We wait with baited breath, Michael Mann’s response to Tim Ball’s discovery requests in Mann’s British Columbia Supreme Court action. Mann had been counting on Ball caving in and publishing a retraction over his accusation of a cover-up at Penn State in relation to Mann’s famous  Hockey Stick Graph data. Now if Mann wishes to proceed with the action his is going to have to produce the data (r-squared correlation coefficient numbers) which he has so desperately tried to hide from the ‘sceptical’ scientific community since the ‘hockey stick’ graph was debunked.

Now Mann, clearly a glutton for punishment has begun legal proceedings against ‘The National Review’s’ Mark Styne. Again any thought that Styne will roll over in the face of legal proceedings have been quickly disabused. Mann, if he had any sense, should cleave to the maxim, ‘If you are in a hole, stop digging’. But I am so glad that he would appear to have an unlimited number of shovels. I know I am being overly optimistic to think that Mann will actually produce the data. No, he will take the hit, pay Ball’s costs, (after all he is not short of a bob or two with all that research grant money) and slink back behind the veil of secrecy which has been his defence since he was caught out ‘Hiding the decline’.

More interesting takes on this.

The $60 million fine just imposed on Penn State will certainly soften their cough but surely the writing was on the wall for Graham Spanier (Penn State’s ex President) two years ago.

In the wake of the Climate Gate e-mails, Penn State investigated Michael Mann – he of the Climate Hockey Stick Graph. Then as now their internal inquiry found no fault. Perhaps to clear the air Penn State’s new President should hire Louis Freeh to conduct an independent investigation into the actions of Michael Mann but then maybe they can’t afford another fine like today’s.

More interesting takes on this – and the inevitable legal action taken by Michael Mann!

Piers Corbin, he of WeatherAction fame, has predicted that the muddled state of the Sun’s magnetic field will make things interesting, weather wise, this March. ‘Twill be interesting to see how things pan out.

http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=451&c=5

Well you want to buy a new family car but you also want to be Green. Should you purchase the 5 seater Peugeot 3008 Hybrid4 with its ultra-economical 70.6mpg or what you really need the mini MPV people carrier from Renault the 7 seater Grand Scenic 1.6 but it only does 64.2 mpg that’s 10% less Green. “Oh what shall we do George? We will just have to leave granny and tiny Tim at home and spend the extra €6,000 we were putting aside for Tim’s leg operation and buy the ever so Green Peugeot Hybrid.”

A common scene played out in many a  sitting room across Ireland! But wait, could this be true we have been misled by the Greens and in fact the Renault is actually more economical than the Peugeot Hybrid? Yes we are back to the Greens tried and trusted friend – the simulation/computer model. When you take these two cars off the rolling road driven by a computer simulation of a driver and actually give the cars to real people and drive on real roads we find the Renault does 3.6mpg more than the hybrid. These new figures are produced by Sensors Inc. “an American vehicle emissions specialist”. The US has now moved over to this empirical method of calculating MPG from the system still used in Europe. Why does the EU cling to an outdated system which favours Green vehicles over their (apparently) less environmentally friendly cousins? Like so many statistics used by the Green economy they do not stand up too well to scrutiny.

“Oh joy of joys tiny Tim shall walk again and granny can after all come along with the rest of the family to the zoo.”

Source – Sunday Times ‘ingear’ “Drop It! Why the Official MPG test has to go” 29.04.12

“Despite government spending over $30 billion on climate research, there is still no empirical evidence to show that carbon dioxide has any effect on global climate Curiously, the IPCC has been unable to provide such evidence.” Senator Bert Brown – Alberta Canada

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/Sen/Chamber/411/Debates/068db_2012-04-04-e.htm

“We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies.  Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay.  Let’s let their houses burn. Let’s swap their safe land for submerged islands.  Let’s force them to bear the cost of rising food prices.” Steve Zwick

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevezwick/2012/04/19/a-tennessee-firemans-solution-to-climate-change/

Is it just me or does this sound like some school yard bully – ‘we know where you live – we’re going to get you’. And Forbes actually print this. Surely what we are looking for in the Global Warming debate is reasoned argument not infantile hectoring.

Data examining six regions in the Karakoram mountains in the western Himalayas, which contains 7,700 square miles (nearly 20,000 square kilometers) of glaciers, revealed more than half of them are either stable or have been advancing in recent years.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/17/world/asia/glacier-himalayas-gain-mass/index.html?iref=allsearch

Also see

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1317160/Science-writer-Fred-Pearce-calls-head-Patchy-UNs-climate-change-boss.html

The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Because the release of CO2 by the warming oceans lags behind the changes in the earth’s temperature, we should expect to see global CO2 levels continue to rise for another eight hundred years after the end of the earth’s current Interglacial warm period. We should already be eight hundred years into the coming Ice Age before global CO2 levels begin to drop in response to the increased chilling of the world’s oceans.

SOURCE