By Charles Rotter and Anthony Watts
From Charles:
It was ten years ago today that I personally first viewed the instructions to download the Climategate files from the anonymous Russian server. That set in motion a series of events still affecting the outcome of worldwide energy and environmental policy today. The whitewashers at the BBC, The Guardian, and elsewhere have started putting up their officially sanctioned narrative version, amounting to little more than nothing to see hear move along.
I wrote up my contemporaneous version of events here.
Anyone who wants to rebut claims of exoneration can use this Ross McKitrick paper for reference.
A couple of days ago we reposted Judith Curry’s excellent 10 year anniversary write up.
There’s little I can say that Dr. Curry does not touch upon, except for the fact that it is gratifying to see ideas we help disseminate echoing back to us via both traditional and social media.
At the time of the event, Patrick Courrielche did one of the best jobs covering it in the media.
His original three part series can be found here (part 1), here (part 2), and here (part 3)
Patrick also published an interview with Anthony Watts, Steve McIntyre, Steve Mosher, and myself earlier this year on his Redpilled America Podcast. It is excellent and worth a listen.
Signed, Charles Rotter
From Anthony:
Coincidentally, 10 years ago today is not only the day that “Mr. FOI” released the files, it was (and is) WUWT’s birthday. On November 17th, 2006, I wrote my first post.
In November 2009, while Charles was holding the fort at WUWT and examining the emails left by “Mr FOI”, I was in Brussels at a climate skeptic conference being put on by Hans Labohm.
I remember the first message I got from him: “You need to look at this!“. Then reading the emails, wide-eyed, and realizing I was about to go through security at the EU, I wondered about the timing….and told Charles that under no circumstances would we write anything about it or release it until I was back on U.S. soil. Then, after clearing customs at Dulles two days later, I sat down in the airport, and wrote the story, breaking the news on the 19th. I was literally the last person on the plane back to Sacramento, and in those days, WiFi on planes didn’t exist. So I was faced with over six hours of unknowing. Thoughts of “what have I done?” raced through my mind. See the “Red Pilled America” audio interview above for my personal recollections.
Luckily, James Delingpole picked up the story for his column, and it’s entry into the British newspaper The Telegraph started the chain reaction that made the story grow, becoming the “worst scientific scandal of our generation“.
Today, I look back, especially at the latest BBC “whitewash” of the issue, and I shake my head. These people, journos and climate scientists alike – have learned absolutely nothing. This piece, by Tony Thomas in Quadrant, tells the story.
Today, anyone questioning this colossal enterprise is told to “respect the science”. Based on the Climategate emails released in 2009, 2013 and 2015, I’d rather respect the Mafia, who at least don’t claim to be saving the planet. For example, today we’re told that warming of 2degC above pre-industrial level is some sort of a tipping point of doom. Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, emailed on September 6, 2007, that the supposed 2-degree limit was “plucked out of thin air”, a throwaway line in an early 1990s paper from the catastrophists at the Potsdam Climate Impacts Institute.
Mr. Thomas reminded me of this particularly nasty email excerpt about Steve McIntyre (who used his superior statistical skills to refute Mann’s work), Mann wrote, in August 2007,
I have been talking [with] folks in the States about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose [him].
But while proponents of “the cause” (most notably the execrable Michael E. Mann in a recent op-ed for Newsweek) pat themselves on the back comforting each other with “there’s nothing to see here”, there are reasons to rejoice about Climategate ten years later.
Climategate brought chaos to Copenhagen aka COP15 – critically wounding the prospects of cap-and-trade legislation in the process. It helped the world dodge the climate mania bullet for 5 years, until the Paris accord in 2015.
Donald Trump became aware of the Climategate story, years before he became President, and I have to think (since he has mentioned it) that it affected his opinion.
Added:
“[Climate change is] a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know…. they say they have science on one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the [Climategate] scientists…. Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say, what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind.”
– President-elect Donald Trump, “Donald Trump’s New York Times Interview: Full Transcript,”
And as we know, as President, he fulfilled his campaign promises and pulled the USA out of the Paris Climate Accord, and gutted the draconian EPA.
For that, I am proud to have had a part, along with the Heartland Institute, whose advice and support gave Trump even more ammunition to pull off the withdrawal from the Paris accord.
While 10 years have made climate science and its supporters even more shrill and less believable than ever, it is a testament to everyone who has been involved in WUWT that we are still running and still the “go to” website on climate. Many others, like Grant Foster’s laughably named “Open Mind” have fallen into near invisibility. Think that’s low? Ken Rice, aka “And then there’s physics” is so far off the radar, he’s not even a blip. Some have simply been delegated to the dustbin of history, such as Joe Romm’s “Climate Progress” labeled the “indispensible blog” for climate alarmism, now defunct. I count these losers lack of influence as a victory too.
But, the best is yet to come. After taking a year in the backseat to recharge and rebuild (thank you Charles) big things are about to happen. While Hotwhopperish wannabees still screech over scraps of influence, WUWT is just getting warmed up.
Soon, I’ll make the announcement, and you’ll see why WUWT is not only “still the one” but still growing. The next ten years will bring even more. Stay tuned, it’s going to be fun, but more importantly, it’s going to be influential.
With sincerest thanks to all who have lent their expertise, support, and readership on this wild ride, I remain, dedicated as ever. I’ll let Josh have the last word. – Anthony Watts
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
CTM
“The whitewashers at the BBC, The Guardian, and elsewhere have started putting up their officially sanctioned narrative version, amounting to little more than nothing to see
hearhere, move along.”Dang Auto-correct ! Spell Check is better….IMHO
Great post….. (can I get out of the “Dog House” now…? Pleeeeeeeeeze ! ) : )
It is Hans Labohm, with an a.
fixed, thanks
Happy birthday WUWT/Anthony and can’t wait.
When you are using the 4th version of temperature data, I believe that there is some bias in the numbers.
Anthony
“While 10 years have made climate science and its supporters even more shrill and less believable than ever, it is a testament to everyone
whosewho / that has been involved in WUWT that we are still running and still the “go to” website on climate.”WUWT will always be “the “go to” website on climate truth.” IMHO
Thanks for that Anthony
Yours Truly
Marcus from the Dog House : )
Emphatically second that!
Actually, I live in the hope that WUWT will be pleased to close down in a lot less than 10 years’ time, having finally demolished the entire Climate Change fraud. The thought that WUWT will always be needed is rather frightening. Of course, the whole of WUWT should remain available online to historians etc, long after it closes.
WUWT will always be needed to:
1) Provide skepticism for the next Luddite claim.
2) Inform and invite us to discuss & debate scientific topics other than weather.
“The next Ice-age is coming: we’re doomed. It’s global warming: we’re all going to die. Climate is changing: extinction is inevitable. Catastrophic climate change is upon us: it’s Armageddon and climate séance is losing to WUWT”.
There’s no reason to imagine that the citizens of the State of Fear will not invent yet another instrument of terror. And, having demonstrated that they learn nothing from their history, will be doomed to repeat their errors: “the Ice-age is coming we’re all going to die”.
Long live WUWT.
Dismantling the Alarmist/Scaremongering culture that has been politically established, is just the first step to returning to good old fashioned Honest scientific discovery.
Happy Birthday WUWT. I look forward to better times. I’m sure you will be at the forefront of that journey.
Best to all,
Eamon.
RE: Josh’s cartoon: Half-truths (omitting inconvenient data) is also a Big part of their toolkit of disinformation tricks in their now coordinated, well-financed Climate Propaganda campaign.
exactly….what did they need to learn?
looks like nothing other than their machine is far superior to ours
They learned that the mass media will never point out their junk science.
They learned that they can continue wild guessing the future climate, be consistently wrong, and no one in the mass media will ever analyze their wrong predictions.
They learned that if they caught “adjusting” data, they can investigate themselves, and declare themselves innocent.
Which is what they did with the ClimateGate emails.
We “leaned” that leftists have always been smarmy people — the ends justify the means, they say.
So truth is not a leftist value, and never was.
So why would anyone with sense expect leftists to be honest about climate science, when being dishonest, and scaremongering, gets them attention, climate scientist permanent job security, and sells big government socialism as the only way to save the planet for the children?
No scary wild guess climate prediction is challenged in the mass media.
Their long predicted climate “crisis” is always coming (but never shows up!) after they are dead and gone, so they can never be blamed for a wrong prediction while they are still alive !
Climate scaremongering is a great con game for leftists.
It will make no difference to anyone’s life if the average temperature is up +1 degrees C. in the next 100 years, or even +2 degrees C.
not one person would have even noticed
I get your point, but if you look carefully you can see ‘the blip’ around 1943ish.
My take on climate science and scientists is that their biggest failure was to ignore that blip. Even Tom Wigley while elucidating the procedure that hid the blip could not resist asking ‘why the blip?’
Why indeed? Any scientist worth his or her salary should have been all over that data, trying to learn something.
JF
(oil spill from WWII, that’s why.)
Not True.
I can tolerate a 95.0 degree F. summer day here in Michigan — they are rare, but do happen.
But if global warming increases that 95.0 to 95.2 or 95.4 F. in ten years, that would make me go berserk,
95.2 or 95.4 F. would be intolerable, and we’d have to move to Alaska to get away from that @ur momisugly$#%&% global warming.
Yep, until ClimateGate, scientists had no idea what they could get away with. The consensus was that openly-admitted acts of deception constituted career seppuku. That you could hide, delete and lie with abandon and keep your membership in the scientific profession in good standing would have been considered as heretical an idea as, say, heliocentrism or continental drift once were.
And they say climate science never adds to human knowledge.
OK, they don’t—but I do
Brad, they actually learned they could get away with scientific crimes, when Steve McIntyre and Ross McKittrick opened the can of proxy worms and Michael Mann got away with hiding his MBH98 method.
Mann cried ‘bully!,’ and the climate scientists, the journals, and the scientific establishment all rose to his defense.
And even before that, Ben Santer got away with falsifying the IPCC 2AR, even though Frederick Seitz exposed him. The outcome of that interlude was Santer walked and Seitz was smeared.
It’s been a steady stream of dishonesty, betrayal, and immunity from consequences, right from the start.
Reply to Julian Flood,
The 1940-50 decade is among the most troublesome of the Australian temperature data, even today. Long before Climategate broke, people like Warwick Hghes an I were questioning officials here and especially Phil Jones at CRU, seeking reasons to justify their huge adjustments. No satisfactory answer was reveived about anything we asked. It was all duck and weave, then repeat with extra obfuscation.
A correct record in the 1940 s could have a significance on warming estimates, reducing 0.8 deg C estimates for the century, to about 0.5 deg C.
The next most troublesome is around 1970-6 or so, the Great Pacific Climate Shift. Our BOM reports that they can see up to 0.15 degrees C of warming that could be from metrification of the records or from the Shift, so they just leave it there as more warming.
This is not good science. Geoff S
They have managed to inject the religion into our schools, brainwashing a generation. This will make it difficult to get truth heard or more to the point, understood. The young also have no understanding of the scientific method. They do not have inquiring or open minds. In short, they are mushrooms. We oldies at least, know what that means.
Mark,
Thank you for touching on the real crime here, a crime that eclipses even the climate-industrial complex’s embezzlement of trillions of dollars for its do-nothing war on a non-problem:
When we finally get serious about the systematic diseducation of children in the Oreskecene, when the impacts of consensualist pseudoscience are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these basterds—some sort of science Nuremberg.
“The Oreskecene”! I love it!!!
Michael
““The Oreskecene”! I love it!”
I don’t. I find it mildly obcene.
Young people eventually grow up and have to start paying their own heating bills, gas, rent and so forth. Oddly enough, their enthusiasm for “Green” taxes then diminishes dramatically.
looks like nothing other than their machine is far superior to ours
It’s certainly better funded, by a couple billion to one ratio. Note this, Moshpit, griffy, loydo, et al.
“Half-truths (omitting inconvenient data) is also a Big part of their toolkit”
I hope that pointing out the missing half of their claims will become a popular pastime.
I am still hoping that the whole scam, fraud, will come crashing down, sooner that later. I at least I hope to live long enough to see it. I comment quite often on sites like The Hill, who have more than their share of Alarmists. I know that when the hoax, scam, fraud is exposed, that these people will never, ever admit to believing it. “Who, me?” But I continue to endure the insults, if only for personal satisfaction.
Congratulations, Anthony and Charles, on a job well done….
Anthony and Charles, the story spinners over at the “Covering Climate Now” organization, if you can call it that, are no doubt doing a big stomp down on this topic and YOU right this minute…it will be difficult for WUWT to fight against these media influencers….
Never heard of them.
I have heard of WUWT.
The best way to teach how to identify a counterfeit bill is to present the details of the genuine.
Of course, Man’s understanding of all that falls under “Science”, climate or otherwise, is very limited.
WUWT has been true to being honest when presenting the “science” and other things. Mistaken at times?
Sure. Willing to admit and correct? Definitely.
(If Mickey was as honest we wouldn’t be talking a Hockey Stick. We’d be talking about a pool cue.)
Gunga,
Never heard of Guardian, National Geographic, WaPo….? and a couple of hundred other media members of this climate news collective….”now hiring” on their website….
I’ve heard of (and read) “Guardian, National Geographic, WaPo….?”
I haven’t heard of the “Covering Climate Now” organization. Or are you just using it to refer to the mainstream media?
Oh, it is a thing, see https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/about/ . Why didn’t you say so? It can be easier to counter a single big organization than a dozen smaller ones.
Thanks, Rick.
I followed the link and clicked on “Our Partners”.
It listed about 350 groups and individuals, most of which I’d never heard of but I have heard of some. The Weather Channel, DeSmog, Bloomberg etc.
(I was mildly amused that one of the “Magazines, Journals, and Digital News sites:” is called, “The Believer”.)
I also noticed that some of the groups/sites I had heard of in the past (ie RealClimate) aren’t listed.
But whatever their numbers are (adjusted or not), WUWT (plus other similar voices and blogs) is still here and is still the “go to” site (along with the others) for “RealClimate” information.
You’ll get the gist of them all here with a typical Guardian link on their web page-
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/28/everybody-has-something-to-lose-the-exciting-depressing-life-of-a-climate-writer
“We will not stay quiet on the escalating climate crisis and we recognise it as the defining issue of our lifetimes. The Guardian will give global heating, wildlife extinction and pollution the urgent attention they demand. Our independence means we can interrogate inaction by those in power. It means Guardian reporting will always be driven by scientific facts, never by commercial or political interests.
We believe that the problems we face on the climate crisis are systemic and that fundamental societal change is needed.”
That’s after telling you this-
“The primary challenge for a journalist is to make it feel personal. Without that, the science becomes abstract, global issues seem too huge to grasp, and it becomes difficult to relate to far off places and other species. Without that, the “environment” slips too easily into an elite pigeonhole for academics, policymakers and middle-class white people, when it should be recognised as the main driver of inequality, conflict and injustice. This is not just another subject; it is a prism through which to see the world.”
Doublespeak and it’s all about the struggle and the usual suspects.
DMacKenzie, this is nothing new to Anth*ny, Charles, or any of the long-time readers — they’ve always known about & been fighting against the massive propaganda machine from day one. Some sorry-arse upstart, “Covering-Up Data about Climate Now” or whatever, is of little concern.
Yahoo, Anthony! I’m looking forward to your announcement, …keep up the good work.
Ah yes, our beloved Dr. Mann:
My favorite theory, which nobody has yet refuted, is that because he avoided testimony under oath, we can infer (adverse inference) that Mann and his hockey stick are fraudulent.
Mann sued Mark Steyn and that’s dragging out in the courts the same way it did for Dr. Ball. Steyn counter sued Mann and that will have to be dealt with after Mann’s suit is resolved. Mann can’t avoid the consequences of his actions forever. I hope it keeps him up at night.
I remember it well. I had become a regular visitor to this site after Christopher Booker praised the work of Anthony. It was a fairly quiet evening when suddenly it became clear that some news was about to break.
I remember a period of intense drama then Anthony making his announcement while still travelling. The revealed emails began to trickle through. It was a wonderful time. it was just like catching a bunch of crooks red-handed, but better than that, they wrote the scripts themselves.
Were he still alive today, I am sure that Booker would have something important to say about ClimateGate, the ongoing climate change scandal and the valuable contibution provided by WUWT. Congratulations to Anthony and Charles and best wishes for the future plans.
I can’t quite remember when I started reading WUWT but I rather think it was because of reading Christopher Booker (RIP). Well done Anthony et al for everything you have done.
Josh’s cartoon reminds me…what became of Heidi DeKlein?
Yes, I was very sorry to hear of Christopher Booker’s death.
Looking back, I think it was the Sunday Telegraph that first got me concerned by climate change not long before Climategate.
It started with three consecutive articles in the Telegraph. The first and third were by Christopher Monckton, and the second was a response from Gore.
The first thing I noted was that Gore’s argument was mostly name-calling. I was also impressed that in the third article Monckton admitted a mistake – something that most climate scientists never, never do.
I also started to read Christopher Booker’s weekly column, which increasingly concerned the climate change scam – and also the EU. I still have huge respect for Booker’s writings, both on the corrupt EU and the anti-scientific climate change cult.
I would like to state my great respect for Christopher Booker and Christopher Monckton – both of whom share my first name!
And a huge, huge thank you to Charles and Anthony. Keep up the good work. Eventually the truth will prevail.
Chris
It was that same series of articles back in 2006 that changed me from being a believer in CAGW to confirmed scepticism. Funnily enough it was a BBC World Service program, Hardtalk, that had temporarily swayed me into ‘believers’ camp.
I’m ashamed to say that ever since then every BBC program on the subject of Climate Change has been dishonest and biased. Oh yes they are very clever at making their bias look factual and innocent. Watching this last effort could leave the unknowing viewer believing there was nothing wrong with either set of Hockey Sticks.
It was the late, and much missed, Christopher Booker who I first read recommending WUWT, then came Climategate.
Nothing has ever been the same since Anthony, Charles along with a few select others, such as James Delingpole, alerted the world to the fraud.
Their writing and their relentless exposure of scientific manipulation has been an exemplary example of true investigative journalism.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds, it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” (Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds. Charles Mackay, 1841)
Thank you Anthony and WUWT for helping so many recover their senses.
…Mann wrote, in August 2007, “I have been talking [with] folks in the States about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose [him]”…
Tough to find a bigger piece of work than Michael Mann.
Fortunately, there are few “investigative journalists” out there today. 😉
+10! Now if he had been looking for a propagandist journalist….
I see no reason to doubt that Mann did seek an investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre.
I also see no evidence against McIntyre.
Thus I see evidence that McIntyre was exonerated and Mann knows it.
But still he lies.
Wouldn’t surprise me if that claim was the same as Mann’s claim that he was going to appeal the ruling in his suit against Dr. Ball.
Mann has a pattern of making grandiose statements whenever something doesn’t go his way. He then quietly slinks off hoping that he got the last word.
I discovered WUWT a few years after it started, by accident. Better than a lottery win!
Completely agree, Great work Anthony, Charles, Willis, Lord Monckton et. al.
Lord Monckton’s summary of Climategate and its issues
Anthony Watts / December 1, 2009
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/01/lord-moncktons-summary-of-climategate-and-its-issues/
A comment following the Lord Monckton article:
cc_surf December 1, 2009 at 9:35 pm
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11466
The strata-sphere blog does an analysis of the 20th century with graphs included in the CRU data dump. He shows the published CRU graphs, with the 1940s warming period removed, and then displays the unmanipulated CRU graphs which include the1940s data.
The title interestingly enough is, “How to Hide Global Cooling: Delete the 1940’s Blip”.
Wake up, everybody.
This is all just a cynical smokescreen to distract the world from the 8th anniversary of Climategate 2.0.
I can’t believe ‘skeptics’ are falling for it. And I’m incredibly credulous, so when I can’t believe something, believe me, it’s unbelievable.
+42E42!
????
Yes, there was a Climategate 2.0 (and a 3.0) but I don’t see how you can call all this about Climategate 1.0 a “smokescreen”.
The “fire” started with 1.0. The others are just more fuel for the fire.
PS Correct me if I’m wrong, but all 3 came from one file. It was just divided into 3 releases as “Mr. FOIA” was able to sort them one his/her own.
Gunga Din,
What you forget is that between the releases, Mr FOIA had plenty of time to go cherry-picking, carefully selecting the 1,000 or 2,000 emails that looked bad when taken out of context.
I think that what you are forgetting is that every time someone added context, they looked just as bad or often worse.
The BBCs take https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-50396797/climate-change-how-did-a-hacking-scandal-impact-climate-science, with the usual suspects Michael Mann and George Monbiot. With an appearance by Steven Mosher
The coordinated media blitz on climate change at the end September has me asking the question why. It would seem more logical to do that in 2020 election season. There had to be something more than Greta’s arrival in the USA. Nature said that there were hundreds of media outlets involved. Is there an underlying climate trend that’s not being published because it undermines warming?
The “election season” has already begun, and quite a while ago. You must remember that some of the Democrat clowns in the circus tent are only lukewarmers – and therefore must be eliminated. The other side is that this is a “social policy issue” not a “campaign issue” – at least in the eyes of many. Fear is a powerful influence on how people vote, and creatures like Steyer and Bloomberg have plenty of cash to stoke it.
The coordinated media blitz on climate change at the end September has me asking the question why
Answer: COP 25 is coming up in Dec. The media always tries to build up the hype (about how “bad” climate change is and how we need to act *now*) in the months leading up to one of these confabs
COP-OUT 25.
Congratulations, Anthony, yet another WUWT birthday…………and still going strong.
Thank you for allowing me to contribute over the years.
And thank you, CTM, for your efforts to keep WUWT steaming ahead.
Sincerely,
Bob
PS: I’m looking forward to the surprise announcement, Anthony.
Anthony, CtM,
on the “No, Hurricanes Are Not Bigger, Stronger and More Dangerous” Roger Pielke Jr, post, new comments after the 7:30 am time stamp (last comment on thread: william matlack
November 17, 2019 at 7:30 am ) are NOT appearing. I’ve made two over 2 hours ago. And not there. Plenty of time for the update post cycle. Not in moderation either.
Are comments shut off there? Is WordPress shadow banning comments on that thread???
Joel
I’ve been having some trouble with scheduled posts not going live and having their post times screwed up because of it. That may have been what is causing your issue. I’m hoping I’ve fixed the problem.
two of my posts between the 7:30am and 11am posts on the Pielke Hurricane thread are MIA.
Looks like WordPress shadow banning to me, as a few others posted. Suspicious.
No doubt a lot people in Silicon Valley and academia would like to see WUWT and other such sites shuttered. Free speech and widely read blogs are quite inconvenient to the climate propaganda campaign being waged by the Left today.
(Found them in the trash bin) SUNMOD
Thanks SUNMOD.
Based on the time gap of posts &:3-am-11am PST, I suspect my comments were not the only ones going to the Trashbin.
regards,
J
Your post reminded me of a blog post from back in 2012 by Steve-
https://climateaudit.org/2012/09/13/ipcc-refuses-to-correct-errors/#comment-352288
Time keeps moving on and earth’s climate changes as well. Predicting the future of such changes with an eye to events of history keeps us guessing. It seems we are startled by some abrupt alteration of our expectations as with the current Arctic blast of colder than usual temperatures. Such experiences we image are some fore runner of future events. We are not intellectually nor emotionally geared for all the alterations we encounter. We like to be on cruise control. The starts and stops of heavy and changing traffic frustrates us and get us emotionally riled up. And yet, as history, even re-written history has shown us, change is always there and forecasting is a belief system dependent upon our faith in some future life after we pass away. “Think of what we are leaving our grandchildren” We will not be here to see any fruit of our labor nor justification for our worry. It is probably best to take in the spectacular events we have each day and appreciate them for what they are: events to be experienced with our senses and emotion.
And in those 10 years, the GAST has risen 0.25 degrees C. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:2009/plot/uah6/from:2009/trend/plot/rss/from:2009/plot/rss/from:2009/trend
Beware of short trends and a cherry-picked graph. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2009
Satellite data has much better coverage Christina, so yes, your “cherry-picked” graph doesn’t agree with other land based measurements such as these two: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2009/plot/gistemp/from:2009/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2009/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2009/trend
.
.
(HADCRUT3GL has been superseded by HADCRUT4GL)
1) The man who picks the last 9 years whines about cherry picking.
2) Land based measurements fall somewhere in the range of worthless to outright fraud.
It’s not nine years MarkW. The plot starts 01/2009, and goes to last month, and I used satellite data, so what is your problem?
Oh look Karl, Climate Change is accelerating!
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:1996/plot/uah6/from:1996/trend/plot/rss/from:2009/plot/rss/from:2009/trend
At this rate in 12 years the world will be ‘extincted’.
Karl, I assume you are trying to point that 0.25 temp per decade is quite a temperature increase. Well, that’s what happens when an alarmist like you cherry picks. . .
Take a look at when 4 decades, from 1979 until now.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:1979/plot/uah6/from:1979/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/plot/rss/from:1979/trend
Suddenly, the UAH increase is about 0.13 degree per decade (less than HALF of what you were trying to show); RSS appear to be a bit over 0.20 degree per decade.
But that also is a bit short, and since both UAH and RSS don’t go back further than that, how about the HADCRUT series from 1939 (8 decades; AND RSS is left on the plot to show it is similar to HADCRUT from 1979 on).
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1939/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1939/trend/plot/rss/from:1939/plot/rss/from:1939/trend
HADCRUT now is about 0.1 degrees per decade ; nothing extreme to worry about.
Irrespective of the time interval you pick, there are two things that are notable. First is that the GAST is increasing, no matter which time series you pick. The second thing is that the past decade has brought us record warmth: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/22/warmest-decade-on-record/
GAST will always ‘Rise’, ‘Fall’ or ‘Stay the Same’.
Staying the same is most unexpected. Why should anything be stable? The weather one day to the next is different. So why should its integral be constant?
Thus the question is, what importance should we ascribe to a 50:50 guess?
Enough to kill thousands through increased poverty from higher fuel prices?
No!
Warmth is good, cold is bad. It’s that simple.
Science measures “warmth” and “cold.” Science does not measure “good” and “bad.”
KARL M**X says:
Science does not measure “good” and “bad.”
Correct for once. Common sense does that.
For the millionth or so time…
I don’t know anyone who is informed that disagrees with a slight warming trend over the last 130 years or so. The argument is about:
(1) what is causing it: scientific evidence shows it is almost entirely natural and doesn’t correlate well with CO2 without major adjustments (I’m not aware of a single paper anywhere that can empirically show CO2 has any affect on this recent warming)
(2) whether or not a gentle and small warming rate is dangerous/catastophic: there is massive real world evidence showing it is actually hugely beneficial.
“scientific evidence shows it is almost entirely natural”
…
There is no precise definition of “natural” in science.
…
” it is actually hugely beneficial.”
…
Science does not have a definition of “beneficial” so that statement is outside the realm of science.
Karl can’t deal with the facts, so he invents ever more bizarre excuses.
Martin, all your comment indicates is that the rate of warming is accelerating.
Karl why is it so cold now?
Record cold…please send the warming
‘Record cold”
…
?????
…
Been to Hawaii in the past week?
Last time I checked Hawaii is a tropical climatic zone island in the middle of the world’s largest ocean and located under the influence of the atmospheric Hadley cell.
Quite how record cold temperature in continental places located under the influence of the Ferrel cell, and now falling under the influence of the Polar cell as it advances south in winter, is not clear to me.
The word climate has the same root concept as the word clino (as in inclination) and refers to the inclination of the sun. There are 3 main climatic zones on planet Earth, the tropical, temperate and polar zones, each of which is associated with the latitudinal reach of the three main atmospheric cells, Hadley, Ferrel and Polar. All of which are controlled by the daily rotational spin rate of our rapidly rotating planet.
Climate has absolutely nothing to do with atmospheric thermal radiant opacity. Climate is a dynamic mass movement and mechanical process. If you want to change the temperature of your climatic position then either move your location by continental drift or slow down the daily spin rate (good luck with those), or failing that alter the albedo of your continental landmasses, that certainly works.
Comparative Planetology: Establishing the Role of Meteorology in the Science of Climate.
NO, KARL, it does NOT !
All it does show is it has warmed since about 1970. From about 1940 to1970, it showed COOLING.
No doubt the earth has warmed from after the ‘little ice age.
But tell me, Karl, what was the cause of the Medieval Warm period? OR the Roman warm period? OR the MINOAN warm period?
YOU ARE AN ALARMiST ! LOOK BACK AT HISTORY, not just the pack few decades or so.
I don’t care WHAT you post after my comment, as it is late here, and I may not respond. What, is it your turn to be the ‘warmist troll?
Good night.
“All it does show is it has warmed since about 1970. From about 1940 to1970, it showed COOLING.”
I think that is a very important distinction that should be made more often. When alarmists claim it is “warming” they mean a steady warming from 1850. But that’s not how the climate works. The climate warms for a few decades, and then it cools for a few decades and then it warms again. Up and down, up and down, as President Trump describes it.
Our recent climate history, at least in the United States is that we warmed up from the 1910’s to the 1940’s, then cooled from the 1940’s to the 1970’s, reaching the same magnitude of cooling as was reached in the 1910’s, and then we warmed from the 1980’s to the present day. The warmest day of the 21st century was no warmer than 1998, or 1934. The year 1998 was a statistical tie with the year 2016 (the hottest year evah!), and 1934 was 0.4C warmer than 2016, at least, in the United States.
So when alarmists say it’s “warming” just remember, it’s relatvie. It depends on what period of time one is talking about.
The US surface temperature chart (Hansen 1999) is the real temperature profile of the globe. All unmodified surface temperature charts from around the world resemble the temperature profile of the US surface temperature chart, i.e, the 1930’s were as warm as today, which means CO2 did not have much, if any, influence on the temperatures in Earth’s atmosphere::
Hardly surprising considering the number of El Ninos we’ve had during that period.
El Ninos do not generate heat energy MarkW
Heat and temperature are different things.
Correct M Courtney. El Nino’s do not generate heat. So they are not the cause of the increase in the long term increase in GAST.
There could be no particular cause at all, Karl.
Climate warming could just be due to some semi-chaotic transfer of thermal energy into the atmosphere.
Linear thinking is a trap.
Nice, you first point out that it has warmed over the last decade or so.
Then when an alternate explanation is given, you shift to talking about the last 150 years.
Since you want to talk about the long term, the warming over the last 150 years has been about 0.7C which works out to less than 0.05C per decade.
No Pat Frank, you are wrong to say: “There could be no particular cause at all”
..
There is a cause. A pot of water sitting on a table will not spontaneously boil.
Pat Frank, if it is a “semi-chaotic transfer of thermal energy into the atmosphere,” please show us the source of the thermal energy that is being transferred into the atmosphere. Chaotic or not, you thermal energy isn’t magically created out of nothing.
Non-linear thinking will not repeal the laws of thermodynamics.
MarkW, in the past 150 years, the rate of warming has drastically accelerated.
Karl, in the past 150 years, the rate of warming has drastically varied. Be very careful in making predictions.
Energy transfer from one of the ocean oscillations, Karl.
The various oceans vent heat into the atmosphere with different time constants, some of them perhaps hundreds of years, some perhaps even thousands.
Look up Dansgaard-Oeschger events.
Spontaneous atmospheric warming of several degrees over very short times. With no known cause.
Dick Lindzen pointed out the fact of acausal warming over 20 years ago. No one listened.
Karl, this rapid acceleration exists only in your cooked books.
Nice dodge there Karl, did you make it yourself or did it come with the kit.
As everyone knows, El Ninos warm the atmosphere.
Since the warming of the atmosphere that has your heart all a flutter occurred during a period in which the number of El Ninos was both abnormally high as well as abnormally strong, that is sufficient to explain the warming of the atmosphere.
El Ninos do not last for a decade.
They may, or at least leave the planet in a warmer environment. Several big El Ninos left a bit of a step function in the global temperature data. It may be that the excess water vapor they released is keeping the poles warmer, so it may take quite a while to get that water out of the atmosphere.
Worth better study.
There you go again Karl, arguing against something nobody said.
Thank you for admitting that even you know you can’t support the ludicrous claims you’ve been making.
Karl:
Karl says:
“There is a cause. A pot of water sitting on a table will not spontaneously boil.”
BOIL? Really?!? That is your choice of reference?
Care to enlighten me as to what a “pot of water sitting on a table” has to do with the enthalpy driving Earth’s climate over time?
Hint: It ain’t boiling…
With our puny measurements of “who knows what” thermometer data (scant) over about 150 years of time how can anyone determine the dynamics of our enormous atmosphere, let alone the real heat content of this planet’s oceans?
CO2 does not generate heat energy either, Karl. your point? (other than at the top of your head that is).
“And in those 10 years, the GAST has risen 0.25 degrees C.”
And is just as meaningless as it ever was.
Smothered by error bars…
BINGO!
The errors and uncertainties in the so-called “data” (which has been “adjusted” so many times that it bears little resemblance to ACTUAL “data,” which would be the original instrument readings) are bigger than the supposed amount of temperature change.
I was home with a cold the day climate gate broke. I was obsessed with reading all I could about it.
Bravo to WUWT the Canadians 😂 Judith, Rud and all the rest. You can do no better than read Mr. Montford’s
Book on the subject. “Hiding the Decline”. While you are at it
“The Hockey Stick Illusion” is brilliant as well.
Thanks to all of you.
bob
“They have learned nothing”.
It does seem that way.
The propaganda has reached fever pitch but is anyone listening?
Fake News.
We have become aware of the duplicity of our “servants” and asked them to explain, their response has been personal attacks,shrieking and statements to the effect of “How dare you,we are perfect”?
The meme is fading,most of the original profiteers have moved on to new ways to reap the wealth of the gullible,all that drives the CAGW meme is the greed of bankrupt governments.
The current “frontmen” are markedly second stringers,either true believers or just going through the motions.
Money will talk on the carbon tax idiocy,as long as President trump refuses to sell the USA out to this UN scheme,the market will beat the gullible into poverty.Virtue signalling is noncompetitive.
I foresee massive reductions in the number of bureaucrats that taxpayers are willing to support,as a direct result of this naked corruption.
And science will suffer,with no sympathy from these same taxpayers.
Yes they seem to have learnt nothing,unless the current stridency is their awakening to possible consequences.For I detect quite a few notes of fear.Desperation even.
For according to “Climate Barbie” of Canada,the way to persuade doubters is to shout the message repeatedly, with ever increasing volume.
If any of us skeptics are aware of people wanting to become informed, this site of course, but the radio interview should be a starting point. I’m in awe of people like Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, who have determinedly faced off against what I believe will become known as the most egregious hoax, which claimed to use science in order to further their (climate alarmists) political agenda. Stunning.
Paris was charade. Had we not had climate to pull the run on COP15 it would have been WAY, WAY worse.
Where is this ” pulled the USA out of the Paris ” ? There was a rumble about this a week or so ago that Pompeo had made some statement but I have yet to even see link to what was said or done. It also claimed the he had given 12mo notice and that does not correspond to the four year notice for pulling out of Paris.
Facts please.
EICDA will never pass the Senate.
Involvement in the Paris Climate Accord was an Obama pledge President Trump reversed June 1, 2017.
Thanks John, I presume the date you state is when Trump said he would not be making any more payments into the Green Slush Fund. That was a decisive step and IMO, a good one. However, USA is still down on paper as being party to the Paris Agreement which requires 4 year period of notice. Despite yet another claim the Trump has “pulled the US out”, I don’t see the slightest evidence he has done anything on paper.
The billion dollars gifted the the Accord by Obama were from the Presidential fund. The second 500m was sent just prior to the end of his term in office.
His pledge is not a treaty nor a Congressional Act.
The USA is no longer nor ever was a party to Obama’s pledge. President Trump reversed Obama’s foolishness. This is why the 2b of Obama’s pledge will never be paid without Congress and President Trump’s signature.
Let Obama send the 2 billion. I’d prefer to see him pay back the 1 billion he wasted on nonsense!!!
Greg, maybe start watching Fox News….Trump gave final notice last month when , by the “Paris rules, it was required….It will become finalized 3 days after his reelection.
Greg
Paris was a voluntary agreement, with no penalties for failing to meet goals, which most nations will do.
The scaremongering about +1.5 or +2.0 degrees C. warming is nonsense — it has already warmed +2 degrees C. since the 1690s, during the coldest portion of the Maunder (solar) Minimum — no harm was done to anyone.
A lot of people on this planet would love to have their local temperature one or two degrees warmer — it’s global cooling that people hate — anecdotal evidence from the late 1600s make that VERY clear.
China and India were barely involved in the Paris agreement, so the agreement would have had almost no effect on Asian CO2 emissions growth.
President Obama promised $3 billion for the Green Slush Fund, and gave $1 billion — Trump said no to the next two billion — he was smart.
I bet other nations contribute next to nothing.
There is a two year waiting period before a nation can send an official Paris agreement withdrawal request.
That request was recently sent by the Trump Administration.
Then there is a one year waiting period before a nation can “officially” withdraw.
There is obviously way too much bureaucracy.
The Paris Agreement is mainly leftist virtue signalling, that will do nothing to stop the growth of CO2 emissions.
Even implementing the economy destroying Green New Deal in the US would not stop the rise of global CO2 emissions!
As a favor for you, I posted a chart clearly showing the effects of climate
agreements on the atmospheric CO2 level:
https://elonionbloggle.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-effects-of-various-climate.html
Thanks Richard, that seems to be the claim I’m trying validate. Where did you find that information?
You lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, especially when they prefer koolaid.
Please keep up
Article 28 of the agreement stipulates that a member can begin a formal withdrawal process no earlier than three years after the treaty enters into force. The Trump administration took this step when it notified the Secretary-General of the United Nations on November 4, 2019, that it intends to leave.
Trump’s notice of withdrawal will become effective one year later, on Wednesday, November 4, 2020—one day after the next presidential election.
“Article 28 of the agreement stipulates that a member can begin a formal withdrawal process no earlier than three years after the treaty enters into force.”
There was no treaty, just an Obama agreement. No need to formally withdraw.
Thanks you AK, that date was what I needed to find an authoritative source.
https://fi.usembassy.gov/on-the-u-s-withdrawal-from-the-paris-agreement-november-4-2019/
Good for him, he’d been so quiet on this since his initial declaration of his intention, I thought it was some bargaining ploy to get a “better deal”.
with US India and China not engaged to reduce emissions, the only turkeys still pumping this crap is the EU. At some stage they will have to stop shooting their own economies in the head and quit all this BS too.
Thank you Anthony for your work. Not many people have the opportunity to change the world. You are one of those fortunate few.
I donate every year to WUWT as it is critical that we have a voice in opposition to the taxpayer-funded activists, troughers (to borrow Delingpole’s term) and carpetbaggers who are doing so much harm to Western societies. I can’t donate a lot, primarily because I also donate to a dozen or so other organisations, but if a few thousand of us all donate a small amount a lot can be achieved.
I came to WUWT via Climate Debate Daily. Does anyone remember that? The idea was to provide links to articles from both sides of the debate so that ideas could be thrashed out and progress made. It was eventually closed down, along with a rather bitter note that it was clear that nobody took any notice of the other side, the whole exercise was pointless, and, anyway, it was clear that the sceptical position was untenable. A while ago I started my own blog, which goes a bit beyond climate change, but one article might be interesting to WUWT readers: https://uferox.blogspot.com/2019/09/how-to-shut-down-world.html. It draws on a lot of WUWT material but focuses more on how the debate got shut down. It might be useful to some people as a summing up.
Some self-promotion here but it is innocuous, second opinion please? Andrew Harding
Brilliant Anthony.
Thank’s for all your hard work and dedication. You have educated, informed, and converted me from an ignorant ‘believer’ into a well informed layman climate realist. I can not only hold my own in any discussion about climate events (or lack thereof) I can usually win the debate against genuine scientists, not that they ever admit this, but what alarmist does?
My facebook page is now regularly updated with scientific articles and I contribute to others like ‘Scotland Against Spin’, a page dedicated to the blight of wind turbines contaminating our beautiful country.
I have said it before but never tire of repeating that, my first port of call for climate information was skepticalscience. I was met with hostility and ridicule for merely asking questions. I found WUWT not really knowing it was a sceptical blog, and expected the same treatment.
Nothing could be further from the truth, I was welcomed by patient posters who never tired of answering my stupid questions. Serious scientists who took the time to explain things in layman’s terms in order, not to persuade me, but to encourage me to think for myself.
Thank you all.