Editor Removes Comment by Climate Sceptic (Part 2)
Posted by jennifer, January 27th, 2009 - under News.
Tags: People
AUSTRALIA’s national broadcaster, the ABC, has a science unit dominated by a fellow called Robyn Williams. Mr Williams is an advocate for the campaign against global warming and has even suggested on air that sea levels could rise by 100 metres in the next century; the United Nation’s IPCC suggested at worst just 59cms. [1] Mr Williams is also on the public record indicating something verging on contempt for meteorologist and climate change sceptic Bill Kininmonth.[2]
It may be difficult for those journalists at the ABC who want to ensure the alternative perspective is put on contentious and highly politicised scientific issues like climate change, particularly given Mr Williams standing and very definite opinions.
On January 22, 2009, ABC reporter Nick Lucchinelli interviewed Bill Kininmonth for an alternative perspective on an article in ‘Nature’ suggesting Antarctica is warming. Lead author Eric Steig and biologist Barry Brook were also interviewed. That part of the interview with Mr Kininmonth was subsequently expunged from the transcript and podcast. [3] That is, at some point after the broadcast the comment from Mr Kininmonth was edited out of the interview. At first blush this has all the signs of ABC censorship in favour of the bias of the science unit.
Following is comment from Mr Kininmonth and detail of his email exchange with Mr Lucchinelli.
From: William Kininmonth [mailto:w.kininmonth@bigpond.com]
Sent: Friday, 23 January 2009 1:51 PM
Subject: FW: Antarctic warming
Hi Jennifer,
Follows are an email exchange with ABC reporter, Nick Lucchinelli about an item on the ABC’s AM program broadcast on 22 January 2009. The sequence started with a phone call from Lucchinelli on 21 January 2009 seeking an interview about an item in the science journal Nature alleging evidence of global warming that was being published overnight. The first email from Lucchinelli contained the Abstract of the Nature story of interest. About 30 minutes later Lucchinelli again phoned and the interview took place.
Radio National broadcast the Antarctica story in its AM broadcast on 22 January, including extracts from interviews with the lead author Professor Steig, Professor Brook of Adelaide and myself. The re-broadcast of AM on ABC Local Radio (Melbourne 774) included only part of the Antarctica story; my comments and views were deleted.
Being aware that my views had been included in the AM version broadcast over Radio National, I went to that website and its link to AM only to discover that neither the audio nor the transcript included my comments, even though they had been broadcast. I therefore followed up with Lucchinelli to see if there was a rational explanation for this clearly odd behaviour – the deletion of part of a story and its expunging from the record of what had been broadcast. Lucchinelli was not able to say why my comments were deleted. The possible reason proposed, of time constraint, is implausible given that the earlier Radio National, starting 10 minutes after the hour at 7:10am, was shorter than the later Local Radio edition starting at 8:00am but the earlier edition was able to include my comments!
I will follow up with ABC management for an audio feed or transcript of my comments as actually broadcast in order to respond to my critics.
The saga does, however, expose weaknesses in ABC policy/management. If there are regularly differences between the versions of AM broadcast on Radio National and on Local Radio then there clearly is no authentic record of what is actually broadcast on Radio National, which is a serious shortcoming. On the other hand, if changes are rare, then an explanation of the reasons for deletion of my comments on this occasion are called for.
William Kininmonth
From: William Kininmonth [mailto:w.kininmonth@bigpond.com]
Sent: Friday, 23 January 2009 1:57 PM
To: ‘Nick Lucchinelli’
Subject: RE: Antarctic warming
Dear Nick,
Thank you for the explanation, to the extent that you were able to provide a response about the information I was seeking. Of course I would be pleased to assist with input to future similar news stories.
It is unfortunate that neither the transcript nor the audio feed of the Radio National program were posted on the Radio National website. I have received mildly abusive comments about my contribution to the Radio National broadcast and would like to identify which parts of our interview were broadcast and the context of editing, if any, that might have been grounds for such reaction. Abuse from the global warming alarmists is not unusual and reference to factual material is the best defence. Not having access to the specific broadcast material does put me at a disadvantage.
I will follow up with ABC management to get a copy of the broadcast audio if a transcript is not available.
Sincerely,
William Kininmonth
From: Nick Lucchinelli [mailto:Lucchinelli.Nick@abc.net.au]
Sent: Friday, 23 January 2009 12:28 PM
To: William Kininmonth
Subject: RE: Antarctic warming
Dear William,
Thanks for your email and thanks again for helping with the story by providing your input.
You are right that our interview was broadcast on the Radio National bulletin of AM, but not the later local radio edition.
I am not the show’s executive producer and don’t set the run down, but I would presume, as you have, that the interview was cut in the second edition because of time constraints.
Obviously the inauguration of Barack Obama, the continuing violence in Gaza and the news of large job cuts across the Australian economy make it difficult for other stories to gain air time at the moment.
Unfortunately, the transcript of the interview will not be posted online because we only transcribe the main local radio edition of AM.
Thanks again for your help, I’d like to be able to contact you for similar input to stories in future.
Kind regards
Nick Lucchinelli
From: William Kininmonth [mailto:w.kininmonth@bigpond.com]
Sent: Thursday, 22 January 2009 6:19 PM
To: Nick Lucchinelli
Subject: RE: Antarctic warming
Dear Nick,
I am hoping you can shed light on what happened with the Antarctica story on this morning’s AM program. I listened on 774 Melbourne and the interview we had yesterday was not included in the broadcast of AM at 8:00am. I presumed that time constraints on the program precluded my comments being included, notwithstanding that I provided an alternative view to those presented by Professors Steig and Brook. I was surprised to learn that comments by me had been included in the version of AM broadcast on Radio National at an earlier time. I was even more surprised to go to the Radio National web site and find that my broadcast comments were not included in the transcript of the program broadcast by Radio National.
Could you please explain why my broadcast comments are not included in the Radio National transcript and direct me to where my broadcast comments are available.
Sincerely,
William Kininmonth
From: Nick Lucchinelli [mailto:Lucchinelli.Nick@abc.net.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 21 January 2009 10:19 AM
To: w.kininmonth@bigpond.com
Subject: Antarctic warming
Dear Bill,
Good chatting to you just now. Once you have a chance to digest the following summary, we’ll do a short interview.
Kind regards,
Nick Lucchinelli
Climate change: Warming across Antarctica (pp 459-462) *PRESS BRIEFING*
Scientists address one of the hottest questions in climate research in Nature this week, showing that overall, the Antarctic continent has warmed over the past 50 years. Until now, incomplete records led researchers to believe that the continent’s entire interior may be cooling whilst the peninsula warms.
The warming of the Antarctic has been uncertain owing to the lack of continuous temperature records across the whole continent. Eric Steig and colleagues use existing weather station records combined with recent satellite measurements and statistical models to provide a fuller picture of the continent’s temperature from 1957 to 2006. The team shows that temperatures have risen by approximately half a degree in this period, with the greatest warming occurring in winter and spring, despite the autumn cooling in East Antarctica. The warming of the peninsula and West Antarctica is related to changes in atmospheric circulation and declines in sea ice in the pacific sector of the Southern polar ocean.
Accurately forecasting Antarctic temperatures will need an improved description of the interaction between sea ice and changes in the atmosphere.
*************************************
Notes
1. Andrew Bolt, “100 metres” Williams demands nuance, December 05, 2008 http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/100_metres_williams_demands_nuance/P40/
2. Gerard Henderson, Climate is the new communism and could split the ALP, July 2, 2008
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23954848-20261,00.html
“Last weekend he [Robyn Williams] was at it again, telling ABC presenter Adam Shand that the views of meteorologist William Kininmonth “haven’t stood the test”. The implication was that he did not deserve a hearing on Radio National or anywhere else. On his ABC Ockham’s Razor program, Williams has played down the views of political scientist Doug Aitkin and British economist Nigel Lawson on the basis that they are not “science trained”. This overlooks the fact that neither Ross Garnaut nor Nicholas Stern in Britain are science trained. It also overlooks that Williams’s own undergraduate science training is in biology, which is quite different from climatology. Australians do not need to be protected from the near consensus scientific view on climate change or from the small number of scientists who disagree with their colleagues.”
3. Jennifer Marohasy, Modellers remove evidence of cooling, January 23, 2009
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/modellers-remove-evidence-of-cooling-and-editor-removes-comment-by-climate-sceptic/
The photograph of William Kininmonth was taken by Jennifer Marohasy in Canberra in September 2008.
Steve
Forget it!
You are talking rubbish. I believe both man are intelligent enough to know what they were talking about.
If you really want to “nuance” then maybe Mr Williams meant a 100 rise of sea level WHEN and including a surge, but still a lot of rise, unless he meant a 1 m rise and a 99 m surge.
You didn’t answer the question marcus, what do you reckon williams meant with that line?
luke; El Nino and the SOI are closely correlated; the -ve SOI which heralds the El Nino is a result of an increase of SST in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean; upwelling variation is responsible for SST variation in this region as has been shown by Meyers Wijffels and Pigot, Guilderson and Schrag and McPhaden and Zhang; the 1976 upwelling variation probably caused the next 30 years warming and El Nino dominance. Upwelling resumed post 1998 as McPhaden and Zhang show; interesting that there was only one small -ve SOI in May for all of 2008; I recall you assert that the SOI pattern has changed significantly in the latter 1/2 of the 20thC from what it was at the beginning; the next few monthly results for SOI show be instructive.
Barry Moore
“Louis : I must be expressing myself badly”
Phew, had me worried for a second.
Bitter experience here demands precision in posting comments – though I am a bit puzzled that the useful idiots here didn’t pick up on it. Must mean I was in one of my more less lucid moments.
Too much Alzheimer’s red, perchance? Nooooo, :-)
Cohers – is that so? I never knew all that. zzzzzz But are warm SSTs “upwellings” …. is the surface a total indication of what lies beneath?
“is the surface a total indication of what lies beneath?” With a gravatar like that one can only hope not. In respect of warm SSTs what else could produce them but upwelling cessation; in turn the SSTs cause the warm atmospheric temperatures as Compo and Sardeshmukh and White and Cayon have shown and they do so quickly as Barry’s lag graph shows;
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/09/the-physics-of-global-warming-is-complicated-barry-moore/#comments
Steve January 28th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
“You didn’t answer the question marcus, what do you reckon williams meant with that line?”
Why should I bother guessing what he had in mind?
But I think I did.
If I were to guess and be charitable to him I would say, he included any surge into the rise of sea level.
Shall we leave it there? I have very little time for the man, as it is.
Ken Day: “is the surface a total indication of what lies beneath?”
Otherwise known as unrepresentative sampling. AKA biassed sampling, or cherry picking.
Come on Cohenite – look up how the El Nino warm water pool behaves and evolves – it’s much more than a local change in the cold upwelling off Peru. You have winds, planetary waves, shoaling, thermoclines, subsurface structure.
I’m looking for this mysterious “warm upwelling”. And you tell me – every SST change is a result of an upwelling underneath it?
[...] that’s not to deter Jennifer – she’s at it again today, implying that the controlling hand of Robyn Williams resulted in an interview with Bill Kininmonth [...]
Regarding the comment by Taluka Byvalnian 28 January 2009, 10:53am, and to use Jennifer’s phrasing, “just filing this here…”
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/so_who_is_john_s_theon.php
Robyn Williams is a blind, extreme green storm-trooper, not a “scientist” as his comrades-in-propaganda like to position him.
Williams finds damning evidence in my lawn-mower, but acts like a blind man, when someone points out the Sun.
Does anyone know the story with “scienceblogs”? They appear to be all Gramscian anti-science lunatics like Bernhard. And when an anti-science leftist lunatic (eg Lambert, Connelly, Coby Beck, Some dumbass called Blake) poses as a scientist for long enough it appears that scienceblogs comes knocking and asks them to join with the coterie.
fascinating and communicative, but would be suffering with something more on this topic?