Who The Heck Is Piers Corbyn, Or: Why Has The Denialist Movement Turned On One Of Its Own?

Piers Corbyn, according to his Wikipedia entry, is a a maverick British weather forecaster[2]. He runs WeatherAction, a company which makes weather forecasts up to year in advance, and publishes/sells these forecasts though his website. In fact, he has a

...wide range of weather sensitive customers, including gas and electricity companies, farmers and retailers.[6] - for example, PolyGram staggered their release dates and promotional tours for the motion picture Bean around Corbyn's predictions

While Corbyn's forecasts often resemble a horoscope--they are, that is, vague enough to be unverifiable--recently Piers has been making some fairly precise predictions that have clearly been proven wrong by actual weather events. As Corbyn himself writes:

Forecast errors in Jan and mid Feb and advances in the Solar Weather Technique which are coping with the present hypersensitivity on Sun-Earth weather links (a situation we reported at the Oct 16th 07 WeatherAction Press event).

Now, note the reference here to the "Solar Weather Technique". Piers is a hard core AGW Denier, and puts it all down to those ubiquitous "solar cycles", knowledge of which his "technique" (the methodology is a closely guarded secret) employs in crafting WeatherAction forecasts.

Corbyn's apparent successes have been oft-touted within the Denialist community, where they have been taken as evidence that the "solar cycles" explanation of recent global temperature changes has empirical support and predictive power.

However, as his recent forecasts have failed, so too has his reputation taken a hit within that community, the whole sad process currently playing out in discussions at the Climate Skeptic Cafe.

The grouching kicked off with the arrival of Corbyn's March forecast a few days ago, and this gusty blast from Hans Erren:

Piers missed today's severe gale. Combined with the absence of a forecast cold winter in holland I think there is not much confidence left....

This opinion was 2nded by Arthur Rorsch:

My problem is, however, that Piers forecasts, which where not sufficient accurate, has been used against me in the national (Dutch) debate on climate change. I did never refer to Piers. But it was assumed that I support his view, (as a sceptic) which weakened my own case, because the Piers forecasts where seriously questioned and he has not as yet been prepared to show the basis for his forecasts.

Of course, Corbyn still has a few supporters. Sweet Kristen, the Tiniest Denier, has leapt to his defense:

I recall Magnus explaining that the sun is not behaving as Piers expected and thus inaccuracies in his forecasts. I also recall that Piers gives degrees of accuracy. His forecasts all come with a probability of being correct. But when the sun does behave as he expects his forecasts are accurate.

Nice girl, but she oughtta be out rebelling someplace.

In any event, the upshot of all this is that, for the time-being, Corbyn has stopped publishing his forecasts. I do have a copy of the March version, however, and if anyone wants one, they can drop me an email.

Is The Science Settled Or What? Notes On A New Survey

A new survey has appeared which claims to show that the notion of a "consensus" existing among climate scientists re the causes/effects of Global Warming is incorrect. This claim seems to be misleading.

The survey, conducted by Fergus Brown, James Annan (FRCGC), and Roger Pielke Sr. (University of Colorado), is entitled "Is there agreement amongst climate scientists on the IPCC AR4 WG1?". In their abstract, they put their findings this way:

An online poll of scientists' opinions shows that, while there is strong agreement on the important role of anthropogenically-caused radiative forcing of CO2 in climate change and with the largest group supporting the IPCC report, there is not a universal agreement among climate scientists about climate science as represented in the IPCC's WG1. Claims that the human input of CO2 is not an important climate forcing, or that 'the science is more or less settled', are found to be false in our survey.

The problem I have has to do with how the phrase "the science is settled" gets employed within the survey as opposed to how it has been typically been employed in the broader debate over climate change. Our three authors state their result in general terms as follows:

No scientists were willing to admit to the statement that global warming is a fabrication and that human activity is not having any significant effect on climate [0%]. In total, 18% responded that the IPCC AR4 WG1 Report probably overstates the role of CO2, or exaggerates the risks implied by focusing on CO2-dominated Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), to a greater or lesser degree. A further 17% expressed the opinion that the Report probably underestimates or seriously underestimates the consequences of anthropogenic CO2-induced AGW and that the associated risks are more severe than is implied in the report. The remaining 65% expressed some degree of concurrence with the report's science basis, of which the largest group [47% of all respondents] selected option 5. The exact response rates are given in Figure 1.

Well, okay, but I would argue that "the science is settled", as it gets deployed in the broader discussion, means something like it is settled that 1) the planet is warming, 2) it is warming because of rising C02 levels which 3) are primarily caused by human activity. In other words, within the broader context, if

Claims that the human input of CO2 is not an important climate forcing...are found to be false in our survey.

...then the science is more or less settled, and the rest is quibbling over detail.

And using my three part explication of "It is agreed that the science is settled." (making reference to the authors' Histogram of Responses), 77% of the survey respondents agree with all three of its parts (choose response number 5 or higher as being representative of their views). I don't know what exactly it takes to make a "consensus", but if over three out of every four climate scientists concur, I would argue that you have a consensus.

And of course the issue is that as the results of this survey play out in the larger political arena, the authors' claim that the "science is not settled" will be interpreted to be a refutation of the claim that climate scientists do not agree with the three elements of my definition (or something more like my definition than theirs).

Which is why, I would argue, that it is already getting quoted with approval in places like this.

(PS. James Annan has noted, in a personal communication that,

Of course the "science is settled" phase has a bit of a life of its own (settled for what purposes? I don't see climate scientists resigning in droves to do other things). For that very reason, I wouldn't have chosen this wording myself, but I didn't think it sufficiently wrong to veto it.

Well, the wording chosen has given hope and comfort to some in the denialist movement...)