Ooops! watts posited Anthony? pine beetle and forest fires

Anthony came up with another weird post today, I know.  Using a just released study that claims pine beetle killed forests aren't any more likely to burn than dry healthy forests, he rips Joe Romm for an article he wrote a couple years ago about drying forests, warmer temperatures, and even increased bark beetle infestations, conspiring to increase fire danger as we move forward, and then he tippy toes off stage to let his fans chew on the bones.
______________________________

"Ooops! Posited pine beetle to increased wildfire risk debunked by CU study"

Anthony Watts / March 24, 2015

It has been posited by paid alarmists like Joe Romm that global warming will increase pine beetle outbreaks, thus increasing the chances of wildfire. For example, in April 2013 Romm wailed:

“…the mountain pine beetle, has already killed 70,000 square miles of trees — area the size of Washington state. As winters become milder, weather becomes drier and higher elevations become warmer, bark beetles are able to thrive and extend their ranges northward. 

An increase in some species of bark beetle can actually increase the risk of forest fires in areas affected by the beetle — the study notes an outbreak of the mountain pine bark beetle, which attacks and kills live trees, created a “perfect storm” in 2006 in Washington, where affected lodgepole pines burned “with exceptionally high intensity.” 

From the University of Colorado at Boulder: 

"Western forests decimated by pine beetles not more likely to burn" (see the bottom for quotes from this study)

______________________________

Anthony, nor is it any less likely to burn! 
Bark beetle infestations are continuing to decimate healthy forests throughout the world.
Temperatures continue to increase.
Watersheds continue drying out.
Fire danger continues rising.

Anthony, how is that study supposed to change any of that?  What's with the weird glee?

The Judith Curry Collection

I've been working on an open letter to Dr. Judith Curry and since there's no room there for getting into all the reasons I feel justified in writing such a letter to this scientist who traded in her standing among scientists as a respected colleague, for her current standing as an adored celebrity for the Global Warming Denial PR Community, I've compiled this collection of articles that look into various aspects of Judith Curry's brand of science in a vacuum, and science by rhetoric.

Jim Steele Exploiting Human Misery and Distorting Science

{edited for typos 4/26/14 pm}

Jim Steele made the following comment at my post regarding a new documentary "Years of Living Dangerously - facing what's happening"

"Since Citizenschallenge is the only one who comments on this blog, perhaps I am wasting my time. But for those who want an objective skeptical opinion from an avid evironamentalist regards the fear mongering in this documentary, please read my analysis "Exploiting Human Misery and Distorting the Science: An environmentalist’s critique of “Years of Living Dangerously” at WattsUpWithThat.com - 2014/04/14

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

At the time I was occupied and it's taken a while to finish a thorough 'analysis' of Jim Steele's "Exploiting Human Misery, Distorting Science…"  

Yup, it's another marathon, though I plan to do a condensed version also.  It seems to me, sometimes there's no choice but to do a sentence by sentence review in order to reveal the various tactics and tricks contrarians such as this Jim Steele employ.

I do this because there needs to be some source of information available to counter such astro-turfing.  

I'm also hoping to inspire a few students out there to go after such articles of nonsense.  It's not tough, the information is out there and the scientific case has become overwhelming, just takes time and a willingness to do some research, plus you'll learn a lot along the way.  

Stop giving contrarian PR hawkers a free ride - call 'em on their lies every time they utter them.

More examinations of the DailyMail's, David Rose's disingenuous stories

A collection of articles examining the claims by "news reporter" David Rose.

We'll start this collection with a post by the official Met Office blog,  followed by a few more interesting articles examining the logic of David Rose

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Met Office in the Media: 29 January 2012

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/met-office-in-the-media-29-january-2012/

Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about”. 

This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading. 

Despite the Met Office having spoken to David Rose ahead of the publication of the story, he has chosen to not fully include the answers we gave him to questions around decadal projections produced by the Met Office or his belief that we have seen no warming since 1997. 

For clarity I have included our full response to David Rose below:A spokesman for the Met Office said: “The ten year projection remains groundbreaking science. The complete period for the original projection is not over yet and these projections are regularly updated to take account of the most recent data. 

“The projections are probabilistic in nature, and no individual forecast should be taken in isolation. Instead, several decades of data will be needed to assess the robustness of the projections. 

“However, what is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850. Depending on which temperature records you use, 2010 was the warmest year on record  for NOAA NCDC and NASA GISS, and the second warmest on record in HadCRUT3.”

Furthermore despite criticism of a paper published by the Met Office he chose not to ask us to respond to his misconceptions. The study in question, supported by many others, provides an insight into the sensitivity of our climate to changes in the output of the sun. 

It confirmed that although solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years this will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases. The study found that the expected decrease in solar activity would only most likely cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 °C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 °C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the IPCC’s B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions).  In addition the study also showed that if solar output reduced below that seen in the Maunder Minimum – a period between 1645 and 1715 when solar activity was at its lowest observed level – the global temperature reduction would be 0.13C.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

This week’s top six rebuttals to David Rose’s “warming has stopped” claim

Marcott et al. 2013 - A Collection of Examinations and Reviews

Recently one of the big issues du jour has been Marcott et al. 2013: 

Science 8 March 2013  ~  Vol. 339 no. 6124 pp. 1198-1201  ~  DOI: 10.1126/science.1228026 

A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 YearsShaun A. Marcott,  Jeremy D. Shakun,  Peter U. Clark,  Alan C. Mix

J.Lovelock:Climate Change Apostate? Or Irrelevant?

The blogosphere seems all a twitter with James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia Hypothesis.  He has become another darling of the anti global warming awareness echo-chamber.  These voices are presenting Lovelock as though he has something to add to the global warming discussion.  But, the thing is, Lovelock's perspective has always been out of step with what the expert community was saying, as Joe Romm explains at the end of this post.

We need to learn from climate specialists, not provocative imaginative thinkers, authors who make extensive use of "writers-license" in their books and articles with an eye towards sales rather than fidelity to the scientific reality.

Let's review Lovelock's words - first off, notice he's talking about his own perceptions and claims?