IQ Test: Which of these is not upside down?

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.

Steve writes:

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: