Tasteless and ignorant at WUWT: A repugnant combination in denial of rising sea level

Anthony Watts sense of humour would not be shared by most decent people. It might even shock. Today he has copied an ugly cartoon that he said was posted by Rick McKee on Anthony's WUWT Facebook page (archived here). To save you looking, I'll describe it.

The cartoon pictures seven bearded men dressed in gear the colour of the garments worn by Buddhist monks, all wearing a crucifix around their necks. Bearded Christian Buddhists? The men are all kneeling in front of a puddle of water. Behind them is a large figure in black wielding a large knife and wearing a full face mask. That figure is probably meant to signify an ISIS militant. To the right is what I think is meant to be a caricature of President Obama, talking to the kneeling bearded men (I think they are meant to represent journalists brutally beheaded). Underneath is the caption: "I just want you to know I'm throwing the full force of the U.S. military behind stopping the horror of this rising sea level!"

The word "horror" is highlighted in red and underlined.

Anthony thinks this is funny. Seriously. He thinks the brutal murder of journalists in the middle east is cause for mirth and mockery. He put his cartoon under the headline and text:

Friday Funny – the horror of rising sea levels in context

As many know, Mr. Obama made some wild claims about climate at the recent U.S. Coast Guard Academy commencement.

For example:

“The world’s glaciers are melting, pouring new water into the ocean.  Over the past century, the world sea level rose by about eight inches.  That was in the last century; by the end of this century, it’s projected to rise another one to four feet.

Anthony Watts and his illiterati at WUWT deny ocean acidification

Anthony Watts in referring to a post in which William Connolley at Stoat expresses frustration with the uncertainty monster Judith Curry, for her lack of understanding of basic chemistry among other things:

"Is is just me, or does professionalism and f-bombs not go together? Sheesh."

Sheesh, is right, coming from Anthony Watts.  He might frown on "f-bombs" but he's not shy when it comes to ad hominems rather than science.

Not that Anthony would recognise science when he saw it.  He ridiculously quotes a sentence from this study in PLOS One (my bold, not Anthony's):

This natural variability has prompted the suggestion that “an appropriate null hypothesis may be, until evidence is obtained to the contrary, that major biogeochemical processes in the oceans other than calcification will not be fundamentally different under future higher CO2/lower pH conditions".

I wonder does Anthony know what calcification means?  And I wonder why he didn't quote this sentence:

For all the marine habitats described above, one very important consideration is that the extreme range of environmental variability does not necessarily translate to extreme resistance to future OA. Instead, such a range of variation may mean that the organisms resident in tidal, estuarine, and upwelling regions are already operating at the limits of their physiological tolerances (a la the classic tolerance windows of Fox – see [68]). Thus, future acidification, whether it be atmospheric or from other sources, may drive the physiology of these organisms closer to the edges of their tolerance windows. When environmental change is layered upon their present-day range of environmental exposures, they may thereby be pushed to the “guardrails” of their tolerance [20], [68].

Or this one:

In contrast to more stochastic changes in pH that were observed in some sites, our coral reef locations displayed a strikingly consistent pattern of diel fluctuations over the 30-day recording period. Similar short-term pH time series with lower daily resolution [69], [70] have reported regular diel pH fluctuation correlated to changes in total alkalinity and oxygen levels. These environmental patterns of pH suggest that reef organisms may be acclimatized to consistent but moderate changes in the carbonate system. Coral reefs have been at the center of research regarding the effects of OA on marine ecosystems [71]–[73]. Along with the calcification biology of the dominant scleractinian corals and coralline algae, the biodiversity on coral reefs includes many other calcifying species that will likely be affected [74]–[77]. Across the existing datasets in tropical reef ecosystems, the biological response of calcifying species to variation in seawater chemistry is complex (see [78]) –all corals or calcifying algal species will not respond similarly, in part because these calcifying reef-builders are photo-autotrophs (or mixotrophs), with algal symbionts that complicate the physiological response of the animal to changes in seawater chemistry.

He seems to think the study was another "nothing to worry about" study.  He's wrong.

I won't bother with the dozens of ad homs in the WUWT comments.  Nor with the ignorant comments about acidification, pH and the like at WUWT (or Curry's blog).  It's very basic high school chemistry.  Or about the idiotic comments about corals and fish not being sensitive to pH.  That's very basic aquaculture that anyone who's owned a fish farm or home aquarium would dispute.  Sure, some species are more tolerant of a wider range of pH than others.  Some are very intolerant of any change beyond a narrow band.  Same with tolerance to temperature as has been widely observed in the ocean.  (And temperature can trigger or prevent breeding.)  An even bigger issue, which was brought out in the PLOS study quoted above, is the impact on the ecosystem as a whole, given the interdependencies.

Frankly, the more I read WUWT the more I see that what I snipe about them being illiterati is quite true. It would be hard to find more people gathering together who have such a disdain for knowledge as you'll find at WUWT.  Or such a large gathering of people who take so much pride in their ignorance.