WUWT sez let Africans starve, and implies Trump has single-handedly stopped climate change

I don't know if it's the Trump effect or if something else is causing denier blogs to be weirder and nastier than their normal weird and nasty. As you may have figured out, science deniers seem to think that global warming will stop now that Donald Trump has been elected (archived here). There's no rationale for this.

For years many science deniers have been arguing that "man" is too puny to have any discernible effect on the vast forces dominating Earth's climate. All of a sudden they've changed their tune, and many of them think that just one puny little man can change the direction of climate change and has stopped global warming dead in its tracks.

Weird, huh?

Weather weirdness in the Arctic - record high temperatures and record low sea ice

The extraordinary situation in the Arctic has to be mentioned before too many more days have passed. I've no time to write a detailed article at the moment, so what I'll do instead is post some information that's been around the traps lately. First some tweets from Zach Labe (@ZLabe), who has been keeping us all informed on Twitter.

Okay, maybe time to let the #Arctic know what season it is -> another drop in #seaice extent from the last 24-hours (3rd day in a row, JAXA) pic.twitter.com/2Fl1pQUsD4

— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) November 20, 2016

Why did the researchers base their volcanic study on a model?

In an article at WUWT today, Eric Worrall asks what he claims is an obvious question (archived here), but wasn't - at least not to me (see below). He was writing about an article published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmosphere. The paper was by a team led by Thomas J Aubry from the University of British Columbia. The scientists were exploring the impact of global warming on future volcanic eruptions.

Eruption at Eyjafjallajökull April 17, 2010. Credit: Árni Friðriksson

What the authors found was that under two of three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, but not so much under RCP2.6), global warming will likely have the effect of reducing the cooling effect of volcanoes.

The reason for this is, as the authors write: "the critical mass eruption rate required to reach the tropopause will increase as a consequence of:

• a decrease in the heights of tropospheric plumes driven by a decrease of the tropospheric temperature lapse rate; and 
• an increase of the tropopause height."

A tribute to celebrate 10 years of agnotology, pseudo-science and conspiracy theories @Wattsupwiththat

Today Anthony Watts is celebrating ten years of agnotology and crank conspiracy theories. He hasn't said much about it, probably hoping his dismal readers will heap him with praise (which they have). He did claim credit for heroically helping to "change the world", keeping true to his narcissist personality.

He thanked his gallery of rogues who have spent a lot of time trying to dumb down the world. All one hundred and six of them, some as anonymous cowards.

Anthony doesn't know the names of many climate scientists, but he managed to come up with a very small number to show how he's not just a hero, but a persecuted victim - out of the thousands and thousands and thousands he could have chosen (like those listed here). He poured scorn on only 12 people, including world leading scientists, climate hawks, bloggers, and other knowledgeable people. This is to be expected of course, since Anthony Watts wants to rid the world of climate science and claims fraud and fakery when he comes across science, to keep his errant audience happy.

New comment policy: No more nonsense denial comments

Given what's happened in the past few weeks and months, I've revised the comment policy. No more false information will be tolerated in the comments. That mainly means that I'll be deleting nonsense from deniers who use HotWhopper to spread their disinformation.

Pinocchio by André Koehne

Comments debunking disinformation are welcome.

The reason for the new policy is that it's clear that too many people have lost the ability to tell fact from fiction and I'm not going to assist in this regard.

Read this account of a fake news writer and what he discovered. It's so bad that Oxford Dictionaries has made "post-truth" the word of the year.

The point is that extreme right wingers don't particularly care about the difference between lies and facts. It's probably worse than that. They prefer the lies and don't care that, for example, the fake promises of Trump and the Brexit campaigners were lies.

Anyone who thinks that extremists will care when the promises of Trump and the Brexiteers don't pan out are deluding themselves. It is quite possible that we are seeing the beginnings of the collapse of societies, and the associated relative peace and prosperity we've enjoyed for the past few decades. Societies that shut the doors won't survive. Societies that don't value knowledge won't survive. Societies that push for global warming won't survive (and lots of people outside those societies won't survive either).

I will continue to write about the nonsense and conspiracy theories at blogs like WattsUpWithThat and, occasionally, Judith Curry and Jo Nova and elsewhere. Articles aren't as prolific at the moment mainly because I'm very busy at the moment, also because there's more politics than science being discussed on denier blogs right now. Nasty stuff - more disinformation and dark conspiracy theories, and not much science.

The downside of this new policy is that it removes one opportunity to debunk denier disinformation. This is why I've been more lenient in the past. So I'd be pleased to get your reaction to this policy - for and against.

Heat continues with a hot October - second hottest on record

According to GISS NASA, the average global surface temperature anomaly for October was 0.89 °C, which is the second hottest October on record, and 0.18 °C lower than the hottest October in 2015. This is despite the fact that NOAA has announced a La Nina advisory.

The average for the nine months to the end of October is 1.02 °C, which is 0.19 °C higher than the previous hottest January to October period in 2015, which with the latest data had an anomaly of 0.83 °C.

Here is a chart of the average of 12 months to October each year. The 12 months to October 2016 averaged 1.03 °C above the 1951-1980 mean and was 0.21 °C hotter than the 12 months to October 2015:

Figure 1 | Global mean surface temperature anomaly for the 12 months to October each year. The base period is 1951-1980. Data source: GISS NASA

Deluded deniers at WUWT about why CO2 emissions growth is stabilising and what it means

The 2016 Global Carbon Budget paper was published this week. The report is by sixty-seven people from all around the world. It is described as the "11th annual update of emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their partitioning among the atmosphere, land, and ocean. This data synthesis brings together measurements, statistical information, and analyses of model results in order to provide an assessment of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties for years 1959 to 2015, with a projection for year 2016".

What the authors found was that carbon emissions dropped slightly in 2015, and are likely to increase only slightly this year. Over the last three years there has been almost no growth in emissions, which might be a sign that the world will soon see a decline in emissions - or not (if Donald Trump has his way).

Alt-Right Pro-Trump ex-scientist Judith Curry sez climate science is a hoax

If you've visited Judith Curry's blog in the last few months you'll have noticed she has fully completed her switch to climate science denial. Most of her articles are from guests who reject science. She hasn't written much herself lately, but her latest article (archived here) confirms that she is now a hard core climate science denier.

What Judith has declared is her support for the alt-right anti-semitic populist Hitler wannabe, for the sexual predator and woman-despising President-elect, Donald Trump. She has also declared, again, her position as a climate science denier. Judith was arguing that Donald Trump was correct when he said that climate science is a hoax. She wrote a definition of the word "hoax" and then wrote this:

Can President-Elect Trump stop climate change?

Is Donald Trump a god in disguise? There has been much celebration at the likely appointment of the next US President. A lot of climate science deniers seem to think that Donald Trump can stop the forces of nature. There is little to no awareness on denier blogs that, if anything, Trump will make global warming worse. Here's just one example:

rishrac

November 12, 2016 at 3:02 pm
One can only hope that Trump keeps his word on climate change, and climate change dies a quick death.

Dark days ahead - rise above despair

Note: Blogger is struggling with the number of comments. To see all the comments, including the latest, scroll to the very bottom and click the word "loading" or the words "load more".

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My first reaction on hearing of Donald Trump's probably victory was an emotional jolt, accompanied by the physical sensation of nausea. This is despite the fact that I was partly prepared. I was at a meeting in a tiny town in rural New South Wales, with a number of other people from various walks of life.

Internet reception was patchy (very poor Optus coverage) and I had to take the laptop outside to learn what was happening. When I came back to the meeting and told everyone that Trump was the likely next US President, people were shocked and dismayed. There were comments about Nazi Germany, melting away of life savings, and concerns about how the Putin-Trump relationship would adversely affect global stability, particularly in regard to China. (Australia's security and place in the world is now under threat, and we will need to adapt and find new allies.)

It's a climate conspiracy on a unbelievable scale, says Malcolm Roberts and his fan Graham Lloyd at The Australian

Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts grandstanded at Parliament House this morning to show how he is wasting taxpayers' funds since he was appointed to the Senate. He is now being paid by Australians to continue his conspiracy theorising. He presented a 42-page document which can be paraphrased as "climate science is a hoax".

Malcolm has changed from being an anti-government "sovereign citizen" to being a member of the Australian Senate, after getting a whole 77 primary votes! (He only snuck in by being on Pauline Hanson's One Nation ticket.)

Here is a copy from his tweet about the grand announcement - referring to "Major Pauline Hanson" (who is not a "major" or major):

Troposphere temperatures for October 2016 - another hottest on record

The troposphere temperatures for October 2016 have been released. The lower troposphere is recorded in UAH v6 beta 5 and RSS TLT v3.3. This report also covers RSS TTT for the troposphere (without the "lower") and follows pretty much the same format as previous monthly updates.

For RSS TTT (troposphere), last month was the hottest October on record. For 2016 to be colder than the previous hottest year (1998), the troposphere would have to average a negative anomaly:- less than -0.41 °C for the remaining months.

The lower troposphere (UAH beta v6.05) was the equal hottest October on record with 2015. For 1998 to remain the hottest year in the UAH lower troposphere record, the average for the next two months would need to be below 0.21 °C.

Anthony Watts is hustling off to #AGU16 to stalk scientists, and speculates about Superwoman Sou

For a break from the mass insanity that's taken hold in the USA, here's a short article about some insanity in climate conspiracy land.

Anthony Watts seems to be having some trouble getting enough people to pay him to go to this year's AGU Fall Meeting.  He begged his readers to dip into their pocket again not once, but twice now. Other years he's got people giving him big amounts, but not so much this year when the average gift is around $20. (If you want to help him out you can donate by PayPal.)

As in other years, Anthony says he's going to stalk real scientists while he's there. He's added John Cook to the people he's said (in prior years - here and here) that he's creepily stalking (Peter Gleick and Michael Mann).