Now this was a surprise:
Out of the 2,854,671 blogs with 132,697 new posts today on www.wordpress.com. I was number 2, right behind the CNN Political Ticker. Details (while it lasts) at http://botd.wordpress.com/top-posts
Click for image
Surprise #2, I also made the WordPress main page as their top pick “hawt post”. Which you can see here (while it lasts) at http://wordpress.com/
Well looks like my 15 minutes of fame are up, I just got bumped to the #3 position.
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Great to see a blog which is attempting to make people aware of the true state of things, is getting so much attention.
That is wonderful news. I am fascinated by this blog even though I hardly understand your postings and even less the contributors, the whole site is somehow imbued with common sense, blue sky thinking and an open approach to a difficult subject. Well deserved and well done.
Julian, as someone who flunked 5th grade arithmetic (twice) I share your assessment. I’ve always been somewhat math and science challenged, but that hasn’t stopped me from being interested in this issue, and I’ve learned more from this blog in the last 9 months that from any other source in my entire life. One of the most fascinating aspects of this forum, In addition to the “common sense” angle that you note, is the international following it’s garnered from people from all walks of life. I’m not surprised in the least that it’s doing so well. And the civil nature of the discussion just makes it a fun and interesting place to visit. Good job, Anthony.
You’re also heating up the other blogs: It seems that every other post at Tamino’s is now a rant against you.
Henry, it is kind of humorous, isn’t it. Anthony invites people like Lee to do guest posts here, showing how and why they disagree with a particular point. Lee says he doesn’t have time, and then proceeds to go over to Open Mind and give a detailed (and I do mean detailed) account of his experiences here.
The real irony is that, while the Taminos and Lees of this world are mired down in arguing the minutia of whether or not a mathematical equation is missing a component, Nature is busy making them completely irrelevant. Ya gotta love it!
REPLY: And Lee scratches his head and wonders why I finally reached my tolerance level with him and his existence here is no more.
I think there is real cause for concern here. I just did a plot of Anthony’s web site hits vs CO2 emissions. There’s a very visible, to the eye, correlation. If we don’t shut down anthropogenic CO2 emissions then Anthony’s web site, according to my computer models, will eventually by 2022 completely take over the internet and cause the entire system to shutdown. Help stop the impending diaster of computer communications! Stop the CO2 emissions now!
🙂
And Anthony, thanks so much for allowing us to get a few things off our chests.
Congratulations, Anthony. I am relatively new in trying to understanding all the aspects of the climate change debate. I’m an actuary who specializes in numbers, and I have been enthralled with looking at various trending aspects of the temperature anomalies. Thanks to your site, I have become much better versed in the way the sun factors into the debate, and in my short time visiting here I am finding that in my discussions with AGW proponents, they really don’t know a whole lot of the science that either supports their position from a CO2-is-going-to-kill-us-all standpoint, nor from a the-sun-is-meaningless standpoint. Your site is very helpful in finding answers to certain questions and also in disproving many other assertions.
I am continually refining my trend analysis and will soon post another revision. I appreciate your openness to allowing links to be posted in the comments.
Keep up the good work. This is one of my few daily visits on the web, along with Drudge…
So, when did YOU-all first arrive here?
I found this site at the end of last June, though I didn’t comment. (At first!)
At the time I was somewhat skeptical of CO2 theory. Those guys had ALWAYS been wrong in the past on issues of policy. Other iductive reasons caused me to doubt (but that is not proof). Yet I had always been defending the actual measurements on the grounds that it just didn’t seem possible to get it wrong if a modicum of procedure and due diligence was applied.
Then I heard the Rev’s name in connection with measurement issues on some form of mass media, I forget where, and googed his name and found my way here. It had me from the first read, and it wasn’t long before it was obvious we had a true winner (i.e., a documented massive compromise of the surface stations).
Two things greatly impressed me:
1.) The manner in which the Rev has addressed the issue throughout: We may have a problem. Let empiricism and the scientific method (especially the open inquiry part) determine the answers.
2.) The vehemence and personal venom of the response from those who would appear (by both word and deed) to oppose the above method. What respectable scientist does not make his work open for independent review? If anyone did so in my field (history), they would be laughed out of court. Be assured that this attitude speaks only for the smallness of the detractors.
The only “religious” emotion involved in all this must be a zealous adherence to the process. Open scientific review. Observation. Falsifiability. Even induction must be suspect in this debate (except as a base indicator); faith has little place at all.
Why is this site becoming so popular? For one thing, it puts things in terms that an informed layman can grasp. For another, when an observation is made it is always accompanied by a “this could be wrong.” And throw in a “Here’s the data and method.” And a, “Please feel free to point out any problems.”
Results?
For some, they find a refuge where both sides can be discussed without the shadow of the pilloy overheaed and unmistakable signs of tar and feathers scattered about.
And for some others? They come to scoff. But they stay to THINK.
So tell us your stories:
And you may ask yourself
Well . . . how did I get here?
Congratulations, Anthony. No way am I as scientifically literate as I’d like to be (though that’s improving!) but have found your blog to be greatly informative and of interest. Keep up the good work.
Hi,
Anthony, congrats. I have noticed that a lot of blogs are under spam attack lately. Steve M. site is really bad right now. Hard to get on.
REPLY: I’m working on that at the server level as we speak (type).
This doesn’t surprise me a bit. Anthony has established a record of integrity and fairness without losing control.
But it’s not just all the time Anthony has devoted to this project, it’s also the incredible talent he has attracted throughout the world that has made this blog the premier choice of the informed and soon to be informed!
Congratulations Anthony! Number two today, number one down the road!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
REPLY: Thank you for the kind words. While there’s an angry few that would dispute my integrity and fairness, I say this: Right or wrong, I put my name to what I write as opposed to a handle. Anonymity breeds contempt and diminishes the value of human discourse.
Steve mosher– With regard to the idea that some more even tempered blogs might be “underappreciated” relative to possibly meaner blogs, this is probably not so.
Most casual blog visitors estimate visitors by comments. This can be very deceptive. There aren’t any good, free universal counters out there, but Alexa.com tries to count traffic. In their system, the highest ranked blog is #1. You’ll probably be surprised to discover that my three month average rank is 288,907, Briggs is 586,409, while a blogger who is currently just reacting to Anthony’s blog ranks 673,864. 🙂
Anthony beats us all with 200,121. ( On average, traffic vs. rank obeys a sort of geometric proportion. There is also a lot of scatter and in-accuracy because of how this is measured. But we are all in more or less the same blogging area. )
Being mean gets lots of comments. A blogger can generate short time traffic spikes by attacking a widely read blog, like Anthony’s.
Nevertheless, though there can be exceptions, saying “X” without being mean brings in more traffic than saying “X” and being mean. Being original brings more traffic than being derivative. So, being mean and derivative generally results in modest amounts of traffic.
Anthony gets lots of traffic through excellent blogging, on a topic others aren’t covering. He posts original material, not knee-jerk reactions to other blogs. He’s nice. His traffic is high, and rising. In fact, you might enjoy visiting Alexa.com and comparing ‘wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com’ traffic to the much older realclimate.org! Alexa counts traffic to older posts and newer ones equally. Click the “1 year” scale and I think you’ll see that Anthony’s messages are resonating with readers.
Jim Arndt said :
“Anthony, congrats. I have noticed that a lot of blogs are under spam attack lately. Steve M. site is really bad right now. Hard to get on.”
Jim, it’s not only other blogs that are under attack, various anti Pogie websites are victims as well. I’ve had the climateclinic.com website trashed four times since its launching last May. The Pogies will do anything to keep the truth from getting out. On the “plus” side, I received another request (17 so far) from a prof asking permission to print the project and distribute it to his college students as an example of what climate change is all about.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
The acolytes of Hansen, Mann, Schmidt et al attend virtual prayer meetings at Real Climate. They get all stoked up. Having nothing better to do, they redirect their energy into denial of service attacks against blogs like this and Climate Audit.
This tactic demonstrates their intellectual bankruptcy. These [efforts] contribute nothing to the scientific discussion about climate change.
REPLY: Note I made a word change, no point in stoking further.
I enjoy your website very much for its current science content, humor and personality(ies). I would enjoy it more without the mine-field of pop-ups. It’s a minor annoyance, but I have a bad habit of using my cursor to highlight passages I want to read in order to give a reverse contrast (light-on-dark) and to focus my (relatively) old eyes.
REPLY: Thank you for the kind words. You can disable those pop-ups as a personal preference, click on the gear icon in the upper right of the pop-up window for options.
Lucia, thanks for that link to Alexis.com. That’s good stuff. I am proud to say that my rank is currently 6,745,559! Here’s to tomorrow’s rank of 6,745,558! Watch out world…
“Henry, it is kind of humorous, isn’t it. Anthony invites people like Lee to do guest posts here, showing how and why they disagree with a particular point. Lee says he doesn’t have time, and then proceeds to go over to Open Mind and give a detailed (and I do mean detailed) account of his experiences here. ”
And he still continues. Somehow, he’s got the lap-dogs at open mind believing he has something useful to contribute to this, using an anonomous bloggers site (who STILL wont tell how his degree, if he has one, pertains to the climate studies).
At least Anthony posts under his own name, with his life an open book. Tamino still hides his expertise.
Look at past posts ( the ones that DON’T start as a critique of Mac or Anthony (if you can find one). Within one or two comments, the talk turns to CA.
Anthony:
Well done. Thorougly enjoy it. You and Lubos are my top learning sites.
Cheers
Congrats Anthony!
So, When did I first arrive here?
I first came across one of your dissertations on the accuracy of the MMT while checking out NorCal blogs – that was what, two years ago? And have started checking in more and more often, the growth of not only the Surface Stations project and this blog are very impressive achievements.
Your gracious manner in dealing with blithering idiots (self included) is a example to strive for.
While I’m not a climate scientist or even a weather geek, as an engineer with a science background in a field that covers “…a frequency range from DC to beyond daylight, power levels of Pico Watts to Mega Watts, computers and software that run the gamut of user indifferent to downright user hostile with enough analog left that accuracy counts” A lot of what I do is often “first of” or “only one of its kind” and models only go so far – you’ve got to quantify, measure and verify, “it’s look great on paper, SPICE says it’s perfect” does not mean that it works.
I will own to posting under a non de plum more out of fear of a “Doce Inspired” career change than to lob fireballs and make it a practice to provide info when appropriate
Anthony was the first one (to my knowledge, by no means authoritative) to start a systematic outside evaluation of arguably one of the foundations of our current understanding of what climate change is occurring and finding it sadly lacking. This as well as his other experiments like the painting of the shelters presented in a very approachable read with copious references (and very few point to wiki) and selected Guest bloggers make this site a daily on my list,
Again, congratulations Anthony!
Congrats Anthony. I first found this site when I found your work at SurfaceStations.org. But, it caught on for me in the past few months as I read posts from Basil, etc. This site is one of the precious few where there one can find real data and analysis, and substantive arguments that question what many of us engineers have as a gut feel. Engineers are trained to solve real world problems. And in so doing, there is a critical need to understand all inputs to a system and to asses the quality and quantity of those inputs. After a while, it becomes second nature in our respective fields. But, we also tend to have a pretty good feel for many other technical areas. And above all else, know to always perform a sanity check of our result. If the result seems out of line, it probably is.
Up until recently, I’ve found that almost all climate analysis has been handed down from on high, not to be questioned. But runaway positive feedback loops and man’s contributions to climate have never passed my sanity check given that most natural processes have negative feedback loops and that the Sun is such an enormous input.
Traffic will continue to grow here, because everyone is a climate empiricist whether they realize it or not. And the panic we are told to embrace does not fit with common sense observations.
Far worse than a wrong solution, is the wrong problem.
I found this site on January 19, 2008 – 4 sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months. I guess there were alot of people who found you at the same time. I found the link at iceagenow.com, which is also a very thought provoking site. Thanks for letting me post my little jokes. I really appreciate the cool, logical and fun-loving way that these serious issues are handled. I also like the fact that I get to associate with so many intelligent people. Like others here, I sometimes feel that the science is a little over my pay grade, but no one is ever made to feel they don’t belong, unless they REALLY don’t belong. Thanks again to Anthony and all the wonderful contributors (you know who you are).
I also found my way here with the ‘4 sources’ posting that Mike B mentions. I have a degree in Geology, study both history and the sciences extensively, hope to be a fiction writer someday (hence all the studies) and while the math is sometimes over my head (never got past Calc 1), I understand and read well enough to visualize the possibilities.
And I started out on the agw wagon also. The first time I really heard about it was with Rush Limbaugh, around 1992. I thought he was an Idiot then (and on some things concerning the environment, I still do). But he nailed it on agw, and because of listening to him I began to learn things on my own.
Things that the agw crowd avoid discussing at all cost.
I visit your site at least 6 times a day 😛 At least I get to see intelligent postings here, whereas at places like t*****o, all I see are denigration, demonization…. but I digress.
Keep up the great work!
One of the headlines in NASA’s “Earth Observatory today: SCIENTITS SOLVE 50-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY OF OCEANS’ SESMIC ‘BUZZ’
I’ve been around this planet a few times, but for the life of me I don’t think I’ve ever seen any SCIENTITS.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Opps: The URL for the SCIENTITS story is http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2008/2008030726263.html
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
And he still continues. Somehow, he’s got the lap-dogs at xxxx xxxx believing he has something useful to contribute to this, using an anonomous bloggers site
Not only don’t worry about that sort, Rev, but consider it a mark of distinction. There is nothing more honorable than being “named” by a self-proclaimed foe or detractor, Nothing! It steals their thunder and saps their powers. Undercuts and exposes their false moral high ground. Reveals them for what they are: the true deniers.
Deniers of their data and methods, and therefore of their very discipline. Deniers of their very identities. This is the mark of fear. Fear of open and honest review. Fear of replication of method. Fear of Science, itself. Fear of the light of day.
It is no accident that you stand as tall as you stand today.
REPLY: Thanks Evan, but I’m only 5’11” 😀
I’ve been around this planet a few times, but for the life of me I don’t think I’ve ever seen any SCIENTITS.
Jack, you must have missed this post a while back at WCR.
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