Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Blog

Survey Denying My Position on Climate Change

By

ACCORDING to those who define popular culture, prominent sceptics like myself deny the reality of climate change.   It’s a convenient argument for the activist, and its repeated in a survey I just received today from academic Raymond Orr, University of Melbourne.  According to the preamble to the survey, prominent sceptics like myself “are doubtful that climate change is occurring”.    The first question then includes the following statements:

Q1 How would you describe your climate change beliefs:
a. I don’t believe climate change is occurring
c. I don’t believe we can know climate change is occurring
d. I believe in climate change but don’t believe it is caused by humans
e. I believe in climate change but don’t believe government should address climate change
f. I believe in climate change but don’t think there is anything we can do about it
g. Other

***

If the survey is intended to characterize the position of prominent sceptics like myself, then a more useful set of first statements might include:

Q1 How would you describe your climate change beliefs:

a. I don’t believe climate change is occurring
b. I believe climate change is occurring, and is predominantly natural in origin
c. I believe climate change is occurring, and is predominantly anthropogenic in origin

***

Following is the text of the email from Dr Orr follows, and also my reply:

Dear Ms. Marohasy,

My name is Raymond Orr and my colleague Anne Kallies had contacted you at the end of last year regarding the possibility of your participating in a short study on climate change attitudes. We had intended to conduct the survey in person but have moved to an online format. If you are still willing, your participating would be very much appreciated and would only take between 10-15 minutes. Your participation is kept entirely confidential.

The project is comparative research project on climate change attitudes conducted with my colleague Professor Robyn Eckersley from the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. The purpose of the study is to identify and compare how much variability exists in the attitudes of prominent people in Australia and the United States who publicly identify as climate sceptics. A more detailed explanation of the project is provided in the attached Plain Language Statement.

I am writing to seek your permission to participate in the study because you are a prominent person in Australia who has publicly questioned the science of climate change or the need for action on climate change.

Participation is entirely voluntary and you will be free to withdraw at any stage.  Your anonymity will be completely protected and you will be entitled to receive, upon request, any published research or conference papers resulting from the study. The study has been approved by the University of Melbourne’s Human Research Ethics Committee.

Participation in the study will require you to sort a series of statements according to how much you agree with them (technically known as a Q-sort) and answering short follow up questions.  The survey is online and can be found by clicking on or pasting this link  [redacted].

If you have any questions about the project then please do not hesitate to contact Dr Raymond Orr [redacted]. Thank you in advance for your participation.

Sincerely,

Raymond Orr, PhD, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne

My reply…

Hi Raymond

Thank you for your email.  I had been prepared to participate in your survey, but in the first question you show a total ignorance of what is disputed in the science, and the position of prominent sceptics.

There is no denial that climate change is part and parcel of life on earth.   It is always occurring.  Indeed, we are about 10,000 years into the Holocene warm period, and about 150 years out of a mini-ice age.   I know of no prominent sceptic in Australia or America who denies such realities.  Indeed most take a great interest in the history of climate change both in geological time, and from the tree rings, and more recent instrumental record.

Indeed, can you send me the name/details of any one prominent sceptic in Australia or the US who denies that the climate changes and/or shows no interest in measurement of the same?

At issue is the extent of the human contribution to the observable late 20thy Century warming in places like Australia, and whether we have catastrophic global warming.   My position, like that of most sceptics, is that the recent warming in Australia unremarkable.   Furthermore, we are more likely to attribute it to nature causes as detailed in the attached scientific publication by Nicola Scafetta from the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics.

The abstract reads:  “We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 and 0.251C, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon’s orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21st century. It is found that at least 60% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate oscillations. The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030–2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators.”

Yet the pre-amble/background to the survey, that includes the statement that skeptics “are doubtful that climate change is occurring”,  suggests prominent sceptics like myself and Nicola Scafetta deny such a reality.

The first question in the questionaire then reiterates this nonsense.

It is disappointing that such a prominent university could be so ignorance of the real position of those it purports to characterize.

Kind regards

Jennifer Marohasy, PhD

Like Expecting George Pell to Admit Pedophilia During Sunday Sermon

By

Following is an email just sent to Bob Baldwin concerning the need for him to urgently establish a public forum to enable dissident views to be heard concerning the bastardization of Australia’s official temperature record by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Noosa, Queensland, 9th March, 2015

Dear Mr Baldwin

Re: Robust assessment of the trusted and respected Bureau of Meteorology obviously requires that the dissident view be heard

There once existed a broad consensus that the Church must be the ultimate judge of scientific truths.  That was before the enlightenment.  More recently, there was an equally mistaken consensus that the Church could provide a safe environment for little children.

Those who dared suggested otherwise were first ignored, then ridiculed, and only much later able to fight for truth and justice.   When their concerns finally registered, there was disbelief that such outrageous abuse was allowed to persist for so long.

In your recent appointed as ‘Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment’ with responsibility for the Bureau of Meteorology, you have the opportunity to provide a forum for dissident voices to be heard concerning what is perceived by many to be the bastardization of Australia’s temperature record.

Eventually, simply through the establishment of a forum of experts tasked with hearing the alternative evidence, history might  record you as courageous, and as having begun a process that ultimately exposed the deceit and bias that now riddles this once most respected and trusted organization.   This, I thought, was indeed a possibility when I read your media release of January 19, 2015, outlining the establishment of a technical advisory forum that would undertake a “robust assessment” of Australia’s official temperature data set.

Then, just today I was provided with the actual terms of reference for this forum comprising eight statisticians and/or mathematicians, and I see that they intend to meet for only one day each year.  Furthermore, during the morning of this one day they will be lectured to by Bureau scientists, with the afternoon devoted to discussion.

Indeed the current format is likely to be as useful at getting to the bottom of our issues with the Bureau’s revisionist approach to Australia’s climatic history, as expecting George Pell to voluntarily admit pedophilia during a Sunday sermon.

If indeed you are serious about a robust assessment of the Bureau’s handling of temperature data, then I urge you to immediately modify the format for the forum.   I urge you to immediately establish a mechanism for public critical review including testimony from dissidents.

Yours sincerely

Dr Jennifer Marohasy, Independent Scientist

*****

Forum Format & Terms of Reference

Media Release 19th January 2015

Donald and David’s Relevance to Climate Science

By

“CRICKET legend Sir Donald Bradman is a useful metaphor for the escalating global row over claims the world’s leading climate agencies have been messing with the weather.

David Stockwell has made a submission to the Panel.
David Stockwell has made a submission to the Panel.

Imagine, for instance, if some bureau of sport were to revise the Don’s batting average in test cricket down from 99.94 to 75 after adjusting for anomalies and deleting innings of 200 runs or more.

What if the bureau then claimed another batsman had exceeded the Don’s revamped record of 75 to become the greatest ever?”

So begins a long article in today’s The Weekend Australian on page 20.

Journalist Graham Lloyd was in fact building on an analogy in a submission to the new panel, by David Stockwell; the Panel ostensibly established to review the Bureau of Meteorology’s homogenization of Australia’s official temperature record.

In his submission David Stockwell, an adjunct research fellow at Central Queensland University explains:

“Every portrayal of historical data should be historically accurate, else it becomes revisionism, and strays out of the domain of science and into the domain of ideology and politics. While step-wise adjustments are intended to compensate for real changes in the baseline temperature that result from, often undocumented, changes in instrumentation or relocation of stations, the cumulative effect of back-propagating step adjustments is to corrupt the official record.”

Neither Christine Milne nor Tony Jones are likely to follow up on this.  So, we need you to get your letter into The Editor and/or make comment under the article…

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/upping-the-heat-on-climate-number-crunchers/story-e6frg6z6-1227242096753

And also contact your local MP and/or news outlet and explain why they need to report this.

Reality…

By

Accepting the reality of change gives rise to equanimity – Allan Lokos.

Yeppoon coastline in November 2011, looking south east to what was once a volcanic plug…
Yeppoon coastline in November 2011, looking south east to what was once a volcanic plug…

Missing Observational Data for Middle Percy Island

By

IT is valid for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to estimate the intensity of a cyclone using computer models when it is far out to sea.  But once that same cyclone passes over a weather recording station the modelling data must be updated with real world observational data.

In the case of Marcia even after this cyclone passed over Middle Percy Island recording a  minimum central pressure of only 972 hPa, maximum wind gust of 208 km/h and maximum wind speed of 156 km/h, the Bureau continued to report only on the basis of output from a computer model.  The cyclone was clearly a category 3 system, yet the Bureau called it as a 5.

The Bureau has since removed the observational data that was once available on their website, I printed it off at the time and had it digitized this morning.  That information is here:

Middle Percy Obs Now Removed

It would be travesty if Marcia was recorded as a category 5 cyclone at landfall based on output from a dysfunctional computer model, rather than as a category 3 as clearly indicated by the observational data.