The Fraud Continues, Only More Stupidly

The loose patchwork of carefully selected data, non-testable hypotheses, and non-verifiable computer models known as "Anthropogenic Global Warming" has been coming apart at the seems for awhile now. The ever increasing (near hysterical) attempts to stitch it back together are looking truly pathetic. Being a true believer, the USA Today publishes every last apology for this ideology masquerading as science. The latest:

As our legions of dedicated USA TODAY commenters enjoy pointing out, every year since 1998 — when the Earth's temperature peaked at a record high — has been cooler than that year. 2008, for example, was the planet's coolest year since 2000. Could this be evidence against global warming?

No, say two scientists in this week's issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. The scientists, David Easterling of the National Climatic Data Center and Michael Wehner of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, say that up-and-down temperatures year-to-year don't undermine the overwhelming evidence for global warming.

"The reality of the climate system is that, due to natural climate variability, it is entirely possible to have a period as long as a decade or two of 'cooling' superimposed on the longer-term warming trend due to anthropogenic [human-caused] greenhouse gas forcing," write the authors.

This would make some sense if we had hundreds of years worth of data showing Anthropogenic Global Warming. We don't. In fact, AGW was only supposed to have started in the late 1970's or early 1980's.

Think about that. Cooling that goes on for up to two decades, so these masters of logic tell us, would not be evidence that could counter a argument based upon warming that lasted at most two decades.

What? No one could be that stupid. They must have said something different.

"Climate scientists pay little attention to these short-term fluctuations as the short term 'cooling trends' mentioned above are statistically insignificant and fitting trends to such short periods is not very meaningful in the context of long-term climate change....

"Claims that global warming is not occurring that are derived from a cooling observed over such short time periods ignore this natural variability and are misleading," Easterling and Wehner conclude.

So, cooling observed over two decades would be statistically invalid, but warming over a similar period is a lead pipe certainty?

Yep, they are that stupid.

Its amazing what people will sign their names to when their research money is at stake.