Goddard Calls Pentagon Yo-Yos; Watts Pretends It Doesn't Exist

Climate change deniers can't quite manage to wrap their empty heads around the recent Pentagon report calling global warming an immediate security threat, among other things, so their reactions are as varied as they are comical and childish.

Steven Goddard decided to dive right in and challenge DoD claims based on legitimate, peer-reviewed research with extreme ignorance and his standard, ineffectual, scientific illiteracy.

"Now Yo-Yo’s at the Pentagon blame Syrian drought on CO2...Blaming the drought on an increase of 0.0001 mole fraction CO2, is every bit as ignorant as blaming Yo-Yo’s. Mankind has not progressed,"

Forget mankind not having progressed, Little Steven, because you may single-handedly prevent our species from ever progressing. For one thing, learn how to punctuate to at least some degree of proficiency, and when to capitalize, you nitwit. I'm not asking you to be an English scholar, just to hit the period key when you should every now and then instead of ending sentences with nothing at all or commas, and to stop giving generic toys more respect than you do the Department of Defense. This is simple shit you should have mastered before completing third grade, knucklehead. And, see, smallest of Tiny-Small Stevies (notice how I capitalized your new title?), the atmosphere taken as a whole is EXTREMELY MASSIVE, and CO2 is pretty damn efficient at absorbing and reemitting infrared radiation back down to Earth, so half-wit statements like "an increase of 0.0001 mole fraction CO2" fail to take into account that going from 0.028% to 0.04% of approximately 5×10^15 metric tons is an increase of about six hundred billion metric tons of a strong greenhouse gas. Starting to sink in yet, dumb dumb? Probably not, because I'm sure you're also too dense to understand the powerful effect of an even smaller concentration of ozone, but I'll mention it, anyway, for anyone else who, unlike you, has enough intelligence to appreciate that fractional changes in trace atmospheric gases can have major impacts on us and our civilization.

In other words, you're still a miserably confused idiot, you miserably confused idiot.

However, I will give you some credit for at least acknowledging that the DoD report exists. Your buddy, Anthony Watts, couldn't even muster that much courage. Instead, since its release, he and his lackeys have been desperate to find distractions of all kinds, any distraction at all really, to avoid the point.

Record Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Still Only Proves One Thing

"Some people have looked at the Antarctic increasing trend, and used that to suggest that global warming isn't happening, or that the increase in the Antarctic is offsetting the decrease in the Arctic, and that's simply not true. If you look at just simply the magnitude of the changes we're seeing in the wintertime, the Arctic is decreasing about twice as fast as what the Antarctic is increasing."

- Dr. Walt Meier, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

This year's sea ice extent in Antarctica does not change the fact that the Earth is heating up due to our emissions, but it does prove one thing. You can post a video and an article from NASA/Goddard which plainly and simply contrast and put in clear perspective conditions at opposite ends of the planet, and which provide several reasonable explanations for the minimal sea ice expansion at one pole relative to the larger loss at the other (all in complete harmony with a warming world, mind), and none of it will manage to penetrate the impregnably thick skulls of the deniers who flock to your strange site (scroll down to the comment section, and commence to facepalming). Not one bit. Zilcho. Nada. Nothing.

Oh, brother.

Are You Sitting Down?

You're never gonna believe this, people, but just like Steven Goddard, Anthony Watts goes in for this "NASA-GISS is doing something spooky and secret to the data" crap, too. Back in 2012, Watts felt the need to uncritically mirror-blog an article by Randall Hoven, where he reveals himself to be an impatient, impetuous fool:

I thought I’d update that analysis to include July’s and August’s temperatures. To my surprise, NASA’s entire temperature record, going back to January 1880, changed between NASA’s June update and its August update. I could not just add two more numbers to my spreadsheet. The entire spreadsheet needed to be updated.

NASA does summarize its "updates to analysis," but the last update it describes was in February. The data I looked at changed sometime after early July.

In short, the data that NASA makes available to the public, temperatures over the last 130 years, can change at any time, without warning and without explanation. Yes, the global temperature of January 1880 changed some time between July and September 2012.

Well, no Obama mind control accusations this time, unlike with Goddard, which is a relief, but we still seem to be stuck with the now predictable denier wet diaper bellyaching about NASA changing things "without warning and without explanation," so let's investigate, shall we?

Looking at the GISS update announcement page that Hoven links to, and that I've linked to numerous times now myself while addressing Goddard's extreme paranoia, we do see an update in February, 2012, and then nothing until September, 2012.

February 17, 2012: The analysis was redone on Feb 17 after learning from NOAA/NCDC that the operational version of GHCN v3 was only made available that afternoon.

September 26, 2012: NOAA/NCDC replaced GHCN v3.1 by GHCN v3.2. Hence the GISS analysis is based on that product starting 9/14/2012. Version v3.2 differs from v3.1 by minor changes in the homogenization of the unadjusted data. A description of the modifications in the adjustment scheme and their effects are available here.

Well, gosh, Hoven is moaning and groaning about changes that happened from June to August, 2012, and that September GISS bullet says the analysis began using the GHCN v3.2 on Sept. 14th, 2012. That means he's onto something, right? Let's see where that "description of the modifications" link takes us...

The software used to perform operational updates and reprocessing of GHCN-M version 3 was modified to correct coding errors and to improve its run-time efficiency. In particular, coding errors were corrected in the Pairwise Homogenization Algorithm (PHA) that had been identified during the course of a project led by Mr. Daniel Rothenberg in July 2011...These software changes were combined with other minor changes to improve debugging and processing efficiency. A total of eight software modifications were made...With v3.1.0, the adjusted annual global land surface air temperature trend for 1901‐2011 was 0.94°C/Century. Using data from version 3.2.0 this trend is 1.07°C/Century.

OK, no timing indicators per se, though the error corrections apparently started in 2011 well before the public release date in September, 2012, but there is a "Where can I obtain additional information about the changes that were made and their impacts on global temperature trends?" section which takes us to a NOAA/NCDC technical report dated August 1, 2012, which again mentions software bug fixes for the September release of v3.2.0. Another dead end? Well, no, not really, because interestingly enough, with a little online digging, you can learn here that on the same day, August 1, 2012, NOAA released another technical report regarding fixes made and implemented in GHCN-M v3.1.0...

The software used to perform operational updates of GHCN-M version 3 was modified to improve its run-time efficiency...The impact on annual means resulted in a change in century-scale global and US trends of less than 0.002°C/Decade. The software modifications are incorporated into a new release of GHCN-M, version 3.1.0.

There ya have it. Nothing mysterious and secret taking place anywhere. There were ongoing code corrections since July 2011, some of which were applied to calculations in v3.1.0 before September, 2012, and some to v3.2.0 during and after September, 2012.

Hoven couldn't be bothered to research GHCN-M v3.1.0 technical reports, or wait ONE DAY for the helpful v3.2.0 mention to appear on the GISS update page (his article is dated 9/25/2012, and the v.3.2.0 explanation was posted on 9/26/2012), and, plain and simply, Watts and Goddard are nothing more than two paranoid peas in a pod.

WattsUpWithThat Drive By

Solar Roadways

From time to time, if bored, I will stop in over at wattsupwiththat for a good laugh at the expense of the ridiculous trolls who author and comment at the site. It's a haven for anti-science wingnuts (Anthony Watts being their High King), so when they make fun of stuff based on bad science I find it particularly rich, ironic, and amusing.

On this particular visit, we find the Watts chuckle patch stumbling and bumbling their way through a critique of solar roadways. Now, this is one of those very rare occasions where I happen to agree with Watts and Spencer to a degree, in as much as they are a terrible idea for our roadways. However, Thunderf00t over on YouTube has posted a much more skillful dismantling than Watts and Spencer are capable of whipping up:



Here's where I quickly part ways with the pseudoscience-loving circus over at wattsupwiththat...that a bad idea like solar roadways in any way, shape, or form calls into question the peer-reviewed research behind climate change. Does homeopathy or acupuncture tarnish modern medicine at all? Nope, and notice how Thunderf00t doesn't go there. He's smart enough to focus on the real problems with the idea, rather than make ones up.

Watts, Spencer, and their intellectually-challenged minions can't control their illogical selves, however...

Dr. Roy Spencer and I have been watching this project with amusement combined with incredulity...The best part? The impetus was for this idea was global warming.

Yup, Watts, only an idiot troll like you would find that to be the "best part." Is the best part of Kevin Trudeau's snake oil the fact that it's a fake remedy for real medical conditions? Did I mention you're an idiot troll, you idiot troll?

Dr. Roy Spencer felt the need to shoot off an ironic rocket of a comment...

Roy Spencer says:
June 4, 2014 at 6:18 am
this was one of the most controversial posts I ever had. The popular support for “solar roadways” is amazing, the shallowness of the supporters arguments for it equally amazing.

Hmmm, speaking of amazing shallowness, how about signing your name onto this bullshit?

We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory.

Prominent Signers of An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming...scientists and medical doctors like Dr. Roy W. Spencer...

Oh, brother, the absurdity of moments like these really calls for at least two faces to palm. One just isn't enough.



And then the trolls that comment at this brainless black hole begin trying to outdo one another...

Myron Mesecke says:
June 4, 2014 at 6:34 am
The same lack of common sense, little education and no real interest in science is why both the solar roadway and the global warming scam are so popular.

Ric Werme says:
June 4, 2014 at 6:37 am
This is something I posted on a couple FaceBook groups, including “Scientific Mensa” that has a several member convinced that AGW is going to destroy us all but buy into this scheme without doing the most rudimentary calculations...

grayjohn says:
June 4, 2014 at 6:39 am
Bullshit derived from the fantasy of alternative energy. Awesome.

Do I really need to post more of these? You can go scroll through the comments, if you have an urge for self-torture, but, remember, if you don't laugh at this overflowing clown car turned Web forum, you'll probably end up despairing for your own species. If it turns out wattsupwiththat contributors actually belong to the same species as the rest of us, that is...