Not a Good Day to Be Anthony Watts

Yes, like swinging at a pinata without a blindfold, Anthony Watts is an easy target. But it's still fun when the candy falls to the ground.

Today the Denialist-in-Chief is in the uncomfortable position of trying to retain at least an iota of dignity in the wake of the release of the Richard Muller and company BEST studies on global temperature trends. The best Watts can do is whine that it hasn't yet been peer-reviewed, as if that ever stopped him in the past.

Like most of the lapdog bloggers, Muller was Watts' best friend when he was dissing decent scientists:

October 6, 2008: "There’s an eye-opening interview on Grist of Richard A. Muller about the current state of science understanding by presidential candidates, global warming, and alternate energy tech.

Some of the answers are very enlightening. Coming from an avowed environmentalist such as Muller it cements much of what I and many others have been saying for months about Gore’s outright distortion of facts and Hansens selective cherry picking in choosing “his” way to publish the widely cited GISTEMP data set."

and

March 18, 2011: Dr. Richard Muller calls out the “hide the decline” aka “Mike’s Nature Trick” on this YouTube video of a presentation he gave.

A Watts post on February 11, 2011 is particularly enlightening. Watts crows about the BEST project and his role in it, and writes (in response to a comment):

Scott Ramsdell says:
February 11, 2011 at 8:20 am
Anthony, I look forward to reading your impending public vindication. Many thanks for this site.

REPLY: Here’s the thing, the final output isn’t known yet. There’s been no “peeking” at the answer, mainly do to a desire not to let preliminary results bias the method. It may very well turn out to agree with the NOAA surface temperature record, or it may diverge positive or negative. We just don’t know yet. – Anthony

And then there's this from March 27, 2011:

I still believe that BEST represents a very good effort, and that all parties on both sides of the debate should look at it carefully when it is finally released, and avail themselves to the data and code that is promised to allow for replication.

One could spend the whole day posting Watts' trail of contradictions, backpedaling, and flip-flops, but it's not worth it. I'm sure he'll find someway to convince himself that he was right all along, maintained a consistency, and is still right. Some graduate student in psychology out to consider him for a doctoral thesis.

And it will be interesting (sort of) to see Fred Singer's comments. Back on February 19, 2011 he wrote:

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) Project aims to do what needs to be done: That is, to develop an independent analysis of the data from land stations, which would include many more stations than had been considered by the Global Historic Climatology Network. The Project is in the hands of a group of recognized scientists, who are not at all “climate skeptics” — which should enhance their credibility.....

I applaud and support what is being done by the Project — a very difficult but important undertaking. I personally have little faith in the quality of the surface data, having been exposed to the revealing work by Anthony Watts and others. However, I have an open mind on the issue and look forward to seeing the results of the Project in their forthcoming publications.