“First, I will not attempt to defend Anthony Watts. I don’t believe he needs to be defended; and, if he does, he is perfectly capable of doing so himself.”

Actually, he isn’t very good at defending himself. More importantly, he seems to have a terrible time admitting he’s wrong. I’ll provide another example, with a link:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/ 2008/ 07/ 17/ aps-reverses-position-on-global-warming-cites-considerable-presence-of-skeptics/

So in this example, he uncritically reports on a ridiculous DailyTech article. Watts’ blog headline originally read “APS Reverses Position on Global Warming”. Note that the above link now points to “aps-editor-reverses…”. The story was bogus and it wasn’t difficult to figure it out. It was the work of one member and editor of one of APS’ dozens of newsletters to post an un-peer-reviewed paper by the notorious Lord Monckton. The story got parroted around the blogosphere, prompting APS to issue a correction. Watts was part of the disinformation and he confused his readers for awhile. The comments indicate that many people tried to correct Watts but he kept sticking to his guns. Finally, after enough people showed him the error, Watts modified the headline to be “APS Editor reverses position…” although the headline is still misleading since it’s still not clear if the APS member was changing his mind on anything (what was his previous position, if any?). Instead of apologizing and slamming DailyTech, he snipes at the “higher ups” at the APS (as if somehow they are responsible for the blatant distortions) and at some of the commenters who corrected him.

“Second, I will say that I believe it is tragic that NASA, one of the pre-eminent scientific organizations in the US, appears to be incapable of following its own guidelines and operating a temperature data collection system consisting of properly located, properly maintained and consistently monitored data collection sites.”

NASA doesn’t operate the temperature stations. The link above should be an indication of this. And again, taking photos of stations isn’t particularly useful. It has to be demonstrated that the temperature data from the stations is bad AND the final global temperature product is measurably distorted by the data. Watts has not done this, but he’s effectively got his followers believing the data is unreliable and/or NASA is orchestrating a conspiracy.

“Third, I believe that we have substantial leverage to move the entire globe towards CO2 controls, which we yield unnecessarily by unilaterally committing ourselves to a CO2 reduction program without obtaining commitments from the other nations of the globe. I don’t believe we can “lead by example” and achieve the desired result. I am a commitment plus “trust, but verify” kind of guy.”

This is a reasonable argument, and I think a global agreement is important. I just don’t think we can effectively get China to commit to the same emission reduction schedule as we are prepared to commit to. So we compromise.

“Finally, low carbon technologies won’t get the job done, so developing them is a waste of time, money and effort. Stabilizing atmospheric carbon concentrations would require zero carbon technologies, exclusively and globally. Our RDD&D dollars should be focused there to achieve the maximum bang for the buck.”

Zero carbon is not necessary (see David Benson’s comment above), but technology will need to be very low carbon. Corn ethanol, for instance, won’t come close. Wind, solar, and nuclear are very low carbon, in the sense that they require some carbon emissions today for production & transport.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/giss-ncdc-hadcru/

Also, it is certainly possible to remove some of the excess carbon from the active carbon cycle. For example, in situ peridotite weathering.

So some CO2 creation can certainly be properly offset.

Second, I will say that I believe it is tragic that NASA, one of the pre-eminent scientific organizations in the US, appears to be incapable of following its own guidelines and operating a temperature data collection system consisting of properly located, properly maintained and consistently monitored data collection sites.

Third, I believe that we have substantial leverage to move the entire globe towards CO2 controls, which we yield unnecessarily by unilaterally committing ourselves to a CO2 reduction program without obtaining commitments from the other nations of the globe. I don’t believe we can “lead by example” and achieve the desired result. I am a commitment plus “trust, but verify” kind of guy.

Finally, low carbon technologies won’t get the job done, so developing them is a waste of time, money and effort. Stabilizing atmospheric carbon concentrations would require zero carbon technologies, exclusively and globally. Our RDD&D dollars should be focused there to achieve the maximum bang for the buck.

Watts makes plenty of allegations and charges of conspiracy, yet after years of this pseudo-analysis (posting photos of weather stations doesn’t cut it), he hasn’t been able to demonstrate any problems with the resulting temperature set – else you’d see a critique published in a peer-reviewed journal. He definitely gets his troops “roused up” though. You might want to read why and how the data is “massaged”, as you call it.

“The goal of the homogeneization effort is to avoid any impact (warming
or cooling) of the changing environment that some stations experienced
by changing the long term trend of any non-rural station to match the
long term trend of their rural neighbors, while retaining the short term
monthly and annual variations. If no such neighbors exist, the station is
completely dropped, if the rural records are shorter, part of the
non-rural record is dropped.”

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/sources/gistemp.html

In other words, if the data wasn’t adjusted, Watts would probably have more reason to complain. Additionally, there are 2 other surface records (NCDC, HADCRUT) that largely correlate with GISTEMP. HADCRUT diverges a bit over the recent decade due to how they handle lack of spatial coverage in the arctic. My hunch is that Watts focuses on GISTEMP because he has an obsessive hatred for Dr. Hansen which he helps instill in his followers.

Watts’ knowledge of this subject is woeful. From my observations, he doesn’t appear to know the difference between raw temperature values and anomalies. He got confused when comparing temperature anomalies last year because each dataset uses a different base period. Instead of promptly acknowledging his error, he got angry and blamed NASA for using a base period different from HADCRUT and the satellite records (although same as NCDC). I can dig up a link if you’re interested. That’s not the attribute of an objective scientist or one that is qualified to analyze temperature data.

“that one nation representing less than 20% of global annual CO2 emissions could not solve the AGW issue on its own. Is there any serious concern that this assertion is inaccurate? ”

No, but look at it this way: if we don’t take action, few others will (beyond a few European nations). If we do take action, others (but perhaps not all initially) will follow. Putting a cap or price on carbon directs private capital/resources towards the development of low carbon technologies, speeding up development. Such technologies can then be adopted around the world. So even if we can’t get all nations to sign on to the same emissions reduction schedule, there will be a spillover effect. Obama’s comment on addressing problems with acid rain relates to this and there are numerous other examples (i.e. CFCs/refrigerator efficiency).

Take a look at http://www.surfacestations.org, the other “Watts blog”. I believe you will discover that the “quality, objectivity, reliability, and integrity” of the GISS data collection system “is “questionable”, to put it nicely.”

The information on global average temperatures published by GISS is no longer “data”. I would contend that any decimal place which has been affected by “massaging” is no longer significant. It certainly is no longer “data”. I would have been fired for referring to such “massaged” numbers as “data”. Historical “data” certainly does not change as new “data” is added, as shown in the “blink comparator” from the wattsupwiththat.com site.

The portion of my first comment above which seems to have “roused the troops” was the suggestion in the last paragraph that one nation representing less than 20% of global annual CO2 emissions could not solve the AGW issue on its own. Is there any serious concern that this assertion is inaccurate?

In the immortal words of my favorite American philosopher, Yogi Berra: “You’ve got to be careful, if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might end up someplace else.”

The quality, objectivity, reliability, and integrity of the Watts blog is “questionable”, to put it nicely. If you look closely at the various comments on those kinds of blogs, along with the comments from the blog owners, you’ll find something closely resembling a religion or cult. While each member is generally open-minded towards any global warming hypothesis that doesn’t involve human activity, the mere mention of the strongest theory (that the increase in greenhouse gases has been warming the Earth) will get them foaming at the mouth. It’s a little scary. I don’t think most of this crowd has the patience, knowledge, or anything resembling objectivity to get something published in a peer-reviewed journal, which is where true science is conducted and debated. It’s much easier to blog these days – more attention and less work.