How false denier memes are built on quicksand

Science deniers build memes on quicksand, but the memes can hang around as if they are built on solid rock. Today there is another example. At WUWT there's an article with the headline: "Friday Funny: more upside down data". Except the data wasn't upside down or back to front or wrong in any discernible way.

John McLean sent an email to Bishop Hill blog owner saying he found things wrong with the sea surface temperature data from the Hadley Centre, UK Met Office (archived here). Among other things, he thought that the data labeled nh (northern hemisphere) should have been sh (southern hemisphere) and vice versa. Parts of the email were published on the blog without much fanfare, just asking if others could confirm or otherwise what John thought he found.

Update: John McLean was partly correct, there were some errors in the data files. They have now been rectified. (See also this update article, which includes an explanation from Nick Stokes.)

Added by Sou at 2:16 pm, 12 April 2016 AEST

Scientists checked but found nothing wrong

ATTP was the first to look and couldn't find anything wrong with the data and about two hours after the blog article was written he said so. (He also suggested checking with John Kennedy of the UK Met Office.) An hour later, Zeke Hausfather also said he couldn't find the problems that John McLean identified. A few hours later Eternal Optimist checked some of John's other numbers and got something different to what John got. Around the same time Nick Stokes said he also looked and couldn't find anything wrong with the data. He wrote:

More "the seas got hotter because they got hotter" from Bob Tisdale at WUWT

Greenhouse effect denier, Perennially Puzzled Bob Tisdale, has written another article claiming that the seas got hotter because they got hotter (archived here). He's tried this non-argument before and didn't get hammered for it - except for here:)  Here's an image of some of the seas that got hotter this year, courtesy NOAA:

Unusually warm temperatures dominate three areas of the North Pacific: the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska and an area off Southern California. The darker the red, the further above average the sea surface temperature. NOAA researchers are tracking the temperatures and their implications for marine life. Source: NOAA

There's not a lot you can say about a long and tedious Tisdale article that explains that the sea surface got hotter because the sea surface got hotter. That is, the sea surface in the North Pacific got hotter - plus the sea surface over the equatorial Pacific got hotter. We already know that warming in both areas took place. In any case, it's not just the Pacific that's anomalously warm. Here is a snapshot of sea surface temperature anomalies for October, from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre.

Source: UK Met Office Hadley Centre

So, for something different let's take this paragraph from today's WUWT article and break it down. Bob wrote:

If the manmade greenhouse gas-forced climate models used by the IPCC cannot explain the 24-year absence of warming of the surface in the North Pacific, it can’t be claimed that the weather-related warming there in 2013 and 2014 were caused by manmade greenhouse gases. That little bit of common sense eludes alarmists.

Oh, he of little brain...pumping floodwaters

Update: Anthony finally decided he'd made a blunder and has shuffled over to another blunder! (Mon Feb 17, 2014, Australian time)

I saw this on Twitter today:

Really?  Really and truly? The only pump? Was turned off? (Anthony Watts' article is archived here.)

By the way, the pump in question was said to have pumped 3 thousand million litres a year. If running 24 hours a day to do that, it would have been pumping 8,000 tonnes a day. That'd be about 0.5% of the 1.5 million tonnes a day being pumped last month.  Now there's an additional 7.5 million tonnes a day being pumped with the massive pumps on loan from the Netherlands. (See below).


Here is a picture of the just part of the flooding in Somerset.  Could one lone pump have stopped all this?

Credit: DAVID HEDGES/SWNS

Here's a map from 11 January:

I'll risk making this article overly long, because this is relevant to the UK more generally.  From the BBC:

Groundwater levels are so high in some parts of the country that flooding is likely to persist for weeks or even months, experts say.

Scientists at the British Geological Survey (BGS) say levels are likely to keep rising even if there is no more rain, as so much water is soaking through the soil.

Pumping away: 62 pumps 24 hours a day plus 13 mega-pumps from the Netherlands = 8.8 million tonnes of water a day

Back to Somerset. Thing is, if you're pumping flood waters you've got to have somewhere to pump it.  When there's water, water everywhere you've got to take a lot of care.

It can be done, though. This is from the BBC:

From the Environment Agency on 27 January:

On the Somerset Levels Environment Agency teams continue to operate up to 62 pumps, 24-hours a day, to drain an estimated 1.5 million tonnes of water (equivalent to 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools) off an area of the Levels spanning 65 square kilometres – the biggest pumping operation ever undertaken in the county.

From the Western Gazette on 12 February:

The Environment Agency has been working with other agencies on some short term, emergency options to maximise the amount of floodwater that can be pumped away from the Somerset Levels and Moors.

This includes pumping to the Taunton and Bridgwater Canal and increasing the volume of floodwater that goes down the Sowy in the River Parrett Alleviation Channel.

Pumping at Beer Wall and Dunball to increase the floodwater going into the Sowy is due to start this week.

A statement from Avon and Somerset Police said all “risks and benefits” across the Somerset Levels and Moors have been considered in making this decision.

From the BBC on 13 February:

Two pumps from the Netherlands are being used to try to reduce water levels at the flooded Somerset Levels.

The area began flooding more than six weeks ago and the continuing heavy rain has since flooded dozens of homes.

In all 13 Dutch pumps were brought in by the Environment Agency and will be used to divert water to try and cut levels on the River Tone. ...When they all are up and running they will move 7.3 million tonnes of water each day from the Somerset Levels

Where did the water come from?

From the sky.  Here is a chart from the BBC:

Source: BBC

From the UK Met blog:

As the unsettled UK weather continues this week, the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre have looked at statistics for this winter so far (from 1 December to 10 February).

These add to previous facts and figures we put out earlier this week, and show a picture of continuing exceptional rainfall across many areas.

Looking at regions around the UK, these provisional figures suggest the region of SE and Central S England has already exceeded its record winter rainfall in the series back to 1910. It is currently at 439.2mm*, less than 2mm above the previous record set in 1915 with 437.1mm of rain.

For the UK as a whole, and also for Wales, both are fairly close to their respective record wettest winter levels in the national series dating back to 1910. Average rainfall for the rest of the month would likely see those records broken.

All countries across the UK have already exceeded their typical average rainfall for the whole winter (according to the 1981-2010 long-term averages). Normally at this stage of the season, you’d expect to have seen only around 80% of that whole season average.

All areas are also on target for a significantly wetter than average winter, with typically around 130-160% of normal rainfall if we get average rainfall for the rest of February.

All countries and areas are also on target for a warmer than average winter.

The Met Office blog listed the current wettest winters with this winter to date:

Country	Year	Rainfall	Winter 2014 to date
UK	1995	485.1mm	429.2mm
ENGLAND	1915	392.7mm	328.0mm
WALES	1995	684.1mm	618.7mm
SCOTLAND	1995	649.5mm	558.5mm
NORTHERN IRELAND	1994	489.7mm	360.0mm

Despite what you read at WUWT, the 1929-30 winter isn't listed as the wettest winter.  All countries except England had their wettest winter in the 1990s and in England, the wettest winter was in 1915.

Another Daily Fail: Mat Collins does NOT disagree with Julia Slingo

Oh, and in case you read somewhere that Mat Collins disagreed with Dame Julia Slingo, Chief Scientist at the UK Met Office, who said:

Climate change is likely to be a factor in the extreme weather that has hit much of the UK in recent months, the Met Office's chief scientist has said.

Dame Julia Slingo said the variable UK climate meant there was "no definitive answer" to what caused the storms. 

"But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change," she added.

"There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.".

He didn't!

@Rick__L I said that the models don't tell us much about how the jet stream is affected by climate change. I don't disagree with Julia
— Mat Collins (@mat_collins) February 16, 2014

. .

Disinformer David Rose of the Daily Mail takes another denialist "swinge"

Update: The UK Met Office has commented on David Rose's latest article.

Serial disinformer David Rose from the tabloid rag the Daily Mail doesn't care about facts, only headlines.  He's come out with another "not even wrong" article (archived here) as a follow up to his last one.

David starts with a false headline: Global warming is just HALF what we said: World's top climate scientists admit computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong

Unsurprisingly, David doesn't cite any of the world's top scientists so I figure he just made that up.  It's what he does - see here and here and here and here and here and here and here (and more here).

David Rose "swinges" about clean energy and taxation

David could hardly be seen as more "wrong" if he wore a sandwich board saying "I reject and deny science". He goes on to write about the IPCC reports that "they are cited worldwide to justify swingeing (sic) fossil fuel taxes and subsidies for ‘renewable’ energy".

Now we've got his reason for rejecting science out of the way (he prefers dirty energy and doesn't like paying tax), let's see what lies he's spouting this time.

David Rose flunks arithmetic

Remember his headline of just HALF? In addition to wanting dirty energy and not liking taxation, David Rose can't do simple sums, he writes:

Back then, it said that the planet was warming at a rate of 0.2C every decade – a figure it claimed was in line with the forecasts made by computer climate models. 

But the new report says the true figure since 1951 has been only 0.12C per decade – a rate far below even the lowest computer prediction.

David, like some other deniers we know, fails at arithmetic.  0.12 is 60% of 0.2, not 50%.  That amount of difference can make or break a candidate's hope for re-election :D

David also lied.  Here is what is written in the IPCC AR4 report - a linear trend from 1956 to 2005 = 0.13°C per decade. Not a 0.2°C per decade in sight!

If anything, the linear trend has increased!

Do you still wonder about David's implied claim that the IPCC said the world has warmed at 0.2 degrees since 1951 and is only warming at 50% of that - or 60% if you use David's numbers rather than his wrong calculation?  What I think he must have done is try to convince his readers that the modeled projection for future temperature rises under a "business as usual" scenario was the same as the actual rise since 1951.  But who knows.  The mind of the science denier is a tangle of lies and disinformation and it's not for me to try to fathom.

So instead let's look at the record itself.  Here is a chart of global average surface temperature from 1951 to the present, and from 1951 to 2006 - the last full year before the publication of IPCC's AR4 report:

Interesting, eh.  To get a very rough estimate, subtract the value at the bottom of the trend line (the straight line) from the value at the top of the trend line, divide by the number of years and multiply by ten.  (But don't tell Tamino I said this!)  If you do the sums you'll get the following:

• 1951-2006 trend ~ 0.124 degrees per decade
• 1951-2012 trend ~ 0.127 degrees per decade.

If you want to quibble about decimal places, let's round it to two decimal places.  The linear trend has increased from 0.12 degrees a decade for 1951 to 2006 to to 0.13 degrees a decade for 1951 to 2012!

David Rose has a lot of cheek, too.  Pretending that he "first reported" a pause.  He doesn't say, but what he is most likely referring to is another slab of lies and disinformation that the Met Office called him out on - here and here.

The Incomprehensible Judith Curry

I'll mention that David quotes Judith Curry (scientist turned denying fan of David Rose) as saying it's "incomprensible to me" that the IPCC would state, very conservatively, that it is 95% certain that humans have caused more than half the temperature rise from 1951 to 2010.  Some science suggests we've caused more than 100% of the rise in temperature since the 1950s.  Here's an article on realclimate.org about attribution and one on SkepticalScience, with this chart:

Figure 1: Net human and natural percent contributions to the observed global surface warming over the past 50-65 years according to Tett et al. 2000 (T00, dark blue), Meehl et al. 2004 (M04, red), Stone et al. 2007 (S07, green), Lean and Rind 2008 (LR08, purple),Huber and Knutti 2011 (HK11, light blue), and Gillett et al. 2012 (G12, orange). . 
Source: SkepticalScience.com

Going by David Rose's record, I won't take it as read that Judith Curry did say that.  However there is little that she says these days that surprises me.  She could claim tomorrow that the moon was made of cheese and it wouldn't surprise me.  Although she probably wouldn't be categorical and would add "but there is a lot of uncertainty" and "we can't be sure if it's Italian cheese". (Apologies to Italians and their wonderful cheeses.)

And he has a long blurb about how Nic Lewis, who is not a climate scientist, reckons he knows a lot more about climate than do the meteorologists at the UK Met.  I can't follow that bit at all.  Here is a report of decadal forecasting by the UK Met Office and a link to information on its HADCM3 model.

This article is more of a mish mash than other articles by David Rose.  It hops and skips and jumps all over the place.  I'd say he's rattled.  He denies the science but is finding it hard to balance his denial with his possible desire to be viewed as anything but another James Delingpole or Anthony Watts.

I won't bother** going into any more detail of the rest of it because it's a gish gallop of "the models are wrong", Bob Ward said his last article was "error strewn" (it was) and complaints about allusions to Nazis - which I myself abhor but which denialati more commonly resort to than do people who accept science.

Message to David Rose - you are just another denier who has somehow managed to hold down a job with a UK tabloid.  Try writing an article on UFOs and little green men from Mars and your typical fans will probably "believe" you.



** I ended up bothering, because it reappeared on WUWT and elsewhere.  Read more here.

Hat tip to Lars Karlsson in the comments.

Denier weirdness: Nature article and the UK Met Office

I admit to finding this a tad weird even for WUWT.  Anthony posts an excerpt from a complaint by Stephen McIntyre.

Jeff Tollefson wrote a feature article in Nature about an experimental approach to modelling of near term climate projections (decadal forecasts).  McIntyre is complaining that he didn't write about something else instead.  I think, but I'm not entirely sure, that he wanted him to write about the difference in actual Met Office near term forecasts.  That is, to compare the current one to previous ones.  Even had Tollefson been able to read McIntyre's crazy mind in advance of McIntyre himself, I'm not sure that he would have obeyed his command.

I don't know why McIntyre wanted Tollefson to write about the Met Office near term predictions instead of the these experiments.  The Met Office itself has a number of articles on the topic, which McIntyre could read if he felt inclined to learn about it.  McIntyre's articles are so full of smear and innuendo that it is often difficult to understand what his actual gripe is so I'm guessing.  This is what McIntyre wrote:

In yesterday’s post, I observed that Nature’s recent news article on Met Office decadal forecasts failed to show the most recent Met Office decadal forecast ...

Well, Steve.  For starters, the article wasn't about Met Office decadal forecasts per se.  It was about an experimental approach to making near term climate forecasts, including the differing opinions held by various modelling experts on the usefulness of the approach.  I'd say there was quite a lot the article failed to show.  I noticed it didn't show any flying elephants, or sharknadoes or star-spangled ballet shoes.  But unlike you, I'm not complaining.

The article was about recent experiments with a different approach to modelling near term forecasts.  Here is how they describe it:

To make its climate prediction, Smith's team used its standard climate model, but broke the mould by borrowing ideas from the way meteorologists forecast the weekly weather. 

Typical climate projections start some way back in the past, often well before the industrial era, in a bid to capture the average climate well enough to forecast broad patterns over the long term. Weekly weather forecasts, however, begin with the present. They make multiple simulations with slightly different initial meteorological conditions to give an array of outcomes that has some statistical validity despite the weather's inherent chaos.

Steve wasn't happy with the scope of the article.  He wanted to talk about something different.

So somehow both McIntyre and Anthony Watts have managed to morph a complaint that the journal Nature chose to publish a topic different to what McIntyre wanted into: "the UK Met Office is hypocritical" and "the Met Office hides the decline".

Talk about denier weirdness!

Somewhere in all the kerfuffle, Richard Betts responded to a question from Anthony.  Neither Anthony nor Steve liked his answer and said so.  Which gave a person for the deniers to target. The name of an individual.  Deniers find it much more satisfying to attack a named person than a faceless agency like the UK Met Office.

Here are some comments from WUWT - bear in mind, the original complaint seems to be that McIntyre didn't like the topic chosen by Nature.  It's got nothing to do with the Met Office or with Nature - it's all about Steve McIntyre.

Goodness only knows what Fred thought he was was commenting on when he says:

July 17, 2013 at 7:40 pm This just astounding. The temp records around the world are being manipulated, and climate science says nothing. Don’t they realize the risk? If the temp is dropping and they are hiding the decline the world is unprepared for the right change!

Bill H doesn't care about the subject matter, he just wants to air his fantastic conspiracy theory:

July 17, 2013 at 8:00 pm  You must realize the IPCC is part of the UN. Their primary objective is world depopulation.. (UN agenda 21) .. The lie in hiding the decline is purposeful..

A prize to anyone who ever figured out Joseph Bastardi's denierisms - he is suitably outraged at someone or something but heaven only knows what:

July 17, 2013 at 8:09 pm This is flabbergasting. Is he really serious?

Solar Cycles gets caught up in the mood and like the others, doesn't have the first clue about what the Nature article is about, what Anthony is going on about or what McIntyre is raving about:

July 18, 2013 at 12:43 am  I’m surprised that others are surprised, temp manipulation has been part and parcel of climate science for over thirty years. The real shocker is are our governments aware?

Resourceguy seems to be talking about something else altogether when he says:

July 18, 2013 at 6:42 am  This is how dictatorships and monopolies work in day to day practice.

Huh?

As for McIntyre and Watts.  They can sit back and feel smug.  They have rallied the idiots despite having said nothing that makes any sense.  All they had to do was make up a yarn out of thin air, toss out some smears and innuendos and everyone chimes in that climate science is a hoax.  It's a giant conspiracy involving the UN, the British Government, the US Government, every climate scientist in the world, every weather bureau in the world and probably every person in the world except the tin foil hat brigade on weird and wacky denier websites like McIntyre's place and WUWT.