This is a little weird - the denier site climaterealists.com have reproduced Rob and Dana's post on Dessler's paper:

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8302

Apart from the snarky comment at the end, it's quite effective in promoting the info from Rob/Dana. Weird.

Once again proving that climate deniers aren't the brightest bulbs in the room.

The context, I think, is that the denialists actually believe that Spencer's online rebuttal - and particularly Spencer's assertion that Dessler has agreed to some commentary changes in his a paper and maybe a walkback in his 20:1 number - means that Spencer is taking Dessler to school. I link to the WUWT/Josh take on the current situation below. This is what they really believe is happening. So that crosspost is supposed to read "look at how stupid the warmists are!".

By the way, I don't think Dessler is going to walking that 20:1 back much at all... See recent points on general chat... And if he has to cut it in half, his point will still pertain.

Would the creator of the toon give us permission to use it in the next issue of the Weekly Digest?

What for Badger? The toon just reinforces "skeptic" arse-about-face logic.

Good God, what a bunch of juvenile idiots.  Let us see, say for argument's sake that the ratio is revised down to 10:1, (posts made by Socratic suggest that th ratio is likely between 10:1 and 20:1 is likely for the ratio of ocean forcing to cloud frocing for the 2000-2010 period).  In that likely case, Dessler may (this is all verty preliminary of coourse) been at most a factor of two out, while in stark contrast Roy wil have been a factor of 20 out b/c he made a bad guess. And people think that Spencer is educating Dessler?!

Nice to see the "thanks" that Dessler gets for being gracious and agreeing to change the text tro better reflect Roy's position.  Roy will not be happy with Josh et al. when his mutliple errors are again highlighted in the literature.

Anyhow, this is obviously all about fun and games for the deniers, and not the science, b/c they clearly do not grasp the science or even understand what is being discussed here.  Sigh.....

I misread the cartoon. I thought it was a spoof of Spencer handing the paper to Anthony Watts. So much for multi-tasking.  

Well the error seems to be the assumption that Skeptical Science is on one particular side of the political discussion of the science.

Hi Dana,

Yes, 20:1 will probably stand (but I do not wish to be presumptuous). I was using the 10:1 example for the sake of argument and to try and be generous to Spencer, but even that makes his guess horribly wrong.  Nevermind, he has only EVER made ONE mistake.

Dana, rustneversleeps has been keeping up with the calculations in the other pertinent thread, keep in mind that the ratio is not OHC:TOA but (sigma)N:(sigma)S.  The ratio for varying LHS numbers comes out to be greater than about 10, maybe higher.  I don't think 20 has been reached yet, and this gets more to Alby's point about being a bit cautious too about what ought to be expected right now.  In either case, I think it is safe to say that the ratio is much closer to 20 than it is to 0.5(?).

Edit: Sorry, sigmaS:sigmaN.

Alex,

"In either case, I think it is safe to say that the ratio is much closer to 20 than it is to 0.5(?)."

Yes, that is my understanding.

How about this for an idea. This cartoon exemplifiesd so much about the denial movement.  Maybe John or soemone could use it as an example of all the mistakes commonly made by the denial movement and by 'skeptics'-- there would be enough information for a short post.

People will look at the cartoon and skip the write-up.

Perhaps...

What perplexed me about the climaterealists.com post is they reposted our post, reinforcing the messages we were trying to get across. One crucial danger when you debunk a myth is that by repeating the myth, you make people more familiar with the myth. The more familiar one is with a piece of information, the more likely they are to think its true. 

The effect is particularly strong in older adults. You read an article/cartoon/debunking and immediately afterwards, you remember the debunking and discount the myth. But over time, the details fade and all you remember is the myth - experiments have found people ended up believing the myth MORE after reading the debunking. It's the "familiarity backfire effect" and something myth-debunkers need to be very wary of.

This is why you don't repeat the myth in your headline (like a recent SkS blog post "CO2 is a trace gas") and you don't use a simple negation of the myth (like another recent SkS blog post with the subheading "It's not internal variability"). And cartoons are a very strong visual that stick in people's minds so you wouldn't want to repost that cartoon, reinforcing the narrative that Spencer is teaching Dessler a lesson (although I did have to smile at the caricature of Dessler, I'm sorry to admit). We might write an article explaining in detail the errors of that cartoon but afterwards, all people will remember (that's assuming they even read the write-up) is the cartoon.

For the record, my first task in my new job is to write a "Debunking Handbook" where I'm going to summarise all these guidelines on debunking myths and all the psychological pitfalls to be wary of. It will become the 'bible' for SkS debunking and hopefully a useful resource for communicators in general.

is to have jg fire-up a rebuttal toon about how many times Spencer has had to eat crow, or has been taken to the woodshed by the headmaster, or something else more creative.

I dunno, that is getting a bit snarky, at the level WUWT operates at. Not really SkS style.

I think we should try to "keep it professional".

I kind of regret posting that cartoon. All I was trying to do was offer my guess as to why the denier site linked to this particular SkS article, and I thought the cartoon perhaps captured their current mindset on this topic. I wouldn't waste too much time on this.

And I also think we've derailed John's original curiousity about why climaterealists linked here. Maybe they will do so more often.

No worries posting cartoons here on the SkS forum - we're all allies here and this is a safe environment for speaking our mind (with the disclaimer that it's probably inevitable that some WUWT boffin will infiltrate this forum and post all our comments in a public blog). So I wouldn't stress about posting the cartoon, the SkS forum is for thinking out aloud and throwing out all sorts of ideas, concepts, etc.