Trump was only joking - sez WUWT. (Global warming is happening)

Are climate science deniers' opinions changing? (Short answer, No, but they are very confused little mites.)

Eric Worrall, a nondescript but prolific "guest" on the conspiracy blog WUWT said that when Donald Trump tweeted about snow and global warming he was only joking. Eric wrote (archived here):

Climate change activists simply cannot seem to handle even a joke which contradicts their obsession, without getting riled about it and providing long boring monologues about why they disagree with whatever was said.

Eric copied and pasted a chunk from an article at the Washington Post, in response to a tweet from the US "shutdown the Guvmint" President:

I think this shift toward accepting climate change science could be part of a slowly shifting trend (very slow). Since Anthony Watts handed the reins (temporarily) to "Charles the Moderator" there have been fewer scoffing headlines, at least over copies and pastes of press releases from scientific publications. I haven't been watching as closely over the past few months, but I don't think the science-denying Charles Rotter has used the word "Claim" in any headline and he's not tended to add foolish editorial mockery in the way Anthony Watts does.

That's not to say WUWT is no longer a blog for dimwit deniers. It is. It's just that as weather becomes more extreme from global warming the wind is being knocked from WUWT's sails. It's been moving away from climate and more into Trumpian politics, in true right wing authoritarian style.

Hunter Cutting tweeted a cartoon for Donald Trump. All the flat earthers and climate conspiracy nutters at WUWT will find the ruler just as useful, no doubt.

pic.twitter.com/i2dSeuDp2g

— Hunter Cutting (@HunterCutting) January 20, 2019

Don't let Donald Trump come to Australia or he'd feel the heat

The reason Eric might have assumed that Donald Trump must have been joking is because Eric lives in Australia, albeit in an area with a very mild year-round climate. Here we're in the midst of another Angry Summer, where back-to-back heat waves have been rolling across the continent since December. If Donald came to Australia he'd not only be hit with a wave of heat from the weather, he'd be hit with a wave of opprobrium from Australians, most of whom regard him as a horrible joke and a danger to the world.

Figure 1 | Last 30 days of maximum temperature across Australia, to 19 January 2019. Source: Bureau of Meteorology.

The closest city to where we live is Albury, which has not had a day colder than 30.5 C (87 F) this month, where the average so far is a searing 38 C (100.4 F), and where the hottest maximum was a record-breaking 45.3 C (113.5 F). I've archived the recent readings here. We are used to warm summers but not this warm. Now we're having to get used to very hot summers.

The Bureau has issued an interim statement on this current spate of heat waves, which highlights the difficult summer many of us are dealing with.

If a USA denier doesn't want to be shoveling snow this winter, you can always come here for a hot break. Just make sure you stay indoors with a decent air-conditioner and avoid going outside. Oh, and you'll be taking your chances with getting in and out of airports in the USA, with your idol doing his best to shut down the country.

Addendum: How hot was it in 1968?

George G. made a very worthy point in the comments that the highest temperature recorded at Albury Airport AWS in January was a tad lower than the highest recorded in the town over the river, Wodonga, back on 1 February 1968. There was a bad drought in 1968 and, in Wodonga, it got quite hot even by today's standards. (February tends to be hotter than January in this part of the world.)

We'll leave aside the fact that it's not proper to directly equate readings at different sites and take a look at how the two locations compared in December and January. As you can see, this year the heat wave has been worse than it was back then. All of you who live in the region, you're not imagining things!

Figure 2 | Comparison of maximum temperature recorded at Albury Airport AWS and Wodonga Dec-Jan and 1 Feb - 2019 and 1968. The Albury weather station has been operating from 1993 to the present. The Wodonga weather station was operating between 1957 and 1968. The two locations are just a few miles apart. Source: BoM Albury and Wodonga 

From the WUWT comments

As you know, deniers have a greater tendency to confirmation bias than do normal people. Many of the comments illustrate this, with a number of people missing the point Eric was making, that Donald Trump really does accept global warming science. A few others agree with Eric's portrayal that their idol Donald was joking and that unlike them he doesn't really subscribe to the conspiracy theory that climate change is a hoax.

Donald Kasper promotes some weird idea that climate change means there shouldn't be any more snow in winter in the USA. I'd guess he got that strange notion from reading climate conspiracies at WUWT instead of science.

January 20, 2019 at 2:21 pm
Yes it does. When you predict warming resulting in the end of snow and there is record, continent-wide snow, your prediction is invalidated. Climate as usual in the face of predictions of doom does not invalidate the climate.

Graemethecat agrees with Eric that Donald Trump was joking:

January 20, 2019 at 2:24 pm
Climate Change activists share many characteristics with Leftists, one being the utter absence of a sense of humour.

So does Michael, who wrote:

January 20, 2019 at 2:44 pm
Good on you Pres. Trump. Keep the sarc. against those nutty Greens going.
MJE

It looks as if JEHILL doesn't agree with Eric, and instead believes that Donald Trump really is a climate conspiracy theorist like he is. Or maybe it's a case of confirmation bias, and JEHILL thinks that Eric was claiming that Donald Trump wasn't making a joke.

January 20, 2019 at 2:47 pm
The tremendously great thing is they cannot shut his speech down like they do with so many others. Such great political popcorn and they deserve to have their so-called science (computer models e.g. video games) rubbed in their faces.
And if the planet was really as warm as it has been in the past we would not have an entire continent under a couple miles of ice but that may be more of location, location, location.

Is Michael S. Kelly, LS, BSA, Ret. really retired as his moniker suggests, or is he meant to be working as his comment suggests? Whatever the case, he's declared himself as another right wing authoritarian follower like most at WUWT:

January 20, 2019 at 2:55 pm
I love Donald John Trump, and, despite the fact that I’m a furloughed federal employee, I’m not ashamed or afraid to say it!

Mr. is another confused little bumpkin and probably a Trumpkin:

January 20, 2019 at 3:00 pm
I reckon there is only one way to respond to the AGW conjecture –
ridicule.
(ps – AGW is purely a political construct, conjecture. Not a scientific theory’s backside)

References and further reading

Dear Mr. President, that’s not how global warming works - from the Capital Weather Gang at Washington Post, 20 January 2019

Brace for the Polar Vortex: It May Be Visiting More Often - article by Kendra Pierre-Louis at the New York Times, 15 January 2019

Special Climate Statement 68—widespread heatwaves during December 2018 and January 2019 - Bureau of Meteorology, 17 January 2019

Australia's Angry Summer - article at HotWhopper, 4 March 2013