Interview with Hans von Storch: Modelling and Postnormality

Springer Verlag has published a collection of interviews done by Georg Götz: Global Change - Interviews with Leading Climate Scientists (53 p), Softcover, ISBN 978-3-642-23443-9. Interviewed are Hans Oerlemans, Hans von Storch, Erland Källén, Andrew Weaver, Martin Parry, Stéphane Hallegatte and Donald Hughes.

The interview with Hans von Storch was published with the title  "We always make models for something not of something" - about dynamical modelling, parameterizations and postnormality.

The interview was taped in late 2010, and authorized in February 2011.

Geden now also in English: Beyond the Two Degree Target

Oliver Geden, from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs has now published his theses "What Comes after the Two Degree Target? The EU's Climate Policy Should Advocate for Flexible Benchmarks" in English.

Guest comment: Knutti Reto on an opening comment in an article ...

A reader quoted the two following two sentences from our recent review article about climate sensitivity:”The Earth’s climate is changing rapidly as a result of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and damaging impacts are expected to increase with warming. To prevent these and limit long-term global surface warming to, for example, 2°C, a level of stabilization or of peak atmospheric CO2 concentrations needs to be set.” That statement could be misinterpreted as a political statement of the authors of what has to be done about climate change, or a political statement driving the study.

Discussion on Guardian

Fred Pearce e-mailed me that "Following my coverage in the Guardian last week, we are holding an online "conversation" based around my longer dossier of the climategate affair. It is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/climate-wars-hacked-emails
Whatever you think about our coverage, do please join in.

Media continue frenzy on climate scandales

The German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau reports that Hartmut Grassl demands Pachauri to step down (Der Hamburger Professor Hartmut Graßl, früherer Leiter des Weltklima-Forschungsprogramms und Direktor am Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, sagte im Gespräch mit der Frankfurter Rundschau, Pachauri solle "reinen Tisch machen" und die Leitung des wichtigen Gremiums in andere Hände geben.), the British independent writes: An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night..

I am sure there is more to come. lots of desinformation, true, but also lots of irregularities.

2 months Klimazwiebel

Now, the Klimazwiebel is for two months in operation. On February 7, we had almost 59, 000 clicks and almost 100 postings. 

Science magazine confused about who is a “prominent climate scientist”?

On a number of blogs one recenty could read: Science magazine is confused about who is a “prominent climate scientist”. In Science magazine’s “News of the Week” there was a short report about our (Tol, Pielke, von Storch) piece in der SPIEGEL (Deutsch, English) in which we asked for a new chairman of IPCC and other measures.

Interview with R. Pachauri

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Default.aspx?Id=59557A494B74774853506369696D45484F31554B6B64347A7666757476576538427770656D56446E3031383D

Added on 6 February 2010: Another report Pachauri and India in the Telegraph.

Caveat: Reports in the Telegraph (and other newspapers) are sometimes contested as not being accurate. Not all newspapers adopt the good journalistic practise of having direct quotes authorized. Interviews, on the other hand, are in most cases accurate and authorized - according to my experience.

Two months of Klimazwiebel - the cultural sciences make the difference

We are now soon in the third months of KLIMAZWIEBEL, and I found the discussions on this blog enlightening, helpful and often even pleasant. In general an adequate level of politeness and respect prevailed. We had brave and open presentations of concepts, of views and observations. That was good. But we also had what Werner Krauss has called "Stalinists", most of the time anonymous "Stalinists".

2nd reader survey on KLIMAZWIEBEL

We have again used the opportunity to survey our readers; no claims are made that this survey would lead to representative or even consistent results. Instead it is just a snapshot. Anyway, it turns out that really many of our readers are scientists - mostly natural scientist. A few decision makers and journalists are among our readers, but hardly any NGO members. And our readers read other blogs as well, in particular Climate Audit, but also Real Climate.

An inquiry by a reader

Recently there has been discussion of exaggerations and possibly misleading documents. In November RealClimate posted the Copenhagen document for discussion. I raised the following questions, which were posted but got no reply.

Sea level hyperbole Copenhagen report/IPCC
Executive Summary
http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/executive_summary.html

Question to International Journal of Climatology

In 2009, the American thinker reported some events related to a publication in the Inetrnational Journal of Climatology (see also Roger Pielke jr.'s webblog), which I found difficult to believe. When I came across this web-page, I approached the chief editor of the International Journal of Climatology, Glenn McGregor, on 21. December 2009 and asked him: "Do you have a comment on that, possibly somewhere on your web-page, so that I may direct the readers of my new weblog 'Klimazwiebel' to this explanation and contextualisation?" Now, on 21 January 2010 I got an answer: "I will compose a response to the AT article in due course."
(corrected for clarification, 22. January 2010, HvS)

Schiermeier in nature - quoting incorrectly

Quirin Schiermeier quotes me with "You need to be very circumspect about the added value of downscaling to regional impacts," agrees Hans von Storch in this week's issue of nature. And: he cautions, "planners should handle them with kid gloves. Whenever possible, they'd rather wait with spending big money on adaptation projects until there is more certainty about the things to come." I have not spoken with Mr Schiermeier about regional modelling, at least not recently; the term "kid gloves" is unknown to me, not part of my vocabulary. I have asked him for evidence that I have said these sentences to whom.

Indeed, I have been in contact with Quirin Schiermeier earlier this year, asking for "myths" about climate change. I have offered him three cases, none of them had any reference to regional modelling. He had told me that he would use the first of my myths, but obviously he decided to use my name differently.

Here are my three myths:

Richard Tol in the Irish Times on the IPCC

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0118/1224262564923.html:

Damaged credibility doesn't alter climate facts

Inquiry from Russia: pitfalls of practice of policy advising

I got this inquiry from Russia: "I found some titles of your interesting publications, but they are not available in our local libraries, which do not subscribe foreign editions. If possible, please, explain me what are the main pitfalls in the present practice of policy advice concerning man-made climate change in your opinion? What are the main causes of discrepancy between scientific knowledge about climate change and its understanding in the public?" Here is my answer, to which I invite comments by the readers of Klimazwiebel (please stick to the issue in your comments!)

One month experience with the Klimazwiebel

The weblog was launched on 6 December 2009, and we had until 8 January 29,700 klicks (counting began only a few days after launching), with a total of 53 articles.

G20 or UN? Climate negotiations

Michael A. Levi wrote in "Slate": The Party's Over - Why Copenhagen was the climate conference to end all climate conferences.. What do yout think about it?

Drama - US without advice by experts

Nation's Experts Give Up: 'From Now On, You're On Your Own,' Say Experts. Klimazwiebel may fill the gap.

Question: Do you find this information convincing?

On Climate Change Deniers vs The Consensus | Information Is Beautiful a position called "deniers" is compared with another position "consensus" ...

detection and attribution

There have been numerous comments and inquiries about this statement of Myles Allen and myself: in our nature-online piece (no longer freely available): "The e-mails do not prove, or even suggest, that the main product of CRU, namely the record of global surface air temperature based on thermometer readings, has been compromised. Indeed, the thermometer-based temperature record has been verified by results from other groups." I want no to take the opportunity to explain my arguments. These are my arguments.