In the thread Intelligence and the hockey stick commenter “Robert” challenged a well known quote about the MWP from 2006 by Dr. David Deming in his statement before the Senate EPW committee which is the title of this post.
I thought it was worth spending some time setting the record straight on what the original quote actually was and point out that it has been paraphrased, but the meaning remains the same.
Robert says:
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.”
My reply:
I checked for a citation, and the quote you state is correct:
http://di2.nu/foia/1105670738.txt
From: Jonathan Overpeck
To: Keith Briffa , t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
Subject: the new “warm period myths” box
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 21:45:38 -0700
Cc: Eystein Jansen , Valerie Masson-Delmotte
Hi Keith and Tim – since you’re off the 6.2.2 hook until Eystein hangs you back up on it, you have more time to focus on that new Box. 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.
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. “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.
Thanks for doing this on – if you have a cool figure idea, include it.
Best, peck
–
Jonathan T. Overpeck
Director, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
Professor, Department of Geosciences
Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Mail and Fedex Address:
Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
715 N. Park Ave. 2nd Floor
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
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. Monckton and Montford aren’t specifically at fault in this, as the summed up quote has been around for a long, long, time and it appears to have originated with Dr. David Deming’s statement to the Senate. (see update, it goes back further than that- Anthony)
The conversion to a paraphrase maintains the meaning. “Mortal blow” certainly equates to “get rid of” (as it is often said) or “abolish” as you (and Monckton/Montford) state it, and “we” equates to “I’m not the only one”.
The most important point is that Overpeck thinks the MWP (misuse) should be gotten rid of so that people that don’t agree with his view can’t use it (as citations).
And that, is the real travesty.
[Added] And, by eliminating citations, he effective kills the the existence of the MWP in science, relegating it to an unsubstantiated claim. As we see in related links below, that has not happened.
UPDATE: The room is often smarter than me, and many have more historical experience than I, and for that I am grateful. Dr. Tim Ball points out (as does David Holland) in comments:
With the publication of the article in Science [in 1995], 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.”
He later reiterated this in his presentation to the Senate on 12/06/2006 here
http://www.epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543
Notice he didn’t say who sent the email, but rumours developed that it was Jonathan Overpeck.
As I recall Overpeck denied being the author of the e-mail , which precipitated extensive commentary by Steve McIntyre;
http://climateaudit.org/2010/04/08/dealing-a-mortal-blow-to-the-mwp/
Steve McIntyre points out in his article:
Be that as it may, while Overpeck was concerned that Deming might produce a “fake email” purporting to show Overpeck seeking to “get rid of the MWP”, Overpeck hasn’t challenged the authenticity of the Climategate email in which he aspires to “deal a mortal blow” to the MWP.
Related articles
- Intelligence and the hockey stick (wattsupwiththat.com)
- New paper shows Medieval Warm Period was global in scope (wattsupwiththat.com)
- BREAKING NEWS: CRU’s Jones admits climate data problems, and Medieval Warm Period (briefingroom.typepad.com)
- ScienceMag: Medieval Warm Period global, 0.65 °C warmer than present: ‘The largest ocean was 2 °C warmer than today when ancient civilizations exploded’ (climatedepot.com)
Climatology is not the only discipline that studies the past. Fortuntately there is history and archaeeology and from there we have a flood of factual proof regarding the warm periods of the past. The arrogance displayed is that by silencing any reference to the MWP in climatology it will erase it from all disciplines.
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.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/31/new-paper-shows-medieval-warm-period-was-global-in-scope/#comment-1462792
milodonharlani says: October 31, 2013 at 11:50 am
The evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was global, & that it, the Roman & Minoan WPs & the Holocene Climatic Optimum, or whatever the latest fashion in its nomenclature might be, plus the deglaciation phase prior to it, were also warmer than now has been abundant & growing since Lamb, at least, ie 50 years. The LIA & previous cold periods were also global.
Which is why Mann needed fraudulent “tricks” & apparently intentionally inept statistical techniques or lack thereof to try to show recent warming to be special & scary.
**********
Agreed Milon.
We knew that Piltdown was wrong at the time his papers were published (MBH98, etc.).
I published the following article in E&E in early 2005, in defence of several legitimate climate scientists.
Full article at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/28/the-team-trying-to-get-direct-action-on-soon-and-baliunas-at-harvard/#comment-811913
Natural climate variability trumps global warming extremism.
Regards, Allan
Drive-by shootings in Kyotoville
The global warming debate heats up
Allan M.R. MacRae
[Excerpt]
But such bullying is not unique, as other researchers who challenged the scientific basis of Kyoto have learned.
Of particular sensitivity to the pro-Kyoto gang is the “hockey stick” temperature curve of 1000 to 2000 AD, as proposed by Michael Mann of University of Virginia and co-authors in Nature. Mann’s hockey stick indicates that temperatures fell only slightly from 1000 to 1900 AD, after which temperatures increased sharply as a result of humanmade increases in atmospheric CO2. Mann concluded: “Our results suggest that the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, at moderately high levels of confidence.”
Mann’s conclusion is the cornerstone of the scientific case supporting Kyoto. However, Mann is incorrect.
Mann eliminated from the climate record both the Medieval Warm Period, a period from about 900 to 1500 AD when global temperatures were generally warmer than today, and also the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1800 AD, when temperatures were colder. Mann’s conclusion contradicted hundreds of previous studies on this subject, but was adopted without question by Kyoto advocates.
In the April 2003 issue of Energy and Environment, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-authors wrote a review of over 250 research papers that concluded that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were true climatic anomalies with world-wide imprints – contradicting Mann’s hockey stick and undermining the basis of Kyoto. Soon et al were then attacked in EOS, the journal of the American Geophysical Union.
In the July 2003 issue of GSA Today, University of Ottawa geology professor Jan Veizer and Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv concluded that temperatures over the past 500 million years correlate with changes in cosmic ray intensity as Earth moves in and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. The geologic record showed no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperatures, even though prehistoric CO2 levels were often many times today’s levels. Veizer and Shaviv also received “special attention” from EOS.
In both cases, the attacks were unprofessional – first, these critiques should have been launched in the journals that published the original papers, not in EOS. Also, the victims of these attacks were not given advanced notice, nor were they were given the opportunity to respond in the same issue. In both cases the victims had to wait months for their rebuttals to be published, while the specious attacks were circulated by the pro-Kyoto camp.
*************
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.”
A distant secondary point is that Mosher calling congressional testimony of an eye witness “hearsay” is very ignorant. Monckton is quoting that testimony and it is not hearsay! But as others have said, the point is moot regardless. Overpeck clearly called the “literature” precedent to the hockey stick a “myth” of “supposed warming” which needed to be killed. (The meaning is exactly as Monckton stated)
The fact that Overpeck later, in a scientific paper, admitted the MWP was not a myth, precisely shows how Overpeck, like many CAGW proponents, are politicians first, and only use science as a secondary means to support their politics.
This is the passage that matters.
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, a long post to ignore the word “supposed”, before warm and the word “myth” referring to the literature, and the words “mortal blow” referring to the “myth” of a supposedly warmer world Also you ignore a great deal of scientific work before Lamb, and after. Really I am afraid your words were in vain. http://www.co2science.org/
Barry, however a nice straw man in trying to claim skeptics have only Lamp to support the MWP.
The paraphrase is an accurate summation, but care must be taken regarding using it as a direct quote — which it is not.
RE:Ulric Lyons says:
December 9, 2013 at 3:37 am
“…quote the warm period from early as 600 AD to 1000 AD, which was clearly during a much cooler period for Greenland:
http://snag.gy/BztF1.jpg …”
Using the graph you link to, it looks like Greenland was experiencing some serious cold 600 AD, but began rapid warming after that, and by roughly 750 AD had passed our current temperatures. That actually fits in with the history of when the Vikings first began raiding, and the start of Norse expansion. by 1000 AD Greenland had experienced 250 years of weather warmer than it currently is, and likely had thickets of low, brushy trees in places where it is now barren.
Sorry if I sound nit-picky, but you might want to fine tune your statement. (Leave no loopholes.)
Barry, you ignore…”supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature.” “Supposed”, IE NOT REAL warm periods, but MYTHS in the LITERATURE!
The only way he can kill any use, by the skeptics, of these myths in the literature, is to remove them from the literature.
It is not complicated unless one is blinded by an agenda.
The NY Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style And Usage (838 pages long), p. 278, says:
IIRC, other style guides were even more emphatic about this matter. (It makes the user of such marks more vulnerable to a libel suit., for one thing.)
negrum says:
December 9, 2013 at 4:01 am
What we need is a new punctuation mark, or variant or combination thereof, to flag a paraphrase.
‘Hi Keith and Tim – since you’re off the 6.2.2 hook until Eystein hangs you back up on it, you have more time to focus on that new Box. 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…
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…
Thanks for doing this on – if you have a cool figure idea, include it.’
It would be interesting what his advice was in the previous e-mail. Now, maybe I’m reading into this but what exactly does that last sentence, “Thanks for doing this…if you have a cool figure idea…’, mean? Is a figure idea a graph. Is Overpeck giving his cohorts a wink and a nod?
***
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)?
NIck Stokes
”A public statement? But anyway, that doesn’t sound like he remembers very well. Just one?”
He already said he doesn’t remember very well.
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.
Nick Stokes says:
December 8, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Bollocks! You’re just prancing around. The primary adjective is “supposed”. He wants to stop use of the terms altogether.
Bernie, thanks for the clean summation.
We can see Overpeck anxious to abolish thought of anything other than anthropogenic causes for warming since the late 1800’s, too.
He said @ur momisugly 2009 that it was just IMPOSSIBLE that changes in natural variation or the sun, were drivers of the change in temperature.
Now he gives his agreement with Trenberth on the sun and the budget, in order to support anything that tackles “The Pause”.
Overpeck: IMPOSSIBLE
Tom J wrote,
It might be this one.
Caleb says:
December 9, 2013 at 6:32 am
“Using the graph you link to, it looks like Greenland was experiencing some serious cold 600 AD, but began rapid warming after that, and by roughly 750 AD had passed our current temperatures. That actually fits in with the history of when the Vikings first began raiding, and the start of Norse expansion. by 1000 AD Greenland had experienced 250 years of weather warmer than it currently is, and likely had thickets of low, brushy trees in places where it is now barren.
Sorry if I sound nit-picky, but you might want to fine tune your statement. (Leave no loopholes.)”
I suggest you get a ruler out and zoom in and measure that the cold bottoms out at around 800 AD:
http://snag.gy/BztF1.jpg
Norse settlements in Greenland started in the late 10th century.
Maybe Gleick sent the “fake” email to Deming. He has a history of that sort of thing.
“However, the evidence is not sufficient to support a conclusion . . .” If only that standard was held to the rest of Climate Science, we wouldn’t be having this debate.
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.
its worth remembering that could have been an MWP and still retain AGW as a valid idea .
The ‘need ‘ to lose the MWP was not because the science support this idea , but because they knew that without the ‘unprecedented ‘ claim they had a much harder time selling AGW , because in the end the science on this is very far from ‘settled ‘ Like much in climate ‘science’ , such as the missing heat , it is political ‘need ‘ which is the driving force not data nor facts .