This story can BEST be told in a series of headlines, tweets, and quotes. Andy Revkin kicks it off:
Skeptic Talking Point Melts Away as an Inconvenient Physicist Confirms Warming
Pshaw, says Anthony Watts:
The Berkeley Earth Station Surface Temperature project puts PR before peer review
What a surprise: Anthony Watts is crying foul over Muller's BEST results
Watts on the real inconvenience:
Today is a day I got not one thing done for myself due to the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature release sucking all the oxygen out of the climate debate with their pre-peer review release shenanigans.
Oh, and never mind about this:
I'm prepared to accept whatever result they [BEST] produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.
So why is this news even a story, wonders Michael Oppenheimer:
The whole episode is a bit like the continual re-measurement of the gravitational constant (assuming the BEST study stands up).
It's all part of the man/bear/pig climate science hoax, bleats Marc Morano:
Of my, what a con this whole project was.
The reactions of Watts, Morano et al are instructive, says Stephen Sherwood:
Sociopolitically it shines a spotlight on the distinction between true skepticism and denialism. The way contrarians treat Muller now, compared to a year ago, is very revealing.
To be continued...
