January 2015 Open Thread

NASA’s RSS is the best we have and it is showing no warming for 18+ years.

Say what? Mr "Stick your head out the window" thinks one mathematical model is better than three sets of real instrumental data?

The farce is strong in this one....

I further note that Monckton claims over there that:

Of course the climate has nothing to do with process engineering, which is precisely why an equation from process engineering is inapplicable to the climate.

He's wrong in fact - it's not so much an equation from process engineering as a basic equation describing a simple feedback loop, but that's not the main point. As the author of that post points out:

So, you claim here now that the equation you applied in your paper to draw conclusions about climate is inapplicable for the climate.

You couldn't make this stuff up.

And that's not the only fundamental error that he makes from not correctly understanding even the fundamentals about feedback loops that the electrical and process engineering disciplines understand.

One more bizarre comment from Monckton, who just can't help himself:

Totalitarian science made it appear that the climate would change far more than it has. The growing discrepancy between prediction and observation shows that the adoption of a climate-Communist or thermo-Fascist official line on climate science was a grave and expensive mistake.

I'm trying to imagine what it must be like to see the conspiracy laden world through his eyes.

One of our regulars dubbed that phenomenon “clown trolling”

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/11/sunspot-thread/comment-page-…

The term existed in other contexts elsewhere on the internet prior to this, but in the Deltoid sense, it came from a description of Sunspot as being "like watching Christopher Monckton in whiteface and big floppy shoes."

I kind-of miss Spotty - unlike Drongo, he was (unintentionally) funny.

Mind you, "Spangles and Freckles" would be a clowning act even a coulrophobe couldn't miss.

Here is a set of graphs which include the RSS trend in the context of other datasets: well I would place a link here but I am having trouble connecting there ATM, but it is based on the same time period that Monckton cherry picked for that GWPF cartoon. I’ll try again later.

As promised and for sd (memory borked):

A chart that shows you why Monkey’s Tricks are tired BS memes.

Lotharsson @#91

That Thought Fragments comment thread is priceless. Monty Python is alive and well. I am pleased to learn that Monckton does not suffer from Graves, according to Physician Monckton that is. Is there no end to his talents.

On the mention of talents my mind suddenly recall this start of a Monckton reply there:

monckton There's Physics • a day ago

"I have sat at the feet of some of the most eminent professors of climate science on the planet...

gently washing their feet whilst gazing at their haloes, listening to their fables [one of which involved talents] being passed a new sponge by James Rowlatt, Clerk to my Lordship.'

Do Richard Lindzen's feet now have that aroma of sandalwood?

Richard Tol - questions over the non publishing of a paper submitted to a journal of which he is editor in Chief,

Paper Exposing Manipulation of Electricity Prices Stymied by Editor with Private Equity Ties,

so is Tol a gatekeeper for private equity and hedge funds?

Oh dear, Frankie, real instrumental data, hey?

Don't you mean man made?

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/massive-tamper…

And Nick, here's one way to improve your thought processes. Look at the longer view, It'll give you a feel for what SLs are really doing:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1066712/Uncovered-lost-b…

And did you realise that Brisbane was built on the cement from dead coral in Moreton Bay that grew there when things were warmer and SLs higher not so long back?

But I'm still waiting for your thought processes on how ice at sea level is accruing but at huge altitudes is melting.

You've been waffling and dodging but no explanation.

And don't just quote the GRACE gravy meter. It has never worked properly.

Good morning, Your Arrogance.

Data adjusted in Paraguay? It must have happened in order to enrage you and Monckton. Nice of Paul Homewood to look at the results of adjustment....just typical of him not to look at why...best to leave that sort of thing out, it frees up poster and commenters unhinged conspiratorial ideation. That's what they're really interested in: not doing the work, just venting.

And someone in learned journal The Daily Mail has discovered isostatic rebound in the British Isles? Who knew? I mean who had a clue about the presence of continental ice sheets?? Then again, it couldn't have happened: no one alive was there to eyeball it!

Holocene high stands are documented in many papers on sea level reconstructions in the Oceania region. It's all so much nonsense as it is not 'personal observation', try and be consistent, Drongo!

'Waffling and dodging', I referred you to extensively referenced sea ice discussion in AR5. You waved it away as 'assumption', so you've had your chance to act like a normal human being...and you fucked it up as usual. You are still hung up on superficiality.

Spangled

And don’t just quote the GRACE gravy meter. It has never worked properly.

Twice now I have posted a link to the breaking-science analysis of Cryosat-2 data which essentially confirm GRACE.

But you keep ignoring it.

Drongo, a word of caution: if you keep reading Christopher Booker, he will keep lying to you. The continued attention of screamers like you is his bread and butter.

Puerto Casado is Booker's comprehension error, not data manipulation.

Once again, you appear to be endorsing a conspiracy theory where climate scientists fabricate data.

Since you won't answer direct and repeated questions about this, I will assume that you are indeed a conspiracy theorist. I will assume that your conspiracy theory involves wholesale collaboration between pretty much everybody engaged in the Earth System Science, which is a lot of researchers.

I will assume that you believe that the surface temperature data is falsified, along with satellite atmospheric temperature data, OHC data, sea level monitoring, ice mass balance change and anything else you can think of. Likewise the underpinning research on radiative physics and everything we know about paleoclimate behaviour.

Correct me if I am mistaken.

SD

From your Daily Mail link:

The 'lost' beach where the Romans landed 2,000 years ago to begin their invasion of Britain has been uncovered by archaeologists.

The remains of the shingle harbour were buried beneath 6ft of soil nearly two miles inland from the modern Kent coast.

It lies close to the remains of the Roman fort of Richborough near Sandwich, one of the most important Roman sites in England and once the gateway to the British Isles.

At the time of the invasion Richborough sat at the southern end of the wide Wantsum Channel that separated the Isle of Thanet from mainland Britain.

Over the centuries, the channel silted up.

The gravel banks east of Sandwich that created a natural harbour for the Romans also impeded the outflow of the River Stour. The resulting sedimentary deposition eventually filled the Wansum Channel.

Have you noticed that it's only the oblivious genuine nutters among the Deniers who are still out and about playing at trolls?

After 2014 all the rest have staged a strategic advance to the rear, and are whistling in the dark in their epistemic bunkers waiting for the long-promised super-weapon that's gonna turn this war around...

T'won't be Lord Monckers' paper, will it, people? But you know that already...

Bill: "T’won’t be Lord Monckers’ paper, will it, people?"

His Lordship has a basic problem with the stability of his 'firecrackers'. They continue to explode in his face just at the moment he releases them.

BBD: the silting of estuaries and 'advance' of shorelines around Kent and Essex comes during a time of post-glacial isostatic sinking, testimony to erodable 'glacial flour' soils and intensive human land use...and infuriating to data-discarding Drongos.

AR5, Nick? You mean where their models are >95% wrong but their confidence in them is also >95%.

Still waiting for that explanation.

But good to see you acknowledge that seas were higher and warmer during the Holocene.

There's hope for you yet.

BBD, Google Grasp and find out that they have a problem, Houston. The mission summary shows that it will affect satellite derived data for sea level, ice loss, and ice volume in GRACE gravity measurements.

Nick

The North of Britain was most heavily loaded during the last glacial. GI rebound is more a Northern thing.

Spangled

BBD, Google Grasp and find out that they have a problem, Houston. The mission summary shows that it will affect satellite derived data for sea level, ice loss, and ice volume in GRACE gravity measurements.

Which bit of Cryosat-2don't you understand?

It's not GRACE.

it will affect satellite derived data for sea level

GRACE data aren't used in satellite altimetry of sea level change.

Nick, I find it fascinating that all these data manipulations all tend to go in the one direction.

Never noticed eh? Strange, that.

But when you can show me the gatekeepers cooling the books instead of cooking them the smile of reason may yet return.

Sorry Nick, I didn't read you properly:

BBD: the silting of estuaries and ‘advance’ of shorelines around Kent and Essex comes during a time of post-glacial isostatic sinking, testimony to erodable ‘glacial flour’ soils and intensive human land use…and infuriating to data-discarding Drongos.

It's counter-intuitive to the Spangled of this word, I know.

Spangled

Nick, I find it fascinating that all these data manipulations all tend to go in the one direction

Correct me if I am mistaken.

Eh.

It’s counter-intuitive to the Spangled of this world, I know.

#15, BBD, I know you're not expecting the Drongo to read his own [or anyone's] links.... Stop teasing him, it's fun.

Drongo, open #12, it won't bite.

#13, the adjustments go in both directions, the proportionality you expect / demand is just your unconscious pattern-seeking. Adjustments are made on a case by case basis with the widest possible consultation of local records. This is the kind of thing that Jen Marohasians hate

Chrissy Booker and pals just died. Again.

Of course, being wrong is right for Booker. You can never be discredited enough when you write opinion for a right-wing tabloid.

BBD, I know Cryosat-2 claims to measure SLR from Antarctic ice loss to the thickness of your fingernail but only you could believe it.

Much better to make your own obs on SLs where you can definitely see if things are getting better or worse.

It's called the real world, BBD.

That link above doesn't work, BTW, but you should speak to Church and White about that.

Drongo, at the very least, please refer your peers to Fig. 1 on this page as we cannot expect them to read the text, can we?

" Adjustments are made on a case by case basis with the widest possible consultation of local records."

Yes, I've noticed.

Having lived and worked in the Sturts Stony Desert during the late '50s when temperatures were recorded of 122f [50c +] on a station verandah that was designed like a Coolgardie safe and seen how these sorts of temperatures no longer exist, pardon me for being sceptical.

Not long back, after 1998, Jimmy Hansen was forced to admit that 1934 or thereabouts was the warmest year in the US but NASA GISS has progressively doctored that.

But it pays, you gotta admit. Tim got Australian of the year for that sort of BS.

You're not sceptical, Drongo, you're dismissive. And nostalgic.

Hottest I've experienced outdoors is the recent all time record day at Casino, NSW...44.1°C last November. Significant flying fox mortality there that weekend.

Jimmy was bad enough but Gavin is on a mission:

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2013/plot/rss/from:2013/pl…

Bats die at below 110f but birds don't die until it gets to 120f.

In Feb 1791 thousands of birds died at Rose Hill, Parramatta.

I'm a realist. You should be likewise if you're honest.

#23 adjust for baselines

HADCRUT 4 baseline period 1961-90, GISSTemp 1951-80...and area of coverage is different. Methodologies are public,
and trends are not significantly different

Satellites: lower tropospheric temps: they are not surface temps. You know that. Satellite issues, too. Decaying orbits need compensatory work [shock, horror: adjustment!]. You know that.

We know, and predicted, shape of warming gradient up through atmosphere would drive climate change rejectionists crazy.

"Bats die at below 110f but birds don’t die until it gets to 120f."

Another amazing Drongo edict. You're freakishly sure about a lot of stuff, Spangles.

"In Feb 1791 thousands of birds died at Rose Hill, Parramatta."

All this talk about Rose Hill came up last year on rejectionist blogs and was promoted by the useful idiots at News Ltd. The claim of course was "It were hotter in 1790" delivered in a tone of blithering confidence by grim professional fuckwits. Serious stuff [cough]. Even the local member Craig Kelly got in, detailing the uncalibrated unknown quality thermometry of Watkins [sic] Tench's observations of the event.

This massive exercise in credulous wittering is what passes for skepticism in your world.

These blokes claims just shot down your edict 'birds don't die 'til 120°F', by the way, Spangles. None of those old obs were above 110. Must be those piss-weak coastal birds, mind you...

No doubt a very hot day...but what do we know of the background conditions? Drought and heat wave after bird population increase in a good spring-early summer / good year is quite likely, no?

And you are still fixated on outliers. Outliers are irrelevant to long term trend records. Silly Spangles.

Question: does the sacred Central England Temperature record still stand as a global proxy for deniers if Sydney>NSW>Australia was hotter than now at the end of the 18th Century?? Please help!

There were no thermometers at Rose Hill in Feb 1791 but tell me Nick, you great observer, you, have you ever seen a bird die in flight?
The only one I have ever seen die in flight was in Sturts Stony Desert in temps over 120f and I keep a weekly data log on bird species for the local NHA and have done for the last 25 years. IOW, I'm interested enough to pay attention. How about you.

When were thousands of bird deaths from heat last reported in Rose Hill?

Outliers aren't particularly important but they're a lot better data than Michael Mann tree rings and manipulated data that warmists embrace.

It's never too late to start paying attention to the real world.

Spangles, : "In Feb 1791 thousands of birds died at Rose Hill, Parramatta.” Why, besides misplaced certainty about temperatures?

Fenby and Gergis 2010, Table II, drought chronology for S[outh]E[astern]A[ustralia].. analysis of contemporary observations indicate that 1790 was a drought year, setting in in late autumn / early winter....that suggests that a heat wave knocked off animals already weakened by declining feed. A bad winter / spring in the Sydney Sandstone flora means little nectar and poor fruiting. Starving birds.

"It’s never too late to start paying attention to the real world."..we can but hope, SD

I have seen birds beaten to death by large hail, and many heat stressed maggies over the years.

"When were thousands of bird deaths from heat last reported in Rose Hill?"

The mix of birds species at Rose Hill would be very different nowadays, building on the changes induced by agriculture post 1790, then increasing urbanisation.
Once humans started making small dams, producing crops and making wetter gardens, reticulated water supply, and making stream flow permanent through making catchments more efficient at generating run-off, the likelyhood of mass die-offs in hot droughts becomes lower, I'd suggest.

Any of that not of the 'real world', Spangles?

The duplicity of the warmists has been going on for a while. Remember the late Stephen Schneider in Discover Mag in 1989:

"To capture the public imagination,
we have to offer up some scary scenarios,
make simplified dramatic statements
and little mention of any doubts one might have.
Each of us has to decide the right balance
between being effective,
and being honest."

What with that and Climategate, warmists can't be believed and they really need to try to score some honesty points.

Whoa there...quote mining in operation @ #32.

Before you go there, SD, any chance of addressing the many points you have already failed to make? You need to acknowledge the answers to your questions.

Nick, there plenty of scary scenarios in the real world of history without having to dream any up. And nothing to do with AGW.

The birds that died at Rose Hill in Feb 1791 were rosellas and lorikeets [peroquettes]. They're still around in big numbers. If there was a drought in 1790 they would have been drought toughened birds but it's a great indication that extreme heat waves are nothing new.

BTW, they drop dead in mid-flight like they were shot. And Rose Hill is a near coastal, riverine area. Farming in later years may have made things worse by removing shade.

In a drought year like we have been experiencing up until recently, birds such as lorikeets and rosellas don't suffer much at all. Native trees under drought stress flower profusely and keep them screeching and happy.

But that's just another outlier obs.

I suppose you are aware the name Rosella morphs from Rose Hiller.

"The birds that died at Rose Hill in Feb 1791 were rosellas and lorikeets [peroquettes]. They’re still around in big numbers."

So you lived at Rose Hill since the 1930s, not Moreton Bay? It's hard to keep up with your itinerance. We really do know the bird mix in Sydney's urban areas has changed. It cannot be the same as in 1790. Loirikeets would indeed have been abundant in the woodlands around Parramatta, seasonality controlled their numbers into the early to mid 1800s...which then declined over the next century with urbanisation. They are making a limited comeback with the return of flowering natives [not always local species] to gardens, a cultural shift in their favor.

'Peroquettes'...Lorikeets are blossom feeders....drought>poor flowering...Rosellas are seed feeders...drought>poor seeding...add heatwave, and bingo. Remove feed trees, grasses and shrubs and population declines, shade or not.

As for profuse flowering in droughts: are you're sure you're not confusing warm dry spells after good rains, with real droughts ? It's one thing to get a lot of buds up, and another for them to open and last in drought. Plenty of bud, then flower abort...or plenty of bud, then flowers open en masse and collapse in heat...neither scenario produces good feed.
Weather observations of 1790 point to drought from late Autumn...early spring is a drier season [and flowering window] for most Sydney flora, then the Angophoras and Eucalypts flower later....drought can knock flowering back. In my humble obs as an 'orticulturalist in Sydney for many years, the best Angophora flowering has occurred in warmer Novembers without longer term water stress.

As usual your ideas are simplistic and reductionist. They lack the complexity of the real world.

Which bit of Cryosat-2don’t you understand?

All of it, I suspect. The same goes for just about any other research he's pointed to. Most the time it appears that he's merely repeating opinions he acquired elsewhere about work he doesn't understand, and usually the opinion providers haven't understood it either (cough...Marohasy...cough).

Yes lorikeets and rosellas would have been plentiful then as they are now.

Nick, you know as much about tree flowering in drought as you do about SLs. Sydney Bluegums and Angophoras flower profusely in a drought as do most eucalypts and other natives. Quite often more profusely than in a good season. Ask an apiarist. Or a birdo. Not only big trees but small native shrubs do likewise and as a result produce seed pods in abundance. You don't seem to understand how nature works. I keep telling you. Pay attention.

But have you any idea of the degree of the drought?

Anything from Gergis' pen would have to be suspect.

SD, your arrogance is really an impediment for you. Also, you read narrowly and carelessly, with predetermined positions in mind. I will not get into a pissing contest with you on yet another subject you clearly know little about. I do not need to witness more of your misplaced overconfidence in yourself.

Really, we have a heat wave in 1790, in which bird and bat deaths are noted....and the observation:
"Fresh water was indeed everywhere very scarce, most of the streams or runs about the cove being dried up." Various professional disinformers take the view that something can be concluded about national, and even global temperature trends, from a thermometer [of undoubted quality for the time] used with unverifiable exposure "several feet above the ground". "It was hotter in 1790" they bleat in unison. All the shortcomings that systematic science had to address to make reliable observations are present in the Rose Hill example.

You fall into line because you think climate is about drawing a line between outliers. Such is your motivation to discount science's conclusions about climate that a commitment to instrumental quality and exposure standards-informed by over a century's bitter experience-are entirely optional. Statistical methodology can be disregarded, particularly when complaining about statistical methodology.

However charming but pointless the back and forth, you maintain your white-knuckled grip on your tinfoil bonnet, its wool lining fast over your eyes.

I would have thought you would be able to stomach a paper that brings old observations of weather and climate into the light. However, since it supports a reasonable conclusion about drought potentiating a heat wave, out it goes.

Thanks for the laughs.

"I would have thought you would be able to stomach a paper that brings old observations of weather and climate into the light. However, since it supports a reasonable conclusion about drought potentiating a heat wave, out it goes."

Are you admitting it may have been a record?

In any degree of drought and/or heatwave, and I have been through many [one where it did not rain for 3 years] I have only ever seen one bird die in flight.

In Feb 1791, Arthur Philip said he saw hundreds or possibly thousands. Not concentrated around watering places but spread around. It's reasonably common knowledge among people who have been through heatwaves in the far west that birds don't die unless it gets to 120f or more. What a shame there wasn't a thermometer at Rose Hill that day.

Mind you, the BoM would have airbrushed it away and claimed it was not in a Stevenson Screen.

But it is interesting how committed they are to "quality" instruments, just not to quality data.

You've heard of the Gish Gallop, haven't you? Well I think we're getting the Slowmotion Speckled Saunter as SD over the course of the last days has introduced new diversions.

SD continues to privilege low quality evidence above high quality evidence. News at 11.

Don't forget time of observation which has to be corrected for.

#41 "Are you admitting it may have been a record?"

Steady on, my rhetoric-happy matey. Breath deeply. We_do_not_know. OK? We_cannot_know. OK? Do we need to know? Nope. Climate trends are not determined based on outliers of the daily variety...they weren't at the beginning of your long engagement here, and they remain irrelevant now. For the umpteenth time.

SD, the Australian Animal Mortality Index is a great idea. If the pile of rotting corpses is bigger at the beginning than at the end, then we are everywhere cooling! But, damn it, the earlier record will have decomposed! Confounded again! Thoughtless of the First Fleeters to lack cold storage!

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/south-east/animals-dropping-from-tre…

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/thousands-of-birds-die-in-sweltering-he…

Australian newspaper archives are full of incidental accounts of bird mortality in heat waves...none of which reached 120°F.

Nick #25

We know, and predicted, shape of warming gradient up through atmosphere would drive climate change rejectionists crazy.

How would Spangles ever get close to understand the import of that concept being the lapsed (hic) intellectual that he is.

Well he has to be given his record of links here to such as notalotofpeoplewanttoknow this and the Daily Fail. Which latter can be relied upon, to come up with grade A garbage.

Outliers aren’t particularly important...

Says the guy who thinks a couple of king tides proves something...

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Drongo used to confine himself to rejecting anything pertaining to SLR, but now he's gone the full denier.

And we all know what Kirk Lazarus said about that...

Bizarre link failure. No idea at all what happened there. Let's try again:

CRYOSAT-2

Spangled

Much better to make your own obs on SLs where you can definitely see if things are getting better or worse.

It’s called the real world, BBD.

It's called your locality.

Global-scale observations are provided by eg. satellite-flown instrumentation.

It has become painfully apparent that you are both ignorant and deranged.

Satellite altimetry (from TOPEX/Poseidon; Jason-1 and Jason-2 not GRACE or CRYOSAT) and tide gauge reconstruction (Churce & White 2011):

Real world sea level rise

Sorry BBD,

I think you've just made SD's point with your Real world sea level rise,

From your graph there's been 8 inches of sea level rise over the last 130 yrs which is basicaly bugger all. (SD's assertion). You do make me wonder you lot, you'll be waxing lyrical about 0.01C of temperature rise next.

Arseholes,
;)

#51, SD's assertion is that there has been no sea level rise, and that there will be none of any consequence. Yours is just another tedious appeal to your own incredulity.

It's fine to make any contention about the physical world, if you can do it methodically, with evidence. Sadly, SD thinks he can make claims with reference to very limited personal anecdote, discard as much real data as he wants, and larded with the usual hackneyed conspiratorial ideation and personal slur...which most commentators find faintly ridiculous to say the least.

But hey, that's a precis of any exchange with arrogant, resolutely ignorant idiots like yourself.

Gee, BBD, have I seen that graph before somewhere?

At that rate of SLR it makes you wonder how they found that Roman fleet 2 miles upstream especially when the south coast is also sinking.

I doubt if even John and/or Neil seriously believe that.

You want to get with Nick, BBD. Even he is feeling some cause for uncertainty.

BTW, Nick, I'm talking about birds dying from heat. Not lack of water. Also, irruptions of fledglings often leads to mass die-offs for lots of reasons. But as you have said, uncertainty about the real situations and data in these cases doesn't help.

SD it wasn't the Roman fleet, it was a beach which they found six feet below ground level. If you look at your link you'll see that it's right next to the River Stour which meanders to the coast a mile or so away. It's at the bottom of a trench which continually fills with water. So we can be pretty certain that it's below the level of the river right next to it.

You've seen plenty of rivers I imagine. How high would a river that near to the coast be above sea level? What does that mean for the level of that beach that they found below the level of that river's surface...

I would conclude that the beach is below current sea level...YMMV.

Turbo, have you ever noticed what things do if you leave them on sand for a while?

THEY SINK!

Ever noticed how anyone finds stuff from older civs?

THEY DIG!

The "experts" had given up on ever finding this site because of the belief in BBD's graph and other accepted "science".

As I say, pay attention, the truth is still out there and the science is far from settled.

Pouring scorn on outliers as Nick is wont to do only makes an idiot of yourself.

If you face the world as an individual and not as a group-think "expert", outliers are wot save your life and make you rich.

"Ever noticed how anyone finds stuff from older civs?

THEY DIG!"

Classic ignorant sampling error.

More doofusery from the Drongo.

Drongo really needs to read this, take it on board, and stop looking silly by repeating nonsense he's unsceptically swallowed from idiot journalists:

"Our data on extreme temperature trends show that the warming trend across the whole of Australia looks bigger when you don’t homogenise the data than when you do. For example, the adjusted data set (the lower image below) shows a cooling trend over parts of northwest Australia, which isn’t seen in the raw data.

High-quality data

Far from being a fudge to make warming look more severe than it is, most of the Bureau’s data manipulation has in fact had the effect of reducing the apparent extreme temperature trends across Australia. Cherrypicking weather stations where data have been corrected in a warming direction doesn’t mean the overall picture is wrong.

Data homogenisation is not aimed at producing a predetermined outcome, but rather is an essential process in improving weather data by spotting where temperature records need to be corrected, in either direction. If the Bureau didn’t do it, then we and our fellow climatologists wouldn’t use its data because it would be misleading. What we need are data from which spurious warming or cooling trends have been removed, so that we can see the actual trends."
http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science/no-bureau-meteorology-not-fidd…

"THEY DIG!”

"Classic ignorant sampling error."

Just another outlier, hey, Craigie?

"most of the Bureau’s data manipulation has in fact had the effect of reducing the apparent extreme temperature trends across Australia."

Well then, they should fully support the proposed audit into absolute transparency. And then promote another one into NIWA.

Mann-made one-way traffic isn't the real world, Craigie.

"Pouring scorn on outliers as Nick is wont to do only makes an idiot of yourself."claims the real idiot.

It's been days now, Drongo, and you're no closer to understanding why outliers-as anecdotally fascinating as they are-are not the trend. Read Craig's link, and the links embedded within it. You should welcome the opportunity to end your anguish and confusion.

Inevitably, you are also off the pace on why there is so much silting in the English coastal and sub-coastal landscape. It is a result of the retreat of continental glaciers, which leave truly enormous amounts of fine to coarsely ground material. This material is mobilised by natural forces and human activity, and is deposited in the shallow valleys and estuaries of the post-glacial landscape. Even as southern England continues to sink in response to isostasy, rates of siltation were sufficient to choke estuaries and strand Roman harbours.

None of this is controversial.

#58 : "Well then, they should fully support the proposed audit into absolute transparency. And then promote another one into NIWA."

Will you and your fellow bedwetters pay for it? The bill should go to the IPA and the LNP, if those groups had any integrity and true commitment to reduce taxpayers burdens.

Nick, after sending us broke spending trillions over HIS bedwetting, has the hide to quibble over the relatively tiny cost compared with the huge cost/benefit of a gatekeeper audit.

He is in absolute denial about the attitude of gatekeepers who, like himself, are immersed in mindless groupthink.

Never read any of the climategate emails, eh, Nick?

And there I was singing your praises for seeming to understand and face up to some climate uncertainty.

And you can't even get the fact that that Roman site is still not below SL after 2000 years of "SLR" c/w the coastline sinking, is a great indication of lack of SLR.

"NAH! that's just an outlier"

I know who the outliar is.

Drongo you idiot, the 'Roman Beach' uncovered at Richborough is below river level, which is why the bottom of the excavation is underwater...and the River Stour at the point is tidal...so, you are keeping your 100% fail rate going, old man.

Sea level has risen about 35cm since 1843 at Sheerness, round the corner in the Thames estuary. 75% of the current rate of 6mm/annum is attributed to climate change, according to DEFRA.

You never do any work. You just pluck your ideas from your feathery cloaca, or from the groupthink of your agnotologist mates.

Doncha just luv the latest dysfunctional groupthink.

Combining the known unknown fallible models to get a giant pal-reviewed presumption:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/01/20/3927497.htm

Plus the usual big sound-byte from the eager media.

Quelle science!!! Quelle religion!!!

And dopey Nick doesn't think they should be audited.

'The bottom of the trench continually fills with water and by trowelling you can feel the hard surface which was the Roman beach. Now we know there was a Roman harbour sitting out there.'

You don't even get it when it is spelt out for you, Nick.

That water is a bit over ankle-deep and it is probably seeping from the saturated build-up of silt and pebbles deposited over the years. You don't know that it is below river level but even if it is it doesn't affect my argument one bit.

That part of the country is sinking at the possible rate of 50mm per century. So SLs must have dropped over that period too.

Drongo fail: none of the authors and institutions behind that paper are from BOM, so they won't be audited in the announced LNP / IPA vanity project, whatever you and your demented mates might wish....

How long will your self-humiliation go on?

#64, stop guessing, idiot. You do not have an argument, you have a certifiable intellectual disorder.

You have already proven that holding more than one idea in your 'brain' is beyond you.

1) Kent is sinking. You allow this.

2) 2000 years of sedimentation, deposition [the estuary between the Isle of Thanet and the mainland silted up with the sediment from active coastal erosion further south] , and reclamation has changed the coastline, and the course of rivers like the Stour, despite the fact that:

3) sea level is rising over the last century and a half
{I have given you a figure from The UK DEFRA, you ignored it...a sad habit of yours}

Richborough's 'port' is NOT above sea level.

Nick denies that CSIRO are gatekeepers. Oh, dear!

Then goes on to further elaborate on his lack of understanding.

And did I really ignore your groupthink?

Diddums!

Found your mum yet, Nick?

You do not have an argument, you have a certifiable intellectual disorder.

Quite.

As is obvious to anyone who's reading this thread who's not already as certifiably hatstand as he is.

He'll never stop, and he'll never, never learn, you know, but you can...

"Diddums!

Found your mum yet, Nick?"

Well, this is a better line of argument than your last attempts at understanding the Kent coast,SD. I am impressed.

It's not the Kent coast that's the problem, Nick.

Oh, stop sulking, you old fuckwit! Go and make a sandwich or something...

More fascinating detail that Nick doesn't get about today's big soundbyte from the mad models linked above:

The report is financed by ‘the Department of the Environment through the NRM Planning for Climate Change Fund with co-funding from CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology’.

Information at this site:
•is general information provided as part of CSIRO's statutory role in the dissemination of information relating to scientific and technical matters
•is not professional, scientific, medical, technical or expert advice
•is subject to the usual uncertainties of advanced scientific and technical research
•may not be accurate, current or complete
•is subject to change without notice
•should never be relied on as the basis for doing or failing to do something.

Sounds like the Doltoid site.

As posted at #6 this page:

The gravel banks east of Sandwich that created a natural harbour for the Romans also impeded the outflow of the River Stour. The resulting sedimentary deposition eventually filled the Wansum Channel.

Read the thread, Drongo. Your nonsense has already been dealt with.

GSW

From your graph there’s been 8 inches of sea level rise over the last 130 yrs which is basicaly bugger all. (SD’s assertion). You do make me wonder you lot, you’ll be waxing lyrical about 0.01C of temperature rise next.

Arseholes,

No, the arseholes in the room are those who don't understand that the response of ice sheets to sustained warming is non-linear. The effects on SLR will also be non-linear. Therefore only an (ignorant) arsehole would wave at the historical data while denying the likelihood of rapid non-linear future SLR.

Drongo

I posted this at the beginning of this page:

Since you won’t answer direct and repeated questions about this, I will assume that you are indeed a conspiracy theorist. I will assume that your conspiracy theory involves wholesale collaboration between pretty much everybody engaged in the Earth System Science, which is a lot of researchers.

I will assume that you believe that the surface temperature data is falsified, along with satellite atmospheric temperature data, OHC data, sea level monitoring, ice mass balance change and anything else you can think of. Likewise the underpinning research on radiative physics and everything we know about paleoclimate behaviour.

Correct me if I am mistaken.

* * *

You have not corrected me, so presumably you endorse what I have written. Thanks for the confirmation.

#72 Just what Drongo needs...but as his priority seems to be to scoff at disclaimers, we can be confident this will be dumped in the bin.

Nothing in the CSIRO sea level review / projections about Fort Denison subsiding in the last decade a la Bob Carter...you must be pretty angry at having being misled, Drongo.

I suggest you will just keep hiding from that issue.

SD it's clearly a gravel beach, so where is the sand that you implied that it sunk into? Have you in all your years heard of a gravel beach resting on sand?

Just another thought SD: you do know that sea level rise is not the same everywhere don't you?

BBD, those details show there has been no net SLR on the south coast of England for 2000 years. Probably the reverse.

Nick, stop feeding me propaganda and simply show me where there is any SLR on the east coast. I'm talking max levels which is the only level that matters, not some cryptic MSL increases.

And you are pathetic the way you defame Bob Carter because he obviously checked with the GPS levels and reported on it without doing a peer reviewed paper on it.

But forgetting all that, the max levels on the Fort Denison tide gauge show no increases.

Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks so.

NSW govt latest SL report:

'Climate change researcher Dr Howard Brady, at Macquarie University, said yesterday the recent research meant sea levels rises accepted by the CSIRO were "already dead in the water as having no sound basis in probability".'

"Just another thought SD: you do know that sea level rise is not the same everywhere don’t you?"

Well turbo, all my life I've been trying to push the bathwater up the far end while I dry myself but I haven't yet quite managed it.

And you'll find that if Moreton Bay is ~ a foot lower over 69 years, there ain't much SLR going on in the rest of the world.

Don't believe those pretty coloured patches in SL charts where they get SLR in excess of 10mm/year. That only happens while the trade winds keep blowing and when they ease, strong surface currents carry it away.

#80

"Nick, stop feeding me propaganda and simply show me where there is any SLR on the east coast."

The 'propaganda' I fed you answers your question, dopey. In great detail. Even more available in White et al 2014, which you can get online.

Oh, but you then change your request to a question that you unilaterally declare as more important...

Well, there is work on storm surge heights in the same paper and in the main reference White et al 2014.

"And you are pathetic the way you defame Bob Carter because he obviously checked with the GPS levels and reported on it without doing a peer reviewed paper on it."

I am laughing uproariously, you're priceless....Oh, "obviously"... the dear fellow was 'obviously' too modest to bother telling anyone. Face it Drongo, he made it up...or made your error of confusing Newcastle with Sydney, sloppy man. And in a reputable national newspaper! I'm shocked.

"But forgetting all that, the max levels on the Fort Denison tide gauge show no increases"...

You do a lot of forgetting...sort of like a beetle playing dead when under threat. Time to right yourself and crawl back into the light.

So the Fort Denison benchmark is 1974s highest recorded storm surge? A very useful planning benchmark. If you bother to think [!] about your position, it actually in some harmony with SLR-factoring planning statutes.

You then quote The Australian from 2011. Oh dear, more bullshit, and dealt with thoroughly here and at Open Mind.

Howard Brady was the shonk that The Australian found to offer inexpert spin and misinterpret Phil Watson's paper back in 2011. Watson never knew that Brady [again, a complete domain ignoramus] was going to be giving his sixpence in the piece. Watson's department objected to the misrepresentation, and The Oz stonewalled....great times under the Murdoch's Untouchables.

Drongo, Brady's bluff came out in 2011, so it is hardly 'latest'.

Drongo to Turbo:

"And you’ll find that if Moreton Bay is ~ a foot lower over 69 years, there ain’t much SLR going on in the rest of the world."

The extrapolation is nonsense. Real world observation note that some areas have seen little SLR compared with others over long periods, so it destroys your assumption. And you have no basis for your height claim, remember. None. No measurements, no weather and pressure conditions. Not even any ENSO background, which you have been too lazy to factor in.. Your persistence in the absence of these mundane routine requirements will always be just daft.

"If"...you cannot prove it. The only long term record is 900km away at Sydney, and you well know that SL has not fallen "~a foot" there in your time period..

Thugs. Bob 'Smirkin' Carter (BTDT) who can talk the concept of average out of the minds of any demented public and does.

"And you have no basis for your height claim, remember. None. No measurements, no weather and pressure conditions. Not even any ENSO background, which you have been too lazy to factor in."

Nick, the thug knows.
Why keep feeding the thugs.

Spangled:

Climate change researcher Dr Howard Brady, at Macquarie University, said

Hum! It seems that Dr Brady has a history here obfuscating the truth.

Media Watch has also been on the ball and here I reproduce a section from the Dr Phil Watson paper cited:

"What we are seeing in all of the records is there are relatively high rates of sea-level rise evident post-1990, but those sorts of rates of rise have been witnessed at other times in the historical record," he said.

However:

Mr Watson cautioned in his research and again yesterday that studies of a small number of northern hemisphere records spanning two or three centuries had found a small acceleration in sea-level rises. He said it was possible the rises could be subject to "climate-induced impacts projected to occur over this century".

Which is supported by the latest research by amongst others Eric Rignot - go look that up Drongo.

What is clear is that the assessment of Rintoul and anything by Brady quoted is highly suspect. But then that is why The Australian has such a long record of climate science fact abuse as Nick has pointed to at #83 above.

Are you the "Patrick Doab, who had been swimming there for more than three decades"?

Drongo:

And you’ll find that if Moreton Bay is ~ a foot lower over 69 years, there ain’t much SLR going on in the rest of the world.

You bloody rude ignoramus, you have paid no attention whatsoever to my exhortations to refer to Scott Mandia and Jerry Mitrovica have you. If you have and still believe what you assert then you are thicker than two short planks.

Now go back up thread, I have provided pointers no less than two more times to my original post containing the relevant links and rectify this before making another post.

You are fast approaching the time to be put in your own padded cell.

Which is supported by the latest research by amongst others Eric Rignot – go look that up Drongo.

Drongo, here is a starter for ten pay particular attention to this:

The planet’s two largest ice sheets – in Greenland and Antarctica – are now being depleted at an astonishing rate of 120 cubic miles each year. That is the discovery made by scientists using data from CryoSat-2, the European probe that has been measuring the thickness of Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers since it was launched by the European Space Agency in 2010.

Even more alarming, the rate of loss of ice from the two regions has more than doubled since 2009, revealing the dramatic impact that climate change is beginning to have on our world.

and

“The fact that our lake appears to have been stable for at least several decades, and then drained in a matter of weeks—or less—after a few very hot summers, may signal a fundamental change happening in the ice sheet,”

As the saying goes, and WRT SLR, we ain't seen nothing yet.

Spangled

BBD, those details show there has been no net SLR on the south coast of England for 2000 years. Probably the reverse.

No they don't. The hydrology of the Wantsum Channel is clear and exactly as explained.

You are now simply lying.

Nick, after sending us broke spending trillions over HIS bedwetting...

The only real question here is whether your fantasy life is generated entirely naturally or whether it's substance-enhanced. If the latter, you could make a fortune selling whatever it is. And let's face it, you clearly already have a lot of contacts who don't want to face reality so you've got a ready made market...

So it's an Aussie thug. We probably know this anonymous troll already.

Poor old Drongo. Here's the bonafides on Howard Brady:

http://opiniondominion.blogspot.nl/2011/07/paging-dr-brady.html

Pitiful. And yet these are the kinds of people deniers rely on as being 'experts'. Old farts with little standing in the scientific community. What we've learned thus far from this exchange on Deltoid is that SD has relied on anecdotal observations from a couple of locations. The others have supplied empirical evidence at the global scale showing significant SLR data in some locations and not in others.

Verdict: SD bases his arguments on denial blogs and kindergarten level arguments. He'd be laughed out of any scientific venue, so has to contaminate blogs with his crap/ That's all he's got.

More hilarious musings on Dr. Brady. Pretty devastating stuff. Seems Drongo likes quote mining.. or should I say expert mining....

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3282940.htm

Importantly, watch the 8 minute section on Mediawatch. Everything SD claims is demolished.

Gosh this is fun!

LOL http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-30996110

Well we all know what is 'dead in the water', the zombie arguments of a delusional drongo.

I can see you doltoids have really practiced the art of character assassination.

No need for science to disprove your favourite religion.

No need to go and make your own obs.

Nah! the best science is to shoot the messenger.

Works every time.

Just ask ISIS.

And BBD can't even believe his lyin' eyes.

What you all don't get is that if there really were SLR it would be indisputable but the negative is harder for the average person to prove so you lot can keep on telling lies forever.

What you need to do too is apply the same criteria to your own cheerleaders as you do to the sceptics. You'll find that they are potentially much more corrupt.

What an incredible bunch of deniers you all are.

But after the initial sound bytes yet another gatekeeper comes forth and grudgingly admits that the pause continues:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/release/archive/2015/2014-global-tempe…

And BBD can’t even believe his lyin’ eyes.

BBD has linked to a good deal of scientific data. You have none.

Potentially useful on-line course starting soon: https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-deni…

From SD's link to the Met Office: ": "It's important to look over long timescales to see how human influence has affected global climate. Looking at three decades or more, we can observe a clear warming trend which is reflected in the near-record temperatures we have seen in recent years.""

SD

But after the initial sound bytes yet another gatekeeper comes forth and grudgingly admits that the pause continues:

Not really. Try to remember that the troposphere ≠ the climate system.

So we cannot make sweeping statements about global warming based solely on the rate of surface warming. One room is not a house.

We need to look at the rate at which energy is accumulating in the climate system as a whole, which is mostly ocean. It is accumulating very rapidly indeed. That is 'global warming' in the round.

It's an elementary but serious error all you goons make all the time.

Recent research from the Met Office, announced in December, concluded that the global average temperatures seen in recent years would be highly unlikely in a world without human influence on the climate.

This is based on an attribution study, where scientists use climate models and observations to see how likely an event would be in the real world and in a world without human greenhouse gas emissions - enabling assessment of how human influence has altered the chances of an event.

Peter Stott said: "It's important to look over long timescales to see how human influence has affected global climate. Looking at three decades or more, we can observe a clear warming trend which is reflected in the near-record temperatures we have seen in recent years."

So this is a 'pause continuing' is it?

BTW Demonstrating that somebody is making pronouncements based upon their own flawed knowledge is not character assassination. Brady is committing suicide we don't have to wield any axe ourselves.

Drongo is obsessed with 'gatekeepers', and 'admission'. Then he affects to be upset by 'character assassination'.

Hypocrite, all we do is hold a mirror up to your face. How have you treated the scientists who inform you?

"What you all don’t get is that if there really were SLR it would be indisputable...."

It is indisputable by calibrated standardised technical observation. You elevate anecdote beyond reason.

What the Doltoids don't choose to get is that SLR is fine weather, normal BP sea levels getting up to places they haven't been before in living memory.

Very easy to observe.

Tide gauge data doesn't always tell you what's really happening. For example, on the Gold Coast when they opened the Seaway, sea levels theoretically fell because low tides fell with the deepening of the channel while high tides remained the same. So this was a SL fall according to the tide gauge when in effect it was BAU.

It's taken 60+ years to show real SL fall in MB but if there is any SLR you observant lot could spot it very quickly.

Now, I'm back to where I was when I started here a week ago [doesn't time fly when you're having fun?] and you still haven't told me. Have you had any personal obs of SLR? Or do you know anyone who has?

NO???

That's what I thought. So, when you have, let me know.

#5 SD's journey of 'self-discovery':

"Now, I’m back to where I was when I started here a week ago"

Who knew? Seriously, holding your breath for a week is just standard behavior in denialism.

"It’s taken 60+ years to show real SL fall in MB but if there is any SLR you observant lot could spot it very quickly."

This is nonsense at every level [pun intended]. Please think it through, SD

It's nonsense because your observation point numbers one [1] spot on the edge of a global ocean. It's nonsense because your datum is imprecise. It's nonsense because your 'data' is built on a few childhood memories. It's nonsense because you exclusively use outliers, and very few even of those. It's nonsense because SLR cannot be 'spotted very quickly' unless the signal is huge; the signal is tiny, swamped by hourly, daily monthly, yearly and decadal noise. Only massive amounts of observation and allowance for confounding factors will allow you to 'see' it.

Just as it was a week ago.

I understand reactionaries are less agitated by weak consonance (poor arguments in favour of a position you generally agree with) than liberals are.

This explains a lot - for instance; if Spangly was on my side this relentless restating of nothing more than his personal incredulity would only make me feel humiliated for him. AND I'd just want him to STFU because he was making us all look like idiots.

So, Denier lurkers, should we assume you really agree with the fool, or are you simply so enamoured of any noise in your favour you don't care if its content is, well, barmy?

Or perhaps, other than just such a few outlier nutters who'll go to their graves never knowing what happened in the climate wars (i.e. they lost!), you're so remarkably quiet these days because, deep-down, you actually are capable of knowing when you're dead?

What you all don’t get is that if there really were SLR it would be indisputable...

We have people still genuinely disputing the "round earth theory". Nothing, absolutely nothing, is indisputable in that sense of the word.

If you mean the other sense of the word - indisputable to those anchored in reality - then the evidence of SLR is indisputable. Of course, it helps to be using the scientific definition of SLR, not your own private version.

...grudgingly admits that the pause continues

The link you provided currently says nothing of the sort. Did someone tell you that it did and you simply accepted their word for it and reposted it? Or did you realise when you decided to post it that you were lying about it, but hoped no-one would check? Will you now go off and ask someone else to point you to the bit where it says that, or will you explain to us which bit you reckon says that? That would require having a widely agreed definition of "pause" which you might struggle with...

"I can see you doltoids have really practiced the art of character assassination." - what 'character'? Does anonymous revisionism have a character? FO thug.

But it is a compliment to the Deltoid Quagmire that obviously experienced paid trolls come stalking here.

It should be remembered that Booker, with Richard North, did a 'number' on Dr. Rajendra Pachauri via The Sunday Telegraph which ...'was retracted by the Sunday Telegraph on the grounds that it was a pack of lies.'

Dr Pachauri - Apology and just look at Bookers sad record detailed at that RationalWiki article.

This probably has an entry here at Deltoid too, most of us remember the context.

cRR Kampen #12

Do you really believe anyone would pay for this calibre of trolls?

I doubt it myself - rather, Drongo is like a bloom of Irukandji, washing in on the summer king tide, causing irritation for a period of up to a few weeks and then disappearing again to his normal feeding grounds until the next king tide.

It is rumoured that urine is an effective treatment for his microscopic if rather tiresome sting, in the absence of more rigourous measures.

And indeed here it is Booker stars on Deltoid again and again and again.

drongo's brand of denial is far to purile to be worth anybody paying for it, but maybe he does have shares in, or family connections with coal.

Interesting post just appeared on SkS Climate researcher Bart Strengers wins wager with climate sceptic Hans Labohm, interesting for a number of reasons and one which drongo drops would do well to examine.

Here are some punchlines:

Strengers indicated at the time that ‘in light of the scientific uncertainties, I may lose, but this is not likely to happen’. He gave four reasons why a possible reduction in warming, or even a cooling could occur. Bold indicates that the related reason more or less became a reality over the past 5 years.

* a continued (relatively) low solar activity;
* a relatively high heat absorption by the (deep) oceans;
* a period of cooling due to incidental variations in the climate;
* lower climate sensitivity than expected.

In addition, Strengers gave three reasons why he nevertheless expected to win:

* a further increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere;
* the ‘best-estimate’ by the IPCC is that of a warming of 0.2 °C per decade;
* the chances of overestimating climate sensitivity are smaller than those of underestimation. [1]

The sum of all factors, thus, has led to continued warming. Below each of these factors is explained in more detail.

That UAH comes atop the warming measurements is noteworthy as are the remarks about RSS - the point that drongo drops should take away.

[1] This point is important which has me reflecting If only Richard Lindzen (and others as can be seen) could have been pinned down to a bet.

Lionel, as I recall, Booker's execrable journalism in his Pachauri article cost the Telegraph about 600,000 pounds in the end, due to their failure to offer a swift retraction and apology for Booker's mistakes.

Frequent commenter Hank Roberts has been awarded the 2014 Climate Commenter of the Year. As Gavin Schmidt was awarded Blogger of the Year a couple of years ago and Roberts frequently comments here, I hope you will forgive the intrusion for this announcement. Congratulations Mr. Roberts. - See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/01/thoughts-on-2014-…

"Do you really believe anyone would pay for this calibre of trolls? "

Of course. It doesn't mean that troll per se gets the pay itself, but paid there has been. Also, Lionel could be right in #(6)15.

On Capital (IIRC Bill introduced the book by that name here by Thomas Piketty and Arthur Goldhammer) and rising inequality two articles recently that highlight the issue (also the crazy of trying to improve AGW snow depleted slopes by artificial means thereby accentuating the cause):

Why Davos must shake off the shackles of wealth and entitlement

and

As inequality soars, the nervous super rich are already planning their escapes.

Which kinda runs counter to the blatherings of the likes of Duffski.

Picked up on from Climate Crock of The Week Fact Checking Science – a New Effort :

Distorting Climate Change Threats, Solutions

Models - they don't seem to be systematically running hot over 15 year periods. Taken as a whole their correspondence with real world realisations is pretty good.

Lotharsson

The deniers are going to shriek and gibber over this one.

As the study says, the models don't capture short-term natural variability, but then they are not designed to do so. They are not, after all, capable of magically *predicting* volcanism, solar activity, predominant ENSO phase and variability in ocean heat uptake a decade in advance. Nothing can do that.

But all these natural variables cancel out over time which is why, averaged over a century, models reproduce the observed trend in GAT very well.

This of course suggests that emergent model properties like climate sensitivity are reasonably accurate.

The fake sceptic claim that the models are 'running hot' because of the 'pause' is confused. It confuses short-term variability and the long-term forced trend. It confuses what models are capable of and the magic of the crystal ball.

#22 - it is not confusion, BBD. It is, in essence, just another way of lying away the fact that CO2 is a GHG. They know better - actually the vehemence of climate revisionism shows they know.

The thuggery looks like entering a more dangerous phase.
http://www.courant.com/community/bridgeport/hc-bridgeport-mayor-threate…

So, Willie Wei-Hock Soon failed to failed to disclose conflict of interest as reported here: Climate change skeptic accused of violating disclosure rules, there are calls for the Harvard-Smithsonian to drop him.

Not before time for Soon has history:

Science Denialists Make Fake Journal, Get Shut Down.

It confuses short-term variability and the long-term forced trend. It confuses what models are capable of and the magic of the crystal ball.

Yep, much like cRR Kampen I use "conflates" rather than "confuses" because the former can be deliberate.

cRR and Lotharsson

Everybody's right. Some - the wilier ones - know that they are spinning a narrative out of a deliberate misrepresentation of 'the models'. Below the apex, most are simply too confused (and intellectually lazy) to sort out the mess. Nor do they wish to. It's a nice, superficially plausible story and a comforting one. We all know computers are always going wrong. It's a fact of life, innit?

Lionel A

I am constantly amazed that Willie hasn't been quietly dumped by H-S. Perhaps, one day. But so much damage is already done.

I have just watched an episode of Air Crash Investigation covering US Air 1493 that crashed at LAX in 1991, it appears David Koch was one of the few survivors.

From the Brisbane Times live QLD election blog:

9:17pm Jorge Branco: Almost the entire Moreton Bay Region looks set to throw out its sitting LNP members and welcome Labor politicians into government.

The ABC is predicting Murrumba, Pine Rivers, Morayfield and Kallangur to all go to Labor on comfortable margins with Pumicestone possibly switching sides as well.

Environment Minister Andrew Powell looks to be the only holdout in his seat of Glass House.

Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney and Member for Pumicestone Lisa France have been embroiled in a very public fight with the Moreton Bay Council in recent months over how to interpret sea level rises due to climate change in the regional plan. Residents had been vocal in their support of the government stepping in on the issue but it doesn't appear to have translated to votes.

Another nail in the coffin... of coal
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/30/china-peak-coal-demand_n_65823…

Suppose you were to build a coal export port... and no one wanted to buy coal...

Suppose you had a government, sponsored by Rupert Murdoch and the IPA, that got its arse handed to it by an Australian electorate.....

It's good to see Murdoch's little branch office being handed direct evidence that global energy policy is showing their gamble is a failure, and marooning Quarry Australia and its stranding assets. Of course they will keep spinning in the other direction, they lack the wits to change course.

Well they could always use the coal to build bulwarks against rising sea levels particularly in the area where drongo-drops resides.

Trouble is coal can have positive buoyancy - one reason it was valued in late Victorian era warships where besides supplying a reserve of buoyancy should the hull be holed (cork was often used at extremities) it also absorbed some of the force of exploding hits.

There was an old guy in the "Q&A" audience tonight who was trying to ask a rambling question and in the process asserted that it's not possible for sea levels to rise.

I don't think it was SD. He didn't get a word in about Moreton Bay or surrounds ;-)

and in the process asserted that it’s not possible for sea levels to rise

I suppose it's considered bad form to mock those who can neither read nor understand , but then again they do tend to bring it on themselves.

"Sea level varied by over 100 metres during glacial-interglacial cycles as the major ice sheets waxed and waned as a result of changes in summer solar radiation in high northern hemisphere latitudes. Paleo data from corals indicate that sea level was 4 to 6 m (or more) above present day sea levels during the last interglacial period, about 125 000 years ago."

Meh - "bring it on themselves" or should it be bring it upon themselves? I blame my doubt on a Victorian values educabation.

After all, apparently apostrophe's (see what I did there? hyuk, hyuk) don't matter now either, despite Frank Zappa's best effort's. But I digres;s

Apostrophe abuse *and* semi-colon abuse, in the same post: Chek's on fire today.

Come now Craig, colonic abuse - semi or otherwise - isn't something often talked about in polite society. Unless one's talking about ars*holes like Mitch McConnell, currently leading the charge against the EPA's atmospheric carbon reduction efforts.

Julian Disney, outgoing head of the Australian Press Council, made some serious points about government favored media outlets serving to stifle press freedom. He did not name names. He stated that the Council would be pro-active in pursuing corrective action against misleading and deceptive reporting [clearly viewable as a reference to Murdoch's war against climate science, and News Ltds ghastly spin about plain cigarette packaging, and etc.]

The Australian ran a piece about Disney's speech, illuminating for its insight into the bizarre thinking at that paper. Here is a quote:

"While the Press Council has been criticised for accepting more complaints from those with no direct involvement with the articles in question, he [Disney] outlined plans to step up this area of work.

He said the move to launch inquiries that had not generated complaints was justified because some people were concerned about retribution by the media if they complained about articles.

Under Professor Disney’s chairmanship, two-thirds of the press complaints defended by News Corp Australia (publisher of The Australian) are from third parties with no direct involvement in the articles under challenge".

The author's views are obviously quite clear. Apparently, if you're not the actual scientist or scientific body being misrepresented, or the public figure being quote-mined, then you cannot have any possible interest in seeing the record set straight.

To think that colleagues, peers or general public should care about systematic distortion from a major news outlet!

Well, to be fair to Murdoch and The Australian, if "setting the record straight" becomes widely accepted as "being in the public interest" again it would put rather a serious dent in their business model...

The last episode of Q&A had Wayne Swan saying something along the lines of:
"Everybody knows the Liberal Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's publishing empire".
Barnaby Joyce was spitting ships. He even tried denying it.
Jackie Lambie (sp?) the Tasmanian nutter-senator absolutely hoed into Murdoch, it was very good, as did the Greens politician.
I have a feeling News Corporation has done itself massive PR damage when such a broad spectrum of our society are unequivocal about recognising the lack of merit in the crap News peddles.

Barnaby Joyce also looked very uncomfortable when the senile old guy started burbling on about how ice melting to raise sea level was "impossible".

Incidentally, I am a firm believer in having a Paul Keating revival.
Here is Paul Keating presciently commenting 20 years ago on this week's political situation:
"""What we have got is a dead carcass, swinging in the breeze, but nobody will cut it down to replace him".""

http://www.webcity.com.au/keating/

Murdoch's blatant front-page barracking for the dreadful Newman and equally blatant derision of his opponents did no good whatsoever! Immensely pleasing!

Let's hope the whole crappy 'swivel-eyed neoliberal zealot' brand goes down together.

I also really enjoyed Hank Green's recent '@ rupertmurdoch Watching you become less relevant is one of the principal joys of my life.'

From “A Short History of Stupid” by Bernard Keane and Helen Razer. (h/t for quote to Rob Taylor at Hot Topic)

The strong correlation between political conservatism and climate change denialism is likely the result of several factors: conservative political parties have stronger links with business, and particularly big business, many sections of which have a strong interest in preventing action to address climate change; and government intervention of the kind required to address climate change, even if via a market-based mechanism, is inconsistent with the small-government rhetoric of modern conservatives.

But it also appears to derive from the conviction that climate change is a political rather than scientific issue. Framing it thus requires conservatives to oppose the existence of climate change and any action to prevent it because to acknowledge its existence is, they believe, to hand a win to their enemy: progressives.

That kind of Stupid lies behind the death threats and savage abuse directed at climate scientists, who are perceived as political opponents by denialists, not researchers dispassionately explaining the evidence before them.

That’s despite the fact that climate action is fundamentally a prudential policy, that preventing uncertainty associated with dramatic environmental and economic change is an intrinsically conservative position and that a conservative icon like Margaret Thatcher advocated climate action more than two decades ago…

Climate change denialists are engaged in intergenerational economic warfare on their own societies. They won’t witness the worst aspects of climate change—luckily for them they’ll die before they occur. But their children and grandchildren will be affected by them…

Denialists are a form of economic parasite preying on their own offspring, running up a bill they’ll die before having to pay. And every year of delay increases the costs that future generations will have to bear.

Intergenerational parasites. Sounds about right...

Wow, this show is still playing. I see that Spangled Drongo is the latest performer to play the role of the braying jackass. While the rest of the characters are oddly attentive to him, this sad sack is so stupid, ignorant, and dishonest that he garners no sympathy from the audience.

ianam

As 'Willard' says elsewhere:

Climateball™ - the only losing move is not to play.

Joanne Nova's "solution" for Tony Abbott's woes is for him to listen to her and her fellow-cranks, and disappear even further up the rabbit-hole.

I think the QLD electorate's rejection of the IPA/Murdoch nuttery bodes well for democracy in this country.

Notice Gina Rhinehart's reaction to the QLD debacle was to offer up her entire stake in Fairfax for sale? ....

http://www.afr.com/p/business/companies/gina_rinehart_sells_entire_fair…

"Billionaire Gina Rinehart is selling her $306 million stake in Fairfax Media at 86.75¢ a share.

As revealed by The Australian Financial Review, the trade was executed by Morgan Stanley and Bell Potter, which were sounding out interest from institutional investors on Friday night, sources said. Mrs Rinehart’s iron ore company Hancock Prospecting was Fairfax’s largest shareholder with a 14.99 per cent stake before the sell down."

So much for the idea of eliminating pluralism in the media....

Joanne Nova’s “solution” for Tony Abbott’s woes is for him to listen to her and her fellow-cranks, and disappear even further up the rabbit-hole.

Maybe we should start a #TonyStickWithJoNova hashtag - either to emulate the resounding (ahem) success of #ImStickingWithTony, or more subversively to seriously encourage him to let his denialist nutter freak flag fly. The more the public sees of what he and his backers are really about, the less they like it...

BBD: Willard's a hypocritical snarky asshole and his saying is stupid. Playing ClimateBall is like playing GishGallup.