About that graph…

This one:

The title “Battle of the Graphs” certainly lives on, even though it is approaching a decade in age, as there has been a lot of off-topic contention on this WUWT thread as well as a free-for-all bashing over at the “Stoat” a.k.a. William Connolley (who “takes science by the throat”, implying he is some sort of “tough guy”) saying that this graph that appeared in a Telegraph article was erroneous and created by Christopher Monckton.

Based on the simplest available evidence, I was ready to conclude, as were many, that indeed Monckton had created the graph, that it was in error, and that he had refused to admit to any of this. I was ready to censure him myself, just as the over-the-top Stoaters wanted to do, probably so Connolley could direct a new denigrating Wikipedia entry as he is known to do (he’s not allowed to edit Wikipedia pages of living persons anymore, so he directs by proxy). Now, after further investigation I can tell you I was wrong, and so is Connolley.

If Monckton was wrong I certainly would’ve had no trouble pointing this out just as the Stoaters were doing, but I have one advantage that neither Monckton nor the Stoaters have: I have actually worked at a newspaper and I have submitted articles as a guest author to newspapers. So, I am familiar with the artwork process. Further, I have also published a number of articles from Monckton myself here and I am quite familiar with his style of producing graphs.

Thus, I noticed something about the Telegraph article that no one else seemed to.

WUWT commenter Kevin O’Neill, who also frequents Connolley’s website pointed out in this comment the charges against Monckton.

First let’s have a look at the article itself. The URL for it is:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533290/Climate-chaos-Dont-believe-it.html

A screencap of the heading portion is shown below with the highlight done by me in yellow.

Unfortunately the link under the yellow highlight no longer works and so for some it is impossible to check Monckton’s references and calculations that were included with the essay. We’ll get back to that in a moment, please read on.

Here is how the article presented the graph that is in contention, I have screen captured a portion of the original Telegraph article:

Several things immediately struck me as being out of place when I first saw the graph after reading about the contention surrounding it, here is a list.

The style (colors, font, etc) is not anything like I’ve ever seen from Monckton in all the graphs he has submitted to WUWT.
The horizontal lines on the bottom portion of the graph are ~~obviously spaced incorrectly~~ (the 20th century average line looks like it is incorrect on left axis) along with other cues in the plot line indicating to me that they were hand-drawn yet I’ve never gotten the graph from Monckton that was hand-drawn. Everything he has ever sent me has always been from a computer program output, thus the idea of having ~~improperly spaced lines and coordinates~~ a hand drawn plot didn’t make sense to me.
My experience with newspapers told me that this was likely a graph that was prepared by the art department of the UK Telegraph. You see, all major newspapers and even some middle and minor ones have an art department. And, when they get some sort of illustration from a guest author, or data from a government report, they almost always redraw it to fit the style and format of the newspaper. Especially the colors and the fonts.

Just look at any major newspaper in the United States like USA Today when they get in data from say, the Labor Department, they produce their own graphs of that data. They can also make grievous mistakes with such data in the way it is presented such as this article from Charles Apple (who watches newspapers and the graphics and photos they produce) demonstrates:

Obviously, neither the editor nor the artist saw the sexual suggestion in the imagery. I don’t blame the NWS or the Red Cross who provided the data, I blame Doyle Rice and Julie Snider. Note the references at the bottom of the graphic.

Here, USA Today took data from the National Weather Service and the American Red Cross and turned it into what is obviously a ridiculous graphic. It got past the editor, and made it into the final publication.

I noted such references to internal artists, editors, and sources were missing from the UK Telegraph article as seen in the screen cap further above, and it is this omission that I believe led many people to conclude that Monckton produced that graphic.

If you examine other graphics from the UK Telegraph, you will find that they do have such references but they are also similarly designed and of a similar size with similar fonts and colors. For example, look at this graphic from 2005 that has been redrawn, but no mention given of an internal reference to The Telegraph art department:

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4198339/Global-warming-will-bring-cooler-climate-for-UK.html

It is plainly obvious that is a graphic created by the newspaper and not by any scientific entity, otherwise it wouldn’t have the jagged shadow edges. So, the question surrounding the graph allegedly produced by Christopher Monckton is; did he included in the original list of references that he provided the Telegraph in that now missing link at the top of the original article? I’m happy to say I have found that original source file that Monckton provided to the Telegraph. It was lodged in the Wayback machine. I was able to find it simply by putting in the correct URL of the original Telegraph article as shown below:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090301000000*/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533290/Climate-chaos-Dont-believe-it.html

When you pull up the archive from 2009, the link appears for the PDF file of Monckton’s references but unfortunately it gives a 404 as seen below:

Oddly though if you click on the LEFT MOST vertical lines (circa 2007/2008) in the timeline above, the PDF will actually download, and that is what I did. For those of you that would doubt this you can go here and try it yourself:

Click to access warm-refs.pdf

And for posterity, here is a local link to the PDF of the References Monckton provided for the Telegraph article in 2006: warm-refs

If you open that PDF file you will notice a number of graphs and references including the graph from IPCC section 7 graph C. McIntyre speaks of its source here.

But no trace of the exact artwork combination as presented above appears in the Telegraph article is in Monckton’s reference PDF file, clearly indicating that the telegraph art department redrew that 1990 IPCC graph and the hockey stick graph, changing the top-bottom order. Below is page 6 from Monckton’s “warm-refs” PDF file, showing those graphs:

While I was ready to condemn Monckton for producing a sloppy graph like many of these Stoaters, it is now abundantly clear to me that he did not draw it and the claims by these people are erroneous and simply mendacious.

Stoat/Connelley is simply flat wrong, and the website that cited Monckton’s graphic as an example of what not to do needs to clarify that it was the newspaper that made the errors, that the source graphs came from the IPCC, and that Monckton drew none of them.

All this breastbeating over something that can be simply researched as I have done is just a waste of everyone’s time.

Monckton prepared a rebuttal as well which I present below.

=================================================================

There comes a point …

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Those of us who have raised questions about the magnitude of Man’s influence on climate have become used to the expensively funded, often carefully co-ordinated campaigns of personal vilification organized by adherents of the Climatist Party Line. Occasionally we growl a little. More often we refuse to be distracted. We carry on.

The purpose of these relentless attacks on us is not only to do us down but also to frighten off third parties who might otherwise find the courage to speak out and express their own doubts about the Party Line.

But there comes a point when it is necessary to take action. I hope no one will disagree that that point is reached when allegations of lying or fabrication are made; when the allegations are unquestionably false; when they are persisted in despite requests to cease and desist; and when they are widely disseminated in a manner calculated baselessly to cause maximum reputational damage.

Recently a commenter at Jo Nova’s blog posted several comments to the effect that I had “faked” a graph. I quickly asked Jo to replace them with a note to say legal proceedings were in train. Enough, I had decided, was enough.

Here is the diagram I was supposed to have “faked”:

This surely blameless diagram appeared alongside an article I had written for the Sunday Telegraph on 5 November 2006, the first time I ever went public on the climate question. The article went live on the internet at midnight on a Saturday night. Two hours later the Telegraph’s website crashed, for 127,000 people had tried to access the article.

Now, it is not the custom of UK newspapers to ask their contributors to illustrate their articles. As usual, I was not consulted and offered no advice on the matter, and had no hand in their production and no foreknowledge that they were to be used. The graphs are not labeled as having been sourced from the IPCC (indeed, one of the graphs has the shadow of a hockey stick overlaid on it and marked as the “IPCC ‘hockey stick’”, making it blindingly obvious that it is not an official IPCC’s graph).

The Telegraph’s graphs are simple and, it seems to me, harmless schematics illustrating the difference between the representations of 1000 years’ global temperatures as they appeared in the IPCC’s 2001 (top) and 1990 (bottom) reports.

The graph from p. 202 of the IPCC’s 1990 report now looks like this:

With the article I supplied some background material for Telegraph readers on its website. In that material, the IPCC’s 1990 graph also appeared, mistakenly captioned as 1996 rather than 1990. The graph as I reproduced it looked like this:

What I had not realized until very recently was that for several years allegations had been circulated all over the place to the effect that I had fabricated the graphs that had appeared in the Sunday Telegraph article. Yet not one of those who had made these allegations had ever contacted me to verify the facts. And not one of them had said what was wrong with the Telegraph’s graphs anyway.

Perhaps the worst of the many allegations of dishonesty against me appeared on a “science education” website, where an entire section under the bold heading “Misuse of scientific images” was devoted to the Telegraph’s graphs.

The offending section contained the following untruths:

Ø that in that article I had “disputed the concept of climate change” (Not that old chestnut again! I had accepted the concept but queried its likely magnitude);
Ø that the Telegraph’s graphs were instances of “poor use of graphical displays” that “can confuse and obscure data” (No, they neatly showed the main point: in 1990 the medieval warm period and little ice age were shown clearly, but by 2001 both had gone, and a sharp uptick in the 20^th century had been added);
Ø that I had “created the [1990] graph on the bottom using different calculations that did not take into account all of the variables that climate scientists used to create the top graph” (No, I had not created either graph or done any calculations for such a graph);
Ø that I had deployed “common techniques used to distort visual forms of data – manipulating axes, changing one of the variables in a comparison, changing calculations without full explanation – that can obscure a true comparison” (No, none of the above); and
Ø that the article had been published in the Daily Telegraph (No, the Sunday Telegraph, and that suggests the website had never seen the original article but had picked up the libel from somewhere else).

I only discovered that this spectacularly inaccurate and profoundly damaging infestation of allegations when the commenter at Jo Nova’s site who had accused me of “faking” the graph mentioned on his own blog that I had not objected to the libel as it appeared on the science-education website. I had not objected because I had not known about it. No one at that website had thought to check any of the facts with me, or, as far as one can tell, with anyone else.

In short order a letter before action was sent to the website, which promptly did the right thing and took out the entire section, though there are indications that attempts are being made in some quarters – unsuccessfully so far – to get them to put it back up again.

I gave the commenter at Jo Nova’s website who had accused me of “faking” the graphs several chances to retract and apologize. Instead, he and several others sneeringly doubled down by accusing me of “lying” when I had said the graphs at the Telegraph website had not purported to be, and had not been labeled as, IPCC graphs.

They also alleged that the graph in my background materials accompanying the Telegraph article was “not the same graph” as that from the IPCC’s 1990 report: in effect, that I had “faked” that one as well. Judge that for yourselves from the two monochrome versions of the graph above. There seem to me to be no material differences, and I think it would be hard for the defendants to convince a court that there were any.

So I am going to court. My lawyers say the libels are plain and indefensible. They comment additionally that no judge would regard the schematics in the Telegraph (whoever had drawn them) as significantly misrepresenting the difference between the 1990 and 2001 reports’ images of the past millennium’s global temperature anomalies. As far as they can see, there is not a lot wrong with the graphs in any event.

I have told this story not only because some commenters here have been unwise enough to repeat in threads here the allegations they have made elsewhere but also because I thought it might be time to reveal the steps we have to take on an almost weekly basis to try to stem the tide of false allegations directed at us.

Nor am I by any means the only victim. For years, this shadowy Propagandaamt has been tampering with Fred Singer’s Wikipedia page to allege that he believes in Martians.

Niklas Mörner, the sea-level expert, has had his page got at on the ground that he sometimes dowses for water or other underground treasure. My late father once did that for the Maltese Government, and found three lost Punic tombs and a fine marble head of Seneca from the first century AD. My drawing of it (in the day before digital cameras) is probably still to be found somewhere in the Museum of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge. But I never had the knack for dowsing myself.

A pressure-group founded and funded by Prince Charles is prone to intervene to try (unsuccessfully, the last time they tried it on me) to prevent the publication of skeptical scientific papers in British learned journals.

A team of paid hacks telephones the Chancellor and the Dean of the Faculty at every university at which skeptics are invited to speak. About half the time, they succeed in getting us disinvited.

Journal editors are sacked for printing papers by skeptics.

However much one might hope that scientific discourse can be conducted in an open atmosphere of sensible dialog, the truth is that on the climate it can’t, because the extremists won’t play fair. The Politburo are determined to keep the scare going for just a little longer, till they can get the Treaty of Paris safely signed by all nations in December 2015.

So I am going to court to defend myself and, in so doing against the constant barrage of falsehoods told in support of the Party Line. We went to court against Al Gore because his movie was poisonous political propaganda dressed up as science.

We won. Nothing else but a court case would have worked. It was only when the department of education in London were confronted with 80 pages of scientific testimony, and knew that that testimony would stand up in court against all their falsehoods and evasions, that they caved in and settled, paying $400,000 to the plaintiffs and undertaking to circulate 77 pages of corrective guidance to every school in England.

In the present case, the other side has blinked thrice. On the website of my defamer, there is a nervous little note that he will not give me his name and address unless I answer various impertinent questions of his. The court will have no patience with any nonsense of that sort.

And there are now various postings at the same blog, again rather nervous, saying that perhaps they could plead that I don’t have a reputation and they can accuse me of whatever they like.

They will be unwise to take that line. For if they say I have no reputation they have to be able to come up with evidence that any material detrimental to my reputation on which they may try to rely is true. And most of it is no more accurate than their accusations that I “faked” a graph that I had plainly not faked. If they waste the court’s time with point after point that has nothing to do with the case at hand, they will merely aggravate the damages they will have to pay.

Finally, the perp has been unwise enough to admit that at the time when he made his allegation of “fakery” he did not know whether I had “faked” the graph or not. In the courts, to make a damaging and untrue allegation not knowing whether or not it is true is as culpable as making it when one knows it is not true. And there is no defense once that admission has been made. It has been made.

There is a curious and touching notion among some skeptics that, since the truth will of course prevail in the end, we should persevere with the scientific argument but not take the defamers and the scamsters to court. The feeling is that using the courts somehow isn’t cricket.

Sometimes, though, it’s necessary to play hardball. Being Valiant for Truth is not for wimps.

================================================================

UPDATE:

From comments, Steve McIntyre finds another version of the Lamb/IPCC AR1 1990 graph, which looks to me to be much closer to the graph used in the Telegraph article. This graph does NOT appear in Monkton’s PDF.

He writes in a comment:

The lower panel of the Telegraph diagram appears to have derived from (what appears to be) a variation of the Lamb graphic, a variation that I had not noticed until now. The variation appears in the following blog posts (and visually matches almost exactly):

http://drtimball.com/2011/they-are-still-trying-to-rewrite-climate-to-show-current-conditions-are-abnormal/

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2009/12/from-mann-paper-in-nature.html

Neither blog post provides a citation for the figure, but there are clues that should enable its exact provenance to be tracked down fairly quickly. It appears to be from a book about European climate and have been developed by Lamb. It is unclear why the Telegraph would have used this variation instead of the IPCC 1990 variation, but doubtless we will find out in due course.

UPDATE2:

Nick Stokes adds in comments (bold mine):

There is a version of that graph at the John Daly site here. The article does not seem to be dated, but Daly is indicated as the author, which would make it 2004 or earlier. No source given.

Here is the graph from John Daly’s website, listed as figure 4:

And here is the Metadata, dating the creation of it precisely to Feb 10, 2004, two years before Monckton’s article in the Telegraph.

(right click on image at Daly’s website here to verify yourself)

Nick Stokes adds in a second comment:

Steve McIntyre says: July 3, 2014 at 12:12 pm

“The lower panel of the Telegraph diagram appears to have derived from (what appears to be) a variation of the Lamb graphic, a variation that I had not noticed until now.”

Here, on the Wayback machine, is a version from 2001 on the John Daly site.

And the screencap:

Since Daly’s graph is a near perfect match for the one in the Telegraph, and appears as far back as April 21, 2001, and Monckton did not provide it in his PDF to the Telegraph, I’d say “case closed”.

UPDATE3:

There is some whingeing from Kevin O’Neill in comments that Figure 7.1c from IPCC AR1 WG1 chapter 7 (available here: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_07.pdf ) was not “faithfully” reproduced in my article, even though I made a reference to a technical discussion at Climate Audit on that specific graph and the exact figure appears no less than 3 times in the essay split between my own and Monckton’s

If you open that PDF file you will notice a number of graphs and references including the graph from IPCC section 7 graph C. McIntyre speaks of its source here.

To satisfy such whingeing, here is the exact page from IPCC AR1 WG1 chapter 7, followed by a magnified view of figure 7.1 (including graphs A,B, and C) in case Mr. O’Neill wants to claim “a magnified version is needed for readers with poor eyesight” as part of his game. I challenge him and readers to find any material difference between the graphs below taken directly from the IPCC WG1 Chapter 7 page 202 and those in the essay.

Magnified figure 7.1abc:

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Phil Clarke

July 6, 2014 1:59 pm

Thank you for all your anti-Monckton assertions. Since I do not click on blogs like Mann’s, you would do better to post whatever examples you want to cite here.
DBS – Looks like Margaret has a point, you’re going to dismiss without giving any reason any evidence that contradicts your worldview. One out of eight links was to RealClimate, and I provided inline more than enough examples of His Lordship stating falsehoods to make counting the spoons after he’s left the party a very good idea.
You have a personal vendetta, an axe to grind, and so you cite differences of opinion or point of view as “lies”. Despicable on your part.
Ah the difference of opinion thing again, strange that Monckton’s ‘differences of opinion’ all seem to go in the same direction, such as the opinion stated by his SPPI that the piece His Lordship authored for a newsletter on the APS website, and in which Arthur Smith found over 100 errors (linked above) was in fact ‘Mathematical proof that there is no “climate crisis” […] in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 46,000-strong American Physical Society”
Monckton states that the article was reviewed by Al Saperstein… but wait
“I spoke to Al Saperstein of Wayne State University in Michigan, one of two co-editors of Physics & Society, the offending newsletter. He stressed that that the article was not sent to anyone for peer-reviewing. Saperstein himself edited it. “I’m a little ticked off that some people have claimed that this was peer-reviewed,” he said. “It was not.”
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2008/07/now-will-you-publish-my-paper-showing.html
Saperstein was the guy the peer said peer-reviewed the peer’s paper, which paper was, it goes without saying, peerless nonsense.
explain to us how Monckton’s science is wrong.
Already been done, many times over by better scientists and science communicators than me, but as you seem so click-averse, to take the central claim of his APS paper that climate sensitivity is a lot smaller than the IPCC’s value, he uses the correct formula
ΔTλ = ΔF2x κ f
where
ΔTλ This is the change in temperature than should be expected from a doubling of CO2 levels.
ΔF2x This is the “forcing”, or the change in the energy balance at the top of troposphere, which results from a doubling of CO2 levels. It has units of Watts/m2.
κ This is the “base sensitivity”, or the expected response of the Earth’s temperature, per unit forcing. It has units of K W-1 m2.
f This is a dimensionless multiplication factor, capturing the effect of various climate feedbacks to amplify or damp the temperature response.
To get his number Monckton amongst other ‘adjustments’ divides the forcings by three. (equation 17) To quote ‘Duae Quartunciae’
That’s just surreal. There’s no basis to reduce the forcing here. It’s the temperature response that is involved. He gives a vague appeal to Lindzen (2007), Taking greenhouse warming seriously, in Energy & Environment 18 (7-8). But that paper does not propose any reducing in forcing; only to sensitivity… on roughly the same dubious basis of limited troposphere warming.
Not content with that Monckton also divides the temperature change by half on the basis of McKitrick (2007). But this (disputed) paper only applies to land, Monckton applies the adjustment to the whole globe.
I’ve already listed Arthur Smith’s list of errors – those with a less closed mind can find DQ’s full critique here http://duoquartuncia.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/aps-and-global-warming-what-were-they.html and Gavin Schmidt’s here http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/07/once-more-unto-the-bray/
Anyone taking Monckton’s ‘science’ on trust, loses the right to call themselves ‘sceptical’, or so it seems to me.

dbstealey

July 6, 2014 3:13 pm

Phil Clarke,
Ask any editor in the world if writers make mistakes. The answer is that they do, all the time, and a lot. I regularly make errors like that, and no doubt you do, too. Every writer does.
Every statement I have ever read regarding Lod Monckton and “lying” amounts to nothing more than ad hominem attacks. You, like many others who cannot refute the science, fall back on your personal attacks. It is reprehensible. If you can show where it has been adjudicated that someone lied, then that is acceptable. Short of that, it is just a scurrilous ad-hom attack. I suspect that’s all you ever had. Prove me wrong.
An ad-hom opinion is far different from lying, which is Ms Hardman’s accusation. Note that Hardman has never posted her ‘long list’ of ‘lies’ since she made her accusation, despite pretending that she has it at her fingertips. Bearing false witness is serious, and nothing you have written is anything other than being an apologist for that. If you have your own ‘long list’ of putative ‘lies’, then post them right here. I for one am not taking your reading assignments on other blogs, especially incredible ones like SS. My time is more important than that. Anything you post had better be verifiable as a “lie” and adjudicated as such, and not as a difference of scientific opinion that you do not agree with, or differences in culture, or governmental opinions. We know what a lie is. A lie, for example, is claiming that you possess a long list — and then using endless excuses to avoid posting it. You are doing the same thing, attacking by vague implication. Once again: prove he was lying. If you can.
Next, the actions of Planet Earth support Lord Monckton’s view, and not the IPCC’s. The real world does not support your belief. Global warming has stopped. Therefore, climate sensitivity to ∆CO2 must be far lower than what is claimed by the UN/IPCC — which is a government body pretending to be a scientific body. The IPCC’s marching orders involve determining the human causes of global warming. With a remit like that, of course they will find what they are well paid to find.
Argue all you like, it is amusing to skeptics, because the real world flatly contradicts what you are trying to sell. If you admitted the truth: that there is no empirical evidence showing that CO2 causes runaway global warming, then you would have no reason to continue arguing. In fact, you have already lost the science debate, which is ipso facto why your only remaining argument consists of ad hominem attacks.
Some minuscule warming is beneficial. More CO2 is a good thing. The only reason to continue your anti-science arguing is either because you have your ego invested in your new religion, or you are getting some sort of payoff.
The facts show conclusively that the “climate change” scare was a false alarm. But like Margaret Hardman, you are incapable of admitting that you were wrong. That is either devious, or crazy. Maybe both.

Simon

July 6, 2014 3:35 pm

Phil Clarke
Firstly can I say your two (main) responses here have been a treat to read. I have been aware of many of the points you raised about Monckton, but not all.
Secondly (and sadly) dbstealey’s response to you is about as good as he gets. You have outlined a number of times our friend Mr Monckton has made significant errors in his work, but you also detailed an article that quoted Mr Monckton admitting he lied to promote his puzzle and so make money. In any real persons book, that is dodgy stuff. ( In my opinion….The fact Monckton seems to think it is ok to do this, says volumes about him)
So what happens? DB addressed none of your specific points, he (to deflect that he had no response) just moves on to attack someone else who till this point has not provided a list. (I suspect one is coming though) Then he moves to his usual rant about there being no GW. If nothing else he is consistent.
Thanks again and looking forward to more of your posts.

Scott Wilmot Bennett

July 6, 2014 6:14 pm

I got a surprise this morning when I overlaid the Lamb/Daly graph and the Telegraph graphic illustrated in the head post.
The graphs are identical except for aspect ratio.
I discovered this by adjusting the height independently of the width, resulting in a compressed temperature axis in the Lamb/Daly graph.
It is clear to me that this is the source of the graph as Anthony has suggested.
And this in fact is the way it was made (Adjusting the aspect ratio of the source graphic).
The spacing of the horizontal lines clinched it for me.
The lines of the temperature axes line up exactly and the unusual origin, starting at 8.5 is explained by the Lamb/Daly graph which begins at 8.25 with only every second line labeled.
I have put together a short animated gif that illustrates this perfect mapping.
http://oi59.tinypic.com/25j9gn8.jpg
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=25j9gn8&s=8#.U7jO0yg9Vtk
[Thank you. .mod]

dbstealey

July 6, 2014 6:46 pm

Simon says:
You have outlined a number of times our friend Mr Monckton has made significant errors in his work…
No, he hasn’t. Try reading before posting, you might learn something. All Phil Clarke did was link to some incredible blogs. And “outlined” is a weasel word. Clarke made some vague assertions, and you swallowed the bait.
Next: exactly what “significant errors in his work” has Mr Monckton made? Don’t waste our time with sad links to sad blogs. In your own words, please.
Next, Monckton specifically did not admit that he lied. So you are either lying about it, or you are an ignoramus. Try reading the source before posting.
Finally, Simon sez:
DB addressed none of your specific points
In fact, I addressed the only point that matters: the alarmist cult has been consistently wrong about everything. Global warming stopped 17+ years ago. Where is your god now?
As to Clarke’s other points, what would they be, exactly? Speak for yourself. I don’t respond to links thrown out as if they mean anything, and I don’t do homework. Explain for yourself what those points are — not with links to other blogs, but in your own words. If you can.
Run along now back to your thinly-trafficked alarmist echo chamber blog, where a handful of swivel-eyed alarmists mutually head-nod whenever they read something emotionally satisfying. Here, we discuss specific facts. Try that for a change — it will be a first.
==============================
Scott Wilmot Bennett,
Thank you for those charts. They thoroughly debunk the wild-eyed notion that the charts in question are materially different. Anthony was right as usual: this is a tempest in a teapot, because it is all the alarmist cult has. They are running around in circles like Chicken Little, pointing at an insignificant graph and clucking that the sky is falling. But it is only a tiny acorn.

Robert in Calgary

July 6, 2014 7:27 pm

Phil Clarke? Would that be alarmist troll Phil Clarke?
Ah, yes it is.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/26/quote-of-the-week-myles-allens-failure-to-communicate/
As our host commented in May 2012 –
“I’m sure our UK troll supreme Phil Clarke will bring his famous expert consultancy services to bear in comments to tell us how we’ve all misinterpreted this as he’s done in previous comments here. /sarc”

Simon

July 6, 2014 8:23 pm

dbstealey
“Next, Monckton specifically did not admit that he lied. So you are either lying about it, or you are an ignoramus. Try reading the source before posting”
Direct quote from Mr Monckton.
“I was selling the house anyway and they asked me if I would be willing to tell people I was selling the house because I was afraid somebody might solve the puzzle too fast. I said ‘yes’. They said, ‘Don’t you mind being made to look an absolute prat’, and I said, ‘No – I’m quite used to that’. History is full of stories that aren’t actually true. We sold shed-loads of extra puzzles and I made an handsome profit – and I sold the house as well.”
I’d call that a lie. What would you call it?

Robert in Calgary

July 6, 2014 8:40 pm

Simon seriously. That’s it?
How scandalous. /sarc.

F. Ross

July 6, 2014 9:37 pm

Simon says:
July 6, 2014 at 8:23 pm
“…
I’d call that a lie. What would you call it?”
Advertising.

dbstealey

July 7, 2014 1:07 am

Hi F. Ross and Robert,
Simon is undoubtedly sitting in his mom’s basement, furiously typing away after reading barry bickmore’s anti-Monckton polemics. But Simon left out this ‘direct quote’ from Lord Monckton:
“I did not admit to lying… it is a matter of record that I sold my house, having admittedly taken full advantage of the publicity opportunity that the circumstances of the sale presented, and paid the prize in full.”.
Simon says he “lied”. But by carefully cherry picking what he posted, and leaving the quote above out, Simon misrepresented the comment. Shame on Simon. He is getting into Margaret Hardman territory… and speaking of Margaret, where is she? Busy researching her “lengthy list”, perhaps?
Simon can re-read bickmore’s nonsense to find Lord Monckton’s comment, but it is tedious reading pages of those ad hominem rants. They have nothing whatever to do with either the graph, or with the science debate — which the alarmist cult won’t discuss, because they don’t have the facts on their side.
There is also a reference by über-troll Phil Clarke, in which he claims that Lucia doesn’t agree with Monckton. But in large, bold font Lucia writes:
Oddly, I agree the IPCC model’s projections look high!
In other words Lucia agrees with Monckton’s view. Sorry, Phil.
I could go on, but everything these jamokes write is ad hominem nonsense. They lost the science debate decisively, so now they think that by piling on the man they can score some points. As if.

Robert Clark

July 7, 2014 1:27 am

Back to important matters, the question of the Medieval Warm Period is fundamental to the question of whether the present warming trend is unprecedented AND whether it would have dangerous effects. It is quite notable that prior to the global warming scare the existence of the MWP was well accepted among climate scientists.
It is only now that supporters of AGW deny its existence. In that sense they could be referred to as climate “deniers”.
Bob Clark

William Connolley

Reply to Robert Clark

July 7, 2014 1:49 am

> It is quite notable that prior to the global warming scare the existence of the MWP was well accepted among climate scientists.
Or so you say, but you offer no evidence. What you seem unable to face up to is that science progresses: there was early work, largely based around conditions in Europe. Subsequent research has found a more mixed picture. But you cling to the Olde Wayes.

Scott Wilmot Bennett

July 7, 2014 2:55 am

Re: Medieval Warm Period
This is my proof to win the $30,000 so don’t steal it! 😉
Global climate change requires that the MWP (Its existence is uncontested) was not global in extent. However, if this argument is true, it would give the lie to the notion of global climate* change. If the ‘climate change’ of the MWP wasn’t global, how could climate change be said to be global! You have to think about this a little but it is logically water tight (Both deductively and inductively IMHO).
This is not a semantic argument, it could be fully fleshed out.
*climate being > 30 years of weather

PJ Clarke.

July 7, 2014 2:55 am

Thanks Simon. Seems the policy here is living up to its ‘no censorship’ banner.
Dbs – Margaret’s exact form of words was ‘economical with the truth’, which has a pedigree which you can Google. Monckton is too smart to tell outright porkies very often (sorry, Uk Slang Porky Pie=Lie), but one can be dishonest without explicitly stating something that one knows to be untrue, I detailed and supported the different forms of Moncktonian mendacity above. It is nearer to propaganda than overt falsehood.
As for significant errors, you are seemingly Ok with a completely arbritrary division by three in forcings and applying a land-only adjustment to the entire globe (inter alia). Or did I get that wrong? That speaks a lot about your ‘scepticism’.
Only the monarch can make a definitive ruling on the matter. Differences of opinion cannot be arbitrarily classified as “being economical with the truth” [AKA: lying].
That is not actually the case, and the HoL thing is a distraction, but let us look at the process and see where it leads. Briefly: UK laws are enacted as Acts of Parliament. An Act starts life as a Bill, goes through several readings in the House of Commons and the Upper House, at the end of which is is voted upon. If it passes the vote the final step that passes the Bill into law as an Act of Parliament is agreement by the Monarch, the Royal Assent. This is largely symbolic however as a minimum it means that the monarch is aware of the Act.
In November 1999 Queen Elizabeth granted Royal Assent to the House of Lords Act. This could hardly be more explicit: ‘
Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
So, if Lord Monckton is claiming membership of the basis of his hereditary peerage, then he is disagreeing with the express will of Parliament and the Monarch.
Sorry dbs, you’re wrong again.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/34/introduction

PJ Clarke.

July 7, 2014 6:02 am

Monckton’s Key facts about global temperature, and Phil’s 😉
Ø The RSS satellite dataset shows no global warming at all for 214 months from September 1996 to June 2014. That is 50.2% of the entire 426-month satellite record.
UAH shows warming at a rate of 0.8C / century over this ‘pause’.
Ø The fastest measured centennial warming rate was in Central England from 1663-1762, at 0.9 Cº/century – before the industrial revolution. It was not our fault.
The CET series is not fit for this purpose until around 1770. From 1659 to October 1722 the monthly values were stated to a precision of the nearest half-degree C, sometimes 1C.
Ø The global warming trend since 1900 is equivalent to 0.8 Cº per century. This is well within natural variability and may not have much to do with us.
There is no evidence anywhere in the paleo record of a rise in global temperatures at this rate.
Ø The fastest warming trend lasting ten years or more occurred over the 40 years from 1694-1733 in Central England. It was equivalent to 4.3 Cº per century.
See above re CET. It was measured indoors, or inferred from weather diaries or infilled with data from the Netherlands. And it has not been demonstrated that CET is a good proxy for global.
Ø Since 1950, when a human influence on global temperature first became theoretically possible, the global warming trend has been equivalent to 1.2 Cº per century.
No. CO2 may have been responsible for some warming earlier than this.
Ø The fastest warming rate lasting ten years or more since 1950 occurred over the 33 years from 1974 to 2006. It was equivalent to 2.0 Cº per century.
Nope. See RSS 1991-2006 – 2.7C/century http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/hadcrut4gl/from:1990/to:2006/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1991/to:2006/trend/plot/rss/from:1991/to:2006/trend/offset:0.2
Ø In 1990, the IPCC’s mid-range prediction of the near-term warming trend was equivalent to 2.8 Cº per century, higher by two-thirds than its current prediction.
Yes, the IPCC FAR did forecast a 1C increase by 2025 compared to 1990 under ‘BAU’, however the actual forcings ran substantially below BAU, nearer to IPCC scenario C or D which had a predicted warming of 0.1C / decade.
Ø The global warming trend since 1990, when the IPCC wrote its first report, is equivalent to 1.4 Cº per century – half of what the IPCC had then predicted.
Near enough on the observed, if not the predicted.
Ø In 2013 the IPCC’s new mid-range prediction of the near-term warming trend was for warming at a rate equivalent to only 1.7 Cº per century. Even that is exaggerated.
The definition of near-term changed for AR5, it projects an increase of 0.3 to 0.7C in the period 2016-2035 relative to average of 1986-2005, a range of 0.1C to 0.23C/decade.
Ø Though the IPCC has cut its near-term warming prediction, it has not cut its high-end business as usual centennial warming prediction of 4.8 Cº warming to 2100.
This must mean RCP8.5, the most extreme scenario, and Monckton has cherry-picked the top limit, the actual IPCC value ‘most likely’ is 3.7 with a range of 2.6 to 4.8C.
Ø The IPCC’s predicted 4.8 Cº warming by 2100 is more than twice the greatest rate of warming lasting more than ten years that has been measured since 1950.
No. that calculation was wrong.
Ø The IPCC’s 4.8 Cº-by-2100 prediction is almost four times the observed real-world warming trend since we might in theory have begun influencing it in 1950.
But the most likely value – for the most extreme scenario – is just over two times the observed, and the scenario shows acceleration over the century.
Ø Since 1 January 2001, the dawn of the new millennium, the warming trend on the mean of 5 datasets is nil. No warming for 13 years 5 months.
But the uncertainty range in such a short series also embraces the warming trend predicted by the models.
Ø Recent extreme weather cannot be blamed on global warming, because there has not been any global warming. It is as simple as that
Surface air temperature is but one metric, the amount of energy in the climate system has been growing and its distribution changing.
Note that there are errors and distortions in Monckton’s ‘key facts’, but nothing one could describe as a ‘lie’, but neither is this list balanced, complete or accurate.

dbstealey

July 7, 2014 6:20 am

Scott Wilmot Bennett,
There is a mountain of evidence proving the worldwide existence of the MWP. Connolley is just an old blinkered propagandist who doesn’t want anyone else to see the facts. [Mouse over map for interactive charts]
And forget Clarke’s cherry-picking. This chart tells the story.

J Murphy

July 7, 2014 6:51 am

Well, it seems that there is to be allowed no more criticism of the good lord or any more questions to be asked as to how he can claim to be what he has never been. OK, I can understand how uncomfortable such criticisms are to him and his followers.
So, with regard to the MWP and dbstealey’s link, the striking thing about the various graphs is how the MWP seems to encompass the years 600 to 1450 – very roughly: some of the graphs are not exactly very well produced. The question is, therefore, can anyone pick a period during which the MWP was affecting the whole globe at the same time; and can anyone pick a 10 year (or 100 year period if it makes it easier) that was globally warmer then than it has been over the last 10/100 years?

richardscourtney

July 7, 2014 7:39 am

J Murphy:
re your question at July 7, 2014 at 6:51 am, I refer you to
Soon W and Baliunas S ‘Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years’ Climate Research, Vol. 23: 89–110, (2003)
This superb paper can be read here.
It was so good a paper that – as Climategate revealed – Michael Mann organised the ‘Team’ to try to stop its publication and organised a campaign to remove the Editor of Climate Research. These despicable matters can be learned here.
The paper’s Abstract says

The 1000 yr climatic and environmental history of the Earth contained in various proxy records is reviewed. As indicators, the proxies duly represent local climate. Because each is of a different nature, the results from the proxy indicators cannot be combined into a hemispheric or global quantitative composite. However, considered as an ensemble of individual expert opinions, the assemblage of local representations of climate establishes both the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period as climatic anomalies with worldwide imprints, extending earlier results by Bryson et al. (1963), Lamb (1965), and numerous intervening research efforts. Furthermore, the individual proxies can be used to address the question of whether the 20th century is the warmest of the 2nd millennium locally. Across the world, many records reveal that the 20th

The work of Lamb (1965) is presented as the graph under discussion in this thread and is provided in the above essay.
So the answers to your question can be read from that graph and are
Yes, and, the period was between 1100 and 1300 AD.
Richard

richardscourtney

July 7, 2014 7:43 am

Hmmm, one of my links did not work. It is this
http://climateaudit.org/2011/11/28/direct-action-at-harvard/
Richard

William Connolley

July 7, 2014 10:40 am

>> There is a mountain of evidence [http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html] proving the worldwide existence of the MWP.
> the striking thing about the various graphs is how the MWP seems to encompass the years 600 to 1450 – very roughly
Exactly. That page is nearly useless: its an undigested mish-mash of graphs, from which you couldn’t even begin to try to calculate a global or hemispheric mean. It does serve to nicely illustrate the IPCC’s point: that the thing called “MWP” has various different regional manifestations and is by no means at the same time in all places.
> the period was between 1100 and 1300 AD
Really? The top lefthand graph labels the MWP at a time clearly before 1000; probably about 800. The one two below that has two teensy peaks labelled MWP, but they are before 1100. the one just to the right of that has an “MWP” dot, again before 1000 (all of these graphs, BTW, are “adapted from” rather than straight honest reproductions). And so on. The graphs DBS points at simply aren’t evidence for the MWP that RSC believes in.

William Connolley

July 7, 2014 10:48 am

> the period was between 1100 and 1300 AD.
S+B say “(2) Is there an objectively discernible climatic anomaly during the Medieval Warm Period (A.D. 800–1300) in this proxy record?” so I’m not sure why you’re using a different period.

J Murphy

July 7, 2014 11:21 am

richardscourtney, that paper defines it as 800–1300AD as far as I can tell, which is still a wide spread. Couldn’t find any 50 or 100 year periods where the warmth was contemporaneous throughout the globe. In fact, there seems to be a rather large area of the globe missing:
“The figures graphically emphasize the shortage of climatic information extending back to the Medieval Warm Period for at least 7 geographical zones: the Australian and Indian continents, the SE Asian archipelago, large parts of Eastern Europe/Russia, the Middle Eastern deserts, the tropical African and South American lowlands (although the large number of available borehole-heat flow measurements in Australia seems adequate for the reconstruction of ground temperatures back to medieval times; see Huang et al. 2000). Therefore, our conclusions are provisional.”
So I can’t see how it can be claimed that there was a globally warmer period during the Medieval Warm Period than now.
Also, thirteen of the scientists cited extensively in the paper published a rebuttal explaining that Soon and Baliunas had seriously misinterpreted their research:
“On past temperatures and anomalous late-20th-century warmth”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003EO270003/abstract
And there was another later report looking into the same data, and they came up with a different result :
“National Research Council. Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2006.”
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676#toc
Why would anyone want to believe one paper above all others?

F. Ross

July 7, 2014 11:54 am

J Murphy says:
July 7, 2014 at 11:21 am
“…
Why would anyone want to believe one paper above all others?”
Indeed, why? Dr. Mann’s Hockeystick?

J Murphy

July 7, 2014 1:27 pm

Indeed, F.Ross. For more ‘hockeysticks’ and confirmation of such, check:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large-scale_temperature_reconstructions_of_the_last_2,000_years
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=R1
(Another version of a link I gave previously)
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter05_FINAL.pdf
(5.3.5)
No-one should ever rely on one source or one paper, I agree.

richardscourtney

July 7, 2014 1:34 pm

J Murphy:
At July 7, 2014 at 1:27 pm you write

No-one should ever rely on one source or one paper, I agree.

Well, no. It is preferable to have more than one source when the different sources a\re independent. Indeed, that is why I cited the paper of Soon & Balliunas which collates hundreds of independent sources.
Importantly, no-one should ever rely on wicki especially when C0nn0lley has bastardised it.
Richard

dbstealey

July 7, 2014 2:29 pm

J Murphy says:
Well, it seems that there is to be allowed no more criticism of the good lord…
Yo, stupido! Who said that?
Imagine your alarmist blogs wanting to hear how Mann claimed to be a Nobel Laureate, or any of his many other prevarications. There is a lot more on Mann than on any skeptic, bar none. But if you think criticism is not allowed, fine. MovOn to the science.
Anyone who believes there was no MWP is totally clueless. Connolley gripes about numerous charts, but he’s got nothing himself. He always was a crybaby.
The alarmist clique is parroting Mann’s claim that there was no “climate change” until industrial emissions began. Psychological projectionists that they are, they accuse skeptics of not accepting that the climate changed. If it were not for projection, alarmists wouldn’t have much to say, would they?
Skeptics have always known that the climate changes. We also know that the very minor fluctuations in T over the past century and a half are extremely minuscule and unusually small. The recent 0.7ºC fluctuation is nothing. We are currently in a Goldilocks climate. Skeptics know that within the past 15K years, global T has fluctuated by TENS of degrees, in only a decade or so. And that was before CO2 began to rise.
Every alarmist prediction has turned out wrong. All of them. When a group makes numerous predictions, and they ALL turn out wrong, rational people will disregard their swivel-eyed nonsense. That is the position you religious True Believers have put yourself in. No wonder you fall back on ad hominem attacks. Because you sure don’t have any credible science.