For discussions that are off topic on the topical posts.
E.g. the resurfaced allegations of Wahl and Mann. I agree with RC’s take:
That this inconvenient fact [that MM05 made no substantial difference to the MBH reconstruction] has driven hundreds of blog posts, dozens of fevered accusations, a basket load of FOI requests, and stoked multiple fires of manufactured outrage is far more a testimony to personal obsession, rather than to its intrinsic importance.
It’s kind of cynical that the person at the centre stage of this obsession was invited to a “reconcilliation” workshop.
Or any other climate topic of interest.
My view on climate change 
March 10, 2011 at 10:20
Nonsense like the RC post makes me want to scream.
First, MM05 demonstrated that MBH had no statistical significance prior to 1500. MBH was nothing but an exercise in data mining.
The claim that ‘MMO5 made no difference’ is based on the flawed premise that the shape of the reconstruction mattered. If the reconstruction has no statistical significance the shape is irrelevant.
All of the blog posts, FOIs and outrage continues because outlets like RCs refuse to acknowledge that MBH was statistical junk and continue to peddle irrelevant strawmen.
Second, the current revelations about Wahl have nothing to do with science of MBH. What Wahl’s admissions do is provide yet more evidence that climate science is a cozy old boys club where insiders can dissemble or otherwise distort the truth and no one in leadship positions will say anything.
It leaves many people asking why they should trust these people.
March 10, 2011 at 11:02
It’s OK to ask why many people should trust these people, and the answer would be they’re doing science, based on observations of the real world. It’s not like they’re selling a used car. Frankly I believe it is easy to get paranoid when talking with a used car salesman.
March 10, 2011 at 11:11
This “distortion of the truth” meme is utterly false.
March 10, 2011 at 12:08
jyyh,
Science is a not a universal trump card.
Observations are good but a lot of climate science rests on complex models that, to an outsider, look like a curve fitting program.
The argument used by climate scientists is that we should trust that they have not tuned their models in order to produce the results that they want. There are no observations that can prove this one way or another. It really does come down to a question of trust.
If I can’t trust climate scientists to do a basic paleo reconstruction without making up novel statistical methods that just happen to produce the picture they like then how can I trust the infinitely more complex models?
March 10, 2011 at 12:24
TimG,
Perhaps if you’d look a little closer, you’d see that climate modeling has nothing to do with curve fitting. It’s based on (parameterized) physics.
And even by looking solely at observations combined with a little physical theory you can gain a lot of understanding of what’s going on and why.
March 10, 2011 at 13:17
TimG — “the current revelations about Wahl…”
Keep grasping at memes if it makes you happy, TimG. But there were no revelations, only lies from Capitol Hill.
March 10, 2011 at 13:19
TimG, please prove that “climate scientists [made up] novel statistical methods that just happen to produce the picture they like”.
March 10, 2011 at 13:25
TIMG:
McShane and Wyner included information about McIntyre’s runs of Mann’s curve ( see Deep Climate). They also published a curve that is an almost exact replication of Mann’s.
In my opinion, M&M and M&W have both replicated and vindicated Mann’s work. M&S were honest enough to admit this . McIntyre hasn’t, but he was outed by M&W
March 10, 2011 at 14:06
The basic assumption of TimG that he knows the scientists in question like one paleoreconstruction better than another is of course correct, however the decision of which paleoreconstruction is better is not made by personal likes as he seems to assume.
March 10, 2011 at 14:56
Marco — “TimG, please prove that “climate scientists [made up] novel statistical methods that just happen to produce the picture they like””
Ah, I get it. TimG’s taling about Spencer and Christy.
March 10, 2011 at 16:09
> Science is a not a universal trump card.
The four aces of the deck are:
– Our rights!
– It’s socialist
– It’s foreign
– We’ll lose money!
Source: http://www.denialism.com/Deckofcards/deck.html
March 10, 2011 at 16:14
TimG:
Mann et al 1998 only reconstructed a record to 1400, if you actually looked at the paper.
So maybe you would like to enlarge on your comment “First, MM05 demonstrated that MBH had no statistical significance prior to 1500. MBH was nothing but an exercise in data mining.”
Waiting for your answer…
March 10, 2011 at 17:33
Bart,
Good point. Also, do not forget this:
“So what is the actual issue at the heart of this? A single line in the IPCC AR4 report (p466) which correctly stated that “Wahl and Ammann (2006) also show that the impact [of the McIntyre and McKitirck critique] on the amplitude of the final reconstruction [by MBH98] was small (~0.05C)”. This was (and remains) true.”
Ouch. Oh yes, and it is now March 2011 McIntyre, time to get with the times.
March 10, 2011 at 17:48
Bart,
I am saying there are so many adjustable parameters in the climate models that they behave like a massive curve fitting machines even if that was not their intent. You claim this is not the case but why should I believe you? Where are your observations that support your belief that the models actually represent the physics? Hint: I am looking for unambiguously successful predictions of outcomes that are not simple extrapolations from past phenomena. I can’t think of any.
March 10, 2011 at 18:06
J Bowers,
You are spinning. The PSU investigation was supposed to determine the answer to this:
“Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?”
Forwarding an email requesting that Wahl delete the emails is indirect participatation by any reasonable definition. Yes the PSU investigation claimed that Mann was not involved suggesting the PSU investigators are either incompetent or dishonest. Take your pick.
March 10, 2011 at 18:09
TimG:
Read this paper:
http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/1992/91GL02788.shtml
and then this (see especially the figure comparing prediction with observation):
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_02/
And that was with a rather rudimentary model compared to today’s models.
March 10, 2011 at 18:28
Marco, I have seen skeptics write that earlier models in fact have not been improved on. Your take on that?
March 10, 2011 at 18:31
John McManus,
Of course the replicated it. They had to in order to show that the method was statistical junk.
The criticism leveled by MM and MS is the reconstructions have no statistical significance and therefore the shape of the curve is irrelevant.
March 10, 2011 at 18:36
Marco,
It was well known that volcanoes cause a dip in temperature. A simple curve fitting model could have come up with the same prediction.
What I am asking for is a prediction that came unambiguously came true that did not have historical precedent.
March 10, 2011 at 18:49
What I am asking for is a prediction that came unambiguously came true that did not have historical precedent.
Are you not taking the “show me a unicorn” route here? What kind of climate event could possibly have no “historical precedent” ?
Actually, come to think of it, AGW itself comes close to it (though it does have non-anthropogenic precedents, e.g. PETM).
March 10, 2011 at 18:51
@ TimG, March 10, 2011 at 18:06
Time for Michael Mann to be quoted…
Get real, Tim, you got nothing on Mann. This whole sorry episode is yet another manufactroversy to feed Congress today, and in the process feed McIntyre’s obsessive vendetta against Mann.
March 10, 2011 at 19:55
J Bowers, as I tried to comment on Real Climate yesterday, it would be laughably easy to create a ‘what if’ scenario that puts Mann’s behaviour in a very bad light.
Let me ask you first, though. What ethical responsibilities does an intermediary have when conveying a message prompting an action that might be unethical or illegal?
Straight question, no games.
March 10, 2011 at 19:55
TimG:
My reading of MW says that they think uncertanty bars should be bigger. This is not a statement claimiong statistical irrelevance. Both M&M and M&W demonstrate their hockey skills.
As you say “of course they replicated”. Noone can use climate data without replicating the hockey stick. Many have tried, all failed.
March 10, 2011 at 20:13
TimG: No simple curve-fitting model could have predict that AND get prior events right. Only a “curve-fitting model” that is based on physics would be able to do both.
March 10, 2011 at 20:16
Tom Fuller: what ethical responsibilities does a person have who reproduces the e-mails of others without the express approval of the authors for doing so?
Do also take into account the situation in which that person has previously complained about unethical behavior of another who published an e-mail of said person.
March 10, 2011 at 20:24
Marco, when they publish or refer to the emails publicly available on the internet, I believe they are fair game. Real Climate published and referred to the internet location of the Climategate emails, and referenced specific emails by number, freeing my from any ethical obligation regarding their privacy.
As I’ve explained to you before on countless threads. And which you promptly abandon until the next opportunity.
As I explained to you before, I could have had quite the scoop as the first journalist to have the emails, but as I’ve explained to you before, I decided not to do so and published an article explaining why. As I explained to you before, I considered myself released by Real Climate’s treatment of the emails.
March 10, 2011 at 20:25
Now J Bowers, (and Marco if he cares to), what ethical responsibilities did Michael Mann have regarding Phil Jones’ request to delete all emails regarding AR4?
March 10, 2011 at 20:27
Tom Fuller writes:
“What ethical responsibilities does an intermediary have when conveying a message prompting an action that might be unethical or illegal?”
Such as propagating stolen emails and lying about their meaning? Let’s keep the high and mighty ethical preaching to a minimum, shall we?
March 10, 2011 at 20:48
I guess you have no comment then about Michael Mann’s forwarding an email asking Wahl to take an action that some would consider assisting Phil Jones in a cover-up? Perhaps J Bower will be more forthcoming.
As for propagating stolen emails, we can address that later–whose property were they? Were they in fact stolen? And as for lying about their meaning, Steve Mosher and I in fact did the opposite. Although as always you are free to supply specific examples, which you somehow always find time not to do.
March 10, 2011 at 21:02
Mark B, as a pertinent example of not lying about the Climategate emails, I believe we wrote that Phil Jones asking associates to delete all emails regarding AR4 was a violation of the UK Freedom of Information Act.
That was true.
March 10, 2011 at 21:04
But I’m sure, Mark B, that you will take comfort in the fact that we said nothing about it being a violation of the UK FOIA for Michael Mann or Eugene Wahl to delete emails.
Feel better? They’re just acting unethically and aiding in a cover-up. Whew. Life can go on.
March 10, 2011 at 21:33
Tom Fuller
Perhaps you would be more convincing if you continuously commented on the complete lack of integrity and honesty among deniers, where misrepresenting the science, misquoting scientists, faking graphs on sea levels, sea ice and temperatures, constant cherry picking, flat out lying and just plain bad science are standard operating procedure. Otherwise, I don’t see where you have anything to offer, but more obfuscation. Your claim to being a former skeptic who is now a lukewarmer doesn’t ring true. You sound more like a denier, who has realized there is no credibility in that, so have grasped the last straw.
March 10, 2011 at 21:40
TimG,
See responses to questions 1 and 2 on how a physics based model differs from a statistical model or curve fit.
March 10, 2011 at 22:05
Deniers? You mean skinheads who pretend the Holocaust never occurred? I don’t read about them and don’t want to discuss them.
March 10, 2011 at 22:31
Tom Fuller writes
“And as for lying about their meaning, Steve Mosher and I in fact did the opposite. Although as always you are free to supply specific examples, which you somehow always find time not to do.”
Been there done that
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto.php#comment-2578515
I don’t have much interest left for TF’s soapbox or his book.
“Deniers” is arguably too weak of a term. It implies someone is sincerely ignorant due to some strong personal biases, as opposed to blatantly dishonest, which has another word for. Is Lindzen a denier? I think he knows better when making his public arguments.
March 10, 2011 at 23:20
Oh this silly Holocaust defense that “skeptics’ predictably float out. The context is clear, we are talking about AGW, there are people in denial about AGW.
There are people in denial about the negative impacts of smoking and second-hand smoke on health. Lindzen is one of them.
There are people in denial about the link between HIV and AIDS. Mbeki is one of them.
There are people in denial about the importance and efficacy of vaccinations.
There are people in denial that doubling CO2 in a very short time (geologically) will not have negative impacts on the biosphere and those creatures which inhabit it. Too many examples to cite.
The only suggestion that I might make to appease those who cannot appreciate context and who have fanciful thoughts, is to say “X is a denier of AGW”.
Now McIntyre and Watts and their kin are aiding and abetting those in denial about AGW who have a political, fiscal and ideological agenda (such as Inhofe), to engage in a war and witch hunt on science and scientists. How ironic then that Stephen and Anthony and Moshpit et al. accuse climate scientists of getting involved in politics when McInytre and Watts are clearly in bed with Inhofe and his footmen such as Morano. History will not remember these SOBs fondly.
Others then try and claim the middle ground by labeling themselves “lukewarmers”, which is a fabricated term and self-serving term that has no scientific merit. They are really no better than those in denial about AGW, because they engage in the same tricks, same rhetoric, same asymmetric critique, and same games, all they do is use a different label. Pretty pathetic really.
March 10, 2011 at 23:33
Jones’s request to Mann and Wahl was not illegal as the emails he was asking them to delete could not have been subject to a FoI request under UK FoI laws.
March 10, 2011 at 23:42
Andrew, that’s what I said here and what we said in our book. It’s just grubby and sleazy.
March 10, 2011 at 23:44
Maple Leaf, from the time it was coined by Ellen Goodman until today, people have consciously and deliberately associated climate change denier with Holocaust denier. As you know.
“I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.” Ellen Goodman, 2007.
March 10, 2011 at 23:53
Whoops! Sorry Andrew, I misread you. Jones’ request to Mann and Wahl was illegal under UK FOIA, as he was aware of an incoming request under that legislation. In fact the TCO called it a clear prima facie case of breaking FOIA legislation.
I thought you were referrring to what Mann and Wahl did, which was merely grubby and sleazy.
March 11, 2011 at 00:05
Hundreds of thousands of people (including children) are estimated to needlessly suffered and died because of Mbeki’s inaction on HIV/AIDS. Denial can be incredibly costly. So let us please spare Mbeki’s feelings and not offend him by calling him a “denier”. He is so much better than those people who denied the Holocaust. Not.
Yes, of course some people have made that mistaken (although depending on how many people needlessly die and suffer in the future b/c of AGW, her words may in fact be true). Regardless, Goodman does not speak for everyone., et those who choose to take issue with the terminology are conveniently making gross generalizations.
The ‘skeptics’, lukers and contrarians sure love to dish it out, but they have unbelievably thin skins when the tables are turned :) That and being deliberately obtuse.
And before I forgot to mention those in denial about evolution. That is, deniers of evolution.
March 11, 2011 at 00:12
Tom,
No, any incoming FoI request could only have been for data held by UAE/CRU, not by the institutions for which Mann and Wahl were working. Therefore any request from Jones to his colleagues at UEA/CRU to delete emails or any deletion of emails by Jones himself may have been in contravention of the FoI act, but his request to Mann and Wahl was not.
March 11, 2011 at 00:13
Sending the email was breaking the legislation as was cited by TCO
March 11, 2011 at 00:21
Now,now Tom calm down and no need to resort to name calling. Also, sorry but your seething rants and strawman arguments make no sense. In fact, no more so than those of McIntyre or Inhofe ;) But I digress.
Calling someone a denier of evolution, HIV/AIDS, AGW, or the harmful effects of tobacco smoke is not hate speech, it is a statement of fact. To suggest otherwise is simply ludicrous, and bending over backwards to try and draw a parallel with hate speech is desperate in the extreme, and quite frankly offensive to people who are the victims of true/real hate speech.
Now you keep tying yourself in knots and looking out for the feelings of the Mbekis of the world.
To stay on topic, not looking so good for your BFF when he is shown to be in bed with Inhofe and Morano now is it? Still want to be his character witness? :)
March 11, 2011 at 00:37
Have a nice day Tom, sorry if I made you mad.
March 11, 2011 at 00:54
Yes, of course you are. Please don’t trouble yourself about it.
I’m sure you all wish that this was lost in the shuffle, but the question remains:
“J Bowers, as I tried to comment on Real Climate yesterday, it would be laughably easy to create a ‘what if’ scenario that puts Mann’s behaviour in a very bad light.
Let me ask you first, though. What ethical responsibilities does an intermediary have when conveying a message prompting an action that might be unethical or illegal?”
March 11, 2011 at 01:24
The question that does not remain to be asked whether or not the headlines at WUWT, CA and Morano were at best misleading and at worst false and libelous.
That is not a fabricated “what if” that is reality or a hypothetical it is the reality.
Jones was an idiot for suggesting people delete emails for the purpose he was suggesting, that was plain wrong (even if he was under stress at the time), and I do not know of anyone (including “the team”) who disagrees. But that is not the issue here. The issue here is Inhofe and McIntyre and Morano spreading falsehoods and misrepresenting what actually transpired. Shameful, but not surprising, that the ‘skeptics’ once again fail to be true skeptics.
Ho hum. Mr. Morano…consider yourself served :)
March 11, 2011 at 01:26
Hi Mitch –
“TimG:
Mann et al 1998 only reconstructed a record to 1400, if you actually looked at the paper.
So maybe you would like to enlarge on your comment ‘“First, MM05 demonstrated that MBH had no statistical significance prior to 1500. MBH was nothing but an exercise in data mining.’”
I agree that one of the conclusions of MM05 with regards to MBH98 was that the “controversial” 15th century had no statistical significance:
“In the case of MBH98, unfortunately, neither the R2 and other cross-validation statistics nor the underlying construction step have ever been reported for the controversial 15th century period. Our calculations
have indicated that they are statistically insignificant.”
However, the issue may go a bit further, as my understanding is that MBH99 applied the same methodology as MBH98 (albeit to only the NH proxy data). MBH99 ultimately presented a reconstruction of NH anomalies back to the year 1000, concluding that the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and that 1998 was likely the warmest year.
March 11, 2011 at 01:31
Tom,
So what specific clause of the FoI Act did Jones breach by sending this email? I mean I’m happy to admit it if I’m wrong and I agree with MapleLeaf that it was a stupid thing for Jones to do but I don’t see how deleting or requesting the deletion of data which is not covered by the FoI act can be a breach of the act.
March 11, 2011 at 01:45
From the noted denialist newspaper The Guardian, “The University of East Anglia flouted Freedom of Information regulations in its handling of requests for data from climate sceptics, according to the government body that administers the act.
In a statement, the deputy information commissioner Graham Smith said emails between scientists at the university’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) that were hacked and placed on the internet in November revealed that FOI requests were “not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation”.
Some of the hacked emails reveal scientists encouraging their colleagues to delete emails, apparently to prevent them from being revealed to people making FOI requests. Such a breach of the act could carry an unlimited fine, but Smith said no action could be taken against the university because the specific request they had looked at happened in May 2008, well outside the six-month limit for such prosecutions under the act.”
If you like, you can chase it down here: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dca.gov.uk/foi/coverage.htm
March 11, 2011 at 01:46
So, Andrew Adams, “What ethical responsibilities does an intermediary have when conveying a message prompting an action that might be unethical or illegal?”
March 11, 2011 at 01:53
Bart,
You have a troll problem wrt Fuller and Shub. Some might go so far ad to say that you have a “squatter” problem– it seems they have set up camp at your blog and are taking advantage of your goodwill and leniency to engage in FUD. Others do not tolerate such behaviour, and neither should you IMHO. I do not come here feed trolls (yes that is my fault too) or get baited by them. Really, I’d much rather go elsewhere where science takes first order of importance– really right now you are playing into the hands of the “skeptics” and this is turning into a political blog where contrarians get to sling mud and misinform, and pontificate at will. And I say all this with the utmost respect and sincerity, and hope that no offense is taken. I’ll take a break for a while and return in a few months to see whether or not matters have improved.
Andrew,
Good luck trying to reason with Mr. Fuller, he is a master of everything from biodiversity, economics to climate science. Apologies to Mr. Fuller if I missed any of other disciplines that he is a self-professed expert in.
March 11, 2011 at 02:26
Mr. Fuller:
Denier is a termused widely for people in denial of truth they are trying to block.
As we all know, MC admitts the past couple of decades are the warmest in a millenium. So do M&W. In all probability you have read the literature and know it as well.
Engaging in active denialist activity can be profitable for some but is is still denial.
March 11, 2011 at 03:24
Bart,
I have read the material RC provides on climate models.
But that requires me to trust that the models actually work the way that RC says they do. There are plenty of qualified people (meaning people who work with complex numerical models in other fields) who say there is no way the models work the way RC says.
That brings us back to ultimate arbitrator: observational evidence.
But that is lacking. The ‘pinatubo prediction’ is often touted as evidence but the model used for that prediction is not the same as the models used for climate predictions today so it completely unreasonable to claim that success (assuming it was not a fluke) with one model confers legitimacy on other models.
For example, many of the IPCC models cannot even produce the pinatubo drop as a hindcast. Why would a successful prediction of a pinatubo tell me anything about the accuracy of those models?
March 11, 2011 at 04:07
Tom Fuller writes:
“People using a term are not the ones who get to say it is acceptable or not. It is the people who are labeled who do.”
Great. Please refrain from using the labels “alarmist”, “warmist”, “CAGWer”, “Chicken Little”, “unsufferable jerk”, and any other terms you may have used in the past, as I find them unacceptable. Before you protest, might I remind you again of your quote above.
This does bring up an interesting point. Denialism is clearly not tied to the Holocaust. It’s a generic term, and most approriate analogies are denialism of other areas of science. Congressman Markey this week had a humorous moment, where he said he would not stand up to make his statement for fear of Republicans repealing gravity, such that he’d end up floating around the room. He also mentioned heliocentrism. Climate change denial is most similar to other areas of science, not the Holocaust. The only similarities of the two is in a very broad sense – denying inconvenient facts due to strong personal biases. The Holocaust the furthest from my mind when I use this term. Only a handful of reporters have made this analogy over the years. They are far outnumbered by those seeking to demonize those using the term, and the people appearing to be angry over its usage often appear to be feigning it. They also don’t get to decide what my motivations are for using the term. They are wrong.
As far as alarmism goes, the science is alarming. “Alarmism” implies the alarm is not justified. It is. Those who tend to use the term to describe scientists also tend to be the ones claiming the economy will fall off the face of the Earth if GHG emissions are reduced. That’s very alarmist. Inhofe (also part of the recent libel of Mann) today asserted that gas prices were high due to the mere attempt to pass national cap and trade legislation that didn’t pass the Senate and has been dead for a year. He’s just a fool. And if he doesn’t like that label, he can choose Clown.
March 11, 2011 at 04:13
What I don’t understand is why there is still a large focus on the science. The science is solid that using the air as a waste dump for greenhouse gases is very harmful and will lead to catastrophic consequences if not curtailed. The focus should have switched to solutions by now. What are the best strategies for shifting societies away from burning fossil fuels?
Climate science is still critical, don’t get me wrong. It will help us refine strategies and tactics for dealing with the problem, and hopefully help us adapt to the new world we’ve created. But to read people still trying to undermine attempts to fix things because they personally don’t understand basic physics or because they personally haven’t developed their own climate models is a waste of time and cyberspace. There is a lot of information freely available for those having the wit to understand it and the desire to learn.
March 11, 2011 at 05:59
It’s good to have an Open thread.
Please consider having a Bore Hole, Dunce Corner, Twilight Zone, Rabbett Hole, or whatever.
March 11, 2011 at 08:19
Tom, regarding the ethical responsibilities of Mann: he was asked by a colleague to forward an e-mail. He did. That the content was supposedly meant to “cover up” anything is a typical distortion of people like you. If anything, Phil Jones tried to stop people deliberately abusing FOI law to make up stories by taking things out of context. If Jones had succeeded, we would not have had the FALSE story going around that anything unethical happened with the referral to the Wahl & Ammann paper. THERE’s your story, Tom: the deliberate obfuscations and distortions by a group of people who claim the moral high road. But you won’t see it, because you have become part of that group of people.
March 11, 2011 at 08:20
Tom, Jones’ request was not illegal, as neither Mann nor Wahl are subject to UK FOIA.
March 11, 2011 at 08:30
TimG: there are plenty of qualified doctors who deny that HIV causes AIDS. There’s YOUR proof that HIV does not cause AIDS, right?
We also have doctors who claim certain vaccines are the main cause of autism. There, Wakefield exhonerated, by YOUR line of argumentation.
And next you tell us that, since some physicists say the greenhouse effect does not exist, that it really is true, the greenhouse effect does not exist.
I could go on and on with examples where some supposedly qualified people make claims about an area of science where they actually have little qualifications, which by your line of argumentation means THEY are right.
March 11, 2011 at 09:16
Guys,
Stop this endless bickering about words/definitions. The signal to noise in comment threads such as these is getting insufferably low. I don’t have time nor the inclination to do thorough editing and deleting of comments, but this ain’t working either.
The wordpress.com platform doesn’t enable simply moving comments unfortunately, so a borehole kind of idea is no option here (unless I upgrade to wordpress.org).
In the meantime, arguments about whether a certain term refers to the holocaust or not are off limits, as it gets invariably nasty. I removed a bunch of comments that went significantly (95% confidence level) over the line.
March 11, 2011 at 09:32
Thanks. Bug WordPress to get better. It’s software, not hardware.
March 11, 2011 at 09:54
Marco,
Group think is a real phenomena.
Scientists can and do fool themselves into believing things that are not true.
Real experiments are the arbitrator that settles these questions.
In the case of AIDS we have millions of people contracting HIV and then getting AIDS. The huge volume of real experimental data swamps any critics.
The trouble is with climate models we have no real experiments. We have hindcasts which could be a sign of curve fitting. We have one example of a prediction of a post volcanic dip that is not that relevant because: 1) It was a different model and 2) It was short term (weather is not climate – right?) 3) could have been a fluke.
So the question remains: why should I believe that the climate modellers are not fooling themselves when it comes to the usefulness of their models?
March 11, 2011 at 10:51
TimG,
If you don’t want to do some learning, eg via the pointers and info provided to you, to answer your own question, then stop asking us to provide pointers and information. Apparently you’re not interested in the information given to you. Fine. Case (and mind) closed. Stop going along the same lines again and again. You’re probably better off asking people whose answer you like than people whose answer you don’t like. And that’s your perogative.
March 11, 2011 at 17:53
Bart,
I am not asking you for pointers to information (for the most part I have read it all before).
I am trying to get to you look at wrong assumptions about why people do not share your unthinking faith in climate science and why defending misbehaving scientists like Jones and Mann actually undermines your case.
If you want to continue with your delusion that skepticism exists because of some big oil conspiracy then go ahead. If you want your forum to be a place where you can preach to the faithful so be it.
March 11, 2011 at 18:16
Tom,
As I mentioned above if Jones had requested one of his colleagues at UEA/CRU to delete mails then that may well have been a breach of FoI laws, so I accept the statement by the ICO. But what we’re discussing here is the specific email that Jones sent to Mann and this relates to information that is not covered by the UK FoI Act, so this particular request could not in itself have been illegal. That doesn’t get Jones off the hook for other requests he may have made to others but it is not Jones’s bahaviour which is the issue here.
As for Mann’s ethical responsibilities having received Jones’s request, I’m really not sure. I certainly think it was reasonable to forward Jones’s mail to Wahl as requested but without specifically asking him to act on it – he may have figured it was for Jones and Wahl to argue the rights and wrongs of the issue between themselves. I don’t see any obligation on Wahl’s part, legal or ethical or otherwise, not to delete the mails.
March 11, 2011 at 19:15
[edit. BV]
Nope, as in science denialism. HIV/AIDS denialism, for instance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_denialism
http://www.skepdic.com/aidsdenial.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/5-characteristics-of-scientific-denialism.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism
“In science, denialism has been defined as the rejection of basic concepts that are undisputed and well-supported parts of the scientific consensus on a topic in favor of ideas that are both radical and controversial.”
March 11, 2011 at 19:40
TimG,
You don’t like any of the answers given to you. That’s fine, but why do you then keep asking the same question to the same people (and apparently expecting a different outcome next time round)?)
Climate models are physics based; not merely statistical fit exercises. If you’re trying to get me to look at it if it were, then my answer is thanks but no thanks. It’s nonsense no matter how you slice it.
I have a quite broad view of reasons for people to be skeptical and am quite aware that it’s not all oil money that makes skeptics tick. But thanks for the heads up anyway.
March 12, 2011 at 02:40
Bart,
No time for blogging whatsoever but on reading of Cam3 I was surprised at assumptions about hadley cells and the methods by which the potential model responses were limited. I know this will be taken like everything else I write here, but in engineering, the spatial reductions of matrix equations for fea are often the difference between right and wrong answers.
Since there is so little realistic verification done on climate models and data, the results of Cam3 could be quite seriously incorrect. Those who claim otherwise don’t know what was done IMO. Too many assumptions, too many reductions, too many inflexibilities. I do recognize the need for the assumptions and inflexibilities because the unknowns are to complex to insert if you want to see an answer today. CS doesn’t recognize that repeating the same inflexibilities in different modes is not confirmation of Earth’s response but rather that the math between models is similar.
An example would be the improper gridding of stresses in a screw hole under stress. I haven’t done the calcs in 20 years but if not done right, you can get completely different answers from two very reasonably parametrized solutions. One fails, one doesn’t. Tis’ only the god of physics who decides which is correct, although through massive experimentation, we have figured out which is more reliable.
I believe that short term results are is why in my experience engineers with some knowledge of climate science are more often climate skeptics than believers. We know that too many guesses and optimizations are made. Too many assumptions, too much certainty.
March 12, 2011 at 03:35
The only engineers I know who are climate science skeptics (apparently you go further by being skeptical of climate altogether) are the handful seen in the denialsphere.
I know more engineers of various disciplines in real life than I’ve run across in the denialsphere, and quite honestly don’t know a single one who’s a science denier.
Same goes for that other favorite form of science denialism – creationism.
I think in both cases the notion that a large percentage (much less a majority) of engineers deny science is due to sample bias …
March 12, 2011 at 03:39
Also, thanks for the long-winded confirmation that HadCRM3 is indeed a parameterized physical model, as Bart has pointed out, and which TimG insists is false.
Same is true of GISS Model E.
March 12, 2011 at 03:41
Jeff Id:
Back in 1967, we wanted to put up a wire grid and egg crate ceiling in a university residence common room.
The engineers ran around, slidede their slide rules and said ” it will never work- the weight in the middle of the room will be tons”. Me being an arts student looked at the weights of the wire and the egg crates and installed the ceiling. It was still there when I left in 1970.
Engineers are OK as drinking buddies but can lack a sense of reality. Always check their work .
March 12, 2011 at 03:46
McManus,
Yup, engineers are human and often wrong.
March 12, 2011 at 03:51
McManus,
While, the engineers I worked with do not solve such simplistic problems, you have just provided a perfect example where someone who was sure of a calc was wrong. My experience is that a lot of engineers miss the human perspective.
March 12, 2011 at 06:36
Jeff Id,
I would suggest that you go to RC and say something like:
“I think the treatment of Hadley Cells in CAM3 is inadequate for the following reasons…”
Then state why you think they are wrong. Try it on the current open thread, I am pretty sure that Gavin will be more than happy to engage.
March 12, 2011 at 06:58
Actually, I doubt it. I wouldn’t expect Gavin to be that intimate with HadCRUT’s work. He has a full-time job involving GISS Model E.
JeffId’s accusations should be directed to HadCRUT.
March 12, 2011 at 06:59
JeffId:
I endorse the obvious cheap shot that your admission suggests …
March 12, 2011 at 07:00
Oh, gosh, this on the heels of your “engineers are better than scientists” claim above?
(OK, it was indirect, but it was obvious.)
March 12, 2011 at 07:09
Let’s break some things down here:
The atmospheric side of HadCM3 is the model used for official British weather forecasts.
We could, for instance, compare the accuracy of those with … yours … or Watts … etc to get some notion as to how well this model works.
(well, maybe it’s been replaced by CM4 or even CM5? They’ve been working forward …)
You are hand-waving. Iterate which assumptions are unreasonable (not all assumptions are, such as “gravity works” or “TSI observations are accurate”).
Inflexibilities based on understood physics (the real implications of SLOT, for instance, not the denialist anti-science version of SLOT that also condemns all of modern biology as being wrong because Genesis is right).
Yer honor, not in evidence that the assumptions and inflexibilities are entirely due to “unknowns to [sic] complex to insert”.
I see, though, that JeffID is right in step with the current denialist meme that “unknowns” rule …
And, of course, the “unknowns” mean we need do nothing.
Because all of the “unknowns” fall in step with libertarian, black-helicopter fearing, politics. The “unknowns” couldn’t *possibly* mean things are likely to be much worse than science today suggests, right? The “unknowns” inform JeffID that it’s *known* that nothing bad will happen.
March 12, 2011 at 08:04
Here is a good example of denialist thinking, and how it has shown some unintended irony.
McIntyre says
Here is an interesting splice of Moberg and satellite data. Blue is Moberg, grey is Moberg error bars, red is instrumental, all downloaded from the Nature SI; purple is satellite. At right is the post-1850 blow-up. You can see that the post-1980 satellite temperatures are high but not off the charts relative to Moberg’s reconstruction.
He finds that the satellite data is ‘not off the charts’. So, in he goes for the kill, using his usual vitriol.
To even contemplate use of Moberg, the Hockey Team has to rely entirely on the splice of CRU records, rather than satellite records. Warwick Hughes and others have expressed concerns about how CRU have handled urban heat island effects and other issues. There are some very interesting issues in SST temperatures on how adjustments have been done for change-over from measuring temperatures in buckets to engine inlets, which I’ll post about some time.
He has huge concerns about the CRU temperature record, but, for such a studious ‘auditor’, none about the satellite record.
Here comes the irony. McIntyre now recalls Jones refusing to supply data, because, as he quotes Jones saying, “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
A couple of years ago (before I had any notoriety), I asked Phil Jones for the data used in the UHI study published in Nature and relied upon by IPCC. Jones told me that it was on one of dozens of diskettes in his office and he couldn’t find it. I didn’t pursue the matter at the time. You may recall Phil Jones’ response to Warwick Hughes’ request for the underlying station data:
We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.
Phil Jones’ construction of temperature data sets has been financed by the U.S. Department of Energy. Whether the CRU data sets are right or wrong, they need to be audited. I don’t see why the Hockey Team should be exempt from audit standards.
Indeed. McIntyre is so obsessed the CRU data, he proves Jones 100% correct, all McIntyre wants to do is find fault with the CRU data. He never questions the possibility that it is the satellite data is wrong. He never ‘audited’ it, and he has never made an issue of the satellite source code not being publicly available. McIntyre is no auditor, he pursues personal vendettas relentlessly.
March 12, 2011 at 08:41
TCO’s comment made me smile:
> Every time I see this stitchtogether, I like it less and less. With the noise in the curves, you can’t even see what happens to the proxies in the 20th century. It’s obscured. And it sends a very different signal to an observer than if one just looked at all proxy signals and saw that current temps in moberg are similar to previous MWP temps. And the frigging red color. Sheesh. Have some shame…
Too bad he’s been “moderated” from CA.
BTW, have you noticed how hovering the links is now more difficult on CA?
March 12, 2011 at 10:37
Good find, bugs. April, 2005 eh? Some UAH corrections since then affecting the trend…
“Update 7 Aug 2005 ****************************
An artifact of the diurnal correction applied to LT
has been discovered by Carl Mears and Frank Wentz
(Remote Sensing Systems). This artifact contributed an
error term in certain types of diurnal cycles, most
noteably in the tropics. We have applied a new diurnal
correction based on 3 AMSU instruments and call the dataset
v5.2. This artifact does not appear in MT or LS. The new
global trend from Dec 1978 to July 2005 is +0.123 C/decade,
or +0.035 C/decade warmer than v5.1.
Update 5 Dec 2006 *******************************
Data products are still 5.2 and 5.1. For LT 5.2 and MT 5.1 we have
eliminated the data from NOAA-16 after September 2005 when NOAA-16
began to diverge in a manner that suggested NOAA-16 was having problems.
Thus, the data since Oct 2005 is based on NOAA-15. The net effect on this
change was to increase post-Oct 2005 temperatures slightly, and thus the
global trend is increased by about 0.01 C/decade.”
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/readme.08Dec2010
Interesting are the trend changes in UAH over the years due to these corrections.
1/2001: +0.044 / decade
3/2002: +0.053 / decade
8/2005: +0.123 / decade
3/2010: +0.132 / decade
Prior to 1998, their data erroneously showed a cooling trend.
Maybe McI should update his post.
This does presume McI is using UAH TLT data. He doesn’t answer the question when asked what dataset he’s using. Assuming it is, it would be somewhat of an apples/oranges comparison, since proxies are generally considered proxies of surface temperatures, although some correlation is expected. Not only is he splicing together 2 different types of measurements (deniers taught us that was a big no-no or something), but also measurements of different things.
The surface record does not have errors on a global scale of these magnitudes. CRU underestimates the trend a little due to Arctic exclusion. Interesting that McI mentions the SST issues. The 1940’s problem and likely correction isn’t expected to affect the trend, and the ship to buoy measurement bias is a cooling one, which will result in an upward correction, particularly in the last decade. Urban warm biases, if any, are confined to relatively small regions of land areas, which make up about 30% of the Earth’s surface to begin with. Most regions are handled well. General problems with siting tend to cancel out.
I’ve seen a pretty concerted effort by deniers over the years to push the satellite data as nearly pristine, and a substitute for the surface record. Most of them are oblivious to the history of the UAH data, which S&C still pimp around as if it’s golden.
I didn’t realize McI was also plastering email contents on his blog in 2005.
March 12, 2011 at 16:06
On the 2005-05-07, at 20:44, Steve McIntyre announces:
> Ross McKitrick and I will be making two presentations in Washington on May 11 sponsored by Cooler Heads Coalition/George Marshall Institute: 12.20 at the National Press Club and 3 pm somewhere on Capitol Hill.
March 12, 2011 at 16:08
Five days later, on the 2005-05-12, at 15:39, Steve just got back from Washington:
> Just got back from Washington a few minutes ago (I think that the presentations went very well) and saw this press release from Wahl and Amman.
March 12, 2011 at 16:20
On the 2005-05-13, at 7:40, Steve McIntyre’s “first thoughts”:
On the 2005-05-13, at 11:03, another post:
On the 2005-05-13, at 17:09, a submission anouncement mentioning Wahl & Amman:
On the 2005-05-13, at 19:54, Steve McIntyre posts **Wahl and Amman: The Early Returns**:
On the 2005-05-14, at 5:53, Steve McIntyre posts **More Early Returns** (quite apt, considering the time of publication):
On the 2005-05-14, at 14:10, Steve McIntyre publishes **More**:
On the 2005-05-17, at 9:20, Steve McIntyre publishes **Some Verification Statistics**:
March 12, 2011 at 16:22
Afterwards, the topics of the next two posts also deserves due diligence.
The first one about ocean:
> I notice that there has been interest recently in the question of the difference between (shortwave) solar radiation and (longwave) infrared radiation as it affects ocean heating. Water is essentially opaque to infrared radiation, while shortwave radiation (especially in the blue wavelengths) can penetrate to substantial depths. realclimate takes the position that this doesn’t matter. I get the impression that GCMs, used in IPCC climate modeling, treat both shortwave and longwave radiation identically.
The other one introduces Steve’s geological views:
> I gave a speech last week at my tennis/squash club on climate change (which presents speeches from time to time). I included some geological concepts that I don’t usually have an opportunity to talk about. The class of scientist who tend to be most unimpressed with IPCC-type climate science are geologists – which is where I got started in this. If you took an Oreskes-type survey among geologists, I don’t believe for a minute that you would get anything like IPCC solidarity. Unlike most scientists, geologists also happen to know a lot about climate history.
March 12, 2011 at 18:28
The Geological Society – Climate change: evidence from the geological record
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/climatechange
What was McIntyre saying about geologists and the IPCC?
March 12, 2011 at 18:45
McI:
“Unlike most scientists, geologists also happen to know a lot about climate history.”
Casper Ammann
PhD in Geosciences, February 2002: University of Massachusetts, Department of Geosciences
Thesis : Volcanic eruptions and Climate: A data and model intercomparison
MSc in Geography, Geology and Mineralogy, June 1996: University of Bern, Switzerland
Thesis : Genesis and distribution of precipitations in Northern Chile. A contribution to the climatology of the South American dry-diagonal.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/CV.html
Steve McIntyre (WP entry)
BSc (mathematics)
MA (philosophy, politics, and economics)
Thesis: How to Trash Scientists and Build a Following
March 12, 2011 at 18:52
It’s true that on the whole, geologists tend to be more skeptical than other natural scientists, but this is largely a result of a large percentage of them working in the oil industry as petroleum geologists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_of_Petroleum_Geologists
Pretty clear conflict of interest, like medical researchers working for tobacco companies. Even then, many of them don’t let their line of work blind them, as the revision of the AAPG statement indicates.
March 12, 2011 at 19:22
> What was McIntyre saying about geologists and the IPCC?
On the 2005-05-24, at 7:17, Steve McIntyre added a second part to his geological perspective:
The perspective ends up with this caveat:
> I’m not trying to make any magisterial pronouncements here; I’m just trying to draw attention to an interesting long record of climate change.
On the next day, at 9:55, Steve McIntyre asks a question related to a geologist, while figuring out how to mention **24**:
> As to the faked death: is life imitating art or vice versa? It made some sense that de Guzman might have been murdered, as he was the direct link between the physical fraud and any people that might have sponsored it. It makes sense that he might have pulled a Jack Bauer and faked his own death. But de Guzman’s suicide made no sense. It looks like there is a little more to come in this story.
Here is the moral that Steve McIntyre takes from the story:
> A moral to the Bre-X story, which I posted before and refresh again: I’m convinced that the Bre-X fraud originated not from the financiers, but by the field geologists. Incomes for field geologists in micro-cap companies are very hit and miss; it’s not like being a civil servant. If they sent good news to head office about better and better results, Bre-X could raise more money and keep the exploration funding going. The wheels fell off because, in mining businesses, you can objectively tell eventually whether there is ore or not. For some one on the business side of speculative exploration, even where there is no overt fraud, you have to be wary of your own geologists, who are unconsciously inclined to make the exploration seem more promising than it may actually be.
Here is the very next paragraph, and the punchline of the article:
> The amount of money being spent on climate research is a big amount. So when UCAR (the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research), who receive a huge amount of federal funding for climate reasearch, issues a national press release announcing that Ammann and Wahl had merely submitted a paper supposedly showing that they had “confirmed” the hockey stick, do you think that there is a touch of self-interest in their behavior?
And interesting update, made around 12:39 on the same day:
> Update (Wed. aft.) : Roger Pielke, who knows the institution, suggests in a comment below quite reasonably that the press release probably originated from the self-interest of the individual scientists, rather than corporate self-interest. I don’t view self interest in these matters on behalf of individual scientists in exclusively monetary terms, since people fight over prestige as well as money.
So not only Steve McIntyre “figured out how to mention 24”, but he also figured out how to mention Amman & Wahl in an article mentioning a fraud.
Money and fame. Yup.
March 12, 2011 at 20:19
Reagan vs Soviets vs jihadists (James Hansen and his “disciples”)
March 12, 2011 at 23:24
dhog,
I made no claim that Engineers are better than scientists. Scientists in many other fields get full doses of feedback to their own results straight from reality. This particular form of feedback directly from reality is nearly unknown to climate science, and what is known is often denied by the field.
i.e. models running hotter than measured.
March 12, 2011 at 23:29
From the comments from the jihadists’s thread:
> A number of scientists who assert a positive water cycle feedback (the majority of climate scientists) were invited to Erice to present the mainstream view, but all refused for one reason or another, Dessler, for example, only after learning that Lindzen et al were appearing.
Was Dessler’s reason for his refusal public knowledge?
March 12, 2011 at 23:42
The discussion with Erik Malmberg that follows deserves due diligence.
This snip is interesting:
> In the spirit of your last post, I ask you to direct me to a definitive [snip – this is a red-letter prohibited topic here].
Asking for an ingineering derivation of something always seems like a good question to ask.
March 13, 2011 at 00:03
In response to this comment from Malmberg, we have the usual comments, e.g. Ammann with “no statistical integrity”, North ” under oath”, followed by a very interesting comment, considering the Steig hurly burly:
> One of the strongest NAS panel members told me privately at AGU – requiring me to protect his identity – that, in his opinion, we had effectively killed that style of reconstruction until better proxies were available – a process that he estimated would take 10 to 20 years. One of the problems in climate science is that people can’t always speak their mind. Isn’t it ludicrous that a scientist of that calibre should be afraid to say for attribution what he really thought on the issue?
How many NAS panel members were there, and how many plausible candidates to be considered by Steve McIntyre as “one of the strongest”?
Here is the North report:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309102251
Here is a hint:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=R5
March 13, 2011 at 04:59
Willard,
You wouldn’t be say it’s Christy, would you? Inquiring minds want to know….
March 13, 2011 at 05:54
For the life of me, I would never speculate, as **speculation is dangerous**, see for instance this very interesting discussion:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/in-moderation-at-rc-yes-no-whatever/
(Hint: search for “speculation is dangerous”.)
***
But Let Me Google It For You and see what comes up:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Aclimateaudit.org+christy+nas
A first hit I have here is this one:
The “Take a Ritalin, Dave” thread does not contain anything relevant. But it’s always worth the read.
***
Here is another hit, chosen because I could read “The approach of Christy et al looks more sensible than the GISS approach” in the snippets:
A quote that caught my eye:
> Christy obviously has an excellent record of placing data online and I hope that this extends to the newly collected station data (which is not online at the moment.)
But here is the quote:
> Christy et al approach the calculation of gridcell temperatures a little differently than GISS (CRU still not providing an operational description of methodology). […] The approach of Christy et al looks more sensible than the GISS approach, though I doubt that the difference “matters” a lot to the final answer, other than being more logical.
Another quote:
> Christy et al continue with an interesting discussion of Tmin versus Tmax, arguing that Tmax samples a bigger volume of air than Tmin and is a more reliable index of large-scale changes (citing Pielke et al 2007).
These quotes show that Christy “has an excellent record of placing data online”, approaches calculation of gridcell temperaturs in a way that is “more logical”, and has an “interesting discussion of Tmin versus Tmax”.
From these fragmentary informations alone, we would never be able to conclude that Christy is considered by Steve McIntyre as “one of the strongest NAS panel members”.
In any case, we do hope that this NAS panel member understands the nature of the contract that binds him to Steve McIntyre’s word of honor.
And we do hope that this NAS panel member understands the eventuality of what might happen if Steve McIntyre considers that this member has “breached the agreement” to keep that information confidential.
More about the logic of argument breaching hereunder:
All this deserves due diligence.
Science is corrupt,
w
March 13, 2011 at 07:49
Mann’s statement makes no sense. He said he forwarded the e-mail to Wahl because it might be used against him. How?
And why did he tell Penn State that he was not involved in any deletion of e-mails?
March 13, 2011 at 07:54
Bart, the RealClimate answers on curve-fitting endorse my view that they are engaging in curve-fitting. So they are not fitting to global temperatures, but they are fitting to other aspects of climatology.
Reading some papers like EPPA 2, gives similar impression. It also likes like they are measuring validity based on how well the results agree with other models.
March 13, 2011 at 08:03
It can’t be Christy McI is referring to. After all, Christy is not afraid of speaking his mind and spouting nonsense publicly, as the latest Congressional hearing and many of his public appearances indicates.
It also can’t be the real McI in that post, but an imposter who is deeply concerned about not revealing identities in private exchanges.
March 13, 2011 at 08:57
MarkB,
I would never speculate on the impossibiliae you raise. But on the second page of the LMGTFY search proposed earlier, I found this other post that mentions Christy:
Let us note the punchline:
> I’m sure that there will be a new furore.
And so we come full circle and return to the topic raised by bugs earlier.
March 13, 2011 at 09:23
McIntyre was on a roll there, till someone told him that version 6 had been pulled. He also doesn’t know that the SH will have a lower trend due to there being more ocean surface in the SH, as the models predicted.
March 13, 2011 at 14:02
MikeN — “And why did he tell Penn State that he was not involved in any deletion of e-mails?”
Well, because he wasn’t. Or perhaps you can show us where Mann asks Wahl to delete emails, and where Wahl deletes emails prior to them being made public and placed in the public domain anyway, on thousands of computers and servers?
March 13, 2011 at 22:51
It’s not too hard to find numerous holes in McIntyre’s auditing abilities. From his good friend McKitrick.
Here are the values for CO2 growth at Mauna Loa.
year ppm/yr
1959 0.95
1960 0.53
1961 0.95
1962 0.65
1963 0.71
1964 0.28
1965 1.02
1966 1.23
1967 0.74
1968 1.03
1969 1.31
1970 1.06
1971 0.85
1972 1.69
1973 1.21
1974 0.77
1975 1.17
1976 0.83
1977 2.08
1978 1.29
1979 1.72
1980 1.79
1981 1.40
1982 0.74
1983 2.18
1984 1.38
1985 1.25
1986 1.43
1987 2.32
1988 2.14
1989 1.30
1990 1.29
1991 0.98
1992 0.46
1993 1.32
1994 1.96
1995 1.94
1996 1.22
1997 1.92
1998 3.01
1999 0.88
2000 1.77
2001 1.55
2002 2.61
2003 2.29
2004 1.56
2005 2.51
2006 1.72
2007 2.27
2008 1.60
2009 1.89
2010 2.42
Yet in this paper, McKitrick claims.
Is the current climate
change process harmful?
IPCC simulations typically assume that
CO2 concentrations will grow by at least
1 percent per annum for the next century.
The observed average annual
growth rate since the record began in
1958 is just under 0.4 percent. At no
point in the available record has CO2
ever grown by 1 percent in a single year,
let alone over a long period. At the current
rate, atmospheric CO2 will only rise
by 50 percent over the next 100 years,
and it would take 174 years to for it to
double. Clearly, if the rate of growth of
carbon dioxide is less than half that
assumed in the IPCC projections, then
any climate changes will be less dramatic
as well.
From a paper he presented in 2002.
Click to access FFarticle.pdf
Amazing how McIntyre’s powers of auditing fail him when it comes to his friends.
March 13, 2011 at 23:15
What to think of this from McKitrick’s more recent work (A Critical Review of Global Surface Temperature Data Products, 2010):
If I’m not mistaken, he’s making exactly the same mistake as Watts/Chiefio, mixing up absolute temperatures and anomalies. :-I
I was amazed when I saw this after it was forwarded to me by a pseudo-skeptic. I always thought McKitrick was one of the smarter, more deceptive pseudo-skeptics.
March 14, 2011 at 02:03
what is surprising is how easy it is to find fundamental errors in the so called ‘auditors’ and ‘skeptics’ work.
March 14, 2011 at 08:24
Neven, what makes you think McKitrick is making a *mistake*…?
Remember, he had this paper out about “no global temperature”. Of course, he also keeps on having trouble explaining that if the surface station records are so bad, why do the satellites show the same?
March 14, 2011 at 09:37
Marco, McKitrick is ‘stupid’ at best, and otherwise plain dishonest. I also suspect the latter, especially after I watched ‘Meet the Climate Sceptics’ tow days ago and saw McKitrick standing behind Myron Ebell (a white-collar criminal in my book).
Either way, he cannot be trusted, but the pseudo-skeptic I was having a discussion with is totally infatuated by him nevertheless.
March 14, 2011 at 16:31
If we’re to follow 2005, here are two posts by Steve McIntyre on satellite data:
The figure does not appear anymore.
Two days later:
Notice the only comment:
> It’s frustrating to read the sort of direction that I was headed before all the dreck from Ammann and Wahl and irrelevant criticisms from von Storch, completely confused the entire field.
So analyzing satellite date is something Steve did, at least back in 2005.
March 14, 2011 at 20:03
Where are McIntyres essential records and archives?
He castigates people who lose data and source code.
but he provides a vital piece of R code here http://data.climateaudit.org/scripts/satellite.plot.txt.
It’s gone, it doesn’t exist. Is this the sort of poor and amateurish record keeping we should expect from our ‘auditors’.?
This is a vital plot script of satellite data but now it does not exist. Using standard auditing deduction techiques, once has to ask, was this done intentially, to embarassing facts that have to be hidden? Who else was involved in this cover up? Should we have an official enquiry to get to the bottom of what may well be a conspiracy?
March 14, 2011 at 20:31
bugs,
Usually, replacing with .info does the trick:
http://www.climateaudit.info/scripts/satellite.plot.txt
Hope that helps.
March 14, 2011 at 20:41
Oh, and more generally, remove the text file in the URL:
http://www.climateaudit.info/scripts/
The first meaning of amateur makes it quite honorable. There are things in life that one can’t do otherwise. Science used to be like this, actually.
March 14, 2011 at 22:52
# willard Says:
March 14, 2011 at 20:41
Oh, and more generally, remove the text file in the URL:
http://www.climateaudit.info/scripts/
The first meaning of amateur makes it quite honorable. There are things in life that one can’t do otherwise. Science used to be like this, actually.
But we are talking climate audit standards here. That’s not good enough. McIntyre has often had the information right under his nose, but has demanded, in the interests of scientific honesty and integrity, that it be placed exactly where he wants it.
March 15, 2011 at 02:02
bugs,
When you say:
> McIntyre has often had the information right under his nose, but has demanded, in the interests of scientific honesty and integrity, that it be placed exactly where he wants it.
do you have specific instances in mind? Perhaps inquiring minds (i.e. Rattus) want to know…
March 15, 2011 at 02:45
The Yamal data would be a good example. The Rat is wise…
March 15, 2011 at 03:56
Does the Rat has links?
March 15, 2011 at 04:25
The rat is lazy and does not want to wade through the comments of the last post he made on Yamal where he admitted that he had the data for several years. A search on CA for [Yamal, Briffa] should yield the desired results. Mr. McIntyre was very exercised about the whole episode, what with Briffa telling him that he did not have the right to give him the data and that he (McIntyre) would have to contact Hantemerov for the data. Imagine, the gall of someone upholding an agreement he had made when the great Mr. McIntyre said that he should break it!
March 15, 2011 at 04:32
BTW, I realize that my jargon in the last post was computerese for: type briffa yamal into the search box at CA. It turns out that he had been whinging for years about how he couldn’t get the data from Briffa when in fact he had, a couple of year before, asked Hantemerov for the data and received it.
The Rat would never suggest that McIntyre was lying, but perhaps he was withholding an important element of the truth….
March 15, 2011 at 05:10
The rat became inquisitive (we are like that) and did not like his previous answer. There may be an answer here. If that is not the right thread it is contained here.
A good rat always uses the work of others.
March 15, 2011 at 05:27
One might add, that at the point he made this admission, he had possessed the data for 5 years.
Now some, not the Rat, to be sure, might take this as evidence that Mr. McIntyre has a vendetta against some climate scientists. Of course, said climate scientists might consider him to be a “bad actor”. But one would have to wade through his blog to find evidence to support this idea…
NB: the Rat rather likes the detached third person voice, but will not be following it.
March 15, 2011 at 05:27
No worries, Rattus, I’m used to Eli’s “Remember Yamal”. I’ll take a look.
Meanwhile, let’s return to this comment by MarkB:
> It can’t be Christy McI is referring to. After all, Christy is not afraid of speaking his mind and spouting nonsense publicly, as the latest Congressional hearing and many of his public appearances indicates.
I am not sure this reason is enough to exclude Christy. On the face of it, the information trumped by Steve might carry more weight if readers do not know that Christy said it.
That does not mean that we must presume that Steve is talking about Christy there. Speculation is dangerous and, in any case, science is corrupt.
March 15, 2011 at 09:06
Some links on the data under McIntyre’s nose: https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/did-mcintyre-have-the-data-all-along/
March 15, 2011 at 14:24
Thanks, Bart!
In his reply to Michael Ashley by Steve McIntyre, dated Oct 7, 2009 at 9:22 AM, we read:
> I already had a version of the data from the Russians, one that I’d had since 2004
Did Steve McIntyre ever mentioned before that reply to Michael Ashley that he had a version of the data before that reply to Michael Ashley somewhere in his blog?
In any case, what McIntyre has said of Briffa on his blog over these years deserves due diligence.
March 15, 2011 at 14:28
For readers in Holland: Roger Pielke Sr will speak at Wageningen University tomorrow, March 16, at 15:30.
“A Way Forward In Climate Science Based On A Bottom-Up Resource-Based Perspective”
March 15, 2011 at 18:28
While sifting through the many links, I stumbled upon this interesting thread.
On the 2006-11-05, at 12:12, Steve McIntyre writes **Juckes and the NOAMER PC1**:
This blog ends with a question:
> If anyone can figure it out [a graphic in an uncited paper by Juckes], I’d appreciate it. I’ve tried 1856-1980 scaling and 1902-1980 scaling and neither seemed to work.
The first comment of the thread is written on the 2006-11-06, at 3:47. It seems there was less cheerleading back then.
The comment has been written by Martin Juckes himself. It starts with this question:
> Or perhaps you could ask the author?
A bit later, after a bit of technical discussion, at 8:49 in the same morning of the first comment by Juckes, we can see a comment by Steve McIntyre that starts like this:
> Look, my primary concern is what you did.
Yup.
March 15, 2011 at 18:50
On the 2011-11-06, at 15:05, Steve McIntyre writes **Juckes Omnibus**
After some diarization, we see some collaboration. On the 2011-11-10, at 10:40, Martin Juckes thanks Steve for a file and comments answers Steve’s questions. One of the anwers starts like this:
> It would have saved a little time if you had mentioned that you had already looked at the lists in the files.
Another answer is this one:
> Given your habit of constantly quoting out of context and spreading false information I think this is an unlikely claim. You claim that you had trouble “extracting” this information, but you didn’t, if you remember, approach me for the information.
Yup.
March 15, 2011 at 19:09
Willard:
I am having trouble following your many comments about Steve McIntyre.
What is your purpose?
Thanks in advance for responding.
March 15, 2011 at 19:19
Thanks for your question, RickA. Considering your replies to date, I have no doubt of your sincerity when you say that you’re having trouble following. In any case, I can answer your question:
> What is your purpose?
I’m following bender’s advice:
> Read the blog.
All this deserves due diligence.
Science is corrupt.
Yup.
March 15, 2011 at 21:59
Williard:
What was bender’s advice?
I used the search feature but could not find bender’s advice.
March 15, 2011 at 22:19
The advice is:
> Read the blog.
For instances:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Aclimateaudit.org+bender+%20%22read+the+blog%22+%20
March 15, 2011 at 22:45
Thank you Willard.
Now I know why I was having so much trouble following your comments.
You are reading the climate audit blog and posting comments about things you observe their on Bart’s site.
Your posts have nothing to do with anything Bart said, or any commenter here – but have to do with things Steve McIntyre said at his blog.
And you are doing this because Bender told you to do so.
I get it.
March 15, 2011 at 22:52
Always a pleasure talking with you, RickA.
March 15, 2011 at 23:01
Oh, and I forgot to add that this:
> Your posts have nothing to do with anything Bart said, or any commenter here – but have to do with things Steve McIntyre said at his blog.
is both confused and false.
It is confused because, well, it’s an open thread.
It is false as some of my notes were related to what other commenters were saying, for instance bugs way up there:
But thanks again,
March 16, 2011 at 00:42
>Or perhaps you can show us where Mann asks Wahl to delete emails,
It’s right there. He forwards an e-mail from Jones where Jones wants Wahl to delete e-mails. Penn State asks Mann about this, and he doesn’t volunteer such information, which clearly comes under were you involved in deletion of e-mails either directly or indirectly?
March 16, 2011 at 11:30
RickA — “Your posts have nothing to do with anything Bart said, or any commenter here – but have to do with things Steve McIntyre said at his blog.”
Could that be why this is called an “open” thread?
March 16, 2011 at 11:33
As Bender says,: has he read the blog”.
Has Steve ever “read the book”.
Martin Juckes
Posted Nov 6, 2006 at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Reply
Re #30: I’m afraid I can’t help you on which blogs to read. For the basics of global warming I’d recommend reading “Atmosphere, Climate & Change”, by Thomas Graedel and Paul Crutzen.
Steve demands much, but offers little in response, besides invective and insinuation. “Which blogs to read”. LOL.
March 16, 2011 at 11:44
MikeN — “It’s right there. He forwards an e-mail from Jones where Jones wants Wahl to delete e-mails. Penn State asks Mann about this…”
* What precisely did Penn State ask?
* Why were Penn State investigating Mann? What caused them to do so? What was the catalyst?
March 16, 2011 at 12:28
I’ll connect the dots in J Bowers’ comment:
* What precisely did Penn State ask?
“Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?”
Mann didn’t delete any emails. The inquiry asked him to produce all AR4-related emails (the ones Jones asked him to delete). He did. However, his forwarding of Jones’ email to Wahl is seen by some as infringing upon the above question.
A problem here is that this act of forwarding the email was already apparent in the “climategate” email that prompted the question in the first place! So presumably the inquiry did not consider this forwarding as an actual “[action] with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails”.
March 16, 2011 at 15:42
In the email linked by toto, there is answer to Jones by Mann, written 2008-05-29, at 08:12:
> laughable that CA would claim to have discovered the problem [the 1945 problem in the Nature paper]. They would have run off to the Wall Street Journal for an exclusive were that to have been true.
To understand what Jones and Mann are talking about, it might be interesting to read that post written by Steve McIntyre on the 2008-05-28, at 13:26, entitled **Nature “Discovers” Another Climate Audit Finding**:
An interesting comment from Judith Curry in the thread that follows, written 2008-05-29, at 7:50, that ends with this sentence:
> Having the major climate modelling centers also in charge of climate data records is worrisome: the michael crichton issue of subconscious bias entering the data sets.
In the following comment, at 8:03, Steve McIntyre responds to Judith Curry. The comment starts with:
> Hi, Judith. Ross McKitrick has always observed that the Consumer Price Index is prepared by a professional statistical organization and not by university academics. There are many reasons for this, and subconscious bias is merely one of them.
This comment has some relevance to Steve’s suggestion two months or so after the ‘miracle worker’ incident:
> Maybe the most appropriate way to recognize Jones’ contribution to climate studies and to send a firm message to the climate community – that the issues are far too important to indulge such conduct – would be to disband CRU, acknowledging the loss of the CRUTEM franchise and dispersing whatever staff are left.
But notice the ‘maybe’. So maybe Steve McIntyre’s ‘may be’ a suggestion.
March 16, 2011 at 20:05
A bit later on the very same thread as above, that on the 2008-05-29, at 08:20, Steve McIntyre links to a blog post Roger Pielke Junior on the affair, entitled **Does the IPCC’s Main Conclusion Need to be Revisited?**, written on 2008-05-29, 8:10 (if that’s Colorado time, then that would mean 10:10 EST and time travel would be possible):
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001445does_the_ipccs_main.html
One might get the feeling that every road Roger Pielke Junior takes were leading to the IPCC, at the time. And perhaps still today: it would be interesting to list all the post titles from Roger Pielke Junior that mentions ‘IPCC’.
***
In the same comment, Steve McIntyre also reports James Annan’s post, entitled **Oups!**, written on the very same day (maybe Japan time?):
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2008/05/oops.html
Notice this comment by Steve:
> JAmes Annan [sic.] commented here, refusing to name Climate Audit by name, but, unlike NAture, acknowledging our priority: […]
On the **Oops** thread, let’s notice the first comment by thingsbreak, posted on the 2008-05-30, at 2:22:
>> The SST observations have been contaminated by a systematic conversion from bucket to injection measurements. The bias so introduced may constitute as much as 30 to 50% of the observed change in sea surface temperature since the turn of the century.
> Written 24 years ago. Why is Nature sensationalizing this?
Notice James’s reply, on the 2008-05-30, at 2:22:
>> “Why is Nature sensationalizing this?”
> Because Nature sensationalises everything – that is what they are for :-)
> But in this case, the issue is not just that different types of measurements have different biases and that these may contaminate the record (which was well known) but that the estimates of these are being changed and this is likely to have some significant effect on the surface temperature record.
> It remains to be seen which years they will adjust and by how much. Forest suggests knocking down the war years a bit which would be most politically convenient, McIntyre suggests warming up the post-war years a bit which would obviously reduce our estimates of the recent warming trend a bit. I would guess the “final” answer will be somewhere between the two.
And so something like a scientific debate obtains, where everything gets muddy and everything remains possible.
***
Does anybody know of any follow-up from this episode?
March 16, 2011 at 22:21
Earlier today, I suggested that:
> [I]t would be interesting to list all the post titles from Roger Pielke Junior that mentions ‘IPCC’.
Let Me Google That For Me:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=IPCC+site%3Arogerpielkejr.blogspot.com
I’ve got 995 hits here.
Yup.
March 16, 2011 at 23:48
Please note that not all the hits lead to a post title containing ‘IPCC’. So Let Me Google It for Me again:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=inurl%3AIPCC+site%3Arogerpielkejr.blogspot.com
So there seems that there are only 58 hits.
The “inurl” operator might become handy.
March 17, 2011 at 00:30
The first link on the list is worth the read:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/03/ipcc-and-conflicts-of-interest.html
March 17, 2011 at 02:25
@ Toto. No need to join any dots for me.
March 17, 2011 at 02:29
Steve McIntyre said via Willard — “Maybe the most appropriate way to recognize Jones’ contribution to climate studies and to send a firm message to the climate community – that the issues are far too important to indulge such conduct – would be to disband CRU, acknowledging the loss of the CRUTEM franchise and dispersing whatever staff are left.”
Disband the UK’s prestigious climate unit? Lose all those jobs? Halt all of that internationally recognised work? All so that Jones can be punished. That sounds like a vendetta to me.
March 17, 2011 at 07:12
I mean no such thing, Rattus. There would be no point anyway, would it? Perhaps to speak about noble-cause suckerness.
Speaking of which, I found this worth the read:
http://thebenshi.com/2011/03/09/119-climategate-and-al-capones-vault-same-story/
March 18, 2011 at 03:41
Returning to Roger Pielke Junior’s own goal, the words exchanged between him and Steve Sawyer, the victim of the misrepresentation, are worth be recalled:
On the 2011-03-16, at 4:05, presumably Colorado time, Tom Sawyer says:
> [A]lthough you accurately link to my bio, I am not now and have never been an IPCC author, and am not involved in any way in the special report on extreme events.
And so a bio was linked.
***
rjtklein reports the scope of the misrepresentation:
> – Steve Sawyer is not on the list of authors of the IPCC Special Report ‘Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation’, which is presumable what is meant by the ‘special report on managing climate disasters’ (see here).
> – The publication of this report is not scheduled for May but for November (see here).
> – The report will not discuss carbon emissions from nuclear power facilities, or any other source of energy, for that matter (see here).
> – The IPCC has not thumbed its nose at the IAC and ignored the recommendation quoted above. In October 2010 it formed a task force to draft a proposed policy for implementing this recommendation. This draft was discussed by governments last week. It would expect the final version to be available online soon.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/03/ipcc-and-conflicts-of-interest.html?showComment=1300274780481#c9153512547448695179
***
Roger Pielke Junior’s corrigendum (2011-03-16, 6:35) is quite gentlemanly:
> Thanks to mcrok, Steve Sawyer and rjtklein for pointing out the gross errors in the Euractiv news story. I have updated this post accordingly.
> Steve Sawyer, the Euractiv story remains in error. Sorry for perpetuating those errors and I will put up a follow up post.
***
Some parts of Roger Pielke Junior’s response (2011-03-16, 6:53) to rjtklein might be less so, for instance:
> As far as thumbing their nose at the IPCC, it is my understanding that the IPCC COI policy will not apply to those currently involved. Please correct me if this is mistaken, but if that is correct (and I think it is), then I’ll stick with “thumbing their nose” as a descriptor.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/03/ipcc-and-conflicts-of-interest.html?showComment=1300280016327#c7955386527297497858
***
So we have this protocol: verify, acknowledge, thank, apologize, and edit. Then deflect some more blaming on the IPCC.
***
The term “misrepresentation” provides interesting digging:
http://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Arogerpielkejr.blogspot.com#&q=misrepresents+OR+misrepresented+OR+misrepresent+OR+misrepresentation+OR+misrepresenting+site:rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com
More than 250 hits.
***
All this deserves due diligence.
Science is corrupt.
March 18, 2011 at 10:57
Willard, you missed this astounding piece of chutzpah in post #17:
“Thanks again. As related to upholding quality standards, you’ll find that bloggers, like the IPCC, are prone to the occasional mistake.I have made a correction — please pass along this innovative technique to the IPCC.”
March 18, 2011 at 13:46
Chris S,
Yes, I could have quoted that too.
The “occasional” minimizes the error.
And there are two mentions of “IPCC”.
And there is the “innovative technique” descriptor.
***
I should also have underlined this line of reasoning:
> Please correct me if this is mistaken, but if that is correct (and I think it is), then I’ll stick with “thumbing their nose” as a descriptor.
This is a recurring line of defense. It amounts to say that if I am not ‘mistaken’ in my facts, all my descriptors are immune to criticism.
Only the facts matter, after all, since we’re in the science business.
And we all know that science is corrupt.
***
And speaking of “facts”, here was rjtklein’s response to Roger Pielke Junior’s line of defense:
> Thanks Roger, you old man. Re corrections, have a look here [http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/errata.html]. Also, governments recently discussed a ‘Proposed IPCC Protocol for Addressing Errors in Previous Assessment Reports’ (see Appendix 3 of this document [http://ipcc.ch/meetings/session32/ipcc_IACreview_decisions.pdf]).
> Unfortunately the preparation of such policies takes time. Many of the scientists working in IPCC would also like to see swifter follow up of the IAC recommendations, but this is entirely in the hands of the governments that make up the IPCC.
This duly answers the two criticisms Roger Pielke Junior made while thanking everyone for the correction. If rjtklein’s facts are correct, it seems that Roger Pielke Junior’s will stick to the descriptor “innovative technique” anyway.
Perhaps we’ll see the innovative technique of saying that this is just an interpretation anyway.
March 19, 2011 at 05:07
On the 2011-01-14, at 17:32 EST, Steve McIntyre comments on the use of cartoons on CA:
> I reviewed Josh cartoons posted at CA. None were of climate scientists. One was of me. Two were of the whitewash inquiries. And most recently the “winter of our discontent” because of its witty motif of the hockey stick scabbard.
Source: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/blah-blah-blah-mt-and-communicating-climate/#comment-66031
On the 2011-02-13, Steve McIntyre posts **Steig and the “KNUCKLEHEADED REVIEWERS”**, in which we find:
> Lucia, normally a genial observer of the climate wars, sharply criticized Steig, first in a post asking the question of whether Steig was the Rod Blagojevitch of Science [http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/reviewer-a-rod-blagojevich-of-science/], followed up by Steig the Shameless [http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/steig-the-shameless/] incorporating Josh’s witty image [http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/eric_the_red_scr.jpg] of the Eric the Red.
Steve McIntyre’s January descriptor is still litteraly describes a true fact in March: no cartoons by Josh posted at CA were about climate scientists.
March 19, 2011 at 23:30
Oh good
March 20, 2011 at 02:41
No, Josh has never, ever unfairly attacked scientists with his cartoons. Never, uh huh.
March 20, 2011 at 11:17
Since it is supposed to go here:
Tom claims McIntyre kept on bugging Briffa for the data because he had several versions of the data. Note, he CLAIMED so. Interestingly, McIntyre cannot produce any evidence that he informed his audience he had received data, but that he didn’t know which was the right data. Nor did he tell his audience he had received Yamal data, but just didn’t know for sure whether it was the right data. Also interesting is that McIntyre cannot show he informed Briffa he had several versions of the data, and therefore needed to know which was the right data (an easy question, but one he likely never asked). All we know is that he just kept on telling us Briffa did not want to give him “the data”. We also know that the data the Russians sent him was the same data Briffa used.
End result: yet another non-story whipped up by McIntyre. There’s quite a few of those. But I know how you work, Tom: you hold climate scientists to a completely different level of accountancy than anyone else. Your comment about McIntyre being human, and hence open to error, shows it. After all, I did not deny this. I merely pointed out that McIntyre has made his share of errors that he never acknowledged (or sometimes blamed others for). This absence of acknowledging errors is apparently a bad thing when scientists supposedly fail to do so, but are perfectly OK when McIntyre fails to do so, even when he in the process makes libelous statements about certain people.
Regarding you yourself: in the previous open thread I asked you for evidence that scientists were deliberately misrepresenting Arrhenius. You gave none. I also asked you what you thought of the evidence that the supposed much lower climate sensitivity Arrhenius reported in 1906 was questionable, considering that a 1908 book chapter put it at 4 degrees. Silence. I maintain my idea about you.
March 20, 2011 at 11:19
One minor note to clear some things up:
with “not informing his audience” I meant informing them at that time or during his frequent attacks on Briffa. He did finally inform his audience when Briffa put the data on his homepage (after a co-publication with the data owners), but only after he was bugged about it.
March 20, 2011 at 18:25
> End result: yet another non-story whipped up by McIntyre. There’s quite a few of those.
Marco, do you have any story in mind when you claim that?
March 28, 2011 at 18:50
Bart just linked to an interesting post there:
This post mentions this other one:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/hockey-stick-gets-personal-lies-from.html
Here are some times and lines:
On the 2009-10-01, Phil Clarke comments on a blog post entitled **Hockey Stick Gets Persona: Lies from Real Climate** written by Roger Pielke Junior the same day.:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/hockey-stick-gets-personal-lies-from.html
The first sentence of this post deserves due diligence:
> Steve McIntyre must be on to something, judging by the nasty and vituperative comments coming from Real Climate, where Gavin Schmidt levels a serious allegation: […]
Here is Phil Clarke’s comment, reproduced in full:
> Is it possible you’re being suckered in here Roger? Is it possible that Mr mcIntyre is actually the most disingenuous person in the history of disingenuousness? Saying one thing outright, implying the opposite in other comments.
> For example, what could this possibly mean?
>> If you can get a single dendrochronologist to support Briffa’s use of 10 trees in 1990, I’ll be flabbergasted. They will be astonished and appalled at the procedure. The young dendros will be wincing and some of them will probably be bit shell-shocked at this news. It’s very embarrassing for the field. I don’t expect any of them to announce their disappointment (we’ve encountered the silence of the lambs phenomenon before), but make no mistake: no young dendro will stand up for what Briffa did here. [Source: http://climateaudit.org/2009/09/27/yamal-a-divergence-problem/#comment-195608%5D
> Hmmmm. Rather than make the accusation of cherry-picking explicit, mcIntyre puts words into the mouths of un-named ‘younger’ colleagues, simultaneously implying malpractice and deploying a fairly disgustingly ageist sideswipe. You endorse this, Roger?
Here’s Roger Pielke Junior’s answer:
> I don’t see anything in your excerpt other than a complaint about methods
The interested reader will note that Phil Clarke’s lengthy reply.
***
Here are some phrasing that Steve McIntyre has used, collected by andrewt:
– “Yamal tree fraud by Briffa et al.”
– “Briffa and his team could select the data that matched their beliefs, rejecting the data that did not produce a Hockey Stick shape”
– “a paper that manipulated the data in several places and actually fabricated the hockey stick upswing”
– “Briffa, had cherry picked 10 tree data sets”
– “Briffa massaged his data to get a desired result”
– “Briffa only selected 12 cores that were “cherry picked” to show what he wanted”
– “Briffa cherry-picked tree rings that supported a hockey-stick shaped temperature curve”
– “12 cherry picked tree ring measurements were used to paint the fraudulent picture with”
– “a second cardinal sin is uncovered. That of cherry-picking data. In the cross-hairs is Keith Briffa”
– “Briffa, had cherry picked 10 trees data sets out of a much larger set of trees sampled in Yamal”
– “And it is a scandal. Briffa cherry-picked about 10 tree-ring cores”
– “Briffa has gone off sick. Wouldn’t you be fealing sick if you had to reveal your pseudo-scientific cherry-picking methods for all to see”
***
Nick Stokes asked an intriguing question:
>> “Gavin’s outright lie”?
> Climate Audit featured Andrew Orlowski’s Register report in a special post. And Orlowski says:
>> The implication is clear – the dozen were cherry-picked
> If this is an outright lie, why is that report featured on CA?
No answer to that one, except perhaps this:
> You guys are hilarious. There is no need to pluck out-of-context quotes from deep in comment threads to divine what McIntyre _really_ thinks. He spoke directly to this point as follows:
> “I don’t wish to unintentionally feed views that I don’t hold. It is not my belief that Briffa crudely cherry picked. ”
> How clear is that?
Loud and clear. Certainly not authoritarian.
June 22, 2011 at 03:28
An update regarding Steve’s anonym source:
It seems it’s not Christy.
This confirms yet again that speculation can be dangerous.
December 21, 2011 at 21:44
Marco
Arrhenius again? Really? How many threads do you want to destroy with that?
John Rennie. Scientific American 2010.
December 21, 2011 at 21:50
First ApedlyArrap, now Tom Fuller…
December 21, 2011 at 22:10
Oh, buckets, tom, buckets.
December 21, 2011 at 22:44
Keep it cool, guys.
December 21, 2011 at 22:54
“The chemist Svante Arrhenius went further in 1896 by estimating the impact of CO2 on the climate; after painstaking hand calculations he concluded that doubling its concentration might cause almost 6 degrees Celsius of warming—an answer not much out of line with recent, far more rigorous computations.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense
Please just go away and sit in a corner and worry.
December 22, 2011 at 09:02
Tom, why do you react to a post I made NINE months ago and claim I am wrecking a thread with Arrhenius again? It’s the only time we had a discussion on Arrhenius.
I also don’t see how John Rennie’s piece is an answer to my request for you to provide evidence scientists deliberately misrepresented Arrhenius. Note that this request contains multiple elements:
1. You have to point to *scientists* (John Rennie is a science writer)
2. You have to show they misrepresented Arrhenius
3. You have to show they *deliberately* misrepresented Arrhenius.
May 10, 2012 at 18:52
Zeta Clear…
[…]Open thread March 2011 « My view on climate change[…]…