Of course, climate change sceptics will be all over the article in The Australian today noting a recent study, based on just four tidal gauges, that argues that sea level increase has started to decelerate, at least around Australia/New Zealand. [Note: see the update below for the correction to this.]
The author of the paper, which I had actually heard about before, seems open minded as to the question of long term implications.
The report in The Australian, however, gives earlier prominence to some very climate change sceptic sounding comments by one Dr Howard Brady, of Macquarie University.
Googling Dr Brady reveal little about him, except for the following:
* he is aged 70
* he is a retired scientist who did a lot of work in Antarctica
* he is a former Catholic priest
* he used to be chief of Mosaic Oil
* he gave at least one talk to a Engineer’s Club to deliver a climate change update.
Now, not all of these things are necessarily indicative of climate change scepticism; but most of them are!
Yet one of the links says he is interested in the "non-linearity of climate change", which sounds more like a climate change believer interest.
So, it’s a bit of a mystery. Come out and reveal your position on everything to do with climate, Dr Brady, and tell us how you managed to get quoted in The Australian on this study.
UPDATE: I should have known. Deltoid looks at the actual science at issue here and shows how that article misrepresents it. He also notes that The Australia has not published a correcting letter from Watson's department, and also wonders why Dr Brady is quoted as some sort of authority on this.
In short: another case of pathetic journalism on climate change.
10 comments:
Interesting how The Australian have pulled their original caption on the photo (which was totally false and unrelated to what Watson wrote):
"Watson has written a report stating that global warming is not affecting sea levels"
Although it had already been tweeted around the place (e.g.@steveblizard)
Your claim that he is a former Catholic priest is false.
Howard has published Antarctic research articles in the Antarctic Journal of the United States, Nature, Science, and the English Journal of Geology and Geophysics.
In his career Dr Brady has been a Catholic priest educator, a scientist working for a decade on Antarctic projects funded by the United States Office of Polar
Programs and then a businessman in the resources industry. Now retired, Howard is now spending considerable time examining scientific research on
climate change.
Howard is a micropaleontologist using microfossils to track past environments and geological history. His specific research concentrated on Antarctic history and climate over the last 14 millions years using sediment cores taken from the dry
valleys of Victoria Land and from the Ross Sea over 5 Antarctic expeditions.
above from me.
Gab
Gab, The Age noted him once (with respect to Mosaic Oil) as:
"boss and one-time priest Howard Brady".
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/02/1022982650749.html
As you note, other sites refer to him as a former "priest educator", which is ambiguous in meaning. His qualifications certainly indicate one in theology, however.
So, unless you have more detailed knowledge of him, your claim that I have got it wrong appears premature.
I have made it clear that I do not know if he is sceptical of all climate change science or not. He certainly sounds very aggro in his criticism of sea level model predictions, however.
Fair enough.
"He certainly sounds very aggro in his criticism of sea level model predictions, however."
No more "aggro" than the warmerists.
At least he's not advocating that that warmerists should be tattoed or be gassed as is proposed by warmerists of skeptics.
Any attempt at a balanced report would reference CSIRO's excellent and comprehensive web page on sea level rise.
Especially the bits about regional and decadal perturbations of a long term global trend.
Brady's credentials as an active climate scientist, especially in this area, seem pretty thin.
As does the association with Macquarie. He has an old entry in the MQ directory as an "Honorary Associate" (ie not a paid staff member) in Biological Sciences. However his name is not in their current list of Associates.
Does journalism have standards any more? I can do this in half an hour from my desk. Why can't they?
Howard Brady was a Catholic priest who taught science at Chevalier College,Bowral in the late 60,s and 70,s and also coached the first fifteen rugby team.
Dr Brady has recieved an distinguished alumni award for his climate research from Northern Illinois University. Industry accolades noticably vacant from the mantel of Watson and "Steve"... http://www.niu.edu/clas/awards/awards_2011/honorees/brady.shtml
So who is really qualified to talk about Climate Change? I think you'll find that Dr Howard Brady through his years spent in Antarctica studying climate (whilst the rest of you were still in nappies or popping pimples) and through his extensive experience in scientific research, is much more qualified than the so called "experts". Yes he is 70. Is that bad? I would much rather read research from a none bias scientist with actual experience and credentials than a team of closed minded climate puppets. -Roman75
I would rather the team of scientists from around the world whose career is built on concern for the future of our population over a retired founder of an oil company any day of the week.
I would think, having founded the oil company (Gab tried to dress it down as work in the resources sector which is laughable), it's probably fair to assume he still holds shares in the operation.
His field of research is very focussed and the evidence he has provided in articles on the subject draws circumstantial observations from many different periods (all of which date back to earth's population being a mere fraction of today's) without regard to other factors of the period.
The impacts are much larger today due to the size of population. The effects of deforestation and coral bleaching on the earth's ability to process the carbon also seem to be ignored in his approach.
Not suggesting Howard Brady has no idea, but he seems too "zoomed in" to have perspective. T
is why a team of scientists will trump an individual. Many heads are better than one.
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