“NSIDC: Arctic Sea Ice Melt Season – latest start on record“. Anthony Watts feints amnesia to infer that an NSIDC Sea Ice News report called “Cold snap causes late-season growth spurt” means that a cold Arctic winter has disproved Global Warming.
Remember why this is the latest start on record, Anthony? We both posted about it two days ago.
Sugar, you're goin' down. Source: NSIDC.
“A New And Effective Climate Model“. A 5,699 word guest post by Stephen Wilde, who has falsely identified himself as a meteorologist, states that existing climate models have “no predictive skill whatever despite huge advances in processing power and the application of millions or even billions of man hours from reputable and experienced scientists over many decades“. That’ll surprise the climatologists who have been predicting things pretty well for some time now.
But he’s here to set it all right. He’s got a “serious hypothesis”! It involves talking about “Solar surface turbulence”, boiling pots and sandwiches. Backed up by newspaper article references. Groan. Looks like textbook example of the Dunning–Kruger effect.
Why is Anthony posting this goof-ball rubbish? Oh I see. This line, buried 3/4 of the way down – “The contribution of the Greenhouse effect is miniscule.”
In spite of the generally credulous welcome given to this nonsense in the WUWT comments, Solar Physicist Leif Svalgaard makes this authoritative and entertaining comment, taking two sentences to address Wilde’s 5,699 words:
I think the first two points:
1: Solar surface turbulence increases causing an expansion of the Earth’s atmosphere.
2: Resistance to outgoing longwave radiation reduces, energy is lost to space faster.
are wrong, and hence the rest.
The part of the atmosphere [the thermosphere] that expands and contracts is 1 centimeter thick [if at same pressure as at the surface] and contains 1/1000,000 the number of molecules, so has no measurable effect on point 2.
“Sediments Show Pattern in Earth’s Long-Term Climate Record“. Anthony Watts wants us to know about a press release detailing UC Santa Barbara geologist Lorraine Lisiecki’s analysis sediment records as they correlate with the Earth’s long-term climate record. Thus all Global Warming is natural!!!!!!
Note the scale in hundreds of thousands of years. Source: wikimedia
This may be an interesting refinement of the long-known influence of fluctuations in the Earth’s orbit, but these extremely gradual changes play no part in the rapid changes we are experiencing now.
Try again, Anthony.
“Damage control: Greenpeace removes threats“. I’m not a particular fan of Greenpeace, but I have to laugh at Anthony Watts’ trembling indignation over a climate post on their website that was replaced with an honest and detailed explanation. The original post had a disclaimer of sorts at the start and didn’t go off the deep end until the last paragraph or two of a fairly conventional commentary, but that didn’t stop Watts and Co. from goin’ to town.
“Bullshit” declares Anthony. He knows that they’re still out to get him.
Play on.
More “hiding the decline”. Anthony Watts excerpts a Steve McIntyre post about some oxygen isotope data (a temperature proxy) from the Law Dome in Antarctica that wasn’t used by the evil climatologists because it proves that there was a Medieval Warm Period all over the world.
Except it doesn’t. It’s just one in a collection of historical southern hemisphere temperature proxies. Some are more reliable than others, some show warming trends during different time periods and some don’t. The Law Dome oxygen isotope data exclusion was described in the report, but McIntyre chooses to label that as insufficient. Surprise!
Why wasn’t used? McIntyre has only conspiracy theories. His ignorance must be hard-won because he includes, but completely disregards, this quote from Dr. Jonathan Overpeck in a stolen “Climategate” e-mail:
If we have multiple conflicting temp recons from Law Dome, and one can’t be shown from the literature as being the best, then we should state that, and show neither.
That seems like a clear reason to me. But hey Steve throw it against the wall, mutter a bit, and see if it sticks!
I love “Dr.” Steve’s quote from his own IPCC AR4 Review comments:
6-1231 B 34:12 34:12 What happened to the Law Dome proxy? Why isn’t it shown? [Stephen McIntyre (Reviewer’s comment ID #: 309-115)]
The distilled essence of obsessive nit-picking! Not an ounce (err, gram) of scientific purpose behind the comment. A useful comment would have made a case for including the Law Dome proxy, but all Steve can say is “why?”.
Global Warming and “The Early Spring” Part II. Steven Goddard has scurried around collecting quotes about whether Spring in England is early or late. Because if Spring in England is late this year, then there’s no way that Global Warming could be true! Anthony Watts endorses this drivel.
Snow! In England! Evidence from: BBC News
Repeat after me: “weather is not climate.“
“March Global Sea Surface Temperatures“. Bob Tisdale posts a whack of charts and plots derived from NOAA’s National Operational Model Archive & Distribution System (NOMADS) data. Not much interpretation though, maybe because the temperature trends seem to be upward.
Anthony however is confident enough to conclude about the global surface temperatures reported earlier today: “we have the likely primary driver of that number, a persistent El Nino in the Pacific.”
I’m scratching my head over the difference between these two versions of the March Global SST Anomalies. Similar, but somehow Bob’s version minimizes the orangey bits.
Bob Tisdale's version of the March 2010 SST anomalies.
NOAA's version of the March 2010 SST anomalies.
“March UAH Global Temperature Update“. Dr. Roy Spencer checks in again with the latest global satellite temperature values, with a couple of recent denialist examples highlighted. Still going inconveniently up…
Temperatures going up still...
“Spaceweather alert – first “red alert” in 6 years” A solar wind substorm is approaching, according to the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite. Standby for Global Warming! Actually, this post is fundamentally irrelevant to the Global Warming debate.
Anthony Watts shows this chart of Total Solar Insolation, which I’ve recreated for clarity, that his readers may decide implies that the Sun’s energy output is variable and hence the natural and temporary source of any Global Warming:
Jan-Apr 2010 Total Solar Insolation as recorded by the SORCE instruments. Note highly truncated vertical scale (click to enbiggen).
But isn’t this chart a more honest depiction of the data?
Same data with the full vertical scale used. Click to enbiggen.
The SORCE experiment is sound and the data is good, but it’s hilarious that this deceptive chart is the very next thing that Anthony posts after Frank Lansner’s allegations about IPCC Report chart “tricks”.
“IPCC – How not to compare temperatures“. Anthony Watts posts Frank Lansner’s complaint on a favorite subject, alleged flaws in how the IPCC compares temperatures. Frank says that “there are numerous issues discussed intensely when it comes to IPCC-illustrations of historic temperatures” but other than the standard check list of groundless accusations and fabrications, his case really boils down to this: the IPCC is using too many temperature data sources and is averaging them!
So suddenly the problem isn’t lack of data, now it’s too much data. I also have to note with some astonishment that this is a complaint about how the IPCC illustrates historic temperature trends, not about the statistical trends that they are attempting to illustrate.
Wott's Up With That? 