Category: Climate cranks

The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind

We’re running a bit late with this one: recorded last week before the big wind left Gareth powerless for six days (a bit like Glenn’s PC), John Cook ruminates on the result of the Australian election, the boys marvel at the Mail’s myth making about Arctic sea ice, and look forward to the release of the first part of the next IPCC report. And much, much more. Show notes below the fold…

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This is not cool: no slowdown in global warming

Peter Sinclair’s latest video in his This Is Not Cool series for the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media looks at why global warming — the steady accumulation of energy in the climate system — continues, despite media buying into the denier-promulgated myth of a hiatus, pause or slowdown in warming. Sinclair’s compiled interviews with real experts — Josh Willis, Kevin Trenberth, and James Hansen among them — and they explain what’s going on in a clear and compelling way. The next time someone claims that warming’s stopped, point them at this video.

Prat Watch #12: warmest winter makes Ring writhe (and other tales)

It’s time for another update on the antics of our favourite climate cranks — and this week’s star is New Zealand’s very own über crank, weather astrologer Ken Ring. He’s been reinventing NZ’s warmest-ever winter to make it fit with his forecasts. Here’s Ken, back in April, in a piece headlined “Severe winter ahead” [WebCite ((Because Ken has a history of altering stuff after the fact to make himself look better.))]:

The closer the moon is to the earth, the more extreme is the weather, and this year’s closest perigee occurs in late June, which will set us up for a very cold July. […] Very cold temperatures may break records at or near both mid July and mid August.

Unfortunately for Ring, none of that happened. Instead, we got record warmth, and a marked absence in July and August of the frigid southerlies from polar oceans that bring NZ its coldest weather. He is so desperate to make this winter appear cold and to justify his forecast that he’s just published a barely coherent article titled White lies in winter [WebCite]. He thrashes around at a number of targets, but his aim is clear: we have to believe that this was not a record-breaking warm winter. Under a list of links to newspaper articles that don’t support his cold contention, he appeals to his reader’s innate weather measuring equipment:

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The Climate Show #34: four Hiroshima bombs a second

It’s been almost half a year since Glenn, Gareth and John last met over the intertubes to discuss climate news — but we’re 97% sure we’re back, catching up on all the recent climate news. John discusses the recent Cook et al (where al is the Skeptical Science team) paper on the 97% consensus on climate science and the accompanying Consensus Project web site, “sticky” facts like using Hiroshima bombs as a unit of warming. Plus all the news on recent weather extremes — flooding in India, Canada, and Europe, climate impacts on the wine business, and Gareth’s recent interview with Bill McKibben. Show notes below the fold…

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People talking #11

Is it really six months since I posted the last open thread? I do apologise — please avail yourselves of the facility. I’m busy battening down the hatches before the first big winter storm hits, and preparing for the first Climate Show recording in a long while. Meanwhile, severe weather in Europe is striking very close to my heart, with a dramatic hailstorm devastating vineyards around Vouvray ((NZ can grow excellent Chenin Blanc — the grape of Vouvray — and make a wine that more than stands comparison with its French antecedents. I tasted the 2001 Forrest Chenin Blanc a few weeks ago, and it was quite magnificent.)) in the Loire Valley. And in Britain, the Met Office has called a meeting to see if they can tease out why they’ve had the recent run of wet summers and sharp cold spells in winter. The influence of the Arctic is definitely up for discussion…