Realclimate.org goes dark – is it permanent?

RC-titanic_header

While few have noticed, since hardly anyone but the handful of extreme faithful visit there anymore, it seems that the website run by the climate alarmist cabal of Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Dr. Michael Mann, Dr. Stephan Rahmstorf, and others has gone dark this week. According to the “wayback machine” the last time the realclimate.org website was live was November 17th:

realclimate-wayback-11-17-15

Now, it shows this, what appears to be a default page for a “parked domain”.

realclimate-gone-dark

The domain is still registered, according to WHOIS:

realclimate-whois

‘Tis a puzzle, did Gavin or EMS forget to pay the hosting bill, have they given up, or is something else going on?

There’s no hint of why on Gavin’s Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin

Note to Gavin, this really doesn’t prevent me from reading your Twitter feed:

gavin-blocked-twitter

Hopefully we’ll find out the reason soon.

UPDATE: Russell Cook writes via email…

From what I’ve seen, the ultra-handy Internet Wayback Machine site is sometimes a bit slow on archiving current web sites.

Google Cache seems to have caught RealClimate up an running on Thursday the 19th:  http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eItUrDSLUIgJ:www.realclimate.org/

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Alx
Reply to  Rob Ricket
November 21, 2015 8:42 am

So here is HOW the professor found the data-sets altered
• Reducing the annual mean in the early phase.
• Reducing the high values in the first warming phase.
• Increasing individual values during the second warming phase.
• Suppression of the second cooling phase starting in 1995.
• Shortening the early decades of the data-sets.
• With the long-term data-sets, even the first century was shortened.
At a glance it does appear there is a bias towards warming. NASA does claim to have good reasons for those alterations (or adjustments as they call them), however since their version control is so preposterously weak and they refuse to make information available on internal discussion and reasoning for the changes we will never have good answers on the WHY the data-sets were altered.
This is NASA, who once put men on the moon now has their name and reputation associated with this laughing stock.

James Francisco
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 9:51 am

It seems to me that NASA has a long history of supporting useless, expensive, make work projects like sending men to the moon. I will admit that the technoligy that was developed for that project was useful for our communications, navigation, military weapons and weather monitoring systems. It may be the sending men to the moon was a goal just to convince those that would oppose the huge spending required for the real necessary things.

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 10:00 am

You know, if NASA had changed the distance from earth to moon, they wouldn’t have had to expend so much on fuel to put a man on the moon. What? It was all staged by Hollywood? Well, if NASA’s credibility becomes more tarnished, I might start believing that the moon landing was faked. “One small step for mann; one giant fall for NASA.”

commieBob
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 10:29 am

James Francisco says:
November 21, 2015 at 9:51 am
It seems to me that NASA has a long history of supporting useless, expensive, make work projects like sending men to the moon.

Are you proposing that we should have let the USSR beat us to the moon?

James Francisco
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 10:51 am

For Commie Bob. Yes. If the USER wants to beat us to Mars then that is OK with me too. What value was it to go to the moon?

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 12:08 pm

NASA’s loss of reputation is undoubtedly the result of a well-meant outreach to make Muslim nations feel good about themselves by making NASA appear to be a bunch of drivel-spewing lunatics in the fields of science, math, and engineering. I’d say, mission accomplished. By contrast, Muslim science hasn’t looked this good in centuries.

Editor
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 12:53 pm

James Fransisco : Was the moon landing really so useless? Try seeing it in the context of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War : “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.“. The moon landing contributed to the downfall of the USSR.

Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 1:02 pm

James Francisco
November 21, 2015 at 9:51 am
“…useless, expensive, make work projects like sending men to the moon.
Yeah J. Francisco, precedents like King Ferdinand and Isabella uselessly sending Columbus to America come to mind. I suspect you think the moon mission funds could have been better spent establishing world central government and covering the world with windmills.

Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 1:25 pm

James Francisco,
We sent two dozen men to the moon (half actually walked on the surface). No other country has sent even one. That was a tremendous accomplishment. I’ve often said here that I think America’s zenith was between the end of WWII and the Apollo program.
Now, China is looking at the moon as a permanent base. Robert Heinlein said the moon is the military high ground. What do you think about that?
And to add to America’s shame, there’s this:
https://youtu.be/tCn10YWsY1Q

jeff
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 1:38 pm

NASA used to be a reputable agency with highly intelligent people, but that was back in the ’60s and ’70s. The people at NASA today are NOT the same people who put a man on the moon.

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 1:56 pm

James Francisco November 21, 2015 at 10:51 am
For Commie Bob. Yes. If the USER wants to beat us to Mars then that is OK with me too. What value was it to go to the moon?
To aspire to greatest and achieve it.
michael

Science or Fiction
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 3:29 pm

They did the one thing real scientists never do – mess up the data.

Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 4:46 pm

dbstealey November 21, 2015 at 1:25 pm: Wish I hadn’t watched that. What a comedown for the agency that led the Apollo adventure! You are right: It was a magnificent accomplishment, and aside from defeating the Germans and the Japanese in World War II, America’s greatest triumph. How depressing that we have not built upon that success.
/Mr Lynn

Reply to  Alx
November 22, 2015 1:26 am

WOW, same “Modus Operandi” as the Bureau of Metreology (BoM) in Australia!

timg56
Reply to  Alx
November 22, 2015 6:26 am

Noaaprogrammer,
I believe it takes the same amount of fuel no matter the distance. The purpose of the rocket is to lift the payload out from the bottom of earth’s gravity well.

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  Alx
November 22, 2015 3:55 pm

Don’t forget the energy required to keep an environment habitable for the astronauts. The longer the mission, the heavier the payload: food, liquid, etc.

November 21, 2015 7:56 am

RealClimate in the early days was a reasonable discussion forum, where real debate was possible, without much censoring. After a few years the censoring hand of Gavin Schmidt got heavier and about half my comments disappeared in cyberspace, without real reason. So, I did give up commenting there and it completely degenerated into an echo chamber…
A pity, as it could have been a real scientific discussion forum between the two camps…

papiertigre
Reply to  Ferdinand Engelbeen
November 21, 2015 8:21 am

The conmen have never been interested in a scientific discussion. Their sole purpose was to browbeat the weak minded into compliance.

Reply to  papiertigre
November 21, 2015 8:53 am

They don’t have to beat the weakminded. The weakminded are too busy discussing the latest Kardashian stupidity to notice the theft of our collective future by both the socialist-Democrats and establishment Republicans..

Reply to  Ferdinand Engelbeen
November 21, 2015 1:05 pm

It would have been if the “RealClimate” side more than one arrow in its quiver.

observa
November 21, 2015 8:12 am

“Update: Here is the ZoomInfo on Betsy:
# Betsy Ensley, Web Editor/Program Coordinator: Betsy joined the staff of Environmental Media Services in April 2002 as a program assistant for EMS’s toxics program. Presently, she manages BushGreenwatch.org, a joint EMS-MoveOn.org public awareness website, and coordinates environmental community media efforts to protect and improve environmental and public health safeguards. Before coming to EMS, Betsy interned at the U.S. Department of State in the office of the Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Betsy graduated with honors from the University of Iowa in 2000, where she majored in Global Studies with thematic focus on war, peace and security. She minored in Asian languages.
It looks like part of Betsy’s salary is paid by MoveOn.org who is funded by George Soros. l Hansen got some George Soros support also”
EMS you say?
https://www.activistfacts.com/organizations/110-environmental-media-services/
A big blog poster and following? (translation needed)
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/
The face behind all that media?
http://thinkshout.com/team/betsy/
And some info here-
http://www.canadaka.net/forums/science-f47/ten-years-and-counting-where-s-the-global-warming-t96397-240.html
“Funding of RealClimate.ORG
A reader has asked me by e-mail who funds RealClimate.ORG. Well, it is not so difficult to find out. Just search for the registration information of RealClimate.ORG at WhoIs.NET and you will find out that RealClimate.ORG is run by Environmental Media Services and by Betsy Ensley.
EMS is primarily an organization to pay for junk science about food and beverages, often hired by food companies to damage their competitors; click the link in the previous sentence to learn more.
RealClimate.ORG has several sisters founded by the same Betsy Ensley, including WomenAgainstBush.ORG and BushGreenWatch.ORG. When Ensley was campaigning against Ashcroft, her secretary was Kalee Kreider who is now Al Gore’s spokesperson. Al Gore’s former press secretary, Arlie Schardt, is on the EMS’s board of directors, too.
It’s explained in one of the previous links that EMS also owns Fenton Communications, a group providing various “progressive” non-profit organizations with many services. They are best known for their representation of MoveOn.ORG. Fenton also organized the initial press release promoting RealClimate.ORG, a move that was most likely sparked by an immediate attempt to counter the influence of “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton.”
.

kim
Reply to  observa
November 21, 2015 8:35 am

Mouseketeers? Rocketeers? No, no, no, racketeers.
I’ve long thought that realclimate was set up to counter Steve McIntyre. Thanks for expanding my perspective to include that wonderful medical doctor, who only treated demonized patients, and rather off-handedly at that.
==================

Barbara
Reply to  observa
November 21, 2015 2:48 pm

eco America
Board includes:
David Fenton, founded Fenton Communications 1982
Danny Kennedy, was Greenpeace campaign manager and managed Greenpeace’s California Clean Energy Campaign.
http://www.ecoamerica.org/about/board

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
November 21, 2015 4:04 pm

Wikipedia: Danny Kennedy
Citizen of U.S. & Australia. Founder of Sungevia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Kennedy_(environmentalist)

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
November 21, 2015 5:17 pm

CalCEF Ventures/California Clean Energy Fund
Danny Kennedy is now Managing Director.
Board includes: Ralph Cavanagh, NRDC/Natural Resources Defense Council.
http://www.calcef.org/ventures/team

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
November 21, 2015 6:39 pm

Australia Unlimited, 19 Apr 2013
‘THE SUN CATCHER’ , Danny Kennedy
Sungevity Australia launched in April 2012 and is offering Australia’s first pay-as-you-go solar option.
http://www.australiaunlimited.com/environment/the-sun-catcher
Also see: TEDx Sydney on Danny Kennedy
http://www.tedxsydney.com/site/speakerProfile.cfm?speaker=270 or http://www.tedxsydney.com

Barbara
Reply to  Barbara
November 22, 2015 7:42 am

Sungevity is also in the solar panel business in Canada.
Co-founder of Sungevity, Danny Kennedy, is/was involved with Tar Sands Action.
http://www.tarsandsaction.org/participants. Date is c. Feb.13, 2013.

Science or Fiction
Reply to  observa
November 21, 2015 3:42 pm

WomanAgainstBush.org! Are they preparing for global warming?

Alx
November 21, 2015 8:19 am

That Gavin is a jerk and a coward, he himself has well established with behavior like refusing to appear on camera with another qualified scientist. (see article link below) That such a small minded individual like Gavin maintained any credibility at all is stupefying.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/19/nasas-dr-gavin-schmidt-goes-into-hiding-from-seven-very-inconvenient-questions/

Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 9:25 am

Agree 100%.
Hard to believe.
But, the history of the CAGW meme could fill an entire Museum of the Hard to Believe.

Reply to  Menicholas
November 21, 2015 1:15 pm

The “proponents” have been advised and all seem to have agreed to not debate anymore. They had some unmitigated disasters when they tried it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/20/monckton-wins-national-press-club-debate-on-climate/

And Gavin Schmidt runs away from debate with Roy Spencer

ralfellis
November 21, 2015 8:31 am

Not surprised. The only time I posted there they said I had to quote from published papers, and I was not allowed to think for myself. (The pretext being that skeptical papers are never published…)

Nigel in Santa Barbara
Reply to  ralfellis
November 21, 2015 6:17 pm

The video above on the debate with Lord Moncton was FANTASTIC!

William Astley
November 21, 2015 8:31 am

Real Climate is a who’s who of the cult of CAGW’s inner circle to push/justify the CAGW agenda.
The propaganda effort has however moved on from the pathetic suppressed/manipulated discussion of scientific analysis and observations associated with past and future climate ‘change’ which was initial deemed necessary to justify the existence of CAGW, to a never ending broadcast of manipulated climate ‘change’ news items:
Cult of CAGW scientists’ sciency models predict global warming will be worse than expected (big surprise), polar bear falls off ice and drowns, and cute children hold breaths in effort to convince politicians to print more money to ‘fight’ climate change and to increase the salaries for their teachers, to save their country from the deb crisis and the climate ‘change’ crisis.
The whole dang climate war mess will continual along its obvious course (there is sufficient momentum that a major new issue is required to interrupt/stop the madness) until 1) there is frightening global cooling which the public will demand an explanation for and/or 2) the public/politicians have their eureka moment and understand the practical economic implications of wasting trillions and trillions of dollars on green scams that do not work – tripling of the cost of electricity for example, massive loss of jobs, and zero impact on present/future climate change when the real problem is a never ending economic down turn and global cooling.
It is interesting that the Dansgaard/Oescheger ‘events’ (also called Bond events) have a characteristic period of 1470 years that does not change from the glacial period to the interglacial period. Point is there must be an external forcing function that causes the planet to warm and cool cyclically rather than internal forcing function, as climate internal mechanisms change drastically glacial phase vs interglacial phase and internal forcing would be chaotic not periodic.
Can you see how the planet warms and cools cyclically? Who is denying what?

..with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles …

Greenland Ice Sheet Temperatures Last 100,000 years
http://www.hidropolitikakademi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4.gif
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper. William: As this graph indicates the Greenland Ice data shows that have been 9 warming and cooling periods in the last 11,000 years and 14 additional warming and cooling cycles in the last glacial period, same periodicity.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://academic.evergreen.edu/z/zita/teaching/CClittell/readings/Jan31_Overpeck_and_Cole_2006.pdf

ABRUPT CHANGE IN EARTH’S CLIMATE SYSTEM
What do we mean by abrupt change? Alley et al. (2), in a seminal paper arising from a U.S. National Academy of Sciences report (5), followed on the original definition of abrupt change (6): an abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to cross some threshold, triggering a transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the cause. Others have defined it simply as a large change within less than 30 years (7) or as a transition in the climate system whose duration is fast relative to the duration of the preceding or subsequent state (8).
Further analysis of diverse records has distinguished two types of millennial events (13). Dansgaard/Oeschger (D/O) events are alternations between warm (interstadial) and cold (stadial) states that recur approximately every 1500 years, although this rhythm is variable. Heinrich events are intervals of extreme cold contemporaneous with intervals of ice-rafted detritus in the northern North Atlantic (24–26); these recur irregularly on the order of ca. 10,000 years apart and are typically followed by the warmest D/O interstadials.
Cold-climate abrupt change occurs with a characteristic timescale of appro.1500 years, a feature that must be explained by any proposed mechanism. North Atlantic and the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) records exhibit a period of approx.1470 years (64, 65). However, the adjacent ice core isotope record from the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) site exhibits periods closer to 1670 and 1130–1330 years, which is in agreement with the independently dated record from Hulu Cave (49, 66) …

Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock by Stefan Rahmstorf
Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles. This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system; oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.

Reply to  William Astley
November 21, 2015 12:55 pm

Those are some really scary findings because as we have seen already a lengthy pause we might well be half way into that 30 year window.

Yirgach
Reply to  William Astley
November 22, 2015 2:20 pm

While somewhat interesting, there are a lot of handwavings, maybes, likelys and other weasel words thrown around in that paper.
You can generally disregard stuff associated with Evergreen. They are rabid Marxist Warministas.
State funded no less…

Peter Miller
November 21, 2015 8:33 am

I tried putting in the obvious username and password: badscientists and makingitup, but that did not work, but it must have been very close.

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  Peter Miller
November 21, 2015 12:16 pm

Did you try “TrofimLysenko” and “WhatLysenkoSpawned?”

JimS
November 21, 2015 8:38 am

Four days blank does not a down forever website make.

Alx
Reply to  JimS
November 21, 2015 8:45 am

Well we can only hope that they demonstrate their usual level of incompetence and do not have good backups to recover from.

Bill H
Reply to  JimS
November 21, 2015 9:11 am

One being scrubbed… maybe…? Lots of inconvenient data sets and predictions there were..

November 21, 2015 8:40 am

Come on our Gav! Wot?! No fanfare? Ah well. Just as we thought. It was all a load of bollocks.

Sean Staplin
November 21, 2015 8:44 am

I went over there last night as I look every now and then to see what they are up to. Noticed it dark as well and was wondering.

Alx
November 21, 2015 8:47 am

The article illustration is appropriate; the Titanic is Climate Change and the iceberg it ran into is reality.

Marcus
Reply to  Alx
November 21, 2015 10:29 am

+ 100

Bill H
November 21, 2015 8:58 am

Here is my take:
RC is down due to many of their data sets, which disprove their AWG theroy, along with a host of failed predictions that are inconvenient and easily accessible to the general public. The ability to show the fraud and massive adjustments to the historical records were on that site. This must be dealt with from a policy stand point. You simply can not have this readily available to the public.
The site is being scrubbed!
Just like Viner’s “no snow” predictions which magically disappeared, they were hoping no one would notice. KUDO’s to Mr W for noticing! The deceptions will run amuck very soon and they are hoping we do not have the data to discredit them.

Editor
Reply to  Bill H
November 21, 2015 9:53 am

And why would that happen on the same date the domain registration expired?

Reply to  Bill H
November 21, 2015 2:02 pm

My thoughts on first seeing this, were that it was an attempt to purge some inconvenient writing. The biggest example I’m familiar with, is the comments section of the post, “The Montford Delusion”. IMO I don’t see how they could reread the first few hundred comments without cringing. The title of Steve McIntyre’s post says it all — “The Team Defends Paleo-Phrenology”. There’s probably no way they could completely purge this record, but they could make it harder to get at. I see this post is still on the Wayback Machine. I wonder if they could or would have it removed.

Jeff Id
November 21, 2015 9:18 am

A disturbance in the force – I felt my IQ go up!

Bryan
Reply to  Jeff Id
November 21, 2015 3:57 pm

Lol

November 21, 2015 9:21 am

You’ll no doubt be pleased to discover that Gavin is “Working on it”
https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/667691747661713408
However I have nonetheless yet to discover “How would that global cooling bet have worked out?”

November 21, 2015 9:30 am

Domain name is for SALE? Anthony, start a fund. Let’s buy it. Poetic justice. “RealClimate” A subsidiary of WUWT, et. al.

Claudius Denk
November 21, 2015 9:36 am

I’ve always thought it strange that NASA wasn’t sued for allowing its employee to use his employment, paid for by US tax dollars, to run a propaganda website. (Anybody that believes that he did this only in his spare time is a dunce.)

Severian
November 21, 2015 9:37 am

They gave the contract for keeping the site up to the same people who rolled out the Obamacare web site. Hey, what could go wrong?

Editor
Reply to  Severian
November 21, 2015 9:51 am

No, they didn’t.

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  Ric Werme
November 21, 2015 10:15 am

They gave it to Hillary’s IT man and bathroom janitor.

601nan
November 21, 2015 9:50 am

(y)
This is Royally funny!
Paris COP21 Dunkirk.
Bamber’s Invectives on Zwally.
US Congressional investigations and subpoenas to be followed by Judicial subpoenas from US District Court 1.
“Climate Science Defense Fund” run from Gavin’s office computer and co-funded by AGU membership fees.
Ha ha xD

Reply to  601nan
November 21, 2015 10:05 am

601nan on November 21, 2015 at 9:50 am
– – – – – – –
601nan,
???
John

Mike Bromley the Kurd
November 21, 2015 10:02 am

I tweeted on Climate of Gavin, A neutral-sounding snork. Screen dump on Facebook WUWT.

November 21, 2015 10:15 am

“Admit to nothing, deny everything. “

Dawtgtomis
Reply to  rishrac
November 21, 2015 10:29 am

I have a friend in Hot Springs AR who calls that “Clintonizin'”

Editor
Reply to  Dawtgtomis
November 21, 2015 11:55 am

“Clintonizing“?

Reply to  Dawtgtomis
November 22, 2015 12:45 am

Time frames are very important when making alarmists predictions/projections. CAGW keeps moving the target dates out and removing or minimizing previous statements. Hardly settled science.

Marcus
November 21, 2015 10:28 am

I told you hard drives were going to start crashing !!

docgee
November 21, 2015 10:29 am

Am I the only one sorry to see them offline? I get a kick out of rattling their chain by questioning their assumptions, demonstrating that there’s been no “long term” warming trend, reminding them about Occam’s Razor, stuff like that. And when they claim I have no right to an opinion because I’m “not a scientist,” I link to “peer reviewed” articles, offering “robust” findings they can’t easily refute. Of course, it’s like boxing with one hand tied behind me, because they can easily send my posts to the famous “Bore Hole,” or else, as has been happening more often, just disappearing them. What’s remarkable is that so much of what I write gets through, probably because they can’t resist the challenge of showing me the “error of my ways.” What’s especially interesting is when I get labeled a “troll” in posts by genuine trolls who have little of interest to write aside from platitudes and insults.

Marcus
Reply to  docgee
November 21, 2015 1:36 pm

Ah yes, the intolerance of the ” tolerant left ” ! LOL

Paul Martin
November 21, 2015 10:36 am

I can’t even see that, because the name servers for that domain currently don’t provide answers with “authority” flags set, hence my local name server software (bind9) doesn’t trust them (it logs SERVFAIL) and I get “server not found” in a browser.

Marcus
Reply to  Paul Martin
November 21, 2015 10:51 am

They are busy wiping their hard drives ” With a Cloth ?? “

u.k.(us)
Reply to  Marcus
November 21, 2015 2:48 pm

If you haven’t ever pulled the hard drive from your dead computer, and beaten it to a pulp with a sledgehammer (just in case), I’m not sure you are Presidential material 🙂

Reply to  Marcus
November 21, 2015 3:00 pm

I use drill few holes first, than give it a hummer blow.

November 21, 2015 11:10 am

Must have run out of someone else’s money.,