Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
On episode 98 of Climate Change Roundtable, The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, H. Sterling Burnett, and special guest Steve Milloy cover the most important climate related stories of the past few weeks and provide rebuttal, commentary, and humor.
The Climate Trial of the Century is over, we followed the trial every day for nearly four weeks, and during that time, we missed a lot of climate stories we’d normally cover. You can thank Michael Mann for this lapse.
On episode 98 of Climate Change Roundtable, The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, H. Sterling Burnett, and special guest Steve Milloy cover the most important climate related stories of the past few weeks and provide rebuttal, commentary, and humor.
Looking at the research papers* I have on file by Russians, and being reminded of the American temperature reconstruction from the Michael Mann versus Mark Steyn court case, well they are very different.
From Jennifer Marohasy
By jennifer
I have been remembering Russian historical temperature reconstructions based on tree ring data, as I have listened along to the Climate Change on Trial podcast series by investigative journalist Ann McElhinney.
Looking at the research papers* I have on file by Russians, and being reminded of the American temperature reconstruction from the Michael Mann versus Mark Steyn court case, well they are very different.
The Russian temperature reconstructions based on tree ring data generally show the cooling so evident in the instrumental record (unhomogenized/raw) for the Arctic region from 1940 through to 1975. Of course, the Russian reconstructions also include the Medieval Warm period (10th to 12th centuries).
The Americans flatten the early part of the 1,000 years long record, obliterating the Medieval Warm period, and then they use ‘Mike’s trick’ that is to graft some remodelled (homogenised) instrumental temperature data onto the end of the proxy temperature series to get a big uptick. Thus, creating what has become known as the ‘hockey stick’.
Mark Steyn has repeatedly suggested that all of this is rather fraudulent. I agree.
For his troubles, Steyn was awarded punitive damages of US$1 million in the Washington DC Superior Court just yesterday. To understand the context, consider listening along from the beginning, with the Climate Change on Trial podcast series by investigative journalist, and dear friend, Ann McElhinney.
What the Americans, including Mann, have done with the tree ring data, is much the same as the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s homogenisation of the instrumental temperature. This mostly involves cooling the past, so the present appears warmer. I’ve written so much about this, and I will be writing some more. For context, consider my ‘Hyping Maximum Temperature’ series, that I could perhaps turn into a podcast series (Part 1 to Part 7).
Homogenisation of the Australian data that only begins in 1910, mostly obliterates the very warm decades at the beginning of the twentieth century and in the process does away with the cooling trend in the first half of the twentieth century, from about 1920 through to 1950. Considering the instrumental temperature series overall from 1910, and before they are remodelled , it is about as hot now as it was back in say 1914. Heatwaves were worse in 1896 (there are records back to 1850, unhomogenized), and summers were hotter in the late 1930s (considering the data before it is remodelled). Considering the annual averages, well, unhomogenized mean temperatures show cooling to about 1950 and then warming after this.
A problem with the last thirty years of temperature data is that it has been measured from automatic weather stations using platinum resistance probes that can be calibrated to show however many degrees hotter or cooler than a mercury thermometer might be considered convenient.
To be clear, that are at least three problems with the official Australian temperature series, 1. they are truncated (only beginning in 1910), 2. they are homogenised (cooling the data from mercury thermometers), and 3. they are unreliable at least from 1996 with the transition to a different method of measurement (platinum resistance probes in automatic weather stations).
It is the case that the Americans also remodelled (homogenize) their instrumental temperature data, as well as the proxy temperature data from tree rings, to also fit a particular and convenient narrative.
This is important to the West, or at least our financial institutions that are heavily invested in the energy transition. This energy transition, is, of course, prefaced on the assumption that temperatures continued to rise through most of the twentieth century and that they are now unprecedented. This is achieved for the official record through a combination of homogenisation (remodelling) and change of measurement system (from mercury thermometer to platinum resistance probes).
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* The chart featured at the top of this post is from a paper by O.V. Sidorova et al. from the V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forestry in Russia. It was presented at the Dendro symposium in Switzerland from April 21st to 23rd in 2005.
The chart shows key features of the American hockey stick (without complete shaft) and contrasts this with a Russian proxy temperature reconstruction.
It is the case that the Russians have longer historical reconstructions based on tree ring data and continue to collect and analyse tree ring data.
The Americans have more-or-less stopped this work with tree rings, and so their reconstructions based on proxy data end in about 1965, after which they conveniently graft instrumental temperature series measured using platinum resistant probes.
I must say, at the moment, it is quite apparent that the Russians, and also the Chinese, are going much better science than anyone much in the West, at least in the areas of interest to me including rainfall forecasting and historical temperature reconstructions. It is perhaps also worth noting that reliable rainfall forecasts need accurate historical temperature reconstructions.
On episode 97 of Climate Change Roundtable, The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, H. Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken, and Jim Lakely break down what happened in the trial, how this criminally unjust jury decision came to be, and what this means for the First Amendment rights of anyone who questions alarmist dogma in public.
The Climate Trial of the Century is over, and the result is an absolutely travesty of justice. A D.C. jury ruled yesterday that Mark Steyn must pay $1 in compensatory damages and an absurd $1 million in punitive damages to climate media star Michael Mann for his claimed defamation. His co-defendant, Rand Simberg, was socked with paying $1 in compensatory damages, but only $1,000 in punitive damages.
We followed the trial every day for nearly four weeks, and we can tell you that it was a disgrace to the professions in our legal system, the “profession” of juries to administer justice, and the professions in alarmist climate science. In short, the whole thing was a disgrace.
On episode 97 of Climate Change Roundtable, The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, H. Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken, and Jim Lakely break down what happened in the trial, how this criminally unjust jury decision came to be, and what this means for the First Amendment rights of anyone who questions alarmist dogma in public.
On episode 96 of Climate Change Roundtable, special guest Ann McElhinney joins The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, H. Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken, and Jim Lakely to break down the latest bombshell moments of the trial. We are sure to mention the devastating testimony on Thursday of renowned statistician Abraham Wyner who exposed Mann’s hockey stick to be the fraud Steyn and Simberg (and many others) say it is.
In the third week of the defamation trial in which climate “hockey stick” inventor Michael Mann is suing Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg, Mann rested his case. And now the defense has begun to make its devastating case against the nasty serial litigator in the Climate Trial of the Century. The hockey stick itself is being broken into pieces in public.
On episode 96 of Climate Change Roundtable, special guest Ann McElhinney joins The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, H. Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken, and Jim Lakely to break down the latest bombshell moments of the trial. We are sure to mention the devastating testimony on Thursday of renowned statistician Abraham Wyner who exposed Mann’s hockey stick to be the fraud Steyn and Simberg (and many others) say it is.
Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET (12 p.m. CT) to get caught up on the trial and join the chat to ask questions of your own.
Our panel delves into the claim by the COP28 President, who said there is ‘no science’ behind demands for the phase-out of fossil fuels and that doing so would take the world “back into caves.”
The episode also aims to debunk common climate change myths presented at COP28, focusing on a comprehensive understanding of the conference’s implications and strategies. We will compare the fantasy of claims and goals with the reality of the hard data.
Plus, we’ll have Crazy Climate News of the week.
Join our live broadcast today at Noon Central Time (12PM ET). Whether you’re a climate enthusiast, a policy expert, or just someone curious about the different facets of climate change discourse, this episode promises to provide another fresh and insightful take on the discussions from COP28.
In the second week of the defamation trial, where serial litigator and special climate snowflake Michael Mann sued Mark Steyn and others for libel, the proceedings featured notable developments and surprising revelations. To discuss, Phelim McAleer, a filmmaker and journalist who is attending the trial in a federal court in Washington, DC, joins episode 95 of Climate Change Roundtable.
In the second week of the defamation trial, where serial litigator and special climate snowflake Michael Mann sued Mark Steyn and others for libel, the proceedings featured notable developments and surprising revelations. To discuss, Phelim McAleer, a filmmaker and journalist who is attending the trial in a federal court in Washington, DC, joins episode 95 of Climate Change Roundtable.
Thursday afternoon marked a significant moment in the trial, featuring Steyn cross-examining Mann. McAleer will share his observations with host Anthony Watts and panelists H. Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken, and Jim Lakely.
The lawsuit stems from 2012 when Mann accused Steyn and others of libel for ridiculing his “hockey stick” graph, a key element in climate change discussions. Steyn compared the cover-up of Mann’s shoddy science at his then-employer Penn State University to the way the school covered up the sexual abuse crimes conducted by disgraced football coach Jerry Sandusky. Penn State whitewashed the internal investigation.
In addition to discussing the trial, the episode will cover some of the crazy climate news of the week. We also urge you to seek out a new daily podcast produce by our guest, Phelim, and his wife Ann McIlhenny called “Climate Change on Trial,” where professional actors are reenacting the Mann trial.
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