The great imaginary ice barrier

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“The great imaginary ice barrier“. Ooh, Anthony Watts “victory” dance about increasing Arctic sea ice extent was embarrassingly short-lived. Two days. The sea ice increase, basically a product of weather in the Bering Sea, has declined a bit rather than ‘bursting through’ the average trend and Anthony has been forced to acknowledge it.

Since these fluctuations are really a reflection of local weather this could turn around again and permit Anthony to resume his dance. But for now, he must be embarrassed.

NSIDC April 3rd 2010 Arctic Sea Ice Extent. It stopped rising!

It must suck to have to juggle a succession of overblown pronouncements about how particular weather events disprove Global Warming. Maybe he’s testing out an exit strategy.  When Anthony says “Nature is just laughing at all of us” he means, of course, at himself.

Measure UHI in your town with this easy to use temperature datalogger kit

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“Measure UHI in your town with this easy to use temperature datalogger kit“. There’s nothing more satisfying for an obsessive-compulsive than measuring things. Keeping detailed notes about uncontrolled anecdotal observations is a great way to fill time. Anthony Watts needs money. With these three things in mind, Anthony wants to sell you an low-accuracy USB temperature sensor to stick on the roof of your car so you can restlessly cross and recross your town at night and then spend the next day whipping up a high-school science project about it.

But where will we display our bristle-board poster, and who will judge it?

I loved this quote:

The window mount holds the USB datalogger up and away from the vehicle in the clear airstream.

and the even funnier:

I didn’t want to pass a semi truck (speed limit 55mph for trucks through town) and pick up any waste heat.

Why does Anthony think we need to “prove” the Urban Heat Island effect? It’s widely discussed in the scientific literature and adjustments for it are made at many temperature recording stations.

Quote of the week #33: What, no death spiral?

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“Quote of the week #33: What, no death spiral?” Anthony Watts tries to make hay over the fact that claimed predictions based on the sharp 2007 decline in Arctic ice extent haven’t been met, even though it’s still fairly low. Of course he has to ignore all the explanations that surround the quotes he has plucked in order to do that.

It’s physicist Dr. Joe Romm’s quote, which is actually a post title, from June 5th, 2009 that Anthony’s giggling over when considered in the light of another quote this week in The Sunday Times. I mean, there’s still ice up there!

NSIDC director Serreze explains the “death spiral” of Arctic ice, brushes off the “breathtaking ignorance” of blogs like WattsUpWithThat

Anthony somehow fails to detail Dr. Serreze’s explanation, which I would have thought should support the humor:

I said the north pole [meaning the local vicinity of the physical north pole, not the entire Arctic Ocean as Anthony chose to misrepresent it at the time – Ben] might melt out and I was not alone in making such speculation. It did not melt out and I got some flack for this. So be it. As for the “great recovery” of ice extent in 2008 heard in some circles, it was a  recovery from lowest (2007) to second lowest (2008).

The quote from Dr. Serreze this week that is entertaining Anthony is in a Sunday Times article by the notorious Jonathan Leake:

“In retrospect, the reactions to the 2007 melt were overstated. The lesson is that we must be more careful in not reading too much into one event”.

But he doesn’t mention Dr. Serreze’s statement that precedes it in the article.

“It has been a crazy winter with Arctic ice cover growing and very cold weather in northern Europe and eastern America all linked to this strongly negative Arctic Oscillation”

Or the article’s second paragraph:

A shift in the chilly winds across the Bering Sea over the past few months has caused thousands of square miles of ocean to freeze.

Perhaps there’s a zinger at the end or the article? Nope:

“On current trends it will still become ice-free in summer by around 2060.”

Anthony might want to wait until the definitive September minimum has been recorded before crowing, although he may be trying to get in there before the record proves him wrong.

I’m glad to hear though that he is now promoting long-term trends as the only relevant climate change evidence. Or is it just momentarily convenient?

Climate Craziness of the Week – Greenpeace posts threats

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“Climate Craziness of the Week – Greenpeace posts threats“. Greenpeace can talk tough, but Anthony Watts can talk tough right back. He throws opinion polls at ’em. Hard.

Actually, the Greenpeace post is about Micronesia challenging expansion of the Czech Republic’s most polluting coal power plant. When Environment Minister Dusik’s intention to reject the expansion plans was countermanded he resigned, apparently citing pressure from lobby groups and big business.

That part is inconsequential to Anthony.

Singer on Climategate Parliamentary Inquiry

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Singer's denialist project.

“Singer on Climategate Parliamentary Inquiry“. I love it when Anthony Watts quotes Fred Singer. Trained as an electrical engineer, this guy has spent the last thirty years collecting contrarian, anti-regulation causes. CFC’s and UV damage, DDT risks, second-hand smoke, etc, etc. He’s associated with fourteen different anti-regulation “foundations”, he was behind the debunked Leipzig Declaration, and he or his organizations receive significant financing from oil interests and far-right ‘libertarian’ benefactors. When Fred opens his mouth you know that nothing but beautifully constructed bullshit will flow out. He loves the sound of his own voice.

This post is an ‘editorial’ titled “ClimateGate Whitewash” tries to inject some energy into the denialist chant about the British House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee’s ‘Climategate’ Inquiry. The Inquiry was pretty conclusive that the fabricated accusations against Dr. Phil Jones and the Climate Research Unit were groundless. This leaves the denialists with only the tactic of waving their hands wildly and talking loudly about things that the Inquiry didn’t talk about because they weren’t relevant. A pretty low-percentage play if your audience is paying attention.

Singer flails away enthusiastically and completely without evidence:

Only a thorough scientific investigation will be able to document that there was no strong warming after 1979, that the instrumented warming record is based on data manipulation, involving the selection of certain weather stations, [and the de-selection of others that showed no warming], plus applying insufficient corrections for local heating.

Thirty years and he still hasn’t proven a thing.

Big Bird meets Big Green

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“Big Bird meets Big Green“. Some YouTube science from Anthony Watts today. A vulture circles too close to a wind turbine in Crete and is struck. Wind turbines aren’t something that birds have an awareness of, but they share an interest in steady winds, especially up-drafts. I’ve also heard that bats may be drawn to them for some reason.

I guess this post demonstrates the soft, cuddly heart that beats inside even the sternest “skeptic”. That mean old wind turbine!

Spiegel does 8 part series on current state of climate research

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“Spiegel does 8 part series on current state of climate research“. Anthony Watts tells us about this Spiegel Online article series that ” features Steve McIntyre prominently, and [is] well worth the read.”

The series starts with an already out-dated credulous rehash of the Climategate “scandal”. I guess it is a “worth the read” if you want to return to the time when wishful thinking could allow denialists to think that Climategate was merely a baseless political attack and not a completely rejected baseless political attack.

The remaining articles are a weakly argued denialist gruel of innuendo and mischaracterization (“alarmists” and the “levelheaded”) that heavily and uncritically quotes denialist pundits and “researchers”. Entertaining perhaps, but neither accurate nor insightful. Too bad.

March Modeling Madness

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“March Modeling Madness“. Steven Goddard cherry-picks his way around Climate Central’s new interactive depiction of average US March temperatures.

He does this by picking a location that is not predicted to rise above freezing and then claiming that charts confirming this are proof that the models are wrong. He also picks a juicy starting point and uses a scale that obscures any trends that aren’t blindingly large to assist denialists in looking past them.

Next, Steven will prove that water is wet.

Arctic Sea Ice Extent Update: still growing

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“Arctic Sea Ice Extent Update: still growing“. In spite of hearing explanations of why the Arctic sea ice extent is currently higher that trend (it’s called “weather”, the increase is entirely due to localized conditions in the Bering Sea), Anthony Watts reports after a mere two days that it’s still high-ish and that anything is possible.

Thanks Anthony.

Modeling the big melt

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“Modeling the big melt“. Anthony Watts reports that Minnesotans are going to love global warming. We know this because of a press release about a Climate Central interactive climate page that Anthony found on Eurekalert and pasted into his blog.

Well the joy of Minnesotans in the year 2090 is postulated and of course is excised from any complaints about probable drought conditions.

Sunny days ahead!

Such scientific nuance from The Great Explainer-Awayer.