At Climate Audit, Something odd has been discovered about the provenance of the work associate with the Marcott et al paper. It seems that the sharp uptick wasn’t in the thesis paper Marcott defended for his PhD, but is in the paper submitted to Science.
Steve McIntyre writes:
Reader ^ drew our attention to Marcott’s thesis (see chapter 4 here. Marcott’s thesis has a series of diagrams in an identical style as the Science article. The proxy datasets are identical.
However, as Jean S alertly observed, the diagrams in the thesis lack the closing uptick of the Science. Other aspects of the modern period also differ dramatically.
Here is Figure 1C of the Science article.
Now here is the corresponding diagram from the (Marcott) thesis:
The differences will be evident to readers. In addition to the difference in closing uptick, important reconstruction versions were at negative values in the closing portion of the thesis graphic, while they were at positive values in the closing portion of the Science graphic.
I wonder what accounts for the difference.
Read the full report at Climate Audit
===========================================================
This story just got a lot more interesting. I wonder if we don’t have a situation like with Yamal, and sample YAD06 which when included, skewed the whole set. Perhaps there was some screening in the thesis and that didn’t include part of the proxy datasets, or later for the Science paper maybe there was some Gergis sytyle screening that made hockey sticks pop out. It might also be some strange artifact of processing, perhaps some Mannian style math was introduced. Who knows at this point? All we know is that one paper is not like the other, and one produces a hockey stick and the other does not.
Some additional detective work is sorely needed to determine why this discrepancy exists and if anyone in the peer review process asked any similar questions.
An even more intriguing possibility – perhaps the reviewers demanded Marcott add the hockey stick, as a requirement for their approval.
Marcott obviously knew the hockey stick was bogus – otherwise he would have added it to his PHD thesis paper.
Link not working…http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/13/marcott-mystery-1/
It’s “climate science”. Innit?
“if anyone in the peer review process asked any similar questions”
and if they did, were they bypassed, silenced, or censured?
Just this minute finished plotting all 73 of the Marcott proxies in the Science article.
http://tinypic.com/r/2ish0uf/6
The huge uptick is nowhere to be seen. There is a small increase that appears to be a continuation of the warming from the LIA. (Note that 0 on the graph is 1950 AD).
It is upside down and backwards
Almost enough to make me paranoid that someone really stupid is running the show. How else do you explain such central disorganization?
==========================
Anthony says, “Some additional detective work is sorely needed to determine why this discrepancy exists and if anyone in the peer review process asked any similar questions.”
Of course, this is true, but let’s please not ever lose sight of the fact that no ‘detective work’ should EVER be needed to understand how a peer-reviewed paper arrived at its conclusions. Of course there is no choice but to do that detective work – I understand the times and I get that completely. But ridicule is the only proper response to any so-called ‘scientist’ who refuses to show his work. Are you serious? You won’t show the public how you arrived at your conclusions? Seriously?
Why should that ever be taken seriously, in any way? “Hi, teacher. Here are the answers to the 10 homework questions. Of course I only put the answers, not my work, but you’ll give me a 100 anyway, right?” Any of you ever have a math class like that?
Exactly.
Between climateaudit and this site and the whole crowd-sourcing thing, eventually we will get to the bottom of the details of this fraud, just like all the others before and yet to come. But don’t stoop so low as to take this crap seriously – if they won’t show their work, they’re jokes, plain and simple. Yes, the detective work has to be done, as Anthony says – that’s the sad state of our times – and by all means do your worst to expose the fraud. But don’t ever lose sight of how utterly transparent and laughable these people are. Laugh at them. If you have a 2nd-grade education and can’t sign your own name, you’re miles above them. At least you’d have the stones to show your own work, wouldn’t you?
Given the admission that the uptick is based upon data that may be considered to be “not robust”, I am not surprised to see that part of the data not included in the PhD thesis.
Could the different X axes of the two graphs be labelled clearly please? I guess the top one is years before present and the bottom one is just year number, but that is an assumption based on why they are reversed.
Here is Marcott’s Figure 4.2 from his thesis:
http://tinypic.com/r/vreqmd/6
And here is the graph I prepared from his Science article, on approximately the same y-axis range.
http://tinypic.com/r/qnlg5c/6
Both graphs show a general decline of about 1 degree C from the early Holocene to a couple of hundred years ago, perhaps close to the Little Ice Age and a recovery on the order of 0.2 C until about 1900 and perhaps another 0.1 C to 1950, although the number of proxies by that time is more like 2 or 3 than 73.
The uptick in the Science article is certainly not from the 73 proxies themselves, which have very poor (300-year?) resolution. Instead, Marcott seems to have forced some kind of 20-year resolution in just a few of the latest proxies and done a whale of a lot of Monte Carlo sampling to make the blade of the hockey stick. Actually I have no idea how he/they did it. But from his response to Steve M.(“not robust”) he appears to be stepping back from the brink.
63.1 MB PDF file; allow for time to download.
Link is broken. At this time it is the top entry at http://climateaudit.org/
Link is broken. http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/14/no-uptick-in-marcott-thesis/
Also – I refreshed CA 20 times yesterday and this appears as soon as I go to sleep?
I wonder who referred the paper? Perhaps the referees demanded that a hockey stick should appear.
[spelling mistake corrected]
I wonder who refereed the paper? Perhaps the referees demanded that a hockey stick should appear.
I spent an hour or so translating 73 separate Excel sheets from Marcott’s Supplemental Excel file into a single Excel file with age, temperature and a few other variables. Much easier to graph all data that way. For persons who know about fitting lines to noisy data (I don’t, other than making a running average), this file should be useful.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/75831381/Marcott%20temps%20stacked%20for%20Statistica%20B%20merged%20with%20mean%20temps%20filled%20in%20sorted.xlsx
In real climate science, the problem with hockey sticks is they are not there.
But no hockey stick = no funding = have to get a real job.
Hence, in today’s ‘climate science’ the hockey sticks are there.
The climate audit article is truly damning, but it’s ‘climate science’, so no one should be surprised.
New Recipie:
Marcott II Now with added FEAR- (Graph) Fiddling, Economy (with Truth) and Recycling (Mannian Maths)
/sarc
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
Suyts has this –
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/hockey-stick-found-in-marcott-data/
Good thing he is not a banker here in the UK. Wouldn’t last five minutes submitting contradictory graphs like that. /sarc
Bare in mind that these two had different functions , where has the ,Thesis had to be scientifically valid , with the author expecting a hard time in a viva.
The ‘research’ had to be politically useful for ‘the cause ‘ in order to get it into AR5 and to ensure the authors ‘Team ‘ place which still opens the door to much funding and career progression.
With the author aware that with the ‘right reviewers ‘ their work would have a much easer time in review.
The stick is where the majority of the political ‘value ‘ , and all that can bring , comes from .
So its not the actual research that matters but ‘what’ the research is needed for . And in that Marcott is merely following the ‘leaders ‘ in this field such has Mann .
Incredible… Are you sure Science is about… science? And that those authors/reviewers are scientists?
Shaun, dude, you’re royally screwed:
http://s17.postimage.org/qhmuyzfin/Shaun_Hockey_Stick.jpg
Ultimately it doesn’t matter in the “real” world. They’ve accomplished their goal, generating scary headlines in all the usual suspect media outlets. The Warmistas know how to play this game very well, it matters not whether or not it’s right, or if someone else later discredits it, that will never get any significant air time in the media. The goal is to produce AGW confirming headlines that allow politicians the support they need to instigate a carbon tax, with the emphasis on tax, which is what the whole game is about. Post normal science indeed. That and ensure more funding for said “scientists.”
“Page not found” error if you try to follow the link.
I wonder why?
You might like this from the other thread posted by the commenter BruceC.
Hockey Schtick 2
If this is right then the IPCC and Science should be informed immediately.
Anthony
The link fails, should be
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/14/no-uptick-in-marcott-thesis/
MODS:
The climate Audit link says “page not found”. Remove the extra: http://
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/14/no-uptick-in-marcott-thesis/http://
[Reply: Fixed. Thanks. -ModE]
Grammatical error:
… it didn’t use_ to be there. Not used. 🙂
In the second set of graphics (simulation diagram) at Climate Audit we see a sharp rise for ScienceMag and a decline for the thesis. Are they trying to hide the decline??? Did they consult Dr. Michael Mann before and during the write-up of the paper???
Steve McIntyre says: “I wonder what accounts for the difference.”
The authors concluded “Our global temperature reconstruction for the past 1500 years is indistinguishable within uncertainty from the Mann et al. (2) reconstruction.”
It’s interesting (and career ending) that they would both emulate Mann’s completely debunked hockey stick with their diagram and then mention him in their article. I suspect the ‘David Blaine of climate science’, Dr. Michael Mann himself, had a hand in processing the data for the ‘Science’ article. But in exchange for what?
Its almost as if the x axis has been turned around from 2000 to 0 then from 0 to 2000.Or better expressed the science article reverses the scale.
For some reason the Standard 30×30 grid has been almost mirror inverted as has green Standard NH.
There appears to be four proxies of temperature in the thesis and six in the science article.
Just by eyeball, if you add the error bars those lines could go anywhere on the graphs.
It would be useful to see what and which standards are being alluded to.
We have seen so many data alterations, to follow theory/model output, that this seems par for climate science, or should I call it pseudoscience. They still expect us to believe this rubbish as well.
As far as I can see there seems to be a rather dramatic increase in temperatures over the last 300 years in both sets of data. What’s that all about then? Clearly not AGW.
My immediate thought is that the thesis committee did some actual review of the paper, while Science did not.
Another piece of Manniacal analysis?
Is it polite to ask whether Marcott’s defended PHD should be withdrawn or his recent paper should be withdrawn? Or re-written?
It would be interesting to know if the “not robust” uptick was in the original Marcott submission to Sciencemag, or did a reviewer (Mannian) press them for it….. or did the review process press for more “simulations” of a certain kind to exaggerate the uptick?? We may not be able to find out with confidentiality of reviews etc., but it’s a good question to have in mind as we explore how Marcott got from the diagram in the thesis to the one in the article.
I propose at first glance, that this may well be the result of tampering with results by “expert reviewers” demanding certain adjustments in order for the paper to be accepted.
As I predicted on another posting yesterday this paper will definitely be withdrawn and it will be end of the team.
Does anyone know who was on the peer review process? It is evident by both the volume of criticisms of the Marcott paper, and the timing of when they first followed its publication, that whomever they are, are not very good.
Oh noes! The Central England Temperature (CET) dataset has been made into a…………….. HOCKEY STICK! Even though it has been declining at a -4.4° C/century rate over the last 15 years. Climate trickery and general Tom foolery is our Marcott.
(Click then scroll down to see how the trick is done.)
I downloaded the Central England Temperature since 1878 and sliced it up to coincide with each sunspot cycle. I then dived each years sunspot number by 32850. I subtracted the result from the yearly temperature. I then averaged the temperature over each sunspot cycle.
I plotted the temperature of the CET data and the averaged data. The CET data climbs slowly over the years then there is a hockey stick starting about 1996 where it climbs 2°C and looks like it is going to continue exponentially.
The adjusted data is virtually flat from 1890 to 1996 then rises 1°C before falling back a bit.
(You may be wondering why I divided the yearly sunspot number by 32850. I found out that that was the number that gave the flattest temperature over the CET data series since 1878.)
Louis Hooffstetter says:
March 15, 2013 at 2:52 am ” …I suspect the ‘David Blaine of climate science’, Dr. Michael Mann himself….”
————————–
Uri Geller of climate science, surely.
There seems to be more recent data in the top figure than the bottom (thesis) figure. Look at the lower edge of the grey uncertainty curve – there is a bump in the curve around 8 axis tick marks to the left of the 0 mark on the top figure, but on the bottom figure this same bump is only around 6 tick marks to the left. Of course the bottom x-axis is not labelled, so it’s hard to figure out how to align the two figures.
Thanks to Lance Wallace at March 15, 2013, 1:24 am for collating the data,
We can now see where the hockey stick blade uptick comes from. There are a number of proxies with high numbers in 1950 (which then decline afterward). Otherwise, the average over recent period is below the average 0.0C anomaly and there is no trend overall.
But if you are running some type of filter up to just 1950 and then preserve the end-point, viola you have an uptick. Standard filtering problem.
Marcott’s proxies from 1700 to 2000 (and if you go back to 1400 or 1000AD, it looks exactly the same).
http://s13.postimage.org/pmjexbwl3/Marcott2013_1700_2000_Proxies.png
The Greenland ice core proxy data show that temperature (at least there) has been on a downtrend since the so-called Minoan Warm Period about 3300 years ago, & that the earth was even warmer during the Holocene Optimum. This trend is confirmed globally by other data sets, including the fact that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet stopped retreating about 3000 years ago, as shown by soil radionuclides. This down trend has been produced without major human contribution, except possibly from such activities as cutting forests & planting rice paddies, which to some extent merely replace natural swamps.
Thus a scientifically valid means of measuring the actual human contribution to global warming, if any, might exist. Draw a trend line connecting the tops of the observed temperature peaks during warm spikes (Minoan, Roman & Medieval), then extend it into the current Modern Period. If at some time in the present period (which still has 100-350 years to run) temperature peaks above the downtrend line would indicate by how much people have altered the natural course toward the next glaciation.
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
Problems with the data, again, so just make up some?
Ask Gavin – he has an excuse for everything
“Almost enough to make me paranoid that someone really stupid is running the show. How else do you explain such central disorganization?”
Often stupidity is indistinguishable from overwhelming arrogance and a sense of absolute superiority. People who have these traits believe they will get away with anything because they always have gotten away with it, and furthermore they are confident that no one with the power to do so will DARE contradict them. They deeply and honestly believe that any objections to their machinations can be shouted down with tribalistic appeals to their political supporters and cries of “Denier! Denier!” Much the same as the charge of “Heretic!” worked to end arguments in older, past times.
We can’t say this enough – we are dealing with a pseudo-religious movement here, NOT a scientific one. They believe to their core that the only purpose for the data they get is to pursue the cause of GOOD, as they believe in it. Data doesn’t count to them if it doesn’t serve the purposes of GOOD – which always coincides with their own self interest, of course. They despise anyone who contradicts them, and define them as “Evil” – just look at their rhetoric if you doubt that. And for a True Believer, nothing said or put forward by those who are “Evil” is ever worth considering or discussing. They burn with the the thought that Evil must be destroyed! (Every episode of book burning through man’s long history always comes down to this same root cause)
Pursuing the science is necessary work for our side, but there are always those who pop up and say we should *only* focus on that. We cannot, because science is now a distinctly secondary part of this problem. No matter what “Science” we either provide or refute, it will mean nothing to the AGW crowd and their supporters, because it is NOT about “Science” to them. It is about Good and Evil and Belief and Heresy. We are the heretics in their eyes, they will ALWAYS treat us like Heretics, and the Orthodox will NEVER agree to convert to a Heretical view.
The only option we have is to fight with every public tool we have available to move public opinion (including ridicule and constant public expositions of the mendacity of the AGW supporters), trusting in the hope that finally their views will become so odious to the public that they will finally fade from view, and AGW will simply become one of the Great Hoaxes of history. Without the Force of Government behind them, they are nothing and they know it. That’s why the fight over this is now overwhelmingly political – it is about them grabbing the Power they need to impose their orthodoxy on the rest of us, *Especially* the heretics and unbelievers.
The scientific war is finished. The war for Public Opinion is not. That’s the war we have to fight, and the war we have to win.
Depends how long ago his thesis was. Things often change from what is in the thesis and the things that show up in publications are usually better and more complete than what was in the thesis. That said, the uptick at the end won’t hold up. He even admits that himself.
If it were my paper I’d by answering the questions raised. Just saying.
Does this mean he must now defend this paper or have his PhD revoked?
Bill
wws at Miarch 15, 2013 at 6:07 am
“The scientific war is finished. The war for Public Opinion is not. That’s the war we have to fight, and the war we have to win.”
While you may be correct, be careful — you are beginning to sound like “them”.
“An even more intriguing possibility – perhaps the reviewers demanded Marcott add the hockey stick, as a requirement for their approval.”
beware of trolls pushing conspiracy theories to make folks look bad.
REPLY: Yes, I agree. Never ascribe malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence – Anthony
Brad Steelers at 12 23 am, says we should not take any scientist seriously who doesnt show his work, and I agree. However, the MSM, the warmistas, activists, and politicians vying for popularity via the green vote dont care that his “work” is not justified by the proxies that went into it. They just love it that a new hockey stick has been produced even if the nearest uptick in the data used is from 1870 to 1910. Thats why we need the detective work more than ever.
Here are all the proxies in Marcott’s database which goes back to 19,300 BC (each point is the anomaly from the average temperature of each individual proxy across all data available – not the same as versus a 1961-1990 baseline).
http://s22.postimage.org/i05ns3pip/Marcott2013_All_Proxies.png
Is this not “Steig’s Antarctica” redux?
Innocently toss a paper out into the aether, then find your carefully crafted conclusions shredded in the WUWT wood chipper.
Peer review at its finest.
kim says:
March 15, 2013 at 12:18 am
Almost enough to make me paranoid that someone really stupid is running the show. How else do you explain such central disorganization?
Several governments and at least 2 multi-national governmental organisations, (UN and EU) are closely involved. What other explanation do you need?
While I agree with the comment “Yes, I agree. Never ascribe malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence – Anthony” and with Mosher’s comment to be wary of conspiracy theories, I also think Marcott lacked professionalism when failing to discern the differences himself. He has essentially published two studies (a thesis is a published scientific work) which appear to be in disagreement and yet he himself has not made mention of this or discussed the reasons in the second published work.
If they are not in disagreement he should have explained this in the paper, and if they are in disagreement he should have explained the additional data in the paper that changed the results (or whatever other explanation there may be).
Certainly Marcott was aware of the differences so the omission was intentional, for whatever reason, thus opening the door to this speculation going on here.
Lucky America, with its press freedom enshrined in the Constitution.
It looks as if the UK is going down the road of a government controlled press.
Could this lead to a situation where only ‘authorised’ views of ‘climate science’ are allowed to be published, as the Scottish plan already seems very wide in its scope, and in the rest of the UK a future Parliament could make dissent illegal if it goes against the government of the day’s views.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9932023/Maria-Miller-Labour-and-Lib-Dems-could-open-the-door-to-state-licensing-of-the-press.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/9932669/Scottish-newspapers-forced-to-sign-up-to-regulator-under-McLeveson-plan.html
HLx says: March 15, 2013 at 2:41 am
Grammatical error:
… it didn’t use_ to be there. Not used. 🙂
‘Used’ is correct, since we’re talking about the past.
Steven Mosher says:
March 15, 2013 at 7:43 am
‘“An even more intriguing possibility – perhaps the reviewers demanded Marcott add the hockey stick, as a requirement for their approval.”
beware of trolls pushing conspiracy theories to make folks look bad.
REPLY: Yes, I agree. Never ascribe malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence – Anthony’
Reviewers never make demands that something be added to an acceptable article. Thinking that reviewers make such demands is darn close to paranoia. However, reviewers should have questioned and rejected the blade of the hockey stick. (Also, whatever faults the article has, they do not affect acceptance of Marcott’s thesis and the award of his doctorate.)
We all must keep one thing in mind; the paper was published in “Science”. When was the last time you read anything in “Science” that was not AGW supporting? After 35 yrs, I resigned from the AAAS ~8 years ago because this glaring dogmatic promotion of climastrology.
BC
I wonder what Marcott’s faculty advisors have to say about this thesis v his new paper. Has anyone asked them?
REPLY: Yes, I agree. Never ascribe malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence – Anthony
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In this case a whole new level of incompetence seems to have been inserted between the original paper and the publication. If not malice, then at least perception management run amok. A rather incompetent attempt at perception management.
Normally I would agree with that statement but there seems to be a lot of said “incompetence” in the field of climate “science”. Trouble is, incompetence is equal opportunity. It should manifest equally in both directions. In the field of climate “science” it seems to always manifest in the same direction every time and usually from the same group of people. That tends to cause me to place less weight on the “simple incompetence” possibility.
Note also that the error bars have significantly been tightened. adding the new points might not make them larger, but it cannot make them smaller.
Theo Goodwin says at 8:47 am above that “Reviewers never make demands that something be added to an acceptable article.”
That entirely misses the point. If, in the reviewer’s mind, the article is UNacceptable (for whatever reason), then they certainly can and do say that adding Thing X would be necessary to make the article acceptable to them. The thing added may be a better sensitivity analysis, a discussion of discrepancies with other published papers, reconciliation with other data sources or a host of other requirements that should improve the paper.
The moral hazard is that there is no appeal or check on the reviewer’s sole opinion that the article as originally submitted was unacceptable. The author who feels strongly that the reviewer is off base may try to ignore the reviewer’s opinion and seek publication elsewhere. Or take the easier course and add whatever was requested and move on.
Note: I’m not saying that this did or did not happen in this case. But it is not mere paranoia to question whether one or more reviewers may have exerted undue influence over the process.
1. I believe it is perfectly fine to have one analysis in a diss thesis, and another in a publication. No big deal.
2. Here, the differences could be the tip-off of a trail leading to yet anoher story of data manipulation to manufacture a pre-conceived narrative which on its own is not supported by the data, accurately analyzed. Go for it.
3. It is very likely that one set of standards applied to diss defense, and anothe set applied to getting a paper published. The two are very different endeavors.
4. For Mann, the fix was in BEFORE the diss defense; I have read that Mann discovered his diss topic by making the association of Schneider, and being guided to carry out the MBH98 hockey stick diss via Schneider’s mentorship. I cannot locate this story on the interweb anymore since far too many subsequent irrelevant searhc results come up.
5. The diss gets placed in a library and in archives to perform its role as a contribution to science, generally. The committee’s names are attacked to it – each does not have to totally vouch for the diss, as nowadays all co-authors of a published paper have to, but they still have provided their imprimatur, meaning they generally approve, but are not necessarily at the “I totaly vet this analysis” level.
6. Because the diss is “out there” in the realm of science-for-all-to-see, and the committee’s names are attached, they have some dgree of accountability regadring answering questions of data selection, analysis, interpretation.
7. the committee is not “on the hook” at all for the publication . Only the manuscript authors. Which may or may not include some of the committee members. Almost always, the chair would be included, but the others would depend upon various circumstances.
8. While the diss is produced with very local forces, mostly just the committee, it may look one way, but when the manuscript is submitted, it is subject to a differnt set of forces – peer review, what the journal wants to say, etc.
9. So, this could very well be a story where the truth was in the diss, but the truth had to be juggled to get the analysis published.
–In a parallel issue where the truth will evenutally rise above politics, the status quo gate-keepers will not acknowledge that abortion contributes to breast cancer. While you woudl have a hard time getting a contrary paper published in the mainstream U.S.-based epi and cancer world, that game is not the only game in town.
Papers keep emerging from Asian countries, from near east to Pacific rim, including evidence in line with the ABC theory. The U.S./Canada/U.K./Australia/Western Europe cabal cannot suppress epidemiology data from China, Turkey, Iran, Korea, etc.
In the headlines recently was a study noting an upward trend of breast cancer, in the recent couple of decades, among women below the age of 45. In the study, and the press discussions of tis, and the scholarly and blog discussions, NOWHERE was the explanation of ABC even conjectured. Except in the pro-life blogosphere, where this entirely reasonable explanation was obvious to those of us NOT in the cabal.
Feyerabend had great discussions about the reality that “science” ultimately is a cultural practice, and so will always include cultural conventions and be subject to these biases I am referring to by saying “cabal.”
This is EXACTLY why Feyerabend wanted to advance the idea of anarchy science, where differing views and approaches could be sustained and set in the mix, along with whatever socail custom happens to be part of the orthodoxy; currently, manuscript peer review is simply a workable, accepted custom. This is why he titled a book, “Against Method.”
You can google “epistemological anarchy” and have some interesting reading. You probably should read Kuhn before Feyerabend, but a basic, honest science background, like they USED TO teach in middle schoo and high school, should suffice.
If you graduated high school after, I guess, 1987, or 1990 for sure, and if you started college accordingly /the next fall, you should be suspect of your grasp of “science,” unless you were fortunate to be taught by a genuine scientist or lover of science.
Mann was on that cusp. No wonder he was ready to pay along. And no big deal for Marcott, either: this is their culture, not the culture of those of us who learned “science” versus leftist political dogma (the environment is headed for disaster, we are killingth eplaent with overpopulation, etc.).
Paddylol:
At least one of the co-authors, Peter Clark, signed off on the theses abstracts of Marcott and Shakun. Both theses are largely peer reviewed papers.
Are there no respected scientists out there who have the credentials and the cojones to submit a collective rebuttal to Science, simultaneously published in NYT, WSJ, Atlantic, etc.? The goals should be to a) get the paper publicly and noisily and embarrassingly withdrawn; b) put warmist scientists on record as supporting or at least permitting this junk (or perhaps repudiating it as in “I would do anything for Love, but I won’t do that.”); c) showing that there is still some integrity among scientists. This effort must come from within the broad scientific community, not just from the “usual skeptics”. As I have posted before, silence is complicity. It’s time to remind some of these frog-like scientists that it’s getting boiling hot in the pond, and this is a good opportunity for them to hop out.
The story of his journey from cool to hockey stick would be a great evangelical piece for the alarmists, why hasn’t it been written yet?
HLx says: “Grammatical error: … it didn’t use_ to be there. Not used. 🙂
Mike McMillan says: “‘‘Used’ is correct, since we’re talking about the past.”
HL: If you’re going to correct someone’s grammar, you’d better have a complete command of the subject. “Used” is correct. There’s a lamentable tendency today (PostNormal?) to carelessly drop the final d/ed in adjectival past participles. “She’s an old fashion girl.”
Hasn’t this developed to the point where Marcott should face censure or other disciplinary action? Maybe, it’s just me, but it seems that unless an acceptable explanation is given for the discrepancies, some sort of investigation and response is mandated. Where is the academic outrage? GK
new post up at Climate Audit:
Marcott’s Zonal Reconstructions
“Normally I would agree with that statement but there seems to be a lot of said “incompetence” in the field of climate “science”. Trouble is, incompetence is equal opportunity. It should manifest equally in both directions. In the field of climate “science” it seems to always manifest in the same direction every time and usually from the same group of people. That tends to cause me to place less weight on the “simple incompetence” possibility.”
Exactly right. No manner of incompetence would allow for failing to come to grips with the disparity in temps between the two constructions which use a large portion of the same data sets. At the very least Marcott should have addressed why he believes the hockey stick reconstruction is more accurate than the rather inconvenient reverse hockey stick used in his thesis.
Theo Goodwin says:
“Reviewers never make demands that something be added to an acceptable article”.
That’s not really true. In another field (not climate related) I ve been asked by reviewers to do an analysis, or add something to a paper during the review process. I m not saying I subscribe to the idea that the reviewers suggested the change, just that in general they may ask for additions, deletions etc.
Re: used to vs. did use to
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-m_used-to-do.htm
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/usedtotext.htm
mikerossander says:
March 15, 2013 at 10:23 am
Reviewers work for editors. Reviewers do what editors require of them. Reviewers do not communicate directly with authors. For a reviewer to suggest to an author that an acceptable paper should be extended with additional material would be to violate his agreement with the editor. For a reviewer to suggest such an extended essay to an editor would be irrelevant to the task at hand; the editor just wants to know whether the paper is publishable. Do not read anything more into the reviewer’s job.
Well, well; who would’ve known that “not robust” means fictional? Stands to reason though; since for years the alarmers have been claiming the normal climate voodoo data is ‘robust’. What could be worse than that? Why, “not robust” climate voodoo data, of course.
Has the question been put to the publishing journal yet?
I wonder if there are any avenues for FOI requests for background communications?
Theo Goodwin,
There have certainly been examples in the public climate science files of reviewers being quite insistent upon added analyses or sections as a condition of publication. The response article to Steig et al. (2009) is one example, and Steve/Ross encountered it several times as detailed at Climate Audit over the years.
Considering that we rarely have any public examples of reviewer comments to discuss, it may happen more than you imagine.
Probably much more likely when the reviewer is hostile to the thrust of the paper, but having read a lot of Climategate emails I don’t doubt that people like Mann and Jones throw up such hurdles whenever they want to. Even in a relatively friendly review, why wouldn’t they sometimes urge or even insist that a certain analysis be changed or added?
The editor may not opt to follow such advice, of course, but we have seen related behaviors from Team members….
In response to: “…perhaps the reviewers demanded Marcott add the hockey stick, as a requirement for their approval.” Stephen Mosher says:
“beware of trolls pushing conspiracy theories to make folks look bad.”
Normally I would tend to agree, but…when I consider:
1. Marcott included Mann et al’s. (2008) tree ring reconstructions as one of their proxies.
2. Marcott performed “Mike’s Nature trick” of grafting temperature data onto proxy reconstructions
3. Marcott concluded “Our global temperature reconstruction for the past 1500 years is indistinguishable within uncertainty from the Mann et al. (2) reconstruction.” when in reality in Marcott’s own words…”the 1890-on portion of our reconstruction was ‘not robust.’”
It walks like a Mann and quacks like a Mann. As a counterfactual thinking troll, I can’t help but see Mann’s fingerprints all over this “goat entrail reading” paper.
The Climate Rapid Response Team must be holding an emergency response meeting by now. Main theme “Hockey sticks, bending the truth, for the sake of the children”. I hope they have called in Peter Gleick as well, they will desperately need a man of his talent.
I suspect that Marcott’s thesis paper was probably perfectly acceptable and would not probably be affected by the issues raised so far about this paper.
That said one must truly question, in light of Marcott’s own admission that the numbers supporting the addition of the hockey stick were supported by minimal data and were not considered in any way robust, why the authors would risk their reputations on this admitted garbage? .
Theo Goodwin says…
“Reviewers never make demands that something be added to an acceptable article”.
“Reviewers work for editors. Reviewers do what editors require of them.”
Theo, you’re being naive. We’re talking about these people:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin (Trenberth) and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !” – Phil Jones to Michael Mann.
Journal editor resigns over ‘flawed’ paper co-authored by climate sceptic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/02/journal-editor-resigns-climate-sceptic-paper
They’ve freely admitted (bragged) they could and would stoop to this and they’ve successfully carried out their threats. These people are venomous.
Skiphil says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:42 pm
We need to look at the big picture. I am talking about journal editors and reviewers and their ordinary expectations. You all are talking about various degrees of conspiracy or whatever.
My point is that no one should assume that the ordinary processes of reviewing and editing lend themselves to exploitation by conspirators. The journal editor is in total control and all he wants to get from reviewers is a clear claim of merit or a clear claim of fixable or non-fixable error. The typical academic journal editor is someone like Anthony who sleeps four hours a night. He has no time or patience for foolishness.
Your point or your response to me is that there are examples of conspiracies. Fine.
But you have to find, in Marcott’s particular case, some evidence of conspiracy or pressure or whatever before you assert some such thing.
Theo Goodwin, I don’t at all mean it as any “conspiracy” (that’s possible but not what I was thinking of and not necessary to the problem I was suggesting) — if a reviewer sincerely believes that a paper needs a certain method, section, or additional analysis to be considered adequate/respectable/publishable. There could sometimes be conspiratorial behavior, or not ever, but the main point is about whether reviewers ever truly believe that a paper needs to add a certain method or test or analysis before being published. Scientists with the best of intentions and spirit can believe this and indeed their duty to the editor, journal and to “science” might require them to suggest something.
note: I am not a scientist so I am not going to try to argue this beyond this comment, I’m merely noting what I have observed reading through some of these controversies online.
Often what seem to be the central problems in climate sciences are more like confirmation bias and groupthink. For instance, when Eric Steig provided what might be arguably abusive reviews of the O’Donnell et al. (2010) paper on Antarctic temps., I think the main problems stemmed from a passionate adherence to the views sincerely held by Steig (I could be wrong about this of course). Steig seemed to be a true believer in his own work fending off what he regarded as unwelcome upstarts. Now he may well have gone beyond what was appropriate, by suggesting the authors utilize a statistical method that he later publicly condemned (!!)…. all I’m suggesting is that this may be an example of a reviewer pushing something on authors (that’s how O’Donnell regarded it).
p.s. Can anyone see anything in my
Skiphil says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:42 pm
where I suggested anything about conspiracies?? I certainly did not have any conspiracy in mind, more the mindset of a determined reviewer who thinks a paper really needs to be changed/expanded before publication. In the abstract a conspiracy could be part of a such a phenomenon, but not necessarily — individual reviewers with strong views/convictions could (and sometimes do, it seems) strongly urge a particular method or analysis or test.
Theo Goodwin, I don’t at all mean it as any “conspiracy” (that’s possible but not what I was thinking of and not necessary to the problem I was suggesting) — if a reviewer sincerely believes that a paper needs a certain method, section, or additional analysis to be considered adequate/respectable/publishable. There could sometimes be conspiratorial behavior, or not ever, but the main point is about whether reviewers ever truly believe that a paper needs to add a certain method or test or analysis before being published. Scientists with the best of intentions and spirit can believe this and indeed their duty to the editor, journal and to “science” might require them to suggest something.
note: I am not a scientist so I am not going to try to argue this beyond this comment, I’m merely noting what I have observed reading through some of these controversies online.
Often what seem to be the central problems in climate sciences are more like confirmation bias and groupthink. For instance, when Eric Steig provided what might be arguably abusive reviews of the O’Donnell et al. (2010) paper on Antarctic temps., I think the main problems stemmed from a passionate adherence to the views sincerely held by Steig (I could be wrong about this of course). Steig seemed to be a true believer in his own work fending off what he regarded as unwelcome upstarts. Now he may well have gone beyond what was appropriate, by suggesting the authors utilize a statistical method that he later publicly condemned (!!)…. all I’m suggesting is that this may be an example of a reviewer pushing something on authors (that’s how O’Donnell regarded it).
p.s. Can anyone see anything in my
Skiphil says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:42 pm
where I suggested anything about conspiracies?? I certainly did not have any conspiracy in mind, more the mindset of a determined reviewer who thinks a paper really needs to be changed/expanded before publication. In the abstract a conspiracy could be part of a such a phenomenon, but not necessarily — individual reviewers with strong views/convictions could (and sometimes do, it seems) strongly urge a particular method or analysis or test.
You know, Dr. Marcott probably corresponded with Dr. Mann. I don’t see someone trying to “imitate” him and yet have zero correspondance with him. I am not saying that there was pressure applied, but bad advice given rather. If Dr. Mann gave bad advice to a PHD candidate we might be looking at academic misconduct depending on the universities involved.
But in any regard, being incompetent is no excuse, and that is what I think happened. It is more likely that Dr. Marcott found an uptick in some ill-advised statistical torture of the data and then corresponded with serveral people to get their opinions. As a newer person in the scientific community he might have seen past common sense when it came to delusions of granduer of being as big as “the nobel prize winner.” at finding a confirmation of Dr. Mann’s findings.
But it is all ill-advised in the end because the piltdown myth will become revealed in the end. It might last for several years or even a decade or longer. But it won’t last forever and when your incompetence is finally outed, it matters not whether you made an innocent mistake or did it on purpose. Because either way you will suffer the same.
I think we will soon find out what statistical mishap happened to the data. It is only a matter of time with people like S. Mcintyre on the case.
Perhaps this is the straw that breaks the camels back and we return to statistics work being done by people who actually understand it.
Take this excerpt from a recent climategate 3.0 email:
(Written by Stephen H. Schneider)
Meanwhile the
>>>>>>>> past 10 years of global mean temperature trend stasis
>>>>>>>> still saw what, 9 of the warmest in reconstructed 1000
>>>>>>>> year record and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in
>>>>>>>> big retreat??
As we can see, no understanding whatsoever of statistics….the man honestly believed that 9 of the warmest years proves the planet is warming still at this point. Or that sea ice is a temperature indicator.
These people are seriously incompetent!
I’m unable to get to the data file that Lance Wallace mentioned in his contribution of March 15, 1.24am – the consolidated 73 proxy file. I would really like to be able to download this file, but the link does not work for me.
Would it be possible to to check the link, please?
Thanks, Robin
There is no uptick in Marcott’s thesis figure 4(a) as he is showing his proxy data up to mid 20th century. Figures 4 b,e and f do show the uptick as he is comparing his data to published graphs which also cover the last half century including instrumental readings, as do the graphs in figure 4.2
Figure 1c from the subsequently published Science paper also includes data up to the current period. That is why the down trend to mid last century goes upward in the Science figure 1c.
There is no contradiction. One graph covers a longer period than the other.
In the absence of the paper itself or the legend for figure 1c, the reasons for different presentation in the Science paper figure is not known to me.
However I can state from personal experience that material from a 200 and more page thesis will often be combined or presented in a slightly different form when representing the material as a specific aspect of the thesis study for publication in a journal article of a few pages.
RE Assigning incompetence rather than conspiracy. Anthony is a gentleman. The problem that I am wrestling with is that when I connect the dots the incompetence resonates with competent media coordination. The issue is that one can make this stuff up quicker than the gentlemen can produce refuting data and the damage is already done. WUWT is performing a great service because this web technology allows the cloud to respond quickly when the data is available. The analysis is not widely followed and largely ignored because it is late and inconvenient. While we are having great fun exposing this to ourselves we are always going to be an hour late and a dollar short. Unfortunately we are only breathing our own vapors because it is the well manipulated public consensus that determines the political decisions. We can hold ourselves above the political fray, but stupid decisions hurt everyone. Normally in science no matter how desperately defended the theories, when the data is irrefutable the analysis changes. It is apparent that in this case the people so charitable described as incompetent make something else up designed to retard the public epiphany. The gentlemen respond to the horse scat as if it were seriously offered in the honorable profession of science and talk amongst themselves while trying to analyze without the data or model how in the name of God any one could have competently generated the pile they have been reduced to picking through. Anthony, bless you, gets it all over his fingers and judges it to be the result of incontinence..oops! I meant incompetence. Just a thought.
SORRY TO DOUBLE POST I GET THROWN INTO WORD PRESS AND DON’T KNOW IT IS HAS BEEN SENT.
[Capital letters are considered screaming in this site. Please avoid them. Mod]
I agree completely. But what else can be done? Until the MSM begin to do investigative journalism, on climate research industry… all we can do is keep the pilot light roaring. I wish it wasn’t so! GK