by Ryan O’Donnell via Climate Audit
For those who are not mathematically inclined and did not entirely follow the discussion about Eric’s reconstruction in the previous post, well, a picture is worth a thousand words.
This is what happens to Eric’s reconstruction when you:
Top row: Add the designated trends to the Peninsula stations
Second row: Remove the designated trends from the Peninsula stations
Third row: Treat Byrd as a single station, and add the designated trends to Byrd and Russkaya
Fourth row: Treat Byrd as a single station, and remove the designated trends to Byrd and Russkaya
Please note how Eric’s reconstruction responds quite well to changes in the Peninsula . . . except it teleconnects them to the Ross Ice Shelf and the south pole.
Please also note how Eric’s reconstruction does not respond at all to changes in the only two West Antarctic land stations they used: Russkaya and Byrd.
Anything that he “got right” . . . as I said before . . . was by accident.
I am quite tired of people who are willing to spend tens of pages during a review making claims without bothering to check. I am quite tired of people who are willing to spend a couple of hours writing posts about how they “got it right” and I “got it wrong” without bothering to check.
Eric . . . feel free to confirm this for yourself. I assume you have your own code handy.
UPDATE: Bishop Hill takes this essay and further reduces it in the crucible of truth. His end paragraph really sums it up well.
James Delingpole also sums it up nicely here
I took a look at RC`s thread abut this, steig has refused to answer if he did in fact review the paper, and is in fact playing the innocent.
I didn’t really understand the issue until I read the Bishop Hill post. That makes it PERFECTLY clear. All I can say is…WOW.
“”””” Jeff Id says:
February 8, 2011 at 10:20 am
Should say left “””””
Dang Jeff; you had me going there for a while, thinking the whole peninsula had fallen off into the sea there on the right .
Whew; things aren’t nearly as bad as we thought.
Figures don’t lie. But liars can figure.
Well done gentlemen…
First it was ‘Mann’ then it was ‘Hanson’ and ‘Gore’ and ‘Schmitt’ and ‘Jones’ now it seem the current hate figure is ‘Steig’. So much for reconciliation…
Careful with the nails btw, place like WUWT claim to have hammered in so many final ones over so many years folk might start to think you over play your case just a teeny weeny bit.
Allen says:
February 8, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Forget Big Oil… let’s talk about the corruption of climate science due to Big Government.
=======================================================
To be sure, big Oil played a huge role in the corruption of climate science. For instance, go here http://www.energybiosciencesinstitute.org/ …… now scroll all the way down to the bottom……see the Big Oil emblem? This particular enterprise cost BP 500 million.
thegoodlocust says:
February 8, 2011 at 12:17 pm
“Fraud is the only word to describe this. Bishop Hill does an excellent job of explaining it.”
I don’t think there is evidence to say that Steig’s original work was an attempt to defraud the public. However, his subsequent actions to prevent the publication of work that revealed the defects in his original work and his actions on the NASA funded website realclimate.org to edit people’s comments so as to misrepresent the debate should be examined. When are these guys going to learn that the coverup is the thing that gets them in trouble.
“If you Google “Eric Steig” now, the Delingpole article and Josh’s cartoon of him tops the entries, even above his Univ. of Washington faculty web page listing. Yay Google.”
Check back tomorrow. Google are part of the warmist disinformation crowd and now that you have highlighted this little snippet, it may well disappear shortly as did Climategate from their searches.
Peter H says:
“So much for reconciliation…”
The sceptics at least made an effort to show up. BTW- did you even wonder why Ryan is so upset? Likely no.
Well there is no chance of Steig arguing his case anywhere except in the echo chamber that is RC judging by his latest comments. His defensiveness, while understandable in the situation, is doing him absolutely no favours whatsoever. RC is marginalising itself ever more so from the rest of the community (something I would not have thought possible, but hey). These guys refuse to play the game by the rules and then whine and carry on when they are pulled up for their misbehaviour. “Redefining peer review” certainly wasn’t taken out of context in the ClimateGate emails eh?
Editor: When will you submit your review?
Reviewer: In a month or so.
Ed: A month? Have you started work?
R: I have completed 50 pages of the review.
Ed: 50 pages! You have gone off the deep end. Forget it. I will use the other reviews.
TWILIGHT ZONE
R: Give me a little time. The review will be only 88 pages when I am finished.
Ed: Are you sure you can establish what you are after?
R: Absolutely!
Ed: In this important case, I can wait. The authors will understand after they read your important 88 page essay.
THE YEAR 2525
Author: You sent me a review that is 88 pages long.
Ed: Yes, it is long but the scientific question is very important.
A: I am surprised you read a review that is 88 pages long.
Ed: Yes, normally five pages is maximum, but the scientific question is very important.
A: The reviewer attempts to refute my thesis.
Ed: Yes, normally…but the scientific question…
A: Did you know that the reviewer is adamantly opposed to my thesis?
Ed: Yes, normally we don’t do that but the scientific question…
…
Sorry, it does not wash. What happened to O’Donnell would never happen in the real world. IMHO, it could happen only among fanatics who are fully detached from their real world activities and, of course, responsibilities.
“(snip) now it seem the current hate figure is ‘Steig’.”
Hate? Really?
While I realize most Progressives (NeoFabians) have a tendency to explain their positions in emotional terms, I can assure you, that any “hate” in this case, (and in all the others you listed), are simply a projection of your own frustrations with having your worldview upended. Over and over and over.
We think he’s wrong, and that he has ulterior motives. We also think he’s kinda sneaky. Sorry, but that’s the depth of it.
Any “hate” you are feeling is self-contained.
Okay, I contacted the ombudsman’s office at his university and they referred me to the relevant regulations on academic conduct. I believe Steig blatantly violated this section here:
“G. Intentional and malicious interference with the scientific, scholarly, and academic activities of others. To warrant a removal for cause or reduction of salary, conduct falling within these categories must in a substantial way adversely affect the faculty member’s or the victim’s academic, scholarly, or professional ability to carry out his or her University responsibilities.”
http://www.washington.edu/admin/rules/policies/FCG/FCCH25.html#2551
And I fully intend on filing a complaint unless Mr. O’Donnell is in the process of doing so.
From what I understand, and please correct me if I am in error, Steig, as “Reviewer A,” prevented the publication of a paper for 10 months by throwing up 88 pages of comments in his way since it was highly critical of his own work. After a new reviewer was brought in to break the deadlock and get the paper published, Steig subsequently criticized O’Donnell for using a statistical method that Steig himself had told him to use.
I’ve followed this newest and delicious controversy, aptly titled “RealClimategate” by Delingpole, all on the net. As it was so well said over at Bishop Hill: “Game, set and match”. Might now want to focus on the ethics of this issue and how to fix it. And in the meantime “Pass the popcorn”!
On a personal note though, I don’t take any research results +/- one degree F seriously – on either side. Not even with a million lines of code of statistics software. We humans are so lame when it comes to accurately measuring the planet’s temperature that all this would be funny if it wasn’t costing us billions, but hey, we’re really good at arguing about it!
A couple of one liners come to mind:
“To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.”
“With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.”
Re: mpaul says:
February 8, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Sorry but fraud is the only word for it.
Remember way back when Steig threatened Mark Morano with libel charges over this?
I hope he does. RC could use an open and shut case of stfu.
If they can’t get 1 continent right how could they get the globe right?
that is all.
James Sexton says:
“To be sure, big Oil played a huge role in the corruption of climate science. For instance, go here http://www.energybiosciencesinstitute.org/ …… now scroll all the way down to the bottom……see the Big Oil emblem? This particular enterprise cost BP 500 million.”
The U.S. government alone spent $6.6B in one fiscal year on climate science and the .
That’s only three orders of magnitude more spending from one national government. So I think we can keep our sights trained on Big Government.
This issue of Steig mostly likely being Reviewer A has just reminded me of Anthony’s surface stations paper. Is that currently also being mangled in the peer review process? I bet some of the same crew (CRU?) are vetting it.
Yes
Two points.
It is now explicitly stated by Delingpole that Steig was reviewer A. I am not clear that this, despite all the verbiage, has been established. I am not one to give any quarter to a member of the team but I do like facts before opinion or supposition. If I am mistaken and someone knows to the contrary please tell me.
Otherwise I make the point which I have many times before, the Antarctic Peninsula is a volcanic region which, as far as we can tell appears to quite active at the moment. As it may have been in the past and may be in the future. We simply do not know.
But we do know it is currently generating an awful lot of geothermal heat: which tends to keep things a bit warm no doubt.
Kindest Regards
At RealClimate Steig says of o’Donnell – “His allegations have no basis in fact. ”
“Did my questions get snipped/moderated and if so, why? I should have kept a copy of my questions in case they failed to make it through. They were perfectly legitimate questions giving you a chance to explain this issue from your side rather than letting folks like myself simply take O’Donnell at his word that you acted in an unprofessional and potentially dishonest manner. Simply asking you to clarify your position.
1) Were you, as he states, one of the referees on his paper?
2) If so, do you think that the conflict of interest that would seem to come from that being the case is meaningful and if not, why not?
3) Did you, as part of your review, ask that they change their method only to later criticize that method?
Like it or not, if you don’t directly address these accusations, the impression lay people are left with is that the whole thing smacks of dishonest use of peer review.
I am not qualified to suss out the science, but i am qualified to understand O’Donnell’s accusations. I am willing to accept that there is something lost and that he is misrepresenting the situation, but if you waive away these type of questions and quash those who try to ask, what are we left to think?
[Response: Perhaps you should try thinking, instead of asking me what to think. Let me turn this question around on you: why do you take O’Donnell at his word? And now he’s my word: His allegations have no basis in fact. Now you have my word against his. Now try thinking,-eric]”
Its a wonderful spectator sport watching the scientists on either side of an issue getting down to the level of schoolyard invective and mutual accusations of duplicity and dishonourable conduct. Especially when its over an issue that is inherently undeciderable without copious amounts of new information that is unlikely to be forthcoming in the imediate future.
I haven’t seen such melodrama over the unknowable since the great evolution of human bipedality controversy of the 1980s. Now that really did have some quality invective exchanged between distingushed scientists !
Light bed time reading:-
http://vis.computer.org/VisWeek2010/ IEEE Computer Society
links of interest
Keynote Speaker has paper on ‘Thinking about Weather…’ and
‘How to Lie and Confuse with Visualisation’
March 2008 221p The Value of Spatial Information: the impact of modern spatial information technologies on the Australian economy (Acil Tasman)
http://www.crcsi.com.au/uploads/publications/PUBLICATION_323.pdf
[Response: Perhaps you should try thinking, instead of asking me what to think. Let me turn this question around on you: why do you take O’Donnell at his word? And now he’s my word: His allegations have no basis in fact. Now you have my word against his. Now try thinking,-eric]
Well he says he did not review the paper and that Jeff is a liar, Catfight 🙂
Steig over at RC says that the allegations made against him by O’Donnell are untrue and that their paper was “lousy”. So – what’s the reality?
Why do we always have to see this in climate science? Both “sides” repeatedly unable to even demonstrate what the basic facts and or thruths are in any given set of circumstances, even in something so minor as one published paper and another criticising it? Jesus H Corbett!! – it cant be that hard for both to discuss it like grown-ups, but I increasingly think that I am listening to the bickering of children in the area of climate science. For laymen this has become just so wearysome and I can make an educated guess for the reason that recent polls show people to have lost interest in AGW. It seems to me that this is just as likiely to be because they can’t be arsed anymore with listening to the incessant bickering as much as they are tired with catastrophe warnings and both sides shouting that everyone on the other “side” is either incompetent / crooked / brainwashed / interested in money. Still doesn’t tell us, the public who are supposed to pay for it all, anything about what the true position is and even I (as a relatively widely read sceptic) don’t really know the truth.
The climante science “community” has, and continues to, let us all down badly.
Guess I’ll just go and pay those taxes then.
But Steig did not answer a very simple question.
Was he a reviewer of Ryan’s paper?
If he is claiming that Ryan’s statements are untrue, all he has to do is to come and say
” I was not a reviewer of Ryan’s paper. ”
What’s his problem in making that simple statement? That would quash all arguments about his conduct. He’s piruoetting around talking obliquely instead of saying one simple sentence loud and clear to everyone.
And if he was a reviewer, then he needs to answer these two further questions.
1.] Why did you pretend that you never saw the paper, to Lucia and others?
2.] Did you ask Ryan to make changes in his methods and after he did it criticise the same changes in your RC post?
And such wishy washy talk which can be interpreted any way is the hallmark of the AGW scientists crowd. They try that chestnut all the time.
So if Steig does not answer a specific one line whether he was a reviewer or not of Ryan’s paper, it’s obvious that he is lying.
And I’d bet my house on Ryan’s honesty and the RC mob’s dishonesty, any day. This is not a one off situation. The RC mob have been consistently dishonest with intent to deceive.