Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Over at Roy Spencer’s usually excellent blog, Roy has published what could be called a hatchet job on “citizen climate scientists” in general and me in particular. Now, Dr. Roy has long been a hero of mine, because of all his excellent scientific work … which is why his attack mystifies me. Maybe he simply had a bad day and I was the focus of frustration, we all have days like that. Anthony tells me he can’t answer half of the email he gets some days, Dr. Roy apparently gets quite a lot of mail too, asking for comment.
Dr. Roy posted a number of uncited and unreferenced claims in his essay. So, I thought I’d give him the chance to provide data and citations to back up those claims. He opens with this graphic:
Dr. Roy, the citizen climate scientists are the ones who have made the overwhelming majority of the gains in the struggle against rampant climate alarmism. It is people like Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts and Donna LaFramboise and myself and Joanne Nova and Warwick Hughes and the late John Daly, citizen climate scientists all, who did the work that your fellow mainstream climate scientists either neglected or refused to do. You should be showering us with thanks for doing the work your peers didn’t get done, not speciously claiming that we are likeable idiots like Homer Simpson.
Dr. Roy begins his text by saying:
I’ve been asked to comment on Willis Eschenbach’s recent analysis of CERES radiative budget data (e.g., here). Willis likes to analyze data, which I applaud. But sometimes Willis gives the impression that his analysis of the data (or his climate regulation theory) is original, which is far from the case.
Hundreds of researchers have devoted their careers to understanding the climate system, including analyzing data from the ERBE and CERES satellite missions that measure the Earth’s radiative energy budget. Those data have been sliced and diced every which way, including being compared to surface temperatures (as Willis recently did).
So, Roy’s claim seems to be that my work couldn’t possibly be original, because all conceivable analyses of the data have already been done. Now that’s a curious claim in any case … but in this case, somehow, he seems to have omitted the links to the work he says antedates mine.
When someone starts making unreferenced, uncited, unsupported accusations about me like that, there’s only one thing to say … Where’s the beef? Where’s the study? Where’s the data?
In fact, I know of no one who has done a number of the things that I’ve done with the CERES data. If Dr. Roy thinks so, then he needs to provide evidence of that. He needs to show, for example, that someone has analyzed the data in this fashion:
Now, I’ve never seen any such graphic. I freely admit, as I have before, that maybe the analysis has been done some time in the past, and my research hasn’t turned it up. I did find two studies that were kind of similar, but nothing like that graph above. Dr. Roy certainly seems to think such an analysis leading to such a graphic exists … if so, I suggest that before he starts slamming me with accusations, he needs to cite the previous graphic that he claims that my graphic is merely repeating.
I say this for two reasons. In addition to it being regular scientific practice to cite your sources, it is common courtesy not to accuse a man of doing something without providing data to back it up.
And finally, if someone has done any of my analyses before, I want to know so I can save myself some time … if the work’s been done, I’m not interested in repeating it. So I ask Dr. Roy: which study have I missed out on that has shown what my graphic above shows?
Dr. Roy then goes on to claim that my ideas about thunderstorms regulating the global climate are not new because of the famous Ramanathan and Collins 1991 paper called “Thermodynamic regulation of ocean warming by cirrus clouds deduced from observations of the 1987 El Niño”. Dr. Roy says:
I’ve previously commented on Willis’ thermostat hypothesis of climate system regulation, which Willis never mentioned was originally put forth by Ramanathan and Collins in a 1991 Nature article.
Well … no, it wasn’t “put forth” in R&C 1991, not even close. Since Dr. Roy didn’t provide a link to the article he accuses me of “never mentioning”, I’ll remedy that, it’s here.
Unfortunately, either Dr. Roy doesn’t fully understand what R&C 1991 said, or he doesn’t fully understand what I’ve said. This is the Ramanathan and Collins hypothesis as expressed in their abstract:
Observations made during the 1987 El Niño show that in the upper range of sea surface temperatures, the greenhouse effect increases with surface temperature at a rate which exceeds the rate at which radiation is being emitted from the surface. In response to this ‘super greenhouse effect’, highly reflective cirrus clouds are produced which act like a thermostat, shielding the ocean from solar radiation. The regulatory effect of these cirrus clouds may limit sea surface temperatures to less than 305K.
Why didn’t I mention R&C 1991 with respect to my hypothesis? Well … because it’s very different from my hypothesis, root and branch.
• Their hypothesis was that cirrus clouds act as a thermostat to regulate maximum temperatures in the “Pacific Warm Pool” via a highly localized “super greenhouse effect”.
• My hypothesis is that thunderstorms act all over the planet as natural emergent air conditioning units, which form over local surface hot spots and (along with other emergent phenomena) cool the surface and regulate the global temperature.
In addition, I fear that Dr. Roy hasn’t done his own research on this particular matter. A quick look on Google shows that I have commented on R&C 1991 before. Back in 2012, in response to Dr. Roy’s same claim (but made by someone else), I wrote:
I disagree that the analysis of thunderstorms as a governing mechanism has been “extensively examined in the literature”. It has scarcely been discussed in the literature at all. The thermostatic mechanism discussed by Ramanathan is quite different from the one I have proposed. In 1991, Ramanathan and Collins said that the albedos of deep convective clouds in the tropics limited the SST … but as far as I know, they didn’t discuss the idea of thunderstorms as a governing mechanism at all.
And regarding the Pacific Warm Pool, I also quoted the Abstract of R&C1991 in this my post on Argo and the Ocean Temperature Maximum. So somebody’s not searching here before making claims …
In any case, I leave it to the reader to decide whether my hypothesis, that emergent phenomena like thunderstorms regulate the climate, was “originally put forth” in the R&C 1991 Nature paper about cirrus clouds, or not …
Finally, Dr. Roy closes with this plea:
Anyway, I applaud Willis, who is a sharp guy, for trying. But now I am asking him (and others): read up on what has been done first, then add to it. Or, show why what was done previously came to the wrong conclusion, or analyzed the data wrong.
That’s what I work at doing.
But don’t assume you have anything new unless you first do some searching of the literature on the subject. True, some of the literature is paywalled. Sorry, I didn’t make the rules. And I agree, if research was public-funded, it should also be made publicly available.
First, let me say that I agree with all parts of that plea. I do my best to find out what’s been done before, among other reasons in order to save me time repeating past work.
However, many of my ideas are indeed novel, as are my methods of analysis. I’m the only person I know of, for example, to do graphic cluster analysis on temperature proxies (see “Kill It With Fire“). Now, has someone actually done that kind of analysis before? Not that I’ve seen, but if there is, I’m happy to find that out—it ups the odds that I’m on the right track when that happens. I have no problem with acknowledging past work—as I noted above, I have previously cited the very R&C 1991 study that Dr. Roy accuses me of ignoring.
Dr. Roy has not given me any examples of other people doing the kind of analysis of the CERES data that I’m doing. All he’s given are claims that someone somewhere did some unspecified thing that he claims I said I thought I’d done first. Oh, plus he’s pointed at, but not linked to, Ramanathan & Collins 1991, which doesn’t have anything to do with my hypothesis.
So all we have are his unsupported claims that my work is not novel.
And you know what? Dr. Roy may well be right. My work may not be novel. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong … but without specific examples, he is just handwaving. All I ask is that he shows this with proper citations.
Dr. Roy goes on to say:
But cloud feedback is a hard enough subject without muddying the waters further. Yes, clouds cool the climate system on average (they raise the planetary albedo, so they reduce solar input into the climate system). But how clouds will change due to warming (cloud feedback) could be another matter entirely. Don’t conflate the two.
I ask Dr. Roy to please note the title of my graphic above. It shows how the the clouds actually change due to warming. I have not conflated the two in the slightest, and your accusation that I have done so is just like your other accusations—it lacks specifics. Exactly what did I say that makes you think I’m conflating the two? Dr. Roy, I ask of you the simple thing I ask of everyone—if you object to something that I say, please QUOTE MY WORDS, so we can all see what you are talking about.
Dr. Roy continues:
For instance, let’s say “global warming” occurs, which should then increase surface evaporation, leading to more convective overturning of the atmosphere and precipitation. But if you increase clouds in one area with more upward motion and precipitation, you tend to decrease clouds elsewhere with sinking motion. It’s called mass continuity…you can’t have rising air in one region without sinking air elsewhere to complete the circulation. “Nature abhors a vacuum”.
Not true. For example, if thunderstorms alone are not sufficient to stop an area-wide temperature rise, a new emergent phenomenon arises. The thunderstorms will self-assemble into “squall lines”. These are long lines of massed thunderstorms, with long canyons of rising air between them. In part this happens because it allows for a more dense packing of thunderstorms, due to increased circulation efficiency. So your claim above, that an increase of clouds in one area means a decrease in another area, is strongly falsified by the emergence of squall lines.
In addition, you’ve failed to consider the timing of onset of the phenomena. A change of ten minutes in the average formation time of tropical cumulus makes a very large difference in net downwelling radiation … so yes, contrary to your claim, I’ve just listed two ways the clouds can indeed increase in one area without a decrease in another area.
So, examining how clouds and temperatures vary together locally (as Willis has done) really doesn’t tell you anything about feedbacks. Feedbacks only make sense over entire atmospheric circulation systems, which are ill-defined (except in the global average).
Mmm … well, to start with, these are not simple “feedbacks”. I say that clouds are among the emergent thermoregulatory phenomena that keep the earth’s temperature within bounds. The system acts, not as a simple feedback, but as a governor. What’s the difference?
- A simple feedback moves the result in a certain direction (positive or negative) with a fixed feedback factor. It is the value of this feedback factor that people argue about, the cloud feedback factor … I say that is meaningless, because what we’re looking at is not a feedback like that at all.
- A governor, on the other hand, uses feedback to move the result towards some set-point, by utilizing a variable feedback factor.
In short, feedback acts in one direction by a fixed amount. A governor, on the other hand, acts to restore the result to the set-point by varying the feedback. The system of emergent phenomena on the planet is a governor. It does not resemble simple feedback in the slightest.
And the size of those emergent phenomena varies from very small to very large on both spatial and temporal scales. Dust devils arise when a small area of the land gets too hot, for example. They are not a feedback, but a special emergent form which acts as an independent entity with freedom of motion. Dust devils move preferentially to the warmest nearby location, and because they are so good at cooling the earth, like all such mechanisms they have to move and evolve in order to persist. Typically they live for some seconds to minutes and then disappear. That’s an emergent phenomenon cooling the surface at the small end of the time and distance scales.
From there, the scales increase from local (cumulus clouds and thunderstorms) to area-wide (cyclones, grouping of thunderstorms into “squall lines”) to regional and multiannual (El Nino/La Nina Equator-To-Poles warm water pump) to half the planet and tens of years (Pacific Decadal Oscillation).
So I strongly dispute Dr. Roy’s idea that “feedbacks only make sense over entire atmospheric circulation systems”. To start with, they’re not feedbacks, they are emergent phenomena … and they have a huge effect on the regulation of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales.
And I also strongly dispute his claim that my hypothesis is not novel, the idea that thunderstorms and other emergent climate phenomena work in concert planet-wide to maintain the temperature of the earth within narrow bounds.
Like I said, Dr. Roy is one of my heroes, and I’m mystified by his attack on citizen scientists in general, and on me in particular. Yes, I’ve said that I thought that some of my research has been novel and original. Much of it is certainly original, in that I don’t know of anyone else who has done the work in that way, so the ideas are my own.
However, it just as certainly may not be novel. There’s nothing new under the sun. My point is that I don’t know of anyone advancing this hypothesis, the claim that emergent phenomena regulate the temperature and that forcing has little to do with it.
If Dr. Roy thinks my ideas are not new, I’m more than willing to look at any citations he brings to the table. As far as I’m concerned they would be support for my hypothesis, so I invite him to either back it up or back it off.
Best regards to all.
w.
Incorrect his actions got him there, he tried to overdose on sleeping pills because he could not handle his commitment to enlist in the Army that he made.
The Pompous Git says:
October 12, 2013 at 9:52 pm
The problem with your post is that WIllis’ description of R&C in the OP was wrong. The distinction between them is not what he says there. If you have a theory about apples and pears, and I have a theory about apples and I say that the different between our theories is that I talk about apples and you talk about pears, you would not be correct no matter the number of times you explained what the difference between our theories are.
Cheers, 🙂
Poptech: wrote (many times)
“No one but your WUWT fanboys ”
+++++++
Every time you us the above term “Willis’ Fanboy”, you prove again to everyone exactly how void of substance you are. Grow up and take Willis’ challenge and debate the science. You’re so confused over the notion of labels that you’re seriously stunted.
Poptech says: October 12, 2013 at 9:33 pm
You wouldn’t like when I am banned …just a hint.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Now your threatening the man. Please seek medical advice/treatment.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/DS00652/DSECTION=symptoms
Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by dramatic, emotional behavior, which is in the same category as antisocial and borderline personality disorders. You may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may have a sense of entitlement. And when you don't receive the special treatment to which you feel entitled, you may become very impatient or angry. But underneath all this behavior often lies a fragile self-esteem. You have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have a sense of secret shame and humiliation. And in order to make yourself feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and efforts to belittle the other person to make yourself appear better. When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may not want to think that anything could be wrong — doing so wouldn't fit with your self-image of power and perfection.
Mario, you seem confused like many fanboys here about what I am discussing. Fanboys are easy to spot because they do not actually address what I am talking about as they are too bust knee-jerk defending their cult leader.
Willis. I agree with several of the commenters here who said the problem may be that you are stepping on toes of someone or some group who hope(s) to take advantage of your ideas and get a large grant funded.
Now my thoughts are that after they are funded they will then have one of those 5 or 10 or 15 author series of papers talking about a “Thermostat effect of thunderstorms, etc., etc.”. They will claim that they searched the major journals and no peer reviewed paper has ever been published on precisely what they concluded, thus it is original work.
But never mind, you have done the original thinking to develop the hypothesis and the original work to test it. Don’t give up, press forward and continue the good work that so many admire. It is your work that qualifies you, not formal degrees. Thanks for all your wonderful work and my very best wishes to you.
Richard D, please stop diagnosing Willis.
@ur momisugly Shawnhet
Willis wrote:
and quoted the R&C abstract:
Some commenters, quite correctly, have pointed out that the content of the R&C is different to the abstract. It would want to be 😉 Nevertheless, nobody has pointed out where R&C make the same claim that Willis does: “that variations in the daily times of onset of the tropical cumulus and cumulonimbus regimes regulate the tropical surface temperature with scant regard to changes in forcings. And thus eventually this regulates the global surface temperature, through a whole host of cloud-related mechanisms.”
I think it’s also important to note in this context that the dataset used by Willis was much later than that available to R&C and thus constitutes at the very least a fresh look at tropical thunderstorm formation.
Poptech says:
October 12, 2013 at 10:21 pm
Mario, you seem confused like many fanboys here about what I am discussing. Fanboys are easy to spot because they do not actually address what I am talking about as they are too bust knee-jerk defending their cult leader.
++++++++++++
No Poptech: It’s that you’re too ignorant and unable to see what a foolish waste of time you are. Calling people names based on how you were treated as a child have nothing to do with reality nor science. You lack the basic intellect to address science topics, so instead you resort to insults that are ironically telling of who you are Poptech. It is document here for all to see. I suggest you read what you have written and try to grow bit. Else you will continue on with what must be a miserable life.
Sorry to break it to you Leonard but only two people have cited his paper in three years,
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=14537309061889036487
He can’t even get skeptical scientists to cite it (which speaks volumes) and alarmists do not even consider it worth their time to attack it!
While a paper from Dr. Spencer has been cited 44 times over a similar time period,
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?&cites=12320362983293932245
Poptech, you are a nasty, snide, little (well, I’m not going to insult those people who happen to be born out of wedlock) excuse for a human being.
In your post at 7.04 you posit four questions. Here are the answers
1. Believe it or not, when a comment to a paper is accepted, it is considered to have the same merit as the original paper. It even elicited a response from the authors. See 2
2. I did a google search for Willis Eschenbach E&E. The first link was to WUWT, the second link was to a site that I will not link to. However, they acknowledge that Willis did indeed have two papers accepted by E&E, one about rising sea levels at Tuvalu, and the other about the Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis. This same site links to both the Nature comment, and the reply from the authors. Direct quote from the site
3 & 4. Are you seriously suggesting that Willis go to every site that mentions his name (there were 9,950,000 hits for the above search term) every day, parse through the article and any comments arising from it, and correct anything that may have been said about him? Have you completely lost the plot?
I have to ask, what are you hoping to achieve from the line that you are taking? The shredding of Willis’s reputation?
Not going to happen. Indeed, I looked at Dr Spencer’s blog a little bit more and came across this posting. On that posting, Willis twice asks, very politely (and even references R & C in his own comment) for clarification, but the coward, and that’s the only thing I can call him in light of his recent post, cannot deign to answer the simple questions that Willis poses. The coward even references that post as his attempt to tell Willis gently that this has been done before, yet cannot answer Willis’ honestly put questions in that very posting. You are backing the wrong horse here entirely.
Or maybe you’re trying to belittle Willis by posting his resume. Except Willis has already told us, in excruciating detail, all the things he’s done in his life, good and bad. Years ago.
You’ve polluted this thread with your nonsense, completely shredded any reputation you may have had (I know I just want to defecate any time I see your name), and achieved the exact opposite of what you set out to do. Way to go, loser.
I have been away from this web site for a while. To come back today and find a post, and commenters, negative toward Roy Spencer is surreal.
Mario, what I see is that all the fanboys like you are getting very upset because they cannot address my questions, just like Willis that he is incapable of.
Your comments are very bizarre as I had an uneventful childhood, you should stop projecting.
Maybe you can address these,
1. He is misleadingly implying his published COMMENT on another paper in Nature is on equal footing with an original research paper.
2. He is claiming to have TWO “peer-reviewed” papers published in E&E (I am aware of one).
3. He failed to correct Mr. Booker in The Daily Telegraph that he is not a computer modeller (context implied is climate computer modeller) when he had the chance.
4. He failed to correct The New York Times that he is not an engineer when he had the chance.
These are verifiable facts that go to the base of his integrity. If someone from an alarmist site pulled these stunts he would be ridiculed here without end and not be taken seriously.
Willis, in view of Dr Spencer’s comments I would like to encourage you by recording that I see you as one of the most insightful analysts of real world climate data. Your coupling of a unique background of life experiences with novel points of view and an unusually potent intellect and grasp of physics and computing etc mean that your posts are always a high point of my visits to WUWT. I really like your “governor by emergent phenomena” theory, and intuitively I think it is highly likely to be the one to win out in the end. By the way, I am a retired Senior Research Scientist who worked in the fields of fluid dynamics and aeroelasticity, and held a Commercial Pilot Licence requiring knowledge of meteorology.
@ur momisugly Pompous Git:
I actually agree with you that the onset of time of thunderstorms might be the difference btw Willis and R&C(it is possible that no one has thought of this before Willis). However, I’m quite sure that R&C would claim that by demonstrating(in their opinion) the major cooling effect is cirrus clouds not cumulonimbus ones, they have demonstrated that Willis’ time of day issue is not as important as Willis claims. Unfortunately, I would expect the debate to die there as I don’t think Willis’ theory is developped enough to answer the question.
This is why I have asked Willis for specifics on the differences between his theory and others out there. These sorts of specifics will allow us to *test* the two hypotheses and see which one is right. AFAIK, there are no such tests that we could do that might demonstrate Willis is correct and R&C are not which is supposed to be the whole ball game. (ie theories are tested by drawing out testable specifics about them). We should not be satisfied (as you seem to be) with differences being untested generalities.
Cheers, 🙂
Poptech said @ur momisugly October 12, 2013 at 11:00 pm
PopTick, the only person around here who appears to be upset is you. Understandably since we aren’t swallowing your BS.
Poptech says:
October 12, 2013 at 11:00 pm
Mario, what I see is that all the fanboys like you are getting very upset because they cannot address my questions, just like Willis that he is incapable of.
Your comments are very bizarre as I had an uneventful childhood, you should stop projecting.
Maybe you can address these,
1. He is misleadingly implying his published COMMENT on another paper in Nature is on equal footing with an original research paper.
2. He is claiming to have TWO “peer-reviewed” papers published in E&E (I am aware of one).
3. He failed to correct Mr. Booker in The Daily Telegraph that he is not a computer modeller (context implied is climate computer modeller) when he had the chance.
4. He failed to correct The New York Times that he is not an engineer when he had the chance.
These are verifiable facts that go to the base of his integrity. If someone from an alarmist site pulled these stunts he would be ridiculed here without end and not be taken seriously.
Poptech: Nothing you point out (is valid). Howe your response to me has nothing do with a single one of my comments to you. My comments to you stand perfectly. That you do not understand this proves that my comments to you should be studied and understood. I’m not going to waste my time going through your points which have already been refuted.
– – – – – – – –
Matthew R Marler,
I appreciate your comment engagement.
I accept your challenge. Roy Spencer’s two posts on his blog advising Willis are the very source of my statement. Quoted. Parse them at your pleasure.
They remain so. Again they offer pretty obvious elementary professional advice to an amateur. They are civil. They are offered with an even toned humility.
I see the mentoring of an amateur toward being professional as what is being done. And Spencer looks like an accomplished mentor. N’est ce pas?
John
Please stop repeating things I already said (October 11, 2013 at 10:17 pm), I am well aware they peer-review comments that does not change the implication.
COMMENTS are NOT considered the same thing as an original research paper let alone equal to the original paper.
*Nice, I see Willis is now going back and inline editing my comments so I am unaware he did since I do not get notified when this happens. (October 11, 2013 at 11:17 pm) *
Incorrect, his Tuvalu article was not peer-reviewed,
“A fascinating story by a local resident, engineer and private scholar, Eschenbach offers a convincing and well documented explanation of the problems facing many Pacific islands. As we could not find any reviewer for his paper, we hope that it will attract responses from those who still believe that the compensation demanded by Tuvalu (with the help of Greenpeace and environmental lawyers) for damage caused by “global warming”, is indeed unjustified.” – Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Editor, Energy & Environment
He has another non-peer-reviewed article in E&E.
Click on my links (October 12, 2013 at 7:04 pm), he was well aware of these articles and did not have to go search them out.
Please stop demonstrating your computer illiteracy and use quotes when doing Google searches. A computer expert like Willis should know how to automate these things, I do.
Do you think if the NYT said Anthony Watts, “engineer” or “computer modeller” Anthony would not try to correct that?
It is very easy to contact newspapers for corrections as they have editors dedicated to handling these.
How Poptech sees himself.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20061223050621/starwars/images/6/61/AnakinSkywalker.jpg
How everyone else sees Poptech.
http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs47/f/2009/225/a/4/Keyboard_Commando_by_Plognark.jpg
@ur momisugly Shawnhet
First, I will not be satisfied until we fully understand the Earth climate system. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to occur in my lifetime [sigh] Even the rather smaller subset that fascinate me: paeleoclimatology.
I think it unlikely that Willis is going to spend any great amount of time giving out specifics on the differences between his theory and that of others. As noted incessantly in this thread, he is an amateur. This means he does not have enslaved grad students to do the grunt work required. It also means he is under no obligation whatsoever to do so; he is not a grant-seeker. If I read him aright (and I do acknowledge having problems with reading underlying subtexts) he is already pursuing other game so to speak.
I do agree with you the testing and comparison needs to be done, but it will more than likely not w. doing that unless he suddenly decides that’s an compelling idea. It’s possible, but not a sufficient reason for holding one’s breath.
Really, w. is under no obligation to do what his admirers, or detractors demand of him. Tough for the control freaks out there, but WYSIWYG. In the meantime, I find w. far more entertaining than, let’s say, watching some silly cartoon on the TV set.
Live long and prosper…
Not a single one of my claims have been refuted,
1. He is misleadingly implying his published COMMENT on another paper in Nature is on equal footing with an original research paper.
2. He is claiming to have TWO “peer-reviewed” papers published in E&E (I am aware of one).
3. He failed to correct Mr. Booker in The Daily Telegraph that he is not a computer modeler (context implied is climate computer modeler) when he had the chance.
4. He failed to correct The New York Times that he is not an engineer when he had the chance.
Please stop being a fanboy and address these. Also, does Willis claim to be a computer modeler?
Surely you are intellectually honest?
Poptech says:
October 12, 2013 at 10:04 pm
Were you a young adult American male in 1966, Poptech? If not, then I can understand how you might not understand the difference between volunteering for a different Army MOS to avoid being drafted as 11 Bravo, ie Rifleman.
Don’t criticize another man’s life choices until you have been in the same situation. My choices & opportunities were different from Willis’, since I was not in his shoes, being a little younger. The draft became a lottery in Dec 1969, when I was a Stanford freshman. The number chosen for my birthday (120) put me on the cusp of being drafted (first third) or not (second third). By that time, it was clear we weren’t in it to win it, so my enthusiasm was somewhat dampened. I later volunteered to see combat in another war, but as a combat correspondent for a month, not as 11 B for a year, ie as a visitor, not a full participant.
Some may have earned the right to suggest that Willis still suffers from whatever demons then possessed him, & some may deserve to question his choices then, who made other choices, but among them are not you. Unless I’m mistaken & you are an American subject to the draft in the 1960s, in which case, never mind. But I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong.
dbstealey, jan smith, and others. I appreciate your gentle efforts of intervention on P[snip] behalf, but surely there comes a point where one can freely call a spade a spade as markstoval did this morning.
P[snip], you’re being a [snip], and this comes from someone who has used and linked to your invaluable lists and/or their sources for years. I am certainly not a Willis fanboy though I think he is a talented writer/communicator and do appreciate his many contributions here. I see no issue with legitimately attacking his claims and, while I am not a fan of how Willis often handles push back, I do enjoy the interesting discussions that often ensue and in this case, I too would like to hear more from Dr. Spencer. This is also coming from someone who admits he is “often a douche” but most of my venom is directed at the other team, and if you are now suddenly under the impression that there are not sides here, that this isn’t a battle between good and evil, then you are sorely mistaken.
That is one of the perplexing issues here with your rabid thrusts. Some of us here know very well and agree with your assessment of the totalitarian aims of the anti-human green agenda, but here you employ the same techniques that watermelons use to advance they’re arguments. In your case of propaganda, even if you feel ground has been gained in your cause, you have also succeeded in making an ass of yourself and advancing the emerging theory that publicly nipping at Willis’ ankles in hope of his collapse is of utmost importance to you. You act as though this was an opening you had long and desperately awaited and that is speaking to to us loudly and clearly. Now I’m all for hitting a Mann when he’s down if he represents the Sustainable Development nightmare, but when you walk with someone for years, even if not together in any way other than your final important destination, and you turn to him, smile, and then sucker punch him multiple times, the other people who had been walking along with you will respond and will most definitely never look at you the same way again. If that was your goal, to flex your “superior” muscles and change public opinion of you here, you’re a winner.
But you’re not. Call it circling the wagons if you’d like, but the stakes are too high to excuse your treachery as I see it. I am a freedom-loving person and feel you have the right to present yourself however you see fit, but that freedom extends to me as well and I use it to report the fact that your shallow and transparent attempts to discredit one of the main contributors to WUWT are abominable. It isn’t Willis’ reputation I am concerned with. My eye is on an infinitely larger prize than one man’s ego. I have two young children who will either live free of or under the thumb of these zealots. It is no inconsequential matter, so fragging your superior (despite your feelings about his credentials, he is your superior here) doesn’t exactly endear you to the audience. This battle is far from over and seeing someone whose work I respected put on as ignorant a display as you have here is, to borrow a phrase, a travesty.
I equate your behavior here with the third-string QB who anonymously attacks and tries to tear down the starting QB who, unfairly in your eyes, gets all the attention and credit and cheerleader. In the end, whatever “success” you have achieved in knocking down the first-stringer a notch comes at the cost of having inflicted damage to the unity, effectiveness, and morale of your own team and that is what makes what you are doing so egregious. Personally you may get a rise out of the endeavor and are thrilled with finally getting your chance to take a swing, but instead of having elevated yourself, you have attempted to bring everyone else down, yourself especially as many who may have respected your previous efforts will now consider you a douche. The race to the bottom doesn’t work out so well, a lesson I would have thought you had learned given your anti-watermelon stance.
So what’s at work here Pop? Why your sudden betrayal? You may claim that “the last thing [you are] is envious” and attest that the impetus for your misguided crusade is your “problem with misinformation,” but your actions on this thread expose what is really driving this, and it is in my opinion primarily envy. Being envious is not a problem, really. Hopefully you can use it for self-motivation rather than vengeance going forward, but disguising envy behind some self-invented higher calling to right a wrong is a problem, for you that is, because in doing so you expose more about your personality than you intend. On this thread you have offended on many fronts and somehow fail to see how you have come across to those who have read through. Perhaps not though, considering you seem to be relishing your newly-invented role. Either way, it appears self-awareness is not one of your strong suits and that speaks more to your personal failings than it does to any valid point you may have been trying to make.
Worse than that, your primary goal here Poptech, whether you care to admit it or not, isn’t achieved, because like all efforts that seek to tear people down rather than build them up, e.g., the control-based AGW cultist movement you have been assisting for days now, the extra attention and credit you so obviously seek will fail to materialize, and what does will surely be of a negative stripe. In the end I’m afraid you have done more to damage your own reputation than you have to Willis’ reputation.
His popularity here obviously doesn’t sit well with you and probably hasn’t for years now. This is deep-seated hatred that has finally broken the surface against better judgment, but you should give it a rest at this point. I actually don’t think you get the credit or attention you deserve and, irony of ironies, I personally feel that your work has contributed more to tempering the notion of an AGW consensus and helping to knock the AGW juggernaut to its knees than has Willis’ work (though in terms of reach I’m sure that can be debated—in my view most of Willis’ impact has been in keeping the ball rolling and gathering momentum post-Climategate). But here you are, occupying the same ivory tower of cards you helped to demolish. If you hadn’t noticed, they are doing their best to rebuild it and I’m sure they welcome your help Benedict. Good for you…I love acronyms.
Willis, keep doing what you’re doing, not that I would have expected you to do otherwise. I personally prefer your posts that draw attention to the plight of the poor and the soon-to-be poor if these human-haters have their way. To me this is and has always been more a political issue than a scientific issue so using this excellent forum to shed light on the motives and outcomes proposed by these extremists is paramount in my eyes. The fact that one of your own teammates attempts repeatedly to tear you down and thus tries to minimize your impact is quite sad. There has never been a more important time than now for unity in advertising the realities offered by these control freaks. Why Poop feels the compulsion to “expose” you is inexplicable and inexcusable.
Moderator, if my use or douche and ass is unacceptable (though accurate), please replace them with jerk, cuz that shoe certainly fits as well.
@ur momisugly Robert in Calgary
Luckily I had already swallowed my first mouthful of chardonnay for the day, it being beer o’clock in these parts. Here’s my take on this thread:
http://www.sturmsoft.com/Writing/Images/leunig_no_understanding.jpg