Mike Hulme: Deficiencies of Climate Reductionism

A thoughtful Piece from Ex CRU insider and Tyndall Centre chief Mike Hulme:

” Now, a hundred years later, and at the beginning of a new century, heightening anxieties
about future anthropogenic climate change are fuelling – and in turn being fuelled by – a new
variety of the determinist fallacy. Although distinct from the politically and ethically discredited
climate determinism epitomised by Ellsworth Huntington and his followers, climate has regained
some of its former power for ‘explaining’ the performance of environments, peoples and
societies. In seeking to predict a climate-shaped future, the complexity of interactions between
climates, environments and societies is reduced and a new variant of climate determinism
emerges. I call this ‘climate reductionism’, a form of analysis and prediction in which climate is
first extracted from the matrix of interdependencies which shape human life within the physical
world.

A northern thermometer

Figure 1

A contentious dataset is published by the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, with some people arguing one way, and some the opposite way on what is happening. This tends to be based on selective data.

Palestine, Sagan and atmospheric physics.

Figure 1

data from the tourist site

It’s Christmas 2011, what better place to start than Palestine, a region of many tribes, strife and politics.

Before you start, note I am Tim, not Tallbloke.

If you have read the title of the plots I guess you are wondering whether I have lost it, a fool, a denier in the face of a human social construct: everyone knows.

The Dead Sea region of the near East is the best known area which is far below sea level and is the termination of the Jordan river. Jericho is within the valley at perhaps 550Â 250 metres below sea level. Alas this troubled region has no long instrumental temperature records but there is no question the atmospheric lapse rate just carries on rolling down as well as up mountains.

Christmas Quiz: tallbloke style

Welcome to the annual quiz. As always the beautiful Anthea will be assisting contestants with their pens and paper…

Winning prize is a ‘raid at tallbloke towers’ Josh Cartoons commemorative mug.

Spirit of Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone!

The incredible generosity from people all over the world who reacted so quickly to the raid at Tallbloke Towers prior to the legal fund appeal means we don’t have to worry about the laptops seized from my home by Norfolk Police in collaboration with the Metropolitan Police and the National Domestic Extremism Team not being returned in the condition they were taken.

Here’s what your kind donations have bought Kath for Christmas.

She has had her sights on one of these ASUS Transformers for a while, as she needs something she can use as an E-reader or movie screen while traveling and also type without struggling with an on-screen keyboard with her jittery fingers. She wants the 32G ‘Prime’ version which is pre-order only at the moment, so I also bought her some very nice sheepskin slippers for lounging round the house in to open on Christmas morning.

VAT free

Note: this is a post by Tim Channon, co-moderator. Please read the footnote.

The Register reported yesterday the subhead “Vast vats of info goodness”, all public funded research will be open access to all and enforced. (yeah right and I get to do awful headlines)

100 page report by BIS Department of Business and Skills, for presentation to parliament.

I think these two are Cable and Willetts but as a non television user I’ve never seen them before.

Suppose they’ll do as a header picture. Hotties, err people vary. (beware humour)

How real is this? I suspect there are strings and wrinkles, always are.

Anyone who penetrates to gookspeak of the document please illuminate us.

“The Government will open up access to core public datasets on transport, weather and health,”

The MSN reported recently about access to personal health records, the sentence above completes “including giving individuals access to their online GP records by the end of this Parliament; ” (we already have access so this is little change, records are poor anyway, a long story)

BBC: More factual inaccuracy plus some spin

The story by Nikki Fox which appeared in the regional section of the BBC website and on BBC ‘Look East’ television news two days ago contains factual inaccuracies and omissions which indicate to me that ‘message massage’ is still a high priority for the BBC, rather than the unbiased reporting their charter requires them to produce.

I’m not blaming reporter Nikki Fox for this, as I believe she has been pretty fair with me. I think her editors and the news producers have put their own spin on her story. I contacted her when the story appeared with two concerns.

Jeff ID:Their Side – Bloggers knew FOIA emails were coming

Reposted from Jeff ID’s blog, which was one of the recipients of the comment from ‘foia’  linking the FOIA2011.zip containing the Climategate 2 files. Leslie Kaufman emailed me the day after the raid on my home. I replied with the statement written by my solicitors Wilde & Company, and nothing more.

Posted by Jeff Id on December 22, 2011

I just had a phone conversation with Leslie Kaufman of the NYT on the ‘hacker’. She was careful to call the FOIA people by that PC name. Rule 1 – Don’t offend the witness unless you want them upset. I didn’t really want to do the interview because these things don’t usually go well for me and it took me several days to make time. Unfortunately my Achilles heel is that I tend to say what I think. — I know you are all surprised.

Breaking News: Norfolk Police to hand over Climategate inquiry

Story clarified in the update below – it looks like I’ve misunderstood what I was told earlier.

In a sudden new development, your correspondent has learned that Norfolk Constabulary have decided that climategate is too big for them to handle. According to an un-named source, they intend to hand over the inquiry to another force.

This follows on the heels of a ‘request for a contact’ at Norfolk Constabulary by Lord Christopher Monckton in connection with his intention to have the police investigate  revelations in the ‘climategate’ emails placed in the public domain.

This is much bigger news than the raid at Tallbloke Towers, when police from three forces seized computers belonging to yours truly, on the basis of information supporting a  warrant which has not yet been revealed.

Winter Solstice: Past the darkest night to sunnier days ahead

December 21st is an important date in the astronomical calendar,  which marks the transition from darkening days to brightening ones in the Earth’s northern hemisphere. For three days around now, the Sun stands still, rising at the same point on the horizon at the most southerly point it reaches. Then on Christmas day, the Sun rises noticeably further north and so is ‘reborn’ to start the New Year.

For my good lady and myself, it has been a dark and difficult time over this last week. We have been raided by the police, had our main means of communication with the outside world confiscated and our telephone line ripped out, hounded by the press, libeled by a Harvard PhD and a Penn State professor among others and vilified by half the climateering blogosphere. We have cried tears of fear and frustration,  endured quizzical looks from work colleagues and neighbours, lost sleep had to support worried parents and relatives.