GWPF takes up Sir Paul Nurse’s suggestion – Offers to host climate debate

Popcorn futures explode. But joking apart, I think (hope) this will be productive. Tim Palmer is realistic about model uncertainty (apart from being clueless about the magnitude of uncertainty around solar caused climate variation). Brian Hoskins is candid (though behind the curve on the latest findings).

GWPF INVITES ROYAL SOCIETY FELLOWS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE DISCUSSION

London, 22 May: In response to a suggestion by Sir Paul Nurse, the President of the Royal Society, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has invited five climate scientists and Fellows of the Royal Society to discuss the current state of climate science and its wider implications. 

In a letter to Lord Lawson, the GWPF chairman, Sir Paul stated that the Royal Society “would be happy to put the GWPF in touch with people who can offer the Foundation informed scientific advice.”

Sir Paul suggested that the GWPF should contact five of their Fellows: Sir Brian Hoskins; Prof John Mitchell; Prof Tim Palmer; Prof John Shepherd and Prof Eric Wolff.

The GWPF has now invited the five climate scientists to a meeting with a team of members of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council and independent scientists and has proposed a two-part agenda:

Ben Pile: Lewandowsky, Institutional Science, and Politics

Ben Pile has posted a long and well written piece about l’affaire Lewandowsky at his blog. It will soon be published on Spiked, but I thought a preview to be in order. The paragraphs below are from the concluding section, since most here are familiar with the story so far. If not, you should read the whole thing.

Extract from: The Lewandowsky Papers
Posted by Ben Pile on May 21, 2013

Scientists such as Lewandowsky are better at self-justification than scientific research. Rather than being an investigation into the workings of the material world, Lewandosky’s ‘research’ — a poorly executed and error-prone online survey, seen through dodgy statistical methods and bogus categories — is a naked attempt to explain why people dare challenge scientific authority. But there are good reasons for challenging it. Science has turned its gaze on the public as politicians have sought to remedy their diminishing public support by recruiting the academy. It is not a coincidence that the scientific agenda increasingly reflects the prejudices and problems of elite politics.

Kevin Trenberth: ” the science is just beginning”

From Nature.com blogs, indications that Keven Trenberth is returning to the scientific method. Hopefully, he’ll get real about the toa energy balance uncertainty too.

Predictions of climate
Kevin Trenberth

I have often seen references to predictions of future climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), presumably through the IPCC assessments (the various chapters in the recently completedWorking Group I Fourth Assessment report ican be accessed through this listing). In fact, since the last report it is also often stated that the science is settled or done and now is the time for action.

In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios. They are intended to cover a range of possible self consistent “story lines” that then provide decision makers with information about which paths might be more desirable. But they do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess.

Even if there were, the projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.

Chris Hadfield: Space Oddity aboard the ISS

@cmdrhadfield has been putting together a tribute to Bowie and the human ingenuity that is the ISS. Nifty guitar work Chris!

The week in politics: Grassroots UKIP comes up trumps

On May second 1200+ UKIP local government candidates took the country by storm. More than half of them came first or second in the elections. Congratulations to them all. This has ignited debate in the media, primarily over EU membership. Lord Lawson write a strong article in the Times calling for a referendum giving the opportunity for Britain to get out. He has been followed by Bernard Jenkin, Sir Gerald Howarth and Lord Tebbit. Old Tory grandees are putting Prime minister David Cameron under pressure. Climate policy doesn’t figure high on the public’s radar these days, apart from those unfortunate to live close to (occasionally) spinning wind turbines which cause noise disturbance and flickering of sunlight. Party Leader Nigel Farage made it clear that although he wasn’t subjecting the successful new councillors to a party whip, he does “expect them to oppose every planning application for a wind turbine”. Go Nigel.

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Sir John Houghton: Objective scientist or driven ideologue?

Sir John Houghton, an ex-boss of the IPCC, and the hockey stick graph, visually demonstrating that the flawed hockey stick graph has never played any important role for the IPCC statements. H/T Lubos Motls
http://motls.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/sir-john-houghton-is-liar.html

Wikipedia tells us:

He was the lead editor of first three IPCC reports. He was professor in atmospheric physics at the University of Oxford, former Chief Executive at the Met Office and founder of the Hadley Centre.

He is the chairman of the John Ray Initiative, an organisation “connecting Environment, Science and Christianity”,^[1] where he has compared the stewardship of the Earth, to the stewardship of the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve.^[2] He is a founder member of the International Society for Science and Religion. He is also the current president of the Victoria Institute.

Jon Jones alerted me to a press cutting this morning. I was amazed:

Sir Mark Sets Out his Priorities

Sir Mark Walport, the government’s new chief scientific advisor has given a talk at Cambridge University setting out his stall for the job ahead. It’s fairly dry and I doubt many here will sit through all of it, but I just thought I’d highlight minutes 12 to 16 where he discusses energy. In giving a passing nod to ‘sustainability’ as “one of three lenses” energy policy needs to be looked at through (the others mentioned ahead of it being energy security and energy affordability), Sir mark, unusually for a policy wonk, gives a mention to space-weather; “the ionising, the electromagnetic radiation from the Sun”. Now that’s a bit of a curve ball to throw in to a talk about the science-policy interface, and I think it’s a coded message to the enviro-lobbyists that they’re not going to find Sir Mark compliant on the issue of ‘the science’. It’s not so much a shot across the bows of Greenpeace as a gesture towards a box of limpet mines. Maybe my missive really did hit it’s mark, or maybe Sir Mark was already alive to the Climate and Solar uncertainty issues. Either way, I’m glad to see we have a chief science advisor who has a broader perspective on the thorny issues around energy policy than his predecessor.

Emil A.Røyrvik: The Debate on Man Made Global Warming

This is a sensible document: H/T to Gabe Rychert at Climate Realists

Consensus and Controversy

The Debate on Man Made Global Warming
Emil A.Røyrvik

SINTEF
Technology and Society

Conclusions:
To illustrate the way that scientific, political and ethical concerns are mixed in the debate on Anthropogenic Global Warming this report used the by now famous quote from Gro Harlem Brundtland , that ”doubt has been eliminated”, and that it is ”irresponsible, reckless and deeply immoral to question the seriousness of the situation ” as a point of departure. The goal of the report was to enter this debate and “ battlefield ” of arguments and take stock of the debate about anthropogenic (man – made) global warming. Based on the present review of this debate there are several conclusions to be drawn. The first and simplest one is that considered as an empirical statement, the assertion that “doubt has been eliminated” on AGW is plainly false. Although as documented the level of agreement in the scientific literature that AGW is occurring is quite extensive, the magnitude of dissent, questioning and contrarian perspectives and positions in both scientific discourse and public opinion on the question of AGW evidently contradicts such a proclamation.

A new way to calculate the value of Pi?

Barbury Crop Circle represents Pi

Update: I made a dumb algebra mis-step – back to the drawing board.

I believe I’ve found a new way to calculate the value of Pi. Before anyone starts shouting at me, the value I’ve arrived at is Pi, not some new number I’m claiming to be the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter.

So, what is the equation I’ve come up with which can calculate the value of Pi?

Here it is:

EU rejects ‘backloading’ of CarbonCreds – Price immediately falls to barrel bottom

Psst, wanna buy some junk bonds?