We’re publishing today an article by James Dent, a retired hydrologist and meteorologist. In a long career, Mr. Dent worked in many parts of the world, specialising in floods and droughts. For a time, he was the World Meteorology Organisation Chief Technical Advisor to the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre in Bangladesh. The article was initially published in the British Hydrological Society journal Circulation, but was quickly withdrawn.
Here’s an excerpt:
Like the predictions of the progress of Covid, we need to ask what the limitations are to modelling. Too easily the model output is given the status of truth, and quickly becomes unchallengeable. Climate change predictions have been commonplace for at least 25 years, but I recently read an agricultural journalist state that in the future, farmers will have to cope with hotter, drier summers, and warmer, wetter winters, and there will be more extreme events. The message has remained the same, so have we not yet reached the predicted future? It becomes easy to summarise complicated ideas into sound bites.
Over the last 15 years, I have resigned from two national institutions which have incorporated climate change hypotheses into rigid policy statements. This situation could so easily escalate to the dystopian future depicted in the recently published novel The Denial by Ross Clark. Like all the ramifications and issues relating to Covid, the danger comes when theoretical projections provide the basis of legislation, or define the stance of particular organisations, while the media presentations rely on throw-away lines and virtue-signalling in reporting.
I can see similar dangers arising from so-called ‘environmental’ policies, such as ceasing river dredging and weed clearance, ‘rewilding’ and abandoning land and road drainage maintenance. Ultimately we could find ourselves regressing to medieval conditions, where roads and marshy areas become impassable in the winter months.
British Hydrological Society (BHS) President Hayley Fowler, Professor of Climate Change Impacts at Newcastle University, subsequently explained that the paper was “a personal view from one of our membership that climate change was not a real phenomenon”. She went on to say: “We do not think it is appropriate to provide them with a forum under the BHS logo.” She further noted that the “climate sceptic” viewpoint did not represent good scholarship in science and we “will be reviewing our governance procedures to make sure that members voices can still be heard, but through the lens of good science”.
James Dent’s essay would have passed without comment 20 years ago. It is statement that climate has always changed, sometimes within short intervals, and climate models produce forecasts, not unchallengeable truth. As I noted in a recent article, the broadcaster and current UCL Professor of Earth Systems Science Mark Maslin said in 1999 that “some, and possibly most, large climate changes involving movements of several degrees centigrade occurred at most on a timescale of a few centuries, sometimes decades, and perhaps even a few years”. By 2014, Maslin was writing articles titled “Why I’ll talk politics with climate change deniers – but not science”, while in 2020 he suggested the origins of racism and climate emergency “share common causes”.
Justifying her Dent banning order, Professor Fowler claimed that anthropogenic activities had unequivocally modified Earth’s climate, causing increasingly disruptive socio-economic and ecological impacts. She suggested that changes to large-scale climate patterns had resulted in increasingly frequent and intense examples of extreme weather events. Global temperatures will continue to increase until at least the mid-century and would rise by 1.5°C and 2°C during the next century, unless there were deep reductions in human-produced carbon dioxide.
None of this is based on proven scientific fact. Humans are part of nature and have probably had some effect, likely very small, on the atmosphere. Burning fossil fuel, for instance, adds just 4% extra CO2 to an atmosphere that some scientists suggest needs more of this highly beneficial plant food. Ascribing individual weather events to long-term changes in the climate is not science – no credible data that could be falsified is available – it is just someone’s opinion. Prof. Fowler puts great store by the “strength of scientific evidence” presented by the IPCC. As we have seen, recent IPCC reports are often produced by writers such as herself, with similar academic interests and defined outlooks.
Forecasts of future warming come from unreliable computer models. Highly inaccurate guesses are produced because scientists cannot agree on the crucial issue of the amount of warming caused by a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. Estimates range between 0.5°C to 6°C. Many scientists now suggest lower estimates are more realistic, and these fall within margin of error territory. In this territory, it will be impossible to tell whether minor changes in temperature are caused by relatively small amounts of human-caused CO2, or countless other natural causes. Driven by a green climate agenda, the IPCC authorities still favour the higher estimates.
Global warming started to run out of steam nearly 20 years ago and temperatures have been at a standstill for over eight years, according to accurate satellite data.
The graphic above shows clearly the divergence of climate model forecasts from the actual temperature recorded in the thicker green line. Increasingly inaccurate forecasts are seen from the late 1990s. Note the standstill from around 2014 and the slowdown of warming since the mid 1990s peak.
According to Prof. Fowler, large scale climate patterns have resulted in increasingly frequent and intense examples of extreme weather events. What is the definition of ‘extreme weather’, it might be asked – according to the graphic below, it does not seem to be based on human lives lost.
According to Prof. Fowler, many changes in the climate system become larger in direct relation to increasing global warming, and this includes increases in the frequency of intense tropical cyclones.
If there are going to be any increases, they haven’t shown up in the above record yet. Both hurricane and cyclone activity show similar trends going back over 40 years.
Prof. Fowler concludes with some thoughts on the hydrosphere “where the most profound impacts of climate change will pose the greatest risk to Earth’s biomes”. Continued global warming is projected to intensify further the global water cycle, including variability, global monsoon precipitation and the severity of wet and dry events.
Such events might be expected to affect large land masses like the United States. Detailed historical records are available across this territory going back to 1895. Like the storms, the above chart shows there is no great change discernible yet.
The Daily Sceptic asked Professor Fowler to comment further on the Dent cancellation. She was asked to explain what she meant when she said members’ future voices will be heard through the “lens of good science”. At time of going to press, there had not been a reply.
Read James Dent’s banned article here.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
“Through the lens of good science”
There, ladies and gentlemen, is the fallacy at the heart of the problem.
Science knows nothing of our “lenses”. It knows nothing of “good” or “bad”.
Science is a culture of doubt, of constant questioning and challenging.
If you make an assertion, you must prove it, and if anything arises which disproves it, you must start all over again.
Kids, it’s called the Scientific Method, and your teachers have forgotten all about it, never mind what it means.
Modelling is to a great extent conjecture/guesswork based on debateable assumptions – it is not science. And evidence alone will prove the model. So if policy is going to be based on modelling, the ‘track-record’ of climate models needs to be examined. To date it hasn’t been that good.
Yes, the modellers have been brilliant at selecting only the evidence which fits their models.
Modelling is very similar to budgeting, especially in government and institutions. It’s often way out, and eventually some empiricism has to bear, which usually results in radical change, accompanied by the excuses of “adaptations”, “when the facts change….” etc.
Forecasting is very difficult – especially about the future
True science is based in scepticism, when all the sceptics questions have been satisfactorily answered then you the truth.
Shortly after Einstein published the Theory of Relativity there was a counter publication called “100 scientists against Einstein”, Einstein’s reply was they only needed 1 to prove me wrong. That’s true science and as you say the Scientific Method has been forgotten, which politicians have cheapened to worthless.
“Science knows nothing of our ‘lenses’. It knows nothing of ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”
That god of yours sounds a bit dim, a bit one-sided. You realise the god “Science” was human-created, right, only about 400 years ago?
Does he have a sister? She might be more sussed, rounded, and altogether more interesting.
I used a capital S because it was at the start of the sentence
The Scientific Method, on the other hand, is our way of making sense of the world around us, and is indeed a product of our minds. It is not a god, no.
But yes, Mrs MAk is altogether rather more rounded
You can’t prove a hypothesis, only disprove it.
Science, for me, is a set of hypotheses awaiting falsification.
<blockquote>members voices can still be heard, but through the lens of good science</blockquote>
What sort of scientist advocates specacles to the hard of hearing? She means, of course, “through the <b>filter</b> of good science” which is a more accurate and more sinister metaphor.
It’s clear now, the danger isn’t sea level rise but of drowning in insidious corporate propaganda.
I’m a human-induced climate change denier but Chris Morrison surely agrees that the trend of temperatures in the graph has been upward since about 2007. We can accept this without neurotically rushing to blame human-caused CO2; there maybe benign natural causes which might become clearer if we spent more time coolly looking at longer term temperature trends.
We’re talking about an increase of just 0.5C over forty years. And that’s before we take into account the weaknesses in the way the data are gathered.
If you extend the X axis back a few “climate cycles” to include ice ages and warm periods, the line for the last forty years is but a moment and it’s flat. Flat.
Agreed.
And that’s an increase from a particularly cold decade (1970s).
I started looking at temperature data to write a chapter in a book on climate modelling. I eventually realised there is nothing I could say about the temperature data except it was utterly $*&!
It is manipulated in so many ways and at so many levels, that the end result is meaningless. It is impossible to draw any conclusion from the data … except that it is impossible to draw any conclusion from the data.
Mike right as usual.
One question I ask of the cultists, and have yet to get an answer :
‘What is the “correct” temperature of this world’
And, more importantly, what is the correct proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere? Then watch and listen to them flounder.
Ask them if they’ve ever heard of Rubisco. That should get them.
I’m highly sceptical of the IPCC position on climate change. I think the science shows that most, if not all, of the recent warming is natural and even another degree or so of warming would have far more positive effects than negative.
However it simply isn’t true that global warming ran out of steam recently. Yes there has been roughly 7.5 years without any warming, however there have been similar or longer periods in the last 40 years with a pause in warming. Taking longer term trends e.g. 20 years, the current rate of warming is more or less the same as it was at the end of the 20th centuary.
http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend.html
This allows you to see the trend over any time period (since instrumental records started) for a variety of data sets.
I’m writing this in a spirit of friendship since I think it’s important that climate sceptics get the facts right so they can’t be ridiculed by alarmists.
Yes Matt it is the small, sometimes adjusted nature, of the temperature record that is the problem. MikeHassler’s comment above is very relevant.
Examples of 90 year old data being updated to fit the narrative abound. A new version of the record comes out every few years and look see, I told you 2010 was warmer than 1998, so I made it so in the new version. In one case from the 1930s some data from the handful of Arctic stations was deemed too hot ( narrative fit problem ) so plus 4c was simply altered to minus 4c.
The datasets are meaningless and in some cases the raw data has been “lost” altogether. We often have hottest year evah announced with the increase well within the error bars of the data. Hundredths of a degree rise in data only read to 0.1.
Matt,
Why not have a look at the Central English Temperature Record, or better still The Armagh Observatory
The planet may well be warming. That is not really in dispute. It has been since then end of the Little Ice Age. What is or should be in dispute is that it has anything to do with CO2.
And also, whether the warming is beneficial or not.
Yes Ross it is because an ice ended thousands of years ago.
What concerns me is we are due another one. Ain’t nature a bugger
The sequence of glaciations and inter-glacial warm periods in the Pleistocene Ice Age in which we are living falls in line with the Milankovitch Cycles. It was on the 41,000 year cycle but switched to the 100,000 year cycle about a million years and a few glaciations ago. It may switch back. The next glaciation will be along in about 85,000 years or 15,000 years depending on which cycle dominates. In the meantime, enjoy the sun-bathing.
Only if you agree that it’s been downwards since about 2016….
Here you go people. Get informed “through the lens of” websites like this. Enough to make your eyes water and weep!
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/
98% of Good Scientists agree that hurricanes are caused by not tithing enough to the Church of Good Science.
This fact cannot be disproven using Good Science. All who question it are therefore not Good Scientists, and will be excommunicated.
Shameful from the BHS. Shameful.
The problem is Neil that you don’t get to be in these posts if you are not a believer.
Try applying to be CE of the Met Office telling them you want to do more balanced science. The only word you would hear would be “next”.
Follow the money.
Same as it ever was.
‘Good science’ is that which reflects the views of the publishing institution’s seniors and grantors of research funds, i.e. it is driven by money, and by sanctimonious ideology (which as it happens, is almost always driven by money and ‘prestige’too).
‘Normal science’ is that which is based on the study of facts.
I think that Hayley Fowler twists facts to the detriment of anything that contradicts her ideology……..and therefore her earning capacity and ability to rub shoulders in high places.
The extent of public psychological manipulation is so extreme now that we’re not far off living like the Truman Show.
We ARE in the Truman Show. Now!
Is it not possible, with so many individual minds connected, to ignore these people and do whatever is necessary to progress in a forward rather than backward direction?
I propose a new political party, named simply The Sceptic Party.
It’ll never work, though. We’d wouldn’t agree on much… because we’re mostly scientific in nature.
I’m not confident political parties ever achieve anything useful, they appear to be rubber stampers. Added them to my ignore list.
Exactly. The people who would perhaps deserve the power don’t want it.
I know I don’t want it
All political parties eventually succumb to groupthink.
“rubber stampers” – is that a euphemism?
Yes I have always thought that anyone wanting to be a politician should be barred from the process.
I think we could agree on keeping government as small as possible. After that there ought not to be too many decisions to disagree about.
Exactly. I mean, just how many MPs does our country need? Six hundred plus, really?!
You would think….
Like all the ramifications and issues relating to Covid, the danger comes when theoretical projections provide the basis of legislation, or define the stance of particular organisations, while the media presentations rely on throw-away lines and virtue-signalling in reporting.
Absolutely, it’s the way they assert their ideology, because they know damn well that their ideology is based on emotion not logic…….it is therefore profoundly dishonest, and its purveyors are working on the presumption, ‘tell a big enough lie for long enough and it comes the truth’.
‘Through the lens of good science’…….
…….a great book title for Matt Ridley or James Delingpole if ever there was one.
More like “The Backwards Telescope”.
Roman Theological Society (BTS) Pope, Professor of Theological Impacts at Cathedral , subsequently explained that the paper was “a heretical view from one of our membership that geocentrism was not a real phenomenon”. Xe went on to say: “We do not think it is appropriate to provide them with a forum under the cross.” S
Censorship, and all the evils that arise from it. Nothing more, nothing less, and those who presume to call themselves “scientists” are unworthy of the title, and stand shamed for their cowardice and groupthink.
As I’ve been saying, a New Dark Age…
BUUUURN THE WITCH!
Which one?
It’s a very long list…
Well with the catastrophic imminent devestating rise in sea levels forecast by The Science, we could use the tried and tested method.
The witches who drown are witches and the one who float are witches.
There problem solved)
Radiohead.
The problems of science are compounded by the worship of it by those who do not understand, because they have not been taught what science is.
Serious, genuine scientists do not make grandstanding predictions. They speak cautiously, with a wariness that annoys the media.
So the media honours show-ponies with a sense of drama and occasion. The more prone you are to grand declarations, the less you are a scientist – and the more media attention you will receive.
It’s not only cowardice and groupthink we have to consider, but the desire to be part of a celebrity culture which rewards with attention and funding.
Spelling error: you must have meant President Hayley Fauscist.
There are some real nutters in the BHS … no interest whatsoever in the science … just green nutters.
Most of the professional bodies are like that now
Yes, and their autosignatures feature their chosen pronouns.
Wonder how much these people and organisations make from their ‘climate change’ stance. Wonder what the view would be if the funding was withdrawn.
Science is dead.
I’m waiting for the “New” maths with flexible answers; 2 + 2 is 4 or 5 or 3 depending on your race, sexuality, gender and how many social credits you have. At least it will spend the end of technology used to subdue us.
I’m so useless at maths, 2 + 2 = 5
Don’t worry. Crap with maths? You must have dyscalculia. For you 2+2=5 scores full marks. The career adviser suggests you would make an excellent aeronautics engineer.
The good news is that the climate has not gone haywire and as per the predictions of the past 30 years. The bad news is the doom-mongers and climate zealots still retain the narrative – largely unchallenged in the mainstream media.
Someone, somehow, needs to get one of modellers in court and forensically examine his modelling methods and the ‘climate science’ behind the need for the models.
It is quite clear that actual, real-life, irrefutable climate data and information, is totally ignored by those with particular interests to further.
The climate zealots are doing very nicely, thank you…
With a reported net worth of $1 million, Great Thunberg is the world’s youngest and wealthiest climate activist.
$1 Million. Is that all. Surely that rates as abject failure.
You sure it’s not a way of paying for the “services” of her “model” mum?
Not completely off-topic: those who welcomed the installation in their home of “smart” gas meters may soon start thinking differently when mains gas gets rationed – especially if their home is poorly insulated.
Does someone here know the details of the gas rationing plans in Germany? I’m assuming the authorities won’t limit themselves to turning the supply of mains gas to whole towns off and on, and off and on again, as happens with domestic electricity during organised power cuts. The epoch we entered in March 2020 suggests a finer-grained control will be sought, with of course a hate campaign against those who try to circumvent it…
…and against those who point out the causes and consequences.
Goebbels advocated “guns before butter”. His successors in the German state are openly preparing to ration the supply of domestic gas rather than reverse their policy on sending weapons to the Ukraine for the government in Kiev to use in its war against Russia. That’s guns before warmth.
Globo-totalitarianism and the “split” totalitarianism of war are going hand in hand…
““We do not think it is appropriate to provide them with a forum under the BHS logo.””
This would never have happened under Sir Philip Green.
Off topic but just saw this shocker…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60927032.amp
Dyson’s new headphones with built in air-purifying face muzzle. Please someone tell me it is an early April Fools’ Day. The article explicitly says it isn’t but please, it has to be. It’s just too much now. The first time I see someone wearing these, I swear I will take them and stamp on them.
It has to be a joke, doesn’t it? In the times where it is hard to distinguish the Babylon Bee from the BBC, you just never know. Either way, after two years of torturing people with muzzles, this joke is in bad taste, and even if it is a joke, I bet a large number of morons would pay Dyson prices for it.
“We don’t expect them to be cheap,” O’Boyle added.
Excellent. I hope Dyson completely fleeces as many mask morons as possible. I would charge them an absolute fortune. Stupidity on that scale needs to be exploited and impoverished. Plus it would make the sight of anyone wearing them even more hilarious. It’s a win-win.
It was in the Telegraph on the 30th. I thought it was early in error.
I still think there must be a large element of Potentate’s Garments in Climate Science. Many must know it isn’t happening as advertised (same as Covid) but are just hoping to keep the sinecure going long enough to reach retirement.
I saw a comment elsewhere recently suggesting that Climate Change is now too big to fail and I fear that could be true. If you recruit only in your own image for 30 years you don’t get any science at all. Every institution now has a climate expert and most just regurgitate from a hymn sheet in the same manner as the agricultural journo mentioned by James Dent.
I see the satellite temp data has been falling since 2016 and is now about the 30 year average.
Any substantial man-made climate change remains a theory and heavily fudged models of half the system. Climate models think there are no changes in the Sun’s output that effect our weather and climate – despite 100’s of scientific papers to the contrary.
The government now knows that Covid modelling was very poor and they should consider that Climate is at least a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult.
anyone else shudder when they read that?
Blairs 5th column and 4th estate in full effect.
we need a government that is willing to dismantle Blair’s legacy and demand proper evidenced data when these people make these claims, I want to see for and against evidence with reasons to those conclusions.
we also need a media that challenges these things, if they are correct they will stand up to scrutiny, that is how science works.
Many of those campaigning for zero carbon are wealthy landowners who benefit from subsidies for wind and solar power, or have interests in green companies – the subsidies are paid for by the working and middle classes. This was even in the Guardian a few years ago. Zac Goldsmith did not declare family interest in green grant cuts | Zac Goldsmith | The Guardian
NUT ZERO
The Nut Zero cultists
Wish to put us back in caves
By destroying grown up energy
Make us New World Order slaves;
They want to limit plant food
Yet we must lives on greens
They’ll ban God Given protein
But feed us on vaccines.
Voltiacs and windmills
We know only work part time
They need fossil fuelled back up
To Deny this is a crime;
It is time to get afracking
And digging up more coal
We have plenty carbon energy
What swe own we can control.
Patrick Healy
This should please the climate lobby (zealots)
British scientists have invented “Eco-Plastic”, this material is 100% environmentally friendly, it uses none of the vast quantities of energy, water, chemicals and trees that produce cardboard.
Secretary of State for the Environment – George Eustice said the invention would be a game-changer in the way packaging would be used. From November 1st 2022 all packaging must be made of this new material. The Government will be providing £250 Million to kickstart this revolution. The campaign will be called “Fantastic Plastic” and will extol the virtues of this new material.
The new material can be recycled, reused for years making it a win, win for the climate, environment and the Nation.
Further details can be obtained from :
The Rt Hon George Eustice MP
DEFRA
Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW14DF
Seacole Building? What was its previous name?
It’s not April the first by any chance? My – how the time flies.
At last someone with common sense willing to speak out. Long may he be allowed to do so.
So many emperors, so few clothes.
Speaking of politicians (how useless they are)
Last night on Farrage on GB News, he was going on about the shale wells in Lancashire not now being capped.
He then got some deranged Global Warming Cultist on to argue for their capping and sending us all back to live in caves, by demanding we only persue Unreliables.
Then to ‘cap it all’ he interviewed an alleged Tory MP, with an Italtian name I cannot remember, representing the Black Country (is that still allowed?) who said he hoped that his children, grandchildren and their children could live in a ‘carbon free’ world or some such crap.
First of all, I presume he was talking about plant food and not coal which his constituncy is floating upon, and to think this is how Tory politicians think, it shows there is no hope for our future. He is the first, and I would think the last, Tory MP for that constituency since Herod reigned.
Additionally, and I know I keep beating this horse, why in hell does Nigel and the other sane presenters have to get idiots like these two on air, and not get som real scientists to put the case for reason?
So people can see they’re idiots and take to the other side of the argument?
‘ Humans are part of nature and have probably had some effect, likely very small, on the atmosphere. ‘
‘Likely very small’, that may not pass the scientific test. Opinion.
‘no credible data that could be falsified is available‘
Eh? Are you talking about some sort of null hypothesis? Confusing.
‘Forecasts of future warming come from unreliable computer models.‘
Yes, of course, we’d only want to use the unreliable ones.
Basically this article is a rant, I don’t mean Mr Dent. It is not unreasonable, given the significant rise on pollution over the last 300 years, to assume a noticeable detrimental effect on the atmosphere and the environment in general. To not consider this is to pretty much tar yourselves with the same brush that your hope to apply to your targets.
These academic maniacs don’t want to examine “facts” and “evidence”. They can’t handle the truth. Or rather it is an inconvenient truth which whacks a massive spanner in the works of their political agenda. Factards!!
It would help if the general population realised what 500 parts per million of CO2 actually represent as the proprtion of our atmosphere and what proprtion of our atmosphere a 4% increase of that means. Carbon is a basic element of life and the slight increase of CO2 has helped plant growth and fed those who would be hungty without it.