Joe Bastardi

Joe Bastardi

Credentials

Background

Joe Bastardi is a weather forecaster and climate change skeptic. He worked for AccuWeather from 1978 until 2011 when he joined WeatherBELL Analytics LLC where he now works as Chief Forecaster with Joseph D’Aleo, the climate change skeptic who founded Icecap.us.2Jason Samenow. “Joe Bastardi resigns from AccuWeather,” Washington Post, February 22, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/zMmEQ 3Jason Samenow. “Joe Bastardi hired by start-up firm WeatherBell,” The Washington Post, March 11, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/VeHtz 4Weatherbell Analytics Homepage. Archived September 11, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/UkROm

WeatherBELL offers an industry specific package (PDF) for “energy companies, hedge funds, or related businesses,” which includes “daily videos produced by” Bastardi, a “daily interpretation” from Bastardi of NOAA’s report, forecasts, and a weekly web conference call with Bastardi.5“Get In Front Of Weather-Driven Energy Market Moves!” (PDF), WeatherBell Analytics. Archived .pdf on file at Desmog.

AccuWeather previously worked with the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a group that strongly opposed greenhouse gas reduction policies when it was active. GCC disbanded in 2002.6Global Climate Coalition,” PRWatch.org. Archived October 24, 2001. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/0KJBo

Bastardi is also a Senior Advisor at the American Tradition Institute (ATI) — now the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, a group denounced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for contributing to an “environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas.”7Joe Romm. “Stunner: Joe Bastardi Joins the Extreme Anti-Scientist Crowd,” ThinkProgress, July 7, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/B94cJ,8Joe Romm. “American Association for Advancement of Science Slams Harassment and Attacks Aimed at Climate Scientists,” ThinkProgress, June 29, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/dzoN4

Stance on Climate Change

2016

“I don’t believe CO2 is a major player in determining global temperatures. I believe the sun, ocean cycles and stochastic events play a much more significant role.”9Joe Bastardi. “A Real Bet for the Tough Guy in a Bow Tie,” The Patriot Post, May 3, 2016. Archived September 10, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/iSlOG

2009

“We will get our answer in the next 20 to 30 years. And we don’t have to panic. We don’t have to rush around because if I’m right, the earth’s temperature is going to cool a degree to a degree and a half Fahrenheit the next 20 to 30 years. And if it does, then that’s a game, set, match. You know [CO2] is not the driver that people say.”10Hannity, Bastardi: winter snowstorms prove global warming hoax,” Media Matters, December 17, 2009. Original from December 17 edition of The Sean Hannity Show.

Key Quotes

January 4, 2018

H. Sterling Burnett describes Joe Bastardi as a “real climate scientist,” pointing to one of Bastardi’s quotes on Twitter where he suggests the connection between extreme weather and climate change is “witchcraft”:11H. Sterling Burnett. “Climate Alarmists Say Record Cold Is a Sign of Warming,” Heartland Institute, January 21, 2018. Archived February 12, 2018. 12This is flat out insanity and deception now To tell the public that events that have occurred countless times before with no climate change attribution […]” Twitter post by user “BigJoeBastardi,” January 4, 2018. Archived .png on file at DeSmog.

April 24, 2017

Speaking on the Fox News Program Your World with Neil Cavuto, Bastardi claimed that CO2 was not the “climate control knob”:13Joe Bastardi defends rights of climate change skeptics,” Fox News, April 24, 2017. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

“It would be the first time that man has ever been responsible for it [warming] in recorded history. We go back ten million years, and if you’re going to actually believe what we have as the reference records, there’s no linkage to CO2 and temperature. Unless of course it’s one of these books, these 3d books, you gotta stand on your head and cross your eyes to look at.”

”[…] I have a problem when you tell me something that you exhale one-hundred times more than you inhale, and that plants love, and that’s always been around, and it’s just a very, very tiny part of the entire system, when you tell me that’s the climate control knob against the sun, the oceans […] I say why is it now, when it’s been much higher before with colder temperatures. You can’t say that.”

May 2016

Joe Bastardi published a piece in The Patriot Post responding to a bet made by Bill Nye in April 2016:14Joe Bastardi. “Some Questions for Bill Nye Six Years After Our ‘O’Reilly Factor’ Debate,” The Patriot Post, November 9, 2015. Archived April 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/1NoB5

“News flash, Bill: Midway through last year I said 2016 global temperatures would rise thanks to El Niño. I can forecast this because I don’t believe CO2 is a major player in determining global temperatures. I believe the sun, ocean cycles and stochastic events play a much more significant role.”15Joe Bastardi. “A Real Bet for the Tough Guy in a Bow Tie,” The Patriot Post, May 3, 2016. Archived September 10, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/iSlOG

July 2014

Referencing the Heartland Institute‘s Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, July 7-9, 2014, in Las Vegas, Bastardi writes:

“So what strikes me most about the Heartland Conference is that I am with people that are in love with weather, climate, and their country, and many of them have loved these longer and stronger than I have.

For me, above all, my stances on global warming are a product of my love for the weather. There is no goal for me. It’s about having another chance to do what I was made to do. And somehow, when I’m with people who I sense have the same ideas, it makes me stronger and more able to run toward what I was made for.

As one gets older, one can get tired. But only when your heart gives out does your strength give in. For me, all this is an affair of the heart.

Its for the love of the weather.”16Joe Bastardi. “For the Love of the Weather,” The Patriot Post, July 3, 2014. Archived July 8, 2014. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/DcJdq

May 2014

Following the release of the White House’s National Climate Assessment Report, Joe Bastardi appears on Tom Sullivan’s Fox News Radio to offer his thoughts on the report on May 6, 2014:

“I think it’s just yet another piece to cause confusion and I think that the ‘so-called scientific debate’ is very silly now–It’s like a bunch of theologians arguing over how many angels you can stick on the head of a needle. When you’ve got a side that changes from global warming, global warming, global warming to climate change, which is intuitive—the climate has always been changing since the beginning of time—and then just begins to claim every answer is the correct answer, you often stand back, and I don’t care who you are, you have to question as to what the real motive is in this.”17Climate Change Skeptic Joe Bastardi Explains Why White House Study Is A Joke!Fox News Radio, May 6, 2014. September 11, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/P1op6

March 2012

“CO2 cannot cause global warming. I’ll tell you why. It doesn’t mix well with the atmosphere, for one. For two, its specific gravity is 1 1/2 times that of the rest of the atmosphere. It heats and cools much quicker. Its radiative processes are much different. So it cannot – it literally cannot cause global warming.”18Fox News Science, Again,” Media Matters, March 9, 2012. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/yJl6i

August 2011

“How do these people have any credibility? How do they get away with this? It’s mind boggling that its gotten to a point where the EPA is dictating policy based on what is an obvious fraud, or if you want to be gentle about it, creates enough doubt to back off.”19P Gosselin. “Joe Bastardi Calls Manmade CO2 Global Warming ‘An Obvious Fraud’,” NoTricksZone, August 8, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/rqI1r

August 2011

According to Bastardi, human-induced climate change “contradicts what we call the 1st law of thermodynamics. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. So to look for input of energy into the atmosphere, you have to come from a foreign source.”20A Fox News Science Lesson,” Media Matters, August 9, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/mXlUj

July 2010

“The coming cooling of the planet overall will return it to where it was in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.”21Joe Romm. “Joe Bastardi, worst long-range forecaster on Earth, asserts ‘The coming cooling of the planet overall will return it to where it was in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s’,” ThinkProgress, July 6, 2010. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/2P3CM

September 2009

“Common sense dictates that a trace gas needed for life on the planet would not be the cause for destroying life on the planet. Common sense dictates that what has happened before without man can happen again with man. Common sense would dictate that you not believe me, or any one else, but go look for YOURSELF.”22Tony Hake. “AccuWeather’s Joe Bastardi presses case against global warming theory,” Examiner.com, September 11, 2009. Archived November 23, 2012. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Efod7

Key Deeds

March 4, 2019

Bastardi appeared on Hannity in a segment attacking the Green New Deal, Media Matters reported. Hannity notes Bastardi is “saying the same thing” as climate change denier Patrick Moore regarding the deal.23“In Hannity segment attacking Green New Deal, climate denier Joe Bastardi says ‘people are ungrateful’ for fossil fuels,” Media Matters, March 4, 2019. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

“You know, when I saw – when I saw the New Green Deal, Sean, I thought it was a Saturday Night Live skit, you know, drunk uncles spouting off, like, we’re gonna build railroads across the ocean, let’s build one to the moon. We can put a restaurant up there, great food but no atmosphere, it’d be a vegan restaurant, though,” Bastardi said.

“The whole thing is meant to get you to try fight against an extreme position, while there’s incremental creeping of this, and Patrick – Dr. Borges just described it, what they are doing to kids, they are indoctrinating kids.

Where would those kids be if we did not have the fossil fuel era? The true hockey sticks of the fossil fuel era are life expectancy, the amount of people on the planet, and personal GDP, they’re all skyrocketing. It’s almost like these people are ungrateful for what got them here.” (Emphasis added).

February 4, 2018

In January 2018, more than 200 scientists endorsed an open letter calling on the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) to remove climate change denier Rebekah Mercer from its board and to “end ties to anti-science propagandists and funders of climate science misinformation.” The New York Times reported that those among the AMNH letter calling for Mercer to step down were Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, and Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University.24Robin Pogrebin and Somini Sengupta. “A Science Denier at the Natural History Museum? Scientists Rebel,” The New York Times, January 25, 2018. Archived February 13, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/tAIv4

Bastardi was among a group of climate change deniers who responded with their own open letter, calling for the AMNH “not to cave in to this pressure.” The letter was signed by numerous individuals with ties to groups funded by the Mercer Family Foundation such as Will Happer of the CO2 CoalitionRichard Lindzen, a fellow at the Cato InstituteCraig Idso, the chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. There are a number of signatories affiliated with the Heartland Institute, which has received over $5.78 million from the Mercer Family Foundation since 2008.25Graham Readfearn. “Climate Science Deniers Defend New York’s American Museum of Natural History From Calls to Drop Trustee Rebekah Mercer,” DeSmog, February 6, 2018.

The letter reads:26mnh18-feb4-petitionletter (PDF – Untitled). Retrieved from Watts Up With That.

“The Earth has supported abundant life many times in the geological past when there were much higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is quite likely that future generations will benefit from the enrichment of Earth’s atmosphere with more carbon dioxide.

“Make no mistake, the agitators are not defending science from quackery — quite the contrary!”

January 2, 2018

Bastardi released a new book titled The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore–And Others. His book was praised by Anthony Watts at WUWT, who describs Bastardi as a “friend of WUWT.” It was also promoted by Marc Morano at Climate Depot.27New Book: Joe Bastardi’s ‘The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore–And Others’,” Climate Depot, January 22, 2018. Archived February 12, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/zRYXV 28Anthony Watts. “The Climate Chronicles – a new book by Joe Bastardi,” Watts Up With That? January 19, 2018. Archived February 12, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/6NWr8

February 23, 2017

Bastardi was a signatory of a petition (PDF) organized by Richard Lindzen of the Cato Institute urging President Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the United Nations international convention on climate change (UNFCCC).29“PETITION” (PDF), February 23, 2017. Richard Lindzen. PDF Archived at DeSmog.

“In just a few weeks, more than 300 eminent scientists and other qualified individuals from around the world have signed the petition below,” Lindzen wrote in the letter.30“PETITION” (PDF), February 23, 2017. Richard Lindzen. PDF Archived at DeSmog.

DeSmog investigated the list, and found that only a small handful of the signatories could be considered “even remotely ‘qualified’ or ‘eminent’ — but not in the field of climate science.” The list included individuals “interested in climate,” and one signatory who only identified as an “emailer who wished to sign the petition” while some signers provided no affiliation or address whatsoever.31Graham Readfearn. “Climate Science Denier Richard Lindzen’s List of 300 “Scientists” Sent to Trump Is the Usual Parade of Non-Experts,” DeSmog, February 27, 2017.

May 3, 2016

Joe Bastardi published a piece in The Patriot Post responding to a bet issued by Bill Nye in April. Bastardi writes, “Unlike Bill, I am a rational man, and I understand that while we must transition to clean energy we must do so in a way that is smart and economically viable.”32Joe Bastardi. “A Real Bet for the Tough Guy in a Bow Tie,” The Patriot Post, May 3, 2016. Archived September 10, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/iSlOG

“I don’t believe CO2 is a major player in determining global temperatures,” Bastardi writes. “I believe the sun, ocean cycles and stochastic events play a much more significant role. Furthermore, we all know that Bill is not a forecaster. And since I am, I have a bet for the “science guy.” I believe 2017 will be colder than 2016. The bet is this: For 2017, every increment of .05 degrees Celsius (plus or minus compared to 2016) will be worth $10,000. If 2017 is 0.1 degrees Celsius warmer than 2016, I will pay you $20,000. If 2017 is 0.1 degrees Celsius colder, you owe me $20,000.33Joe Bastardi. “A Real Bet for the Tough Guy in a Bow Tie,” The Patriot Post, May 3, 2016. Archived September 10, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/iSlOG

Bastardi proposes his own bet using satellite measurements byclimate change denier Roy W. Spencer, an advisor at the evangelical Cornwall Alliance, a group that claims environmentalism is “one of the greatest threats to society and the church today.”34Joe Bastardi. “A Real Bet for the Tough Guy in a Bow Tie,” The Patriot Post, May 3, 2016. Archived September 10, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/iSlOG

April 2016

TV presenter and science advocate Bill Nye “the Science Guy” challenged Joe Bastardi to two $10,000 bets: One that 2016 would be one of the top ten hottest years on record. He also bet Bastardi that the current decade would the hottest on record (Nye was responding to this November 2015 from Bastardi, published in the Patriot Post).35Joe Bastardi. “Some Questions for Bill Nye Six Years After Our ‘O’Reilly Factor’ Debate,” The Patriot Post, November 9, 2015. Archived April 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/1NoB5

Bill Nye quotes American author Upton Sinclair, who once wrote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Video below.36Graham Readfearn. “Bill Nye the Science Guy Takes On Climate Denialist Joe Bastardi the ‘Goebbels’ Guy,” DeSmog, April 22, 2016. 37Joe Bastardi. “Some Questions for Bill Nye Six Years After Our ‘O’Reilly Factor’ Debate,” The Patriot Post, November 9, 2015. Archived April 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/1NoB5

April 12, 2016

Joe Bastardi was a guest at an LDC Gas Forum in Atlanta where he spoke on a panel discussion on “natural gas and how the weather will affect the natural gas industry in 2016.”38Agenda,” LDC Gas Forums Southeast 16th Annual (April 11 – 14, 2016). Archived April 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/gHnP9

November 10, 2015

Joe Bastardi spoke at an LDC Gas Forum in Toronto, Canada, where the agenda says he would be “looking ahead to coming years and decades[…] based on overall climate cycles.”392015 Canada Agenda,” LDC Gas Forums. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/R6Iru

According to photos on the official Flickr page, the event’s sponsors included Barclays, BP, Enbridge, Shell, Statoil, and J.P.Morgan.402012 LDC Gas Forum,” FlickR. Accessed April 20, 2016. Images on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/tv22P

March 2015

Joe Bastardi is one of several climate change skeptics cc’d on an email from S. Fred Singer in hopes of countering the documentary film “Merchants of Doubt,” which exposes the network of climate change skeptics and deniers trying to delay legislative action on climate change.41Katherine Bagley. “Leaked Email Reveals Who’s Who List of Climate Denialists,” InsideClimate News. March 12, 2015.

The October, 2014 email was leaked to journalists before the documentary was released. “Can I sue for damages?” Singer asked in the email. “Can we get an injunction against the documentary?”

InsideClimate News reports in their article “Leaked Email Reveals Who’s Who List of Climate Denialists,” how “Many of those copied on the email thread, such as Singer and communications specialist Steven Milloy, have financial ties to the tobacco, chemical, and oil and gas industries and have worked to defend them since the 1990s.”42Katherine Bagley. “Leaked Email Reveals Who’s Who List of Climate Denialists,” InsideClimate News. March 12, 2015.

InsideClimate News also documented all those who were cc’d on the email, including the following skeptics and groups:

DeSmog covered the emails here: “Merchants of Doubt Film Debuts, Textbook Denial Attack Campaign Led By Fred Singer Ensues” and DeSmog also archived a full copy of the Singer email thread (PDF).

December 2014

Joe Bastardi was a speaker at the 13th annual coal trading conference’s luncheon event in New York, which attracted a $2k sponsorship offer from the organizers.43“2014 Annual Conference Sponsorship Options” (PDF), Coal Trading Association, October, 2014. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

August 17, 2014

Joe Bastardi appeared on Wall Street Journal Live to speak about the upcoming 2014-2014 winter forecast. During his interview, he states the weather is “flowing along right now into the type of El Nino situation that is notorious for giving the United States cold, snowy winters, especially in the eastern part of the United States, relative to the averages. That would be significant because we were within one power plant last year of having the grid overload … This year, if you get the kind of winter that we had in 2009-2010 or 2002-2003 with the nation’s grid on the ropes the way it is and some of these regulations that I hear about coming down that are supposed to close plants on January 1st – and what I know, because we’re involved in getting people ready to fight snow in cities around the country – this could be a very, very big economic impact on the winter. And we’re very concerned about that.”44This Year’s Winter Shaping Up to Be Colder, Snowier,” Wall Street Journal Live, August 17, 2014. Archived August 18, 2014.

See Joe Bastard on Wall Street Journal Live, below:

July 7–9, 2014

Joe Bastardi was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC9) in Las Vegas, Nevada.45Brendan DeMelle.”Return of Climate Denial-a-Palooza: Heartland Institute Hitches Anti-Science Wagon to Vegas FreedomFest,” DeSmog, July 7, 2014. Archived July 14, 2014. He gave a keynote speech titled “When the Truth is Found to be Lies” and spoke on Panel 14: “Climate Change? What goes around comes around” with Dr. Madhav Khandekar and Stanley Goldenberg. Video of both speeches can be viewed below.

Keynote Address: When the Truth is Found to be Lies

Panel 14: “Climate Change? What goes around comes around.”

Panel 14 Q & A

DeSmog has done in-depth research on the other speakers and sponsors from Heartland’s ICCC9, which can be found here.46Brendan DeMelle.”Return of Climate Denial-a-Palooza: Heartland Institute Hitches Anti-Science Wagon to Vegas FreedomFest,” DeSmog, July 7, 2014. Archived July 14, 2014.

September 2013

In September 2013, the National Coal Transportation Association (NCTA) paid Bastardi to appear at its Fall Meeting in Denver, Colorado. According to notes from an NCTA directors meeting, obtained from a Google search, Bastardi would “discuss why hurricane season is not a result of CO2 emissions.”47“BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING: FALL 2013” (PDF), National Coal Transportation Association, July 23, 2013. Archived at DeSmog.

At the meeting, according to a Google cache of his speech, Bastardi also told the audience that human-caused climate change was a “scam.”48Anthropogenic Global Warming, aka Climate Change, aka Climate Disruption, aka Carbon Pollution (To Me, It’s a Scam)” (PDF), National Coal Transportation Association, September 16, 2013. Archived at DeSmog.

He went on to describe climate change as a “morphed political movement” full of “Goebelinskyites.” These “Goebelinskyites,” Bastardi’s notes explain, were a group crossed between Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels and community organiser Saul Alinsky.49Anthropogenic Global Warming, aka Climate Change, aka Climate Disruption, aka Carbon Pollution (To Me, It’s a Scam)” (PDF), National Coal Transportation Association, September 16, 2013. Archived at DeSmog.

Bastardi told the audience: “Besides, let’s simply watch temperatures. […] lines are drawn in sand pretty clearly.”50Anthropogenic Global Warming, aka Climate Change, aka Climate Disruption, aka Carbon Pollution (To Me, It’s a Scam)” (PDF), National Coal Transportation Association, September 16, 2013. Archived at DeSmog.

March 19, 2013

Joe Bastardi spoke at the spring conference of the Nebraska Propane Gas Association in Troy, NY.51“Annual Spring Conference: March 18-20, 2013: Hilton Garden Inn, Troy NY” (PDF), Nebraska Propane Association, March, 2013. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

May 21–23, 2012

Joe Bastardi was a speaker at the Heartland Institute‘s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7).52Speakers,” 7th International Conference on Climate Change. Archived May 14, 2012. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/uyH3w

Bastardi’s speech, titled “Global Sea Ice, Accumulated Cyclone Energy, and How it Explains the Climate” can be viewed below.

DeSmog researched the co-sponsors behind Heartland’s ICCC7 and found that they had collectively received over $67 million from ExxonMobil, the Koch Brothers and the conservative Scaife.53Brendan DeMelle. “Heartland Denial-a-Palooza Sponsors Have Received Million From ExxonMobil, Koch and Scaife Foundations,” Desmog, May 22, 2012.

November 29, 2010

Bastardi posted a video on AccuWeather with the potentially libelous caption, “Is the US NSIDC cooking the ice books? Sure looks that way if one is looking at all sites.”

AccuWeather took the video down on December 5. Joe Romm of ClimateProgress had posted on the topic the same day, and had asked the NSIDC to respond. NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve had this to say to Romm:

“One problem with Joe Bastardi’s comparison is that with the JAXA data set he’s comparing to the 2006 line, not 2007. In JAXA, this year is a bit below 2007 right now (though there’s some missing data).

“It’s important to remember that different sites use different algorithms (methods to derive sea ice from the raw data), different cutoffs of concentration (15% vs 30%), and sometimes different sensors (SSM/I vs AMSR-E). Studies that compare different algorithms have repeatedly found that differences between algorithms can be large. Generally, the largest differences are found in summer, with differences of more than ± 20 %. In winter, differences between the different algorithms are usually less than ± 10 %. No single algorithm has been found to be clearly superior under all conditions. The differences between satellite-derived estimates of sea-ice extent and so-called ground-truth observations are of similar magnitude. Nevertheless, while the absolute differences between algorithms and between with non-passive-microwave data sets are relatively large, they are generally constant over time.

“Hence, trends in sea-ice extent that are estimated from different algorithms agree much more closely than do the absolute values of extent. Hence, trend estimates provide a rather high level of confidence in estimates of sea ice change and variability. In terms of absolute values, estimates of total sea-ice extent are more reliable than estimates of sea-ice area. For the former, a certain concentration threshold (often 15% ice cover) is defined, and the size of any grid cell covered by more ice than this threshold contributes fully to total sea-ice extent. For ice area, however, only the truly ice-covered fraction of each grid cell contributes, giving rise to higher uncertainty.

“Finally, it seems Joe Bastardi is unclear as to how standardized anomalies are derived. Standardized anomalies are not the same thing as anomalies, which is defined by the actual deviation from the mean (climatology for that day or month). A standardized anomaly is further divided by the climatological standard deviation for that day/month. When seasonal variations are present within a set of data, it is often helpful to express the data in terms of standardized anomalies. They generally provide more information about the magnitude of the anomalies because influences of dispersion have been removed.”54Joe Romm. “Long wrong Joe Bastardi cooks the books to smear NSIDC. Time for Accuweather to fire him,” ThinkProgress, December 5, 2010. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/5X2ER

September 20, 2010

Bastardi predicted that Arctic Sea Ice extent would return to 2005 levels, claiming at the time, “We are going to recover dramatically here with a cold that is coming over the next 9 to 12 months!”55Joe Romm. “Is Joe Bastardi the Worst Long-Range Forecaster Ever?ThinkProgress, September 25, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Hnngc

This forecast, like many of his other assertions, proved false.56Joe Romm. “Is Joe Bastardi the Worst Long-Range Forecaster Ever?ThinkProgress, September 25, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Hnngc

Affiliations

Social Media

Publications

According to a search of Google Scholar, Joe Bastardi has not published any articles or research in peer-reviewed journals on any subject.

Fox News Appearances

Joe Bastardi has repeatedly appeared on Fox News and other news networks to discuss his views on climate change. Media Transparency reported on how Bastardi has “who is a weather forecaster, not a climate researcher, has made inaccurate claims about climate science on multiple occasions.” They also tracked a number of his Fox News appearances in their 2011:60Why Is Fox Going To Joe Bastardi For Climate Change Analysis?”, Media Matters, August 17, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Efod7

  • [Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor, 9/09/09]
  • [Fox Business Network, Imus in the Morning, 12/11/09]
  • [Fox Business Network, Cavuto, 12/11/09]
  • [Fox Business Network, Cavuto, 2/09/10]
  • [Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor, 2/22/10]
  • [Fox Business Network, Imus in the Morning, 2/26/10]
  • [Fox Business Network, Imus in the Morning, 7/2/10]
  • [Fox Business Network, Cavuto, 12/13/10]
  • [Fox Business Network, Follow the Money, 2/1/11]
  • [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/2/11]
  • [Fox Business Network, Cavuto, 4/28/11]
  • [Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor, 4/28/11]
  • [Fox News, Your World With Neil Cavuto, 5/25/11]
  • [Fox Business Network, The Tom Sullivan Show, 5/28/11]
  • [Fox Business Network, FOX Business, 6/16/11]
  • [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/6/11]
  • [Fox Business Network, FOX Business, 7/21/11]
  • [Fox News, Fox & Friends Saturday, 8/6/11]

ThinkProgress offers a debunking of some of Bastardi’s clips as a climate change “expert” in an article titled “Joe Bastardi is ‘Completely Wrong’ and ‘Does Not Understand the Very Basics of the Science’, Climatologists Explain.”61Joe Bastardi is ‘Completely Wrong’ and ‘Does Not Understand the Very Basics of the Science’, Climatologists Explain,” ThinkProgress, August 18, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Sn1AB

According to Media Matters, Bastardi has repeatedly misinformed the Fox News audience. Bastardi has gone as far as stating that global warming “Contradicts” The 1st Law Of Thermodynamics.62Why Is Fox Going To Joe Bastardi For Climate Change Analysis?”, Media Matters, August 17, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Efod7

Kerry Emanual, an atmospheric scientist at MIT, spoke with Media Matters via e-mail:

“I might point out that Bastardi’s background is in weather forecasting, not climate science. Asking him to comment on the science of climate change is rather like asking a country doctor to comment on the latest developments in biomedical research. The media really ought to know better.”

Discussing statements made by Bastardi from multiple Fox appearances, Keith Seitter, the Executive Director of the American Meteorological Society stated, “I have not seen Mr. Bastardi on these programs, but several components of the quotes you provide are scientifically incorrect.”

NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt added: “Bastardi is attempting to throw out 150 years of physics.” Physicist Richard Muller added, “He seems very confused.”63WeatherBELL Chief Forecaster Joe Bastardi Denies Basic Physics: ‘CO2 Cannot Cause Global Warming’,” ThinkProgress, March 11, 2012. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/3SIDt

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