Monthly Archives: April 2010

Earth gives us an Earth Day present: Arctic sea ice is highest for this date in 9 years

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“Earth gives us an Earth Day present: Arctic sea ice is highest for this date in 9 years“. An “Earth Day” post from Anthony Watts. Apparently the planet loves us polluting it, so it’s laid on some extra Arctic sea ice as a token of its affection (on one interpretation anyway). Well actually the Arctic sea ice is still less than “normal”, but it’s something right?

Weather is not climate Anthony, this sea ice is residual from the unusual Arctic cold snap in March. Also half-wit humor is not science, although it is entertaining to watch the attempt.

Earth Day must be quite galling for Anthony and his buddies, they have a deep resentment of environmental activism. Don’t tell them what to do!

By the way, did you know that Earth Day is also Lenin’s birthday? Anthony’s readers all do…

Mann 2008 a Victim of Sudden Oak Death?

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“Mann 2008 a Victim of Sudden Oak Death?” Anthony Watts is eager to join the new round of uninformed nit-picking over tree ring chronologies. He posts some comments from Canadian sourpuss Steve McIntyre on the subject, quote-mining various news reports. Otherwise, his contribution is a Star Trek and Peanuts graphic and a link to a whack-a-mole copy of the Dr. Mann “spoof” video.

Dr. Mike Baillie of Queen’s University in Belfast has stated that the oak tree ring data he is being forced to release is not useful for temperature proxies, but the infamous Dr. Mann uses some oak ring data in his hated “hockey stick” temperature reconstruction. This clearly proves that the “hockey stick” is a lie! Or something. If you ignore all the other data.

Wait, do Anthony or McIntyre have any idea why Dr. Mann included this data in his reconstruction? Um, no. Doesn’t seem to stop them from complaining though, does it?

In Defense Of The Met Office

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“In Defense Of The Met Office“. A moment of rationality from a denialist. Steven Goddard knows just enough about volcanoes to know that they are unpredictable. So flying near them is a bad idea, especially in the middle of an ocean with no safety options. He supports the UK’s Met Office decision to close their airspace until now. Get a load of this quote from Steven (italics mine):

The modelers and the people in charge of decision making have to be conservative.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if he applied the same thought process to climate change? Sadly, I don’t think that will ever happen.

Second Mann spoof video removed

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“Second Mann spoof video removed“. Anthony Watts says that “Somebody just can’t handle satire.” I think the real problem is that somebody is determined to slander a scientist.

But fear not, another ambitiously named astroturf outfit called “Minnesota Majority” has popped up, Whack-A-Mole style, to re-post it.

This reminds me of watching drunken streakers at a college football game.

[Funny, the “Minnesota Majority”, springing to the defense of “Minnesotans For Global Warming” has the same principals. Astroturf puffery.]

Guardian Continues To Spread Misinformation About Eyjafjallajokull

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“Guardian Continues To Spread Misinformation About Eyjafjallajokull“. Self-important non-volcanologist Steven Goddard tries to use an error in the reporting about the CO2 released from the erupting Eyjafjallajokull volcano to repeat the disproved denialist meme that human CO2 output is insignificant (“we know that plants, soil and the oceans generate 30 times as much CO2 as all fossil fuel burning combined“).

Let’s just stop here for a moment and remember that the “plants, soil and the oceans” are part of the active carbon cycle. Barring human intervention, they are effectively in balance. Fossil fuel CO2 output is not counteracted. That, in a nutshell, is the bloody problem! Steven’s deliberately repeating a denialist deceit.

Some of the original reporting incorrectly listed the volcano’s CO2 output as 15,000 tonnes/day, and compared it to the daily 206,465 tonnes of CO2 that would normally be generated by the canceled transatlantic flights. It turns out that the correct estimate of the volcano’s CO2 output should have been 150,000 tonnes, possibly ranging up to 300,000.

So the media got this a bit wrong at first. Damn them! Of course this is just irrelevant whining as far as the climate change debate goes.

It’s interesting to note that the daily CO2 emissions of transatlantic flights alone are equivalent to a continuous full-on volcanic eruption, isn’t it?

Solar Dynamics Observatory – STUNNING first images and movies

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“Solar Dynamics Observatory – STUNNING first images and movies“. No argument from me on this one…

SDO First Images - Full Disk Multicolor. Source: NASA.

http://www.nasa.gov/sdo Go there!

Not a joke: Gore’s “Inconvenient Youth”

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Not a joke: Gore’s “Inconvenient Youth” Anthony Watts ‘subtly’ alludes to the Hitler Youth when talking about a training program called “Inconvenient Youth” that Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection has initiated.

Just a copy and paste of the press release with a few poorly thought-out comments appended, like this sneer about a vegetable oil-powered VW seen in a video clip. It “still produces CO2 when the oil is burned.” The difference, of course, is that vegetable oil is carbon neutral because it is derived from a component (plants!)of the active carbon cycle. CO2 released by coal or petroleum has been sequestered from the carbon cycle for millions of years.

Oh and don’t buy Apple products, because Al Gore is on their Board of Directors!

Airlines Blame Flawed Computer Modelling For Up To $1.7 Billion Loss

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“Airlines Blame Flawed Computer Modelling For Up To $1.7 Billion Loss“. Anthony Watts rounds up some like-minded comments about the impact of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption. Apparently gubmints are ruining everything and computer models are all flawed.

The IATA, a lobby group for the airline industry, would have preferred to roll the dice and keep flying through the ash clouds from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland. The astroturf Global Warming Policy Foundation says ‘right on, them gubmits can’t tell us what to do!’

The GWFP is actually just co-opting this topic to declare that they want “to bring reason, integrity and balance to a climate debate that has become seriously unbalanced, irrationally alarmist, and all too often depressingly intolerant”. We have to “balance between risk and reward“, in this instance, the airline’s profits versus their passenger’s lives. Just like coal and oil company profits have to be ‘balanced’.

The dangers of flying through an ash cloud. Source: BBC News.

What’s happening in the air? The criticized Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modelling Environment (NAME) has been updated with new safety thresholds based on better detection and risk assessments. Commercial flight has resumed with much smaller “no-fly” zones.

Denialists are trying to paint this as another example of a computer modeling failure, but the system, which accurately modeled the ash dispersion, has simply been updated with better risk analysis.

Solar Dynamics Observatory first light images to be released today

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“Solar Dynamics Observatory first light images to be released today“. A NASA press release. The denialist line will undoubtably be to only trust observations from this new satellite, so we’ll have to wait for at least 100 years before we can have enough information to act.

Here’s the SDO’s dedicated NASA website.

Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite subsystems. Source: NASA.

Prominent Climategate Figure Threatens Lawsuit over Spoof Video – No Cap-and-Trade Coalition Says “Bring it on”

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Prominent Climategate Figure Threatens Lawsuit over Spoof Video – No Cap-and-Trade Coalition Says “Bring it on” This is a funny one, especially because Anthony Watts’ buddy “Charles the Moderator” has done the posting (read to the end). I’m left wondering – is Dr. Mann thin-skinned or are these guys just stupid?

First act: “Minnesotans for Global Warming” (M4GW) create a video that they posted on YouTube called Hide the Decline that defames Dr. Michael Mann with baseless accusations that he falsified climate data. The video also infringes on copyright and exploits Dr. Mann’s image without permission. Pretty much a legal slam-dunk for Dr. Mann. Usually these slimy things are brushed off, but this time Dr. Mann had his lawyers act on the matter as Rush Limbaugh had begun promoting it. M4GW knew they’d been caught out and immediately caved in, but of course the defamatory video had already spread far and wide and had lodged itself in the thoughts of the feeble-minded.

Hilarity! In a defamatory kind of way.

Second act: “Little guy” M4GW turns out to be a limb of the astroturf operation No Cap and Trade, “an alliance of organizations concerned about the devastating impact that a cap-and-trade scheme could have on American families, businesses and the faltering US economy.” They’ve staged a media event, complete with dancing mascots, to announce that they’ve posted the original defamatory video as well as a revised version that presumably substitutes a malicious caricature for the images of Dr. Mann. Why “presumably”? Go to the third act…

Third Act: YouTube pulls the No Cap and Trade version because of different copyright violation charge by JibJab Media.

Oops.

Denouement: Why didn’t Anthony post this himself? Well he’s been on the wrong end of a copyright violation accusation before, hasn’t he? See this Climate Crock of the Week video and related coverage at Climate Progress.