Tag Archives: Misdirection

Oh noes! Sea level rising three times faster than expected (again)

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“Oh noes! Sea level rising three times faster than expected (again)“. (May 2, 2011) Anthony Watts tells us that a Danish newspaper article about sea-level rise is another crazy warmist exaggeration. How can expected sea-level rise suddenly be three times higher than earlier predictions? Also, the article photo has a funny-looking foreigner wearing a beret in it. Chuckle with superiority and don’t think about it too much I guess.

The Danish newspaper article (Anthony apparently follows Azerbaijan news closely, as that’s what he links to) says:

Sea levels were estimated to rise between 0.9 and 1.6 metres by the year 2100 according to the findings by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), cited by Danish daily Politiken, DPA reported.

These are not new numbers. When a newspaper covers this topic these estimates will be present as even Anthony’s 2009 Google search screen capture shows. The IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) estimate of 0.3m to 0.9m has long been considered too cautious. Perhaps Anthony thinks that newspapers should only write about something once? He’s free to repeat his misinformation ad nauseam though I guess, because he digs straight in and sticks to a favorite theme.

Anthony’s rebuttal is to talk about the rate of current sea-level rise (what, it’s rising? Oops) while pretending to disprove predicted sea-level rise by 2100. Just one of the many dull-witted misdirections he’s been performing for years. Unfortunately it only works for heads already bouncing up and down in agreement.

Anthony turns to his sea-level citizen-scientist, Willis Eschenbach, for what passes for confirmation (yes, my eyes roll too when I see that name). OMG it’s true, sea-level rise probably isn’t accelerating at the moment! In fact if you cross your eyes and decide that two years is a meaningful period of time, you can even pretend it’s sort of slowing down. Global warming, which wasn’t happening, is over! Stock up on blankets and woolly socks!

A plot of sea-level rise anomaly, not sea-level.

Of course sea-level is still, you know, rising.

Help asked for Dr. Tim Ball in legal battle with Dr. Mann

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Help asked for Dr. Tim Ball in legal battle with Dr. Mann. I’ve started dipping back into the putrid dung heap that is the archives of Anthony Watts’ blog and came across this recent plea by Sky Dragon Co-Slayer John O’Sullivan. Anthony Watts naturally professes to “have no dog in this fight.” Neither do all the other denialist blogs singing along in beautiful harmony.

Dr. Michael Mann has sued Dr. Tim Ball, ”a 72-year-old pensioner”, for libel. He’s also suing the right-wing think tank Frontier Centre for Public Policy, which is probably also a 72-year-old pensioner. That’s not just mean, that’s double-mean!

After all, isn’t poor victimized Dr. Ball “widely recognized as one of Canada’s first qualified climate scientists”? [Not a chance. He's a geography professor who left the University of Manitoba in 1996. Here's his rap sheet.] Maybe he’s just a caught-out liar who readily turns to puffed up legal threats against his critics.

Judge for yourself of course but this is how the nut-jobs at the graphic arts crime scene called the Canada Free Press blog (who are curiously fixated on how much longer Barack Hussein Obama will be the President of the United States) recently defended him on a similar matter:

Retraction
Apology to Dr. Andrew Weaver
By Canada Free Press  Thursday, January 20, 2011

On January 10, 2011, Canada Free Press began publishing on this website an article by Dr. Tim Ball entitled “Corruption of Climate Change Has Created 30 Lost Years” which contained untrue and disparaging statements about Dr. Andrew Weaver, who is a professor in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.

Contrary to what was stated in Dr. Ball’s article, Dr. Weaver: (1) never announced he will not participate in the next IPCC; (2) never said that the IPCC chairman should resign; (3) never called for the IPCC’s approach to science to be overhauled; and (4) did not begin withdrawing from the IPCC in January 2010.

As a result of a nomination process that began in January, 2010, Dr. Weaver became a Lead Author for Chapter 12: “Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility” of the Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC.”  That work began in May, 2010.  Dr. Ball’s article failed to mention these facts although they are publicly-available.

Dr. Tim Ball also wrongly suggested that Dr. Weaver tried to interfere with his presentation at the University of Victoria by having his students deter people from attending and heckling him during the talk.  CFP accepts without reservation there is no basis for such allegations.

CFP also wishes to dissociate itself from any suggestion that Dr. Weaver “knows very little about climate science.”  We entirely accept that he has a well-deserved international reputation as a climate scientist and that Dr. Ball’s attack on his credentials is unjustified.

CFP sincerely apologizes to Dr. Weaver and expresses regret for the embarrassment and distress caused by the unfounded allegations in the article by Dr. Ball.

But reading John O’Sullivan’s spoon-fed “interview” one can’t help but conclude that a vicious liberal-environmentalist climate conspiracy is unquestionably trying to punish Dr. Ball, honorable truth-speaker, through the courts. Any money he received from oil companies was “accidental“. The only real error that he made, charmingly central to his accusations, was an “honest” one. And by gosh he’s terribly worried about “the credibility of science in general”.

I urge Dr. Ball’s courageous supporters to keep those donations rolling in. I sense that there’s so much more on-the-record entertainment ahead.

On “Trap-Speed”, ACC and the SNR

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On “Trap-Speed”, ACC and the SNR. Anthony Watts gives us a guest post by William McClenney, a geologist and “environmental consultant”. He tells us, at tiresome length, that things have happened quickly in the past so who cares if they happen again? So what if they caused civilizations to collapse? We R smart now.

Skeptical or constipated?

Is there a signal in McClenney’s noise? I don’t think it’s worth the effort to find out. Arrogant geologists love to invoke poorly characterized ancient events to dismiss anything happening in the modern world. Whatever.

Warmest year ever? – 2010: An Unexceptional El Nino Year

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“Warmest year ever? – 2010: An Unexceptional El Nino Year“. Anthony Watts kindly re-posts ’Global Warming Policy Foundation’ lobbyist David Whitehouse’s comical cherry-picking of evidence that 2010 wasn’t so warm after-all. Surprisingly, The Daily Mail is naturally taking our pet right-wing lobbyist at face value.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the lack of warming seen in the global average annual temperatures seen in the last decade has changed.

Hmmm. If you play the usual bogus denialist statistical mis-representation and ignore all the natural contributions that have been tending towards cooling. And then add in a comparison of individual months to cherry-picked years. This is eye-rollingly stupid/dishonest.

“No, no” say the commenters, “we’re on the cusp of an ice-age!” They also declare, standing with a dripping brush in their hand, that them durn climatologisters have painted themselves into a corner. Somehow.

Does Hadley Centre Sea Surface Temperature Data (HADSST2) Underestimate Recent Warming?

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“Does Hadley Centre Sea Surface Temperature Data (HADSST2) Underestimate Recent Warming?“. Anthony Watts knows that the politicians meeting in Cancun next week to discuss climate issues need the best scientific advice, so he’s gonna make sure its available to them, protected by a mountain of bullshit.

Here’s a chart from Bob Tisdale that Anthony wants you to look at and see a villainous adjustment in 1998 to make temperatures look hotter. But its a difference plot between two temperature sets, and all it shows is that when the newer sea surface temperature measurement methods replaced the older ones they slightly underestimated sea surface temperature correction.

Bob Tisdale's plot of the difference between the HADSST2 sea surface temperature measurements and the HADISST satellite measurements. The step "up" represents an overcorrection and hence an underestimate of true SST.

New discovery may lead to a malaria vaccine

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“New discovery may lead to a malaria vaccine“. This will make Indur Goklany happy, because malaria is what we should really be focussed on, right? Anthony Watts got so worked up on that comment thread that he banned a critic that he’s still trying to argue around.

Why did Anthony and so many of his commenters feel the need to co-opt Rachael Carson? The comments in this post still talk about “the lies of Rachael Carson”, claim that Carson was “a Malthusian” and continue to compare her to Hitler. Was she Al Gore’s mother? Hilarious.

So Australian scientists have identified how the malaria parasite to attach to and enter red blood cells. Excellent development, but it doesn’t change the fact that Anthony and Indur have enthusiastically milked the distraction of malaria and DDT use for their own ideological purposes.

Sorry, no get out of jail free card for you Anthony. Way too much recidivism.

Wasted Opportunities

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“Wasted Opportunities“. Thomas Fuller steps up to the plate for Anthony Watts again. He thinks it’s a shame that so much effort has gone into renewable energy sources: solar, wind and biofuels (no love for hydro or tidal?). We should be using cogeneration! Ah, if only we all lived beside a power plant.

Oh, wait, we are using cogeneration! 7% of energy in the US, even more in some Scandinavian countries. So, Thomas’ point is what exactly? Use more somehow? He also claims cogeneration ”gets little attention from environmentalists”, but doesn’t really put much effort into the accusation. This post is just Fuller filler.

Where Consensus Fails – The Science Cannot Be Called ‘Settled’

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“Where Consensus Fails – The Science Cannot Be Called ‘Settled’“. Anthony Watts gives us another entertaining guest post by his Steven Goddard replacement, Thomas Fuller. Thomas tells us that back in 2008 Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch surveyed 379 “climate scientists” online. How would you answer a question like: “Some scientists present extreme accounts of catastrophic impacts related to climate change in a popular format with the claim that it is their task to alert the public. How much do you agree with this practice?” Well, you’re obviously a smart scientist who knows that AGW is all made-up!

To quote the report itself “The survey employed a non-probability convenience sample.” This is a sort of admission that the survey is completely untrustworthy. Just the kind of evidence Anthony Watts finds the most useful.

By the way, who is it that keeps claiming that believers in AGW say that “the science is settled”? Denialists do, that’s who, so they can claim imaginary victories over a straw-man. Informed participants know that we are constantly learning more about the historical evidence and mechanisms of Global Warming. It’s just that what we learn keeps agreeing with the AGW proposition…

Wood fired power plants help reduce climate change

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“Wood fired power plants help reduce climate change“. Anthony Watts has read a press release from the University of Manchester titled How heating our homes could help reduce climate change and thinks we can burn our way to a lower CO2 emissions. No need to change anything else to solve Global Warming. Which isn’t happening.

Um, this is really a report of biomass-fueled district heating concepts. Biomass sequesters and then releases carbon in a repeating cycle, so it’s inherently “neutral” in climate terms if processing, transport and power generation are efficient enough.

“Fossil” fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas were sequestered millions of years ago and completely removed from the natural carbon cycle. When they are extracted and consumed their carbon, in the form of CO2 is released back into the environment with what a “consensus” of scientists would describe as pronounced and measurable impacts on the Earth’s climate.

Surprise: Peer reviewed study says current Arctic sea ice is more extensive than most of the past 9000 years

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“Surprise: Peer reviewed study says current Arctic sea ice is more extensive than most of the past 9000 years“. A blogger discovers a paleoclimate paper by McKay, et.al. in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences from 2008 and Anthony Watts is on it like white on rice. “Peer reviewed!” “More ice now than ever!” “Natural!!!!”

Oh, it’s only referring to a bit of the western Arctic. Oh, they’re only comparing to Arctic Sea Ice extent of a decade ago, when there was in fact rather more sea ice. Oh, they aren’t suggesting that such low ice extents were common. Oh, dinocyst proxies are a bit dodgy. Oh, the paper is merely titled Holocene fluctuations in Arctic sea-ice cover: dinocyst-based reconstructions for the eastern Chukchi Sea, not “there’s more ice than ever now!”