ICYMI - there's no stopping the rise in surface temperature!

In case you missed it (ICYMI), a couple of new papers have been published recently, demonstrating that there has not been any "pause" or "hiatus" in surface temperature in recent years. Yes, the rate of increase wasn't as high as it has been in some other periods. However these papers demonstrate that there was nothing different from what can be expected from a warming trend with interannual variability imposed on it.

Change points of global temperature: Cahill, Rahmstorf and Parnell

If you're a fan of realclimate.org (the benchmark of world best practice in climate blogs), then you might remember the change point analysis written up there last December, by Stefan Rahmstorf. The article was called "Recent global warming trends: significant or paused or what?" This new work looks to be on the same topic written as a peer-reviewed paper in IOP Science: "Change points of global temperature". It's open access so you can read it at your leisure.

Seeps and SCAMS Part III: Richard Betts misunderstands (and misrepresents) a paper

Richard Betts, a UK climate scientist, has written an article about the recent paper by Stephan Lewandowsky and co, which I wrote about in Part I of this series, and referred to in Part II. Well it's not actually about the paper. It's Richard's interpretation of the paper based on his reading of a blog article Stephan wrote about the paper. It could be argued that it is evidence supporting the findings of the paper.

Correction: In the comments, Richard says that he did read the paper before he wrote his article. (I don't know how missed all the things he missed or why he got so much so wrong or why he appeared to write about the blog article and not the paper.) - Sou 6:48 pm Thursday 14 May 2015

I first saw Richard's article at WUWT and was very surprised to see it there. It turns out though, that Richard wrote his article for ATTP's blog. It was only when that rabid anti-Lewandowsky-ite, Barry Woods, asked him that he acquiesced and agreed to it being reposted on Anthony Watts' blog. That's despite the dreadful treatment dished out from WUWT when Richard's last article was published there. Here's the WUWT version - archived. Or better still, you can read it at ATTP's blog.

On Seeps and SCAMS Part II: Pat'n Chip'n David Fake a Debate.

In Part I of On Seeps and SCAMS, I wrote about the new paper on how denialist talking points can influence climate science. A day or so ago, there was an article at WUWT (archived here), by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger (Pat'n Chip), in which they commented on that paper. Their WUWT article had the title: Lewandowsky’s Competing Theories for Source of Bias in Scientific Research. [This is Part II of a three part series. Click for Part I and Part III.]

The title was misleading. Pat'n Chip's WUWT article was more a promo for another article by David E. Wojick and Patrick J. Michaels. Their's is not a scientific paper, it's a CATO article. It would take a huge stretch of imagination to consider the denier lobby group, CATO, to have any relation to science.

What they wrote about could have been an interesting topic I suppose, though it demonstrates a naive view of the world on the part of the authors. They were ostensibly exploring whether or not government funding can bias research. Their paper had the title:

Is the Government Buying Science or Support?

A Framework Analysis of Federal Funding-induced Biases

They claim:

The research question is clear: does biased funding skew research in a preferred direction, one that supports an agency mission, policy or paradigm?

The reason I say it could have been an interesting topic is that research that is primarily funded by government is subject to the vagaries of government priorities. Not in the results, but in what areas research is undertaken.

On Seeps and SCAMS Part I: Lessons for Climate Scientists

There is a new paper in the literature, or soon to be in the literature, about the impact on climate scientists of denialist propaganda campaigns. The paper is easy to read, being virtually free of specialist jargon. It's written from the perspective of psychology and the lead author is Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, currently at Bristol University in the UK. There is a team of co-authors, some of whom who you'll recognise - Naomi Oreskes, James S. Risbey, Ben R. Newell and Michael Smithson. The paper is to be published in the journal Global Environmental Change, rather than a psychology journal. The reason becomes clear when you read the paper. It's explaining how climate scientists can be adversely affected by denier memes, such as "uncertainty" in climate science. [This is Part I of a three part series. Click for Part II and Part III.]

If you thought that dispassionate scientists, when doing scientific research, are immune from denialist propaganda you'd be wrong. It's not just when scientists talk about climate that they can demonstrate they've been influenced by denialists' campaigns. Even their scientific publications can be so influenced.