Monday, September 29, 2014

Stars, the universe, significance and perspective


Every now and then I muse about philosophical notions and ponder our significance, and insignificance, in the context of the universe. (I'm old enough to still feel a little ripple of shock every time I remember that Earth's population has trebled in my lifetime.)

Bert from Eltham posted a link to one of his images, which got me thinking again. This is a small version of his photograph of the Small Magellanic Cloud. Click here to see Bert's full-sized photograph (9MB).
Credit: Bert from Eltham
Thanks, Bert, for helping me keep things in perspective as I muddle through life on this tiny rock called Spaceship Earth.

In a similar vein, late last year I was inspired by the Carl Sagan lecture from AGU13, which I managed to locate on YouTube. Among other things, David Grinspoon described four kinds of planetary change. Particularly compelling were his categories 3 and 4, inadvertent change and intentional change.

If you watch it, I suggest the YouTube website version (it's a bit bigger), or better still in full screen mode, by clicking in the bottom right hand corner. You'll need to set aside about an hour to see it all, or 50 minutes if you skip the questions at the end.



.
I'll finish with the quote David Grinspoon provided towards the end of his lecture.
We hold the future still timidly, but perceive it for the first time, as a function of our own action. Having seen it, are we to turn away from something that offends the very nature of our earliest desires, or is the recognition of our new powers sufficient to change those desires into the service of the future which they will have to bring about?
J.D. Bernal, The World, the Flesh & the Devil;: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul (1929)

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Some sciency questions, plus a note on etiquette


Update 2: see below for Anthony's excuses.

Update: see below for Anthony Watts' "report" of Professor Mann's Bristol lecture.


Some sciency questions


I added a note about the new stadium wave paper at the end of my last article. I do have some question for readers. On page two of the paper (subs req'd), when talking about their pattern searching, the authors write:
Following Tsonis et al. [2007], Wyatt et al. [2012] considered a network of climate indices associated, geographically and dynamically, with different climatic subsystems, and used an objective filtering method to isolate secular multidecadal variability within this network during the 20th century. On top of a uniform linear trend, they identified an oscillatory-looking wiggle with a common multidecadal time scale, but with different phases across the different indices of the climate network, thus manifesting a signal that propagates in the space of climate indices. The authors termed this propagating signal the “stadium wave,” reflecting a speculation that it dynamically originates in the North Atlantic and spreads over the remainder of the Northern Hemisphere via a hypothesized sequence of delayed dynamical feedbacks. However, search for the stadium wave in a suite of simulations by multiple global climate models only returned stationary, in-phase signals [Wyatt and Peters, 2012], in sharp contrast with the observational analysis of Wyatt et al. [2012].
There were a few questions that popped into my mind when I read that. Perhaps a reader can help out and explain the scientific jargon:
  • What is a network of climate indices?  
  • What is the difference between an objective filtering method and a non-objective filtering method?
  • What does an oscillatory-looking wiggle look like?
  • What does a non-oscillatory-looking wiggle look like?
  • What makes an oscillatory-looking wiggle distinguishable from an oscillatory-looking waddle?
  • How much space is required for climate indices?
  • How do you tell the difference between a dynamic origination and a non-dynamic origination?
  • What is the difference between a dynamical feedback and a regular feedback?

Thanks in advance, all you science aficionados.


A note on etiquette


On a separate topic, I notice that Anthony Watts is feeling a bit put upon that people have noticed that he doesn't have what it takes when it comes to the crunch. (That's non-science jargon for, well, you can guess.)

Anthony, full of bravado and egged on by his adoring hangers-on, jumped on a plane paid for by those same adoring hangers-on, full of promise to put those supposed miscreant scientists on the spot and ask them some hard-hitting questions.

When Anthony arrived, he found himself confronted, in person, face to face, by the three people in the entire world who, out of all the scientists he rubbishes, he has probably spent more time viciously attacking and telling lies about than any others. (See here and here and here and particularly here for the background.)

Anthony went to water.

Cowed by the reality that there he was, in a university of all places, a place that doesn't just like knowledge it actually creates knowledge. The very antithesis of Anthony Watts' world. Not only that but he was in a foreign country, surrounded by people who not only spoke a different language, they knew a lot more about climate science than he ever could hope to know.  And to top it off he discovered the lectures were being recorded on video. Anthony probably had visions of Paul Nurse and James Delingpole. Cowed, he shrank into his chair and could barely wait until the ordeals ended.

Tail between his legs, he slunk back to his Californian basement, turned on his computer terminal and mumbled: "I only went to watch." Which didn't faze his hard-core supporters, who assured him "You're the man!"

Well, that was too much. Being mocked even by his hard-core supporters. With a monitor shielding him from his nemeses, his cyber-self finally donned the bravado he is known for, he strode over to Facebook and bravely wrote: "May I ask a question?"

He was feeling up again. No longer worried that he might have to look someone in the eye.

Buoyed by his courage at being able to venture into the lion's cyberden, he boldly took a snapshot. Next visited Twitter and boasted to all and sundry that his bravado had returned, now that he didn't have to face anyone in person. Now that he could hide behind his monitor, getting lots of retweets and replies of support from supposed friends and allies. ("That means I must be right" thinks Anthony.)

Now Anthony wasn't invited into the personal log of this scientist. He barged in uninvited. Needless to say he was swiftly and politely shown the door. And just so you know:
If you have a habit of making false, inflammatory, and/or defamatory statements about climate scientists in public then, no, you're not welcome at this facebook page. There are other outlets for you in that case. Thanks!

(Just so you know - it's the same here at HotWhopper.)


Anthony is satisfied. He breathes a sigh of relief. Order has been restored and he didn't even have to think up a dumb question. Saved by etiquette. He is once more king of denialism. He has shown his fans that scientists refuse to debate fake sceptics. He is the Man. (Oops!)


The few climate bloggers who noticed the exchange might have thought of Anthony and his charade: "What a bunch of mindless yobbos".

The rest of the world thinks - umm, nothing. If asked they'd say "Who? Who is Anthony Watts? Oh, you mean the rugby player/bikie/boxer? Not his style."


Update


Anthony Watts has finally written his "report" of Dr Mann's presentation. Showing two things. First: Anthony Watts is incapable of writing a report. Secondly, his fans wouldn't know a report if they tripped over one and are easily pleased. His "report" is nothing more than a collection of photos of Dr Mann's presentation, with very short comment/description underneath.

With no hint that he understands the meaning of intellectual property, under one of his photos he wrote: "I wonder if he got permission from Accu-Weather to use that graphic?" One may ask, "I wonder if Anthony Watts got permission to post all Dr Mann's slides". (In response to a question about this, Anthony claimed it is "fair use". I'd question that. One or two slides maybe, to illustrate a point. But not all of them with barely a word of analysis. I've not linked to the WUWT page or an archived version for obvious reasons.)

And again, with no hint of duplicity he claims, about a photo of Dr Mann's own child: " I don’t think children should be used as props.". This the day after Anthony himself stole a photo of a mother and child to persuade his readers to sign up to a fake religion's repulsive "declaration"! (h/t CM)


Update 2: The gutless wonder - excuses, excuses


Anthony Watts admits he's a gutless wonder (archived here, latest update here). In the process describes his paranoid conspiracy ideation, among other things.

First he tries to foist the blame on Michael Mann claiming he has a "record of hostility". WTF! It's Anthony Watts who hasn't let up on defaming Dr Mann and telling lies about him and his work.  (Didn't he realise when he made the booking that Michael Mann would be there, to answer his "many questions"?)

Next he blames Professor Lewandowsky. [Edit: Just for being there, mind you. Not for anything he did or didn't do there.] Yeah, it's all his fault - not! Remember Anthony's fake bravado when he boasted he was "Headed into ‘Lew-world’" and begged for money? What happened?

Anthony's still behaving exactly as I described above. Words like worthless, slimeball and cowardly come to mind.

He confesses he wasted his readers' money and got it under false pretences, but no-one's asked for a refund, yet.

Anthony was too chicken to admit that his "big brave question" to Michael Mann on Facebook was nothing more than:

"...will you take my question now?"



.h/t Raoul :)


From the WUWT comments


Anthony's sycophants supported him, boosting his fragile ego, muttering stuff like of course you did the wise thing, oh wise one and I see now you did the right thing. There was one person who had sufficient independence of mind to buck the trend. Velcro wrote:
September 28, 2014 at 10:54 am
The venue was the venue. Nothing Mann could do about the separation between podium and audience. Seems to me that the sceptic community criticise the warmists for not being prepared to debate, yet on this occasion, when there was the opportunity to question, we sceptics passed up the chance. I would have been inclined to ask something like ‘ do you attach any significance to the fact that if one plots annual global temperature against year for the past 18 odd years, one gets a horizontal line? And if you don’t then why not?

This is for Velcro. And this, too. And don't forget this from Gavin Schmidt.


Finally, one slipped by the mods - for everybody, from tz
September 28, 2014 at 1:47 pm
The Mann-o-sphere v.s. Kochtopussy.

Anthony Watts can't help himself. Was he born a liar?


And finally finally, for anyone who has fallen for Anthony's fairytale that he "booted me off WUWT for being overly disruptive". He didn't. He banned me over a fairly mild tweet. This "clueless female eco-nut" who is "isolated, lonely" and petless or is she a "crazy, nasty,spiteful witch" posted only about 30 comments in four years at WUWT, none of which could be described as "overly disruptive" by any stretch of the imagination. Some of my mild comments annoyed Anthony and Smokey/DB Stealey, for some reason. Too sciency I expect. (I'm wondering if Anthony thinks any blogger who ridicules others, be they anti-science or pro-science, must be isolated, lonely and petless.)

[Update to an update: No-one at WUWT commented on what I write but there are lots of theories as to why I write. The latest theory is that I have a all the hallmarks of being a child abuse victim. (Deniers apparently cannot fathom why people would poke fun at their anti-science efforts and pseudo-science and replace it with science. First time I've heard "alarmism" blamed on child abuse though. Is this intended as a milder form of Steyn-abuse?) Sou 29 September 2014]

Nor was I ever kicked off any discussion board for being overly disruptive. (When Anthony wrote in the plural, he was using what passes for blog licence on disinformation blogs. There is no plural. There is only one other instance that he is referring to.) However it wasn't for disruption. I was scarcely ever even modded on that share trading website (a site where deleting comments is the norm, not the exception). They just decided they didn't want a woman in their 'men only' club, after she once commented on the misogyny prevalent there - still, going by the comments here. Much like the way Anthony Watts soon bans almost everyone who prefers climate science to pseudoscience.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

To be certain sensitivity is still uncertain...


This is a follow-on from my earlier article about a new paper on climate sensitivity. It isn't a critique or analysis of the paper itself. Maybe other people will look at the work and how it differs from other sensitivity analysis. This is more about the reaction in the deniosphere with some of my meandering thoughts rolled in. I've been in two minds about whether to publish this because there are no firm conclusions. It's rather long-winded and a bit repetitive. But I don't feel like spending any more time editing it down. You can make of it what you will.

As you may know, the denialati are all over a new paper in Climate Dynamics by Nic Lewis and Judith Curry, who have taken a shot at estimating climate sensitivity. You can download a pre-publication pdf version here, together with supplementary information zipped here, courtesy Nic Lewis.

It's not at all odd that deniers would latch on to it when you think about it, even though the WUWT crowd variously "believe":
  • Climate change isn't happening
  • Climate change is always happening
  • If the world is warming, it's not because of CO2 (ie climate sensitivity to CO2 is zero)
  • There is no such thing as a greenhouse effect. The world is warmed by magic.
  • The world is cooling
  • We're heading for an ice age
  • The increase in CO2 is not caused by humans (ie burning hydrocarbons doesn't release CO2)
  • Atmospheric CO2 hasn't increased

One reason I say this isn't surprising is because even though the paper suggests the world is about to get a lot hotter, the authors argue a likelihood, or at least a possibility, that the surface may not get quite as hot, with a doubling of CO2, as a lot of other research suggests. This paper suggests that when CO2 hits 560 ppm later this century, Earth will at first be somewhere between 0.9°C and 2.5°C hotter than it was in the mid-1800s. And even if we stopped adding any more CO2 to the atmosphere at that point, temperatures would continue to rise, settling at between 1°C and 4°C hotter as the system approaches medium term equilibrium. None of which is by any means comforting. While these numbers extend almost to the same range as stated in the latest IPCC report (1.5°C to 4.5°C), it goes below the lower end of the IPCC most like range and doesn't hit the high end.

That's not quite an apples to apples comparison though. Lewis and Curry were looking at "effective" climate sensitivity which is not quite the same as equilibrium climate sensitivity. The difference as far as I can make out is as follows. "Effective" is on a centennial time scale whereas equilibrium is on a millenial time scale. "Equilibrium" refers to after the ice sheets stop melting and maybe even after the ocean circulation has stopped responding to climate change. The deep ocean circulation has a cycle of around a thousand years. Ice sheets can take several millenia to settle down after a climate forcing.

So all in all, the difference between Lewis and Curry and other estimates is one of a few tenths of a degree at most.

"No no no" don't adapt - shout the alarmed at WUWT


I know you were probably under the impression that science deniers want to adapt to and not mitigate global warming. Well, it turns out that many of them don't want to adapt either. They seem to be opposed to building a resilient society. Or maybe they just don't want the government to play a role in helping communities build resilience against natural disasters.

Today Anthony Watts copied and pasted a press release from Reuters about how the US Department of Homeland Security is looking at ways to build resilience in the context of climate change and natural disasters (archived here). This includes "regional efforts to assess resilience of infrastruction and judge where gaps in adaptation and preparedness may be".

As you probably know, climate change has long been recognised by the Pentagon as a national security issue. A recent report from a military research organisation found that it poses a severe risk to national security. (Same goes for Australia, despite the stance of the current government.)

Guess how the readers at WUWT reacted to the notion of a resilient USA? Yep. Lots of people are dead against adaptation and preparedness.  Not only do they not want to minimise the risks associated with climate change, they are against towns and cities and rural areas preparing for and adapting to what it is bringing. Read on for a sample:


Evangelical Deniers: The poorest and most vulnerable and the lowest of the low @wattsupwiththat


You know how Anthony Watts on occasion has criticised other people for using photoshopped images or "fake" photos to illustrate a point, while at the same time faking images of his own. Well, he's done it again. This time pinching a photo from a company bringing cleaner energy to Africa (and South America), to argue that his readers should instead pollute "poor people" out of existence.

Compare and contrast - WUWT touting dirty energy (and religion), while using a photo about how a company helped a family in Rwanda move to cleaner cooking! (Scroll to the bottom.)

Today WUWT and CFACT (archived here) are touting support for the pseudo-religious cult, the Cornwall Alliance. (I've written about that organisation before.) The WUWT article has the headline:
Protect the poor – from climate change policies

The CFACT chap boasts that in seven years, the Cornwall Alliance has managed to attract a 150 people, stating that: "More than 150 have already signed the declaration." and urges WUWT readers to "Sign the declaration" of the Cornwall Alliance.

If you look back at the WayBack Machine, what that means is that 1350 people must have retracted their signature sometime since 22 September 2008! What's surprising is that this bunch of cranks got "1,500 individuals" to sign it in the first place. I'm not so surprised that 150 of them stuck it out. There will always be cranks and charlatans in the world. [Correction: KR has pointed out that this hypocritical cult is promoting a new document, pretending to care about poor people while promoting fossil fuel industry interests. Sou. 27 September 2014]


Thursday, September 25, 2014

Judith Curry vanquishes her uncertainty monster


Wonderful news just announced. Judith Curry has vanquished her uncertainty monster. She did it with the help of UK financier (retired), Nic Lewis.

Judith and Nic sat down and puzzled over the challenge for a bit. Then they decided to tackle the monster head on. They've announced their victory in Climate Dynamics.

Not only has Judith killed off her uncertainty monster, she's done an about face on her George C Marshall / op ed of just a couple of days ago. She's announced that the impact of all our waste CO2 can indeed be detected - not just on centennial time scales but on decadal time scales, or at least on multi-decadal time scales.

Here you go. According to Judith and Nic, using an energy balance approach and after much protesting of climate models:
  • Median ECS** is, with very little uncertainty, equal to 1.64K (1.05 to 4.05K at 5-95%)
  • Median TCR is, with almost no uncertainty left at all, 1.33K (0.9 to 2.5K at 5-95%)
**ECS is defined as "effective climate sensitivity", on a shorter time scale than equilibrium climate sensitivity.

Oh, and if you're a retired financier, it's okay to publish reviewers' comments.

One more thing. The IPCC is now back in Judith's good books. She even says she uses forcings from the IPCC's AR5 WG1 report. (What would they have done if Judith had succeeded in disbanding the IPCC. Horror of horrors. That uncertainty monster would still be roaming snatching unwary climate scientists.)

Wonders will never cease!

Here's the archive of the WUWT article, which was personally sent to Anthony Watts by the host of his extraordinary dinner, Nic Lewis. Here's the link that Nic provided to his and Judith's brilliant new paper, which has in one fell swoop solved all the world's ills.

PS If I come across as a mite sarcastic, put it down to my being quite underwhelmed by the swings and roundabouts of the past week at Judith's place.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Hockey sticks drive deniers nuts...


Deniers really are nuts, you know. Apparently over at the Auditor's blog there is some fruitcake obsessing over the cover of an annual report. Not a peer reviewed publication. Not a scientific record. Nope. An illustration. A graphic. A drawing. A conceptual illustration. A piece of artwork.

Thing is, all they are showing is that scientists aren't just careful with their research, they are super-careful even when just producing an illustrated cover for an annual report. Scientists carefully documented where the data came from, what it related to and exactly what data was where. And the annual report itself described all this as well as references to the scientific papers on which the illustration was based. Read it and wonder (my bold underline italics):

All over, almost before it started. Michael Mann and what WUWT won't tell you


Update - see below. The WUWT report is now up.



I know that after my last article you'll all have been expecting a new conciliatory tone from Anthony Watts. Well maybe some of you were. Okay, fair enough. No-one was. And it looks as if no-one was wrong. Just as I was able to report some of John Cook's lecture where Anthony Watts, who was paid to attend, failed. Now I can report a bit more about Michael Mann's Cabot Institute lecture in the Victoria Rooms at the University of Bristol yesterday. Anthony hasn't even bothered to write one article about it, or not so far anyway. The lecture was called:

The Hockey Stick and the climate wars - the battle continues


Victoria Rooms, Michael Mann Lecture venue Credit: Katy Duke

Anthony Watts meets some scientists - "Extraordinary" sez Anthony


Anthony Watts got to meet some real scientists this week. His trip to the UK wasn't a complete waste of his fans money.

(Anthony ostensibly went to the UK to attend talks by John Cook and Michael Mann. He wrote a substance-free "report" of John Cook's talk and so far hasn't written anything about Michael Mann's talk. Nor did he ask either of them any of his "many" questions. Nor has he mentioned anything about any presentations. The people who paid for his trip could be forgiven if they felt diddled.)

Despite my scepticism, I don't want to spoil any goodwill that may have been created this week, so I'll try to be careful. I might not always succeed, so be warned.

Some tweets from the Michael Mann lecture in Bristol


The cautionary tweet:


Does that mean no questions again?

Does it mean Anthony Watts thinks his mates are a bunch of louts who are likely to cause a ruckus?

Does it mean that Anthony Watts is not going to be respectful of the guest speaker?

So many questions.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Denier weirdness: Judith Curry's "Sober People"


Judith Curry has written up her recent science disinformation talk for "op-eds", hoping for more fame and fortune, no doubt (archived here).

One funny thing. Judith doesn't admit her recent talk denier gish gallop was for the George C. Marshall Institute. She doesn't mention that unsavoury organisation at all. She just mentions the "National Press Club". But it wasn't hosted by the National Press Club. That was just the venue. The National Press Club isn't fussy about who it hires out rooms to.

In the middle of her "op-ed" Judith explains why she doesn't want to reduce CO2 emissions. She wrote:

Monday, September 22, 2014

310,000 people are wrong and Bob Tisdale is right?


Last weekend, all around the world people gathered to urge action on climate. In New York City the gathering was estimated at 310,000. You can read more in the New York Times, where it got a front page spread.

The climate action rallies got under the skin of WUWT. So far there have been five different articles about them.

Today at wattsupwiththat, Perennially Puzzled "Bob Tisdale" decides that all these hundreds of thousands of people have their priorities skewed. Why? Because he looked up a UN survey.

Bob's headline was like something from The Onion:

More Than 310 Thousand People with Skewed Priorities Flood New York


People for climate from around the world


From around the world


There are more photos - click read more

Sunday, September 21, 2014

WUWT quote of the day from Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger


Seen today. Chip Knappenberger (half of the Pat'n Chip denier duo of the Cato Institute) is quoted in a copy and paste at WUWT:

...there are a lot more cases of non-extreme weather than there are of extreme weather.

Duh!

Ain't that obvious? Nuts for brains!

Saturday, September 20, 2014

More on John Cook in Bristol, what WUWT won't tell you


Earlier I wrote a short article about the presentation John Cook gave at Bristol University last night. His talk had the title:
Dogma vs Consensus: Letting the Evidence Speak on Climate Change

I figured you might be interested to know that you can now download the presentation from SkepticalScience.com. I believe it's a slightly cut-down version.

Source: John Cook Bristol Presentation
John used a mixture of science, humour and serious thought-provoking examples. Of course, he threw a couple of curved swinged? swung? lobbed? some cricket balls along the way, from the look of the presentation.


Understanding the science


To illustrate how valuable are public meetings on climate change, one thing John commented on was how few people can explain the greenhouse effect. In his presentation, he said that earlier this week he gave a talk elsewhere and had one person who could explain it, and they had an American accent. I gather from a tweet, at his Bristol talk it was someone from U Bristol who was able to explain it to the audience.

John Cook's brilliance in Bristol and the sound of silence at WUWT


I see that John Cook's talk was very well received in Bristol. By all accounts he gave his usual brilliant presentation.



I'll write more when I can. As you can guess, the topic of communicating science is of great interest to me, as a blogger who tries to demolish disinformation. I learn a lot from John Cook.

One thing that's interesting is that a prominent global warming "skeptic" blogger was in attendance (see bottom RHS of top photo above). He was followed out of the lecture by a strange crocodile entourage of 13 blokes, I've been told :)


Deniers stunned into silence


Anthony had his trip paid for by his readers, but so far not a peep from him.  Not a tweet, no WUWT article at the time of writing this article - some hours after the end of the lecture. I hear he didn't even put up his hand to ask a question. And not for want of prompting from his fans.

Below is a record of Anthony's tweeting frenzy while at the Bristol talk. A big fat zero!. (Click to enlarge.)



After the lecture, Anthony Watts and his mates went off to drown their sorrows at a local pub. I don't know if his backers will be disappointed or if they had no expectations.  I didn't see any complaints about his similar failure to deliver when they paid him to go to #AGU13, so they are probably not very discerning about where they spend their hard earned dollars - as long as it's not to help mitigate global warming.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Remember the weather at Rutherglen? BoM was right all along, of course!


Do you recall all the kerfuffle a short while ago about the temperature record for Rutherglen? (Graham Readfearn wrote about it at the time, too.) It was pretty obvious to anyone who looked at the data that something changed a few decades ago. The record was adjusted - I should say, straightened out. It was corrected because the data record showed there had been a change at the site.

It didn't stop disinformers kicking up a stink complaining the data had been adjusted and not just adjusted but adjusted "up".. They even roped in Graham Lloyd at the Australian.

Well, they got what they wanted only it's not what they want, I suspect. A diligent BoM researcher did a lot of digging. A lot more than I did. (I only made a couple of phone calls and looked at some BoM data and other stuff on the internet.)

While deniers were chastising BoM for not having someone on hand to hop in a time machine, go up to the research station and look at where the weather station was in the 1950s, one of their people was busy doing the next best thing. Getting records from various different archives.

You can read the result of their efforts here. It's a beautiful little glimpse into history.

Oh. Needless to say, there is very strong evidence, I'd say incontrovertible (don't you love that word) evidence of a station move before 1966. And indications of a change in the weather station in the 1970s. As BoM states:
The need for the adjustment made to Rutherglen data for the period prior to 1966 was determined from an objective statistical test that showed an artificial jump in the data during this period.
While it is not necessary to have supporting documentation to justify correcting a statistically determined artificial jump in the data, it is of interest that the change at Rutherglen is very likely associated with a change in the location of the weather station.

Graham Lloyd will no doubt have an article in tomorrow's Australian, profusely apologising to BoM and chastising Jen Marohasy, Bill Johnston, Anthony Watts and other deniers for (further) besmirching the reputation of the environment section of The Australian.

Don't you think?

[Update: for the answer, see below. Sou: 19 Sept 14]

Congratulations to the scientist at BoM who went above and beyond the call of duty. That is such a lovely account, not just of the history - with photos and maps and records, but an illustration of how back in the 1950s weather was weather and weather stations were used for weather, not climate so much. This example also demonstrates that the science works. That the statistical tests are robust.

It also illustrates how difficult the task must have been for people like Phil Jones and his colleagues at CRU in the early days, trying to put together a climate record of the entire world - on a shoestring budget. They would not have been able to visit every weather station in the world even if they had the funds. They would have been painstakingly putting together a record of the world's temperature trends, based on handwritten records of weather stations all over the world. And all the people in weather bureaux everywhere who've entered data from hand written records into computers. The mind boggles just trying to imagine the humungous task that people have quietly gone about doing back over time, without complaint and without the honour and glory bestowed on them that they deserve.

If you're not careful, you'll find your blood pressure rising, thinking about how carelessly and callously deniers accuse these people of "getting it wrong", cherry picking one example out of hundreds - and deniers don't even get that right as this example shows.

You'll notice, no doubt, that despite all the aggravation heaped on BoM without any reason for it, BoM responded without a trace of snark. Scientists are gracious people, aren't they.

Unlike bloggers:)


Update:


For Billy Bob, disinformer and uber conspiracy theorist. He wanted some information to eyeball. He is one of those people who thinks that a single station at a single site is representative of the entire world. If it hasn't warmed in Rutherglen then it disproves global warming is the gist of Bob's argument.

A single site will show much more variability than a region. A region will show much more variability than a continent. A continent will show more variability than a hemisphere. Global land only surface will show more variability than the entire global sea surface. The global land and sea surface combined will show least variability of all. Averages tend to smooth.

Some places in the world are cooling. Some show no overall trend at all. The vast majority of places on earth are warming, as evidence by the large rise in global surface temperature. At Rutherglen research station it has been getting warmer recently.

I have plotted the max daily temperature for Rutherglen for two periods - the entire history and the period since 1966 (after the break in data). Note these past few years in particular, and how warm even the coolest years were, compared to the past.

Data source: BoM

Data source: BoM

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Judith Curry picks a cherry in her motivated recycled denial


UPDATE: (Note - I'm going through the video at the moment and making updates. I'll let you know when I've finished. Done.)


Judith Curry: "we are fooling ourselves to think that CO2 control knob really influences climate on these decadal or even century time scales,” (See update below)

Judith Curry has dived deeply into denialism. On her blog she has promoted an article about her by Marc Morano (infamous for his role in the "swiftboat" attack on John Kerry) on his CFACT blog, writing:
Marc Morano has written up a summary that includes some of the discussion [link], although I’m a bit puzzled by the headline.

If the headline is the only bit she's "a bit puzzled about", one assumes she endorses the rest. The rest includes a lot of twaddle such as:
“Even on the timescale of decade or two, we could end up be very surprised on how the climate plays out and it might not be getting warmer like the UN IPCC says,” Curry noted.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen. All other things being equal – yes — more carbon dioxide means warmer, but all other things are never equal,” she emphasized. 
And in response to someone who observed that snow packs are lessening and glaciers are disappearing and the world is changing so quickly "right before our eyes", Judith came up with some trite denier nonsense (Video 38:30).

She said: "Climate is always changing." Oh my!

As a scientist she should have said something like this, "Yes,  Inertia toward continued emissions creates potential 21st-century global warming that is comparable in magnitude to that of the largest global changes in the past 65 million years but is orders of magnitude more rapid."


Judith gave a plug to "what she happens to think" based on nothing at all, nothing she's published and nothing anyone else has published, and she contradicts known science, opining that "the anthropogenic effect is about half of what the IPCC says". (Video: 50:05) But the IPCC science is based on tangible observations and measurements, not random "I thinks" of a disinforming blogger. Gavin Schmidt rebutted Judith's gut feel very well. (Good scientists use their brain for thinking, more than their gut.)

Remember when Judith Curry said, less than a year ago:
I have long stated that scientists advocating for public policy can lead to distrust of scientists and their scientific findings.

She's recanted, with a vengeance. Not only is she advocating public policy, she's putting herself forward as an economic and governmental relations "expert", too, despite her warnings that when scientists advocate it can lead to distrust (my bold italics) Video at 1:06:48:
Relying on global international treaty to solve the problem — which I do not think would really solve the problem even if it was implemented – is politically unviable and economically unviable. 
Actually, I don't think that picking this out the way Marc Morano did gave justice to the context. I disagree that a global agreement is politically and economically unviable (think Montreal Protocol) and I'd go further to saying it's essential. If she'd said it's not by itself sufficient I would have agreed. However, Judith was also arguing for local initiatives here. She talked about being "stuck between a rock and a hard place" and "trying to find new ways of approaching the problem" like "regional, local, experimenting kind of approaches". (Which are already happening.) She doesn't want any more investment in climate models.

On the other hand she misrepresents the broad scientific findings, implying there is equal weight between the opinions of a small minority of contrarians and the findings of the majority of scientists. Notice how she slips in a policy dot point at the bottom, too. An issue that is not just for physical scientists but for economists and others to address:

Judith Curry misrepresenting the broad scientific consensus. Source: Video at 10:59

She also attacks Cook13 (video 11:10), a rigorous study of the actual literature supported by a survey of scientists who published that same literature, and says it was "deeply flawed" based on no evidence whatsoever. It wasn't. Judith just makes a bald statement. What a rotter. Parrotting a mantra of deniers like Marc Morano, Anthony Watts and Christopher Monckton (what company does Judith keep these days, one wonders). And she complains about being alienated. Is it any wonder? Her sole "evidence" are "two recently published" opinion surveys, which she doesn't identify, but which obviously lumps in non-expert with expert opinion and claims there is a lower "consensus" than 97%.  I'm guessing that one of them was the survey of American meteorologists, where a lot of weather forecasters, tv announcers and so forth, were not familiar with climate science. The other might have been the survey by Bart Verheggen et al with the "al" including John Cook. Which interestingly found that disinformers like Judith Curry get a disproportionate time on the airwaves compared to honest scientists. She neglected to mention other studies that all find that almost all scientific papers on the subject prove or build on the knowledge that humans are causing most if not all recent global warming.  Probably more than all, because some of what we pollute the air with (some aerosols) has a cooling effect.

If you need convincing, read this, which Marc highlighted up top and repeated in the main text (my bold underline). I couldn't believe what I read, so I checked. Yes Judith really did say out loud in front of lots of people. (Video 51:09):
“We just don’t know. I think we are fooling ourselves to think that CO2 control knob really influences climate on these decadal or even century time scales.” 

Judith has swung away from science and into utter nuttery. She is reported as saying:
We get called ‘deniers’. This is a very sad state of affairs,
Update 2: In the comments below, Joshua has pointed out that Judith has (very slightly) wound back her ridiculous statement above, writing in the comments: "This was an unscripted response to a question. Should have been ‘dominates’ not influences".  That's still absurd. Three points. Does she really need a script to remind her of the difference between "dominates" and "influences"? Secondly: Look at the chart below and tell me, what else could possibly be dominating the rise in temperature of the past 65 years. Why are temperatures today not the same as they were in the 1950s, 1960s or even 1970s? Thirdly: read Gavin Schmidt's response to Judith's denialism. Sou 21 September 9:32 am AEST.


Back in May this year, Judith admitted that on a "skeptic/orthodox" spectrum she had shifted from a 7 (mainstream scientist end) to 3 (denialist). Her dive into denialism has shifted further. Here is the updated graphic:





A sad state of your own making, Judith.


Sou Thurs 18 Sept 2014



Judith Curry spoke to the much-reviled George C. Marshall Institute yesterday. She spouted her usual nonsense (pdf here). You know the sort of crackpottery she comes up with these days. Having read her article, I bet most of the audience fell asleep while she was talking. It was boring, tedious and wrong.

My prediction was a bit off. She didn't spatter her handout with "wickeds". There was only one mention and that was "wickedness".  Not a single monster or stadium wave washed across the text. And she didn't mention Michael Mann once - or not in her written blurb anyway.

(Update: It wasn't in her handout, but in her talk she did talk about Marcia Wyatt's stadium wave, and there were lots of "wickeds" so I wasn't so wrong after all.)

I was right about some things though. There were 16 "uncertainties" or variations of same. Twenty-one IPCCs, full of disinformation. Her claims about the IPCC are nonsense needless to say, as Gavin Schmidt explains. And she doesn't want to reduce CO2 emissions. Her close to closing para was:
Motivated by the precautionary principle to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, attempts to modify the climate through reducing CO2 emissions may turn out to be futile. The stagnation in greenhouse warming observed over the past 16+ years demonstrates that CO2 is not a control knob on climate variability on decadal time scales. Even if CO2 mitigation strategies are successful and climate model projections are correct, an impact on the climate would not be expected for many decades, owing to the long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere and thermal inertia driven by the ocean; solar variability, volcanic eruptions, and natural internal climate variability will continue to be sources of unpredictable climate surprises.

Utter rubbish. Judith does believe in the precautionary principle when it suits her. When there's a 30% chance she'll be inconvenienced, Judith advocates shutting down a city. When there's a 100% chance that the world will suffer serious hardship, Judith doesn't want to lift a finger.

Judith wants the world to get hotter and hotter and hotter. What does she care? She will, though.  She mightn't get swamped by rising seas if she stays inland but she's young enough to feel the real heat when it comes.

By the way, if that passage looks familiar it's because you've read something like it before, in Judith's testimony to the  US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works back in January this year.
Motivated by the precautionary principle to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, attempts to modify the climate through reducing CO2 emissions may turn out to be futile. The stagnation in greenhouse warming observed over the past 15+ years demonstrates that CO2 is not a control knob on climate variability on decadal time scales.

She's recycling the lies she told to the US Government. Isn't there a crime in that somewhere on the books? Does she think she's covered herself by using the word "may"? How many decades does she think it takes for CO2 warming? It's already been happening for decades. You'll notice that she added a year for some reason. Why would that be?



Cherry picking classic


Will you look at that. Sixteen years ago is 1998, the year of the super El Nino. The classic denier cherry pick. Craig Rucker of CFACT would be proud!

Data Source: NASA GISS

OAS - The No-Name Society Hides its Light


This is a follow on to my previous article about Anthony Watts' big announcement of a new "sceptic" organisation for open atmospherics.

Here is some more detail, if you can call it that, about the OAS. No, it's not the Organization of American States - oas.org. Nor is it the short-lived Organisation de l'armée secrète. And don't confuse it with the OSS.

This is the Open Atmospheric Society or Free Air Society or whatever - theoas.org.

I've had a chance to look over the OAS website. Two words come to mind: Mickey and Mouse. It doesn't have a professional look and feel. It's a WordPress site "under construction" though not labelled as such. It's not finished by a long shot. Maybe they need funds from member subs before fixing it. (It's still got all the alpha and beta stuff in there. Not prime time.)


No names


The most curious thing about it is that not a single person is publicly formally associated with the society. The only names to be seen anywhere - at WUWT and at the OAS website, in any direct capacity, are Stephen and Dr. Mary Graves, which could be the Stephen and Mary Graves Family Foundation. They put up some money to get the show on the road.

John Coleman and Joseph D’Aleo are mentioned in the press release giving testimonials. John Coleman said he looked forward to being a member (would he qualify for full membership? I don't think he has a science degree, his degree is in journalism). Otherwise there is no suggestion that they are associated with the formation of the organisation (though you could take a guess). Anthony Watts has his name on a dummy article.  Of these three, it looks as if Joe D'Aleo is the only one who would qualify for full membership, which is open to:
An individual with a Bachelors or higher level degree in Atmospheric sciences, Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences, General Science, Technology, or Engineering – OR- an individual that has at least three (3) published peer reviewed papers an individual that has at least three (3) published peer reviewed papers in any accredited peer review publications that have an ISSN designation.

I could not find a single name associated with the organisation in any official capacity. There are no directors - they are still to come. There is supposedly an executive director already appointed (according to the charter), but not identified anywhere. It's a "no name" organisation.

Whoever is in on this is very shy. Not a single person willing to be associated with it directly, except for John Coleman who is looking forward to being a member, and the commenters at WUWT who've said they've joined up. And they mostly use pseudonyms or first names only.

So much for transparency and shining a light on truth!


Strange name and motto


I wonder if they used a professional to help pick the name? It's a strange one. The Open Atmospheric Society. Not atmospheric science. Not earth science. The initials are unfortunate. Anyone looking for oas.org will end up at the Organization of American States.

The motto is "Verum in Luce". Veritas would have been better than verum I'd have thought, unless they are talking about some intrinsic truth about photons. But I'm not fluent in Latin. Anthony Watts says it means Truth in the Light. AFAIK verum is a specific truth about something, whereas veritas is about truth in a general sense. Perhaps someone who's studied Latin can shine some light on this :)

[Update: GM has commented on the motto. I also think I've figured out where Anthony Watts got it from. Not from any knowledge of Latin. Not from the Classics. I reckon he used Google Translate! ha ha. Sou 19 Sept 14]

What's weird is this notion of shining a light or getting at the truth, while hiding behind an organisation. As I said earlier - I could not find the name of a single person listed on the website in any official capacity whatsoever. The only names are those of the people who gave the start up grant - and even that could be a foundation rather than individuals.


A shaky start


The society is off to a shaky start. So far, they've had donations of $330 (probably excluding the startup grant) and 25 people have signed up to get emails. Not as stunning a result as the Climate Council, which raised $1m in only a few days after Tony Abbott got rid of the Climate Commission. The USA has more than 10 times more people than Australia. And the society is supposed to be international - so it has potentially 7 billion donors. Maybe it's decided on a slow and steady approach. I have a feeling that most full members will be engineers who happen to be climate science deniers. There just aren't enough research scientists who would want to be associated with it. I'd be surprised if it could snag someone like Judith Curry.


Role and purpose


They have a charter and goals. The charter is simple. The goals are primitive and full of conspiracy ideation (by implication). For example:

  • To provide an organization that offers an alternative to the highly politicized organizations that exist now.
  • To offer a safe place where ideas may be exchanged and examined without fear of retribution.
  • To provide a scientific journal where publications can be made where no politically motivated peer review interference occurs. Papers must be replicable and pass on merit, not on a viewpoint.

It's not that the goals aren't worthy, it's the implication that there is a big bad world of science out there, full of bogey men out to snare poor little fake sceptics or stop them from publishing their fake science.


There you have it. Or what of it there is to know. Oh, except for some additional tidbits in the comments to my previous article on the subject, h/t Marco. Apparently Anthony Watts announced it at the Heartland Conference in Las Vegas this year.

Is Anthony the executive director? Someone else? Anthony was looking for a job earlier this year. I doubt he'd qualify as a full member so I don't think he could be on the board of directors, except as ED.


Let's be positive - if possible


I don't want to come across too negatively. There is a slim chance that this organisation will publish some good science. I say slim, because I'm finding it hard to imagine any real scientists wanting to be associated with it. That means that the review pool will probably be very thin and not of any quality. But you never know. I wish them well, but won't be holding my breath.

If they are able to deliver good science or make a decent contribution to public debate and policy, they'll fail the fake sceptics' aspirations.

So it's a double bind.



From the WUWT comments


Can't be bothered with the comments from WUWT. I've updated the archive here if you are interested. Oh, alright then. Just a few.


MarkW
September 16, 2014 at 9:03 am
The Open Atmospheric Society is going to be cloud based. I’m sure there’s a joke in the somewhere.
BTW, congratulations to everyone involved in setting this up.

Travis Casey
September 16, 2014 at 9:16 am
Best of luck with this endeavor. I fear that the establishment science community will treat this like they do open debate. There will be an aversion to publishing in the journal so as not to legitimize it. Then they can compare it to Fox News and laugh. The model-based “science” will still have their pet publications for alarm. At least it is a step in the right direction. 



coalsoffire  
September 16, 2014 at 9:33 am
I’m signed up as an associate. I don’t drink.
They may laugh at this in public, but behind closed doors… they will be sweating. This is an important initiative.Get something published from Judith Curry right away.

Colin
September 16, 2014 at 9:38 am
Congrats! Lifetime Founding Associate Member application and payment submitted. 

Latitude
September 16, 2014 at 9:55 am
it must be replicable, with all data, software, formulas, and methods submitted with the paper. …..
I hope that works out…….it’s going to be difficult with most of the facts being conjecture, and most of the history fabricated 

cjames prefers extremist right wing bias to scientific bias:
September 16, 2014 at 10:05 am
I am a Fellow of the AMS but dropped my membership several years ago due to its political bias. This organizations sounds like a great idea. I will join and I wish it great success. 

Terry Oldberg
September 16, 2014 at 10:47 am
Climatology has been plagued by applications of the equivocation fallacy resulting from ambiguity of reference by terms in the language of climatology This has resulted in widespread misperception of a pseudo-science as a science .Thus, it would be well if the authors of articles submitted for publication to the new journal were to be required to write them in a disambiguated language developed for this purpose by the OAS. 

Leigh
September 16, 2014 at 3:45 pm
Thinking along the same line.
As state sponsored “scientific concensus” on global warming is proven wrong by actual scientists.
And not just your run of the mill skeptic like myself.
The grants will start to dry up as the politicians that sign off on them.
Come to the shocking reality that they are going to be far more accountable to the owners of those monies they are handing over.
This little provision is going to be the cause for extreme angst among the Manns and co. of the fraud that is global warming.
“Open journal— The Journal of the OAS will be free to read by the public. Open science— a transparent online peer review process”.
Behold, the emperor has new clothes! 

Kevin Hearle
September 16, 2014 at 12:15 pm
Congratulations Anthony and all the team that was involved with you in creating this important new organisation to further open access science. The public across the world will thank you all. The formation of this organisation will shake the foundations of the established societies and not before time. 

Bloke down the pub - asking about Kenji 
September 16, 2014 at 12:48 pm
Anthony, will Kenji be taking out membership? 

Will Robertson  (is this a Poe?)
September 16, 2014 at 1:07 pm
Dear Gentlemen all,
I heartily endorse your efforts at creating a counterculture professional organization butting heads with the current madness concerning AGW. My best wishes to all of you who are arguing on the right side of the scientific and philosophical fence. However, even though I am but a simple meteorological technician, a work-a-day forecaster, out here in the hinterlands of the Desert Southwest, I can see that many of you for whom I have great respect have missed a (if not THE) basic tenant of the whole AWG regulatory push. At least I don’t see it written about much. Please consider that this whole kerfuffle is NOT about controlling climate chemistries for the benefit of mankind, it IS about controlling the actions of whole populations on a global scale for the benefit of those would be our dictatorial overlords. One government controlling all of humanity is their goal – with them in control. AWG is just one of the current vehicles designed to carry these individuals forward toward their goals of 1) setting enforcable global law precedent, 2) enriching those who are foisting, controlling and providing future management of these regulations, and 3) maintaining these individuals in positions of power because, of course, they are the solitary holders of the wisdom to know what is best for all the rest of us. IMHO, for them, scientific truth is irrelevant and in actuality an obstacle toward their intended ends. Dare I suggest that we are in a political power war, not a scientific opinion debate? However, scientific truth is gradually providing ammunition against these Napoleon Complex power brokers, so please keep up the good work. 

Tom is the only person I noticed who showed any curiosity about who might be involved in the organisation. And that was limited to Anthony Watts himself.
September 16, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Anthony, this seems like a welcome initiative, with open peer review. Who could sla y that idea? Could you just make it clear to the community if you have any financial interest, whatsoever, in The Open Atmospheric Society, OAS.org, or any derivative thereof?
Thanks. 

Steven Mosher
September 16, 2014 at 5:25 pm
just because people submit code and data doesnt mean its replicateable.
just a nit.. otherwise, nice idea. wish you well!

New denialist journal open to all

This is just so people can talk about the new illiterati society that's just been announced by Anthony Watts. It's called the Open Atmospheric Society. It's got a logo and all. It's open to all science deniers, no matter their sex, race, age or religion. They are pleading for all WUWT readers to join.

Anthony doesn't say who is running it, who is on the board, the editorial panel or who is bankrolling it. He probably has a job there but if he has, he hasn't said so.

The motto is right up the alley of right wing authoritarians: "Verum in Luce" which he says translates to: "Truth in the Light".

I don't have time to go to the website, but you can read all about it here.
https://archive.today/x8ucB

Oh. And Anthony's finally found a publisher for his next "paper". His society will have a "journal" 😜

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

At a crossroad. Have deniers all gone mad or is this "normal"?


I'm starting to think I might be able to take a break from denier watching. Anthony Watts has gone from his normal ridiculous to stark staring mad. Is it the heat getting to him? Has the word gone out that too many fake sceptics are saying stuff like:
"We don't dispute that it's warming. We don't dispute that CO2 is causing it. We just dispute that it will be harmful."
Has someone who deniers look up to said "enough is enough, you're starting to act like alarmists". Or maybe this is the last hurrah of the denialiati.

Just recently Anthony Watts has posted articles:

Oh there's probably lots more idiocy. I don't keep up with it all. Those are all from the last three days! Three days mind you. It's as if someone put out a memo to deniers to pull out all the stops. To not care if they look bloody barmy to the world at large. As if the denial "movement" (not that such a rag tag mob of paranoid idiots could possibly organise themselves into a "movement") has sent out a memo - "Act Crazy". 

You should see the number of articles Anthony's copying from the HockeySchtick, who is one of Anthony's favourites at the moment, despite the fact that in Anthony's world he's an "anonymous coward" for using a pseudonym. (The HockeySchtick specialises in pseudo-science crap like "accumulated departures from the mean" in sunspots and claims of "it's the sun".)

Today the article (archived here) is one of those ridiculous gish gallops full of wrong charts of GISP2 on Greenland, together with links to "Steve Goddard's" blog. Muttering something about disappearing a "blip" or a "blop", which I gather refers to the rise and fall of global temperatures in the early 1940s. Which hasn't disappeared but deniers reckon it's got a tad smaller since a very early paper by James Hansen in 1981 or 2001 or something. It hasn't. At least not between 2001 and now. The whole chart has shifted so the blip is still a blip.

It's not just the bottom of the barrel mob at WUWT and elsewhere. The GWPF has gone nuts as well. They've got Matt Ridley going gung ho on ozone hole denial. Can you believe it? Matt Ridley!  Eli Rabett has the answers to the questions he should have asked. That's why I'm thinking the word has gone out. Some benefactor is offering a prize for the denier who can act the weirdest.
And then there's Judith Curry. I can't wait to see what she comes up with today. Just kidding. We know she'll sprinkle her talk with "wicked" and "IPCC should be disbanded" and "uncertainty monsters" and "no action necessary" and "stadium waves" and "we just don't know". She might even mention her self-appointed nemesis, Professor Mann. Speaking to the George C Marshall Institute is just another sign that deniers are backing further and further away from reality.

Today I even found myself tweeting to one of those utter nutter deniers. He claimed that the papers that Cook13 identified that acknowledge that humans are causing global warming are only 0.3% of papers and the rest he presumably thinks dispute the science. Doing the sums what he's arguing is that somehow in the literature search, John Cook and his colleagues missed out on finding 1,294,770 papers that dispute human-caused warming. So it could be me that's going nuts. Who in their right mind would tweet to someone as weird as that?

I don't know if I've just over-dosed on denier nonsense or if they really have all gone barking mad. Perhaps someone else can tell me if they think there's been a shift or if I'm imagining it. If there's been a shift into complete lunacy, we can move out of the cesspit and talk about important things like climate policy and what ordinary people are doing to hurry up climate action. Have some "feel good" stories for a change. Some inspirational anecdotes.

It does seem as if deniers have gone from being silly little people who are wilfully ignorant about climate to people who shouldn't be allowed out on the streets unless accompanied by a professional carer.

What do you think?

(I'm probably starting to sound like ATTP, which can't be a bad thing. Except for my lack of civility:))

Credit: Plognark