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His attitude might more resemble this below (very funny)! (seen at P3) I always say that living well is about choosing when to laugh and when to cry...
Most of you will have heard by now of Mitt Romney's convention chuckle at the expense of the global biosphere, of which you and your family are of a part: "President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family." (Full text is here) Bill McKibben's tweet in response is pretty perfect: "On some other planet, apparently".  Planet3.0 has a lengthier and very good exposition on what underlies the success of such a mockery. My only thought on what Dan has written is that all us concerned individuals in the greater blogosphere…
As Eli Rabbet is noting, Anthony Watts is really unraveling, even further than we noted here a couple of days ago.  So, I just have to post the video below, picked up from Denial Depot.  I swear, I am NOT calling Watts Hitler, not even a Nazi, it is just pretty funny!
So as I warned about some weeks ago, almost all of the record lows are already broken in the arctic sea ice front.  Neven seems to have the best discussions going, but he is on holiday for the next couple of weeks.  You can see almost all (all?) of the scientific surveys of the various ice metrics in this single page jam packed with graphs here.  It's a fantastic resource with links to all the original data sources.  I found it at Neven's, not sure if he created it but many thanks are owed to whomever it was. And we still have as much as 4 weeks of likely declines remaining!  A truly stunning…
Michael Tobis has an excellent piece up at Planet3.0 here: A Thousand Bastrops | Planet3.0.
Real Climate has done two posts recently that I thought would be served well by their juxtaposition. The first one highlights an early projection of global mean temperatures made by Jim Hansen in 1981. The abstract for that paper contains this choice quote: It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980's. These are both things that have in fact happened. I think it is safe to call this a very successful early prediction of…
Peter Sinclair has a good run down of recent politically motivated FOIA fishing expeditions into climate and other scientist emails. It includes mention of the recent good news in the ATI v UVa case where the court agreed with UVa that the ATI and their lawyers could not be trusted to see emails UVa has claimed should be exempt from the FOIA request for the purpose of challenging that excemption. Ouch. But good call, I am sure. Peter also includes mention of an excellent non-climate science related example of the same tactic in the case of a Wisconsin history professor, William Cronon,…
The fallout from the BEST project results continues, with the denialosphere frantically trying to disown and defame Richard Muller. Marc Morano is at his shrillest pitch ever, and believe me that is as shrill as shrill gets! I guess it works at some level, because he did make me look at his website. That high pitched squeaking broke down all my intellectual safeguards and I followed a link from his almost daily inbox spamming. Today's (approving) hysteria was about an article in the DailyMail which gives you the general flavour of the treatment Muller is receiving. Given his own rather…
A really good overview of all the extreme weather we have been seeing this last year from Greenman. I'd say it is about time to say welcome to the new normal. I heartily second Al Gore's call of "bullshit", that is what folks like Bastardi deal in, pure and simple.
I have been remiss in not bringing this excellent resource to the attention of AFTIC readers earlier. From the invaluable Skeptical Science website comes a brilliant interactive history of climate science. Any comments on the choices for classification? I think it over counts skeptic and neutral papers.
"Coolest Billboard Ever?" asks a HuffPost article posted a couple of days ago. The billboard certainly seems "greenie". I mean come on, it is not just made out of renewable resources, it is one! It's alive. It breathes. It photosythesizes. Photosynthesis is the essence of "Green". So what's the problem? The problem is that this typically elaborate and ultimately meaningless gesture really epitomizes what is wrong with corporate politic's view of and use of the green movement. It is not the essence of green it is the essence of greenwashing. Coca cola is no friend of the environment.…
Non-lord Christopher Monkton is out and about again after laying low for a while, calling people nazis, using his Pink Portcullis coat of arms, etc. Greenman has a short video on that, though I must say I found more interesting the clips and content on James Delingpole. I must say he does not come out looking too good in that! Seriously though, it is a perfect analogy no wonder he faltered and stuttered like he just woke up from one of those dreams where you are naked in a crowd only to find it was no dream. I actually felt embarrased for him! Think he mistook this cartoon as a "How To"…
"I agree. This is real science. But I have no idea what it means." There is a reason science is not a democracy. If you don't (understandably) want to wade through that whole "analysis", here is the crux of the (surprise, surprise!) conclusion that climate sensitivity to CO2 is almost nothing: If we accept the IPCC/AGW paradigm and grant the climatological purity of the early 20th century, then the natural recovery rate from the LIA averages about 0.05 C/decade. To proceed, we have to assume that the natural rate of 0.05 C/decade was fated to remain unchanged for the entire 130 years, through…
Forced climate change causes global warming as a response, not the other way around. We all focus on globally and seasonally averaged mean temperature, and though it is a very coarse measure, there are some justifiable reasons. But as a general focus for those concerned about the human influence on our planetary life support system, is it right? Michael Tobis has a great essay on why it really isn't. If the sentence above doesn't quite get the point across, from the same paragraph: It takes a hell of a kick to move global temperature as much as we are moving it, and the climate system is…
Thingsbreak has a great overview of recent research on ice loss in the Antarctic (east and west) and Greenland. For anyone who has had enough of the freedom vs responsibility of the press discussion (mandas?), perhaps there are some interesting bits in Thingsbreak's post to mull over. I have posted on sea ice dynamics before (here), the two topics are not unrelated as stable ice shelves act as resistors to out flowing glaciers. Lost sea ice leads to faster glacial outflow which leads to thining ice sheets. [Update: I have just observed out my window that it is snowing, I imagine this can…
By far my favorite climate crank is the Non-Lord Cristopher Monckton. He is prolific and pseudo-scientific and the darling of the denialosphere, but he is also a certifiable crackpot and a very colourful loon. He is great material to make fun of and I highly endorse his self-promotion as the spokesman-in-chief for the climate sceptic community. Unfortunately, after the laughing stops, his nonsense continues to resonate in the anti-science echo-chambers. The arguments, gibberish dressed up in sciencey language and mathematical equations, need to be undressed and shown for what they are.…
Check out an hilarious post from Denial Depot where he applies a keen sense of climate skepticism to the movie Jaws. Here is his synopsis, to whet your appetite: A group of so-called government funded "experts" whip up alarmist fears of a killer shark off the coast of Amity, a sea side town. Their goal is to destroy the local tourist industry, send Amity back to the dark ages and thus achieve their underlying socialist agenda of wealth redistribution. The heroes of this tale are the local major and business leaders who lead a successful audit of the alarmist claims and by doing so manage to…
The wheels continue to fall off the Wegman Report. "It kind of undermines the credibility of your work criticizing others' integrity when you don't conform to the basic rules of scholarship," Virginia Tech plagiarism expert Skip Garner says. Further down: Allegations under review "The matter is under investigation," says GMU spokesman Dan Walsch by e-mail. In a phone interview, Wegman said he could not comment at the university's request. In an earlier e-mail Wegman sent to Joseph Kunc of the University of Southern California, however, he called the plagiarism charges "wild conclusions that…
A great and substantive post up at Skeptical Science on La Nina and what we should expect (and not expect) in terms of its impact on global temperatures. Read it all! (image borrowed from Skeptical Science) La Ninas typically redistribute the global heat budget in such a way as average surface temperatures are depressed from where they might otherwise have been, and we are several months into a strong one now. (image borrowed from Skeptical Science) Be on the lookout for lots more "global warming stopped!" bull.
This comment may explain alot a lot about how Judith Curry is able to publish demonstrable tripe and completely brush off all substantive criticism: "If what i said was utter nonsense, why is anyone here talking about it, I have 440 comments in 24 hours." It leaves me speechless. On the other hand, it may explain why she thinks WattsUpWithThat and Climate Audit are quality sources of climate science.