“Quote of the Week – delineating Nature“. Apparently Anthony Watts thinks nature is our enemy. He likes this deep insight from a WUWT commenter:
You might wonder why these fools are trying to let the outdoors back in, when we’ve spent our entire history trying to keep the outdoors out.
“University of Colorado and NASA Research Center to Study Sun’s Effects on Earth’s Climate“. Anthony Watts brings us exciting news about climate research. Because the Sun’s effect on the Earth’s climate has never been considered before!
Sorry, this post is just a one-liner. Well, now it’s two lines.
“No evidence for Clovis comet catastrophe, archaeologists say“. Maybe the Clovis people, the earliest known culture to inhabit North America, disappeared after an ancient comet impact. Maybe not. Maybe they just changed their favourite tools. Whatever.
Stick to what you do best, Anthony, or your troops will get restless.
“Potential breakthrough: electrical power from waste heat generated at the quantum level“. Anthony Watts has found a press release from the University of Arizona that says physicists have discovered a new way of harvesting waste heat and turning it into electrical power.
We’re saved! Thermocouples to the rescue! Who cares about Global Warming now?
Like Anthony I hope that some unexpected technological development solves our energy needs. But I’m not willing to bet on it, nor am I willing to dismiss the environmental consequences.
“New discovery may lead to a malaria vaccine“. This will make Indur Goklany happy, because malaria is what we should really be focussed on, right? Anthony Watts got so worked up on that comment thread that he banned a critic that he’s still trying to argue around.
Why did Anthony and so many of his commenters feel the need to co-opt Rachael Carson? The comments in this post still talk about “the lies of Rachael Carson”, claim that Carson was “a Malthusian” and continue to compare her to Hitler. Was she Al Gore’s mother? Hilarious.
So Australian scientists have identified how the malaria parasite to attach to and enter red blood cells. Excellent development, but it doesn’t change the fact that Anthony and Indur have enthusiastically milked the distraction of malaria and DDT use for their own ideological purposes.
Sorry, no get out of jail free card for you Anthony. Way too much recidivism.
“Wood fired power plants help reduce climate change“. Anthony Watts has read a press release from the University of Manchester titled How heating our homes could help reduce climate change and thinks we can burn our way to a lower CO2 emissions. No need to change anything else to solve Global Warming. Which isn’t happening.
Um, this is really a report of biomass-fueled district heating concepts. Biomass sequesters and then releases carbon in a repeating cycle, so it’s inherently “neutral” in climate terms if processing, transport and power generation are efficient enough.
“Fossil” fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas were sequestered millions of years ago and completely removed from the natural carbon cycle. When they are extracted and consumed their carbon, in the form of CO2 is released back into the environment with what a “consensus” of scientists would describe as pronounced and measurable impacts on the Earth’s climate.
“NASA discovery: solar storms don’t always travel in straight lines“. Anthony Watts posts another NASA news report, Solar Storms can Change Directions, Surprising Forecasters. A 2008 coronal mass ejection (CME) was observed by NASA’s STEREO-A and STEREO–B spacecraft. The researchers speculate that CME’s follow the sun’s curving magnetic field until they get swept up by the solar wind. The paper by Byrne et al, Propagation of an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection in three dimensions, is in the Sept. 21, 2010 issue of Nature Communications.
The Dec. 12, 2008 coronal mass ejection observed by STEREO. Source: NASA.
I guess Anthony thinks this report is helpful in suggesting that a) we don’t know anything about that big fiery ball in the sky, and b) them scientists are going to change their minds anyway, so don’t bother listening to them.
“Why the CO2 increase is man made (part 1)“. A rare bit of reality pops up unexpectedly on Anthony Watts’ blog. Yes, the increase in atmospheric CO2 is effectively all man-made, says Ferdinand Engelbeen.
Oh, here’s the catch; Engelbeen has left himself an escape hatch for the ensuing denialist assault. The increase in atmospheric CO2 apparently has limited impact on temperature. This is to be discussed later.
So that’s why Anthony offered a bit of “mainstream” perspective. He’s trying to gently steer his readers away from embarrassing attacks on scientific evidence and on to new and more flexible topics.
“CO2 heats the atmosphere…a counter view“. Tom Vonk, “Physicist”, engages in some wishful thinking to prove that CO2 is not responsible for heating the atmosphere. If you look at a small enough quantity of atmospheric gases in just the right way, and ignore the rest of the field of radiative physics that is. It’s always a bad sign when an arm-waving pet theory that start with “intuitively”.
So what is responsible for heating the atmosphere? Oh, that’s a question for another day.
Vonk’s conclusion?
The main point is that every time you hear or read that “CO2 heats the atmosphere”, that “energy is trapped by CO2”, that “energy is stored by green house gases” and similar statements, you may be sure that this source is not to be trusted for information about radiation questions.
Oh, I se. This is just an exercise in training denialists to stop reading “warmist” statements as soon as the science begins.
When the educated commenters, including Dr. Roy Spencer and even Steven Goddard, take a big step back from Vonk’s claims in the comments you know this post ain’t earning any Nobel prizes.
Most of the comments are, of course, of the hilariously oblivious wild praise variety. And that’s what counts, right?
Layers of Earth's upper atmosphere. Credit: John Emmert/NRL.
Earth’s thermosphere collapses – film at 11: NASA releases a news report on how the thermosphere (the top 500K of Earth’s atmosphere) is affected by solar activity. This is Anthony Watts’ excuse to revive the hoary bogus claim that climate change is all driven by the sun and will swing back no matter what humans do. Also, NASA are a bunch of ‘Chicken Littles’, always worrying about things. Don’t ever listen to them!
Too bad these fluctuations (the “collapses” are the result of upper atmosphere cooling triggered by lower solar activity) don’t mirror anything that’s happening to Earth’s climate. If you want to get technical, the historical patterns suggest that last decade of declining solar activity should have been accompanied by minor global cooling, not record warming…
The paper that NASA’s summary is derived from is: Emmert, J. T., J. L. Lean, and J. M. Picone (2010), Record-low thermospheric density during the 2008 solar minimum, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L12102.
Of course Anthony also highlights the NASA author’s e-mail address for easy harassment.
Wott's Up With That? 