Steve McIntyre uncovers another hockey stick trick – where are the academic cops?

Why did they lie? I just don’t understand. How could some one do this?

I could go on for pages, but here are a few answers:
They think alternative energy is economically feasible, or would be soon with a little governmental jump-starting. They think our society is wasteful, so trimming its consumption wouldn’t really hurt it, it would just trim the fat. They think we’ll have to transition away from fossil fuels fairly soon due to their increasing expense, so the earlier we start the transition the lower the long-term costs. They like the idea of redistributing wealth to the 3rd world. They like the idea of “Science” and especially “concerned scientists,” having a leading political role.
Basically, they think they’re doing the right thing, if you look at it from the right perspective. What is truth, after all, but a matter of perspective?
Plus, it’s a fad in academia, and they’ve got swept up in it and are in too deep now to back out. Etc.

Theo Goodwin says:
March 26, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Phil quotes:
“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.”
Wow, you do like to make things up!
Where in there does it say that this divergence is powerful evidence for the claim that, for the past fifty years, tree rings have proved to be unreliable as proxies for temperature? Nowhere!
Where does it say that this divergence is clearly shown (or will be clearly shown) in our published graph. Nowhere! Why? Because they did not show it.
They did, it’s Fig 2.
Where does it say that in our important hockey stick paper we have (or will) replaced this divergent data with thermometer temperatures but have not revealed that fact in the body of paper. Nowhere!
I’m not sure which paper you’re referring to here, perhaps you just made it up?
The ‘hockey stick’ paper usually refers to Mann’s paper and Briffa wasn’t one of the authors, in any case no such replacement took place in that paper. Later (2000) Briffa did write a reconstruction paper but it didn’t produce a hockeystick and didn’t replace the divergent data with thermometer temperatures. Note that in that paper they explicitly say: “Note the recent disparity in density and measured temperatures (T) discussed in Briffa et al. 1998, 1999.” They extensively discuss the impact of this in the paper (e.g. pages 96-7).
You want to use this paper to defend the team from my charges. The existence of this paper provides no statement to the effect that their evidence has been called into question. Where do they recognize that their evidence is questionable? Nowhere!
Clearly they do, in fact it is they who bring attention to the divergence problem! Your ‘charges’ appear to be fabrications.

Phil.:
It is not good behaviour late in a thread to repeat points that were refuted earlier in the thread. The clear purpose of the repetition is to mislead people who arrive late in the discussion and who jump to the end of the thread.
Your post at March 26, 2011 at 9:11 pm is an example of such misbehaviour.
I and several other people have refuted your point in posts above. I copy two such posts by me below to save you and others needing to find them.
Richard
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Richard S Courtney says:
March 25, 2011 at 2:42 am
Nick Stokes:
Your comment at March 25, 2011 at 12:05 am is silly: it is a proof that the ‘Team’ – and specifically Briffa – acted in a deliberately dishonest manner.
A lie that is often loudly stated is not corrected by the liar once having whispered the truth. The whisper only prooves that the liar knew he was lying.
Let me explain the matter in a manner that even you may understand.
The’divergence problem’ demonstrates that
(a) the tree-rings’ indications of temperature are wrong
or
(b) the thermometer-derived indications of temperature are wrong
or
(c) the tree-rings’ indications of temperature and the thermometer-derived indications of temperature are both wrong.
These are important findings because they indicate a need to determine which of the indications is wrong and why.
So, any paper that reports work which indicates the ‘divergence problem’ needs to provide a clear report and explanation of the the divergence together with a recommendation for work to obtain an understanding of the cause of the divergence.
But Mann, Bradley, Hughes, Briffa, etc. did not provide that clear report and recommendation in their papers which presented the ‘hockey stick’ graphs. Instead, they tried to ‘hide the decline’. In other words they pretended that their work said the tree-rings’ indications of temperature and the thermometer-derived indications of temperature are both right. THAT WAS AND IS A LIE.
And – knowing they had lied – they needed to cover their nether regions in case the truth came out. So, as you report, they did. In the obscure paper you reference
(K. R. Briffa et al., Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 353, 65 (1998).)
they published a description of the divergence. So, now, whenever their lie is pointed out there are shills willing to say – as you do – that they did not lie because they published the truth in another paper.
I repeat, a lie that is often loudly stated is not corrected by the liar once having whispered the truth. The whisper only prooves that the liar knew he was lieing.
Richard
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Richard S Courtney says:
March 25, 2011 at 5:42 am
SteveE:
At March 25, 2011 at 4:52 am you say:
“They do actually mention these parts in the paper though. ”
No! They do not.
Indeed, you quote the pertinent “mention” in their paper: it says;
“However, additional uncertainty may come from the earlier sections of the tree-ring data, because treering chronologies often exhibit a progressive degradation in statistical quality further back in time, a product of their diminishing internal replication (that is, series are often made up of fewer samples).”
This does NOT say they deleted earlier data which did not conform to what they wanted: it says they have less certainty in the earlier data which they did present.
And, as you say, they wrote:
“Unfortunately, these trees display a progressive increase in growth from the middle of the 19th century, which may be wholly or partly due to rising atmospheric CO2 levels. 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? All show positive trends over the 20th century, and each has the potential to increase tree growth alone or in combination with others (regardless of whether that growth is limited by moisture availability or temperature).”
That is a ‘get out clause’ because it does not report the decline. Far from the paper explaining the importance of a difficulty in determining “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”, the paper hid the divergence.
And you ask:
“I personally don’t see what the problem is, perhaps someone can explain?”
Please read my post at March 25, 2011 at 2:42 am and the post by Ian W at March 25, 2011 at 4:55 am . They explain it.
Richard