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.
@ralfellis, You show a sum, not an average, shouldn’t your last row be as follows:
Av -2.5 -0.66 -0.66 1.0
Note, I’m using a calculator to do this instead of pen and paper, so I may have made some small errors 🙂
Your general idea still seems to hold though.
Correction
-2.5 -0.66 -0.66 3.0
D.B. Stealy says:
*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.
—
That is true, in a sense, but false in another.
There is no accepted quantitative theory of natural variability. If there were, there would not be any argument about things like whether the MWP was real, or how warm it was; we would simply apply our theory and back-calculate the temperatures, just as we would use Kepler’s law to back-calculate the position of Venus on Christmas eve 1414.
It is this lack of a quantitatve theory that motivated the invention of the hockey stick. If there is no natural variability on the time scale of centuries, it becomes plausible to assign all observed changes to human influence, even without a precise understanding of very long term natural variation. As it is, however, we simply have no basis to distinguish between natural and potential man-made changes in global temperatures.
Oops, forgot 1 column. Told ya not using pen and paper introduces error, and I’m a computer scientist. I recently spent 2,000 hours studying calculus though, and 99% of the time I used pen and paper.
-2.5 -0.66 -0.66 -0.66 1.0
trafamadore says:
“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.”
The hockey stick exists only in proxy series. Actual thermometer data shows a flat series for almost the past two decades.
Umm, I pasted in my original copy from my calculator calculations instead of my corrected version, correct final version follows:
-2.5 -0.66 -0.66 -0.66 3.0
Doing this on my little tiny tablet screen (BlackBerry PlayBook) when I have a 4 monitor desktop rig handy… It’s well past my bedtime.
NikFromNYC says:
March 17, 2013 at 4:40 am
“A professionally produced documentary called “Fishhead” offers a possible clue, namely that business, politics and now science are being infiltrated by highly functioning psychopaths who don’t feel such fear.”
I was able to stand it for 5 minutes. Now obviously they’re interested in shooting at “corporate” leaders, ignoring the fact that the current POTUS has as a “community organizer” fought lawsuits to force banks to lend to people who can’t afford it etc. etc.
I see that “documentary” as one element in the current main propaganda thrust to try to blame “capitalism” for what the community organizers et. al. have created. Create a crisis, then exploit it.
So sorry, no takers here, but nice to see where the propaganda thrust is going next.
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.
———————
Trafamadore,
Your argument is disingenuous at best.
It is disingenuous at best, because if this paper were really ‘about long ago not in the last century’, it would not be in mainstream news headlines such as Seth Borenstein’s AP article titled “Recent heat spike unlike anything in 11,000 years”. The significance and interest in the paper lies in both it’s claim about the past and the recent uptick it reports, without either the importance of the paper evaporates. Since the recent uptick is shown to be a statistical artifact, the significance of the paper is invalid. I said disingenuous at best, because if you’re not attempting to deliberately mislead here, the only other alternative I can think of is that you lack the basic intellectual capacity to realize this.
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.
…
————
Trafamadore,
Your argument is disingenuous at best.
It is disingenuous at best, because if this paper were really ‘about long ago not in the last century‘, it would not be in mainstream news headlines such as Seth Borenstein’s AP article titled “Recent heat spike unlike anything in 11,000 years”. The significance and interest in the paper lies in both it’s claim about the past and the recent uptick it reports. Since the recent uptick is shown to be a statistical artifact, the significance of the paper is invalid. I said disingenuous at best, because if you’re not attempting to deliberately mislead here, the only other alternative I can think of is that you lack the basic intellectual capacity to realize this.
jeremyp99 says:
March 17, 2013 at 2:47 am
trafamadore says:
March 16, 2013 at 6:12 pm
…
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
=====================================================================
If scientific work cannot be accounted for or audited, then it is not scientific work. Is it?
———
Absolutely Jeremy you are correct. I’m always amazed by arguments like these. Scientists are not artists. There is methodology to science and following it is important, and darn straight that includes making sure your documentation is in order and your results are reproduceable.
It has not been a good week for those guys in general…
David L says:
March 17, 2013 at 5:27 am
Otter says:
March 17, 2013 at 1:46 am
trafamador~ if McIntyre’s points are so easily countered, why are you not over there making your argument and blowing him away?”
Because trafamador is a biologist. Math is not taught to these guys. He’d be ripped to shreds and he knows it. He’s never even heard of the null hypothesis. Why? It’s not needed when all you’re doing is listing and classifying species according to phenotype.
Easy, dude. I too, am a biologist, and I’ll be the first to admit “math is hard”, but Traf is an embarrassment to all biologists. I will also suggest to you that most areas of study by biologists are chaotic systems. Show me an easy way to do the research where you can get meaningful results on global scales.. The physicists with their irrelevant proxies have fun, but when the proxies are biological or ecological, they’re usually meaningless.at the level physicists employ them. This is why the Steve McIntyres are so important. – to blow holes in the childlike simplicity with which physicists approach biological proxies. My read of the climate wars through my 40 year lens as a practicing biologist is that “climate scientists” are intellectual buffoons. I understand that’s unfair to some truly serious students of climate, but, oh well. To be sure, Biology has its share of dimwits like Traf, but no more so than the physical sciences. The true Intellectual study of science died in 1975 at the end of the first modern green revolution, to be replaced by the science of politics and profit, when the baby-boomer cohort was released into the marketplace. Trafamadore, you need to just STFU. You’re an embarrassment to the discipline.
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.”
In this video interview with Revkin, co author Shakun makes a big deal out of their hockey stick.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/scientists-find-an-abrupt-warm-jog-after-a-very-long-cooling/#more-48664
So you warmists are now reduced to on the one hand declaring your hockey sticks not robust, not the major point of your papers, yet at the same time you explain to Revkin that this is soooo off the charts as if it proved something? You can’t have it both ways, or maybe, given the perseverence of modern NYT journalism you actually can.
But please stop calling that behaviour scientific; it’s a declaration of moral and intellectual bankruptcy; as close to fascism as science can get. (as in colluding with power interests)
Furthermore, let’s ask why Marcott and Shakun are experts in re-dating proxies by up to 1,000 years; as in this 2012 article
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/16/the-marcott-shakun-dating-service/#comment-405373
“An article was published in Nature in April 2012 called “Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation”. The authors where Shakun, Clark, Marcott, Mix and others.”
Why up to 1,000 years? I think this is intentional; as we have seen in the past in less corrupt studies, CO2 follows temperature with 800 years delay, so if you are a history rewriting warmist Winston Smith like Shakun and Marcott, you want to shift the dates enough to overcome that 800 year delay.
Well I personally, don’t have time to look at all of these papers/cores/constructions/detrenditions/anomalies/whatever, but when I used to do actual experiments a long time ago, we simply reported the numbers we read off the instruments; as in that being what we actually observed.
How is it even possible to switch the dates on data that apparently has already been recorded and reported.
Back when I was actually a lab technician, in a school physics lab, we had booby trapped apparati to catch students who thought it was ok to cheat.
For example, a setup to measure the coefficient of linear expansion (of a metal) had a jacketed rod through which water could be flowed, and the Temperature measured at several spots along the rod(each end and middle). The metal rod, protruded at each end, and a travelling microscope was used to locate marks on the protruding ends to measure change in length, when you went from ice water to some hotter water flow.
The protruding ends clearly showed that the rods were copper, which has a fairly high expansion coefficient. Woe betide the student, who reported the coefficient for copper, on some of those serial numbered apparati. At least a couple of them had Invar rods inside, with copper studs on the ends..
Whatever happened to reporting the results you get, instead of making up results you wished you had seen.
This whole bunch of crap, just sickens me.
“If I was the author responding to such criticism, I would then just ask what other proxies I should use and include them.”
Trafamadore, which I believe correctly anyway should be Tralfamadore from Vonnegut, your grammar is just as bad as your logic. Back to school for you.
IMO, this is a hotter story right now than CG3.
@Paul Coppin on March 17, 2013 at 7:01 am
“Easy dude…”
My apologies to you and good scientists in every discipline. You are correct and I didn’t mean to generalize that every biologist is as bad as Trafmadore. I studied biology in college and loved it. Switched to chemistry in my last year and now many days I wish I hadn’t.
trafamadore says:
March 16, 2013 at 6:12 pm
…
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
WOW! Traf, stay far away from Pharma with an attitude like that. Do you have any idea how much we scientists have to account for everything in Pharma research? A signed paper trail that can stand up to the scrutiny of agency audits is an absolute requirement for every single piece of data. But hey, Pharma products impact the lives of people that use them so we should be very diligent.
One simple solution is to have climate scientists operate under cGMP rules. Instead of publishing pal reviewed papers they should have to submit their research in an NDA to the FDA. Then we’ll witness real crying when they ask for the raw data and code.
Do any of Marcott’s proxies include New Zealand ones that show a much warmer Holocene?
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/warmer-holocene-confirmed-in-new-zealand/
And what about Lonnie Thompson’s [findings] that the Quelccaya Glacier in Peru was warmer in 3000 BC than today?
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/peru-was-warmer-in-the-holocene-and-mwp/
For everyone’s benefit, trafamodore is a total idiot. Does he work for Media Matters for his full-time job?
As for Marcott’s paper, if this was not a total bumblehead mistake, which it wasn’t, shouldn’t the results actually qualify as criminal fraud? When you consider all of the environmental funding and policiy decisions that hang in the balance, this is beyond the level of friendly argument. This is a total violation of good science and therefore manufactured fraud. Lawyers get disbarred, but what happens to climate scientists when they wander off the reservation???
Exactly, but anomalous behavior is the key metric. Were past climate changes in temperature more pronounced than what we’re seeing now, and knowing the Earth self-regulates its temperature, it matters not whether current changes are natural or man-made; the benefits that accrue because of man-made warming are less significant but welcome nonetheless.
For example, you’d think “biologists” like this “trafamadore” character would recognize how much the additional CO2 in the biosphere benefits the overall environment, but I believe he’s either been paid to think otherwise, brainwashed, or doesn’t appreciate the carbon cycle. That’s why he’s neither scientist nor honest.
garymount says: March 17, 2013 at 6:15 am
Umm, I pasted in my original copy from my calculator calculations instead of my corrected version, correct final version follows:
-2.5 -0.66 -0.66 -0.66 3.0
_________________________________
At the fourth time of posting —- I think you are prbably right (I gave a sum instead of an average).
The average will be as you gave, but you can still see the latitude for fraudulently creating a hockey-stick through shifting the time-line kf one of the data sets. And the fact that the chronology of the data-sets is missing is highly suspicious. This is so far removed from a simple error, it is not even in the same ball-park.
This is deliberate deceit, prure and simple. And if Marcott wants to plead otherwise, then let him come here and explain his position.
.
For those of you attempting to have a coherent argument with “trafamadore”, you’re wasting your time, WUWT server space and precious electrons. He’s/She’s been a ParroTroll around the ‘Net for years. No amount of factual data or cogent argumentation will ever sway him/her.
Here’s a little snippet from back in 2009. You’ll note that he/she continues to use the very same Leftist/Warmista duck ‘n roll troll tactics to avoid addressing specific questions that would completely destroy his/her “argument”, such as it is. He/She is here simply to take the spotlight off of the topic at hand and throw the discussion off onto a different tangent.
http://comments.realclearpolitics.com/report.php?1,523759
As the old saying goes: Arguing with Leftists is like trying to perform DIY brain surgery with a bowling ball. It accomplishes nothing and will just give you an even bigger headache”. (IOW’s, don’t feed the trolls.) 😉
As to the subject at hand, I’m betting on Steve McIntyre in the Statistical Smackdown. Are hockey sticks on the Endangered Species List yet? 😀
In climate science, people are not rewarded for presenting objective information.
The rewards come from doing the opposite.