Category Archives: I wouldn't have seen it if I didn't believe it

Pielke Sr. on Revkin’s question

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“Pielke Sr. on Revkin’s question“. In spite of abundant evidence to the contrary, Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. is more convinced than ever that NO! is his answer to a question posed in 2005 by journalist Andy Revkin: “Is most of the observed warming over the last 50 years likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations?”

He now says that Dr. Spencer’s assertion that it’s all because of a reduction in cloud cover, in a somehow on-going 50 year pattern, explains it. Especially since he still thinks the “missing heat” statement by Kevin Trenberth last month was an admission that the heat “wasn’t there” rather than that it can’t be identified by current instrumentation.

Dr. Pielke backs his assertion with a collection of references to debunked denialist fellow-travelers and right-wing “conferences”. Confirmation bias in three, two, one, now.

[Note: In the comments Dr. Pielke thanks the WUWT readers for editorial corrections. My god, sloppy typing as well as sloppy thinking!]

Sun’s magnetics coming alive again

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“Sun’s magnetics coming alive again“. The Sun’s geomagnetic activity has ticked upwards after about five years of general decline. Anthony Watts wants denialist followers to think that this is a reason to expect global cooling. Just wait a bit longer… It’s coming, really!

ISES Solar Planetary Index 2010/05/04

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.

New ground truth: soil microbe negative feedback

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“New ground truth: soil microbe negative feedback“. Another month, another “game-changer” claim from Anthony Watts. Yes the denialist “game” does indeed keep changing.

In this case, Anthony has found a press release from the University of California, Irvine titled Soil microbes produce less atmospheric CO2 than expected with climate warming. Here’s a quote that sums up the findings:

The new simulations suggest that if microbial efficiency declines in a warmer world, carbon dioxide emissions will fall back to pre-warming levels, a pattern seen in field experiments. But if microbes manage to adapt to the warmth – for instance, through increased enzyme activity – emissions could intensify.

Fungi to the rescue! We’re saved, Anthony! Saved! Saved… Saved?

Anthony’s grasping at straws again. Yes, microbial contributions to the carbon cycle are significant. No, their potentially steady-state contribution isn’t going to magically offset human CO2 production.

Next “game-changer” coming in… one month.

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).

Butterfly study: a case study in confirmation bias

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“Butterfly study: a case study in confirmation bias“. Anthony Watts wants us to know that there is a bias against skeptics in the scientific literature. Marc Hendrickx, denialist Australian blogger and “part time consulting geologist”, submitted a Comment on a paper on Biology Letters called Early emergence in a butterfly causally linked to anthropogenic warming. It was rejected for basically lacking any basis.

Poor Hendrickx, a denialist geologist trying to attack a biology study, then asks Anthony’s readers for help improving it! Talk about the blind leading the blind.

Hendrickx presents his full Comment and the text of his rejection. He’s so deep in Dunning–Kruger that he badly misconstrued this bemused complete response by Referee 2 (italics are Hendrickx’s oblivious addition):

In the short intro, the author writes twice “phonological changes”. I guess that would be “phenological changes”? (MH based on this I take it that Ref 2 was generally happy with the manuscript)

Perhaps Anthony thinks this is an example of insightful research unjustly rejected because of the alleged bias against skeptics in the scientific literature? If so it’s Anthony with the ‘confirmation bias.’

Of Hawks and Handsaws

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“Of Hawks and Handsaws“. Willis Eschenbach, citizen-scientist, has more pretty pictures with data stuck on top of them. He’s figured out that if you slap a bunch of thick lines representing cyclic annual trends on top of each other and obscure their order, you can hide the incline pretty handily.

His expert eyeballing tells him that there’s an Urban Heat Island effect at work in Scandinavia! You betcha. And there’s nothing like a quote from Shakespeare to give an intellectual air to an empty argument. (The cheesy clip-art kind of undermines that though.)

Who needs to bother with statistical analysis when you can pull a powerful ‘intuitive’ conclusion like this from thin air? Italics mine:

At least part of the warming in the US and the NORDKLIM datasets is the result of UHI distortion of the records. An unknown but likely significant amount of this UHI heating is due to direct energy consumption in the cities.

You know what would give this claim some credibility? Credible statistics.

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.“

Come Rain or Come Shine

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“Come Rain or Come Shine“. Willis Eschenbach tells us that Global Warming will be good because “a warmer world is a wetter world”. For the USA anyway. So far, anyway. That seems to be the entire argument.

Volcanoes Cause Climate Change

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“Volcanoes Cause Climate Change“. Steven Goddard again getting it backward. Sea-level changes, which are a result of climate change, are what drive variability in volcanism. They do this by changing the over-pressure on the lithosphere. Yes, a particular volcano can have a pronounced temporary effect on the global climate, but that’s measured in months, not decades.

Thanks for the interesting copy-and-paste about particular volcanic explosions but as far as your argument goes, try again.