Talk:Hubert Lamb

message: My addition of information on Lamb's opinion of Jones and Wrigley's work was reverted with an edit summary saying that the source isn't sufficient.  The source is a book written by Fred Pearce, an established science and environmental journalist who is widely published.  If that source isn't good enough, then I don't know what would be sufficient. Cla68 (talk) 22:50, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: View on Jones and Wrigley

message: The article says, "He was originally known as the "ice man" for his prediction of global cooling and a coming ice age but, following the UK's exceptionally hot summer of 1976, he switched to predicting a more imminent global warming." He doesn't sound like much of a climatologist, if all it took to change his mind on this matter was one hot summer. Is there nothing more to climatology than standing outside and saying, "Mm, feels to me like an ice age (or a global warming event) is coming"? --Nigelj (talk) 08:11, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've revised the article a bit and think that's not so much of a problem now. However, as I recall the source suggests it was a series of summers that persuaded him, perhaps we can improve that. Maybe we should also find a source about the changing views of the time: Schneider in '71 supported the "ice age" hypothesis, then in '74 found less pollution / more CO2 warming effect than he'd allowed earlier, recalculated his work and retracted his earlier warning. It's possible that Lamb did something similar. . . dave souza, talk 12:52, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

text: Have now gone over it and rephrased that part to make the timing of his developing ideas clearer, though it would still be nice to have more info about how Lamb's ideas changed. . . dave souza, talk 13:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You won't find a good reference for this because it isn't true; in 1995, two years before his death, Lamb's "Climate, History and the Modern World" was republished as a second edition, and was just as scathing about AGW as ever. 86.171.158.59 (talk) 15:52, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: In this 1995 second edition he writes (p.365) this about AGW: "The expected temperature changes have been widely announced in an ever-increasing volume of meteorological literature... The alarm that has been raised over the dislocation which such great changes would be liable to cause is entirely proper, even though the actual net outcome when natural climatic variations also have their effect is by no means certain... Despite the... uncertainties involved... the potential for disorganization and disaster is so great that the meteorologists' warnings must be taken as a very serious matter." So it's clear that he isn't universally scathing about AGW in 1995.  However the "Climatic Research Unit" section does need improving since it implies that predictions of warming this century represent a "switch" from predictions of an ice age in the next 10,000 years.  The final paragraph of the "Abrupt climate change and global warming" section already includes a quote from Lamb where he notes that these two predictions are not in conflict because of the different timescales involved. TimOsborn (talk) 15:46, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The idea of a switch is stated in The History of the University of East Anglia, Norwich by Michael Sanderson, but I'm glad to accept that's a bit superficial and the newer wording works better for me. Can we add the point that in 1995 he commented that, despite uncertainty about AGW, "he potential for disorganization and disaster is so great that the meteorologists' warnings must be taken as a very serious matter."? . . dave souza, talk 17:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

text: Have now made a few improvements and fixed a few things. Long-term cooling towards a glacial period and century-scale greenhouse-gas-induced warming are now stated as separate, non-conflicting, views (i.e. consistent with the quote in the later paragraph). The overall structure could still do with some work, since both "Climatic Research Unit" and "Abrupt climate change" sections cover cooling towards the next glacial period as well as GHG-induced warming -- i.e. these sections are not clearly differentiated by content. TimOsborn (talk) 16:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The two sections seem to relate to timing rather than content, though there's some overlap. Would it work to omit the second subsection heading, making it one section on Climatic Research Unit and later writings? Alternatively, "His warnings of damage..." could start a new paragraph which could include the paragraph on "Lamb's 1977 book" before a section on his revised views as shown in the 1984 and 1995 revised editions of his writings? . .  dave souza, talk 17:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sounds shallow 

message: A recent addition to this article, which was removed, misrepresented Pearce's brief outline of "cast of characters" as well as being rather obviously incorrect. The addition "Lamb recruited Phil Jones and Tom Wigley, among others, to work at the CRU but later criticised their theories on man-made climate change as "simplistic."" changes "and others" to ", among others," implying more firmly that the next part applies to Jones and Wigley, and talks of "their simplistic theories of climate change", a statement by Pearce, not a quote from Lamb as the edit mistakenly suggests. Pearce then quotes Lamb as saying that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere "should raise the world's temperature, although the effect may be smaller, perhaps very much smaller, than is usually supposed." That's a quote from Lamb's 1984 speech, which I've outlined in the article. As far as I know, Jones and Wigley are associated with paleoclimate reconstructions, and are not theoreticians dealing with the effects of greenhouse gases. As far as I've found, the book doesn't give dates for them joining CRU, and the addition seems to be more to do with their biographies than with Lamb's. Better sourcing needed if they're to be mentioned. . . dave souza, talk 13:14, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Dubious info based loosely on Pearce

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This sounds like a denialist quote-mining result. Does anybody know the context? --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:07, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quote from 1977 

message: I can find no reference to a 1970 paper of Lambs carried out for the Royal Society, covering volcanic eruptions between c 1500 and the late 1960's  It is mentioned in "Volcanoes- A planetary Aspect" by Peter Francis, P 371. "Volcanic Dust in the atmosphere, with a chronology and assessment of the meteorological significance" Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London A266. Pp.425-533. He linked the eruption of Laki in 1783 to a subsequent episode known as the Haze Famine in Scandinavia and Northern Europe.
There has been a recent increase in volcanic eruptive activity in Iceland, which probably provided ash for nuclei causing the excessive rainfall this year.
Mr Lamb worked along the corridor at Harrow Met Office HQ in 1952-4 when I was working with MO3b (British Rainfall), before going to QMC London to study Geology with Geography and Chemistry as ancillary subjects. The book by Francis was published in 1993 hollowing the unexpected eruption of Mt St Helens of 1980 in America. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.157.181 (talk • contribs)  William M. Connolley (talk) 10:57, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  I can find no reference to a 1970 paper of Lambs...