Dishonest premises from Ross McKitrick at WUWT and the Cato Institute

Today at the conspiracy blog WUWT I came across another copy and paste from Anthony Watts. This time it was an article by Ross McKitrick (archived here) that he seems to have first posted at the conspiracy tank the Cato Institute.

Ross McKitrick is a climate disinformer from way back. He wants Donald Trump to pull out of the Paris Agreement so that he and his mates can continue to wreck the planet. He disgusts me.

Disinformers will happily promote the fallacy that because we probably can't reduce global surface temperatures easily by cutting greenhouse gas emissions, we shouldn't even try to slow the rise, let alone stop them rising. These people are clearly genocidal. The Cato Institute, Ross McKitrick and Anthony Watts can't wait for the world to burn at 2, 3, 4 or more degrees Celsisus above pre-industrial. (They are doing what they can to get it to 12 C to kill all our descendants.)

As you probably know, the Paris Agreement is aimed at keeping the rise in global temperature to 2 C above pre-industrial, and preferably at 1.5 C. It's not all that likely (but still worth trying for) that we'll make 2 C, let alone 1.5 C. As Ross says, Pruitt, who now runs the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA), is busy wrecking the environment, and Ross McKitrick is urging him on. What the current US government and President are doing will make it harder to stay safe. On the other hand, there is also a lot happening in the USA that is going to help, despite the efforts of the world destroyers who are currently "in charge".

David Rose uncovers January 2017 HadCRUT temperature, beating the UK Met Office

David Rose took a short vacation after writing his second article full of false allegations about the NOAA paper published a couple of years ago. Now he's published a third monstrosity. He's digging himself into a deeper hole, aiming to totally sever any slim connection he might have had with science.

His first article was rubbish, his second article was an extrapolation of the first with nothing much to add. Today he's posted yet another "no new news" article, despite this tweet he sent to Bob Ward:

@ret_ward I already used this info last week. Let me explain. A news story, in general, is meant to contain something new.

— David Rose (@DavidRoseUK) February 10, 2017

David Rose's latest, like his previous, was full of fakery: fake news, fake horror, fake allegations, fake umbrage. He even seems to have faked the January 2017 temperature from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre, writing:

Since record highs caused last year by an ‘el Nino’ sea-warming event in the Pacific, HadCRUT 4 has fallen by more than half a degree Celsius, and its value for the world average temperature in January 2017 was about the same as January 1998.

Denier Weirdness: A mock delegation from the Heartland Institute and a fake enquiry from the GWPF

The GWPF and the Heartland Institute are struggling to find a way to undermine The 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC to be held in Paris later this year. (The GWPF is the main climate science denier lobby group in the UK, and the Heartland Institute is part of a network of denier lobby groups in the USA.)

The Mock Delegation from the Heartland Institute

The Heartland Institute claimed it was sending a delegation to the Vatican to persuade the Pope to become a climate science denier. Turns out they were just sending a bunch of deniers to hold a meeting in the Columbus Hotel in Rome, from which the "delegates" could get a view of St. Peter's Basilica, if they got a room with a view, but without any guarantee of a session with Pope Francis. There was no indication they'd tried to get an audience with the Pope - private or public.

The Heartland Institute website didn't even say who it was sending. When I clicked on the link for details, all I got was this "page not found".

The Fake Enquiry by the GWPF

The denier lobby group in the UK has taken a different tack to try to undermine the Paris talks. It has decided to set up a review into temperature records. It doesn't want to "believe" that ice is melting, that oceans are warming, that surface temperatures are going up and that climate change is happening. It also knows precious little about surface temperature, going by the terms of its review. And it doesn't care to, going by the people it has appointed to run its investigation.

Coincidentally at the same time another group has announced a review of the methods to remove non-climatic changes from temperature data, by the Task Team on Homogenization (TT-HOM) of the Commission for Climatology (CCl) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). That review is headed by Dr Victor Venema. The terms of reference and membership are listed further down.

Compare the terms of reference of the GWPF review with that of the Task Team on Homogenization. The former is nothing but a political stunt by a denier lobby group, to try to get people to doubt that climate change is happening. The latter is aimed at improving the global temperature records.

How WUWT missed the memo about the IPCC WG2 report

I suppose it's because deniers don't like the UK Guardian and don't follow the right people on Twitter. Whatever the reason, Anthony Watts at WUWT missed the memo.

Today he's got an article (archived here) about how the Final Report of the IPCC AR5 WG2 is now out. Someone noticed how some changes, which were inserted into the Final Draft without advising expert reviewers, have been dropped.

Bob Ward wrote about this at the Guardian the other day. By his account, it was Richard Tol's chapter where some words were added into the Final Draft after the last but final went to reviewers. So nobody saw them until the Final Draft was released. The changes that were made were reverted, once it was acknowledged by all that they were in error.

If you are still confused, go and read what Bob Ward has to say about it. It's been discussed publicly ever since the final draft came out. I'm surprised that WUWT didn't know about this.

Beefed up or toned down? Judith Curry, David Rose, Anthony Watts spin on the IPCC

Judith Curry has an article about economists Richard Tol and Robert Stavins and the IPCC.

Professor Robert Stavins has a blog post complaining about how much text was deleted from WGIII SPM. He's posted an article with a letter he wrote to the IPCC Chair and the Co-Chairs of Working Group III.  He also posted selections from the Summary for Policy Makers from which text was removed, as Item a (before) and Item b (after). He was concerned that governments chopped out almost all of the explanatory text under the key headings. Most of you will have read about this already, but it's interesting to compare the versions side by side. For further comparison, you can get the final Summary for Policy Makers and the full report here.

Judith is spinning this as the IPCC process is flawed. In fact, it's flawed in the wrong direction for Judith (but she doesn't admit that). Robert is complaining that the report was toned down, not beefed up.

The other interesting thing is that Richard Tol has been taken to task by Brandon Shollenberger for replacing text with his own in WG2. (I noticed how that section of the report had almost no recent studies.) Brandon is very Tol-like in his obsession with trying to find something wrong in minute detail, so it comes across as two-of-a-kind locking horns. (Richard isn't exactly a science denier, though he behaves like one a lot of the time. Brandon on the other hand does fit the definition of a climate science denier.)

Judith Curry is, as usual, advocating we take the highest risk pathway. She wrote on her blog:

I am even more dismayed by public statements from the IPCC leadership that has spun the AR5 message into the usual alarmist meme.

What alarmist meme would that be? That we are causing global warming? That's not alarmist. It's alarming but true. In the past, Judith has made it clear that she would prefer the IPCC not exist at all. Her position seems to be against mitigation or at best "wait" till it's all too late.  It's a "those who survive will adapt" stance and for those who don't, tough luck.

Hyperbole plus from David Rose, tabloid political commenter

David Rose has picked up Robert Stavin's blog post and written about it in his own hyperbolic style (archived here), using words: sensationally, meddling, crucial, electrified, debate, astonishing. Those words were all in the headline and the first two short sentences!

Robert Stavins asks if the IPCC process is broken. Once you get past David's emotive language, what he wrote wasn't all that different to what Robert Stavins wrote.  David does pop in a plug for Richard Tol's dummy spit and Judith Curry's anti-IPCC stance. But he also puts in a plug for the IPCC from Bob Ward.

Too alarmist or toned down too much?

To sum up, it seems the contrarians are now complaining because the reports aren't sufficiently alarmist.  If only they would make up their minds.

Anthony Watts has copied from Judith Curry (archived here). He's gone further in his headline and claimed that "Two scathing reviews by scholars working with the IPCC show why the organization is hopelessly corrupted by politics". However it was only Robert Stavins who directly pointed to specific examples where government input resulted in a change to the report - and that was arguably on diplomatic grounds not political grounds (IMO there is a distinction). 

In regard to complaints about government input, Richard's article didn't say that outright. He merely insinuated. A casual reader might infer that the WG2 Summary for Policy Makers was beefed up because of the views of delegates. Yet Richard didn't point to any example of same. (The IPCC provides drafts and lists changes that were made to the report.)  Richard seems to be complaining that he couldn't get things all his own way. He was complaining that the Summary for Policy Makers focused on areas of high risk and didn't give sufficient space to any pluses, for example, the decrease in death from cold as opposed to the increased mortality from heat. 

This time around Richard's article (archived here) comes across as a mix of excuse-making and whining, but still isn't quite as ratty as some of his previous outbursts have been. He is wrong, too. He wrote:

The SPM, drafted by the scholars of the IPCC, is rewritten by delegates of the governments of the world

It's not rewritten by delegates. Delegates can suggest changes to the report but the authors have to agree to those changes. In other words, the final Summary for Policy Makers cannot be at odds with the full report.

Empty-headed fake sceptics

Richard also seems to think that fake sceptics aren't capable of doing science or economics, implying group think, writing:

Academics who worry about climate change are more likely to publish about it, and more likely to get into the IPCC. Groups of like-minded people reinforce their beliefs. 

Well, if fake sceptics don't have sufficient "like-mind" to do research into climate change, that's more a sign that their "like-mind" is "wrong-headed" and "empty-headed" than anything else.

Climate change in an imperfect world

As for Anthony Watts, he doesn't know the difference between the UN and individual nations.  It looks as if he has a tendency to adopt the wacky UN conspiracy theories and he certainly promotes them on his blog. He wrote:

This statement by Tol pretty well sums up the IPCC:

Many of the more worrying impacts of climate change really are symptoms of mismanagement and underdevelopment.

That’s systemic culture in the U.N. so it is no surprise to me.

After writing that, Richard foolishly drew the wrong conclusion, writing: "This message does not support the political agenda for greenhouse gas emission reduction."

Richard's wrong. Underdevelopment (whatever that means) and mismanagement (presumably of natural resources) makes greenhouse gas emission reduction even more critical. When you combine the impact of, for example, hillside deforestation with higher precipitation you get much worse floods. Both need to be tackled to reduce the harm. Re-forestation will help but it won't be enough to stop the heavier rainfall. It won't be enough to stop the flash flooding.  In any case, reforestation is a mitigation measure in itself.

Richard Tol advocates a carbon tax

The odd thing is that shortly after that Richard wrote:

A polarized debate is not conducive to enlightened policy in an area as complex as climate change – although we only need a carbon tax, and a carbon tax only, that applies to all emissions and gradually and predictably rises over time. 

So is Richard advocating reduction of greenhouse gas emissions or isn't he? It looks as if he is indeed advocating emissions reduction doesn't it.

Richard Tol was writing about Working Group II. You can download the Summary for Policy Makers and full report of Working Group II here. It's well-written but an absolute pain to navigate, not having a full consolidated report.

From the WUWT comments

Just a few today, because this article is long.

Latitude points out that Richard Tol is inconsistent and says:

April 26, 2014 at 6:23 pm
This statement by Tol pretty well sums up Tol…
‘– although we only need a carbon tax, and a carbon tax only, that applies to all emissions and gradually and predictably rises over time’

John F. Hultquist picked up on Anthony Watts confusing individual countries with the UN itself and says:

April 26, 2014 at 6:40 pm
First, I think we can thank these two, and others not yet named, for the work they have done and their public statements such as reported here.
The final line of the post is “That’s systemic culture in the U.N. so it is no surprise to me.” seems to reference the UN and I agree it is a massive waste – for the most part. However, the 2 lines attributable to Richard Tol seem to be a comment on the manner in which many countries operate. Since Prince Henry the Navigator and the Age of Discoveries not much has changed for many “countries” from A to Z as they remain underdeveloped and mismanaged. 

Streetcred isn't buying Anthony's spin either and says:

April 26, 2014 at 6:45 pm
Can’t say much about Dr. Robert Stavins’ benign letter of protest … half of it at the least is butt covering and brown-nosing. The process competence of the managers amounts to nought if the meaning of the body of research is transformed into political claptrap. 

ossqss says - well nothing at all it turns out, just vaguely arm-waves:

April 26, 2014 at 8:15 pm
This is just another example of the corrosion in climate science.
There are many lessons to learn here. 

---

Here are the links to the IPCC AR5 reports:

• IPCC AR5 Working Group I
• IPCC AR5 Working Group II 
• IPCC AR5 Working Group III

Around the traps: GWPF and global warming, BEST daily temperatures and an El Niño watch

Some blog articles worth reading.

Ed Hawkins (and others) on a GWPF article on climate sensitivity

First Ed Hawkins has written about some article Nic Lewis and Marcel Crok wrote for the GWPF.  Actually it was two articles reports, a short version with 44 pages cover to cover and a long version with 72 pages cover to cover.  Ed makes the point that not before time is the GWPF acknowledging that we are heading to dangerous warming of more than two degrees by the end of the century if we keep burning fossil fuels at the rate we are.  The other points he makes are about why Nic Lewis is probably erring on the low side in his estimate of climate sensitivity.

Greg Laden has also written a good article on the topic of the Lewis and Crok article, which you can read here.  Bob Ward took down Nic Lewis' recent testimony to a UK parliamentary committee (along with that of other deniers).

I can't really add anything to what these people have written, except to say that Judith Curry wrote a foreword to Nic and Marcel's articles, with effusive praise for Nic and Marcel and slightly more muted "appreciation" for the GWPF.  Plus maybe a hint that they asked her to find a publisher, which she couldn't manage to do.

While writing this Foreword, I considered the very few options available for publishing a report such as this paper by Lewis and Crok. I am appreciative of the GWPF for publishing and publicizing this report. Public accountability of governmental and intergovernmental climate science and policy analysis is enhanced by independent assessments of their conclusions and arguments.

Victor Venema on the daily temperature dataset from BEST

The other article I'll point you to is by Victor Venema.  He's saying "Be careful with the new daily temperature dataset from Berkeley".  And continues:

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project now also provides daily temperature data. On the one hand this is an important improvement, that we now have a global dataset with homogenized daily data. On the other hand, there was a reason that climatologists did not publish a global daily dataset yet. Homogenization of daily data is difficult and the data provided by Berkeley is likely better than analyzing raw data, but still insufficient for robust conclusions about changes in extreme weather and weather variability.

It's worth a read - Victor is a specialist in climate temperature data.

RealClimate has an article by Zeke Hausfather and Robert Rohde, two of the BEST team members behind the new data set.

Jeff Masters on El Niño watch

You read it here at HotWhopper first of course :)  Then NOAA announced it.  Jeff Masters has now written about it too. There may be an El Niño on its way later this year.

Jeff points to this earlier article by Michael Ventrice at wunderground.com that is worth reading. (I wrote something about ENSO here some weeks ago, which has more links to the subject,)

Update: Webb Roberts ‏(@webbr) pointed me to another article about this from Kim Cobb's Lab at Georgia Tech, suggesting it could provide a rare opportunity for scientific study and learning more about ENSO, if resources can be put together in time.