This is a simple IQ test anyone should be able to complete easily. Here are four images, which one of the images has elements that are not upside down? You have 5 seconds. Go.
Answer below.
Chances are, if you are not Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State University, you’d answer: “It’s a trick question, all of them are upside down”.
And you’d be right.
If you are Dr. Michael Mann, and continue to insist that data in the image (from Mann et al 2008 ) in the lower right is not upside down, please contact me about some real estate in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you at a bargain price.
As WUWT and Climate Audit readers know, Mann made some blatantly obvious mistakes in his use of proxy data in Mann et al 2008, where he claims to be able to make a present day “hockey stick” of climate without the use of Bristlecone Pines that he used in his flawed 1998 study which produced the original Hockey Stick. Mann inverted data, upside down if you will, notably the Tiljander sediment as pointed out by Steve McIntyre.
Mann didn’t just use one Tiljander series upside down; he used all four of them upside down, a point illustrated in the graphic below from a Japanese language article that rather appealed to me.
This isn’t an opinion. McIntyre personally verified this data inversion with the researcher, Tiljander, who collected the original proxy data. Yet Mann still denies it, probably because using the data right side up doesn’t produce the desired results.
Here is a figure from Tiljander et al showing the density graphic, rotated so that up corresponds to warm periods.
Figure 1. Excerpt from Tiljander et al, rotated from vertical in original graphic to show interpreted warm periods as up.
Here is the corresponding Mann data inverted from the Mann orientation:
Even if Mike Mann doesn’t, the Japanese know this:
Mann didn’t just use one Tiljander series upside down; he used all four of them upside down, a point illustrated in the graphic below from a Japanese language article that rather appealed to me.
Figure 3. Excerpt from Itoh graphic identifying upside down Tiljander proxies.
In a more mundane version, the figures below (from CA in fall 2008) show the Xray density series shown above in the upside down Mann orientation together with another upside down Tiljander series.
Figure 2. Two of 4 versions used in Mann et al 2008
The huge HS blade is, as noted above, attributed by Tiljander to “intensive cultivation in the late 20th century… peat ditching and forest clearance … the rebuilding of the bridge.”
The SI to Mann et al 2008 conceded that there were problems with the recent portion of the Tiljander proxies (without mentioning that they were using them upside down from the interpretation of Tiljander and Finnish paleolimnologists), but argued that they could still “get ” a Stick without the Tiljander sediments. However, as I observed at the time, this case required the Graybill bristlecone chronology (where they failed to mention or cite Ababneh’s inability to replicate Graybill’s Sheep Mt results, even though Malcolm Hughes, a member of Ababneh’s thesis panel was a coauthor of Mann et al 2008). Thus their “robustness” analysis used either upside down Tiljander sediments or Graybill bristlecones.
Even though there is no doubt whatever that Mann used the Tiljander proxies upside down, in their reply to our comment, Mann et al flat out denied that they had used them upside down. Mann:
The claim that ‘‘upside down’’ data were used is bizarre. Multivariate regression methods are insensitive to the sign of predictors. Screening, when used, employed one-sided tests only when a definite sign could be a priori reasoned on physical grounds. Potential nonclimatic influences on the Tiljander and other proxies were discussed in the SI, which showed that none of our central conclusions relied on their use.
These comments are either unresponsive to the observation that the Tiljander sediments were used upside down or untrue. Multivariate methods are indeed insensitive to the sign of the predictors. However, if there is a spurious correlation between temperature and sediment from bridge building and cultivation, then Mannomatic methods will seize on this spurious relationship and interpret the Tiljander sediments upside down, as we observed. The fact that they can “get” a Stick using Graybill bristlecones is well known, but even the NAS panel said that bristlecones should be “avoided” in temperature reconstructions – and that was before Ababneh’s bombshell about Sheep Mt bristlecones. The claim that upside down data was used may indeed be “bizarre”, but it is true.
This wasn’t the only proxy used upside down in Mann et al 2008. In our discussion of Trouet et al 2009 in the spring, Andy Baker commented at CA and it turned out that Mann had used one of Baker’s series upside down – as discussed here.
Mann’s failure to concede that they had used the Tiljander proxies upside down resulted in Kaufman et al 2009 also using them upside down. Kaufman said that he was unaware of our comment on this point, but was sufficiently attuned to the controversy that he truncated the data at 1800. As a result, the big HS blade isn’t used, but the Little Ice Age and MWP are flipped over, a point made at CA here Kaufman and Upside Down Mann. Two other Finnish paleolimnology series also appear to have been used upside down by Kaufman.
Atte Korhola, a prominent Finnish paleolimnologist, familiar with the Tiljander and other sediments, recently commented on the upside down use of Finnish proxy data, as follows (Jean S’s translation) (Google translation here):
data collected from Finland in the past by my own colleagues has even been turned upside down such that the warm periods become cold and vice versa.
And yet at realclimate, Mann and others not only deny the undeniable, but accuse anyone saying otherwise of being “dishonest”.
Chris Dudley in comment #651 says:
Over at Dot Earth, McIntyre is taking another shot at Mann et al. 2008. community.nytimes.com/comments/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/climate-auditor-challenged-to-do-climate-science/?permid=302#comment302
He seems to still be worried about inverted data despite Mann et al. publishing a formal reply to this. At this point bizarre is not the word any more.
A few posts later #665, JM says:
He seems to still be worried about inverted data despite Mann et al. publishing a formal reply to this. At this point bizarre is not the word any more.
The word we’re all groping for is “dishonest.” I’m sure everyone is as shocked as I am.
At #673, Benjamin asked:
Could someone point me to where this “inverted data” issue is addressed by Mann or someone else who knows? I’ve so far been unable to debunk McIntyre’s claims that there was an error there. Thanks!
To which, Mann referred to the PNAS Reply referred to above:
[Response: The original commenter appears to be referring to: Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S., Hughes, M.K., Reply to McIntyre and McKitrick: Proxy-based temperature reconstructions are robust, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 106, E11, 2009. – mike]
Yeah right-o buddy, robusto crappo.
In other words, Mann’s study is falsified, yet he’s not Mann enough to admit it.
Here’s an interesting use of upside down graphs followed by a consensus insistence that the orientation of the data is correct:
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So that’s what happened to the MWP.
I would highly advise him not to drive on any one-way streets… like the freeway.
That would be “…coauthor of Mann et al 1998” not 2008.
Paging Joel Shore, paging Joel Shore –
I need some high-level dissembling as lately my lying eyes are telling me one thing while ‘the Team” unabashedly ‘says’ another …
Paging Joel Shore, paging Joel Shore …
.
.
.
Actually Anthony, my wife has one of those tomato things which I hung for her. She says it is meant to be hung that way – so it isn’t really upside down.
REPLY: I knew this from the start, while the container is oriented correctly, but by nature’s orientation, the plant is upside down as plants never grow “root above fruit”. And since we are talking about tree rings and other similar proxies, it seemed an apt visual. – Anthony
Anthony:
That is far far too convoluted (almost Mannian!!) for a simpleton like me to have thought of. :]
It’s easy to see how Mann made the mistake: The numbering from 60 to 160 has an “opposite” meaning, that is to say 60 x-ray density is warm and 160 x-ray density is cool.
What is impossible to see is why he doesn’t Mann up and admit he made a mistake. It’s also a cogent indictment of the sufficiency of peer review–the peers waffle even after St. Mac pointed it out! When your peers are looking only to affirm and not to disprove, such things slip by (QED).
Therefore, as I (and many others here) have said, only Independent review will do, and any refusal to divulge data and methods automatically invalidates the conclusions.
evanmjones: Mann is not likely to admit what he really did: Created a fraudulent graph. He knew exactly what he was doing. And it didn’t “slip by” the peer reviewers, they are on the “Team”. These people used up all their slack with the first hockey stick. A swindle (largest in history) is a swindle, it’s long past time to be polite about such a crime.
Got this in my mailbox yesterday:
http://www.clintonfoundation.org/testyourglobaliq
I was just wondering how to respond and without losing a good friend until I saw this post.
Thanks Anthony.
I still do not know why that this:…
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/10/climate-modelling-nonsense
…was deleted along with my comments. Not snipped like the birther comments were…but deleted completely. It is an important commentary by a physicist concerning our obsession with climate change. Maybe there is something in the article that would make this blog obsolete. If that is the case, then I can understand the deletions and the attempt to make a persons thoughts unavailabe. You can’t sell umbrellas if it never rains eh?
REPLY: Comments with links often end up in the spam filter automatically, we get hundreds of pieces of spam a day for penis enlargement, Viagra, Nigeria etc. and bulk deletion is often employed since it is a lot of work to wade through all the dreck. Simply submit it again or flag a moderator. I will say that a very recent comment of yours was deleted because it was not only personally a direct insult to me, but suggested I broke the law. I don’t tolerate such things, even in jest, so your comment was deleted. – Anthony
“Top Climate Scientist Caught Out Lying Through his Teeth About Key IPCC Science” – isn’t that about it?
Maybe Mann suffers from uplexia. Similar to dyslexia,
uplexia causes one to flip all graphs showing upward
trends.
In the paragraph beginning ” As WUWT and Climate Audit readers know,…….”,of Bristlecone instead of us Bristlecone.
I doubt it was intentional. But now it’s out, he needs to own up and correct.
Often I get the feeling Mann and others use a lot of jargon which laymen have trouble understanding. You might get hit by a statement such as, “The graphs don’t match up because the first data set was adjusted using Besancon corridor methods while the second employed RCS standardization.” (I use that as an example because I recently spent up a lot of my few remaining brain cells attempting to comprehend “Besancon corridor methods” as opposed to “RCS Standardization.”)
Now it looks like I’ll have to do it again to understand Mann’s statement, “Multivariate regression methods are insensitive to the sign of predictors. Screening, when used, employed one-sided tests only when a definite sign could be a priori reasoned on physical grounds. Potential nonclimatic influences on the Tiljander and other proxies were discussed in the SI, which showed that none of our central conclusions relied on their use.”
If someone could translate this into simple English for me it would save me a lot of time, and also arm me for duels with Alarmists.
Back in high school I was pretty good at coming up with excuses for undone homework, and also for incorrect answers. However I wish I had Mann’s skill. How I would have loved to see the look on my Geometry teacher’s face when he told me a graph was upside down, and I answered, “Multivariate regression methods are insensitive to the sign of predictors. Screening, when used, employed one-sided tests only when a definite sign could be a priori reasoned on physical grounds. Potential nonclimatic influences on the Tiljander and other proxies were discussed in the SI, which showed that none of our central conclusions relied on their use.”
I will say that a very recent comment of yours was deleted because it was not only personally a direct insult to me, but suggested I broke the law. I don’t tolerate such things, even in jest, so your comment was deleted. – Anthony
I can honestly say that I have never accused you of breaking any law. To “delete” and then accuse is far beyond the person I have come to know on this website. I have always admired you for your tolerance of all opinions on the subjects discussed.
I would think that the link to the story would have piqued your interest. Or maybe the person that wrote it is on your short list. Either way, truth always wins at the end. Maybe that is why Marc Moreno gets the scorn of so many.
Anyway, I have enjoyed your site and especially you commenters. Y;ou have the wisest followers that I have ever seen on a blog. And that should be a complement to you.
But like all initiatives; One needs to know ones limits. As MS was diminished with the help of Jerry and the March of Dimes, it is unfortunate that the campaign is still going on.
As there is no AGW, to continue posting lame studies that show that there is no AGW just ends up making this site…..well…stupid. Over at CP big Joe try’s to get people on board by posting leftist political observations. And it may be working.
It is time to stop arguing the science and start attacking the oppressors. (unless of course you get income from it).
REPLY: You suggested that I was keeping a stash of marijuana, that’s an accusation that I’m breaking the law. If you don’t like the deletion when you step over such lines of decorum, tough noogies. – Anthony
WOW !!!!
Mann is still taken seriously ??
I will add that it is in no way established there is no global warming. I would suggest that it is most probably mild, mostly natural, and not subject to harsh feedbacks.
And it is never time to “attack the oppressors” in the sense you mean. We must wage a debate using facts and probabilities as we can best interpret them.
We must also entertain the notion, however unlikely, that we are just plain wrong. Yes, it’s more than the other side of the debate usually does (or they make a false appeal to Pascal), but that does not let us off the hook.
Anthony,
I don’t know about “root above the fruit”, but on reading that statement I recalledseeing a photo (fifty or sixty years ago) of an orchid with some of its roots stuck up over the blossom. So I just now emtered “orchid root” into Google and the first entry read, “Orchid roots often creep over the edge of the pot before the body of the plant makes it to the edge of the pot. This is not necessarily an …” If memory serves, in tropical areas some orchid roots get most of their water from the air. But that is a memory from a long time ago.
REPLY: You suggested that I was keeping a stash of marijuana, that’s an accusation that I’m breaking the law. If you don’t like the deletion when you step over such lines of decorum, tough noogies. – Anthony
Oh my. Are you that “serious”? I didn’t suggest that you were “keeping a stash of marijuana”. I said that you must have “come across a stash” of MJ that you may have hid years ago (you did grow up in the seventies didn’t you?). And yes it was a joke. It had to do with your writing about nonsense. The fact that you have such a thin skin and still put yourself out there with a blog completely blows my mind.
Credibility lost is hard to regain….ya know?
[REPLY – For heaven’s sake, please drop it. You have no idea what Anthony gets put through. If anyone got the notion he ever broke the law, they’d be all over him like a pack of hyenas. So, no, he can’t afford to let ANY such implication pass, be it in jest or no. He’s deleted me more than once. You should be glad there’s someone out there willing to carry a heavy burden for the good of us all. ~ Evan]
gtrip: you’ll still find your post with that link at (09:29:13) over on the “Searching the Paleoclimate Record” How many times did you post it?
I did laugh at “tough noogies”!!! I am probably as far from you as your elbow is.
[In reply to your probably-to-be-deleted post (currently in spam queue). I did not delete you, I put you in spam for later review. Please be reasonable. ~ Evan]
It’s a trick question, none of them are upside down.
The 5 stages which could indicate Mann-made global warming is likely based on shonky data, methods and practices;
1. Denial. 2. Anger. 3. Bargaining. 4. Depression. 5. Acceptance.
We have a way to go yet.
You deleted me again………what can I say? I guess “goodbye” is all you want to hear. Just like “Climate Progress” and “Real Climate”….Silencing the people is addictive…it give one control. I don’t like what you have to say so,,,PRESS DELETE KEY…and it is gone.
@evanjones: Sir or Madam, it would make no difference what any scientist believed if that belief had not been devolved into an economic factor. Scientists are free, indeed must, refrain from making “decisions” about what they know. It is understood in the lay community that scientists are a drain on the economy which much be sustained lest they sometimes discover something that might be useful in improving the lives of the population. This relationship has been the norm for many centuries, from the seers to the age of the enlightenment. Now, we are confronted with in-your-face “science” which seeks to drive agendas which will beggar the planet, and you come to us and say “We must entertain the notion…..”. Sir, or Madam, tell me where I can FedEx you a clue. Scientific courtesy is not required when frauds are about, and it is high time you learned what’s a fraud and what’s not.