Archives for April 2008

I have been emailed the following correspondence, purportedly between an activist, Jo Abbess, and BBC Environment reporter Roger Harrabin. It would appear that the result of the email exchange between the activist and the reporter was that the BBC changed its story. In particular instead of reporting the story as received from the World Meteorological Organisation, the BBC modified the story as demanded by the activist who was concerned that in its original form it supported ‘the skeptics’ correct observation that there has been no warming since 1998.

From Jo, April 4, 2008

Climate Changers,

Remember to challenge any piece of media that seems like it’s been subject to spin or scepticism.

Here’s my go for today. The BBC actually changed an article I requested a correction for, but I’m not really sure if the result is that much better.

Judge for yourselves…

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from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:12 AM
subject Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease'”

Dear Roger,

Please can you correct your piece published today entitled “Global
temperatures ‘to decrease'” :-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7329799.stm

1. “A minority of scientists question whether this means global
warming has peaked”
This is incorrect. Several networks exist that question whether global
warming has peaked, but they contain very few actual scientists, and
the scientists that they do contain are not climate scientists so have
no expertise in this area.

2. “Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007”
You should not mislead people into thinking that the sum total of the
Earth system is going to be cooler in 2008 than 2007. For example, the
ocean systems of temperature do not change in yearly timescales, and
are massive heat sinks that have shown gradual and continual warming.
It is only near-surface air temperatures that will be affected by La
Nina, plus a bit of the lower atmosphere.

Thank you for applying your attention to all the facts and figures available,

jo.

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from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:23 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease'”

Dear Jo

No correction is needed

If the secy-gen of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will
decrease, that’s what we will report

There are scientists who question whether warming will continue as
projected by IPCC

Best wishes
RH

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from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:37 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease'”

Hi Roger,

I will forward your comments (unless you object) to some people who
may wish to add to your knowledge.

Would you be willing to publish information that expands on your
original position, and which would give a better, clearer picture of
what is going on ?

Personally, I think it is highly irresponsible to play into the hands
of the sceptics/skeptics who continually promote the idea that “global
warming finished in 1998”, when that is so patently not true.

I have to spend a lot of my time countering their various myths and
non-arguments, saying, no, go look at the Hadley Centre data. Global
Warming is not over. There have been what look like troughs and
plateaus/x before. It didn’t stop then. It’s not stopping now.

It is true that people are debating Climate Sensitivity, how much
exactly the Earth will respond to radiative forcing, but nobody is
seriously refuting that increasing Greenhouse Gases cause increased
global temperatures.

I think it’s counterproductive to even hint that the Earth is cooling
down again, when the sum total of the data tells you the opposite.
Glaringly.

As time goes by, the infant science of climatology improves. The Earth
has never experienced the kind of chemical adjustment in the
atmosphere we see now, so it is hard to tell exactly what will happen
based on historical science.

However, the broad sweep is : added GHG means added warming.

Please do not do a disservice to your readership by leaving the door
open to doubt about that.

jo.

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from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:57 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease'”

The article makes all these points quite clear

We can’t ignore the fact that sceptics have jumped on the lack of
increase since 1998. It is appearing reguarly now in general media

Best to tackle this – and explain it, which is what we have done

Or people feel like debate is being censored which makes them v
suspicious

Roger

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from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:12 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease'”

Hi Roger,

When you are on the Tube in London, I expect that occasionally you
glance a headline as sometime turns the page, and you thinkg “Really
?” or “Wow !”

You don’t read the whole article, you just get the headline.

A lot of people will read the first few paragraphs of what you say,
and not read the rest, and (a) Dismiss your writing as it seems you
have been manipulated by the sceptics or (b) Jump on it with glee and
e-mail their mates and say “See ! Global Warming has stopped !”

They only got the headline, which is why it is so utterly essentialy
to give the full picture, or as full as you can in the first few
paragraphs.

The near-Earth surface temperatures may be cooler in 2008 that they
were in 2007, but there is no way that Global Warming has stopped, or
has even gone into reverse. The oceans have been warming consistently,
for example, and we’re not seeing temperatures go into reverse, in
general, anywhere.

Your word “debate”. This is not an issue of “debate”. This is an issue
of emerging truth. I don’t think you should worry about whether people
feel they are countering some kind of conspiracy, or suspicious that
the full extent of the truth is being withheld from them.

Every day more information is added to the stack showing the desperate
plight of the planet.

It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics. Their voice is
heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing
the emergence of the truth.

I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.

Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently
educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically
manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.

I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution,
unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your
comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to
happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be
said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.

Respectfully,

jo.

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from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:28 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease'”

Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier

We have changed headline and more

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ORIGINAL
================

Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK
Global temperatures ‘to decrease’
By Roger Harrabin
BBC News environment analyst

Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007 due to the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization’s secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

But experts have also forecast a record high temperature within five years.

Rises ‘stalled’

La Nina and El Nino are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world.

El Nino warms the planet when it happens; La Nina cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina.

It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.

Mr Jarraud told the BBC that the effect was likely to continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree.

This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.

Watching trends

A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and argue the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.

But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 1998 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.

“When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year,” he said. “You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.

“La Nina is part of what we call ‘variability’. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up; the climate on average is warming even if there is a temporary cooling because of La Nina.”

Adam Scaife, lead scientist for Modelling Climate Variability at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK, said their best estimate for 2008 was about 0.4C above the 1961-1990 average, and higher than this if you compared it with further back in the 20th Century.

Mr Scaife told the BBC: “What’s happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended.”

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UPDATED VERSION (note : the page date and time has not changed)
==============================================

Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK

Global temperatures ‘to decrease’
By Roger Harrabin
BBC News environment analyst

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization’s secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend – and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years.

The WMO points out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C.

While Nasa, the US space agency, cites 2005 as the warmest year, the UK’s Hadley Centre lists it as second to 1998.

Researchers say the uncertainty in the observed value for any particular year is larger than these small temperature differences. What matters, they say, is the long-term upward trend.

Rises ‘stalled’

La Nina and El Nino are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world.

El Nino warms the planet when it happens; La Nina cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina.

It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.

Mr Jarraud told the BBC that the effect was likely to continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree.

This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.

Watching trends

A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and argue the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.

Animation of El Nino and La Nina effects

But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 2008 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.

“When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year,” he said. “You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.

“La Nina is part of what we call ‘variability’. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up; the climate on average is warming even if there is a temporary cooling because of La Nina.”

China suffered from heavy snow in January

Adam Scaife, lead scientist for Modelling Climate Variability at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK, said their best estimate for 2008 was about 0.4C above the 1961-1990 average, and higher than this if you compared it with further back in the 20th Century.

Mr Scaife told the BBC: “What’s happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended.”

End of email reporting on Jo’s activities.

But some relevant links follow:

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1207301093.html

http://portal.campaigncc.org/node/2089

http://www.theinterface.org.uk/?q=node/60

And according to Paul Biggs who blogged on the changed BBC story here, the BBC headline has actually been changed three times and at one stage was: Global warming ‘dips this year’.

If anyone feels so inclined, complaints can be made to the BBC here.

————–
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
— Thomas Huxley

The Royal Society of New South Wales held a meeting on Saturday in Mittagong on ‘Global Warming and The Cosmos’. Speakers included the director of the Danish National Space Centre, Eigil Friis-Christensen, and Graeme Pearman, former head of the CSIRO Atmospheric Division and now a consultant with GP Consulting Pty Ltd and an advisor to Al Gore and Ross Garnaut.

Graeme Pearman and Eigil Friis-Christensen, Mittagong, April 5, 2008

Dr Pearman spoke first and focused on global warming from carbon dioxide as a “policy driver”. I was offended by the presentation.

Dr Pearman suggested that much of the 0.7 degree Celsius increase in the earth’s temperature over the last 100 years has occurred in the last 10 years. Yet the last really hot year was in 1998 and global temperatures have since plateaued.

Graph and fitted spline curve from 1979 through to February 2008, from Professors John Christy and Roy Spencer, University of Alabama, Huntsville

Dr Pearman referred to 95 and 99 percentiles as measures of the “proof of an hypothesis” in the same breathe claiming that that there was more than 90 percent proof that global warming is a consequence of greenhouse gas emission. Yet this 90 percent figure, sometimes used by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is not from the testing of a falsifiable hypothesis but rather a political expression of the strength of opinion.

Dr Pearman began his presentation by suggesting that the break-up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf was a consequence of global warming. When I questioned him on this issue, he told the audience that Antarctica is warming.

Yet it is generally accepted and uncontroversial that 95 percent of the landmass of Antarctica has cooled over the last 20 years.

Image depicting the heating and cooling trends over and around Antarctica (1982-2003). Blue indicates cooling trends and red indicates warming trends.From NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.Data provided by Larry Stock.

There has been warming at the edge of the continent including where Wilkins Ice Sheet recently collapsed. The collapse could be due to global warming , oceanic volcanoes, and/or from internal stresses associated with the accumulation of ice in the bay.

———————————–
I am grateful to John McLean for information on temperatures in the vicinity of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and Joe D’Aleo for other temperature data, and to Bill Kininmonth and Garth Paltridge for information on the Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse.

I shall elaborate on the presentation by Dr Christensen in Part 2, to be posted in the next day or two.

On Thursday 3rd April BBC News website’s Richard Black penned an article entitled, ‘No Sun link’ to climate change, based on a flawed paper (not discussed in detail here) in a lesser known journal called Environmental Research Letters, which refers only to Palle/Butler and Marsh/Svensmark (2000), but not Shaviv/Veizer.

The article begins:

Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun’s activity.

The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate “sceptics”, that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.

The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.

But Lancaster University scientists found there has been no significant link between them in the last 20 years.

The paper referred to is: ‘Testing the proposed causal link between cosmic rays and cloud cover’

The paper concludes:

In conclusion, no corroboration of the claim of a causal connection between the changes in ionization and low cloud
cover, made in [1, 2], could be found in this investigation. From the distribution of the depth of the dip in solar cycle 22 with geomagnetic latitude (the VRCO) we find that, averaged over the whole Earth, less than 23% of the dip comes from the solar modulation of the cosmic ray intensity, at the 95% confidence level. This implies that, if the dip represents a real correlation, more than 77% of it is caused by a source other than ionization and this source must be correlated with solar activity.

Not exactly, ‘no link.’ and Giles Harrison from Reading University, is quoted as saying that the work was important “as it provides an upper limit on the cosmic ray-cloud effect in global satellite cloud data”.

Harrison’s own UK study from 2006 concluded,

Changes in diffuse fraction (DF) and the frequency of overcast days represent changes in the weather and the atmospheric energy balance. The decrease in the proportion of direct solar radiation associated with an increase in DF will lead to a local reduction in daytime surface temperature. Further, because the net global effect of cloud is cooling (Hartman 1993), any widespread increase in the overcast days could also reduce temperature. At Reading, the measured sensitivity of daily average temperatures to DF for overcast days is K0.2 K per 0.01 change in DF for 1997–2004). Consequently the inverse relationship between GCR and solar activity will lead to cooling at solar minimum. This might amplify the effect of the small solar cycle variation in total solar irradiance, believed to be underestimated by climate models (Stott et al. 2003), which neglect a cosmic ray effect. In summary, our data analysis confirms the existence of a small, yet statistically robust, cosmic ray effect on clouds, that will emerge on long time scales with less variability than the considerable variability of daily cloudiness.

No mention is made by the BBC of the more favourable 2008 review of the evidence for a cosmic ray-climate link by Usoskin and Kovaltsov, which concluded: “a CR-climate link seems to be a plausible climate driver, as supported by the bulk of statistical studies and existing theoretical models. However, further studies, in particular a clear case study as well as improved model development, are foreseen to improve our understanding of the link between cosmic rays and the climate on Earth.”

NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T!

Moving on to the strange happenings surrounding a subsequent 4th April article by the BBC’s Roger Harrabin, blogged here, entitled, Global temperatures ‘to decrease’ , which was later changed to, Global warming ‘dips this year, ‘ and then subsequently changed back to Global temperatures ‘to decrease.’ The changes in the text, however, did not revert back to the text in the original article.

The two alternative headings an be viewed on this google search:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_enGB245GB248&q=Global+warming+to+dip+this+year

Referring to the forecast a record high temperature within five years, “probably associated with another episode of El Nino” was permanently removed from the re-written article. If the Freedom of Information Act is applicable to the BBC, I shall make a request in order to try and uncover the sequence of events and the reasons behind them.

See also NewsBusters: BBC Changes ‘Temperatures Decrease’ Article to Incite Climate Hysteria

The Committee on Climate Change is being created as a new expert body, to provide independent advice to the UK Government and Devolved Administrations on how the UK can optimally achieve its emissions reductions goals for 2020 and 2050.

Opportunity details:

Board Committee Committee on Climate Change £800 per day