The climatic “hockey stick” hypothesis has systemic problems. I review how the IPCC came to adopt the “hockey stick” as scientific evidence of human interference with the climate. I report also on independent peer reviewed studies of the “hockey stick” that were instigated by the US House of Representatives in 2006, and which comprehensively invalidated it. The “divergence” problem and the selective and unreliable nature of tree ring reconstructions are discussed, as is the unsatisfactory review process of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report that ignored the invalidation of the “hockey stick”. The error found recently in the GISS temperature series is also noted. It is concluded that the IPCC has neither the structure nor the necessary independence and supervision of its processes to be acceptable as the monopoly authority on climate science. Suggestions are made as to how the IPCC could improve its procedures towards producing reports and recommendations that are more scientifically sound.
Continue reading: BIAS AND CONCEALMENT IN THE IPCC PROCESS: THE “HOCKEY-STICK” AFFAIR AND ITS IMPLICATIONS by David Holland
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
WARNING : “Reprinted from Energy & Environment”
You can just launch straight into attack mode Luke – Archibald and all that – no need to read.
Let’s adopt some principles for publications so dummies such as I know what’s kosher in the future.
Publications which give space to, AGW deniers , flat earth theory, ID enthusiasts, anti-GMO and extra terrestrial visitors are verboten!!
Anything else on the list?
The hockey stick isn’t science. Bristlecone cores are not proxys for temperature.
Paul if you have the time take a look at this deconstruction of AIT’s main graphic, Dr. Thompson’s Thermometer. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2328#more-2328
Pay special attention to the provenance of the graphic, a splice between MBH98 and the instrument record.
Given the graphs’ prominence, coupled with the shoddy methodology, and deliberately misleading presentation, I was thinking that a skilled orator, such as Dr. Cook, might want to do a deconstruction for video.
What do you think? Could you pitch it to him?
Jim – E&E is a pure trash journal. Let’s look at some of the unscientific beauties just let slide in the above:
“Many, particularly the conscientious young, have been persuaded that
anthropogenic global warming is a very serious problem for mankind and one which
governments can and should do something about” – *** reference? – says who. Pure opinion.
“Carefully controlled studies are mandated specifically to avoid bias in
the judgements as to which medicines and procedures are appropriate. High standards
of record keeping and disclosure are enforced.” *** Oh yea so Bayer gives Pfizer their entire data set do they?
“It is by all measures as important a field of research
as medicine, and ought to operate to standards at least as high, but it does not. On the
contrary, it is steeped in bias, concealment and spin. The Stern Review2 said “The
causal link between greenhouse gases concentrations and global temperatures is well
established, founded on principles established by scientists in the nineteenth century.”
This is both disingenuous and plainly wrong.” *** Says who – this dude ? pure opinion pulled out his bum.
And get this bilge – any old iron, every child player wins a prize
“Those critical of the science should be fully included in the process and
allowed to publish minority reports on the same dates as the main reports if
they are unhappy with the representation of their views in the main report.
• Governments should be given an adequate time to preview the final reports
so as to be able to write their own summaries, individually or collectively, but
should not be able to alter the work of the expert panels or publish their
summaries ahead of the reports themselves.”
Far out !
“Far too much is made of “climate
science” as a discipline. Only recently have there been formal courses in Climatology
and most of the current senior practitioners gained their qualifications in other
disciplines. More to the point, the shortcomings in many science papers used by the
IPCC are not usually speciality-related but rather result from ignorance or misuse of
advanced (and even standard) statistical methods, computer programming, basic
scientific procedures and simple common sense.” ** what a load of utter utter unsubtantiated drivel
Let’s tie the process up in endless knots without end. Any wanker can contribute any stupid theory which has to be included in the wanker minority report.
BUT BUT BUT – the greatest try-on of all time in a science paper –
“He claims to have been contacted by one climate scientist who expressed
the view that “we must get rid of the Medieval Warm Period. ” I HEARD IT DOWN THE PUB !!! ROTFL – LMAO – have total brain seizure from laughing too much ….
WTF – you’d have to read it to believe it.
E&E is a shit jornal that publishes crap like this paper.
A whinging unsubtantiated op-ed piece. No substantiation. No science. A rehash of what one can read more succinctly without the bulldust at Wiki.
Jim pulllease …. no wonder there’s earthquakes – do you worry why there are earthquakes Jim?
So the denialist dillberries can add one (actually should be -100) to their publication list of “AGW” papers in “quality journals”.
Sorry have to go and vomit.
YAWN! Chill out, Lil’ Lukefish. You already had the simplest of hockey stick peer-reviews, and you failed to understand even that. Remember, ‘Die Kurve ist “Quatsch”‘ – interview with Hans von Storch, Der Spiegel 04-OCT-04?
http://coast.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/storch/Media/interviews/spiegel.041004.jpg
None of us are surprised that you fail to understand this paper, it’s basic physical science, the basic mathematics/statistics, and the obvious deception of the author and some of his supporters.
Yes yes all long and boringly done elsewhere. So I assume you think this is a well written paper with quality referencing and not emotional drivel. Or is it just an op-ed bit of trash?
All you have to tell me Quickdraw McGraw is that this is a good paper – just say it for me.
As for von Storch did he not also say :
McIntyre was critical of this Nature blog entry because von Storch did not acknowledge the role of McIntyre and McKitrick;[56] however von Storch replied[57] that:
This was on purpose, as we do not think that McIntyre has substantially contributed in the published peer-reviewed literature to the debate about the statistical merits of the MBH and related method. They have published one peer-reviewed article on a statistical aspect, and we have published a response – acknowledging that they would have a valid point in principle, but the critique would not matter in the case of the hockey-stick … we see in principle two scientific inputs of McIntyre into the general debate – one valid point, which is however probably not relevant in this context, and another which has not been properly documented.
Oh yea !
Hey Luke , you and I know that BOTH sides of this debate offer opinion and imputation of bad faith, bias and ideology by the other side – look back at your own posts.
A 5 minute google would throw up countless examples of “whinging unsubtantiated op-ed piece(s)” from AGW true believers.
Does it gall so much that just one piece of AGW evidence turned out to be flawed that everyone who mentions it ever after is in the doghouse?
Science has published Carl Sagan for God’s sake – doesn’t mean it’s trash does it?
Jim – We’re talking scholarly journals not op-ed pieces or blog rants.
Well then there’s the “famous” E&E Archibald paper… another one soon we hear … OMIGOD !
Then there’s the Beck paper. argh….
Try googling Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen.
A decent editor would have booted the posted paper here for six – regardless of science content – it’s simply emotional, political, opinionated drivel with assertion not substantiation – not science.
You really do need to understand that point.
Op-ed is what you expect from the Wall St journal.
McCall. At the Climate Science seminar in Sweden a year ago Hans Von Storch said that the Hockey Stick was scientific fraud and directly compared Mann with the notorious Korean doctor who was found to have fiddled his results. I was there and I have Hans on DVD.
Mann knows about this I am sure and he has not sued von Storch. For very good reasons, I am sure.
Von Storch is no friend of the sceptics or Steve. But, unlike many who promote AGW, he is an honest man.
Bryan – “I was there and I have Hans on DVD.”
So pop the clip on YouTube and lets all have a look at it. Just supply us the link.
I’m not worried about E & E as a journal – but the journal(s) that failed to properly peer review MBH’98/99 etc certainly do worry me – and the fact that such a flawed paper featured so prominently in IPCC TAR. The hockey stick supporting papers are from the same team, using the same flawed data and methodology. Natural varialbility is therefore understimated, and climate sensitivity to CO2 over estimated.
So Paul you’d endorse Archibald and Beck’s papers then? Do you? This is quality science?
Would you get a medical technology paper published in the rambling emotional style above? It would be a sea of red ink – opinion – gone – more opinion – gone – no reference – gone – emotional rant – gone.
I fail to see what the Hockey Stick has to do with the current warming. Rapid warming with no solar driver. A cooling stratosphere.
I also fail to see the CO2 fertilisation argument with bristlecones in a water limited environment.
The limit of water doesn’t affect the trees that exist. What it does is remove any markers of warmer prehistoric climates by killing off the trees that existed in those conditions.
To even further skew the results, the existing trees receive most of their water in the form of snow. Bristlecones are brittle. The weight of the snow breaks off branchs, stripping off bark as they fall. The tree compensates by growing abnormally thick rings to repair the wound.
Way way afterwards hucksters like Mann take cores from those wounded areas and sell it to the gullable as unprecedented warming in the 20th century.
No proxy.
Paul – “The hockey stick supporting papers are from the same team, using the same flawed data and methodology. Natural varialbility is therefore understimated, and climate sensitivity to CO2 over estimated.”
It is totally obvious from this that you have absolutely no understanding of the issue. One of the supporting papers inferred paleoclimate using glaciers – explain to me how that is the “same team using the same flawed data”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/308/5722/675
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2004GL019781.shtml
I expect the crickets to getting a workout right about now.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/mclean-disband_the_ipcc.pdf
Given that the theme of this post is about the supposed biasedness and incompetence of the IPCC, then the paper by John Mclean is well worth adding into the discussion.
Mclean’s thesis is that the arrangements that set the IPCC up in the first place are fundamentally flawed,and further that the protocols it uses to manage the processes thus far are also flawed, so much so that the outcome was preordained.
He gives 10 reasons why it should be rubbed out and started again, anyone of which would be grounds action.
What he has written are clear examples of failures in basic Management 101.
I find this very disturbing because it is not what we were lead to believe was the case,in that one had expected the international community to behave more competently,and transparently.
No doubt this will send the vexatious bloggerant into a frenzy of bile about the authers/publishers, and what shills/trolls/scumoids, or whatever, they are.
But for my part I dont care who or what publishes a piece of evidence, or data. As a seemingly sensible person, with a lot of life experience I tend to look at evidence on its own merits, as indeed most people would.
So I dont give a toss that it wasnt published in whatever journal, by whom ever, or that the publisher receives money from XYZ.
If what John Mclean is sustainable, then it is a very black day for the credibilty for the UN/IPCC.
If John Mcleans thesis is supportable then he deserves our gratitude.
What are chances that at the next meeting in Bali the UN/IPCC people will clean their act up.
About zero is my guess.
Malcolm you haven’t learnt a single thing. Ranting, frothing and saying it’s so is not a scientific argument.
It’s an op-ed piece reinforcing your confirmation bias (or mine too for that matter).
Apart from E&E John Mclean’s “thesis” (and gee how innovative – it’s never been said before) has buckley’s chance of getting published. Why coz serious journals don’t accept nonsense. All these little rants published here have all the trade marks – much rhetorical and personal opinion interlaced with SELECTED science fragments. I know you’ll rampantly disagree but there you have it nonetheless.
The methodology you guys pursue is the same as all fascist regimes – cut down the science and information flow. Once all organised effort is disbanded you can do what you like. Your modus operandi is blatantly subversive and political.
Seems like every single met agency on the entire planet need shutting down. Strange isn’t it that so much conspiracy exists. This vast world organised plot.
The reality is that there is virtually no proof that will ever satisfy you guys.
So we’ll just sit here and wait. This blog will be great reading for deciding the mentality of the day in 30 years time.
Once again an absolutely predictable response from the “Luke the Magnificent”. The FIGJAM specialist from way back.( ^%#^% I’m Good, Just Ask Me).
The paper is about management and process and its conformity with the normally accepted standards of probity.
Its about ensuring that there are no conflicts of interest, and that the process does withstand scrutiny.Its about ensuring that it isnt a self fullfilling prophecy.
I dont care if the answer came out the same way at all, but one has to be sceptical about what is presented.
Indeed if they are so sure about the the hypothesis of AGW, why do they have to underpin it with totally shonky processes, that no corporation worth half its salt would engage in. Not if they are interested in getting at the truth in a defensible way.
Your idiot accusation that I somehow have the same methodology as fascist regimes, is just the pits.
But then you have to make a fuss dont you,twist and turn and obufuscate, change the subject, google any irrelevant twaddle that you rarely read. Thats the way you get your rewards, isnt it.
John Mclean’s article raises very serious questions about the probity, competence and ethics of the IPCC, that warrant serious attention.
It is over and above the scientific debate.
Yes yes – or a personal unsubstaniated emotional rant that appeals to your mindset (which we now know isn’t scientific). Just rhetoric, conspircacy and vitriole. Piss poor Malcolm, the CSIRO basher, the IPCC basher, the BoM basher, the Hadley basher, the GISS basher – goes on and and on doesn’t it. So many conspirators …
e.g. on the lead post “He claims to have been contacted by one climate scientist who expressed
the view that “we must get rid of the Medieval Warm Period. ”
Your honour – “I HEARD IT DOWN THE PUB” !!!
I was drawing peoples attention to what Mclean had written, which if true is a serious matter.It seems that my efforts in doing so, is what you see as wrong, not the facts of what Mclean is reporting.
But then that is our style isnt it.
I knew full well in lodging this post that you would react with your usual diatribe of obfuscation. You are so predictable Walker, but then the obssessively disturbed always are.
However the case still remains despite your attempts to divert attention.
“John Mclean’s article raises very serious questions about the probity, competence and ethics of the IPCC, that warrant serious attention.
It is over and above the scientific debate.”
Ender can hear crickets, isnt that cute. Luke is busy bashing right wing extremists aka denialist fascist nazi types before they get outta control and start conspiring
Rog – spot on – indeed life is short – so many to smack out.
What do you mean “start conspiring” – it’s almost too late and this is after all a planetary emergency. Who’ll save the world if we don’t?
Ender – the point is that all the flawed-related hockey stick studies should be binned rather than defended. We are then left with various studies, some showing a warm medieval period, some don’t.
The Shaopeng Huang of analysis of over 6,000 borehole records from every continent around the world, went back 20,000 years. The portion covering the last millennium showed a “warm” interval in the medieval era that dwarfs 20th century changes. This study seems to have been binned, due to the potential effects of snow cover on the results, if I remember correctly – a criticism that can’t be levelled at his Australian LIA results.
Steve McIntyre lists the evidence for a cooler MWP here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=767
Thanks for your comments, Malcolm. You sum up the situation well.
The problem is that the IPCC was flawed from the outset. It’s structure and procedures leave little scope for independent checks and for “chinese walls” between researchers, authors and reviewers.
Luke has flown off onto a wild tangent talking about “conspiracy”, a word which I don’t use. There appears to be some instances of the IPCC deliberately downplaying issues and inflating others but to claim it is a “conspiracy” – which requires a highly organised and directed program of deception – would be carrying things too far.
Luke also claims it is a “rant” but it’s just a simple dissection based on the IPCC’s own documents with some logic and rational thought applied. If this is a rant in Luke’s eyes then how does he regard his own pastiche of garbled assertions? If Luke stopped trying to trivialise what he doesn’t agree with and started showing substantiation for his statements it would be a pleasant surprise – a New Year’s resolution perhaps ??
Paul – “the point is that all the flawed-related hockey stick studies should be binned rather than defended. We are then left with various studies, some showing a warm medieval period, some don’t.”
Why because it does not agree with your pre-conceived notions? So what you are really saying is that if a study does not agree with what you think it should be binned. Please post a reference to one peer reviewed study that shows that any of these follow up studies are flawed or a case of fraud. You can leave out M&M PCA analysis because it only relates to MBH99.
Crickets warming up.
“The Shaopeng Huang of analysis of over 6,000 borehole records from every continent around the world, went back 20,000 years. The portion covering the last millennium showed a “warm” interval in the medieval era that dwarfs 20th century changes. This study seems to have been binned, due to the potential effects of snow cover on the results, if I remember correctly – a criticism that can’t be levelled at his Australian LIA results.”
And where is the reference to this study? I looked on Google Scholar and could not find it.
Paul – “The Shaopeng Huang of analysis of over 6,000 borehole records from every continent around the world, went back 20,000 years”
I did find this however and this sort of shoots down the 20 000 year thing.
“Climate Reconstruction from Subsurface Temperatures
Henry N. Pollack1 and Shaopeng Huang1
1Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48109–1063; email: hpollack@lsa.umich.edu
▪ Abstract Temperature changes at the Earth’s surface propagate downward into the subsurface and impart a thermal signature to the rocks. This signature can be measured in boreholes and then analyzed to reconstruct the surface temperature history over the past several centuries. The ability to resolve surface temperature history from subsurface temperatures diminishes with time. Microclimatic effects associated with the topography and vegetation patterns at the site of a borehole, along with local anthropogenic perturbations associated with land use change, can obscure the regional climate change signal. Regional and global ensembles of boreholes reveal the broader patterns of temperature changes at the Earth’s surface. The average surface temperature of the continents has increased by about 1.0 K over the past 5 centuries; half of this increase has occurred in the twentieth century alone.”
Well John – “If Luke stopped trying to trivialise what he doesn’t agree with and started showing substantiation for his statements it would be a pleasant surprise ” Holey dooley … after a long history of doing just that I just decided to adopt Ian, Rog, Sid, Louis and Malcolm’s style.
Too much “link link” says Rog.
Malcolm says “don’t bother googling mindlessly”.
People don’t want to hear any facts John unless it affirms their confirmation bias.
The most relevant example here is:
e.g. on the lead post “He claims to have been contacted by one climate scientist who expressed
the view that “we must get rid of the Medieval Warm Period. ”
Your honour – “I HEARD IT DOWN THE PUB” !!!
Any editor worth two knobs of goat poop would just red ink stuff like this as emotional hearsay. The “paper” under discussion wreaks of it. So it cops a big serve of derision.
The threshold test for you guys is when you start being equally critical e.g. every time I ask for a show of support for Archibald’s E&E paper – you hear the Road Runner “beep beep” noise and all you can see if a little cloud of dust.
When you guys start being uniformly and fairly critical I’ll start paying some attention.
“Luke also claims it is a “rant” but it’s just a simple dissection based on the IPCC’s own documents with some logic and rational thought applied. If this is a rant in Luke’s eyes then how does he regard his own pastiche of garbled assertions? If Luke stopped trying to trivialise what he doesn’t agree with and started showing substantiation for his statements it would be a pleasant surprise – a New Year’s resolution perhaps ??”
I have seen numerous attempts at serious discussion by Luke, mnay of which would take a lot of research and personal time to prepare. They are usually met by juvenile derision, or utter silence. Why bother?
“I have seen numerous attempts at serious discussion by Luke, mnay of which would take a lot of research and personal time to prepare. They are usually met by juvenile derision, or utter silence. Why bother?”
Oh deary me, I feel so sad.
Poor old Lukey has put in some effort and it has been treated with disdain, utter silence even.
What a piece of steaming hypocrisy.
I log in a piece of work by John Mclean (where he Mclean has also put in lot of time and personal research) in order to bring it peoples attention, precisely because it was ON topic, predicting in advance what Walker would do, and sure as eggs he came in right on cue.
Perhaps it might be the case that your mate Luke Walker might be listened to if he did some listening and indeed reading, himself.
As the most prolific bloggerant, it might also help to restore some credibility into the scheme of things, if he revealed just what science/maths/business quals and life experiences he has, that warrant anyone paying any attention at all.
But the way he blows off at anything not to his liking, primarily because of its source rather the material matters presented, it is indeed, a case of –why bother.
Fair comment.
Of course Malcolm you yourself would be beyond reproach and be leading by example.