Just when you think it couldn’t get any more bizarre in Mann-world, out comes a new paper in Nature hawking hurricane frequency by proxy analysis. I guess Dr. Mann missed seeing the work of National Hurricane Center’s lead scientist, Chris Landsea which we highlighted a couple of days ago on WUWT: NOAA: More tropical storms counted due to better observational tools, wider reporting. Greenhouse warming not involved.
Mann is using “overwash” silt and sand as his new proxy. Chris Landsea disagrees in the Houston Chronicle interview saying: “The paper comes to very erroneous conclusions because of using improper data and illogical techniques,”
From the BBC and the Houston Chronicle, some excerpts are below.
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From the BBC, full story here
Study leader Michael Mann from Penn State University believes that while not providing a definitive answer, this work does add a useful piece to the puzzle.
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 The levels we’re seeing at the moment are within the bounds of uncertainty.  Julian Heming, UK Met Office
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“It’s been hotly debated, and various teams using different computer models have come up with different answers,” he told BBC News.
“I would argue that this study presents some useful palaeoclimatic data points.”
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From the Houston Chronicle, full story here
One tack is based on the observation that the powerful storm surge of large hurricanes deposits distinct layers of sediment in coastal lakes and marshes. By taking cores of sediments at the bottom of these lakes, which span centuries, scientists believe they can tell when large hurricanes made landfall at a particular location.
The second method used a computer model to simulate storm counts based upon historical Atlantic sea surface temperatures, El Niños and other climate factors.
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The two independent estimates of historical storm activity were consistent, said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, the paper’s lead author. Both, for example, pinpointed a period of high activity between 900 and 1100.
“This tells us these reconstructions are very likely meaningful,” he [Mann] said.
UPDATE:
What is funny is that with that quote above, Mann is referring to the Medieval Warm Period, something he tried to smooth out in his tree ring study and previous hockey stick graph.
Now he uses the MWP to his advantage to bolster his current proxy.
Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit writes about “check kiting” related to this study:
The Supplementary Information sheds no light on the methodology or the proxies.
The Supplementary Information contained no data sets. The proxies used for the Mann et al submission are not even listed.
The edifice is built on the SST and Nino3 reconstructions, both of which are references to the enigmatic reference 17, which turns out to be an unpublished submission of Mann et al.
17. Mann, M. E. et al. Global signatures of the Little Ice Age and the medieval climate anomaly and plausible dynamical origins. Science (submitted).
At the time that Nature published this article, there was precisely NO information available on what proxies were used in the reconstruction of Atlantic SST or El Nino or how these reconstructions were done. Did any of the Nature reviewers ask to see the other Mann submission? I doubt it. I wonder if it uses Graybill bristlecone pines.
He’s Smoking something and it isn’t Havanas…
Hoooooo…man that felt real good.
Here’s a dose of sanity folks, in case you need it like I just did:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate
At the end of BBC article, Mann says that 1000 years ago La Nina and a warm Atlantic kicked up a lot of hurricanes. He then goes on to say that today, with approximately the same frequency of landfall hurricanes as in the past, the setting is different. It is just a warm Atlantic that’s done it. So he speculates that as global warming warms the Atlantic, more hurricanes should be the result regardless of La Nina or El Nino conditions. And exactly how will the Atlantic warm? By longwave radiation? That would be some neat trick. Maybe he is thinking that if he blows enough hot air up our skirts, he can warm it himself?
Mann has no shame or scruples. None whatsoever…
Now, “In this new era”, ENSO has no effect on Tropical Weather in the Atlantic, It’s just SST’s as Mann states. So whats Mann gonna do if the AMO/TNA go into a below normal phase, I predict a new excuse? Good Point Pamela.
Only in a passive/enabling main stream press environment, would people like Mann, Hanson, and Moon not be exposed for the silly zealots they are.
Wonderful stuff from Mr. Mann, like the IPCC, start with the hypothesis and work backwards making the ‘evidence’ fit the hypothesis. Did Mr. Mann view the National hurricane center stats and Mr. Landsea’s synopsis? I wonder if he is squirming a little?
Not many bristle cone pines (pinus longaeva) in my neck of the woods, though I did pick one up this year on vacation in Weymouth – a Douglas fir cone (pseudsotsuga), it (the cone) is open and the weather is good and set fair in the North of England, just a thought I know – but should the Met’ Off’ start employing some old and tried and trusted methods??
David Ball (10:35:49) : … Is it a storm surge or a tidal wave resulting from tectonic activity?
Or volcanic activity or just sub-sea land slides such as the Storegga event off Norway c. 5100BC – http://www.fettes.com/shetland/Storegga.html – which devasted the east coast of Scotland. Sorry to fellow Scots for mentioning Norway so soon after yesterday’s result.
“What accounts for the high between years 900-1100? King Arthur’s SUV?” Alex
The historical Arthur (mentioned once, I think in Nennius) seems to have been a war leader around 300-400. By 1000 we might be considering William the Bastard, who did a fair bit of environmental modification of his own, setting up the New Forest for hunting. Perhaps the digestive gases of deer have a strong warming impact? I must remember to mention this to Michael Mann….
A USA Today blogger turned around the headline and pointed out that the study is saying that hurricanes were more frequent 1,000 years ago.
Gee, if only someone had noticed something else about what weather or climate was like 1,000 years ago.
Lance (10:36:26) :
I broke my hockey stick last winter during hockey season. He can use it for Carbon dating….
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LOL Maybe he can retrieve some samples from Gore’s pipe with it.
And what would you like your computer model to say sir?
“The team also noted that the finding of no increasing trend in hurricane and tropical storm counts in the Atlantic is consistent with several recent global warming simulations from high-resolution global climate model and regional downscaling models”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/11/noaa-more-tropical-storms-due-to-better-observational-tools-wider-reporting-greenhouse-warming-not-involved/
“The second method used a computer model to simulate storm counts based upon historical Atlantic sea surface temperatures, El Niños and other climate factors”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/13/mann-hockey-sticks-hurricanes-hurricanes-in-the-atlantic-are-more-frequent-than-at-any-time-in-the-last-1000-years/
This mann has an strange mind fixation with sticks!
The key of the paper is using a statistical tool to coerce the sediment data into making the 1,000ad time becoming a hot bed of Hurricanes and therefore tie this with subsequent statistical models they developed.
If anything a cursory visual inspection of the sediment data offered in Figure 1. -especially paying attention to the age uncertainty of events- shows mostly activity prior to 800ad on every site. Then a paucity from 900ad to the 1,800ad, except at the Massachussetts site.
Therefore, it is likely that the magic was to overweight the Mass. site in the stats. Once this is done, there should be no problem comparing the so called “independent” datasets. Let’s not forget that the sites are all located in the same aerological domain…
Moreover Mann’s understanding of cyclogenesis is somewhat simplistic: if hot SST were the governing factor then there would be virtually hurricanes every day…
Yet on page 882, the third page of the paper, the authors are describing the true uncertainty affecting these geological sites, the possible confusion with monsoon storms and cite the Caribbean activity for good measure and yet conclude with the traditional “robust” this time minored by a “reasonably”…
The conclusion fizzles out with “suggest”, “some degree of additional validation”…
So from a geological viewpoint this paper is hardly hard rock evidence. I am sure the statisticians will have a field day.
It’s Mann’s type of ‘science’ that is dragging science down to the levels of newspapers and television. How can I counter religious belief with science when the religious can bring up what passes for science now? Very disappointed that more scientists don’t recognise what is being done within the whole debate about climate, and don’t stand up and voice their concerns. We seem to be going back toward alchemy!
[snip – ad hom]
Although I haven’t seen the paper, I will give him credit for at least looking for a source of historical data, such as overwash sediments. What you can interpret from that & the limits on that are a different thing all together. I do hope he had some geoscientists on his team.
Of course, since he is dabbling in Geology, I am sure the AGWers wont mind if non-climatologist scientists dabble in climate science. Fair is fair, right ?? :))
He’s still using that greasy computer-modeled hair stuff.
Nobody told him about the alternative: reality.
There’s more activity in the Pacific than in the Atlantic so far this year.
Because Climate Changes. Sung to the tune of Stuff Happens.
For the alarmist, evey day is Haloween. Boo !!
Once again the overwash will likely reach the MSM… Yet the Steig et al. corrigendum has not…
Christopher Monckton’s July CO2 report just came out today: click It contains a section on hurricane frequency.
Eureka!! With new data I just collected from the above report, i now know how he it all happened! And I wrote a quick computational model and ran the data through my super computer to prove it. (My data? Well, I’ll be releasing that later – – mmm, much later)
It shows that Mann is a – golfer! He hit into a sand trap and he didn’t have his Sand wedge with him, but he did have his Hockey stick – of course. He cares it with him everywhere he goes. And when he went to stroke the ball, a ton (Yes, a metric ton, according to my simulation) of sand flew up into his face and HE said, “Dang!” “I’ve figured out AGW – – again.”
Now if we could just get him out on the course more often…..
My 16 year old nephew is working with Chris Landsea as an intern, reevaluating and when necessary reclassifying old storms. Chris is an excellent mentor and is providing a great opportunity for Daniel.
Barry Foster (11:39:25) :
We seem to be going back toward alchemy!
Alchemy was a psychological endeavour not a chemical one. In any case this is REVERSED ALCHEMY which turns gold into sh**
Ric Werme wrote:
” BTW, Chris Landsea has also spearheaded a review of hurricane records from ships logs, news accounts, etc. to clean up the data from the first half of the 20th century. I believe that effort was inspired by his graduate work at Colorado State under Bill Gray where they spend a fair amount of time poring through the historical records.”
This is the job my nephew is doing with another young guy, deciphering things difficult to read and old and worn pages. Hopefully I will get some inside looks at NHC. and try to wangle an invite to go along when I visit my family.
More from the Houston Chronicle’s comments from Landsea:
In his criticism, Landsea notes that the paper begins by saying that Atlantic tropical activity has “reached anomalous levels over the past decade.”
This ignores recent work by Landsea and a number of other hurricane scientists who found that storm counts in the early 1900s … likely missed three or four storms a year. The addition of these storms to the historical record, he said, causes the long-term trend over the last century to disappear.
“This isn’t a small quibble,” he said. “It’s the difference between a massive trend with doubling in the last 100 years, versus no trend.”
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First is was bristlecone pines. Now it is silt & sand. Can tea leaves be far behind?