Missing News: Climategate 2.0

We wonder if ABC will provide any substantive coverage this time around, they  largely missed the first installment.
See
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/

Mainstream coverage via BBC:

'New release' of climate emails 

Lies of the climate commission Part 8

Another error from expert Climate Commissioner Will Steffen. On yesterday's Bolt Report he blamed recent flooding rains in southern Australia on "El Nino"...at 4:04 "The recent El Nino driven rain not withstanding..."

I guess he meant to say "La Nina".
"The term La Niña refers to the extensive cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. In Australia (particularly eastern Australia), La Niña events are associated with increased probability of wetter conditions."

Once again the climate commission demonstrates it is not a reliable source of accurate information about climate change.

ABC's Man from Snowy River

ABC Environment's impression of the Man from Snowy River

With this in mind Banjo Patterson's Man from Snowy River may have had a slightly different ending...

The man from Snowy River is a household word today, 

And the stockmen tell the story of his rice.

Missing News: lower climate sensitivity

WUWT reports on a paper reportedly "in press*" in the journal Science that finds climate sensitivity to increased CO2 is less than previously thought. Seems those predictions about extreme events our climate commission is so fond of may require some re-thinking. Let's see how long it takes for the ABC to cover this important result.

Schmittner, A., et al., 2011. Climate sensitivity estimated from temperature reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum, Science, in press*,http://www.princeton.edu/~nurban/pubs/lgm-cs-uvic.pdf

ABSTRACT
Assessing impacts of  future  anthropogenic carbon emissions is currently  impeded by uncertainties in our  knowledge  of  equilibrium  climate sensitivity to  atmospheric  carbon dioxide doubling. Previous studies suggest 3 K as best estimate, 2–4.5 K as the 66% probability range,  and non-zero probabilities  for much higher values, the latter implying  a small but significant chance  of  high-impact climate changes that would be difficult to avoid.  Here, combining extensive sea and land surface temperature reconstructions from the Last Glacial Maximum with climate model simulations we estimate a lower median (2.3 K) and reduced uncertainty (1.7–2.6 K 66% probability).  Assuming paleoclimatic constraints apply to  the future as predicted by our model, these results imply lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than previously thought.


*According to the authors

Alice Springs faces propaganda onslaught

ABC breathlessly report on the climate commission's tax payer funded holiday to the red centre.
According the ABC, Klimate Kommissar Lesley Hughes has stated: "Alice Springs could have almost a month more of weather above 35 degrees."


No mention by the ABC or the Klimate Kommissars that climate models used to provide this prediction are hopeless at forecasting future climate states. No surprise given the ABC and the Government's climate propaganda unit, its climate commission, continues to ignore anything in the scientific literature that does not fit its world view. 

According to the BOM Alice has about 90 days per year above 35. The graph below shows the current average (in green) compared to the period 1941-1970 (red). Not much there; a slight increase in winter temps, but nothing over the summer months that would suggest a dramatic increase in the number days above 35. On face value it appears there has been no significant climate change in Alice since records were established!

ABC NEWS: June 2011 productivity report-update

ABC published their annual report for 2010-2011 back in October. The final staff figures for the news division allow us to finalise this year's productivity survey.
In July we predicted ABC News staff levels for 2010-2011 to be 961. The actual figures as reported in the annual report (p.231) were 963.14, so there is little change in final figures and none at the first decimal place. A dismal result!

One wonders how this justified performance pay for 282 ABC employees.
Appendix 13—Performance Pay (p.230)
The ABC paid bonuses to 161 executives totalling $749 666, an average of $4 656 per executive.
It paid bonuses to 121 non-executive employees totalling $298 387, an average of $2 466 per employee.

ABC NEWS PRODUCTIVITY SURVEY TO 2010-2011
Year  Total Stories 
2003      7230 
2004      6920 
2005      6899 
2006      6995 
2007      7988 
2008      8894 
2009      7134 
2010      6666
2011      5908

Staffing:  Figures are based on ABC annual reports.
Year   Staff 
2003   766.24 
2004   735.04 
2005   756.6 
2006   770.68 
2007   842.37 
2008   865.59 
2009   913.14 
2010   947.36
2011   963.14

Productivity: With stories at a record low and staff at record highs, it comes at no surprise that ABC news productivity is at a record low of just 6.1 stories per staff member for the month. 

Year  Stories per staff per month 
2003      9.4 
2004      9.4 
2005      9.1 
2006      9.1 
2007      9.5 
2008     10.3 
2009      7.8 
2010      7.1
2011      6.1

We're all going on a summer holiday

ABC's annual summer break seems to be starting earlier and earlier:

 John, Tony and Kerry start their summer holidays,

No more working for the next three months.

Fun and laughter on their summer holidays,

provides a break in the Groupthink in so many ways,

but only for the next ninety days. 

They're going where the sun shines brightly

Perhaps attending a climate conference or two.

Watching repeats of Al Gores' Movie,

can't believe they think that crap is all true?!

Everybody wants an ABC summer holiday,

It's three months off thanks to their old Aunty. 

They get three months break for their summer holidays, 

it's same as long service leave for you and me.

But just another well earned break for John, Tony and Kerry.

Out of the taxes paid by you and me, 

I'm sure they'll have a drink or three.

(Sorry Cliff)

4 Corners 7/11/2011: This is the final Four Corners for 2011. We will return in on Monday 6 February, 2012. 


Media Watch 7/11/2011.  Gerard Henderson finds the oh so high productivity perhaps behind the early on set of summer.

"Last Monday, Jonathan Holmes announced that next week’s edition of the ABC1 Media Watch program would be the last for 2011.  Just how much the Media Watch staff deserve a well-earned break is evident from Andrew Murfett’s sympathetic piece titled “Watchdog has his day” which was published in The Age’s “Greenguide” on 27 October 2011.  Holmes told Murfett:

We have six well-paid journalists working on 2000 words a week. We have three full-time researchers, a producer, a story editor and executive producer.

And then there is Jonathan Holmes himself – who is the seventh left-wing presenter (out of seven) to present Media Watch since it first went to air in May 1989.  His predecessors are the lefties Stuart Littlemore, Richard Ackland, Paul Barry, David Marr, Liz Jackson and Monica Attard.

So Media Watch has seven full-time staff producing 2000 words a week to occupy 13 minutes on-air time for the nine months or so in which the program is shown each year. ABC management and staff are invariably whinging about not receiving enough taxpayer funds. Yet, according to Jonathan Holmes, seven well-paid full-time staff are flat out at Media Watch producing 2000 words between them each week – which works out to less than 60 words per working day."

Q and A 7/11/2011: For the final show of 2011, host Tony Jones is joined by Liberal MP, Malcolm Turnbull; Jessica Rudd; Ray Martin; Labor MP, Kate Ellis; and Former Howard Government Minister, Peter Reith.