Michael Mann goes hysterical: I can't show you my dirty laundry!

The American Tradition Institute (including people like Chris Horner) is so far successfully trying to publicize Michael Mann's documents from the era when he was an employee of University of Virginia because there are already good reasons (such as the partial data from the University of East Anglia) to conclude that the "global warming" research around Michael Mann has been lacking scientific integrity and it was arguably also illegal under the U.S. law.

Michael Mann himself has just strengthened the suspicion. He decided to do everything he can to hide the decline of ethics at the University of Virginia:

Climate change prof tries to freeze open records request (WatchDog.ORG)

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Professor turns to law to protect climate-change work (Washington Times)

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Mann pursues legal action (The Cavalier Daily at Univ. of VA)

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Related: Hearing set on AG's quest for researcher's records (Houston Chronicle)

Even though he apparently has no standing, he claims that he is standing above the law because he has done a greater amount of the dirty work to suppress proper science and proper scientific standards in the field of climatology than pretty much any other living human with the exception of Al Gore, so no ordinary mortals and no laws about FOIA have the right to look into his work funded by the American taxpayers.




Well, we will see whether the judges are already/still on his side – on the side of ideologically justified special rights given to some extremely nasty and immoral individuals. That's what Mr Mann de facto indirectly claims: whoever has written more than 10 fraudulent papers and helped to damage the careers of at least 10 ideologically inconvenient people by conspiracies behind the scenes should be protected against the laws of the United States of America.

Meanwhile, Mann's reaction indicates – and makes almost self-evident – that what we can learn from his University of Virginia documents goes well beyond what we could have learned from the ClimateGate e-mails. If the documents were just "equivalent" to what we already know, he would almost certainly avoid similar fights which are kind of likely to be hopeless for him.

Stay tuned.

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Jim Hansen sucks his lips. It turns out that not only his lips.

La Niña is back: Hansen predictions wrong again

According to a NOAA press release, La Niña conditions are back and we're heading to the second La Niña episode in a row.

Anthony Watts rightfully reminds us of another flawed prediction by James Hansen – one could say another example of his wishful thinking – that there wouldn't be another La Niña. In fact, Hansen predicted, there should have been a strong El Niño by now.

On the other hand, Watts himself independently reached the same conclusion as your humble correspondent on August 24th.

So of course, I am not modest enough to overlook that I did the same thing on August 23rd haha. The text was called "La Niña conditions seem to be returning".



The most current picture of the sea surface temperature anomalies. Readers coming here from the future, beware: the picture above probably shows your present era. Readers who live in the present, note that my favorite interpretation is that the intense cold blue spot near the South America's Western beaches is the "primary sign" of a coming La Niña and this cool anomaly tends to expand in the Western direction with some lag so the already negative anomalies near the Pacific equator are very likely to strengthen in coming months.

So we happened to have a consensus with Watts but only when things were less murky. James Hansen likes to use his big mouth well before things get clear so in March 2011, he said:

Based on subsurface ocean temperatures, the way these have progressed the past several months, and comparisons with development of prior El Niños, we believe that the system is moving toward a strong El Niño starting this summer. It’s not a sure bet, but it is probable.

The recidivist got another grade of his favorite type, namely an F. You fail and suck, kook Jim.

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Russia causes global warming, via pirates

You must have seen the graph indicating that global warming is due to the decrease of the number of pirates.



But who causes the drop of the number of pirates? TRF has an answer. The answer is Russia.



The European Union didn't intervene against the Somalian pirate vessel because they didn't want to interrupt the pirates' fun and coffee break and because they were afraid of casualties.

Russia – whose oil tanker was boarded by these Somalian chaps as well – had a somewhat different attitude. They sent a commando, returned the pirates to their own ship, shot a couple of pirates, attached the remaining ones to the tail of the ship, searched the vessel for weapons and explosives, and detonated the pirate vessel including the pirates. I forgot to say, they were laughing, too.

No court was necessary because Russia could apply the laws from the 18th and 19th century that allow the captains to deal with the pirates according to his own decisions.

Now, imagine you're a Somalian pirate with an IQ above 50: will you prefer to attack EU ships or Russian ships in the future? ;-) The Russian approach is brutal but efficient. Although I instinctively dislike it, I also realize that such things are necessary for the world not to become a paradise for similar criminals and parasites.