Reader “pottereaton” submitted this on 2013/04/01 at 2:28 pm
McIntyre/Tamino Feud brewing:
First McIntyre at DotEarth:
Steve McIntyre
Toronto, Canada
Andy,
The ideas in Tamino’s post purporting to explain the Marcott uptick,http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/the-tick/ which you praise as “illuminating”, was shamelessly plagiarized from the Climate Audit post How Marcott Upticks Arise. http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/15/how-marcottian-upticks-arise/
It’s annoying that you (and Real Climate) would link to the plagiarization and not to the original post.
Then Tamino, (at his blog) although his comment may have preceded McIntyre’s:
UPDATE
Dave Burton, purveyor of foolishness and myths, submitted the following comment:
“Grant, I find it just plain bizarre that you wrote all this and never even mentioned Steve McIntyre, who first figured out what Marcott had done wrong, and whose excellent work is the whole reason you wrote this.”
For your information, Davy boy, McIntyre’s contribution to this was limited to his every effort to discredit the entire reconstruction, to discredit Marcott and his collaborators, and of course his usual knee-jerk spasms at the sight of anything remotely resembling a hockey stick, sprinkled literally with thinly veiled sneering.
Also for your information, the original version of this post mentioned McIntyre (and linked to his posts) extensively. But prior to posting I decided to remove that, since McIntyre had already fully explored the “low road.”
=====================================================
IMHO, Foster’s response to Burton seems to be mostly venom, and it seems that his emotions got the better of his ability to do science professionally when he decided to remove the references. Seems like a clear case of spite to me. – Anthony
UPDATE: This is a comment and response from “Tamino” on that thread at “Open Mind”. IMHO Grant Foster might be suffering from social isolation issues (from what I know, he works from home with his cat) that prevent him from seeing a reality unfavorable to him, and so he is substituting his own. This is just sad. – Anthony
Steven Mosher | April 2, 2013 at 5:03 am |
It’s pretty simple Tamino. You wrote that you had acknowledgements in your post. You wrote that you removed them. What you think of Steve Mcintyre is not the issue. What you think of me is not the issue. Your opinion of what constitutes good scholarship is shown by the fact that you originally included the cites. So, what I think about scholarship is not the issue. Your behavior shows that you understood the right thing to do. Include the cites. For some reason you changed your mind. We will never know what that is. But your own behavior shows that when you first wrote it, you did as you were trained.
[Response: I have repeatedly stated the truth — that the only “acknowledgements” were of his mistaken ideas and his insulting tone. For you to claim that these were owed to him for reasons of “scholarship” is either mind-boggling stupidity (which I doubt) or nothing more than a pathetic excuse to denigrate me in a dazzling display of your ethical shortcomings.
Perhaps you and others are so keen to discredit my insights because it is now obvious that McIntyre was so clueless about the Marcott paper. Cite that.]
plagiarism
to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own : use (another’s production) without crediting the source
Steve McIntyre has no claim of authorship to the notion of data dropoff analysis. He cannot be plagiarised for that. Tamino has posted on that kind of analysis previously (station drop-out) Tamino’s analysis of the issue – his work – is distinct from McIntyre’s and obviously his own.
Tamino has stated that after reading McIntyre, he thought McIntyre blamed the uptick on redating. It doesn’t matter whether Tamino is taken at his word, the fact remains that alternative views to what he has stated are simply speculation.
And that’s what the more accurate posts here have said, like this one.
Barry, Brian, BA (and any other members of your team):
All your points have been refuted in this thread. Some of your refutedpoints are so wrong as to be plain daft.
I am now withdrawing from the thread.
I am not ‘running away’. On the contrary, I am content that your baseless assertions and excuses in defence of the plagiarism by Foster (aka Tamino) have been clearly demolished in this thread so further discussion can only give you further opportunities to present your nonsense.
The information in the thread is clear to all impartial observers. So I am content to leave it at that.
Richard
As far as I can see, everyone agrees with the following:
1) Tamino did not use without attribution any *specific* wording, analyses, methods, or arguments from McIntyre.
2) Tamino did make use of the *very general* idea of “record dropout,” as did McIntyre, but this is “industry standard,” as it were – nothing original to McIntyre. Tamino has blogged about this general phenomenon many times before (as have plenty of others).
3) Tamino did make use of the idea of analyzing the Marcott uptick in terms of record dropout.
4) Tamino’s *specific analyses* of how record dropout affects the Marcott findings substantially differ from those of McIntyre. (Again, see #1.)
It took over 100 comments before someone finally identified the particular elements of Tamino’s post that were alleged to constitute plagiarism, and everyone seems to agree that it is (3), or close to it, that identifies these elements. If there are any other aspects of McIntyre’s work that should be added, please identify them. (I’ll consider another possibility below.)
Does (3) constitute plagiarism? No. For, as has been repeatedly pointed out here, the authors themselves mention the concern about proxy dropout making the uptick at the end less than robustly supported. That is not something that McIntyre came up with. That is not McIntyre’s intellectual property or product. The authors mention (though they don’t develop) it in their own paper.
What McIntyre contributed was one particular analysis and development of that problem. Had Tamino used elements of that *particular analysis* without attribution, that would smack of plagiarism. But he didn’t. He performed his own, and different, analysis of a problem initially identified by Marcott (not McIntyre!).
Indeed, if McIntyre claims to have originated the idea that proxy dropout may explain the uptick, then McIntyre is the one who is plagiarizing – from Marcott et. al! What he originated is a particular analysis – an analysis on which Tamino’s own analysis is not based.
I suspect there’s another source, however, of the claim of plagiarism. Perhaps some have reasoned as follows: “Tamino read some of McIntyre’s posts about record dropout explaining the Marcott uptick. That seems to have been the inspiration or motivation for Tamino to have done his own (unique) analysis of that same problem. If so, then he should have credited McIntyre for being the reason why Tamino chose to write a post on that general topic. Therefore, Tamino’s post constitutes plagiarism.”
I hope it’s obvious why that line of reasoning is invalid (indeed, absurd). McIntyre cannot claim credit for (a) the very general idea of record dropout, (b) the more specific idea of how record dropout affects the Marcott uptick (since that’s the authors’ original idea), nor for (c) the idea to write a blog post about something. He can claim credit for his particular methods and analyses (that is, the specific way in which he addressed the Marcott-identified problem of proxy dropout), but Tamino didn’t use those.
(And for Richard: are you willing to make a bet about your claim that I am “taking orders” from someone else? You name the amount – any amount at all. Put your money where your foolish, childish mouth is.)
To Grant Foster,
There are better ways to present yourself to the more accomplished auditors of climate science than rancor. Try some other strategy like moderate politeness.
John
barry says:
April 3, 2013 at 7:24 am
———-
Wow Barry. You finally got through to me. I get it now. All I needed to see the light was your summary which ignores virtually every contrary point raised over the last 150 posts, which sets up and knocks down a straw man that obviously nobody is talking about, and that reiterates without support that there is no basis for believing anything except what Foster says about it. Thanks so much for demonstrating the amazing utility of ignoring the discussion, keeping your ears shut, and stubbornly sticking to the same line, I would never have come to understand the truth about this without you!
/sarc
“The headline conclusion came from the robust holocene proxy record compared with the robust modern temperature record. It was never based on that uptick in the proxies, which the authors clearly discount. In the interviews I’ve seen as well as the paper itself, the authors remain clear about this.” (bold my emphasis)
BA is “clearly” on the “Team” and it is “clear” that the “Team” was involved in the production of Marcott et al from the beginning. They make the “discount” purposely ambiguous to the MSM knowing it will be challenged by SM and others. The fact that RC is providing the FAQs several days after they see how it is received is direct evidence that they are involved. “Clearly” BS thinks Marcott et al and the media interviews are “clear” because he’s a part of this hoax.
Reg Nelson says:
“Like you BA, I seek the truth. We seem to be in agreement here that that the uptick is “garbage” AKA “non-robust”.”
No, “non-robust” is not a synonym for “garbage.” As used by scientists and statisticians, non-robust commonly means that a particular result appears sensitive to details of the analysis or data used, so if you did something slightly different (but also reasonable) you might see a different result.
Specifically, Marcott et al. are contrasting their Standard5x5 and RegEM results, where the former shows a sharper uptick than the latter, so they correctly note that this difference is not robust. They also correctly note that the cause of non-robustness is sparse data toward the end of their series: the record dropout problem.
Tamino makes a stronger point that the Standard5x5 uptick is wrong, not just non-robust, because the 1920-1940 warming seen by Standard5x5 is sharper than that seen for this period by the (robust) instrumental record. Both RegEM and Tamino’s method of differences give results closer to the instrumental record.
Brian says:
April 3, 2013 at 8:05 am
———-
Brian, that’s the closest thing to a reasonable argument I’ve heard. And you know, maybe you’re technically correct. Maybe it’s not in fact plagiarism. How about this instead, it’s a crappy thing to do. To look at McIntyre’s work, write the original post referencing McIntyre’s work, and then delete all reference and attribution and claim that he used no part of McIntyre’s analysis and that his was completely different and unique, and that his extensive original references to McIntyre’s work were all solely about McIntyre’s sneering tone and so on, OK, fine. Maybe Foster is telling the simple truth, implausible as that may appear to some, maybe it’s not plagiarism. It’s still a crappy thing to do.
Friends:
I said I have withdrawn from the debate in this thread. I have.
Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, I need to respond to this infantile nonsense from ‘Brian’ at April at 3, 2013 at 8:05 am
If I were a betting man (I am not) then for me to accept that bet I would need to be as stupid as somebody who accepts the AGW scare.
How could it be demonstrated that an anonymous internet troll is or is not affiliated to any organisation?
What can be said is that
(a) Several AGW-activist groups have teams of trolls who are called to action in attempt to hide truth on web blogs.
(b) Three anonymous trolls appeared on this thread at the same time and with their stated purpose being to defend the egregious Tamino following his exposure as a plagiarist.
(c) The three trolls each uses a screen name which begins with B and this is consistent with their being called into action from a list of names filed in alphabetical order.
(d) It is not clear why anybody would want to defend the plagiarism of Tamino.
So will I accept the bet?
No, I would need to be as illogical as Brian for me to do that.
And that is my final word on the matter.
Brian
BA says:
“Read it again, that quote refers directly to the dropout problem:
‘Without filling data gaps, our Standard5x5 reconstruction (Fig. 1A) exhibits 0.6 C greater warming over the past ~60 yr B.P. (1890 to 1950 CE) than our equivalent infilled 5×5 area-weighted mean stack (Fig. 1, C and D). *However, considering the temporal resolution
of our data set and the small number of records that cover this interval (Fig. 1G), this difference is probably not robust.*’
No reading between the lines needed. Marcott et al. state that the steep recent warming under one method (Standard5x5) is not robust because of “the temporal resolution of our data set and the small number of records that cover this interval (Fig 1G)…”
And what’s in Fig 1G? Well, that’s a graph of
‘Number of records used to construct the Holocene global temperature stack through time.’
It shows this number of records as an orange line that drops steeply toward zero in the last decades of their reconstruction. It *is* a graph of the dropout problem, and it’s the reason Marcott et al. say in their article that the final uptick (in Standard5x5) is not robust.
Ok, let’s read it again. Marcott et al. do admit that the data is sparse and do use the phrase “not robust” in connection with that comment. However, they do not claim that the “uptick” is not robust and do not suggest in any way that the “small number of records” has created the uptick as a “dropout” artifact. What they say is that the difference between two methods of data analysis both of which produced a large uptick is not robust. Here, they are expressly claiming that they “get” an uptick no matter which way they do the analysis and only the relative size of the uptick up for debate. Worse, since only the difference is “not robust” they are expressly claiming that the uptick is not only real but that the value must be between the two values they found.
The key to understanding what Marcott et al. are saying is to answer the question “what specifically is ‘probably not robust’ according to them?” You claim “it’s the reason Marcott et al. say in their article that the final uptick (in Standard5x5) is not robust.” But Marcott et al. actually say “this difference is probably not robust.” The difference is not “the uptick” it is the difference between the 0.6 C greater warming found by “Standard 5×5” versus the “equivalent infilled 5×5 area-weighted mean stack.”
In fact, you may recally that Marcott’s first suggestion to McIntyre was that the “uptick” was the result of high frequency changes in the proxies.
Barry and Brian,
Nobody contends that McIntyre discovered the concept that “dropout” can cause spurious changes in time series, nobody contends Tamino plagiarised that concept. What McIntyre discovered is that the Marcott, et al uptick was the result of dropout and redating cores. That is the idea that Tamino plagiarised.
If you think about it honestly, you will realize that Tamino could not have started a post defending Marcott et al. against McIntyre without reading McIntyre’s post first. Moreover, the most damaging aspect of McIntyre’s post was the (still unexplained) deletion of data which caused some proxies to dropout of the modern period and produced the uptick. Tamino’s post suggests he discovered the uptick was caused by dropout. That’s plagiarism.
McIntyre’s comments with respect to the Wegman “plagiarism” “controversy” go to the issue of whether, by any sensible reading, Wegman was actually claiming the allegedly “plagiarised” material as his own since that material was only tangential to Wegman’s point. Here, the whole point of Tamino’s post (once he deleted the references to McIntyre and whatever defense of Marcott to the “low road” suggestions he was originally planning to make) was that Tamino had discovered that the uptick was the result of dropout. That’s plagiarism.
richardscourtney says:
“I take that as tacit admission that you guys are ‘acting under orders’.”
DCA says:
“BA is “clearly” on the “Team” and it is “clear” that the “Team” was involved in the production of Marcott et al from the beginning.”
Paging Dr. Lewandowsky! It’s funny, but I guess you two are serious? I’m part of no “Team” and acting under no ‘orders’, but if your conspiracy was real I’d say that anyway, eh?
In reality the “Team” might consist mainly of people who have read Marcott et al, so they know what it actually says. I’ve kept close to that paper in my posts above, and got no response on specific points such as Fig 1G or Fig 3, both relevant to main arguments on this thread.
Fig 1G is where Marcott et al graph the record dropout problem, which they explain is why the proxy uptick is not robust. Yet this is a “discovery” that McIntyre seems to want credit for, and most here (not having looked at the paper) are willing to grant him. Fig 3 graphs multiple proxy, instrumental and model temperature *distributions* (not time plots) that are the basis for their comparative statement,
“Our results indicate that global mean temperature for the decade 2000-2009 (34) has not yet exceeded the warmest temperatures of the early Holocene (5000 to 10,000 yr B.P.). These temperatures are, however, warmer than 82% of the Holocene distribution as represented by the Standard5x5 stack, or 72% after making plausible corrections for inherent smoothing of the high frequencies in the stack (6) (Fig. 3). In contrast, the decadal mean global temperature of the early 20th century (1900-1909) was cooler than >95% of the Holocene distribution under both the Standard5x5 and high-frequency corrected scenarios. Global temperature, therefore, has risen from near the coldest to the warmest levels of the Holocene within the past century, reversing the long-term cooling trend that began ~5000 yr B.P.”
Its absolutely hilarious that BA thinks using a coarse proxy dataset with high resolution instrumental temperature data justifies the headlines the paper got. We are throwing out the non-robust proxy data of the 20th century as a viable explanation so that leaves only the instrumental temperature data to create a hockey stick. This means the headlines the authors celebrated is a result of one of the following:
1. Deception
2. Incompetence
Neither is exactly a glowing compliment to the scientists involved.
Friends:
I really do want to leave this thread because the facts of Tamino’s plagiarism have been exposed and that plagiarism has been established beyond any doubt. All impartial observers can see that. Therefore, further discussion is pointless.
Unfortunately, for a second time, I am drawn back to answer a personal comment.
At April 3, 2013 at 11:01 am BA says
[snip]
BA’s quotation of me is taken out of context. However, that issue is moot.
There is no “conspiracy theory”. But there are facts and inferences which can be drawn from them.
I stated those facts in my response to Barry at April 3, 2013 at 10:01 am where I wrote.
Anybody can draw whatever inference they want from those facts. In addition, people may want to also consider that BA suggests the ludicrous ideas of Lewandowsky warrant merit.
Richard
Thrasher says:
“Its absolutely hilarious that BA thinks using a coarse proxy dataset with high resolution instrumental temperature data justifies the headlines the paper got. We are throwing out the non-robust proxy data of the 20th century as a viable explanation so that leaves only the instrumental temperature data to create a hockey stick.”
OK, I’m hilarious, and you still haven’t looked at the paper. Fig 3 is no hockey stick.
Meanwhile, Tamino has gone another step and tested whether the Marcott smoothing (or smearing) approach could hide 1-degree, century-scale spikes (like the instrumental warming but followed by an equal drop) if such existed in the paleo record. Doesn’t look like it can.
bmcburney says:
“Ok, let’s read it again….
The key to understanding what Marcott et al. are saying is to answer the question “what specifically is ‘probably not robust’ according to them?” ”
OK, let’s read it again, again, only this time the whole paragraph. You’ve parsed it down to the “difference” not being robust, but skipped the part where they explain why that difference occurs. Standard5x5 and RegEM give different results (and are compared in the first place) because RegEM can “statistically infill data gaps in records not spanning the entire Holocene, which is particularly important over the past several centuries (Fig 1G).. That is, RegEM is brought in specifically for this problem.
Their paragraph in full:
“In addition to the previously mentioned averaging schemes, we also implemented the RegEM
algorithm (11) to statistically infill data gaps in records not spanning the entire Holocene, which
is particularly important over the past several centuries (Fig. 1G). Without filling data gaps, our Standard5×5 reconstruction (Fig. 1A) exhibits 0.6 C greater warming over the past ~60 yr B.P. (1890 to 1950 CE) than our equivalent infilled 5×5 area-weighted mean stack (Fig. 1, C and D). However, considering the temporal resolution of our data set and the small number of records that cover this interval (Fig. 1G), this difference is probably not robust. Before this interval, the gapfilled and unfilled methods of calculating the stacks are nearly identical (Fig. 1D).”
richardscourtney says:
“In addition, people may want to also consider that BA suggests the ludicrous ideas of Lewandowsky warrant merit.”
Honestly, I’m no fan of Lewandowsky’s survey paper. I’m not convinced the analysis is robust. But when you launch into reasoning like this, and others here don’t call you on it, it’s as if you’re trying to prove that Lewandowsky’s theory is correct!
” (a) Several AGW-activist groups have teams of trolls who are called to action in attempt to hide truth on web blogs.
(b) Three anonymous trolls appeared on this thread at the same time and with their stated purpose being to defend the egregious Tamino following his exposure as a plagiarist.
(c) The three trolls each uses a screen name which begins with B and this is consistent with their being called into action from a list of names filed in alphabetical order.
(d) It is not clear why anybody would want to defend the plagiarism of Tamino.”
BA:
I am responding to your post at April 3, 2013 at 12:33 pm purely so you know I saw it.
I recognise that your posts on this thread demonstrate you are logically challenged, but you have now sunk to a new low.
Admit that Tamino plagiarised McIntyre and leave it at that. Otherwise, provide some explanation of why you are trying to pretend the obvious truth of that plagiarism is other than it is.
Richard
BA says:
April 3, 2013 at 12:33 pm
…
Honestly, I’m no fan of Lewandowsky’s survey paper. I’m not convinced the analysis is robust. But when you launch into reasoning like this, and others here don’t call you on it, it’s as if you’re trying to prove that Lewandowsky’s theory is correct!
————
The fact that I’m paranoid doesn’t prove nobody is out to get me. I can’t talk about Lewandowsky anymore, the mere mention of his name triggers my recursive fury. My skin turns green, the tin foil hat pops right off my head, and I start reciting conspiracy theories in tongues until I go into convulsions and seizures and wake up three days later with no memory of what happened.
In case it got lost in translation, I post this nonsense specifically because I couldn’t possibly care less if anyone thinks I’m indulging in counterfactual conspiratorial ideation, and I hope nobody else worries about it either. Mentioning Lewandowsky shouldn’t discourage anybody from making an argument, that was probably what his whole darn conspiracy was trying to accomplish in the first place. :p
BA,
The paragraph you keep quoting just doesn’t say what you say it says. The paragraph does not admit that the uptick is “not robust” because of a “dropout” problem, it suggests that the difference between two ways of measuring the magnitude of the uptick is probably not robust. Yes, it says the reason for the difference is likely to be the relative sparsity of data but the paragraph does not disclose the thing McIntyre found. What McIntyre found out, and what Marcott eventually admitted, was that the whole thing, not merely the 0.6 C “difference”, was an artifact produced by re-dating some cores and inexplicably deleting “inconvenient” data from others.
Tamino attempted to save Marcott and found he really couldn’t do it because, although he could sorta kinda “fix” the dropout problem, he not explain the data deletion which caused the dropouts to be an issue in the first place (and he still needs the re-dated cores to get any uptick at all). Therefore, Tamino deletes reference to McIntyre and suggests he found and “fixed” the dropout problem with the Marcott et al. paper all by himself. Suggesting he found the dropout problem without reading McIntyre first is plagiarism.
Among all the points that are claimed to have been overlooked, how about someone finally cites a specific reference to a similar instance of ‘plagiarism’ in the blogosphere?
Because no one has done so, I take it we’re breaking new ground over this snaffle. IE, the meaning of plagiarism is being extended beyond its usual limits to try and make the accusation stick.
barry,
You are as wrong regarding your ignorance of what plagiarism is as you are about everything else: totally.
Plagiarism is simply copying another’s work product without attribution. Everyone else but you understands that simple concept.
daveburton says:
April 1, 2013 at 8:25 pm
Finally, I gave up, and went away for a long time.
Trying to convey anything meaningful at Tamino’s misnamed “OpenMind” is just about impossible.
There is no use to waste time and energy trying a dialogue with somebody who just does not want to. Time and energy can be much better used on blogs which allow true dialogue. I at least found it being a much better use of my time and the bonus is I learn something still having fun.
wte9 says:
April 1, 2013 at 5:50 pm
I asked Tamino to clarify his view on whether he used McIntyre’s ideas without attribution:
…..Notice that I not only identified (quite independently) the reason for the exaggerated uptick, I also implemented a method to overcome that problem? Notice how I showed the result and compared it to Marcott’s reconstructions? Notice how I computed the result using both the re-calibrated and the originally published proxy ages? Notice how I did so for the same latitude bands as Marcott, and compared those too? Notice how I even did an area-weighting of those latitudinal results? Science.
Rofl. What a self admiring plagiator!
And as usual warmist have a problem with reality, they try to deny it, but this is no new news.
The same denial of reality is shown again when they try to maintain: oh no, the hockey stick was the least important part of the reconstruction.
bmcburney says:
April 3, 2013 at 1:40 pm
…
Tamino attempted to save Marcott and found he really couldn’t do it because, although he could sorta kinda “fix” the dropout problem, he not explain the data deletion which caused the dropouts to be an issue in the first place (and he still needs the re-dated cores to get any uptick at all). Therefore, Tamino deletes reference to McIntyre and suggests he found and “fixed” the dropout problem with the Marcott et al. paper all by himself. Suggesting he found the dropout problem without reading McIntyre first is plagiarism.
Exactly
bmcburney says:
“The paragraph you keep quoting just doesn’t say what you say it says. The paragraph does not admit that the uptick is “not robust” because of a “dropout” problem, it suggests that the difference between two ways of measuring the magnitude of the uptick is probably not robust. Yes, it says the reason for the difference is likely to be the relative sparsity of data but the paragraph does not disclose the thing McIntyre found. What McIntyre found out, and what Marcott eventually admitted, was that the whole thing, not merely the 0.6 C “difference”, was an artifact produced by re-dating some cores and inexplicably deleting “inconvenient” data from others.”
Are you getting all your info from McI, without bothering to read either Marcott or Taminio? The “difference” is not an artifact of redating, or of inexplicable deletion. It was produced mainly by the facts that (a) these long-term proxies become progressively more sparse toward the present and (b) one of the analytical methods, Standard5x5, was not robust against this problem.
“Suggesting he found the dropout problem without reading McIntyre first is plagiarism.”
The dropout problem is “found” in Marcott’s second paragraph, and drawn graphically in Fig 1G and 1H which are called out in the text. Later the dropout problem is cited again (and again, calling out Fig 1G) as causing the different results of two methods, one of them known to be more sensitive to this problem. The different result consists of the more-sensitive-to-dropouts method (Standard5x5) producing a larger recent warming.
McIntyre and Tamino found two different ways to analyze this further. Tamino’s is constructive in that after describing the problem, he works out a way to fix it so you don’t get that spuriously large warming. There’s still a smaller warming using either RegEM or Tamino’s method, but then again there should be, because it was warming in the real world.
And the paleo-modern comparisons in this paper aren’t based on the proxy uptick. They are based on the holocene proxy temperatures compared with recent instrumental temperatures. Fig 3 draws a picture.
Dave Burton says:
“For what it’s worth, Tamino has gotten one climate-related article published (with co-author Stefan Rahmstorf):
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022”
Yeah, and that paper was a classic, wasn’t it?
From the Abstract: “When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced.”
It’s like saying the Houston Astros won the World Series last year “When the scores are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term scoring variations (strike outs, errors, and walks)…”
BA,
It is certainly true that there are many fewer proxies available in the modern period and the lack of proxies makes the whole reconstruction during that time period less robust. However, without the re-dating and inexplicable data deletions you can’t get any uptick from the proxies which remain. To get any modern uptick you must re-date “warming” proxies into the modern period and inexplicably delete others out of it. Don’t believe me? Read Marcott’s thesis which used exactly the same proxies without re-dating and data deletion and produced a very similar pre-modern curve but did not produce an uptick. Still don’t believe me? Read the Marcott et al. FAQ. The whole uptick is “not robust”, not just the Standard5x5 version, the whole thing.
Again, the paragraph doesn’t say what you say it says. It just doesn’t. It does not even say the Standard5x5 analysis is not robust. It says the difference between the two methods is probably not robust. That is not the same thing McIntyre found and Tamino plagiarised. If it were the same thing, neither of them would have had to write a post addressing the fact that the uptick was in part an artifact of the dropout problem.