Horatio Algeranon's

Stairway to Heaven

2012-01-21T17:44:00.000-08:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's rendering of the classic Led Zeppelin tune

There's a skeptic who's sure, temp that goes up is good

And he claims it's a stairway to heaven

When he gets there he "knows", if the future's foreclosed

With a dollar he can get what he came for

Ooh, ooh, and he claims it's a stairway to heaven

There's a graph on his blog but he wants to be sure

'Cause he knows sometimes graphs have two meanings

In a tree by Yamal, there's a proxy that sings

Somehow all of its temps are misgiven

Ooh, it makes him blunder

There's a feeling he gets when he looks at the BEST

And his spirit is crying for leaving

On his blog he has blown rings of smoke through the trees

And confusion for those who stand lurking

Ooh, it makes him blunder

Ooh, it really makes him blunder

And it's whispered by Willie Soon if we all call the tune

Then the Inhofes will lead us to Reason

And a pay day will dawn for those who stand long

And the board-rooms will echo with laughter

If there's some chaos in your climate, don't be alarmed now

It's just a spring clean for the Maldives

Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run

There's no need to change the road you're on

And it makes him blunder

Your blog is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know

James Inhofe's calling you to join him.

Dear Tony, can you hear the windbag blow and did you know

Your stairway lies on the global temp?

And as we wind on down the road

Our shadows taller than our soul.

There walks a scientist we all know

Who shines white light and wants to show

That he ain't in it for the gold.

And if you listen very hard

The tune will come to you at last.

When all are one and one is all

To be a rock and not a troll.

But he claims it's a stairway to heaven...

Temperature (and Brain) Farts

2012-01-10T04:49:00.000-08:00

– by Horatio Algeranon

The temperature changes in fits and starts

Steps and ramps and even farts

But that don’t disprove man-made warming

Or even prove it ain’t alarming.

What is "epsilon"?

2012-01-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

“Epsilon” is nearly 1

If we burn oil as we’ve done

And “epsilon” is “oopsolong”

If we prolong this crazy run.

Horatio's answer to the question posed by Tamino:
What’s the chance that if we continue with business-as-usual, man-made global warming will lead to disastrous climate change? It isn’t zero. It isn’t one. What is epsilon?

The Cycles on the Blog

2012-01-02T18:46:00.000-08:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's take on the popular children's song
(sung by "Cosmic Ray and the Deniers")

The cycles on the blog go round and round
Round and round
Round and round
The cycles on the blog go round and round
All around the Web

The graphs on the blog go up and down
Up and down
Up and down
The graphs on the blog go up and down
All around the Web

The trend on the blog goes only down
Only down
Only down
The trend on the blog goes only down
All around the Web.

The noise on the blog goes only up
Only up
Only up
The noise on the blog goes only up
All around the Web.

The cherries on the blog get picked and cooked
Picked and cooked
Picked and cooked
The cherries on the blog get picked and cooked
All around the web

The science on the blog is non-existant
Non-existant
Non-existant
The science on the blog is non-existant
All around the web

The sea-ice on the blog is in recovery
In recovery
In recovery
The sea-ice on the blog is in recovery
All around the web

The driver of the blog is Cosmic Ray
Cosmic Ray
Cosmic Ray
The driver of the blog is Cosmic Ray
All around the Web.

The blokes on the blog claim "It's the sun",
"It's the sun""
"It's the sun"
The blokes on the blog claim "It's the sun"
All around the Web.

The Stevies on the blog cry "wah wah wah
Wah, wah, wah"
Wah, wah, wah".
The Stevies on the blog cry "Wah, wah, wah",
All around the Web.

The posts on the blog go round and round
Round and round
Round and round
The posts on the blog go round and round
All around the Web

Feel free to add your own verses.

The Serpent Tamer

2011-12-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

– by Horatio Algeranon

The Uncertainty Monster

Has been tamed

By the one

Who’s aptly named

Tamino tames

The data snakes

And even more

Ferocious fakes

"Tamino plays his magic flute in hopes of summoning Pamina and Papageno. The tones summon a group of magically tamed beasts, which listen in rapture to Tamino's music" -- from wikipedia article on Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute"

Cause for pause?

2011-12-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The "warming pause"

Is without cause

But I regress

Instead of guess

At zany "theories"

That break known laws.

A new paper by Foster and Rahmstorf (which uses "multiple regression" to estimate and "subtract out" short term variations in the temperature signal due to el Nino, volcanic eruptions and solar output changes) indicates that the claim of a "pause" in warming over the past decade is simply not supported by the temperature evidence (not to mention the minor fact that ithe claim has no basis in physics, given that the atmospheric CO2 level has continued upward, which scientists know induces warming)

Foster and Rahmstorf

"With the bulk of the fluctuations removed, the continued course of warming over the entire time span (including the last decade) is undeniable." (from "The Real Global Warming Signal" )

Posterity's Promises

2011-12-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Why should I

Give to Posterity?

What has she

Ever done for me?

Posterity is always

Procrastinating

Says "Tomorrow"

She'll be waiting

To give me riches

And her charms

Keep me from

The Future's harms

But I'm quite sure

She won't deliver

Never does

So don't believe her.

H/T Sir Boyled Roche, Groucho Marx, Winston Churchill or whoever it was that said "Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me?"

Fake 'n Bake

2011-11-29T09:40:00.000-08:00

--by Horatio Algeranon

You believe global warming is real

But I know that it's fake

Fake thermometers, that's the deal

Fake climate scientists on the take

Fake science papers in fake publications

Fake academic and Celsius degrees

Fake reports for public relations

Fake bachelors, masters and PhD's.

Fake IR absorption by CO2
Fake Mauna Loa Keeling Curve
Fake effect of the greenhouse too
It's all a fake, as we observe.

Fake arctic sea-ice and glacier retreat

Fake cooling of the stratosphere

It's "Fake 'n Bake" and I repeat

The whole thing's FAKE!! That much is clear.

Inspired by a comment at the Rabett's place:

"I think global warming is fake, you think it's real. Send money to the government, drive a Prius and eat your food off of bamboo planks if you like, just don't force your opinions on me. We're both looking at the same data but have done different analysis', deal with it."

To Each His Own

2011-11-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Ideology sets the path,

Economics provides the math

And Ethics makes the excuse

For inter-generational abuse.

The argument that "Every dollar spent to reduce emissions is a dollar that would be better spent to reduce poverty" is fairly popular in some circles, including some hacker circles.

Go Down Mosher

2011-11-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

--by Horatio Algeranon (with a little help from Anonymous)

When Mosher was in Denier's land,
Let My emails go!
FOI'd so hard they could not stand,
Let My scientists go!

Refrain:
Go down, Mosher,
Way down in Denier's land;
Tell old McIntyre
To let My people go!

No more shall they in BS toil,
Let My people go!
Let them vanquish Exxon's oil,
Let My people go!
(Refrain)

Let us all from Monckton flee,
Let My people go!
Let us all from Chris be free,
Let My people go!
(Refrain)

It takes no courage to lie and boast,
Let My people go!
And cater to your CA host,
Let My people go!
(Refrain)

Might try asking before you demand
Let My people go!
And you'll begin to understand,
Let My people go!
(Refrain)

Steven Mosher (aka Mr. Edit), author of "Climategate: The CRUtape Letters" and "inventor" of the too-clever-by-half "Piltdown Mann" webuendo, clearly fashions himself as some sort of latter-day Moses, leading his people to freedom (He believes "his people" are the scientists, of course)

Letters from Santa

2011-11-24T08:09:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

"The CRUtape Letters"
Was a hit

So now we expect
A newspeakquel to it.

Piltdown Mosher
With his tales,

Could benefit
From Christmas sales.

"Lord, he was born a dissemblin' man"

2011-11-14T09:47:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

(with a little help from the Allman Brothers and Dickey Betts)

Lord, he was born a dissemblin' man
Trying to make a flat-line and doing the best he can
When it's time for deceivin', I hope you'll understand
That he was born a dissemblin' man

His father was a Viscount down in Brenchley
He wound up on the right end of a sum
He was born in the back seat of a Mercedes Benz
Rolling down highway A-21

Lord, he was born a dissemblin' man
Trying to make a flat-line and doing the best he can
When it's time for deceivin', I hope you'll understand
That he was born a dissemblin' man

He's on his way to Georgia Tech this morning
Leaving out of Kent in Ye Olde Kingdom
Always having a good time down on the Mann oh, Lord
Them Georgia women think the world of him.

Lord, he was born a dissemblin' man
Trying to make a flat-line and doing the best he can
When it's time for deceivin', I hope you'll understand
That he was born a dissemblin' man

Nobel Dreams

2011-11-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Now that I've won

The Nobel prize

I can close

My weary eyes

And speculate

About goofy things

Like global cooling

And moody rings

What's in a word?

2011-11-08T06:46:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

(with help from the Anonymuse Most High)

What's in a word

That which we call a "pause"

By many other words*

Would stall as neat.

*stop, lag, slowdown, whatever.

"There's no scientific evidence"

2011-11-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

There's no scientific evidence,

That warming hasn't stopped

Nor is there any affirmation

That aliens haven't dropped,

From spaceships up above

And made to us their love.

There's no definitive proof
That Elvis ain't around

Or that he ever even left

And was buried underground,

Where worms have permeated

The King, as some have stated.

There's no rationale for believing

That Big Foot isn't real

And isn't doing TV ads

That sell his sex appeal,

Dressing up in Calvin Klein

That beastly body to define.

There's no convincing argument

That fairies aren't true

That Peter Pan ain't really real
And Tink and Wendy too

That Captain Hook was just a mime

Acting for a lousy dime.

There's no scientific evidence

That warming hasn't paused

Lagged, slowed down, or whatever

(Don't ask about the cause)

Our data show The Pause, in fact

And Monckton plots the trend exact.

Inspired by a comment by "muoncounter" at Open Mind.

Curt Curry

2011-11-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

– by Horatio Algeranon

You know,

Our data show the pause

But don’t ask 'how? '

It's just because

For context, read this.

"Someone Like You"

2011-10-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's reversification of the song by Adele

I heard that you settled down
That you found a trend and you're convinced now.
I heard that NOAA's claims came true.
Guess they gave you data I didn't give to you.

Oh, man, are you ever sly
Ain't like you to toe the line or say Jones was right.

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.
I had hoped you'd see my blog and that you'd be reminded
That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I don't need someone like you
I hope nothing comes of the BEST for you too
You won't forget me, I vow
I remember you crowed,
"Sometimes it lasts in science but sometimes it falsifies instead,
"Sometimes it lasts in science but sometimes it falsifies instead,
Yeah.

You know how the time flies
Only yesterday was the denial of our lives
We were born and raised
In a skeptic haze
Bound by the lies of our glory days

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.
I had hoped you'd see my blog and that you'd be reminded
That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I don't need someone like you
I hope nothing comes of the BEST for you too
You won't forget me, I vow
I remember you crowed,
"Sometimes it lasts in science but sometimes it falsifies instead,

Nothing's the same
No insults or shame
Gunshots or stabs
They are not half as bad
Who would have known how putrescent this would taste?

Never mind, I don't need someone like you
I hope nothing comes of the BEST for you too
You won't forget me, I vow
I remember you crowed,
"Sometimes it lasts in science but sometimes it falsifies instead,

Never mind, I don't need someone like you
I hope nothing comes of the BEST for you too
You won't forget me, I vow
I remember you crowed,
"Sometimes it lasts in science but sometimes it falsifies instead,
"Sometimes it lasts in science but sometimes it falsifies instead,

Any color, as long as it's black

2011-10-24T07:16:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Whatever verdict BEST returns
After analysis adjourns
I am ready to embrace
Discordant music I will face
Let the chips fall where they may
I look forward to that day...

What's this they say?
There's just NO WAY --
That NOAA and the rest are right
That station bias is so slight
To not affect the upward trend
This WRONG result just will not stand.

Some said they would accept any results BEST returned, but are clearly now balking because the conclusions of BEST do not support their own claims (eg, about the significance of surface station bias).

Horatio was actually skeptical of Richard Muller's unsupported and hyperbolic claims (eg, about polar bears and the "BEST" moniker) from the start.

Control of Nature

2011-10-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Control of Nature is the game

And the outcome is the same

Every time we think we've won

Nature has a little fun

Poking holes in solid dikes

Flooding cities and the likes

She will have the final laugh

When she writes our epitaph.

The Unknown Known Unknowns

2011-10-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

If they only knew

What I know now

They would know too

What I don't know.

A Tale of Two Surface Stations (Revisited)

2011-10-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

--by Horatio Algeranon

We’ve heard conversations,
Of surface stations,
“Quite worthless, without reservations.”

“The tennis courts,
We must report,
Have made thermometers jump and snort.”

“The barbecues,
Have made the news,
The station managers have no clues.”

"Their AC units here and there,
Have heated surface station air,
But Hansen does not seem to care."

"And burning trash?
How very rash
The surface record’s quite a hash.”

“The definitive test?
Use only 'The BEST,'
You may as well just chuck the rest.”

So the 'BEST' team sat,
And did just that,
And warming "skeptics" gasped “Oh, drat!”

“The result's the same,
How very lame,
Now, what ever shall we blame?”

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature team have just reported the results to their independent study of the land surface temperature record (which they have most humbly dubbed "BEST"). The results basically confirm what has previously been reported by climate scientists at NASA, NOAA and HadCRU (surprise!)

And the Berkeley team has also confirmed something else that other scientists (eg, at NOAA) had found: "poor [surface weather] station quality in the United States does not unduly bias estimates of land surface average monthly temperature trends" (from "Earth Atmospheric Land Surface Temperature and Station Quality in the United States", by Muller et al)

The latter flatly contradicts the claims that some global warming naysayers have made:

that the historical US surface temperature record has been so "contaminated" (by the warming effects of barbecues, blacktop, air conditioners etc) that it is unreliable if not worthless and
that much (if not most) of the warming trend documented by scientists is not real but simply an artifact of poor surface [weather] station quality.

Horatio originally posted the above ditty in Nov, 2007, but some things change very little over time (like the unsupported -- and false! -- claims of climate "skeptics") and only two minor modifications were required: "Use only 'The Best' " (in the original) was changed to "Use only 'The BEST' " (all caps!) and "John V. sat" was changed to "The 'BEST' team sat". That's it!

John V = John Van Vliet did a preiliminary analysis several years ago (OpenTemp.org "An Open Analysis of the Historical Temperature Record"), which basically confirmed the results of NASA GISTEMP (James Hansen et. al.) for the US Lower 48.

The Babaloneyans

2011-10-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

"Whole lotta babblin’ goin on”

– Horatio Algeranon’s diversification
of Chubby Checker's “Whole lotta shakin goin on”
(written by Roy Hall and Dave Williams)

Oh come on over baby
Whole lotta fact-twistin’ goin’ on
Ooo come on over baby
Baby you can’t go wrong
Don’t cha know we ain’t gobblin’
Whole lotta babblin’ goin’ on
Why don’t cha come on over baby
There’s good bloggin’ tonight
Wow Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
Come over baby baby
You can do the shammy alright
Yeah we ain’t gobblin’
Whole lotta babblin’ tonight
Come on I said bab-ble baby bab-ble
Ooo twist-the-facts baby twist ‘em
Oh bab-ble baby bab-ble
Yeah twist ‘em baby twist ‘em
Come on over
Whole lotta fact-twistin’ goin’ on
Yeah yeogh
Well I said come on over baby
We really got Jim Hansen by the stats
Yeah we ain’t dabblin’
Whole lotta babblin’ goin’ on
Easy Now babble
Ahhhh twist it baby
Yeah you can twist one fact for me
Ah come on come on baby
Whole lotta babblin’ goin’ on
Now let’s go one more time
Bab-ble, Baby, bab-ble……
Bab-ble, Baby, bab-ble……
Come on over, whole lotta babblin’ goin on

The Addumbs Bloggerie

2011-10-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

--by Horatio Algeranon

(after the Addam's Family theme)

Their math is simply hokey

Their theories really kooky

They argue like a Wookiee

The Addumbs Bloggerie

Their blog's a mouseoleum

When anonymice come to see 'em

They really are a scree-um

The Addumbs Bloggerie

They pooh-pooh global warming

And say "It's not alarming"

"The ice-pack is reforming"

The Addumbs Bloggerie

They libel Manns and Santers
In posts, like crazy ranters,
With bile and whine decanters

The Addumbs Bloggerie

They peddle propaganda

The Fossil Fuel agenda

We'll pay again and again for

The Addumbs Bloggerie

Disagreein' Acres

2011-10-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

--by Horatio Algeranon
(After the "Green Acres" theme song)

"Disagreein' Acres is the place to be

Denier living is the life for me

Denial spreading out so far and wide

Keep Real Climate, just give me that contrary side"

"No, Real Climate’s where I’d rather blog

I’m allergic to the stupid fog

I just adore a climate science view

Darling I love you

But give me some physics too"

Da da duh da da

"The defiance!"

Da da duh da da
"The science!"

da da duh da da

"The attacks!"

da da duh da da

"The facts!"

"You are my wife"

"Goodbye RC life"

"Disagreein' Acres, we are there"

da da duh da da
duh duh

The Curry Cornfield

2011-10-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The Curry Cornfield never ends

O'er hill and dale the labyrinth wends

With row upon row of science dead ends

And Uncertainty Monsters 'round all the bends.

Eli calls them trainwrecks, but they remind Horatio more of the cornfields on his grandfather's farm.

With one difference: Horatio knew his grandfather's cornfield would end and that he would eventually emerge on the other side, having actually accomplished something.

Update: Oct 14
Horatio just discovered that there is another "Curry Cornfield" (pictured in the above painting "Kansas Corn Field", by John Steuart Curry) which actually conveys a message that is quite relevant to the current discussion on climate change. According to The Fine Art Diner (Corn Fields and Greed: John Steuart Curry),

"Curry painted Kansas Corn Field in 1933, when there had already been 3 years of no rain and severe drought was gripping the country's mid-section. It wasn't until November of 1933 that the first of the dust storms started, but a Dust Bowl wasn't needed by American artists like John Curry and Grant Wood, they knew what was happening. "Power farming" had been ripping up the native grasslands of the Plains and replacing it with crops demanding lots of water; coupled with over grazing by various herd animals, the result was catastrophe."

"What Curry is showing us in Corn Fields is not what one would call the quaint, rather, a tragedy, and it simply can't be looked at any other way: the ripe, yellow and green stalks of healthy corn would probably never be on the Plains again, and it was because of man forcing nature to do what it couldn't do, all for the sake of profit."

Though the conditions of the Dust Bowl were made worse by poor farming practices, many scientists believe that climate change will increase the likelihood of extreme droubts like the one that produced the Dust Bowl.

Infinite Ignorance

2011-10-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Science is constrained by physical laws

But ignorance knows no bounds.

Virtually everything can happen -- and does --

In a world where ups are downs

Ghostly Particles

2011-10-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Neutrinos moving faster than light?

The excess speed is oh so slight

But if indeed the result is right

Einstein will turn a ghostly white.

But Einstein need not worry yet
Cuz that result's a long-shot bet
A hundred years of physics tests
Have not disturbed his state of rest.

Particles Found to Travel Faster Than Speed of Light (By Geoff Brumfiel and Nature magazine)

"Neutrino results challenge a cornerstone of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, which itself forms the foundation of modern physics

An Italian experiment has unveiled evidence that fundamental particles known as neutrinos can travel faster than light. Other researchers are cautious about the result, but if it stands further scrutiny, the finding would overturn the most fundamental rule of modern physics—that nothing travels faster than 299,792,458 meters per second."

But Einstein has little reason for concern -- not yet, anyway. It is more likely that the experimenters made some error that only makes it appear that the neutrinos traveled faster than light.

Though Horatios are by our nature skeptical of ghosts, that's not simply this Horatio's opinion. See, for example, "Superluminal neutrinos would wimp out en route" (By Davide Castelvecchi)

"In a terse, peremptory-sounding paper posted online on September 29, Andrew Cohen and Sheldon Glashow of Boston University calculate that any neutrinos traveling faster than light would radiate energy away, leaving a wake of slower particles analogous to the sonic boom of a supersonic fighter jet. Their findings cast doubt on the veracity of measurements recently announced at CERN (and posted online here) that clocked neutrinos going a sliver faster than light."

But we -- and Einstein -- shall see.

Glacial Arctic Sea Ice Melt?

2011-10-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

It may appear to be the case

That sea ice melts at glacial pace

But sea ice volume is decreasing

And glacial pace is now increasing.

*The rate of recession/shrinking of many glaciers is increasing (particularly in the arctic).

Because of "weather noise", arctic sea ice volume does not necessarily decrease from one summer to the next. but the trend over the last few decades is downward and the rate of ice loss appears to be accelerating as Tamino's graph makes clear:

See Tamino's post Arctic Sea Ice 2011, 2012.

Meterology

2011-10-02T08:20:00.001-07:00

-- By Horatio Algeranon

Horatio's verses

Must be like curses

To Shakespeare buffs
-- Or even hearses

To English profs

With poetry courses.

It has recently been pointed out to Horatio that the "meter" of his poems is sometimes "off" (Horatio's note: sometimes it's even nonexistent).

Horatio knows it's a lame excuse, but he has never really bought into the metric system. Inches and feet work just fine when Horatio is doing his carpentry (as long as he remembers the rule to "measure once and cut twice") -- and besides, Shakespeare was English, so what would he know about meters anyway?

And for all the English profs and other fans of serious poetry out there, Horatio would like to add the following disclaimer:

Caution. With Horatio’s goofy poems, anything goes — sometimes very badly. Not to be taken too seriously (or at all). "Analyze" (meter, rhyme, etc) at the risk of serious brain injury.

Remember the May!

2011-09-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Leave it to Hank

To use Page Rank

To find the May

Already sank.

If you have no idea what Horatio is talking about (above or in general), you are undoubtedly not alone. But for the above, at least, reading this might help.

The "Skeptic Pokey"

2011-09-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

(The original title also still works: "Hokey Pokey" )
-- by Horatio Algeranon

You put some data in

You take some data out

You put some data in

And massage it all about

You do the "Cherry Picky"

And you post it all around

That's what it's all about

You put your stats in
You take your stats out
You put your stats in
Correlate them all about

You do the "Batty Statty"
And you quote them all around
That's what it's all about

You put your graph in

You take your graph out

You put another graph in

And you tilt it all about

You do the "Laughy Graphy"

And you post it all around

That's what it's all about

You put some station photos in

You take some station photos out

You put some station photos in

Annotate them all about

You do the "Happy Snappy"

And you post them all around

That's what it's all about

You put your "theory" in

You take the logic out

You put your "fraud claim" in

And you blog it all about

You do the "Skeptic Pokey"

And you turn the public around

That's what it's all about.

Join in. Anyone can do it (and does).

The Excel Pokey

2011-09-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

(with apologies to children everywhere -- but no apology to Bill)

You put your column sums in,

You get your column average out,

You put your table average in,

And you paste it all about,

You do the Excel pokey

and you move your mouse around

That's what it's all about.

Inspired by Tamino's "Misalignment" post.

PS Horatio's losing it -- he knows. When you tangle with Goofy for as long as Horatio has, that's all you end up with.

Robbin the Hood

2011-09-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

They say they need the bucks "to lend"

But pay their bonuses without end.

They say they want to create jobs

But lay off workers ("...lazy slobs").

They say they care about public health

But leverage it to grow their wealth.

They say they workin' for the public good

But really, they jus' robbin the hood.

The (Non)Sense of "Science"

2011-09-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Throwing darts

At data charts:

The sense of science

In certain parts.

Unbridled Stallion

2011-09-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The Texas Governor isn't bound

By petty Constitutions

He's unrestrained by contracts

And New Year's resolutions.

In fact, he rises high above

The laws that govern masses

Of Jefferson and Hamilton

Newton and the gases.

A Parody of Verity

2011-09-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Verity Jones can’t tell a lie

The name just won’t permit it

“Of course the data was cherry-picked

'Cuz how else could we fit it?”

"Fitting data" or, more precisely, "fitting a curve" to data is often done to "show" a certain relationship. For example, one might "fit" the data with a "sine" curve to show that the data has cyclical (repeating) behavior.

But one has to be very careful not to read too much into such "fits" for a couple reasons:

First, data can be "cherry picked" from a larger set to "show" a relationship that actually does not exist in the full data set. For example, if one selects from a bunch of randomly distributed data points only those points that fall close to a particular sine curve, it should be no surprise that they seem to show cyclical behavior. But the relationship is not real, but only an artifact of the "cherry picking" process.

Second, as the famous mathematician John von Neumann put it, "With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk". In other words, even if one does not cherry pick, it's easy to fit pretty much any curve one wants to data, but that does not necessarily mean that the curve shows any real relationship in the data. To show that, one has to use statistics.

For context, read Tamino's "Fruit Loops"

Say it ain’t so, Joe

2011-09-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

– by Horatio Algeranon

Said one Joe to another

“The sea ice is recovering”

The other to his brother

“Indeed what we’re discovering”

"It’s vexing, Joe, wherever we go

The people still confuse us

I don’t know why, but it is so

And Joe, it don’t amuse us."

There are so many Joe's claiming sea ice "recovery" these days, it's hard to keep them all straight.

Polar-bear feedback

2011-09-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Polar-bear albedo, nearly 1,

Helps reflect the arctic sun

Keeps the arctic warming down

Even when the ice is gone.

"Albedo" is the fraction of the sunlight falling on an object that is reflected. For a white object like a polar bear, nearly all of the light is reflected (almost none absorbed), so that fraction is nearly 1.

Horatio would note that bloated polar bears doing the "side-stroke" maximize the above (negative) feedback because they lead to increased "polar-bear cover" of what would otherwise be open (dark, sun absorbing) water. (Live polar bears spend most of their time on the ice, which already reflects most of the incident sunlight, so the normal polar bear feedback is basically a wash).

As arctic sea ice cover decreases, (dead) polar bear cover increases and the two work in opposite directions with regard to changes in absorbed sunlight.

H/T Eli Rabett

Same old same old

2011-09-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Nicotine is not addictive
Smoking doesn't lead to cancer
CFC's don't hurt the ozone
Consensus doesn't give the answer.

Acid rain is not corrosive
Doesn't kill the fish in lakes
Won't erode the limestone statues
The standard "proof" is all a fake.

CO2 does not cause warming
Doesn't make the sea-ice melt
Climate change is not alarming
Just the hand that Nature dealt.

"Der Process"

2011-09-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's versification of the "Interview" of scientist Charles Monnett (and the PEER lawyer representing him) by Interior Department Inspector General (IG)

You said the charges would be clear
From the investigation here

I think what I said is not what you claim
"Charges" and "focus" are not the same

I never said a single thing
About any charges we would bring.

So what exactly is the criminal offense?
I'm simply trying to make sense

Of why the referral to IG
Without a crime for all to see.

Why would there be a criminal referral
Concerning the contract issues (plural)??

Yes, precisely, why waste time
If in fact, there was no crime?

Well, you know, that's just your view
No, it's not. It's a question for you.

How can a referral be justified
Without a crime at least implied?

Well, potentially there are many offenses
With the possibility of contract pretenses.

Based on the fact patterns that you see
You decide what a potential crime could be.

And what was the basis for this case?
I already told you to your face

I would not give you those details
Well actually, from these travails

You said we'd know it from the questions
But all we have is vague suggestions.

That isn't -- wasn't -- my understanding
Of the answer you're demanding.

I took your question as simply this:
"What's this about?, what's the gist?"

I'm quite surprised, you deemed it so pressing
To interrupt science with second guessing

Without a charge, your "fire alarm"
Has really done a lot of harm

I hope you do not find it rude
But if that is all, we will conclude.

For the actual (unversified) text of the "Interview", visit the Rabett's hutch

Update Sept 16

The following is from correspondence from Dr. Charles Monnett (through counsel)

to U.S. Department of Interior Office of Inspector General (Sept 8, 2011)

"Because there is no due process accorded in the IG process and Dr. Monnett is not allowed to see the evidence against him, let alone learn what the allegations precisely are, the IG investigation leaves an amorphous cloud of doubt that is difficult to dispel with facts." -- Dr. Charles Monnett (through counsel)

The Lost Photon

2011-09-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

– by Horatio Algeranon

“I’m lost” the IR photon said

“This greenhouse has me on my head.

I started on my way to space

From earth and now I'm face to face

With the Terra surface whence I came

Up and down seem just the same.”

The only thing more lost than a greenhouse photon is the person who denies it.

Inspired by Arch Stanton's suggestion for who made "Solar Powered Wreck" famous: : "Commander Solar and the Lost Photon-men".

Horatio's brain works in strange ways. He can't help it.

Solar Powered Wreck

2011-09-13T10:40:00.001-07:00

– Horatio Algeranon’s diversification of “Hot Rod Lincoln”

(by Charlie Ryan and W. S. Stevenson, 1955)

My pappy said, “Son, you’re gonna’ drive us to heck’

If you don’t stop drivin’ that Solar Wreck”

Have you heard the story of the “Solar One”

The Grand prix of the Formula Sun?

That story is true, I’m here to say

I was drivin’ the “Solar Way”

It’s got a vacuum-cleaner motor and it’s really souped up

That jet-ski body makes it look like a gup

It’s got no cylinders, but that ain't all

Got a solaro-drive, always stalls

With no carburetor and and no exhaust

An' only one gear you can really get sauced

It’s got safety tubes, but I ain’t scared

Brakes aren’t needed, tires fair

Sat in the parking lot late one night

The moon and the stars was shinin’ bright

Goin nowhere fast, oh what a thrill

Cars were passin like we was standing still

All of a sudden in a wink of an eye

A Cadillac sedan passed us by

I said, “Boys, that’s a mark for me”

By then the tail light was all you could see

Now the fellas was ribbin’ me for bein’ behind

So I thought I’d make the Solar unwind

Put my foot to the road and man alive

I shoved us on down into overdrive.

Wound it up to 9 or 10

My speedometer said that I hit top end

My foot was glued like lead to the tar

That’s all there is and there ain’t no more

Now the boys all thought I’d lost my sense

A picket fence looked like a picket fence

They said, “Slow down! I see spots!

That traffic light just looks like dots”

Took a corner, sideswiped a bike

Told the little kid to take a hike

My foot was clickin’ the guardrail posts

The guy beside me was white as a ghost

Smoke was comin’ from out of my shoe

And my leg was really hurtin too

Knew I could catch him, I thought I could pass

Don’t you know by then I’d be low on gas

We had flames comin’ from out of my side

Feel the tension, man, what a ride!

I said, “Look out, boys, I’ve got a license to fly”

And that Caddy pulled over and said “Want a ride”?

Now all of a sudden she started to knockin’

And down in the dips she started to rockin’

I looked in my mirror; saw a man on a bay

The cop was after my Solar Way

They arrested me and they put me in jail

And called my pappy to throw my bail

And he said “Son, you’re gonna’ drive us to heck’

If you don’t stop drivin’ that Solar Wreck”

Inspired by a comment by Kevin McKinney at Tamino's place:

"I spend inordinate amounts of time challenging one or the other or both [dishonesty or stupidity]. On today’s menu: “China’s CO2 absolves us from responsibility,” “warming is natural,” “it was warmer 125,000 years ago,” and “you don’t want the younger generation to prosper so you are trying to drive us to ruin with your worthless renewable energy.” (Yes, really. And to clarify, the perpetrator of that last farrago is not, himself, a member of said younger generation.)"

To see a picture of the original Hot Log Lincoln, click here.

Watterecovery of Sea Ice

2011-09-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Watterecovery of sea ice it is

For paddling polarbears, indeed pure bliss.

For oil tankers it's heaven sent

Since much less money will be spent

Transporting arctic oil for dole
With bee-line routes across the pole.

If you still don't know Watterecovery of sea ice it is, read The Brain Drain.

Both Sides Now

2011-09-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's perversification of the Joni Mitchell song
(Horatio is sorry, Joni. He truly is. The song is loverly)

Rows and flows of Pachauri hair

And IPCC castles in the air

And alarmist scientists ev'rywhere

I've looked at clouds that way.

But now they only block the sun

They change the climate for everyone

So many papers I would have done

But clouds got in my way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

As feedback and cause, and still somehow

It's cloud illusions I recall

I really don't know clouds at all

Manns and Jones and hockey sticks
The human driven temp uptick
And arctic sea ice melting quick
I've looked at graphs that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at graphs from both sides now
From Mann and Watts and still somehow
It's graph illusions I recall
I really don't know graphs at all

Web awards and feeling proud
To say "Conspiracy" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at climate that way

But now old colleagues are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In blogging every day

I've looked at climate from both sides now
From journals and blogs and still somehow
It's blog illusions I recall
I really don't know climate at all

I've looked at climate from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's skeptic illusions I recall
I really don't know climate at all

Climate Scientist Andrew Dessler sums up the situation regarding clouds

"The usual way to think about clouds in the climate system is that they are a feedback -- as the climate warms, clouds change in response and either amplify (positive cloud feedback) or ameliorate (negative cloud feedback) the initial change. In recent papers, Lindzen and Choi and Spencer and Braswell have argued that reality is reversed: clouds are the cause of, and not a feedback on changes in surface temperature." -- from Cloud Variations and the Earth's Energy Budget (A.E. Dessler)

In his above linked paper (and his companion video of same name, Cloud Variations and the Earth's Energy Budget), Dessler points out serious problems (among them, apparent violation of energy conservation) with the latter "reversed reality" claim, concluding that there is "No merit to the claim that clouds cause climate change."

But Roy and Richard shouldn't feel bad. Even Joni Mitchell was confused by clouds.

PS If you don't already know what "Rows and flows of Pachauri hair" look like, click here.

Truth Choppers

2011-09-06T07:15:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

IPCC chapters

Black copters

Earth scorching

Truth choppers.

For context, read The War Being Waged Against Us.

"The War Being Waged Against Us"

2011-09-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

[with black helicopters]

-- Horatio Algeranon's versification of Roy Spencer

(Episode 2 of "All My Conspiracy Theories")

There's a war being waged against us

By the good-ol'-boy IPCC

Whose currency is group think

And agenda plain to see.

The wagons are being circled

With a report in preparation

The peers are being rewarded

With continued remuneration.

There's a bust-gut effort to ensure:

-- That nothing gets accepted

Which interferes with political goals

And policies enacted.

-- That any paper that does get by

Which challenges consensus

Is summarily discredited

With ad hominem against us.

Roy Spencer (from "The War Being Waged Against Us")

"We simply cannot compete with a good-ole-boy, group think, circle-the-wagons peer review process which has been rewarded with billions of research dollars to support certain policy outcomes."

"It is obvious to many people what is going on behind the scenes. The next IPCC report (AR5) is now in preparation, and there is a bust-gut effort going on to make sure that either (1) no scientific papers get published which could get in the way of the IPCC’s politically-motivated goals, or (2) any critical papers that DO get published are discredited with any and all means available."

(Saint) Peter Review

2011-09-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

If Peer Review

Were Peter Review

Would those rejected

Join Satan too?

In Christianity, Saint Peter is often portrayed as "The keeper of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven" -- ie, God's personal doorman, tasked with deciding who gets in... and who goes (directly) to Hell (ie, does not pass Go[d] and does not collect $200).

The above was inspired by a post by Robert Grumbine in which he quotes his wife: "It's peer review, not God review."

Horatio has used his poetic license to change that to "Peter Review" (Forgive him, for he knows not what he do).

Flat as a Hatter

2011-09-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

"Goofy claims require goofy evidence"

Is what a wise old chap once said.

"The world is flat" requires a cat

Perched atop a hatter's head.

The Goebbeleo Complex

2011-09-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Their tentacles are everywhere

In scientific journals

In hallowed halls of government

(And also in the urinals)

They even penetrate the bags

of Redenbacher kernels

With propaganda methods

Like those of Joseph Goebbels.

The "Goebbeleo Complex" (German: Göbbeleo -- pronounced Grrrbalayo) is the belief that one is the great scientist Galileo being persecuted by the Nazi's (more specifically, by Hitler's chief of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels -- sometimes referred to by his blogging alias, "IPCC".)

H/T Eli Rabett.

The Brain Drain

2011-09-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

As sea-ice funnels down the drain

The climate "skeptics" go insane

Down is up and melt is freeze

And thin is thicken, if you please.

Warm is cold and water is ice

Watterecovery,very nice.

In the comments at Tamino's place "Bernard J." gives a great metaphor for the recent behavior of arctic sea ice: a coin spiraling down a "funnel" (shown here). As it spirals downward, the coin moves closer and further from the "center" (due to the "wobble" of the coin). This variation imposed on the overall downward movement of the coin is analogous to the variation of sea ice cover from year to year (due to "weather wobble") superimposed on the overall downward ice (extent and volume) trend of recent decades.

Kevin Trenberth, is that you?

2011-09-04T07:14:00.001-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's versification of a rant by Roy Spencer at his blog

(Horatio took a few liberties, but very few)

Well, well...Kevin Trenberth, is that you?
Hiding behind a screen name as you do?
Your points are lame, our results were GLOBAL
-- And your straw men are ignoble.
If you even bothered to read our paper,
You would not be passing vapor!
OMG! You're wasting time and space
With red herrings at my place!
CONGRATS, OBSCURITY, YOU'RE THE FIRST TO BE BANNED
FROM THIS SITE, (your hide is tanned)
THE CHARGE IS EITHER CHRONIC IGNORANCE,
OR MALICIOUS OBFUSCATION. Take your preference.

Lest you think Horatio has significantly embellished, here's the original (unversified):

Well, well...is that you, Kevin Trenberth, hiding behind a screen name? First of all, our results were GLOBAL, so transport between regions are irrelevant to the issue at hand. Secondly, the lag associated with the heat carrying capacity was central to the point we were making!!! If you even bothered to read our paper, you would understand that! OMG! You are wasting time and space here with your straw men and red herrings! CONGRATULATIONS, OBSCURITY, YOU ARE THE FIRST TO BE BANNED FROM THIS SITE. THE CHARGE IS EITHER (1) CHRONIC IGNORANCE, OR (2) MALICIOUS OBFUSCATION. YOUR CHOICE.

The above was a response by Roy Spencer to a comment on Spencer's blog by someone posting under the pseudonym "Obscurity", which Spencer thought (for some inexplicable reason) was actually climate scientist Kevin Trenberth (For what it's worth, "Obscurity" says he's not).

The climate conspiracy continues...and involves the IPCC*, Al Gore, and even the editor of "Remote Sensing".

*"it appears the IPCC gatekeepers have once again put pressure on a journal for daring to publish anything that might hurt the IPCC’s politically immovable position that climate change is almost entirely human-caused. I can see no other explanation for an editor resigning in such a situation." -- Roy Spencer (in response to the resignation of the editor in chief of "Remote Sensing" over the recent publication of a paper by Spencer and Braswell that the editor says should not have been published)

Perhaps Trenberth is also in on it?

When it comes to sheer goofiness, Horatio's poems can't even touch this stuff.

Hamlet was clearly right: "There are more goofy things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Holy Editor Resignation, Batman! (Stoat) provides further context.

Skeptical Peers

2011-09-03T05:39:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Peer review

Is vital too

When Skeptic claims

Are made anew.

An important test of a true scientific skeptic is if s/he is also skeptical of Skeptic claims -- not simply of the consensus.

Denialist Proof

2011-08-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Denialist Proof

Is like a spoof,
The opposite
Of basic truth.

To play the game,

For blogger fame

One simply kNOTs

A noted claim.

In Boolean logic, to "NOT" something is to take the opposite. So, under the NOT operation:

"TRUE" becomes "FALSE" and "FALSE" becomes "TRUE";

"Global temperature is increasing" becomes "Global temperature is not increasing" (ie, it is either decreasing or staying the same);

"Arctic sea ice is decreasing" becomes "Arctic sea ice is not decreasing" (ie, it is either increasing or staying the same);

The "kNOT" operation (part of "Foolean logic") is "NOT with a twist", which involves first taking the opposite and then tying it (and oneself) up in knots with cockeyed arguments in order to make the denial more "palinable"*. Under the kNOT operation

"Global temperature is increasing" becomes "Global temperature is not increasing. It only appears that way on account of summer barbecuing at surface weather stations."

"Arctic sea ice is decreasing" becomes "Arctic sea ice is not decreasing. In fact, it has actually recovered since 2007 ...and besides, even if it were decreasing (which it's not), polar bears enjoy swimming long distances in [frigid] open water."

"Mike Mann is a scientist" becomes "Mike Mann is a fraud";

"CO2 is a well-mixed greenhouse gas" becomes "CO2 is heavier than air so it settles in rabbit holes and therefore can not be a greenhouse gas" (ie, it's a rabbithouse gas);

and so on...and on...and on...

*Editor's note: "palinable" is like "palatable", but only to a certain crowd.

For more on "denialist proof", read "de Nier's Last Theorem"

Unreality (2)

2011-08-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Give facts the axe

They don't mean squat.

Bullets don't prove

The war's getting hot.

Reality, it's plain to see,

In reality, is not.

The Voyage of the Stupid

2011-08-21T18:47:00.001-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The Stupid sails

Around the world

Before the Science

Has unfurled.

For more on stupid voyages, read Gomer's Pile.

Not Knowing sure beats No-ing

2011-08-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

He doesn' t want to know

'Cuz knowing makes it so

That he must then deny

What he knows he will not buy.

Science isn't settled

2011-08-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

--by Horatio Algeranon

Science isn't settled

Buildings do not stand

Bridges fall into the gorge

Collapse like so much sand

Rockets never reach the moon

And atoms are illusion

The human source of CO2

Is simply a delusion

The polar ice ain't melting

And species aren't hurtin'

Uncertainty is certainly

The only thing that's certain.

Gomer's Pile

2011-08-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's take on the Gilligan's Island theme song

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,

A tale of a "skeptic" trip,

That started from an IP port,

Aboard this Titanic ship.

The Mate was a mighty weather man,

The Auditor brash and sure.

Five passengers set sail that day

For a Surface Station tour. A Surface Station tour.

The icebergs started getting big,

The "skeptics" downed more beer

If not for the hubris of the clueless crew,

The ship would still be here, the ship would still be here

The ship set down on the ocean floor, underwater by a mile

With Anthony,

The Auditor too,

The Lord Viscount and his tripe,

The Cucci man,

A Professor named Murry and,

The rest of Gomer's Pile.

Now this is the tale of iconoclastaways,

They're here for a long, long time,

They'll have to make the best of things,

It's an uphill climb.

The first mate and the Auditor too,

Will do their very best,

To make the others comfortable,

In their final place of rest.

No physics, no stats, no analysis,

Not a single luxury,

The "science" of climate "skeptics"

Is primitive as can be.

So join us here each week my friends,

You're sure to get a smile,

From seven stranded iconoclastaways,

And the rest of Gomer's Pile.

The "Skeptic" claims just keep getting "better". When it comes to sheer goofiness, Horatio is left in the dust (and most humbled).

For more on "Skeptic" trips, read The Möbius Trip.

Eethturbation

2011-08-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Seeing cycles where there are none

Is "eethturbation" when it's done

To note the base of logs repeating

By looking at the digits leading

Up to number ten, an "8".

If we go further, it's too late

'Cuz "e", you see, is nonrepeating,

The apparent "cycle" false and fleeting.

The number "e", base of the natural logarithms, is one of the most important in all of mathematics and science.

The first 50 digits of "e" are "2.71828182845904523536028747135266249775724709369995", but "e" is actually unending and, as far as anyone can tell, non-repeating, though if you look at just the first ten digits --2.718281828 -- it appears as if it does indeed have a "cycle": "1828".

But appearances can be deceiving.

In particular, in math and science, there can appear to be cycles where none actually exist.

Remember this next time someone claims to have discovered a new "cycle" in the global temperature (and has attributed it to some natural phenomenon like PDO). While it is possible that it might actually be real (ie, the result of a natural phenomenon that is actually cyclical), it is far more likely that it is like the apparent cycle "1828" in "e".

Some call reading significance into what are only apparent cycles "numerology", while others refer to it as "mathturbation" (Horatio has termed it "eethturbation" and those who do it "eethturbunnies"), but whatever you call it, it's basically meaningless.

But it is nonetheless the subject of endless (and quite cyclical) "bloggerchair climatology" on the web.

H/T NASA physicist Ray Ladbury who gives the example with "e" that inspired the above ditty.

The Fix is In

2011-07-24T03:41:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

We never saw it coming

It hit us like a ton of bricks.

Of Kruger and of Dunning

We've had an ample fix.

House Keeping

2011-07-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The claim by Monckton, "I'm a Lord"

Has caught the notice of the Board

Who say that Monckton must decist

From this day forward claiming this.

That he is not and has never been

In the House of Lords can now be seen

In black and white on the Lords' website

To show the world just who is right.

Horatio has used the British prounciation (pronunciation, too) of "been" (like "bean", as in Jack and the Beanstalk: "Fee fi fo fum...").

For more on the world's most famous "Potty Peer", read "The House of Lords" Diner.

H/T Joe Romm: Peer Pressure: House of Lords Tells Climate Denier Monckton to “Cease and Desist” Claim He’s a Member

Na Na Hey Hey Kiss the Sea-Ice Goodbye

2011-07-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's rendition of the song by "Steam"

Na na na na, na na na na, arctic-sea-ice, goodbye

He'll never tell you, the way that I tell you
'Cause if he did, no no, he'd make you deny
He might be comfortin' baby but a-my stats (my stats, my stats)
So dog-gone tellin'
So kiss him (I wanna see you kiss him. Wanna see you kiss him)
Go on and kiss the ice goodbye, now

Na na na na, arctic-sea-ice, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, arctic-sea-ice, goodbye

Listen to me now

He's always near you to comfort and cheer you
When all those polar bear tears are fallin' baby from your eyes
He might be comfortin' baby but a-my stats (my stats, my stats)
So dog-gone tellin'
So kiss him (I wanna see you kiss him. Wanna see you kiss him)
Go on and kiss the ice goodbye, na-na na-na-na na na

Na na na na, arctic-sea-ice, goodbye

[fade in]
Arctic-sea-ice, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, Arctic-sea-ice, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, Arctic-sea-ice, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, Arctic-sea-ice, goodbye
[repeat each summer until completely gone]

Wonderful World (of the Climate "Skeptic")

2011-07-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

--Horatio Algeranon's rendition of the song by Sam Cooke

Don't know much about the IPCC
Don't know much cosmetology
Don't know much about CO2
Paleoclimate or sea ice too

But I do know AGW is wrong

And I know that if I sing my song

What a wonderful world this will be.

Don't know much about the climate of earth
Never took a class for what it's worth
Don't know much about a science book
Can't recall the simple math I took

But I know that "CO2 is life"

And if I knew as much as Barney Fife

What a wonderful world this would be

Now I don't claim to be a cosmetologist

But I'm trying to be

For maybe by being a cosmetologist, baby

I can win your belief in me

Don't know much about the IPCC
Don't know much cosmetology
Don't know much about CO2
Paleoclimate or sea ice too

But I do know AGW is wrong

And I know that if I sing my song

What a wonderful world this will be

tralalala (... I can't hear you)

But I do know AGW is wrong

And I know that if I sing my song

What a wonderful world this will be.

Skepticism sure ain't what it used to be...

Don't ask, Don't tell

2011-06-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

We must not try to draw connections
Between tornadoes, floods and droughts.

Of global warming predilections
We really should maintain our doubts --

Even if Tornado Alley
Is chalking up a record tally;

Even if the Texas climes
Are worse than those of Dust Bowl times;

Even if the Russian summer

Begins to be a royal bummer;

Even if the Mississip
Floods New Orleans on its trip;

Even if all the weather extremes
Are something from our haunted dreams.

Best to view extreme events
As unrelated to fossil burning.

...Though scientists say it makes some sense
Given the things they have been learning...

Inspired by Bill McKibben's op ed, a video of which can be viewed here

High Claims Shifter

2011-05-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

He shifted into Climate City
From a weather blog, that was so pretty

With pics of claimed "contaminations"
At USHCN Surface Stations.

"Hang 'em high" is what he said
"Until the upward trend is dead."

But the Climate townsfolk flat refused
They said "The data should be used"

"The trend is real, if you do the math"
"Don't chuck the baby with the bath."

The High Claims Shifter anxiously laughed
"Just take a look at what I've graphed"

"It's widely cited (on Fox News)

'The Impact of Flaming Barbecues

On temperatures at Surface Stations' --
With perfect R-squared correlations!"

"My Nobel paper is in the works
That proves those NOAA folks are jerks."

The Shifter rode off toward the sun
Which made some think that he was gone

But he re-appeared in a later year
"I have returned... and looky here"

"The trend in means might perchance be real"

But who even cares?, cuz here's the deal"

"What I've been saying all along
Is 'Temperature extremes are simply wrong.' "

"Hang 'em high until they're dead
'The extremes are wrong' is what I said..."

Take a trip in the Horatio-back machine to an earlier and less goofy time (well, earlier, at least): Grassy Knolls and Rabett Holes.

Denial is a many-splendored thing

2011-05-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's version of the song by Paul Francis Webster
("Love is a many-splendored thing")

Denial is a many-splendored thing,
To dispute the ice breaks earlier each spring
Denial is the contrarian's way of giving a reason to be living,
The fools-gold crown that makes a man king
Once on a high and mighty Capitol Hill
Two deniers lied and the science stood still
They were touched by money and how they did sing,
Yes, true denial's a many-splendored thing.

All My Surface Stations

2011-05-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

(after "All My Children", by Agnes Nixon,

creator of the 41-year-running soap opera*)

The Hot and the Cold
The Good and the Poor,
The Weak and the Strong,
In Orland and in Marysville,
On Blacktop and on Grass
In Heat and in Cold,
In Tragedy and Triumph,
You are ALL MY SURFACE STATIONS

...and I love you all dearly...even if you did just disprove My Theory (that is mine)

*Horatio has just learned from a reliable source (to be left unnamed) that the final episode of "All My Surface Stations" has yet to be written and we can look forward to at least one more season of high drama.

For individual episodes from the series, you may (or may not) want to read A Tale of Two Surface Stations, Stalking the Wild Air Conditioner and Grassy Knolls & Rabett Holes.

The Craven

2011-05-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon
(with apologies to Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven)

Prophet!" said I, "Oracle of Climate!--prophet still, if God or Devil!
Weather temperature sent, or weather tempest tossed thee here unkind
Wrong, yet unembarrassed, about the surface stations harassed --
About these stations by NOAA haunted --tell me truly, help me find
Is there -- is there doubt in Chico?--tell me--tell me, help me find...
Quoth the Craven, "Nevermind."

How long has this been goin' on?

2011-05-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's rendition of the song by Ace

How long has this been goin' on ?
Way too long has this been goin' on.

Well your friends with their denyin' persuasions
Can't admit that it's part of the trend
But I can't help but have my suspicions
That it ain't even close to the end

And you said you were never intendin'
To cherry-pick data this way
But there ain't any use in pretendin'
It ain't warmin' and that we won't pay

How long has this been goin' on ?
How long?
Way too long has this been goin' on.

Inspired by Tamino's post Favorite Denier Tricks, or How to Hide the Incline.

Bags and Hags

2011-05-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

"Lies, damned lies and witchtisticks"

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The climate-change denier bag of tricks
Holds ruby-red cherries and witchtisticks.

But any method will work just fine
As long as it tends to hide the incline.

"Witchtisticks" (var: wattstistics) = use of "witch sticks" (least squares regression lines) to "divine" the global temperature temperature trend and other climatological trends (sea ice extent, etc) over short time periods.

Q (from novice denier): Which witchtistick should I use?

A (from seasoned pro): Whichever witchtistick gives the biggest decline for temperature-- or biggest incline for sea ice and glaciers.

For more on "witchtisticks" read "Temperature Witching".

Emissions Omissions

2011-05-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

--by Horatio Algeranon

"Why should we be making cuts
When factories in China emit like nuts?"

He asks, as his own factories fly
And open up shop in old Shanghai.

Temperature Witching

2011-05-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

To divine the trend on a 10-year scale
The following method will not fail:

Consult a fellow with Y-shaped stick
Who knows the ancient dowsing trick

For finding water underground
(Don't laugh, the science here is sound.)

He'll use the stick like dowsers do,
On temperatures from the Hadley CRU.

If it points down, our work is done.
If it points up, it's just the sun.

Added May 10

To find the temperature trend, some folks rely on "witching", while others (eg, Tamino: Five Years) use simple averaging.

Which do you trust?
Witching?
Or averaging?

Data points are successive non-overlapping 5-year means. Smoothed curves are a lowess smooth of the original data. (Graph by Tamino)

The effect of averaging is to smooth out the "bumps" (ups and downs from year to year) caused by "noise" (el Nino, la nina, etc), leaving only the "trend" which you can see is quite clearly upward -- despite what the man with the dowsing stick might tell you.

More Earths

2011-04-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

More Earths to keep
The Earthicans going,

More Earths because
Consumption ain't slowing.

If everyone consumes as Americans do,
It will take more Earths to pull us all through.

PS: As long as we Americans get our fair share ( 1 Earth ), everyone else is free to divide up the remainder as they see fit.

The Harebrain Fraction

2011-04-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The harebrain fraction of CO2
Is on the increase, this is true

The partial pressure in the brain
That makes a person go insane --

Think the CO2 amassing
Is simply due to ocean out-gassing

Believe that upward trends are down
And act just like a circus clown.

The harebrain fraction of CO2 should not be confused with "The airborne fraction of CO2 (i.e. the fraction of anthropogenic emissions which remain in the atmosphere) [which] has remained almost constant on multi-year timescales throughout the last 50 years" (From The atmospheric CO2 airborne fraction and carbon cycle feedback, poster by Jones et al)

Unfortunately, though the airborne fraction of CO2 has remained almost constant , the same can not be said for the harebrain fraction, which has clearly been on the increase.

Unreality

2011-04-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Give facts the axe
They don't mean squat.

Thermometers don't prove
The globe's getting hot.

Reality, it's plain to see,

In reality, is not.

Hidden Inclinations

2011-04-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

They're not inclined
To get it right,
But only out
To win a fight,

By sowing doubt
And wielding clout,
Attacking science
From without.

"Hide the incline"
Is what they do best
With lies and stats
And all the rest.

Watch Peter Sinclair's Unwinding "Hide the Decline" video, about what Sinclair calls

"the most toxic meme that came out of the enormous nothing-burger called ”climate-gate” – the phrase “hide the decline”.

H/T Tamino.

Hitting Hippies

2011-04-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Tweedledee and Tweedledum,
Were going nowhere, hum-dee-dum,

When Tweedledum to Tweedledee
Said "Hitting hippies is for you and me!",

Then Tweedledee to Tweedledum
Said "Look how popular we've become!

"Our phone is ringing off the hook,
And all that cash from your new book!"

Don't look so glum, my Tweedledum,
Let's celebrate and have some fun".

But Tweedledum replied in turn,
"Dear Tweedledee, you never learn."

"Our fifteen minutes is nearly spent,"
"Our day in the sun just came and went."

Tweedledee and Tweedledum have been with us for some time and, despite Tweedledum's concern about their fifteen minutes of fame being nearly up, there is no reason to expect that they will be leaving us (alone) any time soon.

As Grist's David Roberts notes, there is no better way these days of bringing the media circus to town (and establishing one's "credentials" in Breakdancing circles) than "punching [dirty] hippies" (ie, environmentalists).

Just when you think you may have seen the last of the Tweedledeedums, someone resets the timer.

Extreme Unction

2011-04-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Floods, fires
And funeral pyres
Common as colds
When Junior retires.

Back from the Future

2011-04-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

The trend is sharply down since the '20's

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The globe has cooled
Since 2019
Two tenths degree
This I have seen.

(In future travel
With a time machine.)

And world sea level
Has also decreased
Since 2015 --
Or 2020 at least

So global warming
Is in time-retreat
Scant cause for alarm
For the man on the street.

When the warming's over

2011-04-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon's rendition of

"When the music's over" by Jim Morrison

When the warming's over
When the warming's over, yeah
When the warming's over
Turn off the AC
Turn off the AC
Turn off the AC, yeah

When the warming's over
When the warming's over
When the warming's over
Turn off the AC
Turn off the AC
Turn off the AC

For the warming is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
warming is your only friend
Until the end
Until the end
Of the warming trend

Cancel my subscription to the Journal of Science
Send my credentials to the Blog of Deniance
I got some friends inside

The race for the dollar won't stop
The carbon in the air won't drop
A feast of friends
"Conspiracy!" they cried
Waitin' for me
Outside!

Before I sink
Into the ocean deep
I want to hear
I want to hear
The wing-flap of the butterfly

Come back, baby
Back into my arm
We're gettin' tired of hangin' around
Waitin' around with our heads in the ground

I hear a very gentle sound
Very near yet very far
Very soft, yeah, very clear
Come today, come today

Who cares what they've done to the earth?
Who cares what they've done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down

I hear a very gentle sound
With my head in the ground
We want the email and we want it...
We want the email and we want it...
Now
Now?
Now!

CRUvian night, babe
See the light, babe
Save us!
Stevie!
Save us!

So when the warming's over
When the warming's over, yeah
When the warming's over
Turn off the AC
Turn off the AC
Turn off the AC

Well the warming is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
warming is your only friend
Until the end
Until the end
Of the warming trend!

Those waiting for the end of the upward trend will have quite a wait, because by all indications, there is no end in sight to the warming (ie, to the laws of physics)...

"Annual averages of the adjusted data sets, which shows just how strongly the different sources agree with each other" (graph by blogger Tamino from "How Fast is earth Warming")

Tamino's graph above was produced with a "multiple regression" analysis to "remove the estimated impact of el Nino, volcanic eruptions, solar variation, and the residual annual cycle, leaving only the global warming trend and any remaining natural variation. This gives us an adjusted data set for each source."

For more goofy claims, read Horatio's version of another Jim Morrison song: The End

The Claim Game

2011-04-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

--by Horatio Algeranon

"The oil's mostly gone"

"The claims were paid"

"BP kept the promises

"That they made."

Though "small people" beg
On bended knees
For compensation
"Mister, please!"

"Your claim's denied"

Is what they hear
From the claim dispenser
Who makes it clear

Their proof of injury
Won't suffice,
So Christmas dinner
Is beans and rice.

"It's just so wrong.
He broke his word
And barely even
Paid a third"

"Of the folks he was
Supposed to pay --
But takes his thousands
Every day."

"The man, you see,
Works for BP
And doesn't care
About you or me."

"We will get this done. We will make this right." -- former BP CEO Tony Hayward promised in a BP ad last spring

"We care about the small people," BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said last spring about all the Gulf Coast residents suffering because of his company's ongoing oil volcano.

The following is from "BP Handling of Claims Slammed by Gulf Residents" (Dahr Jamail , Inter Press Service)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, 17 Apr (IPS) - Attorney Kenneth Feinberg, paid by BP to administer the firm's 20-billion-dollar compensation fund, has become the focal point of anger for Gulf residents who are angry, frustrated and desperate for help following last year's massive oil disaster.

Most of the people I care about are hungry, they've lost their house, they're losing their cars," Cherri Foytlin, the co-founder of Gulf Change, a community organization in Louisiana, told IPS.

"I've met so many people who had red beans and rice for dinner last Christmas while this man's firm is getting 850,000 dollars a month for this," she said. "I saw people on their knees in these meetings begging this man. I don't know how he sleeps at night. He takes money from BP and claims to represent and care about people in the Gulf."

The GCCF, which also covers cleanup and remediation costs, has received nearly half a million claims and has paid about 3.6 billion dollars to approximately 175,000 claimants - about one-third of those who have submitted claims - in the last half year.

See also Gulf Coast Residents Dismayed as Effects of Oil Spill Continue (By Sabrina Canfield, Courthouse News Service, March 30, 2011)

GRAND ISLE, La. (CN) - A billboard on Highway 1 says: Devastating Spill, Devastating Feelings. Inside the Gulf Coast Claims Facility building on the far end of Grand Isle, about 60 people have turned out for a National Resource Damage Assessment public scoping meeting. "You talk about 18 months or so before we get started," a resident tell trustees. "That's a long time for us who live here, while our environment and animals are dying."

"We have a huge problem," Beverly Armand, continues. "We have to stop denying it. We can't fix the problem if we deny it is there."

Horatio would guess that those who follow the climate change issue can relate to that last comment about "denying".

And whether the oil is "mostly" (> 50%? Determined how?) gone may be mostly beside the point.

There is still oil

...in the marshes...

Gulf Coast Still Cleaning Up Almost A Year After The Deepwater Horizon Explosion-Christian Jennings Reports 4/18

Bird's Eye View: The Truth 1 Year Later

"It has been just about a year since BP's Macondo well blew out and still, Congress has yet to act--part of this ongoing tragedy. Congress must act in order for BP's fines and penalties under the Clean Water Act to go toward coastal recovery for the Gulf region.."

...and in the deeps...

"Scientist finds oil deep in Gulf" (Contra Costa Times, 2/19/2011)

WASHINGTON -- Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a scientist's video and slides that she says demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor.

At a science conference in Washington, marine scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia aired early results of her December submarine dives around the BP spill site. She went to places she had visited in the summer and expected the oil and residue from oil-munching microbes would be gone by then. It wasn't.

"There's some sort of a bottleneck we have yet to identify for why this stuff doesn't seem to be degrading," Joye told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington. Her research and those of her colleagues contrasts with other studies that show a more optimistic outlook about the health of the gulf, saying microbes did great work munching the oil.

"Magic microbes consumed maybe 10 percent of the total discharge, the rest of it we don't know," Joye said, later adding: "there's a lot of it out there."

...and the oil that remains may pose an ongoing threat to the inhabitants of the gulf (both human and non-human).

"New Tests Confirm BP Oil Still Being Found on Dead Dolphins" (from Wildlife Promise, National Wildlife Federation, April 8, 2011)

The total of dead dolphins found along the Gulf Coast is now up to 153 – and federal officials confirm they’re still finding dolphins with BP oil from the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well on them.
So far, 65 of the dead dolphins have been babies. As National Wildlife Federation Senior Scientist Dr. Doug Inkley has reported, the dolphin death toll is at least 5 times higher than average. While it’s difficult to say exactly what killed the dolphins and multiple factors could be in play, it’s disturbing that BP oil continues to be found on dead dolphins:

...especially if you happen to be a dolphin...

...or a person living and working along the coast.

Trendsetter

2011-04-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

A trend of one
Is friend to none
Until the others
Think it's fun.

But fun it is
Indeed pure bliss
To jump into
The great abyss.

Even lemmings have trendsetters.

For context, read Cherries Jubilee and Cherry Cobbler Recipe.

Half Life

2011-04-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon

Half a life
Is not that long
Before it's mostly
Up and gone.

If you can't see it,
You won't feel it
It's not a good thing
To reveal it.

Has BP Really Cleaned Up the Gulf Oil Spill? "Officially, marine life is returning to normal in the Gulf of Mexico, but dead animals are still washing up on beaches – and one scientist believes the damage runs much deeper" (by Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian)

"On her descent to a location 10 miles from BP's well in December, [Marine scientist Dr. Samantha] Joye landed on an ocean floor coated with dark brown muck about 4cm deep. Thick ropes of slime draped across coral like cobwebs in a haunted house. The few creatures that remained alive, such as the crabs, were too listless to flee. "Most of the time when you go at them with a submarine, they just run," she says. "They weren't running, they were just sitting there, dazed and stupefied. They certainly weren't behaving as normal." Her conclusion? "I think it is not beyond the imagination that 50% of the oil is still floating around out there."

At a time when the White House, Congress, government officials and oil companies are trying to put the oil disaster behind them, that is not the message from the deep that people are waiting to hear. Joye's data – and an outspoken manner for a scientist – have pitted her against the Obama administration's scientists as well as other independent scientists who have come to different conclusions about the state of the Gulf. She is consumed by the idea that she – and other colleagues – are not really being heard.

////////// End of Guardian quotes

Marine scientist Dr. Samantha Joye has spent nearly half her life* studying the Gulf Of Mexico. After many others decamped when the BP well was "capped", she stayed to study the oil's long term impacts -- despite the fact that some had assured her that the oil was mostly gone, or at least no longer a significant threat (read Mission Accomplished).

*And you thought "Half Life" was a reference to the Japanese nuclear disaster, didn't you now? ~@:>

Among other things, Dr. Joye's team of scientists were the first to document the presence of a large "oil plume" during the ongoing BP oilcano. Dr. Joye (and others) also documented the presence of an oil layer on the sea floor in the months after the well was "capped".

//////////////////////////////

While it might be completely unrelated, in recent months, anomalous numbers of dead dolphins and sea turtles (some of them contaminated with oil) have been washing up on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. It's still too early to say why they died (that requires autopsies and even then we may never know for sure) but the occurrence is nonetheless out of the ordinary.

Scientists unsure why dolphins washing up dead (CNN)

"Dead baby bottlenose dolphins are continuing to wash up in record numbers on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and scientists do not know why.
Since February 2010 to April 2011, 406 dolphins were found either stranded or reported dead offshore.

The occurrence has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to designate these deaths as an "unusual mortality event" or UME

Similar to the dolphin deaths, an abnormally high number of turtles have been found either floating close to shore or washed up on shores in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
The vast majority of these are dead,"

Refutation

2011-04-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

You really should believe me
My refutation precedes me
Last week, I said "The warming's small".
And this week, "It's not there at all."

Second verse, same as the first

A little bit louder and a little bit worse

I'm the Incliner of Inclinations...

Credible Incredability

2011-04-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

John Q. P
Should listen to me
I've proven my incredability
By saying lots of goofy things
Like "Warming's bunk"
And "Pigs have wings."

"Incredability" -- the ability to say incredible things day in and day out (and in seriousness, of course) -- actually makes one more credible among climate change "skeptics".

So, for example, saying things like "Global warming is a hoax", "Climate scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the public", "The hockey stick is the Piltdown Man of climate science" and (less extreme, but unsupported and questionable nonetheless) "Not a single polar bear has died because of receding ice" greatly boosts one's credibility and overall standing in some circles.

In fact, that's mainly why Horatio writes goofy poetry -- in the hopes that he too will one day be included among the Credibly Incredables.

Swindler's List

2011-04-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

--by Horatio Algeranon

Swindler's List
By Heartland kissed
Should not be

Carelessly dismissed.

The basic gist
Is warming dissed
And climate scientists
Booed and hissed.

High Order Nonsense

2011-04-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

My latest curve fits to a T --
A polynomial to the tenth degree.
The global trend
Has downward bend
A basic fact that's plain to see.

Fitting high order polynomials -- eg, with terms raised to the 4th, 5th, 6th powers (or even higher!) -- to the global temperature data in an effort to "extrapolate" future temperatures and, in particular, predict whether they are headed down or up, is a pretty typical "error" among "armchair skeptics." It's basically nonsense, given the "noise" from one year to the next.

Black Swans

2011-04-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

"No need to worry" said the expert,
"The chance of that is slim to none:

Might happen every million years,
Don't let it spoil the current fun."

"The plant is safe, the market's sound,
The global climate will rebound.

The ice age cooled things in the past

Good grounds to think the warmth won't last."

"And droughts and floods, those rare events,
Will just be itty-bitty dents --

Mere fender-benders along the way
For which we can afford to pay."

About Black Swans we should not brood
Just harmless fowl -- quite good when stewed!

Inspired by Gambling with the Planet (by Nobel economics Laureate Joseph Stiglitz)

[The] wizards of finance, it turned out, didn’t understand the intricacies of risk, let alone the dangers posed by "fat-tail distributions"*- a statistical term for rare events with huge consequences, sometimes called "black swans".

If there were other planets to which we could move at low cost in the event of the almost certain outcome predicted by scientists, one could argue that [global warming and climate change] is a risk worth taking. But there aren’t, so it isn’t. The costs of reducing emissions pale in comparison to the possible risks the world faces."

*The distribution for "Climate Sensitivity" -- the change in the global temperature in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide -- is one such "fat-tail distribution".

Wikipedia has more on Black Swan Theory.

Tony's Tortuous Tale

2011-04-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

This is the tale of Tony Watts
Who started with weather channel spots

And moved to taking photo shots
Of surface station parking lots
Air conditioners and barbecue pots.

He posted climate Rorschach blots
And tied himself in contorted knots
Trying to prove the data rots.

But all Watts gots

Is upward plots...

From Congressional testimony of Richard Muller (March 31, 2011)
Showing preliminary results from "Berkeley Earth".

The Muller's Tale

2011-04-01T23:08:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Many Americans no longer worry

About the global warming story.

They simply don't believe a word

Of climate scientists they have heard

They think the scientists exaggerate
Boast certainty and overstate.

The scientists claim that they have proof

But listen to me, I speak The Truth:

Not a single polar bear has died
Because the sea-ice did subside.

My climate data is surely the "BEST"

Superior to all the rest

From Berkeley scientists' climate data review puts them at center of national debate (LA Times)

"Global warming is a serious problem," [Dr. Richard] Muller [head of what he has humbly called the "BEST" climate data project] said in a lecture at UC Berkeley last week. "But people simply don't believe the story anymore because the story was exaggerated.... Not a single polar bear has died because of receding ice."

From The Daily Californian: "Professor Counters Global Warming Myths With Data [and myths...and hype]"

"Some scientists who fear that their results will be misinterpreted as proof that global warming is not urgent, such as in the case of Climategate, fall into a similar trap of exaggeration." -- Richard Muller

"Without the thermometer and the temperature data that it provides, Muller said it was probable that no one would have noticed global warming yet" [No one would even have noticed the melting sea ice in the arctic??]

"The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study was conducted with the intention of becoming the new, irrefutable consensus, simply by providing the most complete set of historical and modern temperature data yet made publicly available, so deniers and exaggerators alike can see the numbers." [You gotta just love "irrefutable consensus" which implies absolute, incontrovertible certainty]

"We just create a methodology that will then have no human interaction to pick or choose data" -- Elizabeth Muller, Richard Muller's daughter and project manager of the study. [What comes up with the "methodology" that ultimately makes the data choices and/or manipulations? A computer?]

Horatio agrees that scientists should not exaggerate and overstate their case (eg, claim absolute certainty) -- and the much maligned peer review process helps to ensure that they do not, at least not in the scientific journals where it counts.

But by and large, it's not the climate scientists who are exaggerating.

If many people don't believe the global warming "story", it is largely because the (supposed) "problems" with climate science have been greatly exaggerated (or invented outright) by those who are not themselves climate scientists. *

*Some of the exaggerations and outright lies have been funded by industries and individuals -- eg, Koch (one of the funders of the BEST project) -- to create doubt about climate science and thereby derail efforts to mitigate future climate change. (Added April 6: Koch's web of influence )

Take Muller's claim about polar bears, for example. How can Muller (a physicist by expertise) be certain that "Not a single polar bear has died because of receding ice"?

He can't. If it is certain, it isn't science and if it is science, it isn't certain.

The reality is that Muller does not know what he is talking about. Scientific studies on polar bears actually cast doubt on Muller's claim. See "Polar bear's epic swim seen as harbinger of Arctic future: With no ice to crawl onto, female swam 426 miles, lost cub." (Dan Joling, The Associated Press)

"A paper on the bear, published last month in the journal Polar Biology by U.S. Geological Survey and University of Wyoming researchers, concludes that polar bears can respond to a changing Arctic, said USGS research zoologist George Durner, but that there are limits to that ability as sea ice diminishes.
"If we continue to see declines in the extent of Arctic sea ice, it's hard to imagine that a bear would be capable of swimming much farther than that," Durner said. "I'm not saying that's the limit, but it just boggles my mind."

See also Polar bears drown as ice shelf melts (Sunday Times):

“Mortalities due to offshore swimming may be a relatively important and unaccounted source of natural mortality given the energetic demands placed on individual bears engaged in long-distance swimming,” says the research led by Dr Charles Monnett, marine ecologist at the American government’s Minerals Management Service. “Drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice continues.”

Of course, such studies are not "proof" that polar bears died because of receding sea ice, but, at a minimum they cast doubt on Muller's claim that "Not a single polar bear has died because of receding ice".

Basic common sense would indicate that as the sea ice becomes more scarce (and sparse) as ice extent and thickness decreases, the chance of mortality among bears swimming long distances in frigid waters to reach such ice increases. But hey, what's common sense got to do with it?

As far as Muller's implication that his climate data and methods are somehow the "BEST", we'll just have to wait and see. Hype has a way of getting deflated (or simply rejected) by most scientific journals.

Mathturbation

2011-04-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

-- Horatio Algeranon

Mathturbation
Grips the nation.
The brain is on
A long vacation.

The Urban Dictionary defines Mathturbation as "What pseudoscientists, cranks and charlatans use to "prove" their self-indulgent theories." ( Read I have a theory and it is mine...)

For everything you always wanted to know about "mathturbation" but were afraid to ask (and more), read Tamino's post of that title.

Inhofe's Law

2011-03-31T09:17:00.000-07:00

--by Horatio Algeranon

To Moore's great Law
We toast with beers:

Transistors double
Every two years.

To Inhofe's Law
We can only cringe:
Stupidity doubles
On an endless binge.

Econolyin'

2011-03-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Econo-reality,
It's plain to see
Is certainly not
What it's claimed to be.

The cost of crude
And price of food

Are "managed" by
The Wall Street Dude

The economy adjusts
With booms and busts
To exploitation
By the Trusts.

Econo-reliance
Is not a science,
But, in reality,

Pure deniance.

How much longer can we afford econolyin' ?

Maybe Nancy Griffith knows. (She wrote a song about it: Listen here)

Following is from “Speculation And The Frenzy in Food Markets
The fight over financial regulation affects global food prices” (February 16, 2011) (The Real News)

    PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN : “One of the things that’s said is that there has been, in fact, a collapse of the Russian wheat market, that demand has gone way up in China and to some extent India for maize, and the role of biofuels and corn. So does this explain it?”

    JAYATI GHOSH, PROF. ECONOMICS, JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY:
    “we are getting very, very dramatic increases in price that are simply not explained by fundamentals. If you take the price of wheat, for example, it went up between June and December, it doubled in price, whereas the global wheat supply fell by maybe 3 percent and global demand for wheat has barely changed. So we really are not getting changes in price that are justified by the actual changes in the demand-supply balance.”

    “A lot of the big increase in wheat in the last six months was because of the Russian grain failure and then the Russian ban on exports, which didn’t actually affect aggregate global supply, because other countries actually supplied more wheat, but it created this perception that there was going to be a shortfall, and so there was a massive increase in speculation in wheat. So what speculation is doing is massively magnifying an existing volatility.”

de Nier's Last Theorem

2011-03-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

I have discovered
A marvelous proof
Global warming is bunk,
A mammoth goof!

But alas, this blog
Is simply too small
To contain the proof

So... that is all.

— Pierre de Nier

de Nier's Last Theorem (prose form):

"On account of the Second Law of Thermometer-dynamics, it is impossible for a cooler object to make a warmer one hotter than it would be in the absence of the cooler object (the basis of the supposed Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect). I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this blog --and the minds of climate scientists -- are too narrow to contain."
— Pierre de Nier

Not to be confused with Fermat's Last Theorem:

"It is impossible for a cube to be the sum of two cubes, a fourth power to be the sum of two fourth powers, or in general for any number that is a power greater than the second to be the sum of two like powers. I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain."
— Pierre de Fermat

I have a theorem and it is mine

Engineers help us

2011-03-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Engineers help us;

We're in the hands of ~~God~~ physicists.

"God help us; we're in the hands of engineers" -- Dr. Ian Malcolm, in the movie "Jurassic Park"

For more on the hubris of physicists, read Unknown Knowns.

NuUnclear Speculation

2011-03-15T14:05:00.000-07:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Oh, what a fool impression we create
When first we practice to speculate.

There's lots of speculatin' goin' on about the nuclear crisis in Japan, but information is still very limited and as Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over till it's over"...

...and it ain't over yet.

For another ditty on speculation (albeit with a different focus), read The Speculator on Speculations.

It's not our fault

2011-03-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

--by Horatio Algeranon

"It's not our fault"
The journalists say
"That John Doe
Thinks it's A-OK"

"To go on burning
Gas and oil
And coal and tar sands
From the soil."

"It's not our fault
He doesn't agree
With scientists
In the IPCC."

"The fault lies
With the latter group
Whose media skills
Are puppy poop."

"They couldn't convince
A hungry girl,
To eat a scrumptious,
Ice cream swirl."

"So public doubts
Of a warming earth
Are no surprise
For what it's worth."

The Interpretation of Dreams

2011-03-08T05:58:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The journalist said
"It's plain to see
There is no actual reality"

"Only dreams
Of Left and Right
Appearing in the black of night."

"My job is not
'Truth' revelation,
But balanced dream interpretation."

Added March 10

The above ditty notes the tendency of some journalists to cover (at least) "two sides" of every story as if there were no underlying reality dictating "truth" -- and therefore, as if every view deserved equal weight (and equal coverage).

But in science, there are "right" answers and many many [many] "wrong" ones, so when science is covered in this way, it simply amounts to "false balance".

Professor Scott Mandia makes some interesting observations about "Journalism and the Mass Media" (and also about the organized well funded disinformation campaign meant to "confuse the public and our policy-makers about the science of climate change") in Global Warming Man or Myth? Three Major Reasons Why There is So Much Misinformation

Mandia notes the conclusions of Boykoff & Boykoff (2004) on the climate change issue, which "supports the hypothesis that journalistic balance can often lead to a form of informational bias."

Mandia also notes the conclusions of Boykoff (2008) [conducted before the "Climategate" email affair] that things seemed to have improved some since their 2004 paper

"attribution of climate change to human activity has received accurate coverage recently in a number of sources, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Times (London), The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Independent and The Guardian."

but that

"...an overall trend of inadequate coverage by the mass media persists."

Of course, that was then (2008, before Climategate) ...and this is now.

As Real Climate's Gavin Schmidt noted in The Guardian Disappoints, even the Guardian (which is usually pretty good on science reporting) fell down on that one:

Over the last few weeks or so the UK Guardian (who occasionally reprint our posts) has published a 12-part series about the stolen CRU emails by Fred Pearce that are well below the normal Guardian standards of reporting. We delineate some of the errors and misrepresentations below. While this has to be seen on a backdrop of an almost complete collapse in reporting standards across the UK media on the issue of climate change, it can’t be excused on the basis that the Mail or the Times is just as bad.

...and sometimes what journalists don't cover is as important as what they do cover.

Scott Mandia investigated "Climategate Coverage", (which really is an acid test for good journalism in this case, in Horatio's humble opinion) and Mandia concluded that it has been largely "Unfair & Unbalanced" (Climategate Coverage: Unfair and Unbalanced)

For more on the subject (admittedly a particularly egregious example of a "journalist") , read The Interpreter of Interpretations.

..and

The Scientist and the Journalist is about what journalists should be focused on (in IHHO)

"Elephantary, My Dear Hansen"

2011-03-06T07:21:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Spherical elephants and Buckyball mice
Isn't climate science nice?
Complex physics ain't required
To prove the scientists should be fired.

There seems to be an entire cottage cheese industry devoted to "falsifying" the main results of climate science based on little more than "back-of-the-~~envelope~~ toilet-paper" calculations with "Toy Models".

A "Toy Model" is an extremely simple model sometimes used to get "ball-park" (very rough, order of magnitude) estimates before doing more extensive modeling. The idea that one can "overturn" the results of detailed climate modeling (which takes into account the many detailed aspects of the earth's atmosphere based on extensive experimental data) with a result from an overly simple model is really just silly.

Inspired by A Toy Model including a post by "Eric" in the comments

I agree with you [Eli] that it's 'original' to approximate the earth as a truncated icosahedron, but it's pretty funny. The classic joke is about physicists oversimplifying this... 'consider a spherical cow'. But the earth already is pretty spherical. Why on earth try to improve on that?

"Spherical elephant" is how Horatio first heard the joke.

Epicycles

2011-03-05T09:18:00.000-08:00

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Epicycles were once imposed
To track each planet where it goes
Keeping earth at the Epicenter

Where basic physics didn't enter.

But Copernicus showed it can't be beat
To make the sun the County Seat
And Ptolemy was hence dethroned
His epicycles not bemoaned.

Playing with math while ignoring physics (see Tamino's Mathturbation) to "discover" cycles where none exist is a favorite pastime of those who are desperate to find an "alternative" to the greenhouse gas theory of warming.

And though they were a bit contorted, Ptolemy's epicycles were actually relatively simple compared to some "theories" that have been proposed to "explain" recent global warming (read I have a theory and it is mine).