By Paul Homewood
There’s big money in air turbulence!
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL103814
Professor Paul Williams, who has written several studies claiming that air turbulence is getting worse because of climate change, was rather put out when his work was exposed as shoddy, junk science by Paul Burgess on GB News the other week.
Burgess simply presented the actual data from the FAA, which quite clearly showed there had been no increase in flight turbulence incidents since 1989, despite what Williams’ computer models said. According to Williams, GB News should not have even invited Burgess on the show, and certainly not given viewers the actual facts. He even labelled the latter as far-right and a supporter of the BNP!
Some might say he complaineth too much!
It turns out though that there is an awful lot of grant money hanging on Williams’ theories and models, for both himself and Reading University!
Between 2009 and 2014, Reading University received £466,448 in grant funding from the Royal Society:
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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9713-9820
https://app.dimensions.ai/details/grant/grant.4457791
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2014 to 2017 brought another £273K, also specifically for turbulence research:
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https://app.dimensions.ai/details/grant/grant.4457632
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And currently there’s an even bigger pot of cash from the NERC, to be shared around Williams, his cronies and Universities:
.
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https://app.dimensions.ai/details/grant/grant.9972312
These research grants are hugely important to universities and staff.
I wonder whether the grants would have dried up if Williams’ studies showed turbulence was not getting worse after all?