Category Archives: Satire

Grok Confirms Michael Shellenberger Talks Abject Nonsense

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Thanks to Going South for the heads up:

By way of additional background information, Wikipedia asserts that:

Grok is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI. It was launched in November 2023 by Elon Musk as an initiative based on the large language model (LLM) of the same name. Grok has apps for iOS and Android and is integrated with the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), Tesla vehicles, and Tesla’s Optimus robot. The chatbot is named after the verb grok, coined by American author Robert A. Heinlein in his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land to describe a deeper than human form of understanding.

The bot has generated various controversial responses, including conspiracy theories, antisemitism, and praise of Adolf Hitler, as well as referring to Musk’s views when asked about controversial topics or difficult decisions. Updates since 2023 have shifted the bot politically rightward to provide conservative responses to user queries.

and that:

Michael D. Shellenberger is an American author and journalist. He is the first endowed professor at the University of Austin, serving as CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech.

Shellenberger is a prominent heterodox thinker on topics including climate change and homelessness…

University of Austin is not a school recognized by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics.

In other news, is Grok schizophrenic?

[Update – November 3rd]

Grok seem to having a lot of trouble answering this simple question:

He/she/it/they has been pondering the problem for over an hour now.

[Update – 15:00 UTC November 3rd]

I got bored waiting for Grok to get back to me, so I asked ChatGPT much the same question. I was informed:

Suggested links

The Naval History & Heritage Command (NHHC) entry: “Skate II (SSN-578)” on history.navy.mil — gives the official history and mentions the March 17, 1959 surfacing. history.navy.mil

An archived photograph in the NHHC image collection: “USN 1040961 USS SKATE (SSN–578)” which shows the submarine moored to the ice pack. flickr.com

A blog article “USS Skate at the North Pole – Truth and Fantasy Fiction” that collects several of the historic photographs and discusses their context. greatwhitecon.info

I asked ChatGPT to check out the final link in more detail. I was informed:

What GreatWhiteCon does well:

It collects and reproduces the historic images and contemporary captions, and discusses how those images have been interpreted (or misinterpreted) over time. That makes it a handy one-stop place to see the pictures and some commentary.

What GreatWhiteCon is not:

It is a blog/analysis piece (2018) rather than an official or archival source. That means its interpretation is useful, but any factual claim that matters (dates, official captions, archival catalog numbers) is best checked against the primary records (Naval History & Heritage Command, National Archives, contemporary magazines, USNI Proceedings).

Grok has a rather different interpretation of what Great White Con does well. Allegedly “Snow White”:

Counters alarmist views… promoting nuanced data interpretation over binary claims.

[Update – November 4th]

Today my discussion with Grok on XTwitter turned (amongst other things) to the recent United States Department of Energy “Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate” report.

My conversation with Grok is remarkably reminiscent of mud wrestling with “skeptical” Twitter trolls:

Watch this space!

The Son of Climate: The Movie

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Fresh from his enlightening “debate” with Peter Hadfield about the numerous errors in Climate: The Movie, skeptical superstar Tom Nelson has produced another movie directed by Martin Durkin. The duo’s second cinematic masterpiece is entitled “The Graph That Lied”, and this time around Tom is the star of the show!

Allegedly its subject is:

The graph they built on a lie. The iconic ‘climate’ graph that’s undermining industrial capitalism and taking our freedom…and it’s 100 percent garbage.

Watch this film, and learn the shocking truth.

But as we will see:

This is the shocking truth:

If you want a good laugh, the shocking truth about the Gorilla Science team’s Ig Nobel contender for the climate science prize can be found on their YouTube channel.

Here is the latest such graph produced by the current team at Richard Muller‘s (initially!) Koch Brothers funded Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project:

To be continued…

The “Rebound” in Arctic Sea Ice – 2025 Edition

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World renowned climate scientist Roger Pielke Jr. has just published an interesting paper in the highly respected academic journal the New York Post. It is entitled:

“Surprise! Ice is rebounding at BOTH poles — climate is more complex than we know“

According to Roger’s op-ed:

When it comes to climate change, to invoke one of Al Gore’s favorite sayings, the biggest challenge is not what we don’t know, but what we know for sure but just isn’t so.

Two new studies show that the Earth’s climate is far more complex than often acknowledged, reminding us of the importance of pragmatic energy and climate policies.

One of them, led by researchers at China’s Tongji University, finds that after years of ice sheet decline, Antarctica has seen a “surprising shift”: a record-breaking accumulation of ice…

Roger then heads for the far north, where he assures his learned readers that:

A second new paper, a preprint now going through peer review, finds a similar change at the opposite end of the planet.

“The loss of Arctic sea ice cover has undergone a pronounced slowdown over the past two decades, across all months of the year,” the paper’s US and UK authors write.

They suggest that the “pause” in Arctic sea ice decline could persist for several more decades.

Together, the two studies remind us that the global climate system remains unpredictable, defying simplistic expectations that change moves only in one direction.

I feel compelled to point out to Roger that apart from the fact that they both include the word “ice”, Arctic sea ice and the Antarctic ice sheet are approximately as similar as chalk and cheese.

Roger neglects to provide NY Post readers with a reference or helpful link to the preprint he is referring to. However luckily for my own reader(s) I have already done so. Hence I am able to quote the authors’ own words, which read as follows:

According to these climate model simulations, this pause in the loss of Arctic sea ice could plausibly continue for the next 5-10 years.

I have already emailed the authors of the preprint asking them to justify their use of the term “pause”. I’ll let you know what they have to say on the matter in due course. In the meantime I suggest that Dr. Pielke consults an English dictionary. In pseudo code:

"pause" != "rebound"

I also suggest that he directs Post readers to more recent activity of yours truly’s virtual pen:

This year’s maximum extent is 1.31 million square kilometers below the 1981 to 2010 average maximum of 15.64 million square kilometers and 80,000 square kilometers below the previous lowest maximum that occurred on March 7, 2017:

Perhaps he also wouldn’t mind asking the Post’s online editor(s) to reveal this explanatory video to their viewers?

Q.E.D?

The 2024 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Extent in the Cryodenialosphere

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Earlier today the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that:

On September 11, Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent of 4.28 million square kilometers (1.65 million square miles). The 2024 minimum is the seventh lowest in the nearly 46-year satellite record. The last 18 years, from 2007 to 2024, are the lowest 18 sea ice extents in the satellite record…

Note that this is a preliminary announcement. Changing winds or late-season melt could still reduce the Arctic ice extent, as happened in 2005 and 2010. NSIDC scientists will release a full analysis of the Arctic melt season, and discuss the Antarctic winter sea ice growth, in early October.

Consequently several of the usual cryodenialospheric suspects have been frantically spinning their webs of deceit around the announcement.

First up was Javier Vinós, who beat the NSIDC’s starting gun by firing a broadside on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday. If you’re unfamiliar with the name, Javier frequently pontificates about Arctic sea ice, amongst other things, on Judith Curry’s “Climate Etc.” blog. He confidently announced that:

Arctic sea ice reaches its annual minimum with an extent greater than in 2007, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2023.

The two warmest years in a row at > +1.5°C have ZERO IMPACT on the 17-year resilience of Arctic sea ice.

Needless to say, “Snow White” felt compelled to quibble:

Continue reading The 2024 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Extent in the Cryodenialosphere →

Clutz Clutches at Minimum Extent Straws

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On several previous occasions “Snow White” and I have documented Ron Clutz’s misuse of MASIE Arctic sea ice extent data on his “Science Matters” blog. We agree with Ron that science matters, so on several occasions we have attempted to direct his attention to my interview with NASA/NSIDC scientist Walt Meier. Walt’s words of wisdom included:

Year-to-year comparisons and trend estimates will be more accurate in the passive microwave data than in MASIE.

It will probably not surprise you to learn that Ron has not learned anything from our repeated efforts. In his article entitled “2024 Arctic Ice Beats 2007 by Half a Wadham” earlier today Ron proudly displays this graph:

You will note that Ron does not provide details of his data source. However I have recently noted a sudden lack of SSMIS passive microwave data emanating from NOAA. The OSI SAF reported it this way on September 12th:

Dear OSI SAF Sea Ice Concentration User,

Due to missing input data, we have not been able to generate L2 products, corresponding to F-16 / F-17 / F-18 since Sep 11 19:36 UTC.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

The NSIDC’s sea ice home page puts it this way today:

Now day 260 of 2024 is September 16th, so it seems safe to assume that Ron is erroneously using his favourite MASIE metric for year to year comparisons yet again. In his article Ron states that:

SII was reporting deficits as high as 0.5M km2 (half a Wadham) compared to  MASIE early in September.  For some reason, that dataset has not been updated for the last five days.

It appears as though Ron has also not yet learned how to find NSIDC’s sea ice home page on the world wide interweb!

I added this hopefully helpful comment below Ron’s article. For some strange reason it is yet to emerge from his moderation queue:

[Update – September 18th]

Our regular reader(s) will not be surprised to learn that my helpful comment yesterday is no longer in Ron’s moderation queue, but is now languishing underfoot on his cutting room floor.

Ron has written another Arctic article using the graph reproduced above. This one is entitled: “2024 Arctic Ice Abounds at Average Daily Minimum“. In it Ron assures his flock of faithful followers that:

We are close to the annual Arctic ice extent minimum, which typically occurs on or about day 260 (mid September). Some take any year’s slightly lower minimum as proof that Arctic ice is dying, but the image above shows the Arctic heart is beating clear and strong.

Over this decade, the Arctic ice minimum has not declined, but since 2007 looks like fluctuations around a plateau.

Ron has also changed his phraseology regarding the recent SSMIS data outage. This time it reads:

For some reason, apparently data access issues, that dataset has not been updated for the last five days.

“Snow White” felt compelled to leave Ron another helpful comment concerning his new words of Arctic wisdom:

Watch this space!

Reuters Fact Checks Daily Septic Arctic Sea Ice Nonsense

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Our regular reader(s) may be wondering at this juncture, but that is not a typo in today’s title. For an in depth discussion of how alleged “renowned amateur naturalist and honorary doctor” Chris Packham sensationally rebranded Toby Young’s self identified “skeptical” web site live on air on the BBC’s “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg” see here.

By way of additional background information see also our in depth investigation of the Daily Sceptic’s Arctic porky pie production line over here.

To the apparent astonishment of the Septic’s alleged “Environment Editor”, Chris Morrison, Reuters Fact Check has now followed in “Snow White’s” dainty footsteps through the as yet unmelted Arctic snow cover:

Continue reading Reuters Fact Checks Daily Septic Arctic Sea Ice Nonsense →

Chris Martz Should’ve Gone To Specsavers

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Chris Martz, the new kid on the “skeptical block”, proudly proclaimed on XTwitter yesterday that:

There’s more sea ice heading into the summer in the Arctic this year than there was in 1989.

That is of course a porky pie:

As you can see, Chris also invokes the age old canard of the “Mark Serreze Arctic sea ice death spiral”. I discussed that very topic with Mark in 2015:

Mark told me that he still stood by his 2030 estimate for the onset of a seasonally ice free Arctic, although: “Most models say more like 2050”.

Continue reading Chris Martz Should’ve Gone To Specsavers →

Tony Heller Sets Arctic Shark Jump World Record!

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This is a photograph of a Greenland shark:

(c) Eric Ste Marie https://www.husseylab.com/

You will no doubt be astonished to learn that shark jumping supremo Tony Heller has just jumped over the entire East Greenland population of this long lived but officially vulnerable species. Without harming a single one!

Over on XTwitter “Steve”/Tony was recently shown this video which graphically reveals the declining age of the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean:

He responded as follows:

According to the “summary for skeptics” of the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate:

Continue reading Tony Heller Sets Arctic Shark Jump World Record! →

Time for Toby Young to Stop all the Fudges, Omissions and Outright Deceptions.

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As I surmised only yesterday:

The so called “skeptics” are probably already salivating over that image!

The name may not be familiar on the other side of the Atlantic, but here in the once United Kingdom Mr. Toby Young self identifies as “skeptical”, having named his web site the “Daily Sceptic”. This morning he Xweeted thus:

The linked article was written by the Daily Sceptic’s alleged “Environment Editor” Chris Morrison. Mr. Morrison Xweeted thus:

Continue reading Time for Toby Young to Stop all the Fudges, Omissions and Outright Deceptions. →

Jim Steele and Anthony Watts Embrace Bad Arctic Science

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Maintaining my New Year’s resolution to expose bad Arctic pseudo-science on (a)social media I stumbled upon this from the self confessed “skeptic” Jim Steele on XTwitter. Jim’s paid Elmo for a blue tick and is rather verbose, but these extracts will give you the flavour of his ramblings:

How Bogus Arctic Warming Attribution Enabled the Climate Crisis Scam

Abnormal warming over the Arctic Ocean and Arctic sea ice loss has been falsely blamed on rising CO2 and evidence of the climate crisis. Such alarmist graphic propaganda is common, like Yale 360’s emphasizing the Arctic Ocean’s warming of several degrees in November 2022, while ignoring the cooling over North America and Eurasia. But any critical thinking person can see warm Arctic temperatures are due to inflows of warm Atlantic water, NOT rising CO2…

The 1990s shift in wind directions caused by the natural Arctic Oscillation, drove out much of the Arctic’s thick multi-year sea ice which resulted in thinner annual sea ice which allowed more heat to ventilate and warm the Arctic (see peer-reviewed Rigor (2002) & (2004)). As the natural Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation shifts to more northern hemisphere cooling, a decrease in the flow of warming tropical Atlantic water entering the Arctic, a rebound in insulating Arctic sea ice will occur that will simultaneously decrease Arctic temperatures.

People who understand these natural climate dynamics that affect the Arctic, always and quickly understand the bogus global warming crisis is driven by natural Arctic warming oscillations.

Needless to say my critical thinking Arctic alter ego felt an urgent need to quibble with Jim’s (almost) unevidenced assertions.

As is often the case with such skeptical “arguments”, the ancient academic articles quoted don’t actually support the conclusions. “Snow White” attempted to raise the matter with Jim:

Continue reading Jim Steele and Anthony Watts Embrace Bad Arctic Science →