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In 2010, ''[[The Times]]'' monthly science magazine ''Eureka'' named WUWT one of the top 30 science blogs, calling it "one of the more entertainingly sceptic blogs."<ref name="timesonline">{{cite news | url=http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/02/best-science-blogs.html | date=02/03/2010 | title=Eureka's Top 30 Science Blogs | author=Micheal Moran | work= [[The Times]] | accessdate=Sunday, Apr 04 2010}}</ref> In 2008, the blog won the internet voting-based "Best Science Blog" [[The Weblog Awards (Wizbang)|Wizbang Weblog Award]].<ref>http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/dueling-sites-t/</ref><ref name="weblogawards">{{Cite web| url=http://2008.weblogawards.org/ |date=January 15, 2009 | title=The 2008 Weblog Awards Winners |author=Kevin Aylward | work=weblogawards | accessdate=Sunday, Apr 04 2010}}</ref>
In 2010, ''[[The Times]]'' monthly science magazine ''Eureka'' named WUWT one of the top 30 science blogs, calling it "one of the more entertainingly sceptic blogs."<ref name="timesonline">{{cite news | url=http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/02/best-science-blogs.html | date=02/03/2010 | title=Eureka's Top 30 Science Blogs | author=Micheal Moran | work= [[The Times]] | accessdate=Sunday, Apr 04 2010}}</ref> In 2008, the blog won the internet voting-based "Best Science Blog" [[The Weblog Awards (Wizbang)|Wizbang Weblog Award]].<ref>http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/dueling-sites-t/</ref><ref name="weblogawards">{{Cite web| url=http://2008.weblogawards.org/ |date=January 15, 2009 | title=The 2008 Weblog Awards Winners |author=Kevin Aylward | work=weblogawards | accessdate=Sunday, Apr 04 2010}}</ref>

A [[New York Times]] article recommended ''Watt's Up With That?'' with two others science-related blogs, stating; "For science that’s accessible but credible, steer clear of polarizing hatefests like atheist or eco-apocalypse blogs. Instead, check out scientificamerican.com, discovermagazine.com and Anthony Watts’s blog, Watts Up With That?" <ref name="Virginia Heffernan">{{cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01FOB-medium-t.html?_r=2|title=Unnatural Science|last=Heffernan|first=Virginia|date=July 30, 201|work=New York Times|publisher=New York Times|page=1|accessdate=1 August 2010}}</ref>


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 15:17, 8 September 2010

Watts Up With That?
Type of site
Blog
Created byAnthony Watts
URLhttp://wattsupwiththat.com

Watts Up With That? (WUWT for short) is a science blog created in 2006 by former broadcast weather presenter Anthony Watts which focuses on the global warming controversy from a global warming skeptic perspective.[1] The tagline of the blog is "News and commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news". In addition to its founder, the blog has a regular list of contributors, including Indur Goklany.[2] The site receives more than two million hits per month.[3] The blog is moderated, which means that user comments are screened before being posted for public view.

In November 2009, the blog was one of the first websites to publish the Climategate emails and documents and thus played a key role, because of its high traffic numbers, in breaking the story to the global media. Observers and critics have noted, both positively and negatively, the blog's influence and role in the debate over global warming science on the Internet. The blog has been recognized for its content by The Times and with a Wizbang Weblog Award.

History

Temperature records project

The Surface Stations project (at www.surfacetations.org), an analysis of terrestrial US weather stations is also discussed on this blog. Occasional mention is made of his Urban heat island transect project, which is dedicated to measuring the actual urban heat island effect in major cities as well as his Stevenson screen paint experiment which is testing whether a little noted changeover from whitewash to latex paints could have caused a heretofore unrecognized warming bias during the 20th century as whitewashed screens were replaced with latex painted ones.[4]

According to journalist Christopher Booker in his book The Real Global Warming Disaster, in 2007 WUWT and its readers found that a significant number of weather stations used to capture temperature records were located in the US, giving the US a disproportionate impact on global temperature reports. During the study, according to Booker, WUWT and Stephen McIntyre found that selected temperature records published by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) based on data from United States Historical Climate Network appeared to be in error, causing GISS to mistakenly label 1998 as the hottest year on record for the United States. In August 2007, McIntyre alerted GISS to the problematic numbers, which GISS corrected immediately. As a result, the hottest year on record for the United States was changed to 1934 and four of the hottest years on record were changed from the 1990s and 2000s to the 1930s in the United States. In response, GISS director James Hansen stated that the temperature differences were slight and of little significance globally as the United States represents only a small fraction of the Earth`s surface.[5]

Booker, in one of his columns in The Daily Telegraph in 2010, also quoted WUWT's analysis of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's assertion that, according to its worldwide temperature data, the first six months of 2010 were the hottest on record. Booker noted that the analysis by WUWT drew attention to the fact that the warming "appears to be strangely concentrated in those parts of the world where it has fewest weather stations. In Greenland, for instance, two of the hottest spots, showing a startling five-degree rise in temperatures, have no weather stations at all".[6]

Involvement in the Climatic Research Unit email controversy

See also: Climatic Research Unit email controversy

In late 2009, an archive containing emails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia was leaked to the public. The Guardian reported that WUWT was one of three blogs "sent links to the cache of CRU leaked material, via anonymous servers, on the same day, Tuesday 17 November".[7] The morning of 17 November 2009 (California time), an anonymous individual posted a link on WUWT to a Russian server containing the CRU emails and documents. Charles Rotter, a moderator for WUWT, noticed the link and notified Watts. Rotter made a CD copy of the files which he gave to Steve Mosher to analyze. Mosher called some of the individuals named in the emails and confirmed that the emails were genuine. Mosher began posting the contents of the emails on other blogs, including Climate Audit. Shortly thereafter, still on 17 November, Watts gave Rotter permission to post the emails and files on WUWT. Because of WUWT's higher traffic count, according to Fred Pearce of the Guardian, this was the catalyst which broke the story to the media.[8]

In an interview with the Financial Times, Watts reported that his blog had become "busier than ever" after the incident and that traffic to the site had tripled. According to the same article, the total number of hits on the site since its launch had topped 37 million.[9][1] In his blog for the Daily Telegraph, James Delingpole claims that "Climategate", a term often used in the popular press to describe the controversy, was originally coined by a commenter in a post on WUWT.[10]

2010

In 2010 Christopher Monckton published on WUWT "a personal account of his influence on Lady Thatcher's views about climate change during the 1980s".[11] Monckton, as a guest writer, also posted rebuttals to critics of the position he takes towards the issue of anthropogenic global warming.[12]

In 2010, Fox News used exclusive photographs of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster which had been posted on WUWT.[13]

As of September 2010, Alexa Internet ranked the blog at 16,869 in global traffic and 5,870 in the United States.[14]

Reception, recognition, and awards

Writing in The Spectator, Matt Ridley described WUWT as having "metamorphosed from a gathering place for lonely nutters to a three-million-hits-per-month online newspaper on climate full of fascinating articles by physicists, geologists, economists and statisticians".[15]

Environmental activist George Monbiot, in his blog at The Guardian, has described WUWT as being "highly partisan and untrustworthy".[16] Leo Hickman, at The Guardian's Environment Blog, wrote that Watts "risks polluting his legitimate scepticism about the scientific processes and methodologies underpinning climate science with his accompanying politicised commentary."[17]

Patrick J. Michaels, who contributed to the IPCC's First Assessment Report released in 1990, cited WUWT as being part of a new "parallel universe" of emerging online publications, manned by serious scientists critical of world governments approach to climate change. "A parallel universe is assembling itself parallel to the IPCC. This universe has become very technical – very proficient at taking apart the U.N.'s findings."[18]

In 2010, The Times monthly science magazine Eureka named WUWT one of the top 30 science blogs, calling it "one of the more entertainingly sceptic blogs."[19] In 2008, the blog won the internet voting-based "Best Science Blog" Wizbang Weblog Award.[20][21]

A New York Times article recommended Watt's Up With That? with two others science-related blogs, stating; "For science that’s accessible but credible, steer clear of polarizing hatefests like atheist or eco-apocalypse blogs. Instead, check out scientificamerican.com, discovermagazine.com and Anthony Watts’s blog, Watts Up With That?" [22]

References

  1. ^ a b Fiona Harvey. "Politicising and scare tactics cloud the issue". The Financial Express. Retrieved 6 September 2010. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |Number= ignored (|number= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Volume= ignored (|volume= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Watts, Anthony. "About - Watts Up With That?". Retrieved 27 July 2010.
  3. ^ Amy Turner (February 28, 2010). "Richard Dawkins' pro-am clash in the boffins' blogosphere". The Times. London. Retrieved Sunday, Apr 04 2010. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  4. ^ Montford, A.W. (2010). The Hockey Stick Illusion. London: Stacey International. p. 363. ISBN 978-1-906768-35-5.
  5. ^ Booker, Christopher (2009). The Real Global Warming Disaster. Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. ISBN 1441110526. pp. 198-199; Irish Independent. "Have you got Green fatigue?", Dublin: September 26, 2007. pg. 1; Easley, Paula, "Despite predictions, sky is not falling", Anchorage Daily News. Anchorage, Alaska: November 10, 2007. pg. B.4.
  6. ^ Christopher Booker (25 July 2010). "Desperate days for the warmists". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
  7. ^ David Leigh, Charles Arthur and Rob Evans (4 February 2010). "Detectives question climate change scientist over email leaks". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 March 2010.
  8. ^ Fred Pearce, "Search for hacker may lead police back to East Anglia's climate research unit", The Guardian, 9 February 2010.
  9. ^ "E-mail leaks that clouded climate issue".
  10. ^ "Climategate: how the 'greatest scientific scandal of our generation' got its name". The Daily Telegraph. London. November 29, 2009."The person who really coined it was a commenter called "Bulldust" on the Watts Up With That site."
  11. ^ Bob Ward (22 June 2010). "Thatcher becomes latest recruit in Monckton's climate sceptic campaign". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 July April 2010. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  12. ^ "A detailed rebuttal to Abraham from Monckton". Watts Up With That?. Retrieved 31 July 2010.
  13. ^ "The DeepWater Explosion: How the Gulf Oil Spill Began". Fox News. May 4, 2010.
  14. ^ Alexa Internet, "wattsupwiththat.com, retrieved 8 September 2010.
  15. ^ Matt Ridley (3 February 2010). "The global warming guerrillas". The Spectator. Retrieved 11 March 2010.
  16. ^ George Monbiot (15 May 2009). "How to disprove Christopher Booker in 26 seconds". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 April 2010.
  17. ^ Leo Hickman (24 February 2010). Academic attempts to take the hot air out of climate science debate "Academic attempts to take the hot air out of climate science debate". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 April 2010. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help)
  18. ^ Koprowski, Gene J (April 28, 2010). "EXCLUSIVE: Citizen's Group Plans Extensive Audit of U.N. Climate Report". Fox News. Retrieved 3 May 2010.
  19. ^ Micheal Moran (02/03/2010). "Eureka's Top 30 Science Blogs". The Times. Retrieved Sunday, Apr 04 2010. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  20. ^ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/dueling-sites-t/
  21. ^ Kevin Aylward (January 15, 2009). "The 2008 Weblog Awards Winners". weblogawards. Retrieved Sunday, Apr 04 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  22. ^ Heffernan, Virginia (July 30, 201). "Unnatural Science". New York Times. New York Times. p. 1. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
  • surfacestations.org, an online database of photographs and evaluations of weather stations, founded in 2007 by Anthony Watts.
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