Gavin Schmidt, Michael Mann, and Scott Rutherford have written a comment letter to the Annals of Applied Statistics to the Hockey Stick busting McShane and Wyner paper covered on WUWT in August.
It’s quite something. Here’s the M&W graph:
It only took reading the first paragraph of the Team paper for me to get cheesed off. Emphasis mine:
McShane and Wyner (2010) (henceforth “MW”) analyze a dataset of “proxy”climate records previously used by Mann et al (2008) (henceforth “M08”) to attempt to assess their utility in reconstructing past temperatures. MW introduce new methods in their analysis, which is welcome. However, the absence of both proper data quality control and appropriate “pseudoproxy” tests to assess the performance of their methods invalidate their main conclusions.
Why am I cheesed off?
The sheer arrogance of claiming improper “data quality control” when Mann himself has issues with his own papers such as incorrect lat/lon values of proxy samples, upside down Tiljander sediment proxies, and truncated/switched data, is mind boggling. It’s doubly mind boggling when these errors are well known to thousands of people, and Mann has done nothing to correct them but then speaks of data quality control issues in rebuttal. And yet Schmidt defends these sort of things on RC. It’s like the Team never read the McShane Wyner paper, because they clearly said this about data issues:
We are not interested at this stage in engaging the issues of data quality. To wit, henceforth and for the remainder of the paper, we work entirely with the data from Mann et al. (2008)
So MW used Mann’s own data, made it clear that their paper was about methodology with data, and not the data itself, and now the Team is complaining about data quality control?
The Team egos involved must be so large that the highway department has to put out orange road cones ahead of these guys when they travel. And they wonder why people make cartoons about them:
They go on to whine about the MWP being “inflated”.
MW’s inclusion of the additional poor quality proxies has a material affect on the reconstructions, inflating the level of peak apparent Medieval warmth, particularly in their featured “OLS PC10”
Well, here’s the thing gents; you don’t KNOW what the temperature was during the MWP. There are no absolute measurements of it, only reconstructions from proxy, and the Team opinion on what the temperature may have been is based on assumptions, not actual measurement. You can’t set yourself up as an authority on knowing whether it was inflated or not without knowing what the temperature actually was. They also rail about “poor quality proxies” (their own) used in MW. Like these?
Half the Hockey Stick graphs depend on bristlecone pine temperature proxies, whose worthlessness has already been exposed. They were kept because the other HS graphs, which depend on Briffa’s Yamal larch treering series, could not be disproved. We now find that Briffa calibrated centuries of temperature records on the strength of 12 trees and one rogue outlier in particular. Such a small sample is scandalous; the non-release of this information for 9 years is scandalous; the use of this undisclosed data as crucial evidence for several more official HS graphs is scandalous. And not properly comparing treering evidence with local thermometers is the mother of all scandals.
Read the entire Team response here, comments welcome.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notyet/inpress_Schmidt_etal_2.pdf
Backup location in case it falls down a rabbit hole: inpress_Schmidt_etal_2
For balance, the McShane and Wyner paper is available here: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/mcshane-and-wyner-2010.pdf ======================
h/t to poptech
======================
UPDATE: Here are some other views:
Jeff Id, The Air Vent:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/ostriches/
Luboš Motl, The Reference Frame:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/09/schmidt-mann-rutherford-just-clueless.html
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John Whitman says:
September 23, 2010 at 5:56 am
“Now, that power base looks so much diminished that they are left with debating in the stark light of day in public.”
‘…stark light of day…’ as a chosen response to the MW inference of ‘where the sun doesn’t shine’ perhaps?
Owen says:
September 23, 2010 at 5:41 am
This fuss will be moot in 20 years when average global temps have continued on their upward trajectory, rising clearly above the MWP.
——Reply:
This fuss will be moot in 20 years when average global temps have NOT continued on their upward trajectory, rising clearly above the MWP.
I can guess just as easily as you can.
And if Mann et al have problems with the data used by MW, perhaps once and for all they SHOULD PROVIDE EXACTLY THE DATA THAT THEY DID USE. To do otherwise is to sit there smug and unaccountable. That’s the problem, folks. They’re elitists that think they know what’s best for all of us and don’t have to show why or how, yet they take taxpayer dollars in doing so. They’re really pseudo scientists. They should be thrown out.
Since the CAGW’s are trying to use psychology to explain “denialism”, perhaps they could read up on defense mechanisms, such as PROJECTION.
“Projection is a defense mechanism that involves taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people. For example, if you have a strong dislike for someone, you might instead believe that he or she does not like you. Projection works by allowing the expression of the desire or impulse, but in a way that the ego cannot recognize, therefore reducing anxiety.”
Simply, Mann is claiming that McShane and Wyner use data (Mann’s) of poor quality because he can’t accept that he is guilty of using data of poor quality. He misses the point (blocks it out) that MW were investigating methodology by using Mann’s own data.
Funny if it weren’t so sad.
In a recent WUWT post, one contributor wrote:
PaulH says:
September 22, 2010 at 6:55 pm
I know this is very OT, but “grinning like a banshee” doesn’t sound right. My Irish folklore is rustier than my old Chevy, I thought Banshees screamed when death was imminent.
========
Well, now we know how it sounds when the CAGW Banshees scream!! Very unpleasant, I expect we’ll hear more Banshees before this is over.
wayne says:
Someone explain to me and maybe others how anyone would know if a tree ring indicated warmth or merely wetness for a given year. Seems trees in warm dry years don’t grow much but neither do cold wet years. Is this just a bunch of malarkey?
It’s even worse that that. ‘Growth’ is a function of ALL inputs. 2 others that complicate things: Say an old tree is in front of a young one (blocking sunlight). Then it blows over (or loses a limb). Suddenly the young tree gets more sun and grows much faster. Sun competition is a major factor in plant growth.
Bear Poo. Turns out that a major fertilizer distribution function in the forest is provided by bears eating salmon then “doing what bears do in the forest”… So say your bear has a favorite poo tree…. then the bear dies, or a picks a new favorite tree… (Might our fishing salmon to the limit explain part of the recent tendency of rings to not track tempertures and the “hide the decline” problem?)
There are a large number of such confounders. Some plants put chemicals in the soil to suppress the growth of other species (walnuts do this which is why the ground under them is often semi-bare). So you need to know what was growing NEAR each tree over the life of the tree. If a minor landslide happens it can change water runoff patterns. What was the landslide pattern up slope? The erosional changes? Did more (or less) plants grow in upslope and change the amount of water reaching the target tree?
So I can see the case for tossing out some trees due to such effects. But this also then opens the door to bias in cherry picking trees that support your thesis (deliberate or self deceptional…) and the smaller the sample of trees the higher the risk.
So yeah, I’m highly suspicious of the tree ring data. Then splicing on a broken instrument record at the end is just soooo bogus. The result is just an exercise in ‘splice artifacts, errors, and data selection’.
Sorry for the ignorance,
Never be sorry for knowing the limits to your knowledge. FEAR belief that you know what isn’t so… Down that path lies AGW…
REPLY: I covered the uncertainties associated with tree growth and Liebigs law here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/28/a-look-at-treemometers-and-tree-ring-growth/
This makes an excellent primer to help understand why tree rings are fraught with uncertainty. – Anthony
A real problem is that these people actively teach and montor other young scientists. How many times does a grad. student publish a paper, usually an offshoot of their thesis, that criticizes the work of the `prof.’ Never. So they keep generating more and more `scientists’ who research, interpret and publish crap.
“The data you used, which was our data, is only right when we use it.”
Makes sense to me.
Why all the fuss?
RockyRoad says:
September 23, 2010 at 6:42 am
Owen says:
“September 23, 2010 at 5:41 am
This fuss will be moot in 20 years when average global temps have continued on their upward trajectory, rising clearly above the MWP.
——Reply:
This fuss will be moot in 20 years when average global temps have NOT continued on their upward trajectory, rising clearly above the MWP.
I can guess just as easily as you can.”
Sorry, Rocky,
But if average global temps rise, it still doesn’t validate AGW/CC/CD.
The temperature will rise, it will fall, and there is at present no way to affix “blame” to either Mother Nature or Man, or Mann, for that matter.
I can’t resist…..”Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Mann, Dr. Howard…”
I completely agree, j.pickens.
To me what is going to be interesting is when MW reply to the Mann et al comments and the journal prints them. I think the team is forgetting they are not playing in one of their pet journals this time, where they can not only block papers but comments to papers or responses to comments they make thus allowing the Team to have the last word.
Of course the Team will ignore the response, just like they ignore the Wegman report and the NAS finding that Mann was wrong in MBH 98. This comment was just to establish the RC “Talking points” for why MW is to be ignored.
Omg! The quote “the absence of both proper data quality control and appropriate “pseudoproxy” tests … invalidate their main conclusions” is STUNNINGLY disengenuous.
They clearly wrote that as the ‘money quote’ to be referred to again and again – by people unfamiliar with the issues.
At some point – the University administrators will need to step in to preserve the reputations of their Institutions – as its clear the Community of climate science isn’t going to intervene. This is amazing stuff.
OT…Excuse me, I was away for 30-40 minutes…Where did the the “Frau Dött Klimaskeptiker” thread go??? Just a coffee break??
This sort of denial goes on all the time.
My doctoral thesis committee head complained when I quoted in my thesis the known fatty acid composition of horse blood serum. He said that those analyses were poorly done. My retort, “Your lab DID these analyses!” He shut up.
They have dug themselves a paradigm hole and cannot conceive of how to get out.
In other words, thermometer data grafted onto the end of proxy data. The classic comparison of apples and rocks.
Mann et al have already lost most of their credibility with their bogus, media orientated hockey stick graph. They really should have kept quiet over the McShane and Wyner paper, which convincingly kills the hockey stick and shows that natural climate oscillation is the norm.
E.M.Smith says: at 7:01 am
wayne says: at 3:25 am
Wayne, Re: tree rings
Over the previous two years there has been so much discussion on tree ring issues on WUWT and at CLIMATE AUDIT and elsewhere (some of it very technical) that it will take you many hours of reading to catch up. However, if you have not read a very early report by Stephen McIntyre with the title
“How do we “know” that 1998 was the warmest year of the millennium?”
Links here: http://climateaudit.org/2008/05/22/ohio-state-presentation/
NOTE: the first link (11 MB) didn’t work, but the second one is a reproduction of the paper and it still works (1 MB).
This is a conference presentation given on May 16, 2008. In it he explains who he is and how he became involved. He maintains the site called Climate Audit (CA) on which this paper is found. This can be a rather technical site focusing on data issues and methods of analyses.
Here is a link to one of the WUWT tree ring posts and it has links to others:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/30/yamal-treering-proxy-temperature-reconstructions-dont-match-local-thermometer-records/
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
On a scatological note:
Years ago salmon were so plentiful in the rivers and streams of the Pacific Northwest one could wade into a stream and use a pitchfork to relieve the waters of hundreds. In the 1800s soldiers near the Boise River (tributary to the Snake River) in southern Idaho used salmon as targets to practice their marksmanship. Apparently when salmon are numerous a bear will eat the eggs of fish and discard almost all the rest so one doesn’t have to invoke bear poo for the fertilizer effect.
If they can pull coherent temp data out of bristlecones, we may end up with a new hockey stick to debunk based on traffic cones. You shouldn’t have mentioned the darned things.
That’s the part I can’t believe — it looks so obvious to a layman like me. Sure it could be correct, but when I slap red paint on a green wall, I don’t stand back and say, “ohh, look, the green paint changed it’s colour! We have self-changing paint!”
And the only comeback people have is, “well they’re scientists, don’t you think they know what they are doing?”, and technical people themselves will say this, even if they don’t understand it themselves. It is like rational people suddenly decided to believe in the “guru principle”, as in like, “yes those women feel abused by him, but he is using a divine wisdom which we can’t understand!”
In that sense, religious people can have a better chance at sniffing out bad science, than do supposedly rational scientism people, who have an unshakable faith in science saving the planet. One can imagine how at least, religious people are used to having to deal with complex matters of uncertainty. And that’s ironic.
Their “refutation” is merely so that activists can claim “it was refuted”.
I think it shows just how much their work is driven by activist organisations.
My take on it is here
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/ostriches/
These guys keep pretending they’ve done everything right.
The burden of proof has always been on the warm earthers. They didn’t succeed because the hypothesis was pin-headed from the start. Sol beams down from on high and says: ITSS!
We did not fall off the edge of the earth, nor will we. Columbus proved the world is round by observation, and this is happening now to Mann and his wealthy elitist sycophants.
Stefan says:
September 23, 2010 at 8:06 am
“Their “refutation” is merely so that activists can claim “it was refuted”.
I think it shows just how much their work is driven by activist organisations.”
Nailed it.
Phil Clarke says:
September 23, 2010 at 2:45 am
[snip]
“So that claim is false, Mann08 includes a plot without Bristlecones, which supports the conclusions of the paper, so that one is false too. Remove these and the ad-hominems about ego etc, and what remains?”
I don’t think this was addressed directly enough. The diversion the Team is using is: to try to establish a claim that MM used a different set or subset of the whole group available. MM+GS also claimed that the selection inflated the temperature of the MWP. This is all but an admission that they selected series that reduced the apparent temperature.
This means they are still claiming that is it warmer now than in the MWP. They are claiming that if you use ‘good quality data’ (the correct set) the MWP can be shown not to be as warm as now.
This is the diversion they want discussed – who used what sets of data – not the method of calculation, which was what McIntyre complained about and which MW show was a correct complaint. They verify McIntyre’s demolotion of the hockey stick which was about the method, not the data.
So: the MW paper is NOT about data is it about calculation methods. They do not show that the MWP was warmer. That idea is someone’s subjective opinion of the general shape of the squiggles on the page.
MW show that the method of calculation is useless. The fact that it gives a higher squiggly line is coincidental. It does not require ‘good data’ to examine a method of calculation. If the method is no good (can’t tell you what the temperature is within an acceptable rage of error) then it will not matter much what crummy or slightly less crummy data you feed in.
It is interesting to see how skilfully the diversion has worked even in this discussion. There are many coments about which data set should have been used or not. That is not what the MW paper is about. They show comprehensively that nothing can be determined by data sets even for ones that are known to be ‘very good’. Read the paper and look carefully at the predictions made in the box and out of the box. If the method can’t predict reliably temperatures within a known data set, how can it accurately predict temperatures outside the set?
MW does not show that the temperature was higher. They show that no one has any idea what the temperatures were, if the MM method is used. The method reveals nothing meaningful. You might as well throw a dart at a board or a calendar, as McIntyre and McKittrick already showed.