Category Archives: Character Assassination

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

GISS & METAR – dial “M” for missing minus signs: it’s worse than we thought

Posted on by
2

“GISS & METAR – dial “M” for missing minus signs: it’s worse than we thought“. Anthony Watts thinks this ‘alarmist’ post “might also be one of the most important” ever because it explains how people “can wreck a whole month’s worth of climate data.” His commenters, of course, agree and praise his insight.

Surprise, it’s nothing but cherry-picked examples of human error in recording negative temperatures and how such entries are handled by automated aviation weather reports. As noted at The Whiteboard, none of the 12 aviation weather report errors Anthony found made it into data-sets used by climatologists. Much more satisfying to rage about alleged errors that to actually make the effort to prove they’re significant. Standard Operating Procedure at WUWT.

Anthony prefers satellite measurements, presumably because of the automated nature of their collection. But I think his real reason is that the satellite record is still too short to conclusively represent long-term climate patterns. Can’t act on Global Warming until then, can we?

But wait, what is the satellite global temperature trend? The same as the surface stations trend. Both are… up.

Amusingly, it seems that Anthony though better of this incidental defamatory accusation (italics mine):

Around 1990, NOAA began weeding out more than three-quarters of the climate measuring stations around the world. They may have been working under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It can be shown that they systematically and purposefully, country by country, removed higher-latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler.

The replacement text reads:

Around 1990, NOAA/NCDC’s GHCN dataset lost more than three-quarters of the climate measuring stations around the world. It can be shown that country by country, they lost stations with a bias towards higher-latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler.

This is a long debunked meme of Anthony’s. Perhaps this new fabricated controversy serves to obscure the fact that he still hasn’t proven his charge against NOAA?

Which NASA climate data to believe?

Posted on by
1

“Which NASA climate data to believe?” Anthony Watts makes a big deal over an accidental data error in the most recent GISS Global Temperature Anomaly (March 2010). The error was quickly corrected at the source, but the cries of “fraud!” are ringing out.

It’s a strange day when even Anthony has to pull in his horns and admit that the evil climatologists have simply made, and corrected, a trivial error.

Oxburgh’s 5 page Climategate book report gets a failing grade

Posted on by
4

“Oxburgh’s 5 page Climategate book report gets a failing grade“. Oh, here’s a shocker. Anthony Watts tells us that the latest report on Climategate, by the Oxburgh Panel, is worthless. A whitewash!!!!

The Global Warming Policy Foundation, the denialist operation that is home to such notables as Ian Pilmer and Nigel Lawson, call it “Another Unsatisfactory Rushed Job“.

Steven McIntyre is still fixated on a certain word, he declares “Oxburgh’s Trick to Hide the Trick”.

Could it be because the report exonerates the Climate Research Unit and Dr. Phil Jones (emphasis mine)?

We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it.  Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups their internal procedures were rather informal.

Or because of how they describe the assaults of denialists like Steven McIntyre (emphasis mine)?

We have not exhaustively reviewed the external criticism of the dendroclimatological work, but it seems that some of these criticisms show a rather selective and uncharitable approach to information made available by CRU.  They seem also to reflect a lack of awareness of the ongoing and dynamic nature of chronologies, and of the difficult circumstances under which university research is sometimes conducted.

2012-07-19 Update: Norfolk police have called off their investigation for procedural reasons, but state:

“However, as a result of our inquiries, we can say that the data breach was the result of a sophisticated and carefully orchestrated attack on the CRU’s data files, carried out remotely via the internet. The offenders used methods common in unlawful internet activity to obstruct inquiries. There is no evidence to suggest that anyone working at or associated with the University of East Anglia was involved in the crime.”

More Wisdom via Solomon: Global Warming Has Passed The Point Of No Return

Posted on by
Reply

“More Wisdom via Solomon: Global Warming Has Passed The Point Of No Return“. Steven Goddard lists some bad things that weren’t caused by Global Warming, and gives us a juvenile photoshopped image of Susan Solomon from the NOAA.

Why? Because he wants to counter the NOAA’s statement that the rising CO2 levels will not quickly return to pre-industrial levels even if we act decisively now, and that there may be centuries of adjustment ahead.

Next time, try some science.

Dr. Ravetz Posts, Normally

Posted on by
1

“Dr. Ravetz Posts, Normally“. Willis Eschenbach once again offers some self-serving compliments before attacking Dr. Ravetz’s rather vague philosophy of science perspectives.

The main purpose though is to link it all to Marxism and to imply that climatologists operate along the lines of Dr. Ravetz’s unique “Post-Normal Science” observation that scientists are justifying choices based on their personal values. This boils down to a claim that for scientists the end justifies the means, so of course they’re lying.

Arctic Sea Ice Reports: who to believe?

Posted on by
3

“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.

Damage control: Greenpeace removes threats

Posted on by
Reply

“Damage control: Greenpeace removes threats“. I’m not a particular fan of Greenpeace, but I have to laugh at Anthony Watts’ trembling indignation over a climate post on their website that was replaced with an honest and detailed explanation. The original post had a disclaimer of sorts at the start and didn’t go off the deep end until the last paragraph or two of a fairly conventional commentary, but that didn’t stop Watts and Co. from goin’ to town.

“Bullshit” declares Anthony. He knows that they’re still out to get him.

Play on.

Quote of the week #33: What, no death spiral?

Posted on by
1

“Quote of the week #33: What, no death spiral?” Anthony Watts tries to make hay over the fact that claimed predictions based on the sharp 2007 decline in Arctic ice extent haven’t been met, even though it’s still fairly low. Of course he has to ignore all the explanations that surround the quotes he has plucked in order to do that.

It’s physicist Dr. Joe Romm’s quote, which is actually a post title, from June 5th, 2009 that Anthony’s giggling over when considered in the light of another quote this week in The Sunday Times. I mean, there’s still ice up there!

NSIDC director Serreze explains the “death spiral” of Arctic ice, brushes off the “breathtaking ignorance” of blogs like WattsUpWithThat

Anthony somehow fails to detail Dr. Serreze’s explanation, which I would have thought should support the humor:

I said the north pole [meaning the local vicinity of the physical north pole, not the entire Arctic Ocean as Anthony chose to misrepresent it at the time – Ben] might melt out and I was not alone in making such speculation. It did not melt out and I got some flack for this. So be it. As for the “great recovery” of ice extent in 2008 heard in some circles, it was a  recovery from lowest (2007) to second lowest (2008).

The quote from Dr. Serreze this week that is entertaining Anthony is in a Sunday Times article by the notorious Jonathan Leake:

“In retrospect, the reactions to the 2007 melt were overstated. The lesson is that we must be more careful in not reading too much into one event”.

But he doesn’t mention Dr. Serreze’s statement that precedes it in the article.

“It has been a crazy winter with Arctic ice cover growing and very cold weather in northern Europe and eastern America all linked to this strongly negative Arctic Oscillation”

Or the article’s second paragraph:

A shift in the chilly winds across the Bering Sea over the past few months has caused thousands of square miles of ocean to freeze.

Perhaps there’s a zinger at the end or the article? Nope:

“On current trends it will still become ice-free in summer by around 2060.”

Anthony might want to wait until the definitive September minimum has been recorded before crowing, although he may be trying to get in there before the record proves him wrong.

I’m glad to hear though that he is now promoting long-term trends as the only relevant climate change evidence. Or is it just momentarily convenient?

Belief in climate change tumbles in Germany

Posted on by
Reply

“Belief in climate change tumbles in Germany“. Anthony Watts enjoys the confusion generated by the debunked denialist accusations about the IPCC’s last report. A brief Speigel Online article states that “fear” of climate change has dropped in Germany because of it. Think it will stick? Does Anthony think that psychological acclimatization isn’t a reason, or that climate change will reverse because of polling numbers?

Also the “respected German Leibniz research community” (they’re biologists and biochemists) want IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri to resign because of the same debunked accusations. Whatever!