Major climate study refutes EPA's Pruitt. Ron Johnson, too.

Not that Senator Sunspots cares about science, or facts, or truth-telling - - and he's quoted today with a 'nothing-to-see-here' shrug at Trump's Paris Accord disregard - - but there's always a chance that he stumbles across this newly-documented takedown of the US EPA's lead climate change denier Scott Pruitt and says, 'hey, I guess I better stop saying the same stupid stuff.'

The Washington Post put this headline and lede on the data:

Scientists just published an entire study refuting Scott Pruitt on climate change

In a sign of growing tensions between scientists and the Trump administration, researchers published a scientific paper Wednesday that was conceived and written as an explicit refutation to an assertion by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt about climate change.

The study, in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, sets up a direct test of a claim by Pruitt, made in written Senate comments following his confirmation hearing, that “over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming.”

After reviewing temperature trends contained in three satellite data sets going back to 1979, the paper concludes that the data sets show a global warming trend — and that Pruitt was incorrect.

As NASA put it:

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And I wonder if Johnson remembers saying this?

On the Glenn Klein radio show on Wisconsin’s WRJN on Tuesday, Johnson decided to let the world know his grasp of science is at best tenuous, and he’s more than willing to grease his fingers. As an example, he said this: 

"First of all the climate hasn’t warmed in quite a few years, that is proven scientifically."

PolitiFact did, even without the new study:

Johnson said: "The climate hasn't warmed in quite a few years. That is proven scientifically."

He argues that temperatures rose sharply from the 1950s to the 1990s, then leveled off, but it’s wrong to say there hasn’t been warming in many years. In fact, 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, with the two highest years being 2014 and 2015.

We rate Johnson’s statement False.