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William M. Connolley

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August 3, 2010
It looks like the recent hot summer in Russia and the wildfires stuff have caused a volte-face (though probably only temporary) according to Time: Will Russia's Heat Wave End Its Global-Warming Doubts?. Quite a few people have died, though most of them seem to have died of being drunk. Which…
August 3, 2010
Quark Soup has a post comparing the spill to Niagara; and notes that the spill would be a cube ~93m on a side. Checkling the share price (still hovering around 4.10, so neither good news nor bad) I see BP are starting to ask others to pay up for their shares. It will be interesting to see how that…
July 29, 2010
A friend pointed out just recently: we usually measure a car's fuel efficiency in Miles per Gallon. But some would like us to switch to the more logical Gallons per Mile (or 10,000 miles, to make the numbers more convenient, or whatever), which would be the fuel consumption. But that, technically,…
July 29, 2010
Header shamelessly stolen from Coby. But his post is so wonderful that I can't help re-saying it. So: Roy Spencer says that the basic greenhouse effect mechanism is sound; or perhaps, more weakly, that the basic mechanism is phyically possible. You might think that is not very strange, after all it…
July 29, 2010
I have a funky new watch, a Garmin Forerunner 110. It lets me do kewl stuff like: although you only get that after post-processing, of course. In fact I haven't even worked out how to make it work like a GPS when running, i.e. display lat/long or grid refs. Nor have I worked out how to persuade…
July 28, 2010
As discussed by Viz in the August 2010 edition, #197: Paul has more useful discussion, but Viz is funnier.
July 26, 2010
mt discusses Denialism, Informational Conformity and New Coke. Go read it now, if you didn't when he first wrote it. Paul Graham propounds the concept of the top idea in your mind which might partly explain why rolling out a broken AUP is a really bad idea; less for the policy itself, which people…
July 24, 2010
There is an interesting new post up at KlimaZweibel about a paper by Smerdon et al.. This is going to be all over everywhere very soon, so I may as well jump in. The title, of course, is a snark at RC; see the article A Mistake with Repercussions which points out some errors in a Zorita and Von…
July 24, 2010
Oh dear, and we were rowing so well, too. Our best row of the week, and we pushed hard to get Cantabs, but while we closed on them (again!) it wasn't enough to hold off the Leys who came up astonishingly fast to get their blades. But a good night for the club overall. M3 put in some very tenacious…
July 22, 2010
A somewhat disappointing day today: we rowed well, but only achieved a row-over. Nines 5, as expected, succumbed quickly to Leys behind us, perhaps depriving us of that vital spark of being chased. But while we closed to within a canvas of Cantabs 7 just before Grassy we didn't quite have the oomph…
July 22, 2010
[Tags: climate-wonk incest. Everyone else please ignore] We interrupt your diet of boatie-type news [update: sorry, late boatie news: a great bow-cam video of Champs 6 bumping the Hornets (sorry Paul)] for something related to climate: BigCityLib notices that the IOP (remember that bunch of…
July 21, 2010
Yesterday we rowed over, but discovered that we could leave the crew behind us and most likely catch the crew (Nines 5) that Cantabs 7 dropped for us. And so we did, just under the motorway bridge, which was a pleasantly short row. We had just a teensy tiny little moment of panic on the second…
July 20, 2010
It is the first night of the bumps (and see? I haven't bored you with the boaties for ages). This isn't us - this is Cantabs II in M1 just about to catch what must be 99's III, I'd guess. Congratulations to all of them and in particular Petr Arnold at bow. He certainly looked very happy…
July 18, 2010
No, not me, DC, who says I'm thinking of paying up - 2010 looks more and more like 2006, not 2007. And indeed the latest Jaxa stuff looks like good news for the good guys (that is me, in case you hadn't realised): And TS said: Monckton is a blatant fraud who even lies about his own parliamentary…
July 15, 2010
Hugo is disappointed there is no Stw. Although I'm not really sure that is a swearword.
July 14, 2010
Gareth at hot-topic.co.nz/ has the following: Monckton has now posted at WUWT asking for people to flood Abraham's university with calls for disciplinary action. As a consequence, I have posted this: We the undersigned offer unreserved support for John Abraham and St. Thomas University in the…
July 14, 2010
As used on this blog, and sometimes elsewhere. This post will be a work in progress, probably. I said that I would occaisionally push the publication date closer to "now" to keep it near the top, but that doesn't work: wordpress changes the URL to include the month so old links break. Rats. [[link…
July 12, 2010
And for BP's share price. Though in fact I came to this the other way round: the rise in BP's share price reflects a gradual re-pricing of the risk and damage extent, as well as the more recent news that the new cap-fitting seems to have gone well. [Update: speaking of political risk - this is the…
July 12, 2010
I really thought Monckton couldn't surprise any more but I was wrong. Fans of drivel: run, don't walk, to read his latest masterpiece Response to John Abraham, helpfully hosted by "no dog" Watts. Alas, I really can't be bothered to snark it much - perhaps the Wabbit can raise the energy - and…
July 12, 2010
Apparently there has been great fuss about "Pepsigate", which was Pepsi paying to have a blog at Scienceblogs. Or somesuch - I didn't follow it too closely. If you're interested, this looks like an attempt at a summary of the fallout. As for myself, I don't greatly care. I've never really been part…
July 11, 2010
Since the last of the CRU-email inquiries came in, a whole string of rubbish journo's have been queuing up to try to explain why, given that the inquires enhonerated the scientists, there was so much kerfuffle over the whole issue. Naturally, given that the journo's can't have been wrong, the…
July 10, 2010
This is me, tiptoeing towards the spotters guide to bloggers I promised. But I've been distracted, because I was pointed at Climate scientist: "Positive carbon-climate feedback is still very likely" -- and even without "a runaway feedback," warming will be "substantial and critical" Plus a review…
July 9, 2010
Just a quicky, since I'm here. The current sea ice extent has just become unexciting. There is hope for my money yet!
July 9, 2010
Isn't it lovely (it isn't new. The pic is from 1999 and I've seen it before. But seeing it on someone's wiki page reminded me). Far better than a Green Hornet. Or maybe you'd rather listen to the wabbit. [Update: see various comments. The situation is more complex than I though, and possibly not…
July 8, 2010
On occasion the CS can be a touch heavy-handed but the recent Whitewash! Whitewash! is classic, ending with the inspired: But that is not science - that is closing your eyes to Truth. The so-called AGW theory is an non-falsifiable oxymoron, and theories that are non-falsifiable are not scientific!…
July 7, 2010
"The more I get into this, the more I find two classes of doom-sayers, with, of course, the silent majority in between," he wrote. "One group says we will turn into snow-tripping mastodons because of the atmospheric dust and the other says we will have to grow gills to survive the increased ocean…
July 7, 2010
'Rigour and honesty' of scientists not in doubt but Sir Muir Russell says UEA's Climatic Research Unit was not sufficiently open. I'd quibble the latter but we have to take what we can get; probably they needed a sop for the ranters. Here is the thing itself and here are some quotes (bold in the…
July 4, 2010
A reader wrote: I am a recent reader of your blog Stoat. I am very interested in the Climate Change issue but I am not a scientist. I read Joe Romm, Island of Doubt and General news about the subject. You are the first expert I have come across that seems to have a balanced opinion on climate…
July 3, 2010
So often you get folks who have some brilliant theory, but unaccountably lack the courage to write the thing up and submit it for publication. However, I'm pleased to report that Nicolas Nierenberg is not such a man, and he *has* written a paper: Early Climate Change Consensus at the National…
July 2, 2010
Things Break says this, but I don't see why I shouldn't say the same. I haven't had much to say about Pearce before - I see I took a side swipe at him a while back. But his recent trash on the McLean paper is the worst sort of dumb journo false balance and he should be ashamed of himself. [Update…