Thursday, June 02, 2005

Jabberowski

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Zbigniew Jaworowski is a professor at the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection (CLOR), Warsaw, Poland. This of course makes him well-qualified to comment on climate prediction and global warming issues :-)

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"


In 2003, Jaworowski wrote the following in an article in the rather bizarre and highly septic Lyndon LaRouche-funded magazine 21st Century Science and Technology:
The current sunspot cycle is weaker than the preceding cycles, and the next two cycles will be even weaker. Bashkirtsev and Mishnich (2003) expect that the minimum of the secular cycle of solar activity will occur between 2021 and 2026, which will result in the minimum global temperature of the surface air. The shift from warm to cool climate might have already started.

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

So, of course, I emailed him to enquire as to whether he would bet on it.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood
And burbled as it came

He replied:

I do not make my own detailed projections. In my paper I referred the reader to B&M paper, and that is all.

and said that he would not accept a wager.

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back

Of course, he still claims to have more confidence in astronomical observations than climate science, but as he put it:

I am not interested in comparing the strength of your confidence with my confidence.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

So he joins the hall of shame, along with Lindzen, Michaels, Corbyn, Ebell.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

(with apologies to Lewis Carroll)

2 comments:

Brian said...

Your bet offers are great James. I tried the same trick on right wing radio here in the States, and linked to you in a writeup, "HOWTO call right-wing radio and argue about global warming," at: http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_backseatdriving_archive.html#111778608819945539

Anonymous said...

Bravo, James!
For staying power combined with sheer volume of misinformation output, Jaworowski is a modern marvel.
Another of his papers is, in my view, a particularly choice example of the genre.