From Steve McIntyre: Left- Briffa reconstruction from Oct 5, 1999 Climategate email. Matches Briffa et al 2001 Plate 3 version up to 1960. Post-1960 values deleted in 2001 version shown in red; right – emulation of IPCC AR3 figure without trick. Briffa shown here in purple for emphasis.
Dr. Richard Muller calls out the “hide the decline” aka “Mike’s Nature Trick” on this YouTube video of a presentation he gave.
For some strong background, see Steve McIntyre’s Heartland 2010 presentation here (PDF)
Phil Clarke says:
March 20, 2011 at 9:44 am
You are all over the place in your response to me. If you want to address one of my posts, reference my words, focus on them, formulate some response to them, and then make your point or points.
Whether or not there is manmade global warming has nothing to do with the claim that Briffa, Jones, Mann, and all the rest of the Climategate Crew lied. Take Briffa as an example. If he had been unwilling to lie, then he would have forbidden Jones, Mann, and the others to publish a hockey stick that did not show the divergence that he discovered. Had they published anyway, he would have denounced them publicly. He would have opposed Gore’s movie and would have denounced it publicly. Anything less is lying.
If you think about the group interaction among Climategaters, Briffa is the one who was treated far worse than any other and the one whose scientific contribution was not only diminished but treated as not existing. My guess is that Briffa placed the Climategate emails on the unprotected server.
Theo Goodwin
March 20, 2011 12:58 pm
Phil Clarke says:
March 20, 2011 at 9:44 am
“Theo, are you saying the reduced sensitivity of recent tree-growth to temperature should have been the subject of a peer reviewed paper?”
Absolutely, it is Briffa’s most important contribution to science. If it had been published and not suppressed, no one would ever have seen the hockey stick.
Theo Goodwin
March 20, 2011 2:10 pm
Phil Clarke says:
March 20, 2011 at 9:44 am
“Theo, are you saying the reduced sensitivity of recent tree-growth to temperature should have been the subject of a peer reviewed paper?”
From the abstract of the paper you referenced, there is this:
“When averaged over large areas of northern America and Eurasia, tree-ring density series display a strong coherence with summer temperature measurements averaged over the same areas, demonstrating the ability of this proxy to portray mean temperature changes over sub-continents and even the whole Northern Hemisphere.
During the second half of the twentieth century, the decadal-scale trends in wood density and summer temperatures have increasingly diverged as wood density has progressively fallen. The cause of this increasing insensitivity of wood density to temperature changes is not known, but if it is not taken into account in dendroclimatic reconstructions, past temperatures could be overestimated.”
The first sentence says everything is cool with the data. The second sentence says something like “Oh, there is this little matter that the tree rings show declining temperature over the second half of the twentieth century and the cause is unknown but everything is cool.”
The abstract should have begun as follows: “My research provides powerful evidence that tree rings of the kind that I study have not been useful as proxies for temperature in the second half of the twentieth century.” Then he could have added the Warmista statement: “No doubt this can be explained away but I have not yet figured out how to do that; however, The Team let me publish this mealy-mouthed paper because I really need the publication.”
Theo Goodwin
March 20, 2011 2:21 pm
jcrabb says:
March 20, 2011 at 1:08 am
If you want to be taken seriously here, you cannot say “A said B would happen at C and B happened at C; therefore, A made a true prediction.” For example, I could say “My son will complain about tonight’s dinner when it is served at 6 pm” and then at 6 pm when my son complains I could conclude that I made a true prediction. The problems should be obvious. Number one, I state nothing that could be used by a neutral observer to explain or predict my son’s behavior; without such information, there can be no prediction. Number two, my son complains all the time but the fact that he complains all the time does nothing to enable an outside observer to explain or predict his complaint behavior. Number three, etc. If you do not have the necessary explanatory hypotheses, you have nothing that can be used for prediction. So, until you can present the necessary hypotheses in your own words, you are not discussing science.
Feet2theFire
March 20, 2011 9:48 pm
The video almost cuts off the real message of the video:
This is why I am now leading a study to re-do all this…
I am happy to hear this statement from the horse’s mouth, that THIS is the reason for the UC study.
It is also major that he said earlier (3:48):
And now what is the result in my mind? Quite frankly, as a scientist, I now have a lot of people whose papers I won’t read anymore.
That is one heavy trip – that a group of them has impugned their own work to the point that other scientists treat it as not true, simply because it is by that group. In other words, he doesn’t think of them as scientists anymore.
It was only a matter of time.
Also of import is that Muller early on (1:48) says that most scientists who matter do not think the Climategate files were hacked, but it was some “member of the team who was really upset with them.”
This UC study will be such a breath of fresh air. Come hell or high water, no matter which way their findings go, we will (hopefully) have something everyone will respect and be able to replicate.
jcrabb
March 21, 2011 2:54 am
Theo Goodwin says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:21 pm
The hypothesis is coral bleaching is primarily driven by sea temperature, Muller seemed to be suggesting otherwise and as I am not Marine Biologist I linked to a paper that supported the hypothesis.
Alexander K
March 21, 2011 9:27 am
I once knew an old chap who was a devoted Anglican and disliked Roman Catholics. He used to embarass his devout Anglican family during the communion service by refusing to recite the part of the Nicene Creed that states that ‘I believe in the Holy Catholic Church’ as he didn’t understand that ‘catholic, also means ‘universal’. Some of the Warmista who have popped up here debate the Hide The Decline actions of The Team and the lack of statistically-meaningful warming for the current decade (as outlined by one Prof Jones of UEA) with a similar level of understanding.
Icarus
March 21, 2011 9:36 am
[Snip. You can try posting again, but without the denier name-calling, the multiple accusations that the author is “lying”, etc. ~dbs, mod.]
Bill Illis
March 21, 2011 5:56 pm
Steve McIntyre has another very interesting finding on the “hide the decline”.
They also truncated the beginning of the line(s) as well as the post-1960 end of the line.
Hide the incline and hide the decline in one fell-swoop. Dr. Richard Muller’s comment about “you are not allowed to do this in science” is even more apropos now. http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/21/hide-the-decline-the-other-deletion/
Feet2theFire
March 23, 2011 4:55 am
@Viv Evans March 19, 2011 at 6:05 am:
The Team really ought not to be called ‘scientists’ any longer.
I think that is what Dr Muller was saying when he said he said
This is why I am now leading a study to re-do all this…
and
And now what is the result in my mind? Quite frankly, as a scientist, I now have a lot of people whose papers I won’t read anymore.
One scientist doesn’t need to “re-do” the work one thinks was done by other, real, scientists.
And if “people whose papers I won’t read anymore” doesn’t say, “These guys aren’t real scientists in my opinion,” what does?
Feet2theFire;
Actually, “re-do”ing is exactly what is supposed to happen in science (it’s called “replication”) but gets short shrift too often, frequently because journals are loathe to publish mere validation studies — especially when they come out negative. They just like the big initial “headline” reports, just like MSM “if it bleeds it leads” reportage and so on.
Calls for a “Journal of Negative Results” are not just jokes. Science-and-information theory teach that you get more from negative results than positive ones.
Phil Clarke says:
March 20, 2011 at 9:44 am
You are all over the place in your response to me. If you want to address one of my posts, reference my words, focus on them, formulate some response to them, and then make your point or points.
Whether or not there is manmade global warming has nothing to do with the claim that Briffa, Jones, Mann, and all the rest of the Climategate Crew lied. Take Briffa as an example. If he had been unwilling to lie, then he would have forbidden Jones, Mann, and the others to publish a hockey stick that did not show the divergence that he discovered. Had they published anyway, he would have denounced them publicly. He would have opposed Gore’s movie and would have denounced it publicly. Anything less is lying.
If you think about the group interaction among Climategaters, Briffa is the one who was treated far worse than any other and the one whose scientific contribution was not only diminished but treated as not existing. My guess is that Briffa placed the Climategate emails on the unprotected server.
Phil Clarke says:
March 20, 2011 at 9:44 am
“Theo, are you saying the reduced sensitivity of recent tree-growth to temperature should have been the subject of a peer reviewed paper?”
Absolutely, it is Briffa’s most important contribution to science. If it had been published and not suppressed, no one would ever have seen the hockey stick.
Phil Clarke says:
March 20, 2011 at 9:44 am
“Theo, are you saying the reduced sensitivity of recent tree-growth to temperature should have been the subject of a peer reviewed paper?”
From the abstract of the paper you referenced, there is this:
“When averaged over large areas of northern America and Eurasia, tree-ring density series display a strong coherence with summer temperature measurements averaged over the same areas, demonstrating the ability of this proxy to portray mean temperature changes over sub-continents and even the whole Northern Hemisphere.
During the second half of the twentieth century, the decadal-scale trends in wood density and summer temperatures have increasingly diverged as wood density has progressively fallen. The cause of this increasing insensitivity of wood density to temperature changes is not known, but if it is not taken into account in dendroclimatic reconstructions, past temperatures could be overestimated.”
The first sentence says everything is cool with the data. The second sentence says something like “Oh, there is this little matter that the tree rings show declining temperature over the second half of the twentieth century and the cause is unknown but everything is cool.”
The abstract should have begun as follows: “My research provides powerful evidence that tree rings of the kind that I study have not been useful as proxies for temperature in the second half of the twentieth century.” Then he could have added the Warmista statement: “No doubt this can be explained away but I have not yet figured out how to do that; however, The Team let me publish this mealy-mouthed paper because I really need the publication.”
jcrabb says:
March 20, 2011 at 1:08 am
If you want to be taken seriously here, you cannot say “A said B would happen at C and B happened at C; therefore, A made a true prediction.” For example, I could say “My son will complain about tonight’s dinner when it is served at 6 pm” and then at 6 pm when my son complains I could conclude that I made a true prediction. The problems should be obvious. Number one, I state nothing that could be used by a neutral observer to explain or predict my son’s behavior; without such information, there can be no prediction. Number two, my son complains all the time but the fact that he complains all the time does nothing to enable an outside observer to explain or predict his complaint behavior. Number three, etc. If you do not have the necessary explanatory hypotheses, you have nothing that can be used for prediction. So, until you can present the necessary hypotheses in your own words, you are not discussing science.
The video almost cuts off the real message of the video:
I am happy to hear this statement from the horse’s mouth, that THIS is the reason for the UC study.
It is also major that he said earlier (3:48):
That is one heavy trip – that a group of them has impugned their own work to the point that other scientists treat it as not true, simply because it is by that group. In other words, he doesn’t think of them as scientists anymore.
It was only a matter of time.
Also of import is that Muller early on (1:48) says that most scientists who matter do not think the Climategate files were hacked, but it was some “member of the team who was really upset with them.”
This UC study will be such a breath of fresh air. Come hell or high water, no matter which way their findings go, we will (hopefully) have something everyone will respect and be able to replicate.
Theo Goodwin says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:21 pm
The hypothesis is coral bleaching is primarily driven by sea temperature, Muller seemed to be suggesting otherwise and as I am not Marine Biologist I linked to a paper that supported the hypothesis.
I once knew an old chap who was a devoted Anglican and disliked Roman Catholics. He used to embarass his devout Anglican family during the communion service by refusing to recite the part of the Nicene Creed that states that ‘I believe in the Holy Catholic Church’ as he didn’t understand that ‘catholic, also means ‘universal’. Some of the Warmista who have popped up here debate the Hide The Decline actions of The Team and the lack of statistically-meaningful warming for the current decade (as outlined by one Prof Jones of UEA) with a similar level of understanding.
[Snip. You can try posting again, but without the denier name-calling, the multiple accusations that the author is “lying”, etc. ~dbs, mod.]
Steve McIntyre has another very interesting finding on the “hide the decline”.
They also truncated the beginning of the line(s) as well as the post-1960 end of the line.
Hide the incline and hide the decline in one fell-swoop. Dr. Richard Muller’s comment about “you are not allowed to do this in science” is even more apropos now.
http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/21/hide-the-decline-the-other-deletion/
@Viv Evans March 19, 2011 at 6:05 am:
I think that is what Dr Muller was saying when he said he said
and
One scientist doesn’t need to “re-do” the work one thinks was done by other, real, scientists.
And if “people whose papers I won’t read anymore” doesn’t say, “These guys aren’t real scientists in my opinion,” what does?
Feet2theFire;
Actually, “re-do”ing is exactly what is supposed to happen in science (it’s called “replication”) but gets short shrift too often, frequently because journals are loathe to publish mere validation studies — especially when they come out negative. They just like the big initial “headline” reports, just like MSM “if it bleeds it leads” reportage and so on.
Calls for a “Journal of Negative Results” are not just jokes. Science-and-information theory teach that you get more from negative results than positive ones.