Science and Society

This is an idiot flapping its gums:

Anthropogenic Global Warming Climate Change Myth Threatens Noble Savage Myth

This is reality kicking idiots in the teeth:

A new study came out in Nature a couple of weeks ago that assesses multiple records of ocean temperatures over the last couple of decades and finds that there is “a statistically significant linear warming trend for 1993-2008 of 0.64 W m-2”.

…

[The] oceans are warming on decadal timescales, as expected in an enhanced greenhouse effect climate, and most of the ocean (below 700m) is poorly monitored making short term behaviour in the parts we can see difficult to explain. It is important in understanding global warming to keep the relative heat capacity of the surface and the oceans in perspective.

Reality wins. Again.

We’ve already had a taste of Kat Wilton’s ignorance, as when she decided to waste as much energy as possible just to be a fucking asshole. What kind of stupidity is she engaging in now?

I’m still waiting for my global warming….

Well, Kat, you’re in luck. I can tell you where the global warming is. It’s all over the globe. you shit-ignorant jackass:

Last week, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its monthly “State of the Climate Global Analysis” for January.

We see blowout warming in the satellite temperature record, which is so beloved of the anti-science crowd since they think — incorrectly — it doesn’t show warming.  Note that in UAH, we crushed the previous record.

Stick to spewing Bible quotes, Kat. You are at least minimally competent at that task. Leave the discussion of science to the grown-ups — you know, the folks who are aware of the realities of the world beyond your own crappy little back yard.

Clive Hamilton of Australia has published a series of excellent articles on the efforts of the denialists to misinform the public on climate change. In Manufacturing a scientific scandal, he punctures the myth of “Climategate”.

While the “revelations” have been milked for all they are worth, and a lot more, the science remains rock solid. If instead of cherry-picking two or three that lend themselves to spin, you read the 1000 or so emails that were posted on a Russian server the picture that emerges is one of an enormously dedicated group of men and women doing their best to carry out research of the highest quality.

…

[T]he emails reveal the enormous external pressure they were under. They show they were constantly accused of being frauds and cheats; their work was twisted and misrepresented; and they were bombarded with vexatious freedom of information requests orchestrated by denialists. In short, they were caught up in a hot political debate that they did not really understand or want to be part of, yet they were the target of savvy, secretive and ruthless organisations ready to pounce on anything they said or wrote.

This is the real story exposed of “Climategate”. Instead, the scientists in question have seen their professional reputations trashed in the world’s media for no cause, to the point where Phil Jones has been on the verge of suicide. It has been the most egregious and unfounded attack on the integrity of a profession we have ever seen.

Read the whole article.

(hat tip: Climate Progress)

Camille Marino is a coward and terrorist who masquerades as an “animal rights activist”. Orac has more on this dangerous psychpath here and here.

For someone who runs a blog called “America’s Right”, Jeff Schreiber sure does spend an awful lot of his time being wrong.

Schreiber claims to be a law student. Apparently he has never been taught that being a decent lawyer means having some sort of respect for the facts. His post entitled “Climategate: Where Are The Fraud Charges?” is shot through with numerous fables, fantasies, and outright [REDACTED]. I’ll deal with only his most egregious falsehood here.

Schreiber claims that over the past three decades, “the world grew cooler.” He’s [REDACTED]. The planet has been on a steady warming trend. The “cooler” meme derives from the fact that in 1998, an abnormally strong El Nino resulted in warmer than normal global average atmospheric temperatures. Since global average atmospheric temperatures have been a bit cooler in the years following 1998, denialists like Schreiber will gleefully shriek that “the Earth is cooling! Global warming is a fraud!”.

Well, no. The atmosphere is but one component of the complex entity that is Planet Earth. When one looks at the total heat content of the Earth — which means looking not just at the lower portions of the atmosphere, but also the land, the seas, and the ice packs — then one sees a clear picture of the increasing heat content of the Earth: