Congratulations are in order for hitting the 60-million mark in page-views. As you can see from the Alexa traffic rank, WUWT has remained steadfastly popular since that pesky ClimateGate story a year ago. Way to go Anthony!
The traffic rank starts with Google at #1, Facebook at #2, YouTube at #3, Yahoo at #4…on down to WUWT which is at #15,974.
From four years ago,
Welcome to: Watts Up With That?
Posted on November 17, 2006 by Anthony Watts
As a frequent contributor to other blogs, I’ve found it to be a fun way of sharing ideas and discussions. I’d been toying with the idea of doing one of my own for awhile, and now that elections are over I felt the time was right as it appears I’ll have more time on my hands 😉
The idea here on this blog is somewhat “gee-whiz” in nature. I’ve always been fascinated by useful trivia, i.e. things that make you think rather than pointless things like Britney’s and KFed’s latest celebrity gossip.
If you’ve ever wondered about something puzzling, anything, or how things work, or why certain things are the way they are instead of some other way that might appear to make more sense, this is the place to pose the question. Hopefully I and others can supply an answer. Nothing is off-limits except crude language or personal attacks.
For example: Have you ever wondered “why the sky is blue during the day and black at night”? Or “why does your urine smell funny after eating Asparagus”? How about “why do cats appear aloof to their owners and dogs don’t”? “Does Disc Golf cause cancer”? (with apologies to Lon) These are the kinds of Q&A tidbits I’ll address here, plus occasionally some commentary on recent events.
Like Alan Chamberlain on “Dog’s Breakfast”, I prefer posts from people whom identify themselves. Handles are OK as long as I know who they belong to. But if there is a good reason that you want to make an anonymous post, I’ll consider it. There’s a moniker used on the popular tech discussion board Slashdot for such posts called “anonymous coward”, which may be a good way to describe “Tell it to the ER”. But hey, if you have something to say jump in, just be civil.
So does anybody have any gee-whiz questions?
Almost equals the UK population!
Congrats. Climategate is what brought me here to stay
To celebrate this milestone I recommend a re-post of this:-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2006/11/17/welcome-to-watts-up-with-that/
to remind everyone just how spectacularly this site has grown, all because of us, the visitors, the oft-derided but never dissuaded sceptics.
Let all WUWTers raise a glass of their preferred libation on 17th November, wherever they may be, and drink a bumper toast to this site, to Anthony and, most importantly, to the Mods. This site is now recognised internationally as being one of the very best. The 60 million mark shows this!
So. Who’s in for the International “Cheers to Watts Up With That” global toast?
We could all write in just to let the WUWT Team know in which countries their supporters are!
congrats anthony and friends –
are u planning an online climategate anniversary party?
perhaps we could all offer our best moments of the past twelve months.
If I, err, Anthony had a penny for each page view here, well, he’d deserve it!
Where is the pesky “Lower values mean higher traffic with Alexa rankings” explanation?
Come on, people always ask about that!
☺
almost a hockey stick!
congratulations anthony, mods, and contributors
Whoo-hoo! Congratulations. (And I can say I was there when it was a paltry 40 million.)
Man, I knew I’d been hitting WUWT a lot lately, but that’s ridiculous!
Congratulations, Anthony (and mods, and visitors)!
An interesting point of comparison can be obtained here: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/realclimate.org#. (It is not looking good for true believers.)
We can be sure that furious copy-and-pasting will ensue.
Nice work Anthony & all the other contributors & mods. Is there a big party at 100,000,000? Might be a fun contest to predict when that will happen.
Congratulations . Just sorry I didn’t know about WUWT before late ’08 . You’re doing more good than you know , Anthony .
Yep, my day is incomplete without a visit to WUWT. Michael asked, “when the 100 M mark will be set”? My guess is, within the next 16 months, around 2nd quarter 2012.
Ryan: that’s a pretty good status quo extrapolation based upon site stats.
I enjoy the education i received contributing to the hit count. Great job Anthony! Watching our back and keeping that hockey stick Firmly planted in their ribs.
Fantastic, Anthony!!
Stephen Brown says:
November 8, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Let all WUWTers raise a glass of their preferred libation on 17th November, wherever they may be, and drink a bumper toast to this site, to Anthony and, most importantly, to the Mods.
————————————-
Perhaps we should hold out until the weekend, and raise a glass of the Beaujolais Nouveau which, according to Berkeley’s finest purveyor of wonderful wines, the great Kermit Lynch “is a return to classic, bygone Beaujolais, thanks to conditions that used to be typical but have since become rare: a long, cool growing season, followed by a late harvest.”
It’s probably less than two years since we were bombarded with stories of the wine industry collapsing because of global warming, and the skiing industry too. I guess I’ve got my weekend planned on the 20th/21st – party at Kermit’s on Saturday with cool-grown Beaujolais, then up to the mountains on Sunday to ski some powder.
Congratulations Anthony. If you’re in the neighborhood on the 20th, I’d love to raise a glass with ya.
http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/504/kermitbeaujolaisnouveau.jpg
Thanks, Anthony. I love this site. As someone who grew up in Yuba City, may your winters be drier and your summers cooler.
I am trying to figure out if this deserves a Darth Vader quote or an Alliance one. It kinda depends on the point of view. Are we the good guys or the bad guys? Vader is much cooler (was until those silly movies at least).
I am torn. I guess based on the recent empire strikes back article we much be the Alliance. So here it goes….
“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”
😀
John Kehr
Excelsior! 🙂
And over your first 10 days you got an amazing 11 comments. Now I guess you get about 11 comments every 10 minutes! Congratualtions!
WUWT Index from day 1
http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/monthly.html
tell everybody including all the young ones
Um, why is the chart flipped? Is this some reference I am missing to “how to mislead the public”? Or am I just too dum to read a chart correctly? :-\ Talking about the traffic scale on the left hand side.
My Gee Whiz Question: “Can it rain without a cloud in the sky?” (I happen to know the answer but want to see what others come up with)
[How far from “overhead” must a cloud be to be considered “clear sky” ? 8<) …. Civil War: Battles were fought in the rain, with no clouds in sight. Robt]
I wandered by in early 2007 after hearing a rumor there was something wrong with the surface stations . . .
Since then . . .
I have been a moderator for two years, which I regard as a high honor. I have surveyed (mostly, but not entirely, via satellite image and interview) well over 200 stations. (I FINALLY found Lake Placid, NY, and nailed the new location for the Key West ASOS, which I have just uploaded to surfacestations.org.) I have been privileged to work with Anthony on various projects.
I have been over it so many times, I regard the USHCN as my MMTS brothers and my CRS sisters. (I still try to hunt down the few remaining lost sheep.)
I think I can say I have enjoyed one hell of a ride, and I look forward to loads more!
“So does anybody have any gee-whiz questions?”
If I put a dead Gopher in a mailbox, will it go to heaven?
Cheers and congrats Anthony!
[Watt you meant was “How long will it gopher?” Robt]
Gosh. And unless I misremember we we were all astounded when WUWT went through the million mark. Seems it has grown a bit since then. Anyway congratulations Anthony you seem to have got something going here.
Kindest Regards.
no mention of climate on that first post!
Congratulations, but people really do go too much on numbers (60 million) and appearances (with looks like mine and A. Watts). Ah there is still so much to be done!
For example, I am tired of maintaining the pretense that there is any such thing as “climate.” Climate is a way of gathering and processing global data, and that is all. Climate is not weather. They are only related in an acausal way which is determined at the time within certain contexts by experts and the media.
It is now time to understand the weather, and forget this mass hypnosis regarding “climate.”
Start here
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/08nov_iswi/
http://www.physorg.com/news3959.html
As a high school science teacher, I come here for the latest so I can confidently tell my students that CAGW is bunk…so a fair number of those hits are just me. 🙂
Cheers!
Great site and very clean. This hurts Joe ROMM and I am sure he will react with a rapid response. His boss Soros is getting coverage on Glenn Beck tomorrow. This site has the courage to cover difficult news.
mod: Joe Romm’s site viewership has really circled the drain lately. Just like the Chicago Exchange, I’d expect more of these Soros funded outfits to fold up.
Congratulations, Anthony and mods and guest posters!
I don’t know how you do it day, after day, after day … but I’m awfully glad you do 😉
That was no spam, that was my post.
Soon it’ll be like McDonalds.
1,287,349,000 SERVED
So we see a Super El Nino spike then a flattening since then. 😉
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/7038/trafficf.png
Congratulations and thanks, Anthony and moderators. I can rarely go for more than a day without one or several ‘hits’ of WUWT, and I especially appreciate the humour – nay, the razor wits – of all participants. I am in awe of most of you. Thanks for many laughs!
Gee whiz questions regarding old —and modern— world thermometers:
[1] How many were/are delineated in tenths of a degree?
[2] How many were/are actually calibrated to a traceable source?
[3] How often was/is that calibration conducted, and by whom?
[4] Where are the records of such calibration to be found for EACH AND EVERY DEVICE used?
[5] If old world devices weren’t accurate to tenths of a degree, then how is anyone able to describe changes in that small of a measurement delineation using old records?
For the purposes of definition: Old World = Any thermometric device manufactured prior to the year 1930 which has been used to record ‘official’ thermometric data.
I am a latecomer to your excellent site Anthony, but not too late to realise the ramifications of (especially) AGW and the sinister goings-on behind the scenes, both at the ‘scientific’ level, and in the shady area of high politics. It is thanks to you that my eyes have been fully opened , and I am so grateful to you for so doing, both here and for providing links elsewhere.
I must admit though, to Mrs Eng becoming rather jaded when I tell her about the latest of your posts; indeed, her eyebrows are now fairly close to her hairline. Her respite is when I return to work (on a ship), but thanks to modern technology I can still usually get my twice daily WUWT.
My profound thanks, and congratulations to you and your loyal team.
Chris Aviss
Congratulations to Anthony & Team.
My climate science education started here in early 2009.
John
Question: since the center of the earth is solid iron (due to pressure) surrounded by molten iron, does the center rotate as it orbits the sun differently than the crust? If so, would this be part of the generator system for our magnetic field?
As far as where does the gopher would go, it would depend on how much postage you had put on it.
899 says:
November 8, 2010 at 10:29 pm
I think you are on the wrong thread here: but to answer your questions.
Mercury in glass thermometers are suprisingly stable with lifetimes of hundreds of years.
Precision of mercury in glass depends on the exact design but is normally calibrated for general use at one tenth of a degree F or roughly one twentieth of a degree K.
Up until the end of the nineteenth makers of mercury thermometers usually carried out their own calibration against a standard unit itself calibrated against a laboratory standard But by the early years of the twentieth century those intended for precision measurement were individually calibrated either by independent or state sponsered institutions, eg the NPL, usually to absolute values of of one part in two hundredths of a degree Kelvin and with linearity over the range from melting ice to boiling point better than one hundreth of a degree Kelvin.
Provided the thermometer has not been subjected to any abuse it should not shift by more than one tenth of one percent from these calibrated values in one hundred years. This figure is based on precision measurement of mercury glass thermometers dating from one hundred and fifty or more years ago.
So it is a great mistake to suppose our ancestors could not measure temperature accurately.
Why do you think Mr. Joule had a special ten foot thermometer built? because he wanted to find out the temperature change between the top and the bottom of a waterfall to find out the mechanical equivalent of heat. As I understand it this early attempt was not terribly successful probably because he was trying to work to one thousandth of a degree: he then turned to more precise experimental methods.
One tenth of a degree indeed.
Kindest Regards
Congratulations Anthony and team – well deserved for your unstinting services to the truth. I can’t remember when I first discovered WUWT, but I remember watching the single figure millions clocked up.
Exemplary dissemination of real science, thank you Mr Watts.
Question, Four bits like computer code make up the complexities of all DNA, thus the blue prints of all life. Physics has dozens of ever increasing particles, some imaginary and many with spin and charm. Sounds like a mixture of faith and politics. Ever increasing complexity for explanation is always the path to wrongness. Has science taken a wrong turn?
Congratulations on another milestone Anthony et al. I’ve been dropping in here since May or June of 2007 and can probably account for at least .01% of those 60 million hits and have found every one of them informative and entertaining. The overall effect has also been a life preserver for my personal sanity, because the continuing bombardment of alarmist propaganda in the larger world often left me wondering if I was losing my mind since everyone else was reportedly thoroughly convinced of what seemed to me to be patent nonsense. Many thanks for all you’ve done and are doing to offer a place where the truth can be pursued wherever it may lead.
Congratulations, Anthony!
Swedish National Television have a weekly standing program called “Vetenskapens Värld” (The World of Science, The Scientific World or… what ever).
Yesterday the reporter set out to debunk all these alleged data manipulation myths in ClimateGate by trying to find out who these climate sceptics really are. Phil Jones and Michael Mann had all swedish viewers undivided attention for one hour. Be it as it may with climategate, I don’t think it makes any difference what is truth or what is lies in this CG. Sceptics doesn’t found their critique on CG. Isn’t there so much other data and conclusions to be presented? It,s just ignored because it’s counterintelligence to the data that is being served to the political agendasetting World Climate Judiciary Court – IPCC.
To make a long story short, they came to the conclusion that AGW-sceptics today are the same kind of people like those who once tried to, desperately and futile, defend the tobacco companies in all its aspects.
So, now you know. Bad, bad, boy! 🙂
a jones : November 8, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Right on, a jones. I spent an hour looking up antique thermometers on 899’s comment and you said it all there. I also know in some respects their temperatures a century ago were BETTER than much we are doing now, not worse. Electronic thermometers are notorious for a float or skew on the absolute accuracy but are great on short-time repeatability. Sadly it’s the absolute accuracy that is important in long term temperature records and there is nothing like a good mercury thermometer and eyes that will stay constant over centuries, absolutely that is though repeatability may vary slightly but randomly.
Congratulations Anthony!
Ecotretas
Q: Why is there air? A(Cosby): How else would you blow up volleyballs”
Q: What is gravity? A (Confucius): No such thing as gravity- Earth sucks!
Many, many thanks Anthony and mods; a lodestar of rationality in insane times. L
Congrats to Anthony and mods. I always wondered what the technology singularity wave would look like and now I know it’s called WUWT. Hang ten and hang on!
Had a look at http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/realclimate.org# and read the blurb and it looks like most of those looking at it “don’t”. As they quickly flick through and leave. On the other hand I spend far longer on wwwt than I really should as its just so interesting and thought provoking.
Keep up the good work!
James
Could this be what they were referring to when they mentioned a death spiral?
Anthony & Team, I must add my congratulations on your wonderful work. I know it takes it’s toll on you and appreciate the fact that you carry on through adversity.
May the Force be with you for many more years to come, roll on 100,000,000.
Also a big thank you to all the commentors who make it so interesting, educating and fun.
Congratulations Anthony and the hard working mods.
I know there are several regulars from Wales and it would be interesting to see a worldwide breakdown of your readers.
Warm regards to you all.
I think I may have become addicted.
WUWT = POTT ( portal on the truth) – for the real dope
Congratulations on your success Anthony, long may it last.
Next week we will celebrate two important WUWT milestones . The anniversary of Anthony’s first Blog, in Nov 17/06 and the announcement of the CRU email leak, 19/11/09. I remember, that eventful week last year, also reading on WUWT, the first reference to ‘Climategate’ by Bulldust. I propose to celebrate as suggested, with a glass, or two, of chilled Beaujolais to toast Anthony and moderatorsand of course, Steve MC and Mosher. I shall also set off fireworks from my balcony and send a donation to WUWT in gratitude….
Ahhh and may the Force be with you, my friends.
But hey, pay attention! Someone’s not watching! What also happened on 17th November? Crikey folks, celebration time coming up.
@ Jeff Id “Open Letter on Climate Legislation”
@ Sir McIntyre “Miracles and Strip Bark Standardization”
Have you wondered that WUWT changed BLOGS´CLIMATE?. It has definitely warmed up following almost exactly Mann´s Hockey Stick!! ☺
Anthony, congratulations and a BIG thank you. Its good, its, clean, its humorous and its scientific and highly informative without ad hominems, with the whole scientific spectrum; sceptic, lukewarmer, warmist, the whole lot, having the opportunity to comment. It is, I would say, democratic.
Jimbo says:
November 8, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Now there’s a URL I can recommend! 🙂
Unfortunately, that and my search skills haven’t managed to find the date of the 1,000,000 page view. Back then the first comment about that would typically be from some commentor gushing with praise, and there were few enough of us and the mega views rare enough to make it fun to be the first to note the passing. I think it happened sometime in March or April 2008.
Anthony tended to make note of major per-month view threshholds. Here are a few posts on threshholds passed:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/01/wattsupwiththat-anthony-watts-steven-goddard/
Joe Romm is jealous “the most meaningless statistic on the web – his 50 millionth hit .”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/25/another-small-milestone-for-wuwt/
20,000,000 views
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/15/10-million-page-views/
10,000,000 views. (Duh!)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/21/my-first-14-mil-week/
“Despite my having to cut back on posting and moderation to nights and weekends in order to devote more time to my livelihood during these economic down times, WUWT continues to grow.” [That’s 1/4 million views in a week, not 14 million. Clearly WUWT was and is doing better than the economy.]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/03/another-record-month/
402,000 unique page views for the month of May. [About 1.1 million in March/April/May.]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/18/thanks-to-all-my-readers/
First 100,000 page view month (only 50,000 a couple months before).
Congrats to Anthony and the team. I spend far too much time here every weekday, but regard this site as the the science education I used to regret not pursuing when I was much younger. WUWT is both addictive and mind-expanding at the same time, in the best way possible. I am incredibly grateful to everyone who contributes so much of themselves here.
Heartfelt congratulations, Anthony and all you mods!
I’ve been visiting here well before that day in November last year, for the education and the wonderful comments – iaw, for the joy of learned scientific debate, as opposed to political preachings disguised as ‘science’.
I applaud you especially because this has not changed, in spite of the millions more coming here for their daily dose of sanity.
ClimateGate made me jump into the waters here and drop the odd comment or two, because I am still learning.
After all – if one calls oneself a scientist, learning about new discoveries is part of the profession.
No decline to hide here.
Excellent Anthony,
I can remember the first 100,000!
I’m afraid you’re deluding yourself Antony.
Towards the end of last year Alexia changed the way they measure site frequentation.
They stopped measuring the number of packets in a bucket and started measuring directly in the T3 backbone (pipes) leading to the server. This gave an apparent increase in traffic.
Once you have homogenised the data for this effect you’ll find your traffic has been steadily decreasing since the beginning of 2009.
Looks like you’re trying to hide the decline.
It’s worth remarking that before there was Anthony Watts, there was John L. Daly. His Still Waiting for Greenhouse site began in 1999. His book The Greenhouse Trap came out in 1989. Sadly he died in 2004.
Well done Anthony, you and your team have changed the world for the better. Truly amazing. A national treasure – nay, INTERNATIONAL treasure. Robin (New Zealand).
Here are a couple of extracts from Green Agenda that I would not heard of last spring, let alone believed:-
“We should all want to be wise and careful stewards of the beautiful planet we call home. But most of us realise that humans in general are not being good stewards. We are wasteful with our natural resources and have reduced biodiversity. Therefore, when we read about groups and organisations calling for a ‘green revolution’ and a new relationship between humanity and nature it is easy to agree with their ideas.
However, certain aspects of the modern green movement that is permeating every segment of our society are not about protecting the environment. You don’t have to dig very deep to discover the true beliefs of the influential leaders who are using genuine concerns about the environment to promote an agenda of fear and control. Please carefully consider the implications of the opinions that they so openly and freely express:
(references and sources for the quotes below can be found here)
“The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome,
premier environmental think-tank,
consultants to the United Nations
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We need to get some broad based support,
to capture the public’s imagination…
So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
make simplified, dramatic statements
and make little mention of any doubts…
Each of us has to decide what the right balance
is between being effective and being honest.”
– Prof. Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
lead author of many IPCC reports”
I have to thank your truly excellent WUWT blog for giving me the spur for finding this alarming trash that is, almost as I type, being broadcast to the fertile minds of children , and some adults.