NOTE: since this is clearly an important finding with far reaching implications, this will be a “top post” at WUWT for the next couple of days. I urge other bloggers to spread the word. – Anthony
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Just when you think the bottom of the Hockey Stick rabbit hole has been reached, Steve McIntyre finds yet more evidence of misconduct by the Team.
The research was from Briffa and Osborn (1999) published in Science magazine and purported to show the consistency of the reconstruction of past climate using tree rings with other reconstructions including the Mann Hockey Stick. But the trick was exposed in the Climategate dossier, which also included code segments and datasets.
In the next picture, Steve shows what Briffa and Osborn did – not only did they truncate their reconstruction to hide a steep decline in the late 20th Century but also a substantial early segment from 1402-1550:
As I’ve written elsewhere, this sort of truncation can be characterized as research misconduct – specifically falsification. But where are the academic cops? Any comment from Science magazine?
Steve also discusses the code underlying the plot and you can see how the truncation is a clear deliberate choice – not something that falls out of poorly understood analysis or poor programming.
In the comments, Kip Hansen posts the following:
In reference to Mann’s Trick….obliquely, yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on Zicam (a homeopathic nasal spray) ruled in part:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/health/23bizcourt.html?_r=1&hpw
The Supreme Court has said that companies may be sued under the securities law for making statements that omit material information, and it has defined material information as the sort of thing that reasonable investors would believe significantly alters the ‘total mix’ of available information.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the court on Tuesday, roundly rejected Matrixx’s proposal that information can be material only if it meets standards of statistical significance.
‘Given that medical professionals and regulators act on the basis of evidence of causation that is not statistically significant,’ she wrote, ‘it stands to reason that in certain cases reasonable investors would as well.’
Thus, hiding or omitting information, even if one feels it is ‘erroneous’ or ‘outlying’ (or whatever they claim) is still possibly fraudulent ( or in this case, scientifically improper) if it would ‘add to the total mix of available information’. Statistical significance is not to be the deciding factor.
In the case of Briffa and Osborn, no statistical fig leaf was applied that justified the truncation of data, so far as I can see.
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onion2 says:
…(f) Unlike CAGW which has been debunked.
There. Fixed.
onion2 says:
March 25, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Ah yes…the ole “fake but accurate” defense.
Queen1 says:
March 25, 2011 at 4:58 pm
PhilInCalifornia,
Thanks. This is not the place to get into a mud-slinging contest about pharma, but blithering idiots sometimes evoke an involuntary response from me. I compare what the Team has done with their data to medical clinical trials and can’t believe they get away with their assertions of significance and certainty. And pharma years ago went to archiving ALL trials done–whether positive or negative for a drug.
———————————————————————–
I actually think that this is somewhat on-topic (independent oversight of critical data and conclusions). The taxpayer pays for FDA oversight, by people like Steve McIntyre (albeit not as heroic) with regard to the data for even a $10 million per year diagnostic device.
You’ll like this one Queen1. It’s a powerful recent example of their correct handling of what is now a $3-4 billion/year drug when under criticism. It’s a zinger, and it’s not behind a paywall.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp1008502
No doubt about it, the FDA is light years ahead of the EPA and the team when it comes to handling of data. “Death train” Hansen being in charge of the GISS record is beyond farcical.
Now, I’m just spit balling here, but can careerism, money, influence, self-interest, etc., all of the banal things, in all of the possible combinations that we know motivate human beings, really be the motivating factor in what the Warmist Scientists have been doing?
In other words, is the reason they have been lying due to internal, selfish reasons?
If that is the reason, then what they have done is simply astounding as to the ratio of personal gain/wasted resources. They have cost all of us dearly. But that isn’t my point.
What if they actually do have motivations (and goals) that are beyond the banal? Seriously. There seems to be a tremendous amount of uniformity in communication strategy from the warmist side which is, I am sorry to say, is on the same level as a deceitful, unscrupulous salesman. Is there some hidden reason? Could it be the Warmist agenda is merely a means to an end? The idea seems fantastic and I don’t give it much credence.
Yet think of the damage the CRU, IPCC, Profs. Mann, Jone, Briffa, et. Al Gore, and a host of un-named others, have done! They have deceived the entire human species for personal gain? Could some one actually commit such a heinous act? Again, I find it hard to believe.
But I wonder, Why would the Aussie PM, Gillard, campaign on no carbon dioxide tax, and then implement a carbon dioxide tax.
Why would she do that? It is a negative issue for her. So what is her motivation?
It isn’t a position that’s working for her. Has some one got a sort of hold on her?
We are missing data.
Or we have reached a new low in “Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.”
What if there was a group who planned to profit by keeping all of us ignorant of an impending ice age? Think of the callousness of such an action! We could have prepared and they worked to prevent us doing so.
And again, I find it hard to believe that some one could be so evil.
And here is the thing, as the Warmist authored papers are subjected to analysis, their data/algorithms as well, it becomes clear that they lied. Why?
Why did they lie? I just don’t understand. How could some one do this?
“The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous archeological hoax ever. It has been prominent for two reasons: the attention paid to the issue of human evolution, and the length of time (more than 40 years) that elapsed from its discovery to its full exposure as a forgery.”
40 years?
So did the AGW forgery roll out around 1990?
I’m trying to figure out if I’ll live to see it’s full exposure.
[…] that is discussed in the climategate emails, and the central deleted data is the latest revelation. Anthony Watts, on the Watts up with that blog, reasonably has the following to say of this new example of […]
Curious timing. ‘Seeing The Wood From The Trees’ was published in ‘Science’ on May 7th 1999. In September 1999 the IPCC Lead Authors met in Tanzania where a draft of AR3 was discussed.
On September 22nd 1999 Briffa wrote: “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple….”
(Briffa, Sep 22, 1999, 0938031546.txt)
Also in 1999 Briffa had published in Quaternary Science Reviews 19 (2000) 87-105 a paper headed, ‘Annual climate variability in the Holocene: interpreting the message of ancient trees’, in which ‘Figure 1’ illustrated “Northern ‘high-latitude’ temperature changes over the last 2000 years”.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/qsr1999/
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/qsr1999/fig1.pdf
Alan Clark speaks for me as well. As Anthony says, fling funds, do not let poverty divert WUWT or Climate Audit from their work. I contribute as I can and hope that between us this effort for commonsense and sanity will prevail. Seems right now its the threadbare wallets, of the believers in science as a methodology, are all thats stemming the crusade of the climatologists, and our own tax money is used to push propaganda at us. Just think CBC is celebrating 50 years of financing Rabid Suzuki programming, oh joy, I want my money back. On the bright side as we progress into the negative phase of the approx 60 year weather cycle for North America it appears reality is working for us. Can we sue for non global warming? My govt promised it , threatened it and proclaimed it, so could I claim it is real, and as a non event I have been denied my rightful place in the sun? Sarcasm fully intended.
A thought experiment for those that believe it’s ok to hide this data.
Imagine Briffa and Osborn only had the data for 1551 onwards and publish the same paper. Sometime later the additional data is uncovered from 1402-1550 and has the divergence, would it have any affect on the validity of the paper?
I think the real nature of this travesty is that they should be called out for having erased the MWP from existence…tree rings have an optimum temperature for maximum growth, deviation either colder or warmer from the optimum temp band results in lower ring growth, the perfect mechanism to erase the MWP…oops…until of course it started to erase the current warming period. A travesty that…or should I say…inconvenient.
Personally, I’m still waiting for a negative AMO, which will be even more fun to watch as the erasure of the oceanic cycles will come back to bite these guys BIG time! Funny part will be when they say that these negative trending temps are caused by an anomalously negative AMO which is masking GW which will of course come roaring back with a vengeance (*100) when this is over….and yet no mention of a warming phase…another inconvenience.
It’s a travesty…
Hide the incline/decline…incline/decline…incline/decline…
every 60yrs…incline/decline…incline/decline…incline/decline…
It’s a travesty…incline/decline…incline/decline…
Unscientific comment but not the less interesting, made of a 90 !! year old man.
Taxation have destroyed a lot of things, now even science !
philincalifornia (March 25, 2011 at 6:57 pm) notes to Queen 1:
You’ll like this one Queen1. It’s a powerful recent example of their correct handling of what is now a $3-4 billion/year drug when under criticism.
And also says something to climate panic and response (thanks, Phil):
The Safety of Tiotropium — The FDA’s Conclusions
The omissi0ns are clearly fraudulent when one takes into account what influence these mushroom* scientists have with EU and UK governments through the IPCC.
There are two apple trees, two eucalypts, two false false acacias, several rohan trees and fir trees in my garden (yard) which clearly show that the mediaval warm period was much warmer than today, the mini ice age around 1750 was really cold and that the recovery from this has been slow. These trees also show that global warming due to anthroprogenic CO2 is competely untrue. Similar but opposite conclusions by CRU et al are applauded by politicians in the UK.
*Keeping client politicians in the dark and feed them manure.
onion2 says:
March 25, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Richard S Courtney says:
“Indeed, the similarities to Piltdown Man are striking: i.e.”
You forgot two:
(d) The fraud does not detract from the related scientific theory (evolution)
(e) The scientific theory turned out to be true
==============================
Actually, the Piltdown man hoax was an attempt to show that huminoid evolution went in the sequence of ape, ape with increased cranium capacity and then bipedal locomotion. The reality was that bipedal locomotion came before increased cranium capacity. In this sense, the Piltdown man model of human evolution turned out to be false.
BTW, what happened to Onion1? Any relation?
The AGW promoting, carbon tax toting, Australian NSW Labour government has just been virtually annihilated in the State elections – there is hope folks.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/state-election-2011/coalition-romps-to-victory-in-nsw-20110326-1cbbt.html
Jack
Why did they lie? I just don’t understand. How could some one do this?
=================================================
They didnt lie.
My brother is a devout christian, in fact he is a vicar in England in charge of 5 parishes. We have totally opposite and incompatible beliefs, neither can shift the other from their position. We are both 100% convinced in our belief system yet neither of us is lying to the other.
but one of us is wrong
EO
If these scientists have falsified data then they should be prosecuted and not only them the academics who cleared those involved in the climate-gate affair of any wrongdoing should also be prosecuted .We need to send a message to these people that they can’t corrupt data to achieve their political aims.
A simple question:
What is the provenance of this data?
McIntyre points to the second sheet of a excel document uploaded by Jones.
The same FTP site has a text version of the first sheet but not the second.
The headings on the second are simply:
Year Jones et al Mann et al Briffa et al
No dates – no source
Were these pre-release data, RAW data of width, Uncorrected for age of tree, etc.
Were these even temperatures?
Was the data even for trees?
Thanks to Steve’s relentless hard work I am now convinced that the validity of the research in question is a notch below Chicken Bone Divination…..
Thanks Steve!!!
Best,
J
Jack says:
March 25, 2011 at 7:25 pm
“Why did they lie? I just don’t understand. How could some one do this?”
It’s very easy to understand. When you work in an organisation, you will either work to further the goals of that organisation or work against them. It’s your decision. Most people, including me, will do the former, as long as they are part of the organisation. The “objective scientist” can only exist when he is financially independent. These climate scientists are not; they depend on attracting funding. They did what worked best for them and their institutions.
onion2 says:
March 25, 2011 at 5:14 pm
“Richard S Courtney says:
“Indeed, the similarities to Piltdown Man are striking: i.e.”
You forgot two:
(d) The fra*d does not detract from the related scientific theory (evolution)
(e) The scientific theory turned out to be true”
Interestingly, onion2 does not dispute the fact that the Hockey stick scientists did assemble a piltdown man like artefact and sold it as science. So i guess there’s a consensus, then?
What is more revealing, and similar to today’s issue, about Piltdown Man is the extent to which doubting scientists at the time were reluctant to voice those doubts, due to the enormity of public celebration and heightened interest in all things science, and perceived acceptance by their also doubting peers. Which leads me to propose the real reason we had apparent initial broad acceptance of global warming theory: If every doubting scientist is quiet about it, then it must be true.
It took 30 years for the few early courageous doubters to be redeemed by the turn of public opinion. We are maybe a third of the way regarding the hoax of catastrophic tipping point global warming.
However, an earlier commenter said that the over-riding theory of emotion was not unduly harmed by the hoax. True, evolution theory continues unharmed by the hoax and those who genuinely believed in the hoax. Just as greenhouse gas theory will continue unharmed by the hoax of catastrophic tipping point global warming.
how in the heck did my fingers type …emotion…? I meant for my fingers to type “…evolution…”. Must have more coffee. Must have more coffee.
It’s all part of this “agenda” that “they” seem to so easily be able to “put over” on the American public.
Perhaps it’s not only the faux scientists who are “guilty” here. Perhaps the easily duped American people play a role. If this stuff weren’t so easily gobbled up and digested, perhaps “they” wouldn’t have been able to get as far with it as they have.
It’s all about sensationalism, which of course has totally taken over the media. Who cares whether the implications are true or false, or WHAT the implications are. As long as it takes people’s breath away, let’s do it. Remember Y2K??
Theo Goodwin says:
March 25, 2011 at 6:28 am
“SteveE says:
March 25, 2011 at 4:52 am
They do actually mention these parts in the paper though.
“How can we distinguish the growth-promoting effects of warm temperatures from the possible influence of increasing CO2 and perhaps even other anthropogenic growth enhancers such as nitrogenous pollution?”
“I personally don’t see what the problem is, perhaps someone can explain?”
In asking the question above, The Team reveals that they do not understand their own data. ”
No; in asking this question, they reveal exactly what would be a problem for them. It is not a problem for them that the influence of CO2 cannot clearly be distinguished from other factors; but it would be a problem if the produced result would endanger the global warming narrative. So, for them, the dendro reconstruction is only a means to an end – they reveal themselves as social engineers, not natural scientists.