Website News

Yes, I’ve been a bad boy lately, focusing on my own activities and generally letting the WUWT howlers fade into the background. There have certainly been a few doosies though!

I’ve made use of the break to do some jigging of the intertubes and now wotsupwiththat.com and wottsupwiththat.com both redirect to this WordPress site. That’s something, isn’t it?

Here are a few recent entertaining links.

Arctic Ocean ice retreating at 30-year record pace

Arctic Ocean ice retreating at 30-year record pace“. Steven Mosher is suddenly sniffing that short-term Arctic Sea Ice trends don’t mean anything. I guess short-term climate trends are only legitimate if they can be used to ‘prove’ that Global Warming is either non-existent or natural. They’re definitely not legitimate evidence that Global Warming is real or man-made. Ah, the hypocrisy.

His understandable indignation was triggered by an article about declining Arctic Sea Ice in The Montreal Gazette that was based on such wild sources as… the measurements of the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the research of University of Manitoba polar scientist David Barber.

Actually, short-term trends aren’t very meaningful for climate prediction. But you can be sure the denialists will swing back to touting them as soon as they can find one that suits them.

What if GISS Holes were Pink?

What if GISS Holes were Pink?” Steven Goddard deliberately confuses temperature anomalies with absolute temperature in this post. Guess what: the Arctic is still colder than the tropics even though it has warmed more relatively. Steven knows this, but he enjoys pretending he doesn’t.

He also enjoys grumbling about the Goddard Institute for Space Studies’ global temperature model; not enough locations to be trusted! (How many would be enough?)

WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #9

WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #9“. Steven Goddard declares that the topic for this Arctic Sea Ice News is “verification of data sources.” Why? Well a big change of focus is needed because this is what the NSIDC reports:

At the end of [May], extent fell near the level recorded in 2006, the lowest in the satellite record

So Steven talks about “concentration” instead of extend or volume, because that value is a little more ‘interpretable.’ He talks about Barrow, Alaska because the ice happens to be a bit thicker there. He talks about recent Arctic air temperatures. He keeps trying to promote the PIPS data because that also looks thicker.

Keep dancing, Steven, but we remember how you were crowing that Arctic Sea Ice Extent back in March was proof that the Arctic was recovering.

NSIDC 2010 Arctic Sea Ice Extent: an inconvenient truth.

Steven’s response to the clinical dismantling of his claims in the comments is to start talking about football (aka soccer) scores.

Book Review – Climatism

Book Review – Climatism“. Anthony Watts has discovered Climatism!, “a wonderful, extremely factual, and very timely book” by “engineer and former business executive” Steve Goreham. William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, reviews it for him in four short paragraphs. Apparently it’s all down to “world government” and “political chicanery“. Okey dokey.

Bizzarothink in Goreville

Bizzarothink in Goreville“. Anthony Watts tries to accuse Al Gore of hypocrisy. Gore writes “Stop Censoring News From The Gulf” but won’t let the press attend a conference keynote speech! Oh, snap!

Is there a difference between a public national crisis and a private speech? Well, maybe.

McIntyre and McKitrick to receive award

McIntyre and McKitrick to receive award“. What, they’re getting a “Nobel pin” too? Naw, it’s just the partisan right-wing Competitive Enterprise Institute “think tank” giving their foot-soldiers a bit of tin and calling it the “Julian Simon Memorial Award”. Julian Simon was a mediocre, but libertarian, economist…

Denialists are desperate for recognition, even if they have to fake it. Personally, I think M&M’s recognition should be missing a week of recesses for failing to play nicely.

The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider

The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider“. My god, Steven Mosher is easy to spoon-feed! He jumps right in on the blatantly false report by Canada’s National Post denier-in-chief Lawrence Solomon, who claims that climatology professor Mike Hulme has admitted a “phony UN IPCC consensus” “reached by only a few dozen experts“. Of course Solomon has to build his claim with bits of sentences, as the whole sentences are effectively state the opposite.

Solomon has published deliberate lies, explicitly denied by Dr Hulme here and again here. It’s unusual for denialist lies to unravel so quickly, but no doubt most of Anthony Watts readers are clinging to the initial “revelation.”

Mosher’s claim to journalistic integrity takes yet another hit.

New Dogs; IPCC tricks

New Dogs; IPCC tricks“. Steven Mosher tries to tie the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to a Fox News report, titled “Experts Say White House ‘Misrepresented’ Views to Justify Drilling Moratorium“. On what basis? Well none really, other than the fact that Steven doesn’t like either of ’em.

Thanks for the science.

Was Margaret Thatcher the first climate sceptic?

Was Margaret Thatcher the first climate sceptic?” When a newspaper article title ends with a question mark, it means that they want you to believe their headline but can’t get away with stating it directly. Steven Mosher links to a right-wing Telegraph article by Christopher Booker that tries to juggle his love of the union-bashing, argy-crushing “Iron Lady” with their need to fight blindly against the government intervention that they associate with Global Warming. She was tricked into voicing alarm over global warming!

Fortunately for denialists, as she has aged and her intellectual powers have diminished she’s subsided back into reflexive right-wing mutterings on environmental issues.”natural factors such as solar activity”, “beneficial effects”, “anti-capitalist, Left-wing political agenda”. Yay?

Of course the alternate explanation is that her global warming concern was merely a political weapon to be used against the then-powerful coal miner’s unions. Similarly the current opposition to global warming is a political weapon to try to inhibit government regulation.