Snippets from Climategate 2.0

Some snippets with commentary from the most recent batch of Climategate emails.

1. Email exchange between Phil Jones and Journalist. Jones answers in italics.

One of your speciality is paleoclimatology. It is necessary to study the dinosaur age to be able to predict the near future or which is the most outstanding period for studying? 

 No! The only recent period that is relevant for the future is the last 2000 years. For earlier periods back to the dinosaurs, the boundary conditions were different. The amount of day hours at different latitudes changes enough prior to 2000 years ago. Back with the dinosaurs the continents were in different positions.

http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/2740.txt

Seems James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato would disagree!

Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change

Planting the seeds of innovation in the Bureaucracies of today is a sure way to sprout the weeds of the tomorrow.

This letter left on the cutting room floor at the Australian....

Dear Editor,
Bjorn Lomborg suggests spending a $100 billion a year on research into making renewables cost competitive with fossil fuels (Carbon tax a costly feel-good gesture that won't reduce emissions. 17/11). While I am supportive of the concept, and it makes much more sense than the government's economy destroying carbon tax; I can't help but be concerned that the offer of a large, long lived, cash cow and the prospect of permanent research jobs would only serve to create a bureaucracy that would stifle creativity and delay the great leap forward. Just look at the way climate science has hopelessly stumbled in recent years in explaining the travesty of the world's missing warming for instance, despite a healthy investment of tax payers dollars. So, rather than pump $100 billion into a bloated system every year, year in - year out, and risk a drawn out process of invention, why not offer a one off cash prize of $100 billion to the successful individual or consortium who delivers the breakthrough? Planting the seeds of innovation in the Bureaucracies of today is a sure way to sprout the weeds of the tomorrow.

Sherwood's Forest

This Letter missed the cut at The Oz, in reply to an Op Ed piece by Steven Sherwood

Dear Editor,

That Steven Sherwood is unable to condense 50 years of investigation, paid for by billions of dollars of public research money (that may have been better spent elsewhere), into a succinct argument in favour of catastrophic man made warming is one of the clearest admissions of failure I have seen to date from a working climate scientist (Why experts refuse to debate climate science 28/10). Surprisingly Sherwood wants to debate the science in a court room, but he should know that debate in science is not like debate in the legal system as unlike a barrister, a scientist with integrity would give all the information, not just the information that leads to a judgment in one direction or another. A scientist with integrity does not pick cherries!


In the face of such inherent uncertainty, and apparent deep confusion about the manner in which science should be debated, the policy response favoured by the current government and the case for urgent, dramatic action being promulgated by activist scientists, politicians and our under qualified climate commissioners, is looking decidedly premature and lacking in solid foundation. In the long run I have faith that the scientific method, in the absence of political interference, will provide a definitive answer that will provide scientists convincing evidence about the future behaviour of the climate system, on which sound public policy might be developed and enacted. However until then, rather than risk a misdiagnosis and subsequent improper treatment of the problem, a prudent response is required that does not kill the patient. Such a response might involve taking measures to mitigate against current known weather extremes, and enacting policy to remove nonsensical political barriers to competing base load electricity generation such as thorium based nuclear reactors.

The Prince of Precaution

The current print run of The Prince of Precaution has sold out. You can still view it on You Tube.

More copies once orders start to mount up!

find truth in the trends

Thus, although poor station quality might affect absolute temperature, it does not appear to affect trends, and for global warming estimates, the trend is what is important.

Prof. Richard Muller (Testimony at the U.S. House of Representatives Hearing on Climate Change: Examining the Processes Used to Create Science and Policy 31/3/2011)

Some interesting trends above, which one best represents temperature in the vicinity of Melbourne?

Seems reasonable to ask the question

From the cutting room floor at the Sydney Morning Herald...

Dear Editor,
Daniel Bray (Climate change is real. Let's deal with it, 3/3) asks the question: Given the long-standing scientific consensus, why is climate change an unreasoning issue? Perhaps the fact that the observed warming trend (0.1 degrees Celsius per decade) is well below IPCC projections that range up to 0.6 degrees per decade has something to do with it? As current trends clearly falsify the doomsday projections of catastrophic warming derived from the climate models, it is not at all unreasonable to ask what all the fuss is about.

stop the floods, drive an SUV

The following letter left on the cutting room floor at the Sydney Morning Herald:

Dear Editor,

Penny Sackett blames the current floods on global warming (Nature raw in tooth and claw, 15/1). That may be the case, for based on BOM records the Brisbane River experienced a major flood 8 times between 1841 and 1900, and only 2 major floods in the 111 years since, including the current one. It seems one of the consequences of global warming is actually a reduction in the frequency of major flood events! A return to a natural cycle of 8 major floods per century would be devastating, so in order to further reduce flood frequency perhaps the Australian Government could provide every Australian with a gas guzzling SUV and hydrocarbon credits and commission a few more coal fired power plants. As Penny Sackett says "We owe that to those who are feeling the effects of nature's force this summer."