By Steve Goddard
h/t to reader “Phil.” who lead me to this discovery.
In a previous article, I discussed how UAH, RSS and HadCrut show 1998 to be the hottest year, while GISS shows 2010 and 2005 to be hotter.
But it wasn’t always like that. GISS used to show 1998 as 0.64 anomaly, which is higher than their current 2005 record of 0.61.
You can see this in Hansen’s graph below, which is dated August 25, 1999
But something “interesting” has happened to 1998 since then. It was given a demotion by GISS from 0.64 to 0.57.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
The video below shows the changes.
Note that not only was 1998 demoted, but also many other years since 1975 – the start of Tamino’s “modern warming period.” By demoting 1998, they are now able to show a continuous warming trend from 1975 to the present – which RSS, UAH and Had Crut do not show.
Now, here is the real kicker. The graph below appends the post 2000 portion of the current GISS graph to the August 25, 1999 GISS graph. Warming ended in 1998, just as UAH, RSS and Had Crut show.
‘
The image below superimposes Had Crut on the image above. Note that without the post-1999 gymnastics, GISS and Had Crut match quite closely, with warming ending in 1998.
Conclusion : GISS recently modified their pre-2000 historical data, and is now inconsistent with other temperature sets. GISS data now shows a steady warming from 1975-2010, which other data sets do not show. Had GISS not modified their historic data, they would still be consistent with other data sets and would not show warming post-1998. I’ll leave it to the readers to interpret further.
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BTW – I know that you can download some of the GISS code and data, and somebody checked it out and said that they couldn’t find any problems with it. No need to post that again.
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2010 at 10:10 pm
“You can focus on the thing that requires work or you focus on the things you can write comments about things that dont require much in the way of thought much less work. So, I have respect and admiration for the work that Anthony has done. It was real work. A hunch, followed up by investigation, followed up by field work.”
That tells me all about what I need to know about you. Sis, I do real work every day. If you want to blather about how GISS should be sanctified, go right ahead. Is following a basic algebraic equation real work to you? The fact of the matter is, CAGW isn’t a problem people should focus on, nor commit work towards. This is a distraction that requires my attention only because people such as yourself lend credence to the problem. Why don’t you try being a useful, productive citizen of this world for a change? Reference several of my posts above. Sis, you can’t see the forest through the trees. Myself and the rest of the world should commit to a fictional problem that can’t even be argued beyond a post on the internet? Try getting a life. Try getting a rational view of reality. Try to understand 2+2 is always = 4. 4 isn’t subjective. 4 doesn’t change with time. 4 is always 4. You know, I’m sorry you felt the obligation to work towards understanding this alleged crisis. I wish you didn’t feel it necessary. I wish people could think beyond the subjective numbers. They don’t. But please don’t believe you are doing mankind a service when you engage in such a manner that you have. You are not.
I have real work to do tomorrow and it is late, now. Math is the perfunctory work of ideas, yet math is the proof. Subjective mathematics is the last failing of mankind. Were I you, I would distance myself from that as far and as fast as I could. But, that just me, “a person that only writes comments” that doesn’t require much thought nor work. Be sure to not take anything to heart from what I said, because you know I didn’t work for ……………………..????
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2010 at 10:10 pm
GAAA!!!! I’m tired, but this needs said.
“james yes there were some metadata issues that GISS was not aware of and some metadata solutions that NOAA was apparently not aware of. as for the adjustment issues, yes there are some issues that have not been raised. ”
Steven, they were aware. They were told over and over again. There are problems with the data and the meta data. How many times and how many ways did we have to show them? You want to talk about Steve Mc? How many times? Or Anthony? How many ways? Does it really take someone to go back through the code to show them where they went wrong? Wouldn’t it be incumbent to at the very least double check to make sure what people are stating is incorrect? It is not incumbent upon me to prove them incorrect. It is incumbent upon them to prove themselves correct. And that doesn’t include a rolling, subjective empirical value. That’s asinine.
More……
“Further, whether or not they are aware of all the issues is immaterial to the question of what you should focus on. You can choose to focus on the weak part of their argument or the strong part.”
AAGGHH!!! What? Everyone, at all times, should focus on the weak part. In any assertion, the weak part is where the fallacy lay! Obviously, I’m tired, else I’d have volumes to say about this. But, I think it also speaks volumes if I leave it at that.
Steven, goodnight. I wish you well.
James Sexton
Come see the new ivory tower, see how different it is from the old ivory tower…
Best of luck getting support for your pate FOIA gras work, Mr. Mosher, now that you’ve gone to such great lengths [snip – (He’s, um, a bit annoyed at Steve.) Nothing personal, kadaka, I promise. In happier times I’d let this ride. But under the circumstances, I am going to ask everyone to tone down the conflict about three notches. thanks in advance for your understanding and cooperation. ~ Evan]
Meanwhile the rest of us will keeping looking at three things that consistently give about the same reading, note how a different thing says something else and isn’t consistent, and determine the one that says something different shouldn’t be trusted so we stop using it. But that’s what you would expect from us un-intellectual savages, thus you shouldn’t be surprised by it.
Global Temperature Anomalies
I have looked at smoothed representations of four global surface temperature anomaly products and I agree that those three that represent combined land and ocean anomalies all seem to be relatively consistent. However, beginning around Y2000, the GISS land meteorological station anomaly does seem to diverge and now, relative to the other indices, it seems to be about 0.1 degrees C warmer than it was at the beginning of the decade. Perhaps this is because the land stations are increasingly more likely to be biased by local urban heating.
After the reported attempt to remove the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ from the record, I would expect any change to familiar official data that might indicate the apparent halt in global warming this decade was a metric error would be seen by many as *extremely* suspicious.
I work in the healthcare industry and am involved all the time in clinical trials, protocols, data collection, biostatistical analysis and validation etc. based upon double blind, randomised and placebo controlled studies. If I use any data and algorithms the way GISS uses it, any studies done on that basis won’t see the light of the day and will get thrown out. I know what it is to collect, analyse and study data with rigid rules dictating every aspect of it. That’s because a slightest mistake can affect human health.
Here, with such joke data, fancy algorithms and changes of past data decades back by estimates, we’re told to believe that everything’s hunky dory. Just because an algorithm is published, it is not correct. If an algorithm can’t use certain data when it is collected, don’t ever use it or write a better program.
Justifying such practices is being accessory to fraud, especially when policy decisions amounting to trillions affecting whole world and national economies are based on such data. And especially when the gatekeepers and manipulators of such data are activists like Hansen, Schmidt et. al. who have a vested agenda and long crossed the line between science and activism. And when I say ” science ” here, it means true unbiased facts, without any fancy footwork on data homogenisation, pasteurisation and adjustments designed to show a trend they want to show for their alarmist purposes.
Judging from the way their algorithm functions, there is no way it is reliable then for current predictions. And yet they shout all over the roofs saying ” hottest ever 2010 ” when the real issue with 2010 will be known only sometime in 2025, as per the past track records of their own algorithms.
@ur momisugly M White (August 29, 2010 at 9:20 am)
A few years ago, Roger Harrabin gave an interview to CAM (Cambridge Alumni Magazine) in which he wondered why voters and their stupid views insist on getting in the way of the scientific experts who should be allowed to run the world for us.
This is, of course, the type of traditional technocracy that’s been espoused from the left since, oh, H G Wells anyway. It worked splendidly for the likes of Lysenko in Russia, and of Burt in his enlightened work on eugenics – leftism’s Big Idea of the 1930s.
You may wonder how an alumnus of a scientific university could possibly be so ready to believe, where the climate is concerned, that there are any experts, or that there is a consensus, or that any such consensus would carry any weight even if did exist.
The thing is, although he attended a science-oriented university, Roger Harrabin is not a trained scientist (he read English Literature). His function therefore cannot possibly be to scrutinise and report on the state of the science. He is not intellectually or academically equipped to do so.
All he can do is repeat what he’s heard. And here, with a delicious irony, he listens to what a noisy minority tells him is “the consensus”.
So in the worldview of a BBC environmental correspondent, for whom I am forced to pay, public policy on climate should be driven not by the voters’ wishes, but by the experts’ view. And how do we establish what the experts’ view is? Why, some of them voted on it!
As an arts graduate, we should perhaps expect people like Harrabin to favour qualitative over quantitative debate. As a Cambridge arts graduate, we can reasonably expect him to be aware of this limitation in his thinking, and to adjust for it. Otherwise he resembles nothing so much as a goldfish who insists that water doesn’t exist because he can’t see it.
I find this thread depressing.
jeez says:
August 30, 2010 at 7:09 pm
In which case (ignorant question), WTF are we arguing about? We don’t know what we don’t know. I believe that global temperature is probably higher than it was 150 years ago but I don’t know how much or whether the difference is important and having followed this and other blogs I see no empirical evidence that the matter is anything other than a 21st century debate on the lines of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin because it seems that no-one else does either.
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Thankyou for that, Steven. I am dim enough on this subject to need it spelt out for me. But the question is not one of how you combine the two stations. It is why, according to GISS, the station 2 figures appear always to be higher than the station 1 figures.
The cynic in me wonders if there could be a reason for this.
Venter>
“I know what it is to collect, analyse and study data with rigid rules dictating every aspect of it. That’s because a slightest mistake can affect human health.”
DIFFERENT PROBLEM. the data is historical data. there was no design of experiments. The stations were not set up to monitor climate. Thomas jefferson went out every day to collect temperature twice a day. That stupid man. Didnt he realize that 200 years from then we would decide that midnight was the standard observation time?
“Judging from the way their algorithm functions, there is no way it is reliable then for current predictions.”
Do you read?. The more accurate methods show the problem is worse. FURTHER, the accuracy of the historical record is NOT a constraint on the predictions. Has very little to do with it. The predictions are not based on the historical temperature record. FURTHER YET, GISSTEMP is NOT USED, CRU is.
so that is why, people like me, wanted to get CRU Code and cru data. That was the important thing. because THAT is what the science uses. Not Gisstemp, CRU. he attacked the wrong target for the wrong reason.
In Re;
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2010 at 2:33 pm
“The OLD FIGURES do not change. get that through your head.
In 2000, GISS looks through 7364 stations and they select stations to construct an average. Their rules say. NO STATION that has less than 20 years can be used. SO, for example a station that started reporting in 1990 could not be used.
By 2010 that station NOW has 20 years. NOW, its data from 1990-2000 CAN be used. That will of necessity change the estimate of 1990-2000. ”
Uh, so you state that the old figures do not change then explain how they change the estimate? I guess I am confused.
As to the point that I am being illogical in my assertion that science hasn’t answered the question in any meaningful way (your 2:53 post I think); let’s take a little primer; if you put CO2 in a bottle and put a heat lamp on it, it will heat more than a bottle with just plain old air. There’s your hard scientific fact. Take the lid off the bottle and put a CO2 emission source inside the bottle and it will no longer heat up more than a bottle with regular air and no lid.
Also; the Earth heated up, CO2 increased ergo; more CO2 caused the earth to warm! That is the current status of the science. About 50% of the warming of the Earth is caused by things like Milankovich cycles, precession of orbits, solar variance, etc. Therefore we’ve got better proof that CO2 is responsible for the remainder? No, that’s guesswork at best, and yes, that is the state of the science. Remember; GCM’s are off by two STDs and currently seem to have missed the fact that (statistically at least) warming stopped about 10 years ago.
A new analogy to the GISS global temp. estimate;
You’ve got a dam. It sits above your town in such a way as to make your town’s existence entirely dependent upon the integrity of this dam. Now, this is no oridinary dam; it has water level sensors all along it’s face; ney more than this; workers are installing new sensors all the time.
Now one day Professor Little decides to review the logs that are kept on these sensors and discovers that the water is rising on the face of the dam! If the water tops the dam it will erode, placing the town in jeopardy. By Dr. Little’s calculations the water is a foot from the top of the damn and rising one inch per year! Okay, we’ve got a little time to investigate mitigation strategies, but the work must begin!
Low and behold; Dr. Little comes back in a year and announces the situation is more dire than he thought; the water is higher than ever! It’s one foot from cresting the dam, and we expect it will crest the damn in no less than 24 years!
At that point the voters aren’t going to elect politicians who continue to appropriate money for this project. In fact they’re going to want to investigate the science a bit further and look into connections between Dr. Little and the dam mitigation industry. They’re going to ask why Dr. Little has been on the board of directors of the Dam Failure Option Exchange and so forth. If Dr. Little at this point claims he has lost his data and won’t let you look at his methodology because ‘you’re only going to try to tear it down’ he would lose his job. Any further assertions about water level rise and the impending doom of the town will be greeted with great skepticism. If he starts calling you a ‘water rise denier’ he will be greated with laughter.
Do you get it now?
The stability of the estimates is indeed important. If the revisions were of a different magnitude it would be one thing, but they’re not saying it was .67 in ’98, and now it’s .95, but it was only .66 in 98. They’re claiming it’s .67 now and it was only .57 then. They keep moving the bar; it’s not any warmer now than it was claimed to be in ’98 and the only reason they can claim it’s an all time high is because they’ve significantly lowered the ’98 estimate. The water isn’t rising the tape measure is sliding down the face of the dam. To put it another way; Gilligan is moving the professor’s pole out into the lagoon.
We’re not even sure it’s warming and there are strong indications it’s starting to go the other way. If we’d been looking at this seriously for the last 30 years we might now know what we can expect; is this just another minimum or the onset of the next glaciation? Instead we’ve poured all of our research into proving a forgone conclusion and as a result don’t know why the climate seems to have stopped warming. If there’s a new LIA event people are going to starve to death because we didn’t see it coming because Jones, Hansen, Mann and the rest spent all the research money they were given proving something they believed in rather than studying the data to see what it could tell them. THAT IS THE STATE OF THE SCIENCE TODAY.
I would suggest that the mitigation strategies for a new ice age or a minimum events would differ somewhat from the measures we would take against CO2 induced global warming, but that right now we don’t know anything about which is coming, as our models go on about their merry business of showing uninterupted global warming because that’s what they’re designed to do.
We could’ve figured out how to feed the masses in a low solar energy environment. How to keep them from freezing, etc. But we didn’t know it was coming because these charlatans pissed the money away on a pocket full of magic beans!
So go ahead; be lukewarm. I too believe that CO2 probably did make our climate a couple 10ths of a degree warmer in the later half of the 20th century. But I also think it would be great if we knew what drove the Maunder minimum, if we understood why the earth heated up 6/10ths of a degree and then stopped. Instead we’ve got GCM’s that insist it hasn’t stopped and scientist who’s proverbial dog ate their homework.
Again; it’s time for Dr’s Mann, Hansen, Jones, and the rest of their crew to get out of the way and let science begin anew. Nobody is likely to believe them any more and they should consider themselves lucky to get out of the business without being charged with a crime. If they were to walk away quietly I bet they would be so fortunate. If they want to go down with the ship they are certainly entitled.
You sir have been very patient and I for one don’t find you to be arrogant. At least you entertain debate and have some attachment to your convictions. I greatly respect that. You and Ms. Curry are to be applauded for at least being willing to discuss the ideas rather than hurling ad hominem attacks on everyone who doesn’t agree with everything the mainstream climate science establishment has been promulgating for the last 20 years. Thank you for your patience with those of us who aren’t scientist but who are just trying to understand the science and learn the truth.
& Steve, one more thing;
This article is about GISS. If you want to defend CRU you are more than welcome, but what is being looked at here is Gisstemp and a very interesting little anomaly whereby their temp for ’98 changed.
As to CRU, their data and methodology; I would suggest that their data probably does correlate very well with Giss, because it really isn’t an independent data source, as they like to pretend. As to their methodology (code); I think you really can get that through the FOIA file that was leaked late last year. If you can’t find it I’ve got a pristine copy here somewhere. There’s a lot of interesting comments in that code too.
I’m with Steven on this. There is some unmatched arrogance in this thread from people I never suspected it from…
Just…wow…
Mr.Mosher,
This article by Steven Godard was about GISS’s temperature and how they adjusted past history. It could be perfectly rational to you just because the algorithm worked that way. It is not rational to me as the noise was made by Hansen of GISS and Schmidt, Rudy et. al. of GISS about the state of world temperatures, based on their data. it is based upon this same GISS data that people like Tamino are making noises even today about AGW. It’s just not warming per se that they are talking about. The noise they are making is that the temperature rise as seen by GISS data and algorithms is proof of man made global waring due to CO2 increase.
This is exactly the activism they are practicing, aided and abetted by Real Climate, the site in which the same Gavin Schmidt of GISS postulates all the above theories with ruthless censoring and arrogance, leaving people to wonder what is he paid by NASA / GISS to do. And don’t come and tell me ” different problem ” in capital letters. The problems are very well inter linked as it is this clique of Hansen, Mann, Schmidt, Santer et.all who are making all the noise about AGW based upon GISS data. And they had substantial influence in the IPCC reports as contributors, authors, editors etc.
Of course, Jones, Briffa et. al. were there from CRU as part of the gang. But the masterminds were the RC gang led by the GISS based puppet masters.
So GISS figures, algorithms and the drama they create does matter.
To my comment
“Judging from the way their algorithm functions, there is no way it is reliable then for current predictions.”
You gave a big lecture with bold letters [ by the way, that is the internet equivalent to yelling. ] about accurate methods etc.
Don’t bring in strawmen. We are talking here about GISS and GISS only. Do you call their method as ” more accurate ” when it needs 12-15 years backcasting to arrive at historical ” estimates ” and yet we should believe that what it tells today is the gospel?
That is the issue. Because people like Hansen, Schmidt, Tamino, Romm et. al. are doing exactly that.
The ” science ” has long gone fro the scene for these people. It is activism that matters, shamelessly twisting whatever is needed to suit their agenda. And they have the political and economic clout with Gore, Soros et. al on their sides, not to mention the patrons of CCE.
So, it does matter about what they say and do. If GISS analysed data is not to be considered as science or used for climate science decisions, what are they doing with public money playing around and creating these kind of analyses?
And Mr.Mosher, if you can’t put across your point rationally without yelling, kindly go to Climate Progress or some other blog where such behaviour is tolerated. Stop using bold letters and tone down your arrogance.
Sam the skeptic
“But the question is not one of how you combine the two stations. It is why, according to GISS, the station 2 figures appear always to be higher than the station 1 figures.
The cynic in me wonders if there could be a reason for this.”
Good question. Its not always the case that the stations that get added in, are warmer with cooler pasts. BUT there there is one good reason for explaining it.
The BEST method, the method that uses all the data shows MORE warming. RSM, recall, doesnt use all the data. So on average the data it doesnt use must be warmer. as time marches forward and RSM uses more of the data it hasnt previously used, well on average we know its warmer.
Bob
“This article is about GISS. If you want to defend CRU you are more than welcome, but what is being looked at here is Gisstemp and a very interesting little anomaly whereby their temp for ’98 changed.”
Huh?
Here is the logic people have been using.
There is a mistake with GISS, therefore AGW science is suspect.
As I pointed out most of the science uses CRU.
I have no affinity for CRU.
I appreciate Steve Mosher hanging around and explaining his thoughts. Indeed, he has provided an insight that I had not thought of before. And that kind of bothers me.
He has broken down the “averaging” function into a very simple example – and in so doing called into question the entire declared series of numbers. Indeed, in his example the temperatures from the 2 stations had not changed over 20 years – all being either a 0 (station 1) or 1 (station 2). But due to the process the climate scientists use to come up with their average, they show a .5 degree temperature rise where none exist!
I understand the need to validate a stations temperature by getting some history. But the results appear to favor a trend that does not exist, regardless of what you believe to be the truth.
venter
“This article by Steven Godard was about GISS’s temperature and how they adjusted past history. ”
they do not adjust past history. if a dataseries is too short they do not include it, as time goes by they can include more data.
:And don’t come and tell me ” different problem ” in capital letters. The problems are very well inter linked as it is this clique of Hansen, Mann, Schmidt, Santer et.all who are making all the noise about AGW based upon GISS data.”
based on giss data? hardly. Based on physics, supported by many different kinds of evidence.
So there’s no way they can claim 2010 as the warmest then??
They claimed 1998 was the warmest the next year 1999.
Only to tell us a decade later, they were wrong, they got better data
This seems to be their standard, so:
They will need at least a decade to “include more data” to let us know if 2010 is the warmest or not….
Yeh, I was a little animated last night. There are a couple of things that set me off. Condescension towards people that have shown they are more than capable of understanding complex thoughts.(I happen to like some of the people that were treated in such a contemptuous manner.) Treating rational numbers (temps) as some vague concept or more complex than imaginary numbers. And history revision. It seems, the above, mixed with a bit of beer and I have the grand ability to descend to the lowest common denominator.
My thanks to the moderators for not allowing my more base comments to be posted. My intentions were not to cast dispersions upon anyone, but rather to defend(I know, they don’t need my help.) the ones I viewed as wrongfully depicted. Ah, the road to hell……
My apologies if I’ve offended anyone.
latitude says:
August 31, 2010 at 9:20 am
“So there’s no way they can claim 2010 as the warmest then??”
lol, No, they can claim it now, but later a reverse cooling trend going back in time will be shown to where they really didn’t know what they were talking about but the next year really will be hottest evuh, even if the numbers don’t ascend to the previous hottest evuh, because the hottest evuh back then really wasn’t the same as the hottest evuh they depicted. It’s because mercury lowers as time passes, but only retroactively.
Its all very clear to me and quite justified because they use a thing called an algorithm. Plus it is in the computer code, so we know it is all legit.
Mr.Mosher,
You said
” they do not adjust past history. if a dataseries is too short they do not include it, as time goes by they can include more data.”
If that is not adjusting history, what is it? Adding new data sets to make claim different from what you have been making means you are altering the parameters of your observations and are rewriting history. History is what had happened and recorded before. So whether right or wrong, making alterations to the parameters and making new reporting showing a different trend is altering history.
And why should their current predictions of hottest ever 2010 be believed till they fully adjust it with new data series 10-12 years down the line? You can’t have it both ways. They are basing the claims on their data for sure and have stated it s many times. If the past estimates were not reliable or complete enough to be correct till 12 years, the same criteria should apply to their present data. So why don’t they say ” At present, we don’t know the entire truth and are making claims based upon partial data “. If they are truly scientific, they should add such disclaimers.
And as for your second statement
” based on giss data? hardly. Based on physics, supported by many different kinds of evidence.”
there are two issues. Hansen and co have been trumpeting about their hottest ever 2010 based upon GISS data. They certainly did not come to Moshtemp or to Jeff ID for their data.
The fact that UAH, CRU and RSS do not sow as 2010 as hottest and GISS is the only dataset of the 4 currently in use which says 2010 is the hottest is itself proof of their statements.
If you have any direct proof from them that they did not use GISS data to make their claims, please provide with references. And I’m talking about the GISS / RC / Tamino / Romm gang.
And as for physics, supported by different kinds of evidence, it’s a different story and we can debate on that viewpoint till the cows come home. There are many papers which have come out in the past months, reported here also, about the poor state of reliability of the surface temperature data, the reliability of the statistics, the fact that it has been shown that the Planck-Weighted greenhouse gas optical thickness of the earth s a constant, the fact that the models have been shown to be 200% – 400% wrong, the fact that UHI exists and has been shown to exert statistically significant bias on the land surface temperatures, the fact that clouds and oceans’ role has been poorly understood and not properly accounted for, the fact that solar activity and sunspots form an important part of the warming etc. etc., one can go on. There’s enough room and issues for debate and unlike the RC and GISS crowd, we can actually have a debate, on a separate thread, if you want.
Here it is OT and the thread is about the GISS Temperature analysis issues.
James Sexton says:
August 31, 2010 at 9:41 am
==========================
But James, we all know that 1998 (12 years ago) was the dark ages.
You can’t trust any of the temperature data from way back then……;-)
This “science” needs a much bigger shovel………
Steven Mosher says:
August 31, 2010 at 8:53 am
I’m afraid that sounds like the beginning of a circular argument to me. The data show it is warming because we know it is warming because the data say so. If you introduce a new reporting site there has to be at least a reasonable chance that the figures will be lower than the existing site.There is no reason per se why they should be higher.
And as Philjourdan points out, in your example there is no trend; both stations are showing a constant temperature. Station 2 may be higher but it always was, even when it wasn’t being included. You do not have better data by including it; all you have is more data.
You have created a 0.5 anomaly where no such anomaly exists. It looks to the layman like an inability to see the wood for the trees. Or alternatively a neat trick to confound the unwary.
Steven Mosher
The 1998 temperature was adjusted downwards years later. That is called “adjusting past history.” You focus on minute details and completely miss the big picture.
You display a classic case of “can’t see the forest for the trees.” You also display a classic case of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”