CRU emails No. 4 - the disappointment of the BBC going off-message

From an email chain titled BBC U-turn on climate change.

Michael Mann wrote:

extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from what I can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office.

We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?

mike

On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:

Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural variability and signal to noise and sampling errors to this new "IPCC Lead Author" from the BBC? As we enter an El Nino year and as soon, as the sunspots get over their temporary--presumed--vacation worth a few tenths of a Watt per meter squared reduced forcing, there will likely be another dramatic upward spike like 1992-2000. I heard someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was willing to bet alot of money on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the past 10 years of global mean temperature trend stasis still saw what, 9 of the warmest in reconstructed 1000 year record and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in big retreat?? Some of you observational folks probably do need to straighten this out as my student suggests below. Such "fun", Cheers, Steve

Stephen H. Schneider

Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,

Professor, Department of Biology and

Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: "Narasimha D. Rao" >

To: "Stephen H Schneider" >

Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific

Subject: BBC U-turn on climate

Steve,

You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBCs reporter on climate change, on Friday wrote that theres been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will force cooling for the next 20-30 years. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as are other skeptics views.

[5]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

[6]http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on

-climate-change/

BBC has significant influence on public opinion outside the US.

Do you think this merits an op-ed response in the BBC from a scientist?

Narasimha

-------------------------------

PhD Candidate,

Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER)

Stanford University

http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1053&filename=1255530325.txt

Ah, the disappointment is palpable that the BBC, which has significant influence in the UK, has allowed one of its troops to go off-message. Interesting to note that they think that it is not "outrageously biased" like other sceptics. Just shows how open minded some of these scientists can be to ideas different to their own.

Note also that this reporter should have been in the bag as he used to work at the Met Office, implying that the Met Office is hopelessly biased towards global warming (something we have always suspected, but it has now been backed up by an insider's opinion).

So in the bag is the Met Office that Michael Mann thinks nothing of calling a contact there to put out a press release to counter this off-message message. As soon as someone sounds an off note, the whole cabal gang up and fire on the unfortunate messenger from all directions.