Over at Climate Audit, Steve McIntyre has found yet another unexplainable inclusion of a hockey stick shaped proxy in the PAGES2K paper. What is most interesting about it is that when you look at the proxy plot panel, it reminds you of the panel that Steve plotted for Yamal, where just one proxy sample went off the rails as an apparent outlier and seems to dominate the set. Since even a grade school student could pick this proxy out in one of those “which one of these is not like the others?” type test questions, one wonders if this particular proxy was preselected by Kaufman specifically for its shape, or if they just bungled the most basic of quality control inspections. Of course, when Steve asked those questions, Nick Stokes showed up to defend the indefensible, and hilarity ensued.
Steve McIntyre writes:
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Kaufman and paleo peer reviewers ought to be aware that the recent portion of varve data can be contaminated by modern agriculture, as this was a contentious issue in relation to Mann et al 2008 (Upside Down Mann) and Kaufman et al 2009. Nonetheless, Kaufman et al 2013 (PAGES), despite dozens of coauthors and peer review at the two most prominent science journals, committed precisely the same mistake as his earlier article, though the location of the contaminated data is different.
The contaminated series is readily identified as an outlier through a simple inspection of the data. The evidence of contamination by recent agriculture in the specialist articles is completely unequivocal. This sort of mistake shouldn’t be that hard to spot even for real climate scientists.
Here is a plot of the last nine (of 22) Arctic sediment series. One of these series (top left – Igaliku) has the classic shape of the contaminated Finnish sediment series (often described as upside down Tiljander). Any proper data analyst plots data and inspects outliers, especially ones that overly contribute to the expected answer. The Igaliku series demands further inspection under routine data analysis.
Figure 1. Plot of last nine (of 22) Kaufman et al Arctic sediment series. The Igaliku proxy is total pollen accumulation.
The Igaliku series is plotted separately below. It is also available at a NOAA archive here , which actually contains one additional recent value plotted in red. The NOAA archive contains many other measurements: it is unclear why Kaufman selected pollen accumulation rate out of all the available measurements.
The resolution of the data set is only 56 years (coarser than the stated minimum of 50 years) and only has three values in the 20th century. The value in 1916 was lower than late medieval values, but had dramatically surged in the late part of the 20th century.
Figure 2. PAGES2K Igaliku series.
Igaliku is in Greenland and was the location of the Norse settlement founded by Erik the Red and is of archaeological interest. Sediment series from Lake Igaliku have been described in three specialist publications in 2012:
Massa et al, 2012. Journal of Paleolimnology, A multiproxy evaluation of Holocene environmental change from Lake Igaliku, South Greenland. (Not presently online). (Update: online here h/t Mosher. I’ve added a paragraph from this text referring to pollen accumulation.)
Massa et al 2012. QSR. A 2500 year record of natural and anthropogenic soil erosion in South Greenland. Online here.
Perren et al 2012, 2012. Holocene. A paleoecological perspective on 1450 years of human impacts from a lake in southern Greenland. Online here.
The three articles clearly demonstrate that the sediments are contaminated as climate proxies.
Igaliku has been re-settled in the 20th century and modern agricultural practices have been introduced. The specialist publications make it overwhelmingly clear that modern agriculture has resulted in dramatic changes to the sediments, rendering the recent portion of the Igaliku series unusable as a climate proxy. Here are some quotes from the original article.
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Read Steve’s entire essay here: More Kaufman Contamination
Nick showed up to argue that the Igaliku really isn’t contaminated by agriculture at all, and is currently engaged in an multi-front battle of deny, duck, and cover. The obstinance on display to prevent admitting the obvious is diamond hard. This isn’t unusual, as Nick was associated with CSIRO, where admissions aren’t part of the government funded manual. Gadflies and racehorse comparisons were bandied about and now Steve has taken to calling Nick “racehorse” much in the same vein as Tamino and his self proclaimed “bulldog” status.
To say watching this is entertaining, would be an understatement. Meanwhile there have been many updates and piling on of additional evidence for contamination. Nick is now reduced to rebutting Steve with Bill Clinton style questions (“It depends on what the meaning of the words ‘is’ is.”) such as: “Could you say exactly what you mean by “contaminated core”?”
Here is my contribution that I left as comments:
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Steve writes:
The three articles clearly demonstrate that the sediments are contaminated as climate proxies.
Igaliku has been re-settled in the 20th century and modern agricultural practices have been introduced.
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By way of support for this, photos can tell you a lot.
Google Earth’s aerial view clearly shows the developed agriculture signature:
And from the ground, hay bales in Igaliku from the Wikipedia page on Igaliku:
The slope of the land drains right into the lake, and along the slope is clearly human agricultural development.
O’Rourke and SOlomon 1976 have recently found that total pollen influx was a direct function of sediment influx in varved sediments from seneca Lake, New York.
Given the drainage pattern of the land, it seems like a clear case of sediment contamination to me.
Kaufman has followed his rules, which are to use proxies which:
“(5) exhibit a documented temperature signal, and (6) are
published in peer-reviewed literature as a proxy for temperature”
One wonders though if Igaliku wasn’t preselected due to the shape of the data without any other considerations.
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Note: the Google Earth image is of the town near the fjord, the Wikipedia picture of the lake where sediment was sampled is in the highland just to the NW of the town. You can inspect the map here and see the lake (which is ice-covered in the satellite photo):
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=60.987778,-45.420833&ll=61.009153,-45.439453&spn=0.053414,0.185394&t=h&z=13
Update: here is another view of the lake from the ground, showing agriculture all around the catch basin, thanks to Nick and anonymoose http://www.panoramio.com/photo/12426959
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EdeFPosted Apr 30, 2013 at 12:27 AMIgaliku reminds me of the small farms in the Okanogan River valley of central Washington state. Note that dirt would wash into the lake from the several roads going up to the higher country.
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Anthony WattsPosted Apr 30, 2013 at 12:37 AMExactly, basically what agriculture does is increase the pollen catch-basin area though land use change. Fighting runoff and erosion is always an issue with agriculture.
With a larger area near the lake having undergone land-use change, it will allow more runoff, and therefore more pollen to be funneled into the lake. Kaufman was probably never a farmer and wouldn’t get this, or maybe he simply didn’t want to since that uptick looks so “elegant” when trying to fit the theory to the data.
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Anthony WattsPosted Apr 30, 2013 at 1:14 AM
Figure 2 from PAGES 2K has an interesting pollen bump from about 1150-1400.
I think I’ve found a proxy for that. Modern day Igaliku is on the same site as Garðar, Greenland, which had a period of growth during the MWP.
Garðar was the seat of the bishop in the Norse settlements in Greenland.
Garðar had enough success as a town to warrant the Catholic Church to issue a permanent Bishop for the construction of a cathedral there. The first bishop of Garðar, Arnaldur, was ordained by the Archbishop of Lund in 1124. He arrived in Greenland in 1126. In the same year he started with the construction of the cathedral, devoted to St. Nicholas, patron saint of sailors.
To support something like that, you need a successful agricultural base. People that are starving don’t have time for such luxuries.
Bishop Álfur was ordained in 1368 and served as last bishop of Garðar until 1378. The Greenland diocese disappeared in the 1400s, when the ship departures from Norway stopped.
If you look at this table of Bishops, it seems to correlate with that bump in the pollen data, then dives after 1400.
Bishop Served years
Arnaldur First-Bishop 1124–1126
Bishop Arnaldur 1126–1150
Jón Knútur 1153–1186
Jón Árnason 1189–1209
Þór Helgi 1212–1230
Nikulás 1234–1242
Ólafur 1242–mid-1280
Þór Bokki 1289–1309
Bishop Árni 1315–1347
Álfur Last-Bishop 1368–1378
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardar,_Greenland
A timeline is here: http://www.greenland-guide.gl/leif2000/history.htm
Bishops would seem to be a proxy for the success of the town, and the success of the town had to rely on the sea and agriculture. When the climate turned colder, the agriculture failed, as we have heard about other areas of southern Greenland.
Of course the pollen bump due to agriculture would have been smaller then than now, since they had no mechanization to amplify the area they could till and plant.
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Bishop Hill might like the Bishops proxy, but Mosher added the real clincher though:
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“Norse farmers settled southern Greenland *985 AD(Jones1986) including the area around Lake Igaliku,which was used for grazing and hay production.Following the disappearance of the Norse *1450 AD,Igaliku was resettled during the 18th century (Arne-borg2007) and large-scale agriculture, based on sheep farming, was developed in the 1920s (Austrheim et al.2008). Consequently, the response to climate changeover the last millennium was overprinted by land-use effects (Gauthier et al.2010; Massa et al.2012; Perrenet al.2012). However, the consideration of human-induced changes at Lake Igaliku in light of the entire Holocene ecosystem development provides new insights about their magnitude.Relative to the preceding Holocene shifts, the vegetation was slightly impacted by land clearanceand grazing, and exhibits a small decrease in woodytaxa abundance (from 60 to 45 %). Until *1335 AD,the related soil erosion, documented by high TOC/TNand MAR values, clearly compounds the long-termincreasing trend (Fig.6). Contrary to the other studiedvariables, the diatom assemblages indicate that thelake ecology was not significantly impacted, and that the changes are within the range of natural Holocene variability.Both in terms of lake ecology and soil erosion, theperiod since 1988 AD is likewise unprecedented in the context of the Holocene by a magnitude and rate of change greater than the previous 9,500 years. The digging of drainage ditches for hayfields caused adramatic increase in MAR, which reached unprece-dented values. The use of nitrogen fertilizers on thesefields (200–250 kg ha -1 yr -1of N, Miki Egede pers.commun.) have outpaced the natural buffering capac-ity of Lake Igaliku, resulting in a sharp rise in themesotrophic diatom, Fragilaria tene
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Nick, in classic Mannian style, refuses to concede. Go help him out at the Climate Audit thread More Kaufman Contamination which is sure to become a classic.
This Stokes-Kaufman incident seems to be a case of land use effect denial.
Nick Stokes says:
May 1, 2013 at 3:21 pm
Theo Goodwin says: May 1, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Nick Stokes says:
“But I think you should answer, what kind of decision process do you actually want?”
Go to the site and perform experiments there. Go to other sites in the same region where there has been no agriculture in the last 100 years and do experiments there. Compare the two.
“If that was necessary, it was for the original journal to demand it. Kaufman has an ensemble of 59 proxies to consider. He can’t do that.
But again, he has assembled 59 proxies, and it’s just one region. That’s a lot; he doesn’t need to spend years in the field personally getting more.”
You are a broken record. You are not going to do empirical research on proxies. You are not going to debate the matter. You have no interest in the matter.
All you will do is repeat your mantra that the proxies have been used before so they are usable now. That has nothing to do with science.
At this time in the history of paleoclimatology, doing empirical research on proxies is far more important than anything you might infer from the existing proxies. The proxies that have been used by climate scientists are rife with error. The Hockey Stick proxies are the poster child for poor proxy research. Yet paleoclimatologists are adamant in their refusal to engage in empirical research that could rid them of worthless proxy records and replace them with scientifically justified proxy records. With that attitude, paleoclimatologists should not expect to be treated as scientists.
Nick Stokes:
I appreciate your coming here to explain your view , and I have been reading your explanations with interest. I admire your fortitude.
However, I admit to being more puzzled than enlightened by your post at May 1, 2013 at 3:21 pm. So, I am writing in hope of clarification.
You say
I recognise that analysts sometimes are called upon to analyse data from others. An example would be the RSS and UAH temperature time series obtained from satellite MSU data. But in such cases it is usual for the analyst to assess the data for accuracy, reliability and precision and not merely to rely upon its supplier.
That leaves me wondering the following and I would be grateful if you could explain.
1.
The work was Kaufman’s so why does he not need to establish the validity of the data he uses in his study?
He chose to use that data. He used that data. The results he published are his.
But you say all responsibility for the data he used lies with somebody else; i.e. ” the original journal”. Being of the ‘old school’ I always thought I needed to assess the accuracy, reliability and precision of any data I used, and I could have saved much time throughout my career had I assumed all data I obtained from others was reliable. But you tell me that this requirement to take responsibility for the data chosen for an analysis no longer exists with the analyst: I would like to know when this change to the scientific method was introduced.
2.
Why is it that Kaufman “can’t” check his data by means of fieldwork or other means?
Perhaps he lacked funds or some other resource. But if that were so then it is a puzzle as to why he accepted the work. I would not have conducted a study where I “can’t” check the data I needed to use, and I am surprised you would assert that Kaufman did.
3.
Why did Kaufman only use the existing data and “not need” to obtain his own?
That used data is of provenance known to those who obtained it. Kaufman would know the provenance of data he obtained and would be able to compare it with existing data to assess the confidence of his results. I would understand if he were conducting an evaluation of an existing study because he may have wanted to use the only same data as that study. But he claimed to be doing novel work when all he was doing was reusing old data with a provenance he did not know but you say he had accepted on trust.
I would appreciate your clarifying these matters.
Richard
humpy says:
May 1, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Not true at all. I have seen no proxy work by climate scientists that is worth the paper that it is written on. The very idea that proxy data can yield valid evidence for claims about tenths of a degree changes in temperature over a thousand years should have been dismissed as lunacy from day one. If you present the standard sort of proxy data showing that temperatures have been falling for the last twenty years then I will be just as unwilling to accept it.
Nick Stokes is ex CSIRO – says everything
richardscourtney says:
May 1, 2013 at 4:17 pm
Very well said, as usual. The following deserves special emphasis:
“That used data is of provenance known to those who obtained it. Kaufman would know the provenance of data he obtained and would be able to compare it with existing data to assess the confidence of his results. I would understand if he were conducting an evaluation of an existing study because he may have wanted to use the only same data as that study. But he claimed to be doing novel work when all he was doing was reusing old data with a provenance he did not know but you say he had accepted on trust.”
Given that Kaufman is using others’ data and doing so without criticizing it, what exactly does he contribute to his article? What can he possibly contribute if he has not made the data his own?
Do you really think that paleoclimatology can continue to exist if it does nothing but select proxy series from a large existing library and attempts to construct yet another statistical argument on the same old stuff?
Richard,
“I would appreciate your clarifying these matters.”
It’s actually not Kaufman, but the Pages2k consortium. They want to survey published work and produce an aggregate. They have to have a decision process as to what goes in and what doesn’t. They have stated that explicitly, and it relies on the judgment of the original journals. What do you think would be better?
To see the converse of this process, see this thread at Climate Audit, from which I quoted the CA policy against ex post exclusion. The Tingley/Huybers proposed Mt Logan proxy did a 6°C dive in the 18th century. No other proxies did that. They said:
“We exclude the Mount Logan series that is included in [35] because the original reference [36] indicates it is a proxy for precipitation source region and is out of phase with paleotemperature series. “
They had bizarre behaviour out of line with other proxies, and a clear explanation for non-temperature cause. Furthermore, the original authors said that it was unsuitable. Still, they were accorded “unequivocal condemnation” at CA.
Nick Stokes:
Thankyou for providing your post at May 1, 2013 at 4:45 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/01/the-stokes-kaufman-contamination-protocol-a-sticky-wicket/#comment-1293968
in reply to my post at May 1, 2013 at 4:17 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/01/the-stokes-kaufman-contamination-protocol-a-sticky-wicket/#comment-1293944
Although I am grateful for your having replied, I am very disappointed at the reply because I remain as puzzled as before.
I requested clarification of your statements and I tried to be as clear as possible about the matters I wanted clarified. To that end I asked three specific questions and provided explanation for the reason I had asked each question.
Your reply says:
(a) The analysts were a team and not only Kaufman. Yes, I knew that but I used a ‘shorthand’. I apologise if that caused any offence because none was intended.
(b) The team rejected some data for analysis as did the original authors. But that only emphasises the reasons for my questions.
(c) The team accepted the data in the original article and asks me what would have been better, but I answered that in my post.
That is all your reply says, and it does not answer any of my questions.
Richard
PS It is now 1 am here and I am going to bed so please understand that I am not ignoring anything you write if I do not comment until the morning.
As mentioned on Climateaudit; both Betula Species and Salix are common planting around human settlements because all three are sources for Acetylsalicylic, aspirin. Willow (Salix) and dwarf Birch (Betula glandulosa) are shrubs and quickly form dense thickets. As Anthony and Steve pointed out at CA, the pollen count also spikes during previous human occupation.
In applying a supposedly pristine lake core, signs of human occupation need to be investigated and qualified. If it skews the data, and it does, then out it goes.
What an interesting twist question. “On the fly”, as opposed to what? Perhaps careful and detailed analysis? Why the rush? Is there some sort of deadline that requires blind acceptance of odd spikes? Yeah, you have a plotter, I have a monitor; so? Any other Arctic plots have similar 19th – 20th century spikes?
Which means that Kaufman et al suspend all rational processes, not to forget complete abrogation of their own responsibilities?
One of the most basic legal aspects is that “ignorance of the law is no excuse”; only in climate research is this sort willful ignorance (denial) not only tolerated, but often venerated.
Let’s understand this; one proxy stands out with a major impact to the data. Kaufman et al are planning on using these proxies for a climate temperature reconstruction. When the author’s see this spike, they shrug their shoulders and include it because it’s not their responsibility… If the reconstructed temperature graph is not their responsibility then they shouldn’t be performing it.
What’s it take for a scientist to recognize and accept their responsibilities? Aw gee, this graph is kind of funny, but it’s not my fault and that excuse will fly when I’m questioned? Bizarre!
Well reasoned?
Either I misunderstand your idea of ‘well’, or ‘reasoned’ or both. Nick is adamant, usually without being strident, but it’s his version of reality no matter the logic.
Consistent, yes!
Nick has been playing silly word games for three days on this specific topic. Which brings us to deception. Just what purpose is Nick playing at by spinning this topic?
During my entire career, blind acceptance was never valid! Once you accept something for your project, you own full responsibility. Yes, your opinion on the proxies is the correct approach for a scientist. Any scientist building a career using other people’s oversights and failures is a fool.
The idea is that the data should be improved every time it is analyzed.
analogy
It doesn’t matter where, who or how insider information comes into a person’s possession use of it is illegal and will be prosecuted. You’d have to be a minor or officially judged not responsible for your actions to get away with dilettante usage.
Nick, whoever he is, does know his stuff. Nick is also a master dissembler and perhaps the first thing a person should wonder when Nick passes them information is ‘why?’.
“… the authors included a series that ought to have been excluded by their criteria. You’re defending that? It’s an illustration of inattentiveness, also called ‘sloppiness’.” [ Matthew Marler @ur momisugly1005, 5/1/13]
“I’d avoid insinuations of Nick being ‘on somebody’s payroll’.” [Zeke Hausfather @ur momisugly 10:57, 5/1/13]
Comment: Deducing that Nick is corrupt is to do him the favor of granting that he is not stupid. Nick is either:
1) Stupid.
2) Intelligent but insane. OR
3) A liar.
He obviously is not stupid. While acting like a person lacking rational thinking capacity, he would be held “competent” to make rational choices in a judicial competency hearing.
THUS, Nick, the only LOGICAL conclusion is that you are a liar.
Since you are not insane, you are not lying for the fun of it. Either you are too prideful to admit you are wrong, or you stand to gain from your lies.
You leave us no other conclusion, Nick: you are either shamefully prideful OR corrupt ….
OR you are being blackmailed.
If the latter, ask someone you trust at WUWT for help! Living a lie is corroding your soul.
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“REPLY: Nick here’s something that will “stick” that you refuse so far to answer – show an uncontaminated proxy with a similar shape, per McIntyre.” [Anthony @ur momisugly0938, 5/1/13]
[Nick @ur momisugly 1038, 5/1/13]
“There are no other POLLEN series in the Arctic – it’s a rare commodity there. As for other proxies, they come in all kinds of shapes – I have a plotter here. And no, I can’t see anything that looks EXACTLY the same.” [emphasis mine]
Comment: [for the record] You have still not answered the question, Nick.
I have just found another hockey stick that is rock solid. I have plotted the number of hockey stick graphs published in the scientific literature in the last 2,000 years and guess what I get! You guessed it!!
A hockey stick!
Richard C,
” But he claimed to be doing novel work when all he was doing was reusing old data”
The Pages2k network is quite explicit about their scope:
” The ‘2k Network’ of the IGBP Past Global Changes (PAGES) project aims to produce a global array of regional climate reconstructions for the past 2000 years”
Many scientists have labored for many years to create this data. There is now enough that a regional reconstruction can be made, though that in itself is a big task. If everyone who essayed a reconstruction had to experimentally recreate the data, there would be no end to it. And it isn’t science. Science progresses because people can build on what others have done.
Test. Twice attempted to post. POOF — not copied to page and no “moderation pending” message. If this posts, will assume content of my post was so bad it went to Inferno, completely bypassing Purgatorio.
Is there any hope for posts that go to Inferno, O Moderator?
[Rescued & posted. — mod.]
“It’s actually not Kaufman, but the Pages2k consortium. They want to survey published work and produce an aggregate. They have to have a decision process as to what goes in and what doesn’t. They have stated that explicitly, and it relies on the judgment of the original journals. What do you think would be better?”
A simple test would be better.
With proxies that have no signs of overprinting from land use changes
Without proxies that have such signs.
While the proxies pass the stated ex ante criteria there is nothing to lose and everything to gain by tested for these effects.
Its like testing all temperature stations and then testing with airports and without airports.
When you do a with/without test of stuffthat passes your ex ante criteria you are demonstrating something important. That your criteria are robust.
Now, there is nothing that compells one to do this kind of testing, but the result can be made much stronger by a simple cut through the data. Or one can leave the uncertainty hanging in the air
“Science progresses because people can build on what others have done.”
How come I never see you, Nick Stokes, criticise the blatant errors at Sceptical Science, Tamino or Real Climate? Your attitude.doesn’t advance science but that’s not what you’re here for are you?
Steven Mosher says:
May 1, 2013 at 5:56 pm
So glad to see you on this track, Mr. Mosher. May your accomplishments as an empiricist equal your other considerable accomplishments.
Janice Moore says:
May 1, 2013 at 5:49 pm
Be of strong faith, Ms. Moore. Sometimes my posts go “zip” into nothingness yet remarkably appear later. Sometimes I wonder why they appear.
What? No hat tip for my “off the rails” comment at CA? 😉
I’m kidding. As a complete layman, even to me it stood out like a sore thumb.
Nick Stokes says:
May 1, 2013 at 5:30 pm
‘” The ‘2k Network’ of the IGBP Past Global Changes (PAGES) project aims to produce a global array of regional climate reconstructions for the past 2000 years”’
And it is good for what? A huge Alarmist press release? If the pieces are the quality of Kaufman’s work then the regional reconstruction will be no less questionable. How can you overlook that?
“Many scientists have labored for many years to create this data.”
How well did they do it? You are unwilling to investigate their work so you have no right – as a scientist – to present it as good scientific work.
“If everyone who essayed a reconstruction had to experimentally recreate the data, there would be no end to it.”
You said the work is being done by a consortium. Can’t you divide work?
The important point is that you have lost sight of what constitutes quality work. As I said earlier, what is important for paleoclimatology in this moment is to create some proxy records that are based on empirical research into the proxies. Such work is necessary to prevent paleoclimatology from becoming a laughing-stock. The creation of empirically sound proxy records would enable the community to set standards for such work. No reasonable standards exist at this time.
Racehorse. Bulldog. And let’s not forget the angry Stoat and Rabit run. Forget AGW. I think Z(oogenic)GW is the new culprit!
Dear Theo Goodwin, Thank you so much for your encouragement. I had to completely re-write my post (d’oh! should have at least Control-C’d it!). I was SO upset that it was really good that I had to go exercise right about then. That helped! BTW, all your comments above are excellent arguments powerfully stated. I know why your posts appear — they are wonderful and God, of whom (according to your name, if it is really Theodore or Theophilus) you are beloved, ensured they would (IMO). Well, hip hip, hooray! That kind moderator rescued my post from Hades! How lovely, too, that Theo would come alongside to comfort me.
Mr. Alberts, APPLAUSE — APPLAUSE — APPLAUSE — I remember that “off the rails” phrase from one of the comments I read on WUWT. I can’t recall the details, but I recall that it was a good one, so, WAY TO GO, Jeff!!! And my hat (if I wore one) is off to you for taking the time to try to rescue a cult member or two over at CA, O noble warrior for truth.
I may be out of line here, but is “Nick Stokes” a real name? “Nick”=nickname, “Stokes”=stoke them up, so “Nick Stokes” = a nickname for a person paid to dissemble & churn. My apologies if I’ve got this totally wrong.
” NZ Willy says: May 1, 2013 at 8:10 pm
I may be out of line here,”
And should I try to parse NZ Willy?
Lawrence Todd says:
May 1, 2013 at 1:19 pm
I looked carefully are every outlier and only included them if it had additional verification.
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Even the Olympics recognizes that you need to throw out the high and the low score. Otherwise you end up with something like this:
1,2,2,2,2,2,10
The average of this series is 3. Does that truly reflect the data? No! 2 is a better score, and when you are trying to find tenths of a degree over hundreds of years it is non-science (nonsense) to include the outliers until they are validated.
What Steve has objected to many times at CA is so called climate science throwing out the “2’s” in the above series and reporting only the “10’s”, because the 10’s match what the scientists expected to see. His argument is that you shouldn’t throw out the bathwater without first checking. However, if all you have is bathwater, don’t try and pretend it is statistically a baby.
In the case of the hockey stick, what was thrown out (via calibration) were the tree’s that did not match the hockey stick. These were the baby. What was left over was the bathwater. Big surprise, the bilge water results in a hockey stick. Now we see yet another hockey stick proxy, that doesn’t match anything else, driving yet another hockey stick proxy reconstruction. With yet another round of lame excuses for keeping the bathwater as a proxy for the baby.
To Nick Stokes: You do not need to parse “NZ Willy” because it is obviously a pseudonym, so therefore honest. But “Nick Stokes” pretends an honesty which isn’t there, so dishonest.