Polite professional responses – from the experts.

I thought these responses to the BEST study from the leading experts are worth posting (comments collected by our friends at the UK Science Media Centre).  A far cry from the response of ideologues such as Anthony Watts and Andrew Bolt:

Prof Sir John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government, said:

“Clearly this study needs peer review, but if correct it is pleasing to hear that this new analysis conforms with US work at NASA and NOAA and that of Phil Jones and his colleagues at the UK Hadley Center-UEA Climatic Research Unit. This work adds to the evidence about how climate change is

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Oops – its real after all.

Richard MullerGlobal warming is real, according to a major study released today. Despite a issues raised by climate denialists, the Berkeley Earth’s Surface Temperatures study finds reliable evidence of a rise in the average world temperature of approximately 1°C since 1950.

Professor Richard A Muller, who led the study, is UC Berkeley physicist, and long-time climate skeptic has publicly admitted that he was wrong about the IPCC and the evidence for global warming.  See press release here.  One wonders why Muller was motivated to repeat what the IPCC has been doing that much greater scales of rigor.   Whatever the reasons, the conclusions that Muller has come to has thrown a ‘cat among the pigeons’ with respect to climate deniers like Anthony Watts and Fred Singer.

UPDATE:  Here is Kelly Rigg in the Huffington Post – is climate denial unraveling? Continue reading

Pesticides and the Great Barrier Reef: Extensive new data and analysis and increased concerns (a note from Jon Brodie)

As a result of an extensive research and monitoring program funded by the Queensland and Australian Governments over the last 5 years  a greatly better understanding of the risks to Great Barrier Reef ecosystems from pesticide residues is now available and in the process of being published in the scientific literature. Most of the papers are or will be published in special issues of Marine Pollution Bulletin and Agriculture Ecosystems and the Environment. Some of the MPB papers are already published online and the rest from both issues will follow over the next few months. While the complete set is still uncertain (due to reviewing still in progress) the following are already out:

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