Richard Black winds up the wackos

Posted by William M. Connolley on July 15, 2011
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Further proof of the polarisation in this “debate” comes from Climate: Cherries are not the only fruit by Richard Black. This all stems from Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998-2008 by Robert K. Kaufmann et al., who come to the not-desperately-exciting conclusion that things are pretty much as we thought they were: recent global temperature records are consistent with the existing understanding of the relationship among global surface temperature, internal variability, and radiative forcing, which includes anthropogenic factors with well known warming and cooling effects.

The GWPF cherry-picked Kaufmann et al. using their favourite “all records start from 1998″ trick, so were a bit narked when Black called them out. And they seem to have a guest posts at Watt’s which basically says “yes we did cherry pick, but now we’re going to shout loudly and hope you don’t notice”.

That wasn’t very interesting.

[Update: by happy chance, Tamino has a nice post about cherry-picking by Steve Goddard.]

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Comments

  1. #1 Neil Craig
    2011/07/15

    Richard Black knows he is lying otherwise he would not refuse to explain the discrepancy between what he says and reality.

    It is possible there is somebody working for the BBC who is not a wholly and completely corrupt fascist parasite but no evidence of such has ever been produced.

  2. #2 Mike Haseler
    2011/07/15

    As Richard Black wrote back to me “you think I’m an idiot” … well he must have some intelligence to be so perceptive!

    How anyone can take him seriously is beyond belief. If one country could stop global warming, what would the mass change in pollution levels from the industrialised countries cleaning up the atmosphere after the 1970s do? MASSIVE MASSIVE warming … all of it manmade, and all of it due to environmentalists!

    As for cherry picking … well if trying to compare a prediction to what actually happens is cherry picking. If comparing the IPCC prediction of warming of 1.4-5.8C by 2110 to the actual cooling that occurred following that prediction.

    [Impressive ranting, well done. But to point out the obvious: if the IPCC predicts warming by 2110, then what happens up to 2011 isn't very relevant. You do see that point, I hope? -W]

    If YOU THINK it’s cherry picking to test the predictions against real data … YOU HAVEN’T GOT THE FIRST CLUE ABOUT SCIENCE, and neither does Black.

  3. #3 RedGreenInBlue
    2011/07/15

    Richard Black knows he is lying otherwise he would not refuse to explain the discrepancy between what he says and reality.

    And when did you stop beating your wife, Neil?

  4. #4 JBL
    2011/07/15

    How did the crazies find there way here?

    [Spooky, isn't it? And so fast! Still there is only one thing worse than being talked about... -W]

  5. #5 Ned
    2011/07/15

    Wow, that’s a pretty incoherent response by Middleton.

    Black should have gotten someone to help him explain the point better, so as to avoid that distracting annual-data/smoothing/running-mean stuff … which is not the key point there. But he’s right about the cherry picking, and Middleton’s reply takes it to a whole new level of misleadingness.

  6. #6 Richard Simons
    2011/07/15

    If comparing the IPCC prediction of warming of 1.4-5.8C by 2110 to the actual cooling that occurred following that prediction.

    2110 hasn’t arrived yet. I challenge you to find any period in the last 40 years with statistically significant cooling. Do you really think that posting such idiocy would convince anyone on a science site?

  7. #7 Steve L
    2011/07/15

    I wonder if Kaufmann et al purposely did this “cooling” 1998-2008 thing to garner extra attention. As per William’s response in #4, maybe they baited the denialosphere to stir shit up, get everyone wondering what the fuss is all about, and ensure greater readership and discussion in scientific circles. I suspect Black might be wrong about future papers avoiding such cherries, depending on how this goes.

  8. #8 Hank Roberts
    2011/07/15

    >> How did the crazies find there way here?
    > [Spooky, isn't it? And so fast! Still there is
    > only one thing worse than being talked about... -W]

    Er, being talked over so you don’t get heard?

  9. #9 themightybob
    2011/07/15

    So WUWT fanatics wheel out some incompetent goon, in this case some nobody “Middleton” to just write shit as if it’s a rebuttal.

    It’s staggering how Middleton’s article completely avoids addressing anything Richard actually said and even more staggering how none of the WUWT commentards point this out.

    That the WUWT crowd thought Middleton’s circus of fitting various lines and sine waves to past warming was somehow profound just goes to show how out of touch they are with science and why no-one relevant will ever take them seriously.

  10. #10 Neil Craig
    2011/07/16

    If the theory predicts (A) a warming of 1.4-5.8 Cover 121 years (1979 – 2100) (though as “predictions” go that is pretty imprecise having a far greater ranmge than that between those who expect moderate cooling and 1.4) and (B)the theory predcits a constant warming effect then after 32 years we should have seen 0.52 – 2.1 C by now.

    [Ah well, there is your mistake. The theory doesn't predict constant warming. Indeed, a glance at any GCM output would show that -W]

    However if, as most alarmists do, you claim that the theory cannot be discredited by any evidence then it is “unfaslifiable” and by definition not something any real scientist can be involved in.

    RGB I have not stopped.
    Now I trust that, assuming being an ecofascist does not automatically also make you a lying hypocrit, you will now condemn Black for refusing to answer.

    Or not as tyhe case may be.

  11. #11 Rocco
    2011/07/16

    Is Neil Craig one of those “deep undercover” parodists?

  12. #12 Turboblocke
    2011/07/16

    NC @ 10: the theory does not predict a constant monotonic increase in temperature. Theory says that AGW is a trend superimposed on natural variation. Sometimes natural variation is positive and sometimes it’s negative. Note that surface temperature is not the right metric for AGW although it’s the one most people look at. The most appropriate metric is the change in the energy content of the Earth system.

  13. #13 Turboblocke
    2011/07/16

    BTW NC @ 10: the range that you quote for projections: is that for one projection or the range over all the different projections?

  14. #14 lord_sidcup
    2011/07/16

    @@Turboblocke

    I wouldn’t your time trying to explain anything to Neil Craig. His scepticism is so fake he fell hook, line and sinker for this:

    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2007/11/08/environment-climate-hoax-dc-idUKL0887458220071108

    In the context of slagging off the BBC, this quote from NC is an absolute classic:

    “This could not be more damaging to manmade global warming theory … I somehow doubt if this is going to be on the BBC news.”

  15. #15 Paul Kelly
    2011/07/17

    This is the silliest of distractions. Hasn’t the global temperature in the instrument period gone up and down in 20 – 30 year swings while generally going up? It is only important to those who still think the reason for inaction is a lack of information about and understanding of the science.

    Byron Smith recommended an article in which David Archer said: “The effects of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere drop off so slowly that we could force Earth out of its regular pattern of freezes and thaws that has lasted for more than a million years. If the entire coal reserves were used, then glaciation could be delayed for half a million years.”

    That sounds like a pretty good deal.

  16. #16 Neil Craig
    2011/07/17

    So Turbo you will be able to point out to where Hamsen predicted the current negative natural variation. That would be a prediction in advance of it happening.

    [That seems like an odd request. Natural variation is by its nature both up and down; but I don't know why you should expect Hansen (I presume you mean) to speak for all climate science. However, if you look at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/ you'll certainly see periods where the models "predict" negative trends over a few years - see http://www.realclimate.org/images/Hansen06_fig2.jpg

    Subsequent trolling removed - W]

  17. #17 Richard Simons
    2011/07/17

    So Turbo you will be able to point out to where Hamsen predicted the current negative natural variation.

    Show us the current negative natural variation, complete with its P value, and we’ll have something to discuss.