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Q&A: Professor Phil Jones
BBC ^ | Feruary 12, 2010

Posted on 02/12/2010 4:39:57 PM PST by Shermy

...The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin put questions to Professor Jones, including several gathered from climate sceptics. The questions were put to Professor Jones with the co-operation of UEA's press office.

A - Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I've assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.

Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).

I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.

So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

Here are the trends and significances for each period:

B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: amazongate; carbontrade; climatechange; climatechangedata; glaciergate; globalwarming; globalwarmingscandal; globqalwarminghoax; ipcc; pachauri; pachaurigate; philjones
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1 posted on 02/12/2010 4:39:57 PM PST by Shermy
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To: calcowgirl; steelyourfaith

Much more at link


2 posted on 02/12/2010 4:40:25 PM PST by Shermy
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To: Shermy; Carlucci; grey_whiskers; meyer; WL-law; Para-Ord.45; Desdemona; Little Bill; ...
Thanx Shermy !

 


Beam me to Planet Gore !

3 posted on 02/12/2010 4:42:05 PM PST by steelyourfaith (FReepers were opposed to Obama even before it was cool to be against Obama.)
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To: Shermy

The only interview this fraud should be giving is his entrance interview into the British prison system.


4 posted on 02/12/2010 5:00:14 PM PST by Jim from C-Town (The government is rarely benevolent, often malevolent and never benign!)
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To: Jim from C-Town

The way I read his answers, he is doing nothing but making a prison trip more possible. Although I think he’ll end up an object of pity everyone wants to forget, most of all the believers.


5 posted on 02/12/2010 5:03:44 PM PST by Shermy
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To: Shermy
there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

There is also evidence that Obama was born in Africa. It may not be good evidence, but hey there is evidence.

6 posted on 02/12/2010 5:04:03 PM PST by Raycpa
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To: Shermy

I personally think he should stop digging his hole:

The phrase ‘hide the decline’ was shorthand for providing a composite representation of long-term temperature changes made up of recent instrumental data and earlier tree-ring based evidence, where it was absolutely necessary to remove the incorrect impression given by the tree rings that temperatures between about 1960 and 1999 (when the email was written) were not rising, as our instrumental data clearly showed they were.

This “divergence” is well known in the tree-ring literature and “trick” did not refer to any intention to deceive - but rather “a convenient way of achieving something”, in this case joining the earlier valid part of the tree-ring record with the recent, more reliable instrumental record.


7 posted on 02/12/2010 5:10:50 PM PST by Raycpa
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To: Raycpa

He acknowledges prior cyclical temperature rises, but says the recent one cannot be accounted for in the sun...so it must be human!

Funny, he also admits temperatures haven’t risen in the past decade..so what caused that? Doesn’t say.


8 posted on 02/12/2010 5:16:18 PM PST by Shermy
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To: Shermy

“The phrase ‘hide the decline’ was shorthand for providing a composite representation of long-term temperature changes made up of recent instrumental data and earlier tree-ring based evidence, where it was absolutely necessary to remove the incorrect impression given by the tree rings that temperatures between about 1960 and 1999 (when the email was written) were not rising, as our instrumental data clearly showed they were.”

He was better at “hiding the decline” than he is at hiding the BS.

The man is living proof that figures lie, and liars figure.


9 posted on 02/12/2010 5:21:12 PM PST by SpinyNorman (Carbon credits are designed to be the slush fund of the New World Order.)
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To: SpinyNorman

It’s more than the trees.

Everything he says telegraphs that “the science is” not “settled.”


10 posted on 02/12/2010 5:24:51 PM PST by Shermy
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To: Shermy

The most revealing answer in this interview was his explanation for why he believes the current warming (if it really exists) is man-made: he can’t explain it by solar or volcanic forcing. That’s it. Because he can’t think of another reason, we are being told to reduce our lifestyles, accept higher energy prices, even give up our light bulbs. This is pathetic.

The questioner also did not touch on the most damning aspect of this scandal, namely, that they programmed the computers to show an increase in temperature in the future. In other words, they fixed the outcome. There wasn’t any science behind this at all.


11 posted on 02/12/2010 5:45:09 PM PST by redtkt
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To: Shermy

Thanks for posting.


12 posted on 02/14/2010 10:49:21 AM PST by neverdem
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To: Raycpa

Bravo Sierra. If the tree rings didn’t give the ‘correct’ temperature indication during the 1960-2000 period, when instrumental measurements were available, what justification is there for using them as thermometers before 1960? The tree rings in question are probably better rainfall gages than thermometers.


13 posted on 02/14/2010 11:04:41 AM PST by expatpat
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To: Raycpa
The phrase ‘hide the decline’ was shorthand for providing a composite representation of long-term temperature changes made up of recent instrumental data and earlier tree-ring based evidence, where it was absolutely necessary to remove the incorrect impression given by the tree rings that temperatures between about 1960 and 1999 (when the email was written) were not rising, as our instrumental data clearly showed they were.

IOW tree rings do not denote a reliable temperature record because growth variation is influenced by multiple variables.

That confounded nature again!

14 posted on 02/14/2010 11:27:03 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The RINOcrat Party is in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)
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To: Raycpa; Shermy

“...there’s evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.”

Especially if you start off believing it and disregarding any opposing evidence.

As an aside, this must be said. We often make fun of the british and how they’ve been taken over these enviromarxist clowns. But the way they’ve reacted to this episode restores in me a tremendous amount of respect for them. They’re dismantling them in the traditional cool british dispassionate way. There’s hope.


15 posted on 02/14/2010 1:13:14 PM PST by aquila48
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To: Shermy
He acknowledges prior cyclical temperature rises, but says the recent one cannot be accounted for in the sun...so it must be human!

Yet when tree ring data from the medieval period indicates a warming trend, he discounts the data, because they supposedly couldn't prove that the warming was global. Robert Mcintyre has already busted Jones on this, for taking a localized subset of data that fit Jones's hypothesis, rather than global data that doesn't, even though the data (wood borings to determine a warm climate (wide bands of tree rings) or cold climate (narrow tree rings) had already been collected, and available.

So which is it, Jones, did you have definitive global data worthy of yelling FIRE!!!! in a theatre or did you cherry pick and fabricate the data to suit a long and prosperous carreer?

"***That's for an independent panel to determine***"

Sounds like he's taking the 5th. Repeatedly.

16 posted on 02/14/2010 3:53:30 PM PST by 4woodenboats (Joseph, get my cape, scepter and teleprompters, it's time to visit the peasants.)
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To: 4woodenboats

Sounds like he’s taking the 5th. Repeatedly......

No way. He is fessing up and that’s what solid websites are saying. They are amazed at how revealing he has been


17 posted on 02/14/2010 3:58:40 PM PST by dennisw (It all comes 'round again --Fairport)
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To: dennisw
It read like he was trying to rationalize (It must be AGW because there's no proof it was solar or volcanoes) to me, and when he wasn't rationalizing, he was spinning (the "trick wasn't a trick, it was shorthand")

etc.

On the other hand, he's not going to great lengths to defend himself - he can't speak truthfully about anything without either incriminating himself or coming off as a boob, so maybe he's grabbing that mammary and running with it.

18 posted on 02/14/2010 4:15:32 PM PST by 4woodenboats (Joseph, get my cape, scepter and teleprompters, it's time to visit the peasants.)
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To: 4woodenboats

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/phil-jones-momentous-qa-with-bbc-reopens-the-science-is-settled-issues/

Phil Jones momentous Q&A with BBC reopens the “science is settled” issues
14 02 2010

Professor Phil Jones unwittingly(?) reveals that the global warming emperor is, if not naked, scantily clad, vindicating key skeptic arguments

Annotated Version of the Phil & Roger Show – Guest post by Indur M. Goklany

Professor Phil Jones

Readers of WUWT are already familiar with the remarkable series of questions and answers between the BBC’s Roger Harrabin at right, and Professor Phil Jones at left (see the posts by Willis and Anthony). [In case you don’t already know, Phil Jones is the climate scientist at the center of the Climategate e-mails, and whose compilation of historic global temperature data from the late 1800s to the present is a key element of the IPCC’s reports.] These Q-and-As, as readers of the two earlier posts recognize, reveal (a) the lack of empirical support for claims that recent warming is exceptional and (b) the flawed logic behind assertions that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

Specifically, the Q-and-As confirm what many skeptics have long suspected:

* Neither the rate nor magnitude of recent warming is exceptional.
* There was no significant warming from 1998-2009. According to the IPCC we should have seen a global temperature increase of at least 0.2°C per decade.
* The IPCC models may have overestimated the climate sensitivity for greenhouse gases, underestimated natural variability, or both.
* This also suggests that there is a systematic upward bias in the impacts estimates based on these models just from this factor alone.
* The logic behind attribution of current warming to well-mixed man-made greenhouse gases is faulty.
* The science is not settled, however unsettling that might be.
* There is a tendency in the IPCC reports to leave out inconvenient findings, especially in the part(s) most likely to be read by policy makers.


19 posted on 02/14/2010 4:30:48 PM PST by dennisw (It all comes 'round again --Fairport)
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To: 4woodenboats

Steve, not Robert.


20 posted on 02/14/2010 4:30:51 PM PST by 4woodenboats (Joseph, get my cape, scepter and teleprompters, it's time to visit the peasants.)
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