Transcript in English from the TV network website here (h/t to Goran Frojdh)
MOT: Climate catastrophe cancelled
Finnish Broadcasting Co. YLE, TV1, Nov 11th 2009 at 8.00 pm.
Voiceover (VO), reporter Martti Backman: Governments around the world are preparing for a grand climate conference, which should decide how humanity responds to the threat of a climate catastrophe. Negotiations are under way to replace the Kyoto treaty with a new treaty of Copenhagen.
VO: The threat is based on assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. According to the panel, the Earth is going through an unprecedented period of temperature increase, caused by man and his carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal and oil.
(Pictures from An Incovenient Truth)
The Earth’s climate has always been changing. But now we are told that warming is happening faster than ever. The view is based on this figure.
(Picture: The global warming hockey stick graph. Music: Electric organ sounds from an ice-hockey game)
VO: This ten-year-old figure, dubbed as the hockey stick, was meant to revolutionize the dominant view of global climate history. The stick’s handle stretches for almost a thousand years, creating an impression of a steady climate, and its’ rising blade in the late 1900’s is proof of sudden, strong warming, which is caused by man.
According to the older view, climate has naturally varied considerably over the past millennium, and in the middle ages it was clearly warmer than today. But in the hockey stick graph, the Medieval Warm Period and the little ice age after it have disappeared. The hockey stick was promoted to honorary status in the IPCC’s third assessment report’s cover. It became the logo of catastrophic climate change. The stick was used to back up the claim that, 1998 was the warmest year of the millennium.
Steve McIntyre: ”At the time I was doing mining exploration business and I just wondered, in the most casual possible way, how they knew that. So that led me start looking at the data and six years later, I’m still doing it”.
VO: The Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre had doubts about the scientific strength of the hockey stick graph, and he decided to unravel the numbers behind it, with the diligence of an auditor. The father of the hockey stick, professor Michael Mann resisted McIntyre’s efforts to get hold of his research data, and it wasn’t until 2003 that McIntyre succeeded in getting access to the data.
McIntyre: ” It turned out that he had modified a principal components method incorrectly and the modified method produced hockey stick-shaped graphs ninety-nine percent of the time. It also emphasized a class of proxies, strip-bark bristlecone pines that previous authors had said were not actually a temperature proxy”.
VO: Temperature records measured by thermometers are at most 150 years long. Earlier histories have to be reconstructed with so-called proxies, or surrogate thermometers. Past climates are deduced for example from tree rings and lake sediments or varves.
The shape of the hockey stick was to a large extent caused by tree rings from a few North American bristlecone pines. McIntyre succeeded in deconstructing the stick. The United States National Academy of Sciences set up a committee to investigate his findings. The committee found that, McIntyre had been right to question the temperature reconstruction and announced that, bristlecone pines should no more be used as proof of climate change.
Steve McIntyre, an outsider in climate science, had succeeded in breaking Mann’s hockey stick, the icon of the climate change movement. But the story was not over. A whole factory started to produce new sticks to replace the broken one.
McIntyre: “There was another class of study, which used a series of tree rings from a scientist called Keith Briffa, from Northern Russia, from a site called Yamal, and this had an even bigger hockey stick-shape than the Michael Mann -hockey stick and this one – – has been used in multiple studies as well and so, over the past few years I’ve been trying to get information about how this particular series was constructed”.
VO: Keith Briffa is one of the big names in climate research. He is a professor in the IPCC’s scientific stronghold in Britain, the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. He is also a lead author of the past climate chapters of the IPCC’s assessment reports.
McIntyre had to fight for three years to get Briffa’s Yamal data under his microscope. But a lot happened before that.
The well-known medieval warmth was disturbing to the scientists close to the IPCC, the so-called hockey team. In the mid 1990’s the American geologist David Deming received an astonishing e-mail, in which one prominent climate researcher announced to his colleagues:
Actor’s voice: “We have to get rid of the medieval warm period.”
(Picture of Deming’s written statement from the Senate Environmental committee website)
VO: Deming testified about the e-mail at hearings in the United States congress.
Soon after this e-mail, Keith Briffa published a study, where the millennial temperature history looked like this: (the upper curve appears on screen)
VO: The Briffa study was based on a very limited number of tree ring samples from the so-called Polar Urals region in Siberia. With the help of just three short tree ring series he claimed that the year 1032 in the middle of the balmy middle ages, had been the coldest in the millennium. And the modern period appeared to be very warm. A real hockey stick.
A couple of years later, Briffa’s colleague returned to Siberia to drill new tree ring samples. When they were added to Briffa’s original data, the curve looked surprisingly like this: (lower curve appears on screen, the curves merge).
The hockey stick had disappeared, and the medieval warm period had been reinstated as warmer than the present.
McIntyre: “Unfortunately, this updated Polar Urals result was never published and Briffa, in his works since 2000, has made no – – reference to this updated study”.
VO: The updated Polar Urals series was forgotten. Instead, Briffa replaced his original weak Polar Urals data in 2000 with new tree ring series drilled from the Yamal peninsula hundreds of kilometers away. With this data, the climate reconstruction looks like this: (lower curve appears).
VO: The blade of the hockey stick rises at the end of the millennium stronger than ever and the medieval warm period is clearly shadowed by it, if not made to vanish completely.
Yamal data became the most important temperature proxy for all later hockey sticks, and it was used in at least seven temperature reconstruction studies.
But McIntyre knew something about the construction of hockey sticks, and he could not believe in the Yamal curve. The contradiction to established paleoclimatic knowledge was simply too big.
McIntyre: “And the question is just, why was the Polar Urals update not reported? And if the Yamal series was going to be used rather than Polar Urals, that should have been clearly explained to readers. The criteria for preferring one rather than the other should have been also clearly explained”.
VO: Finnish Lapland lies at the same latitudes as Yamal, and there are plenty of Finnish studies on past climates based on tree rings. These studies are considered to be among the best in the world, for their sample quality as well as methodologically. What kinds of hockey sticks have been found in them?
Kari Mielikäinen, professor of forest research (Metla, Finland): “We have this long series going back over 7,000 years, and there’s no hockey stick there.”
VO: Briffa’s Yamal hockey stick was published in the prestigious journal Science. McIntyre asked for a copy of the raw data from Yamal.
McIntyre: ”Briffa refused. The editors of Science refused to require Briffa to provide the measurement data…”
VO: It took McIntyre three years to get hold of the data, although one of the most important rules in science is that, raw data should be made available to anybody who is interested in checking and replicating a study.
Finally Briffa made a “mistake”. He published yet another article based on the Yamal data in a journal of the British Royal Society. The prestigious scientific society held on to the principle of data transparency and forced Briffa to make his raw data public. In September this year, the Canadian climate auditor had his forebodings confirmed.
McIntyre: ”So after, after sort of, three years of frustration and trying to examine the data that Briffa had used and probably four years of people saying that this data supported the Michael Mann -work on other grounds, it was really quite frustrating to find that it was built up on ten trees that had been not randomly selected”.
VO: So the Yamal data included only ten living trees from the 1990’s, and the rapid growth of these individuals caused the steep rise of the hockey stick blade. In Finnish dendrological studies, hardly anything would be said based on just ten trees. What’s demanded is at least 50 trees for each year, and several other quality criteria as well. How have these criteria been observed in the Yamal data?
Kari Mielikäinen (professor of forest research, Finnish Forest Research Institute Metla): “Rather weakly it seems. It looks like there are problems with both cohort structure and also the regional distribution (of the sample).”
VO: McIntyre conducted a simple statistical exercise. He replaced the 10-tree Yamal sample by a larger 34-tree sample collected from the same area. (In this figure) the added material is depicted with the black curve, and the combination of both data sets as a green curve.
VO: The hockey stick blade disappears, or actually turns downwards. And the medieval period is again warmer than the present.
McIntyre: ”I think that the preferential selection of Yamal, rather than Polar Urals, biases the result that’s presented to the public”.
VO: All good proxy-based climatic reconstructions should compare the results with adjacently located measurements from thermometers. When this is done in the Yamal area, it emerges that none of the near-by weather stations have recorded warming that would explain the hockey stick graph. In other words, if those ten trees have grown abnormally fast in the 1990’s it is due to something else than heat.
Mielikäinen: “If you choose one convenient series just to prove a point, be it a hockey stick or anything, you are definitely on a wrong track.”
VO: Problems with tree ring studies will be addressed next summer in an international scientific congress chaired by Mielikäinen in Rovaniemi (Finnish Lapland).
(pause)
VO: The author of the Yamal reconstruction, Keith Briffa, has disputed the criticism aimed at his study, but it still draws heated debate.
Briffa’s employer, the IPCC-affiliated climate research unit CRU maintains a global database of temperature measurements from weather stations. This database is central to the conclusion that global temperatures have risen to a worrying extent during the past 40 years. The CRU has combined thermometer readings into a global average with a method which it refuses to disclose, but which allegedly has brought added value to the raw data. McIntyre has requested the data from CRU director Phil Jones, but he has been turned down, and others as well.
McIntyre: “An Australian named Warwick Hughes had asked for the data and Warwick Hughes had published some articles that had been critical of how the temperature histories had been prepared, and Jones said ‘Why should I send – we have twenty-five years invested in this, why should I send the data to you when your only objective is to find anything wrong with it?”, which is a very unscientific statement.”
VO: The CRU database is the most important scientific justification for the demands that the most ambitious treaty in mankind’s history should be finalized in Copenhagen in December. In spite of this, there is no way to replicate its’ validity.
Recently the CRU director Phil Jones has announced that the original measurement data does not exist anymore because of data storage difficulties. A dog ate the world’s most important scientific measurement homework.
(Pause, move to Korttajärvi, central Finland.)
VO: Materials for the hockey stick factory have also been collected from Finland.
Reporter Backman, standing on a jetty: “This small Korttajärvi in Jyväskylä has become a focal point in the international climate debate. Based on samples taken from its’ bottom sediments, some foreign researchers claim that, an unprecedented warming occurred at the end of the 20th century. Finnish researchers, on the other hand, have used the lake to show that climate has always changed, even more than recently, and irrespective of human influence.”
VO: Five years ago, one of the Korttajärvi researchers responded to MOT’s question about the IPCC’s claim that recent temperatures are highest in a thousand years.
(Interview footage from MOT archive, 2004)
Ojala: “Based on these studies it seems that this claim is not quite true, at least for the Northern hemisphere, at least for Scandinavia. We’ve clearly had much warmer winters here in the Nautajärvi and Korttajärvi area, than what we are experiencing now.”
Question by Backman: “What’s your estimate, how much warmer was the medieval period in Finland, compared to the present?”
Ojala: “It is difficult to say exactly. But we may speak of half a degree (Celsius), even a whole degree based on several European studies.”
VO: At least two research teams close to the IPCC added the sediment data collected by Finnish researchers as part of their own paleoclimatic model reconstructions. This was done with agreement, but the Finns were surprised to see that in a study published this September, their data and interpretation of its’ meaning had been turned upside down. Here is the millennial temperature reconstruction from Korttajärvi done by the Finns:
VO: And here we have the same data presented by the hockey team:
VO: A nice hockey stick has emerged from the Korttajärvi mud. What in the Finnish study signified cold, had been turned into warmth in the IPCC science and vice versa. This interpretation passed the scientific peer review.
Dr. Atte Korhola, professor of environmental change at the University of Helsinki, is an expert in lake sediment studies.
Atte Korhola: “Some curves and data have been used upside down, and this is not a compliment to climate science. And in this context it is relevant to note that the same people who are behind this are running what may be the world’s most influential climate website, RealClimate. With this they are contributing to the credibility of science – or reducing it. And in my opinion this is alarming because it bears on the credibility of the field, and if these kinds of things emerge often – that data have been used insufficiently or even falsely, or if data series have been truncated or they have not been appropriately published (for replication), it obviously erodes the credibility, and this is a serious problem.”
VO: The author of the September study, Darrell Kaufman, admitted his mistake two weeks ago and sent a correction to the journal Science. But the main author of a previous study, Michael Mann, the father of the original hockey stick, still sticks to the claim that a hockey stick was found at the bottom of lake Korttajärvi.
(Pause)
VO: The climate studies used by the UN affiliated IPCC are usually computer simulations, based on models emulating the behavior of global climate. Some traditional researchers have criticized studies based on just computer simulations, calling it “playstation climatology”.
According to the most prominent computer models, human activity should cause global warming that looks like this:
(Graph showing rising projections to 2100.)
But the measurements show that, real temperature has so far varied like this:
(Graph showing land and satellite based measurements of global temperature until 2009 – clearly below the model simulations.)
VO: A poorly known fact is that, global climate stopped warming after a two-decade period (in the late 1900’s). Since 1998 there has been no statistically measured global warming. Instead, the climate has slightly cooled for several years. Not one of the climate models used by the IPCC was able to predict this turn of events.
Some new studies predict the cooling phase to continue longer, maybe for a couple of decades. In spite of that, many leading scientists affiliated with the IPCC still claim that global warming continues, even faster than predicted.
Meanwhile, some of the catastrophic consequences predicted by the models have been revealed as overblown. The Arctic sea ice has started to recover from its’ minimum area recorded two years ago, Antarctic melting has slowed down to a minimum during measured history, sea level rise has not accelerated from its’ previous rate, and hurricane seasons have been mild. Nature has not obeyed the manuscript.
Korhola: “In late summer 2008 I was in England, where all newspapers ran a front-page story about a scenario predicting the total disappearance of Arctic sea ice by that summer. And these predictions were distributed by two leading researchers of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, Mark Serreze and Jay Zwally. Well, what happened was that these predictions did not come true, but that 2008 was clearly a better year than 2007 with the collapse in ice extent, which was apparently caused by anomalous atmospheric pressure and wind conditions in the Arctic regions.”
VO: Richard Lindzen is a professor of climate science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technololy, one of the world’s most prestigious science universities. He is one of the few scientists who do not study climate by simulating it with computer models. He studies observations from the real natural world.
Richard Lindzen: “This field is completely sick in that way, I mean, you have models you know that they don’t work, you know they don’t reproduce a – phenomenon, but you bend data to fit the model. I don’t think this can go on for long without being embarrassing”.
VO: In September, Lindzen published a study that hit the core of the climate debate. Based on radiation measurements, he calculated how much the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration could really warm up the Earth.
The Earth is protected from cosmic freezing by the atmospheric gas blanket. According to the catastrophic warming theory, the CO2 emitted from burning oil and coal thickens the blanket and thus causes the temperature to rise dangerously.
An undisputed scientific fact is that, a doubling of CO2 in itself is enough to cause a one degree (Celsius) of atmospheric warming, which would not be a problem. But the climate models have been fed with the assumption that the warming caused by CO2 increased the concentration of water vapor, which in turn would further thicken the blanket and multiply the total warming a couple of times, up to a fateful six degrees.
Lindzen: “The models do exactly what they are supposed to, given their sensitivity. They all show the blanket thickens and it thickens by the amount consistent with the sensitivity of the models do of doubling of CO2. Do the same thing to nature, and it does exactly the opposite, and it does it more powerfully. So you have all the models agreeing with each other, and all of them wrong compared to nature.”
VO: The question of water vapor feedback is the key in determining the threat of a climate catastrophe. The climate models assume that, the higher the surface temperature rises, the thicker the warming blanket gets. But is this really happening?
Lindzen and his team compared sea-level temperatures with the satellite-based measurements of incoming and outgoing radiation in the upper atmosphere. While all computer models show that, as the surface temperature rises, less radiation escapes to space:
(Graph of 11 model simulations with downward sloping lines)
VO: The reality measured from nature is exactly diametrical:
(The 12th diagram ‘ERBE’ by Lindzen added to the graph set, showing a rising curve)
VO: It turned out that, cloud cover changes as the surface warms, but it was not getting thicker; it was thinning. In this way, nature prevents the atmosphere from excessive heating. The cloud cover reacts to temperature changes like an eye’s iris to changes in light, by contracting or expanding. Lindzen calls this thermostatic behavior the Iris-effect.
And what is the significance of this effect to the estimates of human-caused climatic warming?
Lindzen: “It’s saying that, instead of the one degree being magnified, it should be shrunk by at least a half.”
Question by Backman: “And how much would this sensitivity be in degrees of Celsius?”
Lindzen: “Now, in terms of degrees of Celsius it says that we shall expect doubling the CO2 might contribute in the order of half a degree to the global mean temperature anomaly.”
Backman: “And how big a problem is that?”
Lindzen: “None. We see that from month to month, year to year all the time. I mean the truth is, we have seen already two thirds, three quarters of a degree. This is not the period when the world is falling apart. It’s a period when the population has grown, when famine has been defeated, when people live longer than ever and there is large number of people that are supposedly terribly warming the earth, are living better for the most part.”
VO: Lindzen’s study shows with measurements that the assumption of an impending climate catastrophe is basically wrong. The IPCC camp has reacted to the study with complege silence.
Lindzen: “I think it’s because it’s so simple and obvious, and I think even the alarmist groups know that the better part of wisdom is not to publicize this.”
VO: Professor Atte Kohola is not skeptical of the potential threat of climatic warming like his colleague in Boston, but both scientists are worried about the politicizion of climate science.
Korhola: “Especially now with the Copenhagen conference approaching, one gets the impression that also among scientists, many have lost control. Especially when you compare original studies to how they are presented to the public, in the mass media, there is a huge gap in what comes out. We get a lot of material with terms like dramatic, catastrophic, unprecedented, and among some researchers there is even talk of planetary doom and saving the planet.”
Lindzen: “The real question is, why the last few years have seen this huge boost with all these crazy movies – “Inconvenient truth” – nonsense spewed out, hysteria? We are all going to die, if we don’t change our light bulbs immediately. I can only say, somebody must have noticed that the temperature has stopped increasing and they had all these agendas by now to make billions of dollars, and do this and do that, get people to pay taxes and feel happy about it, because they are saving the earth and so on. So you have the politicians, the bureaucrats, the scientists and so on, and all felt you know that if the temperature continues this way, this is finished if we don’t get it through immediately so the volume has increased.”
VO: MOT asked for an interview with the director of the Finnish meteorological institute, Dr. Petteri Taalas, who is sympathetic to the IPCC’s main line. He refused.
UPDATE: VIDEO NOW ONLINE
Lindzen and McIntyre’s Finnish TV interview – issues that US journalists fail to investigate
There’s a lot hanging on Lindzen, et al (2009).
What with the cold October, lack of solar activity (at least if you’re the sort to favor a connection between that and climate), and transition into winter with its extremes, this may be a good time to encourage the media to entertain a skeptical thought.
Between the pre-Copenhagen hype that even the most biased journalist can recognize and the AGW catastrophes not happening, this might be a good time to appeal to their sense of conflict between the two camps.
I figured this would be the year the media begins to wake up, it seems also to be the year the media becomes marginalized. Whether the media decides that their customers want information and all sides or their customers want entertainment and conflict, we got it.
It’s interesting that “MOT asked for an interview with the director of the Finnish meteorological institute, Dr. Petteri Taalas, who is sympathetic to the IPCC’s main line. He refused.” I wonder if he would have a couple years ago, or even if MOT would have produce a documentary like this.
Thank you for Finnish Broadcasting for showing a level of courage that puts others in the media to shame. This is investigative reporting at its best.
This is what journalism used to be, hard-hitting and tenacious. Lord Reith would be proud if his child, the BBC, had produced this.
Oh, please, let this show up on YouTube.
Uh-oh. I think Finland just blew its chances for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
Wow.
This story summarizes my reasons for skepticism well.
But unfortunately, there are those who are so invested in belief that the words will bounce right off.
But these honest discussions may get through to some. Finally.
Love the line …”get people to pay taxes and feel happy about it, because they are saving the earth.”
Comes down to that.
I think the Denial Depot post entitled ‘The Yamal Fraud – I have found it’ says it perfectly.
The difference between the ‘team’ hockey sticks and the Loehle 2007 reconstruction which I believe you guys approve of (correct me if I’m wrong) is trivial.
Here it is on youtube
Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abd81S… (4:34)
Part 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPpH2Z… (6:21)
Part 3 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQgdlK… (3:26)
Part 4 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHRx1M… (5:10)
Part 5 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMMIzn… (5:02)
REPLY: These are incomplete links – they don’t work. The URL has been truncated when you pasted them in…note the …
LOL.
This site is the National Enquirer of climate science.
I like it.
says it all really.
here’s what’s happening in our government over all this
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20091109/ETS/
Awesome. This should be spread as far and wide as possible so that everyone gets a chance to see, digest, and hopefully understand what is really going on…
“temperature increase, caused by man and his carbon dioxide emissions”
Hey, the ladies use electricity too y’know. How come it’s always the guy’s fault when bad stuff happens.
Gary,yup, they may well have blown their chances for 2018 but given that this tiny northern nation took on the might of Uncle Joes forces and gave them a very bloody nose, I don’t think they’ll be that bothered:)
Once again, thank you Finland
Conclusion: If we don’t want to freeze our lower back, we should put more CO2 in the atmosphere because as seen on the correct temperature charts, it has been cooling since the MWP and it is still cooling.
However……the above is another documentary!
The differences between Mann et al. and Loehle do seem quite slight. But one of the key facets of Mann’s work was being able to ascribe the observed warming to anthropogenic sources – since this warming is “unprecedented,” and thus unlikely to be of natural origin.
The argument hasn’t been over “Was there any warming in the nineties really?” for quite some time now.
The IPCC socialist politicos have had to pull out all the stops, in terms of propaganda. Here’s a particularly disgusting sample showcasing a minor:
http://media.causes.com/510213?p_id=68713015
This use of attractive children for and as the targets of propaganda is nothing new, of course. See the next link for examples:
http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=130973
Of course Dr. Petteri Taalas refuses.
No way he can defend his point of view against the arguments of McIntyre and Lindzen.
They have done a great job debunking the AGW arguments and the “science” behind it.
Now we have to get rid of the religion.
(sarcasm)Shhh. Never speak of this again.(/sarcasm)
Ron de Haan (16:06:41) :
Unfortunately, there is nothing such as a “dead religion”. There are always disciples that won’t let go.
parts 1-5 are in this area – if its the right feature
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abd81S-Syzo&feature=PlayList&p=7492B675F6594613&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=11]
REPLY: Sorry no, this is from 2007, and not from Finnish TV. – Anthony
Of course, where would we be without the World’s Gratest Leader on Climate Change?
Oh, that’s right, you can’t discuss it if you don’t agree with him:
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2009/10/29/116465_opinion.html
evanmjones (15:27:20) :
“There’s a lot hanging on Lindzen, et al (2009).”
Assuming the political world will wait. Sadly, there seems to be a horrific rush to ‘settle the matter’.
Shurley Knot (15:48:33) :
“LOL.
This site is the National Enquirer of climate science.
I like it.”
I typically don’t like to engage in such sarcasm, however, you seemed to have an open invitation to the readers here for such a venture.
I really appreciate your clear, open-minded views. Your commentary is a wonderful contribution to the discussion. Given your comparison to the National Inquirer, I can see where the insights of scientists dedicated to the pursuit of truth as opposed to political convenience would be ALIEN to you. Sorry to inform you, but the idea of AGW via CO2 is as dead as Elvis and JFK.
evanmjones (15:27:20) :
There’s a lot hanging on Lindzen, et al (2009).
Has the data question from Roy Spencer been answered?
[REPLY – Not that I know of. That will be the next step. ~ Evan]
CAGW is Finnished
Shurely knot the love child of dhogaza and
mefinney2, or are you?
Is it the cloaked mind that gives your identity away or is it just the mindless belief-blinded nervous LOL that reveals your genetic inability to view the world via logic-based vision that tells more of you, to others, than you could wish revealed?
SK, apologies for being intimate, but if you wish to learn you’ve come to the right place, if your Reading comprehension is sub-prime we will move you forward to the point where LOL is but a memory
The AGW campaign was dreamed up using old fashioned propaganda techniques dating back from before World War II. Until the late nineties these techniques had succeeded. The approach is outlined by Lindzen in his lecture to CEI and by others who are familiar with propaganda methodology.
Where once you could tell a story and repeat it over and over again to achieve acceptance – the viewers/readers/audience are now more skeptical. Especially in the US, Continent and Australia. Publishing different versions of your story in mainstream newspapers and prestigious publications once was a sure lock on garnering mind share. This is no longer the case. Simply because educated voices, reasoned voices, intelligent people are able to present opposing points of view accessible to billions via the internet. This is the part played by WUWT. It is in fact real grass roots democracy.
People, by increasing numbers have been reading the skeptical point of view for a couple years now. They are disturbed by the lack of candor and forthrightness on the part of alarmists. They can read in black and white the nasty, hostile, at times vile attacks leveled at skeptics. They have seen the hiding of data and stonewalling of open, transparent access to methods of peer reviewed “studies.” They question the exaggerated catastrophizing of purported experts.
The conclusion is the AGW campaign has stifled itself. It has gone off the deep end into the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a stable climate. This has collapsed trust in the experts and the politics behind global warming. They doubt the motives behind reasons to tax a trace atmospheric gas that actually helps plant life grow.
And now Dr. Lindzen comes along and demonstrates via hard data that the premise for the entire science of global warming is incorrect. The alarmists are wrong and have been wrong all along. Those who have played along with the exaggerated claims have embarrassed themselves. Those who obstructed honest research questioning AGW – will be held responsible. Federal funds will be used to investigate those responsible and if laws were broken they will be brought to justice – in open court – for all to hear and see. The days of “science for a fee,” will be buried. Consensus will be accepted only with full, open debate.
While it is not the first time a massive fraud has been perpetrated by a small cabal of authorities – it will hopefully be the last. But it can only be the last if people remain ever-vigilant, by thinking for themselves and not accepting rote claims by pop media and “experts.” Skepticism is a healthy part of science and of learning, both practical and academic. In this case, doubt revealed cracks in the wall of consensus – and then broke it into little pieces.
Who was it said a handful of dedicated people can change the world?? Good work.
What a comedy.
Except it isn’t laughable since we are still poised to completely change the economy and the energy sources we rely on based on its philosophy (I don’t think we should call it science anymore).
Indiana Bones (16:57:49) :
If Copenhagen concludes with an agreement for the “Political Framework”, wich in principle is the World Government concept Lord Monckton has warned us for, we have won a battle about the science but lost the war to maintain our freedom.
We must focus on the political aspects behind the AGW/Climate Change doctrine.
It’s far to early to call this a victory.
I hope that this will eventually lead to an absolute requirement that data and methods are released when a paper is published. From the skeptical side of a paper it always looks like fraud when the data is hidden and they refuse to provide it upon request.
I hope that the AGW believers are beginning to release the irreparable harm that has been done to their cause by Mann and Briffa. The total refrutation of their work is tainting all of the climate history studies. Every paper that relies on the Briffa paper should be retracted. They won’t be, and eventually these subsequent papers will be looked on in the same light as a paper in paleoanthropology that refers to the Piltdown man.
Indian Minister and IPCC collide about AGW:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/india-pachauri-climate-glaciers
Obama may go to Copenhagen to clinch deal
09 Nov 2009 23:33:05 GMT
* Obama says willing to go to Copenhagen to clinch deal
* Says U.S. Senate will not pass bill before meeting
* Talks with China key to clearing climate obstacles (Adds quotes)
What will he offer in change for Chinese support, the surrender of the USA to China?
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N09280184.htm
Obama may go to Copenhagen to clinch deal
Let’s hope he does for AGW what he did for the Olympics.
Well I think I will go home and turn my stereo up full bore; or at least what passes for full bore in my house, and play some Sibelius Symphonies. Those very nationalistic works have always conjured up in my mind, images of rocky snow and ice covered mountains with arboreal forests around them; the very epitome of an arctic wonderland that is quite happy the way it is.
But just for good measure to let the Finns know how much we appreciate them and their intestinal fortitude; I’ll open all the windows, and then really turn it up full bore; and level the neighborhood with a rousing rendition of Finlandia; maybe I’ll throw in the Karelia Suite for an encore.
If the federales arrive, I’ll just say it’s a celebration of a return to sanity.
Does anyone remember that long shaggy dog story about why fire engines are painted red. I know it ends up with; …”the Finns fought the Russians; the Russians are red; that’s why fire engines are painted red !”
Sorry you’ll have to google the rest of the yarn up for yourselves; something about a ruler and Queen Mary too; starts off with how many wheels and men a fire engine has.
Alan S. Blue stated:
‘But one of the key facets of Mann’s work was being able to ascribe the observed warming to anthropogenic sources – since this warming is “unprecedented,” and thus unlikely to be of natural origin.’
Response:
I have never thought of the hockey stick as a key piece as supporting an argument that ‘the warming is bigger than anything before therefore it must be caused by man’. Particularly as all climate scientists seem to have agreed for a rather long time that it was quite a bit hotter in the much deeper dark past.
Rather the point of the hockey stick is ‘man is causing it to be warmer than any time in our history, therefore our climate is different to any climate civilization has previously experienced, and is therefore dangerous’. Whether this point has been crossed already, or whether it will be crossed sometime between now and the end of the century is a bit of a moot point. The warming experienced so far has not been particularly dangerous as nothing particularly bad has happened so far. Its the warming in the future to be concerned about, and I don’t think anyone would argue that the medieval warm period is warmer than what we will experience by the end of the century if the IPCC projections are accurate.
Monday, November 09, 2009
NEW PAPER SHOWS THAT PAST CO2 LEVELS WERE NOT AS LOW AS THE WARMISTS SAY
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-paper-shows-that-past-co2-levels.html
How about them apples.
Obama: We’ll just have to deal with them!
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/11/well-just-have-to-deal-with-those.html
Makes me proud to be a Finn.
To turn a graph upside down to get the right result! Scientists either have to stand up and challenge what is being done in ther name or bow their heads in shame.
Impressive contribution and good to have first of the MSM picking it up.
Another good sign.
Scary how quite a number of “scientists” have no shame to primitively betray their colleagues and the public. What the hell is their mission?
Being interested in this developing climate change story for years now, I’ve found this blog few weeks ago, sorry. But in the meantime it has become my #1 information site, leaving all the world news behind.
It is just much more exciting to follow here. Great job, Anthony and all contributors.
I think we can be fairly certain that Copenhagen will not produce any documents that will encumber the U.S. economy. There are enough savvy people in the White House to know that the risk is non-existent. Flowery words will be spoken, and fiery pledges will be made to the salvation of the planet. Procedural issues and technicalities take over from there, and before you know it we have poetry without motion. China and India will resist the Western nations, committees will meet, and proposals will be tabled. It will all sound very scary, but the intention behind it all will be to do nothing. The Copenhagen quagmire of political discord will be deep and mucky, just wait and see.
Watch out for renewed AGW claims during the likely cooling period ahead however. The AGWers have already claimed violent weather as part of man-made climate change. With the cooling we can expect more of it—more variability, more hurricanes, more droughts, etc. It well be the new climate-change meme while the average yearly temperature drops.
“`Tor Hansson (19:10:35) :
I think we can be fairly certain that Copenhagen will not produce any documents that will encumber the U.S. economy. There are enough savvy people in the White House to know that the risk is non-existent. ”
……………………………
I would be more reassured if I believed that the White House wanted protect American interests. However, I have no such confidence.
Obama is absolutely determined to push through the cap and trade legislation and he cannot BUT be aware of its consequences. In fact, he’s on record some three years ago in an interview saying that he would push the price of coal through the roof. When gas prices were at their highest during the campaign, all he said was that it was a pity they had risen so fast! Obviously, he’s a believer in boiling the frog. The economic well being of the average American seems to be the last thing on his mind.
Isn’t that climatastrophy cancelled.
Blog’s are making a difference.
President Obama either has blinkers on or truly believes in AGW to the point that any data to the contrary is ignored. A sad state of affairs indeed.
It’s also amusing to see that the Graudiad calls Rajendra Pachauri of the IPCC a “A leading climate scientist”. It would seem that anyone can become a climate scientist these days, even a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Economics.
So, how do I get off this insane world…?
Iren:
With all the posturing that has been going on I understand your concern. But you can bet your last petrodollar on the White House being fully cognizant of the fact that the 2012 election will be won on the economy, the economy, and the economy. NOTHING ELSE.
The Administration may have a soft spot for the liberal left, but it will always act in the interest of mainstream America’s pocketbook when push comes to shove. Otherwise you get benched after one term in office, and that is not what any Administration has in mind.
Seriously, do you think the White House does not have the latest and best information on what’s going on with the climate, and that there is no-one in the meetings who points out that this is a chimera?
Green job creation? Yes. Burdening the U.S. production sector? No.
Confidence games are artful constructs of seduction. To be part of “saving the world”, particularly a world awash in the media deification of celebrity, has the requisite attribute of universality. Everybody from Obama to grandma can play a heroic part in this game. The game is never about truth, always has two sets of players, one ending, and results in tears for someone.
Thermageddon canceled? Great news–now how can we show this film to the U.S. Senate before they roast us anyway?
Michael hauber (18:06:00) :
The key piece is that the projections aren’t made entirely from the first principles of physics and chemistry. They involve a long list of “best guesses.”
The models do not hindcast a LIA or MWP of any real note. That is: They fail the test against historical reality iff there really was a LIA and MWP of the extent all the historians are still pretty vehement about. The models track CO2 tightly – and CO2 wasn’t doing anything interesting in that era.
If your model can’t hindcast, you shouldn’t even be considering using it as a forecaster.
None of the models is doing even moderately well over the short term. (For starters, they ascribed too much of the warming to CO2 relative to the oceanic cycles – which is admitted in the peer reviewed journals.) Yet we want to use an ensemble of the models (good and bad all lumped together as a “best guess”) and extend that out to a hundred years in the future. Extrapolation is something you should not be doing until you have a solid lock on your model. And forecasting is even worse than extrapolation.
Tor
“The Administration may have a soft spot for the liberal left, but it will always act in the interest of mainstream America’s pocketbook when push comes to shove. Otherwise you get benched after one term in office, and that is not what any Administration has in mind.”
Obama has said, and I believe means, that he wants to remake America. Everything that he’s done has been towards larger government and greater government control. Cap and trade would involve a HUGE new bureaucracy that would regulate every aspect of people’s lives. I believe achieving that is a much greater priority for Obama than getting a second term.
“Seriously, do you think the White House does not have the latest and best information on what’s going on with the climate, and that there is no-one in the meetings who points out that this is a chimera?”
I don’t believe for a second that Obama really believes in all this. Like most of the other proponents, Its just a convenient smokescreen for their real agenda, which is social engineering, socialism and, in many cases, world government.
Anthony, this is only slightly off topic. But since you urged us to vote for Steve for the Weblog Science Award, you may find this funny.
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/amusing-musings-on-weblog-award-nominees/
“What will he offer in change for Chinese support, the surrender of the USA to China? ” Ron de Haan
YES!
So THAT is why Obama wanted Waxman to fast track his bill HR 2749!!! That is why Waxman who is not on the AG committee was involved! Obama wants the FDA to confiscate US farmland to give it to China.
Under Sec of Ag, Bruce Knight let slip: “We have to live by the same international rules we’re expecting other people to do.”
Knight was referring to the International Criminal Court:
Despite protests from over 90% of US farmers premise ID and NAIS is being jammed down our throats. An Amish couple were just denied their rights and fined for not registering their land in preparation to having their animals tagged (Mark of the Beast)
In every instance in the National Animal Identification System Users Guide, land is referred to as a premises. A “Premises” has no protection under the Constitution of the United States, while property indicates exclusive private ownership and is protected by the Constitution. Once land becomes a “premises” you are no longer the owner of the land.
Back to the International Criminal Court:
It is in part modeled on the Vienna Diplomatic Relations Conventions http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
where [premises] is defined globally and with a global use with no recognition of the rights of private individuals, national laws or protections, or the rights or recognition to private property ownership.
In light of what has happened to the dollar and the sudden appearance of a multitude of bills designed to remove US farmers from valuable farmland, Ron de Haan’s remark maybe spot on. After all the Chinese have been getting guided tours so they can pick out what land they want….
references: http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2009/01/17/nais-and-the-international-criminal-court/
http://farmwars.info/?p=1145
Chinese join tours organized especially to buy U.S. real estate: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29162036/
I guess we are looking at a triple hitter, Money, land and energy – the people of the USA are losing everything and they can not even see it.
I am really glad the Finns are wide awake and so is India. Perhaps there is hope.
evanmjones (15:27:20) :
There’s a lot hanging on Lindzen, et al (2009).
Why do you say that? It is just another nail in the coffin. It isn’t as if his being wrong would somehow prove the alarmists right. None the less don’t worry, whether the explanation by Lindzen is right or wrong I think it is pretty obvious to anyone who looks honestly, that the catastrophic feedback scenarios are not supported by the facts.
Of course getting any honesty in the politicos making the decisions is something real to worry about.
“We have to get rid of the medieval warm period.”
IOW, the bend justifies the means.
Why is Lindzen still using the faulty ERBE data?
Gail Combs says: “An Amish couple were just denied their rights and fined for not registering their land in preparation to having their animals tagged (Mark of the Beast)” and “Obama wants the FDA to confiscate US farmland to give it to China.”
Could we all please chill out here? Somehow I am not worried about The Administration giving away anything to furr’ners, nor the Mark Of The Beast being imprinted on our foreheads.
This country isn’t even willing to pay its UN membership dues, for criminy’s sake. Giveaways won’t happen.
>> I am really glad the Finns are wide awake and so is India. Perhaps there is hope.
Don’t forget the Swedes! The “we’ve already reached Peak Oil and that there’s not enough fossil fuels left to reach the IPCC/IEA projections”-study:
Article:
http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/PeakOilAge.pdf
Video:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cops/events/energycontroversies/peak-oil.php
Blog:
http://aleklett.wordpress.com/
Tor Hansson (20:46:00) :
Gail’s post struck a chord in my memory about Hillary Clinton giving the Chinese “eminent domain” over US land.
It sent the blogshere wild in Febuary.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=clinton+china+debt+mortgage+eminent+domain&btnG=Search&hl=en&sa=2.
You would never never NEVER hear a broadcast of this quality on American television, public or otherwise.
Thanks, Finnish Broadcasting Company.
Perhaps, since a country so far north, has so much to lose in the event of a catastrophe the OTHER direction (fear the cold, not the warm)….that they don’t have their heads in the sand…like our media do.
The scary thing is, if things turn the “other” direction, and the IPCC and their group-think ilk get caught with their proverbial pants down with the ensuing unfortunate frostbite to those particular extremities (yikes)…human civilization will NOT be prepared (at all).
Why??
Because of the politicians who were causing the unnatural and disingenuous “forcing” in the process in the first place.
Everybody knows politicians should NOT call science.
It should be the other way around…completely.
And if…IF we are to survive as a species…Mother Nature will “force” the foregoing….as a prerequisite.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Two comments:
The Finns have always been a breed apart.
Could someone show me the agreement that gives China eminent domain over anything they have not outright purchased in the U.S., just like Japan owned the Rockefeller Center back in the 80s? It would be nice if we could stay on the right side of feverish speculation here.
Alan,
I am not at all concerned about the models failure to hindcast the medieval warm period. if the medieval warm period was warmer than the models can account for it proves that either the models are wrong, or that there was something affecting the climate during the medieval warm period that we don’t know about. Unless we can prove that we know every driver of medieval climate, we can’t prove that the failure to model the medieval warm period is a failure of the models.
As for recent performance, in 1988 Hansen’s scenario B predicted a temperature of about 0.9 degrees in 2009. This sounds like a significant overprediction of temperature as GISS has been sitting between 0.5 and 0.6 for the last 6 years (exception during 2008 la nina). But climate modellers have consistently quoted an accuracy of +/- 50% or so when estimating climate sensitivity, and a similar estimate is made by Hansen. Such an allowance for uncertainty gives a temperature range of between 0.45 and 1.35, so the actual temperature is within the range of accuracy that had been claimed.
I now feel tempted to translate this into Japanese and distribute among acquaintances in domestic media. To translate this into a language that may be strange for most of youfolks, I need to clarify the following issues:
1. What does “MOT” at the top mean?
2. How shall I pronounce the following proper names?
Mielikäinen
Korttajärvi
Jyväskylä
Ojala
Guide me learned folks on these please. For “2” above, equivalent German spellings will suffice. Thanks.
Mielikäinen: Mee-yely-kaynen
Korttajärvi: Korta-yearvy
Jyväskylä yi-ves-kyleh
Ojala Oy-allah
tokyoboy,
1. What does “MOT” at the top mean?
It comes from the finnish sentence “Mikä Oli Tutkittava” which in english translates to “What needed to be investigated”.
Tor Hansson (23:01:53) :
Thank you……from Sweden?
Could you please tell me, if you know, what the “MOT” (just before the TV program title) is?
Having watched this yesterday, I could say it was a very concise and clear debunking of the mayor “truths” in the AGW theory. Finally the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) shows us the “other” view on the climate change issue, since it has been very one-sided until now. Thank you for that.
Unfortunately the program’s blog after the program was filled with a bunch of warmists crying, because their view of the story was not shown at all! Unbelievable! And the usual personal attacks on Lindzen and McIntyre… and my personal favourite comment was one about the Korttajärvi graph, which said that the information remained the same, even if the graph curve is turned upside down… now talk about denialism!
MOT stands for “Mikä Oli Todistettava” – a Finnish version of “quod erat demonstrandum” / Q.E.D – and “which was to be demonstrated” in English…
Now, don’t expext too much to come out of the program – M. Backman has been fighting the church of AGW for at least a decade already and it is not the first time he interviews people that prove AGW wrong + it’s not the most popular show out there either…
It will be watched by people who already know about the hoax already and of course by those whose livelihood etc. depends on it directly – especially the green politicians, so that they get to “debunk everything again” on their blogs or what have they…
BTW – I used to be a green party member – but the “party” was boring and the people were… well, green on the outside and very collectivist inside – I almost fell for it myself…
javs (23:26:36) :
Danke! Alles klar.
MOT means (Mikä Oli Tutkittava) translation: “What Needed to be Investigated”.
My pleasure, and no, Norway. Same thing pretty much.
MOT, see javs’s post above.
Good luck with it. It’s a good deed.
When I said “Japan” in the post above, I did of course mean Mitsubishi, of course.
Tokyoboy,
1. MOT is the name of the TV programme.
MOT is an investigative journalism programme at the YLE’s TV1 channel in Finland. YLE is Finland’s BBC.
2. I can only pronounce these names the way a Finn pronounces them so can’t help you there.
Michael hauber (22:29:11) :”As for recent performance, in 1988 Hansen’s scenario B predicted a temperature of about 0.9 degrees in 2009. This sounds like a significant overprediction of temperature as GISS has been sitting between 0.5 and 0.6 for the last 6 years”
Michael, GIStemp J-D in 1988 was 0.32. Now you say it hovers between 0.5-0.6 20 years later. Pretty low sensitivity even if you grant GIS their false precision, which I don’t. That said, E. M. Smith is in the process of demolishing GIStemp as useful for any scientific purpose, he has already demonsrated 0.6 C of selection bias in the GHCN, 0.2 C just won’t get it done.
Gail Combs (20:10:56) :
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/videos/?uri=channels/338017/603271
“VO: A poorly known fact is that, global climate stopped warming after a two-decade period (in the late 1900’s). Since 1998 there has been no statistically measured global warming. Instead, the climate has slightly cooled for several years. Not one of the climate models used by the IPCC was able to predict this turn of events.”
The ODT (Dunedin, NZ) has been running this debate on their website after an opinion piece was published by Doug Mackie, Hugh Doyle and Christina McGraw are researchers in climate-related disciplines at the University of Otago.
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/79606/we-all-stand-lose-delaying-action-climate
“By using the very simple “not since” claim we illustrated a wider point: People don’t have to understand any chemistry or physics to see that “not since” is totally false. So false in fact that anyone using it has no grasp of the science and is wilfully ignoring the facts.”
Mackie just kept harping on the “not since claim” even though in their article they had proclaimed this. “However, our main point is that outright deniers are a sideshow.”
I’m 80 years old and a fan of Global Warming regardless of cause.
Anyone with Arthritis knows why. Warm is good and cold is pain.
It appears the earth has been cooling slightly for the last 10 years
and may continue for a decade or two. Even if the average temp
drops a catastrophic 3 degrees C and hell freezes over I doubt if
I’ll notice the difference here in sunny Arizona.
When I die and go to hell I’ll enjoy the warmth of many friends
already there and bask in heated debates with AGW believers.
I was born in 1930, the year Alfred Wegener froze to death in
Greenland. I would love to meet the man if he’s there.
He was a German scientist, PhD in Astronomy but his major
interest was in the fields of Meteorology, Climatology and
Geophysics. He pioneered the use of weather balloons to track
air masses. His lectures, The Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere,
became a standard textbook in meteorology. Wegener was
involved in several expeditions to Greenland to study polar air
circulation before the existence of the jet stream was accepted.
From 1912, Wegener publicly advocated the theory of
“continental drift”, arguing that all the continents were once
joined together in a single landmass and have drifted apart. In
1915, in The Origin of Continents and Oceans, Wegener published
the theory that there had once been a giant continent, he named
“Pangaea” (meaning “All-Lands” or “All-Earth”) and drew together
evidence from various fields. Expanded editions during the
1920s presented the accumulating evidence.
In his work, Wegener presented a large amount of circumstantial
evidence in support of continental drift, but he was unable to
come up with a convincing mechanism. The hypothesis was
generally met with scepticism. (A better term would be ‘ridicule’
and terms like moron, idiot, raving lunatic, etc.)
In the early 1950s, the new science of paleomagnetism was soon
throwing up data in favour of Wegener’s theory. By 1959, the
theory had enough supporting data that minds were starting to
change, Additionally, the 1960s saw several developments in
geology, notably the discoveries of seafloor spreading zones, led
to the rapid resurrection of the continental drift hypothesis and
its direct descendant, the theory of plate techtonics. Alfred
Wegener was finally recognized as the founding father of one of
the major scientific revolutions of the 20th century. Over 30
years after his death.
(Much of above data is from Wiki)
Wegener went from lunatic to founding father. I hope the same
fate awaits people I admire like McIntyre and McKitrick (my
favorite candy, M&M’s), Lindzen and a very long list of other
‘morons and lunatics’. Anthony Watts? After reading articles and
comments at Real Climate I’m a raving maniac and turn to his
website for anger management. It’s much more effective than
Thorazine. It may be many years before your beliefs are
vindicated and very many more (I hope) before you die.
Be patient. In time truth will prevail over politics and ego.
I look forward to seeing you in a frozen hell.
Bring your favorite hockey stick. L8tr, John
`Tor Hansson (19:10:35) :
“I think we can be fairly certain that Copenhagen will not produce any documents that will encumber the U.S. economy. There are enough savvy people in the White House to know that the risk is non-existent. Flowery words will be spoken, and fiery pledges will be made to the salvation of the planet”.
No Tor,
They won’t make a decission about CO2 reductions or Cap & Trade.
But they will hammer out the political framework, the structure that will become responsible for “control”, exactly that part of the Climate Treaty that stated World Government.
This body will take control over the financial system, the economic system, the free market, the our resources and our lives.
They fill in the details later in Mexico.
This is exactly what’s going to happen.
The guy responsible for the USSR when the Berlin Wall came down, reinvented communism, calling it environmental socialism.
When the Copenhagen Climate Treaty (political Framework) is signed, the West will have lost the Cold War.
The party in Berlin today to celebrate the “new freedom” is as far as the train could go. From now on we are going back in time.
Stalin and Mao are popular guys today. Capitalism and free markets have done it. They even took an international pole to ask people about it.
The same people have forgotten that Mao and Stalin were mass murderers.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6908798.ece
It is sad that Anglosas world, before the leader in science development, degenerated so quickly and so deeply. Even the Old Europe looks more sane.
Do not forget to send a copy to head Finnish meteorologist 😀
And since when is “realclimate” the most influential site? 😮
This is a great exposition.
I’d really appreciate a U-tube link if such exists.
It’s online now:
http://areena.yle.fi/video/541468
cheers Bill W
Sorry moderator, the youtube link is here
But the first incorrectly pasted links seem to be from 2007 so I’m under the impression that this is a different documentary, with the same title. dunno?
McIntyre is in it though, plus many of the scientists from the great global warming swindle.
Sam
This is a great summary, very useful to have a concise version of the whole story.
If only the BBC would do something similar.
I’m afraid I have to disagree slightly with Tor Hansson about Finnish pronunciation.
Jyväskylä yoo-vass-koo-la
They cannot be written in german spellings, for example the ä sounds like the English a in “cat”, which does not really exist in german. The stress is on the first syllable.
As the producer of MOT (and the translator of the script) I’d like to thank Anthony for posting this to a larger audience. Not that we are short of viewers at home, with a 25 percent market share, but it is good to be exposed to criticism abroad as well.
MOT is a weekly half-hour current affairs documentary, focusing on one topic at a time. We’ve been doing this since 1996 and broadcast almost 400 episodes so far. Climate change has been tackled half a dozen times. Two other recent transcripts here:
http://www.yle.fi/mot/mv061030/english.htm and here: http://ohjelmat.yle.fi/mot/arkisto/29_9_2008_mot_kylmaa_vetta_kasvihuoneeseen/manuscript_english
The name MOT is meant to be ambiguous: it is short for What Had to be Investigated (Our blog: blogit.yle.fi/mot ), but it also happens to be the abberviation for QED in Finnish. It also means “Against” in Swedish, our second national language, and it’s just a word in French, so make your pick.
Now, I’d like to raise a point that we’ve been challenged with: the two curves we show about the Korttajärvi varves are flipped, but so is the y-axis, so what’s the crime we are alluding to? We talked about this at length with experts and got technical explanations that we decided to trust. But how to explain the apparent problem in lay terms – any suggestions?
Matti Virtanen
producer, Finnish Broadcasting Co. YLE
U-tube is here. I hope that an English version will be made soon. Anyone??
Many thanks to MOT and the contributors for such a comprehensive, lucid and scientific presentation. It should be shown here in Britain. Once upon a time the BBC Horizon science programme might have provided such a service, but not now in the current ‘dumb-down’ and pro-AGW phase of our ‘leading’ TV broadcaster. Channel 4 might screen it – they have shown a ‘sceptic’ programme once before though that was nowhere nearly as well constructed and argued as the Finnish effort.
Hmmm…
Eh, this makes McIntyre look too good.
He isn’t a statistician, he had a BS in Math.
I’m all about criticism, but this feels a bit off balance.
Pity Steve’s uncorrected diagram for RCS chronologies was used. Steve made a mistake in the calculations at first, and corrected his mistake. It makes no difference to the conclusion but it makes that conclusion slightly less dramatic. Only a distraction but warmists can use it. MOT should have used this picture
MOT and reporter Martti Backman did the same one year ago: Cold water into the greenhouse.
Then Backman interviewed Roy Specer and John Christy:
http://ohjelmat.yle.fi/mot/arkisto/29_9_2008_mot_kylmaa_vetta_kasvihuoneeseen/manuscript_english
The scary thing is, if things turn the “other” direction, and the IPCC and their group-think ilk get caught with their proverbial pants down with the ensuing unfortunate frostbite to those particular extremities (yikes)…human civilization will NOT be prepared (at all). savethesharks
Oh they are prepared alright – to save their own skins.
“….big investors are “hurriedly moving their wealth out of stocks and shares and into farmland….” The Times article suggests that, “Across the world, hedge fund managers, property developers and other investors” are all ready to buy up British farmland. http://www.deepjournal.com/p/7/a/en/1237.html
“Barton Briggs, one of Wall Street’s most legendary investment strategists, is advising the rich and powerful to buy up farms and stock them with “seed, fertiliser, canned food. wine, medicine. clothes etc.” (and the “etc” would seem to mean guns to keep away the rest of us…)”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=almBVle3OMyo&refer=muse
The most interesting fact is that the Father of “Global Warming” and Environmentalism has bought the best piece of real estate to be sitting on during an Ice Age! Strong’s ranch Bacca in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, is in what is known as one of the most productive agricultural areas in the West. It is sitting on not one but three of the best Aquifers in the area, and It even has oil. (It was bought from an oil company) “Some of these parcels are in or near the Green River Formation, an oil-rich region in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming that’s been called the “Persia of the West.” http://countervailingtruths.blogspot.com/2009/03/great-oil-grab.html
This is a reconstruction of the last Ice age… “As a result of aridity and lowering of sea level (which lowered inland water tables), much of Florida was covered by drifting sand dunes. Notably moister than present conditions occurred across much of the south-west, with open conifer woodlands and scrub common in areas that are now semi-desert.” …Reconstruction of North America during last Ice Age
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAMERICA.html
In 1970 Strong lead the UN Conference on the Human Environment and became Executive director environment program of the United Nations from 1971 to 1975. “Strong warned urgently about global warming, the devastation of forests, the loss of biodiversity, polluted oceans, the population time bomb. Then as now, he invited to the conference the brand-new environmental NGOs [non-governmental organizations]: he gave them money to come; they were invited to raise hell at home. After Stockholm, environment issues became part of the administrative framework in Canada, the U.S., Britain, and Europe.” http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg106963.html
In the early seventies “the climate debate” was not over. There were two opposing models. One is CO2 forced warming orginating with Fourier in 1824, & Svente Arrhenius in 1896 and later in 1968 Mikhail Budyko . The other is the solar cycles & earth orbital changes leading to ice ages. Milankovitch 1930 & 1941 detailed the earth orbital cycles related to the major Ice Ages and Herschel 1801, Jevons, 1878, http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0312244 & Gleissberg in 1939 & 1971 described the solar cycles and linked them to the mini-ice Ages. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2002JA009390.shtml
Also in 1970, Broecker using new radioactive decay dating methods identified and dated five full ice age cycles in 1970. He stated his work was in agreement with Milankovitch.
“..When Fourier analysis was applied to deep-sea records in 1975, it emerged that the oxygen-isotope series contained strong cycles with periods near 100,000 years, 41,000 years, and 23,000 years. These are precisely the periods expected if Earth’s href=”http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/Glossary_Astro/gloss_m-r.shtml#orbital”orbital elements (eccentricity, obliquity, and precession) govern ice-age climates, as proposed by Milankovitch Theory. Thus, there could be no more doubt that orbital elements had to be considered as important drivers of climate on long time scales….” http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/03_1.shtml
So does Strong and his buddy Al Gore believe their own hype?? I doubt it. The have already been caught in a Con game. Using “Earth Days” gore hyped Strong’s company US Molten Metal technology, the stock soared, and Strong bailed just before Congress cut off Molten Metal’s grants, its only source of cash. There is also the AZL Resources lawsuit and the recent UN food for oil scandal. To avoid sticky questions, Strong has since hotfooted it to China where he is an “advisor to the Chinese government”
And who does Maurice Strong work for in Beijing? CH2M Hill.
CH2M Hill, a multinational firm providing engineering, construction, operations and related services to public and private clients in numerous industries on six continents.
He is also, along with Gore, and Obama set up the privately-owned Chicago Climate Exchange, which now calls itself “North America’s only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide.”
“….the Canadian born Strong is little known in the United States. That’s because he spends most of his time in China where he he has been working to make the communist country the world’s next superpower. The nondescript Strong, nonetheless is the big cheese in the underworld of climate change and is one of the main architects of the failing Kyoto Protocol.” http://africanpress.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/the-privately-owned-chicago-climate-exchange-is-heavily-influenced-by-obama-cohorts-al-gore-and-maurice-strong/
I know I keep bringing up politics but that is what “global Warming” is all about – politics – used to scare us into doing things that we know will harm us so as to put cash and power in the hands of a few.
We must never lose sight of the politics.
YouTube user TheFinnKingX has the “Ilmastokatastrofi” doc in 3 parts:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheFinnKingX
michael hauber,
” But climate modellers have consistently quoted an accuracy of +/- 50% or so when estimating climate sensitivity, and a similar estimate is made by Hansen. Such an allowance for uncertainty gives a temperature range of between 0.45 and 1.35, so the actual temperature is within the range of accuracy that had been claimed.”
So basically then, the models have such wide errors that they are consistent with just about anything that nature throws at us?
And we should believe in them why, exactly?
“Atte Korhola: “Some curves and data have been used upside down, and this is not a compliment to climate science. And in this context it is relevant to note that the same people who are behind this are running what may be the world’s most influential climate website, RealClimate. With this they are contributing to the credibility of science – or reducing it”.
…Let’s call a spade a spade here. RealClimate.org is a website dedicated to spreading alarmist propaganda to news organizations and Government departments the world over. Their lack of objectivity in this field is breathtaking, and the fact that most of their offerings have been reduced to insults and personal attacks on so-called “deniers” are nothing short of an embarrassment to the scientific community.
Don’t bother leaving comments on the RealClimate website -unless it agrees with their own prejudices. Visits to RealClimate are for entertainment value only.
Quote. “Then, the president talked tough, saying, “We’ll just have to deal with those people,” language familiar to anyone who knows the vagaries of Chicago politics.” Sounds like “Make them an offer they can’t refuse”.
To me, Obama’s remark echoes that of King Henry II who in raging anger, uttered the fateful words, “Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?” in respect of Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury.
The contemporary biographer Edward Grim, wrote in Latin, that King Henry bellowed “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?”
Whatever the King said, it was interpreted as a royal command and four knights, set out from France to Canterbury. On 29 December 1170 they arrived and the knights informed Becket he was to go to the King to give an account of his actions, but Becket refused. The four knights caught Beckett in a spot near a door to the monastic cloister and hacked him to death. Becket’s brains were scattered upon the ground with the words; “Let us go, this fellow will not be getting up again”.
Word of Becket’s murder spread quickly, and his tomb soon became a shrine visited by thousands of pilgrims. Becket was canonized by Pope Alexander II in 1173.
Henry II eventually did penance at Canterbury for the murder of Becket. For some distance before he reached Canterbury Cathedral, he walked over the road with bare head and feet. After his arrival he fasted and prayed a day and a night. The next day he put scourges into the hands of the cathedral monks and said, “Scourge me as I kneel at the tomb of the saint.” The monks did as he bade them and he patiently bore the pain and was absolved of the murder. The four assassins did fourteen years’ service in Palestine as penance for the crime.
Obama’s words may yet come to haunt him, but I doubt he’ll ever accept liability for plunging the USA into destitution.
Update on Copenhagen
Watch BBC’s Newsnight
http://bbc.co.uk/i/nxbm3/
This item is the first part of the program and lasts 25 minutes 29 seconds.
In the program every global warming cliché is trotted out (yet again) for the misinformation of the viewers, courtesy of the British Brainwashing Corporation.
Important points:
Plans have been put forward by the British Government to build 10 nuclear power plants. They may, or may not, be ready by 2020. To pay for them there will have to be a subsidy from the Government to the nuclear power industry, which will be added to all our electricity bills.
British electricity bills are set to increase yet more to pay a carbon tax. Yes, I know, we’re already paying a carbon tax, but this is different because the Government is attempting to put a floor, or minimum price, under the price of carbon credits because it doesn’t think we are paying enough.
Obama will only go to Copenhagen if there is a legally-binding agreement to sign, which, elsewhere in the program, they say is not going to happen.
Obama has already said he can’t get any form of Copenhagen Treaty through Congress. This position is unchanged.
The next “climate change” meeting has been set for December 2010 in Mexico.
China and India have changed their minds, and offered big cuts in their carbon emissions. They probably did that because there is no possibility of being held to any agreements.
The carbon dioxide gravy train just keeps rumbling on, and never mind the scientific evidence proving that it’s all one gigantic fraud.
“Uh-oh. I think Finland just blew its chances for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.”
Perhaps the AGW alarmists should get them to try to host the 2050 Summer games instead!
As a fan of Ski-Jumping, I would like to see that in the Summer Games too!
According to the PISA study Finland has the best schools of the planet (it is so cold and the language is so difficult no immigrants want to go there).
So education is the best hope in the fight against AGW.
John Shaw (00:30:36) :
Excellent post Sir!
I worked with a great Finnish bloke for a while in a really green company. He used to send out politically incorrect jokes to everyone there until the boss asked him to stop [upsetting people].
This is just another push to bring real scientists on to our side. If we can show that our concerns are not to diminish conservation or to destroy our natural world but to bring rational solutions through truth to the problems that beset our legitimate existence on this planet then we can move forward using science to help us deal with some of the formidable problems that the future will surely bring.
It cannot be done when science is used to promote ideology any more than you can attribute justice to evolution.
The findings of science must be blind to emotion even though the scientists may well be moved to warn of the dangers of it’s implications.
“I am not at all concerned about the models failure to hindcast the medieval warm period. if the medieval warm period was warmer than the models can account for it proves that either the models are wrong”
If the models are wrong, why on Earth are they being used to extrapoate and forecast?
It is as if one has something one “thinks” is a meter capable of measuring length (a ruler), and one tests this by measuring known objects – with large, obvious errors. Bystanders point out “Your ruler is made of rubber bands, even getting as close as you did was pure luck.” But then deciding to measure a nearby mountain with the same ruler.
1) Any errors in the ruler’s calibration are compounding errors.
2) The hindcasting mismeasurement shows that the original estimates of the rulers accuracy and precision are wildly optimistic.
The two graphs are the same as the x-axis scales are also reversed.
It’s the same graph people.
The inverted river varves graph – and Mann’s subsequent insistence on its warming message – can only be compared to the famous Monty Python “Dead Parrot” skit.
Proprietor: That stick’s broken.
Boy with broken stick: No it i’n’t.
Ron De Haan says: “But they will hammer out the political framework, the structure that will become responsible for “control”, exactly that part of the Climate Treaty that stated World Government.”
This is tin hat stuff. I know most people just ignore it, but it’s a waste of electrons, so could you please cut it out?
Conserve, conserve, conserve.
UPDATE – VIDEO NOW ONLINE
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/10/lindzen-and-mcintyres-finnish-tv-interview/
The Washington Examiner says today that both Waxman-Markey and the Boxer bill contain a provision that would give the president unprecedented authority…
Here’s how: The bills require a federal declaration of a “climate emergency” if world greenhouse gas levels reach 450 parts per million. Guess what? The Pacific Northwest National Lab says it is a virtual certainty that level will be reached within a few months. The bill then requires the president to “direct all Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions…to address shortfalls” in achieving needed greenhouse gas reductions.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Climate-bills-emergency-provision-gives-Obama-strong-man-powers–69646037.html
“The party in Berlin today to celebrate the “new freedom” is as far as the train could go. From now on we are going back in time. Stalin and Mao are popular guys today. ”
More failed old school propaganda. See movie, “No Country for Old Men.”
“But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow…” Lennon McCartney – “Revolution”
just jake:
So you think that the U.S. President will get unprecedented powers if world CO2 levels reach 450 PPM.
Do you actually believe this stuff yourself?
What the hell is wrong with you?
“We have to get rid of the medieval warm period.”
Is this for real? Did somebody actually write this as claimed above?
Mark (10:39:04),
Yes. Here’s the citation: click
Tor Hansson (10:33:20) : “What the hell is wrong with you?”.
If this is the text of the bill, why do you say it’s something wrong with those who think the content of bill is meant to be taken seriously?
Why shall we listen to those who says others are stupid without an argument? You should first explain why it’s wrong to believe the text is meant to be taken seriously, then you can say that there’s something wrong with people who are doing that.
Okay?
Your argument is…
Indiana Bones (10:11:55) :
“The party in Berlin today to celebrate the “new freedom” is as far as the train could go. From now on we are going back in time. Stalin and Mao are popular guys today. ”
More failed old school propaganda. See movie, “No Country for Old Men.”
“But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow…” Lennon McCartney – “Revolution”
Well Indiana, I think this is true and you think this is true but the fact is that MAO and STALIN currently see a revival. Fidel Castro this year was awarded by the UN with the title “Hero of the World” for his relentless promotion of solidarity.
I think this is a few bridges to far for a murder and a torturer.
Two days ago a Global Poll (27 countries) was published stating that 89% rejected Capitalism and Free Markets. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/09-1
The trend is set, Obama and his Mao loving radicals have set their agenda and the endgame will end our freedom and our democratic system.
Unless we stop them.
Smokey, here is one of the few times I will have to call you on something. Given the veracity and shill quality of some of the uttering’s by the warmists, I don’t doubt that someone said that. However, because it can’t be verified – no written record – it’s simply hearsay, the quote cannot be confirmed.
Now, if an e-mail or other written text can be verified….
Tom Thumb (03:18:16) :
“mmm…
Eh, this makes McIntyre look too good.
He isn’t a statistician, he had a BS in Math.
I’m all about criticism, but this feels a bit off balance.”
Tom, feel free to demonstrate Steve’s statistical errors. He’s pretty open to criticism. On the other hand, it seems that you were really more interested in shooting the messenger. You missed.
Sonicfrog,
Mark asked for a citation, and I had that one available. But if you search “We have to get rid of the medieval warm period” [in quotation marks, written exactly like that], you’ll get lots of hits.
I agree that Dr Deming’s statement might not hold up in a court of law. But someone would have to convince me that Deming was willing to throw away a lifetime reputation by lying about something that wasn’t even the central issue.
Let’s turn it around: if anyone can can document a lie told by Dr Deming, then I’ll look at his statement with a jaundiced eye. Otherwise, I believe the statement to be factual, for the same reason you gave.
Dr Lindzen is one of my heroes! This man has put forward some of the most thoughtful and well documented papers on climate and yet the press pays no attention to him and the alarmists attack his character. Models can never replace real world observations, because of that, I will always side with Dr Lindzen.
Gail Combs (04:03:37) :
Thanks for posting this.
Obama, Gore and Strong in a carbon trading enterprise?
Than one was new to me!
Could this be a ground for impeachment?
sonicfrog, this is immaterial, but note the passion with which the alarmists attempt to ‘get rid of the Medieval Warm Period’ and the irrational vigor with which they defend all of the bogus hockey sticks, which have no MWP.
It is desperately important for the alarmists to get rid of the MWP. With tens of thousands of them thinking the same thought, I will guarantee you that it has been articulated more often than once. What is surprising is that we haven’t heard a lot more say such a thing, however, the tabu is strong.
=========================================
Sonicfrog (11:30:43) :
It is risky lying to The Senate.
RE: bob (08:56:29) :
“The two graphs are the same as the x-axis scales are also reversed.
It’s the same graph people.”
Agreed. I noted that as well. I am a decided non-warmist and am pleased with the Linzen – MacIntyre MOT program, but can’t see how this proves any deceit on the part of the warmists.
dbleader61
But can’t see how this proves any deceit on the part of the warmists.
Well, as soon as I see the IPCC showing the hockey stick upside down, I will agree with you.
Bob, dbleader, or anyone, what does the graph in question purport to show? As I imagine the trend of the graph relates to warming or cooling, there is perhaps secondary relevance to how it is displayed.
Ron:
I appreciate all the time you put in on the subject and follow your links with delight (usually.) I am simply not an alarmist on any side of any issue. So, I expect in this multi-dimensional world that:
Mr. Obama will get health care reform – but unlike his dream proposal
Cap N’ Trade will fail
Mr. Obama will settle for a climate treaty confirming commitment to a 2C “limit” and distribution of technology assistance to third world
In all three issues victory will be declared. Mao will remain dead and buried. Fidel wishes he were dead and buried. And collapse of the old skrool propaganda machine will continue apace.
But then I live in the midwest not far from… Kansas;)
Canadians have a particular vantage point on American politics. We are at turns amazed, amused, and appalled at how the game is played “down there.”
I have no patience for stupid conspiracy theories. Let’s skip talking about Mr. Obama’s motivations and politics, and stick to science, thanks. Otherwise, you come off as a bunch of nutcases, and dilute the message. Obama is a skilled politician. That’s about all you can reasonably say about him without sounding like a lunatic.
Bill P (09:25:06) :
“The inverted river varves graph – and Mann’s subsequent insistence on its warming message – can only be compared to the famous Monty Python “Dead Parrot” skit.
Proprietor: That stick’s broken.
Boy with broken stick: No it i’n’t.”
Me think it’s time for Kim to issue a reprint of her famous haiku of the crook’t stick.
Alan,
I say a warmer MWP proves that either the models are wrong or that there was something affecting the climate during the medieval warm period that we don’t know about. And then you say ‘yes the models are wrong’ and ignore the possibility that there was something in the MWP that we don’t know about.
Is that scientific inquiry? Or just looking for evidence to support a predetermined belief and ignoring everything to the contrary.
Peter,
you state that the although the agreement between models and temperature works for GISS, GISS temp is worthless. I compare to GISS to compare with Hansen’s projection as it is calculated off the same baseline. The warming rate for GISS since 1988 (when Hansen made this projection) is 0.169 deg/decade. The warming trend in Uah is 0.149/decade. The extra warming in GISS above UAh is not very large.
dbleader61 (13:39:14) :
RE: bob (08:56:29) :
“The two graphs are the same as the x-axis scales are also reversed.
It’s the same graph people.”
“Agreed. I noted that as well. I am a decided non-warmist and am pleased with the Linzen – MacIntyre MOT program, but can’t see how this proves any deceit on the part of the warmists.”
Note that the graphs show X-ray density on the Y-axis. The original authors of the Tiljander series used it to like the upper graph, where increased density represents LOWER temperatures. Mann et al used it with the exact opposite interpretation shown in the lower graph, that increased density represents HIGHER temperatures.
So yes, if the interpretation of the original authors is correct, this does indeed show deceit on the part of the warmists. Tiljander has since said that the final decades of data may be contaminated with debris from bridge construction, so it should be used with caution. However, that does not remove the gross misrepresentation of the data by Mann et al.
It seems that not only is the proxy data one big lie, but that the skeletons are coming out of the closet on the manipulation of land-based temperature data too.
E.M.Smith is making great strides on disecting gistemp and its inputs.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/gistemp-a-human-view/
Why then so many other scientists (40 000) or so are saying that climate change due to human activity is a hoax ? why isn’t Mother nature not just following its natural cycle ? How the hell do we know what temperature it was really in the middle age ?…isn’t this just a scam for gvts to foment yet other new taxes on CO2 ? looks like it
“Indiana Bones (14:24:38)
In all three issues victory will be declared. Mao will remain dead and buried. Fidel wishes he were dead and buried.”
Although Mao wanted to be cremated, you can still go and see him in his mausoleum on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Maybe he did not want to become a tourist attraction, but he did.
German conservative newspaper WELT has published today about the OECD behaving alarmistic, speaking about 6° increase etc. Scary.
The article shows an Indian woman crossing a dry riverbed. Think what you see is a dry riverbed? No, it’s “climate change in action”.
http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article5160386/OECD-warnt-vor-Temperaturanstieg-um-sechs-Grad.html
Are we as readers really considered that stupid? Time to get angry …
Thanks to Finnish TV and all contributors. Such pieces of journalism give hope.
Re, Smokey (11:01:06) :
Smokey, thanks for the link!
I’m freaking shocked over this…
dbleader61,
This may then not be exactly pure fraud but rather a run of the mill exercise in chartmanship. In the latter, data is presented in a manner that distorts their meaning in an atempt to steer the reader to arrive at a conclusion that is false. So, if the curve points downward, but the axis is itself inverted, the curve may be accurate in showing an increase in the variable graphed, but the natural conclusion reached, by design, is that the variable decreased. One is larceny by fraud, the other by burglary.
“JAN (15:06:40) :
dbleader61 (13:39:14) :
RE: bob (08:56:29) :
“The two graphs are the same as the x-axis scales are also reversed.
It’s the same graph people.”
Agreed. I noted that as well. I am a decided non-warmist and am pleased with the Linzen – MacIntyre MOT program, but can’t see how this proves any deceit on the part of the warmists.
Note that the graphs show X-ray density on the Y-axis. The original authors of the Tiljander series used it to like the upper graph, where increased density represents LOWER temperatures. Mann et al used it with the exact opposite interpretation shown in the lower graph, that increased density represents HIGHER temperatures.”
1) People who study the properties of violins believe that a Stradivari sounds so well because it is built from dense wood that grew (slowly) during the Little Ice Age.
2) The interpretation is actually not SHOWN in the graphs; one would have to add something like “temperature” to the ordinate, higher temperatures UP in both cases.
Turns out it’s not the “man effect of co2″ but the” Mann effect of co2″…
Need to get Steve McIntyre’s message out.
Last night’s Australian T.V. A.B.C 4 Corners’ program on global warming was a travesty. Professor Karoly versus Carter, (Commentator omits title, ‘professor’.)
A wee bit of netiket, if you don’t mind: We mortals who jump head first into the cyberworld have great difficulties with acronyms (who doesn’t?). So, please, spell them out once in a while… :-, Takes a bit of time and space, but many of s willbe soo-o greatful). Being a Finn myself, I take pride in the compliments the MOT (I did see the MOT program on my home TV) program receives and I enjoyed seeing some of you struggle with the Finnish language. Backman: I don’t recall that, in the MOT program, you pointed out that the y-axes also is flipped. Did you learn it later? Tricks with y-axes have been used before, like using a logarithmic or non-logarithmic scale on the y-axis, depending on what one wants to show.