Climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics
From the GWPF – London, 6 February: A recent paper in Nature has received worldwide media attention because of its claim to have shown that the recent hiatus in surface temperature rises was the result of natural variability. The lead author, Jochem Marotzke of the Max Planck Institute, also claimed that his work dealt a fatal blow to suggestions that computer simulations have systematically overestimated the global warming caused by rising carbon dioxide concentrations.
However, Nic Lewis, an expert in this area of climate science, today pubished an article demonstrating that there are serious errors in the paper, and that its conclusions cannot be sustained. Lewis said:
“As well as having some basic statistical errors, Marotzke’s study can be shown to utilise circular logic. This means that its conclusions are unsound. Moreover, the stability of estimates for at least one of the two key structural model properties used is so poor that even were he able to rework his paper without the circularity – which appears impracticable – it would very likely be impossible to draw meaningful conclusions. I think the authors have no scientifically-defensible choice but to withdraw the paper.”
Lewis’s findings, which have been published at the influential Climate Audit blog, have been reviewed and confirmed by two statisticians: Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University and Roman Mureika, formerly of the University of New Brunswick. Professor Hughes said of the Marotzke paper:
“The statistical methods used in the paper are so bad as to merit use in a class on how not to do applied statistics. All this paper demonstrates is that climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics and Nature should get some competent referees.”
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“All this paper demonstrates is that climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics and Nature should get some competent referees.”
_________________________________
Ohh, that’s gotta hurt. Do you think Nature will pal-review this comment before publishing it? After the appropriate amelioration and homogenization has been applied to the original data, the new ‘warmer’ quote will then read:
“This paper demonstrates that climate scientists should give advanced courses in statistics, and Nature has some highly competent referees.”
R
Yeah … we used to joke about instances like this by saying “that’s going to leave a mark” … and a well deserved bruising too!!!
+1
Not really its long be clear that climate ‘scientists’ have lacked skill in the ‘honest ‘ use of statistics . These authors are merely following the normal , if awful , pratice used in this area .
After all its a approach that has been so successful , so often why change a winning formula ?
HA! +1
Quote:-
‘Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University and Roman Mureika, formerly of the University of New Brunswick. Professor Hughes said of the Marotzke paper:
“The statistical methods used in the paper are so bad as to merit use in a class on how not to do applied statistics. All this paper demonstrates is that climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics and Nature should get some competent referees.” ‘
Ouch Ouch Ouch……………………..and Ouch again!
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Scientific Community and the MSM at last say enough is enough.
How long do we have to have this sort of absurd idiocy masquerading as science foisted upon us?
I did my undergraduate degree at the Univeristy of Adelaide, and – years later – post-graduate work at the University of Reading. In both universities there was a tiny office with a tame statistician trapped inside. Staff and students could take the results of their study to him, and the poor devil (pathetically grateful that someone had come to see him) would happily do all the requisite analysis.
I find it hard to believe that the Max Planck Institute does not have a similar arrangement.
No, spelling was not one of the strengths of the Univeristy of Adelaide.
My typos hurt me too.
They might have and he gave them the wrong answers so it was ‘homogenised’ for publication.
Nice work Nic.
“The statistical methods used in the paper are so bad as to merit use in a class on how not to do applied statistics. All this paper demonstrates is that climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics and Nature should get some competent referees.”
Come on Prof Hughes, come out and say what you really mean.
I read that and one word came to my mind “OUCH”.
When Nature Magazine emailed my father, Dr. Aden Meinel, about his paper, ‘The Sun Is A Variable Star’ where he explains we are entering a low-sunspot Maunder Minimum, they said, ‘This is too scary and we don’t want to read about this right now.’
Seriously! My poor dad was flabbergasted. He tried having Scientific American publish his paper and they, too, rejected it. And my father is the person who pushed through the entire Kitt Peak Observatory and Chile observatory complexes and helped found the first solar observatory.
These publications are frauds at this point and my dad wasn’t the only one censored by these publications.
I bet that he was fuming inside, as well as being flabbergasted. I have been into the global warming story for over 6 years now, a newbie. After around 3+ years of reading, I found myself wondering why there wasn’t much current discussion about the potential for another grand minimum event. My first comment here at WUWT was in regard to why there was so little discussion on this issue. Since then, there has been some good posts on the subject.
My take on it was “why does it look to be so obvious to someone like me, yet none of the climate science, global warming scientists give it any credence?”. Your father,s paper will be proven to be correct in the not to distant future. I hope he is still around for that. I also look forward to seeing what the next decade brings in regards to natural climate change.
“why does it look to be so obvious to someone like me, yet none of the climate science, global warming scientists give it any credence?”
If they do, all those government grants to prove that the government needs to do something about it, dry up.
because the the plot is co2 causes global warming thus control co2 in other words control every living thing on earth
“I found myself wondering why there wasn’t much current discussion about the potential for another grand minimum event.”
It’s because no “scientist” seeking grant money has yet figured out how to turn it into a cash flow machine.
What has caught my attention of late is the tone of the warmist articles. Iget the impression that they are trying to head off the consequences of the natural changing conditions by laying a warming claim over the changes that are likely to occur with a cooling down of the NH/global temps. The recent articles on future droughts is the latest meme.
If Nick Lewis truly thinks he has found a fatal flaw in the paper he should submit a rebuttal to Nature. Sniping from the safety of an obscure blog site doesn’t move the debate forward.
Obscure blog?
Those engaged in anonymously sniping at WUWT have no room to talk.
Climate Audit is not obscure.
You haven’t really been following how anyone outside of orthodox thought is shut down by the current publishing process.
I disagree. The debate moves forward when corrections are published in a timely manner. I expect Nature wouldn’t bother to publish the rebuttal.
Luke, what is your rebuttal to the Nick Lewis comments?
If Lewis’s criticisms have a strong statistical foundation, I am sure that they would be published if he submitted a rebuttal to Nature.
Reformatted (sorry): Luke, you say,
Why are you sure of that?
The debunking of the paper has been made – publically.
It will be disputed, or not, depending on the folly of the authors. Nature will have no reason to publish science that is already in the public sphere.
Of course, Nic Lewis could have waited a year to two to try and get it through the snail-press but how does that advance knowledge?
And how would it benefit Nature to admit that they have blundered in organising peer review?
They have blundered, haven’t they?
Can you see any defence of this paper?
Nature has published responses of many of their papers. If Nic’s criticisms have merit, I am sure they would allow him to publish a response and would probably allow the authors to respond to his comments. If Nic is interested in moving the discussion forward, he has to do it in the scientific arena- e.g. peer-reviewed publications.
Luke says:
If Nic’s criticisms have merit, I am sure they would allow him to publish a response…
You’re sure, are you? Go and tell that to McIntyre and McKittrick, who tried several times to have their ‘response’ published — and those two always have their ducks in a row…
…unlike you. You just emit your opinion as if that’s the way it is. I think you’re wrong. And as you can see, you don’t have much support.
Luke,
Please, please read the article first. There is a very clear critique of the statistics in the paper by “Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University and Roman Mureika, formerly of the University of New Brunswick. Professor Hughes said of the Marotzke paper:
‘The statistical methods used in the paper are so bad as to merit use in a class on how not to do applied statistics. All this paper demonstrates is that climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics and Nature should get some competent referees.’”
It is not just Nick Lewis picking on the paper, and the odds that Nature will actually address the problem are odds you could take to Las Vegas.
I wholeheartedly agree with Luke, and also would have liked Anthony to have provided a summary of the technical issues in question, in layperson’s terms, rather than just picking out the “punch” lines of Lewis’ blog.
A useful summary appears in the comments of the original article.
http://climateaudit.org/2015/02/05/marotzke-and-forsters-circular-attribution-of-cmip5-intermodel-warming-differences/#comment-750637
The math seems pretty clear…the article should be subject to withdrawal, since it has a clear case of the…ahem…dTs.
And what debate will ever be made in the pages of “Nature”, a journal used for propagandist publication?
Yeah, smart guy like Nick Lewis probably hasn’t thought of that… S/off
And sniping from a well known blog site does?
Are you defending the Nature paper and if so, where do you disagree with Nick?
You found your way here, Luke. Lucky you!
Obviously wasn’t obscure enough.
A public rebuke is a heck of a lot more effective than a private submission, especially when the matter is of an embarassing nature. The tendency of people is to sweep these things under the rug, which has been done for years in this game, and Nature is among the worst offenders in ignoring people that do not agree with them. Even actual criminal activity such as the theft of Heartland’s financial records by Peter Gleik has been quietly ignored AFTER it has been made public. Even in the unlikely case that they publish a rebuttal, it will almost certainly be a back-page line item designed to be quickly forgetten.
The best disinfectant is sunlight, and exposure is the only meaningful weapon against falsehood when the authorities are corrupt.
Given previous form by the gatekeepers in these journals to inconvenient discoveries by outsiders of flaws in important on-message papers, I wouldn’t blame Nic for thinking that it’s not worth the time and effort. Take, for example, the last minute addition of a third pal referee to kibosh M&M’s decisive 2004 Nature reply to Mann, and the ease with which Mann got away with his sneeringly dismissive and erroneous reply to M&M’s entirely legitimate point about the fatal error in his 2008 PNAS paper concerning the upside-down non-dendro network.
In any case, virtually the entire climate “community” will know about this car-crash paper by now, simply by virtue of its appearance on Climate Audit, and now, of course, here at WUWT.
C’mon guys – we all know that every time there is a paper by a “climate scientist” regarding “climate change” and it is shown to be seriously flawed, a rebuttal is printed almost immediately and the original paper is withdrawn immediately. Further, the corrected information then becomes that which is often quoted in further “climate science” discussions.
Oh, question:
should I use the “/sarc” tag or the “/cynic” tag for this remark?
Or both?
Both… plus </pure fiction>.
JohnWho: For this gem (for which I am grateful), can we invent a tag, “/not”, credit to Wayne’s world?
@Paul Courtney
Uh, why not?
/grin
Nic Lewis. At least have the decency to get the name correct.
There is nothing obscure about it.
“Obscure”??? I’d love to see your definition of ‘obscure’. I mean, based on readership, where WUWT can enjoy 220M+ views against Nature supposed 3M readers per month (Wiki), I would hardly call it obscure.
Of course, if you add in all the readers of all the science-award-winning blogs that have read this story…
+10 !
I thought luke was accusing Climate Audit of being obscure. That’s where the link takes you.
Always assuming he noticed and followed the link.
Why is it either/or? Why can’t he do both?
Of course both should be done. The flaws in this particular paper are so egregious that the chance of getting a rebuttal published is much higher than would normally be the case.
And I am sure that if you wish really hard and flap your arms hard enough you can fly .
Nature soft-balled a seriously poor paper through ‘peer review’ for a reason , given that what chances do you think there are that they will publish an article that points this out given worldwide media attention it got ?
So you’ve nothing better to do than post silly comments on obscure ‘blog sites’?
Luke: So obscure that sks mod must warn their dozens of readers against exposure to it?
Climate Audit is not “obscure”. Nic Lewis’ essay will receive attention. Hopefully, Prof Marotzky will care to write a strong rebuttal if he thinks is paper is defensible, say if he thinks that Nic Lewis misunderstood an important detail.
Luke:
Nic did a full analysis with true expert peer review and published the entire paper, data and reviewer’s comments on a very well known and top listed science blog. Unlike those rather low listed false science propaganda blogs where the ‘climate team’ sycophants congratulate each other.
Nic found far more than one fatal flaw that badly researched and written paper.
Luke:
There seems to be a lot of incorrect and false things you are sure of.
You need independent peer-review by qualified statisticians to know whether Nic’s criticisms have any merit. I don’t think there are many people who have sufficient grasp of the complex statistical issues to know if Nic’s comments are worthy of consideration. That is what independent peer review is all about. Words are cheap, truth is hard.
Lukey, when your teacher wrote in your report, “Luke should pay more attention in class.” this is what your teacher meant. Now pay attention or disappear yourself.
Luke, come on into the 2000s! Why should Nic wait to critique the paper through what is undoubtedly a long process with Nature? Information spreads much faster today Luke. The real question is will Nature reciew Nic’s work as quickly as Nic reviewed their paper and act accordingly!
“” Sniping from the safety of an obscure blog site doesn’t move the debate forward.””
Is this “debate” like the “pause”?
It doesn’t exist but it can be invoked at any time.
What are you characters doing here? You repeat the same puny point, over and over, as though we haven’t all seen it hundreds of times before.
Barry wants a “… for Dummies” version but he agrees with Luke wholeheartedly.
Really, WHY are you here? You think there’s a pause in the debate and the debate will come back and bite you in the ass? The debate’s over, kids and you’re the lost platoon, wandering around behind enemy lines with no ammo. Even Elpis has left the building.
Oh my!
I left out Sir Harry!
There he is, down thread…agreeing with Luke. A whole string of mugginses agreeing with one another.
Is that why the warmist scientists are busy pushing their ’cause of the pause’? What’s the current number 52?
lol, someone clearly isn’t paying attention.
“Really, WHY are you here?” So you don’t anyone here who disagrees with you? That is the definition of an echo chamber.
Look at the header. This article was first published in Nature.
“The statistical methods used in the paper are so bad as to merit use in a class on how not to do applied statistics.”
“All this paper demonstrates is that climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics and Nature should get some competent referees.”
“The paper is methodologically unsound and provides spurious results. No useful, valid inferences can be drawn from it. I believe that the authors should withdraw the paper.”
I wonder how many “climate papers” could end with the same? 97%?
Good one.
Nature used to be a respected scientific journal. Real scientists need to stand up publicly and oppose these phony climate “scientists” before science as a whole loses its respect and credibility in the public eye.
As long as science is politically funded, no chance for ideology to be replaced with credible science in “popularism” journals. Look at NASA, once revered, now even their astronauts have become disenchanted. And the list is long.
…before?…
It already has
I gave up on Nature, Science, Popular Mechanics, and National Geographic in the 1980’s when I learned in industry what was really going in in science and industry which was not taught in the University of California educational system.
One could include Scientific American in your list.
New Scientist isn’t a journal but it isn’t a science magazine either, anymore.
And New Scientist
What Luke said. Taking potshots in climate “skeptic” echo chambers isn’t going to accomplish anything. Address the question directly with the publishing journal.
“What Like said.”
And you have the audacity to talk about “echo chambers’?????
Luke, not LIke.
Not what Luke said. Publishing the corrections in a blog like Climate Audit is the best way to move the debate forward. Good luck getting any rebuttal published in Nature.
Ahhh, the trolls are out today… Crawl back in your troll-hole surehairyflesh. Oh, and for the record, please call us deniers… at least you put “skeptic” in quotes… close enough troll.
Sorry, but that’s just rude. You may disagree with what these posters said, but that doesn’t make them ‘trolls’.
SHF has a history here. He is a troll. Sorry to have offended you Mr. Hall, that was not my intent. Are you OK with his posts?
Martin Hall,
The cited anonymous trolls have a long history in these pages and have deservedly earned the moniker.
Truly I am awful.
Martin’s right. I get really fed up of people accusing others they disagree with of being “trolls”. I see it happening all the time at both sceptic and alarmist blogs. It’s tiresome and rude.
Do I agree with Flashman and Luke? No, I think they are seriously misguided. .
Do I want to stop them from commenting? No, otherwise we truly will have an echo-chamber like they have over at the nutty and nasty SkS blog.
David Smith
You are right that discussion of alternate views is important and that presentation of opposing views is not trolling.
Trolls attempt to divert a discussion from its subject often by use of ad hominem remarks. And failure to rebuke trolls permits them to destroy discussion of a thread’s subject.
The characters who have been cited as trolls in this thread have a history of being trolls. And their posts in this thread are trolling: none of them has presented an alternative opinion and/or understanding but they have attempted to troll the thread onto the significance of WUWT; for example, this from SHF
Posting here and/ or at Climate Audit does not prevent submission to the journal, but the claims of “potshots” and “climate “skeptic” echo chambers” are defamatory comments clearly intended as trolling.
Richard
But someone is not a troll when CORRECTING a posties comment about a particulral subject, brough up OT, within thread.
Flashy.
For a Climate Scientist™ to find that his latest paper is being dissected at Climate Audit is approximately equivalent to being told that the Eye of Sauron has found him.
“Flashman was taken aback, and retreated two steps. East looked at Tom. “Shall we try!” said he. “Yes,” said Tom desperately. So the two advanced on Flashman, with clenched fists and beating hearts. They were about up to his shoulder, but tough boys of their age, and in perfect training; while he, though strong and big, was in poor condition from his monstrous habit of stuffing and want of exercise.” 😉
@SHF, “Truly I am awful.” That is the first step, please take the second.
SHF: And if Nic had submitted his story to your mates at SkS, would it have been ‘published’? Or disappeared?
I predict the following strategy by Nature: the rebuttal is delayed by two years, and a reply by the original authors is printed in the same issue. Then the reply will be used in the next IPCC report.
Harry, c’mon man, it’s the 2000’s and the archaic processes and timelines of i stations like Nature are dying fast. They just don’t know it yet. Better to simply post on line and let other critique away. Much faster science that way.
Yes, and better, too. If folks would pre-release papers online for independent review — before — publication (as Anthony has), maybe more than one in five would not fall flat, usually within a week of publication.
Professor Hughes of Edinburgh University does sum it up nicely.
A certification board for circular reasoning would be a nice idea also. Before anyone can edit, peer review or publish on climate science they would have to get certification that they understand circular reasoning. I have seen too many peer reviewed papers that employ this logical fallacy. The paper begins with an assertion that then becomes the conclusion of the paper. Ironically circular argument are always logically valid, but of course of no value. For example, “AGW causes changes to wildlife. Since our study showed a change in the mating habits of the pumpernickel squirrel we conclude AGW affects the mating habits of wildlife.”
Exactly so, it’s endemic.
Unfortunately, it sometimes happens on articles written for this site.
For example Willis’s article on Radiating the Oceans. He starts with the premise of the gross energy flow budget for the ocean and then concludes that the oceans would freeze unless they receive DWLWIR. He could equally have started withe the premise of the net energy budget and then be led to the concluded that DWLWIR was not a necessary component preventing the oceans from freezing.
Actually your example isn’t so much circular reasoning as it is bad logic. If the first sentence were “All changes to wildlife are caused by AGW,” then the last sentence would be circular. But your sentence is equivalent to “Some changes to wildlife are caused by AGW” so the last sentence is simply an incorrect conclusion.
Better watch that. One of the most damning of the c-g emails proposed setting up a committee (Star Chamber?) that would act as universal gate-keeper, invalidating all climate articles that did not cite articles that the committee listed.
(That is worse than it sounds.)
“pal-review this comment”
are you referring to Nature or to
“Lewis’s findings … have been reviewed and confirmed by two statisticians: Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University and Roman Mureika.”
So that critique works both ways. Except in Nature the review is blind.
Pippen, are the statistics right or wrong?
Yes, for sure the reviewers in Nature were blind. They let through such a third rate abomination of a paper. They sure must’ve been blind.
Yes the nature review is blind, they don’t have to read it to pass it!
+1
Pippen said, “So that critique works both ways. Except in Nature the review is blind.”
If the paper fits Nature’s narrative, then whether the review is blind or not is irrelevant…n’est-ce pas?
But it should be doubly blind: neither reviewer nor author should be known. With Nature, the author is and therefore a bias can be introduced when peer review equates to pal review.
At a more basic level, the assumption in any reviewing process is that the reviewers are knowledgeable. Gordon Hughes points out that in this case they demonstrably were not. That should worry any editor.
That simply isn’t realistic. Most of the time, it is easy to figure out who wrote a paper. From the specific comments made by referees, it is often enough also possible to guess who the referees were.
Pippen Kool
February 6, 2015 at 7:01 am
…. Except in Nature the review is blind.
You can’t possibly actually believe that and work in any field in science let alone climate “science.” One of the nastiest aspects of “anonymous peer review” is how easily it is manipulated. The “team” was kind enough to actually document the process for us. See the Climategate emails. Other, worse examples, that do not involve Climate “science” visit Retraction Watch.
Pal review is a terrible disservice — to the authors, themselves. It results in articles that do not hold up to independent review. You can fiddle peer review, but you can’t fiddle independent review.
evanmjones
But “I” don’t want “unfriendly” may-be-critical., may-not-like-me, honest reviews by potentially unfriendly unknown people!
They are MY IDEAS!!!!!!! I OWN THEM!!!!! MYIDEAS ARE ME!!!!!!
If “you” (an unworthy unknown unfriendly person) address MY IDEAS in a public forum you are attacking ME personally! !!!!! RANT, RANT, RANT ….
(And, besides, if you (the un-friendly unknown person) address my ideas critically and if you (the unfriendly, unknown critic) don’t like my ideas, “I” have to address your unworthy, unfriendly, unwanted questions! AND I DON’T WANT TO!!!! More RANT!!!!
About a century ago, Andrew Lang wrote “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts…..for support rather than illumination.”
I noticed the sks has a post on the Morotske paper. Here is a comment and moderator reply.
“””bjchip at 22:51 PM on 6 February, 2015
This may or may not have been hasty.
I see that there is some information on climateaudit that the statistical methods used are flawed. I do not have the background to double check that. I hope the authors can check it out and act appropriately…. quickly.
0 0
Moderator Response:
[JH] Your comment appears to be a thinly-disguised attempt to castr a shadow on the information presented in the OP. If so, please cease and desist playing such a game on this website. “””
The boys at sks won’t allow any statistical review of their religious beliefs. The moderator doesn’t seem to moderate his spell-check either.
I just commented there suggesting I’d be interested in seeing a response as well. If they ban me I guess I’ll have to spend all my time here :).
Yeah Harry. Take the red pill.
SHF: Good for you in making that comment at SkS. Will you post it and any response here?
SHF:
You got a reply.
“Tom Dayton at 03:17 AM on 7 February, 2015
Sir Harry, a professional statistician who has published climate science peer reviewed papers goes by the name Tamino on his blog, which is outstanding.”
Let us know what Tamino has to say. I’m sure it will entertaining. Good luck with getting a adequate answer though.
DCA
Thanks for providing the laughable statement of SkS saying
The “professional statistician” posts stuff as being from “Tamino” on his blog when wants to promote nonsense which he is too ashamed to put his name to and which he cannot publish as “climate science peer reviewed papers”.
Richard
DCA:
Of course, whatever Tamino has to say will merely be:
Frazier, Harry does the blue pill … he won’t be falling into line here anytime soon. 😉
“Your comment appears to be a thinly-disguised attempt to castr a shadow on the information presented in the OP”
Let me translate that for everybody:
“How dare you try to raise potentially valid criticisms of the Gods of Climate Science! We’ll have no skepticism here at Skeptical Science! Denier, Denier, Denier!”
I wonder what caused the lid to come off the troll box?
Lid came off because I forgot that suggesting any alternative to the party line here quickly leads to scorn, dismissal, heavy sighs and reminders that due to the Great Green Conspiracy, only information found here or at a select group of skeptic/denier blogs can be trusted. So that’s fun.
No, SHF, stupid replies get that treatment, So far you have presented little other than stupid replies.
And you’re an ignorant prick. Is that ad hominem enough for you? I keep forgetting that there’s no use coming here for useful information knowing the calibre of response any honest questioning will get.
Ooh, Harry, better be careful, or Socrates will cry about your name-calling…
…oh, that’s right. You’re on his side, so you get a pass. ☺
Mods
Troll ad hominem nasty post alert!
It’s bad enough that trolls just try and screw up topics; is it necessary that WUWT must suffer their total lack of social courtesy?
[Reply: Normally it would be snipped, but it was left for a different reason. SHF will probably regret it, too. ~mod.]
I stand by that. I can be a smartass, but that’s the first time I’ve been that rude. However, look what I was responding to, and then search the threads and see what people say to me – I get tired of being constantly abused for not toeing the party line, or even asking a legitimate question. They can always ban me if they want.
[Reply: others are so-called “abused”. But they do not resort to labeling people like you did. ~mod.]
Normally, after a couple of interactions with individual trolls, I just skip their worse than useless comments as they are a major waste of time.
I may choose to respond to troll droppings when they’re way off base as the only way to combat a lie is with the truth.
The best interaction with ordinary troll droppings is silence. With false troll claims, stick with knowledge. With troll abuse, ask for help.
History eventually identifies all fools who willingly spread false knowledge and outright lies. Anonymous names are only temporary protection from identification.
Let’s look at what has actually happened.
1. There’s a post referencing a rebuttal to a peer reviewed article (from Nature) on Climate Audit (as well as the rebutter’s blog.
2. Luke, supported by SHF, claims the rebuttal should be done on Nature.
3. All of us who have been in the “climate change” debate for a while (I’m at 20 years +) know that Nature won’t publish such a paper.
4. Were the rebutter to submit the article to another journal which would publish it, it would be dismissed by Luke, SHF and the rest of their ilk.
5. SHF (especially if he is indeed Tamino) knows this perfectly well. But he sticks to his guns nevertheless.
6. This is the textbook definition of being a Troll. QED
+ Note that there hasn’t been the hint of an actual criticism of the original rebuttal here. If and when there is, you’ll see a real scientific discussion here.
The relevant question is merely whether Dr. Lewis’ analysis is correct or incorrect. Conspiracy theories (from either side) are inapplicable.
It’s simple, really. The trolls are quickest to make their appearance in any thread which undermines the latest “paper” with which they had hoped to buttress their CAGW claims.
A troll only takes a few minutes to comment. A serious comment would take some time, at least a few days if someone got serious and right on it. I am willing to wait for a serious response. Though I am not holding my breath.
“The common denominator they all share is that they’re all activists who’re quite prepared to trash the perceived integrity of whatever profession they’re supposed to be practising in order to advance the “cause”, as it’s referred to in the climategate emails. They’re quite happy to distort, deceive, spin, destroy, pervert and simply lie their heads off because they just know the end justifies any means, and that’s something so many skeptics still find hard to get their head around.”
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/a-climate-of-hate-and-a-license-to-kill/
Pointman
As per usual Pointman, you nailed the troll impulse and intentions.
“All this paper demonstrates is that climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics and Nature should get some competent referees.”
I had an few exchanges on another thread with joeldshore on “impact factors” of journals in which he was denigrating th Chinese Science Bulletin as a way to marginalize the article by Monckton et al on a simple climate model. I explained that impact factors suffered the same flaws as pal review. Naturally, Nature would be cited by the throngs of climate scientists who have been welcomed there with their tawdry wares plus the effect of any hundred papers at random would include all the team authors in the world. Yeah, they cite each other a lot.
The quote above more eloquently makes my point. And would you believe, this paper will be cited by the usual hundreds of teamsters if it isn’t disappeared? It would be a nice diabolical flourish to let the paper stand for a year so that it is cited by the climate “masses” and then pull the rug out from under them all. The Max Planck Inst., Like the Wegener Institute (?) has developed a reputation in all this disgraceful climate syndicate era, like that of Penn State, the Boulder gang, UEA, UK Met, Nature Climate Science, the media’s Guardian, BBC and colonial clones, NYT, etc, that they are becoming a useful filter to help ignore the BS.
A note to Nature might get ignored until the next U.S. president (2017). And Nick’s “note” is too long for them.
As usual, individuals such as Luke, Pippen and Sir? Harry attack the person and not the facts. Its a guess whether they actually read the article in Nature like Nic did. And at least they have a forum to express their opinions (however flawed they might be) as compared to skeptics trying to submit and get published a fact-filled rebuttal in Nature. Pippen, Luke and Sir Harry should appreciate the freedon of speech this “obscure” blog provides them. The AGW skeptics don’t enjoy such freedom. And if this blog is so obscure why do their alarms go off on their troll-meter do that they can comment on this “obscure” blog?
I have no intention of reading it because it’s almost certainly beyond my understanding, at least not based on the amount of time I’d be willing to spend learning about stats. But I would like to see a spirited discussion leading to a conclusion, rather than everyone moaning in isolation.
Any excuse will do, right?
The papers methods were badly flawed. Nic showed how and why. But this is evident in both the abstract and the conclusion from an absurdly illogical conclusion that anyone can grasp without knowing the statistics. Even you. This should have been caught by the reviewers and editors. And provides strong evidence of pal review trying to walk back model falsification by the now 18 year pause (BAMS 2009 said 15 years, Santer 2011 said 17 years).
The paper’s statistics purportedly showed that paper’s self selected two most important emergent structural features of CMIP5 models (climate feedback ~1/ECS and ocean heat uptake) have NO statistical impact on the resulting temperature series. Absurd. It is a screaming siren with flashing red lights that the statistics were somehow fatally flawed.
When I’m not working I’ll have a look at the paper and the response.
Fair enough. We all have other things to do. Me too.
There can be no debate if no-one will (or can) dispute the findings of Nic Lewis and the statisticians.
Ah, so you will choose ignorance and depend on the kindness of strangers to lead you out of your (chosen) darkness? Well, Blanche, you just go with the nice man, he’ll take you to the padded spirited discussion room you seek.
If I get sick I’ll do some research and get a number of opinions, but ultimately I’ll rely on the experts. I don’t try to teach myself brain surgery off the internet then go around bragging about how much more I know than the people who’ve been working in the field for years.
Ross McKitrick commented on Climate Audit with an excellent simple summation.
SHF:
You will find more climate experts here than in any other one place.
[Thanks AtheoK, for posting that link.]
I don’t know about experts. But I don’t come here just to be a jerk, I usually learn things.
Thanks, Nic, Anthony. This paper’s methods are unsound, if not deceiving.
I gather that the CMIP5 simulations are correct and nature is wrong.
I’m not referring to Nature, which have chosen to be a mouthpiece for a flawed CAGW hypothesis.
Matt Briggs weighed in on this yesterday:
He’s been saying that a lot regarding climate science papers. We may need to chip in and buy him a supply of tissues.
It appears that Nature is now unabashedly a mouthpiece for contrived science that supports The Narrative.
The only thing you can be sure of is that you are not getting the truth. (I am not lying.)
This just in …..
From: Nature
“Neaner, neaner, neaner!
That is all”
This is nothing new. Using the equations/math and statistics programmed into a computer model to get the results you want is the same thing that has been going on for a couple of decades. It supports the theory.
The only way to completely negate the theory is with observational/empirical data over a long enough time period. So far 16 years(or whatever number close to that you are using) is not long enough.
Since the PDO cycle is 60 years, then a case could be made for as long as 30 years(of natural cooling) to negate greenhouse gas warming, so we have a ways to go.
That said, I guess you would call me a luke warmer but my mind is open to what new information we obtain and learn from. There are 2 things that bother me the most.
1. Scientists acting like they know for sure and have high confidence of things that are really just theories or of things that have possible explanations other than what they are sure of……..and especially when evidence suggests they might not have it completely right, they start interpreting new information with bias that keeps them from adjusting the old position.
2. Outright lies about the real world. That tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, storms, blizzards, extreme cold and such are getting worse because of human caused climate change(from greenhouse gas warming that hasn’t been happening the last 16 years). That animals doing great are suffering. That crops and plants will do worse from an increase in CO2. That CO2 is pollution.
There are hundreds of papers that one can use to site evidence on these completely delusional beliefs or in some cases, fraudulent uses of manipulating information to use to convince readers of what you want them to think.
I am proud to be a denier……………..of dangerous warming and of the belief that CO2=pollution.
So far, all the overwhelming evidence/science is that both the modest warming and increase in CO2 has been greatly beneficial to life on this planet.
I deny anything and everything in climate science/meteorology and biology that is a blatant falsehood and I have all the proof.
Those that have veered in a direction getting farther and farther from the scientific method have the problem. But then, I like to say that this is like living in the Twilight World of science.
Where theories and made up facts and beliefs/papers that are the complete opposite of the authentic truth are the basis of their truth. Where governments, agenda based groups, the media and money/grant money have hijacked science(climate and biology) and redefined them so they line up with an ideology.
This group think ideology is being passed on to our children who are being taught in school that carbon dioxide is pollution and humans are ruining the planet. At the 4 great schools that I’m a volunteer chess coach at, this is the case.
This sort of brainwashing is almost impossible to overcome. When they graduate, these false assumptions are completely brainwashed in. It’s impossible to view the world objectively when your starting point is a fatally flawed, false assumption.
Twilight World of science should be Twilight Zone of science……..after the awesome science fiction television show from 50 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Zone_%281959_TV_series%29