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 It has been withdrawn from the American Meteorological Society website.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.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/05/fresh-hockey-sticks-from-the-southern-hemisphere/http://
link comes up as “Not Found – Sorry, but you are looking for something that is not here.”
As of now, you CAN get there by clicking on any of the links to comments on the right, or clicking here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/05/fresh-hockey-sticks-from-the-southern-hemisphere/comment-page-1/#comments
or here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/05/fresh-hockey-sticks-from-the-southern-hemisphere/comment-page-2/#comment-237435
Until they read this, and disable THAT access. If you want to see it, get it now.
Copies were made, just in case…
[A lot of] Latitude said:
“No one can get temperatures or even climate from trees…all you can hope to get is the length of that particular growing season….
With no explanation of why.”
Then why do tree ring data obtained from mountain hemlock trees along the coast of Alaska [that indicate changes in sea-surface temperature (SST)] almost perfectly anti-correlate with SST that have been derived using the Sr/Ca ratios measured in corals at Rarotonga in the South Pacific between the years 1700 and 2000 A.D.
(NOTE: The anti-correlation is required because whenever the SST in the Bay of Alaska are
warmer than normal, the SST near Rarotonga are cooler than normal, and vice versa.).
The Sr/Ca ratios in corals are directly linked to the temperatures in which the corals are immersed.
If your statement was universally correct. Latitude, then it would impossible for the tree-ring widths in hemlock tree rings along the coast of Alaska to know about the SST around the island of Rarotonga in the South Pacific!
It always pays to be careful when you start shouting out [all encompassing] statements with the mob!
Crispin in Waterloo says:
June 9, 2012 at 2:51 pm
———
I agree. They should give all the data and everything else.
Tell us what you did. There must be a journal.
First you had an idea.
You got some money to test your idea.
What did you learn?
Using all the collected data, what did you learn?
When the public pays for science, that science belongs to the public.
If that’s not the law then we need to change the law.
Reblogged this on Is it 2012 in Nevada County Yet? and commented:
One more broken “hockey stick” when will these people learn that real scientists are watching?
Andrew Greenfield says:June 9, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Hits the nail on the head – ‘they’ don’t even care how silly the message sounds or how wrong it is, they just keep pushing it out there and to the ‘average man’ it becomes an ingrained truth.
Very Orwellian, and very successful.
Pamela Gray says:
June 9, 2012 at 4:30 pm
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….
___________________________________
Hey Pamela, just add in
the Fayetteville NC station http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425746930020&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
The Fort Pierce FL station: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425000832070&data_set=14&num_neighbors=1
And the Annapolis Royal,Ns station in Maine http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=403713970020&data_set=14&num_neighbors=1
Then finish it off with Wasco CA: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425000494520&data_set=14&num_neighbors=1
You can add in Newkirk KS for a midpoint if you want. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425003462780&data_set=14&num_neighbors=1
Now you have “covered” all of the USA and can “infill” the rest!
Ninderthana;
Then why do tree ring data obtained from mountain hemlock trees along the coast of Alaska [that indicate changes in sea-surface temperature (SST)] almost perfectly anti-correlate with SST that have been derived using the Sr/Ca ratios measured in corals at Rarotonga in the South Pacific between the years 1700 and 2000 A.D.>>>>
Because there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of tree species that grow in hundreds of thousands of different locales. The chance that one of them wouldn’t correlate (or anti-correlate) with one of millions upon millions of locals somewhere in the world is actually very low. If you believe that there is some physical mechanism by which trees in Alaska anti-correlate with temperatures in Rarotonga, you may wish to explain what it is. I for one would be very interested.
So RealClimate has not yet updated thier blog entry to reflect the fact that the paper is on-hold. I tried to post a comment asking if they would update the blog, and my comment was blocked. What is wrong with those people?
Andrew Greenfield says:
June 9, 2012 at 7:05 pm
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.
____________________________________________
I would not bet on that even if the warmists are. The regular news media has been doing a rapid nose dive square in the mud for the last five years or so. The internet/word of mouth method of passing info is becoming a lot more important than the MSM is. I suggest people look into stuff all the time by writing down phrases they should search. I have seen a drastic increase in the knowledge of the strangers I talk to over the last four to five years.
@Chuck Nolan
“If that’s not the law then we need to change the law.”
It is common sense as much as it is Common Law. No need to change anything. The Journals are acting intra vires (within their powers) when they demand compliance with their published data policies. That a whole new set of pathetic excuses has been deemed worthy for not doing so is embarassing everyone. The childish and unprofessional refusal to provide the data to McIntyre shows that some researchers need to go back to school, to the side of the desk where they belong.
UPDATE: Did Gergis get more funding for this from outside the ARC? If so where?
According to the ARC – the “linkage” projects get outside funds.
“Proposals for funding under Linkage Projects must involve a Partner Organisation from outside the higher education sector. The Partner Organisation must make a significant contribution in cash and/or in kind, to the project that is equal to, or greater than, the ARC funding.”
Can anyone track down the other source of the funding? Is that what makes this up to $950k, or did that promised funding never eventuate?
PS: Apologies. The Real Climate link in the first para was wrong (it had an extra http// typo – the page is still up at RC and the link works now.)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/05/fresh-hockey-sticks-from-the-southern-hemisphere/
“Latitude says:
June 9, 2012 at 1:22 pm
No one can get temperatures or even climate from trees…all you can hope to get is the length of that particular growing season…”
Yes.
And what’s more laughable is some of these newer studies/research trying to tie in climate change and warming by using tree rings. Are now scouring pieces of old wooden antique furniture, etc And trying to determine/reconstruct climate from the tree ring grains on the wood from the past few centuries!
Gail Combs:
Gail, your Wasco link is busted. No matter, the station isn’t where NOAA says it is anyway. And the site has been ‘improved’ by placing the thermometer on the roof: http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=84683
…and now it has been aborted.
Scientists Name Baby ‘Global Warming’
Ninderthana says:
June 9, 2012 at 7:22 pm
[A lot of] Latitude said:,
Getting “climate” from trees seems possible. Western Larch (Larix occidentalis) grow nearby in selected locations. I have noticed there are no Olive (Olea europaea) trees in the locations where the Larch grow. This makes me think one could go around the world checking native plants with respect to the patterns of seasons, precipitation, and temperatures and with some diligent work and cartography produce a map of world climates. Oh, …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification
“The system is based on the concept that native vegetation is the best expression of climate.”
Getting temperature from trees seems a bit odd. What temperature is it that you are seeking? Some possibilities: yearly average, average high, average low by year or growing season, average temperature during hours above a selected number, and many others. Anyhow, an actual temperature is given little thought and the sought after number is the “anomaly” or deviation from a number you don’t know. Then we have ratios of chemicals of corals that grow in ocean water thought to be fairly good predictors of the water temperature in which they grew. So, we go back and forth with these linkages and get small numbers to 2 or 3 significant digits with almost no certitude, and these tell us fossil fuel use is about to cause an undefined tipping point so the UN needs to take over governing the world and redistribute the existing wealth as they direct the return to the stone age. On a believability scale from 0 to 100 this rates a 0.09 with a possibility of being negative. Wait! That can’t be. Let’s start at the beginning and eliminate all the uncertainty as we go through this again. Maybe in the morning.
The link to the Real Climate post on this has been removed…. get it on Google cache = You can run but you can’t hide on the internet!
Climate Justice. LOL
Jo Nova says: June 9, 2012 at 8:44 pm: “Can anyone track down the other source of the funding? Is that what makes this up to $950k, or did that promised funding never eventuate?”
I can’t speak for practices in Oz but in the US it is standard practice academia that the sponsors of the research be named at the end of the paper typically before the bibliography. From this one can go the the sponsoring agencies, if governmental, and track down the grant number and funding levels. Most university-based researchers in the U.S. also acknowledge and thank private sponsors e.g. the XYZ foundation, the Suzuki Foundation, Exxon Mobil, etc. Again, these folks like to burnish their images so there are usually press releases announcing the wonderful gift or grant to Prof. Doolittle at Goat Slopes State University. I would be surprised if this info isn’t available.
peterhdn says:
June 9, 2012 at 1:14 pm
My view? My view I made clear. That is that as per usual this is so much WUWT ado about nothing. Yeah, you all get all outraged but that has little effect on science. On politics you might have more effect but on science none.
Excellent, because the AGW bottom line *is* that it’s all about politics (and the grant money). If it were actually about science, they’d have given it up as a bad hypothesis a decade ago.
Anyway, sorry, but beyond that I KNOW there is no point in further comment. The name calling will simply increase…
Says he, before the name-calling has even started.
and I’ll save everyone the bother by dipping out again (which I guess will provoke accusations of ‘running way’ or the standard ‘See, he IS a troll’)….QED eh?
Let’s see — take imagined offense at being called a troll before anyone has called you a troll, then take your leave before the name-calling that hasn’t happened doesn’t happen even more.
Okay, you’re not a troll — you’re a self-licking ice-cream cone.
just went onto ABC radio national’s Science Program (really it should be called the Faith Hour!) to ‘rub it up’ the smug and sanctimonious Robyn Williams. Would they let me post?
Gutless creepy ABC.
@Andrew greenfield
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.
Ummm…isn’t there an opposition in Australia? I would have though that this development is a fairly powerful weapon in their armoury. All they need to do is calmly and thoughtfully draw attention to the fact that severe flaws have been found in the paper – by the bloggers, not the climate establishment – and allow the public to draw their own conclusions about the veracity of the whole thing.
peterhdn says:
June 9, 2012 at 1:14 pm
Okay, you’re not a troll — [SNIP: That really does lower the tone a bit, don’t you think? -REP].
Aarghh! No! Spit out that Kool-Aid!
Those mushy percentages are employed only in fields that can’t do any better, AKA social “sciences”. In actual hard sciences, you need more like 0.1% minimum, preferably 0.01% or 0.001%. Because of the risks of data snooping, bias, error, and co-incidence.
Hmm. OK, then overlay the hockey stick with, or create it our of, line-chart tracings resembling the temperature chart of the past 1200 years.
Is peterh aka peterhdn the Devonian pig farmer who used to entertain us some time back?
Jo Nova says:June 9, 2012 at 8:44 pm
First 15 minute web search results in:
Summary of Linkage Projects Proposals for Funding to Commence in 2009
LP0990151 p3 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
Reconstructing pre-20th century rainfall, temperature and pressure for south-eastern
Australia using palaeoclimate, documentary and early weather station data.
http://www.arc.gov.au/pdf/LP09_Rnd2/Mel_Uni.pdf
Australian Research Council Linkage project (LP0990151):
Reconstructing pre20th century southeastern Australian climate
undated Teleconference 1: Introductions and project planning meeting minutes (7pges)
http://climatehistory.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ARC-Linkage_Gergis_TC1_minutes.pdf
Joelle Gergis (JG), David Karoly (DK), Rae Moran (RM), Gemma Ansell (GA), Claire Fenby (CF), Bruce Rhodes (BR), Andrew Lorrey (AL), Rob Allan (RA), Ailie Gallant (AG), Karl Braganza (KB), K. S. Tan (KT), Richard Neville (RN), Margy Burn (MB), Nick Long (NL), Janice Van der Velde (JV), Kate Irvine (KI)
Australian Research Council Linkage project (LP0990151):
Reconstructing pre20th century southeastern Australian climate
undatedProject Meeting 1: Research update and planning meeting minutes (5pges)
http://climatehistory.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ARC-Linkage_Gergis_PM1_minutes.pdf
Joelle Gergis, David Karoly, Don Garden, Claire Fenby, Karl Braganza, Rae Moran, K. S. Tan,
Nick Lomb, Kate Irvine, Richard Neville, Margy Burn, Greta Harrison
Apologies: Neville Nicholls, Janice Van de Velde, Gemma Ansell
Appears from these two minutes that Australian government departments (Bureau of Meteorology, Libraries (State and Fed) and various other govt departments are keen to volunteers resources, archives and staff. Not clear whether this is volunteers outside of employed time or volunteering to work on the project in employed time. Many government depts allow staff to take paid leave to ‘volunteer’.
Other
Murray Darling Basin Authority approved $55,000 on 28/8/2009 for LP0990151
http://www.mdba.gov.au/about/list-of-grants/list-of-grants-by-mdba
Neukom R & Gergis J (2011) Southern Hemisphere high-resolution palaeoclimate records of the last 2000 years The Holocene, May 2012 22: 501-524, (first published on December 16, 2011)
1. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Switzerland
2. School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia
Received March 29, 2011
Accepted September 14, 2011
http://hol.sagepub.com/content/22/5/501.short