From The Senate EPW Jim Inhofe Press Office, well worth your time to watch.
Dr. John Christy, Alabama’s State Climatologist, Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville testified before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing on global warming and stated:
“During the heat wave of late June and early July, high temperature extremes became newsworthy. Claims that there were thousands of records broken each day and that “this is what global warming looks like” got a lot of attention.
However, these headlines were not based on climate science. As shown in Figure 1.3 of my testimony it is scientifically more accurate to say that this is what Mother Nature looks like, since events even worse than these have happened in the past before greenhouse gases were increasing like they are today.
Now, it gives some people great comfort to offer a quick and easy answer when the weather strays from the average rather than to struggle with the real truth, which is, we don’t know enough about the climate to even predict events like this.
A climatologist looking at this heat wave would not be alarmed because the number of daily high temperature records set in the most recent decade was only about half the number set in the 1930s as shown in my written testimony. I suppose most people have forgotten that Oklahoma set a new record low temperature just last year of 31 below. And in the past two years, towns from Alaska to my home state of California established records for snowfall. The recent anomalous weather can’t be blamed on carbon dioxide.
See also his written testimony here
rogerknights says:
(1) As I have noted, Mann publicly released ALL data and code for his PNAS paper. By contrast, UAH has not publicly released one line of their code.
(2) The “censored” thing is a red-herring: It is a term used in the field to represent the idea of leaving out certain pieces of data and seeing how it changes the results. Mann did this in preparing his 1998 paper and indeed that paper talked about the fact that the inclusion of the tree ring data from the Southwestern U.S. was vital in getting a skillful reconstruction. You can see the discussion of this in http://www.ltrr.arizona.edu/webhome/aprilc/data/my%20stuff/MBH1999.pdf (p. 761) Discussing something in Geophysical Research Letters is generally not considered the best way to hide something.
(3) The “spreadsheet” thing is making a mountain-out-of-a-molehill. There is no way to know who remembers better the exact exchange that took place. Furthermore, in a bit of irony, I believe that McIntyre himself misrepresented what Mann said in his book, saying that Mann said McIntyre asked for an Excel file when in fact Mann said just that he asked for it in spreadsheet form…a minor error, yes, but just the sort of picayune things that McIntyre jumps on Mann for. If the best thing that McIntyre can find to criticize Mann’s book on is this, you know he has very little material to work with.
You are basically just repeating debunked talking points.
Allan MacRae says:
So, your original claim was “to claim that Mann’s hockey stick is valid flies in the face of all the credible work done on it, from the initial work of Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick to the North and Wegman Commission reports” Now, you admit that in it only flies in the face of the North report (which is the only objective source of the 3 that you cite) if you cherrypick one small part of what they say and ignore the larger conclusion that you don’t like.
It is really enlightening to see your logic in action.
The “spreadsheet” thing is making a mountain-out-of-a-molehill. There is no way to know who remembers better the exact exchange that took place.
Quite. The data was supplied as a comma-separated values or csv file. A format that all common spreadsheet packages can read natively without conversion. Indeed, on my Windows computer csv files are associated with Excel as the default application. This really is pettifogging stuff.
Joel D Shore, Phil Clarke, and any others wanting to defend the indefensible:
The ‘climategate’ emails show beyond any possibility of doubt that the Mann, Bradley & Hughes (MBH) papers of 1998 and 1999 were scientific fraud.
The basic facts of the fraud are not affected by whether or not the method used by MBH was correct (it was not), or whether or not Wegman and North condemned that method (they did).
The fraud was as follows.
1.
The MBH method showed a decline in global temperature after 1960 but measurements of global temperature all showed it rose after 1960.
2.
MBH deliberately used “Mike’s Nature trick” to hide the decline in global temperature after 1960 which was indicated by the MBH method.
3.
This “trick” consisted of
(a) not reporting the decline in the text of their two papers,
(b) providing the data in graphical and not numerical form, and
(c) covering (thus hiding) the data after 1960 in the graph with measured data which showed a rise.
The ‘climategate’ emails which discuss “Mike’s Natute trick” to “hide the decline” state that this was a deliberate act to mislead in furtherance of “the cause” of promoting the AGW hypothesis.
And MBH mentioned “the decline” as a minor point in another paper thus providing themselves with a ‘get-out’ if their fraud were soon detected.
This fraud was of identical nature to the most infamous scientific fraud in history; viz. the Piltdown Man.
In each case, the Piltdown Man and the MBH ‘hockey stick’ consisted of
(i) selecting parts of two different items,
(ii) not presenting the not-selected parts,
(iii) joining the two selected parts to construct a misleading artifact, and
(iv) presenting the constructed artifact as an item of evidence
(v) with deliberate intent to mislead the scientific community.
There is no doubt of any kind that Mann, Bradley & Hughes conducted this fraud. And anybody who condones this fraud is guilty by association.
Richard
Anyone know which correction factor Christy used to convert the UAH lower troposphere to surface values on his CIMP5 vs UAH figure and were the CIMP5 curves whole Earth or just land surface?
Phil Clarke,
You make the same mistake as Joel Shore when you say: “As for Tiljander, the choice was to use it in the orientation that the algorithm determined, or leave it out, potentially discarding useful proxy data.”
You are mistaken. The orientation was not determined by the algorithm – it was decided a priori. I already quoted from discussion in the paper on screening but will do so again as you seemed to miss the point: “Where the sign of the correlation could a priori be specified (positive for tree-ring data, ice-core oxygen isotopes, lake sediments, and historical documents, and negative for coral oxygen-isotope records), a one-sided significance criterion was used.”
Why oh why can’t you bring yourself to admit that Mann made a mistake?
Mann did not make any mistake, he did what he did on purpose: scare people.
Fedden – I think you need to revise your statistical terms, – the ‘sidedness’ of the significance tests is not the same thing as the sign of the correlation. Mann specifically addresses this in his book:-
These, incidentally, are the records that McIntyre was apparently claiming were used “upside down.” Yet there was no such thing as “upside down” in our methodology: In one of our methods (composite approach), proxy data were screened to determine if they possessed a local temperature signal, based on their correlation with modern instrumental data. In the other method (RegEM), the proxy data were used in a sophisticated multivariate regression, and again the relationship with climate was determined empirically, with no a priori assumptions made. Either the record was employed using these objective procedures, or it was thrown out.
Mann, Michael (2012-01-24). The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines (Kindle Locations 7033-7038). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.
Exactly as I stated.
Phil,
What you say makes no sense. You only use a one-sided test if you are testing a specific sign of the correlation. You said that the orientation was determined by the algorithm. But the paper clearly contradicts you – it says (and I quote for the third time): “Where the sign of the correlation could a priori be specified”. This is unambiguous. You are unambiguously wrong. Mann is saying clearly that the sign of the correlation was determined in advance – not by some algorithm. Mann used a one-sided screening because he was testing only one orientation. Unfortunately it was the wrong orientation.
Your attempt to say Mann’s screening test is not linked to “the sign of the correlation” is just baffling. The paper specifically uses the term “the sign of the correlation”. How can you ignore this?
fedden:
At August 3, 2012 at 1:51 pm you ask Phil:
I am sure you know the answer to your question, and I am equally sure that Phil will not state the answer. So, I write to state the answer to ensure onlookers know it too.
The persistent debate of this issue is intended to distract attention from the fr@ud which I detail above at August 3, 2012 at 9:53 am.
‘Warmers’ do anything they can to avoid discussion of the fr@ud.
Richard
Eli Rabett says: “Anyone know which correction factor Christy used to convert the UAH lower troposphere to surface values on his CIMP5 vs UAH figure and were the CIMP5 curves whole Earth or just land surface?”
Dividing by 1.2 (this is the value he has quoted repeatedly for a few years now), And I can’t imagine they were land only so I have no idea why you would suggest this.
BTW, 1.3 seems to be a more realistic to me, based on the amplification of year to year variability. But it’s a small difference.
1. In the CPS methodology, the orientation of the proxy is fixed by the screening process and the requirement for local correlation with temperature. If you have an a priori expectation that the orientation is the opposite sign, then the proxy cannot be used, which is what I said. The Tiljander proxies were used, and the effects of withholding them also calculated.
2. The point is entirely moot in any case, Neither reconstruction (for NH mean (EIV) or NH land (CPS) temperature) would be materially affected by the absence of the Tiljander proxies. This is the identical result to what you would have if you had a priori insisted on the opposite orientation of the proxies in CPS.
Tiljander is a complete distraction. As Gavin Schmidt wrote, If you think the Tiljander proxies are not usable or must be used in a different orientation, then Mann et al (2008) already showed what difference that makes to the overall reconstruction. There is nothing else left to do. All code and all data are available online for people to check this for themselves.
If you believe that reversing the sign of, or removing the Tiljander sediments makes a material difference to the conclusions of the study, all the tools are there for you to demonstrate it. Knock yourself out. As Schmidt also wrote: (Consequences of all this)/(amount of time devoted to discussing it in the blogosphere) = a very small number.
Phil Clarke says:
“Tiljander is a complete distraction.”
You wish. Deliberately using a corrupted proxy = scientific misconduct.
“””””…..William McClenney says:
August 1, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Intentionally repeating myself, “warmists and skeptics thus find themselves on the mutual, chaotic climate ground where the efficacy of CO2 as a GHG had better be right.”
The “Precautionary Principle” is rather absolute on this point……”””””
Well the precautionary principle would tell the cave men to not leave the cave, just in case dire wolves, and sabre toothed tigers, might be lurking outside.
We know for sure that cavemen simply pooh poohed the precautionary principle, and ignored it, because if they had heeded it, then all the caves would be stacked high with the bones of dead cave nen, who all starved to death, worrying about sabre toothed tigers.
See how the simple absence of (enough) bones in caves is a reliable proxy for the plentiful supply of food, and of the guts of those cavemen to go outside and get it.
The precautionary principle has to be just about the dumbest philosophical utterance anyone ever was silly enough to come up with. Somewhat like the advice about believing in a “god”, and the hereafter. Might as well believe, because if you are wrong, well you will never find out, so who care; and if you are right,well glory be!
Wildebeestes must be a lot smarter than humans, because they know for sure that when they cross that river twice a year, that some of them are going to get their arses chewed out by the crocodiles; yet they know that if they don’t cross that river twice a year, they are ALL going to starve to death, so they cross it anyway, and do so all together, since that is the surest way of lessening their odds of becoming crocodile doo doo.
The Mayflower passengers certainly didn’t believe in the precautionary principle; chickens probably do.
Interesting video. I note his early statement that temperatures are increasing. It was hard to see clearly, but his graph looked like the IPCC extreme warming case. Even the IPCC regards that as a low probability outcome!
The really intriguing item was that both high temperature and low temperature records were set this year. If it is not CO2 driving this, what is spreading the temperature frequency distribution curve in both directions?
Deliberately using a corrupted proxy = scientific misconduct.
Doing a study with and without a problematic proxy = good science. History repeats itself, just as all the words expended on short-centred PCA had an insignificant impact on the actual result of MBH98/99, so removing or inverting the Tiljander proxies does not effect the headline conclusions of Mann 2008. Just throwing sand in the air.
Folks, observe a textbook example of the Argumentum ad Ignorantium fallacy:
“If it is not CO2 driving this, what is spreading the temperature frequency distribution curve in both directions?”
Translation: “Since I can’t think of anything else, then CO2 must be the cause.”
Phil Clarke says:
“…removing or inverting the Tiljander proxies does not effect (sic) the headline conclusions of Mann 2008. Just throwing sand in the air.”
If you were clever, you would have used ‘smoke’ instead of ‘sand’. Missed opportunity.☺
Anyway, that is simple misdirection. Dr Tiljander informed Mann BEFORE HE PUBLISHED that she had discovered her sediment proxy was corrupted by bridge and road building almost a century earlier. Mann knew the proxy was corrupted — but he used it anyway, because it gave him the hockey stick shape he craved. If you’re going to be Mann’s apologist, at least pick your battles better.
Richard: That’s a nice story you’ve weaved there. I particularly like this part:
You have the perfect non-falsifiable hypothesis: If they hadn’t mentioned it, it would be evidence of fraud and since they did mention it is evidence of fraud!
And, of course, we can also weave in the fact that all of the different investigations of Mann et al have concluded otherwise…with in your non-falsifiable world just becomes evidence of an ever more massive whitewash and cover-up.
I am almost think you guys are desperately trying to make the scientific community think you are clowns.
joelshore says:
“I am almost think you guys are desperately trying to make the scientific community think you are clowns”
Fact: the scientific community is represented by real professionals like the 31,000+ scientists and engineers who co-signed the OISM petition, stating clearly that CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
Shore’s alarmist contingent cannot come anywhere close to those numbers. In truth, the alarmist crowd is only a small minority of wild-eyed, deluded scaremongers, or self-serving dissemblers like Mann, with their snouts in the public trough. Some of them are both. And then there are the far-Left extremists like joelshore; fellow travelers with a thin veneer of pseudo-science covering their anti-American beliefs.
And speaking of a falsifiable hypothesis, joelshore always squirms away like a slippery eel whenever I propose my testable hypothesis:
At current and projected concentrations, CO2 is harmless and beneficial
Shore contorts into a pretzel trying to avoid the challenge for one simple reason: he cannot falsify that hypothesis. It would be very easy, if CO2=AGW were true. Simply show that global temperatures are accelerating beyond past long-term parameters along with the rising CO2 level. An eminently testable and falsifiable hypothesis.
Shore will either give it his best shot… or prevaricate, as usual. I predict the latter.
Smokey says:
Simply untrue. Because of potential problems identified with the four Tiljander proxies and 3 other proxies, Mann et al showed in their Supplementary Materials how the reconstruction was changed if they were left out: http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2008/09/02/0805721105.DCSupplemental/0805721105SI.pdf (See Fig. S8), which is not very much.
I can repeat this as long as necessary if you continue to say untrue things.
joelshore says:
“Simply untrue.”
Ah, but absolutely true. And posting a paper by Mann in support of Mann has zero credibility. I get my Tiljander info from someone honest: Steve McIntyre, who is destroying Michael Mann because of Mann’s transparent dishonesty — the only thing that Mann is transparent about.
And I note that joelshore continues to avoid testing my hypothesis.
I can repeat this as long as necessary if joelshore continue to misdirect, and uses Mann as the Authority supporting Mann, and avoids the hypothesis that debunks his globaloney warming nonsense. It’s fun ‘n’ easy.
Phil and Joel,
You are writing nonsense, but I think you know that.
Your defense of “Piltdown Mann” is pathetic, your own personal “Divergence Problem”.
You are NOT writing to argue against those of us who disagree with you – we all know you are misrepresenting the truth.
You ARE writing to throw up a smokescreen, to deliberately delude those neophytes who might visit this website.
Here is some news for you – the neophytes may be new to this subject, but they are not stupid.
Suggest you take the weekend off and enjoy your life.
Phil Clarke,
You write: “In the CPS methodology, the orientation of the proxy is fixed by the screening process and the requirement for local correlation with temperature. If you have an a priori expectation that the orientation is the opposite sign, then the proxy cannot be used, which is what I said. The Tiljander proxies were used, and the effects of withholding them also calculated.”
I am pleased to see that you are not repeating your baffling argument about a distinction between the ‘sidedness’ of the significance tests and the sign of the correlation. I agree completely with you when you say “If you have an a priori expectation that the orientation is the opposite sign, then the proxy cannot be used”. This is the core of the problem. We know the sediment series was corrupted by land usage during the screening period to the extent that the believed a priori physical correlation to temperature was reversed. So the series should never have passed the screening test as described by Mann. Yet it did. Simple question, Phil, how did this happen – how did it pass the screening test? (Hint: the answer includes the words “upside down”).
Your argument about this issue being moot is pure evasion. A few points why:
– Mann included a chart without Tiljander and one without tree rings. However, he did not include a reconstruction without both until updating his supplemental data significantly later. This “corrected” reconstruction shows a MWP within the error bars of modern temperatures
– Even Gavin Schmidt concedes that without tree rings and Tiljander, the reconstruction only validates for a significantly shorter period (only 1,000 years IIRC)
– the refusal of warmists to acknowledge this basic error is an issue of credibility
– it is just fun to make people like you defend the indefensible
joeldshore:
Your entire post at August 3, 2012 at 6:13 pm is daft.
It attempts to distract attention from the fraud of Mann, Bradley and Hughes which I detailed in my above post at August 3, 2012 at 9:53 am then throws ad hominems as a ‘red herring’.
I now write to answer your silly distraction so there is no possibility that your foolishness will mislead onlookers. You write:
Absolutely not!
Mann, Bradley & Hughes deliberately and with malice aforethought used “Mike’s Nature trick” to “hide the decline” in both their papers which provided the ‘hockey stick, and those papers made no mention of “the decline” which proves beyond any doubt that their method gives WRONG indications. That failure to mention “the decline” alone was a fraud. Indeed, “Mike’s Nature trick” proves that failure was a deliberate fraud.
Clearly, mention of “the decline” as a minor point in another paper did provide them with a ‘get-out’ if their fraud were soon detected. Unless, of course, you have an alternative explanation? And please note that your alternative explanation needs to say why they did not refer to that minor point (published in another paper) in either of their papers which provided the ‘hockey stick’ or at any time when the ‘hockey stick’ was reproduced, discussed and/or used in in other papers including the IPCC AR4.
And they constructed the ‘hockey stick’ by stitching part of their reconstruction with part of the measured data set by use of “Mike’s Nature trick”.
As I said,
And I remind that I also wrote:
Richard
Richard, you are perfectly right!
I would like to add that Mann in his last book insults anybody who does not agree with him, accusing systematically the others to lie, not to be professionals or to believe they are new Galileo. He does not cite Svensmark nor Kirkby from the CLOUD project because he knows their arguments are difficult to rebut, he only mentions Shaviv saying his 2002 paper has been refuted by Rahmstorf omitting to mention Shaviv detailed response in 2004. He blames the media when they cite Shaviv but finds normal they echo the catastrophic predictions he makes up. The term “denier” he uses to refer to those who disagree with him is absolutely disgusting. I am astonished by his impudence and the support he receives.
He is not a scientist but an activist.
– Even Gavin Schmidt concedes that without tree rings and Tiljander, the reconstruction only validates for a significantly shorter period (only 1,000 years IIRC)
Now who is misdirecting? The issue was Tiljander, now you drag in tree rings! Anything else you’d care to remove while you’re at it? I’m sure you could get an upside down sine wave if you threw out enough data. Without Tiljander the reconstruction validates just fine until well before the MWP, and shows modern warmth to be anomalous. You might want to re-read the abstract.
– the refusal of warmists to acknowledge this basic error is an issue of credibility
Huh? Thousands of words have been expended on this, as I’m sure you know. The credibility issue is with those who continue to drag the issue up – but fail to do the simple step of demonstrating the impact it has.