Another exceptional doozy from WUWT - physically impossible global temperatures!

This is kind of funny if you're into denier humour. Anthony Watts likes people to think that he knows something about the Earth's surface temperature when he doesn't even understand the concept of anomalies. Today he is telling everyone that it's not just okay, it's correct to splice the record of ice cold temperatures in Greenland with those of the entire world, and claim it is global surface temperature. Wow!

Anthony posted a cartoon from Josh (archived here, latest here). It's sort of a copy cat of the new xkcd cartoon that is meant to put what's happening now into perspective. Instead what he's done would be a terrific parody of denier weirdness, if not for the fact that Anthony and his band of deniers believe it to be so. (Sometimes I wonder if Josh is poking fun at deniers, going overboard with silliness to see what he can get away with. Thing is, I don't think he knows the first thing about climate, or science. So, no.)

By the way, what I mean by physically impossible is that the temperature changes that Anthony Watts and Josh are claiming just could not have happened. If they had, there would have been evidence of an ice age 13,000 years ago that was at least as cold as the last glacial maximum (24,500 years ago) and evidence of major, major forcings both hot and cold. (Meaning very substantial, impossible to miss.) There isn't.

The moral bankruptcy of deniers: sending the poor into a pit of smoke, pollution and disease

There's a very weird cartoon at WUWT from Josh at WUWT today (archived here). It looks as if he's urging the world to push poor nations into a pit of smoke, pollution and disease. Under a headline: "Turning our backs on the poor? Cartoon by Josh", Yep. Turning their backs on the poor is one thing deniers do well. Josh explains that he wants poor nations to build more and more dirty coal-fired power plants instead of clean renewable energy.

Josh has drawn some chap climbing down into a dark pit, labelled "smoke, pollution and disease", being urged on by deniers, presumably - and saying "thank you" for the privilege of being doomed to an early grave.

I won't post it - but if you want you can see the archived version.

Did I ever say deniers are morally bankrupt?

If we cut CO2 emissions today...or Dunning and Kruger visit WUWT again

Update: See below for ABC news item on the horrid but expected decision of this new government to disband Australia's Climate Commission. (The website is still up here.)

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Anthony Watts has a cartoon by Josh as part of an article (archived here) telling his readers about how PM Tony Abbott has shut down the Climate Commission.  The cartoon is this one:

(you wouldn't) Credit: Josh - who suffers a serious case of the Dunning Kruger Effect
Source: Home of the DuKEs - WUWT

The object of the cartoon is Professor Tim Flannery who chaired Australia's Climate Commission.  Tim Flannery is not a meteorologist but he knows more about climate than all the deniers at WUWT and elsewhere put together.

If you read the top and bottom of the quote, you'd see that Josh (and presumably Anthony Watts) don't understand much about CO2 or climate.  As you'll see if you don't already know, Tim Flannery is, of course, correct.

One gets the feeling that Josh and Anthony Watts believe that a mere cut in CO2 would result in a drop in temperature.  That's pretty silly of them.  Any old cut in CO2 won't drop temperature.  As long as more CO2 is being added to the atmosphere than leaves it, then energy in the earth system will increase and temperatures will keep going up.  CO2 is a greenhouse gas and what it does is absorb IR radiation.  The more CO2 there is the less quickly will earth radiate energy to space.  That's why earth is heating up.

What the science says about CO2 and future temperature

I thought it might be worth writing an article about what the science says if the world suddenly stopped emitting any and all CO2 and what would happen if we started to cut emissions.

Who's a Denier Dunce?

Given Anthony Watts' post of Josh's latest cartoon on WUWT, I thought it might be fun to google:

Anthony Watts Denier