In where I get targeted by the Climate Science Rapid Response Team

Readers may recall that I became a target of Al Gore for getting some press.

From Al Gore’s “Reality Drop” project, the GoreBots were given the orders.

Read the entire interview by James Stafford here to see what got them in a tizzy. And since the “Reality Drop” bot attack to “destroy denial” really didn’t work out so well, the big guns had to be called in.

Yes, the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, headed by John Abraham, has come to the rescue of the Gorebots. As is typical, I’m painted in ways that were never part of the original interview, because Abraham views lack of things he expects to see in print as “denial” on my part, a typical strawman tactic. What Mr. Abraham doesn’t know is that the interview that appeared was edited and shortened, and not all of what I said and referenced was used. Some of the references, like that to the IPCC SREX report on severe weather didn’t make the cut.

A few quotable quotes from the report from Chapter 4: (h/t to Roger Pielke Jr.)

• “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”
• “The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”
• “The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”

I had to laugh though, at this transparent effort as it seems almost desperate in the tone to quash anything I said that is contrary to his organized views, having a difference of opinion isn’t skepticism according to Mr. Abraham:  

The fact is that Mr. Watts is not a pragmatic sceptic. Real scientists are sceptical by nature. We don’t believe what our colleagues tell us until we verify it for ourselves.  Scientists honestly develop views of how the world works and they test those views by experimentation. As a result of approximately 150 years of climate science, the vast majority of scientists are convinced that humans are a major cause of climate change. Mr. Watts, on the other hand, dismisses evidence that is counter to his viewpoint. That is not scepticism–that is plain denial.

Yes, he had to get that obligatory smear in there. SOP.

This one is a real howler:

It isn’t surprising that Mr. Watts disagrees with all of these other researchers. What I was surprised by was the fact he seems to disagree with his own research.

Gosh, would science ever advance if we didn’t build on and improve previous research? Is it somehow dishonest that a researcher realizes that an earlier effort had an incomplete or flawed result and then works to build upon that? Mr. Abraham’s framing makes it look dishonest, but then again, that’s what his behind the scenes organization is paid/funded to do. I suppose those years of unfunded work cataloging the national USHCN weather station network used for climate study was not a “We don’t believe what our colleagues tell us until we verify it for ourselves.” but a simple case of “denial”.

We know why the first effort (Fall et al) didn’t see much of a siting signal, so the second effort used a different method endorsed by the WMO, and found a strong signal. We built on the flaws of the first work, and we are preparing a paper for submission that includes dealing with the useful criticisms we learned from the discussion of the  preliminary release.

Here’s another of Abraham’s lies of omission:

He didn’t tell you that he actually published a paper on this subject a few years ago where he concluded that temperature sensor siting had no impact on temperature trends.

LOL! Well, right in the abstract it says:

Comparison of observed temperatures with NARR shows that the most poorly sited stations are warmer compared to NARR than are other stations, and a major portion of this bias is associated with the siting classification rather than the geographical distribution of stations. According to the best‐sited stations, the diurnal temperature range in the lower 48 states has no century‐scale trend.

Looks like an effect to me.

And, the Fall et al paper published in JGR is being cited in the scientific community in 12 other papers, so it must be useful.

I can’t imagine oilprice.com sought out this interview, but rather they were likely badgered with emails filled with buzzwords like “false balance” into thinking they had to provide his view as counterpoint.

I do plan a much more detailed response to clear up all of the framing and  lies of omission Mr. Abraham told about me, but for now I welcome what readers have to say about the interview and some of the points. You can read it here:

http://oilprice.com/Interviews/Real-Pragmatism-for-Real-Climate-Change-Interview-with-Dr.-John-Abraham.html