Steve McIntyre published an update tonight showing the last 200 years of the Yamal tree ring data versus the archived CRU tree ring data used to make the famous hockey stick. For those just joining us, see the story here.
First here’s the before an after at millennial scale.
Steve McIntyre writes:
The next graphic compares the RCS chronologies from the two slightly different data sets: red – the RCS chronology calculated from the CRU archive (with the 12 picked cores); black – the RCS chronology calculated using the Schweingruber Yamal sample of living trees instead of the 12 picked trees used in the CRU archive. The difference is breathtaking.
Figure 2. A comparison of Yamal RCS chronologies. red – as archived with 12 picked cores; black – including Schweingruber’s Khadyta River, Yamal (russ035w) archive and excluding 12 picked cores. Both smoothed with 21-year gaussian smooth. y-axis is in dimensionless chronology units centered on 1 (as are subsequent graphs (but represent age-adjusted ring width).
Now lets have a look at the data for the last 200 years where that hockey stick lives (and dies):
Here is a comparison of the Briffa chronology of the spaghetti graphs (red) versus the “SChweingruber” variation i.e. using russ035w instead of 12 recent of 252 CRU cores, leaving 240 unchanged. (The red curve here is the archived CRU chronology, which varies slightly from my emulation of the RCS chronology.)
Viva la difference!
Still broken.
h/t to Mosh
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imapopulist
September 29, 2009 9:59 am
Way too much brain confusion data for the AGW crowd. They must be dissonating all over the place. The only chance of ever seeing this in the MSM is if Drudge and FOX pick it up first.
On our site at: http://www.climatedata.info/Proxy/Proxy/treerings_introduction.html
…you can see sets of tree ring records chosen according to the following criteria.
* End date toward the end of the 20th century to include the late century warming.
* Start date before 1600 to include the “little ice age”.
* Trees from both northern and southern hemispheres.
What is interesting is that both northern and southern records show the warming from 1910 to 1950 but only the southern ones show an increase from 1975 onwards.
Could it be that the early 20th century warning was genuine but that much of the lat 20th warming was an artifact of the urban heat island effect?
RR Kampen
September 29, 2009 10:04 am
Re: Patrik (09:54:32) :
“RR Kampen>> I’m sorry you lost your favourite hobby, but… You do know that climate changes, sort of, all the time..?”
—
Sure, and just like now such changes had causes, many of which are identifiable.
We’re dealing with the fastest and largest climate change in millenia and you know what? The cause of this has been identified too, and has proved to be actually very simple. You put the kettle on the fire and average temperature of the water goes up. You trap some more heat in the atmosphere and average temperature of the air goes up.
I feel sorry too. I’d have preferred an ice age, even if that would have been as dramatic in its consequences.
Tree rings around the liars,
A pocket full of fires;
ashes, ashes
our cities burn down!
Seriously, my big fear is that the AGWarmists will merely look at the new graph and determine that unless we stop driving SUVs we’ll freeze. AGCoolists. Best for them, the dire consequences of global cooling are far more palpable. Lower sea levels strand cities and parch lowlands. Freezing and starving is a horrific death for the poor.
Finally, a growth industry to get us out of this recession.
Alan S. Blue
September 29, 2009 10:14 am
I see several questions of this sort:
“Why is it a problem when the ‘tree temperature’ doesn’t match the instrumental record? Shouldn’t we just be using the instrumental record here anyway?”
This issue is that the entire point of a ‘tree proxy’ is the belief that a tree that meets certain criteria can be calibrated into a archiving thermometer.
You don’t -have- to use a meterstick to measure distance. You can use something else as a ‘proxy’ measuring device – because you (or someone) has calibrated it against a true meterstick at some point.
For all sorts of normal measuements, you’re able to find proxies that have a respectable precision. Odometers, maps, measuring tapes, paper – none of these things are “official.” But the calibration is close enough that no one (at least, no one but a scientist or engineer) really ever cares that you’re using a proxy.
Here, they’ve found a proxy for measuring temperature. Except – it can’t actually measure temperature in the recent past. The recent past being that area where we -do- have the best instrumental records, you would expect this region to have the -best- overlap with the proxy.
If it was slight differences between the temperature as determined by the proxy and the instrumental records, then it wouldn’t be an issue. Everyone would just say “Ok, we have more data now, let’s do a better calibration and get a better model for how our proxy works exactly.”
Going back to the analogy of metersticks-sold-at-retail as compared to the “official meterstick”, that would be like noticing that your wood is drying out and causing your stick to shrink an additional eighth of an inch. So your new plan would invoke a longer drying period before making the marks on the ruler.
Here, it is more like discovering your metersticks is made from living flubber. The fact that it happened to be exactly a meter long when you examined it previously doesn’t mean that it is a meter long now. Nor does it appear to mean it was ever a meter long previously.
All of which means: If you want to use this as a proxy, you need a much more solid model of how to calibrate your data. Because if your model doesn’t have precisely the same precision outside of the original calibration period, then you have nothing.
Outside of climate science, this sort of “proxy search” would invariable involve sequestering a full third of the overlap as an area on which to test the model.
Roger Knights
September 29, 2009 10:16 am
1) Are they all from the same area in Russia?
Yes: The Cherry Orchard.
Steve S.
September 29, 2009 10:17 am
Kampen, Anything you have “witnessed” was not a result of AGW, period.
If the AGW theory ends up coming to fruition the several degrees necessary for the effects to be observed will be happening when they increase actually happens.
The insignificant and meaningless 1 degree climate variation over the last half or full century are neither enough to cause what you have observed or a result of AGW.
Stop being such a willing fool.
Tree Rings vs. Trees
I saw a comment referencing a reference to this study:
Climate change and the northern Russian treeline zone
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2200
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2008 363, 2283-2299
G.M MacDonald, K.V Kremenetski and D.W Beilman http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1501/2283.full.pdf+html?sid=a8863cca-9709-44a2-abbc-da69b5d1e2d6 …in many cases, the enhanced recruitment and small-range
adjustments experienced in the twentieth century
have not yet been of sufficient magnitude to compensate
for the range contraction during the LIA. Thus,
some areas that were forested or supported sparse trees
during theMWPremain treeless at present. In effect, at
the Russian sites studied, the impact of twentieth
century warming has not yet compensated fully for the
mortality and range constriction caused by the cold
temperatures of the LIA. These results are similar to
observations in some other northern treeline regions
such as uplands in eastern Quebec and interior
Labrador where Picea mariana (P. Mill.) B. S. P. and
Picea glauca (Moench) Voss trees remain below their
pre-LIA limits despite recent warming (Gamache &
Payette 2005; Payette 2007).
Basically, the gist of this is that the treeline hasn’t gotten anywhere near where it has been at least twice in the (geologically) recent past. They politely offer some possible explanations, instead of impolitely suggesting that the long-term historical temperature record might be quite understating the warmth of the MWP and Holocene.
The long and the short of this is that we ought to be asking why folks are looking at tree rings which are ambiguous if we’re lucky, when they can be looking at tree growth which is rather straight forward?
Why indeed. It sure looks to me like we’ve got a helluva proxy at least for the northern hemisphere. My take away is that they are politely ignoring this work because it calls the temperature record into question, and implies that we’re not warming as much or as fast as others claim. I can’t think of a good way to refute this data, or conclusion either.
Vincent
September 29, 2009 10:41 am
RR Kampen,
Don’t have a coronory! All people or saying is that there is now room for doubt about the supposed unprecendent warmth of the twentieth century. Why is that threatening to you? Surely it is common sense.
And your quip about the physics of CO2 is also a non sequitar, since nobody at all is suggesting that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Almost all agree that a doubling of CO2 levels would lead to a temperature rise of about 1.2C. Where there is disagreement is in the sign of feedbacks, especially water vapour feedback. The warmists consider only the Clausius-Clapeyron equation but ignore cloud dynamics. In their models, while absolute humidity increases with CO2 forcing, the cloud cover is supposed to remain the same. Absolutely ridiculous. Yet that is what their models are based upon.
Vincent
September 29, 2009 10:51 am
RR Kampen;
“We’re dealing with the fastest and largest climate change in millenia and you know what? ”
You have a serious case of cognitive dissonance and you are in the “anger” stage. You cling to the myth that you saw in AIT, watching Gore ascending in the scissor lift to the top of the graph, but the evidence is turning to dust.
“I’d have preferred an ice age, . . .”
You’d prefer to be DEAD!? Crazy. And sad.
Cherry picking the data gets Dr. Mann et. al. and their ilk what they want, green politics inviGORatEd. I smell a rat.
Ok, now why did they cherry pick those limited number of trees? How do they justify that? What is the rational scientific basis for cherry picking tree rings?
steven mosher
September 29, 2009 11:26 am
Freddy (04:27:51) :
The hockey stick plays a secondary role at best in the argument for AGW.
There are two foundational tenets of AGW.
1. The instrumented record shows a warming ( from 1850 to present)
2. The addition of GHGs to the atmosphere is the best explanation of this.
For the present purposes let’s assume #1 is a given. ( as a early early backer of Surface stations, I do have issues with #1)
WRT #2. This is fundamental science: radiative physics.
The hockey stick comes into play when people try to argue that the current level of warming may be due to something other than #2 OR #2 plus natural variation. Hence, they point to the MWP and documentary evidence ( it was green in greenland) to support the contention that the warming we see is natural. The Hockey stick tries to counter this objection by estimating three things.
A. The estimated level of warming in DEGREES
B. The rate of warming
C. The localization of that warming.
Steve’s work shows this: The attempts to show that the MWP was cooler than today are statistically unsound. I agree with him. I also Agree with him when he says that his work allows us to conclude nothing about the actual level of warming in the MWP, the rate of warming, and it’s localization.
Now, If you did a reconstruction using proper methods and iff you believed in proxies and iff you showed that the MWP was:
A. warmer than the present with 95% confidence.
B. Had a high rate of onset
C. Was global.
THEN, you would have a good argument that the climate sensitivities estimated by the GCM might be off. The simple fact is that AGW alarmist made too much of the hockey stick. They over played that hand. Don’t over play yours.
LarryOldtimer
September 29, 2009 11:36 am
Climate change? AGW? Of course there is climate change, as there has always been. The bunk part is the AGW, and that there is any way humans can have any effect on climate, warming or cooling. I liken it to a flea creeping up an elephant’s leg with rape on its mind.
I can’t determine if all this AGW nonsense is due to stupidity or cupidity, but I suspect it is a combination of both, with lots of “useful idiots” in the mix, as Joe Stalin called those in western countries who promoted communism.
Antonio San
September 29, 2009 11:39 am
Lucy Skywalker in a CA comment wrote: “Now this Hockey Stick hydra has three heads: Yamal, bristlecones, and CRU undisclosed records. My recent forays into the nearest reliable Arctic thermometer records from GISS and John Daly (at Jeff Id) all show thermometer records without any sign of the crucial sharp Hockey Stick upturn. I cannot believe CRU can show anything very different.”
She nailed it. Now the last standing wall of the IPCC and all the model work supposed to emulate the HADCRUT is left. Will Dr. Phil Jones finally let the raw data used to compile the HADCRUT be available to others so they can independently verify if HADCRUT is “robust”?
At this stage stonewalling doesn’t look good on Hadley Center, on Jones and in general on IPCC and the entire organizations and governments that are so happily condoning IPCC work.
My bet just as Lucy wrote, is that HADCRUT will be proven non robust and the entire IPCC Group I scientific montage will collapse, showing only the Groups II and III political face. I’d bet that our Chinese and Indian friends know already something about it…
Sandy
September 29, 2009 11:55 am
“Now, If you did a reconstruction using proper methods and iff you believed in proxies and iff you showed that the MWP was:
A. warmer than the present with 95% confidence.
B. Had a high rate of onset
C. Was global.
THEN, you would have a good argument that the climate sensitivities estimated by the GCM might be off.”
Gorgeous rubbish.
It was warmer in the MWP as Greenland, Alpine glaciers and I think Himalayan glaciers show.
The rate of onset is mind-blowingly irrelevant though previous warmings have suggested 10s of degrees in decades.
Since more areas show the MWP than don’t we must assume it was globally significant.
But let’s get back to the real point.
The hypothesis of CO2 driven warming is unsupported by fact on every level and scale (apart from the lab. ).
The concept that anyone needs to jump through your hoops to disprove your absurd hypothesis shows a magnificent arrogance and an ignorance of logic.
Alan S. Blue
September 29, 2009 11:58 am
steven mosher,
The key piece of the hockeystick isn’t the blade, or even the comparison of the tip to the MWP really.
The key piece is how it scrubs the Little Ice Age from the historical record. “We’ve been hot before!” is a reasonable argument. But it has nothing to say about how much of the current warming might be anthropogenic.
But the argument “We’re in a cyclical rebound of approximately 1.5-to-2C/Century from the Little Ice Age.” was the prevailing scientific position as recently as 1998. There wasn’t a lot of room for the “A” of “AGW” in that case.
The ability to assign all of the warming to human activities is what opens the doors to the potentially apocalyptic effects by extrapolating exponentialities.
Denny
September 29, 2009 12:36 pm
Mr. Lynn,
You are correct in your observation that getting the “word” out is a problem. What you stated for reasons are very true. Right now I would say the “Fox Network” is opening up more towards the right. The Internet is really the only source of info that shows the “Realists” side of AGW. Mr. Lynn, I would say that in regards to the statement the word isn’t getting out is not totally true. Check out this latest report I posted at GWH.com http://www.climatechangefraud.com/politics-propaganda/5139-inhofe-im-bringing-a-truth-squad-to-copenhagen
This Senator is a breath of relief for the Realist cause. If you do your homework or check out GWH.com, you will find that quite a few good Climate Scientists are on “our” side…They are finding and posting new info all of the time….
Thanks for you insight, Mr. Lynn.
Regards,
Denny
Antonio San
Unless co2 is NOT a greenhouse gas at all and thefore has no affect at all on temperature oscillations, there is a fourth head to the hydra. That one is labelled ‘historic co2 readings’. These show tens of thousands of co2 readings back to 1830, many as high as today. They were turned over by Charles Keeling in 1957 and ignored by the IPCC.
So either co2 is not a primary driver-as evidenced by a constant 280ppm as temperature fluctuated wildly
OR
Co2 is a primary driver but levels in the atmosphere are currently nothing out of the ordinary compared to the historic record since 1830.
tonyb
Robinson
September 29, 2009 12:38 pm
At this stage stonewalling doesn’t look good on Hadley Center, on Jones and in general on IPCC and the entire organizations and governments that are so happily condoning IPCC work.
I’m afraid you’re preaching to the converted. The Politicians listen to the Scientists; they can do little else. Scientific paradigm changing takes a lot longer than a few electoral cycles. They’ve shown disdain for public opinion in other areas, so I don’t see why they should pay any attention to this. I believe the battle is largely lost unless and until we start writing and calling our politicians, with articulate and accurate counter-arguments, such as those put forward by SM and this blog. I doubt those who form policy have as much time to read blogs as they do for the arguments of “expert” environmental lobbyists.
But in any case, apart from the obvious destruction of public trust in the integrity of the scientific process, the argument will just quietly move on somewhere else. The end result will be the same: taxes!
Steven mosher:
“1. The instrumented record shows a warming ( from 1850 to present)
2. The addition of GHGs to the atmosphere is the best explanation of this.
For the present purposes let’s assume #1 is a given. ( as a early early backer of Surface stations, I do have issues with #1)
WRT #2. This is fundamental science: radiative physics.”
It is only the best explanation when the assumption is made that the climate of the Holocene was predominately stable. If we allow that the historical warm periods and cool periods did actually happen, then it follows that the twentieth century is a natural recovery from the little ice age, and still not yet equal to the MWP.
Warmists keep on about radiative physics, as if waving these magic words in the air somehow constitutes evidence. But what does radiative physics actually tell us? Well, if we ignore feedbacks a simple calculation will suffice for an increase in CO2 from 280 to 390 ppm.
Let the forcing F = 5.35Ln(390/280)
= 1.8 W/M^-2.
Using Stefan-Boltzman equation F = sigma * T^4 and assuming the average insolation is 230 W/M^-2 without this forcing and 231.8 with the forcing.
Then 231.8/230 = [Tnew/Told]^4
Then Tnew = Told * 1.0019 = 288 * 1.0019 = 288.56.
There you have about half a degree in a century, which is less than the observed maximum of 0.75 degrees.
Of course, if you include feedbacks you get a different result, but we can’t even be sure of the sign of the net feedback. Several scientists, including Lindzen, Spencer, Christy and Eschenbach, believe that the feedback is actually negative. The point is, you can’t wave your hand and shout “radiation physics” because we just don’t know enough.
Vincent
September 29, 2009 1:58 pm
Steven mosher:
“Now, If you did a reconstruction using proper methods and iff you believed in proxies and iff you showed that the MWP was:
A. warmer than the present with 95% confidence.
B. Had a high rate of onset
C. Was global.
THEN, you would have a good argument that the climate sensitivities estimated by the GCM might be off.
”
Why does the MWP have to be warmer than present? Even if it was only as warm as present then it would remove the mantra that the twentieth century warming was unprecendent. Warmists are also fond of wagging their fingers at so called rapid rates. But what evidence is there that rates of temperature change in the twentieth century were any more rapid than at other times?
There is plenty of evidence that the MWP was both real and global. See here http://www.livinginperu.com/prueba/qubo.php
where researchers have uncovered evidence that the Inca civilization benefited from warm climate during the medieval period.
Let me put the question the other way round:
Iff you can show that the climate of the last thousand years was unchanging, and iff you can show a positive radiative imbalance of 1.8 W/M^2 and iff you can show the stratosphere cooling when the lower troposphere is warming, then you would have a good argument for AGW.
Max
September 29, 2009 2:47 pm
Steven: Being an engineer, I agree with you. But it’s standard practice for us, not standard practice for “we.”
steven mosher
September 29, 2009 2:49 pm
Sandy (11:55:55) :
Sorry, I view your glacier data and greenland data with the same scepticism that I view tree rings. GHGs warm the planet, how much is the operative question, how fast is the operative question. ( Psst I’m one of the orginal lukewarmers) Please don’t pester the thread with anecdotes. If you have a reconstruction of greenland temperatures or of himalayian temps or of anything we’d be glad to audit it over at CA. Until then you haven’t freed your data, you havent freed your code and what you claim isn’t science. Just like HADCRU. I wish people would get that these arguments cut two ways.
But enough.
Way too much brain confusion data for the AGW crowd. They must be dissonating all over the place. The only chance of ever seeing this in the MSM is if Drudge and FOX pick it up first.
On our site at:
http://www.climatedata.info/Proxy/Proxy/treerings_introduction.html
…you can see sets of tree ring records chosen according to the following criteria.
* End date toward the end of the 20th century to include the late century warming.
* Start date before 1600 to include the “little ice age”.
* Trees from both northern and southern hemispheres.
What is interesting is that both northern and southern records show the warming from 1910 to 1950 but only the southern ones show an increase from 1975 onwards.
Could it be that the early 20th century warning was genuine but that much of the lat 20th warming was an artifact of the urban heat island effect?
Re: Patrik (09:54:32) :
“RR Kampen>> I’m sorry you lost your favourite hobby, but… You do know that climate changes, sort of, all the time..?”
—
Sure, and just like now such changes had causes, many of which are identifiable.
We’re dealing with the fastest and largest climate change in millenia and you know what? The cause of this has been identified too, and has proved to be actually very simple. You put the kettle on the fire and average temperature of the water goes up. You trap some more heat in the atmosphere and average temperature of the air goes up.
I feel sorry too. I’d have preferred an ice age, even if that would have been as dramatic in its consequences.
Tree rings around the liars,
A pocket full of fires;
ashes, ashes
our cities burn down!
Seriously, my big fear is that the AGWarmists will merely look at the new graph and determine that unless we stop driving SUVs we’ll freeze. AGCoolists. Best for them, the dire consequences of global cooling are far more palpable. Lower sea levels strand cities and parch lowlands. Freezing and starving is a horrific death for the poor.
Finally, a growth industry to get us out of this recession.
I see several questions of this sort:
“Why is it a problem when the ‘tree temperature’ doesn’t match the instrumental record? Shouldn’t we just be using the instrumental record here anyway?”
This issue is that the entire point of a ‘tree proxy’ is the belief that a tree that meets certain criteria can be calibrated into a archiving thermometer.
You don’t -have- to use a meterstick to measure distance. You can use something else as a ‘proxy’ measuring device – because you (or someone) has calibrated it against a true meterstick at some point.
For all sorts of normal measuements, you’re able to find proxies that have a respectable precision. Odometers, maps, measuring tapes, paper – none of these things are “official.” But the calibration is close enough that no one (at least, no one but a scientist or engineer) really ever cares that you’re using a proxy.
Here, they’ve found a proxy for measuring temperature. Except – it can’t actually measure temperature in the recent past. The recent past being that area where we -do- have the best instrumental records, you would expect this region to have the -best- overlap with the proxy.
If it was slight differences between the temperature as determined by the proxy and the instrumental records, then it wouldn’t be an issue. Everyone would just say “Ok, we have more data now, let’s do a better calibration and get a better model for how our proxy works exactly.”
Going back to the analogy of metersticks-sold-at-retail as compared to the “official meterstick”, that would be like noticing that your wood is drying out and causing your stick to shrink an additional eighth of an inch. So your new plan would invoke a longer drying period before making the marks on the ruler.
Here, it is more like discovering your metersticks is made from living flubber. The fact that it happened to be exactly a meter long when you examined it previously doesn’t mean that it is a meter long now. Nor does it appear to mean it was ever a meter long previously.
All of which means: If you want to use this as a proxy, you need a much more solid model of how to calibrate your data. Because if your model doesn’t have precisely the same precision outside of the original calibration period, then you have nothing.
Outside of climate science, this sort of “proxy search” would invariable involve sequestering a full third of the overlap as an area on which to test the model.
1) Are they all from the same area in Russia?
Yes: The Cherry Orchard.
Kampen, Anything you have “witnessed” was not a result of AGW, period.
If the AGW theory ends up coming to fruition the several degrees necessary for the effects to be observed will be happening when they increase actually happens.
The insignificant and meaningless 1 degree climate variation over the last half or full century are neither enough to cause what you have observed or a result of AGW.
Stop being such a willing fool.
Tree Rings vs. Trees
I saw a comment referencing a reference to this study:
Climate change and the northern Russian treeline zone
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2200
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2008 363, 2283-2299
G.M MacDonald, K.V Kremenetski and D.W Beilman
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1501/2283.full.pdf+html?sid=a8863cca-9709-44a2-abbc-da69b5d1e2d6
…in many cases, the enhanced recruitment and small-range
adjustments experienced in the twentieth century
have not yet been of sufficient magnitude to compensate
for the range contraction during the LIA. Thus,
some areas that were forested or supported sparse trees
during theMWPremain treeless at present. In effect, at
the Russian sites studied, the impact of twentieth
century warming has not yet compensated fully for the
mortality and range constriction caused by the cold
temperatures of the LIA. These results are similar to
observations in some other northern treeline regions
such as uplands in eastern Quebec and interior
Labrador where Picea mariana (P. Mill.) B. S. P. and
Picea glauca (Moench) Voss trees remain below their
pre-LIA limits despite recent warming (Gamache &
Payette 2005; Payette 2007).
Basically, the gist of this is that the treeline hasn’t gotten anywhere near where it has been at least twice in the (geologically) recent past. They politely offer some possible explanations, instead of impolitely suggesting that the long-term historical temperature record might be quite understating the warmth of the MWP and Holocene.
The long and the short of this is that we ought to be asking why folks are looking at tree rings which are ambiguous if we’re lucky, when they can be looking at tree growth which is rather straight forward?
Why indeed. It sure looks to me like we’ve got a helluva proxy at least for the northern hemisphere. My take away is that they are politely ignoring this work because it calls the temperature record into question, and implies that we’re not warming as much or as fast as others claim. I can’t think of a good way to refute this data, or conclusion either.
RR Kampen,
Don’t have a coronory! All people or saying is that there is now room for doubt about the supposed unprecendent warmth of the twentieth century. Why is that threatening to you? Surely it is common sense.
And your quip about the physics of CO2 is also a non sequitar, since nobody at all is suggesting that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Almost all agree that a doubling of CO2 levels would lead to a temperature rise of about 1.2C. Where there is disagreement is in the sign of feedbacks, especially water vapour feedback. The warmists consider only the Clausius-Clapeyron equation but ignore cloud dynamics. In their models, while absolute humidity increases with CO2 forcing, the cloud cover is supposed to remain the same. Absolutely ridiculous. Yet that is what their models are based upon.
RR Kampen;
“We’re dealing with the fastest and largest climate change in millenia and you know what? ”
You have a serious case of cognitive dissonance and you are in the “anger” stage. You cling to the myth that you saw in AIT, watching Gore ascending in the scissor lift to the top of the graph, but the evidence is turning to dust.
“I’d have preferred an ice age, . . .”
You’d prefer to be DEAD!? Crazy. And sad.
Piltdown man revisited?
Cherry picking the data gets Dr. Mann et. al. and their ilk what they want, green politics inviGORatEd. I smell a rat.
Ok, now why did they cherry pick those limited number of trees? How do they justify that? What is the rational scientific basis for cherry picking tree rings?
Freddy (04:27:51) :
The hockey stick plays a secondary role at best in the argument for AGW.
There are two foundational tenets of AGW.
1. The instrumented record shows a warming ( from 1850 to present)
2. The addition of GHGs to the atmosphere is the best explanation of this.
For the present purposes let’s assume #1 is a given. ( as a early early backer of Surface stations, I do have issues with #1)
WRT #2. This is fundamental science: radiative physics.
The hockey stick comes into play when people try to argue that the current level of warming may be due to something other than #2 OR #2 plus natural variation. Hence, they point to the MWP and documentary evidence ( it was green in greenland) to support the contention that the warming we see is natural. The Hockey stick tries to counter this objection by estimating three things.
A. The estimated level of warming in DEGREES
B. The rate of warming
C. The localization of that warming.
Steve’s work shows this: The attempts to show that the MWP was cooler than today are statistically unsound. I agree with him. I also Agree with him when he says that his work allows us to conclude nothing about the actual level of warming in the MWP, the rate of warming, and it’s localization.
Now, If you did a reconstruction using proper methods and iff you believed in proxies and iff you showed that the MWP was:
A. warmer than the present with 95% confidence.
B. Had a high rate of onset
C. Was global.
THEN, you would have a good argument that the climate sensitivities estimated by the GCM might be off. The simple fact is that AGW alarmist made too much of the hockey stick. They over played that hand. Don’t over play yours.
Climate change? AGW? Of course there is climate change, as there has always been. The bunk part is the AGW, and that there is any way humans can have any effect on climate, warming or cooling. I liken it to a flea creeping up an elephant’s leg with rape on its mind.
I can’t determine if all this AGW nonsense is due to stupidity or cupidity, but I suspect it is a combination of both, with lots of “useful idiots” in the mix, as Joe Stalin called those in western countries who promoted communism.
Lucy Skywalker in a CA comment wrote: “Now this Hockey Stick hydra has three heads: Yamal, bristlecones, and CRU undisclosed records. My recent forays into the nearest reliable Arctic thermometer records from GISS and John Daly (at Jeff Id) all show thermometer records without any sign of the crucial sharp Hockey Stick upturn. I cannot believe CRU can show anything very different.”
She nailed it. Now the last standing wall of the IPCC and all the model work supposed to emulate the HADCRUT is left. Will Dr. Phil Jones finally let the raw data used to compile the HADCRUT be available to others so they can independently verify if HADCRUT is “robust”?
At this stage stonewalling doesn’t look good on Hadley Center, on Jones and in general on IPCC and the entire organizations and governments that are so happily condoning IPCC work.
My bet just as Lucy wrote, is that HADCRUT will be proven non robust and the entire IPCC Group I scientific montage will collapse, showing only the Groups II and III political face. I’d bet that our Chinese and Indian friends know already something about it…
“Now, If you did a reconstruction using proper methods and iff you believed in proxies and iff you showed that the MWP was:
A. warmer than the present with 95% confidence.
B. Had a high rate of onset
C. Was global.
THEN, you would have a good argument that the climate sensitivities estimated by the GCM might be off.”
Gorgeous rubbish.
It was warmer in the MWP as Greenland, Alpine glaciers and I think Himalayan glaciers show.
The rate of onset is mind-blowingly irrelevant though previous warmings have suggested 10s of degrees in decades.
Since more areas show the MWP than don’t we must assume it was globally significant.
But let’s get back to the real point.
The hypothesis of CO2 driven warming is unsupported by fact on every level and scale (apart from the lab. ).
The concept that anyone needs to jump through your hoops to disprove your absurd hypothesis shows a magnificent arrogance and an ignorance of logic.
steven mosher,
The key piece of the hockeystick isn’t the blade, or even the comparison of the tip to the MWP really.
The key piece is how it scrubs the Little Ice Age from the historical record. “We’ve been hot before!” is a reasonable argument. But it has nothing to say about how much of the current warming might be anthropogenic.
But the argument “We’re in a cyclical rebound of approximately 1.5-to-2C/Century from the Little Ice Age.” was the prevailing scientific position as recently as 1998. There wasn’t a lot of room for the “A” of “AGW” in that case.
The ability to assign all of the warming to human activities is what opens the doors to the potentially apocalyptic effects by extrapolating exponentialities.
Mr. Lynn,
You are correct in your observation that getting the “word” out is a problem. What you stated for reasons are very true. Right now I would say the “Fox Network” is opening up more towards the right. The Internet is really the only source of info that shows the “Realists” side of AGW. Mr. Lynn, I would say that in regards to the statement the word isn’t getting out is not totally true. Check out this latest report I posted at GWH.com
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/politics-propaganda/5139-inhofe-im-bringing-a-truth-squad-to-copenhagen
This Senator is a breath of relief for the Realist cause. If you do your homework or check out GWH.com, you will find that quite a few good Climate Scientists are on “our” side…They are finding and posting new info all of the time….
Thanks for you insight, Mr. Lynn.
Regards,
Denny
Antonio San
Unless co2 is NOT a greenhouse gas at all and thefore has no affect at all on temperature oscillations, there is a fourth head to the hydra. That one is labelled ‘historic co2 readings’. These show tens of thousands of co2 readings back to 1830, many as high as today. They were turned over by Charles Keeling in 1957 and ignored by the IPCC.
So either co2 is not a primary driver-as evidenced by a constant 280ppm as temperature fluctuated wildly
OR
Co2 is a primary driver but levels in the atmosphere are currently nothing out of the ordinary compared to the historic record since 1830.
tonyb
I’m afraid you’re preaching to the converted. The Politicians listen to the Scientists; they can do little else. Scientific paradigm changing takes a lot longer than a few electoral cycles. They’ve shown disdain for public opinion in other areas, so I don’t see why they should pay any attention to this. I believe the battle is largely lost unless and until we start writing and calling our politicians, with articulate and accurate counter-arguments, such as those put forward by SM and this blog. I doubt those who form policy have as much time to read blogs as they do for the arguments of “expert” environmental lobbyists.
But in any case, apart from the obvious destruction of public trust in the integrity of the scientific process, the argument will just quietly move on somewhere else. The end result will be the same: taxes!
OT: SEP 2009, ice_extend record Antarctica Bremen UNi.
Closer graphic:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/part-2-opdaterede-sol-is-temp-hav-data-d12-e1066-s40.php#post_14936
Steven mosher:
“1. The instrumented record shows a warming ( from 1850 to present)
2. The addition of GHGs to the atmosphere is the best explanation of this.
For the present purposes let’s assume #1 is a given. ( as a early early backer of Surface stations, I do have issues with #1)
WRT #2. This is fundamental science: radiative physics.”
It is only the best explanation when the assumption is made that the climate of the Holocene was predominately stable. If we allow that the historical warm periods and cool periods did actually happen, then it follows that the twentieth century is a natural recovery from the little ice age, and still not yet equal to the MWP.
Warmists keep on about radiative physics, as if waving these magic words in the air somehow constitutes evidence. But what does radiative physics actually tell us? Well, if we ignore feedbacks a simple calculation will suffice for an increase in CO2 from 280 to 390 ppm.
Let the forcing F = 5.35Ln(390/280)
= 1.8 W/M^-2.
Using Stefan-Boltzman equation F = sigma * T^4 and assuming the average insolation is 230 W/M^-2 without this forcing and 231.8 with the forcing.
Then 231.8/230 = [Tnew/Told]^4
Then Tnew = Told * 1.0019 = 288 * 1.0019 = 288.56.
There you have about half a degree in a century, which is less than the observed maximum of 0.75 degrees.
Of course, if you include feedbacks you get a different result, but we can’t even be sure of the sign of the net feedback. Several scientists, including Lindzen, Spencer, Christy and Eschenbach, believe that the feedback is actually negative. The point is, you can’t wave your hand and shout “radiation physics” because we just don’t know enough.
Steven mosher:
“Now, If you did a reconstruction using proper methods and iff you believed in proxies and iff you showed that the MWP was:
A. warmer than the present with 95% confidence.
B. Had a high rate of onset
C. Was global.
THEN, you would have a good argument that the climate sensitivities estimated by the GCM might be off.
”
Why does the MWP have to be warmer than present? Even if it was only as warm as present then it would remove the mantra that the twentieth century warming was unprecendent. Warmists are also fond of wagging their fingers at so called rapid rates. But what evidence is there that rates of temperature change in the twentieth century were any more rapid than at other times?
There is plenty of evidence that the MWP was both real and global. See here
http://www.livinginperu.com/prueba/qubo.php
where researchers have uncovered evidence that the Inca civilization benefited from warm climate during the medieval period.
Let me put the question the other way round:
Iff you can show that the climate of the last thousand years was unchanging, and iff you can show a positive radiative imbalance of 1.8 W/M^2 and iff you can show the stratosphere cooling when the lower troposphere is warming, then you would have a good argument for AGW.
Steven: Being an engineer, I agree with you. But it’s standard practice for us, not standard practice for “we.”
Sandy (11:55:55) :
Sorry, I view your glacier data and greenland data with the same scepticism that I view tree rings. GHGs warm the planet, how much is the operative question, how fast is the operative question. ( Psst I’m one of the orginal lukewarmers) Please don’t pester the thread with anecdotes. If you have a reconstruction of greenland temperatures or of himalayian temps or of anything we’d be glad to audit it over at CA. Until then you haven’t freed your data, you havent freed your code and what you claim isn’t science. Just like HADCRU. I wish people would get that these arguments cut two ways.
But enough.