Bishop Hill writes of a new paper, one so “toe curling” it is worth mentioning here to get more exposure. He writes:

This is science? This is progress?

Reports on Progress in Physics, a journal published by the Institute of Physics here in the UK, has published a paper by Raymond Orbach, an engineer at the University of Texas at Austin. It’s available in return for free registration, and I actually think it’s worth it, if only because it’s so toe-curling.

In some ways the paper’s title tells you all you need to know about it. `Our Sustainable Earth’ looks at (you guessed it) eight climate myths propagated by bad people. Like every other set of climate myths you have ever seen, each of the myths is entirely devoid of sources – Orbach has taken them from this page at his university’s website. Where they got them from is a mystery.

In fact, absence of citations is a bit of an issue. Here’s how Orbach starts to deal with claims about the medieval warm period.

Climate scientists now understand that the Medieval Warm Period was caused by an increase in solar radiation and a decrease in volcanic activity, which both promote warming. Other evidence suggests ocean circulation patterns shifted to bring warmer seawater into the North Atlantic. Those kinds of natural changes have not been detected in the past few decades.

Interesting claims – but where did they come from? We are not told. We are expected to take Prof Obach on trust. At the risk of repeating myself, one would never get away with this kind of thing on a blog.

(PS: Note to Prof Orbach – the ocean near the top of the globe is the Arctic (with a c in the middle). And it’s Santer not Senter.

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