Weekend levity: Heisenberg's uncertainty principal components

[snip just a bit OTT]

That Josh is just plain wicked!!!!!
:^))

Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)
Graffito seen on wall of tavern in Goleta, California: “Heisenberg may have been here.”

lol

Last three posts have been Heisenberg, Horkheimer and Engelbeen.
Sort of a tongue twister.

Josh – thanks for your hilarious take on this!
Here is the history of the cartoon:
phlogiston says:
August 18, 2010 at 5:53 pm
McShane and Wyner:
As can be seen in Figure 15, our estimate of the run up in temperature in the 1990s has a much smaller slope than the actual temperature series. Furthermore, the lower frame of Figure 18 clearly reveals that the proxy model is not at all able to track the high gradient segment. Consequently, the long flat handle of the hockey stick is best understood to be a feature of regression and less a reflection of our knowledge of the truth.
What we now have is the HEISENBURG HOCKEY STICK:
either the handle is real but the blade is illusory
or the blade is real but there is no handle
McShance and Wyner attempted to validate the proxies by testing their ability to model the recent upturn in “measured” global temperature in the last 3 decades. The model result from the proxies was also a temperature increase but a much smaller one.
They assumed implicitly that the measured temperature rise is real or “actual” – so thus the proxy modeled result was falsified.
(However logically the proxy based model result could be correct, and the adjusted “measurements” wrong”.)
So they conclude that the failure of the proxies to model the recent and well known temperature curve, combined with other statistical considerations, means that the reconstruction of the last 1000 yrs climate temperature is not statistically valid.
There are two possible conclusions:
(1) M&W are right, the recent temperature rise is real; the failure of proxy based modeling to track it, with recent data where proxies should be most reliable, shows that the whole proxy reconstruction 1000 yrs back must be rejected. So, blade but no handle.
Or
(2) M&W are wrong. The climate temp reconstruction from the proxies both recently and back 1000 yrs is in fact valid. This means however that the proxy reconstruction of a recent shallow temperature rise in the last 30 years is correct and the “measured” steep temp rise is wrong, an artifact of UHI and data massaging. So, handle but no blade.
Thus the “Heisenburg” hockey stick: if the blade is solid, the handle is uncertain. If the handle is well known, the blade fades into uncertainty.
Either blade or handle, not both.
Or in language Joe Romm might recognise, CHECK MATE.
Josh says:
August 21, 2010 at 7:52 am
Phlogiston, I liked your comment so much I drew this…
http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/Blades4Uscr.jpg
phlogiston says:
August 21, 2010 at 10:49 am
Josh says:
August 21, 2010 at 7:52 am
Brilliant cartoon, wow, I’m lost for words

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a Mann who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away…
When I came home last night at three
The Mann was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door… (slam!)
Last night I saw upon the stair
A little Mann who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away
with apologies to Hughes Mearns

You want the whole Hockey Stick?
You can’t handle the Hockey Stick !
I’m sorry sir, Hockey Sticks are not allowed on the airplane.
Code 10-72H: Hockey Stick involved.
Code 417H: Person with a Hockey Stick.
Code 11-85H: Jackknifed Hockey Stick, Tow truck required
Code 11-96H: Checking suspicious Hockey Stick

Anthony
http://www.insuranceerm.com/news-comment/rms-develops-hpc-cat-modelling-solution.html