Some background from the original “hide the decline” from Steve McIntyre here
Despite relatively little centennial variability, Briffa’s reconstruction had a noticeable decline in the late 20th century, despite warmer temperatures. In these early articles [e.g. Briffa 1998], the decline was not hidden.
For most analysts, the seemingly unavoidable question at this point would be – if tree rings didn’t respond to late 20th century warmth, how would one know that they didn’t do the same thing in response to possible medieval warmth – a question that remains unaddressed years later.
He writes now in Hide-the-Decline Plus
Indeed, they did not simply “hide the decline”, their “hide the decline” was worse than we thought. Mann et al did not merely delete data after 1960, they deleted data from 1940 on, You can see the last point of the Briffa reconstruction (located at ~1940) peeking from behind the spaghetti in the graphic below:
Detail from Mann et al (EOS 2003) Figure 1. Arrow points to Briffa series peeking out from behind the spaghetti
Had Mann et al used the actual values, the decline would have been as shown in the accompanying graphic:
Figure 3. Re-stated Mann et al (EOS 2003) Figure 1 showing the decline.
Had Mann and his 13 co-authors shown the Briffa reconstruction, without hiding the decline, one feels that von Storch (and others) might have given more consideration to Soon et al’s criticism of the serious problem arising from the large-population failure of tree ring widths and density to track temperature.
Read the whole article Hide-the-Decline Plus
Make this known far and wide.
Julian Williams in Wales: Shouldn’t that read Piltdown Mann ?
I still prefer Meltdown Man
I think you should read this. This is how they reacted on Broeckers paper: Was the Medieval Warm Period Global?
http://di2.nu/foia/0983196231.txt
http://di2.nu/foia/0983286849.txt
Some extracts:
“but he thinks Ed Cook is a great scientist”
“If we’re all on board, than an appropriately toned, “high road” response here might be appropriate.”
“let Wojick stew in his own juice”
“perhaps we should just try to let this thing die…”
“there *is* a hemispheric “medieval warm period” and “little ice age””
“Science’s embargo policy prevents me from saying much more at this time, but if Phil or anyone else wishes to comment further,”
“I’m not the only one who thinks the IPCC is nuts.”
“So Julia handled it.”
“Wally told me he didn’t reckon Tom, so Tom has got the right vibes.”
“Julia is asking us to go ahead and hinting at a joint response.”
“Could add in that even the two warming periods in the 20th century don’t show warming everywhere – especially the early 20th century. Remember that we are all basically averaging long series together and if one site shows a big warming/cooling then the average will to a lesser extent.”
“Thanks for your message regarding Wally Broecker’s Perspective. I am of course aware of this Perspective coming out – I did handle it – I realized that it was perhaps a bit handwaving in parts but I thought the message was interesting and the article passed the usual screening.”
Found on:
http://mittelalterlichewarmperiode.blogspot.com
Yours,
Pascal
Richard @ur momisugly 1.52 am
Well stated and many thanks.
However this does not negate the work that needs to be done.
And you do not need to be observing, rather actioning, speaking to the people that lived (or not), who challenged this fraud in science. Honour them.
The others were content it seems to allow this to occur. As it has become an artefact.
Or is art-e-fact?
Actually the Briffa record up to 1940 is a pretty good reflection of what we do know from other data about tropospheric temperature changes over the past 600 years.
On that basis the post 1940 drop would be higly significant yet it was simply deleted as an inconvenient truth.
Given my interest in shifting climate zones I would suggest the following:
i) In cool periods like the LIA the limiting factor for growth is temperature.
ii) In warm periods such as the MWP and today the limiting factor for growth is rainfall.
The best growth conditions occur between cold and warm periods.
So that proxy record understates the warmth of warm periods but fully reflects the coolness of cold periods.
Having dendro evidence underrating warm periods would be a problem for Mann because the MWP could have been significantly warmer than the present. There is a suggestion of that in the warmth of Greenland when the Vikings settled it. The climate zones would have to have been more poleward than at present to allow the agriculture that they engaged in.
David Duff,
I added my comment to the thread on Deltoid – I hope it’s some help.
I made a comment in reply to a numpty called Kevin who seemed to think that because the graph was ‘only on the cover’ it didn’t matter that it was being wantonly selective with the data.
Regards,
Andy
Obviously, all the the tree-ring temperature reconstructions should be just thrown out.
As a technique, it does not work.
Let’s see if climate science can accept the “more-than-obvious” conclusion and move on to other temperature indicators.
If they don’t, we will be able to assess their ability to make reasonable conclusions and/or their desire to continue abusing the scientific method.
I’ve asked it before, and I’ll ask it again:
at what point does this level of manipulation rise to the level of fraud?
many others have been prosecuted for less.
tallbloke says:
December 1, 2011 at 12:05 am
Looks like the error bars need error bars…
My first thought: Huh, a part of the data that lies outside the error band? But you hit the nail on the head with your remark.
Richard:
I agree, but such an argument is not a scientific one, rather, it is one of political gamesmanship. The counter to any defense along this line of thought is that now there is yet another 20 years of divergence that must be dealt with, even more seriously calling into question the validity of tree rings as proxies for temperatures. If they diverged from 1940 till now, and we only have a few hundred years with which to compare, what does that say about a 1500 year comparison? Furthermore, for a 1960 divergence, there are all manner of deflections being applied, many tied to events during that period of history IIRC, but 1940 renders any of those moot.
Ultimately, tree rings tell us how well trees grow during any given period. The number of inputs and known non-linearities greatly overshadow any individual indicator.
Mark
They faced four big problems with their narrative – a medieval warm period, a little ice age, a temperature drop post 1940, and a divergence between instrumentation and proxies post 1960.
Unable to find even a single data source to cover all four problems, they had to splice together different data sources, and quite literally remove the pieces which did not fit the narrative.
It now is clear they were all aware and complicit in this – over a long period of time.
Is it any wonder they have hid, refused access to, and deleted data and correspondence?
The whole thing is astonishing – but it does support the theory that if you are going to sell a lie, better make it a big and outrageous one.
I can totally see why the general population find the counter narrative hard to believe – what we are suggesting has been going on is quite literally unbelievable if anything approaching reasonable standards are assumed.
I agree with Richard S C at 1:52 am. Let’s all face certain ‘facts’ because Steve M’s discovery regarding the post-1940 drop deleted from mann’s reconstruction makes certain things fact. The CO2 theory is a valid theory of physical science; the last 200 years has seen unprecedent human intervention in the’carbon cycle’ so AnthroGW (AGW) is a valid theory, there is a massive distinction between CO2 theory and CATASTROPHIC GW (CAGW) predictions, there is now way to empirically prove CAGW because there is no database of worldwide temps pre-industrialization to date. Those are the facts. Enter Mann’s fraud. The historic DENDRO THERMOMETER temp reconstruction. He came up with physical evidence proving CAGW. There was a problem. There is no Dendro thermometer — trees are a rough analoge to a mass of factors including temps, humidy, rainfall, cloud cover, drought, ice storms etc etc. They are NOT thermometers. So he had a bogus theory — fair enough. His fraud was deleting inconvenient post 1940 data, and covering that up since then. His greed was all the grant money and publicity to be had from his proof of CAGW. He’s been exposed as a fraud– nothing he says can be considered credible. Those are the facts.
Jud– they had a bigger problem. trees are not thermometers. The rest of your comment is spot on.
richard verney:
At December 1, 2011 at 3:21 am you say to me:
“
I consider that any reasonable scientist in this situation would conclude that the proxy was not reliable and should be wholly disregarded, and that no reconstruction of events earlier than the instrument record could be made using that particular proxy.
Thus the issue here is why did these scientists not throw out the proxy? Why did they go ahead and make a reconstruction based upon what was so obviously a patently flawed and unreliable proxy?”
For clarity, I reply that I completely agree. Indeed, I have often said the same myself (including on WUWT).
But I was making a different point. Simply, the splicing of parts of two different data sets is not acceptable: it is plain wrong. And I have been saying it is wrong since the week that MBH98 was published.
Nothing should be allowed to distract from the facts that the splicing is plain wrong and was done with malice of forethought.
Richard
@Peter Miller – Good luck getting Gavin to respond. I tried posting twice yesterday at RC, pointing out that proxy chopping and manipulation (i.e. grafting) was not good science. My comments were summarily banished to the bit bucket.
I agree with my friend Richard – wrong is wrong – but the additional detail, that the false data-splice dates back to ~1940 and is visible (with magnification) in plain sight, is news to me – thanks.
My scientific conclusion is this:
These “hockey team” global warming conspirators are utterly discredited – a reasonable assumption is that EVERYTHING they have or will produce should be disregarded.
This conclusion saves considerable time and energy…
… and I trust that true energy conservation is something we can all agree on.
__________________________
BTW, splicing together two dissimilar datasets to promote the fantasy of humanmade global warming was also used by “the team ” in a bogus attempt to say that Antarctica was warming. Remember this, from 2009?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/21/antarctica-warming-an-evolution-of-viewpoint/#comment-80957
Tallbloke I would take that one step further. These GIGO climate scientists need to start developing error bars for themselves!!!! And the funny thing about that, is that they probably have already done that…you know…just in case.
@ur momisuglyPeter Miller (Update) – My post and a reply from earlier today. They (Dr. Schmidt) chose to remove a portion of my comment. The part that now reads [edit] originally stated “proxy manipulation as bad science”.
I notice that the red line (temp record) is wider and place on top of the other lines. I suppose this is to cover up those being chopped off.
Lucy: I went to the EOS paper you linked to see for myself per your recommendation. However, there are no lines the pass over and infront of the big red line. I could not find the snap shot of McKintyres (presumably of the same EOS plot) with the actual EOS. Can you do a snap shot in progressively higher magnifications.
Splicing the dataset to drop the non-fits, as Richard Courtney observes, is done “with malice a forethought” and this is unforgiveable. Yet I think that the splice setup is even worse than the Briffa deletion.
(1) it looks like it isn’t just Briffa that’s been deleted or curtailed too soon
(2) those iniquitous pseudo-data from models are there, looking like they prop up a “meteoric rise” in thermometer records. These do NOT belong here at all, and simply make more visual distractions
(3) Look at Siberian thermometer records compared with local treering records 1880-2005. The treering records do not remotely resemble the thermometer records regarding years of high temperatures or low temperatures; yet the thermometer records agree closely with each other. Trees are self-evidently no use as thermometers. However, treeline records DO show a correspondence with climate changes – showing, of course, a warmer MWP in Siberia.
(4) of course, the EOS paper simply puts in all the pro-hockey-stick papers and omits all the rest, the papers against which the Team is fighting with this paper. I want to be reminded, which are the rogue HS-creators in each recon?? (Tiljander etc)
Stephen Wilde says:
December 1, 2011 at 4:06 am
“Actually the Briffa record up to 1940 is a pretty good reflection of what we do know from other data about tropospheric temperature changes over the past 600 years.
So that proxy record understates the warmth of warm periods but fully reflects the coolness of cold periods.
Having dendro evidence underrating warm periods would be a problem for Mann because the MWP could have been significantly warmer than the present.”
There is an apparent conflict in your statements. How can the record be a pretty good reflection of what we know from other data over the past 600 years yet the proxy understates the warmth to the degree found in hide the decline?
I think many people are struggling with this question. It does seem a big step to say that the entire proxy record is as untrustworthy as the years 1940-2000, roughly the period in “hide the decline.” I believe that the entire record must be viewed as untrustworthy until we have some scientific evidence to the contrary. At the very least, we must conclude on what we know now that tree ring proxies cannot be treated as a linear function of temperature.
The importance of “hiding the decline” has not received a full explanation. What makes the hiding worse than we thought is that it reveals that the scientists involved either do not have the instincts of empirical scientists or they overcame their instincts. Upon making the discovery of the decline in tree ring width, a genuine scientist would have seen that this discovery is the important product of his work and would have published the matter and undertaken empirical research to determine why the decline occurred. No member of The Team did that. If we do not understand this larger point about “hiding the decline” then we do not understand the degree to which The Team betrayed science.
I would have thought that Horner etc have enough evidence by now (re emails) to put Mann (and other persons aiding and abetting at Penn State and UEA) in Jail/or fines for public fraud.
“They faced four big problems with their narrative – a medieval warm period, a little ice age, a temperature drop post 1940, and a divergence between instrumentation and proxies post 1960.”
A neat explanation:
i) The cooling period post 1940 shows up nicely in the dendro data with a reduction in tree growth.
ii) From 1960 the UHI effect starts to influence thermometer readngs and the divergence begins.
iii) From 1975 to 2000 a poleward shift in the climate zones causes drought issues for tree growth which declines further.
iv) From 1975 to 2000 the UHI effect is compounded by a run of strong El Ninos raising tropospheric temperatures.
The result is a large divergence between surface sensors and dendro data.
I would say that the WHOLE editorial staff at Nature and main editors needs to be fired/replaced totally, over the whole climate science issue to get some credibility back for what was now become a “trash journal”
Anyone who has ever grown a tree (or nearly any plant) knows that growth is limited by water. In drought years trees don’t grow much, no matter what the temperature is.