Pseudoscience in black and white, from Eric Worrall at WUWT

Here's a small example of why one should avoid getting their science from pseudo-scientists. Eric Worrall is criticising an experiment that was designed to determine the impact of higher daytime temperatures on bees.

The scientists put some bees into boxes painted white and some into boxes painted black and monitored them for a couple of years.

Eric thought he found a fatal flaw. His criticism was this:

The team seem to have logged daily maximum temperature inside the boxes, but I didn’t see any attention to daily minimum temperature. Painting the boxes black would have caused higher maximum temperatures from absorption of sunlight in the daytime, but the black painted boxes would also have radiated heat faster at night.

Just in case you thought, maybe Eric was talking about the faster rate of cooling as the sun went down, he's not. He added a sentence so you'll not make any mistake:

So it seems possible that much of the damage to the bees in the black boxes was caused by colder night time temperatures, rather than warmer daytime temperatures.

Wrong! Both boxes would have around the same minimum temperature during the night.

A frosty look at David Archibald's latest speculation about global cooling

It was so cold this morning that I had to hop into the fridge to warm up. It's winter, of course, but it got quite cold even for winter in this part of the world - measuring about minus 6.4 Celsius this morning at our place.

Okay, I know for some of you that would be a mild winter's morning. Here it's worth lots of tweets. We're no longer used to having the sort of frosty mornings that were common when I was a child. What used to be the norm has now become a novelty with the world warming up so much.

Figure 1 | Frosty nights in Australia via BoM

Deniers can get all of a twitter when there's a frost. They are scared that it means an ice age is coming. Take David Archibald. He's been predicting an ice age for something like twelve years, ever since (he says) he "started out in climate science". He says his first paper was written just a few months later, but the only place he could publish it was in the denier journal Energy and Environment.

Exploring South East Asian heat extremes of 2016 elicits silly comments from Anthony Watts

There's a new paper out in Nature Communications this week, in which the authors explore the factors affecting the extreme heat in south east Asia last year.  In mainland south east Asia, April 2016 was the warmest April on record, by a long way. It was 0.9 °C hotter than the previous hottest April (1998).

The paper opens with the following:

In April 2016, southeast Asia experienced surface air temperatures (SATs) that surpassed national records, exacerbated energy consumption, disrupted agriculture and caused severe human discomfort.

It seems a worthwhile research project, particularly with global warming likely to cause more disruption and discomfort like this over time.

[The figure at the top right is from the paper, and shows the relative contribution of El Niño (green bars) versus global warming (red bar) for the 15 hottest Aprils on record in mainland Southeast Asia. Click to enlarge it.]

It's dangerous...

It's dangerous making promises. The risk is that they can't be kept, so I'll be careful. As you might have guessed, I've found it very difficult to find the time to write blog articles these past few weeks. This less than normal frequency of articles will most likely continue until June.

The frustration is that there is so much to write about at the moment.


You'll have heard about the death and demise of much of the Great Barrier Reef, with yet another bleaching event happening now. There was a paper in Nature a short while ago, which was about recurrent bleaching that's happening with global warming. The only solution is to stop it. Stop our destructive warming that is.

WUWT conspiracy theorists think Scott Pruitt can change physics

Greenhouse Effect. Credit/Source: NASA

The crazies at WUWT are still out in force. I'd say they've taken over Anthony Watts' blog, WUWT.

After EPA administrator Scott Pruitt admitted on television that global warming is happening, but all but rejected that it was caused by an increase in greenhouse gases, the crazies at WUWT went berserk (archived here). A chap who writes nonsense there from time to time, David Middleton, wrote how "of course" the EPA website still has science on it. His theory was that it was only because Pruitt hasn't yet got to it on his "to do" list. He thinks that soon enough Pruitt will replace any science on EPA's website with quackery.

Even if we stopped adding CO2 today*, we'd have to prepare for more hot!

In Nature's open access journal Scientific Reports there's a paper just out by Chris Huntingford and Lina M. Mercado about how much more warming to expect. Scientists report that even if we didn't add any more CO2 to the air *kept CO2 at current levels in the atmosphere (around 400 ppm), temperatures over a lot of land regions would eventually increase by more than 1.5°C. (*See comment by ATTP below.) There are two main reasons for this:

1. until we reach equilibrium, with as much radiation leaving the planet as comes in from the sun, the earth will continue to warm;
2. the land surface warm is a lot more quickly than the ocean surface and will continue to do so until the new equilibrium higher temperatures are reached.

Watching the global thermometer - year to date GISTemp with a scorching hot December 2015

Every month since March, I've posted a chart of the progressive year-to-date global average surface temperature, from GISS. This is the update with December included, so it's the final for the 2015 year. The explanation has been included with each update together with what seem to be things to watch. The next article will be in April (to March) or May.

The main article for the 2015 year can be found here.

Denier weirdness: It hasn't warmed since 2017!

Remember how Bob Tisdale thought that Mark Boslough's bet was foolish? Well he finally twigged what the bet was about, and was even more aghast that anyone would be expected to bet. He realised just how laughable it would be to bet that the world would cool, which is an unusual attitude for a hard-core science denier like Bob Tisdale. His chart showed just how much it's been warming, which is a most unusual thing for anyone at WUWT to do.

Bob Tisdale knows it's been getting mighty hot. Source: WUWT

Perhaps in part because Bob showed just how hot it's been getting, some of the WUWT deniers seem to accept it. They aren't giving up though. The new denier chant of "it hasn't warmed since 2017" has already begun at WUWT, two years early. The following comments were seen under another article by Bob Tisdale (in which he shoved the latest global temperatures down to the level of those in 1997/98 to compare ENSO events):

Bob Tisdale won't take on Mark Boslough's bet

Bob Tisdale has another "it's getting hotter because it's getting hotter" article at WUWT (archived here, latest here). Does he not realise how silly his articles are? As you know, the rapid rise in global mean surface temperature, particularly since the middle of last century, is because of the increase in greenhouse gases:

Fig 1| Global mean surface temperature - anomaly from 1881 to 1910 average.
Data source: NASA GISS

Bob Tisdale, a pseudo-scientist who uses WUWT to sell his "books", thinks this is natural, and has nothing to do with carbon emissions. He blames it all on blobs and El Niños.

Watching the global thermometer - year to date GISTemp with a very hot November 2015

Every month since March, I've posted a chart of the progressive year-to-date global average surface temperature, from GISS. This is the update with October included. I'll repeat the explanation with each update and add what seem to be things to watch.

Watching the global thermometer - year to date GISTemp with a very hot October 2015

Wow! I knew that the Japan Meteorological Agency showed a big jump in October, and I expect GISS was doing some double and triple checking of the GISS data. October is the hottest October on record by a country mile. A whopping 1.04 °C above the 1951-1980 mean. This is the first time any month has an anomaly greater than 1 °C above the 1951-1980 mean (h/t Joe Stepansky).

Every month since March, I've posted a chart of the progressive year-to-date global average surface temperature, from GISS. This is the update with October included. I'll repeat the explanation with each update and add what seem to be things to watch.

Denier weirdness: No pennies have dropped for Bob Tisdale at WUWT

Some deniers at WUWT seem to think that Bob Tisdale has a wonderful intellect. If he does he hides it very well. I've already written about his conspiracy theorising fantasies from his new "book". Well, he's at it again at WUWT.

He wrote a very silly article (archived here), full of meaningless charts. He was, I think, making the point that it can get warm in the day and cool at night in Central England. And in that part of the world, it's warmer in summer than it is in winter, surprise, surprise. Does he think that nobody knew that? Where I live it doesn't usually get quite as cold but it can get a lot hotter, so I'd say we experience seasonal and diurnal differences in temperature that might not be that different, just shifted up a bit on the chart.

The point Bob was trying to make is so puerile that I'm wondering if I've got it wrong. Maybe he was trying to write about some other great breakthrough. If he was he didn't explain it well.

The IPCC climate message is clear based on the evidence: The fundamental flaws of Hollin & Pearce

In June this year I wrote about a paper in Nature Climate change concerning the press conference for the release of 2013 IPCC report WG1. In the paper, G. J. S. (Gregory) Hollin and Warren Pearce from the University of Nottingham claimed that the IPCC speakers at a press conference “threatened their (own) credibility” took an “an incoherently oscillating position”, and caused “confusion within the press conference and subsequent condemnation in the media”.

Hollin and Pearce were fundamentally wrong in all of these claims, and more:

1. Clear message about different time contexts: A comment to the letter by Jacobs et al (Jacobs15) has just been published, which identifies major flaws in the paper. Not least of which is that Gregory and Warren do not understand the difference between the "hottest decade" since records began, and the recent short term slowdown in the ongoing rise in the global mean surface temperature. Jacobs15 and its supplement also identify some other flaws that should never have slipped through the review net, and which undermines their unsupported claims even further.
2. The journalists were not confused: Arguably the biggest flaw in the NCC letter was that Warren and Gregory didn't bother to check for evidence to support their case. Their entire argument rests on their claim that the IPCC confused the press. But it didn't. Not at all. An examination of the articles subsequently written by the journalists who asked a question demonstrates that the IPCC’s message was clearly received. It did not confuse the journalists, nor was the IPCC's credibility eroded in any way. If anything it was enhanced. You can download the report about the media articles or open it directly.
3. Only David Rose "condemned" (as usual): There was no general condemnation of the IPCC. The only condemnation from journalists who asked a question at the press conference, was from one single source: David Rose, who has a history of misrepresenting the IPCC and climate science. And David Rose's silly article was the entire sum total of the "evidence" that Gregory and Warren offered in support of their claim of "condemnation in the media". 
4. It was also David Rose who provided "incoherence: Gregory and Warren spattered their article with the words "incoherent" and "incoherence". This word first appeared in the "condemnation" article by David Rose - it wasn't an original thought from Gregory and Warren. This lends further credence to the notion that Warren and Gregory penned their article with David Rose in mind. (See below).
5. David Rose was not dismissed as scientifically illiterate: The authors were wrong when they said that David Rose was dismissed as being "scientifically illiterate". He wasn't. I covered this point in detail in my previous article on the subject. It's also covered, with references, in the supplement to Jacobs15. It's another case of Warren and Gregory not understanding something that most other people would understand.
6. Questions on the recent slowdown were not ignored. The authors were also wrong when they claimed that the IPCC said the "pause" (as Warren and Gregory called the slowdown) was scientifically irrelevant. They didn't. Nor did they ignore any of the questions about it, contrary to what Warren and Gregory claimed. The supplement to Jacobs15 covers this point well, with references. (You can download the supplement here.)
7. And the above doesn't even cover the many question marks around their main hypothesis, that the general public can only relate to events that are close in time to the present. What they loosely term "public meaning" and "temporal locality". 

When I wrote the first article, it seemed obvious to me that the letter from Warren and Gregory was a sop to David Rose. Since then I've done some more investigating, and so have others. It seems even more obvious to me that this was just two people seeking some payback on behalf of UK tabloid journalist David Rose for an imaginary grievance.

Watching the global thermometer - year to date GISTemp with September 2015

Every month since March, I've posted a chart of the progressive year-to-date global average surface temperature, from GISS. This is the update with September included. I'll repeat the explanation with each update and add what seem to be things to watch.

From Shakespeare conspiracies to climate conspiracies

Yesterday I came across an article at WUWT (archived here), which Anthony Watts described as coming from an "educated listener". It was nothing but a very, very long denier screed in the form of a letter to Anthony Brandon, WYPR station manager. WYPR is a radio station in Baltimore, and associated with NPR (National Public Radio, USA). Dr. Roger Stritmatter signed himself as "Professor of Humanities Coppin State University".

I wondered why a professor of humanities thought he knew more about climate than all the specialist researchers who've spent their working lives studying the subject. What made him think he knew so much that had escaped the experts?

Another denier who gets his pseudo-science from climate conspiracy blogs

As it turned out, Roger relied on denier blogs like WUWT and Jo "Force X and the Notch" Nova. So he knew nothing about climate but he did pick up a few conspiracy theories in his travels. He's also an "ice age comether", writing:

...the real risk to the future we want for our children and grandchildren is not warming, but serious, widespread, and potentially disruptive cooling.

Yep, that's what the humanities professor wrote after the hottest decade on record, and the hottest year on record, which is about to be beaten by another hottest year on record, and quite probably yet another hottest year on record in 2016.

Watching the global thermometer - year to date GISTemp with August 2015

Every month since March, I've posted a chart of the progressive year-to-date global average surface temperature, from GISS. This is the update with August included. I'll repeat the explanation with each update and add what seem to be things to watch.

Is it too late to prevent dangerous climate change?

A lot of people think it is too late to prevent dangerous warming. That we have already passed the point of no return in regard to limiting the increase in global mean surface temperature to 2°C above that of pre-industrial times. Some people think that we'll be lucky to stay within 4°C of warming this century. Anthony Watts doesn't think we've passed the point of no return. He wrote about how Dr Pauchari said, back in 2007, that "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." Anthony called it a failed prediction (archived here).

Watching the global thermometer - year to date GISTemp with July 2015

Every month since March, I've posted a chart of the progressive year-to-date global average surface temperature, from GISS. This is the update with July included. I'll repeat the explanation with each update and add what seem to be things to watch.

Watching the global thermometer - year to date GISTemp with June 2015

NOTE: GISS has announced corrections and thanked Nick Stokes (see comments below). Refer to the updated version of this article.


Every month since March, I've posted a chart of the progressive year-to-date global average surface temperature, from GISS. This is the update with June included. I'll repeat the explanation with each update and add what seem to be things to watch.

Note: I made a mistake with the June YTD in the original, which I've now fixed. (Sou 9:00 am)

Update: I've added a chart of annual temps for GISTemp, comparing the version put out in June with the version put out in July. That's so that you can see what difference the shift to ERSST v4 makes.

Sou 12:18 pm Thursday 16 July 2015

In deniersville, climate science is a pact with the devil

Deniers are ramping up their protests about science. Anthony Watts claims that urging the world to mitigate global warming is a making pact with the devil (archived here). I suppose he would know all about that.

The beyond-two-degree inferno causes an inferno

The editor of Science has published an editorial "The beyond-two-degree inferno", in which she writes:

In the history of humankind, there is a dearth of examples of global threats so far-reaching in their impact, so dire in their consequences, and considered so likely to occur that they have engaged all nations in risk mitigation. But now with climate change, we face a slowly escalating but long-enduring global threat to food supplies, health, ecosystem services, and the general viability of the planet to support a population of more than 7 billion people. The projected costs of addressing the problem grow with every year that we delay confronting it. In recognition of the shared risks we face and the collective action that will be necessary, an international meeting of stakeholders will convene in Paris next week (www.commonfutureparis2015.org), ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in December, to discuss solutions for both climate mitigation and adaptation.

Go to Science to read the full article.