I'd love to know how the BBC justifies publishing THIS load of tosh. It is a story about how sea levels will rise by a metre and a half and we're all going to die. Fair enough ... if there was a scintilla of proof. But there's the rub.
Right down the bottom of the article we find that the research in question, which goes against the consensus view, has not been peer reviewed or accepted for publication but merely submitted to a journal. This means that it is very probably wrong and may never be published (on the basis that almost all articles submitted to journals subsequently turn out to be wrong and many are turned down after failing peer review).
Consequently, it beggars belief as to how this story got on the BBC website. Charitably the environmental correspondent in Vienna may need a bit more training on science journalism. Uncharitably, it is deliberate scaremongering.
69 comments:
well done Iain
Dale 1 - BBC 0
Iain. You are right about peer-review and the BBC shouldn't be publishing this.
But it is a bit rich getting this criticism from you considering the absolute tosh you use in support of denying global warming induced climate change.
You seem to require a higher standard from papers which support climate change than articles, books and websites that have never been peer-reviewed but that refute climate change.
I think an international group of climatologists presenting a research paper at a climate change conference are more likely know about sea level changes than a many bloggers.
Other news papers (Including the Torygraph) seem to have reported it - it looks like perfectly reasonable journalism to me.
On the other hand, there is the 25 sq miles of Norfolk land that is going to be allowed to flood because the government does not want to spend the £1.5 million per year in maintaining its seadefences and are prepared to drown £750 million worth of land and properties.
(Also reported by the BBC, on R4 this morning)
Of course the sea level is going to rise. Why do you think that the Dutch have gone to the trouble of becoming so tall?
Fair enough to be skeptical about the amount of sea level rise, but your piece is factually inaccurate about science publishing.
An unpublished paper is not necessarily wrong, it is just unpublished. Many scientific papers containing completely correct, verifiable and repeatable science go unpublished, to the detriment of their respective fields.
And science doesn't deal in 'proof' it deals with data that supports or disproves hypotheses. And as for science going 'against the consensus view', science is a process of continual re-examination and revision (whatever skeptics and denialists say), that is how science develops: as the data changes intelligent people change their minds with it.
Tories back tracking on the Environment.... I always knew Cambo was a phoney on this issue.
I blogged yesterday about scaremongering over vitamin pills, which turned out to be a complete fallacy as you had to take over 3000% of the RDA of some vitamins in some cases for them to have a detrimental effect.
Do journalist pay the slightest attention to the science behind the headlines?
Unfortunately Iain this type of story is all too common from the BBC and other media. They cherry pick the articles to suit their prejudices and totally ignore other research that goes against their preconcieved ideas.
This then filters down to politicians who then make bad decisions, such as on including bio-fuels in everyday fuels, this is now impacting poor countries by limiting supply of food and people are dying now. Not in theory by computer model but NOW!!
al-Beeb never quits, it has a story about the restoration of an Avro Vulcan and says The debate over whether a symbol of destruction should be restored will continue, after just a passing reference to how advanced it was for its time, never mentioned just how advanced British design was until the 60s when Wilson not only scrapped the TSR2 but ordered the destruction of all drawings,moulds, tools, dies etc.
Of course, that was when the UK actually manufactured goods for sale.
Your whingeing about this would carry a bit more weight if you weren't so palpably opposed to peer-reviewed, consensus science, such as the Stern Report, by going out and buying a big brash new car which is going to soon look 'so last century, dahling'...
The article says that the paper [has] ' . . been submitted for publication in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.' The forecast is for a range of 80 - 150 cm, i.e. a mean of 115 cm. The IPCC forecast is a range of 28 - 43 cm, i.e. a mean of 36 cm. The current rate of rise [for the period of satellite-based observations] is 0.34 cm/year = 34 cm/century. The paper is from a team at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory [Liverpool], which hosts the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level, which ' is the global data bank for long term sea level change information from tide gauges. The PSMSL collect data from several hundred gauges situated all over the globe.'
Dr Svetlana Jevrejeva's home page is at: http://www.pol.ac.uk/home/staff/?user=JevreSvet , which links to [a] 'page [which] provides a short description and file with data of global sea level reconstruction for the period 1807-2002 by Jevrejeva, S., Grinsted, A., Moore, J. and S. Holgate. All questions about the data themselves should be addressed to Dr. Svetlana Jevrejeva sveta@pol.ac.uk.' I am sure she will be intrigued to discuss with you the shortcomings you have detected in her study without even reading it!
My advice to you is to stick to the day job and leave the task of commenting on scientific research to scientists and science journalists.
Do journalist pay the slightest attention to the science behind the headlines?
Short answer, no.
Neither do most politicians let alone 99.9% of the general public.
Reason? They are all scientifically illiterate, susceptible to the PC propaganda.
How many pass any scientific O-level (or equiv.) these days ?
How much science is actually taught in schools now- as opposed to feelgood simplistic twaddle?
Just look at what happens to dissenters, research grants lost, vilification from peers ...
Haven't at least some of you seen this at work - projects that get favoured by higher management, that take on a life of their own, dissent if you dare ?
Lettersfromatory @9.53 said:
Do journalist pay the slightest attention to the science behind the headlines?
Surely that you imply that the could understand it even if they read it...
They have been selling this old Toffee since the 70s . I remeber Nationwide doing post Apocalyptic cartoons of new cave men starvng out over an endless sea , and then there were the Polar bears gambolling in the Seven Esuary whe we were going to have an ice age.
I have to say though that the BBC programme on immigration shows an willingness to try and regain some proper balance .
If you think about it in the 80s and 90s especially the BBC was run by the brats of 68. They are all has beens now so we are likely to get a better editorial position
"goes against the consensus view"
like your views on climate change, Iain?
Very poor comment, Iain. Given that the Proudman Laboratory are (a) responsible for all sorts of ocean studies and probably have no particular axe to grind regarding climate change (they have enough to do thinking about mud in our shipping lanes), (b) are an acknowledge centre of experise on oceanography and (c) went to the bother of developing a computer model rather than just blathering about climate change on the internet, I think that their findings are worthy of being reported without such cynicism, simply because their conclusion does not fit with your prejudices.
I have it on good authority (A chicken told me) that the sky may fall on me!
I wonder what the sea level was in the 1200s when it was a warm in England as it is now? Remember we have had a little ice-age (at its depth in the 1690s) for a few centuries - so the warming we have been seeing is not that un-expected.
But then, in-numerate reporting is the order of the day on this whole topic.
Hilariously Iain complains about tosh getting online! Ho ho ho ho.
I'm building an ark me. On ground 2 metres above sea level which oughta cover it.
"It beggars belief as to how this story got on the BBC website."
It got onto the BBC website because it was a significant piece of scientific research presented at a major international conference. The fact that it may theoretically be rejected by a journal at some point in the future is completely immaterial. Are you saying that news organisations should never report on conference proceedings until they have been published?
I blame the gays.
Did you:
a) get your post peer reviewed before you published?
b) just made up any old tosh and hit send?
c) consider first those lovely payments from APCO before publishing?
I think your readers ought to be told!
This computer model is based on the ice sheets melting. For the ice sheets to melt there must be an increase in global temperatures. The global temperature has actually dropped since 1998, and so have the more critical ocean temperatures. We have been told that this year will be particularly cold due to a large predicted drop in ocean temperatures.
Without global warming this model is worthless. Over the last decade we have seen global cooling, therefore.......
Yak40- 6you are absolutely right - and don't forget it was Wilson who talked of the " White heat of Technology" and promptly stepped back a century.
But that's Labour for you - no long term view, just un-thought out short-termism.British engineering in the 60s was at least as good as anyone else ( ok it was a bit sticky-back plastic, but it was good) The Yanks spent millions for their defence industries and we chop ours to shreds. Result? Almost terminal decline until Mrs T stopped it - only for the process to be reversed by Blair and accelerated by Brown
YAK 40 makes a good point in his comment about the BBC's revealing comment: "al-Beeb never quits, it has a story about the restoration of an Avro Vulcan and says The debate over whether a symbol of destruction should be restored will continue..."
The Avro Vulcan was only a 'symbol of destruction' to the Soviet Communists and to the tinpit Argentinian dictators, all of whom were scared of it. For the people of the UK who lived in FREEDOM (remember?), it was a symbol of freedom and of our willingness, or at least the willingness of some sections of our society, to stand up against Communists and Dictators.
Next thing we'll be told that the Warsaw Pact was a defensive alliance of peoples' democracies defending the workers against US running-dogs and aggressors.
Yes , the greenies/professional global warmists always prefer to ignore the mediaeval warm period - it doesn't fit in with their quasi religion.
How come the BBC never reports on the Mini Ice age that is coming?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4248062.html
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Russian-scientist-predicts-mini-Ice-Age-17621.shtml
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289
First, Iain kindly blogged this on my urging so blame me and not him.
Second, there is a huge difference between a conference paper and a published article. Conferences are where academics tell each other what they are up to (and sleep together a lot), not usually where they present completed work. They are a way to short-circuit the rather tortuous process of peer review so as to get their work into the public domain quickly. But that tortuous process is necessary to ensure that scientific research is properly disseminated.
The important point here is that the 1.5 metre sea level rise figure is simply yet another computer model which no one, other than the people who made it, appear to have tested. It produces an alarming result which contradicts previous research. That makes it potentially pretty dodgy to start with. Thousands upon thousands of conference papers are presented each year and this one made it onto the BBC for one reason only – it gave an apocalyptic headline figure that helped support the global warming cause. As this is currently under some pressure because the climate has refused to follow long term computer models over the last decade, it was a helpful bit of research.
Thirdly, the BBC’s reporting of such a sensitive topic was irresponsible and, I thought, abusive of the scientific process. Yes, conference papers can sometimes be worth reporting, but they need a host of caveats. And this one, besides the alarming headline figure, was no more than another computer model that is almost certainly wrong. If it was reported, then it had to be dealt with carefully with a full explanation of what the paper was, where it was lodged in the peer review gut and what peer review means. All of this was lacking.
http://bedejournal.blogspot.com
Newmania: in the 70s the media talked up the idea of a new ice age. A review of the scientific literature of the time actually show that such ideas were not at all scientific orthodoxy.
Alex and rob's uncle: thanks for defending the Proudman Lab's honour. British science is getting enough of a kicking from this government without the rest if us joining in. Yak 40: there are some good BBC science journalists, but I suspect the upper echelons are rather raddled with arts and humanities grads who don't get science. the science/nature page is rarely updated from Friday to Monday.
Machiavelli: there was a famous Kent resident who went against the consensus, the establishment and God. Charles Darwin.
Do journalist pay the slightest attention to the science behind the headlines? Most are incapable of understanding anything more than the summary of the executive summary; they are almost all arts graduates with no scientific knowledge beyond a vague recollection of the "naughty" pages in the GCSE Biology textbook
Iain,
Any chance you could inform the debate by telling us your scientific qualifications? You seem to post a lot about science, so can I assume you know more than the basics?
I am fed up with the tendentious use of the phrase 'global warming denial'. I suspect it is employed for its resonance with 'holocaust denial', the implication being that only right-wing lunatics can deny the evidence which is staring them in the face.
Maybe we should turn the tables and start talking about 'fluctuation denial.'
I am also fed up with the BBC for all the usual reasons. However, most science journalism, even in the broadsheets, is crap. I suspect it is written by the fashion editors in their spare moments.
Try reading the article more closely and it includes the sentence "Last year, German researcher Stefan Rahmstorf used different methodology but reached a similar conclusion to Dr Jevrejeva's group, projecting a sea level rise of between 0.5m and 1.4m by 2100. ". Obviously this isn't just one rogue researcher.
Rather like the British government 'intelligence' officer(s) who trawled the internet for evidence of WMDs in Iraq, and based their arguments on a 10-year old PhD thesis - and we all know what that led to.
Nice to know that al-Beeb employ 'graduates' with the same high standards.
It is one of my few remaining hopes that Cameron does go ice cold on this global climate change nonsense.
If we want to change the Earths climate we already have the technologies to do so. We do not have to control CO2 one way or the other.
The burden of proof for AGW is on the people that have invested countless billions in the idea. The same people of course who also thought up the scam in the first place. Which is large multi-national banking and industrial corporations.
Before an entirely man made/( government and radical groups in conspiracy with big business) global economic disaster, directly affecting the existence of possibly as many as 50% of the entire worlds population, is implemented. Not afterwards.
When fascists cant find a big enough enemy to fight, they start fighting there own people.
When there is no foreign enemy at all, because of the existence of a single World Government. Then fascists can then spend their entire time getting down to the real business of mass murder on an industrial scale. With nothing left at all to stop them finishing the job.
Much the most common sense recently given on the environment seems to me to have come from John Redwood. He's basically saying 'forget trying to prevent climate change and instead spend the money on adapting to it'.
Global warming is probably happening and probably significantly influenced by human activity. If so this is a classic 'tragedy of the commons' problem. What should any single country do?
The UK accounts for less than 2% of CO2 emissions. The speed and direction of future climate trends probably rests with just 3 countries - USA, China and India.
Does taxing the pants off things and banning power generation schemes really make any sense? I think not. We'd damage our own economy and living standards for nothing.
If we really think that sea levels will rise a bit and summers will be hotter then surely we would be much better advised to invest in flood defences etc.
Sitting here in our small island wishing away a problem entirely beyond our control smacks of King Canute.
I feel that politicians only seem to have one response to any problem - namely to 'deal with it'. (Usually via some bullshit legislation). This time round we need to learn to 'Go with it'.
This means that it is very probably wrong...
You expose your ignorance of science. It's not your fault that you have an arts degree but you should perhaps question your competence to comment on science. Margaret Thatcher understood this very well - perhaps because she was a scientist and, because of that, truly understood the depth of her ignorance. You are more of a Melanie Phillips than a Thatcher, you'll opine about anything and to hell with the consequences.
We need a government that addresses scientific issues in an rational and scientifically literate way. How would you compare yourself to Gordon Brown in this regard?
Every time you post about global warming or business your very well written blog takes a nose-dive in quality.
They haven't got any sea at Vienna.
Hilariously; Chis Paul says 'Hilariously Iain complains about tosh getting online! Ho ho ho ho.' Is there no end to this hilarity?
PS I had to share this bit from Private Eye from the Number Crunching bit , always good
£3,000,000 Start Up subsidy Souter ( Of Stage Coach )demanded for a hovercraft shuttle across the Forth
£500,000 Souter`s pre-election donation to the SNP which suddenly dropped its policy of regulating Stagecoach and other bus services
Is Labour’s problem in Scotland that they have finally met someone even more corrupt than they are ?
Iain, I like the blog generally, but this is one instance where your idealogical knickers are showing.
It is true that most items submitted to scientific journals are not published, but not because they are necessarily 'wrong'. Many will be rejected for simply not being significant enough. Otherwise, the journals contributing to the 'literature' would become unwieldy. For better or worse, only the most outstanding work will be published.
Back to your post. Their conclusions do not go ‘against the consensus’ they go further than the consensus.
‘If there was a scintilla of proof’
Er... not sure how to answer this. A UK/Finnish team has found some and research in Germany independantly reached the same conclusion. It has been presented to a major conference and a large media organisation reported it on their website.
I admit our gay friends are always going on holiday but even they would be hard pushed to make the sea level rise so much.The other day a BBC reported said "Homes produce 25% of all climate changing emissions" as though it was fact. I nearly smashed the telly.
Freedom to Prosper
I think I would take the whole subject of climate change a bit more seriously if the answer to it all wasn't always more taxation on fuel, private motoring etc.
I hate to be cynical, but so much of what should be a serious debate is clouded by climate change being treated as a "given" that no-one is allowed to question and which we should all happily pay more tax to prevent.
Tax - the Socialists' answer to everything.
Iain,
Get permission to reproduce the article here, and find half a dozen scientists from appropriate fields (some supportive, some not) to post their critiques. Otherwise discussion here is a bit pointless.
The BBC being true to form and following the agenda set for them by........(enter suitable name that fulfills prejudices)
It's not just the BBC that jumped on to this story, so did the Telegraph's website.
Dozzy. I am sorry but you are spouting utter toss.
It is in the nature of news organizations to enter the arena of the ultracrepidarian, or to the uneducated among you "talking out of their arses".
Let's just take a look at recent history shall we? Remember the "disease that eats people"? One or two cases of fasciitis necroticans occurred more or less at the same time in the same place. The BBC was going on about "and another case of the disease that eats people has been found...and we are all going to die horribly".
Same with the MMR jab, a now totally discredited piece of research that told us our children are all going to grow an extra penis and start voting Tory.
Ironically, when it comes to talking about Islam, the BBC cannot bring itself to associate the word with the current domestic terrorist threat.
So, Dozzy or Dozy or whoever you are, you just rest assured, another fallcay will come along in a minute, or in the case of the BBC three, all at the same time.
Reminds me of talking to neighbors just after I moved to Holland. I asked why the power points were all half way up the wall rather than near the floor as they are in UK. The reply was "don't forget we are 5 meters below sea level here. We don't want water in the electrics."
I find it difficult to believe that we can't make changes to our pattern of living over a 100 year period to accommodate a rise in sea level of 1 or 1.5 meters. The scientific forecast may as accurate as we can get. The forecast for the economic and social consequences looks like it comes from the infant school.
It was plugged by the BBC because we all have to believe in their fantasies; dissent is not tolerated.
It sounds like tosh to me too.
What were sea levels during the medieaval warm period, when Greenland was not covered in yards of ice-field?
Iain
The fact that this hasn't yet been accepted for publication means only that. You can't read into it anything about the quality of the research. Lots of material and papers are previewed at conferences - and some of these, though important, never get published in their original form.
What's more to the point is that the reporting is consistent with the BBC (and most media) being ignorant and credulous, particularly where technical matters are concerned. Their reporting of science is a good example of this. So is the way they cover medicine; so is the way they cover economics.
Bollocks.
ID is quite right to stick the boot in.
A) no big scientific institute is going to make stand against the 'it's going to keep getting hotter' cult.
B) With the realisation that any global warming (ie back to the temps enjoy in London in middle ages) may have as many advantages as disadvantages, they are now hyping sea level rises because that can't have a silver lining.
C) Perhaps you all should go back and check out the scientific community's back catalogue of successes including estimates of hetro deaths from HIV/AIDS in west, the number of people likely to die of BSE infection, the global likelyhood of running out of food (v popular in the 1970s, that) etc etc
Just one question for the Global Warmists - by how much has the global temperature increased since 2003?
Come on - what is the half decade rise in global temperature? You may use any one of the four sources of this data in your answer.
I think it may go a little quiet now.
ANDY J
It is still flipping cold in Kent, no asparagus yet, lambs hunckered down under the hedges and the frosts destroying the cherry blossom - I am on your side Iain. Not a mention of this on the BBC.
On the other hand, if they are right, Rye harbour will be flooded again, we will be sitting in deck chairs looking over the blue water towards Peasmarsh,and sipping G and Ts - that would be great.
"Every time you post about global warming or business your very well written blog takes a nose-dive in quality."
Anything scientific or technical really. Iain knows very little about scientific or technical issues and his regular commentators - Verity, Newmania, Wrinkled Weasel, etc. - know even less.
The BBC pushes this tosh to justify their 'soft loans' from the European Investment Bank (i.e. the EU).
Iain,
Your goodle ads thingy is running links straight to the Church of $cientology official site.
If it were my diary, this would get stomped on, PDQ
I would certainly stamp on it if I knew how to. Is it possible to ban ads on Google ads?
"Anything scientific or technical really. Iain knows very little about scientific or technical issues and his regular commentators - Verity, Newmania, Wrinkled Weasel, etc. - know even less."
Actually, I know everything. If you don't mind.
An interesting account of how that famous consensus is achieved and what happens when people challenge it (not new exactly - think Louis Pasteur) and what part the Wikipedia editors play in this:
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=440268&p=1
Might it have been one of those programmes that was "bought-in" by the BBC given their budgetary restrictions.
Still no reason though no to run some basic checks - or is it just a case of filling up the hours - sort of "never mind the quality look at the time thats taken up"
Dear anon 4.49. I am not sure if you are a troll, but you really do need to engage in an argument, i.e. something you can support with facts, rather than making a chump of yourself and just telling us we are all wrong.
The others can hold their own, but I would like you to pick some considered holes in my comment. Please do, and enlighten us all.
As for what I do and do not know about things scientific, I usually refer them to my partner, Dr Weasel, who is a consultant clinical scientist. As for the way broadcast journalists work, I used to be one, and I know they are an incredibly gullible and lazy bunch who deal in cliches most of the time because so much of what they do is ephemeral and no one gives a toss anyway. They are incapable of understanding the nuances of scientific enquiry. If you have ever lived with a scientist you know you will never get a straight answer to anything. The only scientists who pontificate on such matters as global warming, as if they really know what is going on, are dodgy scientists. The only journalists who come up with melting earth stories are desperate journalists with editors breathing down their necks. It is well documented that the BBC have a biased global warming agenda. You do not appear to live in the real world when it comes to these issues, whereas Iain clearly does. I don't know then what it is about the arguments that render you angry and incapable of expanding your thesis. Can you give us the benefit of your superior knowledge?
It's fookin freezing here, why can't I have a bit of this Global warming?
Annon 08.43,
I dont know if you realise it or not but Iain Dale runs a blog and peer review of his beliefs and stance on the fake global warming scam is not needed as his blog isnt a scientific publication!
There are hundreds of peer reviewed scientific papers out there that cast serious doubt on AGW/MMCC if you care to look! I take it that you would rather smear than look at the evidence? That would make you a very typical global warming believer I think?
If you want a sample of peer reviewed scientific data then why not go to the 'antigreen blogspot' greenie watch? they have more real science on there than you can shake a stick at BUT that wouldnt be your style would it? Oh no, much better and easier to put the blinkers on and smear isnt it?
Well very soon now you and your kind are going to look very stupid and I look forward to your future post explaining how wrong you were to smear a skeptic!
Apologies, Iain. The comment by James makes things clearer, less hot-headed (and able to spell ideological) but surely all predictive models of climate, whether alarming or reassuring, are such gross approximations that they'll ultimately only ever be in/validated by outcome? There isn't a CERN-like experiment to confirm a particular theory.
A statement like 'there is no evidence of an H5N1 strain that is transmissable between humans' may be perfectly valid, but it's a lousy way to argue you should wait until clear evidence of a pandemic before taking action. Similarly, if it can ever be stated with certainty that we're changing the climate, we’ve left it too late.
I haven't a clue if we're changing the climate. But I am sure we're changing the atmosphere slightly, and in a way that might change the climate.
Hippie fascism
Dear Iain,
After all these comments that people who are sceptical about most the Global-Warming claims do not understand the science, may I make a point that I am sceptical as well and I have a First degree and PhD degree in Physics and have worked with computer models for years.
Quite frankly these climate-change computer models are too simplistic for what they claim to predict.
Also 'consensus' is a political concept, not a scientific concept. Galileo was one man against the consensus - and he was right and they were wrong.
cassandra said...
"Well very soon now you and your kind are going to look very stupid and I look forward to your future post explaining how wrong you were to smear a skeptic!"
I very much hope that will not be the limit to what will happen to these people.
This global warming scam is directly responsible for the bio-fuels nonsense partly responsible for food shortages throughout the world. I'd say punishment for mass murder is rather more appropriate than just looking very stupid.
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