Double Trouble: For Whom the Tol Bells: and What 2014 El Nino is that?

For Whom the Tol Bells

Greg Laden asked on Twitter "is this the end of Tol?  Shall he ask for whom the Bell ...".

It's really hard to resist making bad puns about tolling, isn't it, when you think of Richard Tol (if you've ever heard of him. If you haven't read on.) The remarkable thing is that the bell isn't Toling. Normally as soon as someone mentions Richard Tol's name "somewhere on the internet", up he pops, relishing the attention. Not this time however. Or not so far.

Collin Maessen of Real Skeptic has written a devastating take-down of Richard's latest swipe at the 97% consensus. You'd think he'd have given up by now wouldn't you. But he hasn't. Instead he's broadened out to misrepresenting not just the Cook13 97% study, but most of the other research papers that have gauged the level of scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming.

From Shakespeare conspiracies to climate conspiracies

Yesterday I came across an article at WUWT (archived here), which Anthony Watts described as coming from an "educated listener". It was nothing but a very, very long denier screed in the form of a letter to Anthony Brandon, WYPR station manager. WYPR is a radio station in Baltimore, and associated with NPR (National Public Radio, USA). Dr. Roger Stritmatter signed himself as "Professor of Humanities Coppin State University".

I wondered why a professor of humanities thought he knew more about climate than all the specialist researchers who've spent their working lives studying the subject. What made him think he knew so much that had escaped the experts?

Another denier who gets his pseudo-science from climate conspiracy blogs

As it turned out, Roger relied on denier blogs like WUWT and Jo "Force X and the Notch" Nova. So he knew nothing about climate but he did pick up a few conspiracy theories in his travels. He's also an "ice age comether", writing:

...the real risk to the future we want for our children and grandchildren is not warming, but serious, widespread, and potentially disruptive cooling.

Yep, that's what the humanities professor wrote after the hottest decade on record, and the hottest year on record, which is about to be beaten by another hottest year on record, and quite probably yet another hottest year on record in 2016.

The Urban Cool Island Effect stumps deniers at WUWT

There is a new paper with the title: "The urban heat island effect and city contiguity". The authors, Neil Debbage and J. Marshall Shepherd from the University of Georgia analysed the difference between urban areas in the USA and their rural surrounds. I don't have time to go into much detail except to say that, as with other studies, they found that some places have an Urban Cool Island Effect. Not all cities are hotter than their surrounds.

Here's the map from Figure 4 in the paper:

Fig. 4. Map of the annual average UHI intensity (°C) in 2010 for the 50 most populous MSAs in the United States.

Climate things to do - a short round up

This is just to let you know of a few things that you might have missed.

First, Skeptical Science is doing a reader survey. So pop over and let them know what you like best about SkS - here's the link.

Then there's an in-depth article about Exxon at Inside Climate News. It's about how Exxon invested quite heavily in climate research at a time when few people were talking about CO2 and global warming. Before the IPCC was set up. It's a real eye-opener. The authors: Neela Banerjee, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer, are to be congratulated for their excellent research, as well as a highly readable article.

There's another new paper out disputing the so-called "pause" in global warming. It's about how the so-called "pause" fails a blind test. It has just been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The authors are Stephan Lewandowsky, James S. Risbey and Naomi Oreskes. The paper can be downloaded here.

Peter Sinclair of ClimateCrocks fame has a wonderful video featuring Stefan Rahmstorf - it's only just over six minutes. It features Stefan's beautiful photography, as well as his passion for climate science. Do go and read the article and watch the video. For the lazy ones, here's the video - but go and compliment Peter, too:

References

SkepticalScience reader survey

Exxon: the road not taken - article by Neela Banerjee, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer at Inside Climate News

Stephan Lewandowsky, James S. Risbey and Naomi Oreskes. "The “Pause” in Global Warming: Turning a Routine Fluctuation into a Problem for Science" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 2015 ; e-View doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00106.1 (open access)

Stefan Rahmstorf – A Scientist’s Mind, and an Artist’s Eye - article and video from Peter Sinclair of ClimateCrocks.com

Denier Cherries: Big changes to come in climate or same old same old?

There's an article on the climate conspiracy blog, WUWT, which illustrates the tunnel vision or selective bias of deniers. It is another example of blatant cherry-picking. Eric Worrall repeated nonsense that he read on a denier website (archived here). He wrote about a recent publication from the UK Met, which has the title:

UK Met: "Changes Underway in the Climate System?"

The misleading headline at WUWT reads:

WUWT: "UK MET: Global warming pause may continue". 

That's right. Compare the two titles. The UK Met booklet is suggesting there may be big changes underway, while the WUWT article is suggesting the Met Office is saying there'll be more of the same.

What denier blogs won't talk about - California fires

One of the most striking signs of climate science denial is what you read on denier blogs during major events. Or rather, what you don't read. Anthony Watts lives in Chico California. In his home state at the moment, all you will read about, and if what we experience in Australia is any indication, all you'll see on television and hear on the radio are reports of the devastating fires. But not on the "most read" climate conspiracy blog in California, WUWT. Not a word.

Visit the website of the LA Times and read the stories, made all the more heartbreaking by the matter of fact manner in which the reports are written.

Watching the global thermometer - year to date GISTemp with August 2015

Every month since March, I've posted a chart of the progressive year-to-date global average surface temperature, from GISS. This is the update with August included. I'll repeat the explanation with each update and add what seem to be things to watch.

Breaking - Malcolm Turnbull ousts Tony Abbott and will become Australia's new Prime Minister

Australia is about to get a new Prime Minister. Malcolm Turnbull has defeated Tony Abbott in a ballot taken by the Liberal Party just now.

This will, I hope, mean a change in Australia's position on climate action. I've been told that Malcolm may have done a "deal" to keep a low profile on climate, but I know he has strong views on the subject. So let's hope that he adopts a leadership stance and doesn't kow tow to the deniers in the party room.

I'll see if I can dig up some of what he's written on the subject. And contrast this with Tony Abbott's stance.

Meantime, while I don't usually blog on politics, this is potentially big news for climate, so I'll make an exception.

You can read more about this news:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-14/liberal-leaderhip-tony-abbott-challenged-by-malcolm-turnbull/6774546

Watch this space!

If you can tolerate talking heads from down under, the ABC NEWS 24 website has removed the geo block for the occasion.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/

UPDATE: Malcolm Turnbull has said that he supports the current government policy on climate change. Julie Bishop, the (continuing) deputy has said that Australia has already announced the targets for Paris and they won't change.

He also said that his government will be a collaborative, consultative government. So it looks as if it will be up to us to persuade the government to change direction.

Added by Sou at 10:55 pm Monday 14 September 2015

Denier weirdness: Very strange WUWT article on President Obama in Alaska

Before I write about the article at WUWT (archived here), here is the weekly address from President Obama, which he made just before his recent visit to Alaska. Susan Gardner has already written about this at Daily Kos.

The President discusses the rapid warming, shoreline erosion, storm surges and even the approval of Shell exploration. There is nothing in his speech that pops out as being "wrong", except for his decision to allow Arctic exploration.

At WUWT, there is a very strange article about Obama's Alaskan visit. It's as if the author doesn't understand what he's written.

Anthony Watts' conspiracy blog and distorted representation at Spiegel Online

Several days after the article appeared in Der Spiegel, Anthony Watts found out about it (archived here). After months of drought, he finally got another mention in mainstream media. In an article by Axel Bojanowski in Der Spiegel - or more correctly, in Spiegel Online. That's as big a deal as getting a mention in one of Rupert Murdoch's papers, like the Australian. Or a mention in the Herald-Sun on the blog of Australia's Andrew Bolt. Der Spiegel has not got an unblemished reputation when it comes to climate science.

WUWT is accused of distorted representation

Still, Anthony thinks he's got reason to celebrate, writing a headline: "German newspaper Spiegel names WUWT the most prominent climate skeptic blog".  He didn't seem to notice that Axel Bojanowski wrote about the distorted representations from denier blogs:

Sogenannte Skeptiker (siehe Grafik) sorgen besonders in den USA mit verzerrten Darstellungen von Forschungsergebnissen dafür, dass Warnungen aus der Klimaforschung als übertrieben gebrandmarkt werden. 

Which Google translated as:

So-called skeptics (see chart) provide particularly in the US with distorted representations of research results that warnings of climate change research are branded as exaggerated.

Faint praise indeed.