Ouch! Warming denialists’ claims blown away by Sandy

Over at Rabbett Run:

tonylearns said…

Could someone go over to Goddard’s blog for me ( I have been banned three times most recently for having the gall to suggest he was wrong in ridiculing the possibility of a new record minimum SIE this year. ) and ask for his apology to Hansen for ridiculing the possibility of the West Side Highway being underwater. I just saw a video showing the West Side Highway underwater.

29/10/12 7:46 PM

No! Someone whose comments don’t show up at Steve Goddard’s blog? Must be some massive disruption in the force of the Tubes of the Interweb thingy.

What is this guy Tony on about?

At Steve Goddard’s blog — this is the same guy who said the western drought was over because Lake Powell rose a few feet, though the drought raged on everywhere else — Goddard and his flying and limping monkeys have been poking fun at something James Hansen is alleged to have said:

According to NASA’s top scientist, Manhattan has been underwater for the past four years, and is experiencing a horrific drought.

While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.”

And so far, over the last 10 years, we’ve had 10 of the hottest years on record. [Quoting an article at Salon]

The West Side Highway under water?  Ha.

Goddard’s blog has used Hansen’s quote as a regular punchline, not noticing that Hansen said “in 20 to 30 years,” and assuming he was just awfully, comically wrong.  30 years from 1988 will be 2018.  This year is 2012, six years to go.  Goddard tried to ridicule Hansen a few times over the past couple of years, for example:

1. Here on October 4, 2010;
2. Here on October 10, 2010;
3. Here on November 13, 2010;
4. Here on December 19, 2010 (with a photo of Al Gore, Barack Obama and an unidentified guy, maybe Goddard himself?);
5. Here on January 15, 2011;
6. Again on March 14, 2011;
7. A special St. Patrick’s Day posting, March 17, 2011;
8. Here on April 9, 2011;
9. Here on May 22, 2011;
10. Here on May 30, 2011; and obviously running out of comedy material, Goddard went for two in one day,
11. Here on May 30, 2011, and by this time it’s such a regular meme attempting to mock James Hansen with same old material, Goddard doesn’t refer to the actual quote from Hansen;
12. Here on June 15, 2011;
13. Here on July 20, 2011;
14. Here on July 21, 2011;
15. Here on August 25, 2011;
16. Here on May 7, 2012;
17. Here on May 8, 2012;
18. Here on May 23, 2012;
19. June 25, 2012;
20. August 9, 2012;
21. August 23, 2012;
22. August 31, 2012;
23. September 28, 2012.

AP may complain about this use, but this is an academic, learning exercise:

Caption from Yahoo! News: This photo provided by Dylan Patrick shows flooding along the Westside Highway near the USS Intrepid as Sandy moves through the area Monday, Oct. 29, 2012 in New York. Much of New York was plunged into darkness Monday by a superstorm that overflowed the city’s historic waterfront, flooded the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to nearly a million people. (AP Photo/Dylan Patrick) MANDATORY CREDIT: DYLAN PATRICK

Dylan Patrick got the photographic evidence that shows, once again, warming denialists really are a classless, fact-lacking bunch.  CNN has photos from Dylanphoto1 (the same guy, almost certainly), in a slide show, noting, “Most of the Westside Highway south of 49th street is flooded all the way down, and in front of the USS Intrepid.”  Across from Pier 88 and the USS Intrepid, the street is indeed underwater.

So we learn that, as a comedian, Steve Goddard has an extremely limited range and depends on a sympathetic room to get laughs; and as a climate scientist, he is even more limited, and wrong, with 6 years to go in the 20 to 30 year range James Hansen offered.  And we learn once again, sadly, that James Hansen was right back in 1988 when he hit the claxons to warn us of global warming.

23 times Goddard repeated the charge?  Do you get the idea that “climate skeptics” ran out of material years ago, and have been dancing a cover-up for a very, very long time?  Hurricane Sandy blew and floated his claim away.

More:

• New Denialist Meme: Obama Created Sandy to Help His Election (climatecrocks.com)
• George Lakoff: Global Warming Systemically Caused Hurricane Sandy (huffingtonpost.com)
• Gregory Unruh: Climate Crimes Against Humanity (huffingtonpost.com)
• James Hansen, Climate Change Scientist, Suggests Price On Carbon (huffingtonpost.com)
• Sandy on the Hudson (newyorker.com)
• Photos of New York City Underwater from Hurricane Sandy Flooding (treehugger.com)
• Yes, Climate Change Caused Hurricane Sandy (gizmodo.co.uk)
• “What sort of crazy is the warming denialist?” (Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)
• Pure political smear from Walter Williams [on Paul Ehrlich] (Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)
• “Wind Power:  More than just talk” (Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)
• “Chronic drought complicated by chronic denialism” (Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)
• “Climate denialists on Texas weather, 2011:  Ain’t no drought, on average” (Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)
• “Lies, damned lies, statistics, and Steve Goddard’s computer animation” (Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)
• “Annals of global warming: Insurance companies note increasing costs of floods due to climate change” (Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)

Even more, a bit later:

• At Open Mind, Tamino asks, and answers, “Who could have seen it coming?”
• Goddard’s spin
• “Peer review research predicting NYC subway flooding by #Sandy,” Greg Laden’s blog
• Also at Greg Laden’s blog:  “Storms of My Children – Free chapter”:  [quote] Storms of My Grandchildren is a book by James Hansen that outlines the science behind increasing storminess associated with global warming, and covers key events in the recent history of the politics of climate change science denialism. It is a good book. The National Center for Science Education is now giving away a preview exerpt of the book, in a PDF file, which you can have by clicking here and it will be magically delivered to your computer. So there you go! [end quote]
• Also at Open Mind, a post explaining storm surges as an indicator of climate change
• Tommaso Dorigo posted a piece comparing and contrasting New York’s surge issues with those in Venice
• Skeptical Science covered this issue some time ago.  In comments someone posted yet another photo showing the highway underwater.
• And even more later – November 19, 2012 – we might wonder how our friends at Climate Sanity responded to Sandy; as of this writing, not at all, still clinging to the idea that Manhattan “would adapt” nicely to rises in sea level, and using scifi movies as straw men.