Wood Romances

You often hear contrarians repeating mantras about there being "no consensus in science" or that "science is never settled," two related claims that I take to be nearly synonymous. Many examples could be given, but I'll offer a few (with links to the source so you can check up on me): "There is no consensus science. Consensus is group-think and is very dangerous in science. During the Little Ice Age, there was a consensus that witches caused bad weather, and so climate justice resulted in witch killings."  ( John Shewchuk ) "There is no consensus in science … science is about facts" ( John Coleman ) "Science is never settled." ( Matthew Wielicki ) "The minute you hear the science is settled, you know something is wrong. Science is never settled." ( Richard Lindzen ) It's common enough that sometimes you see it dressed up in pretty memes, like this one with a quote from Michael Crichton. I haven't decided yet if i...

Another common contradiction I see among contrarian influencers is that observational data are manipulated to fit a global warming agenda that comes solely from fudged climate models that simultaneously predict far too much warming than observational data. Let's write this as two statements that make the contradiction even more obvious, where:      A = Model Predictions      B = Observational Data      C = Climate Scam Agenda  The contradiction can be stated in at least two ways. In the simpler statement, A = B and A ≠ B: Observational data are manipulated to agree with model predictions. Models are fudged to predict far more warming than is warranted from observational data.  The logic can sometime be stated in a way that is slightly more complex. Here's another wording of the same contradiction. In this case A = C and B = C (so A = B) and A ≠ B: Model predictions are fudged and observations are fabricated to agree with...

A little while ago I watched a short lecture  by R.B. Alley  that did a marvelous job of explaining why geologists have overwhelmingly concluded that greenhouse gases (and in particular CO2 ) are the primary drivers of climate changes on geologic time scales. This presentation was given prior to the publication of Judd et al 2024 ,[1] so I thought it might be fun to show how his argument would be enhanced even more with the more recent data we now have about Phanerozoic temperature and CO2. But let me set the stage. GMST is set by a balance between incoming absorb solar radiation (ASR) and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR). ASR is affected by changes in how much sunlight reaches the earth ( solar variability ), where and when sunlight reaches the earth ( orbital cycles ) and how much is reflected vs absorbed ( albedo ). Outside influences can also at least theoretically play a role in affecting process on earth ( galactic cosmic rays ) that could change how much incoming s...

In my last post I covered one failed prediction having to do with Arctic sea ice . Here I'll cover two essentially failed predictions covering mountain glaciers .  Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2017 Mt. Kilimanjaro  Thompson et al 2002, a paper published in the prestigious journal Science [1],   predicted that we should expect the remaining ice fields on Mt. Kilimanjaro to disappear sometime between 2015 and 2020. Over the 20th century, the areal extent of Kilimanjaro's ice fields has decreased ∼80%, and if current climatological conditions persist, the remaining ice fields are likely to disappear between 2015 and 2020. This prediction was featured in an Inconvenient Truth , so it gained a bit of attention, but by 2011, Mass Live  reported that it was becoming clear that trends were not persisting as the study expected. By 2022, Politifact was writing factchecks about it, admitting this to be a failed prediction, but also (correctly) pointing out that this does not mean that ...

A little over a decade ago, a scientist by the name of Peter Wadhams made a bit of a splash in by doing a few interviews in which he predicted that the Arctic would begin experiencing summers free of sea ice ice by around 2018. Perhaps the most popular story featuring his claims was published the Guardian in 2016  (a similar article was published in the Guardian in 2012 ), and since it was an interview, it seems highly likely that Wadhams was given the ability to offer qualifications or nuance to his claims. I think the most relevant excerpt from the interview is: The overall trend is a very strong downward one, however. Most people expect this year will see a record low in the Arctic’s summer sea-ice cover. Next year or the year after that, I think it will be free of ice in summer and by that I mean the central Arctic will be ice-free. You will be able to cross over the north pole by ship. There will still be about a million square kilometres of ice in the Arctic in summer but i...

How Increasing CO2 Affects Radiative Forcings and GMST If you pay enough attention to contrarian climate influencers, you may begin to notice how frequently they flat out contradict themselves . I think they hope that as long as they are careful to word contradictory claims in sufficiently different ways without saying both within the same minute or so, you won't notice. So I thought it might helpful to expose some of these contradictory claims. I'll start with my personal favorite: CO2 concentrations are both low/starved and high/saturated. This contradiction appears to be particularly common among those who speak for the CO2 Coalition , like William Happer, John Shewchuk and Gregory Wrightstone. You can find these influencers and propagandists saying both of the following: CO2 concentrations are so how that the planet is starved of CO2. We're in a "CO2 famine." CO2 concentrations are so high that its effect is "saturated" in the atmosphere. These are c...