If you are just joining us, the story is this. After 10 years of data being withheld that would allow true scientific replication, and after dozens of requests for that data, Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit finally was given access to the data from Yamal Peninsula, Russia. He discovered that only 12 trees had been used out of a much larger dataset of tree ring data. When the larger data set was plotted, there is no “hockey stick” of temperature, in fact it goes in the opposite direction. Get your primer here.
Now there’s independent confirmation from a study presented at the American Geophysical Union Conference in 2008 that there is no “hockey stick of warming” at Yamal.
The presentation is” Cumulative effects of rapid climate and land-use changes on the
Yamal Peninsula, Russia by D.A. Walker, M.O. Leibman, B.C. Forbes, H.E. Epstein. (click link for PDF)
In the hallway poster for their AGU presentation, they have this graph, with the caption saying a “nearly flat temperature trend” for Yamal, especially for the late 20th century period where the “hockey stick” from those 12 trees emerges:
See the AGU poster here (warning, big 18 MB PDF file)
Here is how they summarize the graph above in the AGU presentation:
- Sea ice: -25%
- Summer surface temperature: +4%
- Maximum NDVI: +3%
- None of the trends are significant at p =0.05 because of high interannual variability.
NDVI is the vegetation index.
There’s also an interesting polar sea ice, temperature, and vegetation index trend map that is similar to what Lucy Skywalker recently plotted.
I’m sure we’ll see an explosion from “Tamino” any minute now to refute this, oh wait, he’s gone on record as saying:
As for Steve McIntyre’s latest: I’m really not that interested. He just doesn’t have the credibility to merit attention. I have way better things to do.
OK then, one less angry, sciency, rant by an anonymous coward who won’t put his name to his own work to worry about. Talk about credibility. Sheesh.
Here is the conclusion Walker et al makes in their AGU presentation
- Satellite data suggest that there has been only modest summer land-surface warming and
only slight greening changes across the Yamal during the past 24 years. (Trend is much
stronger in other parts of the Arctic, e.g. Beaufort Sea.)
- Kara-Yamal: negative sea ice, positive summer warmth and positive NDVI are correlated
with positive phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation.
So it seems sea ice extent, the NAO, and the AO are the bigger factors for temperature in Yamal. It also appears that the Arctic is getting slightly more green.
If anyone has access links to the full paper, feel free to post it here.
“Tamino needs to consider how others view him as a scientist”
Tamino is a scientist? I thought he was an angry anonymous troll….
John Galt (17:02:17) :
I’m sure this a stupid question, but why did the skeptics have to get Mann’s data? Aren’t there other old trees that could have been sampled and studied? Couldn’t skeptics have generated their own data without waiting ten years and going through a lot of hassle to get Mann’s? Thanks for any explanation.
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Yes, they could have gathered their own data, but the results, regardless of the outcome, could not be used to refute or disprove Mann. At best they would be ‘a study with differing results’ and Mann/Biffra would stand (and most likely the skeptics study would be ignored).
The purpose of using Mann’s data and methods would be to verify Mann’s work or show that it was in error. Scientific method requires it. If not, we might still be talking about cold fusion.
I’m not sure non-Canadians are ghetting all the hockey references.
What’s important here isn’t that we found the hockey stick wrong; Steve M did that some time ago; what’s new is that it is obviously wrong because of pretty hard to deny cheating of the data.
Gene Nemetz (17:13:22) :
The likely got that from Joanne Nova.
Oh, they credited her, it’s worth doing here too.
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/09/breaking-news-cherry-picking-of-historic-proportions/
Normally, we’d simply cancel global warming for lack of interest but there are still too many people who have an interest in continuing global warming.
They’ve gone all-in. Their chips are in the middle and they don’t want to lose them.
Rumor has it that RealClimate’s response to McIntyre’s new analysis will be to recreate the Hockey Stick in “the most sophisticated computer climate model yet created.”
Hope the Associated Press doesn’t sue me for using “the most sophisticated… yet created” line…
What is amazing about all of this is the amount of work it must have taken to produce that hockey stick result. It would have been nearly impossible to arrive at that result by chance. Had practically any other subset of cores been used, there would have been no such dramatic graph come out of the study. That is also what is most troubling. In order to arrive at that result, one would have to cull dozens of samples to select only those that produce the desired results.
In other words, there is a vanishingly small probability that this result simply popped out of the study in one of those “well, what do you know, this looks just like Mann!” moments. Arriving at this result must have been the objective of the study and the time taken to locate the data that would provide the result must not have been trivial.
This is, I believe, going to be very difficult to pass off as random chance. Someone should be called to answer for this.
I doubt you will see much change in the likes of Tamino, Gavin or any other addicted AGW believer. That’s because they really do suffer from an addiction not unlike a gambling addiction or several others.
The turn on is “saving the world”. That is what drives the adrenalin surges. That is what makes them want to continue believing no matter what. Just as an addicted gambler believes the next jackpot will turn around their losses, these guys BELIEVE. They see nothing wrong with MANNufacting data just as addicted gamblers often steal or embezzle to keep going. As long as they can keep the dopamine rush coming they will continue the fight.
[snip sorry just a bit to much, try not to be angry at these people ]
I have to agree with others. A lame ad hominem by Tamino is essentially the same thing as an implicit acknowledgment of McIntyre’s work.
Score 1 to McIntyre, 0 to the Team.
Again, if I may repeat myself. The importance of Steve M’s work is not the temperature reconstruction showing no hockey stick; it is the implication that the Team has deliberately, one might even say [snip], misrepresented the data by selecting only those few data sets that supported their contention, whilst concealing the more numerous data sets that contradicted.
Heres a little document of interest:
http://www.amap.no/documents/index.cfm?action=getfile&dirsub=/ACIA%20International%20Scientific%20Symposium%20on%20Climate%20Change%20in%20the%20Arctic%20-%20Extended%20Abstracts&FileName=ACIASymposiumAbstractsPosters.pdf
it is necessary to find special regions that meet specific requirements: well-preserved remains of trees that exhibit high sensitivity to climate changes. One such area is the Yamal Peninsula (northwest Siberia). Holocene deposits in the southern part of this peninsula (in the region located between 67°00 and 67°50N and 68°30 and 71°00E, near recent polar timberline) contain a large amount of subfossil remains of Siberian larch, Siberian spruce and Mountain birch
At present, a total of 2700 sawn wood samples have been collected in order to create continuous tree-ring chronology for the past several thousand years. To date this work has resulted in constructing an absolute 7310-year chronology (from 5309 BC to 2000 AD) based on the data on individual series of 54 living and 452 subfossil larches (Larix sibirica).
Results:
This long record shows that the amplitude of temperature variability has altered noticeably through time. Nevertheless recent warming is unusual. That argues that the most recent decades of this long summer record represent the most favorable climate conditions for tree growth within the last seven millennia.
“As for Steve McIntyre’s latest: I’m really not that interested. He just doesn’t have the credibility to merit attention. I have way better things to do.”
Lol. So much for Mr. “Open Mind.” Anyway, that’s basically an admission that Steve is in the right here.
Note also that Tamino addressed McIntyre’s arguments in posts in February and March of 2008. You can find them by searching for the word “McIntyre” on the Tamino blog.
People please note that we are not talking about Manns’ hockey stick, but Briffas’. Related of course, but not quite the same thing.
I assume the problem “vg” has with Gavin’s post is that, if he is relying on tree rings to prove his point, which tree rings is he using?
Here’s another interesting dissertation with descriptions of the Yamal trees and environment:
http://vak.ed.gov.ru/common/img/uploaded/files/vak/announcements/biolog/2009/13-07/KHantemirovRM.pdf
Work on the collection of the material were carried out during 17 field se -mesons. To date, collected transverse saw cut with a tree-3458ev: trunks and, in rare cases, the roots poluiskopaemyh larches,spruce and birch trees. The largest share of these samples is larchSiberian (95%), much smaller than the Siberian spruce (about 4%) andBirch winding (about 1%). Most wood samples contain -shook 60-120 rings, the maximum number of rings found in onesample was equal to 501, average for all samples is 125.
…
As a result of this work was an absolute tree -ring Chronology on Larch duration of 7319 years.Yamal tree-ring chronology is one of the mostlong Tree-ring chronologies world.
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To maintain uniformity reconstruction Dendroclimatic analysis were not included samples collected north of 68 ° N
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Fig 2 shows share of tree samples fro living trees.
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Studies of modern dynamics of larch standsperformed in ecotones of the polar boundary of the forest in the valley. Yadayahodyyaha.Sampling areas selected on the first terraces above the floodplain height4-6 m, which ensured the absence of influence on the dynamics of renewalstudied stands a factor in the river valleys, as the appearancefresh river sediment. Test area 1 was laid in the areagrowing the most northerly of larches, the rest were placeddownstream at different distances (up to 22 kilometers) from the borderforest. At each of the plots measuring 25×25 meters to determinedate of the appearance of wood samples were collected wood (cores) from allliving trees with a diameter at breast height of at least 4 cm, whichcorresponds to a height of not less than 3 m. Samples were taken at a height of 10-20 cmfrom the surface. In addition, within the area from alldead trees with a diameter not less than 4 cm intervals to determinelife was taken from the saw cut stems at a height of 10 cm at 10 sample plotscollected samples from 220 living and 122 dead trees.To calibrate the data on the width of annual rings, the analysis in -Chin, causing the formation of abnormal anatomic structures,as for the analysis of climatic factors determining the formation,tion age generations of larch in the Yamal Peninsula in the XX century, wereused daily data for the years 1882-2008. Sale of station -hard, located 150 km south-west of the study area
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Greatest influence on the growth of annual rings of larch provided the air temperature in the period from 16 June to 30 July.The correlation coefficient between the indices of the width of annual rings and average temperature during this period is 0.71, the proportion of explainable dispersion of 58.1%. Therefore, as prediktanta was used average temperature of this period
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Figure 5 is:
Reconstruction of the temperature of summer on Yamal. Data are represented in the form deviations from the average value after smoothing 50-, 100 – and 200- summer by filters. On the lower graph it is shown by dotted line the linear trend of a change in the temperature since 5150. B.C. until 1850. A.D.
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Coldest century was the period from 1630 to 1531 years. BCThe same average temperature is awarded for the period from 1661 to 1760 years.BC, which, apparently, is manifestation called smallglacial period in the north of Western Siberia. However, variabilityTemperatures were higher in the first of these periods, which increases the degree ofunfavorable climatic conditions for the northern ecosystems.The warmest summers were in the 5 th century BC: 432, 427 and 426 years.BC Very high frequency of warm seasons was observed in the 27 century. BCand 3. AD (Fig. 8). But the most unique frequency particularly warmseasons is the last century, which fell on 17 of the 100 mostwarm seasons.
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Thus, we can note the following features of summerTemperatures in the north of Western Siberia during the last 7200 years:
1) reduction in summer temperatures for 7000 years, from 5150 BC on1850 AD about 0,4 ° C;
2) relatively low variability of summer temperatures (from interannualto intrasecular) in the period from 5150 to 1900-1700 gg. BC and high inaverage volatility in the next millennium;
3) low frequency of extremely cold summers in the period from 51 to18 cc. BC and their high frequency in the next century;
4) two of the coldest period in the last 7200 years, the first – inearly 19 century. AD, lasting about 30 years (roughly from 1810 to 1840gg.) with a minimum in the 1815-1820 gg. and the second, longer – in the 17-16cc. BC (about 1655-1530 gg. BC) with a minimum in 1626-1624 gg.to AD and weighed down high repeatability extremelycool summers;
5) the unprecedented warming in the last century
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Conclusions
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9. 150 years ago began an unprecedented for the last 7000 years increased summer air temperatures
This quote from Joanne Nova’s blog is most profound.
“Hiding data in science is equivalent to a company issuing it’s annual report and telling the auditors that the receipts are commercial in confidence and they would just have to trust them. No court of law would accept that, yet at the “top” levels of science, papers have been allowed to sit as show-pieces for years without any chance that anyone could seriously verify their findings. In science, getting the stamp of Peer Review has become like a free pass to “credibility”.’
Came from this post:
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/09/breaking-news-cherry-picking-of-historic-proportions/
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Cognitive dissonance seems to be the limiting factor, with a touch of Hegelian dialectic thrown in for good measure. Break down these barriers and you win.
“That argues that the most recent decades of this long summer record represent the most favorable climate conditions for tree growth within the last seven millennia.”
Only 7 millennia?
I’m working on a paper that shows the last decade was the warmist in the last 7 interglacials.
Steve McIntyre seems to have identified the tree-ringleader of the Briffa 12. YAD06.
From the same document a hockey stick!:
Figure 18- of change in the mean temperature of summer (deviations from the average), smoothed by 50-year filter, and the dynamics of polar timber line
I would like to take some temperatures with a broken hockey stick, rectally.
Gore Al and The great muppet Hansen, followed by all the minor muppets, cast and freaking crew.
Science journals wrecked public paid science in disrepute.
I hope Steve M and co will seriously consider writing a paper on this astonishing finding and submit it for peer-review, and specifically ask “the hockey team” as the referee. Then post the review comments (does that violate the peer-review policy?) for every interested individual to have their input. May science be advanced by the end of the day.
So let me see if I get this straight.
Michael Mann’s cherry picked ice core data that produced the infamous hockey stick graph, correlated with Keith Briffa’s cherry picked bristlecone pines tree ring data that confirmed a sharp rise in global temperatures, both of which have now been discredited by the way, was the basis for forming public policy decisions that have a grave affect on all of mankind.
Does that sound about right?