Steve McIntyre has made what I can only describe as a stunning discovery as to why there is a sharp uptick in the main Marcott et al graph being touted by the media from its publication in Science.
![marcott-A-1000[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/marcott-a-10001.jpg?quality=83)
It seems the uptick in the 20th century is not real, being nothing more than an artifact of shoddy procedures where the dates on the proxy samples were changed for some strange reason.
McIntyre writes:
The Marcott-Shakun Dating Service
Marcott, Shakun, Clark and Mix did not use the published dates for ocean cores, instead substituting their own dates. The validity of Marcott-Shakun re-dating will be discussed below, but first, to show that the re-dating “matters” (TM-climate science), here is a graph showing reconstructions using alkenones (31 of 73 proxies) in Marcott style, comparing the results with published dates (red) to results with Marcott-Shakun dates (black). As you see, there is a persistent decline in the alkenone reconstruction in the 20th century using published dates, but a 20th century increase using Marcott-Shakun dates. (It is taking all my will power not to make an obvious comment at this point.)
Figure 1. Reconstructions from alkenone proxies in Marcott style. Red- using published dates; black- using Marcott-Shakun dates.
…
In a follow-up post, I’ll examine the validity of Marcott-Shakun redating. If the relevant specialists had been aware of or consulted on the Marcott-Shakun redating, I’m sure that they would have contested it.
Read his entire post here.
This is going to get very interesting very fast.
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I don’t know if I am in the right thread, but they are alll so similar, I can’t tell them apart. As you know, I am a biologist not an evil climate scientist, who wishes to take over the world in some comic book conspiracy, but I know enuf to read the tea leaves.
Look. Marcott’s paper is about long ago not the last century. That was added by his coauthors for perspective, it is not the major point of the paper, except to say say that the modern warming is not normal, which of course is what made it a science paper.
So, let’s say one of you writes to Science to rebut Marcott’s paper. Any of you could, you don’t need a university email address to do that. But, you should know, comments are reviewed, yes, they are. By ignorant people like me. And what would I say to the comment threads (not just this one) so far? I would judge them as interesting but not changing the major point of the paper.
So, Steve McIntyre, if you are reading this little blog, can you pls make your point: why the ancient record that this paper is about is some how wrong, and worth writing to Science and complaining? Because, so far, you haven’t made your case.
Michael Mann on Marcott et al. (2013)
Worth keeping in mind as the climate auditor(s) continue to shred the Marcott study that the illustrious Michael Mann had promptly signalled to Revkin that it should be regarded as an “important” paper (real scientists would be very very careful about appending the label “important paper” to a new piece of work, that’s like the much abused journalistic phrase “instant classic”).
Michael Mann trumpeted Marcott et al. (2013) as an “important paper”
[emphasis added]
If I had a few million to spare, frankly I’d start suing these ‘journals’ 24×7.
They’re getting away with murder, the veil of ‘peer review’ is akin to the plausible deniability afforded to banks and Fannie/Freddie by the ratings applied to CDOs by S&P/Moody’s/Fitch a decade ago, but even more poorly policed.
What I fear is expressed in a post I made at ClimateAudit:
“[Mindert Eiting] Thanks for bringing up data – as in “facts.” Work with proxies is so far from fact that the crucial issues in the Marcott controversy do not touch upon fact at all. Even the critics, first rate critics such as McIntyre and Telford, agree that the dates can be changed and legitimately. Clearly, then, the entire discussion is over what is “proper” in the relevant statistical methodology. Whenever proxies for temperature are the topic, scientists believe that they are quite justified in failing to tie their inferences to any factual ground at all. In my humble opinion, the lack of empirical science in the study of proxies is exactly why Warmists love them.”
It looks to me that the best that can come from McIntyre’s criticisms of Marcott is a dispute over the size of the uncertainty bars. Incredible! That gives Warmists free reign to use their new “NSF Hockey Stick” as they please.
Proxy science is no more science than is Freudian psychology.
“I think all reputable scientific journals should require every step of data analysis, including data and code used for said analysis, be made available by the authors prior to publication. Perhaps on the journal’s website.”
Unfortunately they’re all doing that now.
As for the tame Fourth Estate chooks being plumped up on Big Climate’s grain fed diet when will they spot the axe rather than the hockey schtick?
Tad says: “I think all reputable scientific journals should require every step of data analysis, including data and code used for said analysis, be made available by the authors prior to publication. Perhaps on the journal’s website.”
Grate, no, great way to make people submit to less reputable journals. Because, like really, we have better things to waste our time on. Scientist’s strong point is not accounting and drudgery. That’s more a conservative occupation.
Clay Marley says:
March 16, 2013 at 5:22 pm
“But seems to me this would shift the data points to the left or right in time but not affect the temperature. So how does re-dating turn the red curve into the black curve?”
They are using Monte Carlo runs, random walks. The runs must pass through data points in the proxy data but can between the data points “do what they want” within parameters. Each data point has a temporal uncertainty and a value unvertainty attached to it. So it’s more like a square area on the x-over-t-chart that the random walk must pass through. You let it run a thousand times and have a probability distribution of possible pasts you can work with.
At least that’s how I understood it.
JEM says:
March 16, 2013 at 5:33 pm
The real issue is not that Marcott and company fuzzed their data and shifted their dates.
The real issue is that none of Science’s putative reviewers spotted it and insisted they defend their rather interesting methods.
======================
JEM, the blame falls on Marcott……..he cheated and got caught…
What has me floored is that Marcott is no green kid…..He knew his paper tied into Mann…..he knew the crap Mann has been through…..he knows we’re out here…..he knew he’d get caught
Over on CA, poster mt (Mar 16 at 7:37 AM) notices that the thesis noted it was going to be submitted to the journal “Nature”.
Best part is, they left an indelible time shifting fingerprint, although it took SteveM to spy its significance. Just compare Science figure 1G to thesis figure 4.3C. In the thesis, 9 proxies survived to 1950. In Science, none did. In the thesis, only about 20 proxies survived to T0 less 100, or 1850. In Science, about 30 did. So at least 9 were redated back, and at least 10 were redated forward. As Steve has shown, at least three alkenones by more than half a millennium each. And nowhere in Science or in its SI is this disclosed. On the contrary, the proxies plus their references are listed just as in the thesis.
In other words, just manipulate the data until if gives the answer you want. But don’t tell anyone.
Are you / McIntyre saying we haven’t come out of the little ice age yet. Seems a bit odd.
Absolutely no doubt about intent in this case…
A hockey stick is just a stick without a bend in it …. and then there is no story at all, is there?
Now that’s what I’d call a quick analysis. Fine job!
Alex the skeptic says:
March 16, 2013 at 3:50 pm
“That was yesterday’s question. Now the answer is here. Marcott’s hockey stick has been murdered by the truth.”
Seems more like justifiable homicide to me.
trafamadore says:
“… it is not the major point of the paper, except to say say that the modern warming is not normal, which of course is what made it a science paper.”
That comment is a perfect example of someone who does not understand the Null Hypothesis. In fact, the Null Hypothesis — which has never been falsified — shows conclusively that the current climate is absolutely normal. Current climate parameters have been routinely exceeded in the past, including the extremely mild 0.8ºC global warming that occurred over the past century and a half as the planet recovers from the LIA.
Kevin Trenberth complains about the Null Hypothesis because it refutes the alternative AGW conjecture. AGW requires belief, because there are no testable empirical measurements verifying the existence of AGW. And of course, catastrophic AGW is just alarmist nonsense.
Jimbo says: March 16, 2013 at 5:00 pm
“..Let us remind ourselves about some of the NH heat of the Holocene pre-20th century. It is unprecedented and worse than we thought….
Great post, Jimbo, thanks! I saved that lot.
I’m totally gobsmacked by all this. When are these lying cheating dastards going to get held accountable? Fraud is illegal, right? Obtaining funding by fraudulent means is illegal, right? We have the crook(s), why can’t we press charges? Just because there are so many of them doesn’t mean they should get away with it. If that was so, we may as well just open the prisons now and let everyone out because what’s the point of justice?
Sounds like if anyone wants to break the law in any way, just tag it CAGW and everyone looks the other way. Have we really come down to this?
trafamadore~ it is a waste of time to even read past your name. Some of us wish you just wouldn’t bother posting.
Marcott’s thesis chapter 4 [which is the basis for the paper] says: “To be submitted to Nature”.
I wonder if it was, and perhaps rejected, so they tried Science instead and found friendly referees…
Assuming Steve M is correct (I have no reason to think he is not), the Marcott et. al. reconstruction is not simply a mistake. It is an intentional distortion and a lie, fabricated in order to further an agenda. The mistakes are simply too flagrant to be simple errors borne of incompetence. Marcott appears to have fabricated numbers to fit his plan, picking numbers from his data and relocating it on the timeline to get the curve he wanted. Very sad.
Is it possible someone other than Marcott altered the data? No scientist would do such a thing, whereas a true believer in CAGW would not hesitate when given the chance.
This is stunning — another “major scientific paper” taken apart and demolished in just hours at Climate Audit.
At this point I would suggest that for journals such as “Science” and “Nature”, it would be foolish and incompetent for them if they did not to ask Steve McIntrye to review each and every climate paper that is submitted to them for publication.
trafamadore says:
March 16, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Look. Marcott’s paper is about long ago not the last century. That was added by his coauthors for perspective, it is not the major point of the paper, except to say say that the modern warming is not normal, which of course is what made it a science paper.
=========================================
He said the modern warming was:
“”Marcott stated that they had “clearly” stated that the 1890-on portion of their reconstruction was “not robust”.”
…If that’s the part that made it a science paper
Soothsayers will agree that entrails can say whatever needs to be said. It’s all in the reading.
So if the data don’t show what you need, send them to the statistical Abu Ghraib until they support what you want to say.
Just to satisfy my own curiosity I tracked down what BP [Before Present] actually means in Marcott’s paper. In keeping with standard practice it means 1950 AD as can be verified from Figure 4.2 in Marcott’s thesis: http://www.leif.org/research/Marcott-Ch4-Figure2.png
DirkH says:
March 16, 2013 at 4:05 pm
GlynnMhor says:
March 16, 2013 at 3:56 pm
“From the look of the graphs and the vagaries of both lines in the modern era I have to wonder whether the alkenone proxy is at even usable to estimate temperature.”
Well obviously one proxy is not enough to estimate global temperature. Had they cut off their result before the proxy dropoffs the result would have been defensible.
They couldn’t resist to add a “non-robust” Hockey Stick; temptations of a warmist post doc, what a boring life they must have (had).
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I think GlynnMhor is right.
The alkenone “proxies” “show” a temperature during the Dalton minimum (around 1800) at the same level as the maximim of the Medieval Warm Period.
This is pure rubbish. Similar or worse conclusions can be drawn from the hemipheric temperature plots and this goes well before the uptick of the last 100 years.