Phil Jones in a BBC interview.
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.
It would have been nice for him to have told us the exact significance level but he says ‘yes’ to the question no statistically-significant global warming since 1995. No cooling either.
C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.
Again it would have been nice if he would say what the significance level was. It looks like a plateau – but that is not warming. To my mind this is a significant admission. In a July 5, 2005 email Jones had indicated
The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.
Jones still adheres to the AGW hypothesis, but now it seems because there is no other explanation.
H – If you agree that there were similar periods of warming since 1850 to the current period, and that the MWP is under debate, what factors convince you that recent warming has been largely man-made?
The fact that we can’t explain the warming from the 1950s by solar and volcanic forcing – see my answer to your question D.
So AGW is the default assumption – yet I would have thought it is a proposition to be tested not simply assumed. Jones also abandons the hockey stick.
There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.
Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.
Marc Sheppard at the American Thinker discusses that admission in much more detail.
(HT: Tim Blair)
So that’s it.
The science is unsettled.
We won.
C.L.
14 Feb 10 at 8:38 pm
How many billions of dollars of public money could have been put to good purpose if he and a few others had come clean years ago.
Paul Williams
14 Feb 10 at 10:09 pm
Is there a we in this issue? The skeptics are as diverse as the alarmists. The skeptics, or perhaps dissenters, range from people who accept the IPCC result like Pielke Jnr & Lomborg to the ‘world government’ types. The alarmists range from the, it does make sense to do something like Nordhaus to the ‘we must do something’ to an acceptance of the end of times amongst some.
This interview has to be pretty devasting for alarmists though. How can you keep up if one of the high priests of your creed admits that well, perhaps things were amiss?
Professor John Quixote of Queensland may choose to reduce his charging forth for windmills. His amusing post last week about how it was all over has shown him to be something like the Iraqi information minister. The Americans are not in Baghdad, climategate means nothing, Nixon is not in anyway incriminated by the tapes.
But between Copenhagen failure, the Indian indications of withdrawal or at least an expression of lack of confidence and the Chinese attitude that they will not think of limiting GHG emissions until 2020 and the problems emerging from the WG2 and WG3 reports you would suspect that this might dint the prospects of an ETS in Australia.
It’ll be fun here to watch Rog and Steve from Brisbane come up with amusements.
But hey, the ALP may not even be too upset. Perhaps even Kevin Rudd is not too keen on an ETS if it costs votes. Mrn Frgsn may even crack a grin at it all.
Pedro X
14 Feb 10 at 10:16 pm
Prof Jones should also be given a lot of kudos. Clearly he believes in the issue but he’s still prepared to be honest in the end for science.
Pedro X
14 Feb 10 at 10:23 pm
Prepared to be?
Forced to be, you mean.
C.L.
14 Feb 10 at 10:37 pm
“Prof Jones should also be given a lot of kudos.”
Why should he, he didn’t publicly admit doubt until forced to.
If he had come out years ago and said clearly that the science of AGW is actually far from settled perhaps we could have saved hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars in Australia alone.
Not to mention avoiding wrecking the economy by, essentially, one vote in the Liberal Party leadership ballot.
I say throw the book at the bastards, including gutless politicians who seized on AGW to further their own political ambitions.
Paul Williams
14 Feb 10 at 10:46 pm
Lets see how long it takes the ABC and the SMH to give a straight feed on this!
This would appear to vindicate what I take to be the Monkton line, that there may be some warming but it is not enough to justify any action, beyond sensible moves (unrelated to warming) to economise on energy use and look for long-term sources other than fossil fuels.
Rafe
14 Feb 10 at 10:47 pm
True, Rafe. But let’s not repeat the lazy triumphalism that followed the Berlin Wall’s downfall. No mercy for these warmenist hysterics. They have to be ruthlessly chased out of their smug “consensus” boltholes and made to apologise and reform, lest they be smacked around again.
C.L.
14 Feb 10 at 10:51 pm
Yes, it’s over. It’s been the the greatest scam in history; but it’s over.
Rob
14 Feb 10 at 11:04 pm
“To my mind this is a significant admission.”
Statistical insignificance is a significant admission?
“So AGW is the default assumption – yet I would have thought it is a proposition to be tested not simply assumed.”
It became the default by dint of extensive testing. And you said it yourself – there is no other explanation. Scientists trying to find another reason for the warming have been unable to do so. Nothing else fits, while human-released CO2 does. Occam’s razor.
“Jones also abandons the hockey stick.”
Going by the quote, that’s not true. He says there is no evidence the MWP was global, but if evidence was found, then obviously the hockey-stick graphs’ implication would be wrong.
The title of this post suggests some truths were withheld, something echoed by CL, Paul and Pedro. But that’s wrong – the answers given by Phil Jones are nothing new, and constitute repetition, not revelation.
Jarrah
14 Feb 10 at 11:16 pm
the answers given by Phil Jones are nothing new, and constitute repetition, not revelation.
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just.
Can you show me well-known warming sites that would agree with that? For that matter show me where Jones has said that before.
I would consider that to be an extra-ordinary reflection.
JC
14 Feb 10 at 11:28 pm
I just watched the video of the Monckton versus Barry Brook debate at the Brisbane Institute. It has elevated my opinion of both individuals. Monckton was much more on the ball than I expected and very articulate. Barry Brook stuck to his guns but wasn’t buying into the character attack rubbish of his peer. I thought he did an honourable job of defending his side of the debate.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/stories/2010/02/08/2811681.htm
TerjeP (say tay-a)
14 Feb 10 at 11:51 pm
p.s. By peer I mean the other defender of AGW on the same team as Barry.
TerjeP (say tay-a)
14 Feb 10 at 11:52 pm
This would appear to vindicate what I take to be the Monkton line, that there may be some warming but it is not enough to justify any action, beyond sensible moves (unrelated to warming) to economise on energy use and look for long-term sources other than fossil fuels.
Why is it so hard for any Western government to take this position and just put it to the public? Why can’t any of them manage it? I think it would be a winner in Australia.
Michael Sutcliffe
14 Feb 10 at 11:57 pm
I’m not buying into commenting on his answer to Question B because, frankly, I don’t understand statistics enough to understand his answer.
I do agree with Jarrah, though, that it is odd of Sinclair to be somehow critical of Jones believing in AGW because nothing else explains a period of warming for which they have good measurements with which to exclude other possible factors. This isn’t any novel proposition by Jones; the argument has been around for ages, I’m sure.
The bit about the MWP is to a degree stating the obvious. The mere fact that he says there is “a debate” about whether it was global doesn’t actually tell us what the majority of scientists think about this. It also doesn’t address the other issue of whether it was globally warmer or cooler than today.
Jones seems to be suggesting this is going to be hard to resolve with 100% certainty any time soon.
So skeptics want us to do nothing because an uncertain period of climate history might, if we could ever get good enough detail, reveal an inadequacy in current understanding of climate?
Even Monckton says (I think on his SMH interview with Cubby?) that if in future the temperature rises enough within a certain period, we can assume there is problem that needs to be addressed.
The current period of uncertainty then as to precise climate sensitivity will eventually be resolved one way or another; but if climate skeptics politically stop effective action on reducing CO2 by a couple of decades, and are seriously wrong on their view of sensitivity, it will be too late anyway.
That is the gamble they want the world to take, and it’ll be their kids that pay for it if they’re wrong.
And besides which, there’s always ocean acidification which is happening, and the effects of which will not be fully understood for a few decades yet as well. Another gamble there.
steve from brisbane
15 Feb 10 at 12:13 am
That is the gamble they want the world to take, and it’ll be their kids that pay for it if they’re wrong.
Offer a time scale please. What time period do you actually means by that?
JC
15 Feb 10 at 12:15 am
Warmenists bailing:
Lead author on the IPCC, Professor John Christy, and IPCC reviewer, Ross McKitrick, losing the faith.
The London Times: World may not be warming, say scientists.
Every leader who said the science was “settled” and sought to frighten people into their own brand of statist totalitarianism on that basis – and that includes Kevin Rudd – must now formally apologise.
C.L.
15 Feb 10 at 2:07 am
Reuters reports:
U.N. climate panel admits Dutch sea level flaw.
C.L.
15 Feb 10 at 2:17 am
Seems to me this is a breach in the propaganda but not (yet) in the science. A failure to warm since 1995 is, I believe, still consistent with the long term trend argued by the IPCC. I don’t know how long the failure to warm would need to go on to cast serious doubt on the case. That would be a very interesting question to ask.
Perhaps more interesting was J’s answers on the MWP. The Mann argument was (as I understand it) was that we don’t know whether it was worldwide because we don’t have any evidence except for “North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia” so we can ignore it so we can show a flat line until recently. Until this I have not read a member of the club doubting Mann on this.
I think we will see a breach in solidarity and the start of real scientific debate rather than political propaganda from the scientists.
ken n
15 Feb 10 at 5:28 am
Right, so we now think there may be errors in weather stations? so do the weathermen, which is why they allow for error.
What the data accurately records is a change to the mean
rog
15 Feb 10 at 8:11 am
But that’s wrong – the answers given by Phil Jones are nothing new, and constitute repetition, not revelation.
I’d always imagined that this would be the warmenists response. They are never wrong. They’ve been arguing for the last two decades that GHGs ‘dominate’ climate. When you read that interview do you get the impression that GHGs ‘dominate’ the climate so far as Jones is concerned? Does the evidence he refers to suggest that they ‘dominate’ or do GHGs become simple one of many other important factors influencing climate. Further, consider his answer to question D, if you were a patient listening to such a medical diagnosis, would you be filled with confidence?
because nothing else explains a period of warming for which they have good measurements
Good measurements, I’m not too sure about this; whenever we see unadjusted and then adjusted data of long-run weather stations, temps for the late 19th C and early 20th C seem almost always to be adjusted down.
The current period of uncertainty then as to precise climate sensitivity will eventually be resolved one way or another; but if climate skeptics politically stop effective action on reducing CO2 by a couple of decades, and are seriously wrong on their view of sensitivity, it will be too late anyway.
Are you an insurance salesmen? BTW, much of what is proposed as a ‘solution’ is exorbitantly expansive and climatically ineffective.
A failure to warm since 1995 is, I believe, still consistent with the long term trend argued by the IPCC. I don’t know how long the failure to warm would need to go on to cast serious doubt on the case. That would be a very interesting question to ask.
Ken, you have the faith of an angel. A “failure to warm since 1995″ is nevertheless “consistent with the long term trend of the IPCC”? The long term trend of the IPCC is 0.2 C/ decade. Now, if you “don’t know how long the failure to warm would need to go” before casting serious doubt on IPCC projections how did you determine them to be “consistent with”(a curious phrase not without a colourful history in AGW science) the IPCC projections.
dover_beach
15 Feb 10 at 8:45 am
Lead author on the IPCC, Professor John Christy, and IPCC reviewer, Ross McKitrick, losing the faith.
CL, Christy and McKitrick are long-time sceptics; they’ve never had the faith.
dover_beach
15 Feb 10 at 8:49 am
What the data accurately records is a change to the mean
So you can accurately measure mean temp even when your station data is inaccurate?
dover_beach
15 Feb 10 at 8:51 am
Wow. The AGW hoax really is finished.
“Since November, the proportion of respondents who thought global warming was an established fact largely attributable to human activity fell from 41 per cent to 26 per cent.”
C.L.
15 Feb 10 at 10:18 am
Thanks for the compliment d_b but I’d still like an answer, from a believer, to the question “How long would this have to continue before you began to doubt the hypothesis?”
ken n
15 Feb 10 at 11:21 am
Since when was science is settled by public opinion polls, CL?
steve from brisbane
15 Feb 10 at 11:32 am
For JC’s benefit, about time frames in which to reduce to CO2, try this recent study:
“The models show that there is a 75 percent probability that global warming will not exceed two degrees if a maximum of 1000 billion tonnes of CO2 are emitted into the atmosphere from 2000 to 2050. This number seems high, but 234 billion tonnes had already been flung into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2006. If the emission remain at this high level, or even increase, the budget would be exhausted before 2030. The results show that time to act is short. Knutti is pleased that greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland in 2007 were 2.7 percent lower than in 1990 but the values continue to be too high: at least a 50 percent reduction is needed worldwide by 2050; the global long-term goal would be less than one tonne per person per year. Currently, some 6 tonnes of CO2 per person are emitted in Western Europe each year, 19 tonnes in North America and 3 tonnes in China – without taking into account grey energy.
The researchers believe that the next forty years until 2050, in which, according to the study, CO2 emissions must be halved, will be a good indicator of how global warming will develop.”
Hence my guesstimate that doing nothing substantial to reduce emissions over the next 20 years means it will too late seems about right. (Too late to keep things below 2 degree rise, that is.)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090502092019.htm
steve from brisbane
15 Feb 10 at 12:14 pm
Ken, I think you ought to be wary of the ‘consistent with’ canard:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/02/beyond-consistent-with-canard.html
So far as the particular question you asked is concerned, I seem to remember Schmidt saying that another ten years of what we’ve had over the last ten would not be ‘consistent with’ AGW theory. I’m not sure, however, if this is in fact the ‘consensus’ among AGW scientists.
dover_beach
15 Feb 10 at 1:55 pm
For you econometricians out there you might be interested in this:
http://economics.huji.ac.il/facultye/beenstock/Nature_Paper091209.pdf
The abstract:
dover_beach
15 Feb 10 at 1:58 pm
Ken, you have the faith of an angel. A “failure to warm since 1995″ is nevertheless “consistent with the long term trend of the IPCC”?
.
The failure to observe life on Mars is consistent with the theory that there once was life on Mars.
daddy dave
15 Feb 10 at 2:12 pm
OK OK OK d_b and dd.
But what we decide here isn’t going to have any effect on governments. They will need someone, preferably someone now in the club, to say “we were wrong”.
Of course governments aren’t going to do anything real anyway, not because they don’t believe but because they haven’t the courage to inflict real pain. (Have I got too many negatives there?)
ken n
15 Feb 10 at 2:25 pm
d_b: I see that no one in comments at WUWT can understand what that paper is saying, and quite a few (even on the skeptic side) think it’s highly suspect. I think it is a very safe bet that it is the crap that many on the thread suspect.
steve from brisbane
15 Feb 10 at 2:39 pm
d_b: I see that no one in comments at WUWT can understand what that paper is saying, and quite a few (even on the skeptic side) think it’s highly suspect. I think it is a very safe bet that it is the crap that many on the thread suspect.
Who cares what people in the comments say about a paper they haven’t read, Steve, although the most reasonable comment belongs to Steven Mosher. Further, I’m not convinced about the paper myself, I merely brought it up because there are some econometricians here that may be willing to offer an opinion themselves. It’s called curiosity.
dover_beach
15 Feb 10 at 2:48 pm
Via Bolt, another scandal:
African crops yield another catastrophe for the IPCC.
Rajendra Pachauri and the money he loves so much are at the root of this latest lie.
C.L.
15 Feb 10 at 2:52 pm
I don’t think money is the only thing Dr. Patchy loves if his soft porn novel is anything to go by.
JC
15 Feb 10 at 2:54 pm
JC – shows he’s a fantasist I reckon.
ken n
15 Feb 10 at 3:39 pm
CL – I think that’s the same Africa scandal as before.
Sinclair Davidson
15 Feb 10 at 3:42 pm
Has anyone seen reference to the Jones interview on any of the True Believer blogs?
ken n
15 Feb 10 at 3:43 pm
Ken – no. they ignore all denialists. the debate is over
Sinclair Davidson
15 Feb 10 at 3:45 pm
I can’t really keep track of them anymore, Sinclair. It’s a new report with new details. But critical mass has been reached and surpassed now, that’s the main thing. The whole “consensus” and “settled science” thing is totally dead. What we need now are apologies from political leaders like our own denialist prime minister.
C.L.
15 Feb 10 at 3:52 pm
Ken N – Jones interview covered here http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/02/journalism.html and at Lambert’s.
Duke of Windsor
15 Feb 10 at 3:56 pm
<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/opinion/world-wide-web-of-doubt/story-e6frgd0x-1225829874281"Christopher Pearson is right about what the downfall of the warmening hoax means. And major credit does indeed go to Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt.
C.L.
15 Feb 10 at 4:04 pm
Christopher Pearson is right about what the downfall of the warmening hoax means. And major credit does indeed go to Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt.
C.L.
15 Feb 10 at 4:05 pm
[...] In my previous discussion of this interview I made the point that Jones should have told us what his significance levels actually were (so a standard error or a t-stat or a p-level would have been very useful). I have guesstimated his analysis in e-views using data from the CRU website. I estimated the following equation: Temp = constant + B*Time Trend + AR(1) + error I included the AR(1) term to take care of any unit-root problems and by using the Newey-West correction was able to get results very similar to what Jones describes in his interview. [...]
Oomph at Catallaxy Files
22 Feb 10 at 12:05 pm
[...] or not there has been statistically significant warming since 1995. My take on that question is here, here and here. There may be more coming on that front soon. I haven’t been able to track [...]
The debate is getting shriller at Catallaxy Files
2 Mar 10 at 6:07 pm