Hurricanes Matthew and Nicole

Hurricane Matthew is dominating weather and climate news at the moment. It is a fierce tropical cyclone, or as it's called in the Atlantic, a hurricane. Currently it is again a Category 3 hurricane after it intensified over warm waters after dropping from a Cat 4 to a Cat 3 then back to a Cat 4. You can get the latest advisory information from NOAA's National Hurricane Centre, and view the current radar images at NWS.

There is another cyclone close by, Hurricane Nicole, which is currently a Cat 2 hurricane and is having an impact on Matthew. The wind image from Earth shows their current positions, with Matthew now affecting Florida:

Nicole is circling in the Atlantic and isn't expected to hit the USA directly.

Stay safe. If you want to help people devastated by the storm, weather.com lists some of the organisations providing assistance.

Denier Weirdness: Electricity is a subject too tough for Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is obsessed with Australia's electricity system but he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's posted several articles on the blackout in South Australia and all of them are woefully wrong. (None on the blackouts in Victoria, NSW and the ACT.) With his latest (archived here) he shows that he doesn't understand the wholesale pricing system for Australian electricity (few do), and confuses it with electricity generation. His headline is totally misleading. He wrote: "Australian electrical system operator orders wind farms to cut back production in wake of blackout"

No it didn't.

Another "hottest month": Troposphere temperatures for September 2016

The troposphere temperatures for September 2016 have been released. The lower troposphere is recorded in UAH v6 beta 5 and RSS TLT v3.3. This report also covers RSS TTT for the troposphere (without the "lower") and follows pretty much the same format as previous monthly updates.

In all records, the September global anomaly was higher than it was in August but lower than earlier this year as El Niño is now over.

For RSS TTT (troposphere), last month was the hottest September on record. For 2016 to be colder than the previous hottest year (1998), the troposphere would have to average a negative anomaly:- less than -.025 °C for the remaining months.

The lower troposphere (UAH beta v6.05) was the equal hottest September on record with 1998. For 1998 to remain the hottest year in the UAH lower troposphere record, the average for the next three months would need to be below 0.28 °C, which could happen. (Roy and John changed the August 2016 temperature, dropping it from 0.44 °C to 0.43 °C.)

Opportunity to double your donation - TODAY - Climate Science Legal Defense Fund

I know you're probably hit with donation requests a lot, however this organisation is worth consideration. If you live in the USA it's tax deductible. If not, it's still very worthwhile - even a small donation will make a big difference.

CSLDF board member Charles Zeller is matching all donations up to $50,000 made before September 30. When you donate today, your gift does double duty. Thank you!

Help to counter the efforts of the disinformation lobby groups who use legal means to try to stop scientific research.

Donate here.

About the fund:

OUR GOAL IS SIMPLE: LET SCIENTISTS CONDUCT RESEARCH WITHOUT THE THREAT OF POLITICALLY MOTIVATED ATTACKS.

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund was established to make sure that legal actions are not viewed as an attack against one scientist or institution, but as attacks against the scientific endeavor as a whole.

PS If you scroll down the bottom of the donate page, you can do it via PayPal.

Betrayed by political cowardice from Australia's "One Nation" Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull

You might have seen the appalling comments from Australia's Prime Minister yesterday. He was doing a good imitation of Malcolm Roberts. They both linked the worst storm in living memory in South Australia with renewable energy, and not in the manner one would expect.

Australia's Prime Minister and his act of political cowardice. September 2016

What you'd expect is that our political leaders would view the storm and statewide blackout as a stark reminder that we have to hurry up and reduce carbon emissions. Instead Malcolm Turnbull, in an incredible display of political cowardice, turned his back on Australians and all of humanity and used it as an opportunity to say we've got to slow the shift to renewables.

Are you seriously telling me...

Spotted at RealClimate.org (not in the borehole) - from our friend Mack, who cannot believe that the atmosphere is what keeps our planet liveable (and hasn't heard of the snowball Earth):

Mack says:

23 Sep 2016 at 5:24 AM
Jim Eager @54
“That 324w/sq.m. from the atmosphere is the reason earth’s global mean temp is 15C instead of -18C.”

Hell Jim, earth’s global mean temp of -18C would have the earth as one FROZEN ball….even the oceans would be frozen solid. Are you seriously telling me that radiation from the atmosphere..or some atmospheric effect, is actually keeping the whole planet from totally freezing up !!?. I always thought it was the sun that melted ice.

Gavin Schmidt dryly pointed out that Mack is only 200 years behind the rest of the world:

[Response: This was the mystery that Fourier thought a lot about in 19th Century. Turns out it is an atmospheric effect. Pretty well accepted now though. – gavin]

(Normal programming will resume shortly. There's a bit to catch up on this week from the climate conspiracy crowd.)

Stung? Gotcha? The games deniers play.

Here's a change from WUWT. Well, not a change of subject, just a change of venue.

I don't usually bother with science deniers on Twitter these days. They are too predictable, pointless and boring. However this little episode is an example of how science deniers operate. I feel for scientists when they are quote-mined, misrepresented and libeled. It shows how far deniers have to stretch to get any joy these days, when the climate isn't behaving as they think it should.

Climate Science Denial: A rational activity built on incoherence and conspiracy theories

Climate science denial is therefore perhaps best understood as a rational activity that replaces a coherent body of science with an incoherent and conspiracist body of pseudo-science for political reasons and with considerable political coherence and effectiveness.

That is the closing sentence of a new paper called: "The ‘Alice in Wonderland’ mechanics of the rejection of (climate) science: simulating coherence by conspiracism". Great title! The work is by Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, Dr John Cook and Professor Elisabeth Lloyd. It's another wonderful read about the lack of coherence in the arguments put forward by climate science deniers as their reasons for rejecting mainstream science.

"Something must be wrong". Four words. "Something is wrong". Three words.

Do either of the above have any meaning on their own? Not really. However they do invite questions.

Barmy bloopers from John Christy and co at WUWT seven years later

Another Oh My! article has hit the denier-waves. This time from John Christy of UAH infamy, and friends (WUWT article with link is archived here, update here). It purported to be about green houses that are gassy, or something like that. The first sentence in the preface is:

On December 15, 2009, EPA issued its Green House Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding, which has driven very significant and costly regulations beginning with CO2.  

Seriously. These guys claim to be writing about greenhouse gases and they don't even know how to spell greenhouse?

Warning: this is another long article.

It's doozy week at WUWT, with Christopher Monckton and his InfoWar on science

With all the record-breaking temperatures and extreme weather lately, Anthony Watts is reduced to published a load of vague unsubstantiated codswallop claiming climate science papers are a "scam". That and claiming that 13,000 years ago there was an even bigger glacial maximum than the last glacial maximum, which so far no-one is aware of except Anthony and his tame cartoonist called Josh. (I'm not certain that they are even aware that this is what they've claimed.)

Christopher Monckton has added to the doozies at WUWT by claiming that climate scientists are committing fraud (archived here). He wrote about a case in the UK and leaped off that in a fit of illogic to claim that public authorities have received reports of fraudulent papers by climate scientists.

Yeah, right!

Has Christopher finally come through with his multiple threats of vexatious litigation against scientists? I'd say the chance of that is between Buckley's and None.

Yep. I call woo. BS. More batshit crazy from Anthony Watts and Christopher Monckton.