The President On Climate Change

From his Commencement Address at the University of California at Irvine:

Now, part of what’s unique about climate change, though, is the nature of some of the opposition to action. It’s pretty rare that you’ll encounter somebody who says the problem you’re trying to solve simply doesn’t exist. When President Kennedy set us on a course for the moon, there were a number of people who made a serious case that it wouldn’t be worth it; it was going to be too expensive, it was going to be too hard, it would take too long. But nobody ignored the science. I don’t remember anybody saying that the moon wasn’t there or that it was made of cheese.

And today’s Congress, though, is full of folks who stubbornly and automatically reject the scientific evidence about climate change. They will tell you it is a hoax, or a fad. One member of Congress actually says the world is cooling. There was one member of Congress who mentioned a theory involving “dinosaur flatulence” -- which I won’t get into.

Wait. Dinosaur flatulence?  Who the heck said that?  It was Representative Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA):


Yea, T-Rex farts. That's the reason.

Rohrbacher seems to be saying that since we don't know that it wasn't dinosaur farts that raised the temperatures millions upon millions of years ago, then we can't say for certain what NOAA says is undeniable.

You know what else hasn't been disproven regarding the current rising climate cycle?

• The Illuminati
• Bertrand Russell's orbiting teapot
• The Harvest Goddess, Demeter, is now approaching middle age and is having hot flashes
• God is punishing the world for being just so nice to teh gays

Look each of them up.  You'll find nothing to disprove any of those theories (and remember, climate change like evolution is only a theory) anywhere.  So therefore, climate science can't be trusted.

Or...or you can go with science and rational thinking.

Climate Science - One View From The Party of Stupid

From Talkingpointsmemo:

Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) said Monday that it is "foolish" to believe humans can cause climate change.

MSNBC host Richard Lui had asked Miller if he thought messaging against man-made climate change would be detrimental to Republicans' 2014 and 2016 election prospects. Lui cited a poll of Florida voters who said that on the issue of climate change they trusted scientists over Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who does not believe human activity contributes to global warming, by a margin of 56 to 33 percent.

"Well, I think anybody would answer a poll and say that they believe the scientists, but you have to understand that it is not settled science," Miller said. "The issue of climate change has been happening for a long time, and for us to be able to think that we, as matter of fact, can change what's going on right now to any substantive measure is really kind of foolish in my opinion."

Except we know the science is settled.

But that's not just where Miller's silly happens.  That happens next.  He said that it's always going from hot to cold and so on and when asked whether this warming is manmade, he answered:

Then why did the dinosaurs go extinct? Were there men that were causing -- were there cars running around at that point that were causing global warming?

I guess he's not a young Earth creationist.

But with that pair of questions, Miller jettison's whatever science credibility he has.  Mankind didn't produce that asteroid 66 million years ago either.  So that of course means that mankind can't influence the climate.

The Party of Stupid, sorry.

Colin McNickle Of The Tribune-Review: Science Denier

In yesterday's Tribune-Review, columnist Colin McNickle uses a rather old-fashioned logical fallacy in his paper's ongoing crusade to discredit the undeniable - that Climate Science is valid and the Earth is warming up due to us..

Here's what he does:

“The Arctic seems to be warming up,” wrote George Nicolas Ifft, the American consul to Norway, in a report submitted to the State Department. “Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers who sail the seas ... all point to a radical change in climatic conditions and hitherto unheard of high temperatures on that part of Earth's surface.”

But this was no contemporary dispatch from a modern-day climate-clucker flapping his wings and his beak, squawking that the world as we know it will end unless the world reorders the world economy by essentially destroying the world economy to “save the world.” (Such fanatic rhetoricians typically repeat the word “world” far more times.)

No, Mr. Ifft's report was filed nearly 92 years ago, on Oct. 10, 1922. A month later, it was published in the Monthly Weather Review. And “change” hardly was framed as a pejorative. In fact, and if anything, Ifft's dispatch contains the hint of potential new business opportunities and, sorry, cluckers, intimations of the recognition of the vagaries of climate.

See that?  The arctic warmed up way back in 1922!  So all the science that says it's going on now is obviously false, right?

The only problem with this whole argument?

It was debunked 4 years ago.

Professor Goreau's explanation of this "Wagga Wagga" logical fallacy:

Those who seek to deny global warming constantly use transparently obvious tricks, selecting data from a single time, a single place, or both, to deny the larger long-term global patterns. This is easily done as climate is constantly fluctuating, so picking out the mean patterns and trends requires that one integrates the data over the largest time and space scales possible. So if one dishonestly wants to misrepresent the larger patterns, one can always find a particular place at a particular time that does not agree with the all the rest averaged together. This is sometimes referred to as the “It’s a cold day in Wagga Wagga” approach, and is repeatedly used by the climate change deniers to fool people who haven’t looked at the data themselves. The changes in Arctic Ice are no exception!

And he specifically cites Ifft's publication:

This set of observations from a limited area (Spitzbergen) in one year has been used by deniers to suggest that there are huge natural fluctuations, and to imply that there is no global warming.

Globally however the sea temperature trend is obvious:

Regionally, though, there does seem to be a rise in Arctic temperatures in the 20s:

But notice what McNickle decided not to tell you.  According to the data, there was a big increase in Arctic temperature followed by a big decrease that ended sometime in the early 60s.  Then another rise (one that corresponds with a rise in the "various sources of energy used during the century" (gas, coal, oil among them).  Imagine that.

So so interesting that Colin McNickle decided not to tell you the full truth.  It's either that or he failed to fully research his topic before writing his now debunked column.  Which is it?  Incompetence or dishonesty?

Colin, my friend, you really really need to do your homework better than this.  If you had, you wouldn't look as foolish as you do right now.

Doesn't Anyone At The P-G Fact-Check Jack Kelly?

How surprising is this?

In a column titled "The facts don’t add up for human-caused global warming" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette comedy writer conservative columnist Jack Kelly gets, well, his facts wrong.

Which facts?

Well, let's start with HIS FIRST PARAGRAPH:

The first five months of 2014 have been the coldest since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1888. If “climate change” alarmists got out more, they might have noticed.

I am not really sure where he got his data, but it simply doesn't conform to the "year-to-date" data at NOAA. Here's the YTD for Jan-Apr, 2014:

See that last red column wa-ay over on the right?  That's this past January-April.  As far as I can tell, it says that globally (and that's the only data that counts) it was about 1 degree Fahrenheit above average. See all those blue columns on the left?  Those are all the years colder than the average.

Show me where, Jack, it says that it was colder globally than 1888?

So I'm not sure where Jack got his data.  Given the extraordinary claim, shouldn't this be backed up by some sort of reference?  Where did he get this?  How does he explain how it's at odds with the expert's data?

Shouldn't this have been checked at the P-G?

Then there's Jack's SECOND PARAGRAPH:

Between 1979 — when weather satellites started measuring temperatures in the lower troposphere — and 1997, they rose about 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.98 degrees Fahrenheit).

This was explained in 2006:

In November 2005, Carl Mears and Frank Wentz at Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) performed an independent analysis of the satellite data. In the process, they found an algebraic error in the UAH [University of Alabama in Huntsville]analysis. With the correction made, the UAH trend was now 0.12°C per decade - larger but still less than the surface trend. However, RSS released their own results based on their data analysis - a trend of 0.19°C per decade.

And:

Part of the discrepancy between UAH and RSS was the methods used to splice the data from different satellites together. However, the major source of discrepancy was the way they corrected for diurnal drift (Mears et al 2005). The satellites orbit the earth from pole to pole. The satellites possess no propulsion so slowly over time, the local equator crossing time (LECT) changes. This is exacerbated by decay of the satellites orbital height, dragged down by the thin atmosphere. As a satellite's LECT changes, it takes readings at changing local times, allowing local diurnal cycle variations to appear as spurious trends (Christy et al 2000).

So once they corrected for diurnal drift and orbital drag, in 2006, this discrepancy dissolved.

And that's just Jack's first two paragraphs.

Didn't anyone at the P-G bother to check his science?

Someone once said that you're entitled to your own opinion but you're not entitled to your own facts.

But if you're named Jack Kelly and you're a conservative columnist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, apparently you are.

Look How BIG The Conspiracy Is!

From today's Tribune-Review editorial board:

And milking the cash cow that's climate change, a report issued by a Pentagon think tank rings a global-warming alarm and urges the Defense Department to step up spending to combat a “man-made” problem, The Washington Times reports. The report, based on “absolute objectivity,” was funded by a climate change group that's one of the think tank's customers. Such stunning “objectivity” is the foundation on which the Church of Global Warming is built.

Let's try to unweave some of the rather confusing prose in the above.

The Washington Times piece is here and it says:

Retired military officers deeply involved in the climate change movement — and some in companies positioned to profit from it — spearheaded an alarmist global warming report this month that calls on the Defense Department to ramp up spending on what it calls a man-made problem.

The report, which the Obama administration immediately hailed as a call to action, was issued not by a private advocacy group but by a Pentagon-financed think tank that trumpets "absolute objectivity." The research was funded by a climate change group that is also one of the think tank's main customers.

The May 13 report came from the military advisory board within CNA Corp., a nonprofit based in Alexandria, Virginia, that includes the Center for Naval Analyses, a Navy-financed group that also gets contracts from other Pentagon units. CNA also operates the Institute for Public Research.

Ok, so now we're getting somewhere.  The port came from a board within the CNA Corp and the CNA Corp operates the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Public Research.

But Scaife's braintrust charges that the people who wrote the report are doing so to line their own pockets.  So what sort of people are these that wrote this report?  Here's the press release page announcing the report:

As a follow-up to its landmark 2007 study on climate and national security, the CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board's National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change (PDF) re-examines the impact of climate change on U.S. national security in the context of a more informed, but more complex and integrated world.

The Board’s 2007 report described projected climate change as a “threat multiplier.” In this report the 16 retired Generals and Admirals who make up the board look at new vulnerabilities and tensions posed by climate change, which, when set against the backdrop of increasingly decentralized power structures around the world, they now identify as a “catalyst for conflict.”

Ok, so it was the Military Advisory Board who wrote the report.  So who are THEY?

Here they are.  Here's the bio of the Chairman of the Board (sorry, Frank):

General Paul Kern, USA (Ret.), Chairman, Military Advisory Board Former Commanding General, U.S. Army Materiel Command General Kern was Commanding General, Army Materiel Command from 2001-2004, and senior advisor for Army Research, Development, and Acquisition from 1997-2001. He was commissioned as an Armor Lieutenant following graduation from West Point in 1967 and served three combat tours – two in Vietnam as a platoon leader and troop commander and the third in Desert Shield/Desert Storm. In the 1990s, Kern served as senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense William Perry. In June 2004, at the request of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Kern led the military's internal investigation into the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

So the guy Donald Rumsfeld asked to investigate Abu Ghraib is in on the climate change conspiracy.

This is the level of their argument, the braintrust.  It's all a conspiracy to get more money out of the Pentagon.  The facts are false, the reasoning is false it's all a big conspiracy - git aht yer tin hats!

But if the source of the funding can, in fact, skew the research, then why are they silent about the money Big Oil has poured into the "research" denying climate science?

Meanwhile, Just Outside...

From Time Magazine:

April was the first time the monthly average of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere passed 400 parts per million, a threshold that the U.N. says has "symbolic and scientific significance"

It's from this press release from the World Meteorological Organization:

CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Its lifespan in the oceans is even longer. It is the single most important greenhouse gas emitted by human activities. It was responsible for 85% of the increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on our climate - over the decade 2002-2012.

Between 1990 and 2013 there was a 34% increase in radiative forcing because of greenhouse gases, according to the latest figures from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

According to WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 393.1 parts per million in 2012, or 141% of the pre-industrial level of 278 parts per million. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased on average by 2 parts per million per year for the past 10 years.

I am wondering if Pennsylvania's Republican senator, Pat Toomey, has changed his mind from a few short years ago when he was quoted as saying:

My view is: I think the data is pretty clear. There has been an increase in the surface temperature of the planet over the course of the last 100 years or so. I think it’s clear that that has happened. The extent to which that has been caused by human activity I think is not as clear. I think that is still very much disputed and has been debated.

Actually Senator, it's not in dispute.  Hasn't been for a long long time.

But the quote is still from a few years ago, has there been a change of mind from the Club For Growth Senator?  I tried searching for the word "climate" at his Senatorial webpage and found nothing.  Samething for the phrase "global warming" - nothing.

I haven't been able to find any change - but that could be my lack of google skills.  Does anyone know if we can still assume Pat Toomey to be among the science deniers in the Senate?

Unless there's evidence to the contrary...

Pennsylvania Science Deniers In The US House Of Representatives

I can hear you all asking, "Science denier?  That's pretty strong language, isn't it?  How are you defining that term in this context?" I can hear you following up with another question.

So many good questions, my faithful inquisitors, I'll answer them simply:

In this instance, a "Congressional Science denier" is one who voted for this amendment.  

Here's Huffingtonpost for some context on the amendment:

The House passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization bill on Thursday that would bar the Department of Defense from using funds to assess climate change and its implications for national security.

The amendment, from Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), passed in what was nearly a party-line vote. Four Democrats voted for the amendment, and three Republicans voted against it. The bill aims to block the DOD from taking any significant action related to climate change or its potential consequences.

Or as Representative Henry Waxman said on the House Floor:

Well, I think that is science denial at its worst to say that the Defense Department cannot recognize damage caused by climate change. It looks like it is trying to overturn the laws of nature.

So we would tie the hands of the Defense Department and tell them that even though we might have exacerbated heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods, water- and vector-borne diseases, diseases which will pose greater risk to human health and lives around the world, and wheat and corn yields are already experiencing the negative impact and we have a larger risk of food security globally and regionally, if scientists tell us that, we are not allowed to have our Defense Department pay any heed to it.

Huffingtonpost said it was a near party line vote so who broke with their party?

The four Democrats who voted for the amendment were:

Barrow (of Georgia)
Cuellar (of Texas)
Mcintyre (of North Carolina)
Rahall (of West Virginia)

And the three Republicans who voted against where:

Garrett (of New Jersey)
Gibson (of New York)
LoBiondo (of New Jersey)

Other than that, all House Demorats voted NO and all House Republicans voted YES.  Here's the Pennsylvania delegation and how they voted (the list is arranged by Congressional District) and here's the roll call if'n y'inz wanna check my work, en'at:

1. Bob Brady (D) - Voted NO
2. Chaka Fattah (D) - Voted NO
3. Mike Kelly (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
4. Scott Perry (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
5. Glenn Thompson (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
6. Jim Gerlach (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
7. Pat Meehan (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
8. Mike Fitzpatrick (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
9. Bill Shuster (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
10. Tom Marino (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
11. Lou Barletta (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES
12. Keith Rothfus (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES
13. Allyson Schwartz (D) - Voted NO
14. Michael F. Doyle (D) - Voted NO
15. Charles Dent (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES
16. Joseph R. Pitts (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES
17. Matt Cartwright (D) - Voted NO
18. Timothy F. Murphy (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES

And finally, since you're all shivering with anticipation, here's what they were voting on - it's an amendment to HR 4435:

None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation's Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866.

That's what the science deniers don't want.  As Representative Waxman pointed out in his comments:

This is incredible, because the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review called climate change ``an accelerant of instability or conflict'' that ``could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments.'' But the McKinley amendment tells the DOD to ignore these impacts.

But that was waay back in 2010. What does the 2014 Quadrennial Review have to say about Climate Change?

This:

Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing, and severe weather patterns are accelerating. These changes, coupled with other global dynamics, including growing, urbanizing, more affluent populations, and substantial economic growth in India, China, Brazil, and other nations, will devastate homes, land, and infrastructure. Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions – conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.

Yea, but...to Representative McKinley (this from his comments on the House Floor):

[T]his amendment would prohibit the Department of Defense from spending money on climate change policies forced upon them by the Obama administration.

We shouldn't be diverting our financial resources away from the primary missions of our military and our national security in pursuit of an ideology. [Emphasis added.]

So face it, if you live in Pennsylvania and if you live in a "red" Congressional District, you're represented by a science denier.  Get used to it.

The Party Of Stupid (Texas Edition)

It's the campaign season, you know.  And in a number of states a number of different races are being one - one of them for Lt Governor for the great state of Texas.

In a recent debate among the republican candidates for that seat, the question of how much money could or should be spent to "cool the environment" was raised to the front runner in that race, state Senator Dan Patrick (who's a republican, of course) and he delivered the stupid - three times over.

Time one:

Patrick said he would spend "zero dollars" to combat climate change.

"I understand why Obama thinks he can change the weather — because he thinks he’s God," he said, as recorded by Raw Story. "He thinks he is the smartest person in the country. He thinks he knows better in Washington what we do in Texas. He thinks he’s the one, through all of his executive orders, that Congress isn’t even up to his level, so I’m not surprised that he also thinks he can change the weather."

Time two:

"First of all, when it comes to climate change, there’s been scientific arguments on both sides of the issues," he said. "But you know, if you want a tiebreaker, if Al Gore thinks it’s right, you know it’s wrong."

And finally, time three:

"I’ll leave it in the hands of God. He’s handled out climate pretty well for a long time," he said.

This is what passes for intelligent discourse among Texas republican candidates regarding the warming climate.

Meanwhile, in reality, NOAA declared that globally, the month of April tied for the warmest April on record.  Some details out of NOAA:

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for April 2014 tied with 2010 as the highest on record for the month, at 0.77°C (1.39°F) above the 20th century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F).

Meanwhile, in Patrick's own state of Texas, they've been experiencing a massive drought:

See all that brown and reddish brown in the northwest of Texas?  That's what NOAA's calling "extreme" and "exceptional" drought.

So I guess God hasn't been handling the climate very well in Texas.

And Now They're Back To Confusing Weather and Climate

They just can't help themselves, I guess.

Any, again, by "they" I mean Scaife's editorial board - his braintrust.

Take a look at what they published this morning:

More chicken squawking: Theologians of the Church of Global Warming gathered in Pittsburgh on Monday. Before a conference sponsored by Allegheny County and Pitt, Penn State oceanography professor Raymond Najjar told the Trib that the Keystone State summers will feel more like Virginia, even if carbon emissions are not reduced. Be very afraid. And pay no attention to frost advisories on May 19 or forecasts of a cooler summer in the region. [Bolding in original] 

See that?  The long term predictions of raising temperatures by legitimate climate science is to be doubted because there were local frost advisories on one day in May - or that this summer might be cooler.

Meanwhile in reality across the globe, the first quarter of this year (January - March, 2014) has been the seventh warmest since 1880.

(But that can't possibly be true because yesterday there was frost on my car.)

More Non-Science At The Tribune-Review

Something must be in the water over there at Scaife's Tribune-Review.  They seem to be pushing the anti-science a bit more these days.  Three days in a row, I think.  Well if they want to keep going, I can keep debunking.

Eric Heyl's doing his best to spread the word with this week's "Q and A" column.  Let's get the easy stuff out of the way first.  Here's Heyl's opening:

James M. Taylor is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank, and managing editor of Environment & Climate News, a national publication focused on free-market environmentalism. He spoke to the Trib regarding a White House report released on Tuesday on the supposedly dire effects of climate change.

Here's Taylor's bio at the Heartland Institute website.  And here's what it says about his academic background:

Taylor received his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College where he studied atmospheric science and majored in government. He received his Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University.

You'll note, of course, that he's not actually a climate scientist. He's a lawyer with, according to desmogblog, no research published in any peer-reviewed science journals. So, no. He's not a climate scientist.

But he works for the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank funded by (among others) Exxon Mobil, and two foundations controlled by the owner of the Tribune-Review (The Sarah Scaife and Carthage foundations).

Summing up - James M. Taylor's a non-scientist funded (at least in part) by the petroleum industry and a buncha conservative foundations - I am sure he's completely non-biased.

But let's take a look at what he said (now that we've undermined whatever scientific credibility he would claim to have).  When asked about the "obvious flaws" in the recently released National Climate Assessment, he said:

Most prominent among the flaws are the assertions that global warming is causing an increase in extreme weather events and similar climate catastrophes. The assertion is that global warming is not only increasing extreme weather events, it's also increasing drought, it's increasing wintertime temperatures that have negative consequences for pine beetles, etc.

But all of these assertions are clearly contradicted by the objective data. For example, we know that winter temperatures in the United States have been declining for the past 20 years. Yet here we have in this document the assertion that winters are becoming warmer and this causes pine beetle outbreaks. There is nothing more obviously and blatantly false than that assertion.

(The study) goes on to make other assertions about heat waves and extreme weather events, and it's the same thing. The objective data are clear that as our planet has been modestly warming, we are seeing less frequent and extreme severe weather events. And this is just not reflected in the document. That just speaks to the overt political agenda in this document rather than objective science.

Well then, let's take a look at the scientific data, if only to see if the non-scientist is right.  First we'll take a look at his contradictory data.  Taylor asserts that "winter temperatures in the United States have been declining for the past 20 years" as a counter to the whole of the global data.  This should raise more than a few cherry-picking red flags.  Three by my count:

• winter temperatures - why not yearly temperatures?
• temperatures in the United States - why not global temperatures?
• the past 20 years - why not a larger time frame?

Each of those filters, presumably, would allow Mr Taylor to show you only what he wants you to see.  But let's open up a few of those filters.  If, as he asserts, "winter temperatures in the United States have been declining for the past 20 years," then how is it possible for Canadian winters to be getting warmer over a longer period?  Our friends up north even have a graph to illustrate:

How about Europe over an even longer period, say 100 years?  NOAA has a map for that:

See all the browns and yellow?  Those are the places where it's been colder on average in the United States over a century.  You see, by concentrating on a limited time frame (only winters and only in the last 20 years) and a limited geographic space (the United States), Taylor's able to skew the numbers as he sees fit.

By the way, he attempts to undermine the credibility of the authors of the report with this:

This report is the predictable result of setting up the environmental activists to write a report for the Obama administration. Among the lead authors you have staffers for the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Nature Conservancy and then other environmental activist groups.

Let's just look at the section of the report dealing with "Recent Temperature Trends."  Who wrote it?  Here's the list of Lead Authors:

Katharine Hayhoe, Texas Tech University
James Kossin, NOAA, National Climatic Data Center
Kenneth Kunkel, CICS-NC, North Carolina State Univ., NOAA National Climatic Data Center
Graeme Stephens, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Peter Thorne, Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center
Russell Vose, NOAA National Climatic Data Center
Michael Wehner, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Josh Willis, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

I checked.  Each earned a Ph.D. in an actual climate science.  Each is an actual climate scientist.  And yet the non-scientist with a JD from Syracuse University seems to think he has a better handle on the science than they do.

What nonsense.

And Now They're Confusing Science and Non-Science

And, again, by "they" I mean, of course, Scaife's braintrust on the editorial board at his Tribune-Review.

Take a look at this morning's nonsense (Get it?  Nonsense and Non-science  Get it?):

Surveying genuine science excluded from the one-sided reports with which the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) supports its radical alarmism, the latest report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) shows global warming is no crisis — and even has benefits.

The previous NIPCC report showed that alarmists' climate models are inaccurate, warming (before the current plateau) is within natural variability and humanity's climate impact is negligible. Its new report, “Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts,” concludes that warming and rising carbon dioxide levels cause “no net harm” and often result in “net benefits to plants, including important food crops, and to animals and human health.”

The NIPCC says that with CO2 — which isn't a pollutant — rising, there's “a great greening of the Earth” that brings “rising agricultural productivity” with “little or no risk of increasing food insecurity.” Plants and animals on land and in the sea either feel no impact or see “habitats, ranges and populations” expanding. And because warming more than offsets deaths related to cold, it actually saves human lives.

Independently evaluating scientific evidence without taking government or corporate money, the NIPCC confronts climate alarmists with inconvenient truths that expose the IPCC's real mission: slanting genuine science, blaming mankind and forecasting doomsday to justify governments' drastic anti-growth diktats.

The braintrust is looking (again) to counter the scientific IPCC report with the non-scientific NIPCC report, obviously.  What do you think we'll find if dig a little into the NIPCC report?

Actually, we've already done this - this past September.

Let's review, then.  Back then I linked to this piece in The Guardian:

The report is the latest in the Heartland Institute's "Climate Change Reconsidered" series and the cornerstone of its campaign against the IPCC's fifth assessment. Heartland is aggressively pushing the report in op-eds, blogs and in articles in conservative newspapers and news stations. Among others, it has received coverage in the Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph, The Washington Times and the UK's Daily Mail, in an article that had to be "significantly" changed due to errors.

Other groups participating in the report include the Science & Environmental Policy Project, a research and advocacy group founded by climate skeptic Fred Singer—who is also the director of Heartland's Science and Environmental Policy Project—and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an Arizona-based climate skeptic group partly funded by ExxonMobil.

And then from there I found the money trail from (among other places) The Sarah Scaife Foundation to the Heartland Institute - the organization that puts out the NIPCC report.

Funny that the braintrust never ever seems to mention that.  But I'm not the only one to find the connection.  Here's Rollingstone Magazine (sub req'd) from a coupla years ago:

The Hack Scientist
Fred Singer
Retired physicist, University of Virginia

A former mouthpiece for the tobacco industry, the 85-year-old Singer is the granddaddy of fake "science" designed to debunk global warming. The retired physicist — who also tried to downplay the danger of the hole in the ozone layer — is still wheeled out as an authority by big polluters determined to kill climate legislation. For years, Singer steadfastly denied that the world is heating up: Citing satellite data that has since been discredited, he even made the unhinged claim that "the climate has been cooling just slightly." Last year, Singer served as a lead author of "Climate Change Reconsidered" — an 880-page report by the right-wing Heartland Institute that was laughably presented as a counterweight to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's scientific authority on global warming. Singer concludes that the unchecked growth of climate-cooking pollution is "unequivocally good news." Why? Because "rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests." Small wonder that Heartland's climate work has long been funded by the likes of Exxon and reactionary energy barons like Charles Koch and Richard Mellon Scaife.

Independent?

And the part (in the Trib) about how the rising levels of CO2 have no net negative harm?  Take a look at this from the National Geographic:

Crops grown in the high-CO2 atmosphere of the future could be significantly less nutritious, a new study published today in Nature suggests. Based on hundreds of experiments in the field, the work reveals a new challenge as society reckons with both rising carbon emissions and malnutrition in the future.

Scientists generally predict that crop yields could fall in a warmer world—though higher atmospheric CO2 by itself should raise yields, as plants find it easier to extract CO2 from the air to make carbohydrates.

Here's that paper in Nature.  Do you need to know that Nature is a peer-reviewed journal?  That means it's science and not "non-science."

So how much more do I need to tell you about the NIPCC, Peter Singer, and the scientific illiteracy on Scaife's braintrust for you to accept that they've written complete non-science nonsense today?

And Now They Confuse "Weather" and "Climate"

And by "they" I mean the editorial board at Scaife's Tribune-Review.

Take a look at what they're pushing today:

The New York Times reports that the stubborn cool spring in the Midwest has produced the most dismal start to the nursery season in decades. Darn that “climate change.”

Here's the Times piece upon which they're basing their contra-evidence.  Amazing how far flung they now have to go.  It's a piece on gardening.

But it illustrates one of the faux "debunkings" of climate change: namely that it's cold outside my window now, so therefore the climate can't be warming up.  Here's now the Times piece begins:

The freakishly cold Midwestern winter of 2014 has given way to the frustrated Midwestern gardener.

The stubbornly cool spring, on the heels of a bone-chilling winter, has produced the most dismal start to the season in decades, nursery owners say. In previous years, some garden centers may have sold half their stock at this point in the spring. Now they are barely getting started.

So this is about, at least in part, about the Polar Vortex that it the midwest and east coast this past Winter.  But did you know that while we were freezing the otherside of the world was burning?

Take a look.  From the AP:

Bats are dropping from trees, kangaroos are collapsing in the Outback and gardens are turning brown. While North America freezes under record polar temperatures, the southern hemisphere is experiencing the opposite extreme as heat records are being set in Australia after the hottest year ever.

Weather is localized.  Climate is global.  And what's the story on the global picture?

Let's go to NOAA:

The average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for the first quarter (January–March) of 2014 was the seventh warmest such period on record. This is particularly notable since February ranked only as the 21st warmest on record. However, January and March were both among the five warmest for their respective months. The warmth was relatively evenly distributed between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, with each also observing their seventh warmest January–March on record.

In fact according to some new data:

While April was an uneventful month temperature-wise in the U.S., with most areas experiencing near-average temperatures, the month was the second-warmest April on record globally, according to new NASA data.

That makes April the 350th month in a row — more than 29 years — with above-average temperatures, largely caused by the buildup of manmade greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.

And yet because the braintrust reads that gardeners in the midwest are having a hard time this year because of the localized cold, all that science is wrong.

The Braintrust Confuses Antarctic "Sea Ice" and "Ice Sheet"

In today's Tribune-Review (the op-ed page), the braintrust writes:

The West Antarctic ice sheet has begun falling apart, two papers published in the journals Science and Geophysical Research Letters conclude. And many of the usual players in the “climate change” game are sounding the alarms of gloom, doom and holy moley pumpkin pie, we're all going to die.

But curiously not mentioned in The Times' report — and woefully too few other reports — is this salient fact:

East Antarctic sea ice coverage reached a record 3.5 million square miles in April, reports the National Snow and Ice Data Center. And the center says ice formation thus far in May continues at a record pace. The development has caught more than a few climate scientists by surprise — which is what happens when data that contradict the theology of global warming are ignored.

Thus "confirming" the "two sides to every story" meme and further "confirming" that only one side is being told by the climate scientists.

Too bad they get their science wrong.

You see, my friends, there's a difference between the Antarctic ice sheet (which, when melted would contribute to a rise in sea levels) and the Antarctic sea ice (which, when it freezes and melts, doesn't).

The braintrust tries to show how this debunks the climate science evidence of global warming.  Too bad the very same page that pointed out the data of the Antarctic sea ice, we can read:

However, across much of the far Southern Hemisphere, temperatures have been above average: for example, in the southern Antarctic Peninsula, temperatures have been 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit) above average; in the southern South Pacific, temperatures have been 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius (3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, and up to 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in the area near the South Pole.

So how can it be that a warmer climate can cause more Antarctic sea ice?

Skeptical Science has the answer:

Antarctic sea ice has shown long term growth since satellites began measurements in 1979. This is an observation that has been often cited as proof against global warming. However, rarely is the question raised: why is Antarctic sea ice increasing? The implicit assumption is it must be cooling around Antarctica. This is decidedly not the case. In fact, the Southern Ocean has been warming faster than the rest of the world's oceans. Globally from 1955 to 1995, oceans have been warming at 0.1°C per decade. In contrast, the Southern Ocean has been warming at 0.17°C per decade. Not only is the Southern Ocean warming, it is warming faster than the global trend.

And then:

If the Southern Ocean is warming, why is Antarctic sea ice increasing? There are several contributing factors. One is the drop in ozone levels over Antarctica. The hole in the ozone layer above the South Pole has caused cooling in the stratosphere (Gillet 2003). This strengthens the cyclonic winds that circle the Antarctic continent (Thompson 2002). The wind pushes sea ice around, creating areas of open water known as polynyas. More polynyas lead to increased sea ice production (Turner 2009).

Another contributor is changes in ocean circulation. The Southern Ocean consists of a layer of cold water near the surface and a layer of warmer water below. Water from the warmer layer rises up to the surface, melting sea ice. However, as air temperatures warm, the amount of rain and snowfall also increases. This freshens the surface waters, leading to a surface layer less dense than the saltier, warmer water below. The layers become more stratified and mix less. Less heat is transported upwards from the deeper, warmer layer. Hence less sea ice is melted (Zhang 2007). An increase in melting of Antarctic land ice will also contribute to the increased sea ice production (Bintanga et al. 2013).

In summary, Antarctic sea ice is a complex and unique phenomenon. The simplistic interpretation that it must be cooling around Antarctica is decidedly not the case. Warming is happening - how it affects specific regions is complicated.

Amazing what happens when you actually look at the science.

And it's amazing how stupid you look when you don't.

Now This Is Embarrassing...But Not For The Obvious Reason

From the P-G a few days ago:

A Pittsburgh-based partner at law firm Reed Smith lost his cool on Twitter last week, and lashed out at an account he thought represented the Supreme Court but was in fact a well-established blog.

The Twitter account has since been deleted and the law firm issued a statement that the matter is being reviewed internally.

Which is all well and good, I suppose.  But what exactly happened?

From the Above The Law blog:

It appears that [attorney Steven M.] Regan, mistaking the Twitter feed of SCOTUSblog for an official Twitter feed of the U.S. Supreme Court, wanted to weigh in on the Court’s recent decision to hear a challenge to EPA regulations about greenhouse gas emissions. He originally tweeted: “@SCOTUSblog – Don’t screw up this like ACA. No such thing as greenhouse gas. Carbon is necessary for life.” After SCOTUSblog tweeted back “Intelligent life?”, Regan dropped the F-bomb. (If you’d like, you can read related tweets over here.)

Regan actually tweeted, "Go f@ck yourself and die."

Which is more embarrassing, I wonder?  Mistaking the SCOTUSblog for the Supreme Court or a partner at a prestigious downtown lawfirm making an ass out of himself by using profanity on a completely public forum or...(now wait for it)...using that profanity in that mistaken tweet by communicating to the world his near-total misunderstanding of climate science?

Yea, you can guess where I think Steve Regan embarrassed himself.

Scaife, The Trib, And The NIPCC

I don't think the editorial board fully understands the unintended irony of the opening of today's op-ed:

A new Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) report shows just how weak the case is for “man-made” global warming. Unlike United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, the NIPCC's 1,200-page report has no governmental sponsorship, freeing it from conclusions predetermined by politics. It comes from a consortium of The Heartland Institute, the Science & Environmental Policy Project and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.

So the funding of a report determines its outcome?  Maybe it's not that harsh.  Perhaps what they're saying is that the source sponsorship of a report can undermine the validity of that report.

The Guardian has some background info on the groups supporting the NIPCC:

The report is the latest in the Heartland Institute's "Climate Change Reconsidered" series and the cornerstone of its campaign against the IPCC's fifth assessment. Heartland is aggressively pushing the report in op-eds, blogs and in articles in conservative newspapers and news stations. Among others, it has received coverage in the Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph, The Washington Times and the UK's Daily Mail, in an article that had to be "significantly" changed due to errors.

Other groups participating in the report include the Science & Environmental Policy Project, a research and advocacy group founded by climate skeptic Fred Singer—who is also the director of Heartland's Science and Environmental Policy Project—and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an Arizona-based climate skeptic group partly funded by ExxonMobil.

Ok, so who sponsored the NIPCC report?  More specifically, who supports The Heartland Institute, The Science & Environmental Policy Project and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change?

You already know the answer but let's take a look anyway.  The NIPCC was set up by Fred Singer and

Let's start with The Heartland Institute.  Over the years it's received (among many others):

• $555,000 from Exxon
• $350,000 from the Sarah Scaife and Carthage Foundations

By the way, Fred Singer's also involved with the Science & Environmental Policy Project.
And how about the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change? It's received:

• $75,000   from Exxon
• $100,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation 

That's a million dollars right there.  So IF the sponsorship of a report can predetermine it's outcome, then why can't we assume the exact same thing about the NIPCC? Funny but Scaife's braintrust never says.

But let's look at some of the specific things in the op-ed:

Taking into account research ignored by or contrary to the IPCC's blame-mankind assumptions — and its latest report, unveiled on Friday, was no exception — the NIPCC report says “climate sensitivity to CO2 is much lower than (the IPCC's incomplete climate) models assume.”

And an explanation from skepticalscience:

The NIPCC report exclusively examines the literature published by climate "skeptics," whereas the IPCC report examines the work of both "skeptics" and mainstream climate scientists. For example, the 2011 NIPCC report has a section about climate sensitivity - how much the planet will warm in response to increasing CO2 emissions. Climate sensitivity is one of the most important climate science issues, especially for climate "skeptics", whose arguments for climate inaction depend entirely on low climate sensitivity. It tells us how much we can expect the planet to warm, depending on how much CO2 we emit in the future.

However, the 2011 NIPCC report only devoted one sub-section (and one page) to the subject of climate sensitivity, and only referenced four scientific studies on the subject (one of which is the debunked Lindzen and Choi [2009]; a second was specific to high-latitude, not global sensitivity; a third was published in a journal of dubious quality over a decade ago; and the fourth does not support low sensitivity). The IPCC report on the other hand devotes several sections to the subject (i.e. here and here and here) and references dozens of peer-reviewed studies investigating the question of climate sensitivity. It's a clear difference between comprehensive and selective reviews.

And then there's this:

It cites the stability of global temperatures since 1997, “despite an 8 percent increase in atmospheric CO2.”

As we already know, there's been no "stability" since 1998.  It's still getting warmer:

The year 1998 was remarkably warm relative to the underlying trend line, in association with the El Nino" of the century. But the underlying global temperature has continued to rise, despite the fact that solar irradiance for the past few years has been stuck in the deepest solar minimum in the period of satellite data.

And so on.

I've Been Waiting For This One...

Today on the op-ed page of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, we find this:

A funny thing has happened on the way to the polar ice caps melting and inundating our coastal cities. The National Snow and Ice Data Center says 1 million more square miles of ocean are covered in ice this year versus last. Which has prompted University of Wisconsin researcher Anastasios Tsonis to note that the Earth is in a cooling phase that could last for at least the next 15 years. And what do we say, class, upon learning of such news? All together now: “Throw another log on the fire, honey. It's getting cold outside.”[Bolding in original.]

The week old story popped up on a few facebook feeds as well.

However, Scaife's braintrust couldn't even get it's numbers right.  Here's the USAToday from three days ago:

Sea ice is frozen ocean water that melts each summer and then refreezes each winter. It typically reaches its smallest "extent" in September and largest in March of each year.

The data center reported Wednesday that the extent of Arctic sea ice shrank to 1.98 million square miles on Tuesday. Last year, at its smallest point, the amount of sea ice shrank to 1.32 million square miles.

That's a difference of about 2/3 of a million square miles - the braintrust said it was a "million more."  Messy sloppy mistake, guys.  It's embarrassing to make such a simple mistake, doncha think?

Anyway, even if they got that simplest of facts right (which they didn't), they're still misleading you with a bit of a statistical fallacy.  What they're doing is called "regression toward the mean."  Basically what that means is that since the previous summer (of 2012) was so bad, anything not so bad can be seen as "recovering" while in reality it's really just moving back to the average (which is already bad and getting worse).  Here's the lede from the USAToday piece:

Sea ice in the Arctic will reach its annual minimum "any day now," says Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which tracks Arctic ice.

Although not nearly as ice-free as last September's all-time record low, the amount of Arctic sea ice in the summer of 2013 was well below average, and will likely go in the books as the sixth-smallest "extent" of Arctic sea ice on record,he says. [Emphasis added.]

In it's debunking of this story, Slate.com was even good enough to add a chart from the NSIDC to show what's happening:

I guess the braintrust didn't bother to take a look at this chart from the very same source it uses as the foundation of it's most recent warm and steamy pile of anti-science.

See that light blue line?  That's this year.  The dotted line is last year and the darker grey is the average.  See how last year, while above last year, is still below the average?  Additionally, see how it's consistently below the 1981-2010 average?  See how what the climate deniers at the Trib and on Facebook are completely wrong?

Nor was this "recovery" unexpected.  Take a look at this from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science in the UK (Note: This is from August of last year):

Around 80% of the ~100 scientists at the Bjerknes conference thought that there would be MORE Arctic sea-ice in 2013, compared to 2012.

Again, in an informal poll of actual climate scientists last year, they thought there'd be more ice in the arctic this year than last.  And there was.

And about the research of Professor Tsonis.  Does the braintrust understand that he's already address (in relation to an earlier paper) his work on the supposed "cooling"?

Well, he has.  Here:

The contentious part of our paper is that the climate system appears to have had another “episode” around the turn of the 21st century, coinciding with the much discussed “halt” in global warming. Whether or not such a halt has really occurred is of course controversial (it appears quite marked in the HadCRUT3 data, less so in GISTEMP); only time will tell if it’s real. Regardless, it’s important to note that we are not talking about global cooling, just a pause in warming. [Bolding in original.]

And I think that about does it.

Disassembling The Trib's Climate Science Denial

Let's start with what Scaife's braintrust published this morning at the Tribune-Review and then unweave point by point:

Al Gore, who profited handsomely paving the way for Al Jazeera's U.S. entree, likens climate change skeptics to racists, homophobes and those who enable an alcoholic's denial. Oh, this just in — the United States recorded 2,899 record cold temperatures versus 667 record warm temperatures between July 24 and Aug. 19.[Bolding in original.]

There are two points I want to look at here; what Al Gore said and the data being used to "debunk" the climate science.

First, what did Gore actually say?  Did he really "liken climate change skeptics to racists..." and so on?

No, not really.  In a piece in a Washington Post piece about how and why he's "optimistic" about the future regarding climate science, this is what Gore actually said:

Well, I think the most important part of it is winning the conversation. I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, hey man, we don’t go for that anymore. The same thing happened on apartheid. The same thing happened on the nuclear arms race with the freeze movement. The same thing happened in an earlier era with abolition. A few months ago, I saw an article about two gay men standing in line for pizza and some homophobe made an ugly comment about them holding hands and everyone else in line told them to shut up. We’re winning that conversation.

The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it’s mentioned. It’s like a family with an alcoholic father who flies into a rage every time a subject is mentioned and so everybody avoids the elephant in the room to keep the peace. But the political climate is changing. Something like Chris Hayes’s excellent documentary on climate change wouldn’t have made it on TV a few years ago. And as I said, many Republicans who’re still timid on the issue are now openly embarrassed about the extreme deniers. The deniers are being hit politically. They’re being subjected to ridicule, which stings. The polling is going back up in favor of doing something on this issue. The ability of the raging deniers to stop progress is waning every single day.

So it's not really about "likening" deniers to racists, homophobes and so on.  It's really about how the conversation is changing.  In the past (before "civil rights was won in the South") a racist joke was far more acceptable in day to day discourse.  Same thing regarding members of the various LGBTQ communities across the country.  Not that everything's fixed, mind you, but the conversation's changed enough that two gay men can hold hands in a fast food restaurant and the homophobes who try to ridicule them are themselves subject to public shaming.

Imagine that 20 years ago.  Or 10.

The conversation is changing, he said.  The deniers are the ones subject to ridicule (like this from just last week) because their position is simply embarrassing.

Now let's take a look at the data the braintrust is trying to use to undermine the science.  I haven't been able to track down it's exact source, but let's (for the minute) assume it's true - that United States recorded 2,899 record cold temperatures versus 667 record warm temperatures between July 24 and Aug. 19. 

Even if that's true, so what?

The United States only makes up about 6.6% of the total land mass of the planet (or only about 2% of its total surface area).  Assuming a world wide pattern from such a small selection of the data is misleading (at best).   But even if it does point out a large scale trend (that there were fewer "record-setting hot days in that month") again, so what?

What's the larger global trend?  The selected data the braintrust uses doesn't go anywhere near the global trend.

Which is still getting warmer.

The braintrust is running out of ways to mislead on climate science.

The Trib's Climate Strawman Argument

Before proceeding, we gotta answer the question, "What's a strawman argument?"

Here's an answer:

A straw man argument is one that misrepresents a position in order to make it appear weaker than it actually is, refutes this misrepresentation of the position, and then concludes that the real position has been refuted.

So. How has Scaife's braintrust on the editorial board of the Tribune-Review committed that local fallacy today?

Take a look:

A funny thing happened on the way to Obama & Co.'s “grassroots” effort claiming “climate change” is wreaking all manner of weather havoc. The website wattsupwiththat.com notes that we typically have about 1,200 tornadoes by this time each year. But this year, there have been only about 720 reported twisters. What's a climate clucker to do? [Bolding in original]

Their point only makes sense if ""wreaking all manner of weather havoc" includes an increase in the number of tornadoes.  Meaning that if the "climate cluckers" are saying that climate change will increase the number of tornadoes while the number of tornadoes has actually decreased, then there'd be a problem, right?

Too bad that's not the "climate cluckers" argument.  How do I know?

From the IPCC report:

Although some evidence is available regarding increases in the intensity and frequency of some extreme weather events, it is not yet clear how tornadoes will be affected.

And according to wunderground, this has been the position of the IPCC since 2007.

Um, guys?  Do you even bother to do any independent research before writing your editorials?  Merely echoing stuff you find on science denial websites does not constitute adequate research and you're deceiving your readership by doing so.

They're Cherry Picking Again

And by that I mean the Tribune-Review editorial boards recurring (and yet always failing) science denial.  From this past Thursday:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says 2012 “was among the 10 warmest years on record.” But as climate blogger Pierre Gosselin notes, the report fails to mention that last year was one of the coolest of the decade. “(T)he report gives the ... impression that warming is galloping ahead out of control. But (NOAA's) data show just the opposite.” There's “science” and then there's science.
[Bolding in original.]

Before I get to deconstructing the braintrust's "conflict" I'd like to point out a bit of "gee, maybe I dunno, Wally" plagiarism.  Take a look at this from CNSNews:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently released its “State of the Climate in 2012” report, which states that “worldwide, 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record.”

But the report “fails to mention [2012] was one of the coolest of the decade, and thus confirms the cooling trend,” according to an analysis by climate blogger Pierre Gosselin.

“To no one’s surprise, the report gives the reader the impression that warming is galloping ahead out of control,” writes Gosselin. “But their data shows just the opposite.”

How much closer could these two passages get?  But is this really plagiarism?  Considering the fact that it's from the "Cybercast News Service" and that the "Cybercast News Service" used to be the "Conservative News Service" and that the "Conservative News Service" is owned by the Media Research Center and Tribune-Review owner Richard Mellon Scaife is a huge financial supporter of the CNS, I suppose that even if it is plagiarism, Barbara Hollingsworth (writer of the CNS piece the braintrust filched) probably can't protest about it that much.

Back to the  braintrust debunking.  Let's look at Gosselin's blogpost first.  It's a typical case of cherry picking the data as you can see from his first chart:

See how it just goes back to 1998?  That's the first clue there's selective data choosing going on.  Gosselin goes on to say that the NOAA report actually "confirm(s) precisely what the skeptics have been claiming all along" ie that "The Earth has stopped warming."

Except that it doesn't.

We've dealt with this "no global warming since 1998" myth before.  If you focus on the last decade and a half it certainly looks like a stoppage in the warming.  But if you expand the view and take a rolling average, this is what it looks like:

See the upper right hand corner? That's just about all the data from the last decade or so (more or less exactly what Gosselin's basing his "the warming stopped" story on).  Looking at more than a century's worth of data, how anyone can say the warming's "stopped" is beyond me.

Indeed, there's no conflict between the two statements the braintrust wants you to think are in conflict.  It is possible for 2012 to be "among the warmest on record" and for it to be "one of coolest of the decade."

How?  Well, as NOAA says on the page describing the report:

Including the 2012 temperature, Earth is warming at a rate of 0.06°C (0.11°F) per decade since 1880 and a more rapid 0.16°C (0.28°F) per decade since 1970.

Ah...

So only by a careful selection of the data can you show that "the Earth stopped warming" in 1998.

So the braintrust is right, there's "science" and there's science.  Too bad they're wrong in thinking they're quoting science - when they're quoting non-climatologists (oops, did I fail to mention that he's not actually a climate scientist?  My bad.) like Pierre Gosselin, they're only dabbling in "science."

On the other hand, the data used by the NOAA report is actually "peer-reviewed."

So you can decide which is more scientifically reliable.

Some More Trib Climate Mendacity

From a few days ago at the Trib:

Mr. Obama warns that the climate today is warming at an accelerated rate — “faster than anybody anticipated five or 10 years ago” — and that the future “is going to depend on our willingness to deal with something we may not be able to see or smell.”

On the contrary, the smell of what's he's spreading around is quite distinctive.

At a recent Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, a panel of five scientists were asked twice whether they stood by the president's assessment, The Heritage Foundation reports. Their initial response?

Silence.

I fear I risk alienating my audience out of sheer repetition by pointing out that here's yet another example of Richard Mellon Scaife's editorial board citing The Heritage Foundation with no mention of the millions upon millions of Scaife foundation dollars he's simply drenched it with.

So let's move on to the argument itself.  Here's what the president said (it was at a DCCC fundraiser at the home of Paul and Bettylu Saltzman):

We still have a situation in which, on the one hand, our energy future is more promising than we’ve ever allowed ourselves to believe. We will probably be a net exporter of traditional fossil fuels over the next 20 years -- within the next 20 years, probably a net exporter of natural gas in the next three or four years -- something that could not be imagined even five, 10 years ago -- because of the dynamism and technology that America has produced.

But the flipside is we also know that the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or 10 years ago, and that the future of Bettylu’s grandkids, in part, is going to depend on our willingness to deal with something that we may not be able to see or smell the way you could when the Chicago River was on fire, or at least could have caught on fire, but is in some ways more serious, more fundamental. [Emphasis added.]

So far, so good. At least Scaife's braintrust didn't take those words out of context.  They said he said the earth was warming faster than anticipated.  And he did say that.

But is that true?

Well, according to this article at the Scientific American, it is:

Over the past decade scientists thought they had figured out how to protect humanity from the worst dangers of climate change. Keeping planetary warming below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) would, it was thought, avoid such perils as catastrophic sea-level rise and searing droughts. Staying below two degrees C would require limiting the level of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million (ppm), up from today's 395 ppm and the preindustrial era's 280 ppm.

Now it appears that the assessment was too optimistic. The latest data from across the globe show that the planet is changing faster than expected.

Or this article from The Atlantic:

A new report from the International Energy Agency says global temperatures will rise twice as fast as projected if countries don't act to slash their admissions soon. Released this morning, the IEA report shows carbon diaoxide from energy emissions rose 1.4 percent globally last year, a new record, and puts the world on pace for a 5.3 degree Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in global temperatures by 2020 if new steps aren't taken. In 2010, a UN summit agreed the goal would be to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees by 2020.

But take a look at what's being said: the planet's warming is happening faster than anticipated.

Now look at how Scaife's braintrust tries to debunk what the president said:

“There is little or no observational evidence that severe weather of any type has worsened over the last 30, 50 or 100 years, irrespective of whether any changes could be blamed on human activities anyway,” said Dr. Roy Spencer, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama, according to a Heritage report.[Emphasis added.]

While the president (and the IEA and Scientific American) was talking about rising temperatures, Climate model skeptic and evolution denier Dr. Spencer is talking about severe weather.  Here's what he said in his Senate testimony:

There is little or no observational evidence that severe weather of any type has worsened over the last 30, 50, or 100 years, irrespective of whether any such changes could be blamed on human activities, anyway. Long-term measurements of droughts, floods, strong tornadoes, hurricanes, severe thunderstormsetc. all show no obvious trends, but do show large variability from one decade to the next, or even one year to the next. While the 2003 heat wave in France and the 2010 heat wave in Russia were exceptional, so were the heat waves of the 1930s in the U.S., which cannot b e blamed on our greenhouse gas emissions.[Emphases added.]

Now, what does he say about global warming in general? Does he deny it?

No, not really:

My overall view of the influence of humans on climate is that we probably are having some influence, but it is impossible to know with any level of certainty how much influence. The difficulty in determining the human influence on climate arises from several sources: (1) weather and climate vary naturally, and by amounts that are not currently being exceeded; (2) global warming theory is just that – based upon theory; and (3) there is no unique fingerprint of human caused global warming.

My belief that some portion of recent warming is due to humans is based upon my faith in at least some portion of the theory: that the human contribution to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations has resulted in an es timated 1% reduction in the Earth’s ability to cool to outer space, and so some level of warming can be expected to occur from that change.

Funny how that part didn't make it into what the braintrust wrote.

But the larger point is the subject change.  As I wrote a few paragraphs above, Obama's talking temperature and the braintrust counters with hurricanes and tornadoes.  And the guy they cite to make that counter actually does believe that the planet is warming up.

And anyway, did you know that there were two 5-expert panels at that hearing?  Scaife's braintrust and Scaife's Heritage Foundation only mention one.  On the other panel, we can find another climate expert, a Dr. Heidi Cullen who is Chief Climatologist at Climate Central, saying this:

Ongoing research (Francis and Vavrus, 2012; Petoukhov et al., 2013) suggests a possible mechanism for the increasing extremes we are beginning to see . Specifically, by changing the temperature balance between the Arctic and mid latitudes, rapid Arctic warming is altering the course of the jet stream, which is responsible for steering weather systems from west to east around the globe . The Arctic has been warming about twice as fast as the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, due to a combination of human emissions of greenhouse gases and unique feedbacks built into the Arctic climate system. According to this new research, the jet stream is becoming “wavier,” with steeper troughs and ridges. Weather systems are moving more slowly, increasing the chances for long duration extreme events, like droughts, floods, and heat waves. The tendency for weather to get stuck in one pattern is going to favor extreme weather.

Funny how that never made it into what the braintrust wrote, either.

It was said at the hearing, right?  It was spoken to the Senate committe, right?  So why didn't the braintrust bother telling you about it?  My guess is that since it doesn't fit into the reality they want you to accept, they don't think you need to know about it.

Same story, different day.