The UK Met Office appears to have ‘disappeared’ their winter forecast

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“The UK Met Office appears to have ‘disappeared’ their winter forecast“. Steven Goddard returns with more irrelevant weather accusations. The UK Met Office seems to have a different winter forecast on their website than they did last summer! Ooh, this is nasty. And their staff got a raise this year!

Check this out from the Met Office website (italics mine). Totally different from “winter temperatures are likely to be near or above average over much of Europe including the UK”!

For the rest of winter, over northern Europe including the UK, the chance of colder conditions is now 45%

Repeat after me: the science of climate prediction is not dependent on the accuracy of weather forecasts.

Complaint issued on Amazongate reporting

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“Complaint issued on Amazongate reporting“. Anthony Watts calls the troops to attention. Simon Lewis, a tropical forest expert, has filed a complaint about the false reporting by Jonathon Leake in The Times. The article, entitled “UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim“, completely misrepresented his statement that the claim was in fact valid. The article even acknowledged contributions from denialist blogger Richard North!

Of course Anthony takes a moment to complain about his own treatment in the mainstream press. For some reason his unsubstantiated accusations and half-truths are not always being printed verbatim! That’s what your blogging buddies are for Anthony…

He finishes with another promise that his definitive analysis of surface station temperature records is “looking better and better.” Oh, I’m going to get a kick out of that fairy tale!

Rather than read Anthony’s complaints about his own perceived mistreatment, go over to Climate Progress for a full account of a real one.

2010-06-21 Update: As reported on Deltoid, the Sunday Times has now been forced to issue a retraction.

Why Joe Bastardi sees red: A look at Sea Ice and GISTEMP and starting choices

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“Why Joe Bastardi sees red: A look at Sea Ice and GISTEMP and starting choices“. Groan. Anthony Watts is promoting another “simple question” from Joe Bastardi: “If it’s warmer than normal, you should not have an increase in ice.” Joe, the chart is of temperature anomalies not temperature. So even though its warmer in the arctic that doesn’t mean that it’s warm. Joe Romm’s post on Climate Progress takes this on more fully – “Accuweather’s “expert long-range forecaster” Joe Bastardi has now firmly established himself as the least informed, most anti-scientific meteorologist in the world.”

GISS surface temperature anomaly, Dec-Jan-Feb 2010.

Naturally Anthony’s totally onboard with Joe Bastardi’s dark hints about conspiracy theories and “magical readjustment”. Also, he claims that using red to denote positive temperature anomalies is deceptive.

Anthony also posts a blizzard of charts which boil down to an exercise in picking a baseline date at a time when some of the global warming has already occurred to reduce the apparent temperature anomaly. Why didn’t he just set today as the baseline and declare NO temperature anomaly? If you’re going to misuse data might as well go all-in.

He the cooly admits that “anomalies can show anything you want based of choosing the base period.” We know, Anthony, you just gave us a master-class in biased analysis!

Loehle on Hoffman et al and CO2 trajectories

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“Loehle on Hoffman et al and CO2 trajectories” Anthony Watts learns that the “National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, Inc.” forestry lobby group has funded a paper by Craig Loehle in Atmospheric Environment, a ‘low-impact‘ air pollution journal.

Loehle whips up some arbitrary equations that seem to be equally good at matching historical atmospheric CO2 concentrations as the IPCC’s, so clearly nothing can be concluded from the IPCC’s ‘scary’ predictions.

Simple equations make such smooth curves! (Loehle, 2010. Fig. 3)

The IPCC’s predictions based on physical and chemical atmospheric science. That’s more relevant than pulling numbers out of thin air and pretending you’ve studied something in its scientific context. This is looks like statistical game-playing to me.

Brains… BRAINS!!!

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“Brains… BRAINS!!!” Anthony Watts agrees with Pat Michaels that the “explanations are getting desperate” because ‘liberal’ cognitive scientist George Lakoff says:

“It relates directly (to global warming) because conservatives tend to feel that the free market should be unregulated and (that) environmental regulations are immoral and wrong,” Lakoff said.

“And what they try to do is show that the science is wrong and that the argument is wrong, based on the science.  So when it comes back to science, they try to debunk the science,” Lakoff said.

Christopher Joyce says “This puzzles many climate scientists, but not social scientists, whose research suggests that facts may not be as important as one’s beliefs“. Yup.

Social scientist Don Braman says “People tend to conform their factual beliefs to ones that are consistent with their cultural outlook, their world view“. Yup again.

Pat Michaels “asserts that science doesn’t confirm, and in some cases even rejects, the existence of human-caused global warming”. He also says “this line of authority is a policy response where the minority would tell the majority how to live,” Oh, here’s the desperate explanation part.

ACS: going veggie won’t impact global warming

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“ACS: going veggie won’t impact global warming“. Anthony Watts’ latest copy-and-paste  irrelevance is an American Chemical Society report by an air quality expert says that eating less meat and dairy products won’t have major impact on global warming. Well that’s conclusive, right? Whatever, Anthony.

“We certainly can reduce our greenhouse-gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk,” said Mitloehner, who is with the University of California-Davis. “Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries.”

Funny, I thought that in a general way that turning grain into meat was a provably inefficient (but delicious) way of producing food. This Wikipedia entry says as much:

In tracking food animal production from the feed through to the dinner table, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from a 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1. The result is that producing animal-based food is typically much less efficient than the harvesting of grains, vegetables, legumes, seeds and fruits for direct human consumption.

You know that when a report contains unsubstantiated statements that can be “pwned” by simple trip to Wikipedia that you can bet that someone’s going to be sent to bed hungry!

We’re should still force Anthony to eat tofu, just to watch his face.

The well funded, well organized, global skeptic network laid bare /sarc

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“The well funded, well organized, global skeptic network laid bare /sarc“. Anthony Watts thinks an analysis of the connections between denialist web sites done for Leftfootforward, proves that they’re just independently minded people that share an objective scientific view. His chart tells a different story though:

Click to enbiggen. (Original image, not the one Anthony pinched.)

I see Anthony’s rabid copy-and-paste sources all nicely gathered together on the left side cuddled up with various political operators and favored UK media sources The Telegraph, Times and Daily Mail. Not a single legitimate scientific credential is present. Roger Pielke, Jr. probably belongs in the mix, but he’s been amusingly placed right on the dividing line.

On the right side I see scientific and international organizations, the balanced media, and scientific journalists. You know, the types that are professional and accountable.

This story tells itself…

The Guardian sees the light on wind driven Arctic ice loss

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“The Guardian sees the light on wind driven Arctic ice loss“. As Anthony Watts knows, newspapers are where science happens. Anthony seems to think that there’s a grudging admission about Arctic ice underway at The Guardian, at least partly driven by his own searing scrutiny. The article is reporting findings from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Monthly February ice extent, 1979 - 2010 shows a 2.9% decline per decade. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center.

This quote from Anthony’s copy-and-paste of the Guardian article would be enlightening if he paused to reflect (italics mine):

Ice blown out of the region by Arctic winds can explain around one-third of the steep downward trend in sea ice extent in the region since 1979.

What’s up with the other two-thirds, eh? I guess as long as Anthony can include the word “doubt” he thinks his job is done.

Flowers Losing Scent Due to Climate Change

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“Flowers Losing Scent Due to Climate Change“. Anthony Watts is incensed (get it?) that an admittedly odd newspaper article about Malaysian flowers hasn’t been peer-reviewed and contains no statistical evidence, which we recently learned should never be trusted anyway.

Just flip back to your Sudoku and everything will be OK, Anthony.