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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
D.B. Stealey 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 — ”
Your comment leaves me speechless….ignorance always does that to me.
lsvalgaard says:
March 16, 2013 at 7:08 pm
=================
Thanks!
Latitude says: “He said the modern warming was that they had “clearly” stated that the 1890-on portion of their reconstruction was “not robust”.”
Actually, I think you have that quote wrong in that you don’t really understand what it means, but that doesn’t really matter here: if you have it right, what is your point? That the author is accurately portraying the data? You make no sense in your critique, it is nonsensical.
lsvalgaard says: “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…”
My quick take is that the original thesis was too boring for “Nature”. So they sexed it up but couldn’t submit to the same journal, of course — same data, different conclusions?!? So “Science” it was.
Otter says: “trafamadore~ it is a waste of time to even read past your name. Some of us wish you just wouldn’t bother posting.”
You have eyelids. Close your eyes. It seems you have been doing that for some time, so you should be good at it.
Gary Hladik says:
March 16, 2013 at 4:34 pm
Alex the skeptic says (March 16, 2013 at 3:50 pm): “Marcott’s hockey stick has been murdered by the truth.”
Mr. McIntyre, at Climate Audit, with a magnifying glass.
—–
PLEASE, some warning to put down liquids before making this type of remark. Now I have to clean the Zin off my iPad
Interesting note from Andrew Revkin’s blog:
Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit has been dissecting the Marcott et al. paper and corresponding with lead author Shaun Marcott, raising constructive and important questions.
As a result, I sent a note to Marcott and his co-authors asking for some elaboration on points Marcott made in the exchanges with McIntyre. Peter Clark of Oregon State replied (copying all) on Friday, saying they’re preparing a general list of points about their study:
“After further discussion, we’ve decided that the best tack to take now is to prepare a FAQ document that will explain, in some detail but at a level that should be understandable by most, how we derived our conclusions. Once we complete this, we will let you know where it can be accessed, and you (and others) can refer to this in any further discussion. We appreciate your taking the time and interest to try to clarify what has happened in our correspondence with McIntyre.”
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/scientists-find-an-abrupt-warm-jog-after-a-very-long-cooling/#more-48664
Consider what has happened here:
1. The paper purportedly by Marcott in Science was supposedly taken from Marcott’s thesis — which was overseen by Peter Clark at Oregon State University.
2. However, what is presented in the paper was not present in the thesis — specifically, a “hockey stick” which mysteriously seems to appear out of nowhere. It’s later shown by Steve McIntyre that the “hockey stick” was created by changing the dates of some of the various proxies.
3. Steve McIntyre queries Marcott about this via e-mail — and gets the confession from Marcott that the hockey stick is “not robust”; this information, as they say, goes ’round the world’.
4. Because of this, Andrew Revkin, famous and powerful science editor of perhaps the most prestigious publication in the world, and a committed climate activist sympathetic to publicizing the warmist’s claims, queries Marcott more or less saying. . . “Hey! What’s going on here???”
5. And notice — Revkin gets a reply — not from Marcott, but from Marcott’s supervisor — Peter Clark, more or less saying “We’re trying to come up with some plausible explanation for this disaster. . . just give us a little bit of time!”
So — where is Marcott? Why is Clark calling the shots on Marcott’s paper? Can Marcott still function? Do you suppose Clark has yelled at Marcott for answering McIntyre’s e-mail?
Since he was the lead author on the paper, Marcott should be the one answering the questions.
trafamadore says:
“Your comment leaves me speechless….ignorance always does that to me.”
Complete bluster. Pure projection. It is trafamadore who is ignorant of the Null Hypothesis, which he studiously avoids.
*No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.” ~ Dr Roy Spencer
Natural variability fully explains the current global climate.
trafamadore again: “…if you have it right, what is your point?”
The point is that trafamadore claimed that part of the paper showed real science. But the quote easily refutes that belief.
I have come to understand that it is typical of climate alarmist lemmings like trafamadore that neither logic nor science is their strong suit. They believe in CAGW based on emotion, which indicates a lack of maturity.
Ben Wilson says: “This is stunning — another “major scientific paper” taken apart and demolished in just hours at Climate Audit…..it would be foolish and incompetent for {major journals} if they did not to ask Steve McIntrye to review each and every climate paper that is submitted to them for publication.”
So far, McIntrye comments could be easily answered without doing extra work and arguing that that don’t impact the major point of the paper. I am guessing that the Science reviewers asked Marcott to add the data that McIntrye objects to, but who knows except the authors and the reviewers, both evil comic book scientists intent on world domination ****.
It seems to me, the the major weakness in any paper of this sort is the when and where of the proxies. If I was the author responding to such criticism, I would then just ask what other proxies I should use and include them. This will either leave the reviewers speechless or they will suggest something else that was used. For example, the Watts critique, that the data does not match the ice core data, that could be rescued by including the ice core data in the analysis, as one more location. Of course this isnt ocean data which I thought was the major data source for this paper, but even if it was included, it would have only been one more location data set and not changed the results much.
So, I am stunned….not.
**** hee hee hee haa haa haa (echo and reverb, with organ music in the background)
Clay Marley says:
March 16, 2013 at 5:22 pm
OK so I read the post but I’m not seeing where the hockey stick comes from.
—-
In case no one else has answered, think of it this way.
I have two proxies.
Proxy one’s anomalies are: (-2, -2, -2, -2, n/a), the last one because I redacted the proxy and it doesn’t extend to the fifth period.
Proxy two’s are: (2, 2, 2, 2, 2).
The average is (0, 0, 0, 0, +2)
There’s your up tick.
@trafamadore. You truly are a perplexing individual. Do you wander through with your fingers in your ears shouting ‘la la la’ whist seeing nothing but rainbows and unicorns?
There is no defence to be made here. you’d be better off saying nothing rather than continue with your bluster. Stop it, it’s juvenile.
trafamadore says:
March 16, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Look. Marcott’s paper is about long ago not the last century.
——
Um, if the time shifting mucked up this century, and Marcott shifted the entire proxy, what does that say about the earlier years of the reconstruction?
Trafamadore,
“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.”
What happened to the essence of science being repeatability?
I would go further, if I were a major journal editor, I would not publish until an independent replication of results was done – by the journal using only the submitted data.
Am I missing something? If the “present” is 1950, where does the spike fit in to what we have as historic modern records As far as I know, the fifties didn’t have a massive spike in warmer temperatures.
Since Steve McIntyre has shown that Marcott radically changed the dates on some of the proxy temps, it’s all a fraud, right? What other conclusion is there?
Withdraw?
Like when my wife says “I think I’m fertile…”?
Yah, that kind of withdraw. Before things escalate into life changing.
For a bit of entertainment while the Marcott et al. (2013) paper continues to implode….. a few “true believer” comments from the notoriously unreliable “SkepticalScience” tabloid. I don’t usually waste time there but wanted to see if they’s said anything about the Marcott paper…. these are merely comments from users soon after the paper was published, so they don’t have any official status for SkS, but it’s still amusing to see the True Believers in action, and what will they do now!? (first comment is talking about “Mike” Mann hyping the paper on his Facebook page):
SkS comments on Mann on Marcott
[emphasis added]
Ben Wilson says:’ The paper purportedly by Marcott in Science was supposedly taken from Marcott’s thesis — which was overseen by Peter Clark at Oregon State University.”
Only part of his thesis. And not supposedly. And other data was added by the other authors. Duh.
“So — where is Marcott? Why is Clark calling the shots on Marcott’s paper?”
He is the senior author on the paper? It’s his lab? What don’t you understand about this? Marcott is a student, you know that, right?
D.B. Stealey says:”It is trafamadore who is ignorant of the Null Hypothesis, which he studiously avoids…..Natural variability fully explains the current global climate.”
That was shown to me wrong so long ago that it’s stupid to bring up. What sort of lemming are you?
and the other quotes of mine on your post…even I dont understand them without context, and I wrote them.
trafamadore says:
March 16, 2013 at 7:54 pm
“So far, McIntrye comments could be easily answered without doing extra work and arguing that that don’t impact the major point of the paper.”
I think it is highly likely that McIntyre will establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that the uncertainty bars on Marcott’s paper must be so wide that the paper is reduced to a triviality.
However, given that it is a triviality, This NSF Hockey Stick Graph can be used for propaganda purposes especially in the next installment from the IPCC. In effect, gray literature will be promoted to the status of genuine science. Very clever for propagandists, actually.
It is apparent that no one agrees with trafamadore. Thus, we have a consensus!
And he is still ignorant of the Null Hypothesis, which destroys his assertions.
jeanparisot says:” if I were a major journal editor, I would not publish until an independent replication of results was done – by the journal using only the submitted data.”
Ha Ha Ha. That would be a great way to put yourself out of business. Let’s see, each article in Nature or Science costs about $500 K to $1 M. Who is going to pay for replication? You and on line blobs?
opps, not blobs. on line blogs.
Freudian, must be.
trafamadore, you keep insisting that what McIntyre’s findings do not affect the major point in the paper. Would you mind to illustrate to us about what the “major point in the paper” is? Because I can certainly tell you what the “Major Point” was in the press releases regarding the paper, from the very headline. Releases that had been authorised by Marcott and included Marcott’s comments.
Ben Wilson says:
March 16, 2013 at 7:51 pm
“5. And notice — Revkin gets a reply — not from Marcott, but from Marcott’s supervisor — Peter Clark, more or less saying “We’re trying to come up with some plausible explanation for this disaster. . . just give us a little bit of time!”
So — where is Marcott? Why is Clark calling the shots on Marcott’s paper? Can Marcott still function? Do you suppose Clark has yelled at Marcott for answering McIntyre’s e-mail?
Since he was the lead author on the paper, Marcott should be the one answering the questions.”
This point is extremely important. Marcott’s job prospects just dropped out of sight. Things are bad enough when Daddy takes over. Things are way worse when you are twisting in the wind and Daddy takes over. Why? In the first case, Daddy is concerned about his son. In the second case, Daddy is concerned about Daddy.
Theo Goodwin says: “I think it is highly likely that McIntyre will establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that the uncertainty bars on Marcott’s paper must be so wide that the paper is reduced to a triviality.”
Well, the hockey stick as survived quite well after McIntyre papers in the 2000’s, and more people have added sticks of their own. So root on for your hero.
trafamadore, the main conclussions of a paper can always be found in the abstract, And Marcott’s abstract reads at the end: “Current global temperatures of the past decade have not yet exceeded peak interglacial values but are warmer than during ~75% of the Holocene temperature history. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change model projections for 2100 exceed the full distribution of Holocene temperature under all plausible greenhouse gas emission scenarios“. Both of those sentences would have to change completely if Marcott’s reconstruction had not changed the originally published dates for the proxies. You are lying.