A mad, mad, mad "science-based" rebuttal by the NIPCC? Really?

Those deniers over at Anthony Watts blog WUWT are really funny sometimes.  Funny weird.  Today Anthony's put up an article (archived here) by Steve Goreham with the headline:

A Science-Based Rebuttal to Global Warming Alarmism

What a novelty for WUWT.  A science-based rebuttal to science.  Deniers won't know how to treat this.  I gather from the headline that they only know non-science-based "rebuttals".  Or nonsense rebuttals.  Maybe he wanted to distinguish it from the ad hominem "rebuttals" like Donna's.  As we'll see, the science of the science-based rebuttal is distinctly unscientific.

By the way, you may recall that Steve Goreham is the guy who wrote the "mad, mad, mad" book that was so bad the Heartland Institute couldn't give it away.

Steve Goreham writes: Earlier this summer, CCR-I was translated into Chinese and accepted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences as an alternative point-of-view on climate change.

Oh yes - I remember that.  Heartland Institute caused a minor diplomatic incident and China was not at all happy with them.  The Chinese Academy of Science does not "accept" of denial of global warming, writing in part:

The claim of the Heartland Institute about CAS’ endorsement of its report is completely false. To clarify the fact, we formally issue the following statements...

As for the "science-based" rebuttal, the headline is misleading.  If it's anything like the previous "science-based" rebuttal it's not a rebuttal at all.  The "NIPCC" mob won't bring themselves to deny the greenhouse effect although they do fudge and bluster about irrelevancies.  Here is what mad, mad, mad Steve Goreham wrote about it:

Among the key findings of CCR-II are:

1. Doubling of CO2 from its pre-industrial level would likely cause a warming of only about 1oC, hardly cause for alarm.

Fail One: The NIPCC scientists pulled a number out of thin (CO2-laden) air and said that climate sensitivity is only one degree Celsius.  Yet we are already up 0.8 degrees Celsius and CO2 has only increased by just over 40%.  So they fail on that score.  I'm not aware of any acceptable study that shows a number that low and AFAIK, none of the authors have published any papers on climate sensitivity so they aren't referring to science.

2. The global surface temperature increase since about 1860 corresponds to a recovery from the Little Ice Age, modulated by natural ocean and atmosphere cycles, without need for additional forcing by greenhouse gases.

Fail Two Plus: Point 2 contradicts Point 1.  They can't have it both ways.  This time they say CO2 isn't forcing climate.  But either CO2 will cause a rise in temperature or it won't.  I wonder if Goreham got the report wrong or if the authors disagree with each other.  Maybe they are just putting together a hodge podge to please all deniers.  To let them pick and choose.  I also wonder if their report specifies what caused the "recovery from the Little Ice Age".  Fairy dust or goblins? Whatever, it's not "scientific".

3. There is nothing unusual about either the magnitude or rate of the late 20th century warming, when compared with previous natural temperature variations.

Fail Three:  That's just wrong.  There is "something unusual" about the magnitude and the rate of late 20th Century warming.  The world has warmed faster than ever and we are on track to warm ten times faster than at any period in at least the past 65 million years.  I wonder what the contrarian "scientists" compare it to?  Whatever it is, that will have been unusual as well.  That's if they bother to support their claim.  They also fail on this score because point 3 also contradicts point 1.  Either extra greenhouse gases are causing warming or they aren't.  If they are then the warming is "unusual".

4. The global climate models projected an atmospheric warming of more than 0.3oC over the last 15 years, but instead, flat or cooling temperatures have occurred.

Fail Four: This time these so-called scientists can't make up their mind.  They can't decide if temperatures of the past fifteen years have been flat or whether the earth has cooled.  Come on chaps you claim to be scientists.  Can't you even tell flat from cooling?  Let's see shall we?

We'll start with surface temperature:

Data Source: NASA

Well it certainly hasn't cooled and it's clearly warmer now than it was fifteen years ago.  Another big fail on both counts. Unless they mean the earth system as a whole.  So lets look further into the oceans.  Here is a chart showing ocean heat content.  The red vertical line marks fifteen years ago:

Data Source: NODC/NOAA

Steve Goreham's mates fail again on both counts.  The world has heated up in the last fifteen years.  So much for their so-called "science-based rebuttal".

The really odd thing is that "mad, mad, mad" Steve Goreham says they use "peer-reviewed" literature to make the above claims.  Why then does it differ so much from real science, the science that is collated for the IPCC reports? If they've set up their own thousands of buoys in the oceans then they've kept it very secret from everyone.  If they've got a parallel system of weather stations they they have kept that a deep secret too.  You'd think they'd have been shouting it from the rooftops.  Therefore I don't believe they have.  I think Steve Goreham or his "scientists" are telling fibs.

We'll have to wait and see.

There is too much "stupid" in the WUWT comments for me to choose from.  If you are interested you can read them here without having to go to WUWT.  The deniers at WUWT have been fired up by one or two informed posters, and they don't like what they read.