For readers unfamiliar with this work, this illustrates one of the mathematics techniques (tree ring proxy data inversion) Dr. Michael Mann uses to divine the famous “Hockey Stick” cited by Gore and others. – Anthony
Previously, we discussed the upside-down Tiljander proxies in Mann et al 2008. Ross and I pointed this out in our PNAS comment, with Mann denying in his answer that they were upside down. This reply is untrue (as Jean S and UC also confirmed.)
Andy Baker’s SU967 proxy is used in Mann 2008 and is one of a rather small number of long proxies. With Andy’s assistance, we’ve got a better handle on this proxy; Andy reported that narrow widths are associated with warm, wet climate.
I checked the usage of this proxy in Mann 2008. Mann reported positive correlations in early and late calibration (early – 0.3058; late 0.3533). Thus, the Mannomatic (in both EIV and CPS) used this series in the opposite orientation to the orientation of the original studies (Proctor et al 2000,2002), joining the 4 Tiljander series in upside-down world.
The difference is shown below:
Another upside down series. I wonder if it “matters”.
Could it really be just that simple? – Anthony
Latest new on tv (as seen from thousand of miles away from USA):
YOU will have to EPA permits to breath!! Ha!, Ha! 🙂
Sorry forgot “to pay” LOL
Old Construction Worker 15:20:59
Can suits be filed before the regulations are promulgated? We can certainly hope that the EPA will get an earful before the end of the 60 day comment period, but what are the chances that Carol Browner’s EPA, and the confused physicist Chu’s Energy Department, and the Chief Executive unscientifically advised by the Mad Idealogue John Holdren, won’t let it all go in one ear and out the other.
The only hope I have is the hint that Obama would prefer this be done legislatively rather than executively through regulation. And much of that hope hinges on the weak straw that he’s been getting legislative feedback from the industrial state Democrats who’ve halted Cap and Trade for this year.
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“I guess 10% is what passes for peer reviewed science nowadays. When I was publishing biological data in the late 70’s there was no acceptance for publication if the correlation wasn’t better than 80%.
Jim”
The low r^2 is actually necessary for the method to work. If you only selected “proxies” (ie random time sequences that might or might not be correlated with T) with high r^2 it is highly likely that they are actually responding to T. That would be bad because they would show the MWP as warm as or warmer than now. The aim is to show recent T to be unprecedented. To get that result you select “proxies” that correlate weakly with recent T in the calibration period (which you can exactly match with appropriate weightings). Then, in the precalibration period, with a bit of luck (you might have to discard a few “outliers” here) they will average out to give a flat profile.
That is a hockey stick, flat until the beginning of the calibration period (ie when humans became sufficiently advanced to measure T).
The method would work with any data sets unless they actually do measure T.
The data looks inverted but the axis label values are NOT! That’s not just an simple inversion of the graph where the axis label values also invert, it’s a changing of the signs of all the data points. Big difference. Not just a difference of perspective, but potentially a deceitful act of misrepresentation of the data. Is this what is claimed that Mann has done? I’m unclear from the way the article is written that this is what is being asserted.
Please stop using my screen name when replying to me. Anthony please check the IP Address of the person replying to my comments and if they use my screen name please block them if you’d be so kind. Thanks very much.
Have the courage to pick your own unique name!
[Reply: All comments from pwl came from the same computer. ~dbstealey, mod.]
Everything gets scaled and weighted in the process of turning them into a “temperature” so the actual numbers don’t matter.
pwl, the response ‘Reply’ within your own comment is from the moderator.
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[Reply: Yes, thank you, kim. The first two ‘replies’ were from another moderator who was just trying to be helpful by answering the question. I misunderstood what pwl was referring to. My apologies. ~dbstealey, mod.]
kim (17:12:13) :
‘The only hope I have is the hint that Obama would prefer this be done legislatively rather than executively through regulation.’
I wouldn’t. I would like to see them justify the theory in a court of law. Can you imagine Hansen giving up his climate model source code to public scrutiny?
PWL, what has happened is that Mann took something which is correlated to temperature negatively, then inverted it to a positive correlation for his purposes. Climate Skeptic sums it up well.
I have been tasked with proving that people are getting taller over time and estimating by how much. As it turns out, I don’t have access to good historic height data, but by a fluke I inherited a hundred years of sales records from about 10 different shoe companies. After talking to some medical experts, I gain some confidence that shoe size is positively correlated to height. I therefore start collating my 10 series of shoe sales data, pursuing the original theory that the average size of the shoe sold should correlate to the average height of the target population.
It turns out that for four of my data sets, I find a nice pattern of steadily rising shoe sizes over time, reflecting my intuition that people’s height and shoe size should be increasing over time. In three of the data sets I find the results to be equivical — there is no long-term trend in the sizes of shoes sold and the average size jumps around a lot. In the final three data sets, there is actually a fairly clear negative trend – shoe sizes are decreasing over time.
So what would you say if I did the following:
* Kept the four positive data sets and used them as-is
* Threw out the three equivocal data sets
* Kept the three negative data sets, but inverted them
* Built a model for historic human heights based on seven data sets – four with positive coefficients between shoe size and height and three with negative coefficients.
My correlation coefficients are going to be really good, in part because I have flipped some of the data sets and in part I have thrown out the ones that don’t fit initial bias as to what the answer should be. Have I done good science? Would you trust my output? No?
The EPA announcement is part of the Obama Administration’s effort to get Congress to pass Cap’n Trade. Its the hammer they hang over the heads of the mid-western representatives and senators in the hope that it will force them to back his plan.
Right now the Cap’n Trade legislation is stalled by democrats from states that are dependent on hydrocarbon for fuel, power and resource jobs.
I would prefer to have the issue decided through EPA rulemaking. That way it will be litigated and the “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” will be the standard that the promoters of AGW will be forced to adhere to. The rules will also take some time to get adopted if they are held up by litigation (this is how enviro groups work).
In the political arena, any “truth” will do as long as it gets the bill passed.
With the media only reporting the AGW “myth as fact”, which way sounds better to you?
If the AGW mission was to embarass science to the point of zero credibilbity, this would be the way to do it. Scientific institutions will be humilitated or have funding cut off entirely.
Seems like there is great effort underway to destroy Science, not just to use it for political ends.
Roger Sowell:
The reporting on this Supreme Court decision has been very very misleading. I would suggest that anyone intersted read at least the syllabus. The actual decsion including the syllabus is here .
If it were practical to get a case into Federal court, I would be tempted to use the logic of this decision to force the EPA to recognize water vapor as a cause of global warming and to regulate it as a polutant.
++PLS
Let’s try that link again. The Supreme Court decision with syllabus is here: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf.
++PLS
Ian,
Your comment at the top referring to this as “tree astrology” caught me mid-slurp on my beverage and caused an unexpected Diet Coke spew event. Well done…
One more comment. Having reread the decision, I have the impression that the EPA wanted to lose it. The EPA was making arguments that were unlikely to be effective and failed to make ones that could. The SC based its decision impart on the “widely accepted” basis that man-made carbon dioxide causes global warming and that global warming was a very bad thing. No contrary evidence was introduced by the EPA or by anyone else.
I also suspect that if one were to look deeply enough, one would discover that the EPA funded the initial lawsuit, up until Massachusetts stepped in. There are other documentated cases of the EPA funding the plaintiff and failing to present a defense in a case ended up increasing their authority.
++PLS
Anybody seen Jennifer Marohasy’s page today pointing at a new study showing C02 doesn’t stick around in the atmo that long? 5-16 years rather than 50-200?
All the early studies seem to indicate this. If it’s true, then there is NO reason to cut CO2 until/unless CO2-AGW a.) turns out to be true, and b.) becomes very severe. No need whatever to worry about it until then.
Therefore, for those who urge immediate action, it is imperative to persist pushing persistence like a pit bull.
Thanks to everyone who helped make this clearer. I suspected it was just a visual thing, but now understand it’s a lot more than that.
To Alan Chappell (08:51:49)
Having played hockey against girls I’m not surprised the men in Australia are afraid to play it. Have you seen what they do with the balls?
“[Reply: All comments from pwl came from the same computer. ~dbstealey, mod.]”
Well then why the heck do the messages with “REPLY” text in them come from some one else who isn’t identifying themselves??? There must be two different IP addresses since I’ve NOT been posting the replies to myself!
Who are they? Why are they allowed to post without a tag?
Not only would I not trust your “work” if you did that to your (hypothetical?) shoe size data I’d assert that you are a utter and complete fraud UNLESS you could provide a VALID scientific reason that can that, for example, demonstrates that is an acceptable reason. Failing that you’d be a fraud.
IS this what Mann has been doing? If so, all I can say is WOW! If this is so does this mean that he’s been caught committing scientific fraud with his data? What is he response? Shudders if true.
For example I didn’t post the following text yet it’s identified as “pwl” who posted it! If it’s not someone else using my screen name then why is that happening? It’s very disconcerting dbstealey.
Assuming you are a site moderator [Reply: All comments from pwl came from the same computer. ~dbstealey it’s ironic that your own posting with the text “[Reply: All comments from pwl came from the same computer. ~dbstealey, mod.]” is also an offending posting since it’s identified as coming from me and not the person who posted it.
Edit Corrections: Assuming you are a site moderator ~dbstealey it’s ironic that your own posting with the text “pwl (17:32:44) : … [Reply: All comments from pwl came from the same computer. ~dbstealey, mod.]” is also an offending posting since it’s identified as coming from me and not the person who posted it, you! If it’s not someone else posting it (it’s not me) then you’ve got very weird site settings for comments as it’s very confusing. Why wasn’t your comment directed at me posted with YOUR screen name dbstealey? I suspect it’s possible you’re just the same person playing around.
Reply: dbstealey is a mod. I will look into this incident to see if inappropriate behavior occurred. I haven’t researched it yet. Update to come. ~ charles the moderator.
Reply 2 update: Apparently you are complaining about inline comments (like this one). These are common on this moderated site and many others. Usually, but not always, if there is no identifier they come from Anthony. It’s his site and he doesn’t have to identify himself. Other moderators should identify themselves, but sometimes when trying to be helpful in a hurry, this may be overlooked. It appears dbstealey misunderstood your complaint that you were being spoofed and didn’t realize you were only referring to the inline comments such as this one. While he was being helpful, it just confused you more. The original posts did all come from the same IP address (yours) and were subsequently modified by moderators, who were clearly calling out their modifications. I conclude this is nothing more than a user pibkac error and dbstealey did nothing inappropriate, malicious, or against policy. In fact he was attempting to clarify or squelch a false complaint. ~ charles the uber moderator.
Yes, if “inline comments” are the settings of this blog then YES indeed it’s likely that the incident may have more to do with a site setting rather than an intentional act. I’ve never seen this style of comment reply system where the poster is unidentified OR incorrectly identified. Respectfully, it would be nice if everyone obeyed the site policy of identifying themselves. It’s only polite!!!
“pibkac”?
I am not asserting that anyone has done anything “wrong” or “malicious”. I was simply asking why the posts are labeled as coming from me when they clearly were not written by me (well it’s clear to me). This is very misleading to others who come to the site and read the comments thinking that I’m posting and then replying to myself. Respectfully, that is why it’s important for even the site owner and moderators to IDENTIFY themselves rather than posting with someone else’s screen name. Is that too much to ask to avoid confusion?
It’s hard enough following the conversations with all the technical on point information, to have to sort through who might be posting it just adds to the burden of sorting out who is saying what.
If the IP Addresses say that the “inline” comments were from moderators posts that would prove that there was no “spoofing” of identity and that the issue is a, respectfully, poor site comment setting choice. Maybe it’s beyond your control due to the ways of wordpress. It’s just very confusing and unusual. Never seen it before anywhere and I’m in a professional the internet computer business.
Thanks for your responses.
Reply: pwl, this is the site format we’ve been using at WUWT for years. Don’t take it personally. When Anthony or a moderator has a response, the format is to use “Reply:“, then post a response. Readers understand that it’s simply an in-line reply to the posted comment. Lots of other sites do it the same way. ~dbstealey, mod.
As for the upside down world of Dr. Mann et. al. it might be difficult to accuse him of “fraud” when the slights of hand may seem “trivial” to most people.
I remember in science classes in high school grades 9-12 they kept impressing upon us the accurate and verified collection and recording of data. Measure many times, verify many times, then record the actual data points not what we thought it was and then measure again to verify again and again.
Anyone in those science classes fudging data by “inverting” the sign would have to have a “brilliant” and scientifically valid explaination and scientifically justifiable reasoning to avoid the failing grade.