How to Talk to a Climate Change Dissenter

So much of the dissenter blogosphere is taken up with how despicable it is to use the term deniers (which some how, to them means Holocaust deniers)




I have refrained from using the term deniers as it does not help discussion but only diverts it to a blind alley).


However calling them "sceptics" is just so wrong! they cannot be considered sceptical unless they are, at least, willing to consider that climate change is real. Most certainly deny this possibility.




However, a link from Variable Variability (Victor Venema)
http://variable-variability.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/climate-dissenters-like-climate-change.html


Seemed very sensible:


How to talk to a climate change denier





Not much in the way of visuals so just listen!

Why has the UHI effect stopped for 15+ years?

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect.
According to Guru Watts the UHI accounts for a large part of the temperature increase seen since the 1970s ...
Using WUWT as a resource of facts!

(update 2013/10/22 - To find the posts just do a search on watts site.)

Climate Craziness of the week – with the physical signature of UHI staring them right in the face, Mann & Borenstein go with their ‘gut’ instincts

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Anthony Watts  

 

A new paper showing how UHI and energy consumption are linked to long-term temperature change in China

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Anthony Watts

 

 

Recent paper demonstrates relationship between temperature and population density in the UHI of New Delhi

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Anthony Watts  

 

Spencer shows compelling evidence of UHI in CRUTem3 data

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Anthony Watts  

 

UHI in South Korea – responsible for over half of the warming

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Anthony Watts  

 

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

And much more!!!!!

BUT....

 

 the same impeccable resource says

Update and confirmation of ‘Global warming stopped 16 years ago’ aka ‘the pause’

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Anthony Watts  

 

The Met office responds to ‘Global warming stopped 16 years ago’

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Anthony Watts  

 

Svensmark: “global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning” – “enjoy global warming while it lasts”

Posted on September 10, 2009 by Anthony Watts  

 

Sticking it to the Mann

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Anthony Watts

Global warming has stopped. Get over it.  A response to Michael Mann in the Richmond Times Dispatch By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley The collapsed global warming scare certainly has some odd characters coming to its defense in this paper

 

Digital Signal Processing analysis of global temperature data time series suggests global cooling ahead

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Anthony Watts  

 

Russian Scientists say period of global cooling ahead due to changes in the sun

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Anthony Watts

 

 

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

And much more!!!!!

BUT....

there have been 16 years of global temperature standstill (according to Watts and his sources). So what stopped the Urban heat island effect 16 years ago. Did the population stop growing? Were no more carparks/roads/offices built?

We need to be told!

 

 Watts and co seem to sometimes believe in temperature increase due to UHI and sometimes to suggest that there is no increase.

 

Watts and co seem to sometimes believe in temperature measurements ("there is no temperature increase")  and sometimes state categorically that accurate temperature measurements are impossible.

WUWT - cherry picking again

Water Vapour
The Watts nail in the coffin of AGW headline:

Another IPCC AR5 reviewer speaks out: no trend in global water vapor

Posted on December 14, 2012by Guest Blogger

New global water vapor findings contradict second draft of IPCC Assessment Report 5 (AR5)

Well, the paper this blogger / expert reviewer is behind a paywall so we have to assume that what he quotes is correct. But a quick search pulls up this paper

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-86-2-245

This from the abstract TPW=total precipitable water:
...Further, we found out that the TPW anomalies are driven by the global surface temperature anomalies, but with a lag.

and from the text:

Time series plots of monthly and annual anomalies of TPW for the two datasets are shown in Figs. 8a and 8b, respectively. Also included in Fig. 8 is the global surface temperature anomaly, computed based on NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global surface temperature data (Hansen et al. 1999).

The first 3 yr (1988–90) and part of 1996 show significant discrepancies between the anomalies of the two TPW datasets. There is, however, a good agreement for most parts of the other years. Linear regressionsbetween the two datasets show a correlation coefficient of 0.66 for the monthly anomalies and 0.74 for the annual anomalies. TPW anomalies are closely correlated to surface temperature anomalies. The correlation with surface temperature is higher for R-2 than for NVAP (Fig. 8d). The maximum cross correlation between TPW and surface temperature is reachedwhen the temperature leads the TPW by 2 months and equals 0.67 for R-2 and0.50 for NVAP. This suggests that precipitable water anomalies are driven by the temperature anomalies.

 

The problem is which cherry to pick?!!!!

 

 

Then of course Watts puts his foot in the wet and smelly with this blog post:

IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing – as well as a lack of warming to match model projections, and reversal on ‘extreme weather’

Posted on December 13, 2012by Guest Blogger

So in this headline post we have a total misreading of a document. One of the authors  (and surely he should know) sais so on Australian Radio: .

The leaked IPCC drafts cover a range of subjects from the quality of climate models to measurements of sea level rise and Arctic ice loss.

Professor Steve Sherwood is a director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.

He is also a lead author of chapter seven of the IPCC report, which happens to be the one the sceptics are claiming for their side.

But Professor Sherwood is scornful of the idea that the chapter he helped write confirms a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming.

STEVE SHERWOOD: Oh that's completely ridiculous. I'm sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite, that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible.

MARK COLVIN: They're saying that it is the first indication that the IPCC recognises something called solar forcing.

STEVE SHERWOOD: It's not the first time it recognises it. What it shows is that we looked at this. We look at everything. The IPCC has a very comprehensive process where we try to look at all the influences on climate and so we looked at this one.

And there have been a couple of papers suggesting that solar forcing affects climate through cosmic ray/cloud interactions, but most of the literature on this shows that that doesn't actually work.

MARK COLVIN: So you're saying that you've managed to basically eliminate this idea that sunspots or whatever are more responsible for global warming than human activity.

STEVE SHERWOOD: Based on the peer-reviewed literature that's available now, that looks extremely unlikely.

MARK COLVIN: So what have these people done? Is this just a case of cherry-picking a sentence?

STEVE SHERWOOD: Yeah, it's a pretty severe case of that, because even the sentence doesn't say what they say and certainly if you look at the context, we're really saying the opposite.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3654926.htm

It looks as if IPCC has played a blinder.

They can see where the "skeptics" will find inconsitancies and then clarify before publishing and all for free

They also show that sketics cannot read or comprehend!.

 

Watts & Co Misuse of Blogs

 

"THEY" talk about corruption of peer review

"THEY" talk about climate scientists forcing publication editors to resign.

 

"THEY" find it quite ok trying to destroy a scientists reputation because they disagree with his results - DESPICABLE, TWO-FACED ... etc. etc.

From CA

Anthony Watts

Posted Sep 22, 2012 at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Reply

for those that are keeping track, and wish to register a complaint on the statistical methodology being faulty (not to mention the sampling) you can contact:
Professor Robyn Owens

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)

The University of Western Australia, M460

35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009

[full phone email details were included here]

• thefordprefect
  Posted Sep 22, 2012 at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Reply
  Your comment is awaiting moderation. well done watts trial by blog is an ideal way to improve science
• HAS
  Posted Sep 22, 2012 at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Reply
  Another way in is through the funding agency. L. is part funded through a Discovery Australia Linkage Project LP120100224 “Creating a climate for change: from cognition to consensus” (you can find details of the Australian Research Council site). The administering organisation is the University of NSW who have a contract with the ARC for this funding (the generic contract is on the ARC site). Ben R Newell Assoc Prof @NSW is likely the lead.
  Anyway there a number of points in the ARC contract that are possible breached by L. et al. and the associated publicity around it. A quick scan suggests that those climate sceptics that feel aggrieved should review clause 18.4 and 18.6 of the funding contract that reference the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2007) (also available at the ARC web site).
  The sections dealing with conflict of interest (L. other blog interests); respect for research participants; reporting results; and communicating research findings (informing interested parties before the media) appear to have been breached. These are matters that could well be referenced regardless of the contract in any communication directly with the UWA. The Code lays down the process for UWA to follow.
  However while UWA may seek to balance Code compliance with academic freedom there is the issue of the ARC contract under which L.’s activities have been part funded. It seems that UWA and the U. of NSW also have a responsibility in this regard that are not balanced by academic freedom, and the ARC as funder has a clear interest in breaches. These could all be approached by anyone who feels L.’s work has breached the code (or any other part of the funding agreement) pointing out these obligations are independent of academic freedom.

"Saving Humanity" or "Where's my Handout"

No one actually 100% understand how the climate works -  I think this is a fair statement.

So ask yourself is it SAFE to experiment with the only place we can live when you have

• No idea what the controls do
• Whether there are unknown controls
• What the linkage is between controls
• If it is a linear system
• If there are "tipping points"
• little idea of what positive feedbacks and their magnitudes are
• little idea of what negative feedbacks and their magnitudes are
• Only 200 years of prior data that is vaguely reliable.

And of course

• It takes 30+ years for the effect of each experimental tweak of a control to become clear
• It takes longer than 30+ years for the effect of the tweak to dissipate (much longer if you trigger an ice age).  
• It is not just YOUR hand tweaking the controls - there are other humans and natural inputs simultaneously affecting your experiment.
• Each experiment is disastrously expensive.

Even Watts believes that CO2 is causing warming and some of that is from anthropogenic sources. He just believes it is irrelevant.

Here's a plot with all data zeroed:

Note how small the swings in TSI are.
A couple of Kelvin increase in 288K may seem small but the wealthy nations rely on stability. We no longer have an easy option of migrating to colder/warmer areas, moving our dwellings from the shores of continents as they get inundated (see doggerland! on wiki).

The inhabitants of doggerland simply packed their dwellings took their pots and moved uphill. This would be a trifle more difficult now.

It is not even possible to say leave it until we are sure that there is a problem - the built in time constants ensure that by the time we are sure and take action there will be another multi-decade of environmental changes before we see the effect of our corrections.
I think it is very telling that from all the revelations from "climate gate" and other hacks not ONCE have I seen any one pointing out any climate scientists email (which it is obvious the scientists thought were and always will be private) which suggests that they have vast wealth to spend on themselves.
Watts seems very delighted at having access to a private blog on sks where he foams at the mouth over this snippet:

============================

And this isn’t about science or personal careers and reputations any more. This is a fight for survival. Our civilisations survival. .. We need our own anonymous (or not so anonymous) donors, our own think tanks…. Our Monckton’s … Our assassins.

  

Anyone got Bill Gates’ private number, Warren Buffett, Richard Branson? Our ‘side’ has got to get professional, ASAP. We don’t need to blog. We need to network. Every single blog, organisation, movement is like a platoon in an army. ..This has a lot of similarities to the Vietnam War….And the skeptics are the Viet Cong… Not fighting like ‘Gentlemen’ at all. And the mainstream guys like Gleick don’t know how to deal with this. Queensberry Rules rather than biting and gouging.

  

..So, either Mother Nature deigns to give the world a terrifying wake up call. Or people like us have to build the greatest guerilla force in human history. Now. Because time is up…Someone needs to convene a council of war of the major environmental movements, blogs, institutes etc. In a smoke filled room (OK, an incense filled room) we need a conspiracy to save humanity.

==============================================

To me it sound a bit like "saving humanity" not "where's my handout".

  

The Effect on slope using base period from 1931 to 1995

As requested for WUWT here is a plot of linear curve fit to plots of the same data referenced to 30 year periods from 1931 to 1995
eg. base periods
1931 to 1961
1945 to 1975
1995 to 2012* THIS DOES NOT GIVE SUFFICIENT YEARS BUT IS PLOTTED.

Only stations returning over 15  reference base years were used as noted on the normal plot. The stations in this data set are from the UK

So it looks as if the slope changes by over 10% but 1961 to 1991 gives one of the lower slopes. Choosing 1931 the slope (deg C per year) is near the maximum!

Watts disappears a post!

Just for fun!
Tony often makes fun of  sites removing information. So why not turn the tables!

He recently removed this post:

A letter to Justin Gillis of the New York Times on his misleading sea ice story today

Not Found
Apologies, but the page you requested could not be found. Perhaps searching will help.

The text I have recovered using search engines is:

TO: Justin Gillis, New York Times 8/27/12 1PM PDT

Mr. Gillis, Reference Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/science/earth/sea-ice-in-arctic-measured-at-record-low.html

Why do you not mention these two important facts:
1. You say: The amount of sea ice in the Arctic has fallen to the lowest level on record”. That this is a 30 year record of satellite data, not an “all record”. That wrongly misleads your readers.
2. According to NSIDC: That there was a contributory storm that broke up a lot of the Arctic sea ice: Sea ice extent dropped rapidly between  August 4 and August 8. While this drop coincided with an intense storm over the central Arctic Ocean, it is unclear if the storm prompted the rapid ice loss. Why do you ignore such facts?
----------
If that was it all then perhaps one can understand his withdrawal! Also, the english is not so good!

Of course If I were Watts I would also wonder why this blogger has stopped the wayback machine archiving his latest posts (since 2011). This obviously shows he has much to hide!

American Meteorological Society Statement on Climate Change

This is a damning statement from the American Meteorological Society on life as we know it. (I would expect this to be nobbled by (them) as soon as possible)

Climate Change

An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society

(Adopted by AMS Council 20 August 2012)

http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2012climatechange.pdf
...
Final remarks

There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. The observed warming will be irreversible for many years into the future, and even larger temperature increases will occur as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Avoiding this future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate. To inform decisions on adaptation and mitigation, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the global climate system and our ability to project future climate through continued and improved monitoring and research. This is especially true for smaller (seasonal and regional) scales and weather and climate extremes, and for important hydroclimatic variables such as precipitation and water availability.

Technological, economic, and policy choices in the near future will determine the extent of future impacts of climate change. Science-based decisions are seldom made in a context of absolute certainty. National and international policy discussions should include consideration of the best ways to both adapt to and mitigate climate change. Mitigation will reduce the amount of future climate change and the risk of impacts that are potentially large and dangerous. At the same time, some continued climate change is inevitable, and policy responses should include adaptation to climate change. Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.

They certainly pull no punches with this.

It must be a good sock to the jaw for Watts, a retired AMS Television Seal Holder. His professional institution reject out right his stance on global warming.

NOAA/NCDC and BEST compared to Watts Favourite

Now found some US data (presumed ALL US not just CONUS) up to 2012 from NOAA
 http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/CDODivisionalSelect.jsp

These are monthly (like BEST) and so to fit with USCRN/USRCRN daily dat I have assumed a months worth of constant temperature for both these sources. This data is then passed through the same processing as the USCRN/USRCRN to produce the plot.

As can be seen the NOAA data for June is significantly higher than USCRN so Tony's claim of "not the warmest July" may be correct. However the overall trend of NOAA is significantly downwards compared tio the upwards trend of USCRN.

This being the case Tony may be backing the wrong horse in this race. USCRN (his ACCURATE) data stream show continual warming over the last decade. Time will tell (hopefully before disater strikes!).

 

uscrn 60 days average

noaa 200 day average

Best 80 day average

 

The Hypocrisy of Watts

A beautiful post from Tony:

First let’s look at Overpeck’s ugly email about Inhofe and big oil, plus a death wish for Oklahoma residents, bold mine:

Wish Oklahoma was on the Gulf Coast – then these guys might have a more realistic view. Until then, they’ll just do what the oil industry wants them to do, I guess.

best, peck

Now lets look at Tony's blog:

Some examples of the very ugly DEATH wishes passed on Watts' blog, (and ok'd for publication )

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/26/admiration-for-the-catlin-explorers/#comment-95597
Rachelle Young says:
March 26, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I would be content to see all three of them freeze to death or be eaten by ‘endangered’ polar bears 

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/catlin-crew-out-of-time/#comment-112321
Chemist says:
April 28, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I’ll be the one to say it: I hope they die so that their deaths will draw attention to the truth of this issue. If they succeed, then it will be just another propaganda

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/04/question-for-catlin-arctic-survey-what-happens-to-the-fuel-drums/#comment-115652
Daniel L. Taylor says: May 5, 2009 at 6:51 am
…Maybe I’m just a cold hearted SoB, but in my opinion they need to freeze to death on that ice. The world needs to see the headline “Global Warming scientists …
I’m sorry, but if the deaths of everyone on that ice survey team helps raise awareness of and opposition to the global warming political train wreck then so be it. It needs to happen.

These posts still exist on his blog - amazing!!

.

USCRN/USRCRN - The CONUS data

Data from the contiguous states of USA.

This is derived from all locations that have reported data from 2003 onwards. The more rescently commissioned sites therefore do not appear

The average plot shows a temperature increase of 0.3K per decade
The maximum plot shows a temperature increase of 0.6K per decade
The minimum plot shows a temperature increase of 0.14K per decade

The main plots are averaged over 10 days
The spaghetti plot is averaged over 100 days

It is interesting to note that the temperature increase since 2010 is much greater than that for the whole plot the final plot here shows a temperature increase of 6.8K per decade (PS. I realise that this is more weather than climate!)

How will watts handle this?!!!!!!!

And a final a couple with longer averaging

1. showing a 200 day averaged max chart

2. showing a 400 day averaged spaghetti plot

The last 3 years:

Tony - Free the Data, Free the Code

Well Watts drummed up phenominal interest with his closing wuwt posting scam. Then came the letdown - it's another surface station project writeup. Hummmm!

Hopefully Tony can provide at least the following data he used:

A list of all (ALL qualities) stations
Accurate co-ordinates for site so that Measurement machine can be identified at its centre.
Type of measurement device
Details of any changes/calibrations
Criteria used for Watts' classification for that site
Date site was surveyed - date of Google imagery.

We need this data long before publication!

The data seems to forgotten that TOBS (time of observation) needs to be added before comparison to USHCN is made:
Steve: allowing for a TOBS adjustment is reasonable enough. When max min are read daily, if they are read in late afternoon near the daily maximum, a hot day can end up contributing to the maxima for two consecutive days and the cooler next day not counted. The adjustment is made relative to theoretical midnight readings

It seems that McIntyre thinks he should have done more work before allowing his name to be added to the author list!

Steve: As I mentioned, I’ve been involved with this paper for only a few days. You know my personal policies. I did some limited statistical analysis, which, to my considerable annoyance, I need to revisit. As you know, I don’t have a whole lot of interest in temperature data, which is an absolute sink for time. So I’m going to either have to do the statistics from the ground up according to my standards or not touch it anymore.

Steve: I was only on the paper a short time and I overlooked an important issue, which Anthony had paid insufficient attention to. I should have known better – my bad. I’m very annoyed at myself.

Steve McIntyre Posted Jul 31, 2012 at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Reply

In my original look at this information (2007) here, I used TOBS data. I need to revisit this work.

Another  "author" falls by the wayside!
https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/summary-of-two-game-changing-papers-watts-et-al-2012-and-mcnider-et-al-2012/

UPDATE #2: To make sure everyone clearly recognizes my involvement with both papers, I provided Anthony suggested text and references for his article [I am not a co-author of the Watts et al paper], and am a co-author on the McNider et al paper.

The "skeptic's" Warped World View

A real defamation from that oh-so-pure Climate Audit:

achuara Posted Jul 18, 2012 at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Reply
 what about if the “criminals are brought to justice” along with Phil Jones, Mann and the merry bunch? But all boils down to emails and the data released or hacked have not been shown to be altered, or xxxxx –and that is the crux of the issue. They have been xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx data in the Hadley Center for decades, in a clear xxxxxxxx use of public money. But the issue seems to be it was not a leak but a hack! Give me a break!

For my protection I have decided to remove the worst defamatory words - republishing is as bad a initial publishing

McIntyre:
I, for one, don’t believe everything that the police say, just because they say so

!!!!!!!!!.

theduke Posted Jul 18, 2012 at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Reply

The “hack,” if it was a crime, was clearly one of conscience or, if you prefer, an act of civil disobedience. If Mosher and Fuller say it was someone (or more than one) with connections to the CRU, then it’s more likely than not that that is true

Mosher is more reliable than the police!

Steve McIntyre Posted Jul 18, 2012 at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Reply 

Too bad that they didn’t provide any evidence to actually dispel the theory that RC/FOIA “was a disgruntled UEA employee”.

!!!!!

Steve McIntyre Posted Jul 18, 2012 at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Reply

According to Richard Black, Michael Mann has urged that “criminals be brought to justice”:
...
Peter Gleick was apparently unavailable for comment.

UEA has called the police in to investigate a criminal event (Computer Misuse Act) The police accept that a crime has been committed.

No one has charged Gleick with a criminal act - this is in the hands of Heartland

The whole of the blog has turned to innuendo, conspiracy theories and defamatory comments.

The blocking of comments to these  denialist blogs has become an art form - wordpress must have got some damn fine filtering available to them. It is becoming frustrating!