Monday, October 31, 2011

Watts Up With That "Ben Santer" discussion thread?

{Saturday, November 5th.} 
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The following is a selection of reader comments from over at What’s Up With That.com” discussion thread regarding a talk given by Dr. Ben Santer to Anthony Watts and friends at Chico State University, California October 21, 2011.

"Dr. Ben Santer speaks on climate modeling, and everything else"


I copied the comments (unaltered other than formatting adjustments) into this WUWTW.blogspot blog in order to share the comments and ask the questions that are impossible to present over at WUWT.

Watts up with this?

  Anthony Watts affords me my 15 seconds of fame.
Since I intend to examine various posts at WUWT: "Ben Santer speaks on climate modeling, and everything else"  discussion thread,  I figured why not start with this exchange:
For what it’s worth, someone was asking if anyone would take the time to transcribe Santer’s talk at Chico State. Well, I have. It’s not the full hour talk, only about 4,000 words worth of highlights with time signatures.
Unauthorized notes of Dr. Ben Santer’s October 21, 2011 Chico State talk to Anthony Watts and friends.”

Ben Santer's Chico State Question and Answer - unauthorized transcript

{posted 11/4/11} 
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{I tried posting the following message to Mr. Watts at his Watts Up With That ~ Ben Santer discussion thread, but it appears I have been blackballed, banned. . .   ignored as all messengers bearing inconvenient information or questions.  Shame on you Mr. Watts for fostering willful ignor-ance toward the full spectrum of available knowledge !} 


Anthony Watts,
I do appreciate your posting Ben Santer’s talk at Chico State University which I understand was given at your behest.  Though I've got to say, in light of spending much time transcribing highlights from the main talk and Ben Santer's full answers I'm doubly confounded by the contempt both in your own initial post, but more particularly, the comments of your fan base in the discussion thread following the above talk.

I thought his talk along with the question and answer session provide a powerful learning tool for those who want to understand the AGW reality with some better clarity.  But it's like an absolutist cold shoulder is all he got from you folks.  Watts up with that?  I thought a better understanding of what's going on in our biosphere was the top priority?  Why does it seem like your crowd is all about distorting or ignoring relevant information?
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How long will the charade of applying engineering rules to understanding Natural Sciences continue?

How long will the terror of economic change drive your frivolous, crazy making attacks on the integrity of the global climatological scientific community? 


Mr. Watts' when will you honestly and skeptically look at what's driving your own selective reading of the full spectrum of information available?  And of course, what about the world we are leaving our descendants?

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In the interest of the dialogue here's my unauthorized transcription of Dr. Ben Santer's question and answer session.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Dr. Ben Santer explaining climate science to Anthony Watts

Unauthorized notes of Dr. Ben Santer’s October 21, 2011 Chico State talk to Anthony Watts and friends.
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Anthony Watts' blog posted a personal video of a talk given to him by Dr. Santer.  The WUWT comments section is dismaying in its predictable knee jerk denial that sidesteps much of what Santer was explaining.  It's like folks simply believe they can ignore anything he has to say because he's been labeled a 'bad guy' by a bunch of smooth PR guys with an axe to grind.

But, before I take the time to review some of the comments from over at WUWT to Santer's talk I believe it is appropriate to share highlights from the talk.  To that end I have transcribed large portions of the talk. 

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Expert Credibility in Climate Change

It was suggested* I share this abstract from a study surveying publications by active climatologists. 
I think it's a good suggestion so here it is.

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From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America:

{
PNAS

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project

“Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature” was a project that intended to review the voracity of the official temperature records.  In it’s inception it was enthusiastically supported by many skeptics including Mr. Watts of “What's Up With That” blog fame.

The results are coming out and it looks as though the climatologists have be presenting us with accurate information.  So this begs the question: When are committed AGW “skeptics” going to start taking climatologists seriously.

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Berkeley Earth Analysis of Full Data Set (October 2011)

The Berkeley Earth team has completed the analysis of the full data set, and summary charts are available here. The Berkeley Earth team has already started to benefit from feedback from our peers, so these figures are more up-to-date than the figures in our papers submitted for peer review (see below).

Watts's this got to do with understanding climatology?

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 What an ironic start to this little blog I feel compelled to construct.
Being as the point of this blog is to highlight the utter foolishness that parades as right-wing-science over at Watts Up With That.com...  I present exhibit #1: 


WHAT: I ASK YOU does WUWT guest post by Willis Eschenbach 10/24/11 have to do with trying to understand anything about our climate?