Shades of upside down Tiljander. McIntyre is delving further into the Marcott proxy issue and it looks almost certain now there’s a statistical processing error (selection bias).
Steve McIntyre writes:
In the graphic below, I’ve plotted Marcott’s NHX reconstruction against an emulation (weighting by latitude and gridcell as described in script) using proxies with published dates rather than Marcott dates. (I am using this version because it illustrates the uptick using Marcott methodology. Marcott re-dating is an important issue that I will return to.) The uptick in the emulation occurs in 2000 rather than 1940; the slight offset makes it discernible for sharp eyes below.
Marcottian
uptricksupticks arise because of proxy inconsistency: one (or two) proxies have different signs or quantities than the larger population, but continue one step longer. This is also the reason why the effect is mitigated in the infilled variation. In principle, downticks can also occur – a matter that will be covered in my next post which will probably be on the relationship between Marcottian re-dating and upticks.
Read his full post here: How Marcottian Upticks Arise
Maybe we need an Uptick Rule for paleoclimatology
Another ‘climate scientist” makes an error. Who would have thought it?
More excellent work from Steve McIntyre. I do believe he is thoroughly enjoying himself with this paper…
At least Marcott has something to show for his endeavours having now entered the English language as the adjective: “Marcottian”.
Steve will disassemble another Skeptical Science Syndrome paper.
This illness seems to be reaching epidemic proportions as of late.
the whole AGW world is filled with this Marcott paper.
once again, the public at large will ignore global cooling until it is too late
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
Plot this. Its the total number of sunspots in each cycle since 1878 and the total of the yearly average CET temperature for each cycle.
You will see that from 1898 up to 1954 the temperature was bouncing up and down in line with the sunspot cycle then the temperature is in antiphase with the sunspot cycle and eventually turns into a hockey stick,
Cycle 10 year total of
min 10 year Yearly ave Temp
year total spots
1889 139672 131.1
1901 166052 142.0
1913 134136 140.6
1923 172048 141.8
1933 151884 141.0
1944 222417 145.3
1954 278025 146.2
1964 350626 143.7
1976 253113 144.7
1986 307842 143.1
1996 289910 147.8
2008 238071 155.7
10 year
10 year Yearly ave
year total spots Temp
1889 139672 131.1
1901 166052 142.0
1913 134136 140.6
1923 172048 141.8
1933 151884 141.0
1944 222417 145.3
1954 278025 146.2
1964 350626 143.7
1976 253113 144.7
1986 307842 143.1
1996 289910 147.8
2008 238071 155.7
Mann is doing a premature Snoopy dance over this paper, over on Facebook:
http://s15.postimage.org/5x1hmvhcr/Mann_Celebration2013.jpg
Third time lucky!
10 year
10 year Yearly ave
year total spots Temp
1889 139672 131.1
1901 166052 142.0
1913 134136 140.6
1923 172048 141.8
1933 151884 141.0
1944 222417 145.3
1954 278025 146.2
1964 350626 143.7
1976 253113 144.7
1986 307842 143.1
1996 289910 147.8
2008 238071 155.7
I wouldn’t describe it so much as “proxy sign inconsistency”, rather as the average changing because the composition of the set being averaged has changed. The plotted value at a given time represents an average of all the proxies which have values for that time. But as time approaches the present, fewer and fewer proxies exist. Dropping a below-average proxy (because its data set ends) results in the average increasing, even if all the other proxies remain the same.
As an example, if you plot the average height of men in my family over time, it takes a jump when my (relatively short) grandfather passed away.
Henry@Kelvin
there is no temp?
When there is evidence pointing toward malice and forethought, I don’t know if “error” is the right word.
It sort of downplays what Marcott did. Like he just stepped out for a bit and forgot the kettle boiling.
That would be a error. Missing the cutoff man on the throw to home. Another error.
But what Marcott did is throw a fastball at our heads, with the hope that after the bench clearing brawl, the referee would forget about him.
There has to be a better word for it than “error”.
Marcott is in the same camp with Pete Rose, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds. He needs an asterisk.
How about banned from baseball?
These youngsters, with their IPCC mentors, are systematically trying to plaster in the cracks of the alarmists case.
If any sceptic brings up the ‘CO2 follows temperature rises’ argument, they’re directed at Shakun et al, a Rube Goldberg ‘heat took the pretty way across the globe’ nightmare of a paper.
If we now bring up ‘Mann’s Hockey Stick is broken, and look at Gergis!’, we will be pointed at Marcott et al.
Same people, same aim, same tricks, and the MSM lap it up. A PR triumph for alarmists, and only science the loser.
If anyone doubts that fake, fudged or fraudulent made-up stuff can influence events, look up the Zinoviev Letters.
So the main body of the plot is an average of 5 proxies, but the last part is one proxy. Total garbage or an intentional fabrication? Take your pick.
I find just 1 story in the Guardian for the Marcott paper in the World News section and it does not appear in their Climate Change section. They would normally be about 7 stories peppered throughout the Climate Change section of the Guardian. As for the BBC I can’t find anything. Maybe it’s just me. What do people think is going on?
Guardian – AP feed article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10696412
BBC – News story in Spanish in 2011 mentioning Shaun Marcott
[Google Translation]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2011/08/110802_antartida_agua_am.shtml
Perhaps all the so-called “peers” who reviewed Marcott should be very-publicly named & shamed.
and it looks almost certain now there’s a statistical processing error
========
I would never say “error” to this…..
Errors would have given the results we are all getting….
To get the results they got….you have to do it on purpose…..you have to try different combinations until you get this result
As Willis and others have observed, the hockey stick uptick does not exist in any of the proxy data. Marcott takes this data and builds a 1,000 run Monte-Carlo for each data set, then averages them up and finds the hockey stick.
One of the first lesson any statistician learns is to, get this, actually look at the raw data before manipulating it! Anscombe’s Quartet is sometimes used to teach this basic principle.
So the Monte-Carlo data sets have the uptick but the raw data doesn’t. The error was probably in how the simulations were initialized at zero age. The Marcott.SM.PDF file shows the uptick appears in all of these Monte-Carlo runs, not just a few.
How this would be missed by Marcott et. al. or the reviewers is beyond me. Is it malice or foolishness? Hard to tell. but I guarantee if the error were in the opposite direction, it would have been investigated. At the very least this is confirmation bias.
I have to take my hat off to McIntyre. His thoroughness and attention to detail is the stuff of which great science is made. It is an example that we all can take a lesson from, particularly Dr. Marcott.
Thread winner right there! Well said.
Calling it “proxy sign inconsistency” is being charitable in the extreme. There is an expression about “remarkable claims require remarkable proof”. This whole affair is a statement about remarkable claims requiring almost no proof if they are for “The Cause”. The magazine “Science” and the referees should be ashamed of themselves, at best they have been a tool for naked advocacy.
Kelvin Vaughan says:
March 16, 2013 at 8:35 am
Man, I hates it when people do that. I took a look at your numbers, Kelvin. There is NO STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE to the correlation between the temperature and the sunspot datasets you show, p = 0.19. Heck, there’s no correlation even without adjustment for autocorrelation, p = 0.09 in that case.
There’s a technical name for that kind of result.
It’s “hogwash”.
RUN THE NUMBERS, people. That’s why statistics was invented—to let us know what is significant and what isn’t. What you’ve given us isn’t significant in the slightest.
And if your math isn’t strong enough to handle the calculations for significance, you have two choices:
1. Do your math pushups until your skills ARE strong enough for you to play, or
2. Sit on the sidelines and pay close attention to the game.
Both are good positions to take, no shame in either one.
Best regards,
w.
I think we need a new Nuremberg trial. It would be fine if it could be arranged in Nuremberg, on historical grounds.
We shouldn’t be too hard on Marcott he has basically admitted to SM that the Uptick is C##p which is totally different to Mann’s various replies to the HS. I would not be surprised that Mann was one of the main reviewers and told him to stick the uptick on.This is pure speculation of course
This is the problem with doing science with a per-conceived agenda.
If you honestly work with data you will question such upticks.
But if the error fulfills your preconception, you let it pass as a discovery.
Same for reviewers.
If temperature standstill continues, soon children won’t know what global warming is. 🙂
https://twitter.com/TheGWPF/status/312535504002375680
When I was in university, doing any sort of statistical analysis required days, weeks, or even months of laborious calculations using slide rules and log tables. I and my fellow students would be sure to consult our profs, thesis advisors, or other experts to make sure and certain that what we proposed doing was valid before attempting to implement it.
I wonder how much of the apparent problems that stem from statistical issues arise out of how easy it is to undertake complex and subtle analyses nowadays without knowing much about what is actually being done.
Modern computer statistical ‘toolboxes’ will cheerfully pull data out of your spreadsheets and output a result in minutes. And then you can try some other method and get another result. And repeat multiple times, while fiddling with the parameters and methodologies, until you see an output that seems to correspond with your preconceptions.
All without needing to understand more than a minimum about what the toolbox is actually doing.
HenryP says:
March 16, 2013 at 8:30 am
the whole AGW world is filled with this Marcott paper.
once again, the public at large will ignore global cooling until it is too late
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
…
Maybe they should print these papers directly on toilet paper, and cut out
the middle-Mann, so to speak…
or we can use them to light our wood stoves after all fossil fuels have been banned…
oops, probably wood’s on their list too….
There are some very wise comments above.
I have a little – basic – statistics. I have a little – basic – Italian from twenty or so lessons at ‘I Calabresi’.
I need to do a lot of Willis’s maths pushups if I am able to run with this – yet, as GlynnMhor correctly adduces, my computer is able to do so much more.
If I knew how to make the bloat-ware work.
And If I half-understood the answer, too!
And – know what it’s doing?
Oh – and why?
Oooooooooooooooooh, I don’t know about those!
Ahhh – but I can do estimates – you know, the simple sum in your head that tells you which one of 12, 1,200, and 120,000 is – certainly – the right answer.
As for Professor Marcott, and perhaps his colleagues, collaborators, and comrades, confirmation bias [if present, of course] seems to be a bit of a loaded dice.
So many studies over so many years.
I had better stop here before lapsing into indelicacy.
I’m in my fifth decade in shipping so – yeah, I can do indelicacy. But I’m not going to . . .
Auto
When I was a researcher, I think Charles II was on the throne, our papers were refereed. We never knew who they were, and I am sure they were unbiased. They might have been our peers, or on many cases more experienced scientists, probably would be described as Royals these days. But they did make mistakes, as I know, because I later found mistakes that I had made that were not picked up. But the seemingly basic errors in Marcot’s work should surely have been found by his supervisor. But, as others have said, there is too much trust in peer reviewing.
Meanwhile, Mann is happy as a clam on his Facebook page, linking to e.g. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-warming-detailed-in-new-temperature-records/2013/03/15/688d53f4-8846-11e2-999e-5f8e0410cb9d_story.html and tagging it #ExtendedHockeyStick
German winter warming put of until 2050 or 2100 by no other than Mojib Latif. Pierre had a thought time writing this piece as he couldn’t stop laughing. 🙂
http://notrickszone.com/2013/03/16/internationally-renowned-ipcc-scientist-prof-mojib-latif-now-postpones-warm-winters-by-up-to-100-years/
Typo:
Pierre had a tough time writing this piece as he couldn’t stop laughing. 🙂
You can believe one of two things. Either the Science staff, the authors and the reviews are all complete idiots or they knew exactly what they were doing. Your choice.
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 16, 2013 at 10:23 am
Kelvin Vaughan says:
March 16, 2013 at 8:35 am
Plot this. Its the total number of sunspots in each cycle since 1878 and the total of the yearly average CET temperature for each cycle.
Man, I hates it when people do that. I took a look at your numbers, Kelvin. There is NO STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE to the correlation between the temperature and the sunspot datasets you show, p = 0.19. Heck, there’s no correlation even without adjustment for autocorrelation, p = 0.09 in that case.
There’s a technical name for that kind of result.
It’s “hogwash”.
RUN THE NUMBERS, people. That’s why statistics was invented—to let us know what is significant and what isn’t. What you’ve given us isn’t significant in the slightest.
And if your math isn’t strong enough to handle the calculations for significance, you have two choices:
1. Do your math pushups until your skills ARE strong enough for you to play, or
2. Sit on the sidelines and pay close attention to the game.
Both are good positions to take, no shame in either one.
Best regards,
w.
I’m no statistician Willis.
You won’t find what your looking for in fijne detail as the temperature is dependant on so many things. I just see coarse patterns. Now I have discovered that the minimum temperature is going antiphase all the time over each cycle.
The temperature is trying to keep constant.
Sorry if I have annoyed you again Willis.
Best Regards
I get a distinct feeling that the whole “Global Warming” paper mill suffers from circular (You scratch my back, I scratch yours and keep the critics out) peer review and referencing.
HenryP says:
March 16, 2013 at 9:04 am
Henry@Kelvin
there is no temp?
Sorry Henry the columns have closed up. The temperature is the last four digits. It’s the sum of the yearly averages over each cycle.
The middle six digits are the total sunspots over each cycle. The date is the end date of each cycle.
Steve has a plausible explanation, but I am not sure it is fully correct or complete. The data sets are identical, yet there is no uptick in Marcotts thesis even though some of the reconstructions are identical (e.g. Standard 5×5 at 100 year intervals, and at 20 year intervals using RegEN infilling).
The dropout problem should have caused an uptick in the thesis. It did not. Something else is going on.
There are two possibilities. One is the algorithms. But the block diagrams of those are identical in the thesis and Science paper. Unlikely to have changed.
That leaves the likelihood that something was changed in the data to generate the strong ‘blade’ to the Science hockey stick. There is strong evidence for this. Thesis figure 4.3C shows that 9 proxy series remain at T0 (1950) after a slow steady dropout beginning about 1500. Graphing all 9 ( which extend beyond 1950)shows basically no change for centuries, and if anything a slight downtick from 1950 on. Science figure 1C shows that no proxy series survive to 1950. ZERO. What happened to the nine that did in the thesis? Science claims exactly the same 73 proxies from exactly the same references. Steve McIntyre says Marcott redated some series differently than in the references. Science 1C says that at a minimum, 9 series were slide back in time so that none survived to 1950. I imagine that by sliding negatives and constants back, and sliding strong positives forward, a blade could easily be created by dropout as Steve showed above.
And that is likely what happened. Thesis figure 4.3C shows a slow steady dropout from 70 proxies in 1500 to 9 in 1950. Science figure 1C shows much less dropout until about 1850 ( about 40 proxies survive compared to about 20 in the thesis). Then the dropout rate accerates, with none surviving to 1950. So so for Science a number of the proxy series were redated without disclosure to create the hockey stick that did not exist in the thesis.
But without disclosing the redating rationale, the methods used, and the results, it is just playing with data until getting the answer sought. There are less polite terms for such things.
I agree with Papertiger, Latitude and everyone else who doesn’t see this as any sort of error.
Let’s call it what it is. Loudly and repeatedly. it’s FRAUD. I also agree with Joe Public that we should start naming names, not just of the authors of such papers, but those who let these poor-excuse-for-science papers through to help their Cause. Peer acceptance is no error, either. These peer reviewers are part of the FRAUD.
If those who review papers come to realize they’ll be tossed in the same pot as the authors, then maybe they’ll take more care what they put their endorsement to.
The bottom line is these people continue to screw us over. It is very deliberate with the consequences to the world being very bad.
Richard M says:
March 16, 2013 at 1:27 pm
You can believe one of two things. Either the Science staff, the authors and the reviews are all complete idiots or they knew exactly what they were doing. Your choice.
==============
I would say the Science staff and the reviewers are all complete idiots….
…the authors knew exactly what they were doing
You can not do this paper by accident, ignorance, or stupidity……
…if you did, you would get the same answers others have
The only way this paper can come to the conclusion it has…..is by fraud and manipulation
….
Jimbo says:
March 16, 2013 at 9:44 am
“I find just 1 story in the Guardian for the Marcott paper in the World News section and it does not appear in their Climate Change section. They would normally be about 7 stories peppered throughout the Climate Change section of the Guardian. As for the BBC I can’t find anything. Maybe it’s just me. What do people think is going on?”
The same thing is happening in Germany. Der Spiegel does not produce climate related Sky Is Falling agitprop anymore but has delegated the theme to their (trustworthy!) science man Bojanowski. (For several weeks now).
That means that the international propaganda machine is done with warmism. Instead they will attack all forms of free markets directly – currently a lot of agitprop against food speculation for instance. One German charity had all railway stations plastered with that last week.
Warmism was a means to an end but has run its course now. Marcott and Shakun are the last, fighting rearguard (Hockey stick) action.
I suggest that Marcott becomes the top post at the moment – CG3 will be a slow burn whilst Marcott is a shooting star burning bright.
Rud Istvan;
There are two possibilities. One is the algorithms. But the block diagrams of those are identical in the thesis and Science paper.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Confused as to why you would say that. Since the graphs are very different between the thesis and the Science paper, would the logical conclusion not be that the algorithms that produced them are different regardless of what the block diagram shows?
would the logical conclusion not be that the algorithms that produced them are different regardless of what the block diagram shows?
>>>>>>>>>>
Or conversely, if the algorithms are the same, then the data must be different.
But I think the truth of the matter is that there are SO many things wrong with this paper that boiling it down to one…or three….or ten…. problems just won’t be possible.
What’s the deal with the “downtick”?
We are supposed to accept and be alarmed about the “uptick”, but just before that there was an unexplored “down” of almost 1C that I don’t recognize.
Going up is real, going down is noise?
The paper needs to be withdrawn and revised. I wonder what the editors would say.
re: IPCC and Marcott et al (2013), also posting this at Bishop Hill
Here is a fascinating blog commentary on the Marcott study, because it appears to be by the same Prof. RA Brown who recently commented critically at CA (on a different matter), and who is at Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences, the Univ. of Washington. [h/t John M at CA]
I find it suggestive that he twice refers to the Marcott study as having an IPCC imprimatur (see where he says “IPCC study” and “IPCC report”). As a climate science insider, Prof. Brown may have an interesting perspective on why he portrays the Marcott study as already an “IPCC study” when AR5 has not been finalized and the Marcott paper has only just been published. Did he have specific information that that Marcott was already an “IPCC study” (whatever that means)??
RA Brown on Marcott et al. (2013) and the triumph of the IPCC hockey stick
[emphasis added]
RE: Mann’s #ExtendedHockeyStick
PrematureHockeyStick is more like it. Marcott’s spike is in 1920-1940.
I think the real denial is about the deliberateness of the dishonesty of “false advocates” in *many* areas, not just climate.
Statistical math in medicine is *horrifying*.
Deja vu yet again. Josh (after Lucia) last year:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/screening2Josh.jpg
So ‘peer review’ worked perfectly again.
Shouldn’t the people doing the review be subject to scrutiny over this? Shouldn’t their competence be called into question?
After all reports like this one ensure that billions of dollars get wasted.
Henry@Kelvin, Willis
I also cannot get a plot out of that that makes sense to me. Remember that in a cooling period sucIh as now, CET runs opposite of the a-c wave
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
as determined earlier by me (post went missing)
simply because it gets more clouds and precipitation. So paradoxically it gets warmer in CET because globally it is getting cooler.,… it is called the GH effect…..
Skiphil says:
March 16, 2013 at 3:19 pm
I’m sure it will be exciting when the proles take up the pitchforks!
DaveE.
Here you go Willis
Just plot these two graphs and then tell me you can’t see a relationship.
First graph
Cycle average Maximum
13.8
12.7
15.0
15.6
13.7
Cycle toal sunspots divided by 1000
24.4
21.1
30.8
29.0
19.8
Second graph
Cycle average Mimimum
5.6
5.4
6.3
6.8
6.2
Cycle total sunspots divided by 10000
2.4
2.1
3.1
2.9
2.0
Best Regards Kelvin
I wonder how much of the apparent problems that stem from statistical issues arise out of how easy it is to undertake complex and subtle analyses nowadays without knowing much about what is actually being done.
Kelvin Vaughan says:
March 18, 2013 at 3:33 am
OK. I plotted the graphs, and I can’t see a relationship.
Or, since all things are related in some way, let me be more clear.
There is no statistically significant relationship in either graph.
Kelvin, you seem like a nice guy … but you desperately need a class in statistics. More men than you have been fooled by apparent relationships that are not significant in the slightest. That’s why we have statistics …
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 18, 2013 at 8:35 am
Thanks Willis.
I went and searched my copy of excel and found a correlation formula which I have been playing with comparing total sunspots in a cycle and total yearly temperature in a cycle.
I have now checked data from three stations and found correlations rangeing from -0.99 to -0.77 and from 0.92 to 0.64. I found that if you correlate years prior to the cycle ending in 1964 you get a positive correlation and for the 1964 cycle onwards you get a positive corellation, at all stations. ?????
The best correlation was for Cambridge UK. -0.99 and -0.97 for max and min since its inception in 1959.
regards
Kelvin
Kelvin Vaughan says:
March 19, 2013 at 10:07 am
Kelvin, that’s good stuff, and there’s a couple of problems with that.
First, you have to figure the odds that you got the result by random chance. This is commonly called the “p-value”.
Next, you need to adjust your figures for autocorrelation.
Next, if you look at say a dozen stations and you find one with a p-value of 0.05, is that significant? If that were the first and only station you’d looked at, sure.
But if you look at a dozen of them, you have about a fifty-fifty chance of finding one with a p-value of 0.05.
In any case, I’m overjoyed that you are out there trying to find correlations … you just need to be careful, there’s lots of pseudo-correlations out there that disappear once more data is available.
w.
Thanks Willis
I will look up p value next. I am getting such a good correleations that I think I must be doing something wrong.
Thanks for the tips. This is keeping me occupied in my retirement.