"The dismal spectacle/pantomime put on by those pushing alarm over our CO2 is something to behold. "
Aug 21, 2019 at 11:05 AM | John Shade

And it is all done with misappropriated money.

Willis is getting his data from anti-windfarm lobby group the Renewable Energy Foundation.

His number for renewable electricity generated is at most around 50% of the actual figure, his number for subsidies also looks inflated but you know, life really is too short to fact-check Willis and WUWT.

The majority of the subsidy is the Renewables Obligation, which cost 1.86p/KWh in the year to March 2018.

"The majority of the subsidy is the Renewables Obligation, which cost 1.86p/KWh in the year to March 2018.
Aug 21, 2019 at 5:50 PM | Phil Clarke"

I described it as misappropriated, rather than stolen money. As no one but Green Racketeers benefit, theft and extortion by very well organised criminals might be more appropriate than misappropriated.

[UPDATE] Over at Tamino’s website, where since about 2009 I’m barred from commenting because I was asking inconvenient questions, he points out that there is a simpler and more accurate method for finding out if a dataset contains acceleration. This is to see if the squared term in the quadratic equation is statistically significant after correction for autocorrelation, duh … he is correct.

My thanks to him for pointing this out, although I do have to deduct points for his repeated ad hominem attacks on me in his post … haters gonna hate, I guess.

Using his method I identified seven of the sixty-three stations as having statistically significant acceleration and three stations with statistically significant deceleration. However, the average value of their acceleration is 0.015 ± 0.012 mm/yr2 … which is not statistically different from zero. Here are the stations and their accelerations:

VLISSINGEN BALTIMORE SMOGEN KEY WEST KETCHIKAN

0.0605 0.0542 0.0676 0.0477 -0.0543

WEST-TERSCHELLING SANDY HOOK JUNEAU SITKA KWAJALEIN

0.0979 0.0510 -0.1052 -0.0573 0.1258

I note that one station he says has significant acceleration doesn’t appear in this list (Boston). I find that the p-value of the acceleration term for Boston is 0.08, not significant. I suspect the difference is in how we account for autocorrelation. I use the method of Koutsoyiannis, detailed here. I don’t know how Tamino does it.

I would also note that the average acceleration of the entire 63-station dataset is 0.014 ± 0.008, still not statistically significant. And if this turns out to be the long-term acceleration, currently the rate of rise is on the order of a couple of mm/yr, or 166 mm (about 7 inches) by the year 2100. IF this increases at 0.014 mm/yr2, this will make a difference of 48 mm (under two inches) this century.

Curiously, in the previous fifty-year period 1900-1950 there are only three sites with significant acceleration out of 38 datasets covering the period, and none are in the first list:

NEW YORK (THE BATTERY) HARLINGEN SEATTLE

0.0976 -0.1182 0.0959

Whatever any future sea level acceleration turns out to be, it is very unlikely to put the Statue of Liberty underwater anytime soon …

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/20/sea-level-rise-accelerating-not/

Aug 22, 2019 at 10:27 PM | clipe

These structures were built to last. I have never heard of them being used as Sea Level guages.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_pen

Does Mann has the funds to pay Tim Ball's costs or will some ecoloon billionaire pick up the tab for the puce prat?

Aug 23, 2019 at 2:38 AM | fred
This by any chance?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/08/22/breaking-dr-tim-ball-wins-michaelemann-lawsuit-mann-has-to-pay/

Climate Scientists don't do economic hardship. That is something necessary for everyone else, so that arrogant Climate Scientists can prosper.

Yeah - Thought as much.

There have been some wildly untruthful claims about the recent dismissal of libel litigation against Tim Ball circulating on social media. Here is our statement:

The defendant Ball did not “win” the case. The Court did not find that any of Ball’s defenses were valid. The Court did not find that any of my claims were *not* valid.

The dismissal involved the alleged exercise of a discretion on the Court to dismiss a lawsuit for delay. I have an absolute right of appeal. My lawyers will be reviewing the judgment and we will make a decision within 30 days.

The provision in the Court’s order relating to costs does NOT mean that I will pay Ball’s legal fees.

This ruling absolutely does not involve any finding that Ball’s allegations were correct in fact or amounted to legitimate comment. In making his application based on delay, Ball effectively told the world he did not want a verdict on the real issues in the lawsuit.

Dr Mann, Facebook.

Mann's statement, as supplied by his lacky, ends up in the appropriate discussion thread.

Case dismissed on a technicality.

I am reminded of Ball's previous legal 'victory', when Andrew Weaver's defamation claim was dismissed by the Judge because for defamation to occur, the defamer had to have some credibility and Ball has none.

… despite Dr. Ball’s history as an academic and a scientist, the Article is rife with errors and inaccuracies, which suggests a lack of attention to detail on Dr. Ball’s part, if not an indifference to the truth. ...”

“the Article is poorly written and does not advance credible arguments in favour of Dr. Ball’s theory about the corruption of climate science. Simply put, a reasonably thoughtful and informed person who reads the Article is unlikely to place any stock in Dr. Ball’s views, including his views of Dr. Weaver as a supporter of conventional climate science.”

Ouch!

Aug 23, 2019 at 5:43 PM | Phil Clarke

Just because Mann wrote something, doesn't mean it wasn't a lie, and if 97% of Climate Scientists believe in Mann, does it confirm that 97% of all Climate Science is based on lies?

Tough call

Aug 20, 2019 at 11:34 AM | AK

Jo Nova refocuses on Sea Level, as satellites have had their focus adjusted by fiddling:

http://joannenova.com.au/2019/08/sea-level-scare-industry-urges-plans-to-panic-and-evacuate-over-1mm-rise/

"All anyone needs to know about sea levels is that for the last 50 years sea levels have been rising at 1mm a year as shown by a thousand tide gauges all over the world. There was no acceleration. (Beenstock et al). Some of those gauges were rising, some falling, but when averaged out, it’s almost a wash at 1mm. Nils-Axel Morner took the opposite approach and studied 50 beaches around Scandinavia intensely, figured out which beach was at the centre of the turning crust and calculated that the seas were only rising at 0.9mm a year and for the last 125 years. (Morner, 2014)."

"Believe it or not, that fits with what the satellites used to say too (Morner 2004). From 1992 – 2000 the satellites recorded a rise of less than 1mm a year, but by 2003 that trend was retrospectively “adjusted” up to 2.3mm/year. As far as Morner can figure out, the satellites were calibrated to one sinking tide gauge in Hong Kong."

Inconvenient fires fighter Phil (silica) Clarke is on the job.

Why does sand get used to put out fires?

silica a.k.a sand(SiO2) has no special chemical to stop the fire all it does is simply block off access to air and therefore there is no fuel for the fire.

They could use some silica in the Amazon right now....

GolfCharlie. I deliberately never mentioned Nils-Axel Morner (especially his work in the Maldives), because to do so is usually a direct provocation to PC who commonly goes of at half cock. I couldn't stand the aggravation. So even when provoked by PC upon lack of evidence for my argument, I preferred to remain stum.

Aug 24, 2019 at 10:22 AM | AK

Making allowances for Climate Scientist hypersensitivity is why the World is in a mess. Why does Mann keep instigating Legal Action and losing?

Phil Clarke continues to prove that 97% of Climate Scientists are unreliable, and should not be trusted.

We feel compelled to respond to the recent article by Mörner (2004) because he makes several major errors in his analysis, and as a result completely misinterprets the record of sea level change from the TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) satellite altimeter mission. One major criticism we have with the paper is that Mörner does not include a single reference to any altimeter study, all of which refute his claim that there is no apparent change in global mean sea level (GMSL) [see Cazenave and Nerem, (2004) for a summary]. The consensus of all other researchers looking at the T/P and Jason data is that GMSL has been rising at a rate of 3.0 mm/year (Fig. 1) over the last 13 years (3.3 mm/year when corrected for the effects of glacial isostatic adjustment (Tamisiea et al., 2005)). Mörner gives no details for the source of the data or processing strategy he used to produce Fig. 2, other than to say it is based on “raw data”. Because the details of the analysis are not presented in his paper, we are left to speculate on how this result could have been obtained, based on our years of experience as members of the T/P and Jason-1 Science Working Team. Mörner was apparently oblivious to the corrections that must be made to the “raw” altimeter data in order to make correct use of the data. [...]

When care is taken to make these corrections, the rate of sea level change over the entire T/P mission is 3.0 ± 0.4 mm/year (http://sealevel.colorado.edu), 3.3 mm/year when corrected for the change in ocean volume due to glacial isostatic adjustment (Tamisiea et al., 2005). In light of this, the statement by Mörner that “This means that this data set does not record any general trend (rising or falling) in sea level, just variability around zero plus the temporary ENSO perturbations” is completely false and is based on his erroneous data processing. Mörner's paper completely misrepresents the results from the T/P mission, and does discredit to the tremendous amount of work that has been expended by the Science Working Team to create a precise, validated, and calibrated sea level data set suitable for studies of climate variations. Finally, Mörner ignores substantial other oceanographic (e.g. Levitus et al., 2001; Antonov et al., 2002; Munk, 2003; Willis et al., 2004) and cryospheric (e.g. Dyurgerov and Meier, 2000; Rignot et al., 2003; Krabill et al., 2004; Thomas et al., 2004) evidence of sea level rise which corroborate the altimeter observations.

Nerem, Cazenave et al going off at half cock in the literature.

http://www.aari.ru/docs/pub/070119/ner07.pdf

A little background colour on the sceptic's favourite sea level expert who is ...

..a man some of us found years ago and have seen as a source of wild entertainment ever since. He's called Nils-Axel Mörner, and among his claims to fame are that he possesses paranormal abilities to find water and metal using a dowsing rod, and that he has discovered "the Hong Kong of the [ancient] Greeks" in Sweden.

The celebrated debunker of cobblers James Randi challenged Mörner to demonstrate his expertise with a dowsing rod, but he "consistently refused to be tested". He did however, allow his paranormal abilities to be examined on Swedish television, using a test that Mörner himself devised: dowsing for a packet of sugar concealed under one of 10 cups. Needless to say, he failed, blaming, as such people so often do, "interference" and "influences".
 

In 2007, Mörner and his collaborator, a homeopath and amateur archaeologist called Bob Lind, were reprimanded by the Scania County archaeologist in Sweden for damaging an Iron Age cemetery during their quest to demonstrate the "Bronze Age calendar alignments", which would somehow help to show that this local graveyard was in fact an ancient Hellenic trading centre.

Reviewing such claims, the archaeologist and chair of the Swedish Skeptics Society, Martin Rundkvist, comments that if Nils-Axel Mörner is associated with a project, it's "a solid guarantee for high-grade woo."

From <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/dec/02/spectator-sea-level-claims>

And on integrity

to: Academician Yuri Osipov
President of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Dear Dr. Osipov:

It has come to my attention that Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner gave presentations at the seminar on climate change organized by the Russian Academy of Sciences at the request of President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. Dr. Mörner attacked the science of climate change, while claiming that he is mission on Sea Level Change of INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Research).

I am writing to inform you that Dr. Mörner has misrepresented his position with INQUA. Dr. Mörner was President of the Commission on Sea Level Change until July 2003, but the commission was terminated at that time during a reorganization of the commission structure of INQUA. Dr. Mörner currently has no formal position in INQUA, and I am distressed that he continues to represent himself in his former capacity. Further, INQUA, which is an umbrella organization for hundreds of researchers knowledgeable about past climate, (INQUA) does not subscribe to Mörner’s position on climate change. Nearly all of these researchers agree that humans are modifying Earth’s climate, a position diametrically opposed to Dr. Mörner’s point of view. 

Sincerely,

John J. Clague
President, INQUA
July 21, 2004

A lying pseudoscientist, apparently. No wonder Jo Nova likes him.

Problem is Phil, his evidence in the Maldives was documented photographically allowing people like me to go to the same locations and verify it for ourselves. Of course some evidence, like an old mangrove tree that suggested no sea level rise, was deliberately destroyed by climate activists.

Problem is, AK, his photographic 'evidence' was blatently doctored, and the anecdotal destruction of a single tree not really evidence of anything.

See, for example, Morner's photograph of his infamous tree. On page 4 of this pdf.

It is clearly two photos, probably of two trees, crudely spliced together about one-third of the way up.

Falsified evidence, and not even particularly well done.

So very, very odd that the "doctored" evidence of abandoned beach ridges (indicating higher sea levels in the recent past) match exactly what you can find on the ground. And what you can find on other nearby islands as well.

Sorry but the "anecdotal" destruction" of evidence was freely admitted by the culprits and the persistence of the tree was well documented in the literature - that's why the Aussi vandals were aware of its importance and being the guardians of scientific integrity they were chose to remove it.

I note that you, as usual, play the man not the ball - as you did the last time we argued about this subject.

Morner's assertions have been firmly rebutted in the literature, see the list of references above. Also ...

I’m a Maldivian and I consider myself a student of climate science. I have great respect for Prof Morner, but I will have to question his ‘scientific methods’ especially those used in the ‘Maldives Sea Level Project’.

On the issue of the tree, Morner has provided false facts to the world. The island the tree is located is called Viligilli and is next (immediately west) to the Nation’s Capital Male’ (see on googleearth). The tree was located on the southeast corner of the island along part of a stable rocky oceanward coastline. The island WAS (not ‘is’ as stated by Morner) a prison island until 1973. There are no records that prisoners cried out “Ah, freedom!” when they saw the one tree. However, some did refer to an entire bulge on the southeast corner of the island, which is the only such area on an otherwise a smooth coastline. The tree is called ironwood (Pemphis acidula). It’s known for its resilience against salt and is usually the dominant species in very high wave energy and salt spray zones. Having traveled to over 600 islands in Maldives I have witnessed a number of such one ‘tree’s’. The tree in question simply has withstood erosion in the last 10 or so years while weaker trees around it fell. Aerial photographs of 1968/1969, 1998 and 2004 shows that the area is relatively stable with occasional erosion. There have been a number of trees in this specific area of the island like the one in question which have remain separated from the island. It is part of the erosion process. The tree most likely was there 50 years ago but it certainly was not alone as it is now. It is these kinds of adhoc observation based conclusions rather than rigorous assessments which make me question the findings of Morner.

On the question of naughty Australian Scientists and schoolies, I think this just an emotional view of Morner. This island has now become an inhabited island and one of the most frequently visited ‘picnic islands’ for Male’ residents. There are enough naughty boys to cut down such a tree for any reason. It is absurd to blame responsible scientists in the field, without a shred of decent evidence, even due to uncontrolled emotions.

Morner's assertions have been firmly rebutted in the literature, see the list of references above. Also ...

I’m a Maldivian and I consider myself a student of climate science. I have great respect for Prof Morner, but I will have to question his ‘scientific methods’ especially those used in the ‘Maldives Sea Level Project’.

On the issue of the tree, Morner has provided false facts to the world. The island the tree is located is called Viligilli and is next (immediately west) to the Nation’s Capital Male’ (see on googleearth). The tree was located on the southeast corner of the island along part of a stable rocky oceanward coastline. The island WAS (not ‘is’ as stated by Morner) a prison island until 1973. There are no records that prisoners cried out “Ah, freedom!” when they saw the one tree. However, some did refer to an entire bulge on the southeast corner of the island, which is the only such area on an otherwise a smooth coastline. The tree is called ironwood (Pemphis acidula). It’s known for its resilience against salt and is usually the dominant species in very high wave energy and salt spray zones. Having traveled to over 600 islands in Maldives I have witnessed a number of such one ‘tree’s’. The tree in question simply has withstood erosion in the last 10 or so years while weaker trees around it fell. Aerial photographs of 1968/1969, 1998 and 2004 shows that the area is relatively stable with occasional erosion. There have been a number of trees in this specific area of the island like the one in question which have remain separated from the island. It is part of the erosion process. The tree most likely was there 50 years ago but it certainly was not alone as it is now. It is these kinds of adhoc observation based conclusions rather than rigorous assessments which make me question the findings of Morner.

On the question of naughty Australian Scientists and schoolies, I think this just an emotional view of Morner. This island has now become an inhabited island and one of the most frequently visited ‘picnic islands’ for Male’ residents. There are enough naughty boys to cut down such a tree for any reason. It is absurd to blame responsible scientists in the field, without a shred of decent evidence, even due to uncontrolled emotions.

https://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=118

Apologies for the double-paste.

Aug 24, 2019 at 5:32 PM | Phil Clarke

Problem is Phil Clarke, all Hockey Teamsters rely on doctored evidence and dodgy computer models. Why should anything you link to be trusted?

Problem is Phil that I have seen the evidence with my own eyes. It is not faked. For you to persist in claiming that it is fake is equivalent to you calling me a liar. You a person with no direct experience, only book and blog learning and a surfeit of bias.