William Connolley

Connolley holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a DPhil from St Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford for his work on numerical analysis.{{Cite thesis |first=W. M. |last=Connolley |title=Preconditioning of iterative methods for linearized or linear systems | degree= D. Phil. |publisher=Oxford University Numerical Analysis Group |location=Oxford |year=1989 |page=208 |oclc=49766487 }} He works as a software engineer for Cambridge Silicon Radio, designing embedded firmware.Connolley, William. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110303231926/http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/about.php About Page] Stoat Blog

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 (GCM). Connolley also worked on the validation of satellite data against more direct upward looking sonar observations in the Weddell Sea area.{{cite web |url=http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/biog.html |title=Dr William Connolley / Senior Scientific Officer / Climate Modeller / Physical Sciences Division |publisher=British Antarctic Survey |access-date=24 October 2010}}{{cite web |url=http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/papers/ULS-grl-2005.pdf |title=Sea ice concentrations in the Weddell Sea: A comparison of SSM/I, ULS, and GCM data |last=Connolley |first=W. M. |access-date=26 October 2010}} 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.[https://web.archive.org/web/20070829055218/http://www.cotonpc.org.uk/ Internet Archive copy of Coton Parish Website] He was also a Green Party candidate for South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council.[http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonqin/Cambsgreen/PEOPLE/People.htm The Green Party South Cambs] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001044946/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonqin/Cambsgreen/PEOPLE/People.htm |date=1 October 2007 }}

Connolley has authored and co-authored articles and literature reviews in the field of climatological research, with an emphasis on the climate of the Antarctic and the study of sea ice.See for example, {{cite journal |doi=10.1126/science.1065116 |title=CLIMATE CHANGE: Devil in the Detail |year=2001 |last1=Vaughan |first1=D. G. |journal=Science |volume=293 |issue=5536 |pages=1777–9 |pmid=11546858 |last2=Marshall |first2=G. J. |last3=Connolley |first3=W. M. |last4=King |first4=J. C. |last5=Mulvaney |first5=R.|s2cid=129175116 }} Connolley was a member of the RealClimate website until 2007,{{cite web |url=http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/william-m-connolley/ |title=William M. Connolley Filed under: * Contributor Bio's — william @ 6 December 2004 |last=Connolley |first=W. M. |publisher=RealClimate |date=6 December 2004 |access-date=9 February 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070816105435/http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/william-m-connolley/ |archive-date=16 August 2007}}Connolley, William (1 December 2007). [http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/goodbye-to-all-that/ "Goodbye to all that"] – announcement of departure from RealClimate. RealClimate. Retrieved 26 October 2010. and he operates a website and blog that discuss climate issues.[http://scienceblogs.com/stoat Stoat Taking science by the throat...] Connolley's personal blog{{cite web |url=http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/ |title=Connolley's webpage analysing papers relevant to a modern Ice Age |publisher=Wmconnolley.org.uk |access-date=22 July 2010}} His blogs and one of his papers conclude that a majority of scientific papers in the 1970s predicted warming, not global cooling.{{cite journal |title=The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus |journal=Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society |volume=89 |issue=9 |pages=1325–1337 |doi=10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 |year=2008 |bibcode=2008BAMS...89.1325P |last1=Peterson |first1=T.C. |last2=Connolley |first2=W. M. |last3=Fleck |first3=J.|s2cid=123635044 |url=http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11584/1/2008bams2370%252E1.pdf }}{{cite web |url=http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94 |title=The global cooling myth |publisher=RealClimate |date=24 January 2005 |access-date=30 December 2009 |author=William Connolley}}{{cite web |title=Was an imminent Ice Age predicted in the '70's? No |author=William M. Connolley |url=http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/ |access-date=16 December 2007 |year=2005}} 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."Azios, Tony. [http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1011/p13s03-sten.html "Global-warming skeptics: Is it only the news media who need to chill?"] The Christian Science Monitor, 11 October 2007, accessed 24 May 2011

Connolley began editing Wikipedia in 2003{{cite web |url=http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/12/i_am_all_powerful_part_2.php |title=I am all powerful (part 2) |publisher=Scienceblogs.com |date=19 December 2009 |access-date=22 July 2010 |archive-date=23 December 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091223090629/http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/12/i_am_all_powerful_part_2.php |url-status=dead }} and served as a Wikipedia administrator from 2006 until 2009.{{cite web |url=http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/01/a_childs_garden_of_wikipedia_p.php |title=A child's garden of wikipedia, part I |publisher=Scienceblogs.com |date=4 January 2010 |access-date=26 October 2010}} 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.{{cite journal |first=J. |last=Giles |journal=Nature |title=Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head to Head |date=15 December 2005 |volume=438 |pages=900–01 |doi=10.1038/438900a |pmid=16355180 |issue=7070 |bibcode=2005Natur.438..900G|doi-access=free }} Nature quoted Connolley, in 2006, as saying that "some scientists have become frustrated with Wikipedia" but that "conflict can sometimes result in better articles".{{cite journal |title=Wikipedia Rival Calls in the Experts |first=J. |last=Giles |date=5 October 2006 |journal=Nature |volume=443 |page=493 |issue=7111 |doi=10.1038/443493a |pmid=17024058 |bibcode=2006Natur.443..493G |doi-access=free }}

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.{{cite magazine |first=S. |last=Schiff |title=Know It All: Can Wikipedia Conquer Expertise? |url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact |magazine=The New Yorker |date=31 July 2006 |access-date=26 October 2010}} 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.Rosen, Larry D., Mark Carrier and Nancy A. Cheever. [https://books.google.com/books?id=jKZgKEuP0u8C&pg=PT120 Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn], p. 120, Macmillan (2010) {{ISBN|0-230-61478-7}}Tammet, Daniel. [https://books.google.com/books?id=70jJ2bS169IC&pg=PA206 Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind], p. 206, Simon and Schuster (2009) {{ISBN|1-4165-7618-5}}Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture, p. 43, New York: Doubleday (2007) {{ISBN|0-385-52080-8}} 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."Flintoff, John-Paul. "According to Wikipedia I'm the Mona Lisa", The Sunday Times, 3 June 2007, News Review p. 3{{Cite news|last=Flintoff|first=John-Paul|title=Thinking is so over|newspaper=The Times|language=en|url=https://www.thetimes.com/sunday-times-100-tech/hardware-profile/article/thinking-is-so-over-5wv3fb333mx|access-date=2021-04-07|issn=0140-0460}}{{Cite web|title=End of expertise|url=https://www.flintoff.org/end-of-expertise|access-date=2021-04-07|website=John-Paul Flintoff|date=3 June 2007|language=en}}

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".Mathieu O'Neil: "[http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29C01/Jcom0901%282010%29C04/Jcom0901%282010%29C04.pdf Shirky and Sanger, or the costs of crowdsourcing]". Journal of Science Communication, Vol. 9, Issue 1, March 2010, International School for Advanced Studies

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,{{cite web |title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cold fusion 2 |date=13 September 2009 |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cold_fusion_2 |accessdate=January 7, 2023}}{{Circular reference|date=April 2023}} 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.See, e.g., {{cite book |first1=A. |last1=Forte |first2=A. |last2=Bruckman |title=Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2008) |chapter=Scaling Consensus: Increasing Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance |year=2008 |pages=157 |citeseerx = 10.1.1.84.8022 |doi=10.1109/HICSS.2008.383 |isbn=978-0-7695-3075-8 |s2cid=7961848 }} and the papers cited therein

Connolley has two children.[http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk "William Michael Connolley" website]. wmconnolley.org, accessed 14 May 2011

{{refbegin |2}}

• {{cite journal |last1=Connolley |first1=W. M. |last2=Harangozo |first2=S. A. |year=2001 |title=A comparison of five numerical weather prediction analysis climatologies in southern high latitudes |url=http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/EOF_Paper/ECMWF/Connolley-Harangozo-2001.pdf |journal=Journal of Climate |volume=14 |issue=1|pages=30–44 |doi=10.1175/1520-0442(2001)014<0030:ACOFNW>2.0.CO;2 |bibcode=2001JCli...14...30C |citeseerx=10.1.1.544.5074 |s2cid=129714448 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Turner |first1=J. |last2=Connolley |first2=W. M. |last3=Cresswell |first3=D. |last4=Harangozo |first4=S. A. |year=2001 |title=The simulation of Antarctic sea ice in the Hadley Centre climate model (HadCM3) |journal=Annals of Glaciology |volume=33 |pages=585–591 |doi=10.3189/172756401781818095 |bibcode=2001AnGla..33..585T |doi-access=free }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Vaughan |first1=D. G. |last2=Marshall |first2=G. J. |last3=Connolley |first3=W. M. |last4=King |first4=J. C. |last5=Mulvaney |first5=R. |year=2001 |title=Climate Change – Devil in the Detail |journal=Science |volume=293 |issue=5536 |pages=1777–1779 |doi=10.1126/science.1065116 |pmid=11546858 |s2cid=129175116 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Lachlan-Cope |first1=T. A. |last2=Connolley |first2=W. M. |last3=Turner |first3=J. |year=2001 |title=The Role of the Non-Axisymmetric Antarctic Orography in Forcing the Observed Pattern of Variability of the Antarctic Climate |journal=Geophysical Research Letters |volume=28 |issue=21 |pages=4111–4114 |doi=10.1029/2001GL013465 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2001GeoRL..28.4111L }}
• {{cite journal |doi=10.1029/2000JC000380 |bibcode=2002JGRC..107.8076C |title=Long-term variation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave |year=2002 |last1=Connolley |first1=W. M. |journal=Journal of Geophysical Research |volume=108 |issue=C4 |pages=8076 |citeseerx=10.1.1.693.4116 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Turner |first1=J. |last2=Harangozo |first2=S. A. |last3=King |first3=J. C. |last4=Connolley |first4=W. |last5=Lachlan‐Cope |first5=T. |last6=Marshall |first6=G. J. |year=2003 |title=An exceptional winter sea ice retreat/advance in the Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctica |journal=Atmosphere-Ocean |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=171–185 |doi=10.3137/ao.410205 |bibcode=2003AtO....41..171T |doi-access=free }}
• {{cite journal |doi=10.1023/A:1026021217991 |year=2003 |last1=Vaughan |first1=D. G. |last2=Marshall |first2=G. J. |last3=Connolley |first3=W. M. |last4=Parkinson |first4=C. |last5=Mulvaney |first5=R. |last6=Hodgson |first6=D. A. |last7=King |first7=J. C. |last8=Pudsey |first8=C. J. |last9=Turner |first9=J. |title=Recent Rapid Regional Climate Warming on the Antarctic Peninsula |journal=Climatic Change |volume=60 |issue=3 |pages=243–274 |s2cid=154732764 }}
• Translation of Fourier 1827: Mémoire sur les temperatures du globe terrestre et des espaces planetaires{{cite web |url=http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/fourier_1827/ |title=William M. Connolley's page about Fourier 1827: MEMOIRE sur les temperatures du globe terrestre et des espaces planetaires |website=wmconnolley.org.uk |publisher=William M. Connolley |access-date=22 July 2010}}
• {{cite journal |doi=10.1175/1520-0485(2004)034<1776:OTCSOT>2.0.CO;2 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2004JPO....34.1776C |year=2004 |volume=34 |pages=1776–1780 |title=On the Consistent Scaling of Terms in the Sea-Ice Dynamics Equation |last1=Connolley |first1=W. M. |last2=Gregory |first2=J. M. |last3=Hunke |first3=E. |last4=McLaren |first4=A. J. |journal=Journal of Physical Oceanography |issue=7 }}
• {{cite journal |doi=10.1029/2004GL019952 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2004GeoRL..3114205M |title=Causes of exceptional atmospheric circulation changes in the Southern Hemisphere |year=2004 |last1=Marshall |first1=G. J. |last2=Stott |first2=P. A. |last3=Turner |first3=J. |last4=Connolley |first4=W. M. |last5=King |first5=J. C. |last6=Lachlan-Cope |first6=T. A. |journal=Geophysical Research Letters |volume=31 |issue=14 |page=L14205 }}
• {{cite book |doi=10.1029/AR079p0017 |chapter=Antarctic Peninsula climate variability and its causes as revealed by analysis of instrumental records |title=Antarctic Peninsula Climate Variability: Historical and Paleoenvironmental Perspectives |series=Antarctic Research Series |editor-last=Domack |editor-first=E.|editor-link=Eugene Domack |year=2003 |last1=King |first1=J. C. |last2=Turner |first2=J. |last3=Marshall |first3=G. J. |last4=Connolley |first4=W. M. |last5=Lachlan-Cope |first5=T. A. |isbn=978-0-87590-973-8 |volume=79 |pages=17–29 }}
• {{cite journal |doi=10.1029/2004GL021898 |doi-access=free |url=http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/papers/ULS-grl-2005.pdf |bibcode=2005GeoRL..32.7501C |title=Sea ice concentrations in the Weddell Sea: A comparison of SSM/I, ULS, and GCM data |year=2005 |last1=Connolley |first1=W. M. |journal=Geophysical Research Letters |volume=32 |issue=7 |page=L07501 }}
• See also [http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/05/sea-ice-what-i-do-in-my-spare-time.html Sea ice: What I do in my spare time] for a popular exposition.
• {{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=T. C. |last2=Connolley |first2=W. M. |last3=Fleck |first3=J. |year=2008 |title=The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus |journal=Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society |volume=89 |issue=9 |pages=1325–1337 |doi=10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 |bibcode=2008BAMS...89.1325P |s2cid=123635044 |url=http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11584/1/2008bams2370%252E1.pdf }}

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• {{Wikipedia person user link|William M. Connolley|William Connolley}}

• {{cite web |url= http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/ |title= William Connolley

|publisher= British Antarctic Survey }}

• {{cite web |url= http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/ |title= William Connolley |work= Stoat |date= 2006 |quote= through 2017 |publisher= Science Blogs }}
• {{cite web |url= http://mustelid.blogspot.com/ |title= William Connolley |work= Stoat |date= 2004 |publisher= Blog Spot }}

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