Anthony Watts' blog has become tedious and boring and dull. When the most exciting article of the WUWT week is the sleep-inducing "Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #171" you know that WUWT is in the doldrums.
Here are some of Anthony's recent offerings:
- Umpteen articles bemoaning the fact that a few more people have found out what a loser is Willie Soon with his "it's the sun" fantasies - though few people would have heard of Willie Soon even now, and most people are well aware that it's not the sun that's causing this global warming. (Last I heard, Willie has run away to sulk in some dark corner of the Heartland Institute.)
- One article by some pseudo-religious anti-environmental nutter saying that global warming is not his fault and anyway it's not really happening (or not much) and there wasn't really much of a drought in Syria or if there was the resulting food shortages didn't exacerbate conflict in the region or if it did then it wasn't his fault
- An article by one of Anthony's "anonymous cowards" who went by the name of Megg, saying how he, she or it couldn't tell the difference between scientific facts and religious beliefs. The article was too primitive to warrant an "absurd" tag, let alone a whole article on HotWhopper.
- An article about a new Tsonis paper claiming to have found a pattern in the temperature records, and deciding it was all down to galactic cosmic rays. The stats in the paper is beyond me, but from what I read, I wonder if Leif Svalgaard is correct and the patterns they saw could be no more than the cyclical changes in incoming solar radiation. Whatever, they concluded that cosmic rays, or lack of, aren't causing global warming.
- An article with a video of some US Republican Senator miming "CO2 isn't a pollutant, it's plant food" - sheesh!
I don't think Anthony Watts has defamed a single scientist or climate hawk in, oh - it could be a week or more now. Josh has lost his touch. There's not even the usual UAH temperature report to liven things up. (Probably because last month was the third hottest February in the UAH lower troposphere record, after 1998 and 2010).
Has Anthony given up? Is this a lull before his next "big announcement" or dogwhistle to his lynch mob?
I blame Andrew Weaver.
When I think of M&M, Ball, Laflamme etc. I'm ashamed to be a Canadian. But then I think of Weaver and I'm proud.
ReplyDeleteKeep your stick on the ice.
DeleteJosh has lost his touch? He never had one to lose!
ReplyDeleteYou beat me too it :)
DeleteAnd me! In a sane world he'd be illustrating those 'Make Sure You Eat 5 Vegetables a Day' or 'How to Keep Your Colon Healthy' pamphlets you can pick up in local waiting rooms. Denial really has made opportunities for many a mediocrity to 'shine'...
DeleteThe essence of satire is that it cuts to essential truths and pricks the pompous. Josh's cartoon's are often as stupid, nasty and plain wrong as the most inane fake-sceptic comments, but are somehow protected from criticism by a fear of accusations that we're lacking in a sense of humour.
DeleteThis old Australian aphorism was crafted to describe a misanthrope attempting a wild stab at humour.
DeleteHe's as funny as a dead baby's doll
The AGW denier movement's long-term failure to recruit new blood is showing. They've no new gimmicks, reality is against them, and even squirrels have been thin on the ground recently.
ReplyDeleteThey haven't even had an "Arctic sea-ice back to normal" moment this year, and who knows what horrors the summer might bring?
Funny typo or freudian slip here?
ReplyDeletehttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/10/study-climate-change-is-nothing-new-in-fact-it-was-happening-the-same-way-1-4-billion-years-ago/
Watts writes:
"Fluctuating climate is a hallmark of Earth, and the present greenhouse effect is by far the only force affecting today’s climate."
He meant to say 'far from', I'm sure.
Awesome
DeleteThey're starting to gibber. I, for one, find it most gratifying.
DeleteShame about the planet and the people, of course, but in its own terms gratifying.
Cugel, I'm trying to achieve your enlightened state. Some days I get there, today though I am absolutely furious.
DeleteBrandon : what began as a protective veneer of cynicism has grown over the years into an almost impermeable shell. At the centre of the pearl the speck of grit that is the original me is still going flat-out ape-doodle.
DeleteApe-doodle, yes I like that.
Delete"Is this a lull before his next "big announcement" or dogwhistle to his lynch mob? "
ReplyDeleteIt's not a lull. It's a pause. He's been so fixated on the (faux) pause in temps for so long, it has affected his blogging.
"An article by one of Anthony's "anonymous cowards" who went by the name of Megg, saying how he, she or it couldn't tell the difference between scientific facts and religious beliefs."
ReplyDeleteThat's been a fun one for me, not least because dbstealey tried to tell me that Arrhenius "drastically" revised his initial estimate of ~6 K/2xCO2 in 1896 down to 1 K/2xCO2 in 1906. Which is all kinds of wrong, the revised estimate is 4 degrees:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius%201906,%20final.pdf
Not bad for a late 19th-early 20th century estimte. Not bad at all.
Hi Brandon
DeleteIt would be useful if you could definitively clarify for all of us as to what Arrhenius eventually reduced his doubling of co2 estimates down to in his 1906 paper and his book from 1908.
"Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4–5 °C (Celsius) and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5–6 °C.[12] In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapor feedback: 2.1 °C). Recent (2014) estimates from IPCC say this value (the Climate sensitivity) is likely to be between 1.5 and 4.5 °C. '
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
There appears to be a lot of confusion about this so clarification of the final revised estimate on a like for like basis would be useful. Thanks
tonyb
Tony, there's no reference cited in Wikipedia for Arrhenius making a downward adjusted value, and the talk page is no help either (someone else points out there is no reference cited).
DeleteHere are links to the 1906/07 paper "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Earth", with the high values for a doubling of CO2.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40670917
A version with tables included:
http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/Arrhenius.html
And the pdf file below looks to be related, if anyone here can translate from the German:
http://www.ing-buero-ebel.de/Treib/Arrhenius.pdf
Tony, perhaps you are able to dig out any other papers, as I understand you spend a lot of time in libraries.
Not sure whether "useful" is the right word - perhaps "interesting"?
https://archive.org/details/worldsinmakingev00arrhrich - Worlds in the making; the evolution of the universe, 1908, pp 51-53, Arrhenius estimates a climate sensitivity of 4C/doubling of CO2 including both the direct forcing and water vapor feedback.
DeleteThe claims on WUWT are unsurprisingly absurd, and rely on only quoting the direct forcing - ignoring the stated feedback. In short, a misquote.
This claim from Wikipedia is almost certainly wrong. " In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapor feedback: 2.1 °C)."
DeleteThe 1906 publication is "Världarnas utveckling" translated in 1908 as "Worlds in the making" which as KR notes above contains the 4°C figure.
Spencer Weart provides the same reference ("Worlds in the making") for an English version of the "revised calculations".
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm#N_4_
Presumably the lowering was from his original 1896 estimate of 5-6°C to the 4°C figure mentioned in his 1906-08 publications.
If I have some time later this week I may be bothered to do some digging.
DeleteFor now, and this is from memory and hence unreliable, I will just note that the "including water vapor feedback: 2.1 °C" can be understood in two ways:
1. CO2 + water feedback = 2.1
2. CO2 = 1.6, water feedback = 2.1, combined 3.7
Marco
DeleteIt would be interesting to sort out what he actually said as that may be different to the translation which , if undertaken by a non scientist, may not pick up the subtleties you suggest..
Sou
The library season is coming to a close. I try to collect the research material I need during the winter. The met office library in particular is more enticing when its pouring with rain than when its sunny.
Still, I need to return a book there in the next week or two so may try to see if there is anything more definitive on the subject.
tonyb
tonyb, Sorry I missed your query earlier. I've no further insight than what others have provided.
DeleteOK, so I spent some time already today. Hans Erren has been so kind to put the relevant 1906 paper online, although I also think he is the (somewhat unwittingly perhaps) source of the "only 2.1 degrees per doubling" claim.
DeleteFull text is here:
http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/Arrhenius_1906.pdf
The reason I think the 2.1 is misunderstood is because on page 7 Arrhenius compares his calculations to the proposed temperature differences between the current period (i.e, early 1900s) and a glacial period (Eiszeit) with 4-5 degrees lower temperature, and the Eocene with 8-9 degrees higher temperature. Based on those temperature differences he states that for a glacial period this would mean the CO2 content would be 50-60% of the current level (and thus ECS 4+ degrees) and for the Eocene it would mean 4-6 times higher CO2 level (2-2.5 doublings). That comes down to an ECS of 3 to 4 degrees.
From Arrhenius's 1908 book, page 53:
Delete"If the quantity of carbonic acid in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, the temperature would fall by about 4° [Centigrade]; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8°. On the outher hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth's surface by 4°; and if the car dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8°."
Seems pretty clear to me.
I think the wikipedia article is unambiguously wrong. It's clear from the article that Brandon Gates links to above, that the number that Arhenius himself thought was comparable to his earlier estimate of 5 degrees was 3.9 degrees. You can't write a sentence like "Arrhenius adjusted his value X downward to Y," and insert some number for Y that is the result of an intermediate calculation that Arrhenius himself didn't regard as comparable to X. It's simply factually incorrect. It doesn't matter what your opinion is about what is the more correct number to use. You can't attribute your opinion to Arrhenius.
DeleteFor a log that is tedious, dull and boring it has a lot of people fixated
ReplyDeleteIt's not a log so much as a notice board for cranks of various shades to post their musings. The owner very rarely writes anything but the occasional "claim" headline on top of a press release he's filched from somewhere or other.
DeleteIt's a place where dismissives congregate reading bits of nonsense and posting the first "thought" that pops into their head. Some go there hoping for an elusive sign of an ice age that won't cometh, some are satisfied with dogwhistles to lynch a scientist, some are greedy for titillation, guzzling up made up "scandals".
The internet has quite a few other conspiracy blogs that attract similar nutters.
These twits have run out of puff. Putrescent Unbelievable False Factoids. Endlessly repeating drivel (Not Dribble!). They are at their wits end to even fight when they find themselves in a corner of their own making. It is sad really. They need our pity. They have nothing else. Bert
Delete"They need our pity." - won't get it from me. Hell no.
DeleteWhen I was a kid in the fifties in a comic Donald Duck owed the Beagle Boys a lot of money. Donald said 'you cannot get blood out of a stone'. The Beagle Boys said ' what makes you think you are a stone?'. I felt sorry for Donald at the time. Later on I laughed!
DeleteI did not say they deserve our pity. I said they needed it to make them relevant! Playing victim is one of the last refuges of a scoundrel.
What we should NEVER forget is how these idiots by FUD and more FUD slowed/stopped real action on human induced climate change.
They should be fully held accountable for their actions. They will of course have the virus very common these days. 'I do not recall!'
From Hansard. I am a country member. Yes we all remember!
Bert