"Dr. who?" I hear you mutter - oh yes, I have you bugged! Anyway, I must confess that I had not heard of the lady either but I'm obliged to m'lord Bishop Hill for tipping me off to the lady's heretical sin of not just permitting but actively engaging in letting several embarrassing cats out of the scientific bag. The lady is well into her 70s and has a long and distinguished career being the first lady ever to achieve a Doctorate in Meteorology and it is a miracle how she manages to get around under the weight of all the scientific awards and honours that have been bestowed upon her during her working life.
But now, horror of horrors, she has risked all in a letter that begins with a rather revealing sentence: "Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding [that's state funding, someone tell Tim Lambert - see second post below], I can speak quite frankly." Oh-oh, tin hat time, methinks! She continues:
"Few of these people [HAFs - Hot Air Fanatics] seem to have any skeptical self-criticism left, although virtually all of the claims are derived from either flawed data sets or imperfect models or both. The term “global warming” itself is very vague. Where and what scales of response are measurable? One distinguished scientist has shown that many aspects of climate change are regional, some of the most harmful caused by changes in human land use. No one seems to have properly factored in population growth and land use, particularly in tropical and coastal areas."
Not content with that she dares to suggest that:
"the main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system. We only need to watch the weather forecasts."
This wretched woman is obviously bound for a grisly end, almost certainly her fate will entail being cast off the top of the 500' statue that an admiring world will erect in gratitude to its latter-day saviour, Al Gore!
One by one, an increasing trickle of climatologists is turning into a river of dissent against the political orthodoxy dominating the notion of man-made global warming. The HAFs might sneer at the likes of Steve McIntyre who never claims to be a meteorologist but they can hardly turn on the likes of Dr. Simpson who until very recently was pre-eminent in her field.
A meterologist is not a climatologist, sorry. Two different things.
Posted by: torridjoe | Sunday, 08 March 2009 at 03:13
Morning, Joe, and I trust things are not too torrid where-ever you are!
Your point, I would suggest, is obscure. Are you suggesting that no one who is not in receipt of a degree in 'climatology' may be listened to in this debate? If so, strike Dr. James Hansen off the list even if he is the leader of the 'warming' pack:
"Hansen was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. He obtained a B.A. in Physics and Mathematics"
Equally, under your departmentalised scheme of scientific enquiry we should ignore a man who is one of the most pre-eminent of scientists, Freeman Dyson, who is exceedingly doubtful on the subject:
"[Dyson] is a British-born American, theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum field theory, solid-state physics, and nuclear engineering."
Perhaps you go further and suggest that no-one without what you would call the proper qualifications may make any comment to this subject, or at least, that if they do, they should be resolutely ignored? Just sit back and take the word of the experts, eh, Joe?
Well, it's a point of view, I suppose, but in my life I have lost count of the number of 'experts' who have been proved utterly and completely wrong on all sorts of subjects. I like to think that it is sceptism that has kept me going all these years!
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 08 March 2009 at 09:09
Reginald Newell of MIT was one of the world's 2 or 3 most respected climatologists at the time of his death in 2003, someone who had been studying global warming for more than 25 years. He was also a persistent global warming skeptic, even though it cost him federal funding
http://www.fortfreedom.org/s47.htm
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html
Posted by: Joel | Saturday, 27 June 2009 at 02:23
Joel, thanks for your comment and I have saved your two links for later.
However, you may be able to answer another question which intrigues me. Yesterday I suddenly received about 30 hits originating from the 'tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008' site which linked to this particular post of mine back in Feb 2008. Obviously you were one of them, hence your comment, but have you any idea where this sudden burst of interest comes from? I am intrigued!
Posted by: David Duff | Saturday, 27 June 2009 at 09:05