Watts, A Up

---neglected? content lost? nope fixed capt bak 5/17bigtime escalator? along with morano?420 anniv 10th<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><a id="Watts" name="Watts" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Anthony Watts</a></h3><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/anthony-watts" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Anthony Watts</a> is a <a href="https://wattsupwiththat.com/about2/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">retired TV meteorologist</a> who founded the popular sceptics’ blog Watts Up With That (WUWT), where he was <a href="https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">among the first</a> to publish extracts of the emails. He is also behind <a href="http://www.surfacestations.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">surfacestations.org</a>, a website questioning the validity of the surface temperature record.Since the initial release of emails in November 2009, <a href="https://wattsupwiththat.com/category/climategate/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">WUWT has published no less than 385 posts on Climategate</a>, including coverage of the so-called “<a href="https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Climategate 2.0</a>” where additional emails retained from the first hacking were later released.Watts was involved in a document leak of his own in 2012. His name cropped up in a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute-exposed-internal-documents-unmask-heart-climate-denial-machine" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">leaked fundraising strategy</a> from the fossil fuel–funded think tank the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Heartland Institute</a>, which outlined how it pledged to raise $88,000 for a new website for Watts.In 2019, Watts <a href="https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/press-release-anthony-watts-joins-the-heartland-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">officially joined</a> the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Heartland Institute</a> as a senior fellow.cornwall sci creds bs?The signers of the Open Letter recognize that some radical environmentalists and religious activists oppose Mr. Pruitt because he does not embrace their exaggerated fears of human-induced global warming—fears that go well beyond the empirical evidence crucial to genuine science—or their antipathy to the development of the abundant, reliable, affordable energy indispensable to lifting and keeping whole societies out of poverty and the disease and premature death that invariably accompany it.Signers therefore urge President-Elect Trump to stand firmly behind his nominee, as they commit themselves to supporting him in the confirmation process that lies ahead. Signers include:<ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.6rem 4rem; padding: 0px;"><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: disc;">Neil L. Frank, Ph.D. (Meteorology), former Director, National Hurricane Center (1974–1987), Chief Meteorologist, KHOU-TV Houston (1987–2008);</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: disc;">David Legates, Ph.D. (Climatology), Professor of Climatology and Geography, University of Delaware;</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: disc;">Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. (Applied Mathematics), Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Emeritus, MIT;</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: disc;">Willie Soon, Ph.D. (Aerospace Engineering), independent scientist, Cambridge, MA;</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: disc;">Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D. (Meteorology), Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL, and Lead Scientist, NASA Aqua AMSR-3 Satellite Remote Sensing Program;</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: disc;">James A. Wanliss, Ph.D. (Physics), Professor of Physics, Presbyterian College, Clinton, SC;</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: disc;">Anthony Watts, American Meteorological Society-certified television and radio meteorologist (retired), owner of WattsUpwithThat.com, Chico, CA</li></ul>“Senate Democrats, at the beck and call of environmental activists, are determined to prevent Mr. Pruitt’s confirmation, painting him as a ‘science denier’ or a ‘climate-change denier’, said Cornwall Alliance Founder and National Spokesman Dr. E. Calvin Beisner. “He is neither. He’s a solid, common-sense attorney general who will bring much-needed reform to the EPA.”==upping ante in rico death match? reprise of gore house?http://desmogblog.com/2016/06/19/climate-science-denialist-blogger-anthony-watts-publishes-aerial-survey-scientists-homes-and-gets-almost-everythingClimate science denialist blogger <a href="http://desmogblog.com/anthony-watts" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Anthony Watts</a> was sure he had a gotcha moment with some of his most hated figures caught red-handed.Mysteriously popular blogger Watts had wondered how many vocal climate scientists “practice what they preach” when it comes to how they power their homes.So Watts carried out what he described as an “aerial survey” but what others might call “looking at maps on Google” to look on the roofs of famous climate scientists to see if they had solar panels.Watts was reacting to <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-016-1713-2" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">research finding that Americans were more likely to follow advice on cutting fossil fuel energy use from climate scientists</a> who had also taken personal steps to decarbonize.Imagine Watts’ delight to find the homes of celebrated scientists like Professor Michael Mann, Dr Jonathan Overpeck and Dr Kevin Trenberth, all bereft of photovoltaic panels. What hypocrites, right?So Watts wrote a <a href="http://www.webcitation.org/6iK5NNUwN" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">blog post with photos of the scientists' homes</a> and then published it. What followed was a comedy of errors and corrections - a true car crash of climate science denial bloggery.<div id="block-block-110" class="block block-block first odd" style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; line-height: 18.59px;"><div class="inline-newsletter-form" style="padding: 12.375px 24.7656px; margin: 1.5em 0px;">DeSmog checked with several of the scientists featured.  First up is Dr Overpeck, of the University of Arizona, whose home, according to Watts, “seems completely devoid of solar power.” Overpeck told DeSmog:</div></div><blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px; line-height: 18.59px;">“Watts is using an old image of our house perhaps? We have a good-sized array deployed on our roof. Yesterday we generated 59 kWh, which more than covered our own energy use, including air-conditioning on a hot day, and thus we fed the excess back into the utility grid.”</blockquote>Oops.Next up is Dr Trenberth, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, whose Colorado home was also sans solar panels, according to Watts' “aerial survey”.Trenberth sent DeSmog pictures of his home to show panels on his roof (he later emailed Watts). He told DeSmog:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px; line-height: 18.59px;">“I have had solar since 1986: firstly as hot water heating, and then when we moved to our current address in 2004, we installed pv panels.”</blockquote>Oh dear. But what about Professor Michael Mann, of Penn State University? Firstly, Watts got the wrong house. Cue rapid re-write with new image, apparently now showing Mann’s actual home.  And look, still no panels.Except Watts forgot that solar panels are not the only way of powering your home with renewables. Many people have agreements to purchase power from renewables. Mann told DeSmog:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px; line-height: 18.59px;">“Anthony Watts has shown himself to be a sad, creepy, desperate man, who has nothing better to with his life than this. He apparently doesn’t understand the whole exercise was irrelevant from the start, since — as I have pointed out many times in the past — we have a plan in which all of our power comes from wind energy. As one Twitter commenter noted, we’ll probably finding him reduced to searching through people’s trash soon enough. The episode does nothing other than to demonstrate both the man’s lack of integrity and dullness of mind.”</blockquote>Oops again! And ouch.Watts had also apparently featured the homes of former NASA climate scientist Dr James Hansen, who has solar panels covering his outbuildings.The home of Dr Thomas C. Peterson was also featured, and also showed solar panels (the only person left featured by Watts but not covered here is Dr Thomas Karl of NOAA. If we hear anything, we’ll let you know).Watts claimed he had been careful not to reveal the addresses of any of the scientists featured, but wasn't careful enough.  Earlier versions of the post and at least one image shared through social media did show street names.  This angered UKjournalist Mark Lynas, who described Watts actions as “disgusting”

...

;You have no respect for privacy, this is disgusting. <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann" class="PrettyLink profile customisable h-card" dir="ltr" data-mentioned-user-id="384923143" data-scribe="element:mention" style="color: rgb(43, 123, 185); text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;">@MichaelEMann</a> constantly harassed by you

>Attorney Generals: The Climate Change-Gang<

Scott Pruitt and Luther Strange, National Review Online

<h2>The Obama administration lawlessly rewards its supporters and punishes its enemies.</h2>

The United States was born out of a revolution against, in the words

of the Declaration of Independence, an “arbitrary government” that put

men on trial “for pretended offences” and “abolish[ed] the Free System

of English laws.” Brave men and women stood up to that oppressive

government, and this, the greatest democracy of them all, one that is

governed by the rule of law and not by men, is the product.

Some of our states have forgotten this founding principle and are

acting less like Jefferson and Adams and more like George III. A group

of Democratic attorneys general has announced it intends to criminally

investigate oil and gas companies that have disputed the science behind

man-made global warming. Backed by green-energy interests and

environmentalist lobbying groups, the coalition has promised to use

intrusive investigations, costly litigation, and criminal prosecutions

to silence critics of its climate-change agenda. Pretended offenses,

indeed.

We won’t be joining this coalition, and we hope that those attorneys

general who have joined will disavow it. Healthy debate is the lifeblood

of American democracy, and global warming has inspired one of the major

policy debates of our time. That debate is far from settled. Scientists

continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and

its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be

encouraged — in classrooms, public forums, and the halls of Congress. It

should not be silenced with threats of prosecution. Dissent is not a

crime. The Clean Power Plan was promulgated without any consultation

with Congress. No bills were debated, no votes were taken.

Sadly, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this tactic of advancing

the climate-change agenda by any means necessary. President Obama’s

Clean Power Plan is a particularly noteworthy example. This EPA

regulation, one of the most ambitious ever proposed, will shutter

coal-fired power plants, significantly increase the price of electricity

for American consumers, and enact by executive fiat the very same

cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions that Congress has rejected.

The Clean Power Plan was promulgated without any consultation with

Congress. No bills were debated, no votes were taken, and the

representatives of the American people had no opportunity to object or

offer their own suggestions. The checks and balances built into our

system of government were simply ignored as inconvenient impediments to

the president’s agenda.

But in our states, we believe in and govern with respect for the rule

of law, rather than by ambition to use the power of our governments to

stifle political opponents. That is why we are part of a very different

kind of coalition, a coalition of 29 states seeking to vindicate the

rule of law by challenging the legality of the Clean Power Plan in our

courts. The 29 states and state attorneys general who are part of this

effort respect our proper role, which is neither to pick winners and

losers in the energy sector nor to silence those with whom we disagree.

Rather, our job is to hold the EPA accountable to the laws that created

it and to fulfill our statutory duties to ensure that consumers in our

states have access to reliable, affordable energy. We will continue to

pursue those goals and to present our arguments in the courts and in the

public square, treating our opponents with the respect they deserve.

It’s unfortunate that this respect is not always returned. In their

press conference, the group of state attorneys general called themselves

an “unprecedented coalition.” On this point, they are correct. Rarely

in our nation’s history has the police power of the state been so

eagerly used to intimidate citizens into silence. But even more

troubling are internal e-mails and other documents that indicate that

this coercion was orchestrated not by the attorneys general themselves,

but by green-energy advocacy groups using these officials as puppets to

further their extreme agendas. This should frighten us all. Outside

groups should not be able to use the power of the government as a sword

to go after their political opponents.

We do not doubt the sincerity of the beliefs of our fellow attorneys

general about climate change and the role human activity plays in it.

But we call upon them to press those beliefs through debate, not through

governmental intimidation of those who disagree with them. Few things

could be more un-American.

— Scott Pruitt is the attorney general of Oklahoma. Luther Strange is the attorney general of Alabama.
6/14promoted to primary, since he has his own debunk site:<a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heart web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=743582816969994240" data-scribe="element:heart" style="color: rgb(105, 120, 130); text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a href="http://wottsupwiththat.com/">http://wottsupwiththat.com/</a>eg<header class="entry-header" style="line-height: 24.375px; color: rgb(55, 55, 55); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="entry-title" style="line-height: 1.5em; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 15px 76px 0.3em 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><a href="http://wottsupwiththat.com/2014/03/04/white-house-science-adviser-attacks-roger-pielke-jr-for-his-senate-testimony-pielke-responds-with-a-skillfull-counterstrike/" rel="bookmark" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none;">White House science adviser attacks Roger Pielke Jr. for his Senate testimony, Pielke responds with a skillfull counterstrike</a></h1><div class="entry-meta" style="line-height: 18px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 76px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both;">Posted on <a href="http://wottsupwiththat.com/2014/03/04/white-house-science-adviser-attacks-roger-pielke-jr-for-his-senate-testimony-pielke-responds-with-a-skillfull-counterstrike/" title="12:59 AM" rel="bookmark" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(175, 86, 18); text-decoration: none;"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2014-03-04T00:59:00+00:00" style="line-height: inherit;">2014/03/04</time></a></div><div class="comments-link" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div></header><div class="entry-content" style="line-height: 24.375px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.625em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(55, 55, 55);"><p style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“<a href="http://archive.is/tqKuQ" rel="bookmark" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(175, 86, 18); text-decoration: none;">White House science adviser attacks Roger Pielke Jr. for his Senate testimony, Pielke responds with a skillfull counterstrike</a>“ (2014-03-01). Anthony Watts actually thinks Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., “skeptical” political scientist, can teach Dr. John P. Holdren, the American President’s Science Advisor as well as Past President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, about climate science!<p style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Is this truculent hubris, or just plain old Dunning–Kruger syndrome? You can decide, but I’ll just whisper this to Anthony: “skillfull” is spelt “skillful”. I know, I know, it takes a lot of fingers to keep track of the “l”s. Also, “counterstrike” should have a dash in there somewhere.<p style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I first read about this on <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/03/a-skilful-counterstrike-john-holdren.html" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(175, 86, 18); text-decoration: none;">HotWhopper</a>, and was reminded by a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/03/3349411/john-holdren-roger-pielke-climate-drought/#" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(175, 86, 18); text-decoration: none;">post on Climate Progress</a>. Thanks guys!Republican Senator Jeff Sessions had recently tried to use <a href="http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=a6df9665-e8c8-4b0f-a550-07669df48b15" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(175, 86, 18); text-decoration: none;">Pielke’s testimony from July 2013</a> to run the old “nothing’s changed”/”warming is good anyway!” shell game while questioning Dr. Holdren (linked on <a href="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2014/03/weekendus-interuptus.html" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(175, 86, 18); text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rabett Run</a>). Dr. Holdren testified that increased drought in the American West and Southwest has been a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. Sessions tried to dispute this irritating fact using Pielke’s – totally honest-broker, like, fer sure – testimony claiming there hasn’t been a change in drought trends. Dr. Holdren promised to back up his testimony and put Pielke’s in context and <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/critique_of_pielke_jr_statements_on_drought.pdf" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(175, 86, 18); text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">did so a few days later</a>. It makes for an amusing read, unless you’re Roger Pielke Jr.<p style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When Dr. Holdren cited research confirming his testimony and exposed Pielke’s classic quote-mining, Pielke revealed his debating ninja skills a blog post titled <a href="http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2014/03/john-holdrens-epic-fail.html" style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(175, 86, 18); text-decoration: none;">John Holdren’s Epic Fail</a>. First, the right-wing nutters at The Daily Caller oversold Pielke’s argument in its partisan coverage of the testimony and Dr. Holdren thought they were quoting Pielke directly. Oh, that’s terrible! But more importantly, while Pielke had written that there was no change in drought trends, but he put a little footnote-y thing to a journal paper that if you bothered to track down out of idle curiosity and then read the whole thing shows that there has in fact been an increase in drought in the West and Southwest. That’s how you win the internets. Otherwise it’s all hurt feelings and wailing about politicizing the purity of collegial science. “Tone” is a favourite fall-back position for Pielke.<p style="line-height: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So no, Anthony, shouting a lie (Pielke’s “Take Home Points”from his 2013 testimony) and then whispering the 180° opposite truth (in a completely opaque footnote) doesn’t count as a “skillfull counterstrike.” It’s just building an escape hatch into the lie.</div><h2 class="entry-title" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.3em; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/13/wackadoodle-350-org-protesters-disappear-their-kkk-moment/" rel="bookmark" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">Wackadoodle 350.org protesters disappear their KKK moment</a></h2><div class="entry-meta" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(119, 119, 119); line-height: 24px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Posted on <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/13/wackadoodle-350-org-protesters-disappear-their-kkk-moment/" title="6:46 pm" rel="bookmark" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(119, 119, 119); background: transparent;">February 13, 2014</a> by <a class="url fn n" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/author/wattsupwiththat/" title="View all posts by Anthony Watts" rel="author" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(119, 119, 119); background: transparent;">Anthony Watts</a></div><div class="entry-content" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 24px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last weekend I <a title="Note to KXL protestors and Lord Deben, just substitute a couple of K’s and ‘your journey towards the dark side will be complete’" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/09/note-to-kxl-protestors-and-lord-deben-just-substitute-a-couple-of-ks-and-your-journey-towards-the-dark-side-will-be-complete/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(116, 51, 153); background: transparent;">pointed out</a> that 350.org leader Bill McKibben had endorsed the antics of some 350.org members in Texas that adopted <a href="http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/kkk1.html" target="_blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(116, 51, 153); background: transparent;">tactics of the Klu Klux Klan</a> – showing up at somebody’s house with mask covered faces, torches, and a threat:</div>==

koch doc confirms watts connection to heartland

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revkin dot earth:...

Then came <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/">Watts’s new paper</a>, which — as with his earlier efforts — is focused on questioning the quality of decades of temperature records generated by weather stations across the lower 48 states. It builds on Watts’s <a href="http://surfacestations.org">Surface Stations</a> web project — which was <a href="http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/on-weather-stations-and-climate-trends/">challenged by federal climate scientists here</a>, <a href="http://climatecrocks.com/2009/08/19/youtube-reinstates-banned-climate-video/#more-67">critiqued by the climate blogger Peter Sinclair here</a> and <a href="http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/r-367.pdf">defended here</a>.

Given that the new paper from Watts and his team largely takes aim at the work of climate researchers at the National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, I sought a reaction this morning from three of the scientists there responsible for temperature data and analysis — Peter Thorne, Matthew Menne and David Easterling. They wrote that they would not comment on the Watts paper prior to its publication but could offer some context. Here’s the note from Thorne defending the quality of temperature records in the United States (it’s a bit technical in spots):

Although we don’t want to comment on the draft pre-submission paper for obvious reasons, we have done quite a lot of work this past year that directly builds confidence in the verity of our adjustments to the United States Historical Climatology Network [USHCN] which it would be remiss not to mention in the context of current discussions. This is largely the result of efforts of Matt Menne and Claude Williams here at the National Climatic Data Center [NCDC]. I came to the party somewhat later. First off there are three published papers that have come out this calendar year which directly address the question at hand:

Firstly, NCDC submitted their technique to a major international intercomparison of homogenization techniques. Detailed [<a href="http://www.clim-past.net/8/89/2012/cp-8-89-2012.html">here</a>], this intercomparison benchmarked performance by running against complex test cases. The pairwise algorithm used to create USHCN was amongst the top performers and had similar skill to the best manually intensive approaches with an incredibly low false positive rate.

===

Mann's move onto the offensive has generated widespread commentary from the blogosphere.  For the most part there has been a great deal of support, for example on <a href="http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2012/07/22/slandering-someone-because-of-their-scientific-findings-can-be-very-costly/">AGU blogs</a>, <a href="http://climatecrocks.com/2012/07/22/mike-mann-calls-out-slime-vending-conservatives-at-national-review/">Climate Crocks</a>, Discover Magazine's <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/07/23/deniers-disgust-and-defamation/">Bad Astronomy</a>, and many others, including <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.401767799879428.89661.221222081267335&type=1">comments on Mann's Facebook Page</a>.  However, a number of climate denialists have inexplicably sided with CEI and National Review's defamatory attack, for example <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/7/24/manns-legal-case.html">Andrew Montford</a> and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/24/fighting-the-mann/">WattsUpWithThat</a>, among others.

<h3 style=" text-align: justify;">Denialists Frothing Up the Abusers</h3>

There is a clear connection between the behavior at climate denialist blogs and the abuse directed towards climate scientists.  Denialist blog posts constantly leap from their own flawed scientific analyses to the conclusion that climate scientists must be guilty of fraud, data manipulation, and other immoral behavior.  The letters received by climate scientists contain this same sort of language, with baseless accusations of fraud and data manipulation, followed by abusive language and often death threats.

Climate denialist blogs are also the source of the CEI and National Review accusations of fraud, which soon warped into a denigrating comparison betwen an honest climate scientist and a serial child molester.  [sandusky] Instead of condemning this reprehensible behavior, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/24/fighting-the-mann/">climate denialist ringleader WattsUpWithThat in particular appears to encourage it</a>.

---

role in climategate:  mojo

SOMETIME ON OR AFTER November 12, more than 1,000 emails between climate scientists and 3,587 other documents, including raw data and computer code, were copied from the CRU server. The files were posted online, with duplicates posted to several other servers around the world. <a target="blank" href="http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/12/the-mosher-timeline/">At 7:24 a.m. EST</a> [84], a link to the files <a target="blank" href="http://climateaudit.org/2009/11/16/luckman-at-the-canadian-society-for-petroleum-geologists/#comment-201848">appeared in a comment</a> [85] on McIntyre's Climate Audit.

Around 7:30 a.m. that day, Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA and cofounder with Mann of RealClimate, awoke to find his site disabled. He attempted to log in and failed. When he finally got in as the administrator, he found that the files had been uploaded to the site. At that very moment, the hacker was using a ghost administrator account to try to create a blog post that linked to the files and quoted some portions of the emails.

Schmidt recalls, "I was going, 'What's this? Oh God, this is some emails. I wrote some of these emails.'" Schmidt emailed Mann, Jones, and other scientists whose emails were included.

That same evening, <a target="_blank" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/19/one-year-ago-today-breaking-news-story-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/">a comment on Watts Up With That?</a> [86] (WUWT)—a prominent skeptic blog run by Anthony Watts, a former TV meteorologist—linked to the files posted on a Russian file transfer protocol (FTP) site. "We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps," read the comment. Charles Rotter, who moderates the site, did not approve the comment for public view, but he did download the files in order to read them himself.

Next, Rotter called his housemate, Steven Mosher. Mosher, who works in marketing in San Francisco, is a frequent contributor to Climate Audit, WUWT, and other skeptic blogs. He is a self-described "data libertarian" and lukewarmer who has agitated for increased access to the data and computer codes that climate scientists use. Mosher says Rotter and Watts requested that he take a look at the files and evaluate whether they were real before posting them. "We didn't know if they were a Trojan horse, a hoax, a trap, or the real deal," says Mosher.

<div class="pullquote-left">One post included a list of 20 juicy teasers from the emails—among them a quote referring to a document as "dirty laundry" and an outside researcher asking for a chapter of a report by a UEA scientist to be "beefed up."</div>

Meanwhile, the files were still being posted elsewhere. At 9:57 p.m., a commenter under the handle "FOIA" <a target="_blank" href="http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/open-letter/#comment-11917">posted on the skeptic blog Air Vent</a> [87] linking to the Russian FTP. This post included a list of 20 juicy teasers from the emails—among them a quote from Mann referring to a document as "dirty laundry" and an outside researcher asking for a chapter of a report by a UEA scientist to be "beefed up." The anonymous poster also sent a follow-up comment to WUWT asking why the original comment hadn't yet been published. Mosher says the IP address was traced to a server in Saudi Arabia; the poster was smart enough to cover the trail.

Mosher realized that several of the emails appeared to be from McIntyre to climate scientists, so late that night he called McIntyre, who confirmed that the emails were genuine. Mosher was still parsing the files two days later when he learned that they had already been posted on the Air Vent. He began submitting snippets of the emails to another skeptic blog called <a target="_blank" href="http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/real-files-or-fake/">The Blackboard</a> [88].

"You get to see somebody with the name of Phil Jones say that he would rather destroy the CRU data than release it to McIntyre," Mosher wrote. "And you get to see what they really say behind the curtain...you get to see how they 'shape' the news, how they struggled between telling the truth and making policy makers happy." As a writer on Andrew Breitbart's conservative news site <a target="_blank" href="http://bigjournalism.com/pcourrielche/2010/01/12/peer-to-peer-review-part-iii-how-climategate-marks-the-maturing-of-a-new-science-movement/#more-2402">Big Journalism</a> [89] would later put it, Mosher "is to Climategate what Woodward and Bernstein were to Watergate. He was just the right person, with just the right influence and just the right expertise to be at the heart of the promulgation of the files."

Watts also helped to spread the word. He was returning from a conference in Brussels on November 19 when he logged on to his blog from Dulles International Airport and <a target="blank" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/19/one-year-ago-today-breaking-news-story-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/">posted his first piece</a> [86] about the files, citing the most damning emails: In one, <a target="blank" href="http://www.climate-gate.org/email.php?eid=393&s=kwcheering%20news">CRU's Jones notes</a> [90] the death of a skeptic as "cheering news"; in another, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=154">Jones refers to scientists</a> [91] using a "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures that tree-ring data showed beginning in the 1960s. (The "trick"—substituting recorded temperature data when proxy data become unreliable—isn't intended to deceive; it's an acceptable practice in paleoclimatology, since most proxy data sets end around the 1980s, and recorded temperatures are more reliable, anyway.)

"It appears that the proverbial Climate Science Cat is out of the bag," wrote Watts. He said that he had alerted two of the most vocal deniers in the US: the CEI's Christopher Horner and Marc Morano, a former staffer for Sen. Inhofe. Morano is also the editor of <a target="blank" href="http://www.climatedepot.com/">Climate Depot</a> [92], a Drudge Report-like clearinghouse for climate skeptics run by the oil-funded think tank <a target="blank" href="http://www.cfact.org/s.asp?tag=climate%20depot">Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow</a> [93]. Blogger <a target="_blank" href="http://www.examiner.com/essex-county-conservative-in-newark/hadley-cru-hacked-with-release-of-hundreds-of-docs-and-emails">Terry Hurlbut posted</a> [94] excerpts of the emails on a conservative news site, the Examiner.

---

heartland pledge $ for weather tracking stations?

<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shawn-lawrence-otto/heartland-institute-leaked-documents_b_1278059.html?view=print&comm_ref=false">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shawn-lawrence-otto/heartland-institute-leaked-documents_b_1278059.html?view=print&comm_ref=false</a>

=

<h1 class="headline">Anthony Watts urges WattsUpWithThat readers to disrupt Forbes blog</h1>

By <a href="http://grist.org/author/joseph-romm/" title="Posts by Joseph Romm">Joseph Romm</a>

</blockquote>

Yes, discredited former TV weatherman Anthony Watts can’t stomach even a couple of scientists posting reasonable comments about an error-riddled piece from Heartland on a blog already over-run by the pro-pollution crowd.  He must marshall his readership to “shout them down in the comments section.”

Watts has, perhaps more than any other leading anti-science blogger, viciously smeared scientists — and tried to get his followers to game online voting  and pile onto other people’s comments sections (see <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/18/scientific-american-science-deniers-patrick-michaels-george-gilder-unscientific-online-poll/">Scientific American “horrified” by “the co-opting of the poll” by users of “the well-known climate denier site, Watts Up With That”</a>).

In a new <a rel="nofollow" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/03/%E2%80%9Cscientists%E2%80%9D-pull-a-snow-job-on-reporters-in-teleconference/">post</a>, he reprints another piece smearing climate scientists by Joe D’Aleo.  By way of history, Watts and D’Aleo coauthored a “report” accusing top U.S. scientists of various kinds of misfeasance and malfeasance in the global temperature record.  It was utterly debunked last March (see <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/11/wattergate-tamino-debunks-anthony-watts-wattsupwiththat/">Wattergate: Tamino debunks “just plain wrong” Anthony Watts</a>).  As Tamino wrote, “your use of false claims to accuse NOAA scientists of deliberate deception was not just mistaken, it was unethical.”

Watts never retracted the attacks.  Instead, last Memorial Day, Watts directly questioned the patriotism of both Tamino and Rabett (see “<a title="Permanent Link to Peak readership for anti-science blogs?" rel="bookmark" href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/23/blacklist-peak-readership-for-denier-blogs/">Peak readership for anti-science blogs?</a>“) leading Tamino to write, “<a href="http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/how-low-can-you-go-2/">This just might be the most loathsome thing Watts has yet done with his blog</a>.”

<a href="http://grist.org/article/2011-03-04-anthony-watts-urges-wattsupwiththat-readers-to-disrupt-forbes/">http://grist.org/article/2011-03-04-anthony-watts-urges-wattsupwiththat-readers-to-disrupt-forbes/</a>

Willard Anthony Watts (Anthony Watts) is a blogger, weathercaster and non-scientist <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=AGW_denier" title="AGW denier" class="mw-redirect">AGW denier</a> who runs the website wattsupwiththat.com. He does not have a university qualification and has no climate credentials other than being a radio weather announcer.

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Education">1 Education</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Career">2 Career</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Political_advocacy">3 Political advocacy</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Credentials">4 Credentials</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Credentials_held">4.1 Credentials held</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Credentials_not_held">4.2 Credentials not held</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Actions">5 Actions</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#SurfaceStations_project">5.1 SurfaceStations project</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Claims_of_a_temp._trend_bias">5.1.1 Claims of a temp. trend bias</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Analyses_in_scientific_papers:no_temp.trend_bias">5.1.2 Analyses in scientific papers: no temp. trend bias</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Attempted_takedown_of_YouTube_video_critique">5.1.3 Attempted takedown of YouTube video critique</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Op-ed_writing">5.2 Op-ed writing</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#.22Leipzig_Declaration.22_signatory">5.3 "Leipzig Declaration" signatory</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Speaking">5.4 Speaking</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Businesses">5.5 Businesses</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Articles_and_resources">6 Articles and resources</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#Related_SourceWatch_articles">6.1 Related SourceWatch articles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#References">6.2 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#External_resources">6.3 External resources</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#External_articles">6.4 External articles</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>Education</h2>

Watts attended Purdue University from 1975 to 1982 but left without graduating.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-Watts-nodegree-0" title="">[1]</a> A number of direct queries to Watts to find out if he graduated from college were rebuffed,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-directqdegree-1" title="">[2]</a> but a direct query to Purdue revealed that he did not obtain a degree from the university.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-Watts-nodegree-0" title="">[1]</a>

<h2>Career</h2>

Watts began his broadcasting career, in 1978 in Lafayette, Indiana.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-2" title="">[3]</a>

Watts still works as a weatherman at KPAY 1290 AM radio in Chico, California.

<h2>Political advocacy</h2>

Watts is involved with the Butte County Republican Party, providing technical assistance and maintaining the website and domain registration.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-3" title="">[4]</a>,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-4" title="">[5]</a>

<h2>Credentials</h2>

<h3>Credentials held</h3>

Watts held an American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval (a discontinued credential that does not require a bachelor's or higher degree in atmospheric science or meteorology from an accredited college/university)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-5" title="">[6]</a> with a status of "retired".<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-6" title="">[7]</a>

<h3>Credentials not held</h3>

Some online lists incorrectly refer to Watts as "AMS Certified"<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-7" title="">[8]</a>, but this is incorrect; the American Meteorological Society reserves its "AMS Certified" designation for its Certified Broadcast Meteorologists and Certified Consulting Meteorologists<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-8" title="">[9]</a>, and Watts posesses neither certification.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-9" title="">[10]</a>,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-10" title="">[11]</a>

<h2>Actions</h2>

<h3>SurfaceStations project</h3>

<h4>Claims of a temp. trend bias</h4>

In 2007, Watts founded <a href="http://www.surfacestations.org/" class="external text" title="http://www.surfacestations.org" rel="nofollow">SurfaceStations.org</a>, to collect information on weather stations that are part of the United States Historical Climatological Network (USHCN) and Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN). <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-11" title="">[12]</a> Watts believed that, with the information collected via the website, "we will be able to demonstrate that some of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_warming" title="Global warming">global warming</a> increase is not from CO2 but from localized changes in the temperature-measurement environment."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-12" title="">[13]</a>,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-13" title="">[14]</a>.

Said Watts: "The vast majority of [the biases found] are warm biases, and even such things as people thinking a tree might in fact keep the temperature cooler doesn't really end up that way."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-deltoid-wattsvwatts-14" title="">[15]</a>

<h4>Analyses in scientific papers: no temp. trend bias</h4>

<dl>

<dt>Independent analysis, Menne et al 2010 show no temp. trend bias</dt>

</dl>

Results of analyzing the SurfaceStations data did not match Watts's expectations; a NOAA analysis of the Surface Stations data showed "no indication from this analysis that poor station exposure has imparted a bias in the U.S. temperature trends."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-15" title="">[16]</a>

<dl>

<dt>Watts paper 2011 shows no temp trend bias</dt>

</dl>

A scientific paper on the SurfaceStations project, coauthored by Watts, came to the same conclusion as the Menne et al. paper.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-deltoid-wattsvwatts-14" title="">[15]</a>,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-16" title="">[17]</a>

<h4>Attempted takedown of YouTube video critique</h4>

In July 2009 Watts objected to a YouTube video critiquing his sceptic claims, claiming copyright infringement, and had it taken down.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-watts-nonsense-17" title="">[18]</a>.

<dl>

<dt>Video deemed fair use, restored</dt>

</dl>

"The video has since been reviewed by a number of US copyright experts and ... there appears to be nothing that could be construed as anything but fair use", said Kevin Grandia shortly thereafter.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-18" title="">[19]</a>

"In accordance with established YouTube guidelines", Video creator Peter Sinclair reported<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-restore-19" title="">[20]</a>, "I filed a "counternotice", affirming, "under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled." "

YouTube subsequently restored the video.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-restore-19" title="">[20]</a>

<div class="thumbcaption">The video Watts tried to ban</div>

</div>

<h3>Op-ed writing</h3>

In October 2010 the Christian Science Monitor published an op-ed by Watts likening climate contrarian Hal Lewis's resignation from the American Physical Society to Martin Luther.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-20" title="">[21]</a>. The American Physical Society strenuously disagreed, saying "In light of the significant settled aspects of the science, APS totally rejects Dr. Lewisâ claim that global warming is a âscamâ and a âpseudoscientific fraud.â"<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-21" title="">[22]</a>,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-22" title="">[23]</a>,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-23" title="">[24]</a>

<h3>"Leipzig Declaration" signatory</h3>

Anthony Watts is listed as a signatory on the "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leipzig_Declaration_on_Global_Climate_Change" title="Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change">Leipzig Declaration</a>", which said "there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide. In fact, most climate specialists now agree that actual observations from both weather satellites and balloon-borne radiosondes show no current warming whatsoever."

The signers of the Declaration are described as "climate scientists", although they include 25 weather presenters.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-24" title="">[25]</a> An attempt to contact the declaration's 33 European signers found that 4 of them could not be located, 12 denied ever having signed, and some had not even heard of the Leipzig Declaration. Those who verified signing included a medical doctor, a nuclear scientist, and an entomologist. After discounting the signers whose credentials were inflated, irrelevant, false, or unverifiable, only 20 of the names on the list had any scientific connection with the study of climate change, and some of those names were known to have obtained grants from the oil and fuel industry, including the German coal industry and the government of Kuwait (a major oil exporter).

<h3>Speaking</h3>

Watts was a speaker at the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Conference_on_Climate_Change_%282009%29" title="International Conference on Climate Change (2009)" class="mw-redirect">International Conference on Climate Change (2009)</a> organized by the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute" title="Heartland Institute">Heartland Institute</a> think tank. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-25" title="">[26]</a> Watts is also listed as a speaker for the Heartland Institute's June 2009 <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Third_International_Conference_on_Climate_Change" title="Third International Conference on Climate Change">Third International Conference on Climate Change</a>.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-26" title="">[27]</a>

<h3>Businesses</h3>

In 1987, Watts founded <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ItWorks&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="ItWorks (page does not exist)">ItWorks</a>, which "supplies custom weather stations, Internet servers, weather graphics content, and broadcast video equipment." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-27" title="">[28]</a>; it is also known as <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=IntelliWeather&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="IntelliWeather (page does not exist)">IntelliWeather</a>.

Watts is listed as the Managing Member of ZEV2Go, seller of an NEV-type electric car.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_note-28" title="">[29]</a>

<h2>Articles and resources</h2>

<h3>Related SourceWatch articles</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_warming_skeptics" title="Global warming skeptics">Global warming skeptics</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute" title="Heartland Institute">Heartland Institute</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leipzig_Declaration_on_Global_Climate_Change" title="Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change">Leipzig Declaration</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Conference_on_Climate_Change_%282009%29" title="International Conference on Climate Change (2009)" class="mw-redirect">International Conference on Climate Change (2009)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch:Project:Creating_Articles_on_Sponsors_and_Speakers_at_The_2008_International_Conference_on_Climate_Change" title="SourceWatch:Project:Creating Articles on Sponsors and Speakers at The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change">SourceWatch:Project:Creating Articles on Sponsors and Speakers at The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change</a></li>

</ul>

<h3>References</h3>

<li id="cite_note-Watts-nodegree-0">â <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-Watts-nodegree_0-0" title="">1.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-Watts-nodegree_0-1" title="">1.1</a> ScribeâPurdue U. Registrar (June 2011). <a href="http://sourcewatch.org/images/4/4d/Anthony_Watts.pdf" class="external text" title="http://sourcewatch.org/images/4/4d/Anthony_Watts.pdf" rel="nofollow">Anthony Watts did not graduate from Purdue</a> (PDF). Staff. SourceWatch. Retrieved on 2011-07-02.</li>

<li id="cite_note-directqdegree-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-directqdegree_1-0" title="">â</a> <a href="http://warming101.blogspot.com/2009/10/does-anthony-watts-have-college-degree.html" class="external text" title="http://warming101.blogspot.com/2009/10/does-anthony-watts-have-college-degree.html" rel="nofollow">Does Anthony Watts have a college degree?</a>. Retrieved on 2011-05-12.</li>

<li id="cite_note-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-2" title="">â</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20010306042901/http://ww2.khsltv.com/newsteampages/watts_a.htm" class="external text" title="http://web.archive.org/web/20010306042901/http://ww2.khsltv.com/newsteampages/watts_a.htm" rel="nofollow">News Team</a>. KHSL-TV 12. Retrieved on 2001-03-06. âAnthony began his broadcasting career, in 1978 in Lafayette, Indiana.â</li>

<li id="cite_note-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-3" title="">â</a> Steve Thompson (2008-09-27). <a href="http://butterepublicans.com/2008/09/27/update-from-steve-thompson/" class="external text" title="http://butterepublicans.com/2008/09/27/update-from-steve-thompson/" rel="nofollow">Update from Steve Thompson</a>. Butte County Republican Party. Retrieved on 2010-11-16. âAs most of you know by now, both of our Republican Headquarters are fully up and running, along with our website thanks to Anthony Watts.â</li>

<li id="cite_note-4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-4" title="">â</a> Author unknown (2008-10-06). <a href="http://butterepublicans.com/2008/10/06/chico-city-council-debate-tonight-support-our-candidates/" class="external text" title="http://butterepublicans.com/2008/10/06/chico-city-council-debate-tonight-support-our-candidates/" rel="nofollow">Chico City Council debate tonight â support our candidates, live webcast available</a>. Butte County Republican Party. Retrieved on 2010-11-16. âA live webcast is also available, courtesy a system provided by Anthony Watts.â</li>

<li id="cite_note-5"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-5" title="">â</a> <a href="http://www.ametsoc.org/amscert/sealreq.html" class="external text" title="http://www.ametsoc.org/amscert/sealreq.html" rel="nofollow">"REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AMS SEAL OF APPROVAL PROGRAM"</a>. American Meteorological Society. Retrieved on 2009-11-08. â"Applications for the AMS Seal of Approval Program will be accepted until 31 December 2008. After that date, only applications for the AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Program will be accepted."â</li>

<li id="cite_note-6"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-6" title="">â</a> <a href="http://www.ametsoc.org/memdir/seallist/get_listoftv.cfm" class="external text" title="http://www.ametsoc.org/memdir/seallist/get_listoftv.cfm" rel="nofollow">"List of AMS Television Seal Holders"</a>. American Meteorological Society (2009-11-05). Retrieved on 2009-11-08.</li>

<li id="cite_note-7"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-7" title="">â</a> <a href="http://www.warmingscaretactics.com/Skeptical_Scientists.php" class="external text" title="http://www.warmingscaretactics.com/Skeptical_Scientists.php" rel="nofollow">Warming Scare Tactics - Skeptical Scientists</a> (2008). Retrieved on 2008-11-08. â"Anthony Watts, AMS Certified (sic), Chief Meteorologist KPAY-AM, USA"â</li>

<li id="cite_note-8"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-8" title="">â</a> <a href="http://www.ametsoc.org/amscert/Guidelines.html" class="external text" title="http://www.ametsoc.org/amscert/Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">"Guidelines for use of the AMS Name, Seal, and Logos"</a>. American Meteorological Society. Retrieved on 2009-11-08. â"Sealholders may not refer to themselves as 'certified by the AMS' because that designation is reserved for individuals with the CBM or CCM certification."â</li>

<li id="cite_note-9"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-9" title="">â</a> <a href="http://www.ametsoc.org/memdir/seallist/get_listofcbm.cfm" class="external text" title="http://www.ametsoc.org/memdir/seallist/get_listofcbm.cfm" rel="nofollow">"List of AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologists (CBM)"</a>. American Meteorological Society (2009-11-05). Retrieved on 2009-11-08.</li>

<li id="cite_note-10"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-10" title="">â</a> <a href="http://www.ametsoc.org/memdir/seallist/get_listofccm.cfm" class="external text" title="http://www.ametsoc.org/memdir/seallist/get_listofccm.cfm" rel="nofollow">"List of AMS Certified Consulting Meteorologists (CCM)"</a>. American Meteorological Society (2009-11-19). Retrieved on 2009-11-23.</li>

<li id="cite_note-11"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-11" title="">â</a> "<a href="http://surfacestations.org/about.htm" class="external text" title="http://surfacestations.org/about.htm" rel="nofollow">About</a>," SurfaceStations.org, accessed March 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-12"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-12" title="">â</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Steigerwald" title="Bill Steigerwald" class="mw-redirect">Bill Steigerwald</a>, "<a href="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_513013.html" class="external text" title="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_513013.html" rel="nofollow">Helping along global warming</a>," The Tribune-Review (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), June 17, 2007.</li>

<li id="cite_note-13"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-13" title="">â</a> Anthony Watts (2009-03-10). <a href="http://www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork09/Audio/Monday/Anthony_Watts.mp3" class="external text" title="http://www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork09/Audio/Monday/Anthony_Watts.mp3" rel="nofollow">Weather Station Siting Issues within the USHCN Surface Station Network (.mp3)</a>. Heartland Institute Conference. Retrieved on 2009-12-26.</li>

<li id="cite_note-deltoid-wattsvwatts-14">â <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-deltoid-wattsvwatts_14-0" title="">15.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-deltoid-wattsvwatts_14-1" title="">15.1</a> Tim Lambert (2011-05-13). <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/05/anthony_watts_contradicted_by.php" class="external text" title="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/05/anthony_watts_contradicted_by.php" rel="nofollow">Anthony Watts contradicted by Watts et al</a>. Deltoid. Retrieved on 2011-07-16. âNow that Watts et al has been accepted for publication we find that his paper says the opposite [of Watts unofficially] and gets the same result as Menne at al: '[...] the overall mean temperature trends are nearly identical across site classifications.'"â</li>

<li id="cite_note-15"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-15" title="">â</a> <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/response-v2.pdf" class="external text" title="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/response-v2.pdf" rel="nofollow">Talking Points related to concerns about whether the U.S. temperature record is reliable (pdf)</a>. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (2009-07-06). Retrieved on 2009-11-08. â"for detecting climate change, the concern is not the absolute temperature â whether a station is reading warmer or cooler than a nearby station over grass â but how that temperature changes over time."â</li>

<li id="cite_note-16"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-16" title="">â</a> Tim Lambert (2011-05-26). <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/06/counterpoint_fails_to_make_cor.php" class="external text" title="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/06/counterpoint_fails_to_make_cor.php" rel="nofollow">Counterpoint fails to make correction</a>. Deltoid. Retrieved on 2011-07-16.</li>

<li id="cite_note-watts-nonsense-17"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-watts-nonsense_17-0" title="">â</a> <a href="http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/component/content/article/112-blogs/681-be-sceptical-of-climate-sceptics" class="external text" title="http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/component/content/article/112-blogs/681-be-sceptical-of-climate-sceptics" rel="nofollow">Be sceptical of climate sceptics</a>. The Climate Institute. Retrieved on 2011-07-16.</li>

<li id="cite_note-18"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-18" title="">â</a> Kevin Grandia (2009-07-28). <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-crock-week-whats-anthony-watts-take-2" class="external text" title="http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-crock-week-whats-anthony-watts-take-2" rel="nofollow">Climate Crock of the Week: What's Up with Anthony Watts [take 2</a>]. DeSmogBlog. Retrieved on 2011-07-16.</li>

<li id="cite_note-restore-19">â <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-restore_19-0" title="">20.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-restore_19-1" title="">20.1</a> Peter Sinclair (2011-08-19). <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/youtube-reinstates-banned-climate-video" class="external text" title="http://www.desmogblog.com/youtube-reinstates-banned-climate-video" rel="nofollow">- "Banned" Video Reinstated by YouTube</a>. DeSmogBlog. Retrieved on 2011-07-16.</li>

<li id="cite_note-20"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-20" title="">â</a> Anthony Watts (2010-10-19). <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1019/Climate-change-fraud-letter-a-Martin-Luther-moment-in-science-history" class="external text" title="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1019/Climate-change-fraud-letter-a-Martin-Luther-moment-in-science-history" rel="nofollow">Climate change 'fraud' letter: a Martin Luther moment in science history -</a>. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved on 2010-10-21. âEsteemed physicist Harold Lewis is calling global warming the 'most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen.' His resignation letter could mark the unraveling of one of the great scientific mistakes in history and the beginning of a needed reformation of the scientific community.â</li>

<li id="cite_note-21"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-21" title="">â</a> Eli Rabett (2010-10-20). <a href="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-physical-society-calls-tony.html" class="external text" title="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-physical-society-calls-tony.html" rel="nofollow">The American Physical Society Calls Tony Watts a Clown</a>. Rabett Run. Retrieved on 2010-10-21. âMr. Watts,The American Physical Society (APS), a leading organization of physicists, takes great umbrage to your analogy likening Dr. Harold Lewisâ resignation from APS to that of the plight of Christian theologian Martin Luther. Global climate change concerns science, not religion, and Dr. Lewisâ resignation bears no likeness to the Great Reformation. Furthermore, on the matter of global climate change, APS notes that virtually all reputable scientists agree with the following observations:[...] In light of the significant settled aspects of the science, APS totally rejects Dr. Lewisâ claim that global warming is a âscamâ and a âpseudoscientific fraud.ââ</li>

<li id="cite_note-22"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-22" title="">â</a> Tawanda W. Johnson, APS Press Secretary (2010-10-12). <a href="http://www.aps.org/about/pressreleases/haroldlewis.cfm" class="external text" title="http://www.aps.org/about/pressreleases/haroldlewis.cfm" rel="nofollow">APS Comments on Harold Lewisâ Resignation of his Society Membership</a>. American Physical Society. Retrieved on 2010-10-21.</li>

<li id="cite_note-23"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-23" title="">â</a> Eli Rabett (2010-10-20). <a href="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/10/kerry-emanuel-nails-hal-lewis.html" class="external text" title="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/10/kerry-emanuel-nails-hal-lewis.html" rel="nofollow">Kerry Emanuel Nails Hal Lewis</a>. Rabett Run. Retrieved on 2010-10-21. âIn July of 2010, Emanuel published a comment on the state of climate science on the National Association of Scholars web site. Everyone should read it. RIGHT NOW, that means you.â</li>

<li id="cite_note-24"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-24" title="">â</a> <a href="http://naturalscience.com/ns/letters/ns_let08.html" class="external text" title="http://naturalscience.com/ns/letters/ns_let08.html" rel="nofollow">How many climate researchers support the "Leipzig Declaration"?</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-25"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-25" title="">â</a> "<a href="http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/speakers.html" class="external text" title="http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/speakers.html" rel="nofollow">Speakers</a>," Heartland Institute website, accessed January 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-26"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-26" title="">â</a> Heartland Institute, <a href="http://www.heartland.org/events/WashingtonDC09/speakers.html" class="external text" title="http://www.heartland.org/events/WashingtonDC09/speakers.html" rel="nofollow">"Speakers"</a>, Heartland Institute, accessed May 7, 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-27"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-27" title="">â</a> "<a href="http://www.heartland.org/about/profileresults.html?profile=F3DACE9A7F35A0CD2B508CFBDFBC2664&directory=3B532E2483EE9165FD810C4DF38DBAEA" class="external text" title="http://www.heartland.org/about/profileresults.html?profile=F3DACE9A7F35A0CD2B508CFBDFBC2664&directory=3B532E2483EE9165FD810C4DF38DBAEA" rel="nofollow">Personnel details: Mr. Anthony Watts</a>," Heartland Institute website, accessed March 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-28"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts#cite_ref-28" title="">â</a> <a href="https://esos.state.nv.us/SOSServices/AnonymousAccess/CorpSearch/CorpDetails.aspx?lx8nvq=byulA1%252fYBh6osmCd4daDZw%253d%253d" class="external text" title="https://esos.state.nv.us/SOSServices/AnonymousAccess/CorpSearch/CorpDetails.aspx?lx8nvq=byulA1%252fYBh6osmCd4daDZw%253d%253d" rel="nofollow">ZEV2Go LLC Entity Details</a>. Nevada Secretary of State. Retrieved on 2009-11-08.</li>

</ol>

</div>

<h3>External resources</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/" class="external text" title="http://wattsupwiththat.com" rel="nofollow">WattsUpWithThat.com</a>, Anthony Watts' personal blog, which often addresses climate change</li>

</ul>

<h3>External articles</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/watts-internet-motivated-bias-climate-skeptic-blogs" class="external text" title="http://www.desmogblog.com/watts-internet-motivated-bias-climate-skeptic-blogs" rel="nofollow">DeSmogBlog â Watts Up With the Internet?</a> Motivated Bias on Climate Skeptic Blogs</li>

</ul>

<h1>

</h1>

<h1><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/03/04/207632/anthony-watts-wattsupwiththat-readers-shout-down-comments-section/">Anthony Watts urges WattsUpWithThat readers to disrupt Forbes blog: âshout them down in the comments sectionâ</a></h1>

joe romm tp climate progress 8/11

Yes, discredited former TV weatherman Anthony Watts canât stomach even a couple of scientists posting reasonable comments about an error-riddled piece from Heartland on a blog already over-run by the pro-pollution crowd.  He must marshall his readership to âshout them down in the comments section.â

Watts has, perhaps more than any other leading anti-science blogger, viciously smeared scientists â and tried to get his followers to game online voting  and pile onto other peopleâs comments sections (see <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/18/scientific-american-science-deniers-patrick-michaels-george-gilder-unscientific-online-poll/">Scientific American âhorrifiedâ by âthe co-opting of the pollâ by users of âthe well-known climate denier site, Watts Up With Thatâ</a>).

In a new <a rel="nofollow" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/03/%E2%80%9Cscientists%E2%80%9D-pull-a-snow-job-on-reporters-in-teleconference/">post</a>, he reprints another piece smearing climate scientists by Joe DâAleo.  By way of history, Watts and DâAleo coauthored a âreportâ accusing top U.S. scientists of various kinds of misfeasance and malfeasance in the global temperature record.  It was utterly debunked last March (see <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/11/wattergate-tamino-debunks-anthony-watts-wattsupwiththat/">Wattergate: Tamino debunks âjust plain wrongâ Anthony Watts</a>).  As Tamino wrote, âyour use of false claims to accuse NOAA scientists of deliberate deception was not just mistaken, it was unethical.â

Watts never retracted the attacks.  Instead, last Memorial Day, Watts directly questioned the patriotism of both Tamino and Rabett (see â<a title="Permanent Link to Peak readership for anti-science blogs?" rel="bookmark" href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/23/blacklist-peak-readership-for-denier-blogs/">Peak readership for anti-science blogs?</a>â) leading Tamino to write, â<a href="http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/how-low-can-you-go-2/">This just might be the most loathsome thing Watts has yet done with his blog</a>.â

Watts often feigns a demeanor of reasonableness, as when he had the chutzpah to write in June:

Overall thereâs too much pointless bluster and sniping in climate science. I wish there was a volume control.  Kids, can we just all âget alongâ?

</blockquote>

Seriously, a volume control â but only for others, as it turns out.

Later in August he demanded others <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/01/wattsupwiththat-anthony-watts-steven-goddard/">âdial back the rhetoric.â</a>

But by September, he was back to ânormalâ.  When the demented, violent James Lee held people hostage with a gun and bombs strapped to his body at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, MD, Watts wrote his<a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/01/eco-terrorist-shot-and-killed-by-police-wattsupwiththat/"> most offensive headline</a> to date:

</blockquote>

And the first line of that post is âWell, you filthy readers, see what happens when we donât acquiesce?â  And then amazingly, after being widely criticized, Watts wrote that he stood behind his offensive post and comments.

And that brings us to the DâAleo post:

âScientistsâ Pull a Snow Job on Reporters in Teleconference

</blockquote>

Itâs is just another excuse to smear climate scientists and spread disinformation.  Watts had previously attacked <a title="Permanent Link to Exclusive: New NSIDC director Serreze explains the " rel="bookmark" href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/05/nsidc-director-serreze-death-spiral-arctic-ice-wattsupwiththat/">NSIDC director Mark Serreze</a>.  Now he reposts DâAleo writing about a âteleconference yesterday with a very confused Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, opportunist Mark Serreze of NSIDCâ in a piece that doubles down on the smear: âBefore Serreze took over NSIDC seeing the huge grant funding windfall opportunityâ¦.â  Yes, scientists are just in for the money.

By way of background, for years, Watts has been at the forefront of trying to push the anti-science meme that big snowstorms disprove global warming.  But whenever scientists have pushed back, explaining how big snowstorms are entirely consistent with climate science, he then launches another error-riddled smear.

Whatâs especially funny about this post is that Watts canât even decide if climate scientists have always predicted global warming would increase extreme precipitation events or whether this is something new.

The DâAleo post asserts:

Now the alarmists have flipped their position claiming warming means more snowâ¦.

</blockquote>

And the Taylor post that Watts claims it supports his position is headlined, âGlobal Warming Alarmists Flip-Flop On Snowfall.â

But Watts leads his post with the cover of a 1996 Newsweek issue, âBlizzards, Floods & Hurricanes:  Blame Global Warming,â and Wattsâ own caption is âSome things never change.â

Watts is a simultaneously attacking climate scientists for, supposedly, flip-flopping on whether global warming will lead to more severe snowstorms â and for always saying it would!

For the record, the Newsweek headline was, as you might expect, not what the stories inside were actually about.

One of the articles, about the big January 1996 blizzard added a question mark â<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/1996/01/21/this-is-global-warming.html#">This Is Global Warming?</a>â and didnât talk about global warming.  The other piece was by science reporter Sharon Begley, about James Hansen, â<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/1996/01/21/he-s-not-full-of-hot-air.print.html">Heâs Not Full Of Hot Air</a>,â which actually does a pretty good job of explaining the state of the science in this area:

Meaner storms: â¦ one alarming prediction seems to be coming true: the expectation that, in a warmer world, extremes of wet and dry will intensify. As Earthâs surface warms, more moisture evaporates. Over arid regions, where thereâs little to evaporate, turning up the thermostat would exacerbate droughts. Rainfall would thus increase over moist areas, like the coasts, and be rarer in the interiors of continents. âThe odds of getting drought years will increase markedly,â says Jerry Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Hurricanes, too, should get more intense. âThe warmer the ocean gets, the meaner the tropical storm,â says A. E. (Sandy) MacDonald of NOAAâs lab in Boulder, Colo.

Last weekâs blizzard canât be blamed on the warming world. No storm or drought or heat wave ever can be so neatly diagnosed. âYou canât connect a given weather event on a particular day in a particular place with long-term climate change,â says physicist Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defense Fund. The snows of yesteryear prove that. The record Northeast blizzards of 1888 and 1947, after all, hit when the only greenhouse effect anyone cared about was the one that forces lilies to bloom for Easter. Extreme weather is connected to global warming more subtly. âAll that long-term climate change can do is affect the probabilities,â Hansen explains. Instead of equal chances that any one storm will be heavier or lighter than normal, or any one day hotter or colder than normal, the climate dice are now loaded. The greenhouse effect, says Hansen, âhas changed the oddsâ on extreme weather.

Whatever its proximate cause, the blizzard of â96 is just what a greenhouse world would whip up. The storm was born when cold air blew down from Canada. The arctic air happened to smack into a warm, moist air mass hovering over the Atlantic Ocean. In a warmer world, those chance circumstances could be more common. âGlobal warming has made the Atlantic an even greater source of moistureâ from evaporation, Hansen says. And when water vapor condenses, becoming liquid again, the process releases heat. So warm moist air that feeds blizzards is more likely to be parked over the Atlantic, just waiting for the delivery of a cold mass. âThe greenhouse effect alters the probabilities [of having the ingredients of a massive snowstorm],â says Hansen. âIn that sense the greenhouse effect is changing our climate now.â

</blockquote>

Basic stuff, well explained, which some editor mangled with the cover story headline.  Just adding a question mark to that headline would have made it much better for a news magazine.

Yes, itâs true that, as Heartland and DâAleo point out, the IPCCâs Third Assessment said of North America, â<a href="http://observatory.ph/resources/IPCC/TAR/wg2/569.htm#1524123">Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms</a>.â  It would have been nice if the IPCC had been clearer about when exactly they thought that would happen.  In general, the science always been pretty clear that the snow line would gradually move north, but the increase in moisture would lead to more extreme precipitation events of all kinds, with those events being snow when it was cold enough.

In any case, while Heartland and DâAleo quote a now 10-year-old (!) assessment, the scientific literature since then has said again and again that we would see more extreme winter storms thanks to human-caused global warming (see <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/13/more-snow-storms-warm-years-climate-change/">An amazing, though clearly little-known, scientific fact: We get more snow storms in warm years!</a>).  Iâm sorry to repeat myself, but thatâs what you have to do when the disinformers trot out 10-year-old reports.

Letâs look at the results of an actual, detailed study of âthe relationships of the storm frequencies to seasonal temperature and precipitation conditionsâ for the years â1901-2000 using data from 1222 stations across the United States.â  The 2006 study, â<a href="http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1558-8432/45/8/pdf/i1558-8432-45-8-1141.pdf">Temporal and Spatial Characteristics of Snowstorms in the Contiguous United States</a>â  (Changnon, Changnon, and Karl [of National Climatic Data Center], 2006) found we are seeing more northern snow storms and that we get more snow storms in warmer years:

The temporal distribution of snowstorms exhibited wide fluctuations during 1901-2000, with downward 100-yr trends in the lower Midwest, South, and West Coast. Upward trends occurred in the upper Midwest, East, and Northeast, and the national trend for 1901-2000 was upward, corresponding to trends in strong cyclonic activityâÂ¦..

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Results for the November-December period showed that most of the United States had experienced 61%- 80% of the storms in warmer-than-normal years. Assessment of the January-February temperature conditions again showed that most of the United States had 71%-80% of their snowstorms in warmer-than-normal years. In the March-April season 61%-80% of all snowstorms in the central and southern United States had occurred in warmer-than-normal yearsâÂ¦. Thus, these comparative results reveal that a future with wetter and warmer winters, which is one outcome expected (National Assessment Synthesis Team 2001), will bring more snowstorms than in 1901-2000. Agee (1991) found that long-term warming trends in the United States were associated with increasing cyclonic activity in North America, further indicating that a warmer future climate will generate more winter storms.

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The definitive recent report on the subject from the United States perspective is the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/national-climate-change#key8" target="_blank">U.S. Climate Impacts Report</a> from 2009.  It reviewed that literature and concluded:

<h3>Cold-season storm tracks are shifting northward and the strongest storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent.</h3>

Large-scale storm systems are the dominant weather phenomenon during the cold season in the United States. Although the analysis of these storms is complicated by a relatively short length of most observational records and by the highly variable nature of strong storms, some clear patterns have emerged.<a href="http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/references#112">112</a> [Kunkel et al., 2008]

Storm tracks have shifted northward over the last 50 years as evidenced by a decrease in the frequency of storms in mid-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere, while high-latitude activity has increased. There is also evidence of an increase in the intensity of storms in both the mid- and high-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere, with greater confidence in the increases occurring in high latitudes.<a href="http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/references#112">112</a> [Kunkel et al., 2008] The northward shift is projected to continue, and strong cold season storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent, with greater wind speeds and more extreme wave heights.<a href="http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/references#68">68</a> [Gutowski et al, 2008]

<h3>Snowstorms</h3>

The northward shift in storm tracks is reflected in regional changes in the frequency of snowstorms. The South and lower Midwest saw reduced snowstorm frequency during the last century. In contrast, the Northeast and upper Midwest saw increases in snowstorms, although considerable decade-to-decade variations were present in all regions, influenced, for example, by the frequency of El NiÂ±o events.<a href="http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/references#112">112</a> [Kunkel et al., 2008]

There is also evidence of an increase in lake-effect snowfall along and near the southern and eastern shores of the Great Lakes since 1950â¦

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It Is also worth noting that the <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2011/02/16/two-nature-paper-join-growing-body-of-evidence-that-human-emissions-fuel-extreme-weather-flooding-that-harm-humans-and-the-environment/">recent Nature study</a> on the subject, which looked at the extreme precipitation data, including snow, found âhuman-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas.â

The bottom line is that scientists predicted that human-induced increases in greenhouse gases would contribute to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events, and the data now finds, with extremely high confidence, that this is true.  And when it is cold enough, the intensified precipitation will come down as snow.

The extreme anti-science, pro-pollution bloggers like Watts may try to shout it down, but science, unlike right-wing politics, is not determined by who shouts the loudest.

Watts, A Up

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