The likely end of denial

The satellite temperature record of the lower troposphere has been the last refuge of the climate change deniers/lukewarmers, and lots of people have been wondering when the likely rise in it due to the current strong El Nino would start to appear. 

Hotwhopper shows via a simple graph of the last El Ninos that it is indeed likely to happen early in the new year:

And given where the temperatures currently are in the UAH series (the green line) compared to 97-98, there would seem to be pretty good reason to suspect that the old 1998 high is going to be broken.

Nothing would delight me more.   While it may be too late to influence the Paris talks, such a broken record should be extremely useful to show up the appalling and dangerous anti-science of the Republican party for the US election (and, for that matter, the Australian election , where I the anti-science is probably highest in the Nationals.)  

In other satellite temperature posts over the weekend, Nick Stokes at Moyhu looks at the very big adjustments that have been made to the UAH series, compared to the small adjustments made in GISS.   Yes, Lamar Smith's "objective record" is anything but.  This is why people are furious about the harrassment of NOAA - it is based on ignorance.

Michael Tobis makes a fair analogy about the intellectual bankruptcy of Lamar (what a name, by the way):

Imagine if your scale is telling you you are putting on weight, and your doctor’s scale says the same, but your belt is still on the same notch it has long been on. Your belt is certainly a measure of your weight — heavy people have longer belts than lighter people. But it doesn’t measure exactly the same thing as your scale does. It’s a discrepancy that may need to be worked out. Perhaps you are gaining muscle tone. Perhaps your belt is stretching.

Suppose, though, that you are adamant about not changing your diet, and you decide to resolve the discrepancy by lawyering up and issuing subpoenas to the manufacturer of your home scale. (You also choose to ignore that your doctor’s scale agrees.) Is this an “investigation”?

Clearly, it is not an investigation in any reasonable sense. If you were fairly investigating the question you’d be as interested in the internal workings of the belt’s manufacturer as of the scale’s.

Most relevant of all, you would not accuse the scale’s manufacturer of fraud on the grounds that the scale does not account for your belt.

Karl et al’s purpose in the disputed publication is to analyze the surface record. Analyzing the satellite record is somebody else’s job. Reconciling the two if they are inconsistent is yet other people’s job in turn. The idea that the surface record is politically motivated because it isn’t the satellite record is hopelessly indefensible.

Essentially Smith attacks the people releasing the surface record on the grounds that it is not the satellite record. Does Lamar Smith actually believe this makes sense?

One is left with the impression that he has passed the task off of defending his behavior to dyed-in-the-wool internet deniers who really don’t much care whether the drivel they are spouting could even possibly hold together in the real world. Maybe Smith is not smart or well-informed enough to know better, but the idea that nobody on the majority side of the House Science Committee can figure this out is enormously discouraging.

I see that Krugman wants a spade called a spade when it comes to the Republican Party denialism.  He's quite right.

And back on the ground a Google search of "record rainfall" indicates that, apart from the newsworthy floods in the North of England, Florida and Indian both have some local intense rainfall, too.  (It has only taken Miami five days to become the third wettest December on record.)

But yeah, let's go for another 1 degree global temperature rise and see what that does to rainfall intensity, shall we?

The days of climate change denialism being able to continue persuading the gullible are numbered, and some of the ringleaders know it.