Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
We have the ill-fated stillborn Copernicus Special Edition as an example of how those authors went about analyzing the possible effects of astronomical cycles. Let me put up a contrasting example, which is The 1,800-year oceanic tidal cycle: A possible cause of rapid climate change. Heck, it’s even got “cycle” in the title. Please be clear that I am not advocating for this study. or saying that this explains how the climate works. Instead, I am offering it as an example of a reasonable paper showing a real scientific investigation of the effect of sun-moon-earth cycles and conjunctions on the climate. From the abstract:
We propose that such abrupt millennial changes [rapid global cooling], seen in ice and sedimentary core records, were produced in part by well characterized, almost periodic variations in the strength of the global oceanic tide-raising forces caused by resonances in the periodic motions of the earth and moon.
A well defined 1,800-year tidal cycle is associated with gradually shifting lunar declination from one episode of maximum tidal forcing on the centennial time-scale to the next. An amplitude modulation of this cycle occurs with an average period of about 5,000 years, associated with gradually shifting separation-intervals between perihelion and syzygy at maxima of the 1,800-year cycle.
We propose that strong tidal forcing causes cooling at the sea surface by increasing vertical mixing in the oceans. On the millennial time-scale, this tidal hypothesis is supported by findings, from sedimentary records of ice-rafting debris, that ocean waters cooled close to the times predicted for strong tidal forcing.
And here is their Figure 1, showing the peak tidal strengths for the last several hundred years:
So why do I like this analysis of cycles, and yet I was so scathing about the analyses of cycles in the Copernicus Special Edition? The answer is simple: science, science, science.
First off, they make a clear statement of their claim—they propose that periodic changes in the strength of the oceanic tides affect the global temperature.
Next, they propose a mechanism—the strong tides stir up the deeper, colder ocean waters and bring them to the surface, cooling the globe.
Next, they connect the astronomical cycles to the earth through recognized and well understood calculations. There is no fitting of parameters, no messing with fractions. There is no mention of golden ratios, Titius Bode “law” calculations, the music of the spheres, or the planetary Hum. Just mathematical calculations of the strength of the tidal-raising forces, such as those shown in Figure 1. They’ve cited their data source in the caption. Note that what they show is the accurately calculated strength of a real measurable physical force, and not some theoretical superposition of some mystical confluence of the orbital periods of random planets.
And finally, they offer observational evidence to support their claim.
Hypothesis, proposed mechanism, mathematical calculations without tunable parameters, identified data, clear methods, observational evidence … plain old science, what’s not to like.
Now, is their claim right? Do strong tides stir up the oceans and bring cooler water to the surface? I have no clue, although it certainly sounds plausible, and the forces are of the right order of magnitude. I haven’t looked into it, and even if true, it’s a side issue in my world. But it may well be true, and they’ve made their scientific case for it.
Like I said, I offer this simply as an example to assist folks in differentiating between science on the one hand, and what went on in far too much of the Copernicus Special Issue on the other hand.
w.
PS—While code and data as used would have been a bonus, this was published in 2000, which is about a century ago in computer years. However, I think I could recreate their results purely from their paper, in part because the mechanisms and calculations for planetary locations and orbits and tidal forces are well understood. So it’s not like trying to replicate Michael Mann’s Hockeystick paper of the same era, which could not be done until the code was published …
E.M.Smith:
In your post at January 26, 2014 at 8:27 am you say
Sadly, it is now clear that you are not alone in that attitude of “Be the Mirror”, and it has caused the present problem.
People who accept the rules must keep to the rules or suffer the consequences. This is especially true when their breaking the rules harms others. It is NOT relevant whether or not some others got away with breaking the rules. And it is not acceptable for those who suffer the consequences of their having broken the rules to then attempt to pretend they are victims: they are only victims of their own behaviour.
Willis is one whose long-standing campaign for probity has been damaged by rule-breakers. In this circumstance, his reaction has been firm, consistent and – considering the situation – restrained.
People who say they ‘pick and choose’ when and why to obey the rules are not in a good position to complain that Willis is not patient with those who whinge because they are suffering consequences of breaking rules they agree to accept.
Richard
Chris Wright says:
January 26, 2014 at 5:15 am
Perhaps in your world, people who are writing “scientific” papers that are nothing but numerology or 20-parameter curve fits, or people refusing to reveal their data and code, are part of “your own”.
I assure you, in my world those people are none of my own, whoever they are. I do not understand you people standing up in favor of bad science and the concealment of code and data.
All I have called for in this debate is for people to apply the same standards to the authors and editors of the Special Edition that we have called for with Michael Mann and Phil Jones—be transparent, reveal your data and code, don’t pack the peer-review panels with your friends, don’t make unsupported statements about the future. Why is this so contentious? What’s not to like?
I do my best to be absolutely evenhanded in what I ask of scientists. I ask for scientific transparency and scientific honesty and impartial peer review, whether it’s Michael Mann or Nicola Scafetta that is hiding data and code and packing the peer review panesl … and you think I’m “attacking our own”.
Madness … I will call out anyone hiding their data and code, prince or pauper, and anyone who does that is absolutely not one of my own.
Finally, have I been somewhat aggro in this? Yes, I have faced endless opposion of the ugliest kind, including your assertion that somehow I’m attacking my own. Take a look at the opening statements from Scafetta, Jelbring, and Tallbloke … since they walked in the door they have done nothing but abuse me personally. Not my ideas, not my scientific or other claims, but me personally. Not only that, but every anonymous jerk on the internet now wants to jump up and call me nasty names and to tell me how to behave … and to top it off, folks like you who should know better are clutching your pearls and going tut, tut, Willis, you should be much nicer …
From my perspective, the problem is not that I’m too upset. The problem is that you’re not upset enough. Chris and Chiefio and those of you who are so damn concerned about the tone of this discussion, how about you start by calling out Scafetta and Jelbring and Tallbloke for their science, and while you’re at it, how about telling them how you’re so worried about their tone? Where is your great concern about their comments?
Good thing about this debacle? It’s shown me who is really in favor of good science, and who just wants to ignore the scientific questions and be a concern troll and tell me I should be nicer to people doing their best to body-slam me into irrelevance …
w.
Chris Wright says:
January 26, 2014 at 5:15 am
…
First, I didn’t “dismiss any causal relationship”. I simply said that
1. If Solheim wishes to claim a relationship, he needs to do the calculations of significance.
2. He made no such calculations. This whould have been caught by any competent reviewer.
3. As a result, his claim in the paper was scientifically meaningless.
4. I did the significance calculation, and it was suggestive, but NOT scientifically significant. This was confirmed by a cross-correlation analysis. It was also confirmed by the fact pointed out by Dr. Robert Brown, that with only 9 tidal stations used, you need much stronger results to be statistically significant. It was also supported by looking at the lack of a relationship between sunspots and other measures of sea level such as the Church and White data. Finally, it was also supported by the Woodworth study.
In short, the work of Solheim was not science, it was just a pretty picture. It fooled Solheim, and from the sound of it it fooled you as well, but it couldn’t fool the mathematics, and it couldn’t fool Dr. Brown. I didn’t find any comment in the whole thread that claimed that Solheims results WERE statistically significant by some “suitable” method such as you allege exists … well, except for the “Chris’s eyeball” method, which reports signifcance …
Given all of that evidence that the Solheim results were NOT significant, and no evidence that they were significant, I don’t give a flying squirrel what your eyes tell you, Chris. I’m sure you can see faces in the clouds too, as can I … does that mean that there really is a face-making mechanism hidden in the cumulus?
More to the point … Solheim didn’t do any math to establish his case, he just showed the pretty picture that so impresses you. Perhaps that’s “science” on your world. In my world, that’s a joke, and an infallible sign of very shoddy peer review. SO that’s what you are defending … garbage science, and garbage peer review.
You sure that’s the stand you want to take, defending Solheim?
w.
Chris, a final note. You trust your eyeball. So do I. In fact, I do most of my work visually, looking at just such graphs and seeing if there are correlations.
The difference is, I’ve looked at literally thousands of such graphs as Solheim showed, and when I looked at his graph, I thought “Man, it sure looks like a poor correlation to me. I wonder if it is significant?”
That’s what led me to look for the significance calculations, because the relationship looked so weak to my eyes … but there were no calculations. Intrigued, I digitized the data (since it wasn’t publicly archived, bad scientists, no cookies) and did the calculations, and guess what?
I found out my eyeballs were right, the correlation was very weak … so yes, I agree with you that the eyes are critical in this kind of work.
But you need experience as well, because when I started studying the climate, my eyes would have given me the false message you get from the graph, that of a strong correlation.
w.
E.M.Smith,
If this were a physical battle, you may have a point, but this is a battle of ideas.
When you fight with a weak idea, you have given the other side a weapon to use against you.
When you fight with poor ethics, you have given the other side a weapon to use against you.
When you fight with poor logic, you have given the other side a weapon to use against you.
The only way to prevent this is to stick the high ground, in ethics and logic.
DP,
E.M.Smith has moderator privileges here as do I. Willis does not, although he may have abused this a time or two in the past, I do not recall.
Ulric Lyons says:
January 26, 2014 at 5:49 am
Well dang. I was gonna say that I didn’t put much weight on the Jupiter-Uranus synods myself either, and that I always preferred the Mercury-Pluto synods, but unfortunately I hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it … you see, I was waiting to comment until Saturn finished going to the opposite square at five synods before I revealed that particular bit of crucial information, and now you scooped me by publishing first.
However, to avoid your wrath, please note I give you full credit for primacy, you made the connection in your work first, you beat me to it … …
… sigh …
w.
tallbloke says:
January 26, 2014 at 6:38 am
Thanks, tallbloke, but I took a lesson from Nicola Scafetta on this one and refused to release either my code or my data, just as he did. Of course he was publishing in a journal where he’s required to supply his data and code … unless the editor is a friend of his … and I’m just writing on a blog. Not only that, but heck, it’s not even my data, it’s either Holgate’s or Solheim’s data.
However, I can get it for you if you’re willing to wait. You see, I’ve put a release date on my code and data.
What date?
Well, I’ll release it the day after Nicola releases his code and data.
Thank you for your interest in my work.
Best regards,
w.
PS—I do hope, Roger, that you have already realized that I deliberately did not include my data or code in my post, just as Solheim did with his paper in the Special Issue, and just as Scafetta did with his paper in the Special Issue, in the thin hope that you or someone else would ask me for them.
Fortunately, as I’d thought might happen, hubris got the best of you. Instead of noticing that you’d just published a special issue of a scientific journal without requiring that the authors provide code and data as used, you decided to bust me for the exact same scientific crime, and so now you are “astonished” that I would overlook such a basic and vital requirement of scientific transparency.
No need for astonishment, Roger. I didn’t overlook anything. I left it out deliberately it in the almost futile hope that you would complain about it, so that your hypocrisy regarding scientific transparency would be revealed to the world … and by gosh, you came through in the end.
Willis Eschenbach says at January 26, 2014 at 2:10 pm…
In principle I don’t approve of playing games instead of open friendliness but in this case you have been entirely vindicated.
Make it a main post.
Hypocrisy (self-deceit) is the root cause of the moral failures of Climategate.
This is also hypocrisy.
It must be confronted just the same
Go get them, please
Willis
“From my perspective, the problem is not that I’m too upset. The problem is that you’re not upset enough. Chris and Chiefio and those of you who are so damn concerned about the tone of this discussion, how about you start by calling out Scafetta and Jelbring and Tallbloke for their science, and while you’re at it, how about telling them how you’re so worried about their tone? Where is your great concern about their comments?”
Notice also that few criticize your tone when you write open letters or bust on Judith. I noticed nobody complained when I posted on RC demanding Hansen’s code. Nobody complained when we peppered Jones with dozens of FOIA.. ya we fought for the principle of the thing and our cheerleaders found no fault in us. And now I read what these people write and I feel like Im reading climate gate mails again.. guys defending data hiding, defending code hiding, defending pal review. Not holding journals to their rulz, whitewashing bad behavior.. “cool it dudes.”.
Where the hell was Pointsmen and his ilk when you were breathing fire on Hansen, Jones, and Mann? where? nowhere, or cheerleading at best.
Here is the way I look at it. You earned the right to have any damn tone you want. How soon they forget the guy who did the First FOIA. Did they think that fighting spirit wasn’t a part of your character?
Tallbloke
“I’m starting to write my rebuttal to your attack on Professor Jan-Erik Solheim. I looked at your post again to find a link to the data you generated by digitising the plot of Solar Activity vs Holgate’s Sea Level curve, but to my astonishment, it appears you didn’t supply the dataset as supplementary information in your post.”
when you get around to answering the following I’ll be interested
1. What stations did Holgate Use
2. Did the author test the sensitivity to station selection?
3. Since the idea originated on Climate audit have the proper attributions been made.
Asking Willis for his data shows you dont know how to do proper research and documentation.
You are editor of the journal. Go ask the author to supply you with his data. Ask him which stations
he used. you will then have
1. The source data
2. The data as used by your author
That’s the real test. As editor you should have made sure that was in the SI anyways.
Lets see, since Oct 1 youve had 90 days or more to request this
charles the moderator said @ur momisugly January 26, 2014 at 1:45 pm
That has my fullest agreement CTM. Well said…
Willis Eschenbach said @ur momisugly January 26, 2014 at 2:10 pm
That’s just so funny 🙂 I haven’t laughed as much as this week for months.
Willis writes:
“And finally, they offer observational evidence to support their claim.”
From Fig 2 of the paper, 1974, 1770 and 1629 all look like anti-correlations. The second half of the 1770’s were like late 20th century temperatures on CET, and the 1630’s were very warm:
http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1600_1649.htm
Quote:
“They also noted a general tendency for interdecadal warming near 1930, when Saros cycle forcing was weak, and a lack of warming when this forcing was strong near 1880 and 1970, as though cooling near times of strong forcing lingered for several decades, despite the identified events being only single tides.”
Lingered for several decades from 1974?
Pompus Git says a wee bit earlier…..
“That’s just so funny 🙂 I haven’t laughed as much as this week for months.”
Agreed.
I would love to see a Josh cartoon on this. Perhaps Mann and Tallbloke commiserating over a drink.
Or Mann and Scafetta both threatening to sue for defamation.
@ur momisugly Crispin.
Thank you , Crispin. I will investigate it under that title.
“Hatcher divides all effects into two possible sets: those that are caused and those that are uncaused.
“Uncaused effect” is a contradiction in terms. I assume he means “uncaused event/phenomenon”.
“leading ultimately back to a single, causeless effect – the first effect, for example a Big Bang.”
I will be curious to see why he concludes a single uncaused event, rather than multiple uncaused events.
“By demanding logically a cause for this initial effect that produces the universe”
There is no logical requirement for a cause for an event. We usually assume that events have causes, but that is a methodological assumption. And it seems that they usually do, but that is an empirical observation. We are inclined to generalize that observation, but it is based on observations made within the universe. We have no reason to suppose that universes as a whole follow the same laws as items within the universe. (To suppose that is to commit the fallacy of composition.)
“Whatever it was is literally unknowable.”
Then we cannot even know it existed.
“The point about ‘a previous universe’ does not address the point about the initial effect: the sudden existence of first universe.”
That is assuming there was a first universe. There may have been an sequence of universes without beginning. Does it make sense to ask for a cause for that which has always existed? (And I seem to be assuming some sort of hyper-time independent of this universe. Does that idea make sense?)
Please don’t post lies about me in addition to your childish name calling.
Tallbloke, if you are still around. You have stated the reason for no posting of data or code is that you are locked out of Copernicus’s site. I would be happy to spend 13 dollars or so to purchase a domain for you such as PRiP-Sup-materials.net and host an FTP site for you. I would transfer the ownership of the domain to you or anyone you designate immediately upon request so you wouldn’t have to worry about broken links in the future when you move the materials to your own host.
I make this offer in public to be held accountable.
@ur momisugly Poptick
If you can present evidence that my saying “one suspects X” then do so. It wasn’t a lie. I did so suspect. As for childish name-calling (aka mud-slinging): pot… kettle… black.
@RoHa
I can’t do justice to a topic that occupied a brilliant guy for a whole book. I gave the briefest possible description to a topic that is pretty deep. I was given a (turns out to be the original version) copy of the book by a pretty famous guy who said, “You take this, I can’t understand it.” That was an intimidating start.
As for a ’causeless effect’ that is rule out by definition. An effect is a consequence of something caused. Something ‘that just is’ such as an eternal universe that ‘Always Was’ is perhaps listed in a different Set. The book starts off easily enough with a division of All Things into those which are caused and those which are uncaused. As for multiple causes for a single effect, that is an interesting idea which I think is dealt with when everything is later reduced to set theory and the symbols become more arcane!
Have fun.
The relevance of course is the large number of effects on the climate that are attributed rather carelessly to ‘an increase in CO2’ with the expectation that the reader would accept CO2 as the cause and just about anything as the effects: ‘multiple effects, single cause theory’.
As we know from funny websites, there are already hundreds of claimed effects, but especially the ‘on-going and increasing rate of rise in the global temperature’ that isn’t happening.
Robert in Calgary says:
>Some folks have an insane jealousy of Willis, want to knock him down a few pegs but are out of their depth and typically end up making out with the floor by the end.
I certainly hope I am not placed in that category of the knockers. I have a lot of time for autodidacts for personal reasons.
I have been put off as usual by some claims that over-reacting to something, which leads I believe to making overarching replies to same in response, needs a good analogy to show that over-claiming in service the getting people to ‘see the truth’ is bad for business. This doesn’t answer a question to do with the article above, but does have relevance to elevating the claims or responses to get attention. I have friends who really do take this exaggeration to heart and feel that making wild claims is legitimate because the truth, being so much more moderate, will be more easily accepted. Sort of negotiating a price like on Pawn Stars.
Here is my offering:
Mr Newton, what is it you have come up with – a gravity constant or something?
Yes Ferdi, I have been researching this for some time and I published a paper “Principia” currently ‘in press”. You can read it when it comes out. It includes a note on the Gravitational Constant.
What is it?
It is something like 250 feet per second per second, and if CO2 keeps rising from all the land clearing they have started in the American Colonies, it will rise to 300 feet per second or more within 100 years. It is going to cause all sorts of terrible consequences. Eventually people be unable to stand up. Apples will be burying themselves in the ground!
Is it really that high? Wow, it’s a lot worse than I thought. I have done some measurements myself and the value seemed to be a lot closer to 30 feet per second squared. Can I see your calculations?
It is all there in my paper – well the conclusions are. I developed a model of gravity and the extrapolation from a couple of experiments gives a pretty high value. In any case, we need to get people’s attention and in this day and age, what with the ending of the Scottish rebellions, the rise in the cotton trade and all, it is hard to get media space. Please support me by writing to the editor.
But if the value is about 30 don’t you think claiming it is “250 and rising” is a bit of a stretch? That would imply some sort of ‘expanding Earth’ phenomenon. I can’t see people accepting something as preposterous as that.
OK…OK, yes it implies an expanding Earth but no one can measure it accurately. If we don’t issue something alarming every now and then our funding for basic research will dry up. If it is ever shown by observations that 250 is high, just point out that whoever says it does not really know anything about gravity, we do, and that will buy us another lifetime of funding. If you don’t like the principium of ‘exaggeration to make reality look more realistic that it is” I have others. That is after all why my paper is called “Principia”, not “Principium”. In the end we can go with 30, maybe 32. but for the moment its 250, OK? And don’t forget, “and rising”. That’s the money shot.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
January 27, 2014 at 12:09 pm
Thanks, Crispin. I don’t think you are a “knocker”. However, your post makes no sense.
My problem with your post is that you are put off by “some claims that are over-reacting to something”, so you spin an analogy about it …
Let me get this straight. Your complaint in its entirety is that somebody said something in some comment somewhere that you didn’t like?
SRSLY?
I’ve said over and over, if you disagree with something, QUOTE IT! At present, nobody but you has any clue what it is that has you all upset. Well, that’s not entirely true. Our clue is that you are upset by some people who said something somewhere … seriously, Crispin, that’s totally inadequate. Quote what you disagree with and tell use why. Your analogy based on the fact you didn’t like something somewhere was just too painful to read …
w.
@ur momisugly Crispin
I’ve found that I can get a PFD of the book online. I’ll give it a read, but so far it looks like a dressed up version of the old “first cause” argument. Philosophers of Religion (like me) know that one well. It will be interesting to see if he can meet the fundamental objections to the argument.
Oh OK then, I suspect you are shill for Skeptical Science.
Posting factual information fully sourced is not mud-slinging no matter how uncomfortable those facts may be.
Frederick Colbourne says:
January 24, 2014 at 7:19 pm
But they miss the point: the journal was banned to silence a heresy, not because of its quality or because of allowing pal review. That is what the CEO of Copernicus wrote as his reason for closing the journal. I assume Willis and others read the first letter he wrote before he added the charge of “nepotism” (sic).
==============
peer review is almost always anonymous. the charge of nepotism only came about because the authors published the names of those reviewers that were also authors. they were under no obligation to publish these names, and in other magazines they would not be published. so, to me the charge of nepotism doesn’t make sense. I believe it has been mistakenly exaggerated to hide the real cause for cancellation.
to me, by publishing the names of those reviewers that were also authors, my conclusions is that the authors were trying to be above board and open. It was what I thought when I first read the articles and saw that some reviewers were also authors. had they wished to do something underhanded, then why makes the names of the reviewers public? why not simply make all reviewers anonymous as is almost universally done in scientific publishing?
As Keeling’s paper shows, there is a case for orbital mechanics determining earth’s climate on much smaller time frames than is typically assumed by climate science. The question the other papers was trying to answer was whether orbital mechanics plays a part in regulating solar activity. I suspect the solar system has been in existence too long for some synchronization not to have taken place.