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Discussion > "Climate communication" - what do you think?

Did you see some if the other peoples slides..
Utter academic PowerPoint Eco speak, Richard seems to be the only person that can speak normally

He misses some point about sceptic being sceptical of the media, environmental. Political version of climates science. And of climates policies

Jul 23, 2012 at 7:21 PM | Unregistered CommenterBarry Woods

Richard Betts

I have seen your recent tweets. Where you express weariness at certain persistent confrontational challenges at BH.

I think however that you can rely on a BH majority who recognise and respect your extensive communication efforts, and your honest opinions and courtesy, but reserve the right none the less to engage in a spirit of robust debate.

This is, and is likely remain the primary UK critical climate debating forum. I am certain that I speak for that majority in asking you to carry on participating here.

Jul 23, 2012 at 10:23 PM | Registered CommenterPharos

Paul, Barry, Pharos,

Thanks guys. Glad to hear I gave an accurate picture and can speak normally :-) and that my efforts here are appreciated.

Barry, good point about the scepticism often being about the "messaging" by media, NGOs, politicians etc. I think I did say verbally that one of the good things about social media is that scientists can speak for themselves rather than going via one of those third parties.

Jul 24, 2012 at 10:47 AM | Registered CommenterRichard Betts

BBD

You spoke about measurements of cosmic rays between 1880 and 2000. The term "cosmic rays" was not used until the 1920s and at that time nobody even knew what cosmic rays were or where they came from. It seems unlikely that accurate records of cosmic rays existed at the time?

Jul 25, 2012 at 1:03 PM | Registered CommenterDung

BBD

In addition another paper:


Long-term Variations in Solar Activity
and their Apparent Effect on the Earth's Climate
K.Lassen
Danish Meteorological Institute, Solar-Terrestrial Physics Division,
Lyngbyvej,100, DK-2100 Copenhagen (2), Denmark

deals with a similar time period; 1880 - 1990 and shows a close correlation between sunspot activity and temperature. Cosmic ray intensity closely tracks sunspot activity.

Jul 25, 2012 at 1:45 PM | Registered CommenterDung

Dung

Are you are pulling my leg? I hope so, because the alternative is that you are out of your depth. You say:

It seems unlikely that accurate records of cosmic rays existed at the time?

And in your very next comment (bold added):

deals with a similar time period; 1880 - 1990 and shows a close correlation between sunspot activity and temperature. Cosmic ray intensity closely tracks sunspot activity.

So - you use observations of sunspot numbers (Wolf number/Group Sunspot Number) and the Beryllium-10 and C14 cosmogenic isotope count in tree rings and ice cores to infer GCR flux.

If you are going to argue the toss about GCRs and climate, you should know this stuff. The fact that you obviously don't suggests that the 'scepticism' is rather ahead of topic knowledge. And that's never a good thing.

Another bad thing is using an obsolete study from 1991 to support an incorrect claim. What makes it worse still is that Lassen himself has modified his own original conclusions in the light of newer data:

From Lassen (1991) (your reference above):

The varying length of the 11-year cycle has been found to be strongly correlated with longterm variations of the northern hemisphere land surface air temperature since the beginning of systematic temperature variations from a global network, i. e. during the past 130 years. Although direct temperature observations before this interval are scarce, it has been possible to extend the correlation back to the 16th century due to the existence of a series of proxy temperature data published by Groveman and Landsberg in 1979. Reliable sunspot data do not exist before 1750, but we have been able to derive epochs of minimum sunspot activity from auroral observations back to 1500 and combine them with the direct observations to a homogeneous series.

From Thejll & Lassen (1999):

It has previously been demonstrated that the mean land air temperature of the Northern hemisphere could adequately be associated with a long-term variation of solar activity as given by the length of the approximately 11-year solar cycle. Adding new temperature data for the 1990’s and expected values for the next sunspot extrema we test whether the solar cycle length model is still adequate. We find that the residuals are now inconsistent with the pure solar model. We conclude that since around 1990 the type of Solar forcing that is described by the solar cycle length model no longer dominates the long-term variation of the Northern hemisphere land air temperature.

In future, would you mind linking to a .pdf of papers you reference? Or at the very least an abstract. It is a courtesy and saves my time. Thanks.

Jul 25, 2012 at 8:15 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD

Link failure:

Thejll & Lassen (1999)

Jul 25, 2012 at 8:17 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD

Dung/BBD - I hope the Bishop finds the time to delete your pointless exchanges

Jul 25, 2012 at 8:40 PM | Registered Commenteromnologos

Omnologos

Words fail me
I am making the assumption that you are Phil's mum, if you do not understand this please say so otherwise my great respect for someone I once met has been destroyed.

Jul 25, 2012 at 8:49 PM | Registered CommenterDung

Dung/BBD This a communications post. Please take your cosmic ray dicussion to a different one.

Jul 25, 2012 at 9:42 PM | Registered CommenterBishop Hill

Bish

I will of course cease to post on this thread as requested. However I would like to point out the following:
When Richard first appeared on BH he was besieged by people asking questions and discussing various topics so I had no problem with the fact that a couple of questions I asked were not answered.
When Richard started this thread he wrote:

Any responses to those points, or indeed any other thoughts, would be welcome.

I took "any other thoughts" to mean I could ask questions unconnected with communications. The response was almost the same as before with most of my questions not being answered. BBD responded to some of my comments and that is how the conversation was started.

Jul 25, 2012 at 10:10 PM | Registered CommenterDung

Dung - nothing personal. It's just there are too many of those comments between the two of you!!! Pointless exchange as written but unreadable... ;-)

Perhaps we should have a BBD discussion page where The Man (with one 'n') can discuss with whomever he wants to discuss with.

Jul 26, 2012 at 12:03 AM | Registered Commenteromnologos

Jul 25, 2012 at 10:10 PM | Dung

I meant "any other thoughts on the topic of climate communication other than my specific questions"!

Jul 26, 2012 at 12:21 AM | Registered CommenterRichard Betts

http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2012/07/24/when-will-the-lizard-brain-act-on-climate-change/

Excellent comment thread with great comments by Tom Fuller and Tom Scharf.

Climate communication beaten down, left, right and centre.

Jul 26, 2012 at 12:46 AM | Registered Commentershub