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.
“Contest“. On Christmas Eve Charles The Moderator announces a contest designed to make fun of Californian official’s wild-fire warnings. Now that’s what I call having a hate-on for gubmint.
If we have a below normal amount of rain, in the spring we get warnings that it’s going to be severe wildfire season, because the brush is so dry.
If we have an above normal amount of rain we get warnings that it’s going to be severe fire season, because there is so much extra brush.
If we have a normal rainy season we get warnings that’s it’s going to be severe fire season, with some hybrid explanation or an allusion to a previous fire season.
“Comment 500,000“. I think Shakespeare said it best: “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Anthony Watts’ commenters are an excellent example of people trapped in self-reinforcing group-think.
“Jim and Bill’s excellent misadventure“. Anthony Watts has found a transcript of an interview of Jim Hansen by Bill McKibben. I wonder if he got permission to repost it?
According to Anthony;
Reading it, you can feel some of the anger these two guys have for people like you and I, riding just below the surface of the conversation. You can also get a hint of the panic they feel.
Oh, if wishes were fishes Anthony. Think about how people feel about truculent, obstinate stooges and you’ll get an idea of the emotions in play.
“Some of the Missing Energy“. Willis Eschenbach keeps trying to use Excel to disprove the Earth’s accepted energy balance. He’s suddenly learned about evaporation and now the counter-proof is “thunderstorms!” Apparently they make CO2 irrelevant. He also introduces the new preferred energy unit, the “tiny bit”.
Try again.
“A reply to Senator Menendez from Santa“. Har, har. Two days before Christmas, Anthony Watts delights in an insulting joke response from Santa, recycled from a 1974 letter from the Cleveland Browns, to Democratic Senator Robert Menendez’s “Letter to Santa” on Huffinton.com.
Compelling denialist argument, or thuggish frat house “hijinks”? Same thing really.
“Early Christmas gift from Lisa Jackson: power plant greenhouse gas limits“. Ryan Maue tells us that those criminals at the EPA are abusing their powers and regulating power plant and refinery emissions. Just like every other administration over the last 30 years!
“Solar Geomagnetic Ap Index Hits Zero“. No sunspots! Has this ever happened at this point in a solar cycle? (Yes.) This means the Earth must be cooling according to “It’s the Sun” denialists. Except 2010 was the hottest year in the instrumental record.
Anthony Watts gives us a big blob of copy and pasted Solar data and hopes we don’t draw the logical inference from it all. The comments, as always when the Sun is mentioned, are a glow with arguments about whether the Sun is externally heated or not…
“3% of Earth’s landmass is now urbanized“. Anthony Watts goes back in time to 2005 for some fresh insight: 3% of the Earth’s landmass is urbanized. This means about 1% of the Earth’s surface. For Anthony, this is proof that all temperature readings are corrupted by the dreaded Urban Heat Island effect, and thus there is no Global Warming.
People! In places! Source: Earth Institute
But what do the satellite readings say Anthony? Oh, not so useful. Too bad your surface-stations project blew up in your face too.
Step one: copy and paste (in this case a 2005 report from Columbia University’s Earth Institute).
Step two: insinuate (in this case about the temperature record quality).
Step three: profit!
“Where Did I Put That Energy?“ More Christmas Guest pudding. Willis Eschenbach is always good for a snort, but before I even caught up to this post he’d admitted a factor of 10 calculation error…
Willis is trying once more to misrepresent Kevin Trenberth’s “travesty“‘ statement that “we can not account for what is happening in the climate system” (he was talking about simple data collection issues, not that the evidence disproved Global Warming). This time he tries to include the oceans in his argument. Why not, eh? They do cover 71% of the Earth’s surface.
Willis’ complicated equation for solving the puzzle is ∆Q (change in energy added) = ∆U (change in energy lost) + ∆Ocean (change in energy in/out of ocean). He substitutes surface temperature “T” divided by the climate sensitivity “S” (conventionally estimated as 0.8) to get this: ∆Q = ∆T / 0.8 + ∆Ocean (Joules/year). Nuanced, isn’t it?
As always, Willis’ only path to enlightenment is through crappy Excel charts. He theorizes (let’s be generous for a moment) that:
because energy cannot be created or destroyed. If we add extra energy to the system, it has to either leave the system via increased radiation or get stored in the ocean. There is no “lag” or “in the pipeline” possible.
This lets him assert that any discrepancy is proof that the mainstream climatologists are wrong. Handy that, although it doesn’t show any awareness of what Trenberth’s real concern was: that there were areas of the ocean that are inadequately monitored, with potentially unaccounted energy flows.
Still, Willis races on to his profound insight:
I make no hard claims about any of this, as I don’t know where the missing energy really is. I don’t even know if this is the missing energy that Trenberth was talking about. My theory is that the energy is not missing, but that Equation 2 is wrong. My hypothesis is that the earth responds to volcanoes and other forcing losses by cutting back on clouds and thunderstorms.
Sorry dude, a climate hypothesis isn’t something pulled out of your ass, it’s something that uses a real physical mechanism to accurately explain measured values. Changing thermodynamics to suit your interests doesn’t pass muster.
Wott's Up With That? 