Category Archives: Half of the Story

California’s giant redwoods inconveniently respond to increased carbon dioxide

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“California’s giant redwoods inconveniently respond to increased carbon dioxide“. Anthony Watts does his usual backflips to misinterpret research, in this case triggered by an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about giant redwoods in Northern California. He misrepresents recent increased giant redwood growth rates as being evidence that increasing CO2 really is good for everyone. Clearly there is no way there could be any other contributing factors. And there’s no chance that a continued increase in an environmental factor that is currently having a positive impact on growth could become detrimental, is there. We all know, by the way and of course, that Global Warming isn’t happening.

Anthony also throws in a bit of anti-science by trying to give the appearance of contradictory research findings. Are the studies that he says draw opposite conclusions really studying the same processes in the same way? Take a wild guess. But his readers always love a chance to laugh at them stupid scientists.

Something to be thankful for! At last: Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes

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“Something to be thankful for! At last: Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes“. Anthony Watts has once again found a natural cause for Global Warming (which isn’t happening). Now it’s cosmic rays! Anthony finds the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics paper Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes “compelling”, especially when combined with denialist Jo Nova’s amateur illustrations (apparently the solar magnetic field absorbs cosmic rays).

The theory, which Henrik Svensmark has been relentlessly but unsuccessfully promoting for years, is that the sun’s magnetic field deflects Galactic Cosmic Rays, which seed cloud formation as they pass through the atmosphere. Hence a weaker solar magnetic field will trigger cooling by increased Earth’s albedo.

Do you think Anthony realized that the effects observed in the paper are only on the order of several days in duration? Naw. Or that Anthony noticed the authors’ admission that this effect is swamped by the anthropogenic impact? Naw.

Anthony’s quote-mining is always fun to watch. He highlights this sentence in the paper’s abstract: “These results provide perhaps the most compelling evidence presented thus far of a GCR-climate relationship.” but conveniently ignores the one immediately in front of it: “However, the results of the GCM experiment are found to be somewhat limited by the ability of the model to successfully reproduce observed cloud cover.”

Update: Here’s Jo Nova’s entertaining cosmological depict of the theory (purple annotation mine):

Jo Nova's concept of Cosmic Rays being eaten by... space dragons?

NASA’s Hathaway issues new solar cycle prediction

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“NASA’s Hathaway issues new solar cycle prediction“. Anthony Watts draws attention to the difficulty experts are having predicting the course of the current sunspot cycle. He also says “let us not be too critical of Dr. Hathaway, unlike some scientists we know, he has the integrity and courage to admit when his forecasts and models don’t work, and to revise them in the face of reality.” Ah yes, the mythical corrupt scientist. Who is the cowardly scientist that refuses to admit any error in their theories?

Of course if we can’t accurately predict something as ‘simple’ as the number of sunspots how can we possibly trust any climate predictions, right?

P.S. That was a lousy “blink comparator” graphic, Anthony. Try using the same scale and date range for both version next time. Or were you just pasting together two jpgs?

September 2010 UAH Global Temperature Update: +0.60 deg. C

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“September 2010 UAH Global Temperature Update: +0.60 deg. C“. Dr. Roy Spencer boosts his publication list with a paper in the noted scientific journal, WattsUpWithThat.com. How would you cite that, I wonder?

The satellite-measured global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly rose 0.06℃ in September (that’s a record by the way Roy), but the global Sea Surface Temperature is falling! It’s crazy. What can any scientist do in the face of “Mother Nature’s sense of humor”? Nothing, so why bother?

More incurious denialist minds.

Royal Society blinks – embraces sceptics and uncertainty

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“Royal Society blinks – embraces sceptics and uncertainty“. The Royal Society has released a 19-page layman’s guide to climate change science. Because it’s fairly cautious and restricts itself to the physical science of climate change the denialist industry, including dear Anthony Watts, is trying to crow that the Royal Society has “blinked” and changed their position on climate change (i.e. that it’s real).

So did the Royal Society suddenly realise that their 43 “rebellious” members were right and their 1700 other members were not? No. The document states right off the bat that there is “strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity”. If this is what passes for turning tail and running these days it’s a pretty thin gruel.

Here’s the desperate little nub the denialists are pinning their hopes on – pretending that any awareness of uncertainties is new:

“The size of future temperature increases and other aspects of climate change, especially at the regional scale, are still subject to uncertainty.” (italics mine)

“There is little confidence in specific projections of future regional climate change, except at continental scales.” (italics mine)

Well, duh. Useful regional predictions may not be possible in this decade, but global ones have been made and are coming to pass. Royal Society vice president John Pethica says “If the report sounds cautious, that’s because the IPCC is cautious” and “There is no change in the science.” Their statement from December 2009, Preventing dangerous climate change, (pdf here) stands unchanged, as does their 2007 Climate change controversies: a simple guide.

That 2007 pamphlet remains an effective rebuttal to Anthony’s most recent posts, which shows just how stagnant and intellectually bankrupt the denialist arguments are. Funny or sad? I guess it depends on your perspective.

Nicole lasts all of 6-hours as a named tropical storm

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“Nicole lasts all of 6-hours as a named tropical storm“. Tropical storm Nicole peters out after six hours, so Anthony Watts sniffs that the climate scientist conspiracy is giving names to smaller storms so they can inflate the numbers and trick the denialists into surrendering.

Of course since this tropical storm is the only evidence of AGW, at least for the purposes of this denialist talking point, it’s decline is the final nail in the coffin of global warming.

Kilimanjaro’s snow – it’s about land use change, tree cutting

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“Kilimanjaro’s snow – it’s about land use change, tree cutting“. Anthony Watts thinks that denialists are the only ones who know that the decline in snow on Kilimanjaro is not because of AGW. It’s because of “changes in local land-use”! Wait, wouldn’t that mean it’s “anthropogenic”?

I don’t think a scientific case was ever been made that the retreating ice on Kilimanjaro is due to rising global temperatures, but Anthony keeps trying to pin it on. It’s also a chance to release some Al Gore venom, which must have accumulated painfully for Anthony. Looks like Al Gore was wrong, the warming that is melting Kilimanjaro’s snow cap is regional, not global.

This particular endlessly repeated complaint aside, An Inconvenient Truth has withstood legal challenge. The attempted one-sided rebuttal, The Great Global Warming Swindle, didn’t fare so well.

Engelbeen on why he thinks the CO2 increase is man made (part 4)

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“Engelbeen on why he thinks the CO2 increase is man made (part 4)“. Anthony pats himself on the back for letting someone with a “narrative contrary to the blog owner(s) view” post on his website. Of course although retired engineer Ferdinand Engelbeen happens to accept the scientific principles and evidence for increasing CO2 levels, he has similar ideas about how this has nothing to do with Global Warming. Which of course isn’t happening.

Regardless if that is man made or not, I think we agree that the influence of the increase itself on temperature/climate is limited, if observable at all.

Poor Ferdinand Engelbeen thinks that patiently explaining, in this post, how useful “background” CO2 levels are actually derived, how sampling locations and techniques dramatically diminish the value of many historical records, and how the ratio of stomata openings to the total number of cells on leaves are a poor proxy for CO2 levels, will stem the flow of ignorant commentary.

Good luck Ferdinand! And good luck with the nothing’s happening theory.

Hint to Anthony Watts: the d13C ratios show that the added CO2 has come from fossil fuel sources. Engelbeen explained it to you a week ago. End of story.

UAH Global Temperature – still in a holding pattern

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“UAH Global Temperature – still in a holding pattern“. Thanks for the weather observation from Roy Spencer, Anthony. I wonder if Anthony will ever stop pretending not to understand that good old natural climate variation, such as the eastern Pacific Ocean El Niño circulation pattern, will continue while the progressive human impacts express themselves. It’s not either/or.

It’s well understood that natural “cooling” climate variations can suppress the man-made rise, but when they swing back to “warming” they will magnify it. All Anthony is doing is pretending that these pauses are significant. “Expect drops in the months ahead” says Anthony. So what? But it will be interesting to watch him squirm out of his meaningless prediction if it fails to come to pass.

UAH Global Temperature, 1979 - present

Interesting admission from Dr. Spencer:

As of Julian Day 212 (end of July), the race for warmest year in the 32-year satellite period of record is still too close to call with 1998 continuing its lead by only 0.07 C.

Doesn’t sound like cooling to me. Spencer and sundry denialists are still clinging to that crazy 1998 El Niño as the answer to the painfully obvious warming trends.

Global Sea Surface Temperature Cooling Continues

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“Global Sea Surface Temperature Cooling Continues“. Dr. Roy Spencer lets us know that the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) as recorded by NASA’s Aqua satellite is continuing to fall. It’s been falling for months! That’s a trend! Not.

Yes, the well-known El Niño/La Niña circulation pattern in the tropical east Pacific Ocean has entered a phase that brings colder water to the surface. No, the oceans are not cooling now.

NOAA SST Anomaly Chart for 2010-08-03