Bishop Hill Sceptics on Radio 4
Nov 1, 2014 BBC Climate: Sceptics Climate: sensitivity I gather that there was a segment on Radio 4 about climate sceptics this morning, with an interview with Nic Lewis. I'm going out shortly so I can't record it for you, but you should be able to listen again here in a few hours' time.
Bishop Hill
Nic Lewis emails:
As you know, Roger Harrabin's piece on global warming that included excerpts of his interview with me aired at 7.15 this morning on Radio 4.
Unfortunately, his piece confusingly muddled up both CO2 emissions with CO2 concentrations and equilibrium climate sensitivity with the transient climate response level. Both equilibrium climate sensitivity and the transient climate response relate to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration, but the equilibrium sensitivity is higher because the transient response refers to the global warming that occurs over decades rather than the centuries it takes for the ocean to fully warm up and equilibrium to be reached.
Harrabin said "if we double CO2 emissions - which we are likely to do later this century - we are likely to provoke a temperature rise of about 1.7°C", or similar words. What I had told him was that, based on instrumental observations, I estimated the equilibrium climate sensitivity to be 1.7°C warming for a doubling of CO2 concentration.
Reader Comments (131)
Warmists say I can predict the future I am certain
I say "I can't predict the future but your astrology or clairvoyance is demonstrably mistaken"
that is a better statement of my position
Why do I have to consider the doubling of CO2 position for 2100 or something ?
anything could have happened by then and perhaps by 2035 fusion will be so plentiful no one will be talking about CO2
"Tamsin Edwards My @TEDxCERN talk on uncertainty in climate science is now online HT @ClimateRealists " she just tweeted
"Published on 29 Oct 2014
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. The topic of climate science has become highly politicized as scientists and the public – the media, politicians, supporters, and sceptics – differ on the idea of uncertainty. Tamsin Edwards explains that “uncertainty” - rather than being a liability - is the engine of science. She discusses the confusion surrounding climate change and offers a platform for the public to talk directly to climate scientists. "
@jamspid: "Cant be long before he retires.Just a thought: "
The 60 year retirement age for most civil/public servants went about 3-4 years ago, and most early retirement schemes went with it. I'm afraid we're probably stuck with this a**hole for another 6 years.
I like TinyCO2's mentioning Savile and the BBC's vulnerability to wickedness by insiders. The Green Blob certainly has its placemen inside the BBC, corrupting its broadcasts. Some BBC enviro-staffers do move on to to paid green advocacy. This is reminiscent of procurement civil servants who then move on to lucrative jobs in the very industries they previously negociated with, and former finance ministers who move on to bank directorships.
On second thoughts, in view of Savile's gross criminality it would perhaps be below the belt to try that tactic. Were it not for the BBC perverting public opinion I do believe that the trillions being wasted on greenery would not have happened. The "renewables" industry will fight like hell to protect their subsidy-whoring, and you can buy a lot of skilled astroturfers when your budget is in the billions.
Brent Hargreaves: "On second thoughts, in view of Savile's gross criminality it would perhaps be below the belt to try that tactic."
Lest we forget before the Saville affair broke the BBC libelled us sceptics by likening us to Paedophiles. And both times they behaved in this appalling way sceptics complained and WE ARE STILL DUE A MASSIVE APOLOGY.
As for Harrabin, there is no faithfulness in his mouth; his inward part is very wickedness; his throat is an open sepulchre; he flatters with his tongue.
Steve Jones said: "The BBC has gone from impartial and widely respected, a reputation it enjoyed for decades ...."
Not with me it hasn't.
In the 1970s the BBC reported political events on the basis that the USA was half a dozen and the USSR was two threes. I wrote asking why it used Guardian journalists so much; some days the Guardian employees outnumbered all other newspaper journalists. It is still the same. The reply I got was pure bureaucratic stonewalling. I have never bought a BBC Licence (tax) since then.
I'm quoting myself. Roger Harrabin made this breakthrough possible. This makes it a strange time to indulge in Harrabin hatred. Oh no it isn't, sorry, it's what we do on Bishop Hill. Someone helps and we knife them.
Harrabin got some important details wrong and it's absolutely right for Nic to point this out. The situation also demands a mob baying for his blood. That's what leads to positive change.
Or we realise that any steps forward are going to be highly ambiguous like this. Harrabin doesn't become Haseler overnight. That's very frustrating. It's also good for us, in that it develops character. And that is what is needed to sort out the gigantic mess that is climate policy and the misdirections and deceptions that have made it possible.
RD - The only thing that made Nic's appearance possible is the fact that he does painstaking and rigorous work which cannot be ignored.
Harrabin is in no way a facilitator of open, accurate and informed debate. At best he is too stupid to engage properly; at worst he is advancing an agenda based on his own bias and motivations. The framing of the piece, and his misrepresentation of Nic's words, support my view that it is the latter.
not banned, the other aspect to this is that climate establishment can think/realize that legitimate low-sensitivity estimates are a great way to walk back for the comical, alarmist positions adopted in the frenzy of 2007 (AR4+AIT) and save face. It is not hard to imagine a situation where the alarmists who once claimed the 'evidence' supported their alarmism (aka the science is settled) are relegated to crying 'the lack of evidence' should not make us retreat from alarmism. The real world accomodates a lot of things but it does not have room in the seats of power to keep non-delivering alarmists in play indefinitely (my deluded view).
@ Justin Ert
You have, in my view, nailed the agenda.
Nothing has changed. The BBC is still peddling its propaganda with the added bonus of the claim (without naming any names) that sceptics now agree with man made CO2 induced global warming. There was an extended item on this subject on this morning`s BBC Breakfast programme featuring Harrabin and a Mr Carney, discribed as a "carbon scientist". It is all intended to prepare the ground for public acceptance of the latest IPCC report due to be published in Copenhagen today (or is it tomorrow?). If you knew nothing about the subject the chances are you would accept it as game, set and match for the IPCC agenda.
shub - not sure I agree with you there - I think that publicly funded activities which deliver are in the minority. The climate debate will not change unless somebody with clout has the balls to start holding people to real and painful account for the appalling misdirection of policy and funding that "climate science" has caused. I don't see that happening anytime soon - the effort I see now is to keep the show on the road in the hope that we have a warm summer or two so that the "pause" can be pronounced "past".
nby:
Nobody's been a greater supporter of Nic's work since he first showed the problems with the IPCC AR4 treatment of Forster & Gregory’s climate sensitivity results in July 2011, as you can see from this comment. But even from what Harrabin himself said in this broadcast we know that Nic's work was a necessary but not sufficient condition for the piece. Roger explicitly mentioned that he'd asked leading UK sceptics, Andrew Montford included, whether they thought Nic was on the right track. The implication being that without those recommendations he would not have concentrated on the interview with Nic.
This shows, in case we didn't know already, that bringing positive change is a team game. Nic Lewis could still have been ignored. And it certainly remains possible that Roger Harrabin will read the words on this thread. I am saying thank you to him. I guess nobody else is. But it's a weakness I have. The past never matters as much to me as what we do now. Roger's just played his part and I hope he does more and much better in the future.
The BBC 'ignores' stuff by broadcasting it on a Saturday morning at 7.15am.
Stuff they want people to hear (e.g. the climate technocracy's latest boondoggle) goes out on every news bulletin round the clock for a few days running.
Don't underestimate the BBC.
The pseudo communist bureaucracy is hardwired towards its ultimate goal of world government with a happy smiling proletariat, run from Oxford University and policed by the BBC. The fact that Greenpeace has the same goal with them at the top, WWF,the same, ad infinitum does not occur to them as a problem. That is a future bloodbath, just as in the time of Trotsky and Lenin.
Nic Lewis has gained a little legitimacy by appearing before Parliament. They have not found anything to discredit him which is their first course of action, so now they have to absorb him as one of "theirs". See how he really really agrees with us they cry and another voice from the wilderness is quietly muffled and the perpetrator led away. I repeat:
Don't underestimate the BBC
RD - I must have heard a different piece to you, I'll stand by for Harrabin's careful and prominent corrections of his errors.
I was going to post something but have found that stewgreen has said everything I wanted to say.
++ Stew
nby: Clever way of not answering my point. I never predicted we'd hear "Harrabin's careful and prominent corrections of his errors" though I'd be as delighted as you if we did. That doesn't just depend on him of course. What I did show was that the excellence of Nic's work wasn't enough in itself, as you'd just said, to guarantee this slot on the premier BBC radio news programme.
Jack Haye's also wrong that to put this at 7:15am on Saturday is to ignore Nic. You can rest assured that this isn't the way that those who've argued for no coverage of sceptics at all, inside and outside Auntie, based on the Jones report and the phony 97% consensus, will see it. Of course it's not at the same level as the big guns that get devoted to some green stories. But doesn't anyone else see even the Beeb reflecting the yawns of the public by reduced coverage of climate catastrology and reflecting their concerns by more balanced pieces on how we're going to keep the lights on?
As I said above every step forward is bound to be full of ambiguities. Meanwhile I notice that nobody has picked up the really substantive point Nic was able to make about the GCMs not just containing basic physics. That nailed a crucial sleight of hand of the alarmist science-policy nexus. Perhaps some BH BBC-haters are indulging in self-fulfilling prophecy: this was said at such an obscure moment of the week that we too are going to ignore Nic on it! No, this I insist was a crucial step. As I've said already, it deserves to be expanded into a full Horizon-length programme, with help from the likes of Chris Essex and Robert Brown. That's where I think we should be putting our efforts.
Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity. Who needs it and what would there be without it?
Please permit an OT meander. Many of us may have been off base in calling the BBC and others 'communist' in their outlook. Those who who push the climate apocalypse and demand the whole ecology of green/climate bs that is deconstructed here frequently are described as quite the opposite by an avowed Marxist who blogs over at:
http://c21stleft.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/alarmism-is-the-problem-not-science/
There is at least an interesting perspective. I found some insights about the power of obsessive ideas- like environmentalism- to comfort those who have lost some core belief. From the C21stleft perspective, green is where good Marxists go after they become bad Marxists. Think of leftists seeing country after country abandon what was presented as an emerging communist paradise. What new thing could comfort their broken hearts? Now saying that I agree with this assertion: The link between those claiming to be leftists and greens is way too strong. And calling them "pseudoleftists" can be seen as a bit circular. But it is an open discussion, unlike most of what is seen from those claiming to be leftists.
nb, Been thinking about this idea for a while now, starting off from a tweet from Richard Tol. I'm not expressing it clearly - it ends up coming sounding optimistic than I mean. What I wrote about has some punditry in it - as in I don't see such things happening now but in the future.
You are right the climate establishment are itching for the temperature graph to inch up or shoot up - to 'seize back the narrative'. But for the moment let us assume the pause continues a bit further. If that happens the climate would behave around such a new equilibrium state, i.e., even if there were to be a warm year it would be followed by a couple of cold years. In other words a year or two of warmth won't budge the overall trend. As an example, imagine if the climate hysteria had transpired around 1936-'37. Every year from 1940 scientists and activists would expect the graph to go up and up but it stubbornly wouldn't have.
If it's true that the current pause is a real thing we may in a similar situation. Inertia is one of the defining features of climate system - it simply does not fluctuate rapidly at sub-decadal scales Even the worst fluctuations ('tipping point' stuff) are spread out over multiple decades or centuries - 'short' in climatic timescales no doubt but longer than a societal debate.
So if this pause continues, studies that calculate climate sensitivity based on observational data - I don't even think such a thing exists, only that it may have some usefulness to some - will continue to throw up lower and lower estimates. Observationally constrained energy balance approaches tend to have the narrowest error bounds. They will carry greater political weight and influence. The world of climate policy and activism will be forced to confront such values and reconcile their pronouncements. Their complete humiliating retreat* is near-impossible - the climate changes too slowly for that. What I am thinking of is how this retreat and re-configuration would take place.
* - it is not completely impossible. If any country or bloc, Britain for instance, pursues its current energy policy to the fullest and if there is slow-motion destruction of its productivity and economy,the net effect would be a costly real time lesson for the rest of the futility of climate-based policy nonsense, much like the hollowing of the Soviet Union.
So the plan is the opposition are now divided into two categories. First and foremost are "sceptics" who have seen the light, confessed and repented their sins. Because they have seen the error of their ways that very fact has further strengthened the unchallengeable position of Consensus. Then there is a second group, unreconstructed "deniers" who can now be legitimately ignored altogether by the BBC. They had their chance to choose the path of righteousness and through sheer pig-headedness spurned the hand of friendship the BBC proffered. They are now beyond the pale as never before and can be shunned as one shuns a mad dog. Non persons from now on. Job done. Nice one.
I'm just listening to Harrabin on the AR5 Synthesis Report. It's terrible - but he does say "the current slowdown in warming is expected to end." I'm not so sure. Mother Nature is such a denier.
@Martin Reed "Divide and conquer" maybe ?
notice that there should be 2 groups of true believers
i)those who keep on blustering through , never admitting have made any errors
ii) those who will go on TV and talk about the errors & misdoings of their compatriots
However the "never let the side down" rule has been applied so hard by their PR team that I have nevr heard of any in the second category.
@Jake Haye Yes good point about hiding Nic Lewis at 7.15 on a Saturday...the "more certain than ever" scare story is banging on all over the BBC stations ruining our Sunday lunches.
You can cheer yourselves up by abandoning the BBC and listening to more appropriate content.
I just listened to Australian station 2GB Alan Jones
1. interviewing Ian Plimer about the true story of windfarms last week
2. Lord Monckton giving the background on the IPCC etc. February 25, 2013
Richard Drake, if a pick-pocket takes your wallet as you walk down the high street, do you thank him for not mugging you?
I see no reason to thank anyone at the BBC for their role in global warming alarmism. They are doing it in headlines again today.
Just watched BBC News channel that are leading with the UN climate change report and listened to Harrabin say that sceptics are now saying temperatures will rise by 3 degrees!
I assume he's talking about Nic's data but he seems to be taking rather large liberties with it. Am I right or have I misunderstood something?
Michael Hart: I take care in what I say. You haven't.
Nor do I. I was thanking Harrabin for giving Nic Lewis the platform he did. I also expressed gratitude to Andrew Neil for his interview of Ed Davey in July last year. I'm being consistent. If you disagree please express the point with more precision.
David Holland Nov 1, 2014 at 8:00 PM
I found so many things I could not agree with concerning the Trenberth Energy Budget (errors in flux; the simple greenhouse gas layer; back-radiation) and my experience of heat transfer and fluid flow modelling led me to the conclusion that the water cycle was by far the dominant surface cooling mechanism, not radiation.
Nov 1, 2014 at 11:12 PM | Budgie
In the light of your personal experience, I will push back the date the rot started to set in to the early 70s!
SJ
I didn't accuse you of inconsistency, Richard.
If I was invited by Roger Harrabin to give my views then he would certainly be due all personal courtesy and thanks from me. [Who really does the inviting is another matter]
But I wasn't invited, so I see no need for thanking him. What I do see is a large state-funded organisation that appears to acting with a political agenda. In former days I could have believed they were acting in good faith by inviting Nic Lewis.
But those days have gone. They have broken that bond of trust as far as I am concerned. I am more inclined to go with other motivations such as the "divide and conquer" approach as suggested by Stewgreen, or, as proposed by others, a straightforward attempt to deceive by making it appear that their critics now agree with them, while studiously ignoring the views of the many others they consider to be too critical. I cannot thank representatives of the BBC for that. Not least because it might lead them believe that their current overall performance was adequate and acceptable.
RD - I'm sure your support will make Roger's day and hasten his conversion to the sceptic view. I just hope his epiphany is fully worked through soon, so that the bbc's climate coverage can further benefit from his expert selection of interviewees and that his skilfully crafted dialogue with them can present the truth and wonder of the sceptic cause in all it's glory. Happy days ahead and thanks be to all!!
http://youtu.be/KSuB4t3q_dA
nby: Thank you too. I'm sure you meant every word of that!
Michael: I think we should applaud every departure from the deceptive and self-serving script of Ban Ki-moon and John Kerry as expressed elsewhere on the BBC today, supported by Myles Allen and Samantha Smith of WWF. Having Nic on was such a departure and Roger clearly implied that this was his decision. I'm not as bothered as some by the attempt to say "sceptics agree with the consensus" because in many ways we do. Most of us are part of the 97%, given the stupid way it's been defined. Where we differ is what's rational and practical as policy. There Ban Ki-moon and John Kerry are saying things that are barmy. All credit to Roger, and most of all to Nic, for injecting one note of sanity in a weekend of such base propaganda. Consensus central will be none too pleased with him for that.
O/T.
Cricket legend Ian Botham in The Mail on Sunday
Guy he's Slamming the RSPB not just about bird chomping Wind Turbines either
Check it out .
shub - I don't see change coming through scientific argument. The majority of the climate science debate is about angels on pinheads and it is way too abstract for all but the most dedicated and informed observer to follow and form opinion on.
However most people understand corruption and, IMO, more focus on the financial flows in climate related policy and activity does have the potential to switch the public on to the scandalous misuse of resource that is going on in plain view.
If the public voice gets loud enough it will impact on politicians. The problem we have then is that the EU political class, who are driving climate related policy forward are by and large, insulated from the electorate.
http://www.ner300.com/?p=363
I don't want to be part of their "carbon free future"
They have no right to impose it on me.
I am not in their religion
and the BBC has let my country down by never providing proper debate.
If BBC Warmists think that we should impose $10trillion solutions, then it's upto them to prove that we have an $11trillion problem
.. and that is not by stomping their feet and saying "we are surer than ever ! now hand over your cash".
Now on 5.50pm news is the usual advertising type distortion "unless greenhouse gases are completely eliminated"
oxymoron since 95-99% of greenhouse gases are not manmade so you can't eliminate them
(they are using sloppy shorthand they don't mean natural water vapor, CO2 & methane ..they mean manmade CO2 I guess)
"fossil fuels need to be phased out by the end of the century"
..jesus that's shopping a bit early for Xmas isn't it ? .. 86 years time ..anything could bloody happen eg like fusion in 16 years time or massive population reduction or an actual proven magic solution.
?? (Harrabin) is saying (misleading) "blah blah, scientists say ..extreme weather .... like today's Coalville tornado, blah, blah "
...I think well we get 1000+ tornado/year but untalked about
I've just heard the 6pm news on R4. Harrabin trussed up Nic Lewis like a turkey and offered him to Pachauri as evidence that 'sceptics' support the IPCC figures!
You can't say you weren't warned about the dangers of lukewarmism.
No no Billy - Roger needs your patient support and encouragement as he treads his path of enlightenment. It may sound like a stitch up but, really, he is only just learning the ropes of the sceptic argument and it's all still rather new to him. Give him time and good cheer and all will come good - you'll see!
nby,
Yeah, riiiight, as they say in America. :))
Nov 2, 2014 at 2:51 PM | Phillip Bratby
Stop having common sense Phillip. Surely you need a 100 million pound computer to see what is actually happening every day.
nby: One expression of gratitude is not to become Polyanna, you know :) I'm for evidence-based commenting. All my experience tells me that a touch of generosity helps the medicine go down. It certainly doesn't guarantee it though. I'm content to be alone in expressing gratitude to Roger here but I wonder why you're so sure of the other way that you expend energy on mockery on a fellow-sceptic rather than dealing with the substantive issues raised.
The BBC has misreported climate massively and for quite awhile. They are bigoted, hating skeptics who have pointed out the failings of their editorial climate obsession. The BBC is ignorant because they have chosen unwisely the side of consensus over critical thinking and fact based reporting. They are reactionary because the reflexively refuse to consider that they could be wrong and rely on dismissing and ignoring skeptics and in echoing the climate obsessed apocalyptics.
We should not be surprised that in their ignorant reactionary bigotry they would misrepresent Nic Lewis.
But they are finally starting to allow skeptics to be heard a bit. Not in good faith, not sincerely, not even seriously or fairly. But the process of pushback against the pathetic climate consensus is succeeding in taking its first steps forward.
@ Oldtimer
I totlally areee that there is nothing AGW- wise that is now eminating from the MSM - especially the Ministry of Truth - that cannot be viewed through the Paris-son-of-Kyoto campaign build-up lens...
Richard Drake - to be clear, I don't see you as a "fellow sceptic" and I find your oft floated attempts to phrase your comments as if you are the Chief Whip of the Sceptical Fellowship tiresome and misrepresentative. I think that rather than being careful and accurate, you put words in other mouths that you'd like to hear them say and I find that patronising and sometimes offensive.
Personally I don't see any need for there to be a "consensus" of sceptics - arguments should stand or fall on their merits and IMO consensus is a political mechanism for overcoming and managing minority arguments that may in fact be correct.
To go further, I have nothing but contempt for the journalistic failure to ask and pursue difficult questions and in the case of practitioners like Harrabin there is nothing to thank them for - quite the opposite.
I hope that helps - those are the substantive issues as I see them.
nby: I've already suggested that I'd be the only sceptic to want to thank Roger Harrabin on this thread, so I accept that I'm an outlier. What makes you think I think I'm 'chief whip'? Surely we can agree to disagree without you proposing something so preposterous!
Ok - On rereading, perhaps you see yourself as a Team Manager rather than a Chief Whip?:
"Or we realise that any steps forward are going to be highly ambiguous like this. Harrabin doesn't become Haseler overnight. That's very frustrating. It's also good for us, in that it develops character. "
Or
"This shows, in case we didn't know already, that bringing positive change is a team game. "
Anyway - job description aside - we certainly disagree on Harrabin's value to the debate. Good night x2.
worth checking this good dissection of the interview over on B-BBC
(apologies for posting too much, but sometimes all the info comes in at the same time)
I don't remotely see myself as either. Why isn't it enough to say you disagree, rather than launch such crude character attacks? And why the need to say that I'm not even a fellow-sceptic? Aren't you really saying that Richard Drake must not say it how he sees it on Bishop Hill? Thanks for the exclusion!
The BBC narrative was skilfully crafted to suggest to the casual listener that climate sceptics have finally thrown in the towel and capitulated - sought forgiveness in the confessionals and now pledge their allegiance to the immutable faith, rather than that the mainstream have been finally forced into a grudging and reluctant retreat from the worst excesses of the shrill alarmist drumbeat.
The great lesson revealed by geological perspective is the insignificance of the current climate alarm- the trivial anthropogenic influence on atmospheric CO2 levels on averaged global temperature compared to the natural range, and almost certainly in a net beneficial direction. Geological perspective also reveals that full equilibrium conditions are always strived for, but never attained on Earth- too many internal and external variable forces. If Earth ever achieved equilibrium it would be a dead planet.
But doesn't anyone else see even the Beeb reflecting the yawns of the public by reduced coverage of climate catastrology and reflecting their concerns by more balanced pieces on how we're going to keep the lights on.
NOT ON YOUR BLOODY LIFE.
All I have seen is a barrage of UNIPCC and EU propaganda pumped out to the UK plebs at every opportunity. What planet have you been on recently.
They even supported Davey in saying that the lights won't go out in the UK because Davey said so.
On the R4 bulletin I heard the BBC gave the I in IPCC as Independent. What is it about the Intergovernmental bit that they wish to hide?