General Announcement – 6 August 2023
Scroll to bottom for the update.
The Situation:
Recent reader comments have reminded us, once again, that in the WUWT Archives there are a lot of really good, even important, pieces that have unfortunately become buried in the “mists of time” – and are now only partially remembered. The majority of them are basic education on topics, basic explainers, and even many of the more general posts are just as timely today as they were when originally published – some even more timely now than then.
And while we have a “pretty good” search engine installed, it can often be hard for long-time readers to find that one particular post that they have in mind – they only remember that it was about “some certain subject” but not the one tagged at the top. There have been, after all, over 30,000 posts here since 2006 – averaging 33 per week for 17 years – averaging, long-term, 4 per day. [These are, admittedly, gross estimates from the basic total number but fairly accurate none the less.] In more recent times, we have tried to maintained a schedule calling for about 6 new original posts per day — a grueling demand on authors, editors, sys admins and moderators.
And, like your email account, as more and more new things pour in, the older things sink to the bottom of the page, the bottom of the stack, the bottom of the archive. Further and further down under the weight of the new.
This is unfortunate. WUWT attracts new readers every day. They haven’t had the opportunity to read the previous deeply explanatory posts on important topics. Long-time authors often allude to previous posts — “As I have explained many times….” — but authors just can’t link to ten past posts published over a period of years…and even if they did, most readers following the links would discover they have been assigned a week’s homework reading! And not all of the links would be of the same quality or value.
What We Propose:
The idea, still in its infancy, is to create a new section of the site that would appear in the navigation banner at the top—alongside of About, ClimateTV, Books, etc—named something-along-the-lines-of The Best of WUWT. That link would lead to a list of posts nominated by our readers as the most informative, most useful, most readable, most whatever you readers classify as “best”. These would be probably broken into categories by subject – Best Posts on Sea Level, Best Posts on Surface Temperature, etc.
As “Best” is a judgement call, who better to make those judgements than our readers.
The Rules:
There are no rules.
How to nominate:
Readers only need leave a comment and nominate posts for inclusion. The most useful way would be by URL. If not that then with the post Title (Headline).
Example:
This is a URL — https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/01/anthony-on-livestream-what-climate-emergency/
The post title was: “Anthony on LiveStream – ‘What Climate Emergency?’
After that, you can try a post description, but we probably will not have the time or the energy to do the searching for you – so, make your nomination count: give us a URL or Title.
Hint: In recovering the URL for a WUWT post, it can also be useful to use one of the major web search engines which might find your favorite post with a search such as — “by Kip Hansen” Wasting Time WUWT which returns a recent post by that author on that subject as the first item on the list.
It would be helpful if you gave a short statement on why you are nominating a post: “I use this time and time again to show my students….”, “I found this post exceptionally educational.”, “Best primer on the topic I’ve ever seen.” You get the idea. Readers can also suggest a “section” in which the post might be included: “Global Average Surface Temperature”, “ENSO”, Climate Sensitivity”, and the like.
UPDATE:
Perhaps I should’a/could’a been clearer.
This is not a contest. We are NOT looking for the One Best post — we are looking for all of those many Best Posts out of the >30,000 posts in the archives.
Maybe I should have said “suggest” or “recommend for inclusion” – but nominate seemed more fun.
For you this means you don’t have to agonize over which post you think was the #1 Best – if you have any you really liked or really found useful, suggest them in comments – all of them that fit your idea of those that were the best.
You can suggest/recommend/nominate as many as you like –more is better.
Nominations Are Now Open!
– – – – –
On ITCZ failure in models
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/18/dueling-itczs/
and the same from 8 years ago:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/17/lamenting-the-double-itcz-bias-in-cmip5-climate-models/
Excellent article showing that satelite altimetry and sea level gauge obs don’t match:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/17/inside-the-acceleration-factory/
And the fudging of satellite data to shjow “acceleration”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/21/munging-the-sea-level-data/
Pat Frank’s “A Climate of Belief”.
This essay explains why climate models produce unreliable projections. I agree with Dr. Frank’s conclusion:
“So the bottom line is this: When it comes to future climate, no one knows what they’re talking about. No one. Not the IPCC nor its scientists, not the US National Academy of Sciences, not the NRDC or National Geographic, not the US Congressional House leadership, not me, not you, and certainly not Mr. Albert Gore. Earth’s climate is warming and no one knows exactly why. But there is no falsifiable scientific basis whatever to assert this warming is caused by human-produced greenhouse gases because current physical theory is too grossly inadequate to establish any cause at all.”
Willis Eschenbach’s “Munging the Sea Level Data” and “Inside the Acceleration Factory”
These posts expose the faulty foundation of the claim that the rate sea level rise is significantly accelerating and thus remove an important plank in the alarmist narrative.
Kip Hansen’s two part series “Why I Don’t Deny: Confessions of a Climate Skeptic”
This series is a very well-written explanation of one of the main problems with the alarmist claims, namely, the fact that the alleged influence of human-caused greenhouse gases from fossil fuel usage is invisible in the temperature and sea level records.
I would like to nominate a WUWT piece done early during the covid pandemic by Leo Goldstein on HCQ. It had several hundred comments and there was a reference to a Utube series, MedCram, specifically MedCram 34. I forwarded this piece to a person who was living in NYC at the time and had a family member who was a MD. I later learned that this MD and the entire staff, top to bottom, took HCQ prophylactically as a result of this info. They worked in what I would call ground zero of that time and as a result of this information had no covid cases in that group I believe.
Not a single case. While being exposed to the virus daily
I realize this is not a climate issue but it did save lives in my view….
A couple of my favorites–probably not important, but fun–was when Anthony was named a Reverend and when Kenji joined the Union of Concerned Scientists. Janice has them both on her list.
It may be that the post I remember is “NCDC writes ghost ‘talking points’ rebuttal to surfacestations project” from June of 2009. If so, the Yahoo was named as an update on that post.
Janice has the link address on her list.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/05/26/how-not-to-measure-temperature/
The post that me hooked on Anthony’s research…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/
The post that caused many to start to question authority.
Since others have nominated many of the estimable Willis Eschenbach’s posts, particularly about his intriguing thermostat hypothesis, I won’t try to scour my memory for more. Unbidden, however, a very early greenhouse-effect post of his comes to mind: “The Steel Greenhouse.”
I would also include Ferdinand Engelbeen’s “Why the CO2 Increase Is Man Made” parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.
And, although I remain of the opinion that its logic was faulty, the indefatigable Robert G. Brown’s “Refutation of Stable Thermal Equilibrium Lapse Rates” has to have been among this site’s most popular. Although I may quibble with its logic, he was extremely generous in responding to comments. Together with his head post those responses provide a good primer on lapse-rate physics.
Hmmmm. I just don’t understand “The Steel Greenhouse” post.
I recommend
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/
Frank ruins the argument that CO2 controls temperature.
Recent reader comments have reminded us, once again, that in the WUWT Archives there are a lot of really good, even important, pieces that have unfortunately become buried in the “mists of time” – and are now only partially remembered.
Now imagine writing an actual science paper.
As a Graduate student, even in the liberal arts, you have to show your readers a
“COMMAND of the liturature” a comprehensive understanding of the historical literature
the relevant issues, the topical controversies.
Just as an example. imagine you are writing a paper on the GHG effect, off the top of your head you should be able to list the key publications, otherwise you have no business
writing about it.
The other day I was puttig together a discussion of adjustments due to Time of Observation Bias.
a really fascinating topic with a publication history that goes back to pre 1900s, suffice to say, its hard to start writing when its years of catchup reading
I’m also remininded of a catchphrase we used to have at climate audit when newbies showed up. “have you read the blog?”, meaning, before you comment or question you
better read every article. Before i wrote my book on climategate, thats exactly what i did.
i read every post, every comment. it was easy for me because as a graduate student after
2 years you had to select 4 qualifying exams for Phd. each qualifying exam had 200
core texts– books— you had to master and be able to explain without the help of google.
WUWT could give you an education in skepticism but it needs structure and accountability
not every skeptical argument is good. some get built on, some get mindlessly repeated,
some get answered, some get ignored.
In any other field, heck even in humanities, newbies are directed to the classics,
literature build on the classics, students extend the classics, experts challenge the
classics.
Ideally in a University of WUWT you’d have a dean, chairs of departments, ciriculum, etc
Don’t know how this has been down-voted. It makes novel points and speaks from experience.
Not sure I agree with the gatekeeping of a dean and admin. But a means of distinguishing dross from gold would be useful. Some other way to rate articles that isn’t
personally hierarchical.
Also, everything needs an index.
Mosher ==> Not quite sure I get your point about “a dean, chairs of departments, ciriculum, etc”
The reason for this post is to identify the best of the stuff here — because, you are certainly right — “WUWT could give you an education in skepticism but it needs structure and accountability not every skeptical argument is good. some get built on, some get mindlessly repeated,some get answered, some get ignored.”
WUWT is not a journal — it is a opportunity for sharing ideas and knowledge. Some of the posts here are utter nonsense– of course. (Mostly those posts got trashed by readers.) Some are terrific backgrounders and basic topic education. Some were innovative led to journal papers.
The idea behind this post is to try to build a section so that readers “are directed to the classics”.
Bob Tisdale’s articles on ENSO (there are several).
Here is a non-inclusive sample:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiZl4vDitCAAxUVkWoFHf6yDbAQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwattsupwiththat.com%2F2014%2F01%2F10%2Fan-illustrated-introduction-to-the-basic-processes-that-drive-el-nino-and-la-nina-events%2F&usg=AOvVaw3TyunNP0ChjQmqexcU1bBE&opi=89978449
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiZl4vDitCAAxUVkWoFHf6yDbAQFnoECBQQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwattsupwiththat.com%2F2012%2F12%2F03%2Fel-nino-southern-oscillation-myth-1-el-nino-and-la-nina-events-are-cyclical%2F&usg=AOvVaw3V1f2LiM4mPntrck-J4HIe&opi=89978449
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjYq6v6itCAAxXzlGoFHTdjA50QFnoECBIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwattsupwiththat.com%2F2012%2F12%2F11%2Fel-nino-southern-oscillation-myth-2-a-new-myth-enso-balances-out-to-zero-over-the-long-term%2F&usg=AOvVaw3PSG53L9N1oLVC1vsp0tRu&opi=89978449
Copying Google’s links is generally is not what you want. At least, it’s not what I want.
Links to the actual articles:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/10/an-illustrated-introduction-to-the-basic-processes-that-drive-el-nino-and-la-nina-events/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/03/el-nino-southern-oscillation-myth-1-el-nino-and-la-nina-events-are-cyclical/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/11/el-nino-southern-oscillation-myth-2-a-new-myth-enso-balances-out-to-zero-over-the-long-term/
As “Best” is a judgement call, who better to make those judgements than our readers.
critics might make the best judges
Mosher ==> Feel free to suggest as many of the best as you like….
I found Willis Eschenbach’s Where are the corpses very informative , when someone brings up mass species extinction I usually ask if they could name 10 species that went extinct in the last 100 years on a continent. And with that the other side loses their moral high ground.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses/
I nominate one of Wim Rost’s excellent posts on long-term ocean cooling and the development of the Pleistocene Ice Age.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/13/cooling-deep-oceans-and-the-earths-general-background-temperature/
I recommend posts from Willis and one by Javier
First is Willis’ post about why compressive heating by gravity of a transparent atmosphere cannot lead to an equilibrium surface temperature hotter than what would occur in the absence of an atmosphere (because then it would emit more energy than it absorbs without cooling, violating conservation of energy).
Here, I found it:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/13/a-matter-of-some-gravity/
Roy Spencer has a nice explanation of the usefulness and importance of Willis’ elegantly simple counter-example:
Giving Credit to Willis Eschenbach – Roy Spencer, PhD. (drroyspencer.com)
Second is one of Willis’ thermostat posts. He should be able to pick a good one to represent the subject.
On the thermostat theme, I would also recommend a post by Javier Vinós on how faster transport of equatorial heat to the cooler poles as the equator warms up is a primary mechanism of global temperature regulation (since at the poles there is little of the main GHG, water-vapor, to hold the heat in).
Willis has made many great posts, but I would not include A Matter of Gravity among them. To believe that O2 and N2 concentrations in the atmosphere have no impact on surface pressure or temperature is just strange. O2 and N2 collide with radiation leaving the surface as do GHGs, they just don’t absorb the radiation and turn it into kinetic energy through vibration. Of course, that only holds when O2 and N2 are in equilibrium, which the constant collisions prevent from happening. Here is a thought experiment. Suppose you double the concentration of N2 in the atmosphere, would the surface temperature change? (at least this thought experiment makes some sense.) If one believes in the gas laws, the answer is surface pressure and temperature would rise.
I, too, disagree with Mr. Eschenbach’s (well, actually, Duke Professor Robert G. Brown’s) view, in these posts. As I explain there, though, my disagreement is just an academic quibble. The fact is that without greenhouse gases the atmospheric-pressure increase that results from more gas wouldn’t by itself lead to any measurable temperature increase.
I thought for sure this post from 2014 would be on the hit parade:
Methane: The Irrelevant Greenhouse Gas
Media outlets endlessly tell us methane is so many times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat when clearly it is not. The unelected bureaucrats that inhabit the swamp are planning to regulate cattle ranches, rice paddies and dairy farms over this fantasy. The Global Warming Potential, GWP, numbers that appear in all six IPCC Assessment Reports need to be thoroughly debunked.
Best estimates from a variety of sources say that by 2100 methane might run-up global temperatures by an essentially unmeasurable small fraction of a degree.
The GWP numbers use the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere as a standard.
Since CO2 is steadily increasing the GWP for methane has increased over the years:
FAR 1990 GWP 63
SAR 1995 GWP 56
TAR 2001 GWP 62
AR4 2007 GWP 72
AR5 2013 GWP 85
AR6 2021 GWP 82.5
By the way what metric other than the GWP numbers use a standard that constantly changes over time? That doesn’t make any sense.
The most influential people on me – on climate and energy, in the last 10 years – both arrived a few months ago:
1. Tom Shula : https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/18/a-novel-perspective-on-the-greenhouse-effect/
2. Andy West : Book: “The Grip of Culture”
Tom Shula – because the gives empirical evidence against the so-called consensus narrative. Tom Shula blows the greenhouse gas effect out of the water with irrefutable evidence.
Andy West – because he explains the success of the climate narrative – why and how it colonizes our souls and glues us to ideology.
My nomination is really for the best of climate realism everywhere – not only WUWT.
I agree with you that Shula’s article is worthy of mention. I’m not why Javier and others panned it.
Kip. I think links to articles that dealt with scientific misconduct of the ‘stars’ of ‘disaster climate’ : climategate emails, retracted papers (Karoly?), a report in WUWT on eminent GBR ecologist at U of Delaware (grad of the notorious Cook U reef catastrophists in Queensland) https://www.science.org/content/article/star-marine-ecologist-committed-misconduct-university-says , hiding the decline, disappearing the MWP and LIA …
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/25/the-best-christmas-present-to-humanity-ever-weve-just-had-the-best-decade-in-human-history/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/16/elevated-living-standards-contradict-climate-doomsayers/
I suggest that the “best of WUWT” should have a set of articles that deal with each of the specific alarmist claims like accelerating sea level rise, increasing storms floods and droughts, the demise of Polar Bears and the Great Barrier Reef, etc, etc.
I’ll kick it off with a sea level article …
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/29/science-catches-up-with-wuwt/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/15/greenpeace-founder-delivers-powerful-annual-lecture-praises-carbon-dioxide-full-text/
One of the most powerful statements on CO2 and climate alarmism.
= = =
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/28/new-paper-modulation-of-ice-ages-via-precession-and-dust-albedo-feedbacks/
One of the most important papers (I think) on CO2 and the glacial / inter-glacial cycle, by Ralph Ellis and Michael Palmer. It may also be worth noting that after this paper started to get noticed that Wikipedia deleted Ralph Ellis’s Wikipedia page. The deletion was recorded on DeletionPedia for a while – https://deletionpedia.org/en/Ralph_Ellis_(author) – but DeletionPedia itself is now no more. Wayback Machine to the rescue:-
https://web.archive.org/web/20211020070928/http://deletionpedia.org/en/Ralph_Ellis_(author)
= = =
It may be worth noting in “Best of WUWT” that many of the best articles in WUWT have presented articles or papers published first on other forums. ie, they are not necessarily WUWT originals, but were important articles that were published on WUWT.
“many of the best articles in WUWT have presented articles or papers published first on other forums…”
One of the great strengths of WUWT posts is that WUWT collects those. There is little that escapes WUWT’s notice, and that makes it the best site to keep abreast about what’s going on.
A suggestion for this project or the top bar would be a list of quotes that go to motive.
For example, I don’t have the exact quote, but, someone said something to the effect that, “Even if CAGW is wrong, we have to support it because we’ll be doing the right thing.”
story tip
EU METIS 3, study S5 The impact of industry transition on a CO2-neutral European energy system
Publication metadata The main objective of this study is to gain deeper insights into possible pathways for industry decarbonisation, their resulting energy demands and the impact on the overall European energy system.
https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/72954c87-327a-11ee-83b8-01aa75ed71a1/language-en?WT_mc_id=Searchresult&WT_ria_c=37085&WT_ria_f=3608&WT_ria_ev=search&WT_URL=https%3A//energy.ec.europa.eu/
English PDF there. Buried there is this bombshell :
Fraunhofer-Institut: Produktion von grünem Wasserstoff in Deutschland lohnt sich nicht
Fraunhofer Institute: Production of green hydrogen in Germany is not worthwhile
Turned up in Epoch Times.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/08/some-of-the-most-encouraging-graphs-about-the-human-condition-youll-ever-see/
Kip
Every couple of days I wander by the see what people have most recently nominate. I did tonight and noticed someone suggest best by topic. Good idea. The post by Willis I nominated earlier goes under “curious stuff” and this then reminded me of the excellent and informative post by Ed Zuiderwijk
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/08/06/a-brief-tale-of-wind-and-steam/
from a couple of years ago.
Typos. I have to proofread better.