Another fall from grace.
From Sourcewatch:
John Cook, on his website Skeptical Science, states that “the usual suspects in natural climate change – solar variations, volcanoes, Milankovitch cycles – are all conspicuous in their absence over the past three decades of warming.
Let’s see:
Solar variations? New Scientist.
Volcanoes? Ever heard of Pinatubo’s temperature dip ? FYI June 15, 1991
Milankovitch Cycles? Ummm much longer time scale than three decades John.
Yet the smugness of believing you are somehow more knowledgeable and better than others shows through loud and clear in this botched attempt at satire:
From the Skeptical Science “about” page:
About the author
Skeptical Science is maintained by John Cook. He studied physics at the University of Queensland, Australia. After graduating, he majored in solar physics in his post-grad honours year. He is not a climate scientist. Consequently, the science presented on Skeptical Science is not his own but taken directly from the peer reviewed scientific literature.
Unless peer reviewed science is now accepting the ugly word “denier” in manuscripts, I’d say the “science” of this article shown above comes from John’s own opinionated disdain of people who have a different viewpoint on the science, and not any peer reviwed literature.
I at one time applauded John Cook for what I called “his scholarly demeanor”. Since he has clearly descended from that position (with his blog content from John Bruno), I now withdraw any such praise. – Anthony
Addendum: I should add that what is doubly insulting to me is that the author of the content on John Cook’s website, John Bruno, came up to me after my presentation in Brisbane, where he acted as compatriot to Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (which John Bruno runs the website “climateshifts” of) who made a fool of himself by abusing his rights as an audience member. Bruno told me how he respected my tone and my right to say it. He also said to me that I seemed “more open” than other people he’s talked to that are on the skeptical side.
John Bruno reiterated his moderate view of me in comments on that article:
John Bruno says:Interesting post and comments. I am writing in to identify myself as the guy in the green shirt. (I am a prof of marine ecology at UNC Chapel Hill, NC, USA, http://www.brunolab.net).
Like I told Anthony, in person he was very calm and pleasant in his talk. A nice change. I don’t agree at all with his broader views about the patterns and causes of climate change, but I really got a kick out of his slide show of poorly (to put it lightly) placed weather stations. A very funny yet sad commentary on something-not sure what.
I am also a big supporter (and consumer) of the type of citizen-science that Anthony has been doing and promoting (and I don’t mean that in a critical way). A fair amount of the work I do relies on data from citizen volunteers that do coral reef surveys, e.g., ReefCheck.
Full comment at this link
And the kicker from the main article at SkepticalScience.com:
And yet, here he is today, calling me a “denier”. “…as respectfully as is done here at SkepticalScience” This is “respectfully”? I’d hate to see your “disrespectful” Mr. Cook and Mr. Bruno. – Anthony
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Robert Zimmerman has some suggested reading that would be of benefit to Mr. Cook which can be found here:
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/a-scientists-ten-commandments
Of course, if Mr. Cook had done an honest read of WUWT, the above link would be redundant reading.
.
How about the predictions of the fraternal order of the AGW? Rising seas, receding antartic ice, overall increased tropical storm activity conspicuously absent. As is Man-Bear-Pig.
Why even mention Skeptical Science? It’s a complete TURD of a site. The arguments presented there are equivalent to a 12 year old debating the existence of the easter bunny.
Cook’s descent is a sad testimony to the damage that nonsense done in the name of climate science has done to the reputation of science and scientists as a whole.
Volcanism causes cooling on short term timescales, as did the Pinatubo eruption. Warming from massive increases in volcanic activity (produciong CO2) over millenia are they way several natural warming episodes have occurred in the past. It is hardly incorrect to say this influence is absent over the last 3 decades.
I could agree that his remark is poorly made with respect to Milankovich cycles as they are always occuring, but pointing out that they happen on geologic timescales is hardy a convincing rebuttal to the general point that they are not involved in current warming. Again, left on their own, Milankovich cycles would have us very gradually cooling over the next several tens of thousands of years.
(The link to a solar connection was not very direct so I did not pursue it)
He is just in a panic… too much recent revelation of credible reasons for doubting catastrophe…
A couple of notes – first, the page you refer to on Skeptical Science, “2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup”, is a guest post; John Cook did not write that himself, although he’s hosting it. The tone is rather more flippant than what I’ve seen with Cook’s writing. Second, that particular page appears to be aimed as an ‘intro’ page for newer readers, with lots of pointers to various sub-topics and resources both on SS and elsewhere. It doesn’t call out the specific items you’re complaining about.
Having read a number of the articles on Skeptical Science and elsewhere, in particular on solar variations, volcanoes, and Milankovitch Cycles – what Cook presents is that the solar intensity has been declining over the last 30 years of rising temps, volcanoes have an influence but have not shown a change correlating to temperature rises, and we’re in the wrong part of the Milankovitch Cycle to be warming now. So none of these climate changing elements match the current warming trend, except rising CO2.
Anthony:
Your blog is terrific; I look up and read and learn every day, and I thank you for that. But… I didn’t know John Cook. Why do you give other bloggers so much (negative) importance?
Recycled WWF advertising. If Panda couldn’t get us to drink CAGW kool-aid maybe it can help sell cheese. LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwCWiDfr-fU
First, the denier post was by John B, not Cook. Second, when he claims on Source Watch that the three reasons for climate change are “absent”, his comment, which was “conspicuously” omitted from this post, explains:
“This doesn’t mean by itself that carbon dioxide is the main cause of current global warming…but the primary causes of commonly cited climate change in the past have played little part in the current warming trend…Empirical observations show that carbon dioxide has a warming effect as a greenhouse gas, it is increasing in the atmosphere and the expected warming is occurring. Any alternative theory that found a different cause of global warming would also need to explain why the expected (and observed) warming from carbon dioxide has not eventuated.”
If that unit he is teaching is called ‘from the equator to the poles’ why not just call it ‘the planet’?
cheers David
No, I think you’re embarrassing yourself actually.
“Solar variations? New Scientist.”
Not tenable as an explanation for the three decades of warming. Didn’t you know we’ve just had the deepest solar minimum for several decades?
“Volcanoes? Ever heard of Pinatubo’s temperature dip ? FYI June 15, 1991”
I’m sure he has. As you correctly point out, though, volcanoes tend to cause cooling, not warming.
“Milankovitch Cycles? Ummm much longer time scale than three decades John.”
I rather think that’s his point, don’t you?
So this is him writing this stuff?
“easily the most informative outlet for straightforward information on global climate change. It is also one of the best science blogs on the web.”
“. . .helping to keep the (deniers*) skeptics in check. Or at least regularly pointing out the fallacies in (denier*) skeptic arguments (though not always as respectfully as is done here at SkepticalScience)”
deniers* on the web site is with a strikethrough font
Or did he pay someone else to write this? Questionable word usage abounds, such as “most informative”, “best”, “respectfully”, and his use of the strikethrough in “denier” that reveals his dark side.
Besides, most of the web site seems like a “clip & save” service a really busy person might use for several newspapers whose editors are on his or her payroll – good for firing decisions but not much else.
Funny stuff. They keep trying to lump us all together in one skeptical point of view. Their difficulty is that the
CAGWclimate changeclimate distruption theory is wrong on so many levels, they can’t argue on any front. The theory is wrong. The science is wrong. The data is wrong. The solution to the imaginary problem is wrong. The economics are wrong. And now, even the alarmists can’t keep up with the party line. The first line, “The availability of accurate, dependable, concise and clear information on anthropogenic climate change increases every year.”—— Yeh? So when NOAA says it needs $100,000,000 to fix their network, its because the data is already “accurate, dependable, concise and clear”? Or when it is stated, “While the organizers of the Exeter meeting are seeking to retain its leadership role in national and international assessments of the observed magnitude of global warming, it is clear that serious problems exist in using this data for this purpose.” Maybe that’s the clarity Mr. Cook is referring to. The lunatic fringe is unraveling.You should have paid more attention, Watts. The author of that article is John Bruno, an Associate Professor of Marine Ecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
http://www.climateshifts.org/?page_id=3850
REPLY: I’m aware of this, but as people routinely point out to me, I’m responsible for my own blog content. The fact that Cook allows this in any main post is the issue. I’ve made a note in parenthesis to make it a bit clearer – Anthony
John Cook and his Skeptical Science blog do seem to be on that slippery slope into a kind of AGW solipcist echo chamber . . . . in other words it is them just talking to themselves and reality doesn’t exist outside their group.
It already occured at RC and @ur momisugly Romm’s place.
John
Alan,
To show that chasing relevancy becomes to many Bloggers, the be-all-end-all of their online footprint. Many in these dying days of AGW doom-speak over actual environmentalism have engaged in even grander attempts for relevancy as their own readership falls away.
As Dr. Spock might say, “Logically Captain, the intellectual prowess of anyone who would take seriously another who self-aggrandizes before presenting their case, is at best – suspect.”
Atmospheric volcanism cools the planet, but underwater/ocean floor volcanism may add to the heat content of the deep ocean, and, ultimately to sea surface temperatures, and, in turn, atmospheric heat content.
Yes, there are many dynamics of Earth’s climate that Man does not understand.
“Milankovitch Cycles? Ummm much longer time scale than three decades John.”
That is exactly John’s point. Milankovitch cycles can’t explain current warming. The same is true of volcanoes and solar changes. As the New Scietists said: “The findings do not suggest – as climate sceptics frequently do – that we can blame the rise of global temperatures since the early 20th century on the sun.”
REPLY: And show me where any skeptic has said Milankovitch cycles are responsible for any climate change of the last 30 years, that’s my point. – Anthony
I know John Cook and I think he knows me too…
I noticed that my comments were frequently deleted on John’s Cook site.
that is irritating, especially when you spent some time on it, thinking and writing…
In the end I decided that it is no use arguing with people whose livelyhood depend on this whole agw theory being correct.
He would not be able to understand a simple argument like the one I made recently on WUWT:
I have a swimming pool, ca. 50 m2
I filled it up to mark last week monday. Today, a week later (monday), I filled it up to mark again. I read the meter before and after filling up.
I used 2.506 m3 (= 2506 liters) in one week. This is how much water evaporated in one week.
Note the parameters where this result applies:
no clouds, clear blue skies (for the whole week)
max. temps during the day, 31 -34 degrees C
the average water temp. in the pool was 25-26 degrees C
Compare this with my patrol (gas) consumption. I use ca. 40 liters of patrol/ month.
That is 10 liters in a week
Do you understand now why I am saying that everyone in the agw crowd is barking up the wrong tree? (assuming there is something to bark about, i.e. that global warming is real and not part of a natural process)
Now look at everywhere in the world (e.g India, China, USA, Europe) where they have dams and are busy building new dams. Surely, the implications of my simple result are enormous. (water vapor is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, if indeed CO2 is a greenhouse gas – which apparently has never been proven in actual tests)
This is the type of comment that he (John Cook) would simply delete – because there is no agw theory or argument that can go against this.
Glad to see you are keeping to your usual high standard of debate.
A bit of quote mining (and I am unable to find the quote on skepticalscience.com, so can’t even be sure of its context was, if it is correctly attributed, or even if it was ever actually said) followed by erroneously attributing a John Bruno piece to John Cook.
It is this basic inability to carry out simple fact checking that makes it easy to disbelieve anything you say. Further, the fact that your readers accept your word without checking themselves tells us much about their “skepticism”.
REPLY: As I pointed out earlier, people regularly remind me that I’m responsible for my own blog content, the fact that Cook allows such things is the issue. Does he not look at his own publications? Your argument is a straw man, ignored the quality of the Skeptical Science website debate. He says peer review science shall make up the website, then we have “deniers” which is clearly not. – Anthony
Lubos goes into detail about SkepticalScience (an oxymoron)
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/07/john-cooks-blog-photosynthesis-is.html
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/04/help-to-fight-against-climate-skeptics.html
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/john-cook-skeptical-science.html
🙂
unlike WUWT, un-‘skeptical science’ deletes any comments that it considers to be ‘inflammatory” – i.e. anything seriously challenging their orthodoxy. I know from personal experience.
for a great guide to debunking the arguments on his site, see Lubos Motl’s/The Reference Frame SPPI essay:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/John_Cook_Skeptical_Science.pdf
and, of course, the Our Climate i-phone app right over there >>>>>>>>
Re: dana1981 says:
September 27, 2010 at 8:43 am
You should have paid more attention, Watts. The author of that article is John Bruno, an Associate Professor of Marine Ecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
http://www.climateshifts.org/?page_id=3850
Not a single mention of John Bruno on the “2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup” page. But there is oodles of snark and links to snark. Such is the state of “climate science”.