I’m heading back to LA in the morning from Denver, but in the meantime, if you were wondering who was responsible for Climaquiddick, wonder no more — it was the oil companies. So sayeth the head of the IPCC. But don’t worry, he has some reassuring words for us:
Dr Pachauri dismissed the suggestion that biased research had crept into the IPCC’s most recent report on the science of climate change. A complex system of checks and balances was in place to prevent bias being insinuated into the panel’s work, he said.
Well, that’s certainly a relief. It probably works like those “layers of fact checkers and editors” at the LA Times.
He also wants to keep whistle blowing from occurring in the future.
Odds are good that it was a disgruntled employee.
Slightly OT, but could anyone give an appraisal of this paper which has been attracting some attention:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf
“Falsi cation Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse E ffects
Within The Frame Of Physics”
Basically an analysis of the physics of global warming from first principles – it is very critical of climate “science”.
I have started working through it, but others would be able to check it more thoroughly and faster than I.
In the table of contents, but I’m already turned off by the accusations of “fraud”. Further, the assumption that radiative cooling dominates seems correct. That ultimately is how the Earth cools off. There’s no other significant mechanism for pulling heat away from Earth except for a little bit due to atmosphere loss (the most energetic particles are more likely to escape Earth’s gravity). The authors are sloppy with units in a few places. For example, they don’t specify the units used in sections 2.1 and 2.2 except to say that they are “cgs” units. It appears to be a unit of energy.
Moving on, I see the first target.
Aside from a reference in the bibliography, this paragraph is the only place that this paper is cited. I’m kind of reluctant to continue reading given that they’ve already accused (I’d go as far as to call this “libel”) a couple of scientists of “scientific misconduct” in a single poorly worded paragraph on the basis of slim evidence that could have other explanations.
It looks like the spin machine is cranking up to permanent press. You have Mann now saying that the real crime was private emails being stolen. In fact several climate advocates seem more worried about who got what and how so they know which back door to close. They can’t let anymore nuanced and highly developed language between academic scholars escape out into the public and confuse us poor simpletons with porridge for brains. Scientists talk to each other in frequencies that lie outside of the hearing/visual range of slack jaw yokels. We just need to move along and accept the fact that the science is settled. Time to wrap oneself into a cozy polar bear embroidered hair shirt and start shopping for train passes and bicycles. Oh, and best get in line early for your gov’t appointed green job. There will be no shortage of solar panels to squeegee. There will be plenty of squeegee ready jobs indeed.
It looks like the spin machine is cranking up to permanent press.
Naturally. Mann, Jones, Briffa, et. al. — they’re the real victims here.
1. Pachauri’s background has nothing to do with climate science.
2. The gall of the man. I don’t see how the oil companies, in contrast to the CRU types, can operate without successfully doing real science. Finding and extracting previously inaccessible oil and making a profit involves a lot more than traditional wildcatting.
3. I go along with Pauchauri this far: I favor research into geo-engineering. Reversible geo-engineering, given that the climate is incompletely understood. An advanced technological civilization worthy of the name should be able to make minor adjustments to the surface of its planet.
Thank you Karl, my impression of this paper was similar, but I was making allowances for it being very German…
Becoming an expert in the field would take considerable time and effort. The bad science is pretty obvious, but that is not leaving a lot of good science behind at the macro level.
I suspect some people somewhere probably have a reasonable understanding of what is actually going on with climate change. I would quite like to read what they have to say. Where are the Feynmans?
We have top men working on it now.
Who?
Top… men.
Hmm. I quite like the paper. I have no problem with someone who is so incensed that he might be a bit extreme in his language. The content is always what matters.
I’m at page 80 so far, and it all looks fairly reasonable to me. It’s been a while since my physics courses on statistical and classical thermodynamics, though, so it’s going to take a while to cross check, but nothing jumps out at me as being outlandish.
His burden of proof isn’t particularly high to me because the climate science papers I have read have always left me wondering if I was reading another language. I could never reconcile their statements with what I thought I knew from my Physics degree.