Trump Lies, Handlers Try to Change the Subject

Early in Monday night’s presidential debate Hillary Clinton mentioned that Donald Trump had said global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. Trump interrupted (he does that a lot) to protest that he never said that.

Trump’s problem is that he said it on Twitter — so it’s right there, for everybody to see (and we’ve seen a lot about it, many times). Denying that he said it, was an outright lie. There’s no doubt. Denying it when it’s been seen (and repeated) so often by so many people, is just plain stupid.

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It’s the Ice, Stupid

Earlier this month the WUWT blog treated us to a bizarre post about how this year didn’t set a new record for lowest Arctic sea ice extent (it only came in 2nd-lowest), in spite of “two very strong storms.” Doubling down, they offer another post trumpeting “record Arctic sea ice growth in September.” Which makes me wonder: are those guys trying to make themselves look like idiots?

Tears

Christiana Figueres is executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Pere Estupinyà is a Catalan science journalist trained in the US, director of a documentary on the energy transition funded by the national Spanish TV. At the end of the film, he asks Christiana Figueres about the timing at our disposal. You can view the documentary here.

Misleading Trends: Sea Level Version

Here’s some data, and the question is: what’s the trend rate at present (in the year 2016)?

Two Fools and a Scientist

Once upon a time in a galaxy not-so-far away, there were two fools and a scientist. By which I mean, last week at a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Space, Science, and Technology.

Fool #1 is committe chair congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), who held the hearings to assert his right to subpoena information about ongoing criminal investigations by state attorneys general. His witnesses included fool #2, a law professor by the name of Ronald Rotunda, who decided to include in his testimony some actual science. Oops! I meant “the most extreme misrepresentation of science in recent memory.”

Speedup Skeptic

I enjoy reading the Climate Progress blog, often getting good information and ideas. But when it comes to one recent post, I have doubts about both its correctness and its wisdom.

The theme is encompassed in the title: “Record-smashing August means long-awaited ‘jump’ in global warming is here.” I’m skeptical.

Brian Cox’s Denier Takedown: a High Point for Climate Journalism

Many have enjoyed the smackdown which Brian Cox delivered to Malcom Rogers on Australian TV’s program “Q&A”. Myself included. Cox is a scientist, and one of the most popular science communicators in Britain (perhaps England’s answer to Neil deGrasse Tyson?). Roberts is a politician, a senator no less, in Australia. He’s also a climate denier.

Hot Days Down Under

A recent post at WUWT discusses projections for increase in the number of very hot days in northern Australia, based on expected temperature change estimated by computer models. It’s actually a follow-up to a previous post on that topic. The theme seems to be doubt about the projections based on general incredulity, combined with devising some “rules” designed to make people mistrust computer models in general.

Global Temperature HOT

NASA has just released their latest global temperature data, including the month of August 2016. It’s hot.

XKCD

See the original here.