Yesterday, when Climategate 3 was released, the ever flippant Dr. Gavin Schmidt made this Tweet in response:
Source: Google Trends, searching the word “climategate” from December 2009 to March 2013 http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Climategate&date=12%2F2009%2040m&cmpt=q
It seems that Dr. Schmidt doesn’t understand the difference between events and trends. Climategate was an event, so of course it was represented by an event interest spike. For example, here’s a weather event, Hurricane Katrina, which also shows a “reverse hockey stick” when the dataset is cropped as Dr. Schmidt’s graph was:
Source: Google Trends, searching the words “Hurricane Katrina” from Sept 2005 http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Hurricane%20Katrina&date=9%2F2005%2089m&cmpt=q
Now, this is a trend in Google, it shows the “climate” cooling.
Reference: Google Trends, searching the word “climate” http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Climate&cmpt=q
The interest in climate has cooled, losing more than half its value since 2004.
Of course, as Real Climate Scientists™ always tell us, it is the trend that matters, not any single event or datapoint.
And, the model forecast calls for continued cooling into 2013 and 2014:
Reality is a bitch, isn’t it Dr. Schmidt?
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Shortly after he tweeted that jewel, I thought I’d look at Alexa rankings for RealClimate to see if there was a similar reverse-hockeystick in play.
Sadly, as near as I can tell, RealClimate is not ranked highly enough for that sort of historical data to be kept.
Or an even better reverse hockey stick
Google trends for realclimate
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=realclimate
peaks Nov 2009 and then dives
Was there a sustained interest in climate during the medieval warm period 😀
Like trying to find a trend in a cyclic system. Depends on start time and data choice.
Sad when Gavin can be taken to school so easily.
He also apparently has difficulty with the difference between science and snark.
realclimate.org
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=realclimate.org&date=12%2F2009%2049m&cmpt=q
Hurricane Sandy
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22hurricane%20sandy%22&date=11%2F2012%205m&cmpt=q
global warming
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22global%20warming%22&date=3%2F2007%2073m&cmpt=q
Does Al Gore cause global warming?
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=al%20gore%2C%20global%20warming&cmpt=q
Anthony – stats on visitors to RC vs WUWT would be fun. You might need a logarithmic graph. 🙂
Why would I need to google “climeatgate”?. I just type “wattsupwiththat.com” and find all the information I need…
Arguing with Warmists is like shooting fish in a barrel!
I wonder what the trend for “Gavin Schmidt” would be?
Why google “climategate”? Just type “wattsupwiththat.com” and get all the information and entertainment you need…
Whilst they don’t make land any more, I think you mean Reality, not Realty.
REPLY: Fixed, voice recognition software sometimes messes those up. – Anthony
even more interesting is the annual cycle of interest in climate, perhaps its the weather!
I would be interested in how these trends appear relative to total searches through this time- frame. After all, the total number of searches processed by Google must be hugely more now that in 2004…..anyone able to integrate this?
In a similar area , I always love the way they claim that somehow AGW sceptics are all powerful in stopping the public from buying heart and sole into ‘the cause ‘ and yet claiming that AGW sceptics are in fact tiny in number which few people believe. So how does this ‘power ‘ come about ?
Just had a look at Google trends. Even more interesting to type in “climate change” and “global warming” and view them together. This clearly shows the “peak hysteria” in 2007 and the sad collapse thereafter. Weirdly, the low point each year is in August (with 2 years where July just wins) – very clearly so. It seems the committed environmentalist is a seasonal organism.
This is so funny. I have also spotted a trend. Every time one of these guys thinks he has a slam dunk over WUWT and jumps up on his high horse he ends up getting his ass handed to him.
Try Google Trends for “Real Climate” since 2009. 😉
Typical kind of pointless, nay childish response from someone who really has nothing to offer in terms of scientific input, right “Gav”?
On my ignore list. 😀
The hockey stick curve that really scares me in the UK is the one showing our national debt. This, coupled with a flat/ negative trend in our GDP, is not stopping a bunch of MPs trying to force a decarbonisation target of 2030 through Parliament in the next few weeks. We are bust and if we
were a comany we would be in administration at best, but still the economic lunacy continues. The
leader of the group is a director of at least one renewable energy company – what a surprise.
whoops typo: ‘company’
If current ‘climate cooling trends’ continue then we got an ice age in 5 years! 😉
It’s good to see the public is losing interest in the climate.
“Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.” — Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, English politician and poet, b1803 – d1873