Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In discussing President Obama’s latest boondoggle, the one billion (with a “b) dollar Climate Resilience Plan, The US Under-Assistant Minister of Scientific Silly Walks, John Holdren, wandered way off of the party line. The party line in question, of course, is …
“Although we can’t ascribe any given weather event to climate change, we still insist that blah blah blah …”
Perhaps Holdren’s teleprompter was broken, but anyhow, here’s what he said (emphasis mine):
During a call with reporters on Thursday evening, the assistant to the president on science and technology, John Holdren, said, without any doubt, the severe drought plaguing California and a number of other states across the country is tied to climate change.
Now, that quote was bad enough, since everyone from the IPCC to my cat agrees that
• There is no link between historical post-Little-Ice-Age warming and extreme weather, and
• Droughts are more common in colder times than in warmer times, and
• For the last decade and a half there’s been no statistically significant warming, certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.
• We have neither the understanding nor the information necessary to ascribe ANY single weather event to climate change, and we’re a long ways from having either one.
But despite Holdren going way off piste in his comment, it wasn’t truly of the quality needed for a quote of the week. It wasn’t concise enough for an epigram … or for an epitaph, for that matter.
However, just when it all looked hopeless, Holdren rallied, came back and captured the gold by uttering the deathless words that will ring forever in the halls of climate academe:
Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.
There you have it, folks, Holdren’s Law of Climate Causation, all you need to know about droughts and such … weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.
…
… and people wonder why the alarmists are having trouble these days peddling their nostrums? Well, mostly it’s not a communications failure. Mostly, it’s because we’ve been lied to before by these same folks (including Holdren), and Holdren’s current pathetic shilling for the Obamaclimate program is just more of the same.
The issue is not how the science is being communicated, as Judith Curry and many others seem to think.
The issue is that what is being communicated is so obviously not science, but merely poorly framed and scientifically absurd scare tactics, that as in this case, the communication just makes people point and laugh …
Regards to all,
w.
Well, he is right. Climate does cause weather. Without a climate, there would be no weather.
And without an atmosphere, there would be no climate. And without a planet there would be no atmosphere. And without a solar system there would be no planet.
I guess the problem can be traced back to the Big Bang! Damn that thing! It caused all our problems!
didn’t we just recently have a Government study conclude that droughts we not getting stronger, longer or more widespread?
The same propaganda is being preached here in the UK
What’s that old line? ‘I’ll have what s/he’s having?’ That dude has spent too much time in the old Large Holdren Collider.
Somebody needs to market a whole line of shirts and bumper stickers that say “Climate Change est 4.5 billion years BCE”, or “‘Climate Change…happening on Earth for 4.5 billion years” or “Climate Changes…always has….always will.”
Did he say whether humans caused the climate change? I suppose that is considered an accepted fact. It will be amusing if they are going to try and deny that they ever believed or stated that humans caused the climate to change.
We need to PASS climate change bills to see what is IN climate change bills. It will work out just dandy!
Sadly, it does not make enough people point and laugh. — John M Reynolds
Since all weather is caused by (human caused) climate change, it means that no weather event or events can falsify it.
Its a religious statement masquerading as science.
For those who have religious backgrounds, human-caused climate change is the equivalent of the doctrine of original sin and just as immune to disproof.
Climate is the integral of weather over, say, 30 years. So, the derivative of climate or climate change would be weather. Yep, looks like he discovered sliced bread. Good one, Willis
These are the very same folks who told sceptics a few years back that the weather is not the same as the climate. Since the hiatus can no longer be ignored they are now desperately clutching as straws in the windy weather.
In 1971 Holdren believed that a new ice age was likely and blamed man
Dr. Roy Spencer chips in on Holdren and explains what the weather actually is.
Most readers probably already know this, but WUWT runs considerable documentation on the history of weather, and in particular extreme weather. It’s linked above at “Reference Pages”/”Climatic Phenomena”. It’s quite helpful if you’re involved in a discussion and want to scan historical trends quickly. Thanks, Anthony.
You can’t argue with stupid.
I thought it was common knowledge that La Nina-like conditions result in the Western/South Western US being very dry…
“Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.”
So, in other words, there is no such thing as natural climate change and natural weather variability any more, right? When did God shut off the natural weather and climate change switch?
If he thinks I’m stupid enough to believe that statement, he’s more stupid than I am…..and I’m not even a scientist. What REALLY bugs me though is that there are probably plenty of people out there who are naïve and gullible enough to actually believe him……including many in the mainstream media.
There ought to be a law that forbids idiots like him from taking advantage of people’s scientific illiteracy this way. These last three years of the Obama presidency are going to be increasing difficult for me to tolerate, and it isn’t just because of his climate change policy. Obviously though, I don’t have much choice but to tolerate it anyway.
Please excuse me now while I go outside and scream.
President Obama can propose a Climate Resilience Plan but he can’t fund it. I could be wrong but I don’t think congress will fund the program.
Another $1,000,000,000 slush fund, to be wasted on crony socialism by the psyentifically illiterate….. Perfect. Just Perfect.
If You Like Your Climate, You can Keep Your Climate. Period.
“The issue is that what is being communicated is so obviously not science, but merely poorly framed and scientifically absurd scare tactics ….”
And that, my good man, is the playbook for all issues. Successful politicians know damn well that so many people in the U.S. spend very little time on things that really matter. They only need to imply a problem and tell them that as long as you vote for me I will make sure the government is on top of it. Sadly too many people are more than happy to defer to the government without a thought, just like the Eloi.
Wait, I thought climate was the average weather over time. Either the definition of climate has changed, or Holdren’s logic is circular.
The Youtube was about Wraysbury. I found out that 58% of the land is in the flood plain. The UK is not the same land it was 10,000 years ago. It has been scraped, tilled, smothered in road and other urbanisation.
“For the last decade and a half there’s been no statistically significant warming, certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.”
Warming is warming. Its effect is totally unrelated to statistical significance.
No Nick, the statistics is used to see if there IS warming or if it is just natural variation. 2 years are not identical. To proclaim there is cooling because 2013 was not as warm as 2012 is false. Just as is your proclamation.
No warming is no warming.
Marcos says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:44 pm
“I thought it was common knowledge that La Nina-like conditions result in the Western/South Western US being very dry…”
This is the potential drought pattern based off the Ocean Oscillations
http://sparkleberrysprings.com/v-web/b2/images/climate07/04mcabefig4lg.png
“Climate change is so destructive it is causing snow, rain, wind, drought, hot weather, cold weather, ice, dead fish, acid oceans, hurricanes, typhoons, melting glaciers, starving Polar Bears, male pattern baldness, and it even looks like the sun, may succumb to climate change”, he says as he wipes the foam from the edge of his mouth.
“Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.”
Okay. Whatever. Who knows. Maybe they’re right and we’re wrong, but would I be too much of a pedant if I asked what it was that caused weather practically everywhere before climate change? Perhaps it’s just idle curiosity on my part …
Mac the Knife says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:47 pm. Ever come across the idea of debt socialisation? That’s what POTUS is doing across your nation.
Why is it that the warmist narrative reminds me so much of the travelling medicine show of American antiquity?
Just when you think John Holdren could not possibly make himself look any more stupid…. he proves you wrong yet again. What an utter Bozo. Well, at least he will be gone by the time Mr. Obama’s term is up.
Nick Stokes says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:53 pm
You’re confused. Warming is a statistical effect, & only statistically significant warming is actually warming.
John Holdren, said,” without any doubt, the severe drought plaguing California and a number of other states across the country is tied to climate change.”
How can a one time one state regional event be tied to “global warming induced” climate change when there has been no global warming now for 17 years . Did not a paper by Gregory J,Macabe et al . called PACIFIC AND ATLANTIC OCEAN INFLUENCE ON MULTIDECADAL DROUGHT FREQUENCY IN UNITED STATES clearly show that more than one half of the droughts in United States are attributable to certain AMO and PDO patterns . This recent California drought has the same PDO/AMO pattern namely negative PDO and positive AMO] as back in 1895-1915 and again 1945-1975 when significant droughts took place in the southwest, especially in the 1950’s
And this man advises the president?
Holdren is illiterate on so many levels.
philjourdan,
“Well, he is right. Climate does cause weather. Without a climate, there would be no weather.”
No he’s not right. In fact he and you both have the causality exactly backwards. Climate is the aggregate of weather over space and/or time. Therefore, by definition, weather causes climate, climate does not cause weather.
MattS – which came first, the chicken or the egg? I did not say “caused” I said “without”. And it is true. If there was no climate, there would be no weather. Weather accumulated is climate, but no climate means no weather either.
Besides, my comment was sarcastic. He is saying that without the planet we would not have weather. from a strict point of view, he is correct. In space, there is no weather.
So without climate change there’d be no weather? What would that be like? When the weather report came on the radio, would there just be a kind of hissing sound, or would it be more dramatic? Imagine: no temperature, no visibility, no ceiling, no wind, no calm, no humidity or lack thereof. I could almost set those words to a trite little tune.
Mr. Holdren is famous for his bets. How should we formulate a good bet?
Louis Hooffstetter says:
“You can’t argue with stupid.”
You can but it’s like trying to teach a pig to sing. It doesn’t work and it annoys the pig.
I blame the 1976 black microdot.
Weather: (n) 1. Bad stuff caused by Climate Change. 2. Bush lied, people died. 3. Hemp-based plastics. 4. Karl Rove has a hurricane gun, I read about it on prison planet.
Climate: (n) 1. Peerreviewedscience97%consensusBooshdenierracisthomophobewereallgonnadiebutthisisntareligiousdeathcult. 2. Something peer-reviewed by 97% of Climate Scientists.
Climate change: (n) Climate.
Climate Scientist: (n) 1. A fluid resembling sentient country gravy that can freely shift definitions based on the whims of any person claiming loyalty to the Peer-Reviewed 97% Consensus of Climate Scientists®. 2. I know what I’m talking about & you don’t. 3. Any random entomologist who publishes a letter in the NYT. 4. Any random kid’s-show-host who publishes a letter in the NYT.
Climate change cannot cause weather.
Climate is a construct. Long term weather statistics where we bicker about what counts as long term.
Climate Change doesnt cause weather, its the other way around. When the weather changes in significant detectable ways we call this climate change. changes in weather DEFINE climate change they are not caused by it.
The real question is what causes changes in weather. We know some of the factors
1. external forcing ( the sun, ghgs, land changes)
2. internal forcing: quasi periodic rearrangements of energy
3. shit happens.
if you change the forcings the weather changes. If the weather changes enough your long range stats change. Does adding c02 change the weather? Of course. dont forget the butterflies wings.
Does it change the weather in a significant predictable way over time such that we would conclude that the climate has changed? lots of definitions in there..
It doesnt help to frame a thorny problem in the backwards way Holdren did.
Willis:
According to Fox News, Holdren actually said that today’s weather is INFLUENCED by climate change rather than being caused by it:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/14/obama-to-link-california-drought-to-climate-change/?intcmp=latestnews
““Weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change,” said John Holdren, assistant to the president for science and technology, previewing the event for reporters.”
@CD – Actually that still makes no sense. Weather is influencing climate and any change that goes with it.
Gotta love the climate oracles.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-does-seattle-times-and-other-media.html
This isn’t funny really. Even my more well-read friends tell me that the weather recently is so wierd that it must be climate change. The consistent barrage of this BS from the MSM is having an effect.
As for the quote, I know what he meant. I’m not going to help him say it. It would still be wrong.
~~~~~~~~
Marcos says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:44 pm
I thought it was common knowledge that La Nina-like conditions result in the Western/South Western US being very dry…
It has been dry. The accepted index has not indicated La Niña . The last was ASO 2011 thru FMA 2012. See page 24
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Must be something else going on.
Richard Howes says: “We need to PASS climate change bills to see what is IN climate change bills.”
Better yet, if you like your homeowner’s insurance, you can KEEP your homeowner’s insurance.
If my mild and pleasant February weather is the result of climate change, then all I can say is: Thank Gaia for climate change!
Nick Stokes says: February 14, 2014 at 12:53 pm
“For the last decade and a half there’s been no statistically significant warming, certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.”
Warming is warming. Its effect is totally unrelated to statistical significance.
“No statistically significant warming” implies the effect cannot be distinguished from chance. So what effect are you attributing to warming that cannot be distinguished from chance?
philjourdan says:
February 14, 2014 at 1:20 pm
“ In space, there is no weather.”
Oh dear, http://www.spaceweather.com/
Insert silly happy face here.
@John Hulquist – Oh Dear. I can see that sarcasm escapes most here. If I have to qualify every term ad nausea, the sarcasm is lost. I am sure they have some wonderful blizzards in space. But I do not think man can live in such a climate.
Sadly, “people are pointing and laughing” is wishful thinking.
People are buying into that sort of deceptive claptrap. Ehrlich, Schneider and Holdren: wrong but well rewarded. Schneider was committed to using deception and fear to sell policy demands based on his consistently incorrect predictions. The President’s (anti)science advisor seems to take his mentor’s work to a new level.
@Steven Mosher-Yes of course a change of climate means there was a shift in the “average” of weather. The question is whether the weather events in question are a part of such trends, or are anomalous departures from it or even contrary to it. And in the case of cold weather, the answer is unambiguous: warming means less of it. Period. Thus if we still see a large amount of cold weather, it means that the warming that has occurred, is not large enough to be noticed yet.
Shocking I know, you’d really think you’d be able to feel a shift in the global mean of less than a Kelvin.
Anyway, in other cases the answer is not as unambiguous or obvious and we have to look at theory and climate data to see if any linkages appear to exist and how large they actually are. If you can’t express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.
Something tells me you’ve never bothered to do that. You just ramble on about butterfly wings.
I on the other hand, try to specifically look into alleged weather linkages to global climate changes. In most cases there is, statistically, nothing measurable there. In the cases where that’s not the case it is typically in the opposite direction people try to claim.
negrum says: @ February 14, 2014 at 12:31 pm
Did he say whether humans caused the climate change? I suppose that is considered an accepted fact….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The politicians as usual changed the meaning. Here’s the official definition:
That’s from the official UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed by the good old USA a couple decades ago (http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/2536.php).
So when you are asked if you believe in Climate Change in a survey you are actually being asked if you believe in CAGW. That is why we are “Climate Change Den1ers”
“Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.”
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Hee. Hee.
Sniff.
Whew.
I feel better now, even though coffee is dripping out of my nose onto the desk.
That’s the kinda thing that Yogi Berra would say, and of course we’d know that he knew that it was tongue in cheek. Holdren’s statement, however, I’ll take at face value… that he really believes the idiotic things springing from his lips.
Thanks. I needed a good laugh today!
Nick Stokes says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:53 pm
“For the last decade and a half there’s been no statistically significant warming, certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.”
Warming is warming. Its effect is totally unrelated to statistical significance.
Very Stokesian… very deep — I shall contemplate your analysis with relish, perhaps mustard as well.
So how much has he changed since those halcyon days when he helped Ehrlich make up fairy tales? Well, he’s gotten slicker and closer to power. Abillity to reason? Not so much.
The depressing part is John Holdren is not a stupid man — far from it. He holds a BS from MIT and a PhD from Stanford. I don’t know whether he made that statement because he believes it, or because he thinks we will believe it.
The fact he was not instantly laughed off the podium by the audience in the room and the viewers at home indicates just how much work we have left to do.
Tom in Florida says: @ February 14, 2014 at 12:50 pm
………… Successful politicians know damn well that so many people in the U.S. spend very little time on things that really matter. They only need to imply a problem and tell them that as long as you vote for me I will make sure the government is on top of it. Sadly too many people are more than happy to defer to the government without a thought………..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>…
Actually the politicians are starting to run into a major problem with that.
January 08, 2014 Congressional Performance: 8% Think Congress Doing a Good or Excellent Job
>
If that isn’t enough of a kick in the teeth:
47% Think a Randomly Selected Group Could Do a Better Job Than Congress
Something to mass mail to all politicians in Washington D.C……
It is really the Rain-man effect (idiot savant as once was). Expertise in one area does not guarantee insightful comments in another especially when the comment is flung off without much thought, but just happens to correspond to a politically popular position. Even the great Einstein was guilty of this in that he was totally taken in by socialism. Would any one be interested in say Bobby Fisher’s opinion on anything outside chess? I don’t see this as any different. You are only as smart as the last stupid thing that you have said. Not really true, of course, but I like the sound of it.
Nick Stokes says: @ February 14, 2014 at 12:53 pm
Warming is warming. Its effect is totally unrelated to statistical significance.
ROTFLMAO!!!!
Thanks for the confirmation that you haven’t got a CLUE as to how to handle data.
Willis
Can you please elaborate a little on this specific claim, because it is unknown to me.
There is a little less precipitation in cold times, but the evaporation rate also decreases with falling temperature. This means that the aridity is not necessarily more severe in colder times.
Do you have links to reports showing more droughts or more arid areas in colder periods?
/ Jan
Nick Stokes says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:53 pm
Egads, lock up the good silver, it’s the noted agent provocateur, “Racehorse” Nick Stokes.
Anyhow, Nick, let’s parse that claim of yours, shall we? Here are the propositions:
The effect of warming is a function of the amount of warming—more warming, more effect, and vice versa.
The effect of no warming is zero. If it doesn’t warm, it has no effect.
Warming which is “not statistically significant” is warming that cannot be distinguished from zero warming.
THEREFORE:
Warming which is not statistically different from zero has an effect which is not statistically different from zero, and thus, as I wrote in the head post,
• After seventeen years without statistically significant warming , the effect of said warming is totally related to its statistical significance, and
• Said warming is “certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.”
Q. E. D.
…
Now, for the backstory. Folks, Mr. Nick Stokes has a curious distinction. Despite various ones of his many claims being proven wrong by a variety of heavyweight folks in the past, including Steve McIntyre, Nick has never, ever once been caught admitting he was wrong in even the tiniest of details.
For this sterling quality and high achievement, he’s been christened “Racehorse” Nick Stokes, in honor of of the Texas lawyer Racehorse Haynes, who was famous for … well, I’ll let Haynes tell it:
So what I’m trying to say is that Nick will be back to tell us all about how he doesn’t have a dog in 3 … 2 … 1 …
w.
PS—Haynes was famous for successfully defending women accused of going for a “Smith and Wesson divorce” as a result of being abused. Once when he was congratulated on his record in those cases, he said something like “I got all but two of them off, and I’d have gotten them off if they hadn’t kept reloading and firing” …
“Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.”
It’s the Martians what done it – War Of the Worlds starts today!
The end is nigh. Woe on us.
Fits right in…….
Louis Hooffstetter says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:43 pm
“You can’t argue with stupid.”
Even less with the fanatically stupid.
I looked out of the window, there is some weather, that’s climate change!
This is interesting…
People basing their story on “The Hill” (Blog) are using the word “caused”.
Reuters is claiming he said “influenced”.
Popcorn futures anyone?
Nick Stokes says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:53 pm
“For the last decade and a half there’s been no statistically significant warming, certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.”
Warming is warming. Its effect is totally unrelated to statistical significance.”
That’s OK then. It looks like it has started to drop (as opposed to pause) already.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/200YearsofTemperatureSatelliteThermometerandProxy_zpsd17a97c0.gif
P.S. Before you ask – S-G is the engineering equivalent of LOWESS and yes the curve follows the full kernel plot so I do know the parameter choice is validated.
And I also know that neither S-G or LOWESS are good, solid, guides to the future – Tamino’s version included.
DS says: @ February 14, 2014 at 12:53 pm
What do the numbers mean? Inches of rain???
Steven Mosher says:
February 14, 2014 at 1:23 pm
“Does adding c02 change the weather? Of course. dont forget the butterflies wings.”
I don’t know – do we have enough data to say that CO2 on a Global scale can affect the weather in such a dramatic way. I thought the measurements weren’t long enough to show that yet – for absolute certain.
If the butterfly is under/inside a waterfall does it matter if its wings are flapping or not? Chaos is about those things that don’t change the picture just as much as it about those that do.
John F. Hultquist says:
February 14, 2014 at 1:33 pm
“It has been dry. The accepted index has not indicated La Niña . The last was ASO 2011 thru FMA 2012. See page 24
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Must be something else going on.”
You act as if the drought started 2 weeks ago.
It dates back to the JJA10-MAM11 La Nina that was directly followed by the ASO11-FMA12 you mentioned. Completely missing is a corresponding El Nino which generally follows La Nina periods. One attempted to develop mid 2012, but instead went right back into a mild La Nina during the Winter of 2012/2013. (-0.6, -0.6, -0.4 from DJF13-FMA13)
The current CA drought that has been going on for 3 years is the result of 3 Winters of La Nina conditions. That does not indicate “something else going on.” That’s just business as usual for California, a state which generally experiences drought every single time there are a few months without El Nino conditions (The last being the 2007-2009 Drought during that La Nina)
Gail Combs says:
February 14, 2014 at 2:17 pm
“What do the numbers mean? Inches of rain???”
No… Likelihood of Drought
Nick Stokes “Warming is warming. Its effect is totally unrelated to statistical significance.”
All we have is statistical warming. Where is the measurement of this “real” warming your talking about?
Mencken was right. It really IS a “commonwealth of morons.”
philjourdan says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:22 pm
Well, he is right. Climate does cause weather. Without a climate, there would be no weather.
And without an atmosphere, there would be no climate. And without a planet there would be no atmosphere. And without a solar system there would be no planet.
I guess the problem can be traced back to the Big Bang! Damn that thing! It caused all our problems!
Phil, For an instant consider the possibility that weather “causes” climate. If you recon that weather is driven by the minute to minute flux of energy arriving on and leaving the planet, then climate could be regarded as merely an emergent property of weather. Climate then is merely weather over time as it varies due to planetary geography and dissipative processes in the atmosphere and oceans.
philjourdan,
“MattS – which came first, the chicken or the egg? I did not say “caused” I said “without”. And it is true. If there was no climate, there would be no weather. Weather accumulated is climate, but no climate means no weather either.”
No you are still bass ackwards. You can not eliminate weather by eliminating climate. The problem for your statement is that there IS a causal relationship between weather and climate, but it is the other way around from your statement. Weather causes climate climate causes nothing.
Jan Kjetil Andersen says: @ February 14, 2014 at 2:00 pm
Willis
Can you please elaborate a little on this specific claim, because it is unknown to me.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I just put up several links:
HERE: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/13/103183/#comment-1567751
It’s simple.
In the winter AGW causes more moisture which produces increased snow falls.
In the summer it produces less moisture which increases droughts.
Now that’s science!!!!
Willis Eschenbach says:February 14, 2014 at 2:06 pm
“Warming which is “not statistically significant” is warming that cannot be distinguished from zero warming.”
No, it’s warming that was measured. It happened. Last weekend we had a heat wave. Two days over 40°C. Probably not statistically significant. But no less hot for that.
“Not statistically significant” does not necessarily mean small. It means something that has a chance of happening through known or postulated variability. That doesn’t stop it being hot, cold, windy or whatever, and having consequences.
Climate is the sum of weathers.
Hillary ’16.
I need the reign of Commies and clowns like Holdren to continue into the future. I need something to rail against, lest I become complacent and shiftless.
Wiliis’ mention of the Ministry of Silly Walks is apposite, although a re-named “Ministry of Random Walks”, would be a good fit with recent climate history. There is a great line in the original Python sketch (hard to hear over audience laughter) that fits very well the attitude of the Climate Catastrophe industry. Just add a two or three zeroes to modernise…
“I’m afraid that the Ministry of Silly Walks is no longer getting the kind of support it needs. You see there’s Defence, Social Security, Health, Housing, Education, Silly Walks … they’re all supposed to get the same. But last year, the Government spent less on the Ministry of Silly Walks than it did on National Defence. Now we get £348,000,000 a year, which is supposed to be spent on all our available products. “
Perhaps Mr. Holdren’s words were a moment of dyslexia, and he meant to say “Climate practically everywhere is being caused by weather change.”
Nothing wrong here. Move along. 😉
95% of Climate Models Agree: The Observations Must be Wrong
GREAT LAKES BECOME NEARLY COVERED WITH ICE
Ergo, it must be warmer! (/sarc off).
Holder has replaced the scientific method with the alarmist/fund raising method!
Nic Stokes:’Its effect is totally unrelated to statistical significance’
Spot on. Significance depends on sample size and effect size. It is a judgement in a decision procedure. Actually, a ‘statistical significant effect’ is a nonsensical expression as it confuses an effect and our judgment, something like a ‘beautiful effect’ or an ‘overwhelming effect’. Some commenters here should take a course in statistics.
Regarding “we can’t ascribe any given weather event to climate change”, the BBC Jeremey Vine Show today : “Climate Change Did you used to doubt global warming, but after this weather, you’ve changed your mind?”) featuring Professor Tom Burke.
A couple of choice quotes (from many):
listener: ” the climate is in control and will always change… if we banned all cars and factories for a year it wouldn’t make any difference ….”
Burke: “The climate doesn’t change … the weather changes within boundaries we understand…. what we’re now doing is breaking those boundaries …”!
listener: “the high water this year is a once in a hundred years event, it doesn’t prove anything ….”
Burke: “That’s exactly like trying to ask which cigarette gives you lung cancer, you know if you smoke you are going to get lung cancer”
So who is Burke?. From http://www.e3g.org/people/tom-burke: “Tom Burke is the Chairman of E3G, Third Generation Environmentalism … He was formerly Executive Director of Friends of the Earth and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Environmental Bureau 1988-91 .”
An example of BBC balance in action.
It has often been said that you can not legislate against stupid.
Unfortunately for America many of your legislators are stupid.
That makes any thing possible.
WillR says (February 14, 2014 at 2:14 pm): ‘People basing their story on “The Hill” (Blog) are using the word “caused”.
Reuters is claiming he said “influenced”.’
The White House’s version of the call transcript has “influenced”:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/02/14/press-briefing-secretary-vilsack-and-dr-holdren-presidents-trip-ca
for whatever that’s worth, given that deception is the very foundation of this administration.
The full quote is “First of all, we know that scientifically, no single episode of extreme weather, no storm, no flood, no drought can be said to have been caused by global climate change. But the global climate has now been so extensively impacted by the human-caused buildup of greenhouse gases that weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change.”
In other words, we can’t link the California drought to CAGW, but then again, yes we can. I find that just as funny as the version reported by The Hill.
In fact, it’s so eerily similar to what Nick Stokes wrote about “statistically insignificant warming” (BWAHAHAHA!) that now I’m wondering if Nick Stokes & John Holdren are one and the same. 🙂
John Holdren, said, without any doubt, the severe drought plaguing California and a number of other states across the country is tied to climate change.
Here in Britain politicians and the media are blaming the floods in the south and west of England and the storms that have been battering our coasts on climate change.
Can’t we come to some sort of arrangement with the Californians? We would gladly swop some of our climate change for some of theirs. Wouldn’t that be a win-win situation?
He got to be the President’s science advisor by being an idiot. So why should he stop now.
Dayday, why is that jerk sitting in a canoe with a protective helmet when the water is only a foot deep?
Q: Which came first – the chicken or the egg?
A: The egg.
Some organism or other evolved until at some point it could be called a chicken.
That chicken was hatched from an egg laid by a pre-chicken organism, so the egg came before the chicken.
Obviously with gradual evolution, there would be no one generation after which everyone would agree that an organism suddenly became a particular named species which it wasn’t before; but I don’t think that negates the argument.
Regarding the English floods:
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/somerset-levels-flooding-when-will-baroness-young-be-called-to-account/
Yeah, the droughts are the result of, not climate; but “climate CHANGE”! As are the floods in England and the normal, not too wet and not too dry weather nearly everywhere else … you science DENIERS!
Over on NRO I was debating a warmista who tried to claim that 99.9% of peer reviewed literature supports the catastrophic AGW view.
I pointed out how the climategate e-mails detailed how the backers of AGW were going behind the scene to pressure journals to not print any opposing studies, even getting one editor fired for opposing them.
His response: Who are you going to believe, the climategate e-mails or 99.9% of peer reviewed literature.
Alethakusehan 12:56 pm
Good one!!!!
Eugene WR Gallun
“Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.”
In case one wonders as to the locale where weather is not cause by climate change, it’s Hansen’s static feed-forward “climate” box with all the feedback loops broken. Climate nirvana in our lifetime. We’re almost there, just another trillion or two.
unbelievable, especially exploiting victims of flooding, given Green extremism seems to have played a part in worsening the situation.
2:14 VIDEO: 14 Feb: BBC: Ross Hawkins: Greens calls for clear-out of ‘climate change deniers’
The Green Party of England and Wales has called for a purge of government advisors and ministers who do not share its views on climate change.
Any senior advisor refusing to accept “the scientific consensus on climate change” should be sacked, it said.
Party leader Natalie Bennett said the rule must apply to all senior advisors, including those with no responsibility for environmental issues…
Pressed on the issue, she agreed that even the chief veterinary officer should be removed if he didn’t sign up to the view on climate change also taken by the Green Party…
Ms Bennett added: “It’s an insult to flood victims that we have an Environment Secretary (Owen Paterson) who is a denier of the reality of climate change and we also can’t have anyone in the cabinet who is denying the realities that we’re facing with climate change.”
She said her party took the consensus view shared by many other organisation including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
INSERT:
Speaking on the BBC’s Any Questions programme in June, the environment secretary said: “The climate’s been going up and down” for centuries and pointed out that the earth’s surface temperature “has not changed in the last 17 years”.
He added: “The real question, that everyone is trying to address is: Is this influenced by man-made activity in recent years?
“There is almost certainly bound to be some influence by man-made activity but we have just got to be rational and make sure the measures we take to counter it do not actually cause more damage.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26187711
Roy says:”Can’t we come to some sort of arrangement with the Californians? We would gladly swap some of our climate change for some of theirs. ”
Can’t arrange that but I’ll swap you any number of envrowackados for some Tories, one for one.
ectiAlmost no one in the general public is going to be able to comprehend the actual definition of climate and its relationship with weather.
All they hear and think is that our atmosphere has been changed permanently because of all the carbon pollution we spewed into it. Now, the entire system is going bonkers, causing extreme weather events, that even include record cold and snow.
The strategy is to sell the connection between extreme weather events/climate change and mans burning fossil fuels. There is no scientific evidence to support this but the battle field in not being fought in the world of science. If that were the case, they would have been laughed out of the battle.
This is purely a marketing strategy, much like the ones that advertisers use to sell their products to consumers.
They spend many billions to do so because it works. What makes it even easier to sell climate change and extreme weather to the public, is that there is an unlimited supply of extreme weather going on across our planet every year……………there always has and always will be.
Seriously, the tactic is to convince people of this connecting by repeating it over and over. Using examples that are unlimited. People don’t have an archive of weather records at home, so they can’t look into past weather and see these extreme events happening just like the latest one to compare it with even worse weather extremes in the past.
You probably have some older folks living in the area effected that remember previous similar events. However, younger folks were not living then and the key is to sell a regional extreme event to the entire country. A Super Storm Sandy, while just a minimal hurricane was probably understood to be so by some long time residents in that area. They can remember 1954 when 3 category 3 hurricanes hit the East Coast area in 3 months………….before CO2 went up.
Everybody else believes the propaganda and distorted historical significance/reality as it framed as unprecedented.
The Midwest drought became the poster child of climate change………..but the prior 24 years, a new record without a severe widespread drought in this area and the best growing conditions in history didn’t count. Neither did the Dustbowl decade of the 1930’s.
The 2012 Midwest drought was effectively sold to the public as a consequence of “climate change”.
Same thing with the California drought now. Nothing else matters except to create the illusion and connection in peoples mind. They don’t have to prove anything. Of course not, that would be impossible.
A good example to prove how far they will go to make the connection was Dr. Holdrens statement that we should expect more record cold waves because of global warming.
They have a captive audience that are in the brainwashed trans which allows absurd explanations and statements to be stored in their brains as knowledge which reinforces the brainwash. If we entered another Little Ice Age, these people would simply morph their tactics and explanation to account for it. They’ve already taken a step in that direction with Holdren saying record cold is caused by global warming. Gore and others have stated for years, that blizzards and record snow are caused by global warming.
In the minds of their faithful, there is now almost no weather that could not have been caused by climate change(from humans).
Adolf Hitler would have admired the effectiveness of this brainwash.
We can scoff at how absurd their claims are and the lack of authentic science involved but must recognize, the public has bought into it………..already. Once somebody thinks they know something, it’s 10 times harder to convince them of the opposite, while they will allow anything that confirms what they think they know into their brains with very little scrutiny!!!
***RESILIENCE has been the CAGW buzzword for a while. Stern uses it here:
14 Feb: Guardian: Nicholas Stern: Climate change is here now and it could lead to global conflict
Extreme weather events in the UK and overseas are part of a growing pattern that it would be very unwise for us, or our leaders, to ignore, writes the author of the influential 2006 report on the economics of climate change.
The record rainfall and storm surges that have brought flooding across the UK are a clear sign that we are already experiencing the impacts of climate change…
The upward trend in temperature is undeniable, despite the effects of natural variability in the climate which causes the rate of warming to temporarily accelerate or slow for short periods, as we have seen over the past 15 years…
In fact, the risks are even bigger than I realised when I was working on the review of the economics of climate change for the UK government in 2006…
We are already seeing low-carbon technologies being deployed across the world, but further progress will require investment and facing up to the real prices of energy, including the very damaging emissions from fossil fuels…
Fortunately poorer countries, such as China, are showing leadership and beginning to demonstrate to the world how to invest in low-carbon growth.
The UK must continue to set an example to other countries…
The government will also have to ensure the country becomes more ***resilient to those impacts of climate change that cannot now be avoided, including by investing greater sums in flood defences…
A much more sensible way to raise money would be to implement a strong price on greenhouse gas pollution across the economy, which would also help to reduce emissions…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/13/storms-floods-climate-change-upon-us-lord-stern
14 Feb: Christian Science Monitor: Will Obama’s ‘climate resilience fund’ help cope with global warming?
President Obama’s 2015 budget will include $1 billion to help communities deal with the effects of climate change. He made the announcement Friday on a visit to drought-stricken California
RECOMMENDED: Think you know the odd effects of global climate change? Take our quiz…
“Communities across the country are struggling with drought, a longer fire season, increasing summer temperatures, more heat waves, and rains coming in the form of deluges,” Angela Anderson, director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said in a statement. “Congress can no longer ignore the consequences of climate change. The president is now putting a plan on the table that Congress needs to fund.”…
Ms. Anderson at UCS points to one example: Miami Beach is spending more than $200 million to overhaul its drainage system, which has been compromised by sea level rise…
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2014/0214/Will-Obama-s-climate-resilience-fund-help-cope-with-global-warming
Re: • Droughts are more common in colder times than in warmer times
Let’s build a conceptual top-down model of the Earth. Let the variable W = all the water on earth. Some of that water is locked up in ice caps, glaciers, sea ice, etc. Let’s denominate the fraction of W locked up in ice as W_ice. Let’s denominate the fraction of W that is not locked up in ice as W_not-ice. The fraction not locked up in ice, W_not-ice, is free to participate in the world’s water cycle. The fraction locked up in ice, W_ice, is not. In general, we would assume that W_ice + W_not-ice = W.
Sometimes in industrial refrigeration, for convenience, we used a unit we called a Frigorie. It has the same value as a Calorie (4.1868 joules), but is of opposite sign.
When a glacier grows or ice caps grow or global sea ice extent increases, then Frigories are being accumulated and the fraction W_ice should increase. That leaves less water available to participate in the world’s water cycle, so the world is drier. Conversely, when the world warms, Calories are accumulated, and the fraction W_ice should decrease. More water should be released to participate in the world’s water cycle, so the world should be wetter.
It would seem reasonable to say that global water vapor is proportional to W_not-ice, so that an increase in global water vapor should mean an increase in W_not-ice (and a corresponding decrease in W_ice). W can, of course, change for other reasons as water can be locked up in chemical reactions other than being locked up as ice. W can (or should) also increase due to anthropological emissions. Every time CO2 is emitted during the combustion of fossil fuels, H20 is also emitted.
However, global water vapor either appears to be declining (in spite of anthropological emissions) (Ref. 1) or is not increasing (Refs. 2 and 3). A decline in water vapor would seem to be consistent with an accumulation of Frigories or global cooling – not global warming. Similarly, a lack of change in water vapor, in the face of large anthropological emissions of H20, is also not consistent with global warming.
Colder times would be consistent with a larger W_ice and, thus, less water available for the world’s water cycle, which should mean more droughts. There would simply be less water free to circulate. Consequently, Ice Ages should mean a very dry world. IIRC, the driest part on earth is Antarctica.
Hope that makes some sense.
1. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/
2. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/another-ipcc-ar5-reviewer-speaks-out-no-trend-in-global-water-vapor/
3. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/new-paper-on-global-water-vapor-puts-climate-modelers-in-a-bind/
Mosh: “Does adding c02 change the weather? Of course.”
===
Mosh, CO2 does not change the weather….the effects of CO2 might change the weather…
…but since those effects are hiding in the bottom of the ocean…obviously for the past ~17 years….that’s quite impossible
btw how funny the President had to go to California to make his CAGW announcement. running from the snow, Obama?
10 Feb: Reuters: White House to transform tent to Monet masterpiece for Hollande
The White House will turn a HEATED tent on its frigid South Lawn into a Monet-inspired gala fit for a French president on Tuesday, the highlight of a two-day state visit to Washington by Francois Hollande…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/11/us-usa-france-statedinner-idUSBREA1A02220140211
” Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says:
February 14, 2014 at 1:52 pm
The depressing part is John Holdren is not a stupid man — far from it. He holds a BS from MIT and a PhD from Stanford. I don’t know whether he made that statement because he believes it, or because he thinks we will believe it….”
___________________
Chris Field is also at Stanford. The day is now long past when the institution itself offers any measure of quality. Mediocrity and intellectual incompetence is the new norm of higher learning. Being from Stanford, Harvard or any number of “prestigious” colleges, means you’re not likely just dumb, but spectacularly so…
I agree with Nick Stokes. The amount of warming over the past 17 years and 5 months is 0.00 degrees Celsius and I think we all agree that amount is “statistically significant”.
To my American friends,
Best wishes to all of you on Saint Valentine’s Day.
We in North America are all in this together.
Candidly, my good friends, you need to find much better help.
This Holdren chap is just not up to snuff.
Dump him and his boss, ASAP.
This is not a new problem – see below.
Best regards, Allan
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Propaganda (Holdren’s Law of Climate Causation) does not change reality.
The drought in California was caused by extreme cold temperatures in central Canada and extreme cold temperatures in central US which the cold high blocked the normal lows from the Pacific Ocean that bring rain to California. Winnipeg Canada for example has had the coldest winter in 60 years.
The extreme cold temperatures in central Canada and central US have created a Rossby wave that is the cause for the string of rain storms in the UK. The UK weather is dependent on the direction of wind across the Atlantic.
Coinciding with these changes is the largest increase in Arctic summer, sea ice coverage on record (caused by the increase in cloud cover in the arctic in the summer) and the highest month by month sea ice coverage in the Antarctic in the last 35 years.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
As planetary temperature has not increased in 17 years, something else must have changed to cause what is observed.
What has changed is the sun.
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/latest/latest_4096_4500.jpg
Comment: Unfortunately for California the solar cycle 24 change is going to bring biblical floods to California. A super weak solar magnetic cycle results in high GCR which results in increased precipitation and an increase in cloud cover over the ocean.
It doesn’t matter that they are idiots–they are idiots with power and power is all that matters.
@Paul Coppin –
As a reformed academic myself, I can testify as to how far back the academic disease (i.e., institutionalized ignorance and stupidity pretending to be learning and knowledge) goes – I left academia in 1973 having had quite enough, thank you.
About all these people’s credentials do for them is to make them arrogant and think they are morally and socially superior. In my observation, for a huge majority of academics, their education leaves them knowing less that is factual about the world, even about their own specialties, and less able to engage in rational discourse, than ordinary educated laypeople. They are actually inferior, not superior, to the people for which they harbor such contempt.
Holdren’s case is an example of this, but is also compounded by misanthropy, perverse motives in general, and just plain mean-spiritedness (to “de-develop” the United States can only be taken as the mantra of a vandal, a wastrel, a hatemonger). He is a particularly maleficent, evil personage whose ambitions must be frustrated at all costs.
“”Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.””…per the post
———————————————————————————————————–
Wow! That means that somewhere on our planet there is a little sliver of weather that is not caused by climate change. What would be the driver? Is there some way to deduce it,s most likely location?
The meaning is clear. Before mankind started pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, we never had weather. Temperature and precipitation cycled smoothly through the seasons, one day very much like the next.
True fact.
@William Howard Astley –
It’s worth noting that the onset of the last deep cold period – the Little Ice Age – around 1300 A.D. was accompanied by extended drought in the southwestern United States, which, among other things, brought about the collapse of the Anasazi/Cliff Dweller civilization in the American Southwest. Today’s drought is therefore yet another possible indicator that we really are in for another Little Ice Age.
Richard Howes says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:33 pm
We need to PASS climate change bills to see what is IN climate change bills. It will work out just dandy!
——————————–
Very, very good! That is quotable.
What he probably now wishes he’d said is, “Weather practically everywhere is being affected by climate change.”
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 14, 2014 at 2:06 pm
re: Racehorse Haynes
Sorry Willis, couldn’t resist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXn2QVipK2o
heysuess says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:30 pm
“What’s that old line? ‘I’ll have what s/he’s having?’ That dude has spent too much time in the old Large Holdren Collider.”
heysuess, you almost made me spit out my rum and coke onto my keyboard! What are you, some kind of racist/nazi/homophobe/fascist/sexist/denier/troglodyte/…umm, what else can I throw in here?
Willis;
Dr. Holdren is mirroring the state of CA thoughts on climate change as noted here-
http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/
“California is leading the way with prevention measures to reduce greenhouse gases, but no matter how quickly we cut our climate polluting emissions, climate impacts will still occur. Many impacts – increased fires, floods, severe storms and heat waves – are occurring already and will only become more frequent and more costly. There are many things we can do to protect against climate change impacts.”
CA is going to be doubling down as the saying goes per a recent update from CARB
Note the “NEED FOR ACCELERATED EMMISSION REDUCTIONS” below:
“…The 2013 Scoping Plan update lays out the remaining steps to the
2020 limits set by AB 32. It moves the process forward with an approach which cuts across economic sectors to combine greenhouse gas reductions with reductions of smog-causing pollutants. It also describes the need to extend key reduction programs now underway. The 2013 update lays the scientific and technological foundation to ensure sustainable midterm and long-term emission reductions as well as public health and economic goals.”
The 2013 update incorporates the latest scientific consensus which indicates the need for accelerated emissions reductions in the coming decades to achieve climate stabilization. This update calls for a midterm statewide greenhouse gas reduction target, and specific reduction targets for each of the key sectors to guide California’s path toward an 80 percent reduction by 2050.
The 2013 Scoping Plan update includes input from a range of key state agencies. It is also the result of extensive public and stakeholder processes designed to ensure that California’s greenhouse gas and pollution reduction efforts continue to improve public health and drive development of a more sustainable economy.
To view the 2013 Scoping Plan update, click here:”
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/2013_update/draft_proposed_first_update.pdf
Holdren wants to kill 25M people, and he has an office in the White House. I’m not sure we should be laughing at him, if he were holding a sign on a street corner or teaching at a college – sure laugh, but he’s a little too high up the food chain for laughing.
pat says:
February 14, 2014 at 4:03 pm
btw how funny the President had to go to California to make his CAGW announcement. running from the snow, Obama?
pat,
Our Dear Leader ‘had’ to go to California for warmer weather golfing. He can make the American taxpayers pick up all of the bills by throwing something in that looks like presidential business. His climate change speech is high irony, given his HUGE ‘carbon footprint’ for such deceit. Apparently that was not sufficiently wasteful so he added in a Billion dollar climate slush fund to recycle some more taxpayer money into campaign contributions for socialist democrats in the 2014 and 2016 elections cycles. Now that’s real green recycling, from Our Dear Leaders elitist perspective!
Record rainfall being produced by low activity of the sun -heliopause decrease,GCR increase, cloud seeding increase
Roy Spencer further asks:
How much weather is being caused by climate change? Maybe 1 part in 1,000.
I second the observation.
Here is a paper that had been published at the NYT in 1996. It discusses multiple studies which researched the disappearance of the Anasazi ib the 12th century…http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.anasazi.html
Of note in the paper, is one thought that the reason for them leaving their homeland “prior” to the start of the Great Drought of 1270s was that they had already lived through these harsh droughts before. This one was simply the last straw, and perhaps the leader/s at that time understood the signs of what was coming. The Great Drought, of course, happens to coincide with the LIA, making it an effect of a solar grand minimum. Another study mentions that the real problem with the drought was that the Anasazi could not move to local higher ground and farm, because the higher ground was too cold, so too dry where they were and too cold in the nearby higher country. Interesting thoughts, especially since the approach of the next grand minimum is now considered to be nearby.
” Chad Wozniak says:
February 14, 2014 at 4:35 pm
@Paul Coppin –
As a reformed academic myself, I can testify as to how far back the academic disease (i.e., institutionalized ignorance and stupidity pretending to be learning and knowledge) goes – I left academia in 1973 having had quite enough, thank you.
About all these people’s credentials do for them is to make them arrogant and think they are morally and socially superior. In my observation, for a huge majority of academics, their education leaves them knowing less that is factual about the world, even about their own specialties, and less able to engage in rational discourse, than ordinary educated laypeople. They are actually inferior, not superior, to the people for which they harbor such contempt.
Holdren’s case is an example of this, but is also compounded by misanthropy, perverse motives in general, and just plain mean-spiritedness (to “de-develop” the United States can only be taken as the mantra of a vandal, a wastrel, a hatemonger). He is a particularly maleficent, evil personage whose ambitions must be frustrated at all costs.”
Chad, here is my take on the current contretemps. This is all a reversion to “superstitious man”. It is all about us. Whenever, back in olden times, there was a terrible natural event, humans supplicated their gods, making sacrifices, and trying to atone for their sins. Today’s shamans are trying to convince us that whenever something bad happens, it is our fault, and we must atone.
The sheer arrogance that WE can control the weather, by committing sins against Mother Gaia, and then “correcting” those sins, smacks of idolatry, compounded by ignorance- aided and abetted by the scientific vacuity of those “reporting” on the science, is laughable.
@Willis Eschenbach-You should ask me to relate to you the tale of Nick Stokes and the Just So Story some time.
I picked up that quote early this morning and immediately thought “Here’s the most idiotic quote of the day!”. I knew you would pick it up too.
I don’t quite know what Nick Stokes is trying to say, Willis, but if we were to follow the advice of W.M. Briggs we would have to say that statistics has nothing to do with whether it is getting warmer. If you want to know the answer to that question you just look at the temperature data at the end points of interest. Statistics can only be of interest if you are trying to fit a model to some sort of temperature time series, you know like those cycles that you are plagued with. I know that you occasionally read his website so you can’t plead ignorance. 😉
catweazle666 says:
February 14, 2014 at 1:14 pm
I blame the 1976 black microdot.
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/show_image.php?i=lsd/lsd_microdots4.jpg
14 Feb: Discovery: Ian O’Neill: One in Four Americans Don’t Know Earth Orbits the Sun. Yes, Really
Dear Science Communication Professionals: We have a problem…
And then, today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) delivered news of a pretty shocking poll result: around one in four Americans (yes, that’s 25 percent) are unaware that the Earth orbits the sun. Let’s repeat that: One in four Americans — that represents one quarter of the population — when asked probably the most basic question in science (except, perhaps, “Is the Earth flat?” Hint: No.), got the answer incorrect…
But wait! I hear you cry, perhaps the NSF poll was flawed? Perhaps the poll sample was too small? Sadly not. The NSF poll, which is used to gauge U.S. scientific literacy every year, surveyed 2,200 people who were asked 10 questions about physical and biological sciences. On average, the score was 6.5 out of 10 — barely a passing grade. But for me personally, the fact that 26 percent of the respondents were unaware the Earth revolves around the sun shocked me to the core…
Perhaps I’m expecting too much of the U.S. education system? Perhaps this is just an anomaly; a statistical blip? But then, like the endless deluge of snow that is currently choking the East Coast, another outcome of the same poll appeared on the foggy horizon of scientific illiteracy: The majority of young Americans think astrology is a science…
But there is a small glimmer of hope. According to the same NSF poll, the vast majority of Americans seem to love science…
You can read detailed results of the NSF poll here (PDF).
http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/1-in-4-americans-dont-know-earth-orbits-the-sun-yes-really-140214.htm
Great article and quote. I am sending this link in case you may have missed it. Enjoy your blog.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/13/top-8-explanations-for-why-global-warming-is-on-pause/
Willis Eschenbach
Willis … your post does not take into account regional warming which has most definitely taken place since the mid 1990’s. Just look at what has happened in the Arctic and in eastern north America … the data speaks for itself! The cause … who knows … but clues certainly link to the earth’s magnetic field!
Every decade of “statistically insignificant” ANYTHING goes AGAINST all predictions of warming.
All the experts predicted “something.” They expected, “statistically significant.” However, in stark contrast, they got, “statistically insignificant.”
Nick Stokes, I’m looking at you. Fess up, won’t you? Otherwise, you look pretty foolish running away from an invisible boogyman…
Well there you have it.
If you will buy man made weather effects, you will buy anything.
CAGW is an intelligence test.
Most of the fools infesting our civic structures, have failed this test.
The bandits however, well they are making out like… gathering taxpayers money.
Every decade and a half of “statistically insignificant” ANYTHING goes AGAINST all predictions of warming.
All the experts predicted “something.” They expected, “statistically significant.” However, in stark contrast, they got, “statistically insignificant.”
Nick Stokes, I’m looking at you. Fess up, won’t you? Otherwise, you look pretty foolish running away from an invisible boogyman…
By their standards one could make a more credible case that the drought in California more than coincidentally coincides with the passage and subsequent rollout of Obamacare. Now, whether or not we can attribute that to Obamacare getting rid of it is the right thing to do. By their logic this foregoing argument is flawless.
Words can only say so much…… Holdren has carried the ball as dictated. And it ain’t comin from the POTUS. He only reads the teleprompter on the subject of CAGW. Oh the pain!
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/3418329088/hA107BA65
OT post, reg. the Mirror Farm that cooks birds thread below.
Posted a question down there and now here also as I did not see any info regarding any possible hail storm history for the area, any excessive high winds in the history of the area.
Moderators and or Anthony or others who have access and knowledge what is known on that.
If hail or wind storms do occur , then what the Insurance cost might be and or how these investors would deal with a rebuild after an event?
thanks
Willis Eschenbach said, February 14, 2014 at 2:06 pm:
“[Global] Warming which is “not statistically significant” is [global] warming that cannot be distinguished from zero [global] warming.”
Nick Stokes replied, at 2:51 pm:
“No, it’s warming that was measured [in Melbourne, Australia]. It happened [in Melbourne, Australia]. Last weekend [in Melbourne, Australia] we had a heat wave. Two days over 40°C. Probably not statistically significant [i.e., normal weather for Melbourne in summer]. But no less hot for that.“
I’ve read from many sources that the California drought, being caused by the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” is from global warming and climate change. Reasons vary from the loss of Arctic Ice, the models predicted it, ridges are stronger when the planet is warmerr, thickness’s are higher from warming, dry areas get drier/expand from global warming and so on. There are dozens of articles from varying sources but none that I read that identified an actual connection that provided the scientific evidence.
What I note is that the PDO has been solidly negative now since this drought began. The correlation between a -PDO and increased drought has been established. We have a tendency to see more La Nina’s during -PDO periods and that often leads to high pressure zones and jet stream deflections northward in the Pacific similar to what we’ve experienced recently in this area. We are not having a La Nina currently.
The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge is clearly an anomalous example of such a pattern and might or might not be related to the PDO which as mentioned has been strongly negative during this drought. A -PDO is actually a global cooling pattern. Not just the fact that we see more La Nina’s when this index is negative but it typically will be negative for a period of around 30 years and at those times, the planet tends to cool a bit(mid 1940’s to mid 1970’s for example) even when CO2 levels increase.
The positive PDO regime ended close to when global warming from the late 70’s thru the 1990’s also ended. Of course we had more El Nino’s and fewer droughts during that time frame too.
When Dr. Holdren came out with his statement last month that the Polar Vortex was displaced because of global warming and we should expect additional record cold outbreaks in the future because of global warming, I provided the Winter of 1976/77 as an example of the Polar Vortex dropping in to the US repeatedly. As a result, that Winter was one of our coldest in the last 100 years. Not coincidentally, that Winter also brought an historic drought to California.
Not coincidentally, the PDO was negative during that time frame.
Note that CO2 could not have possibly been a factor and the world was in a global cooling scare at the time…………..because we had been in a modest global cooling, natural cycle that was nearing its end at that time.
We are in the same part of the cycle right now. Increased incidence of droughts are too be expected. Harsh Winters will be more frequent, especially downstream from the West Coast, where ridging there, teleconnects to deep troughs in the Midwest and East.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/pdo-f-pg.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/pdo-5-pg.gif
This doesn’t explain the intensity of this particular drought, just the underlying favorable natural and repeating cycle that is present in both cases with the -PDO
Obviously, one might think that if we were in the midst of a strong La Nina, it might make the connection more clear but ENSO is neutral right now. However, 1976/77 also did not have a La Nina. Instead there was a very weak El Nino.
http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm
Now to add to the confusion but to stay completely honest. After analyzing actual weather maps and patterns and comparing 76/77 with 2013, we come up with completely different height anomolies………but they still lead to similar wind patterns and a northward shift in the storm track. It would appear like, for different reasons.
http://www.weatherwest.com/archives/1038
The mind boggling intensity and persistence of this upper level ridge that has dominated into the Northeast Pacific appears to be the greatest in the last 66 years(as far as I can tell). Whether it’s a coincidence that we have a strongly -PDO or not is uncertain(for me) This could be a factor. I would bet that there are some connections with the Winter of 1976/77 with the same extreme weather in the exact same places in the US(especially the Polar Vortex dropping south repeatedly in 76/77 being even more extreme on the downstream end of the pattern)
If the Arctic had recently become ice free, one could make a case as that being a factor. However, if it were mainly from less sea ice coverage, then we should have seen signs of this developing as sea ice was melting and coverage shrinking for 20 years……….not suddenly in 2013 and coinciding exactly with the Arctic gaining a substantial portion of ice in one year.
Holdren actually said:
“Weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change.”
I’ll repeat that again:
Holdren said:
“Weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change.”
The Hill misquoted John Holdren.
Listen to what Holdren actually said:
http://kvpr.org/post/obama-announce-federal-drought-relief-fresno-trip
Holdren: “We know that scientifically no single episode of extreme weather, no storm, no flood no drought can be said to have been caused by global climate change, but the global climate has now been so extensively impacted by the human caused building of greenhouse gasses that weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change.”
“If you LIKE your climate change, you can KEEP your climate change. Period!”
Unless, of course, the earth enters a cool cycle, and then it isn’t climate change, but rather simple natural climatic variance….
Remember only humans are capable of creating BAD climate change, and 97% of all scientists agree with that statement. I know the IPCC said there is low confidence of a drought/CO2 correlation, but what they ACTUALLY meant was that insuffienct funding and lack of monitoring is the real cause of this low confidence, and since 97% of scientists know all bad climate change is human induced, ergo, since droughts are bad, they’re human induced… If scientists just had more money, then the drought/CO2 correlation would exist…
It’s just simple science and basic logic. Dummies incapable of seeing this reality are in the pocket of rich oil companies and are deniers incapable of understanding complex science and logic.
The debate is over….
cartoonasaur says: February 14, 2014 at 6:21 pm
“Every decade and a half of “statistically insignificant” ANYTHING goes AGAINST all predictions of warming.”
No. “Statistically insignificant” proves nothing. It is a test that failed. If you want to disprove predictions of warming, you have to test those predictions. If you find a significant deviation from that, you have something.
Willis’ claim of “Warming which is “not statistically significant” is warming that cannot be distinguished from zero warming.” reminds me of the frog in the pot:
after one minute, well, it has warmed, but not statistically significant – indistinguishable from zero
another minute, well, more warming, but that wasn’t statistically significant either – indistinguishable from zero
…
I can’t see anything controversial about Holdren’s statement at all. Any climate change, whether in temperature, sea level or ice coverage will effect the weather somehow, at least statistically.
Or maybe you folks are looking at this from the wrong end. Holden always blamed Man for “climate change”. He has never recanted his global cooling theories from the 70s. For all we know, he believes in a new little Ice Age. In his mind, the end result is the same, so why dither over causation when it’s inconvenient?
When I have to hire an expert witness for a case I am working on, (David Sanger) we call Holdren’s statement “flexibility”.
“The consistent barrage of this BS from the MSM is having an effect.”
Given the sophistication of the target audience, this should be no surprise…
One in four Americans unaware that Earth circles Sun
We are, quite irrevocably, doomed.
Nick, how accurate do you think the temp was globally in 1900 as measured then and interpreted and calibrated into today?
Your comments, although satistically not wrong, probably aren’t comfy….
Just sayin, it is what we interpret in the end, no?
@Kpar –
I agree entirely with your characterization of the contretemps, and most emphatically with your characterization of the mind-boggling hubris that would make anyone think they can control climate. How sad it is that we have come to this, that the people who are supposed to inform us and teach us and lead us are reduced, as you put it, to idolatry and mental vacuity
Martin says:
February 14, 2014 at 7:19 pm
————————————–
You wouldn’t be related to Holdren by any chance, would you?
Ossqss says: February 14, 2014 at 8:24 pm
“Nick, how accurate do you think the temp was globally in 1900 as measured then and interpreted and calibrated into today?”
Well, it’s a long story, and I think here people are mainly talking about the last few decades.
But it does raise an issue. There is measurement uncertainty. That’s about the temperature that was.
But that’s not what people here are talking about with statistical significance. There it’s the much greater uncertainty about natural variability. The temperature that might have been. It requires fitting a statistical model. And it affects what you can deduce from the observations, in terms of climate implications etc. But it doesn’t affect what actually happened. If it rained, it rained. May not signify anything re climate, but it’s wet. Distinguishable from zero.
Before climate change there never was any weather. it was all butterflies and unicorns. bad weather only happened to out enemies. looks at the communist, they always had bad weather, and the fascists, they always had bad weather. while we always had good weather, until the deniers caused climate change.
David Sanger (@davidsanger) says:
February 14, 2014 at 7:54 pm
Climate science is bizarre, in that it perhaps the only physical science whose main focus of study is not something physical. This is because what we call “climate” doesn’t exist—it is a mathematical construct obtained by averaging weather over a “sufficiently” long period, with 30 years often arbitrarily chosen.
Now, consider … climate doesn’t exist, it’s just the long-term average of the weather.
Since climate is the average of the weather … then how can it cause the weather as Holdren claims?
I note that some folks above say that the record reflects Holdren as saying (emphasis mine):
While these may be his actual words, it’s no better. Once again, climate is the long-term average of weather. As a result, the weather certainly influences the climate (any weather incident influences the long term average of the weather) … but how on earth can the average of the weather (the climate) influence an individual weather incident?
w.
“Not statistically significant” does not necessarily mean small.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Just flip a coin it’s just as likely LOL….
Nick Stokes says:
February 14, 2014 at 9:04 pm
“But it does raise an issue. There is measurement uncertainty.”
——————————————–
That’s always been my problem with the whole assumption that we are experiencing “global” warming and not an increase in localized temperatures.
Iow, when it was 58 degrees in central London on April 9th, 1914, how close in actual sensation on the skin– all things being equal– would that be to a reading of 58 degrees in London on April 9th, 2014, given all the changes in data reading and collection technology and adjustment procedures? Could it be that a reading of 58 degrees is significantly warmer (or cooler) today in a statistical sense, than it was back then? That 58 degrees was actually 56 back then and 100 degrees F today was actually 97 back then?
To catweazle666,
I blame the 1976 PURPLE microdot.
; P
========================================================================
I haven’t been able to read all the comments. Maybe someone had already asked this. I sincerely hope a reporter asks him. Given that by “climate change” he means Man caused it via coal power plants and other “fossil fuels”, just exactly where does he believe that “the weather” is NOT being caused by Mann?
“The world wonders”
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 14, 2014 at 10:06 pm
That’s an important point, Willis. Of course changes in climate aren’t generally evident in individual weather events. The influence may be small and only observed in the overall average over a period of time. That’s why you can’t say that this storm or this drought or this heat or cold is specifically due to climate change.
A similar and non-controversial example in a different setting would be a hypothetical situation of air pollution. Imagine a long term study showed that over a ten year period, in cities where the air pollution exceeded a certain value X for a period of time, there was on average an increase of 2% in respiratory deaths, after accounting for all other differences. Even though the result could be well-established statistically it might not be obvious to the everyday citizen.
Consider an example week in a city where on a low-smog week there were 100 deaths from respiratory illness. The following year it is very smoggy and there are 102 deaths. Such a result would be in line with expectations. But if you looked at one specific individual among the 102, can you say their death was due to smog? No? And if it was your own Uncle Harry, could you blame his untimely death on the smog? Not at all. There’s no way to know.
Furthermore you couldn’t have the relatives of all 102 people blaming the death of their loved one on air pollution. There were two indeed two additional deaths, but not any particular two.
The way I see it it is similar with storms or droughts. If statistically over a long enough period of time there is even a slight change in the number of storms or droughts or heat waves etc. you’d never be able to pick out just one and say that it was or wasn’t due to factors influencing the long term climate. That wouldn’t however mean that there is no influence.
The real question then is the study over an extended period of time of changes in the number, duration or intensity of various weather events, regionally and globally. And that will take a long time to sort out.
Good comments, both of you. my thanks.
Now, making the “assumption” of even one storm (of any variation: hotter, colder, drier, wetter, foggier or furrier, snowier or dustier) even more or less than it would have been otherwise, much less having been specifically affected by “climate change” that has been caused in turn by the addition of “man-released” CO2 “poluttion” is bluntly, impossible to any but a CAGW fanatic.
See, CO2 has been increasing steadily since about 1950.
Fine.
Temperatures -assuming they would affect a specific storms as you just described, have NOT increased for 17 years.
Thus, you have to show that the feared “change” in storm intensity or duration (or the absence of a storm because of temperature)that those 2 extra deaths DID occur due to a change in temperature that was caused by a change in CO2 levels, even though that change in temperature did NOT occur!
And the spokesman propagandizing those CAGW-caused 2 extra deaths (102 instead of 100) would also need to establish that those 2 deaths DID occur during this particular storm – that happened despite no change in temperature! – at this particular time, NOT any other time in the past 17 years of constant temperatures.
BUT … it can happen if the news media only report what they believe, and what they are told is what they already believe, and what they are told reinforces what they WANT to believe.
I will be willing to donate $1000.00 TO THE WUWT tip fund fund if somebody could find a any survey of US news reporters showing a majority know that global temperatures have NOT risen dramatically and disastrously the past 17 years. 97% will not know that simple fact.
So a temperature “hiatus”, “plateau”, “no upward trend”, “no statistically-significant global warming” [agreed by Dr. Phil Jones who said “Yes…”], “global temperature has been flat for a decade” [Dr. James Hansen] etc. is warming??? I think you meant to say warm not warming.
Here are the many temperature standstill quotes from the climate scientists who beg to differ with Nick Stokes the climate modeller, fighting for his survival and career.
Two major problems at work here. First… this administration is banking on the sheeple not doing their homework/research. And with the internet, that is unconscionable.
The second problem… this administration is filled with self-serving liars across the board and at all levels. I will leave it to the reader to form their own opinion as to why the lies.
This drought is nothing more than another opportunity for his administration to take the sheeple for another shearing.
—————————-
Scientists: Past California droughts have lasted 200 years
http://news.msn.com/in-depth/scientists-past-california-droughts-have-lasted-200-years
Through studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years — compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe megadroughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.
“We continue to run California as if the longest drought we are ever going to encounter is about seven years,” said Scott Stine, a professor of geography and environmental studies at Cal State East Bay. “We’re living in a dream world.”
Friends:
I notice that sophists – notably Nick Stokes – are trying to change the definition of “warming” that was used by climastrology until global warming stopped.
I objected to the ‘goal post moving’ on an earlier WUWT thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/07/statistical-flaws-in-science-p-values-and-false-positives/
And this was one post I there made
Richard
————-
richardscourtney says:
February 8, 2014 at 2:33 am
Nick Stokes:
I am replying to your post at February 8, 2014 at 1:01 am which is here and is in reply to my post at February 7, 2014 at 11:15 pm which is here.
In my post I rightly said of your assertion
NO!
That is warmist sophistry which pretends the ‘pause’ is not happening.
I explained
Those conventions were used by climastrology to claim there was global warming. What matters is to use THOSE SAME conventions when assessing the ‘pause’. And it is sophistry to say that different conventions should be used when the result does not fit an agenda.
I stated that “There are good reasons to dispute each of these conventions” but, so what? The only pertinent fact is that those are the conventions used by climastrology. It is ‘moving the goal posts’ to now say those conventions should not be used because they are wrong.
Your reply which I am answering says
That is more sophistry!
Whatever the cause of the ‘pause’ is not pertinent to a determination of the existence of the pause.
The same conventions of climastrology used to determine that there was global warming were used to determine the start of the ‘pause’. And the conclusion of that analysis is as I said
The conventions adopted by climastrology may be mistaken (I think they are) but it is not “science” to choose when and when not to use conventions depending on the desired result.
Richard
philjourdan says: February 14, 2014 at 12:22 pm
“Well, he is right. Climate does cause weather. Without a climate, there would be no weather.”
I disagree, a discerned pattern of weather creates climate.
Kate Forney says:
February 14, 2014 at 1:10 pm
So without climate change there’d be no weather? What would that be like? When the weather report came on the radio, would there just be a kind of hissing sound,
————————————————————————————–
I tell you Kate that gave me a huge belly laugh – I mean it. That and Mr Holdren – what a FW.
In this case, Influenced seems correct. Around 2:50 is holdren on the audio clip
http://kvpr.org/post/obama-announce-federal-drought-relief-fresno-trip
Steven Mosher says:
February 14, 2014 at 1:23 pm
“Climate change cannot cause weather.
Climate is a construct. Long term weather statistics where we bicker about what counts as long term.
Climate Change doesnt cause weather, its the other way around. When the weather changes in significant detectable ways we call this climate change. changes in weather DEFINE climate change they are not caused by it”
Ahh…. the infamous Mosher.
Posts absolute bollux most of the time and then runs away, not to be seen in the thread again.
He and his fellow travellers ( though he would like you not to notice and would like to say he wasn’t one).used to say…………… in the last century, that it was the increasing temperatures (increased heat energy in the Troposphere) that would cause weather changes on the Earth.
Fair enough, I can see the rationale behind that.
Now, in the 21st century, when temperatures have not increased at all, he wants to tell us that we don’t need the intermediate step of temperatures actually increasing, we can just leap to the proposition that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere leads to different weather even when the temperature of the Earth remains the same.
The Troposphere, where we live and where weather mainly happens, doesn’t have any measurable heat energy change but apparently reacts very violently, in weather terms, to a change in CO2, a trace gas, which has not had any measurable impact on the heat energy content of the Troposphere in the period under question.
Amazing! Why don’t you publish a paper on this incredible concept Mosher? You will no doubt win a Nobel prize for your amazing insight!
That is on the assumption you can assign some sort of physics to this phenomenon.
Mosher, you surely can……… can’t you?
Alan
Idiots are caused by idiocy
Dec 05, 2009
Climategate: Obama’s Science Adviser Confirms the Scandal – Unintentionally
By Myron Ebell, CEI on Pajamas Media
When the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on the state of climate science on December 2, the Republicans were ready to focus it on the Climategate fraud scandal. And the first witness, President Obama’s science adviser, Dr. John P. Holdren, was ready to respond.
Instead of summarizing his written testimony in his oral remarks, Holdren read a prepared statement on Climategate. He said that the controversy involved a “small group of scientists” and was primarily about one temperature dataset. He said that such controversies were not unusual in all branches of science and that they got sorted out through the peer review process and continuing scrutiny. Holdren also said that openness and sharing of data was important, which is why the Obama administration is strongly committed to openness. In the case of the disputed dataset (the “hockey stick” graph), the National Academies of Science (NAS) undertook a thorough review of it and all other similar datasets and concluded that the preponderance of evidence supported the principal conclusion of the research. Holdren concluded by predicting that when the dust settles on this controversy, a very strong scientific consensus on global warming will remain.
Well, that sounds pretty plausible, but anyone who has followed Dr. Holdren’s amazing career knows that he is a master of plausible buncombe that disguises his “outlandish scientific assertions, consistently wrong predictions, and dangerous public policy choices,” as my CEI colleague William Yeatman has put it. Everything that Holdren said in his opening statement is incomplete and misleading. But explaining that is a job for another day. The point is that the alarmist establishment and environmental pressure groups have settled on these talking points in order to try to contain and sanitize the scandal.
When Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) and other Republicans on the committee challenged Holdren’s analysis of Climategate, the president’s science adviser responded by repeating that it was just a small group of scientists engaged in some narrow research. Any mistakes or misdeeds on their part couldn’t possibly compromise the scientific consensus, which is as strong as it is vast.
But when asked about some of his own extreme statements and predictions, Holdren replied that scientific research had moved on from the latest UN assessment report in 2007. The most up-to-date scientific research was contained in a report written by some of the world’s leading climate scientists and released last summer. Holdren mentioned and referred to this report, Copenhagen Diagnosis, several times during the course of the hearing.
I remember when Copenhagen Diagnosis came out because nearly every major paper ran a story on it. Global warming is happening even faster than predicted, the impacts are even worse than feared, and that sort of thing. I also remembered that the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis included many of the usual conmen who are at the center of the alarmist scare. So I asked my CEI colleague Julie Walsh to compare the list of authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis with the scientists involved in Climategate.
I’m sure it will come as a shock that the two groups largely overlap. The “small group of scientists” up to their necks in Climategate include 12 of the 26 esteemed scientists who wrote the Copenhagen Diagnosis. Who would have ever guessed that forty-six percent of the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis belong to the Climategate gang? Small world, isn’t it?
Here’s the list of tippity-top scientists who both wrote the authoritative report that Holdren relied on to support his statements and belong to the “small group of scientists” who are now suspected of scientific fraud:
Nathan Bindoff, also a lead author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (hereafter LA-IPCC FAR)
Peter Cox, also LA-IPCC FAR
David Karoly, also LA-IPCC FAR and the Third Assessment Report (TAR)
Georg Kaser, also LA-IPCC FAR
Michael E. Mann, also LA-IPCC TAR (the hockey stick scandal made him too radioactive to participate in writing FAR)
Stefan Rahmstorf, also LA-IPCC FAR
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, merely “a longstanding member of the IPCC.”
Stephen Schneider, also LA-IPCC FAR, TAR, and the First and Second Assessment Reports (SAR) plus two of the IPCC’s synthesis reports
Steven Sherwood, only a contributing author to IPCC-FAR
Richard C. J. Somerville, co-ordinating LA-PCC FAR
Eric J. Steig, no connection to IPCC listed
Andrew Weaver, also LA-IPCC FAR, TAR, and SAR (and Chief Editor, Journal of Climate, AMS)
In the interests of space, I’ve left out all of their distinguished positions as professors, editors of academic journals, and heads of institutes. You can search for their Climategate emails here.
Then there are those Climategate figures who didn’t help write Climate Diagnosis, but who have been involved in the IPCC assessment reports. Here are three that come to mind:
Phil Jones, contributing author IPCC TAR
Kevin Trenberth, co-ordinating LA-IPCC FAR and SAR, LA-IPCC TAR, and an author of the summaries for policymakers for FAR, TAR, and SAR
Ben Santer, convening LA-IPCC First Assessment Report
Now, I wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but it kind of looks to me like the “small group of scientists” caught out by Climategate are pretty much the same people who make up the vast and strong scientific consensus on global warming and write the official reports that the U.S. and other governments rely on to inform their policy decisions. I’m sure Dr. John P. Holdren, President Obama’s science adviser, has a plausible alternative explanation. He always does.
See post here.
P.S. to my post of 6:01am
Note Holdren’s bold lie about the “creampuff” NAS report is telling – Holdren conveniently neglects to mention the more credible Wegman report to Congress, which savages Mann’s “hockey stick” and Mann’s cabal of co-authors.
More Holdren stuff – hard to believe…
John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, says: Forced abortions and mass sterilization needed to save the planet
Book he authored in 1977 advocates for extreme totalitarian measures to control the population
Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens.
The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?
These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — informally known as the United States’ Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.
Impossible, you say? That must be an exaggeration or a hoax. No one in their right mind would say such things.
Well, I hate to break the news to you, but it is no hoax, no exaggeration. John Holdren really did say those things, and this report contains the proof. Below you will find photographs, scans, and transcriptions of pages in the book Ecoscience, co-authored in 1977 by John Holdren and his close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. The scans and photos are provided to supply conclusive evidence that the words attributed to Holdren are unaltered and accurately transcribed.
More at http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
Book at http://www.amazon.com/Ecoscience-Population-Environment-Paul-Ehrlich/dp/0716700298
Some nice DC and NE pix of extreme winter unprecedented snow.
http://www.weatherbook.com/blizzard.html
cn
I’m starting to get it now — Climate causes weather. I never understood this before. Now I see the light.
From Wikipedia: [Holdren] along with two other scientists helped Paul R. Ehrlich establish the bet with Julian Simon, in which they bet that the price of five key metals would be higher in 1990. The bet was centred around a disagreement concerning the future scarcity of resources in an increasingly polluted and heavily populated world. Ehrlich and Holdren lost the bet, when the price of metals had decreased by 1990.
Holdren’s theory sounded plausible in 1980. His ideas sound plausible today. But he is betting our money now.
the very first comment here requires remarkable IGNORANCE to author, the climate in NO WAY exerts any control over the weather……the climate is ONLY the average WEATHER of the previous 30 years….and again has NO control over the weather….
Holdren’s 1972 book forecast many things about the economy and energy sector, almost all of which were wrong obviously by 1980.
Reference for my 5:01am post
http://pjmedia.com/blog/climategate-obamas-science-adviser-confirms-the-scandal-%E2%80%94-unintentionally/
dayday says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:29 pm
The same propaganda is being preached here in the UK.
———————
Good clip. Great example of MSM pushing a message (climate change) onto people who are already traumatised by the bad weather, or know someone who is. Really cynical, nasty piece of national mind control.
They just had to do it,didn’t they. First the PM, then the Met Office then dutifully folllowed through by the corporate lapdog media (Channel 4 News Science Editor, no less). They are milking this crisis to support their climate change cause (agenda), which is pretty sickening really.
As Rahm Emmanuel said “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste”:
as Judith Curry and many others seem to think.
Didn’t need to add that, willis.
James Strom says:
“Reference Pages”/”Climatic Phenomena”. It’s quite helpful if you’re involved in a discussion and want to scan historical trends quickly. Thanks, Anthony
————————————————————-
I didn’t know that page was there. It’s excellent and really comprehensive.
Excellent job WUWT. Graphs will be getting pinned to notice boards…. and my mate (whose 15 year old daughter was recently subjected to Al Gore’s movie of lies at a Scottish school) will be getting the link as well.
Kevin Kilty says on February 15, 2014 at 9:50 am
Holdren’s 1972 book forecast many things about the economy and energy sector, almost all of which were wrong obviously by 1980.
____________
Correct Kevin.
What the politicians, the public and the press studiously ignore is that NONE of these alarmists have a credible predictive track record.
All their scary predictions have failed to materialize, and that means they are proven incompetents, and that means that no intelligent person should listen to them.
One has to wonder how so thoroughly EVIL an individual as Holdren could gain the influence he has. The villain he calls to mind is one Julius Streicher, well known as the ultimate sadist among the Nazis.
Somehow, the word must be got out to the public concerning this man’s genocidal intentions.
I think the time is long overdue to put into action a suggestion by the great Leo Szilard.
National Science Foundation should pay second-rate scientists NOT to conduct research and NOT to publish articles.
Why doesn’t Obama throw some money into that idea?
Willis writes: “Now, consider … climate doesn’t exist, it’s just the long-term average of the weather.
Since climate is the average of the weather … then how can it cause the weather as Holdren claims?”
******
Come on Willis, I’m on your side, but you have to be more careful. The above is simply sophistry. Also, it seems you got the money quote wrong. Which, since this is called, “quote of the week” is rather key.
You might be hurting more than helping when we add it all up. Let them make the own goals. They’re so good at it.
If all this crappy weather is caused by “warming” two questions:
1) Why does it manifest in WINTER? Surely that should be the period of the most perfect weather
2) Why are all these “unprecedented, chaotic etc” weather events happening in 2013-14? Why didn’t they happen in 2001 when the troposphere was ~0.1C hotter (according to the satellites), or in 1998 when it was nearly 1/2 degree hotter during the el Nino spike? Why aren’t the warmist zombies saying “It’s worse than we thought, but thank Gaia it’s nowhere near as bad as in 1998”?
Nah climate has nothing to do with weather. You just need to elect the right man for the job to drive those warmies catatonic-
‘[Prime Minister] TONY Abbott arrived in the NSW outback town of Bourke today to talk drought — but instead brought more rain with him than the district has seen for two years.
As a thunderstorm pelted down on the shearing shed of 40,000-hectare Jandra station, the Prime Minister promised local farmers his government wanted to do more help them cope with the current drought.
“This is a great Australian sound, rain on a tin roof, but I am very conscious this has been a severe drought; it’s a natural disaster and a lot of people are doing it tough,” said Mr Abbott, who is on a two-day tour of drought-hit western NSW and northwest Queensland.
“The important thing is that the government has a (farm assistance package) response that is intelligent, fair and (fiscally) responsible.
“But there will be better income support, better access to the loans people need and an emphasis on social support that farmers and rural communities need in times like this.”
Jandra station owner Phillip Ridge welcomed Mr Abbott as a rainmaker.
“If I had known what he would bring; I’d have asked him here months ago,” Mr Ridge said, as giant rain puddles, a sea of red mud and rows of bogged cars collected outside.’
(from The Australian)
Willis,
I would alter slightly your conclusion
“The issue is not how the science is being communicated, as Judith Curry and many others seem to think. The issue is [NOT just] what is being communicated”
The issue is that those in power are doing the communicating.
All this “science” is giving us lawyers a good name.
Re: One Quarter Mistaking Orbits
I don’t take polls. I have checked in my social circle, there is a remarked absence of anyone who takes polls.
This is, of course, far from a statistical proof, but I personally do not take polls too seriously (in this context, anyway – as far as political polls instructing officials by how much they will be able to cheat, that’s another matter).
Spadecat says:
February 16, 2014 at 8:40 am
“All this “science” is giving us lawyers a good name.”
Definition of mixed emotions: a bus full of climate scientists going over a cliff with 4 empty seats.
Nope, works better with “lawyers” instead of “climate scientists”.