Just don't tell me the debate's over…
Catching up in North Sydney
Lovely to catch up with Jo Nova and Dr David Evans in North Sydney last week. Jo and David were in Sydney for a couple of conferences and kindly agreed to meet up for a coffee during their busy schedule.
This gives me the opportunity to plug the following must reads:
According to a court document lodged in Michael Mann’s ill-judged defamation action (ill-judged because the process of discovery will force Mann to release of a whole bunch of stuff he has been trying to keep out of reach of FoI for years), Mann claims the following:
Oops. Wrong. Very wrong. (click to enlarge)
Mark Steyn (one of the defendants in the action) goes even further:
In the same spirit, I see that I’ve just been awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Under Ireland’s citizenship law, I’m an Irish national (through my father). Ireland is a member of the European Union. The EU has just been given the Nobel Peace Prize. QED. Come to think of it, my mother’s Belgian, so I’ve been awarded two Nobel Peace Prizes.
Catallaxy Files does the research:
Some time ago I contacted the Nobel Committee and asked whether a person who was employed by an organisation can claim to have won a Nobel Prize. The reply I received stated:
An award of the Nobel Prize to an organisation does not under any circumstances permit an employee or other agent of that organization to claim to share a Nobel Prize. Only persons named explicitly in the citation may claim to share a Nobel Prize.
And he’s not named in the citation.
So Mann’s defamation claim, the success of which will turn on the credibility of the parties involved, contains a fundamental and basic misrepresentation in paragraph 2. Oh dear. What hope for the rest of the 101 paragraphs?
This really will be one to watch.
Watts Up and Jo Nova are reporting that the Gergis/Karoly Hockey Stick paper has been withdrawn. You will recall the original story, widely covered by the lame-stream media, that a new analysis of proxy data showed the warming in the last 50 years was unprecedented in the past millennium. Here is how ACM reported the story:
ACM on 17 May 2012
Thanks to Hockey Stick Breaker in Chief, Steve McIntyre, the paper was put “on hold” after discovery of a “data processing error”.
Now it appears the paper has been withdrawn (see WUWT and Jo Nova).
[crickets chirping]
That’s the sound of the mainstream media’s response to the withdrawal…
And here is the weather forecast …
Therefore they should work on Earth too, right? And we should trust their projections to base trillions of dollars of spending which could otherwise be directed towards real problems, right?
Computer models have accurately forecast conditions on Mars and are valid predictors of climate change on Earth, according to a team of US and French astronomers.
They say the computer programs accurately predicted Martian glaciers and other features on Earth’s planetary neighbour.
“Some public figures imply that modelling of global climate change on Earth is ‘junk science,’ but if climate models can explain features observed on other planets, then the models must have at least some validity,” says lead researcher William Hartmann of the Planetary Science Institute.
The team’s findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s planetary sciences division in Reno, Nevada.
[…]
Hartmann, a senior scientist at the non-profit Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, says he and his team confirmed the computer models’ effectiveness by using them to forecast conditions on Mars.
New satellite observations of glaciers, ice flows and other features on the red planet showed that the models’ predictions corresponded with what was on the Martian surface, says Hartmann. (source)
Seems a pretty good argument. I mean, apart from the fact that Mars has no vegetation, no animals, birds, insects, bacteria, fish (or humans) or anything other living organism, no oceans or water, an atmosphere made up of 95% CO2, no weather to speak of (except occasional cirrus-like clouds), no precipitation of any significance (except perhaps a few flakes of solid CO2 blowing in the wind), temperatures that rarely exceed 0˚C, takes twice as long to go around the Sun (and is 70-odd million kilometres further from it) has hardly any tectonic or volcanic activity to speak of, or any other myriad complications of the Earth’s climate, it’s almost exactly the same!
Here’s the exclusive ACM climate model result for Pluto. Bloody cold. See, even I can do it!
I will leave readers to contribute any other components of the earth/ocean/atmosphere system of our planet that are absent on Mars.
Ethical dilemma
UPDATE 2 [Tuesday 16 October]: Further research has unearthed the specific procedure for amending an ethics approval at UWA. It can be found here. It states, inter alia:
When would a new ethics application be required?
Should a request for an amendment propose a significant change to the procedures and ethical implications of a project, the applicant may be required to submit a new Human Research Ethics Application to the HREO.
In such cases, a new human research ethics project will be established with a new project reference number.
The amendments proposed in the email of 12 August 2010 would have constituted a “significant change to the procedures and ethical implications” especially given the approval had already been used for an earlier piece of research. The policy in force at the time of the amendment (see here) are less specific, and only require a request to be in writing, however, the old policy still anticipates that if significant changes are made to procedures and ethical implications:
“the amendments will be referred to the full Human Research Ethics Committee, which could request the resubmission of an application form.”
UPDATE [Monday 15 October]: The “first” paper – dealing with interpretation of graphical data – is in fact no longer “in press” but was published in the journal Psychological Science as far back in April of 2011. Abstract is here. The paper states that the survey was completed during February 2010, seven months prior to the request for the amendment. Note that in the email, he states: “I want to administer THE survey not in person but via the internet”. The truth is, however, THE survey had already been completed and the paper written.
The Freedom of Information documents received recently from the University of Western Australia (and discussed here) suggest that Prof Lewandowsky submitted a substantial amendment to an existing Ethics Committee (“EC”) approval, which had already been used for one study, in order to use it for the now infamous “moon landing denier” paper (see here).
The amendment was approved by an administrative officer in the EC in less than 24 hours, and I currently have an email in to the head of UWA’s Ethics Office with a number of questions regarding the conduct of the approval of the amendment. The text of the email is reproduced at the end of this post.
However, notwithstanding the above, I have spent a little time researching the Australian National Statement of Ethical Conduct in Human Research (which can be found here). The introduction provides some background to the Statement’s purpose:
The purpose of this National Statement is to promote ethically good human research. Fulfilment of this purpose requires that participants be accorded the respect and protection that is due to them. It also involves the fostering of research that is of benefit to the community.
The National Statement is therefore designed to clarify the responsibilities of:
- institutions and researchers for the ethical design, conduct and dissemination of results of human research; and
- review bodies in the ethical review of research.
The National Statement will help them to meet their responsibilities: to identify issues of ethics that arise in the design, review and conduct of human research, to deliberate about those ethical issues, and to justify decisions about them.
In the introduction, the Statement discusses the basic principles which apply to ethical considerations in research involving humans:
[…] the values of respect, research merit and integrity, justice, and beneficence have become prominent in the ethics of human research in the past six decades, and they provide a substantial and flexible framework for principles to guide the design, review and conduct of such research.
In section 1.1, Values and Principles of Ethical Conduct, we find the following with regard to “merit and integrity”:
Research that has merit is:
[…]
(d) designed to ensure that respect for the participants is not compromised by the aims of the research, by the way it is carried out, or by the results;
[…]
Section 1.6 deals with “beneficence”:
The likely benefit of the research must justify any risks of harm or discomfort to participants. The likely benefit may be to the participants, to the wider community, or to both.
Section 2.1 deals in more detail with Risk and Benefit, and the following extract is from the section “Harm, discomfort and inconvenience”:
Research may lead to harms, discomforts and/or inconveniences for participants and/or others.
No list of harms can be exhaustive, but one helpful classification identifies the following kinds of potential harms in research:
- […]
- devaluation of personal worth: including being humiliated, manipulated or in other ways treated disrespectfully or unjustly;
- […]
The next consideration is:
Do the benefits justify the risks?
Research is ethically acceptable only when its potential benefits justify any risks involved in the research.
Benefits of research may include, for example, gains in knowledge, insight and understanding, improved social welfare and individual wellbeing, and gains in skill or expertise for individual researchers, teams or institutions.
The UWA Ethics Office web site links the duties of researchers at UWA to the terms of the National Statement:
The ethical conduct of research involving humans is governed by a number of guidelines and by legislation. In particular, the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research embodies the key values, principles and guidelines for the design and conduct of human research.
The University, and its staff and student researchers, must comply with the principles and guidelines contained in the National Statement when designing and conducting human research.
Does the research raise questions regarding “respect”? Given Prof Lewandowsky is on the record, well prior to the research being carried out, that he was of the opinion that climate scepticism was linked to far-fetched conspiracy theory ideation (see here), it could be argued that there was a substantial risk of humiliation or disrespectful treatment of participants, given that it may be argued that the intention of the research was to make that link – which in itself is objectively demeaning (either to the participants or a subset of the “wider community”). Even if it did not reach the threshold for “harm” could be regarded at least as a “discomfort”.
The emails to “sceptical blogs” stated:
” … I am seeking your assistance with a web-based survey of attitudes towards climate science (and other sciences) and skepticism [sic]. The survey has been approved by the University’s ethics committee and carries no risks for participants.”
We will see what kind of approval the survey received in due course, no doubt.
What benefits did the research provide? Evidence that climate sceptics have a psychological inability to accept climate science, linked to an acceptance of wacky conspiracy theories? It would be easy to reach the conclusion that the purpose of the research was simply to confirm a belief already held and portray sceptics in a negative light, in order to make a political point.
This conclusion is lent weight by the close association between Prof Lewandowsky and the Skeptical Science web site, which is well known for ridiculing and demeaning anyone (including respected atmospheric and climatic scientists) who questions any part of the AGW consensus. Examples of the tone employed include sections entitled “Lindzen’s Illusions”, referring to MIT Professor Richard Lindzen, “Spencer Slip-Ups”, referring to Dr Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, Huntsville to name but two.
As it turns out, there were only 10 responses out of over 1100 that either “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the moon landings had been faked, and six of those also accepted the alarmist consensus on AGW. [In reality, of course, they were probably mostly fake response from “believers” wanting to assist with Lewandowsky’s effort – seriously, who in their right mind honestly believes the moon landings were staged? – Ed]
I consider that the above does not represent an appropriate benefit from supposedly impartial academic research.
I therefore suggest that the nature of the study, as understood from the final paper itself, would raise sufficient concerns regarding the criteria set out in the National Statement to require considerable evidence to demonstrate that they were not, in fact, sufficiently serious to warrant the study not taking place. The EC may, of course, have imposed special conditions on the approval, had a full review process taken place.
I further suggest that such a study, being as it was of a substantially different nature to that originally proposed, would require a fresh application to the EC at UWA, giving full details of the survey and the methodology to be applied. The casual email amendment to an existing approval (which, it appears, had already been used for another, different, paper) would be likely to be regarded as an inappropriate manner in which to seek ethical approval.
The email sent to the Ethics Office is as follows, and the response received will hopefully illuminate some of the questions above. If a response is not forthcoming, a further FoI request will be submitted for documentary evidence to show the what review of the amendment took place.
I have recently been provided a copy of the above document and various related correspondence via a Freedom of Information request to UWA.I have some follow-up questions, which I would be grateful if you would address:1. The original proposal provided by Prof Lewandowsky to the Committee in December 2009 related to a project entitled “Understanding Statistical Trends”. The approval relating to that proposal was RA/4/1/4007. It appears that the paper, Popular consensus: Climate change set to continue, follows from the specific research authorised by that approval. Is that correct?2. Ethics approval for the paper that was the subject of my FoI request, NASA faked the moon landing—therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science, was sought not by a fresh application, but by an amendment to the existing approval above. Please would you kindly explain why it was not necessary for Prof Lewandowsky to submit a fresh application to the Ethics Committee, given that the nature of the paper and the methodology to be employed was substantially different from the first?3. Prof Lewandowsky submitted the request for an amendment to the approval by email to Kate Kirk on 12 August 2010, for which approval was granted by her by email the following day. What form did the ethics review of that amendment take?4. The amendments proposed by Prof Lewandowsky altered the nature of the research to such an extent that even the Title and Aim of the research (as set out in the original approval) were rendered wholly inaccurate, since no amendment was proposed to those sections by Prof Lewandowsky in his email. Why was Prof Lewandowsky not required to make consequential amendments to the approval so that the approval was at least internally consistent and made some sense in the context of the new research to be carried out?5. Is it considered normal practice at UWA to amend an ethics approval granted for one project in order to use it for a second, entirely different, project? If so, how is this abridged process carried out to ensure that ethical considerations are fully understood and examined prior to subsequent approval, especially where there are such wholesale changes to the original? If not, why was Prof Lewandowsky permitted to use this course of action in order to seek approval for the second paper without going through the full ethics procedure procedure?
UPDATE: Bizarrely, a paper exists which is roughly in accordance with the original ethics application:
“In a large experiment, participants extrapolated global climate data, presented graphically either as share prices or temperatures.” (Link)
So it looks (allegedly) as if Lewandowsky, having completed the paper for which the approval was sought, submitted an amendment to that same ethics application in order to then use it a second time for a completely different paper.
As a result of my recent Freedom of Information request to the University of Western Australia, I have received copies of emails between Prof Lewandowsky and various blogs in connection with the “moon landing denier” paper survey (which I will deal with at a later date), and also the correspondence regarding the application to the university’s Ethics Committee (“EC”).
This latter document reveals that the project was substantially altered at the last minute, and the alteration was waved through by the EC in less than 24 hours.
This is a long post, so click through to read. [Read more…]
October in the UK? No, Australia. (ABC)
Another from the Weather Isn’t Climate Department. October is Spring down here in Oz-shire. Snow isn’t unheard of, but it’s pretty rare. Global warming sure is tricky – as we all know it can cause any weather phenomenon you care to mention, so I guess it’s only a matter of time before someone blames climate change.
What did we do before climate change came along? All those extreme weather events happening for millions of years – for no reason at all! Must be the gods. Thank goodness for AGW – now we can blame everything on that. Phew.
Snow has been falling right along the New South Wales ranges, in places that didn’t see snow all winter, for some it is the heaviest in several years.
The heaviest falls on Thursday night and Friday morning have been between the Blue Mountains and Canberra. Snow has been falling in Orange and has been heavy in Oberon, Crookwell and Bowral. As much as 20 centimetres has reportedly settled on the ground in the Crookwell area.
The Canberra area itself also had snow on Thursday, the national capital’s coldest October day since 1968, stay below nine degrees all day.
Snow has also been heavy in the Blue Mountains, even a few centimetres worth settling on the ground in Katoomba. According to locals, it is the heaviest snow in four-or-five years.
Further north, snow has fallen in Glen Innes and Armidale, unusual in winter, very unusual in October. Residents woke to white ground in Glen Innes and the cover has been about five centimetres deep in Guyra. It has been five years since snow has been this evident in Glen Innes.
October snow in Guyra typically only occurs once every five years, but this is unusually heavy, more like a one-in-20-year event for this time of year. (Weatherzone)
UPDATE: WUWT reports that the climate angle was spliced in at the last minute…
“Apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” *
Given us warmer weather, that’s what!
Just as we must get rid of the Medieval Warm Period, the inconvenient Roman Warm Period must also be dealt with, and here’s a novel way of doing it: claim that it was man-made. In a single stroke, the RWP is scrubbed from the list of “natural warmings” that the planet has experienced in recent history, helping the Cause by demonstrating that it too was anthropogenic. The ABC reports:
A period covering the heyday of both the Roman Empire and China’s Han dynasty saw a big rise in greenhouse gases, according to a new study.
The finding challenges the view that human-made climate change only began around 1800.
A record of the atmosphere trapped in Greenland’s ice found the level of heat-trapping methane rose about 2000 years ago and stayed at that higher level for about two centuries.
Methane was probably released during deforestation to clear land for farming and from the use of charcoal as fuel, for instance to smelt metal to make weapons, says lead author Celia Sapart of Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
“Per capita they were already emitting quite a lot in the Roman Empire and Han Dynasty,” she says of the findings by an international team of scientists published today in the journal Nature (link to abstract). (source)
But the per capita emissions are irrelevant in terms of climate, since it is absolute concentrations that will affect greenhouse warming. The population, as the article goes on to say, was about 300 million, barely 4% of what it it today, and without any industrialisation apart from burning charcoal. I will leave it to you to consider the likelihood of such a tiny agrarian population having a significant effect on the climate.
The ABC’s coverage is similarly disingenuous. I’m not going to pay thirty bucks for the full article in Nature (if anyone has access, I would be grateful for a PDF – Update: PDF received from a generous reader – thank you!), but eyeballing the tiny graphics published with the abstract (see above) seems to indicate that centennial scale changes in CH4 mixing ratio in the Roman period were in the order of a 20-40 parts per billion (that’s billion with a b). How the ABC can call this a “big rise in greenhouse gases” is unfortunately yet more evidence of agenda-driven journalism. It’s a tiny fraction compared with the industrial rise in CH4, which took mixing ratios to over 1800 ppb, yet the paper claims it is responsible for the significant warming that occurred around the time of the Roman empire?
However, if we could blame the RWP on the Romans, then we can subtract it from the natural warming column and add it to the AGW column. Nice try.
* Monty Python Life of Brian:
Carbon-spewing gab-fest
The latest in the merry-go-round of lavish climate talks will take place next month in Doha, and we should thank the Brazilians for making it crystal clear well in advance that there won’t be any progress – just like there hasn’t been any progress at any of the previous gatherings.
With luck, we will be spared all the environmental hand-wringing and preaching that has accompanied every other pointless “save the planet” gab-fest since 1992:
Major emerging economies’ obligations to cut emissions under a climate change agreement should not be the same as those of rich countries, Brazil’s chief negotiator said, signalling a retreat to an old position that has hamstrung years of UN negotiations.
Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado told Reuters during last week’s UN General Assembly that Brazil is committed to working toward a global pact to cut emissions in both developed and developing nations as agreed at last year’s climate talks in Durban, South Africa.
But Figueiredo said that agreement should adhere to the UN’s principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” a line between developing and developed countries drawn in 1992 that enabled countries such as Brazil, China and India to escape mandatory carbon cuts, which the Durban summit had supposedly eliminated.
“Different countries would have different contributions in this fight against climate change, and these different contributions have to do with a number of factors of national circumstances,” Figueiredo said, referring mainly to the belief that rich countries are responsible for “generating the problem.”
The so-called BASIC bloc (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) i n the UN climate negotiations stressed the point at a joint meeting in Brasilia last week to harmonize their position for the next round of negotiations in Doha, Qatar, which begin next month.
An agreement is to be formalized by 2015 and to take effect by 2020. (Reuters, via SMH)
Ironic that Qatar is the country with the largest per capita emissions on the planet. It also happens to have the largest GDP per capita on the planet. What does that tell you about the effects of plans for “massive emissions cuts” on the global economy?
The COP18 website is here.
UPDATE [30 September]: Video appears broken. Still on YouTube, but black screen… mysterious. No – problem with browser – sorry! But we and WUWT did manage to make the video (and another related one by the Lew) The Conversation’s most watched video, with over 4500 views. Next one down is 2500, and after that 700, with most of the rest between a few hundred and almost nothing.
Watch in wonder:
(h/t WUWT)
Australian Climate Madness 
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