Ric Werme's Guide to
Watts Up With That

Anthony Watts' Watts Up With That? blog is hosted by Wordpress, a blog host that works best for bloggers who post a few articles each week. Anthony and his crew post several articles per day, and trying to hunt down old articles is a bit frustrating. There is a search mechanism, but that seems limited to keywords in the original article. You can also look at a day's posts, but that's an inefficient way to browse through old articles.

People making comments have no hints as to how to format them. There used to be the barest of hints below the comment box, but it was a poor list, even wrong in places, and no longer displays. See the bottom of this document for better guidance.


WUWT Navigation Bars

Every so often, please take a break from reading the recent posts and comments to check the two navigation bars.

The top bar (with labels from "Home" to "WUWT stuff" goes to permanent posts that are updated frequently, sometimes automatically, sometimes manually. The most important label is "Resource Pages". When you hover the cursor over it, a submenu appears listing the the various domains WUWT covers. The most popular of these is the Sea Ice Reference Page. Many readers like to follow the progression of Arctic sea ice extent each summer because of the frequent handwringing from Al Gore and the NSIDC about how soon we'll have an ice free Arctic. Given that we've only had good data for this since polar satellites started returning images of ice cover, no one can make authoritative predictions for the current season, let alone the next.

The right side nav bar is a potpourri of information and links to internal and external sites. The search box searches the content WUWT posts but not the comments. It's a good way to hunt down some post on a subject you remember reading about. Some links go to Anthony's business, Weather Shop (please buy stuff there!), some have current images of a subject and a link to more information. Anthony's lists of other blogs is unique in that he links to blogs that are major detractors of WUWT, most of which disparage WUWT but don't link to it.

Everything else is pretty much self explanatory. It changes frequently enough so a periodic check is worthwhile to see what's new and what you've forgotten about.

WUWT Tables of Contents

Two series of ToCs are available:

Monthly - This is good to check if you know approximately when something happened and want to look for relevant posts. Even better, this is a good way to see what else was happening then.

Categories - This is good to check if you are interested in particular topics. Even better, if you are looking for topics to be interested in, check out the list.

You can also use the right side nav bar to find the same information displayed as WordPress see fit. This includes some text at the beginning of each post. My pages only have the title, and everything is in a single web page. They both have their merits.

WUWT Classics

Here are some posts that deserve to used as reference works, not just as comment-du-jour. The real reference is usually elsewhere, but a lot of us heard it first here.

Guest poster Willis Eschenbach always comes up with fascinating posts. Even his autobiographical posts are remarkable. He's collected An Index to Willis's Writings up to May 2011 and deserves this special entry here.


Titles and Links for the Last Two Weeks

Information here (and in the monthly and category pages) is collected soon after midnight Pacific time (which is WUWT time, at least as far as dates go). The "Recent" column is the number of comments made yesterday and may be most useful for finding older posts that are still active for some reason. Sometimes those reasons are an interesting exchange of information and collaboration. Sometimes it's just two pig-headed bores who don't know when to stop. Sometimes you can't tell the difference!

Daily summary Total WUWT
views to date
TitleCommentsRecent
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 16390,658,495
Seeing an Aurora From the Space Station 33
GLOBAL POPULATION GROWTH 3939
Reality bites Joe Biden’s “Clean Energy Revolution” 5639
Green New Deal advocates: “Pipeline and resource development leads to man camps, human trafficking, and child-porn rings.” 6314
How an Atomic Clock Will Get Humans to Mars on Time 356
Pope Francis Demands The World Implement Carbon Pricing 13214
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 15390,618,329
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY 15013
A Third Look at Radiation versus Temperature 893
No laughing matter 12213
The cost of this net zero madness? Even a trillion is an underestimate 633
Joy Behar: Climate Change Could Prevent Joe Biden From Curing Cancer 840
Why we do nothing to prepare for climate change 1262
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 14 
Extremes 930
Buggy Weather Radar 791
Politics Distorts the Science of Floods 431
Bitcoin causing CO2 emissions comparable to Hamburg 693
A Second Look At Radiation Versus Temperature 1120
“Losing Earth”… Bad SciFi at its best! And a preview of the Green New Deal 882
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 13 
UN Chief Poses For TIME Cover Off ‘Sinking’ Pacific Island Nation That’s Actually Growing In Size 1050
Shutting down middle and blue-collar America 460
How Fear of Nuclear Ends | Michael Shellenberger | TEDxCalPoly 1400
Grassroots Fury at DNC Refusal to Allow a Climate Debate 1200
The great hundred billion dollar+ renewable energy fleecing of American taxpayers & energy users 480
Separating Truth and Misinformation in U.S. Climate Data (Guest: Bob Tisdale) 370
British PM Embraces 2050 Zero Emissions Target 1320
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 12 
Study: Cattle Methane is a moooot point in global climate 860
75 Conservative Groups Oppose ‘Any Carbon Tax’ Days After Mitt Romney Was Reportedly ‘Looking At’ One 810
Light-powered nano-organisms consume CO2, create eco-friendly plastics and fuels 820
UK Proposal: 75% Wage Cut to Combat Climate Change 1940
Earth As A Solar Collector 1630
Citizen scientists re-tune Hubble’s galaxy classification 590
Claim: Tropical Birds will Fail to Adapt to Global Warming 870
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 11 
Electric-blue night clouds are invading the U.S. 530
Trump Administration Should Review Undue Influence of Foundations Funding Tar Sands Campaign says Friends of Science Society 500
The Guardian on Climate Activist Billionaires: “None of them should have as much money as they do.” 1120
PG&E wins court case allowing it to renegotiate $34 billion in renewable energy contracts 890
Mature Galaxy Mesmerizes in New Hubble View 490
Could Dengue Spread in a Warming World? 1260
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 10 
Congress should end electric car subsidies, not expand them 1650
Unusual Cool Temperatures over the Pacific Northwest Leads to Strong Winds and Power Outages in California 540
Pew: Americans Say Fake News Is Bigger Problem than ‘Climate Change’ 830
Meet the drain sock — a simple pollution solution taking the world by storm 970
Did The DNC Reject A Climate Change Debate To ‘Protect’ Joe Biden? 780
First ICESat-2 Global Data Released: Ice, Forests and More 600
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 9389,950,845
Pennsylvania Man thinks roundabouts are causing tornadoes… 1460
In Coal We Trust: The Need For Coal Power In Asia 360
Study: 100% renewables doesn’t equal zero-carbon energy 800
Mike Bloomberg Devotes $500 Million To Kill Coal Jobs, Influence 2020 Elections 1320
Venus at Sunrise From the Space Station 380
The Guardian: Rebuilding Shattered Climate Action Reputations in the Pacific will require Lots of Aid Money 980
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 8389,939,889
Lumir K: Cooking Oil Powered LED Lamp 1360
Populations are not declining and food webs are not collapsing at the Luquillo Experimental Forest 330
Radiation versus Temperature 2210
Ross McKitrick: This scientist proved climate change isn’t causing extreme weather — so politicians attacked 910
Feedback is not the big enchilada 3082
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 7 
Latest Global Temp. Anomaly (May ’19: +0.32°C) A Simple “No Greenhouse Effect” Model of Day/Night Temperatures at Different Latitudes 2340
Don’t Mention the Gigantic New Coal Mine: Al Gore’s Paid Climate Speech Avoids Uncomfortable Local Issues 430
‘Skeptical Environmentalist’ Bjorn Lomborg sets fire to the scourge of ‘unbridled climate alarmism’ 560
New global warming model highlights strong impact of social learning 470
EPA Reassigns Top Bureaucrat That Critics See As Key Resistor Of Trump’s Agenda 330
L. A. Times article on excess California solar incredibly misleading 970
Glacier National Park Quietly Removes Its ‘Gone by 2020’ Signs 3400
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 6 
Glacier National Park Quietly Removes Its ‘Gone by 2020’ Signs 170
Changing minds: How do you communicate with climate change skeptics? 1370
Demystifying feedback. 2750
Anti-Trump AG Sued For Using Bloomberg-Funded Attorneys To Promote A Climate Crusade 280
EIA data shows wind & solar met 3% of U.S. energy after $50 billion in subsidizes 480
El Niño and [its] contribution to 21st Century Warming – interview with Dr. Roy Spencer. 770
The Holocene Sea Level Highstand 630
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 5 
2019 Atlantic hurricane forecast 400
Former communications director, and spokesperson for Al Gore, Named Chief of Content, Communications, and Public Affairs for National Geographic Society. 650
How deep-ocean vents fuel massive phytoplankton blooms 390
New Policy Brief Shows No Evidence of Accelerated Sea-Level Rise 910
‘A Yahoo From Yahoo News’: Trump’s EPA Chief Fires Back At Reporter Who Misquoted Him 590
The moral case for honest and competent climate science 2610
The epic search for oldest ice in Antarctica is starting 370
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 4 
Early lives of Alaska sockeye salmon accelerating with climate change 560
Researchers retract a paper because it turns out not to be about bulls&$# 230
On the Flat Earth Rants of Joe Postma 3410
Climate change could end human civilization by 2050: report 1760
Economists Have Been “Useful Idiots” for the Green Socialists 470
Labor anger over Green New Deal greets 2020 contenders in California 880
WUWT index page for 2019 Jun 3 
Maue on Gore 800
UAH Global Temperature Update for May, 2019: +0.32 deg. C 1500
Reporting the fraudulent practices behind global warming science 2860
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #362 40
Renewables in Retreat? Ohio Democrats Vote to Support Nuclear and Coal Power. 1000
Middle Miocene Volcanism, Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change 1440


Formatting in comments

Neither WUWT nor WordPress provide much documentation for the HTML formatting permitted in comments. There are only a few commands that are useful, and a few more that are pretty much useless.

A typical HTML formatting command has start and end pieces and has general form of <name>text to be formatted</name>. A common mistake is to forget the ending. Until WordPress gets a preview function, we have to live with it.

N.B. WordPress handles some formatting very differently than web browsers do. A post of mine shows these and less useful commands in action at WUWT.

NameSampleResultNotes
b (bold) This is <b>bold</b> text This is bold text Command strong does the same
i (italics) This is <i>italicized</i> text This is italicized text Command em (emphasize) does the same
a (anchor) See <a href=http://wermenh.com>My home page</a> See My home page A URL by itself (with a space on either side) is often adequate in WordPress, e.g. See http://wermenh.com
blockquote (indent text) My text
<blockquote>quoted text</blockquote>
More of my text
My text
quoted text
More of my text
Quoted text can be many paragraphs long. WordPress italicizes quoted text (and the <i> command enters normal text).
strike This is <strike>text with strike</strike> This is text with strike  
pre ("preformatted" - use for monospace display) <pre>These lines are bracketed<br>with &lt;pre> and &lt;/pre>
These lines are bracketed
with <pre> and </pre>
Preformatted text, generally done right. Use it when you have a table or something else that will look best in monospace. Each space is displayed, something that <code> (next) doesn't do.
code (use for monospace display) <code>Wordpress handles this very differently</code> Wordpress handles this very differently See http://wattsupwiththat.com/resources/#comment-65319 to see what this really does.

The following commands appear to work only in replies to comments or in block quotes. There seems to be no explanation of why or how WordPress does this. I assume it's a bug, I assume they meant to prevent these commands from passing through at all. It may be that they let almost anything else through too. Oh my, these only work for me if I'm logged into my WordPress account (they don't work if I use my FaceBook account). It may be they work only because I have the ability to post new articles.

Bottom line: don't expect the following to work....

NameSampleResultNotes
u (underline) This is <u>underlined</u> text This is underlined text Why, WordPress, why?
hr (horizontal rule) <hr>This has hr commands before and after the text<hr>
This has hr commands before and after the text
There's no ending command. You're expected to use <hr /> commands.
h1 <h1>Header size 1</h1>

Header size 1

These are used for section headers in long web pages, so may not be all that useful or welcome on WUWT. On my browser they display large blue sans-serif text.
h2 <h2>Header size 2</h2>

Header size 2

 
h3 <h3>Header size 3</h3>

Header size 3

 
h4 <h4>Header size 4</h4>

Header size 4

Levels 4, 5, and 6 all seem to do the same thing. They display small black text, subsequent text is normal size and hence bigger. In a reply, the header is in a serif font, in a block quote, it's a sans serif font like the rest of the quote.
h5 <h5>Header size 5</h5>
Header size 5
 
h6 <h6>Header size 6</h6>
Header size 6
 

Special characters in comments

Those of us who remember acceptance of ASCII-68 (a specification released in 1968) are often not clever enough to figure out all the nuances of today's international character sets. Besides, most keyboards lack the keys for those characters, and that's the real problem. Even if you use a non-ASCII but useful character like ° (as in 23°C) some optical character recognition software or cut and paste operation is likely to change it to 23oC or worse, 230C.

Nevertheless, there are very useful characters that are most reliably entered as HTML character entities:

Type thisTo getNotes
&amp;&Ampersand
&lt;<Less than sign
Left angle bracket
&bull;Bullet
&deg;°Degree (Use with C and F, but not K (kelvins))
&#8304;
&#185;
&#178;
&#179;
&#8308;

¹
²
³
Superscripts (use 8304, 185, 178-179, 8308-8313 for digits 0-9)
&#8320;
&#8321;
&#8322;
&#8323;



Subscripts (use 8320-8329 for digits 0-9)
&pound;£British pound
&ntilde;ñFor La Niña & El Niño
&micro;µMu, micro
&plusmn;±Plus or minus
&times;×Times
&divide;÷Divide
&ne;Not equals
&nbsp; Like a space, with no special processing (i.e. word wrapping or multiple space discarding)
&gt;>Greater than sign
Right angle bracket
N.B. this is generally not needed

Linking to past comments

Each comment has a URL that links to the start of that comment. This is usually the best way to refer to comment a different post. The URL is "hidden" under the timestamp for that comment. While details vary with operating system and browser, the best way to copy it is to right click on the time stamp near the start of the comment, choose "Copy link location" from the pop-up menu, and paste it into the comment you're writing. You should see something like http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/15/central-park-in-ushcnv2-5-october-2012-magically-becomes-cooler-in-july-in-the-dust-bowl-years/#comment-1364445.

The "#<label>" at the end of the URL tells a browser where to start the page view. It reads the page from the Web, searches for the label and starts the page view there. As noted above, Wordpress will create a link for you, you don't need to add an <a> command around it.

Climate Audit Assistant

Another approach to dealing with this is a Firefox add-on that replaces the edit window with a better one that has buttons for formatting text. It's a two piece install, see the web page for details. It coexists okay with the "It's all Text" extension that lets you send the text in a text edit window to your regular editor.


Contact Ric Werme or return to his home page.

Written 2009 Dec 5, last updated 2014 December 28.