Warming again March 6, 2010
Posted by BlueGreen in Deception, Doesnt Understand, Misrepresentation.comments closed
Finally, Bolt has the courage to put up the graphic he has long touted as being “evidence” that the globe was cooling and it hadn’t warmed for a decade, etc, etc.
No similar claims being made here now that deception is obvious even to his own readers especially seeing that Spencer is forced to acknowledge that:
The global-average lower tropospheric temperature remained high, at +0.61 deg. C for February, 2010.
I wonder if Bolt has thought to put this fact together with his evidence of the NH cold and snowy winter as supporting evidence that the IPCC and “warmists” are right that global warming and extreme weather events are completely compatible? I suspect not.
But Bolt does claim it’s evidence of:
The long post-mini-ice-age warming may be resuming after a break of a decade.
So he’s given up on the cooling idea he’s falling back on another tried and true deception. Already debunked of course (SkepticalScience).
Followed by another go at Flannery and Qld rain. Already debunked.
El Nino maybe?
Why doesn’t Bolt just go with Spencer:
trends since 11/78: +0.132 +0.132 deg. C per decade
Arctic puts Wilkinson’s alarmism on ice March 6, 2010
Posted by BlueGreen in Deception, Misrepresentation.comments closed
Here Bolt again creates deception about the state of Arctic sea ice.
As the first part is merely a rehash of a previous post, which has already been debunked, no need to re-demonstrate the deception practiced.
There’s an amazing amount of irrelevant hogwash to wade through at Watts Up With from where Bolt takes his lead here but what Watts wants to say can be summarised very succinctly where he says:
The Arctic continues to recover.
Snowing on warmists’ parade March 6, 2010
Posted by BlueGreen in Deception, Misrepresentation.comments closed
Here, Bolt reckons:
I don’t think global warming is working out quite as warmists predicted:
He then links to a graphic via Watts via Steven Goddard demonstrating that:
Of course, as is usual with Bolt and his cohorts, they don’t actually tells us just what the “wamists” did actually predict. But if that’s what they wanted to do, why didn’t they show or quote the predictions that have been contradicted by this weather? Because, the IPCC predictions are not contradicted.
Fortunately, this has already been debunked when Bolt previously alluded to this misrepresentation about the northern hemisphere winter and snowfall.
the IPCC has said in relation to snowfall (amount and coverage):
In general, snow amount and snow coverage decreases in the NH (Supplementary Material, Figure S10.1). However, in a few regions (e.g., Siberia), snow amount is projected to increase. This is attributed to the increase in precipitation (snowfall) from autumn to winter (Meleshko et al., 2004; Hosaka et al., 2005).
And Goddard has already been caught out on his misrepresentation of NH winter snowfall data, from my previous post:
Then, via Watts, via Steve Goddard, Bolt claims:
Bolt reproduces Goddard’s plot of data from Rutgers University Global Snow Lab purportedly attempting to show that “winter” snowfall over the northern hemisphere has significantly increased.
But look: Tamino has clearly demonstrated that:
Goddard purposely truncated the snowfall data before 1988 back to1967 (ignoring 21 years of data) and used only January & February (claiming this represents winter – what happened to December?) data, to produce a classic cherry-picked trend. Use the whole data series, i.e. all months and all years and:
If we look at monthly snow cover anomaly for all months of the year covered by the Rutgers data we see a long-term decline of 37,000 km^2/year, which is statistically significant.
But what happens when data from all years for just the winter months are used:
If we fit a line to all the winter-season data, we get a t-value of 0.211 — nowhere near significant.
Through gritted teeth, climate scientists admit Wong tells porkies March 6, 2010
Posted by BlueGreen in Abuse, Deception, Misrepresentation, Smear.comments closed
Bolt’s Post 3 March 2010
Here Andrew Bolt accuses Senator Penny Wong of lying and says he is holding her to account for her “outrageous deceits”. Why and what is her deceit?
Although Bolt doesn’t provide any link to what Wong said or the origins of the claim, it’s obvious from the inference and from past Bolt blogs that he believes Wong has claimed that the drought in the Murray Darling was caused or exacerbated by global warming when that is not true.
Firstly, let’s look at the first insinuation from Bolt. For Wong to be lying, there’d have to be no evidence of scientists having said or claimed the drought was exacerbated by AGW. Following the links back to the previous Bolt post No, Prime Minister. That drought wasn’t man-made, either, we eventually find a source for Wong’s claim:
14 Jan 2003
SYDNEY: A new scientific report by WWF-Australia and leading meteorologists has shown that human-induced global warming was a key factor in the severity of the 2002 drought. The report compares the 2002 drought with the four other major droughts since 1950 and has found higher temperatures caused a marked increase in evaporation rates from soil, watercourses and vegetation.
The report, Global Warming Contributes to Australia’s Worst Drought, warns that higher temperatures and drier conditions have created greater bushfire danger than previous droughts. Drought severity also has increased in the Murray Darling Basin, which produces 40% of Australia’s agricultural product.
So, setting aside the scientific validity of this particular report from which the claim originated, it’s clear that Wong is not lying as there is indeed evidence and a belief by some scientists that the drought was exacerbated by AGW.
Bolt is wrong to accuse Wong of lying.
Now let’s look at Bolt’s claim that the Wong has been contradicted by Prof Neville Nicholls:
When you follow the link to the Weekly Times Now article we see that Nicholls is quoted as saying (my emphasis):
“The current dry period (in the Murray Darling Basin) might still be just a fluke, or natural variability,” Prof Nicholls said.
“We cannot confidently attribute it to global warming.”
The article then says:
Yet Federal Climate Change and Water Minister Penny Wong has repeatedly claimed the basin’s drought is due to climate change.
“Research shows that this severe, extended drought is clearly linked with global warming,” Senator Wong said in November last year.
Professor Nicholls is talking about the current dry period. But in November, as we have seen above, Wong was speaking in reference to an article that was referenced to the severity of the 2002 drought.
And, whilst Prof Steven Sherwood, of the University of NSW Climate Change Research Centre, said that:
“sceptics here are (for once) technically correct, in that there is no proven link – yet – between Murray Darling drought and climate change”.
The article Bolt links to also says:
However, lead SEACI researcher Bertrand Timbal said his work was not at the stage where he could confidently say the drought was due to climate change in southeast Australia.
Dr Timbal said he was confident the decline in the basin’s autumn rainfall went beyond what any of the computer climate models could naturally produce.
Clearly there are scientific differences of opinion on whether there is proof that the drought(s) in the M-D basin have been exacerbated by global warming. This is evidenced by Timbal himself who was quoted in this article from May 2008:
A group of Australian researchers claim to have found further evidence that lower rainfall and reduced run-off in the south-east of the country are linked to global warming.
The findings released by the South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative (SEACI) show increased temperatures have caused rapid evaporation and reduced inflows to the Murray-Darling Basin.
Again, evidence that, whilst the scientists claims and work on which Wong relies could be proven wrong, Bolt is merely resorting to abuse and smear in accusing Wong of lying.
In his update, Bolt then produces a startling and stunning piece of scientific illiteracy when, via a reader, he asks:
…just what evidence there is that the recent rainfall in the Murray Darling basin is unusually low, and proof of a heating world:
with this graphic from the Bureau of Meteorology:
Let me ask: Can Bolt find a period in this graphic with such an extended period of low rainfall over a decade like that evident from 2000 to 2010?
I think the farmers and irrigators in the M-D might also be able to reassure Bolt and his reader that only a fool would attempt to argue that this drought is not severe and the resultant rainfall not “unusually low”.
As for it being proof of a heating world, no one argued that it was.
Andrew Bolt's Lies, Deceptions & Misrepresentations on AGW 
Double the doubt March 7, 2010
Posted by BlueGreen in Author Comment, Deception.comments closed
Bolt’s Post 7 March 2010
Here, Bolt recounts the results of a recent poll of 609 NSW voters that shows:
But then he does a very curious thing and reiterates what he claims is his current position on climate change, which is apparently encapsulated by:
He then says that his doubts are related to the questions:
and
Really? If Bolt really believes that global warming has occurred and that some component of it is due to humans (which presumably ranges from a small amount to 100% due to humans), I think it’s reasonable to expect the following from him; that he:
Let’s have a look at the first. I don’t think any objective and sane person could possibly believe that Bolt gives any weight whatsoever to the pro-AGW side of the debate. As evidence, I give you his columns and his blog.
The second: Sadly, a fail that is very easily graded by searching his blog with the words: fraud, scam, hoax and con. Now of course, the vast majority of these will be proffered by Bolt’s commenters but here are some that are directly attributable to Bolt from the print media or his blog:
To the 3rd. Well, we know and it is very clear that Bolt applies a form of scepticism to the pro-AGW side of the science. What of scepticism of and for those that put forward anti-AGW theory and views? Given that Bolt is not a scientist and can therefore claim no ability to test scientific hypotheses himself, an appropriate test of this would be to look at Bolt’s record of providing corrections and updates detailing when he has highlighted views or theories that are later, or have already proven to be false or even doubtful. I have myself many times provided feedback to Bolt’s posts and columns with links to evidence that have shown that theories, hypotheses and papers that he has referenced have been debunked, or he has provided an erroneous summation or slant or he has misrepresented the author. Without fail, Bolt has refused to acknowledge or update posts with such information. And, as this blog demonstrates, Bolt clearly never checks, references or puts forward himself, counter arguments or positions to anti-AGW material he references.
On the fourth, this blog again shows how Bolt has deceived his readers and misrepresented climate science and scientists. After only one month of compiling this blog, I have published 52 posts in which I have shown, with references and links, that Bolt has made mistakes, has misrepresented the science, has abused or smeared scientists or opponents in the debate or has set out to deceive.
Based on this analysis, I can come to only two possible conclusions in relation to Bolt’s statement about his position on AGW: Either the statement is (now) false – in which case he would appear to be highlighting this statement in order to have a cover upon retreat; or, he is purposely adopting a more extreme anti-AGW stance in his columns and on his blog to attract the support and readership of the full range of the anti-AGW market.