Tag Archives: Misrepresentation

Desperately seeking swelter

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“Desperately seeking swelter“. Anthony Watts has found a Telegraph column by denialist pontificator Christopher Booker that pulls the old “black is white” trick. Somehow the record hot weather across the northern hemisphere is “risibly desperate” effort by “believers in global warming to hold the line for their religion”. Sure it’s hot now, but apparently any hot weather at any time in the past is unshakeable proof that hot weather now can’t be due to Global Warming. You’ll have to talk me through that one, Chris.

What does Booker offer in support of his shifty argument? Well he does mention “expert analysis on Watts Up With That, the US science blog”.

ROTFLMAO (for libertarian retirees hunched over their 286’s, that’s txt for “rolling on the floor laughing my ass off”).

Oh, by the way Booker in the past has been delighted to claim that cold winter weather is proof that there’s no Global Warming…

Seven Eminent Physicists Skeptical of AGW

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“Seven Eminent Physicists Skeptical of AGW“. The secret’s out! Anthony Watts has been asked to post the truth about scientific consensus by Popular Technology.net, who promise “Impartial Analysis of Popular Trends and Technology” especially if you want some anti-nationalized health care or anti-marijuana info.

Seven Eminent Physicists; Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever (Nobel Prize), Robert Laughlin (Nobel Prize), Edward Teller, Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow and William Nierenberg, all skeptical of “man-made” global warming (AGW) alarm.

Wait, four of them are dead and the rest of them are ancient. Wait, none of them have published anything relevant in decades. Oh, I see. They’ve all “gone emeritus” (their egos and stature make them think they are authoritative way outside of their expertise).

Here’s an enlightening quote by Max Planck:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Hey, doesn’t Monckton have a home-made “Nobel pin“? There are eight “eminent physicists” skeptical of AGW!

GRACE’s warts – new peer reviewed paper suggests errors and adjustments may be large

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That's a spicy meatball! Credit: U of Texas Center for Space Research

“GRACE’s warts – new peer reviewed paper suggests errors and adjustments may be large“. Anthony Watts copies-and-pastes a post from CO2 Science (the website for those tired of “alarmist global warming propaganda”). They report that denialists can safely ignore any troubling conclusions based on the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite, because there are “errors and biases” and “the GRACE data time series is still very short”. And of course any adjustments to correct these things are simply ‘tricks’.

Actually, that’s what the GRACE scientists themselves are saying in their 2010 Geophysical Journal International article, Uncertainty in ocean mass trends from GRACE. CO2 Science is taking routine scientific discussion about how to improve data analysis out of context and trying to use it to discredit that very effort. Here’s Quinn & Ponte’s abstract:

Ocean mass, together with steric sea level, are the key components of total observed sea level change. Monthly observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) can provide estimates of the ocean mass component of the sea level budget, but full use of the data requires a detailed understanding of its errors and biases. We have examined trends in ocean mass calculated from 6 yr of GRACE data and found differences of up to 1 mm yr−1 between estimates derived from different GRACE processing centre solutions. In addition, variations in post-processing masking and filtering procedures required to convert the GRACE data into ocean mass lead to trend differences of up to 0.5 mm yr−1. Necessary external model adjustments add to these uncertainties, with reported post-glacial rebound corrections differing by as much as 1 mm yr−1. Disagreement in the regional trends between the GRACE processing centres is most noticeably in areas south of Greenland, and in the southeast and northwest Pacific Ocean. Non-ocean signals, such as in the Indian Ocean due to the 2004 Sumatran-Andean earthquake, and near Greenland and West Antarctica due to land signal leakage, can also corrupt the ocean trend estimates. Based on our analyses, formal errors may not capture the true uncertainty in either regional or global ocean mass trends derived from GRACE.

So the controversy is… what exactly? That is a cool warty globe though.

Tipping point at GISS? Land and sea weight out of balance

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“Tipping point at GISS? Land and sea weight out of balance“. Anthony Watts gives us Frank Lanser’s ill-informed assumptions about how GISS integrates land and sea temperature readings and hopes we’ll bite.

Frank maintains that GISS uses a land weighting of 67%, which is the reverse of the land/ocean ratio. They’re lying! Aussie dunce Joanne Nova is in enthusiastic agreement with Frank’s stunning discovery.

Except Frank, Joanne and Anthony have no clue what they’re talking about. Zeke explains it to them in mostly small words.

Reports from the Guardian Climategate Debate

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Reports from the Guardian Climategate Debate: Surprise, surprise. In Anthony Watts’ report of the debate on the Climategate false controversy hosted by the Guardian newspaper, climate scientists are “devious” and “appallingly bad” but denialist Steven McIntyre, who spoke from behind a lectern to give him more ‘authority’, gets “the largest applause”.

Here’s a different view of the panel’s performance:

  • Prof. Davies said the CRU has learned about the need for public engagement in the scientific discussion.
  • Steve McIntyre sidestepped the challenge that “any competent individual could reproduce a temperature series from publicly accessible data”. Slippery as always, but an embarrassing exposure of his grandiose claims.
  • Bob Watson said the reviews had high integrity and robust conclusions, accused the media of getting carried away with “skeptic” allegations.
  • Doug Keenan claimed that “bogus fraudulent research is rife throughout science.” and “AGW is a fraud.” Clinging to his paranoid denialist views I guess.
  • Fred Pearce, looking for a way to climb back down from his gullible reporting, called the  saga is more a tragedy than a conspiracy and said that the CRU inquiries were well conducted.

Nothing like getting the spin in as fast as possible… Three inquiries (four if you count the tangential Penn State inquiry) completely clear the CRU climate scientists of any deception and yet the volume and fervor of the denialist accusations of “whitewash” and conspiracy simply rises.

The louder you say it the righter you are Anthony?

McIntyre and McKitrick to receive award

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“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

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“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.

Then and now, Europe, US to see snowy, cold winters: expert

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“Then and now, Europe, US to see snowy, cold winters: expert“. Charles Rotter thinks that Dr. James Overland re-evaluating predictions in a story on physorg.com means that he’s just making it up as he goes along. So Charles does some making it up of his own with some pretend quotes.

Who said this? Not Dr. Overland.

We used to think that a warming Arctic with melting ice would be part of a warming trend, but instead, we got a lot of snow and cold weather, so the warming Arctic kinda messed with all those, you know, patterns and stuff like that we expected like.

But is the Arctic warming? Yes. Don’t give up the day job, Charles.

Now it’s lizards going extinct due to climate change

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“Now it’s lizards going extinct due to climate change“. Anthony Watts has found another press release, in this case Study documents widespread extinction of lizard populations due to climate change from Villanova University, to which he adds some dumb photos (unless you agree with Anthony that posting Godzilla photo is clever) and even dumber remarks. Anthony scratches his head over the puzzler of how warmer might not be ‘gooder’ for a lizard. Too bad he lost interest before the fourth paragraph:

Although the lizards normally bask in the sun to warm up, higher temperatures exceeding their physiological limits keep them in the shade, restricting their activity and preventing them from foraging for food. The researchers used these findings to develop a model of extinction risk based on maximum air temperatures, the physiologically active body temperature of each species, and the hours in which its activity would be restricted by temperature. The model accurately predicted the disappearance of Mexican lizards and was then extended globally to lizards in 34 different families on five continents and validated by comparing the predicted results with actual local extinctions.

Oh, maybe Anthony should have kept quiet on this one. The comments are full of idiotic remarks about how many lizards are in this or that backyard. Deep thinking going on over there.