Oh how quickly they forget. Last month, scientist David Karoly was thanking Steve McIntyre for spotting the error that led to the retraction of the Gergis et al paper:
“We would like to thank you and the participants at the ClimateAudit blog for your scrutiny of our study, which also identified this data processing issue.
Thanks, David Karoly”
Source: http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/08/gergis-et-al-put-on-hold/
This month, Karoly is writing a pal book review for Michael Mann’s Climate Wars, and its like that never happened: (bold mine)
Commentators with no scientific expertise, ranging from politicians such as Republican congressman Joe Barton from Texas, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, or Republican Senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma, to blog writers Stephen McIntyre and Marc Morano, have repeatedly promulgated misinformation and sought to launch formal investigations into Mann’s research, claiming professional misconduct or worse, even though it had been peer reviewed and confirmed by other scientists.
McIntyre has no scientific expertise? Well he had enough expertise to find what peer reviewers missed, and with that knowledge, knocked your paper out of the running, and back to square one. If that isn’t expertise I don’t know what is.
McIntyre notices over at CA that Karoly has a peculiar personal message in a public appearance, and writes in comments: Posted Jul 10, 2012 at 9:58 PM | Permalink
Here is a picture of Karoly at the opening of the Hepburn Community Wind Farm in Victoria, Australia on November 5, 2011. The slogan on his shirt was the slogan of the radical group, the Weather Underground, in the late 1960s when I was at university. Their manifesto is here. Lots of stuff about pigs and imperialists.
McIntyre adds:
Posted Jul 10, 2012 at 10:22 PM | Permalink
Maybe it’s age-specific. For someone who grew up in the period, the phrase and the radical movement were inseparably linked. Wikipedia has an interesting article on the faction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground.
I still have my vinyl Dylan album with Subterranean Homesick Blues on it.
My counter corollary would be: “you don’t need a climatologist to tell you which way the grants flow”.
Karoly is known in Australia as an impetuous twerp with grandiose notions about himself.
His letter of thanks to McIntyre was a major surprise; now he seems to have thought better about trying to be pleasant — it doesn’t suit his personality, for one thing.
….you don’t need a psychologist to tell you who exhibits Cognitive dissonance
I bet he was glad to be opening a wind farm, I don’t know about the answer blowing in the wind -the brown smelly stuff certainly is with their ‘data processing issues’, ‘lost data issues’, ‘peer review issues’, ‘freedom of information issues’, ’email issues’, ‘science is settled issues’, ………
Seriously, Karoly is an arrogant fool. Ignore his “work”, file in the bin.
Is there some reason why Steve McIntyre can’t both spot errors and promulgate misinformation?
REPLY: Is there some reason why Karoly thanks a person for their scientific expertise, then claims they have none? – Anthony
Anyone who criticizes the “climate change” brigade can’t be considered a valid critic because he must be a non-scientist? Must be only one true science and only a select few who can determine who is a true scientist.
I’m not sure someone showing up at a Wind Farm event with the Dylan quote on his tee shirt equates with the Weathermen.
You don’t need to be a scientist to know that if your primary feed stock for a pet model is a pile of composted vegetable matter, household waste and industrial refuse your output may fall somewhat short of pearl quality.
Or, more simply – GIGO
The rear of the t-shirt reads,
‘Not to be trusted under any circumstances’
Karoly is in deep and his mates are currently bombarding the ABC viewing public with the reef is doomed. ABC cub reporter, potato head Conor Duffy has doom and gloom on full spin cycle. 2800 of the worlds most perfect experts Yah da yah da!
This man is an activist pure and simple. Unfortunately he was also a reviewer for the “attribution” chapter of the AR4.
Along with Tim Flannery, he’d be my first choice for a good old fashioned Tar n Feathering.
Aguably, the greatest service that WUWT provides is ‘scrutiny’.
Once upon a time the Warmists could get away with the most monstrous ‘inconsistencies’, you know the kind of thing, altered figures, doctored graphs and graphics, disappearing and hastily re-written web pages and press releases, ridiculous claims etc etc.
Now they know that they are being carefully monitored and that anything they say can and will be noted down and used at some future point against them. That’s why they detest WUWT so much.
Oscar Wilde once said ‘consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative’.
For the last 20 years the Warmist Scientists have allowed their collective imagination to run riot.
Time for a little consistency, which should be ‘the first objective of Science’.
David Karoly is in Australia. Back when I were a lad, I had a uni lecturer who was also a Karoly. He was as mad as a box full of bats.
I wonder if David is any relation?
The other side of the story with a mention of the Hepburn Wind farm
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/03/wind-energy-policy
wasn’t that the group that the unrepentant domestic terrorist david ayers was involved in? weren’t they the ones who blew up the madison wi university research building that killed some poor physics grad student back in the late 60s or early 70s?
The hypocrisy is staggering but not unsurprising.
I defer once again to the maxim that one needs no qualifications or experience whatsoever to be able to point out to someone else that they are wrong, nor will any amount of money, no matter where it comes from, change whether or not they are wrong.
Karoly is engaging in argumentum ad hominem and is an embarrassment to Australia.
It would appear that David Karoly is under the impression that the font of all human knowledge and advancement is somehow contained within a grouping called “The Scientists”. If he cared to look back through history he would find that “scientists” have had remarkably little input to our lives and are largely irrelevant.
For example, the Earth changing discoveries and inventions have mostly been made by engineers. The Aeroplane by the Wright brothers. Motor vehicles by Benz. Lenoir, Brayton etc. The maritime time piece that enabled longitudinal navigation by Harrison, Steam trains and pumps by Watt and Trevithick, Steel steam ships by Brunel are all amongst the major advances of the last few centuries. Marconi, and radio. Not a Phd to be seen anywhere. What have “scientists” given us?… The atomic bomb; penicillin by a complete accident in the lab and not much else. Merely a few refinements to lay inventors ideas.
I would suggest by the historical record that other than the ability to pontificate about pointless “discoveries” like the Higgs boson, scientists are pretty much an expensive waste of space. I will trust my heritage and my grand children’s future to the engineers and leave our erstwhile scientists such as Karoly, Mann, Gherghis khan and Hansen to argue about irrelevancies amongst themselves.
“McIntyre has no scientific expertise? Well he had enough expertise to find what peer reviewers missed”
Except it wasn’t McIntyre that found it …
REPLY: So is the claim, but unsupported by anything but “we did it first” from “the team”. Most likely a face saving ploy. – Anthony
Every grant writer, every grant provider, government, university, scientist, or everyday skeptic involved in climate research and funding needs to read the executive summary of the Fukishima Nuclear accident in Japan. The key finding was that the collusion between government, regulating agencies, and industry, where money was flowing profusely, ultimately failed the people of Japan. It is the same with climate research in my opinion.
http://www.slideshare.net/jikocho/naiic-report-hires
The insiders should read it to know that we are justified in our skeptical stance. And the skeptics should read it to know that what we are doing is right and for the better good.
The damage that collusion in climate research and governance can do must have a balancing force for the greater good of all.
this evening Aunty ABC ran a spot on the supposedly Big increase in warming happening really high temps ocean wise round aus , brief kudos to la nina for rain, but Insistence on carbons seriously and faster than forecast effects on warming.
who?
some BoM chap who really should remain nameless and preferably Jobless as well.
karoly has a competitor for Stupid along with flim flannery as well.
1st 2nd and 3rd..pick one, they all qualify.
facepalm indeed!
He looks to me like a person who Gergises up all the time. Steve McIntyre and the others probably feel that they have been savaged by a dead sheep 🙂 Sorry for the borrowed quote.
Foucault has a lot to answer for, but then most of these ego bloated fools seem to be middle class wannabees, folk who work for a living are far more pragmatic.
“Baa Humbug says:
July 11, 2012 at 4:33 am”
A waste of tar and feathers IMO. I suggest [SNIP: No. Let’s just not go there. -REP] Might perk them up to reality a bit!
David has just proven to the world he is a small, petty little man, full of himself and enjoying the fetid delusions of his very limited mind.
A perfect pal and an excellent supporter for Mikey Mann and the Team
hmmm…has anyone read the publications if Tim Barnett in the late 1990s? I have been reading him in relation to Madrid 1995. He is a lead author of Ch 8 in FAR and SAR, which were both dismissive of paleo data for establish a yardstick of climate variability upon which to compare recent (human?) warming. There is also an article eventually published in Holocene in 1996 (with Santer as one of the authors) that was pretty much the basis for the scepticism of SAR chapter 8 before Santer made the final changes after Madrid.
Anyway, a whole bunch of mostly IPCC affiliated detection and attribution experts lead by Barnett (including Santer) published a Status report in 1999:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/barnett9901.pdf
It contained a graph comparing 3 paleo graphs published in 1998 by Jones et al, Briffa, and Mann et al with a scathing commentrary:
The graph is reproduced here:
http://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/madrid-1995-and-the-quest-for-the-mirror-in-the-sky-part-ii/1999_barrnett_status_report_3proxyrecon_northhemionly-2/
A few editions of Holocene later and three of the paleo folks (including Mann) publish a very reactionary reply.
Considering what was happening in the science at the time just makes you aware how willfully ignorant or down right deceitful are such public statements as this by Karoly. What makes it worse here is that Karoly was right there in the midst of all this research. It is hard to imagine that he was not aware that there were serious problems with Mann’s work, and that it could hardly be considered any more groundbreaking that Jones or Briffa’s rather less alarming findings.
John,
It was Jean S and Steve McIntyre that found it. Go to Climate Audit and read the threads on Gergis and see the timelines.
Karoly lied, as usual.
And Karoly has a track record of stating blatant falsehoods. Go read his review about Mann’s book and see what kind of a person he is.
So much for GoreBullWarming:
Hope you all saw this article published in Nature by scientists of the university of Giessen/ Germany, three days ago:
” … and substantial SUMMER COOLING OVER THE PAST TWO MILLENNIA in northern boreal and Arctic latitudes.
These findings, together with the missing orbital signature in published dendrochronological records, suggest that large-scale near-surface air-temperature reconstructions relying on tree-ring data MAY UNDERESTIMATE PRE-INSTRUMENTAL TEMPERATURES INCLUDING WARMTH DURING MEDIEVAL AND ROMAN TIMES. …”
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1589.html
[REPLY: That was discussed at WUWT on July 9th here. You should also realize that this comment, as written, is rather off-topic for this thread. -REP]
… and sought to launch formal investigations into Mann’s research, claiming professional misconduct or worse, even though it had been peer reviewed and confirmed by other scientists.
========
It appears Karoly is suggesting that no investigation is required because misconduct has already been confirmed by other scientists via peer review.
John says:
July 11, 2012 at 5:17 am
“McIntyre has no scientific expertise? Well he had enough expertise to find what peer reviewers missed”
Except it wasn’t McIntyre that found it …
If McIntyre did not find the error then why thank him and Climate Audit for something they did not do?
Old Marxists never die, they just go on and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on…..
John said:
“McIntyre has no scientific expertise? Well he had enough expertise to find what peer reviewers missed”
Except it wasn’t McIntyre that found it …
Anthony replied
So is the claim, but unsupported by anything but “we did it first” from “the team”. Most likely a face saving ploy.
I think that it was a CA reader, Jean S, who first discovered the error in Gergis et. al.
See http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/06/gergis-significance/
(Not that I am suggesting that Steve McIntyre is lacking in expertise — quite the opposite)
If these “climate scientists” are playing loose with the facts in order to get other people’s money, then their peer review may be by a jury of twelve at the courthouse.
IIRC，Karoly is the Magiar or Hungarian counterpart of Charles in English- and French-speaking countries, and of Karl in German-speaking countries.
Commentators with no scientific expertise, ranging from … have repeatedly promulgated misinformation
===========
As the recent retraction of Gergis et al shows, it is climate science itself that has “promulgated misinformation”. And none of the climate science experts caught the error. For all their supposed expertise.
What has become abundantly clear is that climate science is built on a foundation of faulty mathematics and faulty experimental design, leading to “selection bias”. This has been kept hidden the public by an almost universal failure of climate science to archive their data and methods for independent replication.
As the climategate emails have shown, climate scientists has not done this accidentally. They have gone out of their way to prevent release of their data and methods to the public for independent replication. Instead, they have resorted to old fashioned mudslinging. This is basic debating fundamentals. When your evidence is weak, attack the person.
In this respect climate science is a pseudo science. “Selection bias” is the hallmark of pseudo science. “Hide the decline” establishes that climate science is not a science. Suppression of evidence is the tool of pseudo science.
Mathematics on the other hand, which is Steve McIntyre area of expertise is a science.
BernieL
Thanks for that link to Barnett et al (1999). One thing that is fascinating is to see a real statement about problems with proxy records, difficulties of reconstructions, and uncertainties in the field just as Mann was about to become the rock star of the IPCC world.
Karoly’s hagiography completely passes over the ways in which Mann obliterated legitimate doubts and uncertainties with his aggressive politicized agenda. From what I can see paleoclimatologists would be better off going back to the state of the field in the 1990s and thinking about whether Mann (or Gergis, Karoly et al) have really improved understanding or not:
Barnett et al (1999) on state of the research
[emphasis added]
[Barnett et al (July 1999)]: “Recent compilations of paleoclimatic data have offered the first opportunity to analyze this type of data on a global scale. Straightforward comparisons via cross-spectral analysis of the recent paleodata with the instrumental record show that most of the paleodata are not simple proxies of temperature (Barnett et al. 1996; Jones 1998; Jones et al. 1998; see Table 1). Indeed, only a few of the tree-ring records from mid to high-latitude sites can be interpreted directly as temperature changes. Attempts by Jones et al. (1998) to use these “good” records to construct a record of Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature over the last five centuries are shown in Fig. 2. Also shown is a different reconstruction created using a full compilation of proxy data (Mann et al. 1998). The disparity between these reconstructions at some times over the last 400 years is as large as the observed changes in global temperature over the last 100 years. Some of the differences are due to different compilations of proxy data and also differences in the seasons reconstructed, but most of the disparity simply represents uncertainties in our knowledge of past changes in NH average temperature.”
It is obvious that “they” will never admit to the errors in the Mann hockey stick, as they may grudgingly admit to errors in some non iconic papers. The hockey stick is after all, the linchpin in their pseudo science, something to be defended with fanatical will. The fact that Mann’s mates looked at the paper and “saw that it was good”, is canonical enough.
As for Karoly – well, some people just never grow up.
“…scientist David Karoly…”
I beg to differ. Degrees are irrelevant. By definition, “scientists” follow the scientific method, and allow their results to be verified. If you don’t follow these simple rules, you don’t qualify for the title.
My profession is HR and recruiting, and I can tell you without reservation that very often it’s people who supposedly lack expertise in certain positions who perform the best in those positions. There’s a big difference between having a degree in this or that particular field, and having the raw skill set to actually work successfully in that field. Accountants become Construction Estimators, people with no education in Engineering are often the best at product distribution and document control. I’ve seen people go out of their to try and stuff themselves up their own rear ends in their attempts to glorify and over think what they do. Bottom line is, you don’t need to be an officially recognized master carpenter to spot a poorly executed dovetail joint, and to do it better. If there’s anything the ‘climate science’ community needs it’s a healthy dose of humility and strong whiff of their own feces to remind them that, yes, it too stinks. Of course it’s understandable that they could miss and forget that fact, surrounded as they are with the stench of what passes for their ‘research’.
You know, I find this all very funny. Okay, so bloggers don’t have any scientific expertise. What does that say towards the scientists who get their a$$ handed to them every time they spew their jibberish? SteveMac has more hides on his wall than Bill Cody. But, the blogosphere in general has beat the “science” fiction writers at every turn. Just yesterday we all shared a laugh at Dr. Masters’ expense. But we could easily dig up any number of the many who has been slapped silly by the realities of our observations. Remember the 30 min destruction of Dessler’s response to Spencer? Well…. there’s too many to mention, but, the point is, everyone knows and can see how these supposed super smart sciency guys are laughable clowns flailing away and doing all they can to get marginalize and quiet the skeptics. And, it just feeds the fire.
No scientific expertise? That’s fine, then Karoly wouldn’t have any trouble in an open debate with any number of people here and elsewhere….. right? LOL….
“I’m not sure someone showing up at a Wind Farm event with the Dylan quote on his tee shirt equates with the Weathermen”.
The t-shirt is an issue. “Clothes make the man” and if you see a person wearing a t-shirt like that one or a Che Guevara t-shirt, you can pretty much guess what is in their heads and what will be coming out of their mouths.
Alot of King Richard the seconds in the climate world.
Anthony replied
I think that it was a CA reader, Jean S, who first discovered the error in Gergis et. al.
=====
It appears the specific error in Gergis et. al., that the data had not been detrended, was made first made public by Jean S.
However, the wider error, that tree ring “calibration” is a form of “selection fallacy” or “selection bias”, that results in “hockey sticks”, that discovery largely rests on the careful work of Steve McIntyre over a long period of time.
The detrending error in Gergis et. al., is almost certainly a result of trying to overcome the “calibration” problems. Thus it could be said that Steve McIntyre’s earlier work formed the basis for the detrending error in Gergis et. al.
What is more significant about this incident is that it points to the failure of peer review. This paper had been reviewed and passed by scientific experts. RC and their team of climate scientists for all their expertise did not find the flaw.
Thus, the Gergis et. al incident directly contradicts the arguments made by Karoly. The error in Gergis et. al was not found by the experts. it was found by the public. Proving yet again, beware the opinion of experts.
“even though it had been peer reviewed and confirmed by other scientists.”
He also left out that part where people with scientific credentials identified significant flaws.
Given that Stephen McIntyre provides his data and code you would think a cheap ad hom from Karoly would be unnecessary – he could easily have provided real examples of Stephen’s errors. Assuming he could find any. That shoe, so far, has been on the other foot.
Perhaps Karoly should be asked if he wrote certain portions of his book review several months ago and that he should check if all names are still accurate. And if not, it should be questioned whether his whole review is wrong.
cba says:
July 11, 2012 at 4:59 am
wasn’t that the group that the unrepentant domestic terrorist david ayers was involved in? weren’t they the ones who blew up the madison wi university research building that killed some poor physics grad student back in the late 60s or early 70s?
The same.
Ayers produced the agitprop and left the bomb-making to people who *thought* they knew how to make bombs — which is the reason he’s one of only a very few Weathermen still alive…
One question: Is CAGW theory falsifiable? If so, how? That is the ultimate test for whether science is being practiced..
And scientists are not always logical. I recall an incident when one of our R&D vp’s brought me an evaluation of a proposed research project, submitted by an “outside source”. The memo was crisp, well reasoned, and strong in its conclusion: the proposal will not work.
But the PHD added as a course of action: Hire the guy for a further investigation of the process.
The VP and I had a good laugh over this one.
Not to defend his comments, but in fact Karoly appears to be describing two separate groups of people: “Commentators with no scientific expertise”, and “blog writers”.
The phrase is set up as “Group A: Examples ‘TO’ Group B: Examples”.
Since Steve McIntyre is in the second group, there does not, to me, appear to be any implication that he is considered to be without scientific expertise.
Only an expert is likely to propose a hypothesis that stands up to all attempts to reject it.
No one needs to be an expert to show a hypothesis must be rejected; they just need to be right that one time.
SCheesman
No I don’t think that claim works even in terms of that one sentence, and certainly not in terms of th review as a whole (wrt the the supposed “Serengeti strategy” Karoly and Mann have to be including Steve McIntyre in the reference since he is by far the most prominent and significant critic of Mann’s work). In terms of that specific sentence you refer to, the structure is this:
“Commentators with no scientific expertise, ranging from politicians … [x, y, z] ….. to blog writers Stephen McIntyre ….”,/b>
I think the “blog writers” are clearly included in the whole sentence contruction of “commentators with no scientific expertise” ….. unfortunately for Karoly, it’s just a low and embarrassing smear against Steve McIntyre, who’s blog (h/t Jean S. as well as Steve) just recently exposed an elementary flaw in Karoly’s paper (Gergis et al 2012). I wonder if this book review had already been submitted before the problems with the Gergis paper emerged, bc it is particularly brazen and shameless of Karoly if he submitted such a review after his email to Steve McIntyre and the current re-working of the paper. In any case, Karoly is the only one who looks bad from such vile and baseless smears….
Interesting, Steve McIntyre just affirmed on CA what seemed evident to me, that he first focused upon Mann’s work because it was considered exemplary in the field and was being promoted by the IPCC etc. as definitive, not because it was obviously weak ala Mann’s “Serengeti strategy”. The whole “Serengeti strategy” meme promoted by Karoly on behalf of Mann is merely foolish propaganda. No one in 2001 would have said “oh Mann is the most vulnerable in the field let’s cut him off from the herd and attack”….. Mann was embraced in the heart of the IPCC process, in ways utterly extraordinary for a scientist so new to the field, and then his work was further scrutinized. But that was the opposite of a “Serengeti strategy”…. it was more like “what is considered definitive evidence in this field and what does it say?”
Steve McIntyre comment on why he first looked at Michael Mann’s work
Hiding the decline was most certainly professional misconduct.
It’s funny that he’s implying that formal investigations should be disallowed if something has been peer reviewed. The judge in the UVA case seemed to disagree when he asked why the public should be forced to trust the peer review process.
Can anyone clarify please? The official status of the Gergis paper is: “Print publication of scientific study put on hold”. I have not seen any evidence that this has changed.
If this is the case, this is far from the official classification of RETRACTED and it should be referred to as ‘publication put on hold’ and not as the stronger ‘retracted’.
I don’t believe *any* climate papers, except Wegman, have been officially retracted by the publishing journal.
SCheesman says:
July 11, 2012 at 9:03 am
Not to defend his comments, but in fact Karoly appears to be describing two separate groups of people: “Commentators with no scientific expertise”, and “blog writers”.
Sorry, but the subject was clearly “Commentators with no scientific expertise” and the expansion was “ranging from politicians…to blog writers.”
Interesting that someone he claims has no scientific expertise caught an error that *he* made, and that people supposedly having scientific expertise missed it through the entire process of peer-review and publication.
Somebody should clue Karoly in — when your ox gets gored, it’s not a good idea to claim the other guy’s ox was really a lamb.
The Weather Underground’s operatives were responsible for robbing an armoured van and killing and wounding the guards….. Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers where also Weather Underground members, they also happen to be linked to Barack Obama in Chicago….. Socialism. Keeps trying to modernize the same bad idea… They call themselves “Progressives” now.
Progressive Socialism…. There’s an oxymoron if there ever was one. But you gotta hand it to them…. They end up spending all our money on themselves while dictating the terms of societies direction…. They own science now. We may be right. But they own it… and they’re laughin’.
Makes you sick… and that makes them laugh even harder.
Karoly is just making an appeal to authority. True Scientists do research that is publicly funded, whose grants are approved by other True Scientists, whose papers are approved by other True Scientists, all of whom are faithful and uncorruptible searchers for Truth.
That Karoly has to make that kind of bogus argument, shows that Steve Mac and his gaggle of amateurs and never-was’es have penetrated the illusion and threaten the prize: the public trough at which all True Scientists feed.
These guys think we’re too dumb to track what they’ve said or written previously. Also, you’re not supposed to know what Karoly wrote for a book review in Australia.
They have no accountability or sense of integrity. They’ll say one thing to one audience and something completely different to another audience and you’re not supposed to think about it, just accept what they say at face value when they say it.
You don’t need a proctologist to know who’s full of sh**
“REPLY: So is the claim, but unsupported by anything but “we did it first” from “the team”. Most likely a face saving ploy. – Anthony”
I meant it was a commentor called Jean S on his blog that first pointed it out not McIntyre.
[SNIP: You’ve been warned about this. -REP]
Thanks I hoped you’d pick up this one. Though Steve McIntyre did qualify “lots of stuff about pigs and imperialists” lower down, to give Karoly the benefit of the doubt re current beliefs.
Anthony, I’d love to see an article on the Amazon page for Mann’s “Climate Wars” book. I think it needs WUWT support. Currently the reviews stand:
***** 106 reviews
**** 10
*** 1
** 4
* 33
The lopsidedness shows up strongest in the support of reviews. The three reviews visible are all five-star, having scored 74 “helpfuls” out of 79 total, 451 out of 545, and 27 out of 29.
Only 29! Yet the one-star reviews come up as 91 out of 229, 68 out of 188 (Brandon Shollenberger), 41 out of 119, 186 out of 577, etc. If about 400 of us give the one-star reviews enough support, we can overcome the front-line bias.
You don’t need to have bought this particular book at Amazon to qualify for voting – any Amazon book purchase will do.
ferdberple says:
July 11, 2012 at 7:41 am
… This paper had been reviewed and passed by scientific experts. RC and their team of climate scientists for all their expertise did not find the flaw. …
Why would the peer reviewers of Gergis et al want to find a flaw?
They likely wanted the paper for use in the ‘narrative’ of AR5.
Karoly a scientist?? Yeah sure, there have been/are/ other ‘scientists’ of kind and same, i.e. Lysenko, Mengele, Pol Pot, Marx/Engels, O. Palme [kind of], Ahrrhenius, Myrdal, Brundtland [kind of], E. Kjällén, Rummukainen, J. Rockström, P. Holmgren, S. Axelsson, L. Gustavsson, M. Mann, G. Schmidt, J. Hansen, M. Karlsson, Azar, doing/acting/pursuing their ‘agendas’ at all might & wills – sance; they’re all out of funding(s) – all of’em & thus they’ll just die/dimiss/no radar-echo ….
Common sense is not that common any more… Isn’t that just so 100% beautiful?
Brgds from Sweden
/TJ
Shevva says:
July 11, 2012 at 7:34 am
Alot of King Richard the seconds in the climate world.
——————————————–
And a number of Richard the Thirds, some might say….
Here’s the context of the “Serengeti strategy”, it’s paragraph three in Mann’s Prologue which starts:
Offensive material highlighted in para 1. But I think Mann’s “Serengeti strategy” analogy works more or less, Mann was the Team’s vulnerable child who would lead them all to greener $$$$$$$$ pastures, so they circled him.
Jonas Salk once said “First they tell you you are wrong. Then, once they see you are not wrong, they say instead that what you’re doing is not very important. Finally, when they realize you are right, and what you do is important, they say ‘We knew it all along.’ ”
Hear, hear.
The message has gone out and Karoly has fallen back into line , and the ‘science ‘ is once again settled .
My father used to say you should always keep a few Marxists in your circle of friends, and that you should also listen to them carefully. When they begin to make sense, and other friends begin to agree with them, you will know things are in deep trouble, and that you should be contacting relatives in other countries.
tokyoboy says:
July 11, 2012 at 6:43 am
IIRC，Karoly is the Magiar or Hungarian counterpart of Charles in English- and French-speaking countries, and of Karl in German-speaking countries.
Does this qualify him as a “Charlie” then (as in English idiom)
My guess is that Karoly wrote the review first, and thanked McIntyre second. His review of Mann is a terrible piece of work anyway, an account of what a great guy Mann is. Nothing about the book itself. I have a letter to the editor coming out in the September issue suggesting that the ABR find someone more self to review such a book.
I hate this software! — ‘find someone more useful’!!
The models don’t work, an’ the vandals all wear sandals.
Sorry, I’ve just got in from the pub – that’s my excuse. But I’m sure some bright spark could re-write the entire lyric to Subterranean
HomesickSceptic Blues!Stop for a moment and say “thank you” for the web without which WUWT / Jo Nova et al would not have a forum with which to expose the “flat earth” claims of the Manns and Karolys of this world. Laughable that McIntyre should be criticised because he is not of a particular scientific discipline. Who gives a sh*t who finds the cure to cancer or finds a fatal flaw in a thesis? Supreme arrogance to think valid comments can only come from someone from the same field. Our universities are failing to teach 101 science and the principle that full publication allied to actively seeking criticism is THE basis of true science.
Well Karoly certainly has form for dishonesty. His critique of Bob Carter’s book “Climate: The Counter Consensus” was nothing short of disgraceful and to my mind his misrepresentation of his colleague’s book should come under academic misconduct.
This for example –
“Lets fall through a rabbit hole and enter a different world: the “Carter reality”. In that world, it is OK to select any evidence that supports your ideas and ignore all other evidence….
In the Carter reality, “there has been no net warming between 1958 and 2005.“ Of course, in the real world, there is no basis for this statement from scientific analysis of observational data. The decade of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s, which was warmer than the 1980s, which was warmer than the 1970s, which was warmer than the 1960s.
So where does Carter’s statement come from? In the Carter reality, he finds a hot year early in the period and a cold year much later, and says there’s been no warming. This would be like saying that winter is not colder than summer because a very hot day in winter might happen to have much the same temperature as a very cold day in summer, ignoring all the other days.”
http://theconversation.edu.au/bob-carters-climate-counter-consensus-is-an-alternate-reality-1553
This sort of thing is lapped up by non-critical AGW supporters, who pay undeserved homage to ‘voices from authority’ but it takes us sceptics to pursue the actual reality –
The term “no net warming between 1958 and 2005” comes from a Weather Balloon graph on p.61 of Carter’s book entitled “Lower atmosphere mean global temperature radiosonde record HadAT2 (from Thorne et al., 2005)
.
The caption reads –
“Fig. 11a Estimated lower atmosphere global temperature records since 1958, based on measurements from weather balloon. Note the presence of (i) cooling from 1958 to 1977; (ii) warming, mostly as a step in 1977, from 1977-2005; and (iii) no net warming between 1958 and 2005. Over the same time period there has been an 18% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Black dots denote times at which the temperature falls upon the zero anomaly line, ie. no net change has occurred between them.”
And Carter makes it quite clear in the text that the temperature records from weather balloons “whilst highly accurate, are available only since 1958”
P. 59 Climate the Counter Consensus by Bob Carter.
Yet Karoly claims “there is no basis for this statement from scientific analysis of observational data” !!!
and tries to pass it off as
“In the Carter reality, he finds a hot year early in the period and a cold year much later, and says there’s been no warming. This would be like saying that winter is not colder than summer because a very hot day in winter might happen to have much the same temperature as a very cold day in summer, ignoring all the other days”
And who exactly is Karoly – well Donna Laframboise tell us on her excellent site –
He’s an IPCC Insider –
“The IPCC Insiders Club
… certain names pop up again and again in IPCC reports. If shadowy interests were trying to “control the message” in these documents, entrusting key tasks to a small group of people might be an effective strategy… Australian meteorologist David Karoly filled six separate IPCC roles. He served as a lead author and as a review editor. Along with Rosenzweig he was a lead author of a Technical Summary, a drafting author of a Summary for Policymakers, a member of the core writing team for the Synthesis Report, and was also an expert reviewer.”
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/03/25/the-ipcc-insiders-club/
So what exactly does that tell you about the standard of IPCC Reports !
”
Bill Tuttle says:
July 11, 2012 at 8:32 am
cba says:
July 11, 2012 at 4:59 am
wasn’t that the group that the unrepentant domestic terrorist david ayers was involved in? weren’t they the ones who blew up the madison wi university research building that killed some poor physics grad student back in the late 60s or early 70s?
The same.
Ayers produced the agitprop and left the bomb-making to people who *thought* they knew how to make bombs — which is the reason he’s one of only a very few Weathermen still alive…
”
Didn’t ayers lose his girlfriend to an incompetent bomb making effort?
My knowledge of this stuff has faded somewhat. I was half a continent away but it just so happens that the newest physics professor was a new phd from WI who happened to be a good friend of the grad student that was murdered by these terrorist thugs.
“J.Hansford says:
July 11, 2012 at 10:30 am
The Weather Underground’s operatives were responsible for robbing an armoured van and killing and wounding the guards….. Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers where also Weather Underground members, they also happen to be linked to Barack Obama in Chicago….. Socialism. Keeps trying to modernize the same bad idea… They call themselves “Progressives” now.
Progressive Socialism…. There’s an oxymoron if there ever was one. But you gotta hand it to them…. They end up spending all our money on themselves while dictating the terms of societies direction…. They own science now. We may be right. But they own it… and they’re laughin’.
Makes you sick… and that makes them laugh even harder.
”
It’s amazing how ayn rand understood these guys and described their modus operandi in her novel the fountainhead. About the only way to describe them is as statists. they’re simply part of the problem that consists of a larger whole who have called themselves progressives throughout the 20th century. These include the socialists – both internalists (communists) and nationalists (nazis), the eugenics crowd from the early 1900s, the usual rot of malthusians and perhaps a bit more.
As for them calling themselves progressives, it sounds much better than admitting they are regressives seeking a feudalistic good old days that never existed and evidently are so full of themselves and their religious faith (godless) that they seem to border on mental retardation in some ways.
You are correct. Steve was criticizing the Gergis paper for it’s selective inclusion of only some proxy datasets (a valid criticism) and for Gergis’ cavalier refusal to share the data that she used, and the data she rejected. Also her imperious “I will entertain no further communications with you” attitude.
In that thread, Jean S. actually noted the mathematical discrepancy between the claim of how their (limited-inclusion) data was processed and the result of that processing, which showed clearly that they had not followed their own published statistical procedures.
It’s my belief that Steve’s criticism alone would NOT have caused Gergis, Karoly (et.al) to withdraw the paper, as they were not embarrassed to have cherry picked their datasets when they had a sophistical and statisical explanation for so doing.
The team smear from Karoly is the signature of scientific defeat, having nothing to add of scientific content, and after all Steve had the gaul to ask gergis and her fellow travellers for the data and her smart retort boomeranged back on her. Of course Karoly was not shown as the lead author, but was gergis simply in that position to avoid suggestions he would be pushing his own paper inside the IPCC……….they really do themselves a disservice by attempting the big smear. Of course time is running out and they are getting anxious poor things.
Regarding “which way the wind blows,” have the prevailing winds as averaged decadally actually changed anywhere in the world between any recent decades? –AGF
Baa Humbug says: July 11, 2012 at 4:33 am
Not to be picky, but – according to his own bio – activist Karoly was:
In principle (although conspicuously absent in practice), the role of “Review Editor” is to ensure that any concerns expressed by “reviewers” have been taken into account and properly addressed by the “author team”. Not that the “author team” is required to pay any attention to either the reviewers or the Review Editor. But I digress …
Karoly’s sycophantic “book review” of Mann’s self-serving opus (which, IMHO, should more accurately be titled, Portrait of the Artist as an Aggrieved Mann: A Novel) can only lead one to conclude that he lacks the requisite critical thinking and “assessment” skills to even begin fulfill the responsibilities of such an important role.
Nonetheless, the powers that be at the IPCC – who have never been known to let mediocrity (and/or lack of qualifications) stand in the way of declaring that an individual is an “expert” – have seen fit to designate Karoly as a Review Editor for WG II, Ch. 25 in AR5.
To coin a phrase … with Review Editors like these, who needs expertise!
Quite astounding to think that there are some who fail to understand why the IPCC’s credibility rating is rapidly approaching zero! And this descent seems to be happening, well, faster than we thought!
agfosterjr,
I looked for a historical chart of wind speeds that I had saved, but my link returned a 404. I had this, though:
http://hint.fm/wind
Wind speeds in real time [hold the cursor over a location].
Karoly is employed by a University whose once prestigious reputation is in tatters.
Failure to cut him loose, has had a significant impact on enrollments.
[Moderator’s Note: A little supporting detail would be nice. -REP]
David, UK says:
July 11, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Someone did, depends how you read them…
Perfectly palindromic.
Lucy Skywalker says:
July 11, 2012 at 11:43 am
You don’t need to have bought this particular book at Amazon to qualify for voting – any Amazon book purchase will do.
I hope you’re not advocating reviewing a book I’ve not read.
I have principles!
DaveE.
hro001 suggests “can only lead one to conclude that he lacks the requisite critical thinking and “assessment” skills to even begin fulfill the responsibilities of such an important role”. Sadly you are being too generous, scientifically minded and perhaps, alas, naive. These flat-earthers DO have the requisite skills they simply choose not to use them when their “faith” demands otherwise. Facts will never, ever change the minds of those who see themselves as latter day Messiahs. Jonestown is nothing compared to this lot!
Heh! 🙂
Just tried the link to Karoly’s article to see what comments have been made. It is no longer available. I’m getting the error “404 – Article #1063 not found”. Articles on the main page prompt you to subscribe to read them, so it is unlikely they just moved it behind the paywall.
I guess it has been “put on hold”. Sort of like Gergis et al.
ClimateAudit has collected together mathematically and statistically-inclined enthusiasts who try their hand at one of the issues of our day: the anthropogenic contribution to climate change. Credit goes to Steve McI as the leader and exemplar of this emergent team. Without Steve’s tireless years-long work and high technical and ethical standards, JeanS’s finding would never have seen the light of day.
Karoly and Gergis must know that climate science redefined “pal review” is lame and insufficient. When Steve started his examination of Gergis’s paper, I imagine there was great anxiety in Oz, and frequent refreshing to see what he and his contributors came up with. A clean review by Climate Audit is now the crucible and the touchstone. As every comment came in, I imagine Gergis and Karoly carefully and finally reviewing their own paper to see how it stood up. Peer review in real time! The moment JeanS found the fault, Steve and the CA Irregulars pounced. One can just imagine the panicked emails flying between Gergis and Karoly, and the sinking gut-check realization that the jig was up.
It may be that Gergis and Karoly found the fault just before JeanS did, but it was only because Steve McI and the CA Irregulars were doing the job that Real Climate Scientists refuse to do. JeanS’s comment in came in at 438 PM (iirc). That makes 12PM in Oz. I reckon that Gergis got to the office that morning, and found 10 warning e-mails from the Team that the He Who Must Not Be Named, the Dark Lord of Industry Shills, was on the hunt. She started trolling the comments, and suddenly alarm bells went off. “They’re assuming I did stuff based on what I wrote that I didn’t actually do, Oops oops oops.”
David, UK says:
July 11, 2012 at 3:10 pm
The models don’t work, an’ the vandals all wear sandals.
Sorry, I’ve just got in from the pub – that’s my excuse. But I’m sure some bright spark could re-write the entire lyric to Subterranean Homesick Sceptic Blues!
——————————–
Harry readme’s in the basement
Looking at the fudgement
Mann’s deleting emails
Covering up the paper trail
Temp won’t budge
Even with the fudge
Warming’s a dud
Better switch to floods
Solar flares
No one cares
Drowning Polar Bears
Really scare
Look out kid
It’s happening again
Gore wants eleven carbon credits
You only got ten
Heat waves
New craze
Don’t forget earthquakes
Wildfires, McIntyres
Pesky deniers
Temps still won’t go higher
Hide the decline, kid
So they never can find it
Tornadoes
Ice floes
You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the funding flows
Funding from the DOE
No one knows but you and me
Grow yourself a goatee
Grab yourself a Yamal tree
And let’s go proxy
Orders from the DA
Dodging all those FOIA’s
Look out kid
You better act quick
Use Mike’s Nature trick
Grab a bunch tree rings
and build yourself a hockey stick
We’ve already won
It never was the sun
The science is done
Where did all the lobsters come from
cross-posting from CA if I may, in response to Bob Koss comment:
Bob Koch, this is bizarre, it definitely looks like it’s been removed from the site, because yesterday it was on the main page for the current issues right under the first review of the book on Murdoch:
https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/
ABR JULY–AUGUST 2012, NO. 343
Now it’s gone!! It’s not just some link problem, because the Home Page shows up fine and I know that yesterday that review article by Karoly on Mann was just below the one on Rupert Murdoch. Strange things happen when Karoly, Mann, Gergis et al are around.
Also, when I search for “Karoly” on the site I get a glimpse of YOUR comment on the review, in the list of search results, but then when I click on your comment I get the ‘404’ error for the review itself.
To take a wild guess, maybe either ABR or Karoly himself is intensely embarrassed by the reaction to the review? I’ve never seen a published book review seemingly “withdrawn” like this before. Maybe Karoly did submit it before the fuss with Gergis et al (2012), maybe didn’t even think about it again, and now is intensely embarrassed?? I don’t know but this is bizarre to see the review vanish like this.
oops Bob Koss, sorry!
At this moment (9:53 pm EST) when you search on the name “Karoly” in the ABR search box at upper right of the home page…..
https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/
ABR JULY–AUGUST 2012, NO. 343
…. you get a list of 3 search results:
1) listing the contents of this current JULY-AUGUST 2012, NO. 343 issue
2) Index for 2011: Nos 328-337
and
3) “Not just another war story”
“I find it strange David Karoly includes Stephen McIntyre in a list of “Commentators with no scientific expertise …” when just one month ago he closed an email to McIntyre by saying … “We would like …”
[my emphasis]
That 3rd item is the title of the Karoly review on Mann, and the comment is the beginning of what Bob Koss wrote in his comment….. so it seems that the server is still updating, there is some info that the review and comments were there, but one cannot access the review itself (when I click on that comment I get the ‘404’ error message).
More Orwellian behavior from “The Team”?? Or did the ABR itself decide to pull the review?
btw, not to say this affected it (I’m sure they may have gotten negative feedback from people whose opinions they value a lot more than mine), but I wrote a comment to ABR which was never posted (so far as I saw, even though a comment submitted after mine got posted) which argued that Karoly was too conflicted and biased to be the sole reviewer of Mann’s book on ABR. I hoped at least to convince them to invite an alternate review for comparison — book reviews occastionally publish more than one review for controversial or important books. Again, not claiming they listened to me, but they may be considering such a step one would hope? I think it might be embarrassing for ABR to realize they had slipped in such a “pal review” without critical reflection, but then people in the CAGW cult are often pretty shameless, so who knows?
Not meaning to flood the thread (last post for now I promise) but Steve Mc just said on CA that he had submitted a complaint to Karoly and to his Dean of Research, so that probably had some wheels turning….. also, Steve posted a link to a web cache version of the Karoly review for anyone wondering what this is all about:
Web cache page of Karoly review of Mann’s book
Disco troop:
An awful lot more happened with penicillin after Fleming’s ‘complete accident in the lab’.
A team at Oxford, led by Australian scientist Howard Florey, saw the potential that Fleming didn’t, and worked for years on a shoestring to do the research to bring it to the stage where it could be used to save many thousands of lives .
Florey took penicillin spores to the US where help was available to bring it to the stage of mass production needed for use in infection from war injuries.
Australia was the first country to make it available for civilian use.
Karoly is an embarrassment to us.
Here’s another view of the Karoly t-shirt.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hepburnwind/6316852879/
cba says:
July 11, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Didn’t ayers lose his girlfriend to an incompetent bomb making effort?
Diana Oughton. She was one of the trio wrapping nails around several assembled, fuzed bombs to be used at Ft. Dix and in the Columbia Library.
I have been regularly going to the weather underground website since it was part of the University of Michigan educational site in the early 1990’s in the very early days of the web. I have noticed one big change already since the Weather channel bought them. Almost all of their advertising is now from left wing related political or advocacy sites. I wonder how long it will be before their revenue tanks.
One other thing about that site is that it got some of its big initial funding from earmarks put into place by Albert Gore when he was vice president through his allies in the Senate through either the NOAA or NASA budget.
John Brookes says | July 11, 2012 at 4:05 am
Is there some reason why Steve McIntyre can’t both spot errors and promulgate misinformation?
—————————-
You like getting your butt kicked, eh Brooksie ? As if the kicking you get at Jo’s blog isn’t enough.
you dont need to many brain cells to know its better to be hot than cold . thay all need to have electric shock treatment to get through to the numbskuls that the world is cooling
I’m just so shocked to see John Brookes get up the courage and nerve to post at WUWT. He certainly won’t do it at Climate Audit. Sniping from the sidelines is more his thing, certainly not going mano a mano with Steve McIntyre or Anthony Watts.
Good. Now go to the Amazon page and peek-read the Contents, Prologue and first chapter beginning. There is quite enough material there to deal with the book itself, to estimate whether the thumbs-down on the existing one-star reviews are fair.
This was my point, to give the one-star lots of thumbs-up where appropriate – not to write more reviews. It’s not that difficult to sass out which one-star reviews deserve support.
David Karoly believes that “commentators with no scientific expertise” should keep away from climate issues. The implication is that climate scientists are always (or nearly always) authoritative on climate issues, whereas “commentators” are always (or nearly always) wrong.
The recent Gergis / Karoly paper disproves this. It is not just the “t” significance test AND the selection bias that undermines this paper. It is much more basic flaws and errors. Like 27 proxies are not sufficient to establish that the 1990s was the warmest decade of the millennium over 5-10% of the earth’s surface, when proxies at the same or similar locations have huge variations. Or that a temperature reconstruction of Australasia that has no proxies from the sub-continental landmass of Australia (nearly 3m sq miles), but two from Vostok Antarctica (the coldest place on earth) and two from the corals off the tiny island of Rarotonga (26 sq miles and > 1000 miles outside the area) is in anyway a representative sample.
On other words, you do not need to be a scientist, or a statistician to see that some of the work of climate scientists is of a very poor quality, and quite fundamentally flawed. Karoly’s (and others) maintenance of the separation of climate scientists from lesser mortals seems to be more a ploy to avoid substantiating their claims, like a prosecutor in a court of law, or a pharmaceutical company on the efficacy of its products.
I try to list the errors in the Gergis / Karoly paper at:-
http://manicbeancounter.com/2012/06/27/gergis-2012-mark-2-hurdles-to-overcome/
If there are others, please comment.
Reg Nelson says:
July 11, 2012 at 6:26 pm
Haha! That’s really excellent, thank you!
Karoly: a legend in his own mind. In which he devoutly Believes. All sceptics will be relentlessly excoriated! So there!