Another Example of JoNova's Silliness

There is this climate change denier, Joanne Nova, that goes by the name 'JoNova.' I have read a number of her postings and I sometimes suspect she is actually a climate change supporter. Her postings are so ridiculous and lacking in valid science that it is easy to think she is actually spoofing denialism in an attempt to show how silly deniers really are. Unfortunately, that is not the case. She is sincere in her silliness. Someone submitted one of postings for the Skeptic Challenge. One of her 'proofs' that manmade climate change isn't real is because it's happening. No, that was not a typo. She actually said the fact that manmade climate change is occurring, but not as fast as some scientists predicted, is proof that it isn't real. Seriously, who needs comics when you have people like JoNova around?

A reader pointed me to another one of her postings and asked me to review it. You can see her posting here. You can save yourself a lot of trouble and simply go to her list of references at the end. The list includes John Christy, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer and Ross McKitrick. All of these individuals have two things in common - they are all climate science deniers and they have all been shown to be frauds. Oh, they have one other thing in common - they all accept money from the fossil fuel industry (Lindzen even lied about it for years). One thing they don't have in common is a science background. McKitrick is an economist with no science credentials. If you are not familiar with these individuals, I would suggest you do a little checking. They all have a sordid record. So, that is JoNova's source of information to refute climate science? No wonder her postings aren't scientifically valid. She is using scientifically invalid sources.

I am not going to refute her point-by-point simply because it isn't worth my time. It would be like refuting the 'Moon landings were faked' claims point-by-point. Since everything she (and the landing-hoaxers) say is false, it would take me all day to go through it all and I have other things going on. I'll limit myself to some highlights and invite you to see how many other failures you can find in her logic. It is kind of like a scientific scavenger hunt.

JoNova's ire in this posting is directed at a guide that is available online - A Scientific Guide to the "Skeptics Handbook". The title will show you right away why JoNova spent so much time on this posting. The Skeptics Handbook is her own little baby and she had to come to its defense. If she is going to do this for everyone that debunks her claims, she's going to be busy. One of her statements is (emphasis in original):

But they hide the minor amount of warming this evidence relates to. They don’t admit that there is no evidence for catastrophic warming.

Really? No evidence for catastrophic warming? Well, I guess that depends on how you define 'catastrophic,' something she never does. I will agree with her the planet is not going to erupt in a fireball, if that is what she means. But, if you are one of the thousands of people that loses your life due to climate change, or one of the millions of people suffering from a decreased standard of living, you might have a different definition. Why doesn't she address that?

Now, I want to take some time here and point out the bait and switch tactic deniers like JoNova are using nowadays. They are saying there is no climate change because there is no 'catastrophic' climate change. In fact, any time you see someone referring to 'CAGW', be assured they are trying to pull a bait and switch on you. Make them define 'catastrophic' when they do this. I promise you, if they can respond at all, they will only be able to make extreme statements they can't back up.

JoNova, the argument is manmade emissions are causing climate change and you refute that by saying there 'is no evidence for catastrophic warming.' This is a false argument and you are making it because you can't support your claims with science. You can only do it with lies and deception. Don't feel lonely, though. That is the only way ANY denier can support their claim (refer to Christy, Singer, Lindzen, Spencer and McKitrick, among many others). I put my money where my mouth is in regards to this statement when I made the Global Warming Skeptic Challenge. No one even came close. You can see all of the submissions here.

Later, she states there are no positive feedback mechanisms in the atmosphere. Take a look here or here for an explanation of feedback mechanisms (positive and negative) and decide for yourself if there is no positive feedback. Then, she does another bait and switch by changing the topic to 'total feedback', saying the total feedback is negative. Again, she's wrong. Here is just one scientific paper discussing how the total feedback is positive and states,

A fully coupled carbon-climate simulation and several sensitivity runs were conducted for the period of 1860–2100 with prescribed IPCC-SRES-A1B emission scenario. Results indicate a positive feedback to global warming from the interactive carbon cycle, with an additional increase of 90 ppmv in the atmospheric CO₂, and 0.6 degree additional warming, thus confirming recent results from the Hadley Centre and IPSL.

I picked this one because it came out BEFORE she wrote her guide or the posting I am referencing. In other words, this information was available to her that the total feedback is positive, and she just kept going on as if it didn't exist. A true denier.

Her next claim is one of the most fraudulent, and frequently repeated, claims by the denier community on the topic of increasing temperatures around the globe (emphasis in original).

Warm nights are more likely due to the urban heat island effect, which is compounded by putting thermometers next to exhaust vents — that was my point. We can’t trust these thermometers.

Here is an excellent video on that topic showing JoNova's hero, Anthony Watts, is completely wrong on this topic, which means she is too. Too bad she didn't bother doing any homework before making her claim. The topic of urban heat island effect was submitted to the Skeptic Challenge and you can see my response here. Once again, JoNova's claims are based on nonscience.

Amazingly, she repeats the same claim I discussed in the first paragraph above:

I didn’t say the effect was saturated, I said “almost” and that there would be warming from CO2, but it was minor. The Wang paper merely tells us what we already knew, that the atmosphere has got a bit warmer, and surprise, it’s giving off more infra red. We’d be shocked if it wasn’t.

Once again, she is claiming AGW isn't real because it's real. I'd be shocked if she would make sense.

She then continues in the same spirit, making claims that not only ignore the science, but have been debunked many times. I don't understand why someone will merely lay down and accept what people like this tell them without doing even the most modest amount of homework, but they do. That is how people like JoNova make a living. So did P. T. Barnum (although he did not actually make the statement famously attributed to him about suckers being born every minute).

In conclusion, JoNova didn't do anything that shows manmade climate change is not real. She didn't even produce anything scientifically valid and all her statements have been repeatedly debunked. If there is some specific line you would like me to address, let me know in the comment section and I will.

I find JoNova to be like all of the other professional deniers. She is a fraud.