This has been a weird week with my appearance on PBS Newshour. As Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters documents, the alarmosphere has gone beserk over my appearance on PBS.
Watching it, it becomes clear they are in a panic. Even Ralph Nader says Washington is running away from the issue. So, like anyone who’s panicked, Nuccitelli makes an epic fail in his haste to discredit me. He’s upset that I was allowed to speak at PBS and I was just one of a balanced panel of people on that program. It must have been the horrible things I said like:
SPENCER MICHELS: His conclusion though is that basically global warming exists and that the scientists, no matter what the problems were, were pretty much right on.
ANTHONY WATTS: I agree with him that global warming exists. However, the ability to attribute the percentage of global warming to CO2 versus other man-made influences is still an open question.
or this:
ANTHONY WATTS: I’m saying that the data might be biased by these influences to a percentage. Yes, we have some global warming, it’s clear the temperature has gone up in the last 100 years. But what percentage of that is from carbon dioxide? And what percentage of that is from changes in the local and measurement environment?
So to counter those terrible opinions on percentages, Nuccitelli goes on the emotional offensive in a rant at Romm’s romper room, and in the process, makes an epic failure of the most basic rule of percentages:
A Deeper Look At False Balance On PBS News Hour | ThinkProgress
…the amount of warming caused by human greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is known to a high degree of certainty, and these same studies have all found that GHGs are responsible for over 100% of the observed warming over this timeframe.
Gosh. GHG’s are responsible for over 100% of the observed warming? That’s an epic fail if I’ve ever seen one. Even Nuccitelli’s buddy, Stephan Lewadowsky’s statistical blundering on his “skeptics deny the moon landing” paper isn’t that bad. Tamino will not be impressed.
No wonder Noel Sheppard said “If you had any doubts about the level of zealotry involved in today’s global warming movement, they likely will be erased by the goings on at PBS the past few days.”
But when you see the sort of things the people at Skeptical Science write, you start to understand that this isn’t about science, but about pure unmitigated hate against people that have differing views about climate science. For example, this came from the SkS secret web forum where all of the moderators and authors (including Nuccitelli) get together to talk about what they are going to do about the climate skeptics.
Here is Glenn Tamblyn (Skeptical Science author/moderator) secretly conversing with his SkS pals on their off limits forum and saying “we need a conspiracy to save humanity”. The Viet Cong comparison is a nice touch too. There’s talk of convening a “war council” too.
And this isn’t about science or personal careers and reputations any more. This is a fight for survival. Our civilisations survival. .. We need our own anonymous (or not so anonymous) donors, our own think tanks…. Our Monckton’s … Our assassins.
Anyone got Bill Gates’ private number, Warren Buffett, Richard Branson? Our ‘side’ has got to get professional, ASAP. We don’t need to blog. We need to network. Every single blog, organisation, movement is like a platoon in an army. ..This has a lot of similarities to the Vietnam War….And the skeptics are the Viet Cong… Not fighting like ‘Gentlemen’ at all. And the mainstream guys like Gleick don’t know how to deal with this. Queensberry Rules rather than biting and gouging.
..So, either Mother Nature deigns to give the world a terrifying wake up call. Or people like us have to build the greatest guerilla force in human history. Now. Because time is up…Someone needs to convene a council of war of the major environmental movements, blogs, institutes etc. In a smoke filled room (OK, an incense filled room) we need a conspiracy to save humanity.
[As quoted by Geoff Chambers in this Bishop Hill thread. http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/3/26/opengate-josh-158.html?currentPage=2#comments ]
Yet climate skeptics are being painted as conspiracy theory nutters by the very same people who say “a conspiracy to save humanity” is needed.
More here. Dana Nuccitelli’s email response to me on 9/14/2012 when I asked him if he had any remorse about this?
“No.”
I have to wonder, does Dana put tinfoil under that helmet to protect him from skeptical climate thoughts of the general populace when he rides his scooter around in Sacramento?
One final note, Nuccitelli says this in his rant at Romm’s romper room:
Not only has the accuracy of the surface temperature record been confirmed by BEST and Watts’ own Fall et al. (2011), but also by a number of other peer-reviewed papers such as Peterson et al. (2003) and Menne et al. (2010). If Watts believes these studies are flawed, he should attempt to demonstrate it in a peer-reviewed paper. Until he has accomplished this, by his own standards his argument is invalid.
Apparently it was just too much for him to link to the Watts et al 2012 paper, even though he’s written about it before (or to mention that the BEST paper failed peer review).
Oh and for the record Dana, I have two peer reviewed papers in which I am an author, not one. See here, you might want to fix your article. And, there’s more to come, not that it matters to people like Dana whether it is peer reviewed or not, they’ll diss it just the same because we need a conspiracy to save humanity.
*He’s on a mission from clods.
…the amount of warming caused by human greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is known to a high degree of certainty, and these same studies have all found that GHGs are responsible for over 100% of the observed warming over this timeframe.
Okay the 100% solution has brought all the rapid response minions out of the closet. Thanks for playing fellas. I hope you enjoy your parting gifts. It’s been a blast to read your efforts to spin a stupid quote. I’m with those who say that if your spin is correct then we must be in for some real cold times if the human component (is that 4% of the total we are talking about – talk about the tail and the dog!) were to flag at all, it could get really really cold. Which is it? Do we need more CO2 to save the planet as your analysis suggests? If so we better get busy and produce more of it. That’s the only logical conclusion from your spin. For my part I’m thinking we are coming out of the LIA and a little warming is expected and appreciated. Human GHG had almost nothing to do with it. I have a high degree of certainty on that point. I also do some farming and any extra CO2 in the atmosphere is also appreciated. It makes things grow. And now we also hear from you that it is keeping things from getting cold. Win win.
…
Actually to get a 4degC rise the models say that CO2 is responsible for 200% of the observed warming. Climate sceptic has a brilliant read on this http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2011/07/return-of-the-plug.html
Basically CO2 should have caused 2deg of warming in last century So modellers use a plug and claim that without the CO2 increase the world would have cooled by 1 deg.
This is absurd and ignores a host of evidence supporting natural warming over that time period including
1/Warming trend since little ice age
2/Half warming occurred prior to significant human CO2 input
3/Low volcanic activity in 2nd half 20th century (assuming they understand volcanic effects)
4/Positive phase of PDO
5/Observed 4% decreases in low cloud cover in the 90s that is responsible for 2/3rds to 3/4th of observed warming.
Rob Honeycutt,
Be aware that you are making an assumption if you believe that human emissions cause any global warming at all. A conjecture. Because there is no scientific evidence supporting that assumption. If there was, then the question of the climate sensitivity number would be decisively answered. But as we know, there is a wide range of opinions regarding the sensitivity number.
davemhoffer… “According to Dana, over this time period, the human contribution to warming was about 6 times as big as all the contributions to cooling combined. Yet, in the last 15 years, despite CO2 concentration being 25% higher than it was in 1960, there has been no warming at all.”
There are a couple of problems here with this statement. First you’re jumbling up the past 15 years and the past 50 years. There is natural variation always at play. The past 15 years actually DO show warming in the UAH data, the GISS and HadCRU4, though at a lesser rate than the past 50 years. No one claims that temp and CO2 operate in lockstep.
Rob Honeycutt says:
September 19, 2012 at 2:26 pm
davidmhoffer… Hold your horses right there!
My point here is that everyone here is flipping their lids that the human contribution to warming could be a number in excess of 100%. Right?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Right.
As I was one of the first to state if you were paying attention.
As others pointed out, even if that is what he MEANT, that is not what he SAID.
So…. what he said was wrong.
Turning to what he supposedly MEANT:
If you will read my comment again, you will discover that if we accept your (and my) version of what he MEANT, then the evidence he presented says the OPPOSITE. The evidence he presents can only be interpreted one of two ways. Either the amount of warming claimed in his chart is orders of magnitude too large, or the emergence of cooling processes in the last 15 years has swamped 60 years of warming trend and is in danger of plunging us into an ice age.
Get it?
What he SAID was WRONG.
What he MEANT was also WRONG according to HIS data.
Or her. Or it. Or s/he. Or s/he/it. Take your pick.
D Boehm says… “Be aware that you are making an assumption if you believe that human emissions cause any global warming at all.”
You might want to take that up with Anthony Watts because he clearly states in the video that is the original subject of this post that human emissions do cause warming.
REPLY: Oh, so now you like my video? what a freaking hypocrite! – Anthony
D Boehm said… “Because there is no scientific evidence supporting that assumption.”
I would refer you back to Tyndall (1850’s) and Arrhenius (1890’s) on that point.
Rob Honeycutt,
Since you do not understand the definition of ‘scientific evidence’, I won’t waste any more time explaining. Go ahead and believe that Arrhenius and Tyndall produced testable evidence per the scientific method, if that’s what you want to believe.
BTW, what is the climate sensitivity number for 2xCO2? Provide scientific evidence. You will be the first.
“””””…..DGH says:
September 19, 2012 at 9:21 am
How is this an epic fail? According to the models over 100% of the observed warming is caused by human activity. Ask Hansen……”””””
Well That statement means that the models predict human activities to cause more warming than actually occurs; ergo the models are clearly wrong. If they were right, they would not be predicting more warming than is observed.
We have from fairly reliable sources, that the natural causes are still causing warming, due to Milankovitch and ice ages etc, but only a natural cooling trend could cancel a surfeit of human causes that exceed what is observed..
“””””…..Rob Honeycutt says:
September 19, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Can anyone answer this question for me? What is -10 plus 110?…..”””””
Well it is 99% if you are talking percentages which the original statement was.
Rob Honeycutt:
I copy all your post at September 19, 2012 at 2:26 pm so both your points are quoted in context
Firstly, you ask,
“everyone here is flipping their lids that the human contribution to warming could be a number in excess of 100%. Right?
Answer: WRONG.
People are laughing because the statement Nucciltelli made is nonsense. If you don’t understand that then it is explained in my post addressed to davidmhoffer at September 19, 2012 at 10:42 am. I was a leader of the laughter and I disputed with davidmhoffer because he was making your point.
So, David accepted your suggestion that “If there were a natural warming factor taking place then you would need less than 100% to get back to 100%” and he addressed it in the post you claim to be answering. That post is at September 19, 2012 at 1:51 pm.
In that post he asks you
He explained the problem with the suggestion that natural cooling may be reducing the anthropogenic warming and asked you
Your answer to him ignores his questions to you but addresses my point which he disputed with me.
In my country the polite description of your reply to davidmhoffer is to say it is not cricket.
Richard
Rob Honeycutt,
If I were you I would not argue with George E. Smith about mathematics. George has BSc degrees in Physics, Pure Mathematics, Radio-Physics, Applied Mathematics, and Mathematical Physics.
DGH says:
September 19, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Indeed Nuccitelli’s statement is interesting when taken out of context. In context his point makes more sense and the statement “greater than 100%” isn’t worthy of quote of the week status.
=================
Here is the full paragraph (for context):
There is a fairly large degree of uncertainty in these figures, primarily because the magnitude of the cooling effect from human aerosol emissions is not well known. However, the amount of warming caused by human greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is known to a high degree of certainty, and these same studies have all found that GHGs are responsible for over 100% of the observed warming over this timeframe (Figure 3).
——–
So, if it wasn’t for the cooling (which is uncertain), it would be warmer, eh.
Correct me if I missed something in the circular logic presented ?
D Boehm:
At September 19, 2012 at 3:02 pm you say to Rob Honeycutt,
Actually, he would not be the first.
Idso first reported empirical derivations of climate sensitivity for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. He used 8 different methods and reported his results in 1998. His paper can be read at
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/Idso_CR_1998.pdf
Idso’s “8 natural experiments” provide a “best estimate” of climate sensitivity 0.37 deg.C for a doubling of CO2.
Much more recently, Lindzen&Choi analysed ERBE data from the tropics. Their paper can be read at
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
Its conclusions include
And
So, Lindzen& Choi find a climate sensitivity of about 0.4 deg.C which agrees with Idso’s finding of 0.37 deg. C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. And these empirical derivations were independently obtained using very different methods.
In other words,
The rise in global temperature from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration would be about 0.4 deg.C which is so small and insignificant that it would not be discernible.
Richard
PS I would approve if moderators choose to snip this PS which says I am pleased the Bandit still has a friend.
The winner in a tug of war contest is 100 percent responsible for dragging the losing side over the line. The winning side is not 100 percent responsible for the tension in the rope or the time taken to win the contest.
It’s not just Nuccitelli who’s given that reply – we heard this from Gavin Schmidt:
Q – In your opinion, what percentage of global warming is due to human causes vs. natural causes?
[Response: Over the last 40 or so years, natural drivers would have caused cooling, and so the warming there has been (and some) is caused by a combination of human drivers and some degree of internal variability. I would judge the maximum amplitude of the internal variability to be roughly 0.1 deg C over that time period, and so given the warming of ~0.5 deg C, I’d say somewhere between 80 to 120% of the warming. Slightly larger range if you want a large range for the internal stuff. – gavin]
Second point – I’d like to hear Mr Nuccitelli’s take on the Leroy 2010 paper, which puts into question some of the papers he cited (“…Not only has the accuracy of the surface temperature record been confirmed by BEST and Watts’ own Fall et al. (2011), but also by a number of other peer-reviewed papers such as Peterson et al. (2003) and Menne et al. (2010). If Watts believes these studies are flawed, he should attempt to demonstrate it in a peer-reviewed paper. Until he has accomplished this, by his own standards his argument is invalid…)
Remember, Leroy 2010 was and endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation (CIMO-XV, 2010) Fifteenth session, in September 2010 as a WMO-ISO standard, making it suitable for reevaluating previous studies on the issue of station siting.
So, Mr Nuccitelli, when Anthony’s paper passes peer review (which may happen before Muller’s does), will you give the same rant against those scientists that used out-of-date siting standards for their papers?
We’ll wait…
richardscourtney;
In my country the polite description of your reply to davidmhoffer is to say it is not cricket.
Richard
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Being a colonial of your country, oddly, we never took up cricket. We do have crickets though. Lotsa crickets. And cattle. Lotsa cattle. He managed to combine the two in his last response. His response was a product of the latter and his answer to my question was the sound of the former.
Something else I’ve noticed about warmers like Mr Nuccitelli – they only like to post where they (or someone friendly to the “cause”) controls the moderation.
Which is why he was able to get a “featured poster” status at the John Cook moderated Shaping Tomorrows World site (http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/nuccWhatsDone.html).
Yep, he’s a part of “Lew’s World”, and the moderation shows.
Not bad for someone who bills himself as an environmental scientist (he works at a private environmental consulting firm in the Sacramento, California area).
Fairly popular, too. Most of his posts have at least one or two comments. Of course, those were the comments that survived.
Dana.
If 50 warmists are observed, and an interview on PBS is responsible for over 100% of the observed warmists getting into a tizzy, how many of the observed warmists are getting into a tizzy?
Anthony, you have a great more deal of patience when dealing with these people then I do, and your dialogue with them is to be commended.
In fact, the very words out of my mouth when I saw the “over 100%” claim was ” ****ing idiot!”
I say to the “clueless climate scientists”: Surface temperatures don’t mean anything, but the availabilty of fresh water means everything.
Mueller an ex skeptic? NO HE IS A FAKE, A BS artist
Here is Prof. Richard Muller, a Berkeley physicist, toward the conclusion of his 2003 paper on
global warming data: “Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of
paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate.”
Richard Muller would be the only climate skeptic ever awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
Other MacArthur fellows include;
Obama’s “Angel of Death” eugenics advocate John P. Holdren
Paul R. Ehrlich, population biologist.
Stephen Schneider, climatologist . ( The big freeze man)
Jane Lubchenco, marine biologist (currently diddling the NOAA temp records – very bad eugenicist)
Benjamin D. Santer, atmospheric scientist
Why would a climate change skeptic urge governments to buy windmills and biofuels?
Henry3rd,
I wonder if I can start calling myself an environmental scientist, just like Scooter does. Afterall I have 3 degrees compared to his 2, with one of the two Masters an MS in Environmental Science and Engineering. That seems to be more germane than a MS in Physics. I even interned with USGS, which about as good as it gets for doing science research involving our physical environment.
Nah, maybe not. I think I prefer educator. Getting students interested is science is far more likely to make a difference than anything Dana comes up with.
Maybe Blade needs a molecular EM physics refresher; pay particular attention to Dr. Roy Spencer (since I doubt you will simply take my word or Scott Denning’s word for it) regarding GHG molecule absorption and re-emission:
.
I am confused. Is Dana a guy or a girl.