Guest post by WUWT moderator Mike Lorrey
One of the nice tools that alexa.com has is that it lets you compare multiple sites against each other. For those with competition of either economic or political nature, this is of high importance to gauge how well one is doing achieving one’s marketshare or mindshare goals, and how badly one’s competition is stumbling in delivering its message or attracting customers.
Today I did a four-way comparison between WUWT, Climate Progress and Real Climate, as well as Climateaudit.org, run by our good friend Steve McIntyre, going back through the entire traffic record that alexa has for these sites.
As you can see, there is a rather dramatic evolution over time.
Prior to the 2008 US Presidential election of Barack Obama, three of the four blogs were pretty well competitive (realclimate.org was always the least popular, indicating the general public got that this was an astroturfing site by climate alarmists who tolerated no dissent). Even though Steve McIntyre tended to be the most technical, he still attracted a competitive following. His television appearances and congressional testimony really helped his exposure even if the layman had difficulty avoiding the glaze-over on some of his blog content. After the election, when it became clear that climate change legislation was a top priority for this president, people clearly started educating themselves about it. Our Surfacestations.org project and the resulting report brought us additional attention in the major media. WUWT started clearly distinguishing itself as providing content that was understandable to the layman, did not talk down to the average bloke (like was typical at CP and RC) and did not regularly attack people based on their political leanings. Commentary from all directions was encouraged, with postings by non-skeptic scientists to provide a balanced view, and which only limited commentary when it came to personal attacks and off-topic thread hijacking (again, unlike CP and RC).
This resulted in our weblog award for 2008 as the number one science blog, beating out alarmist blogs, leading to much tooth gnashing by the warmist press.
Our popularity grew as we reported on the growing controversies over FOIA compliance, IPCC dissenting opinions, the dendro-wars, and the continuing spotlessness of the sun while arctic ice coverage recovered from its 2007 low, meeting our predictions and smashing the hopes of the AGW alarmists.
Then Climategate and the CRUtape Letters hit the blogosphere. The alexa stats clearly demonstrate who won the narrative with the public with a dramatic step change in the popularity of WUWT along with a crash of CP and RC after brief spurts. Similarly, climateaudit.org reached its highest ever rankings since the FOIA requests of Steve and friends were so central to the scandal. WUWT peaked several times into the top 10,000 websites globally.
As of this writing, WUWT is ranked #6 by Alexa in the world for Environmental websites, not just climate blog sites. We are higher ranked than the Environmental Working Group, WWF, National Wildlife Federation, Mother Earth News, The Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy and The Environmental Defense Fund. We rank just behind The Oil Drum, the primary Peak Oil website.
While things have settled down a bit since climategate broke, we are seeing a recent spurt of activity due in part to Anthony’s speaking tour, where he has spoken to packed and enthusiastic crowds. As we add more reference pages on different topics, we expect to see more traffic grow as these references become additional traffic generators in their own right.
We should reach our 50 millionth website hit some time this coming week, a major milestone in the development of this site. Stay tuned for the announcement.
Good work, gentlemen! Kudos on an excellent Web site! The truth is always more popular than spin and falsification in the ultimate analysis. I personally recommend WUWT to all my friends and associates. We should all spread the word.
If you examine the statistics robustly you’ll find that Tamino’s site has been almost unvisited until just recently when it suddenly became the most popular website in history.
I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated. But as I said, that’s me. It’s probably different for a lot of people.
Grats on the rankings and hits.
Be interesting if you could get a comparison of where the readers are located.
Judging by the scale on the left had side, it looks to me like you’ve shown the graph upside down, and WUWT has been losing traffic steadily over the past couple of years, with a particularly steep plunge at the end of 2009. Real Climate is obviously way ahead of everyone.
REPLY: It is traffic rank, not traffic represented as hits. Big difference. Lower number is higher rank. Think “top ten thousand most visited sites”. Also see the table. – Anthony
Congratulations! Keep your good work! =)
Yes, but I’m willing to bet that WUWT’s Alexa ranking was even higher during the Medieval Warm Period.
WOW, a not a single paid advertisement promoting the site!
Congradulations guys!
The sustained level of interest in WUWT compared to the peaky ups and downs of RC show that WUWT is home to a far bigger constituency of regular climateers.
idlex says:
“Real Climate is obviously way ahead of everyone.”
“Obviously”??
Really? The reason I visit WUWT is because they use *gasp* proof, while I visit RC to get a good cry. I cry because somehow the rape of the scientific method is considered good science. When you don’t accept dissenting viewpoints, even when they are on-topic, that is not educating people. So I visit RC to see the sad state of affairs science has become.
Climategate marked the transition between when I could keep up with WUWT and when I couldn’t, especially if I wanted to get anything else done….
I also got the sense the influx of new readers (well, new commentors) were less knowledgable than the previous group. Not a problem, but an opportunity to inform people of all the stuff the MSM misses.
All in all, it’s worked out pretty well.
Remember when we made a fuss over every 1,000,000 page views? I can’t remember when the last fuss over that was made. However, it’s time to get ready for the next big fuss, the counter is at 49,804,082. 200,000 to go! Time to bake a cake. Anyone have a solar cooker I can borrow tonight?
REPLY: are you planning to use searchlights with that solar cooker tonight? – Anthony
I do declare, that WUWT line is suspiciously hockey stick-shaped!
There’s a “Peak Oil” website? Whodathunkit? Oh yeah, people who think that the ‘law’ of supply and demand is a primitive superstition.
This site is classy and competant.
When I observe Realclimate, it starts off toxic. Mann and Schmidt are both gubment workers that cheat their employer’s time to do their emotional/political agenda. Both have been associated with corruption of data and models. This can explain their anger. As humans, when bloggers delete every comment that doesn’t feed their ego or validate their dogma, we see a problem.
I visit real climate very rarely because their posting is closed A dictatorial model is the opposite of open discussion. It is very immature and really is an example of pretend science.
I have visited climate progress and find one poster is domineering the posts: Prokaryotes. Climate progress has a lot of forces that direct people to the site. The parent Center for American progress is loaded with money from convicted felon George Soros and is a tool to shape and socially engineer society.
Climate progress seems bent on punishment being dealt to people that do not submit to the warmist extreme scare agenda and various approaches to energy and the environment.
Well done! And more strength to your elbow. Your site is invaluable to me for insight, for information, and for inspiration.
The false prophets of climate have indeed had a torrid couple of years. Not as awful as they do deserve, but encouraging nevertheless for those of us who have been dismayed by the damage they have done to science, to scientific institutions, to social and economic wellbeing, and to impressionable youngsters in schools and colleges.
idlex says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:15 am (Edit)
Judging by the scale on the left had side, it looks to me like you’ve shown the graph upside down, and WUWT has been losing traffic steadily over the past couple of years, with a particularly steep plunge at the end of 2009.
You are about as good at understanding what the y axis means as Michael Mann is with Tiljander mud series. 😉
The clue is in the word ‘Ranking’
Been reading for years. Glad the Climategate scandal helped boost readership. Maybe Al Gore scandals will also give a bump?
Keep up the nice work!
Ric Werme says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:32 am (Edit)
Anyone have a solar cooker I can borrow tonight?
I always have trouble getting my solar cooker to work at night. Can’t think why…
I’m not sure how one gets “educated” at RC. Talked at, shouted at, vilified, insulted — I’d go for all those but surely if you go there to get “educated” you must already believe everything that Gavin et al say since they don’t allow any other opinions
That’s not “education”, Enonym, that’s “blind faith”.
I’m still waiting for any warmist site to even attempt to “educate” me; at least here I can understand the arguments and I don’t get insulted if I make naive comments — except by the odd passing warmist troll, of course.
Please keep up the good work.
“Judging by the scale on the left had side, it looks to me like you’ve shown the graph upside down, and WUWT has been losing traffic steadily over the past couple of years, with a particularly steep plunge at the end of 2009. Real Climate is obviously way ahead of everyone.”
No, that error has been made several times before. The scale at the left side does not indicate the number of hits, but it gives the rank. The smaller the number, the closer
the traffic is near the top.
No wonder you get confused, you can’t even interpret this simple graph scale correctly.
It is a ranking scale, not a number of visits scale.
We must admire the people at RC; they do not give up even though “Enonym” seems to be their only visitor.
And congratulations to “idlex” for that joke on Mann (“upside down”). Who knows, he might not know the difference between traffic and traffic rank, either.
We should reach our 50 millionth website hit some time this coming week, a major milestone in the development of this site. Stay tuned for the announcement.
See that? I didn’t even read to the bottom of the main post!
Watts Up With That? has only 4 stars at Alexa?
I’ve just written a 5-star review. Thanks for your excellent work Anthony! 🙂
“TJA says: July 27, 2010 at 5:34 am”
“There’s a “Peak Oil” website? Whodathunkit? Oh yeah, people who think that the ‘law’ of supply and demand is a primitive superstition.”
theoildrum.com is an excellent website with loads of contributions from top people all throughout the industry. I think they generally believe that the ‘supply’ is a fixed amount – As we appear to be on the oil ‘peak’ they must have something going for them. Of course there is a large amount of survivalist stuff thrown in there too.
As regards Real Climate I’d be all up for a debate if they would even vaguely have one. It really does portray itself as a group of adolescent bullying school boys. Do they not ever think about what they look like to ‘normal’ people. I think RC is up there with WUWT in people deciding whether they believe in AGW.
Outstanding and very well done on very well deserved webstats. I visit several times everyday. This site combines the winning blog formula of just the right amount of appropriate moderation, freedom of views, freedom of respectable dissent and, most importantly, fantastic, relevant regularly updated content. (the latter being the hardest to source). The content brings me here, and the comments keep me here.
As I launch another blog in a few weeks, (on a different topic completely unrelated to climate change and I am not trying to spam or plug it here.), I would consider myself very fortunate and very successful indeed if I can boast one percent of the scale of your web-traffic within a couple of years, as it is peripheral advertising I hope to capitalise on, through affiliate programs. I am not setting out to make millions, but a bit of extra pocket money every month would come in handy. You have a winning formula and I can only hope to emulate it in my own sphere.
Congratulations Anthony and the team, you fully deserve all the success this blog can bring you.
You provide a wonderful oasis of reason and sense in an increasingly nonsense world. Thank you so much for that.
When you have an excellent website, the traffic will come. Focus on excellence and truth.
Congratulations Anthony.
Would that be educated in the old Soviet sense of the word? Because I cannot find anything on their website which is truly educational.
There is lots of iconography and praise of false gods (computer models), but there is very little REAL science that conforms fully to the scientific method. It resembles a religious site dressed up as a scientific one.
Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
You’re right, laughter is an important element here, in addition to actual science. The idiocy of the Alarmists can be extraordinarily amusing. Thinking you will “get educated” at RC is a good example. It’s certainly a good place for True Believers who have drunk the klimate koolaid and need another dose.
This is a great site – a lot of fun and I am on it several times a day because there’s always new stuff I never would have found out about if I hadn’t been here.
A few years back, when I first started looking into “Global Warming” to find out how it was caused and learn more about the disaster that was looming (yeah, I actually believed it then, for a little while) I visited R.C. for about a month. I made 2 or 3 comments, mostly of the form “But doesn’t this conflict with that?”, just trying to work out how things fit together. The response was either a long laundry list of links to their talking points (that were usually not germane to the question at hand), sometime delivered with a haughty air or condescension; or flat out rebuke if I dared to question the veracity of a point. Eventually any comment I made asking how two things could possibly fit together would just get snipped, no matter how nicely phrased on on topic they were.
So I sat back and watched for about another month and saw just how much a propaganda machine it was and how abusive it was of folks who, like me then, where just asking questions to find out how things really worked. But they just could not stand being asked about the internal inconsistencies of the AGW message and certainly could not accept the comparisons with the real world.
About 1/2 way through that process, someone made some snark about WUWT, so I came over here to look around. That’s when the propaganda ended and the education began. I didn’t know an AMO from an ENSO then 😉
Haven’t been back to RC since. Never really bothered with Climate Progress after the first visit. It was clearly an agenda engine.
Eventually a link lead me to ClimateAudit.org and I’ve sometimes lurked there, occasionally putting up a comment.
But by far WUWT is my favorite site. (Heck, I even like it more than my own 😎 After a while, I found I was making comments that repeated a point from an earlier time. So I started my own site as a place to put the text so that I’d not need to ‘clutter up the place’ with the same text each time. Just a comment pointing to the link. The rest, as they say, is history…
Though I, too, have to point out that post Climategate it’s become impossible to keep up with the threads. Where a topic used to stay in the ‘recent posts’ list long enough for a discussion of depth to develop, not it rolls off the bottom in just a couple of days. One or two comments is about it before it’s rolled on down. If I’m lucky, I can read most of the main articles, then scan 1/2 the comments or less. And often there are now 100 to 200 comments on a thread by the time I see it. So I don’t comment as much as in the past.
So while I’m glad to see the success and volume for Anthony, it’s a little less ‘homey’ than it used to be… but that’s OK. I can always cruise through the archives if I want to revisit ‘the good old days’ 😉
idlex says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:15 am
Enonym: July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator.
No one else seems to have mistaken “quantity” for “quality.”
The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated.
It shows.
Congrats, all those contributing. It has been a great “education” (and that is in the true meaning of the word) for me these last couple of years.
I’ve tried to keep up with CA, and having read The Hockey Stick Illusion, which I can whole-heartedly recommend, I’ll try some more. Steve McIntyre has been a massive influence on the debate and we would be in a sorry mess without him and his kin.
As for Anthony and his kin, we would also be in a sorry mess without him and them. I look forward to the report on the surface station with bated breath….
Keep it up, “Anthony and the Moderators” and all guest posters!
Excellent points above about the disservice that Real Climate provides through their dictatorial and condescending approach. I had e-mailed Gavin and warned him of the potential consequences of this approach well before the climate e-mails were released, but to no avail.
If global warming is as serious as they contend, then RC has performed a great disservice to the scientific community and public opinion. If actions should be taken and they are not, RC will have no one but itself to blame (although they will surely blame others).
RC should have engaged the skeptics and rationally discussed their concerns. Their failure or inability to do so makes one suspect they are driven by emotion and agenda rather than reason and truth.
And you’re doing much of this by word of mouth, a powerful tool used by real people with everyday concerns instead of NGOs dripping with vested interests. Well done!
I just visited Real Climate. Very little science there, lots of belief. It made me think of the following as a good theme song for them, as they stare into the eyes of Gaia. LOL
Thanks to WUWT I realised that I was a complete skeptical scientist, mostly skeptical of my carbon footprint having anything to do with global warming.
I am so proud of that now! However, here in South Africa I do think I am the only one around. Sorry for that. You could help me a bit by visiting my blog and thereby boosting my visit numbers (in which case my blog will move forward and get more attention and possibly attract more local readers).
In South Africa they have just introduced a green tax on cars, the amount of which depends on the amount of CO2 it puts in the air.
So the question that I have been sending to news papers (with the link to my blogs)
Can they do that green tax on cars without providing me with the actual proof that carbon dioxide is a green house gas?
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/the-term-climate-change-is-hiding-the-fact-that-global-warming-has-stalled
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Please check out the blogs – I just need a massive amount of visits – it will help me!
Thanks!
Pirates and Ninjas love watts up with that. Quality free stuff, though we would not mind a decent weather girl from time to time.
No offence but CTM is not hot.
I met ol mate Gavin, he is one spaven girly boy and fugly as they get, Last time I made port New Amsterdam. He does for weather what typhoid does for tourism.
Gratz.
“Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated. But as I said, that’s me. It’s probably different for a lot of people.”
Yes Enonym, I get a good laugh here at WUWT every time I read a comment like yours!
As far as getting educated over at RC, now that is funny!
Even more telling is the stability of WUWT’s Alexa ranking, usually fluctuating between 15,000 and 20,000. Meanwhile, sites like Climate Progress swing wildly all over the place, sometimes their ranking even dropping below 100,000.
Staying on message, open to real discussion, admitting to mistakes, and being civil seems to pay its own dividend. And having a real sense of humor helps.
idlex says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:15 am
“Judging by the scale on the left had side, it looks to me like you’ve shown the graph upside down, and WUWT has been losing traffic steadily over the past couple of years, with a particularly steep plunge at the end of 2009. Real Climate is obviously way ahead of everyone.”
Aah ha! I see you are using the Mannian technique of reading graphs when you turn things upside down to get the answer you want.
I can only speak for myself , but I see this site as more of the USA Today of climate blogs. It’s a good place to get a quick overview as to the latest climate news/controversy that’s out there and for that reason I stop by to check the latest headlines quite often.
If I want to actually get deep into the science of climate change I’ll check other sites that are out there (Climate Audit, Real Climate, etc) but I usually only have the time to get involved in technical discussion in the evenings or on weekends when I don’t have other obligations.
How often does WUWT link to peer reviewed journal articles as compared to RC?
The answer to that question will tell you which site does the better job of educating its visitors.
Imapopulistnow says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:28 am
(…)
…makes one suspect they are driven by emotion and agenda rather than reason and truth.
——Reply: There is absolutley no doubt about it. I’ve visited their site and have been angered and disappointed by their approach every time. I’ve even left a couple of lengthy, scathing rebukes knowing that, while they undoubtedly would not get posted, one of the anti-scientists that moderate the site would have to read them. They will never regain respectability and I avoid them like the plague.
Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
“I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated. But as I said, that’s me. It’s probably different for a lot of people”.
You’re clearly desperate.
I notice a considerable step change in the WUWT Traffic Rank Trend from late 2009. Could that be caused by co2 warming, do you think, or something else?
Congrats Anthony and Team.
My gooood! A real tippingpoint!!
The trend is “unprecented” Im sure REALCLIMATE is hedding towards extintion before 2012. WWF will soon advertise that you can become a “climate scientist nanny”
for ten bucks to halt the extintion.
Congratulations Anthony, contributors and moderators! The sheer volume of information that passes through here is amazing, and I agree with others, it has become overwhelming trying to keep up and have a life too.
BoB – only “peer reviewed” blogs count? HAHAHAHAHAHA
And Oil Drum truly is a very good site, for those who haven’t visited. I don’t agree with everything, but what I like best is that they do a very good job of focusing on the issues that people in the oil business are worried about. They are very oil specific, which is why most readers are probably in the industry. But that makes the commentary very useful, since much of it is from professionals.
One last comment:
idlex wrote: “Judging by the scale on the left had side, it looks to me like you’ve shown the graph upside down, and WUWT has been losing traffic steadily over the past couple of years, with a particularly steep plunge at the end of 2009. ”
Well, dontcha know that negative correlation is just as significant as positive correlation? In fact I’ve been told there’s no difference at all!!!
Natural result of hard and honest work.
Congratulations. Keep going, Anthony et al.
tallbloke sez: “The clue is in the word ‘Ranking’”
Ah!!!!
[reply:] Ker-ching! the penny drops. 😉 RT-mod
tallbloke says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:39 am
Ric Werme says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:32 am (Edit)
Anyone have a solar cooker I can borrow tonight?
I always have trouble getting my solar cooker to work at night. Can’t think why…
Well, ya see? Yer not use’n enough CO2.
If you inject some CO2 into it, why the latent heat of the cake will be amplified by the CO2, and the cake will bake in no time flat!
Good job, people….
Henry chance says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:34 am
‘This site is classy and competant.’
Unlike your spelling!
[/pedant off]
Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
“I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated. But as I said, that’s me. It’s probably different for a lot of people”.
There is therapy for this you know?
As someone pointed out Real Climate does quote peer reviewed research more frequently, but only to support political rather than scientific arguments.
Entertaining, informative, civil, inviting and engaging just for a start are qualities that put WUWT on my very short daily must visit list. I am greatly impressed by the superb content and the thoughtful and pertinent commentary it generates.
Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated.
My visit frequency is similar, though my motivation is the inverse of yours.
When I sometimes think about the fundamental basis of a free society, it is not surprising that (recently) WUWT pleasantly comes to mind.
Everyone must read Real Climate to learn about the two main concepts of science, consensus and peer review. So far, I have read:
Consensus, Rolling Consensus, Evolving Consensus, Cumulative Consensus, I Am Consensus, We Are Consensus, No Consensus Without Hierarchical Authority, Consensus As The Ultimate End, Consensus Is For Lovers, and many others.
Peer Review, Capturing Peer Review In A Scientific Field, I Am Peer Review, We Are Peer Review, Spotting Dissent Among Peer Reviewers, Excommunicating Faithless Peer Reviewers, Selling Peer Review, Programmed Instruction For Peer Reviewers, Retraining For Critical Peer Reviewers, and many others.
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:47 am
“How often does WUWT link to peer reviewed journal articles as compared to RC?
The answer to that question will tell you which site does the better job of educating its visitors.”
I’m going to have to assume you missed the e-mails from the CRU leak (CRUtape Letters) that discussed peer review, eh?
Well done, Anthony, Charles the Moderator, others. I came here to get questions answered, often by people who work in the fields in question… whether climate, weather, solar or sometimes space science. And I’ve commented on the less heavily technical aspects of the issues. At Real Climate I was told rudely not to ask inconvenient questions and never went back. Please keep up the good work.
Congratulations, Anthony, in advance of the 50 millionth web site hit. I hope everyone else who is appreciative of this search for truth; committment to investigative journalism; and open scientific debate with clear data, methods, and analysis subscribes. We subscribers will change the reality of “mass media”. ClimateAudit is a must subscribe, too. No JournoList-like hacks and propagandists for those interested in climate science. May they — and their academic fellow-travelers — deconstruct in the dustbin of history.
Enonym, it you like a web site that gives pretty much one side of the story, then RC is the place for you. Having personal experience, they filter and censor the opposition view points. If that’s the education you want, go for it, but as a retired R&D Director, I wouldn’t hire you with that education.
Congratulations to WUWT for their work.
P.S. I REALLY ENJOY those tutorial items you put in and the subsequent references. Having spent more then 40 yrs. in design, and math modeling of thermal systems, it’s fun to cross check you points. Having “crossed swords” with Tamino on his 300+ year East England analysis, his only response was “it’s botched”, but couldn’t seem to figure out why.
In a word,
1. Is it true that many US surfacestations are gathering temp data on rooftops, next to brick walls, in parking lots, and next to a/c units?
2. Why is the most drastic warming (9deg F!) happening in the Arctic and Antarctic, where no one lives and where Greenland doesn’t even have a temp station?
3. Why are climate scientists sending emails to eachother rigging the peer review process and giving scientists the runaround when they request raw data?
Congratulations on the construction and success of a “new parallel universe,” where these questions are so expertly framed and addressed. You just have to go to the eleventh demension, take a right at the wormhole, and gravity lense yourself over to WUWT to find out! Because it is, after all, a “new parallel universe.”*
*According to a former president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and a former author and expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
—
At 6:47 AM on 27 July 2010, bob had written:
If nothing else was demonstrated in the Climategate revelations, significant among the e-mail abstracts was correspondence on the part of the “Cargo Cult Science” warmist cabal regarding their largely successful efforts to use editorial influence (sometimes bordering on extortion) and the co-option of peer review in the preponderance of the scientific periodicals to actively and with malice aforethought suppress the publication of properly skeptical scientific examination of the anthropogenic global warming fraud.
It is with a sense of contempt and mockery that we look upon the continuing effort on the part of the botched and gullible “global warming” True Believers to insist that the pervasively perverted peer review process – deliberately corrupted by the CRU correspondents and their sputniki – can any longer be afforded any credibility as a standard of validity when it comes to the AGW fraud.
Let it be understood that in the sciences as elsewhere, those who advance any proposition – in the sciences in particular – are obliged “to place before mankind the common sense of the matter in terms so plain and simple as to command their assent.”
To rely upon a demonstrably corruptible and highly fallible curia of so-called “experts” who have long operated under the profound influence of secondary gain (in the form of lucrative government grants steered their way by grasping and manipulative politicians and bureaucrats) is no longer acceptable, and will not be received except as a manifest of a deponent’s intention to deceive.
And therefore, bob, to hell with you.
—
I think idex was joking.
Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
while I visit RC a few times each month
=====================================
I wondered who that was
“Ric Werme says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:32 am (Edit)
Anyone have a solar cooker I can borrow tonight?
I always have trouble getting my solar cooker to work at night. Can’t think why…”
Ric–
You should do as the Germans do with their heavily subsidized solar panels– Train some floodlights on them at night.
I typically only go to ideologically closed-minded sites like RC when following a reference/link to them from more open idea sites like here.
John
WUWT is deservedly popular because of the quality and insightfulness of its posts, the interesting and even entertaining commentary by readers (especially the scientists and engineers), and the classy but personal way Anthony runs the site.
It helps to be on the correct side of the debate, too, as more and more are coming to realize.
Unhappily, the establishment media, from the NYT to the National Geographic, continue to beat the ‘global warming’ drum as if mankind’s culpability were a foregone conclusion and contrary views by real scientists did not exist. What’s it going to take to get this robotic chorus to sing a different tune?
/Mr Lynn
evanmjones says:
July 27, 2010 at 8:26 am
> I think idlex was joking.
So did I, but apparently not. I even thought it was a pretty good joke. Now it’s just a rank joke. 🙂
Tooth gnashing? You can’t gnash with only a tooth. You need teeth.
BTW, you know how everyone knows the toothbrush was invented in Arkansas?
Answer: If it had been invented anywhere else, we would call it a teethbrush.
The preacher was working up the Saturday Night crowd with an end of the world sermon.
“And there will be a great gnashing of the teeth…”
From the back,
“What if I ain’t got any teeth?”
He answers without missing a beat:
“Teeth will be provided.”
Perhaps some teeth should be sent over to the AGW crowd?
This is the best blog on the Intertubes, IMO. 🙂
Yeah, Evan, both times. Pretty good, too.
==========
Keep up the good work, and thanks!
I refuse to visit Real Climate anymore. Too much censorship of posts, not to mention editing of posts. The latter in particular is highly unethical in my view. So no blog hits from me anymore, never, ever again.
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:47 am
How often does WUWT link to peer reviewed journal articles as compared to RC?
The answer to that question will tell you which site does the better job of educating its visitors.
Like most Alarmist trolls, you are hung up on “peer reviewed”. It’s an easy cop-out, and just another way you people try to use Argument from Authority and Argument by Consensus, instead of actually examining the science. This shows in your and Enonym’s concept of going to RC to be educated. People come here to educate themselves. Learning has to be an active process, not a passive one. Otherwise, it is useless.
899 said at 7:34 am to:
tallbloke at 5:39 am
Anyone have a solar cooker I can borrow tonight?
Ric Werme at 5:32 am (Edit)
I always have trouble getting my solar cooker to work at night. Can’t think why…
Well, ya see? Yer not use’n enough CO2.
If you inject some CO2 into it, why the latent heat of the cake will be amplified by the CO2, and the cake will bake in no time flat!
No, no. More CO2 can ONLY be solution to a “climate” problem. This is clearly a weather problem and what is needed is more moisture (humidity) to hold the latent heat energy for a faster cooking time. Of course you’ll also need to add more baking powder, we don’t want the cake to come out of the cooker flat.
Oh, and the difference between WUWT and other weather/climate sites, is the same as the difference between a school and church or the difference between education and confirmation. And if you like being preached to, your probably not reading this….
Onward and upward, all.
It seems to me that the “conversion” from believer to sceptic occurs far more than the alternative. It would be very interesting to quantify the converts of each type and how many, if any, return to believing after having “seen the light”.
I imagine that these ratings go some way to confirming my views.
Perhaps some aspiring newspaper will commission a survey one day.
Well done WUWT!
I just hit the donate button and made a donation.
I value this site very highly as THE best source of objective information and analysis on climate and weather. I’ve been a regular visitor since ‘Climategate’ broke out and have greatly enjoyed the learning experience provided here. I think it’s important to know what’s happening to our planet and just as importantly, what is not happening.
Many thanks for your relentless commitment and objectivity.
Jack Simmons says:
July 27, 2010 at 8:42 am
You’re why ‘Enonym’ comes here.
Enonym:
“I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated. But as I said, that’s me. It’s probably different for a lot of people.”
One of the great things about this site is that you are allowed the freedom to speak your mind, even if the only things that come out of it are puerile cheap shots.
Congratulation to
Anthony and CREW. You have done an excellent job both here and at surface station.
I read this blog every day without fail.
When I first started reading several years ago to learn about AGW I recall Anthony wondering whether he should continue just as I was getting into it.
I am so glad you did continue – and now look – what a great achievement. I do hope you find all the hard work well worth it.
I cannot think of a better site.
I remember a time went Anthony was about to scrap this site. It was becoming too much with his family, his day job and surface station study.
So again, thank all of you.
REPLY: It’s still too much, but I have to see through. – Anthony
Thanks for clearing up that ranking scale thing. I thought I was upside down. Anyway, I went to that site “The oil drum”. Man, is that were all the communist go before they die? Some of there comments were so depressing and fatalistic. They were all agreeing with each other on how technology has brought us nothing but dependency and enslavement. A couple of people said that the internet was destroying the world. No doubt they thought the internet was a good idea until they read something on it that they didn’t agree with. Now its a bad thing. But they still use it along with all the other modern technologies. It’s a little hypocritical….
’tis because of the quality of the information and the civility of the discussion, I’d say. We’re a smart, well informed bunch over here at Watt’s Up…. 🙂
They were all agreeing with each other on how technology has brought us nothing but dependency and enslavement.
Maybe they should read Matt Ridley’s new book.
H. R. says
“I’m going to have to assume you missed the e-mails from the CRU leak (CRUtape Letters) that discussed peer review, eh?”
I don’t read the mail of others without their permission, thank you very much.
And to Rich Matarese:
The conspiracy forum is thisaway: http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=91
And for Bruce Cobb:
“instead of actually examining the science.”
That’s why I go there and elsewhere, to examine the science, which I can’t do very well here, well because there is very little.
But thanks for your comments
😉
Peakbear,
Boy, I am sure that in about ten years, you are going to be filthy rich based on your comprehensive knowledge of the extent of the Earth’s reserves, the future of political forces, and, most importantly, your keen insight into the direction of future technologies and the results of future basic scientific research!
Seriously, while there probably is a limit to the number of calories we can possibly get out of the supply of hydrocarbons on this planet, the idea that you, or anybody alive today has the faintest clue as to what that is is completely laughable.
Anthony and your helpers,
The qualities that make WUWT the best among sites on climate and environment also make it just about the best site on the internet. It is open, inviting, entertaining, cordial, collegial, highly informative, totally up to date, and has some of the best discussions on the internet. It is a site for sceptics but it holds sceptics within the bounds of science. It has great features such as the Sea Ice Page and other Sea Ice Features. At first I was bored by sea ice, but now I can’t wait to open the new reports. They are Way Cool! It has seen great contributions from folks such as Goddard and Eschenbach and others. I could go on and on. In sum, WUWT is an incredible, ongoing work, Mr. Watts. I thank you for your sacrifices and the great gifts of your knowledge, talent, and good humor.
Imapopulistnow says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:28 am
If global warming is as serious as they contend, then RC has performed a great disservice to the scientific community and public opinion. If actions should be taken and they are not, RC will have no one but itself to blame (although they will surely blame others).
RC should have engaged the skeptics and rationally discussed their concerns. Their failure or inability to do so makes one suspect they are driven by emotion and agenda rather than reason and truth.
I agree. If during research I came to the conclusion that (a) the world was going to end, (b) man’s activities were the cause, and (c) we could do something about it, the first thing I would do is present my “findings?”, all of them, to be scientific community and PLEAD with them to either confirm what I had concluded or to show me where I was wrong. I’d like to believe most scientists would behave in a similar manner. The last, and I mean last, thing I would do is share my data only with people who agreed with me. The next to last thing I would do is curtail potential criticism by riduculing differing opinions, both scientific and layman–scientific because I may be wrong (hopefully in this case) and my fears can be put to rest, layman because if I’m right, the general populace at some point will have to be convinced. In my opinion, the overwhelming response of the AGW alarmists is just the opposite: (a) they don’t share their data with “non-believers” and (b) they censor or verbally abuse anyone with a differing opinion.
On a sad note, Enonym has disproved a theorem of mine: Global Warming Alarmists Have No Sense Of Humor. Apparently he can laugh.
Anthony, Moderators, Guest Posters, and Commenters (even those who believe in AGW)–keep up the excellent work.
I am sure if the graph instead showed step change increases in temperature (much like Dr Spencer’s monthly graph) –you sceptics would cherry pick it to pieces and say it shows a downward trend since the last step change.
keep up the good work though, I enjoy coming for a read and a good laugh.
MJK
REPLY: It’s still too much, but I have to see through. – Anthony
————-
Anthony, how can we help reduce your workload?
John
How ’bout that! Hansen has a book out and the real scientists over at RC show that Hansen’s predictions back in ’88 are exactly on track…..Amazing!
I suppose I should leave a link for those eager to find out all about it…
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
Congratulations, by far the most honest and open blog on this subject.
More power to your collective elbows.
Someone upthread said that I should have used a winking smiley to let people know that my post was a joke. But I don’t agree. I think that people have to be left with an edge of uncertainty, an is-it-or-isn’t-itness. To put a winking smiley at the end of the post would have been like writing the summary of a detective story, and then adding onto the end: (P.S. The butler did it) It takes all the fun and mystery out of it.
I thoroughly disapprove of the use of smileys. Shakespeare didn’t use them. And nor should anyone else. 😉
[REPLY – #B^U ~ Evan]
I hope to see you more often on WUWT educating us about positive feedback and ignoring everything else if you like. Should we enter a cooling period I want to see you back here explaining how this occured and please don’t ever tell me it’s “cooling on the way to a warming world.” That would make me laugh.
If you want a really good laugh go to http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
It has been over 2 years now that I have been visiting WUWT.
At the time, I was just looking for relevant sites that might have had information regarding the history and/or myths of astrophysics. I could have cared less about A.G.W.( what some would call climate change.)
One of the things about this site that intrigued me, was the type of articles and those that responded to them. Having visited numerous websites with way too much conspiratorial influences, I was a bit skeptical at first of this one. But I used that skepticism to my advantage as soon as I realized that this site was frequented by noted scholars and scientists that either wrote posts here or commented on the posts by others.
It was refreshing.
WUWT became a stepping stone to re-evaluating my views about global warming and my knowledge of it. Though I still delve into researching astrophysics, I spend a great deal more time researching the science and politics of climate change.
Through just being skeptical by nature, I decided to use the information from this site and research and compare information from other blog sites and any scientific journals that I could read either on-line or at the library.
As a result of this research, I have since relocated to Alaska and work in the environment sector and started my own blog site.
I am given the opportunity to discuss my views with colleagues, co-workers and clients regarding climatology and the many facets of it.
Having a fairly firm grasp on the many topics and ideas that can spring from discussing A.G.W. , it has been a great advantage for me to help others think for themselves regarding this subject.
And WUWT is in large part responsible for my knowledge and understanding of climatology.
I suppose this my long-winded way of saying thanks to Anthony and the WUWT community.
Keep up the excellent work !
Good Day !
idlex says:
July 27, 2010 at 10:31 am
“I thoroughly disapprove of the use of smileys. Shakespeare didn’t use them. And nor should anyone else. ;-)”
I bet he would have had they’d been invented.
I am one of the new visitors since Climategate. This site has WAY too many facts. Every article sources where they got their data. They display graphs, often updated as they become available. News about what’s going on elsewhere in the news and blogosphere. It’s no wonder the warmists hate WUWT. Too much factual information.
Oh, and I used to be a 100% believer of man made global warming before Climategate. As a programmer, when I saw the HARRY_README file, that blew me away. There was no turning back after that. That’s what warmists don’t get. It’s not a PR war once people see the problems with their own eyes.
I’m still interested in what effect humans have on their environment. The degree of which has been overblown. However, I’m still interested in seeing for myself what is going on. While I can’t understand some of the more detailed topics, pretty much anyone will know that garbage in means garbage out regardless of the computer model that the warmists trot out. So even novices will find a great deal of use from WUWT and the topics therein to get a better sense of what is really going on.
Congrats on your site!
Congrats!
I used to read RC years ago after midnight on weekends. It was the best time to witness interesting questions getting some hang time before being nixed without being answered. I believe even Pielke Sr has been nixed a few times way back which has, since gaining a large readership for his own blog and media notoriety for himself, been switched to merely editing. RC, the schoolyard of climate blogs.
Nice trend analysis, Mike.
Funny thing is I’d never heard of any of the sites ranking higher than Anthony’s, except TheOilDrum.
Congratulations.
I also remember when you broke the million milestone. By the way, did you lose your Reverendship when the green monkey man disappeared?
OK S.
Ambiguous grammar.
I’d never heard of any of the sites that were listed above Anthony’s. Except TheOilDrum.
Just finished reading an article on Real Climate about how this winter was supposedly the warmest ever (according to GISS) – no mention of the impact of the big El Nino, but you would expect that from Real Climate as it is just another one of those inconvenient facts.
This was all part of an article preparing the faithful for September’s non-event in the Arctic’s ice extent.
Keep up the good work, Anthony.
“…(realclimate.org was always the least popular, indicating the general public got that this was an astroturfing site by climate alarmists who tolerated no dissent).”
That’s one interpretation. Another is that the style, presentation and content of the two blogs are quite different. WUWT is a bright and breezy, magazine-style blog offering a variety of popular topics in an easily digestible form, whereas Real Climate tends to be more technical than topical. The two blogs are apples and oranges, and therefore not readily comparable.
As for snark and abuse, these are a feature of many blogs, including WUWT. I think it also pays to keep in mind that one’s “snarkometer” often depends on whether you’re on the giving or receiving end.
Brewster writes:
“How ’bout that! Hansen has a book out and the real scientists over at RC show that Hansen’s predictions back in ’88 are exactly on track…..Amazing!”
Yeah, but notice what they mean by prediction is introducing ad hoc hypotheses so that they can better fit their points to the graph. In the vernacular, this is known as Texas Target Shooting. An ad hoc hypothesis is something that is added to prevent falsification of a more important hypothesis. Some Climategaters have seen the importance of solar influences and have added a solar hypothesis to their existing hypotheses and have begun claiming that their hypotheses enable drawing a simple, smooth, closely fitted line through the points. Honest scientists would have said that their original hypotheses were false, before going back to the drawing board and introducing hypotheses about solar influences. But when it comes to scientific method, Climategaters are children, children, children.
In reply to Enonym, James Evans says: July 27, 2010 at 9:21 am
Enonym:
“I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated. But as I said, that’s me. It’s probably different for a lot of people.”
One of the great things about this site is that you are allowed the freedom to speak your mind, even if the only things that come out of it are puerile cheap shots.
I have to agree with Enonym about quality vs quantity – puerile cheap shots aren’t a great reason to visit a website. WUWT may be useful for identifying scientific topics that are worth further investigation, but too often the science here can’t be trusted. The occasional “nuggets of gold” are buried a mess of pseudoscience and sloppy work. (For example, see the lack of units on the vertical scale on the graph on the top of this post which prevents any reader from unambiguously understanding what the data show – as opposed to what the author says the data shows!) One doesn’t get educated at RC either, all of the science at RC is slanted in one direction and generally has been over-publicized. Opposing points of view, sensible questions or real debate there is hopeless.
REPLY:
(For example, see the lack of units on the vertical scale on the graph on the top of this post which prevents any reader from unambiguously understanding what the data show – as opposed to what the author says the data shows!)
Might want to check this website before you accuse me or Mr. Lorrey of making bad graphs. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com
Be sure to click on “Traffic Rank” and set the pulldown menu for Max. Add other site URL’s as needed.
– Anthony
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 9:58 am
That’s why I go there and elsewhere, to examine the science, which I can’t do very well here, well because there is very little.
Surely, by “examine the science” you must mean “get educated”. That’s the trouble with Alarmists; they can’t (or won’t) think for themselves, and that is sad.
When I found this site it was like coming home.
So much info, so little time 🙂
Just tryin’ to add to what I know and WUWT does it for me every day.
Well done Anthony, good stuff indeed.
Look at that hockey stick! Was the alexa graph spliced with proxy and instrumental data????
Frank – The units are on the left hand side of the graph, AND if you had taken even 30 seconds to familiarize yourself with Alexa rankings (Anthony has already had at least one lengthy post in the past on just this topic) you would know that SINCE it is a ranking system, “lower” numbers equate to a higher ranking.
And as I said, you could have found this out in less than 30 seconds – I just confirmed that in a quick google search in which I was able to find a full page explanation in approx. 20 seconds.
So just who’s making the “puerile cheap shots” here?
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:47 am
How often does WUWT link to peer reviewed journal articles as compared to RC?
The answer to that question will tell you which site does the better job of educating its visitors.
Was that Pre or Post ‘The Teams’ redefinition of Peer Review
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 9:58 am
H. R. says
“I’m going to have to assume you missed the e-mails from the CRU leak (CRUtape Letters) that discussed peer review, eh?”
I don’t read the mail of others without their permission, thank you very much.
But you do have their permission, they were released by an insider 😉
TJA says: July 27, 2010 at 10:08 am
I didn’t mention anything about alternative energy sources or the future or the consequences of it , just mentioned that we’re on the oil peak now as history and observations show. I still think Hubbert’s 1965 paper is a classic and quite relevant when presented in the face of quite hostile opposition. The US peaking in 1970 as he predicted echoes nicely with the current temperature peak it looks like we might be on now.
The thing with both of these is you don’t know until you’re looking back on the way down which we should find out with temperature in the next few years. I’m looking forward to ARGO data coming as everyone can quibble about historic thermometer readings and what they mean, but ARGO is currently actually measuring where the vast amount of the Earths energy is stored.
Enonym says: July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
Enonym – You must be talking tongue in cheek. No one could be so misguided or so confused – then again I have read of people so confused in that they were found driving the wrong way down a motorway – perhaps you belong to that category?
Doug
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:47 am
How often does WUWT link to peer reviewed journal articles as compared to RC?
====
Oh, no … yet another twist on that tired old Pachauri-peer-review crucifix before vampires mantra!
Looks like Bob hasn’t been paying attention to the very few nuggets of wisdom that can be found in the creative writing exercise otherwise known as “The Independent Climate Change E-mail Review” (aka the Muir Russell report). In “Appendix 5: Peer Review”, authored by the editor of The Lancet, on page 132, one finds:
“Unfortunately, there is evidence of a lack of evidence for peer review‘s efficacy”.
I find it extraordinary that these “climate scientists” have recently started whining about the need to communicate better with the media and the public, yet they appear to have learned nothing from the last six months. I rarely visit RC, because whenever I do, I feel as though the purpose of the site is to insult the intelligence of any reader with an ounce of common sense.
Recently, when presented with opportunities to communicate better with the media and the public, Michael Mann was remarkably reticent:
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/the-surprisingly-reticent-michael-mann/
But I digress …
Congratulations, Anthony, Guest Contributors and Mods on the imminent milestone … and thanks so much for all that you’ve done to shed light on the message of the doomsayers 🙂
That’s why I go there and elsewhere, to examine the science, which I can’t do very well here, well because there is very little.
But thanks for your comments
By bob on July 27, 2010 at 9:58 am
….I go to RC to see one sided arrogance of a breath taking nature. Thank you for saving ne the visit today.
@Bob
Blind Faith were short lived, (but good) rock band who soon went their separate ways.
But its good to know that you are leading a revival and that the first gig will be ‘peer review’
If you have never read the Climategate e-mails then I must ask you what you think the peer review ‘process actually does in practice, and what it actually achieves. I think that an examination of the facts will show you that your faith is badly misplaced.
Or if your scruples about secrecy are so important to you, let me just remind you of Prof. Jones public comment to the British House of Parliament. When asked how often peer reviewers had asked to see the methods and data in his long oeuvre of published papers, he replied..’they have never asked’
Peer review does not do what you (and I initially) thought it did. It does not give any form of guarantee that even the basic methods used are correct and have been done competently. And none whatsoever that the conclusions are valid.
And there is strong circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that the process within the small world of ‘climate science’ has fallen victim to groupthink.
(For example, see the lack of units on the vertical scale on the graph on the top of this post which prevents any reader from unambiguously understanding what the data show – as opposed to what the author says the data shows!)
An astute reader would notice that the graph is a screen capture from a third party tool. Maybe frank should email the makers of the tool.
Congratulations, Anthony. Well deserved.
Billy Liar says:
July 27, 2010 at 7:43 am
Unlike your spelling!
[/pedant off]
Carefully Billy, I think you have a double negative in your html.
[/pedant]
Been a fan of this site for some years and not been snipped yet.
It is the best and I do frequent other sites but this is the one, regards to the mods too.
Well done Mr. Watts and thank you for a little sanity in a mad world.
WUWT and CA became my favourite Internet stopoff points in 2008. And have never changed thusly. It’s such a joy to see excellence, integrity, and love of truth being their own rewards. No accident that coaching is about pursuing excellence – and realizing that real success comes from inner integrity.
But I do have a request.
Some day, our efforts here will bear fruit. Climate Science will reform. People will appreciate the importance of saying “sorry, I was wrong”. Michael Mann will be asked to admit his mistakes or leave. Politicians will come to understand the danger to democracy of runaway hysteria in science. Scientists will understand that a creative and productive Science absolutely needs disagreement and debate. Newspapers’ histrionic powers re science reporting will be curbed by legislation.
The whole thing proceeds by following integrity all the time.
We understand here the importance of good evidence clearly explained, of openness to all POV, courtesy, no ad homs, no appeals to authority, etc.
Well, almost. We understand the importance of this in Climate Science. But there are other areas where I see those negatives still running unchecked here. I’ve just checked The Oil Drum. It only has warmist blogs in its blogroll, which doesn’t bode well. But I’m not convinced that Peak Oil is utterly mistaken. Blown up it may well be. It may well rest on a lot of bad science and political shenanigans. But I’m not convinced it’s all mistaken. I’d like to get engaged in informed debate between all POV. And I’ve seen enough different POV in comments here to believe that this might be possible.
I’ve seen far less balance with regard to other “fringe” topics mentioned here in passing. Take homeopathy. I’ve researched the subject and I know there is a lot of good evidence – and when it concerns people healing when they have failed for a considerable time to get healing any other way, I think this is important too. Of course there will be bad practitioners and quacks too. But that doesn’t justify tarring the good ones with the same brush. In homeopathy, and in many so-called “pseudosciences”, is a field totally parallel to Climate Science – a huge amount of good evidence to support it – but the establishment like Ben Goldacre sneers at it with half-truths just like Monbiot and Schmidt do to climate skeptics.
Enonym says:
“As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated.”
Now THAT’s funny!
I admire what your site has done for the debate on observed Climate Variation and the constant scare stories which have been lapped up by the uncritical mass media. I visit WUWT as regularly as I can (I am always very busy and short of time) because the content is always informative, interesting and polite. I rank you as the top blog for the science alongside EUreferendum which is good on the politics of AGW.
frank says:
July 27, 2010 at 11:46 am
“[…](For example, see the lack of units on the vertical scale on the graph on the top of this post which prevents any reader from unambiguously understanding what the data show – as opposed to what the author says the data shows!)[…]”
The numbers on the vertical axis have the unit 1. So 5000 means 5000 * 1, equalling 5000. We call these numbers cardinal numbers. They are frequently used in a field of science called mathematics. Cardinal numbers are especially helpful when enumerating and sorting things.
A good example are pop charts. When somebody makes #1, what unit has the “1” in this case? Metric tonnes of records? No; it just means “more metric tonnes of records than #2 has sold”.
On November 17, 2006 the very first entry on WUWT was posted by Anthony. In the first post he asks if anyone has any “gee-whiz” questions they’d like to ask. Go and read it!
He’s got his answer!
I propose that on November 17th this year, WUWT’s fourth birthday, we ALL raise a glass of a suitable beverage, at a time that suits you in whichever time-zone you might reside, and wish this splendid site and the very, very hard-working people who give of their time to keep this place so hospitable and informative our heartiest congratulations and best wishes.
Then each and every WUWTer should go and hit the tip-jar for ten or so as a birthday present.
I also recommend to Anthony and the mods that on November 17th this year a dedicated page is put up for WUWTers to post their messages of felicitations and congratulations.
How many hits would that page get? A hundred? A thousand? More?
Any support for this proposal?
Jimmy Haigh says:
July 27, 2010 at 11:06 am
“idlex says:
July 27, 2010 at 10:31 am
“I thoroughly disapprove of the use of smileys. Shakespeare didn’t use them. And nor should anyone else. ;-)”
I bet he would have had they’d been invented.”
And he would have used 7334 speak mixed with C syntax: 2B||!2B. Notice that we can’t do a bitwise or here.
Enonym says: July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated. But as I said, that’s me. It’s probably different for a lot of people.
Being a regular at RC, it seems hypocritical of you to react in that fashion. The quoted readership above indicates that a significantly greater number of intelligent people vist[sic] this blog relative to RC, which coincidentally, defines a consensus. I thought that was all that mattered to your team.
But glad you could add some humor.
Phil M2. says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Oops! Gave away my total lack of experience writing html.
One can but learn; thanks.
Hey solar cooker guys,
doesn’t your solar cooker work with IR?? The backradiation should do it doncha know!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Any support for this proposal?
Yes.
peakbear says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:54 am
“TJA says: July 27, 2010 at 5:34 am”
“There’s a “Peak Oil” website? Whodathunkit? Oh yeah, people who think that the ‘law’ of supply and demand is a primitive superstition.”
theoildrum.com is an excellent website with loads of contributions from top people all throughout the industry….
As regards Real Climate I’d be all up for a debate if they would even vaguely have one. It really does portray itself as a group of adolescent bullying school boys…
___________________________________________________________
A very good review of both sites. The Oildrum had some very good coverage of the oil spill before anyone else did. It is worth a visit now and again, unlike Real Climate. “A group of adolescent bullying school boys”… AND these are the people who want to dictate how we run our lies AURGHhhh!
Congratulations Anthony, I have learned a lot here.
I have never visited the Climate Progress site and, just for giggles, thought I would.
I followed their link to “An illustrated guide to the latest climate science” and, far from being a balanced view of the subject, there was only a plethora of papers stating
“catastrophic”, “worse that we thought”, “unprecedented”, “seminal”, “hottest on record”, “North Pole ice free”, etc scare stories.
One reference supposedly confirming “…global warming is driving melting at extraordinary rates…” is “Another one bites the dust, literally: Bolivia’s 18,000 year-old Chacaltaya glacier is gone”. That CP article states:
Like the Wicked Witch of the West, the world is melting — and fast.
The University of Zurich’s World Glacier Monitoring Service reported earlier this year, “The new data continues the global trend in accelerated ice loss over the past few decades.” The rate of ice loss is twice as fast as a decade ago. “The main thing that we can do to stop this is reduce greenhouse gases” said Michael Zemp, a researcher at the University of Zurich’s Department of Geography.
Looking for other references to this glacier I found http://www.inesad.edu.bo/mmblog/mm_20090323.htm from the Institute for Advanced Development Studies in Bolivia. This is an article titled “Reconciling melting glaciers and falling temperatures in the Bolivian highlands
By Lykke E. Andersen*, La Paz, 23 March 2009.” and refutes the idea that the loss of the Chacaltaya glacier is due to global warming and states:
“Bolivia’s rapidly diminishing Chacaltaya glacier has been widely used as a symbol of Anthropogenic Global Warming (1). However, it is an unfortunate choice of symbol, because the retreat of this specific glacier is demonstrably not due to increasing temperatures caused by CO2 emissions.”
It was also interesting to note the Institutes mission statement includes:
“The vast majority of development research is carried out in northern countries by researchers who, for the most part, have only an academic understanding of the real obstacles that face people in developing countries, and whose main purpose of the research is to get articles published in top journals.
The Institute for Advanced Development Studies was created in order to facilitate independent development research by researchers from developing countries who live with the problems of underdevelopment every single day and thus are better positioned to prioritize and propose viable solutions to the problems. ”
I don’t think I’ll be visiting Climate Progress again in the foreseeable future and I now regret adding to their visitor hit counter.
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:47 am
How often does WUWT link to peer reviewed journal articles as compared to RC?
The answer to that question will tell you which site does the better job of educating its visitors.
________________________________________________
I suggest you read the peer reviewed articles by Scott Armstrong, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School at: list
Especially read :
171. J. Scott Armstrong (1980), Bafflegab Pays, Psychology Today, 12
173. J. Scott Armstrong (1980), Advocacy as a Scientific Strategy: The Mitroff Myth, Academy of Management Review, 5, 509-511
174. J. Scott Armstrong (1980), The Seer-Sucker Theory: The Value of Experts in Forecasting, Technology Review, June/July, 16-24
“..Armstrong, who is the editor of a new research publication called the Journal of Forecasting, offered the advice in a serious, scholarly article last month in the journal’s first issue….
If you want to publish an article in some scientific or medical journal, here is some unusual advice from Scott Armstrong, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School: Choose an unimportant topic. Agree with existing beliefs. Use convoluted methods. Withhold some of your data. And write the whole thing in stilted, obtuse prose. …
“Papers with surprising results are especially important for adding significantly to what is known. Presumably, the editors of journals want to publish important papers,” Armstrong said. “On the other hand, they are concerned that the journal might look foolish — and so they reject many of the important papers.”
For young academics who wish to be published in such journals, Armstrong said, “the factors that would seem to be a deadly combination would be choosing an important problem and obtaining surprising results.” Plain Prose: It’s Seldom Seen in Journals
In other words, if you want mediocre science on unimportant topics stated in bafflegab then stick to peer reviewed science, because you will have to look elsewhere for cutting edge science.
Really, Mr. Watts, with all due respect, does your Alexa rating really mean what you think it means?
One possibility: Real Climate is an “astroturfing site by climate alarmists who tolerated no dissent,” and therefore the general public flocks to more reasonable, more scientific and better informed sites such as this one.
Another possibility: stoked by mob mentality, our post-Cold-War-paranoia of government, the overall jitters that affects cultures during times of economic recession, and a concerted smear campaign by people with only a secondary understanding of the science, the public is attracted to blogs which give them easy answers to complex problems and provide fall guys (Michael Mann, Jim Hansen, take your pick) to blame for large-scale weather phenomenon in the real world. We’ve seen this kind of human phenomena of crowd manipulation also…we all know where.
Science is not necessarily predicated on Internet ratings in the first place, and it’s somewhat ironic that the “consensus means nothing crowd” is now touting its Alexa rating.
REPLY: Ask Mr. Lorrey, who posted this story – Anthony
Bruce Cobb says:
“Surely, by “examine the science” you must mean “get educated”. That’s the trouble with Alarmists; they can’t (or won’t) think for themselves, and that is sad.”
No I don’t mean that and surely you are not putting words in my mouth or misunderstanding me.
I am already educated and can think for myself and have no preconcieved notions of what is happening in the world.
I have first hand knowledge that the carbon to oxygen double bond absorbs in the infared, I don’t have to take someones word for it.
John H. says”
“Was that Pre or Post ‘The Teams’ redefinition of Peer Review”
I wasn’t aware that the team had redefined Peer Review.
and “But you do have their permission, they were released by an insider ;)”
I may have that ‘insiders permission” but I don’t have Mann’s and the rest, but then I would like an objective and representative sample of the CRU’s emails rather than a biased selection.
But then, really those emails are as relevant today as MBH98 is. I mean there is more trouble coming every day.
I mean MBH98 is obsolete and the emails don’t really have much data.
And I still haven’t read them, only what both sides say about them.
For hro001,
If you don’t like what gets published in the so called peer reviewed journals, feel free to do research and publish.
It is a human system after all, and bound not to be perfect.
If some have trouble getting published, well maybe they need to do better science.
Jason,
Of course RC is one sided, as science is not a courtroom nor journalism.
Latimer Alder says:
“And there is strong circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that the process within the small world of ‘climate science’ has fallen victim to groupthink.”
Even if the evidence is strong, it is still circumstantial and anecdotal, and not worth posting on any blog.
Oh wait, you didn’t post any evidence, just a mild assertation that there was.
You must be a groupthing groupie.
****”Ask Mr. Lorrey, who posted this story”
Okay.
REPLY: snip ask minus the ugly, or don’t ask at all. – Anthony
That second screen capture contains a classic:
Former meteorologist and weather expert Anthony Watts maintains this site, skeptical of the man… [Mann]
Well, I thought it was funny.
Re: Gail’s list of “peer reviewed” articles –
Not one is from a science journal. Not one is about climate science. The author is a business prof. The articles date back to 1980. It is not clear that any of them are “serious academic articles.”
It is readily evident why the skeptic’s disdain peer review – they have none.
Skeptical sciences comes from the blogosphere where anyone can publish anything they want and call it “science.”
Oh yes, there’s Lindzen…someone will certainly trot him out here in a minute.
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
On November 17, 2006 the very first entry on WUWT was posted by Anthony….
I also recommend to Anthony and the mods that on November 17th this year a dedicated page is put up for WUWTers to post their messages of felicitations and congratulations.
How many hits would that page get? A hundred? A thousand? More?
Any support for this proposal?
________________________________________________________________________
Sounds like a good idea but it might be hard on Anthony and the MODs
Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
“…while I visit RC to get educated.”
Surely some mistake. I’m certain you meant “indoctrinated” – thesaurus malfunction perhaps?
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 3:43 pm
I am already educated and can think for myself and have no preconcieved notions of what is happening in the world.
You’ll pardon my skepticism. You do seem to have preconceived, and misguided ideas as to the overall importance of whether peer-reviewed means the science is valid. You do seem to have preconceived notions about the value and scientific validity inherent in “consensus science”, showing an unwillingness to examine or question in any way said science, borne out by your admiration of RC which doesn’t allow that anyway.
I have first hand knowledge that the carbon to oxygen double bond absorbs in the infared, I don’t have to take someones word for it.
Congratulations. No one here denies that C02 is a greenhouse gas. Maybe there’s hope for you after all. Stick around, and you might actually learn something, despite your preconceived notions.
Zilla,
Last time I checked, the AGW alarmist camp didn’t consider the opinions of the “little people” to matter at all in their “scientific consensus”, so trying to compare our Alexa ranking to logically fallacious appeals to authority is an apples vs oranges argument. Our Alexa ranking means that we have been more successful in communicating our arguments, period, stop.
WUWT references more peer reviewed science than RC, and definitely tons more than CP. As a percent of our total article publishing rate, though, our references to other peer reviewed publications is lower, but the overall quantity is larger, simply because we publish far more articles each day than RC does. We also publish a lot of original research and analysis of data here, though less than, say, ClimateAudit.org.
WUWT and ClimateAudit.org are a new form of science publishing. A more democratic and open form, where people lay things out in the open for anybody to criticize, rebut, and post opposing data or analysis. One of the reasons this is necessary has been demonstrated by Climategate, where it was conclusively proven that the AGW alarmists were operating as gatekeepers and blacklisters to prevent opposing views from being published in the peer reviewed literature, and corrupting the process of peer review itself. It is time for peer review to open up.
The open source movement has proven in the software industry that open sourcing computer science results in more robust, secure, and transparently easier to maintain software. The same is starting to happen in the other sciences. WUWT and CA represent some of the vanguard of this movement in the climate science community. The obsolescent bastions of closed door, smoke filled back room politicized science naturally see us as a threat to their power and influence. They have good reason to do so. They also have no hope of winning.
There are far too many people in this world trained in the principles and processes of science and engineering, mathematics and logic today for a cloistered few to continue to shut out the overwhelming majority from being involved in shaping the discussion and process of scientific progress. We are tearing down the walls, shattering the gates, and destroying the ring of power, to set the world of science free of the control of those who would be our masters.
Our Alexa rank merely demonstrates that we are beginning to win.
old construction worker says:
July 27, 2010 at 9:32 am
I remember a time went Anthony was about to scrap this site. It was becoming too much with his family, his day job and surface station study.
So again, thank all of you.
REPLY: It’s still too much, but I have to see through. – Anthony
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Would adding a few good moderators help share the load? As I think about it, I don’t know how you do it all.
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
You’ve got my vote on that
Just about the only thing we have not covered here is Rule 34.
Oh, wait ……
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/30/ipcc-now-in-bizzaroland-pachauri-releases-smutty-romance-novel/
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 3:43 pm
[…]
For hro001,
If you don’t like what gets published in the so called peer reviewed journals, feel free to do research and publish.
It is a human system after all, and bound not to be perfect.
If some have trouble getting published, well maybe they need to do better science.
===
Sorry, bob. You missed the point. It matters not in the slightest whether I – or anyone else for that matter – “like what gets published in the so called peer reviewed journals”.
But as Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet also noted in an article in the Guardian around the time of the release of Muir Russell’s creative writing exercise:
“[S]cientists need to take peer review off its pedestal. As an editor, I know that rigorous peer review is indispensable. But I also know that it is widely misunderstood.
“Peer review is not the absolute or final arbiter of scientific quality. It does not test the validity of a piece of research. It does not guarantee truth. Peer review can improve the quality of a research paper – it tells you something about the acceptability of new findings among fellow scientists – but the prevailing myths need to be debunked. We need a more realistic understanding about what peer review can do and what it can’t. If we treat peer review as a sacred academic cow, we will continue to let the public down again and again.”
[emphases added -hro]
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/a-catalyst-for-thorough-reappraisal/
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
‘I propose that on November 17th this year, WUWT’s fourth birthday, we ALL raise a glass of a suitable beverage…… Tip jar…….
Sound like a party to me. Count me in.
I can’t remember went I first stumbled through the WUWT’s door in 2007, but I started doing my investigation shortly after AL Gore’s movie came out. I have nothing personally against AL, I just don’t trust politicians. One of the first article I found was about “CO2 leads temperature” but what it showed was CO2 lags temperature and a quote by one of the scientist said something like ‘it was the opposite of what we though we would find’. I believe the article was published back in 1992.
old construction worker says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
‘I propose that on November 17th this year, WUWT’s fourth birthday, we ALL raise a glass of a suitable beverage…… Tip jar…….
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
What day is the 4th anniversary (birthday) on?
If everyone gave just $10.00 it would be a huge 4th birthday gift to Anthony!!!! 1000’s of $10.00 gifts—NICE!!! 🙂
old construction worker,
Nov 17?
That pesky truth. Hard for Gore, Hansen, Jones etc. to keep suppressed.
50 million thank yous to Anthony, CTM and team. We are winning.
Tips & Notes seems to be offline at the moment, so this is OT
documentary being made “The Boy Who Cried Warming”
trailer:
Monckton will be in it:
November17 goes into the diary. Right!
Oh, and Zilla, if you didn’t comprehend that long comment of mine, I’ll just quote Richard Feynman: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
Therefore, “consensus science” is an oxymoron when the group under consensus is a significantly minority subset of the entire body of those of scientific bent, and “peer review” is the examination of the ignorance of one expert or group of experts, by the ignorance of another group of experts. Logically, if you claim that science can be arrived at by consensus, then breaking down the walls of peer review and opening science to critical examination and challenge by anyone with scientific, mathematical, or engineering training via democratic media like the blogosphere is the natural end result. You therefore shouldn’t have any problem to how things are done at WUWT or ClimateAudit.org. Those who oppose us actually oppose the achievement of consensus via open sourced democratic peer review. Even then, everyone should still accept as a given that we are all ignorant of what we don’t yet know, hence consensus views should never be used to hinder the creation of new science.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:20 pm
old construction worker,
‘Nov 17?’
You will have to go back to Stephen Brown’s post and read it.
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
‘I propose that on November 17th this year, WUWT’s fourth birthday, we ALL raise a glass of a suitable beverage…… Tip jar…….’
LOL – Well, damn! I am AMAZED that no one got in a jab about RC’s extended SC24 sunspot minimum look-alike curve, and that Michael Mann hasn’t hasn’t somehow leaned on Keith Briffa to somehow hide the decline. Bully Mann must be busy with his slap shot.
ROFL
(Is it a curve if it isn’t even above the X-axis? – and what IS the X-axis on a rankings chart like this? Infinity?)
Oh, the X-axis must be the 1900-1980 average.
Except when it is the 1970-2000 average.
Or the 1950-1980 average.
Or the 1980-1990 average.
Or. . . whichever one gives the biggest slope today.
There is a lot of debate here regarding peer-review, and what it means and is worth.
Anyone reading in depth the emails from and to “The Team” can see that the current formal peer-review process is very probably deeply flawed. When so few are reviewing each-other’s work and actively bullying in order to prevent contrary views being aired, it is clear that something must change.
Peer-review was introduced mid-20th century in order to (and ONLY to) make sure that papers were suitable for publication by journals when the content was beyond the editors’ understanding, and certainly it was not ‘required’ in the world of science. It seems to have morphed into a requirement, but it is not clear to me how or why. Even Einstein was not formally peer-reviewed, yet his work stands well.
The Internet is here, and has been for a while. It allows fast and effective communication to millions of interested parties in very short time-scales. Publishers are able to show their work, their data and any code required, so that anyone, yes ‘anyone’ [gasp!] can reproduce their findings. Imagine that: nobody hiding their data or processes in case anyone ‘wants to prove it incorrect’. Well, welcome to the real world, because that is the only way it can really work, if results can be openly reproduced and challenged.
Yes, we may get the problem that he who shouts loudest gets heard, but it is far better, and more easily and openly fixed than the current incestuous and secretive machinations that typify the mainstream ‘climate science’ at present. Dusty old journals are dead (or dying). Long live the Internet!
Zilla writes:
“Another possibility: stoked by mob mentality, our post-Cold-War-paranoia of government, the overall jitters that affects cultures during times of economic recession, and a concerted smear campaign by people with only a secondary understanding of the science, the public is attracted to blogs which give them easy answers to complex problems and provide fall guys (Michael Mann, Jim Hansen, take your pick) to blame for large-scale weather phenomenon in the real world. ”
You sound like you might be up for a challenge. I will give you one. For some time, I have been traveling the blogosphere looking for global warming science. So far, I see no evidence of its existence. The only thing warmists have that they can call science is the science of the CO2 molecule. I accept that science. With it and the assumption that CO2 molecules are distributed randomly in the atmosphere, one can arrive at the conclusion that the Earth will increase in temperature about one degree this century. Everyone accepts this and I accept it because Richard Lindzen accepts it, but I do want to point out that the randomness assumption is implausible, as nothing else is distributed randomly, including oxygen, and warmists have done no experimental work to establish it. They do no experimental work at all.
However, Warmist claims of harm to the environment require something along the lines of three or four degrees of warming this century. To arrive at that kind of warming, Warmists claim that there are “forcings” caused by CO2. These “forcings” consist of phenomena such as changes in cloud cover that would have the effect of amplifying the effects of warming from CO2. Now comes my criticism. Any scientist worthy of the name would not dare assert that there are such “forcings” without having a set of hypotheses that explain how these “forcings” are caused and what regular patterns of change they cause in the behavior of clouds. Of course, these hypotheses would be reasonably confirmed through observation. Yet no climate scientist has any such set of hypotheses. They make assertions about mankind’s coming climate doom when they have no explanatory hypotheses; that is, Warmists suffer from Hubris. Instead of hypotheses, Warmists offer us model runs. But anyone with a minimum of understanding of models and hypotheses knows that models are analytical tools and cannot be used, as hypotheses are, to make predictions. Models only make explicit what is assumed when the model is constructed. Models are not up to the level of science.
Now, Zilla, the ball is in your court. Produce the hypotheses described above and I will salute you. Do not produce them and admit that Warmist work is not up to the level of science.
mikelorrey says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Could not have said it better myself
Theo Goodwin posts:
“These “forcings” consist of phenomena such as changes in cloud cover that would have the effect of amplifying the effects of warming from CO2. Now comes my criticism. Any scientist worthy of the name would not dare assert that there are such “forcings” without having a set of hypotheses that explain how these “forcings” are caused and what regular patterns of change they cause in the behavior of clouds. ”
Just check out any reference showing the vapor pressure of water and it’s relationship to temperature.
The higher the temperature, the more water that can exist in the atmosphere in form of water vapor, thus the less likely are clouds to form. Thus more water vapor in the atmosphere, more greenhouse gas heating to the atmosphere, or a positive feedback.
Bob writes:
“Just check out any reference showing the vapor pressure of water and it’s relationship to temperature.”
That’s a scream, Bob. Warmists do work at the level of a high-school chem lab.
Congratulations! You’re bigger than US Steel!
Zilla, any web site that deliberately deletes opinions, contrary to the the “consensus” at RC, would be be highly suspect by most intelligent, and honest, people. It would certainly removes it from a objective standpoint.
If RC, has to resort to deleting opposing opinions, and they do, their faith is indeed weak.
Mike says, “WUWT and ClimateAudit.org are a new form of science publishing. A more democratic and open form, where people lay things out in the open for anybody to criticize, rebut, and post opposing data or analysis. ”
The question, however, is no matter how many articles WUWT publishes, how many of them are accurate? It is not clear that Mr. Watts et al are telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Just because one lays “things out in the open” does not mean those things laid out are an honest representation of the science involved. I do not trust Mr. Watts – I believe he has an agenda. Do you?
And who is doing the judging?
Does anyone here know enough to criticize the actual science involved? Look at the above posts – is anyone actually engaging in scientific criticism? Or is there a good deal of groupthink going on?
REPLY: Heh, I always get a kick out of people that cite trust issues about me, then hide behind a fake name and email address. Some self examination is in order. – Anthony
****”Produce the hypotheses described above and I will salute you. Do not produce them and admit that Warmist work is not up to the level of science.”
Certainly, Theo, you understand that the scientists involved use other resources than simply computer models.
Radiosondes
Paleo-climate reconstructions
Ocean and land temperature measurements
Satellite temperature measurements
You have failed in your essential reasoning in that you, like a great many skeptics, prefer to obsess over a single (and actually accurate) practice of model prediction. But fine, if you want observations (your post was a little unclear) I’ll provide you with
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#Climate_data_raw
OR here
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data.htm
Now, this is a great deal of complicated information here. I certainly can’t understand it all. But if you do not have the time or patience or wherewithal to go through it all before accusing scientists of not having “hypothesis” then you probably should not accuse scientists of not having “hypothesis.” If you are like your typical skeptic, you will simply refuse to actually look at the information, preferring instead to declare science theory a untrustworthy and therefore you will not give it a shot.
There are plenty of “hypothesis” out there, Theo, as there is data freely available and only a click away, admit it or not.
****”cite trust issues about me, then hide behind a fake name and email address”
I’m sorry, Mr. Watts, I fail to see the connection. Do you tell the entire story behind your articles or not? Do you present all the information at all times, or do you cherry-pick what you post?
Some self examination is also in order in your case, my friend.
REPLY: ok that’s it, calling people deniers, (which was snipped), fake email address (see policy page) + idiotic accusatory question (so, do newspapers “cherry pick what they print”, can they present “all the information at all times”) = off the island. Have a nice day – Anthony
By the way, I have absolutely no idea what this means:
“snip ask minus the ugly, or don’t ask at all.”
REPLY: don’t call people you disagree with “deniers”
I don’t generally comment but must add my congratulations to Mr Watts and crew. Especially thanks to the Watts family for allowing Anthony to continue this blog. Your sacrifice is very much appreciated.
I too went to some of the Warmist blogs when I began to research “climate change”. One of the first was the very inaptly named “Open Mind” of Tamino. I argued that he was wrong in saying another commenter was “cherry picking” data and then suggested that he would get better outcomes if he was civil to his readers. His reply was such that I have only been back since when following a link and what I have seen has not changed my opinion. I found a similar atmosphere at Real Climate.
Now I visit WUWT, Bishop Hill and CA regularly.
Zilla,
I don’t know where you get your characterizations of skeptics, but we certainly do not “refuse to actually look at the information”. Our big bugaboo has been that we DEMAND to see ALL the information. The typical warmist only wants to show his predetermined conclusions, not his methods, not the raw data. RealClimate only started posting data there after a number of years of getting raked over the coals on the issue, with scientists from other disciplines telling them that if they want to be taken seriously, they actually do need to put data up there. If it were not for us skeptics, RC wouldn’t have those data pages AT ALL. So you can thank us for them.
That is what our “agenda” is about. Many of us actually believe there is warming going on, some are doubtful. The poor state of the temperature record, from poorly sited stations, and how it has clearly been doctored, adjusted, and manipulated over the years, makes it very difficult to say one way or the other for sure. So there is a preliminary issue of the trustworthiness of the data. We want to see the raw data and the metadata, not just the processed crap produced by social scientists who barely passed their undergrad stats classes.
And no, models are actually demonstrated to be LESS accurate than just drawing a straight line. There isn’t a single model in existence that accurately simulates the prior data record without a lot of tweaks to the math that is left unexplained and unjustified by any physical science. It is nothing but arm waving.
As for my personal agenda: I make no money here. I am not paid by energy or chemical or other industries. I’m an IT guy who has gone back to university during the economic downturn. Like other concerned citizens, I am highly concerned that some green socialists are intent on pushing a gaia-cult-centered chiliastic catastrophist anthropogenic climate theory/theology that is poorly supported by any valid science in order to justify massive restructuring of the global economy and destruction of the American way of life.
If, in fact, properly conducted science that is open and transparent to the public is able to show that:
a) there is warming going on,
b) it is mostly the fault of human caused pollution and not natural causes
c) the amount of warming in the next century will have a significant negative impact on human society, economy, and the global environment,
then I am perfectly willing to consider a wide range of possible solutions, with a preference toward proactive free market oriented solutions, given history conclusively shows that free markets are far more effective at delivering solutions to problems than centrally planned socialist economies.
At the present time, the AGW camp hasn’t even demonstrated point (a) to any degree of certainty. They claim they have, but we have shown, repeatedly, that they are committing a number of serious errors and/or intentional manipulations, and they are intentionally corrupting the peer review process to prevent their errors and manipulations from being more widely criticized and examined. They actively suppress commentary on their blogs by anybody who points these facts out. They do not act like scientists.
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:47 am
How often does WUWT link to peer reviewed journal articles as compared to RC?
The answer to that question will tell you which site does the better job of educating its visitors.
Considering that the definition of peer is “a person who is of equal standing with another in a group” then everything that is posted on here is “peer reviewed”.
The open review process that is permitted on this site is a much more critical peer review process than that which occurs in the established journals.
Plan to release Climategate “Raw” data as per New Scientist web site
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727710.101-climategate-data-sets-to-be-made-public.html
Add my pat on the back and pint and pack of peanuts to all at WUWT
@Bob
‘Latimer Alder says:
“And there is strong circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that the process within the small world of ‘climate science’ has fallen victim to groupthink.”
Even if the evidence is strong, it is still circumstantial and anecdotal, and not worth posting on any blog.
Oh wait, you didn’t post any evidence, just a mild assertation that there was.
You must be a groupthing groupie’
By your own assertion, your high moral principles wouldn’t allow you to read the evidence that I would present, since much of it is taken from the Climategate e-mails, and you are averse to looking at those. Which is a shame, because I’m sure that you care as much as I do about the integrity of Science and would be as shocked and disturbed as I was to see how badly it had been compromised by the ‘Hockey Team’.
You may choose to disbelieve me, but refusing to look at the evidence is not a position based on refusing to look at the evidence is not a strong, nor a scientific one.
Instead try reading Andrew Montford’s excellent book ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’ (now available in the USA and Canada from many online suppliers and supported by rave reviews).
Though this mainly tells the story of how Steve McIntyre tried to disentangle the statistical mess that Mann got into with the (in)famous hockey stick. it does touch on issue of the inadequacy of peer review.
You will find it instructive and it should not offend your principles since nearly all the copious references are to work written to be published and could in no way be described as private.
Once you have done that you may be able to judge the strength of my assertions. Until then, I fear, your morality will prevent you from seeing the truth. A bit like a religious person who would rather see their children die than allow them to have a blood transfusion. Your choice.
PS : Its ‘assertion’ not ‘assertation’ – unless you are an ex-President. Cheers
@Bob
‘Just check out any reference showing the vapor pressure of water and it’s relationship to temperature.
The higher the temperature, the more water that can exist in the atmosphere in form of water vapor, thus the less likely are clouds to form. Thus more water vapor in the atmosphere, more greenhouse gas heating to the atmosphere, or a positive feedback’
Wow..that’s quite some theory there. On that basis, the equator (hottest bit), should have few clouds and therefore less rain. Lets look and see if its true.
Gosh…here are things called Tropical Rain Forests at the equator..one of whose characteristics is that it rains a lot there (the really good clue is in the name, Bob).
Wow..perhaps we can conclude without even leaving our desks that Bob’s hypothesis that its as simple as a water vapour/temperature graph is insufficient to explain what we observe. Ain’t science great!
Bob – checking the theories by examining the data is called ‘an experiment’. You may come across this term again in your reading. Cheers
Interesting to watch the replies to my comment about coming here for a laugh:)
Even more interesting to see this statement from mikelorrey: “WUWT and ClimateAudit.org are a new form of science publishing.” Okey…. So when 99% of the comments on almost any topic are along the lines of “I knew it!”, “The data are manipulated!” etc., I guess that replaces the peer review process.
I will agree on one point, that there are some harsh replies at RC. The reason for this seems to be beyond you folks, so I’ll explain it to you: When you come into a techical discussion with preconceived misconseptions, and spout them as a gospel, you get shot down. Rightfully so. As a side note, most of the readers here are not educated enough to even follow the discussions there when they get above simple aritmethics (like counting pixels).
@enonym
‘Even more interesting to see this statement from mikelorrey: “WUWT and ClimateAudit.org are a new form of science publishing.” Okey…. So when 99% of the comments on almost any topic are along the lines of “I knew it!”, “The data are manipulated!” etc., I guess that replaces the peer review process. ‘
When the peer review process seems to consist of nothing more than Philboy saying to Mikey ‘Fred has a paper, should I approve it’ and Mikey saying ‘Fred’s an OK guy – he knows to say the right thing – let him through’, then I find it hard to see what you are complaining about.
And remember that, by his own admission in Parliament, no peer reviewer has ever asked to see Jones’ data or methods in detail. He is a prolific contributor with over 100 paper in the last 10 years. But nobody has ever verified his work. Or even asked to do so. Apart from Steve McIntyre.
If that is the best standard that peer review can provide then its replacement by a more modern system with wider access is long overdue.
Enonym says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:30 am
Interesting to watch the replies to my comment about coming here for a laugh:)
Even more interesting to see this statement from mikelorrey: “WUWT and ClimateAudit.org are a new form of science publishing.” Okey…. So when 99% of the comments on almost any topic are along the lines of “I knew it!”, “We are killing the world” etc., I guess that replaces any honest process.
I will agree on one point, that there are some harsh replies at RC. The reason for this seems to be beyond you Enonym, so I’ll explain it to you: When they create a techical discussion using preconceived misconseptions, and spout them as a gospel, you get shot down by the gatekeepers, if your contrary comment is allowed to echo within those hallowed halls in the first place. As a side note, most of the readers there are not honest enough to even join the discussions here.
There, fixed the grammatical errors for you. Please note that I did not extract any urine vis-a-vis your atroshus spelling as you may have arrived here from anywhere on the planet and that would not have been polite.
Hope you see the funny side of this retort (the “return like for like”, rather than the closed lab vessel with an outlet tube).
Zilla writes:
“Now, this is a great deal of complicated information here. I certainly can’t understand it all. But if you do not have the time or patience or wherewithal to go through it all before accusing scientists of not having “hypothesis” then you probably should not accuse scientists of not having “hypothesis.” ”
You should have started with this thought. You do not have a clue about the hypotheses that I asked for and you should have said so at the beginning rather than wasting my time. Also, you fundamentally-fundamentally-fundamentally misunderstand scientific method, just like all other climategaters. The scientist has the responsibility of presenting hypotheses and evidence, including evidence of a reasonable number of confirmed tests of the hypotheses. The presentation must be clear enough that other scientists, who are not his colleagues or friends, can replicate all the data and the experimental tests. If there are models involved, the models must be presented, though they add nothing to confirmation. No one owes the scientist anything. It is the scientist’s duty to get up off his fat butt and stop navel-gazing long enough to do a presentation of his hypotheses and evidence that is SATISFYING TO THE REST OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY, WHO ACT AS JUDGES. A scientist who fails to do these things is a scientist who has earned his failure. Name one scientist who is a proponent of AGW who has not failed in these matters. The closest thing you have is Michael Mann but he has the very great failing that he invents his own statistical methods and then compounds his error by arguing that he has no responsibility to explain them. BALDERDASH!!!
Listen, Kid, do you have no idea how offensive it is for you to give me a homework assignment? Find one of your parents and ask them about it.
Henry@the believers in AGW
I don’t know what you people are still on about. I have been on all these climate sites and could not find the proof (in the right SI dimensions) that CO2 is a green house gas, i.e. that its cooling properties by re-radiating sunshine are smaller then its warming properties (by trapping earthshine).
It seems nobody did the right kind of testing!!!!
Here is a good reaction from Craig Goodrich at a post on this site, oh yes, it could have been me who wrote this!! I think it is so approproate here now, especially for me here in Africa:
….(about the so-called climate scientists and climate science)……
I am sick to death of their rote yapping about “peer review,” when they have perhaps irremediably corrupted the process, and when the point of science was never “peer review” per se but complete openness as to methods and data — which they have steadfastly, almost neurotically, refused to allow. I am nauseated when I hear their “oil funding” chorus, when Greenpeace and the WWF have each received more than two orders of magnitude more funding from corporations than all the free-market think tanks combined — let alone the skeptical science community.
But what makes me really sick is the realization that the $100 billion or so wasted on “climate science” — not quite yet an oxymoron, thanks only to Lindzen, Christy, our own Willis, and a small brave band of real scientists — could have bought an insecticide-impregnated mosquito net for every bed in Africa and South Asia, plus enough DDT to control mosquitoes in swamps near populated areas, with enough left over to keep NASA’s Mars program viable.
But instead of eliminating malaria and keeping mankind’s restless ambition alive, thanks to the warm-mongers we spent the money gazing at our global navel hoping to find the Global Warming Fairy, while at the same time utterly devastating millions of acres of wildlife habitat and peaceful countryside with useless industrial wind turbine phalanxes — which generate no actual power but lots of tax breaks and subsidies — in the quest for some delusional “renewable energy,” clearcutting rainforests for palm oil and fraudulent “carbon sinks,” and doubling world food prices by supporting ethanol production.
So having worked as hard as ever they can to destroy what natural environment remains in the developed world, and to murder as many as possible through starvation and disease in the undeveloped world, these wonderful people preen themselves and vaunt their moral superiority as “humanitarians” and “environmentalists.”
—
Sorry, I had to go get my barf bag.
—
I realize that WUWT, CA, and the rest of the climate realist blogosphere attempt to maintain a civilized level of objective scientific discourse, free from the diatribes that pervade warmist rhetoric. But sometimes it is necessary to vent, and my infrared iris opens up…….”
I did not write this but I am sure Craig would not mind seeing his words quoted here…
Latimer Alder writes:
“Bob – checking the theories by examining the data is called ‘an experiment’. You may come across this term again in your reading. Cheers”
Isn’t it amazing that AGW proponents not only fail to have a clue about scientific method but seem to have acquired a kind of “mental block” for scientific method? Their minds just can’t go there. Is this a result of teaching by professors such as Jones, Briffa, and Mann?
Enonym says “As a side note, most of the readers here are not educated enough to even follow the discussions there when they get above simple aritmethics (like counting pixels).”.
Speaking of education, first of all learn to spell, or at least use a spell checker. Then you can be the mouthpiece of your masters’, as words do have some importance. Perhaps you could enlighten the ignorant with your vast knowledge (i.e. thermal heat transfer, fluid mechanics, math, etc.), # of degrees, years of experience in science, math and engineering, number of international papers (please state subject) and patents.
Remember this site is not censored like your “handlers”, so you might find some opposing views. Hope you can handle it.
Enonym says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:30 am
Your response to the responses offers a fascinating look at the cognitive dissonance so rampant among Alarmists these days. Thanks for playing, and get help. Your precious CAGW/CC Belief system, the S.S. Climatanic is going down fast. The smarter rats have already jumped ship.
For those of you who have still not accepted water (vapor) and carbon dioxide as their real mother and father here is a link that may help you see the light. I am saying: more carbon dioxide is Ok, ok?
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Theo Goodwin posts:
“That’s a scream, Bob. Warmists do work at the level of a high-school chem lab.”
It doesn’t matter what level the science is, if it is repeatable.
I did thin-layer chromatography in kindergarten and I still do it professionally, so what’s your point?
I was just trying to remind folks that there is a positive feedback with respect to clouds as well as the negative feedbacks due to their reflectivity.
And to answer your question about a plausible hypothesis for the amplification of any warming caused by the increase in CO2.
If CO2 causes warming and warming causes an increase the atmospheric concentration of H2o (a greenhouse gas), then we get increased temperature or an amplification of the CO2 effect. Pretty simple isn’t it.
And Latimer Alder posts:
“Wow..that’s quite some theory there. On that basis, the equator (hottest bit), should have few clouds and therefore less rain. Lets look and see if its true.
Gosh…here are things called Tropical Rain Forests at the equator..one of whose characteristics is that it rains a lot there (the really good clue is in the name, Bob).
Wow..perhaps we can conclude without even leaving our desks that Bob’s hypothesis that its as simple as a water vapour/temperature graph is insufficient to explain what we observe. Ain’t science great!
Bob – checking the theories by examining the data is called ‘an experiment’. You may come across this term again in your reading. Cheers”
My point is that warmer air holds more water vapor, your conclusion that I mean that there is therefore less clouds and rain in the tropics just doesn’t follow.
I post simple scientific facts.
Like CO2 absorbs IR, water vapor absorbs IR, and the higher the temperature, the higher the likelyhood that water exists as a gas.
Climate is simple isn’t it.
Excerpt from: Enonym on July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
Yeah, well, some people like the strict schoolmistresses, others go for French maids, nurses, cops, or schoolgirls in their uniforms. Takes all kinds, I guess. But stay away from the mean nun with the ruler, you’ll burn for that.
😉
Enonym says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:30 am (Edit)
“Even more interesting to see this statement from mikelorrey: “WUWT and ClimateAudit.org are a new form of science publishing.” Okey…. So when 99% of the comments on almost any topic are along the lines of “I knew it!”, “The data are manipulated!” etc., I guess that replaces the peer review process.”
Actually, given the peer review process being corrupted by the hockey team is absolutely worthless at this point, our comment based peer review is much more “robust” since we have far more people commenting here than the typical 3-5 persons who sit on peer review referee panels (over 194 comments on this post alone proves my point). Our comment based peer review allows anyone to challenge authors on the science, the data and methods, with scientific arguments. A number of articles here at WUWT have been updated and corrected as a result of this process, and we don’t judge the message based on the messenger. This is obvious to anybody who actually spends any time here. That it is not obvious to you, Enonym, only means you are a hockey team sock puppet hiding behind a fake name and email, which is par for the course for you blokes.
“I will agree on one point, that there are some harsh replies at RC. The reason for this seems to be beyond you folks, so I’ll explain it to you: When you come into a techical discussion with preconceived misconseptions, and spout them as a gospel, you get shot down. Rightfully so. As a side note, most of the readers here are not educated enough to even follow the discussions there when they get above simple aritmethics (like counting pixels).”
So, where in the scientific method does it say you can incessantly ad hom people you think you are better than? Only an elitist prat would make such an absurd justification for supposed adult scientists being utter gits to people. Moreso in that you have absolutely no idea what the education levels are of WUWT readers. Alexa stats show that our readership actually leans pretty heavily with post-graduate degrees. So, the real data blows your utterly baseless and obnoxious claim out of the water.
Thus, you have been peer reviewed off the island by a critical examination of your claims that found them utterly devoid of factual support. Goodbye.
bob says:
July 28, 2010 at 1:28 pm
I post simple scientific facts.
Like CO2 absorbs IR, water vapor absorbs IR, and the higher the temperature, the higher the likelyhood that water exists as a gas.
Climate is simple isn’t it.
Trouble is, Bob, without context, your “facts” are meaningless. The real question is, where is your evidence that our 3% contribution to atmospheric C02 is having a significant, or indeed much of any impact on climate change? Go ahead and look, Bob.
If you find any, by all means report back. You’d be the first.
Climate is far from simple, but by far the biggest players are the sun, (the big Kahuna) and the oceans. Co2 plays only a minor bit part in climate, rising as a result of warming, and on average, some 800 years afterward. Some 110 k years ago, after about a 20 k year warm period called the Eemian interglacial, our climate shifted from much warmer conditions than today to ice age conditions in perhaps 400 years. Not only was C02 not able to stop it, it might as well have been a flea trying to stop an elephant.
From RC on their “Happy 35th birthday, global warming!” thread. A portion of #10 comment:
#10 ……. “[Response: Hmm. I just got back from central British Columbia, which has warmed about 3 C in the last 50 years… Last time I checked, BC was in North America.–eric]”
The above is a response by a “gatekeeper” at RC, about how central B.C. has warmed over the last 50 years. Now go to http://www.Rimfrost.no and check the 100 year history of Prince George in central B.C. Overall that curve looks pretty flat, with about a 50 year oscillation in it. Talking about “cherry picking”, or maybe it was peer reviewed by a committee of one?
@Bob
‘Climate is simple isn’t it’.
Someting round here is ‘simple’, and I don’t think it is the climate.
‘Simple’ = expression comon in Wales (among other places) = ‘not quite the sharpest knife in the drawer’ when referrring to a person’s intellectual capability.
J. Bob:
Forgive my misspelling. I’m norwegian, so English is not my native language. Even so, I actually knew how to spell “Arithmetic”, it was just a glimpse. I guess you never do that. Also, I normally don’t write comments in a text editor with a spell checker before pasting….
Your inquiry: “Speaking of education, first of all learn to spell, or at least use a spell checker. Then you can be the mouthpiece of your masters’, as words do have some importance. Perhaps you could enlighten the ignorant with your vast knowledge (i.e. thermal heat transfer, fluid mechanics, math, etc.), # of degrees, years of experience in science, math and engineering, number of international papers (please state subject) and patents.”
My answer:
-Thermal heat transfer knowledge: Basic (BSc level) courses in thermodynamics and an advanced course in statistical mechanics. Course in classical transport theory (didn’t understand all of it at the time, must admit)
-Fluid mechanics: PhD
-Math: All compulsory and most elective courses. Was needed for my theoretical physics MSc.
-# of degrees:
–BSc: petroleum engineering
–MSc: Theoretical physics
–PhD: Math/Fluid mechanics
-Years working within research: 6
-Number of publications (depends upon criteria, but all are international (as is most science)): 3-7. All within the field of theoretical/experimental fluid dynamics (several shot down by peer review, one in for review at the moment).
I realize that this will disqualify me from participating in most discussions here, since this means that I’m part of a larger socialist conspiracy and I’m also one of these idiot “scientists” that can not see the wood for all the trees.
Henry@Enonym
It seems you are well qualified.
Please bear with me to hear my story, and see if you can perhaps provide an answer to the questions that I have.
A few months before Climategate broke, I started my own investigations to see if my carbon footprint (CO2) really causes global warming, as claimed. To start off with, I found Svante Arrhenius’ formula completely wrong and since then I could not find any correctly conducted experiments (tests & measurements) that would somehow prove to me that the warming properties of CO2 (by trapping earth’s radiation between the wavelengths 14-15 um) are greater than its cooling properties (by deflecting sunlight at various wavelengths between 0 – 5 um). Even more disconcerting to me was finding that pupils at school and college are shown experiments with 100% carbon dioxide (representing earth’s atmosphere of only 0.04% or 380 ppms CO2!) and a light bulb as an energy source (representing the sun!). Obviously such crude experimentation can only lead to incorrect results and completely incorrect conclusions…e.g. what about the IR and near IR absorptions of CO2 and the UV absorptions of CO2 that have only been discovered recently and that also deflect sunlight?
I also found untruths in Al Gore’s story (An Inconvenient Truth). A lot of CO2 is dissolved in cold water and comes out when the oceans get warmer. Any chemistry student knows that the first smoke from the (warmed) water in a kettle is the CO2 being released. So, quite a number of scientists have reported that the increases of CO2 in the atmosphere in the past lagged the warming periods by quite a few hundred years… Cause and effect, get it? Smoking causes cancer but cancer does not cause smoking. But Al made it look from the past that our CO2 output must be the cause of global warming.
Just to put the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere into the right perspective: it has increased by about 0.01% in the past 50 years from ca. 0.03% to 0.04%. This compares with an average of about 1 % for water vapor in the air. Note that most scientists agree that water vapor is a very strong green house gas, and a much stronger green house gas than carbon dioxide… (if indeed carbon dioxide is a green house gas, which, like I said before, has yet to be proven to me). It is also logical for me to suspect that as a result of human activities relating to burning, bathing, cooking, boiling, countless cooling processes (including that for nuclear energy), erection of dams and shallow pools, etc. a lot more water vapor than carbon dioxide is put up in the air.
The paper that confirmed to me that CO2 is (also) cooling the atmosphere by re-radiating sunshine is this one:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
they measured this radiation as it bounced back to earth from the moon. So the direction of the radiation was:sun-earth-moon-earth. Follow the green line in fig. 6, bottom. Note that it already starts at 1.2 um, then one peak at 1.4 um, then various peaks at 1.6 um and 3 big peaks at 2 um.
This paper here shows that there is absorption of CO2 at between 0.21 and 0.19 um (close to 202 nm):
http://www.nat.vu.nl/en/sec/atom/Publications/pdf/DUV-CO2.pdf
There are other papers that I can look for again that will show that there are also absorptions of CO2 at between 0.18 and 0.135 um and between 0.125 and 0.12 um.
We already know from the normal IR spectra that CO2 has big absorption between 4 and 5 um.
So, to sum it up, we know that CO2 has absorption in the 14-15 um range causing some warming (by re-radiating earthshine) but as shown and proved above it also has a number of absorptions in the 0-5 um range causing cooling (by re-radiating sunshine). This cooling happens at all levels where the sunshine hits on the carbon dioxide same as the earthshine. The way from the bottom to the top is the same as from top to the bottom. So, my question is: how much cooling and how much warming is caused by the CO2? How was the experiment done to determine this and where are the test results? (I am afraid that simple heat retention testing might not work here, we have to use real sunshine and real earthshine to determine the effect in W/m3 [0.03%- 0.06%]CO2/m2/24hours). I am also doubtful of just doing analysis (determining surface areas) of the spectral data, as some of the UV absorptions of CO2 have only been discovered recently. Also, I think the actual heat caused by the sun’s IR at 4-5 maybe underestimated, e.g. the amount of radiation of the sun between 4 and 5 maybe small but how many Watts does it cause? Here in Africa you can not stand in the sun for longer that 10 minutes, just because of the heat of the sun on your skin.
Anyway, with so much at stake, surely, someone actually has to come up with some empirical testing?
If this research has not been done, why don’t we just sue the oil companies to do this?? It is their product afterall.
I am going to state it here quite categorically again that if no one has got these results, then how do we know for sure that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Maybe the cooling properties are equal to the warming properties?
I have also been thinking of the ozone concentration in the air: Assuming that its cooling properties are higher than its warming properties (did anyone test that?), then lower concentrations, as in the past, before CFC’s were banned, can be a cause for global warming; increasing levels, as noted in the past 10 years can be a cause of global cooling?
So the net effect of the increases in CO2 and ozone is close to zero or even cooling?
(I have no financial interest in any of this, I just started my investigations because I felt a bit guilty about driving my car)
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Bruce Cobb posts:
“Trouble is, Bob, without context, your “facts” are meaningless. The real question is, where is your evidence that our 3% contribution to atmospheric C02 is having a significant, or indeed much of any impact on climate change? Go ahead and look, Bob.
If you find any, by all means report back. You’d be the first.
Climate is far from simple, but by far the biggest players are the sun, (the big Kahuna) and the oceans. Co2 plays only a minor bit part in climate, rising as a result of warming, and on average, some 800 years afterward. Some 110 k years ago, after about a 20 k year warm period called the Eemian interglacial, our climate shifted from much warmer conditions than today to ice age conditions in perhaps 400 years. Not only was C02 not able to stop it, it might as well have been a flea trying to stop an elephant.”
Bruce, did I say that the increase in CO2 was having a significant effect?
NO!
All I was providing was a hypothesis for how a doubling of CO2, which a poster had admitted could cause about a one C rise in temperature, could cause a further increase in temperature.
Which the basic properties of water provide.
Argue against what I post, not what you think I mean.
For Latimer Alder,
If you can’t manage an intellectual argument, then go ahead with the insults.
@Bob
‘For Latimer Alder,
If you can’t manage an intellectual argument, then go ahead with the insults.’
I can’t be bothered to engage with somebody who can’t get beyond ‘climate is simple’.
There are zillions of things we don’t know about climate. But one thing we can be sure of is that it isn’t simple. This who tell you that it is have very limited understanding and are ‘believers’ not ‘sceptics’. All scientists should be sceptics.
Excerpts from: Enonym on July 29, 2010 at 6:19 am
Heh. However, your one statement really merits consideration:
Given the large number of commentators here who are degreed professionals, and that many of them are well into the second half of their careers or even retired, this makes you quite the young pup in this pack. Only six years? You could have pulled that just working towards your doctorate degree.
Grats! to WUWT. The enlightened banter, complete with entertaining troll management, makes it worth at least a Benjamin. Now, to the tip jar!
Hello guys, I urgently demand poop on MLA format… I can’t death my essay. Does anyone know? Cheer help…