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!
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climategate.nl, a Dutch blog like WUWT but on a much more modest scale with one or two postings each day, has just issued a booklet ‘Annals of Climate Hysteria’ with some twenty of the most interesting submissions. Would that be an idea to emulate? Say for each year collect the best submissions, bundle them in an inexpensive booklet. WUWT must have a wealth of stuff that would be useful to others.
That is a nice site with articles well worth reading. I am reading now about Timmerman getting an honorary doctorate and engineers throwing their diplomas in the fire in disgust …
Ed ==> I’ll check it out… thanks.
How about a “From the Vault” series. Say twice per week. Running most commented upon article in each week of WUWT, starting from week 1?
Not a bad idea, but sometimes large comment volume is just flame-throwing and not well considered points.
Marc and Kevin ==> Good points from both of you. I like the idea of “From the Vault” — kind of like an oldies radio station…..
An excellent talk on problems caused by attempting to integrate renewables into the grid and why it may be the wrong way to go anyway.
Issues Integrating Renewables • Watts Up With That?
Please forgive the horn tooting, but my favorite post was one of my first looking a historical weather that was as extreme as recent weather.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/10/35-years-ago-the-witch-of-november-come-stealin/
35 years ago: The Witch of November Come Stealin
13 years ago Ric Werme
Today is the 35th anniversary of the sinking of the Great Lakes ore carrier, the Edmund Fitzgerald. The shipped was sunk by “The Witch of November”, a strong Lake Superior storm that often occurs around the same time each year. Given the anniversary and recent storm that set several all-time low pressure records, I thought I’d collect summaries of some of the most significant storms.
One reason I like it so much is that the comments added greatly to to my post.
In the mutually delighted department, Janice had nice things to say about that post in her 10 year review which led to this exchange:
Ric Werme
November 17, 2016 9:04 pm
Well, I made it through the whole file. Okay, just a subset. Okay, okay, it was the subset that mentioned me. I have my priorities!
One reference convinces me that Janice did a great job. On page 892, she summarizes a post I wrote for the 35th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. I concentrated on the class of storm involved, and included several examples. It’s one of my favorite pieces, especially because WUWT readers greatly enhanced post by their comments, and Janice included the best of those comments. Well done!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/10/35-years-ago-the-witch-of-november-come-stealin/
Wayne Delbeke
November 17, 2016 10:24 pm
I liked that post too RIc – thanks. Wayne Delbeke
Janice Moore
November 18, 2016 12:50 am
Thank you, SO MUCH, for telling me that, Ric! Cool!!!
Ric ==> Yes, certainly one of the best —
Here is my opinion on the best WUWT article ever.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/26/climate-change-an-emergency-or-not/
This is the very best explanation I have seen (based upon the known physics) as to why Co2 can never drive global warming.
I would like to nominate: wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/floating-islands/
Floating Islands • Watts Up With That?
The Myth Of Replacing Fossil Fuels • Watts Up With That?
There is so much noise out there about renewables and so many stories claiming renewables are now this or that percentage of power consumption, and that they are this much cheaper or that much better.
This article was a true eye opener for me, I didn’t realize just exactly how bad renewables were failing.
One of the best take downs of the tree ring chronologies, I’d nominate the whole series but this is the one that grabbed me and got me digging into tree rings myself. It has the benefit of being easily understandable by people with no science background at all:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/30/yamal-treering-proxy-temperature-reconstructions-dont-match-local-thermometer-records/
I scrolled through the comments and was disappointed to find only one comment about Climategate. Climategate put WUWT on the map.
The story actually begins with Willis Eshenbach’s FOIA attempts to get data from CRU.
It began getting momentum in the summer of 2009 with crowd source FOIA attempts via Climateaudit and WUWT. In November, the floodgates opened. WUWT was never the same.
I second that.
Given the amount of discussion on this blog about the hypothesized greenhouse effect, or mechanism, as such (and how this can be proven or corroborated), it would appear we should be listing some articles as “best of” in that regard. I would note that you don’t actually have to believe that this hypothesis has been completely proven or corroborated, as a ’cause and effect’ attachment to CO2 level, in order to see the benefit of at least trying to *explain* what it is all about? In this regard, I can’t help but think of Willis Eschenbach’s ‘Steel Greenhouse’ discussions, so if someone wishes to look up a couple of those articles as ‘best of’, sure, list one or a few of those (I note that though, that these articles are really very *conventional* explanations of the greenhouse effect, so if you really don’t ‘grok’ conventional theory at all, look away please, don’t be annoyed..).
Further, with regard to trying to corroborate empirically what a ‘greenhouse related’ increase in downwelling radiation from the atmosphere might mean for temperature, Willis E. has been also been presenting us with a bunch of articles relating to that all along, generally with the implication that the effect on earth surface temperature is quite minimal in any practical terms. One relatively recent article along that line is https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/30/surface-radiation-absorption-and-emission.
In mentioning the above article (along with the previous articles in a similar vein by Willis Eshenbach), I caution that the many mysteries associated with climate change theories really do make it difficult to know for sure what articles to pick out and recommend! For instance, the above referenced article (a relatively brief discussion derived from CERES satellite date originally), actually ends with a graph that might seem to suggest a real world significantly ‘higher’ temperature increase over 20 years than Willis E. was expecting before?
The background on this is that some of Willis’s previous articles (from 2 years back,say), depended on comparative analysis of grid cell temperature changes over the surface of the earth, and inferring what that would mean ‘for the greenhouse’ (based on the usual 3.7 ‘watts per meter squared’ that theory would attribute to any CO2 doublings), with an implication of maybe just 0.5 degrees C for a CO2 doubling, in that analysis. So, now, with the more recent article from just one year ago, are we back to expecting 1.5 degrees C. for every CO2 doubling, who knows? it’s just challenging to really pick out the best work, the most trusty implications, etc.
And, oh yes, on a different topic, the widespread claim that we are in a mass extinction era, the classic takedown of this idea is Willis Eschenbach’s article https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses/
Again on a somewhat different, but related topic, what about David Middleton’s articles debunking the notion of an Anthropocene era, say https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/08/07/anthropocene-it-will-be-the-rocks-that-have-the-final-say-about-this-fake-word/
I nominate this article, just posted yesterday.
State of the climate – summer 2023
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/08/15/state-of-the-climate-summer-2023/
What are the odds for the best article to be posted now, after 2 decades of wonderful articles?
About the same as the sudden, surprising marine heat waves with no definitive explanations. But it happened and understanding why is a key to understanding the climate system right now.
Mike Maguire
August 15, 2023 3:36 pm
Not to ignore many wonderful articles here in the past but for me, as an operational meteorologist for 4 decades….this was THE BEST.
Thank you Dr. Curry for looking in depth at so many complicated and some uncertain elements potentially contributing to this sudden warming.
Explaining in detail what they are so that most people can understand(I hope).
Giving historical perspectives and analogs.
Sharing your wonderful, gifted insights of authentic science with the world based on solid principles of physics and meteorology!
We’re fortunate to have you!
Kip’s own series about models and chaos theory should be included (no links ATM).
Among my far too many curmudgeonly bookmarks are two from WUWT:
1) https://wattsupwiththat.com/
2) https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/16/diamond-princess-mysteries/
The first is obviously number one because it gives me snippets of everything else.
The second is the worstest, most dangerous, and denialistic link on WUWT. “Diamond Princess Mysteries,” undermined my ability to be persuaded by Rona Propaganda™ and resulted in my choice to remain a pureblood, (i.e. a “member” of the control group.) It did not help that my mom, my dad, and my brother were all injured by the Pfizer gene the-rapy vaccine. I took the path less traveled, indicated by the sign which reads, “Ivermectin.”
A few of Christopher Monckton’s ‘whole signal feedback’ articles should be included in any ‘best of’ list. Say, for instance, https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/08/feedback-is-not-the-big-enchilada/ .
Given that simple models or explanations of ‘greenhouse effect’ and of ‘water based feedback’ always involve using the ‘T to the fourth’ relation for describing the heat flow, it remains quite persuasive that there should be a reasonable way to describe the overall feedback as resulting from the ‘whole signal’, i.e., the absolute temperature, ‘T’, as Monckton has always said should be the case.
Of course, if the whole idea of gases like CO2 being an effective temperature ‘valve’ were to go away or be disproven, Monckton’s ‘whole signal’ version of this conventional idea would go away or collapse as well. In the meantime, conventional greenhouse gas theory doesn’t appear to have gone away really, so if we were wondering if some reasonable set of ideas puts a limit on what water feedback can do, why, here you go!