A Little Advice for Deniers

There's no shame in being ignorant. We are all of us, even the most learned, aware of but a fraction of the entire wealth of human understanding, and that knowledge base is itself a woefully inadequate, vanishingly small, infinitesimal fragment of what the universe has to teach us.

Not knowing every last fact about the climate and how we are changing it for the worse is not a crime, or even an urgent problem per se.

But here's the catch. Here's where you screwball deniers go terribly wrong all the time...

When the vast majority of people who do understand climate change explain the undeniable facts as they stand, and you start running your mouths and keyboards saying and posting all kinds of "contradictory," cherry-picked hogwash, instead of listening to and absorbing the lessons, you go from being forgivably uninformed to obnoxiously idiotic trolls.

That behavior is an urgent problem, because it's not innocent, understandable ignorance, it's premeditated science denial. Rather than opening your mind to what you were being told, you were gearing up for a pathetically inept tirade of illiterate, retaliatory blatherskite.

So the advice, in short, is for you to shut yer flappin' yaps, which race about in constant, mindless overdrive, and pay attention when the adults are talking.

It's that simple. And you're welcome.

There Goes the Last Shred of Judith Curry's Credibility

David Rose is an abject moron, and the Daily Fail is a rag. We all know this, so no surprise that Rose and the Fail are still working the Antarctic sea ice canard like a footballer rolling around on the ground faking an injury. In other words, much ado about nothing.



Refutations of Fail trash and fake science pieces are hardly even necessary anymore, but if you're interested, Nuccitelli provides a thorough takedown.

However, what still shocks me (and I suppose it shouldn't at this point) is that Judith Curry has so little shame she would eagerly encourage and contribute to such rubbish.

First of all, if David Rose calls you for an interview, hang up. Have some self-respect, huh?

Secondly...

[Curry] said it was becoming increasingly apparent that long-term cycles in ocean temperatures were responsible for a significant proportion of the ice decline in the Arctic – a process that may be starting to reverse.

Ummm, no. Just no. Curry expects us to take her seriously after spouting this specious crap for David Rose of the Daily Fail?!

And, lastly...

Prof Curry also revealed that because of the ‘pause’, in which world average temperatures have not risen for more than 16 years, the Arctic ice decline has been ‘touted’ by many as the most important evidence for continued global warming.

Could Curry really have her head shoved that far up her ass? Is this even possible? Or did Rose misquote her? I sure hope for her sake she's been misquoted, because the warming of the Earth over the past 16 years would be what many tout as the most important evidence for continued global warming.

You can hang up on Rose next time, or "wave" bye-bye to your credibility, Judith.

Quick Fixes

An initial disclaimer is in order here, I think. Being that the "Discovery" account is most likely anything but an official, sanctioned, online representative of the National Geographic Channel, and I therefore have no idea how long it will be before a DMCA complaint removes this video or the YouTube channel itself, I will provide a more authorized link to the program here, which, with a registered account, may let you watch it in its entirety.

Disclaimer now fully disclaimed, onto my review of the video...

Quite honestly, I was prepared to cringe the whole time I watched it, but I should have known Nat Geo would do a better, less sensational job with the topic than, say, the Discovery or History Channel. The cameo by Ken Caldiera, someone who truly appreciates and understands the science of climate change, was a welcomed surprise, and the cons of each technological fix were at least mentioned in brief, in contrast to what I anticipated going in. Still, the cons needed more elaboration, because their costs and dangers are greater and more extensive than what was depicted, but in an hour-long show with ads how much detail can one expect? If you need an overview of the mad-scientist-style remedies for global warming being cooked up out there, it's worth a watch.

When Pro-AGW Studies Disagree on Timing and Methodology

Two recent studies are at odds over when human-altered climate will emerge from historic variation, Mora et al, and Hawkins et al.

A few essential diagrams from the studies (apologies for the rough fit within my blog's layout, but further minimization would have resulted in text that's impossible to read)...

Mora et al, Figure 1:


Mora et al, Figure 2:


Hawkins et al, Figure 1:


These images pack a lot of info into a small area, not unlike the studies themselves, so let me briefly summarize.

Maybe I should first explain some abbreviations. RCP45 is one Representative Concentration Pathway, or greenhouse gas prediction, used in the latest IPCC Assessment Report (AR5). Here's an image which might better elaborate.



Both papers use the RCP45 projection in their research.

Hawkins et al lists the specific climate models used in abbreviated form (CSIRO Mk3.6 GCM, HadGEM2-ES, NorESM1-M, etc.) in the upper right of Fig. 1a, whereas Mora et al mentions the general use of CMIP5 models, while only singling out GFDL-ESM2G, as far as I can tell.

The authors of Hawkins et al believe the methodology of Mora et al is flawed, leading to an early man-made signal emergence from natural variability. Seems like a damning accusation, right? Something deniers could howl and rage over, and use as evidence that climate modeling is bogus or useless, or both, one might assume. But it's not the case, really, when you step back and look at the larger picture and how they both agree. Notice that each paper clearly agrees that climate will eventually emerge from background thanks to human emissions, and that it will happen on average soonest in the tropics, but have the greatest temperature anomaly at the poles. In other words, the papers agree to a large degree on several aspects of climate change, and with IPCC AR5 findings.

They merely disagree over timing of the emergence. It's a classic case of scientists arguing amongst themselves in order to expand the limits and specifics of our knowledge, and, while this frontier debate will continue and may have serious implications for policy and adaptation, it has little or no impact on the viability of climate models or the well-established reality of man-made climate change in general. Claiming otherwise is standard denier ignorance and tosh.

Thanks to contributor tokodave over at Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog for bringing these interesting studies to my attention.

Denierworks on the Fourth of Deny

For some among us, patriotism takes on a curious, bile-spewing, vitriolic form.

"Many Democrats and Western Europeans believe rising temperatures are caused by man and a greater menace to Western Civilization than Islamofascism. Rather, Taliban global-warming religionists may indeed be as great a threat to Western prosperity and freedom as resurgent Islamic ideology."

-Eric Grover

"This same practice of Lysenkoism has long been under way in western science in regard to the politically correct theory of man caused, catastrophic, global warming. That theory serves the political fashions of the day in promoting vastly increased government powers and control over the private economy...Those who promote the theory are favored with billions from government grants and neo-Marxist environmentalist largesse, and official recognition and award."

-Peter Ferrara

"Without question, the greatest security threat of an international climate treaty is that it would make the economies of the U.S. and its allies less competitive, depriving them of the capacity to defend themselves and aid other nations."

-James Jay Carafano, Ph.D.

"At stake are hundreds of billions of dollars that will come from your 401(k), show up in your energy bills, and will result in the loss of tens of thousands of American jobs. Al Gore’s profit-making enterprise – the selling of billions of dollars in so-called “carbon credits” – is based on fraudulent science and a politically driven environmental extremist agenda bent on destroying the American economy.

The climate change crisis is the single most dangerous domestic issue facing America."

-Southeastern Legal Foundation

"Help us get the word out that global warming is not a crisis...Obama’s war on affordable energy is one of the biggest threats our nation faces."

-Americans for Prosperity

[Limiting carbon emissions] "is a dagger in the heart of the American middle class, and to representative democracy itself."

-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

Remember, folks, if you care about the future of your fellow citizens and humanity in general, you are a greedy Marxist (figure that one out) and/or a dangerous traitor, and, whatever the case, you threaten the safety of our country!

Ya got that?

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

Steven Goddard is a Conspiracy Theorist Nutcase

Steven Goddard, or whatever his real name is, is the author of a wordpress blog called Real Science.

I'll pause a moment here to allow that blog title to sink in. Its rich irony, if not already evident, will become clear shortly.

As the DeSmogBlog link above points out, Goddard has initially tried to deny and then ultimately succumbed to reality before:

"Dr. Walt Meier at NSIDC has convinced me this week that their ice extent numbers are solid... It is clear that the NSIDC graph is correct, and that 2008 Arctic ice is barely 10% above last year – just as NSIDC had stated."

You would figure Goddard learned his lesson, but he didn't. He just changed targets. Now, rather than accusing the NSIDC of cooking the books, he's trying the same awful horseshit with NASA and NOAA:

"Over the past 15 years, NASA and NOAA have turned a long term US cooling trend into a warming trend. But it is even worse than that, because almost every year they make the past cooler and the present warmer."

Yup, you got it, folks. If at first you don't succeed, deny, deny again. With other agencies, of course, so you can pretend your previous face-palming failures didn't happen.

"Real science" to Goddard is apparently some strange process that would not allow over a decade worth of findings to update the data. In his mind, helpful, well-intended, scientific self-correction like that must be due to – drumroll, please – some conspiracy, maybe like the one above that didn't exist at the NSIDC:

"These alterations are being made by government employees with a strong vested interest in global warming, who should recuse themselves because of their overt conflict of interest. Their boss, the President of the United States, has made it clear that he will not accept any data which does not promote global warming theory. That is pretty strong motivation to generate warming data."

For people like Goddard, tin foil alone doesn't offer enough protection.



He presents no proof of this conspiracy other than the numbers have changed, so therefore there must be something pernicious at work behind the alteration, and he dismisses the reasonable explanation out of hand, because it doesn't fit with his Looney Tunes narrative:

"NOAA does have discussions on obscure web pages describing their thought process behind the alterations, but few people know about this. The alterations are highly subjective, and could just as easily go the other way – making the present cooler due to urban heat island effects."

Updating data and alerting the public you have done so is an "obscure" and "subjective" trick. Oh, brother. In reality, NOAA and NASA are careful to rather explicitly and clearly annotate public release of data sets with update/alteration reminders like the following:

Because these data are primarily intended for the study of climate variability and change, observations have been adjusted to account for the artificial effects introduced into the climate record by factors such as instrument changes, station relocation, observer practice changes and urbanization. Some of the more current data provided by the Climate at a Glance system are preliminary and may be modified after appropriate quality control has been performed. As a result, some values available on this site differ from the official observations.

In fact, the notifications are damn well near bloody fucking exhaustive. You'd just have to be a paranoid dipshit of epic proportions to miss and/or dismiss such obvious and honest attempts at full disclosure.

Maybe tin foil hats, or whatever Goddard wears, trap false-positive conspiracy theory frequencies. Dunno, just trying to think of reasons why he'd be so confused. Just trying to help, ya know?

And it's Goddard's opinion that the obligatory denier "urban heat island effect" canard just just hasn't had its lifeless corpse dragged around enough yet, I guess.

This is the abysmal lack of logic and evidence that all screwball conspiracy theorists offer. The "government" (NASA and NOAA receive daily propaganda and marching instructions from the Obama administration, which is a de facto den of liars, didn't you know?) is hiding things, because, well, because Goddard says so, that's why.

Oh, and this infantile "reasoning" as well:

Progressives say there are no government conspiracies, which explains why Edward Snowden rocked the world with his disclosures.

We're dealing with someone who has the intellectual capacity of your average 7 year-old. And my apologies to 7 year-olds who, unlike Goddard, understand why this batshit insane comment is UTTER BULLSHIT. According to Goddard, because federal agencies like the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon, the White House, etc., which all have obvious and stated obligations to secrecy for the sake of national security (whether or not you agree with those imperatives), can and will lie to us from time to time, this means that research and exploration divisions of the government, like NASA, NOAA, GISS, etc., which have little or no strangling commitments to our nation's defense and security, and quite the opposite have policies of public outreach and disclosure (when budgets allow, of course), will also purposefully seek to deceive us as well. Guilt by lack of significant association, or something

It follows that NASA must be lying to us about the UFOs, too, I suppose.

Steven Goddard is a vile and ridiculous troll, who wouldn't recognize real science if it drove up on a Mars rover, slapped him across the ignorant face with a stack of updated sea and surface temp print-outs, and knocked the wind out of him by jamming a copy of The Feynman Lectures on Physics into his gut.

As Our Island of Knowledge Grows, so Does the Shore of Our Ignorance

The title of this post is a thought-provoking quote by John Archibald Wheeler which can be found behind a paywall in Scientific American, 1992, Vol. 267. It really sums up an inherent characteristic of all science quite nicely. In a vast, possibly infinite universe, the more you learn, the more you discover there is to learn and the more questions you raise. Unless humans achieve omniscience — something I'm sure we can all agree ain't likely to happen anytime soon or ever for that matter since we are, after all, human — there will always be a growing number of things we do not know, thanks in large part to what we keep discovering.

For scientists, it's an exciting reason to get out of bed each morning.

For climate change deniers, it's an opportunity to prove to the world that they're idiots.

"With a system as complex as climate, there is no limit to the number of ad hoc theories which can be generated to support any point of view."

-Steven Goddard (I guess he's hinting at conspiracy idiots dreaming up fantasies of all kinds, including ones about NASA "cooking the books" like...)

"Over the past 15 years, NASA and NOAA have turned a long term US cooling trend into a warming trend. But it is even worse than that, because almost every year they make the past cooler and the present warmer."

-Steven Goddard (tin foil conspiracy hat firmly in place...I mean, they couldn't just be incorporating NEW KNOWLEDGE or anything, folks)

"Now, I’ve got to do this because the global warming agenda is just really despicable in trying to claim the increase in Antarctic sea ice, opposite of what they said several years ago, and now they are trying to deny they said that, is a sign of global warming."

-Joe Bastardi (see the Antarctic sea ice link in last paragraph below for why Bastardi is plain lost)

"Hey, as long they used a sophisticated climate model, and it is reportedly “based on true physics” in the best Hollywood tradition, what’s not to like?"

-Willis Eschenbach (another dope who doesn't get that computer modeling of the climate eagerly embraces new discoveries and improves as a consequence)

"Their excuse for the absence of warming over the past 17 years is that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean. However, this is simply an admission that the models fail to simulate the exchanges of heat between the surface layers and the deeper oceans."

-Richard Lindzen

When viewed properly (you have to be in a really good mood to see it this way, admittedly), this is nothing more than an exercise in self-torture on the part of deniers. As our island of knowledge rises above the seas of ignorance that surround us, if climate change deniers wish to keep pointing to what we haven't explained yet, and ha-ha'ing like five year olds about it, they must remain within sight of those same seas. They must chase after the waters to remain on an ever-expanding shoreline, and pretend the glorious heights behind them are not on the inexorable rise. They have sentenced themselves to an eternal hell of perpetual exodus and limbo. It's an attempt to eke out a petty intellectual existence on the margins, as it were. And most if not all science deniers engage in this very same bewilderingly asinine behavior. Well, only when it comes the particular area of study about which they have rather senselessly chosen to obsess, that is. They all but ignore the "incriminating" expansion of knowledge in other scientific fields, unless they wrongly believe it can be turned on their pet area of research, of course. Creationists perhaps have it a bit easier than other science deniers, because they need only apply the "God of the gaps" reasoning. The more fossils you find as an evolutionary biologist, the more gaps in the record you dish up for the unreachably devout to attribute to God. You can't win with magical thinking like this, no matter the breed of ignorant science denier that is the source, nor the level of difficulty or ease they encounter distorting your findings.

Then again, who am I fooling? Rather than bother with the unending hard work of moving your climate denier camp to new "fertile" ground, you could just stay right where you are, beating a dead horse that was put to rest years ago. Over at wattsupwiththat, scientific explanations that have been around for some years now are considered "excuses." Should we be surprised? I think not. This is the only nonsensical option left to you, if you've given up the equally ridiculous effort of keeping pace with and belittling new scientific discoveries. When denying science, your choices seem to be staying back among the enlightened and sticking your fingers in your ears, or wallowing and basking in the ignorance found at the water's edge. Either way, apparently, the idea is to act like you're achieving something important, instead of conceding that you're missing the point entirely.