Comments on: A First

By: ADiff

ADiff — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:44:16 +0000

Correct that to read “low SNR data”….

Weren’t the sample sets in these dendro studies rather small?

By: ADiff

ADiff — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:03:19 +0000

Leonard,

Thanks for adding that one (CO2)! I’m not familiar with its fluctuations over time, but considering its central role in plant metabolism and relative atmospheric scarcity, it’s intuitive it would be a significant factor, which proposition I’ve heard.

The list was just off-the-top, and no doubt there are others as well!

Beyond methodological sampling issues, and the obvious signal-to-noise problem, variable isolation, just from this incomplete list, seems not just daunting, but perhaps impossible.

But as is the case with high SNR data, it’s always to possible to find some way to hear “Paul is dead” one way or another….if one wants to badly enough!

By: dearieme

dearieme — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:32:21 +0000

Bill, I intended a modicum of propriety.

By: Bill Radcliffe

Bill Radcliffe — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:06:31 +0000

dearieme:

You left off the last line (given by Bernard, barely controlling his features). Jim Hacker (PM) asked “what about the Sun readers” (a very high circulation red top). Bernard replied “They don’t care who runs the country as long as she’s got big tits”.

By: dearieme

dearieme — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:14:23 +0000

What you need to know about the Mail: Jim Hacker’s guide to the British papers (courtesy of “Yes, Prime Minister”).

- The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country;
- The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country;
- The Times is read by people who actually do run the country;
- The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country;
- The Financial Times is read by people who own the country;
- The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country;
- And the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.”

By: optimist

optimist — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:58:06 +0000

This article *was* published in the paper version of the newspaper last Sunday — a prominent double-paged spread. This may be the UK’s biggest selling Sunday newspaper.

By: michel

michel — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:16:43 +0000

The Mail is a middle class (in the US sense) national tabloid sized paper, heavily oriented to family and health issues. It has a large readership among middle class and working women. It is to the right of center, probably by about as much as the Guardian is to the left. Its a much more serious paper than the the true red top tabloids, and actually publishes real stories, though along with gossip and sensational and speculative material. Less ‘serious’ than the so called broadsheets like Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, Times. It is generally despised and disliked by the UK left. But it is large circulation, particularly among women.

For the Mail to publish a long story like this is a significant event and will have effects over time. The Mail generally is right in line with its readers opinions, it may lead a little on some issues, but it does not seek to be controversial, and its really the voice of a certain kind of middle England. Provincial, mainly Tory voting, suspicious of officialdom, ready to become indignant of anything they don’t care for, a little prurient in interests in scandal and the lives of others, hostile to the EU, not intellectual, very focused on daily life. This would be, disapprove of Afghanistan but support our boys territory.

I haven’t been in the UK for several months, but it has seemed previously as if there was large scale but not loudly voiced skepticism of AGW among the classes of people who constitute the Mail readership. It may now be coming out into the open, and if the Mail takes up skepticism, it will do so stridently.

By: astonerii

astonerii — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:11:56 +0000

Bill Radcliffe:
Thanks, not sure how much exposure the online version will get, I hope it is enough to force actual print media to print as well.

By: Bill Radcliffe

Bill Radcliffe — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:50:28 +0000

astonerii:

Mail online is the web version of one of the highest circulation newspapers in the UK.

By: An Inquirer

An Inquirer — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:27:55 +0000

Hats off to ADiff for a good list, but even this list is not complete. A tree can be fertilized more than others if animals deposit their dung nearby. Such patterns can continue for decades until disturbed by predators, diseases, encroachment of humans . . . .

BTW: Congratulations to the readers of this short blog. You now understand more about the hockey stick than 90% of the reporters who have repeated mentioned it in their articles.