Elevated from a comment. Roger Sowell describes first hand what led up to Mann denying a TV interview about his work. Apparently, for Dr. Mann, Disneyland is not “the happiest place on earth”.
Roger Sowell writes on May 18, 2012 at 11:17 pm:
Thanks, Anthony, for posting my small part in this rather interesting episode. I appreciate the link to my little blog, too! The Orange County Water Summit (at the Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel) was actually quite interesting, as water is also a favorite topic with me.
Regarding the question I asked, I tried to stay as close to the two short paragraphs as stated in the body of this post. I wrote it out on a piece of paper, and read it when my turn to ask arrived.
Here is what I asked to the best of my recollection (this can be confirmed if and when the video/audio is available):
“My question is for Dr. Mann. Dr Mann, in your 1998 paper co-authored with Dr. Briffa and Dr. Hughes, you showed a warming since 1960. The same hockey-stick graph was shown earlier today. However, you chose to not use tree core data after 1960 but instead 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. Steve McIntyre has falsified your work by showing that the premise of a hockey stick falls apart when all of the data is used?”
Mann then proceeded to state that my question had false information, since it was Bradley, not Briffa as co-author. OK, we can grant him that small point. He went on to say, as I emailed Anthony and shown in the post above, the decline is well-known but not understood; research is on-going; then dodged the question and called it “specious;” then made a plug for his book (about the third or fourth time, I believe) saying the warming is real and he addressed all this in his book.
There were a couple of other questions from skeptics, one related to Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT. Mann replied that Lindzen is a maverick, and that the consensus is what we follow in science.
He stated that we don’t believe in Evolution theory simply because Darwin proposed it, but because it has withstood the test of time and many scientists’ verification for more than 100 years (I think I have his answer pretty close to verbatim).
Now, about the Nobel-prize: Mann stated at the outset that he did not win the Nobel prize, and explained that he merely shared in it as a contributing scientist to the IPCC, which organization did win.
I actually enjoyed Mann’s presentation, because it reminded me a bit of being in a final exam in university, where the goal is to spot the errors, omissions, and misleading statements. Mann’s presentation was full of such things. For example, he showed a graph of Arctic ice decline, during a segment on the many threads of evidence that proves the globe is warming. His graph stopped at 2007, at the lowest point in the record. He did not explain that the graph was for summer minimum extent, which I think it must have been. That cherry-picked endpoint made the graph take a dramatic downward trend, and was most impressive. And, very misleading because the minimum extent has stabilized and slightly increased since then.
Another was the latest 12 months in the USA being the hottest 12 month period on record. No mention of Europe or Asia, though, which just ended brutally cold and bitter winter.. Again, misleading.
Another was the intense rainfall on the East coast from hurricane (or was it tropical storm?) Irene. Mann stated that the intense rain was due in part to global warming, since the Atlantic Ocean was unusually warm when Irene passed over it and collected water vapor to dump on shore as rain. That raised my suspicions, since I have never heard that before; perhaps it is true; I just don’t know.
He also presented a graph to show how superbly well the climate models match the actual temperature trend since Dr. Hansen made his speech to congress in 1988. What he didn’t mention, though, is that the “actual data” has been severely manipulated and approximately half the warming is due to adjustments. His “actual data” also either 1) stopped before the recent leveling off, or 2) showed a warming for the past 12 or so years; I could not read the time-scale on the chart from my seat near the back of the room. Either way, that was (again) very misleading.
Finally, he showed the (is it obligatory?) photo of a polar bear on a tiny ice floe. He spent some time talking about his little daughter and how he wants to leave a good world for her. The polar bear on the ice floe was displayed during this portion of the speech. Again, extremely misleading since polar bears have plenty of ice on which to sit, and their numbers are growing, not declining.
Mann tied in global warming to the water topic, saying the models forecast a much more arid climate for the US southwest. This, of course, will make the existing water shortages in California and other Western states much, much worse. He then confused us all by saying it was not clear if more La Niñas or El Niños would prevail. He noted that global warming creates warmer oceans, which would mean more El Niños, which almost always bring more rain, not less. I must note, here, that the existence of multiple models, as Mann mentioned, is a clear indication that the science is not settled. My words not, not Mann’s, but if a person on a journey had 12 different maps, and took the average of the 12 routes and directions to his destination, one must wonder if he would reach the destination at all.
Thank you to all the commenters above for the kind words on my speech to the AIChE. That speech was a lot of fun, and it was rewarding to have a few college students from California State – Long Beach in attendance. They seemed to not be aware of any of the points I made, and it came as somewhat of a surprise to them.
Just a few words about the television interviews, that Dr. Mann declined and I accepted. I was asked by a very nice young lady to step out of the convention hall into the hallway, where she confirmed that I had asked the question of Dr. Mann. She then said that was an excellent question, and a news reporter from PBS would like to interview me, would I consent to the interview? I said I would be happy to do so. I met the reporter, David, and I apologize to him that I didn’t catch the last name. He’s a very interesting and quite nice fellow. We went through the preliminaries, my name, occupation, and he asked my affiliation. I told him I’m in solo practice and was here on my own, not representing any organization. That seemed to perplex him, and I stated that I am just one of many thousands of climate skeptics. Some others wanted to attend today but could not for various reasons, so I came alone. He seemed more relieved when he asked what kind of law I practice and I told him Climate Change law.
David (Nazar) then decided he wanted to interview Dr. Mann first, then me second to get the skeptic view. He asked me to step away and return in 10 minutes. I went back to the presentation and took my seat. I could see Dr. Mann across the room, and he went out for a few minutes then returned. So, I went back out to find David and his camera-man. At that point, David told me that he did not interview Dr. Mann after all. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that Dr. Mann refused the interview and got angry. I believe David told him that he was to be interviewed first, then me, although I was not identified by name but by the question I asked. It could be that Dr. Mann did not want to be interviewed then have a skeptic follow him, with no opportunity to rebut. This is just speculation on my part, though.
In the actual interview, David asked me a few of the questions he had intended to ask Dr. Mann, such as what is global warming, and what role does mankind play in this? I can’t recall my exact words, which should be available soon if and when the video is aired and placed on-line, but here is what I believe I said.
I said that global warming is the fact that the world has warmed somewhat, perhaps one degree F, in the past 150 years. The cause of the warming is mostly natural forces, since mankind has not placed much CO2 in the air until the past four decades.
He asked other questions, such as what is the skeptic view. I told him that I don’t believe that CO2 causes much, if any warming, and that the more important issue is global cooling due to the weak solar cycle.
David ended by asking why I thought Dr. Mann was so rude in his refusal to be interviewed, and I replied that I don’t know, but I do know he is party to some litigation. It is possible his attorneys have advised him not to do interviews. This is a pure guess on my part.
UPDATE: here’s a photo from Mr. Sowell at the event. Dr. Mann at the right under the “R”.
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RE Pamela Gray’s argument above, that
“I wish some skeptics would not refer to the “most likely cause” being solar. There is as yet no mechanism. The solar influence is a wild-arse guess as much as CO2 is and does not improve the debate in the least.”
Do we actually need a proven, causal mechanism before it is prudent to act? We can look to the ancient past, when humans had no clue why the sun rose in the East and set in the West. They had no clue why it became cold each winter, but was warm enough to grow crops each summer. They (we believe, at least I believe) figured out the correlation, though. Warm summer equals “plant the crops, and food will grow.” Would it sound silly, to be in a village council meeting thousands of years ago, and argue that we should not plant crops in the Spring because there was no causal mechanism to guarantee the warm summer would follow?
In my recent speech to the chemical engineers in Southern California, I made the point that we have excellent correlations over hundreds of years that show weak sunspot cycles produce global cooling. In fact (I did not emphasize this, though), we have evidence that very weak or non-existent sunspot cycles produce extreme cold. The opposite is also true: strong sunspot cycles produce warming, while modest sunspot cycles produce and intermediate temperature.. It is apparent, at least to me, that the late 20th century warming could be attributed to the combined warm ocean cycles with strong sunspot cycles – with no need for CO2 to be considered. The engineers in my audience, a very skeptical bunch, tried to refute the line of evidence before them. This is what engineers do (not limited to engineers, however, as many others also do this.) I also have tried my best to refute this. I stated in my speech that I could be wrong, and indeed, I hope I am wrong. Catastrophic global cooling is not something to take lightly.
But, the fact remains that, once again, we have a cold Pacific Ocean, and a weak sunspot cycle at this time. Experts are saying that this sunspot cycle will be the weakest in many decades. That is an appeal to authority, I realize. However, as a good skeptic, I checked their claim and found it to be true. If, as predicted, the current sunspot cycle peaks at approximately 60, that will indeed make it the weakest since approximately 1800. (see figures 20 and 21 at http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/warmists-are-wrong-cooling-is-coming.html).
Therefore, we have (as I presently see it), a cooling globe, a cold Pacific Ocean, a weaker than normal sunspot cycle, yet CO2 continues to increase by approximately 2 or 3 percent each year. Something, clearly, has stopped the warming, and started the cooling. Very few things can account for this: perhaps the CO2 has disappeared? No. Perhaps large volcanoes have erupted, placing reflecting aerosols in the atmosphere? No, we would have noticed this. Perhaps the sun’s total irradiance has decreased dramatically? No, we have ways to measure this and that did not happen. Perhaps all or most of the polar ice melted, which cooled the oceans, and that cooled the land? No, we certainly would have noticed this also. Have the polar ice, or land-based glaciers, grown dramatically so that more of the sun’s energy is reflected away? No, although that would cause a cooling. Is there too much soot from coal-burning, or other industrial air pollutants that also increase albedo? Possibly, although that seems remote. Then, what is left?
What can explain the inflection point in the global temperature curve from approximately 2000 until now?
I maintain that now is an excellent time to re-frame the debate, and focus our considerable abilities and energies (as a whole) to answering that question. If it indeed turns out that a weak sunspot cycle and simultaneous cold ocean cycle produces catastrophic cold, we are going to look rather silly in about 10 or 20 years time. Our children, when grown, will figure this out and ask, Why didn’t the scientists make the connection between sunspot cycles and cold? They had ample evidence from the past. Why didn’t someone sound the alarm, and take prudent steps to try to prepare for the bitter and prolonged cold?
No, I believe ancient man went about their agricultural activities right on schedule, each Spring. When the ground was warm enough, they plowed or stuck seeds in the earth. We even have the Stonehenge as a (possible) example, with the stones aligned so the Spring Equinox could be known to the exact day. They didn’t need a proven causal mechanism to act.
Neither do we.
@Pamela Gray
May 19, 2012 at 11:27 am
—————————–
Forgive me in advance for gratuitous speculation.
I’m not so sure Mann believes in his research anymore. He’s no fool. He’s been exposed for mathematical malpractice and surely he must understand why. It’s not necessary for him to believe in his research to continue on the warmist path (warpath?), which is obviously lucrative (no more “grant-grubbing”). It’s more lucrative than the alternative, which is to admit he’s wrong and that they simply don’t have a clue as to what the climate will be like in 50 or 100 years. He’s a figurehead, a movement celebrity. That provides income and notoriety, which is apparently what he’s been after since the beginning.
I’m guessing he’s a lukewarmer now but knows that the extent to which mankind is driving the warming can’t be quantified with any degree of certainty.
It’s like the conspiracy theorist who writes a book with all assuredness that his theory is absolutely true or at minimum plausible and that his book proves it. Even when alternative theories containing persuasive contradictory evidence appear, he feels compelled to defend his original position because now you have CONTROVERSY and opposing points of view, which attracts news media attention. Then you get to write a second book knocking your critics and providing new and/or updated information.
Or a better analogy might be the pastor whose faith is succumbing to agnosticism yet who continues to preach and tend to his congregation.
Consensus is the opinion approved by most scientists before a few of the brightest ones force them to accept a truer one.
I tried to copy/paste comments but my PC is acting goofy ( perhaps because this post is about DisneyLand and Mann? ).
RE Pamela Grey & Roger Sowell’s exchange: Mann and the “Team” are the ones claiming that 2+2=8. We don’t have to “prove” anything. We just have to keep pushing that THEY prove where the “8” came from.
(I know. I just horribly over simplified the arguement but, hey, I’m a simple guy.)
@roger Sowell: Do we actually need a proven, causal mechanism before it is prudent to act?
That entirely depends upon:
1. the act contemplated,
2a. the existance of other potentially causal mechanisms, and
2b. whether the act contemplated is favorably aligned with each 2a.
Your questions seems straight out of the pages of “Post-Normal Science”
From ClimateEtc May 13, comment in “The Bias of Science”
The case for the existance for sources of bias is a fine argument against the use of Post-Normal Science. … Yet the thesis that bias is persuasive in today’s science seems to me to strongly argue that we need to double-down on Normal Science to first eliminate potential for bias.
I once heard Mann take a question of, if future warming would bring more La Nina-like events, as they did in the past, then doesn’t that mean models vastly overstate warming. To my surprise, Mann replied that he agreed with that, and he thinks there is a missing negative feedback.
Note that this comes from the existence of a hockey stick, which Mann says was limited in area, because the tropics exhibited LaNina like response to the warming.
This is an interesting own-goal by Mann-
“Mann replied that Lindzen is a maverick, and that the consensus is what we follow in science.”
The reason Mann achieved infamy which led to him being a prominent guest speaker at events such as this was that his 1998 paleo reconstruction of temperature obliterated the previously held climate consensus of the little ice age and medieval warm periods.
Mann’s rocketing career launched as a result of him being a science ‘maverick’ in many ways, all of them misleading, wrong, or displaying gross incompetence. He has had a stunning impact on paleo-climatology, almost single-handedly destroying its credibility in a little over a decade. Quite a feat.
very good work Roger and perhaps there is some hope that reason will prevail over fear!
Thanks Roger, it’s always good to read a point of view (and account of the ongoings) that hasn’t been done over by the Establishment.
What a coincidence. I saw the same Mann talk at the Univ.of Connecticut recently.
I asked him one final question before he abrubtly left.
” What do you have to say about the recent study by Zunli Lu, et. al. as well as others that support the fact that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age weren’t just some local phenomena, but were more widespread” . Mann sloughed it off by saying that he had contacted the author and he had renounced his findings. I find that hard to believe since it was a peer reviewed paper by a group of authors. (below). Just the fact that each event lasted more than a hundred years should mean that they could hardly be localized.
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
1 April 2012
Zunli Lu | Rosalind E.M. Rickaby | Hilary Kennedy | Paul Kennedy | Richard D. Pancost | Samuel Shaw | Alistair Lennie | Julia Wellner | John B. Anderson
Calcium carbonate can crystallize in a hydrated form as ikaite at low temperatures. The hydration water in ikaite grown in laboratory experiments records the δ18O of ambient water, a feature potentially useful for reconstructing δ18O of local seawater. We report the first downcore δ18O record of natural ikaite hydration waters and crystals collected from the Antarctic Peninsula (AP), a region sensitive to climate fluctuations. We are able to establish the zone of ikaite formation within shallow sediments, based on porewater chemical and isotopic data. Having constrained the depth of ikaite formation and δ18O of ikaite crystals and hydration waters, we are able to infer local changes in fjord δ18O versus time during the late Holocene. This ikaite record qualitatively supports that both the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age extended to the Antarctic Peninsula.
Prior to 1962 the consensus view was that the ocean basins were stable features, and people believing in continental drift were elements of a lunatic fringe. After 1963, if a person did not believe in continental drift they were considered part of the lunatic fringe. I suppose that Mann views consensus as simply changing very quickly…but never, never the result of a Maverick or two.
The two paragraphs of the question Roger Sowell posed for Dr. Mann are contradictory to me. Either Mann’s tree ring data showed a “decline” after 1960 or the tree ring data was “cherry picked” to show an upward hockey stick shape. How can both be true? If he had tree ring data, cherry picked or otherwise, that showed a hockey stick shape when graphed, why would he need to “hide the decline”? It doesn’t make any sense to me.
I mean, either Dr. Mann produced his famous hockey stick graph using “the instrumental temperature record” because the tree ring data showed a decline after 1960, or he “cherry picked” tree ring data to produce an ascending hockey stick. Which was it? Or did he do both at different times and I’m getting them confused as one event? Can anyone explain this?
ATTN: Roger
Always use your title in public: Doctor. And mention that you are chemical engineer
People have the greatest respect for engineers. Ya know, the guys design neat stuff like giant plasma TV’s, hot cars, killer stereo systems, cell and smart phones, CD and DVD players, blazing computers and tablet computer and so forth.
Roger Sowell says:
May 19, 2012 at 10:31 am
@nc, from May 19, 2012 at 10:18 am
Yes, before the camera rolled, David Nazar and I talked a bit and I told him that Watts Up With That.com is an excellent source of climate science information. Who knows if he wrote it down or remembered it later. He seemed more concerned that I had no organization behind me. An army of independent skeptics seems a novel concept.
================
Roger, thank you a very well written post and for your sincere contribution with regards to “the cause”.
I especially like your statement “He seemed more concerned that I had no organization behind me. An army of independent skeptics seems a novel concept.”
An army of ones? Quite a novel concept indeed with regards to ‘climate change’. Not an independent army but an army of independents, researching, asking questions, voting, searching for the truth, etc. The truth in the hands of an army of independents is a powerful concept.
*** UPDATE: here’s a photo from Mr. Sowell at the event. Dr. Mann at the right under the “R” ***
Thank goodness he wasn’t placed under R2. That would’ve been a foolish and incorrect thing to do.
@ur momisugly Harold Pierce Jr from May 19, 2012 at 5:42 pm
“ATTN: Roger
Always use your title in public: Doctor. And mention that you are chemical engineer”
Technically, a law degree is a Juris Doctor, but I can’t think of any attorney who claims to be a doctor. I have never done so.
I didn’t say my name or that I’m an attorney and engineer at the Q&A microphone, since that was the protocol at this meeting. None of the questioners did. Many other meetings or panels do require the questioners to identify themselves for the record. However, the name-tag they issued me at the Water Summit identified me as an attorney but not an engineer. Everyone I met could read that. Almost everyone asks what type of law I practice, and I tell them with a brief statement of my background in engineering.
But, the reporter, Mr. David Nazar, asked me these things so I told him.
Mann is a pure bureaucrat.
He is funded and rewarded by the State, receives accolades and awards from the State, and the State is the only customer for his ‘product’ (technically known as a monopsony).
In return for this nurturing, Mann gives the State a ‘product’ that it can use to further its own ends — global warming alarmism.
Everyone inside this arrangement benefits — the casualties are 1) truth 2) taxpayers.
macleanjstorer,
Excellent analysis. Mann lies for money and status, because that is what his employer demands.
UK Sceptic says: “Mann’s days as a rent seeker must surely be numbered. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
True, but he hasn’t yet run out of money with which to fool some more of the people.
Thanks, Roger. Impressive.
Jim Macdonald says — “Mann sloughed it off by saying that he had contacted the author and he had renounced his findings.”
Mann, like Pharoph Rameses did, has called with his own lips the future responses to any claims of AGW.
I can understand why people are concerned about the decline in temperature shown in the tree ring record after the 1960’s but before that time tree ring data correlated with other proxy’s and even the instrumental record very well. Like Mann said, there needs to be more research done on the effects of increased CO2 and pollution on tree rings since 1960.
Are you all suggesting that tree ring data should never be used as a proxy record before 1960?
Mann even took your criticism and developed a proxy temperature record that does not include tree rings (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/mann2008.html). But even though Mann did that, it still needs to be said that tree ring proxy’s correlate with other proxy’s very well, and just because there is a serous anthropogenic process going on at present, which is most likely causing the tree ring proxy divergence after 1960, does not warrant the removal of all proxy tree ring data from temperature reconstructions before 1960.
“Harold Pierce Jr says:
May 19, 2012 at 5:42 pm”
All following the concept of scientific method. I was once told recently in a debate with an alarmist that electricity, computers etc, were examples of “scientific method”. I kid you not.
gofigure560 says:
May 19, 2012 at 12:28 pm
“With Mann’s bogus study out of the way it is clear that – by the very definition of warming – our current warming began at the bottom [~1680] (not the “end”, which is an arbitrary and irrelevant date) of the LIA.”
Agree.
Pamela Gray says:
May 19, 2012 at 11:36 am
Bill, your comment is without substance and your review of said research was not done with a very critical eye. The mechanism behind CO2 forms a much stronger case than the empty shell of solar/temperature wriggle matching. However, AGWers fail to nullify intrinsic natural variability. Both sides of the CO2/solar debate make separate but equally major failures.
And of course the Sun heats the planet directly. Whenever solar enthusiasts start their agrument with that tired verse, I cringe.
==========
If you’re using the AGW KT97 and ilk cartoon energy budget then what do you know about the Sun? Nought. It’s missing the direct heat from the Sun which actually heats up the Earth’s land and oceans, and you warmers haven’t even noticed.. “Shortwave in longwave out” is what makes me cringe.