Australian blogger Andrew Bolt: All attitude - no research

Andrew Bolt is a conservative ideologue who blogs for a Victorian newspaper, the Herald-Sun. He has a bit of a following in Australia. He mistakes ignorance for independence and thinks because he knows nothing about a subject, he is entitled to spread disinformation about it.

I don't follow his silliness as a rule, but I saw in the HotWhopper stats that somehow a comment with a link to HotWhopper got through. This is unusual. In my experience (with the occasional exception), comments that dispute what Andrew writes are more often than not disallowed.

Andrew Bolt - climate disinformer

Today Andrew shows up his ignorance, writing on his blog about climate change and global warming:

Secondly, that it’s caused by humankind...
False. No serious scientist, even die-hard warmists, would agree that all climate change is caused by humans.

Notice what he's done? His answer is not related to the modern greenhouse warming. He appears to be arguing that because climate change of the past was not caused by humans, then the current warming climate cannot be caused by humans either. This is a logical fallacy. Just because the last time your house burned to the ground it was caused by a lightning strike, doesn't mean that this time it couldn't have been caused by you leaving hot oil on the stove unattended.


Andrew might not have meant that at all. He might be confusing climate change with weather. He might think, for example, that an ENSO event is a change in climate. It's not. ENSO events can be part of the climate. The climate of south-eastern Australia includes dry hot spells that can occur as a result of El Nino, and cooler wet spells that can occur during a La Nina. That's not a change of our climate. It's part of our climate.

All attitude - no research from Andrew Bolt

Andrew also wrote:

Labor’s panic over global warming suggests it has not consulted a single chart on climate and its effects. All attitude, no research.

It's not the Shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen who has not done research. It's Andrew Bolt. Or if he has he's deliberately misleading his readers. Take the "update" that Andrew has posted as an afterthought, to try to persuade his readers that global warming isn't happening.

2014 was the hottest year on record

He put up a monthly chart of lower tropospheric temperature from RSS. Andrew Bolt might live up in the clouds but the rest of us live on the surface. Below is a chart of global surface temperature together with the lower troposperic temperature (up in the clouds):

Data sources: RSS and GISS, NASA

The chart shows that last year was the hottest on record at the surface. Up in the clouds it wasn't so hot (but still much hotter than it used to be). Or not according to the analysis of satellite sensors, which are not as easy to analyse as thermometers on the ground.

Oceans are accumulating the most heat - very quickly

The oceans are where most of the heat accumulates. Here is a chart of ocean heat content to 700 metres down, since 1955, which Andrew Bolt didn't bother to "research":

Data source: NOAA

It's not just getting warmer, the oceans are accumulating heat at an astonishingly fast rate.

About that sea ice

And there's more that Andrew Bolt didn't bother to research. He put up a chart of global sea ice, and tried to imply that this means global warming has stopped, or isn't happening, or something. Thing is, there are different things happening in the Arctic and Antarctica. Although Antarctic sea ice has been increasing, Arctic sea ice has been declining. I'll show you what is happening when sea ice is at its lowest in both hemispheres. First in the Arctic:

Data source: NSIDC

Next in the southern hemisphere, using the same scale (so you can see how there is so little ice down south compared to up north, in the respective summers):

Data source: NSIDC

And a combined chart - adding the minimum month to show what is happening at the global level:

Data source: NSIDC

So as you can see, there is a coincidence of a year or two of more ice in the Arctic with the small rise in the southern ocean. It cannot be viewed as a sign that global warming isn't happening. Arctic sea ice is unlikely to "rebound" back to what it was in the 1970s any time soon.

Antarctica is melting

What Andrew didn't mention was that arguably the biggest danger from ice is the melting of West Antarctica. As reported by Antarctic expert, Eric Rignot, we've already past the point of no return.

Red herrings

Andrew also put up charts of tropical cyclones as if it somehow negated global warming.  He doesn't say where it came from or whether it includes typhoons and hurricanes. Whatever, this is a favourite red herring of deniers. The jury is still out on whether there will be more cyclones in the future or not.  He also put up a chart of cereal production and stocks (showing a decline in cereal production in the last couple of years). Production can increase from more plantings, greater productivity through improved plant varieties, better pest and disease control etc. It doesn't mean that droughts and floods and heat waves haven't had an impact already and won't have an impact on food production on into the future.

Finally, Andrew put up the shonky chart from Roy Spencer and John Christy. Need I say more?

In my opinion Andrew Bolt would do better if he changed his "attitude" and did some real "research".