- Bishop Hill blog - Idle scientists

I've reported in the past on the article at the Chronicle of Higher Education, in which Peter Wood wondered, quite reasonably, if Penn State University's willingness to cover up the Sandusky child abuse affair suggested that they would also find it within themselves to cover up wrongdoing by Michael Mann.

This has now generated the most extraordinary set of letters from Mann's supporters in the academy, each claiming, implausibly, that Wood is trying to suggest that Mann is a child abuser.

Don't they have jobs to do?

Low / No Ice Arctic 5000 BC | Musings from the Chiefio

In any case, what we do have here is a very clear set of important, demonstrated, facts:

1) The world has been warmer than now, by quite a bit, and for quite a long time, in very recent history in geologic and biologic time scales. 5000 BC is an eyeblink for evolution. Clearly every single species alive today has survived a warmer climate regime.

2) IFF we get warmer, we gain a very large lush land for crops and animals in the Green Sahara. Not exactly a problem…

3) People thrived then, and civilization began. Hardly the end of things, more like a warm wet green beginning.

4) Climate changes. All on its own. From completely natural causes. And by far more than we’ve seen in the entire history of fossil fuel use and modern civilization. CO2 didn’t do it. CO2 is not the cause, nor the problem.

Then one conclusion:

5) Given that, we’ve got a LOT more to worry about than how much coal and oil are burned.

THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: Antarctic sea ice reaches record high while IPCC models predicted the opposite

A recent paper in the Journal of Climate finds that most climate models erroneously predict that Antarctic sea ice extent decreased over the past 30 years, which "differs markedly from that observed." As noted in the abstract, Antarctic sea ice has confounded the models by instead increasing over the satellite era. In fact, it is currently at a record extent that is more than 2 standard deviations above the 1979-2000 average. The authors lament, "The negative [Antarctic sea ice] trends in most of the model runs over 1979 - 2005 are a continuation of an earlier decline, suggesting that the processes responsible for the observed increase over the last 30 years are not being simulated correctly."

The Full PBS Newshour interview with Watts, Muller, Curry and others | Watts Up With That?

[Spencer Michels] Richard Muller has long been on the side of those who deny climate change is happening.
...
JON KROSNICK, Stanford University: The voices of skeptics on climate change are very loud in this country and particularly effective in Washington at the moment. But they’re a very, very small group.