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.

Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham rejects climate science and brings out the utter nutters at WUWT

Anthony Watts is still promoting full-on rejection of the last two centuries of climate science at WUWT.  He doesn't know if he's coming or going as far as the science goes, but when it comes to politics he does know where he stands.

Anthony is willing to promote flat out rejection of two hundred years of climate science in order to persuade people to be luddites.  To persuade people not to embrace the energy revolution.  To persuade people that the aged out-dated technology of dirty coal is preferable to tried and tested technology of clean renewable energy.

Today Anthony is promoting the wacky ideas of Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham (archived here).  Steve's ideas are so wacky that the Heartland Institute was forced to try to give away his latest book, sending it out to scientists at universities so they could use it as a doorstop or mock it if they thought it was worth the effort of doing so.

Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham writes today:

Since climate change is dominated by natural, not man-made factors, there is no United Nations agreement that will have a measureable effect on Earth’s climate. 

Climate change is dominated by natural not man-made factors?  That comment of his places him squarely in the "utter nutter" camp of science deniers.  And by default it places Anthony Watts right there alongside him for promoting his nonsense.

[In the main WUWT article, which is a repost of a Washington Times article, Steve Goreham is bemoaning the fact that the United Nations Global Compact has "released guidelines to help companies engage in climate policy in a transparent and accountable way that is consistent with their sustainability commitments".  Here's a link to the guidelines themselves.  I'll be interested to read them.  I'm aware of other initiatives over the years involving some of the world's leading management consulting firms.  And I'm somewhat familiar with similar efforts here in Australia.  Some of these initiatives are more useful to business than others.]

Well-mixed greenhouse gases far outweigh "natural" forcings

Going back to Steve Goreham's rejection of the greenhouse effect, below is a chart looking back more than one thousand years, showing the radiative forcing from volcanoes (upper left scale), changes in solar irradiance (middle right scale) and well-mixed greenhouse gases (bottom left scale).  Click the chart to enlarge it.

Source: Box TS.5 Figure 1 page TS-103 AR5 WG1 IPCC

The chart makes it obvious to everyone (except maybe the most hardened science denier like Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham) that it's the increase in greenhouse gases that are having by far the biggest impact on earth these days.

Components of radiative forcing

There's more.  Below is what the science shows are the main components of radiative forcing, from page TS-91 of the latest IPCC report:

Source: Figure TS.7 page TS-91 AR5 WG1 IPCC

Why does Anthony Watts promote greenhouse effect deniers?

 Anthony Watts professes to accept the science explaining the greenhouse effect. So why does he promote the opinions of greenhouse effect deniers?

I can't read the mind of Anthony Watts but he has given clues in the past.  It's not because he knows something about climate that no-one else knows.  It's because of his political stance.  For example, he has said on public television that he rejects climate science because it has implications for policy.  See 54 seconds into this interview with him on YouTube:

Interviewer: "What bothers you the most about the arguments that there is serious global warming?"

Anthony Watts: "They want to change policy, they want to apply taxes"!

From the WUWT comments

As you can see from below, there aren't too many semi-coherent comments yet.  Here's the current archive.

norah4you says - I'm not sure what she's trying to say:

November 19, 2013 at 9:38 pm
So if FN aren’t supported from facts instead of computermodels, then business is next in line to be called for help?

Graham of Sydney interprets it in his own way and says:

November 19, 2013 at 9:51 pm
“Business must lobby governments to fight climate change, according to the United Nations.”
Translated as:
“Look, will youse just shuddup already and hand over the dough, FFS?”

A.D. Everard says:

November 19, 2013 at 10:24 pm
I can’t see businesses being too keen, they are feeling the pinch already, many of them on the brink of going under. I would imagine they will lobby the governments in quite the opposite direction, or at least I *blinking* well hope so.

rtj1211 says "it's all about money":

November 19, 2013 at 11:32 pm
‘Bankrupt yourselves and die, then the world will be left for us rich folks’.
That would just about sum up the UN/CEO approach.

RockyRoad goes for conspiracy ideation of a most exaggerated type and says:

November 19, 2013 at 11:39 pm
Another desperate appeal based on fantasy.
Everybody knows this centralized power structure is losing their grip.
Their reign of power is collapsing.

Water and clouds, weather and climate and denier nonsense at WUWT

Clouds and water are today's fare at Anthony Watts' science denier blog, WUWT.

About clouds

First of all there is some discussion on WUWT about a new paper from the Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets (CLOUD)  experiments at CERN, which David Appell covered on his blog a couple of days ago.  Two findings of interest were reported from CERN.  Firstly that amines, even at very low concentrations (typical of atmospheric concentrations), combine with sulphuric acid to form highly stable aerosol particles at rates similar to those observed in the atmosphere.  This is important because apparently amines are expected to increase in the atmosphere from human activity, according to the press release.  Secondly, for all the cosmic ray fans, "cosmic ray ionisation has only a small effect on the formation rate of amine-sulphuric acid particles but they don’t rule out more significant effects if sulphuric acid particles nucleate with other vapours in the lower atmosphere".

About water

Then there is another article on WUWT titled: "Climate change is dominated by the water cycle, not carbon dioxide".  Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham has decided, against all the evidence, that water vapour and clouds are increasing by magic, or something.  Why do they always pick on poor little much maligned CO2?  Any decent science denier will tell you that CO2 is plant food and must be all good.

Now if Steve had written that water is a major player in weather, I doubt he'd have made much of a splash.  Everyone knows that.  Even Wondering Willis has figured out that water is important in weather (if not why).

In his WUWT article, Steve claims, wrongly, that: "Even the greenhouse effect itself is dominated by water. Between 75 percent and 90 percent of Earth’s greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor and clouds."  Although Steve links to Schmidt et al (2010) he tells a big fib.  (Why do deniers do that?  Link to a paper and tell fibs about what's in it?  Do they assume that no-one will check?)  The paper itself states that water vapour and clouds account for up to 75%, not "between 75% and 90%".  From Schmidt et al (2010):

With a straightforward scheme for allocating overlaps, we find that water vapor is the dominant contributor (∼50% of the effect), followed by clouds (∼25%) and then CO2 with ∼20%. All other absorbers play only minor roles. In a doubled CO2 scenario, this allocation is essentially unchanged, even though the magnitude of the total greenhouse effect is significantly larger than the initial radiative forcing, underscoring the importance of feedbacks from water vapor and clouds to climate sensitivity.

Steve Goreham goes on to argue that the world warmed by magic.  He doesn't use the word "magic" - he just says that oceans and water cause climate change, not CO2.  He doesn't say why water suddenly started acting up when it was swimming along nicely, barely making a climate ripple for the last 10,000 years until things started to heat up a lot in the last 100 years or so.  Pixies?  Goblins? Gods getting angry?  Some of Wondering Willis' thunderstorms had a gabfest and decided it was time for a change? I don't know what's in his mind because he doesn't say.

From the WUWT comments

This first one is from empty-headed Janice Moore on the CLOUD article (WUWT archived here):

October 7, 2013 at 10:56 am
Note: the phrase “… a quick fix for global warming” in the above article implies that the conclusions of these folks are to be regarded with caution, for their thinking is clearly hampered by the unsupported conjecture that humans can do ANYTHING to change the climate of the earth. LAUGH — OUT — LOUD. As if.

Janice Moore again, this time arguing that a 40% increase is "tiny".  Wonder what she'll say to a doubling?

October 7, 2013 at 12:21 pmMr. Mosher, you, perhaps unintentionally, mischaracterize the position of (as Dirk put it) “fringe skeptics” such as I. It is the tiny proportion of human CO2 to which we point as evidence. First of all, as you said, total CO2 is a small ppm, BUT, the key is: human CO2 is FAR outweighed and can easily be completely overwhelmed by natural CO2.

The next lot (archived here) are in the same vein, but in response to Mad, Mad, Mad Steve's article:

Martin Hertzberg says all the science is wrong:

October 7, 2013 at 4:00 pm

As I have written and said many times, in comparison to water in all of its forms: the ocean, clouds, snow and ice cover, CO2 is about as significant as a fart in a hurricane.

Chad Wozniak confused local weather effects with global climate change and writes:

October 7, 2013 at 3:54 pm
@PWilson -
Further proof of what you say is the fact that the west coasts of North American and Europe have much milder climates than farther inland. It’s because the oceans control air temps, not CO2.

Jimbo is right, but not for the reason he thinks:

October 7, 2013 at 3:47 pm
Sometimes I feel we are flogging a zombie horse.

peter is right too, but maybe isn't aware that CO2 works in the same way as water vapour, but on a global scale when he says:

October 7, 2013 at 3:36 pm
seems to me that Desserts are very real test beds for the effect of water vapor in the air. In extremely dry deserts you get radical temperature changes when the sun goes down and the temperature plummets.

Konrad doesn't "believe" there is such a thing as gas molecules absorbing radiation and has thought up some quiz questions that he presumably thinks are very sciency:

October 7, 2013 at 4:21 pm
To understand why the radiative green house hypothesis is in error, you only need to be able to answer the following simple physics questions -

1. Do radiative gases such as H2O and CO2 both absorb and emit IR radiation? Yes or No?

2. Are Radiative gases critical to strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?

3. Does altering the quantity of radiative gases in the atmosphere alter the speed of tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?

4. Is convective circulation including water vapour the primary mechanism for transporting energy from the surface and lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?

5. Are radiative gases the primary mechanism for energy loss to space from the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?

6. Does down welling LWIR emitted from the atmosphere significantly effect the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool? Yes or No.

Ronald "OMG it's insects" Voisin makes a brief appearance and replies to Konrad:

October 7, 2013 at 4:41 pm
Konrad, I like it.

dbstealey makes a small concession to Anthony's weak espousal of the greenhouse effect and adds the word "measurable" when he urges Sisi not to read anything that might challenge the denialist stance:

October 7, 2013 at 5:27 pm
Sisi,
CO2 does not cause any measurable global warming.
Stop reading the Guardian and you will do fine.

So many tiny minds with barely a coherent thought between them, and they all hang out together at places like WUWT.

(If you're a stray reader, I'm really a very nice person :)  I wouldn't pick on the regulars who comment at WUWT if they showed any signs of having learnt anything.  But the same people have been denying science for years and insist on boasting about their ignorance, thinking it's something to be admired.  They are all stuck, each in a different fantasy world of their own.  They talk past each other, repeating their own individual fixations ad infinitum.)

More WUWT denier weirdness:- Monckton's 8% Dismissives plus another glimpse into "mad, mad, mad" Steve Goreham's world

Today at Anthony Watts' denier blog, wattsupwiththat (WUWT), Anthony provides two more examples of denier weirdness.

Monckton highlights the 8% Dismissives

Christopher Monckton doesn't like the scientific consensus that humans are warming the world.  He's taken a particular dislike to Cook et al (2013), which is the most recent of several papers that demonstrate how great is the consensus. (97% of papers that attribute a cause to global warming attribute it to human activity.)

So he's decided to write a letter to the editor of the journal that published Cook13 - ERL.  Then he had another idea and has now decided to send a copy to every member of the editorial board of the journal. (See Christopher's original version archived here, and his later version archived here.)

Christopher's said he wants to "crowd-source" signatories so has asked for the help of the readers at Anthony Watts denier blog - wattsupwiththat.com (WUWT).  I was interested in seeing who put their names to the letter.  I reckon what he's done is highlight the difference between the denier commenters.  The couple of hundred people who want their names on Christopher's silly letter are the 8% Dismissives.  People like "shouty" Richardscourtney, "holy moly" crawler Janice Moore and sock-puppet dbstealey (AKA Smokey). There are a number of prolific WUWT  commenters who are conspicuous by their absence - so far at any rate (eg Greg Goodman, Pamela Gray and M Courtney). These are people who tend towards being "lukewarmer" deniers - plus of course the one or two real sceptics who Anthony Watts hasn't banned yet.

If anyone ever does any research on categorising the different types of deniers at wattsupwiththat, this thread of Christopher Monckton's is worth noting. (By the way, the article is just another rehash of Christopher's nonsensical arithmetical failures.)

Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham fazed by rising seas

Anthony Watts has posted another article by Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham at WUWT.  The last one was about the Not the IPCC report.  This one is about sea level (archived here).

Steve's article is a good example of the logical fallacy of personal incredulity.  He doesn't "believe" that there are scientific instruments and analytic techniques that can measure sea level with the accuracy and precision reported by scientists.  Because he doesn't "believe" it, he reckons it can't be true.

Just like deniers often go to SkepticalScience.com's list of most common denier myths to decide what they'll try on today, it looks as if Steve went to U Colorado's FAQ on sea level to try on his "I don't believe it" rubbish.  Some examples of Steve's "personal incredulity" argument:

Steve: they claim to be able to measure ocean level to a high degree of accuracy. But a look at natural ocean variation shows that official sea level measurements are nonsense. 

From the FAQ:

The satellite altimeter estimate of interest is the distance between the sea surface illuminated by the radar altimeter and the center of the Earth (geocentric sea surface height or SSH). This distance is estimated by subtracting the measured distance between the satellite and sea surface (after correcting for many effects on the radar signal) from the very precise orbit of the satellite. At any location, the SSH changes over time due to many well understood factors (ocean tides, atmospheric pressure, glacial isostatic adjustment, etc.). By subtracting from the measured SSH an a priori mean sea surface (MSS), such as the CLS01 mean sea surface, and these known time-varying effects, we compute the sea surface height anomalies (SSHA). Each point in the global mean sea level (GMSL) time series plots is the area-weighted mean of all of the sea surface height anomalies measured by the altimeter in a single, 10-day satellite track repeat cycle (time for the satellite to begin repeating the same ground track). 

Another "I don't believe it" from Steve:

Steve: But three millimeters is about the thickness of two dimes. Can scientists really measure a change in sea level over the course of a year, averaged across the world, which is two dimes thick?

From the FAQ, - yes they can.  The FAQ states that the estimated error is just 0.4 mm/yr.  If you're a fanatical fact checker, you'll notice that Steve isn't very precise himself.  A dime is 1.35 mm thick.  Two dimes are 2.7 mm thick.  The current sea level trend is 3.2 mm +/- 0.4 mm a year.


Steve wonders how the accuracy can be as stated when a single measurement is only accurate to to the nearest centimetre.  What he is missing is that there are lots and lots (and lots!) of measurements taken so the error is hugely reduced.  The higher the number of measurements the lower the measurement error.  Overs and unders cancel out.  From the FAQ:

Each point in the global mean sea level (GMSL) time series plots is the area-weighted mean of all of the sea surface height anomalies measured by the altimeter in a single, 10-day satellite track repeat cycle (time for the satellite to begin repeating the same ground track).  

Steve concludes that the number that the scientists come up with isn't from scientific analysis and mathematics, it's from what he calls "group think".  Which is another way of saying that Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham doesn't understand scientific measurement.  (There are different sources of error other than measurement error, which the scientists attempt to address, and they touch on how they do this in the FAQ.)

Spot the fallacy and the error

Steve commits many logical fallacies in his article but this next one is a beauty:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in 2007, “Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003: about 3.1 mm per year.” This translates to a 100-year rise of only 7 inches and 12 inches, far below the dire predictions of the climate alarmists.

He's saying that because the actual sea level rise to date isn't as big as projections to 2100 (as ice sheets melt more), the future projections are wrong!  That's like saying - it was cold in Chicago last December so it couldn't possibly be hot in Chicago in July.

Seas are rising about as fast as projected back in 1990

I will point out that Steve Goreham is not correct in regard to near term being "far below dire predictions", if you look at the chapter on sea level in the first IPCC report (1990) - in which there is a lot of discussion of uncertainty - it summarises the known science at the time making projections for the near term (see p 275 here):

In general, most of the studies in Table 9.9 foresee a sea level rise of somewhere between 10cm and 30cm over the next four decades.  

These projections from the 1990 IPCC report are within the ballpark of the observed trend since 1993 of 3.2 cm a decade which, if sustained, would mean 12.8 cm over four decades. There are still almost two decades to go though.

Source: U Colorado

Note: I've corrected this section from the original - where my own arithmetic was flawed!!

A mad, mad, mad "science-based" rebuttal by the NIPCC? Really?

Those deniers over at Anthony Watts blog WUWT are really funny sometimes.  Funny weird.  Today Anthony's put up an article (archived here) by Steve Goreham with the headline:

A Science-Based Rebuttal to Global Warming Alarmism

What a novelty for WUWT.  A science-based rebuttal to science.  Deniers won't know how to treat this.  I gather from the headline that they only know non-science-based "rebuttals".  Or nonsense rebuttals.  Maybe he wanted to distinguish it from the ad hominem "rebuttals" like Donna's.  As we'll see, the science of the science-based rebuttal is distinctly unscientific.

By the way, you may recall that Steve Goreham is the guy who wrote the "mad, mad, mad" book that was so bad the Heartland Institute couldn't give it away.

Steve Goreham writes: Earlier this summer, CCR-I was translated into Chinese and accepted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences as an alternative point-of-view on climate change.

Oh yes - I remember that.  Heartland Institute caused a minor diplomatic incident and China was not at all happy with them.  The Chinese Academy of Science does not "accept" of denial of global warming, writing in part:

The claim of the Heartland Institute about CAS’ endorsement of its report is completely false. To clarify the fact, we formally issue the following statements...

As for the "science-based" rebuttal, the headline is misleading.  If it's anything like the previous "science-based" rebuttal it's not a rebuttal at all.  The "NIPCC" mob won't bring themselves to deny the greenhouse effect although they do fudge and bluster about irrelevancies.  Here is what mad, mad, mad Steve Goreham wrote about it:

Among the key findings of CCR-II are:

1. Doubling of CO2 from its pre-industrial level would likely cause a warming of only about 1oC, hardly cause for alarm.

Fail One: The NIPCC scientists pulled a number out of thin (CO2-laden) air and said that climate sensitivity is only one degree Celsius.  Yet we are already up 0.8 degrees Celsius and CO2 has only increased by just over 40%.  So they fail on that score.  I'm not aware of any acceptable study that shows a number that low and AFAIK, none of the authors have published any papers on climate sensitivity so they aren't referring to science.

2. The global surface temperature increase since about 1860 corresponds to a recovery from the Little Ice Age, modulated by natural ocean and atmosphere cycles, without need for additional forcing by greenhouse gases.

Fail Two Plus: Point 2 contradicts Point 1.  They can't have it both ways.  This time they say CO2 isn't forcing climate.  But either CO2 will cause a rise in temperature or it won't.  I wonder if Goreham got the report wrong or if the authors disagree with each other.  Maybe they are just putting together a hodge podge to please all deniers.  To let them pick and choose.  I also wonder if their report specifies what caused the "recovery from the Little Ice Age".  Fairy dust or goblins? Whatever, it's not "scientific".

3. There is nothing unusual about either the magnitude or rate of the late 20th century warming, when compared with previous natural temperature variations.

Fail Three:  That's just wrong.  There is "something unusual" about the magnitude and the rate of late 20th Century warming.  The world has warmed faster than ever and we are on track to warm ten times faster than at any period in at least the past 65 million years.  I wonder what the contrarian "scientists" compare it to?  Whatever it is, that will have been unusual as well.  That's if they bother to support their claim.  They also fail on this score because point 3 also contradicts point 1.  Either extra greenhouse gases are causing warming or they aren't.  If they are then the warming is "unusual".

4. The global climate models projected an atmospheric warming of more than 0.3oC over the last 15 years, but instead, flat or cooling temperatures have occurred.

Fail Four: This time these so-called scientists can't make up their mind.  They can't decide if temperatures of the past fifteen years have been flat or whether the earth has cooled.  Come on chaps you claim to be scientists.  Can't you even tell flat from cooling?  Let's see shall we?

We'll start with surface temperature:

Data Source: NASA

Well it certainly hasn't cooled and it's clearly warmer now than it was fifteen years ago.  Another big fail on both counts. Unless they mean the earth system as a whole.  So lets look further into the oceans.  Here is a chart showing ocean heat content.  The red vertical line marks fifteen years ago:

Data Source: NODC/NOAA

Steve Goreham's mates fail again on both counts.  The world has heated up in the last fifteen years.  So much for their so-called "science-based rebuttal".

The really odd thing is that "mad, mad, mad" Steve Goreham says they use "peer-reviewed" literature to make the above claims.  Why then does it differ so much from real science, the science that is collated for the IPCC reports? If they've set up their own thousands of buoys in the oceans then they've kept it very secret from everyone.  If they've got a parallel system of weather stations they they have kept that a deep secret too.  You'd think they'd have been shouting it from the rooftops.  Therefore I don't believe they have.  I think Steve Goreham or his "scientists" are telling fibs.

We'll have to wait and see.

There is too much "stupid" in the WUWT comments for me to choose from.  If you are interested you can read them here without having to go to WUWT.  The deniers at WUWT have been fired up by one or two informed posters, and they don't like what they read.

Hot Weather and Climate Change - Or How to Make a Molehill out of a Mountain WUWT-style

Adapted from a WUWT "guest essay" by Steve "Mad, Mad, Mad" Goreham with original and adapted illustrations and annotations and maybe a bit of literary license by HotWhopper

On Sunday, Death Valley temperatures reached 129^oF (53.9^oC) a new June record high for the United States and the world, according to the National Weather Service and a new June world record according to Jeff Masters. Temperatures at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas reached 117^oF, tying the previous record set in 1942 and 2005. National Geographic, NBC News, and other media ran stories attributing the Southwest heat wave to human-caused global warming. But history shows that today’s temperatures are nothing extraordinary.  In fact if you go back in time only about 450 million years, you would have found it quite a bit warmer.  You might have some trouble finding Las Vegas is all.  Anyway, if you think you were hot in the last few days, just wait a decade or two.

The United States high temperature record was doubtfully/maybe set in 1913, measured in Death Valley on July 10th. Twenty-three of the 50 US state high temperature records date back to the decade of the 1930s. Seventy percent of state high records were set prior to 1970.  And the USA IS the entire world.  Well, it's all that matters isn't it.

The alarm about climate change is all about one degree or two degrees or four degrees or six degrees or more, depending on how far ahead you want to look. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), global surface temperatures have increased about 1.3^oF (0.7^oC) since 1880.  Okay, maybe 0.8^oC since 1880, or 1^oC since 1910 but who's counting? . Proponents of the theory of man-made warming claim that this is evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are raising global temperatures.  Pfffft! We know better, don't we.  In fact I'll show you that temperatures haven't increased a cracker, or nothing worth counting, unless you live on an ice sheet in Greenland.

One degree over more than 130 years isn’t very much. It's hardly worth worrying about.  Just because it's never been this hot in the ten thousand years since civilisation began doesn't mean you have to be concerned.  Just think, in contrast, Chicago temperatures vary from about -5^oF to 95^oF, about 100 degrees, each year.  And if you compare the lowest temperature ever recorded on earth with the highest temperature ever measured (by satellite) - well, you'd relax for sure.

When compared to this 100-degree annual swing, the rise in global temperatures since the 1800s is trivial, captured by a thin line on a graph.  So is the annual variation in Chicago temperatures when you make the scale right.  And as for a piddly degree or two for the entire world, just look and see...

Nevertheless, NOAA repeatedly raises concern about global temperatures. The NOAA website proclaims that “May 2013 global temperatures were the third highest on record.” This sounds alarming unless one understands that “on record” refers to the thermometer record, which only dates back to about 1880. Ha! My dad was alive back then - so there!  I bet yours was too.

Climate changes over hundreds and thousands and millions and zillions of years if not longer. (Or, if you are a young earther, maybe just a coupla thousand years or so). Data from Greenland ice cores show several periods during the last 10,000 years that were warmer than today on the ice sheet in Greenland, including the Roman Climate Optimum at the height of the Roman Empire and the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings settled southwest Greenland and grew potatoes. The warm and cool eras since the last ice age were due to natural climate cycles, not greenhouse gas emissions. The “on record” period that NOAA references is only a tiny part of the climatic picture.  A very tiny part.  A teeny weeny part.  Like as if your life was but a milli-molly-mandy second dancing on the head of a pin.

Global average temperature is difficult to measure. You need lots and lots and lots of thermometers.  And even microwave ovens in satellites.  The data sets of NOAA are an artificial estimate at best. They are based on manmade thermometers not natural thermometers like trees and plants that eat CO2. They start with a patchwork collection of thousands and thousands and millions and billions of thermometer stations that inadequately cover the globe. They get wet too.  Think of what sea water does to artificial thermometers.  They get all rusty and covered in barnacles and stuff.  Station coverage of the oceans and of the far northern and southern regions is inconsistent and poor. Stations are dirt poor.  Not like us.  We're filthy rich and successful.  To cover areas without thermometers, averaging estimates are made from surrounding stations to try to fill in the holes.  And sometimes they fall into the holes.  It was only early this year they found one averaging estimate in Australia that fell down a hole in China and came out the other side.  It was very angry.  And it was summer time, so it wasn't just angry it was hot as well.  One real angry summer hot averaging estimate that one was.

In addition to coverage problems, gauge measurements often contain large errors. Man-made structures such as buildings and parking lots absorb sunlight, artificially increasing local temperatures. Now if women had made those structures such as buildings and parking lots they would be a lot more sturdy and would radiate with light and happiness.  Cars, air conditioners, and other equipment generate heat when operating, creating what is called an Urban Heat Island effect.  That's kind of like a Metro Yuppi effect. With spangles.

The accuracy of the US temperature record is questionable. US isn't what it used to be.  Now they are even talking about importing the temperature record from China.  What is happening to our once proud nation? Meteorologist Anthony Watts, not quite graduated from Purdue but was a real live weather announcer on a real live television station, and creator of the science-bashing website WattsUpWithThat, led a team of volunteers that audited more than 1,000 US temperature gauge stations from 2007 to 2011. Over 70 percent of the sites were found to be located near artificial heating surfaces such as buildings or parking lots, rated as poor or very poor by the site rating system of the National Climatic Data Center, a NOAA organization. That's why the NOAA is resiting them all in China.  It's quality is far superior these days now that the USA has gone to rack and ruin.  These stations were subject to temperature errors as large as 3.6^oF (2^oC).  That's as big as anything.  Just think of that ice sheet in Greenland.  Well it's ten times bigger.

Simple problems can throw off gauge readings. Temperature stations are louvered enclosures that are painted white to reflect sunlight and minimize solar heating. As the station weathers and the paint ages, gauge stations read artificially high temperatures. Astudy published last month found that after only five years of aging, temperature stations will record a temperature error of 2.9^oF (1.6^oC) too high. Well, one of them did once, anyway.  This is greater than the one degree rise in the last 130 years that NOAA is alarmed about.  It's huge.  That explains why some people in California thought they were hot over the weekend.  They weren't really hot at all, it was just all those wonky "made in the USA" weather stations with a peeling StetsonHat thingummy that forgot to put on the sunscreen.

In addition to temperature measurement error, NOAA makes “adjustments” to the raw temperature data. According to a 2008 paper, after raw thermometer data is received, a computer algorithm “homogenizes” the data, adjusting for time-of-observation, station moves, thermometer types, and other factors to arrive at the official temperature data set.  You're a full blooded American, would you drink pasteurized milk?  Would you drink "HOMOGENIZED" milk?  No! A big fat NO!!! It's not natural! Say NO!!! to "homogenized" temperature.  Insist on natural raw temperature with the cream floating on top.  It's good for you.

Source of the one you're not supposed to look at: NOAA

This sounds good until one looks at the adjustment that NOAA has added. For temperature data from 1900 to 1960, very little adjustment is added. But after 1960, NOAA adds an upward adjustment to the thermometer data that rises to 0.5^oF (0.3^oC) by the year 2000. This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “man-made global warming.”  I mean they shouldn't have adjusted the raw temperatures for Urban Yuppi latte sipping heat islands or time of observation bias.  The very word "bias" tells you how prejudiced all these alarmists are against raw, natural thermometers and then exporting them to an ice sheet in China.  It's not American!  It's unpatriotic!

Heat waves are real just as climate change is real. But they aren't really heat waves because the theromometers are all suffering UHI disease but don't adjust them because we like our thermometers raw. But a piddly little heat record of 117^oF (47.2^oC) in Las Vegas or one degree Celsius of global temperature rise since the Civil War - okay, one and a bit degrees - satisfied? - is not evidence that humans should be overly alarmed when other factors have been shown to be contributors of the same or greater magnitude than the posited temperature rise from greenhouse gas emissions what a long sentence this turned out to be.  Like yuppies and artificial thermometers on an ice sheet.  DON'T BE SCARED!!! IF YOU GET SCARED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING WE'LL GET A CARBON TAX AND WE'LL ALL DIE IN POVERTY!!!

Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Proud to Be American Anti-Climate Science Coalition of America in the USA but shifting to China where they make decent thermometers and author of the new book that I can't give away: The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania that was bought for free and used for kindling by every environmental scientist in as many universities that the Heartland Institute could find in the telephone book.  You can read the glowing tributes to my superbly brilliant denialist bible here on Amazon.

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Looks as if some WUWT-ers had the same reaction as I did :D

Our old mate Chad Wozniak says of Mad, Mad, Mad Steve's article:

July 3, 2013 at 4:29 pm The blind leading the deaf leading the insensible
The impertinent leading the arrogant leading the egomaniacal
I never cease to be amazed at the effrontery of the people who persist in demitting this sort of flatulence. White is not black, red is not blue no matter how many times they say it is.

Theo Goodwin wisely adds (excerpt):

July 3, 2013 at 3:32 pm  To paraphrase Socrates, recognizing one’s ignorance is the beginning of knowledge.

A Lesson for Deniosaurs: How to turn "goats eat grass" into "climate scam"

Now goats and camels are in on the "climate scam"

Anthony Watts of WUWT has reposted an article Steve Goreham got into the Washington Times, in which Steve has managed to portray goats as perpetrators (or victims?) of his "climatism".  (It appears to be another weak attempt to publicise a climate disinformation book he put together.  He's having trouble even giving away his book for free.)

Not that you'd expect latte-sipping, city-dwelling, tree-fearing deniosaurs to know, but goats are often used by landholders to get down overgrown vegetation.  They don't always do the job, sometimes eating out the desired species and leaving the weeds.  But just as often they'll do what you want if you manage it properly.  Goats are a particularly good idea for hard to reach areas, like steep slopes.  (In Australia people are killed and injured every year from tractors and ride-on mowers rolling over on slopes.)

How to turn "goats eat grass" into "climate scam"

Steve based his 'climate scam' article on the fact that another airport is using goats for part of the year to keep down growth in hard to reach areas.  You can read the innocuous article in the Chicago Tribune.

Steve worked an angle and decided these hard-working and entirely innocent goats are part of the "climate hoax".  He used innuendo and the innate paranoia of Washington Times readers to make a buck out of a very ordinary "goats eat plants" story.  Pretty good trick if you ask me.

Camels produce methane = "climate scam"

Steve has something against camels too. His next trick was a 'story' he probably harvested from the anti-science blogging disinformation and rumour mill.  Where-ever he dug it up from, he then let his imagination run riot. He is telling Washington Times readers that "Management" companies are now flying over the outback, shooting goats and camels from helicopters, and earning carbon credits".  Not True!  Big Lie! But what reader of the Washington Times would know or care?  It makes a good yarn.

From the ABC last January (my bold):

A plan to cull hundreds of thousands of camels from the deserts of central Australia in exchange for carbon credits has been knocked back by the Federal Government.

It is estimated that there are more than a million feral camels in the Red Centre and surrounds, and each animal emits about a tonne of methane gas each year.  

Private company Northwest Carbon wanted to cull and sell the camels in exchange for credits under the Commonwealth's carbon farming initiative.  Read more here.

Just another nutter

The real question is: Is Steve Goreham one of the 8% Dismissives or does he consider himself a Scum-Bucket Authority Figure of Dismissives?  Whatever - looks like "just another nutter" to me.