“Pielke Sr. on the quality of global surface stations” (2011-08-14). The Stupid that won’t die! Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., an actual denialist climate scientist, reminds us of Anthony Watts’ “outstanding report” on the siting quality surface temperature stations used in the US Historical Climate Network, Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?. (Oops, “Page Not Found”. Are the Heartland Institute lobbyists shuffling that embarrassment off to the side?) The “scientific” follow-up was Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
You remember the “outstanding report” that Anthony kept promising would prove how dishonest conventional climate scientists were except… it didn’t? And the ground-breaking paper that… confirmed the conventional scientific conclusions about global warming. But he sure did a good job collecting amateur photos of weather stations.
So Dr. Pielke is going to do a home slide show too! Prepare for an onslaught of “random” photos of weather stations. Maybe he and Anthony can obscure the failure of their shared project with a new flood of irrelevant amateur photos? Sounds like a great way to keep heads bobbing in time.
Wott's Up With That? 
Say, didn’t Matthew Menne, at NOAA, debunk this crazy insane Anthony Watts urban pink fairy kool aid myth, with a paper on that very subject way back in 2010?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/climate-sceptic-us-weather-data
And to add further insult to injury, Dr Richard Muller did exactly the same style debunking of this failed Anthony Watts pink fairy kool aid myth as well, too!
In addition Anthony Watts debunks himself on the very same subject too!
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/05/anthony_watts_contradicted_by.php
Oh, the supreme irony, of being debunked on both sides of the fence!
(epic face palm)
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. – Isaac Asimov
[Great Asimov quote. Anthony specializes in promoting ignorance. – Ben]
There’s a copy of that Heartland Institute page over at http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/policy-documents/us-surface-temperature-record-reliable
[That’s what counts as confirmation of research in the denialist world: reposting. – Ben]
Round and round in circles we go…
A commenter on, I think, Climate Progress said recently that the denier items tend to follow a predictable arc, being hailed as the end of the global warming hoax and getting a blast of press, then fading away to be replaced by the next bogus sensation. Might be useful for someone to make a list of them and publish occasionally. I’m not sure how easy or difficult that would be to do. Do you think it’s worthwhile? –Regards, Tom Gray, Wind Energy Communications Consultant
[That’s sort of what skepticalscience.com does. – Ben]
I’d like to see pictures of Pielke Sr’s individual neurons.
[I’m tempted to say that it would be a small album, but I think his ideology trumps his intellect. – Ben]
Once bitten, twice shy? Will the people who follow WUWT be more cautious the second time around? All the early critical expectations of the first (CONUS) surface station project were turned into a confirmation of the status quo temperature measurements, with vouching by Anthony Watts as co-author.
The whole world The decision to follow with a second (global) project presumably stems from a belief that there is a skeptic born every minute. So they can try it again for a new audience.
And, I can imagine that this global project might be more productive than the CONUS project. In addition to the air conditioners in the developed world, there is the expectation of many less-imaginable shortcomings in third world countries.
There will be a steady stream of damning photographs to publish. And they’re likely to continue for years and years, because of the greater difficulties and distances facing the volunter photographers in the undeveloped world.
Innuendo forever (a speculation) And this time there’s less risk that all their lovely images will be rendered unusable by an eventual (land based) paper demonstrating the validity of the data. Over large parts of Africa, Asia and South America there won’t be adequate nearby (redundant) weather stations to provide local confirmation. And the large distances between many of the stations will introduce their own uncertainties.
[Too bad all the irregularities fade into insignificance as the sample size increases. That is the precise purpose of statistics. But you’re right, denialists will be able to produce a steady stream of “look at that!” bullshit. – Ben]
“Would you look at that!”
http://www.youtube.com/user/edbassmaster#p/u/27/CY7JoqoDvIU
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