Global warming is in the air, in the UAH lower troposphere

The UAH data for October is out. John Christy and Roy Spencer from the University of Arizona Huntsville have a contract with NOAA to analyse temperature changes in the atmosphere. Each month they publish the latest data.

Deniers dislike it less than other data sets, especially since John and Roy revised the latest version considerably downwards, making their data an anomaly!

I came across a chart I prepared a few years ago and thought I'd do it over again using the latest UAH data.

Roy Spencer's latest silly conspiracy theory at WUWT. Delusions, including of grandeur

Roy Spencer feels he is being attacked. It's all because he wrote an ebook in two weeks and put it up for sale on Amazon. Anthony Watts promoted his conspiracy theory at WUWT (archived here). His headline and opening sentence were:

After publishing new book critical of Al Gore, climate scientist has website shut down by attacks 

This is the equivalent of a modem day book burning.

Is poor little Roy Spencer being singled out by Al Gore for attack or has Roy found a novel way to get people to buy his little ebook?

I'm sceptical. However, let's look at his claim that was echoed and amplified by climate conspiracy theorist Anthony Watts. I've mixed up the facts with Roy and Anthony's hypothesis, which demonstrates (again) the foolishness of deniers. It also demonstrates their delusions of grandeur and their paranoia.

Insignificant record warming and other climate remarkables from deniersville

Despite climate science deniers thinking global warming will stop on 20 January, there is little changed in climate conspiracy land. It's just more of the same old denier memes that have been circulating for years. At WUWT they've had John Christy going on about CO2 being plant food, and some very detailed work to try to prove something or the other about the medieval climate anomaly (see the interactive map and references here).

Deniers still enraptured with medieval warming

Regarding the latter, I'm not sure that deniers know that it was climate scientists who did the hard work to determine the extent and timing of warmer and cooler periods in recent history. (In climate terms, the Holocene is recent history.)  Many of them have some odd notion that climate scientists, who've been the ones finding out about the past, have also been trying to "cover up" what they've found.

Deniers are a odd bunch.

Desperate Deniers Part 7: Roy Spencer PhD tells fibs and flips and flops

Roy Spencer is a rather nasty little man who has said some horrible things about his fellow scientists as well as leaders of nations all over the world. He has made vile racist posts, called fellow scientists "nazis" and wished that the people attending COP21 were shot at by terrorists.

Roy is an "intelligent design" believer who doesn't "believe in" evolution. Oddly (or perhaps not so oddly) he doesn't espouse Christian ethics or teaching or moral code. Instead he belongs to a pseudo-religious cult called the Cornwall Alliance, which believes that it's every man's (probably not woman's) right if not duty to pillage and plunder the planet. His particular cult expects their god will clean up the mess afterwards. His god is not all powerful, however. His powers  (Roy's particular god is undoubtedly of the male gender) don't extend to cleaning up economic messes, as Victor Venema has pointed out.

I don't bother with Roy's blog very much. It's ugly and uninteresting and mostly wrong. I go there about once a month to pick up the latest satellite data. I was told that Roy had posted a scatty article about the hottest year on record (thanks, D). So I figured I'd include it in the current "Desperate Denier" series, which is devoted to the multiplicity of imaginary reasons deniers and conspiracy theorists are inventing to try to dispute the fact that 2015 really is the hottest year on record.

Anthony Watts puts Roy Spencer and John Christy on notice

Anthony Watts has put Roy Spencer and John Christy on notice (archived here). He has found an article about how some computer programmers have written a fancy paper. The paper is "fancy" in that if you click on links and charts, you're apparently taken to program code and data.

Now providing data and code might be new in the world of computer science but it's been the norm for climate science for years. There's more data than deniers know what to do with. Articles on anti-science blogs like WUWT show that deniers don't have a clue what to do with the data that is available. In fact most of them don't even know that there is a heap of data and code they can play with.

Deniers will be delighted with UAH v. 6 beta

Roy Spencer and John Christy have finally, nine years later than first mentioned, released version 6.0 beta of the UAH temperature record. Deniers will be delighted. Here is a comparison of v5.6 and v6.0 together with RSS.

Data sources: UAH v6, UAH v5.6 and RSS

UAH v6 is now a touch cooler than RSS and the trend isn't as steep. However v6 beta lines up better with RSS for the last couple of years.

You can read about it on Roy Spencer's blog - I've archived his description of the changes here.

Roy Spencer is comparing himself to Nobel Prize winners!

I just saw this at WUWT, in an article by Roy Spencer (archived here):

Comparing John Christy and me to “scientists who disputed the links between smoking and cancer”, Dana once again demonstrates his dedication to the highest standards of journalism.

Well done, Grauniad.

I prefer to compare us to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who rejected the scientific consensus that peptic ulcers were due to too much stress or spicy food. While they eventually received the Nobel Prize ...

Roy Spencer PhD and Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham on defying laws

Deniers are making hay while the sun beats down - or the little mice are playing while the boss is off doing something or the other.

As I've commented before, Anthony Watts has all but disappeared from WUWT recently. While he's gone AWOL, there are a lot of deniers using his blog to peddle their denial.

Yesterday it was David Middleton who seems to be a greenhouse effect denier. Today it's Steve "mad, mad mad" Goreham, who is employed to reject climate science. It's his job. I've just noticed that he is the Executive Director of one of those pretty well one-man bands that pretends to be a real organisation by giving itself a fancy name and building a website.

On pace for rapid warming, while Anthony Watts laughs at live dragons at WUWT...

"Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" he said to himself, and it became a favourite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb.
The Hobbit, Chapter XII, by  J. R. R. Tolkien.
Credit: Sascha Kozacenko (Sascha Kozacenko, with kind permission for GFDL.) Wikiquote

Today Anthony Watts has an article with the headline:

Laughable modeling study claims: in the middle of ‘the pause’, ‘climate is starting to change faster’

Then he put up the shonky chart from Roy Spencer and John Christy (see here and here), without identifying it or explaining how that pair managed to deceive the willing. Though he does provide a link to a WUWT article about it.

Anthony thinks it's really funny that global warming means that the world will most likely be heating up faster than ever in human history. Some say it will be at a pace ten times faster than any period in the last 65 million years.

Simple Simon at WUWT: Climate models and paper aeroplanes

Today Anthony Watts, the anti-science blogger at WUWT, is living up to the reputation that Wondering Willis Eschenbach expressed so clearly. That of Simple Simon.

I noticed yesterday how he was enamored by a vacuous comment from one of his readers. It was another light bulb moment, showing just how shallow is Anthony Watts.  Here's the original exchange, which appeared below a dumb article of the "I don't believe it" type.

Tom Trevor  August 28, 2014 at 7:41 am

You know when I was a boy I would build models, I wasn’t very good at building models, but I built them anyway so I could play with them afterwards. I would pretend that the models were real ships or planes, but I alway knew they weren’t even close to real ships or planes.
For some reason these people can’t seem to tell the difference between a climate model and the real climate.

Anthony Watts  August 28, 2014 at 7:54 am

Congratulations Tom on a great comment.

rogerknights  August 28, 2014 at 8:46 am

Seconded!

Anthony has now elevated Tom Trevor's comment to a Quote of the Week (archived here). Seriously!

Anthony also put up that shonky chart of Roy Spencer and John Christy, which I've written about here and here.

If you want to read about climate models, one of the best articles is the article by Scott K. Johnson at Ars Technica.

From the WUWT comments

Mike Bromley the Kurd writes gobbledegook:

August 28, 2014 at 3:04 pmWe have become so innured to the weasel words of climate science that we almost don’t read them any more. And when the MSM gets a hold of these speculations, add another layer of biased obfuscation.

fobdangerclose is as good at spelling as Mike was:

August 28, 2014 at 3:07 pm
It reminds me of what goes on with 5th grade young girls. You make your graph look like all the others or your not in the click.

Latitude drifts to thoughts of sex:

August 28, 2014 at 3:13 pm
You people just don’t understand…..one day the temp is going to shoot straight up and meet that line
just wait and see
It’s called volatile induced anthropogenic global rectified alarmism…………….VIAGRA

Which gets Rick K all excited:

August 28, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Lat,
I think you’re right on. That is HARD science right there. Unfortunately the warmunists and their believers will soon find they’ve been STIFFED. The only thing going UP are their expectations, which will soon go limp as their house of cards is ERECTED on sand. Their expected CLIMAX is definitely PREMATURE.
Their VIAGRA problem will soon become:
FLACCID: Failed Long-term Anthropogenic Climate Change Identification Disorder.
I am so EXCITED to be here! You have no idea!
:-)

Dave is easily impressed at the cleverness of Latitude and Rick K

August 28, 2014 at 5:16 pm
You guys are friggin geniuses!!

Rud Istvan sets out his conspiracy theory:

August 28, 2014 at 4:26 pm
Hate to spoil a bit of the fun here, since agree with the general sentiment. But Dr. Spencer’s comparison is to RCP 8.5, which has elsewhere on this blog ( and elsewhere) been established to be literallyimpossible. The better comparison is to RCP 6.0 (the old SRES A2 is closer to 6.0 than to 4.5). Of course, the change from AR4 was made to obscure the many provably false assumptions in the explicit SRES, covered up by yet more IPCC blathering.
There is no need to resort to hyperbole to stop CAGW. The wheels are coming off all by themselves. Best that the high road is taken.

Keith Minto sees value in models, but he is a greenhouse effect denier:

August 28, 2014 at 5:20 pm
Engineers build and test models and (mostly) get it right. That is their job, the models can fail but, lessons are learned, the models modified until the desired outcome is achieved. Think of aircraft,vehicles, buildings, bridges. The big difference in climate models is that Co2 is assumed to be major driver, producing the present divergence from reality, and I cannot see that changing in the future.

There is no connection between quiet,behind the scenes,engineering model generation where accuracy is literally life and death,and these noisy,politically motived grant seekers masquerading as scientists. 

Benson slipped in a comment querying the data sources for Roy Spencer's silly chart

August 28, 2014 at 5:28 pm
Tropical mid-troposphere, compared to a small number of balloon data sets – really? How many data sets were screened to come up with that one 

Roy Spencer admits he knows nothing about climate science

Usually there's something new to comment on from denierland. Anthony may still be in recovery or catch up mode after his big three days at the denier festival in Las Vegas last week. Or maybe he's licking his wounds after Wondering Willis Eschenbach made his scathing attack on WUWT.

About all that's been posted at WUWT is a barking mad rave in a guest article (archived here) - but I don't recommend it, not even for laughs. Plus an interminably long video of some boring speeches by deniers at Las Vegas. Here's the archive but I don't think it shows the video - if anyone would bother watching it.

The only thing worth remarking on was something I saw in the comments. John Whitman says:

July 14, 2014 at 8:29 am
Concluding question by Roy Spencer in his ICCC9 talk, “So, given all this evidence … why aren’t scientists advocating producing MORE carbon dioxide?”

Roy Spencer’s answer to that question and the final statement of his talk, “The driving force behind the global warming debate isn’t science”.
- – - – - – -
Thank you Roy Spencer for contributing to critical analysis of the climate science issues.
I agree that the driving force behind the global warming debate isn’t valid science, but it is what Feynman characterized as the ritual mimicking of science; it is, in his words, a “cargo cult ‘science’. ”
Also, I suggest that it is an attempt to make science subservient to pre-science ideology; an attempt to make science subservient to mere myth.
John

After reading that I decided to flick through the video myself. I came across these gems.

Roy Spencer says he knows "almost nothing" about global warming

The first one is where Roy Spencer claims that he doesn't have a clue about global warming. Why he was asked to speak about it in that case is anyone's guess. He was introduced as "an extremely credible source"! Remember, this is someone who supposedly has a Bachelor of Science in atmospheric sciences and a PhD in meteorology and who is a professor at a university, monitoring global atmospheric temperatures. Yet he says he knows almost nothing about global warming. He's been blogging about it for umpteen years and he's written books about it and he still knows practically nothing. He should do another course, don't you think? A primary school student would know more about it than he does.

Source: WUWT

How strong is it? Someone tell Roy - it's caused a 0.9°C rise in temperature in Australia so far - that's how strong it is. It's caused all of these changes around the world - that's how strong it is:

Data sources: NODC/NOAA, PIOMAS, NASA (GISTemp), CU Sea Level Research Group University of Colorado

What's it caused by? It's primarily caused by rising CO2, Roy. You should know that.

Whether it makes severe weather worse. Yes, it has made downpours more intense, it's made heat waves worse and it's made some droughts worse, not to mention fires and floods. And we ain't seen nothing yet. Just wait - there's lots more "worse" to come.

When it started. It started when humans started multiplying in numbers large enough to make a difference - way back when. It accelerated in the industrial revolution and really took off in the mid-twentieth century when we started pouring much larger amounts of waste CO2 into our air.

When it will end. It won't end any time before we stop using our air as a rubbish dump. Some time after that, there will be an equilibrium point reached where the energy coming into earth from the sun is balanced by the energy going out to space. That will be a long way off.

Whether it's "good" or "bad". On balance it's bad, Roy. It's not good to meddle with nature the way we have. To alter the balance so dramatically.

Why aren't scientists advocating we produce more CO2 emissions?

There's more. Roy put up a number of shonky charts, including his own faked up chart that I've written about before - here and here. But I bet you're wondering if the question in John Whitman's comment was posed by Roy himself or a clueless member of the audience. Well here's your answer:

Alleged cause of warming? Alleged? Roy - what rock have you been living under? Nature gobbles up half of what we produce, so it's alright to keep adding more and more to the air? Has he even heard of ocean acidification? Does he not realise that the bit left in the air is causing global warming? More rapid than probably any time in the past umpteen millions of years.

And look at his question at the bottom. Can you believe it? I wouldn't have if I didn't see it with my own eyes.

At least he got the next slide right. There is no "debate" about the fact that we are causing dangerous global warming. Any notion that there is a 'debate' is pure fakery put about for political purposes by disinformers like Roy Spencer and his mates at the Cornwall Alliance and the Heartland Institute.

Source: WUWT

Sheesh they are a bunch of deluded old men. (There were almost no women at the denier festival, except in a servile capacity).

Source: WUWT

Allies in Denial: Roy Spencer joins the Heartland mob at WUWT

Roy Spencer has joined the Heartland mob rejecting scientific evidence. He's written an article with Joe Bast of all people (archived here). I wonder what's in it for him? Remember when he called his fellow scientists Nazis? Now he's joined up with the denier crowd who compared everyone who accepts mainstream science with mass murderers.  That's the same mob who upset the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

What a nong! Thing is, he and his mate Joe list a number of papers that have shown that the overwhelming proportion of scientific papers that attribute a cause to global warming show that it's being caused by humans. To counteract proper science, he wheels out a dumb paper coauthored by the potty peer as "evidence".

Do you want to know how many scientific papers attribute global warming to causes other than humans? Well, in the past 20 years or so, the Cook study showed that of the 11,944 papers published between 1991 and 2011 there were 4014 that expressed a position on global warming.  Of these 4014, 3896 papers or 97.1% endorsed human-caused global warming, 78 or 1.9% disputed it and 40 or 1.0% indicated the cause was 'uncertain'.

You wouldn't know that if you only read WUWT. But then if you only read WUWT you'd probably think that global warming is caused by Russian steampipes and that the world is about to plunge into an ice age and that killing off mammals would be a good solution to stopping the global warming, which isn't happening but if it is it's caused by insects.

How long will it be before Roy Spencer starts arguing that burning fossil fuels doesn't release carbon dioxide? He's already explained how he fudged the charts he fudged, now he's snuggling up to Heartland, it's no big step to greenhouse effect denial.

From the WUWT comments

Latitude is typical of denier illogic and wants to be able to reject science in peace, without anyone pointing out the overwhelming consensus - and says:

May 30, 2014 at 2:18 pm
What amazes me the most…..is that most people don’t think claiming something like that….is as lame as I think it is

If the science was “robust”…they wouldn’t have to claim anything….and they wouldn’t

Latitude probably thinks that pointing out that mainstream science shows that evolution is real only prove it's a myth.

From Anthony Watts, alarmist

Anthony Watts added his two bobs worth of alarmism, writing that shifting to clean energy will "cripple our economy". It's much more likely climate change will do that if we don't start shifting to clean energy in earnest soon:

There’s just one problem – aside from the fact that this assertion [Sou: that most scientists accept mainstream climate science] is being used to help justify policies and regulations that are closing down fossil fuel power plants and crippling our economy. The claim is completely bogus. As Heartland Institute president Joe Bast and climate scientist Roy Spencer make clear in this article, the papers used to create and perpetuate the 97% claim are seriously and fundamentally flawed. The alleged consensus simply does not exist; much less does it represent anything remotely approaching 97%.

Ha ha ha. Anthony thinks that most climate scientists don't accept climate science. He puts his faith in an anti-science lobby group and a wacky scientist who reckons his god will save him from all natural disasters (but not economic failures). Anthony reckons it's "bogus" to say that scientists accept science. What a nutter! I wonder what proportion of climate scientists he thinks do accept climate science? What does he think the rest of them do - dog astrology?

---

Cook, John, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A. Green, Mark Richardson, Bärbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs, and Andrew Skuce. "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature." Environmental Research Letters 8, no. 2 (2013): 024024. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024

Roy Spencer grows even wearier...

Some of you may remember how Roy Spencer fudges charts so he can write emotive and alarmist stuff like this (archived here):

I am growing weary of the variety of emotional, misleading, and policy-useless statements like “most warming since the 1950s is human caused” or “97% of climate scientists agree humans are contributing to warming”, neither of which leads to the conclusion we need to substantially increase energy prices and freeze and starve more poor people to death for the greater good.

Roy has just made a belated appearance, commenting on my article where I exposed his shenanigans, writing:

we aligned all of the observations so that the *5 year average* at the beginning of the record (1979-1983) was the starting point. There is NO deception here, nothing nefarious, as you suggest. You can make your own graphs to suggest we did the same as you, but we didn't.

Roy can't have read my article, because what he claims to have done is exactly what I accused him of doing except that I pointed out that what he did was deceitful. In reply I asked him to explain:

Perhaps you will explain why you chose a "five year average" at the beginning of the record and not a thirty year average. Perhaps you will explain why, since you did pick a five year average instead of a thirty year average, you picked that particular five year period when UAH was abnormally high such that it distorted the difference (as I showed above) . Why did you pick 1979-1983 2004 rather than, say 2001 to 2005. Why did you move away from your normal baseline of 1981 to 2010?

Roy hasn't explained yet. Anyway, because there were a couple of people who still apparently didn't understand Roy's deception, let's do what I suggested in my comment, and compare using a different five year baseline (2001-2005) and a thirty year 1981-2010 baseline. Here is the result - as always, click to enlarge:

Data Sources: NASA , UAH ,  Met Office Hadley Centre and KNMI Climate Explorer

It should be obvious by now why Roy chose the baseline he did. It was because in that five year period, the UAH readings were abnormally high while CMIP5 mean was on the low side compared with observations. (Compare the 1979-1983 baselined chart with the 1981-2010 baselined chart. As climate watchers know, Roy Spencer reports UAH monthly and annual observations using the 1981-2010 baseline, so his use of the unusual five-year baseline 1979-83 for this exercise is a once-off for his own purposes.)

By picking a very short window where UAH was way above (and other observations were also above) CMIP5, Roy was able to create his illusion. Effectively what Roy's little trick did, was to artificially shift the CMIP5 model runs up compared to observations, making it look as if there is more of a difference than in actuality.

Roy wanted to make the CMIP data look more divergent from observations than they actually are. He used a simple arithmetic trick. Pick an abnormally short window when UAH and CMIP5 are both more divergent from other observations, and in opposite directions, and it will make it appear that there is even more of a divergence. When in fact over the medium term (thirty four years or so) there isn't anything like the difference Roy's trick makes it appear.

What isn't obvious is, when it's pointed out to him, why Roy doesn't just 'fess up to the reason he used his trick.

Roy Spencer isn't always wrong ...

Roy Spencer is often wrong, at times deceitful and sometimes right. This time he is more right than wrong. He occasionally comes out with some home truths about climate science, which annoys some deniers no end.  They prefer to think he's always on their "side".

In the past Roy's written about the greenhouse effect, which was a magnet for "slayers". This time he's expanded his list and written:

Top Ten Skeptical Arguments that Don’t Hold Water

Anthony Watts has reposted Roy's article at WUWT (archived here). This is Anthony pretending to be "serious" about climate science. (Pity his credibility has been shot a thousand times and more, with all the rubbish he promotes.)

Here's the list - I'll just post the headers and you can fill in the blanks yourself - or check here for the details, because some of the headers are a bit ambiguous or misleading.

1. There is no greenhouse effect. 
2. The greenhouse effect violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. 
3. CO2 can’t cause warming because CO2 emits IR as fast as it absorbs. 
4. CO2 cools, not warms, the atmosphere. 
5. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere has no effect because the CO2 absorption bands are already 100% opaque. 
6. Lower atmospheric warmth is due to the lapse rate/adiabatic compression. 
7. Warming causes CO2 to rise, not the other way around 
8. The IPCC models are for a flat earth
9. There is no such thing as a global average temperature 
10. The earth isn’t a black body. 

From the WUWT comments

Fake sceptics were busy jockeying to position themselves as "real" sceptics, but most of them are just faking it. Others are happy to be seen as plain ordinary science deniers of varying kinds.  Here is a sample:

Gerard Harbison says:

May 1, 2014 at 6:05 am
Actually, I think it’s a very useful post, and I have no substantial disagreement with any of it.

PaulH is one of many who says:

May 1, 2014 at 6:11 am
Re. #9, I have no problem with the idea of calculating a global average temperature. My question is, what is the “correct” average (target) temperature, and who decides?

If he waits a bit he'll find quite a few people who'll decide when it's too hot for comfort, or too hot to grow the food they used to grow, or so hot the ice has melted and their home town is a new Atlantis.

Thomas Hogg and a few other commenters ask the impossible:

May 1, 2014 at 6:17 am
Could Dr Spencer complement this valuable article with its analogue
ie Ten Skeptical Arguments that do hold water?

Update: Roy Spencer hasn't delivered the impossible. He's tried but his effort is pathetic and fails the "hold water" test.


ferdberple comes out with his notion he's written before - that all that extra CO2 is pressing on the walls and ceiling and floor of the sky and stopping water from evaporating!

May 1, 2014 at 6:28 am
What effect does adding CO2 to the atmosphere have on water vapor? All things being equal, doesn’t increasing the partial pressure of CO2 by necessity make it harder for water to evaporate, reducing atmospheric moisture and thus reducing the GHG effect of water in the atmosphere?

Isn’t the reduction in atmospheric moisture consistent with long term observations? As CO2 is increasing, isn’t atmospheric H2O is decreasing? Otherwise, wouldn’t atmospheric pressure need to increase as per partial pressure law? Wouldn’t the increase in atmospheric pressure itself lead to warming?

Juergen MIchele says Roy Spencer is wrong - CO2 cools the planet:

May 1, 2014 at 6:28 am
Looking at your point 4. :
CO2 in the upper atmosphere blocks outgoing radiation from the earth surface.
But the incoming radiation from the sun in the relevant frequency range is hundredfold compared to the back radiation from earth.

As a consequence more CO2 cools!

Tom Stone says he's learnt something today:

May 1, 2014 at 6:32 am
Thank you Dr. Spencer. Until today, I was a proponent of fallacy #7. Science is at its best when it challenges itself with observational evidence.

And in the blink of an eye Tom Stone is relieved that thanks to the fake sceptics at WUWT he's unlearnt it again. Tom Stone says:

May 1, 2014 at 6:34 am
Some of the more recent posts indicate that I was not so wrong. Even better.

Mike M has come up with a doozy of an argument that proves categorically that all the scientists don't know nuffin', including Roy Spencer, and says he can't get a "palpable" answer. (Reminds me of the palatable leftists):

May 1, 2014 at 6:40 am 
Bob B says: May 1, 2014 at 6:31 am “Roy, I think your #7 is a strawman argument. I have seen it stated by skeptics that the temperature leads the rise in CO2 in the Vostok ice core records and not the other way around. I believe the data does indeed show that.”

Yes and I use that all the time while emphasizing the alarmist claim that “CO2 took over to push temperature even higher”. So if CO2 pushed it higher then how in the world did it manage to come back while CO2 remained higher? No one seems to give a palpable answer to that question outside of “natural variability”. So then I’ve got them – if “natural variability” was solely responsible for bringing temperature down when CO2 was at or near its highest concentration – WHY should I believe that “natural variability” could not have been solely responsible for the rise of temperature when CO2 was at a lower concentration ?

JimS comes up with a number 11 and says:

May 1, 2014 at 6:55 am
Another bad skeptic argument is stating that just one volcanoe eruption can spew out more CO2 than all the CO2 that mankind has ever produced throughout industrial history. This is simply NOT true and I see it being used much too much.

AlecM says (excerpt):

May 1, 2014 at 6:58 am
My Dear Roy, you are still so wrong despite my efforts to educate you!

And proceeds to do nothing of the sort - in a very long comment. His Dear Roy has heard all the "slayers'" nonsense before.


Julien talks about "cinetic" energy and wind and says he thinks that atmospheric physicists might have neglected convection:

May 1, 2014 at 7:13 am
Thanks for this good article, although there isn’t any surprise there. Sometimes I’ve doubted point #8, but now I think it’s ok. There are still some obscure areas:

- About point #2, when a photon hits a CO2 molecule, it can be as well transformed into cinetic energy (same as heat at the atomic level), and therefore it can generate convection (and therefore winds). Globaly it concludes that energy is either transformed into heat or wind, but that doesn’t really change anything.

The real argument behind the fact that climate models might break the second law of thermodynamics is because the climate models may neglect convection.

David A doesn't like it when people use the word "stupid" and says Roy Spencer shouldn't have explained why the fake sceptics' arguments were wrong, instead he should have explained why the fake sceptics' arguments were wrong - or something:

May 1, 2014 at 7:15 am
There is more then one straw man in Dr. Spencer’s overall OK post. Basically the CAGW enthusiast all agree, so it is natural that skeptics fall into every other possible camp. This means it will be natural for skeptic’s to have disparate views. It would have been best to call those considering a different view wrong because… The use of the word stupid is antagonizing and counter productive.

mpainter points out that a lot of WUWT-ers are having trouble with No. 7 (Warming causes CO2 to rise, not the other way around), and says:

May 1, 2014 at 7:22 am
Roy,
It looks like you are getting clobbered on #7. Better prop that one up a bit, if you can. My personal understanding is that warmer SST emits higher CO2. Am I wrong?
mpainter

He's got a point. Thing is, if we weren't adding so much CO2 to the air and something else was causing global warming, then warmer oceans would release more CO2 than they absorb. Thing is, the oceans are absorbing more CO2 than they release at the moment, even though they are warming, because the partial pressure of CO2 is rising so quickly.


Resourceguy doesn't read much at WUWT, despite what he says. The comments above his in the very same thread show just how wrong he is:

May 1, 2014 at 7:23 am
I see this as confirmation of my addiction to WUWT as a source for climate science information because I don’t recognize any of these items on the list and I certainly am not aware of “proliferation” of them anywhere. Does the author have some agenda here. More information on where the “proliferation” is coming from would be more insightful than the list itself. I suppose if all blogs were counted equally you could come up with a list like this and call it proliferation.

John Boles says:

May 1, 2014 at 7:40 am
I agree with the article, but still, there are plenty of skeptical arguments that DO hold water.

Unfortunately he didn't list even one of the "plenty".


Dung says that Dr Spencer is wrong to rely on science (excerpt):

May 1, 2014 at 7:47 am
Daft response number 1 ^.^
Mr Spencer makes a mistake common to many on both sides of this argument, he assumes that current scientific theories (i.e. theories emanating from qualified scientists) are correct.

John Whitman pulls Roy up on his manners and says he could be more like Richard Lindzen who is polite to the ludicrously stupid:

May 1, 2014 at 7:50 am
Roy Spencer, I think your positions do debunk those skeptical positions, but was your use of the unprofessional ‘stupid’ and ‘ludicrous’ words necessary? Oh, yes, I see they were because your goal was to get 1,000+ nasty comments. You could have just used professional scientific words like; contrary to observation,, incorrect, unsupported, etc.

My esteem for you is lowered somewhat today. Personally, Lindzen’s approach of never taunting and always low key polite behavior serves science incomparably better than your approach with this article’s unbecoming unprofessionalism.
John

Roy Spencer makes no excuses but offers a reason and says:

May 1, 2014 at 7:55 am
…actually, the way Dick handles this is to avoid engaging people. My downfall is engaging them, repeatedly, hoping they can at least understand what they are talking about before trying to debunk it. This leads to frustration, and then to bad manners.

Roy Spencer's Dummy Spit shows his lack of education

Roy Spencer has spat the dummy, blown his top, ranted and raved and fulfilled Godwin's Law (archived here - h/t Dumb Scientist).  Roy Spencer has decided to object to the term "denier" to describe him, writing:

When politicians and scientists started calling people like me “deniers”, they crossed the line. They are still doing it.

They indirectly equate (1) the skeptics’ view that global warming is not necessarily all manmade nor a serious problem, with (2) the denial that the Nazi’s extermination of millions of Jews ever happened.

Too many of us for too long have ignored the repulsive, extremist nature of the comparison. It’s time to push back.

I’m now going to start calling these people “global warming Nazis”.

If I understand Roy correctly, he is agreeing that he doesn't think global warming is "necessarily all manmade" and saying that he doesn't think it is a serious problem.  In other words he denies the science - and is sexist, too.

Global warming isn't all "man" made.  It's likely that more than 100% of the current warming is because of human activity.  "Made" by men and women. And it's definitely a serious problem and going to get worse if we don't do something about it.

Roy Spencer doesn't just deny the science, though, does he.  He fudges charts to try to make it appear that model projections are more off than they have been in reality.

Under-educated Roy Spencer

Roy has signed up to the illiterati, equating what he calls over-education with fascism.  Here is what he wrote:

This authoritarianism tends to happen with an over-educated elite class…I have read that Nazi Germany had more PhDs per capita than any other country. I’m not against education, but it seems like some of the stupidest people are also the most educated.. 

Now Roy is from the USA.  Americans don't speak the Queen's English. They speak a dialect known as American English.  (Australians, by contrast, speak Strine.)  Not only that, but Roy's from Alabama, which is not probably considered the home of elite US society and is arguably not the first place one would equate with a quality education.  So he can perhaps be excused for not understanding the Queen's English.

So let this Strine-speaker educate American Roy Spencer on the definition of the word "denier" in the Queen's English - using the Oxford Dictionary:

In the interest of full disclosure, I joined the Oxford logo onto the Oxford definition rather than post the entire web page.  You can view the definition here on the Oxford Dictionary website.

A prominent denier of climate science

If Roy Spencer was, for a change, being brutally honest about himself.  If he was arguing that he doesn't admit "the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historic evidence", then he is a climate science "denier".  He's tried his best to rise to prominence by touting himself as a climate science denier to the Republican Party in the USA to such an extent that he was invited by them to present to a committee of the US government, arguably because of his denial.  So he could even be referred to as "a prominent denier" in climate science denying circles in the USA.

If you want to read Roy's dummy spit - go here.  It's not the sort of thing you'd expect a climate scientist to write.  It's not even the sort of thing you'd expect to read on a snark blog, like HotWhopper. It is the sort of thing you'll find every day on the more extreme anti-science websites.

PS Roy's article didn't make the cut at WUWT - or not yet that I've seen.

Mis-"Quote of the Week" at WUWT!

Anthony Watts put up as his "Quote of the Week".

"Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change," Holdren said.

All over the deniosphere from Roy Spencer to Wondering Willis Eschenbach at WUWT and Marc Morano, people have grabbed onto a short phrase attributed to John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The sentence they are mocking they found at The Hill:

Thing is, I couldn't find anywhere else that shows that this is what Holdren said.  It seemed an unlikely thing for him to say.  I wondered. I was sceptical.  Did someone at the Hill put words into John Holdren's mouth?

Indeed they did.

What John Holdren actually said

I found the radio broadcast that included John Holdren speaking on the subject.  What John Holdren actually said was exactly the same as other news sources quoted him as saying.  He is introduced at around 2:28 in the audio clip on this page from kvpr.org.  What John Holdren actually said was (at 2:51):

The global climate has now been so extensively impacted by the build up of human caused greenhouse gases that weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change.

So why did the Hill misquote John Holdren?  I don't know.  Maybe because the reporter was ignorant.  But it sure was picked up by both professional and amateur disinformers alike as well as lots of common as muck science deniers.

Other news sources quoted accurately

Other news sources that report Holdren's "call with reporters" carry the quote in context.  For example, from Reuters:

John Holdren, Obama's top adviser on science and technology, said the global climate has been so extensively impacted by "the human-caused buildup of greenhouse gases that weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change."

What's the difference?  Well, the difference is between being "caused by" and being "influenced by".   Without a definitive attribution study, the first quote is one you won't hear from a climate scientist.  The second quote is one you'll often hear or a variation of it.

Being pedantic: "climate change" vs "global warming" vs "the build-up of greenhouse gases"?

Since we're focusing on pedantry, I'll also pick a nit with the use of the words "climate change" in this context.  In the second quote, John Holdren is correct if you assume "climate change" is being used as equivalent to "global warming".  More strictly speaking, much climate change is today being caused by global warming.  Even more strictly speaking, global warming is being caused by the build-up of greenhouse gases, which is also causing climate change.  You'll have noticed that John Holdren makes this quite clear when he links the changes in global climate with the build up of greenhouse gases.

All weather today is influenced by today's atomospheric composition and the extra energy in the earth system.  I'd go further than John Holdren.  I'd leave out "practically" and substitute "global warming" for climate change and say that "weather everywhere is being influence by global warming".

What about the misquote that sent deniers into a spin?  Is "weather practically everywhere being caused by climate change?"

One way to look at it is by thinking about what is weather and what is climate.  We usually define climate in terms of weather.  Or, more accurately, in terms of the extreme ranges of weather.  That is, what is the range of weather that can be expected in a particular locale.  What are the expected boundaries within which weather will be generally confined.

Melbourne is described as having a temperate climate or a Mediterranean climate.  The word "temperate" was applied to a zone that lies below the tropics and the poles.  The difference between summer and winter isn't huge and the weather doesn't have the freezing cold winters of the Arctic.  The word "temperate" itself is generally taken to mean "mild".

Melbourne used to have a temperate climate characterised by mild, dry summers and mild, wetter winters. Last century, the extreme heat of the temperatures we've seen this century was as rare as snow in Melbourne.  Not "never" but "rare" (though the most extreme heat we've had this century was "never" experienced last century in Melbourne).

Now during Melbourne summers, heat waves are becoming more common in the low to mid 40s and higher (104-117 Fahrenheit).  Can it still be properly described as "temperate" without changing the meaning of the word "temperate"?  Perhaps we need to find a new word to replace "temperate".

Is the weather being "caused" by climate change?  Or is the changed expectation of "weather" causing a change in the climate?  Arguably, the change in the weather is as a result of global warming.  However, going to the science, Melbourne weather is also being influenced by the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.  So the change in the weather in Melbourne's  is being caused both by global warming and the hole in the ozone layer.

How much does it matter?  It depends on the context.  In science, accuracy and precision are important.  As far as the general public goes, we just want to know what is happening and why.  As far as policy goes, we need to know how to fix it.

The thing is, the weather is changing therefore the climate is changing.  And all these will go on changing as global warming kicks in.

From the WUWT comments

There is the usual spray of conspiracy theorising, nefarious intent-ing, straight up denialism and general denier weirdness in the comments at WUWT.  Here is a sample (archived here):


A couple of people at WUWT also noticed the difference in reporting.  For example, WillR says:

February 14, 2014 at 2:14 pm
This is interesting…
People basing their story on “The Hill” (Blog) are using the word “caused”.
Reuters is claiming he said “influenced”.
Popcorn futures anyone?

tgasloli says:

February 14, 2014 at 4:28 pm
It doesn’t matter that they are idiots–they are idiots with power and power is all that matters.

rabbit says:

February 14, 2014 at 4:36 pm
The meaning is clear. Before mankind started pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, we never had weather. Temperature and precipitation cycled smoothly through the seasons, one day very much like the next.
True fact.

Jean Parisot says:

February 14, 2014 at 5:10 pm
Holdren wants to kill 25M people, and he has an office in the White House. I’m not sure we should be laughing at him, if he were holding a sign on a street corner or teaching at a college – sure laugh, but he’s a little too high up the food chain for laughing.

I'll leave you with this pile of nonsense from Wondering Willis Eschenbach as he tries to put down scientist, Nick Stokes (of Moyhu), almost the only sane voice that remains at WUWT.  (Willis doesn't like Nick because Nick has a habit of showing up the flaws in Willis' wonderings.)


Out of the more than 120 comments at WUWT, Willis singled out this short comment by Nick Stokes, who wrote, quoting Willis:

February 14, 2014 at 12:53 pm
“For the last decade and a half there’s been no statistically significant warming, certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.”

Warming is warming. Its effect is totally unrelated to statistical significance.

Willis Eschenbach says (after copying Nick Stokes comment above):
February 14, 2014 at 2:06 pm

Egads, lock up the good silver, it’s the noted agent provocateur, “Racehorse” Nick Stokes.

Anyhow, Nick, let’s parse that claim of yours, shall we? Here are the propositions:

The effect of warming is a function of the amount of warming—more warming, more effect, and vice versa. The effect of no warming is zero. If it doesn’t warm, it has no effect. Warming which is “not statistically significant” is warming that cannot be distinguished from zero warming.

THEREFORE:

Warming which is not statistically different from zero has an effect which is not statistically different from zero, and thus, as I wrote in the head post,
• After seventeen years without statistically significant warming , the effect of said warming is totally related to its statistical significance, and
• Said warming is “certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.”
Q. E. D.
…

Now, for the backstory. Folks, Mr. Nick Stokes has a curious distinction. Despite various ones of his many claims being proven wrong by a variety of heavyweight folks in the past, including Steve McIntyre, Nick has never, ever once been caught admitting he was wrong in even the tiniest of details.

For this sterling quality and high achievement, he’s been christened “Racehorse” Nick Stokes, in honor of of the Texas lawyer Racehorse Haynes, who was famous for … well, I’ll let Haynes tell it:

Haynes loves discussing his cases to teach young lawyers about trial practice. In 1978, he told attendees at an ABA meeting in New York City that attorneys too often limit their strategic defense options in court. When evidence inevitably surfaces that contradicts the defense’s position, lawyers need to have a backup plan.

“Say you sue me because you say my dog bit you,” he told the audience. “Well, now this is my defense: My dog doesn’t bite. And second, in the alternative, my dog was tied up that night. And third, I don’t believe you really got bit.”

His final defense, he said, would be: “I don’t have a dog.”

So what I’m trying to say is that Nick will be back to tell us all about how he doesn’t have a dog in 3 … 2 … 1 …
w.

PS—Haynes was famous for successfully defending women accused of going for a “Smith and Wesson divorce” as a result of being abused. Once when he was congratulated on his record in those cases, he said something like “I got all but two of them off, and I’d have gotten them off if they hadn’t kept reloading and firing” …

In the light of Willis' PS - readers may recall this article from Wondering Willis.

As for Willis' "heavyweights" - only in their own mind and that of science deniers who don't read or understand climate science.  McIntyre is just another a conspiracy theorising blogger with obsessive tendencies.  He is not a climate scientist.

Roy Spencer's latest deceit and deception

Update: Today Roy Spencer responded below. I've now written another article explaining his deception a slightly different way.

Sou 21 May 2014

---

Sheesh! How's this for unadulterated chart fudging. Roy Spencer has put up a chart and proclaimed (archived here):

...the climate models that governments base policy decisions on have failed miserably.

I’ve updated our comparison of 90 climate models versus observations for global average surface temperatures through 2013, and we still see that >95% of the models have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH):

Let's look at how he's conned his denier fans.  Below I've plotted the CMIP5 composite mean against UAH and GISTemp using a 1981-2010 baseline, which is what UAH normally uses, and then I'll discuss what Roy Spencer has effectively done:

Data Sources: NASA, UAH and KNMI Climate Explorer

What he's effectively done is shifted the CMIP5 charts up by around 0.3 degrees.  In case you find it hard to credit that even a contrarian scientist would stoop so low, here is Roy Spencer's chart, with my annotations:

Adapted from Source: Roy Spencer

Not only did Roy effectively shift up the CMIP5 data, Roy Spencer effectively shifted down the UAH data in comparison with HadCRUT4.  This is the chart of UAH and HadCRUT4 using the 1981-2010 30 year baseline - compare that to Roy Spencer's deceptive fudge:

Data sources: UAH and Met Office Hadley Centre

How did he fudge?  What Roy Spencer has done is he's used a five year average - 1979-1983 to plot his data instead of the normal 30 year baseline.  Why did he pick 1979 to 1983 as the baseline?  The answer can only be that he wanted to deceive his readers.  Here is a comparison of UAH and HadCRUT4 using his shonky five year baseline compared to his normal 30-year 1981-2010 baseline.

That's not all that he's done.  If you compare the five year baseline chart I plotted with Roy's chart - his chart shows UAH lower than HadCRUT4 in every year.  That's not what my chart above shows, even using his shonky 5-year baseline.  Roy said he's using "running five year means" - which only shows the elaborate lengths he felt he had to go to in order to deceive people.

Anyway, to further illustrate Roy's shonkiness, here is the longer term CMIP5 and CMIP3 means vs GISTemp using the normal 30 year baseline:

Data Sources: NASA and KNMI Climate Explorer

The divergence only becomes apparent from around 2005.  Going by Roy's past behaviour, I shouldn't be surprised at him fudging the data to this extent, but I am.

From the comments

Mostly fake sceptics who are all too keen to buy into Roy Spencer's deception (archived here).

david dohbro says:

February 7, 2014 at 11:03 AM
unfortunately most of our decisions are emotionally based; very few factual. These decisions range from the simplest thing of “what to put on my sandwich today” to those on a much grander scale “let’s declare war to a nation”…

benpal says:

February 7, 2014 at 11:34 AM
Thanks for this update on the State of the Planet.

Jan says:

February 7, 2014 at 11:59 AM
Regardsless of who is right or wrong we must all be glad that the worst predictions seems to have failed.
I sometimes wonder if the alarmist share this relief, somehow I have the feeling that many of them want the temperatures to increase just to prove themselves right.

Denier Don Easterbrook says:

February 7, 2014 at 12:10 PM
Roy
In 2000, I downloaded the IPCC temp prediction to 2100 from the official IPCC website showing a 1 F warming from 2000 to 2010. That curve has long since disappeared from the IPCC website (surprise, surprise!) and the deviations of their projections from measured temps from 2000 are much, much smaller. My question is–how much of the deviation of the modeled curves from 2000 has been back-casted, i.e., their original predictions changed to match what actually happened. If that is the case, then their prediction record is actually considerably more miserable than your curves show.

Don

David A. says:

February 7, 2014 at 3:04 PM
Don, what document was the IPCC data from? Because all 5 ARs are available here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.UvVKDPldWa8
I wrote to you twice about two weeks ago, asking for the data source for one of your charts. You never replied. What happened to data sharing?

Pablo says:

February 7, 2014 at 1:09 PM
So 97.8% of climate models are wrong, somehow thats quite poetic. :)

Salvatore Del Prete says:

February 7, 2014 at 1:38 PM
Exactly, and as each month goes by they are more and more off.

Salvatore Del Prete is probably referring to this "not even wrong" prediction when he says:

February 7, 2014 at 1:39 PM
Don, if you read this I have been and continue to be in complete agreement with your climate assessment.

2013 the fourth hottest year in the UAH record

This won't be pleasing news to anyone, let alone the deniers at WUWT.  From WUWT (archived here):

2013 was the fourth warmest year in the satellite era, trailing only 1998, 2010 and 2005, according to Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The warmest areas during the year were over the North Pacific and the Antarctic, where temperatures for the year averaged more than 1.4 C (more than 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal. There were small areas of cooler than normal temperatures scattered about the globe, including one area over central Canada where temperatures were 0.6 C (about 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than the 30-year norm.

The Antarctic was much warmer than 'normal'

All sorts of things should shake the faith of the denialati, not least of which is the fact that according to UAH analysis, the Antarctic was one of the warmest areas -  where temperatures for the year averaged more than 1.4 C (more than 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal.

After all their recent ravings over sea ice around Antarctica, that should have given the deniers at WUWT pause.

I've done a quick chart of annual UAH annual global lower troposphere temperature anomalies, up to and including 2013:

Data Source: UAH

Addendum - RSS and UAH

I've included HadCRUT below, here is RSS and UAH together, for the sake of completeness.  GISTemp isn't out yet. They are fairly closely aligned, at least up until a couple of years ago. [Sou 10:19 am 5 Jan 14 AEDST]

Data Sources: UAH and RSS

Update

I've made minor corrections to the charts, using the latest data from UAH. [Sou 11:33 am 5 January 2014 AEDST]

Despite this, the denial continues - from the WUWT comments

Lots of comments of the type "I don't believe it" and "it's about to cool down" and even "warmer = cooling". You've got to admit that WUWT houses a lot of utter nutters.

RichardLH says:

January 3, 2014 at 12:30 pm
Given that we appear to be at the top of a well observed 60 year cycle then this is not unexpected. The real question is ‘How much down from here do we go and for how long?”.

Gareth Phillips queries Richard and says:

January 3, 2014 at 12:37 pm
The point is Richard, the trend remains upwards.It may be a small amount, but it is still rising, not falling or staying still. Is there any objective evidence that we are at a peak and the trend will reverse?

To which RichardLH replies (excerpt, quotes removed):

January 3, 2014 at 12:41 pm
Well the HadCrut4 says there is a 60 year and we are at the top of it.
The UAH says the same (though with only data since 1979 you can only see half a cycle).
What evidence do you have that this is an upward trend? It looks very, very cyclic to me.

Let's look at HadCRUT4 to see just how we are now at temperatures of sixty years ago. I've animated with UAH superimposed as well - with a 1981-2010 baseline:

Data Sources: UAH and UK Met Office Hadley Centre

Nope - we should surely be at the temperatures of 1953 if all that affected climate was a sixty year cycle. But no, we're not. And no-one's likely to see surface temperatures of the 1950s for at least tens of thousands of years, barring supervolcanic eruptions or some other cataclysmic event.

Incidentally, in HadCRUT4, 2013 is the eighth hottest year on record, after (in order)  2010, 2005, 1998, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2002.

JimS demands a recount from science deniers Roy Spencer and John Christy and says:

January 3, 2014 at 1:03 pm
I find that very hard to believe, quite frankly – 2013 being the 4th warmest year in the last 30 years. I demand a recount, or, perhaps the coolists should be given opportunity to “adjust” the figures, this time, eh?

WeatherOrNot doesn't understand anomalies and says:

January 3, 2014 at 1:12 pm
Is mean global average temperature data available, rather than just the anomaly? I’d be interested to know the trend for the actual average global temperature over the years.

LT says:

January 3, 2014 at 1:13 pm
It looks like UAH continues to deviate from the other global temperature datasets. Something seems off.

dp says that warming means it's cooling - huh?:

January 3, 2014 at 1:14 pm
Having that heat in the atmosphere above the north Pacific is a net cooling effect to the planet as the ocean heat passes through the air before making its way back the the dark regions of the universe. People are viewing this as a bad thing – I don’t understand that. Rejoice, people – that is what global cooling looks like.

Steve from Rockwood rides a cycle and says:

January 3, 2014 at 1:28 pm
If there is such a thing as a 60 year cycle then using a 30 year average for the negative half of the 60 year cycle and then claiming that 2001-2013 are the warmest years is … well … entirely expected. With the positive peak of a 60 year cycle centered around 2005 anything other than 12 of 13 years being 2001 or later would be very unusual – like 1998 which shouldn’t be there (we all know why it is an exception). It seems as though the world is unfolding as it should.

Steven Mosher posts a challenge to deniers and says:

January 3, 2014 at 1:35 pm
Time for all you sun nuts and PDO fans to place your bets.
we are at solar max.. If the sun is the cause then its time to make predictions

justsomeguy31167 goes for "it's a conspiracy" of the "gremlins in the satellite" type and and says:

January 3, 2014 at 2:03 pm
Since you get your data from NASA, any chance it is “pre-cooked” Hansen and Gavin?

bazza  misunderstood the ABC, thinking that "since 1889" means it was hot in 1889, not realising it means "since records began in 1889" (in that part of Queensland) and says:

January 3, 2014 at 2:36 pm
The abc here in australia are obsessed with the hot weather we are getting in qld at the moment.They spent most of the news talking about it no mention of the extream cold in the us.At one point in the show they had a [so called] weather expert on and with great joy he said it has not been this hot since 1889 scary scary we are all going to fry.My question is what made it so hot in 1889?it was not SUVs and air con, trust me the weather is no different now than it was in the 1950s.When will this global warming madness end?so we can stop spending billions of dollars on stupid research projects like that fiasco in antarctica with there ship stuck in the ice that they claim is not there.

This is for bazza courtesy HotWhopper and the Bureau of Meteorology:

Adapted from: Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Bob Grise applies the logical fallacy of argument from incredulity when he says:

January 4, 2014 at 12:25 am
You look at all this massive ice at the poles and all that mass of water in the oceans and then do some math. The population of man per square mile of Earth is only 35, or one person per 18 acres. How the heck did that influence climate, or the amount of ice at the poles in any given year? It can’t be possible. This is nature at work. Natural variation. We have very little to no control.

Arno Arrak writes a very long post, of which the following excerpt is probably the gist of it. Step warming happened but it isn't really warming. (My para breaks and bold italics.)

January 3, 2014 at 5:07 pmThis way of calculating temperature is all wrong. What happened is that the 1998 super El Nino brought so much warm water across the ocean that it created a step warming immediately following it. That step warming raised global temperature by 0.3 degrees Celsius and then stopped. This 0.3 degrees rise looked like another El Nino at first but the temperature rise it created became a permanent addition to global temperature, starting with the year 2002. As a result, all 21st century temperatures sit on a high platform created by this step warming. It is a pretty level platform too, judging by the fact that global mean temperature has stayed the same throughout this century.

Just comparing twenty-first to twentieth century temperatures will give the impression that some kind of warming is taking place which is wrong. Warming did happen but it was a step warming and is over.

But it did leave a permanent imprint on global temperature whose consequences we must account for. It is not clear why the temperature rise it created stayed at that high level instead of going back to the pre-1998 period. Superimposed upon this platform are the 2008 La Nina and the 2010 El Nino that are part of the ENSO oscillation. That super El Nino of 1998 was itself preceded by eighteen years of temperature standstill, just like the one we have now.

Hansen noticed the temperature increase and pointed out that the ten warmest years all happened in the twenty-first century. He was right of course but he did not understand the role of the step warming and jumped to the conclusion that CO2 was responsible.

The super El Nino and its aftermath are a climate mystery that should have been intensely investigated. Nothing like this has happened for more than a century. Instead we see billions of dollars wasted on trying to prove greenhouse warming which does not exist. These “experts” controlling the money don’t have a clue about 1998 and its aftermath. Real climate science just does not interest them

You can read more dross at the archived WUWT article.