Monday 15 February 2010

AGW Scientists: "No Plans to Leave Oz Just Yet"

[Guest Post by Jeff Perren]

It's been a busy week for AGW warriors.

First, the IPCC is arm-twisted into acknowledging that their claim about melting Himalayan glaciers was based on some rumor started by an eighth grader trying to get back at his teacher for a homework assignment on climate change. Then, they have to backpedal after overstating the area of Netherlands land under sea level — being off by roughly a mere double the amount (55% vs 26%).

Now, much beleaguered Phil Jones has come out of the closet to say that perhaps, after all, all was not as it should have been with East Anglia climate science. He acknowledged:

[T]wo periods [prior to the present] in recent times had experienced similar warming [to the current one]. And he agreed that the debate had not been settled over whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the current period.

Considering the source, this is positively mirror-Clintonian in its breathtaking honesty.

Still, he stuck to his guns to the extent of asserting "[H]e had not cheated over the data, or unfairly influenced the scientific process."

Yeah, never mind those hundreds of CRU emails suggesting otherwise or the massive fudging of computer code. Just the inherent fuzziness that invariably accompanies leading-edge science.

Worse, "he said he stood by the view that recent climate warming was most likely predominantly man-made." Ya gotta wonder what evidence would make him think "most likely not..."

Honest Phil puts it all down to weak data organization skills on his part. Uh, huh. With that level of skills in equities trading a floor broker could expect a visit from the SEC, if not the Justice Department.

However, the most hilarious quote from the news report is undeniably this one: "I have no agenda."

Right. Never mind about those emails discussing how to remove editors from journals, and the like. No more than the normal give and take among reasonable men with differing points of view.

Toto, stop pulling on that damn curtain, will you!

[Cross posted at Shaving Leviathan.]

4 comments:

Lucy said...

And still Nic k Smith and John Key ignore the evidence before them and move rapidly to make not so well off kiwis (Westerners) support very well off dictators of 'developing countries.

Well the Key government has demonstrated that they are prepared to pay 'compensation' to non earners (beneficiaries)to make up raising GST. I wonder what group in NZ will 'receive compensation" for the global warming taxes we will be forced to pay.

Jeffrey Perren said...

"I wonder what group in NZ will 'receive compensation' for the global warming taxes we will be forced to pay."

My guess? The most politically favored 'oppressed' group du jour.

ZenTiger said...

You are still being too kind to him.

I take exception to this statement which people seem to allow to pass with little discussion:

And he agreed that the debate had not been settled over whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the current period.

He attempts to insinuate that "the science isn't settled" on prior warming periods, and yet we have to take "the science is settled" on AGW at every turn?

As far as I can tell, the science IS SETTLED that there was a medieval warming period.

Getting into some kind of pissing match on which was half a degree warmer is beside the point - how many cars did they have back then, and how many coal fired power stations were in use back then?

Or are we back to blaming cows?

Unknown said...

This article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html?ITO=1708&referrer=yahoo#ixzz0fYUA9upr

Is about the closest thing we're going to get to a complete recant from Jones.

AGW is now thoroughly discredited.

Quote:

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

...

But Dr Benny Pieser, director of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, said Professor Jones’s ‘excuses’ for his failure to share data were hollow as he had shared it with colleagues and ‘mates’.

He said that until all the data was released, sceptics could not test it to see if it supported the conclusions claimed by climate change advocates.

He added that the professor’s concessions over medieval warming were ‘significant’ because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled.


Okay Al Gore, the taxpayers of the world, whom you have cost tens of millions, want their money back ...