Madison’s had a heat advisory in effect for days — like most of the eastern portion of the US. This reminded me of Rick Stryker’s 2014 admonition to dismiss climate change.
Since I got the terrible news at econbrowser that 2014 is the hottest year on record, I’ve been sitting alone at Stryker mansion in my shorts and Hawaiian shirt with the AC cranked up, desperately trying to stay to cool. Good thing it’s January. I’ve also been trying to keep a positive attitude by listening to some music. But I can’t shake the feeling that the planet is doomed. 0.04C hotter than 2005, and in only 9 years.
But in all my dark brooding, an idea started to form. Isn’t the earth a really complex system? And aren’t these temperatures measured with error? Maybe the temperature anomaly isn’t just a number. Maybe, just maybe..it’s a random variable. And if it’s a random variable, it has variance. And maybe, just maybe, if we did a hypothesis test we might not be able to claim that 2014 is any hotter than 2005 statistically.
Yes, I know it’s thin but it’s all I’ve got.
So, a little update:
Source: NOAA, accessed 7/3/2026.
Where has Rick Stryker gone?
The heat comes from the sun, and humans have no influence on the sun. QED
This comment co-sponsored by The Power of a Little Bit of Knowledge, LLC, and The Dunning-Kruger Institute of Mt. Stupid, NY.
the problem with sob’s like dick striker is that he knows what he is writing is a lie. but his goal is simply to create confusion and distraction from the issue at hand. exactly how much proof would striker require in order to change is mind? well, there will never be enough proof to make him publicly admit he was wrong. although intellectually he knew it was a lie the entire time. he just does not care that much about the future and its inhabitants. as long as he can win his battle, today.
there is no doubt that humans are causing a problem in with global climate change. some of them simply live in a fantasy world that pretends the change is not occurring-ignorant like corev and bruce hall. others have simply been bought out. everybody has a price.
…” some of them simply live in a fantasy world that pretends the change is not occurring-ignorant like corev and bruce hall.” Never have I/we denied there was a change in climate. and many times have admitted that humans have some influence in that change. What we fight is the ignorance that “Climate change” is all bad/catastrophic/or even controllable.
We have yet to control weather, and “Climate change” is the average of weather conditions. Until we can manage weather we will continue with un-managed climate change. Stop peeing into the wind. All you are doing is geting yourselves wet.
This is hardly the case. Reducing CO2 and methane emissions partially manages climate change without a direct path through managing the weather. Your position is strongly similar to saying “until we can cure all human ailments, we will continue with un-managed cancer.”
About 1 deg C per century. No surprise. But it is warming.
Steven, you have been one of these deniers in the past. Even arguing that sea levels were not really rising. Recent studies have concluded a great deal of energy has been stored in the oceans, causing water to expand and sea levels to rise. Steven, you were in bed with the likes of corev in the past. What a slutty feeling that must have been.
And that 1 degree rise shows no signs of abating, only speeding up. You are leaving your boy a huge mess to clean up after you are gone.
Based in the NOAA chart, its 1 degree in 60 years, and accelerating. Most modeling has underestimated the pace of warming – which in a world of science amounts to a surprise. We have already reached tipping points which accelerate the pace further, with more tipping points looking not far off.
“Most modeling has underestimated the pace of warming – which in a world of science amounts to a surprise.” Yet since 2019 many climatologists admitted that some models estimate temperature warming estimates too high. (THAT’S TEMPERATURE, A SINGLE CLIMATE FACTOR, NOT CLIMATE.) https://www.science.org/content/article/use-too-hot-climate-models-exaggerates-impacts-global-warming From the article: “But even the modelmakers acknowledge that many of these models have a glaring problem: predicting a future that gets too hot too fast. ”
A recent adjustment is to discourage use of CMIP Scenario 8.5 as unrealistic. Many of the outlandish climate model estimates resulted from use of this scenario.
Corev has claimed that “since 2019” climate modelers have said some models predict too rapid a rise in global temperatures. Corev has mispoken. He should have said “in 2019”. This is 2026, and a lot has been learned since the UN’s 2019 report. Among other things, we’ve learned that warming has accelerated in the past decade, to a rate faster than most models anticipated:
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/61084/20260107/why-climate-change-accelerating-faster-scientists-originally-predicted.htm
When Corev cited a report from 7 years ago, he skipped most of the last decade. That’s some impressive cherry picking.
In fact, climate models, in general, have been pretty accurate since the 1970s:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL085378
People like Corev have been trying to deny the science since the 1970s. Once the credibility of outright denial was destroyed, they turned to the twisty kind of “I never said there’s no climate change, just that…” denial.
So, just to set the record straight, Corev cited a paper from 7 years ago which expected that some, but hardly all, climate models would prove too pessimistic. Up to that point, climate models had actually been pretty accurate. Since that time, models in general have been too optimistic. The UN has been proven wrong.
When we hear from Corev about climate change, we have to expect this kind of dishonesty.
Thanks for reinforcing the claims that some/many/most climate models were wrong. “Since that time, models in general have been too optimistic. The UN has been proven wrong.” Yet, you slavishly rely on their outputs, cherry picking the worst of them, to support your own climate beliefs.
When we hear from the “true believers” about climate change, we have to expect this kind of dishonesty. If not for cherry picking there would be no climate issue.
Does climate change? EVERYDAY! Is the planet’s average temperature going up? Is that actually bad? Prove it?
corev, you are dense. the optimism was that we were not warming as quickly as we actually were. that was wrong, sure, but not the wrong you are making it out to be. that wrong means things are even worse than we imagined. but hey, we know you are not here to learn anything.
Below, Corev has claimed that I have “cherry picked their outputs”. Where? Where I have preferred any set of research outputs over any other set, other than to prefer the newer over the outdated. I have relied on research published by others. Show me where they have cherry-picked. Corev lied.
Why would Corev make such a dishonest claim? Because I caught him cherry-picking, and in textbook denialist fashion, he has tried to accuse me of his own tricks. Corev used a paper nearly a decade old to undermine confidence in climate science. Since then, the paper he cited has been proven wrong. That’s the whole story.
How desperate are the zealots, when the claim “…Corev used a paper nearly a decade old to undermine confidence in climate science. Since then, the paper he cited has been proven wrong. That’s the whole story.” Then MacroD refutes that paper with an even older paper, 2 decades + older, which looks at model outputs from 4 to 5 decades earlier. Moreover, that paper is trying to show these early climate models as accurate with then current observations.
But to top off the desperation his other article referenced https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/61084/20260107/why-climate-change-accelerating-faster-scientists-originally-predicted.htm, refutes his own claim of models’ accuracy. Zealots can’t get their story straight.