We’ve had issues with Mr. Laden before, and being called on it hasn’t changed his bad behavior, hopefully he’ll learn something this time. This is a pretty simple black and white issue, so I’ll do it with bullet points.
- Yesterday, Mr. Laden claimed WUWT had sunk to a “new low” for daring to question the wind speeds of Typhoon Haiyan hyped in the media with ground measurements reported by the Philippine Meteorological Agency. Our position was the media poorly reported on the storm, made egregious errors that we documented, and that this led to inflated wind speed numbers given to the public, such as 235 kilometers per hour being reported as 235 miles per hour, to give an example.
- He further claimed that we were “disrespectful” for not immediately updating the death toll to the new estimate of 10,000, which was the result of a political meeting in the governor’s office. I said we’d stick with the last report of the Red Cross number of 1200 as I trust them because their mission has no agenda other than aid. The 10,000 estimate may be met, or even exceeded, and if so we’ll report it then. (Now at 1774 as of 1015AM 11/11) UPDATE: 11/12 7AM Philippine president Aquino says to CNN: Typhoon Haiyan deaths likely 2,000 to 2,500 — not 10,000
- He added in a comment:
Let me ask you this but you better answer quick because the ground is sliding from underneath you as I type this. How important is 1,200 vs. tens of thousands? If it turns out to be tens of thousands instead of 1,200 will you STFU forever? Please?
- He then proceeded to write a long winded blog post at “ScienceBlogs”, and launch a Twitter tirade, from the position that he had some sort of moral high ground. As one WUWT commenter put it: The leftie pose of “We care more about real people than you do” is on full display.
- Yet, despite that angry posturing from that self-imagined moral high ground, Mr. Laden never once offered to help the people of the Philippines as WUWT has with the links to the Philippine Red Cross in the side bar graphic and in blog post links. Other bloggers such as Bob Tisdale have followed my lead with links in postings. Even 350.org’s Bill McKibben has thanked WUWT for providing him this info as he was pushing the “Save the Children Organization”, which isn’t disaster equipped.
- I waited over 24 hours to see if Mr. Laden had a conscience, and if he would offer his blog to help the people of Philippines or was simply interested in his holier than thou tirade against WUWT. So far, he has not.
- I made a donation to the Philippine Red Cross.
I chose 5000 Philippine Pesos (PHP) from the menu, which works out to $118 USD as it allows Mr. Laden and others who may donate to easily match the contribution. The maximum value on the Red Cross donation page in the menu is 10,000 PHP, or about $230 USD.
Between his donation (assuming he makes one), his readers donations (assuming he pitches it to them), and my donation along with WUWT reader donations, that should add up to a significant and useful sum, but any amount people may choose is useful and appreciated. Feel free to note your donation in comments if you choose.
The challenge:
I challenge Mr. Laden to meet or exceed my donation, and to post a link and graphic on his blog to the donation page for the Philippine Red Cross, and encourage his readers to contribute.
He is welcome to use this graphic I created:
Give Generously
The link is: http://ushare.redcross.org.ph/
Be sure to select the campaign first in the menu pulldown to be Supertyphoon Yolanda (Haiyan), then select the monetary amount and the payment method.
I also encourage WUWT readers to donate if they feel so inclined. It will be interesting to see if any other blogs who have been critical of WUWT pitch in to help. I’m betting few will as it isn’t in their nature but would be happy to be proven wrong.
Full disclosure: My wife’s maternal side of family is from the Philippines, and we have learned that one of her relatives there has lost a home in the storm. We have no word on the others there at this time.
==============================================================
UPDATE: Laden’s claims in his tirade aren’t supported by actual science and data, he writes:
But Watts and Homewood don’t want storms to be important for the simple reason that the best models strongly suggest that there will be more storms … especially in the Pacific, where Haiyan struck, over coming decades because of the changes to climate that humans are carrying out and that Anthony Watts and Paul Homewood deny to be real.
This paper shows the reality from data – no trend:
Kubota, H. and Chan, J.C.L. 2009. Interdecadal variability of tropical cyclone landfall in the Philippines from 1902 to 2005. Geophysical Research Letters 36: 10.1029/2009GL038108.
“Despite global warming during the 20th century the number of tropical cyclones annually making landfall in the Philippines did not experience any net change. All variability was merely oscillatory activity around a mean trend of zero slope”
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
1000 PhP is about 20 bucks (US bucks).
REPLY: Yes I chose 5000, which works out to $118USD as it allowed Mr. Laden and others who may donate to easily match the contribution. the maximum value on the Red Cross donation page in the menu is 10,000 PHP.
Between his readers and mine, that should add up to a significant and useful sum, but any amount people may choose is useful and appreciated.
– Anthony
As always Anthony…you’re the best!
Anthony, nice gesture! I matched your donation.
1000 php donated – thx for the heads up…
Adversarial Altruism? Well. Done.
/slow clap
The issue of wind speed is one of record keeping. The issue of storm damage is unrelated. The top wind speed of the storm could be 50mph or 350mph, but the damage exists regardless. In other words, asserting the wind speed was not reported accurately does not assert that there was less damage than there is. The same can be said of media coverage and reporting on the storm. If the actual speed turns out to be only 140mph it does not make wrecked homes pop back up, if it is 190mph more do not fall down.
The equivalence between the discussion of the media reporting of facts about the storm and doubt of storm damage is a false one.
REPLY: Sorry, you are off the mark. The word “damage” does not appear anywhere in that blog post, it was not raised as an issue of doubt by myself or Paul Homewood in that post. The issue was wind speed and sloppy reporting, making wind speeds seem higher than they actually were.
I see you’d rather argue than help out, which is the point of this challenge, though I’m happy to be proven wrong on that point.
– Anthony
anthony,
i had forgotten all about greg laden, but it seems he’s still around, and just as vile:
10 Nov: Minneapolis Star Tribune: On Weather by Paul Douglas
(SCROLL DOWN)Should There Be A Category 6 For Hurricanes? Greg Laden brings up the pros and cons in a post at scienceblogs.com; here’s a clip: “…There is resistance to this proposal that comes from two mostly distinct places. One is the community of those who deny the science of climate change, or climate change itself, or science itself. Their motivation is to not allow the so called “alarmists” (those who are alarmed at the changes happening on our planet) to have a tool to point out that severe weather can be very severe indeed. The other is the subset of meteorologists who are actually correct, in a way, when they point out that the Saffir Simpson scale, the scale with the five categories, can’t be extended because of the way it is built, but who are very incorrect, I think, when they point out that extending the scale would damage the most important available tool for scaring people into running away (or staying indoors)…”
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/231365101.html
REPLY: Thanks, how about a tip to the Red Cross to offset his vileness? – Anthony
If the actual speed turns out to be only 140mph it does not make wrecked homes pop back up.
No it just means that the whole event is well within the realm of what anyone might expect without the CAGW alarmism. IT IS NOT EVIDENCE OF ANYTHING OTHER THAN OUR NEED TO CONTINUE TO CREATE WEALTH WITH ENERGY SO THAT WE CAN EFFICTIVELY DEAL WITH THESE INEVITABLE, NATURAL, SITUATIONS.
Of course Laden et al are going to stamp their feet and feign bleeding heart syndrome if you dare question the horror stories they so love to paint. You’re shooing away at their stunning one-act offensive: blind emotion.
Meanwhile, as Goofus is screaming at his spittle-flecked monitor, Gallant knows there is a place to act on emotion and a time to battle using reason. Case in point: call out factual inaccuracies while clicking the donate button to help those in need. I believe those in this camp are termed rational beings.
Kudos to you Anthony.
Anthony,
ABC News (the US one) confirmed your figure from the Philippines Meteorological Agency:
“The local weather bureau had a lower reading, saying the storm’s speed at landfall had sustained winds at 234 kilometers (145 miles) per hour, with gusts of 275 kph (170.88 mph). The bureau takes measures based on longer periods of time.”
Doubtless the ABC (the Australian one), the BBC, the Guardian and all the other left wing leaning media will continue with the much higher figure. After all, scary is good in their eyes.
I have been trying to find the original source of the much quoted higher figure of wind speeds of “195mph and gusts up to 235mph”. It seems to be an offshore, not onshore, prediction by the USAF Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, based in Pear Harbour. In a real world, the reporting of an estimated prediction of offshore wind speed would be considered unreliable and actual observations would be used instead, but – big sigh – this is the world of ‘climate science’, where prediction is always so much more important than observation.
Laden is not just vile, he’s incredibly immature. I mean, really: “If it turns out to be tens of thousands instead of 1,200 will you STFU forever?” How old is this guy? 12?
UK Red Cross doesn’t seem to have the option to donate in PHP, but £80 seems like the corresponding amount, so I’ve gone for that one.
Thanks to Anthony, as I’d probably not have thought about a donation had it not been on WUWT.
ckb @ur momisugly 11:59 pm:
As with Katrina (a Cat 3 at landfall, as I recall), most of the damage appears to have resulted from the storm surge, which some reports are putting at up to 5m. As with Katrina, and as Roger Pielke Jr has repeatedly shown, the main determinants of damage to assets (and loss of life) are features of topography, population, location of assets and human behaviour (successful evacuation, etc). All these factors convert hazards in to risks.
Thanks for the prompt Anthony, donation made.
I wasn’t suggesting anything about your donation. I went to the donation site and had no idea what I would be committing to since amounts are in PhP. I only posted that so others could estimate what a donation would cost in a familiar currency.
This may be more applicable to the other blog, but I may as well post this here.
I do not know whether you simply are mistaken, accidentally misinterpreted something, or are purposefully trying to mislead people here, but the assertion that Haiyan was at it’s height, simply a high end Catergory 4 equivalent cyclone, is false.
In terms of the the PAGASA advisories listing Haiyan as a Catergory 4 equivalent cyclone, this is a understandable mistake. PAGASA uses a different measuring standard when reporting the windspeeds of tropical cyclones, compared to the NHC and the JTWC. Instead of using a 1-minute average that these two agencies use, PAGASA uses a 10-minute sustained average. Now the effect of this in terms of reporting is that their estimation of the strength of tropical cyclones is usually substantially less than that of what the aforementioned forecasting agencies would report.
To give some recent examples, Typhoon Megi (deemed Juan by PAGASA) was reported by the weather agency to have winds on the ten-minute scale of 225 kph (140 mph) which in the one minute scale would be approximately 185 mph-190 mph, a windspeed which was confirmed by both satellite measures done by the JWTC and by aircraft recon inside the storm, making Megi officially a 185 mph Catergory 5 hurricane equivalent cyclone.
For reference and citation, the wiki page for Megi and a press article from the time of landfall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Megi_(2010)
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/203678/news/nation/super-typhoon-juan-makes-landfall-in-northern-sierra-madre
Example #2, Typhoon Bopha (PAHASA designation Pablo), another Catergory 5 equivalent cyclone that impacted the Philippines in the past year. At the time of landfall, Bopha was reported by PAGASA to have winds at the ten minute windspeed at roughly 175-185 kph (110-115 mph) while in the one-minute scale maximum sustained winds were recorded to be 175 mph, per satellite estimates by the JWTC.
Wikipedia and news paper article for reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Bopha
http://www.radyonatin.com/story.php?storyid=3277
Now, as far as I know, the record of these two storms holding Catergory 5 intensity is not in dispute, so based on this we can extrapolate that the 235 kph (147 mph) sustained wind estimate by PAGASA pretty much lines up with the 195 mph sustained wind estimate by the JTWC, and based on that number, the estimate of gusts up to 235 mph is not an unreasonable estimate either.
I do not mean to seem nit-picky or in any way insulting towards your work, my point is simply that based upon the comparisons between PAGASA and the JWTC on the estimation of the top windspeeds of tropical cyclones, the assertion that the 195 mph sustained wind and 235 mph sustained gust reporting in news outlets is not any attempt to hype Typhoon Haiyan, but simply confusion between the 1-minute and 10-minute sustained wind measuring systems.
Thanks Anthony, donation made.
Thanks Tony for your kind words and donation. Greg Laden is a fool.
Still though, I believe the numbers of casualties will exceed the 10.000.
My wife have a lot of relatives in the God forsaken town of Guiuan, that is STILL isolated 4 full days after the typhoon made landfall at exact Guiuan.
Pictures are coming out but no relief is getting in 🙁
https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10151810274753212&set=a.10151810268223212.1073741829.727513211&type=1&theater
It’s now 235 Km/s ?
Why build something at al in typhoon or hurricane alley? What are they trying to prove?
I bet Laden didn’t know this. Neither did I! Assumptions are the Mother of All FUps.
Done. Matched your donation.
Thanks for this post.
My sister-in-law and a large portion of my extended family are from a fishing village on the north side of the island that was hit by the typhoon. She had built a concrete block one-room house there two years ago that provided shelter — and thankfully everyone in the village lived though the storm. We will be sending money directly to family there.
I was disgusted that getting honest news about this extreme event was almost impossible because Western news media only wanted to make political hay off the pain and suffering of those in the Philippines. Karma should take care of those despicable cretins someday.
Thanks for printing the truth about wind-speeds and magnitude — and thanks for being a site that I can trust to tell me the truth about damages and other things.
Donation made via Oxfam (GB) – UK charity 202918 – whose priority at present seems to be getting clean water supplies to site, both for drinking and sanitation. Essential, I’d say.
If I may add a note for any UK taxpayers here, Oxfam’s site seems to be the simplest to make any donations under the “gift aid” scheme (adding 25% to the gift value, as the UK gov allows the charity also to reclaim the donor’s basic rate income tax paid on the donation) – but you have to certify that you pay UK income or capital gains tax each (tax) year sufficient to cover the tax reclaimed on all charitable donations made in the year.
And thanks for the prod Anthony; very timely.
Charity should be anonymous.
REPLY: Yes, but charity drives should not be, otherwise they fail at the gate. This is a charity drive – Anthony