In his efforts to promote fake #climate news, Anthony Watts censors Nick Stokes

While you're waiting for more in-depth articles, here's something you don't see every day at WUWT. Anthony Watts has put Nick Stokes on moderation (again).

Lordy! Christopher Monckton's miracle - there never were and never will be any ice ages!

In case you missed it, Christopher Monckton has been writing a series of articles proving beyond a shadow of doubt that the earth has never slipped between glacial and interglacial conditions. He's now up to Part 3 (archived here) of who-knows-how-many-parts in the series.

One thing that stands out is that in his Part 3, Christopher ignored corrections people made to his multiple errors in his previous (Part 1 and Part 2) articles.

There were more than 300 comments on Christopher's Part 2, so he just must be right :)

The surface compared with the lower troposphere and the Daily Mail's big blooper

Click to enlarge

Another Fail at the Daily Mail, this time with an article by Ryan O'Hare (archived here). The Daily Mail is a tabloid in the UK. Today it's trying to push a denier meme that everyone got it wrong and that 2015 isn't the hottest year on record.

The Daily Mail is wrong as usual. 2015 was the hottest year on record - and by a large margin. I figure the problem the Daily Mail has is that it wants us to think that we all live up in the sky.

As ATTP tweeted:

To solve global warming, everyone must move to the lower troposphere! https://t.co/Lw3H9JR9ue via @MailOnline

— There's Physics (@theresphysics) January 7, 2016

Well - this is not the first and it won't be the last that someone confuses the measures of satellites and surface temperature. Thing is. the Daily Mail is going to have a lot of egg on its face in a few days, when the reports from NASA and NOAA are in, and a bit later when the report from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre is in. (Does a newspaper have a face?)

A curiosity with the lower troposphere record

The other thing is that I have a suspicion there's something not quite right with the satellite records. Look I could be very wrong. I'm not an expert by any means. However it seems to me that there's a break between the satellite and surface record starting some time around 2006. Look at the charts below and tell me what you think. If you've a mathematical and statistical bent, maybe you can tell me if I'm just suffering eye-ball-itis or if there could be something to it.

More of David Siegel's climate lies and conspiracy theories

Okay - now it's out there. I don't know why David Siegel tells lies. Whether it's because he's stupid and isn't capable of doing his own research, or whether he does it for reward (either tangible or for ideological purposes). But he does tell lies and, unless he falls into the stupid category, he must know it.

Backtrack: A few days ago I wrote about a science denier called David Siegel, who used WUWT to promote a screed he put up somewhere on the internet. That "somewhere" is, as Greg Laden described it: "big giant blog that anybody can go and blog their big giant thoughts on: like tumblr, but more bloggy".

I pretty much dismissed David Siegel's article as the sort of denier tripe that's a dime a dozen in the dark outer reaches of cyberspace. It was nothing more than a mosaic of WUWT or any other climate conspiracy blog. Still, having it all in one place was a good enough reason to write an article. So a few of us got together and that's just what we did. We posted it on the same website that the original article appeared on.

We were gentle with David Siegel in our Medium.com article. We were more interested in presenting the science than in portraying David Siegel as the utter nutter that he is. Here at HotWhopper there are no kid gloves. David Siegel's article was nothing more than a 9,000 word Gish gallop of denier memes. To address every single one in a blog post would have resulted in an article more like 80,000 words rather than the 8,000 or so that we wrote.

Nothing New: On natural variability and global mean surface temperature

Denier blogs are going through a hiatus so I wandered a bit and got to reading a conversation, of sorts, at Judith Curry's blog (archived here). A couple of pro-science types decided to join in to help inform lurkers, while deniers were busy flogging their dead horses.

The subject was the slowdown on global mean surface temperature over the past few years, when various influences came together in a particular way. (Eg the PDO in a cool phase, volcanic aerosols in the stratosphere etc).

At one point someone wrote how he didn't think scientists anticipated natural variability in climate. He was questioning Tamsin Edwards who he reported as writing: "That pause in warming of the atmosphere surprised the media and public, even though scientists always expected this kind of thing could happen in the short term".

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.

NOAA and temperature data - it must be a conspiracy.

Update: Nick Stokes of Moyhu has written two articles that demonstrate what would happen if Anthony Watts had his way and stations with no data were ignored completely. See here and here. Anthony Watts might change his tune if he read them.

Sou 3:22 pm 1 July 2014 AEST

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This article is about the kerfuffle that erupted between a bunch of science deniers. It all started when Steve Goddard accused NOAA and NASA of "fabricating data" (archived here).  The lie was spread all over the right wing media. Politifact and Climate Crocks among others pointed out he was wrong. Steve didn't explain how the two agencies did this. All he did was put up an animated chart that he claimed showed that the US temperature was warmer in the 1930s than at any time since. He wrote:

Prior to the year 2000, NASA showed US temperatures cooling since the 1930′s, and 1934 much warmer than 1998....Right after the year 2000, NASA and NOAA dramatically altered US climate history, making the past much colder and the present much warmer. The animation below shows how NASA cooled 1934 and warmed 1998, to make 1998 the hottest year in US history instead of 1934. This alteration turned a long term cooling trend since 1930 into a warming trend.

Steve doesn't say what data was "fabricated". Why should he? He's not a fact checker. Quite the opposite. He's in the denial business of making up stuff to stop any action to mitigate global warming.

This article is another one that's too long :( Click read more if you're on the home page.

Denier weirdness: A howler from Anthony Watts at WUWT

Anthony Watts has written a Quote of the Week. It's what he regards as a "howler". He wrote a headline (archived here):

Quote of the week: a howler from the World Meteorological Organization – what warming?

And this is what he thought was a howler from this WMO press release. He wrote:

Gosh, you’d think they’d check the data before issuing a statement like this (press release follows).

It [CO2] was responsible for 85% of the increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on our climate – over the decade 2002-2012. Between 1990 and 2013 there was a 34% increase in radiative forcing because of greenhouse gases, according to the latest figures from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

But, the temperature data tells an entirely different story, look at this plot of all global temperature metrics and trends from 2002-2012 – there’s no warming to be seen! 

Anthony goes an posts some monthly temperature charts from 2002 onwards. He doesn't put up anything like this one though:

Data Source: NASA GISS

Anthony's chosen career is to misrepresent climate science. Mostly he does it by posting idiotic pseudo-science by his "guests", interspersed with really dumb articles by Anthony himself. This article by Anthony falls into the latter category. You'd have thought he'd have learnt by now. Does he really expect that normal people will mistakenly think science denier Anthony Watts knows more about climate than the World Meteorological Organisation?

Anthony is probably assuming that all the extra energy should be displayed as a hotter surface or atmosphere. Yet less than three per cent of the energy goes into heating the atmosphere. Most of it (around 90%) goes into heating the oceans, with some into melting ice, evaporating water and heating the land.

Here is a SkepticalScience.com chart you'll have seen before to illustrate just how much heat is accumulating because we're using the air as a rubbish tip:

Source: SkepticalScience.com

From the WUWT comments

Anthony Watts loses his cool with Nick Stokes, who had the same reaction as I did. Dumbo Anthony goes all out as a paranoid conspiracy theorist, accusing Nick of being a paid troll. Nick Stokes says:

May 26, 2014 at 9:02 pm“Gosh, you’d think they’d check the data”
What data? They are simply making a perfectly valid statement about CO2 increase and the forcings. You can measure and talk about CO2 concentration without getting into temperature issues.

REPLY: Oh, bullshit, you left out this part: “the warming effect on our climate – over the decade 2002-2012″. Nick Go obfuscate the truth someplace else. Now I’m SURE you are a paid troll. – Anthony

Does this mean that Anthony has finally banned Nick? He's been a thorn in Anthony's side for years. Rarely getting ruffled. Almost never responding to all the flames that get thrown his way. Has Anthony finally decided to rid WUWT forever of any reason and normality and go for pure 100% nuttery?

Anthony wasn't happy to leave it at that. He added a comment to one from the unholy zealot Janice Moore who says:

May 26, 2014 at 9:05 pm
Hey, Anthony! Great minds, heh, heh.
#(:))

REPLY: Yeah, Nick either can’t help himself, as his many years of working for CSIRO has produced an institutionalized reaction to anything contrary to the monthly newsletter, or he’s simply paid to come here and sow obfuscation. Given he’s often one of the earliest commenters for anything contrary to his world view, I expect he has a trigger mechanism setup to alert him so he can derail threads early on with his particular brand of diversion.
Bottom line: increased CO2 forcing with no resulting increase in temperature, means no warming, and WMO believes there was warming. Bad science, just PR – no cookie. – Anthony

David says:

May 26, 2014 at 9:09 pm
Between 1990 and 2013 there was a 34% increase in radiative forcing because of greenhouse gases…

How is that possible? Water vapor is the primary ‘greenhouse’ gas and I don’t think it’s atmospheric concentration changed much. And CO2 levels only increased about 10%.
So where does the 34% number come from?

Michael 2 says:

May 26, 2014 at 9:15 pm
I comprehend Mr. Stokes comment — but if an increase in a forcing is NOT producing an increase in temperature, then somewhere exists a cooling effect that is balancing the forcing such that the “net” is mostly unchanging. It’s not just that the heat is hiding in oceans, something must be exerting a cooling effect, and it may well be the very same CO2 at high altitude whose increased abundance means more radiation into space.
Or something like that. I’ll let the scientists figure it out BUT the claim was global WARMING, not global FORCING.

nc says wistfully, perhaps not realising that probably more than 100% of the warming is from human factors:

May 26, 2014 at 9:28 pm
Did they differentiate between natural and anthropogenic c02 levels? That always seems to be left out. 

Anthony Watts Stokes another crazy conspiracy theory at WUWT

Just when I thought WUWT was getting dull.  Well, it is dull at the moment, but Anthony brightened it up a little bit with another of his conspiracy theories (archived here).  This time it's about Nick Stokes, who has an excellent blog called Moyhu.

I think this is what prompted Anthony's article - or a discussion of same at The Auditors blog. I didn't go to CA - who'd bother?  But Nick's article looks to be related to what was discussed by Big City Lib, so I think I'm on the right track. (I gather Steve McIntyre is another one of the fake sceptics who are working feverishly to help Michael Mann win his court case against Mark Steyn.)

[Update: I succumbed, because I figured some of you will go there anyway.  Might as well offer you the archived copy to save you the trip. Sou.]

Nick Stokes is a very affable chap (and a retired CSIRO scientist IIRC) who comments from time to time at WUWT.  Nick only rarely gets a bit annoyed with people, but I don't think I've ever seen him lose his cool in the way Anthony Watts and Wondering Willis Eschenbach are prone to do.  I glossed over Anthony's mocking taunt because it was just another silly Josh cartoon.  Then I decided to read the comments to see how Nick reacted.

Nick reacted with mild amusement in his usual polite fashion

This is how Nick reacted: Nick Stokes says:

March 3, 2014 at 11:36 am
Verity Jones says: March 3, 2014 at 11:06 am ” I hope he realises this is affectionate teasing.”

Thanks, Verity, yes I quite liked the cartoon. I’m used to being characterised as a Black Knight, so it’s a relief to just have a topological problem.

Sorry to be late to the threadjacking, but as Sherry has now figured, I think, I do live in the land where koalas grow, and it’s 6.30 am. As to being paid, well, I’m afraid Sherry’s “white male between 45 – 65 years old” is a little on the optimistic side. I’m enjoying my retirement.

Anthony Watts was accusatory and full of (wrong) conspiracy ideation

This is how Anthony Watts reacted:

Anthony Watts says:

March 3, 2014 at 7:50 am
@ _Jim I don’t think Nick craves attention, but, as I have observed before, given his tenacity to post hours of such bluster, I think he’s paid to do it. I could be wrong, but it’s either that, or he is terminally afflicted with XKCD disease.

And there's more. Dodgy Geezer says and Anthony replies:

March 3, 2014 at 8:01 am
As far as I can see, Nick is not dishonest. Misguided, maybe. And not a public figure. It seems a little unpleasant to run a cartoon on him.

REPLY: Up until the current CA thread, I would agree about the “not dishonest” part. But even Steve McIntyre called him that now, and Steve does not use such labels lightly. – Anthony

I expect Anthony's cracking an inside joke with his last sentence.  Often Steve McIntyre just insinuates and lets other people use the "labels".  However has no hesitation in suggesting scientists are 'dishonest' and their science a 'scam' and 'fake', especially when he hasn't the wit to work out their research.


And still more. M Courtney says - and see Anthony's reply:

March 3, 2014 at 8:16 am
It doiesn’t seem fair to mock someone because we disagree with him.
Nick Stokes doesn’t lie. Nick Stokes isn’t personally abusive. Nick Stokes doen’t deserve derision.

I do think Nick Stokes is wrong but I want to hear Nick Stokes so as my thoughts are challenged.

Mocking Nick Stokes as though he is Micahel Mann demeans Josh and elevates Mann.

REPLY: I would disagree, look at my early days of getting involved in climate debates. I was pretty much a nobody until I had an idea that ruffled some feathers, then I was labeled and derided in all sorts of ways within a week of posting the surfacestations project. Nick has elevated himself in the climate debate, he is well known by all the players. Not one person in the CA thread or here has said ‘who is Nick Stokes?”. When so many people are familiar with you across continents and venues, I think you’ve reached public persona status. William Connolley would be another example.

Nick is the most polite troll one could hope to encounter, but it makes me wonder if he isn’t paid to do what he does. If he wasn’t polite, and got into flame wars, he would long ago have been banned. Instead, he plods along with tenacity combined with obfuscation to diminish skeptic arguments that can go on for days in threads. Many people would lose patience and tell others to “sod off”, but if your paid position requires your presence to be effective, you’d do everything you could to stay within the rules.

I could be wrong, but that is why I think he is employed to comment on climate threads. Besides, this isn’t derision, it’s satire. Tying oneself up in knots is funny to watch.

I should add in Nick’s defense, he was the only person on the other side (that I am aware of) of the debate to contribute to Robert E. Phelan’s (our wonderful deceased moderator) funeral. – Anthony

Now if one were to speculate that Anthony's conjecture is based on his own knowledge and experience with those who are much more prolific than Nick is at WUWT, one would ask him how much Willis Eschenbach, Smokey, Janice Moore, Greg, ferdberple, Mark Bofill, Dodgy Geezer, M Courtney and all the other regulars get paid :D

Willis Eschenbach spits nastiness and feigns care for the "poor"

And if you thought that was bad enough, read what Wondering Willis Eschenbach has to say.  Willis doesn't like it when Nick points out the holes in his articles.  He doesn't even like it when Nick pays him a compliment.  Willis doesn't like competition full stop.  Especially not competition from someone who does know what he's talking about (unlike Willis).

Willis Eschenbach says, after quoting two people who said Nick was polite and honest and deserves some respect (extract):

March 3, 2014 at 12:05 pm
Nick is doing his best to push policies that he knows hurt, impoverish, and even kill the poor.

You can rub his tummy and blow in his ear all you want, you can say he deserves respect and we shouldn’t poke fun at him.

Me, I stand back, look at what his polite and “not dishonest” claims cost the poor of the world, and spit on him. He deserves no respect at ll, none. He’s doing his best to cast honest men as liars, and liars as honest men. For him, truth is immaterial, as long as he doesn’t have to admit that he is wrong. This is not innocent behavior. It’s not funny or cutesy. It is damaging and destructive.

For me, he’s playing games with his damn word fiddle while Rome burns. I don’t think he even believes many of the ideas he puts forward, and indeed, as you can see by the cartoon, in many cases there’s no way his ideas make coherent sense.

But the ideas he pushes and supports are still hurting, impoverishing, and killing the poor, and while the cartoon is funny, the end results of his actions are not humorous or entertaining in the slightest.
w.

And they have the cheek to get upset when people point out they deny science.  This pair, Anthony Watts and Wondering Willis Eschenbach, are seriously wacked conspiracy theorists with delusions of grandeur and a huge chip on their shoulders.

I won't bother with the rest of the comments.  They are a mix of "Nick's alright for a warmist" and "Nick's a nasty, mean paid shill" and "Nick's dishonest because he believes in AGW".  You can read them here if you want to.

How Fake Skeptics Approach Science - Throw Away Inconvenient Data

There's a good example of deception, double-think and double standards on WUWT today.  First by Steve McIntyre who wants to remove data he finds inconvenient, and not for the first time.  (Remember how the Auditor wanted to remove some responses to the Lewandowsky survey because he decided, on no evidence whatsoever, that they were 'fake'?)

Don't like what the data shows?  Hide it, get rid of it, throw it away say the Fake Skeptics

Apparently McIntyre is obsessing about proxy data from the PAGES 2k study.  He wants to remove some proxy data that he doesn't like on the very spurious grounds that they 'must be' contaminated.

No contamination

Nick Stokes points out that there was no evidence of contamination.  On the contrary, Nick writes that studies indicated "that the pollen count did in fact document climate change over the last millenia".  Not only that, but wanting to ignore data you don't like "flies in the face of what McIntyre wrote elsewhere".  He quotes McIntyre writing only a few days ago:

Perhaps the greatest single difference between being a “real climate scientist” and policies recommended here is that “real climate scientists” do not hesitate in excluding data ex post because it goes the “wrong” way, a practice that is unequivocally condemned at Climate Audit...

Unequivocally condemned? McIntyre has not only 'not condemned', he himself has in the past advocated throwing away inconvenient data and even criticised real scientists who refused to do so - just as he is doing now.  He wants to exclude data after the fact, just because he doesn't like what it shows.

McIntyre and Watts and other fake skeptics are very quick to make exceptions to their 'rule' when they themselves reckon the data goes the "wrong" way!

Anthony Watts and his conspiracy thinking

Anthony pipes up and reiterates his opinion that if data are inconvenient to the story you want to spin, then they should be rejected on that basis alone.  He provides not a jot of 'evidence' for his assertion that the proxy is 'contaminated'.  Its hockey stick shape is enough for Anthony to decide it shouldn't be included.  Deception with more than a smidgen of conspiracy ideation:

REPLY: Oh please Nick, this is just spin. Do they teach this sort of misdirection in CSIRO wonk school, or or you simply on somebody’s payroll to be this purposely obtuse? The Igaliku proxy is in fact unlike the others, it is clearly contaminated, and clearly a hockey stick shape which suggests it was selected specifically rather than excluded. McIntyre asked you to show a similar proxy, uncontaminated, that shows a similar hockey stick shape, and so far you have ducked that call for comparison. Until you can demonstrate that, all your defensive hand waving is moot. – Anthony

Just whose hands are doing the waving?

Defensive hand-waving?  Nick provided evidence to back up his position.  Tony is the one who is busy waving his hand and offering no evidence at all.  More on Tony and his hand-waving and conspiracy thinking:

• Are you on somebody's payroll to be this purposely obtuse? 
• Clearly a hockey stick shape which suggests it was selected specifically rather than excluded.

Fake skeptics are irrational, inconsistent and clearly not to be trusted with data.  Just as well science is done by real scientists, not by science-denying bloggers.