The UK columnist in desperate need of an editor to tell him to tone it down, James Delingpole, has a new post at Breitbart UK. It claims to have debunked the latest hottest-year-ever story by Tom Chivers at Buzzfeed. After about a dozen rambling paragraphs about the two gentlemen’s history at The Telegraph, Delingpole simply cribs from a blog post of already-debunked arguments that claims the fact that it’s the hottest year ever is “nonsense.”
In the past, Delingpole has admitted that he doesn’t have the scientific expertise to read peer-reviewed papers, calling himself an “interpreter of interpretations.” But he does have an English degree from Oxford, something he mentions every chance he gets. His most recent post notes that Chivers does have a relevant science degree, and obviously so do the climate scientists quoted for the story. By Delingpole’s own criteria, then, he should defer to those with the scientific expertise. Instead, he turns to the “nonsense” post of Paul Homewood, a blogger with the same amount of scientific expertise as himself: none.
This not-so-dynamic duo’s first criticism is that the real scientists use surface temperatures instead of satellite data. Which makes sense, because 93% of that heat from global warming goes into the oceans (plus all those other satellite issues). The second criticism is that a chart used by Chivers bears no relation to “observed reality.” This despite the fact that the graph features hadCRUT4 data- the observed temperatures. The graph shows models doing a pretty impressive job capturing real temperatures. According to the interpreter of interpretations though, an image showing model projections and real temperatures together doesn’t reflect reality. (Maybe it just doesn’t reflect Delingpole’s reality…)
The “nonsense” blog post’s third claim is that El Nino, not climate change, is really responsible for warming. Delingpole wonders why there isn’t more attention paid to El Nino in these hottest year claims. But Buzzfeed dedicates nearly 600 words and two of six sections to the subject, making it almost a third of the whole piece! The scientists explain how even if this wasn’t an El Nino year, it would still be record warm.
Claiming observations don’t reflect observed reality and apparently failing to read or understand entire sections of the story, it seems despite his English degree, Delingpole’s basic reading comprehension is on par with his scientific expertise.
Plus, even a perfect interpreter of interpretations isn’t going to write anything coherent when what they’re interpreting is, in fact, nonsense.
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