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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Ahhhhh – Climate-gate: The gift that keeps on giving……..
Big ‘Thanks!’ to Steve McIntyre, for supplying further evidence of scientific malfeasance by these AGW charlatans! I assure you, Steve, I will put this to good use!
@Bushy
I know this is way OT but I too noticed yesterday on my cheapish compass that the poles have flipped. Checked today on marine compass off an ocean going catamaran and had the same results, aprox. 180 degree flip.
WOW!
Maybe there was a “justification” of sorts for the deletion. If say the no. of available sites to base the proxy series on falls with age, and there aren’t many pre-1550. But they would have had to state the reason in the paper. And they would have had to choose their cut-off limit before doing any analysis.
The robust answer would have been to show error bars widening as the number of proxy sites and thus certainty declined.
Of course, that would have disagreed with the other proxies. Seems they deliberately cut it to make the graph look good – just as at the other end of it.
I decided to rebroadcast Steve’s post because a) Steve doesn’t get enough credit fir uncovering things like this and b) I nearly ruined a laptop when I first read it.
I’m amazed these people are still employed.
Anyone seen any alarmist comments on this?
They should make an amusing read.
I’m going to stick my neck out here and make a prediction for the coming weeks as to what the pro-AGW message will be of this:
1) The trivial solution 😉 – nothing
2) The “30% chance of cold, 40% chance of average, 60% chance of hot” misdirection – ie the following (or similar)
“As you can see the Briffa series shows good fidelity with the other proxy series from the late 1500s to the 1960’s, hence it is reasonable to assume that there were other external influences on this proxy outside of the period…and with this assumption we can justifiably truncate the proxy to only this time period.
As there is this agreement with other proxies it is reasonable to assume that we can then use the truncated Briffa series in the period from the late 1500s to the 1960s to add weight to the argument that warming in the latter 20th century is unprecedented.”
Now these may not be the words but you get the gist. I can see the spin coming.
Of course there will be no mention of the fact that all the proxy characterisation is poor (tree rings are really poor in fact – tea leaves are better). And also I suspect there will be obfuscating around the central issue that it doesn’t even matter if other proxies agree with each other for certain time periods, they could ALL be wrong as you haven’t done the proper characterisation in the first place.
Gary Pearse wrote :
There is no benefit of the doubt possible here; it is pure scientific dishonesty and it goes unpunished because of the politics of the issue and the politics of nice people like you.
So the scientific community is guilty until proven innocent? (And that includes the authors, reviewers, and editors of Science.) No chance for the scientists involved in the research to even respond? This paper is 12 years old and it takes until now to report this? I find your accusation of politics hard to digest when your comment points grand conspiracy that is more than twelve year old .
Kip Hansen says:
March 24, 2011 at 11:18 am
“If the Supreme Court rules that Matrixx can be sued for fraud for failing to reveal adverse information about their product — information that was in their possession — to their investors, which Matrixx claimed to withhold because it was ‘not statistically significant’ — a plausible and possibly reasonable excuse, then how much more so can Mann et al’s deletion(s) be reasonably considered fraud or, at the very least, scientific impropriety.”
Unfortunately, we’ve arrived at a point in the US where the private sector is held to an entirely different set of standards from the public sector. For example, its not against the law for a politician to lie to get himself elected yet there are stiff penalties for relatively minor inadvertent mis-statements by a public company CEO. A scientist who works for a public sector company can go to jail for *not* publishing data that he thought was insignificant, but a scientist working for a publicly funded university can seemingly publish data whose only purpose is to mislead the public and suffer no consequences.
How would such mashed potatoing work in the car manufacturing industry?
I tell you, potential buyer, the statistical modeling don’t lie, the Tata Magic really can withstand a frontal collision with a Sherman tank. Just model the Sherman as being on the moon, and model the Tata Magic as being on a virtual surface on Jupiter. Mix match and patch it together just so and so and, et voila, pow wow unequivocal consensus proof that it is truth.
What do you mean, billion mile reach fallacy? No, no, it’s the Mike’s nature’s magical trick.
Grumpy Old Man says:
March 24, 2011 at 10:52 am
I cannot believe these comments. Genedoc says ‘training in research ethics’ LOL.
Grumpy,
I agree that lying should be obvious to anyone. But there are shades of grey (is “not telling the whole truth” the same as lying?). The point I was trying to make is that training is useful to help people understand that not only are these practices unethical and should not be done, but that they also have an obligation to report potential instances of misconduct. And that there are mechanisms designed to protect the whistle blower and to carry out the investigation. That aspect can get lost.
Oh, and at least at my shop, not everyone has a “NW Europe” origin. You might be surprised to learn that plagiarism is considered a high form of flattery in some parts of the world, for example.
Meanwhile, on my regional newspaper’s website today (in Calgary), I see front page an article which uses the phrase in a big headline: “climate change denial”. Do they know that they actually *are* the ones who deny the science by selectively ignoring what they don’t want the layman to know?
@ur momisugly Jenn Oates – just 5 miles from the UEA they are brainwashing primary school children with taxpayers money. Our battle is far from over…
http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/03/under-cloak-of-climate-change.html
and
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/lingwood_children_visit_strumpshaw_fen_1_839612
Bob Carter writes about Noble Cause Corruption in his recent book.
Apparently these “scientists” believe if they are saving the planet it is OK to fudge the facts to make a nice, tidy story.
Please Sir? Can we use the “f-word” now Sir?
REPLY: shout them into your monitor but don’t write them, yet. The day may be coming though – A
What makes this significant, is that these Mannian graphs show up everywhere. In the March 2011 issue of SciAm, Julian Sachs, et. al., who nd-of-rain”> document their measurements over time of the latitude location of the ITCZ rainfall bands, rather than plot their data, they just copy in Mann’s latest version. Apparently, the ITCZ location is not a good proxy for temperature, yet.
It’s in Science, been there for ten years, constantly updated, it must be good.
Peter,
The alarmists spin will be: “See! The hockey stick began even earlier, as a result of the Rennaissance and discovery of the New World, its a complete indictment of white patriarchal european civilization!”
Oops, sorry about that. SciAm link here.
Unfortunately no one much is really listening or interested in this anymore. MSM certainly have no interest which means the mass of people don’t know and/or don’t care. Sreve McIntyre seems to be becoming obsessive about this which is unfortunate. The sceptics, of which I am one, are not going to have serious impact on mainstream opinion without some input from the MSM despite the popularity of blogs such as this and climate audit
Excellent sleuthing Steve McIntyre.
Not only did Briffa and Osborn hide the decline in the blade of the Mannian Hockey stick, they also hid the decline in the data in the shaft of the hockey stick… much more data… than in the blade… data that clearly shows that tree rings are all but useless at being temperature proxies. Mann shafted us too. Toss the lot in jail for fraud since they’ve taken lots o’ money based upon their scientific hiding of adverse data fraud.
RayG says: “As I suggested on CA, the paleodendochronologists (aka pseudo-science, IMO) should switch from bristlecones…”
Ray, dendrochronology has been valid, established science since the early 20th Century and is quite accurate. The problem is with dendroclimatology, or tree-mometry, which, as you state, is largely pseudoscience, as currently practiced. Tree growth is a function of soil, temperature, humidity, surrounding terrain, clouds, rain, CO2, animal activity, shade, microclimate, subsurface water, ambient albedo, and elevation. Thinking they can pick a reliable temperature signal out of all that is utter lunacy.
“Whom the gods would destroy they first drive mad.”
John A says:
March 24, 2011 at 11:41 am
“I’m amazed these people are still employed.”
While we can shine a light on unethical behaviors by the team such as this, the reality is that they will be gainfully employed for some time to come, unless someone decides that the bloated NASA/NSF/DOE budgets can better spent on other activities. I believe NASA, for one, has a huge budget increase slated for this year.
Jimmy Haigh begs plaintively: “Please Sir? Can we use the “f-word” now Sir?”
REPLY: shout them into your monitor but don’t write them, yet. The day may be coming though – A
Best laugh I’ve had so far all day, Anthony.
The pharmacology side of those disciplines taints and corrupts whatever training those people get. I know people who research new drugs daily. Their advice to me: do not take (not avoid, DO NOT TAKE) any medication released to the public in the last 20 years. Claims of effectiveness of any ethical training students get are usually exaggerated, money corrupts regardless. Proper auditing from a neutral party is the only way to root out and minimize such nonsense.
The “old” argument is old. If new evidence came to light that Newton was wrong, would we change textbooks? Yes, in fact we did just this a long time ago. Your insinuation that because this paper is old, it shouldn’t be questioned is ridiculous. As to scientists being guilty until proven innocent, actually I favor this. The reason I favor this is because scientists are humanity’s gatekeepers of knowledge. If they’re corrupt, human knowledge goes into the sh***er fast.
Trees, like other plants, use CO2 to grow. Has anyone considered the possibility that using growth rings on trees to determine the temperature might introduce a confound?
It’s the not the divergence problem; it’s the perversion problem.