WUWT continues to scratch and scrape the bottom of the barrel
Poor little Anthony Watts has not got much to choose from any more when it comes to posting articles to his website. He's not very good at writing himself and rarely attempts it. When he does he gets into strife like
here and
here. So he has to rely on other people. Now he's down to just a handful of regulars like
Perennially Puzzled Bob Tisdale,
Wondering Willis Eschenbach, less often from
Tony "b..b..but Central England" Brown and
David "funny sunny" Archibald - and, save the worst for last, the potty peer,
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley.
But before we start, the question must be asked. Is it really Monckton on WUWT?
For the sake of the discussion, we'll let him adopt the Monckton persona.
Today Christopher has a go at
Professor Michael Mann, one of the world's leading paleoclimatologists. Christopher doesn't refer to what he is "refuting" but gives a quote from Dr Mann:
NASA found the warming continues unabated, with the past decade the warmest on record.
Michael Mann on Monckton
Luckily there are good search engines around and it wasn't long before I discovered what got Christopher so hot under the collar. Here is
Professor Mann's article, in the Richmond Time Dispatch. Michael Mann gave Christopher a serve, writing:
Most recently the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley of Edinburgh, Scotland, used offensive personal attacks and completely false statements in another attempt to defend Cuccinelli’s use of state funds to engage in a politically motivated attack on both me and Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia. Monckton failed to mention that his qualifications for speaking on climate science include claiming to be a member of the House of Lords despite their continued statements that he is not, and being banned for life from the United Nations climate process for impersonating a delegate from Myanmar during the last round of talks in Doha, Qatar.
Lord Monckton goes after the “hockey stick” work published more than a decade ago showing that recent warming is unusual over at least the past 1,000 years. Despite Monckton’s rambling attack, the hockey stick most certainly has not been disproved. The highest scientific body in the nation, the National Academy of Sciences, affirmed our research findings in an exhaustive independent review published in June 2006. Dozens of independent groups of scientists have independently reproduced and confirmed our findings, and more recent work by other groups summarized in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report shows that recent warmth is unusual over an even longer timeframe. There are in fact numerous independent lines of evidence that humans are warming the planet and changing our climate by burning coal and other fossil fuels. And despite Monckton’s and Battig’s claims that global warming stopped 16 years ago, in fact NASA found the warming continues unabated with the past decade the warmest on record.
In what is the most personally offensive part of Monckton’s letter, he says that references to climate “ ‘deniers’ and ‘denialists’ would be illegal in Europe as being anti-Jewish, racialist hate-speech.” This is particularly troubling to me both because I am Jewish and because it does not make any sense. No one is attempting to subpoena or prosecute climate change deniers. We are simply trying to make sure the public understands what the overwhelming majority of scientists believe is happening.
To read the complete article,
go here.
Monckton cherry picks RSS
Now for Monckton. He puts up one of his yucky pink charts showing noise-ridden monthly readings from the RSS data set starting just before 1998. I dealt with that one
earlier today but science deniers wouldn't take any notice of facts. Here is the RSS chart again.
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| Data Source: RSS |
Michael Mann referred to the last decade being the warmest on record. This one is shaping up to beat it. Here is a decadal chart of RSS temperature anomalies. The first and last decade are, of course, incomplete.
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| Data Source: RSS |
What do you think? Climate trends are much easier to see in years than in months, because months clog up the data with seasonal fluctuations and noise. Longer term climate trends are even easier to see in decades, because years have noise from year to year natural fluctuations, like ENSO.
It's important to note that RSS doesn't monitor temperatures right to the top of the poles. It only goes as high as 82.5 degrees North and South. So it misses out on some of the Arctic amplification. Here is GISTemp showing also the temperature 64 degrees and north (the Arctic).
Michael Mann is correct, Christopher Monckton is wrong. No surprises there!
Monckton cites the
disgraced plagiarist Wegman of all people in an attempt to "prove" Michael Mann is wrong. Sheesh. He really needs to think about who to call upon. That "study"
has been shown to be very wrong. Just another bit of denialist rubbish.
Monckton is a Denier according to the Oxford Dictionary
And you'd think that Monckton, being a lord and all that, would know the Queen's English. He doesn't like being called a science denier. I don't know what euphemism he'd accept. A "potty peer"? A crackpot? A
fruitcake? Here is the
Oxford English definition of denier:
Monckton fakes membership of the House of Lords
Monckton is still trying to
fake membership of the House of Lords but with a twist. He's toned it down a little and tries some clever wordplay. He can't bring himself to admit that he's not and never has been a member of the House of Lords. Monckton writes:
Mann says the House of Lords says I am not a member when I say I am. Sigh! Mann knows no more of British constitutional practice than he does of elementary statistics. Hansard records that the House has recognized my title to succeed my late beloved father, but does not record the House as saying I am not a member. Facts wrong again, Mike, baby. Try doing science, not invective.
For the record,
here is the House of Lords stating quite clearly that Lord Monckton is
not a member.
Monckton kicked out of Doha after impersonating a delegate from Myanmar
Monckton then tries to weasel out of getting
kicked out of the Doha climate conference when he impersonated a delegate from Myanmar. He writes:
Finally, Mann says I “impersonated a delegate from Myanmar” at a UN conference. Do I look Burmese? Do I sound Burmese? Did the chairman of the conference say he thought I was Burmese? No. He said he knew I was not from Burma. Facts wrong yet again, Mickey.
This is what happened,
from the UK Guardian. I think "
impersonate" is a fair description:
At one of the sessions, Monckton assumed the seat for Burma in place of the real delegate, and addressed the hall from his microphone. He spoke for nearly a minute, before being escorted out.
And h/t to Eli in the
comments at WUWT. Monckton himself has written:
The microphone was just in front of me. All I had to do was press the button. I pressed it. The Chair recognized Myanmar (Burmese for Burma). I was on.
Global warming isn't real, says Monckton
Monckton finishes with this:
Meanwhile, the world continues to fail to warm as predicted. Not only Attorneys General but also taxpayers will soon, and rightly, be demanding their money back from the grasping profiteers of doom who so monstrously over-egged this particular pudding.
Yeah, right!
Monckton is an expert science denier and entertainer
There is one more tidbit for Monckton fans:
Lord Monckton is an expert reviewer for the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report. He has lectured worldwide in climate science and economics and has published several papers in the learned literature. Oh, and his passport says he is The Right Honourable Christopher Walter, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.
Lord Monckton may be an expert reviewer, but Mickey Mouse could be an expert reviewer for the IPCC if he wanted. Anyone can be an expert reviewer - you just self-nominate.
He's gone on numerous tours as an entertainer, to confirm he is a "drivelling idiot" and "hangs himself out of his own mouth" (at 1 minute 49 secs) - oh, and entertain the oldies and the members of the Flat Earth Society.
He's never published a peer-reviewed paper - his only "several papers" have been in denier rags like SPPI plus
one article in an APS newsletter, but the article was not peer-reviewed. APS were so horrified that anyone could think such a thing that they
wrote an introduction:
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate."
Laws of Monckton
For a more complete run-down on the shenanigans of Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, visit
Barry Bickmore. I particularly like his laws of Monckton and wonder when/if they will apply to Anthony Watts.
Bickmore’s First Law of Monckton
For every person who publicly endorses Lord Monckton’s climate pronouncements for merely irrational reasons, there exists a threshold in Monckton’s behavior which, if crossed, will cause said person to regret their association.
Bickmore’s Second Law of Monckton
Any behavioral threshold posited by Bickmore’s First Law of Monckton will eventually be crossed by Lord Monckton.
From Twitter
I discovered from Foxgoose that
Monckton might be standing in upcoming elections. In Scotland. Best of luck to the Scottish. I do hope for your sake he gets no votes. However those elections have nought to do with me. Scotland is a long way from my home.
From WUWT comments
Pamela Gray is ever hopeful in her denial and says:
August 26, 2013 at 10:00 am How much cooling (versus just stalling) would have to have been shown before the AGW crowd would have to say that the present decade was NOT the hottest in the present record? Let’s use their logic. They are obviously using an average from a decade of temperature averages. So let’s put the decade to hypothetical test using only negative slopes. Easily done with linear trend lines between the two decadal points being used by the AGW crowd. One could then easily show how far that crowd would be willing to show up as clowns. And all accomplished by using their decadal start and end points, their use of decadal averages, and their use of linear trend lines. Logic wins most handedly when the oponent side uses the proponent’s logic. Its like having the rival team accidently fail to remember which basket is theirs and score one for the other side. Makes them look stupid but is fun to watch!
For those curious about shifting the start years of the decade, here is the RSS so favoured these days on WUWT, as an animation, replete with the linear trend line Pamela requested. Excel couldn't produce any negative slopes. Sorry to disappoint Pamela.
 |
| Data Source: RSS |
David L. isn't aware that the hockey stick is formed by proxy reconstructions plus instrumental
observations, doesn't know that being a Viscount means being called Lord so-and-so but is
not the same as being a member of the House of Lords. He is also another hopeful science denier and writes:
August 26, 2013 at 9:53 am Can someone produce the hockeystick graph that Mann is talking about? The one I remember has a blade that shoots up dramatically. I don’t remember the version that Mann is obviously refering to that shoots up a little then levels off for 17 years. Even in Al Gore’s fictional movie “Inconvenient Truth” his little platform kept going up and up. I don’t remember it going up and stopping for the rest of the movie.
BTW, what is Mann going to say when the temperatures start dropping for the next 10 years? I’ll tell you what he’ll say in 2023: “Global warming is still happening, most scientists believe this to be true. The late 20th century was the warmest period of the past millenium with 1998 being the all time record. Lord Monckton is not a Lord. Anyone who disagrees with me is a denier”
While the leader of the
bunny tribe pops in and puts Monckton in his place. Eli Rabett says:
August 26, 2013 at 9:34 am Certainly Lord Monckton does not look Burmese. And no one, not even Eli, believes that Lord Monckton sounds Burmese. Even the chairman of the conference was not foolish enough to say he thought Lord Monckton was Myanmarese. Well at least not when someone pointed this out after Lord Monckton talked having been recognized as a speaker from Myanmar
Why Eli even read about that at Watts Up With That, and the happy bunny even saw that Chris wrote that he took the seat of the representative of Myanmar and Chris asked to be recognized as same
The microphone was just in front of me. All I had to do was press the button. I pressed it. The Chair recognized Myanmar (Burmese for Burma). I was on.
Last one, because it amuses me on one level and disgusts me on another. Anthony and his moderators are getting a bit annoyed because even his loyal denialists are trying to post links to yours truly's little blog. The mod tries to make sure that all the
ad homs go in only one direction. The "subject of this thread" is not HotWhopper nor is it climate science, sez the mod, it's "bash Professor Michael Mann".
dp says (extract):
August 26, 2013 at 12:58 pm ...this topic at a climate hysteria site that likely would not exist if there were no WUWT to stalk....
[Snip. You have our sympathy, but that link has been posted here so many times it amounts to threadjacking. The subject of the thread is Mann. Please stick to that topic. — mod.]
There's an article at WUWT that gives some insight into the minds of the ideologically-constrained at WUWT. Rud Istvan wrote why he doesn't want his tax going to assist in recovery efforts in Texas and Louisiana (archived here). It boils down to him being able to afford to live in a fancy apartment that was designed to withstand Cat 5 storms. Those who can't afford that should suffer the consequences, according to Rud.
