The truth about 'We have to get rid of the medieval warm period'

One mans use is another’s misuse – what exactly is the context of the misuse he complains about? The fact that he uses the term ‘ supposed’ suggests he doesn’t believe there were historical warm periods even on a regional level.

Seriously? The “misuse” he is referring to is any “use” of the term.
“misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths”
He wants the MWP to disappear because he claims it doesn’t exist, hence “supposed warm periods”. To him the MWP is a “myth”, so ANY use of the term is a misuse.
learn to read – with comprehension.

Likewise, I’m also on your side but I must agree with jeff. The paraphrase does not accurately convey the meaning of the original.
REPLY: It has to do with the literature, see my addition about that – Anthony

Hey jeff,
You say ‘learn to read’ but I counter with ‘learn to interpret’. If I say the cat is fat do I mean a feline is fat or a man is fat? Depends upon the context, right?
p.s. cat = man in one american culture.

He also, to anyone who understands English, refers to “getting rid of it” – at least in its then-accepted form as a global phenomenon similar in magnitude to current warming – in his second paragraph:
——————————————————————————
So, pls DO try hard to follow up on my advice provided in previous email. No need to go into details on any but the MWP, but good to mention the others in the same dismissive effort
——————————————————————————-
A “dismissive effort” can’t really mean anything but “getting rid of”, it as it was understood in all the previous literature because, as long as it’s in the records in that form, it can’t be dismissed as an issue for AGW theory.

I cannot believe these guys!!!!!. They will do almost anything to make sure the spin continues as to man as cause for the recent warming. There is some very interesting material presented in a book I read recently, that indicates within the Medieval Warm Period the Chinese actually sailed around Greenland. You cannot to my knowledge to that today…

None other than Steve McIntyre did an excellent summary on the Deming/Overpeck issue in a CA posting of April 8, 2010, 7:59 AM titled “Dealing a Mortal Blow to the MWP” (Google that title). Well worth reading of course.

The actual quote is more diabolical and damaging than was was uttered by LCM.
I read “myth” and “supposed” as denials that the MWP actually occurred.
Seriously? “MYTH” and “SUPPOSED”?
Seems to me that they are,in fact, trying to abolish a historical record.
Monckton is off the hook because their intent is clear and even disturbing.

By the way, here is a link to today’s weather in my home town that has normal averages for warm an cold historical data. I see this as the most responsible way to show temperature for a given station.
http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~rjh/halifax/halifax-weather-ll.html

A distinction without a difference, the meaning of the ‘quote’ from these so-called climate scientists is clear. Whether it gets hot, cold, or stays the same, their solution is always the identical, socialism masquerading as environmentalism. Kick these dishonest hacks, and their lackeys, out of the national policy decision loop. Go down with the ship climate comrades, we’ll be laughing at you all the way down, just take some temperature readings when you reach bottom, so we can pull you back up and start laughing at you again. You’ve earned it.

Watts writes: “As to this being a fabrication (as Robert claims), no, it’s a summation or a paraphrase of a long quote, something that happens a lot in history.”
When someone puts quotation marks around a paraphrase they have created a fabrication. In this case the “summation” alters the meaning as other have noted. The key word “misuse” of ignored in the “summary”. Some here may think the paraphrase is what Overpeck really meant in his heart, and they may or may not be right, but the shortened paraphrase does not have the same literal meaning of the actual quote. Fabrications happen a lot in history, that does not make then true.

Jeff, seriously?
Are you seriously on the skeptic side but seriously defending Overpeck’s conspiracy?
And what’s with the no caps then all caps style
Is that meant to make your response look ‘spontaneous’…seriously?

”“Holocene Thermal Maximum” is another one that should only be used with care, and with the explicit knowledge that it was a time-transgressive event totally unlike the recent global warming.”
How is recent GW not a time-trangressive event? I think Bob Tisdale’s posts establish its varied occurrence over time and place. Even their own declarations establish the last Santer (17 years) as being confined to the conveniently unmonitored portions of the world.

Actions speak much louder than words. Based on the actions that occurred in the months and years following 1995, it is obvious exactly what the “intent” was regardless of how it was phrased. As a scientist myself, nothing did more to convince me that CAGW was a scam than when the MWP and LIA magically started disappearing as if they had never happened. Their brazen attempt to get rid of the MWP and LIA, rather than deal with it, probably was the biggest miscalculation they ever made as I suspect it resulted in converting a huge number of people from “undecided” (myself included) about AGW to sceptic, even going so far as to give a lunch time seminar on the topic at my place of employment. I was driven at that point to start doing extensive searching for the truth, and I believe it has been found… CAGW caused by CO2 is clearly NOT a problem based on data. Actually, the data that is there so far indicates that the increased CO2 levels are actually BENEFICIAL to humans (and plants) at least up to current levels.

I posted this on the last thread but it is more suited here. Sorry, I hadn’t got this far. And besides, all my posts are held up for moderation – don’t know why.
~~~
1 The MWP was real.
2 Some people wanted to lower the profile of the MWP.
3 Mann’s Hockeystick conveniently lowered the profile of the MWP and was welcomed by “mainstream” climatologists.
Does anyone doubt points 1, 2 or 3?
For me the quote under discussion is important because it exonerates the “mainstream” climatologists of a worse deception. The quote implies that the MWP was distracting from the current warming.
I think the MWP provides another source for the current rise in atmospheric CO2. The ice-cores show that CO2 follows temperature with about an 800 year lag.
And the “mainstream” climatologists knew that too.

There is a Mann email where he talks about reconstruction/s to “contain” the MWP. Why would a scientist be putting the word in scare quotes? Because there are two meanings in play.

‘Robert says:
December 8, 2013 at 9:50 am
The quote is a fabrication. Jonathan Overpeck’s exact words are:
“I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature.”
Christopher Monckton, like Andrew Montford before him, alters the text to instead read:
“We have to abolish the medieval warm period.” ‘
The debate over this claim has focused on meanings. That is a useful thing to do. However, it has overlooked a clear intention to censor and a clear expression of a desire to silence those who disagree with the warmist position. Yes, Overpeck might actually believe that claims to the effect that the MWP was warmer than today are myths. But he does not express a desire to expose the myths as falsehoods. Acting on that desire would be entirely admirable. Instead, he expresses a desire to do away with the terminology altogether. That is a desire for censorship in a scientific debate. As John Stuart Mill explained, a scientist can stoop no lower.

The graph is a great example of scale exageration to make whatever point one is spinning. Stretch the time (X) axis out a little and start the temperature (Y) axis out at zero and the lesser informed better understand that very little change which has occured in temperature over the past 2000 years ( about 0.6 of one degree C from max to min). Not that this is unimportant.
However, searching the literature, it is very difficult to find anything about what a one or two degree DECREASE in average annual temperature would do to crop yields in Canada, Russia and China for example. Northern crop growing areas suffer quickly from colder weather. Of course all weather is regional and average annual global temps may have greater or lesser effects in a given area particularly with changes in precipitation, etc. which may also occur.

correction mods:
Is it possible that Overpeck suspects that Deming would act as he (Overpeck) would act?

Judge the AGW promoters by their actinos and it is clear they sought to get rid of the MWP. Even now they seek to deny it was large scale. The promoters ignore the multiple lines of evidence of the MWP because they know it is a severe counter fact to their apocalyptic claptrap.
Notice that Overbrook simply asserts that today is significantly different from the MWP and the other well documented warming periods. He provides no evidence.
The AGW faithful are disputing the accuracy of the quote as a way to ignore the meaning of the quote
The AGW faithful are like any other group of faith-based believers- theywould rather discuss the text of the scripture in a way that allows them to control the conversation than to deal with the issues raised.

Who cares what the exact form of words was?
It’s the old common-sense case of:
“I heard what you said but I know what you meant.”

We have to get rid of the influence of carbohydrates on physiology, and just blame dietary cholesterol, said now rich doctors, as many still say to this day, deceptively, as they poison patients with statins.

People can’t do “inductive quoting” to turn the Deming statement into an Overpeck quotation. It is not a documented direct quotation of Overpeck.
If someone wants to directly quote Overpeck, they should directly quote Overpeck! Use the stolen/leaked email then, including the word “misuse”. You can’t ‘paraphrase’ that word out while still using quotation marks.

“Nick Stokes says:
December 8, 2013 at 1:49 pm
And as said here, the statement from the Overpeck CRU email is not a paraphrase of “abolish the MWP”, nor did Lord M claim it as such. Overpeck wants to deal a mortal blow to “misuse”. Well, who wouldn’t?
Getting it right is not just a civic duty. It saves time.”
You did not get it right. The relevant quotation reads:
“In reading Valerie’s Holocene section, I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature. The sceptics and uninformed love to cite these periods as natural analogs for current warming too – pure rubbish.”
He wants to shut up the sceptics. He wants to end discussion of the MWP as a natural analog for current warming. As regards the word ‘misuse’, it is his responsibility to explain the misuse and give rational reasons for rejecting it. He did not even consider it. This is a call for censorship in scientific debate.

@TBraunlich
“What did he mean by his criticism of the MWP as only a “time-transgressive event”?”
I understand it to mean that the changes in temperature were slow and gradually varied up or down, thus to be interpreted as changes that necessarily take time if they are natural.
They were planning to sell the ‘rapid rise’ of temperatures as ‘proof’ that it was ‘unnatural’ which is exactly what was claimed later. To assist this, older temps were edited downwards and modern temps were padded with warming. Still, it did not rise as fast in the 80’s as in the 20’s.
So the intent was to make it appear that only AG CO2 could possibly account for the recent rate of rise – as was later claimed. Problems were many, including the cessation of any increase in global temperature from about 1997. For the CONUS it is much longer. In fact there has been some claims that there was a solar change in 1992 with delayed consequences. Let’s see how that plays out because it is mostly the sun in the first place.

Steven Mosher says:
December 8, 2013 at 3:36 pm
“The monktopus is pretending
that this is not hearsay. And none of you skeptics have the balls to call him on it. A real skeptic keeps his standards of evidence straight:”
Who even cares. Warmism is dead.

@ Nick Stokes says:
December 8, 2013 at 2:56 pm ,
Where is the email you are referring to in the quote you refer to?
Steve,
Yes, we need to see emails. (btw, where is CG3?) But we also have years of actions by the ‘team’ to erase the MWP. I never used Deming’s claim about emails to reach the conclusion that the ‘team’ is diddling the evidence and playing games. Their actions inform that conclusion.

Steven Mosher says:
December 8, 2013 at 3:36 pm
+++++++
I’ve been waiting for this thread to sort itself out.
Of course you are correct, if it’s all hearsay.
At this point I still don’t know what to think, or if I even care.

And wouldn’t our ABC and other goofy warmies in Oz like to “get rid of” our December snow?
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/snow-falling-in-australia-in-summer-that-is-all/story-e6frflp0-1226775945701

Nick Stokes says:
December 8, 2013 at 4:51 pm
Deming is the only one claiming to have had such an email, and he can’t produce it. And he never said it was from Overpeck anyway.
——————–
Well, except for his testimony under oath before Congress.
And then we have Overpeck himself noting he is likely the one Deming is talking about.
http://www.assassinationscience.com/climategate/1/FOIA/mail/1206628118.txt
————————
The issue is, in any event, does Climate Science try to re-write history. They do it every day and the links proving such would be 100s and 100s of links long.

However there is another reference in one of the climategate emails, where the author says, “we need to get rid of the putitative warm period”. I think it was in communication between Jones and Mann, but this is from memory. If you have the searchable file of climategate emails, it should be possible to find it.

Stokes and Mosher just want to remove clarity from the discussion, imho.
It won’t matter if they are soundly rebutted, as the pursuit of attention, even negative, supersedes.

Nick Stokes says:
December 8, 2013 at 4:16 pm
Theo Goodwin says: December 8, 2013 at 3:45 pm
“Did he explain them to you? Can you explain them to us? Did he publish on the matter?”
He did not explain them to me. I was not a participant in the email conversation.
He did publish on the matter. They were discussing diagrams in Chap 6 of the AR5, of which he was a lead author. Fig 6.10 shows a NH recon with a MWP. Box 6.4 is devoted to the MWP. It concludes:
“The evidence currently available indicates that NH mean temperatures during medieval times (950–1100) were indeed warm in a 2-kyr context and even warmer in relation to the less sparse but still limited evidence of widespread average cool conditions in the 17th century (Osborn and Briffa, 2006). However, the evidence is not sufficient to support a conclusion that hemispheric mean temperatures were as warm, or the extent of warm regions as expansive, as those in the 20th century as a whole, during any period in medieval times (Jones et al., 2001; Bradley et al., 2003a,b; Osborn and Briffa, 2006).”
It is exactly what I wanted to read. There he is in print stating that there is evidence for the claim that a MWP exists. In other words, the hypothesis of a MWP is living and well. So, when he states that he wants to destroy a myth he really means that he wants to destroy a scientific hypothesis that he does not like. Censorship.
The second sentence states simply that the evidence does not support a very strong conclusion, namely, that the MWP was as warm and as geographically extensive as those in the 20th Century. But the advocates of the MWP need not have claimed that they had conclusive evidence for such a strong conclusion; rather, they need only have claimed that they had some serious evidence that is worthy of developing. His answer amounts to a typical Strawman in which an outrageously strong claim is substituted for a modest and reasonable claim.
Recall that his email refers to myths and misuse of terminology:
“In reading Valerie’s Holocene section, I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature. The sceptics and uninformed love to cite these periods as natural analogs for current warming too – pure rubbish.”
His own writing refers to legitimate hypotheses about what might prove to be natural variability in temperatures:
“The evidence currently available indicates that NH mean temperatures during medieval times (950–1100) were indeed warm in a 2-kyr context and even warmer in relation to the less sparse but still limited evidence of widespread average cool conditions in the 17th century (Osborn and Briffa, 2006).”
Again, his writing states simply and clearly his wish to deal a mortal blow to something that he calls myths and misuse of terms yet which he recognizes as genuine scientific hypotheses that require development but that have not been falsified. He is calling for censorship of perfectly legitimate science.

@John piccirilli says:
December 8, 2013 at 12:52 pm
“Tell me felix..where on mann’s hockey stick [graph] does he show
The mwp? The meaning is clear by what peck says and by the actions
Of ipcc.”
John, see below.
“The term “Hockey Stick” was coined by the former head of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Jerry Mahlman, to describe the pattern common to numerous proxy and model-based estimates of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature changes over the past millennium. This pattern includes a long-term cooling trend from the so-called “Medieval Warm Period” (broadly speaking, the 10th-mid 14th centuries) through the “Little Ice Age” (broadly speaking, the mid 15th-19th centuries), followed by a rapid warming during the 20th century that culminates in anomalous late 20th century warmth (Figure 1). Numerous myths regarding the “hockey stick” can be found on various non-peer reviewed websites and other non-scientific venues.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/temperaturevariations-in-past-centuries-and-the-so-called-hockey-stick/

FWIW:
“Over the past year, a number of studies have shown that 20th century Arctic and hemispheric warming are unprecedented relative to the last six centuries,” said Overpeck. “Now, high-resolution paleoclimate records stretching back 1200 years confirm that the so-called Medieval Warm Period did not exist in the form of a globally synchronous period as warm, or warmer, than today. Thus, recent record high hemispheric temperatures are probably unprecedented in at least 1200 years. In addition, our study of the Medieval Warm Period supports the likelihood that no known natural phenomenon can explain the record 20th century warmth. Twentieth Century global warming is a reality and should be taken seriously.”
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/pr98/dec98/noaa98-88.html

C’mon folks..read for context! You are too close to the carpet to see the pattern.
Back off and observe the AGW General Staff (assembled at the urgent request of AGU newsletter editor, Judy Jacobs) to plot strategy to for a pre-emptive strike to discredit Soon & Baliunis “as soon as it comes out” by employing the big publicity gun:
…the “AGU/EOS ‘publicity machine’ (which) will shout the message from rooftops everywhere.’
“Containment” of the “putative” (or so called) MWP seems to be the strategy with General Mann in overall charge and Phil as deputy in his absence:
” I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back”.. [Phil and I have one in review–not sure it is kosher to show that yet though..)
Nice to see the Geneva Convention on weapons at least considered.
http://www.burtonsys.com/FOIA/1054736277.txt

[cut the garbage. Think about what you want to say, then say it in a civilized manner. Mod]

@MOD sorry got mad

also some valuable detail and context in this thread:
http://climateaudit.org/2012/10/09/the-afterlife-of-ipcc-1990-figure-7-1/

What is the evidence that the MWP was global and not regional?

Nick Stokes says, December 8, 2013 at 7:40 pm, in part:
“What’s all this about hints? If it really happened, why can’t he say who it was and produce the alleged email?”
I agree 100% to the first of what you demand: I would prefer Deming said once and for all who it was. But I can certainly symphonize with Deming’s not being able to produce an email from 1995. I suspect that not many of us could.
I don’t believe however that Deming “fabricated” the quote (to use Robert’s term). The Climategate email would have suggested that Overpeck might be hostile to the MWP, but Deming of course did not have that email (released 2009) for his 2006 Senate testimony. Some here have conflated the timing in this regard (not you Nick).
Something was known prior to Climategate of course. In my own experience, the notion, that the 1995 email came from Overpeck, came to me first from Chris Horner’s book Red Hot Lies (2008), the epigram to Chapter 8:
“We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”
– University of Arizona professor and IPCC lead author Jonathan Overpeck in an e-mail to a colleague he assumed was on board.
Where did that come from? Speaking as Horner does of “Red Hot” there is a saying about smoke and fire.

claimsguy says:
December 8, 2013 at 8:05 pm
What is the evidence that the MWP was global and not regional?

The evidence that it is regional is the same evidence that it is not global. Where is the evidence it was regional, only?

It shouldn’t be in quotation marks if it is not a quotation.
He might have implied it, meant it, insinuated it or alluded to it.
But he did not say it.
No amount of obfuscating around the issue will change that.

Kohl, it is still acceptable to use quotes IF paraphrasing accurately. Read the rules of grammar.
However, this paraphrase is not done as well as it should be done to deserve quotes. It could be done better.
What the author is doing is setting up a straw man, falsely implying that there is faulty data on the MWP in order to disqualify scientific interest in it.

This is being wrongly sourced to Deming’s Senate testimony. The earliest version is surely:
Deming, David (2005) ‘Global Warming, the Politicization of Science, and Michael Crichton’s State of Fear.’ Journal of Scientific Exploration 19(2): 247- 256
‘With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”.’ pp248-49.
Check it out at: http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/articles.html
Overpeck is not identified.
The review of State of Fear was published in June 2005, but appeared on-line earlier in the year. It is not certain that it came after the Climategate e-mail being quoted, but note:
1. That e-mail is not addressed to Deming.
2. Deming states explicitly this occurred after publication of his 1995 article.
3. It is hardly surprising he did not keep a copy of the e-mail. How many of you have archived your e-mails from 1995? AL Gore had only just invented the internet.

Re Regional vs global MWP:
It is worth going back to assess Mann’s publications ‘showing’ that the MWP (Medieval Warm Period) was ‘cooler than the present’ (of course, he has to rename it the MCA, the Medieval Climate Anomoly, as otherwise the whole thing would be a little less Orwellian.)
Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly. Michael E. Mann, Zhihua Zhang, Scott Rutherford, Raymond S. Bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes, Drew Shindell, Caspar Ammann, Greg Faluvegi, Fenbiao Ni
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/MannetalScience09.pdf
See Fig. 2. Reconstructed surface temperature pattern for MCA (950 to 1250 C.E.) and LIA (1400 to 1700 C.E.). Shown are the mean surface temperature anomaly (left) and associated relative weightings of various proxy records used (indicated by size of symbols) for the low-frequency component of the reconstruction (right). Anomalies are defined relative to the 1961– 1990 reference period mean.
Note Figure 2 – the top figures showing the temperature anomaly map of the world for the MCA (compared to the 1961 to 1990 period)…..and the weighted proxies on the right……
Note all the blue (cooler than recent times) on that map. There is cooling shown across all of central Asia, the entire Indian ocean, the entire southern Atlantic, the area of the Eastern Pacific. Note these are all proxy-free areas. (Three proxies across central Asia, none in any of the remarkably cool oceans.
However, warming is indicated (yellow, orange or red) in the immediate area of the vast majority of the proxies locations which are shown
The whole conclusion is (of course) a modeled output …. which I think should have prompted someone to go back and check the model.

Monckton has reported, as a direct quote using “…”, a statement that he cannot prove was a direct quote made by the person he attributes it to. He is wrong to do so. The words should be presented as a paraphrase or as indirect speech the first time they are introduced. To do otherwise is misleading, whether intentionally or not.
Anthony in turn sets angels dancing on the head of a pin while ignoring this simple fact.
Neither is remotely helpful to what sceptics of the IPCC consensus wish to achieve. There are enough self-damning alarmist quotations available that can, and should, be brought to public attention as often as possible. Further quotation-laundering is not required.

Messenger says: If you read p. 28 of Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion, you will see he has made it quite clear that he is quoting from what Deming said and Montford goes on to say that the link to Overpeck as the original author was confirmed by Richard LIndzen.
See Frank O’Dwyer’s review of The Hockey Stick Illusion:

On p28 Montford refers to an email that Deming says he received from a leading climate science figure, which he claims to have said “we have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”. […]
Montford then goes on say that Richard Lindzen confirmed “Internet rumours” that the author of the email to Deming was Overpeck. This initially seemed pretty damning to me, as it made it seem that Lindzen was an independent witness—and after all, if he could corroborate the authorship, that also seemed to corroborate the existence of the email itself and its content.
But then I thought, how did Lindzen know? Was he cc’d on the email? Did he receive a similar email or did someone say the same thing to him? So I checked the Lindzen paper cited by Montford.
Lindzen’s paper does say that the author was Overpeck, however the only reference he gives in support of this is the same one that Montford gives—the same paper which Montford just stated is silent about the email’s authorship. So, far being an independent witness to events, both Lindzen’s and Montford’s claims stand on the same single piece of evidence: Deming’s original piece. And far from “confirming Internet rumours”, Lindzen is simply repeating them.

Here is a quote from David Deming’s statement to the US Senate:
Normally in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies. Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period was both warm and global in its extent.
This is an extremely important point. All the recent hockey-stick palaeo-reconstructions recently published by the team, e.g. Mann, Marcott, Miller, do exactly this, present their paper as if it is the first palaeo-reconstruction ever done. As if they themselves have in fact invented the whole concept of the palaeo reconstruction of climate. The ignorance of and silence about all previous climate palaeo-reconstruction is total in these papers.
This is flagrant and disgraceful disregard of normal scientific practice and convention. The bogus hockey-stick itself and the practice and culture of the climate community in this regard shouts loud and clear “we have to get rid of climate history”.
By contrast it is our intention to “deal a mortal blow to the fabrication of climate history and the misuse of climate models and atmospheric radiative physics”.

Make that ‘an addressee’!

“We have to get rid of the Warms 1930s”.
And they did.

Methinks that “Peck” doth incriminate himself….
Any idea what my reaction should be? I usually
> > ignore this kind of misinformation, but I can
> > imagine that it could take on a life of it’s own
> > and that I might want to deal with it now, rather
> > than later. I could – as the person below
> > suggests – make a quick statement on a web site
> > that the attribution to me is false, but I
> > suspect that this Deeming guy could then produce
> > a fake email. I would then say it’s fake. Or just
> > ignore? Or something else?
> >
> > I googled Deeming, and from the first page of
> > hits got the sense that he’s not your average
> > university professor… to put it lightly.
> >
> > Again, thanks for any advice – I’d really like
> > this to not blow up into something that creates
> > grief for me, the IPCC, or the community. It is
> > bogus.

Re. Theo Goodwin says:
December 8, 2013 at 6:42 pm
==========================================
Bingo! Jonathan Overpeck calls the historic warming “supposed” and a “myth” thus showing intent to “mortally” or kill the “MYTH” of “warming” . What myth is that? Well he goes on to say the “myth” in the LITERATURE!! Damm, the hubris of these arrogant “scientist”; calling the work of hundreds of scientist about the earths history of warming a myth, and later defending the Mannian hockey stick. (The fact that he later, in a scientific paper, admits that the MWP is a valid hypothesis, only makes Theo Goodwin’s point about censorship, which did happen, “changing the way peer review works” and all that, crystal clear.)
Nick, Felix and Mosher, in the words of a CAGW proponent about this very subject, “You are defending the indefensible.”

This is the passage that matters.

I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature. The sceptics and uninformed love to cite these periods as natural analogs for current warming too – pure rubbish.

The reading is pretty clear. Overpeck genuinely believes that past warm periods are misused as analogs to current warming, and it is this “misuse” that he would like to despatch, not “warm periods”, the existence of which which he acknowledges (2nd sentence). There is nothing inherently insidious or mendacious in his comments.
Deming may or may not have recalled the exact wording of the email he received from persons as yet unverified. There’s no need to speculate on mendaciousness on his part either, just to acknowledge that the only verifiable remarks we have are from the email quoted in the OP.
MBH99 is now 14 years old. Lamb’s “cartoon” graph with the big MWP hump in the first IPCC report is nearly 50 years old. It is madness to think that this early study, with the barest coverage of all the millenial reconstructions (based on CET temps), is some kind of gold standard to which later work should be held. Like holding modern astronomy is bogus because it has differences with Copernican theory. Science has moved on. So should we.
There is a good web page that delves into some myths about Lamb’s millennial reconstruction, and notes some of his later work on the MWP period here.

Barry, however a nice straw man in trying to claim skeptics have only Lamp to support the MWP.

***
Steven Mosher says:
December 8, 2013 at 3:36 pm
This is pretty simple. When warmists claim they get death threats we demand to see the mail.
Deming doesnt have the mail. We have nothing but hearsay. The monktopus is pretending
that this is not hearsay. And none of you skeptics have the balls to call him on it. A real skeptic keeps his standards of evidence straight
***
Don’t care what was said or not. Care about what was done. Heard about the hockey-shtick fiasco (rhetorical)?

The discussion in this thread about paraphrasing and quoting involves some issues that are quite impossible and others that just don’t matter very much.
It began with Lord Monckton writing in the thread just previous to this “We have to abolish the medieval warm period” while famously Deming wrote in his 2006 U.S. Senate testimony “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.” This substitution of “abolish” for “get rid of” appears inadvertent and is not important. The quote is in the Senate record.
On the thread above, “Robert” describes Monckton’s rendition as a “fabrication” (by Monckton?), apparently supposing that the source is from Climategate emails, in particular Overpeck writing: “I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature.” Apparently Robert was NOT aware of Deming’s 2006 Senate version as the obvious source.
Nor could we suppose that Deming’s 2006 Senate version could have come as a paraphrase of the 2005 Climategate email because Deming could not have seen the 2005 emails until they were released in 2009 when we all got them.
This leaves the question as to whether Deming in 2006 (or in previous less well documented instances) was in fact quoting the email from Overpeck exactly or was in fact paraphrasing what he remembered Overpack writing. We don’t know. This seems to me to not be that important.
What is important is that Deming said in 2006 that he received an email of a certain essence. In view of the 2005 “pillow talk” among the IPCC team we have support for the notion that Overpeck would have said such a thing. It is also quite plausible that Overpeck was NOT advocating something as brazen as an eraser of the MWP, but rather a “better graphic” to use in their report.
It seems to me that the scenario of a wish on the part of Overpeck and company for a MWP-free history transcends any issues of the use of paraphrases and quotation marks.

Bernie, thanks for the clean summation.

Overpeck: IMPOSSIBLE

Slacko says:
December 9, 2013 at 8:49 am
Nick Stokes says:
December 8, 2013 at 3:11 pm
. “warm period” is an adjectival phrase. He wants to stop misuse of terms…
Bollocks! You’re just prancing around. The primary adjective is “supposed”. He wants to stop use of the terms altogether.

I think Nick Stokes is right on this. What is clear is that Overpeck is convinced that recent warming was totally “unlike” earlier events. Just how he attains this conviction is not explained because he assumes shared knowledge with his correspondent. He is not denying either MWP or the HTM, but he wants them less emphasized because of the emphasis placed upon them by sceptics.
What is more revealing though is the the CG email which reveals that he doesn’t think he would have used those words “in that context.” He apparently does not consider it unthinkable that he might indeed have used the “get rid of” phrase in another. That is astonishing in itself.

Jonathan Overpeck’s exact words are:
“I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature.”
It is obvious that Overpeck is saying he would like to deal a mortal blow to the sceptics misuse of the MWP in the literature.
Time for a reality check…http://postimg.org/image/xk46zv29l/

Forget the Medieval Warm Period.
“Alberta Canada Sees Avalanche Of New Record Lows … “Glacial Temperatures” … Edmonton Sees -39°C! ”
http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/09/alberta-canada-sees-avalanche-of-new-record-lows-glacial-temperatures-edmonton-sees-39c/
“NSIDC “Prepared To Make Public” New All-Time Record Low For Earth, Recorded In Antarctica: Minus 91.2°C!”
http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/09/nsidc-prepared-to-make-public-new-all-time-record-low-for-earth-recorded-in-antarctica-minus-91-2c/

I hereby revoke my claim that paraphrasing is okay with quotes. Thanks fellers, for the heads up. What I was thinking was: it is perfectly acceptable to paraphrase if dead accurate. The quotes don’t strengthen a paraphrase anyway. Best to simply say what the person is trying to say without exaggeration or oversimplification.

From the response by the authors, about Overpecks suggestions, they too took the meaning that Monckton took.
It’s funny that Stokes et all think that Overpeck he would have to speak explicitly of doing wrong without cloaking it at all in plausibly deniable words in order to say what he wanted to be produced.
The emails show the smarter ones and even Jones talking in cloaked manner when discussing clearly improper actions.
How to respond to McIntyres? Suggest calling them lazy and so on. That was when they actually felt threatened. But in conversation, it was cloaked so that the smears are as if actually believed, rather than that they were facing a fearsome prospect who they really just wanted to “GET RID OF”.

Barry, you ignore…”supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature.” “Supposed”, IE NOT REAL warm periods, but MYTHS in the LITERATURE!

No, I mulled over that. The grammar is bad and it can be interpreted a number of ways. What is being ignored by everyone is the rest of the email, which clears it up.

“The sceptics and uninformed love to cite these periods as natural analogs for current warming too – pure rubbish.”

The grammar is still not perfect, but it’s clear he’s acknowledging previous warm periods exist, and saying that their use as analogs for the current warm period is “pure rubbish”.
It’s clear he acknowledges previous warm periods in the next paragraph, too.

“Holocene Thermal Maximum” is another one that should only be used with care, and with the explicit knowledge that it was a time-transgressive event totally unlike the recent global warming.

If HTM is “another” warm period, then the previous paragraph was pointing them out, not dismissing them. Otherwise the word “another” makes no sense. And he’s clearly acknowledging HTM as a warm period.
As his published work before and after the quote directly acknowledges the MWP (eg, How unprecedented is recent Arctic warming: A look back to the Medieval Warm Period – Overpeck (1998)) I conclude that he is trying to dismiss not his own work, but what he views as misrepresentations of paleoclimate.
Only way I can see of interpreting the sentence your way is if you completely remove the context of his publications and ignore the other comments he makes in the email. And that may be how the false quote got attached to Overpeck in the first place, if that was indeed who Deming was referring to.

Mosher hates WUWT so much that he even tries to cover for the guilty…and he knows they were guilty of trying to get rid of McIntyre through illicit means. Get rid of possible respect he might glean, get rid of his criticisms, get rid of him. Part and parcel of the same effort by the same people.
( it appears loyalty is a bad word for Mosher)
He fancies himself rubbing shoulders more with the Clintons than with the plain people.

The actual words used are not so important. A desire was expressed – The “Hockey Stick” was produced, and presto – the Medieval Warm Period was got rid of. Surely this is what happened, despite the argument and all the niminy-piminy mincing around which exact words were said by whom. People made things up and the World was the loser, both in terms of Science and Financially. The Lost Years of Gibberish and Nonsense can never be returned, The Wasted Time Debating Balderdash is what irks me the most.

Nick , doing that shows something about you that is not complimentary to say.

Nick, there was not agreement.

“You might disagree with Overpeck, but he clearly is talking about trying to move back towards the data (as he sees it), and away from distortion of the data. Monckton’s paraphrase makes it seem like the opposite, like Overpeck is trying to distort the data.”
——————————————
Rubbish ““I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature. The sceptics and uninformed love to cite these periods as natural analogs for current warming too.”
The sentence clearly states, in order, sceptics misuse of supposed (1.accepted as true but doubtful: accepted, at least by some, as correct, real, or having a quality, but on slender or uncertain evidence; Synonyms: · imaginary · made-up · fictional · invented) warm period terms and myths (Synonyms: legend · fable · saga · fairy story · fairy tale) in the literature.
So an accurate paraphrase is…”I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of imaginary · made-up · fictional · invented warm period terms and fairy tales in the literature. The sceptics and uninformed love to cite these periods as natural analogs for current warming too.”
It is English, and really pretty straightforward. The use of “myth” precludes any other interpretation of “supposed”. The actions of the hockey team are in perfect sync with the Overpeck exact phrase, as well as the paraphrase by Monckton. What Overpeck desires to do is make the MWP into a myth of supposed warm periods, and so preclude any attempt by sceptics to say that the current warming falls within past natural behavior of climate. Nick and Mosh are wrong, Monckton is correct. If the MWP is real, and global, then the null hypothesis is still valid. Te best way to “mortally wound” the sceptics case, is by making the MWP a made up fictional invented myth, which is exactly, precisely and with redundancy what Overpeck called it.
I rest the case.

Barry quotes..”It’s clear he acknowledges previous warm periods in the next paragraph, too.
“Holocene Thermal Maximum” is another one that should only be used with care, and with the explicit knowledge that it was a time-transgressive event totally unlike the recent global warming.”
Sorry, he already called the literatre (not the sceptics use of it) a made up myth. now he backtracks and get zero points here. Why, because the resolution of the proxy regressions is, at best 100 years or greater, so of course shorter periods could well be hidden in the proxy regressions, and not show up. (His entire quotes structure, like much of the CAGW proponents science, is not logical, and a desperate attempt to argue on all sides, as long as they perpetuate the “myth” of “supposed” CAGW.
Now notice I have called CAGW a made up fable, just as Overpeck called the MWP the same. I am clear, as was Overpeck. The fact that at times I also argue strictly on a scientific basis, does not mean I accept CAGW as anything but a fable and a myth. Overpeck’s use of the words supposed, and myth, applied NOT to sceptics, but to the MWP literature.

David A says:

What Overpeck desires to do is make the MWP into a myth of supposed warm periods, and so preclude any attempt by sceptics to say that the current warming falls within past natural behavior of climate

So when you hear somone say that they want to get rid of “myths”, like, say, the “Bigfoot myth”, your first conclusion is that they want to go out and kill Bigfoot? Not that they want to just get rid of the myth itself?
Well, umm, that’s a very creative way to interpret Overpeck’s words, at least.
It amazes me that this is even being argued about. Hmm, well, on the one hand, we could just present Overpeck’s words and let people interpret them how they will, or on the other hand, we could paraphrase it however we prefer, (potentially) completely changing the meaning. “Potentially”, since it seems to be ambiguous enough that there’s disagreement, although it seems pretty clear to me what Overpeck is saying, and it’s not “let’s expunge the MWP from the data record”. You can’t try to expunge what you don’t even believe exists, and Overpeck does not believe that a significantly large MWP exists.
But, hey, people here are all about transparency and honesty, right? So Dana Nucitelli recently gets raked over the coals for misspeaking about Pielke on Twitter (justifiably — it was obviously a mis-speak, but a blatantly incorrect one), but this kind of re-interpretation and mis-speaking gets a free pass?
That sure looks like a double standard. “Honesty and transparency for me, but not for thee”.

Some persons calling themselves scientists never learn that real facts of the warm period in the past can’t be removed….
”Most of the Viking expansion took place during what scientist refer to as the dimatic optimum of the Medieval Warm Period dated ca, A.D. 800 to 1200 (Jones 1986: McGovern 1991); a general term for warm periods that reached chere optimum at different times across the North Atlantic (Groves and Switsur 1991). During this time the niean annual temperature for southem Greenland was 1 to 3°C higher than today.” Julie Megan Ross, Paleoethnobotanical Investigation of Garden Under Sandet, a Waterlogged Norse Farm Site. Western Settlement. Greenland (Kaiaallit Nunaata), University of Alberta, Department of Anthropology Edmonton. Alberta Fa11 1997, sid 40

Every graph I’ve ever seen from the IPCC and Mann has the MWP deleted. So whether the quote is correct, incorrect, or mis-attributed, they DID make the MWP DISAPPEAR.
Funny, that.

The dictionary paraphrase of Overpeck is,…”I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of an imaginary, made-up, fictional and invented warm period terms, and the fairy tales in the literature. The sceptics and uninformed love to cite these periods as natural analogs for current warming too.”
The literature he is referring to sceptics “citing”, is the literature they cited at the time, the scientific literature regarding the MWP, which Overpeck calls a imaginary, made-up, fictional and invented fairy tale “in the literature.”

Waste of time asking Stevnick Stokesher.
His reply is the perfect circlular jerk; “Scientists are those who do science. Science is whatever scientists do.”