Note: I’m reposting this excellent essay from Jo Nova to give it a wide as an audience as possible. Be sure to bookmark her site if you have not already. – Anthony
300,000 dollars and three years to produce a paper that lasted three weeks: Gergis
The paper might have been scientifically invalid, but it was a box-office success. The headlines were everywhere
“1000 years of climate data confirms Australia’s warming” said the press release from University of Melbourne. It was picked up by The Guardian: “Australasia has hottest 60 years in a millennium, scientists find”; The Age and The Australian led with “Warming since 1950 ‘unprecedented’. The story was on ABC 24 and ABC news where Gergis proclaimed:” there are no other warm periods in the last 1000 years that match the warming experienced in Australasia since 1950.” It was all over the ABC including ABC Radio National, and they were “95% certain“! On ABC AM, “the last five decades years in Australia have been the warmest. ” Plus there were pages in Science Alert, Campus Daily Eco news, The Conversation, Real Climate and Think Progress.
Blog review is where the real science gets tested
Skeptics have been looking through the paper, and three weeks after it was published a team at Climate Audit uncovered a problem so significant that the authors announced that this paper is “on hold”. It has been withdrawn from the American Meteorological Society website. Bishop Hill has probably the best summary of what this means, and how it unfolded.
When Steve McIntyre asked for the full data, she refused. Gergis has an activist past which she has recently tried to hide. She was proud to mention in her biography that her data has been requested from 16 nations: So requests from Tunisia, Cuba, and Brazil are OK; but Canada — not so much. Apparently she didn’t appreciate his expertise with statistics and told him to get the data himself from the original authors, and added ” This is commonly referred to as ‘research’. We will not be entertaining any further correspondence on the matter. “
Will any of these media outlets update their news?
(The Uni Melb news feed is here).
On AM, David Karoly raved about how the study was strong because it relied more on observations not modeling (it is getting to them that skeptics keep pointing out they have no empirical evidence), and claimed he had “high confidence” in the results. (Is that the same kind of high confidence he has in future predictions of warming?)
MATTHEW CARNEY: Professor Karoly says the strength of the study is that it’s relied more on direct observations and measurements than climate modelling.
DAVID KAROLY: Nothing is absolutely certain in science but we say with very high confidence because we have repeated the analysis alone for the uncertainties that the warming in the last 50 years is very unusual and cannot, very likely cannot be explained by natural climate variability alone.
How concerned are they with accuracy? Are all these media outlets happy to leave their readers or viewers with the impression that these results are robust, reliable, and strong? In truth, even before this paper was withdrawn, before it was promoted, investigative reporters had plenty to wonder about.
Did any journalist really ask any hard questions to start with?
Let’s not bother to get into the point that the results of crunching the data 3000 different ways means their “confidence” came from models, not from the 27 proxies, most of which didn’t cover the full 1000 years, or the Australian mainland either.
The litany, the message went on and on and on in the media and apart from Adam Morton in The Age, most investigative journalists never thought to ask the question “How much warmer are we now than 1000 years ago” because if they had, Gergis would have had to say “by a tenth of a degree”. (That much eh?) Technically it was 0.09C.
The certainty of Australia being 0.09 of a degree cooler 1000 years ago comes down to observations from a batch of trees in Tasmania and New Zealand. (If we can calculate the regional temperature so accurately that way, why do we bother with a network of 100 thermometers? We could pop a max-min gauge next to those trees and “interpolate” the rest, No?)
Why not skip the thermometers and just go with the trees? They’re accurate to one hundredth of a degree across a continent and sea.
Funding?
Funding apparently ran to $340,ooo but may have been nearly a million dollars (at least that’s what Gergis thought in 2009, I can find no official record of it):
“The project, funded by the Australian Research Council’s Linkage scheme, is worth a total of $950K and will run from mid-2009 to mid-2012″. [Source: Joelle Gergis has deleted her blog. Cached copy here. Webcite copy]
Is this how policies are promoted now? The government finds b-grade activist scientists, funds them to produce papers that may or may not stand the test of …a few weeks, and the media rush to rubber stamp and repeat the story without asking hard questions, and in the end the government gets “third party” policy promotion — seemingly independent endorsement of the purest kind. At $340,000, it’s returned decent value some would say.
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REFERENCES
Cook, E. R., Buckley, B. M., Palmer, J. G., Fenwick, P., Peterson, M. J., Boswijk, G. and Fowler, A. 2006. Millennia-long tree-ring records from Tasmania and New Zealand: a basis for modelling climate variability and forcing, past, present and future. J. Quaternary Sci., Vol. 21 pp. 689–699. ISSN 0267-8179. [abstract]
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. [ Paper (PDF)]
ARC Funding: ARC Linkage Project Funding Outcomes
[It’s hard to find the original grants, this is one, which doesn’t add up to $950k could be part of the funding, or extra funding, or perhaps the original offer of $950k didn’t come through?…]
2606 ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES
LP0990151 Dr JL Gergis; Prof DJ Karoly; Prof N Nicholls; A/Prof DS Garden; Prof CS Turney; Dr AM Lorrey; Dr K Braganza; Dr RJ Allan; Miss G Skelly; Ms RJ Moran; Dr K Tan; Mr RA Neville; Dr NR Lomb
Approved Project Title Reconstructing pre-20th century rainfall, temperature and pressure for south-eastern Australia using palaeoclimate, documentary and early weather station data.
2009 : $ 65,000
2010 : $ 117,500
2011 : $ 105,000
2012 : $ 52,500
APA(I) Award(s): 1
APDI Dr JL Gergis, Collaborating/Partner Organisation(s), Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Met Office Hadley Centre, Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Department of Sustainability and Environment,
Melbourne Water , National & State Libraries Australasia, National Library of Australia,
State Library of Victoria , State Library of New South Wales, Powerhouse Museum, Administering Organisation The University of Melbourne,
Summary of Linkage Projects Proposals by Primary Class Code for Funding to Commence in 2009
Updated 13 August 2009 Page 14
Project Summary
South-eastern Australia is in the grip of a severe water crisis due to the worst drought in recorded history and increasing temperatures. This landmark project brings together a team of Australia’s leading climate scientists, water managers and historians with the common goal of reconstructing south-eastern Australia’s climate history. The greatly extended record of annual rainfall and temperature variability will allow better planning for water storage and use, and improved testing of climate model simulations. Improving our understanding of the historical impacts of climate extremes on society will assist with planning for life in a hotter and drier future.
Thanks to Geoff Derrick for tadvice.
Stephen Richards says:
June 9, 2012 at 1:44 pm
My father, Phd climatology, has tried on all fronts to battle this multi-headed hydra, and it has cost him dearly. Even people who post on here have believed the BS that has been written about him. There have been enormous efforts to malign him, and anyone who has any brains has to ask themselves why such effort to discredit him? He recognized what was going on over 30 years ago, and has done his level best to expose this infection for the fraud that it is.
“the Guardian is reportedly losing £1 million a day.” Oh, that makes me so very happy. There is Justice somewhere still.
This also confirms the broken handle [upwards]:
http://notrickszone.com/2012/06/06/medieval-warm-period-shows-up-in-south-america-too-far-far-away-from-north-atlantic/
David Jones says:
June 9, 2012 at 3:51 pm
NZ Willy says:
June 9, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Where’s all the global warming that we are paying for? Plumb cold here in New Zealand for the last 5 weeks, bought extra firewood, brrr.
Christ almighty!! You are in winter. Here in UK we are in what passes for “Summer.” The coldest and wettest April in over 100 years! May was no better and so far in June it is getting wetter and colder!! Now let them tell me that it is the hottest spring on record!! Bullsh*t!!
************
Today in UK tabloids scream “worst storms and deluge for 10 years for the next 2 weeks”. Look at Welsh news today – 1000 people evacuated because of the flood:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-18381040
And we still have the bloody HOSE PIPE BAN!!!! (ok, I am not in Wales, but we also had lots and lots of rain for months).
The central heating in ON, and I am thinking of lighting up the coal burning stove…
When is this Global Warming going to kick in already??? They have bloody jinxed it, didn’t they?? And now nature is going to have fun and show us where our predictions belong.
Sadly it makes no difference how bad the science is or how easy it is to pick apart. Alarmist claims are picked up by the media and are reported with relish to the audience. When do you ever see a follow up story when it is ripped to pieces? Even when bad science fails review, it’s still a success for warmists as they know the MSM moves onto the next story at the drop of a hat and the majority of the audience will never follow the story themselves. Most of the time they report on nothing more than press releases, peer review doesn’t get a look in.
Even though the publishers of the Times Atlas had to eat crow over the missing 15% of Greenland’s ice claim within 24 hours, not one TV station in the UK bothered with a follow up story. I even tweeted the journalists who reported on it and was blanked. Journalism, much like science is not was it used to be.
Here’s one for the next global warming report and is right down their alley in terms of methodology. Take all the temperature sensors in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho that demonstrate quite easily that we have been cooling here over the past 5+ years. Then fill in the grids across the US. Presto. The US has been catastrophically cooling. So here ya go girlfriend. Your next paper. Don’t mention it!
Garry Stotel — Piers Corbyn predicted the weather you are getting but the UK Met office predicted the exact opposite ( even with their fancy super computers )
How about all the rest of the crap that the warmists have published and got away with?
One can measure the success of this effort by the shrillness of the trolls
They deleted a blog spanning three years because of this? Why?
As someone who once published in academia, I can tell you it’s very bad on one’s reputation to pull a paper. Very bad. Even publishing errata can stack up against you if done even a couple of times. But this is Climatology so it’s probably no big deal.
So the defense is that they made a few mistakes and will correct them. So why don’t they ever make ‘mistakes’ in the other direction? Why do all mistakes bolster the CAGW theory? If all the ‘mistakes’ go one way, that is bias, not error.
Same thing with temperature adjustments. If there are inaccuracies in the instrumental temperature records, why do all of the corrections bolster the AGW theory?
Never mind. I cannot even ask these questions anymore. It has gone beyond ridiculous and now dwells firmly in the world of the absurd. AGW climate science has become an absurdity. The scientists who live in the world of AGW are so deeply invested in the paradigm that they no longer have the ability to be rational, much less work with the scientific process.
I will be so happy when all this nonsense goes away and atmospheric scientists can get back to doing real, useful work.
“300,000 dollars and three years to produce a paper that lasted three weeks: Gergis”
As always with the CAGW swindle: Follow the money.
It occurs to me that this preselection of data sets for “correlation” with the thermometer record is really little different in its scientific value than searching for a group of stars that might be said to exhibit a pattern of say a bull or a bear or some ancient god.
I would just love to see people like Gergis put in front of a judicial inquiry and have some senior counsel just take them through their “scientific” logic and process. I reckon that would be great and hilarious television.
I also hope that the apparent collapse of the scientific credibility of this peer reviewed, published (toilet) paper asserting a hockey schtick australis opens up the public imagination to the constructive nonsense behind the Mannian hockey schtick major and the broader issue of self referenced logic in so called “climate science”. It is becoming crystal clear in the skeptical blogoshpere that “climate science” is branch of human enquiry and endeavour that has slunk and shrunk back from the enlightenment into the penumbra of belief based, ideologically inspired activity.
The next step is to see that view being properly articulated in the MSM. After all , when it comes to public policy, it is the numbers of voters ( as measured at the ballot box or indicated by properly conducted polling) who will accept a particular policy or policy advocate rather than the asserted number of alleged scientists who support some cartoonish depiction of where the centroid of the “science” is located. The MSM is where the Gaugemala, the Waterloo, the El Alamein, the D-Day or the Bulge will take place. Otherwise the MSM will let this struggle become another Khe Sanh.
We could characterize this contretemps with extreme pejoratives characteristic of such as Pentti Linkola, but shall refrain.
@tomwys: “This again evidences the well confirmed mathematical principle, that the snottiness of response is directly proportional to the ineptitude of the AGW researcher.”
I am so stealing that, but I will call it “Tomwys Law”.
Peter H says: June 9, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Geez Peter…. There IS probably a little too much ‘crowing’ in the replies, but under the circumstances, that is quite understandable.
But YOU don’t have much of a sense of irony do you? Prattling on about science versus politics when we had a widely acclaimed paper ‘crowing’ about ‘an Australian hockey stick’….. and mentioning an increase now over the warmest pre-industrial period of only 0.09 deg C with a quoted uncertainty of +/0.19 deg C….? Pretty plain who is playing politics in this case.
And now, to top it off, it turns out the very methodology was flawed, and the paper is withdrawn without explanation or publicity. “much ado about nothing..” ?
Politics indeed. And you are a fine example of a very severe case of indoctrination and of a very uncritical mind at work.
Maybe the paper comes with gilded edges in 24 caret gold? Hey, it could happen. I hear guvmn’t toilet seats are expensive too.
“planning for life in a hotter and drier future”
And then it rained. Pity you can’t put climate projections on the stockmarket, these people would have lost alot of money.
“This is commonly referred to as ‘research’”
Not sure I’ve ever seen someone place their foot that deeply into their mouth…I’m still lmao.
If the paper is reworked and comes back up in a different form, does that mean we can say it was reGergisated?
I don’t think this is off-topic here:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/06/08/richard-feynman-caltech-cargo-cult-science/
Ooo. I’ll play that game. Maybe we could say it was reGergismitted.
Lets look at this a slightly different way. Let’s suppose that, rather than climate, we were talking about parachutes.
Person A: “Nothing is absolutely certain in sky-diving, but we say with very high confidence your parachute will work.”
Person B: “That sounds promising. Did the parachute work the last time it was tried?”
Person A: “No.”
Person B: “Has the parachute ever worked?”
Person A: “No.”
Person B: “Then why should I trust you when you say the parachute will work this time?”
Person A: “How dare you question me!!!? You have never designed a parachute in your life, while I am paid three hundred thousand dollars for my parachute designs!!!”
Person B: “Forgive me. However, before I strap the parachute on, will you tell me again why I should feel confident about doing so?”
Person A: ” Nothing is absolutely certain in sky-diving, but we say with very high confidence….”
This may sound a bit tough but I think most people here do not realize that the warmists won this one hands down because the only purpose was to get a paper up there that showed SH warming whether true or not. mainstream published it everywhere and that’s what people read. Gillard needs this for her carbon tax. They will not get the real info from here. Of course they eventually will but could take months to years by then the tax will be ingrained even Abbott will not get rid of it.