I love this – it’s such a useful shibboleth. Anyone who says anything like this immediately identifies themselves as weak minded and easily led. As everyone knows, or should know, the last decade was warmer than every decade preceding it, in every global temperature data set.

To start to get an idea of where he’s gone wrong, “Chris Smith” could have a look at this:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/SkepticsvRealists_500.gif

[YAUA - Yet Another Unsubstantiated Assertion. - Ben]

[Hah! You didn't refute my statement that you're a clown! By your rules, you are thus forever labeled. - Ben]

Neener-neener-neener, you lost, hahaha.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/20/the-berkeley-earth-surface-temperature-project-puts-pr-before-peer-review/

This stance seems to change week-by-week, though. There seems to be a rotating cycle of arguments ranging from it isn’t warming, to warming wouldn’t be bad, warming is occurring but due solely to various natural causes, etc. Notice the consistently negative political attitude towards those that propose solutions and the policies themselves. Notice the consistently negative pattern against the well-established evidence for warming caused by CO2 emissions. Notice that many of the hypotheses advertised on WUWT are in contradiction with one another, though this does not seem to matter so long as the hypotheses obscure the evidence for CO2 caused warming.

Notice that your opinions are in direct conflict with the evidence analyzed by the National Academy of Science in the USA and much of the developed world.
http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf

Now, this may be a lot to process since your worldview likely doesn’t want to process it, but take a look at the NAS assessment. Have a good one.

You do not deny that there has been no global warming for the past decade or so. Thanks for that admission.

How many more decades of “no warming” with increasing CO2 emissions would it take before you reject the AGW hypothesis? 2? 3? 5? 10? 20? Seriously, at what stage would you consider rejected the hypothesis? if you are a scientist then you will not mind answering the question.

[Are you so stupid that you think the climate debate boils down to a version of "Simon says"? I have to refute every fool thing you say or it gets declared true? What a waste of breath engaging with you. - Ben]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Glieck was thinking this all along.

“When the über green California Academy of Sciences pulls the plug, you know “climate change” is a dead issue with the public.”

Get it? “climate change is a dead issue with the planet”. This is not the same as writing “this proves that there is no Global Warming.”

He is saying that it shows that Climate Change is a dead issue with the public, not that it shows that there is no Global Warming. Although there has not been any global warming, as you know, for the last decade or so.

[So you buy Anthony's attempt to equate a mundane exhibit change with political victory for denialism? That is such lame-ass cherry-picking. Is the 'no warming in a decade' thing some kind of Tourette's? Or just a back-handed admission that you're a clown. - Ben]

Phil Clarke says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
February 20, 2012 at 2:59 pm

You might want to check the sign of your ‘money quote’ against the paper.

You might want also to refresh your memories of the definition of mass balance (hint – check the units).

You might want also to compare this result with the IPCC projection.

Yet another embarrassing own goal. Watts clearly doesn’t get that surface mass balance already has a time element, so no trend merely means no trend in the trend. Doh. A commenter helps him out:

Surface Mass Balance (SMB) is not the same thing as mass balance.

Mr. Watts, I believe that you are misinterpreting what this paper says.

For reference, the lead author is also a co-author on the 2011 GRL paper, “Acceleration of the contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to sea level rise”. Monaghan is also a c-author on this paper. If you read this paper ( http://ess.uci.edu/researchgrp/velicogna/files/rignot_etal_grl2011.pdf ) you may better understand the difference between mass balance and surface mass balance (SMB), which is clearly discussed on the first page.

Oh and these results, I think, are ‘worse’ than the IPCC projection which projected an accumulation that would mitigate sea level rise.

Oh, and Watts gets the sign on his money quote wrong.

Well up to the usual standard.

Going from the comments section at Real Climate or Sketical Science to what these guys say is like going from a university classroom to an elementary school, where little kids are giving their theories on how babies are made.

[Those comments will some day be recognized as a psychological treasure trove of bluster, paranoia and self-delusion. As John Cleese has remarked, the truly stupid are incapable of recognizing their condition. - Ben]

Our fellow Canadian Donna Laframboisse sums it up best. Either oil money is bad in funding the climate science debate or its not. And yeah, size matters.

http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/02/17/big-oil-money-for-me-but-not-for-thee/

Maybe a counter blog of nofrokkingconsensus is in order?

[I think she's off her meds is all. Way off. - Ben]

I’m going to steal that.

It represents a mere 0.033% of the Earth’s atmosphere and is referred to by warmists as a “greenhouse gas.”

So Tony is back to publishing greenhouse gas deniers. Colour me surprised.

Sorry Ben, your fantasies will not be taken into evidence.

[Awesome comeback! But wouldn't it have been better to provide a supporting example? - Ben]

Me, I wonder, he appears to be truly ignorant of the “Striesand Effect“!

John Mashey has found something is not quite right with Heartland’s senior consultant S Fred Singer too!

I find it a bit ironic that Microsoft now links itself to a denialati anti-science institute with questionable activity concerning it’s tax free status hell bent on dumbing down education in the US!

Climate Crocks ‘DeniaGate’ – Get it all here.

“Killing the dog does not cure the bite.” Abraham Lincoln

All/most emails from Climate “science” related institutions both internal and external (as far as I am aware from my traffic) now contain a warning at the end, essentially warning the recipients not to say anything in the emails that they would not like to see become public due to the FOIA.

It’s a bit like when the Sopranos gang use a public pay-phone to discuss “business” rather than their cellphones. [Nice smear. - Ben]

“Hey, Paulie did you wac…” … “hey Tone, go to the payphone on the corner of… and we can discuss that thing you asked me to do”.

“hey. [your fav climate scientist] did you arbitraily pick som…”, “hey [your second fav climate scientist], use your private email registered in Switzerland under a fake id and we can discuss making stuff go up when actually it is not. By the way, did you buy that Carbon Trading stock like I said? Looks like that 2011/2012 NH winter is gonna be the warmest on record when we are through with the analysis. No snow. Nada.” “[your fav climate scientist] he, he, he, winkedy wink….” [Sorry, your fantasies will not be taken into evidence. - Ben]

‘From my perspective, it is almost if the person(s) looking at these said “we need more to get attention” and decided to create this document as the “red meat” needed to incite a response.’

To which I reply, “Hide the decline! Hide the decline! Hide the decline!”

[Who'd a thunk that Anthony would pick a conclusion and cast about for reasons to support it? Or that his independent-thinking readers would grasp the same straw like a long-lost relative? - Ben]

[Exactly. Anthony's the tail, not the dog. - Ben]

I just wanted to comment on some old post.

[Funny, the denialists were having none of that when it suited them, were they. - Ben]

Aw come on Dave. Watts is so ugly not even the blowflies will go near him.

As for the news about rock-ape Carter? Delicious!

What’s more interesting is that:

• The mysterious Anonymous Donor donated more than half of Heartland’s revenues in 2010. Big no-no there. (Apparently snorey over at deepclimate believes that AD = Barre Seid).
• Craig Idso gets nearly $140K for producing the laughable NIPCC reports. Anthony and his commenters bitch and moan about scientists making money hand over fist (conveniently ignoring the fact that every penny of scientific grants is accounted for; that US scientists on the 9-month system can only pay themselves at their university rate for the extra 3 months; and that IPCC authors are not remunerated for their efforts). But $140K for the NIPCC? No problem
• The list of corporate donors is extensive, and they are already starting to distance themselves from their donations.

His best course of action IMO is to throw Heartland under the bus, give back the money, apologize profusely for succumbing to greed in accepting it in the first place, and beg for forgiveness. Everyone admires the person who humbly admits guilt and takes whatever lumps they have coming like a man. Nobody admires the equivocator, the cover-up, or the person who says the other side does worse things like two wrongs make a right.

Sure Watts didn’t get as much money as Al Gore makes in a 10-minute appearance but taking any amount of money makes them both prostitutes it’s just a matter of which one can command a higher payment for services rendered. It’s either the smarter or prettier one that makes the most coin and Watts ain’t any more handsome than Gore so that eliminates one of the two possibilities…

[I think in this context Anthony is the wearer of the little blue dress... His claim to the 'high ground' was never more than pretence anyway. As for Al Gore, everything he does is above board and ethically consistent, so I have not problem with his political activities. - Ben]

Tony also seems sensitive today. My innocent comment that he like Idso, Carter, Singer et al were bought and (squirrel) sold was censored. No free speech for Tony.

John McManus

[Not firing on all cylinders today, is he? Of course Anthony never censors, so I have to deduct points from your entertaining "Up" reference.. - Ben]

Fact is that the alarmists have been saying that global warming catastrophe is just around the corner all through the 1990′s and the 2000′s. When we see record snow and cold, after having been told that we can expect mild winters and no snow due to AGW, we do have to wonder… when is it coming? Don’t you? Do you ever wonder whether you might be wrong? The alarmist predictions are being pushed further out, simulations to 2100 recently.

“Mild winters with no/very little snow in the UK” has been a part of the prediction that the alarmists have been making and talking about in the press for decades. Therefore, it is not strange for us to state that extremely cold winters with lots of snow goes against their hypothesis. It’s not as though this is an isolated cold winter either. If they did not want us to mention extreme winters with snow as a point against their hypothesis then perhaps they should not have published articles stating that such is in line with their hypothesis.

It is a fair point you make though, about my needle brain. It is comforted by out-of-sample empirical evidence which backs my view point. Guess I should stop looking at the empirical facts and focus on reconstructed temperatures from an arbitrary blend of ice-core, tree ring, thermometer and satellite data, all adjusted to suit my investments in Carbon Trading related enterprises?

[So you're digging through random media articles for something to confirm your biases and choosing to treat actual scientific research as corrupt? Time to pat you on the head and send you back to the padded room. - Ben]

One of these is the new ‘Hide the Decline’. But which one?

[Astounding. What hypocrisy, what deceit. I'll post on this one. - Ben]

Much obliged for this work. Please do keep it up. Mr Watts has certainly been in need of a more exposure and evaluation. If you have a minute, drop in at http://www.pathstoknowledge.com/discussion and scan the “Climate Change” forum. We have a poster who has adopted Anthony Watts and Stephen McIntyre as his honorary same-sex parents. The level of hero worship that Watts collects from a certain societal subset is astounding. I can’t help but think there’s some sort of resonance factor at play…

Bet those Serbs are extremely worried about the prospect of a 1 degree C rise in the global temperature, perhaps, maybe, 50 years from now!

[Who'd a thunk that you, of all people, would be unable to extract your record needle brain from that deep and comfortable "cold weather, somewhere, means no global warming ever" groove. I'll see your dunce cap insight and raise it: Walking in a warmest-winter wonderland. - Ben]

[Thanks for your perspicacious observations. - Ben]

Howzabout “Good troll/Bad troll” button? In that case, put me down as “Bad Troll!”

[I'm with you on that one, I'm not sure the thumbs capture the nuances of intelligent debate. Denialist tactics exploit this lack of nuance. - Ben]

The Bad Astronomer…….Phil Plait, in his Jan 30th blogpost ["While temperatures rise, denialists reach lower"] challenged the Jan 27 WSJ op ed: “No Need to Panic About Global Warming.”
He cites Skeptical Science’s Escalator graph blogpost to refute the “lack of global warming for well over 10 years now.”
He includes the static part of the dynamic Escalator graph, apparently for another reason:
“In my post about the WSJ and [Daily Mail] I included a graph. It pretty clearly shows temperature rising from 1973 to the present. And this is where the fun begins” Phil Plait, Feb2nd

Bill Briggs……….is the originator of this WUWT embarrassment. He was unsuccessful (on a large scale) in criticizing an irrelevancy, the graph.

Greg Laden has the best overall coverage of this story.

Tamino provides reassurance for those of us who generally speed read statistical details. Yet balk when Briggs describes an average of temperature data as a ‘model’. And brings error bars into such a discussion.
Anyone who spends time on the WUWT watch will soon develop the ability, and confidence, to recognize when somethin is wrong. But we still want an expert’s confirmation when we wonder if something is really as looney as it seems.

Anthony Watts’…….contribution is to use this sad blogpost as his refutation of the 19+ challenges to the WSJ op ed.
Even though it’s readily obvious that Phil Plait’s text never refers to the graph.

Phil Plait deserves the last word (from Feb 2nd).

“Think of it this way: if my argument hinged on that graph, and I removed it, my argument would have no foundation, correct? It would change the tenor of the entire blogpost.

“Go look at my article. If you remove that graph ffom it, what changes? Nothing. My main point–that the WSJ and [Daily Mail] articles are wrong, that we have lots of evidence the Earth is warming up, that 9 of the 10 hottest years on record occurred since the year 2000…–still stands.

“So even if that graph is wrong and misrepresents what I’m saying–which it does not–it doesn’t matter. In fact, I used that graph as an illustration, to show how we’re warming up. I never intended it to be the basis for the argument I was making, just a way of further showing it. If you read the actual words I wrote, including the links to many, many articles backing up my position, you’s see that Briggs has not refuted a single actual point I made.”

[I think I missed a bit. Could you repeat it in ALL CAPS? - Ben]

What is Watts so afraid of?

Hadfield would be smart to ignore him and respond through a video. Either way Monckton’s leigons are going to ignore the response so there is no point playing Watts’ game.

-> [ insert infantile come back from baby Ben here ]

[Yawn. Self-delusion and wish-fulfillment. Why do you crave our attention? - Ben]

Anthony has a very wide audience, and with his hit rate does not need to try to appeal to anybody. His judgement is sound. What about the characters in the Climate gate emails? Were they exercising good judgement? By the way, did you read all of the Climate Gate II emails yet?

[I love how you tell a joke! - Ben]

PS A list of very questionable fuzzy logic posts by Alec, at WUWT can be found here ;- http://wattsupwiththat.com/author/alecrawls/

It also appeared that he sued the State of California in 1987, as he didn’t meet the state’s legal minimum requirement to be an elected Sheriff.

I do believe, those who suffer from fixed delusions, to them, their perceptions and interpretations of events make perfect sense, and everyone else is crazy, irrational, ignorantly unconcerned or part of the conspiracy.

Oh well, the crazies are truly crawling out of the woodwork at Anthony’s place, that be for sure!

Epic Face Palm first class