An effect of white hair

I see that the climate change skeptics/deniers/do-nothing-even-if-it's-happening proponents are celebrating some alleged abandonment of climate science by a Swedish "famous scientist" who has worked a lot in meteorology.   Lennart Bengtsson is his name, and he's clearly not so famous that I recognised who he was.

Anyhow, the excitement is over his joining the "Global Warming Policy Foundation",  a British rogue's gallery of "skepticism."

As a rule of thumb, I find the first thing to check in these stories of (alleged) scientific "conversions" against the climate change consensus is the age of the scientist involved.   There is no doubt at all that the climate change skeptic field is heavily weighed down by white, male hair.   Someone ought to actually work out the mean age of those scientists prominent in that movement - but you really just have to have seen the photos.  Lindzen, Spencer, Carter, Plimer, Dyson, Happer, Paltridge.   All past their prime.  (Actually, I think Spencer might just have prematurely white hair - it looks like he finished his science degree in the 1970's.  But he's become silly and shrill on his blog lately because no one is listening to him.)

Even James Lovelock - he went all apocalyptic about climate change a book or two ago in a way that most climate scientists thought was just a wee bit hysterical, only to now, at the age of 94, to be sounding all "well, we don't really know what's going on after all" in his latest.   As George Monbiot noted, he's also picked up credulously other anti-environmental furphies like the one about (alleged) DDT bans, and as George's piece summariese "genius is no defence against being wrong."   Especially, I would add, when you're north of age  75.  (Actually, 70 might be more accurate.  Worrying signs usually appear when your hair has turned white, regardless of chronological age.)

So, how old is Lennart anyway?  Born 1935.  Aged 79.  Right in the ballpark of the commencement of age related unreliability.

Of course, Judith Curry is lapping him up.. How old is she, by the way?   To my surprise, she finished her first science degree in 1974, which would indicate (I guess) a birth year in the mid fifties.  She's must be at least 60 this year, and I'm pretty sure the glamour shot from Scientific American:

must involve hair colouring.   She's almost certainly got a lot of grey underneath.