By Deep Climate
Given the time of year, and with a spiffy report from WordPress on Deep Climate sitting in my mailbox, this seems as good a time as any to take stock as well as talk a little bit about what’s coming up in 2011.
Deep Climate saw the light of day in late 2008, although I did not post regularly until early 2009. The blog was an outgrowth of my previous “citizen” journalism with SourceWatch.org (you can see some of my efforts there in the SourceWatch Articles links to in the sidebar). Revisiting the Deep Climate archives for 2009 shows articles on such diverse topics as the annual cycle in the UAH tropospheric series to the various shenanigans of the anti-science astroturf group Friends of Science. Towards the end of 2009, I turned my attention to McIntyre’s ClimateAudit blog, and eventually worked my way back to taking a closer look at the 2006 Wegman Report. As you’ll see in the report that follows this post, those topics dominated 2010, which also saw daily average page views rise to over 1000, as other bloggers (and even occasionally the mainstream press) began to take notice.
As a new cohort of anti-science Republicans gathers in Washington, 2011 will no doubt feature further exploration of past attacks on climate science and scientists, as well as looking at the renewed efforts to forestall serious discussion of responses to anthropogenic global warming, let alone effective action.
I’ll certainly continue to cover all that, but I also hope to diversify somewhat. For example, I’m very interested in emerging climate science, such as the NOAA/NESDIS tropospheric temperature analysis, and the ongoing collaborations between statisticians and paleoclimatologists (as exemplified in the work of Li et al, or Cressie and Tingley). I’d also like to get back to exposing various anti-science activities here in Canada, where Stephen Harper’s Conservative government continues to drag its feet, while undercutting the science behind the scenes.
Before leaving you to look at the year end report, I’d also like to thank all of you, whether frequent commentators or quiet readers, for your support and attention in the past year. And I wish you all the best for the coming year.
2011 will undoubtedly be a very interesting year. One can only hope it is for the right reasons.
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The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 370,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 16 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 44 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 90 posts. There were 143 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 39mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was August 19th with 3,713 views. The most popular post that day was McShane and Wyner 2010 .
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were realclimate.org, scienceblogs.com, rabett.blogspot.com, wattsupwiththat.com, and desmogblog.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for deep climate, deepclimate, vaclav smil, deep climate blog, and friends of science.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
McShane and Wyner 2010 August 2010
187 comments and 7 Likes on WordPress.com
Wegman under investigation by George Mason University October 2010
277 comments and 2 Likes on WordPress.com
Replication and due diligence, Wegman style November 2010
214 comments and 5 Likes on WordPress.com
Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, part 2: The story behind the Barton-Whitfield investigation and the Wegman Panel February 2010
155 comments
John Mashey on Strange Scholarship in the Wegman Report September 2010
103 comments
Deep Climate 
It’s always good to know one doesn’t do something for nothing.
Looking forward to a continued coverage and analysis of the Wegman saga and the other stuff as well. Thanks for your efforts so far, DC. It’s perfect.
We’ve been working on this for about the same length of time but I have concentrated on commentary at the Globe and Mail, acting as a lightning rod unfortunately. I started a home-grown website but have recently migrated here (WordPress) with enthusiasm for the results. Please visit ClimateInsight.
I’d be pleased to collaborate.
Alan
I find that it’s hard enough to find time just to read a handful of blogs, make the odd comment here or there or even write up a rare guest blog post of my own. I have no idea how people find the time and energy to write blogs like this one, which involves considerable research, not just opinion pieces or reposting from other blogs.
Normally, I try and avoid adding comments like “Great Post!” since they just clutter up the discussion. That doesn’t mean that I’m not appreciative, though, and I’m sure that goes for many of the readers here.
> that goes for many of the readers here.
Indeed.
Indeed. DC is on my short list of must-read blogs. My thanks for the hard work that goes into it.
Looking good. Hoping for a good new year for all of us.
I’m afraid this new US senate will make a lot of unnecessary fuss and bother for all North Americans. While we in SH will wait and see what our new Senate will look like when all those Greens move in in June, July.
Whatever, Never boring.
It’s the House, not Senate, that went all tea party on us. The Senate is still in Democratic hands. Newcomers in the House are going to re-learn the lesson that’s learned every two years – the Senate serves as a roadblock to House activism. The freshmen Dems learned that with the Cap and Trade bill, the incoming tea party-leaning freshmen Reps will learn that with their promise to cut domestic spending (other than the military, etc) by 20%.
Excellent work, DC (and John Mashey for his guest posts)! I’m looking forward very much to your contributions in 2011.
To some degree, I’m hoping the Republicans dare to hold some of the anti-science hearings they’ve been promising, as they could be quite entertaining. However, we shouldn’t be complacent in believing anti-science is limited to only one side of the aisle. I’m sure you’ll continue providing excellent insight into the year’s developments in the world of climate disinformation.
Good going, DC (and thanks also for your contributions, John). There may or not be trouble from the new US House of Representatives – some are saying that few will risk looking too extreme with the 2012 elections around the corner (!), but the forces that propelled the Republicans into elective offices won’t be so assuaged.
Things may be different than pre-2006, with the rise of groups like the Climate Science Rapid Response Team and blogs such as Deep Climate to combat the nonsense and apply some scrutiny to claims arising from the relevant committees.
A bit more than a year until the primaries start hottin’ up.
Bring it on, I say … assuming the Dems and Obama have learned anything. They have a good story to sell if the Reps really do try to dismantle the Clean Air Act, cripple the EPA, strip funds for clean water act enforcement and the like.
They need to remember that by and large people LIKE this stuff.
I would like to see some fight, like in 2005 when the victors in the US elections overreached with proposed changes in Social Security, the Terry Schiavo fight and failed in the response to Hurricane Katrina.
As dhogaza notes, the opportunity is in the fact that the Republican/Tea Party are advocating for things that are not too popular. There are plenty of opportunities to make political hay, if the reality-based community is willing to take a stand, and tell the truth.
Equally critical (if not more so), is whether the Dems are willing to take a stand and tell the truth. Several are from coal-producing states, and Obama himself is a big supporter of (gag!) “clean coal” and ethanol from corn. He’s already signaled to the Republicans that he’s ready to “compromise” (i.e., give away the store before negotiations start) on everything, including Social Security, just like he did with health care by taking “single payer” off the table. Many have argued that the U.S. was the primary impediment, if not a deliberate saboteur, at the Copenhagen and Cancun climate talks. Given the Dems’ typically spineless performance over the last 4 years of their majority in Congress, my expectations are far lower than my hopes, but we’ll see.
Apologies to DC and Canadian readers for keeping our lame Yankee political morass at the forefront of this discussion. I’ll say no more about it here.
Taylor B Apologies to DC and Canadian readers for keeping our lame Yankee political morass at the forefront of this discussion. I’ll say no more about it here.
No apologies are necessary for this Canadian reader. Our federal climate policies are effectively made in Washington, at least with our current Conservative government. US politics may well be lame but ours are both halt and lame.
Taylor B, yes, my comment’s somewhat conditional on Obama becoming a pit bull for truth.
If he rolls over like a big silly golden retriever, we’re screwed.
Don’t downplay his accomplishment with the health care bill, though. Single payer was never going to make it with the current Senate filibuster rules. Sad and silly, I say (I work routinely with Europeans and Canadians and have done contract work in several countries with modern health care systems, so know the crap we hear in the US is just that).
But still, significant progress was made on something that several presidents from FDR on has failed on, i.e. some form of near-universal availability of health care coverage, as lame as it is compared to how good it could be.
I’m really disappointed.
Yesterday, a day *before* the new Republican House leadership took over, they already said “we can’t cut $100B this year after all, perhaps $50B, but probably not even that much”.
So we’re going to be spared Republican proposals to cut federal funds for law enforcement by 30%. Damn! I was really looking forward to that.
The Canadian situation is even more depressing than in the US.
Find the truth whatever side it helps. don’t get all political on us , like when Tammy said that it was a pro Barrack blog and no, no opposite opinions were allowed. But then he says he’s not censoring opposite sides in the science debate. Right. Remember Rathergate. It’s human nature to want to beleive what helps your side and people lie on each side. Humans are weak creatures. Look for truth whereever it leads you.
Who is Tammy and what is her blog?
[DC: “Tammy” is TCO’s nickname for Tamino, as in Tamino’s Open Mind (on my blogroll – highly recommended). TCO knows it bugs me – he’s backsliding into the “old” TCO. ]
But Tammy is a completely useless identifier. If I Google Tamino I find the right blog without problem. If I Google Tammy I end up finding Tammy Bruce which apparently isn’t the intended target.
Always a pleasure
> Tammy … Barrack …
[edit] [DC: Come on now – play nicely. ]
DC, you hash-slinger, you.
From the janitorial core, yours truly. Great job.