Anthony Watts tells more fibs about NOAA

There's a US congressman who's out of control when it comes to things environmental and climate. His name is Lamar Smith. Not satisfied with data, he wants NOAA to provide him with emails and stuff. The general consensus is that Lamar Smith isn't capable of assessing data. He can't tell one number from the rest. And he's a conspiracy nutter of the type that Peter Sinclair found when he and greenmanbucket installed a hidden camera to record the Science Committee:

Lamar Smith has been vindictively harassing scientists for some time now, in a clear abuse of power. Weirdly, the US legislators have made him, an anti-science advocate, chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Smith gets lots of money from oil and gas companies, and from that perspective some would argue he's only doing what he's paid to do. But that would be wrong. He gets paid to represent the American people, not the oil and gas sector. His job is to do what is right for Americans, not to line his campaign chest with donations from lobby groups.

Anyway, he's been on a wild rampage trying to stop climate science from progressing. He's another one who can't wait for the world to burn. As Ars Technica reports, he's also falsely and maliciously accused scientists of "altering data".

Reminds me of James Inhofe, who wanted to send climate scientists to gaol because he didn't like what the research was showing.

He's got the data but doesn't know what to do with it

The NOAA provided Lamar Smith with all the data - but he's not satisfied with that. According to The Hill:

Smith, the chairman of the House Science Committee, vehemently disagreed with the study’s findings. He issued a subpoena for communications among the scientists and some data, leading to charges from Democrats that he was trying to intimidate the researchers.

Late Tuesday, NOAA provided Smith with some more information about its methods and data but refused to give Smith everything he wanted.

NOAA spokeswoman Ciaran Clayton said the internal communications are confidential and not related to what Smith is trying to find out.

“We have provided data, all of which is publicly available online, supporting scientific research, and multiple in-person briefings,” she said.

“We stand behind our scientists who conduct their work in an objective manner. It is the end product of exchanges between scientists — the detailed publication of scientific work and the data that underpins the authors' findings — that are key to understanding the conclusions reached.

Clayton also refuted Smith’s implication that the study was political.

"There is no truth to the claim that the study was politically motivated or conducted to advance an agenda,” she said. “The published findings are the result of scientists simply doing their job, ensuring the best possible representation of historical global temperature trends is available to inform decisionmakers, including the U.S. Congress.”

Deniers are proud of having an utter nutter in Congress

Anthony Watts and his band of conspiracy nutters are ecstatic that Americans elected a malicious utter nutter to Congress (cache here, now archived here). Anthony wrote:

Wow, just wow. I told Dr. Tom Peterson in an email this summer that their highly questionable paper that adjusted SST’s of the past to erase the “pause” was going to become “their waterloo”, 

Well, that's just part of it. As above, but with stronger words, Anthony Watts falsely accused Tom Peterson of fraud. You might recall that didn't impress Andrew Revkin, of DotEarth at the New York Times.

Before leaving this subject, remember that Anthony Watts gets his "science" from the crank pseudo-scientist Bob Tisdale. They think that night time marine temperatures are a better representation of sea temperature changes than are the thousands of buoys that are used these days. (It's a long story.) They are both very wrong and know it (they've been told often enough. Of course it could be they are just too stupid to understand).

And if you want to know what the fuss is all about, I've gone into some detail describing the NOAA paper that was published earlier this year.

Marooned and Ridiculous, but not by Dr Peterson

Anthony Watts also wrote about being "professional". He thought it was unprofessional of Dr Peterson to allow Anthony Watts' completely unprofessional email get published here at HotWhopper. He said that my snark-free article was "wackadoodle spin". Considering the fact that most of the words in that article were Anthony's own words, perhaps you will agree.

Now Anthony Watts, who often posts articles arguing that climate science is a hoax, claimed that Tom Peterson "made" a cartoon:

Another reminder of Peterson’s “professionalism” is this political cartoon he made portraying climate scientists holding different published opinions as “nutters”, while working on the taxpayer’s dime, courtesy of the Climategate emails in 2009. 

At least Anthony accepts that people like himself who think climate science is a hoax are "nutters":

Thing is, Tom Peterson didn't make the cartoon. (I have that from Tom Peterson directly.) He simply forwarded it to Dr Jones. A bright spark from somewhere (I don't know who) sent the cartoon to Tom Peterson. It was prompted by an editorial in the journal Nature in February 2007, which stated in part:

The IPCC report, released in Paris, has served a useful purpose in removing the last ground from under the climate-change sceptics' feet, leaving them looking marooned and ridiculous. 

It was probably only after that cartoon was made public that Anthony Watts started his unfunny cartoons from Josh. (You'll also recall that he falsely accused John Cook of making cartoons that he didn't. It was someone else.)

The HotWhopper award of the day goes to the first person who can identify the "marooned and ridiculous" deniers. Anthony's probably feeling quite miffed that he's not in the frame (as usual).

Loopy Doo

There's one more thing that Anthony doesn't seem to know. Tom Peterson retired from NOAA some months back. Some people might call him loopy, but Anthony Watts is quite out of the loop and will never get inside.

From the WUWT comments

This fiasco has caused deniers to go bananas. Anthony's silly article prompted has prompted 370 thoughts so far. This is a lot these days. (WUWT isn't nearly as popular as it was back in the heady days of stolen emails.) (The archive sites aren't working at the moment, so you'll have to make do with Google's cached version.)


Anthony Watts seems to forget that almost no-one who reads or writes at WUWT has any science qualifications, yet unlike the people at SkepticalScience.com (several of whom are climate scientists), WUWT-ers reject science and put themselves forward as "experts". They are nothing but fakes:

October 28, 2015 at 1:19 pm
You seem to forget, that the majority of people at the “skeptical science” blog, are in fact, NOT scientists.

msbehavin' says that scientists shouldn't have fun. He's probably quite happy with their time being wasted pandering to out-of-control congressman and their vexatious demands for emails:

October 28, 2015 at 3:35 pm
As far as I know, neither Josh nor Anthony are publishing cartoons on anyone else’s dime except their own. My taxes shouldn’t be going to pay for a supposed “scientist”‘, working for an entirely taxpayer-funded agency, to create political agenda- driven cartoons of any type.
Hans, is this the type “science” you want to pay for? I sure don’t.

Steve Lohr is another nutter who doesn't know that Lamar Smith is an embarrassment to the USA, and a laughing stock to the rest of the world, if they've heard of him.

October 28, 2015 at 1:06 pm
They can be as hostile as the wish toward Congress but it is the equivalent of a teenager telling mom they “ain’t gonna” well here is the deal: the golden rule applies and Congress has the gold and they will make the rules. This pair is only the tip of the berg in my opinion and the political agenda behind “scientific studies” is becoming all too apparent. These little snot wads can pitch a fit but I am thinking this Congress has had enough. Contempt of Congress, while they may think it cool to their moon bat buddies, isn’t the kind of resume builder I would want in the final years of my career. Game on!

Like most of the deniers at WUWT, Jay Turberville doesn't know that "all the information" is already publicly available and was provided to Lamar Smith. He just wants other information that's unrelated. Conspiracy theorists like Anthony Watts and Lamar Smith need to imagine there is a secret plot. They persuade themselves that they are being fooled, rather than the simple truth that they are not being fooled but being foolish.

October 28, 2015 at 1:19 pm
I’m just a regular civilian, non-scientist type, but I thought that the way you KEPT scientific integrity was specifically by letting other people see all of the information and processes of your scientific work. That is one of the main pillars of the scientific process.

Hot under the collar wants someone to steal documents from NOAA:

October 29, 2015 at 12:26 pm
Wonder if any insiders at NOAA are so sick of the corrupt politicising that they may start leaking some of the communications. After all, what have they got to hide if it is just science?
Refusing to release the detailed information from a public agency when it has already been suggested that the ‘study’ is politically biased ‘science’ just confirms the accusation.
Maybe its time to start leaning on the weaker perps at NOAA in order to get at the bigger fish. It’s surprising how the threat of fines and prison can alter any false idea of loyalty from co-workers.

Is Tom T taking a potshot at Anthony Watts, who was most upset that his email to Tom Peterson was made public?

October 28, 2015 at 1:31 pm
Simply put If you work for the government all work e-mails are public records.NOAA’s claim of “confidentiality” is bogus. No reasonable person expect confidentiality when exchanging correspondence with a government employee on a government server. You either know or should know that such communications are public records. 

Paul Westhaver starts off okay then falls in a hole. Thing is that Lamar Smith and the fans of WUWT can barely read, much less understand, a scientific paper or data. And notice the conspiracy ideation - as usual.

October 28, 2015 at 11:57 pm
Reading and UNDERSTANDING is fundamental.
It is the spokeswoman who, of course, has made the claim that some data and methods were provided not ALL data and ALL methods, those in particular that contributed to the fudging of the results. There is more data. There are more methods… the sleaze methods in particular, and there are the Hillary-esque a la Climategate data files, emails, computer programs, all that BS that happens behind the scenes.
I am not taking the word of Ciaran Clayton.

References and Further Reading

Light at the end of the tunnel - Nature editorial, February 2007

Andy Revkin update on Anthony Watts' disgusting email to Tom Peterson - New York Times, June 2015

Congressman doubles down, accuses NOAA scientists of doctoring results - article by Scott K. Johnson at Ars Technica, October 2015

My Representative - Michael Tobis on Lamar Smith's shenanigans

From the HotWhopper archives

• NOAA: No pause in the global surface temperature - July 2015 - Details of the NOAA paper that's still causing a lot of fuss, with lots of references and further reading
• Biased Bob Tisdale is all at sea - July 2015
• More perversity from Anthony Watts @wattsupwiththat - about more "slimy" behaviour from Anthony Watts