Monthly Archives: May 2010

The Climate Crash of 2009

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“The Climate Crash of 2009“. Anthony Watts points us to denialist Pierre Gosselin’s website called “NoTricksZone“. Naturally the page Anthony especially likes is reporting on how “leading scientists and professors are calling for a completely new direction in climate policy“. Naturally this is denialist bullshit, “tricks” from top to bottom.

“The Hartwell Paper, A new direction for climate policy after the crash of 2009” is published by the Institute for Science, Innovation & Society, part of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. The Institute opposes the Kyoto Protocol, thinks we can adapt to climate change anyway, and considers “Climategate” a real ethical issue. The authors, mainly economists, sociologists and industry representatives, include rabid denialist Roger Pielke Jr. Effectively the Hartwell Paper advocates reducing or dropping proposed carbon taxes and crossing our fingers that non-carbon energy sources become cost-competitive.

Yeah, that’ll work.

The Union of Concerned Scientists tackles gardening to save the planet

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“The Union of Concerned Scientists tackles gardening to save the planet“. Anthony Watts pastes in another press release this time from the Union of Concerned Scientists. They’re offering practical climate-friendly advice to gardeners:

  1. Minimize Carbon-Emitting Tools and Products.
  2. Use cover crops.
  3. Plant Trees and Shrubs Strategically.
  4. Expand Recycling to the Garden.
  5. Think Long and Hard about Your Lawn.

“Seventy percent of Americans garden, and they can have a positive impact. Our guide shows them how.”

Anthony’s snarky response is that “we can just garden our way to carbon nirvana, that is, if the bugs don’t eat it.” It can’t be much fun being so miserable all the time.

Iceland, soon to be Ashland

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“Iceland, soon to be Ashland“. Anthony Watts pastes a disappointingly non-alarmist NASA Picture of the Day post about the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in Iceland, which is continuing to erupt. The real environmental impact of volcanic eruptions occurs when sulfur dioxide reaches the stratosphere, which is not happening in this instance.

The Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in Iceland ash cloud from space.

Sulfur dioxide turns into tiny droplets of sulfuric acid. These light-colored droplets cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight back to space. Because it doesn’t rain in the stratosphere, the droplets can linger for months or years. Massive eruptions can cool the global average surface temperature by several degrees for several years.

In most cases, though, high-latitude eruptions have little influence on global climate even when they are explosive enough to inject sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere; the reflective particles rarely have a chance to spread around the globe. Stratospheric air generally rises above tropical latitudes, spreads toward the poles, and then sinks back toward the lower atmosphere at high latitudes.

The article references a 2006 post on RealClimate.org by Anthony’s ‘nemesis’, the actual climatologist Gavin Schmidt. So I guess he’s off the lying commie world gubmint conspirators list. Or is this one of those posts that are intended to ‘prove’ that he doesn’t always attack climatologists?

I’m trying to imagine Anthony explaining something is a way that Gavin would consider accurate and unbiased and link to…

Taiwan sinking: Subsidence or Global Warming Induced Sea Level Rise?

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“Taiwan sinking: Subsidence or Global Warming Induced Sea Level Rise?“. Anthony Watts wants you to think that rising sea-levels anywhere on Earth are due to subsidence and subsidence alone. Especially in Taiwan. And if anyone, such as in this AFP news report Rising sea levels threaten Taiwan, suggests that it could be sea-level rise due to Global Warming, they should be flooded with hostile correspondence.

It’s certainly true that uncontrolled groundwater (or oil) extraction can produce significant local subsidence. The problem with Anthony’s attempt at misdirection is that this kind of subsidence is highly variable, even within the affected locality. So it’s kind of hard to use as an excuse to wave away regional sea-level changes.

Come to think of it, this is exactly like Anthony’s discredited obsession with surface station temperature records. Cherry-picked instances invoked in the hope of discrediting the wider trend. We’ll be hearing more mutterings on this topic, I think.

Lessons from the Gulf blowout

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“Lessons from the Gulf blowout“. Anthony Watts posts an article by right-wing pundit Paul Driessen (from the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise). What can he teach us about the Deepwater Horizon blowout?

  • The oil company workers were “heroic”.
  • There is “cause for optimism” about the oil spill.
  • “We still need to drill” offshore.

Thanks Paul! Glad that’s cleared up. Lesson learned, back to work everyone!

WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #4

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“WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #4“. Steve Goddard returns from Venus to make snide remarks about the Catlin Arctic Expedition before offering us his Arctic Sea Ice Extent analysis. Everything’s “normal” as far as Steve’s concerned, so there’s no Global Warming.

Except Arctic temperatures appear to actually be running several degrees C warmer than “normal”. Also the Arctic Sea Ice Extent is currently dropping about twice as fast as it did in 2009. Look for WUWT’s Arctic Sea Ice News updates to be quietly discontinued in a few weeks.

Add your own ‘Radar Channel’ to your TV

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“Add your own ‘Radar Channel’ to your TV“. Anthony tells us that he’s “invented” the computer: the “StormPredator Radar Appliance”. Actually he’s selling a small form-factor Windows box that mounts behind your TV and displays local weather radar using your internet connection.

Now you can sit in your living room and watch the climate not change. Wait, didn’t Al Gore invent the internet!?! Oh, the irony.

Venus Envy

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“Venus Envy“. Steve Goddard tries once more to explain how Venus’s surface temperature is strictly the result of atmospheric pressure. Um, nope.

Steve’s confused about transient temperature changes that occur with changes in pressure. Like a good denialist he’s clinging to this belief in spite of clear explanations of why he’s wrong.

Climate Actually Changes! Film at 11:00!

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“Climate Actually Changes! Film at 11:00!“. The USA’s EPA has done a masterful job of responding to denialist submissions about their finding that rising CO2 emissions constitute an environmental danger. Anthony Watts and Co. have, sensibly, been pretty quiet about this hoping that their readers will remain unaware of the smack-down.

Part of that effort was an educational report released in April, 2010 called Climate Change Indicators in the United States.

Willis Eschenbach's statistical analysis of the state of climate knowledge...

Willis Eschenbach tries to brave it out here, inventing a cute pie chart that apparently “shows” how little we know about climate. Other than that he simply waves his arms about indignantly about choices of words and other nit-picked irrelevancies. They don’t interpret the Heat Wave Index trend the way he thinks they should! A reference link doesn’t go to the data it’s supposed to! The Drought Monitor indicator is too new!

24 indicators, nit-picks with two of them.

Spencer: strong negative feedback found in radiation budget

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“Spencer: strong negative feedback found in radiation budget“. Sometimes denialists proclaim that there is NO GREENHOUSE EFFECT, sometimes they admit that it is REAL BUT SMALL. Dr. Roy Spencer takes the latter approach here. He’s been “slicing and dicing the [Earth’s radiation budget data] different ways” trying to find a value of CO2 sensitivity that lets him claim the climate impact is small. Guess what? He found one.

Dr. Spencer's usual blob of data without chronological context.

Spencer does it “without going into the detailed justification” by:

  • Ignoring data from polar areas, where most of the climate change has occurred.
  • Comparing global radiation data to ocean temperatures.
  • Pretending that 7 years of satellite data is a sufficient time span for climate analysis (try 30 years).
  • Restricting his plot to just month-to-month variation.
  • Using only monthly temperature changes that were greater than 0.03°C.
  • Ignoring decades of independent empirical studies that conclude that climate sensitivity must be somewhere between 2.3 to 4.1°C.
  • Sweeping away the 0.6°C warming over last 100 years as natural (therefore a similar estimated rise for this century must also be natural).
  • Ignoring the reality check that ice ages are impossible if CO2 sensitivity is as low as he declares.

What does Dr. Spencer end up with? I mean besides the WUWT comments declaring him a shoo-in for a Nobel Prize. He ends up with an artificial statistical correlation with no physical explanation to support it.