For those who don’t know, Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph co-authored the first paper with Steve McIntyre debunking Michael Mann’s first Hockey Stick paper, MBH98. Ross wrote this essay in today’s Financial Post, excerpts are below. Please visit the story in that context here and patronize their advertisers. – Anthony
Flawed climate data
Only by playing with data can scientists come up with the infamous ‘hockey stick’ graph of global warming
Ross McKitrick, Financial Post
Friday, October 2, 2009
Beginning in 2003, I worked with Stephen McIntyre to replicate a famous result in paleoclimatology known as the Hockey Stick graph. Developed by a U.S. climatologist named Michael Mann, it was a statistical compilation of tree ring data supposedly proving that air temperatures had been stable for 900 years, then soared off the charts in the 20th century. Prior to the publication of the Hockey Stick, scientists had held that the medieval-era was warmer than the present, making the scale of 20th century global warming seem relatively unimportant. The dramatic revision to this view occasioned by the Hockey Stick’s publication made it the poster child of the global warming movement. It was featured prominently in a 2001 report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as government websites and countless review reports.
Steve and I showed that the mathematics behind the Mann Hockey Stick were badly flawed, such that its shape was determined by suspect bristlecone tree ring data. Controversies quickly piled up: Two expert panels involving the U.S. National Academy of Sciences were asked to investigate, the U.S. Congress held a hearing, and the media followed the story around the world.
The expert reports upheld all of our criticisms of the Mann Hockey Stick, both of the mathematics and of its reliance on flawed bristlecone pine data.
…
Most of the proxy data does not show anything unusual about the 20th century. But two data series have reappeared over and over that do have a hockey stick shape. One was the flawed bristlecone data that the National Academy of Sciences panel said should not be used, so the studies using it can be set aside. The second was a tree ring curve from the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, compiled by UK scientist Keith Briffa.
…
But an even more disquieting discovery soon came to light. Steve searched a paleoclimate data archive to see if there were other tree ring cores from at or near the Yamal site that could have been used to increase the sample size. He quickly found a large set of 34 up-to-date core samples, taken from living trees in Yamal by none other than Schweingruber himself!Had these been added to Briffa’s small group the 20th century would simply be flat. It would appear completely unexceptional compared to the rest of the millennium.
Combining data from different samples would not have been an unusual step. Briffa added data from another Schweingruber site to a different composite, from the Taimyr Peninsula. The additional data were gathered more than 400 km away from the primary site. And in that case the primary site had three or four times as many cores to begin with as the Yamal site. Why did he not fill out the Yamal data with the readily-available data from his own coauthor? Why did Briffa seek out additional data for the already well-represented Taimyr site and not for the inadequate Yamal site?
Thus the key ingredient in most of the studies that have been invoked to support the Hockey Stick, namely the Briffa Yamal series, depends on the influence of a woefully thin subsample of trees and the exclusion of readily-available data for the same area. Whatever is going on here, it is not science.
Read the complete story at the Financial Post
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Ross looks alittle like an academic version of Fred Couples, the Amer pro golfer.
So Briffa extrapolates a single tree as a thermometer. We don’t use a real single thermometer as relevant but we should use a single tree as one? A single goal won’t win the Stanley Cup in real Hockey either.
Outstanding follow up !!!
You know this is a big deal by the amount of AGW cheerleaders coming on here to defend Briffa (this is the most I’ve personally seen on any one comment thread).
Apparently, Briffa has been at the center of an influential group of AGW scientists.
It must be felt that if Briffa is found guilty of “cooking the books” in the court of public opinion, the whole “science” of climate modelling will be thrown into doubt.
Yes, “holding up the scoundrel” in the course of conversation is a good “show stopper”.
Should have been published under “science”.
He is being very polite and kind.
The simple fact of the matter is that the data was selected to support the preconceived conclusions.
This scientific reticence will be the death of us all. Real people will starve, there will be wars, the economic losses will be unimaginable. If these allegations are true, AGW is a proven fraud. When will I read that in the paper?
Henry chance (07:17:10)
“A single goal won’t win the Stanley Cup in real Hockey either.”
That really depends on when you get to it!
As a lead author of the IPCC chapter on paleoclimate, Briffa’s behavior and apparent lack of scientific rigor are especially troublesome.
I am heartened to see this scandal getting wider reporting, but there is still a long haul to go before this kind of pseudoscience gets the full public airing it requires.
Steve in SC (07:30:28) :
“He [the author of the article in this post] is being very polite and kind.
The simple fact of the matter is that the data was selected to support the preconceived conclusions.”
Steve is being very polite and kind.
Briffa got caught [snip].
And this [snip] was used over and over as a supporting foundation by other scientists to justify their own papers concluding AGW is real.
A “house of cards” has had its “ace of spades” knocked out.
How long before the whole house of cards comes tumbling down?
Excellent and clearly written article by Ross. I don’t know how influential the financial post website is, but it seems the word is starting to spread out of the blogosphere as to how we’ve all been gamed by The Team.
Interesting times ahead, if not weather-wise.
“What makes this day different from any other day?”
Hopefully, this too shall pass.
What does Monbiot’s face look like right now? It’s bad enough at other times he looks like his raging buddies Galloway, Chavez and Saddam (now a sex slave for Satan)
Also highly relevant is this post:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2009/10/the-hockey-stick-global-warming-scandal-did-the-ipcc-encourage-scientific-fraud-did-the-ipcc-ignore-more-comprehensive-rese.html
It shows that 7 proxies around Yamal do not have hockey stick shapes and the 20th century is well within historic variability.
Science goes bad when data is massaged to support a preconceived conclusion.
Great article. It’s good to have things summed up so they can be passed on to a wider community.
Of course, the problem is that the flawed policies based on this data are already in motion despite that data being discredited. Stopping the policy implementation and future implications will be much more difficult than revealing the scientific malfeasance.
When are we going to realize that Climate Science is NOT a science but a bunch of folks playing with expensive equipment and then making a guess? “Climate Studies” (as it should be called) needs to go back to looking at the data and then trying to explain what they found BEFORE they adjust the data to fit their pre or should I say ill conceived theories.
Here is a general invitation by Roger Pielke, Jr. to educate Ben on this Yamal revelation:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/search?q=
“Steve in SC (07:30:28) :
“He [the author of the article in this post, (Ross Mckitrik)] is being very polite and kind.
The simple fact of the matter is that the data was selected to support the preconceived conclusions.”
Steve is being very polite and kind.”
Canadians are always very polite and kind (Except on a hockey rink)
Off Topic – here is another article from that rabidly conservative news paper.
http://www.financialpost.com/news-sectors/energy/story.html?id=2052645
It will likely get filed under “health care debate”
PS – If the ruth were known Canadian Conservatives are probably to the left of American Democrats!
BTW mention now over at the UK Spectator as well – http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5389461/the-great-global-warming-scam-ctd.thtml
If temperatures in Yamal haven’t really changed much in the 20th Century, how can one use (any select group of) tree-rings from Yamal to support reconstructions showing recent warming.
The lack of logical reasoning/basic common sense in these cases is, itself, rather bewildering, even before one gets into the statistics of manufacturing hockey sticks.
http://www.birthplaceofhockey.com/images/picorigin/mmsticks.jpg
Try spreading the word yourself. Find an articulate summary (such as that written by McIntrick) and send it to your MP/Senator/Congressman/representative. I’ve sent one to my local MP and one to David Cameron @ur momisugly conservative home (it won’t be read by him for sure, but it will get at least one extra eyeball – probably a researcher). I’m not bothering to send one to Labour home. They have a Minister for Climate Change for God’s sake. To me that sounds exactly like, “Minister for tectonic plate movement”. I fully expect a change in their policy to be about as speedy as tectonic plate movement come to think of it.
This may have been covered somewhere, but I am curious. If you subtract 800 from 2000 you get 1200 – so if CO2 increases follow warming by 500 to 800 years, is it possible that the Medieval Warming from 800 to 1500 is in part responsible for the increase in CO2 we see today – perhaps being released from the deep ocean? Just a question I have not seen addressed.
Science has not stopped our Senate from acting foolishly. They appear to be bent on destroying the U.S. economy with more Cap and Tax based on Briffa and his tree.
Real Climate’s response to the claim that we have been waiting 10 years from Briffa’s data:
“[Response: The russ035w data has been ‘lying around’ on the web since 2001 (at least) judging from the file stamps. And there have not been ’10 years’ of requests. That’s just crap. – gavin]”
What say WUWT? Sorry if you’ve already answered.