Questions for a “jewel in the crown” of U.K. (and global) science

The Met Office is a jewel in the crown, of British science and global science. As a nation we should be more aware of that, and proud of it, than we are. [...] Your excellence is an asset for British diplomacy, enhancing our soft power leverage on climate change all over the world.

John Ashton, “Climate Change and Politics: Surviving the Collision“
Met Office, Exeter, 11 April 2013

I don’t know whether the U.K. Met Office’s Richard Betts was in the audience or not when E3G’s Ashton, who is “equally at home in the worlds of foreign policy and green politics”, delivered his epic exhortations to the troops at the Met Office on April 11. But I do know that he’s a nice guy; a climate scientist who – unlike his colleague Myles Allen – has sense of humour:

Be sure to visit http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com

Thanks Josh. Fame at last :-) I’ll print that out and put it over my desk on Monday. Jan 7, 2012 at 12:52 PM | Richard Betts

Betts is also a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s forthcoming 5th Assessment Report (AR5), Working Group II, Chapter 4 (WGII, Ch4). He’s definitely not a newbie to the IPCC process, having served in the same capacity for AR4′s WGI Ch2, and as a Contributing author for WGI’s Ch7 & Ch9 and WGII’s Ch3. Oh, yes, and a stint as an Expert Reviewer of WGI, Ch11.

So I found it somewhat odd, the other day, when I noticed that Betts had chosen to tweet the following:

@etzpcm @mammuthus @thirstygecko Steve McIntyre’s comment about “pressure” on Nature to accept PAGES2K seems to be entirely speculation

I cannot imagine that Betts was oblivious to the history of documented problems that preceded the publication of this just-in-time paper (with no less than 77 co-authors). But he has indicated to me in the past that his preferred mode of reading blogs is to “skim”. Consequently, he may well have missed the full context of Steve McIntyre’s observation:

The PAGES2K article has its own interesting backstory. The made-for-IPCC article was submitted to Science last July on deadline eve, thereby permitting its use in the Second Draft, where it sourced a major regional paleo reconstruction graphic. The PAGES2K submission used (in a check-kited version) the Gergis reconstruction, which it cited as being “under revision” though, at the time, it had been disappeared.

The PAGES2K submission to Science appears to have been rejected as it has never appeared in Science and a corresponding article is scheduled for publication by Nature. It sounds like there is an interesting backstory here: one presumes that IPCC would have been annoyed by Science’s failure to publish the article and that there must have been considerable pressure on Nature to accept the article. Nature appears to have accepted the PAGES2K article only on IPCC deadline eve.

In light of the above, it struck me that Betts’ tweet was “entirely” superfluous and hardly worth mentioning. In my view, it was the least important part of McIntyre’s posts on this paper.

I don’t often engage in “debate” via twitter, because I consider it to be a truncated version of the pre-web Internet Relay Chat, which was always far from conducive to dialogue. But I made a rare exception to my usual mode of lurk ‘n learn, and replied to Betts:

@richardabetts @etzpcm @mammuthus @thirstygecko @geschichtenpost Science rejected; Nature eve of IPCC deadline acceptance pure coincidence?!

To which Betts responded, in what appeared to me to be a total non sequitur:

@hro001 As I asked @etzpcm are you suggesting the review process at @NatureGeosci was not sound? @mammuthus @thirstygecko @geschichtenpost

So I gave my head a shake and replied:

@richardabetts @etzpcm No, but why is this even worth discussing?! “Easy, superficial excuse” to avoid Steve’s *main* points, p’haps?!

Which, evidently, led Betts to conclude:

@hro001 @etzpcm OK that’s good then. It was SM who seemed to query review process, but if it’s not an issue, great!

So, now you know why – for the most part – I view twitter as a considerably less than optimal platform for “dialogue”: The answers one receives quite often bear absolutely no relationship whatsoever to the question(s) one might have asked!

This is not the first series of disconnects I’ve seen emanating from Betts’ keyboard; nor, I suspect, will it be the last! Precision in posting is not what I would call his forté. But I digress …

Not mentioned in Betts’ Met Office bio is that he is also a member of the fairly recently formed “My Climate and Me” team.

If you scroll down the page, you’ll find a post dated March 12, 2013 with an outdated and very misleading title. Here’s a screen capture:

From My Climate and Me April 23, 2013

 

I don’t know how long the original post remained on the site, before they got around to taking it down, but I have yet to see a reasonable explanation from this “jewel in the crown, of British science and global science” as to why:

• they chose to post without examining the so-called “science” on which the press release was based
• they have chosen to leave this clearly alarmist “headline” intact, some six weeks after it was firmly established that it is not supported by the underlying paper

When asked about this Marcott et al paper (of which one of the co-authors just happened to be a fellow AR5 IPCC Lead Author), Betts’ first response [Mar 25, 2013 at 10:44 AM] was:

Don Keiller, Pharos, ZT:

I’m afraid Marcott et al is not a particularly high priority for me. I can see it’s of huge interest to readers of this blog, since it’s about palaeoclimate reconstructions and hockey-stick shapes, but there’s much more to climate science than that. If my aim was to try to convince the public one way or another on whether climate change is an urgent issue or not, then I might be more motivated to read up on it as it clearly is quite pertinent to the public debate there. However, this is not my aim, so Marcott remains merely of academic interest to me. As I say above, I’m more interested in improving the ability to assess the impacts of climate change and variability over the next few years to decades, and an 11,000 year reconstruction does not seem to be especially helpful there. [emphasis added -hro]

I’m not entirely sure how one might hold or maintain a “merely … academic interest” in a paper one has not been “motivated to read up on”. Nor does Betts’ apparent lack of interest in “paleoclimate reconstructions and hockey-stick shapes” quite square with his (relatively) instantaneous flight into the twitterverse with his superfluous “entirely speculation” tweet (about another just-in-time IPCC paper on “paleoclimate reconstructions and hockey-stick shapes”) But what do I know, eh?! I’m not a busy climate scientist!

For the record, when push eventually came to shove, Betts opted to praise with faint damnation [Apr 15, 2013 at 5:27 PM]:

Don

My (non-palaeo expert) view on Marcott is that it is an interesting attempt to reconstruct temperatures over the last 11000 years or so, but its significance has been over-sold. It does not appear to support claims of “unprecedented rates of warming” because the time resolution is too low. [emphasis added -hro]

<Sigh> Much as I dislike sounding like a broken record …

I have yet to see a reasonable explanation from this “jewel in the crown, of British science and global science” as to why:

• they chose to post without examining the so-called “science” on which the press release was based
• they have chosen to leave this clearly alarmist “headline” intact, some six weeks after it was firmly established that it is not supported by the underlying paper

In short, why is this “jewel in the crown, of British science and global science” participating in the passive perpetuation of the “over-selling” of an ‘apparently unsupported claim’ of “unprecedented rates of warming”?

And speaking of the Met Office and participation in the passive perpetuation of overselling hockey-sticks …

There’s another poster, “Marion” in this same thread at Bishop Hill, who had observed [Apr 19, 2013 at 3:22 PM]:

[...] the Met Office [...] produced in October 2009 the booklet entitled “Warming, Climate Change – the Facts” with the super-exaggerated hockey-stick on Page 4.

http://people.virginia.edu/~rtg2t/future/gcc/UK.Met.quick_guide.pdf

Betts’ response [Apr 19, 2013 at 7:31 PM]:

Marion

The brochure you link to is no longer used by the Met Office – it’s not on the website any more (which is why you had to link to a copy kept by elsewhere) and paper copies are no longer distributed. We accepted that there were errors in it, eg. the graph you mention didn’t show the uncertainties properly.

I’m not quite sure what Betts expected readers to do with this response. But I’ll take a wild guess and suggest he was hoping that his response would make this particular issue go away! However, as I subsequently posted …

I hadn’t actually seen this brochure before (although now that I have, I do recall seeing something shorter but similar on the Met Office site some years ago, and as I recall it was introduced by Julia Slingo and written by Richard Betts). But a very funny thing happened on my way to pasting the title above … after I had carefully selected the title with my mouse, my cat decided to intervene and instead of copying, I found myself searching Google for the selected text, which returned:

About 55,400 results (0.37 seconds)

It was even on e-bay! Well, at least for a while, but alas:

Item 360227229693 is no longer available.
50 items found similar to ‘WARMING CLIMATE CHANGE THE FACTS MET OFFICE

In light of this, perhaps Richard could tell us:

a) when were the errors recognized?

b) when was this (coincidental, I’m sure) just-in-time for Copenhagen document withdrawn from “paper” circulation?

But most importantly:

c) where on the Met Office website might one find the list of errors and omissions – and/or the replacement recitation of alarmist propaganda brochure?

As of this writing, my questions remain unanswered. And because that thread is no longer on the “front” page at Bishop Hill they can quite easily be overlooked, which is why I thought I’d post them here.

And in the meantime … “a jewel in the crown, of British science and global science”?! Really, Mr. Ashton! In light of the above, freebie papier maché ring at the bottom of a very expensive CrackerJack box strikes me as being somewhat closer to an appropriate metaphor for the U.K. Met Office;-)

P.S. Here’s a copy of that no longer on the Met Office website brochure (pdf). Be prepared to be very afraid of the dreaded CO₂ … and watch out for the peas under the thimbles ;-)

UPDATE: Richard has responded via comment below

Hiding the Decline and Bob Ward’s overactive imagination corner

Andrew Montford’s History of the Climategate affair

I am currently engrossed in reading Andrew Montford’s latest book: Hiding the Decline: A history of the Climategate affair (HTD) which is – as promised on the cover – a sequel to Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. As I have previously noted, this earlier work by Montford prompted climatologist, Judith Curry to write:

I give Montford’s book The Hockey Stick Illusiona full 5 stars. Montford’s book will stand the test of time in terms of a history of science book about this episode, and it is being cited in scholarly papers (check google scholar).

Like its predecessor, I’m finding that HTD is definitely a page-turner; and while I do have a few quibbles (mostly of the techno-virtual kind and on which I shall elaborate in a future post – when I’ve completed my reading), I would urge all who haven’t done so to buy your copy now!

My Kindle version (which, for the most part, I’m reading via Kindle for iPad … just love the ability to instantly magnify the graphs!) tells me that I’m now 67% of the way through – having reached location 3981.

So I found it somewhat surprising to encounter in Adam Corner’s corner of the twitterverse [see below, for explanation regarding the divergent path of my mouse to such terrain], the following from CAGW promoter par excellence, Bob <fast fingers> Ward:

He hasn’t read HTD, but he knows it’s a “conspiracy yarn”. Amazing, eh?!

I certainly recalled from my reading of HTD to date that Ward was mentioned a few times; and my search for “Bob Ward” confirmed this. His illustrious name can be found at Kindle locations: 1476, 2896, and 2952. But – unless he has conveniently redefined “featuring” – Ward’s self-declared billing is as far from warranting the adverb “featuring” as his “conspiracy yarn” is from being an accurate depiction of a book he admits he has not read. Even the fourth – and last – mention of “Bob Ward” [Kindle location 4356] is not an account of which (IMHO) he has any reason to be proud.

UDATE 11/27/2012: Paul Matthews advises that when he saw the above Ward-tweet, he responded:

Paul Matthews @etzpcm
@ret_ward So you didn’t listen to the radio programme featuring you and @aDissentient where he said it definitely wasn’t a conspiracy?

Paul Matthews @etzpcm
@ret_ward @aDissentient “Andrew Montford: I think there’s absolutely no doubt that there was no conspiracy” @AJCorner

The latter is from a transcript of this recent BBC radio program in which Ward’s voice was also heard. Yet the cat seems to have gotten Ward’s tweeting-tongue (and/or his fast fingers), because all Matthews has heard in response is … you guessed it … “Sounds of silence”. The “expertise” these activists have developed when it comes to ignoring inconvenient questions is something to behold, is it not?! [end Update]

So what made my mouse meander into Corner’s corner, you might be wondering. Adam Corner (not unlike Bob Ward) unabashedly wears his deep-green advocacy heart on his sleeve; but he is neither “featured” nor mentioned in HTD. Corner’s unconscionable flogging of Lewandowsky’s pseudo-academic “findings” last July did little, if anything, to convey an impression of one who does his homework before posting.

More recently, Corner posted his take on a November 15 seminar on “Communicating Risk and Uncertainty”. One of the scheduled presenters was Myles Allen (who makes two cameo appearances in Montford’s HTD, one of which happens to be a platform he shared with Bob Ward on the heels of the infamous Oxburgh Report pursuant to Climategate). Allen’s presentation topic was “The IPCC’s communication of risk and uncertainty”. For the record, Ward’s role in this seminar was to chair an earlier session entitled, “Public Understanding of Risk and Uncertainty”.

Here’s how Corner had described Allen’s presentation:

In a sen­ti­ment that seemed to be widely shared by the cli­mate sci­ent­ists present, Myles Allen argued that the forth­coming 5th Assessment Report should be the IPCC’s last. Allen’s view was that a mono­lithic state­ment of cli­mate sci­ence know­ledge every five years was no longer the most helpful way to com­mu­nicate cli­mate change. Instead, smaller, more focused reports aimed at spe­cific target audi­ences would make not only a more useful state­ment of cur­rent know­ledge, but a less vul­ner­able target for cli­mate sceptic attacks. One mis­take in the entire doc­u­ment can cur­rently provide a reason for some to doubt the vera­city of the whole cannon of cli­mate know­ledge. If it were not designed to be one, single, defin­itive state­ment, this situ­ation could be avoided.[emphasis added -hro]

I had commented on this in a Discussion hosted at Montford’s blog, Bishop Hill [Nov 16, 2012 at 10:13 PM]. At that time, there were no comments on Corner’s post. In the interim, only three comments have been posted (one of which was from Corner). But a few days ago, Tom Nelson had alerted his readers to a Nov. 22 report of this same seminar by SciDev’s David Dickson, which I found to be far more informative than Corner’s, so I added it to the Discussion thread at Bishop Hill [Nov 23, 2012 at 3:10 PM].

Yesterday (which was already today in Corner-blog time: November 25, 2012 at 12:33 am) I had posted the following comment on Corner’s blog:

Speaking from the audi­ence, the IPCC’s com­mu­nic­a­tions dir­ector, Jonathan Lynn, defended the struc­ture of the organ­isa­tion, and argued against more par­ti­cip­ative forms of engage­ment like blog­ging.

How very predictable of Lynn – and how very typical of the IPCC’s control the message modus operandi. But here’s another perspective on this seminar, offered by SciDev’s David Dickson [h/t Tom Nelson], which includes:

Jonathan Lynn, head of communications for the IPCC, points out that it is up to the 195 member government of the intergovernmental panel to decide on the type of reports it should produce, and that it already publishes reports on specific topics, in addition to its synthesis reports.

One can well imagine that Lynn would have been none too thrilled with the following comments Dickson attributes to Myles Allen:

as a result of criticisms of earlier reports “IPCC statements are becoming so legalistic that their value as a communication tool is diminishing”.

“We should give up on the ‘Stalinist’ notion of a single information vehicle,” Allen told the meeting, organised by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, part of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford.

Allen suggested that the IPCC process was partly motivated by a desire “to make a big media splash,” as a way of getting key messages through to policymakers.

But this could backfire when it came to conveying the uncertainties contained in climate change predictions.

It is interesting to compare Dickson’s take with that of Corner. Kinda makes one wonder if Corner’s summary of Allen’s observations – in which he depicts (and seems to attribute to Allen) skeptic views as “attacks” – is not heavily weighted by Corner’s own preconceptions and enviro-activist views.

As of 11/25/2012 10:14 PM PST, this comment is still “awaiting moderation”. Which is why my mouse and I had earlier today gone off in search of any cyber-activity on Corner’s part elsewhere on the ‘net. For the record, Corner’s last tweet appears to have been:

Perhaps Corner has “taken a powder”, or perhaps the Apple Crumble Cocktail proved to be too much for him. Or perhaps he had anticipated the advice I gave at the beginning of this post … and he’s decided to curl up with a good book by Andrew Montford, Hiding the Decline: A history of the Climategate affair ;-)

UPDATE: 11/27/2012 Corner has released my post from moderation. But he did not deign to respond to my observations. From his sparse responses to those who’ve asked about the involvement of “the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, part of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford”, my guess would be that the imprimateur was granted by virtue of the fact that the convenor, James Painter, is a member of the Institute’s staff. Although any journalist (except perhaps Adam Corner) might wonder why the Institute’s site makes no mention of this event. Perhaps it was really arranged by the BBC’s (now formerly) favoured secret seminar organizer, IBT;-)

Shoot from the lip Pachauri strikes again

Yesterday, I had written about Christiana Figueres, the rather high-handed Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and her perception (for want of a better word) that:

governments have decided that they need to listen to science.

I had also noted, in passing, that there seems to be very little “science” content in these annual 2 week COPs and MOPs CMPs … Sorry, it seems that the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) holds COPs which also serve as MOPs (Meeting of the Parties) while the UNFCCC has COPs which also serve as CMPs (Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol). But I digress (sorting out which UN acronym belongs where can divert one’s attention) …

Consider the following from the “Schedule Overview” (as of November 22) … but it’s only “indicative” in order to “assist participants with their planning prior to the sessions”

First there are the “Pre-sessional meetings”:

• 70th meeting of the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board (19 to 23 November)
• Least developed countries Preparatory Meetings (20 to 21 November)
• Small island developing States Preparatory Meetings (22 to 23 November)
• African Group Preparatory Meetings (22 to 23 November)
• Informal pre-sessional meeting of Parties to exchange further views on the possible recommendations on loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change (24 November)
• G-77 & China Preparatory Meetings (24 to 25 November)

Then, on November 26, the real fun begins:

Eighteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 18)

Eighth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8)

Thirty-seventh session of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 37)

Thirty-seventh session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 37)

Seventeenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (second part) (AWG-KP 17.2)

Fifteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (second part) (AWG-LCA 15.2)

First session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (second part) (ADP 1.2)

Good to see that the Durban Platform now has its very own acronym, isn’t it?!

Nonetheless, there was some question (at least in IPCC Chair, Rajendra Pachauri’s mind when he spoke to a reporter sometime prior to November 17) as to whether the IPCC whose “main client” is the UNFCCC had been invited to speak at this confab in Doha. But, as I had noted in a comment prompted by an observation from Alex Cull on my previous post, the IPCC straightened him out via a Media Advisory dated November 19.

Yes, he’ll be there after all! Not in a prime-time slot, as far as I can tell, but who knows, eh?! I wonder if he will expand on the following (circa July 5, 2012) post Rio+20 exhortation:

Dr Rajendra Pachauri: Time to forget governments and use people power to fight climate change

By Ed King

The world’s leading climate scientist says governments’ reluctance to tackle the causes of climate change means they should be bypassed in favour of global ‘people power’.

Climate change was marginalised at the Rio+20 talks, in an apparent attempt by the hosts Brazil to make coming to a final agreement as straightforward as possible – mindful of how controversial the topic has become.

Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that the experience of Rio proves that the political will to take action simply isn’t there – and argues that a new form of activism is the only answer.

“I would submit that the time has come that we shouldn’t really wait for governments,” he said.
[...]
“Climate change is in a sense the 10-tonne gorilla which is in the room and you’re not going to get rid of him easily.”
[...]
[emphasis in original -hro]

“We shouldn’t really wait for governments“???!

Now, if I were the leader of one the 194 governments that constitute the IPCC, I’d be somewhat, well, alarmed at this pronouncement from “the world’s leading climate scientist”, and I’d be wondering what I might have missed in the IPCC’s new, improved “Communication Protocol” that empowered him to make such a “non-policy prescriptive” assessment. Wouldn’t you?!

Granted, this is not exactly an original thought on his part. It could be that he was simply echoing other “expert” voices – including that of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s earlier exhortation:

“The truth is I am disappointed with the negotiations. They are not moving fast enough. That is why I need you,” Mr. Ban told students attending the 13th Annual Global Classrooms International High School Model UN Conference, taking place at in the General Assembly Hall at UN Headquarters in New York, on Thursday evening. “When I say make some noise, I mean raise your voices. Demand real action. Shame those governments into doing more.”

OTOH, he seems to have “redefined” the word “govern” since he spoke to The Economist in Feb. 2010 regarding the IPCC’s lack of a conflict of interest policy:

Dr Pachauri: I think if the governments who govern the IPCC determine that there should be something of this nature I’m sure that will be put in place.

But perhaps Pachauri subscribes to climatologist, Myles Allen’s “definition” of the IPCC. During the course of a presentation last May, Allen had informed his audience:

The IPCC or us scientists, so to speak

So, just who’s in charge here, folks?

Christiana Figueres? Shoot from the lip Pachauri? The scientists who diligently and devotedly make sure that the “range of views” incorporated in the IPCC’s reports (on which the UNFCCC supposedly depends for its “science” content) is quite limited? Or the IPCC’s “governing” body of “governments”?

Survey participation invited: Does fear of CO2 cause extreme voting?

Please note updates below

A few weeks ago, U.K. writer, James Delingpole declared that he would be running as an independent “anti-windfarm” candidate in a forthcoming by-election. He recently summarized his position:

If there were a single plausible argument in favour of wind power, my task would be a much harder one than it is. But there isn’t. The wind industry is so wrong in every way that to be against it ought to be no more contentious than being against paedophilia. Where wind is concerned we need to stop being Nimbys and learn to be Niabys: not in your back yard, not in my back yard, not in anyone’s back yard.

Delingpole is an eminently readable writer whose irreverent tone might not be appreciated by all. While his popular book, Watermelons is sometimes over the top (as are some of his blog posts), I found it to be an enjoyable read. But in the over the top department, Canadian climate modeller, Andrew Weaver beats Delingpole by a country mile.

In 2007, Weaver declared that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fourth Assessment Report would reveal climate change to be a “barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles”. Very “conservative” and a perfect illustration of the “evidence-based” science on which his preferred policies, i.e. the urgent need for a war against Carbon Dioxide (CO₂), should be implemented.

Weaver, who has rarely chosen to hide his political activist lights under bushel, has now declared that he will be a Green Party candidate in British Columbia’s spring 2013 provincial election.

Not surprisingly, Weaver failed to correct the reporter at the Victoria Times-Colonist who mistakenly conferred on Weaver and his fellow IPCC authors the “Nobel Peace Prize”. In reality, the actual recipients of this increasingly devalued award in 2007 were Al Gore and the IPCC.

The IPCC is quite amorphous. This “Panel” is supposed to be comprised of the governments, not the scientists and modellers who do the much exalted “work”.

Although, in support of this particular “redifinition”, no doubt Weaver would heartily endorse fellow IPCC-nik Myles Allen’s November 2011 slip of the tongue:

The IPCC or us scientists, so to speak

Weaver has a long history of high-ranking authorship of IPCC reports, including that of Lead Author of the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). In this latest edition of the “climate bible“, Weaver’s contribution will be to Working Group 1 Chapter 12: Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility.

In light of his declared very green-striped political candidacy one wonders if he will have the decency to declare his obvious bias and conflict of interest and withdraw from participation in AR5 authorship. Any bets?!

For all that the general public have clearly indicated that “climate change” is very, very low on the priority totem pole, activist “scientists” such as Weaver – and more recently “psychologists” such as Stephan Lewandowsky – (not to mention anti-free-speech acolytes and lesser lights whose fear factory is currently in overdrive as a consequence of PBS having had the temerity to interview Anthony Watts) [Edit: completing this thought/sentence] continue to delude themselves that if they could only find the right communication path, the public will fall into line.

It is also worth noting that the MSM have been dutifully churning reports in which “climate change” is declared as the “cause” of the recent spate of “extreme” weather events. What is not mentioned in such reports (nor in the copious profliferation of “scientific” papers over the last twenty years) is that – apart from computer simulations and projections (which can hardly be considered as “evidence” for anything except a reflection of the modellers’ inputs) – there has been no empirical evidence provided which would even begin to suggest that human generated CO₂ is the primary cause, driver – or in CliSci-speak “forcing” – of climate change aka global warming aka the greatest threat to the future of our planet.

I would be extremely surprised if Weaver would ever declare that human generated CO₂ is anything less than the equivalent of a “barrage of intergactic ballistic missiles”. I would be equally surprised if Delingpole would ever declare that CO₂ – whether generated by humans or mother nature – is anything less than crucial for the survival of our planet.

What I’ve always found extremely annoying about election run-up political polls is that if at first they don’t succeed in getting you to declare your preferred candidate, they always insist on following up with well, OK … but if you might lean towards a candidate who would you choose (OWTTE).

If an election slate were to be limited to Delingpole vs Weaver, it’s probably not too much of a stretch to suggest that those who might favour one or the other would consider the opponent as “extreme”. But I wonder if there is a correlation (if not causal relationship) to be found in fear of CO₂ and “extreme” voting.

So, with all of the above in mind, and inspired by Lewandowsky’s (highly unscientific) survey techniques …

I invite you to step outside the earth bound voting booth and imagine a virtual constituency for which an election is pending. Your slate of candidates is limited to James Delingpole and Andrew Weaver. But – unlike any other pre-election poll in which I’ve ever been asked to participate – you may also choose “neither”. Please select the option that most closely resembles your views.

You may only “vote” once and you may only choose one option.

This poll will remain open until September 29**. By all means please don’t take my word for any details about the candidates and (unlike Lewandowsky) please do your own due diligence prior to casting your “ballot”.

** UPDATE 09/22/2012 05:06 PM PDT: Now that I’ve read the PollDaddy fineprint (and since I am using their “Free” account) the above should read “September 29 or 200 responses, whichever occurs first”.

But please vote, and invite your friends (and even some of your favourite enemies) to do likewise. No pressure ;-)

UPDATE: 09/29/2012 12:40 AM PDT OK, so when I looked at the PollDaddy fineprint (please see UPDATE above) I may not have noticed that I even had a “Survey” option. Poll results passed my anticipated auto-closure at 200 responses, which was exceeded earlier yesterday. In order to preserve my integrity (and that of my poll data) I have now closed the poll (sorry to disappoint those who arrived late and would have voted).

Analysis of the poll results is now underway … Details coming soon to a monitor near you.

Climate science … sows’ ears and silk purses

Laura Kelly at the Silk Road Gourmet recently observed:

The phrase, “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear,” was coined by Johnathan Swift’s punster Mr. Neverout in A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation In Several Dialogues published in 1738. When quill touched cotton, the phrase was used to refer to the strange character of Sir John. Mr. Neverout uses it to proclaim that Sir John, being of low birth, is not a proper Duke and deftly goes on to disparage his character. Although this turn of the phrase is still in play, it has over the years also been used to discourage ingenuity and inventiveness or to encourage people to accept things as they are – in other words, to not rock the boat.

[other commentary and a delicious sounding recipe]

It seems that in 1921, Massachusetts industrialist Arthur D. Little was tired of hearing Mr. Neverout’s discouraging phrase, and set out to prove him wrong. He instructed the scientists and engineers working for him to make a silk purse out of “pork by-products”. From a meat-packer they obtained a form of glue made from the skin and gristle of sows’ ears. Taking an amount roughly equivalent to one sow’s ear, he had it filtered and forced through a spinneret into a mixture of formaldehyde and acetone. This glue emerged as 16 fine, colorless streams that hardened and then combined to form a single composite fiber. Little soaked the fiber in dyed glycerin. Then he wove the resulting thread into cloth on a handloom-and fashioned the cloth into the elegant purse shown here, the kind of item carried by Medieval ladies.

[emphases added -hro]

YMMV, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to consider that there is something about “climate science” (and/or climate scientists) and “irrelevant” – if Myles Allen is to be believed – Hockey stick icons that is analogous to the parts of the above that I’ve highlighted.

Sows Ear to Silk Purse (SETSP):

Mr. Neverout uses it to proclaim that Sir John, being of low birth, is not a proper Duke and deftly goes on to disparage his character

Climate Scientists (CS):

Michael Mann (and other hockey-stick apologists) uses it to proclaim that (for example) Steve McIntyre, being an “amateur”, is not a proper Climate Scientist and deftly goes on to disparage his character – and that of any who might disagree with The Great Mann.

SETSP (Kelly interpretation):

it has over the years also been used to discourage ingenuity and inventiveness

CS:

It has over the years also been used to discourage application of the scientific method (i.e. reproduce the claimed results). The (foggy) science is settled because … well, because we climate scientists are the experts and we said so

SETSP:

encourage people to accept things as they are – in other words, to not rock the boat.

CS:

Thou shall not question the Mighty Mann’s Magnificent Models – or his mind-boggling misrepresentations and manipulations of the English language

SETSP:

[Little] instructed the scientists and engineers … to make a silk purse out of “pork by-products”….they obtained a form of glue made from the skin and gristle of sows’ ears. Taking an amount roughly equivalent to one sow’s ear, he had it filtered and forced through a spinneret into a mixture … [which] emerged as 16 fine, colorless streams that hardened and then combined to form a single composite fiber … Then he wove the resulting thread into cloth on a handloom-and fashioned the cloth into the elegant purse.

CS:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) instructed the climate scientists to make a new improved “hockey stick” … so Gergis et al obtained some new (old) proxies from top-secret colleagues. Taking selected tree-ring proxies roughly equivalent to … well, something or other, they filtered and forced them through a spinneret into a mixture which emerged as “research“. Then they wove the resulting “threads” into a cloth which was carefully examined by unnamed peer reviewers at a prestigious journal. Whereupon it was declared – with great fanfare around the world – that this was an elegant hockey stick, suitable for framing in the next IPCC report.

Alas, much to Gergis et al‘s (silent but presumed) dismay, McIntyre – the Great Mann’s nemesis – and his fellow statistical experts began examining the “threads” of this “silk purse”. And they found that the glue was not quite, well, kosher.

When Gergis and her co-authors (who happened to include well-seasoned IPCC “Review Editor”, David Karoly) could not find a quick-fix which would countermand – and enable them to dismiss – the discoveries made by McIntyre et al, after quietly removing as much evidence of their faux pas as they could, they had to eat some humble pie, and acknowledge that their sows ears mixture was not quite ready for a prime time silk purse.

In short … it would appear that these noble climate scientists, in the interest of furthering their “cause”, have attempted to foist on the world yet another Hockey Stick Illusion.

Of climatologists and cartoons: Compare and contrast

Cartoon 1 [cartoonsbyjosh May 28, 2012]

Climatologist 1: Dr. Myles Allen, blog novice Academic affiliation: Professor of Geosystem Science in the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, and Head of the Climate Dynamics Group in the University’s Department of Physics Extra-curricular activities include: leads the www.climateprediction.net project, using distributed computing to run the world’s largest ensemble climate modelling experiments IPCC involvement1: Lead Author, Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes, Chapter 12 of the IPCC WG1 Third Assessment. Review Editor, Global Climate Projections Chapter 10 of the IPCC WG1 Fourth Assessment. Lead author, Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional;, Chapter 10 of the IPCC WG1 Fifth Assessment. First reaction to cartoon: “The point made in the talk2 was that the revision to the surface temperature record was the only change to a published dataset that was used in the evidence for detection and attribution for human influence on climate to have resulted from the UEA e-mail affair, and that this is not the impression the general public would have got from the coverage.” [May 29, 2012 at 10:43 AM]

Cartoon 2 [cartoonsbyjosh: October 31, 2011]

Climatologist 2: Dr. Judith Curry, blog veteran Academic affiliation: Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology Extra-curricular activities include: President (co-owner) of Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN) IPCC involvement3: None First reaction to cartoon: Cartoon captured and appended to Oct. 30 post with observation, “Josh weighs in”

¹ The intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), makes a point of noting that they do not do research; consequently it is somewhat odd that Allen has listed his history of involvement under the heading “Current Research”.

² This “talk” was a presentation Allen gave on November 3, 2011, the second of a two-day conference entitled “Communicate 2011: Nature People Economics” – sponsored by the Bristol City Council, DEFRA, and an organization called Living With Environmental Change; all of who which seem to have a very green outlook. The topic for this particular session was “The Elephant in the Room: Communicating Difficult Issues” and was Chaired by Professor Angela McFarlane, Director of Public Engagement and Learning, Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

McFarlane’s summary was as follows:

How do we confront The Elephant in the Room and communicate environmental issues that have become taboo? How do we engage people in rational debate about contentious topics. We heard from two experienced communicators who have tackled the issues of population growth and climate change.[emphasis added -hro]

Allen’s (choice of?) topic was “Climate Change – So Last Decade”, although I’m not sure what specific “taboo” he might have been addressing. At one point in his presentation, he did mention “a genuine prediction” and shortly thereafter he spoke of “The IPCC or us scientists, so to speak” [please see Background and Context: Cartoon 1, below]. Although it does occur to me that while he spoke of the UEA “affair” the word “Climategate” passed his lips only once. So perhaps that’s the “taboo”.

³ It is worth noting that in her review of Donna Laframboise’s The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert, an exposé of the IPCC, Curry observed: “As a student of the IPCC since December 2009 (yes I was defending the IPCC until that point), I’ve looked at many of these issues myself. I’ve made some of the same points raised in this book. [...] My personal reaction as a scientist is to be very thankful that I am not involved in the IPCC. I already feel duped by the IPCC (I’ve written about this previously), I am glad that I was not personally used by the IPCC.”

Background and Context: Cartoon 1

On May 23, Andrew Montford, author of the must read if you haven’t already The Hockey Stick Illusion and gracious host of the very widely-read Bishop Hill blog, posted the following:

From: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/5/23/myles-allen-on-climategate.html

[Sidebar: Dr. Allen, if you're reading this, I hope you'll appreciate that in deference to your "acutely sensitive" hearing and/or vision, I have reconstructed this post so that it reflects a more "flattering" image. Readers interested in this aspect of the background, please see YouTube Stills.]

As of this writing, there were 75 responses to this post. None from Allen. The view from here, so to speak:

Well, I suppose there’s something to be said for his recognition that the scary stories are just not cutting the mustard – except amongst the political elites who are, as usual, way behind the times when it comes to new, improved mantras.

Talk about cherry-picking, though … in his “summation” of Climategate, Allen hangs his “argument” not even on a single cherry, but on a portion of the skin of a single cherry! Certainly makes one wonder about his mode of “doing science”.

It seems that in our post-modern world, we have “journalists” (e.g. Goldenberg, Revkin, Hickman & Black) acting like PR hacks, “scientists” who don’t seem to have a clue about the scientific method, and advocacy groups pretending that their “reports” are “scientific”.

The verdict of all strongly suggests that this is not a video that is likely to go viral – no one was impressed. I would certainly question the judgment of anyone who describes him as an “experienced communicator”. One who liberally peppers and pads his speech with “ums and ers” does not meet my criteria for a successful communicator – let alone an “experienced” one.

Apparently he was addressing a roomful of journalists and after telling his audience that the “reversal” in “public interest in climate … is essentially [their] fault”, he presented his “argument”:

The problem is that climate change has very much been presented as an issue of global catastrophe that will affect our grandchildren, whereas in fact, the issue is substantially more prosaic than that, but no less serious. That is the point I would like you to take away and consider. [emphasis added -hro]

I’m not sure what he meant by “substantially more prosaic … but no less serious”. Ideas from readers are welcome!

If you prefer not to watch the video, here’s the text of the section (probably from his notes) to which Montford was referring [paragraphs reformatted for ease of reading]:

But what we’ve seen over the past few years is events like the climate-gate email revelations, giving the population at large the impression that the whole issue hangs by a thread of evidence, that a few scientists might have fiddled the data, and therefore, if they are “caught out”, this undermines the entire case for human influence on climate.

In the accompanying slides, you can see the impact of the whole UEA email affair – think about the amount of newsprint, the amount of air time and so forth that was devoted to that affair over the past couple of years – this is the total impact of that affair on any published data set that is of any relevance to the human influence on climate, and the correction is about two hundredths of a degree in the late 1870s.

It is important to get these things right, and we are grateful to those who scoured over the data and identified a problem with input files because that resulted in that small correction in this record. But that’s the only change to any published number which resulted from this entire affair. Now, you wouldn’t have got that impression from the way it’s been covered in the media.

Certainly the public has not got that impression, but rather they have the idea that basically it’s all up in the air again, and that really we have no idea what’s going on, because people have been caught fiddling the numbers.

I’m also not sure what other “events like climate-gate” he might have been referring to. But I certainly did find myself wondering what planet he’s been living on – and what media coverage he might have seen or heard.

I did have to endure the painful experience of watching the video a second time, in order to confirm that my ears had not been deceiving me when I heard him say – as I had noted above – apparently ad lib, because it is not included in the text:

The IPCC or us scientists, so to speak

This is a very telling slip of the tongue methinks … but it will have to be the subject of another post on another day!

Anyway … Allen must have been reading at least some of the negative reviews of his presentation. My guess is that he was not thrilled that his critics did not share his narrow view of the impact of Climategate.

However, rather than engage directly with his critics he chose to ask Montford to post a reply for him. And on May 26, Montford graciously obliged. He introduced the post:

Myles Allen writes

Myles Allen has asked me to post this response to the thread in which we discussed his Communicate 2011 lecture.

Alas, his response showed no indication that he had understood what his critics had written. Nor did the few direct replies he subsequently deigned to make. He chose to completely ignore some very thoughtful questions – and advice! Here’s how I expressed the view from here [May 27, 2012 at 2:15 AM]:

Dr. Myles Allen expounds:

I do think it is sad for democracy that so much energy in the debate on climate change has been expended on pseudo-debates about the science, leaving no room for public debate about the policy response.[...]

[and]

My fear is that by keeping the public focussed on irrelevancies, you are excluding them from the discussion of what we should do about climate change [...]

Frankly, I think it is far sadder for democracy that one who calls himself a scientist should so arrogantly presume that appealing to his own authority (and/or the “expert judgment” of his fellow IPCC authors) is an argument that the public should unquestioningly accept.

Dr. Allen seems to have adopted the approach urged by the “sustainability communications” company, futerra:

Forget the climate change detractors
Those who deny climate change science are irritating, but unimportant. The argument is not about if we should deal with climate change, but how we should deal with climate change.

Actually, I wrote more than that … but what I did not say at the time was how insulting the inference of his “irrelevancies” label was to Montford, Steve McIntyre, and others. I suppose it’s possible that he gave no thought to the implications of his actual words because he was interested not in dialogue but in pushing his “argument”.

Meanwhile, Steve McIntyre made a valiant attempt to guide Allen out of the hole he was quickly digging for himself:

Myles Allen and a New Trick to Hide-the-Decline

Myles Allen has written here blaming Bishop Hill for “keeping the public focussed on irrelevancies” like the Hockey Stick:

My fear is that by keeping the public focussed on irrelevancies, you are excluding them from the discussion of what we should do about climate change

But it’s not Bishop Hill that Myles Allen should be criticizing; it’s [former IPCC Chair] John Houghton who more or less made the Hockey Stick the logo of the IPCC. Mann was told that IPCC higher-ups wanted a visual that didn’t “dilute the message” and they got one: they deleted the last part of the Briffa reconstruction – Hide the Decline. If, as Allen now says, it’s an “irrelevancy”, then Houghton and IPCC should not have used it so prominently. And they should not have encouraged or condoned sharp practice like Hide the Decline.

In the run-up to AR4, I suggested that, if the topic was “irrelevant”, as some climate scientists have said, then IPCC should exclude it from the then AR4. Far from trying to keep the topic alive in AR4, I suggested that it be deleted altogether. I guess that there was a “consensus” otherwise. If Allen wants to complain, then he should first criticize IPCC.

[...]

Allen’s decision to show temperature data rather than Hockey Stick reconstructions cleverly draws attention away from the problems of those reconstructions. The Climategate emails have a apt phrase for Allen’s technique. Showing an unrelated dispute about a temperature graphic rather than the decreasing Briffa reconstruction is itself just another …. trick to hide the decline.

Allen’s first response made me wonder if he’d actually kept his eyes shut so as to avoid seeing McIntyre’s actual post:

The only attribution statement in the IPCC Third Assessment Summary that made reference to the MBH reconstruction was “Reconstructions of climate data for the past 1,000 years (Figure 1b) also indicate that this warming was unusual and is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin.” This is a very cautious statement (“likely” means a 1-in-3 chance that the warming is entirely natural in origin), reflecting our caution at the time about these new pre-instrumental reconstructions.

The key evidence provided for the headline attribution statement “Most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations” was the comparison of model simulations forced with and without anthropogenic influence with the instrumental temperature record.

This comment from Allen happened to immediately follow one of mine in the thread! And it left me shaking my head in utter astonishment. There’s a further irony here: Had Allen actually read what McIntyre had written he would have found a genuine (but irrelevant and immaterial!) error in his post. You see, in his background paragraph, McIntyre had mistakenly described the Bristol conference as “a 2011 conference on Climategate”. For the record, the program overview on the website states:

Recognising the inseparability of Nature, People and Economics is the greatest challenge currently facing environmental communicators.

Without accounting for the value of nature in our economic system, we risk pursuing a path leading inexorably towards the degradation of vital ecosystems. Fail to win the economic argument for wildlife conservation and environmental protection, and our messages are in danger of going unheeded in these testing times. Therefore it is essential that we continue to forge connections with the people whose actions will determine the future outcomes of our planet, and ensure that preserving biodiversity and achieving sustainability remain at the heart of the global agenda. Over two days of talks, workshops, discussion and debate, Communicate 2011 addressed these challenges.

Sure doesn’t look like a “Climategate conference” to me – or even a “climate change” communication conference. Strikes me as being yet another Run-up to Rio+20 propaganda exercise! In light of which, I’m beginning to wonder if the “environmental communicators” weren’t left shaking their heads after Allen’s presentation, trying to fit his “take away” point of “substantially more prosaic … but no less serious” into their communication of the latest and greatest “greatest challenge”!

But I digress …

Allen’s antics did not improve either at Bishop Hill – or at Climate Audit, notwithstanding some excellent advice provided by Lucia. Be sure to read McIntyre’s post which he subsequently updated by elevating Lucia’s advice to the headpost – immediately beneath which you will see Allen’s non-responsive reply which arrived there by virtue of the fact that McIntyre obliged when Allen requested that it be equally elevated.

One of the nice things about being a member of the “congregation” at Bishop Hill is that every once in a while His Grace (as Montford is sometimes fondly called) gives us the opportunity to have some frivolous fun by letting our imaginations run wild. May 27 was one of those days for one of those posts. It was a “caption contest” involving a photo of Allen and a U.K. rapper named Will.I.Am (whom I’d never heard of before). The winner will receive a coffee mug “adorned with the Josh cartoon” of her/his choice. Who could resist, eh?!

If Myles Allen has a sense of humour, one can only conclude that May 27 must have been a very “bad-humour day” for him. So on May 28, shortly after midnight, he let forth a barrage [May 28, 12:08 am] of what I would call “revisionist scholarship” – and did an exit stage-left with a resounding whine, leaving a long trail of very valid – and telling – unanswered questions behind him. Here are some excerpts:

I was in the papers last Tuesday through no initiative of my own, but because I was asked by Intel to talk to their technology ambassador who happens to be Will.i.am. Andrew Montford then decided to dig up an unflattering image on YouTube and it was rapidly whipped up into a claim I was plotting to overthrow democracy, all without anyone taking the trouble to ask me what I meant. Since I do care about democracy a lot more than I care about the Medieval Warm Period, I tried to post to explain that my concern was that the way the climate debate was going, you were running the risk of continuing to argue about things that may ultimately turn out to be irrelevant rather than formulating sensible alternatives to some of the more anti-democratic measures that are being tossed around. For my pains, I have now been called an “idiot”, “prat”, “arrogant” and I don’t know what else. [...]

Now, it seems, Andrew is running a caption competition. What is the problem, Andrew? I wasn’t criticising your book, I was criticising journalists for giving the public the impression that the UEA e-mails called into question the integrity of the data we use for detection and attribution of human influence on climate.

I do appreciate there have been a couple of thoughtful comments on this thread, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to sign off. [...] [emphasis added -hro]

As I had observed in a comment responding to those who suggested that the caption contest was inappropriate:

MA made three appearances (prior to his exit stage-left on May 28 at 12:28 am):

May 26 9:06 am
May 26 9:15 am
May 27 8:14 am

This May 27 comment was merely a copy and paste in which he combined two comments he had made at CA:

http://climateaudit.org/2012/05/26/myles-allen-and-hide-the-decline/#comment-334919

and

http://climateaudit.org/2012/05/26/myles-allen-and-hide-the-decline/#comment-334915

Such non-responsive and/or diversionary contributions might be your idea of “constructive dialogue”, but it certainly isn’t mine. And while I cannot speak for Andrew, I would suggest that in light of the above, this caption contest thread – which did not begin until May 27 (sometime prior to 9:02 AM when the first comment appeared) – is far too kind.

And if one adds to this, MA’s parting whine (May 28, 12:28 am) in which he describes an embedded video as:

an unflattering image on YouTube

and conflates and completely mischaracterizes** criticisms from a thread to which he chose not to respond directly – while ignoring the very valid questions and criticisms in the thread in which he did deign to “respond”, then all I can conclude is that he had no interest whatsoever in “constructive dialogue”.

Later on May 28, Montford wondered how Allen might have come by his mis-perception that Climategate was about the temperature record – rather than the paleo (tree sample) proxy records – as being the predominant “public perception” about which Allen kept harping. Although it should be noted that his “point” – not unlike Gavin Schmidt’s ever-changing story, come to think of it – certainly did change depending on … well, I’m not quite sure what it might have depended on!

As it turns out, on May 29, Steve McIntyre reviewed some of the early press coverage and observed:

I’ve quickly re-examined some of the contemporary news reports as the story unfolded to see how attention got shifted from the Hockey Stick to temperature. These comments are quick and do not represent a thorough canvassing, which would be interesting.

Many of the very earliest comments refer to the Hockey Stick. The earliest comments from the University of East Anglia refer to the temperature record, rather than the hockey stick. Most early coverage by Nature – which was very involved in early coverage – also drew attention to the temperature record, rather than the hockey stick. It looks to me like both the UEA and Nature were important contributors to focussing on the temperature record, rather than proxy reconstructions. I don’t think that Myles can fairly blame “mainstream media” for getting this wrong, when Nature and the UEA were busy fostering this misunderstanding.

But in the meantime … on May 28, Josh had created and posted Cartoon 1.

Background and Context: Cartoon 2

The genesis of this cartoon is far less complicated! Most of it can be found in a post I wrote on Oct. 31 last year. I provided some background – and asked some questions – about Dr. Richard Muller, a physicist at Berkeley who launched the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project on the heels of … Climategate. The project was designed to:

resolve current criticism of the former temperature analyses, and to prepare an open record that will allow rapid response to further criticism or suggestions. Our results will include not only our best estimate for the global temperature change, but estimates of the uncertainties in the record.

Curry was asked to join the project – which she did, with no remuneration and no obligation. Via her blog, she kept us apprised of their progress and developments. But on Oct. 20, she learned that Muller had launched a media blitz to announce the submission of four papers, all bearing her name as one of the co-authors despite the fact that her role had been primarily advisory. In Curry’s view, two of the papers were definitely not ready for prime time. This resulted in an article in the Oct. 30 U.K. Mail Online:

Curry was quite frank about her concerns regarding some of Muller’s statements. The article is worth a read – and you will see some examples of the “fat tale” headlines generated in the U.K. press. (See also Curry’s clarification and account of her subsequent discussion with Muller).

It was the article in the Mail Online which provided Josh with the inspiration for Cartoon 2.

Observations

One thing that became quite clear to me is that Allen’s interest was only in matters that affected his area of expertise and/or contributions to IPCC reports: detection and attribution. In his world, nothing else seems to matter! Curry, OTOH, has a much broader perspective.

This may seem nit-picky (if not sexist!), but if I compare the constant disrespectful haranguing (from both sides of the climate divide) on Curry’s blog to the relatively mild (and few and far between) assessments of Allen’s virtual personna, and their respective responses – I’ve certainly never seen a “whine” from Curry – then all I can say is perhaps female climatologists have much thicker skins than their male peers!

Another interesting difference that I detected is that Curry has never been reticent to publicly criticize if she believes that a colleague is wrong. Allen ducks. Over the last few days, it became apparent that Allen has co-authored at least one paper with known environmental activists [see citation in Donna Laframboise's recent post].

He has also co-authored a paper with two prominent Climategate actors:

MN Juckes, MR Allen, KR Briffa, J Esper, GC Hegerl, A Moberg, TJ Osborn, SL Weber
Millennial temperature reconstruction intercomparison and evaluation
CLIM PAST 3 (2007) 591-609

Here’s an example of Allen paddling away:

I was just saying I can understand the argument for not showing the data that Keith Briffa had concluded was contaminated, just as I can understand the argument for showing it. When Steve McIntyre or Richard Muller talk about this, they make it all seem completely black-and-white, but it isn’t. It all comes down to the dendroclimatologists’ confidence that whatever it was that was contaminating the most recent decades would not have contaminated the earlier data. They clearly were sufficiently confident about this to feel comfortable with displaying the data in the way that they did. I’m not a dendroclimatologist, so I don’t feel qualified to pronounce either way. But I don’t use tree-ring data: perhaps that speaks for itself. [emphasis added -hro]

A further example can be found when Allen was challenged on his failure to speak out against the whitewashes known as the Muir Russell and Oxburgh enquiries pursuant to Climategate:

[...]It would be extraordinarily presumptions for me to suddenly decide I disagree with Oxburgh, Muir-Russel et al without investigating the matter as pain-stakingly as they did.[...]

[...]please let me be clear: I am not actively supporting anyone, I am just declining to comment on scientific process and conduct questions because I’m not best qualified to do so. [emphasis added -hro]

(As an aside, I’m not sure what makes him “qualified” to determine what is “relevant” to a debate and what isn’t, not to mention what makes him “qualified” to flog his pet “policy solution”.)

Curry, OTOH, even in the days before she launched her own blog, was quite forthcoming. As McIntyre observed:

The majority of the climate science “community” appear to be so desperate for affection that they’ve proclaimed wind utility chairman Oxburgh’s love to the rooftops merely because of a few sweet nothings whispered in their ears. (Words of love so soft and tender.) Their gratitude is so great that they are willing to overlook the embarrassing brevity of Oxburgh’s report, Oxburgh’s negligible due diligence and failure to address any of the questions that were actually at issue.

Judy Curry has not compromised her standards.

Uniquely among the “community”, she’s noted the embarrassing brevity of the Oxburgh “report”:

When I first read the report, I thought I was reading the executive summary and proceeded to look for the details; well, there weren’t any.

Uniquely within the “community”, she realized that Oxburgh avoided the questions that were at issue:

And I was concerned that the report explicitly did not address the key issues that had been raised by the skeptics. … I recall reading this statement from one of the blogs, which seems especially apt: the fire department receives report of a fire in the kitchen; upon investigating the living room, they declare that there is no fire in the house.

[...]

Perhaps in addition to having thicker skins, female climatologists are more inclined towards confronting “relevant” issues than their male peers.

Postscript for the record

Allen did eventually make some further – and more relevant – responses both at ClimateAudit and Bishop Hill. And eventually (after yet another whine [May 30, 2012 at 12:05 AM], Allen did move a few inches [May 30, 2012 at 9:58 AM]:

Sorry, I really do have to get back to the day job now. Given these comments, I’m happy to accept that it isn’t clear who was to blame for the conflation of climategate with the surface temperature record. I’ve accused journalists of being to blame, and they seemed to accept it, but perhaps they were just too gentlemanly to object. And watching the early coverage, I was probably acutely sensitive to references to the instrumental record, because that is what I specifically cared about.

Several posts have suggested I was blaming the blogs, but I hope that isn’t true, at least not to the best of my recollection. I was criticising the mainstream media for not keeping the affair in perspective.

Amazing. Simply amazing.