Goddard Gets Hot Under the Collar

Mr Steve Goddard is getting hot under the collar and it's not only due to the terrible wild fires in Colorado, it's the result of the media highlighting the possibility that the wild fires may have been exasperated due to global warming.

So much so he is again misleading his, largely ignorant, following on his blog. It's uncertain if he does this deliberately or through his own basic ignorance - it's difficult to tell, but both James Hansen and Phil Jones get targeted by his nonsense - I mean his 'theory' - that they are wrong because temperatures have not increased in Boulder Colorado so global warming cant be linked to these wild fires.

The thing is, it doesn't take much on an intellect to realise that temperature isn't the main factor in wild fires, it's drought. Temperature isn't even the main factor in drought, it lack of water. So what does current drought conditions for Colorado look like;

It went from this;

To this in just over two months;

But Mr. Goddard isn't likely to reveal this to his readers any time soon.

Steve Goddard Caught Lying?

To my recollection I have never directly called anyone a liar on any of the forums or blogs I have posted on as such terms prove too emotive which tends to get in the way of mature discourse. But have I caught Steve Goddard of Real Science in a bare faced lie?

In my last post I showed how Goddard's foolish attempts to slag of Prof. James Hansen backfired as it would seem Hansen made the correct call some 26years ago. I visited Goddard's post to reveal this with a link to my analysis, and no doubt embarrassed he responded with;

"I have never visited your blog"

Which is a rather strange thing to say since as a response to a post where I caught him doctoring maps he responded with a post on his own blog called 'Enough Is Enough' where he claimed that I had 'written thousands and thousands of lines all over the Internet' and he emailed me directly calling me 'scum' and a 'liar' as reported here.

• How did he reach his conclusions without ever reading what they were? 
• How did he get my contact information without visiting the blog he claims to have never visited?

I suppose someone could have told him what my post contained and gave him the contact information, which would mean that he resorted to name calling based on hearsay. Far worse than lying in my book and someone who would do that would certainly be capable of lying too.

Or perhaps he just forgot he did. That would surprise me in the light of the embarrassing climb down he had to do when someone else realised his maps were botched and he crossed out what he said about me and issued a correction for his post. You'd think he be likely to remember doing that.

So have I caught Steve Goddard telling porkies? The evidence strongly suggests I have.

Real Science Proves Hansen Correct Again.

In a Real Science post, as usual aimed more at right wing politics than real science, Steve Goddard quotes James Hansen from 1986;

"Within 15 years, said Goddard Space Flight Centre honcho James Hansen, "global temperatures will rise to a level that hasn't existed on Earth in 100,000 years"

 Mr Goddard should look rather foolish as Hansen was right. Antarctic Ice Cores from Vostok  revealing temperatures going back 800,000 years show that present temperatures are warmer than at any time in over the last 100,000 years. This is something that was unknown to science back in 1986, so whether Hansen made a lucky guess or an inspired one, he was right.

This figure shows historical CO2 (right axis) and reconstructed temperature (as a difference from the mean temperature for the last 100 years) records based on Antarctic ice cores, providing data for the last 800,000 years.

 
This isn't the fist time Goddard has shown Hansen to be correct even though he remains in denial. Like many foolish people Goddard doesn't know when to quit and his defence of this evidence is to incorrectly insist that;

"According to ice cores, temperatures peaked 8,000 years ago"

 This is an old denier fallacy which was promoted by people like Don Easterbrook and long debunked by sites like Skeptical Science. 8000 years was a warm period and Easterbrook presented graphs like this one that that showed just that;

But as can be clearly seen, Easterbrooks 'present ' times stopped in 1855 just as current global temperatures started to rise. It would be rather inconvenient for a science denier to include modern temperatures and highlight that present warming really is at an unprecedented high, not seen for many thousands of years. Clearly Goddard and his other foolish promoters of myths are living in the past as current average global temperatures are higher than 8000 years ago and as shown higher than over 100,000 years ago just as Hansen said they would be.

 "There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won t."

Goddard's Appeal to Athority

Steve Goddard continues to misrepresent Hansen to misinform his readers, and probably himself.

As previously reported he accuses Hansen of calling or declaring a permanent drought in the US, when what Hansen actually said was, there would be a semi-permanent drought over the next several decades with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.

He repeated a similar claim in his 'Warming To Bring Permanent Drought And Permanent Flood To The Midwest' post and said;

 "No sooner than Hansen declared permanent drought for the midwest – we get a new global warming report warming of permanent floods in the midwest."

Well as  anyone can see Hansen has never declared a permanent drought and certainly no drought for this present time. Nor has there been any war(n)ing of permanent floods. Why does Goddard feel the need to make this easily refuted stuff up?

Just to reiterate, what we have is drought conditions being alleviated somewhat by heavy rain. Doesn't that fit exactly what Hansen suggests will happen over the next several decades?

“Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.”

But it gets better. When I said "Shouldn’t that be Semi-permanent drought over several decades?", Mr Goddard replied with his usual politeness;

" I have been hearing the exact same crap for three decades already."

So straight away on being challenged Goddard drops the permanent drought claim - though don't hold your breath for a correction.

It seemed only fair that I should suggest he provide a quote of Hansen saying 'the exact same crap' three decades ago and he kindly provided a link to this news article about US drought in 1988;

Now any one with a keen intellect will immediately realise, (sorry Mr Goddard that can't include you), that 1988 can't be said to be three decades ago.

The article itself is also an interesting read in light of Goddard's claim. Although Hansen is quoted in it, and there is a quote "It is an example of the kind of drought that will occur more frequently as global warming become larger", this wasn't said by Hansen, but Manabe, a soil specialist.

However, something I found rather amusing happened in our conversation when I asked Goddard if he really did think 1988 was three decades ago. He replied in his usual amiable way;

"You are a know nothing idiot child. I was working on global warming studies at Los Alamos in 1980."

Well 1980 is over three decades ago so I will give him that but perhaps he should have quoted his own published Global Warming research instead of a news article eight years later.

Blow me, isn't that a prime example of the Fallacy: Appeal to Authority? Only using Goddard's view of his own self importance to make himself the authority?