Tag Archives: Juvenile

Gavin’s sensitive side

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“Gavin’s sensitive side“. Anthony Watts does a copy and paste of a NASA press release about research into climate sensitivity (Daniel J. Lunt et al., 2010. “Earth System Sensitivity Inferred from Pliocene Modelling and Data,” in Nature Geoscience, Vol. 3, No. 1), but turns the post title into a childish personal dig at leading NASA climatologist Dr. Gavin Schmidt…

The research attempts to infer ancient climate sensitivity to CO2. Current models don’t work well on geological timescales:

Earth’s climate is also influenced by other, much slower processes. These include changes in ice sheets, vegetation and aerosols, for example, that take place over hundreds and thousands of years. Because of their complexity and long timescales, these processes are almost impossible to integrate into today’s climate computer models.

This sounds like grist for the denialist mill. “We can’t trust no dang ‘puter models! Garbage in, garbage out!” Why would Lunt break the conspirator’s agreement to hide problems? Maybe, shockingly, they’re trying to learn and improve?

The team found that it took much lower concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide to recreate the Pliocene’s warm climate than current models — which consider only the relatively fast-adjusting components of the climate — predict. Pliocene carbon dioxide levels are estimated to have been around 400 parts per million by volume (ppmv), while according to current simulations it would take 500 to 600 ppmv of carbon dioxide to bring about the warm temperatures of the Pliocene. As a result, the researchers estimate that Earth’s response to elevated concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide is 30 to 50 percent greater than previously calculated. In other words, the climate is more sensitive to carbon dioxide than we thought.

Ooh, those sneaks! They learned something!

Well, at least they didn’t launch it at Roswell

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“Well, at least they didn’t launch it at Roswell“. Anthony Watts’ snarky reference to a NASA balloon experiment in Australia that failed to launch serves as an enjoyable opportunity for his readers to snipe at gubmint scientists and Al Gore.

WUWT Sea Ice News #2

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““. Steven Goddard Photoshops some sea ice extent maps and enthusiastically declares “Arctic ice extent is normal.” Well, nearly. Naturally he only wants to talk about the one data series that briefly popped above “normal” and not about the others, which… don’t.

Steven’s also excited that Arctic weather patterns may produce an anomalous high sea ice extent next winter. I can see that he’s going to wear himself out thrashing wildly back and forth about weather. It’s irrelevant. Why was the record 2007 sea ice extent minimum a cause for concern? Because it was part of a climate trend.

Some other rhetorical master-strokes: mocking a 40 year-old old newspaper report, and embedding a juvenile YouTube clip from the film Airplane!

Al Gore says “Denialists in Denial”

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Al Gore says “Denialists in Denial”. Anthony Watts shows what a big man he is by comparing himself to Al Gore (or “Al, Baby” as he respectfully calls him). Apparently WUWT has a higher “rank” than algore.com does according to alexa.com. These kinds of web statistics are widely understood as meaningless, especially when comparing websites with different purposes such as Anthony’s frenzied argument and Gore’s policy-orientation.

Of course most of Al Gore’s activity is through altogether separate websites such as The Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Project, Live Earth and An Inconvenient Truth. He’s also read nation-wide and a popular public speaker. But Anthony’s paranoid-obsessive readers give him way more “hits”.

Anthony’s adolescent outburst is a lame attempt to move the focus away from both Al Gore’s criticism of denialist Richard Lindzen’s dishonest op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and Gore’s link to The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder dismantling of the same.

Earth gives us an Earth Day present: Arctic sea ice is highest for this date in 9 years

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“Earth gives us an Earth Day present: Arctic sea ice is highest for this date in 9 years“. An “Earth Day” post from Anthony Watts. Apparently the planet loves us polluting it, so it’s laid on some extra Arctic sea ice as a token of its affection (on one interpretation anyway). Well actually the Arctic sea ice is still less than “normal”, but it’s something right?

Weather is not climate Anthony, this sea ice is residual from the unusual Arctic cold snap in March. Also half-wit humor is not science, although it is entertaining to watch the attempt.

Earth Day must be quite galling for Anthony and his buddies, they have a deep resentment of environmental activism. Don’t tell them what to do!

By the way, did you know that Earth Day is also Lenin’s birthday? Anthony’s readers all do…

Second Mann spoof video removed

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“Second Mann spoof video removed“. Anthony Watts says that “Somebody just can’t handle satire.” I think the real problem is that somebody is determined to slander a scientist.

But fear not, another ambitiously named astroturf outfit called “Minnesota Majority” has popped up, Whack-A-Mole style, to re-post it.

This reminds me of watching drunken streakers at a college football game.

[Funny, the “Minnesota Majority”, springing to the defense of “Minnesotans For Global Warming” has the same principals. Astroturf puffery.]

Prominent Climategate Figure Threatens Lawsuit over Spoof Video – No Cap-and-Trade Coalition Says “Bring it on”

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Prominent Climategate Figure Threatens Lawsuit over Spoof Video – No Cap-and-Trade Coalition Says “Bring it on” This is a funny one, especially because Anthony Watts’ buddy “Charles the Moderator” has done the posting (read to the end). I’m left wondering – is Dr. Mann thin-skinned or are these guys just stupid?

First act: “Minnesotans for Global Warming” (M4GW) create a video that they posted on YouTube called Hide the Decline that defames Dr. Michael Mann with baseless accusations that he falsified climate data. The video also infringes on copyright and exploits Dr. Mann’s image without permission. Pretty much a legal slam-dunk for Dr. Mann. Usually these slimy things are brushed off, but this time Dr. Mann had his lawyers act on the matter as Rush Limbaugh had begun promoting it. M4GW knew they’d been caught out and immediately caved in, but of course the defamatory video had already spread far and wide and had lodged itself in the thoughts of the feeble-minded.

Hilarity! In a defamatory kind of way.

Second act: “Little guy” M4GW turns out to be a limb of the astroturf operation No Cap and Trade, “an alliance of organizations concerned about the devastating impact that a cap-and-trade scheme could have on American families, businesses and the faltering US economy.” They’ve staged a media event, complete with dancing mascots, to announce that they’ve posted the original defamatory video as well as a revised version that presumably substitutes a malicious caricature for the images of Dr. Mann. Why “presumably”? Go to the third act…

Third Act: YouTube pulls the No Cap and Trade version because of different copyright violation charge by JibJab Media.

Oops.

Denouement: Why didn’t Anthony post this himself? Well he’s been on the wrong end of a copyright violation accusation before, hasn’t he? See this Climate Crock of the Week video and related coverage at Climate Progress.

Is Fossil Fuel CO2 Different From Volcanic CO2?

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“Is Fossil Fuel CO2 Different From Volcanic CO2?“. Steven Goddard is wearing his fingers to the bone this week, and must be getting facial spasms from all the sneering. Here he’s trying to pick on a Guardian article, Iceland volcano causes fall in carbon emissions as eruption grounds aircraft, that basically says the CO2 released by the Eyjafjallajokull volcano is less than the decline in CO2 emissions that has resulted from the temporary cessation of transatlantic flights.

This argument about “fossil fuel” vs “volcanic” CO2 is completely in Steven’s mind.

Royal Ash: Royal society jumps on magma driven worry express

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“Royal Ash: Royal society jumps on magma driven worry express“. Anthony Watts posts more idiocy from Steven Goddard, this time referencing dumb Hollywood disaster flicks to mischaracterize a collection of papers about geological responses (mainly seismic) to climate change. Steven seems to suggest that, over the weekend, the Royal Society whipped up a series of papers from the 2009 conference on Climate forcing of geological and geomorphological hazards (read the preface here) to capitalize on concern over the Icelandic eruptions. However it’s the denialists who specialize in insta-bunk.

Here’s one of the ‘outrageous’ statements in the Daily Telegraph (ugh) article that he links to:

And he warned: ”The rise you may need may be much smaller than we expect. Looking ahead at climate change, we may not need massive changes.

”One of the worries is that tiny environmental changes could have these effects.”

Earth (so to speak) to Steve and Anthony: the planet is in many ways quite delicately balanced. Some small changes can trigger large geologic events. That’s the gist of the Royal Society’s papers. Please don’t substitute your arrogance for rational thought processes.

New weekly feature: WUWT Sea Ice News

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“New weekly feature: WUWT Sea Ice News“. Anthony Watts give obsessive denialists a weekly destination for wild statements about current sea ice extents. There’s nothing Anthony likes better than to talk about the weather when the topic at hand is actually climate.

In the opening installment, Steven Goddard starts with juvenile remarks about Al Gore and then throws up the usual spray of Arctic sea ice maps. It’s almost “average”! No talk about sea ice volume of course because that’s not a helpful statistic.