A freakin’ genius, this one.
Richard Muller, the head of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, will publish an op/ed next week in the New York Times summarizing his group’s findings with regard to global temperature trends. From a copy of the op/ed, Converted Skeptic, circulating on the web:
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified scientific issues that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Now, after organizing an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I’ve concluded that global warming is real, that the prior estimates of the rate were correct, and that cause is human.
My turnaround is the result of the careful and objective analysis by the “Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature” team, founded by me and my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the Earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, and one and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase is due to the human emission of greenhouse gases.
Muller goes on to say how his analysis isn’t like that old IPCC analysis, it’s better, because it’s got the secret ingredient doctors recommend.
Or something.
Meanwhile, nothing in there about apologizing to the scientists he slurred and slandered in order to build up the visibility of his project. Thanks Richard. We now know what we knew 25 years ago.
UPDATE: From Mike Mann’s Facebook page-
Muller’s announcement last year that the Earth is indeed warming brought him up to date w/ where the scientific community was in the the 1980s. His announcement this week that the warming can only be explained by human influences, brings him up to date with where the science was in the mid 1990s. At this rate, Muller should be caught up to the current state of climate science within a matter of a few years!
Peter,
Well put. My sentiments exactly.
Can’t wait to see how that hypocrite Anthony Watts weasels out of this.
Watts announced a couple days ago that he was suspending publishing until Sunday the 29th and the announcement has something to do with one of his special projects.
I feel this must be related. I expect full spin-doctoring in the Denialist Sphere which centers around Tony’s Cronies.
Yes it might explain the cryptic announcement on WUWT:
“Something’s happened. From now until Sunday July 29th, around Noon PST, WUWT will be suspending publishing.”
Hopefully he’s baking a very large humble pie…
Don’t get out the cream or custard. If that arseclown ever eats humble pie I’ll eat my hat.
I don’t think there is any humble in anthony’s cupboard.
“At that time, there will be a major announcement that I’m sure will attract a broad global interest due to its controversial and unprecedented nature.”
-Watts
*yawn*
Well, with lots of attention being focused on the global temperature record again, now is as good a time as any for me to re-pitch the results at this link: tinyurl.com/globaltemperatureresultsV2
The material at that link (3 “eye candy” images, plus a hopefully easy-to-understand README file that explains everything) shows how incredibly robust the GHCN global temperature network is.
Feel free to pass around the above link to others who might be interested.
Reblogged this on Echos from a Pale Blue Dot and commented:
Well, this makes one wonder if Dr. Muller gave that dim bulb Anthony Watts a heads up. It certainly seems to have put a cramp somewhere in his plans, since he suddenly announced that, “WUWT publishing suspended – major announcement coming” http://bit.ly/Ou6SOM. I have no idea if it’s true, but it would explain the sudden silence from the “off the deep end” part of the blogosphere.
It’s rolling around the web, quoted by Reason and others… check out the link to Peter’s fine site for the rest of this story.
I would be very interested to hear Richard Muller’s current thinking about the nature of the AGW ‘skeptic’ community.Once he was very at home and welcome there,but now he is almost universally despised for his audacity to come out and actually say what the science has told him.
Didn’t Anthony Watts say originally that he would stand by the findings of the BEST study?
Maybe the announcement will be about the closure of the WUWT site?
……OK maybe not.
Maybe he’s filed some FOI’s demanding Muller’s data,codes,and emails,along with a call for the California Atty General to open and investigation of fraud at BEST.
I mean there just has to be some criminal activity going on here because AGW is not science…it has been written!!!
What happens when an economics blog investigates Greenland? Several informative charts:
http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2012/07/27/greenland-may-become-green-again
Is it time to invest in the new Southern Greenland Corn Belt?
Muller is just a sad example of the arrogance of physicists ( something that pains me because I’m a physicist myself ) . Did he honestly not think that all the smart people looking at this stuff for years hadn’t got it pretty well sorted out by now? His attempt at attribution is totally lame and superficial too and has been done with far more detail and sophistication by others years before. Why oh why doesn’t he RTFL (read the f—— literature). This is the first thing one should do when wading into an unfamiliar field.
I’m totally with Stoat on this one:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/07/28/muller-is-still-rubbish/
That’s a real skeptic: he didn’t accept anything until he did it himself, and then was able to change his mind based on the evidence. That being said, he probably did waste a lot of money reproducing things that have already been proven reproducible. Reproducing ideas that are already firmly established – that’s what one could call “being in it for the money”, though I am completely ignorant of how the BEST was funded, or if it was a volunteer effort, etc.. so I can’t complain.
He might have established a new way to fight denial: Establish yourself as a public skeptic, take Heartland’s money, then do a thorough investigation only to conclude you were wrong all along.
Oh Andrew,don’t give them any ideas.Make them dream up their own conspiracy theories…they are experts at it you know.
Oh dear! the NY Times piece is out.Seems that Muller couldn’t resist throwing a bone to the denialist camp after all:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Well, see what you think.
I think it’s fine ~ and while it’s arguably 20 years behind the times, the ‘skeptic’ community are clearly needing a lot more time to accept facts and get with the programme – so perhaps it’s timely for them if not exactly on the bleeding edge for the rest of us.
And if a bone helps the medicine go down, I can live with that. Something that I like about Muller is that he does take the time to speak with ‘skeptics’ rather than at them.
Who knows (or cares) what Watts is up to. But he’s enthusiastically preached clueless gibberish with pretend graphs on ceaselessly since day 1 of his blog – it’s his hobby and his entire reason for being – don’t expect miracles. If there’s rabid nonsense with phony graphs being made somewhere, I’m sure it’ll continue to find a home at WattsUp. But possibly it’s his $80,000 Heartland Institute website.
Jason-I take your point,but I will have to say that my jaw dropped when I read that one of the ‘alarmist’ claims that he has analysed and found wanting was
How does using a strawman argument like that show that you are being a fair arbitrator in a scientific debate?
NYT seems to be gunning for the gold medal in half-assed science reporting.