Denier quote of the day: Why should I waste 24 minutes..(learning climate)

The Twitter conversations I've written about before is giving more insight into the denial crowd. The bots and trolls are ramping up as the US election campaign gears up. (It goes on forever, doesn't it. The election is still more than a year away.) Among the bots there are some real people. One of them was happy to summarise the denier's stance.

I wouldn't devote even 24 minutes to learn science

Someone put up a chart purporting to show CO2 and temperature going back 4.5 billion years. I doubt the person tweeting it understood it. They said they got the picture from another denier called Nasif Nahle, who even put a copyright on it! It didn't matter. According to deniers, the tweet was from an acceptable denier so it must mean the greenhouse effect is a hoax.

A short primer on global energy flows, for the twitter deniers

Energy balancing when no forcing

There have been two or three people on the climate denial conversation on Twitter who cannot conceptualise global energy flows. Remember, almost all the deniers in this particular conversation are greenhouse effect deniers who don't "believe" physics and chemistry. Nonetheless they've discovered a wonky diagram in the deniosphere somewhere and have asked how it works. The short answer is, it doesn't. Not the way it's portrayed in their diagram.

Dr Kevin Trenberth has kindly allowed me to publish this updated global energy flow schematic, which is about to be published. (I'll post the doi when it is available.) Here it is, with an explanation below:

More twittery nonsense from climate disinformers: In fact, the world is heating up!

There are one or two long-running denier conversations on Twitter. Here is another example of how they operate as illustrated by a tweeter called "StenchJudi".

Despite all the evidence showing the world is rapidly heating up, someone will tweet something outrageously wrong, such as "it's been cooling for twenty years". The only way they can rationalise such a ridiculous statement is by fudging the data, and claiming real observations are "fake".

The chart below shows how the global temperature has changed over the past twenty years, from 1999 to 2018:

Denier twittery weirdness, with CO2 is a very cold gas

CO2 sublimation

Over the last few days I've been spending some time on a long-running denier thread on Twitter. It was an opportunity to interact with the types you see at the climate conspiracy blog WUWT, but in an environment where it's much less likely anyone will be banned for posting science.

This article is to let you know about some of what I've learned about denier twitterers, with a new "theory" as a bonus.

Deniers yearn for attention from sciency types

One thing struck me above everything else. Fake sceptics are starved for attention.

As soon as a science type enters a room full of deniers, they get pounced on. Anyone who's followed comments at WUWT would have noticed the same thing. (Anthony Watts, the owner of WUWT, himself has demonstrated a yearning for recognition from scientists. That he can't get the type of recognition he wants has been a source of frustration to him.)

They really are a bunch of paranoid twits at WUWT!

It's Easter and I'm taking a day off. Couldn't resist writing about the latest denier conspiracy theory, though. (It will make a nice lead in to an article I'm working on.)

Let me start by asking you a question. If there are five explanations for something happening, which do you think your typical climate science denier will choose?

1. the most likely
2. the next most likely
3. the improbable but possible
4. the least likely
5. the one that nobody in their right mind would contemplate
6. 5. above -- and they'd blame it on a climate scientist.

If you picked the sixth (out of five options), you'd get it right.

How SkepticalScience didn't demand the impeachment of the President of the USA and the complete shut down of Twitter

Brandon Schollenberger is up in arms.  What is it about this time?  Well, apparently two and a half months ago, the good folk at SkepticalScience.com didn't storm the White House  and demand that a tweet from the President of the United States of America be retracted.

It's a travesty.  If every contributor to SkepticalScience.com isn't hanging their collective heads in shame then the world is in a very sorry state.

This is the appallingly offensive tweet:

Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. Read more: http://t.co/4lEEBYtVqf
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 16, 2013

What is wrong with the tweet?  Well, the tweet wasn't peer reviewed for one thing.  Unless you call 35 million or so followers 'peers'.  But then are they peers of the President of the United States of America?

Peer review is important.  For example it was only by diligent peer blog review that it was discovered with shock and horror that the above tweet wasn't sent by the President's own thumbs on the President's personal Blackberry.  It didn't have the Presidential "-bo".

What is the world coming to!  Not only did SkepticalScience.com not demand the immediate impeachment of the President of the United States of America for not getting his tweet peer reviewed before tweeting it.  It turns out the President of the United States of America didn't even tweet the non-peer reviewed tweet.  If that's not a case for impeachment then what is, I ask you.

Brandon Shollenberger is rallying his peers at WUWT to storm the White House and demand they shut down SkepticalScience.com for not storming the White House and demanding that the White House retract a tweet that wasn't peer reviewed before being not tweeted by the President of the United States of America.

Let the President and SkepticalScience get away with not tweeting a tweet that was tweeted without said tweet being peer reviewed by the peers at WUWT and next thing you'll find is that bloggers will be claiming that there's an ice age coming with no peer review whatsoever and alarming people all over the world.

(Have you heard that Anthony Watts and Brandon Shollenberger are planning a survey of the scientific literature to determine if anyone was ever put in danger by drought, wildfire, flood, storm surges.  Silly duffers - as if anything but total annihilation of all life on the planet could be dangerous.  Well, excepting for ice ages - they are dangerous.  Oh and shifting to clean energy is dangerous.  It'll kill all the birds, don't you know.)

Have all the deniers gone barking mad?

Anthony Watts has a post about how Grover Cleveland caused 23 more hurricanes than has President Obama.  I think he also thinks that the Whitehouse knows of and cares very deeply about what some idiot who goes by the name of Steve Goddard tweets.

This WUWT article will go down as an Anthony Watts classic!

Are all deniers barking mad or what?

Interesting too that Anthony's palling up with Steve Goddard again after giving up on his silliness, making up stuff about sea ice.  He's running out of allies and must be turning to whoever he thinks he has left. Even idiots like Steve Goddard.  (Not his real name, but as long as he's a climate science denier he's not an anonymous coward as far as Anthony is concerned.)

Interesting to see Andy Revkin apparently consorting with and promoting the idiot Goddard, too.  And even Andy seems to think the White House cares two hoots about a dumb denier blogger and that it is all powerful and can just pick up a phone or something to Jack Dorsey and he'll hack the system and delete a tweet for them.

Whatever your views on #AGW, disturbing to see @WhiteHouse delete factual tweet on hurricane history: http://t.co/NWakXMz9Om Open society?
— Andy Revkin (@Revkin) June 24, 2013

Even if the White House had ever heard of or cared about some crazy blogger, even it can't just get into Twitter and delete someone else's tweets.  Here's a live link to the tweet that all the climate science deniers (except Steve Goddard probably) thinks the White House cared enough about to use the Patriot Act or whatever to delete. (Does the USA still have a Patriot Act?):

@whitehouse During Grover Cleveland's tenure as president, the US was hit by 26 hurricanes, compared to only 3 under Obama. #EndSuperstition
— Steve Goddard (@SteveSGoddard) June 24, 2013

The world sometimes seems to be a madhouse.   Deniers are nuts and getting nuttier day by day.  You'd think they'd limit themselves to just one conspiracy theory a day, wouldn't you.  A case of one is never enough I suppose.

PS My readers know already that Twitter is too complex for Anthony Watts.  Looks like Andy Revkin is flummoxed by it as well.


PPS Comedy gold!  I was wrong about Steve Goddard knowing his tweet wasn't deleted.  Apparently he doesn't know how to check his own timeline.   Now he's trying to claim that not only did the White House delete his tweet, the White House put it back again!  Face palm, as they say in the USA :D

Weird to see inside the mind of a conspiracy theorist.  Does the word megalomania spring to mind?  Do they think the White House is running Twitter now?  Deniers are bloody barmy, as we say down under :D

@dana1981 @wottsupwiththat @SouBundanga @Revkin Andrew Holland already admitted that they took it down. Perhaps they put it back up?
— Steve Goddard (@SteveSGoddard) June 24, 2013

Courtesy of Anonymous in the comments and conscious of the fact that someone will cry "Godwin's Law" but this one is funny :D

PPPS More comedy.  Now Anthony Watts in another fit of conspiracy ideation has decided to test the power of the White House.  I'm not kidding!

Apparently he wants to be as important as he thinks Steve Goddard is (and John Cook).  You'd think after making such an idiot of himself with his ignorance of Twitter he wouldn't be so willing to do it again.  But Anthony never learns...He seems to really and truly think that the White House is trying to hide the history of the weather in the USA..  Not only that but he thinks the White House cares enough about a dumb denier blogger to notice his tweet.  Not only that, he thinks/hopes they'll take so much notice they'll remove it.  Not only that, he thinks that the White House can remove a silly tweet just by snapping its fingers.  (Does the White House have fingers?)  Look!

@whitehouse confirmed by NOAA huricane data, Grover Cleveland had 9 times more hurricanes than Barack Obama: http://t.co/YNOd4LjER1
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) June 24, 2013

Sheesh. And to think there are still a few people who take these idiots seriously. 

It's not the White House it's the NSA

Crikey, they aren't finished yet.  Now they reckon the NSA has got involved.

_Jim says:
June 24, 2013 at 1:59 pm  Are we sure that wasn’t actually an “NSA pull”, for, you know, possible ‘national security’ reasons?

And they really do not understand Twitter and think the White House not only can alter Twitter but that it takes any notice of a tweet from a complete nonentity.  Does anyone else think that some people must have a really, really hard time surviving the real world?

Snake Oil Baron says:
June 24, 2013 at 2:55 pm
It seems they deleted it from their White House site tweets which is possible but it still existed on Twitter. I was confused about that at first. It is still a sissy thing to do but not a sinister thing to do.

No, Snake Oil, that's not how Twitter works.  You can't delete a tweet from any 'site'.   More than conspiracy ideation, these people have real delusions of grandeur.

PPPlosingcountS

"Steve Goddard" thinks that his megalomania has something to do with first amendment rights.  He still seems to think the White House did something with his tweet.  Nutty as...

@SouBundanga @dana1981 @wottsupwiththat @Revkin I see, so First Amendment rights don't apply to little people. Thanks for clearing that up.
— Steve Goddard (@SteveSGoddard) June 24, 2013

A Whopper of a HeatWave III: Climate Rage!

Update:

The animated gif below has been updated.

Heat records smashed ...

Excerpt from the latest media release from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology:

Assistant Director of Climate Information Services, Neil Plummer, said the heatwave had broken national records. This is consistent with the trend of an increase in extreme heat events associated with climate change.

"On Monday the average maximum daily temperature record for Australia was broken at 40.33°C. The previous record, 40.17°C on 21 December 1972, was held for 40 years. The daily average maximum temperature yesterday (8 January 2013) is a close third at 40.11°C.

"The number of consecutive days where the national average maximum daily temperature exceeded 39°C has also been broken this week—seven (7) days (between 2–8 January 2013), almost doubling the previous record of four (4) consecutive days in 1973," said Mr Plummer. 

... evoking Climate Rage!

Most people have experienced 'road rage', that aggressive response to heat, traffic jams or other stimuli while driving a vehicle.  For most of us it's no more than swearing under our breath something like "bloody Volvo (substitute appropriate descriptor) driver!" or giving a finger.  Some people have a full-blown attack, ramming other cars or jumping out on the road and physically attacking other drivers.

Australia's 'big heat' has evoked a similar response from climate science deniers - 'climate rage'.

It works like this.  You're already hot and bothered from the record heat.  You see an article, tweet, or comment about the records broken by the current heat wave. If you're hard-wired to deny science, climate rage kicks in and you attack the keyboard:

@craigemersonmp were you not alive during the droughts & fires in the early 80s, dickhead
— numo (@nomoregreens) January 9, 2013

More on the Record Heat

Here's an updated animated gif, showing the heat wave across Australia from New Year's Day to Thurs 10 Saturday 12 January. yesterday (9 January 2013). Click on the chart to see a larger version.

The Bureau has a Special Climate Statement on the record heat with more stats.