As I’ve said before, it is our duty to fight back against the wild claims of the rampant climate alarmism that permeates media, social and otherwise. Here’s an example of how you do it – writing a letters to the editor rebuttal. I urge readers to do the same when confronted with baseless scary claims.
My Letter to the Editor of July 13, 2023:
Letter: Sifting through a lot of hot air
This is a response to Michael Bertsch who wrote:
“July 4th was the hottest day in the history of humanity so far. … and when science proves you wrong you still deny the heat record’s connection to oil — this position is thick as a brick. We laugh at you. We’re all laughing at you.”
This shows Michael’s “thick” knowledge of the situation. That July 4th claim is false. It came from a website called climatereanalyzer.org using model data, not actual temperatures, and got picked up by know-nothing social media fools going viral, followed by the media that didn’t bother to check. Only two problems: it wasn’t an official temperature. In a July 5 Associated Press story, NOAA distanced itself:
“NOAA, whose figures are considered the gold standard in climate data, said in a statement Thursday that it cannot validate the unofficial numbers. It noted that the reanalyzer uses model output data, which it called “not suitable” as substitutes for actual temperatures and climate records.”
And there is the fact that the model only goes back to 1979, not “the history of humanity.”
Ooops!
The “excess heat” that spurred social media panic came from the waters off Antarctica, where apparently a computer model glitch made it look like shrimp were boiling in the ocean. Meanwhile, according to actual data, you know, from real measurements, the temperature of the Earth as of this writing is 57.47°F. That’s not “hot.”
I laugh at you Michael, in fact, we’re all laughing at you.
Full details and references here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/newspaper-letter-references/
Anthony Watts
Here is the Associated Press story: https://apnews.com/article/global-heat-record-hottest-climate-change-july-483fc8e2a286062773692db1a37efe23
Here is the graphic that caused the social media panic. See the little uptick in the center to 17°C. Note that it only has data back to 1979.
I’m pretty sure there were heatwaves before 1979, like the big one in July 1936. So much for Michaels claim of “the hottest day in the history of humanity.”
Here’s the big “heat source” that caused the panic – an apparent glitch (or short term outlier anomaly) in model output that made it look like the waters off Antarctica were boiling hot, and when “averaged” over the entire globe, made that false 17°C uptick.
Dr. Ryan Maue weighs in on Twitter trying to put out the wrongheaded social media fire. It isn’t even an up to date climate model, circa 2009/2011:
The global temperature as of this writing:
For source/info see: https://temperature.global
A model using data curtailed to 1979? How typical.
So many questions like, how is a record going back to 1979 conflated into covering the “history of humanity?”
Ego, hubris and arrogance? It’s a stunningly bad combination in anybody, more so in people that are laughably labelled ‘experts’ and excruciatingly so when the ‘expert’ model is so badly out of date.
Love the intro photo. Here’s a view from inside the can…
Those guys got one hell of a lot more room in that C-17 than we had on about any aircraft.
The history of humanity refers to when they started caring.
Nah!… the very last thing these clowns care about is humanity.
+1000 That’s exactly it – eco-nazis care less about humanity than the 1940s variety.
Well, they certainly don’t want anyone looking farther back than 1979…
“back to 1979 conflated into covering the “history of humanity?”
Simple: Like most of the climate alarm community – THEY LIED!
For most “journalists”, 1979 is ancient history.
Unless you’re talking about Watergate. That they never forget, they are still making movies about it.
Heck, I went to the Watergate Cover Up Trial in ’74. I was driving south from Woke-achusetts to tour Dixie- stopped in DC to see some museums and found out the trial was occuring. So we went and saw some of it- with all the relevant characters- other than Nixon himself.
exactly, I was gonna say that, having been born in the first half of the 20th century (1949)- I suppose for them, it’s comparble when I was a kid thinking about WWI and the Model T Ford
That’s an interesting way to look at history, make it more personal.
When I was old enough to learn that there even had been something called WWII, for my parents, aunts and uncles it had only been about 20 years ago. (Think about the year 2000 to us.)
For them WWI was only about 20 years ago when WWII started. (Again, think about the year 2000 to us.)
My Grandfather (Dad’s Dad) fought in WWI. For him the Spanish-American War was only …
PS My Dad was 10 when my Grandfather, his Dad, died in 1931. I never met him.
In 1903 my great grandmother registered herself and my grandfather and his sister onto the Dawes Rolls of the Cherokee Tribe at the Cherokee Nation within Oklahoma Territory. Eat your heart out Elizabeth “Phocahontas” Warren. White … err … Red Power! [I must be like those black Republican politicians; actually a white nationalist in disguise.]
My Dad’s Dad, born 1/2/3 (Jan. 2, 1903) turned 16 in 1919, during WWI, lied about his age, and joined the Navy. After the war he stayed in for awhile and served on the brand new battleship USS West Virginia, which was sunk at Pearl Harbor. My dad was too young for WWII but his older brother was in a submarine in the Pacific and he had older cousins in both the Pacific and Europe. He turned 16 the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
make it more personal
Maybe that’s why I have (I think) a little more perspective on history than some – my grandmother was born before 1900 and I grew up with her around. I still often look at things today in terms of what her life experience would have been.
Born in 1935, so what is happening today stuns the senses.
I saw this sited as “hottest on record” or “hottest in recorded history.”
I will leave it to the group to determine if both of those qualifiers mean the same thing.
I suggest both are meaningless. If it’s going to be science, you need to be precise in defining all terms and concepts.
IF they are talking about a particular site, both are the same thing.
If they are are talking about the Globe, before the satellite era, we don’t have any measure of Global temperature. Even that isn’t a measure of surface temperatures.
They are actually two different things. I’ll leave it up to readers to discern the difference.
It’s neither hottest on record nor hottest on recorded history because it’s no an actual record – documented evidence. It’s a rough guess based on an old model of the ‘world’s temperature’ – what does that even mean? Is it a meaningful number to average the poles with the Sahara and everything in between? Is the earth ‘overheating’ because of some rogue temperature anomaly in Antarctica during its supercold winter? How good are readings down there?
If I’m not mistaken, the first cell phone network was set up somewhere in Japan in 1979. But cell phones of the day didn’t have cameras or video so that’s probably just a coincidence.
(Amazing how much more intense weather events became once cell phones could record video!) 😎
In a similar vein, they also like to start measuring from the middle of the Little Ice Age, as opposed to the middle of the Medieval Warm Period, or heaven forbid, the middle of the Holocene Optimum.
The start of the satellite era, 1979. Great. One primitive satellite with a narrow coverage area and by definition uncalibrated. This is the anchor to which we moor our “science.”
Model outputs are not DATA.
Summer is still young – expect many more hot records, real or unreal.
Unreal is easier, you don’t have to wait for Mother Nature.
To the MSM, forecasting high temperatures using a model, makes them “real”
“Average global temperature” is not data either.
It’s a construct that has no real-world application.
Just a talking point.
or an arguing point.
Apparently, all sciences would agree with you- other than climate science!
Model outputs are mathematical opinions not facts or evidence.
And if the programmer knows what they are doing, they can get any answer they want, even if it comes down to changing “parameters”(fudge factors), and running the model several times.
Even something basic and simple like a temperature map – the creator can pick whatever colours they want – like mapping 20°C/68°F as orange instead of green for maximum propaganda effect.
Often, maintaining a narrative requires desperate measures.
With each passing day the alarm gets ramped up, it also gets proportionally more ridiculous.
Good work, that man! Watts, is it? Jolly good, old chap, jolly good!
Nobel Laureate: “Climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience” – Gript
NOBEL LAUREATE: “CLIMATE SCIENCE HAS METASTASIZED INTO MASSIVE SHOCK-JOURNALISTIC PSEUDOSCIENCE” Dr. John F. Clauser, joint recipient of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, has criticized the climate emergency narrative calling it “a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.”
Along with two others, Dr Clauser, an experimental and theoretical physicist, was the 2022 recipient of the Nobel Prize for work done in the 1970s that showed “quantum entanglement” allowed particles such as photons, effectively, to interact at great distances, seemingly to require communication exceeding the speed of light.
He has criticized the awarding of the 2021 Nobel Prize for work in the development of computer models predicting global warming, according to a coalition of scientists and commentators who argue that an informed discussion about CO2 would recognise its importance in sustaining plant life.
In a statement issued by the CO2 coalition, Nobel Laureate John Clauser Elected to CO2 Coalition Board of Directors – CO2 Coalition Dr. Clauser said that “there is no climate crisis and that increasing CO2 concentrations will benefit the world”
He criticized the prevalent climate models as being unreliable and not accounting for the dramatic temperature-stabilizing feedback of clouds, which he says is more than fifty times as powerful as the radiative forcing effect of CO2.
Dr. Clauser notes that bright white clouds are clearly the most conspicuous feature in satellite photos of the earth.
These clouds are mostly produced by the evaporation of seawater by sunlight. They cover variably one third to two thirds of the earth’s surface.
Most of the energy incident on the earth is in the form of visible sunlight. Clouds reflect sunlight energy back into space before it can reach the earth’s surface to heat it.
According to the Nobel Laureate, this creation of a reflective cloud cover provides a natural thermostat that regulates the earth’s temperature with a powerful negative feedback effect.
He asserts that this temperature regulating effect is more than fifty times as strong as the warming effect of CO2.
Dr Clauser’s statement said that the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and National Academy of Sciences repeatedly concede that the effects of clouds do indeed represent the greatest uncertainty in their climate predictions.”
He further adds that “The IPCC’s detailed analysis of clouds (AR5) and their effect on climate totally misunderstands the effects of clouds, and totally ignores this dominating energy transport process.”
According to Dr. Clauser, “The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.
“In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis. There is, however, a very real problem with providing a decent standard of living to the world’s expanding population, especially given an associated energy crisis. The latter is being unnecessarily exacerbated by what, in my opinion, is incorrect climate science,” he said.
However, the 2023 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calls for countries to ramp up their pledges to lower greenhouse gas emissions enough to reduce global emissions by 60 percent by 2035.
Dr. Clauser, an experimental and theoretical physicist, is Sheldon and Leonard rolled into one.
Climate “science” has a tiger by the tail and can’t let go. The worldwide repercussions of it being thrown off would be entertaining if the impacts weren’t so dire.
Clauser remarks now on home page: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/13/2022-nobel-prize-winner-climate-science-has-metastasised-into-pseudoscience/
I have been saying for ages that “climate science™” is FAR more dangerous to human existence than “climate change” can ever be.
Basically ever comment he makes, is what all the sane people on this forum already know.
<Starts making popcorn>
“Dr Clauser’s statement said that the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and National Academy of Sciences repeatedly concede that the effects of clouds do indeed represent the greatest uncertainty in their climate predictions.”
I assume that that is why our local weather forecasters don’t ‘get it right’ with ANY degree of accuracy. Mother Nature Rules!
Anthony, I can recall how much fun it was to open a can of climate whoop ass on someone, back in the days I was blogging. The headline made me smile, and I maintained the smile as I continued through the post. Thanks!
Regards,
Bob
Here in UK, I discovered a lovely rainfall radar website – infinitely better than the Met Office one.
here
It obviously also dispenses weather forecasts and also on the radar page ‘Storm Forecasts’
Great fun for the UK with all the Thunder/Lightning we’ve been getting.
The guy doing those warning-forecasts gets ‘Quite Technical‘ – he goes deeply into upper/lower/level troughs/ridges/fronts, steep convections, CAPEs and lapse rates
THE notable thing he keeps mentioning as a primary cause of the present UK storminess is the temperatures at the 500hPa level (Is that about 4,500metres, 15,000 feet?) and how it’s running ‘extremely cold’ up there at around -20°C
(Using a 25°C surface temp, my guesstimate of height and 6.5°C per km, it should be normally at -5°C – so minus 20 is ‘a bit off’)
(What do Spencer’s Sputniks see up there – 15°C is after all= seven times the resolution of his thermometer?)
So therefore, how do warmists assert that Global Climate Warming is making the hot weather and the storms when things are so goddam cold just above our heads?
When it is actually intense cold making the thunderstorms – just as it makes hurricanes.
Tornadoes similarly except that they are ‘enhanced’ by very hot and dry surface-air coming off Baja, Mexico, Arizona and Western Texas
If they weren’t measuring just UHI and aeroplane exhaust temperatures they might have a clue. As it is their insane obsession with getting hotter and hotter temperatures at the expense of rational thought seems to have left them right up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
I am getting confused with this hot/cold stuff. When they had the hottest day, it was freezing here in my place in OZ.
I did a quick search and found this about the coming ice age, 2018..
The Next Ice Age, July 23, 2018, American Thinker.https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/the_next_ice_age.html
All I know is its winter here and I have had the gas fire running most of the day to keep the house warm.
Stuff global whatever.
I don’t understand. There are two hemispheres in antiphase. Surely the graph that caused the social media panic should not be a simple sine curve?
It is to do with the ocean imbalance between hemispheres.
Much higher percentage of ocean in the SH than in the NH, and it’s really hard to heat water from above, whereas land warms up quickly.
So yes, a sine curve is what you would expect.
As I wrote in my novel Winter Games, any reasonable figure for Earth’s “average” temperature would kill a person exposed to it in a short amount of time. Indeed the novel’s protagonists, who are geologists, intentionally subject themselves to 59-degree temps while wearing shorts and a t-shirt and video record their own deaths from hypothermia, sending the videos to media outlets whose narrative-spinning drones proceed to lose their minds. The book was well received here, here, here, and here.
In the history of humanity, has there ever been a segment of the population as big and as dense as the Climate Believers? I think not.
I think the spiritualism / seancers of the late 1800s – early 1900s would be right up there in the running.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/seances
This fad has a lot of similarities with the Climate Crisis Cult.
Once the followers get invested in the AGW belief (“The Cause” as Michael Mann described it), usually through influence from already-captured associates, they see and hear only the “facts” about climates / weather behaviors that their “mediums” present.
All these fads eventually play out just as Charles Mackay described in his 1841 book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds
Witch-hunters?
Bruce’s question got me thinking of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers. The Wikipedia has this: “Shakers were celibate; procreation was forbidden after they joined the society …”
The movement is now down to just two or three members.
There is a small tendency of the ClimateCult™ to forsake children. We should encourage this.
“As I’ve said before, it is our duty to fight back against the wild claims of the rampant climate alarmism that permeates media, social and otherwise.”
Unfortunately, nobody is listening- outside this small community and some other social media sites. Take Stokes for example. Supposedly a highely educated guy with a PhD? Has he ever acknowledged any contrarian points here? I don’t think so. So, if he doesn’t and he reads almost everything here- certainly nobody else will either including the media- few of which read this site. It’s like trying to discuss theology with anyone who has faith in any religion. They almost never budge an inch. In a way, that proves that their belief is a new religion- because the skeptical community has many good points- but the other side never will admit that- so its insulting to climate scientists who are skeptical and those of us who listen to the views of those competent climate scientists. I’ve faced the same dilemma fighting against forestry haters for 50 years who have never, not ever acknowledged any of my points.
You’re wrong, people are starting to wake up the the nut zero con and the hypocritical climate alarmists
Well, maybe the ordinary citizen since they see their energy bills rising but the “intelligentsia” are not waking up. I see nothing here in Woke-achusetts indicating any such awakening in government agencies or the media or academia. Not even from businesses- all seem to bow to the new faith, or they’ve discovered a way to milk it for new riches.
The ordinary citizen only see their energy bills- they have zero clue about the disagreements in “climate science”. They know nothing about hockey sticks, tree ring thermometers, bad sighting of too many actual temperature measuring instruments. I just came from a parking lot at a local supermarket waiting for my wife- looking at the people walking pass the car. I thought to myself, “I wonder how many know about ECS- maybe I should ask them what they think the correct ECS is”. Then I realized not one of the hundreds of people I saw ever heard of that term. Not only is THE science out of site of “commoners” but the resistance to the new cult is even farther out of site. It doesn’t help that the media, all government agencies, academia and even businesses don’t help enlighten the public. As far as they’re all concerned, the science is settled! I have to refrain from my head explosion when I hear that.
The intelligentsia are already lost to the new cult, indeed many of them are making a good living from it
The real power base are ordinary citizens
As you rightly state, the high costs of the net zero future, including heavily subsidised, useless renewables, are coming home to roost
The more the blob pushes unaffordable net zero trinkets, such as heat pumps and battery cars, the more the masses will push back
Populist non net zero political parties will rise in popularity, as we are seeing in Sweden, Finland, Italy, Germany etc, and increasingly take up national parliamentary policy positions
It is inevitable – the more they squeeze the already hard squeezed masses, the more they will lose control
We are in for a painful few years, but common sense will return in the end
“sight” perhaps?
Follow the money.
When the UK CAB start ticking OFGEM off, you know whose side the Govt regulator is really on, and it ain’t consumers
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/07/13/ofgems-proposed-profit-margin-hike-for-energy-suppliers-opposed/
Writing letters to the editor on climate can be fun. About like how pissing into the wind can be fun. But, kudos for doing it anyway. Who knows, maybe it will get some people thinking about it, and actually looking into it more.
Below are comments from my experience writing letters to the editor (LTTE) on climate, energy, EVs, etc. In the last 10 years I have had over 100 LTTEs published.
A. Be aware of your audience. Being an engineer, you need to tailor your technical writing skills to J. Q. Public’s reading skills. Many people seem to have an allergy to numbers that make their eyes glaze over
B. If you have a community standing to protect, you should expect negative public and private feedback both professionally and socially. I am retired and don’t give a fig
C. Although including source information increases your creditability, it is not compatible with space and format constraints. Your smart, you can figure it out
D. Some editors are hostile to your point of view and will either not print your letter or reword it. An editor removed a reference I included in an LTTE which was followed by an LTTE that complained that those with my point of view never cite references. After a phone conversation with that editor, I decided to move on to friendlier territory
E. Some papers limit the number of words. I personally stay under around 400 words and confine myself to a specific message. The shorter the LTTE the better chance the editor can find a space for it. This comment is 282 words.
F. For writing quality I suggest “Flesch Reading Ease“ (this comment is 54.4) and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (this comment is grade 9.7). Both are available using Microsoft word and other sources
Although blogs are an excellent source of information, my experience is that most commentors have their own agenda and aren’t interested in explaining to you what to them is intuitively obvious.
The average temperature of the earth is several thousands of degrees. All that moltern iron and sulfur at the core don’t you know. What they mean is that infintesimaly thin skin of the biosphere. And to be clearer they refer to an even thinner slice of that infintesimal that is generally considered habitable. The Holosphere? Homosphere? A hundred meters down in the oceans or a thousand meters down in the crust and nature laughs at these “averages.”
People who claim that model output is data should also take Barbie and Ken Dolls out to dinner as well. If you stop and think about it for a few minutes, there is no difference between the two events.
Thank you Anthony. I believe that the alarmist headlines need to be countered with a pragmatic view of the best data available. Please continue to provide commentary such as this information. It may fall on deaf ears, but it may find fertile ground with some readers.
Here’ a nice reference for the coming days. I’m sure you all have seen how they are hyping summer temperatures here as something extraordinary. Well here is the list of the official maximum temperature recordedfor each state from Tony Heller that pulled it up from the Wayback Machine.
This way you can open your own can of whoop Ass when someone starts falsely claiming a temperature is “unprecedented” or a new record.
The reason Tony posted that was because of a false claim by the WPO and a Florida Meteorologist.
“In case you missed it.” | Real Climate Science
The table only goes to 2003. Interesting, but not current.
In June 2021 I had a temperature of 116°F in rural central Washington State; a record for me but not the State. 100 miles south of here it got to 120°. The earlier record was from just a few miles north of that at a place not occupied.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/extremes/scec/reports/20220210-Washington-Maximum-Temperature.pdf
Discussed therein is the weather pattern that got us the high temps. 2022 and now 2023 are not close to that record. So far, I haven’t made it to 100°. There is still time, but it is not expected. Subsolar point is at 21.77°N and heading south.
I don’t think we have hit 100 deg. F at my home here in a semi rural area about 35 miles NE of Indianapolis since 2012. But now I will know for sure because this week I installed my own weather station.
story tip: Activists upping the ante on hand-gluing protests: https://www.dailyo.in/news/activists-in-germany-glued-themselves-to-the-road-and-they-might-need-amputation-of-hand-40587
Airports on one hand, on the other: epoxy/resin mixtures that may lead to amputation. Video on twitter: https://twitter.com/TansuYegen/status/1679083757175808000
What a great take down against a lazy minded person who ran on his climate bigotry to the point of beclowning himself in the process.
Looking at the final picture of this article, that looks more like the northern hemisphere, not the entire world.
The media in New Zealand were all over this story. No checking just let’s spin the hysteria. I have noticed that the media everywhere often often project climate news using words like could, may, will, predicted etc. Always presenting their demented imaginations rather than facts. When their extreme weather predictions fail to materialise they say nothing and move on to the next imagined drama. Good journalists are hard to find or more likely can’t find employment.
I have no doubt that the 4th of July in 2023 was a hot day, after all it is summer in the nothern hemisphere and the little ice age is long gone.
You seem to miss the deeper agenda here:
>> and when science proves you wrong you still deny the heat record’s connection to oil
Having a hot day in summer and even this being the hottest day since a long time (not this day, but I believe it might come to that in some of the following year, just a question of probability and measured trends)..
… does NOT mean all the climat models are right all of the sudden!
This still has nothing to do with science!
Reality is that a CO2-effect is measured and real, but it can also seen from measured data that computer models overstate the CO2-sensistivity, missing key features of natural warming and are improved significantly, which means many statements based on older models (like in the IPCC4 report and before) were given on a false sense of certainty and need to be corrected!
It also means that climate scientists made statements with flase certainty over decades and so far refuse to correct them, in all likelihood their current statement lack credibility as we know the models are incomplete!
If I were a betting man, I put my money on the lukewarmers, global warming is real, CO2 contributes, but with a low sensitivity and so far it does a LOT of good like global greening!
“Reality is that a CO2-effect is measured and real”
Where? When?
Atmospheric warming by CO2 has never been observed or measured on this planet or any other.
Why must we always insist on interrupting a dangerously misguided fool when he is making a mistake?
from A.W.
“As I’ve said before, it is our duty to fight back against the wild claims of the rampant climate alarmism that permeates media, social and otherwise.”
Sleat, because there are too many fools making a mistake that is going to be painful to many. Also, isn’t it important to point out the role of air pressure’s role in heat waves?