At Climate Audit, Something odd has been discovered about the provenance of the work associate with the Marcott et al paper. It seems that the sharp uptick wasn’t in the thesis paper Marcott defended for his PhD, but is in the paper submitted to Science.
Steve McIntyre writes:
Reader ^ drew our attention to Marcott’s thesis (see chapter 4 here. Marcott’s thesis has a series of diagrams in an identical style as the Science article. The proxy datasets are identical.
However, as Jean S alertly observed, the diagrams in the thesis lack the closing uptick of the Science. Other aspects of the modern period also differ dramatically.
Here is Figure 1C of the Science article.
Now here is the corresponding diagram from the (Marcott) thesis:
The differences will be evident to readers. In addition to the difference in closing uptick, important reconstruction versions were at negative values in the closing portion of the thesis graphic, while they were at positive values in the closing portion of the Science graphic.
I wonder what accounts for the difference.
Read the full report at Climate Audit
===========================================================
This story just got a lot more interesting. I wonder if we don’t have a situation like with Yamal, and sample YAD06 which when included, skewed the whole set. Perhaps there was some screening in the thesis and that didn’t include part of the proxy datasets, or later for the Science paper maybe there was some Gergis sytyle screening that made hockey sticks pop out. It might also be some strange artifact of processing, perhaps some Mannian style math was introduced. Who knows at this point? All we know is that one paper is not like the other, and one produces a hockey stick and the other does not.
Some additional detective work is sorely needed to determine why this discrepancy exists and if anyone in the peer review process asked any similar questions.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
An even more intriguing possibility – perhaps the reviewers demanded Marcott add the hockey stick, as a requirement for their approval.
Marcott obviously knew the hockey stick was bogus – otherwise he would have added it to his PHD thesis paper.
Link not working…http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/13/marcott-mystery-1/
It’s “climate science”. Innit?
“if anyone in the peer review process asked any similar questions”
and if they did, were they bypassed, silenced, or censured?
Just this minute finished plotting all 73 of the Marcott proxies in the Science article.
http://tinypic.com/r/2ish0uf/6
The huge uptick is nowhere to be seen. There is a small increase that appears to be a continuation of the warming from the LIA. (Note that 0 on the graph is 1950 AD).
It is upside down and backwards
Almost enough to make me paranoid that someone really stupid is running the show. How else do you explain such central disorganization?
==========================
Anthony says, “Some additional detective work is sorely needed to determine why this discrepancy exists and if anyone in the peer review process asked any similar questions.”
Of course, this is true, but let’s please not ever lose sight of the fact that no ‘detective work’ should EVER be needed to understand how a peer-reviewed paper arrived at its conclusions. Of course there is no choice but to do that detective work – I understand the times and I get that completely. But ridicule is the only proper response to any so-called ‘scientist’ who refuses to show his work. Are you serious? You won’t show the public how you arrived at your conclusions? Seriously?
Why should that ever be taken seriously, in any way? “Hi, teacher. Here are the answers to the 10 homework questions. Of course I only put the answers, not my work, but you’ll give me a 100 anyway, right?” Any of you ever have a math class like that?
Exactly.
Between climateaudit and this site and the whole crowd-sourcing thing, eventually we will get to the bottom of the details of this fraud, just like all the others before and yet to come. But don’t stoop so low as to take this crap seriously – if they won’t show their work, they’re jokes, plain and simple. Yes, the detective work has to be done, as Anthony says – that’s the sad state of our times – and by all means do your worst to expose the fraud. But don’t ever lose sight of how utterly transparent and laughable these people are. Laugh at them. If you have a 2nd-grade education and can’t sign your own name, you’re miles above them. At least you’d have the stones to show your own work, wouldn’t you?
Given the admission that the uptick is based upon data that may be considered to be “not robust”, I am not surprised to see that part of the data not included in the PhD thesis.
Could the different X axes of the two graphs be labelled clearly please? I guess the top one is years before present and the bottom one is just year number, but that is an assumption based on why they are reversed.
Here is Marcott’s Figure 4.2 from his thesis:
http://tinypic.com/r/vreqmd/6
And here is the graph I prepared from his Science article, on approximately the same y-axis range.
http://tinypic.com/r/qnlg5c/6
Both graphs show a general decline of about 1 degree C from the early Holocene to a couple of hundred years ago, perhaps close to the Little Ice Age and a recovery on the order of 0.2 C until about 1900 and perhaps another 0.1 C to 1950, although the number of proxies by that time is more like 2 or 3 than 73.
The uptick in the Science article is certainly not from the 73 proxies themselves, which have very poor (300-year?) resolution. Instead, Marcott seems to have forced some kind of 20-year resolution in just a few of the latest proxies and done a whale of a lot of Monte Carlo sampling to make the blade of the hockey stick. Actually I have no idea how he/they did it. But from his response to Steve M.(“not robust”) he appears to be stepping back from the brink.
63.1 MB PDF file; allow for time to download.
Link is broken. At this time it is the top entry at http://climateaudit.org/
Link is broken. http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/14/no-uptick-in-marcott-thesis/
Also – I refreshed CA 20 times yesterday and this appears as soon as I go to sleep?
I wonder who referred the paper? Perhaps the referees demanded that a hockey stick should appear.
[spelling mistake corrected]
I wonder who refereed the paper? Perhaps the referees demanded that a hockey stick should appear.
I spent an hour or so translating 73 separate Excel sheets from Marcott’s Supplemental Excel file into a single Excel file with age, temperature and a few other variables. Much easier to graph all data that way. For persons who know about fitting lines to noisy data (I don’t, other than making a running average), this file should be useful.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/75831381/Marcott%20temps%20stacked%20for%20Statistica%20B%20merged%20with%20mean%20temps%20filled%20in%20sorted.xlsx
In real climate science, the problem with hockey sticks is they are not there.
But no hockey stick = no funding = have to get a real job.
Hence, in today’s ‘climate science’ the hockey sticks are there.
The climate audit article is truly damning, but it’s ‘climate science’, so no one should be surprised.
New Recipie:
Marcott II Now with added FEAR- (Graph) Fiddling, Economy (with Truth) and Recycling (Mannian Maths)
/sarc
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
Suyts has this –
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/hockey-stick-found-in-marcott-data/
Good thing he is not a banker here in the UK. Wouldn’t last five minutes submitting contradictory graphs like that. /sarc
Bare in mind that these two had different functions , where has the ,Thesis had to be scientifically valid , with the author expecting a hard time in a viva.
The ‘research’ had to be politically useful for ‘the cause ‘ in order to get it into AR5 and to ensure the authors ‘Team ‘ place which still opens the door to much funding and career progression.
With the author aware that with the ‘right reviewers ‘ their work would have a much easer time in review.
The stick is where the majority of the political ‘value ‘ , and all that can bring , comes from .
So its not the actual research that matters but ‘what’ the research is needed for . And in that Marcott is merely following the ‘leaders ‘ in this field such has Mann .
Incredible… Are you sure Science is about… science? And that those authors/reviewers are scientists?
Shaun, dude, you’re royally screwed:
http://s17.postimage.org/qhmuyzfin/Shaun_Hockey_Stick.jpg
Ultimately it doesn’t matter in the “real” world. They’ve accomplished their goal, generating scary headlines in all the usual suspect media outlets. The Warmistas know how to play this game very well, it matters not whether or not it’s right, or if someone else later discredits it, that will never get any significant air time in the media. The goal is to produce AGW confirming headlines that allow politicians the support they need to instigate a carbon tax, with the emphasis on tax, which is what the whole game is about. Post normal science indeed. That and ensure more funding for said “scientists.”