by Judith Curry
We’re screwed: 11,000 years’ worth of climate data prove it. It’s among the most compelling bits of proof out there that human beings are behind global warming, and as such has become a target on Mann’s back for climate denialists looking to draw a bead on scientists. — The Atlantic, March 9th
We’re not screwed. The trouble is, as they quietly admitted over the weekend, their new and stunning claim is groundless. The real story is only just emerging, and it isn’t pretty. – Ross McKitrick
The saga surrounding the Marcott et al paper has gotten really interesting over the weekend. Some key posts:
- A series of posts at ClimateAudit
- Response by Marcott et al. at RealClimate
- Fixing the Marcott mess in climate science by Roger Pielke Jr
- The Marcott filibuster at ClimateAudit
Ross McKitrick provides a summary of all this in an article for the Financial Post, entitled We’re not screwed? Excerpts:
The latter was an apparent discovery that 20th-century warming was a wild departure from anything seen in over 11,000 years. News of this finding flew around the world and the authors suddenly became the latest in a long line of celebrity climate scientists.
The trouble is, as they quietly admitted over the weekend, their new and stunning claim is groundless. The real story is only just emerging, and it isn’t pretty.
Steve McIntyre of climateaudit.org began examining the details of the Marcott et al work, and by March 16 he had made a remarkable discovery (JC note: see original article for details).
Worse, the article did not disclose this step. In their online supplementary information the authors said they had assumed the core tops were dated to the present “unless otherwise noted in the original publication.” In other words, they claimed to be relying on the original dating, even while they had redated the cores in a way that strongly influenced their results.
. . . contains a remarkable admission: “[The] 20th-century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of glbal temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions.”
Now you tell us! The 20th-century uptick was the focus of worldwide media attention during which the authors made very strong claims about the implications of their findings regarding 20th-century warming. Yet at no point did they mention the fact that the 20th century portion of their proxy reconstruction is garbage.
What made their original conclusion about exceptional nature of the 20th century warming plausible was precisely the fact that it appeared to be picked up both by modern thermometers and by their proxy data. But that was an illusion. It was introduced into their proxy reconsruction as an artifact of arbitrarily redating the end points of a few proxy records.
In recent years there have been a number of cases in which high-profile paper from climate scientists turned out, on close inspection, to rely on unseemly tricks fudges and/or misleading analyses. After they get uncovered in the blogosphere, the academic community rushes to circle the wagons and denounce any criticism as “denialism.” There’s denialism going on all right – on the part of scientists who don’t see that their continuing defence of these kinds of practices exacts a toll on the public credibility of their field.
JC comments: This case is an interesting one in the sociology of climate science. Some concerns and questions:
- Are there still no checks and balances in the paleoclimate community (outside of the efforts of Steve McIntyre, JeanS et al.)?
- In terms of the hyping of this story, I am prepared to give Marcott and Shakun somewhat of a pass given that they are recent Ph.D. recipients. Alan Mix and Peter Clark are the senior authors. And the paper was also hyped by a NSF Program Manager. What kind of advice did they give Marcott and Shakun in all this?
- Marcott scored points in my book by communicating with Steve McIntyre, and for some measure of honesty in his response. I wonder how his response landed on RealClimate. Here is a suspicion: Marcott was subsequently contacted by one of the RealClimate principals, providing advice against engaging with McIntyre, sympathy that they are being attacked by deniers, and providing support and a safe refuge on RealClimate.
- I see this as a struggle for the souls of two young climate scientists. Will they (i) decide to care primarily about science, and embrace the values of transparency and public accountability, answer questions about their research, and engage with skeptics in the interest of improving their research; or (ii) do they aspire to Mike Mann-style celebrity and plan to join the RealClimate warriors against auditing and skepticism?
JC advice to Marcott and Shakun: I understand how tough it is for a young Ph.D. scientist to make their mark in academia and obtain a desirable permanent position. Celebrity can be seductive, but engaging with the media is associated with many potential pitfalls. I encourage you to read my essay published a few years ago at DotEarth entitled: An open letter to graduate students and young scientists in fields related to climate research:
What has been noticeably absent so far in the ClimateGate discussion is a public reaffirmation by climate researchers of our basic research values: the rigors of the scientific method (including reproducibility), research integrity and ethics, open minds, and critical thinking. Under no circumstances should we ever sacrifice any of these values . . .
JC advice to NSF and the universities: We are not doing a good enough job in educating our young scientists about the specific ethical challenges faced by scientists working in the climate field. Lets share/generate some wisdom and develop better guidance for dealing with these issues (something for NRC COSEPUP to take on).
JC advice to the skeptical blogosphere: Lets get to the bottom of this, but while doing so I remind you that one element of this is the struggle for the scientific souls of two promising young scientists. Please don’t overegg the pudding and inadvertently send them to the RealClimate refugee and training camp. Cordially invite them to engage, and work with them to try to change the culture in the paleoclimate community.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
I point out to Willis Eschanbach, who berates Marcott with vigor about a lapse in ethics, that Marcott is a young man here and essentially tell Willis that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Willis comes back saying Marcott is 30 years old implying that’s not all that young.
I was a bit surprised at the age since Dr. Curry had said Marcott was a new PhD so I found Shaun Marcott’s CV and was enlightened by it. He is indeed at least 30 years old and Shaun has never held a job outside academia. He got a BS in Geology in 2002 at Oregon State then immediately got a teaching assistant job there and being a TA in Oregon is all he ever did until getting a PhD there in 2011. I submit that Shaun Marcott is a very sheltered 30-year old and a prime example of a product of his environment.
I’m not certain he even realizes he did something wrong. In the land of the Gleicks and Manns and Lewendowskis scientific objectivity & ethics take a back seat behind ideology and tribalism. Is Shaun irretrievably a member of Mann’s tribe by now? I don’t know but I do know that 12+ years of isolation and behavioral conditioning in the tribe isn’t easily overcome. It probably is too late at this point and Dr. Curry should concentrate on saving freshmen not professional students like Shaun.
David Springer | April 3, 2013 at 8:21 am | Reply
——–
Just gotta say Dave, what a load of crap. Making excuses for what is very obvious misconduct is sickening to me.
I live and work is a world where we expect 100% integrity from every 21+ year old who comes to work for us, starting day 1. And you want to forgive a thirty year old because he’s been sheltered? Makes me vomit.
I laughed when I saw his entry for ‘work experience’
2005 – present Research and Teaching Assistant – Oregon State University
2003- 2005 Research and Teaching Assistant – Portland State University
2002 Research and Teaching Assistant – Oregon State University
Not exactly the wide ranging and varied perspective we normally try to cultivate in ‘thought leaders’. This guy hasn’t had the opportunity to do anything outside a very narrow academic environment. I would trust him ot judge how to cross the road alone, let alone with anything important.
And yes, I have spent a long time reading CVs – and hiring (and occasionally firing) people in the real world.
As I posted elsewhere, Shaun Marcott has an earlier CV found on the Wayback Machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050104175736/http://www.proglacial.com/CV/CV_Frameset_Home.htm
Marcott did some field work for British Petroleum during the summer of 2000. From the above CV, “Data processor duties involved inputting well log data, seismic data, drill reports, and core sample information into a database (Asset DB) for British Petroleum’s ‘Charter Project.’ “. In 2001, he did summer work for Phillips Petroleum Alaska as a clerk. This info is missing from his current CV.
KSD,
“I live and work is a world where we expect 100% integrity from every 21+ year old who comes to work for us, starting day 1. And you want to forgive a thirty year old because he’s been sheltered? Makes me vomit.”
So do I, yet I can’t tell you how many 18 to 30 year olds I have dismissed because they were unable perform their jobs with integrity, among lacking other important work ethic attributes. None of them were as highly educated though, so perhaps expectations are a bit lower. A 30 year old new PhD is sheltered from the ‘real world’ as you or I know it. I know this from personal experience having earned a PhD immediately following undergraduate school. The above statement is a bit ignorant of the process by which one gets a PhD in the sciences straight out of undergraduate school. Graduate PhD’s are very much used to being guided by thier mentor(s) because that is what they have done their whole educational career. I would be much more likely to forgive a new PhD because he/she are more than likely still being guided by thier mentor(s) or senior staff i.e. trusting ther judgement of more experienced peers…. that the advice they get from them is good advice. I would be looking more closely at who was advising him to take the direction taken, that person should know better. I have to agree with JC.
Latimer,
“I laughed when I saw his entry for ‘work experience”
What are you expecting to see? CEO of a large corporation? Having gone through the process of earning a PhD myself, when I was finished and put together my inital CV after graduating, that’s pretty much what I had as well. When you are a full time graduate student, there are three things you are likely to be doing. 1) Taking classes 2) Teaching i.e. being a TA and getting a stipend (this is how you make the very little money you need to live on) 3) Doing research under the guidance of your mentor/advisor. If you do well, you might get rewarded with a scholarship so you don’t have to teach which allows you to concentrate on research and classes. After your first 2.5 years, classes are not as time consuming and you can concentrate 100% on research. So if you’re focused on doing research and preparing to defend your dissertaion, what other jobs are you going to be doing to put on your CV?
You don’t do too much outside the narrow academic environment… it is a focused academic and reseach environment you are in. This is the norm for the majority of science graduate students and has been for at least the last 100 years. Do you know of another way it’s being done?
@john carpenter
‘You don’t do too much outside the narrow academic environment’
Thanks for emphasising my point for me.
In such an environment you are very unlikely to develop many skills or sound judgement about the outside world.
And, boy does it show in the sheer ineptitude of the handling of this fiasco.
Anyone with sound judgement would never have got into it in the first place.
k scott denison | April 3, 2013 at 2:50 pm |
“And you want to forgive a thirty year old because he’s been sheltered?”
Where did I say I wanted to forgive the lad? I merely said he appears to have led a sheltered life. Take it for what its worth. I report, you decide. Got it?
Latimer,
Well, I know I made plenty of mistakes early on when I got into the business world, which I did just after graduate school. I was especially niave wrt managing people, as I tend to be honest and give others the benefit of the doubt. I believed most other people to be as honest as I was (big mistake). I saw lots of questionable practices and had to make judgements based on my position, age and knowledge about what I was seeing and how to address it. I did not always make the best decision and had to learn the hard way by making poor judgemental mistakes. I tell people I manage that if you are not making mistakes, then you are not really doing anything or making any real decisions and therefore not learning. Sound judgement is not inherited… it’s learned…. often by making poor judgemental mistakes.
So a mistake was made by Marcot et al on the decision to hype the recent temperature spike. It appears he included new information in the paper that he did not include in his dissertation. He made a decision to include that information in a way that it said something more than what the thrust of the paper really was about. Questions come to mind. Did he do this in a void, all alone? Did he do this as a group with his co-authors? Was he advised by other peers? Was he advised by more experienced mentors/advisors/superiors? Was there any external factors pushing him in the direction taken? Was there a combination of these factors at work?
I would practice some charity here. Why? He finally came around to:
“[The] 20th-century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions.”
He admitted to the mistake. He did not draw a line in the sand. He did not disparage SM for revealing the weakness of the analysis. He is not going to war to defend the indefensible.
How will he show that he learned from this experience? Time will tell, except now more people are watching.
RHL | April 3, 2013 at 5:58 pm |
“As I posted elsewhere, Shaun Marcott has an earlier CV found on the Wayback Machine:”
Which lists him having summer jobs related to his major in three of four undergraduate years. I believe they call those internships. I suppose it makes him a bit less sheltered but not by very much as these positions are pretty exclusively coordinated partnerships between industry and university. It’s more like a field trip than a job.
John Carpenter: I too earned my PhD directly after undergraduate school. And I was EXPECTED to act with integrity my first day on the job. Many of my friends went to work for top secret government installations… think they were given a pass?
There is a message in Marcott that I think many have missed. Marcott tells us almost nothing about how the past compares with today, because of the resolution problem. Marcott recognizes this in their FAQ. The probability function is specific to the resolution. Thus, you cannot infer the probability function for a high resolution series from a low resolution series, because you cannot infer a high resolution signal from a low resolution signal. The result is nonsense.
However, what Marcott does tell us is still very important and I hope the authors of Marcott et al will take the time to consider. The easiest way to explain is by analogy:
50 years ago astronomers searched extensively for planets around stars using lower resolution equipment. They found none and concluded that they were unlikely to find any at the existing resolution. However, some scientists and the press generalized this further to say there were unlikely to be planets around stars, because none had been found.
This is the argument that since we haven’t found 20th century equivalent spikes in low resolution paleo proxies, they are unlike to exist. However, this is a circular argument and it is why Marcott et al has gotten into trouble. It didn’t hold for planets and now we have evidence that it doesn’t hold for climate.
What astronomy found instead was that as we increased the resolution we found planets. Not just a few, but almost everywhere we looked. This is completely contrary to what the low resolution data told us and this example shows the problems with today’s thinking. You cannot use a low resolution series to infer anything reliable about a high resolution series.
However, the reverse is not true. What Marcott is showing is that in the high resolution proxies there is a temperature spike. This is equivalent to looking at the first star with high resolution equipment and finding planets. To find a planet on the first star tells us you are likely to find planets around many stars.
Thus, what Marcott is telling us is that we should expect to find a 20th century type spike in many high resolution paleo series. Rather than being an anomaly, the 20th century spike should appear in many places as we improve the resolution of the paleo temperature series. This is the message of Marcott and it is an important message that the researchers need to consider.
Marcott et al: You have just looked at your first star with high resolution equipment and found a planet. Are you then to conclude that since none of the other stars show planets at low resolution, that there are no planets around them? That is nonsense. The only conclusion you can reasonably make is that as you increase the resolution of other paleo proxies, you are more likely to find spikes in them as well.
This strikes me as a brilliant insight. I’m guessing it’s correct.
Nancy Green
Your analogy sounds very logical and convincing to me, as well.
Max
Love this analogy.
Well said Nancy. The differing resolution problem for paleo series seems to me to be intractable however, given that the analysis of ice core samples and tree rings etc are more complex than simply improving the magnification of our telescopes as in the case of astronomy. Hence the previous spikes in the Earth’s climate that you infer may never be conclusively established.
Peter Davis. The wood in trees didn’t just get there by magic.
You could actually do things like measure the isotope ratios and the Ar/N2 ratio of tree rings of trees where you have a thermometer record and then have a look at tree rings of the same species in the past.
You can look at heavy metal accumulation. You can do all sorts of stuff.
However, you would have to get off you fat arse and actually obtain raw data, which is a problem in the field.
That’s true of many of us here Doc but I still consider that the scientific work that you describe is best funded by Govt and Private Corps and performed by trained scientists that abound in Universities everywhere.
The capital cost of the drilling machines and the ongoing travelling and accommodation expenses alone would be way outside my budget.
The few relationships that you have mentioned as possible avenues of research still seems to me to be a long way from being spatially and temporally linked to climate change with any degree of precision.
Nancy, there are higher resolution proxies, such as the Vostok Ice Core, which do in fact show lots of temperature spikes. Steve Mosher has posted some graphic overlays elsewhere on this thread showing this.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/02/were-not-screwed/#comment-308698
enjoy
“I am prepared to give Marcott and Shakun somewhat of a pass given that they are recent Ph.D. recipients. ”
Generous impulse as always Dr. C, but these are grown men. In the end, it’s just another disgraceful episode in the recent annals of climate science.
Embarrassing own goal after embarrassing own goal.
“, but these are grown men”
No. They are men who grew up in a cult. The AGW cult. And they know who the high priests are. And they know what to say to make their priests happy and the media happy.
The cult remark is an uncalled for conclusion
If this had been a paper published by a skeptic Michael Mann and the usual suspects on “The Team” would have pressured the offending editor at Science into resigning to serve as a warning to other journal editors to toe the alarmist line or lose their jobs. It’s happened what, at least twice before, in recent years? I seem to recall in Climategate emails a conspiratorial discussion about boycotting a magazine for publishing a paper penned by a skeptic.
The worst offender in my mind is Science Magazine and an editor’s head should roll over this as a warning to others. That isn’t likely to happen since Science is beholding to academia for its survival and academia is the willing source of the corrupt science. It’s a Catch 22 situation.
David, you will find that ‘Science’ does not only have a problem with Climate Science.
If you look at any of the biomedical papers you notice something.
All the papers in Science are perfect.
Everything follows a A to B to C to D progression.
Each experiment answers an ambiguity of the previous result.
In every article we have an open and shut case.
The researchers who get published in Science don’t work on messy systems.
They have lovely tight distributions in their controls.
Their gels are perfect.
Typically, error bars are tight, but when there are the same control conditions in two figures you see that the means are different.
Judith: Are you implying that for recent Science PhDs, in Climatology at least, the end justifies the means?
Have no clue how you would make that inference.
“I wonder how his response landed on RealClimate. Here is a suspicion: Marcott was subsequently contacted by one of the RealClimate principals, providing advice against engaging with McIntyre, sympathy that they are being attacked by deniers, and providing support and a safe refuge on RealClimate…….. plan to join the RealClimate warriors against auditing and skepticism?” – JC
It’s a conspiracy!
Dr Curry has lots of time and energy to speculate on RealClimate with zero evidence yet sadly runs out before she can fact check any of McKitrick’s piece which she quotes from extensively.
As for the “scientific souls” of these researchers I suppose they have a choice to make. Were they treated more fairly by:
1. The scientific community via the journal they posted in and blogs run by the RealClimate team, skeptical science, tamino etc
2. The “skeptic” community via articles at Forbes, McKitrick’s above and blogs such Climate Audit, WUWT, Pielke etc.
Number 2. Never confuse fairness with gullibility or conniving. These guys need to know there’s a key choice in front of them. None of can soften that blow, nor is it fair to do so.
Richard,
“Number 2. Never confuse fairness with gullibility or conniving. “
Let’s propose a thought experiment in which Marcott and Shakun are not guilt of misconduct or fraud. With that in mind reread the skeptic coverage putting yourself in the place of the researcher that has not committed misconduct or fraud.
The thought experiment in which they did commit misconduct or fraud is much simpler, for who cares about their “scientific souls” in that instance?
It’s worse than wrasslin’ alligators.
=======
Let’s add to the thought experiment that none one of the world’s media ran “We’re Screwed” headlines on the back of the release of this paper and its press release. In that case, yes, the skeptic coverage would have been way over the top. And your point is?
Richard,
“the world’s media ran “We’re Screwed” headlines on the back of the release of this paper “
Therefore Marcott and Shakun are guilty of misconduct or fraud?
Therefore skeptics are justified in accusing Marcott and Shakun of misconduct or fraud?
Which?
Ask the NSF.
========
“Therefore Marcott and Shakun are guilty of misconduct or fraud?”
I’d say anybody who gets in front of a camera touting an upticking squiggly line drawing can be accused of fraud.
I think it’s interesting that there’s such difficulty establishing even a purely theoretical scenario in which Marcott and Shakun are not guilty of misconduct or fraud.
Their scientific souls shall surely feel nourished and embraced.
I really do not understand this exchange. It is rather elementary to understand that the author’s did not do best practice’s in presenting this material.
Regardless of what may be their level of misconduct if any, integrity should prevail in them speaking loud and clear as to the materials shortcomings.
What, IMO, has become so disgusting is that, in the end, this should not be about the researchers, their needs or egos, it should be about the choices the world community will make based on climate research.
Making mistakes is part of human nature. Not accepting responsibility for mistakes has become more the norm, (including institutions)
There simply have been too many within the climate research community
(but not all) that are very small people.
Yes, credit should be given for contacting Steve McIntyre; however, much more credit would be given to many (in particular M. Mann) for contacting a statistician with superior credentials before presenting
research.
Fairness? Are we 12?
Can we just get the science right first?
I am a complete climate layman, and even I know that you better have your data and code ready and able to support your conclusions when you publish today. Please, your argument is “not robust”…….
All one really needs to do here is read the first sentence of the paper’s abstract and then go to the point where the authors admit that the 20th century portion of their work is “not robust”.
One does not require a boatload of advanced degrees to their name to recognize poor science. Claims after the fact that the paper was about advancing our understanding of the planet’s climate 10,000 years ago appear to be a case of back tracking and cover up.
“[The] 20th-century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions.” Marcott.
Exactly what fact checking does Dr. Curry have to do on McKitrick’s piece?
The use of an FAQ to quell the publics dissatisfaction is a well known PR tool.
Steve Mosher: The use of an FAQ to quell the publics dissatisfaction is a well known PR tool.
The FAQs should be included in the supporting online material supplied by the authors to Science.
Reality has a well known skeptical bias…
Excellent advice JC.
Eh? Am not their dad. If they put money before science they deserve neither. Ask Gergis. Ask Wagner.
Judy:
Nicely said. Do you think the inappropriate and misleading PR hype of the paper has something to with Prof. Peter Clark’s role on AR5?
Thanks for catching this, I was unaware of Clark’s role in AR5.
I think that changes the ‘sociology’.
Engaging with the media on a hot button topic such as climate change is fraught with numerous potential pitfalls, which a recent Ph.D. is most likely ill prepared to deal with. It wasn’t easy for me in 2005, when I was a full professor.
Point taken. I fully accept the advice to go easy on Marcutt and Shakun. Pity is, it’s unlikely their ‘friends’ will. But all the more reason for someone like me to do so.
“Please don’t overegg the pudding and inadvertently send them to the RealClimate refugee and training camp. ” – JC
Too late Judith.
Then there’s you, with your promotion of McKitricks’ steaming pile of BS above;
“their ……claim is groundless. The real story is only just emerging, and it isn’t pretty.”
“the authors made very strong claims…..Yet at no point did they mention the fact that the 20th century portion of their proxy reconstruction is garbage.”
” a number of cases in which high-profile paper from climate scientists turned out, on close inspection, to rely on unseemly tricks fudges and/or misleading analyses”.
Hey, now there’s cordial “engagement” – promoted by you.
So when they do decide that every negative thing they’d ever heard about ‘climate skeptics’ is proven true to them, and they go to “RealClimate refugee and training centre” (oh, nice ‘engagement’ there!! ) you can take some credit.
Don masks. er, dawn masques.
=======
I don’t bother engaging with RealClimate et al. However, I think there is some hope for influencing Steve McIntyre in terms of how he engages with these young scientists (McIntyre was mostly the intended audience for that statement).
Is he supposed to teach them or are they supposed to learn from him? Let’s take roll call, and bring order. I’m not on the list; I’m just auditing.
============
Oops, two burly hall monitors just showed up and each want a word with me.
=============
Judith,
So why did you so prominently feature the false claims by McKitrick??
How does this do anything other than the exact opposite of what you say you want?
You say you want people to engage with these young researchers, and then you fling this cr@p in their faces.
gas masks for the stink-bomb blitz…
“You say you want people to engage with these young researchers, and then you fling this cr@p in their faces.”
If the researchers in question would kindly disassociate themselves from “the RealClimate crowd” the non-binding promise of the crap flinging slowing down has been proposed.
Nice career you got there boys, be a shame if you were to continue to be dragged publicly through the mud.
Yes,
That does seem to be the threat implied.
Alligator Marcott and Elevator Shakun.
==============================
Michael
Have you not learned by now to recognize what at its kindest is methodological “sloppiness” [which I don’t think it is at all] and most likely scientific misconduct in that the near vertical uptick in the Science paper [absent in Marcott’s thesis] is so out of order that it cannot be anything but a fabrication.
This pre-Easter “resurrection” [it’s all in the timing] of the Hockey Stick story line is made all the more suspicious in terms of its climate political connotations by Clark’s presence in the picture and his involvement in the upcoming AR5.
The climate establishment and their ideological kin are desperate to counter the 16 year “pause” or flat lining of global temperatures -which the UK Met Office now figures will continue for at least another 5 years- that has now been acknowledged even by the IPCC’s eminence railway engineer himself, Dr Pachauri.
As far as Curryja’s benevolence towards Marcott and Shakun is concerned, I don’t share that sentiment. They are big boys now and by having a paper published in Science -which I’m sure must have been ego enhancing for them- they have entered the big leagues and have to play by big league rules -which includes having you paper scrutinized by the likes of McIntyre, McItrick and a few other sharp minds, and trashed by them if found to be deficient.
My view is that unless Marcott and Shakun distance themselves quickly and visibly from the embrace they are now receiving from the Team and request that Science temporarily retract the paper to allow for a revision/corrigendum – crucially both where the methodology/statistical analysis and the conclusions are concerned- they will be perceived as having gone over to the “dark side” of climate science. To the “science” side, that is. And rightly so. Their academic future rides on them making the right call, and soon.
Judith –
Then maybe you should talk to McIntyre about his misquoting Marcott (the “troll army” quote). Seems that would be something easily checked by a skilled auditor. Perhaps not misquoting people would be a better way to “influence” them?
lol!
Michael:So why did you so prominently feature the false claims by McKitrick??
Quoting McKitrick exactly, which of his claims to you claim is (or are) false?
Matthew;
“Yet at no point did they mention the fact …..”
Indeed, they did mention the proxy drop out issue in their paper.
A more interestion is why Judith promotes such baseless allegations, while imploring young scientist to engage with such scoundrels.
The phrase, talking out both sides of your mouth, resonates.
Care to point out where McKitricks facts where wrong on this paper has with others his taken to bits that have claimed to justify ‘the cause ‘ . Or is he just a ‘bad men ‘ for doing the critical review that should have happened in the peer review process BEFORE they where published , let alone pimped to the press , in the first place ?
Michael, Indeed, they did mention the proxy drop out issue in their paper.
You truncated McKittrick.
McKitrick’s full quote is: “Yet at no point did they mention the fact that the 20th century portion of their proxy reconstruction is garbage.”
Unless possibly you object that “garbage” is too strong a word for their subsequent disavowal of the 20th century reconstruction, McKitrick is correct. They addressed the dropout in their supporting online material, but in a graph without commenting on how unreliable it rendered the reconstruction; that came from subsequent comments on McIntyre’s comments. (as far as I can tell — I have the documents open as I write, but I may have missed the important qualifying text. I am embarrassed that I missed important limitations of the study before Paul Matthews pointed them out. )
One could also object to the “at no point”, which sounds a bit strong to anyone who appreciate straightforwardness.
Don’t you think so, MattStat?
willard(@nevaudit): One could also object to the “at no point”, which sounds a bit strong to anyone who appreciate straightforwardness.
Which (at least) one time did would you cite where Marcotte et al admitted that their “hockey stick” reconstruction was totally unreliable?
Do you notice how “20th portion” now becomes “the whole reconstruction”, MattStat?
willard(@nevaudit): Do you notice how “20th portion” now becomes “the whole reconstruction”, MattStat?
You made that up. McKitrick focused on the 20th century portion, which was the portion that Marcotte et al highlighted in their public comments.
> You made that up.
Please explain:
> Which (at least) one time did would you cite where Marcotte [sic.] et al admitted that their “hockey stick” reconstruction was totally unreliable?
Maybe it’s a vocabulary thing.
> which was the portion that Marcotte [sic.] et al highlighted in their public comments.
Quote and citation needed.
Still ain’t.
Or do we want to do the Italian Flag Postnormal thing again?
The Italian Flag on this one is substantially dominated by the white part of the flag; if the authors had better taken this into consideration, they would have spared themselves alot of grief (and incidentally probably much of the publicity).
“is a tricolour featuring three equally sized vertical pales of green, white, and red, with the green at the hoist side. Its current form has been in use since 19 June 1946 and was formally adopted on 1 January 1948.[1]”
From the Wikipedia.
Judith; Marcott made them do it.
Pere Rabu.
=======
But a lot of climate “water” has passed under the bridge since 2005. Marcott and Shakun must have been aware that the production of any new proxy hockey stick would be akin to waving the red cape at the skeptic bull. Consider this along with the fact that there was no uptick in Marcott’s phd thesis on the same matter and we end up with a strong suspicion of political influence. I blame Marcott’s and Shakuns elders for encouraging them to play this game where they may end up as roadkill.
The Incident at Hockey Stick Bridge.
==========
If the up-kick was scientifical justifiable there would be no issue , the problem is that its not but it is an artefact of data manipulation which the authors went pimping to the press has ‘proof’
I wonder about the possible timeline of ‘engagement’ by the RealClimate Team. Possibly it was, as you suggest, first after the publication of the new Marcott Hockeystick.
But I would be very surprised if that was the first time they’d learnt about it.
There were more peculiar things happening well before that:
First: The remarkable ‘transformation’ of the holocene reconstruction from Marcott’s thesis chapter (without any sharp blade/uptick) to the now published version,
Second: Which was submitted to (at least) one high profile journal (Science), and how it managed, with all its quite visible problems to get by all the reviers there.
Third: The media Blitz after publication, and the acclaim it received from other official quarters, and those with notable Hockeystick ideation.
Forth: The scrutiny it recieved, and how this was handled initially, to subsequently be deferred to a forthcoming FAQ-document. Presented some days earlier (as picture file) on Marcott’s hompage. (Again redated to 2012!). To
Fifth: The same FAQ showing up on Real Climate on Easter Sunday, whith a major fraction of the Team vigorously defending it and claiming to speak for the paper and its merits plus the FAQ. And the absence of any of the authors answering questions (either there, or the ones that the FAQ didn’t address).
I think there is more to this sstory than meets the eye …
Agreed. I expect the authors had expert coaching in the wording of their abstract. It implies much, but when one reads it in detail it says very little. The reader is left to infer facts that are contradicted by the caveats within the paper itself.
The paper reminds me of skilled legalese; where you are promised a house and a car, but end up with nothing due to the fine print.
There has been speculation in various quarters that Mann was a reviewer of the Marcott et al paper. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that it was Mann’s influence behind the scenes in an attempt to set and control the PR post FAQ.
‘cept for we ARE screwed. If Warming doesn’t get us, Warmers will.
Andrew
Did any of you try to read the comments under the Atlantic article? They sure aren’t about the validity, shortcomings or problems of the Marcott paper. I am so thankful that the Internet exists and still remains free. I doubt Dr JC’s blog and others would be so easily accessible to us if it were not.
Pielke Jr.’s already on that, Judith – insinuating scientific misconduct, talking about “mafia,” and impugning motivations (” exploiting climate science for political and personal gain.”)
One of these days, Judith, you’ll step up to the plate to call out someone like Pielke, or Ross McKitrick. I won’t stop expecting that of you.
You do remember, Judith, what you said when I asked you for your opinion on McKitrick’s insulting remarks (calling Wagner a “groveling, terrified, coward”)? Have you forgotten that you said (paraphrasing) that you aren’t interested in the opinions of those who aren’t scientists?
Can we assume, since you have highlighted McKitrick’s article, that you have changed your mind? If so, why are you now interested in his opinions? What changed?
And at any rate, given that Pielke Jr. is a scientist – would you care to comment on his remarks, or will you, once again, display the selectivity of your reasoning on these issues?
Joshua
It is interesting that you seem to much more concerned about Judith’s responses to situations than you are about those who have made claims that they know how CO2 will harm humanity if action is not immediately taken.
Why is that?
Rob –
How do you determine what I am or am not most concerned about?
I think that there is much uncertainty w/r/t the impact of ACO2. I think that included in that uncertainty is the chance that it may prove to significantly affect our climate, and that it makes sense to explore policy options accordingly. I think that anyone who underestimates the uncertainties is more contributing to the potential problem than to any solution to that problem.
My interest in the selectivity of Judith’s analysis is more of an academic interest – because I think that the psychology of motivated reasoning is quite interesting. But I think that the psychology of motivated reasoning is also something that is very important – as it presents an obstacle to effective conflict resolution on any number of issues that overlap with social, cultural, and political identifications.
Anytime you’re interested in knowing what I think, please feel free to ask.
“I think that the psychology of motivated reasoning is quite interesting”
You must spend a lot of time looking in the mirror.
Andrew
@ Rob
Why is that? Very clear to me and we can expect more of it as the data go against their case. The deflection will only get more frequent. First ad homs and now deflection. And then mass visits to their psychologists trying to repair their belief systems.
Joshua | April 2, 2013 at 10:35 am |
How do you determine what I am or am not most concerned about?
=============
from your comments.
The vorpal blade went snicker snicker.
========
Referencing the Jabberwocky is below the belt, kim.
That’s not where the Snickers are. Would you have one, please?
=========
Put your underwear on the outside for that, laconic one. Your tastiest parry bar none.
Josh,
So, as the paper has significant problems, lets go after the people pointing them out instead of asking yourself why would the authors focus attention on the portion of their research that was “not robust”?
Tribalism seems to be one of your things. Which tribe’s paint you wearing Josh?
Tim –
I’m not going after Rohde. He expressed criticism of the paper in a scientific manner. M & M infused their criticism with tribalism. Same ol’ same ol’ ensues. Why would anyone expect anything different?
Josh,
The only tribalism I see Steve McIntyre exhibiting is that of the Tribe of Statistics.
And when people who’s ability in this field appears questionable start flinging spears and arrows, they find the return fire is in the form of magazine fed, bolt action, metallic cartridge, rifle fire. If you want to raise your head and shout encouragement to the arrow slingers, feel free.
Joshua
Academic misconduct -in the private sector called fabrication or better yet, fraud- is what we are dealing with here. If that causes you cognitive dissonance, my suggestion is you go see a psychologist and work that through.
But hey, Marcott and Shakun are dealing with decent and polite guys like McIntyre, McItrick and Pielke Jr. Yes, who call a spade a spade and then ever so politely take their “science” garbage apart.
In the private sector -where I come from and where we tend to be somewhat less polite than the fellows mentioned above- Marcott and Shakun would not have got away with what they concocted and have been fired – on my watch for less than that, said in passing. And depending on the severity of the fall out of their cooking the data, they would wind up behind bars.
Just a kind reality check.
+1 In many (most?) private sector companies there is a zero tolerance policy for integrity violations. I cannot think of any circumstances where Marcott et al did not commit an integrity violation.
Time for academics to expect more accountability from their own.
No PhD Left Behind.
=============
lol!
Sorry to say, but you fellas are just blinded by your private-sector fetishism.
Do you have any idea the dollar value of corporate fraud in this country on a yearly basis? Is it your belief that (most? of) that fraud is committed by lone wolves, operating in isolation in their cubbyholes with no one else in the corporation knowing what’s going on?
Joshua, yes there is a lot of corporate fraud that is unseen. Please point me to one case where the fraud was discovered and the perpetrator went unpunished.
I think you will find that the idea that all things , no matter how bad , are justifiable in the name of ‘the cause ‘ is position held by less and and less people has time moves one.
Your interest sur don’t sound very academic to me more ad hom I would say.
Not as long as skilled individuals like Grant Foster (Tamino) is demonizing Steve McIntyre into the Antichrist of Climatology….
Judy:
Given the shift in emphasis and methodology between the initial jointly authored papers, which constituted part of Marcott’s and Shakun’s dissertations, and the Science paper surely it is important to know who were the reviewers and what were their comments.
“Lets get to the bottom of this, but while doing so I remind you that one element of this is the struggle for the scientific souls of two promising young scientists.”
I think this is the most purely skeptical statement (in the best sense) I’ve ever seen.
What? We give up on the older ones?
=====
@Joshua, purleeeze, have you read what the AGW mob (inc the above mentioned Tamino) have splashed over St.McIntyre? Talking about being hypocrite…. *sigh*
freddy –
I don’t think that “Mommy, mommy, they do it toooo” suffices as a justification.
That doesn’t make you a lesser hypocrite, Joshua.
In this instance Josh – Grant Foster trying to paint McIntyre as “sneering” – it is more the case of “Mommy, mommy, Steve ate all the cookies!” while he has the jar in hand and is covered in crumbs.
It does not take a great deal of sophistication to recognize the character of comments and behaviors between Grant Foster and Steve McIntyre when reading their blogs. If the former understands how a gentleman acts, he does a fantastic job of hiding it.
Dr Curry, my wife taught me the general principle of judging someone in the first thirty seconds. I didn’t like the idea when she first posited it to me but over time I have come to agree with my wife that you generally *can* judge someone in the first thirty seconds. And so, Marcott is already lost. His interview with Revkin was so condescending, smug and aloof that you could see the hidden malice. And from that starting position it is easy to see how the sequence of events of his advance through college, PhD etc culminated in him joining the team. The fact that the FAQ landed on RC is the smoking gun. He joined the dark side. Only total destruction of his career will suffice. We cannot have these Machaveilli types inhabiting science pursuits of any kind. Some branches of climate science are so corrupt that Marcott et al is the natural result. Purge them!
It’s your wife against Judith Curry and that doesn’t sound pretty :)
+100
It is impossible to judge human beings in 30 seconds, but if forced my conclusion would be your wife is a moron.
I didn’t say you can judge someone in zero seconds – moron.
In point of fact humans judge each other all the time in less than 30 seconds. Therefore it’s not impossible.
science says this
http://blogs.menshealth.com/health-headlines/you-will-be-judged-within-30-seconds/2010/12/14
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200908/you-really-truly-can-judge-book-its-cover
‘n an earlier post, I explain why virtually all stereotypes are empirically true. Stereotypes come from the aggregation and generalization of the daily experiences of millions of people, so they cannot possibly fail to be true. Stereotypes are based on massive empirical data, and empirical data don’t lie. However, I also explain that one of the very few stereotypes that are not empirically true is the aphorism “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” Contrary to popular belief, you can very accurately judge people’s character just by looking at them.
There have been a large number of experiments conducted in recent years to show that altruists (people who tend to cooperate in situations where self-interested behavior might benefit them personally) and egoists (people who tend not to cooperate in such situations) genuinely look different, and people can tell them apart simply by looking at them. These studies show that people pay more attention to the faces of cheaters, and later remember their faces more accurately, even when they don’t know who are cooperators and who are defectors. The latest in the series of such experiments has just been published in the September 2009 issue of the journal Human Nature, with the very descriptive title “Altruism Can Be Assessed Correctly Based on Impression.”
JCH,
After reading Mosher’s comment – who’s the moron now? And a jackass to boot, for calling a woman you’ve never met a moron.
I don’t think JCH was expressing disbelief regarding people’s ability to judge people in 30 seconds, timg. Even if this ability was reliable, its accuracy might not be optimal, as evidenced by humans’ ineptitude to choose leaders. Besides, you have to consider the possibility that, in a comedy of menace, more than one person is a moron.
In no way do I wish to defend JCH by my comment, BTW, in case someone would wish to over egg the pudding, go a bridge too far or stretch the limits of justified disingenuousness.
Steve,
Thank you for the links, they were very interesting and changed my perspective on a lot of things.
I prefer to use the term “first impressions” when assessing the characters of people YOU MEET (my Caps) and reserve judgment for much later on, when you have had the chance to see and hear what they have said and done.
tim,
you’d better include patrioticduo, as that was the initial incident of someone judging a person they had never met.
How ever did you miss that?
I will grant that watching a youtube video of Shakun is not nearly as information rich as meeting him in person. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PgnMuKuVXzU Thirty seconds of him was all I needed. And for the record, I erred in judging Marcott, Thus, I reserve judgment on Marcott. Shakun however, is pdjudged as untrustworthy.
He was judging his behavior (though it was actually Shakun in the video).
There is a difference.
tim –
Why let something as irrelevant as their actual identity get in the way of forming an judgement about them? Lol!
I just judged your character by viewing a video of Pee Wee Herman.
The sad reality in that in the short term this will do nothing but enhance Marcott’s career ‘the Team ‘ is out in full support , his got every chance of getting into AR5 and the press has long moved on with their last word being the BS claim .
My prediction is that you won’t see Shakun doing any PR work until he has done some very thorough public speech and interview training. His interview with Revkin was a body language and interviewing technique disaster.
It is interesting that missed in all concernabout this paper was a relatively straight-forward exchange.
Over at Dot Earth, Revkin noted Rohde’s criticism of the paper, and presented that criticism to Shakun, who responded. No big-time drama. No labeling of “mafia” or insinuations of “scientific misconduct.” Not cries of “denier.” Just a straight-forward discussion of the resolution of the data and their validity of the paper for inferring temperature trends in the 20th century.
How fascinating that a straight-forward exchange about the science gets lost in all the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching. What is clear that many people engaged in this debate seem to disproportionately interested in the drama. The reason for that seems obvious – because the drama is more satisfying when people are focused on tribal identifications. Unfortunately, you seem to be a part of that group, Judith.
Joshua, how do you mean that this got lost? It’s been discussed all over the place. And more importantly, all kind of other aspects have been discussed too. Extensively!
More notable would be that everything else (except soma lame excuses) “gets lost in all the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching” !?
Why do you think so many of the alarmists so much shun dealing with the real issues?
What is your point even: The Revikin interview som weeks ago!? Should it have been left at that? Why?
What did you tell the President, Elevator Litella? Never mind.
========================
What has been lost, amid all the drama, was the straight-forward exchange. IMO, all that was needed to be said was said in that exchange. Rohde’s indicated that the resolution of the data was problematic, and Shakun responded. Even someone intellectually-challenged and technically-illiterate such as myself could understand the differing perspectives. The views on the science were clearly expressed in a very straight-forward manner. No tribalism necessary.
And instead, what we get are people on both sides of the debate creating huge drama. Same ol’ same ol’ in the climate debate.
Are you kidding me Joshua?
“all that was needed to be said was said in that exchange”
Nothing to see here, move along! ?
IF you really cannot see even what is contentious with this paper and what it purports to show, how come you spend so much time tone trolling here?
Joshua,
it’s pretty clear that once the real math problems starting coming out, the authors stopped communicating with Revkin or CA. They are now hiding behind the RC firewall. They can comment here, RC, or DE and have chosen to not do so for weeks now.
The FAQ is fine as it is. A basic admission that the math is weak and should not be trusted. It should end here.
It would be nice if all the media outlets who covered the paper’s misleading results ran an article on this update, but we both know they won’t. That is a problem, as is the *** fact *** that effective peer review in climate science is non-existent.
One has to be pretty naive to be in climate science and publish an “independent” new HS based on very weak science and not expect to run into a buzz saw. One hopes that one thing people have learned is to cross your t’s and dot your i’s when it comes to HS math.
Very clean. Very well put together dog’s breakfast.
H/t PA&SM
========
+10
+10? Are you keeping count?
Nick,
Not my job to keep count.
I’m just awarding points for a good comment.
Tom Scharf: The FAQ is fine as it is. A basic admission that the math is weak and should not be trusted. It should end here.
It should not end before Marcotte et al publish the FAQ as a letter to the editor of Science. Perhaps they can do that when they publish the code and thus clarify what exactly they did.
First Bullet point, “Are there still no checks and balances in the paleoclimate community (outside of the efforts of Steve McIntyre, JeanS et al.)?”
That is the problem. I read a recent paper on the SST paleo temperature derived from one of the bugs. The core sample depths can range from a few hundred meters to a few thousand, so the time and location of death of the bug to the time and location of deposit of the bug can vary by a few hundred years and many hundreds of kilometers vertically and horizontally. I think that would make paleo a pretty specialized field.
I also noted this first point.
Is the field of paleoclimate science so robust that it can be relied on as a basis for making policy decisions?
Can the average person feel confident that “proxy thermometers” can really tell us what temperatures were 500, 1000 or 10,000 years with a degree of accuracy solid enough to provide valid comparisons to today?
Statistics is not a strong suit for me. I often can barely follow some of the discussion of methods. What I often take away is that the data has to sliced and diced to reach a point where it might tell us something. I don’t have a problem taking the word of a statistician on the validity of this. In the case of paleoclimatology, it appears that the statisticians are the ones questioning the methods.
Timg56, It really seems to be primarily statistics. A large number of the individual paleo calibrations have pretty large uncertainty ranges, 1.25 C in some cases. Unlike thermometers that can have a larger absolute error but still provide a reliable anomaly, paleo is a lot less useful unless all the error ranges are considered. Throwing out Mann-o-matic reconstructions without realistic uncertainty ranges is doing the actual paleo guys a major disservice.
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7097/marcottvostokbaselinesh.jpg
The core sample depths can range from a few hundred meters to a few thousand
Aren’t the depth units in cm?
Vostok is the deepest proxy with a depth of 27200 (272.00 m) and age of 11642 BP.
The MD98-2181 core has the next deepest depth of 935 (9.35 m) and age of 11659 YBP (published) or 12097 YBP (redated) (with a 1-sigma of 300 yr
.
Stephan, I was referring to the bottom depth of the ocean proxies. A core can be collected in a few hundred meters depth of a few kilometers deep near trenches. Since the ocean currents vary with depth, the sediment in the cores can flow to the core location from different directions. The actual depth of the core sample of course can vary.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-AeNh2OoOhrE/UVyM7f9AxhI/AAAAAAAAHs0/_oiLpKrUjMM/s800/Depths.png
That is three ocean cores from the north Atlantic, Two are in the 400 to 500 meter depth and the other is over 1600 meters. Since the Arctic currents, gyres, are a touch unpredictable, the deep and shallow cores can be completely out of phase. To get all the good out of the proxies you would either need extremely long averaging or one kick butt ocean model.
The shallower cores should tend to be more accurate, but are still more an indication of currents than temperatures.
Interesting post cptnDallas currents hmm
How can one man’s audit consistently turn up so much junk?!
How does this get published in Science, get huge attention, and no paleo is like -“well I devote my entire life to this study, let’s see if his analysis is correct?”
Now that Mick has done all the heavy lifting, everyone jumps on board to finger wag. Where was this whole “respectable” climate establishment before?
Pielke Jr says its a few bad apples – Sorry, the more I see of how the sausage is made, the less credibility I give to anyone from the establishment/academia. McIntyre is literally doing your job for you!
Judith –
I just read the McKitrick article.
Do you think it is interesting that he talks of how the authors “admitted” “over the weekend” that the 20th century analysis was not “robust,” — when the paper itself contains statements about the weak statistical validity of the 20th century projections?
Seems incredibly misleading to me. Why would McKitrick leave out that obviously relevant piece of information? Don’t you think that such a blatant oversight is worthy of comment?
Judith, don’t forget, the soul of those young scientists is at stake.
So all your previous reactions were before you read it? Hey, I still haven’t read it.
===========
Joshua, the first sentence of the Marcott abstract, “Surface temperature reconstructions of the past 1500 years suggest that recent warming is unprecedented in that time ” Now when you dig through the paper and check the supplements you find that that statement is “not robust”. Doesn’t used car salesman come to your mind?
Cap’n –
I’m not going to defend the rhetoric. I agree that it is not appropriate. That said, it is easy to go too far in the other direction,and to do so is, trivially, just more of the same ol’ same ol’.
Along those lines, the reconstructions of the past 1500 years do suggest what they say. That is appropriate language. I even think it is fine for them to say that in the abstract, as an abstract should, appropriately, discuss the implications of the research findings. What is not OK is to de-couple the “not robust” caveat.
That is legitimate criticism. Rohde made it well, IMO – without the petty tribal nonsense.
Why didn’t Judith write a post about Rohde’s criticism – in the manner that Revkin did – rather than highlighting the misleading tribalism of someone like McKitrick?
If Judith had written about Rohde you’d be here nit picking about her writing about one of her co authors. That’s because you dont work to find areas of agreement you choose to highlight disagreement. perhaps it is time to practice some skepticism about the effectiveness of your comments.
Joshua, there is no avoiding the same ole same ole. There is a battle for the media because of the political part of the science. Everyone wants to hammer another nail in the other sides coffin.
Think about, truly ground breaking research would state, FIIK. The Green side believes FIIK means do something NOW!! and the other side believes FIIK means exercise a bit of caution, but don’t lose your cool. I am a chilled kinda guy.
steven –
Judging blog comments by measuring their “effect?” Seriously?
What is the net cumulative effect of blog comments in any real-world sense? Much heat but virtually no light.
Try subtracting out the obviously worthless comments from the total, and dividing that virtually no light by the remaining comments that might have some real-world measure of value.
What do result to you get? Mostly just a bunch of wasted electrons in my estimation, but tell me, but what do you get as a “best estimate” for the value of even the most pithy blog comments?
One of the funniest aspect of the blog comments wars is how seriously people take this stuff.
I am sufficiently skeptical about the effectiveness of my comments. I judge them to have virtually no real world effect whatsoever. If I’m concerned about effectiveness, I shut down the blog comments sections and do something that has real world value.
“Joshua, the first sentence of the Marcott abstract, “Surface temperature reconstructions of the past 1500 years suggest that recent warming is unprecedented in that time ””
Yes, it does. The second sentence says:
“Here we provide a broader perspective by reconstructing regional and global temperature anomalies for the past 11,300 years from 73 globally distributed records. ”
The first sentence is clearly not referring to their reconstruction. The statement is robust.
This crops up over and over in this argument. Skeptics are so excited about spotting the failings of this 1940 spike that they forget that there is a real modern warming that is not a figment of Marcott’s paper. And it’s what people are very often referring to when they contrast with the Holocene stability that Marcott et al have shown.
Nick, they have not shown Holocene stability. Their resolution is too low for that!
Nick –
Thanks for that clarification. I didn’t read the second sentence, and only went from Cap’n’s excerpting the first sentence. My mistake..
Nick,
Regarding this comment: “Skeptics are so excited about spotting the failings of this 1940 spike that they forget that there is a real modern warming that is not a figment of Marcott’s paper”
I am a non-statistics guy, so it is very possible I am missing something. But my impression is that the Marcott paper talks about identifying temperatures going back 10,000 years at a scale (if that is the correct term) which allows for 50% error for periods of 1,000 years in length. How can that have any bearing on a record covering 100 – 150 years?
Who is arguing that the “modern warming” you refer to is not real? Doesn’t one of the questions become “Is this significant when compared to past climate?”
And isn’t paeloclimatology a development to try to answer that question?
Now, according to the Marcott paper we are suppossed to believe that he and his co-authors have made a significant step forward in telling us about past climate – all from 73 proxy records, btw, which require exercises in statistics to be able to tell us something – and what gets talked about is the part that is statistically meaningless. I see that as a bit of a problem. What I don’t see is how the paper tells us anything about recent climate.
tim –
As someone who knows even less about statistics than you, so the probability I’m missing something will be increased over your comment. But….
Given the temperature trends that the Marcott paper shows, what do you think the probabilities might be that the low resolution in their data hides a spike of the sort we know about (from other sources) in recent time? Keep in mind the magnitude of the spike and the degree of correction that would be needed to make it disappear before the resolution of their data caught up to the appearance of the spike.
The data they provide don’t give an direct answer to that question. This was Rohde’s criticism, as I understand it. But it seems to me that the their data inevitably raise that question, and “suggest” a meaningful answer.
Thoughts?
BTW – I didn’t miss the putz comment, and you should know I’ll give you a break but usually if that comments comes anyone who isn’t a tribe member (you aren’t a member of the tribe, are you?) it’s throw-down time.
But then, Joshua, I ask again, what did the paper add to scientific knowledge? Whats its value without the uptick and the hype about what this paper is not supposed to be?
sven –
Seems to me that the value is greater knowledge about climate in the past. Seems to me that the value of that knowledge is relatively clear. That is why combatants are willing to sustain onslaughts of Jell-O flingers to battle over proxies, as if they comprise some kind of sacred holly ground. This is a religious war.
Nick, the statement is a teaser. So yes, it that respect it was robust.
Josh,
RE my thoughts:
the first one is that maybe we should bet on who is more statistically challenged. I certainly wouldn’t bet any money on it being you.
on your question about the paper – my answer is “I don’t know.” Gavin Schimdt says over at RealClimate that this paper is a real advance in understanding past climate. I’d have to take his word for it. My personal opinion is that squeezing out a record of the planet’s climate at a resolution which tells us anything useful from 73 proxy data sets contains a large dose of hope and faith. Do you think it is possible to know what the temperature was this day, 500 or 5,000 years ago? While the resolution does not have to be that fine, it has to at least approach the century level before it tells us much. At least that is my opinion. Explanations as to why I’m wrong are welcome. Despite what fan thinks, I am open to learning.
Joshua, what do the reconstruction for the past 1500 yes suggest? Marcott et al. mention that the lowest point was the LIA starting about 200 years ago. That that was about 0.7 Colder and the largest fluctuation was due to the North Atlantic changing about 2C degrees.
Well, the one ocean we have the most and best measurements of temperature is the Atlantic.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QTk99F9PJ0E/UVtpVBvH0TI/AAAAAAAAHsA/agt6QyTA0fM/s912/amo%2520with%2520giss%2520and%2520hadsst3.png
since Marcott is comparing to “today”, specifically the past decade, those are all adjusted to the 1979 to 2010 satellite era baseline. Notice how the AMO, which is the Kapland non-detrended version, fits the NH and SH oceans pretty well. The land surface temperatures vary a lot more because air is less dense than water and lots of the air where the land surface temperatures are measured is less dense than sea level air. If the land average elivation is 2000 meters, there would be about a 17% amplification of the land “surface” temperature measurement. If you look close at the NH land and the AMO, it appears the AMO leads the land temperature change. The AMO is one of those well known natural internal oscillations that can’t have much impact on “global” climate and the recovery from the little ice age can’t have much impact on climate because that would be just plain rude and spoil a perfectly good apocalyptic theory.
Since both the AMO and the NH SSTs extend back to the 1850s, about 170 years ago, they should start about the time of what marcott thinks is the worst of the little ice age. How much has the North Atlantic and northern hemisphere oceans warmed since then? Would you think that the North Atlantic seems to have significant impact on “global” land temperatures?
timg56: Gavin Schimdt says over at RealClimate that this paper is a real advance in understanding past climate.
That might be true of the pre-20th century reconstructions, but not of the 20th century reconstructions. How the authors reconstructed a recent temp spike from their data, and how they produced a result different from Marcotte’s thesis remain problematical.
This is a good time to remind everyone that Marcotte et al remain in defiance of the Science/AAAS policy that all code supporting a paper be made public as a condition of acceptance for publication. After these weeks of discussion, I consider that further cause to be suspicious of their results.
I agree with Tim that the resolution issue is something not well understood, even by many climate scientists. It has always concerned me whenever paleo data is spliced with modern recordings.
Nick Stokes | April 2, 2013 at 3:52 pm |
The first sentence is clearly not referring to their reconstruction. The statement is robust.
—–
If that first sentence doesnt apply to their reconstructions, where are the citations to the works the are referring to?
here is what the holocene looks like
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7097/marcottvostokbaselinesh.jpg
Joshua,
given that Judith chose to promote this false claim by McKitrick, one can assume that her concern for these young researchers is far, far less than her obsession with bashing Real Climate.
They were just the means to an end.
Disgusting behaviour, I think.
Pranks are pranks, pretty soon we’re talking about real trillions.
==============
Perhaps if you parsed McKitricky’s comments in the same way you do RC’s, you would realise that the “no mention” part was referring to the press release, not the paper. In that context, it is 100% accurate, is it not? that’s an interesting tribal slip for you to make, is it not?
kneel,
Indeed that is ‘parsing’, and to continue the theme, McK, to be 100% accurate, could have made that explicit.
“Do you think it is interesting that he talks of how the authors “admitted” “over the weekend” that the 20th century analysis was not “robust,” — when the paper itself contains statements about the weak statistical validity of the 20th century projections?”
You know what is weird.
When the headlines came out touting the uptick, I argued that it was misleading given what the paper said and what the authors said.
And in typical fashion you were no where to be found. But Willard was there, arguing that the headlines were not misleading and that the authors had said no such thing.
Weird, just weird, that you can find the time to nit pick a journalist about his description of a guy, but be utterly silent when you see a misleading headline touting the uptick.
Weird.
Dear Mr Mosher,
“When the headlines came out touting the uptick, I argued that it was misleading given what the paper said and what the authors said.
And in typical fashion you were no where to be found. But Willard was there, arguing that the headlines were not misleading and that the authors had said no such thing.”
It is with heavy heart I must inform you I have selected your comment for auditing.
I have attempted to replicate your results (to wit, google “Stephen Mosher uptick”) but have failed to locate your raw data.
I must now consider you to be behaving in a manner some, not I to be sure, would characterise as fraudulent and close to, though not quite touching the realm of, misconduct.
Though the situation is bleak I must happily inform you I see a bright future for you, free of attacks on your character and intent. Having clearly established myself as a fair minded trustworthy fellow I think you can see that if you were to hand over the data the accusation that some, not I to be sure, have leveled upon you shall surely cease.
Steven –
I commented on Rohde’s criticism, and the give-and-take between Shakun and Revkin on that topic as soon as I read Rohde’s criticism – as I recall, largely because of your mention of his criticism.
At that point I learned, what IMO,is scientifically relevant about the paper and the relevance to the climate wars. All the rest has been noise, or as Judith referred to, more heat than light. That includes Pielke Jr.’s petty self-serving nonsense and McKitricks follow-on misdirection about that the authors “admitted” in an email to Stevie-mac.
But people on both sides of the debate are far more interested in the noise – and apparently for Judith too, the Jell-O in the sparkling sunlight of the junior high school cafeteria food fight is what is catching her eye.
Same ol’ same ol’
dulleroo
Audit fail
“I have attempted to replicate your results (to wit, google “Stephen Mosher uptick”) but have failed to locate your raw data.”
my name would be steven not stephan. dulleroo -1
a better google would have been ‘headline’ ‘misleading’ dulleroo – 2
Funny analogy: neither marcott nor dulleroo know how to look for things
“What is misleading about the headline is the word “fastest”
“fastest” implies a RATE of change. A rate of change requires a time scale.
the problem is this: In the current day estimates they have high resolution data. so we can see say 1C in 100 years. Thats a rate: 1C per century.
In the past, their resolution is worse. they cant even see data at 100 years so they cannot measure rates at 100 years and cannot make the comparison that the title implies. Their charts give the perception of a fast rate of increase because the resolution is different in the present than in the past
It’s not really defensible.”
“Audit fail”
I rather think my audit is going quite well.
Why are you against releasing the data Mr Mosher? Some quotation marks in a comment are not data, an auditor needs to see independent verification and that requires links.
Links you could easily have furnished.
From an auditing perspective ideally you’d fail to respond, in which I win. Produce another response which somehow manages to not be fully appreciative of my attention in auditing your work and I win. Produce the raw data and, well, there are always other comments to be audited.
p.s. googling your quotes produces no results. The only correct auditor response is to accuse you of fabricating them. Though some, not I, would say I have accused you of fabricating them I assure you I simply want the raw data.
> But Willard was there, arguing that the headlines were not misleading and that the authors had said no such thing.
Quote and cite, pretty please with sugar on it.
did you find the quote from the authors I left you willard? you know the one where they say their result is not robust?
you know, the underlying reason for calling the headline misleading?
I knew you could.
@dulleroo. #Si
> did you find the quote […]
A quote and a link, please.
we may or may not screwed – but wee willie certainly is.
I saw moshers comment appear, It was notable to me because it confirmed an observation I had posted a short time priorly to this same issue. You are in error Sharperoo
Do you have the link, dalyplanet?
Due diligence and all.
You’re such a nasty putz, Joshua. it’s in the paper yes, but they conveniently ignored that fact when talking to the press. just as you conveniently ignore what’s important here.
“Incredibly misleading” you say? As in, it’s so misleading we literally can’t believe it?
Please. As I said, nasty putz.
Putz Josh certainly may be at times. But calling him nasty is going over board.
Grant Foster is nasty. He often comes across as someone you’d refrain from introducing to your mother. Hell, I would refrain from introducing him to his own mother. Josh doesn’t come within a country mile of Tamino.
Joshua is OK. He just gives as good as he gets, which probably is not a good idea IMO but its his call. Also wonder sometimes if he is on topic but again, if Judith lets these comments go through its a simple matter to pass over them to the next comment.
The misleading bit is presenting the paper to the media as proof of unprecedented catastrophic Mann Made Global Warming ™ when the authors state in their own paper that the 20th century component is in reliable and not robust.
Now it seems to be that you con only have one or the other BUT you most certainly cannot have both!
Mckin was correct in his article, Marcott et al trumpeted the paper around the world as conclusive proof of Mann Made Global Warming ™. It wasn’t until the anti-Christ (McIntyre) got involved that the inconvenient fact that destroyed the paper came to light.
Now you can bang on as much as you want about what a big bad meany McIntyre and co are for asking the questions the reviewers should have asked but that does not change the fact that the claims made to the media CANNOT be supported by the actual paper itself.
I’m struggling to understand where your confusion is coming from Joshua.
Mailman
It doesn’t – that’s one of biggest misconceptions around, as Dr McKitrick pointed out on Climate Audit on Sunday (third paragraph). Indeed, this sleight of hand by the authors is one of the biggest reasons to mistrust them. But I bow to Dr Curry’s instincts here. Let’s give these young fellows a certain amount more rope and hope they extricate themselves. We don’t want any more budding Michael Manns out there.
The real story is only just emerging, and it isn’t pretty.
Meanwhile, the role of the dollar as the world’s store of value — an ersatz substitute for gold — has been destroyed (that was the Left’s free money and instead they boiled and ate the golden goose). Recall the old refrain, invented by the Eurocommies –e.g., “Oh no, we love Americans, it’s the US government we hate.” Of course they love Americans just like crooks love your wallets.
All they have to do is be accurate. If you want to compare todays temperature with our reconstruction you would have to average out the last ~ 300 years. If they want to add on that it is their opinion that temperatures will rise and the data will eventually show that today’s climate is unusual in comparison to the reconstruction that would be fine. Many people hold that opinion. The problem is the blending of the study results and the opinions of the authors when communicating to the public. If the people they consider their mentors do not understand this is a problem then there is another problem.
Marcott et al, out of Peter Gleick (school of ethics), by Mike Mann (proxy manipulation) and half brother to Grant Foster (statistical sleight of hand) with post parturition care from Joshua
It’s enough to make one take syrup of ipecac
Rosemary’s Model.
========
+5 Brilliant, Kim
I vote they do what all scientists should do.
Join neither team and simply publish the science in an unbiased manner,
Dr. Curry,
Since you are giving a lot of advice this morning, I’d like to offer a bit of my own to you. I have been following this story this weekend and while I generally like to read comments on the blogs, its gotten so petty and personal it is almost impossible to pick out any interesting technical information that actually teach us something. In other words, there is a lot of noise but little light. Would it be possible to host a debate of sorts on this blogs between the principles in this dispute to educate regular readers like me who come to this blog to see how the science is sorted out.
Sean, this particular topic is outside of my expertise, so I can’t undertake to do what you ask. McKitrick’s summary is the best one I’ve seen. A previous thread at Climate Etc. by Rud Istvan hosted some scientific debate on this:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/19/playing-hockey-blowing-the-whistle/
I have read both Ross’s and Rud’s posting. I would hope that you’d give the authors of the paper a chance to post here (as opposed to real science) and heavily moderate comments to those with the appropriate technical expertise plus strip out anything that could be perceived at personal jabs.
Anyone is welcome to post here, and I would have welcomed a post by Marcotte et al. In fact, I am sort of surprised that they did not send their response to be posted at the range of major blogs that discussed their paper. Rud Istvan emailed his essay and I agreed to post it (that is how the system here usually works). My post today is an attempt to stimulate discussion on the broader issues that have arisen over the weekend, of which the RC post by Marcott et al. is just one element.
Also, I do not have time to do heavy moderation in the comments. The trademark of Climate Etc. is that freewheeling discussion is allowed, unlike nearly all other climate blogs. As a result, the discussion can get heated and I do try to moderate to some extent. The dialogue here is a bit messy, which pretty much reflects the debate surrounding climate science and policy.
Sean, by now you may have noticed that the authors choose Real Climate as their spin doctors. Methinks that they could not have stand the heat when they would have done what you suggested. I’m pretty certain that Judith would have given them every chance. But they choose Real Clmate, which is telling enough.
Curry: “…this particular topic is outside of my expertise.”
Well I guess so. That you could find “McKitrick’s summary…the best one I’ve seen” puts this post among the most egregious I’ve seen at this site.
Indeed. A modicum or research would reveal the tribalism of his “over the weekend” “admission” in an email misdirection.
My dear “skeptical” friends – you are being played.
Judy:
I think you are especially well placed to facilitate a virtual symposium to bring together the major parties guided by a knowledgeable, “honest broker” moderating. Technically these things are so simple to create by way of an online teleconference. I’d thing Ga. Tech would jump at the chance to virtually host such an event that can be streamed worldwide then archived. I’m sure any number of reliable people on this thread would volunteer their assistance, including me.
Pat, You are welcome to your opinion, but Judith’s post is not “egregious.” The world is not Real Climate where you can get away with this kind of bull (if you are in the right tribe that is). It’s a big world and not everyone who is influential is going to agree with you. It doesn’t take “expertise” in paleo climate to see what the problem with the Marcott paper and press coverage is. It shows Judiths maturity that she lets you say this here. At Real Climate you would be treated to the bore hole or a sarcastic put down.
David,
The hand-wringing and fainting spells are very interesting.
More so when you consider that people heavily involved in this (let’s call them Willard Tony and Steve Auditor), were recently heavily involved in a strange little fracas, where possibly slightly over-hyped claims regarding the earth shattering importance of some new paper were made. Said paper was duely shown to be a steaming pile of BS, not even fit for the bottom of a bird cage.
But nevermind, all the faithful acolytes who swallowed that nonsense, are now running around simply aghast at the ‘press coverage’ / PR over the Marcott paper.
What an amusing performance.
Michael, You are going to have to talk plainly if you want me to understand what in the world you are talking about. I’m just a little put off by Pat’s insulting drive by comment. He can say whatever he wants and Judith is very tolerant of this type of BS, even about her. But its rather strange when compared to Pat’s worshipful attitude to the Team and their transparent attempt to justify Marcott et al’s hyping of their paper. In justice, Marcott has tried to corrent the most egregious press coverage, for example at Discover blogs where he said exactly what I have said about it: It is impossible to speak of relative rates of change when comparing two records whose time resolution differs by 5 orders of magnitude. Thermometers have at least daily resolution in the 20th century. Their proxy reconstruction has resolution on the order of centuries. Looking at other records such as ice cores shows very large and sharp spikes in the Holocene that cannot be squared easily with the assertion of an essentially constant temperature as given ex cathedra to us by Marcott et al.
By the way, I have noted a notable loss of interest in Real Climate recently. There are not very many comments and the posts are becoming less and less frequent. I hypothesize that the dogmatic approach is starting to seem a little strained even for the faithful. Marcott is one of the few pieces of debri to latch onto.
Plainly – sure.
The skpetics have been all over this Marcott pape,espiacilly tut-tuttng what they cliam to be ‘hyping’, or whatever, in the press.
Yet, less than a year ago at WUWT, Watts closed his blog fown with great fanfare in prepartion for some tremondously important paper. There were emails to the press, and then press realea- all before publication! Talk about hype!! The ‘skeptics’ were all agog. McIntyre gave it his seal of approval. The claimd were complete rubbish ,of course, as was clear as soon it was subject to a bit of real scrutiny as opposed to fawning.
And now these same characters are running around lecturing others.
The ‘skeptic’ crowd haven’t been much better – praising Watts for the similiar but far more excessive actions that they criticise Marcott for. A regular denizen on this very thread is pearl-clutching over Marcott, yet can be found praising Watts for his pre-pub PR blitz in June last year.
Re: RC – I think you misunderstand the different purposes of various blogs. RC is mostly science and the frequency of posts has always varied quite a bit. Months with only 2-3 posts are not at all uncommon.
Others blogs, well, they have other priorities, A primary one would seem to be entertainament/PR, where maintaining an audience is paramount and the number of comments on a post is a measure of worth. And in blog land the golden rule is; post often to keep the eyeballs engaged. No fresh post – eyeballs wander off. So, post daily, if you can, multiple posts a day is ‘best practice’.
So no ,RC does not concern itself primarily with blog stats.
Revkin asks for questions. Jean S & Roman M supply some. Pat Cassen blithers.
==============
“Yet, less than a year ago at WUWT, Watts closed his blog fown with great fanfare in prepartion for some tremondously important paper. There were emails to the press, and then press realea- all before publication! Talk about hype!! The ‘skeptics’ were all agog. McIntyre gave it his seal of approval. The claimd were complete rubbish ,of course, as was clear as soon it was subject to a bit of real scrutiny as opposed to fawning.”
Yes there was the hypocrisy in the acceptance of publishing-by-press-release when skeptics have criticized others for doing just that.
But perhaps even more staggering, did you know that Watts repeated the rubbished claims of the “paper” just a month ago in an interview, as if the flaws found in the paper hadn’t even happened? He even reproduced an image from the flawed press release conveying the flawed results. All so he could claim warming was half of what the NOAA claimed.
http://oilprice.com/Interviews/Climate-Change-without-Catastrophe-Interview-with-Anthony-Watts.html
It seems skeptics are more than happy to engage and support PR as soon as they get in front of a camera. They’ll BS to high heaven to help their cause. You only have to look at some of the junk science coming out of people like Burt Rutan on the subject and how the WUWT crowd clap to see either they are totally ignorant of the subject, or a bunch of hypocritical bstards.
lolwot,
Didn’t know about that……but can’t say I’m surprised.
lolwot: “It seems warmists are more than happy to engage and support PR as soon as they get in front of a camera. They’ll BS to high heaven to help their cause. You only have to look at some of the junk science coming out of people like Foster on the subject and how the SkS crowd clap to see either they are totally ignorant of the subject, or a bunch of hypocritical bstards.”
There, fixed it for you.
Or were you trying to make an actual point? Saying that people who criticize papers you like are being hypocrites because they don’t criticize papers you don’t like is meaningless from a truth/science viewpoint.
If you admitted that F&R was ridiculous, that the hockey sticks of Mann and Marcott are ridiculous, etc, THEN you’d have a leg to stand on. You could say, “Hey, I call trash trash, wherever it comes from. We need to sweep the trash out of the House of Science!” Instead, you apparently think you can defend the indefensible by criticizing the messenger rather than the message.
Summary Part I Denialists are 100% correct that:
• some climate-change scientists sure ain’t saints (or even wise), and
• the weakest climate-change science sure ain’t strong.
Summary Part II The Vatican is 100% correct that:
• wise & saintly climate-change scientists sure ain’t required, and
• the strongest climate-change science sure ain’t weak.
Conclusion The scientific, economic, and long-term moral realities of climate-change science sure ain’t simple … and sure are sobering … eh Climate Etc readers!
Whoops! Here’s a working (hopefully!) link to “the strongest climate-change science sure ain’t weak!
Sean: I can’t agree that it’s impossible to learn because “its gotten so petty and personal”. Climate Audit has led the way, for me, and Steve McIntyre stills cuts out both the nasty and non-essential. Self-control is required not just of contributor but reader. And why turn this around and ask: when before in history could I learn as much about a new paper in three weeks from the moment Science and the NSF fired the starting gun?
Good point, about the rapid learning.
Sean, I think a debate would be useless. Think about what averaging paleo does. As long as you use averages you will always be surprised, there will be “unprecedented” events. Marcott et al are using a method that averages say winter and spring and finds it shocking that summer is greater than their average. The more they average the more shocking every bump will be.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/04/marcott-flaws-simplified.html
Would you be surprised to find August is warmer than May or one spring may be warmer than one fall?
Well Marcott et al. found exactly what they were looking for, now they can enjoy constant surprises.
One notes zero actual substantiation for the many allegations. No smoking gun emails, no confessions of actual wrongdoing, no whistleblowers or leaks or hacks or original notes showing intentionality or malice.
Peter Clark’s role in AR5?! What about Ross McKitrick’s role in the Fraser Institute? Implying guilt by association is the stuff of propagandists and demagogues, not scientists. What next, a blood test for publication?
The McIntyre & Istvan analyses show gross prejudice and even pride in putting a lawyerly bowtie (did we not learn from the Skydragon Slayers’ lawyering?!) on what amounts to outright attack on science. Do we really want this to go the path of Skydragon Slaying?
There are valid questions. Learn from the past, where all these tactics have been tried again and again in the past, and other than building unity among loose affiliations of the disgruntled all that came of the ‘audits’ was a fraction of the correction that came out of other sources, generally the original authors themselves, or their peer reviewers, or critics whose papers survive peer review and publication and withstand public criticism.. which McIntyre & McKitrick only made past two of those three hurdles before crashing on the test of ‘does it work’? Learn from BEST, and how — while rejected and denied and scandalized by people who had been all for it until the answers that popped out of the scrupulous methods disagreed with their foregone conclusions — to approach problems like this: just do more science. While I disagree with much of what Muller and Mosher say on many, many things, they are knights in shining armor as far as BEST is concerned. Istvan and McIntyre are sharp businessmen. There’s no reason sharp businessmen can’t contribute to valid analyses and new work. Wouldn’t it be great to see someone broker an agreement by Muller, Marcott, Mosher, McIntyre, McKitrick, Curry & Istvan to do a Holocene-spanning BEST? And who knows, perhaps that work will tell us something new.
Does Marcott et al 2013 work? Possibly not on endpoints, and it is open to some measure of the criticism of it in public — most of which the authors themselves join in — but in the main, the infographic is a brilliant and useful tool that provides a basis for validating Holocene-spanning GCM runs, and the importance of the work is being obscured by the unfortunate circumstances of its portrayal as a propaganda tool in this rush to entrench hardened opinion.
BartR: You make good points. If some non-“mafia” team (just poking fun at RPjr) as you suggest does a Holocene BEST effort, it won’t get published in any meaningful journal. These critics have published papers in second, third and fourth tier rags and have had little impact. 97.5% of their impact has been via blog posts, so they are sticking to what works. What you suggest is a huge time waste that will have zero impact.
However, the added non-robust blade added at the end based on poorly documented age adjustments does not pass the straight face test. This non-robust blade was the only reason it made it into Science. That level of “bait and switch” marketing has no place in academic or professional science.
Steven Mosher, “the big problem is this. Doing this job “right” won’t get you published.”
Likely true, but there are psychiatry journals.
I’m down for it. I suspect Rohde would be on board as well.
Some folks just want to work on tough problems. It’s kinda like working in defense ( which I did) . You can’t concern yourself with what people will do with your solution.
I had Rohde in mind, but since you beat me, how about Andy Revkin?
============
Sounds like the gauntlet is thrown on Dr. Curry’s home ground.
How about it?
Will people put their ‘money where their mouth is’ and ‘put up or shut up?’
This is an exciting opportunity to open a new generation of Climate Science, with much greater scope and impact and promise than any prior analysis of proxy records.
Catch this ride before it leaves without you.
That’s great to hear. I hope you can rope one or more paleoclimatologists on board. Of course you and I both know if you do it and can find a way to append instrument to proxy temperatures, the plot will look like some sort of hockey stick, or at least a low-backed wheelchair (h/t E. Fudd’s nemesis).
BEST was introduced with a hint of “we are going to correct the corrupt record” and ended with “well, we always knew the record was right.”
When it comes to Kock kash, it’s best to waste it so go for it.
“BEST was introduced with a hint of “we are going to correct the corrupt record” and ended with “well, we always knew the record was right.”
Well, actually not. Bill Clinton recently spoke about BEST and Rich Muller at Stanford. He started his speech by saying that ‘one of my heros is in the audience; Rich Muller” He then explained Muller’s concern better than any climate scientist I have read. Paraphrasing, “Muller was concerned about the reliability and accuracy of the record and the problem of UHI. You know Hillary and I own a place in the country and this concern made sense to me as I can fell the difference between temperature in the city and in the rural areas.” He then went on to explain that Muller was a rather conservative guy but that he put that all aside and did science and announced results no one would expect from a Koch funded organization.
Further, some of us on the team expected to find no difference but wanted instead to expand and refine the record, which we did.
Sounds promising Steve. Science by committee. Here is my guess – you will do the lion’s share of the work. You goal is to get the Holocene right once and for all. End result – you discover the optimal pH for digestion myosin in the small bowel of the Tasmanian devil. Write it up, rejected everywhere but persist nonetheless and it ends up as Vol 1, page 1 in Gastointestinal Physiology of Obscure Mammals, at $1000/page. Mosher, not an author.
“Well, actually not. Bill Clinton recently spoke about BEST and Rich Muller at Stanford.”
Bill Clinton? Seriously? The impeached president who was disbarred for perjuring himself, is a go to authority on BEST? In a thread about honesty in climate science?
Seriously?
‘Sounds promising Steve. Science by committee. Here is my guess – you will do the lion’s share of the work. You goal is to get the Holocene right once and for all.”
hardly. Let me explain how things work. I will use the work that Zeke, Nick, Menne and Williams and I did.
At the very start roles are assigned.
Mosher: does data.
Zeke: does analytical approach.
Stokes: Maths.
Menne and Williams: consult and criticize.
Not really a committee and I certainly dont do all the work. Not by a long shot. I’d call it a small role, next to the real brain work.
So if we did a recon I’d focus on what I do. Get the data, share the data, factor OPC. For me that’s the key to keeping personality and emotion out of a project. I just do data. Along the way I might make some arguments.
Not into writing stuff up, Id rather do a good tool.
Getting the holocene right? Not the goal. Doing a more complete job is just fine.
“Bill Clinton? Seriously? The impeached president who was disbarred for perjuring himself, is a go to authority on BEST? In a thread about honesty in climate science”
In terms of describing the concern we addressed, yes. On the facts, he did a good job. Go figure, when you stick to facts you can actually say true things.
Amuse me. What do you think the purpose of doing the study was?
Since I know the facts, we’ll consider this your intelligence test.
I suspect you’ll run away or change the subject. or redefine the meaning of “is”. or lie. But you will never answer a simple question.
Steven Mosher,
I think Muller coordinated BEST because Anthony Watts was in the midst of completing a non-consensus controlled evaluation of flaws in the temperature record.
I believe this not because of anything he said, but because of what he did. I learned long ago to ignore what people say when their actions conflict. Science by press release, claims of newly discovered attribution from analysis of temp data; revelation of data supposedly given in confidence; and a race to the microphone – are not suggestive of a calm, rational, unbiased piece of science. But highly consistent with PR.
By all means, show me the error of my ways. Give me a list of the actual skeptics who were involved in BEST. You and Muller don’t count.
But forgive me if I question your ability to test anyone’s intelligence. You are as blinded a tribal partisan as anyone who comments here.
But I must say, in a way Clinton is a good match for Muller. If you look at what Clinton said, he was a conservative Democrat. Until you look at what he actually did – Hillarycare; massive tax increases; vast expansion of federal regulation (not to mention his serial abuse, and in at least one instance rape, of women). Muller similarly claimed to be a “skeptic,” but never did anything to reject the political consensus of CAGW.
So I stand corrected. Great choice.
This project would be a great step forward for climate science. Mosher once suggested that some form of external peer review should be a given with any database work to ensure that the functional specs are adequately covered. Does he have people in mind for this role?
Steve, will you make sure you have the proxy selection criteria posted before any proxies are collected?
The very act of looking at proxies before choosing a criteria invalidates them.
If you want to look at what Earth shatter result and how it is dealt with:-
‘A prospective randomized trial of perioperative seizure prophylaxis in patients with intraparenchymal brain tumors’
Wu et al., (2013) J Neurosurg 118:873–883, 2013.
Background
81% of neurosurgeons reported that they prescribed prophylactic antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) to patients without a history of seizures. Phenytoin is the most commonly administered anticonvulsant.
Abstract Result
The trial was closed before completion of accrual because Bayesian predictive probability analyses performed by an independent data monitoring committee indicated a probability of 0.003 that at the end of the study prophylaxis would prove superior to observation and a probability of 0.997 that there would be insufficient evidence
at the end of the trial to choose either arm as superior. At the time of trial closure, 123 patients (77 metastases and 46 gliomas) were randomized, with 62 receiving 7-day phenytoin (prophylaxis group) and 61 receiving no prophylaxis (observation group). The incidence of all seizures was 18% in the observation group and 24% in the prophylaxis group (p = 0.51)….
The prophylaxis group experienced significantly more adverse events (18% vs 0%, p < 0.01)
Conclusion
Although the lower-than-anticipated incidence of seizures in the control group significantly limited the power of the study, the low baseline rate of perioperative seizures in patients with brain tumors raises concerns about the routine use of prophylactic phenytoin in this patient population.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
So a type of drug treatment, used for 40 years to control seizures was found to do more harm than good. The results are quite stark, but no one spliced in better, feelgood, datasets.
GaryM
I think Muller coordinated BEST because Anthony Watts was in the midst of completing a non-consensus controlled evaluation of flaws in the temperature record.
#####################
Wrong. You can see the general idea of BEST laid out in a blog comment made by me (at Lucias) to a question asked by Judith; What do skeptics want to see. Go find it. Second, When I first met with Muller he cited two people as being instrumental in his motivation to do this work. He was impressed with Anthony’s work and thought it merited further investigation
and Anthony shared data with him. The second person he cited had c-authored a book on climategate.
“I believe this not because of anything he said, but because of what he did. I learned long ago to ignore what people say when their actions conflict. Science by press release, claims of newly discovered attribution from analysis of temp data; revelation of data supposedly given in confidence; and a race to the microphone – are not suggestive of a calm, rational, unbiased piece of science. But highly consistent with PR.”
The data shared ( a station list) was not revealed. It was not shared with anyone. I didnt even have access to it. The data was used to write a paper. Anthonys paper was already written and in final review. Anthony was upset with Muller for other reasons. You want that email ?
Race for the microphone?
I’ve seen that on all sides. I dont like it and wrote a piece critical of it.
IN FACT, if you find that comment at Lucias you will see that my idea for the BEST project ( before it was ever formed) was a project with no PR. period.
“By all means, show me the error of my ways. Give me a list of the actual skeptics who were involved in BEST. You and Muller don’t count”.
As you well know one skeptic is enough to keep a project from going forward, but here is a short list of those involved in some way or another.
1. Anthony Gave us data
2. Our chief statistician consulted with his lifetime friend, whom you
may know as RomanM (of climate audit fame)
3. Judith Curry. depends on who you ask
4. Jonathan Wurtle.
5. The Koch brothers.
Actually, Climategate was a strong motivator for BEST, with the concerns over transparency and reliability of the surface data sets.
Love the historical details of BEST, especially the link to RomanM. Small world, inevitably.
yes Richard, what very few people remember the key Idea that RomanM developed, that of estimating the answer using all the data
without creating a baseline. Since the problem is a temporal and spatial problem prior methods focused on FIRST reducing the temporal problem by creating anomalies to a base period.. or creating artifically long stations with the reference method. Second many people forget all the voices at CA clamoring for kriging. Third, folks forget the idea floating around of scalpeling stations when they changed. Actually to his credit Willis praised this aspect.
Its very difficult to sort out who thought what first. I would rather be generous with credit than stingy. For example on the UHI paper there were several comments at CA and WUWT and lucias that drove us to do some sensitivity testing. That said there were concerns that probably still
need to be fully addressed, however, I find arguments about what matters
and what doesnt matter to be tedious and when time permits the goal is to address every concern or give people the tools to attack the work by using the very code we deliver
‘Steve, will you make sure you have the proxy selection criteria posted before any proxies are collected?
The very act of looking at proxies before choosing a criteria invalidates them.”
I’d probably start by using all the proxies. always. no redating, no exclusions. and get the garbage in, garbage out answer.
that way it is clear how your data choices thereafter impact the final result. Once you have the full data answer then muck about
as much as you like with the pile, but understand that you are not really
doing testing like one does in the medical field. I’m always amused at the selection criteria folks come up with after the fact.. I want to see the garbage in answer first.. then you go pick whatever subset you want and we have a good fight.
The end result of that fight, I suspect, would be good directions for better data collection.
Thats why I would not see it as getting the holocene “right”. rather doing EDA to understand how best to collect more better data.
the big problem is this. Doing this job “right” won’t get you published.
Mr. Mosher, funny, I just happened across your 2010 comment at Lucia’s reading that old thread the other day, the one listing “what would skeptics like to see” in improved handling of data and stats etc. I wondered if it had influenced Muller et al. and BEST, since the similarities were so striking, but of course I had no way (at that moment) of knowing whether Muller or Rohde etc. had even seen that comment. Congratulations on that line of useful influence. I don’t know all of Anthony’s issues with BEST (or others) but I think at least it is a very good thing that the project exists. One can argue about how the PR or congressional testimony has been handled etc., but I certainly do want to see the BEST results in the mix of climate discussions.
Bart:
I will bite. What about Prof. McKitrick’s role at the Fraser Institute? How does his role as one of 45 senior fellows affect his perspective on the statistical issues and viable conclusions from Marcott et al’s Science paper?
bernie1815 | April 2, 2013 at 11:34 am |
To explain the role of rhetorical questions in communicationab initio would take too long.
Why don’t we go straight to administering the blood tests, instead?
Bart:
I have no idea as to the relevance of a blood test.
My contention is that Peter Clark played a significant part in the wholly unjustified and, for me, hard to explain visibility of this particular paper.
Somebody launched an effective PR campaign. Brand new PhDs are unlikely to set this kind of effort in motion.
It is hardly guilt by association. Prof. Clark in a highly productive researcher and, not surprisingly, appears to be a highly influential player both around the NSF, the IPCC and in the climate science field in general. Let’s see how this paper is cited in AR5. If its use is limited strictly to the Holocene then any role he might have had in the hyping of this paper will be of little consequence. If, however, it is used in AR5 to buttress proxy studies with supposedly much higher frequency measures then I think there is a problem.
bernie1815 | April 2, 2013 at 11:17 pm |
Alternate theory: the Marcott et al method is patently brilliant and ought be a central topic of climate science conversations for the next decade, as close to an observation of the Big Bang for Holocene-like weather in the world of climate cosmology as we yet have.
No PR campaign necessary.
And really, having some minor experience in PR, I have to say if this is had PR in it, it was nursery school grade PR. “Appears to be a highly influential player…” That is just rich.
Why not judge AR5 based on the contents of AR5, and Marcott et al 2013 on the merits of Marcott et al 2013 and leave the conspiracy theory ‘team’ talk to the non-science crowd?
Bart:
I do not understand your alternative theory. What could possibly make the Marcotte et al method brilliant? Nobody to my knowledge has suggested this. Is that your explanation for the PR effort?
bernie1815 | April 3, 2013 at 9:57 am |
What makes the method brilliant is the need it fills for statisticians.
Prior to Marcott et al, there was no suitable and sufficient dataset or other mechanism to really validate GCMs. A climate is 30 years. We have at most in the instrumental record six or eight discrete data points even regionally. A statistician distrusts such low numbers. It didn’t really matter much as technology is challenged to produce very long GCM runs anyway, or at least was up to recently, but we’re seeing progress on that side too.
While the Marcott infographic cannot deliver much granularity, GCMs can (indeed, to work, rather must). While GCMs can never provably recover exactly what really happened before instrumental records, because we can demonstrably derive from them simulations of what paleo proxies ought look like for any particular run, we can validate the runs sufficiently to establish true pdfs for weather under the most similar conditions to the modern Earth we could wish.
We go from six or eight discrete points to over 350. That is huge. We can know really how likely any particular weather event or temperature might be, compared to the whole Holocene. We can compare this millennium, century, 30-year-span, decade, year, season, month, day to all other suitable comparators to reliably make claims about trends. We’ll have a large enough span of pdfs to establish climate sensitivity to most of those forcings which now are in greatest doubt.
The Marcott infographic on its own? Not sufficient. But taken as a piece of the greater whole, integrated with the sum of knowledge and put to effective use? It’s of immeasurable value.
Bart:
I still do not get how this helps GCMs. The resolution is entirely insufficient to do anything except rule out tendencies for large 1000 year oscillations of more than 2C. (Of course, greater swings within that period would be allowed but are invisible in the Marcott et al reconstruction.)
In addition, others, including Mann, have already pointed to issues at the hemispheric level because of the geographic spread of proxies. Then we have the unexplained behavior of similar proxies that are geographically proximate to each other but show a very different signal. There are after all only 73 proxies and while that is way better than one or two inconsistencies among them raises different questions. (Nick Stokes tool at his site ( http://www.moyhu.blogspot.com/2013/03/proxy-viewer-with-choice-of-dating-and.html#more ) is very useful for quickly looking at the individual proxies.)
Bart R: Alternate theory: the Marcott et al method is patently brilliant and ought be a central topic of climate science conversations for the next decade
Patently. That’s good.
bernie1815 | April 3, 2013 at 10:49 am |
Yes, yes. The resolution of the Marcott Infographic is very low, but it creates a substantial comparator to validate Holocene-spanning GCM’s.
Simply run a GCM, derive what the proxies would look like, and — just as when MM03 was rejected for being outside the accepted range — reject runs that cannot generate derived proxies fitted to the actual outputs in the Marcott infographic.
The GCMs thus validated could be run ad infinitum, and create pdfs right down to the daily, gridded level. They couldn’t recreate an actual instrumental record, but these pdfs are not just the second best thing: they are a thing we would want and be able to make use of even if we did have such an instrumental curve.
For example, we could know how commonplace rises like the GMT has had in the past half century are. We could know how likely a fifteen-year flat five-year mean trend would be to reflect an end to the 30-year warming trend. We’d have a tool to focus our attention on questions in climate that really matter, while quashing error.
Don’t you want to quash error?
Bart:
Everyone wants to reduce errors. I doubt very much that Marcott is going to enable that except in the most trivial ways. You say:
“For example, we could know how commonplace rises like the GMT has had in the past half century are. We could know how likely a fifteen-year flat five-year mean trend would be to reflect an end to the 30-year warming trend. We’d have a tool to focus our attention on questions in climate that really matter, while quashing error.”
Why on earth do we need a 11000 year aggregation of 73 proxies which are not ideally spatial dispersed and with an average resolution of 250 years to look at 50 year and 15 year trends? We have proxies with much higher resolutions covering the last 2000 years and they are proving to be quite variable if I read Figure 5.7 in AR5 SOD correctly.
I can see the relevance of the profile for examining long cycle events like glaciation, which is Peter Clark’s specialty, but I do not see how this particular analysis can help answer the important and interesting questions you raised and that we all would like to be answered.
Bernie1815 | April 3, 2013 at 10:56 pm |
Why 3,500+ discrete data points (11,300/30) over six or eight or 66 (2,000/30)?
That’s a serious question?
Why a method to derive a valid comparator for GCM runs is better than cramming together a handful of short proxies and hoping for the best?
I’m not saying there isn’t work to be done. There’s a great deal of work to be done to make this advancement practical when GCMs get to the point it’s plausible to contemplate multiple Holocene-spanning runs.
I’m suggesting this is an arrow pointing the way.
Bart:
The presenting issue was why the fuss about this particular paper. Even if this paper “points the way” for validating and exercising GCMs – to my knowledge you are the only person who has said this explicitly. The authors certainly do not allude to it in the article. So why your idea might have merit, at this moment it is your idea.
bernie1815 | April 4, 2013 at 9:06 am |
If, at this point, it is my idea, then I give credit where credit is due:
Marcott et al, Muller et al.. are a good start.
We see farther by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Though what makes some idea belong to a person in science, to my likes, isn’t their chronological order of arrival but their actual advancement of it.
This isn’t an idea at all without a dedicated and competent group to do the considerable work necessary.
Bart: Where do Marcott et al voice this benefit of their Holocene proxy work? Do you have a reference?.
bernie1815 | April 4, 2013 at 10:35 am |
You’ve made me the reference, by crediting me with the idea.
No one asked Einstein where Newton .. hrm.. perhaps a slightly too elevated analogy for this case. ;)
Bart R | April 4, 2013 at 1:48 am |
Persian Flaw #2:
Why 3,500+ discrete data points (11,300/30)..
Does no one check math any more?
Small wonder it’s impossible to have a cogent discussion of Marcott’s methods with his innumerate critics.
Bart R, not an attack on science. Only an attack on palpably bad, and (given Marcott’s statement to McIntyre and more formal FAQ) apparently knowingly misleading ‘science’. It is not possible to reconcile the first sentence of the Science Abtract with either the paper SI figure 18c or with the ‘unofficial’ FAQ to which no negative observations are being allowed by moderation.
When you defend the indefensible, it does not strengthen an observers confidence in the validity of the rest of your views, no matter how pompously expressed.
First rule of holes when you are in one and want to get out is to stop digging.
Rud
Rud Istvan | April 2, 2013 at 2:18 pm |
I’ve been aware of your name for some time, first while studying BCG in introductory business courses back in the days I had to top up my scholarships to college (I graduated from a small, ivy-covered school in the Northeast with a fair reputation for business) working as a gravedigger — so I believe either I am well-qualified in the rules of hole digging, or I can say that I’m one of the denizens familiar for the greatest length of time with your work prior to your first post here, or both — and laughed out loud reading your online trouncing of phony capacitor claims at a much later date, as I’d been the type of geeky teenager who programmed in assembler on Motorola OS/9 on the MC6809 & 6803 controllers on home-built multi-user systems for fun.
As you earlier implied I should get to know your background better. In business, in electronics, you are unto a mythic figure striding above the horizon like Colossus, and $11 billion in influence sells you far short.
All science is tinged with the palpably bad; with very few exceptions. Most of it becomes apparent almost immediately, while some takes time before its folly is revealed. Brilliance in science is to find its value proposition and add value to that as an investor.
Marcott recognized there were weaknesses in his infographic; he said so early on, and seemed to be, as you say, knowing of the weaknesses, which he asserts he did not rely on for his conclusions. Looking closely at his work, we find that indeed this is so. The blade, while referenced, isn’t the foundation for the major conclusions of the paper.
So weak, confusing or possibly even mischievous, focus on this is not going to help find the real genius of the method Marcott’s stumbled onto.
Take a look with fresh eyes, ignoring the blade, and I think you might understand how valuable a Holocene-length tool competent to validate GCM runs would be, if properly executed. That’s something we don’t have now, and that would give us pdfs we could apply today for much more than navel-gazing about the nonexistence of sport equipment.
In a number of fields you are an unquestioned top rung expert; no one questions how much you bring to any intellectual pursuit.
You would certainly outshine most if you put your considerable skills and talents behind a Holocene-spanning BEST-like project. I expect if you expressed interest, the quality of volunteers to collaborate would be high. And you would never again be compared to the ‘lawyer’ for the Skydragon Slayers.
What do you say? Are you in?
“What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers.”
blueice2hotsea | April 3, 2013 at 5:56 pm |
Ah, yes. The Marxist line, number 6 most commonly heard remark a sexton hears upon mention of his profession.
Number one of course being, “Well, that’s a dead-end job,” or variants thereof.
If science advances forward one funeral at a time, Bart R could claim some authority.
***
Besides, let’s remind ourselves the first sentence of M13’s abstract:
> Surface temperature reconstructions of the past 1500 years suggest that recent warming is unprecedented in that time.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract
The emphasized word suggests that to claim irreconcilability might be going a bridge too far, yet again, whence auditors should stick to dog whistling.
***
Also note the adjectives:
– “palpably bad”
– “apparently knowingly misleading”
– “no negative observations are being allowed by moderation”
– “indefensible”
– “pompously expressed”
Hasty generalization, intentional speculation, Yes But RC moderation, bandwagoning, begging the question, and tone trolling.
Not an attack on science alright.
willard (@nevaudit) | April 4, 2013 at 10:32 am |
Okay, I have to admit, I’ve never heard that particular line about the job.
#19.
“But RC moderation,” is, and always will be, my favorite. It captures the je ne sais quoi of victim mentality so perfectly.
Are we angels or are we dancers?
==========
Bart R
I realize that flattery is sometimes intended as a compliment. However when praise is troweled on thick and accompanies a proposal, it becomes an obsequious insult. Maybe you overdid it with Rud Istvan.
OTOH it looks like Mosher will carry the torch to Rhode. But that is another matter. Rhode has already done a similar thing and with 300 yr. resolution.
blueice2hotsea | April 4, 2013 at 2:05 pm |
Flattery?
Perhaps you don’t understand the language of business. I doubt Rud Istvan took that harsh admonition as flattering. Being reminded that one was formerly better than one’s present behavior, that one is a giant in unrelated and distant fields and a peon in the one they currently thrash about senselessly out of their depth in.. how is that a flattering image?
There’s nothing obsequious in the patent reproval, and there is no proposal, only a double dare.
Double-Dog-Dare you to show your comment to friends or colleagues and then ask for confirmation that it is: “harsh admonition”, “nothing obsequious”, “patent reproval”, “no proposal” and “only a double dare”.
p.s. I predict Mr. Istvan won’t be inviting on as a member of the team now that he knows you better.
blueice2hotsea | April 6, 2013 at 4:37 pm |
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/sharp-practice.html
http://blogs.hbr.org/anthony/2012/10/dont_make_these_mistakes_when.html
Get it, yet? No? Read a book.
‘I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.’ Richard P. Feynman
Minding your knitting is a principle that is best observed in the breach bt one wonders if bart can knit anything at all.
Bart r
Get it, yet? No? Read a book
Nope. Still don’t get it. And don’t get which book you are hinting at.
Oh well. At least Generalissimo Skippy is making sense. Think I’ll check that out.
Bart
Time to get real.
Marcott quote @RC yesterday: “the 20th century portion of the paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions”.
So, pray tell:
1] on what then are their conclusions -aka a major case of hockey stick resur-erection- based? Any good suggestions?
2] what if anything am I missing in this perfectly pretty straight forward admission? I am sure there are many others here who like to understand that.
3] why did Science ever see fit to publish this travesty? That’s hard to fathom, unless of course you accept that Science [and Nature] have for a long while been part and parcel of the climate establishment -the curia of the IPCC church, if you prefer.
Look forward to your explanation for ##1 and 2
tetris | April 2, 2013 at 3:16 pm |
Marcott’s been saying the same since before yesterday. He said the same last week to Revkin. The construction of his thesis, which left out the blade, tells us he didn’t need to rely on it to form his conclusions. You’re asking for an education in advanced statistical methods there is not the space for in a blog comment, if you are seriously willing to understand the answers to your questions #1 & 2.
To make it more brief, even in the thesis the changes in behavior of curves generated from proxies were themselves enough to draw some conclusions about change in forcing. While the infographic can’t yank what precisely the change in forcing may have been, scientists are allowed to stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before them. I’d have to believe Marcott did that, though I question some of his footnoting and citation as lacking in the Science article, possibly.
And really, Science would have been fail to not have published, even if they’d left off the last 120 years, it’s still a brilliant, game-changing tool that Marcott’s produced in his infographic.
Repeated for emphasis:
The importance of the work was betrayed by its unwise use as a propaganda tool in this rush to entrench hardened opinion.
==============
Translation:
‘We tried to hype this entirely unremarkable piece of work from my unremarkable thesis by jamming a hockey stick onto it with Blutack and getting it published before the AR5 deadline.
And we nearly succeeded! Lots of lovely press about warming and the resurrection of the HS. I was on the telly and Mum says I looked very scientific and earnest about Saving the World!
But then those Denier bastards like McIntyre spotted our little subterfuge How do they keep rumbling our plans? And everytime we fiddle the statistics they find out within a week. Maybe there’s a mole somewhere funded by the Big Oil Denier Conspiracy. That nutter in Australia with the beard and the funny name might be it. Or Joelle. She’s been very quiet since her paper got the ‘Jean S’ treatment. Maybe that was all a plant designed to lull us into a false sense of security. What about Andy Revkin? He doesn’t seem to love us as much this week as last.
So I guess we;re just about f…ked in this climatology lark. I’ll hav eto try something else. Anybody know if MacDonald’s are hiring? They want what? I.N.T.E.G.R.I.T.Y? Never heard of it. I’ll try KFC’.
…as told to LA.
.
In Recent Comments
has just about the right amount of uncertainty and mystery for me :)
Not the real Shaun Marcott | April 3, 2013 at 2:31 pm |
Mebbe you footsoldiers didn’t get the message from Rud Istvan: this is not an attack on science.
So cease firing.
Science seems more the camp follower than enemy – collateral damage.
Bart R: “Does Marcott et al 2013 work? Possibly not on endpoints”. You mean “not even close at the endpoint, which is a minor note in the paper, but the point that was emphasized by the paper’s authors and sponsors”.
As long as you waffle on the blade of the hockey stick — which had nothing to do with the paper’s conclusions and has been noted by the authors as “non-robust” — you’re calling into question your own scientific judgement. No reason to talk about “possibly”, unless there’s more than science at stake here.
Wayne2 | April 3, 2013 at 1:34 pm |
I have scientific judgement?
Where have you seen citation of “Bart R” in any peer reviewed published scientific paper?
Where have I presented any credentials in science?
Where have I argued my judgement is superior, established, authoritative or exceptionally reliable in science?
Also, where the heck have I waffled about the blade? The infographic — see, I don’t even make the mistake of many of calling it an average or plot or graph, because it isn’t — doesn’t especially evoke confidence in the endpoints, and that much I’ve been saying since first having the chance to read the paper, so I don’t see much basis for you guessing what I mean, and would suggest maybe trying plain reading instead of constructing straw men.
Your wild conspiracy theory implications? Just the echoes of the deluded, propagandists and demogogs.
You seriously don’t get that it’s not the paper that is deceptive, it’s the media circus – interviews and so on where the lead author of the paper not only failed to divulge the limitations, he actively encouraged the belief that those limitations did not exist. IMO, that is scientific misconduct, pure and simple.
kneel | April 4, 2013 at 2:53 am |
Your independent and unbiased, balanced, considered view with all the facts and evidence and a fair hearing of all defenses, circumstances, and objections?
Or, just, like, your opinionated guess?
Because tossing around “scientific misconduct” may be pure something, and indicate simple something, but the unselfconscious irony of doing it in this manner, the hypocrisy, the flat out gall, does nothing to improve it.
Bart R: “Your wild conspiracy theory implications? Just the echoes of the deluded, propagandists and demogogs.”
Please point out my conspiracy theory implications. Perhaps you should follow your own advice and read the straightforward meaning of what was written?
“Also, where the heck have I waffled about the blade?” In the exact quote I quoted in my posting. Did you read it at all? I’ll quote it AGAIN for you…
You say: “Does Marcott et al 2013 work? Possibly not on endpoints.” That’s waffling. You don’t say, “Not on the endpoints”, but “possibly not”. Which means you’re not sure that it does not work, but it’s a possibility. That’s waffling.
This was from your full paragraph which read: “Does Marcott et al 2013 work? Possibly not on endpoints, and it is open to some measure of the criticism of it in public — most of which the authors themselves join in — but in the main, the infographic is a brilliant and useful tool that provides a basis for validating Holocene-spanning GCM runs, and the importance of the work is being obscured by the unfortunate circumstances of its portrayal as a propaganda tool in this rush to entrench hardened opinion.”
‘its portrayal as a propaganda tool in this rush to entrench hardened opinion’. It will be a fine, rational, day in Hell when the alarmists quit projecting their madness on the rest of us.
================
kim | April 4, 2013 at 2:03 pm |
I’m not sure which gives one greater pause: the idea anyone would care to project anything on you, or the notion of some group not yet mad proclaiming, “kim speaks for us.”
Wayne2 | April 4, 2013 at 1:55 pm |
Please point out my conspiracy theory implications.
From Wayne2 | April 3, 2013 at 1:34 pm | Reply “No reason to talk about “possibly”, unless there’s more than science at stake here.” It is a statement with no other power than implication, and does not allow one to apply any rules of plain reading, as you don’t plainly say what the “more” that is “at stake here” might be.
This line you’ve used is a well-documented technique of propaganda. It’s a classic of the practice. You waffling about it now does not excuse it.
..Which means you’re not sure that it does not work, but it’s a possibility. That’s waffling.
You’ve picked an odd forum to come out against the Italian Flag Model, and recognizing Uncertainty in Science.
The Endpoint Problem has its roots in the very beginning of chartsmanship. It’s why we know the red line is a representation of the climate as 30-year running means, the green line to about 95% reliable as a predictor of the part of the climate trend past the endpoint, and the blue and purple lines are completely meaningless with regard to climate trends.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:191/mean:193/plot/gistemp/mean:101/mean:103/last:96/plot/gistemp/mean:29/mean:31/last:84
Either we treat Marcott et al the same (absent a compelling case being accepted by the scientific community for accepting infographic evidence in a novel way) and recognize endpoint problems in it, or we say the blue line indicates no LIA and the purple spike is acceptable evidence of where the 30-year climate is trending.
Probably doesn’t indicate waffling. It indicates probabilities pertain.
Actually Bart, the available evidence (the NSF press release) seems pretty straightforward to me – go read it, especially the part regarding what the authors are said too say about the paper. Either the authors of the paper made misleading, comments about it, or the press release writer distorted what the author said. Either way, someone needs to get fired, because of this textbook example of misconduct.
kneel | April 5, 2013 at 2:53 am |
Sorry, no sale.
I just don’t find the critics credible in their drama queen over-the-top arguments that bear little resemblence to what was actually said in the NSF press release pilloried by Watts, PielkeJr et al.
All I see is a propaganda campaign forming an attack on science by trumping up charges against a paper in Science.
For this reason alone, Marcott et al deserve the most vigorous defense by the scientific community from these defamatory, premeditated and simply wrong assaults
Which is unfortunate. At this early stage, given the immense value of the Marcott method, real, valid criticism and an ordinary scientific exchange of intensive relevant and accurate criticisms is prudent.
Shame so few caught up in the demagog’s snares have the competency to tell the difference.
BartR, Marcott is not “robust” That is polite to F-ed up from start to finish. That is not a bad thing though. It reveals flaws in common assumptions. One of the more interesting is potential errors in Monte Carlo analysis. The dating issue is just an embarrassment that Marcott’s “mentors” could have saved.
http://climateaudit.org/2013/04/04/marcott-monte-carlo/ That is RomanM’s take on the Monte Carlo. Lucia has run into a similar situation and Tamino unwittingly seems to have proved their points.
You should be careful what you ASSUME.
captdallas 0.8 or less | April 5, 2013 at 10:24 am |
Took them long enough to start wrapping their heads around the reason the Marcott images must be regarded as infographics, and what they should be talking about, distracted as they were by being busy attacking science before they thought about it.
Give them a couple more weeks at this rate and they might actually grasp what they’re reading and why it’s so significant.
Mindless kneejerk responses to new work is the surest sign an academic ready to become emeritus.
BartR, Generally, the louder barkers should be ignored. There are some major flaws or gaps if you prefer in the “Sensitivity” issue. That is the data is more sensitive to analysis than the climate is forcing. :)
Bart R –
There. Fixed that for me.
The problem here is that a large part of the paper’s (non-scientific) value is tied to its flaws. Analogize a construction flaw which is “overlooked” by a housing appraiser, not mentioned by the Realtor and the later basis for rejection of unrelated valid insurance claims which combined with the “overlooked” flaws in credit-worthiness leads to default. All these flaws are part of a package deal from which which many profited including bankers, brokers and law-makers.
What about home-owners and tax-payers? They got screwed!
blueice2hotsea | April 5, 2013 at 11:23 am |
All endpoints are not robust. That is the Endpoint Problem.
It’s not news, and it’s not new.
Anyone arguing over the robustness of endpoints as if it were a surprise to them that endpoints are problematic is either utterly inexperienced in chartsmanship, or scamming, or both.
Bart R | April 5, 2013 at 12:50 pm |
Non-robustness would be news to purchasers of higher priced carbon emissions. Similar to construction and credit-worthiness flaws were news to purchasers of repackaged debt.
“All endpoints are not robust. That is the Endpoint Problem.”
And we live at the endpoint. That is Our Problem.
The globe has been cooling for thousands and thousands of years, Nick, but for how much longer even kim doesn’t know.
=================
Nick Stokes, “We live at the endpoint.”
Yep. Looking at the Marcoot endpoints, the Mediterranean must have lept up by 4.25 C in the past 60 years, I am sure that was nearly as shocking as the south Atlantic 4.1 C plummet since 2001. It is just remarkable to me how paleo reconstructions were so much more accurate during his selected baseline than they are today.
blueice2hotsea | April 5, 2013 at 3:46 pm |
Seems we’ll have to list you under ‘both’ inexperienced and scammer.
Bart R –
Seems we’ll have to list you under ‘both’ inexperienced and scammer.
Well, I am inexperienced at scamming, so you almost got it right. Nevertheless, we’ll have to list you as inexperienced at listing. You have been demoted.
captdallas 0.8 or less | April 5, 2013 at 10:24 am |
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:191/mean:193/plot/gistemp/mean:101/mean:103/last:96/plot/gistemp/mean:29/mean:31/last:84/plot/gistemp/last:12/trend
Persian flaw #3: there was no purple line.
Now, what am I to ASSUME about someone who contrives to respond to a chart while missing the fact that a key point referred to in the narrative is missing?
Why.. is it that they have preconceived notions they know no amount of evidence will dislodge, so they don’t even go to the trouble of holding up the charade of examining the evidence?
No, wait.. that’d be inference.
Bart:”All I see is a propaganda campaign forming an attack on science by trumping up charges against a paper in Science.
For this reason alone, Marcott et al deserve the most vigorous defense by the scientific community from these defamatory, premeditated and simply wrong assaults”
You defend the indefensible then.
You may defend the paper if you wish – I have NO issue with that. My issue, as I clearly stated, is the attendant media circus.
Here is a quote from the NSF press release:
“What that [temperature reconstruction] history shows, the researchers say, is that during the last 5,000 years, the Earth on average cooled about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit–until the last 100 years, when it warmed about 1.3 degrees F.”
Here is a quote from the FAQ in RC:
“Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions.”
Here is what Revkin says about this:
“…room for more questions — one being how the authors square the caveats they express here with some of the more definitive statements they made about their findings in news accounts.”
The press release, which refers to the paper itself, is clearly misleading in light of the the FAQ answer, as Revkin suggests.
Who is responsible for this clear violation of NSF policy?
Why have they not been disciplined or the matter investigated?
Why do you defend these clearly deceptive and unethical practices?
Why does pointing this out constitute “anti-science” behaviour?
Neil Fisher | April 6, 2013 at 6:25 pm |
You attack a particular thing that does what all others do, in the way they do, and with utmost hypocrisy in this particular arena.
Endpoints not robust? Can’t rely on them to tell you what they seem to be indicating reliably? Hrm. Where have I heard this very issue lately in MSM?
Ah yes. Where MSM claims of “no global warming in 15 years” are made.
Show me where you have identified that no global warming claim, and said of people who defend it that they defend the indefensible?
It is the same. Only the media circus attending the no-global-warming claims is easily a thousand times that dealing with a single otherwise obscure paper in an otherwise (to the general public) somewhat obscure journal.
You want it both ways. To be able to rely on endpoints and 5-year running means to represent 30+ year trends, while applying wildly exaggerated and patently speculative accusations against a mathematically indistinguishable case.
Except that when Marcott is asked, he immediately clarifies for those people too inexperienced in chartsmanship that of course his endpoint is not robust, and it’s not the foundation of his conclusion.
Good science relies on good criticism, vigorous problem-seeking, ample skepticism of new ideas. People who go to the trouble of providing this service to authors and publishers are to be commended. There is little commendable in most of the rubbishing going on of the Marcott paper, which is a real shame considering how much value there is in the Marcott method.
Bart, you ignore the issue I raise and create a straw-man about the PAPER ITSELF, rather than considering the press release (quoted for you) and the latter “clarification” (also quoted for you) even where Revkin seems to be suggesting there is an inconsistency (as quoted from his dotEarth blog).
So let me make it easy for you:
1) do you acknowledge what appears to be a violation of published NSF policy with respect to the press release for this paper?
if you answer “yes” to 1):
2) Do you know of anything that excuses these actions?
3) Do you think these policies do not or should not apply to this or any other paper and if so why?
if you answer “no” to 1):
3) on what grounds is this not a violation of published NSF policy?
4) do you think the policy needs to be more explicit and clear so that people like me who feel it IS such a violation will be better informed?
For me, I see it as a government rule and while such rules do not always seem to make much sense, those subject to them need to obey them or pay the prescribed penalty. They need to be enforced to the letter and without fear or favor. If you (or I, or anyone) feels that they are wrong, that person should make an effort to change them, but they need to be obeyed – they exist for a reason (no always cogent, but a reason none the less).
In this particular case, I personally feel they are correct and need to be enforced rigorously at all times – we cannot have the science which we depend on for public policy distorted by the scientists, no matter their motivations; the politicians and advocates can, have and will attempt to distort things – that is expected. What is NOT expected is that the facts will be misrepresented by those we consider – and pay to be – “honest brokers”.
Mistakes can be made and should be allowed to be corrected in a timely manner once pointed out, yet I see no evidence of that in this case – please point out the corrective NSF press release and media conference if I have missed it, and I will be happy to drop this line of argument.
Neil Fisher | April 7, 2013 at 6:30 pm |
Look, if you’re merely regurgitating PielkeJr, say so.
That way, I can offer you some Quark Soup to settle your tummy. http://davidappell.blogspot.ca/2013/04/is-marcott-et-al-gross-misrepresentation.html
PielkeJr.’s clarification includes such gems as: “Just because there is a legitimate argument that could have been made does not justify an illegitimate one. Did I really just write that?”
If these are actually your own thoughts imagined all by your lonesome:
1. No. What an odiously defamatory claim.
Bart:1. No. What an odiously defamatory claim.
Defamatory? To say that it APPEARS to a breach of published NSF policy? When Pielke Jr and Revkin BOTH appear to believe there is some explaining to do? You make no defense – you do not even bother to post even one plausible explanation for the dichotomy between paper and press release. The link you provided suggests that it may be journalists asking “what does it mean?” etc, but this in NO WAY is applicable to the NSF press release as far as I can see.
If asking for an explanation of such, if saying that this appears to a breach of NSF policies, make me a denialist in your eyes, then so be it. That doesn’t excuse or explain these actions though. It certainly appears that, despite your claims to want honesty to prevail, you do not believe that such rules apply to scientists, only the rest of the plebs. You are clearly a “Team Player” here Bart – and as seems usual in this business, you can’t even admit there is an explanation deserved here or that there is even anything wrong. Sickening, really. The only real surprise for me is that you take this stance – you never seemed to me to be such an advocate, but you are certainly showing your stripes now, aren’t you?
Neil Fisher | April 9, 2013 at 10:23 pm |
Oh look. More defamation and smear. What a surprise.
Equating Pielke Jr.’s and Revkin’s positions is so wildly inaccurate as to beggar the process of refutation. Here’s a like to Revkin’s: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/scientists-find-an-abrupt-warm-jog-after-a-very-long-cooling/
“This work is complicated, involving lots of statistical methods in extrapolating from scattered sites to a global picture, which means that there’s abundant uncertainty — and that there will be abundant interpretations.” I believe this line fairly represents Revkin’s fairly neutral reportage.
“I document the gross misrepresentation of the findings of a recent scientific paper via press release which appears to skirt awfully close to crossing the line into research misconduct, as defined by the NRC.” This seems the strongest candidate for identifying Pielke Jr.’s point of view, and as Neil Fisher deigns not to clarify, to spare him charges of plagiarism (which would, by the way, be scientific misconduct), we’ll just say Neil obviously confused the link to Pielke Jr. with Revkin due the difficulty in editing on WordPress, but that this Pielkeism represents Neil Fisher’s argument too.
The two claims are entirely different. You do Revkin grave wrong, as his impartiality and fairmindedness are to be admired, not tarnished with straw mannish facsimiles.
This word you use, ‘dichotomy’. I do not think it means what you think it means. As ample clarifications by the author to bridge the poor reading ability of the general public, the MSM, and Pielke Jr. that lead to ambiguous or malicious interpretation, I have no need to “bother to post even one plausible explanation,” .. and I don’t see where you ever asked me to, either. Not as part of #1, or #3, or #4.
Perhaps you lost the question due WordPress editor glitch?
There’s always more explaining to do when a paper is published. New knowledge is not the end of the process in science, but the next stepping stone. Revkin gets this right; Pielke Jr. does not. So no “defense” is needed for science that creates more questions, it is its own shield.
Also, as a digression: did I use the word “denialist”? While many times some repugnant labels describe the same category, not all always do. There are plenty of defamers who are not deniers. Did I talk about my eyes at all? Your eyes? Anyone’s eyes? No, the sensory organ offended was the nose.
Let’s examine your question, “1) do you acknowledge what appears to be a violation of published NSF policy with respect to the press release for this paper?”
Oh hey. We need to refer to the NSF policy and the press release to understand what two things are being compared.
Misconduct in science is defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism, in proposing, performing, or reporting research. Misconduct in science does not include errors of judgment; errors in the recording, selection, or analysis of data; differences in opinions involving the interpretation of data; or misconduct unrelated to the research process.
And the press release in question (www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=127133)
So when we take the entire context of all things into account, where do we find gross misrepresentation (Pielke Jr.’s term) or appearance of violation?
Is it the headline? “Earth Is Warmer Today Than During 70 to 80 Percent of the Past 11,300 Years” — yes, I get that’s not what you’re saying, Neil, but I believe I’ve earned a bit of lattitude considering the many things you’ve claimed I’ve said that I have not.
Well, no. The headline is an accurate representation of a conclusion one may accurately infer from the paper. It isn’t plagiarism, it isn’t false, and it is based on reasonable evidence.
Is it “The last century stands out as the anomaly in this record of global temperature since the end of the last ice age…. This research shows that we’ve experienced almost the same range of temperature change since the beginning of the industrial revolution as over the previous 11,000 years of Earth history – but this change happened a lot more quickly.”
No. Resoundingly no. For the same reason as for the headline.
Marcott et al shows a range of temperature change over 11,000 years.
We have an instrumental record of temperature for the last 200 or so years.
The range of temperature change in Marcott is about the same amplitude as the range of temperature change in the instrumental record.
The patent fact that one range is a smoothed representation over fifty times the span of the other smoothed representation ought warn anyone who has ever compared inchworms to wolfhounds or wolfhounds to whales or done the least work with statistics or charts or fractals or Chaos — in other words the expected target audience — that there are scale-dependencies to be taken into account. It is usual to write to the standards of expected audiences in technical and scientific journals, and the fault of misreading is on the reader.
Requiring the authors of either the paper or the press release to anticipate every possible malicious or unschooled or lawyerly or idiotic reading of their words is too strict a condition; no reasonable arbiter would ever hold any writer to such a standard, thus no arbiter of the NSF policy would find wrongdoing.
This is not a “Team” (any team that would show the poor judgement to want me, I would certainly never join) analysis. This is simply what any objective reader who takes pains to be honest would say.
Bart, read your own quotes! Misconduct includes “misrepresentation…reporting science”. “20th century…not robust”. “what the paper shows…until the last 100 years…”. My intent in the brevity of these quotes is not to take anything put of context for the purpose of deception, but rather to attempt to show you where I believe the problem is.
A press release is clearly not created for a technical reader – rather the opposite. That is why the rules regarding misconduct specifically refer to press release.
Are you seriously suggesting that the press release is not misleading as to what the paper shows?
Are you seriously suggesting that this is irrelevant?
If this turns put to be a mistake on sometimes part, then I am fine with that providing there is an apology and correction issued.
kneel | April 10, 2013 at 4:04 am |
How to read for intention and meaning:
Step 1. Start thoughtfully at the first word.
Step 2. Read the next word with goodwill.
Step 3. Repeat Step 2 without malicious introduction or bias while there are more words.
Step 4. Stop.
See, that’ll work out much better for you.
If at Step 4 you still are so muddled and confused, one suggests repeat steps 1-4 harder.
In a recent interview with Hans von Storch, Julia Hargreaves said:
“In order to publish in high impact journals the numbers must keep getting bigger and the outcomes more scary.”
She was then attacked on her own blog by the usual subjects:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2013/03/anthropological-data-point.html
Marcott et al inclusion of a non-robust blade previously missing from his thesis and subsequent media hype of a super hockey stick in high impact Science journal makes Hargreaves point appear quite prescient.
Vermillion balloons,
Verdigris bicycles.
============
thingsbreak, albatross, steve Bloom.
They specialize in creating new skeptics. And now they hit girls.
Wow, quite the thread. James Annan wades in as a bit of a reluctant good guy, but Albatross, etc. are relentless.
Carrick left me reeling in laughter in the comments section with:
“Paul S: Ooops, wrong thread. And boy is it the wrong thread.
Yes it is. Please keep it down.
You’re making their work more difficult for the caricatures-of-human-beings hair pulling crowd.
The behavior of these sh*t flinging monkeys on this comment thread could so easily be turned into a faux Monte Python skit. “
> Albatross, etc. are relentless.
Indeed, see for yourself:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.ca/2013/03/anthropological-data-point.html?showComment=1363699131576
Auditors ought to ask: has thingsbreak ever claimed to be perfect?
Willard:
OK, fine. All is forgiven, it’s a blog, no worries. I don’t fall for the picking on a girl thing. Although, a fair reading of the venom indicated she hit close to home. That’s the lovely bit of human psychology data.
Do you think Julia Hargreaves comment that elicited responses harsh enough to apologize for has validity? Do you think that M et al might be an example of what she was meaning?
Howard,
Quite frankly, I thought Jules’ remark was quite unremarkable. While I can fathom why people could worry about its possible misinterpretations, getting all worked up by this does not seem to me to be fruitful, more so that it does seem to rest on a misconception of the publishing business. Contrarians will always have enough material for all the concerns they could fancy anyway.
The audit never ends.
Read on, parochial student of broken irony things.
==============
I’ve read Annan’s blog for years and honestly did not know the wife who was posting pictures and sewing garments was the scientist named Hargreaves who sometimes appears as a co-author with Annan until the article in question was posted.
I would say ask her if Marcott et al is an example of what she was talking about. I doubt it is, but she may disagree.
That would be preferable to just drafting her to your cause without her permission.
Hah! We need permission now to discus remarks by someone else! Nice way to avoid the point. The exaggeration of scientific results is not exclusive to climate, so you don’t really need to contort your logic to fit inside your per-concieved box.
Howard,
If you wish Jules’ opinion, ask her. If you wish my own opinion on something that was not the subject of my comment, try straightforwardness. That does not guarantee that I will respond in kind (you know me), but that would improve your chances.
Please honor the word of the week in the auditing sciences.
‘Try straightforwardness’. Hahdit! Hahdit!
================
Speaking of straightforwardness, here’s James who does not show much:
> Ah, the Curry Comparison. You really know how to flatter the ladies….
http://julesandjames.blogspot.ca/2013/03/anthropological-data-point.html?showComment=1364941552064
Jules’ answer was a bit more straightforward.
I dunno willard, my audit of GISS ended.
my audit of CRU ended.
my audit of the temperature record ended.
UHI.. one more problem to solve
microsite.. two more problems to solve.
Of course, dialogue never closes, words cannot put an end to more words…except by imposition of the ultimate sanctions.
Morse peckham. explanation and power. All explanation is subject to infinite regress. The meaning of the sign is the response to the sign and the stimulus does not determine response. Consequently, meaning can only be inforced at the limit by the application of ultimate sanctions.
practically that means you do better in engaging in dialogue or audits when the other party will specify in advance the conditions required to end the audit. otherwise the dialogue can continue forever or one party can impose ultimate sanctions on the other party. lets step outside.
For me that is simple; show me your data, show me your code and I’ll be 100% satisfied, you wont have to answer any more questions. our dialogue can end.
Scott Basinger | April 3, 2013 at 7:18 pm |
Wow, quite the thread. James Annan wades in as a bit of a reluctant good guy, but Albatross, etc. are relentless.
###################################
since watching Judith and Lucia first venture on to blogs and watching the male reactions I wasn’t too surprised by their behavior. Now, to be sure when they were called out by Hans ( Hans is a great dinner companion and extremely bright .. and tough ) the little puppies behaved. Jules got a taste of what came Judith’s way. Petty men in academia who fight over nothing but reputation have no idea how to wield power. That’s why fights in academia are so nasty.
Funny story one day I ask a colleaque why academic fights are so nasty.
As a feminist she had an interesting answer. “men in academia fight like girls. most of them haven’t played sports and learned how to battle in a civilized manner.”
> Now, to be sure when they were called out by Hans ( Hans is a great dinner companion and extremely bright .. and tough ) the little puppies behaved.
Indeed, see for yourself:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.ca/2013/03/anthropological-data-point.html?showComment=1363699131576
Let’s not wonder why we’re asking black hat marketers for links and quotes.
Goose or gander, don’t confuse sauces.
============
Indeed. Much better it would have been if, instead of treating her exactly as they might have a male, they had deferred to her being a “ady scientist, such as Judith. As Mosher has pointed out previously, anyone who vigorously disagrees with a lady scientist obviously has “issues.”
And I am impressed that Mosher has dined with “Hans.” So impressed.
Almost as impressed that “Hans” is “tough.” Must be real men, Mosher and “Hans.”
Sorry – forgot to update the monicker. It’s getting hard to keep track.
It takes a man to take his finger out of the dike he put it into as a boy.
==============
The modifiers appear to be approaching truth as a limit.
========
And indeed – As James points out, mosher can give Chief a run for his money (as Chief of unintentional irony).
Spectacular.
Whoa, how can it not be nice so near to the limit?
=========================
willard,
of course in shame they switch their focus to Hans.
snivelling little twerps
Joshua its not the vigorous disagreement. That’s what I would expect.
It’s the tone and the tactics. condescending, belittling. and then the over compensation is absolutely hilarious and switching to size up hans.
classic..
Joshua,
Yes hans was a dinner companion. That is important for ONE and only one reason; so you know my data on his character does not stem soley from a pixel interaction, but we met in the meat world.
I’ve also met john Cook in the meat world. 30 second appraisal I will with hold. Scott Mandia as well. I will withhold the judgment I formed. I’ve met Gavin in the meat world he is way more personable in person than through the screen. Peter Webster.. On sight likeable, tough funny, happy,, probably played sports. Steve Mcintyre very different in person than on screen. tallbloke, gosh, within 15 seconds I realized I owed him an apology for being such a prick. Nick stokes, kind considerate gentleman. Willis, thoughful caring, absolutely different from the fire breathing you see here.
The other reason for letting you know, is this. you are such a putz that if I said hans was tough, you would probably ask for evidence. I tried not to make un supported statements…. except went I want willard’s attention.
It usually works.
kim | April 4, 2013 at 2:10 pm |
It takes a man to take his finger out of the dike he put it into as a boy.
===
wow, did I misread that.
totally off topic Kim.
wonderful movie.
> of course in shame they switch their focus to Hans.
Hans acted like a prick.
I was trying to distract from the awkward metaphor with a bad pun. It worked!
==============
Back to the point. But for the fabricated elevator, historically known as a high impact icon, Marcott would not have been published in a high impact journal.
Subconscious auditing creeps into the minds of the alarmist climatologists, like H7N7 creeps into pigs and ducks.
Apparently a sensitive issue. Hmmmm.
==========
If so, …
If so, then so. Have some deep philosophy.
========
Hmmm.
Big hmmm.
All climatology is divided into two classes, those trying to understand it and those trying to explain it. Those trying to explain it are at a lethal disadvantage, because they don’t understand it.
============
Jules excuse could be embraced, but nooooo. It’s an excuse other than ignorance or disingenuousness, and more plausible to hoi polloi.
============
Does Jules need an excuse?
You really want me to quote her, kim…
Ah, silly, I mean Jules’ excuse for the excess.
=============
Dichotomies oftentimes lead to excess.
Oups! Our cold one just did it again.
Hey, it’s a hint; take it or leave it. Speaking of leaving, the more exits the better.
=============
What’s not to like about ‘the Devil made me do it’? Broad based appeal, there.
========
Dichotomies are great marketing tools
They cause so much splash
Wink wink.
Too bad they’re mostly false.
just every now and then I get the idea that you and I are not on the same page.
===========
Of course we are, Cold One.
You are recto, I am verso.
Or vice versa.
In which case you are versa.
Lol! Again with the “dinner companion.”
In my manly world, you go out to eat with someone or buy them a beer.
I hope you had your pinkies raised as you sipped tea wine you dined with your companion, steven.
You read more into what people write than what exists, steven. It’s a classic sign of “skepticism” The tone of belittling and condescension is the typical discourse of blog banter. Try to find one thread at Climate etc., where no women have participated (a large majority), and you will see that to be the norm. The fact that you distinguish it when it is directed towards a woman is what betrays your “skeptical” tendencies, steven.
As James and Jules so underlined with their responses to you.
Good think you weren’t within beershot of Jules when you typed your condescending remark, steven.
I know, I know, some of your best friends are women
It’s amazing how quickly wine multiplies my typos (not that I don’t make plenty pre-wine). It’s kind of funny, actually – and provides interesting insight into my mind works.
And I also love how in response to my laughing at your name-dropping, you go into a monologue of name-dropping as a response. Don’t ever change, my friend.
Hey Joshua –
Since you’re the mood for self-revelation, here one. I have noticed that whenever you use the phase “I love”, it would make more sense to substitute the words “I am contemptuous of”.
Oh, and I am Ashkenazim – through both parents – and have never called you a putz and even though you have granted me the right.
bi2hs.
Contempt? Certainly not. I’m not wired that way. I don’t take this stuff that seriously. I will grant you that “love” is not accurate either. Try again, this is interesting, and if you find the write adjective I will use it henceforth.
…er…verb…
Joshua –
Since you are sensitive to motivated reasoning, you may be aware that Freud believed that mistakes in writing are motivated. (see <a href="http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Freud/Psycho/chap6.htm"Psychopathology of Everyday Life).
I wonder what Freud would have concluded about an educated person who read ‘I love’ and then doubly mis-identified that usage of ‘love’ as “the write adjective“?
‘Lovely’ is the adjective form, which usually refers to visual, physical aesthetics. The verb form has several meanings ranging from emotional (cherish) to physical (copulate). There might be something there. And I wonder about the frequency of this slip by gender.
Any thoughts?
Psychopathology of Everyday Life
Next up – analysis of my motivated mistake.
Yea, Bloom is a fine piece of work. Basically, he poses as trying to help you when he has already decided you are worthless. And he seems quite ignorant of science, but specializes in sarcastic irrelevant jibes.
The Jules and James thread is illuminating too. James has been in a little trouble with true believers recently with his statements about uniform priors and the IPCC. However, he hasn’t gone as low on sensitivity as some of his recent LGM work might indicate.
bi2hs –
Not sure what Freud might have made of that. I find that I often use misplaced homonyms in my blog comments. In fact, I’ve made note of it in these comments sections a couple of times in the past. I do find it fascinating, but don’t have a clue as to any deeper meaning – particularly in this case. My guess is that it happened this time because I was “writing” and made some vague mental connections there.
That I wrote “adjective” instead of “verb” initially? Again, seems to me like a pretty simple error – mostly a reflection of not being very careful. Maybe I used “adjective” because it is actually more accurate to say that I find comments such as mosher’s to be “lovely” in that I think there is an aesthetically pleasing aspect to unintentional irony as perfect as reflected in his comments.
Slip by gender? What slip by gender?
So anyway, I asked you a question – care to try to answer it? Contempt is certainly wrong (and we might investigate why you so confidently made a wrong assertion – one for which you obviously had insufficient evidence).. Love is wrong as well. Again, if you can come up with the something closer, I’d be happy to substitute it instead of commenting on how I “love” unintentional irony from “skeptics.”
Willard.
Hans did not act like a prick. Hans either was a prick or was not a prick. In either case, it got the job done and the puppies went after the big dog.
dicotomies are neither true nor false, and dicotomies about dicotomies ( ie they are mostly false ) are neither true no false. They are useful or not useful. Sometimes, you market by differentiation, sometimes you market by similarity, it depends on your share. When you have market dominance focus on the differences. When you lag, lead with the similarity.
Joshua
“In my manly world, you go out to eat with someone or buy them a beer.
I hope you had your pinkies raised as you sipped tea wine you dined with your companion, steven.”
Hans and Peter had beer. German versus Aussie. It was lovely.
this is lovely too.
“It’s amazing how quickly wine multiplies my typos (not that I don’t make plenty pre-wine). It’s kind of funny, actually – and provides interesting insight into my mind works.”
Who thought your mistakes could be amplified
Joshua: ‘Love’ is the write adjective.
bi2hs: I smell a Freudian slip.
Joshua: No. My mistakes are always stupid.
How old do you have to be in academia before you’re considered to have reached the age of maturity? 30? 35?
These guys are 25+. In any other walk of life they’re thought to be mature adults. I see nothing that gives them special age-related dispensation here.
about 50 Latimer, about 50.
Then you have seen one full cycle first hand.
I sent some cells to a collaborator in Colorado a little while ago and we have both recently measured the toxicity of a compound, DSF. I found that 10 microMolar DSF caused a drop in cell numbers of about 15%.
He found that he got a 50% drop at 250 nM, 40 times less than my concentration; so who do you think is correct?
@docmartyn
I think I’d do the experiment again. I wouldn’t use ‘age of the experimenters’ as a measuring stick.
And if your results can vary that much, I’d be very suspicious of the methods and validity anyway!
I still see no justification for pussy-footing around with these guys because they are ‘young scientists’. In UK we had a Prime Minister who was younger. And he wouldn’t have expected special treatment if his lack of years caused him to act like a dickhead.
Latimer, on July 1st, 1916, the men with their Webley revolvers and whistles, clambering out of the trenches and walking to the German machine-guns were on average 20.
I find the image puts ‘over the top’ into perspective.
@docmartyn
And I remember my much-loved great uncle telling me a little of his experiences in those awful days at the Somme. He was just a young infantryman …but somehow he survived while so many of his comrades did not…..and he still felt guilty about that sixty years later.
The contrast between the courage of those young men and the indulgence shown to the privileged and cossetted ‘fresh PhDs’ is quite remarkable.
With numbers that different, you both need to repeat it about 4 times each and make sure you are both really working with the same cells or that they did not get contaminated with something else that contributed to the killing. Send him the cells again as well.
In so many ways, Marcotte is not to blame. The blame lies with the learned organizations, headed by the Royal Society and the American Physical Society. On the subject of CAGW, these bodies have taken such a grossly unsicentific stand, that people like Marcotte think that being unscientific is the right thing to do when it comes for “climate change”. It is not.
However, I fear that until all these learned societies go back to the fundamental principles of science, like Nullius in Verba, Marcotte and people like him will think that, when it comes to climate change, the right thing to do is forget science, and just present the propaganda that supports The Cause and The Team.
Until the scientific community starts at the top, and forces the RS and APS to publish proper science with respect to CAGW, there will be lots and lots more Marcottes. I feel sorry for them if it costs them their scientific careers; but I am afraid life is not fair.
Yes, and his mentors and the reviewers and editors at Science should have played a moderating role rather than a PR role. The rush to get it in before the IPCC deadline may have also contributed.
Judith, I admire your instinct to save the souls of these young Ph.D.’s. Let’s remind ourselves of a few things, however.
1. They were both college grads when they chose to go to grad school.
2. They chose as mentors people in the ‘warmist ” camp.
3. They willingly chose paleo, and should have been aware
that at that time it was a controversial field.
4. To be granted their degrees, they must have been put through a grueling oral comprehensive defense, and they survived. They are not delicate orchids. I was 25 when I received my Ph.D., a time when my ego, as well as my IQ was twice what it is now.
5. In numerous radio spots and videos they touted the unsupported portions of their paper. Shakun even asked Revkin about advice on how to handle the inevitable onslaught.
6. If they were as mature as a newly minted should be, they could have chose independence from Clark and the “team” and directly engaged with McIntyre on a continuing basis, instead of seeking shelter behind the RC wall. Geez, when I defended my thesis, I would have engaged anyone in the world – it was my life and world 20 hours/day for 4 years.
7. Having said all that, however, I think your advice is wise. For their careers, I hope they find the wisdom to crawl from under Gavin’s and Mann”s skirt and experience what it feels like to be an independent Ph.D.
Eloquently put, Bob.
But they are old enough to have fought and died in battle several times over. Old enough to have sat on a jury that passed a death sentence. Old enough to have fathered numerous children. Old enough even to have bought and consumed alcohol without supervision. And can probably be sold cigarettes without either party being prosecuted.
And by this age, they are the only ones capable of saving their own souls. If they haven’t already realised the trouble their Faustian pact has got them into, then they are simply too naive for the big wide world and shouldn’t be allowed out in traffic unsupervised….
+1
The idea that so many want to give the “boys” a mulligan is depressing.
“It was the system, the mentors, the deniers, the press what dunnit!”
Blame everyone but those responsible. Disgusting, really.
“Marcott scored points in my book by communicating with Steve McIntyre, and for some measure of honesty in his response. ”
“the bank robber scored points in my book by communicating with police, and for some measure of honesty in his response. ”
Marcott needs a big ethical whup up side his thick head for going along with this tawdry, sleazy, cheap scheme. Fame is tempting to everyone but doesn’t excuse the very few who weaken at the moral knees and take cheap fraudulent short cuts to get the first class seat on the Academic Fame and Gravy train.
He could have a long and promising career ahead of him, but he has some serious repentance to take care of first. Not a good first career move and a window into his moral compass room that must remain open and crystal clear if he wants to restore his severely wounded credibility.
Every time a food fight like this erupts, it is the behavior of the alarmist scientists and their defenders on blogs which does the most damage to their cause. The stench is overwhelming.
“it is the behavior of the alarmist scientists and their defenders on blogs which does the most damage to their cause. ”
as per the comment above;
“Marcott needs a big ethical whup up side his thick head for going along with this tawdry, sleazy, cheap scheme”
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/02/were-not-screwed/#comment-308260
You have something against ethics?
It is true that ethical affirmations are notably sparse within the “bubble” of the denial-sphere, yet outside the denial-sphere bubble responsible discourse regarding the science/ethics boundary is readily found:
• Scientific Case for Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change to Protect Young People and Nature (2012).
• Joint Workshop of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences: Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature (2014).
These are serious, interdisciplinary, on-the-record public dialogs, in which hundreds of researchers participate.
In effect, the 2014 Vatican Workshop will debate the key question: is the 2012 Hansen et al article correct scientifically, correct morally, and correct economically?
It is striking that the denial-sphere bubble declines to engage the key scientific, moral, and economic issues that the above two dialogs tackle directly, responsibly, and openly. Why is that, the world wonders?
After all, scientists have published many past climate-change hockey-sticks, and many more climate-change hockey-sticks are in-the-pipeline.
So hasn’t hockey-stick quibbling become merely a particularly juvenile stratagem of climate-change denialism?
Fan.
The planet is at risk.
This calls for the very best that science can do.
Do you believe this? or will you risk destroying your grandchildrens future with shoddy science done today? can you take the long view?
It’s not only Fan. Will the following unequivocally condemn, as unethical, the NSF press release accompanying Marcott et al?
I know they care about the kids. But how much?
Steven,
100 years from now we will have lots of technology changes. Going back to 1912 who could anticipate cell phones, space travel, nuclear power, plus all the other goodies. Oh right, scientists and writers did.
Fusion power, deeper space travel, efficient solar will come. I expect wind will drop away because of bird kills. That we did not expect. We all liked wind but now we see unanticipated problems.
Keep up the honest science. Lots to be done.
Scott
Steve:
The whole point is that to make sound decisions, one must have sound advice.
The last decade of published papers, in ref to climate science, has been such a distortion of known facts, verses “potential” facts, it is not funny.
There are us out in the real world that depend on science to make decisions that affect not only our short term life, but our long term life.
Refusing to acknowledge error bars, actual probability, etc…is just astounding.
What has happened, is that any 1/2 way intelligent person sees the poor quality of the published literature.
And such folks are crying for science, not garbage.
Marcott getting published, as it was, is another 10 year confidence breaker.
And there are some that would call this science?????????
This is one of the worst cases of Skeptical Science Syndrome I have observed in awhile. The sickness is spreading, sadly.
“The planet is at risk,” is actually untrue and propagandistic in its intent. (i.e. it’s obvious hyperbole intended to stir emotions.). The planet earth will survive nicely even if temps go up substantially.
pokerguy =-
“The planet is at risk,” is actually untrue and propagandistic in its intent.
No. It says nothing conclusive about beliefs or intent. Given Mosher’s academic background, it’s likely a philosophical logical argument.
e.g.
1. Planet is at risk.
2. Risk management demands strategy.
3. Effective strategy requires science.
4. Misleading science is unacceptable.
5. Marcott et al is misleading.
6. Reject Marcott et al
So, if fan disagrees, fan is illogical or has dishonest concern for planet. see? (Not saying mosher agrees with all this)
Steven: exactly, that is the point. Very well said. We need the best of science, not the worst.
Steven Mosher
Naw, Mosh.
The “planet is” NOT “at risk”.
Never was.
Never will be (at least not from human CO2 emissions).
Our “grandchildrens’ future” can be “destroyed” much more easily by irresponsible fiscal policies and soaring debt than by shoddy science.
But, despite this, we still need the “very best that science can do” and no “shoddy science”.
Max
blueice.
That is not my argument.
My question this.
FOMD.
1. Granted: the planet is at risk ( I accept my opponents position)
2. Given the risk, we want the best from science.
True or false?
And the stupid skeptics on this thread have no idea that the best way to attack an argument is to invade and occupy one of the premises, So I grant FOMD his risk, and what follows from that risk should be a call for the best of science, not a defense of second rate work.
marcott is not so much misleading as it is incomplete. We need not reject it, rather it needs to be improved. And we need to STOP defending work merely because we like the answer
for example,
here is a plot using marcot data.. except instead of smoothing the high frequency temperature data from the past, its presented in its raw form
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7097/marcottvostokbaselinesh.jpg
Now if a skeptic did that plot what would you say
It’s sad that skeptics would consider their wealth more important than the lives and future of their children.
“It says nothing conclusive about beliefs or intent.”
Yes it does. It’s a generalization presented as if it has meaning by itself. There are problems with the specifics related to it. In other words, it’s a euphemism. Politicians present euphemismd. Scientists don’t. You can deduce from there.
Andrew
“Now if a skeptic did that plot what would you say”
I’m not sure what to say whoever does it, because I don’t see why it’s surprising.
Vostok was one of the Marcott proxies. You can see it plotted here against the rest. It’s about mid-range variability.
lolwot | April 3, 2013 at 3:30 pm |
“It’s sad that skeptics would consider their wealth more important than the lives and future of their children.”
How dare you. Your failed progressive policies have done more to impoverish people than anything short of pure communism. Get educated, bupkiss.
Steve Mosher, with all due respect the planet is not at stake. it has been here about 4.5 billion years, and given its mass, orbital velocity, and angular momentum will for about another 5 billion until the Sun gives it up as a Red giant.
What is at stake might be the human species (not all life, which has admirably survived several mass extinction events).
Now I don’t even think that, since Homo spiens survived a glacial epoch and thus far an interglacial.
What I do think is that there are grave carrying capacity issues concerning the number of humans, and their present consumption of planetary resources. And even that is not imminently critical. See my ebook Gaia’s Limits. And if one looks at the likely eventual constraints, projected climate change ( crop yields posted here last year, sea level, ocean acidification) are so far down the list of real possible concerns they don’t make the first page.
Realism about real, science and fact based futuristic issues has never been an AGW strong suit. As you have just demonstrated again.
Rud Istvan
You are right: “the planet” is not in any danger at all.
But you touch on the point of global crop yields, an important aspect of human survival, quality of life and life expectancy on this planet.
As we all know, all plants, including all crops, need CO2 to exist. We are now at a relatively low CO2 level compared to earlier periods in our planet’s geological past
Greenhouse operators often enhance CO2 levels to increase plant growth and yields, since the “natural” CO2 level appears to be suboptimal.
The data out there tell us that increased CO2 levels act to enhance crop yields of both C3 and C4 crops, with a higher impact for C3 crops, which include 95% of all plants and most crop plants. Interestingly, most weeds are of the C4 variety, which show somewhat lower response to increased CO2.
As a side benefit for regions suffering from chronic water shortage or droughts, both C3 and C4 plants improve their water-use efficiency significantly with increased CO2 levels while reducing evapotranspiration. So this should result in some “greening” of existing deserts.
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/photosynthesis-and-co2-enrichment/
The study also shows that at higher levels of CO2, the optimal temperatures for photosynthesis increase.
And, at slightly warmer temperatures, arable land surface area in higher latitudes should increase, as should growing seasons.
But how has this worked out in practice?
Over the period 1970-2010 we had the following observed changes:
1970
Population: 3.7 billion
Global temperature (HadCRUT3 anomaly, 10-year average): -0.12 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 324 ppmv
Global yields of major crops (million tons corn/wheat/rice): 788
2010
Population: 7.0 billion (up 1.9x)
Global temperature: +0.42 °C (up 0.54 °C)
Atmospheric CO2: 390 ppmv (up 66 ppmv or 20%)
Global yields of major crops (million tons): 1912 (up 1124 Mt or 2.4x)
In addition, global starvation rates were down significantly and (despite HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa) world average life expectancy increased from ~55 years to ~68 years (up by 13 years).
So over 40 years with a 20% increase in CO2 we’ve seen a 140% increase in crop yields!
http://bigpictureagriculture.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-does-need-to-double-world-crop.html
More food per capita means less starvation, to be sure.
As a result, a continued increase of atmospheric CO2 plus a continuation of the past warming should actually be beneficial for plant life as well as humanity.
Max
Steven Mosher
My point to pokerguy was that it’s not obvious you are planting a flag with “Planet is at risk”. It is common to grant an unrealistic premise for the purpose of furthering discussion to see what follows.
Still, I cautioned PG that you would not necessarily agree with my interpretation (I suspected gratuitous insertion of “misleading” and “reject” would be a problem). Regardless, if you really hold to “best”, then you do not accept “misleading”.
And I find the paper to be part of a misleading package. Revkin quotes Robert Rhodes:
With a 400 year resolution, cold from the Dark Ages and and LIA is mixed into the MWP. To then compare the MWP to the current temps has the potential to be misleading because it contains the hidden premise that temp rise over the last 200 yrs. will continue for a couple more centuries. We need to mix +- 200 years to compare apples to apples, do we not? The hidden premise compels comparing apples to oranges. Therefore, REJECT!
Rud Istvan | April 3, 2013 at 7:01 pm |
See? Mosher and Istvan have opened a dialogue!
This bodes well for the founding of a Holocene-spanning BEST-like project involving both these exceptionally qualified and highly-regarded contributors.
How’s the rest of the list of participants rounding out?
Of course a simple explanation of a complex system is very wrong in principle – as Murray Salby said in today’s Australian.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/plot/best/from:1979/plot/rss
Rud.
“Steve Mosher, with all due respect the planet is not at stake. it has been here about 4.5 billion years, and given its mass, orbital velocity, and angular momentum will for about another 5 ”
i didnt say it was at stake. I said it was at risk
It’s at risk from a asteroid strike
its at risk from global warming.
get it?
Now, if you read carefully, you will understand where I am going.
FOMD thinks the risk is high. you think the risk is low. Unless you want to PROVE that there is zero risk. If you do want to prove that then submit your syllogism, otherwise accept that there is a risk, perhaps low, but a risk nonetheless.
To continue, you think the risk is low FOMD thinks it is high. Shouldn’t he want the best from science? That’s an open question.
Simple here. To evaluate risk you need to know two things, the course and projected end of Holocenic temperatures, and the fact that warmer is better than cooler, for the Earth and its biome(us, too). The only real risk under this simple evaluation is if the Earth doesn’t warm.
==============================
The planet is at risk?
That’s absurd. At risk is disruption of human civilization. But that’s always at risk and there’s a plethora of more pressing concerns than CO2 from fossil fuels.
Nice to see that the Vatican will resolve scientific and moral questions again. They have a glorious history including but not limited to Galileo Galilei. Dr. Hanson et al. article could well serve as a starting point for a 21st century Climatic Inquisition.
A fan of *MORE* discourse: So hasn’t hockey-stick quibbling become merely a particularly juvenile stratagem of climate-change denialism?
No.
The most important “result” in the Marcotte et al paper was not substantiated by their data and analyses.
Fanny
You ask:
The answer is: “NO”.
Any more questions?
Max
PS My opinion: “hockey-stick quibbling” has become a “sauve-qui-peut” strategem of a rapidly unraveling CAGW movement to distract attention from the fact that the warming projections of the GCMs have failed miserably and the warming of the 1980s/1990s has stopped.
“JC advice to the skeptical blogosphere: Lets get to the bottom of this, but while doing so I remind you that one element of this is the struggle for the scientific souls of two promising young scientists. Please don’t overegg the pudding and inadvertently send them to the RealClimate refugee and training camp. Cordially invite them to engage, and work with them to try to change the culture in the paleoclimate community.”
=====
People have to stop confusing the comment section with the blog. This has nothing to do with climatology, and everything to do with the nature of the internet. If you’re going to be anything in the 21st century, you have to understand the nature of the internet, because the world is only going to get more and more online with time.
I’m sure the door’s open here, at Climateaudit, and WUWT, and pretty much anywhere else M&S want to engage critics. But it’s necessary to understand in this century that some rotten tomatoes and some invincible ignorance are to be expected as simply the ways of the internet. If somebody makes a rude and/or stupid comment, the proper response is to ignore it. Only engage comments that show some sense of comprehension and good faith. The rest of it is just the din of the internet; it’s there, and that’s just the way this medium is.
Harold, good statement
Second that Judith. Unfortunately, blog commentary is taken far too seriously by many participants and that the choice of language used is often inappropriate in a civilised discussion. That’s the territory and we all must make our own adjustments as we go along.
I think a lot of people are missing the boat here by focusing on the persons of Marcott and… Hey, can’t even remember the name of the other co-author…. Not a good sign for Marcott as he’s going to take most of the flack if this thing gets retracted.
The problem isn’t with the authors per-se. It’s the publishing system and the over reliance on peer review, which is often presented as the divine reveler of TRUTH scientific. Peer review, in my opinion, has been elevated to a higher standard than it really should represent. It should be just one step in the process of verifying or rebutting a scientific hypothesis. It’s now being used to prop up political agendas attached to the field of climate science (I wonder how many “attaboys” James Hansen got when he told his colleagues he was leaving NASA to become a full-time activist?). In my opinion, peer review, especially in climate science, has been with the help of the media abused for a long time now. It should be look as as just a step in the process, instead of something to generate publicity and headlines.
Hope this makes sense. I’m in a fat hurry to get out the door…. Shouls have been out 20 minutes ago!
Mike.
That is really quite interesting Mike. As you may recall, Mike Mann was a post doc with Ray Bradley when MBH was published, yet he got the target painted on him. Both Bradley and Hughes had and have serious reputations but shied away from the spotlight. IEHO people (Hi Steve) went after Mann because they thought him a softer target, but, in the words of the old saw, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Bradley only engaged when attacked by the Congressional Committee and Wegman, and he only became fully involved with the unmasking of the deception in the Wegman report and then in the McIntyre calculation.
Please explain “the deception in the Wegman report” in some detail…
NSF stated that they were in fundamental agreement with Wegman.
Or have you been reading Connolley’s Wiki pages again???
NAS, not NSF. My bad.
The defamation of Steve Mc does nothing to enhance your credibility. Assuming you still have any.
As Yogi Berra once said, we have all passed a lot of water since then.
1. Contrary to his testimony Wegman never created his own code. There is good grounds to believe that he simply used McIntyre and McKitrick’s code or simply copied their results.
2. It is conclusive that the claims about the ability to produce a “hockey stick” from noise were “aided” by cherry picking From the link about the Wegman report:
—————–
the HS PC’s shown were anything but random samples. In fact, the 10000 simulations had been pre-sorted by HS index, and the top 100 selected. A choice was then made from this top 100.
Although Wegman had said that “We have been able to reproduce the results of McIntyre and McKitrick (2005b)”, the PC in Fig 4.1 was identical to one in MM05b. Since the noise is randomly generated, this could not have happened from a proper re-run of the code. Somehow, the graph was produced from MM05 computed results.
The red noise used in the program was very different to that described in the caption of Fig 4.4.
As you may recall, Mike Mann was a post doc with Ray Bradley when MBH was published, yet he got the target painted on him. As you may recall, Mike Mann was a post doc with Ray Bradley when MBH was published, yet he got the target painted on him.
That seems a bit disingenuous. If memory serves, when MBH came out, it was instantly known as the Mann Hockey Stick”. Googling it even today, it’s the Mann H.S, not the Bradley or Hughes one. As you know, he was the lead author of MBH, and didn’t exactly shy away from the spotlight as such. He embraced the rising star status, and became one of the 8 lead authors of the 2001 IPCC report, in part at the very least because of the status gained from MBH98.
As far as being a target. McIntyre didn’t come along for 5ish years. He didn’t become a “tagret” really until he refused to release all of his data. But to pretend he was not out in the public arena, taking full advantage of the publicity he got from being the Mann with the Mann Hockey Stick, riding the “stick portion of the coat-tails, as it were, is simply dishonest. Yes. I absolutely agree that some of the criticism toward him has been / is unfair. But, by subsequently accusing everyone under the sun of being “climate change deniers”, of being in the pocket of evil “big oil”, and maneuvering behind the scenes to manipulate the peer review process (as shown in the climate gate emails), even if it was just a little, he has over the years earned some of the enmity he receives.
OK. So now that that is out of the way, something which had little to do with my point about the over-valuation of peer review, can you comment on that, instead of throwing out the victimization of Mann red herring.
Here is the relevant part
The problem isn’t with the authors per-se. It’s the publishing system and the over reliance on peer review, which is often presented as the divine reveler of TRUTH scientific. Peer review, in my opinion, has been elevated to a higher standard than it really should represent. It should be just one step in the process of verifying or rebutting a scientific hypothesis. It’s now being used to prop up political agendas attached to the field of climate science (I wonder how many “attaboys” James Hansen got when he told his colleagues he was leaving NASA to become a full-time activist?). In my opinion, peer review, especially in climate science, has been with the help of the media abused for a long time now. It should be look as as just a step in the process, instead of something to generate publicity and headlines.
Garbage, Mann’s statements to the press were the basis for the Congressional investigation. He painted the target on himself.
No one ever explained to Eli why McIntyre, when he was having a fit about the trees, didn’t get after Malcolm Hughes who was the tree guy.
Mike, the problem with the present state of review is that critics are shunned rather than courted. With most of the important things in life — like safety inspections, jury decisions, health examinations, etc. — we want things done thoroughly and with all angles examined. Why not the same with scientific research? Why do we leave initial review at the level of the local newspaper’s movie critic’s efforts? If getting the answers right is so important, why haven’t the professional organizations created a rigorous system with high standards that must be met before publication? Rigor doesn’t mean every criticism must be refuted, but it does mean that every criticism must be acknowledged and where gaps exist an explanation of what they are and what they imply must be made. We impede the advance of understanding by fussing with each other rather than contending on level terrain. Why are we so foolish that we ignore the Biblical proverb: “As iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another” (Prov. 27:17)?
To carry on your theme, out here in reality, auditors are not meant to be loved. They are there to be respected and feared. The system is set up that way. We call it a separation of powers. The auditors are there to make sure the staff aren’t screwing the public or the company. And they put their professional reputations on the line when they sign off on a set of accounts.
When this separation of powers breaks down, the auditing system no longer works. The most prominent example is Enron..and both sides collapsed in ignominy.
Now let us look at academe. Is there any equivalent mechanism to make sure that ‘science’ is honest? The nearest we get is ‘peer-review’, which is a ramshackle, voluntary, bias-laden and ‘anonymous’ system. No separation of powers, no professional reputation at stake..and absolutely no checks that the reviewers aren’t as ‘deluded’ as the principals. It might prove adequate to check the tea money account for a small parish council but beyond that it is as full of holes as a colander.
And yet, and yet, it is brandished by those within the system as if it was somehow The Sword of Truth. Ridiculous.
The inadequacies are then compounded by the IPCC process which is little more than an extended self-assessment exercise leading to the inevitable conclusion that ll the papers published by IPCC authors are tophole first class science and that it is the national governments’ duties to fund yet more from the same sources.
What would be remarkable would be if any such organisation ever came up with any different conclusions. It s designed to produce those results and so it does,
Out here, we know an awful lot about building organisations to solve problems and (as far as possible) to reduce the effect of human frailties on the results. But academe is stuck in one particular mindset using a not very effective organisational model (the primacy of few people contributing to ‘the paper’), totally inadequate quality control and no visible ethical grounding at all,
I wonder if all three can survive many more episodes like Marcott et al?
The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) sand castle was built by smoothing all the oscillations in Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) before 1970s, leaving the warming phase of this oscillation since then untouched and calling it man-made, as shown in the chart below:
IPCC Chart => http://bit.ly/OaemsT
If we imagine for a few moments that except for the last 100 years or so, the reconstruction is correct.
Why did the temperature rise and fall by a degree over the time frame?
No CO2, no change in the Sun, no land changes. What are the, shudders, forcings?
Doc,
It is the slow recovery from the last ice age of 18000 yrs before present. Really started to get warmer in 8000 ybp. Temperature has gone up and down but it is difficult to measure precisely with the proxy records of ice cores the Anarctic and Greenland and sediment cores in the ocean.
As you know already. Hard to isolate the changes outside of orbital.
Scott
Milkanovitch cycles do change the insolation slowly. Doc, either you are having serial brain farts or you are not the Doc Eli knew and loved. This is silly.
Milankovich cycles don’t change total insolation one little bit. They change its distribution spatially and seasonally in equal but opposite ways in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. If the land masses were allocated and distributed equally between in NH and SH Milankovitch cycles wouldn’t do a damned thing. Milankovitch cycles have been happening for billions of years and didn’t do anything most of that time. It’s only the current arrangment of the continents that makes it matter.
Cold 11,000 years-ago, warms to a new steady state lasting from about 9,000 to 4,000 years ago, then the long freeze throughout recorded history.
Lapin a La Cocotte
http://www.food.com/recipe/lapin-a-la-cocotte-french-rabbit-stew-114799
David, you should know that isn’t in the 1/(1+f) equation.
Milkanovitch cycles are in phase with change sometimes and out of phase with change other times. They most likely do not have much influence.
Milkanovitch cycles have been in phase for five of the last 9 cycles. Something much more powerful is in control.
Herman I figure orbital mechanics are one piece of a perfect storm that ends an interglacial with the other pieces being grand solar minima and strato-volcanoes.
You might have a point except that except that Greenland and Antarctic cores show the same ice ages, and that they follow the Milankovitch cycles
Doc, you are losing your game.
“No CO2, no change in the Sun, no land changes. What are the, shudders, forcings?”
Fig 2 in their paper has good stuff on this.
DocMartyn | April 2, 2013 at 3:09 pm |
“David, you should know that isn’t in the 1/(1+f) equation.”
Yes of course an elliptical orbit gets a fraction more energy than a perfectly circular one but the eccentricity is so small in this case that it’s insignificant. What’s not insignificant is the change in insolation between perihelion and aphelion where one loses almost precisely what the other gains. When in phase with axial precession so NH winters are mild and summers cool freezing precipitation is greatly favored and the cooler summers less able to melt the accumulation near the the perennial snow line so season by season the perennial snow line advances which is a positive feedback in and of itself as season by season the hemisphere’s albedo is reduced by the greater snow coverage. Perennial snow lines of course are aided by increasing altitude as well as latitude so the NH, having twice the land mass, has twice the anchors for perennial snow cover and by that attribute is the initiator with 65N latitude being the most susceptable due to a combination of more higher altitude anchors and being near to freezing mean annual temperature even at sea level to begin with by virtue of being just inside the polar climate region.
David, Anchors are an important point. Snow and ice are the strongest feedback/forcing and they need a firm foothold to grow. That gives tidal forcing a variable impact and gravity a negative feed back to prolonged cooling/ snow accumulation. That is likely why volcanic events seem to have inconsistent impacts.
David
You were doing better than usual until you got to this bit. Keep copying out the right bits of the textbook and you will get there eventually. But it helps if you *understand* what you are copying first. That way, you spot and correct obvious and major errors before hitting the comment button…
The “Journal Science” and climate peer review has lost all credibility. This ridiculous journal should not publish rubbish, at the least not publishing junk science would offer some protection for neophyte PHD’s.
Marcott et al. were probably completely naive regarding skeptical AGW science due to their cAGW brain washing in university.
And what exactly is the value of the paper other than the hype and the headlines (that, as we hear, don’t matter because we should not look at it as that all is not the conclusion of the study)? According to the RC logic the study showed that the current (rate of the) warming is unprecedented for 11500 years, but it really did not because of its proxies’ low resolution, but it did not have to because we know that the spikes did not exist (as there was no mechanism for that) in the past and the current warming, the spike, though a product of dubious procedures and “not robust” that, as claimed, was CLEARLY stated in the study though, in fact, it was not, but all of this this does not matter because we know from instrumental records that there’s a spike, that is unprecedented, because we know it is (and we know why and we already know that it’s gonna continue and get worse, not that the study says so, but we know)… So what exactly did this “excellent study” add to the knowledge when all that it was supposed to add, it did not, but it does not matter as we already know all of this without the study… What interesting but sad times we (and science) live…
Marcott and Shakun have no choice at this point if they want tenure, or even decent jobs, in their field. Practically all the power in academia is in the hands of warmists. If they rat out the senior scientist(s) who convinced Marcott to convert his PhD thesis into an indefensible propaganda piece they’re screwed, blued, and tatooed. No one on the team will give them succor in that case and non-warmists in the field are too few to provide refuge. The only refuge they have is with the team. Who else except others like them would hire them knowing that their integrity is for sale? They’d better hope that the expression “honor among thieves” holds true here or the team won’t want them either. In other words they made their bed now they have to lie in it.
They could always get out of academia and go and do something useful instead. Judith keeps telling us how young they still are.
If they’ve any ethical standards at all they will surely have seen enough to want no further part in corrupting themselves with academic gravy.
The noble lie is a miracle worker in rationalizing the unethical. And you know the old saying If you’re young and conservative you have no heart. If you’re old and liberal you have no brain.
I agree. Couldn’t care less about this concern for “the trade”, what also Pielke Jr seems to be into.
@david springer
You seem convinced that it was other ‘senior scientists’ that convinced Marcott to sell his soul. Is there any evidence for this? Or was it an idea all of his own making?
I wonder (rhetorically) if history tells us anything about obscure newly-minted PhDs with big egos and thin skins being catapulted to world-wide fame and ‘glory’ on the back of controversial climate-related graphs?
And if Marcott – in contemplating the future trajectory of his career – had ever noticed such an example? The cynics among us might think that it was fairly well-known in paleoclimatological circles………..
Progressives are progressives first, and everything else, including scientists and PhD candidates, second.
Steve Mosher is right, the Marcott FAQ was a piece of PR. But then so was the hockey stick, the defenses of Hansen ’88, the dead polar bears, the disappearing rain forest, the disappearing glaciers.
Critics of this paper are acting like they actually expected impartial, clearly thought out science. Shame on you. That’s like expecting the IPCC to do an objective analysis of the general field of “climate science.” That is not what they are paid to do. (The IPCC literally, and the two Mann wannabes figuratively.)
CAGW is political; has been since Hansen made those pudgy congressmen sweat in ’88. So Michael Mann has two Minnie Mes. They will not be the last.
There is nothing new in the climate debate.
Your post is 100% correct, Steven Mosher!
A Natural Question Is critiquing the weakest scientific “hockey-sticks” the best that contemporary climate-change skepticism can accomplish?
If so, then with very many, very strong, climate-change hockey-sticks already in the scientific literature — and with multiple further hockey-sticks foreseeably in-the-pipeline — then realistically there can be only one rational end-point:
This common-sense conclusion is sobering yet not complicated, eh Steven Mosher?
Other conclusions — in particular, focusing upon the tail-end analysis of Marcott et al as a weak shibboleth for non-rational climate-change skepticism — amount to disgraceful demagogic denialism-via-quibbling, isn’t that correct?
Fan
Surely the most interesting part of the study is that Marcott et al shows the very same 300 year warming trend from 1690 that I noted in my study and was confirmed by BEST.
I have asked you before to supply Dr Hansens paper on ‘Warming started 200 years before my Giss figures’ but to date you have not supplied it. He can not failed to have noticed that his record was only a staging post in the temperature uptick.. He must have written about it as it included temperature upswings greater than we are currently seeing.
Whether the current sharp downturn in temperatures that CET shows-which seems to be a precursor to global temperatures-is long term or will revert to the very long warming trend is a difficult one to call. What do you think?
tonyb
TonyB, most of your post is unintelligible (to me or AFAICT to anyone). It might be helpful if you studied James Hansen’s recent Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications with particular attention to Hansen’s deliberate emphasis upon high-accuracy measures, that are global in extent, and long-term in duration, of thermodynamically conserved quantities (chiefly energy). This three-fold scientific strategy (global, long-term, conservative) naturally allies Hansen’s scientific objectives with the Vatican’s compatibly long-term social and moral objectives.
As for climate-change skepticism that is low-accuracy, local, short-term, and contingent … well … that brand of climate-change skepticism is destined to become irrelevant, eh?
fan
Perfectly intelligible question unless once again you want to duck the question. I think this is the fifth time you have done so.
The world has been warming since way before 1880. I would have expected a scientist of Hansen’s stature to have noted this and explained why.
Rubbishing CET and the numerous scientists who see it as a reasonable (but by no means perfect) proxy for the NH or a wider area is no sort of response to a civil question.
tonyb
You are wasting your time Tony. Fan doesn’t answer direct questions with direct answers. I doubt it is because he can’t. I suspect he is extremely intelligent. Which makes one wonder at his reply below. I didn’t have a problem understanding what you said.
Tonyb
most people understand your question. a while back you asked is fan trying to distract or waste my time? Answer is yes.
Good news if Hansen left NASA Goddard. That could free up some scientists.
CET shows a sharp downturn or just level for 15 years?
Scott
Scott
CET has shown a precipitate decline over the last decade or so
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Britain has the finest climate records in the world both instrumental and observations. They tell us of a gradual increase in temperatures over the last 300 years, that current weather extremes are nowhere near as bad as many in the past and that there have been some surprisingly warm periods in the last 500 years. Its all very well for Fan to try to ignore them or demean them, but those are the facts a I can testify after having read tens of thousands of them in such places as the Met office archives.
Whether the current temperature decline is short or long term I don’t know but we can all testify to it
tonyb
The fundamental forcings – the energy imbalance that Trenberth claimed – is obviously there in the CERES data. It should however prompt a fundamental rethink of top of atmosphere radiant flux.
‘The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-year mean imbalance of 6.5 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009). The problems being addressed with this tuning probably involve the high variability and changes of the angular distribution functions for outgoing radiation and the very limited
sampling of the radiation field that is possible from an orbiting satellite, as well as, perhaps, detector calibration. There can be no credible expectation that this tuning/calibration procedure can reduce the error by two orders of magnitude as required to measure changes of Earth’s
energy balance to an accuracy of 0.1 W/m2.’ Hansen – cited by FOMBS
‘While the new satellite instruments discussed in this study have clearly advanced the state-of-the-art in cloud-radiation observational capabilities, there is a critical need to extend the length of these records over multiple decades and further improve their accuracy in order to quantify how clouds are changing in a warmer climate and how cloud changes impact the Earth’s radiation budget. One key observational requirement to address longterm climate change is an improvement in instrument calibration, particularly for the imager and radiation budget instruments. While the estimated stability of the CERES TOA radiation record of roughly 0.5 Wm-2 per decade is a factor of 3–4 better than anticipated prior to the launch of CERES, there is a need for another factor of 2–3 improvement in order to constrain cloud feedback.’ Loeb et al 2012
‘When the four ERBS error sources are combined, the total stability uncertainty (1-sigma) in the 60°N to 60°S and tropical annual mean radiation for the ERBS WFOV 15-yr dataset from all three sources combined is on the order of 0.3 to 0.4 W m2. Time sampling uncertainty
dominates SW and net flux stability, while calibration uncertainty dominates LW flux stability.’ Wong et al 2006 Have we gone backwards?
While Hansen is technically correct – it is not the metric of most interest or usefulness. Stability is – and that determines the veracity of changes over time. The shorter the time frame the less of a factor is the stability of the instrument. Thus the influence of Mt Pinatubo can been seen or interannual cloud changes. Over a slightly longer period – it seems important to constrain the record with comparisons with ocean heat content. The CERES record seems consistent with ocean heat changes and is the most accurate means yet of ‘estimating’ changes in the toa radiant energy imbalance. The CERES record shows a dominace of clouds in the toa record. As indeed did ERBS and ISCCP-FD data before.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ IPCC 3.4.4.1
We suspect that there is ‘natural low-frequency variability of the climate system’. To the extent that they are real – cloud changes caused all of the recent warming. Now you might put that down to sulphate/cloud feedbacks – if this was a smoother function. And we should then be giving a far bigger role for sulphates in climate – as Hansen suggests – than CO2.
Hansen is fundamentally wrong in neglecting emergent behaviour in the Earth system. At the time frame of climate shifts – there is no substitute for measurement.
Check out the 1998/2001 changes in Fig. 3 – http://www.bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/ – measured in 2 different ways.
When it comes to global energy budgets, no amount of measurement quality can compensate for measurement locality … isn’t that right TonyB?
The British Isles encompass less than one-tenth of one percent of the earth’s surface area, right?
Isn’t that rather a small sample area, of such a vast planet?
Perhaps climatologists are correct, in assessing climate-change, to focus upon global measures?
Chief Hydrologist, you will be gratified to read the closing discussion of Hansen, Sato, Russell, and Kharecha Climate Sensitivity, Sea Level, and Atmospheric CO2 (2012):
Chief Hydrologist, it’s mighty good to see that James Hansen and his scientific colleagues are arriving at similar conclusions to yours, and to see also that the Vatican is taking proper notice too, eh?
FOMBS – it is encouraging to see that Hansen can predict a climate with 16xCO2. I stand corrected.
Generalissimo Skippy, everyone who similarly reads Hansen, Sato, Russell, and Kharecha Climate Sensitivity, Sea Level, and Atmospheric CO2 (2012) will join you in appreciating (in Hansen’s closing words)
and these same Climate Etc readers will join both you and the Vatican in devoutly hoping too, that humanity will not foolishly deny these risks, eh Generalissimo Skippy?
‘In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions.’ TAR 14.2
‘Simply put, if you’re attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you’re motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you’ll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right. His model predicted, in different fields of medical research, rates of wrongness roughly corresponding to the observed rates at which findings were later convincingly refuted: 80 percent of non-randomized studies (by far the most common type) turn out to be wrong, as do 25 percent of supposedly gold-standard randomized trials, and as much as 10 percent of the platinum-standard large randomized trials.’
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/
Simply put we suggest that 80% – that sounds about right – of climate science is simply wrong. And it seems that the IPCC were once right – but now are so politicised as to be absolutely wrong – aye FOMBS. Hansen is now so far out on a limb that he cannot move without falling. That is as much reason as needed to hang on tightly and hope for the worst. What is your reason FOMBS?
Fan
In citing to me an irrelevant (in this circumstance) Hansen study you again disparage the merits of Cet as a wider proxy and in doing so you are flying in the face of solid scientific evidence
I cited some of this in ;
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/
“Section 3 What is cet
Due to its longevity CET is probably the most scrutinized instrumental data set in the world, which makes it especially valuable as a useful resource. As much of this paper is concerned with instrumental records deriving from thermometers it should be noted that in Chapter 5 of his book ’Climate History and the Modern World’, Lamb makes many good points about the relatively limited accuracy of instrumental records. As observed in my own article on the same subject, at best we can believe in the general direction of travel of the local instrumental record-especially when backed by such things as crop records/ observations-but not in their accuracy to tenths of a degree (17)”
And……
‘Global’ records are much less reliable than local ones due to the manner in which they are assembled, and the reality of a meaningful single global temperature is the subject of much debate, as observed by French climatologist Marcel Leroux. ‘Yet, they know very well that there is not one “global” climate, but a large variety of climates, depending on latitude, geographic conditions, and atmospheric dynamics.’ (18) “
I continued;
“Section 6; Can CET represent a wider geographic area and establish the existence of a Hemispherically significant cooling period?
“Lamb believed CET (and other reliable records) had a much wider relevance beyond that of the central portion of England. He observed in Chapter 5 of ‘Climate History and the Modern World’;
’…that the last centuries (CET) records ‘have been highly significantly correlated with the best estimates of the averages for the whole Northern Hemisphere and for the whole earth ‘
In Table 4 page 281 of his book Lamb explores the correlations he had established. (44)
He further commented;
‘…over the 100 years since 1870 the successive five year values of average temperatures in England have been highly significantly correlated with the best estimates of the averages for the whole Northern Hemisphere and for the whole earth’ (In this last comment he is no doubt referring to his work at CRU where global surface records back to 1860 or so were eventually gathered) he continued; ‘they probably mean that over the last three centuries the CET temperatures provide a reasonable indication of the tendency of the global climatic regime.’
‘Tendency’ is a very good word and is preferable to precision.
Many luminaries agree with him of the value of CET, including E W Bliss, Mike Hulme, Elaine Barrow, Mike Lockwood and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of KNMI
In this study by Phil Jones and Michael Mann Figure 2 demonstrates that CET is a good proxy for much of the time for the Northern Hemisphere (49a)
In the study referenced below CET trends are overlaid on to some of the oldest instrumental records available, and graphically demonstrate that there is considerable correlation in data sets as diverse as New York City to Geneva ..”
We also usefully saw the correlation here in this study comparing CET to the BEST Global temperature reconstruction.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/14/little-ice-age-thermometers-historic-variations-in-temperatures-part-3-best-confirms-extended-period-of-warming/
Now, I am sorry that Dr Hansen does not appear to have studied CET but that makes no reason to dismiss it in favour of a composite global data base that ignores that not all the world is behaving in the same way, that is to say that some parts are warmimg, some cooling and some are static, a feature that I suspect could be traced back through the Ho,ocene.
CET imperfectly gives us a reasonable proxy as far as a global composite has a value.
Now, what does Dr Hansen think about the last 300 years or so of Warming? Was Co2 the mechanism or is some other factor at work?
tonyb
Fan: you talk about how little of the earth CET covers. Please explain how much of the earth any proxy used in paleoclimatology uses. No, let me save you the time: about the same.
CET is a proxy, and its actual conditions are known much better than any other proxy. Much better known. Making it one of the most reliable/interpretable proxies in existence. The fact that you’d write it off shows you care little for the truth.
Yes, there are many proxies from many places and of many types. Not every single one is great, and we can write off some as less reliable than others, or more open to interpretation as to what they are actually indicating. (E.g. that tree lines change and hence the conditions under which the tree rings grew were not temperature-driven.) But writing off CET, an actual temperature record?
tony b
Fanny apparently has difficulties understanding your past comment.
I don’t.
The question to Fanny at the end of your comment is pertinent, so I will repeat it:
Max
PS You will probably not get a straight answer from Fanny to your question, but I personally think there is a very good chance that we are, indeed, seeing a possible “preview of coming attractions” in the recent CET record. I seriously hope this is NOT the case, however, because the historical record shows that periods of extended cooling would be much more harmful for humanity and our environment that a resumption of the 20thC warming. The big climate risk we face is another mini Ice Age, not global warming.
a fan of *MORE* discourse: Other conclusions — in particular, focusing upon the tail-end analysis of Marcott et al as a weak shibboleth for non-rational climate-change skepticism — amount to disgraceful demagogic denialism-via-quibbling, isn’t that correct?
Is this your way of acknowledging that the author-promoted media hype surrounding the paper was false, and that the paper provides no justification for the claim that Earth mean temperature has recently increased?
The scientific community, the Vatican, the mediac … and (increasingly) the general public … have grasped the main ideas of climate-change science 100% correctly, eh Matthew R Marler?
Which is more than one can say for non-rational denialists!
A fan of *MORE* discourse: The scientific community, the Vatican, the mediac … and (increasingly) the general public … have grasped the main ideas of climate-change science 100% correctly, eh Matthew R Marler?
Your argument seems to be that the paper was worth publishing because evidence not in it is popular.
LOL … practicing scientists appreciate that 90 percent of published articles could be expunged without notable loss to science … if only reliable means existed to identify which articles were in that 90 percent!
It’s reasonable to foresee that the Marcott et al. article will not rank among the “immortal 10%” … and so the caravan of science travels on, eh?
A fan of *MORE* discourse: A Natural Question Is critiquing the weakest scientific “hockey-sticks” the best that contemporary climate-change skepticism can accomplish?
It is definitely worthwhile to point out that a widely cited result is baseless. Your word “weakest” hardly does justice to the case that the particular “hockey-stick” in question does not exist.
Your entire contribution to the discussion of Marcotte et al is to redirect attention away from their most interesting but unsubstantiated claim.
Reading the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is much like reading Pravda during the Cold War
“Scientists know that only logic and evidence apply. The evidence causing great grief is the refusal of the global temperature to increase for the past 15 years. It sloshes back and forth as one would expect on a planet with vast oceans and atmosphere that are never in equilibrium, but does not warm as some claimed it would with slowly increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Consequently, cracks are developing in the scientific facade supporting the dogma…
… climate simulations are failing badly.
Perhaps this is what prompted the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to insert a sentence in its most recent draft report saying that the sun is more important than it previously realized. With NOAA now admitting that the present solar cycle will finish far below most in the Grand Maximum of solar cycles over the past two centuries, with American solar physicists William Livingston and Matthew Penn pointing to a collapsing solar magnetic field, and with Russian astrophysicist Habibullo Abdussamatov saying that carbon dioxide is “not guilty” and predicting a prolonged cooling this century, it is about time.
The previous warm periods (Medieval, Roman and Minoan) likely had the same natural origin as the present one. Hence, we should expect a century of cooling that essentially reverses the warming of the 20th century. This is what the Greenland ice core temperature reconstructions show happened previously.
Although the public has little knowledge of science and too easily falls for scams, scientists know that they cannot hold onto theories in the face of contravening evidence, even with vast government largess hanging in the balance. Those who have struck a Faustian bargain are beginning to worry that the devil may one day come to collect.”
~Gordon J. Fulks and
The reactions are totally our of proportion, just like so many other reactions from both sides of the debate have been totally out of proportion.
The text of the Science paper has very little to complain.
Someone raised the point that the abstract starts:
indicating that the sentence would claim something about the paper that’s not correct. The next sentence is, however,
That makes it completely clear that the first sentence is background information, not claimed to be their result.
Similarly the text of the paper makes nowhere claims that are clearly wrong.
The only thing that’s clearly misleading in the paper is the graphics in Fig 1. That’s stupid and I have written many times that they should not have presented the uptick from their analysis. The uptick is an outcome of the analysis, but it should have been totally clear from early on that it’s an artifact of the analysis, not real result. One reason that should have made this fact clear to them is that the uptick was created by the changes done after the thesis was published. Their reservation
is not satisfactory, but a serious understatement, when the truth seems clearly be that it’s an artifact rather than “not robust”.
Presenting the instrumental curve in the old hockey stick style is better justified, but that should have been done stating fully explicitly that their analysis tells nothing about that part.
The real content of the paper is interesting enough. it’s also necessary to relate its results in some way to the present temperatures. Telling that it’s higher than 95% of the record is significant and it’s right to tell that both somewhere in the paper and in discussing it elsewhere. They should have, however, emphasized more the fact that they cannot tell anything about variability over periods of about 300 years or less. That’s reported clearly in the paper, but forgotten sometimes when the results are discussed.
I agree that it’s difficult to believe that they have done everything in good faith. It’s more likely that they wanted to raise the attention given to their paper. It’s not the first climate science paper that adds comments not really supported by the results of that particular study. It’s quite possible that Science is supportive for such additions, as I my impression is that such comments are more common in Science than elsewhere. That’s a very bad practice, and this case tells, what it may lead to.
“Surface temperature reconstructions of the past 1500 years suggest that recent warming is unprecedented in that time. Here we provide a broader perspective by reconstructing regional and global temperature anomalies for the past 11,300 years from 73 globally distributed records. Early Holocene (10,000 to 5000 years ago) warmth is followed by ~0.7°C cooling through the middle to late Holocene (<5000 years ago), culminating in the coolest temperatures of the Holocene during the Little Ice Age, about 200 years ago. This cooling is largely associated with ~2°C change in the North Atlantic. Current global temperatures of the past decade have not yet exceeded peak interglacial values but are warmer than during ~75% of the Holocene temperature history. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change model projections for 2100 exceed the full distribution of Holocene temperature under all plausible greenhouse gas emission scenarios. ”
fine print, However, our results may not be particularly robust?
They actually could have had a great paper had they focused on the regional portion. That amazing seesaw between hemispheres and the Atlantic.
Pekka, don’t you really see that without the hype there is no (added) value in the paper? So that uptick was not an unfortunate artifact, but it was meant to be like it is. And the use of the paper for propaganda was quite logical.
PS. The quote about the “difference” not being robust, in the context, really does not say (not even to mention CLEARLY as suggested in the e-mail to McIntyre by Marcott) what is said now – that the uptick is not robust. That’s really just playing with the language after the fact and probably added to the text in anticipation of critisism. It’s not science, it’s PR, and unfortunately much too typical and that’s why all this the “out of proportion” fuss that you are suprised about.
Sven,
No I don’t see.
I would rather ask: How can it be that you don’t see the value of the paper?
I have a guess. Perhaps you don’t see any value in a paper that just advances knowledge without causing a controversy.
Sven,
They don’t say specifically that the uptick is not robust, but they don’t mention the uptick in the text at all. Uptick is, however, within that part of the data that’s covered by the statement about lack of robustness.
Isn’t it curious that the text of the paper doesn’t even mention that part that all the furor is about. They did consider it so meaningless that it was not worth a word.
No, Pekka, wrong guess. I’m not a fan of religious fights. Science should not advance through controversy only. But my question is sincere – what is new, what is the scientific value then? I have not seen it mentioned so far. All I have seen is the hype – that the paper shows that the current rate of warming is unprecedented (and a vehement defence by the RC crowd of whatever has been written or said). What it does not. When we abolish the uptick, what does the study tell us, what is new considering the low frequency of the 73 proxies (for global temperature of 11300 years?!)? There have been aknowledgements even by the proponents of the study that without the uptick and the “message” the paper probably would not even have been published.
It was worth a graph and a media hype (where they participated themselves) and they clearly must have known that. Especially knowing the history of the paper without the uptick.
They haven’t ever referred to the uptick that I would have noticed. They did consider the instrumental record, and they did refer to the rapid rise in that, but they have neglected the uptick in their presentations.
That would be fine, if others would have done the same. When others didn’t, they should have come out and tell very clearly that their uptick is an irrelevant artifact. Then they could have continued with all their arguments as before.
Sven,
The easy thing to say is that the authors discuss only their results on earlier holocene. Every scientific article emphasizes those results the authors consider most important. Hiding the message in a figure and saying nothing about it in the text tells most clearly that there’s nothing of scientific interest there in the view of authors.
I’m not an expert on earlier papers on holocene temperatures, but no one has protested (as far ad I know) on their claim that their paper is the first to present results of comparable quality. They have also applied several methods that are not in regular use, and again without protests. All that is well enough for a scientific paper.
Pekka: You say that the uptick is nothing because they didn’t refer to it in the paper. But in interviews and press releases, the authors and sponsors of the paper talked about ONLY that point. That has stirred up the hornets nest.
It’s all fine and good to talk about the paper in isolation. If it had been presented in isolation. But it was placed by its authors into the middle of a context that dwarfs the paper itself, and thus the paper is due for harsher criticism than if third parties had randomly picked sentences here and there out.
Pekka
Have another hard look at the graph/curve in Marcott’s PhD thesis.
Forget the text/language/phraseology and whatever interpretation you wish to read into it.
That long term graph/curve continues clearly downwards, the coldest period of the entire Holocene is now. There is no indication of any trend in that data- nor is there in the instrumental data for the past 150 years for that matter- of any runaway global warming actually happening or credibly projected.
Only in the minds of the feverishly apocalyptic CAGW crowd.is there the conviction of a hockey stick resur-erection.
You exceed the worst denialists I have seen before. You are the first to claim that there has not been warming since LIA.
The proxy go down the hole; therefore, we must ride the decline into the frozen lake in hell.
Or, we could go with the thermometers.
Pekka,
Re your response to tetris.
Are you sure? As you are aware, I have held the view for over twenty years years that the Earth has been cooling since its creation.
Basic physics should indicate to you that surrounding an object without an internal heat source with anything at all, (let alone a mixture of low density gases), will not raise the temperature of the object.
Nonsensical claims that purport to measure the the temperature of the Earth’s surface seem to fall at the first hurdle. Try to get these measurebators to define this “surface”, and you will rapidly discover that that they all have to rush off to very important meetings, so sorry!
Yes, I have to come clean, Pekka. I’m a denier.
I deny the Earth is the centre of the firmament.
I deny the Earth is flat.
I deny the existence of phlogiston.
I deny that the luminiferous ether is necessary for the transmission of electromagnetic radiation.
And so on.
Whether you or I affirm or deny anything, alters reality not one whit, in my frame of reference. Phrases such “you exceed the worst denialists I have seen before” can be excused. I am aware that your grasp of English is imperfect, and not your mother tongue.
In any case, please endeavour to get your facts straight. If you have evidence that supports your contention that tetris is the first to claim that there has not been warming since LIA, I will, of course, offer you a fulsome and complete apology.
Lastly, you might care to defined “warming” in the context in which you used it. I don’t think you can, but heigh-ho, maybe I’m wrong!
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Pekka
Pls take a pill. I have never “denied” that there has been no warming over the past 150 years. Just that plus 0.8C over that period -with several clearly distinct ups and down in the graph- including crucially the ongoing 16 year flat lining is not a reason to jump out the window screaming nor change the socio economic make up of the world to stop “catastrophic man-made global warming”.
I repeat that the graph in Marcott’s original work shows a continued downward and no upward trend. We are and until further notice remain in the coldest part of the entire Holocene.
Great points Pekka!
It is of minor value beyond the present news cycle.
In around fifteen years it will be just one early, and slightly flawed, paleoclimate reconstruction that has subsequently been 90% validated by later and better studies.
Just as with the original Mann98.
Amid all the objections to this paper one fact stands out. there is no credible way for the paleoclimate to be very different from what has been described so far. Large temperature spikes like the current global warming would have shown up in the proxy record as changes in the type of plants growing in the mid latitudes as is seen with the northward shift of the growing regions at present. Sea level rise and ice-cap melt would also appear in the geologic/archaeological record.
Marcott et al will be just another minor footnote, a small piece of the total puzzle within a few years. Subsumed under an avalanche of new and better studies.
As others have noted before, while paleoclimate is useful to gauge the envelope of climate change that is possible, the thermodynamics of rising CO2 in the atmosphere make some impact inevitable. The greater the amount of past variation then the greater any new perturbing force will change the climate in the present.
izen
Changes on a time scale of 30 years would be hard to see in most proxy records, particularly if they are preceded and followed by 20-50 year oscillations. The change in plants would be seen then as a gradual increase as the planet gradually warmed, much as it would look in another 50 years as we have had several periods of warming and several flatter (or in some cases slight cooling) since 1800 (probably) and certainly since 1900. Especially if the time resolution is 150 years. But even if the resolution was 30 years, if the data was smoothed over 5 points, you would not see any sharp features. We don’t know what the temperatures will do over the next 50 years. But only if the continued to increase fairly sharply without features like the current flattening for 50-100 years would you see it in most proxy data.
Two years ago, Marcott, working with his adviser Peter Clark, first did the analysis with the 73 proxies, and found absolutely no hockeystick. This was Marcott’s PhD thesis, and in his thesis he shows that there was no evidence in those proxies of a recent huge rise in temperature.
Then they re-did the analysis with the exact same 73 proxies, and they found an astounding hockeystick, the diametric opposite of his thesis, and the Marcott/Stott hockeystick was published and hyped around the planet.
Ya think they should have maybe mentioned the first analysis in there somewhere, and not waited for a commenter on ClimateAudit to bring it up after the fact?
In my view, their failure to prominently disclose and discuss the first analysis, and their failure to highlight and discuss the reasons for the differences between the two opposing conclusions, is at best deliberately deceptive and disingenuous scientific malfeasance.
It is the scientist’s responsibility to point out exactly these things as regards his research. Failure to do so is a form of scientific lying. The scientific obligation is not just to tell the truth. It is to tell the whole truth, and as the courts recognize, not doing that is deception.
It is deliberately deceptive because it is absolutely not ascribable to ignorance. Marcott wrote both papers. Clark was his thesis advisor.
Judith, you say:
I don’t understand this. First you look to minimize and smooth over Marcott and Shakuns’ actions because they’re hanging out with the wrong crowd, bad older boys, and presumably they’re smoking cigarettes and being advised on how to deceive people in order to Save The World™.
Then you say the struggle is whether they “plan to join” the bad older boys or not?
“Plan to join”?
Judith, that ship has sailed. Why do you think they nailed their manifaqsto to RealClimate’s mast? You go to some lengths to hypothesize that they were seduced by the Mann side AFTER their paper was published … seems doubtful, given the deception in the initial publication.
Can their souls be saved, as you ask? Sure, they could decide to save their own souls, although we can’t save them. They could stand up and take the heat, answer the questions, embrace transparency and public accountability.
Given the bad boys that they are hanging out with, and more importantly, given the lack of any negative consequences for the Peter Gleicks in the field of climate “science”, it seems pretty doubtful.
They see that their “elders” don’t get punished in the slightest for deliberate deception, even when they commit actual crimes in the name of Saving The World™.
Why would they not want such a cushy deal? Heck, even now you’re already justifying their actions, Judith … they won’t find that kind of warm welcome for deliberate deception in the real world, as they’ve found out already to their cost. But in the world of climate science, a couple of thirty-year-old men are just young innocent lambs led astray by bad companions …
To me the most amazing thing is that they thought nobody would notice, that no one would find out that Marcott/Scott had come to the opposite conclusion just a few years before, that they wouldn’t be subject to the most minute scrutiny for such an outrageous claim. How could they not have expected myself and others to not put their claims under the microscope?
Ah, well. I do love watching the circus, popcorn sales are breaking all records, it’s a popcorn hockeystick …
w.
@willis
I absolutely agree with everything you say.
I’ve never worked in academia, and – from what I’ve seen of the ethical standards on display in this tawdry episode – I’m very glad I haven’t.
The commercial world is squeaky clean by comparison while these guys are merely shabby. I wouldn’t buy a used car from them so see no reason to buy their climatology.
And I am very disappointed that Judith – for whom I normally have immense respect – is being so indulgent towards them. They drag her name through the mud by association too.
Lol. Neologism or tongue-twister, either way you win. I’m happily on both sides of the argument here now. But what you point out about the leniency of the climate world to gross malpractice cannot be gainsaid Willis. It’s a rotten environment to expect conscience, let alone repentance, to arise.
Willis
Didn’t Trenberth do a ‘reanalysis’ of his previous work which was the subject of his recent paper? Perhaps the climate funds are drying up and reanalysis will become the vogue.
tonyb
And the captain keeps spinning in his grave…
David Springer, if you have a point, please quote my words that you object to and specify your objections. Right now you’re just throwing mud and hoping something sticks. Frequently it does stick … to the person throwing the mud.
All the best,
w.
David Springer | April 2, 2013 at 6:07 pm |
Young man? He’s 30, I was a teenager when I was in the army. Get a sense of time here, my friend.
I understand that you think it would have been more ethical for me to enthusiastically join in with the crew destroying entire villages in order to save them and raining hellfire on young Vietnamese girls … sorry, I don’t see it that way. I took what I saw as the least unethical path open to me. Your patronizing and pathetic attempt to jam the Vietnam war into a “RIGHT vs WRONG” box is a joke.
I was talking about your dishonorable mud slinging today, soldier, tossing around accusations without citation … are you ever going to get past the Vietnam War? I’m glad you served honorably. So what?
I love guys like you who have never made mistakes.
w.
@Willis Eschenbach
Serving in the military during the Vietnam war is a classic case of “it’s a dirty job but someone has to do it”. Some other young man went in your place. How you justify that as “the right thing to do” is beyond me.
What?
No retort describing the virtuous aspects of letting someone else go to war in your stead while you live on enjoying the benefits of citzenship in a country whose call to duty you refused. There is no defense for that. Only shame.
David Springer | April 4, 2013 at 6:26 pm |
Indeed, I answered yesterday downthread. Sorry you missed it.
Your constant harping on the war indicates unresolved issues, David. Which is OK until you try to pretend they are my issues.
I’m at ease with what I did regarding Vietnam. I fought as hard and as well as I could to make it so no one would have to go to that war. I am proud of the fact that I did not go. You may be proud of helping to pour burning napalm on little girls in a futile and unwinnable war, David.
Me, I’m proud I had nothing to do with that war, and that I did what I could to stop it rather than doing what I could to further it.
Now, I see you don’t like my choice, and that’s fine with me. As I said, every man had to make his own choice … but what the heck does that have to do with science today? Your monomoniacal focus on what I did forty years ago is pathological, my friend. Maybe you’re not as proud of helping to bomb peasants and poison the Vietnamese landscape as you claim to be. I don’t know, that may not be the issue at all … but whatever the issue is, I know it’s your issue, not mine.
w.
Quoting your words:
” He asked me what had happened, so I told him the entire story of tropical crime. He asked me what I thought should be their punishment. I looked him in the eye. He was seriously asking, and my sense was he didn’t know a lot about the islands, so I took it seriously.
I considered his question for a while, and I said I thought that what was important, to them and to the village where they lived, was that they had been caught and put in jail. That’s what counted, not the time served, because the tropical islands conception of time is elastic, one year and three years and ten years don’t seem a whole lot different when every day is the same. And yes, to answer his point, I knew it was an armed invasion and takeover of the island, and armed robbery is not something to sneeze at, and the islands still have the strict British gun regulations, and crimes involving guns there draw long sentences, and ordering us at gunpoint from my house to the office is technically kidnapping … but still, I said, these are not hardened criminals.
Plus, I said, you don’t want to take people out of the village for too long. It is crucial that they not “lose their place” in some sense, that they not be forgotten or have lost their homes in some larger sense upon their return. If they could not return to and be accepted by their village, they would be lost, they would indeed become hardened criminals. I explained to the magistrate that in the islands the true punishment was not the jail, but the shame—first the shame of having done the crime, and then the shame of being caught, and finally the shame of having to publicly plead guilty. Those were the real punishment, and what the magistrate would do when he sentenced them to jail would not change or add to that a whole lot.”
Like the magistrate you don’t know a lot about the island that Judith lives on.
Steven Mosher | April 2, 2013 at 10:35 pm
Thanks, Steven. You are absolutely right. The island where a 30 year old man with a PhD is absolved of knowingly hyping false results because of his youth and inexperience is not a part of the planet that I inhabit. The island where you post an FAQ, walk away, and leave Gavin to guess at what you meant is assuredly not where I reside.
How is science supposed to “self-correct” when this kind of duplicity and lack of responsibility is waved away as the inexperience of youth?
I suppose you could make a case for considering their “youth” it if the supposed elders and wisers, Peter Clark and Alan Mix, received some well-deserved censure for their role in the farrago.
But once again it’s more of the “nothing to see, move along” stuff we’re oh-so-familiar with at this point in the century … they’ll continue with no consequences, like Peter Gleick, they’ll be invited to give speeches at the meetings.
What do you suggest we do about knowingly bogus studies and the scientists that promote them, Steven? Because all the while since Climategate 1 I’ve been saying people should speak up, and you’ve been opposed to that, as in this instance.
So how is not speaking up working out for the world of climate science?
Or do I misunderstand you, do you suggest some other means to get Science up off it’s dead ass and get it moving along the path of self-correction? I’m happy to listen to any ideas, because as this case proves once again, what we got ain’t workin’ …
… which wouldn’t be a big issue but the poor are dying today from this BS. Old Brits are shivering and taking ill and pining for the fjords as a result of the fuel poverty from this kind of unbridled alarmism. That might not matter to some, but I think it’s important. It means to me we can’t just sit around and say oh, it’ll all self-correct in a few short decades …
Regards to you,
w.
Willis, ” How is science supposed to “self-correct” when this kind of duplicity and lack of responsibility is waved away as the inexperience of youth? ”
Thanks for pointing out what should be patently obvious to all. Here is what I posted earlier at RC:
Gavin, Ray, and others. The authors chose your site to post the FAQ’s. Why is it that you don’t insist on having them answer questions, rather than the sometimes ambiguous answers you are forced to give. Not sarc, a serious question.
[Response: I’ve asked them to chime in when they can and hopefully they will. I’m not quite sure why you think we can ‘insist’ on anything though – blogging and/or commenting here or elsewhere is a voluntary activity and sometimes other things take precedence. I would much rather have a few considered responses come in slowly than hurried responses to dozens of queries. -gavin]
Marcott et al made a calculated decision to post the FAQ’s at RC and Gavin doesn’t think he has a responsibility, as a prerequisite for posting there, to insist that they personally answer questions. How can science self correct if this continues. Answer, it can’t. Willis, I find this kind of stall, delay, obfuscate, and indecisiveness to be characteristic of Lukewarmers. The true alarmanati don’t give a damn if they are wrong, they are just driven by ideology. The lukewarmers might give a damn, but I suspect they enjoy the hunt, not the actual kill. They covet the debate over anything else. They like to mix it up, procrastinate, fidget here and fidget there, pontificate, some seem to quest for rent-seeking opportunities, some wallow in their fickleness, but most, if not, all Lukewarmers will never take a firm stance. Heck, even at 95% confidence they will never be satiated. They have the genetic makeup of a bureaucrat. Nice post Willis.
Comment by Bob — 2 Apr 2013 @ 6:31 PM
Willis, way past my bedtime. My musings were meant to be a nuanced shot at the Moshpit.
Mr. Mosher, you are clearly an intelligent individual. Which is why it is so disappointing when you write a comment like this. Where is the outrage? Where is YOUR outrage? This paper has been so discredited it is now a total laughing stock. Yet the PR aspect of the paper was successful. Where are the *real climate scientists* like yourself and our host screaming at the top of their lungs about this?
Instead what we read is “give the boys a break, they’re young.” Pathetic.
Willis,
I feel that Mosher hits the nail on the head here – using your own words. Both sides of this debate could use some compassion.
“Mr. Mosher, you are clearly an intelligent individual. Which is why it is so disappointing when you write a comment like this. Where is the outrage? Where is YOUR outrage? This paper has been so discredited it is now a total laughing stock. Yet the PR aspect of the paper was successful. Where are the *real climate scientists* like yourself and our host screaming at the top of their lungs about this?”
I used to breath fire about this stuff. Then I read Willis’ piece. At that point I realized that I had not lived on their island long enough to
make a definitive statement. I know on my island, in engineering, they would be shot. But on their island, I have an opinion, but I have no standing and I think we need less grandstanding. I don’t approve of what they did. Their community will deal with it as they see fit. I will have an opinion about that. I will either keep it to myself or try to express it in such a way that would convince them to at differently. I will not stand and shout at them or try to guilt them. That doesnt work. I know, I tried it. Above all I believe in what works. Expressing outrage does work. Its a falsified theory. Now it may make you feel better to get your rage on. For me, at this point, I have compassion for them. I don’t approve of what they did. I pray that they learned a lesson. I wont carry a torch and demand that they be burned at the stake. I resigned from being god.
Marcott and Shakun are more likely pawns in this entire episode – which I assume is Judy’s point. They were both Peter Clark’s doctoral students. Peter Clark is a co-author of all of the relevant chapters in the two theses. He is a heavy hitter at NSF and has played this PR type of game before. In addition he is a contributing lead author for AR5. It was he who proffered the FAQ. I am not giving Marcott and Shakun a pass but the toughest questions should be directed at the guy who essentially directed and oversaw this work.
Here’s what I love.
For all the concern about the paper, and the rhetoric of the authors (some of which I think is ligit, btw), and the reaction of the authors to the criticism – for all the hand-wringing, pearl clutching, and moaning from fainting couches, what we get in the end from “skeptics” is something like this – a comment I’m borrowing from Climateaudit:
lol!
This is the upshot. The net effect is that we have some “skeptics” who, by virtue of their shock and horror about the Marcott paper, react in such a way to conclude that, “we are headed into a new ice age.” All we need to do is unpack the deception from the Marcott paper, and we see the truth!!!!!1!!!1!!!111!!!
Now certainly the rhetorical and methodological choices of the authors are not free from responsibility here. This whole process is a dynamic. It is a give and take, a thrust and parry, a jab and a cross, a blog and a counterblow. It is all trivially predictable. Much “outrage” to be had all around.
But isn’t it a sad state of affairs? Are we doomed that reasonable discussion of the science of climate change will get reduced to such nonsense? Is this nonsense inevitable, until such time that enough years have passed that virtually no one will be arguing about the magnitude or lack thereof, of the climactic impact of ACO2?
If so, given my age (fortunately less decrepit than the average Climate Etc., contributor) I suspect I will never see any reasonable change in the signal/noise ratio.
Then again, maybe people will come to there senses? Well, I just consulted my Magic 8-ball. Guess what it says…
True, true there is one of two permissible conclusion and a third that one that no one is allowed to consider–e.g., “We’ve invested a lot of time and money and we’re still clueless as a roomful of monkeys throwing darts at charts. All of the models are quatsch according to scientists like Hans von Storch who actually understand statistics. For all we know, the Earth may not even have a climate, at least not on any timeline that humans can appreciate.”
Joshua | April 2, 2013 at 3:59 pm | Reply
Google knows nothing about the post, likely because it’s so recent … do you have a link?
In any case, it sure sounds like that bane of the internet, sarcasm without the /sarc tag … that would be my first take on it, at least.
But since you haven’t linked to it, and google knows nothing, well, neither do it …
w.
Good god, Willis – search at Climateaudit by the time/date stamp… are you really that limited in your research skills that you’d need me to do your work for you?
Oh yes, the famous “bane of the internet.” Lol!
Once again, we see in Willis the power of motivated reasoning. Imagining a scenario of a forgotten sarc tag instead of the obvious interpretation. And on top of that, creating his very own “bane” to explain it.
And Willis, it is hardly an unprecedented argument in the “skept-o-sphere,” Remove your outrage-tinted glasses and you will see more clearly.
Hey Joshua. I think it’s a sarcastic joke (about alarmism) which you are unable to get. Don’t worry, it’s not that funny.
Joshua | April 2, 2013 at 6:27 pm |
Joshua, dial back the attitude. I searched for “Posted Apr 2, 2013 at 1:55 PM” on both google and ClimateAudit and got nothing. You are the jerk who posted it without a link. Find me a link or go away, I’m tired of searching because you’re too slovenly to post a link.
w.
Willis, I went to Climate audit, opened the obvious (given the date) thread, and put the time stamp in my “find” text box. Took all of about 5 seconds. But then again, I don’t have a 1-freakin-80 IQ! That must explain it.
Joshua | April 2, 2013 at 8:51 pm |
So are you just going to boast about how big your dick is, or are you going to post a link for those not as gifted as you are?
w.
Joshua,
First, try to calm yourself. All the exclamation marks and hyperventilating do nothing to benefit your case. 2nd, your comments about one comment from a RJ Hendrickson are, well, spurious. The comment which has you so excited is (a) probably sarcastic, and (b) about what the MARCOTT study might imply without the uptick. It is not about skeptic views in general, it is about the Marcott curve.
So no, this is not some reduction ad absurdism of all “skeptic” arguments as you seem to be saying (I’m not quite sure what you think you are saying, but that is one guess). Here are some of the weaknesses of you trying to put so much weight on one (casual, probably sarcastic) comment:
1) The comment doesn’t necessarily represent what you think it says about the view of one RJ Hendrickson (I’m guessing it’s sarcastic);
2) He (RJ Hendrickson) speaks only for himself — certainly not for me and I doubt for all skeptics as your comment assumes;
3) I don’t think there is any consensus skeptic position on when the next ice age is likely to occur (so far as I’ve read it may well be some millennia away, but humans don’t know and that is certainly a dismal prospect for humanity which needs to be studied closely);
4) I had not seen anyone suggest (prior to that comment you quoted) that the Marcott study could imply anything at all about the imminence or not of the next ice age;
5) fwiw, I actually did post a comment at Bishop Hill weeks ago, soon after the Marcott study came out, suggesting VERY flippantly that IF the uptick should fall apart the Alarmists would start talking of an imminent ice age…. as the author of that comment I can assure it was meant in a jesting spirit, not representing my own views and certainly not speaking for anyone else.
Anyway, I don’t see how that RJ Hendrickson comment reflects anything about “skeptic” views in general. (Fwiw, I define myself as more of a ‘lukewarmer’ since I see reasons to be concerned about warming and climate issues, but I think the imminence and magnitude of any civilizational ’emergency’ are being exaggerated in many quarters — I’m more of a “policy skeptic” about the steps being proposed, if you care).
A big lol, it was the auto correct on my iPad which butchered the expression “reductio ad absurdum” above. I guess the auto correct does not like Latin words and I did not notice the changes as I typed fast.
Skiphil | April 2, 2013 at 10:05 pm | Joshua,
First, try to calm yourself. All the exclamation marks and hyperventilating do nothing to benefit your case. 2nd, your comments about one comment from a RJ Hendrickson are, well, spurious. The comment which has you so excited is (a) probably sarcastic, and (b) about what the MARCOTT study might imply without the uptick. It is not about skeptic views in general, it is about the Marcott curve.
What it might imply is confirmation of other research?
“German meteorologists say that the start of 2013 is now the coldest in 208 years – and now German media has quoted Russian scientist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov from the St. Petersburg Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory as showing it is proof as he said earlier that we are heading for a “Mini Ice Age.”
http://germanherald.com/news/Germany_in_Focus/2013-03-31/2331/Prof_Warns_Mini_Ice_Age_has_Started ”
Post 7 from Jaymez:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/ipcc-plays-hot-spot-hidey-games-in-ar5-denies-28-million-weather-balloons-work-properly/#comment-1260993
Joshua | April 2, 2013 at 3:59 pm | Reply
Here’s what I love.
——
Here’s what I love: that Joshua has no sarcasm detector.
Good idea. Take one comment from one blogger, one that is probably meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and use that as you example. That has nothing to do with the serious questions about scientific ethics being discussed on this topic
All this faux outrage at the scientific integrity of the paper and its authors only plays to the fringe denialists. Any one with familiarity with other ares of scientific publishing will know that when it comes to press releases that make implied claims way beyond the content of the paper, abstracts that put a gloss in the mundane or inconsequential and the multiple presentation of positive results with the omission of negative results, climate science is a realm of purity and innocence compared to medical and drug research.
To (over)extend the wonderful metaphor of the hockey game with players and referees that emerged from a previous thread;
Marcott et al made a good run from deep within their own half, the shot at goal might have been weak, and claiming the credit from a deflection off another player (instrumental record) is a bit… self-promoting? But instrumental record is generally regarded as a reliable player despite the quibbles some raise so either way it stands as a goal whoever gets the credit. perhaps it should be shared…
However a number of would be referees and armchair coaches have emerged claiming that the doubts over who can legitimately claim the credit disqualifies ALL play made by Marcott et al. Some even assert that the horrendous duplicity in claiming a goal that was not all their own work not only disqualifies the goal, but negates any value in the game of hockey entirely. The majority just follow the game, only a shrinking fringe regard the whole game as corrupt and want it stopped.
Especially when their team is several goals down, very weak with few strong players but a dirty defence.
The problem is that most seem to want to blow a whistle rather than wield a stick.
(it was too good a metaphor not to revisit! grin)
izen
Seriously – if anyone is “concerned” about the misleading upshot of the paper – wouldn’t they be concerned that “skeptics” read McIntyre’s blog and the take home message is that he can “plainly” see that “we’re headed into new ice age?”
Too funny.
I will remind my much beloved “skeptics” that I have been told, over and over, that “most” “skeptics” don’t doubt that the earth is warming. Also, please don’t forget that Judith “doesn’t listen to” anyone who doubts the GHE, and that ACO2 is, to at least some extent, warming the climate.
So you see no difference between a paper published in Science and an unsolicited comment on someone’s blog?
Josh, I have no problem pointing out to someone when they go overboard in calling you nasty. Neither do I have a problem with pointing out you really are the putz pokerguy thinks you are when you make this argument.
And btw – the argument with the proxies is that they are indicating a cooling. That doesn’t mean we are cooling, as we have other means to measure temperature. It might mean that proxies are not that reliable. That is the point, not how one commentor on a blog interprets it.
You do not have to be technically expert to get the basic drift. How do we know how the modern temperature record compares to past periods when we don’t have a record of past temperatures? Answer – we have what we believe to be accurate proxies which allow us to decern what temperatures were going back in time. Well, what happens when those proxies don’t match up well with what our modern instrucments tell us?
@izen
‘Any one with familiarity with other ares of scientific publishing will know that when it comes to press releases that make implied claims way beyond the content of the paper, abstracts that put a gloss in the mundane or inconsequential and the multiple presentation of positive results with the omission of negative results, climate science is a realm of purity and innocence compared to medical and drug research’
You dig your hole even deeper. I was of the impression that the disregard e to scientific integrity was limited only to climatology. But now you tell me it is rampant throughout the paper-writing classes!
As an outsider, I find absolutely no reassurance in your claim that somehow the antics of climatologists should be excused because (in your opinion) there are even bigger malefactors elsewhere.
Sorry pal, it doesn’t work like that.
The standards are absolute not relative. That ‘Big Drug John Doe’ is known to be a crook does not mean that ‘Warmist Jane Doe’ goes unexamined. We have the capacity to condemn both.
Indeed. The argument that these scientists being lying SOBs about a highly charged political issue that is eating up tens of billions of govt funding and costing trillions in regulatory costs shouldn’t be considered a big deal because some other scientists are even bigger lying SOBs in other fields somehow doesn’t win me over. I’d love to see some fool try to sell it to a jury though. That would be fun to watch.
izen,
in the game of hockey, this is more a case of them shooting, missing and then trying to kick the puck in while the clock is stopped and then running to the reporters and claiming they scored.
The purusers of the sports pages who take only a passing interest will read the score and move on. They are unlikely to discover it was not really a valid goal.
Yes, medical and drug studies are worse. But that’s sort of like saying “my profession isn’t so bad: people think less-highly of used car salesmen and congressmen than they do of my profession.” Not too meaningful.
And no drug or medical company that I’m aware of has tried to have a law passed requiring everyone to take a particular drug or undergo a particular medical procedure. Nor advocating that doctors who don’t prescribe their drug/procedure are frauds who should be tried as criminals.
So, yeah, climate over-the-top PR is more affective than medical/drug over-the-top PR. To use your analogy, the paper is a goal that was scored, but they committed a foul along the way. The goal doesn’t stand. 90% of the hard work to get the puck from one end of the rink to the other, then into the goal, were legitimate. But the 10% is serious enough offense that the goal is rescinded.
That’s what penalties in sports are all about: if you allow the goal to stand with no penalty, you will get more and more cheating until it’s 90% cheating and 10% accomplishment rather than the 90% accomplishment and 10% cheating we now have. There’s no other way, considering human nature, to deal with it.
The 11,000 year long hockey stick is still bouncing around the MSM …
“Meantime, the Earth is hotter now than during three- quarters of the 11,300 years since the most recent ice age, according to researchers at Harvard and Oregon State universities. By 2020, U.S. oil output may surpass that of Saudi Arabia, the world’s top producer, the Paris-based International Energy Agency says. ”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-02/republican-born-roosevelt-digs-deep-for-texas-oil-found-with-co2.html
No one is has predicted a coming “ice age” since the 70s and those who did are the same people most recently were forecasting runaway global warming. Looking at the temperature record of the Earth over the last million the only real truth is, the number of years of “ice age” plus years of “global warming” divided by 1 million equals < 0 °C.
“Please don’t overegg the pudding and inadvertently send them to the RealClimate refugee and training camp.”
They are already part of the Team. Do you think the PR launch of their paper -hyping what they now say it is rubbish- with connections to all mainstream media was what?
The FAQ in RealClimate don’t tell you anything too?
———
I will remind my much beloved “skeptics” that I have been told, over and over, that “most” “skeptics” don’t doubt that the earth is warming.
I could care less of what you have been told. There is no evidence that earth is either cooling, getting warm or in between, because it is something impossible to measure with the tools we have available for 0.x degrees. Today, This Year. I will not even talk about the Past. So yes, who claims to know if we are getting hotter is just lying or is an ignorant.
Same if they are saying we are getting colder but those are rare..
The truth is we don’t know and don’t have a way to know when the change up or down is so tiny. The city near where i live(less then 1 million) have probably 10 areas with different temperatures sometimes with differences more than a degree at same time of the day.
We just don’t know and don’t have way to know.
If skeptics were genuinely after establishing the scientific facts and criticizing shoddy science they be surely be criticizing junk science like this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/30/crowdsourcing-the-wuwt-paleoclimate-reference-page-continued/
The WUWT paleoclimate reference page is a smorgasbord of errors and data mishandling.
And they even do some of the acts they accuse others of, such as splicing instrumental data onto the end of proxy records!
Then we have blatent junk science being promoted such as this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/26/another-wuwt-tv-segment-engineer-and-aviation-pioneer-burt-rutan-on-why-he-doubts-global-warming/
All this is met with clapping by the usual suspects.
Watts didn’t get published in Science. Apples and oranges.
It’s not Watts is it. It’s almost all of them over there. The comments ring praise for blatantly flawed arguments and work.
Either they are able to spot and understand errors in the science, or they are not. It doesn’t make sense to say that they understand the science eg when it comes to Marcott or something, but can’t spot their own very trivial errors in the two links I just posted.
Why can’t they get to the bottom of what date the last datapoint of GISP2 represents for example? Why do they keep messing that one up post after post?
Why do they praise Burt Rutan’s presentation without nary a word about the various bizarre errors?
They seem perfectly able to pass judgement on eg Marcott. There’s no ambiguity when it comes to a subject like that. But the worse stuff they publish, for example if it comes to Ernst Beck’s flawed CO2 graph, or illogical graphs of temperature vs CO2, they seem unable, or perhaps unwilling, to call out the flaws.
lolwot: Sounds to me that you’re saying that skeptics have the same kind of confirmation bias that the Establishment has. I’d buy that: you find errors when you look for them and you don’t find errors when you don’t look very hard.
That’s human nature. The question is, which side’s confirmation bias is worse? Which side is getting hundreds of millions of dollars in funding? Which side is proposing trillions of dollars of economic realignment? Which side is officially Peer Reviewed? Which side has failed to stop its partisans from calling for crimes-against-humanity trials and even the death penalty?
Seems like the two confirmation biases aren’t equally affective. It doesn’t mean that the Establishment is evil — as some skeptics would allege — or that skeptics are hypocritical — which you are apparently alleging. Both wrong.
“The question is, which side’s confirmation bias is worse?”
That’s easy, the skeptics. By far.
Mind you, lolwot is free of “confirmation bias” when he opines that the skeptics’ confirmation bias is worse that that of the warmists.
Duh!
Blog science is imminently ignorable.
Write that down.
Plus I’m banned at WattsUpWithThat for doing precisely what you accuse me of not doing.
lolwut: You don’t understand context, do you? Pull a sentence out of a paragraph and think you’ve answered the question?
David, you are banned there for being a putz.
If by putz you mean someone who calls a spade a spade then I agree.
lolwot
Nice attempt to change the subject.
Didn’t work.
Max
I am very much on topic.
When I see people acting concerned about the science while promoting far worse junk science themselves, I will point that out.
lolwot | April 2, 2013 at 5:10 pm | Reply
Why on earth would you whine and bitch about that in this unrelated thread, instead of going to the page itself and pointing out the exact problem you see? This is just vague accusation, go over there and get precise so we can see what you are on about.
Regarding “splicing” instrumental data onto pale, are you talking about this graph called “GISP2, Moberg, Keigwin, and HadCRUT3” with the instrumental data in bright yellow? Because that’s not splicing four datasets, that’s displaying four datasets.
Seriously, lolwot, if there’s bad data in there I want to know it, I’m on your side if that’s the case. Go over there and point it out specifically and in detail, that’s the place for it. Vague handwaving about it here doesn’t cut it.
w.
Willis
“Go over there and point it out specifically and in detail, that’s the place for it.”
Well, I’ve been trying to do that. Totally bogged down in a simple issue (BP means before 1950) that you and I were trying to get fixed back in 2009. Nothing changes.
here is something folks ought to appreciate.
We do have high resolution proxies.
After my idea, Charlesthe moderator slapped this together
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7097/marcottvostokbaselinesh.jpg
Steve, were the proxies calibrated to local, regional or global temperature?
Something from BEST still nags me. Are the stations which show no heating or cooling regionally clustered or are they pseudo-randomly distributed?
I think it is fun splicing instrumental to paleo,
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ifL0LI9ToU8/UVxbo0ISwAI/AAAAAAAAHsg/kKWWtJ1srwQ/s912/high%2520resolution%2520sub%2520polar%2520arctic.png
I even picked an overlapping baseline, did the anomalies, the whole deal. Still working on the error bar dealie.
Mosh: how high is the resolution of the Vostok ice core?
Richard.
resolution on vostok hmm, around 40-50 years (from memory dont trust me) its in marcotts SI.
Now, charles the moderator has put a better version together. Suppose we hold a press conference announce the result, spam this fricken chart all over the internet, make T shirts and a youtube video..
And then I’ll put out a FAQ on it explaining that its not really robust.
Imagine the howls, cant unring the belll
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7290/marcottvostok2.jpg
“Something from BEST still nags me. Are the stations which show no heating or cooling regionally clustered or are they pseudo-randomly distributed?”
Well I started to look at it an got interupted. I have it on my blog somewhere.
http://stevemosher.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/cooling-stations/
My guess is that most if not all of these stations are ones that started out urban and moves to a rural location OR have TOBS issues.
This is unadjusted data, Berkeley data but with NO scalpel applied to cut stations with discontinuites.
The 30% of stations in the paper is really a different measure used for a different purpose.. hard to explain but I will if you like
oh captain my captain, you to are destined for the front pages of Science!!. Why by smoothing one data series and then randomly selecting a calibration window and carefully selecting another series you can jack the temperature almost whereever you want to.
Steven Mosher, “oh captain my captain, you to are destined for the front pages of Science!!. Why by smoothing one data series and then randomly selecting a calibration window and carefully selecting another series you can jack the temperature almost whereever you want to.”
Pretty much.
lolwot – could you point to specific comments or segments of the post? It’s kind of long. Or do you contend that everythiing on WUWT paleo post is wrong?
Temperatures over the last 1 million, 150 thousand, 16 thousand and 150 years
Judith,
You raise interesting points, specifically should the two young post-docs get a pass. I agree that to place the blame solely on them is churlish and there should be a greater debate publically within the academic community that address exactly what forces a couple of young scientists to act the way that they did. Leave aside the massive over-production of young PhD scientists for the number of jobs available and the shrinking pool of research funds. This case has more interesting details that should be pursued:
a) How is it that in the case of Marcott, you go from a solid and scientifically justified thesis with chapter 4 apparently not acceptable to Nature to a clearly hyped and distorted presentation of the data in the Science publication, with orchestrated press-release and media focus? Who was responsible for that – did the young pups independently decide this was the only means for advancement, or were they talked into it and by whom?
b) What is the role of NSF in this distortion of the scientific process? Quite visible in the media cycle that was arranged to accompany the publication of the paper was NSF Program Manager Candace Major. Why is she not being questioned in this process? Does NSF evaluate research proposals based on the political favorability of the results. Does NSF evaluate research based on media coverage?
What is truly shocking about the many, many insights provided by the climate science establishment over the past decade is the lack of comments from established, tenured faculty who are specifically granted that privilege to defend unpopular views without fear for their career. I note that Roger Pielke, Jr. and yourself have tried to provide an example, but the silence of your colleagues throughout the Academe is an embarrassment. Can you explain why this is?
good points, I have a draft post ‘macroethics vs microethics’ that explores these kind of issues, hopefully i can get back to that one soon.
I look forward to it. The admirable intent of your original post on this thread has been entirely high jacked by did so/ did not, he said/she said, and the usual ad hominems which outside academia are termed slurs and name calling. Rather disappointing.
You raised thoughtful, serious questions on what enabled this mess to happen, and what might be done to prevent a recurrence. A very important set of structural questions about the post-modern practice of science, and problems seen most frequently in climate, medicine, and then energy research. Since climate appears to have the biggest political winds behind it, perhaps it makes the best arena for thoughtful discussion since there is much rich data to be mined.
Rud –
Have you ever considered that your selective outrage about ad homs undermines the strength of your protestations?
Joshua
What is a putz and why are you a nice one?
tonyb
Rud –
And what does this mean, anyway? Does the question of whether it might be described with different terms have any implications of substance? Are you arguing that the same terms should be used? Are you arguing that inside academia should be expected to be different than “outside academia” w/r/t slurs and name-calling?
Perhaps you’d like to talk to Roger Pielke Jr.,who, when he writes posts impugning the “integrity” of other scientists, offers the justification that (paraphrasing) academics can get nasty with each other?
Since you are concerned about the nasty tone – please give me some examples were you’ve called out “skeptics” on that issue. Given that you’ve expressed this concern on more than one occasion – I’d imagine that you must have many examples. If you don’t have such examples, then don’t you think that focusing your efforts along those lines would contribute more to solving this problem than your expressions of outrage about how “disgusting” you find it to be?
Maybe you could write a book about it?
tony –
Putz is a Yiddish expression, typically used as a synonym for “dick.” I just looked up the etymology – and it’s quite interesting, as it seems that it derives from a word meaning “finery, adornment.” Not sure how the common usage was derived from the original usage.
I only heard it used by Jews when I was growing up, but apparently it has crossed over into the basic American vernacular – kind of like how now you can find bagels in the supermarket in Omaha.
As for why I’m a “nice one,” I have no real idea – but there was a discussion yesterday where tim and PG agreed that I am a putz, but disagreed as to whether I am a nasty putz. Another denizen requested that my name appear as “Joshua the nice putz.”; I thought I’d comply, at least for a while.
FWIW – I’d say that just about everyone here qualifies as a putz. A pretty dickish crowd all-around, I’d say. There are a few exceptions – Pekka comes to mind, BillC and John Carpenter also – although they’ve been scarce recently. I used to put you in the non-putz category also – but lately your comments do have a bit more of a dickish quality. The jury’s still out…
Did you just call me a putz, Joshua?!
I’m shocked and outraged ;-)
On the Easter theme, stretched way too far I know, Candace Major would play the role of Judas. Her “kiss” certainly brought Marcott et al the attention which led to their being crucified. I’m not waiting for the resurrection.
Another limb too far — Is it possible that the Science paper predates the final version of the thesis? That alleged version didn’t get approved for the thesis, and the wrong version was ‘accidentally’ submitted to Science.
“struggle for the scientific souls of two promising young scientists.” Really? I suspect they sold their souls long ago. What’s so promising about young scientists with no ethics?
Judith, you are too generous to Marcott and Shakun, as others have said above. No point repeating what many others have said. Have you seen that arrogant video with Revkin? Clearly they have been misled but there is no excuse for any scientist to have their name on this paper.
That’s an intriguing idea. A zombie paper where all the authors ask to have their names removed from the list of authors. Or the Mary Celeste. :)
Having said that, some people actually get ON to crashed buses in the hope of self advancement.
Stop the presses – someone got it wrong on the internet. Paleos on WUWT. I have been assured that sceptics believe it is warming. The scientific community, the Vatican, the mediac … and (increasingly) the general public … have grasped the main ideas of climate-change science 100% correctly.
The following possibly apocryphal statement by the IPCC – will be restrospectively erased from history which itself will be remade in a more sympatico format.
‘In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.’ TAR 14.2.2.2
Bart R is to be commended for seeing the light and spreading the word – ‘the joys of forthright language free of obfuscation and obscurantism’ – he has won an all expenses paid, one way trip to UNtopia Minnesota where he will be reeducated – er entertained – day and night by prerecorded messages from webby.
Stand by for further instructions.
Hi ho Shibboleth.
TAR 14.2.2.2 WG1.
Not to be confused with WG2, Ranching.
The conclusions had been around by that time for some two decades; I’d heard of them fifteen years prior to TAR after independently developing part of them the year before.
You ought have cited more of the chapter, for context.
Well yes of course it is the science basis – and it is freely available. I don’t need to quote everything.
Oh please – you independently arrived at nonsense in 1980 odd and have continued the practice ever since.
The first model appeared in the late 1960’s and the emphasis has been on reducing grid size as computer power increased and on implementing plausible phyics.
‘Parameterizations are nonfundamental model elements that represent important aspects of AOS system functioning. Examples are cloud and aerosol microphysics, radiative transfer in heterogeneous media, watershed hydrological routing, subgrid-scale boundary form stress by topographic roughness, and spatial transport and down-scale variance cascade in turbulent boundary layers near the air–sea–land interfaces (also known as eddy diffusion). Parameterization schemes are typically formulated by asserting the desired qualitative effects, devising a mathematical representation to achieve them, and parametrically fitting the rate constants either to independent measurements or to some aspect of the AOS results they control. Within this methodology there is room for plausible alternative parameterization schemes, i.e., nonuniqueness. Some useful parameterizations are also nondifferentiable (e.g., in the transition from a convective to a stably stratified boundary layer), and this compounds AOS nonsmoothness in ways unrelated to resolution convergence.
In a scientific problem as potentially complicated as climate, there is another modeling practice that is increasingly important: AOS models are open-ended in their scope for including and dynamically coupling different physical, chemical, biological, and even societal processes.
The rationales for coupling are to investigate potentially significant feedbacks (e.g., radiative properties for different airborne crystalline ice structures, changes in air and water inertia due to suspended dust and sediments, and water and other material exchanges with plants and biome evolution) and to achieve ever fuller depictions of Earth’s fluid envelope. Besides adding to the overall complexity of AOS models, coupling increases the number of processes with a nonfundamental representation (i.e., similar to a parameterization), because, for the most part, the governing equations are not well determined for the model components other than fluid dynamics. When adding a new coupling link, there is no a priori guarantee of seeing only modest consequences in the AOS solution behavior.
Of course, models can be formulated that eschew these practices. They are mathematically safer to use, but they are less plausibly similar to nature, with suppressed intrinsic variability, important missing effects, and excessive mixing and dissipation rates.
AOS models are therefore to be judged by their degree of plausibility, not whether they are correct or best. This perspective extends to the component discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupling breadth: There are better or worse choices (some seemingly satisfactory for their purpose or others needing repair) but not correct or best ones. The bases for judging are a priori formulation, representing the relevant natural processes and choosing the discrete algorithms, and a posteriori solution behavior. Plausibility criteria are qualitative and loosely quantitative, because there are many relevant measures of plausibility that cannot all be specified or fit precisely. Results that are clearly discrepant with measurements or between different models provide a valid basis for model rejection or modification, but moderate levels of mismatch or misfit usually cannot disqualify a model. Often, a particular misfit can be tuned away by adjusting some model parameter, but this should not be viewed as certification of model correctness.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full
‘In a later, but highly prescient paper, Lorenz [1] also considered the interplay of various scales of motion in determining the predictability of a system. The results showed that errors at the cumulus scale can invade the errors at the synoptic scale in two days and infect the very largest scales in two weeks. Thirty years later, the relevance of this study has been realized in the development of stochastic approaches to represent cumulus convection and its upscale energy transports, and in the emerging efforts to resolve these multi-scale processes in atmospheric simulations at the cloud system-resolving scale (approx. 1 km).
This paper considers how chaos theory has shaped our approach to numerical weather prediction, why, despite the limits to atmospheric predictability suggested by Lorenz, seasonal and even decadal prediction is possible, and how uncertainty should be addressed in the context of climate change. Finally, some recommendations for future progress towards more confident and reliable predictions in the face of uncertainty are considered.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full
Probabilisitic climate predicions are still an area under development.
‘Finally, Lorenz’s theory of the atmosphere (and ocean) as a chaotic system raises fundamental, but unanswered questions about how much the uncertainties in climate-change projections can be reduced. In 1969, Lorenz [30] wrote: ‘Perhaps we can visualize the day when all of the relevant physical principles will be perfectly known. It may then still not be possible to express these principles as mathematical equations which can be solved by digital computers. We may believe, for example, that the motion of the unsaturated portion of the atmosphere is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations, but to use these equations properly we should have to describe each turbulent eddy—a task far beyond the capacity of the largest computer. We must therefore express the pertinent statistical properties of turbulent eddies as functions of the larger-scale motions. We do not yet know how to do this, nor have we proven that the desired functions exist’. Thirty years later, this problem remains unsolved, and may possibly be unsolvable.’ Slingo and Palmer 2011 – op cit
I can always see that you put words on the page Bart R – but it never seems to say anything meaningful or to be of any substance or depth. Is it the same impetus as webby’s for claiming fundamental breakthoughs for oversmplifictions founded in fantasy physics and couched in incompetent math? I don’t know.
Chief Hydrologist | April 4, 2013 at 3:24 pm |
Skipped to the end. So if you explained how you fixed the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef due poor hydrology practices of the past quarter century, my bad.
incompetent math?
I admit it, I’ve been leaving a trail of mathematical Persian flaws in my comments lately; startling how few people bothered to work out the actual mathematicals whilst so many vigorously exercised their keyboarding skills to fill the comments section with babble.
You must be proud of your protégés.
‘The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral cover in the last 27 years. The loss was due to storm damage (48%), crown of thorns starfish (42%), and bleaching (10%) according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today by researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) in Townsville and the University of Wollongong.’
Most of the storm damge was in the past 10 years as La Nina intensifies in a cooling world. Crown of thorns is said for a long time now to respond to nutrient enrichment from agricultural runoff easily fixed – if only politicians and greenies would focus on the real issues. Coral bleaching happens – it is one of those things.
You entire blog presence is a Persian flaw and the actual maths is worked out in some detail by the authors I quote – and not as overly simplistisc nonsense worked out in a few lines on a loser blog. It is of litle matter to me that you neither read or think about the issues before deciding these immensely capable and respected scientists deal only in the babble, hypocrisy, inpenatrable confusion and cheap mockery that is your especial stock in trade. Do you ever even aspire to making a resonable and coherent comment?
Here is a Perian flaw of my -I left off the link to a souce of one quote from James McWilliams – http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.long
But it seems you are quite incapable – and I certainly expect no more from you than you’re usual pathetic best.
I was diving of Papua New Gunea and checking out a 2m squid – who disappeared in a cloud of ink.
‘The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef ecosystem on earth and one of the best managed marine areas in the world. At 348,000 square kilometres, the reef is one of the richest and most diverse natural ecosystems on Earth. ‘ http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/gbr/
Generallissimo Skippy | April 5, 2013 at 2:41 am |
In other words,rent-seeking Australian government hydrologists broke the Great Barrier Reef with their claims of greater competency than they actually possess, don’t know how to fix the damage they’ve done and are still doing, and are defensively throwing up an obscuring cloud of ink like a spineless bottom-dweller in a rapidly dwindling ocean habitat that no longer provides them cover or sustenance.
Or, at least one is.
Worrying about ice curtailing leaving polar bears splashing gets boring.
There’s been warming and we’re looking for heating that’s missing.
The likelihood of stopping warming from happening is daunting.
Because skeptics are writing about warming not happening.
Warming is a non-problem Western science is answering.
Those believing warming is alarming are denigrating.
But, the odds cooling is happening is concerning.
What’s chilling is not knowing.
Innocent, gullible victims of the CAGW consensus mob or scheming, conniving zealots looking for instant fame and recognition by cheating?
Or, even more likely, a bit of both, getting caught up in something they lost control of that turned our badly.
I’m waiting for the one clear crook (the Science editor who was involved) to resign.
But this may be a long wait.
Max
Oh yes, long wait. Long, long, long wait. Take the number of days that lolwot’s been denying the pause (which even hardcore team members are beginning to concede), then multiply it by how many times FOMD mentions Wendel Berry in a week.
Give you some idea, anyway.
The enemy increaseth every day,
We, at the height are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune,
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
H/t Brutus.
Hey ya Beth,
Have you seen that recent documentary on Shakespeare’s true identity, featuring such notables as Vanessa Redgrave and Derek Jacobi…”Last Will and Testament”…Makes a good case for a dude names Edward de Vere.
Meanwhile, hope to catch that tide just right. Don’t want any of those shallows and miseries, you know? We’ll leave those things to the fake climate scientists..
pokerguy, better yet read Bill Bryson’s book about that:
http://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-World-Stage-Eminent-Lives/dp/0060740221
I’m betting he will change your mind about this popular but worthless question.
For everyone concerned about uncertainty this book is a must-read. What has been written about Shakespeare the person makes the worst of Climate Science look respectable by comparison!
Hi pokerguy,
I haven’t seen the documentary, but guess it typifies
where there’s gaps in a record, in creeps myth. In
challenges to Shakespeare’s identity, I think of
comments by his contempory, Ben Jonson, like this
comment after Shakespeare’s death:
‘I loved the man and do honor his memory on this side
idolatory as much as any.’
Suppose the next thing, pokerguy, someone will do
SHAKESPEARE THE PLAY, like Peter Shaffer did his
loosely, very loosely dramatised version of the life and
death of Amadeus Mozart ( Gave him the chance in his
satirical rendition to tap into the sublime music, giving
his play gravitas, as it were … though it didn’t.
Beth the serf
Dr. Curry –> Possibly you could offer to mentor the two young PhDs. Maybe they would actually come around, do the right thing, maybe even talk about who (if anyone) encouraged them to do Mike’s Nature Trick in this new paper.
Pielke’s advice is pretty good… a quick admission and correction would cement their reputations as solid science practitioners.
Dear Dr Curry
Your generosity of spirit to Muchrot, Scheissen et al is just too much for me.
By their actions and deeds they are already in the UnReal Climate Camp.
Their junk science demonstrates they are not fit to call themselves scientists.
They may get jobs in academia as it is clear that the standards required in Climate Science are so low.
They should not be given the time of day by anyone with integrity.
One day we will wonder how intellectual retards were able to get away with the lies and deceit.
Regards
S
The standards on display on skeptic blogs are far far worse. Yet we don’t see complaints about that from people such as yourself do we?
Interesting.
The standards of those pushing AGW theory is identified more now with a cultural movement than a moral position. The moment secular, socialist academia abandoned the scientific method Climatology became the science of Darwin on pot.
Yuh, really, really fascinating lolwot. In all honesty I don’t know how you can compare lightly moderated skeptical blogs where actual conversation takes place to indoctrination camps like RC and the hilariously named “skeptical science.”
Wake up and smell the pause, lolwot. It’ll clear your nostrils…
I normally step aside when I see a mess on the pavement but I have decided to be a good citizen and help clean up? So for you just remember two wrongs don’t make a right.
lolwot,
Blogs such as RC, SkS and the rarely visited DeSmogBlog are great recruiting tools to the sceptical side of the debate. (You know, the one that we are told is over.)
But go ahead and demonstrate the fact you can’t recognize free and open debate.
Should we infer from this that Tony’s reinforces the established viewpoint?
Considering the page views, this might be a fair exchange.
I pretty much complain that everyone has it wrong with a few notable exceptions – Tim Palmer, Anastasios Tsonis, the ‘unknown scientist’ from TAR 14.2.2.2, Rial, Pielke Sn – and several hundred others.
You on the other hand don’t even understand the question.
Western institutionalized science came to be used to undermine Judeo-Christian ethics, principles, customs and traditions and now it is being used to undermine the power to reason.
‘Evolution doesn’t need God.’ Bah – they understand so little and make an unprincipled stand on such flimsy pretence. It is far more likely that relativity does not need evolution.
LOL … and therefore, the sooner our schools, our libraries, our public media (and even our weblogs!) are cleansed of reference to Thomas Jefferson, to Tom Paine, and to Abraham Lincoln, the sooner our polity will be cleansed of the unholy vices of rationality, respect for science, and free-thinking!
‘The late Stephen J. Gould coined the phrase “ultra-Darwinism” for those who used Darwin’s theory of evolution as a universal theory – in other words, as a First Philosophy, a metaphysics. He wisely saw this to be a very dangerous endeavour.’
It is very unlikely that Paine, Jefferson or Lincoln could be accused of ‘ultra-Darwinism’. We will leave that to the Godless hordes of barbarians inside the gates of the citadel of the scientific enlightenment.
Because Origin of Species appeared in 1859 (after Paine and Jefferson had passed, and Lincoln had but 6 years to live), your assertion is factually well-founded, Generalissimo Skippy!
We should therfore look closer to home for the tracks of the Godless hordes – aye FOMBS.
Pingback: Marcott Madness And I’m Out Of Popcorn!!! | suyts space
The rate of change of average global temperature in the eartly 20th century leaves little doubt that mankind is responsible. But how? The 4th least abundant gas in the atmosphere, CO2.seems to be an unliikly culprit, but it was an increasing,but still a rare gas at less than 1%. The only way CO2 could absorb so much heat was if it’s vibrational modes were fully excited. So the viability of the CO2 theory rested on better understanding of the vibratiomal modes of the CO2 molecule. We know this is complicated because of the many isotopes of CO2’s elements, eachl of which can produce different vibrational frequencies, so difficult to model accurately.
The problem with Venus-envy and believing –e.g., “The Oceans will begin to boil…” — turns parts-per-million into polar bears falling from the sky.
The answer to your question, of course, is that the energy absorbed by the CO2 quickly degrades to heat warming the rest of the atmosphere. As to the rest, the CO2 spectrum is a solved problem. See, for example HITRAN or use Spectralcalc. http://www.spectralcalc.com/
Eli had a tutorial for the latter a while ago
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/07/pressure-broadening-eli-has-been-happy.html
Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.
Albert Einstein
We should first decide what can and can’t be counted.
E[ Rabbet: Thank you for your advice, but such a steady-state solution does not fit the facts. It does nor explain the on-off nature of global heating: like the steady heat rise 1910 to 1940, the sudden fall after 1940 and no consist rise again until 1970, and of course the constant temperature from 2000 to the present., My website (umderlined above) suggests this on]off behavior is a consequence of Quantum theory.
Wagathon: Thanks. I do think that Mercury and Venus unduly influenced early work.
Skippy: Thanks. Yes Einstein did a lot of work on quantum theory so maybe you are closer to the trufh than you think.
‘God does not play dice with the universe.’ Albert Einstein
The original statement was not about quantum indeterminancy at all but about the failure of predictive determinism in many cases.
I am closer to the truth than you think.
Cripes. Go play with Randall Mills.
Canon fodder or useful idiots? I don’t know and in one way I don’t care, it is the results of this which bother me. What I care about is this kind of work gets published and publicised to the detriment of science certainly, but particularly, to the detriment of the general public who are being screwed not only by draconian legislation and theft taxes on the back of it, but by the dumbing down of science education for the masses which is what created it in the first place.
I think the target of our ire, those who are irked by this, should be directed to those at the top of the heap who are promoting this dumbing down of science, as Jim Cripwell put it above:
Until the scientific community starts at the top, and forces the RS and APS to publish proper science with respect to CAGW, there will be lots and lots more Marcottes.
If scientists don’t reclaim science for themselves by forcing their supposedly august science bodies to represent science principles, then all of us will continue to suffer. We will lose science in the general population and the dedicated work of real scientists will continue to be trashed, as here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/ipcc-plays-hot-spot-hidey-games-in-ar5-denies-28-million-weather-balloons-work-properly/
A favor is requested. Are there any young whippersnapping codaholoics out there that can write a specific code for me? When I open up the comments section, I would like “a Fan of more discourse” and his pastel emoticons to disappear. Also, could you have Joshua’s name re-appear as “Joshua the Nice Putz”.
YOUR emoting should be more pastel.
He has Aegyo, Like this
Fan is a girl, she can’t control her emoticons.
Your request is granted, Bob!
Just paste any of these URLs into your web-browser-bar:
• http://www.globalclimatescam.com
• http://www.globalwarminghoax.com
• http://wattsupwiththat.com
• http://www.au.agwscam.com
Guarantee Your peace-of-mind will not be perturbed by unrestricted scientific inquiry, free-thinking, or open public discourse!
Fan, a slight improvement. No “eh” in your last post. Keep at it.
“eh” is out sick.
=========
kim
“eh” has been sick for a long time, before being out.
(But the smileys live on.)
Max
Go back to USENET
Shafted, not screwed.
Flogged and played.
================
blued and tattooed.
===============
reamed, steamed and dry cleaned?
We are not seeing people recommending ideas to repair the Marcott paper issues. How about throwing out the last century of paleo and replacing it with thermometers, for example? The paleo indicated a 0.7 C drop in 11000 years, and the thermometers indicate a similar rise in 100 years.
Start in Kindergarten. Something they need to know in life wasn’t learned.
================
Constructive criticism is all that is needed. List problems with scientific ideas for solutions, not just “there is a problem with your work, therefore you must be a bad person” that we see all to much.
Repeated for emphasis:
So the low resolution of the data could conceal a similar spike in the past. Keeping in mind that the low resolution would need to hide not only the initial spike but a spike of equal magnitude in the opposite direction, within a 300 year? (is that the data resolution increment?) period, how likely might that be – should we just hand-wring and pearl-clutch and leave it at that?
For each and every spike there is an equal and opposite respike. For respeck, Joshua, take a respite and rehash stats.
=======================
Figure 4 of this abstract shows the ssts in one site going down about 0.8 C then back up about 0.8 C in a 500 year period. At no point in this time period could you take a 300 year average and notice this jump at the appropriate magnitude.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v493/n7432/full/nature11785.html
Josh,
Love the new moniker.
Though I’ll disagree with you on this:
I will say, however, that I think that “putz,” being a Yiddish term, should be reserved for use by tribe members about tribe members. Unless you are a tribe member, next time please call me a dick like Willis did.
Two points:
– you don’t rise up to the standard of a dick. For a comparison check WEB (though he has shown restraint of late – not meeting dick criteria at all).
– having attended my first bar mitzvah before my first communion, I don’t accept your reservation of the term putz to a select tribe. (And assuming I did, which tribe would it be? There are 12, aren’t there?)
There seems to be an unspoken rule that paleo papers should not even mention the recent thermometer data. The authors were supposed to just show the old part and not put it in the context of current known trends unless they could prove those trends with their paleo data rather than reading the better thermometers for it. Even if everybody knows the temperature trended up 0.7 C in the last century, they can’t mention it in this paper, apparently, or even in a press release that gives context.
Jim D
If you go back to earlier threads, you’ll see pretty precise critique and rebuttal of the Marcott et al. super-shtick, plus a reference to the unethical behavior of the (unnamed?) Science editor, who embellished the original paper.
Max
So you area against putting the paleo data in the context of any modern data? If so, for what reason?
Jim D
Apples and oranges to start off with.
And replacing paleo data that doesn’t give the desired result with instrumental data that does is in bad taste (as in “hide the decline”).
Editing a paper prior to publication to make it conclude something that the original paper did not conclude is even worse.
Here you have all three.
Max
There is an obvious reason you don’t want to put the temperature record next to the paleo data, but that would seem political rather than scientific.
Somewhat related – any thoughts on Tamino’s latest post?
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/smearing-climate-data/#more-6561
It would have been even better if a “skeptic” had provided this simple analysis rather than Tamino. Where was Willis with this?
Thanks Joshua for the link to Tamino’s posting on the Marcott et al paper. This is very interesting and is generally supportive of the AGW hypothesis in that the current warming is unprecedented for the holocene. The resolution problem is still present in that only a limited number of proxies have been used in the Marcott study. Definitely belongs to the Green part of the Italian Flag analogy anyway!
I do wonder if the “proxy error/too much proxy uniformity” critiques might have more merit than he acknowledges…but knowing nothing about statistics I was hoping to get your take.
Still, it is nice to see that at least someone is interested in exploring the implications of the proxy data to the thermometer data.
I have some statistics in my skillset Joshua but now a bit rusty with advancing age. My concern about the Marcott et al paper is that the use of a relatively small number of paleo proxies (each capable of only providing localised information) implies that any inference for global trends is based on very low resolution data, both spatially and temporally.
Peter –
Resolution issues remain, but it interesting that he argues that a “spike” such as what we’ve seen in the 20th century would be visible even with the low resolution in the proxies. If his analysis is valid, it would be an interesting piece of the puzzle.
Further to this, Tamino’s addition of test data to simulate the current warming spike would imply that all proxies respond in a linear and equivalent fashion to such forcings.
Our comments crossed Joshua. I agree with you that Tamino has introduced an interesting idea that is worthy of further work. I rather doubt that doing 1000 iterations will improve variance much if at all.
Paleo reconstructions are quite complex processes and fraught with difficulty in ensuring that samples used remain uncorrupted – that does not imply any element of human corruption! Just free from contamination.
I saw the recent Tamino post. The question that comes to my mind is why doesn’t he try to recreate a situation similar to the recent temperature record and go from there. The LIA isn’t called the LIA because everyone thought it was a continuum of the average. To represent this he should first drop the temperature 0.4 C from the average then raise it 0.8 C from there and then take it back to average. After that he could conduct his other statistical tests. I doubt the results would be the same.
Joshua, you silly bacon eating putz, the statistics needed are fairly new. Until 1995, “scientists” denied the existence of rogue waves. Once they had witnessed one, they pretty much had to stop the denying. Seafarers had witnessed quite a few, but that doesn’t count.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave
It has something to do with self-organizing criticality. Something that many climate scientists still deny.
Fascinating, Cap’n. –
Can only imagine what it must be like to be cruising along, favorite adult beverage in hand, only to find yourself staring a 95′ wave directly in the face.
But what does that have to do with Tamino’s post?
Actually, just realized I should respond under my full name. Springer gets all hot-and-bothered when I use anything less.
Steven, Why don’t YOU recreate it instead of Tamino.
That’s a rhetorical question as the result would probably look like the chum that Cappy Dick tosses in the water.
Joshua, the BLP
Tamino added a simulated reconstruction with some spikes and noted that the Marcott method would show the spikes, but they would be attenuated some what. His chart shows unperturbed, no attenuation and single perturbed which is attenuated. The first two spikes in the single perturbed are attenuated more than the last. So his own analysis shows that a spike near the end of the series would be more potent than a spike in the middle of the series. In other words, a bigger spike now would be expected base on the proxies and the averaging etc. used on the proxies. If he shifted his synthetic spikes in time, He would find points that would have more and less attenuation as they synchronized or de-synchronized with the major paleo reconstructions. That is pretty much how rogue waves work, sometimes the waves synchronize to produce a major peak.
If you want to find a MWP, RO LIA, you can adjust your averaging and select proxies. If you don’t, you can just keep adding proxies until you get what you want. Since you can do either, no result is robust.
Web, if I make a point based on logic you disagree with then indicate where the failure of the logic is. Math and statistics are just learned skills like any other. If I wished to say you lacked logical skills I wouldn’t say it was because you couldn’t perform a root canal treatment up to standards. I would find a lack of logic on your part. Such an example might be saying that my logic was poor because I don’t have skills in statistics.
steven,
(Maybe you’ve seen it)… near as I can tell, you would find some agreement here:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/02/were-not-screwed/#comment-309036
Thank you Joshua. I hadn’t seen the comment yet.
Steven said:
The cookbook variety, sure.
Joshua the bacon loving and confused Putz.
Since you were interested in the Tamino post, I put together my “chumming” method for comparing reconstructions.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/04/playing-with-proxy-reconstructions.html
The fun part is in the update at the end. It seems if you shift a “spike” from the start of the MWP to the end of the MWP you might smooth out the MWP and elevate the LIA a tad. There is a link in there to a RomanM post where he seems to be a bit concerned with poor estimates of confidence.
I would like to see each of the proxies that reach the modern era being calibrated to the recorded LOCAL temperature. Using only these we should be able to see the actual scale of the changes in the past and confidence levels.
I prefer the number of days the Tioga Pass was closed per year due to snow, adjusted for improved roads and grading equipment with adjustments made to adjustments for the impact of additional personnel due to increased budgets plus an adjustment for the lawyer tax based on fears of injury and damages based on negligent road clearing.
We’re screwed! With government officials like these running our energy program: http://news.yahoo.com/nuclear-board-warns-hanford-tank-003212420.html
Kim u r the jester non – pareil of Climate – Et – cet – er – a
A cow – girl – ad – mire – er.
kim certainly seems “wise enough to play the fool” – WS. Or even better: CE’s genteel, resident licensed-critic.
bi2hs
Who cares what Ross McKitrick thinks?
He wrote this awful book called “Taken By Storm” in 2003. I read through it when it came out and determined that the skeptical side of things was glibly anti-science in their arguments. The book contained countless howlers.
Things haven’t changed that much since then.
I look on the back cover of the book and I notice this blurb:
This testimonial automatically excludes Anastasios Tsonis from having any credibility in the climate science community. The book is far from scientifically sound.
WHT
Another great book review brought to you by Webby.
Max
PS McK certainly did more for climate science than the goofy book reviewer.
No Max, This is my real book review:
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2004/07/not-taken-by-storm.html
Read the howlers.
Haven’t read the book but Anastasios Tsonis is Nobel Prize material. Webby is an Ignoble Prize candidate.
McKitrick is also renowned for the line
I wonder why the NY Times and all the other media didn’t rush to interview McKitrick and company when they made that statement? Quite against the mainstream view.
Yet why did Tsonis testify that McKitrick was practicing sound science when Tsonis himself had written a paper called
“A characteristic time scale in the global temperature record”
AA Tsonis, PJ Roebber, JB Elsner – Geophysical Research Letters, 1998
How could there be a global temperature record when there is no global temperature? Huh?
No one listens to the usual suspects on the skeptical side because their logic is typically fatally flawed.
WebHubTelescope | April 3, 2013 at 8:40 am | Reply
McKitrick is also renowned for the line
“There is no global temperature.”
Essex, Christopher, Ross McKitrick, and Bjarne Andresen. “Does a global temperature exist?.” Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics 32.1 (2007): 1-27.
————–
What is today’s global temperature then? What were yesterday’s high and low? What’s the forecast for tomorrow? The ten-day forecast?
What instrument is used to measure the temperature? Where is that instrument located? How does it “see” the entire globe at the same time?
Webby
Thanks for book review.
Noticed this comment from a blogger”
Did you follow this blogger’s advice and try to attack the substance of the arguments presented or just leave it with the original review?
Max
You can see I don’t delete comments.
That one was a beauty.
A bad book but a blueprint for what was to follow.
Well he obviously didn’t take the advise that:
he is pathetic
he is nuts
wisen up and
debate the issues
he is still pathetic
he is still nuts
he is still a dumbass
and he wouldbn’t know an issue if it kicked his nuts
I’m pleased that the JC has framed this as an issue of ethics. As a scientist outside of the climate field I’m baffled (and not a little appalled) by the way the authors have responded to the questions and criticisms.
I’m well aware of the “FAQ” though it ignored the pertinent outstanding questions about core top redating.
In addition to further blog posts, Steve M. ought to make a formal complaint to the journal and to the relevant universities. It is unacceptable for authors not to respond to legitimate questions concerning their published research findings. It is time for an ethics committee to look at this. This isn’t only a question of X vs Y making different interpretations of the data (a comment to the journal would be in order here). It is a case of X asking a relevant question and Y refusing to answer the question. The authors have published this work and disseminated it widely in the MSM. It is poor ethics not to answer relevant questions.
… and it is worse ethics to willfully avoid asking relevant questions!
The Relevant Questions Considering the aggregate scientific evidence: Is the AGW hockey-blade real? How steep is the AGW blade? How far upward will the AGW blade extend?
The world [rightly!] wonders about these questions … eh Robert?
Fan
Answers;
The hockey blade points in various directions during a 1000 year reconstruction that doesn’t use tree rings.
Firstly it pointed up in the MWP, then up and down in the 14th and 15th centuries, then sharply up, then down again in the LIA only to assume its upward rise again from around 1690 (albeit with reverses and advances)
So, it might be more useful to tilt the blade upwards than downwards at certain points. The blade is not steep in the last 300 years but was very steep at certain times, such as the period around 1600 and 1690.
Whether the trend is now downwards again on a long term basis I dont know.
How much is AGW influenced? Isn’t it supposed to be significant since the 1970’s? Co2 certainly didn’t have an influence in earlier eras, or do you know better? If so please cite the studies.
tonyb
The hockey schtick re-
minds me of Harry Potters
broom’s gym – na – schticks.
Shorter A Fan etc…..
Look a squirrel!
I SAID LOOK!! – A SQUIRREL
EVEN THE VATICAN LOVES SQUIRRELS!
***!!!****
Robert, you may consider differentiating your handle from another ‘Robert’ that has been known to frequent the climate blog-o-sphere from time to time. From what I gather from this comment and a few I saw of yours at CA, you and the other ‘Robert’ are likely not of the same opinion. Could make things a bit confusing if you know what I mean.
Memo to all academics:
When you are playing your games in your own little world, you are welcome to set the rules to whatever suits you. We won’t notice or care.
But when you stray into the real world, (press conferences, TV, IPCC reports etc), you play by our rules, not yours.
In the real world it is not a defence to loudly and vociferously advertise one thing and then hide behind the small print which disclaims it. In UK you get heavily fined – or worse – for what is rightly considered to be ‘misleading’ advertising.
You cannot pick and choose the good bits of our rules, then retreat to your rules when the bad bits come along too. TANSTAAFL!
And if you want to trade on your reputation as ‘unbiased fearless seekers after truth’ you need to clean up your act bigtime quicktime. Fiascos like Marcott – and the pathetic defences of it exhibited here – are doing you guys no good at all.
Latimer Alder, thank you for a short post that instructively combines the tactics that Trish Roberts-Miller’s handy compendium Characteristics of Demagoguery classifies as “Polarization”, “Ingroup/outgroup Thinking”, “Scapegoating”, “Motivism”, and “Bad Science.”
Common sense informs us — doesn’t it Latimer Alder? — that non-academics commonly publish scientific/scholarly articles, and even well-regarded textbooks. Business leaders are scientists and scholars: Si Ramo’s IEEE article “The development of systems engineering” (1984) and textbook Fields and Waves in Communication Electronics (many editions) are celebrated examples (Note: Ramo is the “R” in “TRW”). Military leaders are scientists and scholars: General H.R. McMaster’s PhD thesis Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam is a sterling example of historical scholarship, and in the scientific sphere, US Navy researchers publish copiously on climate-change (the US Navy Chief Oceanographer David Titley’s lecture I Was Formerly a Climate Skeptic is a particularly accessible presentation).
So nowadays, science isn’t just for academic scholars, is it Latimer Alder?
Heck … once we think about it … we appreciate that nowadays, academics are at the periphery of the climate-change debate, whereas the folks who are leading the climate-change debate — folks like James Francis, Wendell Berry, and even Pope Francis! — are not themselves academics!
Instead the leaders of the modern climate-change debate are business leaders, military leaders, religious leaders … and even poets!
Common-Sense Conclusion Science in general, and climate-change science in particular, is no longer exclusively — or even primarily — an academic pursuit. Which is good. Because modern science is too important to belong exclusively to academia.
Isn’t that a plain common-sense reality nowadays, Latimer Alder?
I have absolutely no idea what imaginary connection you think there is between my post and your ‘reply’.
My remarks were clearly addressed (by name) to ‘academics’
Your wittering on about other people is irrelevant..
A-fan
It’s funny how many defenders of the climate orthodoxy are telling us how ‘scienceä should work and be conducted. In a thread and about a case where this so bleedingly obvious has not been the case ..
The message seems to be (something like):
This is how good it is supposed to be! Why can’t you just accept (in faith) that it also and always works just as excellently and with the highest standards as we all say it should in the lofty rosy descriptions .. ??
And they still (even in this thread) are (or pretend) to not understand why! (There is a word for such an affliction, and it starts with ‘d’ …)
“Science in general, and climate-change science in particular, is no longer exclusively — or even primarily — an academic pursuit.”
And you support that kind of “science”? I hope you’re not forced one day to fly on a plane created by this kind of science.
LOL … PatrioticDuo, please be aware that NASA has learned (the hard way) never to let scientists build-and-launch satellites, and (conversely) never to let engineers conceive-and-design space missions!
In successful aerospace enterprises, the great trick is for engineers and scientists to work together, eh?
Similarly in climate-change, the era of academic science is passing … citizen-science, enterprise-science, community-science, and security-science now all are claiming their rightful role as stake-holding paticipants. And this is good.
That’s plain common-sense, eh PatrioticDuo?
Platonists should stay on the hill, suited ter rare – ified
thinking. Leave the serfs ter deal with day ter day
problem solving and pragmatic tinkering …
Stig:Say,Conan, how do we get this mammoth back
ter the cave?
Judith
I know that youth and stupidity are sometimes mitigating circumstances and we all might have made the same mistakes given the same temptations, but these young researchers were quite happy to do something that may have fueled a movement that is leading to significant changes to our way of life and will probably hurt the poorest in our societies. So we need to balance our sense of understanding with the facts – the rather dangerous tactic being employed here. I hope this doesn’t destroy their lives – it has the potential to.
Personally I think if they come clean then they should be let off the hook but if they dig their heals in the world will not treat them kindly.
I think the peer review process on its own is too weak a system. Their needs some type of auditing of top journals. Random checks with repeat experimentation. It will be costly but then having poor science informing policy is also costly.
Taking egg pudding to camp, yum.
Judith,
“Here is a suspicion: Marcott was subsequently contacted……..”
Look, we all have our suspicions about all kinds of things but its not good to air them without at least some evidence.
Have you asked Marcott about this?
Does Marcott answer relevant questions? The FAQ is proof that he isn’t! Hiding is of course the best strategy. And diverting. To Gavin, Mike and Eric at RealClimate for instance.
An aweful lot in all of this story seems to be about ‘deniability’. And most of the trolls (apologists?) who turn up here attempt taking that road.
The problem for them only is that the paper is already published and it and the authors made these ‘adjustments’ and presented the ‘results’ just as they did, and bolstered them even further in the media and press releases.
There is not really anything to deny there. Saying ‘we don’t really know exaktly how and who they were that devious’ just won’t cut it anymore ..
You are entitled to your own suspicion that Marcott sent a random email to Gavin hoping to get his response published at RealClimate
Why would sending an email to RC to publish the response be “random?”
Don’t you get folks like Rud sending you emails to ask you to do guest posts? Would you similarly call that “random?”
The point is, you have not a clue as to who initiated the idea – not that it really matters anyway, who really cares? But why, as a scientist, do you think it worthy to publicly speculate about events you know nothing about? I guess you think Jello-O flinging is fun, eh?
Joshua …
What you keep missing almost all of the time is what actually happened:
It did end up at RC. And this was the decision of the RC-team.
In the same way that the uptick did end up in the manuscript
Through a number of ‘tricks’ that are missing in Marcotts thesis
And the message that was delivered in and with the paper was delivered. Enthusiastically I might add.
Also, the FAQ failed to address the more contentious and real questions (raised by tru sceptics).
And Marcott and his co-authors are being very quiet for some time now. Actually, since they advised Revkin that there would be a FAQ-document forthcoming (NB ‘to be ‘published somwhere’: “Once we complete this, we will let you know where it can be accessed”)
Yes, we don’t know exactly what went on behind the curtins, and people are speculating. However, the fact that we don’t know the behind-the-scenes-back-and-forth doesn’t change what we know. And this lack of information doesn’t help their case. as you (correctly) point out: They alwas have the possibility to come clear and just answer honestly.
However, they chose the FAQ@RC-road instead. And we can only speculate about why they thought this was their best option.
Jonas –
Sure. And Rud’s posts end up here (and WUWT), and that is Judith’s decision. There is no doubt that there are tribes engaged in battle.
I see mistakes on both sides of the aisle when it comes to improving the signal to noise ratio. This whole incident is a perfect case study in that regard
It is my belief that there are relatively few who effectively contribute to reducing the noise (I am not speaking to motive here – I can’t interpret someone else’s motive). There is information in the paper that, IMO (as someone of limited technical and intellectual insight) can be a positive contribution to our understanding of climate. Unfortunately, that value gets largely obscured. I think the responsibility for that is pretty evenly shared.
Judith is in something of a unique position to make positive contributions. I’m critical when she takes, what I believe, to be missteps.
“Unfortunately, that value gets largely obscured. I think the responsibility for that is pretty evenly shared.”
Joshua,
Look, you have my apologies. I’m taking back my nasty putz crack. It always feels good for a second, then there’s a hangover.
Truthfully, I don’t understand how you come to the conclusions you do. I don’t understand the way your mind works. Sometimes your assertions seem so irrational that lacking any better explanation, I go to character, almost reflexively, as an explanation. It’s not fair, and I’ll try to quit it.
So in that spirit I ask how you can come to the above conclusion. I’ll grant you that I suppose you could claim “piling on” on the part of skeptics. As Judith calls it, “egging the pudding.” But it’s Marcott and company who opened the door. They made (in the most generous possible reading) negligent claims that were widely trumpeted in the MSM. It was all b.s.of course, but damage had been done. There’ll be no retractions by the NYT;s. Their readership has been left with a false impression, likely indelibly so. I don’t get how you apportion an even share of the blame to skeptics…
PG –
I won’t disagree that they opened the door. As near as I can tell, while speaking of the “suggested: implications of their findings to future warming is appropriate, it should not have been done de-coupled from discussion of the caveats. That counts as “opening the door” in my book.
This I view somewhat differently. To borrow a bit of wording from Jim D, it is unrealistic to expect that in a media context, they would discuss their data showing a decrease of 0.7 C in 11000 years, without considering the context of a similar (thermometer data) rise in 100 years. Would they have been interviewed by the media if they hadn’t created the graph with the uptick? Probably not – but the graph with the uptick is legitimately an important implication to their findings.
And this is where, IMO, “skeptics” really start to slide off the rails. All this hand-wringing about the “indelible” “false impressions.” It’s projection and victim mentality. Public opinion is driven by multiple factors. Nothing is particularly “indelible” in the public mentality – perspectives can change with tomorrow’s weather. Literally. Is the Marcott graph any more “indelible” in it’s creation of “false impressions” than when “skeptics” jumped on comments by Mojib (if my name wasn’t Mojib Latif it would be global warming) to blatantly distort them as indicated “global cooling?” I think not. And the graph in itself is not a “false impression.” Yes, the uptick in recent times is not a “robust” impression based on the proxy data – but the impression of that uptick is real…. the magnitude of the recent increase in comparison to the magnitude of decrease over a longer period of time previous is an important question. Is the question of whether their proxy data might high similar changes in short periods of time behind low resolution important? Of course – so lets focus on the meat of the discussion, and not hand-wring and pearl-clutch and moan from fainting couches about “mafia.” Let’s not pat McKitrick on the back for misleading response. I’m not going to hand-wring and pearl-clutch and moan from my fainting couch (I just got a new one, btw) about McKtrick – but I will point out that until folks like Judith and other “skeptics” (and “realists) are less selective in their “outrage,” nothing will change.
Same ol same ol will ensue.
I’m not “blaming” “skeptics” for what Marcott et al. did or didn’t do. I”m saying that some “skeptics” contribute to the problem more than the solution.
Again, if I look for signal as opposed to noise here, I look to Rohde and Revkin and Revkin’s interaction with Shakun in discussing the criticism of the study. That was signal. Splitting hairs about who is contributing more or less noise is, recursively, just noise.
PG –
As for the personal stuff – water off a duck’s back.
No one here knows me. Nothing they say about me personally can have any impact. Any such comments say more about my detractors (that they form conclusions without sufficient evidence) than they do about me. I’m clear about that. I take it all in good fun. If I make a personal comment about someone else, then I later take it into consideration that I too, allow biases to affect my reasoning, and that we are all affected by motivated reasoning.
I will say, however, that I think that “putz,” being a Yiddish term, should be reserved for use by tribe members about tribe members. Unless you are a tribe member, next time please call me a dick like Willis did.
Judith’s obsession with RC pretty much precludes anything in the way of rational commentary in relation to them.
I probably mention RC here about twice per year.
Joshua
Well, that’s not really the impression you are conveying here. Rather, it looks like you try every conceivable misdirection to divert from the many actual, and serious missteps made by quite a few (more than we know the names of) involved in this Marcott-mess.
And yes, I think you are almost only ‘noise’ (as are all the other apologists), so noise-reduction, both here, and in the bigger picture would be coming clean publicly and (probably) retracting that paper. Further noise-reduction would be other in (mainly) the paleo community coming clean and start behaving like scientists rather than proagandists.
It baffles me that only skeptics argu this kind of reduced ‘noise’. On the warmist side it looks rather as if ‘noise’ is the preferred method. In this case it most certainly was …
Jonas –
Let me assure you, I have no illusion, whatsoever, that I can “divert” any “skeptic” from advancing their partisan agenda. None. What. So. Ever.
Despite the oft’ made assertion, not only do I have no interest in “diverting” you or anyone else, it is abundantly clear that nothing that I could write in blog comments could “divert” you or any other “skeptic” from focusing on whatever the frick you want to focus on anyway.
That argument of yours, sorry to say, is flat out absurd, and only proof of my point. Your “impression” is entirely, and completely obviously, false. Your “impression” is the result of motivated reasoning. It is the product of “skepticism.” It is the antithesis of skepticism. The fact that “skeptics” make that argument over and over and over is a stain on the noble cause of skepticism (that said, no doubt the similar claim that disagreement = “diversion” can be found on the other side of the fence).
I am here to discuss my opinions. Not to “divert” you. Get over yourself.
Yes, tribe member in good standing, though on second thought perhaps not as I’ve not set foot inside a temple in many years, aside from a few bar mitzvahs and weddings here and there. And a funeral or two.
Not surprisingly I disagree with just about everything you’ve said above. But what’s the point in arguing about this stuff? As Revkin once said to me when I got all upset about something he’d written, “Time will pass and reality make itself known.” Or words to that effect.
And no, I didn’t call him a putz, although according to your ground rules I could have.
Temple?
Yes Joshua
You bring your ‘opinions’ here, essentially only about irrelevancies, and semantic nit-picking of such. Most of all you are trying to downplay every single aspect of all that smells bädly with this Marcott-saga …
Maybe you really want it to smell a little bit better than it does (but not even you can deny the smell). That’s probably why you are tone-trolling here, about those who comment or speculate about what causes it … and how this came about.
That is the real interesting issue:
How did this happen? (It more and more looks like one more disaster for the ‘science’ of climate) . How did this come about, especially since the wounds of a by now 15 year old hockestick still are bleeding and that this should be bleeding obvious even to those who were mere kids back then.
There are more ‘players’ involved here than on (or two) you postdocs ..
As the parade of ‘climate science’ heavy-hitters on Easter sunday eve demonstrated.
@Jonas N
Care here, please.
There is no subject the putz likes to talk about more than ‘himself’. His interventions here are all designed to allow that possibility. It is an ego-trip.
Please do not assist him in achieving his aims.
Be afraid, Jonas – be very, very afraid.
Latimer A
I think the Joshs on this thread are doing a good job for the real skeptical side, in illustrating what it is about.
He wants to deriede “skepticism” as he calls (writes) it, but ends upp defending the indefensible and accusing thosw who point out the obvious ..
And you find the same MO everywhere among the commenters. And hardly ever anybody who really defends the warmist stance based it its merits.
Gavin (and RC) want to give that impression, but are doing so with the a delete button close by, while saying that they are not really speaking for the authors.
If Josh and David Appel are spaking for themselves, that would actually be a step up. However, they too are mostly arguing backwards, that others should accept whatever is fed to us, because we don’t really know.
You know, the story we were being fed before ClimateGate ..
Joshua (the nice putz), thanks Joshua. I am happy that you see the description as apt. You are indeed a nice Putz. Try this for a month or so and we will see where we go from there.
Judith,
OK, not ‘obsession’ – chip on the shoulder.
‘In terms of the hyping of this story, I am prepared to give Marcott and Shakun somewhat of a pass given that they are recent Ph.D. recipients.’
I can’t see why there not children and they been in academia long enough to know what is and what is not good academic practice. The fact that at times it looks like within climate ‘science’ what is normally an unacceptable standard for undergraduate is consider OK for PHD students or professional is not any excuse , it merely shows how low the ‘standards’ are .
And let’s be honest they show themselves more than willing to go to ‘the RealClimate refugee and training camp’ and they be more than happy to take anything good , such has being included in AR5, that comes their way has the result of this ‘research’.
Sometimes you simply have to point out that BS is BS and accept that the intentions behind producing it are far from honourable.
Like others, I just don’t buy the ‘young and naive’ argument regarding these guys.
When my father was their age, he had served in a war and been in the military for eight years, retrained for civilian life and was supporting a wife and two children.
It may be that the road to a PhD involves some sort of arrested development (indeed, many academics I have met stayed at school all their lives for precisely that reason) – but it doesn’t excuse science which is so bad that even an amateur like me can see how wrong it is at surface level. That experts like Steve McIntyre and Jean S then dug deeper and found that it is even worse at a technical level just compounds the felony.
And, it is perhaps a tribute to the cotton wool, or bubble, existence that these pampered, overgrown children live in that they thought that no-one would be smart enough to notice what was happening.
Over at Pielke Jnr’s, David Appell has being doing a modern interpretation of the Black Knight trying to defend this debacle. Finally forced to admit that the media release was misleading, he then claimed that it wasn’t the scientists’ fault. Well, I think that as responsible adults they need to take responsibility for checking what is released to the world in their name before it goes out, but let’s say he is right.
Why then, did they not simply say: “The media release was wrong. Sorry.”
Incidentally, have they released their data and code yet?
Thought not.
It’s indefensible.
+100
Especially about arrested development. But it’s not a consequence of some unfortunate disease or unforseen occurrence. It is voluntary.
Nobody is ever forced at gunpoint to become a climatologist…or an academic at all. There are plenty of other professions for bright kids with a vague interest in science. But few give such a sheltered and protected lifestyle…insulated from any need to do very much apart from produce a ‘peer-reviewed’ paper every once in a while and avoid rocking the boat for
all your fellow academics.
I don’t really care how pampered or arrested or street wise hardened, eloquent and erudite or not marcott et al all might be. Their work and their actions regarding it is all I really care about. Some of the most obnoxious sounding, looking and behaving creatures produce wonderful work. Meanwhile, I remember someone once telling me that “Satan often reappears as the latest new PhD”. From that pragmatic viewpoint, Shakun and Marcott et al produced a paper that is demonstrably wrong. Shakun at least, went on the NYT record with a hand waving/wringing exercise that at best exaggerated the findings of the paper or at worst completely misrepresented it. When the paper is examined we find deep flaws and that the original thesis bears little resemblance to the publicly published article. The authors then produce a ham fisted FAQ. Instead of publishing the FAQ through NYT or some other outlet where the sun would shine just as brightly upon it as Shakun’s original interview and NYT article, they choose to present the FAQ to the public through the graticule of RC). The FAQ fails to address the fundamental questions and now the authors appear to have disappeared themselves from the public light now that their work has been shown to be questionable at best or outright fraud at worst. As a backdrop to all of that, Michael Mann preempts the skeptics attacks by publicly stating that the Marcott paper will be attacked by the skeptics. So, for all of you who would defend this entire ugly episode is there anything in all of this that any of you find even slightly repulsive?
+1. To argue that anyone over the age of 18, at which time they may take advavtage of many significant privileges, e.g. to vote, should not act with integrity is ludicrous. Don’t care where they have been or how sheltered. Integrity is a requirement that comes with the privileges.
Those in academia are expecting far to little from their students if they are not expecting integrity.
Johanna, I never said the press release was wrong. Please correct your misstatement.
Joanna, the paper’s data was released as the same time as its publication.
If you don’t this much, your opinion is worthless.
Not the code, without which the data is not worthless, just much less tractable.
=======
I have a question about the Younger Dryas.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/19/the-intriguing-problem-of-the-younger-dryaswhat-does-it-mean-and-what-caused-it/
About 11500 years BP, at the end of the Younger Dryas, there was a very rapid and very big warming episode – about 10 deg C in about 50 years.
Would it not have been at least interesting if Marcott et all had included this period in their reconstruction?
Why have they stopped short, and cut it off at 11300 ybp ?
If somebody was looking for precedents of warming episodes (or lack of them), surely he would look inot the Younger Dryas?
Any thoughts ?
The Younger Dryas may not have been globally synchronous, there is some evidence that it started at least a thousand years sooner in the S hemisphere, then cooled and warmed in the N hemisphere after the S hemisphere had finished.
But there is also some evidence that CO2 levels changed rapidly during the YD event, by considerably more than the 8ppm per degC that they might be expected to do from Henrys law on ocean solubility.
I don’t think they had the resolution. I guess the data you’re talking about comes from ice cores?
Click on the link to see the data, it’s from multiple sources.
The question is: why did Marcott et all use data from up to 11300 years, and didn’t use the available data that was used by other researchers to find the Younger Dryas episode?
How was the 11300 ybp cutoff date determined ?
Jacob I was under the understanding that the data they used could only resolve events on the order of about 150 years.It’s in their paper. Perhaps I am wrong on this.
The question was – why did they start 11,300 years ago, and not, say, from the start of the holocene, some 15,000 years ago, so as to cover also the younger drias?
I don’t know if the younger drias would have shown up or not. But, since it is known to have existed, why didn’t they try to cover it in their reconstruction?
From their FAQ:
Q: Why only look at temperatures over the last 11,300 years?
A: Our work was the second half of a two-part study assessing global temperature variations since the peak of the last Ice Age about 22,000 years ago. The first part reconstructed global temperature over the last deglaciation (22,000 to 11,300 years ago) (Shakun et al., 2012, Nature 484, 49-55; see also http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~shakun/FAQs.html), while our study focused on the current interglacial warm period (last 11,300 years), which is roughly the time span of developed human civilizations.
Thanks, Pekka.
In the reconstruction in the 2012 paper the Younger Dryas appears as a ~0.5 deg variation, while Greg Easterbrook says it was a ~10 deg heating episode. Also, from the Shakun resolution you can get no idea about the rate of heating.
Marcott et Shakun claim in the new 2013 paper that the heating rate of the 20 century is unprecedented in 11300 years.
Yet it seems there was a faster and bigger heating event about 11500 years ago.
See the earlier paper in Shakun et al, Nature
And Lo it was so – Marcott became the Son of Mann.
+1. The AGW promotion industry now does not bother hiding their reliance on junk science to spread hype and gain funding.
Now the lords of climate hype just act like the Emperor when the boy points out that he is actually a fat, naked man: Ignore the comment and march on.
Hmm but naked like the emperor as they be,
what with the current freeze in the north and
possible cooling in the south, they’re likely
soon ter be blue with the cold and should
beware of frost bite too.
AGW => The most successful pseudo scientific …. in the history of science.
Look at what the sun does => http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:732/to:1965/normalise/compress:12/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1044/normalise/compress:12
Look at the perfect correlation between Secular GMST and CO2 concentration =>
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:732/from:1901/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/normalise/offset:0.615/detrend:-0.125
It is a scam!
The above correlation gave me a climate sensitivity of only 1.23 deg C.
I got dT = 1.773 *ln(C/Co).
As IPCC’s dF = 5.35*ln(C/Co)
Lambda = dT/dF=1.773/5.35 = 0.33 deg C/(W/m^2)
For doubling CO2, dT = 1.773*ln(2) = 1.773 * 0.693 = 1.23 deg C.
Girma: There are more forcings than CO2.
It’s peculiar, isn’t it?
• Marcott et al publish a (self-admittedly) weak climate-change hockey-stick (“Reconstructed changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years”, Science 2013).
• Kinnard et al publish a strong climate-change hockey-stick (“Reconstructed changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years”, Nature 2011).
• The denial-sphere froths with hilariously selective demagoguery regarding the weaker of the two hockey-sticks (e.g., 17-and-counting “Marcott outrage” posts by WUWT) while stalwartly ignoring multiple scientifically strong hockey-sticks.
Why is that, the world wonders?
Seriously … the cherry-picking nonscientific selectivity of synthetic denialist “outrage” is getting to be kinda goofy, isn’t it?
I don’t like sloppy “science”. I have no issue with a good science.
Fan said
“Marcott et al publish a (self-admittedly) weak climate-change hockey-stick (“Reconstructed changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years”, Science 2013).”
Did they publish this one at the same time as their other reconstruction? Is it better?
tonyb
I find it fascinating how you and lolwot use the same technique for avoiding talking about errors. You can’t address problems in the paper in question, so you point out other papers that have vaguely similar results that aren’t being addressed and say, “Hey, if you really cared about the truth, you’d attack these other papers, too!” On the flip side of the coin, lolwot points out papers that have vaguely opposite results — though not peer-reviewed, etc — and says, “Hey, if you really cared about the truth, you’d be attacking these friendly papers as well!”
The world doesn’t wonder why people have serious problems with Marcott, et al. It’s pure PR: show one thing, add in the “it’s worse than we thought” graph, plug that graph in every media outlet and every interview, then sidestep and say, “Well, that wasn’t our primary conclusion. In fact, it’s not robust.”
As you know, Kinnard is not a temperature hockey stick, nor a global hockey stick. And it contradicts historical accounts. You’re not much different from Watts who publishes any tiny little finding that seems to oppose AGW. And you’re gullible if you think that Kinnard is “strong”. But mostly you’re disingenuous if you think that failure to address one paper’s problems somehow negate addressing another paper’s problems. That’s just a way to avoid problems.
Wayne
It would be interesting to hear why Fan believes the Kinnard study is ‘strong.’
tonyb
tony b
“Strong?”
One definition given is:
“having an offensive or intense odor or flavor : rank (that is a strong cheese)”
Maybe that’s what Fanny meant?
Max
fan,
RE: Seriously … the cherry-picking nonscientific selectivity of synthetic denialist “outrage” is getting to be kinda goofy, isn’t it?
Not so goofy as posting non-relevant links and attaching artifacts most often used by 14 year old girls.
Please mind your machismo, cowboy.
Stop clutching your pearls, Wee Willie.
David
I am off to Iceland soon to carry out some research. Can you repost that image of the ice bridge that was off Iceland one day but had disappeared within a few days. It was presumably a satellite glitch but I hope to look into sea ice extent whilst there. I think you posted it around Christmas
Tonyb
I find FOMD to be sincere and charming. I might not agree with everything he writes, but he strikes me as genuine and unself conscious.
or maybe he’s a she.. In any case nobody gets mad at kims whimsy, why pick on FOMD? He makes me smile and inspires me to be less of a grumpy sourpuss.
Steven Mosher | April 3, 2013 at 5:32 pm |
//I find FOMD to be sincere and charming. I might not agree with everything he writes, but he strikes me as genuine and unself conscious//
That’s because:
1. you’re from SF
2. you seem to be attracted to young, gyrating, Korean dancemasters
3. you’re a Lukewarmer ( you ask what this has to do with it – not difficult to figure it out.
4. you fantasize that FOMD is really Willis in drag..
Bob I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Willis in drag. I enjoy camp as much as the next guy, but you just went a bridge too far.
Steven Mosher
The Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito?
Max
willard,
When he can’t provide a single instance of my ever “cherry-picking” or denying anything, yet throws such accusations out on a repeated basis, without ever directly responding, we have the basis for “goofy” behavior. The emoticons just aid in the assessment.
btw – didn’t get the reference to cocktail cherries.
Timg,
Fan’s unresponsiveness does not make you do it.
There exist honorable ways to express yourself.
willard,
exactly what is dishonorable about pointing out fan’s frequent use of something most often seen used by early teenaged girls?
He calls people goofy, while being one of the biggest “goofs” here.
I can readily believe he is one of the more intelligent people posting here, which says a lot when one considers the high degree of intelligence regularly displayed. And for me that makes his constant posting of repetative links and statements, most of which are either not relevant or unflattering labeling, the equivilent of dumping garbage into the community swimming pool.
Thank you for asking this rich and engaging question, ClimateReason!
Verifiable features The 2011 Kinnard “blade” is stronger than the 2013 Marcott “blade” in that the 20th century “blade” of the Kinnard study (a) reflects far more proxies (69 for Kinnard et al.) and (b) has far finer temporal resolution (5 years for Kinnard et al.), and (c) reflects are far sharper, far more priminent “blade” (blade-to-noise ratio of order 3-5 for Kinnard et al.).
A Judith Curry-type “suspicion” Marcott et al. naively perceived that their 2013 “weak hockey-stick blade” innocuously affirmed the 2011 “strong hockey-stick blade” of Kinnard et al., and therefore Marcott et al. (correctly and reasonably) regarded their study’s significance originated in its being “the first attempt to quantify global temperature for the entire Holocene.”
An Anthony Watts/WUWT reaction
• Thirty-six WUWT stories condemn ‘Marcott’..
• Precisely *ZERO* WUWT stories even mention ‘Kinnard’.
WUWT, the world wonders?
Conclusion The main mistake of Marcott et al. was to drastically underestimate the degree to which the denialist community ruthlessly and relentlessly pursues the objectives of denialism via the methods of demagoguery.
So it’s not complicated, eh ClimateReason?
The Main Mystery Why do denialists obsess about the “weak blade” of Marcott et al. (2013) while ignoring the “strong blade” of Kinnard et al. (2011)?
Fan; demagoguery ?? I call bullsh*&^t on the demagoguery.
Try truth like this . . .
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/03/lewandowsky-paper-provisionally-removed-due-to-complaints/ or this apology to Steve McIntyre for Cook and Tom Curtis truthiness . . . http://climateaudit.org/2013/04/03/tom-curtis-writes/
Sun Spot, your reasoning does not explain the (astounding!) 36-to-zero Marcott-to-Kinnard ratio on WUWT.
The continued silence of WUWT already has allowed the Kinnard et al. Nature article to rack up 26 further citations … so that the strong Kinnard hockey-stick is becoming every-more-ineradicably embedded in the climate-change literature.
WUWT indeed?
Unless (of course) the hockey-stick is just plain real (as most climate-change scientists believe).
Gosh, maybe the climate-change scientists are just plain right? Is that the common-sense reason why WUWT — and other skeptical forums — are nowadays being so very careful to cherry-pick only the weakest hockey-stick articles?
Is the hockey-stick just plain real, Sun Spot?
Fan
Kinnard et al was not the strong study you suggest.
He states there is no Russian sea ice data beyond August but if he had looked at the work of Belov and Ahlman amongst others he would know there was. It was DMI the Danish service that did not have data beyond August and much of that before August did not come from reliable observations. The sea ice in August often bore little relation to what happened to it in September as the Russians found when opening up the northern sea route. Curtailing ice edge observations in August did not give a true picture of lowest sea ice extent
Kinnard uses tree rings as a proxy and claims increased sea ice during a Viking period especially well documented, there being numerous trading voyages and visits by their newly appointed bishop.
Much better if he had waited for my ‘Historic variations in arctics ice part 3’ which goes into the period he is covering but is more thorough, as such places as the Scott polar institute has a valuable archive and library
Where the real world data missing from his study, such as extensive russian material, can be seen. I know because I have seen it.
His summary of ice in the period 1920 to 1940 is plain wrong.
If you think this study is strong and marcott is less so it doesn’t say a lot for the latter does it.
Tonyb
Skeptics rebutted: SCHNIDEJOCH!!!
(archaeological affirmation that the 20th century Mann/Kinnard/Marcott “hockey-stick blade” is unique in Holocene).
Fanny
The Schnidejoch finds indicate earlier periods of lesser glacial extent than today. They rely on the observation that discovered Roman Age leather did not rot to conclude that glacial extent has not been less than today since then.
However, there have been other studies in both the Swiss and Austrian alps (e.g. Schlüchter, Patzelt), which have found carbon-dated remains of trees under receding glaciers, supporting the conclusion that the glacial extent during the Roman Warm Period and the MWP (as well as during earlier warm periods) was less than today.
In fact, Schlüchter concluded that the glacial extent reached its highest level in 10,000 years around 1850 and that glacial extent was lower than today over most of the past 10,000 years.
Max
Fan – do you really believe that “denialists” should fight a good science as well as a bad one? Then you are indistinguishable from Prof. Lewandowski. You of course are free to fight any good science.
“Please don’t overegg the pudding and inadvertently send them to the RealClimate refugee and training camp. Cordially invite them to engage, and work with them to try to change the culture in the paleoclimate community.” – JC
Seems a good time for an update in this regard.
(Note: Judith had arguably set the tone by promoting the fasle allegations by McKitrick – credit where credit is due)
Here are some not at all untypical contributions by our lovely denizens, regarding the two scientists Judith purports to be so concerned over (and this just from roughly the first quaterof the comments);
scientific objectivity & ethics take a back seat behind ideology and tribalism
They are men who grew up in a cult.
can be accused of fraud.
their level of misconduct
cover up
it cannot be anything but a fabrication.
strong suspicion of political influence.
ability in this field appears questionable
Academic misconduct…. is what we are dealing with here…..their cooking the data
Only total destruction of his career will suffice. We cannot have these Machaveilli types inhabiting science pursuits of any kind.
So, it’s still okay if us taxpayers want to get the politics out of science?
I think the Wegman affair was at least one positive stpe in that direction.
So was George Bush when he refused to sign Kyoto.
Only total destruction of his career will suffice.
No, just retract the lousy paper. There. That wasn’t so hard.
Air and sea temperatures have failed to rise anything like as much as “global-warming” theory predicts. Explanations for the shortfall of observed outturn against theoretical projection are mutually inconsistent and scientifically dubious. I conclude that, on the balance of probabilities, the contrarians are significantly closer to the truth than the UN and its supporters. – M of B
IMO, there are several aspects here. One that seems to have been overlooked is this. Aside from the issues surround 20th century trends, how good are the reported trends over 10,000 years? IMO, not very good. The estimates of temperature variation seem to be far smaller than other estimates, and unlikely to be as small as reported on many basic grounds. Another is whether the claimed variation of the proxies in the 20th century (i.e. going way up) is valid, and we know that is not supported by robust data. The third is the basic premise of the hockey stickers: that they can tack on measured temperatures in the 20th century to proxy estimates of the past. IMO this does not seem to be innately improper. The problem occurs when the proxies in the 20th century go the other way. That casts doubt on the validity of the proxies for the past. The all important calibration of proxies breaks down. So, what we have here is a temperature estimate that has no statistical validity for the 20th century, and retains significant doubt for the past 10,000 years. Oddly enough, the only seemingly valid part of this study is the measured temperatures for the 20th century, but we already knew that, and even that is subject to some criticism.
Donald Rapp
Excellent summary.
Max
@- Donal Rapp
“The problem occurs when the proxies in the 20th century go the other way. That casts doubt on the validity of the proxies for the past.”
I await with interest to know what proxies in the 20th century go ‘the other way’.
AFAIK the ONLY proxy that fails to calibrate into the 20th century are some tree ring data from the N hemisphere, for reasons that have been researched.
Every other proxy measure of temperature that I can think of, borehole, coral, sediment, plant type, tree line position, ice core… continues to correlate with temperature during the instrumental record.
You are aware that Marcott et al did not use any tree ring proxies ….?
izen
izen
Are you aware that Marcott et al. proxy data showed a 20thC decline, while the spliced-in instrumental record showed an upward “blade” to the “hockey stick”?
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/19/playing-hockey-blowing-the-whistle/
Max
Marcott is tainted. He will never outlive my reflex to notice that anytime he says something my first impression will be “his lips are moving therefore he is lying”. He earned it. He will probably succeed regardless owing to the politicization of the PhD diploma in modern climate science.
Breaking News……..
It turns out that someone has refrained from just armchair quarterbacking and actually strapped on some skates and gone out on the ice.
He has examined the question of whether it is possible for a 200 year temperature excursion of 0.9degC, a century to rise and a century to fall, would show up in the Marcott et al reconstruction.
While it is theoretically possible to imagine a situation in which every proxy used just happened to relate to a time just before the spike, and the next just after it, the uncertainty of time of the proxies and the method which they used to reflect that in the reconstruction makes it HIGHLY improbable that the excursion would be lost. The peak would be reduced, but the duration widened by the ‘smoothing’ introduced by the Marcott methodologies.
To express it another way, if the recent century of warming is followed as some here suggest by a century of cooling back to 1913 temperatures and Marcott was using proxies a few thousand years in the future the method almost certainly WOULD indicate the spike, but probably with a lower maximum and extended over more than two centuries.
Cool.
Now all you need to do is show me how they pick up the 1642 ± 5 B.C. eruption that produces the acid spike from this eruption is present in three cores three Greenland core (DYE-3, GRIP and NGRIP) and in EPICA Dome C.
Now the spike indicates a very big explosion, huge.
Lot of dust.
Lot of Sulphates.
Lot of aerosol’s.
Should see cooling drop half a degree or more.
Where is the spike?
The fall in temperature during the onset of the LIA in the marcott paper is consistant with the temperature record from ice cores, tree rings, boreholes and other sources.
Did the 1642 eruption create a temperature spike lasting at least a century? … Or was it subsumed into the overall cooling seen in all the records at that time.
Do you know of ANY proxy record that shows the magnitude and duration of the climate change caused by the 1642 eruption?
Izen
The 1640’s were well known as a warm decade worldwide.
I capture the decade in my own reconstruction which does show a Short temporary dip around 1642
http://climatereason.com/Graphs/Graph01.png
Difficult to see any long lasting effect though
Tonyb
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7097/marcottvostokbaselinesh.jpg
izen
Get serious.
“would have, theoretically possible, almost certainly would, probably could have…”
The “take home” here is that the Marcott et al. study itself does NOT provide any reliable indication of a “hockey stick blade” going upward to levels higher than those seen in the past 11,000+ years (purportedly as a result of human GHG emissions), which was the underlying claim.
This was all added by an overzealous Science editor and some media ballyhoo.
It’s “BS” (bad science).
Max
*Flash news release*
Global sea ice extent exceeds 1979-2000 average
NSIDC data show us that the end-March sea ice extent was
Northern hemisphere: 15.04 million square km
Southern hemisphere: 5.32 msk
Total both hemispheres: 20.36 msk
This is 1.5% higher than the 1979-2000 baseline value of 20.06 msk.
Max
I am shocked. You have been posting long enough to know that Antarctic ice doesn’t count. Get a grip.
Tonyb
tony b
‘scuse me, Tony. Guess I got carried away.
Max
Tonyb, I forget, that “regional” impact only counts when again?
haha, here is vostok overlayed on marcott
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7097/marcottvostokbaselinesh.jpg
Joshua, the bacon loving Putz, What is significant appears to be in the eyes of the beholders. 0.7 C overshoot from a 0.7C depression Globally is likely not significant. The Northern Hemisphere has a lot more variability than the Southern. So a 0.7 C overshoot there would likely be significant while a 1.5 C overshoot in the NH would not be.
Since the NH experienced a MWP that was “not significant” because it was “regional” and it appears we are having another “not significant” regional warm period, you would need to ask the people that decided that the MWP was “not significant”.
Vostok is a nice record of the lower stratosphere in winter,due to its elevation.a problem that is often overlooked.
Just to check – I’m assuming there was a bit of antecedent ambiguity there?
Hmmm. Looks suspiciously like “What is significant appears to be in the eyes of the beholders,” Cap’n – if you’re unwilling to turn that around and tell my “skeptical” friends that like the Arctic warming (and the ice extent in the Antarctic), the MWP was not significant.
maks
maksimovich | April 3, 2013 at 5:34 pm |
Vostok is a nice record of the lower stratosphere in winter,due to its elevation.a problem that is often overlooked.
###############################3
should tell that to marcott its his data. basically using his vostok data but not smoothing out the spikes.
here is a clue. If in the modern time we look with a high resolution instrument ( thermometers) and we find a SPIKE, then it follows that
we should expect to find spikes in other high resolution instruments ( ice cores) and lo and behold we do.. And we know there will be no spikes in the low res data
hehe
Joshua, the bacon eating and inquisitive Putz, “Hmmm. Looks suspiciously like “What is significant appears to be in the eyes of the beholders,” Cap’n – if you’re unwilling to turn that around and tell my “skeptical” friends that like the Arctic warming (and the ice extent in the Antarctic), the MWP was not significant.”
I think the current Arctic warming is just as significant as it was the last time around. Since we appear to be in a double dip Holocene, if find it interesting but not threatening. There are longer term pseudo-oscillations that have been ignored by many, that are now biting them in the butts. The predictions for a doubling will keep getting lower since this pause is going to last another decade or two and likely become a cooling event of some degree before its over. These Arctic melts with wicked winter snow events are the same kinda of things that started the last little ice age. If you think longer term warm and cool periods are “unprecedented”, then they are “unprecedented every few centuries with a little bigger one every 1470 +/- 500 years. With CO2 and snow plows though, we won’t be going into a major Ice age again, but it does look like there will be some cooling in the near future.
There should be some kick butt cod fishing here pretty soon too.
Hmmm.
Let’s see if anything might be missing from manacker’s comment.
Let me have a looksee….
Oh, well now, this might be it – it’s from March 25th – I guess it must be out of date, eh?
I love “skeptics.” Just love ’em.
Joshua the friendly Putz, he is referring to total extent. If the “Globe” were significantly warming, the “global” extent should be decreasing. The Antarctic typically melts nearly all the ice it builds, It is not doing that as well since the southern hemisphere oceans are not warming enough to be significant. Since the data for the Southern hemisphere is more sparse, we don’t know if that is normal or not.; But doesn’t it seem odd that “global” warming is remarkably limited to the Northern hemisphere during the warm phase of the AMO following about 200 to 400 years of a little ice age?
How do you define “significant?” Lately, there’s been a mass invasion of folks who doubt that the earth is warming (and that it is to some degree influenced by ACO2), and I’m running out of space under those buses.
What is the difference between detectable and significant, Cap’n?
captdallas 0.8 or less | April 3, 2013 at 4:43 pm |
“But doesn’t it seem odd that “global” warming is remarkably limited to the Northern hemisphere”
Not at all once you realize that greenhouse gas warming is inversely proportional to how much liquid water is available for evaporation on the surface. Northern hemisphere has a lot less wetted surface than the southern. Make perfect sense. It also explains why warming is greater over land at higher latitudes than lower. Higher latitudes have seasonally frozen surfaces and a frozen surface doesn’t have liquid water available for evaporation.
In politics follow the money. In global warming follow the water.
Joshua, that’s just anecdotal evidence of a single location. Like Fan argued yesterday about the English long temperature data, the Arctic constitutes <1.5% of the Earths surface and so changes here tell you nothing about GLOBAL changes.
We dismiss non-Global data.
Doc –
I’m hoping you can give me a roadmap.
I’m alternately told by “skeptics” (1) it’s regional impact that’s important, (2) it’s global data that’s more important, (3) there is no such thing as “global temperatures,” (4) “skeptics” are not monolithic, (5) “skeptics” don’t doubt that global temperatures are warming (and that it is to some extent influenced by AC02), or alternately “we dismiss non-Global data), (6) all methodologyies used to determine global temps are unreliable, (7) global warming has stopped, (8) we’re experiencing global cooling, (9) what matters is long term trends, (10) short-term trends are significant, (11) what’s happening in Arctic isn’t important (because it’s regional), (12) what’s happening in the Antarctic is important (despite it being regional).
I could probably think of a few others, but let’s just start with those.
David, “In politics follow the money. In global warming follow the water.” Yep, CO2 on its lonesome is limited to about 0.8 C of “global” and water vapor feed back where it hits the CO2 sweet spot is a factor. Neither though generate energy, they only respond to energy. Since the Atlantic is doing most of the recovery from the LIA, it is providing more energy which is amplified by CO2 and the expansion of the water vapor envelope. CO2 makes a great tracer gas to figure out what is forcing what.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QTk99F9PJ0E/UVtpVBvH0TI/AAAAAAAAHsA/agt6QyTA0fM/s912/amo%2520with%2520giss%2520and%2520hadsst3.png
That is the Kapland non-detrended AMO. Since roughly 1900, the AMO has been doing is ~60 year thing while riding a longer term trend. I have no doubt that black carbon and other NH manly activities had an impact, but the atmosphere should lead the oceans if it were mainly atmospheric forcing.
captdallas 0.8 or less | April 3, 2013 at 4:43 pm |
AMDO is interesting in what drives it if anything. It might be just ringing like a bell from something that happened 4 million years ago. With just 2.5 cycles to look at it’s hard to say anything for sure. At this point I don’t think we know if the frequency and amplitude of it are changing and if so in what direction. I just thought back in 2005 that it was more likely to keep going than not and in so doing cut decadal warming prediction of 0.20C in half by the time it completed the downside of the cycle. It’s right on track with trend since 1979 down to 0.12C/decade. Another three years of falling annual GAT like 2010-2012 will do the trick. Or pause continuing for another six years will work too.
David, better data would be nice, but the sun and gravity are pretty much in the driver’s seat.. The annual solar variations produces the sinewaves and current lags create the pseudo-cyclic oscillations. Strong and weak solar cycles just screw with timing. There is not a lot of energy change. Temperature goes up about a degree then drops about a degree. If snow and ice gets a foothold, it goes down more in that region than another. Land tends to amplify “surface” temperature, but doesn’t have the heat capacity to retain it without water and water vapor.
If you estimate CO2 forcing on an upswing, you will be high and on a down swing you will be low. It’s easier just to stick with the known, 0.8 to 1.6 C per doubling, WM-GHGs only, since water vapor is going to do what water vapor wants to do.
Joshua
You should get a bit better informed.
Once a month NSIDC publishes an end-month figure for Arctic as well as Antarctic sea ice extent.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/
This varies from year to year and from month to month. The last data I cited a couple of weeks ago was end-February data (when the combined sea ice extent was 0.5% below the 1979-2000 baseline); the data cited today is end-March (when the combined extent is 1.5% above the baseline).
It varies even more seasonally, with the ice melting every summer and reforming every winter. Duh!
The big ballyhoo from Marc Serreze, NSIDC Director at Boulder, CO, is all about the end-September (late summer) Arctic sea ice extent, which has decreased since the record started in 1979. This is the “minimum” for the year.
Serreze has made several predictions of an “ice-free Arctic” within a few years (by which he means Arctic sea ice extent of – I believe – less than 1 million square km at the end of summer).
In 2007 it was supposed to be “ice free” by 2012. I think he is now predicting an Arctic “essentially free of summer ice only a few decades from now”. The year 2040 has been tossed out. Whatever. It’s a WAG.
Likewise the end-March (late summer) sea ice extent for the Antarctic is the “minimum” for the year there – this has grown steadily since 1979, but there is not much talk about this from Serreze. Although the ice extent there is growing steadily, IPCC says there are “no statistically significant average trends”.
So we have all the big ballyhoo about one time snapshot of a year (the annual minimum) for one location, while everything else is being ignored.
Good PR-manship. Lousy science.
Max
This whole discussion of sea ice extent strikes me as a hopeless exercise. We’re talking such a short period of time, it’s not possible it seems to my admittedly untrained mind, to make valid inferences with respect to whether the climate’s doing anything unusual..
How long is the satellite record? 30 years or so?
And yet the last 13.7 years of non-statistically significant warming is suitable for making valid inferences…?
Apples and bowling balls Izen…Climate models were predicting “x” amount of warming given “y” increase in co2. IN the 16 years or so of no warming, we’ve added as much as 30 percent of the total atmospheric co2 since 1750 or so. That lack of warming argues for lower sensitivity.
Yes it’s significant because actual warming fell outside the 5%-95% confidence interval on the low side where the prediction and confidence is based on CIMP5 model ensemble. The models were trained on 1961-1991 temperature data and slowly but surely the actual temperature drifted lower than centerline prediction until after 22 years it drifted completely outside the lower bound. Belive you me if it had drifted outside the upper bound there would be headlines and scientists literally screaming about how significant it is.
It’s also significant in the entire 34-year satellite record that decadal warming trend is 1.2C/decade which is much lower than “Danger Will Robinson!” projection of 2.0C/decade. The decadal trend declined quite a lot when the last three years are factored into the 1979-present average. Making this even more significant is some of us (ahem, me included) predicted this would happen as the AMDO went negative. Now we find out just how much decadal warming trend was exagerrated by extrapolating the rising side of AMDO into forever like it would never reverse and chill again like is has every 60 years since reliable Atlantic SST records began with lots of trans-Atlantic shipping starting in the 19th century.
So at this point alarmists look like the proverbial guy on the street wearing a placard that reads “Repent. The End is Near”. Boo hoo. What a terrible thing that the catastrophe wasn’t real, huh?
Private Cowboy: I think your off by an order of maggotude on the decadal warming rate. Not to worry, know won cares what comes out of your moneymaker. So what, the models suck and don’t account for ocean cycle dampening of the AGW signal. When the cycles go the other way, we will regress back up to the mean.
Go study the physical evidence and timing of volvanic triggers of major glaciation events and get back to us with your earth shaking hypothesis: IOW, good times with dreaming with Jim Beam.
Dr. Curry: Please moderate these bullies and give me a lolipop.
The lollipop may suffice.
on the other hand skeptics will argue that the ice was less in the holocene when it was warmer, and that in the 30s there was less ice because it was warmer.
weird
Climate Science is weird (Not that I don’t enjoy reading about it). It seems that every new climate scenario making the media over the past 20 years they always describe a warm future on a multidecadal scale ignoring a cool future as if variability didn’t exist, but isn’t scientific climatology primarily concerned with longer millenia time scales of a thousand years or more?
I expect if I ask any climate scientist this question every day for the next thousand years (if possible) ‘Will the climate change from what it is today and be different in any way tomorrow’ the answer will be NO with 100% percent certainty every day for the next thousand years.
If a scientist and in particular climate scientists don’t understand the wide swings that do occur in data over short multidecadal time scales then how can they be trusted with understanding the large climatic swings on longer millenia time scales or vise-versa.
I like to think of the climate as a metronome; the pivot at bottom of the pendulum is the short multidecadal time scales scientists measure and at the top the weight attached to the pendulum is the longer millenia time scale, as the pendulum is swinging back and forward, climate scientists take measurements from the pivot and try to predict what direction the pendulum is swinging, as the faster moving pivot is a short multidecadal time scale, this is considered the natural variability of weather.
How can any climate scientist in all honesty measure the natural variability of weather and expect to accurately pinpoint where the pendulum will be at a precise time on a longer millenia time scale.
One way of understanding the climatology is by measuring where the pendulum was in the past, and understanding the large pendulum swings of the past climate to get an understanding of future swings in the climate. although, understanding the climate and making predictions are two different things completely.
As where Marcott et al went wrong as climate scientists, when they used paleoclimate data of long millenia time scales in natural variability, with the short decadal time scale (weather) in natural variability and claim to predict the future of where the pendulum of climatology will be in the future, when actually showing that they are confused, what they are representing as evidence of the future climate is in fact their total misunderstanding of climatology and the complex chaotic circumstances that influence the real world.
I also think climate science and related sciences rely to much on statistics, the systematical averaging out of one set of data to blend it with another set of data is a good example of why it seems like it’s not scientists doing science but statistical tinkerers tinkering statistics.
So, where will the pendulum be and when will it be there?
NO.
The fact that the end-March “global sea ice” extent is higher than the 1979-2000 baseline does not really tell us anything.
Likewise,
– the fact that the northern hemisphere snow cover extent reached an all-time high since 1979 this winter ALSO doesn’t really tell us anything
– the fact that the end-September Arctic sea ice extent was 40% below the 1979-2000 baseline ALSO doesn’t really tell us anything
But the last point has gotten a whole lot of “death spiral” ballyhoo from NSIDC spokesmen and the media, while the others have essentially been ignored.
And that tells us a lot.
Max
Joshua (the nice Putz),
//Would they have been interviewed by the media if they hadn’t created the graph with the uptick? Probably not – but the graph with the uptick is legitimately an important implication to their findings. //
In all seriousness Joshua, when something is described as “not robust” is should never appear in print. Tell me you at least understand this point.
(1) Scientific papers speak about non-statistically significant findings all the time. There are valid reasons for that.
(2) It would is unrealistic to expect them to just not discuss those data – particularly since there are other “robust” data for the same time period, and particularly since the comparison of the magnitude of the change over thousands of years to the change over 100 years is an obviously important implication of their work.
IMO, the discussion of those data, however, should never be decoupled with the caveat about their “robustness.”
I am sorry to tell you that you are very wrong. Non-robust means you have know idea which side of zero you are on. Please Joshua, don’t argue this basic point, you will look silly.
Bob –
Let me give you another example. When manacker excerpts a clip about global sea ice extent without putting it in the context of the dramatic drop in Arctic ice (and the corresponding changes in Antarctic ice), he’s doing essentially the same thing as pointing to the 20th century data in the Marcott paper without mentioning the robustness.
But that doesn’t mean that manacker shouldn’t discuss the trend in global ice extent.
Bob –
I’m truly touched by your concern, but I hope you won’t be offended if I don’t particularly value your advice on what is or isn’t silly. .
“Scientific papers speak about non-statistically significant findings all the time. There are valid reasons for that.”
Joshua just can’t think of any right now.
Andrew
@- Andrew, Re: discussing statistical ‘robustness’ in papers,
I think it is quite common, here are two from another field….
However, even though the proposed method provides flexibility of a genetic analysis, there are still some limitations. First, the pooled meta-analysis under the presence of heterogeneity in the study can lead to reduced statistical power of our meta-analysis approach even though the rank-based p values enable the meta-analysis using the pooled samples.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3322629/
In fact, the KS analysis (Table 3) demonstrates that none of the 57 distributions (Table S2) against which these data were tested provided an ideal model for the underlying data.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485292/
Putzy
Bad example. See my comment #308791 above, in which I mention the “context” of both the drop in Arctic sea ice and the increase in northern hemisphere snow cover plus Antarctic sea ice.
It’s all there, Josh – all you have to do is look.
Max
Joshua and izen
Bob’s right on this one.
You’re in the hole.
Best advice: stop digging.
Max
“I think it is quite common”
Great, but that wasn’t what I’m on Joshua about. I’m on him about presenting the reasons why someone would present un-significant findings. Which you didn’t do either.
Andrew
> Global Temperatures Highest in 4,000 Years
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/science/earth/global-temperatures-highest-in-4000-years-study-says.html?_r=1&
Totally insignificant.
Yes, but Marcott’s uptick.
Here’s the full Kinnard paper that Fan of More BS keeps blathering about.
http://labs.ceazamet.cl/ceaza/docs/1343273271.pdf
It isn’t clear that the sea ice extent at one Pole means anything WRT global temperature.
There is an interesting tidbit from the paper. Does this hint that we are headed for another cold spell? (Assuming, of course, that the statistical treatment of the proxies is valid – always a good question I’m thinking.)
“The pronounced decrease in ice cover observed in both our terrestrial
and oceanic proxy-based reconstructions between the late fifteenth and
early seventeenth centuries occurred during the widespread cooling
period known as the Little Ice Age (about AD 1450–1850 (ref. 18)).
Reconstructed Arctic SATs show episodes of warming during this per-
iod (Fig. 3f), but according to our results the decrease in Arctic sea ice
extent during the Little Ice Age was more pronounced than during the
earlier Medieval Warm Optimum.”
jim2
In fact, it’s pretty clear that the end-summer sea ice extent at one Pole doesn’t mean anything WRT global temperature, especially if there is an opposite trend at the other Pole.
Max
jim2
The Chief has just posted the link to an interesting study by Chylek et al., which analyzes the past swings in a “bi‐polar seesaw pattern” in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice (comment #308846 below).
Max
> Within this uncertainty range, this reconstruction suggests that
the pronounced decline in summer Arctic sea ice cover that began in
the late twentieth century is unprecedented in both magnitude and
duration when compared with the range of variability of the previous
roughly 1,450 years.
http://labs.ceazamet.cl/ceaza/docs/1343273271.pdf
Yes, but Marcott’s uptick, I know, I know.
Good find, Jim2! It’s good too that all of the Kinnard et al data and analysis software is available.
It’s mighty peculiar — isn’t it Jim2? — that denialist forums continue to obsess over the Marcott et al. weak “blade” from weak data while ignoring the Kinnard et al. strong “blade” from strong data.
Proposition Strong analysis of high-quality data always shows a pronounced 20th century global-warming hockey-stick.
Scientific Conclusion The AGW hockey-stick is just plain real, eh?
marcotts reconstruction.. Oh ya, with one of the highest frequency proxies in his 73. except here its not smoothed.
What the hell?? look at those spikes.
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7290/marcottvostok2.jpg
Steven, I just can’t see it. My version isn’t smoothed either. There are plenty more spiky proxies. The big 8.2ka excursion (Vostok) looks about the same, just under 3°C. But that’s in just one location.
Nick, yes its just one location so the result is not robust. Nothing wrong with showing that.
PhD candidates are trained in the ‘hockey stick’ method, and to the climatologist everything in climate science looks like a ‘hockey stick.’
WHat do you get if you give Susan Anderson of dotearth infamy, an additional 30 IQ points?
FOMD
you know how to triple her IQ?
Fish. Lots and lots of fish.
Steve,
In response to the question you pose below – level of acceptance of poor practice of science based on high or low risk:
I’d say my willingness to accept poor practice is somewhat unconnected to risk. Poor practice should not be acceptable in either case. If for no other reason than it can make it difficult to determine the associated risk we are talking about.
However were I to reframe the question, to include an element of available time / resources, then I would agree that I’d first want to spend my energy cleaning up poor practice in fields associated with high risk.
In field of climate change what I find worrisome is that rather large amounts of time and resources are being expended – with more being asked – supported only by claims of risk. In fact it is these many claims, with no evidence to back them up, that fuels my scepticism.
‘Understanding Arctic temperature variability is essential or assessing possible future melting of the Greenland ice sheet, Arctic sea ice and Arctic permafrost. Temperature trend reversals in 1940 and 1970 separate two Arctic warming periods (1910–1940 and 1970–2008) by a significant 1940–
1970 cooling period. Analyzing temperature records of the Arctic meteorological stations we find that (a) the Arctic amplification (ratio of the Arctic to global temperature trends) is not a constant but varies in time on a multi-decadal time scale, (b) the Arctic warming from 1910–1940 proceeded
at a significantly faster rate than the current 1970–2008 warming, and (c) the Arctic temperature changes are highly correlated with the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) suggesting the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline
circulation is linked to the Arctic temperature variability on a multi-decadal time scale.’ http://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/ees/ees14/pdfs/09Chlylek.pdf
‘Understanding the phase relationship between climate changes in the Arctic and Antarctic regions is essential for our understanding of the dynamics of the Earth’s climate system. In this paper we show that the 20th century detrended Arctic and Antarctic temperatures vary in anti‐phase seesaw pattern – when the Arctic warms the Antarctica cools and visa versa. This is the first time that a bi‐polar seesaw pattern has been identified in the 20th century Arctic and Antarctic temperature records. The Arctic (Antarctic) detrended temperatures are highly correlated (anti‐correlated) with the Atlantic Multi‐decadal Oscillation (AMO) index suggesting the Atlantic Ocean as a possible link between the climate variability of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Recent accelerated warming of the Arctic results from a
positive reinforcement of the linear warming trend (due to an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases and other possible forcings) by the warming phase of the multidecadal climate variability (due to fluctuations of the Atlantic Ocean circulation).’ http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010GL042793.pdf
http://www.thegwpf.org/petr-chylek-open-letter-to-the-climate-research-community/
If you think that you understand and can prove it by selective citations of bits of science that are statistically much more likely to be wrong than otherwise – you are kidding yourself. If you think that warming – be it natural or anthropogenic – can’t lead to abrupt cooling you are again self deluding.
Chief
Thanks for posting the links to the two Chylek et al. studies.
Both very interesting.
Max
The letter is interesting as well – and I had missed it.
A SPECTACULAR MISCALCULATION
http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/b3-rahn-chart-colorgif/
The Left is exhibiting that “foolish consistency” known as, always being spectacularly wrong — and, especially so in this case when you consider the positive bias in the ‘official average world temperature.’
What’s the real issue?
Most people seem to agree that
– the text of the paper has few problems
– the Fig. 1 is misleading
The discussion is almost exclusively on the recent rise of temperatures.
Those very critical of the authors emphasize the fact that the uptick is an artifact and see the comparisons the authors have presented as being based on that misleading part of Fig 1. They claim that the authors have reached a point near scientific misconduct.
Those defending the authors say that the uptick has never been a significant part of the argument. All the comparisons between the earlier holocene and presents temperature use the paper only for the history. Everything significant on the recent temperature increase comes from the instrumental record. We can read from the paper:
That makes it totally clear that nothing in the comparisons they make with recent temperatures depends on the behavior of their reconstruction since year 1440. The latest 510 years to 1950 are left out from that, not only the uptick but several centuries before that as well. Nothing of this latest period affects any of the actual results. The paper shows that part all the way to the uptick but ignores all that, when it uses the results as basis for discussion.
Why are the critics so hot? They see here a case similar to the Mann’s hockey stick (and so it is). They do not want the results to be told and want to make them suspect by concentrating on an irrelevant part of the figures.
The authors have never claimed (as far as I know) that they would somehow confirm anything about the last 150 years. The closest they get is in the comparison with Mann (2008) where they note that their results are fully consistent with that paper up to year 1850. That agreement is not used further but they do consider that this observation provides partial confirmation of their method (not of the Mann paper, as their results are too inaccurate for saying anything on that).
I repeat my own views:
1) The authors should not have presented the uptick part of their reconstruction as it’s both an artifact and dramatic. Showing it was a really stupid choice.
2) They might have left out a minor part of the discussion where they compare their results to the present and future projections. In particular the discussion of projections to the future is out of the place in the paper.
3) They were fully justified in presenting the Fig 3. and the related discussion on the relationship of present and recent temperatures with the early holocene. That’s needed to set the scale. Their estimate that the temperature has been warmer than today 28% of the time is interesting (today refers to 2000-2009 average).
4) The authors have presented in public misleading statements on the earlier occurrence of rapid temperature changes as their paper cannot say much at all about them. It’s correct that the recent rise in temperatures is similar in amplitude to what they see over much longer periods, but their work cannot tell, how much shorter term variability has occurred, or how rapid that has been. (The paper does not make such questionable claims.)
5) The loud outcry that resulted, when the paper was published and the results discussed including the totally appropriate comparison with the present is just a typical attack by the “skeptics”.
6) There’s nothing that even remotely approaches scientific misconduct. There are some stupid choices but they are not of that nature.
7) The outcry had not been as strong, if their real point were not valid, and for some reason found threatening by the opposition.
I do have a suspicion that editorial policies of Science have contributed to the problems, but I have no real support for this suspicion. Only that there have been earlier papers with comparable discussion of the outcome beyond what the actual results of those papers directly support. Here that applies mainly to the projections to the future.
Good summary Pekka. I sometimes wonder just how people read various papers and come up with totally different conclusions. It must be the result of the biases that we all seem to have. If the paper says something that resonates then confirmation bias kicks in but if the paper says something that grates then the defensive wall goes up.
Peter
I read hundreds of scientific papers annually as research for my various articles. I would say the general quality of the narrative is often rather poor, sometimes contradictory and sometimes causes me to have to reread the abstract to see quite what the conclusions were.
Amongst the most lucid of report writers are Dr Mann and Phil Jones, whatever you may think of their conclusions.
I suspect inbuilt biases are a factor as well, but lack of lucidity is surely another.
I would reference for comparison some of the high quality papers by such as Lamb and Slocum from the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s whereby the information is set out in a clear and logical manner.
Tonyb
The whole climate debate is interesting from that perspective. There are some very smart people who buy the CAGW case, and I’m humble enough to realize that my own thinking as a skeptic is likely too narrow. There’s something in the science that I’m not smart enough/educated enough to grasp that has people like Steve Mosher convinced that “the planet is at risk.” Judith who I respect immensely is I’d say, a “luke-warmer.”
If given the opportunity to bet a substantial, life changing sum on whether or not we’ll eventually warm enough to be a detriment due to anthro co2, I’d take that chance and bet no, and feel pretty good about it. But I wouldn’t be serenely confident either..
Tony thanks for your response. You would have to be one of the more dedicated “amateurs” who contribute here and as you say, the narratives certainly vary hugely in quality.
I guess an issue for me as that whenever a science project is commenced, I usually wonder whether the researcher is more intent on finding sufficient evidence to support a predetermined POV. Something that has already been raised in this thread is that the selection of proxies might be influenced by researcher bias.
My question to you Tony is that when you are working on a project, say, to fill in gaps in the climatic records, can you be confident that you are genuinely searching for the truth and don’t have any biases that might undermine your work?
If I were attempting to something like what you do, I probably would be documenting my thoughts from start to finish so that everything that emerges from the project is completely transparent. Because, in the event that I have made a scientific breakthrough, these notes would also form the basis of a book. The reason for my belief that this would be the best thing to do has to do with a book that I read while in the UK.
While I was holidaying in the UK, staying much of the time with friends in Cambridge, I got to read a book on the discovery of the double helix structure of the human genome by co-discoverer Dr Watson, and finished the book feeling that much was unsaid about who should have been given credit for the main breakthrough. In particular, I felt uncomfortable about the lack of recognition given to a female collaberator who did a lot of work in development of the Xray mapping technique used by Crick and Watson.
Sorry about this digression. I am normally brief in my comments.
Peter
Do I have confirmation bias? Probably. Do I let it get in the way of research? Probably not, as the material I research and evaluate is freely available and can be challenged by anyone.
If a year in the Medieval age is well documented to be cold I can’t then claim it as warm, should I want to. Similarly, working within the historic framework I have all sorts of other checks and balances, for example glacial advances and retreats, crop records, sea levels etc all make it difficult for me to claim black is white as the evidence is available to disprove me. I also try to include information from a number of different sources (hence why my articles tend to be long)
I also attempt to keep any calculations separate from my research. For example here I calculated the likely CET but had no part in then compiling the subsequent graph of the reconstruction to 1538
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/
This ‘firewall’ is useful, as I commented at the time;
“When viewed from a 1538 perspective the warming trend becomes imperceptible. That period seems to have been around as warm as today and there are others that also seem to exhibit notable warmth to levels not dissimilar to today’s. This finding was unexpected and warrants further research.”
If I had exhibited true confirmation bias I would have slightly reduced the temperature peaks around 1540 and 1640 in order to make it fit to the expected temperatures of the LIA (a miosnomer if ever there was one) However I have since found out that these temperature peaks appear perfectly correct, and for this I have to thank Phil Jones and his excellent book ‘the Climate from 1500AD’
Incidentally all the data and references used has been online since that article and is linked to from it.
I take no pleasure in rcording the current decline in CET which over the last decade has meant that many of the plants I could grow now struggle to do so, or simply give up the ghost. If the decade ending around 2004 is the best we can genuinely ever expect in Britain we can all queue up for vias at the Australian embassy to leave these shores. Warm is better in our context.
Fortunately I can then catch a dose of reality by reading a gardening book from the 1940’s to realise that their warm period of the preceding two decades seems every bit as warm as the decade now receding in our rear view mirror. It then turned much cooler. Anecdotal? Hmm, well referenced contemporary observations are more reliable than interpreting a lump of old wood…
tonyb
“The whole climate debate is interesting from that perspective. There are some very smart people who buy the CAGW case, and I’m humble enough to realize that my own thinking as a skeptic is likely too narrow. There’s something in the science that I’m not smart enough/educated enough to grasp that has people like Steve Mosher convinced that “the planet is at risk.”
hehe. I never quantified the risk.
here is the question;
if you think the risk is high should you be more forgiving or less forgiving of science that is less than best practices?
That’s an open question.
if you think the risk is low, how does that change.
Pokerguy. Your feelings of doubt are certainly shared by many of us here. My own doubts have kept me on the fence wrt the AGW hypothesis. There are plenty of very smart people around who are articulate and very persuasive. I have appreciated the courtesy extended to me on this blog and knowledge that many of the experts have unselfishly shared.
Thanks again for your thoughts Tony. I believe that your work is truly a labour of love and the quality of your scholarship is of the highest order. Your historical approach to climate change is always backed up with meticulously compiled data.
I understand your frustration at having some of your work described as anecdotal and (presumedly) therefore of lesser scientific merit even than of some of the non-robust GCM’s that dot the landscape. I encourage you to keep up the good work.
As for the possibility of migration to better climes, you assuredly would be made most welcome in Australia because over here we give credit where its due and we are, as a nation, less than impressed with pomposity and the trading in influence that seems to prevail in selected areas of the NH (which shall remain nameless so as not to offend anyone’s sensitivities) ;).
Steve Mosher,
I consider myself in some “lukewarmer” category (thanks for that term), with genuine concerns but also troubled by countless failings in the discourse about IPCC, quality and plausibility of public policy proposals etc. Exaggerations, hype, and carelessness should play no part in trying to convince the various publics and policy makers of the alleged seriousness of the problems. To the extent that the risks are very grave, the abysmal performance of many on the “Alarm” end of the spectrum to present both science and policy with rigor and objectivity is appalling.
“They” should be demanding more not less of themselves, from all of the scientists and policy analysts to the various institutions, if humanity is really in such peril.
Catastrophe theory applies to avalanches amongst others things. The pressure builds up slowly, the changes accumulate until suddenly someone farts too loudly and the mountain comes chasing down.
Many sceintists think that climate works that way. The changes accumulate and we don’t know how small or big the avalanche is going to be or when it will occur. The ultimate in unknowing.
But we are in a cool mode – for decades more.
The authors were quite willing to play up the significance of the uptick to the MSM. They were not behaving ethically.
They did not disclose their methodology and why they changed the “strat-top” dates from core. This is either an omission that needs adding or was purposefully done in order to get a particular outcome. In the latter case this was misconduct.
cd,
There are two upticks. The artifact in their construction and the real of the instrumental record. I haven’t seen a single statement by them that would be based on their artifact. All the comparisons that they have made with the most recent times, present, or future are based on the instrumental record and projections to the future. Only their critiques have connected their own uptick to these comments as far as I can see.
There’s nothing wrong in comparing their results on the temperatures of early holocene with those of the instrumental record, and there’s nothing wrong in making short additional comments on comparisons with projected future temperatures. These issues have probably been emphasized too much in all public discussion, but leaving them completely out was never a reasonable option.
Every scientific paper that presents original research should concentrate on what new the authors have found out, but that must also be put in proper connection with other knowledge without spending too much space on speculations or discussing in length issues not studied in that particular work. In public comments the weighing is seldom in control of the scientists alone. They must answer questions posed by others and that may well lead to a badly inappropriate weighing of issues.
One thing they could have certainly made better is the FAQ published at RC. They were too elusive on some points and failed to give clear and direct answers even when that would have been rather easy. Perhaps there are some hidden reasons for that, or perhaps they just couldn’t see the issues in the same way as outsiders.
‘hidden reasons’? Hey, don’t let Lew get too near you.
============
Pekka has figured out that the apparent reasons make no sense. Baby steps.
==========
Kim,
As an outsider, I may think that everything doesn’t fit together very well, but I cannot see, what’s the reason for that. Perhaps that has something to do with the publication process, perhaps not.
Elusive wording causes a reaction like mine. Being precise and admitting directly errors and misjudgments could be combined with equally unambiguous defense of points where no errors were made. I think they failed in that.
Pekka,
Yes, I think that’s a good summary. Just a couple of things:
1. “Fig 1 is misleading” – well, actually it’s Fig 1A, and maybe B. 1C and 1D are hard to read but they actually show the infilled cases, which they describe as important, with a much smaller, sounder spike.
And with Fig 1A (which I agree should not go into 20th cen), it’s not clear to me what one is misled into. There are two spikes, one spurious and very strange looking. With just one spike (instrumental), it would convey much the same impression, and more clearly.
2. “The authors have presented in public misleading statements on the earlier occurrence of rapid temperature changes as their paper cannot say much at all about them.”
There may have been some, but some are just poor wording. The problem is that with such a fuss, any reference to the real instrumental rise gets interpreted as a proxy-based statement. And there are also clarifying statements, like with Marcott/Borenstein in the first interviews:
“The same fossil-based data suggest a similar level of warming occurring in just one generation: from the 1920s to the 1940s. Actual thermometer records don’t show the rise from the 1920s to the 1940s was quite that big and Marcott said for such recent time periods it is better to use actual thermometer readings than his proxies.”
Nick Stokes quoted and said:
2. “The authors have presented in public misleading statements on the earlier occurrence of rapid temperature changes as their paper cannot say much at all about them.”
There may have been some, but some are just poor wording.
—————————————————
Nick, for someone who has a very precise mind when it comes to mathematics and statistics, you seem to slip gears all over the place when it comes to plain English.
When alleged findings are about to be splashed all over the media across the world, hiding behind “there may have been some [misleading statements]” and “poor wording” doesn’t cut it.
You are letting yourself down. I fear that we do not see you at your best.
An ugly view of Pekka, in this dark pre-dawn, too.
============
Interesting how the nature of people kim sees changes with whether s/he agrees with their opinions.
I value Pekka as a brilliant scientist, and devalue Pekka as a policy wonk and critic of scientific ethics, on any given day. There is a great deal more nuance than you seem able to appreciate, menschlack.
======================
“You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination. You may not see your ears, but they will be there.”
A H/t and two chances at a mouse to Sammy Clemons’ Cat.
============
Lol! “nuance.”
Here’s a tip, kim. Pekka doesn’t change as a reflection of the light that you shine on his opinions. It is only your perspective of him that changes. Your vision of him as “ugly” or “dark” or pretty or light is a product of the lens you are wearing.
Here’s another hint: maybe you should try to stop reverse engineering someone’s attributes from your perspective on their opinions. Give it a shot.
I hear Joshua recursing furiously.
=========
More nuance, Joshua:
Not the nature of people,
Only their value, or
With even more nuance:
The value of their opinion.
Joshua (the nice putz)
You are getting ahead of yourself. You had tacit approval to keep using “the nice putz” for one month. Where do you get off adding pissant progresive, bacon-loving. The order of things is Nice Putz- then Putz – then Toomler (sorry, that is reserved for FOMD), – then Schmuck. You do not want to get to schmuck too quickly. Slow down.
Good point, willard.
So if we look close at kim’s words, we see that it isn’t Peeka’s opinions that kim values and devalues alternately, but Peeka himself.
What a powerful feeling it must be, to change someone else’s value based merely on whether you agree with their opinions.
er… Pekka.
How powerful, or deluded, it is to pretend to static impressions.
===================
kim –
Your words:
My words:
(1) Your value is independent of my agreement with your opinions. I’ll leave it to your family and friends to determine your value.
(2) The value of your opinions is independent of my level of agreement. I have no power to change the value of your opinions.
(3) My degree of agreement with your opinions changes with your opinions. The value I, personally, find in your opinions, is, to some degree, contingent on my level of agreement – although even there I might value opinions that you have that I am in strong disagreement with. As an example, Pekka has opinions that I am in strong disagreement with – but I value those opinions of his nonetheless – because his opinions help me to evaluate my own opinions.
I like to hope that It is the quality in how you express your opinions that affects my opinion more than the degree to which I agree with them. At least I strive to employ that process. For the most part, I find that the quality in how people express their opinions is, on the whole, not particularly variable. For example, I find that Pekka consistently expresses his opinions in a thorough and well-thought out manner.
I find the quality in how you express your opinions to be quite consistent also. Lol!
Say it again. Say it again. Louder. Louder.
====================
but kim, I added “nuance.”
Heh, your ‘nuance’ such as it contradictorily was, merely illustrates cognitive dissonance. I change my mind when needed, what do you do, putz around?
===========
Putzing Matilda, putzing Matilda,
We’ll go a nuancing with motive Joshuation.
=============
Joshua (the nice, but silly, pissant progressive, bacon-loving putz) | April 4, 2013 at 12:02 pm |
Add “unglued” to that handle and it’ll be perfect.
Please let me say (along with many) that Pekka’s analysis is excellent.
In regard to Pekka’s question “What’s the real issue?”, suppose that we stipulate two reasonable postulates:
• Postulate 1 The Mann/Kinnard/Marcot hockey-stick blade, and the Arctic sea-ice death spiral, and the acceleration in sea-level rise-rate all are physically real and will be sustained throughout decades to come.
• Postulate 2 The pro-carbon denialist/astroturfer community will continue to pursue the objectives of denialism via the methods of demagoguery.
Prediction Isn’t the most likely outcome, that the facade of pro-carbon denialist/astroturfer unity will simply crumble? Because present-day pro-carbon denialist/astroturfer unity is sustained mainly by conspiracy-theory narratives … narratives that increasingly lack credibility.
Summary Climate-change science is simply getting to be too strong, eh? That’s why Pope Francis is right … and so are dozens of other spiritual, business, artistic, and military leaders … the pro-carbon denialists/astroturfers are on the wrong side of history’s long moral arc.
Fan
Yes, a wonderful graphic by climate activist Andy Lee Robinson. When he goes back to the 10th century, rather than concentrating on only the most recent of a variety of arctic death spirals, we shall take note.
I pointed out earlier the various shortcomings in the Kinnard et al paper and that Manns version of history does not match the Historcal observed record, at least until 1538. I am currently tracing my steps to the 10th 11th Century so can not comment on his likely accuracy for the period 1000AD to 1538.
As for Marcott, surely on your own admission you believe it be be rather weak?
As for the sea level ‘acceleration’….It has to rise exponentially from now on in to begin to match the predictions of Dr Hansen.
By the way, in the absence of any lucid reply from you I have directly asked him for his view as to why the temperatures appear to have been rising for the last 350 years. I will let you know if I get a reply
tonyb
Your mathematical misunderstanding [which is an all-too-common one] has been corrected, TonyB.
Thank you for this educational opportunity!
Fan
Your usual obfuscation and evasion. My references to Mann, Kinnard and Marcott comtained solid information and accurate historical references which you like to disparage or ignore in order to support your confirmation bias.
My use of the word ‘exponential’ was perfectly correct in its context.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/exponential
tonyb
Pekka,
The authors acted as advocates for a cause. They set out to hype the ‘conclusions’ of their research. They set out to deceive and mislead.
Then the climate science orthodoxy, instead of quickly correcting the misrepresentation, defended it, excused it and obfuscated.
Science is further discredited. I do not take anything from science at face value now. I do not trust advocate climates scientists. I certainly do not accept their recommendations for policy. I think they haven’t a clue about policy.
I am more convinced than ever that policy, that will incur huge costs, needs to be based on sound economics and with the evidence documented and presented to engineering standards – i.e. researchers can go to goal for misrepresentation, dishonesty, negligence, incompetence.
Because … they … are … WITCHES!
Peter Lang, are you serious that citizens should be imprisoned for incompetence … and/or obscure writing … and/or mistaken conclusions? The entire planet has not got enough jails for *THAT*!
Authoritarian denialist fantasies are comical, Peter Lang … provided that these fantasies never become reality.
One devoutly hopes that in any free-and-open society, your authoritarian values never become representative of jury panels, Peter Lang!
Pekka – it really does not take that many words to get to the Real Issue. The Real Issue is that this paper was trumpeted far and wide in the lame stream media and the blade of the hockey stick was highlighted in the articles. The Real Issue is deception, intentional or not.
How deceitful to ignore or minimize the deception. It takes an ingenious soul.
================================
Say Pekka –
I have told you in the past that your interpretation helps to serve as a touchstone for me in these debates – and I hope that it isn’t lost on you that it appears that is true for others as well.. As an extension of that observation….I’ve been reading a bit about the Finnish educational system lately.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/08/schools-we-can-envy/?pagination=false
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html?c=y&page=1
http://smileyandwest.ning.com/forum/topics/the-conversation-pasi-sahlberg
http://www.kuow.org/post/education-lessons-finland-pasi-sahlberg
Stereotypes are always dangerous – but I have to wonder if your analytical nature isn’t to some degree culturally based.
And speaking of touchstones – I know that you’re a not a huge fan of Tamino (FWIW, I have an instinctive reaction that his approach to debate is unfortunately so Willis-like that it suggests fatal bias) but if you’re interested in dumbing-down (to language I might understand) a response to his latest post (and my questions about it),
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/02/were-not-screwed/#comment-308871
I’d appreciate it.
Joshua,
That example of Tamino was built to produce the result obtained. He added a strong 200 year positive peak. He knew what that leads to with the amount of smoothing he applied. That couldn’t fail. He could have introduced first a minimum like the LIA, but a little shorter, and followed that with a rise like that of the last century. Smoothing that wouldn’t have resulted in a discernible signal.
This was not one of the best posts of Tamino.
The more you look, the more you find. This catastrophic social mania has not been one of the best efforts of man at the science/policy interface.
=============
Thanks, Pekka.
“…are you serious that citizens should be imprisoned for incompetence … and/or obscure writing … and/or mistaken conclusions? The entire planet has not got enough jails for *THAT*”
Well, if we let out all the drug users…whose imprisonment is in my opinion utterly barbaric, not to mention counterproductive..we probably would.
Ok, half kidding. But only half. And dead serious about the druggies.
Who’s screwed? Those bright enough to understand the chicanery who still defend it anyway. We are given deep insight into the state of their souls. Santa Claus is making a list and checking it twice.
===================
AGW is screwed.
I mean significant AGW.
The irony, if it cools, will be that we will wish AGW so, or at least, more powerful.
We have been cooling for thousands and thousands of years, but for how much longer, even kim doesn’t know.
=================
kim, it would be ‘unprecedented’ if this interglacial period (Holocene) continued for much longer.
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ice_Age_Temperatures.jpg
The Marcott paper is no different from Hansen ’88, Mann ’98, Mann ’99, the SPM of AR4, the drowned polar bears, the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and glaciers everywhere.
The point of a piece of public relations is the headline. Most people never read beyond the first paragraph of a news story, let alone a faq on some (to them) obscure climate blog.
The point of such climate agitprop is to give fuel to the progressive media.
“It’s worse than we thought!” “The hottest year ever!” “It’s unprecedented!”
They do whatever is necessary to get the headline.
Thus, viewed properly from the CAGW activists’ perspective, Marcott et al is a resounding success, and all the rest of this is just irrelevant. Steve Schneider has become the patron saint of climate science.
“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Mission accomplished.
AGW skeptics are Holocaust deniers, children will never know what snow is, rivers will run red and “oceans will begin to boil, Earth will be like Venus, global warming is not a Left vs. right issue and, unlike our ancestors, we will be led to survival by high priests in green robes with computer models chanting anti-energy and anti-food slogans….
The Earth is already like Venus… It’s round, orbits the Sun, has an atmosphere, has oceans, mountains and clouds! What more do you want!!! :-)
Yep–clouds of sulfuric acid. But, the atmospheric pressure is sort of high–e.g., a day on Venus is more like spending time atop a piston in a diesel engine at the top of the compression cycle where the fuel mixture explodes!
Yes, AGW is screwed =>http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:732/to:1965/normalise/compress:12/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1044/normalise/compress:12
On issues of integrity and responsibility in science and research, Judith Curry asks the key question: “What is responsible behavior of scientists in balancing the challenges of rights of free speech and political activism? How can the public and policy makers distinguish between a scientist speaking with the credibility of a subspecialist in a narrow field, and those extending that to the use of the phrase “science says” about very widely ranging matters of political economy in which they are not specialists but activists?” Walter Starck sums up the big problem in the science of global warming as follows:
The leading scientific prophets of this cult are overwhelmingly comprised of young researchers whose entire careers are based on climate alarmism. In contrast, the middleground, balanced (“sceptical”) scientists are overwhelmingly researchers with well established expertise in other fields. The alarmists repeatedly refer to a catechism of highly selective evidence to support their claims. The sceptics cite voluminous other evidence from their own varied fields which contradicts the alarmist’s claims.
In the ‘Twilight Zone’ that the West has entered, enlightened voters believe we are the new boss of weather and must join together to elect those who understand the evil that AGW will bring if we are not told what to do.
TonyB, please let me ask you a question that is far simpler to answer, than any question you have ever asked me (a question that other Climate Etc readers are cheerfully invited to answer too!):
• That wonder of the ancient world, the Pantheon (today a Roman Catholic church), was built in 125 AD.
• Suppose that during the decade to come, sea-level rise-rates accelerate very modestly, from 3.2 mm/year to 4.2 mm/year.
• Suppose that very modest sea-level rise-rate acceleration (1 mm/year per decade) is sustained for as many more years as the Parthenon has been standing (via the CO2-driven global warming physics that Hansen’s publications describe).
An Easy Question Which of the following most closely approximates the resulting (quadratic, not exponential!) net sea-level rise?
• 005.8 feet of net sea-level rise ?
• 058.4 feet of net sea-level rise ?
• 584.7 feet of net sea-level rise ?
A Bonus Question In light of your answer to the preceding question, which postulate is Pope Francis (and the Pontifical Academies) going to consider most carefully at the coming workshop Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature (2014)?
• Hansen’s math is correct, and Marcott et al. are virtuous?
• Hansen’s math is correct, and Marcott et al. are sinful?
• Hansen’s math is correct, and denialist obsession with the merits of Marcott et al. is irrelevant?
Climate Etc readers look forward to your mathematical/common-sense answers, TonyB!
Fan
More obfuscation. You are incorrigible. We are not tallking about thousands of years in which the oceans will naturally oscillate as I demonstrated in my article here which covers the period you reference
http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/12/historic-variations-in-sea-levels-part-1-from-the-holocene-to-romans/
We are talking about very specific claims of stupendous rises (and no falls) by the year 2100. To reach them the sea level needs to rise exponentially from today. It shows no signs of doing so no matter how many times you evoke the name of Dr Hansen
tonyb
LOL … You forgot to answer the question, TonyB!
Hint: the integrated sea-rise from secular ice-melt, sustained over centuries, utterly dominates decadal-timescale climate fluctuations, eh TonyB?
Conclusion Climate Etc readers are justified in confidence that the Pontifical Academies appreciate this scientific principle!
It’s not complicated, eh TonyB?
No fan, it was a loaded question that had nothing to do with hansens belief of a dramatic rise in sea levels by the end of the century that will require an immediate exponential rise in the rate.
As for the Vatican element, I am still unable to open the Vatican web site despite having broadband and four modern devices with which to access it. Perhaps someone can tell me if it’s worth going out of my way to read fan’s link?
Tonyb
Tonyb, thanks for all you do. Could you post the links to part 2 and part 3?
I searched under history but could not find it.
Scott
coming soon!
LOL … perhaps a computer exorcism is in order TonyB! Your web-browser may be infected with demonic denialism!
Still, Climate Etc readers can readily calculate for themselves that sea-level rise-rate scenarios that are far more modest than the scenarios that Hansen analyzes have utterly devastating planetary consequences.
The Vatican of course appreciates the deep moral and economic implications of ever-strengthening climate-change science.
This burgeoning Pontifical moral/scientific/economic awareness — here’s a non-Vatican link! — is a very good thing, eh TonyB?
So stay engaged! Reject timid denialist cognition!
Fan
You could be right when I wrote ‘despite’ in my last post to you on my iPad it changed it to ‘deity’! I will check out your non Vatican link once I send his one.
In the meantime perhaps you might like to remind readers of the sea levels scenario Hansen predicted for the end of the century and might then like to calculate the exponential rise needed to attain it.
Tonyb
Fan
The Vatican conference sounds interesting. How about you getting up a charabanc trip of climate etc readers together and join in? Do we need to be Catholics. Do we need to be believers in the cagw proposition?
Tonyb
Fan of more BS. What was the height of the 1900 Galveston storm surge? If you look that up, your mm of sea level rise will become insignificant. And that is why people who live on the coast need to bear the burden of damages. They don’t have to live there, you might know.
Jim2, why not look up the paleohistory of Doggerland and then calculate for yourself the catastrophic effects of sustained sea-level rise-rate acceleration.
You will learn much from this simple do-it-yourself exercise, Jim2 … so be brave, be adventurous, and just do it!
Jim2
You are in luck as I mentioned doggereland in great detail in my article ‘historic variations in sea levels’ referenced above A few paragraphs in is a link to the complete version.
Catastrophic yes but fortunately the modern scenario will more closely
follow the modest oscillations referenced in the text and the graphics
Tonyb
TonyB argues (in effect):
• Doggerland-scale land-drowning *DID* happen once from Milankovitch warming, but
• Doggerland-scale land-drowning *CAN’T* happen again from greenhouse warming.
Uhhhh … what’s missing here is commonly called “scientific reasoning”, TonyB!
Fan
No I didn’t argue that in effect or in any other way. Two entirely different mechanisms will have two entirely different effects especially as one of them is highly debatable in its consequences.
Tonyb
Yeah! That’s why apple pies baked in electric ovens taste totally different from pies baked in gas ovens!
Oh wait … your claim makes zero scientific sense, eh TonyB?
Electric oven provide dry heat whereas gas ovens supply heat and gases water. You need to get to know you oven when cooking pastry, bread and custard’s.
So it took 6,000 years for Doggerland to flood. I think we can adapt to something like that, especially given the fact that the Kinnard study shows long term cooling.
I’ve broken fan’s code:
He is – A fan of Muddleheadedly Obtuse Radical Environmentalist (MORE) discourse
FOMD
Either your answers are from a 32 yr old problem or you forgot that the initial rate of sea-level rise is 3.2 mm/yr and not .1 mm/yr.
FOMD –
You screwed up the formula to your own poser TWICE! Pretty ironic given this taunt:
– FOMD
Eh?
BTW. Here’s how i knew you screwed it up. I had no calculator handy, so i ran this in a linux bash shell:
tot=0
for (( i=0; i < 2013-125; i++ ))
do ((tot+=32+i))
done
echo "scale=3; $tot/254/12" | bc
Still waiting for a thanks. An apology to TonyB is in order also.
LOL … your code has been corrected and annotated, blueice2hotsea!
RiseRate=32; # tenths of a millimeter per yearTotalRise=0; # zero starting sea-level rise
for (( i=0; i < 2013-125; i++ )); # loop year-by-year
do
((RiseRate+=1)); # the rise-rate increases
((TotalRise+=$RiseRate)); # the total rise increases
done; # now convert integer arithmetic to floating-point
echo "$TotalRise/254/12" | bc -l
[answer: 604.9 feed of sea-level rise]
Kudos for running a bash shell, blueice2hotsea!
Hmmm. Or perhaps when you put the series into closed form, you left off ‘+ 1’.
Exercise If in regard to the sea-level rise problem previously posed, an initial rise-rate of 3.2 mm/year is postulated, augmented by a (modest) acceleration in rise-rate of 0.1 mm/year^2, then the interval between the construction of the Pantheon (125 AD) and the present era (2013 AD) suffices for a net sea-level rise of (pick one):
• 006.0 feet of sea-level rise ?
• 060.4 feet of sea-level rise ?
• 604.6 feet of sea-level rise ?
Hint: enter into a calculator “(2013-125)*(3.2+0.1*(2013-125)/2)/(25.4*12)”
Hopefully this exercise will “accelerate” your appreciation of the cumulatively catastrophic impact of even modest sea-level rise-rate acceleration, blueice2hotsea!
FOMD –
Your problem is trivial, My comment pointed out that you solved it incorrectly.
Waiting for a thank you.
FOMB
Still no thank you?
Well, you still have the wrong answer because your equation is incorrect. close but no cigar. look again.
hint: type this into your calculator:
(2013-125)*(3.2+0.1*(2013-126)/2)/(25.4*12)
LOL … blueice2hotsea, please read the original problem statement more carefully!
The phrase “most closely approximates” was inserted to allow reasonable approximation & thereby forestall the standard denialist quibble of demanding unphysical accurary.
That was foresighted, eh blueice2hotsea?
Oops, my reply went here.
Forgot about the calculator in accessories. oh, well. Time for me to go to bed. be good FOM.
LOL … your code has been corrected and annotated in this reply, blueice2hotsea!
You are a pretty cool dude IMHO … too few folks calculate for themselves!
FOMD –
Nice annotation!
And better yet, our solutions have begun to converge. What remains might be a matter of interpretation, but I think you screwed up again! Your poser can be interpreted that the rate of rise for the first year is 3.2 mm.yr. Yet, your ‘corrected’ and annotated code uses a first yr rate of 3.3. It’s your poser so you choose, but remember, you need to get the same results after you fix your screwed up equation.
last two problems:
1) Your equation incorrectly uses n*n/2 to calculate the sum of a sequences of integers. It should be n(n+1)/2. So, you screwed up. Admit it so others don’t mistake you for an ignoramus (or worse). And no need to thank me if that makes it easier for you.
2) Your taunt: Mockery be on `yah, short-sighted demagogic astroturfing willful ignoramuses! is quite ironic given your blunder eh? Plus you threw the insult in the face of TonyB (a decent human being). Again, we are still looking for at least a hint of an apology and humility.
That’s it. I hope you pass my little test.
Corrections:
Typo: 3.2 mm.yr => 3.2 mm/yr
Move ‘s’ from end of ‘sequences’ to end of ‘blunder’
that’s better
FOMD –
Here’s my middle-school daughter’s solution. I love how she slipped it on to my desk and left w/o a word so as not to witness my embarrassment.
eegads! That’s your equation! (less conv fact.) And it is obviously correct.
Comparing answers: 604.55 vs. 604.25, my bash script fails (barely) the accuracy test. However, since your first numerical answer (584.7) was so bad, you only get 1/2 apology for my arrogant attitude and flawed discrete solution. I’m sorry about that, FOMD. And FWIW, I appreciate Wendell Berry.
You got two tries. Here’s my 2nd. Accuracy is improved by calculating rise in 1/100 year increments. Not proud of it.
tot=0;
for (( i=0; i < (( 1888*100)); i++ ))
do ((tot+=3200+i))
done
echo "scale=3; $tot/254/12/10000" | bc
My son had the following question posed to him in his english language exam.
“What concerns you most when you think about the environment? Why?”
He answered.
“Ice melting from south and north pole that causes global floods and biggest cities in USA will get under water for example. And millions will die.”
Couple a months ago geography teacher did show them, son’s class, Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Geography teacher told the class not to take the movie all too seriously.
You can not infer much about short-term fluctuations from temporally low resolution series, but as Leif Svalgaard at WUWT comments you can infer the long-term trend. Marcott et al shows the long-term trend is cooling, which, screenwriters will surely notice, also gives us a catastrophic ending.
So, Marcott et al, the Science version, is just another Hollywood script not to take too seriously. I hope IPCC won’t either.
+1
The neat thing about research blogging is that you can post interesting ideas to see if they go anywhere. This one appears to isolate a fundamental idea but I do not know if it is novel.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/standard-atmosphere-model-and.html
21/4
Indeed it was stupid. Now, the authors seem to be quite intelligent guys, so why the hell were they so incredible stupid? Did they underestimate the climate blogosphere which quickly deflated the spike? Were they advised to do this stupidity? And by whom? These questions will always be part of this paper and not what it was originally meant for. Food for a research at it self.
For sure it is a new low in climate science and bad for science in general.
David Springer | April 3, 2013 at 12:52 pm |
David, I understand that you think that going halfway around the planet to pour burning napalm on young girls was a “dirty job but someone has to do it”. I don’t understand that point of view, but I see you have it. As far as I was concerned it was not a dirty job, I’ve done lots of those.
It was an immoral job that never should have been done at all.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed over the last 40 years, but there is a sizable proportion of the US population that views napalming little girls and many of the other things we did in Vietnam, not as a noble calling, not as a dirty job that somehow we had to do, but as one of the more shameful acts our nation has ever committed.
And clearly the Vietnam War was one of the most useless acts of the US, since it achieved nothing. It also destroyed the minds of many people who participated, because it’s hard to live with having done something like that.
You say the Captain is spinning in his grave over my actions, but the woman who knew him best and lived by his principles was overjoyed with my actions. Why?
Because she’d seen real war and known real warriors, and she knew that destroying villages to save them and napalming little girls, that wasn’t what real warriors did.
Now, I left the Vietnam War behind me many years ago. I am at ease with my actions, and I know that the Captain would have approved of them as well. I took what seemed at the time to be the most honorable of the dishonorable choices I was offered. And despite extensive reading and research since the War I have seen nothing since to change my view of the war or my actions.
Be clear that I do not hold that you or others took the wrong path or made the wrong choice in that war. Every man had to make his own choice, and there were no right paths or right choices, that’s revisionist history. I took the path I took, and I lose no sleep and waste no energy over it. Nor do I lose any sleep or waste any energy on what you or any other man did during the war. You made your decision as best you knew how at the time.
You, on the other side, are still fighting the Vietnam War. Let me invite you to move on, my friend … most of the rest of us have.
w.
Wrong war, but both of you are on the right side. Incoming.
=====================
Willis Eschenbach and David Springer, please let me urge you to suspend your futile and demeaning attacks upon one another, and that you — and other Climate Etc folks — instead consider reading Karl Marlantes .
Several young Marines of our family’s acquaintance — who have served as many as five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan — admire Marlantes’ book as the single most accurate depiction yet written of a long, tough, grinding war.
Caveat Marlantes’ work is an *NOT* an easy read. Hence, no smileys are appended.
Please regard this post to be an appreciation and thanks for your service, David Springer.
Marlantes’ book is titled Matterhorn,
UPDATE
• Commandant Gen. Jim Amos adds Matterhorn to the USMC Professional Reading List.
• Sergeant Major of the USMC Mike Barrett adds Matterhorn to the “Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Library”
• On-line Navy Cross citation to Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn.
Dave Springer will appreciate that no previous work has been recommended by the US Marines Corps so rapidly and universally.
Highly recommended.
Corrected link here is a working link to the full-text citation for Karl A. Marlentes’ Navy Cross.
Marlentes’ book Matterhorn — a joining of in-depth history with intensely personal story-telling — drew from this act of heroism. Recommended (by pretty much everyone).
Scott Basinger | April 3, 2013 at 7:47 pm |
Scott, their “side of this debate” has put in place policies that are actively hurting, impoverishing, and killing the poor. This is just another piece of crap science designed to further that goal.
Perhaps you have compassion for bad science and bad scientists who are determined to cause pain and suffering among the poor.
I have none.
w.
I will be eternally grateful to John Kerry’s Presidential campaign in 2004 for reframing that conflict for his generation as a war against tyranny rather than a neo-colonial adventure. Now, I know that wasn’t his intent, but the wonders are worked in mysterious ways.
====================
pekka writes:… or perhaps they just couldn’t see the issues in the same way as outsiders.”
Or perhaps they’re prevaricating, equivocating, self-seeking rookie team members making their mentors proud while carving out for themselves a nice, tasty slice of agw pie
I don’t comment here often but I have to say not bad Judith. I enjoyed your commentary and advice more than the quoted portion.
Steven Mosher | April 3, 2013 at 10:51 pm |
Steven, I know I usually ask people to quote my words. But in this case I’ll have to ask you to quote your words, since I don’t recall you ever breathing fire about this stuff. Cite?
If this were say the Wegman debate about whether the continents move, I’d be on your side. In that case it wouldn’t matter of the scientists took decades to self-correct.
But in this case,
a) poor people are dying as we debate this because of the bad science, pensioners are shivering in Britain as we speak because of the bogus claims of people like Marcott and his ilk, and
b) after a quarter century of trying your brilliant plan, which seems to be shut up and don’t complain, they’re working on it, we’ve seen the opposite of progress—the malfeasance is getting worse, not better.
You advise that we try more of the same silence of the lambs in the hope of a different result.
You’ll forgive me if I fail to see the brilliance in further trying a plan which has failed over the last quarter century. People are dying on the sidelines, and you are advising us to just shut up and watch the game …
Because while like you I don’t understand what’s going on in their island, Steven, I do understand that it is killing the poor and making pensioners shiver and die around the planet.
Perhaps you are a man who can sit silently and watch that.
I’m not.
So while you are free to respond to that reality in the way you wish, you are not free to claim that staying silent while people shiver and die is some high moral stance. Leaving climate science to self-correct isn’t working, Steven, it is killing people instead …
And perhaps my calling them out for it won’t work either … but leaving the parties responsible for the carnage alone on their island to figure it out is no longer an option on my planet. We tried it and it didn’t work, we need something else.
Best regards,
w.
Willis
I have an appointment to meet our mp to discuss exactly your point 1
The silly climate change act was brought into law even as the temperature here plunged and energy costs soared. Both have profound implications for our physical and economic health. It needs to be urgently repealed and mps are key to changing the law.
Tonyb
“poor people are dying as we debate this because of the bad science, pensioners are shivering in Britain as we speak because of the bogus claims of people like Marcott and his ilk”
Lets examine this. I may be wrong but I have been led to believe part of the Green/Carbon Taxes raised in the UK go towards a fund for the vulnerable and poor to help them with energy bills.
In which case if poor people and pensioners are still shivering, perhaps it means we need to increase that aspect part of the Green Taxes.
In fact taxing the energy use of the rich so that the poor can afford the energy to keep warm seems to be the moral thing to do irregardless of climate change. After-all the poor and pensioners are our #1 priority here I am sure you would agree.
Here’s what I was thinking about:
http://www.britishgas.co.uk/products-and-services/gas-and-electricity/the-warm-home-discount.html
lolwot, how does that work exactly? A energy tax would be a cost of doing business. In order to remain profitable, the “rich” would charge more for their products and services that involve energy. Depending on how energy intensive the product or service is, the impact of the tax would be minor to quadrupled in the price. Things like a loaf of bread might jump from less than a dollar to say $3.5 in just a few years. The cost of transit to work might triple. Who knows, some businesses owned by the less than rich might not be able to remain profitable, creating more of the poor and needy.
“Perhaps it means we need to increase that aspect part of the Green Taxes.”
Sigh. I’m a democrat and even I can see how intellectually and morally lazy this is. In case you haven’t noticed, Europe is going down the drain. The last thing they need is more taxes to fix a problem which shouldn’t exist in the first place.
As I kind of expected, the concern for the freezing poor vanishes as soon as they can’t be exploited in an argument to bash AGW.
Maybe we should tax sugar to help bring modern dentistry to the poor…
Don’t tell Bloomburg
Scott
lowlot, so you see nothing wrong with a so-called scheme purporting to give a discount to the needy, but which in actual fact only ‘gives back’ a small fraction of the extra those needy people are charged for their energy in the first place.
Speaking for myself, I haven’t used gas for several years because I can no longer afford to – I’m sitting on my couch wrapped up in blankets as I’m typing this
So do me a favour and check your facts before shooting your mouth off, huh?
.
lolwot,
You may want to check out what Canada’s Auditor General has to say about the Pacific Carbon Trust – the government entity charged with collecting the carbon tax in British Columbia.
Not only are they failing to achieve the goal they are charged with (and claim they are meeting) they are managing to transfer tax dollars that would have gone to education and health care to a select few “green” organizations and enterprises. It must be fun playing with other people’s money.
The discussion is not about AGW – which is discredited on the basis of science. The world is not warming for decades hence becaus of large sscale ocean and atmospheric patterns – something that has been known to science for at least a decade. – http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703 –
It is about taxes – even if the tax is revenue neutral. Something that is far from the case anywhere but British Columbia – perhaps.
‘The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future — benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.’ http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Climate_Pragmatism_web.pdf
Slowing economic growth is the fundamental issue with regard to the poorest of the poor both in the west and elsewhere. But one of the essential objections is that the Kyotot approach has failed and will continue to do so.
Unless you can envisage practical and pragmatic solutions you are part of the problem.
Typing on horseback is not easy.
lolwot –
Interesting to see just how lightly you need to scratch the surface to find the root of the reasoning of so many of our much beloved “skeptics.”
I would suspect that you could use a feather from the rear of a baby chick and still scratch deep enough to see what’s beneath their “scientific analysis.”
Joshua, just because you say something doesn’t make it so
Oh, and another thing, lowlot, what makes you think you can hugely increase the cost of energy without considerably increasing the cost of things like food, clothing, services etc to everyone – especially the poor and needy?
@lolwot
Your assumption that ‘green taxes’ pay for the discount scheme is wrong. There are very few hypothecated taxes in UK and ‘green taxes’ aren’t one of them.
They all just go into the general taxation pool. You might as well argue that VAT or excise duty on whisky or corporation tax from evil oil companies pays for the scheme.
But the true irony is that without the ‘green taxes’ in the first place , the need for such a discount scheme would be less
Fail.
The best thing you can do for any poor person is give him the opportunities that you enjoy in the Western world that you want so badly to change. The correlation between belief in AGW and a host of self-defeating personality disorders has become all too obvious. The fear mongering, the Hot World Syndrome, fears of over-population, Bush derangement syndrome, hatred of Governor Palin, defamation of conservatism and science, aging hold hippies who miss wearing of the flag on their arses, the Left’s desire to blow up the Constitution and their pogrom against Christ, the Leftist-libs’ blindness to the evils of communism and the useful idiots of the Left who have become the radical supporters of liberal fascism, with their antipathy to Middle East Jews while at the same time it’s Bon Homme Castro and Chavez and looking to Ward Churchill and Mao for spiritual guidance and voting, “No, no, no, not god Bless America: god Damn America” — these psycho/socio-economic issues are all related to a decline of the culture and society and to the fall of Western civilization.
“The Warm Home Discount (WHD) scheme runs from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2015 and offers a rebate on electricity bills, of £120 this year, rising to £140 in year 4. The Government expects around 2 million households to be assisted annually. The funding comes from the participating energy suppliers which they pass on to all consumers through energy bills.”
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05956
Phatboy –
Just having a little fun, at the expense of my extremist friends like Wags and Chief – to help illustrate the weakness of their logic.
Of course what lays beneath the surface of our reasoning – “realists” and “skeptics” alike – is not so simplistic. No doubt, political identifications are a factor, but anyone who argues a simplistic causation is only revealing the shallowness of their perception.
lowlot, so just how far do you think £140 a year is going to go when it constitutes less than 10% of a typical household’s bill?
“lowlot, so just how far do you think £140 a year is going to go when it constitutes less than 10% of a typical household’s bill?”
Green taxes on such a bill will only be about 15%, so it goes quite a long way to reducing that cost.
lowlot, try reading what I wrote and not what you imagine I wrote.
The poor and the needy may be getting a paltry £140 a year back, but their bills are many hundreds a year more than they were a few years ago. And it costs the not-so-poor a lot more still!
“but their bills are many hundreds a year more than they were a few years ago.”
Which is not the fault of climate legislation. We’ve come full circle.
@lolwot
Thanks for confirming that the WHD is funded by a compulsory levy on all consumers and has nothing to do with ‘green taxes’ – which go into the general taxation fund.
no problem Latimer
lowlot wrote: “Which is not the fault of climate legislation.”
——————————————————————————
Yeah, right!
And even if it were so, it certainly hasn’t helped matters
A whole lot of things can be said to not have helped matters.
Such as £9 billion on the Olympics, £20 billion on wars, and a further proposed £20 billion on nuclear missiles.
Compared to all this and more, climate legislation is completely lost in the noise, but it sure gets a hugely out of proportion amount of complaints! Possibly because of it’s connection to that science some people don’t like.
Just realized I forgot the cost spent on bank bailouts in that list..
It’s all very easy for you to pontificate from your convenient distance. Come and live over here for a few years and see how you like it
Oh, and thanks for mentioning the £20 billion spent on wars – that’s about half of what the treasury collects EVERY YEAR in fuel taxes.
And the stated aim of said fuel tax when it was introduced was to reduce fossil fuel usage.
So don’t tell me it has nothing to do with climate change alarmism!
lolwot, ” irregardless”. did you really use that word. Reflect poorly, my son.
willis
‘Steven, I know I usually ask people to quote my words. But in this case I’ll have to ask you to quote your words, since I don’t recall you ever breathing fire about this stuff. ”
DAFS. and what makes you think that
A) you’ve read everything I ever wrote.
B) I only communicate my attitudes and beliefs on the internet.
##############################
More willis
a) poor people are dying as we debate this because of the bad science, pensioners are shivering in Britain as we speak because of the bogus claims of people like Marcott and his ilk, and
###############################################
I dont see marcott cited in any of the decisions to raise fuel prices in the UK. Further people dont die from the cold. Its actually a pretty interesting problem. You have increased mortality during cold months but tying the cause of death to the temperature is pretty hard, except in the case of warmth where it is easier. If you can scientifically show that the increased cold is actually the cause of death your nobel prize awaits you. Current thinking is something like, during the cold weather people spend more time indoors where they are exposed to a variety of vectors.
And look at what you done. You’ve made marcott guilty of the sins of mann and others. jeez. Also, the scientists didnt raise the taxes. and the scientists didnt elect the morons who took that solution.
###########
“b) after a quarter century of trying your brilliant plan, which seems to be shut up and don’t complain, they’re working on it, we’ve seen the opposite of progress—the malfeasance is getting worse, not better.’
please quote my words. I never said shut up and dont complain. quote my words and stop being a hypocrit. Your rules are ‘quote my words’ then you come on and put all manner of nonsense in my mouth. have you no shame. why should people listen to a hypocrit about morality?
###############
You advise that we try more of the same silence of the lambs in the hope of a different result.
You’ll forgive me if I fail to see the brilliance in further trying a plan which has failed over the last quarter century. People are dying on the sidelines, and you are advising us to just shut up and watch the game …
Because while like you I don’t understand what’s going on in their island, Steven, I do understand that it is killing the poor and making pensioners shiver and die around the planet.
Perhaps you are a man who can sit silently and watch that.
I’m not.
################
Again, find where I said that people should sit silently and watch that.
quote my words hypocrit!
################
So while you are free to respond to that reality in the way you wish, you are not free to claim that staying silent while people shiver and die is some high moral stance. Leaving climate science to self-correct isn’t working, Steven, it is killing people instead …
################
quote my words willis, where did I ever say that it was a high moral stance to sit silent while people shiver and die? WHERE?
quote my words hypocrit.
And perhaps my calling them out for it won’t work either … but leaving the parties responsible for the carnage alone on their island to figure it out is no longer an option on my planet. We tried it and it didn’t work, we need something else.
##################
the only way to change the island is from within. When you are outside the island your complaints have no standing. they dont work. Engaging in futile action when people are dying is immoral. if you want to change the island and have a voice on the island, and have it MEAN SOMETHING when you speak up, then you have to become an islander. I do not choose silence because I approve. And silence is not assent. When I speak i want it to be effective. That could mean becoming an islander.
Your approach, to grandstand, to put words in my mouth while you demand that others quote you, will not work. people will not listen to a man who cant follow his own rules. They realize that he is speaking just to make noise, not to make a difference
Mosh
Here is a report from Age UK on cold related deaths
http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Campaigns/STW/The_cost_of_cold_2012.pdf?dtrk=true
I am surprised at your claims. Please know that cold related deaths is a big problem in the uk and is very real and getting worse due to high fuel costs and much colder weather over the last decade or so
Tonyb
tony –
Bart R has made similar arguments w/r/t winter deaths as did steven just now. In fact, Bart’s been making those arguments in a detailed and impressive fashion for a while now.
I’ve been looking to read a sensible rebuttal, and haven’t seen one yet. Certainly, as “skeptic” you can see very obvious problems with using the document you just linked as a rebuttal. For example:
That statement certainly does nothing to rebut the points that steven made. In fact, it wouldn’t even control for the greater likelihood of traffic accidents due to slippery roads in winter (as, perhaps, weighed against fewer miles driven than in summer). I will look at the reference cited – but maybe you could come up with something less susceptible to obvious skeptical scrutiny?
tony –
The references do have something more on-point:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1060561/
Still, tying that into the cost of fuel is well-beyond the scope of that study, and certainly there are myriad possible confounding variables that would suggest the confidence of your conclusion is rather misplaced. Remember, tony, “skeptics” specialize in tracking down underestimated uncertainty like bloodhounds in a meat processing plant.
Joshua
The previous report I cited came from britains premier organisation dedicated to looking after the elderly. This report comes from the office of national statistics who are professional statisticians and an arm of the uk govt.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_288362.pdf
I would suggest that either organisation knows much more about the British situation than you, Bart or mosh.
Tonyb
Steven Mosher | April 4, 2013 at 4:39 pm | Reply
Holy moly. I ask for a simple cite, saying I didn’t recall you doing what you describe, and I get a rant about things I neither mentioned nor claimed … and no cite …
Funny how that works.
You’re happy to tee off on me, but for people actually doing wrong you counsel the silence of the lambs …
Funny how that works.
w.
“The previous report I cited came from britains premier organisation dedicated to looking after the elderly. This report comes from the office of national statistics who are professional statisticians and an arm of the uk govt.”
Imagine if I had used such an appeal to authority wrt climate science:
The report I cited comes from the Royal Society, one of Britain’s premier organizations dedicated to science.
Iolwots
Josh is American and therefore would presumably have no idea of who age uk was which is why i told him. It’s called being helpful
What report have you cited from the roual society or is that just some debating device to prove some point?
Tonyb
FYI death rate in England and Wales increases (excess mortality) in the winter by
11% for ages 45-64
18% for ages 65-74
28% for ages 75 and up
from table 1 of http://ageing.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/5/343.full.pdf
So lets first be clear winter is a lot frickin’ harder in the UK on old people. Let’s also be clear old people are generally on fixed incomes. Therefore for many old people in the UK rising cost of energy means less disposable income available for home heating, lighting, food, clothing, transportation, health care, etcetera. Rising cost of living without rising income also leads to stress which is a killer unto itself.
Ergo people who support policies that increase energy costs for old people are in fact causing a greater number of deaths among them.
I hope you people are happy with yourselves. You know who you are.
Now tony –
You know that I love you, man, and certainly as a statist, capitalism-hating, tax-loving, authoritarian warmist-cult member, I would never question the analysis of a government agency, but thinking of my dearly beloved “skeptical” friends, I could never accept such a response that looks so much like what they denounce as an “appeal to authority.”
You could just simply say that no, you don’t have any evidence on which you base your linkage between fuel prices and excess deaths. I already excerpted a quote with reference to the analysis you cited, and made it clear why it doesn’t suffice to support the certainty of your conclusions. A simple comparison of deaths in winter/summer months does not make the case that a greater mortality in winter is attributable to fuel prices – as opposed to something as simple as people spending more time indoors where disease is transmitted.
As a “skeptic,” I’m sure that you’re aware that there are many factors to be considered, and that our intuitive impressions need to be grounded in evidence. . For example, would you suppose that suicide rates are greater during winter – during the holiday season perhaps, or because of decreased daylight? But actually, I just read that there is mixed evidence of seasonal effect on suicide rates.
At any rate, if you actually have any evidence for the cause-and-effect between fuel prices and increased deaths, of which you are so certain – as opposed to just repetition of sources that speak of correlation between death rates and winter months, I would certainly appreciate it.
As I’ve said, I have been looking forward to a sensible rebuttal to the arguments that Bart has made. Perhaps another “skeptic” will step forward to offer the evidence you haven’t, as of yet anyway, produced.
DS –
I hope you people are happy with yourselves. You know who you are.
The majority are unwitting, foolish accomplices. Without question, some are intentional murderers, chuckling or not.
To deliberately institute policies which can be reliably shown beforehand to increase the risk of unnecessary death is acceptable only if provisions are made to either directly counter the effects or to at least forewarn potential victims so they may take appropriate measures. To the extent this was done with full knowledge and disregard of consequences is the degree to which the changes constitute premeditated murder.
It’s not that simple, for example winter is flu season and flu is hard on the elderly.
http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/2/209.full
Whilst influenza effects the infirm and elderly more it is not always the case,during the Spanish flue 1918,the highest mortality was in young males post teen.
The effects on health statistics,can also be from other mechanisms say from volcanics where both extremal temps can prevail ie hot summers and cold winters such as laki where the airborne pollution was also a significant factor in both decreasing the availability of food (PAR) and respiratory ailments. eg
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/15710.full
Tonyb | April 4, 2013 at 5:19 pm |
You have nothing but sympathy from me for the situation you find yourself in, with many foreigners — some of whom have spent remarkably little time on your lovely island off the coast of Ireland — deigning to advise you on how your country ought manage its affairs.
I assure, you, I want to keep out of this whole UK debacle as much as, or rather more than, I want foreigners to keep out of the affairs of America.
That said, the case for fuel poverty is not supported by the evidence in Europe or in the Americas; there are some valid African and Asian national cases, but they by and large have little to do with excess winter deaths. I know you’re an excellent researcher, so trust you would be able to furnish yourself with evidence and competent studies if you chose.
Doesn’t stop me from suggesting helpfully as a starting point:
http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/warm%20homes%20-%20jan%2009.pdf
Not that I condone Socialism, but hey, it’s your country, do what you like.
Steve – apparently you “used to breathe fire about this stuff” strictly privately. Why not? I am not a hero either.
“the only way to change the island is from within.” I have heard this argument many times, the “island” being the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Some of my friends became islanders. They achieved nothing. I don’t live there any more, but I still miss many friends.
Do you really believe that the Climate Science is as badly corrupt as you suggest? I agree that they don’t allow a publication of a dissenting view, and while they are not yet entitled to their own facts, they are getting there. But the situation is not totally hopeless. Having this exchange encourages me.
Did someone mistake Joshua for being nice or is this unintentional irony?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lee-halpin-film-maker-freezes-death-1814073
More UK MSM hyping hypothermia.. with zero evidence, and multiple indications otherwise.
A 27-year old man in good physical condition dies in a squat shared by homeless people on a night the temperature dipped no colder than -4C outdoors, and the MSM leap to “froze to death”?!
Puhleeze, in Buffalo a night out at -4C is called a street party when you’e in your twenties. Unless he was soaking wet, had no clothes, or were congenitally predisposed, hypothermia isn’t even remotely likely.
Freezing to death can and does happen to the homeless, and it’s a terrible sadness when it does. But crying wolf doesn’t help.
maksim:Whilst influenza effects the infirm and elderly more it is not always the case,during the Spanish flue 1918,the highest mortality was in young males post teen.
Eli will give you a pass on this one, you are probably too young and he only remembers because of how it reshaped his parents generation who told him, but the Spanish flu was unusual in how it went preferentially for younger people. See the wikipedia for details
well done iolwot for linking to a scheme currently closed, with narrow criteria, and paid for by increasing the bills of other customers who can ill afford it. What we all need are sensible energy prices in the first place not one where high prices are subsidised by those who can’t afford it
tonyb
Tonyb,
Back to sea level rise, Will you put the links to part 2 and 3 of the sea level rise papers out soon? Either here or on your blog. Very interested in changes in Great Britain from Middle Age Warm period to now.
Scott
Scott
It takes around a year for me to research a major article although enough material might come from it to write a smaller secondary article as well.
Over the last year I have been working on ‘historic variations in arctic ice part two’ and ‘the long slow thaw part 2’ both those will eventually help with historic variations in sea levels part two and three.
However at present the sea level articles today exist only as Partially researched unfinished material
As far as I can determine from incomplete information, a look at Harlech castle will demonstrate that was around the high point in the mwp sea levels and they then dropped again. They seemed to have started rising again around 1830 or so. This seems to tie in with glacial advances and retreats as well. As I say provisional only
I did write a brief article on harlech but its on another computer. I will hunt it out and let you know it’s location.
Tonyb
Joshua, does it ever give you pause that you’re in league with lolwot and FOMD and the lovely and amazing Susan Anderson/Mike Roddy/Asteroid Miner and that whole tinfoil hat brigade over at chez revkin? You’re not quite as loony as those I’ve named I don’t believe, at least not yet.
tony b
The satellite altimetry record of sea level rise is too short to tell us much. The period 1993-2003 showed +2.5 mm/year rise over this period (IPCC AR4 reported +3.1 mm/year, but concedes that it is unclear whether this faster rate “reflects decadal variability or an increase in the longer-term trend”). In addition, there have been reported problems with errors, drifts and mishaps exceeding the rate of change itself.
http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU04/05276/EGU04-J-05276.pdf
A study using several methods (Wunsch et al. 2007) estimates the SL rise over this period at +1.6 mm/year, but cautions:
http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/Wunschetal_jclimate_2007_published.pdf
The tide gauge record (which you have studied in some detail) tells us a bit more since it is much longer. This record (Holgate 2007) shows that the average decadal rate of SL change has oscillated from -1 mm/year to +5 mm/year over the 20th C, with the first half of the 20th C showing a slightly higher average rate of +2.0 mm/year than the second half at +1.4 mm/year (IOW no observed acceleration in the rate of SL rise).
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3144596227_545227fbae_b.jpg
A SL reconstruction (Jerjeva et al. 2008) going back to 1700 shows an apparent shift from slightly decreasing SL in the 18th C to a rising SL trend in the 19th and 20th C. The authors tie this trend to a second order polynomial fit showing long-term acceleration, but it could just as easily be interpreted as a gradual lowering of SL over the 18th C, shifting to a fairly constant average rising trend over the 19th and 20th C of +1.5 and +1.7 mm/year, respectively.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8117/8619344687_83fbf22c19_b.jpg
So it appears to me that the data show a shift somewhere around the end of the 18th C from slight average annual SL lowering to a rate of increase, which has oscillated widely on a decadal basis, but which has averaged out to around +1.5 to +1.7 mm/year since the beginning of the 19th C. I do not see any correlation at all with AGW caused by human GHG emissions.
I am looking forward to reading more about earlier SL trends, Tony, based on your research.
Max
Steven Mosher | April 4, 2013 at 4:39 pm
Steven, as I often do, I quoted your words in the first response. I didn’t realize you wanted me to requote them every time, but I’m happy to do so again.
I read that as saying that unless someone has lived on the island of ivory towers, they don’t know enough to make a definitive statement about scientific malfeasance done by those that do live there.
I described it as another way of saying shut up and don’t complain, because you never lived on their island and don’t know the rules.
If that is not your meaning, if you were actually encouraging people to speak out despite the great handicap of never having lived on Ivory Island, then you should be much more careful with your explanations.
w.
THanks Max
Tonyb, Whenever you are ready we look forward to seeing your work.
Scott
Steven Mosher | April 4, 2013 at 4:39 pm
Oh, please, is that the defense for bad science now? That it hasn’t been specifically cited amidst the alarmist clamor for raising fuel prices, despite having been published last week? Marcott is one more part of that justification for increasing the energy costs of the poor, your objection is absurd.
People don’t die from the cold, you just have increased mortality during the cold months? Say what? What difference does the exact chain of causation make? Unless the people dying make it colder, the causation is only going one way in that correlation, from cold to dead.
Marcott is specifically guilty of the sins of Mann, he’s done the exact same thing Mann did. He’s come straight out of rolled, and puffed some bullshit science that he knew was bogus into worldwide fame. The only difference is with Mann it took a couple of years to catch on. But now we’re watching, so it only took a week or so for his machinations to be exposed.
You are right. The scientists merely provided the bad science and agitated widely and constantly for extreme and impractical solutions, and provided the incorrect numbers to justify the taxes, and supported and publicly demonstrated in favor of the taxes, and told lies dressed up in scientific clothes to the morons who took that solution … so clearly you’re right, the scientists bear no responsibility at all …
Sigh.
w.
Steven Mosher | April 4, 2013 at 4:39 pm
Steven, I really, truly hope that’s not true. Because if our only hope is the people on Ivory Island, then we’re screwed. They’ve had 25 years to see through this and they are not only not getting any better.
As the Marcott fiasco shows, they’re getting worse. Their way hasn’t worked.
So I’m sorry, but I can’t just stand around and go well, I don’t live on the island, I’m 66 and I pound nails for a living and I’ll never live on the island, and Steven says my complaints have no standing and don’t work, so …
You say you’re not advising people to keep silent, Steven, but you see my speaking up as a “futile action when people are dying” … sounds like “keep silent” to me.
So I fear you’ll have to put up with me calling a spade a spade for a while longer, my friend. I may be speaking into an echo chamber, but if the nature of many of the comments is any indication, I’m not the only one outraged by this “twist the proxies to fit the preconceptions” kind of pseudo-science.
They had an obligation to prominently display and discuss their previous results. Not doing so is scientific malfeasance. And I won’t call it anything else, despite your claim that raising honest objections to unethical science is futile. As I’ve said before, from my perspective the problem is not that I’m too outraged.
The problem is that the people on Ivory Island, and their apologists in the real world, aren’t outraged enough.
w.
As was previously noted:
That’s plain common-sense *and* mighty good news, eh Willis Eschenbach?
In a canoe one can quietly paddle around Ivory Island and observe some of the comings and goings of the Island’s inhabitants. As in Wm. Goldings’ Lord of the Flies, one can draw the analogy of the children’s attempt at self-governance, utilizing religious adherence to the dogma, as a description of current climate scientists behavior. The threat of a formidable “beasty” ( CO2 in this case) was justification for individual persecution and the demand of blind allegiance from the tribe. The shelter provided by leadership meant one kept one’s mouth shut and keep one’s doubts to oneself.
Changing the social structure from within means armed conflict and if done on a one by one basis, such individuals are easily marginated and pick off (by sniper fire).
Change comes to island people mostly from without not within. And so it must be for Ivory Island.
There was a noticeable environment temperature trend in the 1950’s through 1970’s that had scientists talking about the coming of another ice age. An abrupt climate change to warmth had the scientists about face saying we were all going to “fry.” After another abrupt climate change, we have at least a “pause.” The 1970’s glacerists were replaced by the 1990’s warmists who are being replaced by the new 2000’s “pausists,”
What changed the drum beat emanating from Ivory Island was the reality of the environmental temperatures. The behaviors of the Ivory Island inhabitants haven’t changed, it’s just that the wind has changed.
I don’t fear for the careers of the newly minted climate scientists, they are just getting their feet wet and learning how to play the game. Whomever pays the Piper (Government), calls the tune. At one time the tune was cold, then hot, now…maybe just right. We shall see.
“Pig’s head on a stick.”
LOTF. Great, great book.
Andrew
Disturbing ter see
‘doing science,’innovation
of an open society,
captured by the thinking
of a tribal society,
magical thinking and
observing taboos that
serve social cohesion
but not truth.
Say! A new alkanone –
reconstructed- hockey – schtick
from Marcott – Shakun – Clark –
and – er Mix.
RiHo08
Excellent summary.
He who pays the Piper (pols of the ruling class) calls the tune, as you write.
The most recent tune (which is now fading ?) was that of CAGW.
The pols love this one because it had the goal of trillions of dollars in carbon tax revenues to shuffle around.
Industrial corporations and investors love it because they see the promise of getting a chunk of the money.
Environmental lobby groups love it because it gives them a ready-made platform and more power.
Anti-growth Malthusians love it because they hope to force the world away from fossil fuels back to a “greener” lifestyle.
The media love it because it gives them disaster stories to sell to the public.
Governments of impoverished non-industrial nations love it because they saw the chance of extorting compensation money from the rich industrial nations.
Climatologists love it because it guarantees taxpayer funding for their research, as long as the studies comply with the “consensus” view.
So CAGW had the promise of becoming a major multi-billion dollar “win-win” for everyone (except the general public, which would have to fund the whole circus through sharply higher energy costs).
But, as Robert Burns wrote:
This time it’s those pesky thermometers (even the ones next to AC exhausts and asphalt parking lots) that are telling us it has stopped warming, despite adjustments and corrections that are being made to the temperature record. Solar activity has slowed down from the 20th C highs. And we are experiencing a series of harsher winters across much of the northern hemisphere, which are very difficult to reconcile with the CAGW story, despite the frantic attempts by some climatologists.
So, while the pols and some climatologists are still trying to keep the hysteria alive (as we see from the Science distortion of the Marcott et al. paper to create a “super hockey-stick”), they are having an increasingly difficult time doing so.
IF the sun really has started a couple of slower than average solar cycles, and IF the current slight cooling trend continues or becomes even more pronounced over the next couple of decades, we can bury the CAGW scare, along with all the other doomsday scenarios and scares that preceded it.
But I predict that it will be a slow, agonizing death
Max
Beth
Your poem gives us an arti-shtick summary of the topic here.
Let me add my April thoughts:
The snowy fields out yonder
Have gotten me to ponder
And I can’t help but wonder
Are we headed fer a Maunder?
Max
manaker
Death by a thousand cuts.
Well Max,
What with this cold spurt in the northern hemisphere,
and past climate vari – abil – tee yer can’t rule out
a return of Maunder, or mebbe son of Maunder,
con – dish – uns. I’ve almost finished knittin’ Tony
B’s sweater and when I have, I ‘ll start knittin’ one
fer yew. ) But if we down south get hit with regional
cold whether, I hafta draw the line somewhere, jest
not up ter knitting a unicorn sized coat fer Chief’s
blue horse.
Beth the serf.
I tend to agree with JC here. In fact “Climate Science” does have a future and a very important one at that. The Marcott graph, if you take the idiotic uptick that was forced upon these young researchers probably by Mann et al, shows a cooling pattern. We all acknowledge by now that Solar activity is definitely going down and this is in fact the ONLY “climate” variable that is changing as the temperature records appear to have too many artificial adjustments etc.. always warming up: Cooling is probably far more of a serious problem than heating is as we have seen by the 1000’s of deaths this winter in the UK and past history where humans thrived when it was warmer. For C@@@ Sake just look how life thrives in the tropics and virtually none in the poles! We have probably passed the solar max for cycle 24 and yes Hathaway was wrong again! (but at least he tends to correct the graph regularly to reflect the current situation). Cycle 25 is believed to be a “dead Cycle”. I believe climate science a new science does definitely have a role to play but the Scientists need to be 100% truthful in this fashion (as marcott original Thesis was) yes you probably can keep your jobs etc most likely dealing with an impending Maunder minimum type event!
If you value science you cannot shield the indefensible from scrutiny. Being forced to add an ‘idiotic uptick’ provides an opportunity to correct the record.
However, we have reached the point where the real goal shouldn’t be to end up with a correct record. What we need now is to get rid of the system that requires and makes excuses for an ‘idiotic uptick’ to added.
Unfortunately, the schools are a part of that system. What is insane now is not forcing the addition of an ‘idiotic uptick’ but thinking it isn’t asking too much for public-funded teachers to confront insanity — political correctness be damned? What is insane is for us to keep doing what we have been doing and expect anything to change.
We all expected more from public-funded education. We’re never going to get it. They’re teaching global warming to the children in Western schools and they’re not going to change.
Wags –
I suggest some topics for your review. Look into Finnish schools, and where their funding comes from. Look at the measures of their success, and to what pedagogical, methodological, and educational psychology elements are causal for their levels of success.
Then get back to me. We’ll talk.
Poor waggie,
horrified that kids are taught science.
Is that what they were ‘teaching’ in 1930s Germany?
GODWIN!
It is Leftist propaganda to deny that AGW is propaganda.
Correction if you take the Uptick away
Actually the declining solar activity is a very very serious matter judging from past data. We could be entering a major maunder period or even much more serious. Climate scientists should now be concentrating on this event.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/sunspot.gif
When the oceans are cooling there is no global warming. Most of the Earth is of course covered by water and it is the oceans (lakes, streams and clays) on Earth that hold the heat, not CO2. If not for the heat holding capacity of oceans, Earth would be a lot colder.
From my perspective, The winters in NH will get more and more prolonged and colder every couple or triple of years (2014-2100). The SH will not be too much affected initially because 9/10 of SH is water.The summers in both hemispheres may not be affected too much initially. By the end of Solar 25 (if indeed its a dead cycle), things could get very bad indeed lets hope it doesn’t. I recommend that most people move to the tropics LOL
Eliza –
Would you look at the Marcott data – the long downward trend minus the bogus uptick, of course – as evidence that supports your prediction of decades of cooling?
“The SH will not be too much affected initially because 9/10 of SH is water”
The impact on the SH will be greater for a number of reasons for example whilst the global decrease in the 11 yr SC is small 0.1% @the TOA, the forcing is greater in the SH due to orbital constraints .for example sh summer forcing is larger by 120 wm^2 .
The spectral irriadiance is around 20% in the sw spectrums that effect ocean heating,and relatively unchanged in the near IR hence there would be a presumption of a reduction in SH ocean heat.
Eliza
Should be lots of low-cost real estate on the market, with the hordes of “climate refugees” rushing to higher latitudes (according to the “consensus loons”).
Max
Breaking News: Dramatic flood insurance increases force residents to flee the coast.
Gosh Manacker … now insurance companies are joining forces with business leaders, military leaders, religious leaders … and even poets in rejecting the willful ignorance of demagogic/astroturf climate-change denialism!
Which is good, eh Manacker? The market has spoken … and the market agrees with the climate-change scientists, eh?
Fanny
Sure the insurance companies are helping promote the CAGW scare.
Duh!.
(Follow the money trail, Fanny.)
Max
Fan, you are one of the more irritating “demagogues” I’ve seen online, but I just laugh at your comments and pass over them . Until now, anyway, this one time…. Despite all the links (or perhaps because of, you seem to think that hyperlinks provide a substitute for analysis and argument), there is rarely any intelligent argument on offer. So all of your very tedious emphases, hyperlinks, exclamation points !!!, hearts and smileys :) :) :) are counter-productive to your “Cause”….. If my experience is worth anything (yes, it is), your behavior here tends to alienate and irritate people who might actually be interested in what you have to say (I am, actually). Soooo, I recommend that you reconsider and recast your rhetorical approach, dispense with the sneering and jeering, and present only calm, factually based arguments with data and good reasoning.
btw, the link you provided on “dramatic flood insurance increases” shows abysmal ignorance and malfeasance in failing to describe the issues along the Louisiana Gulf coast. The problems with managing the Atchafalaya and Mississippi Rivers and changed sediment flows, land subsidence along the coast, etc. are huge and of long standing without reference to “climate change.” Do you know what the Mississippi River would do to the Atchafalaya River and the whole Morgan City region if the Army Corps of Engineers had not been managing the waters for many decades already? Look it up. But it’s had the unfortunate side effect of drastically altering the sedimentation in the Mississippi delta region…. folks in the Morgan City area shouldn’t really complain, though, they’ve enjoyed subsidized living for decades with the benefits of federally financed flood control when otherwise they would have been washed away in many places there.
The insurance industry is starting to think kinda different from you about climate-change, eh Skiphil?
as I said……
P.S. like most sensible netizens I tend not to click on a hyperlink unless I have been offered adequate explanation of what the link is about and where it will take me. In fact, I object to people who routinely offer hyperlinks without displaying such elemental respect for the reader. I suspect most of your efforts here are wasted, but so long as it all makes you feel good ….
LOL … every Climate Etc reader (except Skiphill!) will learn that report was prepared by the INCR:
Skiphill, thank you for showing Climate Etc readers some methods by which denialists sustain willful ignorance!
Fan, you are a wilful misreader, blatantly ridiculous. My point is that you sling these links around without any analysis or indication of why we should click. I find that offensive, obnoxious, and tedious. Do you really believe that all Climate, Etc. readers even bother with your links? I doubt it, but in any case I won’t. I was merely trying to give you a couple of pointers for effective communication, because despite some evident intelligence you are truly a SITE PEST. A spammy, insulting, tedious, and often malicious pest. These attributes override anything you might contribute, except for your fellow cultists. If expanding your circle of engagement and influence has not interest for you, then ignore my words. Enjoy yourself. You will continue to be a useless site pest.
Skiphil,
I think Fan is always worth reading. And I wish you and other posters would put as much effort into backing up what you say.
Thanks Nick, but as a presumptive ally of “Fan” you are not in a position to judge whether he is effective with anything but “preaching to the converted.”
You may not know it, but I am always on the lookout for comments and commentators I think I should try to learn from. I would not bother trying to influence “Fan” if I did not think he had more worthwhile potential here. I am simply giving my impressions, that his comments are very spammy but could be much more effective.
Nature’s utter disregard for personal feelings and ideology is notorious, eh Skiphil?
So perhaps you ought to be especially wary of sites/posters that *don’t* upset you … whose top priority is to be protective of your precious feelings and ideology!
Fan, you have no idea about my “ideology” or about my “personal feelings” except that I find demagogic, irrational, hyperactive commentators like you annoying.
As a matter of fact, I am “concerned” about climate change, but I see charlatans like you, who I know shouldn’t be trusted, hyping the issues.
Trying to sort hype from reality is one of the challenges, and you are not helping matters.
Someone once suggested that FAN could be Willis Eschenbach in drag but he/she is one of my favourite personas on this blog. I don’t believe that I am a warmist and I certainly do not support everything that he/she says nor read the many links that he/she provides.
Its an acquired taste however and it will take some getting used to. FAN is so obviously pro AGW and a Hansenite of the first order that I am almost convinced that he/she is not for real but is here to take the mickey out of many of the sceptical commenters on CE who often make assertions without properly backing them up.
In any case, if Skiphil or anyone else finds FAN irritating there’s always the mouse wheel to take one to safety!
Peter, interesting points, thanks. Yes, with any online commentator one has the option to try to ignore, but unless sites develop a permanent “ignore” button it is still an inconvenience. The noise to signal ratio is altered by someone like Fan who posts so much so hysterically. Anyway, I do think that Fan could make many more useful contributions here that I would seek to learn from. In the current incarnation, though, it will continue to be mostly the mental “ignore” button.
My heart breaks at the though of poor skiphill, having to wheel past Fan’s comments. Oh. the inconvenience! I can’t stop weeping since I’ve read about his plight.
Oh. The humanity!
Nick Stokes,
Some call you Racehorse Stokes, after the sleazy, but sometimes effective lawyer, Haynes. But you remind me more of Johnny Cochrane. Look at your clients Nick – Mann, Marcott, and now FOMD.
Don’t weep for me Joshua, I will be just fine, thank you.
You are also one who far under-performs his potential here.
Contrary to you and Fan, I do like to sincerely engage and learn from people of different views and experiences, especially those with whom I don’t already agree. I’m not here to influence the debate but to learn. I know I’m still early on my own learning curve in these matters, but as a citizen and non-scientist I have to start somewhere.
That is one reason I consider Fan’s behavior so unfortunate.
The sad thing is, skiphill, I actually have no more potential than what you get. But appreciate that you tried to give me the benefit of doubt.
Joshua, I think you do have much more potential for making helpful contributions to these discussions. See, I have very high regard for your abilities and evident intelligence, although too often I don’t think you expect so much of yourself. Best wishes.
bob,
“Look at your clients Nick – Mann, Marcott, and now FOMD.”
Fan needs no Racehorse – runs rings around all of you.
The guy is a ponce with a panchant for the inane, the sickly cutesy and bafflingly irrelevant science or gobsmackingly inapplicable math. Someone after you own heart – hey Nick.
Science moves on – so should he and you. Try some Earth sciences. At this stage your intransigence is merely pathetic and laughable.
NIck
Two things, I have only just seen your reply to my query over at WUWT as to which paleoclimate graphs you believe to be accurate, thanks for that.
Here you say Fan runs rings around us. Nonsense. I like Fan but his stiock in trade is deliberately changing what we say in order to make us appear unreasonable, or ignoring tough questions. You can see both traits encapsulated here in his reply to me.
“ClimateReason asserts “My use of the word ‘exponential’ was [socially but not mathematically] correct.”
TonyB, please let me ask you a question that is far simpler to answer, than any question you have ever asked me (a question that other Climate Etc readers are cheerfully invited to answer too!):”
Fan was wrong in changing my use of the word exponential as an every day expression, never answered the question where I used it in the first place, then cheerfully admits he is asked tough questions but fails to memtion he is unable/unwilling to answer them.
As I say I like Fan and think his controbutions often interesting, but his links are often irrelevant, Hansen obsessed and sometimes completely off the point.
I have suggested we might all go together to this Vatican conference he seems to be fixated about. Fancy a Charabanc trip to the Vatican next year? (God willing?)
tonyb
Perhaps that delicate flower of skeptical fragility, Skiphil, would like to compute the answer? Chief Hydrologist? Bob? Any numerically competent skeptic at all?
Bonus Question Fly in Google Earth to the Pantheon (in Rome), and determine whether even the top of the Pantheon’s famous dome will remain above the ocean-waters, in the event of sea-level rise far milder than Hansen’s predictions. And do this for other antiquities: How much of the Great Pyramid of Giza remain above water? How much of the Lincoln Memorial? The Washington Monument? The Jefferson Library?
Gee, maybe that’s why Pope Francis — like everyone who takes the long view! — regards climate-change science seriously?
Good on `yah, to all who take the long view, and aren’t afraid to calculate!
Mockery be on `yah, short-sighted demagogic astroturfing willful ignoramuses!
Skiphill… TonyB…
Your’e pig wrasslin’
There is also this fact which is becoming statistically highly significant I don’t believe it has anything to do with “global warming”(because the met office UK has admitted no significant warming for 15 years now):
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
Joshua:Thanks for your comments: The only current prediction I am assuming is based on recent Solar activity which I believe is starting to kick in (BTW I could be 100% wrong!). The Marcott graph as expoused in his original thesis without the uptick shows a long term decline over 1000’s of years which may or may not be related to current solar activity.
Correction not current solar activity, just solar activity
“New Research Indicates the Earth May Be Cooling
The National Center for Public Policy Research ^ | February 2002 | Amy Ridenour President of The National Center for Public Policy Research
Posted on 02/15/2002 5:48:50 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
National Policy Analysis #388: New Research Indicates the Earth May Be Cooling – February 2002”
My bold.
From: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/629030/posts
“After a decade of warnings that the Earth’s temperature may be rapidly warming, and that this supposed warming may result in a surge of catastrophic flooding and lethal storms, it now appears that we may be in for global cooling instead.
“The mammoth west Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough water to lift the world’s sea levels by 20 feet, isn’t melting after all. Instead, it’s actually thickening and Antarctica itself is getting cooler.1
“A new study by researchers from the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California at Santa Cruz, published in the respected journal Science, found that the ice sheets of Antarctica, far from melting, actually are expanding by some 26.8 billion tons of ice a year.2
“The scientists, Ian Joughlin, a geologist at CIT, and Slawek Tulaczyk, a professor of earth sciences at UC Santa Cruz, speculate the thickening ice sheets are repeating a pattern that occurred from 1650 -1850 when the Earth went through what became known as the Little Ice Age.3
“The study’s lead author, limnologist Peter Doran, an expert on the study of fresh water at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is worried about the cooling’s impact on the environment.
“Doran says cooling temperature not only is reducing the amount of fresh water feeding into Antarctica’s lakes, but it’s also making the surface ice thicker so plankton that use sunlight for energy are getting less sunlight. And that, he says, is bad news for the life forms that depend on plankton for food.
“The ecosystem would continue to diminish, and eventually it would essentially go into a deep sleep – like a freeze-dried ecosystem,” Doran said in a January 21 interview with Richard Harris, a science reporter for National Public Radio.4
“Doran noted that only a few years ago the National Science Foundation was seriously considering moving its campsites away from lakeshores to escape higher lake levels caused by the melting water.
“We went into this project with the idea that global warming was going to hit us any time now, and we kept waiting for the warm summers to come and they never came,” Doran said. “It just kept getting colder and colder, and that’s the story.”
The Met Office has admitted it’s been ‘hiding the decline’ since 1995, how many more papers like “National Policy Analysis #388: New Research Indicates the Earth May Be Cooling” are there during this period?
When top science organisations like the Met Office have shown themselves duplicitous as a matter of policy, then all legislation created on the back of this fraud is automatically null and void.
‘I published my first climate-related paper in 1974 (Chylek and Coakley, Aerosol and Climate, Science 183, 75-77). I was privileged to supervise Ph. D. theses of some exceptional scientists – people like J. Kiehl, V. Ramaswamy and J. Li among others. I have published well over 100 peer-reviewed papers, and I am a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Optical Society of America, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Within the last few years I was also honored to be included in Wikipedia’s blacklist of “climate skeptics”.
For me, science is the search for truth, the never-ending path towards finding out how things are arranged in this world so that they can work as they do. That search is never finished.
It seems that the climate research community has betrayed that mighty goal in science. They have substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view. It seems that some of the most prominent leaders of the climate research community, like prophets of Old Israel, believed that they could see the future of humankind and that the only remaining task was to convince or force all others to accept and follow. They have almost succeeded in that effort.
Yes, there have been cases of misbehavior and direct fraud committed by scientists in other fields: physics, medicine, and biology to name a few. However, it was misbehavior of individuals, not of a considerable part of the scientific community.
Climate research made significant advancements during the last few decades, thanks to your diligent work. This includes the construction of the HadCRUT and NASA GISS datasets documenting the rise of globally averaged temperature during the last century. I do not believe that this work can be affected in any way by the recent email revelations. Thus, the first of the three pillars supporting the hypothesis of man-made global warming seems to be solid. However, the two other pillars are much more controversial.
To blame the current warming on humans, there was a perceived need to “prove” that the current global average temperature is higher than it was at any other time in recent history (the last few thousand years). This task is one of the main topics of the released CRU emails.
Some people were so eager to prove this point that it became more important than scientific integrity. The next step was to show that this “unprecedented high current temperature” has to be a result of the increasing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.
The fact that the Atmosphere Ocean General Circulation Models are not able to explain the post-1970 temperature increase by natural forcing was interpreted as proof that it was caused by humans. It is more logical to admit that the models are not yet good enough to capture natural climate variability (how much or how little do we understand aerosol and clouds, and ocean circulation?), even though we can all agree that part of the observed post-1970 warming is due to the increase of atmospheric CO2
concentration.
Thus, two of the three pillars of the global warming and carbon dioxide paradigm are open to reinvestigation. The damage has been done. The public trust in climate science has been eroded. At least a part of the IPCC 2007 report has been put in question. We cannot blame it on a few irresponsible individuals. The entire esteemed climate research community has to take responsibility. Yes, there always will be a few deniers and obstructionists.
So what comes next? Let us stop making unjustified claims and exaggerated projections about the future even if the editors of some eminent journals are just waiting to publish them. Let us admit that our understanding of the climate is less perfect than we have tried to make the public believe. Let us drastically modify or temporarily discontinue the IPCC. Let us get back to work.
Let us encourage students to think their own thoughts instead of forcing them to parrot the IPCC conclusions. Let us open the doors of universities, of NCAR, NASA and other research institutions (and funding agencies) to faculty members and researchers who might disagree with the current paradigm of carbon dioxide.
Only open discussion and intense searching of all possibilities will let us regain the public’s trust and move forward.’ Petr Chylek – open letter to climat scientists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_
scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
As the planets cools for another decade or so at least – one wonders how much longer the dogs of the climate war will bay.
LOL … Generalissimo Skippy, the market is offering you and Manacker a chance to become billionaires … by marketing cut-rate ocean-side insurance.
Heck, all the smart denialist investors will race to bankroll you! Hmmm …
• smart …
• denialist …
• investmentors …
Pick any two! But not all three! That’s what the market says, eh Generalissimo Skippy?
AFOMD,
I am assuming that you are what I believe is referred to as a “troll”.
Could you please let me know whether your intent is to be gratuitously offensive, or whether you are just ignorant.
For example, why do assume that the two participants you refer to wish to become billionaires? I certainly don’t, as I have seen nothing to indicate that wealth increases one’s intelligence by one iota, and my physical wants and needs seem to be adequately satisfied by my modest means.
Who or what is this mysterious market? It seems to be widely talked about by such as yourself, but like the Greenhouse Effect, seems to have nothing to do with any real market f my experience.
One’s choice of dwelling place cannot be guaranteed to be free from inundation, fire, earthquake, pestilence, attacks by vermin and so on, and people, therefore, are easily gulled into providing “insurers” with a lifetime of comfortable living, at the property owners’ expense.
Any reasonable person would realise that “insurance” benefits the insurer to the financial detriment of the insuree. In cases where the insurer makes the fatal error of accidentally taking any other approach, the insurer’s business fails. I assume you are advising your audience to start up a business guaranteed to fail by paying out more than the premium income. What would be the point of this?
Although I am not what you would call an “investor”, you are aware that I am a “denialist” – flat earth, phlogiston, universal aether, and so on.
Do you support the nonsense that I “deny”? Or will you join me in the “denier” tribe?
In any case, your final sentence contains an instance of the word “eh”, the reason for which I am unable to fathom.
You have precisely no experimental justification for the wondrous, (but non existent), Greenhouse Effect. I point out out once again that the long term average of the Earth’s surface temperature, (I’m happy with your definition of “surface”), over he last four and a half billion years or so is one of cooling.
I also point out that wrapping a body in a gas will not warm the body one jot..
If you want to make billions, might I suggest you seek backing from all the addlepated acolytes who prostrate themselves at the feet of Warmenestra, and sell a range of, say, self warming beverages containg CO2. Self warming sleeping bags, self heating houses, self heating boilers providing free energy – wonderful! While you are at it, you might like to distribute copies of all the wonderful benefits that have accrued from the billions spent as a result of the bleatings of a few misguided souls.
I can’t think of a single one. I am sure you can provide many.
Give me a break!
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
‘Unlike El Niño and La Niña, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns.. This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation ‘cool’ trend can intensify La Niña or diminish El Niño impacts around the Pacific basin,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “The persistence of this large-scale pattern [in 2008] tells us there is much more than an isolated La Niña occurring in the Pacific Ocean.”
Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.” http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
This is what a science says hey – FOMBS – and the market will surely follow. From my dining room table I can catch a smidgeon of the ocean and the mangroves in and which is definitely in a cyclone prone regions – site just high enough to avoid any storm surge – but just in case I have an escape route up the hill planned. As someone who worked in coastal engineering for a considerable portion of a long and varied career – and if anyone wants some advice on coastal property – I don’t come cheap.
Ones wonders how difficult it is to continue to deny what has been obvious in the Earth sciences for more than a decade. There is much more – but it is sufficient that NASA tells a simple story that even such as you would understand if only had the wit to stop shutting your eyes and sticking yours fingers in your ears and retailing irrelevant inanities at any occasion, at great length, frequently and to no particular purpose it seems.
As Petr Chylek said it – ‘seems that the climate research community has betrayed that mighty goal in science. They have substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view. It seems that some of the most prominent leaders of the climate research community, like prophets of Old Israel, believed that they could see the future of humankind and that the only remaining task was to convince or force all others to accept and follow. They have almost succeeded in that effort.’
It has certainly worked on you hey FOMBS – took the bait hook, line and sinker without so much as a smidgeon of real knowledge.
You may laugh as much as you like but you are still an idiot and still a loser. As NASA says – we are certainly in a cool multi-decadal mode.
Oh you’re screwed allright FOMBS – nothing surer. You just need to pick which side of your face you say ‘I am an idiot’ out of.
Skippy –
A link for your lengthy quote:
Petr Chylek: Open Letter to the Climate Research Community
Well – I’ve read it – but someone might be interested. It is not as if it is a difficutlt google. And to you it is Generalissmo if you want anything like a pleasant reply. Else let loose the dogs of war…
Good essay by Chylek, I hadn’t seen that before
For perspective, a critical discussion of some of Chylek’s work for your perusal.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/nothin-but-noise/
Chief Hydrologist –
Just trying to do you a favor.
It isn’t altogether clear that the bulk of your lengthy comment at Generalissimo Skippy | April 4, 2013 at 8:42 pm | Reply is actually a verbatim quote.
So, it’s the sort of thing you have to admit that WHT might notice, maybe accuse you of plagiarism, you might deny, then I would jump in to point out WHT has a point, you would attack me, etc, etc.
I had hoped this would avoid that problems, especially since I rather appreciate your posts – excepting the nasty ones.
your friend,
bi2hs
So about 1 out of every 50, then?
The Chief is like North Korea.
Judith, you write “Good essay by Chylek, I hadn’t seen that before.”
An interesting comment. I am not sure how long it takes to scan the GWPF website daily, but it is not long. I find this a very useful link to all sorts of interesting reports.
Chief Hydrologist | April 5, 2013 at 7:04 am |
“And to you it is Generalissmo if you want anything like a pleasant reply. Else let loose the dogs of war…”
You speaking for Skippy now?
Looks like someone needs to be more careful about what’s in the name field before pressing the ‘post comment’ button. Eh, Sybil?
Tamino’s mathematical analysis is correct: Chylek’s statistical analysis is flawed such that his inferences are wrong.
As for Chylek’s “Open Letter”, the risk-analysts of the insurance industry (and of the Vatican? of the military? of foresighted human institutions in general?) will evaluate its scientific worth as negligible … because — like innumerable similar skeptical/denialist “Open Letters” — Chylek’s “Open Letter” does not associate even a *likelihood* to the crucial scientific postulate Hansen’s 1981 climate-change world-view is broadly correct.
What is that likelihood, the world wonders? Don’t ask Chylek! His brand of skepticism is so nonspecifically encompassing, that it is indistinguishable from outright denialism.
FOMD, Tamino’s math analysis is open to interpretation. We don’t live in a linear world. Carl Sagan and Jim Hansen’s analysis are also open to interpretation, because of that same non-linear world.
WHT: “The Chief is like North Korea.”
Mr. Telescope, amusing but oblivious. Granted I don’t read most of your posts. Who could? But after all this time I’m sure I’ve seen a representative sampling. Mean spirited snarkiness is pretty much your defining characteristic. Your posts fairly drip sneering condescension. Which is fine, Your privilege. But at least have some self-awareness….
Joshua & FOMD –
Not-with-standing knee-jerk reactions from the ususual suspects, the more than 4000 citations of Petr Chylek’s work suggest demonstrable climate science creds. However, a year after becoming an AGU elected fellow, he coauthored Aerosol Optical Depth, Climate Sensitivity and Global Warming which found “climate sensitivity to be 0.4 (with uncertainty of 0.1)K/Wm-2. This value corresponds to a warming of about 1.6 (with uncertainty of 0.4) deg C due to doubling the amount of carbon dioxide.”. Hmm. There’s the problem! It’s within IPCC range, but on the low side.
I’m going to risk missing something genuine and skip reading critiques from the Hounds of Hell. I had my fill reading vile opinions of Freeman Dyson (and Judith Curry, etc).
I had my fill reading vile
opinions ofattacks on Freeman Dyson (and Judith Curry, etc)Tamino is right. That Chylek analysis of the Dye3 Greenland ice core data is stupendously misguided. They are looking at white noise and extracting phantoms out of the data set. I just tried it myself, looking at Fourier and autocorrelation and perhaps see at most a 2 year correlation wrt brown noise.
But it is so weak and the overwhelming picture is of a flat white noise spectrum.
Did Chylek ever respond to Tamino or was he too embarrassed?
Everything Chylek says or does is now suspect.
pg,
what we do is the equivalent of dunking the ball over someone’s head. The retaliation should be that the embarrassed party to try to dunk over my head, and not to continuously toss up air-balls.
All they can get Tamino on is plagiarism. That’s pretty rich.
An older guest appearance by Chylek:
> Fraser Forum is a monthly review of public policy in Canada, with articles covering taxation, education, health care policy, and wide range of other topics. Forum writers are economists, Institute research analysts, and selected authors, including those from other public policy think tanks.
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/research/display.aspx?id=12814
The Fraser Institute. Hmmm. An interesting quote:
> We may want to blame someone for climate “change,” but the climate was changing well before mankind’s arrival on earth.
Yes, but climate changes.
WebHubTelescope | April 5, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Tamino is right. That Chylek analysis of the Dye3 Greenland ice core data is stupendously misguided.
Well, Webby. It turned out that Tamino & company are civil compared to my visits years ago and maybe not even nastier than you.
So I downloaded data to analyze. it will take me a lot longer than you. Thanks.
David – It was obviously quite correct advice on the proper respect due the Generallissimo. You are advised to lighten up – it can’t be good for your blood pressure.
Blueice – it is all in quotation marks – and I said that someone might appreciate your link – perhaps Judith did.
Tamino’s blog science is always partisan – and I have quite frankly given up reading any but this site – and webby’s for a laugh. It is all noise and no substance.
Joshua complaining about nasty is the proverbial maniac calling the pot black and webby’s basketball analogies and quick dismssal of respected sceintists he doesn’t agree with are pointless and silly as usual.
Yes climate changes naturally and quite substantially – that is the point. I doubt that these are oscilliatory as much as shifts on the attractor – but the shifts are in the data and the Arctic ampliication is obvious.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/chylek09.gif.html?sort=3&o=91#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/chylek09.gif.html?sort=3&o=91&_suid=136519239651605137616374664743
‘It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Anstasios Tsonis said.
The world is not waming for a decade or three more at least.
chylek=non robust
that is the working definition
‘Understanding the internal ocean variability and its influence on climate is imperative for society. A key aspect concerns the enigmatic Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), a feature defined by a 60- to 90-year variability in North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures. The nature and origin of the AMO is uncertain, and it remains unknown whether it represents a persistent periodic driver in the climate system, or merely a transient feature. Here, we show that distinct, ~55- to 70-year oscillations characterized the North Atlantic ocean-atmosphere variability over the past 8,000 years. We test and reject the hypothesis that this climate oscillation was directly forced by periodic changes in solar activity. We therefore conjecture that a quasi-persistent ~55- to 70-year AMO, linked to internal ocean-atmosphere variability, existed during large parts of the Holocene. Our analyses further suggest that the coupling from the AMO to regional climate conditions was modulated by orbitally induced shifts in large-scale ocean-atmosphere circulation.’
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n2/full/ncomms1186.html
Seriously – it’s all white noise? I never know what webby means by white noise. It is all coherent signals of climate variability – the problems as always is little enough data to understand what it is all about.
bi2hs –
hmmm….
Dude. I figured since you’re a “skeptic,” you’d want to be skeptical, and look at Chylek’s work from a variety of perspectives.
As one of my much beloved “skeptics” recently wrote:
It seems that you think by posting that article, I was saying that all of his work is invalid. If that’s the case, then you would be wrong.
It’s all noise – mostly from the hero ponce battling the Queens of the Night.
How can such idiocy endure? The AMO is noise?
And really – when we talk about comparing and contrasting sources we should be talking reputable source and peer reviewed science not some instant blog science.
Bottomline is that Chylek’s supposedly highly researched article on finding periodic signals out of the ice core data is actually quite the bust.
What he found at best were phantoms. Time series analysis of limited length sequences is not for the faint of heart. Even something like this, with a sequence of a few thousand years reveals only red or white noise.
The Chief is a know-nothing fake with penchant for pranking.
‘The long-termbehavior of the tropical Atlantic ocean/atmospheric system prior to the 20th century is not well characterized due to a lack of high-resolution proxy records to extend the short instrumental record. Here we
present the first reconstruction of rainfall variability for the western tropical Atlantic that spans the past 8 centuries and is derived from the δ18O of speleothem calcite. The δ18O of speleothem calcite at this Puerto
Rican location varies primarily in response to changes in the amount of summer-time precipitation. The speleothem documents multi-decadal to centennial length oscillations in δ18O that point to large variations in
rainfall that have not been manifest in the short instrumental period. Since AD 1850, variations in δ18O have tracked shifts in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). We tentatively suggest that the peleothem
δ18O-based rainfall record from Puerto Rico extends the history of the AMO to the 12th century.’
Evidence for 800 years of North Atlantic multi-decadal variability from a
Puerto Rican speleothem – Amos Winter et al 2011
The substantive question is whether the AMO is a natural feature of climate or an artifact of 20th century atmospheric sulphides as per Booth et al. So here is a third study in addition to Knudson et al above. There are plenty more. The AMO is plenty real.
I doubt that webby undertands even that this is the question or why it is relevant. Let’s leave him stew in his own yucky juices.
“Chief”
What the AMO is actually about in this context is irrelevant. The fact that Chylek is seeing phantom signals in the data is the issue. The fact that Tamino calls him on it and I verify that he is mistaking noise for a signal is now considered somehow mean-spirited. That is laughable considering the punishment that goes the other way.
No the only relevant question is the AMO.
‘We present a new tree-ring reconstruction of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) spanning 1568–2007 CE from northeast Asia. Comparison of the instrumental AMO index, an existing tree-ring based AMO reconstruction, and this new record show strongly similar annual to multidecadal patterns of variation over the last 440 years. Warm phases of the AMO are related to increases in growth of Scots pine trees and moisture availability in northeast China and central eastern Siberia. Multi-tape method (MTM) and cross-wavelet analyses indicate that robust multidecadal (~64–128 years) variability is present throughout the new proxy record. Our results have important implications concerning the influence of North Atlantic sea surface temperatures on East Asian climate, and provide support for the possibility of an AMO signature on global multidecadal climate variability.’ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144934/
There is such widespread suppporting evidence that in principle Grant Foster is wrong – there is a coherent AMO signal and webby simply doesn’t get even the simplest idea.
Chief, I guess webby and Tamino are trying to say climate is noisy. Whoda thunk it?
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-saiqfI6G46U/UWG1VSJeiFI/AAAAAAAAHvg/mIhRHcrRgkQ/s931/dye3.png
Thanks to Joshua, we are reminded how poor Chylek’s time series analysis skills are.
Webby just went into a meltdown on the US policy post. Funny as hell – talk about noisy. He hates us with the intensity of a thousand suns. Crazy as a loon comes to mind.
Chylek’s time series analysis is obviously better than tamino’s. What a surprise. Webby doesn’t even know what the question is. Same ole rubbish it seems.
Fanny
A better bet for a quick buck.
Short carbon credits (voluntary emissions reductions) as the bubble goes “POP!”
Max
Here in Northern NSW a coastal environmentalist is defined as somebody who already owns his beach house. For our posh Green Betters, waterfront real estate is like Green opinions: totally a must have!
but …but … isn’t there en ever present danger of rising seas?
Shucks, I forgot, they don’t really believe it .. water front
dwellers like Al Gore and Tim Flannery, say fan, are they
two of those aspirants ter wealth yer go on about?
BC
Wildly o/t, but I like to remind myself and others of the nominee who did NOT receive the Nobel which went to Gore:
http://www.auschwitz.dk/sendler.htm
She died the following year.
Thanks Mosomoso. These courageous people.are never to be forgotten.
Belinda
The “rising seas” specter leaves me rather unimpressed – not only because I live at around 800 meters altitude, but also because the big bucks insiders like Gore and Flannery both own waterfront real estate.
If THEY don’t even believe the twaddle they are trying to foist off on the unsuspecting public, why should I?
Fanny may (or may not) have fallen for the ruse, but I suspect he/she lives a lot closer to danger of inundation than I do.
So maybe he/she hasn’t fallen for it, either.
Max
Max,
Fan seems ter believe and go along with foisting CAGW
dogma,and PHD featherbedding poor tax payers, and
be comfortable with the tenured team feathering their
nests.
Beth the serf.
Max,
What are you babbling about??
mosomoso, re yr url on Nobel Prize Awards. Irena Sendler,
rescuing 2,500 doomed children in the Holocaust,being
passed over fer Al Gore rescuing a “doomed” planet and
self aggrandising thereby..
No choice I suppose in a mad world.
jest a serf
Even more undeserved than that of Obama’s? Probably yes.
Peter Davies
Well, Obama ran a better campaign.
Max
Max Anacker
:)
@FOMD April 5, 2013 at 7:59 am
(Following on some advice from Medawar on the meaning of dreams) you perhaps should entertain the possibility of supposing, just for a moment, that your suppositions are plainly flawed…
Alfonso,
It’s worse than we thought. I leave it to AFOMD to fly into a lather of calculation as he supposes that the Himalayas will continue to rise at around 6mm/yr, for his supposed length of time, and what the effect of this on sea level might be.
I have consulted my bucket of chicken entrails, and divine that no one, not even the great and glorious Ozzieostrich, can foresee the future any better than my 10 year old granddaughter.
I am mystified as to the reason that someone with AFOMD’s psychic abilities deigns to pass on his visions to such as us. We are so fortunate!
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn
Does anyone else, when they see this topic’s name or the headline it is contradicting, miss the word “being”?
Vastly more accurate if you include it in the penultimate position.
Bart,
My my, you are using some big words in this comment. Lemme ask you, are you using dictionary definitions for these words, or are you using your own definitions like you do for other words(like “measure”)? I can’t presume you are using words the way normal people would. Can you define all the words that are over 3 letters but less than 10 you are using? Thanks.
Andrew
Bad Andrew | April 5, 2013 at 10:39 am |
Sad when someone wastes so many shots, and keeps shooting further and further off target.
Perhaps consider changing your moniker to “Inaccurate Andrew”.
Bart,
I guess I don’t understand what you are saying.
Andrew
Bad Aim Andrew | April 5, 2013 at 10:45 am |
Read harder.
I did. You are still using words you haven’t clearly defined.
Andrew
I guess (Tower of) Babel Bart is “at a loss for words”.
Oh hohoho! I kill me. ;)
Andrew
BREAKING NEWS: In-depth analysis of Are We Scr*w*d?
Colin Goldblatt and Andrew Watson offer an in-depth hard-science analysis:
This terrific scientific article (the Technical Appendix in particular is an outstanding contribution) is highly recommended to all Climate Etc readers!
Well, that answers Judith Curry’s question, eh? Plausibly humanity is NOT scr*w*d … yet! … provided that humanity makes responsible, foresighted, non-carbon energy-economy choices! No wonder the Vatican has come to respect climate-change science so highly!
So it’s not complicated, eh skeptics?
Fan your 11.16
Notwithstanding the fact that the climate has warmed as quickly as today even in the instrumental record, perhaps you can comment on Black Carbon? I first became interested in this when researching the massive arctic warming before the last one (the last one being 1920-1949 and the one before that 1819 to 1850.)
Looking at the journals of the first scientific Arctic explorer -Scoresby-he made comments about the amount of black soot lying on the ice/snow and melting it. (he also commented on the tropical heat of the sun)
Now back in the 1960’s my parents used to spread soot from the fire along the icy paths leading to our house and it soon melted. Recently the BBC had a fascinating programme on the Arctic and the thing that struck me most was the amount of black carbon coating the landscape. You can see it here in the third photo down
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/03/greenland-ground-zero-for-global-soot-warming/
In the 1820’s episode it was blamed on the Burgeoning American economy, no doubt now the Indians and Chinese will get the blame.
Theres no doubt black soot melts ice and that it might be a considerable factor in the episodes of arctic melt over the centuries. I am not aware of the situation with the South Pole-presumably it is slightly more insulated from industrial side effects.
I just wondered about your thoughts on this subject. Yes, you can even quote a Dr Hansen paper, as I am sure he must have commented on it at some point.
PS Are we on for the Vatican conference in 2014?
tonyb
Fan your 11.16
No wonder you linked to the abstract and not the full article. Here it is.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.1593v1.pdf
They consider the possibility of geo engineering then go into all sorts of familiar fantasies (one of the Authors is from CRU) then say in the conclusions.
“Conclusion
Following this theory, we are not near the threshold of a runaway greenhouse. However, the behaviour of hot, water vapour rich, atmospheres is poorly understood and much more study of these is necessary.”
Where do you find these papers? More importantly why do you believe the most alarmist bits of them so implicitly ?
tonyb
Fan
Through your last post I was able at last to access the Vatican web site and read some of the material we will be asked to consider when we visit the Vatican conference in 2014.
Is this the document you have been trying to link to?
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/es35.pdf
Here is an extract;
“If the current increase in global emissions of greenhouse gases continues, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere could reach as much as four times their present level by 2100, and worldwide temperatures could increase by 1.1-6.4˚C during that period of time.”
So that we all know if you stand shoulder to shoulder with the Vatican can you confirm that you expect total co2 concetrations to be around 1600ppm by 2100?
Here are the IPCC estimates
http://www.ipcc-data.org/ddc_co2.html
tonyb
Tony, I suppose if any trend continues indefinitely, then the worst will happen. Of course, you don’t even have to know how to spell “ideation” to know that trends end. Arctic Ice decline after 1817 eventually ended. After its decline in the early 20th century, Arctic ice increased to the point that we had the cooling scare of the 1970s, after those temp plunges of the 1960s. Sea level rise? The ten biggest decadal rises all occurred between – what was it again? – the end of the 1700s and the 1870s?
I certainly hope trends continue to end. Don’t want the Antarctic ice to keep doing that same expansive thing forever. Skating on the Tasman…brrr.
TonyB, your questions are either naive or rhetorical!
• The arxiv server is an indispensable, searchable, free-as-in-freedom resource for every kind of scientific and mathematical research! If you did not know about the arxiv server before, TonyB … well you know about it now!
• My Climate Etc excerpt of the Goldblatt and Watson article took care to represent that article’s conclusions fully, fairly, and verbatim … as Climate Etc readers are invited to verify for themselves in the full PDF text!
As for journeying to the 2014 Pontifical Conference Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature, I’ll let you know as soon as I receive my invitation from the Vatican (which must’ve got lost in the mail!)
So it’s pretty simple, eh skeptics?
Fan
Thanks. I have used the Arxiv server to find stuff for my own articles.
I’m just off for my tea then its the Simpsons-I watch it for the science content of course.
When I return I look forward to reading your replies about my other queries on Black Soot and likely co2 concentrations by 2100.
tonyb
TonyB, it appears that the Pontifical Academy has invited Naomi Oreskes to participate in the workshop Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature (2014). … no doubt Dr. Oreskes can address your climate-change concerns more comprehensively than I could!
TonyB, hopefully you, and Naomi Oreskes, and perhaps Pope Francis too, all three will enjoy attending Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature (2014)!
Fan
Good news! Its not that your invitation got lost in the post but registrations hasnt started yet
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/events/registration.html
Also editorial guidelines havent been issued yet either so we’ve plenty of time to think up our topics. How about we do a joint one on Black Carbon?
Who else from Climate Etc wants to go to the Vatican Workshop and what will be your topic?
tonyb
Rumor has it that the hot ticket at the Pontifical Academy’s Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature (2014) will be a cage-match debate between Naomi Oreskes and Willis Eschenbach on the topic “The Sin of Denialism: Mortal or Simply Venial?“, with Pope Francis presiding!
What’s unique is the unprecedented duration of the Oreskes/Eschenbach debate … which His Holiness has requested will continue for the next two thousand years!
Fan
I’d pay good money to watch that. Can I have the Holy water concession?
tonyb
Do not go out into the world
w/out yer weltanshauung showing.
Don it like a comfortable coat,
yer world view of religious grace perhaps,
back ter the golden age nostalgia or
racial identity, values of right and wrong
in a code, a weltanshauung, narrow
as a pea or, could be broader than an ocean,
expansive, pragmatic even ,allowing
for critical adaptation, or maybe not
if tribal, this weltanshauung that
keeps on keeping on.
Beth me darlin’ – that’s very good.
Might I suggest changing coat for hat – pea for trilby and ocean for sombrero?
It extends and consolidates the amusing conceit through the poem to your last line.
Not that I wish another poet showdown,
But speaking of sombreros:
From **Six Significant Landscapes**, by Wallace Stevens.
Your authors don’t believe in clouds. Or, at least, they handle them extremely gingerly. I believe (your personal experience may vary) that a cloudy day is colder than a sunny day.
It’s complicated, because a cloudy night is warmer than a clear night, eh Curious George? Gosh, maybe radiative heat transport is a subtle subject!
Fan – right on. A cloudy night is warmer than a starry night. However, since days are generally warmer than nights, the resulting loss of heat by radiation at night is much smaller than the energy reflected by clouds during daytime.
Curious George,
AFOMD apparently sees complication where none exists. He certainly appears confused enough to mangle simple energy transfer by electromagnetic radiation into a mishmash of confusion and obfuscation.
You may well find that AFOMD believes in “missing heat” even though he might have difficulty in defining either word in a rigorous scientific fashion. Maybe he believes it hides in the clouds.
Oh well.
Live well and prosper.
Mike Flynn.
Say, clouds are not clocks.
Dr Curry,
in my opinion, the case ‘Marcott et al’ did not help you very much to reach the target of yours. I have undersrtood that you are ‘willing to engage in the policy process, at the science-policy interface’. In so far as I can interpret qualifications for that, even politicians must be made understand, if a solution stated by scientists is working or not in the reality.
As even expertized scientists of different disciplines do not seem to be able to understand each others, you can see how difficult it is to make politicians as laymen understand, if a solution is duly working. In order to avoid a baseless belief in any potential cause of global warming, the real scientists must be able to express an applicable and easily understandable solution to politicians for decision-making.
Curryja: ”Good essay by Chylek, I hadn’t seen that before”;
Petr Chylek; http://www.thegwpf.org/petr-chylek-open-letter-to-the-climate-recearch-community :
”For me, science is the search for truth, the never-ending path towards finding out how things are arranged in this world so that they can work as they do. That search is never finished.
It seems that the climate research community has betrayed that mighty goal in science. They have substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view.
– – –
Climate research made significant advancements during the last few decades, thanks to your diligent work. This includes the construction of the HadCRUT and NASA GISS datasets documenting the rise of globally averaged temperature during the last century. I do not believe that this work can be affected in any way by the recent email revelations. Thus, the first of the three pillars supporting the hypothesis of man-made global warming seems to be solid. However, the two other pillars are much more controversial.
To blame the current warming on humans, there was a perceived need to “prove” that the current global average temperature is higher than it was at any other time in recent history (the last few thousand years). This task is one of the main topics of the released CRU emails.
Some people were so eager to prove this point that it became more important than scientific integrity.The next step was to show that this “unprecedented high current temperature” has to be a result of the increasing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”
Even the case ‘Marcott et al’ did not prove that the current high temperature could be unprecedented, on basis of which the recent global warming can be regarded as well as natural as human-made.
Although from many disciplinary points of view the recent global warming can be regarded as natural instead of anthropogenic, they are too complicated to be understood by politicians as laymen or by scientists representig other narrow disciplines. The difficulties are caused by lack of duly cross-disciplinary approach on the multi-disciplinary problem of climate warming. As that is made well enough you can reach a very simple and easily understandable synthesis to the role of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in any total increase of CO2 content in atmosphere:
In the comment of mine http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/16/hansen-on-the-standstill/#comment-287036 I have stated on the base of natural laws:
”The CO2 content in the atmosphere is controlled together by both all CO2 emissions from sources to atmosphere and by all CO2 absorptions from atmosphere to sinks. Nowadays when the yearly total CO2 emissions are little over 200 GtC (CO2 as carbon) and the yearly human CO2 emissions are about 8 GtC, the influence of the human CO2 emissions on the CO2 content in atmosphere is approaching 4 % at the most. For instance, when the CO2 content in the atmosphere is 390 ppm, the manmade share of it is only about 16 ppm at the most; in the reports of IPCC the human share of recent CO2 content in atmosphere is assessed to be about 100 ppm without any proper evidence.”
The role of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions is so minimal that it can not be empirically found in atmosphere. And even any increase of total CO2 content in atmosphere has been found to follow natural warming and not vice versa.
A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 4, 2013 at 9:35 pm |
Fannie, first off, I know you’re, like, sixteen, and that smileys are like, way cool if you’re a valley girl.
For those of us who aren’t valley girls like you, your smileys impede communication. They put people off.
Now it may be that you put them out for a warning, like a sign that says:
SLOW
SHALLOW MINDS AT PLAY
or something. And if that’s the case, if it’s like the bright coloration on natural things that are bad to eat, then please, continue to use them.
If that’s not your reason, I just want you to be aware that I’ve seen lots of folks, including myself, tell you clearly that they find your oh-so-cutesy smilies off-putting. I’ve never once read anyone saying “OMG, A fan of *MORE* discourse, your smilies are, like, the bomb!” … even valley girls are over smilies, my friend.
The evidence is clear. They impede communication. If you continue to use them, fine. Just be aware of their effect on folks … makes you look like a valley girl. And be aware that by continuing to use them, you are deliberately impeding communication … which in your case might be a plus …
Next, any girl who takes her advice risk from the “insurance industry” is not only a valley girl, she’s a dumb valley girl … but I repeat myself.
The insurance industry is in the business of scaring people about the future, fan. That’s how they increase their sales. If people believe that the sea level is gonna a foot per decade, THEY BUY MORE INSURANCE.
As a result, all the insurance giants, led by Munich Re, were early adapters of your climate alarmism. They love it. They get to look green, and people think they’re all concerned about the environment, and they’re selling lots of insurance based on exploiting people’s inchoate fears … and that fools you.
Damn, girl, get a grip! Insurance agents are not your friends, and the insurance industry is not the place to get advice on whether you should be very, very afraid … because guess what?
They’ll say, every one, that you should be very, very afraid, regardless of the facts … duh.
w.
That is a remarkable assertion, Willis Eschenbach, given that insurance companies have employed so many famous mathematicians, scientists (and even musicians). Nathaniel Bowditch, Edmund Halley, Ronald Aylmer Fisher, and Charles Ives all spring to mind!
Perhaps the insurance industry assesses the risks of climate-change more dispassionately than you give them credit for?
Think about it, Willis Eschenbach!
The definition of an insurance company? Its a company who profits from risks taken by others.
They are like bookmakers. They understand that smaller adverse events suffered by a few can be paid out of the community rating pool and that at the global level, large adverse events in one country can be reinsured with other countries who remain unaffected.
They (the insurance companies) don’t have any assets to speak of, they use other people’s money. Just like the big banks in fact.
Your analysis is correct, Peter Davies!
Yes, insuring is the business of distributing risk more evenly … not the business of diminishing the total amount of risk.
Although insurance companies do lobby for safety laws, e.g. against drunk driving and in favor of seatbelts and airbags, in the long run these measures do not increase corporate profits, but rather are simply good business ethics.
Needless to say, insurance companies are exceedingly dry-eyed in assessing risk quantitatively. The steadily increasing insurance premiums for sea-side property reflect the steadily increasing probability (as assessed by dry-eyed actuarial scientists) that “James Hansen’s climate-change worldview is broadly correct”
It’s unsurprising that climate-chance denialist now are adding “insurance actuaries” to their demagogic/smearing/astroturfing enemy-list, along with “scientists, mathematicians, NASA engineers, poets, nature-lovers, and Popes!”
It’s because climate-change denialists, for much-studied reasons that variously are psychological and/or ideological and/or commercial, adamantly refuse to assign any probability whatsoever to the likelihood that “James Hansen’s climate-change worldview is broadly correct”
That is why climate-change denial is a luxury that no actuary can afford, eh Peter Davies?
Thanks for the links FOMD. While I agree that human activity has and will continue to affect our environment, I am cautious about some of the predictions being made by Dr Mann and James Hansen and others, particularly in respect of sea level rise.
Natural phenomena such as gravitational fluctuations in our solar system (say when other planets line up with ours), tides, currents, storms, earth quakes and other tectonic activity under the sea bed, and land ice shelf melting, all affect sea levels, but at different places in the world and at different times.
The lags would vary markedly between cause and effect, as for example, an ice melt from Greenland is not likely to have any immediate impact on the Mediterrian sea.
Low lying countries most certainly are more vulnerable when we see what a hurricane driven tidal surge can do to a city like New Orleans, which lies below sea level in many localities. Another example being the recent tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and in the South China Sea off Japan caused by earth quakes. As we all know, these tidal waves were not uniformly impacting on the surrounding coastal countries, many not having any noticeable effects whatsoever.
So any talk about coastal real estate values being affected by climate change, to the exclusion of the other factors that I have mentioned, leaves me unimpressed. Gradual sea level changes seem not dangerous but no doubt more sensible town planning decisions could well be justified.
Steven Mosher | April 4, 2013 at 12:29 pm
“… here is the question;
if you think the risk is high should you be more forgiving or less forgiving of science that is less than best practices?
That’s an open question.
if you think the risk is low, how does that change.”
The answer, of course, is none of the above. What we should be doing is striving for the absolute best possible science first (not perfect, just best possible) and only then making a considered estimate on whether the risk is high, low or even non-existent based purely on what that best possible science shows us. Those that want to give poor science a pass are, in my opinion, just as bad as those that want to see all funding of climate science stopped. Neither view serves either science or humanity well.
Do not go out into the world
w/out yer weltanshauung showing.
Don it like a comfortable hat,
yer world view of religious grace perhaps,
back ter the golden age of nostalgia or
racial identity, values of right or wrong
in a code, a weltanshauung, narrow
as a trilby, or could be broader than a sombrero,
expansive, pragmatic even, allowing
fer critical adaptation, or maybe not
if tribal, this weltanshauung that
keeps on keeping on.
It works I think, GS )
BC
I think I may have disturbed your scansion?
…as a trilby or broader than a sombrero, ????
But still very good – congrats
This was a cynical PR ploy by the major professors. A rear guard action where the end justifies the means, even if it meant destroying the careers of the students.They knew they would be caught.
LOL … gymnosperm, yah need to read back issues of the (wildly popular!) PhD comix … students, teachers, and administration all have a pretty dry-eyed appreciation of the various checks-and-balances in the system.
BREAKING NEWS
(No graduate students were harmed in the making of this research)
Dr. Benestad’s english is a little rough, but his physics exposition skills and his data analysis skills both are terrific!
Ain’t it nice when the simple physical models of the 1930s predict CO2-driven AGW that is robustly affirmed by modern satellite data (as Dr.Benestad’s analysis demonstrated)?
Conclusion Hockey-sticks are ubiquitous in past, present, and future climate-data analyses for one simple reason: The anthropogenic CO2 hockey-stick is driving all the other climate-change hockey sticks.
So the physical origins of AGW aren’t all that complicated, eh skeptics?
What’s complicated is the cognitive and social mechanisms of denialism! And even these, the public is beginning to appreciate.
If Valley Girl imagines that all those irritating icons and links add anything, or are going to change anyone’ mind, this sample of one says fuggedaboudit. Life is short, and following dozens of links dotted at random by a serial spammer is not on my bucket list.
Here’s the thing, fan. If someone like Tonyb or JC proffers a link which is relevant to the discussion, I am appreciative and if I have time I will follow it. OTOH, anyone who was sucked in to your serial spamming with dozens of links would still be caught up with what you posted in July 2012.
I suppose that I could catch up with your time-wasting links, but in fact am going out to plant some bulbs in the garden. In six months I will have gorgeous flowers. And, to think that I could have been hunched over the computer reading number 17,458 of fan’s links!
Johanna and Willis,
Well said, both of you. I don’t plan on addressing Valley Girl anymore, but for anyone who does I recommend the following:
for so long as “Fan” insists upon barraging the conversation with such streams of !!!!! smilie smilie heart heart and endless unexplained spammy links, invective, loud harangues, and similar failures of discourse, just refer to him/her/it as the
Valley Girl
(H/t Willis)
It may be impossible to get Fan to care about improving his reasoning and communication skills, but at least others can have some fun reflecting all the mockery back upon the Valley Girl.
“It may be impossible to get
Fan(Bart R, Steven Mosher, Joshua, lolwot, etc) Warmers to care about improving his reasoning and communication skills”Andrew
As I depart for the day to enjoy our glorious spring weather, whose arrival has been long delayed by unseasonably cold March/April weather in the mid-Atlantic states, here are some favorite quotations. I was inspired to recall Moliere’s mockery of sanctimonious self-righteous buffoonery by the antics of our Valley Girl.
Thinking about hypocritical “Alarmists” I see on this thread and around the web makes me think of Moliere’s words, as he was sensitive to sanctimonious, bombastic hypocrisy. We see so much of it from the CAGW co-religionists (all quotes from “Tartuffe” or “The Misanthrope”):
“Malicious men may die, but malice never.”
“He’s a wonderful talker, who has the art
Of telling you nothing in a great harangue.”
“He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.”
“Those whose conduct gives room for talk
Are always the first to attack their neighbors.”
“There is no rampart that will hold out against malice.”
“Pure reason avoids extremes, and requires one to be wise in moderation.”
“If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.”
Look, Fan immensely enjoys the games he plays. Who else would come up with a sock puppet to argue with?
Jim
LOL … more-and-more scientists are appreciating that denialist cognition is itself worthy of study, eh Johanna?
Fan
Johanna of course said nothing of the sort. Here is a direct link to Fan’s first link.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1146.pdf
As usual, one of the references is Arrhenius’s 1896 paper rather than his 1907 one in which he substantially revised downwards his earlier calculations. However I note that Naomi Oreskes is one of the other references who of course will be talking at the Vsatican conference in 2014 that Fan and I are gearing ourselves up to attending.
However, I really need an answer from Fan as to whether the document from the Vatican he likes to link to should be taken as the basis for Vatican science?
In it the author statres that Co2 concentrations could be 1600ppm by 2100. If Fan believes this-(the IPCC don’t) and that it will directly relate to a temperature increase of up to 6Degrees C we can see the foundations of his extreme alarmism.
So Fan, do you believe in 1600ppm by 2100?
Also I had hoped to get some sort of reply from you about black carbon as a likely contributor to melting of arctic ice.
tonyb
Johann and ClimateReason, it is exceedingly difficult to extract from your posts any concrete references, or verbatim quotations, or full-and-fair summaries of conclusions.
Presuming however that what ClimateReason’s post (foggily!) calls “the document from the Vatican” is the specific, official Pontifical Academy report Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene: a Report by the Working Group Commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (May 11, 2011), then Climate Etc readers are invited to verify for themselves that a full-and-fair summary is (verbatim):
ClimateReason, is this a fully-referenced, full-and-fair, verbatim-quoted summary of the Pontifical Working Group’s conclusions? Is it a likely preview of the conclusions of the 2014 Pontifical Working Group: Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature?
In regard to ongoing whinging by Skiphil, Bad Andrew, Johanna, OzzieOstrich, and Willis Eschenbach, Climate Etc readers are invited to reflect for themselves upon Diethelm and McKee’s five pathognomonic traits of denialism (2011,free PDF here)
• Denialism Trait #1 conspiracy theories
• Denialism Trait #2 fake experts
• Denialism Trait #3 selective citation
• Denialism Trait #4 impossible expectations
• Denialism Trait #5 logical fallacies
As science unveils more-and-more climate-change hockey-sticks, having stronger-and-stronger blades — as is concisely summarized by the Pontifical Academy report — the above traits #1–#5 are becoming ever-more-concentrated in denialist demagoguery and astroturfing, eh? And that is why the accelerating prevalence of Diethelm/McKee demagogic/astroturfing traits in climate-change denialism is familiar to every Climate Etc reader, eh?
Fan
I can confirm that the conference does contain the link Fan mentions to Glaciers. This is a little unfortunate as it mentions melting of Himalaya glaciers and as Fan surely knows this was found to be wildly overstated.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0209/Study-Himalayan-glaciers-melting-more-slowly-than-thought-but-seas-are-still-rising
This apparent lack of knowledge by the Vatican team is a little worrying but Fan will be relieved to hear I conducted some research on glacier advance and retreat some months ago and produced this useful graphic based on the estimates by a variety of glacier experts and historians
http://climatereason.com/Graphs/Graph01.png
i have actually calculated it back to 600 BC but have not yet graphed it but confirm a retreat around 1550 to 1400 an advance between 1250 to 1315 and a retreat between 800 and 1215, another advance 400 to 750 AD. This puts the rather imperfect Vatican study into a better historical context .
The only other document on their web site directly related to climate change is this one;
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/publications/extraseries/biodiversity.html
In it the author clearly states that it is possible that by 2100 co2 concentrations will reach 4 times their current levels, that is to say around 1600ppm. I merely asked you if you agreed with this.
In case that was too ‘foggy’ or vague for you, here it is once again
“do you agree with the Vatican scientific estimate of a possible co2 concentration of around 1600ppm by 2100?
Now, if we are going to this Vatican conference Fan I am sure you will agree we want to know the strength of their climate science as you are always referencing it.
tonyb
ClimateReason, the source you cite in regard to CO2 levels is a single unreferenced sentence, in a single article, by single author Peter Raven, who lists his affiliation as “The Missouri Botanical Garden.”
Do you have any objective reason to suppose that Peter Raven speaks for the Vatican in any formal or organized capacity? Do you have any objective reason to suppose that Peter Raven has professional expertise in atmospheric chemistry? Do you have any objective reason to cherry-pick one unreferenced sentence, in one obscure article, by one (seemingly) non-expert in atmospheric chemistry?
———————
• Denialism Trait #3 selective citation
———————
Verdict Flagrant exhibition of Denialism Trait #3: selective citation
Common Sense To serve the polity well, climate-change skeptics must scrupulously reject the five Diethelm/McKee denialist traits … not embrace them! Please reflect upon this common-sense principle, ClimateReason!
Fan
There is only one place on the entire Vatican web site that has a heading ‘Climate change and bio diversity’ right on the home page where it will be seen and accessed, i.e. It is considered a key heading.
In it there is only one book-the one I cited. In it the author states that co2 concentrations could be 1600ppm by 2100. Unless you are claiming, somewhat sensationally, that the author hacked the Vatican web site and inserted his book details without anyone knowing, we must reasonably assume that the Vatican endorses it. It is not as if it is one of hundreds of such links-it is the ONLY one. It is hardly ‘obscure’ if it is the only such reference is it?
I can only assume from your response that you had not read this item nor indeed the one on glaciers? So the only two references on the Vatican web site relevant to our discussions is an article that fails to realise the Himalaya glacier bubble has burst, and one that hugely overstates the likely concentrations of co2 by 2100. Not great science so far is it?
You are the expert in this matter, so what ‘denialism’ trait do we accord to you? I can only guess that it will be several dozen.
tonyb
Please allow me to quote — fully, fairly, and verbatim — the sole sentence of the Pontifical Academy report Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene: a Report by the Working Group Commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (May 11, 2011), that concerns Himalayan glaciers
Subsequent research has affirmed that these particular Tibetan glaciers [are indeed] shrinking rapidly (Nature, 2012).
Conclusion The 2011 Pontifical Report has been affirmed by subsequent observations, eh ClimateReason?
———————
• Denialism Trait #3 selective citation
———————
Verdict Further flagrant exhibitions on Climate Etc of Denialism Trait #3: selective citation
Common Sense To serve the polity well, climate-change skeptics must scrupulously reject the five Diethelm/McKee denialist traits … not flagrantly embrace them!
Please reflect further upon this common-sense principle, which is essential to rational skepticism, eh ClimateReason?
Fan
Fan
Here is the link from the front page not several layers in
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/events/2011/glaciers.html
It is no wonder the Vatican is alarmist if it believes that co2 concentrations will reach 1600ppm by 2100. You have not explained why that book stating this is the only link of its kind from the front page. Hacking? Accidental? Statement of belief?
Come on fan you are exhibiting denialsim traits probably from 1 to 20
What do you think the concentrations are likely to be by 2100?
Perhaps that book should not be on the home page so prominently but it is.
You will see other comments about the role of black soot, something that dr Hansen has written on. However you seem reluctant to engage on this.
Denialsim traits 21 to 30?
Tonyb
Fan
I should add that I applaud your obvious humanity and certainly agree with the last paragraph of the Vatican declaration. We do not need to be climate change activists though to want to do our best for our fellow man especially those less fortunate than ourselves.
Tonyb
Ton B and Fan
Estimates of atmospheric CO2 levels of 1600 ppmv by 2100 (or ever) are ludicrous.
There isn’t enough carbon in all the optimistically estimated remaining fossil fuels on our planet (WEC 2010) to get to even 1000 ppmv (an increase of ~600 ppmv above today), let along 1600 ppmv (an increase of ~1200 ppmv above today).
If the Vatican (whodat?) really believe in reaching such a CO2 level, they must still be believing in miracles.
Fuggidaboudit.
Max
FOMB: Why on Earth would you cite the Vatican as an authority on climate science? Certainly you’re aware of the Vatican’s record when it comes to science?
I am a fan of Fan. He has a very direct approach, posts pertinent links, and challenges “skeptical” opinions head-on. It is particularly good to be pointed to links on scientific topics and opinions that are not sugar-coated before being introduced to the blog readers. This sugar-coating is particularly noticeable at WUWT who wrap their own opinion around scientific papers before delivering it to their audience, basically telling them what to think. This cold reading of the original sources allows people form their own opinions before going to the distorting lenses of those blogs, but I sense discomfort level with this kind of exposure.
JimD
I quite like Fan as well and am personally not the slightest bit discomforted by the exposure. However he is prone to distorting quotes made by us and links do not always go where he says they do or support his claims.
Are you on for this Vatican conference? So far it seems to be only me and Fan going and I sense his heart is not in it…
Ps Fan also seems very reluctant to talk about the role of black carbon in melting ice, have you any thoughts about its role?
tonyb
I am not sure why the Vatican should be considered a scientific source, but the Pope’s opinion will hold sway over a lot of people. Let’s hope this Pope continues Vatican efforts to publicize the scope of future climate change impacts.
On black carbon, yes eliminate it. More regulation is needed, together with methane. This is a short-term gain, but not a long-term solution to the real problem.
Gosh, maybe that’s because the Pontifical Academy report Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene (May 11, 2011) discusses the role of black carbon in multiple passages that include:
The preceding carbon-related passages are reasonably full, fair, and verbatim, eh ClimateReason? And they fairly reflect some mighty solid climate-change science, don’t they?
Good News The more Climate Etc folks who read the Pontifical Academy’s climate-change literature for themselves … and draw conclusions for themselves … the stronger the polity! And that polity-enlightenment is the Vatican’s main point, eh?
Common Sense To serve the polity well, climate-change skeptics must scrupulously reject the five Diethelm/McKee denialist traits … not flagrantly embrace them! Climate Etc. skeptics should reflect further upon these common-sense — yet tough to live by! — principles of rational skepticism!
Jim D
I am also a fan of “Fan”.
He/she epitomizes the loony fringe of AGW hysteria.
Lots of emotions and emoticons, lots of cited references but not much real data – and an almost religious reverence for James E. Hansen of “tipping point”, “Venus runaway” and “coal death train” fame.
Max
Jim D
Gotta agree with you 100% on curtailing black carbon emissions.
(Unlike CO2, which is an essential trace gas for all life on our planet), black carbon is a real pollutant.
It is harmful to human health.
(Again, unlike CO2), it is easily removed from flue gases or Diesel engine exhausts at very little added cost.
So let’s forget our myopic fixation on CO2 and go after a REAL pollutant.
Max
Fan
Er…you’ve just seen that reference to black carbon which is why you are now referencing it. You had plenty of chances to cite that some days ago when I first raised the subject. Actually dr Hansen has written some interesting things about it, I’m surprised you hadn’t linked to it.
Can we both agree that the vaticans web site sole top level reference to co2 concentrations of 1600ppm is scientifcally wrong?
Tonyb
Max
You are right of course on the likely maximum, but it is hardly surprising that fan is in a perpetually alarmed state if he thought the Vatican web site was reliable in the matter of co2 concentrations
Tonyb
tony b
You ask a question about the impact of black carbon (BC) on our planet’s total albedo effect.
Trenberth et al. estimate that the TOTAL energy reflected by the surface is 23 W m-2
http://www.fmf.uni-lj.si/~zagarn/GC2013/Trenberthetal_BAMS2009.pdf
IPCC AR4 WG1 tells us
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-5-4.html
So this would be an estimated 0.9% reduction in the energy reflected by the Earth’s surface.
A doubling of CO2 is supposed to result in RF of 3.7 W m-2 or a temperature increase at equilibrium (with all estimated feedbacks) of around 3.2C.
So, according to the estimate by Hansen cited by IPCC, BC should cause an increase in global warming of:
0.2 * 3.2 / 3.7 = 0.16C
Not really a big deal from that standpoint.
But I still agree with Jim D that BC is a real pollutant, which is relatively easy to eliminate, so this should be done, despite the fact that it would have little impact on global warming.
Max
Max
Interesting, but surely that is the energy reflected by the earths total surface, when we are really talking about the very real effect it has on that part of the earths surface which is most affected by the properties of black carbon, that is to say the white poles, especially it appears the north pole.
It seems to me that in this circumstance the black carbon would have more of an effect and to average it amongst the whole globe isn’t what really happens.
If you’ve still got snow in your part of the world why don’t you scatter some black soot over it and see what happens? Not recommend to do that on pistes,
Tonyb
tony b
No doubt.
If you spread black carbon on snow it will melt much more quickly than if you do not.
When I was a child, some people spread soot (or coal dust), along with salt, on icy walkways to melt the ice, much to the dismay of mothers when you tracked it into the house.
But the estimate by Hansen, which was cited by IPCC in AR4, was for the global impact of BC on warming, and this is very small.
I cannot vouch for Hansen’s figures (and have not checked his study, itself) but have only accepted IPCC’s statement at face value.
If IPCC is correct, BC would only have less than 0.2C global warming impact.
But it should be cleaned up because it is a real pollutant and harmful to human health.
Max
tony b
Let’s see.
If we had a new rebirth of religious faith,
AND
we could double the number of Catholics to 2.4 billion worldwide,
AND
everyone would light two candles a day (for a patron saint or deceased relative).
How much added CO2 would that generate?
(The mind boggles, but I’m sure Fanny can cite a reference with an estimate).
Max
Jim D
100% of the black carbon emissions are caused by humans.
Only ~50% of the methane emissions are caused by human activities; the rest are natural.
Methane doesn’t remain in the atmosphere very long – it converts to CO2 (a naturally occurring essential trace gas).
Black carbon is harmful to human health, but there is no negative impact on human health of methane at the ppb concentrations one can expect.
So going after methane makes much less sense than going after black carbon.
Max
Max
The discourse with fan began here
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/02/were-not-screwed/#comment-309274
I pointed out that black carbon seems to have been a concern for two hundred years or so.
Tonyb
Tony B
Thanks for explanation.
Black carbon has undoubtedly been a harmful pollutant for decades if not centuries.
In the 1940s and 1950s most homes were still being heated by coal, with no flue gas cleanup at all.
Bond et al. estimate that BC emissions were:
http://www.cee.mtu.edu/~nurban/classes/ce5508/2008/Readings/Bond07.pdf
1850: 1.0 million tons (1.2 billion world population)
1950: 6.7 million tons (2.56 billion)
2000: 8.7 million tons (6.08 billion)
The industrially developed nations have cleaned up most of the BC and most of the BC pollution today comes from non-developed or developing nations.
And despite a per capita decrease in BC emissions of almost 50% since 1950, there is still a lot of BC that could be cleaned up, both from coal and from Diesel engines that do not yet have BC removal filters.
Max
Stop the presess – biomass burning releases black carbon – Chinese sulphides mix with black carbon to increase warming potential of black carbon by 100%.
‘Black carbon is generated by fossil-fuel combustion and biomass burning. Black-carbon aerosols absorb solar radiation, and are probably a major source of global warming1,2. However, the extent of black-carbon-induced warming is dependent on the concentration of sulphate and organic aerosols—which reflect solar radiation and cool the surface—and the origin
of the black carbon3,4. Here we examined the impact of black-carbon-to-sulphate ratios on net warming in China, using surface and aircraft measurements of aerosol plumes from Beijing, Shanghai and the Yellow Sea. The Beijing plumes had the highest ratio of black carbon to sulphate, and exerted a strong positive influence on the net warming. Compiling
all the data, we show that solar-absorption efficiency was positively correlated with the ratio of black carbon to sulphate. Furthermore, we show that fossil-fuel-dominated black-carbon plumes were approximately 100% more efficient warming agents than biomass-burning-dominated plumes.We
suggest that climate-change-mitigation policies should aim at reducing fossil-fuel black-carbon emissions, together with the atmospheric ratio of black carbon to sulphate.’ http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr176.pdf
LOL … Climate Etc readers are hereby highly encouraged to read for themselves the Pontifical Academy’s Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene … and then to judge for themselves whether TonyB’s “selective citations” variously in regard to CO2, soot, and glaciers convey any rational content whatsoever … or whether they amount to mere denialist quibbles.
Common Sense To serve the polity well, climate-change skeptics must scrupulously reject the five Diethelm/McKee denialist traits:
• Denialism Trait #1 conspiracy theories
• Denialism Trait #2 fake experts
• Denialism Trait #3 selective citation
• Denialism Trait #4 impossible expectations
• Denialism Trait #5 logical fallacies
Please reflect upon these five traits, Climate Etc readers … and scorn to embrace them! Because as the Pope says [Alexander Pope, that is!]:
Good on `yah, Pope!
Rational climate-change skepticism scorns the too-familiar five-fold “frightful mien” of denialism!
Fan
Denialists quibble? Have you lost the plot?
I cited the top level links and made the reasonable assumption that the sole book on climate change reached from the very top level of the web site must have some official sanction. If it was one of dozens of books in a Vatican shop that would be one thing but it’s not. If the Vatican base their science on a belief that co2 concentrations will reach 1600 ppm it explains the alarmist tone they take and which followers such as you apparently endorse.
Tonyb
Fan lol as they say
You ask above
‘Do you have any objective reason to suppose that Peter Raven speaks for the Vatican in any formal or organized capacity? Do you have any objective reason to suppose that Peter Raven has professional expertise in atmospheric chemistry? Do you have any objective reason to cherry-pick one unreferenced sentence, in one obscure article, by one (seemingly) non-expert in atmospheric chemistry?’
———————
Yes I do have an objective reason. It’s because the authors picture is on the top level site, the only book on the site on ‘climate change’ is by him and it’s published by the Vatican! Are those good enough reasons? Therefore it is reasonable to suppose the contents have some measure of official endorsement
———————
tonyb
Tonyb, does Raven give a scientific reference for his number, or is this just a number he came up with for his book? If it is the latter and unreferencable to any science, it is not worth debating. I think 1600 ppm is reachable by the time the coal runs out, but that won’t happen by 2100 unless coal-mining accelerates a lot.
Jim D, that is a sensible question.
Short Answer “the latter”.
TonyB, perhaps you can learn from Jim D’s common sense? Because Jim D’s common sense is just plain easier to appreciate than strained denialist quibbles, eh?
All Climate Etc readers areencouraged to browse (for themselves!) the Pontifical Academy publication web-site.
As for TonyB’s burgeoning collection of selective citations relating to glaciers, carbon, and CO2 … there’s no doubt that various out-of-context “cherries” are located somewhere in the (vast!) Pontifical Academy library … from which Climate Etc’s resident denialists are desperately cherry-picking isolated factoids!
Denialists bay and bark … while the Pontifical caravan moves on!
Ain’t that just the way of it, denialists? For the present, and from now on?
Fan
You obviously didn’t see this
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/02/were-not-screwed/#comment-309658
Quoting a reference from the only book on the Vatican top level site about climate change and published by the Vatican itself is hardly an isolated factoid is it
Tonyb
AFOMD:
What’s the angle with the Pope? Trying to convince teabagging catholic deniers that they must bielieve in CAGW? Or are you pointing out that belief in CAGW requires guilty faith in fairy stories told by men dressed in fell regalia?
OT: are you working on a dx and cure for fibromyalgia?
Cheers
lysdexia is a grift form dog
Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.” http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
NASA assures us that the world is not warming for a decade or three more. Hardly necessary if one had a weather eye on which way the large-scale climate patterns were blowing.
This is not news to the cult of AGW groupthink space cadets – they are practiced in the dark arts of closing their eyes, putting their finger in their ears and shouting na na na na.. Does this sound like FOMBS?
TonyB, either you are not doing diligence, or else you are suffering from a serious web-browser bug!
(1) Go to the Pontifical Academy’s top-level publication site
(2) Verify (for yourself,TonyB!) that the series SCRIPTA VARIA hosts ten or more major publications concerned with global ecology and/or climate-change?
(3) Verify (for yourself,TonyB!) that the series DOCUMENTA hosts three more major publications concerned with global ecology and/or climate-change?
(4) Verify (for yourself,TonyB!) that the series EXTRA SERIES hosts two more major publications concerned with global ecology and/or climate-change?
Hopefully these researches will help you progress toward a broader appreciation of modern climate-change science, TonyB!
Fan
You are digging an ever deeper hole for yourselF, about as deep as the levels you have had to dig into on the site in order to find more samples
From the top level web site there is only one book on climate change that is featured specfically that heading. It is not by some obscure unknown. It is written by an academician of the Vatican.
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/academicians/ordinary/raven.html
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/academicians/ordinary.html
He has his book featured on the top level and has a photo on the top level. He is not buried deep in the bowels of the site and therefore it is reasonable to assume that an academicians publication that is published by the Vatican itself and featured at the top level of the site must have some authority.
Fan, why can’t you just say that you don’t believe 1600ppm is a realistic figure and that to feature this book at the very top level of the site implies some sort of endorsement and perhaps it needs to be moved down to the bowels that yo have been searching through.
Tonyb
TonyB, thank you for this opportunity to point Climate Etc readers toward these book-length works that are linked by that top-level site:
• Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene
• Interactions between Global Change and Human Health
• Water and the Environment
• Geosphere-Biosphere Interactions and Climate
• Man and His Environment: Tropical Forests and the Conservation of Species
Here are fruitful fields for denialist tactics!
• Denialism Trait #1 conspiracy theories
• Denialism Trait #2 fake experts
• Denialism Trait #3 selective citation
• Denialism Trait #4 impossible expectations
• Denialism Trait #5 logical fallacies
Denialists & ideologues & astroturfers need only pick a tactic that advances their agenda & commence spreading it around, eh TonyB?
Fanny
Pope Francis seems like a very bright, unusually humble and religiously dedicated individual.
But IMO he should limit his activities to saving souls and forget about trying to save the planet.
We’ve got enough self-proclaimed saviors of the planet out there already.
Max
Fan
Go to the Vatican web site.
Move along the top line of headings.
How many on first click i.e the top level, lead directly to a section called ‘Global climate change’? Yes, correct there is only one.
In it there is a book written by a Vatican academist. There is a picture of him. The book is published by the Vatican. Being at the top level-unlike all the other books you cite-it is reasonable to suppose it is considered to have some degree of importance else it would be tucked away like the others you cite.
It says that co2 could reach 1600ppm by 2100. I am sure we both agree that is incorrect. You can carry on jumping through hoops all you like but those are the plain facts and calling me a denier won’t change them.
tonyb
Climate Etc readers are invited to verify that JimD speaks common sense in regard to cherry-picking.
Ain’t that right, TonyB?
Fan
Your 8.52pm
You are right of course in saying that it is disappointing that the Vatican should have a non peer reviewed book on climate change as their key top level contribution to the subject. It will make you wonder no doubt-as it did me- as to how robust the science is on their other contributions buried in the bowels of the site.
tonyb
Manacker (and TonyB too!), perhaps your attitude toward the Pontifical Academy’s scientific surveys will be improved if you (and Climate Etc readers!) simply dig deeper into the Pontifical Academy’s extensive on-line archives, eh?
Please allow me to recommend the Pontifical Academy’s recent reports:
• The atmospheric brown cloud in the Himalayas
• Vanishing glaciers in the European Alps
• A comprehensive approach for reducing anthropogenic climate impacts including risk of abrupt climate changes
• Green, white, and black pollution: engineering and geo-engineering of climate
These informative reports address scientific concerns that are of immense personal interest to *YOU*, eh Manacker (and TonyB)? Aren’t the above scientific surveys far more enlightening, than the denialist embrace of too-simple cherry-picking and quibbling?
Please contemplate the multiple striking contrasts between rational/scientific versus denialist cognition, Manacker (and TonyB, and all Climate Etc readers)!
• Denialism Trait #1 conspiracy theories
• Denialism Trait #2 fake experts
• Denialism Trait #3 selective citation
• Denialism Trait #4 impossible expectations
• Denialism Trait #5 logical fallacies
These five traits of denialist cognition lead solely to ignorance, short-sightedness, and amoral judgement, eh Manacker (and TonyB)?
So avoid denialist cognition, which leads nowhere good!
Fan
I write quite a bit about glaciers as you must know.i think the item you have highlighted would be better with a graphical interface.
Perhaps I could send them my own initial attempts at graphing the numerous advances and retreats.?
http://climatereason.com/Graphs/Graph01.png
In very approximate terms the tipping point between advance and retreat happens at around plus 0.1 on the cet anomaly scale, all other things like precipitation etc being equal.
Upthread I confirmed the dates of glacier advances and retreats back to 600bc which provides a good context to the modern era don’t you think. As you know Gordon Manley reckoned the current retreat began around 1750 with a general retreat in full spate around 1850. There are of course always exceptions.
You will be aware of the green glacier study of course set in Max’s own part of the world where evidence was presented that the glaciers in roman times were much smaller than today? Indeed it is thought that Hannibal was able to cross the alps because of the lack of glaciers.
I believe an American professor runs walking tours along the hanibal route when it’s not blocked. When we go to the Vatican conference in 2014 it would be a short diversion to follow the route. I reckon max might be up for that as well.
Tonyb
Fan
I do read your links as you must realise by now. You gave an interesting one on brown clouds. I am sure all of us who love mountains could endorse most of the aims of the international Laboratory mentioned in the link? Sounds fascinating.
http://www.evk2cnr.org/cms/en/evk2cnr_committee/presentation/
Tonyb
I presume I read your letter in the sunday times today (?)
Iolwot
Yes, unfortunately it was printed minus the graph which took away a lot of the point. Also my main thrust,again deleted, was to suggest the need for a Plan ‘B’ to cater for possible cooling.
I don’t know if you ever listen to farming today on radio 4 at 6.30am?
Today was quite distressing in talking about the terrible loss of lambs in the snow in Wales. What was even worse was that the family acknowledged it had all happened before but they no doubt thought it could never happen again. Unfortunately in the uk, as in one third of the world, it is not warming and to carry on believing it is is going to impact on people lives and our farming practices.
My heating bill has escalated sharply so here’s selfishly hoping we return to the temperatures we enjoyed at the top of the climate hump.
All the best
Tonyb
A Modest Proposition All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to seek solely for low winter heating-bills.
Ain’t the Vatican right, in embracing a long view of climate-change, TonyB?
A rapidly warming Arctic leads to a tendency to less zonal (westerly) flow and more blocking (or easterly events), which has an impact on western continents of more cold air in the winter and perhaps more continental droughts in the summer. So, yes, some regions need to prepare for this regional type of climate change which is part of the trend.
Fan
Substitute the word low for reasonable. How much do you pay for your fuel fan, and how much is a gallon of gas over there?
Tonyb
The effects of anthropogenically-forced climate change are expected to continue through the 21st century and beyond. However, on a time scale of a few years to a few decades ahead, future regional changes in weather patterns and climate, and the corresponding impacts, will also be strongly influenced by natural unforced climate variations. This is supported by an extensive list of observed examples of sustained (decadal-scale) climate variations with significant impacts on society, including the US 1930s “dust bowl” droughts (e.g. Seager et al., 2008); rainfall in India (e.g. Mehta and Lau, 1997); rainfall in China (e.g. Hameed et al., 1983); floods in the Nile River (e.g. Kondrashov et al., 2005); droughts in the Nordeste region of Brazil (e.g. Mehta, 1998); the current drought in south-western US (Barnett et al., 2008); Sahel drought of the 1970s and 80s (e.g. Lu and Delworth, 2005); variability in Atlantic hurricane activity (e.g. Goldenberg et al., 2001; Zhang and Delworth, 2006); Arctic warming in 1930-40s (Semenov and Bengtsson, 2003; Johannessen et al., 2004); the mid-1970s climate
shift in the Pacific (e.g. Meehl et al., 2009a); rapid warming in European winter temperatures from the 1960s to the 1990s (Scaife et al., 2005); variations of the Caspian Sea level (Rodionov, 1994); and others.’
Towards Prediction of Decadal Climate Variability and Change
James Murphy, Vladimir Kattsov, Noel Keenlyside, Masahide Kimoto, Gerald
Meehl, Vikram Mehta, Holger Pohlmann, Adam Scaife, Doug Smith
The study of decadal patterns of large-scale climate patterns is encouraged – and it changes a great deal for all but the AGW space cadets – na na na na na na na – aye FOMBS?
The problem with FOMBS is the arm waving in the gereral direction of the Vatican or elsewhere – sans any detail that would constutute a rational argument. It is all a bit of a pain in the arse really.
‘The global surface air temperature record of the last 150 years is characterized by a long‐term warming trend, with strong multidecadal variability superimposed. Similar multidecadal variability is also seen in other (societal important) parameters such as Sahel rainfall or Atlantic hurricane activity. The existence of the multidecadal variability makes climate change detection a challenge, since Global Warming evolves on a similar timescale. The ongoing discussion about a potential anthropogenic signal in the Atlantic hurricane activity is an example. A lot of work was devoted during the last years to understand the dynamics of the multidecadal variability, and external as well as internal mechanisms were proposed. This review paper focuses on two aspects. First, it describes the mechanisms for internal variability using a stochastic framework. Specific attention is given to variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which is likely the origin of a considerable part of decadal variability and predictability in the Atlantic Sector. Second, the paper discusses the decadal predictability and the factors limiting its realisation. These include a poor understanding of the mechanisms involved and large biases in state‐of‐the‐art climate models. Enhanced model resolution, improved subgrid scale parameterisations, and the inclusion of additional climate subsystems, such as a resolved stratosphere, may help overcome these limitations.’ A perspectiveondecadalclimatevariabilityand
predictability – Mojib Latif, NoelS.Keenlyside
Space cadets would do well not to ignore ‘a lot of work’ – aye FOMBS
Jim D
How much coal do you think there still is out there?
Can you cite references?
The WEC 2010 estimate I have used is at the high end of the range with between 800 and 900 Gt of “proven reserves” worldwide and a “total inferred recoverable resource” of 1,900 Gt.
In its 2009 World Energy Outlook, IEA estimated recoverable coal at “1 trillion short tons [=910 Gt] or “150 years of production”.
An estimate by Dave Rutledge of Caltech suggests that the recoverable total is even lower.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/world-coal-rese/
Using the high estimate of 1,900 Gt for coal plus WEC 2010 estimates (incl. shale) for “inferred total recoverable” oil and gas at 5,100 bbl and 490 trillion cubic meters, respectively, I end up with a maximum possible CO2 level (from human fossil fuel combustion) of 980 ppmv.
That’s it Jim. Ain’t no mo’.
That’s an increase of about 600 ppmv above today’s value. If the Vatican thinks we can generate twice this amount (1,200 ppmv above today’s value, or 1,600 ppmv) it must be planning on some sort of miracle.
But hey, according to the Vatican, it’s happened before, so why not again – right?
Max
Jim D
PS You can do a quick “sanity check” on that maximum available CO2 figure.
Most of the recoverable fossil fuels were created 60 to 300 million years ago, during periods of much higher atmospheric CO2 levels. At that time CO2 is estimated to have averaged around five times the “pre-industrial” level of 280 ppmv, or 1,400 ppmv.
http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~ajs/2001/Feb/qn020100182.pdf
By the time we get to the absolute maximum level of 980 ppmv, we will have put 700 ppmv, which came from fossil fuels, back into the atmosphere.
That represents roughly 62% = 700/(1400-280) of the reduction of atmospheric CO2, which created these fossil fuels in the first place. IOW 62% of the CO2 went into fossil fuels, which are recoverable, with the balance going into non-recoverable fossil fuels, the ocean, weathering, etc.
I’ve not seen any other estimates on this. Have you?
Max
Jim D
Bottom Line: 1,600 ppmv by 2100 from human fossil fuel combustion is not realistic, simply because there isn’t that much carbon there.
Max
What about this? is this a reliable source? Claims 3000 billion tons of coal off Norway’s coastline.
http://www.thegwpf.org/3000-billion-tons-coal-3000-years-and-norway/
Hard to say but possible. The continental shelves are simply the submerged edges of the continents. Whatever resources you find on the exposed portions of the continents could and should extend out into the submerged edges as well. If Norway has coal deposits along the coast, that same geology may well extend offshore.
lolwot
There have been all sorts of estimates of “hypothetical”, “speculative” coal (and oil) out there, but I’d put my bets on estimates of “inferred possible recoverable resources” by organizations like IEA , BGR or WEC.
These have come down from early estimates in the 1970s of almost 10 trillion tons to latest estimates of around 2 trillion tons, with less than half of this classified as “demonstrated recoverable”.
Max
manacker, you are probably looking at the reserves number rather than the potentially recoverable resources which is ten times larger. I have seen 10 trillion tonnes of coal in that category (3.6 in the US alone), which is easily enough for 1600 ppm. A lot of it is very deep, so we would have to be desperate to get it, and I don’t think it will happen, but it is not impossible. Imagine putting all the CO2 deposited over millions of years in the air in a geological instant (200 years). It can easily exceed amounts seen in the majority of paleo-atmospheric conditions.
Jim D
No.
The WEC 2010 “proven reserves” number is much smaller than the “inferred possible recoverable resource” number.
I’m using the higher one of the two.
It estimates that humanity has used up to date around 15% of all the recoverable fossil fuels that were ever on our planet, leaving 85% still to be extracted and consumed.
This 85% would last us around 300 years at present consumption rates and around 150-200 years at anticipated future rates.
I have seen no higher estimate. Have you? (If so, please cite.)
Max
manacker, the Hansen paper linked by Fan discusses this exact question and gives references. I also found
http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/AlaskaCoal/HowMuchCoal.html
where the US alone could have 3.6 trillion tonnes of coal.
‘The most recent estimate from the WEC places US recoverable reserves at 243 billion tons. This represents over 1/4th of the world total of 840 billion tons. Of those US reserves, a 1975 USGS assessment of coal resources in the US found Alaskan recoverable reserves (5.3 billion tons) to be about 3% of the total US recoverable reserves at the time (192 billion tons)…
This discrepancy arises from two factors; the elasticity of coal-related terminology and the addition of a large body of new data over the last 35 years. The first point concerns estimates of deep underwater coal in the Cook Inlet coal basin. In 1975 the USGS estimated that there might be up to 1.4 trillion tons of coal in this category. The vast majority of this coal was found at 5000-10,000 ft under the surface. The authors of this original study stressed that this coal was therefore classified as speculative resource, and that “much of this coal is not recoverable by known methods and technologies”. However, the authors of the 2005 USGS assessment chose to classify this in the hypothetical resource of the state. This is primarily a question of semantics, since both studies agree the coal is present, and according to the USGS has been repeatedly confirmed by the large numbers of boreholes drilled in the search for natural gas in Cook Inlet.’
Difficult and expensive – but I am sure we can dig up the hypothetical resource. Somehow I can’t help feeling that thorium might be a better bet.
Jim D
The WEC 2010 estimates I cited remain the most reliable, as they are generally corroborated by independent IEA and BGR estimates.
The “hairy-fairy” high-ball guesses of what is hypothetically speculated to be out there (even if never recoverable) are meaningless.
Coal hypothetically available at 6000 feet depth beneath the continental shelf, for example, will never be recovered, as long as nuclear power is competitive with easy-to get coal today.
Use your head.
Max
It is encouraging that the fossil fuel fans have some limits. Perhaps it stops after the current known resources are used. Hopefully no exploration in the opened up Arctic Ocean or exploitation of the coastal methyl clathrates. We’ll see if they can leave even easily attained stuff in the ground too. This would be a major step forwards and might prevent several hundred ppm in the atmosphere long-term.
Jim D
You are very likely right that the total global “inferred possible recoverable fossil fuel resources” as estimated by WEC 2010 may never be totally used up, for economic reasons.
Nuclear power is already fully competitive with conventional coal electrical power today, and more difficult and expensive to extract sources of coal will make nuclear even more advantageous.
Transportation fuels are a much smaller part of the total energy pie, but it is likely that new technologies will also become available, which are fully competitive with fossil fuels for this sector.
So I agree with you that the 980 ppmv CO2 level, which would occur if all fossil fuel resources were completely used up, will probably never happen in real life.
The key will be (as it always has been) human ingenuity and economic pressures (rather than arbitrary government regulation).
The first four (out of six) IPCC AR4 “scenarios and storylines” have atmospheric CO2 rising to between 580 and 700 ppmv by 2100.
These appear realistic to me, if we exclude any initiatives to shift new electrical power generation from coal to nuclear, which could lower the estimate by 80 ppmv or so.
I believe that’s where we are headed.
And, in light of new information on 2xCO2 climate sensitivity, I believe this represents no problem at all for humanity or our environment, as the theoretical GH warming would be well within the 2C limit.
If Solar Cycles 24 and 25 continue with a very inactive sun, and the ENSO/PDO/AMO cycles continue giving us more cooling than warming, we might even be glad to see a bit of a boost from AGW.
Max
The 8.5 W/m2 by 2100 scenario is only 75% CO2, but is equivalent to over 1300 ppm when CH4 and N2O are included. This is a worst-case business-as-usual scenario with a growing coal usage through 2100. This can lead to nearly 7 C warming after equilibrium is reached with the central IPCC sensitivity value.
BREAKING NEWS Updated version (April 2) of a key Hansen analysis:
That is a mighty sobering scientific conclusion, eh Louis Hooffstetter, Jim D, Lolwot, and Manacker?
This climate cataclysm will happen on time-scales that the Vatican considers to be real, isn’t that correct, Louis Hooffstetter, Jim D, Lolwot, and Manacker??
That is why the Vatican’s coming 2014 Workshop Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature perhaps has scientific, economic, and moral urgency associated to it?
These considerations are solidly grounded in science, and solidly grounded too in moral principles that have served Christians well for 200 years, eh Louis Hooffstetter, Jim D, Lolwot, and Manacker???
Fanny
“Sobering?”
Yeah, I guess so if you’re totally drunk.
Wonder what Hansen et al. were drinking?
Max
Hansen and his scientific colleagues have begun to drink deeply from the very same cups as this guy!
Perhaps you ought to take a sip from these cups too, Manacker? Because these are some mighty refreshing cups, eh?
Fan, thanks for pointing this paper out. Interesting to look at the long view, and potential impacts of broader ranges of CO2 variation. I will read it more closely with interest, but it is wide-ranging from snowball earth to what it takes for a Venus-like response, and why that is unlikely (evaporating the oceans). Also about the habitability of earth for man and mammals as the wet-bulb temperature exceeds 26 C in larger areas, and the fossil fuel resources making this state possible in the long term. Lots to ponder.
The Dilbert strip captured the spirit of it when we watched Dogbert at the keyboard, “writing fake press releases for imaginary new green energy technologies… Scientists say that by 2040 you will be able to power you entirer home with the breeze from your refrigerator door.” http://www.dilbert.com/strips/2011-03-29/
LOL Those writers at The Onion got there first!
Comedy, wheee! We love it!
Wagathon
Great cartoon
Fan. Nice item. No doubt Canada is looking forward to relocating some of its official thermometers to the warm back draft
Tonyb
tony b
All that needs doing in order to get the desired warming is to move the thermometers near the stream of hot air coming from Fanny.
Max
wag,
great cartoon.
Thanks
wind energy kills birds including golden eagles and bald eagles. Plus intermittant power but the passerine, raptor and bat kills are the real problem. Who knew? I wonder how Great Britain handles the bird situation tonyB? US was pushing for 20% wind energy by 2030 until this reality hit.
Scott
Rare raptors are the latest victims of second-hand Al Gore.
Scott
The rspb is britains premier bird organisation. I think it would be fair to say they are usually on board with the govt about climate change
http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/windfarms/
I would say this sentiment is not always shared by their supporters who will often cite dangers to birds when objecting to plans for new wind farms.
Sometimes the dangers will be overstated and sometimes I think bird kill is just accepted as a consequence of the technology, although everything will be done to minimise the problems. Many of our birds tend to be fairly common but there would be a lot more protests if the birds were rare.
The rspb have found themselves on the horns of a dilemma though in the on off plans for a Severn barrage which would supply 5% of the uk energy needs. It would have a severe impact on wading birds and there is likely to be conflict on this one if it goes ahead in anything like its original form
Tonyb
TonyB’s comment is 100% right-on-the-facts, and moreover, USA birders agree 100% with British birders:
Scott and Wagathon, please allow me to ask (respectully!) what is your source of information regarding birds and wind power?
Because whatever your source of information might be, that source is just plain untrustworthy (PDF here), isn’t that plainly evident, Scott and Wagathon?
It’s good that the nowadays the global polity is learning more-and-more about how to recognize-and-reject moronic/astroturfed climate-change denialist demagoguery, eh Scott and Wagathon?
I don’t usuallly respond to you fan because you perform a fillibuster to discussion on this site. In this case, the bird study comes from the Fish and Wildlife Service of the federal government who must issue take permits for wind farms after two years of specific bird census data at the specific site and the National Academy of Sciences report in 2006 or so about obstacles to increased wind energy. I will look at the Audubon Site
Scott
LOL … Scott, I am married to an Audubon Master Birder (who is also on the local Audubon Board) … and so I can guarantee that your researches will assure you that Audubon Societies are bastions of denialism-rejecting climate-change citizen-science!
A Modest Suggesstion Why not consider joining a citizen-science organization yourself, Scott?
You will learn much! And that will be good, eh?
Bats – http://www.fort.usgs.gov/BatsWindmills/
That is an outstanding bat-link Skippy! Muchos gracias!
Yah say yah *love* citizen-science? … but yer allergic to the usual fins-and-feather critters?
Then maybe Bat Conservation International (BCI) is the right organization for you! Also their partner organization Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative (BWEC), which encompasses a broad variety of public-and-private stakeholders.
BCI and BWEC are highly recommended to all Climate Etc readers, by virtue of their citizen-science-commitment, public-private partnering, and dynamic activism!
The plain reality is that *ALL* of these citizen-science organizations are foresighted & broadminded & warmly welcoming … they represent a burgeoning worldwide culture of citizen-science that is *nothing* like the crude smears that astroturfing demagogues commonly try to foist upon the public.
Summary A huge Hooorrrraaaahhhh goes out! To all the thousands of local citizen-science organizations that look after the world’s bats, birds, fishes, mammals, herps, butterflies, trees, flowers, mushrooms … and G*d knows what other life-forms!
Bless Them All!
Generalissimo to you d…t b.g. Real environmental science – as oppposed to play science – would suggest that breeding and foraging activities for both birds and bats is highly dispersed. Therefore some collateral damage from an intermittent, inefficient and expensive power source is inevitable. For what exactly are the subsidies for? http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/05/30/wind-power-may-not-reduce-carbon-emissions-argonne/
There are far more cost effective, practical and pragmatic and not merely less damaging but positviely beneficial ways forward. Welcome to the real world of the farmer scientist FOMBS.
http://carbonfarminghandbook.blogspot.com.au/
LOL … Generalissimo Skippy, if you are denying that citizen-science is real science … then you are setting yourself up for one h*ll of a (losing) denialist battle! (grabs popcorn!)
Fanny
Has anyone asked the birds?
Max
Scott
That’s when the bird hit the fan…
Max
Amatuer science is really just that. For instance, people on fossil digs providing grunt labour in far west Queensland. But is it equivalent to science? Does it confer an ability to date or identify fossils? Does it confer the depth and breadth of knowledge required? Does it more than a good time was had by all in the desert? We should have to answer in the negative despite your link to wikipedia.
But your ability to distract from major points to the very minor is legendary. You are a legendary twit.
LOL … few posts exemplify denialist cognition as plainly as yours, Generalissimo Skippy!
• Academic scientists say AGW is real!
(denialists claim “they live in the ivory tower”)
• NASA/professional scientists say AGW is real!
(denialists claim “they’re protecting their funding”)
• Citizen-scientist projects say AGW is real!
(denialists claim “they’re not *real* scientists”)
Conclusion Demagogic/astroturfing denialists are working harder-and-harder, to sustain a “bubble” of willful ignorance that disdains all forms of climate-change science.
Ain’t that the way of it, Generalissimo Skippy?
A 2002 study in Spain, home of Don Quixote, estimated that 11,200 birds of prey, some of them endangered species, are killed every year by wind turbines and power lines. And that doesn’t count the other wild life losses including small birds and bats.
See page 4 of Report.
http://www.aweo.org/problemwithwind.html
Beth Cooper, please be aware that
• Bird-hunting organizations (like Ducks Unlimited) care solely about bird habitat and bird populations.
• Bird-watching organizations (like Audubon Society) care solely about bird habitat and bird populations.
Hey, that’s why wildlife-hunters and wildlife-watchers, when they meet in the field (as they often do) get along great with each other. It’s because the watchers and the hunters alike appreciate that the key scientific issues are about wildlife habitat and populations, eh?
• Denialist astroturfing operations care solely about bird-based propaganda … or any other kind of sob-story they can exploit for denialist purposes.
So it’s not surprising, is it Beth Cooper, that conservation organizations have zero sympathy for the crocodile tears that are shed by climate-change denialists?
‘Every year in Spain alone — according to research by the conservation group SEO/Birdlife — between 6 and 18 million birds and bats are killed by wind farms. They kill roughly twice as many bats as birds. This breaks down as approximately 110–330 birds per turbine per year and 200–670 bats per year. And these figures may be conservative if you compare them to statistics published in December 2002 by the California Energy Commission: ‘In a summary of avian impacts at wind turbines by Benner et al (1993) bird deaths per turbine per year were as high as 309 in Germany and 895 in Sweden.’
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8807761/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/
For an inefficient and costly technology that does very little for carbon mitigation? You will find that conservation and community organisations world wide are opposing wind farms. You are an idiot FOMBS.
Pilgrims gathering
to make the long migration.
Some will not return.
BC
Climate Etc readers can join in hailing the indefatigable bat-biologist Merlin Tuttle, whose commitment and hard work, sustained over many decades, has catalyzed the birth, growth, and good works of the BWEC!
Aye Climate Etc laddies and lassies, *this* is what citizen-science is all about!
Climate Etc readers appreciate your work and thank you for it, Merlin Tuttle!
Table- and floor-model home electric fans have a protective screen to keep children from sticking their fingers in and getting hurt.
Why not just put screens around the wind turbines to keep the birds out.
So capital costs would increase by no more than 20% (my guess) and efficiency would suffer by no more than 1% (again, my guess).
Since wind turbines are already non-competitive without a lot of taxpayer subsidies, this would just require a bit more taxpayer money.
And, what the hell, that’s free, right?
Problem solved.
Max
“The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.” – Ross Perot
Uhhh … Chief … maybe activists don’t sit idly by while rivers are destroyed?
Why not reflect more deeply upon this, Chief?
Will you not join with Wendell Berry in condemning “The gleeful yahoos, who are destroying the world, and the mindless oafs who abet them.” Fortunately, there has always been “a saving remnant, of men and women, who are not for sale!”
A fan
Do not blame the activity of the sun on man:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:732/to:1965/normalise/compress:12/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1044/normalise/compress:12
It is for the most part too late to stop the rivers of America from getting dirty. Or for massive anoxic dead spots to emerge in the Gulf of Mexico. Or for returning the salmon to Californian Streams where as a fisheries ecologist – an American who studied the fisheries – friend explained to me reently the fish were in their hundreds of millions and now are sadly almost entirely depleted. Or for agicutural runoff from the great barrier reef which enhances recruitment of crown of thorns starfish which have destroyed 50% of the reef in the past 20 years. Or for tropical island agriculture to destabilise soils and bury downstream corals. This is being addressed by practical people.
I told you I am both an engineer and an environmental scientist. I have thought about little else for 30 years. My entire career has been about erosion and nutrients.
Your activists are zealots with little understanding of the issues or the remedies and little inclination to reflect on their moral certitude. Reminds me of you. These people are impediments to solutions. One of which you ignore to focus again on trivialities.
+1 Chief. A picture, and song, will sometimes speak more
powerfully than a thousand words. I ‘ll use this fer me project.
Beth
There are many other more technical videos under conservation farming or soil conservation. I like this one becasue the images are so stark and heroic in a sense as people took control of the problem. Some of the music is heart felt – some a bit sappy but it all seems to work.
Chief, perhaps you don’t quite appreciate what mountain-top removal mining does to streams.
But fortunately, citizens like Wendell Berry do understand it.
Perhaps you can learn from these foresighted citizens, Chief Hydrologist!
If your laws are not working – change them. http://www.epa.gov/region3/mtntop/
I was at the Porgera Mine in 1994 and was appalled by dumpings of tailing in to valleys. It is run by an American Company. A dam at the OK Tedi mine – then run by the Australian company BHP – collapsed and they have since continued a practice of open dumping.
Do you mean to say that similar practices are happening on the American mainland? Shame on you.
Perhaps you could learn from someone who has actually worked on these things – well not mountain mines as we don’t have mountains in Queensland – at any rate someone whose scientific speciality is hydrology, sedimentology and biogeochemical cycling in fluvial, marine and hyrogeological systems – but you show little sign of learning anything.
Porgera is in the highlands of PNG – somewhere near the border to Irian Jaya. I was building a hospital paid for by the mine – just to show how pure I am. OK Tedi is not far removed.
Chief
Agree with you that action is more important than jawboning.
But Nature is amazingly resilient.
I remember when a chemical company in Basel had a chemical spill into the Rhine a few years ago, the environmental jawboners were lamenting how the Rhine would be dead for decades. Within a year the effect of the spill had disappeared entirely.
Then there was the really bad BP explosion and leak in the Gulf of Mexico that seemed to go on forever (where BP engineers had failed to install fail-safe blowout prevention). Similar jawboners were howling about decades of dead spots in the Gulf with entire species endangered. It’s apparently also all gone now. Eaten up by natural bacteria.
This is not in any way to condone those who are responsible for these major cockups, but just to point out how strong Nature really is and how silly the jawboners are.
The CAGW jawboners are the worst of the bunch. There hasn’t even been a disaster. It’s all only a model-generated hobgoblin. But that doesn’t keep the jawboners from predicting doomsday and some clowns even asserting that the planet will be unsuitable for human habitation by 2100.
Jeesh….
Max
Here’s some doomsday papers – the second one I wrote a couple of years ago arguing a different way managing environments through multi-disciplinary environmental science teams. Nature will survive – but at what loss? Paradoxically – the CO2 obsession seems more a distraction than otherwise. For more than a generation global warming has been the focus in the public arena to the detriment of pressing issues of biodiversity. And still there has been no progress with CO2 even. Pathetic really.
‘A new Worldwatch Paper, Imperiled Waters, Impoverished Future: The Decline of Freshwater Ecosystems, demonstrates that giant dams, massive irrigation systems, and widespread logging often bring few economic benefits, and instead cause environmental degradation, poverty, and suffering, as well as irreplaceable loss of biodiversity.
Billions of dollars spent for flood control, plus the effects of land degradation, actually increased the severity and cost of flooding on the Columbia, Rhine, and Mississippi rivers.
Pollution and diversion have driven freshwater fisheries into collapse worldwide, and the extinction of freshwater species far outpaces the extinction of mammals and birds.
Wetlands worth billions of dollars to the public for fisheries, water purification, and groundwater renewal have been converted to less beneficial uses.
Freshwater ecosystems are both disproportionally rich and disproportionally imperiled. Some 20% of 9,000 known freshwater fish species worldwide are already extinct or imperiled, with the toll much higher where human impact is heavy. In North America and Europe, about 40% of all native fish species are extinct or imperiled. In East Africa’s heavily stressed Lake Victoria, 40% of its unique 350 native fish species are at risk, with 60% already extinct.’ http://www.worldwatch.org/node/862
‘The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment found that riparian zones are declining over 73% of Australia. There has been a massive decline in the ranges of indigenous mammals over more than 100 years. In the past 200 years, 22 Australian mammals have become extinct – a third of the world’s recent extinctions. Further declinein ranges is still occurring and is likely to result in more extinctions. Mammals are
declining in 174 of 384 subregions in Australia and rapidly declining in 20. The threats to vascular plants are increasing over much of the Australia. Threatened birds are declining across 45% of the country with extinctions in arid parts of Western Australia. Reptiles are declining across 30% of the country. Threatened amphibians are in decline in southeastern Australia and are rapidly declining in the South East Queensland
Brigalow Belt South and Wet Tropics bioregions.
Our rivers are still carrying huge excesses of sand and mud. The mud washes out onto coastlines destroying seagrass and corals. The sand chokes up pools and riffles and fills billabongs putting intense pressure on inland, aquatic ecologies. In 1992, the Mary River in south east Queensland flooded carrying millions of tonnes of mud into Hervey Bay. A
thousand square kilometres of seagrass died off decimating dugongs, turtles and fisheries.
The seagrass has grown back but the problems of the Mary River have not been fixed. The banks have not been stabilised and the seagrass could be lost again at any time. A huge excess of sand working its way down the river is driving to extinction the Mary River cod and the Mary River turtle. The situation in the Mary River is mirrored in catchments right across the country. Nationally, 50% of our seagrasses have been lost
and it has been this way for at least twenty years.’
“Please don’t overegg the pudding and inadvertently send them to the RealClimate refugee and training camp.”
Well, in my view the 2 young scientists appeared to volunteer for the camp, expressing their strong interest well before any sceptical analysis. Their press releases, their interviews and last but not least their paper look very much like an expression of interest. Above this, they applied the strategy of preemptive stereotyping against any possible future criticism.
I would rather consider the possibility, that their journey will end here and RealClimate will eventually refuse support. The paper has now completely fallen apart. Many RealClimate contributors teach young students themselves, and I think it would be extremely hard for them to justify support for such an awful paper taking away very limited space in a prestigous journal and getting attention of world media and fame. That is just not fair.
Generalissimo Skippy dumbly claims “Amatuer science is really just that.”
LOL … few posts exemplify denialist cognition as plainly as yours, Generalissimo Skippy!
• Academic scientists say AGW is real!
(denialists claim “they live in the ivory tower”)
‘In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.’ TAR 14.2.2.2
The IPCC and many other scientists say that climate is a coupled non-linear chaotic system. This is incompatible with an ordered evolution of climate this century even.
• NASA/professional scientists say AGW is real!
(denialists claim “they’re protecting their funding”)
‘Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.”’ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
NASA says that the planet is not warming for a decade or three more.
‘The overall slight rise (relative heating) of global total net flux at TOA between the 1980’s and 1990’s is confirmed in the tropics by the ERBS measurements and exceeds the estimated climate forcing changes (greenhouse gases and aerosols) for this period. The most obvious explanation is the associated changes in cloudiness during this period.’http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/projects/browse_fc.html
NASA says all the recent warming was caused by clouds.
• Citizen-scientist projects say AGW is real!
(denialists claim “they’re not *real* scientists”)
Dimwitted cult of AGW groupthink space cadet morons like FOMBS say AGW is real. Real people are have woken up to the utter and ignorant nonsense people like this spout relentlessly. They are realising that the world is not warming – as NASA says – and unfortunately this will put back progress at least a generation because dimwits like you are too thick to do anything but spout moralising and condescending twaddle because it gives you some sort of strange frisson.
Conclusion Demagogic/astroturfing denialists are working harder-and-harder, to sustain a “bubble” of willful ignorance that disdains all forms of climate-change science.”
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the late 1970’s, warming to 1998 and declining since. The shifts are punctuated by extreme El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Fluctuations between La Niña and El Niño peak at these times and climate then settles into a damped oscillation. Until the next critical climate threshold – due perhaps in a decade or two if the recent past is any indication.
Or perhaps I can quote again from the hundreds of other scientists I read and have referenced recently? You merely need to search to see the depth of actual science I bring to the discourse. As opposed to Hansen and the Vatican?
Earth science is something you are entirely lacking in any knowledge of and simply spout your ignorant, condescending and insulting twaddle on rotation and without pausing for breath or thought. You are an amazing fool.
It’s not complicated, Chief Hydrologist!
• Science is explanatory
CO2 produces AGW by the Greenhouse Effect.
• Science is predictive
The planetary heat budget will be imbalanced, such that the seas will warm and rise.
• Science is verifiable
Multiple hockey-sticks affirm the predictive explanations of climate-change science.
As for you much-beloved “hydrological cycles”, haven’t we seen such cycles before, Chief Hydrologist? As the failed enterprise called “chasing sunspot cycles?”
As with sunspot cycles, so with hydrodynamic cycles, eh Chief Hydrologist? That sunspot/hydrological cycles are real, no scientist doubts. That they are the prime explanation of warming “hockey-sticks”, few scientists believe.
Conclusion Neither sunspot cycles nor hydrological cycles are the central mechanism of long-term climate-change, eh Chief Hydrologist? Multiple, explanatory, predictive, verifiable, mutually affirming lines of theoretical and experimental scientific evidence have established that the CO2-driven greenhouse effect is the main climate-change driver, eh Chief Hydrologist?
Thank you for helping to show how climate-change science has broadened, deepened, and strengthened since the days of “cycles”, Chief Hydrologist
‘In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.’ TAR 14.2.2.2
Of course you commence with condescending, insulting and irrelevant twaddle and complain of vigouress responses to your quoted remarks in order? The only confusion is yours.
And of course – if you ever stopped to think – you would realise that cycles are neither here nor there. What we are talking about is a coupled non-linear chaotic system and chyaotic bifurcation that applies to rainfall as much as temperature. AGW is not true so much as an is the new paradigm of an abruptly changing climate system with it’s own associated risks and uncertainties. e.g. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=1
to link to myself – http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/02/ellison
The inability to factor in vast swathes of science suggests that you are a cult of AGW groupthink space cadet – aye FOMBS? You are part of the problem and not part of the solution.
In addition to the commence with condescending, insulting and irrelevant twaddle made note of by the Chief, you apparently are also completely unaware of this simple truth: science can never be explanatory and predictable when it is at best merely representational and the more representational it is the less verifiable it will be.
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Regarding the correlation between winter cold and winter deaths. Here is some research on it: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57547168/people-most-likely-to-die-of-heart-problems-in-winter-regardless-of-climate/
Heh – “obnoxious relatives.”
Nick Stokes has done an amazing job using his surface temperature program TempLS to combine the proxies used by Marcott et al.
http://www.moyhu.blogspot.com/2013/04/templs-and-paleo-marcott-et-al.html
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