While not really “secret”, one might describe it that way because unlike the many things Dr. Mann has been doing lately, there wasn’t one peep of press coverage about it. He helped organize this conference, and as we know Dr. Mann doesn’t shy away from reporting to the press on anything that helps his stature. Surprisingly, the usual science writers didn’t mention it, and you’d think they would, given all the major players that converged in Portugal for this event. So, it seems like they may have missed it too. Portuguese blogger “EcoTretas” only got word of this from a tip about a related story in a Portuguese newspaper. His essay is below, and there’s a lot more after that. – Anthony
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The ClimateGate Secret Meeting
A usual reader of the blog sent me yesterday an interesting news from a Portuguese newspaper. It deals with the classic Medieval Warm Period problem, in the most green Portuguese newspaper. I immediately recognized one of the worst environmental journalists in Portugal, dealing with one of my favorite issues. Interestingly enough, Ricardo Trigo, a portuguese climatologist, was trying to explain the pseudo-science behind climate change and global warming, confusing things like Greenland’s vikings and Maunder’s Minimum.
But what really interested me in the story was a reference to Phil Jones, the person in the center of the ClimateGate controversy.
And references to a conference in Portugal, regarding the Medieval Warm Period. I spent some time trying to figure out what had happened. Turned out that I had not read the news with attention: the conference had happened a month before!
Between 22 and 24 of September, a symposium entitled “The Medieval Warm Period Redux: Where and When was it warm?” was organized in Lisbon, Portugal. The Climategate mob was here, including Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Malcolm Hughes and Raymond Bradley. I bet the main point on the agenda was how “to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period“. The abstracts for the conference are available here. Probably, the best abstract of the symposium was for Malcolm K. Hughes (highlights are my responsibility):
| We meant the title of our 1994 review “Was there a Medieval Warm Period, and if so Where and When?” (Hughes and Diaz, 1994) to be read in two ways. Firstly, it was to be read quite literally. Secondly, it was meant to be ironic. The literal reading was rewarded by an attempt to identify and synthesize records thought to be appropriate to this task. Irony was used to imply that, since a clear and simple answer was not forthcoming from the review, it might be useful to reformulate the question. Please read the title of this abstract in the light of this explanation of the 1994 title.
The trajectories of these two concepts (“Medieval Warm Period” and “Medieval Climate Anomaly “) will be traced. A case will be made for the abandonment of both of them, on the grounds that they are inappropriate, uninformative, and that they very probably divert attention from more revealing ways of thinking about the Earth’s climate over the past two millennia. It is clear from many recent publications, especially many of the abstracts submitted for this meeting, that high-resolution paleoclimatology has moved firmly from the mode of descriptive climatology to that of physical climatology. As a result, there is little utility in picking over definitions of the geographic and temporal extent of putative epochs, especially in the Late Holocene. The pressing questions concern the dynamics of the climate system, and the relative roles of free and forced variations, whether the forcings are anthropogenic or not. |
All the information I’ve got till now makes me believe that this was an almost secret meeting. No news transpired, not even here in Portugal. Given the abstracts, and the one seen above, their intentions are clear! If Ricardo Trigo kept his mouth shut, nobody would probably hear about it. So I wish to thank my loyal reader for bringing this to our attention.
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Here’s more on this conference. First have a look at the attendees. It reads like a who’s who book of paleoclimatology. I’ve highlighted some of the more recognizable names.
The source of that list is the brochure, which you can download here. With all these paleo-bigwigs meeting in one place, surely somebody would have written about it?
It appears they are trying to rehabilitate the paleoclimatology so that it plays well in the next IPCC report. The main website has this to say about it:
We propose to revisit the MCA/MWP assimilating widespread and continuous paleoclimatic evidence in a homogeneous way and scale them against recent measured temperatures to allow a meaningful quantitative comparison against the 20th-century pace and magnitude of warming. It is the goal of the organizers to focus attention on this topic, so that the latest results will be considered in the next (fifth) assessment report of the IPCC.
[Annual mean NH temperature anomalies from their 1500 to 1899 means (°C) simulated by different models (lines) and compared with the concentration of overlapping NH temperature reconstructions (grey shading). Taken from Figure 6.13 of Jansen et al., 2007: Palaeoclimate. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon et al. (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.]
Among the topics to be discussed are:
• Reconciling multiple proxy climate records—what do the differences indicate regarding the scale of MCA/MWP climate?
• What do the latest modeling results tell us about possible forcing mechanisms during this period?
• What are some other impacts of climatic variability during the MCA/MWP regarding such topics as changes in ocean basin tropical cyclone activity?
• What were some of the key regional patterns of climatic anomalies during this time? How do they compare with 20th century patterns?
• In what specific ways does the post-1980 period, considered a time when the global warming signal is evident, different from the largest anomalous multidecadal periods of the MCA/MWP?
Clearly, they seem to be embracing the existence of the MWP, but at the same time once again they appear to be trying to figure out how to minimize it.
When you see things like this (from MBH98 co-author Malcolm K. Hughes) on the MCA/MWP:
A case will be made for the abandonment of both of them, on the grounds that they are inappropriate, uninformative, and that they very probably divert attention from more revealing ways of thinking about the Earth’s climate over the past two millennia.
And look at the attendee list and lack of press coverage, you realize it’s the same gang of people running the same game all over again.
The key is, will they learn to shoot straight this time?
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Its ironic that the word CABAL comes from the hebrew word CABALE which was a medieval mystical tradition.
Just a thought:
The Hockey Team must have worked out by now that hatching cunning plans by email is a tad risky, what with all the troublesome FOI legislation.
So suppose you wanted to hatch a plot to get Wegman to withdraw his report, so that the Hockey Stick can be rehabilitated, so the MWP can be repudiated…
What better way to organise such a ploy than over drinks in a hotel bar in Portugal?
Joel Shore says:
October 22, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Boy, scientists doing science (and without alerting the media!)…That does seem nefarious!
But don’t you think it’s interesting that it wasn’t splashed all over the place on the basis: “See? All these deniers keep claiming something called the Mediaeval Warm Period, so we’ve looked at their claims, and obviously they’re completely wrong, it probably didn’t happen and even if it did it really wasn’t important, move along, nothing to see here… ” sort of thing?
Incidentally, in the Roman Warm Period, grapes were certainly being grown up all the way up here in the Scottish Borders (latitude 55.6 north) and possibly further. As far as I know that wasn’t done in the Mediaeval Warm Period, but then wine drinking was a Roman thing, the Scots have never been very interested in it 🙂
There are thousands of academic conferences and symposia every year that attract no mainstream press coverage – I don’t think there’s anything remarkable about this one. The paleo community is still a small, incestuous and paranoid band, and it is a great pity that they haven’t been practically ignored but rather propelled to iconic status. But since they have been propelled to such prominence they have been subjected to a degree of scrutiny that they could not have foreseen – and we’ve seen the bad behaviour of The Team and their disgraceful incompetence. Whenever Mann appears he will now be considered a laughingstock, except by this community of course, but even this community (as revealed in Climategate emails) consider he is nasty, petulant and a loose cannon. There are surely many other minor areas of science behaving just as badly and incompetently, but their impact on the world is, thankfully, minimal. Not so this group, alas.
The meeting is listed on the Joint Office for Science Support website as an example of “the diversity and breadth of JOSS”. The meeting was announced in advance, and through the relevant channels, but it’s hardly likely to be well known outside this tightly-knit cabal. This is just business as usual for the paleo community. They’ve had it in for the MWP for years. And, yes, Michael Mann was joint organizer. Something else he can put on his 29 page Curriculum Vitae (his paper at Lisbon is on page 17) http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/cv/cv_pdf.pdf. From here we see also that he has been doing the rounds this month promoting his book ‘Dire Predictions’, citing Climategate as a ‘potent example of the politicization of science’ and making sure he gets the message out that he was wholly exonerated of any wrongdoing.
Hi, on the blog http://mittelalterlichewarmperiode.blogspot.com
Professor Wanner is talking about this meeting in German. There is also an interview about the MWP with Ljungqvist in English.
Our side’s lawyers should counter this claim by saying that US restriction on CO2 will have no real effect in light of Chinese & emerging world emissions.
In number of previous threads I wrote about NAP (North Atlantic Precursor), showing good correlation with CETs. Data for NAP for period pre 1600 is sparse and incomplete, so having some of the data available I plotted it (NAP 1100-1600) , and indeed indicates that there was a MWP.
Oops, I should have outdented that last paragraph, not indented it.
ROTFLMAO! now you owe me two keyboards and two monitors! The cat is ok this time as he seems to be avoiding the computer that has WUWT on the screen.
Surely all the subterfuge in the world by even this lot can’t trump a cooling planet. They said it would get warmer and it got colder instead. Even the lazy MSM will have to take notice of cooler climes. La Nina has made life on the mid north coast of NSW very pleasant indeed. Mid October and no heat waves yet. What a change from the last few years. BoM is trying it’s best to make 2010 the hottest ever but it’s hard going. The CSIRO says the current wet weather won’t last because they will lose a half billion in research money to study geosequestration. CO2 has to be a problem or many of the scientists are out of work. Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of [snip].
[not helpful and blog policy ~jove, mod]
Climate [snip] Hides the Medieval Warm Period.
These extremists are always on taxpayers dime.
Climate extremism equals higher taxpayer payouts and worldwide jollys.
[banned word in that context – blog policy ~jove, mod]
After the Emperor’s Cloak has fully unraveled, and CAWGism is Over, that should be the Larger Lesson of the affair.
Following the conference, a Team spokesperson declared the MWP and LIA were simply epicyclic events. The MWP is simply an object lesson in the dangers of tampering with the climate. The Modern Warm Period will be far more severe. with plagues, famine, fires, pestilence. Due to shrinking species size and increased storm activity, raining frogs will become a more frequent occurence.
The Team then adjourned to ride Lisbon’s No 18(?) tram, which if I’ve got the number right is one of Europe’s best and cheapest roller coasters. Does a nice loop around Lisbon, up and down it’s hills with ocasional stops for people to jump off and bounce parked cars out of it’s way. Lovely city, take hiking boots and visit the port museum to sample it’s port, ham anc cakes. Don’t plan on anything too strenuous after.
“Climatologist” – (Late 20th, early 21st Century) An individual who uses climate as an argument in an effort to significantly reduce global population for the benefit of a select group of likeminded individuals in search of Utopia.
Don’t know how anyone missed it.
Look how widely publicized it was.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Medieval+warm+period+redux%22+portugal&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7HPND_en&ei=fNbCTND5D4SBlAfk4dnFCg&start=0&sa=N
WUWT right near the top, so those must all be first reads for everyone. 🙂 And Michael Mann was very quick to add it to his CV! Funny he didn’t write an op-ed about it.
Anyway, all joking aside, I’d be careful about drawing conclusions one way or another about Briffa’s attendance. Right around when climategate broke, word was that he was ill.
vukcevic says:
October 23, 2010 at 4:01 am
In number of previous threads I wrote about NAP (North Atlantic Precursor), showing good correlation with CETs. Data for NAP for period pre 1600 is sparse and incomplete, so having some of the data available I plotted it (NAP 1100-1600) , and indeed indicates that there was a MWP.
======================
Is the data event for your ‘NAP11-16’ a consequence of the MWP (in which case it is not precursor = forerunner) ?
Hmm! It seems a pretty extensive list of participants.
How come Craig Lowell wasn’t included on the list?
More advocacy work by advocates masquerading as scientists. Paid for by the hard working taxpayers of the world. I am amazed at the arrogance and hubris of these people. Clearly these advocates are not stupid but apparently they can’t see the tsunami of anger headed their way over this obvious AGW fraud.
I dislike conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately, every once in a while a conspiracy theory turns out to be true.
I wasn’t invited! “Sob!!!”
These people are complete scoundrels. The real victim of their grubby machinations will be the integrity of science.
Pointman
The intellectual arrogance of the hockey team is mind-blowing!
There is excellent global evidence for the MWP, which allowed the Vikings to colonise Greenland (which was not only well documented by Viking colonists and historians but also evidenced by the artifacts left behind them) and to attempt to establish colonies on the continental USA. The same MWP allowed the Polynesians to carry out their tremendous voyages of discovery and settlement in the Pacific, using double-hulled sailing canoes and navigating using star-charts.
Reading English village records about the onset of the LIA is quite literally chilling and a pointer to how dangerous a markedly cooling climate is when crops fail, followed by livestock losses then the human population suffering massive losses through starvation and ill-health.
This appears to be a statement that is saying that combing through yet more proxy records and yet more statistical techniques is pointless. The statistical hockey stick is being thrown under the bus. This is an announcement of complete capitulation of McIntyre. The “proxy” record is not adequate to do what these people wanted it to do.
So, it appears the AGW adherents are listing against the established disciplines of History, Physics, and Statistics.