Category Archives: I'm not a Climatologist

IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing – as well as a lack of warming to match model projections, and reversal on ‘extreme weather’

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“IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing – as well as a lack of warming to match model projections, and reversal on ‘extreme weather’“ (2012-12-13). What’s this? A GAME-CHANGING revelation about global warming? That’s, like, the tenth time! This one’s gotta stick, right Anthony?

Let’s see… this is a leak by an actual insider IPCC expert! Now that ought to get everyone’s attention! Oh, our expert is just Anthony Watts’ blogging buddy Alex Rawls and his “expertise” consists of being able to promise that he wouldn’t release any of the IPCC AR5 draft text. (Looks like he dropped that ball pretty quick via a bit of self-sainting: “As for my personal confidentiality agreement with the IPCC, I regard that as vitiated by the systematic dishonesty of the report“.) Actual science credentials? Zip. He’s just another denialist nutter who thinks he’s the next Galileo.

But still, he must have found something juicy to break his earnest confidentiality pledge! Wazzit? Here’s the game-changing sentence Alec decided to hang his hat on:

The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link.

Here’s what NewScientist said in covering the tomfoolery:

if Rawls had read a bit further, he would have realised that the report goes on to largely dismiss the evidence that cosmic rays have a significant effect. “They conclude there’s very little evidence that it has any effect”

So the juicy sentence was just a minor aspect of a solar influence discussion (spoiler: the influence is big, obviously, but so invariant as to be irrelevant to modern climate trends). Really, how could there be anything “game-changing” in an IPCC report? It’s freakin’ based on the existing published science!

Is Alec stupid enough to think that a bit of draft text from a scientific summary would be how we suddenly recognise a paradigm shift in climate science? Apparently, yes. Alec also consider’s himself a national hero for bravely blowing his whistle. Both of these beliefs merit a solid whack on the side of the head.

A few other worthwhile comments on the matter:

  • RealClimate – “A review of cosmic rays and climate: a cluttered story of little success”
  • Skeptical Science – “IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun”
  • Scientific American – “Climate deniers used the leak to press their case but the new IPCC report closes the case on a human cause for global warming”
  • NewScientist – “Leaked IPCC report reaffirms dangerous climate change”
  • The Guardian – “Global warming is not due to the sun, confirms leaked IPCC report”

WUWT – helping to educate UEA students on climate

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“WUWT – helping to educate UEA students on climate” (2011-12-04). Gosh, Anthony Watts was “educating” students in a United Arab Emirates [senior moment reversed] University of East Anglia introductory Environment class according to some of the “new” stolen Climategate e-mails! He’s pretty puffed up about it too.

Err, make that “edumacating“. Climate scientists were stunned to learn that a lecturer was using material from university drop-out Anthony Watt’s blog, as well as from his Aussie twin Jo Nova (ask her about the Rothschilds), in his course material. Material which has frequently been shown to either intentionally deceive or be based on scientific ignorance.

Give yourself a pat on the head, but don’t try to rub your tummy at the same time, Anthony. You’re an expert now as long as no-one notices the lecturer’s admission that “I don’t have a grounding in climate science“. All you’ve really done is provide an example of how gullible random Googling can propagate lies and ignorance.

IBD picks up my article on the US cooling trend

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“IBD picks up my article on the US cooling trend” (2011-11-11). Wow, the mainstream media gets it! Anthony Watts has made it to the big time!

Oh, the “IBD” is the Investors Business Daily. Seems they love them some stupid, which makes their Watts-miration quite understandable.

Here’s some tidbits from their deeply scientific editorial Don’t Stop Doubting, mixing Muller-spin with garden-variety denialist chart pumping (an old standby in investor circles too).

The alarmists, of course, leveraged Muller’s statements to suit their agenda.

But Muller’s [conclusion] is not the “consensus” position of the team.

Now comes meteorologist Anthony Watts armed with data showing the continental U.S. has not warmed in the last 10 years

Granted, the Lower 48 aren’t the entire world, [but] ”heat islands” — big cities — [] should be skewing temperature data upward.

we remain skeptics and would be even if [Muller] were right.

Seems oddly emphatic for a subject so far out of their area of expertise. I guess it’s unsurprising that it’s so short on substance too. Still “don’t stop doubting” is good advice even if the IBD editors swallow Anthony’s line in a single gulp (they even think he’s a meteorologist). I know I won’t be taking scientific advice from a stock-picking website.

Why is 20 years statistically significant when 10 years is not?

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“Why is 20 years statistically significant when 10 years is not?” (2011-11-05). Anthony Watts loves a long-winded sneering crank who can slap together reams of irrelevant charts (see Willis Eschenbach). Here he gives us James Padgett, ironically also known as WUWT commenter “Just the Facts”, who asks if PhD climatologists “are smarter than a 5th grader” after implying that climate scientists are only vaguely aware of the sun.

Padgett has a “simple vision” that beats the pants off of all those chrome-domes and their complicated ‘takin’ everything into account’. It’s just the sun, don’t you know! Thus ending Global Warming forever.

The statistical question posed in the post title is, unsurprisingly, never answered. When all is said and done James Padgett has simply gone to great lengths to prove that he’s not “smarter than a 5th grader.” Naturally Anthony’s commenters declare Padgett’s assertions to be “Very, very interesting and important” and rail about the arrogance of them scientists and their studyin’.

You know you’re reading the theories of an utter idiot when Padgett’s opening paragraph is this:

Many of you are aware that the concept of continental drift, proposed by Alfred Wegener, was widely ridiculed by his contemporaries. This reaction was in spite of the very clear visual evidence that the continents could be fit together like a giant puzzle.

Wegener’s theory is a perfect example of that pinnacle of denialist scientific method known as “eyeballing”. Wegener’s theory always had its supporters but wasn’t accepted for 40 years until evidence emerged that explained how the continents had actually moved (although he almost had it right). Just like no-one takes denialist Global Warming “science” seriously because it is utterly unable to explain the observed climate trends with only natural influences.

You do have to admire Padgett’s determined arm-waving though. It’s eye-wateringly hard work pawing through reams of charts, squinting as hard as possible to ignore everything that doesn’t suit his pre-determined conclusion.

Why do denialists make so many contradictory arguments at once? None of them stand up, they’re all merely efforts to distract:

  • The temperature records are wrong / OK, maybe they’re pretty good.
  • It’s not warming / OK, maybe it is warming.
  • The warming has stopped / OK, maybe it hasn’t stopped.
  • It’s not us / OK, maybe it is us.
  • It’s not harmful / OK, maybe it is harmful.
  • It’s not unfixable / OK, maybe “fixing” it would be really difficult.

Sharpen those eyeballs, James, if you want to be more than noise.

High level clouds and surface temperature

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“High level clouds and surface temperature“ (2011-10-06). Anthony Watts thinks that winemaker Erl Happ is S-M-R-T, so he posts his long explanation of why global warming, which isn’t happening, is all because of clouds.

Although tamino has a different opinion of Erl’s science, I’ll just say that I think Erl’s complete quotation of Wordsworth’s poem is the most convincing, and useful, part of his argument.

Next!

New peer reviewed paper: clouds have large negative cooling effect on Earth’s radiation budget

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New peer reviewed paper: clouds have large negative cooling effect on Earth’s radiation budget (2011-09-20). Har, har. The word “feedback” is present in the URL of this post by Anthony, but no longer in the title… This is as close as Anthony gets to admitting he has once again jumped in with both feet, in haste and seeing only the conclusion that suited him.

Anthony’s certain that a new (peer-reviewed!!!!!!) paper by Richard Allan proves, once and for all, that clouds cause climate. So everyone can relax, those scientists were lying all along. Anthony claims that according to the paper:

a combination of satellite observations and models [show] that the cooling effect of clouds far outweighs the long-wave or “greenhouse” warming effect.

When the paper’s author, along with climatologist Bart Verheggen and even Roy Spencer point out that Anthony’s conclusion is not supported by anything in the paper, his fundamental response is a truculent “I saw things differently.” But why should he ‘fess up? Doctrinaire commenters such as ‘Roger Knights’, ‘Tall Bloke’, ‘RockyRoad’, etc will always praise his erroneous interpretation.

Bart asks:

Could you please point out where in this paper it is mentioned that “clouds have large negative-*feedback* cooling effect on Earth’s radiation budget”?

Roy Spencer says, with what must be considerable pain given his ‘my science serves my [denialist] politics’ perspective:

Bart is correct. This paper is not about cloud feedback…it is about the average effect of clouds on the climate system, which the IPCC, Trenberth, Dessler, et al. will all agree is a cooling effect. It is an update of the early estimates from ERBE many years ago.

Richard Allan, the paper author, comments:

I was surprised that this paper was mis-interpreted as suggesting negative cloud feedback. This is a basic error by the author of the post that has been highlighted by many contributors including Roy Spencer.

Even the contrarian Steven Mosher had something interesting to say about the motives of Antony’s “skeptical” supporters (emphasis mine):

it is also fascinating because of what we dont see. usually you will see a whole crew of commeters pounce on the word “model”. This time they didnt.

They didnt because they thought the paper supported spencer. But it was on an entirely different topic. That misunderstanding kinda silenced the usual “models are bad” crew.

Thanks to my commenters for drawing this entertaining post to my attention. It’s a classic example of Anthony’s enthusiastic ignorance. I’ve been overloaded with work and with supporting the recently concluded Toronto International Film Festival and would have missed this…

Bastardi: Science and reality point away, not toward, CO2 as climate driver

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“Bastardi: Science and reality point away, not toward, CO2 as climate driver” (2011-08-12). You know when Joe Bastardi guest-posts on Anthony Watts’ blog you’re in for a chuckle. Here he’s trying to expand on (spin?) his whopper-fest on Fox News a few nights ago.

With the coming Gorathon to save the planet around the corner (Sept 14) , my  stance on the AGW issue has been drawing more ire from those seeking to silence people like me that question their issue and plans. In response, I want the objective reader to hear more about my arguments made in a a brief interview on FOX News as to why I conclude CO2 is not causing changes of climate and the recent flurry of extremes of our planet. I brought up the First Law of Thermodynamics and LeChateliers principle.

“Brought up” in the sense of vomited, I guess. Joe has no clue what the First Law of Thermodynamics is (hey, Joe, the greenhouse effect doesn’t create heat) or LeChatelier’s principle (how a chemical equilibrium responds to changing conditions). In the first paragraph alone of his Fox News commentary everything he says is provably false. Five sentences, five boners. (Thanks tamino for holding your nose long enough to spell it out so clearly.)

After years of smack-downs he’s still pushing the “since 1997″ lie, still trying to fake it. Here’s an example of Joe Science.

The Bastardi supercomputer works overtime providing detailed statistics.

There’s an outraged analysis at Scientific American titled Fox Commentator Distorts Physics, and Climate Progress gives us Joe Bastardi Pulls a Charlie Sheen on Fox News, Pushing “Utter Nonsense” on Climate Science.

Anthony assures us that “a follow up post – more technically oriented will follow sometime next week.” So don’t pick on poor Joe! Presumably his “follow-up” walk back most of his wild errors…

2011-08-16 Update.

Still waiting for Joe’s re-explanation, although he does add his own meandering comment that suggests we wait 30 years to see that he was right all along. Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait scrutinizes Joe’s so-called arguments at Big Picture Science: climate change denial on Fox News.

There are some real whoppers in the Watts Up With That comments, but this early one really caught my attention for self-serving justification (stunned italics mine):

Ryan Maue says:

@Chris_Colose: you have to pick your battles a little better. Joe Bastardi is not an academic researcher but a private sector meteorologist. He is an advocate for his point of view based upon the knowledge he accumulates. He is putting out his opinions for public consumption but there is no accountability implied…

REPLY: Yes, this is the same silly claim that comes up again and again, one one hand when a they lose a point in an argument they’ll claim “but he’s not a climate scientist, so his opinions don’t matter” then when they feel they have the upper hand we’ll hear, “he’s not scientifically rigorous enough, his arguments pale in comparison to our best climate scientists”. – Anthony

So… ignorant or deceitful “advocates” should get a free pass? Also, please show me a climate science argument “won” by someone like Joe, Anthony. Shorter version of Ryan and Anthony’s argument: “We don’t know anything, but every time we flap our gums we win. Unless the other guys cheat.”

2011-08-18 Update.

Climate Progress piles on: Joe Bastardi is ‘Completely Wrong’ and ‘Does Not Understand the Very Basics of the Science’, Climatologists Explain

“Earth itself is telling us there’s nothing to worry about in doubled, or even quadrupled, atmospheric CO2″

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“Earth itself is telling us there’s nothing to worry about in doubled, or even quadrupled, atmospheric CO2″ (June 2, 2011). According to Anthony Watts, Pat Frank writes excellent essays on climate science. The beaming Anthony helpfully offers a new example of his excellence, copy-and-pasted from his echo chamber partners at The Air Vent: ”Future Perfect“, which asserts this comforting “fact”:

Spread the word: the Earth['s] climate sensitivity is 0.090 C/W-m^-2. [This of course begs the question: how did the Earth ever enter or leave an Ice Age in the geological past?]

Anthony Watts and his readers embrace Frank’s dim-witted numerology wish-fulfillment with surprisingly open arms. Frank’s conclusion (based on his intuitive grasp of climatology?) is that all this alleged warming is somehow merely the recovery from the Little Ice Age and that we can pump out as much CO2 as we like.

Once again Excel is put to good use, disproving those dang climatologists and their thinkin’. Nothing like invoking from thin air a “combined cosine function plus a linear trend” to explain everything, without the bother of actually explain anything. If Frank could actually explain why his magic squiggle occurred, he’d actually have something. Sadly, it’s clear that he simply pecked away at Excel until he stumbled across an equation that sort-of matched the historical record.

More of a citizen-scientist’s mind at work: “The rest of the analysis automatically follows.”

Pat Frank discovers that Excel can draw flat lines.

My “technical analysis”: Frank has discovered that if you subtract a bunch of numbers from themselves you get zeros!  You’ll aways get a flat line when you plot a squiggle that’s a pretty close fit to the data and then remove the squiggle.

Tamino at Open Mind lays out how a sentient person might respond to such nonsense, first with the quick double-take post Circle Jerk and in more detail with Frankly, Not.

Some nuggets from the keenly skeptical comments at Anthony’s blog:

  • Andy G55 - ”This is the sort of REAL analysis I love to see. propa science !!! well done, mate !!”
  • Shaun D - ”I agree. This is real science. But I have no idea what it means.”
  • Alan the Brit - ”Sound, common sense, well thought through, & logially applied, so it won’t be published in the MSM then!”
  • Ryan - ”Fantastic post Mr Frank, very plausible and difficult to refute.”

Scientific American’s interview with Dr. Richard Muller

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“Scientific American’s interview with Dr. Richard Muller“ (May 23, 2011). Anthony Watts has long resented Scientific American’s general scientific rationality. Just a few months ago they labelled his blog as a “well-known climate denier site” after-all. However, as we have seen across the popular press, the pretense of “balance” sometimes enables sloppy reporting of controversial topics to allow anti-scientific positions to gather support. Popular support fpr the disproven claim that the MMR vaccine triggers autism offers an excellent example.

Here we find Anthony practically wriggling like a puppy over his mention in Michael Lemonick’s lazy Sci Am interview of physicist Dr. Richard Muller about climate change science.

Both Steve McIntyre and I are mentioned prominently in the article, and once again Dr. Muller thanks us for our contributions to the debate.

Joe Romm at Climate Progress covers the Scientific American article at length, exposing Muller’s statements for their lack of both knowledge and integrity.

The otherwise inactive Dr. Muller injected himself into the Global Warming debate when he started the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project. Denialists licked their chops at the thought of a temperature reconstruction that appeared impartial but came from a politically aligned source, but howled of betrayal when Dr. Muller’s first analysis reluctantly confirmed the existing science.

Still, Dr. Muller enthusiastically embraces the irrelevant nitpicking of citizen-scientists such as Steve McIntyre (contradicted in Scientific American itself back in 2009 “Novel Analysis Confirms Climate ‘Hockey Stick’ Graph“) and freely libels both long-standing climate experts such as Dr. Michael Mann and commentators such as Al Gore. Muller acknowledges the existence of “denialists” but fails to name any so it’s hard to know just how crazy you have to be for Muller to step back. You’re safe, Anthony!

It’s probably nothing*

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“It’s probably nothing*“. Anthony Watts tries to slide another stupid “Snow! Somewhere!” post by as just a little “humor“. Apparently busy denialist copy-and-paster Tom Nelson noted that there was lots (41 inches) of ice in Nenana, Alaska (which is in the Arctic you know) on April 21st this year. But the ice was all gone by that date in 1940! Therefore global cooling.

Nenana has held an annual draw to guess the date of spring breakup on the Tanana River for a century now, and this is Anthony’s new gold standard for global climate data.

Like most northern rivers, the Tanana’s spring ice breakup is almost entirely dependent on flow volume during the spring run-off. The ice broke up, at a thickness of 39″, just four days after this astonishing climate evidence was presented. Also at 64°N Nenana is below the Arctic Circle.

Willis Eschenbach accidentally undermines Anthony's "humor".

Anthony’s teammate Willis Eschenbach creates the real punchline by inserting a chart (above) that shows that ice break up on the Tanana River is clearly trending to earlier dates. Or maybe he just can’t understand his own work.

I guess Anthony’s readers aren’t subtle enough to follow Anthony’s attempt at humor; they’re reacting with stolid earnestness.