Something went wrong at WUWT. Is Anthony Watts ceding his title?

Anthony Watts has just discovered, more than two weeks after everyone who is anyone in climate-land knew about it, that Dr John Cook is moving from Queensland to take up a new post at George Mason University. He's been appointed as Research Assistant Professor in the GMU Center for Climate Change Communication, and will take up his post in January 2017.

Congratulations, Dr Cook.

The reason I say that something went wrong at WUWT isn't that Anthony has only just got the news, or at least is only just spreading it to his disciples. He's shown before that he's out of the loop when it comes to climate news. No, it's because a comment from ATTP got past the WUWT sentinels.

What motivates Walter Donway to reject climate science?

There's a rather long essay written by a chap called Walter Donway. It's on what looks to be a (US style) libertarian website. Walter starts with the question: "What leads an objective non-scientist, examining the arguments, to reject “global warming,” a.k.a., “Big Climate alarmism”?" Many of you would stop reading at that point, expecting it to be a Gish gallop of the usual denier memes written by someone desperately trying to justify his "climate hoax" conspiracy. Not me. Or not this time. I find that there are sometimes clues about why a person rejects science in among their lengthy protests.

Don't make promises you can't keep...

Occasionally I've made promises that I haven't kept, including some here on this blog. On rare occasions I've promised to write about something at some point in the future and haven't. In the past few months Judith Curry hinted that she would be paying more attention to her blog. Or that's how I've interpreted Judith. She doesn't write much herself, apart from long lists of links to what she finds interesting on the internet. Her blog is mainly a notice board for denier tripe. Even the articles Judith posts under her own name are usually large slabs copied from somewhere else, with a short note from Judith at the bottom saying as little as possible.

Anthony Watts is the same. It does look as if he's at least reading his blog from time to time now, but there's little sign that he's going to write much himself in the future, any more than he has in the past. Which is probably a good thing.

One of the fastest Arctic sea ice growths on record!

The Arctic sea ice extent reached a minimum a few days ago, to much consternation as usual at WUWT (here and here and here). Deniers don't much like reports about sea ice. It's a difficult measure for them. When there are open seas in the Arctic it's a stark reminder of just how much we are affecting the climate.

Below is a chart of Arctic sea ice extent, comparing 2016 ice extent to the average of recent decades and to the years 2007, 2012 and last year. This chart is from the National Institute of Polar Research. Click to view enlarged.

Figure 1 | Arctic sea ice extent for 2016, 2015, 2012 and 2007. Source: National Institute of Polar Research

Deniers against nature at WUWT with Andy May

Anthony Watts has posted a puff piece at WUWT (archived here). In it Andy May says how he wants a world without nature, or at least that's the subtext. What puzzles me is what on earth is it that deniers find so enticing about ridding the world of the abundance of amazing, wondrous flora and fauna? What is it that makes people so irate about having to share the planet with other species?

Andy May likes science fiction. He wrote about how fiction writer Michael Crichton was 'a wonderful writer'. Yes, he could write a compelling yarn, but why Andy prefers Crichton pseudo-science to real science remains a mystery. I guess that the only thing deniers have on their "side" is fiction.

Come and join HotWhopper Chat

There are oodles of weather discussion boards, and lots of climate blogs, and some people like Facebook and Twitter. However there aren't too many options for people who aren't bloggers but who occasionally want to write something about climate change at the time they think of it, and chat about it with other people.

HotWhopper Chat was conceived as a place where people with a common interest in climate change can develop a real sense of community - a climate community, that they can own. A place where everyone can feel welcome, from scientist to complete climate newbie.

So come and join in the discussions.

Crikey! Hottest August on record - vies with July for hottest month ever

According to GISS NASA, the average global surface temperature anomaly for August was 0.98 °C, which is 0.16 °C higher than the previous hottest August in 2014.

Because July is the hottest month of the year, I've seen this July reported as the hottest month ever in recorded history! I asked the question whether August beat July and was told it's too close to call.

The average for the eight months to the end of August is 1.05 °C, which is 0.25 °C higher than any previous January to August period. The previous highest was last year, which with the latest data had an anomaly of 0.8 °C.

There are now eleven in a row of "hottest months" from October 2015 to August 2016 (that is, hottest October, hottest November etc). If we could look back over the entire Holocene, it's probably more than 7,000 years since there was a similar run of hottest months on record, that is, not since the Holocene climatic optimum (it's probably hotter now than it was back then).

Here is a chart of the average of 12 months to August each year. The 12 months to August 2016 averaged 1.03 °C above the 1951-1980 mean and was 0.23 °C hotter than the 12 months to August 2015:

Figure 1 | Global mean surface temperature anomaly for the 12 months to August each year. The base period is 1951-1980. Data source: GISS NASA

Troposphere temperatures for August 2016

The troposphere temperatures for August 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 August global anomaly was higher than it was in July but lower than earlier this year as El Niño is now over.

For RSS TTT (troposphere), last month was the hottest August on record. For 2016 to be colder than the previous hottest year (1998), the troposphere would have to average less than 0.19 °C for the remaining months.

In the lower troposphere (UAH beta v6.05) last month is the second hottest August on record, lower than it was in 1998. For 1998 to remain the hottest year in the UAH lower troposphere record, the average for the next four months would need to be below 0.32 °C.

Weather Reality Check: What a La Niña looks like...in pictures

The wacky conspiracy theorists at WUWT think that every nation who watches and warns about ENSO events, so that farmers and fishers can plan ahead, are hiding reality from deniers. They seem to think that it helps weather reporting agencies maintain the "climate hoax" conspiracy to say there's probably not going to be a La Niña this year after all, so that when the temperature plunges to new lows just short of an ice age in a few weeks (as deniers seem to think) ...well, I don't know what conspiracy theorists think the weather bureaux will do then ...

Losing his grip on ENSO: Bob Tisdale thinks he's an expert, and yet...

Bob Tisdale fancies himself as an ENSO expert, yet he doesn't show that in his WUWT article today (archived here). He's complaining that a couple of days ago NOAA removed the "watch" status for La Nina. Bob's headline was "NOAA Cancels La Niña Watch While La Niña Conditions Exist". Well, he seems to be the only person who thinks La Nina conditions exist. Oh, except maybe for Anthony Watts who, way back in June, declared that we are already having a La Nina.

Today Bob Tisdale wrote:

Regardless of the existing (and strengthening) La Niña conditions, NOAA has canceled its La Niña Watch, which had been in effect since April.

Except there are not conditions currently existing for La Nina. Bob's wrong. This is where he was wrong - almost everywhere:

1. Bob didn't base his assessment on the ENSO definition's standard of the ONI, which is a 3 month running mean;
2. He based his current sea surface temperature anomaly in the Nino 3.4 region on the wrong average baseline, making it appear approx 0.4 C colder than it is (the cutoff is -0.5 C) (h/t Rattus Norvegicus);
3. He used the wrong dataset (Reynolds OI v2), not the one used as standard for ENSO estimates (ERSST v4).

Summary added by Sou 4:57 pm 10 September 2016