UPDATE: It appears the paper has been withdrawn and credit acknowledgement given to Steve McIntyre, see below:
There was yet another recent “hockey stick” being foisted on the public. Gergis et al.
It says:
The average reconstructed temperature anomaly in Australasia during A.D. 1238–1267, the warmest 30-year pre-instrumental period, is 0.09°C (±0.19°C) below 1961–1990 levels.
Basically, another “ah-ha, man is at fault” pitch.
At Climate Audit, the paper was examined in more detail, and alarm bells went off. Concern centered around the 27 proxy data sets used in the study. Now, after Steve McIntyre found some major faults, it seems this paper has gone missing from the AMS website without explanation. All that remains is the Google cache thumbnail image, not even the cached web page. See below:
Here is the original URL:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00649.1
Here’s a backup copy: http://static.stuff.co.nz/files/melbourne.pdf
To read about how the takedown came about, I suggest this excellent summary from Bishop Hill as the technical details are rather thick: Another Hockey Stick broken
The problems with the paper in a nutshell:
- upside down proxy data again
- preselection of data, ignoring the whole set in many cases
- though they tried to justify preselection, the paper’s methodology doesn’t hold up (circular reasoning)
- inability to replicate given the data and methods used
In Gergis defense, they provided full *some documentation and data at the outset, unlike some other hockey stick purveyors we know. This allowed the work to be checked independently. This is how science is supposed to work, and apparently it has.
(*Added: apparently Gergis refused some additional data Steve McIntyre requested, the documentation of this on his CA website)
It appears from my perspective that this is a failure of peer review at the AMS.
UPDATE: Further proof that the paper has truly been taken down, and this isn’t a web glitch.
1. The DOI link is also broken over at Real Climate in their article: Fresh hockey sticks from the Southern Hemisphere
References
- J. Gergis, R. Neukom, S.J. Phipps, A.J.E. Gallant, and D.J. Karoly, “Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium”, Journal of Climate, 2012, pp. 120518103842003-. DOI.
2. On the AMS search page: http://journals.ametsoc.org/action/doSearch
I put in both the author name and the DOI, and got nada:
Search Results
Search Query: Authors: gergis
Your search did not match any articles.
Search Query: PubIdSpan: JCLI-D-11-00649.1
Your search did not match any articles.
============================================================
UPDATE2: Steve McIntyre reports the paper has been put “on hold” http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/08/gergis-et-al-put-on-hold/
So, for Dr Gergis we can add to “committed environmentalist, far leftist, surly and rude correspondent”, “with egg on her [self-SNIP] face.
It would be un-gallant of me to comment on a lady’s(?) looks.
Just another reason I am NOT a member, even though I am a meteorologist for 25yrs now. I cannot support this ilk. Sure they do a lot of good things, but I still won’t support them with an annual fee. Nope!
They seem incapable of learning that the good old days of getting away with publishing any old crap are over; everything gets checked nowadays. These are great days.
Pointman
“My initial impression is that Gergis et al.s’ results will not wind up changing much, if at all.–eric”
There’s quite an advantage when one works in a field where “the right answer” is known before the work is done.
Writing about the Journal of Climate, Donna Laframboise, author of “The Delinquent Teenager” said,
“It’s chief editor, Anthony J. Broccoli, was a contributing author and expert reviewer for the IPCC’s 2007 report (known as AR4).”
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/08/23/the-journal-of-climate-the-ipcc/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/17/peer-review-pal-review-and-broccoli/
Skeptics shine – Warmist propagandists slime SSDD GK
Mervin we run 3 peer reviewed journals on the internet we demand that all unadjusted/untouched raw data be provided as a basic condition for evaluation
What happended… did someone accidently burn the log containing the tree rings that spelled death to humanity?
Geoff Sherrington: Steigs paper is another fraud anyway extrapolating all data from the SH peninsula over the whole continent I would not even mention him here he doesn’t deserve to be, just like Gergis and Mann and Briffa etc. Yamal. These people should not be considered as scientists anymore
Usually, so long as the conclusion is politically correct the numeracy of science isn’t that important. Has that changed? Are we now insisting on the Inconvenient Whole Truth?
In the business world — whether the errors were due to fraud, incompetence or worse — it would be enough to curtain a company and the quality of every piece of product they had shipped over the prior years would be suspect.
With so many hockey-stick-looking graphy things coming out, sooner or later we’ll assume there must be some truth to them (somewhere). They can’t ALL be wrong. Or so they hope?
Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Most likely this is a cry for help. Some AGW water-carriers are tired of the charade.
Andrew
Climate scientists should be taken to the International War Crimes Tribunal for the way they “torture” their data. /sarc
Regarding the “we discovered the mistake before Climate Audit” claim, there is one scenario where that could be true, and that is that they knew all along that what they were doing was not kosher. There is no bound on cynicism in Climate Science.
I just love it when someone trots out the “seminal” word as being descriptive of their research. These days, it means that we, the consuming public, have just been ____ed.
Pamela Gray says:
June 9, 2012 at 9:56 am
– – – – – – – – –
Pamela Gray,
Not THAT kind of seminal, me thinks. ; )
John
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=seminal
Yes, and Seminary, too. My dad must be so proud.
So far the score is 3 – 0
First, Mann´s Hockey stick
Second, Steig´s Dirty Harry south pole temperature reconstruction
Third, this one.
(could be more)
Although there is an attempt to refer to the article as “on hold”, Anthony correctly refers to it as “withdrawn”.
Paul Mathews points this out over at Climate Audit.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/08/gergis-et-al-put-on-hold/#comment-337172
I posted this response, but it immediately went into moderation, which in my experience, means “bye-bye, so long”. So here’s my comment:
Paul, now that you mention it, I’ve never heard of an “on hold” category for the scientific publishing process. I was inclined to let them have their “on hold”, but your comment prompted me to do some googling. AMS does not seem to have any published guidelines with regard to “in press” withdrawals/holds, bue Elsevier has an extensive set of policies:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/article_withdrawal
Which of those would apply I guess would depend on the ultimate outcome of this thing.
AGU has a retraction/withdrawal policy, but nothing about “on hold”.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/authors/policies/retraction_policy.shtml
Maybe “on hold” will have to be created as a special category exclusive to climate papers. I wonder if the IPCC can alter their policy in time…
Looks like it did clear over at CA.
Guess I’m guilty of “multiple submissions”.
Please put my comment “on hold”. 🙂
Here let’s give the Leftists a new meme to work with–e.g., the devastation from CO2 is heading to hearth like a comet on a collision course and there’s nothing that will save us except Schwarzenegger and schoolteachers. God save us from businessmen and capitalism.
My thanks to davidmhoffer and GregK and Crispin in Waterloo.
@Crispin in Waterloo: You write: “When the standard deviation exceeds the anomaly there is no statistically significant difference from the baseline. There is still a level of confidence that can be provided given that there is a calculated difference. The level of confidence that the difference is real is low, very, very low.” What level of confidence can be given when the measured quantity is smaller than the measuring device? Suppose I claimed that I had cut a piece of lumber to within 1/128th of an inch of the desired measurement, but mention that I used a tape measure which has as its smallest mark 1/16th of an inch? (I use those numbers because I think they are approximately the same difference as those in the quoted part of the summary; if they’re not, then take them as a simple contra-factual example, please.) Not even with the sharper eyes I had fifty years ago could I distinguish 1/128th of an inch using a ruler whose smallest division is 1/16th of an inch. To my simple-minded understanding of the world and measurement, there simply is no possibility, let alone any probability however low, that we can know more than that the actual number is between -.10 and +.28 and we have no way to tell where it lies between those numbers. If the number is not intended as an expression of actual measurements, but rather is a calculation, then that makes the matter worse, not better, as I understand simple arithmetic, because multiplication – an event that necessarily occurs somewhere in this wonderful process of determining an average – magnifies the error. You see my point? The answer – whether the result of calculation or of measurement – is both unknown and unknowable from the data or calculated results provided. Therefore, there is no probability that the difference is real, when as in this case, the range of possible answers extends from above to below the claimed answer. Am I not stating this clearly? Or has science progressed beyond the point where “Your presented numbers are nonsense” is not a permitted result?? I do truly appreciate what you said, but it makes no sense to me, for the reason(s) I set out above, and I apologize if you take personal offense at something I’ve written as no offense is intended, but I am puzzled by your response.
But who were the reviewers who slipped up in their basic professional duties of care.
Unless and until they are identified, one will be alway suspicious of whether it not it was the Mates Review system at work . ie MR not PR…..and no more so than In Australia
There would have been a lot hanging on the printing and releasing of this paper…and they have produced a consumate stuff up. Not a good look
Ike says:June 9, 2012 at 7:28 pm
@Crispin in Waterloo said: “When the standard deviation exceeds the anomaly there is no statistically significant difference from the baseline. There is still a level of confidence that can be provided given that there is a calculated difference. The level of confidence that the difference is real is low, very, very low.”
@Rich Borba said: “Therefore, there is no probability that the difference is real, when as in this case, the range of possible answers extends from above to below the claimed answer. Am I not stating this clearly? Or has science progressed beyond the point where “Your presented numbers are nonsense” is not a permitted result?? ”
Ike, I’m pretty sure you and Crispin are saying exactly the same thing.