Barack Obama took aim Wednesday night at Republicans who have blocked global warming legislation, saying they ‘pretend’ they ‘don’t read’ science. But the president ignored the latest claims that threaten to destroy the U.S. climate change movement.
As he tries to rally public support around new White House rules aimed at coal-burning power plants, however, the president hasn’t yet addressed a brewing scandal in the scientific community.
Global warming specialists inside the scientific community are buzzing about revelations first made Friday, which show how the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s official graph of historical U.S. surface temperatures records has been quietly altered for years.
The damning graphs published on the ‘Real Science’ blog by Steven Goddard, the nom de plume of a self-described ‘lifelong environmentalist’ with graduate-level scientific credentials.
They show the impact of replacing the real measurements with computer-generated estimates, in an alleged scheme to de-emphasize temperature readings from earlier decades while giving added weight to more recent numbers.
Obama mocks GOP global warming skeptics and says they ‘pretend’ they ‘can’t read’ | Mail Online
No doubt I will get an invitation to the White House to discuss this with the most transparent pro-science president in history.
“No doubt I will get an invitation to the White House to discuss this with the most transparent pro-science president in history.”
Thanks.. now I have coffee all over my screen, *and* I fell off my chair.
+1
Me too!
We could get an in depth report of what exactly Barry does all day.
My name is Barry, what is your ignorant point?
My name is Sue! How do you do!
The pleasure is all mine, Colorado… Hello. 🙂
re: Colorado Wellington June 27, 2014 at 6:06 am
My name is Sue! How do you do!
Aren’t the next words “Now we’re gonna fight!” (or words to that effect*)
.
.
* don’t be sending the Sec Serv my way …
Actually a little more threatening – “Now your [sic] gonna die!”
Yep, stopped right before it. Nobody ever said “How do you do!” in a more threatening way than Johnny Cash there and I was trying to match Sparks’ brevity.
“Dave’s not here.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nxK_hGLTN4
.
“Jane was here.”
Bring it Sue!! lol
Your larger claim to fame today was the little biography The Guardian had of you today. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it here.
theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jun/25/global-warming-zombies-devour-telegraph-fox-news-brains
There is a good bit about you and Anthony Watts. The Guardian comment section is even better than the article. You are well known, but not in a way that would sound good in an obituary.
A partial quote from the article. “Global warming myths can never be permanently killed. Once debunked, a climate myth will go into a state of hibernation, waiting for enough time to pass that people forget the last time a scientific stake was thrust through its heart. The myth will eventually rise from the grave once again, seeking out victims with tasty, underutilized brains to devour – every zombie’s favorite meal.”
“And so we have the long-debunked conspiracy theorist myth that scientists are falsifying temperature data to conjure global warming and frighten the masses. The story goes that in the raw temperature data from the continental USA, the second-hottest year on record was 1934, behind 2012. In the data adjusted by scientists, 1998 was the hottest year on record in the USA, until that record was broken in 2006 and then shattered in 2012 (1934 comes in 4th). The raw data are the gold standard, so this proves that climate scientists are falsifying data, right?”
“Wrong. Really, about as wrong as humanly possible. Scientists make adjustments to the raw data to remove factors that we know introduce biases and false trends. For example, temperature stations were once observed and data recorded in the afternoon, but later the observations switched to the mornings. Since mornings are colder than afternoons, that change introduced a cool bias into the raw data. Other factors that require adjustments include changes in the temperature monitoring system instrument setups, and the movement of temperature stations from one location to another.”
“Scientists have put substantial effort into accounting for all these changes that introduce known biases in the raw data across thousands of temperature monitoring stations. It’s not a vast conspiracy to trick us into buying solar panels; it’s just good science, which even contrarian climate scientists don’t dispute. In fact, when we compare raw and adjusted temperature data across the surface of the whole planet, the difference between the two is barely noticeable.”
Dear Matayaya,
Please point out anything scientific you’ve ever published. Happy to offer a peer review. Otherwise you’re the sound of one hand clapping.
Regards
Andy Oz
Don’t need to be a climate scientist to enjoy learning about the subject of climate science. Your loss to not read the interesting article I provided.
Based on what you quoted, your interesting article is full of non-scientific pablum.
Andy, you need to do better. Why don’t you learn about climate science from the Grauniad? A couple of minutes every day and you’ll be as smart as mamayaya.
They can call it “good science” all they like: it has been shown to be “bad”. Making adjustments (or calculating estimates) in the first place is a bad idea; making adjustments using bad algorithms multiplies the folly.
“Substantial effort” is also meaningless. One could make a “substantial effort” to fly a spaceship into the sun; that doesn’t mean it’s going to end well.
Dave, Obama had a good reply to your data tampering comment. “It’s pretty rare that you encounter people who say that the problem of carbon pollution is not a problem, In most communities and workplaces, they may not know how big a problem it is, they may not know exactly how it works, they may doubt they can do something about it. Generally they don’t just say, ‘No I don’t believe what the scientists say.’ Folks will tell you climate change is hoax or a fad or a plot. A liberal plot.”
Mataya, can you explain what “carbon pollution” is?
“Carbon pollution” = non sequitur in a discussion about climate science.
When was that term (carbon pollution) invented? I started hearing it on a couple news outlets THIS YEAR.
What it is, is a PR term. Public Relations. Sticks in the minds of the low information voters.
Carbon is getting polluted?
Shucks, we can’t even get good clean Carbon any more, probably been cut with some low grade imported Carbon, we see that happening a lot.
Thanks for the link Matayada, I just wasted 1/2 hour at the Guardian reading comments. It was like being sent back to Middle School and being forced to hang out with the special ed students. I made the following comment to one of Dana’s morons, I’m sure it will be deleted:
Well, isn’t this interesting? Cheering for an El Nino to make the surface temperatures shoot up so you can shout with glee. Isn’t global warming supposed to kill people by flooding cities and taking us to a tipping point so Earth gets a runaway GHE and becomes like Venus, and our oceans will boil away? That’s what you guys have been saying for years. And everybody is going to die. So why would you be cheering for a coming El Nino?
Well, when your predicted El Nino fails to arrive, as none of your predictions ever has, you can always invent a new one. The sky is falling, isn’t it? Must be a conspiracy of the oil companies, the Koch brothers, the tobacco companies, and Fox news, Dunning-Kruger, and now the tinfoil companies to sell more hats.
Ah, our old chum Dana Nutticelli.
I asked Dana if there was ANY AGW-related issue which doesn’t fall in favour of AGW?
You know, a smidgen of doubt here, an unanswered question there?
There’s two sides to every story.
But not in climate La-La land.
My post was never allowed to even see the light of day.
Every single time sceptics introduce any topic that threatens The Theory, Dana turns up with his latest ‘instant, definitive and decisive rebuttal’.
He is not neutral, he’s a propagandist. Nothing more or less.
Just as almost all the Guardians environment reporters are.
And I suppose that you also don’t believe that there were very many guns in frontier America. (Bellisles would never make up a 600 page book on the subject with 150 pages of mfg’d references.) And that animal fats are the no. 1 cause of heart disease (based on thousands of bona fide studies).
And of course, “It never cools in sunny Iceland” (to be sung to the tune of “It never rains in California).
Thanks for the Guardian pointer – clearly the attack dogs are on the scent …
rw The celebratory mood here today is interesting. Whats up with that? Did a “skeptic” paper get published in a peer reviewed journal? No. Did a popular “skeptic” come out in support of the “data tampering” charge? No. On the contrary, Anthony Watts still thinks such silliness discrets the campaign. There is no Galileo or Samuel Clemens here. So, what did happen? Performance art. There is something to be said for successful performance art and resurrecting this many times debunked trope for another round of goldie oldies is something to be said. It’s like Phyllis Diller always said, “bad publicity is better than no publicity”. Forget the Daily Mail small potatoes, The Guardian is the big time.
ROFLMAO. I suggest you buckle up your seat belt.
Dear Matayaya,
Here’s something to think about as you (and Dana) wander (snickering) down Conspiracy Lane. I assume you’ve heard of the Dreyfus affair. In France in the 1890’s the Dreyfusards, those who thought Dreyfus was innocent, amounted to only a few dozen people, while the anti-Dreyfusards numbered in the millions. Was the latter a “conspiracy”, to use Mr. Nuccitelli’s term? Was there a mysterious cabal working hard to ensure that everyone was following the correct party line? Obviously, no conspiracy along those lines was possible. But it happened; a large portion of the population acted as one. Almost as if they were zombies.
QED
(and H/T to Mr. Nuccitelli for the metaphor)
After all the bluster, dodging and distraction; it all gets backs to physics 101. Your predecessors fought for 20 years to keep lead in gasoline, the EPA from forming, resisted clean air and water regulations, DDT on the land and tobacco as a safe hobby. Some of those guys are still alive and are now on the anti AGW bandwagon along with a whole new generation.
The banning of DDT has lead to the deaths of millions (if not tens of millions) in Africa and Asia, all for the sake of an unproven link between DDT and the thickness of a stupid bird’s egg shell.
And for good measure: nothing in the Constitution enumerates authority of the Federal government to create an EPA (or most of the other alphabet Federal government agencies, for that matter).
As for tobacco: personal freedom means the freedom to do things that can cause personal harm. If someone wants to smoke, and can pay for the habit out of their own hard-earned money: more power to them. Just don’t make me pay for the tobacco, or for the medical costs incurred from long-term use.
As for the rest: I think you’ll find that many (most?) conservatives are conservationists to some extent (not being wasteful; being good stewards of what we’ve been given). There is a difference between debating meaningful regulations and disagreeing with power grabs under the guise of environmentalism.
Chip, DDT limited use has not led to the deaths of “millions, if not tens of millions” in Africa. Another wild statement, just like your climate science stuff. DDT is a good analogy for CO2. DDT builds up over time in the environment and persists in the environment for a long time. It is harmful not only to birds, but all wildlife. It is still used in some places for mosquito control but is only one tool in a toolbox for controlling malaria. So you would continue spraying it willy nilly over the land, what me worry.
You would have no EPA. Your next door neighbor could be a chemical manufacturer and you would just trust he would do you no harm. His smoke stack wafting thru your house would be fine with you. He could dump whatever into the stream behind your house? The Constitution does permit the protection of the safety and welfare of Americans.
The issue of tobacco for you all on the right is not of personal freedom as you say, but whether it was toxic at all. The tobacco industry and Heartland Institute argued, and still argue, it was/is harmless, just like you all say Co2 is harmless.
Conservatives abuse the word conservation. What the hell have you actually conserved? The freedom as you describe it to chase the next paycheck could care less about being stewards of the land and leaving ours kids something decent.
So Malaria is some right-wing, capitalist conspiracy theory? The 1-2 million people it kills every year are figments of conspiracy theorists’ imagination?
Do you have anything other than Silent Spring to support your assertions of the harms of DDT?
Under our form of government, States are sovereign, and fully capable – and have to authority – to create agencies to serve the purpose of the EPA. Was that point is too subtle for you, or did you merely wish to erect a straw man to demolish?
Yes, I realize that the tenth amendment is a thorn in the side of authoritarians who want the federal government to control every aspect of our lives.
I don’t recall authorizing you to speak for me – nor do I recall claiming to speak for anyone else, much less everyone on the right. My stance on tobacco is exactly as I stated.
Tobacco is toxic. Alcohol is toxic. Marijuana is toxic. At sufficient quantities, even water is toxic.
Strangely, I don’t seem to remember anyone arguing the toxicity of CO2, either (protip: CO2 is an axphyxiant, not a toxin).
I realize that, failing any logical arguments, you have been reduced to ad hominem, but while your prejudice presumes to know much, you know nothing about me. Your opinions of me, and my conservation efforts (or your presumed lack thereof) can go pound sand.
Chip Bennett, just reading between the lines of your DDT stance speaks volumes about what you think. I don’t think my characterizations were too far off base. Goggle DDT, it has a long and complex history. Saying it has been banned and killed millions does a disservice to the truth.
You don’t have monopoly on understanding the Constitution. The founders set up a natural tension between the state’s rights you focus on and federalism. I don’t always like what the Supreme Court says, but it is the best we humans can do and I accept it. They accept the EPA, so you should too.
Since Steve does little moderating, being hostile is the only way to have a discussion here. The best defence is offence. You would have turned hostile sooner or later. I beat you too it.
And you still have nothing but prejudice and presumption.
WRT DDT: which of the following do you deny:
1) The rate of malaria, and malaria-caused deaths, worldwide before DDT
2) The reduction in rate of malaria, and malaria-caused deaths, wherever DDT was used
3) The subsequent increase in rate of malaria, and malaria-caused deaths, when DDT use was discontinued
If you have any relevant, peer-reviewed studies to add to the discussion, I’ll certainly consider them.
Because SCOTUS always gets it right. I suppose we should have just accepted the Dred Scott decision, merely because it was handed down by SCOTUS?
Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve been trolled and antagonized by far better of your ilk. I’ve used my own, real name to represent my online persona since 1995. My internet activity is entirely transparent. You’re welcome to search it; good luck finding instances of me “turning hostile”.
(Unless Jeff Triplette is involved; I’m still pissed at him for that call in the Colts-Bengals game last year…)
Just an aside. SCOTUS does not accept the EPA. Nor does it accept that CO2 is a pollutant. It affirmed the law creating it was constitutional and the work the EPA did conformed to the law.
Matayaya is just ignorant of what the SCOTUS is.
matayaya – you are not a mentalist, clairvoyant, or omniscient. So keep your il-informed ignorant opinions to yourself.
Address what is said, or admit you have nothing. So far you are demonstrating you have nothing.
Nothing the climate charlatans predicted in the last 40 years has come true. Why do you still insist on believing the climate charlatans?
Why do you view people who challenge AGW science as a threat? Shouldn’t any science be challenged? Why is AGW “science” exempt from the scrutiny all other science receives?
your predecessors matayaya? bad science is bad science, regardless of where you find it. YOu are the only one supporting bad science. Just like your predecessors did in the past.
rw, That is a stupid analogy.
It may or may not be a “good” analogy. It is not a ‘stupid’ analogy – except to those not intelligent enough to understand it.
Maybe someone should send the Guardian copies of the peer-reviewed study by Doug M. Smith et al, entitled “Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming Decade from a Global Climate Model” – and which featured in the journal Science, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5839/796.
Compare this paper’s results to UK Met Office study that predicted temperatures would rise by up to half a degree centigrade, or as they put it –
But of course Dana Nutticelli would vito such a thing being published in the news-lite paper that he now comments in.
tomoomason, you guys are good at torturing words to make people seem to be saying the opposite of what they actually think. No sense chasing that rabbit. I’m sure if you ask the Met office straight up, they don’t think the earth is cooling.
Oh, our side has nothing on your side, when it comes to “torturing words to make people seem to be saying the opposite of what they’re saying”:
Chip Bennett, the real issue is that half of Americans don’t know that the vast majority of climate scientist recognize AGW. The “skeptics” have been very successful at confusing the public about this. Here is a recent study on the consensus with good methodology.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
After all, even Richard Tol, one of the critics of the Cook study mentioned in your source said this. “There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct.”
First, anyone who champions consensus either doesn’t know that science is not a matter of consensus, or knows it, but uses consensus as a propaganda tool to mislead a general public naive/ignorant of scientific endeavors. You can hammer me with consensus all you want; you’re barking up the wrong tree. Consensus – even if it existed – is irrelevant.
Second, the reference you cite as supposedly having good methodology bases its final conclusion on a grand total of 77 survey responses out of 10,257 survey invitations.
Third, it is obvious that humans have an impact on mean global temperature. UHI is real. What was either not asked, or not addressed in the cited reference, was whether humans have a significant contributing effect on global climate.
But thank you; I have always loved Sunday afternoon softball.
YOu are a mental midget! 😆 Doran has been thoroughly discredited! Did you read the link? 10,257 surveyed, 3145 responded and they threw out all but 77 to get the 97%! That is not even a beauty contest, and bears no resemblance to science!
As usual from you just mere speculation, no thought or investigation done, just your own opinion and that is 100% wrong.
So Matayaya go and keep chasing your rabbits in your wonderland, one day reality will catch you.
matayaya says:
June 29, 2014 at 3:53 pm
“Chip Bennett, the real issue is that half of Americans don’t know that the vast majority of climate scientist recognize AGW. The “skeptics” have been very successful at confusing the public about this.”
You give us way too much credit. It was our ally, Earth, that just refused to go along with the government scientist prescribed warming. Together with our billions of minor allies, the thermometer army.
Sorry your outnumbered.
The “Met Office” does not talk. So it can say nothing. Phil Jones or one of his co-workers can make any claim they want. The data speaks for itself.
Matayaya, I have a request concerning your intellectual rights. I’d like to use your comments published here in a private but strictly non-commercial venture.
Would you kindly grant me a permission to use your arguments in this thread as handouts when I’m educating my children about the use of fallacies?
“Scientists have put substantial effort into accounting for all these changes that introduce known biases in the raw data across thousands of temperature monitoring stations … it’s just good science, which even contrarian climate scientists don’t dispute.”
Even “good science” can be wrong, when it reaches the limits of its postulates, the critical point of its paradigm.
True science, real science, is an ever evolving body of knowledge and is never above the facts.
With adjustments or not it’s obvious that world’s climate has been doing its cyclic oscillations in the past century- as it did in previous centuries- and is now starting to cool down.
Any “science” that cannot report this obvious fact needs a revision, and it’s not as “good” as their practitioners want to proclaim.
No doubt the Laughing-Stock-in-Chief has sent yet another memo to the IRS. Prepare for your audit….
How many hits are you getting at the moment Steve / Tony ? Must be enough to fill 3.2 Manhattans… well done. Right or wrong you are being read more.
I can claim to have known you since the old days though when we talked mainly about the Arctic where I posted something brilliant and you then wrote Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz .
Wait till I tell my grandchildren I was there at the start!
Please post more Arctic stuff.
Andy
It’s Friday arvo in Perth. I could use a Manhattan or 3.2
Andy, me too, I was following Steve when he fell out with Watts on WUWT, it was their loss and our gain.
Steve’s historical data “Mining” is second to none and a great repository for put downs of claims of “Unprecedneted” this & that.
Well done Steven,
You’ve got the attention of DC and the NSA. Please pass on my regards to the big O when you have tea and donuts with him, and discuss high powered global issues.
Sotto voce: All of a sudden I feel redundant.
LOL
Why the White House? Summit, Greenland, for a round of golf.
http://www.wunderground.com/weather-forecast/GL/Summit.html
Nice one Steve 🙂
Congratulations.
The very idea that the Guardian has circled the wagons would have been inconceivable a few years back.
This little ‘tiff’ between you and WUWT has probably generated more hits on Skeptical sites than anything since Climategate 2.
Keep that animation of the altered graph up near the top of the site for the next few days.
It can’t be ‘denied’ and whatever the subtle ‘scientific’ arguments that ensue…. it’s a real eye opener.
You and the Daily Mail have gone and ruined Anthony Watts’ weekend if not his entire week.
“We are punished not for our sins, but by them.”
– Elbert Hubbard
No doubt you will be audited and wind up in a cell next to Dinesh D’Souza
Obama with his 7th grade math and logic skills, imagines that “Republicans pretend they can’t read” at the same time Obama pretends non-working thermometers are still “reading” the temperatures accurately.
Well, you got your “acted stupidly” proclamation, but I wouldn’t hold your breath for your beer-summit invitation.
Good thing Lois Lerner is on the run or an IRS audit would be in the works. Your work is making and impact. Keep it up.
Another “Fuck Yeah!”
Congratulations!
Steven, watch out for those “invitations to the White House”</i.
KGB agents got “invitations to visit Mother Russia” and a bullet to the head. Just ask Kent Clizbe