Prof Michael Kelly censures Royal Society

Prof Mike Kelly

Dr Mike Kelly, Kiwi physicist, elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1993, has been Prince Philip Professor of Technology at Cambridge University since 2002.

RS scientists ‘jeopardise their integrity’

Professor Michael Kelly has published a stinging indictment in the Daily Mail of the performance of the Royal Society. Refusing to mince his words, he says that the Royal Society scientists have adopted a role of ‘lobbying’ and in doing so ‘they jeopardise their purpose and integrity.’ Continue Reading →

Views: 241

The profiteers of doom are at it again

by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Christopher Monckton puts together a riposte to the rather weak-kneed criticism by Wratt, Reisinger and Renwick of the Dominion Post article by Bob Carter and Bryan Leyland in which they make a case for open climate discussion. – RT

When climate scientists unfairly give only one side of the story, as Professor Wratt et al. did earlier this week (Opinion, Dominion Post, February 10), taxpayers should keep a tight grip on their wallets. Continue Reading →

Views: 103

Spawn of Kyoto threatens liberty

The United Nation’s recent Every despot’s ancient plan to install a worldwide, non-elected government is making progress.

It has only a primitive shape, but possesses all the pieces it needs to become a universal government. In other words, it may be small, but it’s perfectly formed.

So far, the United Nations-led battle to save the climate has damaged only science (which is bad enough). But now it threatens freedom itself. Make no mistake, if this treaty gets through, our international dealings will never be the same again and our liberty within the nation will be circumscribed in unforeseen ways.

The new bureaucracy will be agreed by every country in the world (almost)—all going well—in Paris in December. Continue Reading →

Views: 772

Butter and global warming

butter

Openly back on the menu—the inimitable taste of butter!

The wonderful James Delingpole ropes two tenaciously resistant problems to the one horse.

Following current revelations that the saturated-fat health scare was based on now-discredited studies and was such very wrong advice that it actually caused the current epidemic of obesity, James discovered the role of compliant scientists, industry, Nanny State politicians and professional societies in the campaign to push the scare of animal fats. Continue Reading →

Views: 64

Commissioner Wright’s wrong – Part 2

Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science

UPDATE No.1 12 FEB 2015 9:50PM

Go to UPDATE 1.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, published a report last November, Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science (CCRS) (pdf, 2MB). While reading it I marked more than a hundred places where her evidence or reasoning is questionable. Part 1 discussed a first batch of questions; this post discusses another.

Power and privilege

The Commissioner for the Environment enjoys a privileged position: the Environment Act 1986 grants the Commissioner wide powers to investigate and engage staff and consultants, along with millions of dollars. The Parliamentary Vote for this financial year permits a departmental expenditure of $3,258,000, including a personal salary of $296,000. The Commissioner enjoys the same powers as a commission of inquiry, and the same immunities and privileges as a District Court Judge. For investigations the Commissioner initiates, she has “such powers as may be necessary” to see them through—extensive powers, for whatever she wants to do, she has the power to do. Continue Reading →

Views: 73

Scandal heating up

Just three days ago Christopher Booker posted The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever which has collected 21,586 comments (h/t Vincent Gray).

The Article is worth reading but most of the comments are not. They are mostly irrelevant and appear to have been mass-produced by opponents of science in order to sabotage the topic (although, like Vincent, I’m not sure about this, as I’m not about to read them all). Continue Reading →

Views: 298

Fog of the Blog

Expressed sometimes as State of the Nation

The Chinese hackers have been battering on the blog door until a couple of days ago but have now given up and gone away. The technical team at the web hosting company (nzwebhosting4u.com) have dealt to them. Turns out the high traffic figures I’ve alluded to over the past months were spurious.

The blog will be moving away from WordShine soon, to climateconversation.org.nz.

This writer is becoming busy with editing work, as the academic year gets under way.

Thank you, my loyal readers and friends, for keeping up the conversation in my frequent absences of late. I especially like the mentions of breaking, noteworthy stories. I’m now catching up and will post new comments shortly.

The unfinished analysis of the report from the Commissioner for the Environment has not been forgotten. It is at the top of the list.

It looks to be an exciting year ahead; my belated Season’s greetings to you all, a Happy New Year and may you each find in it that which opens your heart.

Peace and blessings.

Richard Treadgold.

Views: 245

Letters to the Editor

Another alarmist temperature lie

quill pen

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

27th January 2015

2015 is the make-or-break year for climate alarmism, with a crucial battle planned for Paris in November, so we can expect regular bursts of global warming propaganda.

The year started on cue with a breathless announcement from the US National Climate Data Centre: “2014 was Earth’s warmest year on record” (their records start in 1880).

The Little Ice Age ended in about 1880, therefore it is no surprise that global temperatures have generally risen since then, and warming reveals nothing about the cause of warming.

Moreover the announcement hides more than it reveals. Continue Reading →

Views: 58

Lopsided science or skewed news—you choose

an Argo buoy

An Argo buoy held by Dana Swift, University of Washington.

The NZ Herald reports that one of the world’s leading oceanographers, Professor Dean Roemmich, is in New Zealand to examine data from the Argo floats.

The Herald reporter directing the public perception of climate science, Jamie Morton, claims:

Hundreds of robotic instruments deployed across the South Pacific have begun to reveal dramatic new insights into the impact of climate change upon oceans in our corner of the world. (emphasis added)

Continue Reading →

Views: 118

Letters to the Editor

Climate alarmists turn back the clock

quill pen

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

6th January 2015

Three centuries ago, the world ran on green power. Wood was used for heating and cooking, charcoal for smelting and smithing, wind or water-power for pumps, mills and ships, and whale oil for lamps. People and soldiers walked or rode horses, and millions of horses and oxen pulled ploughs, wagons, coaches and artillery.

But smoke from open fires choked cities, forests were stripped of trees, most of the crops went to feed draft animals, and streets were littered with horse manure. For many people, life was “nasty, brutish and short” (Thomas Hobbes).

Then the steam engine was developed and later the internal combustion engine, electricity and refrigeration. Green power was replaced by coal and oil. Carbon energy powered factories, mills, pumps, ships, trains and smelters; and cars, trucks and tractors replaced the work-horses. The result was a green revolution—forests began to regrow and vast areas of crop-land used for horse feed were released to produce food for humans. Poverty declined and population soared. Continue Reading →

Views: 89

Giant clam reveals Middle Ages were warmer than today

Giant clam

Giant clam. The scientists drilled tiny, precise holes that exposed daily growth lines and built up a temperature record spanning 2500 years (see below). Click for larger version.

One of the more troubling aspects of the global warming alarm campaign is the claim that modern temperatures are unprecedented. Never before (so the story goes) have temperatures been so high. Those making this claim have striven over many years to ‘get rid of’ the MWP and thus magnify the crisis we face. Continue Reading →

Views: 80

World emissions treaty a bag of thorns

thorns

Huzzah!

Our hard-won democratic freedoms and our right to self-determination will be substantially restricted by this powerful treaty. So it is wonderful to hear that it faces severe difficulties and won’t be accomplished easily. Here are some brief observations to ensure that unscientific scandal-mongers are not the only voices on the subject and so our leaders might perhaps learn something vital about it. – RT

The Herald recently carried an article from the Independent lamenting the difficulty of getting 192 nations to agree that mankind can control the climate. Of course it comes as no real surprise, as the keenest megalomaniacs—I mean delegates—among them have been striving for such agreement for about two decades. Each year they meet in an exotic location, disagree on a climate-control treaty and then choose an exotic location to host their disagreement for the following year. All of this they do at our expense, not theirs. Continue Reading →

Views: 109

Letters to the Editor

Is diesel the new green fuel?

quill pen

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

23rd December 2014

Are Climatists giving a green tick to diesel power?

Ten thousand professional climate crusaders recently attended yet another Climate Carnival in Lima, Peru. Did they use green power to minimise their carbon footprint? No way; massive diesel generators were trucked in on diesel-powered lorries because the local hydro/solar power could not cope. The delegates were also moved between hotels and the venue in more than 300 diesel buses—few bothered to walk or ride bicycles. Continue Reading →

Views: 73

Commissioner Wright’s wrong – Part 1

Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science

Private prejudice

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, published a report last month, Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science (pdf, 2MB). While reading it I marked more than a hundred places where her evidence or reasoning is questionable. This post discusses some of those.

The commissioner’s errors cause concern—just as errors from any prominent public servant[1. Dr Wright is highly paid. The Vote for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in 2014/15 provides for an annual remuneration of $296,000 in a total departmental budget of $3,258,000.] cause concern—and her agitation for policy change means she sides with environmental activists against at least half our population, and possibly even three-quarters of our population—those who are not persuaded that global warming is a problem. You can see that this arises directly from her personal views, Continue Reading →

Views: 420

Save the planet: give us your money

Josh on IPCC climate standover

IPCC climate talks 2014

The latest climate talk-fest has again degenerated into the poor countries (I mean the developing nations) nakedly demanding large sums of money from the leading countries (sorry, the developed nations) to save them from the horrendous consequences of global warming caused entirely by the leading nations’ appalling development of advanced sources of energy – h/t Len Mills.

Views: 96

Eco-minimal criminals

Greenpeace vandalism on an irreplaceable treasure

 

Eco-nazis show their true colours

Greenpeace have brazenly damaged a timeless treasure in Peru by stamping all over the ground and installing a garish activist slogan. – h/t Andy Continue Reading →

Views: 266

Cyber attacks continue

malicious hacker

Malicious hacker.

But we’re winning

Well, last weekend was a washout. I got nothing done that I’d planned, dealing instead with electronic warfare and the extensive site disruption it caused. There were glitches turning up everywhere, caused either by the attack itself or by the methods required to combat it.

Almost two whole days were slowly eaten up, but there was no alternative, for exposing climate change misinformation is more important than anything else. Continue Reading →

Views: 45

A DDOS attack takes CCG down

If you tried to access the blog this morning but were blocked with the message

This Account Has Been Suspended

please accept my apologies.

My web site host explains it was a DDOS attack on this and other sites which brought down their network. We’re back online and on my host’s recommendation I’m looking into CloudFlare, which might bring an end to the malicious inconvenience. Continue Reading →

Views: 63

HotWhopper wrong on ocean heat

a turbulent ocean

 

After reading Bob Tisdale at WUWT I made my first visit yesterday to HotWhopper to examine a post on ocean heat content. (Though this doesn’t concern the report from our Commissioner for the Environment, it addresses the fundamental science, so please bear with me.) Miriam O’Brien (a.k.a. Sou) writes:

The oceans absorb more than 90% of the extra energy that’s being built up in the system.

This caught my attention as lying at the centre of her argument. But we need to ask where the heat comes from and how it gets into the ocean.

As we know, the oceans warm from the direct heat of the sun. The hypothesis (and it’s still only an hypothesis, it’s not yet a theory) that the oceans also warm from the effects of man-made global warming depends on heat energy reaching them by radiation from atmospheric gases (the so-called greenhouse gases).

Trouble is, physics is against it. Continue Reading →

Views: 233

Anthropogenic Global Warming and the Scientific Method

• Guest post •

Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) alarm has been with us for a good while now. The matter seems to become more contentious rather than less. Unhappily, as a result of the mediocre quality of science education, many people do not know how to evaluate either a scientific hypothesis in general or AGW in particular — and irrespective of whatever anyone might think, because of how it is framed and evaluated, AGW is no more than a hypothesis. Continue Reading →

Views: 90

Herald obeys the clamour

Hopes end for levelheaded exemplar from once-leading opinion maker

The Herald nails its colours to the mast

The NZ Herald has finally burned any bridges it may have retained with decently sceptical climate scientists by publishing the above advertisement today pretending the obvious falsehood that the “science on climate change” is “settled”. Continue Reading →

Views: 166

Prosperity beats climate change

A really sensible and balanced note is sounded by a leading alarmist blogger. Is some common sense emerging after all the name-calling?

Mark Lynas writes yesterday:

Climate campaigners 350.org recently had an ‘India Beyond Coal’ day of action, supported by assertions such as this:

Our excessive dependence on coal threatens a future where we can pull millions of Indians out of poverty. Rising costs of coal, reduced availability, excessive deforestation, negative health impacts and the climate crisis are strong reasons to begin the transition towards renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Continue Reading →

Views: 50

Everyday uses for the NZTR

1. Computer models that forecast the weather

Gareth Renowden at Hot Topic has finally lost whatever finger-nail grip he ever had on climate science.

He now claims (incredibly) that national temperature records “play no part in planning” since forecasts come from computer models, not carefully-kept historical records. It’s sad, really, that NIWA totally disagrees with him. And we shall prove it.

Continue Reading →

Views: 117

The dark art of falling albedo

Ruapehu eruption 2007

A story on Mother Jones last July by John Vidal described the world’s highest glacier, Khumbu, turning visibly darker as particles of fine dust, blown by fierce winds, settled on the bright, fresh snow. “One-week-old snow was turning black and brown before my eyes,” said American geologist Ulyana Horodyskyj. Unfortunately she lacked the presence of mind to make a photographic record of this startling event. Continue Reading →

Views: 88

‘Honey’ calls down a woman’s wrath

Not climate conversation, but assuredly the climate of conversation

According to the Herald:

Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority boss Roger Sutton said: “Hugs, jokes … I do do those things, and I’ve hurt somebody with that behaviour and I’m very, very sorry about that.”

Another man bullied into apologising for being a man. Continue Reading →

Views: 51

New Greens

Victoria University of Wellington is to quit its modest investments in fossil fuel.
“The University recognises that the world is still reliant on the fossil fuel industry and the intent of this decision is not to vilify responsible companies in the sector. The University [wants to align] its investment decisions with the results of its scientific research and its public stance on climate change,” said vice-chancellor Grant Guilford.

In other news
Continue Reading →

Views: 78

Critical debating points answered – Part 3

Environmental Modeling & Assessment

Wherein we rebut Points 7, 8 & 9

In What Mullan actually says on 7 November I answered the Hot Topic post Danger Dedekind heartbreak blah blah of 5 November, in which Mr Gareth Renowden, presumably advised by Dr Brett Mullan, principal climate scientist at NIWA, had levelled criticisms at the recently published reanalysis of the NZ temperature record. I set out to identify clear, falsifiable statements that Gareth Renowden (or Brett Mullan) was making. There were nine debating points, which you can find in What Mullan actually says. We promised every one would be rebutted. Continue Reading →

Views: 185

Critical debating points answered – Part 2

Environmental Modeling & Assessment

Wherein we rebut Points 4, 5 & 6

In What Mullan actually says on 7 November I answered the Hot Topic post Danger Dedekind heartbreak blah blah of 5 November, in which Mr Gareth Renowden, presumably advised by Dr Brett Mullan, principal climate scientist at NIWA, had levelled criticisms at the recently published reanalysis of the NZ temperature record. I set out to identify clear, falsifiable statements that Gareth Renowden (or Brett Mullan) was making. There were nine debating points, which you can find in What Mullan actually says. We promised every one would be rebutted. Continue Reading →

Views: 81

Critical debating points answered – Part 1

Environmental Modeling & Assessment

Wherein we rebut Points 1, 2 & 3

In What Mullan actually says on 7 November I answered the Hot Topic post Danger Dedekind heartbreak blah blah of 5 November, in which Mr Gareth Renowden, presumably advised by Dr Brett Mullan, principal climate scientist at NIWA, had levelled criticisms at the recently published reanalysis of the NZ temperature record. I set out to identify clear, falsifiable statements that Gareth Renowden (or Brett Mullan) was making. There were nine debating points, which you can find in What Mullan actually says. We promised every one would be rebutted. Continue Reading →

Views: 100

Ocean, not CO2, caused past climate change

oceans

Len Mills tells us of a study showing past climate change was caused not by atmospheric carbon dioxide but by changed ocean circulation releasing heat into the atmosphere.

Most of the concerns about climate change have focused on the amount of greenhouse gases that have been released into the atmosphere, but in a new study published in Science, a group of Rutgers researchers have found that circulation of the ocean plays an equally important role in regulating the earth’s climate. Continue Reading →

Views: 55

Dazzling solar generator fails promise

Wants half-billion public bailout

From The Hockey Schtick (h/t Richard Cumming) we learn that the Ivanpah solar thermal plant (the world’s largest), on the edge of the Mojave desert in California, has failed to keep its promise of renewable, reliable, cheap, climate-changing electric power. Which is a shame, but at least it’s their own money they’re playing with. Continue Reading →

Views: 205

Posting delayed

A personal note

I’ve been laid low for the last three days by a virus (according to my ever-accurate wife it’s a virus, though it might be a bacterium; when I asked her why she calls it a virus, she was nonspecific—so it left me unsatisfied but ended the conversation) which has gone through the family from one end and out the other from babies to grandparents. Nobody said life would be easy.

Your host is back with reduced but reviving vigour.

Views: 26

Wind alone cannot keep the lights on

Len Mills sends us a study of wind farms reported in the Daily Mail. It emerges that their real production history falls a long way short of the breathless claims some make for them.

I too wish to save the world, but not by using wind turbines, because they’ll ruin us first. They’re expensive, ugly, short-lived, noisy to the point of ill-health, ugly, kill bats and birds, they stop generating if there’s too little or too much wind, they demand lots of rare metals and they’re ugly.  Continue Reading →

Views: 130

Tampering at Australian BOM exploded

Devastating criticism from William Kininmonth

This is dynamite. Heartland’s November Environment & Climate News reports scientist Jennifer Marohasy and environment editor Graham Lloyd, among others, have learned the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has been “fudging” historical temperature records to fit a warming narrative. Continue Reading →

Views: 82

What Mullan actually says

In Renowden’s latest apologia at Hot Topic it is quite difficult to discern Brett Mullan’s arguments through the thicket of abuse and misdirection created by Renowden. But I think these are the debating points he’s trying to make, lined up with the passages in which he makes them.

Point 1

When he says:

Let me pose a question. What does Dedekind think Rhoades and Salinger were doing in their 1993 paper? Indulging in a purely theoretical exercise? In fact, they developed their techniques by working on what became the Seven Station Series (7SS), and from 1992 onwards the 7SS was compiled using RS93 methods properly applied.

We’ll call that Debating point 1. From 1992 onwards the 7SS was recalculated using the Rhoades & Salinger (1993) measurement techniques.

Continue Reading →

Views: 286

Chinese cyber attack thwarted

The Climate Conversation web site has been under determined attack by cyber criminals over the last two months. Over 5.5 million web requests and 1.3 million spam messages deluged the server during September and October. I wondered at the persistently slow responses and recently complained. My web host provider was already diagnosing the problem and yesterday brought the attacks to an end, though at the cost of isolating China. Sorry, China!

Our web traffic, already busy, had soared to three times normal, 80% to 90% of it from China, enormously inflating our log files. The SysAdmin told me:

Your logs have been much larger than normal for months, but only caused the server to stop all processing in the last few weeks. Your logs haven’t processed for over a month but others on the server only stopped when yours hung for a week.

Continue Reading →

Views: 45

Hot Topic of hatred

First foray against Renowden’s latest polemic. There’ll be more.

Hot Topic keeps its hands grubby with another poisonous piece of writing. In Danger Dedekind! Heartbreak Ahead (still wrong, still digging, NZ still warming fast) Gareth Renowden first attacks Chris de Freitas:

Given de Freitas’ track record, it is unsurprising that I queried the peer review process at Environmental Modelling and Assessment.

No, it IS surprising, since it’s a completely different journal and Chris is not the editor. Continue Reading →

Views: 62

Bite the third

toast-with-bite-660

… and another bite…

There’s a third bite to be had from Gareth Renowden’s inept rebuttal of the new paper A Reanalysis of Long-Term Surface Air Temperature Trends in New Zealand by de Freitas, Dedekind and Brill (2014), just published in Environmental Modeling & Assessment. Recall that he said:

The paper as published contains no workings or supplemental material that would allow reproduction of their results,

Continue Reading →

Views: 91

Analysis of Renowden’s analysis of our reanalysis

• Guest post •

— by Bob Dedekind

Introduction

I chuckled at Gareth Renowden’s attempt to rebut our paper, for two reasons: he makes many mistakes and whoever is feeding him bits of information seems to let him down.

I printed out and highlighted his mistakes so I could deal with them individually. However, when I had finished the whole article was one big highlighted blob, so I’ll focus just on the most glaring mistakes. Continue Reading →

Views: 260

Bite the second

toast-with-bite-660

Now for another bite…

Let me take a second bite at Gareth Renowden’s toxic commentary on the new national temperature reanalysis.

Remember that Renowden says in his vitriolic post:

dFDB 2014 repeats the old canard that NIWA’s Seven Station Series (7SS) before the 2010 review was based on the adjustments made in Jim Salinger’s 1981 thesis. This was … so transparently at odds with written reports and papers from 1992 onwards that it was easy for NIWA to refute.

There are two rebuttals I can make: Continue Reading →

Views: 106

Renowden on the reanalysis

Gareth Renowden posted comment on the new paper in what seems to be his customary style: unpleasant, vexing, offensive, loathsome and short on fact. Still, along the way he did venture some factoids which I shall rebut while ignoring the vexatious.

First, his article was headlined: NZ cranks finally publish an NZ temperature series – but their paper’s stuffed with errors. To the first phrase, I note that publishing a temperature series is clearly beyond him and, to the second, I say we’ll see about that. Continue Reading →

Views: 146