Quote Of The Week – AGW statistical futility

AP (American Politburo) – 14 December 2010
Mann, Bozo, et al release new Greenland Bristlecone pine study disproving alleged “Medieval Warm Period”
Cancun, Mexico – In an unscheduled announcement on the steps of the Sacrificial Hall just outside the Cancun Climate Conference, Michael Mann (renowned author, top government funding recipient, esteemed blogger, who also does occasional government funded political research) revealed his latest startling findings to glassy-eyed breathless throngs of believers, almost all slowly milling about, their clothing tattered, and their arms stretched out in front of them (unlike traditional zombies, virtually all of them had their palms up, and were mumbling something about UN grants).
Using temperature proxies laboriously dug up from beneath thousands of feet of ice in Greenland, Mann, Bozo, et al were able to successfully debunk the myth of the Medieval Warm Period. “Our data show that contrary to the deniers claims, temperatures were significantly colder during the Medieval time period — in fact, all of the trees we found from the Medieval time period and were buried, and I mean buried, under tons of ice. Using the latest developments in advanced statistical methods pioneered by Stieg, (his new time/temperature/location adjusting algorithm), called ‘Statistics SMEAR’ (Spreading Metadata Everywhere Annuls Results), we were able to make an actual mathematical proof that between 2000 BC and 1500 AD, the average Greenland sort of area temperature was no higher than it is today, on average, mostly.”
He went on to say “Besides that, the sudden die off ferns, parrots, crocodiles and virtually all other forms of sub-tropical life on Greenland simultaneously, which we pinned down to somewhere between 1200 and 1300 AD, just clinches it. If that doesn’t prove how cold it was in that averaged out time period, then frankly, I don’t know what will.”
In a shocking, but not surprising second announcement, given by Mann’s esteemed colleague (and frequent peer reviewer) Bozo (aka “The Clown”), the Team announced that in unearthing their new Greenland proxies they also stumbled upon a colony of over 275 frozen prehistoric cavemen. In an appeal for an emergency UN research and security grant of some 30 billion dollars, Bozo was quoted as saying “Normally, a couple hundred cavemen thawing out and rambling about wouldn’t be a big deal. But if they gather together and choose a leader, a “Captain Caveman” so to speak, well, then WE’VE GOT A REAL CRISIS ON OUR HANDS!!”

vukcevic says: at 11:19 I have tried to find out ratio of re-radiation against collisions with no success.
I have read and saved many articles over the past few years and a quick search doesn’t reveal an answer to the question as you have just phrased it. I did, just now find this comment by Dr. Roy S. and it is relevant:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/06/faq-271-if-greenhouse-gases-are-such-a-small-part-of-the-atmosphere-how-do-they-change-its-temperature/
Here is a site I’ve looked at before. Again, I don’t find the answer to the ratio question. Still, it helped me understand what was going on with IR and it might help others. It might also lead to other searches so I’m putting it here:
http://www.wag.caltech.edu/home/jang/genchem/infrared.htm

Hello Everyone:
So let’s ask ourselves a question. What if there isn’t global warming? What if the most reliable source (take your pick) said, “Hey no global warming” what then? Does this discount the failing hydrological system that ravishs the forests in EVERY part of the world. (Forget about drought ridden places that will probably experience this for many more hundreds of years or for good like the Gobi Desert) No global warming? Will a “no” change the smog and the uninhabitable places that are becoming more of a threat to us all and most prominent in China. Will all that change with a “NO!” What about that fact that the global ocean is becoming MORE acidic because of human activity therefore the photoplankton is dying. When it dies, we die. Breath in, breath out. CO2 is nonconvertible, in other words, once attached to the carbon, there’s no getting it back. Oxygen isn’t coming from outer space. Trees? nominal only produce about 10% Bacteria about 3% and the rest photoplankton, 87%. We’re so overpopulated that human activity will kill us. Hey even Jesus called Peter “Satan” Why? Not because of some silly-horned demon but because Peter was showing the material side too much. I don’t think Jesus, an ancient man, could supercede the “academia” of those times but surely he was on the right track. Will anything bring us closer to hell than the material world, the things we want which is destroying the planet. So I ask again what if the answer is “No” what then? Shouldn’t we be doing what we need to do no matter what the answer. Isn’t it for the most part quite irrelevant. If what I write sounds so….than how? Einstein didn’t tell us to find the world a friendly place, he just wanted us to ask the question! Cheers.

Acee, have a glass of wine and chill out…

Acee,
Stick around here. You’ll learn something. It might help with your apparent terror. We’re not going to be asphyxiated through lack of oxygen. As with CAGW, “Ocean acidification”, the scare, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and it’s phytoplankton, not photoplankton.
If you still feel the need to be fearful, be fearful of the next ice age ….. ermmmm yeah, chill out.

JamesS says:
December 14, 2010 at 9:57 am
When I read comments like the original quoted material, I wonder if these people are even scientists at all. There are two ways to determine the validity of an hypothesis: perform experiments or make predictions and verify their accuracy.
Yes, since when does the Scientific Method need a bunch of indentical Earths? And the truth instead is that ipcc Climate Science doesn’t need the Scientific Method. It only needs the Political Science of a classically pure Propaganda Operation.

John Peter says: December 14, 2010 at 9:59 am
“What about a statistical analysis of some climate science such as [ocean heat, sea ice, sea level and atmospheric temperature] … All steady now or heading down.”
Hi John. From a statistical perspective it is risky to assess ocean heat content, sea level and atmospheric temperature over short time horizons. It might be worthwhile applying standard trend analysis techniques on each of the above to estimate the magnitude of the trend as well as its confidence level. I think you’ll find that “steady now” or “heading down” may be optimistic assessments.
On a more general note, a driver can apply statistics to their vehicle usage, noting the gas utilized and miles travelled. Plotting them will yield a correlation, without implying causation. Statistics is a view from the outside in. An engine expert on the other hand understands the vehicle from the inside out and can explain causation well (though may not be able to estimate fuel consumption for a particular vehicle accurately). Both views are valid and complimentary.

The comments and expertise on thsi post have been so interesting, thank you.
Bender posted Dec 14, 2010 at 7.14pm
http://climateaudit.org/2010/12/14/mcshane-and-wyner-discussion-2/
‘ ..they either do not know what they are applauding, or do they do not really care as long as the policy momentum is sustained. This has been addressed in dozens of posts by Steve M over the years’
While I do not follow Rapaport’ view on peace his work on information dissemination is of interest :-
Around 1962 Anatol Rapoport wrote ‘we live in an age of belief – belief in the omnipotence of science. This belief is bolstered by the fact that the problems scientists are called upon to solve are for the most part selected by the scientists themselves. …Today in a greater measure than ever before, scientists sit at the decision-makers’ elbows and guide the formulation of problems in such a way that scientific solutions are feasible. Problems that promise solutions generally tend to go unformulated. Hence the faith in the omnipotence of science.
The self amplifying prestige of science among decision-makers has been further amplified in this period by the popularisation of the scientific aid to the task of decision making itself. This is game theory – a mathematical technique for the analysis of conflict …………’
Judith Curry now wishes to ‘engage’ with others. http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/24/engaging-the-public-on-the-climate-change-issue/
Curry minimises her field of respondents to ‘climate researchers, academics, technical experts from other fields, citizen scientists and the interested public’…… what do these proffered parameters in sampling reveal?
Scientists who inform politics exempt themselves from the primary producers who have had years of observation and experiment at hand and more recently choose scientific data to maximise THEIR produce. However they are now increasingly under the direction of government regulations and policy shifts.
Curry states ….’The CRU emails revealed a MODE of communicating climate science, whereby consensus and peer review and the media were used in an attempt to stifle what they viewed as misinformation being purveyed by merchants of doubt.’
As I understand, we now have an argument (a new hypothesis NOT previously put forward) that is debating ‘communicating science’ vs ‘science’. Or should I say what is marketed as ‘science’ to now be communicated [to the masses]. And to top this, it is stated by J Curry that only the hierarchy based on [her] invitation and thus sampling and therefore bias, can respond!
Is this not feedback of a kind?
Monbiot dissected Bellamy (5/2005) and is used by the media and communication specialists:- http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/climate.php#conc
We are speaking on communication rather than science. Was it Shannon or Nyquist, following a seminal paper on noise, that wrote of the pseudo social-scientists’ confusion?

wobble says:
December 14, 2010 at 10:23 am
Gaylon says:
December 14, 2010 at 9:48 am
My comment stems from last sentence, quoted from the storyline, below:
“Rather, the issue involves the combination of statistical analyses and, rather than versus, climate science.”
The implication here being that statistics and climate science *already* exhibit a ‘versus’ relationship. In other words: they are already *divorced*. My apparently obscure point was that the AGW crowd has manipulated the SPC of climate science (as many have shown) to make inappropriate claims and report results unsupported by the data. These were the people (CAGW) that *divorced* the two disciplines and then prostituted the statistical analysis to get it to say what they wanted it to say.
As stated elsewhere above, the first sentence of the story is a truism and therefore meaningless. The last sentence, IMHO, is a close second and also meaningless due to the fact that most people here have been persuing legitimate SDA to establish how much weight should be put to the climate data. When that finally happens we then find out that the answer is: no weight at all. Products, projections and predictions that are no better than random noise. And what are the next logical steps that our political leader’s want to continue to take? Spend more $billions$.
After 10 years of trying to get these guys to fess-up/own up to blatant “mistakes” they come back with this, “…the issue involves the combination of statistical analyses and, *rather than* versus, climate science.” The first and last sentences he should have just left out, the rest is common knowledge but is too little, too late. That does not, however, degrade the substance or import of the comment IMO.
This guy also said in the report,
“…If achieving these goals requires that we do not continue with questionable assumptions, nor merely offer small fixes to previous approaches, nor participate in uncritical debates, so be it…” Read: we offered questionable assumptions (duh), small fixes (as a faux attempt to placate criticisms), and refused debate, so be it…
and later,
“…Second, even if we accept the “no-hockey” conclusion, is it critical to the climate policy debate? I believe not, though I acknowledge that some policy makers and a portion of the general public do not understand the issues…”
Well, I have to disagree for all the obvious reasons: namely that the Mann’s et al paleo-products were the foundational kick-off of the global money laundering scheme kicked off by the Al Gore and the IPCC. And the numbers are showing that a growing portion of the general public does understand the issues as support for AGW continues to wane.