Steve McIntyre writes: in Mann Misrepresents the EPA – Part 1:
In today’s post, I will return to my series on false claims in Mann’s lawsuit about supposed “exonerations”. ( For previous articles, see here ^). One of the most important misconduct allegations against Mann – the “amputation” of the Briffa reconstruction in IPCC TAR – was discussed recently by Judy Curry, who, in turn, covered Congressional testimony on the incident by John Christy, who had been a Lead Author of the same IPCC TAR chapter and whose recollections of the incident were both first-hand and vivid.
In one of the major graphics in the IPCC 2001 report, declining values of the Briffa reconstruction were deleted (“amputated” is Christy’s apt term), resulting in the figure giving a much greater rhetorical impression of consistency than really existed. This truncation of data had been known (and severely criticized) at Climate Audit long before Climategate. However, the incident came into an entirely new light with the release of the Climategate emails, which showed that senior IPCC officials had been concerned that the Briffa reconstruction (with its late 20th century decline) would “dilute the message” and that Mann was equally worried that showing the Briffa reconstruction would give “fodder to the skeptics”.
Christy gave the following damning summary of Mann’s conduct as IPCC TAR Lead Author:
Regarding the Hockey Stick of IPCC 2001 evidence now indicates, in my view, that an IPCC Lead Author working with a small cohort of scientists, misrepresented the temperature record of the past 1000 years by (a) promoting his own result as the best estimate, (b) neglecting studies that contradicted his, and (c) amputating another’s result so as to eliminate conflicting data and limit any serious attempt to expose the real uncertainties of these data.
Christy left out a further fundamental problem in the amputation: there was no disclosure of the amputation in the IPCC 2001 report itself.
The impropriety of deleting adverse data in an IPCC graphic was easily understood in the broader world of brokers, accountants, lawyers and fund managers and one on which there was negligible sympathy for excuses. Not only did this appear to be misconduct as far as the public was concerned, the deletion of adverse data in the IPCC graphic appeared to be an act of “omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record” – one of the definitions (“falsification”) of academic misconduct in the NSF and other academic misconduct codes.
Further, both the Oxburgh and Muir Russell reports concluded that the IPCC 2001 graphic was “misleading”.
However, NONE of the inquiries conducted an investigation of the incident. Each, in turn, ignored or evaded the incident. I’ll examine the evasions in today’s post. Today’s post will open consideration of the EPA documents referred to in Mann’s pleadings, a topic that is not easily summarized. Today’s discussion of the EPA documents will only be a first bite.
Read the full essay here, well worth your time: http://climateaudit.org/2014/05/09/mann-misrepresents-the-epa-part-1/
NikFromNYC:
Thanks for the links in your post at May 10, 2014 at 9:15 am.
As you say
So, the Mann deliberately lied when he wrote
All the spliced ‘thermometer’ data is above the ‘proxy’ data. This implies that the recent temperatures were higher than the temperatures at times of the proxy data. However, we now know that implication was false and resulted from difference between the two methods whose results were spliced (i.e. the ‘divergence problem’).
I pointed out that the two methods could not be compared and we now know that is true (i.e. the ‘divergence problem’). Mann wrote his abusive email to refute what I had said.
Richard
Question….since it was “discovered” that there was a problem with the more “recent” proxy data using tree rings (which is supposedly why Mann doesn’t use it after 1980) why wasn’t it widely and logically assumed by the scientific community that the same problem could very well apply to the “past” tree ring proxy data, therefore making the use of it in reconstructions a bad/flawed/stupid idea?
Derek Dinger says:
May 10, 2014 at 3:05 am
In addition to his massive and proven contribution to climate science, Mann serves an additional useful purpose in being the scapegoat for the obsessesive smearing and conspiracy theorizing of the likes of this site.
You’re right. I’ll have to rethink my opinion of Al Capone. After all, didn’t Big Al fund soup lines? (/sarc)
Wot’s the name of that Canadian Mountie character in the cartoon that hunts another one wherever he runs? I think it’s a beagle or something. Poor old Manny.
Pointman.
Pointman – Um, Dudley Doright, Sgt. Preston, or the CBC’s “when I regained consciousness”, Corporal Renfrew?
Derek Zinger,
Still looking for any substance, intelligence, or value in your comment above.
OOps, couldn’t find any….
Aphan:
At May 10, 2014 at 9:42 am you ask
Those who did (including me) were ignored in the IPCC process and ‘shouted down’ on blogs.
The IPCC has dropped the MBH ‘hockey sticks’ but has not overtly rejected them.
Sycophants of Mann refuse to face reality (e.g. see the post from Derek Dinger at May 10, 2014 at 3:05 am in this thread) and still ‘shout down’ any who post the truth on blogs.
Richard
Richardscuortney–your post seems to be one of the most important to date in revealing Mann’s intentions.
NikFromNYC:
“There is a splice but there is also use of a dotted line to indicate it.”
Yes, but the spliced version was used to calculate the “attribution correlations” (plotted in panel d of the figure). In my book that’s at least as bad as the trick (=spliced series was used to calculate the smoothed series) itself.
As posted at Steve M’s site, I noted that the tree ring proxy wasn’t just simply truncated, it was fraudulently given a sharp up-bend to coincide with trends coming forward from the “truncation”. This inflection is not seen in Briffa’s full graph showing the divergence. Scroll down a couple of clicks:
http://climateaudit.org/2014/05/09/mann-misrepresents-the-epa-part-1/
Richard
This is a graphic from one of my recent articles here at WUWT. It graphically illustrates your apples and oranges points.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/clip_image0041.jpg
Paleo proxy is a very coarse sieve through which annual and decadal real world instrumental data easily falls through.
As can be seen, the instrumental temperature is all over the place. However the 50 year centred paleo material dies not even pick up the extreme cold of the LIA that were measured by the instruments. So of course splicing an instrumental record onto a paleo record is going to show a dramatic variation -as it has done in the past-for example see 1690 to 1740.
Phil Jones examined this period and came to the conclusion that natural variability was much greater than he had hitherto believed.
tonyb
Alf:
re your comment at May 10, 2014 at 11:26 am.
In my opinion the ‘climategate’ email involving me which has most importance was from me. It can be read here together with explanation of its importance.
As the link shows, even good reason to review the basis of the AGW-scare was ignored so it is not surprising that mere details about Mann’s supporting ‘evidence’ were not rejected. This is directly pertinent to questions such as those from Aphan in this thread.
Richard
OOps!
I intended “not accepted” but I wrote “not rejected”.
Sorry.
The problem with the IPCC assessment is even deeper than Steve identified as “lack of independence from the underlying literature”. The deeper problem is the literature the IPCC leadership chose to be assessed positively was restricted to that generally supporting a pre-preferred assessment outcome which was structured into the IPCC’s charter.
John
NOTE: this was also posted at CA in the thread “Mann Misrepresents the EPA – Part 1:”
The National Center for Science Education is run by a bigshot in CSI[COP], publisher of Skeptical [I prefer “Scoftical”] Inquirer. What it means is that such capital-S Skeptic organizations are pscience-groupies, mere minions of the mainstream, claquers in the consensus, grazers in the herd of independent minds. As Anthony Standen wrote in Science Is a Sacred Cow,
“Amputation” of contrary data seems to be the stock and trade of those promoting doom and gloom of climate change. And some leading journals seem to accept such partial truths further undermining our trust in the peer reviewed literature. Read How the American Meteorological Society Justified Publishing Half-Truths http://landscapesandcycles.net/American_Meterological_Society_half-truth.html
(from the email link)
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I find the quote Dr. Keller apparently uses as a signature telling.
A scientist may realize what he has found will impact a “culture” but should he be using science to look for a way form the “culture” he desires?
I can see where “yes” could be a valid answer but not when the scientist distorts or rejects the honest science so as to promote his desired “culture” or his own ego.
Snow Mann and Seven Exonerative Dwarves
See off the shipments from the wharves
Of Hockey Sticks,
Bound over the Styx.
===============
If he only used one tree, it means little. Where was the tree growing for starters. Was it deciduous or an evergreen, they have different growth patterns. The distance between rings tend to indicate years that they did not have enough growth or more growth than previous years.
Gunga Din:
re your post at May 10, 2014 at 3:22 pm.
Coincidentally, Jacob Bronowski was the Director of the UK’s Coal Research Establishment (CRE) where I also worked. He made his BBC TV series while CRE Director. Becoming a TV personality gave him fame so he left for America where he conducted lecture tours.
Richard
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richardscourtney,
When you sent your email in July 2000 to Chick Keller (Los Alamos National Laboratory) were you still employed or formally associated with the Coal Research Establishment (CRE)?
The reason I am asking is, by your publicly known CRE association or by your email address, could Mann (and team) have known of your CRE background and could that have contributed to their vehemence?
John
John Whitman:
At May 11, 2014 at 8:00 am you ask me
CRE was part of British Coal (aka National Coal Board, NCB) and was closed when British Coal was closed in 1995.
Hence, CRE had ceased to exist years before the publication of the MBH ‘hockeystick’ and all subsequent discussions of it.
Richard
richardscourtney on May 11, 2014 at 1:43 pm
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richardscourtney,
Thanks for the background and interesting history.
John