Anthony Watts attacks National Geographic Magazine

Or, Anthony Watts steps through the looking glass. 

National Geographic’s Warming Warning – 10 Years Later 

Anthony Watts / August 31, 2014 

Geoff Sherrington writes: National Geographic Magazine had a Global Warming issue in September 2004. New instruments have given new data. By planning now, NatGeo can make a revised issue 10 years later, in September 2014. 

The 2014 edition should aim to correct what is now known to be wrong or questionable in the 2004 edition. We can help. Here are some quotes that need attention. The first three have some commentary, as is suggested for the remainder.

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I find it ironic that Mr. Watts gets super offended when rationalists use the term "denier" to describe him, yet he shamelessly attacks the National Geographic magazine implying they made tons of mistakes in their 2004 feature issue on the coming dangers of climate change, or more accurately the global warming that is triggering significant climate changes.

As the informative links I share prove, an objective investigation reveals that he's plain wrong with his vague insinuation about how the National Geographic got it wrong.  I've already looked at the first three items of his list (here, here and here) - the only ones he managed to comment on, leaving it up to his troops to fill in the rest.  

Please notice the tactic being employed here - Anthony doesn't actually say or explain anything, except to imply most everything scientists have learned about our climate is wrong.  

Worse he does it with a malicious sales pitch that sends his Wattzers off into all corners of the blogosphere to spread this craziness with a disconnected certainty that's truly frightful, since it underscores the seeming hopelessness of reasoning with the Republican/libertarian mind.

I don't comment on most items, (I don't have forever to squander on the man), I've simply added links that will lead the curious student to up to date authoritative information regarding said items.

Also see: 

Deluded deniers: Will WUWT correct all its errors about National Geographic?

September 1, 2014

http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/09/deluded-deniers-will-wuwt-correct-all.html

4. “But the recent rate of global sea level rise has departed from the average rate of the past two to three thousand years and is rising much more rapidly – a continuation or acceleration of that trend has the potential to cause striking changes…” P.19

Anthony Watts about that Sea Level Rise

I had a chance to look at Anthony's next item sea level rise (SLR).  It appears Watts thinks because new satellite data is giving the closest look ever at the complexities of sea level rise, including unexpected surprises, that it somehow negates the measurements of the past century's documented sea level rise.  It doesn't make any sense to me, but I've learned that the creative science skeptic is an intellectual acrobat.

Consider the absolutism of their tactic: Expect perfection and impossible standards, reject everything that falls short of those expectations, then disregard everything that was learned.

That's the nut to crack.

National Geographic’s Warming Warning – 10 Years Later

Anthony Watts / August 31, 2014

Geoff Sherrington writes: National Geographic Magazine had a Global Warming issue in September 2004. New instruments have given new data. By planning now, NatGeo can make a revised issue 10 years later, in September 2014.

The 2014 edition should aim to correct what is now known to be wrong or questionable in the 2004 edition. We can help. Here are some quotes that need attention. The first three have some commentary, as is suggested for the remainder.

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August 31, 2014 - 3. “… raising average global sea level between four and eight inches in the past hundred years.” P.19  

This estimate was conventional wisdom until the specialist satellite era, when measurement technology improved. 

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Measurement technology improved and now we have real time information down to minute day by day variations, but none of that changed our basic understanding of the past century's sea level rise.
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Anthony Watts / As the NOAA figure shows, Jason 1 (data from 2002) and Jason 2 (2009) have complicated the story, with data showing ocean levels falling at times. The Jason instruments were specifically designed for ocean level measurement. More time is needed before the modern estimate of ocean change can be calculated. 

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For your contrarian types no measurement will ever be accurate enough.  Still a rational evaluation of the graph does indicate continued rising sea levels, which isn't surprising considering the cryosphere keeps melting and ocean keeps warming.

Anthony Watts about those Glaciers on Kilimanjaro

This is the second installment in what might be a new series looking at Anthony Watts latest cynical lashing out at the National Geographic magazine in his continuing campaign of creating divisiveness and confusion in order to derail all attempts at a rational learning process aimed at confronting anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  

Anthony always goes for the sensational, the polarizing, the fabricated scandals, misrepresenting clear evidence and facts, displaying a certitude about his opinions that indicates a faith-based attitude towards this planet and humanity's place in it - 
a mentality not in keeping with good faith learning, which is what the practice of science is all about.

Now Anthony's picking on Al Gore, with that Mt. Kilimanjaro canard, but I'll let Anthony speak for himself.  I'll follow him with a few links and quotes from informative articles that will help the interested student understand what kind of game is being played by the Wattzers.

National Geographic’s Warming Warning – 10 Years Later

Anthony Watts / August 31, 2014

Geoff Sherrington writes: National Geographic Magazine had a Global Warming issue in September 2004. New instruments have given new data. By planning now, NatGeo can make a revised issue 10 years later, in September 2014.

The 2014 edition should aim to correct what is now known to be wrong or questionable in the 2004 edition. We can help. Here are some quotes that need attention. The first three have some commentary, as is suggested for the remainder.

1. “The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80% since 1912.” P.14 

This might have been correct at the time of writing pre-2004, but by 2008 Ms Shamsa Mwangunga, the minister for Natural Resources and Tourism in Tanzania wrote ”contrary to reports that the ice caps were decreasing owing to effects of global warming, indications were that the snow cover on Africa’s highest mountain were now increasing”." 

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That is still correct.  80% of the glaciers have melted - no glacial mass has been added !

Anthony Watts about those Himalayan Glaciers

A character I'm familiar with dropped in for a moment to brag about Anthony Watts attacking the National Geographic magazine yet again with his August 31, 2014 blog post "National Geographic's Warming Warning - 10 Years Later".

Anthony's has a big list claiming National Geographic failed miserably in projecting into the future, but even a first reading indicates a few games of misrepresentation being played.  Weirdest was when Anthony was tossing down the gauntlet: "To the Editor of National Geographic, we are a third of that way to that very different world and many can’t pick the difference yet." Anthony apparently doesn't notice any changes in the world around him, an incomprehensible statement that can only be made by someone deliberately ignoring Earth observations and other global news.

For starters I wanted to look at this Himalayan glacier mistake, since the echo-chamber has been bouncing around the news that Himalayan glacier melt rate seems to be reduced recently - as though a reduction in melt rate means global warming is not happening.

This post is for those who want more information at hand when confronting the crazy-makers like Anthony Watts so I'll be sharing links to a few informative reports examining this question of IPCC's 2035/2350 error and various aspects of how a warming world has impacted the Himalayan Mountain region.  

National Geographic’s Warming Warning – 10 Years Later

Anthony Watts / August 31, 2014

Geoff Sherrington writes: National Geographic Magazine had a Global Warming issue in September 2004. New instruments have given new data. By planning now, NatGeo can make a revised issue 10 years later, in September 2014.

The 2014 edition should aim to correct what is now known to be wrong or questionable in the 2004 edition. We can help. Here are some quotes that need attention. The first three have some commentary, as is suggested for the remainder.

~ ~ ~

2. “… researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035.” P.14 

This arose from a brochure from India to the World Wide Fund for Nature, not peer reviewed, which eventuated in year 2350 being replaced by 2035 in the IPCC 2007 report – and missed by the peer-review process. The correction process by the IPCC was tortuous and lamentably acrimonious when a single direct statement should have sufficed."

OK, the IPCC made a big mistake, one that needed to be examined, explained and avoided in the future.  Still, I wish there was more awareness that the mistake was made by social scientists in Working Group 2, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability - 

Not by the Earth and climate scientists of Working Group 1, the ones who study and explain the science of climate change, or global warming if you will!

No serious errors have been found in Working Group 1's section on glaciers and the state of that geophysical science.   Below are some papers and articles relating to the 2035/2350 mistake, but more importantly I conclude with other articles that are looking at new studies, including "State and Fate of Himalayan Glaciers" which some tout as if it were another 'nail in the coffin' of global warming, though it's no such thing, just another piece of the learning process
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I'll begin with, IPCC's admittedly inadequate public statement:  

IPCC statement on the melting of Himalayan glaciers

Geneva, 20 January 2010

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf