Category Archives: The Cherry Orchard

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.

It’s probably nothing*

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“It’s probably nothing*“. Anthony Watts tries to slide another stupid “Snow! Somewhere!” post by as just a little “humor“. Apparently busy denialist copy-and-paster Tom Nelson noted that there was lots (41 inches) of ice in Nenana, Alaska (which is in the Arctic you know) on April 21st this year. But the ice was all gone by that date in 1940! Therefore global cooling.

Nenana has held an annual draw to guess the date of spring breakup on the Tanana River for a century now, and this is Anthony’s new gold standard for global climate data.

Like most northern rivers, the Tanana’s spring ice breakup is almost entirely dependent on flow volume during the spring run-off. The ice broke up, at a thickness of 39″, just four days after this astonishing climate evidence was presented. Also at 64°N Nenana is below the Arctic Circle.

Willis Eschenbach accidentally undermines Anthony's "humor".

Anthony’s teammate Willis Eschenbach creates the real punchline by inserting a chart (above) that shows that ice break up on the Tanana River is clearly trending to earlier dates. Or maybe he just can’t understand his own work.

I guess Anthony’s readers aren’t subtle enough to follow Anthony’s attempt at humor; they’re reacting with stolid earnestness.

Union of Concerned Scientists – Unwarranted Concern about the Northeast US

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“Union of Concerned Scientists – Unwarranted Concern about the Northeast US“. A guest post by Alan Cheetham of Appinsys (an unskeptical version of Skeptical Science, with an interest in portraits of Mohammed). Did you know that the Union of Concerned Scientists, who are just washed-out librul anti-nuke gravy-train types, has been exaggerating climate change in the Northeastern USA? (Nothing to say about the rest of the world?)

[Across the globe, and] “here in the Northeast, the climate is changing. Records show that spring is arriving earlier, summers are growing hotter, and winters are becoming warmer and less snowy. These changes are consistent with global warming, an urgent phenomenon driven by heat-trapping emissions from human activities.” – 2006, from climatechoices.org

“In fact”, there has been no trend in temperature change there in a hundred years, and sometimes the “record” was, like, years ago!

Cheat-sheet:

  • When denialists like Anthony Watts and Alan Cheetham want to present the illusion of a recent cooling period, they will reduce the number of years of temperature data until they can.
  • When denialists like Anthony and Alan want to hide recent (post 1975) AGW warming, they increase the number of years they present.
  • Denialists like Anthony and Alan will always cherry-pick a convenient location and claim that it disproves a global trend.
  • Denialists like Anthony and Alan will always fixate on an outlier if it suits their argument, the wilder the better.

Unfortunately for Anthony, in this case the “trick” is in plain sight. In all “flat” temperature graphs the trend from 1975 onwards is a rising one. Here’s an example, the “summer” temperature trend:

Alan Cheetham's "flat" temperature trend — of just the northeast USA because nothing else exists — with post-1975 trend indicated.

I guess we should listen to the Union of Unconcerned Scientists.

Are huge northeast snow storms due to global warming?

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“Are huge northeast snow storms due to global warming?“ Dr. Richard Keen, a buddy of denialist economist Roger Pielke, Jr., guest posts on Anthony Watts’ blog. Did you know that Philadelphia’s weather patterns are proof that lots of snow really does mean colder weather? Take that, Jay Lawrimore of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center! And of course one useful city is always a refutation of what’s happening over the entire planet.

Now Richard knows you nasty warmists are going to accuse him, again, of cherry-picking a convenient example. So he reminds readers that he chose Philadelphia because he grew up there. That totally lets him off the hook.

USA record lows outpace record highs 19 to 1 this week

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“USA record lows outpace record highs 19 to 1 this week“. Anthony Watts wants you to think that “snow” (somewhere) equals “cold” (everywhere) and therefore Global Warming is a fraud. His convincing evidence? One week of US data.

In 2009 Gerald Meehl published a report in ScienceDaily that the denialists have tried to undercut ever since titled Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across US. He used 60 years of data.

60 years beats seven days. Source: ScienceDaily.

The last paragraph in Anthony’s post shows that he knows his headline was not only misrepresentative but also only momentarily accurate (italics mine):

*Note: some people clicking on the interactive map will see different numbers, since that map will record new highs and lows as this post ages. The headline was originally based on 16 highs during the week (see the highs map for a ratio of 21 to 1) then by the time the post editing was completed and the post made, the number of highs was up to 18, giving an 18.6 to 1 (~19 to 1 in the title) ratio. Later in the day the number of record highs in the one week period increased as new weather occurred (on Dec 31) and reports came in. The numbers were accurate at the time the post started. Weather records, like weather itself are dynamic with the forward moving one week period the interactive map generator uses, so please don’t assume error if you click on the interactive map and the numbers don’t match now, or in the future. – Anthony

Snowfall “…a very rare and exciting event”

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Snowfall “…a very rare and exciting event”.  A newspaper report from the Independent back in 2000 said that snow will become rare in the UK, but yet there it was! Thus disproving Global Warming.

Thank you Anthony Watts.

Quote of the Week – Total Ecplise of the Moonbat

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“Quote of the Week – Total Ecplise of the Moonbat“. Right-wing libertarian blogger Richard North pontificates that any cold weather anywhere is proof that there is no Global Warming and that George Monbiot is somehow foolish, stupid and loathsome for not understanding that. Giving him a mocking nickname, “Moonbat”, certainly caps the argument.

Anthony Watts’ nomination of EU Referendum as a well-argued denialist website is deeply educational… Yeah, nothing like cherry-picking weather news reports to try to dismantle a journalist’s climate story. It definitely proves that the mainstream climatologists are scheming liars!

Monckton’s Mexican Missive #2

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“Monckton’s Mexican Missive #2“. Denialist blowhard Lord Monckton, rattling around the UN climate conference in Cancun waiting for supplicants to seek out his guidance, provides another rambling “report” about how everyone at the Conference is stupid. And evil. And mean. And blindly “religious.” And demoralized. And conspiring. The list seems endless. Anthony Watts gives it all his seal of approval.

And yet this unsupported repetition of a wide list of debunked denialist claims and allegations of conspiracy, along with a random political broadsides and references to his dinner menu, are all we get from the leading “intellectual” of the denialist movement… What a train-wreck.

Monckton reaches his pinnacle of cleverness when he encourages people to call the “wicked” IPCC the “ipecac”. Oh, if we use the name of syrup of ipecac instead of their real name no one will take them seriously! They’ll just think of throwing up! Oh you are by far the cleverest guy in Grade Three and your readers are, tellingly, quivering with delight.

Warmest year ever? – 2010: An Unexceptional El Nino Year

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“Warmest year ever? – 2010: An Unexceptional El Nino Year“. Anthony Watts kindly re-posts ‘Global Warming Policy Foundation’ lobbyist David Whitehouse’s comical cherry-picking of evidence that 2010 wasn’t so warm after-all. Surprisingly, The Daily Mail is naturally taking our pet right-wing lobbyist at face value.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the lack of warming seen in the global average annual temperatures seen in the last decade has changed.

Hmmm. If you play the usual bogus denialist statistical mis-representation and ignore all the natural contributions that have been tending towards cooling. And then add in a comparison of individual months to cherry-picked years. This is eye-rollingly stupid/dishonest.

“No, no” say the commenters, “we’re on the cusp of an ice-age!” They also declare, standing with a dripping brush in their hand, that them durn climatologisters have painted themselves into a corner. Somehow.

Nov. 2010 UAH Global Temperature Update: +0.38 deg. C

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“Nov. 2010 UAH Global Temperature Update: +0.38 deg. C“. Anthony Watts lets the denialist’s favorite scientist, Dr. Roy W. Spencer Ph. D., break the news that “2010 is now in a dead heat with 1998 for warmest year.”

There’s hope though for cherry-pickers (italics mine):

The tropical tropospheric temperature anomaly for November continued its cooling trend, finally falling below the 1979-1998 average… but the global anomaly is still falling slowly: +0.38 deg. C for October, 2010.

Anthony’s readers twist and squirm in the comments.