prediction model in a paper published on 10 August 2007 in the journal Science. The paper includes the Met Office's prediction for annual global temperature to 2014.
Over the 10-year period as a whole, climate continues to warm and 2014 is likely to be 0.3 °C warmer than 2004. At least half of the years after 2009 are predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record
These predictions are very relevant to businesses and policy-makers who will be able to respond to short-term climate change when making decisions today. The next decade is within many people's understanding and brings home the reality of a changing climate.
The new model incorporates the effects of sea surface temperatures as well as other factors such as man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, projected changes in the sun's output and the effects of previous volcanic eruptions — the first time internal and external variability have both been predicted.
Team leader, Dr Doug Smith said: "Occurrences of El Nino, for example, have a significant effect on shorter-term predictions. By including such internal variability, we have shown a substantial improvement in predictions of surface temperature." Dr Smith continues: "Observed relative cooling in the Southern Ocean and tropical Pacific over the last couple of years was correctly predicted by the new system, giving us greater confidence in the model’s performance".
Notes
Total global warming, on a decadal average, is 0.8 °C since 1900 (IPCC 2007)
1998 is the current warmest year on record with a global mean temperature of 14.54 °C
For further information:
Met Office Press Office
" it cannot be about subjective, unscientific beliefs and personal attacks of the kind that some of us have had to endure."
Surely this is exactly how climate "science" has been done - see Climategate, Mann's recent epistle as mention in BH's previous article!
Question , how do you know if your models work?
Answer you compare them to what you claim they represent.
What is that ?
In this case results of observations of various factors such as temperatures
And what if they fail to match this observations.?
Normal scientific practice requires you to revaluate your models to see why they fail to match realty.
Is that what they so in climate ‘science’?
Well I did say normal , climate ‘science ‘ is special for the first time in the history of science it turns out that if the models and reality differ in value its reality which is in error.
Well its good that Dame Professor Slingo has taken time to follow and respond to the debate albeit with a wholly equivocal statement. Is she opposed to the gagging of Bengtsson?
I had cause to re-watch the Hamburg lecture of Murry Salby yesterday, trying to nail some "facts" on the C cycle. Sent this out to one of my lists seeking views only to learn that he was sacked by MacQuarie shortly after that lecture tour.
I understand enough to know that at least 50% of what he had to say was true. My maths is not up to evaluating the remainder. Was his stuff ever published and what is he doing now? Its strange that someone like him should be sacked in a climate science world that welcomes challenge.
Document: Climate research at the Met Office Hadley Centre
Informing Government policy into the future
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/b/1/informing.pdf
see the (caveat free) section on -
Met Office - Forecasting the next decade
".....We are now using the system to predict changes out
to 2014. By the end of this period, the global average
temperature is expected to have risen by around
0.3 °C compared to 2004, and half of the years after
2009 are predicted to be hotter than the current
record hot year, 1998. "
"....By starting this system in the 1980s and comparing the
results with observations from the 1990s we have already
demonstrated its skill at predicting the global climate.
However, a major effect it cannot predict is volcanic eruptions,
so the biggest differences between the model and the
observations occur following the major eruption of
Mount Pinatubo in June 1991."
Less than 5 years on, Dec 2012) the revised decadal forecast graphs shows the lack of skill (flat temps now predicted...) Leo to his credit, published the before and after graphs (The BBC did not)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/jan/09/global-warming-met-office-paused
but how much input to policy did those earlier (caveat free predictions) documents contribute?
Different planet regarding peer (pal) review ... but the sceptic community should take this broad up on her offer ... a debate on her woeful statements about the weather. Paul Homewood has already done much of the homework.
It will be difficult for sceptical scientists to rely on peer review (evidence is abundant) whilst the "community" threatens journals and scientists.
May 19, 2014 at 10:41 AM | Euan Mearns
-----
The "sacking" of and mendacious behaviour of Maquarie University towards Professor Salby will for ever leave a black mark on that institution.
Since models are supposed to be validated by observations then what she says about neither models nor observations being good enough makes zero sense. Traditionally models that do not follow the observations must be rejected or improved to match observations. We all know that models are only talked up only because they are more pessimistic so if anyone believes her nonsense then it is due to either an unyielding ideology or total ignorance. If she actually stuck to those lofty scientific ideals rather than just making stuff up such as 'all evidence points to climate change' for the recent floods with no data, theory or logic behind it then she would not be receiving any personal attacks.
Slingo:
Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming, neither do the estimates from observations as some in the climate sceptic community would claim.
So nobody knows? So WTF did you get Super computers and BS modelling software only to give a 2 day near accurate weather forecast?
Give me the maaaany !!
NO COMMENT
It looks like a list of things that she would like the readers of the Times to believe.
Her comments are like the Met Office models.
She doesn't get it, does she?
Which interpreted means that all climate scientists must be free to say what they like without sceptics interfering by asking for facts or evidence or anything inconvenient like that.on the other hand is just meaningless. Some of her colleagues do claim that models give enough of a definitive answer to trumpet that as what is going to happen, even though they use words like "project" and "may" so that if anyone challenges them they can always cop out but the bottom line is what they want people to believe. No sceptic that I know claims that observations give any sort of answer about anything other than themselves though a series of observations over a long enough period will show up repeating patterns in the real world.So what has she actually said? Basically, "we'll do it our way; mind your own business".
People in glass house shouldn't throw stones? Perhaps. Compared to some of the stuff she has come out with she should be rather more careful in her choice of words. She's now been given the gong for services rendered to Climate Alarmism, so as Luca Turin says, early retirement beckons me thinks!!!!
Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming, neither do the estimates from observations as some in the climate sceptic community would claim.
Unfortunately, when your models don't work, you only have real world data and observations left.
Barry Woods @ 10.43 "but how much input to policy did those earlier documents contribute".
None at all really - they were support for the Climate Change Act but did not affect the outcome which was predetermined by existing policy. Had the Met office not supported the policy they would have been ignored (until nemesis came amongst them). The issue of "personal attacks" is smoke screen - nothing is new here - to obscure the need to "deny" sceptics any credibility whatsoever. Professor Bengtsonn is very credible indeed and for him to demonstrate that maybe the science isn't settled is a dangerous event.
Is there a link for Slingo's letter?
This letter, and the recent statement from Imperial's Grantham (or should that be Grantham's Imperial?), seem to be efforts to move towards higher moral ground, and that is to be welcomed. But the climate scientivism field comes with a lot a baggage to weigh them down on this worthy journey. I've just been going back in time to November 2009, and re-reading the Bish's post written not long after the first Climategate materials were released to a soon-to-be-disgusted-but-perhaps-not-widely-enough world: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
Hat-tip: Anthony Watts, who has reproduced part of this post, with updated links for the notorious emails: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/17/in-climate-science-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same/
I re-read the Dame's letter after reading those two posts, and many of the comments. Actually reaching moral high ground is going to take some doing - merely claiming to be there is not very convincing when you review the goings-on of her climate compadres in Climategate. It would have been a grand thing if they had allowed others outside of their 'team' to have been 'free to review and debate their research unfettered and without personal attacks.' Actually, not so much 'grand' as ordinary common decency.
"I welcome scientific debate with those whose research challenges my understanding of climate change and scientists have a well established and robust peer review process for doing this. This process is there for good reason because it ensures the debate is rigorous but never personal."
Tell that to Michael Mann, Julia.
I think that there is concern in the alarmist community that the game is nearly up. They attacked and smeared the sceptics for years and that was a successful tactic. Now they are being exposed as bullies, manipulating the consensus, the science and the peer review.
Suddenly they are projecting an image of innocence, openness, nice friendly people who listen to sceptics carefully and are only interested in truth.
It doesn't wash. Like the models, her comments show no agreement with reality.
This non-peer-reviewed-paper by the Dame was still deemed good enough for Parliament
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/2/3/Statistical_Models_Climate_Change_May_2013.pdf
The plot about observations vs models thickens: the Met Office does not base its assessment of climate change over the instrumental record on the use of these statistical models. What do they base it on then, and what do they think climate models can tell us if we won't be able to compare them easily to observations anyway?
It looks like a pretty self-serving letter if you were to ask me. Maybe she didn't intend it that way, but it comes over that way.
"Your articles on the recent events surrounding Professor Lennart Bengtsson ("Scientists in cover-up of 'damaging' climate view", May 16) are not a true reflection of the way the climate community conducts its research. My position, and my passion, is that all scientists - no matter what their viewpoint - must be free to review and debate their research unfettered and without personal attacks."
I've not seen her deplore personal attacks on anyone who didn't hold her views, but she was quick to rally round the CAGW flag without reading the emails from the CRU by putting together a petition which many people said they were afraid not to sign. And right there in said emails were scientists covering up "damage climate views" and engaging in personal attacks on other scientist, as well as trying to get them fired. To the humble outsider that looks precisely how climate science is done.
"Science is about seeking the truth and acknowledging the uncertainties in what we currently know; it cannot be about subjective, unscientific beliefs and personal attacks of the kind that some of us have had to endure."
See the pea under the thimble there? "...some of us have had to endure." The victim Bengtssom has neatly been replaced by the victim "Slingo".
"Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming, neither do the estimates from observations as some in the climate sceptic community would claim."
More pea and thimble, actually very good at it too. She's managed to distance the climate models from their poor performance, while at the same time rubbishing observations. The whole climate sensitivity argument brushed under the carpets. How does she know the estimates from observations don't give a definitive answer. She must be guessing because we haven't entered a time when we can test the sensitivities assessed from observations. Anyway, while not valued against model outputs in her discipline, observations are held in high esteem in all the other scientific disciplines.
"I welcome scientific debate with those whose research challenges my understanding of climate change and scientists have a well established and robust peer review process for doing this. This process is there for good reason because it ensures the debate is rigorous but never personal."
WTF is all I can say. You would have to live on the planet Zog not to be aware that climate science peer review is filled with gatekeepers absolutely unwilling to see anything printed that challenged their scientific views. And as for it never being personal you'd have had to have been on your holidays in Alpha Centauri Bb for the last 20 years not to have seen the bile poured on those scientists who even came near to challenging the "consensus".
Julia Slingo says
"Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming, neither do the estimates from observations as some in the climate sceptic community would claim."
What about future cooling? Slingo should have said future change. She is biased.
Observations, such as of the sun and ocean are predicting temperatures better than climate models.
Bengtssen's rejected paper was not estimating future warming ( or lack of it ) from observations. His paper was comparing models to observations . Clearly only models and observations can be used to do this.
I challenge any working scientist to repeat with a straight face and in all honesty that peer review "ensures the debate is rigorous but never personal".
We can say goalkeepers ensure nobody scores at football. Well, yes, apart from when somebody scores. Likewise, peer review is a tool to avoid personal debates and make science publishing more rigorous, however by no means it can be considered effective enough at "ensuring" its success at both tasks, in any scientific endeavour.
"climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming"
Or much else.
Typical slippery letter by Slingo.
Basically observations tell us nothing- the Gospel according to Slingo.
So where does that leave observational science?
But also a clear error "Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming"
Tell that to Vicky Pope.
She is one of your employees isn't she? So her "very strong predictions of +0.3C (cf ) 2004 by 2014" would not have come out without approval from the top.
You would think that the alarmist camp would have learnt by now, but sadly not, and the Bengtsson saga is just more of the same tree-hut behaviour. Slingo really should have read some of the climategate emails. If she had then maybe she wouldn't have spent time organising a petition to defend the disreputable behaviour of many leading climate scientists:
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/climategate
and more at https://sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/climategate-2
...scientists have a well established and robust peer review process...
That bullshit word again.
Are computer models reliable?
Yes. Computer models are an essential
tool in understanding how the climate will
respond to changes in greenhouse gas
concentrations, and other external effects,
such as solar output and volcanoes.
Computer models are the only reliable
way to predict changes in climate. Their
reliability is tested by seeing if they are able
to reproduce the past climate, which gives
scientists confidence that they can also
predict the future.
(Met Office Publication "Warming Climate change – the facts")
In the meantime, In The Sunday Times this week, Rod Liddle (who I normally place to the left of Ed Milliband) in his 'Comment' column, has a meaty piece devoted to the way that Benngtsson has been treated by the climate 'alarmist' establishment. He is pretty scathing in his criticism of those who oppose 'dissenting views'..
Ever so slowly....
Words from a scientist who claimed that last winter's floods were due to CAGW: without any empirical, or even theoretical evidence.
Keep those old Met Office quotes coming Martin. There'll be another hundred or so threads I'm guessing where they'll do nicely :)
John Shade (11:36 AM):
You're obviously not the only one. (Thanks lapogus.) But another encouraging thought occurred to me as I read your words. Climategate consisted of too much material. Sure, there was plenty of evidence of academic bullying but there was so much else as well. The great virtue of the Bengtsson story is its simplicity. And with McCarthyism it's come pre-baked with a delicious historical analogy. Thus it made the front page of The Times within a day or so of breaking and a luminary like Slingo felt compelled to write a letter much more chastened in how it deals with critics of the tired old climate consensus.
That's the really significant thing about the letter for me. Yesterday Mann gave up on 'denier', today we're promised a equal place at the high table. Well, more realistically, folks like Nic Lewis and old hands like Lindzen, Christy and Spencer are. Of course all of us are sceptical about how real and persistent the apparent change of heart will be. But there's the promise in black and white. It surely spells death for extreme alarmism. Who's going to tell the likes of Graham Linehan?
Of course, her “community’s” “debate” with Prof Bengtsson had nothing personal in them at all; why he should feel threatened by such rigorous debating tactics as veiled threats, shunning and yah-booing remains a mystery to her and her ilk.
I note that Slingo could not even bring herself to offer any comforting words to Professor Bengttson, or to make even a notional attempt at an apology on behalf of the climate community for those in the ranks who have behaved so badly. Without that, her true sentiments and the way that she and her kin behave is clearly exposed. She could not even bring herself to do it as a PR exercise, not even as part of her role as the Met Office chief scientist, so it is not difficult to see what her's and the climate community's real opinion is of Professor Bengttson and any other renegade scientist who is not on message.
"This process is there for good reason because it ensures the debate is rigorous but never personal"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jne9t8sHpUc
Pointman
As also others seem to think:
Dutifully, paying lipservice, but too late, too little, and not convincing
lapogus
Or in other words, the paper "wasn't very helpful", perhaps?What always puzzled me about the Soon and Baliunas situation (something which BBD used to get his knickers in a serious twist about) was that the paper that was being criticised was simply a review of the literature. Presumably S&B's sin was to gather all this "unhelpful" information in one place and demonstrate that the science wasn't quite as settled as Mann, Wigley and Jones wanted us to believe.
So much for Slingo's "science is about seeking the truth", unless of course you believe that in post-modern science truth is in the eye of the beholder.
Julia Slingo, one time pscientist but now all civil servant but neither servile nor civil.
She is, a dissimulator of ill repute among a bunch of peers well practiced in that dark art. That is her job to daub and to besmear. This pathetic drivel, that, she has just put her paw mark on - is utter tosh, actually she thinks nothing of the sort and everybody knows it. Not least, those preening berks sucking at the public money teat in Exeter and all over the Met Office fiefdom.
IoP has another reviewer's comments out
http://ioppublishing.org/newsDetails/statement-from-iop-publishing-on-story-in-the-times
Expect the usual idiots to declare victory, as the objections look pertinent and technical.
However this is equivalent to have a reviewer reject a paper saying "it's authored by a woman" and then claim everything's ok because another reviewer said "it's wrong".
In the comment from Slingo, we can discern the complete inversion of perspectives.
The alarmist climate scientists believe that mankind is sleepwalking toward thermalgeddon, and they are the whistleblowers trying to do the right thing. In their context, there can be no sympathy for Bengtsson, since he was aiding and abetting those distracting from their whistleblowing. Similarly, use of FOI and other laws seems to them as attempts to obstruct their noble cause.
"Just as we are very clear that climate models do not give us a definitive answer about the possible magnitude of future warming"
So she admits she has a closed scientific mind about the future and can only conceive of warming. Talk about a flaw in her object scientific ointment.
Thanks Maurizio. Ross McKitrick was careful to say on Friday:
Even if it isn't (and I've not read it or the second review) there's still bullying on joining the GWPF and a culture making it acceptable to point to the encouragement to sceptics a paper may provide, as if that was a valid reason for rejection.
So that means the models are wrong because they are based on estimates from observations? I thought we already knew that.