WUWT readers may recall that Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit blog discovery of UNEP’s use of a Wikipedia “hockey Stick” graphic by “Hanno”, was the subject of last week’s blog postings.
The Yamal data hockey stick controversy overshadowed it, and much of the focus has been there recently.
The discovery of a Wikipedia graphic in the UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium must have been embarrassing as it shows the sort of sloppy science that is going into “official” publications.
In this case, the United Nations simply grabbed an image from Wikipedia that supported the view they wanted to sell. The problem with the graph in the upper right of page 5 of the UNEP report is that it itself has not been peer reviewed nor has it originated from a peer reviewed publication, having its inception at Wikipedia.
And then there’s the problem of the citation as “Hanno 2009” who (up until this story broke) was an anonymous Wikipedia contributor.
Yet UNEP cited the graph as if it was a published and peer reviewed work as “Hanno 2009″.
Here’s my screencap of the page from the UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium report from last week
In this case, the United Nations simply grabbed an image from Wikipedia that supported the view they wanted to sell.
The hockey stick, based on tree ring proxies has met an inconveniently timed death it seems.
It appears now that somebody at the United Nations must have gotten the message from blogland, becuase there has been a change in the graphics on page 5.
Below is page 5 as it appears in the UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium today:
It’s gone. It has been replaced with the familiar GISS land-ocean record, not quite a hockey stick, but close enough.
You can see the GISS graph from the GISTEMP web page right here, oddly the UN used the 2005 version (citing Hansen et al 2005) rather than the 2009 version of the graph, seen below. Might it be that pesky downturn at the end of the graph? Or maybe they are just Google challenged?
It sure would be nice if such publications could display animated GIFS, for example this one showing two different vintages of GISS data:
Maybe climate blogs can convince the UN to change their graph yet again.
Thanks to sharp eyed WUWT reader Lawrie (of Sydney Australia) for pointing out the change made to the UNEP document.
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Anthony,
I would not read too much into this – it’s a typical bureaucratic FU. Pulling that specific graph, clouded in rhetorical waffle, doesn’t deserve any focussed attention here.
Don Keiller (05:20:11) :
It’s curious that the National Archives retains such raw 18th and 19th Century material for the dilligent student of climate history; it would be better if Phil Jones had a go at those journals first so that we only have to digest the “value-added” version.
Somebody ought to put Chrissie Maher onto the climate lexicon problem.
WSJ: “Crusader for Syntactic Disambiguation Exprobrates Banks’ Labored Locutions:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125476135344665075.html
The land ocean temperature graph is an adjusted graph.
I don’t know how good the data on this site is, probably biased in the other direction but it purports to show raw temperature data. Interesting if it is real:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/2009/10/03/climate-data-top-secret/
Alexander Feht (04:40:56) :
Nevertheless, I quit in disgust. The language they use in the UN is inhumanly perverse; it’s not even “bureaucratic” — it’s something indescribable.
Yes, and it’s very important that members of this cult simply make the “correct noises”, which make no good sense to anyone on the outside, or no rational sense to anyone trying to use language in order to understand things and communicate understanding, as opposed to using language to identify like members and/or manipulate other people so as to be able to keep manipulating them, that is, where the means, propagandistic thought control, are also the ends.
Luboš Motl (23:44:22) :
“It’s silently gone. Those who were able to separate justified results from nonsense aren’t credited with their contributions. But thank God, at least one wrong graph is gone.
Thousands of them are still waiting. And when thousands of wrong graphs are also removed, it will still not be the end of the movement because the movement is not really about any graphs, neither correct nor fake ones”.
Right, removing the hockey stick graph does not stop the scam.
If the scam is not halted our economies will be killed and so is our freedom.
A little OT, but while we are discussing organisations who make it up, here’s a quote I never expected to see on The Beeb, especially the last phrase:-
“But the sceptics movement is not just about tackling conspiracy theorists who spread their message by independent means on the internet; there is also a drive to tackle bad reporting of science in the mainstream media.”
See for yourselves http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8291688.stm
RR Kampen (08:41:22)
“On the other hand, there might be no such records.”
Thats my point
Apple Quits Chamber Of Commerce Over Climate Change
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/apple-quits-chamber-of-co_n_310301.html
You would think a company as scientific as Apple would be able to take a non-biased look at the actual climate data and give a logical response. But alas, its not in their social interest. Oh well, how many socialist companys down and how many socialist companies to go?
OceanTwo (05:15:00) :
A good point and something I’ve wondered about.
Re: P Wilson (09:36:39) :
“On the other hand, there might be no such records.”
“Thats my point”
___
Um, I’m confused here now on wattsupwiththat… What’s irony and what isn’t. Do you surmise cooler temperatures were not recorded as in not subjected to any measurement whatsoever, or that record low temperatures simply didn’t occur?
Posting at Real Climate is exasperating beyond believe. They now have a thread up that claims that nothing has changed with regard to the temperature rise over the last decade. Their arguments border on the absurd. I tried to answer them point by point, and of course I was censored. These people don’t want to discuss the issues – they simply want to propogate propoganda and they don’t want anyone with contrary opinions to be heard. They pretend to voice dissent; but only in those cases where they are sure that they can answer the issues. For things that they cannot answer, censorship is always their method. I took a screenshot of my post to Real Climate while it was awaiting moderation. Here it is.
REPLY: Keep screen caps of your comments after they show “in moderation” and then make a second screencap afterwards when it disappears.
– Anthony
http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-fraudulent-censorship-at-real.html
Don Keiller (05:20:11) :
In “The Times” today and online at;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6862384.ece
“Explorer’s logbooks prove a welcome bounty for climate change doubters”
Read and enjoy.
I cannot speak for the University of Sunderland, but if the Met Office Hadley Centre is invloved, what’s the chance of the logs for His Majesty’s Ships Isabella & Dorothea, & the others, becoming “mislaid” or otherwise lost, along with that famous letter from the Admiralty to the Royal Society, (could have been the other way round so do correct for the record – 1817 I recall tbc!) being equally mislaid?
Vincent (07:08:52) Thank you:-) Pick away please if I have got something wrong!
Wondering Aloud (08:11:57) 🙂 I did mention Ancient Greece, the data I’d gathered implied that largely after the fall of that great civilisation that such beliefs/information became lost until later being re-discovered. The point about flat Earth being a myth is quite correct, but that was also partly my point, as were so many ideas & beliefs throughout history (that I had no time or space to mention), but they were WIDELY believed by the masses at the time. Their ignorance served the establishment well for many a year. Nothing changes does it? One now sees an all too eager developing world manipulating the science in the hope that the apparent “rich” west will now dole out squillions in aid/grants/compensation/quid-pro-quo, essentially reversing the global wealth! However, history shows us that those nations who were able to indulge in trade with others, became wealthy, (eg Britain, yes I know we weren’t perfect either before anyone starts), whereas those who just extracted wealth from others, (eg Spain via gold & silver from South America) tended to fall economically behind! We live in interesting times!
This whole episode with the Mann/Briffa data is eerily similar to the Michael Bellesiles scandal a dozen or so years ago.
He had published a history book (The Arming of America) and several peer reviewed articles purporting that gun ownership among Americans was the exception until after the Civil War. The liberals loved it, the book won a prestigious award, and the issue was politicized (even entered in as evidence in 2nd Amendment lawsuits). A LAW PROFESSOR, James Lindgren, began raising questions about the raw data, and, independently, a Masters Degree student, Clayton Cramer, who had been analyzing some of the same source material Bellesiles claimed to use. Bellesiles refused to provide his raw material – it was missing, it was destroyed when his office was flooded, etc. (any of this sound familiar?).
Well, the end result was that some of Bellesiles claims were so egregious (like having access to CA records that were know to be destroyed in the 1906 San Fran earthquake and fire, he reviewed microfich data at a library that didn’t have ANYTHING on microfiche, and more) that everything imploded, the theory was dismissed as a fraud, Bellesiles book was stripped of its award, and he was forced to leave the university where he taught (Emory). Funny, though, the MSM didn’t report these events nearly as much as they did Bellesiles’ book and the theory when it was published (the NYT, in particular).
So here is an example where 1. peer review did not work, 2. other members of the professional community either refused to examine, or were afraid to criticize, a popular theory, and 3. the [issue] was exposed by investigations done by scholars OUTSIDE that community, publishing their own non-peered analysis.
This case makes for interesting reading. These things do happen.
Ron de Haan (09:32:25) :
Luboš Motl (23:44:22) :
“It’s silently gone. Those who were able to separate justified results from nonsense aren’t credited with their contributions. But thank God, at least one wrong graph is gone.
Thousands of them are still waiting. And when thousands of wrong graphs are also removed, it will still not be the end of the movement because the movement is not really about any graphs, neither correct nor fake ones”.
Right, removing the hockey stick graph does not stop the scam.
If the scam is not halted our economies will be killed and so is our freedom.
Our freedom has been killed a long time ago… Peer reviews only to pro-AGW papers, Media’s banning of clean science, dumb politicians, etc.
“The science has become more irrevocable than ever” according to Ban Ki-moon in the Foreword. Now that Figure 1.3 has been revoked, the Secretary-General may want to reconsider these words.
RR Kampen (07:01:15) said:
“Unfortunately I lost one of my main hobbies in Holland due to Dutch Warming: skating.”
As if. Kampen has claimed this a number of times now.
I grew up in an area that occasionally got down to – 20°F in winter, yet every city and town had indoor and outdoor skating rinks. In sunny, warm California the shopping malls have skating rinks.
Yet we are being implausibly told that Holland is so backward that they don’t have commercial skating rinks, and that a mere 0.6° change in global temps denies Mr Kampen the opportunity to ice skate like he did when things were 0.6° cooler. Ri-i-i-i-i-ght.
So that’s his argument, if you can believe it. When his argument comes down to a statement like that, he’s lost it. Note the “Dutch” warming. Is that like global warming? Or local weather?
But all is not lost. He could move to Southern California to ice skate.
Louis Hissink (08:48:33) :
Anthony,
I would not read too much into this – it’s a typical bureaucratic FU. Pulling that specific graph, clouded in rhetorical waffle, doesn’t deserve any focussed attention here.
As others have pointed out, there is growing sensitivity to the skeptical blogosphere. It is probable that discredited hockey sticks across the AGW landscape will now disappear. But the damage is done. The public without benefit of the MSM, is learning how a relatively small cult led by accepted “authorities” can influence widespread thinking.
The IPCC and UN is in a quagmire. Pulling the phony data makes them look like amateur FUs. NOT pulling the data makes them look the same. It’s called painting oneself into a corner.
“hot gasses rise”
It is a simple fact that air combined with water vapor is substantially less dense than is dry air, temperature and pressure being equal. The more water vapor contained, i.e., the higher the humidity, the less dense the mixture is.
Atomic weight of O2 = 32, N2 = 28.04, and H2O = 18. As there are approximately the same number of molecules of gas in a given volume at the same temperature and pressure, included H2O vapor reduces substantially the combined density.
Less dense gasses rise relative to more dense gasses.
When this mixture (water vapor and air) rises high enough to colder altitudes, the latent heat of the H2O vapor is exchanged with the surrounding colder air, and the H2O vapor condenses into clouds, giving up its latent heat. The latent heat given up by the H2O vapor in this change of state is 540 BTU per pound of water vapor.
The specific heat exchange is very small relative to the latent heat exchange due to the chang of state of H2O from a gas to a liquid.
The American Thinker takes a whack at the hockey stick.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/un_climate_reports_they_lie.html
RR Kampen (07:01:15) :
Re: Richard (05:32:39) : “At that station? For heavens sake when the temperature remains high for centuries on end – is it happening just at that station?? This has been reflected at other stations in Greenland.”..
“Dont you think this is far better representation of Global Temperatures or at least NH temperatures than Briffa’s one tree somewhere in Siberia, which has been depended on by the IPCC?”
Yes. Fortunately that tree showed the same sort of figure as a host of different proxy or non-proxy data, which is where the IPCC depends on also.
Well since that record has been shown to be BS, maybe the host of other data that IPCC depends on is BS too? And what “non-proxy data” does the IPCC depend on to show that the current warming is in any way unusual in the last 10,000 or even 1,300 years.
You would rather accept the “evidence” tortured out of 1 tree, by mysteriously interpreting its tree rings, than the continuous accurate scientific temperature records in the ice-core data, which incidentally is also corroborated by “a host of different proxy or non-proxy data”, which unfortunately the IPCC chooses to ignore.
“You are quite happy to accept that BS are you?”
No, I’d have preferred an ice age. Unfortunately I lost one of my main hobbies in Holland due to Dutch Warming: skating. I depend on observations like this, ..
I presume you mean “ice skating”. Well you would have been even more unhappy during the Medieval warm period and most of the Holocene. Either find a rink somewhere or wait for it to get cold again, if you are not too old and decrepit by then.
Of course you would depend on observations like this because your observations, (spanning how much time?), is climate not weather.
” Smokey (11:12:05) :
RR Kampen (07:01:15) said:
“Unfortunately I lost one of my main hobbies in Holland due to Dutch Warming: skating.”
But all is not lost. He could move to Southern California to ice skate.”
Skating (racing) is very popular in Holland, and they have huge (long track) ice rinks for that.
And last winter it was so cold there the canals were freezing as they were in the time of Bruegel:
http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/463-3128
http://americanelephant.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/the-canals-have-frozen-in-the-netherlands-and-the-dutch-are-rediscovering-their-heritage/
Dendroclimatology is a hoax:
http://www.biocab.org/TR_Width-Temp.jpg
RR Kampen, what do you say? Are you going to recant your claim now that warming has kept you from ice skating? Before you answer, check out Alexej Buergin’s links above.
For those who want to see how the alarmists pervert science, this link has some good info on detecting junk science:
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-detect-junk-science.html
NO Warming in 251 year British Temperature Record:
http://carbon-sense.com/2009/10/01/british-record/
Sorry, that was 351 year British Temperature Record
The link was published at Climate Depot