William Connolley
Encyclopedia
William Michael Connolley (born 12 April 1964) is a British software engineer, writer, and blogger on climatology
. Until December 2007 he was Senior Scientific Officer in the Physical Sciences Division in the Antarctic Climate and the Earth System
project at the British Antarctic Survey
, where he worked as a climate modeller. After this he became a software engineer for Cambridge Silicon Radio.
Connolley received national press attention over several years for his involvement in editing Wikipedia
articles relating to climate change
. Connolley was a member of the RealClimate
website until 2007 and now operates a website and blog that discuss climate issues. He has also been active in local politics as a member of the Green Party.
at the University of Oxford
for his work on numerical analysis
. He works as a software engineer for Cambridge Silicon Radio, designing embedded firmware. Connolley has two children.
Until December 2007, Connolley was Senior Scientific Officer in the Physical Sciences Division in the Antarctic Climate and the Earth System
project at the British Antarctic Survey
. His research focused on sea ice
measurement and modelling, including the HadCM3
global climate model
. Connolley also worked on the validation of satellite data against more direct upward looking sonar
observations in the Weddell Sea
area. He concluded that Bootstrap data produced a better fit than data produced by NASA
and that GCM predictions are more realistic than previously thought.
Connolley served as a parish
councillor in the village of Coton
(near Cambridge, England) until May 2007. He was also a Green Party
candidate for South Cambridgeshire
District Council and Cambridgeshire
County Council.
, with an emphasis on the climate of the Antarctic
and the study of sea ice
. Connolley was a member of the RealClimate
website until 2007, and he operates a website and blog that discuss climate issues. His blogs and one of his papers conclude that a majority of scientific papers in the 1970s predicted warming, not global cooling
. The Christian Science Monitor
noted in 2007 that on Connolley's "personal website, and as a contributor to RealClimate.org (a website written and edited by working climate scientists), he's authored a number of articles that try to clarify the place of global cooling in the history of science" and commented, "Connolley and Schneider
say that if the public had looked directly at the peer-reviewed scientific papers, and not at the popular media coverage, they would not have found any basis for a global-cooling scare."
Connolley began editing Wikipedia
in 2003 and served as a Wikipedia administrator from 2006 until 2009. He has been cited and quoted in the media regarding these activities, especially with respect to his editing in the area of climate change. He was cited by Nature
magazine, in their December 2005 review of the reliability of Wikipedia
, as an example of an expert who edits Wikipedia. Nature quoted Connolley, in 2006, as saying that "some scientists have become frustrated with Wikipedia" but that "conflict can sometimes result in better articles". In July 2006, a New Yorker
article described him as briefly becoming "a victim of an edit war over the entry on global warming", in which a sceptic repeatedly "watered down" the article's explanation of the greenhouse effect
. Connolley told the magazine that Wikipedia "gives no privilege to those who know what they’re talking about". Various books have cited Connolley as an example of how expert editors on Wikipedia are given "no more credence" than anonymous editors of the site. In 2007, The Sunday Times
of London ran an interview of author Andrew Keen
that discussed Connolley and his Wikipedia editing. It identified Connolley as "an expert on global warming", stating: "After trying to correct inaccuracies Connolley was accused of trying to remove 'any point of view which does not match his own'. Eventually he was limited to making just one edit a day." The article stated that Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee "gave no weight to [Connolley's] expertise, and treated him with the same credibility as his anonymous opponent."
Two internal disputes at Wikipedia in which Connolley was involved received additional attention. A 2005 Wikipedia climate change dispute involving breaches of etiquette
, rather than content bias, was cited by a paper in the Journal of Science Communication as an example that "resonated deeply as it highlighted what can befall respected experts who wade into controversial wiki-waters". The paper stated that Connolley did "not suffer...fools gladly". The same paper noted a 2009 Wikipedia arbitration in which it was concluded that Connolley had used administrator privileges to his own advantage in content disputes, and these privileges were removed. Other academic papers have discussed Connolley's editing activities on Wikipedia and the dispute resolution process as it has been applied to him.
Climatology
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
. Until December 2007 he was Senior Scientific Officer in the Physical Sciences Division in the Antarctic Climate and the Earth System
Antarctic Climate and the Earth System
Antarctic Climate and the Earth System is a science programme of the British Antarctic Survey being undertaken over the period 2005-2010...
project at the British Antarctic Survey
British Antarctic Survey
The British Antarctic Survey is the United Kingdom's national Antarctic operation and has an active role in Antarctic affairs. BAS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council and has over 400 staff. It operates five research stations, two ships and five aircraft in and around Antarctica....
, where he worked as a climate modeller. After this he became a software engineer for Cambridge Silicon Radio.
Connolley received national press attention over several years for his involvement in editing Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
articles relating to climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
. Connolley was a member of the RealClimate
RealClimate
RealClimate is a commentary site on climatology. The site's contributors are a group of climate scientists whose goal is to provide a quick response to developing stories and providing the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion is intended to be restricted to scientific...
website until 2007 and now operates a website and blog that discuss climate issues. He has also been active in local politics as a member of the Green Party.
Background
Connolley holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a DPhil from St Edmund HallSt Edmund Hall, Oxford
St Edmund Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Better known within the University by its nickname, "Teddy Hall", the college has a claim to being "the oldest academical society for the education of undergraduates in any university"...
at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
for his work on numerical analysis
Numerical analysis
Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation for the problems of mathematical analysis ....
. He works as a software engineer for Cambridge Silicon Radio, designing embedded firmware. Connolley has two children.
Until December 2007, Connolley was Senior Scientific Officer in the Physical Sciences Division in the Antarctic Climate and the Earth System
Antarctic Climate and the Earth System
Antarctic Climate and the Earth System is a science programme of the British Antarctic Survey being undertaken over the period 2005-2010...
project at the British Antarctic Survey
British Antarctic Survey
The British Antarctic Survey is the United Kingdom's national Antarctic operation and has an active role in Antarctic affairs. BAS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council and has over 400 staff. It operates five research stations, two ships and five aircraft in and around Antarctica....
. His research focused on sea ice
Sea ice
Sea ice is largely formed from seawater that freezes. Because the oceans consist of saltwater, this occurs below the freezing point of pure water, at about -1.8 °C ....
measurement and modelling, including the HadCM3
HadCM3
HadCM3 is a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model developed at the Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom...
global climate model
Global climate model
A General Circulation Model is a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean and based on the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamic terms for various energy sources . These equations are the basis for complex computer programs commonly...
. Connolley also worked on the validation of satellite data against more direct upward looking sonar
Upward looking sonar
An upward looking sonar is a sonar device pointed upwards looking towards the surface of the sea. It is used for similar purposes as downward looking sonar, but has some unique applications such as measuring sea ice depth and concentration or measuring air entrainment from bubble plumes during...
observations in the Weddell Sea
Weddell Sea
The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is...
area. He concluded that Bootstrap data produced a better fit than data produced by NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
and that GCM predictions are more realistic than previously thought.
Connolley served as a parish
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
councillor in the village of Coton
Coton, Cambridgeshire
Coton is a small village and civil parish about two miles west of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, England and about the same distance east of the Prime Meridian. It belongs to the administrative district of South Cambridgeshire. The parish covers an area of 392 hectares...
(near Cambridge, England) until May 2007. He was also a Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
candidate for South Cambridgeshire
South Cambridgeshire
South Cambridgeshire is a mostly rural local government district of Cambridgeshire, England. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Chesterton Rural District and South Cambridgeshire Rural District. It surrounds the city of Cambridge, which is administered separately from the district by...
District Council and Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
County Council.
Writing and editing
Connolley has authored and co-authored articles and literature reviews in the field of climatological researchClimatology
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
, with an emphasis on the climate of the Antarctic
Antarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
and the study of sea ice
Sea ice
Sea ice is largely formed from seawater that freezes. Because the oceans consist of saltwater, this occurs below the freezing point of pure water, at about -1.8 °C ....
. Connolley was a member of the RealClimate
RealClimate
RealClimate is a commentary site on climatology. The site's contributors are a group of climate scientists whose goal is to provide a quick response to developing stories and providing the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion is intended to be restricted to scientific...
website until 2007, and he operates a website and blog that discuss climate issues. His blogs and one of his papers conclude that a majority of scientific papers in the 1970s predicted warming, not global cooling
Global cooling
Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation...
. The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
noted in 2007 that on Connolley's "personal website, and as a contributor to RealClimate.org (a website written and edited by working climate scientists), he's authored a number of articles that try to clarify the place of global cooling in the history of science" and commented, "Connolley and Schneider
Stephen Schneider
Stephen Henry Schneider was Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University, a Co-Director at the Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment...
say that if the public had looked directly at the peer-reviewed scientific papers, and not at the popular media coverage, they would not have found any basis for a global-cooling scare."
Connolley began editing Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
in 2003 and served as a Wikipedia administrator from 2006 until 2009. He has been cited and quoted in the media regarding these activities, especially with respect to his editing in the area of climate change. He was cited by Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
magazine, in their December 2005 review of the reliability of Wikipedia
Reliability of Wikipedia
The reliability of Wikipedia , compared to other encyclopedias and more specialized sources, is assessed in many ways, including statistically, through comparative review, analysis of the historical patterns, and strengths and weaknesses inherent in the editing process unique to Wikipedia.Several...
, as an example of an expert who edits Wikipedia. Nature quoted Connolley, in 2006, as saying that "some scientists have become frustrated with Wikipedia" but that "conflict can sometimes result in better articles". In July 2006, a New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
article described him as briefly becoming "a victim of an edit war over the entry on global warming", in which a sceptic repeatedly "watered down" the article's explanation of the greenhouse effect
Greenhouse effect
The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere...
. Connolley told the magazine that Wikipedia "gives no privilege to those who know what they’re talking about". Various books have cited Connolley as an example of how expert editors on Wikipedia are given "no more credence" than anonymous editors of the site. In 2007, The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
of London ran an interview of author Andrew Keen
Andrew Keen
Andrew Keen is a British-American entrepreneur and author. He is particularly known for his view that the current Internet culture and the Web 2.0 trend may be debasing culture, an opinion he shares with Jaron Lanier and Nicholas G. Carr among others...
that discussed Connolley and his Wikipedia editing. It identified Connolley as "an expert on global warming", stating: "After trying to correct inaccuracies Connolley was accused of trying to remove 'any point of view which does not match his own'. Eventually he was limited to making just one edit a day." The article stated that Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee "gave no weight to [Connolley's] expertise, and treated him with the same credibility as his anonymous opponent."
Two internal disputes at Wikipedia in which Connolley was involved received additional attention. A 2005 Wikipedia climate change dispute involving breaches of etiquette
Etiquette
Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...
, rather than content bias, was cited by a paper in the Journal of Science Communication as an example that "resonated deeply as it highlighted what can befall respected experts who wade into controversial wiki-waters". The paper stated that Connolley did "not suffer...fools gladly". The same paper noted a 2009 Wikipedia arbitration in which it was concluded that Connolley had used administrator privileges to his own advantage in content disputes, and these privileges were removed. Other academic papers have discussed Connolley's editing activities on Wikipedia and the dispute resolution process as it has been applied to him.
Selected publications
- Connolley, W. M. (2002) Long-term variation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave. J. Geophys. Res., 107 (8076).
- D. G. Vaughan, G. J. Marshall, W. M. Connolley, C. L. Parkinson, R. Mulvaney, D. A. Hodgson, J. C. King, C. J. Pudsey, and J. Turner. Recent rapid regional climate warming on the Antarctic Peninsula. Climatic Change, 60 (3): 243–274 October 2003
- Translation of Fourier 1827: Mémoire sur les temperatures du globe terrestre et des espaces planetaires
- Connolley, W. M., J. M. Gregory, E. Hunke and A. J. Mclaren (2004), On The Consistent Scaling Of Terms In The Sea — Ice Dynamics Equation, J . Phys . Oceangr. 34 (7): 1776–1780 July 2004
- Marshall, G. J., P. A. Stott, J. Turner, W. M. Connolley, J. C. King and T. A. Lachlancope (2004), Causes Of Exceptional Atmospheric Circulation Changes In The Southern Hemisphere, Geophys. Res. Lett. 31(14): Art . No. L14205 30 July 2004
- J. C. King, J. Turner, G. J. Marshall, W. M. Connolley, and T. A. Lachlan-Cope. Antarctic Peninsula climate variability and its causes as revealed by instrumental records. Antarctic Research Series v79, pp17–30.
- Connolley, W. M. Sea ice concentrations in the Weddell Sea: A comparison of SSM/I, ULS, and GCM data. GRL 32 (7): art. no. L07501 2 April 2005; see also Sea ice: What I do in my spare time for a popular exposition