Environmental Policy Examiner, Thomas Fuller

Judith Curry, who has been kind enough to give interviews here before, has now crossed the line in the minds of the climate hysterics who have polluted this discussion with invective and hatred for so long.

Her crime has been to read a book. Really. The book is The Hockey Stick Illusion by Andrew Montford, who blogs under the nom de guerre (it’s a war now...) of Bishop Hill. The book, which reads like a detective thriller (it has been described as Stieg Larssen without the lesbian sex, which is just about the best one-line review in history), chronicles the exposure of Michael Mann’s famous Hockey Stick chart as irretrievably flawed.

Curry will pay--she’s already paying, in fact. She is now being described as a skeptic, a denialist, someone who has gone over to the Dark Side. Tim Lambert, who runs a blog that is arguably the worst of the climate hysteria genre, has a post up on his site devoted to criticism of Curry. The comments there are summed up by this: “Her comments at RC and CP do not read like those of a scientist, or even of a rational person. They read like those of the typical denialist.”

Now get this straight. Curry is not pronouncing that Montford’s book is the definitive source. She does not endorse the book. (I do, but I’m not a respected climate scientist...) Curry’s crime--what makes here a ‘denialist’ and ‘skeptic’ and ‘irrational’--is to say that people should read the book to get an understanding of what happened, how it happened and why it’s important.

Judith Curry actually had to say that people should read a book. That’s because some of the hysterics published phony studies saying it was not necessary to read a book to understand why they were right and their opponents were wrong. I am not making that up. Everybody from Brian Angliss to Michael Tobis is inventing reasons why they don’t need to read criticism of the position they support--that Michael Mann is a saint and the Hockey Stick chart is a holy relic.

There is no better vignette explaining the intellectual dishonesty of the hysterical position, championed by Joe Romm and Tim Lambert, supported by Real Climate, Tamino and Michael Tobis, and egged on from the sidelines by Eli Rabett and countless commenters.

Montford’s book shows how Steve McIntrye identified the errors in sample selection and analysis that made the Hockey Stick chart untrustworthy, and the efforts Michael Mann and his colleages went to to hide the defects of their study (which led to Climategate, which Montford covers at the end of his book).

Montford’s book is good. Curry’s recommendation to the community that they read it is a very good recommendation. I have seen too many defenses of the consensus and attacks on its opponents that showed an appalling ignorance of what happened to think otherwise.

Judith Curry is a respected climate scientist (who does not dispute the theory or existence of climate change due to human emissions of CO2). She holds respectable positions and has published well-respected papers in the literature.

She’s getting dragged through the mud by political hacks for the crime of telling these hacks that they should read what exactly their opponents are saying.

As I said above, there is no episode in all the climate wars that shows more clearly the cheap partisan political nature and moral bankruptcy of hacks like Joe Romm, Real Climate, Tim Lambert, Tamino and Eli Rabett. The question now is will Curry get burnt at the stake professionally and personally before people say ‘that’s enough’?

A new study by University of Guelph (Canada) Professor Ross McKitrick (see here) shows that the temperature data upon which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) relied in its Endangerment Finding has significant flaws and uncertainties that undermine that Finding.

Since the EPA Endangerment Finding is the basis for far-reaching EPA greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation, the McKitrick study also undermines EPA’s decision to regulate. The study also undermines confidence as to whether any particular year or decade is the warmest “on record.”

EPAs Endangerment Finding to a large extent was based on EPA’s analysis of 20th century temperature records. According to EPA, these records show a warming trend in the latter three decades of the century of fractions of a degree Fahrenheit per decade. EPA believes this trend is of sufficient enough magnitude as to necessarily be caused by human emissions of GHGs. But Professor McKitrick reveals a number of significant problems in the underlying data sets. Any of these problems introduce a margin of error that is comparable to, if not greater than, the very trend that EPA perceives and therefore may eliminate or significantly lessen the trend on which EPA relies.

Professor McKitrick reviews how both land and sea surface temperature records were created for the 20th century. He finds that the methodology by which temperatures were determined and the geographic regions covered have changed substantially over the years, with the result that different records have essentially been spliced together to create a single, continuous global record.

The fact that different types of records have had to be combined in an attempt to create a single record is not surprising because, historically, land-based temperature monitors and the methods used to measure sea surface temperatures were not designed as part of a systematic and standardized program to produce comparable data that could be used to produce a long-term global climatic record. They were designed instead to produce reasonably accurate local data.

The combination of these different data sets requires data adjustments so that the data “it” with each other. These adjustments are based on uncertain assumptions that introduce a high margin of error in the overall record.

The temperature trend for the last three decades of the 20th century, which EPA says was of such magnitude as to be unequivocally caused by human-emitted GHGs, was just 0.30F per decade. This cmpares with warming rates of 0.25F per decade during a number of 30-year periods spanning the 1910s to the 1940s, which EPA says were not caused by human-emitted GHGs. Thus, temperature increases of a mere 0.05F per decade are given decisive weight by EPA in concluding that
anthropogenic GHGs caused warming during the 20th century. Professor McKitrick, however, shows that the uncertainties in the data undermine confidence in the accuracy of temperature differences this small and therefore the conclusions that EPA reaches.

Based on the McKitrick study, Peabody Energy Company has today filed a petition (see here) with EPA under the Information Quality Act (IQA) in which it asks EPA to correct the temperature records on which the Endangerment Finding is based and to reconsider its GHG regulations. The IQA requires agencies to correct information that it uses for regulation.

Sydney Morning Herald reporting on UK Telegraph story from the comics section

THE world is unequivocally getting hotter and has been for more than 30 years, according to the most comprehensive study of temperature readings from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean.

The report, compiled by the British Met Office and its US equivalent, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), provides the “greatest evidence we have ever had” to support global warming, its researchers say.

They forecast that this year will be the hottest on record, globally. Usually scientists rely on the temperature over land, taken from weather stations, to gauge whether the climate is changing.

However, today’s State of the Climate report brings together data from 10 separate indicators stretching back 150 years, including measurements of sea level rise taken from ships, the temperature of the upper atmosphere taken from weather balloons and field surveys of melting glaciers.

New technology also means it is possible to measure the temperature of the oceans, which absorb 90 per cent of the world’s heat.

Seven of the 10 areas measured including air and sea surface temperatures, the amount of heat in the ocean and humidity, had rising figures. Three areas, the extent of Arctic sea ice, glaciers and winter snow cover in the northern hemisphere, were in decline.

ICECAP COMMENT: Biggest bunch of BS going - air (Phil Jones admits to a cooling of 0.12C/decade from 2002 to 2009) and sea temperatures and ocean heat content have been steady or declining.

Antarctic ice came close to an all time record and arctic ice continues its bounce back from 2007. Look at the top ten snowiest Northern Hemisphere winters below (graph enlarged here) - 3 of the top 5 have been this last decade (with last year number 2).

Here is the year to year winter snowcover. The trend since 1966 is exactly 0.0. NOAA????

(graph enlarged here)

According to the researchers, the study shows “unequivocally that the world is warming and has been for more than three decades”.

And despite the cold winter in Europe and north-east America, this year is set to be the hottest on record.

The NOAA has stated that the first six months of this year were the hottest on record, while the Met Office believes it is the second hottest start to the year after 1998.

Dr Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office, said “greenhouse gases are the glaringly obvious explanation” for the 1F (0.56C) rise in average global temperatures over the past 50 years.

“Despite the fact people say global warming has stopped, the new data, added on to existing data, gives us the greatest evidence we have ever had,” he said.

Climate change sceptics have questioned global warming in the wake of the “climategate” scandal. It was claimed that emails stolen from the University of East Anglia show scientists were willing to manipulate the land surface temperatures to show global warming. The scientists were cleared in an independent inquiry.

But Dr Stott said that sceptics could no longer question land surface temperature as other records also prove global warming.

He said each indicator takes independent evidence from at least three different institutions. Despite variations from year to year, each decade has been warmer than the last since the 1980s.

He said: “When we follow independent analyses from around the world, we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world.”

Icecap Note: More to come. The alarmists are fighting back with one bogus study after another - relying on the same corrupted station data and cherry picked select other data. Make it all sound very official like the IPCC did. Their day will come....soon.

According to the researchers, the study shows “unequivocally that the world is warming and has been for more than three decades”.

And despite the cold winter in Europe and north-east America, this year is set to be the hottest on record.

The NOAA has stated that the first six months of this year were the hottest on record, while the Met Office believes it is the second hottest start to the year after 1998.

Dr Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office, said “greenhouse gases are the glaringly obvious explanation” for the 1F (0.56C) rise in average global temperatures over the past 50 years.

“Despite the fact people say global warming has stopped, the new data, added on to existing data, gives us the greatest evidence we have ever had,” he said.

Climate change sceptics have questioned global warming in the wake of the “climategate” scandal. It was claimed that emails stolen from the University of East Anglia show scientists were willing to manipulate the land surface temperatures to show global warming. The scientists were cleared in an independent inquiry.

But Dr Stott said that sceptics could no longer question land surface temperature as other records also prove global warming.

He said each indicator takes independent evidence from at least three different institutions. Despite variations from year to year, each decade has been warmer than the last since the 1980s.

He said: “When we follow independent analyses from around the world, we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world.”

Icecap Note: The alarmists are fighting back with one bogus study after another - relying on the same corrupted station data and cherry picked select other data. Make it all sound very official like the IPCC did. Their day will come....soon.