“Visualizing Changes In Arctic Ice Since the 2007 Record Low“. Steven Goddard says that the Arctic sea ice extent is about one million square km larger now than it was at the 2007 low point, but has no choice but to mutter “weather” as the explanation for it.
Curiously, his graphic is hosted on a blog called Climate Insiders, which appears to be a private denialist coordination point. The Denialist “Team” conspiracy is revealed! Or is it just Steven trying to start his own clubhouse?
“Climate Craziness of the Week: British lawyer urges UN to accept ‘ecocide’ as international crime on par with genocide“. Oooh, Anthony Watts hates a do-gooder. Especially if he can link them to the secret world government, one of the many tentacles of which is known to you and I as “The Club of Rome”. Evil! Evil!
There’s a Guardian article about the proposal that has been submitted to the UN.
What’s wrong with industries being required to compensate for the environmental damage that results from their activities? It’s basic Capitalism that the cost of goods should be based on the cost of production. Otherwise, someone’s stealing from someone else.
Or is the principle that nothing should be allowed to get in the way of a business’ profit? I get it muddled up sometimes.
“My Thanks and Comments for Dr. Walt Meier“. Now it’s Willis Eschenbach’s turn to pick at Dr. Walt Meier’s response to Willis’ “questionnaire”. This is just the trap that Willis hoped to spring on Dr. Meier. After some self-congratulatory remarks about civil discussion and the like, he can now nit-pick, throw out cherry-picked counter examples, argue over word choices, casually repeat denialist memes, and generally posture and enjoy the superficial connection to a “real scientist”.
Dr. Meier finds the denialist welcome depicted in this stock photo used at WUWT contains a surprise.
This goes on for about 7300 words. Two points from his “conclusions” bear comment:
1. Reading Dr. Meier’s answers to the questions has been very interesting and very productive for me. It has helped to identify where the discussion goes off the rails. [Implying that it’s Dr. Meier that :”goes off the rails”, not Willis. The departure is in Willis’ head, refusal to accept basic science is why the denialists fail to understand the evidence of Global Warming.]
7. Since the null hypothesis that the climate variations are natural has not been falsified, the AGW hypothesis is still a solution in search of a problem. [This chance to make this unsupported claim is the entire point of Willis’ extended debating exercise. In fact, no scientifically honest climate models can’t match historical climate trends without human factors.]
It feels like Anthony and his associates are chasing their own tails in ever-tightening circles.
“Response to Dr. Meier’s answer #9 – coin flips in the context of climate modeling“. Steven Goddard finds fault with Dr. Walt Meier’s example of coin flipping as an analogy for long-term prediction.
We know that weather models are very accurate for about three days, and then quickly break down due to chaos. There is little reason to believe that climate models will do any better through successive iterations.
His proof? Some seasonal weather predictions that weren’t as accurate as he thinks they should be. Nice try. Steven still feels smugly comfortable concluding thus:
I don’t see much theoretical or empirical evidence that climate models produce meaningful information about the climate in 100 years.
Maybe Steven should open his eyes a bit more. Skeptical Science talks about the success of climate models a bit here.
"Whenever I see that smiling face, I have to smile myself"
Lindzen: “Earth is never in equilibrium”. Denialist favorite Dr. Richard Lindzen has published an opinion piece in Fredericksburg, Va’s renowned Free Lance-Star and Anthony Watts wants you to know about it! I guess this is a close as it gets to peer-reviewed denialist science.
Here’s some samples of the Professor’s argument.
“we experience temperature changes of tens of degrees in a single day”. We shouldn’t worry about a permanent 2° rise I guess.
“no statistically significant warming for the past 14 years”. I guess Lindzen hasn’t got the bulletin on that boner yet…
“The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence and donations are reasonably clear.” and “It is probably no accident that Al Gore himself is associated with such activities.” Ah, Gore Derangement Syndrome and conspiracy theories! Always good for a chuckle.
There’s similar misrepresentative bunk scattered throughout. He finishes with a sneer:
Finally, there are the well-meaning individuals who believe that in accepting the alarmist view of climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue. For them, psychic welfare is at stake.
“An error in the pole hole assumption“. Even Steven Goddard chokes when the lunatic right-wing web site “The American Thinker”, which presumably he finds otherwise agreeable, tries to add to their roster of birther/muslim conspiracy theories by claiming that the decline in the Arctic sea ice extent has (naturally through a “trick”) been deliberately overstated.
Yes, the satellites for reasons of orbital mechanics can’t overfly the real north and south poles. No, that doesn’t mean that there are large stretches of open water concealed from our view at the north pole in the dead of winter.
Classic “Tea Party” mentality, which is so, so close to the denialist mentality.
“NSIDC’s Walt Meier responds to Willis“. Dr. Meier takes up Willis Eschenbach’s challenge and responds to the self-serving “questionnaire” about climate with a rational discussion.
From the sound of minds clanging shut in the comments, I don’t think Anthony’s readers are buying it.
Nice try,Walt…
Climate change and “The Birds”. Anthony Watts mocks the Canadian Wildlife Service for reporting erratic bird behaviors in the Arctic. Apparently “only MSNBC could be relied upon to report such scary science news”. MSNBC link here. Sober reportage about Obama’s crypto-muslim background comes, of course, from Fox.
Not sure what drew out this latest juvenilia, other than resentment of MSNBC. Whatever.
“Cryo-sat launch successful“. Anthony Watts posts a press release from the European Space Agency about the launch of CryoSat-2, a satellite that will be monitoring polar sea ice thickness.
Whoosh! Beep... Beep...
Anthony’s readers will now presumably discount all sea ice reports and predictions until this satellite has gathered, say, ten year’s worth of new data…
“Arctic Sea Ice Reports: who to believe?” Anthony Watts implies deception about Arctic sea ice extent because different organizations (the EU’s “Arctic ROOS” and The National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado), using different comparison periods and different methodologies, have slightly different ice extent graphs.
Anthony actually discusses the differences between two methods of calculation, which you’d think would be a starting point for realising that they’re different. But he prefers to lazily imply ulterior motives with statements such as this: “Of course we know that NSIDC director Mark Serreze is very active with the press.”
You know that when Steven Goddard comes in to offer expert commentary the argument is profoundly flawed but he pops up here to declare that the chart below, to which I have added a 27-year trend line, is good news for denialists! Go to the NSIDC link and compare the maps of the >2 yr. sea ice extent, shown as green pixels, for Sept. 2009 and Mar. 2010 and tell me what you think of Steven’s claim…
Ignore the 27-year trend, look at that blip in 2009!
Anthony finishes by trying to turn around criticism of his own earlier statements:
Don’t be fooled though. “Decreasing ice is climate. Increasing ice is weather.”
Anthony’s the one who tried to use a short-term increase in sea ice as a global warming disproof. Nothing that happens over a day, a month, a year, even a few years is “climate”, the denialists are the only ones who try to claim otherwise.
Wott's Up With That? 
