Fake Sceptic Awards for 2015

Happy new year, one and all. It's been quite a year, and another hot one. It's also that time of the year when bloggers do a round up of what happened in 2015. This year I've put together some of the most memorable denier moments and present them as awards. Ask me tomorrow and I might put together different instances. There are so many examples from which to choose. Anyway, here goes:

More about the hot weather in North America, and more

In the comments today, under the article about the extreme weather around the world these past few days, there was a claim that "It was warmer in the US in 1955". There was nothing else except a link to two maps of the USA. The top map was labeled 2015 and the bottom map was labeled 1955. The maps were coloured but there was:

• no legend
• no date
• no information that would explain anything about what the charts were meant to represent.

That sort of behaviour is more common on denier blogs than it is here at HotWhopper. Anyway, it prompted me to do some reading and research, and in the process I got diverted a bit into US temperature records, and trends in diurnal temperature range. So this article is a bit of a wander, and a bit long.

How hot was it in 1955 in the USA?

First, though, let's see about the very short and somewhat cryptic comment from HotWhopper reader, Andy Wilkins. He wrote that it was warmer in the US in 1955. But was it? No, it wasn't. At least not if you are looking at mean annual surface temperatures.

Below is a chart showing the annual mean surface temperature for the contiguous USA from 1895 to 2015 (average to November). I've marked the mean temperatures for 1955 and 2015, and this year so far is 1.31 °C hotter than the annual mean temperature in 1955.

Data source: NOAA ClimDiv

Now if Andy had somehow mistaken 1955 for 1954, then the difference between then and now would have still been 0.41 °C . That is it's been 0.41 °C hotter this year so far than it was back in 1954. (Note: The US temps and chart were corrected shortly after posting.)

Extreme December weather

December was not without extreme weather in many parts of the world. This past week has seen floods in South and North America, the UK and Ireland, worsening drought in southern Africa, wildfire in Australia and southern California, and unseasonally warm weather across the USA and Canada.

Worst floods in 50 years in South America

The BBC headline is "Flooding 'worst in 50 years', as 150,000 flee in Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay".  Rivers have broken banks after days of heavy rains.

Source: BBC

The worst affected is Paraguay, where more than 90,000 people were forced to leave their homes, many of them poor people living on the banks of the River Paraguay. This underscores the fact that it is the least wealthy who are most vulnerable to weather-related disasters.

Shooting the stars

While you're waiting for HotWhopper to crank up again, here is the link to Bert from Eltham's Large Magellanic Cloud photograph that he shared with HotWhopper for Christmas. Below is a shrunken version, which of course doesn't do the magical sky justice, you need to see the full sized image. It represents an awful lot of careful work (from Bert, not me.)

Below is a small section, full size:

Bert has the following equipment to take images like this one:

• Astrograph is an Officina Stellare RH200 which has a focal length of 600mm and is F3. Clear aperture is 200mm. 
• FLI Atlas Focuser. 
• FLI ten position filter wheel CFW-3-10 with 50mm square filters. 
• Astrodon E series LRGB and HA, NII, SII and OIII 3nm NB filters. Also a continuum filter 5nm. 
• Camera is a FLI PL16803 which has a sensor size 36.8 X 36.8 mm. 
• The FoV of this system is 3.5 X 3.5 degrees. 
• Mount is a Software Bisque PMX. 

Bert's links to his photographs are here.

Season's Greetings to you all

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas, or happy holiday - whatever you are celebrating.

Deniersville: in the spirit of Christmas, the gift that keeps on giving

Over the past few days I've begun but not finished several articles - guiltily enjoying time spent on other worthwhile activities (such as making jam from nectarines fresh from the tree; and roasting coffee beans; and finding pretty jars; and wrapping them up for the family for Christmas). On Monday Sunday I drove to Albury, through weird stormy weather, watching the smoke from a scary bushfire in the next valley over. (I was reminded that the danger from bushfires isn't just the fire itself, sometimes the roads are impassable because of fallen trees. The wind was fierce and wild and the day was another scorcher - 42 °C, 107.6 °F)

In a fit of rationalisation, I figured this is as good a time as any to take a short break. HotWhopper turned 3 earlier this month, and over those 36 months, it has averaged almost one and a half articles a day. That seems like a good target for the next three years.

Credit: John Cook

Denialism doesn't take breaks

If you are missing your daily dose of denial, it marches on relentlessly.

At first, the fake sceptics didn't know how to react to the COP21 agreement in Paris this month. Some tried to argue that the leaders of 195 nations are deluded, along with their advisers, most of the world's media, 97% of climate scientists and almost all professional associations of scientists throughout the world.

Maybe they realised that wouldn't fly because that effort didn't last. It's old news, or maybe they are pretending it didn't happen.

Anthony Watts' #AGU15 poster on US temperature trends

Credit: NOAA

Anthony Watts has a poster at this year's AGU Fall Meeting. He is very proud of the effort he made (his WUWT article is archived here). He is also looking over his shoulder, fearful of a conspiracy to stop him from publishing. Actually, Anthony's main contribution seems to have been organising other people to do the work, which is a talent well worth having.

Anthony has made his poster available for downloading from his own website, though it's not available on the AGU15 website (yet). His press release is on the AGU website. The poster has some gaps that could be important. But first, what does it show.

Watts' US surface station temperature trends (revised)

According to the poster, the researchers took the following steps with US temperature records dating between 1979 and 2008. First they removed all weather stations that had been moved or had had a change in time of observation. They classified the remainder using one (not all) of the criteria set out in Leroy (2010), specifically "proximity to artificial surfaces, buildings, and other such objects with unnatural thermal mass".

Judith Curry plays (nuclear) politics

Judith Curry is of the view that science deniers like herself are the only people permitted to "play politics with science".  On her climate conspiracy blog today she wrote about an article in the Guardian by Naomi Oreskes. Professor Oreskes was writing about the push from some quarters into what she called "wholesale expansion of nuclear power". Her article came after a previous Guardian article by Professors James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira and Tom Wigley.

How to attend AGU Fall Meeting 2015

With all that's been happening this past few days, I neglected to write about how to attend the AGU Fall Meeting 2015, when you can't be there in person.

The AGU Fall Meeting 2015 runs from Monday 14 December to Friday 18 December inclusive (USA Pacific Time).  Instructions for access are provided below. The details for the scientific program are:

8:00 am to 6:00 pm daily US Pacific Time

4:00 pm to 2:00 am GMT

3:00 am to 1:00 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time (next day)

Moscone Centre

San Francisco, California, USA.

To register for Virtual Options

Go to this website to register or log in: http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2015/virtual-options/

Watching the global thermometer - year to date GISTemp with a very hot November 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 October included. I'll repeat the explanation with each update and add what seem to be things to watch.