UPDATE: 12:55PM Dr. Mann ducks a TV station reporter who requested an interview afterwards, see below.
Steve McIntyre recently published a new graph on his website Climate Audit.
Alerted to the fact that Dr. Mann would be speaking at the OC Water Summit, I was asked to submit a question, but I could not make it there in time given the short notice. A suitable proxy, our friend Roger Sowell, was kind enough to attend and ask a question. Here’s what I sent him in way of a primer, I don’t know the actual question he asked, but we hope to have a video presentation later as I was told it was recorded.
Figure 1. Yamal Chronologies. Green – from Hantemirov _liv.rwl dataset; red- from Briffa et al 2008.
How interesting it is that the Hantemirov data in green, diverges from the CRU 2008 “Hockey Team” data in red. This is due to a larger data sample. One tree core, YAD061 is responsible for most of the difference, when a small set of tree core data is used.
This graph demonstrates how trees simply don’t show a hockey stick shape when all of the data is used.
In MBH98, your paper Dr. Mann, has a similar problem to the Briffa data. Your solution was to not use tree core data after 1960 and to splice on the instrumental temperature record to in effect “hide the decline” of the trees after 1960.
How do you respond to the charge that the tree ring data was cherry picked to show a desired result, and that Mr. McIntyre has falsified your work by showing that the premise of a hockey stick falls apart when all of the data is used?
===========================================================
Roger Sowell was in the audience this morning (thank you for responding on short notice). I received this answer via text from Roger Sowell, to a question he asked:
He responded that it was Bradley as coauthor, and his (MBH98) work did not use the Briffa data.
Said the decline or divergence is well known but not understood, so is being studied.
Basically dodged the question; called it “specious”.
He said the warming is real and he addressed all this in his book.
It was hoped that Steve McIntyre would have provided a question for submission, but there was no email response from him in time.
Roger Sowell has done some excellent work in climate skepticism, I urge readers to read his recent presentation, here’s the primer:
The following is the presentation I made on April 17, 2012, to the Southern California Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), at their monthly dinner meeting held at Long Beach, California. The title for the presentation is “What if the Warmists are Wrong? Is Catastrophic Cooling Coming? Implications.” My heartfelt thanks to Mr. Alan Benson, chair of the Southern California Section, for the invitation to speak. I also appreciate those who attended, and especially for their questions. As always, it is an honor to address AIChE members.
The presentation was approximately one hour, followed by another hour of questions and answers. The presentation is in three parts, as suggested by the title: 1) Are the Warmists Wrong? 2) Is Catastrophic Cooling Coming? and 3) Implications.
Background: this topic could easily require a week to present the many aspects and interesting details. With a mere hour at my disposal, this presentation necessarily hits only the major points. My purpose here, firstly, was to inform the audience of what has transpired in the climate science arena in part 1, primarily as to the quality of the data and the climate models. It is important to note the scarcity of agreement between the model projections and actual data. Secondly, my purpose was to present the case for imminent global cooling in part 2. Thirdly, my purpose was to describe a few of the many and serious implications for imminent global cooling in part 3, tying this in to what engineers can expect. Engineers are problem-solvers, and this presents a great many problems to solve. I also described a few of the legal ramifications of imminent global cooling.
Full presentation here, well worth bookmarking.
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UPDATE: 11:40AM I’m told via telephone that a local TV station is going to be interviewing Dr. Mann, and also Mr. Sowell due to his question. He promises more details later. Stay tuned.
UPDATE2 11:55PM: I wrote to Roger Sowell, after getting the above message, he reports Mann ducked the interview with KOCE-TV, the PBS station in Southern California. When Mann can’t even appear on warm-friendly PBS, you know he’s on the run.
On Friday, May 18, 2012, Anthony wrote:
Dear Roger,Thank you most sincerely for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this, I am in your debt. Anthony,
He replied:
My pleasure. This has been noteworthy.
Dr Mann refused the interview, and according to the reporter, he was extremely rude about it.
My interview went ok, I believe.
Roger
I’ll post that interview if it becomes available online.
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If Roger is bringing light to the AIChE, good on him. As a member, it is maddening to see the organization diving head first into the CAGW pool. If I see a yet another promo for a webinar on CO2 sequestration, I may throttle someone.
The question to Mann is surely ….
“Why are you are Penn State,
rather than in the State Pen?”
…. in my opinion [legal advice]
It must be hard for the egotistical Mann, your desperate for any sort of lime light to stroke your ego but every time you appear in public you get asked awkward questions.
I bet he wishes he was like Al Gore and could just charge £100,000 and then just leave.
“He responded that it was Bradley as coauthor, and his (MBH98) work did not use the Briffa data.”
Eh?
“This directory contains…The original Climatic Research Unit (CRU) gridpoint surface temperature temperature database from 1854-1993 of Jones and Briffa [1992] used by MBH98 (this version of the dataset has been replaced by a different surface temperature dataset at CRU and is no longer available). ”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v430/n6995/suppinfo/nature02478.html
Said the decline or divergence is well known but not understood, so is being studied.”
Justsomeguy responds: “I think Mann might have actually slipped here.”
But for the most part, it is a perfect dodge. Sounds “smart,” sounds like scientists take it seriously, plays upon “hope” in the future. But it’s a trick. He can front his bad info that doesn’t take into account the divergence, and still present it as good science, and shore up negatives by kicking them down the road.
Politicians would convey similar by words like, “We’ll look into it.” “We’ll study it after we pass it.”
Or the current favorite, “the bureaucracy we created was supposed to do that.” E.g., the Volcker Rule so much in the news, which the Democrats faked supporting by a kick the can maneuver. These tactics work because people fall for them, i.e., the US media who actually believe the Demo. party supports the Volcker Rule.
“Have you stopped beating your co-workers yet?”
>:)
The Aussie thing – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/26/getting-your-mind-right-in-australia-round-2/ – latest update from a few minutes ago: –
PostShow –
The Votes:
Dismissive 49%
Alarmed 23%
Concerned 13%
Doubtful 9%
Cautious 5%
Disengaged 1%
5322 votes counted
Five or six thousand votes [it closes on Monday 21st at 8 pm [I guess Sydney time, so about 0800 or 0900 GMT/UTC]] is hardly representative of even the twenty-five or so million Australians.
But – almost half of all votes are dismissive, with more than a sixth of the rest being doubtful.
I feel that The Team is now facing the possibility, at least, that their silver-tongued eloquence has not been uniformly successful.
Is it possible that there was a Medieval Warm Period?
Or a Little Ice Age [at least in much of Europe]?
Best regards from a damp London Town [still in the death grip of the wettest drought in history].
Auto
This is a gentle plea to all preparers and presenters of graphical data. Please consider using red and green ‘line’ and ‘point’ colors judiciously, when graphically plotting data.
I am afflicted with red/green color blindness, as is some 6 percent of the male population and less than 1 percent of the ladies. This affliction can range from mild impairment in discerning shades of either red or green, to complete inability to see either or both colors as anything other than shades and intensities of grey.
I have the mild form, making it difficult to discern fine red lines from fine green lines. It is even more difficult to figure out which color is which, when presented with a data point ‘cloud’ graph using small points of both red and green! I often ‘zoom’ the graph to maximum magnification, to try to make the data points or lines big and bold enough to tell which color they might be. I also have difficulty discerning pastel shades of red and green from shades of grey. I once bought a fine pair of ‘grey’ whale bone chord pants, only to find out they were mauve (pastel pink), much to the amusement of my friends! To paraphrase Kermit the Frog, ‘Life ain’t easy, not seeing pink!’
If you can plot your data effectively, without using either red or green colors, please do so. If you need to use red and green, choose the boldest color of each (no pastels) in your graphical plots and use larger line or data point sizes, to give us ‘6 percenters’ a fighting chance at comprehending your communication!
We prepare and present graphical data, to inform and persuade 100% of our audiences. Please use red and green colors in your graphical plots judiciously, lest you leave 6% of your audience lost in shades of grey confusion……
Thanks for your consideration!
MtK
Way to go Roger!
No way would Manny take a chance that an interview would become a debate with a knowledgeable science oriented questioner (being an engineer is a megabonus and Manny would have looked the fool, accurately).
Why does a quickly “hoovered” ice cream soda send bubbles to my brain?
Mann is a joke
>>How interesting it is that the Hantemirov data in green, diverges from the CRU 2008 “Hockey Team” data in red.
I agree. It would be regrettable if Mr McIntyre had, in his haste to get a ‘non-hockey-stick’ graph into the discussion, failed to do exactly the kind of due diligence and detailed work on the provenance of the data that he demands of others. I wonder what Rashit Hantemirov, who collected, curated and published the data from which Mr McIntyre’s plot is based, makes of it?
Ah, no need to wonder, he’s made his opinion plain at Climate Audit:
Steve, I’m horrified by your slipshod work. You did not define what you compare, what dataset used in each case, how data were processed, and what was the reason for that, what limitation there are, what kind of additional information you need to know. Why didn’t you ask me for all the details? You even aren’t ashamed of using information from stolen letters. Do carelessness, grubbiness, dishonourableness are the necessary concomitants of your job?
Perhaps Steve could be interviewed on the TV to explain himself?
http://climateaudit.org/2012/05/15/new-data-from-hantemirov/#comment-333857
@ur momisuglyDR_UK (May 18, 2012 at 12:52 pm)
RE: Dr. Mann’s statement that “No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction.”
Please see Mike’s Nature trick.
In that post by Jean S at CA, what actually happened is explained in more detail. To Hide The Decline®, Mann did a couple of things. In a WMO publication, he plotted a curve that
I guess it depends on what the definition of “grafting” is.
Also, see Gavin Schmidt’s admission that temperature data was grafted onto proxy data here:
See also here and here.
See also this where Jones first admits the deception, then the admission is removed.
Second, simply deleting the proxy record after 1960 (the “declining part”) would still leave a downward curve that would clash with the instrumental record plotted on top of it in the spaghetti graph that became know as the hockey stick. Jean S in the first referenced post on CA explains that instrumental data was padded onto the end of the proxy data, so that the smoothed curve would now point upwards.
Here a CA commenter reports a reply by Mann on RealClimate where he admits:
Further Jean S explains here:
Here Jean S corrects:
Here is another explanation of Dr. Mann’s grafting of temperature data onto proxy data that summarizes things on one web page.
Phil,
The spaghetti graphs say “instrumental record.” They do not say “thermometer record.” One may contend that “instrumental record” should obviously indicate use of thermometers, but this is post-normal science. It is just as likely that they mean measurements by “instruments” other than thermometers, or thermometers alone. The graft may very well have CO2 measurements smeared into it, or anything else that can be measured by “instruments.”
All your points are well taken, I only offer an additional conclusion–has anyone actually inquired “what” the “instrumental record” appearing on the spaghetti graph actually is?
I was at the conference. Mann’s presentation was smug and dismissive of any contrarian thought. His complete dodge of the question was obvious to all, and all the people I talked to thought little of Mann going in and less of him going out. I spoke with one of the conference organizers about what it was like to get Mann to agree to speak and she just shook her head and said, “I’ll have to tell you about it later.” Another organizer told me Mann would only agree to speak if there was a guarantee no one opposing his position would be on the panel.
The other panelist was from Pacific Gas & Electric, and explained how the utility is planning for the complexities of cap and trade and other foolishness (my word, not hers) related to AB 32, California’s Quixotic climate change legislation. When asked how much it was costing PG&E to do all this, she demurred. When asked if it affected the bottom line, she said no … then added “It’s a customer impact” … in other words, they pass through, we pay. And California already had the highest electricity costs in the nation before this latest round of insanity.
I was at the conference and Mann’s dodge was apparent to most in the audience and a surprise to none. All I spoke with afterwards discounted him and scoffed at his woosiness. Also, I talked to one of the organizers who just shook her head and said, “I’ll have to tell you about it later” when I asked her about the details of getting Mann to agree to speak. Another told me later Mann would only appear if the event organizers promised there would be no opposing voice on the panel. The other panelist was a utility person (Pacific Gas & Electric) talking about all the work they’re doing to address California’s AB 32 global warming legislation and cap and tax. When asked how much all that regulatory compliance and carbon credit purchases was going to cost, she demurred. When asked if it affected the PG&E’s bottom line, she said no. Then added it was a customer impact – in other words, ratepayers are paying for it (however much it may be), not the utility. California already had the nation’s highest electricity costs before this foolishness started.
Mr. Mann should be in jail just for the damage he has done to my PSU Science degree AND being a rude son-of-a-gun.
It is known that the Piltdown Mann has been caught in a lie, but it is not understood yet.
==================================
No! The algorithm can produce a hockey stick shape with arbitrary data, but does not always. A distinction worth noting.
Dunno, but it is irrelevant.
No! In reality, the algorithm is valid but only when the data meet some rather stringent requirements. Arbitrary data that do not meet these requirements can, and often will, produce spurious results using PCA, and such an expectation is increased when data are selected using post-hoc methodologies. When the data are thusly cherry-picked, it is impossible to make any legitimate claims. What is being said is not what you claim, rather, it is simply “when all the data are included, the hockey-stick no longer appears,” which actually refutes the original hypothesis (the hockey stick) by glaringly pointing out that the result is specific only to a subset of the data. In other words, application of Mann’s method to this data produces results that are, for lack of a better phrase, all over the map.
Neither – well, ignorance is bliss is what it is.
Mark
I am maybe too cynical. i would not ask Mann about anything scientific. I would simply ask him what he saw when he last went to a cinema.
His pseudo-scientific views are of no interest to me and neither are his attempted justifications. Hearing him tell me lies would not please me.
His confusion at a non-threatening/supportive questionmight be telling..
Phil Clarke says:
May 18, 2012 at 2:43 pm
“Perhaps Steve could be interviewed… to explain himself?”
Phil, you devious conniver, you left Steve McIntyre’s response off of your cut ‘n’ paste. McIntyre replied to Hantemirov:
All graphics and results in these posts have been supported by turnkey code, showing the precise calculations for an interested reader (other than the calculation from your living data set which I showed the calculation method.) Some of the steps have been shown in recent or linked posts and the present post is not self-contained. But the steps are all shown
As to the CRU emails, I do not know that they were “stolen”. Many people believe that they were released by someone within the University. Nor was any disrespect shown to you in the quotation from the email, which showed you in a professional light.
I totally agree with standards requiring disclosure of “what dataset used in each case, how data were processed, and what was the reason for that, what limitation there are, what kind of additional information you need to know”. That’s why I provide turnkey code as much as possible. Much of my frustration in this field has arisen because authors do not do this and are unhelpful to inquiries. I’ve placed source code to generate the graphics at the bottom of the article.
I regret that you you feel this way. If I can provide specific clarification on data sets, processing steps, etc, perhaps through reference to prior posts and scripts that are familiar to regular readers or through any other way, please advise me.
McIntyre continues two posts below that one:
[Hantemirov] …has to coexist with Briffa, Schmidt and those guys. I suspect that he’s received criticism for providing me with data. I didn’t do anything complicated in the calculation, so I’m not sure what his specific problem is.
In addition, CRU has told Muir Russell and the public that the “purpose” of Briffa 2000 and Briffa et al 2008 was to do RCS-style calculation on a Hantemirov data set. What is the objection to doing a similar calculation on his 120 core living data set? Even if there are other worthy data sets.
Phil Clarke, you are being deliberately deceptive, as anyone can see who reads the comments following the one you posted. There is even a serious question whether that comment came from Dr Hantemirov.
He can’t answer the hard questions and he knows it. His typical big oil conspiracy, or futile argumentum ad hominems, in response to hard questions when he is cornered, are the best evidence of that. Well, I guess the fact that nobody that understands the concepts behind his work actually agrees with him is good evidence, too, but that group would not include your typical journalist or the hoi palloi reading his pronouncements on MSNBC.
Mark
“…the decline or divergence is well known but not understood…”
Then the next question is:
If temperature and tree ring data diverge and you don’t understand it, how can you justify the assumption that the trees are proxies for temperature?
Beautiful work Anthony and Roger! First I’ve heard of an author who is spruiking a book to refuse a TV interview. Especially PBS. And in California too!
As an aside Simon Tumbrill of Australian Climate Madness features on the front page of The Australian paper edition this morning, the highest selling serious broadsheet in Oz. Enormous credit to Simon as he’s managed to completely pwn the national university and also the national broadcaster (both CAGW hotbeds) with just one FOIA request.
Keep chipping away at them thar foundations, the cracks are getting wider and wider.