Readers may recall the strange series of events leading up to the post facto revisionism at the Vail Daily News when Dr. Michael Mann sent an angry reply letter to the newspaper and then the original letter from Dr. Hertzberg disappeared then reappeared sans a couple of paragraphs that Dr. Mann didn’t like.
Dr. Hertzberg sent this letter to me today, while at the same time sending it to the Vail Daily News. I reproduce it here in entirety, with no edits or changes of any kind.
Response to Michael Mann
When Scott Glasser’s comment of 9/26/11 referred to me indirectly as an “inaccurate” and “irresponsible” “fool” for challenging the theory that human carbon dioxide emission was causing “global warming / climate change”, I felt compelled to respond. My 9/30/11 comment cited the facts and the data that supported my challenge to the theory. In that article, Glasser defended what has been come to be known as the Mann “hockey stick” curve. I responded in my article with the well documented criticism of it from a large number of scientists who carefully reviewed his claims. Also, the so-called “climategate” e-mails revealed an appalling lack of scientific integrity and manipulations by a cabal of advocates of that theory. Mann responded on 10/1/11 accusing me of “false and defamatory statements” packed with “lies and distortions”; of “lying to the public about science”; of a “string of lies tied together”. He stated my “lies are pernicious” and that I am a “charleton”.
In his response, Mann uses an ad-hominem overkill accusing me of lies and lying some six times! Methinks he doth protest too much.
When I am engaged in a scientific dispute with an adversary, and that opponent instead of citing the facts or the data that might support his argument, instead directs an intense barrage of ad-hominem slurs toward me, I am fully confident that I am winning the argument.
My response now is to cite the data. The IPCC report of 1990 prior to Mann’s publication of his “hockey stick” showed a Medieval Warm Period considerably warmer than today with its peak temperature in about 1250 AD. That was followed by a Little Ice Age considerably colder than today with its coldest average temperature in about 1700. Mann’s “hockey stick” curve shows a flat line temperature during those same periods. It finally got rid of the embarrassing Medieval Warm Period that the “climategate” cabal hated so much because it showed a higher temperature than today at a time when the human emission of carbon dioxide was trivial. The more recent and reliable reconstruction for the same time period using 18 other different temperature proxies that are much more reliable than tree rings, reaffirm the 1990 IPCC report. The pesky Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age that Mann obliterated with his “hockey stick” are still there!
For a detailed look at that data and much more, go to www.youtube.com and enter “climategate” and “hertzberg” in the search column. For a more detailed discussion of the “hide the decline” issue, go to Prof. Richard Muller’s talk on the subject at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQpciw8suk.
In any case, don’t take the word of someone like me who Mann characterized as a “charleton”. Here is the much earlier opinion of a distinguished Australian scientist, John Daly:
“The evidence is overwhelming from all corners of the world, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age clearly show up in a variety of proxy indicators, proxies more representative of temperature than inadequate tree ring data.”
“What is disquieting about the hockey stick is not its original publication. As with any paper, it would sink into oblivion if found to be flawed. Rather it was the reaction of the greenhouse industry to it – the chorus of approval, the complete lack of critical evaluation of the theory, the blind acceptance of evidence that was so flimsy. The industry embraced the theory for one reason and one reason only – it told them exactly what they wanted to hear.”
Not long after those comments were written, John Daly died. In one of the climategate e-mails, his death is mentioned as a kind of fortunate occurrence, some “cheering news” that removed one of their adversaries.
So much for scientific integrity!
Dr. Martin Hertzberg
Ph. D. Stanford, 1959
www.explosionexpert.com
Excelent…Well said.
Congratulations on an appropriate response to an inappropriate (but all too common) attack on free speech and fact-based discourse.
Dr. Mann surely must know the pain that potentially libelous statements like his ‘lies and liars’ accusations cause, after all, he threatened to sue Dr. Tim Ball for hinting that he (Dr. Mann) was less than totally forthcoming, though I do not recollect Dr. Ball ever using the ‘L’ word and certainly not in the ranting diatribe that Dr. Mann let loose.
It certainly makes one ponder the meaning of standards. of conduct… as practiced by the Warming Industry’s leading lights.
it is so terribly frustrating that the AGW – hide the warming – it must be CO2, what else could it be ?, types can never be forced into an open venue where all the current climate science could be introduced and the Manns forced to respond, fully, before the media, the administration and the country.
it is a case of ‘missing exposure’ – where is the missing ‘heat’ that these rogues should have to feel ?
i want nothing less than a judgement at Nuremberg.
So, will the Vail Daily News print this response? “The World Wonders.”*
*a historical reference, for anyone interested.
Methinks Mann is rapidly losing whatever marbles he once had. He is showing disturbing signs of desperation, throwing tantrums in all directions, just like a 2-year old. He needs careful watching.
Stout fellow you are Dr Hertzberg. Well done!
When two people disagree about something and one of them resorts to insults and falsehoods, then that person has lost the argument. When the loser compounds this loss with legal action to prevent the data he used to support his argument, being made public and therefore subject to scrutiny by the winner, then it is 100% certain that he is lying through his teeth.
Any organisation that can rejoice the death of an opponent because their views on a scientific subject differ from theirs, also call into question the validity of that organisation’s claims.
Religious fervour is how it all looks to me, not science
still can’t post on tips’n’notes, sorry. this is quickly getting up on the MSM:
5 Oct: Vancouver Sun: Randy Boswell: Climate change eradicating Arctic’s oldest ice
In reports issued this week by NASA and the associated National Snow and Ice Data Center, the respective teams of U.S. scientists offered end-of-season overviews of the state of the northern cryosphere that emphasized not only the severe shrinkage of the ice cover for the fifth straight year, but also the widespread replacement of the Arctic’s most mature ice masses by much younger, thinner and weaker sheets of ice…
“The oldest, thickest ice (five or more years old), has continued to decline,” states the report from the Colorado-based NSIDC, which points to the Beaufort Sea north of the Yukon-Alaska boundary as a prime area for the loss of old-growth ice. “In essence, what was once a refuge for older ice has become a graveyard.”…
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Climate+change+eradicating+Arctic+oldest/5507384/story.html
I offer a well deserved THANK YOU to the Vail Daily News!
Without their fumbled attempt at censorship and history revision, this letter would probably have never reached a readership that dwarfs their subscription size and is fully global in scope.
My sincerest appreciation.
Steptoe Fan;
i want nothing less than a judgement at Nuremberg.>>>
I’m mad as you know what about the corruption in climate science, but comparing that to the Nuremberg trials is over the top. The Michaell Mann’s of the world may have been guilty of promoting falsehoods in the name of science, but that hardly compares to the plotting and carrying out of plans to herd millions of people into death camps and systematically murder them.
It is a standard tactic in politics, particularly on the Left, that whatever dubious activity you doing, accuse your opponent of doing it.
With the current rather dismal state of the media the accusation gets more publicity than the fact of your dubious activity. Because printing the accusation requires much less effort than investigating the facts.
Mann’s letter illustrates the degree to which climate science has become politicized.
We should be calling Mann a Climate Politician.
Just curious – what is the circulation of the Vail Daily News vs. WUWT?
Answer: 15,000 (in Vail) vs. 90,487,564 (world-wide).
Gotta figure some of that 15,000 is bird-cage liner.
Whoops…
T.C. – I deeply appreciate WUWT, but your analysis is slightly flawed. The 90 million figure for WUWT is from its inception (x years, y months) (please correct me if I am wrong). The 15 thousand figure for the Vail Daily News is a daily circulation number (assuming that the “Daily” in the name actually means daily publication). You have to multiply that daily circulation by the number of days it has been in circulation for a life time comparison or by the same number of days that WUWT has been in existence to make a relevant comparison with a like to like time dimension included.
Of course out of the 15,000 number, how many are actually read compared to being unread and recycled for some more useful purpose (like bird-cage liner).
Needs a study. Send money.
Mann is a fraud. No original research. Merely the tinkering with other people’s data in the most biased way.
Robert E. Phelan says:
October 5, 2011 at 11:14 pm
I think Mann will require more than TF34 in the long run.
T.C.,
M. Mann must think the circulation is large enough. He not only became aware of the mention of his name he also was compelled to respond.
It’s a Trenberthsty.
Mann seems as cavalier with his spelling as with his facts. I draw your attention to charleton, which as any person with one iota of education knows; the word is charlatan. Dr. Martin Hertzberg nails it well with his use of quotation marks around the offensive utterance.
As spellcheckers are ubiquitous, Mann’s distain to use basic technology, is yet more evidence that he believes he is endowed with a Pope’s infallibility on such religious matters as AGW.
What a plonker!
@davidmhoffer says: October 5, 2011 at 11:34 pm
I agree that a Nuremberg trial has the wrong resonances. But I think there is an overwhelming case for a properly constituted Tribunal of Inquiry under a senior judge, to look into both the “science” of cAGW, the policy implications (particularly the Climate Change Act 2008), the selection of activists as Government “Scientific Advisors”, the role of DECC and its Secretaries of State (Milipede and BuffHuhne) and, of course Climategate and the subsequent whitewashes.
I have to admit that not all Tribunals of Inquiry have come up to the mark. But that into the 1966 Aberfan Disaster did a first rate job.
http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/politics/aberfan/tri.htm
Don’t hold your breath that we will get one, however.
Do we really have to call Michael Mann a doctor? The only thing he doctored was the temperatures from his hockey stick graph. I think there should be a strong movement to remove the titles of all disgraced climate scientists who put funding and emotion over research and scientific method so these people cannot be taken seriously again when the next “global warming evidence” shows up.
“The IPCC report of 1990 prior to Mann’s publication of his “hockey stick” showed a Medieval Warm Period considerably warmer than today with its peak temperature in about 1250 AD. ”
This canard again! Anybody still repeating this is either clueless or disingenuous as source of this figure, and the reasons why is a poor estimate of the global mean have been explained many many times.
The figure in the 1990 report is a schematic showing an estimate of English temperatures developed by HH Lamb, based largely on documentary evidence. Just as only a fool would try to prove (or more likely disprove) that global warming was occurring with data from a single small country, only a fool or a fraud would argue that natural climate variability in a single small country represents natural variability over the whole globe.
richard telford,
It is you who is mendaciously spreading the ‘no MWP’ canard. The MWP is a thoroughly documented, world-wide event. Denying the world wide existence of the MWP [and the LIA] is an alarmist desperation tactic. I for one am getting tired of providing numerous links proving the existence of the MWP.
Richard Telford, you are a fool who believes in rhe climate charlatan Michael Mann’s debunked horse manure that there was no MWP or LIA. Wise up, chump. You credulous climate alarmist fools accuse honest scientific skeptics of ‘denying’ climate change, when it is the alarmist crowd that denies [natural] climate change.
The alarmist crowd has lost every argument. CO2 is harmless and beneficial. More is better. There will be no 20-meter sea level rises due to the rise in natural, beneficial “carbon.” The Arctic and Antarctic are simply going through their natural cycles. Nothing out out of the ordinary is occurring. Nothing! So the fact that you and your ilk are trying to falsely scream “Fire!” in a crowded theater makes you despicable false alarmists. When the truth is known, you and your ilk will be standing in the dock, accused and convicted of false alarmism.
richard telford says:
‘Just as only a fool would try to prove (or more likely disprove) that global warming was occurring with data from a single small country, only a fool or a fraud would argue that natural climate variability in a single small country represents natural variability over the whole globe.’
However as a small island on the western side of the 2nd largest ocean it is actually a very good proxy for at least a significant proportion of the NH.
>>
richard telford says:
October 6, 2011 at 1:05 am
This canard again!
Just as only a fool would try to prove (or more likely disprove) that global warming was occurring with data from a single small country, only a fool or a fraud would argue that natural climate variability in a single small country represents natural variability over the whole globe.
<<
I guess canards, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. CO2 Science has an on-going project to document MWP studies all over the world. Their conclusions would give support to the idea that you are the one spreading the canard.
Jim
“Steeptown says:
October 5, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Methinks Mann is rapidly losing whatever marbles he once had. He is showing disturbing signs of desperation, throwing tantrums in all directions, just like a 2-year old. He needs careful watching.”
My thoughts exactly
Richard Telford.
Thank you for once again demonstrating the ‘thought’ processes that underpin Warmism.
So, it’s perfectly ok for the climategang to extrapolate global temperatures from a mish-mash of tree ring proxies with bits of other records grafted on….perfectly OK…but the MWP which is historically recorded (See Danish National Museum’s description of Greenland settlements etc etc) why, that’s not OK!
Tsk…Richard, the thing about ‘real’ science (as opposed to climate science) is that you’re not allowed to just …. make stuff up.
Quack Quack!
the truth will out. well done for actually revealing that fact.
Richard Telford can’ardly reason anymore, due to cognitive dissonance. Poor sod.
davidmhoffer says:
October 5, 2011 at 11:34 pm
Steptoe Fan;
i want nothing less than a judgement at Nuremberg.
I’m mad as you know what about the corruption in climate science, but comparing that to the Nuremberg trials is over the top. The Michaell Mann’s of the world may have been guilty of promoting falsehoods in the name of science, but that hardly compares to the plotting and carrying out of plans to herd millions of people into death camps and systematically murder them.
Steptoe Fan is merely turning the CAGW cheerleaders talk back onto them.
From George Monbiot’s book “Heat”, published in 2006:-
When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.
I think it’s about for Dr.Mann to call his shrink. He has major mental problems…
The only lying charlatan here is Mann not Dr. Hertzberg.
Thank you Dr. Hertzberg for a clear and concise answer to Mann’s ridiculous claims.
Perry says:
October 6, 2011 at 12:36 am
Mann seems as cavalier with his spelling as with his facts. I draw your attention to charleton, which as any person with one iota of education knows; the word is charlatan. Dr. Martin Hertzberg nails it well with his use of quotation marks around the offensive utterance.
As spellcheckers are ubiquitous, Mann’s distain to use basic technology, is yet more evidence that he believes he is endowed with a Pope’s infallibility on such religious matters as AGW.
What a plonker!
———————————————————————————-
Perry, would that be disdain for basic technology?
By the way, it looks like Mann has so much money in his bank balance that he’s unconcerned
with the prospect of a libel court case.
richard trelford
if ‘only a fool or a fraud would argue that natural climate variability in a single small country represents natural variability over the whole globe’
what type of person would claim that evidence from a few tree rings would do the same ?
Vail publishes it… http://www.vaildaily.com/ARTICLE/20111005/LETTER/111009946/
It was not a strange situation at all for a newspaper to remove potentially libellous material from its website.
I find it very amusing when people look back with such fondness on the single temperature reconstruction shown in the 1990 IPCC report. In science, a lot of things change in 21 years. Dark energy, which makes up 75% of the universe, was undiscovered. So why do you think that single graph was somehow unimpeachably correct? Data moves on. Techniques move on. Knowledge moves on. It has been superseded. It was in fact not a global reconstruction but only regional – central England specifically.
Yes, there was a mediaeval warm period. No, it was probably not warmer, globally, then than it is now. Even if it was, it would not make a particularly huge difference to our prevailing understanding of the effect of infrared absorption on the energy balance of the atmosphere.
Mann is the closest adherent to the political spin advice: “Admit nothing. Deny everything. Make counter-accusations”.
It always fails eventually, but it takes a long time.
Pat refers to – 5 Oct: Vancouver Sun: Randy Boswell: Climate change eradicating Arctic’s oldest ice
It is interesting how NSIDC spin things. This summer has seen a sizeable increase in 3 year ice which bodes well for 4 + 5 year ice in the next 2 years.So what do NSIDC say?
“The oldest, thickest (5 years+) has continued to decline”
As most MYI disappeared in 2008 it is hard te see what other direction this could take.
Canard, eh Telford? Does that go for the Bronze Age climatic optimum as well? Or the Roman period warming? You’re on a loser mate – you already know that, hence the utter and evident desperation in your tone and attitude. Mann has been systematically discredited, repeatedly, over a number of issues, including Climategate and his narcissistic and pathetically childish responses to any attempt to obtain his supposed ‘evidence’ or even to discuss his ideas. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear? All his actions show a man who’s neither a real scientist nor a mature adult.
This only amplifies why we must separate anthropogenic global warming
from Mann-made global warming.
Micheal Mann is behaving like any arrogant individual whose expertise is shown to be wanting. The world is generally turning its thumbs down to the idea of AGW theory as they find out more about the weak nature of the assumptions it is built on and the manipulations of the organizations that support it.
Well done Sir, I congratulate you on your measured response.
A charlatan often uses such a word to divert attention from his own endeavours, he is making a million dollars plus a year,
Madeoff went to gaol I seem to recall.
Perhaps he had cheese on the mind; he (Mann) certainly had the whine …
charleton – urban dictionary
.
T.C. says:
October 5, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Bzzt. Circulation is not “page views”.
What you want is the number of people who have read this Web page. That’s quite a bit lower than the number of page views of this page, and that is quite a higher than the number of people who have read this page.
Start with 100,000 page views per day here, divide by the number of posts per day, divide by (1 + reloads/per reader) and then you’ll have a semi-decent number for WUWT.
You can also try computing the number of page views of the Vail Daily News. Take the circulation, multiply it by the number of issues published, then by the average number of pages, then by the percentage of pages actually viewed by readers, and by the number of readers per copy printed.
I wasn’t aware that the climategate emails revealed a reference to Daly’s death as “cheering news”. What a bunch of schmucks.
The “greenhouse industry” is a great term. An interesting oxymoron.
Did the Vail Daily News print this response?
Mann is never wrong. He wasn’t referring to Dr. Hertzberg as a “charlatan”, he was calling him a “Charleton”, which we all know is “a civil parish in the English county of Devon”–a witty and devestating insult.
Take that you Shropshires!
The Nuremberg trial rhetoric may be a little over the top, but when one looks closely at the impacts the policies of the Hanson’s of the world advocate, it may be by very little over the top. The deaths that would result from deindustrialization would dwarf those caused by the axis powers in the 1939-1945 global warfare. Our medical infrastructure would collapse. Our agricultural infrastructure would collapse. Indeed our societies themselves would collapse. A city can not feed itself. It relies on the mechanized agriculture to provide its food, and that relies on fossil fuels. If everyone were forced to grow their own food to survive, a billion or more people would probably starve. All over a hoax bought by people craving power.
Of course politicians would never let it go that far. They would simply use the “crisis” to consolidate power and repeal individual freedoms. Then they would redistribute the energy resources to their favored crony groups, and leave the rest of us as beggars or slaves. At that point they would cast aside the useful idiot “climate scientists” and rule as they wish as all idealist totalitarians always do. Animal Farm was an excellent primer on human nature – it seems to be the pattern that emerges when “our betters” rise up to rule us.
In a reply to fluid dynamicist David Young at RC Gavin Schmidt said:
“This kind of forecast doesn’t depend too much on the models at all – it is mainly related to the climate sensitivity which can be constrained independently of the models (i.e. via paleo-climate data),”
Does thIs include the hockey stick and other tree ring “paleo-climate data”?
“charleton” – I assume this is the opposite of charlatan, which obviously best describes Mann himself. Either that, or Mann’s spelling is as bad as his ‘science’.
char·la·tan (shär l -t n). n. A person who makes elaborate, fraudulent, and often voluble claims to skill or knowledge; a quack or fraud. …
Richard Telford,
Given all the work on climate that has occurred since 1990, I can see some merit in the claim that Lamb’s groundbreaking work is now a bit quaint and primitive. Entirely independent of that, the Hockey Stick is quite controversial and no one who has objectively read the critical M&M papers, and the responses to those papers, should have any confidence in it. If we can declare a draw on those points, can you provide links or your own narrative as to why you think that there is serious doubt that the MWP and LIA were global phenomena?
I will repeat this theme again, and again, and AGAIN!
The language Mr. Mann (please note the change in title) has used in public publications refering to other INDIVIDUALS would be CAUSE FOR DISMISSAL in almost every private industry situation. HR departments, for all their flaws, have certain “behavioral” standards which are enforced these days. Mann’s writings and allowing these statements to be published would violate these standards and he would be dismissed. What this demonstrates is a moral bankruptcy of the highest kind.
Max
Private industry: 30 years experience.
Steptoe Fan;
i want nothing less than a judgement at Nuremberg.>>>
_________________________________________________
davidmhoffer says:
I’m mad as you know what about the corruption in climate science, but comparing that to the Nuremberg trials is over the top. The Michaell Mann’s of the world may have been guilty of promoting falsehoods in the name of science, but that hardly compares to the plotting and carrying out of plans to herd millions of people into death camps and systematically murder them.
______________________________________________________________________
We have not reached the end of the game plan yet. However we do know that those who support CAGW and Global Governance generally support the idea that there are too many people on the earth. Do not forget that the whole idea behind the carbon tax was a way to directly fund the UN. http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol15no4/154finan.htm
As far as not plotting deaths, there is the whole complicated mess of Bio-fuel, WTO, the corporate land grab, and food speculation by the likes of Goldman Sachs. By 2008 US grain reserves were exhausted, prices spiked and there were food riots in 23 countries. In 2008, nearly 9 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday. One third of these deaths are due directly or indirectly to hunger and malnutrition
“the man-made Bengal Famine of 1943/1944, …. killed 4 million people (it is similar in death toll magnitude to the WW2 Jewish Holocaust) but has been largely deleted from British historiography….Body count” documents the similarly non-reported avoidable death of 1.3 billion people since 1950….. Even the starvation of Ukrainans by Stalin was http://www.ukemonde.com/news/rferl.html“>covered-up by the news sources.
Less than 10% of the land in Africa is covered by title documents leaving the native people wide open to the type of land theft we saw in Anthony’s They had to burn the village to save it from global warming NAFTA forced 75% of the farmers off the land in Mexico, compliance with WTO and tons of bureaucratic red tape are doing the same to farmers in other countries.
Clinton acknowledged the WTO as part of the cause of the food riots.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/23/world/main4542268.shtml
http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/5934-bill-clintons-empty-mea-culpa-on-ruining-haitis-agriculture-sector.html
Meanwhile George Soros, Lord Rothschild, and other investors are snaping up the arable land from the farmers who were bankrupted……
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/08/retirement/betting_the_farm.fortune/index.htm
Famine has always been a tool of war and now CAGW can take the blame.
richard telford says:
October 6, 2011 at 1:05 am
‘Just as only a fool would try to prove (or more likely disprove) that global warming was occurring with data from a single small country, only a fool or a fraud would argue that natural climate variability in a single small country represents natural variability over the whole globe.’
Yamal, Mr Telford?
richard telford says:
October 6, 2011 at 1:05 am
Can you say “Yamal”? If so, you’re point is even worse–using just a bunch of trees (and maybe just one) to prove climate trends is far worse than “a single small country”. All one has to do is piss or poop at the base of a tree or two and you’ve changed climate forever. Now we’re talking fool or a fraud.
But back to Mann–the current fool or fraud–he’s a loose canon. He’s going down, that’s what I see. And he knows it.
loose cannon
n. Slang
One that is uncontrolled and therefore poses danger: “[His] bloopers in the White House seem to make him . . . a political loose cannon” (Tom Morgenthau).
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/loose+cannon
And this is what the Editor of the Vail Daily News had to say:
richard telford says:
October 6, 2011 at 1:05 am
“The IPCC report of 1990 prior to Mann’s publication of his “hockey stick” showed a Medieval Warm Period considerably warmer than today with its peak temperature in about 1250 AD. ”
This canard again! Anybody still repeating this is either clueless or disingenuous as source of this figure, and the reasons why is a poor estimate of the global mean have been explained many many times…..
______________________________________________________________________
The whole subject was discussed here at WUWT on November 29, 2009 http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/29/the-medieval-warm-period-a-global-phenonmena-unprecedented-warming-or-unprecedented-data-manipulation/
Interesting. My career has been in electronics/physics/instrumentation but one of my hobbies has been history. I read the sagas of Snorri Sturluson which detail Icelandic history. I read about the settlement of Greenland. I studied Medieval English history. I also studied a bit of Chinese history. Although I didn’t know to call it the Little Ice Age, I was well aware that there was a cooling of the climate that caused famine and misery in Europe and China.
I was also willing to believe that CO2 could cause global warming. Then came the hockey stick and I quit believing in AGW. Sorry Richard. I know physics and I know history and, in this case, documentary and archaeological evidence trump Mann’s tree rings. You have to think more deeply before you disparage mere ‘documentary’ evidence. It makes you look arrogant and clueless.
@richard Telford: Yamal? (‘…only a fool or a fraud would argue that natural climate variability in a single small country represents natural variability over the whole globe.’)
Advice to Richard Telford, admit your mistake (re: Yamal) and move on, you’re hosed – Anthony
Max Hugoson says:
October 6, 2011 at 7:35 am
I will repeat this theme again, and again, and AGAIN!
The language Mr. Mann (please note the change in title) has used in public publications refering to other INDIVIDUALS would be CAUSE FOR DISMISSAL in almost every private industry situation. HR departments, for all their flaws, have certain “behavioral” standards which are enforced these days. Mann’s writings and allowing these statements to be published would violate these standards and he would be dismissed. What this demonstrates is a moral bankruptcy of the highest kind.
___________________________________________________________________________
Very Very true Max. Since he as speaking/writing as Dr. Mann, known climatologist of Penn, what he says and how he acts reflects directly on the university.
Most teacher’s contracts still have a “moral turpitude” clause, some schools have even used the clause to get rid of teachers who stop and have a drink in a local bar. A teacher is held to a higher standard of conduct because he is considered an example for our children.
Do we want Mr. Mann as an example or do we want Dr. Hertzberg as an example? I do not have to be a scientist to know who I would choose, all I have to be is a parent.
Thankyou Dr. Hertzberg for setting such a fine example for our youth.
Nice try Dr. Hertzberg. Unfortunately the “Vail Daily News” is beyond help, as is Herr Doktor Mann. At least, fortunately for all the world, there is WUWT to set the record straight and reach a more educated audience. “Pick your battles and your battlefields” is a good rule of thumb for winning; I think a little emperor from France said that some two hundred years ago, or so. Beware of Germans bearing Hockey Schticks, they play dirty.
Dr. Hertzberg,
Thank you for not falling for his bluff. For it is a bluff. If Mann were to follow his anger with a lawsuit, then the defence is to show, in court, reasonable grounds for the Hockey Stick being disingenuous at best, and fraudulent at worst. Since they dropped the additional tree ring data to “hide the decline”, and removed the MWP and LIA that was there before and has since been returned to its rightful place, with the Climategate e-mails as backing, it would be/is easy to see that the temp record was adjusted, at least, in the direction that served the Green side better. Perhaps the Team was caught up in their cause – my belief for 60% of what they were doing – just as Mendel fudged his genetics results to demonstrate what he knew was correct (and was). Any jury would see reasonable grounds to conclude that one was without malice in saying what you – and hundreds of others – have.
One day Mann will be that fellow in the professors’ lounge who sits by himself and is pointed out by his younger replacements as “that fellow of the Global Warming scandal”. How sad that will be.
Dr. Hertzberg,
Thank you for bringing your measured response to Michael Mann here to WUWT.
John
Mr Mann sees Karma in his rear view window – panic has set in.
Mr. Mann sees karma in his rear view mirror. Panic has set in.
Dear Moderators,
My comment of a few minutes ago did not go into the normal ‘Waiting for Moderation’ mode.
It just disappeared.
Perhaps the WordPress nether gods grabbed it for membership in their nether kingdom?
John
Stevo uses the phrase:
“our prevailing understanding of the effect of infrared absorption on the energy balance of the atmosphere”
Actually, ‘our’ prevailing understanding is that doubling CO2 produces at most a degree of warming. It’s you alarmists who have to prove otherwise.
You see, unlike your cargo-cult ‘science’,
in real science as conducted by grown-ups, there is this handy idea of ‘
THE NULL HYPOTHESIS
which in this case is that there is nothing to worry about.
AGW must proceed by first disproving the non-alarmist scenario.
Simply assuming at the outset that you’re right is a giant no-no.
Vail publishes it… http://www.vaildaily.com/ARTICLE/20111005/LETTER/111009946/
Note they had to add this:
When he says “support” he of course meant “back” not “replicate”.
/snarc-off
Steve from Rockwood says:
“I wasn’t aware that the climategate emails revealed a reference to Daly’s death as ‘cheering news’. What a bunch of schmucks.”
This short email exchange shows the impotence of Phil Jones, and it is probably one reason why Jones practically stood up and cheered upon hearing the news of the great John Daly’s passing:
http://www.john-daly.com/cru/emails.htm
Smokey & Jim Masterson re: the ‘CO2science’ MWP project.
It’s deeply flawed. Not all the graphs on the map are of temperature, eg Zhang et al 2003 was primarily precipitation, and while all the graphs show a peak, they are not synchronised in time for example, Johnsen et al. 2001 shows the Greenland summit unusually warm in 1000AD, while Wilson et al 1979 show New Zealand temperatures peaking 3-400 years later. Also they continue to use old studies when more recent findings are less supportive of the case, eg they cite Loehle 2007, but ignore it’s 2008 update.
As a whole, they demonstrate no evidence for a period when the whole globe was warmer than the present at the same time. All nicely documented here with further examples of misrepresentation.
I hope it is not boorish to point out that to qualify as a sceptic one has to actually be sceptical.
Oh PS re: Yamal. The Yamal chronology is part of just 4 out of 12 reconstructions in IPCC AR4 and is not used in the MBH ‘hockey stick’ study.
Just for the record:
By 1995, in his book Climate, History and the Modern World, Lamb was able to cite data from both Europe and North American (west coast) to support the MWP concept. At the time he was not sure that it included the Far East, although more recent work indicates that it did in fact occur there also. At least in this work, the “documentary evidence” he cites includes tree-ring proxies.
Phil Clarke’s cognitive dissonance on display:
Regarding the amply documented MWP, Clarke claims there is “no evidence for a period when the whole globe was warmer than the present at the same time.”
Wrong. But then Clarke gets his misinformation from this pseudo-science blog.
Clarke needs to get educated:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/23/study-on-paleo-rainfall-records-clearly-shows-existence-of-mwp-and-lia-in-southern-hemisphere
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/24/easterbrook-on-the-magnitude-of-greenland-gisp2-ice-core-data
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html
Brune apparently mentioned in his Seminar yesterday that Mann is on sabbatical from PSU for researching climate science communication. (this info is thankfully from Brune seminar attendee and CA commenter ‘Dave Bufalo, P.E.’ who posted on the CA Brune thread @ Oct 5, 2011 at 9:49 PM)
So, are the recent Mann communications, like his response to Dr. Hertzberg’s letter to the editor of the Vail Daily News, the fruit of Mann’s research into climate science communication?
It sounds like Mann’s sabbatical research into climate science communication is even more flawed than is infamous his ‘Hockey Stick’ products.
To me it is more likely Mann is instead using this ‘research sabbatical’ for full time legal offense and legal defense PR. Well, I guess that could, in a PNS sense, be twisted to mean ‘research on climate science communications’. :^)
John
Phil Clarke says:
October 6, 2011 at 10:51 am
‘Oh PS re: Yamal. The Yamal chronology is part of just 4 out of 12 reconstructions in IPCC AR4 and is not used in the MBH ‘hockey stick’ study.’
And the Bristlecones? How wide an area did they cover? C’mon….you’re ‘avin’ a larf!
Phil Clarke says (October 6, 2011 at 10:51 am): “Oh PS re: Yamal. The Yamal chronology is part of just 4 out of 12 reconstructions in IPCC AR4 and is not used in the MBH ‘hockey stick’ study.”
As I recall, Steve McIntyre has shown that every “hockey stick” temperature reconstruction uses Yamal, bristlecone pines, or the Tiljander sediments (upside down). They’re all suspect.
Oh, so Ljungqvist 2010 vindicates Loehle and confirms the MWP? Er, no. From the paper
Our temperature reconstruction agrees well with the reconstructions by Moberg et al. (2005) and Mann et al. (2008) with regard to the amplitude of the variability as well as the timing of warm and cold periods, except for the period c. AD 300–800, despite significant differences in both data coverage and methodology
and he asserts, with caveats, that:
Since AD 1990, though, average temperatures in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere exceed those of any other warm decades the last two millennia, even the peak of the Medieval Warm Period
http://agbjarn.blog.is/users/fa/agbjarn/files/ljungquist-temp-reconstruction-2000-years.pdf
So still, we await evidence for the global, synchronous and warmer-than-today MWP.
Gary – that’s called reframing the debate, but you might want to check out the SI to Mann 2008 especially Fig 7 where he shows that a reconstruction using none of the proxies you dislike is consistent with the conclusion of the main study using all proxies.
Phil Clarke says:
October 6, 2011 at 10:42 am
I hope it is not boorish to point out that to qualify as a sceptic one has to actually be sceptical.
============
Love it!
Philip Clarke says: (although I’m not sure you really meant it)
October 6, 2011 at 1:07 pm
That’s what I believe (i.e., it’s a farce). Is this a Freudian slip (pardon me, ma’am, but….)?
Phil Clarke links to Ljungqvist, who is a historian. The historian uses Briffa, Ammann, Jones, Mann and other climate alarmists as his authorities. But Ljungqvist’s conclusions are 180° contrary to a century of MWP evidence. [And it’s interesting to note how quickly CAGW papers get published: Manuscript received Oct. 2009 revised and accepted Jan. 2010].
When all you have are global warming alarmists, that’s what you use, I guess. Apparently Clarke never clicked on the links I provided in my post above. He would have learned something: overwhelming evidence shows that the MWP was warmer than today – and there were much warmer periods prior to the MWP, all when human CO2 emissions were nil.
In Mann’s letter, at
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20111001/EDITS/110939988/1021&ParentProfile=1065 , he uses “charlatan”, so perhaps “charleton” is Hertzberg’s own misspelling.
(Or maybe the paper edited the web version after the original release.)
The real tradgedy with John Daly’s death was that as a passionate advocate for Australian research into ENSO and its effects on Australia’s climate he was ignored by successive governmental agencies that would rather make CO2 the villian – as if there aren’t enough investigations into a simple gas. Had the government agencies had the courage to champion the advice about the looming problem they identified in Spring 2010, had government had the courage to heed warnings and release water from a reservoir overfull (~100 % – it ended up holding back more than its design capacity of ~230% – another few inches of rain and it could have failed) at the start of an obvious wet season then Brisbane could have been spared some of the flooding.
But no – the signs of a large La-Nina rainfall event were ignored and we all saw the result with the east coast of Australia inundated and flooded.
Some advance warning’s would have been beneficial.
Er, Smokey, your first link was based on the Ljungqvist paper. That is to say, the first study you cited contradicts your claim directly.
As for your other blog posts, well Easterbrook’s claims rest on the GISP2 data, which ends before the start of the last century, telling us nothing about modern warming. Richard Alley, who curates and literally wrote the book on GISP2 says this :
“So, using GISP2 data to argue against global warming is, well, stupid, or misguided, or misled, or something, but surely not scientifically sensible.”
Like the CO2Science project, Easterbrook is not above doctoring the odd graph, his erstwhile department have got so fed up that to the statement in support of the concensus they made this remarkable postscript:
… The Geology Faculty at WWU believes that all science must be subjected to rigorous peer review and publication before it becomes worthy of serious discussion. We do not support publication of non-peer-reviewed scientific results in the general media.
Who can they possibly mean?
Still waiting for that evidence, then ….
Richard Telford…
Thanks for reminding us all that the IPCC reports are not the “final word”, but are human, flawed reports that require the utmost scrutiny. By this example, they may even contain canards.
For the record, I agree with you; the idea of using data from only a single small country to attempt to provide a worldwide temperature proxy is unscientific and essentially meaningless; yet, that’s apparently what the 1990 IPCC report did. It is good of people like you to remind us of these history, for as Santayana reminds us, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
We must not forget that IPCC reports are historically likely to contain such poorly reasoned analyses, and that the damage from these analyses continues long, long after the report has been superceded. Therefore, we must be vigilant and skeptical.
We look forward to your finding these sorts of flaws in the next IPCC report.
I fully support Dr. Hertzberg’s position but don’t believe it’s accurate to refer to the late John Daly as a scientist, i.e., someone with an advanced degree. I vaguely remember reading somewhere on his website that he was a retired merchant seaman. In a way, that says more in his favor than if he had been a distinguished scientist. If my memory is correct, he was simply an ordinary citizen who applied common sense and practical math to arcane warmist theology and found it to be a tissue of lies. In that sense, he was far more distinguished than the “Charletons” who make fat livings from AGW catastrophism. May he RIP.
“jennygp says:
October 6, 2011 at 9:51 am
Mr. Mann sees karma in his rear view mirror. Panic has set in.”
His karma has run over his dogma?
“Actually, ‘our’ prevailing understanding is that doubling CO2 produces at most a degree of warming.”
That might be your prevailing understanding. Probably you’ve been misled by someone because you’re wrong.
Is this the same Phil Clarke who said “Climate change is a matter so serious that it is long past time to give up wasting effort trying to change the behaviour patterns of those dedicated to using an engineered denial to provide themselves with a way of life and accompanying notoriety (See Lord Monckton turns up the heat, June 20). Nobody who matters in climate change science gives a hoot about the prattlings of the denial lobby – comprised as it is largely of people utilising a non issue to press a reactionary political agenda. Let the hyenas bay and chortle as much as they like, like the poor they will always be with us. Moving on to save the planet as we know it.”?
Apparently your advice only applies to censoring Monckton on nonclimate forums, not to your participation here?
Even if there was an MWP — and the evidence is hardly as conclusive as Hertzberg claims — that only makes our current situation worse, because on top of the warming that is bound to happen from aCO2 we have the possibility of a little bit more from nature (and the MWP was only about 1 C at best). I don’t see how any of this reduces concern for aCO2-warming, which could be significant. If we burn all the fossil fuels available to us we would be putting roughly as much carbon into the atmosphere as before the PETM. That event saw a 50% jump in CO2 levels, from 1000 ppm, and a 5 C increase in global temperature.
Figured WUWT readers would quibble over 5,000 vs. 90,487,564, but I was under the impression that this blog’s stats were based upon first time views only and repeated views from the same viewer were not counted. Which would kind of give you an idea of the number of “subscribers“ to WUWT, wouldn`t it?
No matter which way one figures the numbers, WUWT probably outdoes the Vail Daily (I previously called it “The Vail Register“) in readership by an order of magnitude, except possibly on days when WUWT drives traffic their way…
By the way, the Vail Daily states in the “about us“ section that their daily circulation is between 7,501 to 15,000. So their circulation could actually be a lot lower.
Also, I shouldn`t be too rough on them – I am feeling badly about the bird cage liner remark. After all the Daily – and others without deep pockets – are dealing with people who threaten to SLAPP people and organizations who are least able to defend themselves from frivolous lawsuits. Why would the employees and owner of the Daily bet their livelihoods on upsetting such small-minded bullies, and possibly losing to them in court? Best to just remove the offending material and hope the problem goes away.
Eric – No. same name, but those are not my words.
All these deniers of the MWP should take note of the Roman warm period which was obviously warmer. Try walking around Europe and England these days wearing a Roman soldiers uniform, blue knees and a cold bum are not a good look, not conducive to a good fighting man either.
History is either totally skewed or Mr Manne is totally screwed. History happened, it was recorded and revision of history is only possible when control of all information is in your hands.
The internet is a major worry to those that wish to alter the past, and thank god that Al Gore invented it. Mr Manne is behaving like a dog protecting his territory, one can hope that soon the ranger will come and put him in the pound. Then outside his kingdom subjected to questions of import.
Philip Clarke says:
October 6, 2011 at 1:07 pm
I can see that you are interested in the MWP.
Here is an interesting discussion for you;
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-data/
@- wayne Job says: October 7, 2011 at 3:53 am
“All these deniers of the MWP should take note of the Roman warm period which was obviously warmer. Try walking around Europe and England these days wearing a Roman soldiers uniform, blue knees and a cold bum are not a good look, not conducive to a good fighting man either.”
There was a MWP, it just was not globally synchronous or quite as warm as now. Try this excellent map with many of the proxy records displayed of the MWP. A fun majong tile matching game can be had trying to find temporally coincident peaks…
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html
Given the eccentricity of hobbies there ARE people who recreate from the best possible historical evidence the soldiers uniform from the Roman period in England – so that they CAN go walking around Europe re-enacting Roman history.
The Roman soldier of the time wore a thick tunic, trousers, socks and shoes and carried a large cloak.
There are still letters found complaining of the cold, wet dismal climate of Britain from the Roman occupation. There is no archaeological evidence of wine production in Britain during the Roman period but a lot of evidence for wine importation.
Evidence from the clothing and diet of the romans in Britain does not support any claim that it was warmer then than now.
“History is either totally skewed or Mr Manne is totally screwed. History happened, it was recorded and revision of history is only possible when control of all information is in your hands.
The internet is a major worry to those that wish to alter the past, and thank god that Al Gore invented it. ….”
Correct. -grin-
A few moment search would have revealed the reality of Romans in Britain from the multitude of archaeological and historical research.
http://www.legionsix.org/Equipment/Basic%20Gear/Clothing/Uniform.htm
We need a homeless person with no assets to make a public defamation (altrhough of course it would be actually true) of Mann and have him sue that homeless person. Using discovery and pro bono legal we’d rip him a new digestive excretion system.
Umm, you are aware that the eminent Dr. Hertzberg is a semi-retired explosives expert and has no expertise in any of the fields related to global warming at all? And it was he who declared that Mann’s work was “fraudulent”, “fabricated” and “phony”, all in one sentence. So in other words the one to whip out the ad hominem assault was Hertzberg.
izen says:
October 7, 2011 at 11:18 am
RE: Roman Warm Period
Given the eccentricity of hobbies there ARE people who recreate from the best possible historical evidence the soldiers uniform from the Roman period in England – so that they CAN go walking around Europe re-enacting Roman history.
The Roman soldier of the time wore a thick tunic, trousers, socks and shoes and carried a large cloak.
There are still letters found complaining of the cold, wet dismal climate of Britain from the Roman occupation. There is no archaeological evidence of wine production in Britain during the Roman period but a lot of evidence for wine importation.
Evidence from the clothing and diet of the romans in Britain does not support any claim that it was warmer then than now.
A Roman soldier complaining of cold winters in the Scottish borders at the end of the Roman period compared with his warmer homeland is a more likely scenario (the letters never got sent..)and they’re still rather scantily dressed, wouldn’t have kept them warm in the LIA, when the Thames would freeze solid, or even in what came next at the collapse of the Roman period, the Danube freezing over so solidly that no longer the traditional barrier to invading armies from the North. And the Romans are credited with bringing wine production to Britain, including the north. The RWP stretches over a few centuries the studies show and variation in beginning and end over such a large area are to be expected, and there are many studies and they looked at more than just one tree and it’s clear that the RWP existed and was as warm as now or warmer, as the map you posted clearly summarises, but the AGW fraud has always been supported by those who cherry pick and take information out of context and as the wiki history also proves, does whatever it can to destroy evidence of its fraudulent manipulation of data..
..and that’s still going on at wiki – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Roman_Warm_Period
And your “diet of the romans in Britain does not support any claim that it was warmer then than now” is typical deflection from those wanting to play down this period and not admit the any random numbers will do imput Hockey Stick was deliberately created to show none of these great changes by flattening them out of history – diet would have been of the countries invaded, the Romans weren’t farmers, they were soldiers keeping populations in thrall by heavy tax burdens, and, the studies show that it was as warm or even warmer – remember what the junk AGW claim is??
From the same people who put the map together:
The Hockey Stick is the poster child of the whole AGW scam – no one involved in producing or defending it has any credibility as objective scientist, useful idiots for the most part, but those still deliberately skewing data and dishonestly removing or blocking studies have lost the plot completely. That such behaviour doesn’t appal defenders of AGW is testament to the lack of critical thinking supporting the con.
Thomas says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Umm, you are aware that the eminent Dr. Hertzberg is a semi-retired explosives expert and has no expertise in any of the fields related to global warming at all? And it was he who declared that Mann’s work was “fraudulent”, “fabricated” and “phony”, all in one sentence. So in other words the one to whip out the ad hominem assault was Hertzberg.
Not the meaning of ad hominem, which is to attack the person rather than the results/evidence of the argument the person presented, to deflect attention from and in lieu of presenting contrary evidence disputing it, because there is none. It’s a technique of the loser. Dr Hertzberg here summarises that Mann’s work is fraudulent, fabricated and phony because the evidence shows it is. He doesn’t have to make an ad hom personal attack on Mann, the evidence shows he’s the kind of person who deliberately produces fraudulent, fabricated and phony data.
You are using ad hominem to attack Dr Hertzberg in lieu of presenting a factual defence of Mann’s work, because there is none.
Anthony Watts says:
October 6, 2011 at 8:25 am
Advice to Richard Telford, admit your mistake (re: Yamal)
—————
Tu quoque.
I have made no mistake regarding Yamal for I have never mentioned it here. Hertzberg made an error. His error remains an error irrespective of whether there are problems with Yamal.
——————
Smokey says:
October 6, 2011 at 1:33 am
It is you who is mendaciously spreading the ‘no MWP’ canard. The MWP is a thoroughly documented, world-wide event. Denying the world wide existence of the MWP [and the LIA] is an alarmist desperation tactic. I for one am getting tired of providing numerous links proving the existence of the MWP.
————–
In the N-Atlantic region, the evidence for the MWP is strong, but it is a thoroughly documented, world-wide event only in your imagination. The CO2 science site you repeatedly link to is incapable of distinguishing between temperature and precipitation – any wet or dry period within several hundred years of the Atlantic MWP is used a proof it was warmer globally during the MWP. Only if there are globally synchronous temperature proxies showing the MWP can we conclude that it is global temperature anomaly. If the event is not synchronous, the the MWP in the N Atlantic could be offset by cooling elsewhere. The concept of a medieval climate anomaly is broad enough to incorporate precipitation changes. This has been explained to you repeatedly, but you are unable or unwilling to accept this.
Imagine the consequences if population censuses were conducted on the same basis as CO2 Science uses to quantify the MWP. Rather than asking how many people were in your house on a particular night (how it is done in the UK), the “CO2 Science” organised census would ask what is the maximum number of people you ever have had in your house, and would not care to discriminate between people and pets when counting. The resulting population estimate would be as questionable as their estimate of the extent of the MWP.
Get a clue, Telford. The MWP was a global event.
I have to laugh at the jamokes who still try to resurrect the falsified MBH98 hokey stick. And they call scientific skeptics ‘climate change deniers’! Pure psychological projection.
@- Myrrh says: October 8, 2011 at 12:23 am
“A Roman soldier ….and they’re still rather scantily dressed, wouldn’t have kept them warm in the LIA, when the Thames would freeze solid, or even in what came next at the collapse of the Roman period, the Danube freezing over so solidly that no longer the traditional barrier to invading armies from the North.”
Soldiers during the LIA from Tudor times to the English civil war had the same clothing as Roman soldiers, tunic, trousers, boots and cloak. Styles were different, but I see no evidence they were dressed any warmer – do you?
If you claim that the Romans exposed more bare flesh so it must have been warmer then I think you either underestimate the resilience of humans, or perhaps it is just as warm (or warmer!) now as in the Northern cities of Britain it is not uncommon to see – when fashion dictates – short-sleeve tops and mini-skirts… even in the snow!
“And the Romans are credited with bringing wine production to Britain, including the north. ”
They may be credited with that, but there is no evidence to back it up. Tacitus writes the climate is unsuitable for wine making in his history of the Roman occupation. While there is some evidence the Romans grew vines in Britain at a few garden sites in the south. there is no widespread evidence of vine cultivation at wine-producing scale.
Roman wine production is associated with two key archaeological features found in areas where Roman wine was made. A large stone basin for treading and pressing the grapes and doilium, ceramic ~100gallon vats part buried in the ground in which the wine was fermented. Both are large, persistent and characteristic finds associated with Roman wine-making. Neither have ever been found in Britain. Many Roman tombs in Britain record the occupation of the deceased. Wine-maker is not among them.
“The RWP stretches over a few centuries the studies show and variation in beginning and end over such a large area are to be expected, and there are many studies and they looked at more than just one tree and it’s clear that the RWP existed and was as warm as now or warmer,….”
I think you are trying to argue that while I should utterly reject one set of temperature data from tree-rings I should accept another set of data derived from tree-rings… How about we ignore ALL the evidence from tree-rings as suspect as suggested by Hertzberg?!
Using other evidence it may be possible to argue that the RWP and the MWP were more than just regional changes with little global significance, but that raises another problem. If the climate has altered so much in the past it indicates that climate sensitivity, the amount temperature rises in response to more energy, is on the high side of present estimates. Certainly MUCH more than the very low climate sensitivity values suggested by Lindzen and others otherwise it could not have got that much warmer in the past.
This is why I always find it strange that it is the skeptics who seem to be arguing for GREATER past variability against ‘warmists’ arguing for less.
But the greater past variability the more effect the extra energy from rising CO2 will have on the climate. It indicated less negative feedback in the system.
Izen says:
“I always find it strange that it is the skeptics who seem to be arguing for GREATER past variability against ‘warmists’ arguing for less.”
Wrong! It is the alarmist crowd that argues that the planet’s temperature was essentially unchanging, until the rise in CO2. But they have beeen repeatedly proven to be flat wrong.
Izen is yet another alarmist who denies climate change – a scurrilous false accusation that is routinely made against scientific skeptics [the only honest kind of scientist].
Climate sensitivity to CO2 is minuscule, on the order of ≈1°C per 2xCO2, ±0.5°C, based on empirical observations. Izen’s beliefs don’t matter. Real world data matters. And real world data falsifies Izen’s beliefs. Observational evidence proves that climate sensitivity to CO2 is minor, and can be disregarded for all practical purposes. But there’s no money in that fact, so the alarmists’ lies continue.
@- Smokey says: October 8, 2011 at 4:30 am
“Climate sensitivity to CO2 is minuscule, on the order of ≈1°C per 2xCO2, ±0.5°C, based on empirical observations.-[link]- Izen’s beliefs don’t matter. Real world data matters. And real world data falsifies Izen’s beliefs.”
I have a real problem with belief. I am prone to doubt and always question the basis of any belief I find I hold. I always welcome the falsification of a belief because it means belief has been replaced by understanding based on real world data.
The link you provide Smokey might be more convincing if had up-to-date real world data since 2008. Or perhaps not as it doesn’t really engage with the issue of climate sensitivity does it?
If past climate variation were large, so that the RWP was GLOBALLY as warm as the present then the amount of temperature change in response to extra energy must be large. We know solar activity and GCR flux was little different because of the Be isotope data and consistency of the C14 dating system. Big global temperature changes in the past would indicate that the negative feedback proposed by Spencer and LIndzen where warming causes more cooling from increased cloud cover is small and incapable of significant influence on global temperature.
First law of Thermo… you don’t get global warming without adding or retaining more energy. You don’t get cooling without reducing or losing more energy. The climate sensitivity is how much the temperature changes for a given change in energy. If past climate variations like the MWP RWP or Holocene optimum are larger than we think then climate sensitivity must be higher.
Or you need to find a source of extra energy greater than any known for those past events.
It is not a matter of belief, but of empirical data. To re-frame the old joke, we have moved on from the question of WHAT we are doing to the more important issue of ‘How much?’ – as the ‘actress’ said to the bishop…
Izen, your belief system is at odds with empirical observations:
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5721/newhadcrut3warming.png
http://www.john-daly.com/artifact.htm
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/3434/ipcchansen1980to2020.png
http://thetruthpeddler.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/graph-apr1100-54-323636779785.gif
Climate sensitivity is so low as to be inconsequential. That is a real world fact, not a computer model.
Smokey says:
October 8, 2011 at 3:49 am
Get a clue, Telford. The MWP was a global event.
———-
Another website that thinks the MWP occurred between ~800AD and 1400AD depending on where you look is not convincing evidence that there was a global MWP that was warmer than modern.
@- Smokey says: October 8, 2011 at 5:26 am
“Climate sensitivity is so low as to be inconsequential. That is a real world fact, not a computer model.”
Thank you for the links, two of which are to graphs of surface temperature trends of less than a decade and therefore irrelevant to the issue of climate sensitivity. One of which is of a graph comparing the three decades from 1960 to the 90s with three decades from 1980 to the present. It shows a warming of ~0.3degC over that 30 years while CO2 was rising by ~20%. Not sure what implication you think that has for climate sensitivity.
The other link is to an article by a crank claiming that all the work done by Plass and others on radiative transfer in the atmosphere, much of it for the military connected with missile detection systems, is wrong. AGW theory uses the same physics as the rest of science, if that nonsense was right the surface of Venus, Mars and Jupiter would be very different…
If climate sensitivity is so low why did the Pinatubo eruption cause at least 1 degree of cooling, and then subsequent warming when the effect wore off?
The change in energy from this event is apparently well constrained by real world empirical observations. For climate sensitivity to be so low there would have to be an additional factor altering the energy balance to cause that much cooling from volcanic eruptions.
We are still arguing about ‘How Much?’ – with you advocating the minimum price!
Thomas says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:26 pm
“… And it was [Dr. Hertzberg] who declared that Mann’s work was “fraudulent”, “fabricated” and “phony”, all in one sentence. So in other words the one to whip out the ad hominem assault was Hertzberg.”
Except that you haven’t provided an example of ad hom. So how about you run off and do some homework.
Izen dismisses the late, great John Daly a “crank”, thus confirming that Izen is a jamoke who gets his talking points from censoring alarmist blogs. Daly made a fool out of the incompetent Phil Jones, and Daly’s naver-falsified work was recognized by scientists worldwide.
And the Pinatubo cooling effect was caused primarily by reduction of insolation. The belief that it was caused by “carbon” is just that, a belief.
If CO2 had more than a minuscule effect on temperature, then temperature would closely follow changes in CO2. But it doesn’t [note this chart goes back to 1895, eliminating Izen’s quibble]. This bar chart shows clearly that CO2 has a negligible effect, therefore the sensitivity number must be quite low.
Izen needs to run along now to Skeptical Pseudo-Science for some new talking points, because he certainly lacks facts to back up his fictional high sensitivity claims.
And thanx to Richard Telford for his personal opinion. But all the same, I would rather listen to someone who knows what he’s talking about:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/28/loehle-vindication
Got plenty more MWP links. Will post on request.
Smokey says:
October 8, 2011 at 9:05 am
And the Pinatubo cooling effect was caused primarily by reduction of insolation. The belief that it wwas caused by “carbon” is just that, a belief.
—————–
Who thinks the the Pinatubo cooling was caused by carbon? Nobody I know of. But we can use it to estimate climate sensitivity, as the climate response to different forcings is approximately equal on a per watt basis.
The extra-tropical northern hemisphere is not the whole globe, so Ljungqvist’s work cannot answer the question of whether the whole globe warmed during the MWP. An infinite number of links about the MWP would not change that.
@- Smokey says: October 8, 2011 at 9:05 am
“Izen dismisses the late, great John Daly a “crank”, thus confirming that Izen is a jamoke who gets his talking points from censoring alarmist blogs. ”
While your loyalty in defending the reputation of John Daly is undoubtedly admirable, in this case it is misplaced.
The link you provided was to John Daly’s website, but it was to an article by Dr. Heinz Hug. Based on a limited laboratory measurement ans mathematical modeling Dr Heinz Hug claims that all the physics behind the warming effect of a greenhouse gas is wrong. His claims would also apply to water vapor…
Roy Spencer and Judith Curry have both tried to dispose of the quack claims that there is no ‘greenhouse’ effect. The climate-etc site have a ‘Slaying the Dragons’ series. I think this may be because those on the skeptic side with some scientific knowledge know that such nonsensical rejection of empirical real world measurements of the DWLR and OLW at TOA make the ‘skeptical’ side look stupid.
“And the Pinatubo cooling effect was caused primarily by reduction of insolation. The belief that it was caused by “carbon” is just that, a belief.”
No scientifically literate person believes the Pinatubo cooling was caused by carbon.
Neither, if you wish to be accurate, was it PRIMARILY caused by a reduction in insolation. Solar output was unchanged by the eruption, it was the atmospheric albedo to the spectra of sunlight which was the PRIMARY cause because it was changed by the SOX into the stratosphere.
That, as a secondary effect, changed the insolation at the surface.
The point is that it is one short-term, but measurable, example of a change in the energy arriving, retained and lost from the different levels of the atmosphere. The temperature change that caused can be used to estimate the sensitivity of the climate.
Perhaps you have alternative examples of a change in the energy flux into and out-of the Earth which indicates climate sensitivity from the resultant temperature change?
Tim Minchin says:
October 7, 2011 at 6:26 pm
We need a homeless person with no assets to make a public defamation (altrhough of course it would be actually true) of Mann and have him sue that homeless person. Using discovery and pro bono legal we’d rip him a new digestive excretion system.
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Tim – how about Al Gore?
@Tim.
Sorry Tim. I thought you said “hopeless” and not “homeless”.
@- Smokey says: October 8, 2011 at 9:05 am
“If CO2 had more than a minuscule effect on temperature, then temperature would closely follow changes in CO2. But it doesn’t-[link]- [note this chart goes back to 1895, eliminating Izen’s quibble]. This bar chart-[link]- shows clearly that CO2 has a negligible effect, therefore the sensitivity number must be quite low. ”
The first graph does go back to 1895, and seems to show a specific CO2 level long before it was directly measured starting in the 1950s. Presumably that reconstruction of past CO2 levels is based on sound proxy evidence…
But rather more limiting is that the temperature graph is of a very limited geographical region of less than 3% of the global surface.
Between the minimum temperature of 1910 and the highs of the mid-1940s there was a measurable increase in solar output to which is attributed a proportion of the temperature change globally during this time. This solar effect does depend on a certain value for the climate sensitivity of course…
The second bar chart claims that while temperatures increased by 0.37 degC from 1881-1944 the increase during the next 64 years, 1945-2008 was only 0.27degC.
HADCRUTv3 and GISSTEMP both give an increase of well over 0.45degC for the 1945-2008 period.
The warming seen from ~1900 to the known rapid rise in CO2 measured in the 50s does require an explanation. Usually the increased solar output and the reduction in major volcanic events are invoked. But this requires that climate sensitivity is somewhere around the middle of current estimates. If the natural variation in the past was LARGER than we think without the influence of CO2 then the climate sensitivity must be larger than we think.
[snip – this has nothing to do with Dr. Martin Hertzberg. Your threadjacking days are over. If the comemnt you give is not on-topic then snip snip snip – getting tired of moderating this stream of threadjacks from you – Anthony]
Izen,
My mistake; I posted a link to John Daly’s site and assumed that you were calling him a crank, since you didn’t attach any particular name to the label ‘crank.’
I generally admit mistakes when I make them. You say: “The warming seen from ~1900 to the known rapid rise in CO2 measured in the 50s does require an explanation.” The following explanation is not a mistake:
First, you do not know that the warming from ≈1900 was caused by the rise in CO2. You are making an assumption. Probably a small part the warming was caused by CO2, but most was, and is, natural. The rate of warming is consistent with warming since the LIA. There is no unusual acceleration, which would surely be the case following a ≈40% CO2 rise – if CO2 had the large sensitivity number claimed. Therefore, the sensitivity to CO2 must be low. My own estimate, posted here many times, is ≈1°C warming for 2xCO2, ±0.5°C. In other words, inconsequential, and on balance a net benefit to the biosphere.
The charts concocted by Michael Mann, USHCN, HADCRU, GISS, and just about everyone flogging the CAGW horse have a major [and deliberate] flaw that makes normal temperatures look scary: they use an arbitrary temperature or zero line, instead of using a trend line.
Here is an example of the temperature trend from the LIA. This WFT trend line shows the temperature trend from the early 1800’s. Another view. [More on request.]
By deceptively using an arbitrary temperature or zero axis, the charts are deliberately employing propaganda.
Looking at the long term trend, it is obvious that nothing unusual is happening, and that CO2 has had little effect. The planet is simply warming naturally from the depths of the LIA. And the warming has been unusually mild.
• • •
Richard Telford, thank you for your opinion, which any number of links will never change, because your mind is closed to any other possibilities. For you, “the science is settled.”
Shrug. I was replying to the points Izen made.
http://gay-jenkins.suite101.com/english-wines–a-brief-history-of-wine-making-in-england-a289054
Hmmmm !! so it was warm enough, then not warm enough. then again, warm enough, but then, not warm enough.. what are these folks smokin.. don’t they know the climate was flat lining at this time???
regards