Anthony Watts spends hours denying reality at WUWT

Anthony Watts continues to tell lies at WUWT.  Remember this whopper of a lie?  Now he writes (archived here):

I guess he didn’t read the recent IPCC AR5 report that showed no connections of climate change/global warming with severe weather

Another whopper of a lie.

Anthony's writing about an upcoming 24 hours of reality by the Climate Reality Project, which will be broadcast in about five days time.

It's Anthony's constant refrain of "no connections of climate change/global warming with severe weather" that I'm writing about.  If you are curious where he gets his weird notions, I believe he bases it on Table 12.4 from the IPCC WG1 AR5 report, which discusses the likelihood or otherwise of specific events, most of which are not weather events but things like huge methane releases from permafrost melt. And the table isn't about whether or not they will happen at all, it's about the likelihood of them happening before this century is out.  Anthony reckons if these events don't happen in his lifetime then what should he care if they happen in his children's lifetime or that of their children.

As you know, Anthony Watts' capacity for brainpower is severely hampered by his world view, which is limited to about 10 paces from his front door, by my reckoning.  He's heard about tornadoes and hurricanes.  I'm not sure if he realises that a hurricane is what is known elsewhere as a typhoon or tropical cyclone.  Anthony is oblivious to the fact that severe weather includes such things as heat waves, flash floods and blizzards and can cause catastrophic wildfires.

Speaking of wildfires, his article is a slap in the face to his followers from Australia, which today experienced one of the worst bushfire days on record for NSW - and it's only the middle of spring.  Summer is another six weeks away.

Back to Anthony's claim about the IPCC AR5 report.  He's wrong of course. Here is just some of what the report states about severe weather and global warming:

• Future increase in precipitation extremes related to the monsoon is very likely in South America, Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia.(page 14-3)
• It is also very likely that heat waves, defined as spells of days with temperature above a threshold determined from historical climatology, will occur with a higher frequency and duration, mainly as a direct consequence of the increase in seasonal mean temperatures (page 12-36)
• Several recent studies have also argued that the probability of occurrence of a Russian heat wave at least as severe as the one in 2010 increases substantially (by a factor of 5 to 10 by the midcentury) along with increasing mean temperatures and enhanced temperature variability. (page 12-36)
• Model projections show rainfall becoming more intense, in part because more moisture will be present in the atmosphere. Thus, for simulations assessed in this report, over much of the land, 1-day precipitation events that currently occur on average every 20 years could occur every 10 years or even more frequently by the end of this century. At the same time, projections also show that precipitation events overall will tend to occur less frequently. These changes produce two seemingly contradictory effects: more intense downpours, leading to more floods, yet longer dry periods between rain events, leading to more drought. (page 12-87)
• Changes in the climate are also associated with disturbances such as fires, insect damage, storms, droughts and heat waves which are already significant processes of inter-annual variability and possibly trends of regional land carbon fluxes. (page 6-37)
• Regional studies for boreal regions suggest an increase in future fire risk...Models predict spatially variable responses in fire activity, including strong increases and decreases, due to regional variations in the climate–fire relationship, and anthropogenic interference. (page 6-66)

Update: Since writing this Anthony has added some text from the IPCC report, some of which contradicts his claim of "no connection".

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.

HotWhoppers: Double Doozy from Denmor

The other day when the HC deniers were kindly promoting this blog as part of their daily science and medicine S&M antics, I got the feeling that poor old denmor was a bit miffed that I hadn't paid him more attention.  So here's a double doozy from denmor.  

Not that long ago denmor graduated from simpleton cartoons and crude name-calling. Now he's learning the art of 'copy and paste', usually of long slabs of senseless rants against science from insignificant little denier blogs.  This time he comes up with two pieces of idiocy in the same short post.  Both from "the world's most viewed" anti-science blog - WUWT.

1. Are engineers and geo-scientists who work in the oil sector less likely to accept climate science?

Um - yeah?  No?  Not quite the point of the research? And if it were true, what did you expect?

A recent study reported that 36% of geoscientists and engineers surveyed, most of whom are reliant on or whose work relates to the Alberta tar sands or petroleum sector in general, are adamant that humans are causing global warming and we need to take decisive action. (They "view the Kyoto Protocol and additional regulation as the solution").

That can be seen as equivalent to: thirty years ago 36% of engineers (not medical researchers) who develop the packaging for cigarettes being adamant that smoking is a health hazard and urging international agreements be put into effect to force people to quit.

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum


The anti-science illiterati give a decent round of applause.  (HC rids itself of educated people as fast as they stray into their corner of cyberspace.  Often without a mod having to press a keystroke.)

The Lie

Poor denmor (probably all unknowing given that deniers rarely read let alone absorb scientific papers) quotes from a  blog article that quotes from another article that refers to a research paper in the social sciences/management journal "Organization Studies". (No respectable denier - except Brad - would go straight to the source.) Let's be generous and say, because he was too lazy or incompetent to read the paper in question, denmor wasn't aware that he was spreading a lie.  He also seems blissfully unaware that very few oil engineers and geo-scientists would be involved in climate research.  All scientists and engineers probably look the same to him.

Looking at the categories ('Frames') in the paper, there were 'only' 24% (Frame 2) who "believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the Earth".  All other groupings (68% of respondents) included people who knew that humans are at least a partial cause of global warming, with a full 36% being adamant that "humans are the main or central cause" of global warming.  (Eight per cent were unable to be categorised.  One group, the 'economic responsibility' frame (10%), included rampant deniers as well as people who thought that climate change is both natural and human caused.)

Beknownst (or unbeknownst) to denmor, the researchers deliberately targeted an industry (petroleum) and locale (Alberta Canada) that  is economically tied to CO2 pollution so they could get a big enough cohort across the full spectrum (including deniers).  They were keen to find out more about how people of different viewpoints frame/rationalise their thinking within the context of organisational management.

HotWhopper Petrol Award

Before leaving the topic, let's award an honourable mention to the resident anti-vaxxer jantimot (who by now is probably also feeling left out).

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

Jantimot probably thinks he's in the majority of the general population.  Instead he would be aligning himself with the majority of petrol heads who work in the pollution sector of whom only 24% chant the 'it's all natural' refrain.  (I'm not sure how or if aligning himself with ecological vandalism of tar sands fits with his homeopathic purity.)

Goodness knows why jantimot implies climate scientists are extrovert compared to petroleum engineers and geo-scientists.  (You need go no further than Ian Plimer to find a geo-scientist who loudly contradicts himself pontificates on topics way beyond his expertise.)

Not everyone jumps at the chance to work in tar sands, especially not people who understand the ramifications of CO2 pollution.

2. Bombshell!!!! The Arctic froze this winter!!!!

denmor 'blown away' again;

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

Who'd have thought.  A record low ice in summer followed by a record ice gain in winter!

(Imagine a litre flask half full of water.  How much extra water does it take to fill it?  Now imagine an empty litre flask.  How much extra water does it take to fill it?)

There were too many climate bloggers to count who accurately predicted that deniers would fall for the 'amazing winter recovery' after last summer's record low ice cover.  (So much for deniers who say you can't predict the future!)

As 'proud to be a denier' Dr Inferno pointed out way back in  way back in September last year:

Arctic Sea Ice Increases Past FOUR MILLION Square Kilometers For The First Time Since Records Began!

It took another four and a half months before Anthony Watts of WUWT woke up to the fact of this startling turnaround.  But as denmor reported, Tony has finally picked up the message and heralded it to the world, writing:

...Arctic sea ice has made a stunning rebound since the record low recorded in the late summer of 2012...

...With a few weeks of growth still to occur, the Arctic has blown away the previous record for ice gain this winter. This is only the third winter in history when more than 10 million km² of new ice has formed. 

Duh!

Now some readers may be wondering where in the Arctic all this extra ice can have formed.  Does it mean that the ice is starting to extend down to near the equator?  After all, there's only so many square kilometers available in the Arctic.

If you are one of these readers, check how the ice cover has changed from 13 February thirty, twenty and ten years ago compared to 13 Feb 2013 - from The Cryosphere Today.

Umm - there's less ice this year? How can that be?

Still think denmor's onto something?  Click here and look at this interactive chart and follow the 2012 (dark pink) and 2013 (yellow) lines before making as big an idiot of yourself as denmor and Anthony Watts.

Here's a snapshot - you might just be able to make out the yellow line for 2013, in among the lower quarter of the records to the left of the image.  The dark pink line for 2012 is fairly clear.

For more fun and enlightenment, read Tamino's take on all this - and see what his readers think about Anthony's bombshell!