UPDATE: Mr. Marriott, perhaps fearful of legal action due to his own stupidity on the matter, has dropped the claim of “doctoring” and has also changed the title to remove the “dishonest” claim. Rather than admit he was wrong and published a defamatory article with malicious intent, he’s now using the “Gleick defense” citing his essay as a joke and a “throwaway” comment. All of this defamation was over what could have been a simple request: “Mr. Watts, would you add the NSIDC graph showing standard deviation (in addition to the one sans STD) to the WUWT Sea Ice page ?” I’m happy to do so and have done so. Instead of a simple request, we get ludicrous claims of doctoring images, dishonesty, and now the fallback position of “cherry picking” and the laughable “incomplete context” claim in order to avoid admission of wrongdoing. I suppose his next complaint will be to NSIDC to claim the “incomplete context” of showing only 2012 and 2013 on the NSIDC graph?
Now he’s modified the original essay, sending it down the memory hole, leaving late coming readers to believe his defamation never happened, but you can see the screenshot of the original below. There’s no clear apology, no admission that his hatred caused him to screw up the simplest issue and use it for the basis of defamation. Clearly his behavior is proof there’s no integrity with Mr. Mike Marriot, which of course is self evident by the title of his blog “Watching the Deniers”. – Anthony
False accusation that Watts “doctored” sea ice graph
Eric Worrall writes:
An Australian alarmist blog, Watching The Deniers, has just accused Anthony Watts of photoshopping one of the Sea Ice Graphs.
Click here (screencap here)to see the ridiculous accusation.
Note the original NSIDC graph, updated daily, which the the Watching the Deniers blog claimed Anthony Watts fabricated:
[ http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png ]
Somehow WTD thinks that Anthony makes the above image by “doctoring” this one:
[ http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png ]
I have of course lodged a complaint with the Australian Press Council about this lie. I encourage other Australians to complain through official channels about climate lies propagated by alarmists.
=============================================================
Anthony adds:
This may be the dumbest accusation against me, ever. NSIDC used to put the same graph on their front page, in late 2009, without standard deviation bounds. It is the same one we’ve had since about then on our WUWT Sea Ice page.
By early 2010, NSIDC added one with standard deviation bounds, but keeps updating the original too.
(UPDATE: NSIDC has stopped updating the graph without STD bounds, and replaces any request for it automatically now with one including STD. You can see the NSIDC graph without standard deviation bounds as figure 4 in the Federal register here: http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2008/05/15/E8-11105/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-and-plants-determination-of-threatened-status-for-the-polar-bear )
It would be quite some feat for me to “doctor” that image with STD bounds everyday and place it in plain view for thousands to see every month and get away with it for three years. Sheesh.
According to the about page for WTD:
Mike Marriott, a 40+ year old living in Melbourne. I work as an information manager for a large professional services firm.
I’ve left a comment explaining Mr. Marriott’s absurd misconception and asked for an apology. We’ll see if it passes moderation, and if he lives up to his “professional services” label.
Here is a screencap of the comment:
In the meantime, you can leave comments here.
The original accusation by Marriott is in the screenshot below:
![wtdscreenshot[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/wtdscreenshot1.gif)
I made my comment and pointed out that if he wants editorial rights on WUWT he ought to buy it first.
He will have a major blip in traffic today and that will be nice because he will realise that his biggest day is when a crumb falls from WUWT onto his sad little site. From tomorrow he just goes back to his little echo chamber.
Marriotts efforts have drawn my attention to the Arctic sea ice.
There is more of it this year than last. Whats up with that ?
… then they fight you … then you win.
BTW, as mentioned earlier using any statistics based on less than 60 years is clearly questionable. Everyone knows about the 60 year PDO cycle so this is not even debatable except when you have less than 60 years of data. I’ll know climate science has become a real science when they start recognizing this fact. I don’t look for that real soon.
So, a good question is should data on averages and deviations be included with less that 60 years of data? There are lots of fields where using a shorter range than known cycles would get you labeled unscientific.
After ninja editing his post he has the temerity to post this at the bottom. The hypocrisy in his follow on is mind boggling.
“The record of my transparency, openness and honesty is here for the entire world to see and judge. ”
I submitted a comment that I judged him to be neither transparent, open, nor honest. I wonder what the probability that that comment makes it to the blog. 😉
This guy censors comments for content so its pointless to read or attempt to have a dialogue.
“Mike Marriott, a 40+ year old living in Melbourne. I work as an information manager for a large professional services firm.”
Otherwise known as a “spin doctor”.
As a lay person, I think that showing the Standard Deviation would support the notion that current levels of sea ice extent as shown in the graph are simply within normal fluctuations, which would support WUWT’s point of view. Leaving it out actually seems to help the scare mongers.
If it were me, and the libel continues, I’d be having a chat with his employers. While he doesn’t name them outright, he is well known enough for the link to his employers to be drawn. If his employers are lawyers, they might not be too happy about having their firm associated with a publically overt libeler. Of couse, they may not care, they may be as deep into the tank as he is and welcome the business he brings. That’s the down side of “all press is good press”. Even useful idoits can bring cash to the table. See? Already a neg spin reflecting to the firm…
Marriot’s latest post compares his bruising encounter with Watts with the Thin Red Line, the 93rd Highland Regiment at the Battle of Balaclava (1854).
I’m thinking perhaps I should find some utterly inappropriate historic episode of suffering to illustrate my hurt feelings at being banned from his blog, say Spartacus defying the might of Rome. If I was an alarmist like Marriot, I could keep a straight face as I explained the parallel between my exile from a blog and epic historical events.
I left a reply on their blog to the effect that they should put 2SD’S on each line in the graph and see if they all overlapped. The idiots thought I was on their side. Shows how little they know about probabilities.
I couldn’t help but notice that nearly all the comments defending the blog were written by the same person, a chap going by the name of Byatt, is he the only reader or are all the others on holiday in their favourite parallel universe?
According to the about page for WTD:
Mike Marriott, a 40+ year old living in Melbourne. I work as an information manager for a large professional services firm.
=========================
judging on his accusations that should be “misinforamtion manager”.
Byatt = sock puppet?
Just posted this onWTD lets see if it gets past moderation!!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Lets see how “open and honest” you really are
All this fuss from some who’s has stated
I have a confession to make: I am not qualified to discuss the intricate, technical details of climate science.
It’s beyond my capability.
I can grasp the essentials, and even make sense of (some) the actual peer reviewed research that I read. However I am very conscious that I have large gaps in my knowledge, and that crucially I am not qualified to critique the work of science.
In order to have a real understanding I’d need to pursue a Bachelor of Science and post-graduate degrees to be able to speak authoritatively on climate science.”
Mike Marriot 2010
Eric, so he extended your ban because you mentioned his publicly available blog post to the person who was the subject of that blog post?
Is he a 12 year-old girl?
No wait that is unfair to 12 year-old girls. Is he a 4 year-old having a temper tantrum?
The alarmists are the smart ones Anthony. We are all flat-earthers or some such. They obviously are correct in any accusations made against you. Therefore obviously you snuck into their headquarters at night and doctored their official release. As all alarmists believe, if there is a possibility it must be fact.
eric Worrals says..
The thin red line was an epic feat of heroism and victory in the face of overwhelming odds.
Marriots performance was more like a laughing Hyena skulking away when the lion roared
He updated the post. How is Anthony’s update to the Georgia coast post coming along? Correction anytime soon?
What can we expect of a self-confessed “Information Manager”?
So now it’s “imperative” that climate graphs show SD?
That’s gonna backfire.
Adding a standard deviation to a graph assumes we know the distribution of the data. Given the short time we have been monitoring polar ice, this seems unlikely. From wikipedia:
Unbiased sample standard deviation
For unbiased estimation of standard deviation, there is no formula that works across all distributions, unlike for mean and variance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation
He edited the article, replacing some of the embarrassing stuff, but does not identify what was altered. The article seems much longer than it originally was, so it seems that he’s not labeling his alterations well. Perhaps he does not know that “down the memory hole” does not carry positive implications.
In Marriott’s new blog article he opens:
It’s interesting that Marriott regards this as a war. Feeling a tad challenged, perchance? Trying to gather “the troops”?
The “friendly debate” in this case was initiated by Marriott publishing a defamatory article. accusing Anthony of dishonesty and misrepresentation. Indeed of tampering with published data to suit his own purpose.
Further “having replied to Mr. Watts requests” is a massive distortion. It was no “reply”. Marriott had to accede to Anthony’s demands or risk his @rse being dragged into court for defamation.
Marriott’s banning of Eric parallels the actions of a petulant child. Just because Eric dobbed him in for writing nasty stuff about Anthony.
His new article is like a brand new shovel; digging the same hole; only faster.
Eugene WR Gallun says:
July 7, 2013 at 9:27 pm
Each of us looks at humanity through the prism of our own nature…………..
Eugene WR Gallun says:July 7, 2013 at 9:31 pm
Complaint — i really hate this new small comment box. It is much harder to self-correct
Eugene WR Gallun
————————————————————–
I agree with both comments.
Anthony, I hate to be a pain but is it possible to reduce the width of the page to match the final posted width and add maybe another 2″ in comment box length?
cn
Thanks, Eric. This a sign of even more interesting times to come.
In Marriott’s new blog article he claims;
“As some readers may have noticed, Mr. Watts of the sceptical blog Watts up with that? and I have been engaged in some friendly debate over the nature of sea-ice graphs.”
Yet he issues a 3 month further ban on the person who brought the article to Anthony’s attention, without which there would have been no ‘friendly debate’.
And if a ‘friendly debate’ were his goal or desire wouldn’t he have forwarded a copy of his original article directly to Anthony to initiate the debate? Which brings us back to why he banned the person who made the ‘friendly debate’ possible.
As has been pointed out multiple times by other commenters, “removing” the SD (which you didn’t do) does not to “lie” about the ice. The STD outline actually shows the ice isn not outside of the norm. This idiot is an embarrassment to the alarmists. Maybe the Aussies should have a law against BWS (Blogging While Stupid).