More of David Siegel's climate lies and conspiracy theories

Okay - now it's out there. I don't know why David Siegel tells lies. Whether it's because he's stupid and isn't capable of doing his own research, or whether he does it for reward (either tangible or for ideological purposes). But he does tell lies and, unless he falls into the stupid category, he must know it.

Backtrack: A few days ago I wrote about a science denier called David Siegel, who used WUWT to promote a screed he put up somewhere on the internet. That "somewhere" is, as Greg Laden described it: "big giant blog that anybody can go and blog their big giant thoughts on: like tumblr, but more bloggy".

I pretty much dismissed David Siegel's article as the sort of denier tripe that's a dime a dozen in the dark outer reaches of cyberspace. It was nothing more than a mosaic of WUWT or any other climate conspiracy blog. Still, having it all in one place was a good enough reason to write an article. So a few of us got together and that's just what we did. We posted it on the same website that the original article appeared on.

We were gentle with David Siegel in our Medium.com article. We were more interested in presenting the science than in portraying David Siegel as the utter nutter that he is. Here at HotWhopper there are no kid gloves. David Siegel's article was nothing more than a 9,000 word Gish gallop of denier memes. To address every single one in a blog post would have resulted in an article more like 80,000 words rather than the 8,000 or so that we wrote.

Denier weirdness from Philip Lloyd: An extreme rainfall event is a year in the making?

Deniers are weird people. Anthony Watts has another article from science denier Philip Lloyd, who's not unknown at HotWhopper. He's not a climate scientist, that's for sure. Philip decided to look at annual rainfall in England and Wales to see if extreme rainfall events have increased or not.

What's that?

No, I don't think it's a joke article. You can see for yourself.

Dan Coffman's climate conspiracy fiction at WUWT

As AGU15 approaches, it looks as if Anthony Watts is trying to distance himself a tiny bit from all the climate conspiracies he promotes on his blog. Anthony's got a poster session at AGU15, and he probably dreads being laughed out of the conference. Today he's promoting a climate conspiracy novel, written by a science denier who thinks climate science is a hoax (archived here). Anthony says he "believes" just a little bit, but leaves plenty of conspiracy ideation to appease his readers. He wrote:

I’m not fully comfortable with the “hoax” title, as there indeed has been some warming in the past century, some of it man made and some of it natural variation, but there’s also been a largess of funding and a shedload of zealotry and hype attached to all of that, and that’s what this book is about.

The author, Dan Coffey Coffman, says he's a retired Earth scientist, but I can't find any papers by him on Google scholar. So what science he's done is a mystery. Dan is appalled by mainstream science. He prefers the contradictory denier memes on blogs like WUWT. He's not an Earth scientist, he's a wannabe Earth burner.

From the twilight zone of WUWT

Have you ever wondered about the delusions of deniers? Are they all crazy, or are some of them feeders of (or off) the deluded? Anthony's got an article from the twilight zone today (archived here). It's written by someone called Walter Starck.

Walter is one of those lazy people who doesn't bother with evidence. Bold declarations are enough for him. He wrote:

In terms of scientific rationale and supporting evidence, climate alarmism  involves far more denial than does skepticism. The only way one could honestly conclude differently would be to be blissfully unaware of the hundreds of robust peer reviewed studies which refute or bring into serious doubt virtually every important claim by the proponents of DAGW.

Why do disinformers assume that climate deniers are such fake sceptics that they won't check fake claims? It's probably based on experience.

Why doesn't he or anyone else at WUWT produce or even name any of these supposed "hundreds of robust peer reviewed studies"?

Wait a minute. Most of the time deniers are claiming they can't get any of their mysterious studies published. They claim that scientists hold the keys to the gate and deniers can't get a look in. Anthony Watts even set up a secretive open society just to publish all these studies that couldn't get published. Even he's not been able to find any pseudo-science studies to publish yet. (It looks as if he can't get any board members, either.)

So deniers should be demanding a list of these newly discovered hundreds of studies. They aren't, of course. Why spoil a good yarn with facts.

Spencer Weart and Physics Today tweak the noses of science deniers from the Heartland Institute

WUWT is shaping up to be the last bastion of climate science deniers. Anthony Watts will post almost any article, no matter how ridiculous, as long as it rejects science. Today he's got a whiny missive from a bunch of people from the Heartland Institute (archived here). They are complaining that the flagship publication of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), Physics Today, won't accept a comment they wrote.

Anthony posted the article under a misleading headline. His headline says that Physics Today wouldn't acknowledge their comment: "NIPCC’s reply to Physics Today (that they won’t even acknowledge)". However in the opening paragraph of the article, he admits that there was an email exchange and that their comment was acknowledged, but rejected.

The reason for the rejection is obvious. It wasn't a "rebuttal", it was a whine that Spencer Weart mentioned their denial efforts and dismissed them out of hand, as he should.

Anthony Watts indulges in an abysmal showing of poor (hurricane) taste at WUWT

I was keeping an eye on the articles at WUWT. It's been quite boring there lately. There've have been a bunch of articles about Exxon, and how it was researching climate way back when. These did nothing but confuse deniers.

What I was watching for, was to see how or if Anthony Watts would deal with the latest extreme weather event - Hurricane Patricia. This hurricane is the most intense on record - as a hurricane. And the most fierce tropical cyclone ever recorded in the western hemisphere.

Well, Anthony still can't bring himself to write about it. That's bad enough for someone who passes himself off as a meteorologist (unqualified), and who lives in North America. It's not just Mexico that's suffering under Hurricane Patricia. The effects will be felt right through to Texas and other US states.

Instead he did the unbelievable - even for a science-denying climate conspiracy blog.

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.

Hurricane Patricia - stronger than Haiyan

It was born and grew so quickly and is being described as the strongest ever tropical cyclone in the western hemisphere. In just 24 hours Patricia grew from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane. It has made landfall in Mexico, with sustained winds (not just gusts) reported at 265 km an hour (165 mph). The ABC reported that before it hit land it had "winds of 325 kilometres per hour, even more powerful than the 315-kilometre-per-hour winds of Super Typhoon Haiyan".

Extra warm seas at some depth

It's intensity is because of the very warm water off the coast of Mexico. It's warm at depth. National Geographic asked scientists:

Scientists don't fully understand why Patricia grew so intense so quickly. But part of the reason is due to an unusually deep pool of warm water off Mexico's Pacific coast, says Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

As a hurricane intensifies, it churns up the ocean beneath it, drawing deeper, colder water to the surface. Since tropical cyclones feed on warm water, that cooler water acts as a kind of brake, limiting how strong most hurricanes get, Emanuel says.

But in Patricia's case, the warm pool of water beneath the storm goes down nearly 200 feet (61 meters). "That makes it harder for the hurricane to churn up cold water," says Emanuel.

That deep blob of warm water could be due to this year's predicted strong El Niño, a weather pattern characterized by warmer-than-usual water in parts of the Pacific Ocean.

Given the limitations in understanding the mechanics of hurricanes and the effects of climate change on these storms, Herndon fears Patricia won't be the last nasty surprise we see.

Strong winds

The article also provides some comparisons with Patricia's reported sustained winds of 265 kph, and up to 325 kph before landfall:

Tip's wind speeds topped out at 190 miles (306 kilometers) per hour.

Super Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the Philippines in 2013, recorded pressures as low as 895 millibars with wind speeds of 195 miles (315 kilometers) per hour. Hurricane Katrina came in at 902 millibars with maximum wind speeds of 175 miles (282 kilometers) per hour.

According to NOAA's public advisory, the winds will weaken as they hit the mountains. It warns of rainfall of "8 to 12 inches, with isolated maximum amounts of 20 inches, over the Mexican states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, and Guerrero through Saturday.  These rains could produce life-threatening flash floods and mud slides." In addition there is a warning of storm surges. (I've archived the NOAA public advisory for the record.)

Below is an image of winds taken about 8 hours ago from Earth.nullschool.net:

And just now:

Stay safe.

Harper toppled - another climate procrastinator bites the dust

The Canadian election results so far seem to be a huge win to the Liberals, under Justin Trudeau, and a demolition of the Conservatives under Harper.

CBC has already called it a Liberal win, with some polls only just closed.

Australia's Antony Green is keeping everyone updated with tweets. He says that the polls underestimated the swing, that the larger than usual voter turnout is for Liberals, and that the Liberals have swept Winnipeg, along with the Atlantic provinces (which had the first results) and probably most other provinces.

It's not all good news. Justin Trudeau needs a lot of coaching to understand the importance of reducing carbon emissions.

Still, it's a big win just to topple the Harper government, which was not just dragging its heels on mitigation, it was silencing scientists.

The Spanish Inquisition, conflict of interest and free speech

Still nothing from denier blogs. All is quiet. Have deniers given up the battle? Are they gearing up for a concerted attack on science? Looking for that final, final, final, final, final nail in some coffin or other? Anthony Watts is still focusing on extremist right wing lunacy. He's not got anything to offer the centrist WUWT-ers.

Today's contribution (archived here, latest here) is from Paul "bring back smog" Driessen, who is moaning that an economist should be allowed to breach the rules of the Brookings Institution, and blames it on Elizabeth Warren. Nothing to do with climate science, although Paul did manage to mention Senator Whitehouse in the same article. Chastising him for wanting scientists to declare the entities funding their research, and any potential conflict of interest. He opened in his usual highly exaggerated and misplaced fashion:

As Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition for 15 years, Tomas de Torquemada presided over the interrogation, torture, imprisonment and execution of thousands, for the “crimes” of religious heresy and pretended conversion to Christianity. Historian Sebastián de Olmedo titled him “the hammer of heretics.”

Today Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) are pursuing their own inquisition against perceived “heretics.”