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« More heat than light | Main | A load of gobbledegook? »
Friday
Oct232015

Jennifer Marohasy tells it like it is

In an almost unprecedented meeting at the Australian Parliament on Monday,  well-respected   researcher and author Dr Jennifer Marohasy was invited, along with climate sceptic Bob Carter, to debate with three alarmist scientists. She was particularly emphasising the differences found between real world data and computer modelling and the need to disclose which was which.

At the meeting, I explained how Rutherglen is one of 104 weather stations used to construct the contrived official temperature trend for Australia, and that every single temperature time series was adjusted. In general, like at Rutherglen, the adjustments have the effect of cooling the past and thus making the present appear relatively hotter.

I mentioned that it was a travesty that Minister Greg Hunt had prevented a proper inquiry into the Bureau last year, and suggested that the senators and members in the room needed to ‘wake-up’ and do something. Public policy, I suggested, needed to be based on real data/real evidence, not contrived temperature series.

After my presentation, Professor Howden began with slides indicating that because of climate change there had been a decline in crop yields. He was interrupted by one of the MPs who asked whether the charts on display represented actual real historical data, or output from a computer model. The Professor acknowledged that he was showing computer output.

At that point, I really wanted to applaud when several of the MPs promptly got up and walked out.

Sadly, the good work done on Monday was countered on the Tuesday when there was Parliamentary Information session  in Canberra sponsored by the Global Change Institute and the University of Queensland at which, JM reports, " many government-funded climate scientists told members and senators that the end is nigh. That is unless Australia signs on to the United Nations Development Goals and the upcoming COP21 in Paris."

TM

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Reader Comments (27)

The veritable unstoppable green slime pushes on! I couldn't see such a thing happening here, despite the fact that Prof Richard Lindzen (real cliamte expert) & Dr Paul Reiter (expert on malaria amongst other things), gave evidence to the HoL Committee on Climate Change a few year back, all kept under wraps & not reported by the MSM!

Oct 23, 2015 at 2:12 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlan the Brit

Is it possible to plot a graph of the number of "climate scientists" actuall employed for each of the last 50 years?

My belief is that when plotted, it would look like a hockey stick.

Now plot another graph showing the number of scary predictions for each of the last 50 years, and that to would be a hockey stick

Now plot another graph showing the number of correct predictions for each of the last 50 years, and that would show a flat line, even flatter when computer model predictions are added.

Oct 23, 2015 at 2:39 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Remarkable delusions. Almost as bad as the Sierra Club President and his rote 97%.

No, please, much worse.
================

Oct 23, 2015 at 2:46 PM | Unregistered Commenterkim

A Bishop Hill gong should be awarded to Dr Jennifer Marohasy, she made a difference.

Oct 23, 2015 at 2:53 PM | Registered CommenterDung

Alan Jones should have a spot on the BBC to really create balance, and to promote better understanding for a wider public. Brilliant!

http://www.2gb.com/audioplayer/134596

Oct 23, 2015 at 3:56 PM | Unregistered CommenterForster

Have the Government funded climate scientists yet managed to justify the expenditure on the Australian desalination plants? Their credibility should be judged on their proven performance, not modelled performance.

Oct 23, 2015 at 4:05 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Yet another insightful libertarian.

Oct 23, 2015 at 4:16 PM | Unregistered CommenterJamesG

"many government-funded climate scientists told members and senators that the end is nigh."

Do they really think that? They still drive, fly, consume, buy waterfront property and generally act entirely the other way. I call BS.

Oct 23, 2015 at 4:32 PM | Registered Commenterjamesp

After my presentation, Professor Howden began with slides indicating that because of climate change there had been a decline in crop yields.

This was computer modelled!!!!!!! Has the world gone mad so actual data counts for nothing. It reminds me of the start of home computing era and the acronym GIGO. It just seems so pertinent to describe most of the so called modelled science behind catastrophic climate change.

Good on the MP's who walked out. I hope Howden was suitably embarrassed, but not holding my breath.

Oct 23, 2015 at 5:03 PM | Unregistered CommenterStu

"It reminds me of the start of home computing era and the acronym GIGO."

Unix is GIGO on steroids. It's not that you can't run worthwhile applications on top of Unix, as well, but the various flavours of Unix are the favoured operating systems for the number-crunchers. When the latest "most powerful computer evaah" is announced, it's always a concatenation of Unix boxes. When the Met Office people beg for a new "supercomputer", another vast array of Unix stuff is what they have in mind (and duly receive).

There is nothing in any Unix box, or in any Unix array, however big, that protects you from the GIGO principle.

Heck, it keeps people off the street, though.

Oct 23, 2015 at 5:23 PM | Unregistered CommenterOwen Morgan

"This was computer modelled!!!!!!! Has the world gone mad so actual data counts for nothing."

Chances are crop yields have gone up. They are not really arguing decline at all, they are arguing less growth.

Oct 23, 2015 at 5:34 PM | Unregistered CommenterDaveJR

@Owen Morgan

...the various flavours of Unix are the favoured operating systems for the number-crunchers. When the latest "most powerful computer evaah" is announced, it's always a concatenation of Unix boxes. When the Met Office people beg for a new "supercomputer", another vast array of Unix stuff is what they have in mind (and duly receive)....

That's just because UNIX is the mainframe operating system of choice for the academic world, enabling easy transfer and re-use of code.

For desktops, the various Microsoft flavours are also pretty common. And they might run EXCEL, or MATLAB, and you get an awful lot of rubbish coming out of them as well...

Oct 23, 2015 at 6:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterDodgy Geezer

Britain cuts its Carbon Footprints and sacks a couple of thousand Steel Workers.

Oct 23, 2015 at 7:17 PM | Unregistered CommenterJamspid

“This was computer modelled!!!!!!! Has the world gone mad so actual data counts for nothing …”.
==================
Sadly it’s not unusual for climate change™ practitioners to refer to their model outputs as “data”, WUWT has exposed a number of examples.
As well as 'facts', the Oxford Dictionary of English definition of 'data' nowadays includes: “… the quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer …”.
It’s another of the many examples of where the campaigners deliberately use ambiguous language, i.e. the logical fallacy of equivocation, as a tool to bamboozle.

Oct 23, 2015 at 9:17 PM | Unregistered CommenterChris Hanley

Good work, but I hope she looks up the meaning of "travesty". "Tragedy" would be closer, if a bit melodramatic; "disgrace" would be my choice.

But never mind the quibble, it's great to see the skirmishers have reached the parliament. I'm looking forward to this settled science eventually having it's settlers, squatters and hangers-on evicted.

Oct 23, 2015 at 10:20 PM | Unregistered CommenterRobert Swan

Professor Howden began with slides indicating that because of climate change there had been a decline in crop yields.

He is either deluded or a liar. Maybe both.

Crop yields have been going up- thanks to the well-known, but poorly publicised by the MSM, CO2 fertilisation effect.

Oct 23, 2015 at 10:46 PM | Unregistered CommenterDon Keiller

As Forster noted (Oct 23, 3:56pm), a popular talk-back radio programme run by Alan Jones did a quite long and sympathetic interview with Marohasy the next morning

The Jones radio show has a very large suburban-type audience

That type of MSM exposure is most certainly "unprecedented". CAGW advocates were beyond apoplexy

Oct 24, 2015 at 12:33 AM | Unregistered Commenterianl8888

The estimable Dr Jennifer Marohasy, what a lady, what a gal!

Dr. Marohasy, against nigh insurmountable odds the good Doctor is really trying to make a difference.

I salute you Dr. Marohasy and please keep up the good work for it is a work for the greater good of mankind and in its altruism it should be commended. Though, it's sad to reflect that, you are subject to cowardly attacks, chastised and side lined in some quarters of the Australian political sphere and indeed throughout academia - shame on them all and may God damn them, as the Australian public should and as I surely do. And in some small corner of England - I read, mark and acknowledge your contributions not only to science but to speaking the truth - for us all.

Plus, I ken it's a bit sexist but I must mention some other stout fellows and shield maidens in; Donna Laframboise, Jo Nova, Judith Curry - luv yuz all - from a very distant admirer but nonetheless, a staunchly loyal and fervent aficionado. Fair maidens, fair minds, fair good at kicking the ar*es and butts of the alarmist illusionists and political advocates of the great scam.

Oct 24, 2015 at 1:03 AM | Unregistered CommenterAthelstan.

Gosh, Im not sure where that attack on Unix came from, or the relevance.

I think I first used real Unix in 1983, though I used an emulator (Eunice) before that.

In the last seven years, a vast proportion of the world's population has started carrying a Unix supercomputer (by 1990's or prior standards) in their pocket or purse.

In the case of the iPhone, it's genuine certified Unix. In the case of Android, it's a clone started by a student in Finland in 1991, as are most of the modern desktop or super-computers those damned models are run on.

But that's hardly the fault of the operating system!

Oct 24, 2015 at 10:08 AM | Unregistered CommenterBruce Hoult

Don Keiller at 10:46

He's simply too well paid in his ivory tower. The delusion is self-induced, institutionally supported and well, rather comfortable.

Oct 24, 2015 at 10:25 AM | Unregistered CommenterManfred

So now the alarmists are completely comfortable about disseminating rubbish, like the crop yield, bare faced lie. I fear that the upcoming Paris climate jamboree will be unbearable. It will certainly have to come up with some sort of 'world shattering' agreement, to ensure the Obama legacy. Even though it will be clear to all thinking, fair minded folk, that it is a gigantic fudge.

Oct 24, 2015 at 11:58 AM | Unregistered CommenterPeter Stroud

For the record Bruce my original comment on GIGO was really to suggest that if the source date that you input in to a model is wrong or worse designed to give you the answer you want then garbage or misleading data will come out the other end as was the case here.

I suspect this works for any computer model on any operating system, and I certainly have no axe to grind against UNIX, particularly as I personally have never used it.

Oct 24, 2015 at 2:10 PM | Unregistered CommenterStu

Don, that fertilization effect is feeding an extra billion people today. There is an amazing amount of reassuring climate truth just lying around waiting to be exposed to public view. A completely fantastical overburden of unnecessary fear and misplaced guilt has been layered over the wonderful truth of fossil fuel use's benefit to the whole Earth, the mild warming, the cornucopic greening, the fabulous societal enrichment.

We have blinds placed over already dim-visioned eyes. Improved perception will be glorious; it can't be anything else.
========================

Oct 24, 2015 at 6:05 PM | Unregistered Commenterkim

Don, not so sure on the increased yields. Increased growth: yes. Increased area: yes. Increased yields per plant?

Oct 24, 2015 at 6:20 PM | Unregistered Commenterssat

SSAT yes increased yield per plant. it actually takes less land to feed the world than it did ten years ago.
Despite an increased population.
CO2 is a wonderful thing.

Oct 24, 2015 at 10:00 PM | Unregistered CommenterDon keiller

The word "reanalysis" is one of the key pointers that the paper or presentation is about virtual worlds and not actually measurements from the real world.

Constantly calling out this difference may be an effective way of educating the general public and politicians. It's a point everyone, whether scientifically trained or not, can relate to.

Oct 25, 2015 at 11:27 AM | Unregistered CommenterThinkingScientist

The word "reanalysis" is one of the key pointers that the paper or presentation is about virtual worlds and not actually measurements from the real world.

Constantly calling out this difference may be an effective way of educating the general public and politicians. It's a point everyone, whether scientifically trained or not, can relate to.

Oct 25, 2015 at 11:35 AM | Unregistered CommenterThinkingScientist

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