Denier Weirdness: Science deniers just can't wait for disasters

On the one hand science deniers at WUWT protest what they term "alarmism", in other words the warnings about what is likely to happen as global warming continues.  On the other hand they get it all wrong and jump on things that either aren't predicted to happen or about which science is less certain.

For example, while the heat events and heavy rains expected with global warming are already happening and increasing, science deniers either ignore it or pretend it isn't real.  Instead they build strawmen and talk about tornadoes and hurricanes (tropical cyclones to most of the world, by far the majority of science deniers live in the USA).  The science isn't all in on whether these will increase or decrease.  Some science suggests that tropical cyclones will increase over time, other studies suggest that they won't, but maybe they will get more intense or larger cyclones will increase.  Tornadoes is another question altogether - to do with wind shear etc.

Today, Anthony Watts complains (archived here) that his neighbours on the east coast of the USA haven't been hit with hurricanes this year - the implied response he wants from his fans is that global warming isn't happening or if it is it's a good thing.  Tropical storms are still hurting other people.  But they don't live in the USA so they don't count.

Anthony avoids writing about the long drying out of his own neck of the woods, which is predicted by global warming.  Or the current fire raging in Yosemite and the increase in wildfires in America's west over time.

Why does he avoid what is happening and build strawmen?  Why does he point at squirrels while ignoring wildfires in his own backyard? Why does he continue to promote silly denialist rubbish? Because he doesn't like paying tax - or that's the reason he gives anyway.  It's a strange reason for building strawmen and denying science, but there you go.

Where have all the climate science deniers gone?

Anthony Watts has put up an article today from American Thinker (archived here).  Apparently they are wanting to find six point six five people who either dispute mainstream climate science or are undecided.  Specifically, it has been tallying PBS discussions of climate matters.  The article is a bit unclear, but it looks as if it counted 350 people on PBS who accept mainstream climate science and only four who dispute it.

The latest research shows that going back over the past twenty years or so, 1.9% of scientific abstracts that attribute a cause to global warming reject the mainstream science that it's primarily caused by greenhouse gases.  There was another 1% of abstracts that attribute a cause to warming that claim it's undecided.

American Thinker looking for 6.65 contrarian climate scientists

So - American Thinker is wanting a "balanced" representation.  PBS could go for 6.65 people who reject mainstream science to add to the four and that would be the correct balance to the 350.  Probably overcompensating these days but who am I to quibble.  Maybe they could have them all do it all in one session.  That would be fun.  We'd maybe get one person arguing "it's the sun", another arguing "it's cosmic rays", another arguing "it's natural", another arguing "it's cooling", another arguing "it's ENSO", another arguing "it's the AMO" and the 0.65 of a person arguing "it's the PDO".  There are other arguments they could pick from.  Whatever, they could argue it out among themselves and see who comes out the winner!

Source: ClimateProgress

What about Fox Television and American Thinker?

American Thinker hasn't said so, but they must also be approaching several thousand climate scientists who know that humans are causing global warming asking them to appear on Fox Television and to write articles for American Thinker - to explain climate change and its impacts. They would want to have an awful lot to make up for all the climate science denial articles and segments at Fox and American Thinker.

Or they could be applying double standards.  (Does American Thinker have any standards?)


Leo Hickman argues that the era of climate science denial is over.  About time, too.

Oceans and clouds are driving Anthony Watts crazy

This is just a quick heads up in case you bump into a science denier and they raise the topic - so you know what they are talking about.

Anthony Watts at WUWT has just posted an article about this because he finds it funny.  I can see the funny side too, in the way it's written up at Grist.  Unlike Anthony I don't find it ridiculous.  I see the serious side. Anthony writes it up as Climate Craziness of the Week (archived here to save you a trip):

Over at Grist, where “burnt out” David Roberts just threw in the towel, the craziness continues with a new alarmist writer:

I'll get to the point.  There is a new paper in Nature Climate Change by Six et al called Global warming amplified by reduced sulphur fluxes as a result of ocean acidification.  Here is the abstract:

Climate change and decreasing seawater pH (ocean acidification)1 have widely been considered as uncoupled consequences of the anthropogenic CO2 perturbation2, 3. Recently, experiments in seawater enclosures (mesocosms) showed that concentrations of dimethylsulphide (DMS), a biogenic sulphur compound, were markedly lower in a low-pH environment4. Marine DMS emissions are the largest natural source of atmospheric sulphur5 and changes in their strength have the potential to alter the Earth’s radiation budget6.

Here we establish observational-based relationships between pH changes and DMS concentrations to estimate changes in future DMS emissions with Earth system model7 climate simulations.

Global DMS emissions decrease by about 18(±3)% in 2100 compared with pre-industrial times as a result of the combined effects of ocean acidification and climate change. The reduced DMS emissions induce a significant additional radiative forcing, of which 83% is attributed to the impact of ocean acidification, tantamount to an equilibrium temperature response between 0.23 and 0.48 K. Our results indicate that ocean acidification has the potential to exacerbate anthropogenic warming through a mechanism that is not considered at present in projections of future climate change.

Here's the link to the Grist article. Vanishing ocean smell could also mean fewer clouds.

Monckton makes a bigger mess at wattsupwiththat

Update: see below - TimC has something to say in the WUWT comments about Monckton's fake claim to be a member of the House of Lords.

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Not satisfied with the mess Christopher Monckton of Brenchley made in his last article, Anthony let's him get into a bigger mess on WUWT.  (If you click the link you'll notice I've taken everyone's advice. I've updated the link - previous version here)

What Christopher does is draw a whole heap of his yucky pink charts using monthly data and cherry picking the start date of December 1996.  He plonks on top a supposed trend line each with an R² value close to zero.  In the background on a scale of his choosing he adds atmospheric CO2.  He could just as easily have used a different scale for CO2 and the slope would have been quite different.  Anyway, this is what Christopher's mess looks like.  I've combined all his charts into a single animation to save space (and eyes):

Anyone who knows anything about statistics or climate will see immediately what is wrong with this approach.  Notice the very low R² value in each chart.  The trend lines are meaningless.  The surface temperature data is too noisy to determine a trend.  The CO2 background chart is meaningless.

Christopher Monckton drowns the trend in noisy variations

Here is what rasmus says on realclimate.org about this very common trick by fake skeptics like Anthony Watts and Christopher Monckton:

The real trick, however, is to show all the short-term variations. Hourly and daily values would be an over-kill, but showing monthly values works. Climate change involves time scales of many years, and hence if emphasis is given to much shorter time scales, the trends will drown in noisy variations. 

Let's look and see what happens with GISTemp using annual data.  Compare the R² value of the linear trend line with those in Christopher's charts:

Data Source: NASA

Now given that climate doesn't change on an annual basis but over years, here is the same data on a decadal basis.

Data Source: NASA

Compare the R² value with those in Christopher's charts and with that in the annual GISTemp above.  Remember too, the last column on the right only contains three years of data from 2010 to 2012 inclusive.

Next, compare the above with Christopher's cherry pick.  He started in December 1996.  Here is the annual data showing the full data set compared with data for the full year 1997 to 2012 inclusive:

Data Source: NASA

Christopher Monckton ignores uncertainty to fool people

Tamino has a very good article (well a lot of very good articles) on the topic of trends in data when there is a lot of noise, like there is in Christopher's monthly data and even in annual data.  If you think for one minute that Christopher is on to something then I urge you to read the article.  Tamino discusses how you need to allow for uncertainty, particularly with noisy data like monthly global surface temperature anomalies.

Christopher Monckton's ridiculous prediction

Christopher finishes up with this:

A math geek with a track-record of getting stuff right tells me we are in for 0.5 Cº of global cooling. It could happen in two years, but is very likely by 2020. His prediction is based on the behavior of the most obvious culprit in temperature change here on Earth – the Sun.

Data Source: NASA plus Monckton's math geek

I know people who think Christopher Monckton has something to offer are seriously weird, but are they that delusional? Let's see - from the WUWT comments:

MattN is getting impatient for all the cooling predicted by many people at WUWT and says:

August 27, 2013 at 3:59 am
As good as this is, what we really need is some cooling that no one can deny/spin instead of non-warming.

Eric says the greenhouse gas theory has been disproven:

August 27, 2013 at 6:36 am
How can people still cling to the CO2 myth — including WUWT? The idea that rising CO2 causes rising temperatures has failed the observational test.
“Does the Great Gap prove the basic greenhouse-gas theory wrong? No.” ???? Observation of actual events HAS disproved the GHG theory. Get over it.

rgbatduke, as part of a very long lecture to Christopher, says he doesn't know, he thinks it's all too uncertain:

August 27, 2013 at 5:08 am
I’m not certain I agree that we are due for 0.5C of cooling — perhaps we are, perhaps not — because I don’t think uncertain science suddenly becomes certain for you, for me, for your friend who is sometimes right, for the IPCC, for the GCMs, or for your favorite psychic medium. Given the uncertainties in the data and the corrections, I’m not even sure we’ve had the claimed 1 C of global warming post the mid-1800s. I think we have actually had some warming, but it could be a half a degree, it could be a degree and a half. Who knows what Australia, Antarctica, the western half of the United States, most of South America, half of Canada, most of China, the bulk of the pacific, and the bulk of the Atlantic oceans were doing (temperature-wise) in the mid-1800s? Our thermometric data is spotty to sparse and inaccurate, and a lot of this was terra incognita to the point where we don’t even have good ANECDOTAL evidence of climate.

Chris Schoneveld says it's a shame that Christopher picked the cherry:

August 27, 2013 at 3:57 am
So to summarize: Lord Monckton did pick the dataset with the lowest, (even negative) trend (RSS) of -0.2 ºC/century since all the other datasets show positive trends between +0.44ºC/century and +0.93 ºC/century. So, yes, RSS was a cherry, because it was the only one that showed (be it statistically insignificant) cooling for 200 months (I know, the warming trends of the others are equally statistically insignificant). It is a pity that he chose RSS, since it gave his opponents ammunition to attack his credibility.

David L. says all the models are wrong - Christopher Monckton sez so, so there!

August 27, 2013 at 2:45 am
Who can say the models aren’t wrong? The evidence cannot possibly be more clear. So warmists, scrap the models and go back to the drawing boards! You ain’t got nuthin’.

TimC has a few things to say about Christopher's false claim to me a member of the House of Lords:

August 27, 2013 at 1:29 pm
Lord Monckton: as your original posting in this thread itself made reference to your claim to be “a member of the House of Lords” and you also responded to what I thought was a fair posting from steveta_uk by describing him as a “furtively pseudonymous troll” and going on about “some malicious and politicized lackwit’s effusions” I am afraid I have decided to add my own ha’pennys worth – accepting that this was not of course the principal topic of your otherwise interesting article.

I am sure you know that in the UK the Monarch does not by herself (or by Royal Command or Warrant) make laws: it is “the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in …. Parliament assembled” (to use the enacting words on all general legislation of the Westminster Parliament), that constitutionally makes laws. The monarchy is itself subject to those laws (as under the Succession to the Crown Act 2013), so are peers (life and hereditary) and commoners. Unlike in some other jurisdictions there is no constitutional court or right of judicial review from legislation enacted by Parliament (Monarch, Lords and Commons together) nor any concept that an Act passed by Parliament can ever be flawed or unenforceable – every Act passed by Parliament is valid legislation until the Parliamentary process is used once again to alter or repeal it.

By Section 1 of the House of Lords Act 1999 (enacted by the Queen, Lords and Commons in Parliament) “No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage”. By Section 2 “Section 1 shall not apply in relation to anyone excepted from it by or in accordance with Standing Orders of the House”; “At any one time 90 people shall be excepted from section 1”; “Once excepted from section 1, a person shall continue to be so throughout his life …” – creating 90 hereditary peers (in addition to appointed life peers) as members of the House for life. This legislation is absolutely clear; it was passed with the direct authority of the (then) House of Lords.

Since I believe you succeeded to your title in 2006 when the 1999 Act was already in force (as it still is today), under Section 1 of that Act you cannot be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of your hereditary peerage unless you show that you have been excepted from Section 1. This is the law however unreasonable, unfair or improper you might consider it to be; it was approved by the Monarch, the (then) House of Lords and the Commons in 1999.

For clarity: may I ask if you have a Section 2 exception in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House? If not, how can you be a member of the House of Lords so long as Section 1 of the 1999 Act remains the law?

TimC has more to say about that:

August 27, 2013 at 3:02 pmAs “The furtively pseudonymous TimC” (Anthony has my email address with my correct full name which I prefer to abbreviate here) I have indeed read the opinion obtained by Lord Monckton: I assume that given by Hugh O’Donoghue of Carmelite Chambers, Inner Temple.

I have (the now rather too familiar) issues over someone first called in 2004, who probably won’t get silk for another 10-15 years, being described as “a leading constitutional lawyer” – until he gets silk he is not entitled to lead anyone. I fear this is another example of embroidering expressions rather to the limit – and we have all on occasions shopped cases around the Temple until we get the opinion we want.

And I’m afraid I simply don’t agree with the opinion. The 1999 Act is absolutely clear and to the point: “no-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage”. The Queen gave royal assent to this in 1999, thereby altering letters patent given before that time (by her or any of her predecessors). The Queen, and any instrument previously issued by her, is subject to later Acts of Parliament exactly in the same way as any of her subjects.

Projecting Dr Trenberth and avoiding his question

Which Dr Trenberth?

Anthony Watts, who has written many, many articles about Dr Kevin Trenberth, forgets his name and starts calling him Kenneth (archived - later corrected version).

Source: WUWT

As Frank Kotler says, way way down in the WUWT comments:

August 25, 2013 at 6:13 pm Top post still says “Kenneth” in a couple places. We’re talking about the same guy, right? If we’re going to insist that words have meanings, getting the man’s name right might be a good start…

Predictions and projections

The WUWT-ers are having trouble working out the difference between IPCC model projections and model predictions.  Perhaps they can think of it this way.  IPCC models are used to make projections about climate (surface temperature, precipitation, ice cover etc) for a range of different scenarios.  Scenarios are largely based on emissions trajectories.  That is, if we continue on a very high rate of CO2 emissions, the average global surface temperature will rise much more than if we cut CO2 emissions.  The scenario processes for IPCC AR5 reports are described here.  There are four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) that are described here.  These are:

• RCP8.5 Rising radiative forcing pathway leading to 8.5 W/m2 in 2100.
• RCP6 Stabilization without overshoot pathway to 6 W/m2 at stabilization after 2100
• RCP4.5 Stabilization without overshoot pathway to 4.5 W/m2 at stabilization after 2100
• RCP2.6 Peak in radiative forcing at ~ 3 W/m2 before 2100 and decline

The word "prediction" could be used when referring to a particular scenario as part of an "if" statement.  For example, IF we were to continue to track on or above RCP8.5 I'd predict we'd face a very challenging future!

Jimbo from WUWT posted a comment about an old blog article by Dr Trenberth.  Here is Dr Trenberth's article in full from Nature's climate feedback blog:

Predictions of climate

Posted by Oliver Morton on behalf of Kevin E. Trenberth

I have often seen references to predictions of future climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), presumably through the IPCC assessments (the various chapters in the recently completedWorking Group I Fourth Assessment report ican be accessed through this listing). In fact, since the last report it is also often stated that the science is settled or done and now is the time for action.

In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios. They are intended to cover a range of possible self consistent “story lines” that then provide decision makers with information about which paths might be more desirable. But they do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess.

Even if there were, the projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models. There is neither an El Niño sequence nor any Pacific Decadal Oscillation that replicates the recent past; yet these are critical modes of variability that affect Pacific rim countries and beyond. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, that may depend on the thermohaline circulation and thus ocean currents in the Atlantic, is not set up to match today’s state, but it is a critical component of the Atlantic hurricanes and it undoubtedly affects forecasts for the next decade from Brazil to Europe. Moreover, the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors. I postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.

The current projection method works to the extent it does because it utilizes differences from one time to another and the main model bias and systematic errors are thereby subtracted out. This assumes linearity. It works for global forced variations, but it can not work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle. For instance, if the current state is one of drought then it is unlikely to get drier, but unrealistic model states and model biases can easily violate such constraints and project drier conditions. Of course one can initialize a climate model, but a biased model will immediately drift back to the model climate and the predicted trends will then be wrong. Therefore the problem of overcoming this shortcoming, and facing up to initializing climate models means not only obtaining sufficient reliable observations of all aspects of the climate system, but also overcoming model biases. So this is a major challenge.

The IPCC report makes it clear that there is a substantial future commitment to further climate change even if we could stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. And the commitment is even greater given that the best we can realistically hope for in the near term is to perhaps stabilize emissions, which means increases in concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases indefinitely into the future. Thus future climate change is guaranteed.

So if the science is settled, then what are we planning for and adapting to? A consensus has emerged that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” to quote the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Working Group I Summary for Policy Makers (pdf) and the science is convincing that humans are the cause. Hence mitigation of the problem: stopping or slowing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere is essential. The science is clear in this respect.

However, the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate. But we need them. Indeed it is an imperative! So the science is just beginning. Beginning, that is, to face up to the challenge of building a climate information system that tracks the current climate and the agents of change, that initializes models and makes predictions, and that provides useful climate information on many time scales regionally and tailored to many sectoral needs.

We will adapt to climate change. The question is whether it will be planned or not? How disruptive and how much loss of life will there be because we did not adequately plan for the climate changes that are already occurring?

Kevin Trenberth
Climate Analysis Section, NCAR

The Question

The question is not about predictions vs projections. As Dr Trenberth writes in his closing paragraph: We will adapt to climate change. The question is whether it will be planned or not?

This is the global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and cement production (not including land use change or deforestation) up to and including 2011 from a 2012 report by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency:

Source: Trends in global co2 emissions 2012 Report, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency

Click here for an interactive chart in the Guardian, which you can play with.  It shows CO2 emissions from around the world by country, per GDP, per capita etc.


So while WUWT-ers are arguing over whether or not the IPCC makes predictions or is careful with terminology, the world continues to pour carbon dioxide into the air.  We need to drop emissions, by a lot, if we are to have any chance of limiting global warming to just two degrees.

Vendettas and denial on WUWT

Not much happening on WUWT in the past couple of days.  Here's a a rundown on a couple of articles.

Vendetta still being waged

Jim Steele, who I've written about before here and here, continued his lone vendetta against a biologist who he has a grudge against, using WUWT to do it (and to try to get someone to buy his book).  From those previous articles he has no credibility left and I'll not bother with him any further.

Global warming is real

justhefactswuwt and/or werner brozek put up a noisy monthly chart of RSS global temperatures starting at 1997 and says, look, no warming for 200 months.  Then proceeds to work out for how long there has been "no warming" by plotting monthly charts of different data sets - saying 23 years, 18 years etc.  Here's a long term chart from GISTemp, which makes their efforts to deny global warming look silly:

Data source: NASA

Fake sceptics go to an awful lot of trouble in their attempts to disprove global warming.  If only they put as much effort into figuring out how to address the problem.

Here is the RSS chart. It registered a very high anomaly for 1998, the year of the super El Niño.  What will happen the next time we get a super El Niño?

Data Source: RSS

Here is a decadal chart of RSS temperature anomalies.  The first and last decade are, of course, incomplete.

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.

Bear in mind, too, 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).

Data source: NASA

From the WUWT comments, lsvalgaard says:

August 25, 2013 at 10:06 am  RSS Flat For 200 Months (Now Includes July Data)
Thus no global cooling…

They predicted 2030 was going to come and it hasn't yet! sez Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is gloating.  The scientists are all wrong.  They said 2030 would happen and it still hasn't arrived.  That proves that AGW isn't happening!

To be fair to scientists, I don't think any scientist actually said that 2030 would arrive before 2013.  Not one of them predicted that 2030 would arrive any time before 2029.  Or at least not that I can find.  Not a single one of them, I'll be willing to bet, thinks 2030 will arrive even one day before 31 December 2029.  Still, the fact that 2030 hasn't arrived yet despite the scientists' predictions that 2030 was on the cards to happen some time this century proves that climate science is a hoax, surely!

The background to the startling news that 2030 hasn't happened yet!

Today Anthony Watts posted an update to his Sea Ice News.  He is positively gloating that the most extreme predictions about Arctic summer ice decline haven't (yet) come to pass.  He dug out a BBC article from 2007, and  pronounced that a prediction of Arctic Ice made by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval PostGraduate School in Monterey, that the Arctic might be free of ice this year (2013) isn't likely.  I'd say he's right about that.

When Nick Stokes points out that in 2011 Professor Wieslaw revised his prediction.  Anthony replies:

REPLY: Right, moving of the goalposts, a typical tactic. Now it’s a vague “end of the decade” while others are saying 2030, 2040, 2050, etc. The point here is that none of these self proclaimed expert prognosticators has a clue. – Anthony

So Nick comes back and says the scientists aren't claiming to prognosticate:

August 18, 2013 at 3:03 pm I think they are just saying they are not in a position to expertly prognosticate. Here’s what Walt Meier said: "[Maslowski's] is quite a good model, one thing it has is really high resolution, it can capture details that are lost in global climate models,” he said. “But 2019 is only eight years away; there’s been modelling showing that [likely dates are around] 2040/50, and I’d still lean towards that. “I’d be very surprised if it’s 2013 – I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it’s 2019."

Doesn’t sound like a claim to prognostication.

Defending the indefensible - 2030 still hasn't come despite the prediction that it will

Anthony decides to proclaim that scientists don't know nuffin' and says he's going to go to sleep now.  He quotes from a NASA press release, in which Dr Serreze suggest that the Arctic might be free of ice in summer by 2030 and complains that it hasn't happened yet :

REPLY: Ah Racehorse Stokes, defender of the indefensible, purveyor of FUD. Nobody knows, nobody has a good handle on it, and even with the “good models” that purport to prognosticate what Earth’s complex systems will do, they are still reduced to guessing. 2012 2013? 2019? 2030?

“We may well see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer within our lifetimes. The scientists agree that this could occur by 2030. Serreze concluded, “The implications for global climate, as well as Arctic animals and people, are disturbing.”

http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20071001_pressrelease.html

Wake me up when something one of these guys predicts comes true. Not one of these alarming media tailored claims of disappearance of Arctic sea ice has come true yet. – Anthony

That's true.  Most of these "alarming media tailored claims" have been projecting the summer ice will disappear by 2050, or maybe 2030 and that hasn't "come true yet".  Anthony is just so impatient!

Do you think that means he is going to shut down WUWT and go to sleep until 2030?  No?

Indefensible WUWT - doesn't have a clue

Speaking of indefensible, here are some of the nutty ideas that Anthony Watts promotes.  What do you reckon is more defensible?  A prognostication that the Arctic will be "virtually ice free summer" in ten, twenty or thirty years from now?  Or that we're heading into an ice age?

July 15 2013: Newsbytes: Sun’s Bizarre Activity May Trigger Another Little Ice Age (Or Not)
Anthony Watts promotes Benny Peiser's notion that we're heading for an ice age

June 17 2013: Russian Scientists say period of global cooling ahead due to changes in the sun
Anthony Watts promotes a spin misattributed to the Pulkovo Observatory that we're heading for an ice age.

December 29 2008: Don Easterbrook’s AGU paper on potential global cooling
Anthony Watts writes: Don sent me his AGU paper for publication and discussion here on WUWT, and I’m happy to oblige – Anthony  Here is what Denier Don predicted back in 2008:

In 1998 when I first predicted a 30-year cooling trend during the first part of this century, I used a very conservative estimate for the depth of cooling, i.e., the 30-years of global cooling that we experienced from ~1945 to 1977. However, also likely are several other possibilities (1) the much deeper cooling that occurred during the 1880 to ~1915 cool period, (2) the still deeper cooling that took place from about 1790 to 1820 during the Dalton sunspot minimum, and (3) the drastic cooling that occurred from 1650 to 1700 during the Maunder sunspot minimum.

The sun’s recent behavior suggests we are likely heading for a deeper global cooling than the 1945-1977 cool period and ought to be looking ahead to cope with it.

Here is Don's prognostication of a "deeper cooling".

Here is the same prediction using GISTemp:

Data Sources: NASA and WUWT

And what about Anthony promoting David Archibald's prognostications?  Here is what David Archibald prognosticates:

If you think Don Easterbrook and David Archibald make crazy predictions, how about this next one.  It is from someone whose opinions Anthony Watts promotes on his blog.  Pierre Gosselin predicted this in 2008 in a comment on WUWT:

There are many more where that came from.  Here are a heap from WUWT in 2008, a year after the 2007 prediction that Anthony is scoffing at.

When will 2030 arrive?  Are we there yet?  

And Anthony thinks the scientists "don't have a clue"!  At least the scientists are going with the flow when it comes to Arctic sea ice.  Unlike the science deniers at WUWT, mainstream scientists are not predicting a sudden plunge into an ice age. Take a look at the minimum Arctic sea ice volume decline over recent decades and speculate yourself which summer will be the first with virtually no sea ice:

Data Source: PIOMAS

You can place your bets here now - no money to change hands though, sorry.  I don't have a betting license.

A contrarian teddy bears' picnic at WUWT - do science deniers believe in lizard men, too? (Yes, close enough anyway!)

Who to believe?  A teddy bear ...

       

                ...or climate scientists?

The rhetoric is ramping up everywhere.  Here we recently discussed language used to illustrate the impact of global warming.  To even things up let's consider the language used to illustrate denial of global warming. Today on WUWT, Anthony Watts has put up an article by David "funny sunny" Archibald.  This is how it went.

Google earned "a place in the deepest circle of Hell" with a capital H for siding with the "forces of darkness": that is, for siding with modern science

According to David Archibald on WUWT, Google sided with the "forces of evil" and belongs in hell, because it made some effort to help communicate climate science.  David wrote:

Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil”. Well, a couple of years ago Google had sided with the forces of darkness in the global warming battle – a position that when their lives are weighed in the balance would earn them a place in the deepest circle of Hell.

Scientists are Google's "foot soldiers in propaganda"

Google pulled together a team of scientists and science communicators, mainly from the earth systems and life sciences, in Google's words, to:

help foster a more open, transparent and accessible scientific dialogue.   This effort seeks to empower scientists to use information technology, new media, and systems and computational thinking to engage the public in science.

David Archibald refers to these scientists from places like Stanford University and elsewhere, as "foot soldiers' in propaganda.

Women who accept climate science are "ignorant sluts"

There's more besides.  David Archibald apparently gets his understanding of climate science from a teddy bear cartoon on youtube.  One important bit, he tells his readers at WUWT, is that he learnt from the cartoon teddy bear that women who accept that adding CO2 to the air causes global warming are "ignorant sluts".  I guess you can learn or unlearn something every day.

Looking for the jaw of the orangutan

David passes on a hope expressed by the cartoon teddy bear.  David writes:

At the end he notes that it took 40 years for the Piltdown Hoax to be shown to be based on the jaw of an orangutan and he hopes that it doesn’t take 40 years for the global warming hoax to be shown to be based on the jawbones of asses.

He's giving it forty more years, eh?  Nearly two hundred years have elapsed since Joseph Fourier first wrote about the atmosphere and climate. Almost 150 years have passed since Tyndall, 117 years since Arrhenius, more than 70 years since Callendar, nearly 60 years since Plass, half a century since Revelle advised President Johnson, and more than thirty years since the creation of the IPCC.

For decades there have been a small number of contrarian scientists trying to prove that CO2 has little or no impact on climate without success.  Instead mainstream scientists are discovering more and more about the changes we are causing.  Nevertheless, David is still optimistic that someone somewhere will one day overturn a substantial portion of physics, chemistry and biology.

What other weird ideas do science deniers hold dear?

Fake sceptics still haven't come anywhere close to exposing what they think of as a gigantic "hoax" that can be traced back at least as far as the early 1800s.   But David is still convinced it's all a hoax and the work of the devil.  And to think that science deniers think Professor Lewandowsky's findings were wide of the mark.  As far as conspiracy ideation goes, you'd think it's hard to better David Archibald's idea.   It beats NASA faked the moon landing by a long way.  It's probably on par with the idea that lizard men rule the world or that earth sprang out of nothingness 6,000 years ago.  (Maybe someone will ask him what he thinks about those ones.)  However, David's not the only one who has crazy notions - see the WUWT comments below.

David Archibald's "funny sunny" prediction

As a reminder - this is David Archibald's prediction for the near future, seven years from now.

Conspiracies galore from the WUWT comments

A few people pointed out to David that the teddy bear cartoon wasn't made by Google.  That youtube alerted him to it based on his browsing history.  However there were some choice comments in the mix:


General P. Malaise is fairly sure about who is a member of the circle of hell and says:

August 17, 2013 at 3:20 am  when pigs fly Smithers.  google is and will remain on the side of evil. don’t be an ignorante they are in obamas circle of hell. THAT is the centre one.

DirkH might not be familiar with the circle of hell, but he does know who is employed by the National Security Agency.  And be careful of those white "earplugs" - the NSA is spying on you :D. DirkH says:

August 17, 2013 at 3:45 am  Google is the NSA. Eric Schmidt had a number of mistresses over the years while being married all the time. He doesn’t want anyone to know. But he wants to know everything about all of us. From the moment I heard their motto “Don’t be evil” I was certain they are absolutely unscrupulous in their zeal to destroy privacy. I’m funny in that regard; marketing slogans have the opposite effect on me. Remember Steve Jobs, another NSA guy, with his slogan “Think different”? And then everyone runs around with the exact same white earplugs. (Not me. I use Sennheisers.)

kadaka (KD Knoebel) invokes scientology, Tom Cruise and his belt buckle :), Area 51, Nevada, New Mexico, satellites and the Daily Mail and says:

August 17, 2013 at 4:54 am And within a day of the published (and accidental?) admission of the existence of Area 51, sans admission of non-human aliens, we have the first-ever exclusive publishing of new detailed aerial photos of “Scientology’s ‘alien space cathedral and spaceship landing pad’ built in the New Mexico desert”.  Quick, save your own copies of the photos before the Scientology elites force the Daily Mail to take them down. If they don’t, Tom Cruise will infiltrate, wipe clean the servers and destroy the back-ups, and escape into the night using the rocket pack that’s disguised as his belt buckle.  When mere civilians have increasing access to high-resolution satellite imagery, do their own high-altitude surveillance with a weather balloon and an iPhone, when ANYTHING on the surface is about to be in full continuous view of ANYONE ANYTIME thus continued photographic obscurity would have become impossible, “revelations” about Area 51 in Nevada and Scientology’s spaceport in New Mexico, in essentially the same spot global-wise, are made public just a day apart.
Coincidence? You decide.

Alberta Slim doesn't trust anyone anymore.  They are all in on the hoax.  Alberta says:

August 17, 2013 at 4:56 am  The heads of Google, Microsoft, and Apple are, supposed to be brillant when it comes to logic. So why do the believe in CAGW? It seems unlikely to be ignorance, so it must be dishonesty. IMO.  BTW: I quit useing “Google News” as my home page because of their persistent posting of “Warmist” articles. …. Dying polar bears etc……

Martin Lewitt shows proof that Google is on the side of the dark forces and says:

August 17, 2013 at 3:47 am  wattsupwiththat.com does not appear until page 5 of a “global warming” google. Nuf said.

Yeah, 'nuff said :D

Oh, we can all play that game of Pat 'n Chips - the illiterati duo

Pat Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger have written another disinformation blurb for the anti-science blog of Anthony Watts, WUWT.  This time it's about BAMS State of the Climate 2012 report (it must be popular and can be a bit slow downloading.  I have copied some of the highlights here.)

Pat 'n Chip complain that the science is settled

The report is very extensive (239 pp).  (It has eight pages, two-columns each in small type listing all the authors.)  Yet Pat 'n Chip dismiss it as "nothing new here"!  How ignorant does that make them look?  Typical of the bottom 8% dismissive group of illiterati!

(What they are effectively saying/complaining about is that much of the science is settled.)

Pat 'n Chips have become lazy and just put links instead of regurgitating their denialist tripe.  Well, I can play that game too.  I haven't been at this blog nearly as long as Pat 'n Chips have been protesting climate science. But I've a small collection.

• Pat Michaels is full of crap (again)
• Anthony Watts' Next Trick is to Disappear the Data - or Laughing at Pat Michaels
• Recycling Pat 'n Chip disinformation on WUWT brings out denier weirdness
• Making a meal of Pat 'n Chip on WUWT ...or...Don't shoot the messenger

Here are just a few of the many rebuttals of Pat 'n Chip from Tamino:

• Chip’s Cherries
• USA48 - He (Chip of Pat 'n Chips) starts by showing only data through 1997, dropping the hot years which followed, and claiming...
• Best Case Scenario - ...which proves one thing: that Knappenberger doesn’t get it. In more than one way.

Now a few from SkepticalScience:

• Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
• Climate Misinformer: Patrick Michaels
• Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
• Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
• Patrick Michaels Continues to Distort Hansen 1988, Part 1
• Patrick Michaels Continues to Distort Hansen 1988, Part 2

There's lots more documentation of the shenanigans of serial disinformers Pat 'n Chip.  One or other will pop up in all sorts of places.

From the WUWT comments:

noaaprogrammer doesn't know this is a new report prepared by AMS not the NOAA.  Not only that but the poor thing is looking for a conspiracy:

August 7, 2013 at 7:57 pm  Is there a traceable memo from the Whitehouse to NOAA urging or suggesting that they re-issue this “State of the Climate 2012” report? Who might be an investigative reporter that isn’t an AGW believer that could do this?

Village Idiot has pegged Pat 'n Chip and Anthony Watts and writes:

August 7, 2013 at 9:59 pm  Yep, Paddy and Chip. They really should start being a bit more imaginative; make some stuff up – then we could pick them up on it and get some media attention

On censorship, double standards and name-calling on WUWT

People on the right side of a scientific debate encourage open discussion

Interesting juxtaposition - from an article on WUWT about some blogger tearing into Willie Soon.  Bob Turner pointed out that WUWT often tears into climate scientists.  Eventually this happened:

Speaks for itself, don't you think?  Yes, that's exactly how it appears on WUWT.  Coincidentally Louis' comment was immediately below the censored comment from Bob Turner. (For more on the topic of censorship, see here, including the comments.)

The Verdict on name-calling? Yes, similar or worse comments are allowed on WUWT...

...but only if they are against climate scientists and those who accept science.

If you are interested, here is the exchange and "the verdict" to which the mod was probably referring.  Bob Turner says the language of the blogger was wrong, but not dissimilar to that used by WUWT:

August 5, 2013 at 3:31 am  Indeed, he shouldn’t have used language like that. Calling somebody a prostitute is simply unacceptable.  Perhaps the monitors at WUWT will remember this when they allow through similar or worse comments about Michael Mann and his scientific colleagues.

Well, the monitors at WUWT might "remember this", but they see no problem with applying standards differently, depending on the target.  These are all from the same thread.


Peter Miller likes "grant-addicted, data-manipulating, opportunists":

August 5, 2013 at 4:13 am “Michael Mann and his scientific colleagues?
That’s a bit of a stretch describing them as ‘scientific’ – grant addicted, data manipulating, opportunists would be much more apt.

Justthinkin says scientists aren't scientists:

August 5, 2013 at 4:19 am  “Michael Mann and his scientific colleagues.”
Thanks for the Monday morning laugh. Mann and his colleague are no more scientists of anything,let alone climate,then I am JP Morgan.Your one brain cell must be getting really lonely.

CodeTech accuses scientists of faking and prefers the term "enemy of the planet":

August 5, 2013 at 4:40 am  A prostitute is someone to who takes money in exchange for sexual services.  What does one call someone who takes money in exchange for faking up scientific-sounding results? Mann et. al. are not scientists, they’re activists. And I’ve never heard anyone call them prostitutes… but I have to admit, it’s probably pretty appropriate.
By the way, if you want “enemy of the planet”, just check out the horrific damage being done by wind turbines, aka bird slicer/dicer/clubbers. People putting those things up, now THEY’RE enemies of the planet.

Jimbo just insultingly defames in general terms:

August 5, 2013 at 4:56 am  What many Warmists fail to observe about sceptical scientists is this: They can make their lives a whole lot easier and get more funding by jumping on the bandwagon. No loss of income likely, increased income most probable. Warmists would embrace them with open arms and lavish funding upon them. All they have to do is accept the dogma.

Paul Coppin says insttutional (sic) co-dependent is a good euphemism for prostitute:

August 5, 2013 at 5:04 am  Mr Turner, Mann repudiated his qualifications when he chose to become and remain an insttutional co-dependent ( a term that also could be applied to prostitutes, but at least they provide a service. Note, I didn’t call Mann a prostitute. Readers of WUWT are well aware that correlation doesn’t equal causation…)

Psychologists, hmm. When I was passing through university and appropriately arrogant, psychologists were viewed generally as wannabee psychiatrists that didn’t make it into medical school….

Jim A prefers [grant] whores and liars:

August 5, 2013 at 6:23 am
Yet another who believes it is those who hold conservative views who must make the effort to be civil, in order to have a civil discourse.
Well… in the last two Presidential elections, that was tried. Doesn’t work.
And there is plenty of evidence to show it does not work re: Climate Change as well. Skeptics called ‘Deniers’ when the evidence for that is only on the fringe.
The PROPER term would be ‘[Grant] Whores’… an invective that has been used for decades by politicians.
‘Liar’ is also a rough term but sometimes you have to call ‘em out. So before people get their panties all in a bunch over invective they should take a look at what certain warmists like the German group PIK have to say.

It appears that the complainer never reads Bishop Hill or Notrickszone. Either that or objects to Alinsky’s Rule of ‘Identify Isolate Ridicule’ being used against them.

Ah well, I don't think anyone has ever accused WUWT of not having double standards.

Who's lying now? It's Brandon Shollenberger on WUWT

Deniers are really upset that climate scientists are aware that humans are causing global warming.  It's not something magical or difficult to figure out.  By our actions of burning fossil fuel, deforestation etc, we have added an additional 40% or more of CO2 to the atmosphere.  About half of what we've emitted has gone into the oceans.  If it hadn't we'd have almost doubled the CO2 in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution.  The fact it has is causing the oceans to get more acidic.  So we're not only causing global warming we're causing acidification of the oceans.

Yet deniers like Anthony Watts tell lies about a recent study that demonstrated that scientists are aware of this fact.  Now a chap called Brandon Shollenberger is also trying to make out that a recent survey is misleading.  But it's Brandon who is the one who's misleading.

It's quite simple.  Researchers examined the abstracts of around 12,000 scientific papers on the topic of climate change and global warming.  Of those abstracts, around 4,000 attributed a cause to global warming.  97% of these that attributed a cause, indicated that humans have caused most (50% or more) of the warming.  Less than 3% indicated otherwise.  The other 8,000 papers don't overtly attribute a cause.  It's such a well known fact and self-evident.  Just as most of you don't explain every day that it's the earth's rotation that causes the sun to come up every morning, as if it's a surprise, most scientists don't repeat obvious facts in every paper they prepare.

In reality, we're probably causing more than 100% of the warming, which is offset to some extent by aerosols.

Are deniers part of the 97%?

Brandon Shollenberger is trying to imply that Cook et al 97% included abstracts that suggest it's just a little bit of warming that we're causing.  That's a lie.  He's building on recent statements by some of the denialiati that they are part of the 97% who think humans cause at least some global warming.  But unless those deniers accept that humans cause most (at least 50%) of global warming, then they are part of the 3% deniers not the 97%.

All similar studies point to the same thing.  It's not as if the Cook et al study came up with a different result.  Every single study looking at the subject have found that around 97% of papers and/or scientists who research this topic agree that humans are now causing most of the global warming. It's only deniers (not scientists) like those who frequent WUWT who disagree.

There's an unpublished study from last year, that only found 24 out of almost 14,000 papers on climate change rejected global warming.

Deniers like Anthony Watts and Brandon Shollenberger specialise in disinformation and lies.  In this article, Brandon doesn't concede that Cook et al is one of many that found the same thing.

Why do they lie?  I don't know, but they certainly get very emotional about it.  Here's two examples from Brandon:

1. They’ve always managed to say “humans cause global warming” with the implicit qualifier of “some” (that they knew nobody would pay attention to).

2. They say things like, “Humans cause global warming” knowing most people won’t realize they’re meaning “some amount of global warming.”

No, Brandon - Cook et al did not restrict its qualification to "some amount".  Their cut-off was at least 50% of global warming.  Humans are causing not just some but most of the global warming and likely all of the global warming. And going by the studies and policy statements from professional scientific organisations, most scientists would agree with that.

Here is a chart showing estimates of how much humans have contributed to global warming.  Estimates range from more than 160% to just under 100%.  The caption includes links to the relevant papers.

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

Humans are probably causing more than 100% of global warming these days.

You'd have to be a complete idiot or a liar to try to argue otherwise.  This blog has provided numerous examples of lying, disinforming and ridiculous claims made on WUWT.  Anthony Watts' blog specialises in anti-science and disinformation - sometimes it's from Anthony himself and other times it's from people like Brandon Shollenberger.

Don't trust WUWT or deniers.  They lie.

BTW Brandon is the one who got most upset with Professor Lewandowsky et al about the Recursive Fury paper, moaning that they got one of the conspiracy theories wrong - it was apparently another conspiracy theory.  He's a bit weird all up.

More denier self-portraits, including around 60 35+ engineers

Update: In the article and comments, I've counted 35 deniers professing to be engineers.  Did an actual count (but didn't double check).  Could be more but definitely fewer than the 60+ I initially thought.  The word "engineer" comes up 75 times so far. - Sou Sunday 28 July 13, 2:54 pm AEST.

The confessions from science deniers at WUWT keep coming.  I commented just a short while ago about Jonathan Abbott's heart-wrenching story about his short path to fake scepticism.  Did he read science papers? No.  Did he read the IPCC reports? No.  Did he do any research at all? No.  What he did was hear about global warming on the BBC, decided it wasn't for him, so he went looking for other people who rejected science.  He found a denier film and a denier blog (WUWT) and has since stopped "looking". Actually, like most fake sceptics, Jonathan didn't ever start looking at science.

Here are a few other stories, most of a similar vein.  The starting point varies but for most deniers, the journey stopped at the first denialistic journalist, author or youtube video they found.

Bloke down the pub didn't want to "believe" so, ignoring the fact that CO2 has been higher in the past and earth has been warmer as a consequence, when he discovered there were others like him, the rest, as he says, was history:

July 25, 2013 at 11:55 am  My academic standard only reaches Geology A’level. From what I had learnt though, I was pretty sure that the global temperature had previously been much higher than present. That seemed to torpedo the warmist’s claim that feedbacks were catastrophically positive. My first contact with sceptics came from Chris Bookers column in the Sunday Telegraph who guided me to WUWT and the rest as they say is history.

Shano got his "science" views from a Crichton novel and youtube:

July 25, 2013 at 12:02 pm  Well put. My journey toward climate skepticism began with reading Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. I was so intrigued that I checked the data, listened to skeptical speakers on you tube, and visited the sites you mentioned on line.

Bob Johnston says he stopped "believing" scientists when television spruikers were wrong about house prices:

July 25, 2013 at 12:05 pm  My conversion from believer to skeptic came only after I came to rude awakenings in other disciplines. It started during the housing crisis (which is still ongoing, btw) – my occupation was residential construction and despite all the “experts” on TV and in newspapers saying it would keep going up I knew they were wrong and I was subsequently proven correct. That episode bitchslapped me into awareness – if everyone was wrong about something as fundamental as housing prices, what else are we wrong about?

kretchetov found a denier film and lots of denier websites.  His motive for looking for other science deniers was because he is a conspiracy nutter and is paranoid about global control.  He found a kindred spirit in Jo Nova :)

July 25, 2013 at 12:22 pm  I had a similar path to the author. I had lots of questions, but seeing breathless propaganda about “settled science” made me suspicious.  “The Great Global Warming Swindle” prompted me to seek answers on the internet, and I stumbled upon Jo Nova’s website, and from there, others.  Having had classic scientific education, I can judge facts for myself, and what I saw made me really angry. And I saw a fraudulent attempt to use the name of science to install global control, raise unjustified taxes and impose bogus regulations.  I still believe that CAGW ideology is more dangerous than any other totalitarian ideology or religion, as it has such popular support, yet outright wrong and will inevitably result in utter misery and death to many.

Too many engineers

Probably 60+ engineers among the 412 comments to date.  Update (28/7/13) - I've done a quick count and have come up with 35 definites, so a bit short of the 60 plus I initially thought:

• Michael J. Dunn says: July 25, 2013 at 1:01 pm I’m also a professional engineer,...
• Dave the Engineer says: July 25, 2013 at 11:31 am  Skeptic from the beginning.
• Ken Hall says: July 25, 2013 at 11:37 am  ...I was also educated in the 1980s and came to climate scepticism in an almost identical way...Being from a computing and engineering background, I instinctively distrusted climate models...
• John de Melle says: July 25, 2013 at 11:47 am  I’m another proffessional engineer. Your road of discovery matches mine, exactly....
• Richard Lawson says:  July 25, 2013 at 12:14 pm  As an Engineer who was also messing about with Bunsen burners in the early ’80′s your story is a carbon copy of mine....
• Theo Barker says:  July 25, 2013 at 12:34 pm  Another engineer with a very similar path to similar stance. 
• and many more.

In all, a search of the so far 412 comments finds the word "engineer" listed 67 75 times in that thread, only two of which were in the original article.  Most At least 35 were from people saying they are engineers.

There were eleven mentions of the word "geologist" but only four deniers saying they are geologists.

By contrast, the word "biologist" only appeared twice, both times in disparaging comments about biologists.  The word "chemist" or a variant appeared seven times, but not a single person claimed it as their field. The only time the word "physicist" appeared was a denier saying they are a retired particle physicist.

Bombshell**! Smokey admits WUWT "regularly hears from scientific illiterates"

The following excerpt is just to show that WUWT moderator dbstealey/smokey skirts perilously close to the truth on rare occasions. The italics are my comments, with the second link showing how at least two of jai mitchell's comments were censored in the past week.  Ironically, Smokey was trying to argue with jai, the subject of much censorship.

dbstealey says:
July 25, 2013 at 12:53 pm  We regularly hear from scientific illiterates here. (Sou: more than regularly.  You pretty well only have scientific illiterates, Smokey.) This site doesn’t censor their opinions, no matter how much pseudo-science they contain.  (Sou: you allow pseudo-science.  That's true. What you ban and censor is real science.)

**Bombshell is a word much used in climate discussions.  It's a dog-whistle word.