From the ‘I’m not a scientist but I play one in Vanity Fair” department comes this ridiculous tweet from writer Kurt Eichenwald.
Via Wikipedia: no mention of climate or weather skill:
Kurt Alexander Eichenwald (born June 28, 1961) is an American journalist who serves as a senior writer with Newsweek, a contributing editor with Vanity Fair and a New York Times bestselling author of four books, one of which, The Informant (2000), was made into a motion picture in 2009. He was formerly a writer and investigative reporter with The New York Times and later with Condé Nast‘s business magazine, Portfolio. Eichenwald had been employed by The New York Times since 1986 and primarily covered Wall Street and corporate topics such as insider trading, accounting scandals, and takeovers, but also wrote about a range of issues including terrorism, the Bill Clinton pardon controversy, Federal health care policy, and sexual predators on the Internet.
Of course, that makes him highly qualified (in Alt-climate world) to say things like this:
Rightfully, since he didn’t show any work, he’s being flamed in replies to that tweet.
Dr Ryan Maue was quick to weigh in:
https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/905097503963533312
UPDATE: Eichenwald’s ego explodes:
Then, oh never mind, blame it on Fox news!
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I just love the sizzling retorts and comments about Eichenwald’s absurdity. If I were the least bit intelligent, I would write at least one as well, but I ain’t got it.
Looks like he dumped the tweet. Not surprising.
100% accurate? Eichenwald should remember that 97% is the green blob tag for BS stats.
Yup! “Im deleting my hurricane tweet because idiots arent getting point. Climatologists use math to calculate. Math works. Idiots use fox news.
73 replies 124 retweets 631 likes”
Suspicion confirmed. He was being sarcastic/ironic. Much more ironic than he realized. Who’s the idiot, Kurt? I think we all know the answer. Math works, but you have to know all the underlying physics, otherwise you just have mathematical wanker models that soon go off the rails…as has happened with virtually all of your twee “climate models.” Ignorance is no excuse, Kurt. Get out of your bubble or shut up.
If he would have claimed it was a satire of Michael Mann’s claim about preictictimg Harvey it would have been spot on funny.
“predicting Harvey”, sorry but I had a ‘convfefe’ moment.
A journalist who doesn’t know mean from median but can do maths with “formulas” that don’t exist and get resukts that are transparently fabricated.
Sounds like Kurt fits right in with the consensus.
You folks are being way to cruel to our dear Kurt Eichenwald and very disrespectful of his true abilities. So, I’m going to set you straight and describe what I think I’ve seen with my own eyes:
The other night I was at a seance, and alone amongst the five of us only Eichenwald was able to connect with the dead. In fact, he actually connected with General Ulysses S. Grant who informed him that history was mistaken and that it was actually Grant himself who surrendered to Robert E. Lee.
But, that’s not all. Later, Eichenwald showed us that a Ouija board genuinely does work (as opposed to ungenuinely). He asked the board questions, for which everybody in attendance knew the answers (and we absolutely knew the answers since the events had already occurred), and gosh dang it, the Ouija board got every question right.
Ok, there was one question, but only one, that despite Kurt’s psychic presence, the Oujia board simply could not answer. One of the attendees asked if any of Kurt Eichenwald’s girlfriends had ever faked their orgasms.
Jeez, Tom. That question’s even worse than asking a lady her age 😉 😉
Kat ( female person of color / red
I seem to recall another harebrained journalist who made very wild claims on this august blog not so long ago. He was simply looking for PR too.
Make 100 predictions, but don’t tell anyone about them.
When one of them is correct, run to the front of the line and proclaim your brilliance.
…and to the front of the marathon race from a side road.
please, at least Ms. Ruiz made no pretensions about actually knowing anything, recall the “what’s an interval?” comment during the interview with Kathy Switzer
Nice Ruiz reference. That lady lives on forever.
The LEFT crying wolf again…
I, in fact, was 100% correct on the coming hurricanes, predicting the end of the ‘cane drought in 2013:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/01/hurricane-season-begins-with-a-new-record-hurricane-drought-for-the-usa/#comment-1323734
I posted this on the Ryan Maye thread.
Before pounding on Kurt too much, please understand he does have some medical issues. Google Kurt Eichenwald Tucker Carlson and you will see. Its probably not morally right to attack him. Of course Newsweek is open game.
Grandma always said “If you can’t say something nice about someone, then it’s best to just say nothing at all.”
So, for Grandma’s sake, all I’ll say about Mr. E is well just bless his pea-picking little heart.
LOL! Heh, I just can’t stop laughing. This guy is hilarious.
Oh, wait, it gets better! He’s actually serious! Oh my stomach is hurting from laughing so hard!
Stop! I can barely breathe……..heh. What a numbskull.
He says he used this equation.
Which I doubt predicts hurricanes and probably doesn’t have real-time data for either.
But I like the simplicity of that equation. There´s no co2 in there, so it is probably more correct than most of climate science.
But I like that bullshit-measuring device even more, it seems sturdy. Look at how the needle bends, it can handle a lot of bullshit, unlike me. Where can I buy one?
What on earth does “L” stand for?
…and don’t say “Spanish for ‘The'”.
loser?
L is ‘latent heat ‘ or “energy released or absorbed, by a body or a thermodynamic system, during a constant-temperature process.” – says somewhere or another
L is the latent heat of evaporation of water, (in this instance) .
I guess by now everyone has twigged that this character has taken his terminology for a standard thermodynamic equation for equilibrium between phases. from a book of that eminent climate scientist , Maurice Salby , p112 of Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics.
Of course a hurricane is hardly equilibrium , so need to refer to Houghton ‘s use of the equation in calculating the vertical distribution of saturated air , and then Coriolis comes into play .
So it would be interesting if this journalist could tell us how he manged to proceed from the equilibrium equation to a violently rotating body of water saturated air. I am sure that he could teach us a lot.
Specific latent heat, apparently.
Straight out of Wikipedia.. All this means is that warmer air will hold more moisture. To give another example of the stupidity of his tweet, it would be like saying that you calculated a nuclear bomb with a formula that was 100% accurate and then saying the formula you used was E=mc^2.
Excellent. Wish Maue would have said something to that effect in his tweet.
Nice… except my old pompous prof would say “Air doesn’t actually hold water, it coexists with it”. We would roll eyes. Technically he was right I suppose
Should have guessed! The authoritative Wikipedia!
I’m pretty sure that its used somewhere in hurricane modelling but surely even a writer could pick that you need a lot more – or at least one more equation with time in it! If you’re even that innumerate, at least a good journalist would know that NOAA just spent $44.5M on a computer upgrade for its modelling. There would be some serious questions to be answered if the calculation could be done on paper with a basic Cassio.
This site is frequently informed of the antics of journalistic or political activists who manage to convince politicians and the media that they could and should take the place of professional scientists in the corridors of power especially on the subject of climate change.
Each time I read about them a little ditty comes to mind: form WS Gibert :
“Stick close to your desks and never go to sea
And you all may be Rulers of the Queen’s Navy”
Of course eventually the day came when the King’s navy faced its most dangerous encounter for 100 years at Jutland in 1916 . A battle that was almost lost , causing Admiral Beatty to complain :” something wrong with our ships today” . Yes all those years of desk sailors displacing professional navy men as satirised by Gilbert .
We get rid of professional scientists and replace them with Oreskes and Klein and this fellow at our peril.
And William Henry Smith was known as “Pinafore Smith” to his dying day.
In addition to his interest in tentacle porn, there is this:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kurt-eichenwald-case-texas-grand-jury-says-gif-deadly-weapon-n736316
Thanks to him, an animated gif was considered to be a deadly weapon.
And, finally, this:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2007/03/eichenwalds_weird_checkbook_journalism.html
Pretty bad when Slate isn’t on your side
All this reminds one of the quote of the year:
‘When you are dead, you do not know that you are dead.
All of the pain is felt by others.
The same thing happens when you are stupid.’
Hey Eichenwald, you know your mouth and ego is writing checks that this equation can’t cash, right? Hurricanes are hardly in equilibrium. My Differential Equations teacher would have given me an F if I had popped this one out on a test.
Perhaps he can give us answers to questions Science hasn’t thought of yet?
Why do we need climate scientists when under-educated journalists will do?
An excellent question.
A writer for the usual suspects… which is how they became the usual suspects
Isn’t this the guy who’s wife claimed somebody online tried to kill him with a pulsating gif file ?
test
Tentacle pr0n is mainstream. I saw it with my kids on Galaxy Quest.
One of the funniest movies ever.
I watch it every time it shows up on the TV. Great visuals until the end…the space ship looks like a toy. But the rock monster…uh…rocks!
Lol some of the acting was too campy but it was still a funny movie
It was supposed to be campy.
If you have ever read any of the backstage gossip from the original Star Trek show, it’s even funnier.
“I’m deleting the hurricane tweet because you idiots aren’t getting the point”
Well he got that part right.
Pretty funny he calls Maue the idiot.
I think the problem was the “idiots” did get the point. It was the author who didn’t understand what point he made.
Way back when I was doing thermodynamics problems we always defined the variables in our equations. I am guessing that P is pressure, T is temperature ..but is L the latent heat? Is delta S the change in entropy? What units is he using? Looks like just another journalist in way over his head.
P is vapor pressure.