Category Archives: Self-promotion

The Final Straw

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Steven Mosher, amateur quote miner

“The Final Straw“. “Charles the moderator” posts his roommate Steven Mosher’s article further quote-mining Dr. Phil Jones’ stolen e-mail and speculating about Dr. Jones’ motives.

Shockingly, after repeatedly telling various unqualified denialist pests where to get the temperature record data he uses, Dr. Jones eventually stops responding when they use it to launch irrelevant criticisms and starts treating them as… unqualified denialist pests. This is, apparently, “the final straw.”

Steven Mosher also self-published an amateur analysis of the stolen CRU e-mails, Climategate: The Crutape letters, shortly after their appearance.

A new paper comparing NCDC rural and urban US surface temperature data

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“A new paper comparing NCDC rural and urban US surface temperature data“. Anthony Watts reports that the denialist “think tank” Science and Public Policy has “published a paper” by retired NASA “advanced materials” physicist and self-described extremely conservative blogger Dr. Edward Long. “Published” in the sense of printed, just like Anthony’s own discredited Science and Public Policy pamphlet “Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception?” (tellingly admired by Dr. Long). Actually, this feels like a do-over of Anthony’s idea with a Ph.D. stuck on top and the really dumb bits left out.

“Contiguous U.S. Temperature Trends Using NCDC Raw and Adjusted Data for One-Per-State Rural and Urban Station Sets“ concludes that the NCDC (National Climatic Data Center) has “taken liberty to alter the actual rural measured values.” Why? Because two 48 station subsets (“rural” and “urban”) have the same trend after the NCDC’s adjustments have been made. Which means that some nefarious trick has forced them to match. Dr. Long selected his stations “on the assumption that within a certain latitude band stations along an East-West line experience the same climate and that within a grid unit the set of stations are somehow related“. That’s a rather off-hand justification for what I suspect is a pretty careful cherry-picking operation. There have been objective re-examinations of the US surface temperature data (Menne et al, 2010), but no significant errors have been uncovered.

Dr. Long also tries to wave away the temperature trend by suggesting that it reflects population growth around the weather stations. Somehow population growth intensifies the UHI effect. I’m not a climate scientist but I would expect the same UHI effect to occur more widely with population growth, not show up as ever “hotter” readings. After all, UHI is effectively a landscape factor, something Anthony himself has been fixated on for sometime on his surfacestations.org project. Should someone whisper “maybe it’s global warming?“

The most slimy essay ever from the Guardian and Columbia University

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“The most slimy essay ever from the Guardian and Columbia University“. Anthony Watts is somehow surprised to find himself connected to lobbyists that have also fought for a variety of profitable but destructive industries in the Guardian (other newspapers too!) article Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain. The ever-helpful Watts gives his readers some useful ways to harass the Guardian author.

I would have thought that losing his hearing and both parents to tobacco-related diseases would have given Anthony some insight into the consequences of the denialist machinery. When you spend so much time singing the denialist praises of Fred Singer the erstwhile tobacco industry spin artist you’ve got to nurse a pretty massive case of tunnel vision not to connect the dots.

As for Anthony’s assertion that the denialists are simply a “growing revolution of like minded people”, I think that right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation are cultivating the passions of libertarians for their own benefit through flattery and not cash. As the Tea Party movement shows, there’s a pretty big undercurrent of easily exploited right-wing anxiety out there. But the goofy “CO2 is good!” television commercials and those Washington foundation staffs only come from the cold hard stuff.

Must see: John Coleman’s Global Warming Special #2 – now online at YouTube

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“Must see: John Coleman’s Global Warming Special #2 – now online at YouTube“. Ah YouTube, the place where science happens, and local cable programming can go global. Same old same old from Anthony Watts’ friend John Coleman, although even Anthony distances himself a little bit by saying I should note that I don’t agree with the broad statement made in the video that “CO2 has no effect”. It does, but the magnitude of the direct effect and the feedback effects is disputed. Even Anthony steps back from that whopper! Global Warming: The Other Side is in fact the same side of disproved denialist bunk as the first “special.”

The part I like best is where Anthony again claims that the dog ate his homework on the usefulness of surface weather station records. He says that the “end part where I refute NCDC didn’t make the final cut, perhaps the producer thought it too technical due to the graph of TOBS, FILNET, and RAW data that I used to show that NCDC’s claims about a cooling trend in poorly sited station doesn’t hold up.” Anthony’s surfacestations.org project has been thoroughly spanked as useless; he keeps promising proof that his belief is correct but never delivers.

Spencer: developing a new satellite based surface temperature set

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“Spencer: developing a new satellite based surface temperature set“. A denialist scientist links to “scientific criticism” on Anthony Watts’ blog and charts from right-wing political activists. I guess it’s easier than formulating a factual criticism.

Dr. Spencer thinks that fewer surface station temperatures are used for climate analysis now, and that they’ve been chosen to magnify global warming (which isn’t happening anyway). Dr. Spencer assures us that his satellite corrections (which, annoyingly, almost perfectly match the positive trend of the nasty surface stations) will be better, even though he’s still developing his “product.” He also mutters about that classic denialist misdirection, Urban Heat Islands.

"Bad" surface stations and "good" satellites: annoyingly identical trends.

Spencer says that although he’s still refining his product, “December 2009 was, indeed, a cool month in my analysis.” Nothing like stating your conclusions before doing the work!

Dr. Spencer is the guy who regularly fails basic mathematical and statistical standards in his published papers. Here are a couple links for those interested: Hide the Increase and Spencer’s Folly. He’s also the author of the book Climate Confusion, which perfectly describes his activities…

John Coleman’s next TV special airs tonight

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“John Coleman’s next TV special airs tonight“. Anthony Watts’ friend, “iconic weatherman” John Coleman, airs another special on local San Diego TV. “Global Warming: Meltdown” is apparently a rehash of the failed Climategate quote-mining operation, with our own Anthony Watts and Dr. John Christy (a scientist of the “there’s only a little global warming, and maybe it’s actually good. So let’s not rush into anything” school) as guests. Coleman has yet to follow through with his threatened fraud lawsuit against Al Gore.

This sounds so amusing that I’m almost tempted to track down the inevitable YouTube link…

Gore on the Arctic (again)

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Gore on the Arctic (again). Boy, there’s no one Anthony Watts obsesses over more that Al Gore. But he’s getting a bit self-conscious about revealing his right-wing biases, so he has buddies do the muttering for him. In this case they’re enraged that Gore is reporting the evidence and predictions of Canukistan scientist. A scientist who uses climate models to make predictions! That’s wrong! Those things can’t be trusted! (Please suggest another way to make a climate prediction then.)

Then Anthony pulls out the measuring tape and crows about his page rank compared to Al Gore’s.

Jones may submit a correction to his 1990 paper – Keenan responds

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Jones may submit a correction to his 1990 paper – Keenan responds. One of Anthony Watts’ outraged blogging buddies demands recognition!

The Nature news item in question is primarily about the political assault Dr. Phil Jones is enduring from denialists… The possible “correction” refers to problems with the record keeping for some rural Chinese weather station records that used to assess possible temperature record biases due to the “Urban Heat Island” effect. The 1990 study concluded that there was there was no significant UHI bias, which undermines several popular denialist fairy-tales.

In 2007 “amateur climate-data analyst” Doug Keenan made a rambling accusation of fraud against Dr. Jones’ co-author Dr. Wei-Chyung Wang in the widely scorned journal Energy & Environment. Keenan stated that many of the Chinese weather stations had moved in contradiction to Dr. Wang’s assertion, and hence the conclusions were false. Thus ending global warming forever.

A scientific re-examination in 2008 with better data concluded that regardless of the original study’s record-keeping problems the conclusion was valid and in fact well-supported. Surprisingly, this part of the story is not mentioned on Anthony’s blog.

Scientist quits: ‘I don’t want to remain a member of an organization that …screws up science that badly.’

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OK, another quick-fire summary of Anthony Watts’ latest missives. I’ll ignore all the “winter storms mean Global Warming is a hoax” tomfoolery that Anthony posts to keep the simple-minded transfixed. The WUWT post referenced in the title is near the bottom of this post…

Sir David King: Half Right on the IPCC and Global Warming Policies, Despite Bad Logic. A political “guest post” by Indur M. Goklany, a right-wing “oil IS prosperity!“ economist.

What NOAA Isn’t Saying About Snow and Ice. Steven Goddard guest posting, muttering darkly about nothing at all.

Prediction: Arctic Ice Will Continue to Recover This Summer. Goddard again splashing charts around and then ignoring them, this time to fabricate an arctic ice prediction from his imagination.

Hansen colleague rejected IPCC AR4 ES as having “no scientific merit”, but what does IPCC do? Anthony misrepresents comments on a report draft as a damning mainstream criticism of the final report.

Climategate: Plausibility and the blogosphere in the post-normal age. Another guest post, this time by Jerome Ravetz, an 80-year-old retired lecturer on the philosophy of science who has lately turned to “environmental consulting”. He starts off with some scientific whoppers and meanders downhill from there.

Brace for the tipping point. Anthony prefixes a UC Davis press release about climate change risks (“Climate ‘Tipping Points’ May Arrive Without Warning, Says Top Forecaster”) with a photoshopped traffic sign.

Pielke responds to Romm and Time. Anthony reports that Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has some nits to pick over Time Magazine’s Another Snowstorm: What Happened to Global Warming? article, which explains how Anthony’s beloved winter storms fit well with current climate trends. Nothing to say about actual Global Warming though…

Climate “Twilight of the Gods”. The right-wing political journal The National Review takes aim at their ideological opponents and Anthony considers it scientific.

Nature suggests IPCC get an overhaul. Could it be true? Is this the end of the IPCC? Or is it just arm-chair quarterbacking along the lines of who was the best Batman? Anthony; just because someone answers a hypothetical question doesn’t mean they think there’s something actually wrong with the IPCC…

Penn State students to rally for independent investigation of Prof. Michael Mann. Campusreform.org, a far-right student group, wants to attack someone who isn’t as far-right as they are. Not very science-y, Anthony.

GISS adjustments in Australia. Raw data has again been forced to conform with the desired political result! Or corrected to account for regional and site issues. One or the other…

UEA/CRU and the Royal Society make a really bad PR move. Oh my god, the Royal Society is going to have scientists with relevant credentials review some of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit publications for possible errors! This is such a conspiracy! They’re all scientists! Where are the bloggers?

WUWT named to top 30 science blogs by The Times. The Times has a long history of promoting the denialist side, so this sad factoid just has to be swallowed. This kind of uncritical stupidity is the reason I started this blog.

Editor of Nature forced to resign from climate review panel. A blogger howls about bias, Dr. Phillip Campbell says “bunk” but steps down anyway to end blogger’s the crocodile tears. But Anthony does like to spin things.

New Paper in Science: Sea level 81,000 years ago was 1 meter higher while CO2 was lower. Thus ending Global Warming forever. Um, Anthony, there are many natural factors contributing to sea-level and to atmospheric CO2 levels. They are not all directly linked. They do not produce the kinds and rates of change that our man-made factors are now doing. So the lesson is: it’s great to learn more about natural factors and their timings, but that doesn’t make the new man-made factors disappear…

Scientist quits: ‘I don’t want to remain a member of an organization that …screws up science that badly.’ Henk Tennekes, an engineer with only meteorological expertise whose “contrary views on global warming forced him into early retirement at age 58” (15 years ago), according to the denialist “institute” ICECAP, quits the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences because they support action to reduce AGW. No doubt he will continue to express himself through the right-wing political organisations ICECAP and the Institute for Science and Public Policy.

NOAA langoliers eat another 1/3 of stations from GHCN database. Guest blogger E.M. Smith reports that the nefarious Climate Conspiracy “Team” are not using every single raw weather station in their cleverly cherry-picked data sets! They’re only using the ones that are consistent! And stable! And usefully distributed!

That’s it for today. Time for a new pot of coffee.

Penn State report on Mann: new investigation to convene.

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Gotta love the way Anthony Watts makes lemonade out of lemons! Today Penn State issued a report on their investigation into denialist charges that Dr. Michael Mann was a no-good dirty rat. Three of the four allegations were dismissed as completely without substance and the fourth equally dodgy allegation has, on a technicality, been passed on to a new panel of knowledgeable faculty members. Anthony naturally presents this as Dr. Mann now being the “subject of [a new] upcoming investigation”. I guess he’s hoping for a Hail Mary play. Kind of like every other denialist end-game.

Love this post too: BBC asks WUWT for help. Apparently the Beeb was looking for “UK scientists in current academic posts who are sceptical about AGW”. None found, they have turned to a TV weatherman (and high school graduate) for advice.

NASA Still Spreading Antarctic Worries. This is a post by Anthony’s associate Steven Goddard, allegedly a geologist. In a classic example of linear thinking (literally), Steven says that it will take over 18,000 years for the Antarctic ice cap to melt at current rates, so why worry?

More solar mutterings in Solar Cycle 24 Update. Anthony likes to post irrelevant discussions about solar cycles in order keep the “maybe it’s all just the Sun” thing occupying the minds of suggestible denialists.

Anthony has posted ClimateGate Timeline: 30 years in the making, a nice big busy info-graphic by Mohib Ebrahim “an amateur astronomer” who has “always been an AGW skeptic because of synchronous warming on neighbouring planets” (not) and has also read Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. You know what they say about idle hands.

This post is fun: Forests in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the past 225 years. It’s a dog-whistle for the idiotic idea that CO2 is good for plants, so the more we have the better! Some right-wing lobbyists actually aired TV commercials extolling this lunacy last year in the USA.