The world gets crazier - Judith Curry goes Lizard Men

Did you know that Judith Curry recently appeared on an internet alternative television show, with a chap called Richie Allen. Now I've not heard of Richie Allen before, but I have heard of his colleague, David Icke. Richie works for or with David Icke.

I'm serious. I'm not kidding. It's all over WUWT - right here. Judith did a Tim Ball and Christopher Monckton. Nah - I think she surpassed even those two this time. It's called Rock Bottom.

Binary thinking: Anthony Watts is unhinged by Californian rain (and Bill Nye and Ben Schneider)

I said a short while ago how surprised I am that wacky science deniers are not getting any less wacky now that climate science deniers are running the show in the USA. I'd have thought they'd take a step closer to reality and relax and bask in their glory. Instead they've continued to attack reality with a vengeance.

It's Anthony Watts turn today (archived here). He thinks that the fact that the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge was three times as likely because of climate change should have meant that it would never again rain in California. He launched a misplaced attack on Bill Nye, under an article with the wrong headline: "With record rainfalls in California, another Nye-Lie bites the dust".

Going by his article, Anthony Watts thinks that if scientists said that the drought in California was exacerbated by human-caused global warming, then it would never get any reprieve. Once a drought always a drought and not a drop of rain would be got.

In other words, it's not just the drought that might be breaking, the brain of Anthony Watts is broken. But that's not all that's wrong with his article - read on for more.

Dumb as: Anthony Watts complains Hausfather17 authors didn't use FUTURE data

Anthony Watts is complaining that scientists didn't use data that has yet to be published. What?

He did post an article about Hausfather17, which I've just written about.  Anthony's almost as nuts about this one as he was about the NOAA paper, Karl15. His headline was: Yet another study tries to erase “the pause” – but is missing a whole year of data.

The new paper uses latest available data

The new paper uses data to the end of the full year that's currently available - 2015. Since the paper would have been completed some months ago (it's just been published), not only would December 2016 data not have been available (it isn't yet), but the most recent months this year would not have been available to the authors, unless they had a Tardis.

Denier Irony: Climate denial support group, WUWT, mocks climate "Good Grief" support group

The "world's biggest" climate conspiracy support group is today mocking a group that meets once a month to talk about climate change, how it affects them, and what can be done about it.

Some years ago, Anthony Watts set up a support group for climate science deniers called wattsupwiththat - or WUWT for short. He made it a denier-friendly zone that propagates fake news by banning almost everyone who is a friend of science. A few months ago he handed the reins to a nonentity called Eric Worrall from Australia (formerly of the UK), who has been writing several disinformation articles a week - often several a day, to keep up the spirits of dim deniers while global temperatures sky rocket.

This is typical behaviour from climate deniers. They are oblivious to irony. The support group Eric is mocking meets only once a month. The WUWT support group meets several times a day.

A tribute to celebrate 10 years of agnotology, pseudo-science and conspiracy theories @Wattsupwiththat

Today Anthony Watts is celebrating ten years of agnotology and crank conspiracy theories. He hasn't said much about it, probably hoping his dismal readers will heap him with praise (which they have). He did claim credit for heroically helping to "change the world", keeping true to his narcissist personality.

He thanked his gallery of rogues who have spent a lot of time trying to dumb down the world. All one hundred and six of them, some as anonymous cowards.

Anthony doesn't know the names of many climate scientists, but he managed to come up with a very small number to show how he's not just a hero, but a persecuted victim - out of the thousands and thousands and thousands he could have chosen (like those listed here). He poured scorn on only 12 people, including world leading scientists, climate hawks, bloggers, and other knowledgeable people. This is to be expected of course, since Anthony Watts wants to rid the world of climate science and claims fraud and fakery when he comes across science, to keep his errant audience happy.

Alt-Right Pro-Trump ex-scientist Judith Curry sez climate science is a hoax

If you've visited Judith Curry's blog in the last few months you'll have noticed she has fully completed her switch to climate science denial. Most of her articles are from guests who reject science. She hasn't written much herself lately, but her latest article (archived here) confirms that she is now a hard core climate science denier.

What Judith has declared is her support for the alt-right anti-semitic populist Hitler wannabe, for the sexual predator and woman-despising President-elect, Donald Trump. She has also declared, again, her position as a climate science denier. Judith was arguing that Donald Trump was correct when he said that climate science is a hoax. She wrote a definition of the word "hoax" and then wrote this:

Anthony Watts makes a huge fuss about miniscule changes in atmospheric temperature data

A few days ago an astute reader wrote to me, asking if I knew why the RSS historical temperatures for the lower atmosphere varied month to month. I in turn asked Dr Carl Mears, who is the scientist behind the RSS temperature analysis (among other things).

To see what changes month to month, compare the charts for RSS TLT v3.3, which is just of the lower troposphere. The data is from that provided in November 2013, March 2016, July 2016 and October 2016:

Figure 1 | Lower troposphere temperature RSS v3.3. The chart shows data as reported in November 2013, March 2016, July 2016 and October 2016. Source: RSS

Do you see the big changes? No? So what is all the fuss about at WUWT (archived here) you might wonder.

Denier Weirdness: Electricity is a subject too tough for Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is obsessed with Australia's electricity system but he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's posted several articles on the blackout in South Australia and all of them are woefully wrong. (None on the blackouts in Victoria, NSW and the ACT.) With his latest (archived here) he shows that he doesn't understand the wholesale pricing system for Australian electricity (few do), and confuses it with electricity generation. His headline is totally misleading. He wrote: "Australian electrical system operator orders wind farms to cut back production in wake of blackout"

No it didn't.

Another exceptional doozy from WUWT - physically impossible global temperatures!

This is kind of funny if you're into denier humour. Anthony Watts likes people to think that he knows something about the Earth's surface temperature when he doesn't even understand the concept of anomalies. Today he is telling everyone that it's not just okay, it's correct to splice the record of ice cold temperatures in Greenland with those of the entire world, and claim it is global surface temperature. Wow!

Anthony posted a cartoon from Josh (archived here, latest here). It's sort of a copy cat of the new xkcd cartoon that is meant to put what's happening now into perspective. Instead what he's done would be a terrific parody of denier weirdness, if not for the fact that Anthony and his band of deniers believe it to be so. (Sometimes I wonder if Josh is poking fun at deniers, going overboard with silliness to see what he can get away with. Thing is, I don't think he knows the first thing about climate, or science. So, no.)

By the way, what I mean by physically impossible is that the temperature changes that Anthony Watts and Josh are claiming just could not have happened. If they had, there would have been evidence of an ice age 13,000 years ago that was at least as cold as the last glacial maximum (24,500 years ago) and evidence of major, major forcings both hot and cold. (Meaning very substantial, impossible to miss.) There isn't.

Lordy! Christopher Monckton's miracle - there never were and never will be any ice ages!

In case you missed it, Christopher Monckton has been writing a series of articles proving beyond a shadow of doubt that the earth has never slipped between glacial and interglacial conditions. He's now up to Part 3 (archived here) of who-knows-how-many-parts in the series.

One thing that stands out is that in his Part 3, Christopher ignored corrections people made to his multiple errors in his previous (Part 1 and Part 2) articles.

There were more than 300 comments on Christopher's Part 2, so he just must be right :)

WUWT wants universities to teach both sides of the flat earth debate

Anthony Watts has swung into hyperbolic overdrive. He is incensed that in this day and age, university professors are balking at teaching creationism, and flat earth truths, and that gravity and climate science are a hoax. He didn't mention all those specifically. He only mentioned climate science, but it's the same thing.

Anthony has written a headline:

Intolerance by the Climate Thought Police at University of Colorado

According to Anthony's outraged copy and paste, some college professors wrote to their students and said:

The point of departure for this course is based on the scientific premise that human induced climate change is valid and occurring. We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course, 

Denier weirdness @wattsupwiththat - The US housing bubble collapse proves climate science is a hoax?

Anthony Watts has posted yet another "climate hoax" conspiracy theory on his blog wattsupwiththat.com (archived here). This one is not at all developed. It is by someone called "Victor Grauer" complaining that his false accusation of fraud by climate scientists was relegated to the bore hole by the climate scientists at realclimate.org.

Victor revamped and reposted his theory where it would be likely to get a better reception. And where better to post something rejected by leading scientists, than the world's leading climate conspiracy and disinformation blog, WUWT?

His argument boils down to this:

• There was a collapse of the US housing market this century
• Bernie Madoff conned his investors
• Therefore climate science is a hoax.

Logic fail!

Eric Worrall wants the New York Times to "balance" facts with conspiracy theories

I've said before how difficult life is these days for climate science deniers and disinformers. They can't seem to win a trick with the weather against them and the science not supporting them. They don't like being ignored.

Eric Worrall is complaining today about a New York Times call for a climate change editor (archived here). Eric wants the job spec to include giving weight to pseudo-science and conspiracy theories, instead of focusing on the realities of climate change.

The ice age wolf is lurking at WUWT, with Rod Martin Jr

Anthony Watts is not deluded. He's a science disinformer. Okay, his intellect isn't the greatest but that doesn't mean he doesn't know how to feed his fans the sort of nonsense they want to read. Today he's got another "ice age cometh" article (archived here). It's written at a level suitable for his fans. The reading level is for seven-year-olds, while the content is not suited to any outlet other than a climate conspiracy blog like WUWT.

Anthony's guest, Rod Martin Jr, starts off with a synopsis of the tale about the boy who cried wolf. So what does he do? He cries "wolf" even though there's virtually no chance of his wolf appearing inside of the next 50,000 years at least. Rod wrote:

WUWT shows that 99.9% of recent papers don't dispute mainstream climate science

Scientists will be surprised to find their papers featured on a list that claims they are science deniers. They won't be surprised to find that the list is being circulated by disinformer Anthony Watts and a rabid denier, Pierre Gosselin (archived here and here and here).

Pierre is the same person who, eight years ago in 2008, predicted that by 2020 the surface temperature would have dropped by 2.5 °C. That prediction isn't looking too hot right now. It would have to drop by 2.83 °C from 2015.

Figure 4 | Global mean surface temperature (blue) and Pierre Gosselin's 2008 prediction (red). Data sources: GISS NASA and WUWT

Pierre is as woeful at understanding science papers as he is at predicting global surface temperature.

Beware deniers wanting plant food - or - If science deniers were in charge

Over at WUWT, Anthony Watts has put up another article from his main contributor Eric Worrall (archived here). Eric is thinking of sending the world to hell in a handbasket by adding enough CO2 to the air to bring it to 1000 ppm in the next ten years. He says he wants to feed plants. His plan is to burn limestone.

Eric knows as much about atmospheric science and arithmetic as he does about climate change. His calculations are wonky. He thinks that there is only 920Gt of CO2 in the atmosphere at present. There's about 3,250 Gt or about 8 Gt per ppmv of CO2. So when he works out that he needs another 600 ppm, he thinks he only needs another 1,380Gt of CO2. In fact he needs to find about 4,800 Gt CO2. That means instead of just using 3,136Gt of limestone, he'll have to find nearly 11,000 billion tonnes of pure limestone.

Christopher Monckton lives in a fantasy future of science denial

Christopher Monckton has made a rare appearance at WUWT (archived here), complaining that an annual temperature chart stops at 2015. Presumably he thinks it should have included annual temperatures for 2016, 2017 and maybe 2018. The article that got Christopher's knickers in a knot was by Ryan Cooper at The Week. Christopher posted the chart below:

Figure 1 | Global average annual surface temperature from 1975 to 2015. Source: The Week via WUWT

Denier weirdness: Anthony Watts wants good economics but bad climate science

This is weird. Anthony Watts (a "climate hoax" conspiracy blogger) has written about a paper in one of the top economic journals, which a lot of people think shouldn't have been published (archived here). That's okay, sometimes bad papers get published and sometimes there are shonky things happening with peer review. Thing is, as shown in his article, Anthony wants bad research in climate science.

Denier quote of the week from Tim Ball at WUWT

This is what passes for climate science at Anthony Watts' blog WUWT:

Since climate is an average of the weather, the average temperature for a 24-hour period is the climate of the day.

Timothy Ball PhD (climate conspiracy theorist) 

That has to be the shortest climate period ever!

And not one person questioned it.

Now the Cornwall Alliance is scared of RICO

Dear Attorneys General,

You’re not stupid. Stupid people don’t graduate from law school.

Neither are you generally ignorant. You know lots of law.

Those are the first words of an open letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and members of Attorneys General United for Clean Power. Since they are Attorneys General I suppose, um, they would know "lots of law". I'd say they can write more eloquently than the "climate hoax" conspiracy theorists who wrote that letter, too.