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
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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.
HLx says: “Grammatical error: … it didn’t use_ to be there. Not used. 🙂
Mike McMillan says: “‘‘Used’ is correct, since we’re talking about the past.”
HL: If you’re going to correct someone’s grammar, you’d better have a complete command of the subject. “Used” is correct. There’s a lamentable tendency today (PostNormal?) to carelessly drop the final d/ed in adjectival past participles. “She’s an old fashion girl.”
Hasn’t this developed to the point where Marcott should face censure or other disciplinary action? Maybe, it’s just me, but it seems that unless an acceptable explanation is given for the discrepancies, some sort of investigation and response is mandated. Where is the academic outrage? GK
new post up at Climate Audit:
Marcott’s Zonal Reconstructions
“Normally I would agree with that statement but there seems to be a lot of said “incompetence” in the field of climate “science”. Trouble is, incompetence is equal opportunity. It should manifest equally in both directions. In the field of climate “science” it seems to always manifest in the same direction every time and usually from the same group of people. That tends to cause me to place less weight on the “simple incompetence” possibility.”
Exactly right. No manner of incompetence would allow for failing to come to grips with the disparity in temps between the two constructions which use a large portion of the same data sets. At the very least Marcott should have addressed why he believes the hockey stick reconstruction is more accurate than the rather inconvenient reverse hockey stick used in his thesis.
Theo Goodwin says:
“Reviewers never make demands that something be added to an acceptable article”.
That’s not really true. In another field (not climate related) I ve been asked by reviewers to do an analysis, or add something to a paper during the review process. I m not saying I subscribe to the idea that the reviewers suggested the change, just that in general they may ask for additions, deletions etc.
Re: used to vs. did use to
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-m_used-to-do.htm
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/usedtotext.htm
mikerossander says:
March 15, 2013 at 10:23 am
Reviewers work for editors. Reviewers do what editors require of them. Reviewers do not communicate directly with authors. For a reviewer to suggest to an author that an acceptable paper should be extended with additional material would be to violate his agreement with the editor. For a reviewer to suggest such an extended essay to an editor would be irrelevant to the task at hand; the editor just wants to know whether the paper is publishable. Do not read anything more into the reviewer’s job.
Well, well; who would’ve known that “not robust” means fictional? Stands to reason though; since for years the alarmers have been claiming the normal climate voodoo data is ‘robust’. What could be worse than that? Why, “not robust” climate voodoo data, of course.
Has the question been put to the publishing journal yet?
I wonder if there are any avenues for FOI requests for background communications?
Theo Goodwin,
There have certainly been examples in the public climate science files of reviewers being quite insistent upon added analyses or sections as a condition of publication. The response article to Steig et al. (2009) is one example, and Steve/Ross encountered it several times as detailed at Climate Audit over the years.
Considering that we rarely have any public examples of reviewer comments to discuss, it may happen more than you imagine.
Probably much more likely when the reviewer is hostile to the thrust of the paper, but having read a lot of Climategate emails I don’t doubt that people like Mann and Jones throw up such hurdles whenever they want to. Even in a relatively friendly review, why wouldn’t they sometimes urge or even insist that a certain analysis be changed or added?
The editor may not opt to follow such advice, of course, but we have seen related behaviors from Team members….
In response to: “…perhaps the reviewers demanded Marcott add the hockey stick, as a requirement for their approval.” Stephen Mosher says:
“beware of trolls pushing conspiracy theories to make folks look bad.”
Normally I would tend to agree, but…when I consider:
1. Marcott included Mann et al’s. (2008) tree ring reconstructions as one of their proxies.
2. Marcott performed “Mike’s Nature trick” of grafting temperature data onto proxy reconstructions
3. Marcott concluded “Our global temperature reconstruction for the past 1500 years is indistinguishable within uncertainty from the Mann et al. (2) reconstruction.” when in reality in Marcott’s own words…”the 1890-on portion of our reconstruction was ‘not robust.’”
It walks like a Mann and quacks like a Mann. As a counterfactual thinking troll, I can’t help but see Mann’s fingerprints all over this “goat entrail reading” paper.
The Climate Rapid Response Team must be holding an emergency response meeting by now. Main theme “Hockey sticks, bending the truth, for the sake of the children”. I hope they have called in Peter Gleick as well, they will desperately need a man of his talent.
I suspect that Marcott’s thesis paper was probably perfectly acceptable and would not probably be affected by the issues raised so far about this paper.
That said one must truly question, in light of Marcott’s own admission that the numbers supporting the addition of the hockey stick were supported by minimal data and were not considered in any way robust, why the authors would risk their reputations on this admitted garbage? .
Theo Goodwin says…
“Reviewers never make demands that something be added to an acceptable article”.
“Reviewers work for editors. Reviewers do what editors require of them.”
Theo, you’re being naive. We’re talking about these people:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin (Trenberth) and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !” – Phil Jones to Michael Mann.
Journal editor resigns over ‘flawed’ paper co-authored by climate sceptic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/02/journal-editor-resigns-climate-sceptic-paper
They’ve freely admitted (bragged) they could and would stoop to this and they’ve successfully carried out their threats. These people are venomous.
Skiphil says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:42 pm
We need to look at the big picture. I am talking about journal editors and reviewers and their ordinary expectations. You all are talking about various degrees of conspiracy or whatever.
My point is that no one should assume that the ordinary processes of reviewing and editing lend themselves to exploitation by conspirators. The journal editor is in total control and all he wants to get from reviewers is a clear claim of merit or a clear claim of fixable or non-fixable error. The typical academic journal editor is someone like Anthony who sleeps four hours a night. He has no time or patience for foolishness.
Your point or your response to me is that there are examples of conspiracies. Fine.
But you have to find, in Marcott’s particular case, some evidence of conspiracy or pressure or whatever before you assert some such thing.
Theo Goodwin, I don’t at all mean it as any “conspiracy” (that’s possible but not what I was thinking of and not necessary to the problem I was suggesting) — if a reviewer sincerely believes that a paper needs a certain method, section, or additional analysis to be considered adequate/respectable/publishable. There could sometimes be conspiratorial behavior, or not ever, but the main point is about whether reviewers ever truly believe that a paper needs to add a certain method or test or analysis before being published. Scientists with the best of intentions and spirit can believe this and indeed their duty to the editor, journal and to “science” might require them to suggest something.
note: I am not a scientist so I am not going to try to argue this beyond this comment, I’m merely noting what I have observed reading through some of these controversies online.
Often what seem to be the central problems in climate sciences are more like confirmation bias and groupthink. For instance, when Eric Steig provided what might be arguably abusive reviews of the O’Donnell et al. (2010) paper on Antarctic temps., I think the main problems stemmed from a passionate adherence to the views sincerely held by Steig (I could be wrong about this of course). Steig seemed to be a true believer in his own work fending off what he regarded as unwelcome upstarts. Now he may well have gone beyond what was appropriate, by suggesting the authors utilize a statistical method that he later publicly condemned (!!)…. all I’m suggesting is that this may be an example of a reviewer pushing something on authors (that’s how O’Donnell regarded it).
p.s. Can anyone see anything in my
Skiphil says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:42 pm
where I suggested anything about conspiracies?? I certainly did not have any conspiracy in mind, more the mindset of a determined reviewer who thinks a paper really needs to be changed/expanded before publication. In the abstract a conspiracy could be part of a such a phenomenon, but not necessarily — individual reviewers with strong views/convictions could (and sometimes do, it seems) strongly urge a particular method or analysis or test.
Theo Goodwin, I don’t at all mean it as any “conspiracy” (that’s possible but not what I was thinking of and not necessary to the problem I was suggesting) — if a reviewer sincerely believes that a paper needs a certain method, section, or additional analysis to be considered adequate/respectable/publishable. There could sometimes be conspiratorial behavior, or not ever, but the main point is about whether reviewers ever truly believe that a paper needs to add a certain method or test or analysis before being published. Scientists with the best of intentions and spirit can believe this and indeed their duty to the editor, journal and to “science” might require them to suggest something.
note: I am not a scientist so I am not going to try to argue this beyond this comment, I’m merely noting what I have observed reading through some of these controversies online.
Often what seem to be the central problems in climate sciences are more like confirmation bias and groupthink. For instance, when Eric Steig provided what might be arguably abusive reviews of the O’Donnell et al. (2010) paper on Antarctic temps., I think the main problems stemmed from a passionate adherence to the views sincerely held by Steig (I could be wrong about this of course). Steig seemed to be a true believer in his own work fending off what he regarded as unwelcome upstarts. Now he may well have gone beyond what was appropriate, by suggesting the authors utilize a statistical method that he later publicly condemned (!!)…. all I’m suggesting is that this may be an example of a reviewer pushing something on authors (that’s how O’Donnell regarded it).
p.s. Can anyone see anything in my
Skiphil says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:42 pm
where I suggested anything about conspiracies?? I certainly did not have any conspiracy in mind, more the mindset of a determined reviewer who thinks a paper really needs to be changed/expanded before publication. In the abstract a conspiracy could be part of a such a phenomenon, but not necessarily — individual reviewers with strong views/convictions could (and sometimes do, it seems) strongly urge a particular method or analysis or test.
You know, Dr. Marcott probably corresponded with Dr. Mann. I don’t see someone trying to “imitate” him and yet have zero correspondance with him. I am not saying that there was pressure applied, but bad advice given rather. If Dr. Mann gave bad advice to a PHD candidate we might be looking at academic misconduct depending on the universities involved.
But in any regard, being incompetent is no excuse, and that is what I think happened. It is more likely that Dr. Marcott found an uptick in some ill-advised statistical torture of the data and then corresponded with serveral people to get their opinions. As a newer person in the scientific community he might have seen past common sense when it came to delusions of granduer of being as big as “the nobel prize winner.” at finding a confirmation of Dr. Mann’s findings.
But it is all ill-advised in the end because the piltdown myth will become revealed in the end. It might last for several years or even a decade or longer. But it won’t last forever and when your incompetence is finally outed, it matters not whether you made an innocent mistake or did it on purpose. Because either way you will suffer the same.
I think we will soon find out what statistical mishap happened to the data. It is only a matter of time with people like S. Mcintyre on the case.
Perhaps this is the straw that breaks the camels back and we return to statistics work being done by people who actually understand it.
Take this excerpt from a recent climategate 3.0 email:
(Written by Stephen H. Schneider)
Meanwhile the
>>>>>>>> past 10 years of global mean temperature trend stasis
>>>>>>>> still saw what, 9 of the warmest in reconstructed 1000
>>>>>>>> year record and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in
>>>>>>>> big retreat??
As we can see, no understanding whatsoever of statistics….the man honestly believed that 9 of the warmest years proves the planet is warming still at this point. Or that sea ice is a temperature indicator.
These people are seriously incompetent!
I’m unable to get to the data file that Lance Wallace mentioned in his contribution of March 15, 1.24am – the consolidated 73 proxy file. I would really like to be able to download this file, but the link does not work for me.
Would it be possible to to check the link, please?
Thanks, Robin
There is no uptick in Marcott’s thesis figure 4(a) as he is showing his proxy data up to mid 20th century. Figures 4 b,e and f do show the uptick as he is comparing his data to published graphs which also cover the last half century including instrumental readings, as do the graphs in figure 4.2
Figure 1c from the subsequently published Science paper also includes data up to the current period. That is why the down trend to mid last century goes upward in the Science figure 1c.
There is no contradiction. One graph covers a longer period than the other.
In the absence of the paper itself or the legend for figure 1c, the reasons for different presentation in the Science paper figure is not known to me.
However I can state from personal experience that material from a 200 and more page thesis will often be combined or presented in a slightly different form when representing the material as a specific aspect of the thesis study for publication in a journal article of a few pages.
RE Assigning incompetence rather than conspiracy. Anthony is a gentleman. The problem that I am wrestling with is that when I connect the dots the incompetence resonates with competent media coordination. The issue is that one can make this stuff up quicker than the gentlemen can produce refuting data and the damage is already done. WUWT is performing a great service because this web technology allows the cloud to respond quickly when the data is available. The analysis is not widely followed and largely ignored because it is late and inconvenient. While we are having great fun exposing this to ourselves we are always going to be an hour late and a dollar short. Unfortunately we are only breathing our own vapors because it is the well manipulated public consensus that determines the political decisions. We can hold ourselves above the political fray, but stupid decisions hurt everyone. Normally in science no matter how desperately defended the theories, when the data is irrefutable the analysis changes. It is apparent that in this case the people so charitable described as incompetent make something else up designed to retard the public epiphany. The gentlemen respond to the horse scat as if it were seriously offered in the honorable profession of science and talk amongst themselves while trying to analyze without the data or model how in the name of God any one could have competently generated the pile they have been reduced to picking through. Anthony, bless you, gets it all over his fingers and judges it to be the result of incontinence..oops! I meant incompetence. Just a thought.
SORRY TO DOUBLE POST I GET THROWN INTO WORD PRESS AND DON’T KNOW IT IS HAS BEEN SENT.
[Capital letters are considered screaming in this site. Please avoid them. Mod]
I agree completely. But what else can be done? Until the MSM begin to do investigative journalism, on climate research industry… all we can do is keep the pilot light roaring. I wish it wasn’t so! GK