This fellow, Charles Monnett has been suspended pending an investigation into his polar bear research. You may recall that he single-handedly inspired Al Gore (not that it takes much) into producing this piece of science fiction for his even larger fiction, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore cited Monnett’s research.
Only one problem now, his “research” is collapsing, and as you read the transcript, you’ll see why even the simplest of queries get Monnett flustered. Yet this was peer reviewed published science.
Never Yet Melted writes:
The Inspector General interview transcript (excerpts) had me, for instance, in stitches.
Disclosing as it does the level of rigor of methodology being employed:
ERIC MAY: Well, actually, since you‟re bringing that up, 18 and, and I‟m a little confused of how many dead or drowned polar bears you did observe, because in the manuscript, you indicate three, and in the poster presentation –
CHARLES MONNETT: No.
ERIC MAY: – you mentioned four.
CHARLES MONNETT: No, now you‟re confusing the, um, the estimator with the, uh, the sightings. There were four drowned bears seen.
ERIC MAY: Okay.
CHARLES MONNETT: Three of which were on transects.
ERIC MAY: Okay.
CHARLES MONNETT: And so for the purpose of that little ratio estimator, we only looked at what we were seeing on transects, because that‟s a – you know, we couldn‟t be very rigorous, but the least we could do is look at the random transects. And so we based, uh, our extrapolation to only bears on transects, because we‟re saying that the transects, the, the swaths we flew, represented I think it was 11 percent of the entire habitat that, you know, that could have had dead polar bears in it.
ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes].
CHARLES MONNETT: And, um, so by limiting it to the transect bears, then, you know, we could do that ratio estimator and say three is to, um, uh, “x” as, uh, 11 is to 100. I mean, it‟s that kind of thing. You, you‟ve, you‟re nodding like you understand.
LYNN GIBSON: Yeah.
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, that‟s pretty simple, isn‟t confusing. I mean, it‟s –
ERIC MAY: So, so, so you observed four dead polar bears during MMS –
CHARLES MONNETT: One of which was not on transect.
ERIC MAY: Okay, so that‟s what –
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. …
ERIC MAY: So I highlighted under here, and we‟ve got the four, and that‟s what –
CHARLES MONNETT: Oh, here you go. Yeah. Well, I‟m pretty confident that it was four. I mean, that‟s, um – uh, look, look what is in the paper. I mean, it should have the – probably the same information that, you know –
ERIC MAY: Well, it –
CHARLES MONNETT: There‟s a table in there, but does it – it has the dead ones in it, doesn‟t it?
ERIC MAY: Well, and I think you, you explain, so this is the portion where you‟re talking about the 25 percent survival rate.
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah.
ERIC MAY: And you‟re talking about four swimming bears and three drowned or dead polar bears.
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. Yeah, but that‟s because those are on transects.
ERIC MAY: On part of this 11 percent?
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, it says that right in here and, 11 and –
ERIC MAY: Right, right, but that‟s what you‟re talking about. …
How to do things with statistics.
3 CHARLES MONNETT: The paragraph in the left-hand column. Um, God, I‟ve got people here who are second-guessing my calculations. Um, well, um, we flew transects. That was our basic methodology. They were partially randomized. And we, uh, we looked at a, a map. I think we probably used GIS to do it, and we said that our survey area, if you bound it, is so big.
ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes].
CHARLES MONNETT: And then we made some assumptions about our swath width, and I think we assumed we could see a, a bear out to a kilometer with any reliability, which mean you‟re looking down like that. And, uh, sometimes you might see more; sometimes you wouldn‟t. Sometimes you can‟t see a whale out that far, so it depends on the water conditions. And so we just said that, um, if you add up, we had 34 north/south transects provide 11 percent coverage of the 630 kilometer-wide study area, and that was just to get our ratio of coverage. And then the area we really were concerned about was just the area where the bears were, so we could ignore the area at that point and just go with a ratio, because we assume that‟s the same, because these things are pretty, uh, they‟re pretty standardized. They were designed to be standardized, so in each bloc – have you seen the blocs? Have you seen our design? It‟s in here.
ERIC MAY: I took – yeah, in, in your study.
CHARLES MONNETT: It‟s right at the beginning here. Um, every map in here has got it on it. Um, there, those are our blocs. And so, uh, this one would have four pairs. This one would have probably three pairs. I don‟t know, there will be later maps. Um, and there, you can see the flights. Uh, well, yeah, they‟re in here. Um, so we‟re flying these transects, and we‟re assuming we can see a certain percentage or a certain, certain distance. Therefore, we can total up the length and the width and come up with an area. And so we calculated that
our coverage was 11 percent, plus or minus a little bit.
ERIC MAY: Okay. And I believe you rounded up, too. It was 10.8 and you rounded up to 11?
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. Well, that‟s a nothing. Um, yeah, 10.8. And then we said, um, four dead – four swimming polar bears were encountered on these transects, in addition to three.
ERIC MAY: Three dead polar bears?
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, three dead.
ERIC MAY: Right.
CHARLES MONNETT: But the four swimming were a week earlier.
ERIC MAY: Okay.
CHARLES MONNETT: And, um, then we said if they accurately reflect 11 percent of the bears present so, in other words, they‟re just distributed randomly, so we looked at 11 percent of the area.
ERIC MAY: In that transect?
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah.
ERIC MAY: Right.
CHARLES MONNETT: In, in our, in our area there, um –
ERIC MAY: Right.
CHARLES MONNETT: – and, therefore, we should have seen 11 percent of the bears. Then you just invert that, and you come up with, um, nine times as many. So that‟s where you get the 27, nine times three.
ERIC MAY: Where does the nine come from?
CHARLES MONNETT: Uh, well 11 percent is one-ninth of 100 percent. Nine times 11 is 99 percent. Is that, is that clear? …
LYNN GIBSON: I think what he‟s saying is since there‟s four swimming and three dead, that makes –
ERIC MAY: And three dead.
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, you don‟t count them all together. That doesn‟t have anything to do. You can‟t – that doesn‟t even –
LYNN GIBSON: So you‟re not saying that the seven represent 16 11 percent of the population.
CHARLES MONNETT: They‟re different events.
ERIC MAY: Well, that‟s what you try – we‟re trying to –
LYNN GIBSON: You‟re talking about they‟re separate?
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, they‟re different events.
ERIC MAY: Right, so explain to us how –
CHARLES MONNETT: On one day – well, let me draw. I, I, I don‟t have confidence that you‟re understanding me here, so let me (inaudible/mixed voices). …
CHARLES MONNETT: It makes me feel more professorial if I write it on the blackboard.
LYNN GIBSON: Okay, go ahead.
CHARLES MONNETT: No, that‟s okay.
ERIC MAY: (Inaudible/mixed voices)
CHARLES MONNETT: If you could see it, I wanted you to see it was why I was going to do it there.
ERIC MAY: (Inaudible/mixed voices)
LYNN GIBSON: We‟re your students today.
CHARLES MONNETT: Uh, well, this has transects on it, doesn‟t it, guys?
LYNN GIBSON: Yes, it does.
CHARLES MONNETT: I mean, look right here. So here‟s our coastline right here, this red thing.
ERIC MAY: Okay, yep.
CHARLES MONNETT: And here‟s our, um, our study area. We go out to whatever it was. I don‟t remember, 70, 71 degrees or something like that. And, um, around each of these things, we survey a tenth of the distance between, basically.
ERIC MAY: Okay.
CHARLES MONNETT: And so if you draw these lines here, and this is – you‟re just going to have to pretend like I did this for all of them. And you calculate the area in here.
LYNN GIBSON: Um-hm [yes].
CHARLES MONNETT: And you total them all, and then you calculate the whole area. This – the area inside here was 11 percent.
LYNN GIBSON: Okay.
CHARLES MONNETT: Okay? Now what we said is that we saw three, three bears in 11 percent.
ERIC MAY: Three dead bears?
CHARLES MONNETT: Three dead, yeah, dead –
ERIC MAY: Right.
CHARLES MONNETT: – in the 11 percent of the habitat. And so you could set up a, um, a ratio here, three is to “x” 25 equals 11 over 100, right? And so you end up with – you can cross-multiply. You know algebra?
ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes], yeah.
CHARLES MONNETT: You can cross-multiply. Okay, so you end up with 300 equals 11x, and I am sure that that‟s – equals 27, okay?
ERIC MAY: Right, right, got that.
CHARLES MONNETT: And if you stick four in here instead, you end up with –
ERIC MAY: Thirty-six.
CHARLES MONNETT: – whatever that number was, yeah, 36. Now, um, those numbers aren‟t related, except we made the further
assumption, which is implicit to the analysis. Seems obvious to me. We went out there one week, and we saw four swimming on the transect, which we estimated could have been as many as 36.
LYNN GIBSON: Correct.
CHARLES MONNETT: If we correct for the area. And we went out there later, a week to two weeks later, and then we saw the dead ones, the three dead ones in the same area, which could have been 27. And then we said let‟s make the further assumption that – and this, this isn‟t in the paper, but it‟s implicit to this aument –
ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes].
CHARLES MONNETT: – that right after we saw these bears swimming, this storm came in and caught them offshore, all right? And so if, um, if you assume that the, the, the 36 all were exposed to the storm, and then we went back and we saw tentially 27 of them, that gives you your 25 percent survival rate. Now that‟s, um, statistically, um, irrelevant. I mean, it, it‟s not statistical. It‟s just an argument. It‟s for, it‟s for the sake of discussion. See, right here, “Discussion.”
ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes].
CHARLES MONNETT: That‟s what you do in discussions is you throw things out, um, for people to think about. And so what we said is, look, uh, we saw four. We saw a whole bunch swimming, but if you want to compare them, then let‟s do this little ratio estimator and correct for the percentage of the area surveyed. And just doing that, then there might have been as many as 27 bears out there that were dead. There might have been as many as 36, plus or minus. There could have been 50. I don‟t know. But the way we were posing it was that it‟s serious, because it‟s not just four. It‟s probably a lot more. And then we said that with the further assumption, you know, that the bears were exposed or, you know, the ones we‟re measuring later that are carcasses out there, it looks like a lot of them, you know, didn‟t survive, so – but it‟s, it‟s discussion, guys. I mean, it‟s not in the results. …
The reliability of the calculations used and the scrupulous oversight of the peer-review process.
ERIC MAY: So combining the three dead polar bears and the four alive bears is a mistake?
CHARLES MONNETT: No, it‟s not a mistake. It‟s just not a, a, a real, uh, rigorous analysis. And a whole bunch of peer reviewers and a journal, you know –
ERIC MAY: Did they go through – I mean, did they do the calculations as you just did with us?
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, I assume they did. That‟s their purpose.
ERIC MAY: Okay. Right, and that‟s – again, that‟s why I was asking peer review.
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah.
ERIC MAY: Did they do that with that particular section of your manuscript?
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, I don‟t, I don‟t remember anybody doing the calculations but, um, uh, there weren‟t any huge objections. There weren‟t a – let‟s put it this way, there weren‟t sufficient objections for the journal editor to ask us to take it out.
ERIC MAY: Right. Well, let me, let me read you what – the four bears – and representing what we were just talking about, this section.
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah.
ERIC MAY: So just let me, let me read what I have here, okay?
CHARLES MONNETT: Okay.
ERIC MAY: “If four swimming bears, if four bears represent 11 percent of the population of bears swimming before the storm,” –
CHARLES MONNETT: Um-hm [yes].
ERIC MAY: – okay? “Then 36 bears were likely swimming.”
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, maybe, I mean –
ERIC MAY: Okay, but I mean –
CHARLES MONNETT: No, we didn‟t say “likely.” I think we said “possibly,” or did you say “likely” or –?
ERIC MAY: Well, or this – again, as you just stated earlier, this is Discussion, so –
CHARLES MONNETT: I‟d be surprised if we said “likely,” but mostly we were saying “possibly.”
ERIC MAY: Okay, so let me – let, let me continue, so –
CHARLES MONNETT: Okay.
ERIC MAY: – so you have that. “If three bears represent 11 percent of the population of bears that may have died” –
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah.
ERIC MAY: – right?
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah.
ERIC MAY: I think those are your words in your manu- – “may have died.”
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah.
ERIC MAY: “ – as a result of this storm, then 27 bears were likely drowned.” Okay, so far, so good?
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, if I used “likely.” I don‟t know if I did. …
And, then, the interview really gets humorous. “I mean, the storm had nothing to do with it!”
ERIC MAY: Isn‟t that stretching it a bit, though, saying – making that conclusion that no dead polar bears were observed during these years, and then, all of a sudden, 2003, you guys are – you observe dead polar bears?
CHARLES MONNETT: I don‟t think so.
ERIC MAY: Why?
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, if you ask me, I would know, I mean, what I saw, I mean, if I saw something weird like that.
ERIC MAY: So as a scientist, if another scientist made these conclusions based on the information, you would be okay with that as a peer reviewer?
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, yeah, I would, I mean, if, you know, if they told me that. They keep notes. I mean, they did this – every, everything like we do, so –.
ERIC MAY: And that‟s a, that‟s a – and it‟s a stretch, isn‟t it, though, to make that statement?
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, no, I didn‟t think so. I thought that was perfectly reasonable to ask them, since it isn‟t something – remember, the reason it‟s not in the database is because it, it doesn‟t happen. You know, you don‟t see it, so – and there‟s a reason, uh, why it‟s changed, which is in, in, in a lot of the early years, there was a lot of ice out there, and there just weren‟t opportunities for there to be dead bears. You know, bears don‟t drown when there‟s ice all over the place.
ERIC MAY: Well, so let me elaborate what I just asked you. Wouldn‟t you, wouldn‟t you notate that as a – like maybe a – you know, your statement kind of is stretching it, and you would say, “Well, based on my conversations with individuals during these surveys, although they weren‟t supposed to look for dead polar bears, they did not” – I mean, because you‟re making a very broad statement by, by that, saying that no dead polar bears were observed during those years. …
ERIC MAY: Well, and based on, based on what I just said, in terms of the, you know, your statement, would it not make more sense, too, because there was a major windstorm during this period of time, which you do mention, but you didn‟t talk too much about that as in 2004 regarding these dead polar bears.
CHARLES MONNETT: What do you mean (inaudible/mixed voices)?
ERIC MAY: Well, you‟re saying that from 1987 to 2003, there was no dead polar bears.
CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah.
ERIC MAY: Did you discuss the storm conditions during those period, period of years as well? I mean, you‟re extrapolating a lot to make such, you know, scientific findings.
CHARLES MONNETT: You mean, the storms are increasing up there?
ERIC MAY: No, you‟re saying that there was no dead polar bears during those years.
CHARLES MONNETT: Certainly.
ERIC MAY: Yet in 2004, you, you observed four dead polar bears.
CHARLES MONNETT: Right.
ERIC MAY: Yet you didn‟t really elaborate on why you believe those dead polar bears died or drowned.
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, yeah, we did actually. I don‟t know why you‟re saying that. We‟ve got an extensive section in the paper talking about the, uh, you know, the wind speeds and out there, and we looked into that very hard. And, and we, um, we‟re very, very careful in this manuscript to, um, write it so that it, uh, reflects uncertainty, uncertainty about the extent of what happened, the uncertainty of why it happened, the uncertainty of what it meant in a, in a broader context.
We knew three things: That we had seen a bunch of swimming bears and that that was unusual in the context of the whole data stream. We knew we saw some dead bears, which had not been reported before and that we had been assured, you know, was new to the study. And we saw, uh – we experienced, we were there, a, a, uh, high wind event, which was actually not a, a very severe high – and it wasn‟t, you know, one of the really severe high wind events, but it was enough to shut us down, which meant that there were some pretty good waves breaking, you know, out at sea, which, um, is pretty easy to imagine would be, uh, challenging, you know, for a bear swimming. And a good bit of that, there‟s a whole section in the paper that talks about the windstorm.
ERIC MAY: Okay.
CHARLES MONNETT: Um, right here, there‟s a map, you know, of the wind speeds and all that and, uh, you know, it shows that it just fits right in there. Um –
ERIC MAY: When I was relating to th
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, I don‟t know, we, we had complete confidence in it. Um, people worked extensively with, with the database and, and, uh, so we were totally comfortable with the swimming ones, um, which, you know, were rarely seen. And it‟s a small thing I think to assume that a, um – you know, the person managing the survey would know and – ….
And here comes Jeff Ruch of PEER to the rescue.
1 JEFF RUCH: This is Jeff Ruch. We‟ve been at this for an hour and 45 minutes, and I‟m curious, are we going to get to the allegations of scientific misconduct or, uh, have – is that what we‟ve been doing?
LYNN GIBSON: Actually, a lot of the questions that we‟ve been discussing relate to the allegations.
ERIC MAY: Right.
JEFF RUCH: Um, but, uh, Agent May indicated to, um, Paul that he was going to lay out what the allegations are, and we haven‟t heard them yet, or perhaps we don‟t understand them from this line of questioning.
ERIC MAY: Well, the scientif- – well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations, uh –
JEFF RUCH: Wrong numbers and calculations?
ERIC MAY: Well, what we‟ve been discussing for the last hour.
JEFF RUCH: So this is it?
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, that‟s not scientific misconduct anyway. If anything, it‟s sloppy. I mean, that‟s not – I mean, I mean, the level of criticism that they seem to have leveled here, scientific misconduct, uh, suggests that we did something deliberately to deceive or to, to change it. Um, I sure don‟t see any indication of that in what you‟re asking me about.
=============================================================
Never Yet Melted continues:
What is downright scary is the way these bozos think that dressing up wildly extravagant theories resting on baseless extrapolations of insignificant anecdotal-level observations with jargon and a few formulae in order to reach preconceived and intensely desired conclusions is perfectly legitimate scientific activity.
If anybody wonders how junk science can become established science and the accepted basis for fabulously costly governmental programs and polices, just look at the work of Dr. Charles Monnett and at PEER.
Remember that there are also human victims of this research. This winter many thousands of people will die of hypothermia as they can not afford the increases in fuel prices. ‘Research’ like this caused governments to panic and give a blank cheque for so called ‘renewables’. It won’t be the people getting rich on the back of AGW, it will be poor people living on the edge. Not important people – they will just appear as a statistic next spring.
Never mind science, the interviewing agents don’t even understand math! And they say the ‘investigation’ is about calculations. Right!
The conclusions of Monnett’s note were tentative and the caveats are included to explain why. This investigation can’t possibly be about the polar bear note – unless it is purely politically motivated.
Ok – here’s another take: the Investigators are letting him believe its about the CALCULATIONS – when in fact – there is something else afoot. You have to remember – the LAST person the investigators interview is the object of the investigation. Not the first.
But the guy (rattled or not) went from “There were four drowned bears seen” to “Well, I’m pretty confident that it was four” on their “partially randomized transects” to a calculation that implied the transects were unique.
But the part of the interview that caught MY eye was “Um, well, um, we flew transects. That was our basic methodology. They were partially randomized. And we, uh, we looked at a, a map. I think we probably used GIS to do it”.
Bwoop! Bwoop! Bwoop! Claxon Horns! Ahh-OOO-gah! Ahh-OOO-gah!
Hmmm….
Ok, I read the latest WUWT post and linked article. So it’s not about polar bears.
So why was he grilled on the subject in the interview? And why are the allegations still secret?
So, it’s about “calculations”, but nothing to do with his “scientific work”? Whatever it is they think they’re investigating, they’re making up the reasons as they go.
This is from an article written in 2006, a response to Al Gore’s film, and was one of the first things I read when I started researching AGW :
‘Polar bears are not becoming endangered. A leading Canadian polar bear biologist wrote recently, “Climate change is having an effect on the west Hudson population of polar bears, but really, there is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear (sic) to be affected at present.” ‘
The point is that there ARE experts looking at the polar bear populations, although they seem to be excluded when it comes to studies such as this. Green organisations are characterised as people who fly around in helicopters for a few days and then go away without consulting those who monitor all year round.
Obviously with good reason.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/218011/gorey-truths-iain-murray
There are tables of data included on the fourth and fifth page of the note, as well as data throughout. Data periods range from 1987 – 2004.
Does anybody actually read the source material before criticising it?
http://www.alaskaconservationsolutions.com/acs/images/stories/docs/Polar%20Bears-ExtendedOpenWaterSwimmingMortality.pdf
Extrapolation is a valid technique, as long as the limitations are defined and caveats included. This is the case in Monnett’s note, which is clearly announced as speculative.
For those concerned PEER have selectively edited the transcript, perhaps a barrage of FOI’s directed to the Inspector General would help. That office is soaking up your tax dollars, after all.
In the past decade a number of coin tosses were made and it was observed that 2 were heads and 2 were tails. A more recent study of coin tosses found that 3 were heads and one was a tail and we can conclude from this that global warming has caused a propensity of heads to occur.
From this we can extrapolate that in a series of 20 tosses we would expect to see 15 heads. There are no errors in this. I’m quite certain they were all heads.
“except we made the further assumption, which is implicit to the analysis. Seems obvious to me.”
Yep, clear as mud mate! How many bears did they see alive and how many dead? I mean real empirical bears!
Imagine, you question your M.D. over treatment you receive for an illness and he tells you….”If anything, it‟s sloppy.”! Inspires confidence huh!
I can only imagine Monnett was crapping himself at being the subject of this investigation and hence lost the power of coherent thought. They should have strapped Lie Detectors to the buggers, it would have been fun to see the pens arcing across the travelling paper!
To me, the transection technique and paper were interesting PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. I understand the issue of biological surveying and can appreciate the idea of documenting an apparently unusual event. It may have even been okay to speculate as to possible causation, given the extreme weather event and large ice-free area. That said, sweeping interpretations were made; speculative links to global warming were turned into policy conclusions. This type of work was used to validate assertions that warming is having large-scale, observable effects right now. The assertions were used to speculate on polar bear extinction due to warming, and that conclusion flies in the face of much more fully documented increases in polar bear population through most of their range.
A judge used the speculative conclusion as part of the justification adopted to restrict development. Given that much more contradictory information was available, it was just plain wrong to do based on such thin evidence.
KR says:
July 29, 2011 at 7:06 pm
…”apparently polar bears have no reflex to keep their head above water if they fall asleep.
========
Do you believe this statement , that you reproduced ?
KR seems to be mistaken on several issues.
When you run “a transection technique” in biology, it is suited to the population you are looking at.
In some cases the techniques will translate well between species of whales and fish since these marine animals tend to follow the same patterns as far as swimming go. But not always which is the catch and the cautionary tale.
But here we have polar bears. They can not swim forever obviously. So obviously any flights would have to track over the maximum range of said polar bears. This means you have to fly a different transection. This also means that unless proven, the whale transection is meaningless for polar bears. I highly doubt its relevant for that reason. As it is, he can not extrapolate at all in this particular instance. That means that any extrapolations are worthless and that what he witnessed can be jotted down to simple coincidence and nothing more.
As several people noted, the cause of death is not listed. Since that is the case, you can not even begin to assume that three polar bears found together simply died in the specified fashion. Did they get into a massive fight in the water and kill each other and the survivers went to shore? Who the heck knows and that is the point. Without proof of cause of death, you can not assume.
And of course the assumption that 4 bears and the 3 are the same….just pretty amazing that anyone actually would copy that down. Is he a scientist or a believer? Pretty amazing stuff.
There are so many assumptions here it is hilarious. A correct study on the issue would allow for extrapolation, but you have to do your fly-bys correctly. They covered 11% over a long time period. Too long for polar bears I am sure. For whales, yes the technique is correct, well covered and I am sure if he had talked about dead whales he would have had a point.
Then there is his complaints about other people’s data when going into whales. He does not believe their data is correct. Did he give evidence for this? I am not sure what this is about, but after hearing so many stories about how defamation of MMS is going on and how “oil companies” are responsible makes me think this guy either has good support groups or is rather paranoid like most greens.
Regardless, this guy makes Dr. Mann look good and that is rather funny.
Richard S Courtney says:
July 29, 2011 at 3:52 pm
KR:
Many thanks for your informative post at July 29, 2011 at 2:32 pm which says:
“For those of you criticizing the technique Dr. Monnett used, I strongly suggest going to Amazon and doing a quick search on “transect sampling”. This is a very well established technique for estimating biological populations. Or for estimating vegetation amounts, or the number of unexploded ordinances in a region, or…”
I always wondered why estimates of biological populations, extinctions, etc. are bollocks.
I now know because you have explained it. Thankyou.
Richard
*********
I would like to add my humble thanks to those of Richard.
KR says:
July 29, 2011 at 1:09 pm
You might also look at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091112192208AACh5nC, where this question is discussed – apparently polar bears have no reflex to keep their head above water if they fall asleep.
====
I read that before I posted and also some equally unsubstantiated statements that water borne polar bears nap frequently. I don’t believe either is especially credible. What is documented is that bears can make swims of many days. No one actually seems to know for sure whether they need rest and how they rest. I’d point out that biologists are frequently surprised when they observe species they thought they knew well exhibiting unexpected behaviors.
====
“Residence time is really immaterial.”
====
I disagree. It is only immaterial when everything you are observing and comparing has the same or very similar residence times — which is very commonly the case. If you are counting Caribou (and there aren’t any biases) roughly the same number of reindeer will move into your search areas as will move out and you don’t need to consider residence time.
But that isn’t the case here. I would expect it to be especially important in this case because the cold waters possibly retard decay and possibly keep corpses around a long time. It’s really hard to guess how long as the mix of scavengers in the Arctic surface environment doesn’t seem very clear. A corpse that might be gone in a few days at the latitude of Seattle, might hang around a lot longer in the Arctic … or not.
The issue with residence time is simply this. Suppose that your study area has 101 polar bears and your 300 hour survey scans 10% of the area. Suppose also that one of the bears dies in the water just as the study starts and its body stays on the surface in the study area for the entire period. Your chance of observing it is 10% (and your chance of observing and counting it again on a different transect might be as high as 1% although I suspect that in practice it’d be a lot lower)
Assume that a typical polar bear swim is 3 hours out of 300. Even though there are 100 bears and each of them swims, your chance of observing a swimming bear are exactly the same as those of observing the corpse – 10%. Pretty clearly the mortality rate is about 1%, not 50% (2 bears, one defunct) or 100% (one bear and the damn thing died).
Polar bears never die of natural causes? Oh, I don’t know, like heart attacks, cancer or any number of things that all animals contract as they get older? Were any bears spotted on ice or land that were dead? It appears not. Therefore, we can conclude that bears, knowing their time is short, enter the water to die. And this is indicative of AGW how, again?
As to Monnett’s answers to the investigator, I have heard more intelligent reponses from a nine year old being asked why he wasn’t in school on a given day when he should have been! I know transcription can make one sound foolish at times but, Holy Moly!
Perhaps the investigators are trying to determine just how competent this man is, at this point, not very, to figure out what he may have done with $50 million? Is any money missing? We don’t know yet, however, I would guess, a lot, based on Monnett’s handling of “research”!
He does not have a paper trail to show an absence of dead bears, before they recorded the first dead bears. Not very surprising that. So he asked a friend, his ex-boss. Hey ex-boss, I saw some dead bears in the water today. Have we ever seen any dead bears in the water? No son, can not say we have. .
Did he lie or misrepresent to his employer to get it published. No evidence of that. The guy is just an honest Joe with the majority opinion on AGW being maltreated by his employer for a paper they actually peer reviewed, but proved useful to a pro AGW activist group his employer does not like. The fact that no clear charge has been made says it all. The Science is old and in the paper, We have not learnt anything we did not know when it came out. The new element is the haresment. I am franky disappointed that the blogers on this site do not not seem to be up in arms to support this guy. We are the side that claims to be tolerant and want dialogue.
My ribs my ribs my ribs, this must be an April Fools day joke
“drowned polar bear researcher” ?? Who was it that drowned? And they grilled him afterwards?
What has the world come to?
Extrapolating the number of drowned beats in that 603 sq km seach area to the entire Arctic Ocean means 66,976 bears died in that storm. No wonder they are endangered.
Are we even sure the bears were dead and not just playing dead!
This all kind of reminds me of the farce currently going in the US Senate and House over raising the government debt ceiling.
A bunch of overpaid clowns floundering around, not really knowing what they are doing and desperately trying to persuade anyone who might listen that he, or she, is a responsible rational person who should be listened to.
In the meantime, it seems to be all about scoring points and no one seems to care about, or want to take responsibility for, the stupidity of their own actions, or inactions.
Who made the autopsy on the dead bears?
Surely there was was autopsy, otherwise he would not know that the cause of death was drowning.
Now, tell me, Dr Monnet; who made the autopsy?
I am disappointed by the caliber of the accusations. I was expecting that they would at least have a proof that Monnett poisoned and killed the polar bears.
Extrapolating from 3 selectively seen dead polar bears after the storm that there are billions of dead polar bears for each minute of SUV that runs is surely junk science but one that everyone in the AGW-related establishment (and maybe beyond) is surely going to defend.
One could hope that this affair would serve as yet another warning about the grand alliance of those who would place their yoke on all of humanity.
vigilis salutis
“ERIC MAY: So combining the three dead polar bears and the four alive bears is a mistake?
CHARLES MONNETT: No, it‟s not a mistake. It‟s just not a, a, a real, uh, rigorous analysis. And a whole bunch of peer reviewers and a journal, you know –”
Yes it is a mistake. Dead bears certainly spend a lot more time in the water than live ones moving from one location to another. One cannot make any conclusion whatsoever till you know what percent of all bears were in the water swimming and for how long. That wasn’t done. To do that you need to know lot more info than one can glean from the information he collected.
“CHARLES MONNETT: Well, no, I didn‟t think so. I thought that was perfectly reasonable to ask them, since it isn‟t something – remember, the reason it‟s not in the database is because it, it doesn‟t happen. You know, you don‟t see it, so – and there‟s a reason, uh, why it‟s changed, which is in, in, in a lot of the early years, there was a lot of ice out there, and there just weren‟t opportunities for there to be dead bears. You know, bears don‟t drown when there‟s ice all over the place.”
So he is interjecting his assumptions not using observations to come to your conclusions. Perhaps bears do drown all the time for other reasons when there are plenty of ice floes. Perhaps they drown when weak from old age or lack of food, perhaps they drown when pinched between colliding ice floes. When there is a lot of ice does it not become difficult to impossible to spot live bears let alone dead ones between ice floes? Isn’t it much more likely that a storm would drown a bear in a situation with less ice floes than one with floes. Did he repeat his observations when there were no storms, and did he find dead bears at drown at that point?
His studies are garbage and about as useful as reports on the effectiveness of prayer in curing sickness from priests. As a scientist he has to be skeptical of his own conclusions, and test them. They were not tested at all, period.