Tom Nelson spots a gem in the Climategate 2 emails:
Hockey stick co-author Ray Bradley:
“it may be that Mann et al simply don’t have the long-term trend right”;
“I hedge my bets on whether there were any periods in Medieval times that might have been “warm”, to the irritation of my co-authors!”
…
Sorry this kept you awake…but I have also found it a rather alarming graph. First, a disclaimer/explanation. The graph patches together 3 things: Mann et al NH mean annual temps + 2 sigma standard error for AD1000-1980, + instrumental data for 1981-1998 + IPCC (“do not quote, do not cite” projections for GLOBAL temperature for the next 100 years, relative to 1998. The range of shading represents several models of projected emissions scenarios as input to GCMs, but the GCM mean global temperature output (as I understand it) was then reproduced by Sarah Raper’s energy balance model, and it is those values that are plotted. Keith pointed this out to me; I need to go back & read the IPCC TAR to understand why they did that, but it makes no difference to the first order result….neither does it matter that the projection is global rather than NH….the important point is that the range of estimates far exceeds the range estimated by Mann et al in their reconstruction. Keith also said that the Hadley Center GCM runs are being archived at CRU, so it ought to be possible to get that data and simply compute the NH variability for the projected period & add that to the figure, but it will not add much real information. However, getting such data would allow us to extract (say) a summer regional series for the Arctic and to then plot it versus the Holocene melt record from Agassiz ice cap….or….well, you can see other possiblities.
[……At this point Keith Alverson throws up his hands in despair at the ignorance of non-model amateurs…]
But there are real questions to be asked of the paleo reconstruction. First, I should point out that we calibrated versus 1902-1980, then “verified” the approach using an independent data set for 1854-1901. The results were good, giving me confidence that if we had a comparable proxy data set for post-1980 (we don’t!) our proxy-based reconstruction would capture that period well. Unfortunately, the proxy network we used has not been updated, and furthermore there are many/some/ tree ring sites where there has been a “decoupling” between the long-term relationship between climate and tree growth, so that things fall apart in recent decades….this makes it very difficult to demonstrate what I just claimed. We can only call on evidence from many other proxies for “unprecedented” states in recent years (e.g. glaciers, isotopes in tropical ice etc..). But there are (at least) two other problems — Keith Briffa points out that the very strong trend in the 20th century calibration period accounts for much of the success of our calibration and makes it unlikely that we would be able be able to reconstruct such an extraordinary period as the 1990s with much success (I may be mis-quoting him somewhat, but that is the general thrust of his criticism). Indeed, in the verification period, the biggest “miss” was an apparently very warm year in the late 19th century that we did not get right at all. This makes criticisms of the “antis” difficult to respond to (they have not yet risen to this level of sophistication, but they are “on the scent”). Furthermore, it may be that Mann et al simply don’t have the long-term trend right, due to underestimation of low frequency info. in the (very few) proxies that we used. We tried to demonstrate that this was not a problem of the tree ring data we used by re-running the reconstruction with & without tree rings, and indeed the two efforts were very similar — but we could only do this back to about 1700. Whether we have the 1000 year trend right is far less certain (& one reason why I hedge my bets on whether there were any periods in Medieval times that might have been “warm”, to the irritation of my co-authors!). So, possibly if you crank up the trend over 1000 years, you find that the envelope of uncertainty is comparable with at least some of the future scenarios, which of course begs the question as to what the likely forcing was 1000 years ago. (My money is firmly on an increase in solar irradiance, based on the 10-Be data..). Another issue is whether we have estimated the totality of uncertainty in the long-term data set used — maybe the envelope is really much larger, due to inherent characteristics of the proxy data themselves….again this would cause the past and future envelopes to overlap.
…Ray [Bradley]
At 01:34 PM 7/10/00 +0200, you wrote: Salut mes amis,
I’ve lost sleep fussing about the figure coupling Mann et al. (or any alternative climate-history time series) to the IPCC scenarios. It seems to me to encapsulate the whole past-future philosophical dilemma that bugs me on and off (Ray – don’t stop reading just yet!), to provide potentially the most powerful peg to hang much of PAGES future on, at least in the eyes of funding agents, and, by the same token, to offer more hostages to fortune for the politically motivated and malicious. It also links closely to the concept of being inside or outside ‘the envelope’ – which begs all kinds of notions of definition. Given what I see as its its prime importance, I therefore feel the need to understand the whole thing better. I don’t know how to help move things forward and my ideas, if they have any effect at all, will probably do the reverse. At least I might get more sleep having unloaded them, so here goes……[Frank Oldenfield]
==============================================================
But wait, there’s more
Hockey stick co-author claims that after 1850, critical trees lost their alleged ability to record temperature
If you examine my Fig 1 closely you will see that the Campito record and Keith’s reconstruction from wood density are extraordinarily similar until 1850. After that they differ not only in the lack of long-term trend in Keith’s record, but in every other respect – the decadal-scale correlation breaks down. I tried to imply in my e-mail, but will now say it directly, that although a direct carbon dioxide effect is still the best candidate to explain this effect, it is far from proven. In any case, the relevant point is that there is no meaningful correlation with local temperature. Not all high-elevation tree-ring records from the West that might reflect temperature show this upward trend. It is only clear in the driest parts (western) of the region (the Great Basin), above about 3150 meters elevation, in trees old enough (>~800 years) to have lost most of their bark – ‘stripbark’ trees. As luck would have it, these are precisely the trees that give the chance to build temperature records for most of the Holocene. I am confident that, before AD1850, they do contain a record of decadal-scale growth season temperature variability. I am equally confident that, after that date, they are recording something else. [Malcolm Hughes]
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James Sexton says:
December 25, 2011 at 6:16 pm
“We’ve gone beyond lending that vapid thought any credence. The only thing left if to decide if indictments should be handed out only in this nation, (the U.S.) or should INTERPOL be involved. They should have never engaged. It won’t just be me, there will be many, many more, but, I’ll be the “Simon Wiesenthal” of climatphrenology. Those stupid bastards knew this was crap!! Their harm is uncalculable.”
Very Well Said! Loved your “Shout out.” By the way, the same is true of everyone who claims that models can be used for prediction. They know the claim is false.
EW says:
December 25, 2011 at 4:50 pm
You are unaware of your own confirmation bias. What you have done is select environments in which temperature is a growth factor for these trees and all other factors have been minimized.
In my view, you have selected environments which confirm your “a priori” view that temperature is all that matters. You do not see that bias, right?
Aside from confirmation bias in experimental design, there are problems with these proxies. The main problem is that these environments are so far off the beaten path that you must use some really fancy theory to rationalize your belief that these proxies provide some information that is relevant to global temperature and not just Yamal.
Another serious problem is your lack of interest in providing empirical evidence for your claims. You say that all factors other than temperature have been minimized but you have no empirical research to support that claim or you would be proudly discussing it here.
Another serious problem is that you cannot tell us the shape of the growth curve for these trees. If we accept your “a priori” assumption that only temperature affects the growth of these trees, can you tell us the shape of the curve for temperature’s affect? I am sure you cannot. If you have it, would you please post it here immediately and explain the empirical research you did to ascertain it. Like all Warmists, you probably treat it as a linear function. As we have learned from “Hide the Decline,” tree growth is not a linear function of temperature. Furthermore, is it not true that Briffa used the same type of tree that you are studying?
Finally, I do not believe for one minute that temperature is the only factor in tree growth even in the environment you are studying. There are factor of sunlight, soil quality, changes in local fauna, human management, and many others. If you doubt that sunlight is a factor in tree gowth then I must say you have never spent serious time in a forest at alI. I doubt that you lifted a finger to do empirical research on any of these other matters.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 25, 2011 at 2:16 pm
“Excess cold will kill growth stone dead as will inadequate water.
All else is chaff.”
How do you know that? Not on the basis of empirical research. How can you discount sunlight? Have you never noticed that underneath the canopy of an old deciduous forest there is no undergrowth? There is no undergrowth because there is no sunlight.
“I agree that many other variables are in play but one cannot overcome lack of warmth or lack of water so taking a species as a whole on average globally the most important parameters are water and warmth.
Now if one needs to go further to diagnose the growth factors for each individual tree or group of treees then you are both correct.
But we do not need to do that for the purpose of simply discrediting trees as adequate thermometers.”
OK.
This has been a very informative discussion, especially the contributions of Steve Garcia, Stephen Wilde, davidmhoffer, Theo Goodwin, and Pat Moffitt. (Apologies to any names omitted.)
IanM
@ur momisugly Pat Moffitt (December 24, 2011 at 9:50 pm) Your analysis of how a corrupt scientific system self-perpetuates and has nothing to do with science and everything to do with the politics of sustaining a career and grants-getting is absolutely masterly.
I was intrigued when you shared the information that “Climate was not my area of specialty however in my areas of acid rain, nutrients and fishery management I can show you abuses that are far greater (except in monetary terms) than what we see in climate.” I was wondering, as a historian of fisheries science and fisheries, if you would be willing to share briefly what abuses in fishery management (lakes? rivers? maritime?) you experienced? I suppose it would be nothing new to me in the general scheme of things, but I’m not so familiar with problems in US fishery management as I am with the Canadian stories.
How about David Suzuki’s war on farmed fish? Granted there are concerns, but most of the concerns voiced by Suzuki, et al, have more to do with the Progressive dogma than legit biology…or maybe not, what do I know.
Theo Goodwin says:
December 25, 2011 at 7:31 pm
James Sexton says:
December 25, 2011 at 6:16 pm
“We’ve gone beyond lending that vapid thought any credence. ……….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Very Well Said! Loved your “Shout out.” By the way, the same is true of everyone who claims that models can be used for prediction. They know the claim is false.
===================================================================
Theo, I haven’t given a proper “shout out” to the peeps who have kept the faith and fought the good fight. But, when I do, your name will be close to the top. Not that it will mean anything for posterity, we’ll be little regarded, if at all. Still, there will be people who remember. I will. You and David and all of the people who have been here, past, present, and future. Mostly, the ones who came before…… the ones that didn’t know why but knew it was wrong……. most of them are gone now.
My drink is for them today! Merry Christmas! God Bless the ones who kept the fire going. We would not have a voice today were it not for them.
As a complete non-expert in tree-ring science I am incompetent to comment on the contributions here. However I would be interested if someone could critique JoNova’s blog Dec 10 this year ‘Chinese 2,485 tree-ring study shows natural cycles control climate, temps may cool til 2068’. Is this study relevant? Local weather report – ‘Sydney still quite cool for December!’ I imagine quick growing eucalypts are hopeless for tree-ring data and glaciers are in short supply in OZ.Cheers Tommo.
Dudley Robertson says:
December 25, 2011 at 11:56 am
Which of the following is true concerning Mann and the hockey stick?
There was a misjudgment in using the data.
There was a deliberate manipulation of data to fit a desired outcome.
Fraud was committed in presenting manipulated and known problematic data.
The first one seems to be a given. The second finds support in the politics of the IPCC and in the acquiescence of the players to allow the graph to stand.
The question of fraud stands and needs to be answered. A lot of funding was generated based on that graph.
*******************************************************************
Good points Dudley, and the Climategate emails clearly answer the fraud question in the affirmative. Not only was there fraud, there was conspiracy to commit fraud. A trillion dollars of scarce global resources has been squandered on this fraud.
And those who spoke the truth against adversity are being persecuted by the authorities, and the fraudsters are still not being investigated. Why, and why not?
Observations are baffling, they do not seem to share wishes of ones nor opinions of others.
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/8966/dendrod.png
Vigilantfish-
I don’t want to hijack this thread so will try to find some way to contact you directly- would like to share information of this topic.
James Sexton says:
December 25, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Thanks for your kind words. As regards your larger message, I am struggling to keep the Enlightenment alive and I cannot do otherwise. I am at peace with that. Thanks for all your great contributions.
Merry Christmas.
Pat Moffitt says:
December 26, 2011 at 7:35 am
Vigilantfish-
“I don’t want to hijack this thread so will try to find some way to contact you directly- would like to share information of this topic.”
Your topic is extremely interesting and important. Maybe after you (and Vigilantfish) get it written up you can do a guest post on it. I really like your feel for empirical research. Contrary to what the Warmists believe, Nature is amazingly dynamic and will not lie down and roll over for the scientist.
ChE said:
December 24, 2011 at 10:38 am
… but Bradley doesn’t know what begging the question is. At least he’s sophisticated.
Heh. And he showed it in the discussion of “science” that relies heavily on petitio principii.
Ignorance and vanity are a lethal blend.
Theo Goodwin says:
December 26, 2011 at 8:57 am
About Pat Moffitt:
“Your topic is extremely interesting and important. Maybe after you (and Vigilantfish) get it written up you can do a guest post on it. I really like your feel for empirical research. Contrary to what the Warmists believe, Nature is amazingly dynamic and will not lie down and roll over for the scientist.”
AGREE!!!
Chip NIkh says:
The way my fellow science teachers and I found to break the ‘mass synching bias’ of students, to believe before they perceive, was a simple ad hominem logic questions in their class work:
Here’s a great experiment for your students have them collect rain water and have them measure the pH. Next have them pour the rain water through peat moss and measure the pH.
If you wish to see a recent and purposeful government abuse of science education- see this study guide for teachers from NOAA http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/TEACHERS/CHEMISTRY/. Everything from the definitions (eutrophication) to the experiment are deeply and fundamentally flawed and bent for political purposes to promote the next environmental crisis- the Nitrogen Cascade- the replacement for the failing CO2 paradigm.
Dizzy (at December 24, 10:02 above) references a 2009 paper in Science by Mann and Bradley et al, and adds, “Includes a hockey stick. Read some real science.”
So I read it. Unlike the original Mann hockey stick, this one clearly shows the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period ( or Climate Anomaly, as they prefer to call it). Since the shaft is no longer straight, it doesn’t much resemble a hockey stick anymore. But the blade still shoots straight up in the latter 20th century.
And thereby rises an intriguing parallel to the original hockey stick: the return of the “hide the decline” motif. The graph of temperature versus time uses proxies for 500-1850 AD, and the instrumental record for 1850 to 2000. This is a defensible choice, since the instrumental record period was used to calibrate the inferred temperature of the proxies. But here’s the problem: we aren’t shown how well the proxies track the instrumental record. I wonder whether the proxies would show temperatures as high as the instruments at the end of the 20th century. Perhaps they match perfectly, and there is no proxy deviation to “need” hiding. But I would feel cozier about snuggling up to the new improved hockey stick if I could see that correlation graphed out. I’m not ready to take it on trust.
Theo Goodwin (at December 25, 8:14 pm) says:
“Have you ever noticed that underneath the canopy of an old deciduous forest there is no undergrowth?”
A good point, and especially relevant to tree rings. In the summer of 2006, I was teaching Forestry merit badge at a troop encampment in the northern Sierras near Stampede Reservoir (a few miles north of Truckee and Lake Tahoe). The chief forester for Tahoe National Forest took us to a dense stand of tall red firs and ponderosa pines. The Forest Service had suppressed fire in this stand for more than a century. The understory comprised a number of short, scrawny trees, mostly firs, typically 2 to 5 feet in height and only 2 or 3 inches in diameter at the base. The forester pointed out that many of these little trees were not young, but instead dated back to the beginning of fire suppression a century before: they had survived but become natural bonsai. The taller trees take all the light and their roots suck up most of the nutrients. If the great trees around them were cut or fell, these bonsai would readily start growing at normal rates to occupy the space; otherwise they would remain permanently dwarfed.
So a tree dwarfed in its youth by bigger neighbors but subsequently allowed to grow more normally would show incredibly dense rings in early life, but wider-spaced rings later. This would show nothing about either temperature or rainfall, but rather about competition with its neighbors.
Barry Elledge says:
December 26, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Very well said. It is very pleasant to meet another who knows forests and trees.
“I hedge my bets on whether there were any periods in Medieval times that might have been “warm”, to the irritation of my co-authors!”
So the conclusion to the hockey stick paper should have said.
“The basic fundamentals of the reconstruction is disputed by some authors of this paper. There is so much unreliability in the data overall that the paper should really be withdrawn, but that would mean the work we have put into it and the upcoming IPCC report wouldnt have much to say, so we have decided to whitewash it all and just publish it without caveats anway. Regards, and long live the Cause”.
@Barry Elledge Dec 26, 2011 at 7:48 pm:
Aye, and this is the rub. What should be done is simply to show each separate graph, before combining them. One for each proxy period. One for instrument period. And when the individual ones have adjustments made to them, THAT is the point at which to tell what those adjustments are. This makes clear what is proxy and what is instrument – and what is adjustment. It also helps others who are trying to replicate the work. Everything is clear, and in the text the authors can explain how they chose to combine them.
I am amazed (and often bored) with a lot of papers in other fields, where they lay out that they used a certain model of tensile tester with such and such gripping jaws, or that they used such and such scanning electron microscope with such and such settings.
Little of that seems to be done in climate science reconstructions. Why? Because they are basically making up so much of it as they go along. 90% of their work is doing stats on data, as opposed to field or lab work – but they still need to inform. A paper isn’t just a “Look at what I did!” A paper is supposed to spell out, so that others can follow what was done. HARRY_READ_ME.txt in CG1 shows that they don’t even inform their own people well enough as to what methods or data sets were used. Reading the CG2 emails, they mention several times that they think such and such a method should or should not have been used.
So, basically, with many of their reconstructions, the whole thing is a proverbial black box, where info goes in and results come out, and who is to know what processing was done inside that box? Scientists in other fields must gasp at such lack of transpareency.
Barry Elledge says
“Have you ever noticed that underneath the canopy of an old deciduous forest there is no undergrowth?”
In addition to light the understory is also controlled by allelopathy- plants bio-chemical warfare against other plants. Nature invented herbicides long before we did. I have always wondered what impact the suppression of the fire cycle has had on the accumulation and persistence of allelopathatic substances. I know fire played an important role destroying these chemicals in prairies systems -not sure if I remember seeing anything about the intersect of fire and allelopathy in forests.
@ur momisugly whoever has made a comment regarding lack of “undergrowth”
My anecdotal evidence, derived from years of fishing…as far away from people as I can get…in the PNW…light gets through and growth does happen in mixed forests and coniferous forests…and Pat Moffitt…that allelopathy stuff…makes total sense to me…and that would explain a few observations I have made in some predominately oak forests…I think.
and because the rivers are all blown right now, I am stuck at home on the interweb…
Andrew,
Even more so with conifers -note you rarely see anything growing below the drip line of a pine tree- even when its in the middle of a lawn area. They are also poor for the productivity of salmon and trout streams when compared to other vegetation. I’ve always wondered whether the allelopathy also suppressed aquatic primary productivity.
I feel your pain on blown out rivers– but without it- how could we fish falling water?