My presentation at Doctors for Disaster Preparedness

Excellent, Anthony. I especially liked the bit about CO2 not being smart. How does it know which cities to beam its little heat rays upon, and which to ignore?
The doctors got a chuckle out of that, too. They know quite a bit about CO2.

Watched it from beginning to end — completely fascinated. Go Watts!
Eugene WR Gallun

Richard M says:
August 17, 2013 at 7:21 pm
I think you can add another month. If you use 1996.84 I think that takes you back to November 1996 and I still get a flat trend. Although, I’m not absolutely positive how woodfortrees does this conversion.
Note: For those who hate nitpickyness, just go to the next entry.
The way WFT works is by going to the next whole month from any number you put in. 10 months is 0.83333 of a year. So if you put in 1996.84, you get 200 months or from December 1996, just as if you would have put in 1996.9. However if you put in 1996.83, you get 201 months. You can easily verify this for yourself by clicking “Raw data” and seeing how many months are shown and also by checking the starting month. So while 1996.84 may appear to be 201 months, it is only 200 months. But that does not mean you are necessarily wrong about the extra month. The negative slope for 200 months is -0.000 24, but the positive slope for 201 months is +0.000 086. According to my calculations, the 0 point would have been hit around November 8. Of course this assumes a smooth transition from November 1 to December 1 which I have no way of verifying. Without having a clue what August will bring, I can justify claiming that the flat slope extends for 200.75 months. The 0 point is at 0.240 and the July anomaly was 0.222. So if August should stay at 0.222, then we would have at least 201.75 months of no warming. But something lower than 0.222 could easily give 202 months. We will have to wait and see.

It was worth spending 53 minutes on your video because I learned some things I did not know. You are a good presenter but you are still a jerk for what you said about my work. J. Scott Armstrong has good advice for you. The one fact that I found most interesting in your presentation is that water vapor in air has been slowly going down since 1948. This is exactly the opposite of what IPCC says because according to them it should be increasing to implement that positive water vapor feedback they keep babbling about. You may recall that It is this positive water vapor feedback that is required to reach doubling sensitivities of two or three degrees that we are threatened with. Pure Arrhenius warming is only 1.1 degrees Celsius, not enough to frighten anyone. But water vapor feedback is not positive but negative according to Ferenc Miskolczi and decreasing water vapor in the atmosphere proves it. Next, volcanic eruptions. You have that all wrong. There is no such thing as volcanic cooling. The bulk of the eruption ends up in the stratosphere which it first warms. Cooling follows a year or two later but it stays there and never gets to the ground level. Aerosol cooling they talk about is hugely overrated. Such volcanic cooling as has been identified has nothing to do with volcanism but is simply a case of normal La Nina cooling, misidentified. The two volcanoes you show are Pinatubo and El Chichon. The “Pinatubo cooling” found on temperature curves is nothing of the sort – it just happens to be an ordinary La Nina in the right place where a volcanic cooling was expected. That is because Pinatubo went off exactly at the peak of an El Nino which was then immediately followed by La Nina cooling. See Figure 9 in my book. El Chichon is exactly the opposite – it went off at the bottom of a La Nina valley and was immediately followed by the 1983 El Nino. There just isn’t any La Nina in the right place to use as a stand-in for its volcanic cooling and volcanologists have been scratching their heads about it ever since. You would know all this if you had bothered to read my book. If you check your temperature curve you will find that the giant Krakatao has a miserably small cooling despite anecdotal reports about it because it falls into an intermediate space between an EL Nino and a La Nina. The anecdotes refer to a celestial display, not temperature. And the greatest eruption of the twentieth century, Katmai, has no cooling whatsoever associated with it because it erupted when an El Nino was just beginning to form. Now let’s look at the Arctic. It may not surprise you that it cannot possibly be caused by greenhouse warming. Arctic warming started suddenly at the turn of the twentieth century, after 2000 years of slow, linear cooling. It paused for thirty years in mid-century, then resumed, and is still going strong. Greenhouse warming is ruled out by the laws of physics because there was no measurable increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide at the time. Its probable cause is a rearrangement of the North Atlantic current system at the turn of the century that started to carry warm Gulf Stream water into the Arctic Ocean. That is why the Arctic is the only place in the world that is still warming. The rest of the world is going through a so-called “pause” of warming that nobody seems to understand. That is because they are either stupid or ignorant or both. This lack of warming has now lasted for 15 years. The IPCC was established in 1988 and ten years later, in 1998, warming stopped. This stoppage has now lasted for fifteen years, five years longer than the period when they could observe warming first hand. The pause should accordingly be the new normal since its length exceeds that of the previous short period of warming in action. The cause of the pause is no mystery, for it follows directly from Miskolczi’s saturated greenhouse theory. He published it in 2007 but was shouted down in the blogosphere and ignored by “real” climate scientists. But in seven years no peer reviewed objections were published, no doubt not for lack of trying. In 2010 he found a way to prove his theory using existing data. NOAA has a database of weather balloon observations going back to 1948. Miskolczi used it to study the absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere over time and found that absorption had been constant for 61 years while carbon dioxide at the same time went up by 21.6 percent. This means that the addition of this substantial amount of carbon dioxide to air had no influence whatsoever on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. Right off the bat, any and all predictions of warming based on the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide are invalid. Since they were often used to justify passing emission control laws these laws were passed under false premises and should be voided. This also makes the theory of anthropogenic global warming a pseudo-science that should be cast off into the waste basket of history.
[Good comments, thank you. Where do you want to interject paragraphs returns? Mod]

I shouldn’t be surprised based on the the tone and quality of your postings Mr Watts, but seeing you (if not in person) engaging an audience in a live setting was really refreshing. Your presentation, voice, tone, and overall delivery show a side of yourself unknown to me. It is good to know how we’ll you comport yourself online and live which leads me to a further appreciation of your efforts. Thank you, with deepest gratitude.

Anthony shoots. He scores!

Arno;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/17/my-presentation-at-doctors-for-disaster-preparedness/#comment-1393654 Excellent comments, please respond to Mod. to insert para separations.

Am I the only one having problems to watch the video?
Ive tried for two days shifting between Crome Explorer Mozilla but get “time session running out” with all options and I cant find the video on You Tube..

Dear Anthony
This is an excellent presentation you also gave credit to other people’s work that you used in your talk, which is very commendable of you.
You invited comments and criticism of your presentation and for a change I have nothing to add 🙂

One of the major problems encounter of when discussing the effect of CO2 on temperature is the math concept of logarithmic relations. Most people simply do not understand the differences between linear, exponential, and logarithmic functions. Forget that, most do not even know what a function is.
Before you know it, while you’re explaining log functions, the eyes of the audience glaze over when they start wondering when they can go home and have a beer or watch America has talent.
Sad really. What skeptics need are some good marketers.

Great job, and nice presentation style too!

“Hi Anthony- A very valuable and informative presentation. I hope you do more of these!
Roger Sr”
I wonder how many other presenters on this topic over the years have received such a kind and friendly nod from Roger Sr. That should be a source of great satisfaction and pride for you.
Congratulations!

I would, perhaps, add that a single temperature metric tells you nothing meaningful about “global climate”. Show them Yad06.

Thanks Anthony for a superb, enjoyable … memorable! …presentation.
I’ve been using your site for years and this was extremely helpful in tying all the major findings together in a great Video.
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
John C. Maxwell
Thanks to you and your work many have been shown the way to truth.

Finally, I stole a few minutes to watch the video. Your presentation is brilliant, brilliant, and brilliant. It will go viral. Prepare for blowback. God Bless You.

Your emphasis on siting issues and the surface temperature record is extremely important. It gives people something to sink their teeth into and it reveals a foundational problem with claims of global warming. Teachers should send kids and parents out looking for weather stations. Most important to me, you carve in stone the total lack of attention shown empirical matters by those who control temperature measurements. (When is BEST going to pony up and do the statistics on your five-fold classification of weather stations? What is their problem? Why do they show a total lack of attention to empirical matters?)

Anthony,
very good presentation.
Harry Kal

Speaking to the ten points of doubt about global warming – specifically the urban heat island, I think its effects are way underestimated. In my case, I live on the edge of a MN city of 100,000 population. Often at 10 pm at night, the temperature in the middle of the city is a full 8 degrees warmer than it is is on either side of the city , just a couple miles out of town and away from the bricks and blacktop. FYI, our rural airport shows no increase in temperature comparing the most recent 25 years to the 25 years starting in 1900, (obviously not an airport in 1900). In fact it was 2 tenths of a degree colder in the most recent 25 years. WHERE IS THE PROBLEM!!!!???!!! Ain’t one. John late Daly found the same – rural weather stations see no warming.

Re: (When is BEST going to pony up and do the statistics on your five-fold classification of weather stations? What is their problem? Why do they show a total lack of attention to empirical matters?)
What if they already did that work, and decided the results would only confuse people?

“I received airfare compensation, meals, and lodging, plus $250 for my three days of time (two of which were travel) for speaking. Compare that to what Al Gore gets.”
If he gets paid so much more than you, doesn’t that prove he’s right?

Great presentation.

Great presentation, great style.
About Thorium, just for the record: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/160131-thorium-nuclear-reactor-trial-begins-could-provide-cleaner-safer-almost-waste-free-energy

Chad Wozniak says:
August 18, 2013 at 8:47 pm
@Janice Moore –
They key, once again, is to get this presentation into mass circulation.

Youtube, anyone?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. says:
August 17, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Hi Anthony- A very valuable and informative presentation. I hope you do more of these!
Roger Sr
===============================================================
If he does, I hope he gets paid more !!

Anthony Congratulations. Excellent presentation.Surely there must be some way to get it before Obama’s minions,the congress and the general public via at least one of the MSM outlets.

“Taking chemotherapy for a cold.” That says it all.
However, since the government and those it subsidizes are all in the profit from chemotherapy business, it is going to be a long, hard fight.

RE: Temperature Station siting. I can’t help but think some of the poor siting is by design.
REPLY: never attribute malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence – Anthony

A very interesting question at the end regarding how to counterattack whatever the latest iteration of the latest “disaster” heading – Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption/Carbon Pollution/Extreme Weather/Whatever Next. Its like those whack-a-mole games at the carnival. I guess we should all equip ourselves with a NERF bat and swat the latest mole whenever it pops up. I doubt it will fix the problem but it will feel good to whack the mole.

Go Weinberg foundation
London
WC2

I just wanted to echo the compliments of others, and also say Go Boilers!
BSEE 1979

Thanks for putting up the Doc Essex talk. SUMMARY:Climate models are crap – mathematical flagellation (to be polite).

Mr. Watts,
Your presentation may have been useful in 2012, but doesn’t touch today’s pressing climate issue, “Carbon Pollution”.
I’d put a sarc tag here, but “Carbon Pollution” really is the latest Climate Speak.
It’s all our fault and we must be made to pay (and pay.)

I suggest as a start to take a look at the Maunder Minimum,and Dalton Minimum and the theories as to why the climate was as it was during those periods of time.

I thought Anthony did it great, no need to change anything in his presentation.

Anthony, like a hundred others up list, I found your talk on video exceptional in its organization, clarity, and content. The broadcaster in you really came out. You know how to tell a story and keep someone’s attention.
I urge you to add a link to this blog post and video to your About: Anthony Watts page. Much of the video has the subtext of how a Purdue trained meteorologist accepted much of James Hansen’s 1988 warning, but then that meteorologist started looking at the data, the measurements, the analysis. That meteorologist chose to believe his eyes more than his ears.

The weather graphics you see in the lower right corner of the blog are produced by my company, IntelliWeather. As you can see most of my work is in weather technology such as weather stations, weather data processing systems, and weather graphics creation and display. While I’m not a degreed climate scientist, …. (From the About Anthony Watts page)

In the video (@7:00), you say that you went to Purdue University, and worked as a research assistant the in meteorology department. Anthony, that alone make you more of a “climate scientist” than a lot of today’s computer modelers that never field collected a proxy. You literally got your hands dirty with Stephenson Screens and data collection. You have been more responsible for the QC of USHCN data than most Ph.D’s. The weather has been your business for 30+ years. You are a first class climate scientist, degreed or not. “While I’m not a degreed climate scientist…” — you are too modest. A sentence about Purdue meteorology research is worth adding to your “About me” page.

Please forgive me, Anthony, for in my earlier smarty pants post, i neglected to tell you:
WELL DONE, SIR!!!

Unless I misunderstood it, the segment on aerosols was misleading. Volcanic aerosols do have transient cooling effects on climate, but the sulfate aerosols that are conjectured by IPCC to be masking a significant amount of global warming are the result of fossil fuel combustion, largely coal plants. There are several critical problems with this conjecture. One is the fact that each climate model has to use a different value in order to properly hindcast past temperature, making it basically an adjustable parameter. Another problem is that since these aerosols have lifetimes of days to weeks in the atmosphere, their signature of cooling should be correlated with regions where emissions are largest. This is not seen. In any event you may wish to examine that segment of your presentation.

An excellent presentation which is very understandable to the lay person.

I’ll post as I review.
The first comment I would make is it would be good to explain the theory of global warming. It’s not too hard: incoming radiation is invisible to C02, it is bounced back out as IR, a C02 molecule grabs the photon, and spits the photon back out in a random direction instead of letting it exit the atmosphere, bouncing some back to earth. I personally think this thinking explains a lot of what is going on, the AHA! moment, not realize the many other aspects that affect climate.
Presentation style is really good once you get going. I have presented often too, and I’m initially hesitant, but as I get out of intro and into the material, it flows.

Another point: here is a weather station on cinderstone. Why is it important? Something like “instead of grass which absorbs and uses the energy, or white that reflects it, it is absorbing and storing all that heat to release it at night.” Maybe people get that, but it oughtn’t to take too long to explain, and it adds weight to the citing issues you are very concerned about.
I personally don’t appreciate your note on anomalies vs. absolute temperature in degrees K. The importance of temperature differences is the impact to people, not how much it is. Not sure how to fix this. It has too much uncertainty, in my view. Perhaps “What is normal for earth temperatures?” Hard to do, for sure. The Chicago slide of record temps was not understandable in the short time you had it up there.
Next, you should pause at the end of transitioning between topics (not slides). It feels like a force feed, affording no oppty to reflect.
You complained about non-zero based graphs with regards to temperatures, but put up a similar slide for water vapor. It reminded me I think your anomalies vs. absolute temperature graph is not convincing on reflection.
On presentation giving, anyone can read a slide. On the slide “The role of aerosols”, I would put bullets, and if the presentation is going to be shared, put the text in smaller font.
Note, you ought to say the heat differential is causing client scientists to try to find the missing heat. They know it is there because of their AHA moment.

@RockyRoad
“Truth is free -”
Socialist dogma. Privatized truth at market rates is more efficient and truer.
“You’ll note Anthony hasn’t charged anybody here a single cent to watch this.”
He’s a communist.

Anthony, I very much enjoyed your presentation, especially the first part which shows that you are at least as concerned about the environment than many of these “green” boys and girls. Not to mention dear Al Gore, whose “ecological footprint” is many times what the average American consumes. Hear my words, but don’t look at my deeds…
BTW, the presentation Al Gore did in the Netherlands a few years ago was good for a fee of 100,000 euro, or some 125,000 dollar. Seems that you are somewhat underpayed…

Thanks for posting the video presentation, Anthony – as a non scientist/engineer/climatologist (i.e. just an ordinary ‘bloke’) I appreciated your clear delivery, your understandable explanations and your humour. It’s great to be invited to watch and listen to a level-headed, informed talk such as this. One of the best I’ve seen in a long while – and easily on a par with Monckton for sheer viewing pleasure.

Way, way off topic. I did not know you were a Purdue alum. I am GaTech thru and thru. I have suggested to no less a personage then the AD of GaTech that they schedule a home and home football series between the No. 1 engineering school in the SE and one of the best, if not the, No. 1, engineering schools in the Midwest. Perhaps you could put in a word with the Purdue AD. It seems like a no brainer.

“I’ll provide full disclosure. There was mostly an aerospace interest due to Houston’s role in the space program, there was not a hint of the oil industry there.”
That is NOT full disclosure.
Who was the Aerospace interest? Who covered for what the ‘aerospace interest’ didn’t? Not a hint of oil industry? I guess we’ll just have to take your weord for that.
Not going for complex conspiracy. Just wondering why you would say you would provide full disclosure and then procide to obsficate.
REPLY: I was talking about my reimbursement in the paragraph below. There were several speakers and attendees from aerospace, including a tour of a local rocket company startup. It is in the program here: http://www.ddponline.org/2013/02/16/ddp-31st-annual-meeting-dates-and-location-set/
Ad Astra Rocket Factory, Professional Tour ($50/person) on Monday, July 15. 8:15am to 11:30am. Limit is 25 persons, so reserve early! See the VASIMR plasma rocket engine, advanced superconductors, one of the world’s largest vacuum test chambers, and animations of future space exploration missions. You need not be a U.S. citizen, but the company needs to know your name and citizenship in advance. We will depart hotel at 8:15am and will be back at the hotel no later than 11:30am.
– Anthony

Apologies for fat finger spelling on previous post.

[Snip. Read the Policy page. Some pejoratives are unwelcome here. — mod.]

Excellent stuff. The docs should have a much more realistic view of things now than *some* people would have them believe. Also, fascinating to hear old Franklin did the snow on soot experiment so long ago.
You should start a “video presentations” section up there with the Reference Pages, Resources etc. This one deserves to remain easily found.

What gets me is the lack of commentary from those with a higher visibility ,that agree with Anthony.
This is a very good presentation.
I think the global warmers are much more united, then the global coolers.

Good presentation, Anthony. Of course you have done this professionally for many years, but I think the content and the order of the presentation were effective. I wish you would have included some graphical information on extreme weather, and your explanation of how that fits in with climate change.

Quality, Mr Watts, quality.

What a great presentation! Thanks, Anthony. It’s a big plus to see you and hear you, as well as “just” read you. Please do more of this, I think it makes a big difference: not only in the quality of your rhetorical “punch” (which, already good, will improve with practice) but also in the overall reach and diversity of the presentations you can make. People today respond more to visual/personal pitches, less to literary/scholarly ones. Both are needed; and you have the “complete game;” so use it! Thanks.

oMan says:
August 20, 2013 at 4:28 pm
“I agree with Janice Moore comments re: your style. You’re a natural on-stage. Drop or trim the “Arbor Day” business; your credentials readily emerge as impeccable. What matters is your logic and integrity, not your love of seedling trees.”
Respectfully disagree with you and Janice. For those who are not as familiar with Anthony, it is good to show them how he walked the walk before he talked the talk.

pimf

“you was not born in Waltonville, Arkansas.”
Sorry, I sure mangled that sentence. Always in a rush, it took this long to get a bit of time to view the presentation.
You wadn’t not born in Arkiefornia, that’s it.
And WUWT is so good, ya sop it up with a biscuit!

That fella Essex is a very clever chap – could’ve been quite a heavy talk but I was actually able to follow the thread.

This is a perfect video to send to believers, it sums it up with a reasonable amount of facts and data, and shows many of the absurdities, that might not be too apparent for most people.

Janice Moore says:
August 22, 2013 at 10:04 pm
“Dear Tom (in Florida),
Hope you are enjoying August, down there. Stay safe.
Janice”
I always enjoy summer in Florida. Originally from New England, I am a devote believer in warmer is better and really do not like temperatures (water or air) less than 80 F. I actually think about moving farther south for the winter, perhaps to Key West.