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.” 

A new record set: Twin typhoons in the Pacific: Koppu (Lando) and Champi

You probably know about Typhoon Koppu that is pummeling the Philippines as I write. Locally it's known as Lando. There's another one not far from it called Champi. Here's a picture from the Earth wind map:

Denier weirdness: Anthony Watts hands his blog to the crazies. Is that the best he's got?

Anthony Watts posted another article from his resident greenhouse effect denier, Tim Ball (archived here). This time he put a caveat on the top, but he posted it anyway. The only other article he's posted in the last day is something from Christopher Monckton, which can best be described as seeming to come from a raving lunatic (archived here). Someone let him out of Bedlam.

Seriously? It's less than six weeks to Paris, and all Anthony Watts has is years' old denier memes of wrong CO2 measurements, and a hysterical (I'm not exaggerating) article from the potty peer?

Another conspiracy theorist "comes out" at WUWT: David Siegel

Anthony Watts has announced a fan, who learnt all he needs to know about climate after reading WUWT for 400 hours (archived here). What have I learnt about climate science deniers after reading their nonsense for several hours a day over several years? Not a helluva lot. Then again, I'm not a cognitive scientist. I have discovered that they'll generally expend an awful lot of energy promoting their rejection of science. A whole lot more than investigating it.

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UPDATE: A group of us have now written a response to David Seigel's article. We posted it at the same website: Medium.com. Feel free to recommend, like, comment, tweet and generally spread it around, especially if you come across people touting the Siegel denialisms.

Sou - 29 October 2015

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I've also figured out that science deniers like to congregate with other science deniers. They don't find much joy in real life, so they get together in cyberspace. I expect they find it reassuring to find there are other people in the world who think the earth is flat, or that it was created by a god 6,000 years ago, or the equivalent for climate denial. Rather in the manner that Gabby so eloquently put it, in the cartoon on sexism:

Climate disinformer Patrick Moore talks to deniers at the GWPF

Semi-professional climate disinformer Patrick Moore gave a talk to UK climate science deniers the other day. Anthony Watts posted it under a headline: "Greenpeace founder delivers powerful annual lecture, praises carbon dioxide – full text" (archived here). Powerful? No. Pseudo-scientific rubbish? Yes. I don't know what the audience in general thought of his nonsense. It probably didn't register with many of them. All they wanted was to hear someone they felt was on "their side". The people who invited him most likely knew he would spout a load of nonsense, and couldn't get anyone more credible to talk. Well, who is left these days?

Patrick spent the first part of his talk on himself. He's a hero in his own mind. A born-again denier. I cannot imagine that he believes the words that come out of his mouth, but they help him earn a crust in his chosen field. Science denial.

The basis of his claim was that without CO2 the planet would be dead, therefore the more we have the better. That's like saying to a drowning woman - without water we'd all be dead so suck it up.

Warning: this is a long article, but it covers a lot of ground

They just don't get it at WUWT. It's the pace of change that's the problem.

Deniers like to claim they aren't stupid and they aren't ignorant. I can't say what happens in the rest of their lives, but those who deny climate science, when it comes to climate science, are either stupid, or ignorant or knowingly telling lies. There is no middle ground.

There's an example again today at WUWT (archived here). Again it's from Eric Worrall. He wonders why, if global warming is threatening the food chain, it didn't threaten it during the Cretaceous period. You don't believe that anyone could be so foolish? It's true. Eric wrote:

The obvious question – why didn’t this hypothesised collapse occur during previous epochs with high CO2 levels, such as the Cretaceous Age? According to Wikipedia, the Cretaceous age enjoyed CO2 levels of around 1700ppm. Yet the Cretaceous was also the age of the Dinosaurs – the period was characterised by large tropical jungles, shallow warm seas, and a vast abundance of life, both marine and terrestrial. I suggest it takes a pretty robust food chain to support a predator like the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

It's as if he's never heard of any of the great extinction events, like the massive Permian Triassic events, which in part were the result of rapid greenhouse warming.

Quote of the Day from Bob Tisdale at WUWT: It is easy...

From an article by Bob "blob" Tisdale a few hours ago on the climate conspiracy blog, WUWT. After years of WUWT articles insisting "it's not warming" or "if it was warming it's stopped" or "if it ever warmed it's now cooling", or "the tide is turning and we're heading for an ice age", or whatever, here's this little gem:

"Alarmists happily ignore the fact that it is easy to have record high global temperatures in the midst of a hiatus or slowdown in global warming"

Errr - what? If it was so "easy" surely there'd not have been a slowdown. Despite all that it's true that there was a record hot year in 2005, and another in 2010, and another in 2014, and this year'll be another no doubt, and probably next year as well. And where's that "slowdown" gone?

Data source: GISS NASA