Category Archives: Pull the Other One

Stanford claims farmers “dodged impacts of global warming” in the USA, but you have to find it first.

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“Stanford claims farmers “dodged impacts of global warming” in the USA, but you have to find it first.“ (May 6, 2011). When Anthony Watts does his own posting you can be sure that it will be short and dishonest. Here Anthony disputes a Stanford University report on the impact of global warming on US crop production, which states:

Global warming is likely already taking a toll on world wheat and corn production, according to a new study led by Stanford University researchers. But the United States, Canada and northern Mexico have largely escaped the trend.

Anthony rebuttal is to slap together charts of US corn yield and US temperature to “prove” that noisy regional weather data shows no global warming. He also alludes to the comical “CO2 is essential for life” argument.

Yep, US corn yields are going up. It’s gotta mean something! Anthony grudgingly allows that “some of the gains seen below are likely the result of improved seed lines”, but the honest first approximation is that all of corn yield gains are “likely the result of improved seed lines”. After-all he’s pretty sure that there hasn’t been any change in the climate, isn’t he? Sez Anthony:

What global warming? The last two years of annual mean temperature for the USA (2009, 2010) is about the same as it was in 1980 and 1981, and lower than many years since.

So Anthony’s entire argument is to compare two years of the US annual mean temperature, 1980 and 1981, against the two most recent years and declare that since they are “about the same” this proves that there’s no global warming? Dude, you’re a frickin’ cherry-pickin’ idiot.

Anthony’s lame “we’ve seen exactly this before” deception is only faintly plausible if he deliberately removes the default trend line from his chart. We can fix that though (replicate it here, but ignore Anthony’s advice to exclude the trend line):

Anthony Watts took care to remove the trend from his version of this chart.

As usual Anthony’s also using several levels of cherry-picking to gin-up his “What global warming?” climate claim aside from the two-year comparison windows. The US Corn Belt is not the same geographic area as the continental US, so he’s not demonstrating anything at all about the Corn Belt climate. Likewise, the continental US represents only a fraction of the global record.

The Stanford article also mentions an US trend towards anomalously cooler summers, which coupled with the unequivocal rise in annual average temperature implies warmer winters. US agriculture has been partly insulated from global warming by keeping the growing season temperatures within the crop’s tolerance zone. Why didn’t Anthony address that? Hmmm.

Are Gulf Of Mexico Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies Near To Record Levels?

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“Are Gulf Of Mexico Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies Near To Record Levels?” As Anthony Watts foolishly suggests in his one sentence contribution to Bob Tisdale’s guest post, “the devil is in the details.” He is indeed…

Bob is trying to dispute the claim by meteorologist Jeff Masters that the recent Midwest deluge [was] enhanced by near-record Gulf of Mexico sea surface temperatures. Although Jeff is talking about weather, Bob Tisdale recognizes the threat. This might mean that global warming really is happening! Of course it’s not, so he accuses Jeff of  a “contrived” claim and counters that “…over the past 80 years, there is no global warming signal in the Gulf of Mexico SST data.”

My blue trend is just eyeballing but it's a lot less contrived than Bob Tisdale's flat red line in this example from his "analysis".

Unfortunately for Bob any open-eyed reader will see that every chart he tries to use as evidence reveals that he has deliberately picked dishonest comparison points that minimize the increase and he has ignored everything in-between. Details, details.

Statistics, Bob. Look into ’em. There’s a reason scientists use ’em.

Climate models go cold

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Anthony illustrates Evans' science with cartoon of a CO2 molecule (or maybe deadmau5).

Climate models go cold. Hey, we’re golden! Anthony Watts assures us that “Carbon warming [is] too minor to be worth worrying about”! After-all, there’s a paranoid right-wing opinion piece by Australian crank David Evans in Canada’s Financial Post newspaper that proves it.

David Evans tells us that he’s “a scientist” (although not a climate scientist as he likes to imply) who used to be an “alarmist”. But he learned that the “whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s”? Wow! Did someone just hit the That Was Easy button?

Evans is mainly interested in muttering about political corruption, gravy trains and “the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome”. But here’s the core of Evans’ claim (note his inability to solve the equation 1 + 3 = x):

For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.

So… if Evans can disprove the implied relative contributions to warming, which he has already got wrong, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down I guess. Evans sets to work. No tropospheric “hotspot”, as posited by climate science, was found in the upper atmosphere! [Except it was.] Evans says all that water vapor was turning into clouds that offset the warming. [Except it didn’t.] Those corrupt climate scientists never noticed the clouds, so they’re wrong! [Except clouds have always been part of climate modeling.]

With this very shaky underpinning, Evans proceeds to assure us that the reason climate scientists won’t admit their error now is because they want to keep their “well-paying jobs with lavish research grants” and are slavishly eager to offer “political power to their government masters.” Why, they “ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence” [nope], and they  are playing tricks with “the way they measure temperature” [a lame invocation of Anthony’s discredited science fair project], and they ignore the satellite record [you know, the ones they put up there].

Kind of confusing until you realise that this whole dissertation was made at an Anti-Carbon-Tax Rally, probably from Evan’s Perth, Australia front porch. The only science in his entire rant is Anthony’s addition of a Wikipedia CO2 molecule cartoon. There could be some nasty backlash over his inconvenient admission that CO2 has even a slight warming effect though…

2011-04-13 Update: Michael Tobis highlights Evans’ flim-flam at Only In It For The Gold.

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup

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“Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup“. Anthony Watts helpfully posts the denialist “think tank” Science and Environmental Policy Project’s spin on recent news. The government is trying to grab power! Only Conservative blogs tell the truth! Government waste! Smoking is good for you!

I love the editorial by the unshakeable Fred Singer, which has the brass to try using a quote from Dr. James Hansen to support the tired old claim that “models cannot be used to predict future global temperatures reliably”. LOL.

Spin, spin, spin.

An Unexpected Limit to Climate Sensitivity

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“An Unexpected Limit to Climate Sensitivity“. Climate scientists have struggled for decades to accurately determine the sensitivity of Earth’s climate to changes in atmospheric CO2. Citizen-scientist Willis Eschenbach thinks he’s figured it out. It’s not 3℃, if the cartoon version atmospheric model he’s using is right the sensitivity should be 9℃! Clearly those scientists don’t have a clue (this is what we call “foreshadowing”).

Oops. He was measuring the wrong system, and he forgot about “conservation of energy”.

New paper – “absence of correlation between temperature changes … and CO2″

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New paper – “absence of correlation between temperature changes … and CO2″ Anthony Watts proclaims the deliciousness of a new paper by Paulo (not a climatologist) Cesar Soares in the brand-new International Journal of Geosciences, part of the Scientific Research Publishing “empire” (click on that link!), where all the cool papers will now be published. Warming Power of CO2 and H2O: Correlations with Temperature Changes tells us that no correlation exists between CO2 and global temperature, so it must be… something else. Why? Because the response to CO2 variations isn’t instant.

Temperature went up... because there was more water in the air. Or did something happen? Thanks for the blog science, IJG.

Is Soares really trying to tell us that the “correlation” proves that increased atmospheric water is producing warmth? If Anthony buys it, well, maybe we should stop picking on the little rascal…

I’ll leave today’s rebuttal to Greenfyre’s Flimsy post:

For any that think it matters, the paper basically correlates regional weather with solar variation, PDO etc, and then calls it climate.

It’s really too silly to waste any time on, so naturally the Denialosphere will be announcing it as “the final coffin nail” (again).

SORCE’s Solar Spectral Surprise – UV declined, TSI constant

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“SORCE’s Solar Spectral Surprise – UV declined, TSI constant“. Could it be that measurements of Solar UV and Irradiance show enough variability to be a factor in climate trends? Anthony Watts wants you to think so. There’s a NASA news report about the SORCE spacecraft’s Solar Irradiance Monitor (SIM) results that can be spun that way, so he pastes it in.

 

Decrease in Solar ultraviolet radiation, 2004 - 2007. Source: Joanna Haigh/Imperial College London

Too bad that:

  1. The unexpected UV decline may be an artifact of the instrumentation.

    “I strongly suspect the SIM trends are instrumental, not solar,” said Lean, noting that instrumental drift has been present in every instrument that has tracked ultraviolet wavelengths to date.

  2. If the change is real the impact would be the opposite of the observed climate trends.

    “If these SIM measurements indicate real solar variations, then it would mean you could expect a warmer surface during periods of low solar activity, the opposite of what climate models currently assume,” said Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeling specialist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.

Still, NASA scientists are simultaneously assessing the accuracy of the measurements and considering what this apparent information might suggest for solar models. The rigid mainstream scientific consensus strikes again?

Polar bears no longer on ‘thin ice’: researchers say polar bears could face brighter future

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“Polar bears no longer on ‘thin ice’: researchers say polar bears could face brighter future“. Hah, says Anthony Watts, Polar Bears are happy! The US Forest Service says so in a paper in Nature! (pay-walled) This means that there’s no Global Warming!

This is classic Anthony Watts misrepresentation. It’s funny how so much of what Anthony touts as evidence that refutes the predicted impacts of Global Warming is in fact the opposite. Here’s the first “key finding” of the paper (italics mine):

The results of modeling regional polar bear populations indicate a potentially brighter future for the species if global greenhouse gas concentrations can be kept under control at levels less than those expected under current conditions.

Friday Funny – Surreal Climate #5

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“Friday Funny – Surreal Climate #5“. Anthony Watts posts a cartoon by “Josh” showing Al Gore and notable climate scientists in Cancun saying the everything they’ve said for the last decade was wrong. Now that’s hilarious satire! Or desperate wish-fulfilment.

A Year After Climategate, The Corruption Of Science Persists

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“A Year After Climategate, The Corruption Of Science Persists“. Here’s a surprisingly fresh insight (not). Anthony Watts copy-and-pastes the first few paragraphs of a blog article from the denialist “Global Warming Policy Foundation” website about Climategate. You remember the fabricated denialist scandal that has been repeatedly debunked, don’t you?

Benny Peiser solemnly reports that a year after Climategate “science” is still “corrupt”.

He mentions “pal review”, “alarmist propaganda”, “Soviet Union”, and “the basic science is nonexistent”. Get the picture?

Why do I keep imagining a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off? Lots of activity, but no progress. And yet somehow there’s still a lot of squawking.