Category Archives: Half of the Story

If Sea Level Was Rising, Wouldn’t Someone Have Noticed?

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“If Sea Level Was Rising, Wouldn’t Someone Have Noticed?” Anthony Watts gives us a post by Steven Goddard, who asks a stupid question and provides a stupid answer.

Short smart answer: the scientists noticed. They’re the ones who measure things.

Somehow alleged-geologist Steven thinks that cherry-picked historical photos from the California coast, a region with notable geological faulting and oil extraction, are conclusive proof that the sea-level has not risen. Also, apparently tides don’t exist. Nor do any other causes of subsidence or uplift.

This is typical of Steven’s posts; a tiny actual fact turned 180°, taken out of context and then used to draw support unwarranted conclusions.

Climate Craziness of the Week – MSM jumps on alarming headline

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“Climate Craziness of the Week – MSM jumps on alarming headline“. Anthony Watts dismisses a University of Leeds report that the melting of floating ice, mainly because of salinity and temperature differences, can make a small contribution to sea-level rise. And the “MSM” are talking about it! Shocking. The paper is Recent loss of floating ice and the consequent sea level contribution by Shepherd, et al. 2010 in Geophysical Research Letters.

Nothing like mocking new knowledge because it isn’t significant enough. That’s anti-science I guess. The general opinion was that the melting of floating ice would have no impact on sea-level because of Archimedes’ principle, but it turns out that the estimated volume difference is 742 km²per year! A large number to be sure, but spread over the entire ocean very modest.

Anthony mocks this because the calculated annual contribution is an almost unmeasurable 49 micrometers (0.000049 m). But what would his position be if this hadn’t been calculated and included? Undoubtably outrage.

Another Arctic Sea Ice Milestone

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“Another Arctic Sea Ice Milestone“. Anthony Watts is trying to milk the Arctic Sea Ice Extent blip (aka “weather”) for as long as possible. Of course this is only possible with the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center’s NORSEX estimate, which uses a slightly broader definition of sea ice. Anthony tells us about a sensational “milestone”:

Today it is encouraging to see the NANSEN is reporting that both Arctic Sea Ice area and extent are above the normal line.

Nansen Arctic Sea Ice Extent, 2010/04/29.

What’s actually happening is that the 2010 sea ice extent has tracked previous “low” years until an early March cold snap in the Bering Sea delayed the onset of retreat. After that delay, it’s right back on the same trajectory.

But keep sayin’ it, Anthony.

2010/04/30 Update: Good sea ice info from Dr. Ron Lindsay at the University of Washington has been pointed out in the comments:

Mar. 2010 sea ice extent prediction for Sept. 2010. After Ron Lindsay.

WUWT Sea Ice News #2

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““. Steven Goddard Photoshops some sea ice extent maps and enthusiastically declares “Arctic ice extent is normal.” Well, nearly. Naturally he only wants to talk about the one data series that briefly popped above “normal” and not about the others, which… don’t.

Steven’s also excited that Arctic weather patterns may produce an anomalous high sea ice extent next winter. I can see that he’s going to wear himself out thrashing wildly back and forth about weather. It’s irrelevant. Why was the record 2007 sea ice extent minimum a cause for concern? Because it was part of a climate trend.

Some other rhetorical master-strokes: mocking a 40 year-old old newspaper report, and embedding a juvenile YouTube clip from the film Airplane!

Al Gore says “Denialists in Denial”

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Al Gore says “Denialists in Denial”. Anthony Watts shows what a big man he is by comparing himself to Al Gore (or “Al, Baby” as he respectfully calls him). Apparently WUWT has a higher “rank” than algore.com does according to alexa.com. These kinds of web statistics are widely understood as meaningless, especially when comparing websites with different purposes such as Anthony’s frenzied argument and Gore’s policy-orientation.

Of course most of Al Gore’s activity is through altogether separate websites such as The Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Project, Live Earth and An Inconvenient Truth. He’s also read nation-wide and a popular public speaker. But Anthony’s paranoid-obsessive readers give him way more “hits”.

Anthony’s adolescent outburst is a lame attempt to move the focus away from both Al Gore’s criticism of denialist Richard Lindzen’s dishonest op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and Gore’s link to The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder dismantling of the same.

Quote of the week #34: NASA doubts climate model certainty

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“Quote of the week #34: NASA doubts climate model certainty“. Anthony Watts wants you to believe that because a NASA pamphlet from 1998 is not “completely certain” about Global Warming, they must now be taking orders from the secret Al Gore gubmint. It’s called science, Anthony. Better data, better understanding, better conclusions. Is that a difficult concept?

It’s the denialist mind that is frozen in time and unable to process new information. That’s why they’re called denialists.

Anthony’s also jumping onto this month’s denialist theme that “historic temperatures can be modeled with a constant linear trend + a 60 year cycle.” Too bad they can’t actually explain the correlation, too bad the correlation doesn’t persist, too bad the “constant linear trend” is up (what’s behind that I wonder).

Climate Change and the dinosaurs

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“Climate Change and the dinosaurs“. Anthony Watts has found a press release from Plymouth University. Geological evidence from Norway suggests that during the Cretaceous period, characterized by substantially higher CO2 levels than today, there were several abrupt temperature drops:

over a period of a few hundred or a few thousand years, ocean temperatures fell from an average of 13 degrees centigrade to between eight and four degrees.

Anthony’s implication is that this kind of ancient temperature change shows that there are potential natural drivers as strong as the theorized current man-made changes. So it mustn’t be our fault this time either.

Of course the study found evidence of sudden temperature drops, not rises.

Graham comes to his senses, dumps support for climate bill, “Lurch” in a lurch

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Graham comes to his senses, dumps support for climate bill, “Lurch” in a lurch. A Republican politician, South Carolina’s Senator Graham, withdraws his support for an energy bill because he doesn’t like an immigration bill. Clearly, the problem was with the energy bill and Sen. Graham as “come to his senses”.

Oh, wait. The Washington Post article actually says that Sen. Graham felt that “only a focused effort on a climate and energy bill could ensure its passage.“

Kind of the opposite of Anthony’s headline.

Anthony’s commenters aren’t fooled though, they know that Sen. Graham is a despised “Democrat in Republican clothing.”

Another indication of MWP and LIA being global

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“Another indication of MWP and LIA being global“. Suddenly Anthony Watts likes temperature proxies because here they seem to go his way… In this case he’s been pointed toward a juicy Letter in Nature back in August of 2009 that proves that the Medieval Warm Period was global. At least in one place. OK then, what do we really have?

The denialist CO2 Science website (aka “Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change”, founded by a Peabody Energy operative) posted their own summary and “adapted” figure from the Nature Letter “2,000-year-long temperature and hydrology reconstructions from the Indo-Pacific warm pool.” It used Oxygen18 isotopes from planktonic foraminifera to estimate historical temperatures.

Strangely neither Anthony or CO2 Science provide a quick link to the claimed proof, but you can read the abstract here. Perhaps their coyness was triggered by the last sentence of the real abstract (emphasis mine)?

A companion reconstruction of delta18O of sea water—a sea surface salinity and hydrology indicator—indicates a tight coupling with the East Asian monsoon system and remote control of IPWP [Indo-Pacific warm pool] hydrology on centennial–millennial timescales, rather than a dominant influence from local SST variation.

Although the authors also state that “Reconstructed SST was, however, within error of modern values” that doesn’t stop Anthony’s buddies from slapping a ruler on the “adapted” figure and declaring “we calculate that the Medieval Warm Period was about 0.4°C warmer than the Current Warm Period.“

It’s us against phlegm – global warming makes you sneeze

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“It’s us against phlegm – global warming makes you sneeze“. Anthony Watts criticises at a Time magazine article titled Allergies Worse Than Ever? Blame Global Warming. Warmer climates may increase the range of pollen-producing trees (typically deciduous and not coniferous).

Anthony chooses to infer that the researchers have ruled out environmental factors other than CO2, which makes it easy to sneer. But he’s attacking a straw-man of his own creation. Here’s the gist of the article:

Here’s how it works: higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere generally speed plant growth, while warmer temperatures mean that spring — and with it, allergy season — arrives earlier. Spring-like conditions in the East are already arriving on average 14 days earlier than just 20 years ago.

The writers may talk about CO2 first, but warmer springs will be a much stronger influence. Anthony ignores this for his own benefit.