Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In three previous posts here, here, and here, I discussed problems with the paper by Shakun et al., “Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation” (PDF,hereinafter S2012)
Commenters said, and reasonably so, that I had not fully addressed their claim that warming progressed from south to north. Their Figure 5a shows the trends by latitude band. It purports to show that the further north, the later the warming.
Figure 1. Figure 5a from S2012. ORIGINAL CAPTION: Figure 5 | Temperature change before increase in CO2 concentration. a, Linear temperature trends in the proxy records from 21.5–19 kyr ago (red) and 19–17.5 kyr ago (blue) averaged in 10° latitude bins with 1 sigma uncertainties.
Now, that seems pretty clear. Less blue and more red as you go up towards the north pole. What could be wrong with that? Well, as usual, nature is not that neat. When you look at it closely, it’s nowhere near as clear as that chart seems to indicate.
The first thing that’s wrong is that out of the fourteen bands with data, only five of them show a significant difference between the early trends (21.5 to 19 thousand years ago [kyr BP]) and the late trends (19 to 17.5 thousand years ago [kyr BP]). In the other nine bands, the uncertainties overlap, so we can’t even say if they are different. (The uncertainties for each band are shown as red and blue long thin lines with short vertical ends.) As a result, they are meaningless, and should not be shown.
But that’s just a symptom of the real problem, which is that there is very little data in many latitude bands, and the proxies are very different from each other.
To investigate each of the bands, I started by expressing all of the temperatures as anomalies around the average temperature from 21.5 to 17.5 kyr BP. Then I divided them by bands and graphed them. Figure 2 shows the results for the Northern Hemisphere.
Figure 2. Trends by latitude band. The background colors correspond with Figure 1, with red for 21.5 to 19 kyr BP, and blue for 19 to 17.5 kyr BP. Dark red lines are centered Gaussian averages of the individual proxies, with the data shown by the green squares.
Let me discuss these panel by panel. First, let me note an oddity—why is the early period longer than the later period? But I digress …
Panel a: Only two proxies, and one of them has a hump right at 19 kyr BP.
Panel b: Five proxies. Three have a hump right at 19 kyr BP.
Panel c: Two proxies. One is dead level, one rises during the later (blue) period.
Panel d: Three proxies, but one of them starts just before 19 kyr BP. Seriously, folks, do you think an average of these is meaningful?
Panel e: Hard to tell what’s happening here. Several of the proxies go either up or down just after 19 kyr BP.
Panel f: All trends in the blue section are about the same, except the poor proxy taking a dive right after 19 kyr BP
Panel g: Another goofy one. Right after 19 kyr BP, two of the proxies head for the sky.
Panel h: No trend before, no trend after.
Figure 3. As in Figure 2, but for the Southern Hemisphere
Again, by panel.
Panel a: Not much difference, red or blue period.
Panel b: Three proxies. Two go up at 19 kyr BP. One goes down at 19 kyr BP. Is this supposed to be meaningful?
Panel c: Three proxies. Neither the red period nor the blue period shows much.
Panel d: Two proxies. Two. One goes up after 19 kyr BP. So what?
Panel e: Here, a lot of the proxies have a low point at about 19 kyr BP … and they have a high point about 500 years before that.
Panel f: These four, all ice cores from Antarctica, agree pretty well. However, only one of them has a significant trend, and that only in the blue area.
Now, to me those results don’t mean much. Of the eighty proxies, only eight of them have a significant trend in both the red and blue periods … and that’s without adjusting for autocorrelation. The proxies show no clear pattern. They are too varied, and too few, to tell us much of anything.
Let me close with what may be a more revealing graph, dividing the globe up into 45° latitudinal bands.
Figure 4. S2012 proxies divided into four bands. Colors go from blue at the north pole, to yellow at the equator, and end up with red at the south pole.
Let me say that Panel a shows something very curious. The rise in temperature started quite early the two Greenland proxies … and timing of the others are all over the map. I can’t see how that supports any claim of late warming in the north.
BOTTOM LINE: I see no evidence in any these latitudinal bands of proxies to support the claim that the warming progressed northwards. It certainly may have done so … but these proxies are not useful for supporting that claim.
My goodness, I certainly hope that I’m done with these proxies.
w.
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Yet another bogus study by some lame propagandists with their freshly minted PhDs earned at an ultra-lefty universities whos proffesors were much more interested in insurring that the students learn to think like Marxist ( and thus vote “correctly”) then to think like scientist.
Dang, I sure hope my new glasses get here soon …….
pyromancer76: You are talking nonsense. Debunking a paper in a blog is easy, but to debunk it in a peer-reviewed paper is something different. This is how science is done the right way. Beat them at their own terms. As long as the skeptics are not willing to do that they have no credible case and will never be taken seriously.
It is impossible to get around the data Mr. Eschenbach has presented here in different blogs on WUWT. Even a magazine like Nature cannot and will not reject the factual evidence (if true and honest) presented here by Mr. Eschenbach.
However if Nature chooses to do so. Their rejection of the submitted paper should be made publicly available on WUWT to show that the credibility of the magazine is questionable.
Come on Mr. Eschenbach: Be a man and submit the paper. You are spending an awful lot of time writing these Shakun blogs. So it should be easy to write a simple rebuttal to Nature. Science is not done via blogs but by peer-reviewed magazines.
Latitude says:
April 11, 2012 at 7:25 am
Which ones are those, and do you have a citation?
Thanks,
w.
Steve from Rockwood: So already you have a problem (further proxies being more highly correlated to the Antarctic than local proxies). So what to do? You can throw all the proxies into an averaging filter and pull them out in slices of latitude (what Shakun et al did) or you can cry foul (kind of what Willis did) and claim the proxies can’t be combined.
Do more studies, formulate and test hypotheses, and investigate what relationships you can. For example, at the latitude of Buenos Aires, what differences are there at the longitudes of Buenos Aires, the pampas, the peak of the Andes, and the longitude of Sucre and of Santiago? If the warming was generally from the south to the north, it surely wasn’t exactly the same on the mountain spine of N. and S. America as through the central Pacific, but neither could it have been too discrepant over long distances and long time spans if there was “global warming” in that direction.
Robbie says:
April 11, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Oh, my dear friend, it’s a good thing I haven’t gotten my coffee this morning or I might have ruined my keyboard. You really haven’t been around climate science long, have you?
I submitted a paper a while ago to AGU about how to handle gaussian or other averaging at the beginning and end of the dataset. It discussed Michael Mann’s crazy ideas about how to handle averaging at the beginning and end.
They rejected my paper. Six months later Mike Mann wrote a slightly changed version of my paper and AGU published it. You can’t convince me that a) I didn’t get published because of my unorthodox beliefs, or that b) one of the reviewers didn’t give my paper to Mann, who saw that I had eviscerated his previous ideas, so Mann claimed my work as his own. Pathetic.
So yes, even a magazine like Nature can reject true, honest factual evidence. And not only that, but they may give your ideas to someone else to claim credit for.
w.
Thanks for the reply Mr. Eschenbach, but I don’t belief that Nature will reject your paper on dubious grounds or give the ideas to somebody else, because you already secured your standpoint via WUWT in your blogs. So fraudulent behaviour by the magazine will be impossible.
If they resort to fraudulent behaviour you can sue them for that. Proof enough on WUWT. They would have no case and lose the lawsuit.
If you would have secured the submitted AGU paper than Mann could not have conducted fraudulent behaviour with your rejected results.
In short Mr. Eschenbach: Beat these people on their own terms. In science and not in blogs. That’s not the way. Büntgen et al 2012, Xia 2012 were also published. I don’t see no reason why your results won’t be published.
So: Publish, publish, publish.
>>(The uncertainties for each band are shown as red and blue long thin lines with short vertical ends.) As a result, they are meaningless, and should not be shown.
Even worse, these are 1 sigma bands, instead of the usual and more meaningful 2 or 3 sigma bands, giving a huge overlap.
Willis, It would be nice to see CO2 plotted in the same format and as well as summer irradiance at 65 degN (or other measure of the Milankovic cycle.
Willis Eschenbach says:
April 11, 2012 at 1:03 pm
Willis, if that’s true (and I don’t doubt your word!) I would have thought at the very least a plagiarism case would be warranted? Is there proof the paper was receieved and read by the AGU?
Is there appreciably obvious plagiarism within the content? (you say slightly changed).
Other than that, I half agree with Robbies view and half agree with your own. But it really is a case of horses for courses and obviously the strength of the individual and the case they present IMO.
rgbatduke says:
April 11, 2012 at 10:52 am
I’m not sure I can agree with that. I’m no published scientist but have been taught and informed of the peer review process (granted some 30+ years ago, so may be a bit outdated). If I recall correctly, the primary function of peer review was to establish if the claims/findings were reasonably valid and based on reasonably accurate data/methods. The main outcome being that ‘published’ works are subsequently relied upon or quoted by others in further work(s). Thus by being ‘peer review’ published, to all intent and purpose, would indicate that the paper is ‘correct’ – that’s not to say that future findings would disprove the paper, just that ‘at the time’ or ‘with current knowledge’ it would be deemed correct.
The scientific objective of peer review is therefore to validate the science and methodology, is it not?
Clearly, if a person can easily refute the science with current knowledge – this has not been adequately peer reviewed!!
rgb – sorry, I should clarify that I don’t agree you wouldn’t necessarily be inclined reject it!
Willis Eschenbach says:
April 11, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Which ones are those, and do you have a citation?
Thanks,
w.
==============================================================
Willis, reading these two posts will bring you up to speed faster….
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/sea-level-rises-to-new-lows/#comments
http://www.real-science.com/sea-level-data-corruption-worse-than-it-seems
Willis, I’m curious as to why you didn’t do the latitudinal analysis for the period covering the Younger Dryas. The YD has a very clear NH signature, but shows up earlier and much weaker in Shakun’s Antarctic proxies. At least one other Antarctic proxy (the Taylor Dome cores) shows an almost identical YD signature as the NH/Greenland proxies. It would be interesting to see if a latitudinal analysis supports Shakun’s Antarctic proxies or the Taylor Dome proxies as being correct.
I still say stop obcessing about this obvious junk science since it is not worth all the time and effort and get on with beating up on Nature for publishing is foolishness in the first place. These people have lost so much credibality in the past few years I am amaized that anyone ever bothers to read it.
Frank says:
April 11, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Dang, I’m trying to get out of this madness, not further in … the data is all there, anyone can do it.
w.
Philip Bradley says:
April 11, 2012 at 3:24 pm (Edit)
Since the generally accepted timing of the Younger Dryas is 10,000 to 11,000 yrs BP, and my Figure 4 covers that period plus some, I’m curious as to what you are referring to.
Also, it doesn’t have a “clear NH signature”. Looking at the top panel in Figure 4, you can see that one record shows it, two records kinda show it, and the other six proxies never heard of the YD … and in the Equator-45°N second panel, a few of the northernmost proxies kinda show it, but the other northernmost proxies are immune to it …
So again, I’d say that this group of proxies isn’t suitable for what you want to find.
w.
The reasons why global warming does not correlate with carbon dioxide levels can be explained as follows …
On Joseph’s thread at tallbloke, Tim Folkerts said …
So if we see a collection of photons with “bites” in the CO2 bands (as is indeed seen from satellites), we can surmise that there is cool CO2 in front of a warmer material.
He was citing a well known fact in spectroscopy that we only see evidence of absorption when the gas in front is cooler than the source of emission. As soon as the gas is warmed above the temperature of the emitter it ceases to absorb the radiation
This is just like a region on the Earth’s surface which, if warmer than some region of the atmosphere, will also not absorb radiation from that cooler region. It does not reflect it either. The radiation undergoes what physicists are now starting to call pseudo scattering. It has to do this, because this is the natural process by which nature ensures that the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLoT) is upheld when radiation goes from cold to hot bodies.
This pseudo scattering (or what I have previously called resonant scattering) does in fact involve a resonating process and is thus quite different from reflection, even though, energy-wise the end result is the same. During the resonating process the energy from the electromagnetic radiation is used by the target instead of its own thermal energy. But such energy goes straight into new radiation (making up a part of the target’s S-B quota) which is identical to the incident radiation in both frequency and intensity, although scattered in direction. This is why it is called pseudo scattering because it looks just like diffuse reflection.
The important thing is that the energy at no stage gets converted to thermal energy. If it did, then that thermal energy could transfer to some other body by conduction or other sensible heat transfer mechanisms, rather than only by identical radiation. So no thermal energy is deposited in the target (and the SLoT is not violated) but the target does cool more slowly because it didn’t have to convert some of its own energy in order to produce that portion of its radiation quota.
There is no indication anywhere that the IPCC are aware of this process of which I’m sure Joseph Postma is, because it has been well explained by Prof Claes Johnson and others in internal correspondence to which I am a party. The IPCC energy diagrams clearly imply that the energy in backradiation is converted to thermal energy in the surface, but, as indeed was originally thought by the early physicists like Boltzmann and Planck, the IPCC think compensating radiation in the other direction somehow has a “net” effect. The only trouble is, the energy may not go the other way by radiation at all, and it doesn’t have to go anywhere immediately. What if it warmed a layer of water just below the surface? Well, it can’t, because no such radiation penetrates even a millimetre into water because it is scattered at the surface.
The same thing actually happens to the low frequency radiation in your microwave oven. It is not absorbed at the atomic level in any target, even water. Instead is is scattered by the hydrogen and oxygen atoms (unlike sunlight) but it resonates with whole water molecules. This happens only within a certain narrow range of very low frequencies (in which each photon has very low energy) and it causes the water molecules to “snap” through 180 degrees in synch with each half wavelength passing by. This generates thermal energy by friction and so the process is nothing like the warming caused by the Sun. That is why most other matter is not warmed in a MW oven, unless it contains water molecules which can then get warmed themselves and transfer thermal energy by conduction.
So, both spectroscopy and microwave ovens confirm what I have been saying this last year or so, that radiation from a cooler source (recognised by the shape of its Planck curve) does not transfer thermal energy to a warmer target.
The effect that such radiation has on the rate of cooling of the warmer target depends on both the temperature of the source and the number of frequency bands within that radiation which can resonate. (This is explained in more detail in my paper.) If it does not have a full distribution under its Planck curve (but just a few spectral lines as for a specific gas) then it is very ineffective in that role of slowing radiative cooling. Of course other sensible heat transfers and evaporative cooling rates are not slowed, and do in fact speed up to compensate, resulting in no net slowing of the overall rate of cooling of the Earth’s surface.
Very thorough and insightful review.
The fact is there are too few with: (1) the relevant skills and knowledge (2) a healthy skepticism and (3) the freedom to say what one thinks without fear or favour.
That’s why the “climate wars” are inevitably about liberty versus tyrany. Those who favour the former should count themsleves fortunate then (given the vast mismatch of resources) that there are any Willis’s at all who satisfy all of these criteria, and sites like WUWT, willing to publish their findings. That liberty can win given the odds stacked against it, is because it is founded on the bedrock of reason and truth.
I agree with others, worth submitting,if only to disavow the excuse that no rebuttal was received…
rgbatduke says on April 11, 2012 at 7:31 am:
“—- —- –. A reviewer doesn’t actually generally try to replicate and extend the results — no time and that’s as much work as the original researcher did if not more. —- — — -.”
=========
That’s right rgb – if what you say was not the case then theories like the ones about Relativity, The Bing Bang, Evolution and many more would never have been published. “Climate Science” peer review however seems to have become a case on its own.
Submitting criticisms to Nature is like posting on Real Climate. You merely defer and give power and credibility to corrupt incompetence. If you are going to publish or comment, publish elsewhere and let the corrupt incompetent whither from neglect and contempt.
RE
John H says:
@ur momisugly April 11, 2012 at 4:40 pm
John, grateful for the full reference of your paper you mention (or link if publicly available).
What are the responses of the warmists to this information? Do they ignore it or offer counter arguments?
Jimbo says:
April 11, 2012 at 8:44 am
Willis,
I’m almost certain a rebuttal sent to Nature would fail but send it anyway for the record and later post it on WUWT.
——————————–
I second those ideas. Now, if we were all to clamour loudly and together for a Willis rebuttal submission to Nature, we’d have a good peer group pressure thing going. Just saying. Brings back fond recollections of Spring Break chug-a-thons with frosted mugs and the chant, “peer-group-pressure, peer-group-pressure!”
Funny, John H and Andrew sound exactly like Doug Cotten talking to himself …
typo: Cotton.