UPDATE: Miriam responded in depth (?). See update at end of post for links.
# # #
Guest Post By Bob Tisdale
Date: October 5, 2014
Subject: Thank You for Admitting You Were Clueless
From: Bob Tisdale – Climate Observations and Regular Contributor at WattsUpWithThat
To: Miriam O’Brien – HotWhopper (a.k.a. Sou from Bundangawoolarangeera)
Dear Miriam:
I wanted to thank you for admitting you had little grasp of the subject matter in a recent post at your blog HotWhopper. Your post was Human influence on the Californian drought. (Archived version is here, just in case you decide to change your post.) Under the heading of “Disclaimer and further reading” you wrote (my boldface):
I make no assurances that I’ve interpreted the work properly. I think I’ve got the gist of it but please point out if you think I’ve gone astray anywhere.
If I may suggest, it would be helpful to your readers if you would preface all of your posts with the reality that you can make no assurances that you’ve interpreted anything properly at any time, and that you’re going to yak about it anyway, regardless. That way your readers can respond as I do to your absurd writings, with laughter.
EXAMPLE 1 OF WHY I FIND YOUR POSTS SILLY
In your recent post, you criticized Anthony Watts for referring to El Niños in the title of his recent post about the California drought: Claim: Cause of California drought linked to climate change – not one mention of ENSO or El Niño. Under the heading of “Why not ENSO or El Niño?”, after quoting Anthony’s title, you wrote (my boldface):
Indeed. I’ve no idea why Anthony thought ENSO or El Niño should be mentioned. For one thing, doesn’t El Nino often bring rains to California? For another thing, the paper was about the 2013-14 Californian drought. There was no ENSO event in that time.
That was exactly Anthony’s point. If El Niños “often bring rains to California”, and there hasn’t been an El Niño since the one in 2009/10, one might think the absence of El Niños may have exacerbated the drought.
And “another thing”, when your paragraph includes a statement where you, Miriam, admit to not having any idea why a statement was made, it undermines the point you’re trying to make. The facts that (1) you didn’t understand why Anthony mentioned El Niños in the title of his post and (2) you admitted it, made your criticism twice as funny.
EXAMPLE 2 OF WHY I FIND YOUR POSTS SILLY
This example is rather long, but please bear with me, Miriam, because this will help you understand a little more about weather and climate.
You then moved on to comment about my blog post California Drought – A Novel Statistical Analysis of Unrealistic Climate Models and of a Reanalysis That Should Not Be Equated with Reality, which was cross posted at WattsUpWithThat here.
You noted that much of Swain et al. (2014) was about the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge and geopotential height, not about sea surface temperature:
Bob didn’t mention geopotential height once. He spent most of his time writing about sea surface temperatures and CMIP5 models.
You continued (your boldface):
Bob wrote a whole heap about stuff that the paper wasn’t about and didn’t discuss what the paper was about.
And you, Miriam, added later (my boldface):
I don’t know what he was thinking.
I will apologize, Miriam. Sorry that I wasn’t thinking of you when I wrote my blog post. I assumed when writing it that the readers at my blog and at WattsUpWithThat were knowledgeable enough of climate and weather to understand that the oceans and atmosphere above it are coupled, meaning they interact with one another; they’re interrelated. That is, a change in one impacts the other, and that it’s difficult at best to determine which is the ultimate driver in any given situation. I received a comment at my blog that told me that I needed to clarify that, so I provided an update to my post and the cross post at WattsUpWithThat:
[Start of update to earlier post.]
Based on a comment on the thread of the cross post of this article at my blog Climate Observations, some persons might be wondering why I compared models of sea surface temperature to data, when Swain et al (2014) focused on geopotential height (see note below). My reply:
The large scale atmospheric circulation patterns are in part dependent on local sea surface temperatures. The oceans and atmosphere are coupled. If the models cannot simulate the sea surface temperatures properly, then they are not simulating atmospheric circulation properly.
Let’s confirm that.
Lead author Swain also wrote an article for The California Blog at WeatherWest titled Special update: The Extraordinary California Drought of 2013-2014: Character, Context, and the Role of Climate Change. In it, he acknowledged the relationship between ocean and atmosphere a number of times. On page 2 of his article, Swain wrote (my boldface):
Several recent studies have examined precisely this possibility in assessing cause of the extraordinary persistence of the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge in 2013 and 2014. Wang et al. (2014) find that tropical West Pacific SST warm anomalies (associated with the West Pacific Warm Pool that acts as a precursor of El Niño) played a leading role in causing the strength and longevity of the Triple R by generating a recurring series of atmospheric “Rossby waves” that propagated from west to east across the Pacific Basin. Wang and Schubert (2014) find that the North Pacific SST warm anomalies during early 2013 created a “predilection” for dry conditions during the second half of the 2013-2013 2013-2014 “rainy season” in California, and Funk et al. (2014) also report that the observed Pacific SST anomalies during 2013-2014 contributed to the extremely low precipitation that was observed during 2013-2014.
However, Funk et al. also note that it’s possible the record-breaking warmth in the North Pacific (discussed further below) was actually a geographically remote response to the changes elsewhere in the Pacific–similar to the mechanism considered by Wang et al. It’s even possible that that the Triple R played a role in sustaining itself by reducing North Pacific storm activity and preventing vertical mixing of cooler sub-surface ocean water, culminating in a self-reinforcing feedback loop by which atmospheric ridging led to warm SSTs , which in turn led to more ridging, and so on. Regardless of whether the record-breaking warmth in the North Pacific was the primary cause of the Triple R or merely a secondary one, it’s pretty clear that Pacific SST anomalies contributed to the persistent northeastern Pacific ridging and extremely low California precipitation observed in 2013-2014.
Swain confirmed that the sea surface temperatures of the eastern extratropical North Pacific and atmosphere above it are interrelated, and that the warm sea surface temperatures contributed to the California drought.
Looking back now at my post above, Figures 1 and 2 [The figure numbers refer to earlier post, not this one.] showed that the sea surface temperatures of the eastern extratropical North Pacific had not warmed for 2.5 decades, and had cooled prior to the unusual warming…while the climate models employed by Swain et al, Figure 4, showed the sea surface temperatures of that region should have warmed more than 0.65 deg C in those 2.5 decades if they were warmed by manmade greenhouse gases.
In other words, the climate models employed by Swain et al are not realistic representations of climate in the eastern extratropical North Pacific. This further indicates they have no value when attempting to determine the cause or causes of the California drought, and no values when trying to attribute that drought to manmade factors.
Note: If the term geopotential height is new to you, see the ECMWF webpage here.
[End of Update to earlier post.]
Oddly, Miriam, in your post, under the heading of “Teleconnections and The Blob”, you quoted one of the same paragraphs of lead author Swain’s blog post at WeatherWest that I included in my update. But you ended your quote too soon. If you had read one more paragraph…just one more paragraph…you would have found the answer to your questions:
Regardless of whether the record-breaking warmth in the North Pacific was the primary cause of the Triple R or merely a secondary one, it’s pretty clear that Pacific SST anomalies contributed to the persistent northeastern Pacific ridging and extremely low California precipitation observed in 2013-2014.
Does that help you understand why I focused on sea surface temperatures, Miriam? Between the Triple R (Ridiculously Resilient Ridge) and the sea surface temperatures of the eastern extratropical North Pacific, Swain understands they’re interrelated, but he does not know which is the ultimate driver.
EXAMPLE 3 OF WHY I FIND YOUR POSTS SILLY
Early in your post you presented a gif animation of sea surface temperature anomalies, which I have presented here as my Animation 1. You were very kind to your readers and you highlighted the region of elevated sea surface temperatures being discussed with a red circle. Please notice, Miriam, that the unusual warming of the sea surface (known as “the blob”) varies in strength and location.
Animation 1 (gif Animation “SwainBlob” from HotWhopper)
Very oddly, Miriam, after posting that gif animation of sea surface temperature anomalies, you questioned the fact that I presented graphs of sea surface temperature anomaly data. Thanks, your apparent contradiction made me chuckle.
EXAMPLE 4 OF WHY I FIND YOUR POSTS SILLY
Later in your post, you presented a map of the region I used for the unusual warming in the Northeast Pacific and then you criticized me for using such a large area. See the lower map in my Figure 1. The upper map is one of the cells from your gif animation (presented above). Oddly, they’re basically the same region, Miriam.
Figure 1
Your readers must really be wondering about that complaint of yours.
EXAMPLE 5 OF WHY I FIND YOU’RE YOUR POSTS SILLY
Toward the end of your complaints about my post, Miriam, you wrote:
Not that anything Bob wrote had anything to do with the Swain paper. That was about the Californian drought of 2013-14. It was about the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, which is in the atmosphere not the ocean. The paper was about geopotential height and precipitation. Bob was writing about sea surface temperatures.
You forgot something, Miriam. If you had read and understood Swain et al., you would understand what you missed. Swain et al. used climate models to attribute the “ridiculously resilient ridge” [Triple-R], which is associated with the “blob” in sea surface temperatures, to manmade global warming. They wrote:
While the occurrence of events exceeding the P.I. 90–99th percentiles categorically increases in the 20C simulations (which include both natural and anthropogenic forcings), we find no such increase in those CMIP5 simulations which include only natural forcing (Fig. 2.2f; see SM). Thus, we find that anthropogenic forcing—rather than natural external forcing—dominates the simulated response in extreme GPH.
That’s basically the flawed IPCC argument that’s been around for years. In other words, the climate models that are forced by natural factors alone (volcanic aerosols and solar radiation) cannot simulate “metric X”, but the models that are forced by natural and anthropogenic factors can simulate “metric X”; therefore, the anthropogenic factors must be responsible for the change in “metric X”. That is an absolutely absurd argument, because the models cannot simulate naturally occurring coupled ocean-atmosphere processes that contribute to long-term warming or stop it. A side effect of that is, they cannot simulate where global sea surfaces show no long-term warming, Miriam. And one of the very large ocean regions where the surfaces show little to no warming for over 30 years is the entire East Pacific Ocean, from pole to pole, from the dateline to Panama. That region covers about 33% of the surface of the global oceans, and its surfaces have shown little to no warming in more than 3 decades. I post a graph of the surface temperature anomalies of the East Pacific every month in my monthly sea surface temperature updates, Miriam. Surely you’ve seen that graph and understood its importance, especially when climate models show it should have warmed about 0.45 deg C in that time.
Not too surprisingly, Miriam, the region with the blob is part of the East Pacific.
The fact that Swain et al. presented that flawed argument, Miriam, is why I presented the climate models used by Swain et al. and showed how poorly they simulated sea surface temperatures for the Northeast North Pacific, which as you’ll recall is coupled to the atmosphere and the recent Triple-R above it. Swain et al. presented a flawed argument and used flawed models to support it. If the models didn’t simulate the cooling of the ocean surface in that region, a cooling that occurred for almost 2.5 decades before the 2013/14 ridiculously resilient ridge appeared along with the unusual blob, then the models have no value in any attempt to attribute the Triple-R and blob to manmade greenhouse gases.
Miriam, hindcasts are different than forecasts. The data existed. The modelers knew the answers. Yet the modelers could not get their models to spit out those answers. Climate models have no value other than to show us how poorly they perform, and they do a great job of showing how poorly they perform.
EXAMPLE 6 OF WHY I FIND YOUR POSTS SILLY
In your post, Miriam, you wrote about the region I used for sea surface temperatures in the Northeast North Pacific:
It covers a lot of territory. Averaging it would diffuse the “blob” referred to above…
Now the reason I ended the quote at that point is because your complete second sentence in that paragraph mixed and jumbled two topics. That is, you find the topics so confusing that you blended two different topics in one sentence. Here’s your paragraph in its entirety:
It covers a lot of territory. Averaging it would diffuse the “blob” referred to above, had Bob bothered to focus on the period in question – 2013-14 instead of excluding that period. Most of Bob’s charts were from January 1989 to December 2012. I don’t know what he was thinking. The authors were writing about the 2013-2014 California drought. Bob did include this chart:
The first topic was area. The second was time, which I’ll get to in a moment.
Using an area that was larger than the blob can reduce the long-term and short-term variations. So in that respect, you were right with your “Averaging it would diffuse the ‘blob’ referred to above…”
But you forgot to note that the sea surface temperatures in that region cooled, not warmed, from 1989 to 2012. Does that mean the larger area I used showed less cooling than the blob region? If I was one of your readers, I’d be asking that question. The other question I’d be asking was, why didn’t Miriam show us why it was bad to use the larger region?
The map in Figure 2 shows the average sea surface temperature anomalies from July 2013 to June 2014 for the region I presented in my earlier blog post. The blob stands out quite plainly in that map. Yup, it looks like my larger area would have damped the impact of the blob. So we’ll use the coordinates of 30N-55N, 160W-130W for the sea surface temperature data of the blob region.
Figure 2
Figure 3 compares the sea surface temperature anomalies and cooling rates of the eastern extratropical North Pacific (the region I presented in my earlier post) and the blob region. Again, I’m ending the data in this graph the year before the blob appeared. The sea surface temperature anomalies of the blob region show more monthly volatility and they also show a higher cooling rate from 1989 to 2012. The cooling rate of the blob region is more than twice that of the larger region I presented in my earlier post.
Figure 3
Hmm. I don’t believe we have to wonder why you elected not to show that, Miriam.
Let’s add the last year and a half of data…the time of the blob. The last year and a half doesn’t cause a warming trend. See Figure 4. All the blob did was stop the cooling in the blob region.
Figure 4
But what about the models that Swain et al. used for attribution? See Figure 5. The models show the sea surfaces of the blob region should have warmed about 0.7 deg C in the 24 years from 1989 to 2012. But, in the real world, the sea surface temperatures there cooled.
Figure 5
And you don’t find the disparity between the models and reality important, Miriam? Remarkable. Simply remarkable. If the models can’t explain the cooling, the models cannot be used to explain the warming. It’s that basic, Miriam.
EXAMPLE 7 OF WHY I FIND YOUR POSTS SILLY
Let’s continue with the paragraph that you appeared to jumble, Miriam. You wrote in continuation:
… had Bob bothered to focus on the period in question – 2013-14 instead of excluding that period. Most of Bob’s charts were from January 1989 to December 2012. I don’t know what he was thinking. The authors were writing about the 2013-2014 California drought.
It’s pretty obvious what I was thinking, Miriam. I was showing that there was no evidence of the impacts of manmade greenhouse gases on the surface temperatures of the eastern extratropical North Pacific, or on the North Pacific as a whole, for almost 2.5 decades leading up to the unusual warming. Yet Swain et al. found evidence of human-induced global warming in the virtual worlds of climate models…which blatantly have no relationship with the real world. I thought that was so obvious that I didn’t have to spell it out. Next time, I’ll spell it out for you, Miriam, so you can grasp the obvious point I was making.
I further explained what I was thinking in my earlier post, but apparently you missed it, Miriam. Here, let me repeat it for you:
It’s tough to employ climate models so you can claim that manmade greenhouse gases caused the California drought, when the models used by Swain et al. can’t simulate the lack of warming of one of the key metrics associated with it.
That key metric is sea surface temperature, Miriam. And as you now know, sea surface temperatures are coupled to the atmosphere…that is, the Triple-R is associated with the blob in sea surface temperatures and the blob is associated with the Triple-R.
EXAMPLE 8 OF WHY I FIND YOUR POSTS SILLY
You repeatedly stated that you didn’t think I even read Swain et al., Miriam. One of your headings read:
Bob Tisdale probably didn’t read the paper
And later in your post:
Reading Bob’s article I have to wonder if he even read the paper.
I obviously read Swain et al., Miriam. How do we know? I presented the outputs of the three climate models they employed. Also, in the comments on the thread at WattsUpWithThat, I asked if anyone had found a link to the supplementary materials referred to in Swain et al. And, Miriam, if I hadn’t read Swain et al., how would I have known to present the sea surface temperatures for the region of the North Pacific under the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge?
You simply fabricate stuff, and I really enjoy that. You have no qualms about making statements regardless of whether there’s any truth behind them.
EXAMPLE 9 OF WHY I FIND YOUR POSTS SILLY
As part of your “Disclaimer and further reading”, you wrote (my boldface):
I think I’ve got the gist of it but please point out if you think I’ve gone astray anywhere.
When I read that, I was immediately reminded of the harassment you gave a newcomer to your blog recently. After lurking there, that blogger tried to offer some corrections, noting where you had “gone astray” in another of your posts. He was so frustrated by your rude response to him that he archived that thread with his comments, thinking (correctly) that you’d delete his replies, and he posted a comment at my blog.
My post was Data Reveal Florida Keys Sea Surface Temperatures Haven’t Warmed in 80+ Years*. It was cross posted at WattsUpWithThat here. Your mistake-filled response, Miriam, was the post Perennially Puzzled Bob Tisdale surfs the surface at Florida Keys. The archived copy of your post is here. The blogger’s name was 7DaBrooklynKnight7. His questions and comments start at September 13, 2014 at 1:33 AM in the archived version. After you insulted that newcomer to your blog, his final comment on that thread was:
wow. i will happily go elsewhere, sou. there is no reason for a newcomer (like me) to ask questions of someone so rude (like you).
i tried nicely to show you where your article is wrong and you keep repeating skin temperature. hadisst is not skin temperature data; it is sea surface temperature data. the data from the paper (figures 2 and 3) you’ve shown above in your article is Sea Surface Temperature data. the y-axis in both figures reads SST. maybe it’s you who needs “remedial arithmetic services or personal tuition in climate science and oceanography for dummies”.
something else you’ve overlooked. are the data from the lighthouses and from the buoys included in the hadisst data?
i may not be a skeptic but i am now skeptical of what you call science, sou. i will happily go elsewhere. maybe tisdale will answer my questions. his series of posts about el nino this year were easy to understand and accurate. they were educational. i noticed you didn’t try to question those. he is building his credibility by helping people understand. you are not. you seem intent on hiding the truth and that destroys your credibility.
Do you remember that blogger, Miriam? Not too surprisingly, Miriam, you deleted his last comment. It no longer exists on that thread. It now reads:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
And now you’d like visitors to your blog to, as you said, point out if they think you’ve gone astray? I almost spritzed coffee on my keyboard this morning when I read that. Thanks for the belly laugh, Miriam.
But that’s not the best.
EXAMPLE 10 OF WHY I FIND YOUR POSTS SILLY
As part of many of your posts, you’ll copy and post portions of the comments made by visiting bloggers on the threads at WattsupWithThat and you’ll criticize what the visitors wrote. Every now and then you’ll find a comment you agree with. As a preface, in the above, under the heading of EXAMPLE OF WHY I FIND YOU’RE FUNNY 2, I explained why I included sea surface temperature data in that post, Miriam, while Swain et al. dealt with geopotential height. The two metrics are interrelated—they’re coupled.
You copied a comment by blogger Barry on the thread at WattsUpWithThat. Barry wrote (my boldface):
Bob, if you read Chapters 3 and 4 of the BAMS report, they both indicate that the CA drought cannot be attributed to the long-term warming trend, which seems to align with your argument. The Swain et al. paper, though, does not make a case based on sea surface temperatures, but rather geopotential height and wind anomalies (the high pressure ridge).
What Barry overlooked was the fact that the sea surface temperatures in the eastern extratropical North Pacific hadn’t warmed in 24+ years, and cooled from 1989 to 2012, so the other two papers he referred to did not agree with my post if they were discussing a long-term warming trend. There was no warming in the North Pacific for 24+ years.
That aside, you wrote about Barry’s comment (your boldface):
Barry is the first person to point out that Bob got it all wrong:
That implies that you believe Barry is correct. But Barry wrote, “…if you read Chapters 3 and 4 of the BAMS report, they both indicate that the CA drought cannot be attributed to the long-term warming trend.” Barry’s comment undermines the basic premise of your post, Miriam. The title of your post is “Human influence on the Californian drought.”
Visitors to your blog have to wonder why they wasted their times reading a 3000-word post, with you yakking about this and that, making stuff up, admitting you didn’t know what you were talking about, when in the end you contradict yourself by implying Barry got it right. Thank goodness I had put down my coffee by that point.
CLOSING
Once again, thank you, Miriam, for admitting you had no understanding of the subject matter. Every time I stop by your blog to see what you’ve written about one of my posts, I discover once again that you have little grasp of the topics. I find that very entertaining. And, the fact that there are visitors to HotWhopper who agree you…that’s the icing on the cake.
If I could make a suggestion, you may want to consider changing the name of your blog to HotWhopperIsClueless. That would be a perfect fit for your blog.
I sent an email to another “fan” of yours, Miriam, and let that blogger know I was writing you an open letter. That blogger emailed back:
I would add something like “Miriam O’Brien is professional consultant for businesses and boards of directors in Australia, where the stakes of being wrong are very high. So it is puzzling that she doesn’t do the most basic homework on some of these issues before she launches attacks and vitriol. While she might score some tribal points for attacking people, it certainly does not enhance her professional credibility.”
Would you like to guess who wrote that Miriam? I’ll give you two guesses.
Sincerely,
Bob Tisdale
PS: One more comment, Miriam. You threw what you thought was a jab about my understandings of the long-term effects of ENSO. You wrote:
But then again, Bob thinks that global warming is caused by ENSO. We’re used to mistakes made by perennially puzzled Bob Tisdale.
You must be aware that I’ve been showing the flaws in your perennially puzzled post for more than half a decade, Miriam. Yet, in response to my data-filled posts, you simply repeated the flawed arguments. Basically, you’ve used the absurdly funny contradiction approach to argument, reminiscent of the Monty Python sketch. You really crack me up, Miriam. Thanks.
You must also be aware that data support my understanding of ENSO, Miriam. I’ve been presenting it for more than 5.5 years. Sea surface temperature data support it. Ocean heat content data support it. Sea level data, trade wind strength and direction data, precipitation data, cloud cover data, ocean current data, lower troposphere temperature data, sea level pressure data, warm water volume and depth-averaged temperature data for the equatorial Pacific, etc., all support my understandings of ENSO. I’ve animated many of those metrics to show their relationships with ENSO, Miriam, so people could watch and learn.
Last year, Dr. Kevin Trenberth of NCAR jumped on the bandwagon and began saying that ENSO contributes to long-term global warming. In addition to being a loyal advocate of the hypothesis of human-induced global warming, Dr. Trenberth is also a world-renowned expert on ENSO. And he now says that El Niño events cause global warming…not that they’re caused by global warming. Here’s the kicker, Miriam. Dr. Trenberth has also written in at least two peer-reviewed papers that El Niños are fueled by sunlight.
Just in case you missed it, I provided an overview of Dr. Trenberth’s new understandings of ENSO in my post The 2014/15 El Niño – Part 9 – Kevin Trenberth is Looking Forward to Another “Big Jump”.
# # #
UPDATE: It took about a day and some coaxing, but over at HotWhopper, Miriam O’Brien responded to my post, admitting again that she still had no idea what I was talking about…even though I spent a good amount of time explaining. Her “Huh?” and “Huh (again)” are classics.
See the archived version of Miriam’s consecutive comments at October 6, 2014 at 12:32 PM and 12:51PM here. She continued her rant on the next thread, replying to a skeptical blogger who made an appearance at HotWhopper. See Miriam’s October 6, 2014 at 10:34 PM comment here. (Thanks for coming to my defense blogger “LongIslandSound71”. Your comments to WebHubTelescope are spot on, too.)
I’m sorry, but you are giving her way, way too much attention.
“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
― George Carlin
Paul,
Agreed, not worth the effort.
Bob,
far too much effort. She appears to be an Australian concerned about “misogyny and climate change”. All you need do is intermittently email her images of men wearing blue ties glancing at their wristwatch*. She’ll choke on her own bile in short order.
Miriam sweetheart,
I understand you are an avid reader of WUWT. What you don’t understand is that the base assumption of 255K for the planet’s surface without radiative gases is in error by ~90K for 71% of the planets surface. This means AGW is a physical impossibility. This also means every single thing you have ever posted about the “settled science” is utter drivel. Sadly, pet, that drivel is now a matter of permanent record. And no darling, the blue tie whining misandry won’t save you…
*highly effective against Australian misandrists
Konrad, I find your comment here as disgusting as Miriam’s lack of understanding of the oceanic atmospheric teleconnections. Yes, she makes climate scientists cringe, regardless of their position on the extent of anthropogenic warming. But your comment is as cringe-worthy with regard to your disgusting use of misogynistic-flavored rhetoric as well as your apparent inability to understand absorption and re-radiation of longwave infrared heat energy as an important component of Earth’s energy budget.
Pamela,
please. I’m sorry the comedy escapes you. I did give fair indication that it was an “Australian thing” . You and I have had discussions in the past. I have never used language like that. It is wrong, in this case intentionally so. Miriam doesn’t have a chip on her shoulder, she’s got an entire tree. That’s the point.
As to your challenge on radiative physics, you would need to be better at the engineering of “selective surfaces” than me. And you are not. But you could be as good if you were to review the equations used for asymmetric absorptivity and emissivity in spacecraft thermal control and actually build and run the experiments I post.
A 90K error in base assumptions sounds incredible, but then the difference between what standard SB calcs indicated for the lunar regolith and the empirical results from Diviner were of the same magnitude. Surface properties matter. They matter a lot.
Konrad, give us a break. Your fake physics is some kind of twisted conspiracy theory and best suited for the darker corners of the internet – not WUWT.
Richard,
Could you be more specific about what physics you are claiming I have faked or lied about?
All my experiments have had build diagrams, operation instructions and photos of build examples published here at WUWT. Anyone can replicate them. There is no way I could get away with lying.
Oh and “twisted conspiracy theory”, Richard? Surely you don’t think the Lewandowsky approach will still work? And as to “us”, the Alisky techniques are not effective on blogs where everyone posts as an individual. Herding sceptics is like herding cats. A dead end.
I can see two approaches that would have worked…
1. Treat O’Brien’s article with respect and without insult, and use it to make various points about the California drought.
2. Ignore it.
It is unseemly to stoop to trading insults with O’Brien.
Granted I’ve visited her site on just a few ocassions, but I have yet to see anything she writes which is deserving of respect.
That you do says a lot.
Additionally, whether justified or not, I’d humbly suggest that condesending correspondences (as tempting as they are to make, especially when frustrated) don’t usually encourage reception to new information. Usually has the opposite effect (as I have learned the hard way!).
My thoughts as well.
Thanks Bob. Miriam, a female who cannot find her sidebottom with both hands. She writes her blog to shine a spotlight on misogyny and the rejection of climate science. Her words say it all. Two planks thick.
Are sceptics working towards a new system of Warmism measurement, The Plank Constant?
“Again, this policy helped the skeptic sites grow, since ordinary people doing nothing more than raising some reasonable questions, resented being portrayed by such ugly, and at times viciously presented caricatures.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/how-to-run-a-really-bad-infowar-campaign/
The function of people like O’Brien is to drive their commenters towards the skeptic blogs.
Pointman
That’s why she only had 2 external comments since yesterday. This post has 36 so far and is likely to reach 50 or more by my experience.
Yikes, it’s now over 50 and my last comment was about 1 minute ago!
Jimbo, she must be very busy moderating at the moment. I just had to check it out and there are only 13 comments at this time. Seems that most are hers. Richard Betts did comment.
There were none from a walrus. 😉
Sorry, I only see 4 comments, 1 is from her.
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/10/human-influence-on-californian-drought.html
Wow, that was Great!
Thanks Bob.
Hi Miriam! I hope you enjoy the comments on this thread. Many of the people who comment here at WUWT may not have known that your criticize their comments over at HotWhopper. Even taking that into consideration, I don’t think that will stop them from commenting on this thread.
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, Miriam.
He spent his absolutely DESTROYING her ignorant arguments, petey. I’d say that was a good use of his day.
…and it was aptly spent, too, Peter.
Or would you rather that Bob do nothing about the egregious misinformation Miriam spreads about his work?
Let’s see–there’s several hundred thousand daily readers of this blog and before today I hadn’t spent a single second considering HotWhoppers.
But now I know not to go there and waste my time on a climate science shill.
And the worm continues to squirm.
eh…probably spent yesterday writing it up, don’t you think?
today he can sit back and take in the comments.
To comment a person and not give him/her
a chance to defend him-/herself, in hope of “winning” an argument, is low and cowardly behaviour! Not much different then (malignant) spreading of rumors (aka defamation) …
Yep, she’s a master of not giving people a chance to defend themselves.
Bob definitely isn’t the cuddliest pit bull in the litter, but he does his homework. Over and over again, he does his homework. Paraphrasing an old advertising campaign “…when Tisdale speaks, WUWT listens”. Bob’s earned the respect.
The WUWT audience (excluding a few trolls) generally understand the scientific method (i.e.: importance of accurate data), are interested in the fraud called CAGW, and are highly appreciative of the effort taken by Bob (and others) to educate the community. If Miriam wants to deliberately mis-quite Bob for her emotional rants (i.e.: which include zero mathematics & analysis), she is at risk of being shown (over and over) to be a fool.
Unlike you, Peter, I got a kick out of Bob’s well reasoned, documented, and richly deserved response.
I wonder if sou will even attempt to read past the first paragraph. She might actually LEARN something….
I’m not so sure, Otter. To stay on topic, I think Miriam has a blocking high.
It must be Ridiculously Resilient….
Or Ridiculously Resistant!
Leading to a comment drought??
I spritzed my iPad over the belly laugh. Now it’s all shiny and coffee scented. Thank you Bob!
You’re welcome. Shiny and coffee scented is good for many things.
Thanks Bob, must read up on Rossby Waves again to try to get it understood.
I, like you, have used this posting as en educational tool and would suggest looking at a link Bob provided above:
http://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/charts/medium/mean-sea-level-pressure-wind-speed-850-hpa-and-geopotential-500-hpa?area=Europe&step=0&relative_archive_date=2014100400¶meter=Geopotential%20500%20hPa%20and%20Temperature%20at%20850%20hPa
I’ll also need to revisit the Rossby Waves.
I believe Mariam received two lessons in one. I am absorbing the one on the technical/scientific issues at hand. There is much, very much, to be gained from Bob’s work here.
But I absolutely loved the take-down! If only all physics and engineering classes could have been so interesting!
People who attack comments at a separate location are cowards, who can’t actually make a case in the original location. And everyone who has been following WUWT for any length of time is aware that WUWT does not censor or remove posts unless they’re blatantly off-topic hurled insults, or a direct and grievous violation of site policy.
I would never care even the tiniest but what some cowardly blogging fool has to say about my comments at a completely different site.
Obviously that contained a typo in the last paragraph, where “but” should have been “bit”.
I liked the original 🙂
Menopause must be tough.
As funny as that was, Kate (seriously, laughed for real), I skipped through that woman’s site briefly.
I’d say the quote from Game of Thrones is more apt:
“There’s no cure for being a c***”.
petey grace, that’s one thing I have noticed about people like you- they LOVE to attribute misogyny to skeptics, or basically to anyone they disagree with. When I pounded one of them into the dirt over their claims about climate, that person accused me of being anti-gay and racist.
People like you SICKEN me.
Peter, your inability to grasp my humor is something I take as a badge of honor.
You’ve repeatedly demonstrated on this site that you are not an intelligent person, in any way. So go ahead, try the insult route. It won’t work.
You are also a great example of that Game of Thrones quote, spoken by Bronn about people just like you.
petey, we all agree: YOU ARE UNQUALIFIED.
I think you ignored my question, Peter.
I asked: “Are you saying you agree with Miriam”?
And your response is still forthcoming.
But regarding your questions, I actually think people here are being polite with their comments.
Yes, those comments are not polite, but they pale compared to what I would call her.
These CAGW acolytes literally have blood on their hands. They have effectively stopped development of energy sources in many developing nations. Consequently, millions of people have died from disease and hunger. And their future looks bleak until CAGW-contaminated policies are eradicated.
So don’t get me going on what I really think of Miriam, Peter. You eyes would burn from reading my accurate, unconstrained description of this horrible woman.
Anti-women? No, but I do have an Auntie Gay.
Kate,
I have an Uncle Lesbian.
There’s a coincidence!
PG (Tips) will probably accuse me of being homophobic now.
Peter, as usual you express an opinion that demonstrates you have no clue what the grown-ups are talking about.
The “No cure” comment has absolutely nothing to do with gender in any way, shape or form. It was actually about Joffrey, who epitomizes that c word. I would have the exact same sentiment no matter who was writing that petty little blog, even it if was you.
Petey petey of little grace. If I call a man a dick today due to his bullying behaviour, does that mean I hate men? I mean since you are a self-proclaimed expert on who-hates-who based on gender, race, religion, or food and cleaning product choices, I thought I’d ask you.
Again, if I call a man a dick, does that mean I hate men? If I call a man a c***, or a woman a dick does that mean I hate both men and women, or is it that I just do not have a very commendable way of reacting to any gender who is a bully?
Dave Smith:
Does your Uncle Lesbian still live in Lebanon?
What’s this about men and the Pause?
Wow!! The more I read of this “Miriam”, the more that Julia Gillard, former Australian Prime Sinister, comes to mind. Emotive man-hate rants, blaming everybody else for own failures, findng a conspiracy around every corner (despite appearing to be the core of one herself), misogyny-this, misogyny-that, my life is hard ‘cos of misogynists, and from the very beginning, an arrogant, self-righteous, self-decieved, deluded liar. Is this the product of a lefty media culture that continually portrays men as clueless imbeciles and women as an entire class of hapless, whinging, professional victims? It is a terrible state of affairs, for ALL people. A sad day indeed! Though I find Miriam incredibly foolish, seemingly one who would cut off her nose to spite her face, I feel sad for her. I understand that she is essentially a troll, boastful and full of her own self-overestimation, and I suspect that the takedown is well deserved, but this state of affairs deeply saddens me, for ALL involved. Though I laughed out load as I read Tisdale’s rebuttal post, after reading many comments I ended up feeling grief.
This is a terrible state of affairs, for ALL of us!
@Mike – don’tcha know? It is not “misogyny” when liberals do it. If you want to see some really ugly stuff, google Bill Maher’s quotes. DU dot org gets it leads from its leaders.
I hope she wasn’t wearing a dress when he dressed her down. lol. I’d never even heard of this person. “Never take mess with the bull. You’ll get the horns every time.” People will say not to waste energy on contrarians such as “sou,” but I disagree. The truth needs out.
Oops, mind out sisters, PG Tips is waving his handbag around!
Bob, very well done with many fine examples in excellent technical detail.
However, all I could think was “throwing pearls before swine” – a basically useless exercise because the swine will never appreciate your pearls of wisdom.
Google “HotWopper Glickstein” for the ridiculous pig parts they threw at some of my WUWT postings.
Ira Glickstein
As I noted in Twitter, is it even possible to make silk purse out of a Sou’s ear?
Pearls before swine is likely true as Bob’s efforts relate to sou. However, having read his dissertation I feel that I have a much greater personal understanding of the mechanisms of drought in California. So not a waste of time Bob. Not in the slightest.
Bob, your post is a superb take-down if ever there was one.
Miriam has a lot to think about now. Did you post this as a comment on her site?
Miriam doesn’t do critical comments – she edits and / or removes them, modifies the content of the thread until it reads the way she wants it to.
eyesonu, no. I wouldn’t expect my comment to last there for more than a few moments.
I agree with you there but it would be fun to put a stop watch on it!
Maybe someone could post a comment there with a link to here. Be sure to make a screen capture and put a stop watch on it!
Gee Bob, a few moments?? You give yourself too much credit, I thought you’d be blocked automatically.(LOL).
Miriam is one of those sad Aussies who is waiting for vindication – she wants the world to admit she was right all along. She will have a long wait.
She’ll undoubtedly “age-out” first.
Petey, that means she will sooner or later join you, in being past her prime.
that she will, like all of us, die?
“Age-out” is a term commonly used in the health and life insurance business, Peter. It means to die. And I suggest it as the answer to Eric’s comment “She will have a long wait”.
It reflects the sad nature of humans in the astute observation: “Science progresses one funeral at a time”, since most scientists aren’t amenable to new ideas; they’re stuck in an intellectual rut.
And likewise, there’s little hope for Miriam to change her evil ways–she’s evil because she’s an obvious liar and because she employs nasty, in-your-face Alinsky-like tactics. Both are to be exposed for what they are.
But she will never change. Not in this life.
Age-out is also a term that I have heard whereas and idea, fad, or person is popular but over time fades away to obscurity. This often occurs very rapidly.
she is part of a group of people that would dance for joy if the poles melted,sea levels rose metres, global temps rose several degrees and millions of people died,just so they could say,told you so . in short ,as code tech notes, a group of c****.
many thanks to bob tisdale for lucid presentation and education once again ,amazing the clarity that comes from just representing factual observation versus obfuscation .
Bob,
I read this post…and I have to tell you, it was hard. It would have been easier, just from a “style” point of view if you eliminated the insertions of “Miriam” throughout the post. I found that for me, it sort of took away from a good, solid, factual response.
Great points made tho.
Sorry, jimmaine. I was trying to make it conversational by injecting her name. Sorry if I overdid it.
I think you may have over-cooked it a little; read the wrong way it could sound patronizing. In my opinion, it’s better to conduct such a thorough dismantling with polite respect. That way, at least you won’t be, even inadvertently, turning it into a match of fluid waste elimination, which isn’t worthy of your hard work.
Kate is concerned Tisdale’s article could be read as “patronizing”.
The definition of “patronizing”: “…to talk to someone in a way that shows you believe you are more intelligent…”.
So, whats the problem here?
This isn’t “keep no score” sports for 5 year-old kids; this is public life – words have consequences and people like Miriam who knowingly mis-quote and make absurd emotional claims, frequently and deservedly get called out as idiots.
HotWhopper currently has THREE comments since yesterday. One of them is from Sou! Miriam O’Brien is sure making headway against the sceptics.
Miriam Webster does not want to debate facts or discuss climate change.
Her goal is simply to “hound and badger” people into quiting the debate and shutting down any skeptic discussion anywhere in the world.
————————————-
David W January 11, 2014 at 12:32 pm
Last year the climate change section of the Weatherzone forums was closed down here in Australia. A large part of this was due to the behaviour of a poster “Ceebee” who many of us suspect was Miriam from Hotwhopper.
“Ceebee” certainly shared many of the obnoxious attributes as Miriam and when the section was closed down it was Ceebee straight away boasting on HotWhopper of the achievement.
Time and again it is shown to be patently obvious that those who support CAGW theory have no desire to have the matter debated,
—————————————
This is what CeeBee posted on the Hotwhopper site.
————————————–
CeeBee June 26, 2013 at 3:53 PM
The Weatherzone climate forum though was a strange place in that it is owned by Fairfax Media but the moderators of the forum were climate deniers and pals with the deniers in the forum, which is why the forum became a deniers playground where they could shut down any rational science discussion with impunity.
My goal there over the past 16 months was to politely hound and badger the deniers with science until it worked them up into such a lather that the moderators lost all control and the Admin had to step in to bring to whole sorry mess to an end.
The result is the deniers have now lost a mainstream outlet.
—————————————
When you are dealing with an individual like this, just remember what their motive is. “Hound and badger” until you give up.
Leave this person alone.
Oh, no… I disagree.
Reverse hound and badger with facts and discussion. It drives them crazy.
Show the world what she’s doing and why. Consequently, everybody will be less likely to believe her.
Never let up and never leave them alone–all you do is cede influence and audience to them if you do.
They’re part of “Climate Science Pravda”, a throwback to the fiction and propaganda rag the Soviets put out for decades. The best way to fight lies and deception is by telling the truth, which Bob has done.
Miriam uses one of the tactics championed by Saul Alinsky, which thwarts human progress. It should never be tolerated or ignored.
Did you see the part where she kept this up for 16 months (I mean 10 posts per day).
No amount of facts or rational discussion swayed her from her goal of shutting the forum down.
Hotwhopper and the predecessor soubundanga and under her previous nick MobyT has been doing this same thing for more than 5 years now.
“Never let up and never leave them alone
– Politicians too, who (constantly) lie and try to slip away from the problems they are causing …
I agree, Bill–it has been going on for a long time.
And it will continue forever, for evil ignorance never stops.
However, the objective is to expose their deceptions so the populace isn’t misinformed, even lied to.
We can’t stop stupid but minimize it with information.
Running away will never solve this problem.
Hi Bill. I was one of the ‘deniers’ who had to take a ‘short holiday’ from WZ before they closed the climate change threads.
Cheers,
SNAFU
😉
Bill and snafu this WZ thread by CeeBee is interesting…
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/ubbthreads.php/topics/1125966/Re_Iceland_trip_photos_weather#Post1125966
weatherzone was always going to close that forum. the topic was too close to taboo for their stakeholders. BOM reps use and post at the site, but to their credit they did not censor too much, which is a far worse thing. eg skeptical science where they alter even actual climate scientists posts to say what they want them to.
i stopped posting at another forum that i had for years because of censorship. it had only started, but when someone alters or removes your post when there is absolutely nothing insulting, troll like etc, but the mod just disagrees with you, then it is just time to move on. to me it is far worse that posts are censored that way rather than the whole forum closed.
another different australian forum that was taken over by the warmist zealots was whirlpool. it wasnt censored too much while i was posting there but a few months after they stopped responding to my replies i went back to take a look at the status, and more than half of the sceptics comments (posters i had seen comment clearly and with respect) were gone with a little note saying comment moderated. its quite funny, the thread just looks like an alarmist arguing with himself.. and losing! so that was the end of that forum.
this is a deliberate attack on sceptics to try and push the debate out of the public conversation because, well, they have lost the debate. due to the fact that feedbacks did not respond the way they thought they would, they ditched the scientific method and this is proof that they lost. it has now the status of a cult movement, nothing more.
it really must annoy them that what they think should be popular, is not. eg the top worldwide website viewed on the subject of climate change is this one, and in australia the top contemporary blog that deals with this subject is bolt (sceptical), and the top newspaper is the australian (sceptical), the PM is a known sceptic and so on. most tv stations still try to sneak in a bit here or there, and the rest of the irrelevant media still push out as much trash as they can to try and teach us poor numbskulls how to think correctly.. the socialist way.
Wow. The pejorative “deniers” is used five times in one paragraph!
If that crowd didn’t have ‘deniers’ to fill space, they might have to, like, think. That would be a new experience for some of them. If I had a dollar for every time “deniers” was used as an insult, I could retire in style!
Ooh kook a sou, said the walrus to the clew.
=============
I’ve had the odd look at her blog. She is clearly a sour woman but with a warped hero-worship for the owner of WUWT. She hangs on his every word, follows his every move, and then tries to ridicule him. It reminds me of an on-line version of the Stockholm Syndrome where kidnap victims form an unlikely bond with their captors. There’s probably a valid psychological name for it.
However, by ripping her off like this, it will just lead to a lot of silly tit-for-tat name calling. Perhaps the 2 of you could meet on neutral ground somewhere and have your slanging match out of the public eye?
Maybe Ben Santer could come, too- she’ll need all the backup she can get, and will still fail.
Richard, I was flabbergasted by today’s post at HotWhopper. Miriam is now speculating about why Anthony took a break for a day. And she’s also speculating about other bloggers here. It’s astounding.
I hope she wastes time on me. LOL!
I actually find myself wishing I’d made more “edgy” comments here so she’d say something about me. XD Oh well. Guess I should start working on that now.
Hi Bob,
I haven’t looked, but I can guess it’s insulting in the exreme. She comes across as a twisted person. The best way to deal with such people is to ignore them. At least if she’s playing with her keyboard all day, she can’t do anybody any real damage.
I’m reminded of the occasional news item of teenagers being traumatised by on-line bullying on Twitter or whatever. They don’t have to log in and read it.
Accept that there are a few nutters out there. Not everyone will agree with what you write, but most people have the decency to point out what they disagree with in a civilised way, and perhaps coming across the odd lunatic helps to emphasise that.
Bunny boiler? 😉
In case Miraim is reading this post let me point out something about drought in the USA west of the Mississippi River.
Sou, can you please point out the “Human influence on the Californian drought” from the start of the Holocene to 1935?
Jimbo, great links as usual.
I find it astounding that evidence of past megadroughts is completely ignored by the CAGW crowd.
The papers you link are enough in themselves to completely derail this supposed ‘human influence on recent/current droughts’.
Here are some abstract references for US droughts and mega-droughts during the Holocene. Sou, please take a look and try and get some perspective. Droughts in the USA have been far worse in the past than what you are pinning your claims on.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
Jimbo,
PLEASE publish a list of all the outstanding links you’ve collected over the years, as every single one contradicts, rebuts, and catches out the alarmists and the rubbish they spout.
I for one would be more than happy to pay for a pdf of such a list.
Regards,
David
Sou quotes
How much confidence should we place on these models Sou?
Sou, you need to take a cold drink and have cold shower. Then sit in a dark room for some time.
I wonder is Ms. O’Brien’s business partners and/or customers know of her internet antics?
If not, perhaps they should be made aware of this behavior.
Thanks, Bob. The silly debunker is debunked herself.
This reminds me of one of Heinlein’s SF novels where they are dropping rocks from the moon on a mountain on earth in kinetic strikes and they stop when the mountain isn’t there any more. You probably don’t need any more rocks, Bob.
Mr Robert A. Heinlein was a very good SciFi novelist! The crap the Reality Deniers are producing, even though it is fictional, doesn’t qualify as SciFi … Far from. Perhaps only as a really bad horror story. With a inconcistent and sometime contradictional storyline, the latter applies … 😉
Never heard of Miriam O’Brien or the Hot Whopper blog. Now I have and still don’t care.
your life experience is all the better for that situation,i assure you.
I just made the (large) mistake of looking at her blog and skimming through the first post and some of the comments. Some poor newbie was, as many “deniers” do, properly bringing up the impact these climate related restrictions have on the 3rd world. He or she was asking about what to do when people who are being denied a chance at a better life to appease some bureaucrat’s notion of how much CO2 can be emitted for energy production. Her responses… well… the ignorance, astounding… compassion for those living in the 3rd world, absent… I won’t go back.
Thanks for the warning neils
Ditto
HotWhopper is just that, it tells hot whoppers. See the number of comments and you will soon realise it’s not worth reading. Life is too short to spend time reading drivel and propaganda.
Another variation on “hot whopper” might be “stolen lie”