Wednesday, June 09, 2021

"The Trick," a Movie About ClimateGate

The BBC is making a movie about Climategate, a "thriller" about the computer hacking scandal, to be titled "The Trick." Somewhat of a double entendre there.
The Trick will tell the story of how Professor Philip Jones, director of climate research at the University of East Anglia, found himself at the eye of an international media storm after leaked emails which suggested climate change researchers had exaggerated claims about the severity of global warming....

It led to Norwich scientists receiving death threats and one of the most rigorous scrutiny processes in UK academic history that ultimately found the research to be watertight.

The new film will chart the unjustified persecution of Prof Jones, to be played by Line of Duty and The Crown star Jason Watkins, and the fierce support as he fights to exonerate himself of his wife Ruth, to be played by Victoria Hamilton.
Phil Jones suffered greatly during Climategate, personally, and reportedly at one point even considered suicide. This "thriller" is exactly what he doesn't need.

You may recognize the actor playing him from his recent role in the popular Netflix series "The Crown," where Jason Watkins played the weak, uninspiring socialist Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

Let's see how badly the BBC -- who of course was part of the story -- gets this wrong for the sake of dramatization.

9 comments:

pp said...

This will become a documentary -- how the cause of ENSO was eventually determined to be due to tidal forcing https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49678-w

Layzej said...

What's the story behind that one?

David Appell said...

Maybe partly this paper?

"Switch Between El Nino and La Nina is Caused by Subsurface Ocean Waves Likely Driven by Lunar Tidal Forcing"
Jialin Lin & Taotao Qian
Scientific Reports volume 9, Article number: 13106 (2019)
11 September 2019

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49678-w

Layzej said...

Ok, but is there drama? Just curious why this would make a good documentary. "The Trick" has (Russian?) hackers, a partisan press willing to amplify nonsense, naughty scientists, death threats, etc.

David Appell said...

But El Nino destroys crops

pp said...

If El Nino and La Nina is actually triggered by tides then all of the GCM simulations will need to be reworked. And then if the events can be predicted it will aid farmers and ag markets in planning for the ensuing years investments (water, seed, etc). Lots of drama involved in changing a scientific paradigm and then anticipating how to benefit from it. Opinions may differ.

pp said...

If El Nino and La Nina is actually triggered by tides then all of the GCM simulations will need to be reworked. And then if the events can be predicted it will aid farmers and ag markets in planning for the ensuing years investments (water, seed, etc). Lots of drama involved in changing a scientific paradigm and then anticipating how to benefit from it. Opinions may differ.

Layzej said...

Is there an expectation that GCMs could predict an El Nino one or more years out if they included tides?

That would be good.

But to really sell this thing I think we need a government intent on burying the finding, a spy intent on liberating it - unless a ransom is paid, and a plot twist right at the end that you'll never see coming!

pp said...

The most recent GCMs have started to incorporate tidal factors as new forcing terms. Besides extended El Nino predictions, I think they also want to see the effect it has on the overturning circulation such as AMOC.