March 2013 Open Thread

Sorry it's late, I blame the carbon tax!

More like this

Speaking of the carbon tax that was going to wreck the economy...

...not so much.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 07 Mar 2013 #permalink

Abbot is still going to punish you for daring to introduce it, though, and will rip it out and "compensate" the ones "damaged" by it. I.e. the mining companies.

The latest survey from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication is interesting.

In the USA, full on deniers have dropped back to around 8%.

They are mostly the weirdos who don't have a handle on reality, going by their views on the range of items in the survey. In fact this bottom 8% probably think they are the majority.

On the downside, the proportion of respondents who think the USA should support a large-scale effort to reduce global warming has dropped over the years, though it's still a big majority. And by far the majority still think the USA should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Six-Americas-September-2012.p…

Sou: "In fact this bottom 8% probably think they are the majority."

...except when it suits them to present themselves as an oppressed minority, of course.

In fact, they're a valiant and oppressed minority that represent the silent majority that just know in their hearts that science must be wrong if it suggest that they might not get what they think they're entitled to.

And, in a strange way, they're right!

Frankly, I think that in this country the majority are almost certainly hypocrites; they'll tell pollsters they believe the science and that we should do something about it, they're willing to make meaningful sacrifices etc. - and then vote for Tony Abbott when there's a real chance that any of this might actually come to pass!

Short-sighted? Cowardly? Cynical? Conformist? Just plain dense? Any/+/all of the above?

Come to think of it, there doesn't seem to be much discussion of the apparent fact that people are far more noble in surveys than they are in practice...

John McLean has written an article claiming that Tim Flannery has been making dud predictions:

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2013/03/another-exercise…

Quite ironic, really, when you consider John McLean is the crank who made the "coldest year since 1956" prediction.

I'm also concerned that he seems to have lost the "PhD" that used to appear after his name.
Can anybody help him find it?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 07 Mar 2013 #permalink

Ah, McLean, you've done it again!

The '1956' thing was the single most comic 'forecast' of the debate to date - and let's never forget who else helped out with his 'research'.

Craig: I think it's infra dig (even at Quadrant) to claim a PhD that was never awarded. If I recall correctly, he was claiming to be a PhD at James Cook University, with his supervisors being Carter (as external) and someone else on the faculty at JCU as the beard. I can find no reference to McLean as graduating from JCU with a PhD - or of any papers published by him since 2010.

Hmmm...well his "1956" prediction may have taught him the ceiling of his limitations lies lower than the level required to complete a PhD?
Obviously not low enough to prevent him scribbling nonsense for the Quadrant, but then again, I think that venue is pretty much an open-air one, so far as credibility, qualification and expertise are concerned...

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 07 Mar 2013 #permalink

Vince: Obviously he's lost Gina's support - which must have been enormous.

Craig @#7&10: On further searching I still can't find JD McLean listed as a graduate or student at JCU. I have found a paper published in the International Journal of Biosciences 2013, 4:234-239 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperDownload.aspx?DOI=10.4236/ijg.2013.41…) in which de Freitas & McLean rehash their 2009 effort with (the now thankfully defunct) Carter. This lists McLean's address as Dept of Physics, JCU, but a search of the JCU website doesn't locate him there. If JD Mclean is still doing a PhD through JCU, it is remarkably occult. Perhaps you only need to publish once or twice in open source journals to pass a PhD in physics at JCU (mumble, grumble, different in my day/discipline...grumble, the young of today...I don't know...) . Interestingly, there is another McLean (Roger F) who looks to have done some solid work on marine ecosystems through JCU Townsville - must suck to have a similar surname to the phantom PhD student.

They also think that a majority cannot be science too, remember.

Vince: Obviously he’s lost Gina’s support – which must have been enormous.

Probably washed out when she jumped into the 'denier pool'.

It's not too hard to see why Marcott has Willard A all in a tiz, is it?

"It just isn't troooooooeeeeeeee!!!! Leave Britney Alone!!!"

Even that utter plank can see the future of well-deserved irrelevance and well-deserved opprobrium that stretches before him. And Montford - we must never forget Montford...

What was it Nietzsche said about needing to enjoy revenge a bit to be true to ourselves? The grin on my face is pure Schadenfreude, I'll confess...

Nice post, BTW, Sou!

Fans of the heroically obtuse may also enjoy Brandon Schollenberger's outstanding effort over at SkS.

Suggesting that SkS was funded by Als Gore and Jazeera to create Reality Drop is not a conspiracy theory, apparently!

Brandon gets very defensive when it comes to conspiracy theories, especially ones he thinks might be true. When he's not sticking up for Watts conspiracy theories he's sticking up for McIntyre's.

Brandon posted an article on WUWT highlighting McI's weird surmises about a slide Mann used in an AGU presentation. (McI is a great one for paranoia - if it's not a general conspiracy (climate scientists are faking the data), then it's 'they' are out to get him personally, like cutting off his wifi.)

It's kind of hard to present yourself as a 'reasonable person' when you're a conspiracy nutter.

I had a feeling Marcott et al. would produce a frenzy of foam-flecked denial.

All those years making a pointless fuss about MBH98/99 and then this comes along ;-)

Too funny.

Willard Tony has completely blown a gasket on this. Recommend Sou's link @ 16 for a quick overview of the hideous mess WT is posting at WTFUWT.

Blithering incomprehension and denial. It doesn't get any worse (or better!) than this.

*crickets*

The idiot count seems to have suddenly declined around here. Coincidence, do you think?

It must be quite a genuinely queasy experience to realize that to remain part of the tribe you're going to have to follow Watts into burbling insanity.

Come on folks, don't give up now! Just one big swallow that hideous chunk of clammy gristle then you can start regurgitating just like before...

PS - NZ now in 'worst ever' drought. I mean, just how stupid are you intending on becoming, people? Seriously: don't just curl your lips - ask yourselves the bloody question!

More furious recursion on WUWT today, started by Brandon, with Foxgoose saying Lewandowsky got his conspiracy theory wrong.

Foxgoose says he (Foxgoose) wasn't saying the people who answered the survey weren't human, he was saying the blog-owners weren't human (or something like that!) ie there were no (skeptic) human blog owners who were asked to take part in the survey). (And even now FoxGoose seems to be sticking to that notion, despite the blog owners subsequently being identified and acknowledging they were invited to take part.)

Bob Tisdale pops in to say how SkepticalScience 'makes up stuff' and felflames urges everyone to (once again) lodge a complaint with UWA. (If any of the Wattsonians do that again, will it add to the conspiracy that UWA is part of the 'plot'?)

Could you make this stuff up?

Yeah, that's about the level of "thinking" we expect from Tony and his fans.

James Gentle and Karen Kafadar take over at WIREs Computational Statistics

There has been a big change at WIREs Computation Stats.
In a stunning (but welcome) development, James Gentle of GMU and Karen Kafadar of IndianaUniversity have been named editors-in-chief, joining remaining original editor David Scott.
I last discussed WIREs Comp Stat back in July, when Edward Wegman and Yasmin Said were quietly dropped as editors. I outlined the problems that apparently led to their summary dismissal.

By Deep Climate (not verified) on 10 Mar 2013 #permalink

Lionel A

Christy has been insinuating that the surface temp records are borked for decades. He was doing it in 2005 when Wentz and Mears at RSS demonstrated that it was Christy and Spencer's work that was seriously in error.

Remember, UAH is the only temperature record to have been shown to be *comprehensively flawed*. It is the only temperature record to have been withdrawn and completely recalculated using corrected methodology. It is the only temperature record curated by 'sceptics'.

And the smart money (et Po-Chedley & Fu) says that *once again* UAH is demonstrably biased *cool*.

Prediction: Christy will end up eating this one of these days. 2005 revisited.

@ 24, Shollenberger is dim and determined to show it. He's deliberately spinning the Lewandowsky take on the Foxgoose comment. What a f**king waste of time that 'discussion' is, even worse than usual Watts chum if that's possible. Bringing back Uncle Eschenbach for another fireside yarn looks attractive.

Re the Shollenberger article, highlighting the various conspiracy theories abounding amont the denialiti (and arguing that Foxgoose's conspiracy theory was 'no fake skeptic bloggers contacted', which he still seems to be hanging onto despite undeniable evidence to the contrary).

One new conspiracy ideation emerged about Dana Nuccitelli, which he has hit on the head:

@soubundanga deniers will be unhappy to learn I'll be posting at *both* @skepticscience & @guardianeco & I find Recursive Fury fascinating— Dana Nuccitelli (@dana1981) March 10, 2013

What a bunch of ill-informed windbags.

Any suggestions for collective nouns?

A mendacity of deniers?

A pomposity of deniers?

An embarrassment of deniers?

A delusion of deniers?

I'm sure some of you can do better than this...

A pustule of deniers?

Flock.

A flock of deniers.

You can hear them off in the distance going "Bah!"

:-)

A confusion of deniers?

A benthos?

By Andrew Strang (not verified) on 11 Mar 2013 #permalink

A Conspiracy of Deniers.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 11 Mar 2013 #permalink

http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC21/PolonnaruwaRRRR.pdf

Journal of Cosmology
, Vol,21, No,37 published
, 10 January
2013
1
FOSSIL DIATOMS IN
A
NEW
CARBONACEOUS
METEORITE
N. C. Wickramasinghe
*
1
, J. Wallis
2
, D.H. Wallis
1
and
Anil Samaranayake
+
3
1
Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, University of Buckingham, Buckingham, UK
2
School of Mathematics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
3
Medical Research Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
ABSTRACT
We report the discovery for the first time of diatom
frustules
in a carbonaceous meteorite that
fell in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka on 29 December 2012. Contamination is
excluded by the
circumstance that the elemental abundances within the structures match
closely with those of the surrounding matrix.
There is also evidence of structures
morphologically similar to red rain cells that may have contributed to
the
episode of red rain
that
followed within days of the meteorite fall.
The new data
on

fossil

diatoms provide
strong evidence to support the theory of cometary panspermia.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 11 Mar 2013 #permalink

University of Buckingham eh? Strange goings on there...

IIRC that "diatoms in a meteorite" quickly proved to be an Epic Fail.

PZ Myers had a take on it and on the response, but IIRC he was far from the only one.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 11 Mar 2013 #permalink

As a general rule diatoms in meteorites are always an Epic Fail. Diatoms are everywhere...

A baffle of deniers.

A glib of deniers.

A falsehood of deniers.

A crank of deniers.

A prattle of deniers.

a frauditorium full of deniers
a Bishop Hill of deniers
a junket of deniers
a lyin's den of deniers

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 11 Mar 2013 #permalink

#36: A /Monckton/ of deniers...

By Zibethicus (not verified) on 11 Mar 2013 #permalink

a sophistry of deniers

A dimness of deniers...

In reference to #34, an irrelevance of deniers. What a conga-line of Montfordian suckholes,and how better to give Tara an insight into their pathology..

A clowder of deniers? Their opinions are like a group of cats - can't get them going all in the same direction at the same time.

A passe of asses deniers?

A DuKE of deniers? (Think about it... ;-) )

I'm also partial to "flock", "confusion" and "Monckton".

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

And I forgot:

A lobby of denialists.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

An odium of deniers

A duplicity of deniers.

Oh, the moans when Marcott et al compared their global reconstruction to Mann et al global reconstruction.

But then the fake skeptics turn around and:

1. Middleton has tacked a single site modern land temp record onto a single site paleo SST record.

2. Watts and Easterbrook tack an single site arctic temp record onto a global reconstruction.

And barely a fake denier bats an eye. They sure showed them scientists, eh!

http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/03/watts-is-whopping-crazy-after-marcot…

A coagulation / clot / contradiction / clamour / dissembling / obfuscation / obtusion / puerility / rant / regurgitation of deniers.

On a not-entirely-unrelated theme, this (Tamino's) is entertaining, incidentally - as are the follow-up posts. Ah, the alumni of U. Tallbloke...

A nadir of deniers.... or ,re Open Mind, a schooling of deniers.

"I’m also partial to “flock”, “confusion” and “Monckton”."

Thanks for the vote for flock. I mostly like it because of imagining them wandering aimlessly in the distance, going "Bah!" in groups is funny.

However, we already have "Moncktonian" tied up with antics such as the brain-dead idiocy of Joan and Bray, so I don't think we should dual-purpose that word.

And on the what may be ahead for us front.

Those who examine the comments from the previous link to Tamino's may recognise the "oh, shit, there's a question I just can't answer because it'll give the game away; I know, I'll say it's you that's refusing to answer the questions - over and over again - that'll fox 'em" technique that has been deployed at considerable - and I do mean considerable! - length elsewhere on this blog.

Flock's already in use for birds, sheep, goats, seagulls (80's joke!) wallpaper and congregations - how about a 'bleat'?

My favourites so far:
benthos or prattle (depending on whether they are slime eating or rabbiting on about nothing)

One denier I know has a vocabulary limited to one word: "piffle" - so maybe a piffle of deniers?

And I'm sure I'd go for DuKE if I knew what you meant, Lotharsson :)

Flock of deniers would insult cute woolly baa lambs :(

Ah, I'm a DuKe(r) - got it! Definitely gets a guernsey.

Hello, my little Deltoids, how are you enjoying all this global warming? Sweating, are you, underneath all those thermals and sweaters and overcoats and fur hats?

I notice Sou@3 has informed us of an increase in CO2 last year so no wonder it's so, er, well, freezing, actually! (To paraphrase: 'Something wrong with our bloody forecasts today!')

By David Duff (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

Duff - committed idiot-for-life: you are aware that you are largely talking to Australians, aren't you? Here's an exercise for you - use google to find out what the weather's been like in our very large country; and then see what's been happening to our smaller neighbours across the Tasman.

As usual I can only say - as the sea-ice collapses - may all the misery you so richly deserve continue to befall you...

To Duff one tiny area around Bristol is 'the world'. And five days is the equivalent of years. In spite of being told a million times that weather and climate connot be conflated, Duffer insists on believeing that warming must be linear, conmsistent and never allow for short-term cold snaps. And Brad has ther audacity to think that Kahan''s study suggesting that climate change sceptics from the general population tend to have a better science education than those accepting AGW is valid when the sceptical side is littered with David Duff's and their pre-kindergarten level understanding of it.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

Ah the duff picks up on Bristol/Bath being cold - why no mention of the last couple of weeks?

Oh yeah - we fly back to Bristol this weekend so will double check on Duff.

Freezing? I wish!

It's boiling here despite autumn being 12 days old. Average max temp so far this autumn is 32 degrees Celsius - 8.5 degrees Celsius above the long term average max for March in Melbourne and 6 degrees above the average minimum so far.

11 o'clock at night and the temperature in cold old Melbourne is *still* above 30 degrees Celsius.

To Duff one tiny area around Bristol is ‘the world’.

Except when it's a heatwave there, in which case, he'll pretend Bristol doesn't exist.

PS "Winter weather in winter shock! News at eleven".

Things that look like diatoms in a meteorite. I recall what happened on another occasion. Hum! There are things on Mars that look like pyramids and a face, see 'The Stargate Conspiracy' by Picknett & Prince. [1]. There was a repeat pattern of flowers on old wallpaper where one element was reminiscent of illustrations of Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

[1] Warning OT. Picknett & Prince also co-authored, with Stephen Prior, 'The War of the Windsors' , 'Friendly Fire' and 'Double Standards', that latter being a most interesting look at the Rudolf Hess affair, my background in aviation and knowledge of aspects of the aircraft involved lead me to suspect that it was a mission that went wrong as Hess flew into UK airspace. It is well know that there were Nazi sympathisers in the upper echelons of The Establishment.

Hello, my little Deltoids, how are you enjoying all this global warming? Sweating, are you, underneath all those thermals and sweaters and overcoats and fur hats?

Are you saying that if there were no GHG that Bristol would still have been the same temperature?

Because otherwise you'd have to show that Bristol would not have been colder without the increased GHG effect.

Yes Duff, you did not disappoint. I had a bet on that you would throw us a line like the above RSN (Jerry Pournelle, BYTE).

Duff, are you saying that climate has never changed?

A 'flat earth' of deniers
A density of deniers
A black hole of deniers
A sophistry of deniers
A delusion of deniers...

By Zibethicus (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

...an /ecocide/ of deniers...

By Zibethicus (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

I don't think we've had 'a duff of deniers' yet, have we?

Zibethicus as usual comes up with some good ones :-)

Re: DuKE, does it help if I write it as Du.K.E., or maybe Du.-K.E.?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

A "duff" works well too.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

Given that so very many contrarians aretweedy pub bores, perhaps we can add a symposium of deniers to the list of suggestions?

Interesting that Wickramasinghe is at the University of Buckingham, an institution closely involved with organised 'scepticism' (notably the GWPF) in the UK.

For those of you unfamiliar with this institution, it is the first, and possibly still the only privately owned university in the UK. Free market ideology is very much the thing at what is literally the brainchild and project of the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) - the original right-wing 'think tank' founded by Fisher and Harris.

More at Sourcewatch.

A cacophany of deniers?

Nah, it used to be, they're loud but not very many any more.

A conflagration of deniers.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

Well, given how the world is going against them, a consternation of deniers may be more apt..!

Very interesting. Chatting amiably with the ever-charming Poptech over at Tara's Eco Science Blog and bugger me, he comes out with my first name! Just like that.

Now where *could* he have got my name from?

Funnily enough, we were discussing Skeptical Science at the time... now, didn't SkS get hacked last year and all their commenter data stolen?

Coincidence? Not in my world.

Wow! (no, not you, Wow) I mean wow BBD. Yes, SkS was hacked last year. It was suggested we all change our password.

Is there any other way he could have got your name?

WRT Tara's Eco blog I note that our old 'friend' Latimer has posted there, not anything substantive though being a grammar nit-pick.

Oops. Have I just left a door open?

Who is behind the Poptech mask, Andrew nnnnnn , not Montford by chance? Wasn't Montford thick with MacI' and we all know some of that latter's role in what became Climategate, which kinda backfired.

Not that I can think of. Do you know John Cook by any chance? Perhaps this may interest him.

Not Montford, no. Chap called Andrew Kahn.

he comes out with my first name! Just like that.

Now where *could* he have got my name from?

IIRC he got VERY VERY angry that people were calling him Andrew Kahn because he'd mistakenly used his full name instead of just using the "K".

However, to him, it was proof that "The Team" were hounding him and had spies tracing him everywhere and were illegally hacking into his account to find out who he was so he could be silenced.

He was quite upset.

But apparently, not upset enough not do do what he thought others did. But enough not to shut the f-k up about how he's being spied on too, worst luck.

BBD, there's an email link on SkS, down the bottom (contact us). You could send him a link to the exchange here or on Tara's blog. John might be able to give some insight into whether it could be related.

I was trying to link to the final comment on that page. Seems permalinks on Montford's site force you to view his posts.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

Getting back to freezing weather - there've been too many hot days and nights here. I can't get to sleep.

Just checked, and today Melbourne might break the record (26.3C) for the highest min March temperature, set 76 yrs ago on 3 Mar 1927. Currently 27.6C as at 4:45 am.

Make that 86 years ago!

# 90

Well spotted that man. As for using my name - almost never, and certainly not recently.

But once is enough. Poptech's on my little list now though.

Poptart's probably got you logged on his database as a published sceptic BBD. Mind you, he's probably also got Mike Mann and Kevin Trenberth down as sceptics too, if his usual flexible criteria are anything to go by. As long as his numbers look impressive at first glance....

Ahem.

A /mendacity/ of deniers...

By Zibethicus (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

At first glance I thought that Zibethicus (#72 above) was going to pre-empt my immediate thought, but not quite...

A flat-line of deniers?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

Speaking of a flatline of deniers, this is so astoundingly type-specimen that it's worth breaking my prhobition on linking to WTFUWT:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-oc…

The original conversation between myself and Bart started here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-oc…

Watts has closed the thread so that I can't reply.

For those who simply can't bring themselves to read it, I explained to Bart that yes, the ocean really is acidifying, and Bart 'explained' that no, it's not, and anyway he's proved that humans are not increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, but no, he's not going to detail his working because "Kuhn".

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

That's plain weird, Bernard. He's built houses (complex designs that actually work) lol.

In a later post Bart's put data through all sorts of contortions. He detrended a temperature series, done some weird number fudging and put a fudged temp chart overlaid with a fudged CO2 chart.

And: - a 60 year cycle that's been in evidence for over a century? (Not even two times 60 to see if it's actually a 'cycle' let alone more - and he had to fudge the chart to get his single 'cycle'.) Like going up a hill and down the other side and concluding all the world is hilly.

"The ineluctable conclusion is ... that human (CO2) inputs are rapidly sequestered, and have little effect on the overall concentration."

Bart is a DuKE of deniers all by himself!

Not sure if Melbourne will get it's record high March minimum or not. There's supposed to be a change coming through.

It has broken the record for the number of consecutive nights over 20C (seven) and the number of consecutive days over 32C (nine days) for any month of the year. Which is remarkable given it's happened in autumn.

And with more warm weather on the way, Melbourne could be heading for the hottest March on record.

Sou.

I'm amazed that someone that appears to have some nous still deludes himself as much as the worst of the ignorants.

Take this for example:

I am making two specific predictions for the future and, as you watch them unfold, you will come to realize the truth of what I have told you.

1) The rate of change of CO2 will continue to track temperatures, as it has for the last 55 years. There is already a marked deceleration in precise step with flattened temperatures in the last ~17 years.

Oh dear. Bart doesn't seem to have learned that CO2 is not just a feed-back, but also a forcing. This is an example of the logical fallatio so beloved of the denialati: in this case Bart is affirming the consequent (amongst other fallacies).

There's also the fact that notable temperature increase hasn't always preceded CO2 increase in the recent record:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Graphs-from-the-Zombie-Wars.html

and that CO2 isn't flattening out in the emissions of CO2:

http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Trend/

As to the 60 year cycle thing, that's Wormtongue Orssengo all over again. Seems that many fish like to bite that baitless hook.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 12 Mar 2013 #permalink

@99,Sou, Melbourne got the record,26.5C at 7.10am.
A 'record minimum' of deniers....

Thanks Nick. Wasn't sure if they judged the record on the overnight minimum or the 24 hour minimum.

(A previous post of mine just got swallowed up - maybe it fell into the spam folder?)

Bernard J

I’m amazed that someone that appears to have some nous still deludes himself as much as the worst of the ignorants.

I'm sure I have read that intelligent people can fool themselves with equal if not greater efficacy than daft ones.

Denial is an insidious pathology that turns the mind into a weapon against itself...

I’m sure I have read that intelligent people can fool themselves with equal if not greater efficacy than daft ones.

A central point of my two intellectual heroes - George Orwell and Noam Chomsky.

A text-book - or DSM V! - example of it requiring brains to be a truly breathtaking idiot is available elsewhere on this site.

bill

I hazard a guess that we are both thinking of the same example.

@ 2 Sou

Was it linky-rich? I think the spam filter triggers at > 4 links.

It can go earlier.

There may be some catchwords that the link filter chucks in the spambin.

It may be that so many things get put in there that finding anything that shouldn't be there is a lot of work, but from out here, all we see is that something gets into moderation and it will NOT be looked at, effectively throwing it as spam.

My, my. What a load of ugliness coming from PT (aka AK) at Rabett's place. Almost makes BK look angelic.

But there is a good article over there on the Klotzbach/Christy flim-flam: Some Reading.

In case you haven't heard, all the remainder of the stolen CRU emails have been made available. They are calling it 'Climateagte3'. Climategate2 bombed and so little is expected from the latest release. Furthermore, the hacker has set up a bitcoin addrss and is asking for 'donations'.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 13 Mar 2013 #permalink

First I've heard of it lord_s.

I wonder who'll be the first puppy dog running over here with the first delusional gruntings, only to be met with disappointment?

My money's on Griselda Slime or El Duffer

220,000 emails will take time to quote mine, most of them must be really mundane university admin. stuff. FOIA signing off with a request for 'donations' is a fittingly sordid end to the affair.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 13 Mar 2013 #permalink

This proves it wasn't whistleblowing anyway.

If someone knew what was going on in private, they would have that information and not have to throw everything out. 220k emails proves he doesn't know what is going on there, only suspicions.

So not a whistleblower.

Wow

Agreed, but we can perhaps go further. Whistle-blowers need something substantive to blow their whistles about.

The defining characteristic of 'climategate' is that it was a manufactured fake 'scandal' invented (right down to the framing name) by fake sceptics.

But it was very, very clever. Once the fake 'controversy' was being screamed about all over the internet, a *real* inquiry had to take place. Refusal to investigate would have been framed as a cover-up. Investigation was framed as evidence that there was something to investigate and *then* as a cover-up.

I couldn't have contrived it better myself.

I disagree: it wasn't clever.

It was timed to shortly before Copenhagen. That's no more clever than bears who wait for the salmon rush to go out and catch salmon.

UEA say it was a hack. The police say it was a hack Mr FOIA lacks knowledge both of CRU/UEA and of climate science in general and there is nothing else to indicate an insider. He didn't identify what he was blowing his whistle about. He didn't need to be anonymous to blow he whistle...

..AND YET, a quick review of comment at Delingpole, Montford, and Watts shows the deniers are still clinging to notion. Deluded doesn't begin to describe them.

Speaking of deluded, they also confidently assert that the request for 'donations' was merely irony.. AND YET the bitcoin address exists and transactions are going through it.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 13 Mar 2013 #permalink

Wow

We might hate it, but the ruse worked. Proximity to COP15 was an essential part of the whole thing. And another reason why we can be fairly sure this was data theft. One day it would be interesting to know who exactly was responsible.

To be clear, it would be interesting to know if this was some lone buffoon who did more damage than they could have imagined in their wildest dreams, or if it was the work of professional strategists.

"We might hate it, but the ruse worked"

Oh, it worked.

It just didn't require any cleverness to pull off.

I can see it now - "Climategate 3 - Phil Jones calls Pat Michaels a 'putz', misspells 'stochastic' and repeatedly splits infinitives - film at 11!"

This coincides with nothing, and will go nowhere. It's just chumming for morons... watch for dreck like Delingpole to try to inflame them with it!

Did any sane person ever think this was 'whistle-blowing'?

So they were only in it for the money when it all comes down to it. What a lot of nutters. Should keeps them out of our hair for a bit though, while they dream up new conspiracies.

Did you know there are people trying to 'prove' that this isn't Australia's hottest summer? These people even lived through it AFAIK. Blind, heat tolerant, fire resistant and very very stupid. They have difficulty with grade 3 arithmetic.

What I love is the people who all passionately backed the Watts surface stations project then announcing that some completely uncontrolled measurement made (in the sun!) in Dapto in 1834 proves that this wasn't the warmest summer ever...

'Skeptics', eh?

Climategate 3 – Phil Jones calls Pat Michaels a ‘putz’,

Isn't that what Monckton would call, "unlawfully interfering on the blogosphere"?

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 13 Mar 2013 #permalink

I well remember that day in early January - I was driving along and said to my wife, "Shit! Look at the temperature reading the car's giving us! It must be faulty." What was even more astounding was that the temperature then slowly climbed upwards until it started saying 45 degrees. We were driving up a pass in the Great Dividing Range. There were broken-down cars all over the place. At one point there was a bus in front of us and the asphalt was coming up under its wheels and splattering back over the road in front of us. On some corners, the road was a puddle of tar the car wallowed through.
I've been driving around coastal NSW for a long time and it was definitely a novel experience.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 13 Mar 2013 #permalink

Tom told me a story once about how frustrated he became once while trying to explain what the term "passive-aggressive" meant to a particular student. Over and over he gave this young man example after example and still he could not get through. He finally gave up when he began to wonder if this student was just pretending to not get it and was in fact demonstrating passive-aggressive behavior by repeatedly asking him to give him more examples.

I can't decide whether the deniers of global climate change are as dense as they appear or if it is an act or they are just extremely passive-aggressive and pathologically obstructionist. I really don't know. It is an interesting question that has been studied but one we may never answer.

How many times will we patiently explain the globe is warming? And that CO2 is responsible? And that there is this thing called the internet and it is extremely easy to use it to find out scientific truth about greenhouse gases and the worldwide scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change?

http://blogs.redding.com/dcraig/archives/2013/03/deniers-of-clim.html?p…

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 13 Mar 2013 #permalink

The carbon tax killed my cat.

So what's he demanding? That nature come on a stack of BluRay disks to hold all the data for one paper?

"Over and over he gave this young man example after example and still he could not get through. He finally gave up when he began to wonder if this student was just pretending to not get it and was in fact demonstrating passive-aggressive behavior by repeatedly asking him to give him more examples."

I'd have patted them on the head and said "Never mind, you're an adequate human being in other ways."

A noteworthy comment by Jeremy Shakun at DotEarth:

Just a quick point here. I state in the interview that we can't be sure there aren't any abrupt global warming blips during the Holocene similar to the current one due to chronological uncertainties and the relatively low time resolution of our global temperature reconstruction. It is worth considering though that we do have several high resolution proxy climate records from various regions around the world (think ice cores), and if abrupt global warming events happened in the past, then we might expect these local records to show them.....but my sense is they don't. So, this isn't hard and fast proof that there weren't any abrupt global events like today during the rest of the Holocene....but if I had to lay down a bet, it might make me place my wager on that side of the argument.

[Emphasis added]

So the contrarian meme that M13 is worthless because the temporal resolution is too low is itself a weak line of attack.

...He finally gave up when he began to wonder if this student was just pretending to not get it and was in fact demonstrating passive-aggressive behavior by repeatedly asking him to give him more examples.”

Like this example Wow: Dawkins v Wendy Wright, the latter could remind you of Jo Nova. BK is now sailing very close to this wind.

When that silly bint blithers on about "those ad-hominem attacks show that you don't believe your statements", doesn't she realise that she's several times called an ad-hom on scientists and Dawkins before Richard asked "Is there a hostile agenda hidden behind this?" (which isn't an ad-hom, but it's no surprise she gets that wrong)?

1) You're closed-minded
2) You are demanding people just believe in you
3) Scientists have a closed clique
4) Scientists insist that only scientists can claim on science

All as much or more an ad-hom than Dawkins' statement.

I guess she doesn't believe her own stories...

"Where is your evidence showing evolution from one species to another. We believe we were created by god".

Show us proof of god creating people.

BBD,

So the contrarian meme that M13 is worthless because the temporal resolution is too low is itself a weak line of attack.

Have they proposed any mechanism whereby recent rapid and record warming would suddenly be reversed and thereby disappear from a low-res temperature record?

Obviously not.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Mar 2013 #permalink

Sou,

Steve McIntyre is (still) “baffled”

At least he is consistent.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Mar 2013 #permalink

Lionel,

BK is now sailing very close to this wind.

Huh? They're not just on the same carousel, they're on the same horse!

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Mar 2013 #permalink

"Huh? They’re not just on the same carousel, they’re on the same horse!"

THEY ARE THE HORSE!

A panto horse.

I think the horse is easy to spot thought: it has two arseholes.

I think the horse is easy to spot thought: it has two arseholes.

Aha! Bifurcated Tergiversation. That's rich, as is the smell that comes with it.

Ah, but he can repeat Feynman's "Dictum".

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Mar 2013 #permalink

Ah, but he can repeat Feynman’s “Dictum”.

Of course he can!
In the end denial always boils down to assertions from 'authority', because the inevitability of the scientific case isn't contestable. As we've seen for almost a decade now, no matter how hard the denier wolf huffs and puffs and distorts.

But in this case we have a two-arsed horse huffing and puffing, being led around a ring by its master Chris Monkeytown.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Mar 2013 #permalink

But in this case we have a two-arsed horse huffing and puffing, being led around a ring by its master Chris Monkeytown.

A two-arsed horse? That can only mean one thing.... the pantomime horse of denial

Duff:

Sweating, are you?

Sure did, clown.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 14 Mar 2013 #permalink

I think the horse is easy to spot thought: it has two arseholes.

That would be Ducktor Do-nothing's Pull-me-push-you, wouldn't it...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 14 Mar 2013 #permalink

Vince:

What was even more astounding was that the temperature then slowly climbed upwards until it started saying 45 degrees. We were driving up a pass in the Great Dividing Range.

Good car.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 14 Mar 2013 #permalink

@39,Pielke Jr gets involved,using the kind of rhetoric he apparently disapproves of from The Climate Commission.

He compares Will Steffen's perhaps intemperate remark about conduct unbecoming with Richard Nixon's directive to defund MIT when it displeased him. Huh? Is there actually a less appropriate straining for an analogy than that one?

@50.
I see that a final tranche of "climatefake" emails has been released. Boring.

What would be interesting is the email traffic between Pielke Jr and the Risk Frontiers group. The article in TC has Pielke's fingerprints all over it.
http://theconversation.edu.au/weighing-the-toll-of-our-angry-summer-aga…

Here is how it works. Pielke Jr wants to attack the attribution statements in The Angry Summer report from the Climate Commission. But neither he or his colleagues in Risk Frontiers are climate scientists. So pretend that the CC are making claims about "normalised" (their algorithm) insurance losses via key fact 3 below which mentions property - this is nominally their turf.

Australia’s Angry Summer shows that climate change is already adversely affecting Australians. The significant impacts of extreme weather on people, property, communities and the environment highlight the serious consequences of failing to adequately address climate change.

This gives them the confected hook to make the following attack on the report.

The report refers to, amongst other things, how the significant impacts of extreme weather on property highlights the serious consequences of failing to adequately address climate change.

So has property damage during 2012-2013 been higher than normal?

The answer, in terms of insured losses from weather-related disasters, is no.

and so on and so on, blah, blah.

Ryan Crompton the co-author or the article gives the game away by conceding that it is really the attribution statements in the CC statement that he takes issue with.

The script for this "bait and switch" was developed here.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pielke-jr-mcintyre-assist-christy-extre…

Watching Pielke Jr in action close up. Not a pleasant experience.

Sou:

And with more warm weather on the way, Melbourne could be heading for the hottest March on record.

It's a very tough record to beat (30.5 deg C max). It came very close in 2008 I think.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 15 Mar 2013 #permalink

Great story, lord_s.

And the follow-up comment makes a trenchant point too.
We just need to create a video of people complaining about the smells of CO2 exhaust? Toss in a few loud muscle cars for noise? And share it everywhere? Hmm...
I wonder if cretins like Delingpole have ever heard the expression 'fight fire with fire'? Or realised the implications for themselves?

Yes @51,the worth of the normalisation algorithm is challenged quite effectively in comments at The Conversation. These guys are pissant pol sci stats types and should reasonably caveat their views,underlining how specific and therefore limited their expertise is. Is that not colleagial? ;)

Foolishly, MikeH, I read the SkepSci thread you linked. Pielke Jr indeed has an unfortunate manner.

People.

Do yourselves a favour and close the Brangelina tab. The guy has no science, and he's only sucking hours of your time.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 16 Mar 2013 #permalink

Actually, it's now BBD "doing a Bray", in deep denial about nuclear power and MacKay's partisan book "Without hot air".

Please Bernard, stop bad-mouthing Wow.

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 16 Mar 2013 #permalink

Oh, lap dog, you need your eyes tested.

And cut back on the onanism, 'k?

Wow, the same goes for you. Please don't talk to Bernard in that way, even if find him offensive.

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 16 Mar 2013 #permalink

Oh dear, lappy, you're the one with the reading problem, not me.

You know, it's only kindergarden that go "I know I am, but you are too!". Tell me, are you out of nappies yet?

And you really shouldn't call Anthony Watts a paedo child sex trafficer like that, it's a libellous claim, Olap!

Even if it could be true.

I have just started reading through the very interesting David MacKay document cited by BBD (thanks) in the Brangelina thread and would like to add my two-pen'eth which is to urge the reading of Nuclear Renaissance: Technologies and Policies from the Future of Nuclear Power by William J. Nuttall wherein will be discovered that 4 Gen nuclear power can provide a more efficient use of raw material, a methodology for disposing of waste from 3 Gen and before, and how the various management options have been or are being implemented for the thorny problems involved.

Reading this book, with an open mind, will take the fear away from many issues including that of weapons proliferation which is not a feature that 4 Gen will provide.

It is no surprise to find Centrica making waves to swamp out any nuclear renaissance as they, and the Russian oligarchs allied with Osborne, Cameron & co would rather we fracked the hell out of our land and never mind the consequences WRT safe water supplies never mind other hazards of fracking.

There are dangerous forces at work looking after their own vested interests as this article shows: Is Britain’s nuclear renaissance in danger?

Anybody who tries to shout down nuclear power either does not know their subject or is supporting these self same vested interests.

[Ducks for cover]

Wow

[Exchange moved from Brangelina thread; acrimony redacted ;-)]

The problem all along has been that you haven’t read what MacKay actually wrote.

Had you RTFR as I repeatedly suggested (eg see # 61) you would have noticed that MacKay begins – like any good scientist – by questioning his initial assumptions.

You ignored what was written even though I took the trouble to quote it for you, rather than simply provide a link.

Here it is again:

1. Is the size of the red stack roughly correct? What is the average consumption of Britain? We’ll look at the official energy-consumption numbers for Britain and a few other countries.

2. Have I been unfair to renewables, underestimating their potential? We’ll compare the estimates in the green stack with estimates published by organizations such as the Sustainable Development Commission, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and the Centre for Alternative Technology.

I have now also emboldened relevant sections of the quote in an attempt to punch it through your bony head.

Had your bothered to RTFR for just over one page you would have come to this:

Our estimate of a typical affluent person’s consumption (figure 18.1) has reached 195 kWh per day. It is indeed true that many people use this much energy, and that many more aspire to such levels of consumption. The average American consumes about 250 kWh per day. If we all raised our standard of consumption to an average American level, the green production stack would definitely be dwarfed by the red consumption stack.

What about the average European and the average Brit? Average European consumption of “primary energy” (which means the energy contained in raw fuels, plus wind and hydroelectricity) is about 125 kWh per day per person. The UK average is also 125 kWh per day per person.

Now FFS read the rest of it. I cannot do it for you. If you had done this in the first place, you could have avoided making such a tit of yourself in public.

As we know (because I told you, because I had to, because you did not read the fucking reference) MacKay used 125kWh/d/p in the five energy plans he presents later in the book. Not 195kWh, not 128kWh. 125kWh

What you are doing here is simply repeating the crude strawman set up by Hickey. And you are wrong to claim that MacKay distorted his figures.

Now, as you also know, because I have told you, because I had to, because you did not read the fucking reference, your claim about offshore wind makes exactly no sense at all. Mind you, shrilling that MacKay is shilling for Big Nuke is completely insane, so this relatively minor in comparison.

This nonsense could only have been written by an energy illiterate who has not read the reference:

Total energy use in the UK 128kwh/d/p. Not 195.

From offshore (shallow sea) wind ALONE can power THREE TIMES our energy requirements.

I set you straight in detail at # 78. Oddly, you don’t actually mention this above. But once again, you were completely and demonstrably wrong.

At some point, you need to admit your errors.

"Reading this book, with an open mind, will take the fear away from many issues including that of weapons proliferation which is not a feature that 4 Gen will provide"

Not true.

Proliferation is not addressed by Generation 4 nuclear power.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

(PS look a little more skeptically on his maths. they add up, but they don't work)

Lionel A

You are of course in complete agreement with no less that James Hansen wrt fast-track development of Gen IV.

"Had you RTFR as I repeatedly suggested (eg see # 61) you would have noticed that MacKay begins – like any good scientist – by questioning his initial assumptions."

I HAVE READ THE FUCKING THING.

YOU, however didn't.

Your link pointed AS ITS VERY FIRST SENTENCE:

The red stack in figure 18.1 adds up to 195 kWh per day per person.

Then when I told you that ht wasn't 195kwh/p/d, you claimed:

“MacKay uses 125kWh/d in the five energy plans”

BULLSHIT

James Hansen said in his 2008 letter to President Obama (emphasis added):

Energy efficiency, renewable energies, and an improved grid deserve priority and there is a hope that they could provide all of our electric power requirements. However, the greatest threat to the planet may be the potential gap between that presumption (100% “soft” energy) and reality, with the gap filled by continued use of coal-fired power.

Therefore it is important to undertake urgent focused R&D programs in both next
generation nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration. These programs could be carried out most rapidly and effectively in full cooperation with China and/or India, and other countries.

Given appropriate priority and resources, the option of secure, low-waste 4th generation nuclear power (see below) could be available within a decade. If, by then, wind, solar, other renewables, and an improved grid prove that they are capable of handling all of our electrical energy needs, then there may be no need to construct nuclear plants in the United States.

Many energy experts consider an all-renewable scenario to be implausible in the time-frame when coal emissions must be phased out, but it is not necessary to debate that matter.

However, it would be exceedingly dangerous to make the presumption today that we will soon have all-renewable electric power. Also it would be inappropriate to impose a similar presumption on China and India. Both countries project large increases in their energy needs, both countries have highly polluted atmospheres primarily due to excessive coal use, and both countries stand to suffer inordinately if global climate change continues.

You also blathered on how larger more efficient designs that were then available were not a problem in his "calculation" because bigger turbines have to go further apart.

FUCK NO.

Absolutely wrong.

Read a fucking book on wind power, you moron.

Then look at his load of tripe again.

1. Is the size of the red stack roughly correct?

No.

2. Have I been unfair to renewables, underestimating their potential?

Yes.

Wow

Settle down and read my comment. You are totally out of order at this point, and in full public view.

Sort yourself out.

Oh fuck off you ignorant shithead, BBD.

1) Your link started on its first sentence with:

The red stack in figure 18.1 adds up to 195 kWh per day per person.

Correct?

Get a clue yourself, you moron.

What you are doing here is simply repeating the crude strawman set up by Hickey. And you are wrong to claim that MacKay distorted his figures.

Go back to # 67 and *read it*.

Here's another example of your nonsense claim that MacKay has understated the potential of renewables.

I would like to see a substantive response to this.

His figure for offshore is an eighth of the actual reserves.

His calculations only work if you accept them.

MacKay bases his generous estimates for wind capacity in the standard manner, using power per unit area and area:

Onshore wind.

Shallow offshore wind.

Deep offshore wind.

Now, go and read the references before even thinking about responding. Once you are crystal clear about what MacKay *actually wrote*, can you be specific about why you reject these estimates? Please show your working.

While exercising due dilligence, be sure to read the end notes to both sections. You will find important information there too. For example, this:

60. The area available for offshore wind.
The Department of Trade and Industry’s (2002) document “Future Offshore” gives a detailed breakdown of areas that are useful for offshore wind power. Table 10.7 shows the estimated resource in 76 000 km2 of shallow and deep water. The DTI’s estimated power contribution, if these areas were entirely
filled with windmills, is 146 kWh/d per person (consisting of 52 kWh/d/p from the shallow and 94 kWh/d/p from the deep). But the DTI’s estimate of the potential offshore wind generation resource is just 4.6 kWh per day per person. It might be interesting to describe how they get down from this
potential resource of 146 kWh/d per person to 4.6 kWh/d per person. Why a final figure so much lower than ours? First, they imposed these limits: the water must be within 30 km of the shore and less than 40 m deep; the sea bed must not have gradient greater than 5°; shipping lanes, military zones,
pipelines, fishing grounds, and wildlife reserves are excluded. Second, they assumed that only 5% of potential sites will be developed (as a result of seabed composition or planning constraints); they reduced the capacity by 50% for all sites less than 10 miles from shore, for reasons of public ac-
ceptability; they further reduced the capacity of sites with wind speed over 9 m/s by 95% to account for “development barriers presented by the hostile environment;” and other sites with average wind speed 8–9 m/s had their capacities reduced by 5%.

This is why reading the reference is an essential first step. Doing so can help avoid libellous misrepresentations and stupid, embarrasing errors later.

Listen, when YOU answer the question "Why did he pick the % of land used by windfarms that he did" with "Because the UK is a small country" YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT A PERCENTAGE IS.

Then YOU come along and go "Get a clue"????

"MacKay bases his generous estimates for wind capacity in the standard manner, using power per unit area and area:"

1/8th of the reserves is THE OPPOSITE OF GENEROUS.

Given you think his calculations are generous, YET THEY ARE COMPLETELY WRONG, then you really do need to rethink whether his calculations are honest at all.

Wow, on top of things today are we? :-)

By the way, Jerry Springer's looking for new white trash for his show. I took the liberty to mention your name Wow. I'm sure you don't mind since a subhuman of your calibre probably can get a fair sum for the trouble.

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 16 Mar 2013 #permalink

# 82

Repeating stupid things does not help. You need to read and to admit your errors.

What you are doing here is simply repeating the crude strawman set up by Hickey. And you are wrong to claim that MacKay distorted his figures.

Go back to # 67 and *read it*.

You are, BBD.

YOU demanded: Start here: http://www.withouthotair.com/c18/page_103.shtml

VERY FIRST LINE:

The red stack in figure 18.1 adds up to 195 kWh per day per person.

That was your post here:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2013/02/02/brangelina-thread/comment-pa…

Your response? Oh, he says it's 125kwh/p/d.

Really?

You see one hundred and twenty five when the bloody link YOU have said you read (obviously lying) writes down one hundred and ninety five???

You're senile, old boy.

Senile and drooling.

You keep changing what I'm supposed to read.

But you never, EVER deign to say that anything that has been PROVEN completely false is wrong or in error.

Just like Bray or Jonas.

Gish gallop the fuck away.

I went precisely where you told be to start.

But right in the very first sentence, you disagree with the text written and make up a fantasy that does not exist.

Wow

Given you think his calculations are generous, YET THEY ARE COMPLETELY WRONG, then you really do need to rethink whether his calculations are honest at all.

BBD # 78:

I would like to see a substantive response to this.

[...]

Now, go and read the references before even thinking about responding. Once you are crystal clear about what MacKay *actually wrote*, can you be specific about why you reject these estimates? Please show your working.

Are you going blind old chap?

You keep changing what I’m supposed to read.

No, I keep *repeating* what I would like you to read.

"No, I keep *repeating* what I would like you to read."

Well, what a suprise: SO AM I.

You said Start here.

That's where I started.

EXACTLY where you said to start.

But in the very first sentence is a load of rubbish that even YOU disagree with.

He doubles the energy required for the UK.

He reduces to 1/8th the offshore wind power available.

He uses 10 year old tech and says to use it for the next 30 years.

He pretends that the entire windfarm extent is entirely used by wind turbines.

Then when that isn't enough to preclude renewables, reduces it by a quarter again.

And YOU think he's being "generous" to renewables???

Wow

WRT offshore wind, you say:

Given you think his calculations are generous, YET THEY ARE COMPLETELY WRONG, then you really do need to rethink whether his calculations are honest at all.

To which I long ago responded in detail at# 78:

I would like to see a substantive response to this.

[...]

can you be specific about why you reject these estimates? Please show your working.

Are you going to back up your shouting or not?

He doubles the energy required for the UK.

Rubbish. He uses the standard figure of 125kWh/d/p. See # 67.

This is just embarrassing now. Would you like to stop?

"can you be specific about why you reject these estimates? Please show your working."

I showed you the bloody source of the data on the other thread you ignorant arsehole! YOU IGNORED IT THEN TOO.

Find it yourself with this google phrase:

uk offshore wind resource

And then YOU come back with the source of HIS calculations.

Oh, that's right, you can't. YOU JUST ACCEPTED THEM.

And that is a link TO HIS BOOK.

What's this?!:

60. The area available for offshore wind.
The Department of Trade and Industry’s (2002) document “Future Offshore” gives a detailed breakdown of areas that are useful for offshore wind power. Table 10.7 shows the estimated resource in 76 000 km2 of shallow and deep water. The DTI’s estimated power contribution, if these areas were entirely filled with windmills, is 146 kWh/d per person (consisting of 52 kWh/d/p from the shallow and 94 kWh/d/p from the deep). But the DTI’s estimate of the potential offshore wind generation resource is just 4.6 kWh per day per person. It might be interesting to describe how they get down from this potential resource of 146 kWh/d per person to 4.6 kWh/d per person. Why a final figure so much lower than ours? First, they imposed these limits: the water must be within 30 km of the shore and less than 40 m deep; the sea bed must not have gradient greater than 5°; shipping lanes, military zones,pipelines, fishing grounds, and wildlife reserves are excluded. Second, they assumed that only 5% of potential sites will be developed (as a result of seabed composition or planning constraints); they reduced the capacity by 50% for all sites less than 10 miles from shore, for reasons of public acceptability; they further reduced the capacity of sites with wind speed over 9 m/s by 95% to account for “development barriers presented by the hostile environment;” and other sites with average wind speed 8–9 m/s had their capacities reduced by 5%.

This is why reading the reference is an essential first step. Doing so can help avoid libellous misrepresentations and stupid, embarrassing errors later.

Wow, you should just stop. Really.

You should get a clue, really really.

British energy demand is 205 GW. That’s the confirmed 2008 number, from the official Digest of UK Energy Statistics. (see Table 1.1, Final Consumption minus Non-energy use)

LESS THAN HALF THE FIGURE HE USES.

And I'll quote Tom Curtis:

BBD, KR and I have both read 236. What is more, I adressed your arguments in 236 directly and found them to be without foundation. Disagreeing with you is not the same thing as not having read your comments or understood them. If anything, it is rather the opposite, a sign of both having read and understood what you say.

You however insist on doing a bray.

# 3

If only you would read the reference. The basis for projected change in *electricity* demand is detailed here.

Why do you say nothing about this? It is *directly* relevant to one of your major misrepresentations, namely that DM has under-stated the potential for offshore wind. In fact, DM provides a very generous estimate - far higher than the official DTI figure:

60. The area available for offshore wind.
The Department of Trade and Industry’s (2002) document “Future Offshore” gives a detailed breakdown of areas that are useful for offshore wind power. Table 10.7 shows the estimated resource in 76 000 km2 of shallow and deep water. The DTI’s estimated power contribution, if these areas were entirely filled with windmills, is 146 kWh/d per person (consisting of 52 kWh/d/p from the shallow and 94 kWh/d/p from the deep). But the DTI’s estimate of the potential offshore wind generation resource is just 4.6 kWh per day per person. It might be interesting to describe how they get down from this potential resource of 146 kWh/d per person to 4.6 kWh/d per person. Why a final figure so much lower than ours? First, they imposed these limits: the water must be within 30 km of the shore and less than 40 m deep; the sea bed must not have gradient greater than 5°; shipping lanes, military zones,pipelines, fishing grounds, and wildlife reserves are excluded. Second, they assumed that only 5% of potential sites will be developed (as a result of seabed composition or planning constraints); they reduced the capacity by 50% for all sites less than 10 miles from shore, for reasons of public acceptability; they further reduced the capacity of sites with wind speed over 9 m/s by 95% to account for “development barriers presented by the hostile environment;” and other sites with average wind speed 8–9 m/s had their capacities reduced by 5%.

MacKay bases his generous estimates for wind capacity in the standard manner, using power per unit area and area:

Onshore wind.

Shallow offshore wind.

Deep offshore wind.

Can you be specific about why you reject these estimates?

That SkS thread is illuminating, BBD.

You really ARE a BradK when it comes to upping nuclear power and dissing renewables.

Over at the SkS thread, you do precisely the same thing here.

a) get the figures wrong
b) whine
c) pretend that only Davids figures are real and that ANYONE ELSE is wrong

You are GENUINELY Doing A Bray.

From there, the proof of this being your standard M.O.:

KR at 00:26 AM on 13 July, 2011
BBD - And... you repeat the error, by stating "200W/m2 x 2000 = 400kWh per m2"

It's not 200W * 2000 hours, but 200W * 24 hours * 365 days. Or, 1000W * 2000 hours/year of available time for collection.

200W is daily per/hour average, while 1000W on the other hand is peak power that is then scaled by the hours that power is available (2000/year, or 5.5 hours a day, more, actually, tapered for morning/evening). Apples and oranges, BBD - you are taking a 24 hour daily average and then scaling again by a fraction of a day. This is an error.

I simply don't know how to put that any more clearly, BBD. 200W daily average is already scaled by hourly availability - yet you scale it again!

LAGI then (properly) applies a 20% conversion efficiency. 30% is possible for CSP, minus additional plant footprint - not unreasonable.

Wow

Whilst I can see why you might want to divert attention elsewhere, it would be more to the point if you responded to # 10.

And now you're doing a Bray again.

"DM provides a very generous estimate "

He doesn't.

2200GW available shallow sea offshore for the UK. Three times what the UK uses up in power themselves.

As an aside, there are two options open to us all. We can always use the same screen name, or we can periodically change it.

Some might think that it would have been in my best interests to change mine during 2011. But I chose not to, although it would have been the easiest thing in the world.

Why did I do this? Do you think it is evidence of bad faith, or of good faith?

WTF are you on about now?

Since you keep bringing up the SkS thread, when I finally saw my error I admitted it at once. See # 308. I was horribly embarrassed. I'm *still* embarrassed and I admit it freely.

Have you never had a blind spot? Got a cog stuck? ;-)

I like to think that it happens to us all, occasionally.

# 20

I'm just passing the time waiting for you to respond, substantively, to # 10.

I brought it up at first because it was a scenario about how 100% renewable was possible and how it could be done (and the timescales thereof).

I honestly had NO IDEA you were doing the same BS article, raising that up wasn't the point.

But you realised in print on that site that you made errors (thought these errors were not just errors in your assertions, but evidential of error in MacKay's calculations too).

You don't, however, have seen to have learned from them.

Remember in the Young BradK days, when he'd be given some link to climate papers, he'd go "OK, thanks, I'll read that later, gotta go to bed now"?

Then when he came back, it was as if it had never happened?

You just took longer to revert.

MacKay's figures were cherry picked as much as any denier who is trying to claim proof AGW is over.

But finding you on that thread was happenstance.

(thought these errors were not just errors in your assertions, but evidential of error in MacKay’s calculations too).

No, the error was mine alone.

"Have you never had a blind spot? "

Every human has one, since the nerve endings from the retina are, foolishly run along the front of the eyeball, not sensibly at the back where they don't have to pass the retina to get to the brain.

But if you meant intellectual blind spot?

Some.

Nothing compared to yours, though.

over 880kwh/p/d can be gained from offshore wind. Four times what he'd put as the total energy use of the UK. I'll give him that this is a figure from newer designs, but this goes back to another of your assinine assertions: bigger turbines don't get more power per unit area of ground covered because they have to be further apart.

He puts it down as, what 16kwh/p/d? That would be gained by exploiting only 2% of the resource.

His assertions that land used in a windfarm was used up by that windfarm is likewise completely insane. 99.9% of the land in a windfarm is unoccupied. Farmers can farm it.

Just like with solar power: MacKay insists that if 1% of land is used for that, it is entirely used up. Except there's a lot of ground and it's bright enough to grow crops there. Or it can be on rooftops.

His calculations rely on such fakery to add up.

"No, the error was mine alone."

No, you were perpetuating the same errors MacKay does.

You don't see them because you LIKE his answer. And therefore you don't notice that you've picked up HIS bad habits.

If the 'fakery' is DM's then why does he provide a much higher estimate for offshore wind than the DTI?

Please read and respond to # 10.

Are the links in that comment working for you btw? There should be five.

The thing is, see, is that you get an equation, run some numbers through, and when the numbers do not accord to what you want to be there, you add another factor in. But if the numbers DO say what you want, you leave them there.

MacKay does it.

You did it.

MacKay is pushing nuclear. You're pushing it. And that requires the removal of renewables from the table, otherwise "AGW needs to be addressed" will make renewables progress, not nuclear.

So the renewable option has to be taken off the table.

Uh, you're about fifty responses behind, BabyBraD.

#90
#91

"If the ‘fakery’ is DM’s then why does he provide a much higher estimate for offshore wind than the DTI?"

He produces a much higher power requirement than the DTI.

And the report on renewables for the UK's offshore resources shows far far more than DM does in his fictional story. 2200GW.

I can't say what the DTI says because you haven't given their word, only the hearsay of someone incompetent to be trusted on the subject.

All I can get from them is this:

"The 2003 Energy White Paper 'Our energy future - creating a low carbon economy' recognised that a key contributor to the government target of 10 per cent of UK electricity from renewable sources by 2010 would be offshore wind."

Which would indicate that maybe all David has done is quote how much renewable the government had elected to have come from offshore.

Not the resource available at all.

MacKay is pushing nuclear. You’re pushing it. And that requires the removal of renewables from the table, otherwise “AGW needs to be addressed” will make renewables progress, not nuclear.

So the renewable option has to be taken off the table.

This is me:

My sense is that you are creating a strawman and trying to have a fight with it.

Please stop.

This is what I argue:

All credible projections* indicate ~25% nuclear and ~25% renewables by mid-century if we go flat out for both.

Both.

We can choose 75% FF by mid-century, complete with the infrastructural emissions lock-in explicit in a non-nuclear option.

Or we can choose 50% FF by mid-century, complete with the *reduced* infrastructural emissions lock-in explicit in the full-spectrum option.

You set up the strawman that I am *anti* renewables and *pro* nuclear and that the whole thing is some kind of zero-sum game where one approach must 'win' at the expense of the other.

But the truth is that I am *pro* decarbonisation. That is all.

And if you want to claim that only 125kwh/p/d is what should be counted, then since the "Green bar" adds up to 180kwh/p/d (the second sentence), renewables CAN produce 100% of required power.

" My sense is that you are creating a strawman and trying to have a fight with it."

No, claiming a strawman does not make it a strawman. Your rhetoric is obvious.

You are pushing nuclear.

You are having an argument with yourself.

"We can choose 75% FF by mid-century, complete with the infrastructural emissions lock-in explicit in a non-nuclear option."

We can choose 75% renewable by mid-century, complete with ZERO OTHER power sources.

All that would require is a reduction of waste until we are half way to the world average.

Given that electrical and heating power come to ~20kwh/p/d, 1/6th the total, much of the rest must be transport. But electrical power is 3x more effective.

EVEN IF you now change to wanting it to be 125kwh/p/d, the total could be dropped 25% by moving transport over to electrical if even 35% of the remaining power were for transport.

Given much of the heating is due to crappy insulation and housing stock in the UK, halving the 20kw/p/d needed for personal use isn't going to be difficult.

You're painting a picture to preclude options you do not want to be picked.

"Take this, which may have a turd in it, or pick the other one, which definitely doesn't!"

This is because you want one route to be chosen: gung ho for nuclear.

I'm gung ho for decarbonisation.

ONLY as long as it's nuclear decarbonisation.

Wow, I don't care all that much what we do, so long as it *works*. See # 36.

And renewables work.

So why do you fight against them?

#36 is just more proof that you're lying. See #39

# 45

Mind that straw. It can give you a nasty poke in the eye.

#39.

Your assertions in #36 are completely false. A shibboleth of the nuke-pushing lobby and a bogeyman made up to scare people.

It is COMPLETELY FALSE.

We could choose that, but that is only because it is possible to choose to do that.

IN NO WAY does it have to be chosen.

IN NO WAY does it mean we can't have 100% renewables.

Nah, looking at the lunacy at climate fraudit isn't going to cheer me up, no matter how ludicrous he gets.

“We can choose 75% FF by mid-century, complete with the infrastructural emissions lock-in made up to discard a non-nuclear option.”

FTFY BabyBraD.

We could choose 100% renewables by mid century, complete with local energy security and local jobs.

Wow, nonetheless it seems that Steve has a strong case. Please show (not tell) me its not the case! ;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 16 Mar 2013 #permalink

Yeah, but you imagine all sorts of weird shit that doesn't happen in the real world, lapdog.

Such as, for example, your exhortation.

This is a textual, not visual medium, therefore it is only possible to TELL you something.

But go on, YOU show us (not tell us) that Mr FraudIt has a strong case.

I take it you don't mean scotch, right?

Because his scorecard on having anything other than a hangover or the DT's is running a flat zero.

Actually, you haven't even told us, have you.

You've only said you think he has one, you haven't actually told us he has one.

Seems not even you believe him. And that's gotta sting.

You know, I did suggest, right at the start, it was a good idea not to mention the war.

This debate has been banned at various other blogs, or confined to specific threads and allowed no leakage. There's a good reason why. See above.

David BB - here's a hint. The above, and the similar result on the other thread, are the entirely predictable outcome on attempting to force this (off-)topic into discussion.

And yet, when I return to the Climate Progress thread where it might have been both on topic, and had greater exposure in a country where this is all actually a live issue, I do see you there, yes - hooray! - but the debate did not follow you and the endless back-and-forth is all here, gumming up the works.

What would you say your bringing it up again here has achieved?

Little in the way of good, from my perspective.

Certainly I doubt that the reputation either of nukes or of their advocates has been in any way advanced, which would appear to be the only valid reason for a proponent to bring it up in the first place.

Might I suggest we return to fighting deniers? I'm sure this will be ignored, but as advice it's no less valid for that.

To whit: Olaus, please spell out Nigel's 'strong case' for us in your own words. Ta.

Bill?
. . . suggest we return to fighting deniers?
David B and apparently BBD are attempting to go past that highly counter productive and 'name calling' paradigm.
They can both see we will have some real issues with future energy needs if we are not prepared to discuss ALL the workable options.
The piece by Prof BB that David B linked, while certainly pro nuclear, also clearly outlines the impracticalities of some of our current energy policies.
2 of the most successful & reliable low emmission technologies (nuclear and hydro) are not being sensibly discussed in the current political climate.
Hats off to BBD and David B for having the courage to discuss one of them, despite the current political climate.

By chameleon (not verified) on 16 Mar 2013 #permalink

And of course,
That comment awaits moderation and appears way out of synch.
Moderator/s.
Please stop moderating my comments. There is no 'sock'!

By chameleon (not verified) on 16 Mar 2013 #permalink

And, at the risk of attracting the attention of the auto-moderator, here's an interesting piece on the (un)holy alliance between AGW denial and creationism - sorry; 'Intelligent Design' - targeting the school room.

Or, 20th century Creationism hybridizes with its 21st Century equivalent... with Holy Writ in this case deriving from the Tobacco Industry playbook...

bill --- There are many forms of denialism.

ON BK's thread chameleon asked for my opinion regarding electric power. I claim it is rather informed since the academic power engineers here still hold the title of the best in the west and I have an information channel to that group. [Not surprising the group is best in the west as many of the Columbia River system dams were designed in the very building in which I have an office.]

I also claim some degree of expertise regarding matters nuclear as my most formative years were in Los Alamos and my senior year I took a course on atomic physics.

After looking at a variety of alternatives for providing reliable, on-demand electricity via a grid I have come to the conclusion that dispatchable generation is required. Non-dispatchable generators such as solar PV and wind turbines can be accommodated, up to an appropriate fraction of the maximum demand but dispatchable generators are necessary for the reliability of an on-demand grid.

The remaining question is cost. One would like to accomplish the above using (ideally) minimum cost.

Since Australians on the eastern seaboard interconnect are all going to have to replace aging coal burners relatively soon, what are you going to replace those with? Barry Brook claims to have an answer, but it is one that many Australians seem to be in denial about.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 16 Mar 2013 #permalink

David, if you wish to label anyone who disagrees with you in this matter a 'denier' that's up to you, but, again, if you wish to make any converts to your cause you're going about it in an odd way to my mind.

Be that as it may - you're doing it again. This conversation really can serve no purpose anymore - if it ever could.

As I note Tom Curtis ended up having to say to proponents at SkS - not agreeing with you is not proof that I'm not listening to you, it's proof that I don't agree with you. If I'm a 'denier', I'll point out that one of the defining hallmarks of zealotry is never knowing when to give it a rest; is that you?

Well said David B!
Thankfully even here there are people who can see there is a huge problem in the future if we don't plan for reliable, constant dispatchable generation.
And moderator/s!
I would like to be able to contribute to this particular topic in a reasonable timeframe!
Please allow me to do so.

By chameleon (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

Gee, thanks, fellas! The middle of March and I awake to yet more global warming falling steadily out of a grey sky and settling nicely.

Oh, and 'pur-lease', don't tell me it's awfully hot in Australia, it's always hot in Australia, that's why sundry nitwits go off to live there - that's if you can call clinging to the rim of a massive desert 'living'! And anyway, 'in a very deep and meaningful sense', who gives a flying fig what happens in Australia? I don't even care much what happens in Wiltshire - and that's next door!

By David Duff (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

Fellas, Revkin believes that

"Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit has been dissecting the Marcott et al. paper and corresponding with lead author Shaun Marcott, raising constructive and important questions."

What a nerve! But let's hope for the best! ;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

"on-demand electricity via a grid I have come to the conclusion that dispatchable generation is required."

So not nuclear, then.

One reason why France is in the hole is that they produce excess energy at night and sell it below cost to get rid of it and have a shortfall during the day and have to buy it in at peak cost.

Buying it from countries like Germany who dispatch power from their renewables to France.

Solar power plus wind follows the demand curve.

Nuclear doesn't.

"I also claim some degree of expertise regarding matters nuclear as my most formative years were in Los Alamos and my senior year I took a course on atomic physics."

Like Geologists who more frequently are climate deniers because they have some degree of expertise regarding matters geological, where the climate was different, assume that they know better and it will all be fine.

"and I awake to yet more global warming falling steadily out of a grey sky and settling nicely."

No, that's hail, Duffer.

It is still winter.

"What a nerve! "

What?

All you've done is put some words in quotes. Absolutely pointless. If you'd had something concrete, you'd have said so. I think this proves the vapidity of your queries adequately.

Duffer, I take it that you can prove that AGW hasn't warmed the world, right?

Go on, show us.

Load-following generators such as solar PV and wind turbines can be accommodated</blockquote.

FTFY, dude.

up to an appropriate fraction of the maximum

120%.

If you want to talk about nuclear power, we can talk about it.

If you want to talk about how nuclear power is the only way we can manage to decarbonise, you're talking bullshit.

"It is still winter."

Oh, so that's alright, then. Of course, Spring is only 3 days off so can I expect some global warming, Mr. Wow, sir?

And I do know the difference between hail and snow, Mr. Wow, because yesterday we had the hail, this morning we had the snow!

By David Duff (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

No, it's still winter, duffer.

Nothing right or wrong about it.

It's winter.

This seems to come as a complete shock to you every year. You may want to check yourself in to a home for the mentally incompetent.

"Spring is only 3 days off so can I expect some global warming"

And the world's seasons don't punch a clock, duffer.

You are merely proving how incompetent you are to proclaim ANYTHING about either weather or climate since you don't have the slightest clue what is going on.

I am happy, Wow, to admit that **forecasting** weather/climate is beyond me, as it is to everyone else, including on several inglorious occasions, our Nationalised Met Office.

But may I say, with due deference, that you and your fellow cultists here at the Church of Climate Warming have not been too hot (nudge-nudge, geddit?!) at forecasting climate, either. What is it now, 15 or 17 years of virtually no global warming?

By David Duff (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

I am happy, Wow, to admit that weather/climate is beyond me

Fixed that for you.

as it is to everyone else

Pretending everyone else is as incompetent as you to make yourself feel better isn't going to work, idiot.

including on several inglorious occasions, our Nationalised Met Office.

Now why do you want to imply that if someone is ever wrong in a prediction, they must always be wrong?

Like i said, pretending everyone is like you just to make yourself feel better isn't going to work

What is it now, 15 or 17 years of virtually no global warming?

Uh, where did year 16 go?

Or are you agreeing that for 16 years that there was warming of the planet?

And the trend over the last 15 years or 17 years is within the range of the IPCC projections.

Just because you are clueless doesn't mean anyone AT ALL is fooled.

And where did this "global warming is lying on my garden" go? Finding that your idiocy isn't getting you anywhere, you gallop off to new pastures of infantilism?

By the by, Wow, how are your alkenones hanging?

By David Duff (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

Yawn.

Booooring.

What is it now, 15 or 17 years of virtually no global warming?

Duff, if you had been a pelagic organism you would have 'noticed' a considerable amount of warming.

Tell me though why is it that drought and wildfire ranges have extended across two major continents, and adjacent territories?

Also, have you looked at NOAA for information</a) or are you continuing the argument from ignorance (see the new book 'THE DENIAL OF SCIENCE: Analysing climate change scepticism in the UK' by Martin Lack which provides a description of your brand of denial - when I have read more of this book I aim to provide a bit more context), this in spite of many pointings to sources such as this: Cherrypicking to Deny Continued Ocean and Global Warming?

Also, tell us why you think this is happening February 2013 Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral Update, and tell us also what happens to water when a large body of ice is introduced.

You will ignore this, or provide a flippant content free response. Why? Because you are a noisome wind up merchant (a Delingtroll) rather than a serious questioner How many Delingtrolls are there to a Euro I wonder?

AArgh!

Also, have you looked at NOAA for information or are you continuing the argument from ignorance (see the new book 'THE DENIAL OF SCIENCE: Analysing climate change scepticism in the UK' by Martin Lack which provides a description of your brand of denial - when I have read more of this book I aim to provide a bit more context), this in spite of many pointings to sources such as this: Cherrypicking to Deny Continued Ocean and Global Warming?

Odd how Wow finds "boring" an example of, shall we say politely, less than scientific exactitude with regard to dates. Equally odd how excited he becomes if 'deniers' make an error.

Truly may it be said, that in the land of those with two eyes, the one-eyed man walks round in circles bumping into things!

By David Duff (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

Further to my recent above and for Duff, here is another Uh!Oh moment in the making:

Melt Season’s First Signs in Arctic. It shoukld be interesting to see what Goddard, Watts and Bastardi make of this.

"Odd how Wow finds “boring” an example of, shall we say politely, less than scientific exactitude with regard to dates"

Really?

Where is that in your statement:

#78 Duff
This Septic Isle
March 17, 2013

By the by, Wow, how are your alkenones hanging?

Hmm?

"Equally odd how excited he becomes if ‘deniers’ make an error. "

Really?

But one tiny error in the IPCC report (a typo) has had you screaming and frothing at the mouth that the ENTIRE report is false.

Odd how deniers run a galaxy-sized double standard.

Nah, they're just lying twats, that's what.

"Melt Season’s First Signs in Arctic. It shoukld be interesting to see what Goddard, Watts and Bastardi make of this."

I predict:

Denial.

I take it you can prove your assertion, spots, that a storm made the sea ice minimum last year, right?

No, no you can't. You made it up.

You do know that there have been storms there before, right?

But this was a record low.

So the record low CANNOT be caused by a storm.

Really, you don't have a clue, do you, spots.

Yawn indeed.

Ice is melted by heat, spots, not wind.

Not a clue, have you.

Not one clue at all.

ummmm…………..another storm, lol, just like the one that smashed the ice to bits last year, hehe, didja forget lyinell ?

'KrakenMacSpot but more Toc-H light', here is an idea, cover the surface of a bowl of water with smashed ice and blow on it, what happens?

A blowhard like you should have enough puff if not from your lungs then point 'seventh rock from the sun' at it.

Did you not know that the ice minimum was reached days before that storm?

Did you not know that recently released data from polar exploring nuclear submarines shows that ice thickness has dramatically reduced since they started taking measurements?

Do you appreciate how much heat ice has to absorb before it turns into water? If so tell us what that amount is and explain.

You are either an ignorant twerp or a dissembling idiot.

Lotharsson, that post was a hoot. Lewis Carroll would be proud: "When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

I note none of her - *coff* - "skeptical" posters called her on this error, painfully obvious as it was. I don't think much of Codling, but I thought she knew better than that.

Itsnotnova has a nice post on this. Thanks to Codling's trick, we can now extract statistical signficance from almost any data set, however small, so long as its not flat.

‘KrakenMacSpot but more Toc-H light‘ do you bother to READ and UNDERSTAND stuff at the sources that you cite. Here is the 'read-learn-and-inwardly-digest' bit highlighted and in context:

Bottom line: A powerful polar low developed and pushed northward into the Arctic on August 5, 2012. The storm apparently helped break up Arctic sea ice, due to upwelling of warmer waters and the pushing of swaths of ice into warmer locations. Prio [sic] to the recent storm, sea ice extent in the Arctic had already been declining at record low levels across the region. We have another full month of melting before temperatures will slowly begin to drop again, as the winter months approach. Will 2012 beat out 2007 for record low sea ice extent since the satellite era? It is very possible, and there are no signs at the moment that the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice in 2012 is slowing down.

You trap yourself every time.

I notice the 'sceptic' blather about Marcott is rising in volume. Here's something the 'no spike' brigade can ponder.

I'm thinking of the strange affair of the Schnidejoch ice-field in the Western Swiss Alps. During the record-breaking hot summer of 2003 ice melt at this high pass exposed wood, leather and other perishable artefacts dating back ~5ka to the late Neolithic. These artefacts could not have survived unless continuously frozen since deposition. From Grosjean et al. (2007):

The critical point in the context of this paper is that leather requires permanent embedding in ice in order to stay preserved and, as it is observed today, deteriorates very quickly if exposed at the surface. In consequence, the finds at Schnidejoch suggest permanent ice cover at that site for the last 5000 years, more specifically from ca. 3000 BC until AD 2003.

G07 provides detail about why Schnidejoch is an unusual and noteworthy archive, essentially by virtue of its altitude:

Schnidejoch is a binary and non-continuous archive (‘open or closed’). It operates at a precisely defined and constant threshold (Equilibrium Line Altitude (ELA) at 2750 m) and responds immediately and most sensitively to small perturbations if climatology fluctuates around that threshold value.

The authors go on to point out that the ice at Schnidejoch preserving the late Neolithic artefacts formed as precessional forcing waned and the Holocene Climatic Optimum faded.

Interestingly, there are *several* distinct assemblages of finds at Schnidejoch. Working forwards chronologically from the late Neolithic, these are dated to early Bronze Age (4100–3650 cal. yr BP), Roman Age (1st–3rd century CE), and Medieval times (8–9th century CE and 14–15th century CE).

Each group of artefacts was deposited during a warm period when glacial retreat opened the Schnidejoch pass. But none of these warm periods was warm enough to melt the 5ka ice.

So if Marcott et al. is flawed, why is 5ky-old ice melting now? Grosjean is specific:

Our findings suggest that at the archaeological site this glacier was smaller in 2003 than at any time during the past 5000 years.

What happened at Schnidejoch in 2003 entirely supports the Marcott reconstruction.

@Lionel

That's wierd. Basically, Rose plagiarised one of the graphs, misinterpreted it, and projects climate to the end of the century from about 7 data points. I guess Ed must be planning to do a fuller response due to the influx of deniers.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

bill --- I certainly do not claim that anyone who disagrees with me is in denial. However, many have strongly voiced prejudices based on decades of misinformation regarding matters nuclear. Some are corrigible.

It comes down to balancing costs and risks. Here is an interesting assessment of the risks of various states and activities:
Professor Cohen's "Understanding Risk"
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter8.html
in which we discover that the LLE risk of existing NPPs is about the same as eating peanut butter.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

No, that's not right.

Look, you're pushing the same BS as the tobacco lobby pushed with "Smoking doesn't cause cancer" and that deniers are pushing now "Sandy wasn't caused by AGW, we've had storms before!".

Less damaging than coal? I could agree.
Less dangerous? No, only "on average", but the danger is rather more condensed with nuclear.
It is irrelevant if spreading peanut butter is more dangerous, because

a) we choose to do it ourselves, not have it chosen for us
b) if we don't eat, we starve. We therefore have to accept the "danger" of using a dinner knife in our lives. We don't have to have nuclear.

Until we breed a more intelligent and responsible human and make a society where that sort of person will prosper rather than get walked on by the sociopaths, nuclear is not a good option, because all the "in theory, it's safe" will never survive the first budget cut or desire by the board to tick the stock price up.

And at this time, we don't have TIME to go nuclear.

If we'd done something 20 years ago substantive to mitigate AGW, we may be in a better situation with our available options and be able to spend some potentially wasted time and effort on nuclear power (which would be about increasing power availability, not about getting enough power to continue: we can have enough from renewables).

We don't have time or money or effort to spare. There's little time and we have DEFINITELY dialled in some rather trying times by inaction. If things are worse than we thought, we can't rely on a stable society to keep the nuclear option safe. We can't site them where they need to be because we don't know how much sea level rise we've bought for ourselves. And we already have problems in heatwaves of the water in rivers being too hot to cool the power plants therefore they have to be shut off. And that will ONLY get worse.

If we're still here and able to consider the expense of nuclear power in 50 years time AND have worked like bastards in the meantime to reverse the damage done, we would know what we have in store and can then begin to plan.

But the opportunity for nuclear power was lost 20 years ago by deniers and inaction, and we won't get the chance (if we stop fannying about with doing nothing) for probably another 50.

It was certainly very kind of Ms. Nova to illuminate her grasp of the key issues in such a straightforward and, ahem, significant manner.

And, when called, to double-down on Stupid. Holes / stop digging, all that.

Illuminating.

By the way, did Olaus ever manage to explain McI's stupendous insights on Marcott in its own words?

Because, Olaus, I don't think you can - prove me wrong.

David Rose wins a well deserved Golden Horseshoe.

And -

The first winner of the Rupert Murdoch award is Rupert Murdoch.

Another worthy winner.

Oh, and Karen - it's currently 2013. Don't mention it; just being helpful.

BBD at the top,Grosjean is a good point...there is Otzi as well,exposed in a thawing stationary snow field at 3200m on the Austro-Italian border and dated at 5050-5300 y old...and there is a host of Holocene glacial fluctuation material from North America and Europe that supports the trajectory of the Holocene as seen by other proxies...as we all know,conception of the Holocene didn't start with and does not depend on the paper that is the current obsession of the twistedknicker brigade.

#4 David B Benson.

You need to get past the comic book interpretation of risk. The claim "we discover that the LLE risk of existing NPPs is about the same as eating peanut butter." is infantile.

Try this article on long tail events. Nordhaus is discussing Fukishima.
http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/documents/Nordhaus_TailEvents_JPET_2012.p…

"So if we see an unusually tall woman, perhaps 61/2 feet tall, we would be surprised, but this would not change our view of homo sapiens. By contrast, the March 2011 Japanese tsunami was like a 30-foot person striding down the street."

He goes on to explain

"So the earthquake/tsunami example shows the logic of the Dismal Theorem. In certain conditions, the combination of risk aversion and fat tails leads to a never-ending chain of changing optimal decisions. As we increase the point in the tail where we cut off our calculations, the best policy continues to change. There is no optimal policy"

Have a look at the Black Swan Theory developed by Nassim Taleb. It is a perspective on how risk assessments can be completely useless in the face of huge impact events with low probability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

Nick # 7

The ice man cometh. Meanwhile, up North... Polyak et al. (2010):

The severity of present ice loss can be highlighted by the breakup of ice shelves at the northern coast of Ellesmere Island (Mueller et al.,2008), which have been stable until recently for at least several thousand years based on geological data (England et al.,2008).

'60 000 made homeless by dodgy batch of peanut-butter / 20 km exclusion zone declared around factory / Impact to continue indefinitely.'

Could a comparison of risks be any more palpably absurd? ;-)

bill

I thought we weren't going to mention the war.

it is important to undertake urgent focused R&D programs in both next
generation nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration.

Nuclear is completely uneconomic, and I can't see carbon capture going anywhere from where I am sitting, judging by the effort I see being put into it compared with the effort going into other areas.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

MikeH --- Nassim Taleb's book was rather thoroughly panned in a recent review in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. The Nordhaus paper is the typical economist's failure to understand even the most elementary physics. In particular, there is an upper bound on the possible moment magnitude of any earthquake due to the inability of any rock to withstand a greater stress. The largest earthquake measured was moment magnitude 9.5 off the coast of Chile. Perhaps that is the largest possible.

Both you and bill ought to read the late Bernie Cohen's chapter before dismissing it. In particular the two of you seem not to know the concept of LLE risk. In the case of Fukushima Dai-ichi there was no loss of life due to radiation.

Nevertheless, so that I only need to check one thread here at Deltoid I will voluntarily stick with BK's thread. If you actually care to discuss these matters substantively please post there.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

Here is the AMS review of Taleb that I assume David referred to - from David Aldous is professor of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley
http://www.ams.org/notices/201103/rtx110300427p.pdf
Hardly a panning - "Let me run through some discussion topics, first six on which I broadly agree with Taleb, then six on which I broadly disagree, then five final thoughts"

Here is another
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2012/12/05/nassim-taleb…

More praise here.
"The Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman proposed the inclusion of Taleb's name among the world's top intellectuals, saying "Taleb has changed the way many people think about uncertainty, particularly in the financial markets. His book, The Black Swan, is an original and audacious analysis of the ways in which humans try to make sense of unexpected events."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Praise_and_criticism

John Mashey is trying to educate the readers of the Washington Post over there:

johnmashey1 responds:

3/17/2013 10:01 AM UTC+1100

When Cuccinelli's first CID bounced, the second one tried to use a seriously-broken source to bolster the case in the next one. Start around p.18 of::
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/New%20Mann%20CID.PDF

The "Wegman Report (2006) was led by statistician Ed Wegman of George Mason U (GMU), claimed to be by a panel of eminent statisticians. Actually, most of the work was done by Yasmin Said (less than a year part PhD, hers was in alcoholism models) and several of Wegman's PhD students. Nobody had any serious experience in the two key areas: paleoclimate and Social Network Analysis (SNA)), they didn't bother to ask , and in both cases had to plagiarize experts to simulate expertise, although they also inverted expert conclusions from expert text they plagiarized. In academe, that is usually called false citation or falsification.

About 35 of 91 pages were mostly plagiarized, although often with ludicrous errors when making trivial edits.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefai... references (my) report that backs all this in detail
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2010-11-21-climat…
Only a handful of pages were error-free.

Wesley Russell (GMU JD) signed off on this to continue Cuccinelli's (GMU JD) efforts, relying heavily on a work led by Wegman, who said (in Congressional testimony) the greenhouse effect couldn't work in tithe higher atmosphere, since CO2 was heavier than air ... apparently having never noticed that people at sea level did not suffocate. The science was inept and so were the SNA and even the statistics, which included a 100:1 cherry-pick to get the desired answers.

By amusing coincidence, Wegman's lawyer, Milton Johns (GMU JD), used to be Cuccinelli's law partner:
http://www.desmogblog.com/curious-coincidences-geo...

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 17 Mar 2013 #permalink

BBD

I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it!*

Yeah, OK, granted, but the peanut-butter-disaster idea amused me to an irresistible degree. I swear I shall henceforth foreswear!

Anyway, back on TOTtW**, or the real war, if you like.

Don Easterbrook - zombie?

You're Willard Watts and you need to get your heaviest hitters together to refute Marcott; Nigel's busy doing his own thing, and that's great, but you're really rattled, and you need more...

So, who you gonna call?

The Don!?!

Ay carumba!...

Blackly comic indeed. If only this was all a dream, and they weren't all so diligently facilitating the trashing the one planet we possess... oh well...

Olaus, still waiting for your own insightful explanation of the wisdom of the Nige. Don't leave us in suspenders...

_______________________________________

*I assume we do all recognise the Fawlty Towers references?

**Topics Other Than the War

Duffer, so what's happened to all that "end of AGW" you were on about?

Speaking of Don Easterbrook rehashing his errors at WUWT, which leads to SkS discussing denial strategies used by Watts in an interview, where one A. Scott in comments is - dare I say it - apparently doing his best to provide more evidence of conspiratorial ideation (those comments start at #67).

Perhaps someone should alert Lewandowsky et. al. ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 18 Mar 2013 #permalink

#20, .... it genuinely looks like A.Scott really believed in A.Watts until now....is that a little light switching on?

Nick, one can certainly hope so...but if I were a gambler I wouldn't be putting any money on it.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 18 Mar 2013 #permalink

# 16 bill

I got the nods to FT ;-)

Easterbrook collects another George A. Romero award! I wonder where he finds the space for them all at home. Perhaps he has a special room.

And I agree with you, with all the force of Monday morning bleakness: it's a mad world.

Was Marcott ever in the second-hand car trade? Well, if he was, then judging by the way his alkenone model is failing to sell, I don't think he could have made much money. Even his friends are embarrassed by what you HAFs call a 'know nothing, unscientific, retired oil company geologist' has demonstrated that his alkenone model is a wreck!

Oh, and Wow, what "AGW"? There hasn't been any worth a bucket of spit for the last 15-17 years, and most of what was supposed to have occurred before was because you clever scientific chaps put your instruments in the wrong places and then trusted instruments in Russia, China, Africa and every other God-forsaken, war-riven, failed state you could find.

Er, by the way, can I interest you in a one owner, very low mileage - well, it is now - Alkenone . . . ?
@

By David Duff (not verified) on 18 Mar 2013 #permalink

Hey, duffer, what happened to all that snow of yours?

Must be global warming got rid of it.

There hasn’t been any worth a bucket of spit for the last 15-17 years,

Really?

1999: 0.41
2000: 0.43

warming.

2000: 0.43
2001: 0.52

warming.

2001: 0.52
2002: 0.57

warming.

2002: 0.57
2003: 0.58

warming

2003: 0.58
2005: 0.62

warming.

In the last year, the trend of warming has been 0.6C per decade warming.

2011: 0.51
2012: 0.57

‘know nothing, unscientific, retired oil company geologist’

Hey, glad you agree!

# 24

What bollocks you spout, David Duff. Paleo-SSTs have been reconstructed from alkenones since the late 1980s. If McIntyre thinks he can overturn a standard methodology with a few blog posts, he is delusional. More likely, he is insinuating without demonstrating anything concrete, per his usual MO. You, being clueless, have been fooled.

More likely, he is insinuating without demonstrating anything concrete, per his usual MO.

Yup. Nigel has 'written' to the authors. Thus, in dunderhead land, verily has climate science been overturned. It helps that narrative markedly if you're a gullible, credulous old fool of course.

chek

It's all about creating the *appearance* of controversy with McI isn't it? He writes to the authors, who are more or less obliged to respond. The whole exchange will be make-waffle on his side and explanation on theirs and it will peter out with no substantive problem being found, nothing that makes a difference to the paper or the fundamental problem.

But the *appearance* of controversy in and about 'climate science' is diligently maintained. Exactly as intended.

In politics, appearance counts for so much.

Marcott is no second-hand car dealer; why you'd want to highlight that you most certainly were (before deciding, I seem to recall, to gain succour from the withered dugs of the state ) is rather beyond my comprehension.

As are most things regarding your behaviour, including, tautologically, your comprehension. I suspect I'm not alone.

Anyway, you can take up Olaus' challenge, since he clearly simply can't do it; please explain, in your own words - we'll check! - precisely how Nige has sunk Marcott.

You see, I have developed this theory that chumming is an activity universally undertaken by those who are simply too stupid to understand the content of their regurgitations. Here's your opportunity to prove me wrong.

You don't have to write to the authors to 'prove' climate science is a hoax.

All you have to do is mention the name of a climate scientist or say you've stolen some emails or mention you are sending an FOI demand, and the whole edifice of climate science crumbles to the ground (in Wattsville or CA-land).

BTW - guess who was the one millionth poster on WUWT? None other than poptech! Couldn't be more fitting if they tried.

(Almost as good as winning the most 'popular' anti-science blog or getting a lifetime achievement award from the denier bloggies!)

Hang on, I thought it was tree rings and modern thermometers that deniers hated. Have they moved onto hating alkenones now?

What about ice cores and speleotherms - saving them for another day I suppose.

Looks like the "Recursive Fury" paper has just been published.

Wonder if this will bring another round of a certain type of comments?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 18 Mar 2013 #permalink

@ Lotharsson #35 - The conspiracy theorists are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Everyone who they might send a complaint to is in on the hoax/scam/conspiracy - UWA, the Ethics Committee, the journal, the guvmint and on it goes :(

BBD, #31: I think you are correct.
But here's the problem. I just became aware of Marcott-McIntyre today, when I dropped by Bolt's site for the first time in many months, before coming here, and noticed his blog was all abuzz with it. Googling the names leads to many pages of hits, but after scanning 13 or so pages of those, I cannot find a single site, outside WUWT, climate audit, Climate depot and the rest of the denial hangers-on where a decent response to McI is made.
No wonder the denial camp think they've won...

Peterd: what would a "decent response" be? Show him wrong? Briffa once did that, and it was followed with another few rounds of attacks. It even went as far as getting more data from Hantemirov, misrepresenting it (according to Hantemirov), which resulted in an angry response of Hantemirov on CA.

It's just a "he said, she said" routine whatever you do, exactly to convey the idea that "the denial camp" has won. It's the whole purpose of WUWT and CA: keeping its audience busy with the impression there's something fishy going on. There's so much data available that Steve McIntyre could easily write ten papers on paleoclimatological reconstructions, but that won't do. We've seen what the people who cried "free the data!" have done with HADCRUT (=zilch), but it kept the denizens of their blog happy. Note that I do not imply that Watts and McIntyre get paid specifically to do what they do. I know of too many people who don't need money to spread FUD, often because they strongly believe they are right and the other must be wrong, f* the facts.

McI has his knickers in a knot because he sees an uptick at the end of one of the data series.

McI wrote his first article without even reading the paper or the supplementary material from the look of things. Some people in the comments pulled him up so he had to go digging further.

Along the way he got more wrong than right as per usual, although some people have been helping him out explaining the data handling as described by Marcott et al, and trying to keep him on track. Marcott even took the time to write to him but McI isn't paying that any mind.

The Auditor is not the least bit interested in the paper or it's more interesting aspects (regional variations, tighter / wider coverage of the Holocene). He is in the business of manufacturing doubt. He's got all the nutters now saying that there is no 'uptick' therefore earth hasn't got hotter this past several decades. 'We're heading for an ice age'!

His objective is achieved.

He's got nothing to be 'right' or 'wrong' about. From what I can see the 'uptick' is just how the data runs came out in that particular 5x5 grid analysis. Nothing nefarious about it.

Even if, buried deep in the data there is a number transposed wrongly, it's not going to discredit the paper. Heck - the shape is no surprise at all. It corroborates other reconstructions but extends the work using 73 proxy sets.

McI spends a few hours on this and pretends to have made a 'contribution'. No mention of or credit paid to all the scientists and techs who spent dozens of person years collecting the proxy samples and analysing them, plus the person years that Marcott et al put into aligning all these different proxies on the same time scale, checking them all against each other and other indicators to make sure they align okay temperature wise.

McI is a doubt and disinformation merchant seeking accolades from the denialati- no better than any other fake skeptic.

I'm still waiting for one of our learned colleagues to explain McIntyre's point to us in plain English of their own construction.

They keep saying he's proved - well, disproved, I suppose - something dazzling, but, apparently, like something out of the South Sea Bubble I have little doubt they would all have been swept up in had they been around at the time, no-one is to know what it is.

Feel free to prove me wrong. Or shall we just assume that your talents extend no further than a facility with the Ctrl+C Ctrl+V key combination?

James Annan confirms it, David Rose makes stuff up:

http://julesandjames.blogspot.jp/2013/03/another-interview.html

The bit Rose adds about "the true figure likely to be about half of the IPCC prediction in its last report in 2007" is a complete fabrication of course, it's not something I can imagine having said, or being likely. I do think the IPCC range is a bit high, expecially the 17% probability of sensitivity greater than 4.5C. But their range, or best estimate, is certainly not something I would disagree with by a factor of 2.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 19 Mar 2013 #permalink

This is what Peir Forster is quoted as saying by David Rose in the Fail on Sunday:

The fact that global surface temperatures haven’t risen in the last 15 years, combined with good knowledge of the terms changing climate, make the high estimates unlikely.’

Here is what Piers Forster said to David Rose in full (this comes via Montford's site):

Basically, the climate sensitivity has always been very uncertain. > estimates have put it somewhere between 1 to 5 C for a doubling of CO2. The IPCC best estimate has been around 3C. The fact that global surface temps haven't risen in the last 15 years, combined with good knowledge of the forcing terms changing climate over the satellite era: greenhouse gases, volcanoes, solar changes and aerosol is beginning to make the high estimates unlikely. Given this, i would put the best estimate using this evidence around 2.5 C. There are still uncertainties though particularly in heat going into the ocean, but climate sensitivities above 3.5C or so don't seem to fit. Keep in mind that this is only one line of evidence for quantifying climate sensitivity. Other lines of evidence have been able to firm up the bottom end. We now have good observational evidence for a positive water vapour feedback and even clouds, which have always been the largest headache in climate change, are beginning to be understood and a positive cloud feedback is looking more likely. This line of evidence helps rule out climate sensitivities below 2C. So I see it very much as a positive story that careful science ( and time) is helping to reduce the most significant uncertainty in climate science.

Basically, little different from the IPCC's best estimate of 3 deg. C, but you would never guess that from reading Rose's article.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 19 Mar 2013 #permalink

# 37

What Marco said.

Yeah, but the idiots don't want to hear that. They want to hear the Beckian Gambit in play. "I'm not saying there's anything wrong, just want to point out that, despite it being 'settled science', they are getting different values. Just asking questions".

'course, they go screaming like little girls if you ask them questions.They're just bullies, really. Cowardly little opinionated bullies.

Hey, Wow - could you leave out insulting little girls please? I was never like McI and co, not even when a 'little girl'. > :-(

Little girls are better than McI, but they DO scream a lot and piercingly so.

No little girls were harmed in the production of this message.

:-)

What, will none of our regular 'skeptics' explain McI's point re Marcott?

Stop shuffling and gazing at your shoes, people!

Otherwise we really might be forced to conclude that either A: he doesn't really have one, or B: you're incapable of explaining it anyway, and generally have very little idea of the actual meaning of any of the consoling claims you routinely regurgitate.

Or, perhaps most likely, both!

But speak up, people, defend the honour of your tribe; has McI let you down, or are you letting him down? And, most tellingly; would you even be able to determine if the former was true?

The Ice Man cometh - now, we already know that Duffer is one of his acolytes; who else will stand up and be counted?

Just think, if it cools as fast as it's warmed for 30 years by mid-Century temperatures will eventually return to those of '83, which I don't actually recall as being an ice age as such but I was a younger man then and probably oblivious... Or maybe Piers is anticipating a sustained McLean-style plummet... Or has been reading Don Easterbrooks' charts! Or both! Oh, the humanity!

Come on 'skeptics', this is a twofer: you can tell us that Piers is right while you're explaining McI's devastating critique.

Or is it possible that one of you can actually make a claim too far? I don't think it is, but, again - prove me wrong...

Good grief, somebody mentioned Ken Ring.

I saw him once on a breakfast show - was stuck in a hotel, don't normally watch that sort of thing.
What a maniac. I can't believe the media sometimes.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 19 Mar 2013 #permalink

Bill, the crowd see McI has written an article or two or three. That is enough to "prove" that climate science is a hoax.

Who cares what McI actually says (no-one can understand his turgid prose anyway). He's written 'something' in what looks like English plus written some code - that's quite sufficient for the DuKEs.

Excellent article about why the scepticoid reaction to Marcott et al. is entirely beside the point at Ourchangingclimate.

It really appears to be the Glenn Beck approach. "I was just askin'...". Can't be proven wrong, because NOTHING HAS BEEN CLAIMED. And is 100% a waste of time. Produced ENTIRELY to do so.

bill!

Please! Do not mention The Corbyn ;-)

The shame is too great to bear (we've already got Monckton, Montford, the GWPF and bloody Delingpole to live down). Bringing The Corbyn up is simply not cricket.

Now you're just boasting, BBD - although we have the Plimer, our Carter, Bolt, Alan Jones, Nova & Evans are really second-rate cranks.

I reckon even NZ beats all of our cranks put together with their fabulously cranky Ken Ring.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 20 Mar 2013 #permalink

Bob, even better is the line:

Who loses from this kind of thing? Well, there is no denying it makes me look a bit of an idiot. As one of my colleagues (who had best remain nameless) put it, "serves you right for talking to these ****s."

I recall that Graeme Lloyd's most recent apology came after an article where he complained he was unable to get any Aussie scientist to talk to him.
Good to know Aussie scientists are already wise to the necessity to not be "talking to these ****s".

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 20 Mar 2013 #permalink

Marco,#38, thanks for the response. Perhaps I should not have used the term “decent response”, which is a little ill-defined. I guess I wrote too much in haste, occasioned again by stumbling across yet another denialist gossip point at Bolt the dolt’s site. I became peeved when I could not find any kind of treatment of the Marcott paper from a knowledgeable, non-McI. perspective. All Google links seemed to point back to the denialosphere, and McI.’s site. (These people are masters of copy-and-paste, as Bill has suggested.) It was only after doing another search yesterday, using different search terms, that I was able to find a link to discussion at Nick Stokes’s blog. And, launching off from there, an interesting guest post by Jos Hagelaars at Bart Verheggen’s blog. (Actually, this raises questions for me about Google’s rating system, but I don’t have time to pursue that issue myself.)

However, I remain convinced that the timely (rapid) appearance of informed discussion acting as a counterweight to the likes of McI. and his hangers-on is of the utmost importance. You mentioned Briffa. I remember being blindsided by the Yamal issue when it came up- the first I knew of this was when a denialist acquaintance who was familiar with McI.’s site started to chortle and gloat and basically call Briffa a fraud. It was some time before I could achieve any kind of acquaintance with the issues, and even after several visits to Deep Climate’s site, I am not really in command of the arguments and relevant disputes. These people, from McI. down into the cesspools, are committing intellectual fraud and getting away with it. Then they just move on to something else.

As G.K. Chesterton remarked, a lie gets half-way round the world before the truth has got its boot on. With the speed of the internet, it is getting several times around the world. It is surely our job to do our best to get our boots on quickly.

Pollyannaish attitudes like Myles Allen's are nearly as problematic as Denial itself. You wouldn't think from such reactions that the stake in this game was the continuation of life as we've known it.

He'd also best stick to the science. His comments about a carbon tax are equally naive - as Oreskes points out, it's debatable whether the CFC cap-and-trade system is what actually solved the problem (or even that it's as 'solved' as many apparently believe); we're mostly lucky that we acted in time and there was a readily-available cheap substitute to hand.

CO2 is a much bigger and scarier beast than CFCs. And we've already missed the 'act in time' window.

Oh, and this is, what, day 3(?) of the Denier 'What Did Nigel Say?' challenge. Nobody wants to win glory, it seems...

Ah, no - it's day 5!

JAQing off indeed...

peterd: fair enough. I should note there is more out there, like Any Revkin's discussion with the authors, there's a blogpost over at the Stoat's, etc. Much of that in many ways pre-empts McIntyre's complaints. Heck, the paper *itself* already pre-empts some of McIntyre's complaints. The uptick is not robust, the paper says, amongst others due to the scarce proxies there. In comes McIntyre complaining about that uptick. As said pointedly several places: we don't need the proxy data of the last 100-150 years. We've got the temperature record for that.

Alright then, that's 0 points for Nigel and his acolytes. Seems your only 'substantial' challenge to Marcott isn't...

And it appears poor old Piers has no defenders, either?

So, tell us how Climategate 3.0 is going, then? That's got to be booming along, surely?

No? Not a peep?

Surely you can't all be snowed in at Duffers place?

Bill

I'm just down the road from Duff in Bristol (keeping an eye on his weather reports)... and no snow here.

If anyone doubted Tom Fuller was a narcissistic nutter, he's miffed that he didn't rate a mention in Recursive Furies.

This from Fuller in an article he posted on WUWT today:

Lewandowsky deleted all of my comments. And his latest paper, which has a Data Supplement showing the ‘recursive fury’, which apparently means cherry picking a few of the comments he didn’t like, doesn’t mention my deleted comments for some reason.

Last year Fuller trolled Shaping Tomorrow's World with wild accusations and eventually got banned. I don't know where he hangs out these days. He invaded Bart's blog for a while last year. Haven't seen him since.

"Lewandowsky deleted all of my comments."

Uhm, WTFUWT routinely delete all comments by someone who disses the AGW denial machine.

Montford refuses to allow comments on his blog.

So what is the problem here?

His problem is that Lewandowsky et al didn't mention Tom and his conspiracy theories - or that's how I read it. Tom doesn't like being ignored for any reason, even as a conspiracy nutter.

Sou

Agreed. Tom Fuller is a PITA and a tool, not to mention a fine, if not definitive example of a crypto-denier.

He spent a long time in 2012 (it felt like longer) displaying his peculiar non-talents at Collide-a-Scape. It was something of a relief when he finally buggered off. But he got a few seriously good kickings while he was there, so it wasn't a wasted opportunity. Mind you, Willard's evisceration of his bad faith and mendacity at Bart's was something to see. Virtuoso gutting knife work ;-)

Montford refuses to allow comments on his blog.

Seems to be several comments there on "Lewandowski and Cooke in spectacular carcrash". The "outing" of Richard Betts of UK Met Office fame, for "espousing conspiracy theory" seems to be causing much mirth and merriment.
Stil we need something to cheer us up what with all the global warming we are having recently. Minus 10C over the snowfields last night and more on the way.

Actually, Lewandowsky didn't delete anyone's comments. Lewandowsky wasn't in control of the commenting system.

Fuller truly is something. I don't even remember how many times I asked him to show how Anderegg et al was a "blacklist". Apparently claiming it is makes it so, in fullofit-world.

Ah, we have a new contender who believes the weather at their place is global.

Perhaps you'll explain, in your own words, the substance of McIntyre's 'powerful criticisms' of Marcott, because none of the local exponents of 'See Local, Act as if Global (Whe Convenient)' can manage it.

Perhaps the global chill has slowed their brains?

And here's another the refrigerated neurons can't handle - while doubtlessly Climategate3.0 is all the rage over at the Sticky Bishop's, can you show any actual content that would impress a grown-up or demonstrate any impact in the real world?

We'll check for cut-and-paste.

We really have hit on another unanswerable question for contrarians; rather like 'what is the conservative position on conducting a radical experiment with the one atmosphere we possess?' (Sum total of answers since 2010; 0)

Anyway, Recursive Fury is now published (and at STW), and we can all now anticipate recursive recursive (recursion²!) fun-and-games...

bill & all

Marcott discussion at Tamino. Incisive as ever. The contrast with Stevie Mac's deliberately manufactured 'controversy' is unmissable ;-)

Montford refuses to allow comments on his blog.

He man now be allowing some, but most posts do not allow comment.

"He may now..."

Anyway, Recursive Fury is now published (and at STW),

Comedy that good should reach as wide an audience as possible.

They could try publishing in Marvel, though I understand there are certain conditions to be met before they accept work for publication.

"Comedy that good should reach as wide an audience as possible."

Come on, you're duffer, aren't you.

He thinks that the comedy of the deniers flailings should cheer everyone up who watches them flap about like frightened chickens too.

The “outing” of Richard Betts of UK Met Office fame, for “espousing conspiracy theory”

You mean the "outing" by Lewandowski who says of this:

One misrepresentation of Recursive Fury is that we accuse Professor Richard Betts of the Met Office of being a conspiracy theorist because one of his quotes appears in our raw data.

.
.

To claim otherwise is to ignore what we say about the online supplement in the paper itself. The presence of the comment in the supplementary material just attests to the thoroughness of our daily Google search.

(over at SkS)

?

I'm going for Duffer. Hasn't quite got used to the new handle; can't decide if it's a capital r or not yet.

Same method of ignoring inconvenient questions, too...

The “outing” of Richard Betts of UK Met Office fame, for “espousing conspiracy theory

Betts is not impressed with the explanation

Lewandowsky et al clearly deluded!

"Stil we need something to cheer us up what with all the global warming we are having recently. Minus 10C over the snowfields last night and more on the way"

More kindergarten level musing. Clowns like Rednose conflate weather and climate and think that every year must be warmer than the last...

Its this kind of scientific illiteracy which explains why climate change deniers have been able to recruit an army of idiots.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 Mar 2013 #permalink

Perhaps you’ll explain, in your own words, the substance of McIntyre’s ‘powerful criticisms’ of Marcott,

Well there seems to be a whole lot of splicing going on.
Marcott to Shakum to Hadcrut4 to A1B projection to produce a nice tail which apparently is not robust but is good for effect.
Hey why not splice on a cable attached to the QE2. No bloody use but think of the publicity shots.

Just to update on the global warming situation here: 8-16 inches of it forecast for Friday

BK is now trying the same shit on at the Frontiers page for the Recursive Fury paper. Not sure if he realises he begins his comment addressed to John Cooke with an insult - or perhaps he does but thinks that it's an emotionally intelligent way to promote engagement with the other person. He certainly doesn't seem to notice or care that his obsession is entirely off topic, regardless his awareness of forums where it is on topic.

More raw data for Lewandowsky et. al.? ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 22 Mar 2013 #permalink

Duffer says: Lewandowsky et al clearly deluded!

So you're saying that Richard wasn't outed then?

Duffer: Well there seems to be a whole lot of splicing going on.

Yes, this is what happens when you have several graph lines to display: you put them on the graph. Are you saying that putting more than one temperature record on a graph is wrong somehow?

Duffer: Marcott to Shakum to Hadcrut4 to A1B projection to produce a nice tail which apparently is not robust

So you're saying that saying some feature is not reliable is somehow wrong?

Duffer: Hey why not splice on a cable attached to the QE2.

Are you saying that the error is that they didn't do this?

Duffer: Just to update on the global warming situation here: 8-16 inches of it forecast for Friday

And what happened to all that "global cooling" you had last week?

Oh, that's right: it melted in the heat.

So you had to change your name to avoid admitting this.

Hey, duffer, Bristol will not be getting snow.

But it's odd to see you using the MET OFFICE *forecast* to make your statement.

You keep insisting that it can't be done.

@Wow

Richard Betts tweated
Lewandowsky et al clearly deluded!
Keep up.
Though perhaps Twitter hasnt arrived with you yet.
The Met Office is pretty good with a nowcast. They explain very well whats happening at the moment or just happened.
They are pretty useless for long term forecasts. Be better off flipping a coin.
Duffer is one of the few worth reading on this blog.
And I dont live in Bristol

# 86 Lotharsson

BK provides material sufficient for an entire study.

And if its not reliable, what use is it and why include it apart from effect it has on the media. panic panic.

to produce a nice tail which apparently is not robust

Yeah, Marcott et el say that in their paper. So what are McIntyre's criticisms?

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 22 Mar 2013 #permalink

# 85 Rednose

You are a clueless buffoon. Don't spout rubbish about a paper you obviously have not read nor understood even in outline.

Marcott to Shakum [sic] to Hadcrut4 to A1B projection to produce a nice tail which apparently is not robust

Before this goes any further, why are you talking about Hagelaars' graph rather than the actual Holocene recon in M13?

Wow - you're correct. No snow here in Bristol, and certainly not the 8-16 inches that red-Duff suggests.

Rednose conflate weather and climate and think that every year must be warmer than the last…

Problem is Jeff, using a 10 year running mean, it seems to have been getting colder in these parts for the last 10 years or so

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

Make that 6

"And if its not reliable"

Why did you say that?

You said "not robust". Not "not reliable".

"it seems to have been getting colder in these parts for the last 10 years or so"

Really? So what is the global average?

Trending up.

0.6C per decade trend measured over the last year.

BBD #96
I must have read it somewhere

The Marcott reconstruction has been joined to the Shakun reconstruction prior to that, and the HadCRUT4 global temperature data since, and the projected temperature change under the A1B scenario for the future, by Jos Hagelaars, in order to show us some perspective on climate change past, present and future.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/global-temperature-change-the-bi…

So what is the global average?

Trending up.

But we are told not to expect warming to be uniform..
Locally, the trend seems to be down.

Seems to be the same in Germany also who have had 5 very cold winters on the trot.

Wow#1
0.6C per decade trend measured over the last year

Dear dear.
You should find your trends over longer time periods.

The trend fro the last 20 years using Hadcrut 4, the latest and best series apparently, the trend is 0.05C/decade. ie 0.5C in 100 years. Dont panic.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php

Anyway, off to Tescos. Must get in some supplies before we are snowed in.
Catch you later

Rednose

The UK is not the world. The CET is not the UK. It's not even England.

Here's the world (10 year running means).

Stop playing silly buggers.

# 2

Yes, *I* understand that. The evident problem here is that *you* have not understood (or even read) M13. If you look back, you will see that I linked to Tamino's post on this very thread... some time ago.

# 4

Using the SkS trend calc, the trend for HadCRUT4 1993 - present is: 0.137 ±0.097 °C/decade (2σ), not 0.05C/decade.

You are either incompetent or mendacious. Out of curiosity, which is it?

But redDuff - there is no large snow dump forecast for Bath, so why get supplies in?

Duffer:

Dear dear.
You should find your trends over longer time periods.

So should you.

Duffer:

it seems to have been getting colder in these parts for the last 10 years or so

Average over 10 years? You should find your trends over longer time periods.

Duffer: Locally, the trend seems to be down.

Yes, because locally is not globally.

If they showed the same all the time, then there would be no need to call them different things.

You DO know why different words are used, don't you?

So, what's the deal, Lapdog?

Do you want someone tell you what the words mean? Or do you have no clue why you post links any more?

(PS)

Duffer: Locally, the trend seems to be down.

Dear dear.
You should find your trends over longer time periods.

BBD#4
You are correct concerning the 20 year trend 1993-2003 giving 0.14C/decade. My mistake. It is the 16 year trend 1997 end 2012 that gives 0.05C/decade.
In this case I plead incompetence.

#2 So Tamino, McIntyre and Marcott all agree that the uptic, the bit that seems to have caused the most fuss, is not robust.
To me that suggeststs it will not stand up to detailed analysis. It might but probably wont. So why include it?
What do you think?

#5 Your graph shows no results post about 2000 which might hide points of interest and could be construed as cherrypicking
So who is playing silly buggers?

Joni#9
And see – now snow here

yes but I get frighted easily by the news coverage showing blizzards, 3 foot drifts and jackknifed lorries.
Besides, its no good trying to get supplies in after its dumped a load of snow. Whats a man to drink?

Try applying your insidious logic to the Arctic, Rednose... this region has experienced way above normal conditions for the past two decades. This winter is no exception. Its warmer now in much of the Northwest Territories than in areas far to the south and Europe. There's already legitimate concern that the Arctic will be ice-free later this year.

And your decade observation is bull****. Over much of Europe, winter and spring seasons reached record high temperatures as recently as two years ago. Same goes for autumns. Summers are becoming wetter. But, as any scientist worth his degree knows, one cannot make extrapolations on the basis of a 10 year period for large-scale systems that are decidedly deterministic.

But, let me guess, Rednose, you aren't a scientist are you? Let me guess. You have a basic diploma from high school. Or less. Am I correct?

Where do jokers like you come from? It seems like we manage to lose some (Karen, Sunspot, Jonas, Betula) and their ranks are filled in by what appears to be an endless line of idiots. Olaus appears to stick around with his obsessive posts of comic-book level denier sites (e.g. Joanne Nova). He clearly hasn't read the primary literature as his posts reveal. Seems like you haven't, either.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 Mar 2013 #permalink

Duffer: It is the 16 year trend 1997 end 2012 that gives 0.05C/decade.

Oh dear, you need to use a longer period, Duffer.

Duffer: though quite a good proxy for the Northern Hemisphere by all accounts,

Really? According to what?

And have you checked whether the "Conservatory Effect" has been accounted for.

You know, where someone way back in the early days had their thermometers outside the kitchen and they don't do that any more, hence the record now no longer being heated by the building nearby.

You DID check to see that the sites were good siting, right?

Try applying your insidious logic to the Arctic.

Yes this is something I have difficulty with. Perhaps you can help. Global warming is causing a loss of sea ice in the Arctic, which supposedly is the cause of this "weird weather" in the Northern Hemishere. This sounds plausible so far, that GCSE comes in usefull..
At the same time the warming is causing a gain in sea ice in the Antarctic and this gain in sea ice must be causing the weird weather in the Southern Hemisphere. Its very difficult trying to explain this to the lads in the saloon bar without getting laughed at.

Little Napoleon, I'm here for you. No significant global warming in circus 15 years and significant lobal warming in 15 years. The heat!

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 22 Mar 2013 #permalink

Jeff#20

Why are there adverts for Marijuana, Hot Women and Revealing Photos on that page you linked to Jeff?
Is that what you Google?

Duffer, why?

Nothing else, just why?

"No significant global warming in circus 15 years "

Yes there has. 0.6C per decade over the last year.

Wow#24
This record is probably more robust than Marcott's uptick

"At the same time the warming is causing a gain in sea ice in the Antarctic"

Tip: the Antarctic ice is on the land. Land is higher than the sea (otherwise it would be underwater). Therefore when ice melts, gravity will pull it down. Down from the higher land takes you to the sea. When ice gets to the sea, it is called sea ice.

Why do you ask such stupid questions, duffer? What precisely are you hoping to indicate? The stupidity of the denier mindset?

"This record is probably more robust than Marcott’s uptick"

No, it's provably less robust.

Rednose, Wow's uptick is even less robust. Totally lobal. Maybe the 15 year hiatus is causing it?

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 22 Mar 2013 #permalink

Tip: the Antarctic ice is on the land. Land is higher than the sea (otherwise it would be underwater). Therefore when ice melts, gravity will pull it down. Down from the higher land takes you to the sea. When ice gets to the sea, it is called sea ice.

Well thanks for that. Here's me thinking sea ice in the Antarctic was produced by the sea freezing during the cold Antarctic Winter. Well you live and learn. Its so good to know that there are these bright people understanding this stuff.

The 15/16/17 (depending on the random denier spouting it) year "hiatus" that has caused record summer melt in the arctic for the past five years, you mean?

One day a denier will begin joining dots and wonder who's been lying to them for a long, long time.

"Well thanks for that."

Well, it was pretty obvious you didn't know any of that.

Joining the dots would require someone give them a pencil.

They don't allow pointy objects in the funny farms, chek.

Tamino posted his analysis of The Tick today, his conclusion below

"As for the very large uptick in Marcott et al.’s “standard 5×5″ reconstruction, I quite agree it’s not correct but even Marcott et al. expressed doubt about it. More to the point, it is not the point of the Marcott reconstruction. The point is to define the extent and rapidity of changes throughout the holocene, in full knowledge that the most recent part is the least accurate because it has the fewest remaining proxies. For that purpose, all the reconstructions (including by the diferencing method) agree.

As for the entirety of the Marcott et al. reconstruction, two points cannot be overemphasized. First: the point is to reconstruct temperature change over the entire holocene, especially the past. This is hardly the final word on that subject, but it’s a good first step and a very strong indication that past changes didn’t happen as fast as what’s happening now. The exaggerated uptick in the “Standard 5×5″ reconstruction is its least interesting feature, but it’s the most annoying to those who have an ideological reason to deny man-made global warming.

Second: we already know what happened in the 20th century."

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/the-tick/

Olaus
Shh. Dont mention the hiatus.

The Central England Temperature Record has many more data points than Marcott's uptic, and probably more than Lewandowsky and Cook's crappo paper.

Duffer: "Here’s me thinking sea ice in the Antarctic was produced by the sea freezing during the cold Antarctic Winter"

So you're thinking that winter is caused by global warming? Or are you saying that because winter still happens, that global warming can't be true?

But surely they're allowed crayons.'

They eat crayons.

But not the green ones.

Oh, the other genius showed up. Chek! :-) A hiatus it is. So you are saying that our children will not know what arctic sea ice will look like? ;-) Which year will it dissapear again? Sorry for asking, but you climate scientologists seems to redate (sic) all the time.

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 22 Mar 2013 #permalink

Olaus
My children (aged 13 and 15) do not know what global warming is. Its because of this hiatus Dohh

but you climate scientologists seems to redate (sic) all the time.

Allegedley Marcott did that to his results to create the dodgy graph

# 16 Rednose

#2 So Tamino, McIntyre and Marcott all agree that the uptic, the bit that seems to have caused the most fuss, is not robust./blockquote>

This is irrelevant because the uptick is confirmed by the instrumental record. We do not need M13 for this. M13 is relevant because it provides 11.5ka of context into which we can place the instrumental record.

#5 Your graph shows no results post about 2000 which might hide points of interest and could be construed as cherrypicking
So who is playing silly buggers?

My graph is clearly labelled 10 year means. Perhaps best to have a think about this?

;-)

No, I tell a lie. The graph was labelled 'decadal means'.

This is irrelevant because the uptick is confirmed by the instrumental record.

Part of it maybe. The rest is guesswork.

Would it not be possible to carry on producing 10 year means for the period 2000 to 2013. Or would you rather this not be shown?

Duffer: Shh. Dont mention the hiatus.

Because it's made up by idiots, propounded by dumber idiots and lapped up by even bigger idiots.

Duffer: My children (aged 13 and 15) do not know what global warming is.

Someone's been shitting in the gene pool.

The probably know more than you but humour the old git and don't show off in front of you.

But you'll do your best to ensure that they are as uneducated as necessary so you can pretend you're a god to someone.

Duffer: Part of it maybe. The rest is guesswork.

No, the rest of it is evidenced.

Rednose

Part of it maybe. The rest is guesswork.

Which part is guesswork?

Duffer: The Central England Temperature Record has many more data points than Marcott’s uptic,

Yes. So?

There are a lot more data points in the rest of the world. Use those.

Oh, look globally, warming.

"Which part is guesswork?"

He guesses it could be guesswork. That's his guess, anyway.

Duffer: Would it not be possible to carry on producing 10 year means for the period 2000 to 2013.

Would it not be possible to carry on producing 30 year means for the period 1850-2013.

You see, dear, you need to use a longer time period to get your trend from.

Otherwise we have that AGW is back with a vengeance: 0.6C per decade warming trend for 2011-2012.

Would it not be possible to carry on producing 10 year means for the period 2000 to 2013. Or would you rather this not be shown?

I said *think* about it ;-)

Let's play 'spot the denier idiot who read a blog headline somewhere but doesn't have a fucking clue otherwise'.

So far I'm seeing all of them.

Heh, like "Sixth Sense"?

"I can see dumb people"

I can see dumb people

Indeed. The kind of dumb that celebrates dumbness and their own dumbed-down dumbnosity. The kind of mindlessly parroting dumbnitude that defies any intervention as we see here in our latest crop.

The kind of dumb that fell, semi-formed, out of a tree yesterday and thinks everyone else did too and that they have similar zero ability to actually follow and understand ... anything, really.

The kind of mindlessly parroting dumbnitude that defies any intervention as we see here in our latest crop.

Let's have just one~ denier brainbox genius - and you morons have had months to put 2 and 2 together here - explain the record arctic melts of 2007 and 2012 during their famous "15/15/17 year hiatus".

And then they wonder why they're despised as know-nothing idiot parrots.

And then they wonder why they’re despised as know-nothing idiot parrots.

It is conceivable that the penny may drop for some and that the concept of the planet as a total heat soaking entity may lead to an inkling that surface temperatures aren't the be-all and end-all despite what they've been spoon-fed.

But then again, bearing in mind that most are too stupid to spit straight without soaking their lapels, it's a forlorn hope.,

DuffassRedNose:

Tip: the Antarctic ice is on the land. Land is higher than the sea...

Dat aint necessarily so.

Try using this: GeoMapApp.

Hell, duffer has never wanted an answer to any of his questions.

Why do you ask them, then, duffer?

Lapdog: [Duffer], Wow’s uptick is even less robust.

Prove it, lapper.

Great TED lecture in which the speaker explains what the scientifically illiterate Dunning-Kruger educated deniers cannot seem to get through their heads: the importance of scale. Separating stochastic processes from deterministic processes. One of the first things I was taught as an ecologist is that processes governing the rules for the assembly and functioning of biomes are maintained at time scales encompassing many, many centuries, whereas rules governing the functioning of local communities can change over very short periods of time.

The lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ktYbVwr90

The same point is made here.... that climate patters of course vary but over immensely long time scales when the entire system across the biosphere is studied. The more the spatial scale is reduced, the more that local processes come into play.

I wish one - JUST ONE - of the so-called skeptics writing in here had some scientific background in a field that required even a basic understanding of scale. Yet the same crap is rehashed here - it hasn't warmed in 15-16-17 years (take your pick), as if these time scales for a system maintained at a stupendously large scale are significant. For deniers, who left science books behind in grade 8, this may be the case, but for trained scientists they are not. If I found notable, significant changes in the boundary of a biome, such as the eastern deciduous forests, in the eastern United States, occurring over 50-100 years at the very least, then I would say something very serious is happening (this of course based on non-anthropogenic changes). The boundaries of biomes are labile but not over decades; these kinds of changes would need many centuries or even millennia to be borne out. Here we are seeing changes in the dynamics of an immensely large climate maintenance system changing in the temporal equivalent of a single heartbeat. The trouble is, that deniers seem to think that, for the global climate system, 10 years is sufficient time for trends to be significant and 20 plus years is an eternity. Have these idiots never read an elementary science text?

I wait for responses from the usual suspects. They won't try to discuss the question of scale, but expect links to denier sites to be splashed up left, right and center.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Mar 2013 #permalink

Jeff Harvey

You are correct. And the blindness to scale can be... scaled up!

Contrarians struggle with Big Climate too. That 50Ma of *overall* cooling from the Eocene Optimum to the Holocene needs a physical explanation, and one exists. Solar forcing increased during the Cenozoic by about 1 W/m^2. CO2 forcing decreased by about 10W/m^2. The result looks like this (top panel).

When you ask for an alternative physical explanation for the *overall* cooling trend 50Ma - present, you don't get satisfactory answers.

***

Hansen & Sato (2012)

Bootiful speech Jeff, apart from some of those long words what you use.
What can I say, if its on U Tube it must be true.
Couldnt agree more about your general thrust.. Important to get some understanding of the time scale of things.
Here we are with the Central England temperature Index, backed up by what they done in Copenhagen, showing a nice steady rise in temperature for 100s years after the last mini ice age.
A 20 year variation on this from 1980-2000, should be placed in context of this centuries long warming period with natural variation around this steady rise.
But based on this 20 year short instant, the eco loons are calling for great changes to be enforced on society, a reduction of the population by 2/3s, for the survivors to live in sustainable mud huts, get by on a diet of lentils and have a much shorter more grueling life. If lucky they might be allowed to watch Eastenders once a fortnight on a communal TV placed convenietly in the Mayor's centrally heated mansion, but only if the wind is blowing steadily between 10 and 30 mph.

http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a7c87805970b-pi

http://s1.postimg.org/9luuxrqm7/TAMINO_FINAL_FINAL_FINAL_FINAL.gif

There: A discussion of 20 years of observations against 400

"Here we are with the Central England temperature Index"

In the case of proving or disproving global climate, why are you bothering with only england?

In the case of proving or disproving global climate, why are you bothering with only england?

Largely because dimwit, arsefuckingly stupid deniers can only make the semblance of a case by ignoring the majority of the data in favour of a cherry-pick. Just like the latest moron conscript is doing for the zillionth time..

Rednose

The Central England Temperature record isn't even England. The clue is in the name! I'm sure I mentioned this earlier ;-)

Anyway, what we should be looking at is the rate of energy accumulation in the entire climate system, which effectively means the global ocean.

Compare solar forcing (yellow line at the bottom) with that from well-mixed greenhouse gasses (W-M GHG; green; mainly CO2) and the remarkable increase in ocean heat content (OHC, red).

Re John L; well, I can only read the abstract, but it the article follows the precis I think we can expect more angry ants swarming from the denier nests. Marcott and now Balmaseda within weeks; as the science firms up they can really only melt down.

Bill @ 71 and JohnL @ 69.
Bill got the abstract (apparently) that wiley link won't open for me at all.
Can you link it again?

By chameleon (not verified) on 24 Mar 2013 #permalink

The thing about deniers is they see a cooling trend where there is none at all. Just looking at the CE temperatures, which they look at and say is 'cooling', the chart shows otherwise.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

Even their own dodgy charts show the warming trend.

Weird behaviour.

Shows you how dense Rednose is; I talk about scale, emphasize it, scream about it from the rooftops, and what does he do? Reduce the spatial scale to virtually nothing.

Listen guys: the facts are these. Most of the deniers do not have a clue about the importance of scale, or how to separate stochastic 'noise' from long term stable dynamics. As David Roberts said, the past 10,000 years has seen, at the global level, hardly any fluctuation of temperature outside of + or - 1 C. As we reduce the scales of space and/or time, then of course there may have been regional perturbations; this is what the MWP or LIA may have included. But at the planetary scale, its been pretty consistent. Until about 30 years ago. Then something started to push the planet-wide system out of its 10,000 year equilibrium. To do this required some external forcing agent that is significant, and the ONLY major factor that fits with this is through changes in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases placed there by man. In this there is almost universal agreement amongst the scientific community with a very, very small set of outliers. The next step is to determine how severe the problem is likely to be.

As Roberts correctly said, for such a stupendously large system, there are going to be temporal lags between cause and effect. Thus the temperature shift that has occurred since the 1980s is the result of fossil fuels combusted 50-100 years ago; the more recent upsurge in fossil fuel burning has yet to be manifested and won't be borne out for another 50-100 years.

But the deniers who inundate blogs with their scientifically illiterate views cannot grasp this. They think that greenhouse gases emitted today should, by definition, exert and almost instantaneous effect on global temperatures. They constantly confuse weather and climate, citing short-term regional cold snaps as evidence that AGW is a myth.

They also cannot grasp the fact that a 2 C rise in ecological terms borders of disaster in the time scales involved. They aren't trained to think in terms of non-linear dynamics. Like other deniers, Rednose thinks he is witty and clever and informed whereas in reality, he's making himself look more like a jackass with every posting.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 Mar 2013 #permalink

The other odd thing about deniers is not so much that they don't understand scale, but that they do if it affects them personally. Well, sometimes.

Ie. 2C warming "It's nothing! The daytime variation is more than that!". They can't see the scale of it because they don't think. £2 increase in electric bills to subsidise renewable roll-out? "That's horrific! Old people will be dying in their thousands from being unable to heat their homes!!!". They understand scale can be more than the local effect here.

Then again, they don't notice the scale of a £66 increase in energy bills from the increase in price of fossil fuels for the fossil fuel generators, so their blinkers are on again.

Bill,
I should have linked to David Appell at Quark Soup who has posted on this paper. He quotes from the conclusions

"The deep ocean has continued to warm, while the upper 300 m OHC appears to have stabilized. The differences in recent trends among the different ocean layers are profound. The small warming in the upper 300 m is belied by the continuing warming for the ocean as a whole, with considerable warming occurring below 700 m. However, this raises the question of whether this result is simply because of the new Argo observing system? The results shown here suggest otherwise, although Argo clearly is vitally important quantitatively. Instead changes in surface winds play a major role, and although the exact nature of the wind influence still needs to be understood, the changes are consistent with the intensification of the trades in subtropical gyres. Another supporting factor is the uniqueness of the radiative forcing associated with global warming.

The magnitude of the warming trend is consistent with observational estimates, being equivalent to an average 0.47 ± 0.03 W m-2 for the period 1975–2009. There is large decadal variability in the heat uptake, the latest decade being significantly higher (1.19 ± 0.11 W m-2) than the preceding record. Globally this corresponds to 0.84 W m-2, consistent with earlier estimates [Trenberth et al., 2009]. In an observing system experiment where Argo is withdrawn, the ocean heating for the last decade is reduced (0.82 ± 0.10 W m-2), but is still significantly higher than in previous decades. The estimation shows depths below 700 m becoming much more strongly involved in the heat uptake after 1998, and subsequently accounting for about 30% of the ocean warming.

Link to David Appell
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2013/03/missing-energy-claimed-to-be-fo…

The time has come to eject The Institute of Public Affairs from the list of interesting think tanks, and add it to the sorry constellation of those that have gone mental.

By Russell Seitz (not verified) on 24 Mar 2013 #permalink

Interesting article posted over at WUWT on March 23
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/23/trend-to-colder-winters-continues…

Remember you read it first here on Deltoid :-)
Rednose
UK
March 22, 2013

Rednose conflate weather and climate and think that every year must be warmer than the last…

Problem is Jeff, using a 10 year running mean, it seems to have been getting colder in these parts for the last 10 years or so

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet

Wow speaks: "You see, dear, you need to use a longer time period to get your trend from."

Yes, sir, very good, sir, do my best, sir:

"average winter temperature for 1911-2013 stands at 3.52C"

"In the last five years, only 2011/12 has been above the 1981-2010 average. The average over these five years has been 3.03C."

But it's true, this global warming does make you sweat, my God, it's pouring off me, although the missus reckons it's my thermals, ski trousers, multiple sweaters, anoraks and the fact that I spend all day crouched over the fire! Don't tell anyone, but I reckon she's a 'denier'.

By David Duff (not verified) on 24 Mar 2013 #permalink

Duffer: Remember you read it first here on Deltoid

Read what? As usual, duffer, you use words like a two-year-old uses crayons.

Duffer: “average winter temperature for 1911-2013 stands at 3.52C”

So it's been colder before.

I.e. it's warmer now than it has been before.

That's called "Warming" duffer

Really, duffer. You claim that it's warming because we're coming out of an ice age, then you claim it's cooling because we're coming out of the MWP, then you claim it's cooling because it's cooler in the UK, then you claim it's cooling because it's cold today in bristol.

Then you claim that it's been warming because that's what happens when you come out of an ice age.

You really have no continuous thought, do you

Oh, and when it's warmer than normal in the UK, you claim that this isn't proof of warming.

Duffer, you sad foolish little boy.

Duffnose's last two posts simply confirm everything I said in my last few posts on this thread. Inability to understand the importance of scale. Inability to separate linear and non-linear processes. Mixing up weather and climate.

Essentially, this merely also confirms what I was suggesting before: its either/or willful ignorance or just basic stupidity. Take your pick. What is most embarrassing is that people like this apparently feel quite content to expound this ignorance on the internet. In Duff's case, he even waives his anonymity (unless he is sock-puppeting through Rednose).

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 Mar 2013 #permalink

Apologies
The snowman pic seems to have been pulled. Too frightening perhaps

LionalA #78

Appreciate the links provided

Consider this one
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL052412/abstract

The historical data show that 10 of the 14 freeze years occurred close to sunspot minima and only one during a year of moderate El Niño. This solar influence is underpinned by corresponding atmospheric circulation anomalies in reanalysis data covering the period 1871 to 2008. Accordingly, weak solar activity is empirically related to extremely cold winter conditions in Europe also on such long time scales. This relationship still holds today, however the average winter temperatures have been rising during the last decades.

But now seem to be falling
http://notrickszone.com/2013/02/17/meteorologist-dominik-jung-turns-ske…

Wow #89

Dont be impatient.
Covered that awhile back but you probably wern't paying attention.
CAGW theory states a decrease in Arctic ice will cause weird weather in the Northern Hemisphere, while an increase in Antarctic ice will cause weird weather in the Southern Hemisphere. Difficult to believe I know but I expect you will swallow it.

Duffer: The historical data show that 10 of the 14 freeze years occurred close to sunspot minima and only one during a year of moderate El Niño.

So freeze years are caused by sunspots HOW?

Magic pixies?

Correlation is not causation, so what is your causation?

(PS given the solar cycle is 11 years, "close to" being within three years means that your statistic is not statistically significant)

Duffer: "And when did those cold winters start kicking in?"

They've been a feature of the world since about 3 billion years ago.

Duffer: Covered that awhile back but you probably wern’t paying attention.

So weird weather we're having in the UK is caused by the arctic ice anomaly caused by AGW is what you're saying.

And the weird weather the Kiwis are having are due to the antarctic ice anomaly caused by AGW as well.

Duffer: But now seem to be falling

Seem being the operative word.

Except it would ALSO seem that the warming trend is up again.

2001-date: Up.
2004-date: Up.
2011-date: Up.

David Duff

How do we explain this?

Compare TSI (yellow line at the bottom) with forcing from well-mixed greenhouse gasses (W-M GHG; green; mainly CO2) and the remarkable increase in ocean heat content (OHC, red).

TSI and OHC *diverge* from about 1980 onwards. TSI *declines* and OHC increases.

?

Loos like the Strategic Policy Institute is on the UN-world-domination conspiracy:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-25/climate-change-a-threat-multiplie…

A new report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) says the military is not doing enough planning to cope with the problem of climate change.
The Government's 2009 Defence white paper dismissed climate change as an issue that did not need to be addressed until after 2030, but this ASPI report argues that is no longer the case, and the new white paper to be delivered this year needs to embrace a new approach.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 24 Mar 2013 #permalink

Jeff Harvey
March 24, 2013

Duffnose’s last two posts simply confirm everything I said in my last few posts on this thread. Inability to understand the importance of scale. Inability to separate linear and non-linear processes. Mixing up weather and climate.

It's deliberate. Nobody is actually that stupid AND so proud of the fact that they will come and boast about it here.
He's trolling.
Like this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tGB8Uuffi4M

Either a paid liar or just one of their useful idiots.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 24 Mar 2013 #permalink