When I joined industry, one of the first things I was told was “always look busy” – because any department that didn’t look busy was bound to be the target of any redundancy.
Obviously climate researchers in Australia never got that advice – because for years they’ve been saying “the science is settled” – which in short means they completely understand the climate and there is no need for the public to pay them to do further research.
We sceptics have frequently been heard to say “if the science is settled why can’t we just get rid of these annoying researchers” … and so it seems that  Malcolm Turnbull the Australian PM has had just the same thought. Now 350 jobs are going with nearly 70% of some departments being booted out.
… and how can they argue … as afterall they’ve been saying (or condoning) the statement that the science is settled … which either means they are lying (and should go) or are really no longer of use (and so should go).
I doubt very many academics will ever again support the view that “the science is settled”. Indeed, I imagine most hearing this news will realise that what happens in Australia could easily happen anywhere else. And so unless they find some uncertainty left to investigate, they too will be out of a job.
My thoughts:

• We actually need better research on the climate – and if we could have good research and researchers (not eco-idiots pushing their eco-political views dressed up as numbers) then I would argue for more spending.
• You’ve got to laugh – I think the phrase is “hoisted by their own petard”.
• There seems to be a bit of a trend to “downsize” climate related work. There’s also growing scepticism. Not sure how much of this is because climate is an easy target – and it’s full of idiots who can be easily cut – and how much is because of growing scepticism – or indeed a combination of easy target and not much interest.
• Supposedly more effort is being put into “mitigation”. My experience is that the hot heads on climate are in the mitigation side (so no hard science and full of left-leaning eco-fascists who want to dictate to the rest of society the “ZEE MUSTE” do Vat I say. I suspect by “mitigation” what is really meant is “giving engineers money to build flood defences and dams”.

After my last post, musing that I cannot hope to ever discern the human influence of CO2 on the climate – I started thinking about the chances of such stupid scares occurring by pure chance because the climate always has such trends. My thoughts went thus:
In any civilisation that reaches a stage whereby it starts acquiring global data so that it can measure climate globally, there will be by necessity an enormous number of changes any of which could (by the unscrupulous) be tied to climate. And particularly soot, aerosols, chemicals from industry.
So, whereas the modern world is a lot lot cleaner than a few generations ago, the environmental “consciousness” of a world-wide perspective would mean that groups would use these changes to frighten the public. So, it is almost certain that groups – like academia and fiends of the earth would have been ready to abuse science and jump on any change in climate.
Therefore, what is the probability of such change. Let us suppose the climate has three states: pause, warming, cooling (and remember there are many other naturally changing variables that can be cherry picked!!). At the present time we have around 30 years of satellite record & 50 years of CO2 – or around 3-5 decades of real “data”. Because methods change, it is relatively easy to change the more distant past to re-enforce ideas that things are “changing”. So, what is the chance of seeing “something” in 3-5 decades? Lets use 3 decades:

• Trend: Full Cooling/warming  = 2/27
• paused trend: warm/cool – pause – warm/cool 2/27
• pause going to trend: pause then pause or  warming/cooling then same = 4/27
• Turning: warming then warming or pause or cooling then cooling = 6/27

So, total ways of getting “scary” change = 14/27
As “scares” always use the last few decades – and as it seems to me only three decades would be enough to convince most people that the “experts” had predicted “the” trend (turning point). It seems that the best estimate of the probability of a climate scare – in the first few periods of measurement – is around 50%.
On average, once this scare becomes engrained, the chance of it continuing is therefore 66% (because as we see, the group-think and associated bandwagon effects diverts funding to the alarmists and diminishes the authority and funding for sceptics). So, on average the probability of the length such scares after they start is:

1. One decade 33% (leaving 67%)
2. Two decades 22% (leaving 45%)
3. Three decades 15% (leaving 30%)
4. Four decades 10% (leaving 20%)

So, at a rough guess, 50% of societies inventing worldwide measurements will trigger a scare in any one measurement (but there are many such measurements so perhaps the truer figure is closer to 100%). And in general, it is likely that such scares/scams will last around two decades.
In other words, given that the global warming scam is now well on the way out, we are perhaps quite typical – no better – but no worse than would be expected (given the stupidity of academics and others who falsely believe they somehow stop these scares because of their “expertise”).
 

 
I would just like to share with you a thought. Having calculated that there should have been around 0.6C warming during the pause, I was just musing what the chances of getting this warming be coincidence would be. And I suddenly thought “it warms or cools by about 0.1C per decade by chance … so what is the chance of having 6 decades in a row to get 0.6C? It’s 1/2^6 = 1/128.
But this is the humorous bit – I then realised that in those six decades the target would have risen to 1.8C. So, then I thought “what if I use the higher end of warming we’ve seen of 0.2C …. then I thought what is the maximum multi-decadal warming we’ve seen. It is of course from 1690-1730 in CET when we saw about 0.5C/decade. So, now the chance is that we’ve seen (at least 4) decades of 0.5C warming over 35 decades. So, the chance increases to 4/35 = 11% (however we might expect regional variation to be greater).
So, I think we can safely say the upper chance of the actual temperature (not the fraudulent surface data) showing warming of >0.5C per decade is 10%. As warming is as likely as cooling (give or take a few ice-ages and CO2) the 50% probability is at 0C/decade. And as most years (from 1850 – in what I now know is fraudulent surface data) show around 0.1-0.2C warming or cooling, the 1 standard deviation must be around 0.1-0.2C/decade.
The minimal warming the extremists need is 0.3C (to account for two decades of pause) – but if that occurs in a decade, they will need around 0.45C (as it should have warmed even more). So they actually need >0.45C warming over the next decade.
At a rough guess, based on my figures, I would suggest around a 20% probability of 0.3C warming and nearer 10% of >0.45C of that  minimum warming occurring by pure fluke (with no CO2 involvement).
So, my best estimate is that, by 2025 – there’s only a 10-20% chance that mother nature will give the climate criminals what they need to defend their claptrap.
As for CO2 warming
My best estimate is 0.5C warming for a doubling of CO2 – which will take many decades/centuries to come through. CET shows (suggests?) a 1/10 chance of 2C warming by pure chance. So, even if the REAL climate showed 2C warming in a very specific period of 4 decades, then the best we can say is that we are 90% confident that this short-term rise of 2C is not natural.  But if we extend the period long enough it will always happen by chance – so the confidence falls dramatically over longer periods.
But even the massively adjusted data (so that all warming since 1940 is due to adjustments) only shows 0.8C warming, and not over a short period of a few decades but over the whole century (till the pause). That is the century of a massive change in measurements from manual to automated measurements. Even if we look for the most “obvious” trend in the period 1970-2000 (also the period of most heavy adjustments) it only shows 0.48C warming (which happens to be same as 1910-1940!). As I stated above, based on CET we would expect around 10% of decades to show this warming. So in 150 years we expect around 1-2 decades of 0.5C warming!!!
Even if we now saw two decades of 0.5C warming or cooling – it would just be “normal”!! (although I’d have to recheck the scale of variability between CET and global – all the more difficult when the surface data is fraudulent!)
So, to summarise – I cannot think of any test – when we’ve already seen change, which could demonstrate the minuscule level of CO2 warming “expected” would be man-made. There would need to be more than 1C warming in a few decades (about 2C total warming) to say even with a modest certainty that the signal is human caused and not natural. In contrast, rather than warming we’ve seen “the Pause”. They needed fireworks – they got a cold shower!
Because there is a slight reduction in long term variability, we probably need around 100-1000 years of future data so that the scale of natural variability reduces sufficiently to “prove” any change of 2C was “human causation”.
In other words – unless I am completely wrong and the climate is subject to massive positive feedbacks for warming (so >1C warming in which case I’m probably dreaming this whole world as the world would have burned up yonks ago) … so in any real world (and not fraudulent data), there’s no chance of me ever knowing whether CO2 has had an effect within my lifetime.

The adapted piece I call an Ode to Natural variation. It uses (without permission) the original “Bob Carter Peal” by Lord Monckton. Please read the eulogy:

A clock tune in honor of a true man of true science

Technical details

The work starts with the original stanza. Then over the next two stanzas I add more  copies of the original with different delays and a few simple other effects.
Except for the last stanza all the sound is just one simple piano playing a single tune**, but if you find the work increasingly difficult to “comprehend” as I overlay first one then up to three additional copies (in the third stanza) – that is what is intended!
Like the tune, natural variation is not distinct from “normal” regular cycles – and so in theory should not be that difficult to understand. But like the music, natural variation is the combination of many many cycles each relatively easy to understand on its own but which come together into one uncomprehendable “symphony”. (Also listen out for the track played in reverse – the noise doesn’t start with a thud as the piano key is hit, but instead builds to a thud and stops short).
The final stanza starts with a flourish – and for a while the “heroic” tune holds its own. But it is increasingly drowned out as the full flourish of natural variation is introduced (now generated pink noise). Then I duplicate this noise, add some reverb,  wow & flutter which causes the sound to evolve into what seems like a heart beat … fading out relatively suddenly leaving the last notes of the “Bob carter peal” ringing out to the final silent pause.
**There are also some chirping sounds which I believe are due to aliasing between the various sample frequencies. I admit I tried hard to remove these unwanted perturbations – but like natural variation – they serve a purpose.

Bob Carter Peal

A clock tune in honor of a true man of true science

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

To: Mr Pete Wishart MP, SNP Business Manager

Copy:
Ms Nicola Sturgeon MSP, Scottish First Minister
Mr Callum McCaig MP, Scottish Energy and Climate Change Spokesman
Mr Angus McNeil MP, Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee
Mr Fergus Ewing MSP, Scottish Energy Minister
Ms Aileen McLeod MSP, Scottish Climate Change Minister
Mr Drew Hendry, MP for Inverness and Nairn
Ms Liz Truss MP, UK Secretary of State for Environment
Dr Euan Mearns, Energy Matters
Mr Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That
Selected other politicians
Selected journalists
Selected campaigners

Dear Mr Wishart,

The Emperor’s New Clothes

I am writing to you in your position of SNP House of Commons Business Manager to challenge a contribution you made during a recent House of Comments debate on flooding which has a bearing on SNP policy. In that debate you claimed that the recent floods were due “in significant part to climate change”, obviously seeking to blame alleged, unproven man-made global warming due to CO2 emissions, and that Scotland “desperately needs” more onshore wind power.

With all due condolences to the flooding victims, I believe that both of your claims are unjustifiable and symptomatic of the fact that most politicians, yourself and Secretary Liz Truss included, seem to be suffering from a collective “Madness of Crowds” delusion on so-called “climate change” which causes those afflicted to become dogmatically obsessive and to block out all the clear evidence which runs counter to and casts doubt on their unquestioning climate change beliefs.

Alternatively they realise that they have  been taken in by the climate change scam perpetrated on us all by the UN IPCC (with the surreptitious original intent of promoting sustainability) but have timorously decided to say nothing and keep up the pretence to avoid having to ruffle international diplomatic feathers.

The problem is that our climate change policies are leading to economic and social disaster yet are certain to fail in their professed national and international decarbonisation aims, but UK government ministers continue to reject such arguments. Please allow me to show how the SNP could step in to take the lead in this situation by a justifiable change of climate and energy policy which could help avert disaster and earn the SNP the gratitude of the UK-wide general public.

To learn more please read my Open letter to Mr Pete Wishart, MP. It also gives comprehensive rebuttal of both your House of Commons claims.

Yours faithfully,

Douglas S Brodie

15 Sutors Gate

Nairn

IV12 5BW

There’s been some really appalling articles prompted by the idiot Mann who makes a frankly fraudulent claim (if it weren’t for the fact he’s so stupid he doesn’t realise how wrong he is) about the probability of getting a record warm temperature naturally.
So, I thought I would try to work it out based on the statistics of systems like the climate with 1/f type noise. However I don’t intend going over it in detail again so if you want details of 1/f type noise and how its stupid to try using Mickey mouse statistics on it here’s a few articles:

• Introduction to 1/f climate noise
• Proof: recent temperature trends are not abnormal
• Statistics of 1/f noise – implications for climate forecast

But fundamentally, the key nature of 1/f noise is that the variance INCREASES with longer periods. Below e.g. is a plot (I produced this using a 1/f type noise generator ).
 

Now for some stats. Given the above, if there’s a 95% probability of having a temperature of T₀ in period P₀, then as variance increases by P^0.5
Then the temperature that occurs at the 95% probability limit (T) in a period P is given by

T = T₀ * (P/P₀)^0.5

In other words (and ones Mann might understand) we expect both higher and lower temperatures over longer periods.
So, lets see how that pans out with real data. Above is the best proxy for global temperature over the last 350 years. If we divide this into two, we see that the range in the first half went from around 8 to 10 = 2C (from 1690-1730).
Based on the rule above, we expect that minimum-maximum range to be 2 x 2^0.5
Or to increase from +/- 1C in the first period to be +/-1.4 over the entire period. Which tells us that on average the maximum we would expect is about 1.4 above the mid point of the first half  (~9C) which means we EXPECT a high of 10.4C
Looking at the Met Office data I find: “Average for 2015: 10.31C”. Which given the variance was higher than 2C means we are actually below expectation for the highest this century.
In other words, 2015 was exactly (or slightly less than) the maximum we would expect for 1/f type noise based on long term trends.
In other words the likelihood of the current temperature within the last 350/2 years is around 50% (half the time it would be higher half lower). In other words even this simple analysis shows that there’s a very high probability of having temperatures this “high”. Or to turn it around we’d be surprised if we did not see a temperature this high and it would not be that unusual to get significantly higher.
If however you add these facts:

• All the warming from 1940s is attributable to the massive adjustments to the data Mann uses
• IN ADDITION urban heating adds to that with an ADDITIONAL warming trend
• IN ADDITION poor siting of stations has caused addition warming
• IN ADDITION there is undoubtedly fraudulent changes to individual station data
• IN ADDITION there are intentional changes to the method of calculating the figure and selecting sites in order to manufacture further warming.

We are getting to the point where it is almost certain that 2015 would be the highest temperature on record – because (in my opinion) if the fraudulent people using this bogus & knowingly poor quality surface in preference to the much superior and global satellite data data wanted it to be – they could also make it the coldest year of record.
So what does the idiot Mann say:

the likelihood that 13 of the hottest 15 years would be in the past 15 years is 1 in 10,000. The likelihood that 9 of the 10 hottest years occur in the past decade is 1 in 770.

In case it isn’t blindingly obvious how this trick works let me show you:

Here is my own new improved version of the global temperature where I’ve now “compensated” for all the introduced warming by adding a completely arbitrary cooling (which just happens to make this year coldest):

Now, like Mann, I can confidently assert using the same buddy reviewed work that there’s only a 1 in 770 chance that the temperature would be this low. And like Mann as a Nobel prize winner I now expect to receive millions in grant funding based on my “science” (the EU were awarded the Nobel – so as a very reluctant part of the EU – I can make the same FALSE claim to have a Nobel). LOL
Addendum
Also – because natural variation is a 1/f noise it tends to stay high once it is high or stay low when low. So if one year this decade is high – it’s a pretty safe bet that they all will be on the high side. So, it’s a pretty meaningless statistic looking at individual years.
The best way to approach the question is that I presented in this article: Proof: recent temperature trends are not abnormal. (in terms of statistics – this again confirms around 50% probability of getting this very normal temperature/trend – using a range of time periods for comparison)

Just loved this in WUWT today

When you have a theory which covers anything from 1.5c to 4.5c (or more!) temperature rise per doubling of CO2, and when you can claim with a straight face, that the utter failure of your theory, on terms which you yourself defined, doesn’t invalidate it, when you have to massively adjust the data to get the result you want, your faith in the climate religion is not going to be troubled by the odd flurry of snow.

All I would say is that the reality looks closer to 0.5C warming and the global warming theory encompasses up to 6C warming.

In response to a comment by a Donald L. Klipstein on WUWT:

The earth’s climate has not been stable in the past 500 million years. What has happened shows signs that the climate has non-constant stability….

I felt I had to counter the assumption that just because the climate shows variability, that this somehow infers that the climate itself is unstable. There are two potential causes of long term variability that could explain such large changes as seen below:

Biological Evolution

The single biggest driver of long-term climate change is probably changes to plant biology as demonstrated by the carboniferous when the evolution of plants with lignin (shown above as “1st CO2 desert). The effect of this small change was that the hydrocarbons in plant cells could not be broken down by the then fungi. The result was that they tended to accumulate rather than decompose and as a result carbon was locked up in the geology creating the first “CO desert” – which might have ended in the ultimate destruction of earth – except for the evolution of fungi that could digest lignin.
The second “collapse” appear to coincide with the emergence of flowering plants and grasses, however it is difficult to see what biological process might be “sucking” the atmosphere “dry” of CO2. However, one possibility is that the large areas of moss are somehow locking up CO2 in peat. However as the primary cause of these peat areas is moss – a plant species that has been around for a very long time, it is difficult to understand why this would be “the change” that caused the second CO2 desert.

Geological feedbacks

However, the main thing I wanted to counter is that apparent feedback in the “climatic temperature” shows any form of feedback mechanism in the climate. Because temperature may just be an indicator of feedback mechanisms and instability in the geology of the earth.
The simplest one is the “Caterpillar effect” which I have described so many times:

 
 

“Magma-weather”

And indeed, just as the climate shows weather patterns, and we now discern long term “weather” cycles in the oceanic activity, so we should also expect long term “weather” type variations in the ever moving magma within our planet, which undoubtedly is subject to the same basic laws as the atmosphere and oceans – of ever moving vortices of flux.