Quote of the week #16

Slightly O/T
Leif,
A ‘new’ Cycle 23 sunspot showed up on your database today. Is it accounting for one that popped up very recently? I didn’t see it on the sun images at all yesterday or today, but perhaps the images weren’t yet updated…
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png

Nasif Nahle (14:30:37) :
Seriously, Mann is using a proper proxy; his work is what throws some doubts. Overwash sand and silt layers are suitable proxies for knowing the frequency of hurricanes striking the coastline in the past.
—
But, from what I read of his description of his proxy boreholes, “most” – well over 50%! – of Mann’s proxy data was from a single site in Massachusetts. Then he extrapolated from that New England site (rocky beachs and winter storms and northeasters and all) to claim he can count all of the last 1000 years of Gulf Coast hurricanes that have hit the Atlantic coast, FL coast, AL coast, MS coast, LA coast, and TX coast and Mexican coasts.
Maybe – if he were digging pristine swamps in LA, I’d let him estimate the number of hurricanes hitting LA. It’d be possible – with wider error bars – to extrapolate to hurricanes hitting AL, MS and TX coasts.
But to make a “count” of ALL hurricanes on ALL coasts with a standard deviation of 1.0 ????
By the way, I thought a “standard deviation” was a measure of the variation of the actual “data” = How can you have a “standard deviation” of a calculated value based on unknown data? That is, if he actually “counted” four storm strikes (disturbed mud layers) from 4 boreholes at 4 sites in the year 1152 , then his “data” is 4. If Mann then “corrects” his count” of “4” and says, well this means there really were “12” storms that year because some didn’t go over the bore holes, then “12” can’t have a standard deviation.
Error bars? Sure – but you can ONLY create error bars where an “error” could exist. Thus, to have “data” on all the “blue points” of Mann’s hurricane curve, he’d have to have consistant, repeated, boreholes of the entire 1000 years of history he is recreating for all beaches where he has surveyed. (Fine, that’s possible. We don’t know where he has sampled, but that’s possible.)
But how many boreholes did he (somebody else?) actually bore? Where were these holes? What beach geography and geology? How did he track and count and co-relate the bore holes from several (many ?) different sites so he does have a valid assignment of year_id to mudlayer position in the tube? Did he assign/guess/ignore any “deviation” in the assignment of any given disturbance to any given year?

RACookPE1978 (19:20:42) :
Nasif Nahle (14:30:37) :
Seriously, Mann is using a proper proxy; his work is what throws some doubts. Overwash sand and silt layers are suitable proxies for knowing the frequency of hurricanes striking the coastline in the past.
—
But, from what I read of his description of his proxy boreholes, “most” – well over 50%! – of Mann’s proxy data was from a single site in Massachusetts. Then he extrapolated from that New England site (rocky beachs and winter storms and northeasters and all) to claim he can count all of the last 1000 years of Gulf Coast hurricanes that have hit the Atlantic coast, FL coast, AL coast, MS coast, LA coast, and TX coast and Mexican coasts.
Rocky terrains stop us from boreholing. Usually, the oldest layer is immediately above the rocky bed and the latest sand layer is about one hundred meters shorewards. Usually, we find the layer 1300 years old at a core depth of 60 cm. The layer from 30 cm to the surface represents an age of 820 to 970 years old. So, your observation for New England is correct and Mann couldn’t get homogeneous results for all the remainder places that you have mentioned.
Maybe – if he were digging pristine swamps in LA, I’d let him estimate the number of hurricanes hitting LA. It’d be possible – with wider error bars – to extrapolate to hurricanes hitting AL, MS and TX coasts.
But to make a “count” of ALL hurricanes on ALL coasts with a standard deviation of 1.0 ????
By the way, I thought a “standard deviation” was a measure of the variation of the actual “data” = How can you have a “standard deviation” of a calculated value based on unknown data? That is, if he actually “counted” four storm strikes (disturbed mud layers) from 4 boreholes at 4 sites in the year 1152 , then his “data” is 4. If Mann then “corrects” his count” of “4″ and says, well this means there really were “12″ storms that year because some didn’t go over the bore holes, then “12″ can’t have a standard deviation.
Error bars? Sure – but you can ONLY create error bars where an “error” could exist. Thus, to have “data” on all the “blue points” of Mann’s hurricane curve, he’d have to have consistant, repeated, boreholes of the entire 1000 years of history he is recreating for all beaches where he has surveyed. (Fine, that’s possible. We don’t know where he has sampled, but that’s possible.)
But how many boreholes did he (somebody else?) actually bore? Where were these holes? What beach geography and geology? How did he track and count and co-relate the bore holes from several (many ?) different sites so he does have a valid assignment of year_id to mudlayer position in the tube? Did he assign/guess/ignore any “deviation” in the assignment of any given disturbance to any given year?
I’d like to know it also. Overwash sand and silt, dinoflagellates, organic matter, and other materials, are OK as hurricanes proxies if the researcher follows the protocol in the standard way; Mann’s work is dubious because he doesn’t permit the systematic verification of his results. It seems he rubs the wrong way only for irritating the scientific community.

Nasif Nahle (14:30:37) :
RunFromMadness (12:58:53) :
C64 games were good, so things have changed.
You mean Atari? 🙂
ZX Spectrum surely?
I hope, against hope, that one fine and sunny day the “hockey-stick” shape will enter mainstream teaching as a known indicator of bad technique or data sampling.
Something along the lines of “So, class 4A, if you see this shape, there’s a pretty good you’ve all f*cked up. Again. Now, for your homework, write out 100 times ‘Hockey stick – silly pri.. Johnston, leave Smedley alone!’. Class dismissed”.
Cheers
Mark.

RACookPE1978 (19:20:42) : “But, from what I read of his description of his proxy boreholes, “most” – well over 50%! – of Mann’s proxy data was from a single site in Massachusetts. Then he extrapolated from that New England site (rocky beachs and winter storms and northeasters and all) to claim he can count all of the last 1000 years of Gulf Coast hurricanes that have hit the Atlantic coast, FL coast, AL coast, MS coast, LA coast, and TX coast and Mexican coasts.”
Before you make comments about rocky beaches exposed to winter storms and northeasters you should read the reference for the MA sediment samples in Mann’s paper:
15. Boldt, K., Lane, P., Woodruff, J. D. & Donnelly, J. P. Sediment evidence of
hurricane-induced coastal flooding in southeastern New England over the last two
millennia, Mar. Geol. (submitted).
Ooops. Not available yet.
On a more serious note, there are other articles published by one of Mann’s co-authors on sediment samples in the RI/SE Mass area.
I have not yet personally inspected the location of the Mattapoisett, MA samples, but living in the adjacent town I can assure you that there are lots of mucky swamps in this Buzzards Bay area. Furthermore, although severe winter storms occur frequently, the shape of Buzzards Bay tends to minimize the effects of the typical Nor’easter while amplifying the storm surge of a hurricane with winds from the southwest.
My house, a couple miles west of Mattapoisett and right on the water has not been damaged by even the most severe Nor’easter. But water from 1991 hurricane Bob was surging beneath my piling-elevate house and going across the street. More recently, an October 28 2006 a wet storm that came up through the south damaged my boat ramp and washed away portions of my lawn. http://www.fema.gov/emergency/reports/2006/nat102806.shtm
I’ll be looking further into the Mattapoisett sediment sampling due to personal curiosity.

Jimmy Haigh (01:22:46) :
Another thing to remember with using silt layers in lagoonal muds or whatever as a proxy is that you have to assume that there is a continuous record of deposition. With trees you can be fairly sure that there will be a growth ring every year but in sediments the norm is for the vast majority of data to be missing. Layers get deposited but most of them get eroded by later sedimentological or biological processes.
You are correct. We use a methodology aside for being sure ourselves about the continuity of the sedimentary layers. We date the layers, firstly by proportions of quartz and feldspar, and secondly by 14C for verification. If we find a gap, we discount the sample.

If a researcher does not include the name of the statistician and that researcher does not also have a degree in statistics, I have to at least question the analysis.
When I did my research, I audited a graduate level statistics class. It was not a class that normally was taken for the degree I earned. I performed all the requirements for the class, all done by hand so that we could understand what computers do to data. When I was ready to submit my own data for analysis, I performed a covariance matrix by hand and well as by computer using Statview on my little MAC SE. The data was also submitted to the statistician at the medical center I was stationed at. His computer results were the same as mine. He then directed the compilation of the results so that my conclusions were limited to the results and only the results. He hated it when medical researchers made the data say more than it significantly could. Had I been able to direct who would be listed as authors of my final work, I would have listed the statistician’s name, or at least given him credit at the end of the published paper (I was not the director of the lab and had no power to direct who’s names were on the paper).
If a laboratory researcher designs to collect and interpret data, he or she needs to be humble enough to submit their work to a trained and degreed statistician.

Piltdown Mann, sorry couldn’t help myself

Since this isn’t the hottest link on the page; maybe this is a good place to observe that that crazy red polar ice line has already crossed above the green 2005 line, and we are barely half way into August; despite the efforts of some to have August cancelled.
Just think; this might be a ho-hum ice year, and a ho-hum Hurricane year all rolled into one.
Maybe we need a Congressional review of the bad news that si coming out of the National Hurricane Center and the Colorado Ice box.