The last 10 years are the hottest ever, yet deniers are still in denial

Summary: Despite three years of La Nina, 2022 was the sixth hottest year on record. The last decade was the hottest decade on record.

As you all know by now, we're causing the world to heat up. We've not got to a stage where we've stabilised the global temperature. In fact, we seem to be nowhere near stabilisation. Yet strangely there are still a few global warming deniers floating about. These deniers are arguing once again that an ice age is coming, or it's started cooling, or global warming has stopped, or "CO2 warming is a hoax" or some such nonsense. It's prompted me to write another article about how global temperature has been changing.

According to GISS NASA, the average global surface temperature anomaly for 2022 was 0.89 °C. This is 0.13°C below the hottest year so far. The hottest was 2020 at 1.02°C above the 1951 to 1980 average.

Willis Eschenbach radiates more nonsense at WUWT

I sometimes wonder at the shameless way deniers boast about their ignorance, particularly their lack of understanding of basic science. Willis Eschenbach is a prime example. He doesn't understand science and doesn't make any real effort to understand it. He balks at reading a basic textbook and I doubt he could bring himself to read a science website let alone scientific papers. Yet every now and then he'll decide he's come up with some brand spanking new notion that none of the hundreds of thousands of people who've studied a subject in depth have ever thought of.

Some time ago he figured out what every student (and interested layperson) knew long ago, that storms carry heat from the surface upwards into the atmosphere, thereby cooling the surface; his thunderstorm theory.

This week he's decided there are three what he calls "theories" to the greenhouse effect, demonstrating that he doesn't understand that radiation is the emission or transmission of energy. He was trying to attack a tweet thread by Gavin Schmidt and his attack was laughable (and very very longwinded).

Denier quote of the day: Why should I waste 24 minutes..(learning climate)

The Twitter conversations I've written about before is giving more insight into the denial crowd. The bots and trolls are ramping up as the US election campaign gears up. (It goes on forever, doesn't it. The election is still more than a year away.) Among the bots there are some real people. One of them was happy to summarise the denier's stance.

I wouldn't devote even 24 minutes to learn science

Someone put up a chart purporting to show CO2 and temperature going back 4.5 billion years. I doubt the person tweeting it understood it. They said they got the picture from another denier called Nasif Nahle, who even put a copyright on it! It didn't matter. According to deniers, the tweet was from an acceptable denier so it must mean the greenhouse effect is a hoax.

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.

Norman Page, the ice age comether, is back at WUWT

There are a few strange climate cranks who still resurface from time to time. Today Anthony Watts is host once again to the ice age comether, Dr Norman Page. (Despite being a sun-worshipper, he is, or was, an oil consultant of the fossil fuel type, not suntan oil.)

No Re-evaluation from Norman

Five years ago, Norman had another one of his spurious articles at WUWT proclaiming a coming ice age. At the time he qualified his prediction, writing:

If there is not a 0.15 – 0.20. drop in Global SSTs by 2018 -20 I would need to re-evaluate.

If he did re-evaluate, it doesn't show.

This crazy climate! What do Anthony Watts and Alex Jones have in common? Prison Planet.

Some of you might think HotWhopper may on occasion go overboard reporting the lies, duplicity and straight up weirdness of deniers. That's not so. If anything, the articles here underplay the weirdness of deniersville. Some of what goes on in climate conspiracy land is not fit for publication on normal blogs.

WUWT has recently reinvigorated its crusade to libel or solicit libel of prominent climate scientists and climate hawks. In the last couple of days there have been articles about Michael Mann and Ben Santer, for example. When all else fails, disinformers turn to lying smears.

But that's not all.

WUWT is now using US conpiracy theorist Alex Jones' Prison Planet as a source!

The global inconsistency of climate science denier, Larry Hamlin, at WUWT

This is rich.

Yesterday I wrote how climate disinformer Larry Hamlin picked out years of hot Junes in the USA and California, as if to argue that global warming isn't worth worrying about because there have been occasional hot Junes in California and the USA in the past. Today he wants to ignore local and go global (cached here).

In the last article I showed how, when you put Larry's USA/Californian June temperatures in the global context, it highlights the ridiculousness of deniers. Early last century the world as a whole was much colder than it is today. This century we're really getting a taste of what's to come. This past few weeks we've been getting a horrific taste of what's to come much more often, with deadly fires, drought, killer heat waves and floods widespread over the northern hemisphere, not to mention the drought back here in Australia. It isn't just hot in California and the USA, it's hot in lots of places as this map of June temperatures shows (from GISTemp).

US-centred climate change denial from the desperate deniers at WUWT

While the distinctly unpresidential Donald Trump is desperate to deny he's in Putin's pocket, his zombie acolytes at WUWT are desperate to deny the world is warming. So much so that they are trying to deny that the weather lately has been quite extraordinary.

There are fires raging in Greece, where at least 74 people are feared dead. There has been a killer heatwave in Japan that broke high temperature records, has claimed at least 77 lives and sent more than 30,000 people to hospital. This follows the tragically disastrous floods that killed upwards of 200 people. Then there was the horrific tragedy in Laos, where monsoon rains led to 5 billion cubic metres of water flowing from a busted new hydro dam, killing who knows how many people and with hundreds missing and leaving 6,600 people homeless. (If the evacuation notice had not been sent out in advance the tragedy may have been even worse.)

In Sweden, which is suffering the worst drought since records began, there are terrible wildfires. In fact, much of Western Europe is facing yet another summer heatwave. In the far north of Finland, of all places, the temperature reached 34.3 C (94 F) the other day!

Lightning fire confusion at WUWT

Bushfire Mount Beauty 11 December 2006

It would be nice to think that wrong headlines like the one below are the reason for the decline in WUWT readership. Thing is, headlines that don't reflect a copy and pasted article are par for the course at WUWT. The headline is: "Claim: Global warming to make more lightning caused fires, but only in the Northern Hemisphere."

Anthony Watts got his north and south mixed up. The paper is about an increase in lightning caused fires in the southern hemisphere. So far, no-one at WUWT has noticed (archive here).

Notice, too, that Anthony continues his "claim" prefix. He does that with most of the press releases he copies, showing that he doesn't "believe" science and wants his readers to think that science is nothing but a hoax.

Right wing anti-intellectuals can't get into university - so implies the dimwits at WUWT

Looking through comments to the latest article at WUWT, it's clear that the general view of Anthony Watts' fans think that science deniers are incapable of getting into academia. Every comment implies that a university job in whatever field, which entails going to conferences, is restricted to people who accept climate science. Deniers are incapable of getting a job at a university, according to WUWT-ers. At best, they are in such a tiny minority that they don't count.

This is a rather strange position for science deniers to take though it does make sense, in a weird way. WUWT fans are assuming people who deny science don't do PhDs or post-docs, let alone make a career for themselves as a lecturer and/or researcher. They assume that science deniers do not have the inclination (or the wherewithal) to do academic research.

If you want evidence, see for yourself. Eric Worrall has copied and pasted some of an article at Huffington Post, written by two academics: Nives Dolšak and Aseem Prakash. The article was suggesting ways that universities and academics could offset their air travel, though Eric didn't write about that. His focus was on the fact that academics fly across the country and around the world to conferences, to exchange ideas with their colleagues.

"Climate hoax" conspiracy theorists don't value logic or evidence - who knew :)

In a copy and paste at WUWT, Anthony Watts highlights a paper with research suggesting why WUWT-ers are so willing to adopt their "climate hoax" conspiracy theories. The researchers, Tomas Ståhl and Jan-Willem van Prooijen argue that people holding irrational beliefs (such as Anthony Watts and his ragtag mob of climate hoax conspiracy theorists) lack analytical skills and/or don't value logic or evidence.

Even if one or two WUWT deniers were endowed with reasonably high cognitive skills, evidence suggests they wouldn't value these skills and therefore don't use them. When it comes to climate science, they discard those skills in favour of one of the myriad conspiracies Anthony touts.

In the abstract of the paper itself, the authors write about how both analytical skills and motivation to be rational are required if one is to avoid adopting silly and unfounded beliefs:

We propose that part of the reason why unfounded beliefs are so widespread is because skepticism requires both sufficient analytic skills, and the motivation to form beliefs on rational grounds. 

It's immediately obvious to anyone who reads the articles and comments at WUWT that the bulk of Anthony's commenters lack a lot more than the motivation to be rational. Most of them lack analytical skills. Oh, there are still a few WUWT fans who can string words together to form whole sentences, but they are few and far between.

Club of Rome conspiracies from Timothy Ball at WUWT

Timothy Ball is Anthony Watts' most conventional conspiracy theorist, and an utter nutter. Anthony decided for his blog audience he would target the crank end of cyberspace and Tim fits the bill admirably. His latest theory is that the Club of Rome invented climate science, and as a nefarious plot.

Some might call WUWT fans wackadoodles, others will think of the funny farm. Wattsupwiththat is a natural meeting place for paranoid conspiracy theorists who think that efforts to protect humanity and nature are a satanic plot.

Tim is a greenhouse effect denier who wrote the first chapter in an obscure book that gained modest popularity among climate conspiracy nutters a few years ago, called "Slaying the Sky Dragon - Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory".  There was no death, of course, but the book is a bible of some of WUWT's "climate hoax" conspiracy theorists. Not that they understand anything in it (who would? It's gobbledegook.) Nor would they understand anything about physics, chemistry, climate or mathematics. They just get some comfort from seeing they are not the only weirdos in the world.

Neanderthal Anthony Watts joins the sky dragon slayers

Anthony Watts has joined the sky dragon slayers he used to ban from his blog at WUWT. Well, he used to ban some of them. He's joined forces with Rick "Neanderthal" Perry, the US Secretary of Energy, who rejects climate science outright.

The sky dragon slayers are among the dumbest of the dim deniers, who don't believe the science of climate change. Most of them have spent their retirement years trying in vain to disprove the greenhouse effect. Sky dragon slayers reject the notion that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and is causing global warming. They think our planet stays warm by magic, or from the warm breath of their god, or from pixie dust, or something.

Inside the Matrix: Deniers @wattsupwiththat are still debating evolution!

This will be short and weird. Today Anthony Watts posted an article at WUWT touting red pills and blue pills or red teams and blue teams or something (archived here). He's still waiting and hoping for someone from his "side" to disprove 200 years of science.  Goodness knows, they've had enough time and opportunity to do so, but haven't because they can't.

I mean, 200 years is long enough, surely, for someone to prove that we have physics, chemistry, biology and geology all wrong. That our technology can't possible work because it's based on fake science.

Sides - to fry or not to fry, or covfefe? WUWT is a haven of climate science denial

Anthony Watts is running another poll on his blog wattsupwiththat, to see how many of his readers accept science and want to mitigate global warming. He's done this before. A few years ago he found that 98.1% of his readers declared themselves as "skeptics", meaning they are conspiracy theorising climate science deniers. Today he wants to test his readership again, to make sure he's still got what it takes among the dimwit dismissives. He wrote about "sides":

Since WUWT is read by both sides of the issue, I thought I’d run a poll to ask, so here goes.

Published climate science denial ignored by Christopher Monckton @wattsupwiththat

Christopher Monckton has issued a call to defund all the weather bureaux. He wants us all to stop monitoring weather and climate. The headline of his latest article on Anthony Watts climate conspiracy blog (archived here, latest here) is: "Time to defund the weather-forecasting rent-seekers".

What upset Christopher this time was a climate statement issued by the Royal Meteorological Society and endorsed by 33 organisations around the world. He doesn't like to be reminded that global warming is real and happening. Christopher's answer to his cognitive dissonance is to stop funding weather agencies. He'd rather not know if the sun will shine or the rain will pour tomorrow, than have to read that global warming is real and dangerous and caused by us.

Is Tim Ball wanting to try the "insane" defense in his court cases, with the help of Anthony Watts?

Global warming is real and happening, yet there will probably always be a small coterie who choose to promote the craziest, wackiest conspiracy theories rather than accept reality. Anthony Watts is one such person. Soon he'll no doubt announce that he's also joined a Flat Earth Society.

I've wondered for a while if Tim Ball is wanting to try on a defense of insanity when he goes to court. Is that the reason Anthony Watts publishes his utter nutter conspiracy theories? I know Anthony is conspiratorially-minded himself and likes to play the part of the persecuted victim/hero, but I find it hard to accept that he believes the incredible dark conspiracy theories Tim spews.

Yet he promotes Tim's wackiness - often. So another idea is that Anthony Watts holds the same immensely stupid notions that Tim Ball does. In his latest piece (archived here), Tim Ball is claiming once again that global warming is a dark conspiracy. Strangely, according to Tim, this conspiratorial plot is backed by virtually all the world's climate scientists and virtually all the professional scientific organisations in the world but he still claims it's a political plot!

Eric Worrall is deeply offended by the New York Times *and* wants to trash the world

Climate disinformer Eric Worrall took a short quiz at the New York Times (on WUWT archived here). The quiz was a few simple questions about what decisions Donald Trump should take in regard to oil, gas and protecting the planet Earth and the people who live on it.

Eric chose to tell Donald Trump to trash the planet, and then pretended to be deeply offended when he was told by the New York Times in response to his choices:

You did a very bad job protecting the environment and may have made many of the worst effects of climate change more likely. It could hardly have been worse.

On the upside for President Trump, Republicans in Congress and many of the people who voted for him will support most of your decisions. We guess it’s true what they say about dark clouds (something about silver linings?).

What does he expect? That anyone but his fellow planet wreckers would thank him for more floods, more drought, more heat waves, poorer crops, more wildfires, more skin cancer and faster global warming?

Divert, Distract, Deny: Cool times ahead - protests dim Anthony Watts @wattsupwiththat

Deniers at places like wattsupwiththat.com and elsewhere are every bit as weird and incomprehensible as the people who say they like Donald Trump for his honesty. They'd rather be lied to than have to deal with facts. (I've been distracted by this amazing behaviour from the new White House press secretary, which given the source is a zillion times worse than run-of-the-mill climate conspiracy blogs, which everyone who's sensible knows are only for nutters. One expects politicians to distract and divert, but one does not expect the White House to flat out lie to the American people and the world.)

Time to get away from the utter nutters in the White House and back to the utter nutters on denier blogs. There were the expected protests about the recent surface temperature announcement of yet another Hottest Year on Record - for the third year in a row.

Anthony Watts distracts with US temperature

Anthony Watts wrote an article ridiculing, but not disputing, the fact that last year was yet another hottest year ever in the instrumental record (archived here). It was the classic divert to distract manipulation favoured by science deniers. Anthony was trying to distract his readers from the hottest year on record. His headline was: "@NOAA data demonstrates that 2016 was not the ‘hottest year ever’ in the USA".

Deniers hang their hopes on wrong information from a government website in Wisconsin

It's not clear that the partial scrubbing of climate change from the website of the Department of Natural Resources in Wisconsin was at the directive of the Governor Scott Walker, or if there happens to be a stray science denier who got lodged in the Department itself. What is clear is that it's got climate conspiracy theorists at WUWT enthused and hopeful. They seem to think that if the words "climate" and "change" are scrubbed from government websites, then global warming will stop. It won't.

(Scott Walker was a presidential hopeful at one stage, and reportedly dodged questions on climate change.)

Anthony Watts is so excited about this latest bit of climate censorship that he's posted two articles about it. One was written by Bob Tisdale (archived here) and the other by Kip Hansen (archived here).