A new study of terrestrial climate data awaits publication. A report follows; it contains no surprises!

Climate change: Study by global warming sceptics confirms that global temperatures are rising

Yet another study finds that the earth is getting warmer. But does the Berkeley Earth data show anything new?

A new, independent, comprehensive review of long-term weather records has concluded, in agreement with previous findings, that global temperatures are rising, to the tune of about 1^°C in the last 50 years. What separates this study from previous investigations? It has been funded and spearheaded, in part, by scientists and organisations that have in the past been sceptical about the global warming phenomenon, particularly in the wake of ClimateGate.

The study, from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, specifically aimed to reassess the available data, and address the issues that climate change sceptics have criticised in the past. So does this latest development in the climate war finally put an end to the debate, or does the study offer no new conclusions?

Converting the sceptics. Lead author Richard Muller hoped the data will "win over those people who are properly sceptical", reported Nature. Muller made a distinction between "sceptics" and flat-out "deniers", who are unwilling to listen to reason. The study shows that the urban heat island effect, which causes temperatures in cities to be higher than rural areas, and which sceptics have claimed could contaminate temperature data, has no statistical effect on the temperature trends. The study also sought to deal with concerns of data fiddling and data "cherry picking", which has in the past been accused of climate scientists.

Nothing new. Peter Cox, a professor at Exeter University, was quoted in The Guardian called the results "not exactly a surprise", and dismissed the excitement over the study, which only confirms what most scientists already believed.

"It is surprising, however, that the authors believe that this news is so significant that they can't wait for peer review, especially when their conclusions aren't exactly revolutionary", quipped Cox.

No peer-review. The peer review process is a cornerstone of scientific integrity, but BEST have released their findings publicly before they are subjected to the lengthy process. Muller defended this decision, saying it was "part of a long-standing academic tradition", and hoping to get "much more feedback from making these papers public before publication."

Missing the point. The New Scientist spoke to some prominent critics of climate science, and the general criticism was that this study is "concentrating on the wrong question." There is increasingly little resistance to the idea that the planet is warming up, with most sceptics not disagreeing that the climate is changing, but just that it is humans that are causing it. David Whitehouse, science advice to Nigel Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation (an institution that Bob Ward of The Guardian has some serious problems with) said, "Everybody agrees that the temperature has warmed." The debate, it seems, will continue.

Details of the Berkeley Project are available at www.berkeleyearth.org/analysis.php and the following chart shows the decadal land-surface average temperature using a 10-year moving average of surface temperatures over land. Anomalies are relative to the Jan 1950 - December 1979 mean. The grey band indicates 95% statistical and spatial uncertainty interval.

 

 

Criticism of the BBC's reporting of climate change science

This is a compilation of various reports that have been published in the press.

An independent review of the BBC's coverage of science, commissioned by the BBC Trust, has found it to be of high quality and accurate. But it also identifies a number of weaknesses, including providing a platform for marginal opinions with little scientific merit. In response, the BBC has announced it will appoint a science editor and create a BBC science forum to share information.

The review contains a report by Steve Jones, emeritus professor of genetics at University College London, UK, and content analysis by Imperial College London. 'In general, [BBC] output is of a high quality, widely praised for its breadth and depth, its professionalism, and its clear, accurate and impartial manner,' Jones says. But he warns that the BBC must take special care distinguishing well-established fact from opinion, and communicating this distinction to audiences. Sometimes an over-rigid application of BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality fails to allow for the non-contentious nature of some stories and gives undue attention to marginal opinion, for example, over safety of the MMR vaccine and GM crops.

Content analysis by the Imperial team found that 75 per cent of broadcast news items came from the source institution's press release and only one out of eight broadcast news items and two out of five online news items included comment from scientists unconnected with the research.

Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, is pleased that the need to separate opinion from evidence has been recognized. 'It is important to have debate but, marginal opinion, prominently expressed but not well based on evidence, can mislead the audience.'

Bob Ward of the London School of Economics comments that 'The BBC should make stronger efforts to challenge the inaccurate and misleading claims of bloggers, campaigners and politicians who reject and deny the findings of mainstream science for ideological reasons. It is time for editors and presenters to stop giving an easy ride to those who mislead the public.'

Felicity Mellor, who led the Imperial team, noticed that reporters mostly talk to the academic behind the research, but don't provide a balancing viewpoint. 'Where there is an alternative voice, it tends to come from someone challenging broad values surrounding the field, rather than exploring elements of a particular study.'

B & B Reaction

The report and the reactions of Steve Jones and Paul Nurse are consistent with our approach in this web-site. Too many extreme views are being aired and these are not just politically driven. Some are scientifically wrong and challenge the basic physics of climate change. The 'only game in town' is the accurate estimation of the effect on global mean temperature of CO₂doubling; the sensitivity of the atmosphere. The IPCC's 'best estimate' is 2.9°C based on the varied output from 20 or so general circulation models. We have a new estimate based on empirical observations and which will be placed on this site soon. It is 1.84 ± 0.11°C that overlaps with another empirically based estimate expressed in the form (1.7, 2.9, 4.9) where the 1.7°C and 4.9°C values represent limits of 5% probability, with 2.9°C being the median estimate in agreement with the IPCC's computers. Another account of Steve Jones' comments follows.

Andrew Turnbull: Even Darwin And Galileo Would Fail The BBC's Latest Science Test

The Sunday Times, 31 July 2011

New reporting guidelines published in a recent BBC Trust report risk turning scientific debate into a popularity contest

The BBC Trust recently published the report it commissioned from Professor Steve Jones on the quality of the BBC's science programming. One difficult issue that Jones addressed was how to apply the corporation's long-standing principle of impartiality to science: this is a doctrine which is valid in the area of political belief - where there is no absolute truth - but it does not work when applied to science. How can one be impartial in the MMR controversy, for instance, between Andrew Wakefield, who claimed to have linked the vaccine to autism, and the chief medical officer, backed by evidence from around the world?

Before the report was complete the BBC Trust modified its guidance, so that it now talks about "due weight" and states that "minority views should not necessarily be given equal weight to the prevailing consensus". But there are dangers in this approach, too, if "due weight" means giving an easy ride to the consensus while marginalising those who challenge it. Science cannot be a popularity contest like Strictly Come Dancing.

There are many examples of an orthodoxy being challenged and eventually overturned. Malaria was once believed to be a marsh fever carried by "bad air"; peptic ulcers were once believed to be caused by stress but the main cause is now accepted as the bacterium H pylori.

B & B: Some are, not all.

One can imagine how consensus as the measure of "due weight" might have been applied in history. A knighthood for Charles Darwin? Sorry, public opinion is strongly against your theory of evolution. (He never did receive a knighthood.) Signor Galileo? We cannot permit publication of your work on the solar system as it flies in the face of centuries of Christian teaching.

B & B: The difference between Darwin and Galileo and the extreme sceptics that are getting too much reportage is that they were right and the extreme sceptics are wrong!

The correct approach for determining whether minority views are reported or ignored is first to examine whether the consensus opinion is as solid as its spokesmen claim and then to examine rigorously the arguments and evidence of the minority. They should not be dismissed simply because they are in a minority. The guiding principle should be the motto of the Royal Society, "nullius in verba", which roughly translates as "take nobody's word for it".

To do this effectively the BBC's analysts and reporters need the ability to distinguish between good and bad science. The BBC Trust has acknowledged Jones's concerns and belatedly decided to appoint a science editor for BBC News.

Those who do not accept the whole of the global warming narrative developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have expressed concerns about the way the new "due weight" principle will be applied. On that subject, the danger is that the BBC is too trusting of the current consensus.

In his report Jones sets up a false dichotomy between the consensus and "climate change deniers". I know of none. The climate has been changing for thousands, even millions of years. Nor do I know of any serious observers who deny that the planet has warmed over the past 150 years. Most scientists accept that on its own CO₂ has greenhouse properties. The real debate is not about whether the planet has warmed, but about the climate change sensitivity, ie the coefficient linking CO₂ and temperature, the strength of feedback mechanisms such as water vapour and the relative contributions of mankind and nature - sun, oceans, clouds and so on.

Jones's report was accompanied by a commentary by Alison Hastings, chairwoman of the trust's editorial standards committee. Her message on the BBC website starts with the statement: "Climate change is 90% likely to have been caused by humans. That was the conclusion of the influential IPCC."

As well as being absurd - does this mean there would be no climate without human activity? - it is also an inaccurate transcription of what the IPCC said. The issue is not whether humans have caused climate change, but what are the relative contributions of man and nature in the observed warming.

There is also the issue of whether the consensus is as solid as is claimed by the IPCC. Its governance procedures have been criticised for failing to take adequate account of the full range of scientific opinion. The "climategate" emails from scientists at the University of East Anglia reveal a culture of denying information to rivals and seeking to prevent their views from being adopted.

A number of observers have commented on the changing nature of scientific research, which is increasingly being funded by governments to support their policy stance. Those who hold pole position have every incentive to portray themselves as the consensus in order to hang on to their funding and to dress up review by like-minded colleagues as genuine peer review.

The BBC's watchwords may be due weight, but both sides in the argument have to earn that weight.

Finally, can the BBC give us a sophisticated account of the climate change debate, not Jones's Janet and John version?

B & B: A very biased and sneering account of the reporters own views; to be ignored.

 

Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation is spreading errors

The former chancellor is an avowed climate sceptic - and the 'facts' he repeats are demonstrably inaccurate

Lord Lawson has repeated several 'facts' that are demonstrably innaccurate.

Lord Lawson of Blaby has enjoyed a massive boost to his public profile over the past couple of years following the launch of his Global Warming Policy Foundation in November 2009.

Many parts of the media now feel obliged to include the views of Lawson and other representatives of the foundation in reports about climate change issues in order to "balance" the statements made by mainstream researchers and policymakers.

Given that the foundation's accounts suggest it only has about 80 members, it has been gaining an impressive amount of publicity in the media, particularly in the Telegraph, Mail and Express, newspapers that have adopted climate change scepticism as an editorial line.

But Lord Lawson is still not happy, as he pointed out in an op-ed in last week's Sunday Times. Not only did he complain that he and other representatives of the foundation were not getting the media coverage they deserve, but he also revealed that he has threatened the BBC Trust with legal action because it suggested that the broadcaster had allowed him to "make statements that are not supported by the facts".

As the foundation is a registered charity, and Lawson is therefore a trustee, he has to comply with the Charity Commission's guidance on campaigning and political activity, which states:

"A charity can campaign using emotive or controversial material, where this is lawful and justifiable in the context of the campaign. Such material must be factually accurate and have a legitimate evidence base."

However, there are multiple examples of Lord Lawson making statements, including in BBC interviews and parliamentary debates, which are not consistent with the most up-to-date evidence and research.

One example is Lawson's appearance on Newsnight on 7 July 2010, the transcript of which is featured on the foundation's website.

During the programme, Lawson said:

"And the IPCC's [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] - and this helps us to get this in perspective - the IPCC's, if you take their worst estimate of the warming, the highest end of the warming, their worst economic scenario, they still say that all the consequence will be, is that living standards in the developing world, in a hundred years' time, instead of being a little more than nine times as high as they are today, will only be a little more than eight times as high as they are today."

This statement is demonstrably inaccurate.

Lawson was seemingly referring to the IPCC's fourth assessment report, published in 2007 in three major volumes, plus a synthesis report. Table 4.6 here shows income per capita in developing countries will rise by a factor of about 66, which is far greater than the nine-fold increase claimed by Lawson.

Furthermore, this IPCC report contains no estimate of how this increase in the income per capita in developing countries might be affected by climate change. Therefore, Lord Lawson's claim that the IPCC indicated wealth in developing countries would be limited to an eight-fold increase due to climate change under this scenario is entirely wrong. Indeed, his line of reasoning is fundamentally faulty because he assumes that the impacts of unchecked climate change would only ever have a marginal effect on future rates of economic growth.

This erroneous claim about the IPCC's findings has been made by Lawson many times, including in his book An Appeal to Reason and in speeches in the House of Lords. It is central to his overall argument that even the worst unmitigated rises in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases would have little harmful effect, but it is completely at odds with the conclusions of the IPCC report.

However Lawson's inaccurate statements on climate change have not been restricted to economics. He made several wrong assertions about the science of global warming in 2010 during a head-to-head BBC Radio debate with Prof Kevin Anderson, the director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Throughout the programme, Lawson disputed statements made by Prof Anderson about the scientific evidence for climate change. Yet, Lord Lawson did not cite any research to back up his claims, and when compared with the available scientific literature, it is clear that they were not supported by the facts.

For instance, Lord Lawson stated that the total amount of ice in Antarctica is "not going down". But this does not accord with the results of scientific research, such as a 2009 paper in Geophysical Research Letters and another in Nature Geoscience in 2009, both based on satellite measurements.

Lawson even repeated the statement during the BBC radio programme after its veracity was challenged by Prof Anderson.

Later on in the same programme, Lawson claimed:

"What is interesting is that in the second half of the 20th century, when there were huge increase [sic] in carbon emissions, so far from there being a greater increase in sea level, the official figures show that, if anything, there was a slightly smaller increase in sea level in the second half of the 20th century than in the first half."

This statement is also contrary to the most up-to-date results of scientific research. A group of leading researchers on sea level rise presented an overview of the state of knowledge in 2009, clearly showing that a bigger rise in sea level occurred after 1950 than before it. These results were also presented in a review paper on 'Contemporary sea level rise' by Anny Cazenave and William Llovel, published early in 2010 in the journal Annual Review of Marine Science . This work shows that Lord Lawson's statement was not consistent with the latest research.

And Lord Lawson's errors have not been limited just to the science and economics of climate change, but also extend to his attacks on government policies.

For instance, on 12 July this year, he spoke in the House of Lords following a statement by Lord Marland on electricity market reform, and claimed that "the Treasury has estimated that the carbon floor price alone will lead to an increase in electricity prices of between 60 and 70% by 2030, to the great detriment of the consumer, British industry and the British economy, which-goodness-knows-is in a fragile condition as it is" (Hansard, Column 670, 7:34 pm).

Yet the Regulatory Impact Assessment for the carbon floor price, published on the Treasury website, indicates on pages 20 and 21 that for all three modelled scenarios, the average household annual electricity bill would be between 3 and 7% lower in 2030 than the baseline scenario in which there is no carbon floor price.

In addition, in an article published in the Daily Mail on 11 June 2011, Lord Lawson complained about the cost of climate change policies, stating that "electricity suppliers should be made to reveal in our utility bills the extent of this hidden tax element, which is costing families an average of £200 more a year". But Ofgem estimates that the combined cost of the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, the Community Energy Saving Programme, the Renewables Obligation, and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme is only about £100 of an average annual dual fuel bill for a household customer of £1300.

All of these errors may have been accidental, the result of Lord Lawson not knowing enough to recognise mistakes. However, they fit a consistent pattern of underestimating the potential risks of climate change and exaggerating the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Perhaps it is time for the Charity Commission to review the campaigning and political activities of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and its trustees?

• Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

 

No warming since 1979

There have been claims that there has been no global warming since 1979 when satellite measurments began. It is our opinion that such claims have no basis. The figure below shows the monthly records from the UAH [Spencer & Christy satellite] and from the HADCRUT3 terrestrial measurements.

 

 

 

There is very little difference between the two sets of data and they show a correlation coefficient of 0.82 between them. The UAH data give a decadal temperature trend of 0.13 C, a value very similar to the 0.14 C one given by UAH. Yet, Roy Spencer and others  claims there has been no warming. There clearly has been warming, although purists would possibly object to drawing straight lines through the data. Linear plots over 32 years data are reasonably satisfactory for such a short period and their replacement by polynomial plots is very unsatisfactory. Such plots cannot be extrapolated meaningfully, much less so than any linear plot and could give rise to thoughts of cyclic factors that are impossible to explain.

      As is discussed in some detail on page 51, the modest positive temperature trends given by the plots in the above figure hide the considerably larger trends for parts of the Northern Hemisphere that require serious consideration.