MOST scientific sceptics have been dismissive of the various reconstructions of temperature which suggest 1998 is the warmest year of the past millennium. Our case has been significantly bolstered over the last week with statistician Steve McIntyre finally getting access to data used by Keith Briffa, Tim Osborn and Phil Jones to support the idea that there has been an unprecedented upswing in temperatures over the last hundred years – the infamous hockey stick graph.
Mr McIntyre’s analysis of the data – which he had been asking for since 2003 – suggests that scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the Hadley Centre associated with the UK Met. Office have been using only a small subset of the available data to make their claims that recent years have been the hottest of the last millennium. When the entire data set is used, Mr McIntyre claims that the hockey stick shape disappears completely. [1]
Mr McIntyre has previously showed problems with the mathematics behind the ‘hockey stick’. But scientists at the Climate Research Centre (CRU), in particular Dr Briffa, have continuously republished claiming the upswing in temperatures over the last 100 years is real and not an artifact of the methodology used – as claimed by Mr McIntyre. However, these same scientists have denied Mr McIntyre access to all the data. Recently they were forced to make more data available to Mr McIntyre after they published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society – a journal which unlike Nature and Science has strict policies on data archiving which it enforces.
This week’s claims by Steve McInyre that scientists associated with the UK Met. Office have been less than diligent are serious and suggest some of the most defended building blocks of the case for anthropogenic global warming are based on the indefensible when the methodology is laid bare.
This sorry saga also raises issues associated with how data is archived at the UK Met. Office with incomplete data sets that spuriously support the case for global warming being promoted while complete data sets are kept hidden from the public – including from scientific sceptics like Steve McIntyre.
It is indeed time leading scientists at the Climate Research Centre associated with the UK Met. Office explain how Mr McIntyre is in error or resign.
***********
Notes and Links
[1] Yamal: A “Divergence” Problem, by Steve McIntyre, 27 September 2009
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7168
The above chart shows the difference when the entire data set (black line) as opposed to a subset (red line) is used to reconstruct temperature. The chart is accompanied by the following comment from Mr McIntyre: “The next graphic compares the RCS chronologies from the two slightly different data sets: red – the RCS chronology calculated from the CRU archive (with the 12 picked cores); black – the RCS chronology calculated using the Schweingruber Yamal sample of living trees instead of the 12 picked trees used in the CRU archive [leaving the rest of the data set unchanged i.e. all the subfossil data prior to the 19th century]. The difference is breathtaking.”
Mann, Michael E.; Bradley, Raymond S.; Hughes, Malcolm K. (1998), “Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries” (PDF), Nature 392: 779–787, doi:10.1038/33859, http://www.caenvirothon.com/Resources/Mann,%20et%20al.%20Global%20scale%20temp%20patterns.pdf
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy#cite_note-17
CRU Refuses Data Once Again
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6623
http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/09/the-hockey-stick-is-dead/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
On the face of it there will have to be some re-thinking from global warming alarmists. Within the climate change scientific community too, those with doubts should now express those doubts and acknowledge at the very least that the science of climate change is by no means settled.
Much needs to be re-examined, particularly the much loved climatastrophe scenario that has been placed over our heads.
Steve McIntyre can hold his head high, and as one sceptic among many I think we can take a great deal from this reinforcement of our position.
resign???
How about being thrown in jail for an attempt to take over the world?
Or being sued for the cost of the harm they have done with their false “science”. The cost of all the wasted money on alternative energy, rising food prices, physiological damages, especially to little school children.
They are the real climate criminals.
Thanks
JK
It’s just delusionalist deniers manipulating data again. [I just thought I’d get in ahead of the usual suspects]
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11651-climate-myths-its-all-down-to-cosmic-rays.html
Another important piece of work by Steve McIntyre.
It is equally important for people to spread the word via forums, blogs and msm comment sections about this event.
If there isn’t something to hide then why not release all the data everytime all day every day?
This should be cleaned up immediately a proper explanation given or these corrupt people should face court and if found guilty stiff prison sentences should be handed down.
Afterall if anyone in the financial sector cooks the books and costs their fellow citizens billions of dollars they are usually charged and if found guilty they can face prison.
So what is the difference, corruption is corruption and fraud is fraud?
Since this news was released two nights ago, I have been unable to find one mainstream media comment. Elsewhere, a blogger has posted links in the UK Guardian site, only to have them repeatedly removed some minutes later.
Where is ‘Warming Williams’ of the ABC? Where are the rest of the so-called environmental journalists? Maybe they are all filing stories about Piltdown Man, or Dr Macfarlane.
Of course, no comment from our own Ms Wong, Timmy (No Water) Flannery, or other climate experts such as the Rev. Tim Costello and David Karoly.. Perhaps Al will set them right.
Will it be too much to expect a comment from shadows, Mr Gregory Hunt, or Mr Ian MacFarlane, two gentlemen hell-bent on introducing an ETS Tax? Probably.
If these people have been on the public payroll then they clearly have a case to answer in respect of official misconduct. There is a prima facie case of misrepresentation of fact by omission. It appears to have been made with a knowledge of its untruth and with a clear intention that it be acted upon by the policy process. And the fact that “persons”, in this case the crown, have acted upon this absolutely key misrepresentation by way of budget appropriations makes it fraudulent misrepresentation.
The question of fraud does not just rest on whether Briffa, Osborn and Jones have gained a monetary benefit from this deception. The law has been absolutely clear for a very long time that fraud to obtain a benefit for other parties, ie for charity or some other ideal, in no way diminishes the nature of the crime.
This is a matter for the UK public prosecutor.
Brilliant work by Steve, though unfortunately I would suspect that this will only develop in the blogosphere as the MSM and our politicians will ignore it.
Fraud. The entire pile of AGW being sold is fraud.
…the last comment from me seems to have gone astray, but re Donald’s comment above, and the MSM, here’s James Delingpole from the UK Telegraph…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100011716/how-the-global-warming-industry-is-based-on-one-massive-lie/
…and an overview here…
http://mickysmuses.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-global-warming-industry-is-based-on.html
Hunter
Precisely what Nigel Calder said in the Swindle Documentary – that we are simply being lied to.
But why? Easy – do some research on the Fabians, (the termites of the socialist hordes) -you will see that they are driving the AGW agenda, and not impartial science.
The problem is that the Fabians sincerely believe they are saving humanity and hence the control of CO2 emissions is mandatory to save the planet.
Capitalism is actually the Straw Man they created to keep the mob on side – but capitalism died when the US Fed Reserve was created last Century.
The cynic in me suspects that Briffa’s data were let out on purpose since the horses have bolted out in any case. The Fabians control the UK, they now contriol the US, (well almost since the tea-parties are a good sign) and control Canada, India, and Australia. We will get an ETS here in OZ whether we like it or not. (Apparently the Boxer Bill has been leaked in the US according to Junkscience).
But given the ease by which we can communicate and circumvent authrority, I suspect the Fabians might have overplayed their hand.
This is a fraud of epic proportions!
The sponsors of the UN IPCC, the United Nations, and liberal politicians all share the same goal of re-distributing wealth by capping our consumption of energy with a binding international climate change treaty. They are willing to resort to scientific fraud to further their agenda. The links between the global warming movement and socialist goals are numerous, nor should it be a surprise to anyone that the global warming hoax was concocted in the bowels of the corrupt United Nations. Fortunately, hundreds of the world’s leading scientists, and growing in number everyday, are publicly explaining and speaking out against this global warming farce.
I find it amazing that the uptick in the hocky stick’s can be attributed to only 35 trees. What’s more amazing is the author’s claiming their reconstructions are ‘robust’.
The above chart shows the difference when the entire data set (black line) as opposed to a subset (red line) is used to reconstruct temperature.
You can’t understand the case for AGW, and you don’t even understand the case against it. The “black line” is no the entire data set. It is the part that McIntyre claims was deliberately left out. The merged line is on another diagram in green. And he got that wrong too, and had to correct it.
SJT wrote:
Firstly, his data and methods are completely open, so anyone could find a mistake and secondly, he admits and corrects his mistakes, unlike Gore, Hansen, Schmit, Briffa, et al.
Maybe someone here can help me.
Look as I might I can’t seem to find the formula’s that make up the global warming theory anywhere
on the web.
And seeing how the science is so settled I thought they would be so easy to find after all it only takes
a couple of mouse clicks to find Newtons laws of motion or Einstien’s theory of relativity.So with the Earth in such direr trouble I thought they would be everywhere but alas no .
If someone knows could the post a link.
So the only thing I have to go on is that in the last century the CO2 concentration increased by about
33% while the earths temp rose by only about 5%.So if the CO2 concentration doubles in this century that means earths temp will rise about 15% or about 2 deg C.
Another thing that puzzles me is that during WWII factories were working flat out all over the world there were thousands of aircraft operations everyday yet a look at the CO2 concentration during that time shows no sudden increase either during the war or immediately after it.I wonder why that is.
SJT, apparently you approve of preselecting data to fit your agenda??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
SJT
The corrected chart is more in line with what we know historically – note peaks ~ 100, 300, 700 (higher than CWP) and 1100. The CWP is ~ the same as the MWP. The red line is caused by the exposed cherry picked 12 trees. ie it is garbage and smells of fraudulent presentation. The green line makes nonsense of the claim that the studies by Briffa et al show the CWP to be “unprecedented” in 2000 years.
another celebration of the death of the hockey stick? aren t you folks getting tired of this?
The above chart shows the difference when the entire data set (black line) as opposed to a subset (red line) is used to reconstruct temperature.
as SJT pointed out above, (and surprisingly all the “sceptics” who read your article before him missed) this is a pretty serious error Jennifer. especially in an article in which you ask for resignations.
when using all data, you get this graph: (green line)
http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/rcs_merged_rev.gif
this shows recent temperature in this dataset still among the highest in a 1000 (2000) year history.
this looks like a typically denialist tactic again: while Steve wrote a basically reasonable article on CA, being rather careful about conclusions he is drawing, other blogs and especially blog comments by the usual nutcases spin this into the gates of hell opening.
so please do yourself a favour and read what Steve wrote.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7168
you should also read his follow up, about what this means to the spaghetti graph of different reconstructions.
to sum it up (i am trying a sceptical approach here):
there is some data, that was not used in the Yamal (siberia) treering reconstruction. we don t know so far, why other cores were excluded from the analysis.
using the full set (this would be based on the assumption that there was absolutely no reason to exclude any of the data), still shows recent temperatures as being very high.
while a change of the Yamal dataset would change multiple reconstructions among the spaghetti graphs (the Yamal set is used in multiple of them), we don t know the effect so far.
in short, your celebrations might (again) be too early. those who are said to be dead, live the longest.
The corrected chart is more in line with what we know historically – note peaks ~ 100, 300, 700 (higher than CWP) and 1100. The CWP is ~ the same as the MWP. The red line is caused by the exposed cherry picked 12 trees. ie it is garbage and smells of fraudulent presentation. The green line makes nonsense of the claim that the studies by Briffa et al show the CWP to be “unprecedented” in 2000 years.
are you one among those, who call themselves “sceptics”?
to point out just your most basic errors (or at least the worst non-sceptic assumptions):
changes to the Yamal data do NOT immediately make “nonsense” out of the Briffa reconstructions. changes to the Yamal data are changes to the Yamal data.
changes to the Yamal data also give us only information about temperature in Siberia. your follow up conclusions about a global MWP are simply false.
just beautiful, how Jo Nova included a gravestone in her article, and what conclusion she drew from Steve’s wrong graph:
If all the tree rings are combined, the graph looks like this below. (I’ve added the black thick line to the original to make the merged data stand out). Obviously today is not as warm as things were 1000 years ago (at least not in far north Russia), and it’s also clear things have been warming since 1800 in Yamal.
so looking at the revised version of the full graph on Steve’s site, will we see her proclaim:
Obviously today IS about as warm as things were 1000 years ago (at least in far north Russia)
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/09/breaking-news-cherry-picking-of-historic-proportions/
i just love how you sceptics use a sceptic approach to Steve’s article.
The truly concerning thing about this is the sad reflection on the ‘peer review’ system. Did any of the reviewers of the original papers by Briffa et al know how small a sample of tree rings were used? If so did they ask the authors to justify their selection? If they did why was the justification not included in the paper’s discussion section? Whether one agrees with McIntyre’s redrawn graph or not, he surely has a very valid point that there was a selection of data for which no justification was given in the published papers. This should not get through the review process.
I am sadly not surprised by these shortcomings – the slackness of the peer review system has been evident for many years and is not confined to climate change topics – there is a strong tendency for papers by prominent authors to go virtually unchallenged by reviewers who are often close colleagues. On the other hand papers by so-called ‘mavericks’ are put through the grinder. The whole peer review system needs a drastic overhaul .
The other question is: how come any scientists, (on the whole, honorable and professional people) can make this type of fundamental error of cherry-picking data? How do they justify it to themselves?
The answer is that they are portraying a very human trait of seeing things the way they think they should be: if it is their firm belief that global warming is a fact, then it will seem obvious to them that those data subsets that contradict this must be wrong and thus best ignored, while those that fit with the ‘given fact’ of global warming are reliable. Does this not sound like the approach of religiously convinced? I fancy that these errors are caused by zealotry rather than deliberate fraud – and gain acceptance because they fit with the firmly held beliefs of others. This is just the thing that the peer review system should guard against but will only do so if each reviewer takes his task very seriously and approaches a manuscript with scepticism with the aim to find any weaknesses – surely if this had been done the authors would have had to give a full and public account of the way data sets were chosen.
Of course those on the other side of the argument must be equally wary that prior belief does not bias the presentation of evidence against warming.
SOD,
The plots are not of temperature at all but of a standardised “y-axis is in dimensionless chronology units centered on 1, standard in the industry, as are subsequent graphs (but represent age-adjusted ring width). Temperature doesn’t enter into the data set until these ring width chronologies are statistically related to temperature. The ring width chronologies are the building blocks”.
Sod off as one is wont to say.
“……when using all data, you get this graph: (green line)…….
……..this shows recent temperature in this dataset still among the highest in a 1000 (2000) year history…..”
Hmm, the ‘hockey stick’ without a blade isn’t much use.
The claim here seems to be based on text Steve M wrote before he found his error. As far as I can see from the graphs here shown, the two data sets agree almost perfectly up to what looks like about 1970, and diverge after that. So:
1. It actually makes no difference for the period during which you want to make inferences from proxies
2. The divergence comes during the recent time in which proxies are generally less reliable
3. Where some proxies do show results clearly at variance with the instrumental record, that seems not a bad reason for preferring others.
Fraudulent Misrepresentation; Conspiracy to Commit Fraud; and Fraud.
3. Where some proxies do show results clearly at variance with the instrumental record, that seems not a bad reason for preferring others.
You’re no fun. 🙁
Nick; while its occasionally amusing to banter with AGW nazis like sod and little will we all expect more from people like you; are you actually defending Briffa? And could you fully enunciate Steve’s ‘mistake’?
Cohenite
I just waded through the specific blog where the “mistake” was made – it had something to do with the graph, was quickly noted and corrected but did not need any correction to the text. I suspect mountains will be made from this molehill.
Coho, I don’t know what Steve’s mistake was (he doesn’t say), but to his credit, he shows the results before and after, and before there was quite a big difference earlier in 20C, after it seems to be all post 1976.
Defending Briffa? What exactly is the attack? He’s not used some proxies whose inclusion would make no difference in the period when they are needed, but show a post-1976 discrepancy, where we have instrumental data. So?
It seems there’s nothing there.
Nick; while its occasionally amusing to banter with AGW nazis like sod and little will we all expect more from people like you; are you actually defending Briffa? And could you fully enunciate Steve’s ‘mistake’?
What he said was concise and to the point. Did you not read it?
“…..Where some proxies do show results clearly at variance with the instrumental record, that seems not a bad reason for preferring others…..” Nick Stokes 3:11 pm.
If you are reconstructing a temperature history based on proxies, surely you must use the same method of selecting those proxies throughout the series.
You can’t graft the instrumental record onto the tail of a proxy reconstruction nor those proxies which, in your opinion, match the instrumental record (or which suit your preconceived biases).
Nick Stokes,
Your statement 1 is very misleading. One of the points that Steve makes is that the 12 cores provide the blade while the rest of the cores provide a cloud that averages to minimise the variability of the historic record. Adding more cores that do not extend to the modern era will not change the fraud. Adding cores that extend to the current time will simply give the relatively flat record if weighting does not “enhance” the desired trend.
Your statement 2 is meaningless. As we do not have good temperature records for historical times, we can not know whether cores diverge during earlier periods. How do we know the proxies are only less reliable during modern times??? Are you channeling trees now Nick??
Your statement number 3 is a strawman. Please present us with the experiments or studies that prove these trees are actually a useful proxy for temperature under all the conditions they were under for the period of this study!!
Basically, looking at the charts of the individual cores it is extremely difficult to see how a proxy that is highly inconsistent within its family can show us anything about temperature or much of anything else other than their UNIQUENESS!!!!
But hey Nick, thanks for stopping by and spreading your usual biased BS!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
As a scientist for more than 40 years, I am a sceptic. And people like SJT are the reason for my scepticism and their comments reinforce my scepticism . Steve McIntyre displays his work for all to see, makes mistakes (as we all do), apologises for them and corrects them. He is denigrtaed by the likes of SJT for this. On the other hand the alarmist scientists never seem to make mistakes and their apologists say that if they did, then it wouldn’t matter, because the results are robust. They are not open to criticism.
What I see here is alarmist scientists working in secret, with no independent checking and no replication possible. That method is completely counter to my 40 years of experience, where all my work was independently checked (verified), all data and methods were archived and nothing was allowed to be published until it all these checks had been completed, singed off and independently approved. This did not prevent mistakes being made, and they were, but hopefully most were discovered by the independent verification. In addition, my work and methods were randomly audited by internal auditors, customer auditors and regulator auditors.
How can one help being sceptical of the non-scientific methods used by academics and government scientists working in secrecy, not archiving their data and refusing to publish their data and methods so that checking and replication is not possible. How can anyone such as SJT defend these practices?
Nick Stokes,
Your statement 1 is very misleading. One of the points that Steve makes is that the 12 cores provide the blade while the rest of the cores provide a cloud that averages to minimise the variability of the historic record. Adding more cores that do not extend to the modern era will not change the fraud. Adding cores that extend to the current time will simply give the relatively flat record if weighting does not “enhance” the desired trend.
Your statement 2 is meaningless. As we do not have good temperature records for historical times, we can not know whether cores diverge during earlier periods. How do we know the proxies are only less reliable during modern times??? Are you channeling trees now Nick??
Your statement number 3 is also false. Please present us with the experiments or studies that prove these trees are actually a useful proxy for temperature under all the conditions they were under for the period of this study!! Picking a few cores that APPEAR to match the current imagined large uptick in temps in no way validates their use as a temperature proxy.
Basically, looking at the charts of the individual cores it is extremely difficult to see how a proxy that is highly inconsistent within its family can show us anything about temperature or much of anything else other than their UNIQUENESS!!!!
But hey Nick, thanks for stopping by and spreading your usual biased BS!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
As a scientist for more than 40 years, I am a sceptic. And people like SJT are the reason for my scepticism and their comments reinforce my scepticism . Steve McIntyre displays his work for all to see, makes mistakes (as we all do), apologises for them and corrects them. He is denigrtaed by the likes of SJT for this. On the other hand the alarmist scientists never seem to make mistakes and their apologists say that if they did, then it wouldn’t matter, because the results are robust. They are not open to criticism.
Not open to criticism? There are demands around the denialosphere for them to “Explain or resign”, because of allegations that are interpreted everywhere as being for outright fraud. They are to laise with the person at the base of all these allegations. Maybe have a cup of tea and ask if McIntyre has sugar or milk as he publicly pillories them? The denigration is not mine.
hmmmm – so if the peat bogs are a melting, the Arctic ice pack at record lows, the tree line moving north – and the Maccer reconstruction says the temperature is falling off the scale.
Have I missed something?
(anyway back to discharging your Kalashnikovs towards the heavens)
(SJT – well spotted – but let’em dig a bigger hole first – fun to watch them froth about what they don’t know)
SJT: I said “they are not open to criticism”. I obviously should have explained it fully for you. I am talking about critisism on “approved” sites such as RealClimate (I suspect you knew this but were just being disingenuous). Try posting a critical message on RealClimate and you will be censored. Same for the Guardian site in the UK. You however are at complete liberty to post your criticisms here and on other sceptical sites such as WUWT, ClimateAudit, JoanneNova etc. To me the practice of censorship reinforces my scepticism. If you won’t allow free debate, you have something to hide and can’t be trusted.
Thanks for coming luke; “the Arctic ice pack at record lows”
http://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/ees/ees14/pdfs/09Chlylek.pdf
And look who the co-author is!
Nick; with Briffa I was thinking of the 10 years of obfuscation; as for the findings of Briffa, let’s not call it the Hockey-Stick anymore, walking stick or crutch is more pertinent, Tilo sums up the defects of the crutch data and associated antics;
“Beyond the problem of a complete lack of professional ethics among the alarmists, this leaves us with another glaringly obvious problem. When you use the hockey teams reconstructions as they stand, they currently do not support the full 20th century rise in temperature that is given by the surface temperature records. When you remove the cherry picked data from those reconstructions, they show no warming at all.
This means that we either have to conclude that the surface temperature record is wrong, or that the tree ring reconstructions are wrong. If the tree ring reconstructions are wrong, then it is impossible to make the statement that the current climate is in any way unusual. If the surface temperature record is wrong, then the 20th century rise is either not there or it is greatly exaggerated.”
luke
“Arctic ice pack at record lows”
Where do get your mail luke?
must be RC.
SJT:
“They are to laise with the person at the base of all these allegations.”
I suspect Briffa has been put on gardening leave? And what breath taking arroagnce you dsiplay – coming from a lowly scientific officer in the Long Paddock section.
‘I find it amazing that the uptick in the hocky stick’s can be attributed to only 35 trees.’
I think that Craig may have that number wrong. I seem to remember 30 something for the Graybill trees. In any case, the number is still less than 50. That is still amazing. What is even more amazing is the hundreds of trees that were deselected because they didn’t produce the desired effect.
SJT: I said “they are not open to criticism”. I obviously should have explained it fully for you. I am talking about critisism on “approved” sites such as RealClimate (I suspect you knew this but were just being disingenuous). Try posting a critical message on RealClimate and you will be censored. Same for the Guardian site in the UK. You however are at complete liberty to post your criticisms here and on other sceptical sites such as WUWT, ClimateAudit, JoanneNova etc. To me the practice of censorship reinforces my scepticism. If you won’t allow free debate, you have something to hide and can’t be trusted.
I don’t call the hatchet job of McIntyre criticism. He is setting up a public pillory. Watts and Jennifer are demanding the scientists explain or resign. The valid scientific process if you think something is wrong is that you publish something you think is right. Personal issues and accusations are left out of it, as are appeals to emotion. McIntyre isn’t doing that. His mountains, when viewed dispassionately, without the banshee chorus, are revealed to be molehills. What McIntyre is doing is trashing science and the scientific method, and turning into something reminisicent of the Phil Donahue show.
I think that Craig may have that number wrong. I seem to remember 30 something for the Graybill trees. In any case, the number is still less than 50. That is still amazing. What is even more amazing is the hundreds of trees that were deselected because they didn’t produce the desired effect.
Because they were demonstrably wrong could be an alternate explanation.
“the Arctic ice pack at record lows,”
Check your calander Luke, we have moved past 2007.
Hot of the AP press;….
“Many world leaders have expressed support for a proposal that would earmark $100 billion a year for the next decade for concrete actions to curb greenhouse gases and help countries cope with the impact of climate change, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. ”
That is 1 Trillion $ folks this will cripple our enonomies this foolishness has got to stop we must have an unbiased public enquiry so that the people can decide if this type of pork barrel politics is to continue. I do believe in democracy but the public must be properly informed so that they can make their decision. I may not agree with it but if it is a genuine informed democratic decision I will go along with it.
There has not been a single open government public enquiry on this subject anywhere in the world and yet the potential cost is astromonical. The waste of time argument just does not wash with an issue of this magnitude.
The closest we have come is the minority senate hearings in the US which concluded last year in August and the report published in Dec. 700 of the worlds leading experts testified and they were overwhelmingly opposed to the IPCC reports and conclusions.
The global economy is worth 70.65 trillion (2008 est.) (from wikipedia). over ten years, 700 trillion. You are saying that putting muc less than one percent of this to AGW will cripple the worlds economy?
SJT:
“Watts and Jennifer are demanding the scientists explain or resign.”
Anthony Watts has not demanded anyone to resign – merely noted that Jennifer has drawn a line in the sand.
You really have a problem discriminating facts from fiction don’t you Seagull.
SJT:
“The valid scientific process if you think something is wrong is that you publish something you think is right.”
You obviously have no experience with the peer review system in operation today – not surprising as you are not a scientist.
And the mountains and molehill phrase – plagiarism ?
“1. It actually makes no difference for the period during which you want to make inferences from proxies
2. The divergence comes during the recent time in which proxies are generally less reliable
3. Where some proxies do show results clearly at variance with the instrumental record, that seems not a bad reason for preferring others.”
Take a few minutes to review your post and check it for faults in reasoning. I did. What you’re effectively saying is, “well, most of these trees don’t match the instrumental record, but a few of them do, we’ll use those”. Your conclusion should have been, “this population of trees does not correlate well with the instrumental record, therefore my paper should have been about how there is no correlation between the instrumental record and these trees”.
SJT the $1 Trillion is just the transfer payments from the developed to the underdeveloped nations which is what the UN has been after all the time. It certainly is not the full cost and impact on the internal economies of the developed nations which will be many times that figure. So to start quoting world GDP is as usual totally ignoring the relavence of this proposal. If the public were presented with a proposal to transfer this amount of money the governments would be thrown out so a senario had to be developed to fool the public thus the IPCC was created and the CO2 alarmist cult was born. This has been aided by the news media who make a lot of money from alarmist type articles.
How anyone can support such measures which have been justified by fraudulent science without a full enquiry is totally beyond any rational comprehension.
KK
“Your statement 1 is very misleading”
How so – it seems very straightforward to me. We are shown a graph with and without some new data. The graphs seem indistinguishable pre-1976. If there’s a difference, please show where?
Now you seem to be arguing that there’s some issue with calibration. OK, let’s see it.
“Your statement 2 is meaningless. As we do not have good temperature records for historical times…”
This is ridiculous. We’re talking about post-1976. We even have satellites.
“Your statement number 3 is also false.”
Again it seems straightforward. The thermometer record is the reference for proxies. If you have proxies that diverge from it, that’s a reason for doubting them. If they actually told a different story, you might want to investigate that before discarding them. But they don’t.
What flummoxed me about SM’s presentation here was RomanM’s reply to Tom P here. He said the new data they want to include, only goes back to 1782 at best, with over half starting in 1848 or later. So we have cores that have strange behaviour post 1976, no apparent discrepancy in the period where you actually need proxies, and which don’t go back nearly far enough. And Briffa should resign for not using them????
Coho, “Nick; with Briffa I was thinking of the 10 years of obfuscation…”
You’ve had some legal training, and should be able to specify a charge with some particulars, with maybe even a scrap of a case, rather than just resorting to this saying he must be guilty (of something) because he’s been annoying us for so long. What has he actually done here? Why should he resign???
What Nick said.
Further, the choice of proxy records emphasizes those that extend back as far a possible into the past. These cores are pretty short.
And Briffa should resign for not using them????
Yeah, the “explain or” part is just window dressing.
I strongly suspect that our governments know full well that the science surrounding AGW is exceedingly shaky. UHI – 10 years of global cooling – a further 20-30 years of projected global cooling – no HOT-SPOT – a broken Hockey Stick (twice)……………. but that is not the point any more. It is the ‘scare’ that counts.
We have had Global Warming, then Climate Change which now is turing into a debate over the size of the Global Population. The title may change but the scare stories don’t. They are all the same in predicting the demise of humanity at the hands of humanity.
Here is the arguement – if only we could mend our human ways, otherwise the planet is doomed. We need to control our people, change their behaviour, make them act differently.
It was the environmentalists who first muted this strategy to control peoples’ behaviour, “change or die”. Then it was NGOs, then eco-celebrities and big business. Now our governments have control of the fear agenda, much to the chagrin of the Greens.
Governments promoting the fear agenda can change peoples’ behaviour in all sort of ways. Take a good look at China and how it bends the will of the its peoples to suit a particular political leadership. The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution – all promoted by an agenda of fear.
In the west we need look no further that the US, UK and Australia who promoted the War On Terror, a fear agenda that resulted in the deaths of 1 million Iraqis.
Climate Change in the west allows governments much more flexibility, it is a catch all. Floods, droughts, hot summers, cold winters, tsunamis, earthquakes, smaller livestock, you name it – blame it on Climate Change.
Who can protect us from Climate Change? Why our governments! They promise salvation, in return we the people must promise to mend our ways, sacrifice more power to the political classes, pay more taxes, pay higher energy bills, fly less, have less children, eat organic turnips, etc, etc.
As I said our politicians don’t actually believe in the science of Global Warming, but they do believe that scientists are useful idiots in delivering more control over ordinary people’s lives.
As I said our politicians don’t actually believe in the science of Global Warming, but they do believe that scientists are useful idiots in delivering more control over ordinary people’s lives.
Paranoid conspiracy theory.
I have repeatedly asked the Hadley Center questions af fact and asked for explanations of the Greenhouse Effect and the discrepencies in model temperature data and the actual measurements. they always come up with the fudge of being the world experts in modeling so should not be questioned. They have now told me that further questions would not be answered. I have never got past the enquiries office manager who is not a scientist.
“…..It actually makes no difference for the period during which you want to make inferences from proxies…..the divergence comes during the recent time in which proxies are generally less reliable…..where some proxies do show results clearly at variance with the instrumental record, that seems not a bad reason for preferring others…..” Nick Stokes 3:11 pm.
It seems to me that an essential prerequisite for the committed AGW follower is an aptitude for unabashed circular reasoning.
Even if he resigns, he and the climate gang should be trialed in a crime against humanity. Madoff’s fraud is like a little ant here…
Ecotretas
Look at the wankers bite on Arctic record lows. What part of record lows and trend do you not understand amigos. Sorry I meant – denialist scum. The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest extent recorded since satellites began measuring minimum sea ice extent in 1979. While this year’s minimum extent was greater than the past two years, it is still below the long-term average, and well outside the range of natural variability.
Louis doesn’t need peer review as he has “special knowledge”
Anyway scumbots – continue on diverted as the Pacific Ocean and global ice sheets change around you.
So back to firing your kalashnikovs skywards – sorry for you redneck hillbillies it would be M16s from your “cold dead hands”
SJT, Luke and Nick Stokes:
Your attempts at excuses do not wash. There are three issues which you are confusing, but you fail to answer any of them.
The first is the issue of scientific practice.
Briffa is seriously ill with kidney failure and it is to be hoped that he will soon be able to make a full recovery. Assuming he does recover then he will need to defend against a prima facie case of his serious scientific malpractice. That case is as follows.
Data which were in the possession of Briffa have been obtained for scrutiny by the scientific community. This revealed that there was a large data set and Briffa selected from that data set for conduct of his analysis. He published that analysis and its results.
But, importantly,
Briffa failed to state that he had selected from a larger data set
and
Briffa failed to state any criteria he used for his selection.
These failures invalidate Briffa’s analysis. Indeed, they are a severe scientific malpractice that is tantamount to fraud in that they misrepresent the analysis which Briffa conducted.
The second issue is the validity of dendrochronology studies of past climates.
This issue arose when Mann, Bradley & Hughes published their 1998 paper (known as MBH98) that provided the first Hockey Stick. It purported to be an analysis of tree rings (i.e. a dendrochronology study) which showed global temperature was near constant for a thousand years until global temperature rose rapidly through the twentieth century. The resulting graph of global temperature v. time was known as a hockey stick graph because the shape of the graph is similar to the shape of an ice-hockey stick: the near-constant temperature period resembling the handle and the rapid rise resembling the blade of the stick.
The analysis in MBH98 is probably the most discredited analysis in the recent history of science having been shown to be flawed by McIntyre & McKitrick (known a M&M) in a two papers they published in E&E (in 2003 and 2006) and in GRL (in 2005), and the flaws in MBH98 found by M&M were confirmed to be correct by expert committees appointed for the task by the US Senate and the US National Academy of Science.
Perhaps the most serious of the flaws in MBH98 was that the statistical method used by Mann, Bradley & Hughes tends to generate a graph of hockey stick form when provided with any data. Indeed, use of the method to analyse random data in the form of red noise generates a hockey stick nine out of ten times. Hence, obtaining a hockey stick graph by use of that method only indicates the nature of the method, and it indicates nothing about the data that was processed by use of the method.
The IPCC had published the MBH 98 hockey stick in its Third Assessment Report (TAR: 2001). Indeed, the TAR published it in eighteen different places including in its Summary for Policymakers. But Fourth Assessment Report (2007) of the IPCC did not publish the MBH 98 hockey stick and did not mention it because it had been completely discredited by then.
The Wegman Committee had investigated the improper statistics used to generate the MBH98 hockey stick. That Committee reported that there is a clique of researchers who share the same data, jointly publish, and peer review the publications of each other. Mann, Bradley, Hughes and Briffa are leading members of that clique.
The clique continued to publish papers using the same data and the same and similar methods. Indeed, they continued as though MBH98 had not been discredited and supporters of climate alarmism (e.g. ReaClimate.org) promoted a surreal pretence that MBH98 had not been discredited.
But there is a problem with the use of tree rings to determine past temperatures that is more fundamental than the analysis method; viz. trees are not thermometers.
Tree growth is affected by several things including frost damage, variations in water supply, and periods of disease. There is no method to travel back in time to determine if and when growth of a tree was affected by such variables. Hence, the past temperature indications of dendrochronology can vary as a result of the samples of trees which are analysed.
Furthermore, there is a so-called divergence problem. Trees that seem to show a correlation between temperature and growth rate prior to 1970 fail to show the correlation after 1970. This is assumed to be a result of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration fertilising tree growth after 1970.
Whatever the reason for the divergence problem, the problem is severe. If an effect destroys the correlation after 1970 then it cannot be known if that or some other effect destroyed the correlation in times past. Carbon dioxide is not the only nutrient available to trees that varies with time; for example, water does, too.
Even if it is assumed that the observed divergence problem is a function of recent elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and, therefore, it is unique to modern times, it cannot be known that similar divergence has not happened for a variety of possible reasons in the past.
The Briffa analysis provides a variety of results depending on which samples of the available trees are analysed. It does not matter if the variation is large or small because the sampled trees are a convenience sample (i.e. the only data that is available) and is not a random sample so statistical assessments of variance are not valid.
Importantly, the discovery that Briffa used a selection of data from the available data means his analysis is invalid. He did not use all the available data, he did not reject data for any stated a priori reason, and he did not select data for use according to any a priori reason.
Any post hoc explanation for his data selection cannot correct his analysis because post hoc justifications cannot – and do not – overcome a flawed a priori choice of selection (failure to state selection criteria is a very severe flaw).
The Wegman Report is extremely important to this. The clique peer reviewed Briffa’s analysis and agreed publication of Briffa’s analysis. But it is a known fact that they shared the data with Briffa and, therefore, they must have known his data selection was invalid.
Hence, the dendrochronology studies of past climates are now known to be completely invalid. The investigations of MBH98 showed that the dendrochronology studies use statistical analysis methods that provide wrong indications, the analysed data are imperfect, and the divergence problem is unresolved. In addition to all that, the recent disclosure shows that data selection is flawed, and peer review of publications by the clique is worthless.
The third issue is validity of published science papers
The Wegman Report expressed concern at the existence of the clique. And the recent disclosure proves the correctness of that concern. The clique fails to conduct proper peer review but accepts obviously flawed papers for publication. (There is also some evidence that the clique also acts to reject sound papers for publication when those papers oppose the views promoted by the clique, but this is not the place to discuss that).
It is proper scientific practice to ensure that all publications are accompanied by provision of all pertinent data related to that publication. This ensures that readers of the publication can replicate the work with a view to confirming or rejecting it. (Incidentally, this requirement to provide all pertinent data is one reason why most commercial research is not published in public literature).
But several journals have not ensured that publications are accompanied by provision of all pertinent data: M&M have been seeking dendrochronology data from Nature, Science and GRL for a decade.
The Editor of the Transactions of the Royal Society of London has upheld the proper practice of ensuring that all the dendrochronolgy data pertaining to Briffa’s paper are available. This has resulted in the revelations I report above.
Hence, the peer review and data provision practices of several leading scientific journals are now known to be severely corrupted.
Richard
I have repeatedly asked the Hadley Center questions af fact and asked for explanations of the Greenhouse Effect and the discrepencies in model temperature data and the actual measurements. they always come up with the fudge of being the world experts in modeling so should not be questioned. They have now told me that further questions would not be answered. I have never got past the enquiries office manager who is not a scientist.
LOL.
Nick, well, if obfuscate is too hyperbolic for you how about unforthcoming? Let’s be clear that what I am talking about is the reluctance of Briffa and the ‘team’ to be completely transparent about their sources, data and methodology, not just once but many times; in respect of the Briffa and Mann data this is still the best exposition;
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/ohio.pdf
So, that is one aspect of this affair; the other issue is the reliability of the hockey stick as a fair depiction of the temperature history and a basis for concluding, as the whole of the AGW apparatus has done, that latter 1/2 temperatures are exceptional; in that respect I gather this is the nature of SM’s mistake; before;
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/rcs_merged.gif
After;
http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/rcs_merged_rev.gif
Now these before and afters have to be measured in the context of the official Hockey-Stick;
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/RysATMktciI/AAAAAAAAAEI/UW7Bp6Gkcho/s1600-h/Picture+9.png
This official version from TAR has informed the IPCC reports and more importantly the immense publicity given to AGW over the last decade; Briffa, Mann and the ‘team’ must have been aware of this; given this crucial aspect and the consequences weighing on it, to not be completely transparent about the data and methodology was reprehensible.
On reflection I think obfuscate is the appropriate description.
Nick, well, if obfuscate is too hyperbolic for you how about unforthcoming? Let’s be clear that what I am talking about is the reluctance of Briffa and the ‘team’ to be completely transparent about their sources, data and methodology, not just once but many times; in respect of the Briffa and Mann data this is still the best exposition;
After McIntyre’s hatchet jobs on them, and today’s, why would they even give him the time of day. He gets data, and the first thing he does is set the dogs on them.
One million Iraqis were not killed by Americans et. al. Over 900,000 were killed by terrorists. Of the remaining 100,000 most were terrorists. And this is assuming the 1 million figure is correct. It may be an exaggeration. But I will take it as a given for the sake of argument.
And of course had Saddam been in control these last 6 years 100,000 Iraqis would have died at his hands. So really the Americas et. at. were no worse than Saddam and Iraq now has self government. Not up to Jeffersonian standards, but a start.
And currently the death rate is way down. So at some considerable cost improvements have been made.
Can the same be said of proposals to constrict fuel supplies without an economical alternative? Well India doesn’t think so. And the Chinese are still rolling out coal fired electrical plants at a prodigious rate. In fact Chinese CO2 emissions now exceed those of America and will double America’s production by 2015 or 2020.
That of course does not answer why the hockey stick boys seem to have cooked the books.
Tsk tsk, look at all the pathetic believer scum scurrying about attempting to explain away this latest fraud from the AGW fraudmasters. What did I tell you? Every week a new AGW shonk to entertain us. What will it be next week?
AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
He gets data, and the first thing he does is set the dogs on them.
That is how science is supposed to work. You got something against science?
Science is not supposed to be a faith based effort. It is supposed to be robust and capable of withstanding criticism.
Richard “Briffa failed to state any criteria he used for his selection.”
This just isn’t true. He said
“Siberian larch (Larix sibirica) data from the area immediately east of the northern Ural Mountains, previously used by Hantemirov & Shiyatov (2002), were used as the Yamal regional chronology”
He’s using a data set which was previously used in the literature, and has made that clear. So you have to make a case that it was nonetheless necessary for him to use this alternative data. And I just can’t see it.
And all your windy talk of malpractice and fraud is just ridiculous.
Coho, speaking of obfuscation, for heavens sake, why can’t you jusr say what is your case against Briffa?
Nick Stokes:
“Your statement number 3 is also false.”
“Again it seems straightforward. The thermometer record is the reference for proxies. If you have proxies that diverge from it, that’s a reason for doubting them. If they actually told a different story, you might want to investigate that before discarding them. But they don’t.”
Actually I would agree with this. However there is one thing that no-one has picked up – and that is that the discarded records conform to the Polar Urals / Yamal region instrumental records better than the ones selected. The Wattsupwiththat graph
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/rcs_merged_recent1.gif
using the discards from the Briffa version shows that there was a peak in the 40’s and reduction to the 90’s – which is what most of the closest instrumental records show. Check it out for yourself:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
And the merged version probably overshoots the instrumental record…
Cheers
PS: if this comes out as a duplicate sorry
Amost: “using the discards from the Briffa version shows that there was a peak in the 40’s and reduction to the 90’s – which is what most of the closest instrumental records show”
How can you say that? Which records are you using? Briffa et al do that comparison in their Fig 7, and there is a careful description of the station records they use. The agreement is pretty good. Of course, they don’t to the variant set comparison.
Still no comment from RealClimate and CRU.
Thay say that a picture can paint a thousand words.
It would appear that while trees can truly speak volumes, a broken Hockey Stick can silence the entire climate community.
The Fear Agenda is quietly slipping away.
That is how science is supposed to work. You got something against science?
Science is not supposed to be a faith based effort. It is supposed to be robust and capable of withstanding criticism.
Science works by publishing papers. These papers do not, and are not allowed to, contain personal attacks and inferences, or emotional appeals. That is not an accident or habit, it is deliberate. McIntyre is turning science into an internet version of the Phil Donahue show.
Still no comment from RealClimate and CRU.
Thay say that a picture can paint a thousand words.
It would appear that while trees can truly speak volumes, a broken Hockey Stick can silence the entire climate community.
The Fear Agenda is quietly slipping away.
Is there some reason they are required to respond to every internet rant?
Yeah Luke, the world is clearly burning to a grisly and near term end, witness the increasing antarctic ice extent, massive arctic ice extent recovery, falling global sea surface temps, etc, etc,etc, and now laid bare is the deception of the claim that kicked this whole loony situation off, but all you can come up with is more oooga booga…..
Indeed the current fraud (what are we up to now, AGW fraud #265 or thereabouts?) must be serious. We’ve even got the heavy AGW fundamentalist cockroaches like Eli Rabbit and Nick Stokes making their rapid appearance to deny the obvious. They are probably practicing their chops over here getting ready for questions on the believer blogs. You can never beat Nick Stokes, he’s the runaround genius of all time that’s for sure. The subject must be a bit technical for Lukey. His entertaining believer rant was as content free as usual, but at least he called Kalashikovs by their correct name.
” Is there some reason they are required to respond to every internet rant?” From CJT 30/9/09 @9:17pm.
No reason at all CJT. Unless they want to preserve some modicum of their reputation, which by now is pretty much trashed. All without any significant or meaningful response.
Lets say that the critics are wrong. Perhaps so. But if that is the case, then the AGW team should easily be able to mount a refutation.
The ‘silence of the lambs’ is surely telling us something.
Nick: “How can you say that?”
Because I looked at most of the GISS sites in the Polar Urals and the Yamal regions – and none of them REMOTELY look like the last 50 years (1940 – 1990) of the Briffa reconstruction. Most have the 40’s at similar temperature to the 90″s – and some have the 40’s even higher than current.
I don’t have access to the paper… Can you tell me which stations were used by Briffa? Or can you tell me which stations in the Polar Urals / Yamal regions replicate the temperatures in the Briffa proxy?
Like I said – anyone can have a look for themselves and make their owh mind up:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
cheers
he he. – you’re kiddin 😉
Nick, what do you want, a formal complaint lodged in the magistrates’ court? At least Briffa had a touch of the Jimminy Crickets;
“These results are superficially consistent with the expected patterns of increasing high-latitude warming suggested by GCM simulations of possible future climates under enhanced atmospheric GHG emissions. However, a simple analysis of one such experiment, under natural and GHG forcing for the last 250 years, while showing consistently increasing concordance between simulated temperatures in the regions of our chronologies, failed to produce results that could be distinguished from the results of a similar experiment driven only with natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) forcings.” [from conclusion]
he he. – you’re kiddin 😉
Do you know how much **** about AGW is put up on the web every day by denialists? All of it a waste of time, much of it abusive.
Amost – the paper is freely accessible at the link I gave. The stations used are described in Appendix A and listed in Table 2.
little will, I fear it is AGW which is **** as you so elegantly put it.
“Is there some reason they are required to respond to every internet rant?”
No, but how come these bastards are still not forced to produce their data and methods? Why aren’t these wank magazines like Nature and Science getting their act together? It is FRAUD, pure and simple, not to produce data and methods for any climate paper whatsoever. How on earth do these fraudulent elitist shitheads deserve any respect at all until they are forced to conform to this basic, square one requirement?
Dog whistle politics at it’s finest. McIntyre never mentions the word fraud, but that is what is racing around the denialosphere.
“Do you know how much **** about AGW is put up on the web every day by denialists?”
yup – do you know how much **** about AGW is put up on the web by idiots like you?
check your daily news.
In any event Nick the merged graph simply does not support AGW;
http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/rcs_merged_rev.gif
Oddly the hottest period is now at 250 AD; wasn’t that the RWP?
Did someone mention criminal negligence?
Slightly off-topic: BOMs POAMA model shows a steady warming with SST remaining above El Nino thresholds into early 2010, peaking over the summer months. SOI is a neutral plus 3.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
The hot money is going into heating oil, because a weak El Nino is reckoned to cause a cold north-east USA.
In any event Nick the merged graph simply does not support AGW;
http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/rcs_merged_rev.gif
Oddly the hottest period is now at 250 AD; wasn’t that the RWP?
that is not the merged graph. this one is the real one:
http://img80.yfrog.com/img80/1808/schweingruberandcrud.png
the difference to the original one is tiny.
your “merged” graph is the result of leaving out the most recent data, because Steve considers it “tainted”.
the hottest period in the fully merged graph is now.
Nick Stokes
Some of the dendro data counts diverge upwards, some downwards in the instrumented era as Steve shows.
How is it valid to assume that this did not happen before the instrumented era?
How is it valid to assume stationarity, given that we cannot show it today?
Here is a summary by a noted dendroclimatologist, dated 2007, with a couple of non-critical paras removed for brevity:
Rob Wilson wrote:
“Hi
“I think we (the dendroclimatologists at least) have to be careful
here. With regards to the ‘divergence problem’, I actually think we
are talking the same thing.
Some sites show it, some sites don’t.
Some trees show it, some trees don’t.
It essentially all comes down to ecology and limiting factors and how
they may both change through time.
It seems dangerous to me to ‘pick’ only those trees that fit the
instrumental record from a site.
“The BIG issue here is, if the trees fail to model modern warming,
then can we trust them in the past during periods that COULD also
have been similarly as warm (e.g. the MWP). Although we can ‘pick’ in
the present, we cannot ‘pick’ in the past.
“My personal opinion is that it will be difficult (but maybe not
impossible) to address this issue using current standard approaches
(i.e. use of RW and MXD which need to be detrended in some way).
“Phil Jones, Mike Mann and Anders Moberg have tried to combine
different proxy types. It is easy to criticise these past studies,
but we must face the fact that solely sticking to just tree-ring data
might not provide us with a final robust answer.
Rob”
Note that assumption, even from him, that there is “modern warming”. This leads to circular logic, because warming is relative and if old proxies are warm and correct, there is no modern warming. But very many of the publicised proxy studies are based on just these dendroclimatology difficulties.
The science of the dendroclimatologists is in deep disarray. It is inconceivable that prudent people could continue to publish, after knowing the reality and severity of the divergence problem and still call themselves scientists.
Much of the “oh gosh” rattling round the blogs just now was stock in trade in the 1960s when I was cutting my teeth on growth responses of plants.
Geoff.
i simply love what Nick wrote over at watts:
Can someone explain what the “scandal” is? We’re shown a graph which shows the effect of including some data that Briffa didn’t use. And as far as I can see, up to 1976 whether you include it or not makes no visible difference. After that, there’s a big difference, but we don’t need proxies to determine the temperature when we have satellites.
These new cores can be found . Some go back to 1782; most start 1848 or later. Not much use in a 2000 year chronology!
So there are some new proxies, which offer little extra info, and that make no perceptible relevant change, and which behave divergently in the recent instrumental period. And Briffa should resign for not using them????
ps: Jennifer, could you please remove the entirely false claim, that the black line represents the entire data set?
pps: $5 to the person, who can point out a sceptical reply by a sceptic to this episode, written on this blog before my post!
The Luke ensemble claims that the Arctic ice is ‘outside the range of natural variability’.
Luke is, as usual, just making stuff up.
There is no proof that what been measured over the last 30 years is in any way outside of the range of natural variability.
But it is instructive that the rudest, least informative of the AGW true believers would seek to change the subject from the Lysenko-esque level of fraud used by the AGW promoters to fabricate evidence for climate change.
The issue is not the ice, dear Luke.
The issue is that you and all other true believers have bought into fraud posing as science.
And like the good little Stalinists who rallied around Lysenko, you would rather do anything besides deal with that.
sod,
Rationalize away. Your side committed fraud, hid data, and lied about it.
Game, set match.
Nick Stokes:
“the paper is freely accessible at the link I gave. The stations used are described in Appendix A and listed in Table 2.”
I thought we were discussing the Briffa 2000 paper. I also thought the issue under discussion was the fact that Keith Briffa selected a dozen ring chronologies which showed a significant uptick in the latter part of the century whilst rejecting others which showed to opposite?
Nevertheless, using the data from the Briffa et al 2008 Fig 7. and comparing it to the GISS record as below:
http://i34.tinypic.com/330wvih.jpg
we see that though there are differences which may be attributable to the fact that only July and August means were used – there is no late 20th Century Hockey Stick.
Which is the entire point of this entire discussion.
I go back to my argument that picks up on your point that “The thermometer record is the reference for proxies. If you have proxies that diverge from it, that’s a reason for doubting them.”
By that standard the dozen proxies used in Briffa 2000 Yamal series should have been the ones rejected as they DON’T conform to the thermometer record.
Unless of course they were picked such that:
“These results are superficially consistent with the EXPECTED PATTERNS OF INCREASING HIGH-LATITUDE WARMING SUGGESTED BY GCM SIMULATIONS of possible future climates under enhanced atmospheric GHG emissions.” 🙂
cheers
sod,
Rationalize away. Your side committed fraud, hid data, and lied about it.
Game, set match.
you folks sound a little bit too hysteric, for a “game set match” situation.
basically we are watching just another “the hockey stick is dead” euphoria fall apart.
sod, source of your ‘real’ merged graph?
Tom P. he is using Steve’s data, just with the original 12 trees after 1990.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/29/more-broken-hockey-stick-fallout-audit-of-an-audit-of-an-auditor/
It was therefore rather strange that towards the end of the reconstruction the 12 living trees were excluded only to be replaced by 9 trees with earlier end dates.
I asked Steve what the chronology would look like if these twelve trees were merged back in, but no plot was forthcoming. So I downloaded R, his favoured statistical package, and tweaked Steve’s published code to include the twelve trees back in myself. Below is the chronology I posted on ClimateAudit a few hours ago.
Should Steve explain or resign?
sod, you’re an idiot.
Nick,
Also – I’m sure that Keith Briffa would have read HH Lamb’s “Climate Present Past and Future” (after all which climatologist hasn’t?) and so Keith Briffa should have been familiar with existing long Polar Urals tree ring chronology described in that book.
http://i37.tinypic.com/10z3biq.jpg
Given the above tree ring chronology was published in the 60’s, then it is likely that it finishes at the time the instrumental / thermometer records were at their highest (as confirmed in Briffa 2008 Fig 7 and GISS?).
If the thermometer temps to date did not exceed those in the middle of the last century, then I can’t see a hockey stick there – and in fact I see a distinct MWP that is as warm (if not warmer) than the current Polar Urals temp. This also completely contradicts the Briffa et al 1995 claim that 1032 was the coldest year in the last millennium. (NB: Same type of tree used!)
Whilst I would not go to the extent of calling for Keith Briffa’s blood as our host is doing, it nevertheless appears that he has been caught out not doing good science… and therefore some explanations are in order.
And if these aren’t satisfactory on the prima facie evidence – then this puts all the other studies dependent on this chronology in shadow of doubt… And then the fun really begins. 🙂
cheers
Soddy: “you folks sound a little bit too hysteric, for a “game set match” situation.
basically we are watching just another “the hockey stick is dead” euphoria fall apart.
Are we watching the believersphere turning into the denialosphere? This seems to happen every time a new AGW fraud is uncovered. Why not call up the Deny-A-Fraud hotline, where for a per-minute fee, attractive sounding AGW believer chicks will provide emotional assistance to distraught denialists.
Ah yes – the gentle rant of the denialist scum – like a steady hum from the denialist hive.
This sort of stuff is priceless “Why aren’t these wank magazines like Nature and Science getting their act together?” – who’s a looney tune then. Who’s popped a valve.
Of course you might like E&E standards.
“Rationalize away. Your side committed fraud, hid data, and lied about it.
Game, set match.”
“Your side” – you friggin goon ! “Your side”.
HEY Huntsbum – well ya gonna have to lock up most of the denialist scum with those charges. Don’t licence guns – licence denialists.
What amazing froth – what a mega-wank. The mechanism behind the tsunami is the sheer South Pacific density of Aussie and NZ denialists all getting into an onanist mantra at the same time.
Guys this is a 3rd order issue – as if it even matters in the scheme of things
0.0001% of the AGW territory. And as I said while you’re all off diverted having a froth here you’ve missed all the main news. But hey – denialists are always on the wrong horse.
Come on guys – you’re not angry enough – get yourselves really really worked up. Hey better still – don’t even ask any questions – form a lynch mob.
HEY WAIT A MINUTE !
Sod’s link – “It looks like the Yamal reconstruction published by Briffa is rather insensitive to the inclusion of the additional data. There is no broken hockeystick.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/29/more-broken-hockey-stick-fallout-audit-of-an-audit-of-an-auditor/
Ya got nuttin’
This sort of stuff is priceless “Why aren’t these wank magazines like Nature and Science getting their act together?” – who’s a looney tune then. Who’s popped a valve.”
Yes I confess it was a bit over the top, Lukey. Nobody in their right mind would expect these wank magazines to get their act together.
luke, sod is an idiot because he didn’t read the whole article where his ‘real’ merged graph is junked; didn’t you either?
Yep – I think the whole thing is a contorted stats wank. McIntyre needs to stop trial by blog with the latest thing he has dreamed up and start publishing – otherwise when it comes to the final analysis – all worthless.
So now they scream “anti-science” and the Meltdown Mann samples just don’t add up.
If he really wants to fake enthusiasm for peer review, when will the ones reviewing his original work speak out? Why did the “tree ring circus” get published?
Coho – the whole thing is too quick for words. And too slick. Tom P is still going. 90% of the ultra-stupid goons that have formed a lynch mob don’t even know what they’re supporting. They’d hump anything with anti-AGW painted on it. Zero discrimination. Moronic behaviour.
Yep I think all this paleo stuff has hairs on it. Very difficult. And remember – Macca himself does not know whether the MWP was warmer than today. It’s simply a case of proven or not enough. He essentially doesn’t know.
Nick Stokes:
You wrongly assert to me:
“Richard “Briffa failed to state any criteria he used for his selection.”
This just isn’t true. He said
“Siberian larch (Larix sibirica) data from the area immediately east of the northern Ural Mountains, previously used by Hantemirov & Shiyatov (2002), were used as the Yamal regional chronology”
He’s using a data set which was previously used in the literature, and has made that clear. So you have to make a case that it was nonetheless necessary for him to use this alternative data. And I just can’t see it.”
Sorry, but your claim supports my statements that you dispute.
I said:
“Data which were in the possession of Briffa have been obtained for scrutiny by the scientific community. This revealed that there was a large data set and Briffa selected from that data set for conduct of his analysis. He published that analysis and its results.
But, importantly,
Briffa failed to state that he had selected from a larger data set
and
Briffa failed to state any criteria he used for his selection.
These failures invalidate Briffa’s analysis. Indeed, they are a severe scientific malpractice that is tantamount to fraud in that they misrepresent the analysis which Briffa conducted.”
It does not matter that Hantemirov & Shiyatov (or anybody else) had used that selection: perhaps that is all the data that was available to them.
But it does matter that Briffa had the full data and chose to use a sub-set of it for an unstated reason. His paper could, for example, have claimed that he used that sub-set for comparison to Hantemirov & Shiyatov (2002) but, of course, that comparison study would have been a different study for a different purpose than the paper Briffa published.
Clearly, you have not grasped the point, so compare these two statements:
“We analysed the available data”
and
“We analysed a selction from the available data but we are not stating our reason(s) for making that selection and we will not allow others to see the data we chose not to use.
Can you not understand the difference?
The statement of a prima facie case of scientific malpractice against Briffa is not – as you assert – “ridiculous”: it is simply fact.
Richard
LoL…. Good grief. Sod, Luke, SJT, etc are completely spinning out of orbit over Steve McIntyre’s masterful Audit of Briffa’s Yamal series and it’s cherry picked data….
It is almost embarrassing to watch them doing their emotional meltdowns on this public forum…. But it is too entertaining not to read their childish responses….
….. Anyway, it looks as if the Hockey Team have really done themselves a mischief this time. Most of them rely on Briffa’s Yamal archive being in their results…. Now it’s gone poof!
And they tried to hide it from the public too…. tch tch.
Group (Luke), a note from an avid lurker. Recently your inputs have been really, really scientifically useless. Please get your act together so as to add some merit to your comments or just drop out of the discussions. I have just stopped reading your commentary. Why waste my time with blather?
As to the point of the article. This is not the end of the AGW issue, but is the end of the dendro-community alarmist inputs. I suspect it will also limit and significantly improve future proxy reports.
The real bottom line: The current peer review process is so flawed as to be useless for real science. Open submissions are potentially superior. (Please note the caveat)
SJT says:
The global economy is worth 70.65 trillion (2008 est.) (from wikipedia). over ten years, 700 trillion. You are saying that putting muc less than one percent of this to AGW will cripple the worlds economy?
You innumerate, it will have a massive impact over 100 years which is the standardized period people are looking at.
75.6 billion growing at 3.5% over 100 years means world GDP is $2,358 trillion in 2109.
Lower the projection to 2.5 % over the same period and it becomes $893 trillion.
The difference is a staggering $1,468 trillion.
It’s people like you that give alarmists a bad name.
I think resign will be the minimum. I would not be surprised if major lawsuits are initiated worldwide for damages etc… once the reality of this sinks in. I still think it will take a few more days or weeks. The AGW are of course hoping this will go away with time.. so no discussion on this allowed. Im sure this is their policy currently. There is no choice for them now.
Says CoRev and J Hansford (and must we be so formal) as slavish muppets who don’t even understand what’s being discussed. Just keep up the rhythm in the denialist conga line lads.
Cha cha cha – cha – cha – cha …. off you go.
“I have just stopped reading your commentary. Why waste my time with blather?” you’re still responding CoRev – you can’t help yourself. Stop trailing around in my wake like Hunter does.
And what a beauty “And they tried to hide it from the public too…. tch tch.” – yes we’ve got a direct line to Briffa and the WORLD Conspiracy Headquarters – as if – take a hike mate.
“The statement of a prima facie case of scientific malpractice against Briffa is not – as you assert – “ridiculous”: it is simply fact.” says the coal industry. Ho ho ho ho. Trust us ! Yea sure. The old wild west lynch mob mentality certainly sums up the denialist position.
Luke: Tom P’s work has been shown to be flawed. Th stick is still broken.
See: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/audit-of-an-audit-of-an-auditor/
It appears a vital part of the air supply to the little room the Luke ensemble inhabits has been compromised as they are reduced to babbling.
Yes, ‘Luke’, your side. The side of extremists and hyperventilation and fraud.
The side of idiocracy.
The side of profiteers.
The side of losers.
I am sure in government worker land, hiding data, losing data, and denying proper access is OK, but in in the world of ethics and science, it is not OK.
Check the O2 level, Luke. You all have been so worried about CO2, but seem to be suffering from anoxia.
No it’s not Jack M – you wouldn’t know. Citing a some partisan trash site as evidence . ho ho ho ho.
That’s right Hunts-bum – get yourself all worked up – let it all out. Every irrational mad thought – you can show us what denialists are like (even though Coho is cringing). Keep trailing around in my wake trying to keep up.
There is a big and brand new financial bubble behind, when carbon credits to natives amazon forests owners it is about US$3.-per hectare and carbon share share price is US$137500 per the same hectare.
The Hockey Stick is a fraud and as such it must be treated by the scientific community. I’m not talking against the scientists who committed fraud; I still give to them the chance of doubt for idiocy.
Luke
Citing a some partisan trash site as evidence . ho ho ho ho.
Real nice. So I suppose you also think it’s acceptable to perform a sensitivity analysis using ONLY the original data. Tom P’s work is meaningless.
BTW: The R code is turnkey or aren’t you able to figure that out.
Luke,
If your ensemble thinks I am the one letting out irrational thoughts, well, I will just let all of your gang keep pleasing yourselves in that, and in any other way, you please.
And do check the air feed. You might suffer the fate of David Carradine:
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=7763422&page=1
And yes, of course your dismissals and denials are definitive. In AGW land it is OK to hide data, cherry pick, ignore data that does not support you, toss out evidence, and have only people who are your colleagues as reviewers. As if.
The Mann et al. hockey stick was not .0001% of AGW debate from the public policy point of view. It was one of the most persuasive and alarming indications that the current warming trend, at least until 1998, was not normal. And indeed the spike at the begining of the industrial period was also profoundly persuasive as to mankind’s contribution.
The criticism of the statistical methodology used to produce the graph was enough in my view to take Mann et al’s conclusions with more than a grain of salt. Even more suspicious, to me, was their dogged refusal to share the raw data.
Now we know why. The raw data included in the study was cherry picked either by agenda or an artifact of simple bias. The total data indicates the opposite conclusions, and the populace and policy makers need to be made aware of this before decisions are made that will have real world effects on their economies, their lifestyles, and their freedom.
“Comment from: Luke September 30th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Ah yes – the gentle rant of the denialist scum – like a steady hum from the denialist hive”
Spoken like the good little Warmonger you are. Reality must be such a bitch for you folks.
Go Luke go, your rants are just more proof that real data and verifiable science will,in the end, win out over hysterical religious beliefs.
Luke, SJT, etc,
What has become clear is that the Yamal proxy data set as used by Briffa et al is unbelievably small and as such it cannot be used to make any inferences about past climate. If I am building a taper function or a volume function for a localised area I must incude a far greater sample of trees, dispersed throughout the area in question, to ensure that I have a truly representative sample. A dozen or so trees without a representative spatial spread, is a pathetically small sample size and therefore renders the study of interest only, but not definitive as a proxy for the area in question.
Anyone who has any understanding of the variation that exists throughout a stand of trees understands this.
Mr Luke is really crapping his pants over this, and his panic is justified.
Today it feels really great to be part of the vast right wing conspiracy.
(That’s denialist scum to you Mr Luke.)
sod, you’re an idiot.
a very good argument cohenite.
why don t you simply point out the error in my claim?
———————–
that is not the merged graph. this one is the real one:
http://img80.yfrog.com/img80/1808/schweingruberandcrud.png
that is the graph, that includes all the data. you might argue, that it is not a good idea, to include all the data.
the very same people, who accuse Briffa of massive fraud, for not including every single data point available on earth in his analysis, are completely silent, when Steve removes the most recent data from those 12 cores.
scepticism at its best!
Question: The hockey stick purports to represent global average temperature. How could a small sample of tree rings have any influence one way or the other? How do historical SSTs get approximated by Mann et al? Just wondering
hm, lost a line there:
that is not the merged graph. this one is the real one:
http://img80.yfrog.com/img80/1808/schweingruberandcrud.png
that is the graph, that includes all the data. you might argue, that it is not a good idea, to include all the data. BUT that does not change the fact, that it is the graph including all the data. the real merged graph.
Hi Luke,
Bet the team don`t publish any more studies in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,
Talk about shoot yourself in the foot.
It appears Briffa is not very well or he is in hiding.
Question: The hockey stick purports to represent global average temperature. How could a small sample of tree rings have any influence one way or the other? How do historical SSTs get approximated by Mann et al? Just wondering
Nick did post a link to one of the Briffa papers above.
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1501/2269.full
the abstract says:
This paper describes variability in trends of annual tree growth at several locations in the high latitudes of Eurasia, providing a wide regional comparison over a 2000-year period.
the paper is really interesting to read. a lot of detail and just nice to look at the work of real scientists, occasionally.
but to answer your question:
in short, denialists don t care all too much about global and local effects. anything showing not a hockeystick form must be global, to them.
CA also has a post about the effect of a change to Yamal data and the effect on the spaghetti graph of different reconstructions. take a look and don t get confused: the effect is mostly based on assumptions.
Sod wrote:
I just love how you alarmists dismiss any sceptical arguement that even hints at cherry picking, yet in alarmist papers, such cherry picking “doesn’t matter”. To extend that line of thought, it’s also appropriate to point out that the sceptical arguement also has a number of lines of evidence that also create a mosaic, and that “demolishing” any single line of evidence does not significantly reduce the content of this mosaic any more than “demolishing” a single alarmist paper significantly reduces the content of the alarmist mosaic. And while if I had to bet real money on it, I’d probably be more likely to back the alarmist position, it’s far from settled and I would not be surprised to see the consensus position change over the next decades and even centuries as more data becomes available and our understanding of this complex topic increases. A complete reversal is not unheard of in such situations, if history is any guide.
Nick Stokes wrote:
1) if you do not have an a priori reason for selecting these series as proxies from the population of other series of a similar nature (ie, this tree, but not that tree – and that seems to be the case here) then it is reasonable to assume that such proxies are poor indicators of the actual “real” measurement you are proxying.
2) if the number of such “selected” series is low in terms the total amount of series available (and that seems to be the case here), then it is reasonable to assume that the ones you have selected match your “real” data simply by chance.
3) if the “divergence” remains unexplained, or only tentatively rather than quanitatively explained (as seems to be the case here), then you would need to offer an explaination of why such divergence was not possible in the non-instrumental period – something that appears not to have been even attempted in this case.
Taken together, these facts indicate to me that such a reconstruction is very far from “robust” and reliable.
And keeping the part you like, while “chopping off” the part with the divergence problem, rather than showing all the data and explaining why the divergence “doesn’t matter” is highly misleading – some might say fraudulent.
Ah yes “In denialist land it is OK to hide data, cherry pick, ignore data that does not support you, toss out evidence, and have only people who are your colleagues as reviewers.
Tell us lads – doesn’t that sound so denialist. You lot are so philosophically warped that you can’t even tell anymore. But hey froth and rant on – any diversion allows some serious work to get done.
Look – quick – over there – another 0.00001% rabbit.
put down that mirror Luke – you look stupid in it.
Good overview from Andrew Orlowski at the Register here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/29/yamal_scandal/, and referencing Bishop Hill’s modest background filler here http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/29/the-yamal-implosion.html
Sod, “Question: The hockey stick purports to represent global average temperature. How could a small sample of tree rings have any influence one way or the other? How do historical SSTs get approximated by Mann et al? Just wondering”
Is a very good question which I was thinking about even before I read it. Your answer?
“but to answer your question:
in short, denialists don t care all too much about global and local effects. anything showing not a hockeystick form must be global, to them.”
I’m actually spending far too much time lately reading everything on this site because it is not only very interesting but an excellent resource for someone like me who doesn’t have ready access to the quality of material that you guys do.
Having said that, I’m genuinely disappointed with yours and Luke’s responses to this topic because I do prefer to read both sides of the argument.
Perhaps Nick Stokes could supply an answer to the above question as he seems to be the most willing to provide detailed rational argument.
Thanks, Richard S Courtney September 30th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
The “The second issue is the validity of dendrochronology studies of past climates……” section of your response was very helpful and answered a few nagging questions I had on the subject such as the one above.
Richard S Courtney:
Hantemirov & Shiyatov’s paper was about how increased CO2 boosted larch growth, NOT about increased temperatures. Briffa made the correlation that increased CO2 = increased temps without any evidence to support the claim, and thus claimed the CO2 boosted ring widths were temperature boosted ring widths. Briffa cherry picked 12 out of several dozen cores available in the 90’s, and when a lot more cores came available in 1999 they Briffa quietly ignored the new data because there were no sets worth cherry picking. Read “The Yamal Implosion” for a laymans view of the whole drama. I think this whole opera demonstrates that Briffa needs to go back to doing Jerry Garcia impersonations for a living.
A comment from CoRev on refereeing standards caught my eye. Having had a few intriguing experiences with referees, I have pondered the referee process, and wondered if we can’t do better. Wiki has an interesting article on The Wisdom of Crowds. Francis Galton, in the 1800s, noticed that, in a fairground guessing game, the weight of an ox was best estimated by the mean of the individual guesses. Yet not all crowds are wise. Independence of thought is an essential element. Where there is peer pressure, herd instinct, or even collective hysteria, group judgements can be wildly wrong. Any’ow, ‘ave a read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds
Sorry, I forgot to give credit to James Surowieki, the author of The Wisdom of Crowds.
Luke,
Please let our hostess call the emergency med techs for you. I think you all have been cooped up so long the anoxia may become life threatening. You are unable to string together complete sentences now. That implies a collective IQ approaching the ~90 range, and declining quickly.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/living_with_brain_injuries/45430
If any of you are twitching more than usual, it may be a seizure. That mans irreversible damage is possible, and you all have little to spare. Hurry! Get help fast!
I hope you all avoid your jobs in a well serviced place, because a large group of brain damaged bureaucrats may overwhelm a small ER.
Let’s hope we can look forward to the guilty parties being charged over this matter before very long.
That this data has provided support for those who would tax, close down industry, and profit from trading in ridiculous ‘offsets’, is sufficient to have its authors well and truly in court.
Do any of the lawyers here know the grounds for bringing on criminal negligence charges?
El gordo – is that so we can stitch up all the lying denialists ?
SJT, Luke , sod et al.
I’ve been reading this blog for while now and have an open mind on AGW, but you lot do nothing to advance the argument. In fact, the tirades of abuse towards anybody daring to disagree with your position makes me wonder if you really have any argument to put forward. You are like a 5 year old in a supermarket who’s Mum won’t let him have a Mars bar.
Stop chucking the wobblies and engage in discussion or you will succeed in confirming there is no science to support your position.
In a nutshell, Steve McIntyre has discovered that only 12 trees have been used out of a much larger dataset of tree ring data. When the larger data set was plotted, there is no “hockey stick” of temperature for the late twentieth century, in fact it goes in the opposite direction.
Pretty damning stuff.
It is stunning that people like Keith Briffa would deliberately distort their chosen scientific field of study, for such short term and false accomplishments. I can’t see how this could be accidental or misguided.
…….. and if the skill base of science is so lowly in standard, then that in itself is grounds for condemnation and contempt….. Good hard working people have been driven from their livelihoods because of the politics that have been built on the foundations of this fraudulent science…. There will be a reckoning.
“When the larger data set was plotted, there is no “hockey stick” of temperature for the late twentieth century, in fact it goes in the opposite direction.” NO IT DOESN”T
again how little denialists really understand about what McIntyre is even saying !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No right of reply from Briffa? Lynch mob mentality.
Nick Stokes,
disingenous to the end.
“Now you seem to be arguing that there’s some issue with calibration. OK, let’s see it.”
When are you going to provide us with studies that show that tree rings are a useable method for measuring temperatures in the past???? You appear to ignore that trees respond to abundance/limitation in nutrients in the soil also due to competition between trees for sunlight, water availability, CO2, and finally temperature. You apparently are studiously ignoring the recent research that showed plants regulate the temperatures of their leaves meaning that there would be an additional reduced sensitivity to temperature.
Of course, if you are arguing from authority, the authority of a group that has now been shown twice to publish work approaching fraud…
Remember I started by calling you disingenous???
“This is ridiculous. We’re talking about post-1976. We even have satellites.”
So, this Hocky Stick only goes back to 1976??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The shaft is just as much a fraud as the elevated blade. Tell me Nicky Baby, would you accept a study from me that was based on 12 Cores out of a hundred samples?? Oh yeah, I am not one of those in authority (The Team) that you unquestioningly accept!! The FACT that the number of cores used in the shaft having differing growth patterns that average to a reduced amplitude is as big a pile as the blade of the Hocky Stick. Again, you need to look at the graphs of the individual cores and their lack of correlation to understand this deception.
Back to the disingenuousness:
“Again it seems straightforward. The thermometer record is the reference for proxies. If you have proxies that diverge from it, that’s a reason for doubting them. If they actually told a different story, you might want to investigate that before discarding them. But they don’t.”
Of course they don’t. They are a hand picked hand full of cores that there is no way of telling whether they represent ANYTHING prior to the so called calibration period. I would suggest you look at the correlations of these Cores to each other over their entire length, which, just so happens, to only extend back to 1800 OR LESS!!!!!
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7241#more-7241
The 12 cores that calibrate at all only represent from about 1800 to present. The study purports to represent the temperature for over 2000 years!!!! Out of all the possible cores, Briffa only came up with 12 cores that calibrated, all YOUNG trees. With this poor ratio, exactly how do you come up with justification for using the rest that don’t extend into the calibration period AND ARE NOT YOUNG TREES???
Where is the science Nicky Baby?? Are you just becoming the typical apologist that will parrot anything the party tells you???
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
WHERE ARE THE STUDIES THAT GIVE US ANY REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TREES, SPECIFICALLY THIS TYPE OF TREE, MAKES A USEABLE TEMPERATURE PROXY???
Luke you vicious little lying PUTZ,
“No right of reply from Briffa? Lynch mob mentality.”
Maybe he should have archived his data and methods 8 YEARS AGO WHEN HE COULD RESPOND!!!!!
Y’all keep forgetting to mention the whole range of issues surrounding the Teams DendroClimatLyology!!!
not a single sceptic here, who thinks that Steve is obliged to use all available data?
and simply can t leave out the most recent data?
not a single sceptic here, who claims that he has written a sceptic reply to Steve’s work here?
sod,
I’m not sure why you asking us.
Go and ask Steve on his website about your concerns. He won’t bite.
(I’m not sure what you mean by your second paragraph – it doesn’t make sense).
SOD,
you are about 24 hours behind. CATCH UP!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Nicky Baby, and Old Sod, and the Composite Luke and SJT…
You might want to take a look at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/30/agu-presentation-backs-up-mcintyres-findings-that-there-is-no-hockey-stick-in-yamal/#more-11328
Here we have ALL the data, comparatively. We also have the LOCAL, to the Yamal Peninsula, temperature and other records of the modern conditions.
What it appears to show is that the Yamal Peninsula did NOT have the Hockey Stick temperature for the modern period. That is, Briffa’s VALIDATION PERIOD was against a temperature record that DID NOT EXIST ON THE YAMAL PENINSULA!!! Even THIS is BULL!!!
So Nicky Baby, even your vaunted Calibration Period ends up being a DRY HOLE!!!!
Where does this leave Briffa??? As Another Advocate for a Cause who apparently got so carried away that he did an EXTREMELY POOR JOB, if not actually a FRAUD!!!
Nick, I wonder if you remember my speculation about how SMcIntyre dribbles out the results of his work?? Well, he probably doesn’t do it on purpose, but, it has the same effect. Smoking out those who are APOLOGISTS as opposed to those looking for the FACTS!!!
Again, you are NAILED ADVOCATING/APOLOGISING FOR A SIDE!!!!
You’re a double idiot sod; the expose of SM that you snidely refer to which allegedly produces a merged graph similar to Briffa is a phony; what Tom P has done is not include what SM allegedly exluded but in fact double counted what Briffa selectively included;
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/audit-of-an-audit-of-an-auditor/
Nick; the temperature record for Yamal now shoots down in flames any justiication Briffa may have mounted for current calibration and justification for the blade. I really don’t see that there is any justification for the hockey stick at all; and with the hs gone the notion that the current temperature is exceptional and evidence of AGW is pretty RS.
I note that neither Deltoid or Realclimate have created a new thread pertaining to this matter. Apparently they have nothing to say.
Ho ho ho – Cohers –
yes now some sideline academic debate about tree rings in Russia now suddenly overwhelms the entire ocean and land series temperature record. Yea sure. And you’ve suddenly extrapolated from there to everywhere. Stop frothing and start thinking.
As entire circulation systems change, Australia keeps drying, and stress builds across entire ice sheets – you guys are fascinated by minutiae. Reckless denialist behaviour.
Deltoid or Realclimate aren’t going to waste time on trivia.
Hmm. For a bunch of people who often say that they want to protect the world from the socialist tyranny that is the true motivation for the IPCC, many of you really like the idea of a fascist tyranny in which scientists who make an error are tried and jailed!
Not that I am admitting that there is that big an issue with this Yamal stuff. As the “alarmists” here keep pointing out, McIntyre is being much more moderate in his comments than the condemnation that is routine here.
McIntyre is being much more moderate in his comments than the condemnation that is routine here.
It’s called dog whistle politics. They all know what he means, and respond like baying hounds when he calls.
“Francis Galton, in the 1800s, noticed that, in a fairground guessing game, the weight of an ox was best estimated by the mean of the individual guesses.”
Davey, the devil is making me do this. I feel another mathematical puzzle coming on. Suppose that only 2 other people–A and B–have bet on the weight of the ox, because the minimum wager is too rich for the blood of most of the other fairgoers. You’re the last person to put in your 2 cents worth. From past experience you know that oxen weights fall within a relatively large range. And while I think of it, let’s call the mean oxen weight from past years M.
You can’t help but notice that your 2 competitors’ estimates are extremely close to each other. A’s estimate is just a tad below M, and B’s estimate is just a tad greater than M. Suppose that you are acquainted with these gentlemen, and from past experience, you know that the 3 of you have equal estimating ability. In coming up with your public estimate, how do you maximize the probability of your winning the wager?
I really don’t see that there is any justification for the hockey stick at all; and with the hs gone the notion that the current temperature is exceptional and evidence of AGW is pretty RS.
But I thought the hockey stick was already dead, many years ago? McIntyre is just a one trick pony, and it’s getting pretty old now.
Yes SJT – the MWP part of the hockey stick was proven wrong by RM – now he’s completed the job by showing the 20th century warming is also wrong.
Pretty clear isn’t it.
Yes SJT – the MWP part of the hockey stick was proven wrong by RM – now he’s completed the job by showing the 20th century warming is also wrong.
Pretty clear isn’t it.
No, he hasn’t, we have the surface temperature record for that. Proxies can’t beat that. He gives the impression he has done something significant, but it’s just another storm in a teacup. Let him publish his findings see how important they really are when stripped of the rhetoric and incitement. He gave up publishing after his first paper got the recognition it deserved, which was not much at all.
luke, the Hockey-Stick is not a regional description but the Yamal data was a regional calibration which was part of the problem.
Comment from: sod October 1st, 2009 at 2:57 pm
not a single sceptic here, who thinks that Steve is obliged to use all available data?
and simply can t leave out the most recent data?
not a single sceptic here, who claims that he has written a sceptic reply to Steve’s work here?
——————————————————————————————————————–
We are not stopping you being skeptical Sod…. By all means, please be so. Steve’s work is all there. His methodology, everything. So get to work and show where he is wrong…..
Also Sod. What is your opinion of Kieth Briffa and the fact he did not present all his data when he submitted his paper? Surely Briffa’s conduct is appalling by your standards also?
We are not stopping you being skeptical Sod…. By all means, please be so. Steve’s work is all there. His methodology, everything. So get to work and show where he is wrong…..
Exactly right. His methodology is to make alarmist attacks that result in denialists baying for blood around the world. He is dragging science into a bearpit not dissimilar to the Phil Donahue show.
Comment from: steve from brisbane October 1st, 2009 at 4:47 pm
“Hmm. For a bunch of people who often say that they want to protect the world from the socialist tyranny that is the true motivation for the IPCC, many of you really like the idea of a fascist tyranny in which scientists who make an error are tried and jailed!
Not that I am admitting that there is that big an issue with this Yamal stuff. As the “alarmists” here keep pointing out, McIntyre is being much more moderate in his comments than the condemnation that is routine here.”
———————————————————————————————————————
Well Steve from Brisbane, Steve McIntyre can be “much more moderate” in his comments because he is an academic pursuing an academic point. In fact McIntyre has to be thus to be effective.
However for people like me who have had their business destroyed and who have watched the people who’s businesses relied on my business also fail….. We are not so measured in our demeanor…….. In fact we are bloody angry.
The North Queensland trawl fishery used to be a good small productive fishery…. It has been destroyed by the practitioners of bad science, both climate and biology…..
Thus we sometimes write sternly.
An interesting run down on these events are at http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/29/the-yamal-implosion.html Some on this blog are saying we should not be too harsh on these people for making a mistake. Rubbish it looks like a deliberate deception over many years. The implications of what they are saying and a reaction to it is beyond words. I would want those involved to be charged with fraud and jailed. The consequences of their actions could cause many to die. It now appears the conclusions were manufactured.
As for the Trolls on this blog they are really beneath contempt. They wish to safeguard what they receive to pedal their crap.
Steve from Brisbane
“Hmm. For a bunch of people who often say that they want to protect the world from the socialist tyranny that is the true motivation for the IPCC, many of you really like the idea of a fascist tyranny in which scientists who make an error are tried and jailed! ”
Steve, errors are errors but wilfully cooking the books is another matter – pity climate science isn’t up to JORC standards of transparency and due diligence – then we might not have this problem but the problem isn’t science, but its misuse by political activists. I will be that most government climate scientists are social democrats, or socialists, with an irrational hatred of red necked capitalists or money grubbers.
Heavens, Ted Turner, The Heinz foundation, George Soros, the late Armand Hammer, Maurice Strong are all solid lefties and billionaires to boot. Capitalists? Not by any stretch of the imagination.
We actually have a Fascist state – especially when Hansen and others called for climate sceptics to be tried for war crimes and other crimes against humanity – and for what? An error, No for having the courage to disagree.
You are the Fascist, not the sceptics.
SJT:
Little Willy Seagull, :It’s called dog whistle politics. They all know what he means, and respond like baying hounds when he calls.”
In your case its mouse squeak politics – your fellow trolls know what you mean , and respond like sqeaking mices when you call.
Buzz Buzz Buzz – I wonder why he does. Good one Louis.
Steve from Brisbane and Louis,
You’re both rapidly approaching Godwin Land. Who will be the first to claim the coveted award for the day?
My opinion? Being a Merkin, I don’t know squat about British Law. I haven’t have the foggiest idea if Briffa’s deliberate deceptions violated any laws in his country. That said, I think that a suitable punishment would be for Little Keithy to spend the rest of his career studying penguin droppings on the Antarctic Peninsula. Under close adult supervision, of course.
Larry Fields,
I am aware of that but I’m pointing to their hipocrisy. Mind you calling sceptics Fascists etc are simply creating strawmen to deflect the focus away from themselves. I have a feeling they actually don’t really understand what Godwin’s Law actually is based on, apart from some “description” in Wikipedia.
I’ve also been pondering over what those curves mean physically, assuming that they are based on tree ring widths. There’s a lot of data aggregation going on to produce the yeartly “numbers”. I guess it’s a measure of variance around the mean ring-width for a particular year and between years.
But I digress – let’s wait and see what brisbayne steve throws back into here.
Steve from Brisbane
” in which scientists who make an error ”
You missed the point entirely, if proper scientific procedures were followed and data made available to others, none of this would have happened!
Remember “cold fusion”, the theory was revealed and nobody could replicate the results, yet, doesn’t mean it will not be in the future.
One simply has to ask the question, why hide data and methods if everything is above board?
And sjt don’t give me the BS that “you are only trying to prove me wrong!”
That’s the whole bloody point! If you are right and fair dinkum, nobody will be able to prove you wrong!
The thingabout everyday scientific process is that academics do not do their research looking for public approval. Universities adn research instituts judge their academics by a number of means. One of them is the number of papers published and the journals that they are published in. Most academics will not archive their data publically untill they have finished with it. That might mean building upon their data over time so as to better understand whatever it is that they are interested in.
Unfortunatley what we have here is a case where established academic process is meeting head on with the expecatations of the real world. The problem just may be one of how academics are judged by their institutions influences their behaviour rather than any hidden agenda.
My personal view is that al academics who publish should be expected to make availabel their raw data and their code, whatever their field.
Yes Steve indeed – the fascists here are a very worrisome sinister bunch. True nasty little pieces of work. Never turn your back on them.
They’d be a lynch mob in the old west.
And again hilarious that they have obviously missed all the real science news in the last weeks which will affect them significantly. Not that it matters – they can froth on as much as they like. They’re not in charge so they need to get back in line.
Luke,
So we are not in charge and need to get back in line.
All the real science news has been missed.
Another ( minor, relatively, ) dust storm in the Riverina today.
The Riverina is a remnant of the last Ice Age.
When dust and sand blew. Made it flat
Luke , please send in the heat.
We need it .
High Priestess Pennywong already placed us in line, Luke.
I gather that you live in a smoggie’s part of the world . Close to the coast, safe from the scary open spaces
Luke, Luke and Luke,
You were making some progress (improved O2 content?) and refraining from violating Godwin’s law.
Yet here you go again.
The point of Mike’s law is that the one who invokes it, loses.
It is tiring that none of your ensemble bothers to practice the simple memory trick of being truthful. When one does not lie, one does not have worry about memory so much.
It is your side that wants to use the power of the state to silence critics.
I am sure for the hysterical point of your faith, with all of its tenets falling apart, that you would insist on silence from the unworthy, but well, those facts keep on rolling, and your side keep losing.
Hunter – you’re the mob that continually taunt and posture with law suits. You’re the lot calling for sackings and retribution.
So it’s ironic that while the clamour to try Briffa in absentia grows to fever pitch, that while you’re all so sure the IPCC and the science establishment have every detail wrong, there’s a serious conference who thinks that 2C increase in temperature is unrealistic. And 4C is both likely and not alarmist. How can this be. (I expect only an abusive comment back).
Do these people sound “that mad”? http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/audio/7-panel.mp3 – 4 degrees C of climate change – alarmist or realist.
I’ll see your 4C and raise it to 7C luke;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/26/how-not-to-make-a-climate-photo-op/#more-8038
And yes, I think these people are nuts.
It is tiring that none of your ensemble bothers to practice the simple memory trick of being truthful. When one does not lie, one does not have worry about memory so much.
Where did McIntyre use the word ‘lie’?
Hello that lying scumbag Luke has stuck his ugly head up again completely ignoring the topic and trying desperately to divert everyone’s attention with another regurgitation of the 4C rise. He knows that to be false but he will try anyway.
“Do these people sound “that mad”? ” he asks. They probably are not but most of Luke’s contributions are “that mad”. I visit very rarely but Luke is always the same just a sad, deprived human without any knowledge of science and an extremely low level of integrity. His arguments are now quite pathetic.
Keith Briffa has a response on this here.
Apologies to those who had comments pending for much of today. I am relying on an optus plug-in for my internet and it only seems to work between about midnight and 5am east coast Australia time – when I guess there is less traffic because most of the rest of the population is sleeping.
You’re a double idiot sod; the expose of SM that you snidely refer to which allegedly produces a merged graph similar to Briffa is a phony; what Tom P has done is not include what SM allegedly exluded but in fact double counted what Briffa selectively included;
you are wrong all the time.
one of the graphs posted by Tom P had a minor error. the smoothing process used post 1990 data in a plot up to 1990.
this error is utterly irrelevant to what i said.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/09/leading-uk-climate-scientists-must-explain-or-resign/?cp=2#comment-138676
the merged datasets show a hockeystick form. the reason why the combined data as presented by Steve shows a flat line, is the exclusion of the post 1990 data.
if you merge the datasets, you have to merge the full sets, not cherrypick. you can make an argument for the exclusion of the post 1990 data, but then you are not merging the datasets. and you also can not accuse Briffa for not using ALL data.
Thanks for the interpersonal skills tips Michael I(mbecile). Be sure you don’t visit again soon.
Regrettably Real Climate has come out to play. I wish they had left this tedious 10th order issue alone, but alas a lesson in science, ethics, tactics, and morals for dear Macca. Ho hum.
Meanwhile the real climate news of the week drifts past the denialist filth noses.
Coho being wiser is giving this a wide berth. The rest of you should be starting to sweat about now. Thanks Nick.
Luke,
You are less rational than ususal. Please do post where leading skeptics call for criminalization of dissent. Please do post where skeptics call for the silencing of AGW true believers.
Perhaps we will see you soon demonstrate the lower limit of rationality that still permits sentience and literacy.
Keep it up, Lukes. The whole blogosphere is watching. It is fun to watch you.
Blither on, good team Luke.
Luke,
Are you actually calling the handful of commenters on this website a mob?
Reference Richard S Courtney’s comment of September 30th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Thank you sir. You have concisely summarized the issues the AGW-alarmist community should, but in my opinion have not, adequately addressed.
Reed Coray
Jennifer:
“Apologies to those who had comments pending for much of today. I am relying on an optus plug-in for my internet and it only seems to work between about midnight and 5am east coast Australia time – when I guess there is less traffic because most of the rest of the population is sleeping.”
I prefer to rely on the Telstra/Bigpond service, and apart from a faulty USB 21 Modem initially, the replacement has worked flawlessly. It is, however, expensive but then the old saying, you gets what you pay for, applies. You might try the Telstra 7.2 pay as you go USB stick – that is a tad slower, but quite reliable. I have one as a backup in case the NextG service fails.
Luke,
One wonders whether you ever watched the excellent British TV series Yes Minister, and Yes Prime Minister. Briffa’s conclusion that they are trying to develop a more robust methodology has all the hallmarks of a Humphrey Appleby – which is why I still wonder whether we are actually seeing scientific incompetence instead of wilfull data manipulation, and hence why I personally have not waded into this particular issue, here or elsewhere, apart from baiting willy wagtails and other winged weekend waggers.
It’s boring I know, but it needs to be repeated – climate science seems to have all the hallmarks of deductionist science in which expert use of the scientific method is used but to no avail because the underlying assumption, that of climate sensitivity, isn’t an empirically verified fact, but a generally agreed on assumption. Lindzen has published another view showing that climate sensitivity is, yet again, not what most think it is.
What is disturbing is the rather blase attitude to the determination of the right value for climate sensitivity – if it can be determined at all. It all seems to be based on calculating the physics of CO2, radiation etc based on known measured physical facts, but no one seems to have gone to the effort of actually performing an experiment to check that this assumption is correct. This comes from the tendency of group-think in which it is concluded that climate sensitivity “must” be what we compute it as, because great scientific minds have done so.
Hence the continuing clash between the empiricists (Aristotellians) and the deductionists (Platonists) in climate science and most other sciences as well.
This debate does not occur in the hard physical sciences – and in my case mining in which we would never propose that on general consensus from our ore body modelling that the ore grade is so and so percent metal etc. We “know” what the right methology is because once computed via pretty robust mathematics and modeling, subsequent mining and reconciliation with the original estimate quickly determines what methods work and what ones don’t. Same with chemistry and electrical engineering – new ideas are quickly verified by experiment.
But those sciences in which insitu experiments are impossible tend to then wander off into the deductive area of reasoning relying on consensus to establish scientific verities. This happens in sciences that deal with the far, far away, or the long, long ago – astornomy and geology (and archaelogy as well). It seems also to have affected climate science as this, and other threads here, seem to show.
Your strong opinions and equally strong rections supports the interpretation that climate science is essentially a deductive science, and hence pseudoscience. Briffa’s methodology might well, with the light of day, be shown as not as robust as previously thought, but that isn’t the point – it’s the “underlying” assumptions that need to be questioned.
While it is one matter coring a tree and producing rings of various thickness, dating those rings is another matter and there isn’t, really, any robust way in which these can be unequivocally dated; not in the sense that the mineral content of an ore-body sample can be unequivocally assayed to produce a replicable measurements.
And that’s the problem – you will find sceptics are, on the whole, empiricists in which emphasis is on the data; the AGW scientists, while being expert in the practice of the scientific method, ie the mechanics of it, seem to have ignored the necessity of using those methods from a previously verified starting point.
That’s the problem and re-enforced by the herd instinct. The sceptics are hence the brave fools trying to stop the stampede over the proverbial cliff.
You don’t get it do you sod; the 12 samples excluded were the ones Briffa used; why would you reintroduce them if the purpose of the exercise is to test their distorting effect which you do by excluding them?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/29/more-broken-hockey-stick-fallout-audit-of-an-audit-of-an-auditor/#more-11318
You don’t get it do you sod; the 12 samples excluded were the ones Briffa used; why would you reintroduce them if the purpose of the exercise is to test their distorting effect which you do by excluding them?
well, if you merge the datasets, you will reintroduce them.
if you want to leave them out, just say so.
but don t claim that the merged sets shows a flat trend. it doesn t.
the fully merged sets show a hockey stick form. the flat result is caused by merging the sets and cutting of data after 1990.
just don t make false claims! (or accuse me of being an idiot, when i am simply right)
I know that everyone is anxiously awaiting the answer to the mathematical puzzle that I posted in response to Davey’s mentioning of ox-weight-estimating at a fair. Link:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/09/leading-uk-climate-scientists-must-explain-or-resign/?cp=all#comment-138881
The third player’s estimate should be just a tad less than that of Player A, or just a tad more than that of Player B. The probability that the true weight of the ox is bracketed by A and B is quite small. If Player C placed his public estimate within that interval, he’d be shooting himself in the foot. But otherwise, the probability of his winning the wager is just under 50%. Not bad for a 3-player game.
A similar scenario–The Saloon Game–has implications for voting systems.
Hi Nick Stokes,
You are remarkably silent on the post I made at
Comment from: Geoff Sherrington September 30th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Does this indicate agreement or disagreement or an admission of your lack of knowledge?
Looks like you’ve been thoroughly spanked and sent to your room on this one guys. Better go find some other source of uncertainty to conflate and exaggerate. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/
He’s not even bothering to defend Briffa. Lots of comments like this:
“Hmmm… neither of the Yamal chronologies anywhere in there”
suggests that he is conceding the point.
Hello Geoff,
Sorry, it’s a long thread, and that came in after I went to bed. Anyway, some queries:
Some of the dendro data counts diverge upwards, some downwards in the instrumented era as Steve shows.
Do you mean counts? or temperatures?
How is it valid to assume that this did not happen before the instrumented era?
I don’t think anyone assumes that. But SM’s plot showed that including the Schweingruber dataset made no difference in the pre-instrumented era (partly because the S data petered out quickly)
How is it valid to assume stationarity, given that we cannot show it today?
Are you sure stationarity is what you mean? I don’t think anyone assumes that.
I agree that proxies have a lot of uncertainties (and so does KB).
And yes, divergence is an acknowledged problem, because it makes calibration to instrumental temps harder. What has gone wrong with this discussion (and SM started it) is the notion that the blade of the HS is determined by proxy data. It isn’t – that’s instrumental. The point of the proxy data is to establish the flatness or otherwise of the shaft.
sod October 2nd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Sod, the trend after 1990 is the Briffa data and nothing else, as the Schweingruber data end in 1990… Thus the “hockeystick” shape after 1990 is the result of only 10 samples and within these samples only from one (1) tree. Not directly a scientific approach which is beyond critique. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/29/more-broken-hockey-stick-fallout-audit-of-an-audit-of-an-auditor/
That means that all reconstructions which used this much too small sample (and that are many) need to be re-examined for the impact of these (not so) new findings. Seems to me that the MWP will get a little warmer in the spaghetty graph…
kd October 3rd, 2009 at 9:20 am
If that is all what they can use to defend the undefendable? Indeed there are a lot of hockeysticks in the world. Some of them have relevance, like the glacier retreat and the boreholes, which both prove that the LIA was much colder than the original MBH hockeystick shows. But as both don’t go back to the MWP, they don’t prove that the MWP didn’t exist or was less warm than today.
Is that important? Yes, if there was more natural variability in the past, that has as consequence that the models must include a larger natural variability at the cost of the impact of CO2 and other GHGs.
Further, see the reaction of McIntyre of the Yamal history on a lot of reconstructions:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7229
and on RealClimate from Roger Pielke Jr.:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/hockey-stick-gets-personal-lies-from.html
Nick Stokes October 3rd, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Nick,
One of the main problems with three rings is that trees respond on temperature with an optimum, an upside down U curve. Thus it is no wonder that many trees show a reasonable response to temperature in the 1900-1960 period (used for calibration), but don’t follow temperature after 1960-1980 or later. That makes that the graphting of the temperature record on the reconstructions gives a false impression. If you see many reconstructions alone, the temperature reconstruction is almost flat (or left out by the IPCC!) after 1960.
Thus even if by selective use of these trees which follow temperature closely now, that is no guarantee that these show smaller ring widths with warmer (or dryer) temperatures in the MWP.
Moreover, the calibration/selection method itself at the end of the reconstruction period is flattening the effect of the previous period. See what Jeff ID says on that:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/straightening-the-hockey-stick-blade/
of course the sentence in my previous message:
that is no guarantee that these show smaller ring widths with warmer (or dryer) temperatures in the MWP.
must be:
that is no guarantee that these don’t show smaller ring widths with warmer (or dryer) temperatures in the MWP.
Sod, the trend after 1990 is the Briffa data and nothing else, as the Schweingruber data end in 1990… Thus the “hockeystick” shape after 1990 is the result of only 10 samples and within these samples only from one (1) tree. Not directly a scientific approach which is beyond critique.
even if it is not beyond critique, that is not a reason for Cohenite to make false claims.
the merged grpah has a hockey stick form. the merged graph without data after 1990 has not.
many people here avoid pointing that out, because they made a great fuss about Briffa not using “ALL of the data”.
Sod wrote:
Neil, you are misstating my position. what Steve didon this minor point, is fine.
but Jennifer is making a false claim about what Steve did.
and cohenite accused me of being an idiot. when i was simply right.
if everybody here could finally admit that what Jennifer wrote is false and that cohenite made a false claim, we could move on to discuss more important stuff.
I find this extremely disquieting.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7244
Steve McIntyre is now trying to dissociate himself from the extreme responses to the storm he has stirred up.
Sod wrote:
My apologies if I have misinterpreted your position, Sod – that was not my intent.
Given the simplified nature of Jen’s post, and the fact that this site is considerably less technical than CA, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. YMMV.
Perhaps you have a taste of what SM seems to have experienced for over a decade – being called an idiot when you have simply stated the facts.
Exactly which part of Jen’s post do you consider false, bearing in mind that the technical detail is somewhat sparse? It’s certainly true that SM makes, as he usually does, some rather nuanced and technical points, which IMO are well related by Jen given the limitations I’ve already mentioned. Can you suggest a better synopsis, so we can all pick it apart, or will you just snipe at Jen for trying? Or is it simply that you find Jen’s attitude to AGW distasteful?
I’m not having a go at you here Sod, I just want a clarification of your position so that I do not (again) misinterpret it – something that is very easy to do in text only based media.
SJT wrote:
When people suggest you said the exact opposite of what you explicitly stated, it’s hardly dissociating yourself from such comments to point out the fact that you did not make such a comment, did not imply it, and in fact did state the exact opposite. If you find such behaviour objectionable, then I hope you will also have a go at RC for doing exactly the same thing – not just to SM, but also to Pielke Jnr, Pielke Snr, Wegman, Spencer etc etc. But that ain’t gonna happen, is it?
When people suggest you said the exact opposite of what you explicitly stated, it’s hardly dissociating yourself from such comments to point out the fact that you did not make such a comment, did not imply it, and in fact did state the exact opposite.
I think his meaning was very clear, the denialst crowd, including Jennifer here, knew exactly what he meant. Hence the calls for ‘explain or resign’.
Jennifer, in light of McIntyre’s backpedalling, perhaps you can remove any inferences of fraud and demands to resign.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7213#comment-358566
SJT wrote:
His meaning was crystal clear, written by his own hand, and repeated in the comments section several times. However, if you insist on making him responsible for what other say about what he said, then perhaps you should also take the time to point out that the faults and exagerations in AIT, for example, are the responsibilty of, oh, I dunno, Hansen or IPCC? If you feel that such is unfair, then I would respectfully suggest that you, sir, are applying double standards and that furthermore, you are expecting more from your opponents than from your supporters. I note that when the situation is reversed, and some denier makes a similar gaff, it doesn’t take you long to notice and shout this for the world to see. Will you withdraw your complaint, or will you continue to express this double standard? Your answer – or lack of one – will be quite telling.
You got me there, naahhhhttt.
After I wrote to SJT:
SJT replied with:
Which certainly seems to me to be a non-answer. It is quite telling, as I suspected it would be.
Just a thought SJT – apply the same standards to yourself as you apply to others; or better yet, apply an even higher standard. You may be worth talking with again if you do; if you do not, then I will point it out to you when I notice it, and remind you of the chance you have missed to be intellectually honest. Although I doubt you will care; people who pervert and prostitute their standards in order to “win” an arguement rarely care that they have done so, although those who pay attention, but rarely post, will notice and take it into consideration. Your call…
You ask that type of question, you get that type of answer. I stopped beating my wife years ago.
“Explain or Resign” is the message that needs to be heard worldwide by all those who took public funds and then distorted, ignored, or misrepresented experimental data in their reports back to the public.
CO2-induced global warming is only a part of “The Big Lie.” Experimental data accumulated from space-age measurements since the first analyses on Apollo lunar samples in 1969 [1] show clearly that:
a.) The Sun is a variable star, an unsteady heat source.
b.) Neutron-neutron interactions are repulsive, not attractive.
c.) Hydrogen is a solar waste product, not the primary solar fuel.
d.) The stormy Sun has far greater influence on Earth’s climate than CO2 [2].
e.) The Sun is a plasma diffuser powered by repulsive interactions between neutrons [3].
f.) The Standard Solar Model of a Hydrogen-filled Sun is obsolete; Solar neutrinos do not oscillate.
How can we clean house?
Litigation? Can you imagine the impact of having Al Gore and/or James Hansen as sworn witnesses subject to expert cross-examination?
Legislation or an executive order? The experimental data supporting conclusions a.) – f.) above would probably be subjected to careful scrutiny and open discussion overnight if the director of the new CIA Center on Climate Change and National Security was instructed by an Executive Order or an Act of Congress to protect National Security from any possibility of systemic intellectual dishonesty in federal research agencies: http://tinyurl.com/ya2jt7s
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA PI for Apollo Samples
1. LSPET (The Lunar Sample Preliminary Examination Team): 1969, “Preliminary examination of lunar samples from
Apollo 11”, Science 165, 1211-1227.
2. Oliver K. Manuel: 2009, “Earth’s Heat Source- The Sun”, Energy and Environment 20, 131-144
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0704
3. O. Manuel, S. A. Kamat, and M. Mozina: 2006, “The Sun is a plasma diffuser that sorts atoms by mass”, Physics of Atomic Nuclei 69, 1847-185
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0609509v3
Just a thought SJT – apply the same standards to yourself as you apply to others; or better yet, apply an even higher standard. You may be worth talking with again if you do; if you do not, then I will point it out to you when I notice it, and remind you of the chance you have missed to be intellectually honest.
You have to ask intellectually honest questions, first.
Demonstrate to me your intellectual honesty. Mr Manuel seems to be wrong about the sun, would you care to correct him.
SJT wrote:
On a quick read, and without checking his references, I’d say his points c, e and f would require some explaination, as they appear to go against accepted norms. That doesn’t make them wrong, just unpopular. If I had to bet, I’d say they were wrong.
So now that’s out of the way, will you post a demonstration of your intellectual honesty, or will you continue to espouse the double standards you have so far displayed?
So now that’s out of the way, will you post a demonstration of your intellectual honesty, or will you continue to espouse the double standards you have so far displayed?
I keep telling you, I stopped beating my wife.
The above conclusions a.) – f.) are based on research that I started with the late Professor Paul Kazuo Kuroda in 1960 and continued for the next half-century.
The experimental data that support these conclusions are given in peer-reviewed papers shown with links on my research profile: http://myprofile.cos.com/manuelo09
“Weasle words” are not needed for conclusions based on irrefutable experimental data.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA PI for Apollo
SJT wrote:
Careful, your hypocracy is showing.
Oliver K. Manuel wrote:
Thanks for the link. I trust you were not offended by my post – as I said, it seemed to me that your views were hardly “mainstream”. Not that I imagine that you would be surprised at this.
Careful, your hypocracy is showing.
I ready to talk when you are ready to start off being reasonable.
SJT wrote:
I always try to be reasonable SJT. Since you seem to be offended by what I have asked, I’ll try again.
Now that I have pointed out what seems to me to be a double standard applied by you, would you be so kind as to offer your views on why it is not, or if you are prepared to concede the point, would you be so kind as to post such concessions.
You see, I would rather that we spent time finding out what we can agree on, rather than continually bickering over what we disagree on, so this is not some sort of trick on my part. It seemed to me that you accused me of doing the same thing, which I don’t believe is the case – after all, just as you do not attack each and every defect in AGW science, neither do I attack each and every defect in the, ummm, anti-AGW science; mate, I just don’t have the time, and I suspect you don’t either. [shrug] So what? I did, I think you will agree, try to point out to Tim what I believed to be errors in his reasoning, and would happily do so in similar situations again – if I have the time and inclination. Can you point out a post you have made that casts doubt on any AGW science, or the postings of those who support same? This would show that you do indeed care about getting correct answers rather than following an agenda. And while I do not recall seeing such, that’s hardly conclusive, is it?
I have referred to this critique of Hansen before, I’ll be buggered if I know where I posted it here.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/11/hansen_again.php
SJT wrote:
Can you give me an idea of the content of your comment? Because just the fact you referenced this link does not tell me if you thought the content of the link was accurate or inaccurate, true or false etc. After all, it may simply have been a comment of yours saying something like “deniers resort to ad hom” or similar. Just to be clear, you understand – I’m not implying that this is what you said, just that I don’t know.
It was posted in reference to repeated claims that I am a ‘disciple’ of Hansen. I am not, I think he is a good scientist who has got a lot right. I also think he is not perfect, and Stoat offers up an interesting critique of a paper, which does not at all just accept it as holy writ, but tries to see what he agrees with, disagrees with, and just doesn’t get. For McInytre, the idea that a paper may not be 100% bullet proof is completely baffling, and a sign of fraud. For Stoat, it’s just part of the slow progress of science as it has been done for the past century, business as usual.
SJT wrote:
This is untrue. For SM (and me too, for that matter), the point is that for major public policy decisions, “bullet proof” as you put it should be the goal – we may not be able to get there, but it should be the goal. And where it’s not reached, the limitations and caveats should be clearly enunciated. We find speculation and expert opinion instead – and while that’s not “bad”, speculation and opinion do not cut it for major policy actions IMO.
Anyway – what do you think of that paper and the critique? Please try not to change the subject or dance around it – just freaking say what you think!
SJT: “it’s just part of the slow progress of science as it has been done for the past century, business as usual.”
But you have stated explicitly here on numerous comments, you are scientifically ignorant – Care to explain, then?
SJT: “For McInytre, the idea that a paper may not be 100% bullet proof is completely baffling, and a sign of fraud. For Stoat, it’s just part of the slow progress of science as it has been done for the past century, business as usual.”
Your problem is you can’t recognise science from pseudoscience.
Jernnifer’s gardening leave isn’t a subtle message that this site, with you and Luke as primary clowns. failed in its goal of distracting we nasty denialists?
You are socialists for one simple reason – it’s the only means by which you can distinguish yourselves from sheep.
Anyway – what do you think of that paper and the critique? Please try not to change the subject or dance around it – just freaking say what you think!
I’m going with Stoat. IANAS, but Hansen is listing all the extreme possibilities that could happen, but are they likely. At least it’s where the debate really should be, and the scientists are quite active about it.
Your problem is you can’t recognise science from pseudoscience.
My irony meter just exploded.
Jernnifer’s gardening leave isn’t a subtle message that this site, with you and Luke as primary clowns. failed in its goal of distracting we nasty denialists?
Could it be that demanding a scientist should ‘explain or resign’, after reading McIntyre’s blog, only to find that McIntyre’s ‘quietly disturbing’ graph didn’t carry any implications of fraud at all, had anything to do with it? McIntyre stirred the pot, then left his supporters out to hang out to dry.
Of could it be that her blog attracts all the wacky weirdo’s, who think the sun is made of iron, or that AIDS is a scam, or that the ‘greenhouse effect’ doesn’t exist, or that plate techtonics is not true, and support astrologers? Could be a little embarrassing.
SJT:
You write:
“Could it be that demanding a scientist should ‘explain or resign’, after reading McIntyre’s blog, only to find that McIntyre’s ‘quietly disturbing’ graph didn’t carry any implications of fraud at all, had anything to do with it? McIntyre stirred the pot, then left his supporters out to hang out to dry.”.
That is nonsense. It does not matter whether or not McIntyre’s criticism of Briffa’s analysis is correct (incidentally, it is) when considering whether or not Briffa should “explain or resign”.
I remind that above at September 30th, 2009 at 8:12 pm I wrote:
“SJT, Luke and Nick Stokes:
Your attempts at excuses do not wash. There are three issues which you are confusing, but you fail to answer any of them.
The first is the issue of scientific practice.
Briffa is seriously ill with kidney failure and it is to be hoped that he will soon be able to make a full recovery. Assuming he does recover then he will need to defend against a prima facie case of his serious scientific malpractice. That case is as follows.
Data which were in the possession of Briffa have been obtained for scrutiny by the scientific community. This revealed that there was a large data set and Briffa selected from that data set for conduct of his analysis. He published that analysis and its results.
But, importantly,
Briffa failed to state that he had selected from a larger data set
and
Briffa failed to state any criteria he used for his selection.
These failures invalidate Briffa’s analysis. Indeed, they are a severe scientific malpractice that is tantamount to fraud in that they misrepresent the analysis which Briffa conducted.
”
Nick Stokes attempted to address this matter and I refuted his response when at October 1st, 2009 at 12:15 am I wrote:
“Nick Stokes:
You wrongly assert to me:
“Richard “Briffa failed to state any criteria he used for his selection.”
This just isn’t true. He said
“Siberian larch (Larix sibirica) data from the area immediately east of the northern Ural Mountains, previously used by Hantemirov & Shiyatov (2002), were used as the Yamal regional chronology”
He’s using a data set which was previously used in the literature, and has made that clear. So you have to make a case that it was nonetheless necessary for him to use this alternative data. And I just can’t see it.”
Sorry, but your claim supports my statements that you dispute.
I said:
“Data which were in the possession of Briffa have been obtained for scrutiny by the scientific community. This revealed that there was a large data set and Briffa selected from that data set for conduct of his analysis. He published that analysis and its results.
But, importantly,
Briffa failed to state that he had selected from a larger data set
and
Briffa failed to state any criteria he used for his selection.
These failures invalidate Briffa’s analysis. Indeed, they are a severe scientific malpractice that is tantamount to fraud in that they misrepresent the analysis which Briffa conducted.”
It does not matter that Hantemirov & Shiyatov (or anybody else) had used that selection: perhaps that is all the data that was available to them.
But it does matter that Briffa had the full data and chose to use a sub-set of it for an unstated reason. His paper could, for example, have claimed that he used that sub-set for comparison to Hantemirov & Shiyatov (2002) but, of course, that comparison study would have been a different study for a different purpose than the paper Briffa published.
Clearly, you have not grasped the point, so compare these two statements:
“We analysed the available data”
and
“We analysed a selction from the available data but we are not stating our reason(s) for making that selection and we will not allow others to see the data we chose not to use.
Can you not understand the difference?
The statement of a prima facie case of scientific malpractice against Briffa is not – as you assert – “ridiculous”: it is simply fact.
Richard”
None of you have made any real attempt to address the prima facie case. There may be a reason for rejection of that case and Briffa’s unfortunate illness may be the reason why nobody has yet heard it.
However, at present the prima facie case exists against Briffa so he should explain or resign.
One can only hope that Briffa’s health recovers so he can explain. And, at present, one can only speculate as to whether that explanation will be sufficient to remove the prima facie case that demands Briffa should resign.
Additionally, it is extremely unfortunate that Briffa refused to release his data and kept it secret for a decade until forced to reveal it. These matters could have been addressed a decade ago but for Briffa’s refusal to reveal his data. Now, his fealings about the prima facie case of his scientific malpractice may hinder his fight against his illness, and his illness hinders his ability to defend against the prima facie case of his scientific malpractice.
Richard
Additionally, it is extremely unfortunate that Briffa refused to release his data and kept it secret for a decade until forced to reveal it. These matters could have been addressed a decade ago but for Briffa’s refusal to reveal his data. Now, his fealings about the prima facie case of his scientific malpractice may hinder his fight against his illness, and his illness hinders his ability to defend against the prima facie case of his scientific malpractice.
Richard
“McIntyre had the data all along”
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/mcintyre_had_the_data_all_alon.php
“Data which were in the possession of Briffa have been obtained for scrutiny by the scientific community. This revealed that there was a large data set and Briffa selected from that data set for conduct of his analysis. He published that analysis and its results.
But, importantly,
Briffa failed to state that he had selected from a larger data set
and
Briffa failed to state any criteria he used for his selection.
These failures invalidate Briffa’s analysis. Indeed, they are a severe scientific malpractice that is tantamount to fraud in that they misrepresent the analysis which Briffa conducted.”
What it means is that someone has made that claim, based purely on their assumptions of what Briffa did or did not do. To jump straight to an assumption of fraud is sheer recklessnes.
SJT:
It seems that you have not read the item which you cited as attempted explanation for the prima facie case of scientific misconduct by Briffa.
I ignore that you cite Deltoid (which is almost as dubious a propoganda source as RealClimate.org) and accept the cited claims at face value.
Deltoid claims McIntyre obtained the data from the Russians in 2004, and Briffa told McIntyre to obtain it from them in 2006. It is strange that Briffa is asserted to have suggested McIntyre ask the Russians for the data two years after McIntyre is said to have obtained it from the Russians.
However, it is demonstrable fact that McIntyre had been asking Briffa for the data since 2000 because he reported each request on his blog each time he made it. And he reported Briffa’s rejections of his requests each time, too.
Importantly, if Deltoid’s claims are true then those claims provide more questions than answers.
Why did Briffa not provide the data when first asked?
If Briffa thought it proper to only allow “the Russians” to provide the data, then why did he not respond to McIntyre’s first request by forwarding McIntyre’s request to the Russians with a copy to McIntyre as information on what he had done?
Indeed, why in Briffa’s recent response on this matter from his sick-bed did Briffa not say, “I told McIntyre how to get the data when he first asked me for it” if that is what he did?
Why after repeated refusals to provide the data (i.e. the refusals that were copied on McIntyre’s web site at the times of their delivery) did Briffa suggest that McIntyre ask the Russians for it in 2006?
Which data did McIntyre get from the Russians in 2004?
Why could Briffa provide the data in 2009 when the RS demanded its disclosure if he was unable to provide it before?
Why … etc.
As I said, there may be a good explanation for Briffa having concealed the complete data set and his illness may be preventing him from providing that explanation. But the prima facie case exists.
And Deltoid’s attempted excuses for the case only serve to make matters worse for Briffa.
Richard
As I said, there may be a good explanation for Briffa having concealed the complete data set and his illness may be preventing him from providing that explanation. But the prima facie case exists.
And Deltoid’s attempted excuses for the case only serve to make matters worse for Briffa.
??? It wasn’t his data, he got it from the Russians. McIntyre had it all along anyway.
SJT: that last of yours is a travesty. The hockey stick goes back long before the Russians, as does the obfuscation of MBH and Briffa at all times.
Further to my last, refer to Mann Bradley Hughes et al in PNAS 2008 “Proxy based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia” 9 Sept 2008, communicated to PNAS by none other than Lonnie Thompson of Gore heroism. They cite Bradley & Jones 1993, Briffa et al. 1998 (2 different papers), Briffa et al.2001, etc. The Russians don’t get a mention. The paper develops GLOBAL (i.e. including Australia) temperature over 2 millennia; the main global source for 0-200 is a site in Tasmania where this country’s BoM cannot even maintain temperature records at its CO2 site at Cape Grim, but where an elderly gent named Bob Brown will for a suitable fee deliver global daily T records to 200 AD, the downside being having to listen to his incantations before his magic yields up its secrets. The PNAS paper contains copious SI including 4 Excel files which achieve a new first by yielding no data at all, only alleged summaries of the incantations of Bob Brown with amazing R2s of 0.02 – with what? you may well ask, they don’t say, presumably the well known instrumental record 0-200 at Rome. For the modern era the paper relies on incantations by Jones and Briffa at CRU (Norwich, UK) claiming (Figs.2 and 3) to have a NH instrumental record that covers all of Africa north of the equator & the NH tropics in the Americas and Asia between 1850 and 1910. Excluding those areas makes the NH look cooler than it was at that time. Moreover Jones has confessed to ‘homogenising” and “adding value’ to the Hadley-CRU data that makes it look like a refectory meal at UEA, bearing no relation to the orginal data he was sent.
The Mann et al PNAS paper says R2s are rubbish anyway (SI Table S2), on the back of their own article in Woman’s Own, oops, I meant J. Geophys.Res 2007, proposing CE and RE instead. When authors like Mann et al proposing new statistical methods and junking the ones used in the rest of Science, they should get it accepted by say the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society and not by Woman’s Own or similar.
With or without the Russian data, everything written by Briffa and mates is rubbish that would never makes it into JRSS, as Steve Mc has documented again and again.
Payback time for getting it wrong !
http://deepclimate.org/2009/10/07/let-the-backpedalling-begin/
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/mcintyre_had_the_data_all_alon.php
It’s all just so tawdry.
And just remember chumps – all this Macca nonsense has zero point zero effect on the science effort. It’s just all noise on the vine. hahahahahahahahaha
Publish something useful or perish. And that’s not in E&E – hahahahahahahahahaha
Tim Curtin wrote:
Great stuff Neil! and there’s more to come.
Luke challenged me to show whether or not inland Queensland Met stations yield a correlation between temperature and rising atmospheric CO2 – [CO2].
Well the first 2, picked at random, Gatton and Toowoomba Airport both yield zero correlation between ther respective annual mean minimum Temperature and annual mean [CO2]. So we have two more black swans to add to the charming flight in Jen’s photograph at the beginning of her walkabout post.
The Gatton QDPI research station has a much longer run (1968-2007) than Toowoomba Airport (only 1996-2009), but evidently was closed down in 2007 in furtherance of Science because of their glaring failure to deliver politically correct correlations between their Temps and [CO2]). Moreover there were 2 years (1985-86) when like the emininent scientists at Mauna Loa Slope Observatory they could not quite summon the energy to keep up daily records. I inserted averages of the year before with year after for the months in question.
Result, same as my data for Mauna Loa at my thread here: NO correlation between Tmin and [CO2] even without going to 1st diffs to get rid of auto-correlation.
SJT, name your favourite location (how about sod’s Potsdam?) and I will show you another black swan. Achtung, back to the drawing board, you AGW guys!
Tim Curtin
Good article on Quadrant online : http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/10/the-wisdom-of-skepticism
I can see the AGW people dressed in their sack cloths monotoning their obeisance to the latest apocalypse – Luke would be the crazed leader in a scene that could have come from the Jabberwocky movie.
Luke
Publish ?
“There can be little doubt in the minds of those who are involved in attempting to disseminate research results among the entire scientific community that major problems exist. It is well documented that adopting certain stances will result in an inability to publish in the majority of the so-called high impact academic journals.
There are also well documented cases of people experiencing grave difficulties in their place of work and even, on some occasions, being driven out. Amazingly, there are even cases of attempts being made – some successful – to deny research students their doctorates because their theses contain material which may cause embarrassment for some person with an inflated sense of his/her own importance. Again, more and more academics, certainly in British universities, are coming under increasing pressure to draw funds into their establishments. Note the emphasis is not on good research, or even just research, but rather on attracting more and more money.”
and
“The religious nature of global warming hysteria becomes immediately obvious once research is undertaken into the history of similar NRMs and the many apocalyptic panics they have spawned over the past two millennia. And it is largely for this reason that the proponents of global warming insist that only ‘scientific’ contributions can be permitted and that any discussion that is allowed about their claims must take place within the very tightly regulated constraints of a highly specialized scientific field they themselves define and zealously control.”
No point giving you url’s as you won’t check them out. (But Quadrant on line and Thunderbolts post Science in Turmoil) for those wanting to read more.
And I’m just filing this here:
Just so you know, your name comes up quite a bit in these hacked emails. you should download them and read them if you haven’t already. Look at the one labeled “1256765544.txt” when you download them from http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_emails%2C_data%2C_models%2C_1996-2009
Regards,
Mark
filing this here:
Full coverage at: http://www.thegwpf.org/news/138-pressure-growing-for-public-inquiry-into-cru-data-affair.html
It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them. Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request. Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.
–George Monbiot, The Guardian, 24 November 2009
Also mails from/to Eduardo Zorita and myself are included; also we have been subject of frequent mentioning, usually not in a flattering manner. Interesting exchanges, and evidences, are contained about efforts to destroy “Climate Research”; that we in the heydays of the hockeystick debate shared our ECHO-G data with our adversaries; and that Mike Mann was successful to exclude me from a review-type meeting on historical reconstructions in Wengen (demonstrating again his problematic but powerful role of acting as a gatekeeper.) I would assume that more interesting issues will be found in the files, and that a useful debate about the degree of politicization of climate science will emerge. A conclusion could be that the principle, according to which data must be made public, so that also adversaries may check the analysis, must be really enforced. Another conclusion could be that scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process or in assessment activities like IPCC.
–Hans Von Storch, 22 November 2009
===================
Lord Lawson calls for inquiry into cover-up over climate change data
Daily Mail, 24 November 2009 : Lord Lawson yesterday called for an independent inquiry into claims that leading British climate change scientists manipulated data to strengthen the case for made-made global warming.
The former Chancellor said the content of hundreds of leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit was a ‘scandal’ – and warned that the credibility and integrity of UK science was at stake.
His comments came after it was revealed that 1,000 private emails written by researchers at the world-renowned unit over the last 13 years were stolen and posted on a Russian website.
While most are impossible to interpret out of context, climate change sceptics have seized on some that appear to show scientists manipulating raw data about historical temperatures.
In one alleged email, scientists discussed how climate data should be best spun and presented to selected journalists.
The emails also appear to discuss ways of dodging Freedom of Information requests from a climate change sceptic seeking raw data.
Lord Lawson called for the university and Natural Environment Research Council, which funds the unit, to launch an open, independent inquiry. [….]
George Monbiot Calls for Heads to Roll, Re-Analysis of CRU Climate Data
The Guardian, 24 November 2009 : It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.
Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed. [….]
Compromised Climate Scientists should be excluded from IPCC, Leading Climate Scientist says
Professor Hans von Storch : […] There are a number of problematic statements, which will be discussed in the media and the blogosphere. I found the style of communication revealing, speaking about other people and their ideas, joining forces to “kill” papers, exchanges of “improving” presentations without explaining.
Also mails from/to Eduardo Zorita and myself are included; also we have been subject of frequent mentioning, usually not in a flattering manner. Interesting exchanges, and evidences, are contained about efforts to destroy “Climate Research”; that we in the heydays of the hockeystick debate shared our ECHO-G data with our adversaries; and that Mike Mann was successful to exclude me from a review-type meeting on historical reconstructions in Wengen (demonstrating again his problematic but powerful role of acting as a gatekeeper.) I would assume that more interesting issues will be found in the files, and that a useful debate about the degree of politicization of climate science will emerge. A conclusion could be that the principle, according to which data must be made public, so that also adversaries may check the analysis, must be really enforced. Another conclusion could be that scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process or in assessment activities like IPCC. […]
U.S. Lawmakers Probe Climate E-mails
The Wall Street Journal, 24 November 2009 : Congressional Republicans have started investigating climate scientists whose hacked emails suggest they tried to squelch dissenting views about global warming.
An aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said investigators are studying the documents, which unknown hackers stole last week from the computer of a prominent British climate-research center.
Investigators are focusing on the correspondence of White House Science Adviser John Holdren, he said. Dr. Holdren, a point man for the Obama administration on climate change, sent one of the hacked emails. In the 2003 email, Dr. Holdren, then at the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole, Mass., defended research by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, a scientist who believes global warming is man-made and who also sent some of the hacked emails.
On Monday, Dr. Holden said: “I’m happy to stand by my contribution to this exchange. I think anybody who reads what I wrote in its entirety will find it a serious and balanced treatment of the question of ‘burden of proof’ in situations where science germane to public policy is in dispute.”
The aide said investigators are also probing the contributions of dozens of climate scientists to reports published by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Environmental Protection Agency, in its recent move to boost regulation of greenhouse gases, based its conclusions on IPCC reports.
The IPCC has said the climate is heating up and humans are almost certainly to blame. Those who disagree that the globe is warming, or on the cause or extent of any warming, complain that their views have been excluded.
The documents, hacked from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University in the U.K., show that some climate researchers declined to share their data with fellow scientists, and sought to keep researchers with dissenting views from publishing in leading scientific journals. […]
Pressure Growing for Public Inquiry into CRU Affair
The Guardian, 23 November 2009
Prominent voices on both sides of the climate change debate today called for an independent inquiry into claims of collusion between climate scientists after it emerged last week that hundreds of their emails and documents had been leaked that allegedly manipulated data and destroyed evidence for Freedom of Information Act requests.
Writing in the Times, Lord Lawson, the former Conservative chancellor and long-time climate change sceptic, said: “The integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay.”
Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said: “Once appropriate action has been taken over the hacking, there has to be some process to assess the substance of the email messages as well. The selective disclosure and dissemination of the messages has created the impression of impropriety, and the only way of clearing the air now would be through a rigorous investigation. I have sympathy for the climate researchers at the University of East Anglia and other institutions who have been the target of an aggressive campaign by so-called ‘sceptics’ over a number of years. But I fear that only a thorough investigation could now clear their names.” […]
Is East Antarctica Melting?
The Observatory, 24 November 2009
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-observatory/140-is-east-antarctica-melting.html
Dr. David Whitehouse
The East Antarctic ice sheet is the largest mass of ice on our planet and so its stability and potential contribution to global sea level change is of great interest. It was thought to be relatively stable but new research suggests it may have begun to loose mass, although the true significance of the change is unclear.
Measuring the Antarctic ice sheets is difficult. Over the years estimates of its mass balance has swung between positive and negative values. Radar altimetry observations covering the entire continent between 1992 – 2003 suggested that the ice mass balance was between -5 and + 85 GT/yr, although as usual with ice such estimates have large errors. Another satellite-borne technique, Synthetic Aperture Radar, using observations taken over the past decade, suggested that ice loss exceeded model predictions of snow accumulation. The data also indicated a recent increase in mass loss with 196 +/- 92 GT in 2006.
The latest data uses observations taken monthly between 2002 and 2009 from a pair of satellites flying in formation measuring gravity perturbations. Analysing data from the GRACE satellites is tricky and relating them to ice sheet mass estimates involves several steps and assumptions.The new study – published in Nature Geoscience by J Chen and researchers at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas – say the mass loss for the entire continent is – 190 +/- 77 GT/yr averaged over 2002 – 2009. This is much larger than previous estimates (although consistent with the most recent Synthetic Aperture Radar estimates of 196 +/- 92 GT/yr.)
Loss from the West Antarctic ice sheet is 132 +/- 26 GT/yr. East Antarctica, the researchers say, is losing mass at about 57 +/- 52 GT/yr (note large uncertainty – it could be consistent with zero ice loss). Most of the loss appears to be from coastal regions and to stem from increased ice loss after 2006. The finding is significant because the east of the continent has been regarded as the more stable half. It should be stressed however that although these seem large quantities of ice they are tiny in terms of their significance for global sea level changes.
The importance of this research is that it highlights the close scrutiny needed of the region, especially for the East Antarctic ice cap, to see if its rate of loss increases. At present it is not known if the loss is due to climate change or if such losses are in any way exceptional or cyclical. If the changes persist, and accelerate, then, “Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea-level rise”, the researchers write.
Others have expressed surprise at the results. A study in 2005 suggested that the East Antarctic ice sheet was actually gaining mass. What this latest work indicates is the need for more observations, an appreciation of the large uncertainties in individual measurements and the problem of relating them to each other. Overall it would be unwise to draw strong conclusions from this research.
CCNet is a science and climate policy network edited by Benny Peiser . To subscribe, send an e-mail to listserver@ljmu.ac.uk (“subscribe CCNet-News”). To unsubscribe send an e-mail to listserver@ljmu.ac.uk (“unsubscribe CCNet-News”). Information circulated on this network is for scholarly and educational use only. The attached information may not be copied or reproduced for any other purposes without prior permission of the copyright holders. DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the articles and texts and in other CCNet contributions do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the editor.
filing this here:
Mr. Jones has some explaining to do. Check out http://www.ClimateDepot.com for latest.
Caught in Another Untruth? THEN: UN IPCC’s Phil Jones, Dec 3, 2008: ‘About 2 months ago I deleted loads of emails, so have very little – if anything at all’ –
NOW: UN IPCC’s Phil Jones, Nov 24, 2009: ‘We’ve not deleted any emails or data here at CRU’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230635/Scientist-climate-change-cover-storm-told-quit.html
Scientist in climate change ‘cover-up’ storm told to quit
By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 9:45 PM on 24th November 2009
The scientist at the heart of the climate change scandal was under growing pressure to quit last night.
George Monbiot, a leading environmentalist, said Phil Jones should resign from the Climatic Research Unit over leaked emails that appear to show researchers suppressed scientific data.
More emails came to light yesterday, including one in which an American climatologist admitted it was a travesty that scientists could not explain a lack of global warming in recent years.
In another note, UK researchers dismissed the work of scientists challenging global warming as ‘crap’.
Another appeared to call for pressure on the BBC after a reporter suggested that evidence for rising temperatures since 2001 was thin.
In one of the most damning messages, Professor Jones appeared to respond to the death of a climate sceptic with the words ‘in an odd way this is cheering news!’.
The leak has been a huge embarrassment to the climate unit at the University of East Anglia, which is a global leader in its field.
Although there is no hint of evidence that climate change is not real, the emails appear to show researchers manipulating raw data and discussing how to dodge Freedom of Information requests.
Yesterday, Mr Monbiot, who writes on green issues, said the emails could scarcely be more damaging.
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‘I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken,’ he said. ‘There are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad.
‘There appears to be evidence of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a Freedom of Information request.
‘Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
‘The head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.’
Bob Ward, a climate expert at the London School of Economics and Political Science, demanded an independent inquiry.
‘From what I’ve seen of the emails, there’s not been any new questions raised about the way papers have been put together, but there should be an re-examination of the emails,’ he said.
The emails – which appeared last week on a Russian website – appear to have been stolen from a university computer server.
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Yesterday, Professor Jones refused to quit and denied that researchers had altered evidence to bolster the case for man-made climate change.
He added: ‘We absolutely stand by the science we produce here at the University of East Anglia and it has been peer reviewed and published.
‘Some of the emails probably had poorly chosen words and were sent in the heat of the moment, when I was frustrated. I do regret sending some of them. We’ve not deleted any emails or data here at CRU.
‘I would never manipulate the data one bit – I would categorically deny that.’ The university is to conduct an independent review of data security and on its response to 60 freedom of information requests over a short period.
˜ At least half the 36 UK officials and ministers travelling to the climate change talks in Copenhagen are going by air rather than by rail.
The Liberal Democrats said the arrangements showed up Labour’s hypocrisy on green issues.
The Government said officials had meetings that limited their travel options next month.
I watched your performance on Q and and was appalled by your boorish behaviour. I understand that you are sceptical of those who support climate change but there is no need for the rude and unseemly way in which you interrupted other speakers when contradicting your viewpoints.
I would be much more accepting of your arguments if you could stick to a reasoned and well structured presentation of the facts rather than attacking those who dare to offer an opposing point of view.