Category Archives: Half of the Story

Arctic Ocean ice retreating at 30-year record pace

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“Arctic Ocean ice retreating at 30-year record pace“. Steven Mosher is suddenly sniffing that short-term Arctic Sea Ice trends don’t mean anything. I guess short-term climate trends are only legitimate if they can be used to ‘prove’ that Global Warming is either non-existent or natural. They’re definitely not legitimate evidence that Global Warming is real or man-made. Ah, the hypocrisy.

His understandable indignation was triggered by an article about declining Arctic Sea Ice in The Montreal Gazette that was based on such wild sources as… the measurements of the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the research of University of Manitoba polar scientist David Barber.

Actually, short-term trends aren’t very meaningful for climate prediction. But you can be sure the denialists will swing back to touting them as soon as they can find one that suits them.

What is PIPS?

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“What is PIPS?” Steven Goddard defends his continued use of the US Navy’s deprecated Polar Ice Prediction System (PIPS) Arctic Sea Ice model. The US Navy uses it! Case closed. This is the same obstinate mindset that lies at the root of Anthony Watts’ obsession with surface weather station records. PIPS is not intended for climate usage. It is a repurposed navigational tool.

Steven likes PIPS because, as the Navy states, “PIPS 2.0 often over-predicts the amount of ice in the Barents Sea and therefore often places the ice edge too far south.” This is very useful for a desperate denialist.

Steven concludes by stating that any critics “ignore the facts, and post instead what suits their agenda.”  Unsurprisingly, this is actually Steven’s motivation for using PIPS. It’s the easiest to manipulate toward a desired conclusion. Just restrict your analysis to the areas where PIPS over-predicts ice and pass it off as impartial.

Global warming’s impact on Asia’s rivers overblown

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“Global warming’s impact on Asia’s rivers overblown“. A Nature news report says that in the Indus and Ganges basins, glacial ice contributes only about 40% of the total meltwater . Hah! Take that, glacier worriers. Nothing to worry about. Well, 40% less.

So if “Freshwater flow [is] dominated by monsoon rains rather than glacier run-off”, what happens if the monsoons shift or diminish? Oops. We weren’t supposed to read that far into the news report.

A study: The temperature rise has caused the CO2 Increase, not the other way around

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“A study: The temperature rise has caused the CO2 Increase, not the other way around“. Anthony Watts posts a retired physicist’s enthusiastic number crunching that proves… if there’s any global warming it’s not because of CO2. It’s the other way ’round!  However, Lon Hocker has to admit that “we offer no explanation for why global temperatures are changing“. It’s amazing what you can conclude when you remove the atmospheric CO2 trend before starting your number games.

Hocker tells us in the comments that “Excel isn’t all that hard to use, though I admit I had a bunch of learning to go though to write this. Remember I’m just using well accepted data, and high school math.” This is pretty much a confession that he’s a victim of Dunning–Kruger syndrome.

What Hocker has shown is that annual CO2 variations are, indeed, the result of seasonal temperature change and the resulting variation in vegetative CO2 production. In other breaking news, water is wet.

Dr. Richard Lindzen’s Heartland 2010 keynote address

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“Dr. Richard Lindzen’s Heartland 2010 keynote address“. In a room full of balding libertarians, Dr. Richard Lindzen tells it like he wishes it was. No doubt his actual remarks will be discussed shortly.

GISTEMP -vs- HadCRUT

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“GISTEMP -vs- HadCRUT“. Steven Goddard continues his voyage of discovery. Gosh, the GISTEMP data-set uses a somewhat different Arctic data than HadCRUT3 and has a different interpolation process! Gosh, the GISTEMP trend is rising faster than the HadCRUT3 trend! Gosh, GISTEMP is a lying trick!

Gosh, maybe there has been an amplified response to Global Warming in the Arctic? More nit-picking idiocy from Steven, who can barely recognize his own hand in front of his face.

Satellite Temperatures and El Niño

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“Satellite Temperatures and El Niño“. Steven Goddard has convinced himself that recent satellite temperature observations are “too warm”. He’s compared them the surface temperature records and decided that the satellite record is somehow incorrect because of unspecified El Niño effects. Maybe it’s because of aliens with investments in carbon-neutral technologies?

I thought that the surface temperature records were hopelessly contaminated by Urban Heat Island effect, human incompetence and malevolent selection and were to be ignored (because they showed a strongly significant warming trend) in favor of the purity of satellite measurements (a useful delaying tactic because they were too new to have good statistical meaning). I guess the surface temperature records are fine when they suit the denialist argument du jour.

Here’s what happens: The surface temperature record is only observed at the surface. Satellite measurements reflect a much ‘thicker’ selection of the atmosphere. The vertical transport of heat/moisture has a lag of several months and hence satellite measurements will normally trail surface measurements.

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.

“The decrease in upper ocean heat content from March to April was 1C – largest since 1

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“The decrease in upper ocean heat content from March to April was 1C – largest since 1979“. Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. tries on his deceptive “where’s the beef?” complaint about measurement of ocean heat content again. Phil Klotzbach from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has just reported that there has been a drop in the upper ocean heat anomaly.

Actually, the Climate Prediction Center is only talking about the upper 300m of the ocean, and only in the eastern half of the Pacific Ocean. So Dr. Pielke is enthusiastically extrapolating well beyond his data while also carefully ignoring as much inconvenient data as possible. He even chooses to display only 12 months of data to prove the climate trend! That’s weather, not climate, and when denialists do this they’re usually trying to hide something.

So we’ve got an non-significant time period and a global conclusion being drawn from a regional information. Even still the trend only applies to a cherry-picked subset (upper 300m) of that data! Everything else is waved away. We’re not watching Perry Mason at work here, are we?

Here’s Dr. Pielke’s dubious plot:

And here’s an example I pulled together from the CPC’s original data with a bit longer timeline:

Doesn’t look like the death of Global Warming after all. Just ordinary Pacific Ocean patterns on top of the well-established warming trend.

Speaking of warming, where does Dr. Pielke in his thoughtful scientific way declare that the “missing” heat has gone? He speculates that it was magically transported into space. In other words, he has no idea. But it’s certainly more entertaining than considering good old-fashioned ocean currents.

Seeing red: jobs initiative to limit California’s AB32 greenhouse gas law will be on the November ballot

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“Seeing red: jobs initiative to limit California’s AB32 greenhouse gas law will be on the November ballot“. Anthony Watts excerpts a news report about a proposed ballot initiative from the ‘California Jobs Initiative Coalition’ to suspend some of California’s environmental standards “until the economy rebounds”.

Somehow the recession is all the evil environmentalists’ fault. They’re trying to take our jobs away! Even previously reliable Republicans like former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz are starting to fall for it. Shudder!

Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue says this is “about small business taking a stand for jobs” but that proves not to be the case as this quote, which Anthony helpfully excluded from his post, shows:

The ballot initiative is largely being funded by Texas oil companies that oppose climate regulations in California and similar legislation moving through Congress. Valero Services Inc. has given $500,000, while Tesoro Cos. has given $275,000. [Grass Valley Union. Italics mine.]

Nothing like a little deceitful astroturfing.