Readers may recall the strange series of events leading up to the post facto revisionism at the Vail Daily News when Dr. Michael Mann sent an angry reply letter to the newspaper and then the original letter from Dr. Hertzberg disappeared then reappeared sans a couple of paragraphs that Dr. Mann didn’t like.
Dr. Hertzberg sent this letter to me today, while at the same time sending it to the Vail Daily News. I reproduce it here in entirety, with no edits or changes of any kind.
Response to Michael Mann
When Scott Glasser’s comment of 9/26/11 referred to me indirectly as an “inaccurate” and “irresponsible” “fool” for challenging the theory that human carbon dioxide emission was causing “global warming / climate change”, I felt compelled to respond. My 9/30/11 comment cited the facts and the data that supported my challenge to the theory. In that article, Glasser defended what has been come to be known as the Mann “hockey stick” curve. I responded in my article with the well documented criticism of it from a large number of scientists who carefully reviewed his claims. Also, the so-called “climategate” e-mails revealed an appalling lack of scientific integrity and manipulations by a cabal of advocates of that theory. Mann responded on 10/1/11 accusing me of “false and defamatory statements” packed with “lies and distortions”; of “lying to the public about science”; of a “string of lies tied together”. He stated my “lies are pernicious” and that I am a “charleton”.
In his response, Mann uses an ad-hominem overkill accusing me of lies and lying some six times! Methinks he doth protest too much.
When I am engaged in a scientific dispute with an adversary, and that opponent instead of citing the facts or the data that might support his argument, instead directs an intense barrage of ad-hominem slurs toward me, I am fully confident that I am winning the argument.
My response now is to cite the data. The IPCC report of 1990 prior to Mann’s publication of his “hockey stick” showed a Medieval Warm Period considerably warmer than today with its peak temperature in about 1250 AD. That was followed by a Little Ice Age considerably colder than today with its coldest average temperature in about 1700. Mann’s “hockey stick” curve shows a flat line temperature during those same periods. It finally got rid of the embarrassing Medieval Warm Period that the “climategate” cabal hated so much because it showed a higher temperature than today at a time when the human emission of carbon dioxide was trivial. The more recent and reliable reconstruction for the same time period using 18 other different temperature proxies that are much more reliable than tree rings, reaffirm the 1990 IPCC report. The pesky Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age that Mann obliterated with his “hockey stick” are still there!
For a detailed look at that data and much more, go to www.youtube.com and enter “climategate” and “hertzberg” in the search column. For a more detailed discussion of the “hide the decline” issue, go to Prof. Richard Muller’s talk on the subject at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQpciw8suk.
In any case, don’t take the word of someone like me who Mann characterized as a “charleton”. Here is the much earlier opinion of a distinguished Australian scientist, John Daly:
“The evidence is overwhelming from all corners of the world, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age clearly show up in a variety of proxy indicators, proxies more representative of temperature than inadequate tree ring data.”
“What is disquieting about the hockey stick is not its original publication. As with any paper, it would sink into oblivion if found to be flawed. Rather it was the reaction of the greenhouse industry to it – the chorus of approval, the complete lack of critical evaluation of the theory, the blind acceptance of evidence that was so flimsy. The industry embraced the theory for one reason and one reason only – it told them exactly what they wanted to hear.”
Not long after those comments were written, John Daly died. In one of the climategate e-mails, his death is mentioned as a kind of fortunate occurrence, some “cheering news” that removed one of their adversaries.
So much for scientific integrity!
Dr. Martin Hertzberg
Ph. D. Stanford, 1959
www.explosionexpert.com
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Oh, so Ljungqvist 2010 vindicates Loehle and confirms the MWP? Er, no. From the paper
Our temperature reconstruction agrees well with the reconstructions by Moberg et al. (2005) and Mann et al. (2008) with regard to the amplitude of the variability as well as the timing of warm and cold periods, except for the period c. AD 300–800, despite significant differences in both data coverage and methodology
and he asserts, with caveats, that:
Since AD 1990, though, average temperatures in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere exceed those of any other warm decades the last two millennia, even the peak of the Medieval Warm Period
http://agbjarn.blog.is/users/fa/agbjarn/files/ljungquist-temp-reconstruction-2000-years.pdf
So still, we await evidence for the global, synchronous and warmer-than-today MWP.
Gary – that’s called reframing the debate, but you might want to check out the SI to Mann 2008 especially Fig 7 where he shows that a reconstruction using none of the proxies you dislike is consistent with the conclusion of the main study using all proxies.
Phil Clarke says:
October 6, 2011 at 10:42 am
I hope it is not boorish to point out that to qualify as a sceptic one has to actually be sceptical.
============
Love it!
Philip Clarke says: (although I’m not sure you really meant it)
October 6, 2011 at 1:07 pm
That’s what I believe (i.e., it’s a farce). Is this a Freudian slip (pardon me, ma’am, but….)?
Phil Clarke links to Ljungqvist, who is a historian. The historian uses Briffa, Ammann, Jones, Mann and other climate alarmists as his authorities. But Ljungqvist’s conclusions are 180° contrary to a century of MWP evidence. [And it’s interesting to note how quickly CAGW papers get published: Manuscript received Oct. 2009 revised and accepted Jan. 2010].
When all you have are global warming alarmists, that’s what you use, I guess. Apparently Clarke never clicked on the links I provided in my post above. He would have learned something: overwhelming evidence shows that the MWP was warmer than today – and there were much warmer periods prior to the MWP, all when human CO2 emissions were nil.
In Mann’s letter, at
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20111001/EDITS/110939988/1021&ParentProfile=1065 , he uses “charlatan”, so perhaps “charleton” is Hertzberg’s own misspelling.
(Or maybe the paper edited the web version after the original release.)
The real tradgedy with John Daly’s death was that as a passionate advocate for Australian research into ENSO and its effects on Australia’s climate he was ignored by successive governmental agencies that would rather make CO2 the villian – as if there aren’t enough investigations into a simple gas. Had the government agencies had the courage to champion the advice about the looming problem they identified in Spring 2010, had government had the courage to heed warnings and release water from a reservoir overfull (~100 % – it ended up holding back more than its design capacity of ~230% – another few inches of rain and it could have failed) at the start of an obvious wet season then Brisbane could have been spared some of the flooding.
But no – the signs of a large La-Nina rainfall event were ignored and we all saw the result with the east coast of Australia inundated and flooded.
Some advance warning’s would have been beneficial.
Er, Smokey, your first link was based on the Ljungqvist paper. That is to say, the first study you cited contradicts your claim directly.
As for your other blog posts, well Easterbrook’s claims rest on the GISP2 data, which ends before the start of the last century, telling us nothing about modern warming. Richard Alley, who curates and literally wrote the book on GISP2 says this :
“So, using GISP2 data to argue against global warming is, well, stupid, or misguided, or misled, or something, but surely not scientifically sensible.”
Like the CO2Science project, Easterbrook is not above doctoring the odd graph, his erstwhile department have got so fed up that to the statement in support of the concensus they made this remarkable postscript:
… The Geology Faculty at WWU believes that all science must be subjected to rigorous peer review and publication before it becomes worthy of serious discussion. We do not support publication of non-peer-reviewed scientific results in the general media.
Who can they possibly mean?
Still waiting for that evidence, then ….
Richard Telford…
Thanks for reminding us all that the IPCC reports are not the “final word”, but are human, flawed reports that require the utmost scrutiny. By this example, they may even contain canards.
For the record, I agree with you; the idea of using data from only a single small country to attempt to provide a worldwide temperature proxy is unscientific and essentially meaningless; yet, that’s apparently what the 1990 IPCC report did. It is good of people like you to remind us of these history, for as Santayana reminds us, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
We must not forget that IPCC reports are historically likely to contain such poorly reasoned analyses, and that the damage from these analyses continues long, long after the report has been superceded. Therefore, we must be vigilant and skeptical.
We look forward to your finding these sorts of flaws in the next IPCC report.
I fully support Dr. Hertzberg’s position but don’t believe it’s accurate to refer to the late John Daly as a scientist, i.e., someone with an advanced degree. I vaguely remember reading somewhere on his website that he was a retired merchant seaman. In a way, that says more in his favor than if he had been a distinguished scientist. If my memory is correct, he was simply an ordinary citizen who applied common sense and practical math to arcane warmist theology and found it to be a tissue of lies. In that sense, he was far more distinguished than the “Charletons” who make fat livings from AGW catastrophism. May he RIP.
“jennygp says:
October 6, 2011 at 9:51 am
Mr. Mann sees karma in his rear view mirror. Panic has set in.”
His karma has run over his dogma?
“Actually, ‘our’ prevailing understanding is that doubling CO2 produces at most a degree of warming.”
That might be your prevailing understanding. Probably you’ve been misled by someone because you’re wrong.
Is this the same Phil Clarke who said “Climate change is a matter so serious that it is long past time to give up wasting effort trying to change the behaviour patterns of those dedicated to using an engineered denial to provide themselves with a way of life and accompanying notoriety (See Lord Monckton turns up the heat, June 20). Nobody who matters in climate change science gives a hoot about the prattlings of the denial lobby – comprised as it is largely of people utilising a non issue to press a reactionary political agenda. Let the hyenas bay and chortle as much as they like, like the poor they will always be with us. Moving on to save the planet as we know it.”?
Apparently your advice only applies to censoring Monckton on nonclimate forums, not to your participation here?
Even if there was an MWP — and the evidence is hardly as conclusive as Hertzberg claims — that only makes our current situation worse, because on top of the warming that is bound to happen from aCO2 we have the possibility of a little bit more from nature (and the MWP was only about 1 C at best). I don’t see how any of this reduces concern for aCO2-warming, which could be significant. If we burn all the fossil fuels available to us we would be putting roughly as much carbon into the atmosphere as before the PETM. That event saw a 50% jump in CO2 levels, from 1000 ppm, and a 5 C increase in global temperature.
Figured WUWT readers would quibble over 5,000 vs. 90,487,564, but I was under the impression that this blog’s stats were based upon first time views only and repeated views from the same viewer were not counted. Which would kind of give you an idea of the number of “subscribers“ to WUWT, wouldn`t it?
No matter which way one figures the numbers, WUWT probably outdoes the Vail Daily (I previously called it “The Vail Register“) in readership by an order of magnitude, except possibly on days when WUWT drives traffic their way…
By the way, the Vail Daily states in the “about us“ section that their daily circulation is between 7,501 to 15,000. So their circulation could actually be a lot lower.
Also, I shouldn`t be too rough on them – I am feeling badly about the bird cage liner remark. After all the Daily – and others without deep pockets – are dealing with people who threaten to SLAPP people and organizations who are least able to defend themselves from frivolous lawsuits. Why would the employees and owner of the Daily bet their livelihoods on upsetting such small-minded bullies, and possibly losing to them in court? Best to just remove the offending material and hope the problem goes away.
Eric – No. same name, but those are not my words.
All these deniers of the MWP should take note of the Roman warm period which was obviously warmer. Try walking around Europe and England these days wearing a Roman soldiers uniform, blue knees and a cold bum are not a good look, not conducive to a good fighting man either.
History is either totally skewed or Mr Manne is totally screwed. History happened, it was recorded and revision of history is only possible when control of all information is in your hands.
The internet is a major worry to those that wish to alter the past, and thank god that Al Gore invented it. Mr Manne is behaving like a dog protecting his territory, one can hope that soon the ranger will come and put him in the pound. Then outside his kingdom subjected to questions of import.
Philip Clarke says:
October 6, 2011 at 1:07 pm
I can see that you are interested in the MWP.
Here is an interesting discussion for you;
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-data/
@- wayne Job says: October 7, 2011 at 3:53 am
“All these deniers of the MWP should take note of the Roman warm period which was obviously warmer. Try walking around Europe and England these days wearing a Roman soldiers uniform, blue knees and a cold bum are not a good look, not conducive to a good fighting man either.”
There was a MWP, it just was not globally synchronous or quite as warm as now. Try this excellent map with many of the proxy records displayed of the MWP. A fun majong tile matching game can be had trying to find temporally coincident peaks…
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html
Given the eccentricity of hobbies there ARE people who recreate from the best possible historical evidence the soldiers uniform from the Roman period in England – so that they CAN go walking around Europe re-enacting Roman history.
The Roman soldier of the time wore a thick tunic, trousers, socks and shoes and carried a large cloak.
There are still letters found complaining of the cold, wet dismal climate of Britain from the Roman occupation. There is no archaeological evidence of wine production in Britain during the Roman period but a lot of evidence for wine importation.
Evidence from the clothing and diet of the romans in Britain does not support any claim that it was warmer then than now.
“History is either totally skewed or Mr Manne is totally screwed. History happened, it was recorded and revision of history is only possible when control of all information is in your hands.
The internet is a major worry to those that wish to alter the past, and thank god that Al Gore invented it. ….”
Correct. -grin-
A few moment search would have revealed the reality of Romans in Britain from the multitude of archaeological and historical research.
http://www.legionsix.org/Equipment/Basic%20Gear/Clothing/Uniform.htm
We need a homeless person with no assets to make a public defamation (altrhough of course it would be actually true) of Mann and have him sue that homeless person. Using discovery and pro bono legal we’d rip him a new digestive excretion system.
Umm, you are aware that the eminent Dr. Hertzberg is a semi-retired explosives expert and has no expertise in any of the fields related to global warming at all? And it was he who declared that Mann’s work was “fraudulent”, “fabricated” and “phony”, all in one sentence. So in other words the one to whip out the ad hominem assault was Hertzberg.
izen says:
October 7, 2011 at 11:18 am
RE: Roman Warm Period
Given the eccentricity of hobbies there ARE people who recreate from the best possible historical evidence the soldiers uniform from the Roman period in England – so that they CAN go walking around Europe re-enacting Roman history.
The Roman soldier of the time wore a thick tunic, trousers, socks and shoes and carried a large cloak.
There are still letters found complaining of the cold, wet dismal climate of Britain from the Roman occupation. There is no archaeological evidence of wine production in Britain during the Roman period but a lot of evidence for wine importation.
Evidence from the clothing and diet of the romans in Britain does not support any claim that it was warmer then than now.
A Roman soldier complaining of cold winters in the Scottish borders at the end of the Roman period compared with his warmer homeland is a more likely scenario (the letters never got sent..)and they’re still rather scantily dressed, wouldn’t have kept them warm in the LIA, when the Thames would freeze solid, or even in what came next at the collapse of the Roman period, the Danube freezing over so solidly that no longer the traditional barrier to invading armies from the North. And the Romans are credited with bringing wine production to Britain, including the north. The RWP stretches over a few centuries the studies show and variation in beginning and end over such a large area are to be expected, and there are many studies and they looked at more than just one tree and it’s clear that the RWP existed and was as warm as now or warmer, as the map you posted clearly summarises, but the AGW fraud has always been supported by those who cherry pick and take information out of context and as the wiki history also proves, does whatever it can to destroy evidence of its fraudulent manipulation of data..
..and that’s still going on at wiki – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Roman_Warm_Period
And your “diet of the romans in Britain does not support any claim that it was warmer then than now” is typical deflection from those wanting to play down this period and not admit the any random numbers will do imput Hockey Stick was deliberately created to show none of these great changes by flattening them out of history – diet would have been of the countries invaded, the Romans weren’t farmers, they were soldiers keeping populations in thrall by heavy tax burdens, and, the studies show that it was as warm or even warmer – remember what the junk AGW claim is??
From the same people who put the map together:
The Hockey Stick is the poster child of the whole AGW scam – no one involved in producing or defending it has any credibility as objective scientist, useful idiots for the most part, but those still deliberately skewing data and dishonestly removing or blocking studies have lost the plot completely. That such behaviour doesn’t appal defenders of AGW is testament to the lack of critical thinking supporting the con.
Thomas says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Umm, you are aware that the eminent Dr. Hertzberg is a semi-retired explosives expert and has no expertise in any of the fields related to global warming at all? And it was he who declared that Mann’s work was “fraudulent”, “fabricated” and “phony”, all in one sentence. So in other words the one to whip out the ad hominem assault was Hertzberg.
Not the meaning of ad hominem, which is to attack the person rather than the results/evidence of the argument the person presented, to deflect attention from and in lieu of presenting contrary evidence disputing it, because there is none. It’s a technique of the loser. Dr Hertzberg here summarises that Mann’s work is fraudulent, fabricated and phony because the evidence shows it is. He doesn’t have to make an ad hom personal attack on Mann, the evidence shows he’s the kind of person who deliberately produces fraudulent, fabricated and phony data.
You are using ad hominem to attack Dr Hertzberg in lieu of presenting a factual defence of Mann’s work, because there is none.
Anthony Watts says:
October 6, 2011 at 8:25 am
Advice to Richard Telford, admit your mistake (re: Yamal)
—————
Tu quoque.
I have made no mistake regarding Yamal for I have never mentioned it here. Hertzberg made an error. His error remains an error irrespective of whether there are problems with Yamal.
——————
Smokey says:
October 6, 2011 at 1:33 am
It is you who is mendaciously spreading the ‘no MWP’ canard. The MWP is a thoroughly documented, world-wide event. Denying the world wide existence of the MWP [and the LIA] is an alarmist desperation tactic. I for one am getting tired of providing numerous links proving the existence of the MWP.
————–
In the N-Atlantic region, the evidence for the MWP is strong, but it is a thoroughly documented, world-wide event only in your imagination. The CO2 science site you repeatedly link to is incapable of distinguishing between temperature and precipitation – any wet or dry period within several hundred years of the Atlantic MWP is used a proof it was warmer globally during the MWP. Only if there are globally synchronous temperature proxies showing the MWP can we conclude that it is global temperature anomaly. If the event is not synchronous, the the MWP in the N Atlantic could be offset by cooling elsewhere. The concept of a medieval climate anomaly is broad enough to incorporate precipitation changes. This has been explained to you repeatedly, but you are unable or unwilling to accept this.
Imagine the consequences if population censuses were conducted on the same basis as CO2 Science uses to quantify the MWP. Rather than asking how many people were in your house on a particular night (how it is done in the UK), the “CO2 Science” organised census would ask what is the maximum number of people you ever have had in your house, and would not care to discriminate between people and pets when counting. The resulting population estimate would be as questionable as their estimate of the extent of the MWP.
Get a clue, Telford. The MWP was a global event.
I have to laugh at the jamokes who still try to resurrect the falsified MBH98 hokey stick. And they call scientific skeptics ‘climate change deniers’! Pure psychological projection.
@- Myrrh says: October 8, 2011 at 12:23 am
“A Roman soldier ….and they’re still rather scantily dressed, wouldn’t have kept them warm in the LIA, when the Thames would freeze solid, or even in what came next at the collapse of the Roman period, the Danube freezing over so solidly that no longer the traditional barrier to invading armies from the North.”
Soldiers during the LIA from Tudor times to the English civil war had the same clothing as Roman soldiers, tunic, trousers, boots and cloak. Styles were different, but I see no evidence they were dressed any warmer – do you?
If you claim that the Romans exposed more bare flesh so it must have been warmer then I think you either underestimate the resilience of humans, or perhaps it is just as warm (or warmer!) now as in the Northern cities of Britain it is not uncommon to see – when fashion dictates – short-sleeve tops and mini-skirts… even in the snow!
“And the Romans are credited with bringing wine production to Britain, including the north. ”
They may be credited with that, but there is no evidence to back it up. Tacitus writes the climate is unsuitable for wine making in his history of the Roman occupation. While there is some evidence the Romans grew vines in Britain at a few garden sites in the south. there is no widespread evidence of vine cultivation at wine-producing scale.
Roman wine production is associated with two key archaeological features found in areas where Roman wine was made. A large stone basin for treading and pressing the grapes and doilium, ceramic ~100gallon vats part buried in the ground in which the wine was fermented. Both are large, persistent and characteristic finds associated with Roman wine-making. Neither have ever been found in Britain. Many Roman tombs in Britain record the occupation of the deceased. Wine-maker is not among them.
“The RWP stretches over a few centuries the studies show and variation in beginning and end over such a large area are to be expected, and there are many studies and they looked at more than just one tree and it’s clear that the RWP existed and was as warm as now or warmer,….”
I think you are trying to argue that while I should utterly reject one set of temperature data from tree-rings I should accept another set of data derived from tree-rings… How about we ignore ALL the evidence from tree-rings as suspect as suggested by Hertzberg?!
Using other evidence it may be possible to argue that the RWP and the MWP were more than just regional changes with little global significance, but that raises another problem. If the climate has altered so much in the past it indicates that climate sensitivity, the amount temperature rises in response to more energy, is on the high side of present estimates. Certainly MUCH more than the very low climate sensitivity values suggested by Lindzen and others otherwise it could not have got that much warmer in the past.
This is why I always find it strange that it is the skeptics who seem to be arguing for GREATER past variability against ‘warmists’ arguing for less.
But the greater past variability the more effect the extra energy from rising CO2 will have on the climate. It indicated less negative feedback in the system.