By Steve McIntyre from his camirror.wordpress.com site.
For the very first time, the Climategate Letters “archived” the deleted portion of the Briffa MXD reconstruction of “Hide the Decline” fame – see here. Gavin Schmidt claimed that the decline had been “hidden in plain sight” (see here. ). This isn’t true.
The post-1960 data was deleted from the archived version of this reconstruction at NOAA here and not shown in the corresponding figure in Briffa et al 2001. Nor was the decline shown in the IPCC 2001 graph, one that Mann, Jones, Briffa, Folland and Karl were working in the two weeks prior to the “trick” email (or for that matter in the IPCC 2007 graph, an issue that I’ll return to.)
A retrieval script follows.
For now, here is a graphic showing the deleted data in red. 
Figure 1. Two versions of Briffa MXD reconstruction, showing archived and climategate versions.shown below, clearly does not show the decline in the Briffa MXD reconstruction.
Contrary to Gavin Schmidt’s claim that the decline is “hidden in plain sight”, the inconvenient data has simply been deleted.
The reason, as explained on Sep 22, 1999 by Michael Mann to coauthors in 938018124.txt, was to avoid giving “fodder to the skeptics”. Reasonable people might well disagree with Gavin Schmidt as to whether this is a “a good way to deal with a problem” or simply a trick.
Figure 2. IPCC 2001 Fig 2.21 showing Briffa, Jones and Mann reconstructions together with HadCRU temperature.
Retrieval script:
##COMPARE ARCHIVED BRIFFA VERSION TO CLIMATEGATE VERSION
#1. LOAD ARcHIVED DATA
url<-"ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/treering/reconstructions/n_hem_temp/briffa2001jgr3.txt"
#readLines(url)[1:50]
Briffa<-read.table(url,skip=24,fill=TRUE)
Briffa[Briffa< -900]=NA
dimnames(Briffa)[[2]]<-c("year","Jones98","MBH99","Briffa01","Briffa00","Overpeck97","Crowley00","CRU99")
sapply(Briffa, function(x) range( Briffa$year[!is.na(x)]) )
# year Jones98 MBH99 Briffa01 Briffa00 Overpeck97 Crowley00 CRU99
#[1,] 1000 1000 1000 1402 1000 1600 1000 1871
#[2,] 1999 1991 1980 1960 1993 1990 1987 1997
Briffa= ts(Briffa,start=1000)
#2. LOAD CLIMATEGATE VERSION
loc="http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=146&filename=939154709.txt"
working=readLines(loc,n=1994-1401+104)
working=working[105:length(working)]
x=substr(working,1,14)
writeLines(x,"temp.dat")
gate=read.table("temp.dat")
gate=ts(gate[,2],start=gate[1,1])
#Comparison briffa=ts.union(archive= Briffa[,"Briffa01"],gate ) briffa=window(briffa,start=1402,end=1994) # plot.ts(briffa)
X=briffa
par(mar=c(2.5,3,2,1))
plot( c(time(X)),X[,1],col=col.ipcc,lwd=2,ylim=c(-1.2,.5),yaxs="i",type="n",axes=FALSE,xlab="",ylab="")
for( i in 2:1) lines( c(time(X)),X[,i],col=i,lwd=1)
axis(side=1,tck=.025)
labels0=seq(-1,1,.1);labels0[is.na(match(seq(-1,1,.1),seq(-1,1,.5)))]=""
axis(side=2,at=seq(-1,1,.1),labels=labels0,tck=.025,las=1)
axis(side=4,at=seq(-1,1,.1),labels=labels0,tck=.025)
box()
abline(h=0)
title("Hide the Decline")
legend("topleft",fill=2:1,legend=c("Deleted","Archived"))
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Demonstrating uncertainty, concentrate on the link between CO2 and Bristlcone Pines, the latter still the main plank supporting hockey stick variations. Following email (portion here) sent to Martin Juckes and several other dendo people.
“Another serious issue to be considered relates to the fact that the PC1 time series in
the Mann et al. analysis was adjusted to reduce the positive slope in the last 150
years (on the assumption – following an earlier paper by Lamarche et al. – that this
incressing growth was evidence of carbon dioxide fertilization) , by differencing the
data from another record produced by other workers in northern Alaska and Canada
(which incidentally was standardised in a totally different way). This last adjustment
obviously will have a large influence on the quantification of the link between these
Western US trees and N.Hemisphere temperatures. At this point , it is fair to say that
this adjustment was arbitrary and the link between Bristlecone pine growth and CO2 is , at the very least, arguable.
Keith (Briffa)”
email 11641207120.txt Nov 2006
…. and thus the link between Bristlecone Pines and temperature?
Article: Contrary to Gavin Schmidt’s claim that the decline is “hidden in plain sight”, the inconvenient data has simply been deleted.
‘In plain sight’ means that far from being hidden, the decline in wood density was announced in one of the biggest science journals on the planet –
“Reduced sensitivity of recent tree-growth to temperature at high northern latitudes”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v391/n6668/abs/391678a0.html
This reduced sensitivity meant that the post-1960 tree ring data didn’t reflect the increase in temperature observed in the instrumental record. Why would anyone want to graph data that they already knew was invalid? Omitting it was obviously the right thing to do.
Actually, its worse than I have just suggested, for this also calls into question the whole science of dendrochronology and C14 dating.
.
To stitch the tree-ring series together (from many individual trees of different ages) it is assumed that climate temperature effects tree-ring growth across all trees in a region. Thus similar trees of varying ages will have similar patterns within their growth rings. Thus comparisons between trees can be made, and a series of growth rings can be spliced together, back into the distant past.
However, if tree-ring growth is only poorly affected by temperature, and affected much more by soil and light competition (as this data from Yamal demonstrates), then the whole ‘art’ of splicing tree ring data together to form a contiguous series of rings going back into the distant past may be based upon wishful thinking. I did read somewhere, that the matches between trees were not all that good sometimes, and assumptions and guesses had been made.
But if we have breaks in the tree-ring record, because the tree ring-widths are largely random and based upon many other factors, then the whole of the C14 dating mechanism may also be in error. C14 dating does not give us a direct year or decade – the C14 result must be compared to a known C14 database, and the database used is tree rings from dendrochronology. But if the dendrochronology is all wrong, and based upon unwarranted assumptions, then the whole C14 dating technique is also invalidated.
Ooops.
.
News Flash: Michael Mann discovers the Medieval Warm Period and the Little ice age.
And its all about ocean heat, El Nino La Nina etc
And…
“If the response of the Earth in the past is analogous to the temperature increase caused by greenhouse gases… it could lend credence to this counterintuitive notion of a La Nina response to global warming,” said Professor Mann.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8381317.stm
What’s it all mean?
My first guess is that its about explaining the recent pause in global warming: What the recently discovered MWP and LIA tell us about recent global warming (by CO2 emissions) is that we can expect large La Nina like periods like the one we have been experiencing for the last decade.
Can someone find the original Science article or press release.
‘hide the decline’ satire video from Minnesotans for global warming has made it in to the news in Russia
at 2:35 of this video
The Hide the Decline chart above should be the top post on Drudge. I suggest overlaying it on top of the IPCC chart to show what they hide, and what they showed the world.
I certainly don’t know the sophisticated statistical strategies to use on this stuff, but I do know enough about XLS to copy the anomalies from this email:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=146&filename=939154709.txt
and put them into XLS and plot them, asking for R^2 of a trendline.
As long as we’re curve fitting, I did a linear regression, and polynomial of degrees 2, 3, 4 and 6 thru 1994
Linear 0.01
poly deg 2 0.15
poly deg 3 0.18
poly deg 4 0.24
poly deg 6 0.25
Looks like 4th degree is about it for explanatory power…but there’s an interesting jump between 3 and 4
Now do the same thru 1960
Linear 0.02
poly deg 2 0.25
poly deg 3 0.25
poly deg 4 0.27
poly deg 6 0.30
The big jump is at degree 2 (the one that goes up and up)
The 1961 thru 1994 data points really shape the curve, and your interpretation. Which is why having a good theory (physical or otherwise) first is so important.
I don’t get where they get the zero anomaly value. If everything is under the zero line shouldn’t the line be moved down? Is it supposed to be a mean? Did they make up some composite world temperature that they consider best for human life? Or are there accurate records from zero to 1000 AD that show temps above the line? (Don’t think so.) Anything to do with the different latitudes measured?
Sorry for the stupid question.
The scientific rationale to “hide the decline” can only be that the tree rings started showing spurious cooling trends starting in about 1960 – there was no actual cooling, it is just that the tree-rings started showing a spurious decline in 1960 for non-climatic reasons.
There could be an actual explanation for this which might include pollution, acid rain, aerosols blocking sunlight, increased forest fire fighting creating increased competition from other trees, CO2 fertilization creating increased competition etc.
But none of these other rationales have been shown in the science to produce a spurious decline. In fact, the NH forest cover increased substantially after 1960. There is no substantiated rationale.
And if the “other” rationale was to just show “actual measured temperatures” instead of the proxy measurements, then the truncation should have started in 1850 rather than the day tree-rings started showing the divergence.
So, if there is no science backing up the truncation starting in 1960, then it is truly “hiding the decline” and it is just attaching a line going up instead. It is also admitting that tree-rings are not temperature proxies after all. They are just mathematical constructs designed to produce a hockey stick.
Science should never be “illogical”. It should never make you say to yourself “Well that makes no sense whatsoever, especially considering the evidence. In this case, you will have to prove it which you have not done so far.” Yet, no proof is offered or demonstrated.
Mailman (15:20:19) :
Data was manipulated. What their graphs show is not what happened in the real world.
Gene Nemetz (17:15:20) :
2:35 of the video, not 3:35
Laws based on Fraud: before they finish robbing me blind in California, I live to see a whole lot of unethical scientists, politicians, and one loud-mouth governator go down first. Read this; then devote your life to throwing them all off the cliff:
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/the-cliff-of-political-oblivion-laws-based-on-fraud/
enough (16:15:21) :
Climategate reaches White House.
Holdren…,/i>
Some are picking up on this. I can’t see any way around this not hurting Barak Obama’s image. That is unless the story continues to go noticed–which I doubt.
WakeUpMaggy, I believe that 0 is what they use for today’s temperature. At least on their graphs.
Keith Minto (15:54:42) :
“I just fear that Post Modernism and Relativism plays a large part in this saga. I blame the Universities for disseminating this tripe, it really means that they feel immune from criticism, producing the “my reality is as as good as your reality” attitude.
This is far, far, removed from the spirit of scientific enquiry, it is as if we live on two different planets.”
Ah, but we do Keith, we do. They live in a fantasy world, where everything non-humanoid is blesed, non-agressive, kind to Gaia. In their world, the migration of the continents occured as if in Camelot, gently, oh so slowly, in nurturing fashion. Volcanos mean beautiful sunsets.
The real world is much harsher. Magnitude 11+ earthquakes occur, volcanos explode leaving holes miles across, asteroids impact the planet leaving holes 100s of miles across, and the sun fluctuates up to 3% in output, just for starters.
They think man is worse than an animal, we know that the universe isn’t a very friendly place at all for life forms.
enough (16:15:21) :
Climategate reaches White House.
Holdren conspires with Mann and Jones to bash Soon/Baliunas when they write about Hockey Stick validation
From FOIA file
1066337021.txt
———————————————————-
Interesting exchange between Holdren, etc. What I find most interesting is the astronomical size of the egos on display in this and other emails.
To wit (Holdren’s words ): “In other words,
for many (but not all) policy purposes, the details that are impenetrable do not matter.”
What’s significant about the latest BBC lovefest for Mann and his nonsense ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8381317.stm ) is that the article isn’t by-lined, nor has the reader comments facility been enabled.
Clearly, this squib was timed to go off as part of the pre-Copenhagen boost. Equally clearly, whichever BBC eco-loon wrote it (take your pick) is too scared to append her or his name to it.
And God forbid the sceptical unwashed should be allowed to question!
I thank those that have made the effort to make readable compilations of the Climategate emails and code. What is revealed is an affront to the good conduct of Science; an affront to the spirit of public service; and an affront to the democratic ideal of free speech. In short, it is nothing short of a travesty.
BernieL (16:15:44) :
There seems to be a consistent missunderstanding by media interviewers about the meaning of Jone’s boast of using Mann’s ‘trick’ ‘to hide the decline.’ Should we worrry about it, I dunno. Too difficult for sound-bite interviews? Perhaps not.
The interviewers take the quote, out of context, to suggest that these guys were trying to hide the recent decline found in global temperature indicators (i.e., no warming since this century).
Whereas, as I understand it:
This is all about the dubious use of proxy data to make recent warming look historically extraordinary. The need to hide the decline since 1960 suggests that the proxy data set used to hide the MWP etc is not a good proxy. If the data was assessed as divergent from measured temperature after 1960 then maybe it is also wrong about 1260, or 1360 when other indicators suggest it was warmer than now. What has been found is clear evidence that these IPCC authors knowingly manipulated the data used as proof of recent extraordinary global warming….and then actively obstructed other scientists requests to check the data and what they had done with it.
A bit more than a sound bite, but, if this is right then, we might want to encourage this correction where possible. Otherwise, we might stand accused of allowing the quote to be missinterpreted out of context.
__________________
Absolutely right!! We need to keep emphasizing that what is being HIDDEN is the modern (post-1960) DIVERGENCE between the INSTRUMENTAL temperature measurements and the PROXY (tree ring) temperature measurements. And because no one can explain WHY this modern divergence occurs (see Bill Illis at 17:27:29), there can be NO real confidence that these proxy measurements coincided with rather than diverged from what instruments would have measured in the distant past (in this case, from 1400 until the instrumental record starts in 1881). This alone is enough to DISQUALIFY these tree rings as a temperature proxy and to DISCREDIT any study that relies on them.
The issue that is being hidden is the UNRELIABILITY OF THE PROXY. It is NOT a matter, as Gavin and his crowd keep trying to suggest, of simply not showing inaccurate temperature data on a graph.
Proves that trees don’t make good thermometers… That trees are cr*p at taking temperature actually.;-)
Briffa and the mob were oohing and ahhing and marveling at the trees wonderful temperature record right up until the modern thermometer record….. and then the trees became traitorous scoundrels that wanted to show lower temperatures where the thermometers showed higher temperatures….
Thus “Hide the Decline, (hide the decline)”
Michael Mann discovers the Medieval Warm Period – UPDATE
Here is the abstract of the article released today:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/326/5957/1256
Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly
Michael E. Mann et al
Global temperatures are known to have varied over the past 1500 years, but the spatial patterns have remained poorly defined. We used a global climate proxy network to reconstruct surface temperature patterns over this interval. The Medieval period is found to display warmth that matches or exceeds that of the past decade in some regions, but which falls well below recent levels globally. This period is marked by a tendency for La Niña–like conditions in the tropical Pacific. The coldest temperatures of the Little Ice Age are observed over the interval 1400 to 1700 C.E., with greatest cooling over the extratropical Northern Hemisphere continents. The patterns of temperature change imply dynamical responses of climate to natural radiative forcing changes involving El Niño and the North Atlantic Oscillation–Arctic Oscillation.
O.K. I may be a bit dumb and not understand the difference between a local climatic event and a global one but in five years there were five major volcanic eruptions;
In 1812, La Soufrière on Saint Vincent in the Caribbean and also Awu on Sangihe Islands, Indonesia.
In 1813, Suwanose-Jima on Ryukyu Islands, Japan
In 1814, Mayon in the Philippines
Then in 1815 the big one; the eruption of Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia.
The Year Without a Summer was 1816, with destroyed crops in Northern Europe, the Northeastern United States and eastern Canada. In China, the cold weather killed trees, rice crops and even water buffalo and overwhelming floods in the Yangtze Valley in 1816. In India the monsoon torrential rains aggravated the spread of cholera from a region near the River Ganges in Bengal to as far as Moscow.
In the winter of 1817 the waters of New York’s Upper Bay froze so hard that horse-drawn sleighs were driven across Buttermilk Channel from Brooklyn to Governors Island.
In eastern Switzerland, the summers of 1816 and 1817 were so cool that an ice dam formed below a tongue of the Giétro Glacier high in the Val de Bagnes; the ice dam collapsed catastrophically in June 1818.
So world wide, there was cold and rain. O.K. Is that global? Thing is it isn’t a big thing in the reconstruction. 1817 is the 10th coldest, 1816 was the 12th coldest.
The 1601 Huaynaputina, sulphur dioxide rich, eruption is the coldest year, but only for one year. Russia had famine between 1601 and 1603, the German wine industry collapsed in 1602 and the grapes failed for 2 years.
Why is there only one spike of one year? Is there temporal resolution that bad?
1641 to 1643 are really cold. Really, really cold. However, this is the most studied period of British History; the Civil War. Now you would have thought that the record would have mentioned the bad weather and the inability to resupply costal towns and cities by sea. No, the weather was normal. But, between 1641 and 1643 the years are the 2nd, 3rd and 4th coldest in the record.
The London frozen river years were in the winters of 1408, 1435, 1506, 1514, 1537, 1565, 1595, 1608, 1621, 1635, 1649, 1655, 1663, 1666, 1677, 1684, 1695, 1709, 1716, 1740, 1768, 1776, 1785, 1788, 1795, and 1814. 26 in 400 years or 6.5%.
You would expect that there would be some correlation between cold global years and cold London. What do we see, bugger all. there is no correlation between the coldest 6.5% of English winters and the global average.
Now this either means that global temperature has no effect on extreme weather events or that local and global mean different planets.
Why don’t the cold periods match the history books?
“I just fear that Post Modernism and Relativism plays a large part in this saga. ”
What is true is whatever keeps the grant money flowing.
Heidi Deklein (15:50:39) :
A Monkees fan, I presume? Very Cute.
” In eastern Switzerland, the summers of 1816 and 1817 were so cool that an ice dam formed below a tongue of the Giétro Glacier high in the Val de Bagnes; the ice dam collapsed catastrophically in June 1818.”
And Mary Shelley wrote _Frankenstein_.
I think the idea is valid that the artifact of a ‘global temperature’ is not strongly related to local, or even regional, weather events. But that would not suit the worldview of the transnationalist political agenda.