Wondering Willis Eschenbach's Thunderstorm at WUWT

After a dull patch, Anthony Watts decided to liven up his blog by handing it over to Wondering Willis Eschenbach to say a few words to another WUWT regular, Roy Spencer - who maintains the UAH record of satellite data (of atmospheric temperature).

I'll just pick up on a couple of things in this "Willis blows his top" episode and post links to archived versions for their entertainment value.  You could say that Willis is acting out his Thunderstorm hypothesis.  No sign yet that his heat is dissipating or his governor is kicking in :)

Roy Spencer wrote an article in response to Willis Eschenbach's wonderings on clouds (archived here and here and here), which Willis thought he made up all by himself with data that scientists collected but never used (so Willis seems to think).  Roy says in part (see full archived version here - updated here):

The reason I am picking on Willis a little bit here is that his posts sometimes lead to comments like this:

“Geez – if I was one of the hoard of IPCC enthusiastic fools, this would be downright embarrassing. I sure wouldn’t want my mom to know I was so ineffective that some guy named Willis sits in his den and does more and better work than my entire IPCC crowd of hundreds of scientists, economists, psychologists, train engineers, tree surgeons, etc does in 4-5 years.”

C’mon, folks! Do you really think that of the billions of dollars spent on designing, launching, and keeping these satellite instruments going, that no one thought to analyze the data? Really? That’s why hundreds of scientists and engineers collaborated on such projects in the first place!
Just because you can’t find some technical issue described in blogs doesn’t mean it hasn’t been addressed. It’s in the scientific literature, and in workshop reports, conference proceedings, etc.

Willis doesn't like it and replies, apparently in all seriousness (see full archived version here):

Dr. Roy, the citizen climate scientists are the ones who have made the overwhelming majority of the gains in the struggle against rampant climate alarmism. It is people like Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts and Donna LaFramboise and myself and Joanne Nova and Warwick Hughes and the late John Daly, citizen climate scientists all, who did the work that your fellow mainstream climate scientists either neglected or refused to do. You should be showering us with thanks for doing the work your peers didn’t get done, not speciously claiming that we are likeable idiots like Homer Simpson.

Seriously?  Does Willis seriously think that climate scientists all around the world stop what they are doing to read pearls of wisdom dripping from denier blogs?  How many climate scientists have ever heard of anyone in Willis' list of science deniers?  Maybe a dozen?  Two dozen?  Maybe as many as fifty.  The scientists who blog and tweet may have come across some of the names in passing.  Apart from the handful of prominent scientists who've been attacked by these deniers (and maybe not all of them, at that), I'd guess that the vast majority of scientists who study any part of the earth system have never heard of this lot.  They are too busy doing scientific research. They'd know there are people who are 'deniers' who write letters to the paper but most scientists wouldn't bother with the active science-denying sub-culture on blogs.

Where's the spoon?

Willis goes further and doesn't just want the scientists to give him their data to play with (which they do freely), he wants them to give him a list of scientific papers.  Hasn't he heard of Google Scholar (the layperson's Web of Science)?  Willis writes at WUWT:

So, Roy’s claim seems to be that my work couldn’t possibly be original, because all conceivable analyses of the data have already been done. Now that’s a curious claim in any case … but in this case, somehow, he seems to have omitted the links to the work he says antedates mine.

When someone starts making unreferenced, uncited, unsupported accusations about me like that, there’s only one thing to say … Where’s the beef? Where’s the study? Where’s the data?
In fact, I know of no one who has done a number of the things that I’ve done with the CERES data. If Dr. Roy thinks so, then he needs to provide evidence of that. He needs to show, for example, that someone has analyzed the data in this fashion:

Willis isn't just upset that he's been challenged to do what any student would do first, let alone any scientist - a review of the literature, a check to see what's been done already - before trying to reinvent the wheel.  He demands that someone else spoonfeed him the literature as well.



Willis' dummy spit has provided entertainment to "warmists" and fake sceptics alike. In case there is anyone who wants to wade through it all but doesn't want to have to go to WUWT or Roy Spencers' blogs, here are the archived threads.

• Roy Spencer's original article chiding Willis Eschenbach and making suggestions
• Willis Eschenbach's response rant at WUWT - updated archive here, still later update here
• Roy Spencer's reply to Willis' rant Willisgate: Take 2

From the WUWT comments

Some people are using Roy's post as an opportunity to let off steam about Willis' generally bad behaviour.  Others have dreamt up reasons they think will explain Roy's original article.  How to explain the inexplicable - two sceptics having a disagreement!  Lots are sticking up for Willis against the big bad scientist.  Others are acting as peacemakers. I've just picked out a few - not a representative sample.

M Courtney (and Joe Crawford) think that Roy Spencer is feeling threatened by the brilliance of citizen scientist Wondering Willis Eschenbach and says:

October 9, 2013 at 1:38 pm
Joe Crawford says at October 9, 2013 at 1:30 pm 

Don’t quite know how, Willis, but it sure looks like you unintentionally stepped on someone’s toes. “Maybe you’re getting too close to an area Dr. Roy or one of his grads is researching.”

That has the ring of truth. There are commitments made in academia that cannot be ignored, rightly.

Ronald "OMG it's insects" Voisin says:

October 9, 2013 at 1:21 pm
Willis, you’re way overreacting.

thisisnotgoodtogo only gets a mention because I'm mentioned in the same breath as realclimate.org (Flattery will get you everywhere - haha. The other day in his Hot Sheet Anthony raised me to the status of Michael Mann. Just goes to show how little fake sceptics know!):

October 9, 2013 at 1:42 pm
““Career scientists like myself have not done enough public outreach to describe what they have done. And when we do such outreach, it is usually too technical to understand. We are too busy publishing-or-perishing.”

This sounds plagiarized. From RealClimate. Or Mrs Hot Whopper?

Fieldos says what probably quite a few are thinking:

October 9, 2013 at 1:58 pm
I used to enjoy Willis’ posts, but it’s getting too much. This blog is getting to be less of Watts Up With That? and too much of What’s up with Willis !…

Jeremy gives Willis a backhanded compliment and doesn't understand what Roy Spencer wrote when he says:

October 9, 2013 at 2:27 pm
Roy is wrong to slander anyone not doing “novel” work. There’s plenty of scientists who never do an original piece of work in their lives, their work and expertise have great value.

Dave says:

October 9, 2013 at 1:59 pm
What you talking about Willis -
Dr. Roy’s article is not a hatchet job, it is a cautionary tale and a reminder to cite precedent. All he is doing is advocating good science. Don’t be so thin skinned.

pokerguy says:

October 9, 2013 at 2:05 pm
“Willis, you’re way overreacting.”

He always does. PLus, I don’t think this is the place. Willis, you’re just not as important as you obviously think you are.

So tiresome.

Bruce says:

October 9, 2013 at 9:21 pm
Stop bleating, Roy is right and Watts is is more than indulgent.

Mark Bofill says:

October 10, 2013 at 12:36 pm
Chad,

The most regrettable thing about this whole affair is the publicizing of fights among skeptics. While everyone may have different views about exactly how much or how little man’s activities or CO2 affect climate, I think there is general agreement that the effect is nugatory, and it does not serve our “cause” (to borrow the alarmists’ term) to disagree in this manner.

Yeah, in one sense. In another it’s reassuring. I don’t want skeptics to start worrying about the “cause”; look what it did to the Team. So long as we squabble publicly, it’s easier to believe that when we don’t squabble it’s not a show for company.

Update: And with a hat tip to William Connolley, this one's priceless - from Wondering Willis "I'm Wonderful" Eschenbach, who says he almost single-handedly revealed - ummm, I'd disagree with Willis.  They revealed nothing but what one would expect.  What the emails showed was that scientists do good science, and just like the rest of the normal population, scientists get mighty sick and tired of the tiny percentage of the population who are the illiterati that refuse to accept reality  (extract - from updated archive here).

Willis Eschenbach says:

October 10, 2013 at 9:26 am

Steve Garcia says: October 10, 2013 at 12:31 am

… Nope. The ONLY person who really made a difference was Mr Climategate himself. And we don’t know if he (she?) was a climatologist or a citizen climatologist. It seems virtually certain to ME that he/she could not have had access without being an inside climate person.

...Well, I’m the guy who filed the very first FOIA request to the UEA folks, an act that was the unwitting genesis of the actions described in the Climategate emails.

So while you are right that Mr. Climategate did a great thing by revealing how the UEA folks and the rest lied, cheated and broke the law in response to my FOIA request and others as well … you’re misunderstanding the causality here. Without Warwick Hughes and me and Steve McIntyre and all the others putting the pressure on Phil Jones and the rest of the un-indicted co-conspirators, there would have been nothing for Mr. Climategate to reveal.

Mr. Climategate was just the reporter, Steve. All he did was let people know how the UEA folks were responding to our FOIA requests, with lies and trickery.

You’re mistaking the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself. The reporter that broke the story is important, sure … but the participants in the story, the actual actors, are the reason that the story exists to be revealed.
w.

From the Roy Spencer comments

Don Monfort says (excerpt - click here for the archived copy):

October 10, 2013 at 1:19 PM
Anybody remember the stoopid, vicious and personal attack from Willis against Judith Curry on her blog:

Stephen Wilde says:

October 10, 2013 at 1:38 PM
I’ve personally endured offensive diatribes from Willis far worse than Roy’s measured comments.

I'm guessing Don Monfort and Willis don't see eye to eye, he's back again and this time paints a picture that I figure more than one person will think is on the money:

October 10, 2013 at 9:36 AM
Oh, a lot of the legendary DIY climate science blogger’s sycophants have shown up to defend their hero. You should have known better, Dr. Roy. That Homer Simpson thing really got under Willis’s thin translucent skin. His image of himself is the dude in the Dos Equis ‘most interesting man in the world’ commercial.

I had no idea who Dos Equis "most interesting man in the world" is and maybe you don't either.  It's an advertising gimmick.  Here's an image I found on this site:

Source: EatMeDaily.com

Here's Willis, he even got a mention on DeSmog Blog, so I guess he's been noticed somewhere outside of his wonderings at WUWT.

Source: DeSmogBlog

There are hundreds more comments if you have the stamina and interest.  It gets boring very quickly.