Happy holidays and all that

Wishing everyone greetings of the season, whatever the season is for you - winter, summer, Christmas, new year or  just an excuse for a holiday if you are fortunate enough.

If you've noticed I've been a bit distant this past few months, I'll be back in the new year and may even sneak in a couple of blog articles before then.

Thanks for all your support this past year, and best wishes for 2018.

Confirmation bias affects visual perception at WUWT - on carbon trading in China and the LA Times

Anthony Watts has posted an article by a bloke called Larry Hamlin, which is a stark example of how confirmation bias affects visual perception. Larry is a climate science denying conspiracy theorist who has the occasional "essay" at WUWT.

He wrote about something he read in the LA Times. It was a recent announcement from the Chinese government that it is preparing to set up what will eventually be a nationwide carbon trading program. The article was by Jonathan Kaiman reporting, from Beijing, a news conference of the National Development and Reform Commission in China.

The article set out the timetable, which stated that it would be three years before transactions begin (my emphasis):

China’s carbon market will initially apply only to the power-generation industry but will later expand to cover seven other sectors, including petrochemicals, chemicals, building materials, and iron and steel.

The Chinese government will spend a year building a nationwide registration system covering all companies participating in the market, the state-run China Daily reported. It will spend another year testing the system, and actual transactions will begin in about three years.

Has Anthony Watts just claimed he's on Scott Pruitt's #climate science denying "Red Team"?

Scott Pruitt
Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

You may have heard that the EPA Secretary, Scott Pruitt, keeps promising to put together a "Red Team" to support him in his rejection of climate science. He's getting names from various unsavoury organisations, I gather. I doubt any of those organisations have suggested WUWT owner and promoter of "climate hoax" conspiracy theories, Anthony Watts. However, it looks as if Anthony is hinting he's on the team.

I stumbled across something at WUWT this morning that suggests this. It was in among a lot of self promotion as an AGU member "in good standing", some misogyny, and various other rantings from Anthony. (What are the criteria for good vs bad standing among AGU membership? If it ever decided to draw a line Anthony would never appear on the "good" side.)

Here's what Anthony wrote, implying that he is already on Scott Pruitt's "Red Team". He was writing how he dislikes New Orleans and doesn't think he'd get enough money from his fans to go this year, so he won't try (or something like that :D). (AGU17 is at New Orleans.) Then he wrote how it's not a bad thing he won't be going, saying:

Polar bears, sexism and climate science denial

Adult polar bear on the look-out.
Source: Ian Sterling

When a science paper about polar bears generates multiple articles on denier blogs you can see it has hit a nerve. This happened recently when a paper was published, with a classic illustration of how deniers reference each other to make out there is dispute about climate change impacts.

The paper was by Jeffrey A Harvey and a bunch of other leading scientists. When I say a bunch, there were fourteen scientists listed as authors, comprising rising stars and heavyweights in the climate science world.

It's fortunate I wasn't able to write about this paper when it was first released because it allowed time to see the numerous articles about it on denier blogs. However, before looking at deniers' various reactions, how about a quick summary of the paper. It's open access and is easy to read. It may help if you understand the analytical techniques used, though that's not essential.

Funny peculiar: #Climate "guru" Anthony Watts' doesn't know the oceans accumulate energy

Two days ago Anthony Watts, who runs a climate conspiracy blog WUWT, posted what he called "Friday Funny – Climate Central’s scare graph excuse: ‘The oceans ate the warming’".

It is funny, as in odd, peculiar, that Anthony Watts doesn't know that more than 90% of the extra energy we've been adding is stored in the ocean. I mean, Anthony makes himself out to be an expert on climate change, more expert than the experts who research the subject. He's been blogging about climate for about ten years now. To think that he doesn't know one of the most basic facts about global warming is very strange indeed.

Second hottest October on record, just above October 2016

Summary: October 2017 was the second hottest October on record. The 12 month period to October 2017 was the second hottest November to October period on record.

According to GISS NASA, the average global surface temperature anomaly for October was 0.90 °C, which is 0.18 °C less than the October 2015. October 2017 was just 0.01 °C hotter than the next hottest October in 2016.

Below is a chart of the average of 12 months to October each year. The 12 months to October 2017 averaged 0.90 °C above the 1951-1980 mean, which was 0.13 °C cooler than the 12 months to October 2016.

This makes it the second hottest September to October 12 month period on record.

"Climate hoax" conspiracy theorists don't value logic or evidence - who knew :)

In a copy and paste at WUWT, Anthony Watts highlights a paper with research suggesting why WUWT-ers are so willing to adopt their "climate hoax" conspiracy theories. The researchers, Tomas Ståhl and Jan-Willem van Prooijen argue that people holding irrational beliefs (such as Anthony Watts and his ragtag mob of climate hoax conspiracy theorists) lack analytical skills and/or don't value logic or evidence.

Even if one or two WUWT deniers were endowed with reasonably high cognitive skills, evidence suggests they wouldn't value these skills and therefore don't use them. When it comes to climate science, they discard those skills in favour of one of the myriad conspiracies Anthony touts.

In the abstract of the paper itself, the authors write about how both analytical skills and motivation to be rational are required if one is to avoid adopting silly and unfounded beliefs:

We propose that part of the reason why unfounded beliefs are so widespread is because skepticism requires both sufficient analytic skills, and the motivation to form beliefs on rational grounds. 

It's immediately obvious to anyone who reads the articles and comments at WUWT that the bulk of Anthony's commenters lack a lot more than the motivation to be rational. Most of them lack analytical skills. Oh, there are still a few WUWT fans who can string words together to form whole sentences, but they are few and far between.

Give us your climate predictions, Andy May

Every so often WUWT publishes what it describes as "failed climate predictions". It is often timed to distract from more bad climate news, such as the fact that last year there was a record increase in the annual rise in atmospheric CO2.

The list published today, from Andy May at WUWT, follows the normal pattern. It takes a bunch of statements that were published at various times, including several from 27 years ago, and claims they are failed predictions. This includes statements that refer to things that may happen by 2100.

Yep, science deniers tend to oscillate between living in the past and living way ahead in the future. Tim Ball, one of Anthony's pet conspiracy theorists, rarely manages to emerge beyond 1970. Andy May (and Anthony Watts) both implicitly claim they have a time machine that has taken them into the future.

There are two other points worth making before I give you some examples of the low regard they (rightly) hold for WUWT fans. (They know they are a the dullest of the dim-witted.)

Anthony Watts is already crowing it hasn't warmed since 2016 (last year), with a La Niña watch

If you've been missing HotWhopper's take downs of deniers, you haven't been missing a lot. Wattsupwiththat is just repeating common denier memes over and over again.

In the last day Anthony Watts has even managed - it hasn't warmed since 2016 (therefore global warming is a hoax)! If you can believe that. (It's mostly true, though he only blew on the dog whistle and didn't spell out that last bit.)

He's a bit late to the party. The latest ENSO wrap-up from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology was an announcement of a La Niña watch, and that was last Tuesday. Here's an excerpt (my emphasis), which may disappoint the global cooling believers:

Seven of the eight international climate models surveyed by the Bureau suggest that sea surface temperatures will reach or exceed La Niña thresholds by November 2017. However, indicators need to remain at La Niña levels for at least three months to be considered an event. This is forecast by six of the eight models. If a La Niña does occur this year it is likely to be short and weak, as sea surface temperatures are forecast to warm again in early 2018, as the austral autumn is the time when La Niña events normally decay.

Andy Skuce - you will be sorely missed

Andy Skuce sadly passed away a short while ago on 14 September. He was a wonderful person and will be sorely missed by many. I was privileged to know him, if only online. He was thoughtful, wise and kind and a real gentleman in the true meaning.

If you haven't yet, do read his recent article where Andy let his readers know about his illness. That article is so typical of Andy.