On Recent Criticisms of My Research
By Dr. Roy Spencer
One of the downsides of going against the supposed “consensus of scientists” on global warming — other than great difficulty in getting your research funded and published — is that you get attacked in the media. In the modern blogging era, this is now easier to do than ever.
I have received many requests recently to respond to an extended blog critique by Barry Bickmore of my book, The Great Global Warming Blunder. The primary theme of my book was to present evidence that scientists have mixed up cause and effect when diagnosing feedbacks in the climate system, and as a result could have greatly overestimated how sensitive the climate system is to our addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning.
For those interested, here is our most extensive peer reviewed and published evidence for my claim.
But for now, instead of responding to blog posts, I am devoting all the time I can spare to responding to peer-reviewed and published criticism of my work. The main one is Andy Dessler’s paper in Science from last fall, which claimed to find positive cloud feedback in the same 10 years of NASA satellite radiative energy balance (CERES) data we have been analyzing.
In his paper, Dessler dismissed all of the evidence we presented with a single claim: that since (1) the global temperature variations which occurred during the satellite record (2000-2010) were mostly caused by El Nino and La Nina, and (2) no one has ever demonstrated that “clouds cause El Nino”, then there could not be a clouds-causing-temperature-change contamination of his cloud feedback estimate.
But we now have clear evidence that El Nino and La Nina temperature variations are indeed caused in large measure by changes in clouds, with the cloud changes coming months in advance of the temperature changes.
And without going into detail, I will say it now appears that this is not the only major problem with Dessler’s diagnosis of positive cloud feedback from the data he presented. Since we will also be submitting this evidence to Science, and they are very picky about the newsworthiness of their articles, I cannot provide any details.
Of course, if Science refuses to publish it, that is another matter. Dick Lindzen has recently told me Science has been sitting on his critique of Dessler’s paper for months. Science has demonstrated an editorial bias against ’skeptical’ climate papers in recent years, something I hope they will correct.
In the meantime, I will not be wasting much time addressing blog criticisms of my work. The peer-reviewed literature is where I must focus my attention.
Joel Shore says:
(And, just to be 100% clear here, I am not saying that you [Roy Spencer] should have been subjected to such things … I am just saying that others shouldn’t have either.)
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What a complete breach of logic if there ever was one!
So you are saying an honest scientist should get the same treatment (or lack thereof)…as a dishonest one?
For shame…coming from a physicist. Tsk tsk.
Keep whining, though. Its entertaining.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Joel Shore (in reply to R. Spencer) says: “I think you have been, for the most part, treated rather well in the blogosphere…and in the political sphere…compared to Mann, Hansen, Jones, Briffa, etc.”
He probably gets well treated because his science is open and fully disclosed as the scientific method requires. But your comment is totally irrelevant as a reply since he is not complaining about being “unfairly treated” in the blogosphere.
His is complaining about biased and obstructional behaviour of major journals in reviewing papers (not just his own) for publication.
This is not a “poor little me, they are being unfair” whinge , it a serious condemnation of malpractice that is preventing the proper functioning of science on a topic that is supposed to justify reorganising the world.
There have been some errors in some aspects of Dr. Spencer’s papers. These have been found and corrected precisely because he is open and subjects his work to scientific review.
Without full disclosure that permits full replication and verification science is not science. If you cannot understand that then you are not a scientist.
Nindertharna April 3, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Thanks; a very useful summary of Miskolczi; and another reminder of the travesty surrounding his work.
philincalifornia says:
(1) I used “we” because I was responding to something that Smokey said in response to another poster not to me, although it may have been a little bit presumptuous of me to assume that I was speaking for him too.
(2) I don’t know anyone who has been critical of AGW skeptics because they think skepticism is bad. It is really because they (we) don’t think that “skeptic” is at all a correct description for many who use that term to describe themselves.
Smokey says:
Those are not objective sources of information. All actual inquiries have not found any evidence of impropriety; of course, they have all been dismissed as whitewashes by you folks. So, basically, if you are going to set yourselves up as judge and jury, there is no stopping you from reaching your pre-determined conclusion.
You forgot the part where some people who call themselves “skeptics” also distort, spread falsehoods or at least statements that they are unable to show evidence for when I called on it, start and repeat non-sensical scientific arguments, etc., etc. (I will remind you of a few instances of this in your own comments if you like.)
Also, consider that Mann’s recent paper (2008 or 2009) did, as far as I know, make everything publicly available…and that the one thing that he didn’t originally disclose for the earlier papers , his actual code (which the NSF said in no uncertain terms was his own intellectual property), was also eventually released, and that this did not seem to alter these charges of him hiding stuff, etc., etc. So, it seems that these charges are pretty much independent of the facts. They are simply an excuse to discount inconvenient evidence and to taint a whole field of scientific research.
savethesharks says:
No…I am saying that if you are the one who gets to decide who is honest and dishonest and then to treat people accordingly, that may not be the best sort of justice system. Just look at the former Soviet Union and other oppressive regimes. Do you think they oppress their people by taking people who they admit are innocent and mistreating them? No…They always have very good reasons for treating the people the way that they do. It is just that their reasons are based on their own biased reality because they don’t have any sort of independent judicial system.
P. Solar says:
This was the paragraph that I was responding to (which happened to be the opening paragraph of this piece:
P. Solar says:
To a first approximation, everybody who has papers rejected from journals is going to complain that the rejection occurred not because the paper was flawed but because there was a bias against them. And, when I look at the “AGW skeptic” papers that have found or have not their way into peer-reviewed journals, the question is not how some brilliant papers haven’t found their way in but rather how some papers that were at best flawed and at worst ridiculous have found their way in.
Joel Shore says:
“…when I look at the ‘AGW skeptic’ papers that have found or have not their way into peer-reviewed journals, the question is not how some brilliant papers haven’t found their way in but rather how some papers that were at best flawed and at worst ridiculous have found their way in.”
That is absolute and total psychological projection: imputing your own faults onto others. Obviously flawed pal reviewed alarmist papers like the Tiljander-based Mann ’08 invention are routinely hand-waved through by friendly or intimidated referees, and science has nothing to do with it.
And:
“…some people who call themselves ‘skeptics’ also distort, spread falsehoods or at least statements that they are unable to show evidence for when I called on it, start and repeat non-sensical scientific arguments, etc., etc.”
I call myself a scientific skeptic because unlike you that is what I am. And glad to see you admit that the alarmist clique distorts, spreads falsehoods, and is unable to produce their fabricated “evidence” when called on it. Harry the programmer would understand. They make up data as they go along. In Mann’s case he knowingly used bad data, and hid data that would have falsified his conclusions. To real scientists that is misconduct.
You have been forced to admit to alarmist falsehoods, distortion, etc., because they are based on factual events. You say Mann was transparent “as far as I know.” You don’t know much, then. Get up to speed by reading Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion, instead of baseless speculating and admittedly ignorant opinion.
Finally, it doesn’t matter who claims that Michael Mann’s taxpayer-funded work product belongs to him alone, and not to the public that paid for it. That is just being an apologist for intellectual theft.
Smokey says:
You seem to fall hook-line-and-sinker for lots of ridiculous scientific arguments for a skeptic…and then refuse to change your views even when it is patiently explained to you why they are wrong.
Sorry, but the “also” referred to what some people who call themselves skeptics do in addition to what you mentioned (“scientific skeptics simply ask questions, and request all underlying raw data, methods, etc.”). It was not referring to what climate scientists do. (I am not going to claim that all scientists who are on the consensus side are perfect and faultless in all of their actions, but that was not what the “also” referred to.)
And here, you provide an example of exactly what I was talking about. When you last made specific charges in regards to this (Tiljander, “censored” directory), I gave evidence that these charges appear to be completely baseless. You did not rebut the evidence (other than to make a totally-unsupported claim about the date on the supplementary part of the NAS Proceedings paper) and yet you continue to repeat these charges.
Well, it kinda does considering that the NSF is the organization who was funding Mann’s work. If you don’t like the current laws regarding intellectual property, then you are welcome to campaign to change them. However, calling the accepted law “intellectual theft” is just setting yourself up as judge and jury and making a decision that has no actual basis in real jurisprudence on the subject. At any rate, Mann has since been going well beyond what NSF requires of him.
[Note: The NSF was only one of many organizations funding Dr. Mann’s work.]
Well, if Scientific American© is any clue… by the time this is over with, Science© will also be relegated to rack next to the fashion mags and the national “aliens ate my broccoli” circulars.
Both “Science” and “nature”, under their current editorial control, are guilty of multiple instances of aiding and abetting science fraud.
A famous one from the mid 1990’s was their enablement of william Stanley to falsely claim credit for discovery of an important seismological method to predict the eruptions of many volcanoes.
Stanley and his student not only stole credit for the technique, but he had just finished ignoring the same technique and gotten a substantial number of his colleagues injured or killed in the volcano called ‘Galeras’ in Colombia.
@joel Shore
Even with research done in universities, the product of ones research is not ones own, but belongs to the University. Mann working for a government agency means all his work is owned by the public through the government. That is the law and rule. It does not belong to him personally. This covers ALL his data, methods, and materials pertaining to his research. Only a patent can change that.
This is regardless of the philosophical aspect of science which states that all data and methods must be open and known and offered up for evaluation for any piece of work to be regarded as science in the first place.
The trials Mann et al. have faced publicly are not only due to their science in and of itself. I believe that is the point being made. Neither is it unreasonable, for the subject matter of climate change is being used to drive extreme economic and political agendas. Such policies with such immense ramifications for those living in jurisdictions enacting them demand that any evidence used for their justification be scrutinized above and beyond what is “normal”, including the individuals generating such information and the ways in which they did it.
As Mann et al. did resist attempts at getting a look at their raw data and methods (a scientific no-no), and since it has been directly admitted (by Wahl) that there was unaccounted for deletion of e-mails and data relating to the international evaluation of climate change, against the stated rules laid down by that endeavor, the “witch hunts” as you call them have been entirely called for.
I would hope this would be done to me too if I were in their place (though I hope even more that I would have done things differently from the onset). This isn’t about if AGW is scientifically correct or not, this is about the integrity of science being presented before international governments for guiding policies with far reaching ramifications for their populous. We must make every attempt to be completely sure that the integrity of what is being discussed is upheld, even if it may be painful for those involved.
The extreme scrutiny this field faces on all sides is good and important. For subject matters of such consequence, it could be argued as critical.
@joel Shore
I should make the amendment that the jealous guarding by Mann et al. of their source data is not something so uncommon in science so as to be used to say they are “bad people” or “bad scientists” under normal circumstances, just resistive or hardened (and thus needing others to come along and pull them out of their boxes, as a counter balance). They did eventually give out the data as they should, and as is required in all science, so it appears (if there is still some yet hidden, I have not heard of it). People do naturally resist releasing what they see as their own, even when it is not. For, the vast majority of the time, such deep probing by others is not necessary.
I think they were just acting normal, and didn’t realize they were getting into a matter that required they act far and above normal. Nothing intentionally malicious beyond simple human nature. But, that is what I personally feel from evaluating what has gone on and what has been said on all sides.
The study of climate change has invaded every branch of government and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on the study.
If global warming is so obvious, why is so much money required to prove it? No one wants to plug the source of the money so they keep repeating the same line of thought so the money will not stop.
Ged says:
This statement, if meant to apply to the computer code, is simply wrong. The NSF has been very clear on this point. Yes, the data and methods must be disclosed…but there are limits to what has to be disclosed and, in particular, the release of the actual code itself is not requires. See footnote 4 here for the e-mail from the NSF explaining this that was sent to McIntyre: http://www.realclimate.org/Mann_response_to_Barton.pdf
That philosophy has always recognized that a balance must be struck. Yes, you are supposed to release enough information that scientists can replicate your work. (Although in practice, I would say that many of the papers that I have refereed in physics have not done this to the degree that I think is necessary. I am often asking for clarifications on such points.) However, you are not required to release so much that you give up all your intellectual property, such as the years invested in writing a piece of computer code used in your research. [And, in this regard, you should remember that much scientific research is even done in the private sector and then published in journals…and companies tend to be very protective of their code. During the 13 years that I spent in industry, I published several papers and I could have been fired for releasing the code to other scientists, as it was a intellectual property of the company that I was working for. In other cases, scientists use commercial software where the code is a propriety product of the company that they bought it from and even the scientists themselves don’t have access to the source code.]
Well, you may make that claim but some of us find it rather implausible, since even when Mann now publishes papers where he releases all the code, going well beyond what the NSF requires, he is still faced with these attacks. Some people seem to be motivated by the fact that they do not like the scientific conclusions of his research and most particularly the policy implications.
There is a difference between scrutiny and witchhunts. Even the Republican Chair of the House Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert, felt that the letters sent to Mann and colleagues by Joe Barton (the Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee) crossed the line.
I’ve been reading the exchanges between Joel Shore and several others regarding the integrity and availability of data in the specialist world of climate investigation. Joel seems to be sure that Dr Mann has put all his data into the public domain, together with (almost) all of his methodology. Would he perhaps like to provide a link to the data? I have what I believe to be the numbers that lie behind the famous diagram, but using a direct, transparent and simple techniques am unable to find anything that remotely resembles the graph that so entranced the media, governments and the education systems of the world in the years following 1998. Just in case I’m working with incorrect data, please help by publishing the whereabouts of Dr Mann’s genuine numerical data so that we can all attempt our own analyses with reliable initial information.
Thanks!
Joel Shore says:
April 4, 2011 at 1:32 pm
“Even the Republican Chair of the House Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert, felt that the letters sent to Mann and colleagues by Joe Barton (the Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee) crossed the line.”
Why is it I have a sneaky suspicion that Sherwood Boehlert was not exactly as extreme as the adverb “even” implies? Let’s see what Wikipedia has to say… Hmm. Suspicion confirmed.
Nice thread hijack anyway, Joel. Do you have anything to say about water vapor and cloud feedback?
Bart says:
I didn’t say he was extreme. The “even” was that he is a Republican who took the unusual step of very forcefully rebuking a Republican colleague (and fellow committee chairman). Boehlert was what seems to have become somewhat of an endangered species in the Republican Party, which is someone who may subscribe to the ideological principles that incline one toward that that party but who nonetheless was driven also by facts rather than just letting his ideology determine what the “facts” are.
I haven’t hijacked this thread. There was only a little actual scientific discussion of water vapor and cloud feedbacks in the original post and even less in the other responses.
I made one comment about the first paragraph of Spencer’s post and from then on, all of my comments have been addressing responses from other commenters to me.
Robin says:
It is really not my job to spoon-feed you everything you need. But, here is the link to the supplementary materials for Mann’s 2008 paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2008/09/02/0805721105.DCSupplemental See also here: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/tools/tools.html
If you want to try to dig and find the data to the 1998 paper, then be my guest…although the science has moved on in the 13 years since then.
And, now that I have provided you with that, maybe you could return the favor by giving me the links to all of the programs that Spencer and Christy use to analyze the satellite data?
“I made one comment about the first paragraph of Spencer’s post and from then on, all of my comments have been addressing responses from other commenters to me.”
I did not say it was not subtle. Indeed, I expressed my admiration. You know good and well nobody here is buying what you are selling. And, now we have a full page of completely irrelevant jabbering. Answer back if you please, but if it’s not on topic, I’m not going to help you any further in your project.
Joel Shore says:
No…I am saying that if you are the one who gets to decide who is honest and dishonest and then to treat people accordingly, that may not be the best sort of justice system. Just look at the former Soviet Union and other oppressive regimes. Do you think they oppress their people by taking people who they admit are innocent and mistreating them? No…They always have very good reasons for treating the people the way that they do. It is just that their reasons are based on their own biased reality because they don’t have any sort of independent judicial system.
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Huh?? Wha??
The Joel Shore shell game continues.
Even if the ball is shifted under another shell, or two, or three…the argument just gets more askew and remote as time goes on.
Interestingly…I’ll bet when it comes to actual equations and physics…by design…they disallow the good physisct from performing such sleight there, no?
I’ll bet when the good physicist is doing his work, the math and the data rules, otherwise it would all fall apart.
The same should be true of logic and debate.
Should be, that is.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
FWIW, here is my response to Roy Spencer’s non-response.
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/roy-spencers-non-response/
Barry: I read quickly through your link and the “mathematical proof” of the purported inadequacy of Spencer’s modeling. I don’t blame Spenser for not responding – it’s a lot of sound and fury, signifying little. On the mathematical “proof”, equation (15) is incorrect. There is no independent A0 term. It is equal to T(t0) – Te, where t0 is the initial time. Every first year controls student would see the solution at a glance:
T(t) = Te + (T(t0)-Te)*exp(-(t-t0)/tau) + convolution-integral-from-t0-to-t
If you take t0 to be the infinite past, as the author did in his convolution integral, then the exponent has decayed to zero. If you take t0 to be some finite time, and assume T(t0) = Te, then the term is again zero (you see, he mixed the start time to be zero for the external exponential A0*exp(-t/tau) term, and -infinity for the convolution integral, ending up with a bollixed result).
The rest appears to be a rant about Spenser’s supposed mistakes based on the author’s interpretation.
Hi Bart,
I notified Arthur about your criticism, so maybe he’ll respond. You don’t seem very focused on the main points, though. For example, Arthur showed how one can get an infinite number of solutions for alpha, beta, and ocean depth, which is a result that I had already demonstrated by playing around with Spencer’s model in MATLAB. This being the case, Spencer’s fitting procedure was nonsense on stilts. He apparently took all the best-fit combinations of parameters and averaged them. But since there are an infinite number of solutions, all he had to do to get an acceptable combination was to manipulate the parameter space over which he was searching.
I’m not saying he did that–he says in his book that he got his answers on the first try–but a “statistical” technique that can give an infinite number of solutions is absurd.
Bart – I’m not sure why you call that a “mistake” – you can treat T(t0) or A0 as independent parameters. Substitute A0 = T(t0) – Te in the following equations, and everything still applies.
In particular, Roy chose a very peculiar starting temperature T(t0) for his “model” – as I reviewed in further detail in my follow-up post:
Roy Spencer’s six trillion degree warming.
If you believe Spencer’s model, the medieval warm period was in fact very very cold 🙂
The real point of my analysis was to show that Spencer’s model was, as you note, trivial, solvable by any first-year control student. I wanted to make that painstakingly obvious. Do you think Spencer understands this? Did he understood it when he touted solving it in his book?
By the way, Bart, you should look at Arthur Smith’s next post, as well:
http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/roy_spencers_six_trillion_degree_warming
In particular, look at Fig. 5, in which Arthur used his integrated form of Spencer’s model and Spencer’s own parameters to obtain the exact same 20th century temperature evolution due to the PDO as Spencer did. How did that happen, exactly, if Arthur’s mathematical analysis was badly off?
Bart,
At first I didn’t understand what your point was, exactly, but Arthur was kind enough to explain it to me. As I understand it, you were saying that A0 ought to be zero… which is what Arthur and I both said in our critiques. So in essence, it seems you agree with at least some of our criticisms of Spencer’s work?