Why would a denier quote material that refutes his position?

Question

(Re-asking, since I thinko'd and typed feet when I meant inches; my mistake, sigh)

I'm genuinely baffled by this. In a recent question, one of YA's prolific deniers mocks another answer which claims sea level in the SF Bay has risen 8 inches in a century. That answerer said:

"The sea level at the Golden Gate has been carefully measured for about 160 years. Sea levels have increased by 8 inches since 1900. Sea level not only are increasing in the long term but change year to year. They are higher in the Pacific in El Nino years than in La Nina years. If you took careful you could probably see it, but has you know it varies hour by hour and day by day depending on tides and weather.

Here is a background on the Golden Gate monitoring in a pdf if you are interested
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/topics/navops/ports/san_francisco_tide_gauge.pdf "

Reading that PDF, it does indeed say "As measured at San Francisco, the ocean level has been rising at the rate of 2.13 millimeters a year, or over eight inches per century."

In righteous reply, the denier said:

"[his] answer is again completely wrong and seems to fly in the face of the actual IPCC and Royal Society with his sea level alarmism... The religious Global Warming sea level alarmism is nothing more than people trying scare people with biblical like stories. The Royal Society actually say that....

"Because of the thermal expansion of the ocean, it is very likely that for many centuries the rate of global sea-level rise will be at least as large as the rate of 20 cm per century that has been observed over the past century. ...""

(he then goes on to cut and paste stock information on oceans from Wikipedia w/o reference)

So this was the Ah-Hah, the Gotcha, the ZING!, the boo-ya! moment. To the silly answerer who asserted that NOAA says sea levels have risen 8 inches (which they did, in fact, say), proof of falsehood was offered in form of vaunted Royal Society literature, claiming... 20cm sea level rise in a century.

How much is 20cm? Just shy of 8 inches. 7.87 inches.

And the Royal Society says what is causing it? Thermal expansion. i.e., warmer oceans.

What is this, cognitive dissonance? Ignorance of the metric system? Is this indicative of the deniers' grasp of the issues, or is this just an outlier?

Jeff M · Accepted Answer

It''s pretty plain to see the he is just here to troll. I mean he regularly copies and pastes other peoples work, he misquotes and lies about data and scientific evidence, and so on even when shown he is wrong. And a few day later he brings up exactly the same point that he had already been called out on. Even though you did correct your original error he ill probably take that error and use it as your meaning and arguing against it, a perfect example of which is in this very thread.

A Modest Proposal · Answer

Cognitive dissonance indeed.  The difference between 20 and 21.3cm/century is too small to be a legitimate basis for criticism against that earlier claim.  Of course, we all know how the RS's report is Richie's favorite document.

>>>The "denier" was making the point that the end point of the century is an outlier do to the strong elnino effect at the end of the century.

The RS report does not say anything about the end-of-year sea level rise. This question is not about the 2010 level, it is about the centennial trend and how the RS report corroborates the rate given by NOAA.

As to the Inconvenient Skeptic article, try looking at the actual data yourself.  The author specifically cherry-picked the set that helped him the most, and without even using all of the data (he's missing about half).  Take a look at the set with the inverted barometer applied (to remove the atmospheric pressure signal), with or without the seasonal signal removed.  The "drop" that occurred within 2010 is virtually indistinguishable from any other year.  Unless, of course, you think it's legitimate to compare an El Nino December with a La Nina one.  The article is crap.

(I also think it is much to your credit, Eric, that you admitted your mistake.)

Noah H · Answer

Stand by for this one:  AL GORE, through his secret society of 'climate change' so called 'scientists has managed to make the accepted length of the 'inch' longer.  It 'looks' like the oceans are thermally expanding', when measured by the GORE INCH, but it's all smoke and mirrors.  There's no proof that there is such a thing as 'thermal expansion' anyway and the terms 'melting' and 'warming' are a part of the 'far lefts' playbook as we all know.   The GOP/Teabag/Fox 'News' Axis will soon be investigating this attempt to promote this communistic 'science and reason' based on these so called 'proven' physics and this so called scientifically collected data.  Thermal expansion is bogus....real scientists like the folks that work for Exxon/Mobile and Shell have proven that...at least to the management of Fox 'News'...and that's the gold standard of scientific truth in America...unless 'yer some kind of commie socialist.   Either the continents are sinking or the ocean beds are rising....as reported by a series of right wing radio dummies who pimp for the oil and coal mafias.  (Oops..I meant the conservative radio hosts who work closely with the scientists who in a truly non-partisan manner monitor the increasingly green oil and coal industries.)  If you really want to know the truth join your local branch of the CO2 Liberation Front, and keep on SUV-ing!

RichardH · Answer

Sorry but your question shows a definite disconnect with math and science.  The "denier" was making the point that the end point of the century is an outlier do to the strong elnino effect at the end of the century.  If you picked different points of reference or did some statistical analysis I would think you might find a smaller increase.  Regardless the oceans levels Are increasing (as might be expected coming out of the "Little Ice Age"), but only a few millimeters per year on average.

Anonymous · Answer

My best guess is that either the person in question genuinely doesn't understand the topic, or they are being purposefully deceitful. In the past, two separate people here (who happen to deny AGW) admitted to being purposefully deceitful in their answers, so I'd tend to lean that way.

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Why would a denier quote material that refutes his position?

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