Looking for climate change debate in all the wrong places? Turn to Russia Today TV

While the blogosphere remains a’fire on the global warming/faulty science debate, and the MSM appears reluctant to step into the debate other than to diss the CRU/NIWA scandals, it appears the media outlet unfraid of throwing a couple of science types together, living at extreme ends of the spectrum, comes from Moscow. Subject at hand? A segment titled “Heating Cheating”, and hosted by Bill Dod out of the RT Moscow studio.

On one side of the ring is Aleksey Kokorin, Head of the Climate Change Programme at the World Wildlife Fund in Russia. Per their website:

WWF’s mission is the conservation of nature. Using the best available scientific knowledge and advancing that knowledge where we can, we work to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth and the health of ecological systems by

* protecting natural areas and wild populations of plants and animals, including endangered species;
* promoting sustainable approaches to the use of renewable natural resources; and
* promoting more efficient use of resources and energy and the maximum reduction of pollution.

We are committed to reversing the degradation of our planet’s natural environment and to building a future in which human needs are met in harmony with nature. We recognize the critical relevance of human numbers, poverty and consumption patterns to meeting these goals.

Okie dokie…. the “relevance of human numbers…. and consumption patterns” is part of their solutions for “meeting” their goals. Gotcha…

What Kokorin has to say isn’t anything we aren’t all familiar with already. What was more interesting was watching him make his case… most of which consisted of him holding up a publication from the Russian Federation of Sciences (which appears is not for public consumption as it’s no where to be found on the Russia Academy of Sciences webpage. But the one that truly made his opponent, Piers Corbyn, roar was his statement that Russia has never had malaria before.

Perhaps Mr. Kokorin, focusing more on preserving wildlife instead of human life, isn’t familiar with the spread of malaria from Balkans, Central Europe and into Southern Russia late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of the reasons that malaria, as well as typhus and cholera, were held in check was Lenin’s extensions of medical services in the wake of the tsarist regimes combating the very disease that Kokorin insists was never in Russia to begin with.

This makes you wonder… does Kokorin believe it was global warming in the early 20th century that caused the plague outbreaks?

Then, of course, there’s Kokorin’s belief that global warming played a significant factor in crash of Air France 447.

Oddly enough, there’s no bio I could find on Mr. Kokorin’s educational credentials. Indeed, even on the WWF site, he is not listed under staff, board, executives, expert or scientists for the organization. A search only turns up his name on press releases, which leads me to believe he’s a hired gun mouthpiece. Other than that, he’s an enigma.

In the other corner is Piers Corbyn. A man introduced as an “independent weather forecaster” by host, Dod, and oft addressed by Kokorin as being a meterologist. In reality, Corbyn is an astrophysicist with a Ph.D, and founder of Weather Action. He is the originator of the Solar Weather Technique of long range weather forecasting, who’s work was independently verified in a peer-reviewed paper by Dr Dennis Wheeler, University of Sunderland, in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Vol 63 (2001) p29-34.

Weather Action has audited accuracy, for example, the WeatherAction advance forecast of May 5 2009 predicted “Bay of Bengal land hit on May 24-26 2009” the event was verified by Cyclone Alia in the Bay of Bengal May 25 2009. Please see the Short List table below for more details of successful predictions and notable major extreme events.

Download Excel table report

See below for full independently Audited Assessment report of WeatherAction world extreme events forecasts March to Sept 2008 showing a success rate of 85% in forecasting of generally relatively unusual extreme events in narrow time windows.

Download pdf format report

See below the Audited Assessment report of WeatherAction world extreme events forecasts for the period October 2008 to April 2009 and a cover letter from the Auditors re USA & Canada events

Download pdf format formal audit report
Download pdf format report

Skill and forecast scope has been maintained and advanced since then and reports are issued every month.

The success rate is similar in WeatherAction detailed long range forecasts down to time windows of a few days for Britain, Ireland & European countries.

The unique power of the forecasts has also been proven by the profits on Scientific Weather Bets with William Hill at odds and verification organized independently by the UK Met Office.

[more at link above]

Yes, you read that last paragraph correctly. Corbyn was so confident of his track record of measurements that Weather Action made over £20,000 in bets with William Hill – about 40% of over 4,000 weather test bets…. all of which had odds and verification organized independently by the UK Met Office. Corbyn himself was excluded from the bookies.

The Odds were statistically fair and set by the Met Office before being shortened by William Hill by a standard 20%; the results were then provided by the Met Office for William Hill to settle each bet. Piers Corbyn was excluded by the bookies from such account betting in 2000.

Bets and notional bets can be used to estimate Forecasting Power which is the % profit (or negative for losses) on stakes that would come from bets placed at fair odds. For general long range forecasts for the three most extreme recent seasons, namely Summer 2007, Summer 2008 and Winter 2008-09 The Met Office long range forecast Power is minus 100% (ie Met Office long range forecasts failed in all three cases) and WeatherAction (Solar Weather Technique) scores about plus 500%.

Where has this man been, and why haven’t we heard more of him and his solar techniques? While most scientists are busy rewriting the past historic temperatures, and making impossible claims about the ionosphere when man wasn’t around with technology, Corbyn’s the master of predicting the future.

Needless to say, it’s more than amusing watching the debate… with Corbyn basically at odds with both the host with an obvious preconceived notion and the WWF media mouthpiece. And I have to wonder if Kokorin, bent on holding up his little blue book from RFS is getting paid to peddle the publication.

So watch, and enjoy… and don’t forget to wait for that great belly laugh from Corbyn when the malaria comment comes ’round.

As Aye says… roll the tape.