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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richardscourtney

July 12, 2014 2:45 am

Lewis P Buckingham:
You conclude your post at July 12, 2014 at 1:55 am asking to be convinced about the absence of the MWP.
I respectfully submit that you won’t get convinded for two reasons.
Firstly, it is not possible to prove a negative so it cannot be shown that the MWP – or anything else, e.g. Father Christmas – does not exist. This is the importance of alibi evidence in a criminal trial: it is not possible to prove somebody did not do something but it is possible to prove she was somewhere where she could not have committed an alleged crime.
Secondly, very many proxies from around the world indicate temperatures were hotter than now about a thousand years ago. Few indications of then colder temperatures than now have been found. This is similar to an alibi: the MWP cannot be shown to have not existed but there is evidence that global temperature was warmer than now. And it is not possible for the MWP to have not existed if it was warmer then.
Of course, when discussing temperatures in the MWP we are discussing proxy data which is not complete coverage of the globe. Present global temperature is thermometer data which is not complete coverage of the globe. Hence, at issue is the validity of the proxies.
The proxy information takes many forms; e.g. tax records, crop distributions, forminfera, etc..
The range of these proxies provides confidence that their indication is right; i.e. global temperature was higher in the MWP than now. This was generally accepted until the MBH hockeystick which many accepted and some persist in accepting despite its total falsification.
This general acceptance is demonstrated by Lamb’s graph which described it (and is under discussion here) having been included in the first IPCC Report.
Richard

Steve Milesworthy

July 12, 2014 2:46 am

Lewis,
From my perspective the polarisation of the discussion often results in those who believe the Lambian MWP was global assume that those who do not believe it must, or need, to believe in the Mannian non-MWP. I engage with a lot of climate scientists and the view is a lot more nuanced than that though from what I see (I am not a climate scientist).
It annoys me when Courtney tries to tag me as a team member, when I spend far more time on “sceptic” blogs than on Stoat. I used to comment a lot at climateaudit, and I was there when the scales started falling of Steve Mosher’s eyes in a thread on David Parker’s UHI paper.
Looks to me like the climate was different but probably not globally warmer in the MWP era than in the 20th Century. And in the 21st Century if current temperatures are sustained or increase we will begin to gain a clear statistical lead on the MWP. As you say, it seems parts of Greenland were probably warmer, but then again, Iceland had terrible times in the 1050+ period according to clam shell proxies and famine records. I base my view on past investigations into the co2science archive of papers, and finding a tendency to overstate paper’s conclusions, which would be needless if an MWP was more evident.
Seems to me that no one proxy is a proxy for global warming/cooling whatever. One has to look at lots of proxies and measurements and come to a balanced view (objectively, S&B did not come to a balanced view it appears to me).

Steve Milesworthy

July 12, 2014 3:15 am

Hi again, Lewis, you are doing better than me at initiating discussion from Richard.
Richard seems to be saying that because he believes Lamb was regarded as settled science, it should not be changed without incontrovertible evidence. The problem is that Lamb did not believe the MWP was global as his plot was UK/Europe based and next to his plot he contrasted it with descriptions of colder conditions in China at the same time.
https://sites.google.com/site/medievalwarmperiod/Home/p171–172-of-lamb-s-climate-history-the-modern-world

Steve Milesworthy

July 12, 2014 3:18 am

Lewis, PS. I currently have a more substantive reply to you in moderation. The one that followed got through so I might have hit some trigger words.

dbstealey

July 12, 2014 3:59 am

J Murphy says:
…why are you using a GISP2, Greenland link to claim anything about “the planet”? Does GISP2 show global temperatures?
Yes. There is extensive evidence showing that the hemispheres warm and cool simultaneously. This has been discussed here many times. Feel free to read the archives. “MWP” is a good keyword start.
There are also numerous sources like this showing Holocene temperatures. The attempt to erase the MWP and the LIA is a deliberate ploy to support Mann’s thoroughly debunked Hockey Stick chart. Prior to MBH99, the MWP was accepted as a global event.
When taken in context, the current very *mild* warming is seen to be merely a minor fluctuation. A change of only 0.7ºC over a century and a half is literally nothing. It is noise. Within the past 15K years, global T has changed by TENS of degrees — within decades. Thus, the wild-eyed arm waving over 0.7ºC is simply an attempt to rouse the rabble.

Steve Milesworthy

July 12, 2014 5:20 am

Lewis,
My immediate thought would be to question anything described as a “narrative”. Narratives do exist, and many people ascribe to them, promote them and seek evidence to promote them. But reality is usually more complicated.
I don’t have any reason for rejecting GISP2. Have people rejected it? I accept it in a similar way to accepting the cold conditions that seem to have been apparent in Iceland at similar times.
The current warming in the northern latitudes of the northern hemisphere is similar to the warming that shows up in the models (not too surprising as land warms quicker than ocean). I see the Arctic warming as a fact. The narrative is that it may be proxy for the sorts of unexpected impacts that may occur, as people did not expect the Arctic to melt so quickly (though some climate scientist at the Met Office think the melting is exacerbated by regional natural variability).

J Murphy

July 12, 2014 5:45 am

Lewis P Buckingham, you wrote:
—“We are constantly being told that the Arctic is a proxy for global warming.
We are told that its being ‘ice free’ is the sign that AGW is upon us.
Yet when a proxy for Arctic temperatures appears at, http://i.snag.gy/BztF1.jpg
that shows the ups and downs of temperature, including in Medieval times,it does not have provenance so should be rejected.”
I don’t know that it should be rejected but it shouldn’t be used to show global temperatures in the MWP, as it was.
Are you happy to use graphs found on the internet, with no indication of where they’re from? I realise it gives some information as to where the data has come from but, looking at it, can you tell what year the latest data-point is from?

dbstealey

July 12, 2014 8:04 am

Apparently J Murphy did not click on my link above. It is pretty much the same as the other graph of the Holocene, but it has its provenance in the graph.
Every time a point is raised and answered, the typical response of the alarmist clique is to move the goal posts to something else. They lost the debate, but they will never admit it. Instead, they argue incessantly, like a Jehovah’s Witness, or like one of Mrs Keech’s Seekers, when the promised flying saucer did not appear [see ‘Leon Festinger’ for edification].
Finally, I point out once again that the planet is naturally warming from the LIA — one of the coldest episodes of the entire 10,700 year Holocene. So of course glaciers and polar ice will decline. But human-emitted CO2 has nothing to do with it. If it did, then both the Arctic and the Antarctic would see declining ice. But that is not happening, therefore CO2 — a well mixed trace gas — cannot be the cause.
Nothing has falsified the Null Hypothesis, therefore the default position for honest skeptics is that what is being observed is natural climate variablity, no different from past natural variability. And once again: there is no evidence of AGW. AGW may exist, but without any measurable evidence, it is insignificant, and should be completely disregarded for all Policy purposes — and all future ‘climate change’ funds shoud immediately be discontinued.

J Murphy

July 12, 2014 9:18 am

OK, dbstealey, I looked at your link to a graph on a blog (http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png), and can see a very badly presented graph. There are two things to note, which will show why such graphs should be treated with the utmost caution, especially if they come from blogs rather than credible scientific sites where the data can be accessed directly.
Firstly, the ‘present’ with regard to GISP2 (Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2) “refers to northern hemisphere summer of the year 1950 A.D” (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/document/notetime.htm). So, when you see that graph with the label ‘Years Before Present (2000AD)’, that is not correct. It should say ‘Years before Present (1950AD)’. Unless, of course, they’ve taken the figures up to the year 2000 somehow, without mentioning where the extra years of data have come from. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can reveal all.
Secondly, since the first time data-point is 95 (i.e. 95 years before present), even using the graph’s claim of the present being 2000AD would mean the first data-point is 1905. However, knowing that GISP2 present is actually 1950, 95 years before that date means that the first data-point is 1855.
Would anyone like to guess what the temperature data would have shown over Greenland since that date? Would a true sceptic like to produce a graph that takes those temperatures up to recent times? If not, I wonder why not…

J Murphy

July 12, 2014 9:21 am

By the way, I am making the real data available for all, so that no-one has to rely on graphs created by others: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt

Pamela Gray

July 12, 2014 10:15 am

dbstealey says:
July 12, 2014 at 8:04 am …”— and all future ‘climate change’ funds should immediately be discontinued.”
I disagree. Infrastructure, especially those related to dams, population centers next to rivers, and roads/railways, have been neglected and are in need of funds! A well-maintained infrastructure allows gross domestic product to be easily and quickly shipped. The one thing that has significant impact on these structures is climate extremes (hot and cold). We know what the extremes are, that’s the boundaries of climate for any given climate region. Everything inbetween is weather pattern variations. Because of lack of funds, these items have been barely maintained for typical weather, not climate extremes, and that is where we have failed.
Example: In Wallowa County there are 3 paved roads in and out of the entire county. All three are slide prone with sharp narrow turns and cliffs on either side. Only two are open during the winter and the other is regularly cut up from slides.
How about we cut, severely, the “machine” that is behind our elected and appointed officials and dump that money into some cliff and beach erosion control.

dbstealey

July 12, 2014 10:44 am

J Murphy saqys:
By the way, I am making the real data available for all…
As I have throughout.
Note that one of the sources in Murphy’s link is R.B. Alley. That is the same source as several of my links. Now that we are in agreement that there were hundreds of years of a warmer climate during the MWP than now, I trust Murphy is finished dissembling.
Next, Murphy labels the graphs posted as not being credible. It is Murphy who is not credible. Every link I have posted uses verifiable data. Murphy cannot accept that, because if he does, his entire argument goes up in smoke.
J Murphy asks:
Would a true sceptic like to produce a graph that takes those temperatures up to recent times?
Thank you for noting that. The only honest scientist is a skeptic. That leaves out Mann, Trenberth, Briffa, Jones, and many other riders on the grant gravy train.
Next, here is a graph that ‘takes temperatures up to recent times. Here is another, more recent graph.
And another, and another, and another.
Here are U.S. temps for the past century. Here is the long term trend line of rising global temperature from the Little Ice Age. Note that there is no acceleration.
Here is data from 1900. Note the cooling from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. No alarmist model can explain that. Another chart; where is the predicted acceleration in globnal warming?
Here is the Central England Temperature record. No acceleration there, either.
Natural global warming since the LIA began well before industrial activity ramped up.
Dozens more provided on request. Just ask, if you want to learn.
It is clear to any unbiased observer that there is no “fingerprint of AGW” anywhere in the temperature record. Further, on all time scales, from years to hundreds of millennia, all evidence shows that ∆CO2 is caused by ∆temperature. There is no evidence showing that CO2 changes cause changes in T. The alarmist crowd began with an incorrect premise — that rising CO2 will cause rising T — so naturally, their conclusion is wrong. They got causation backward, although they will never admit it. But unbiased readers can see that ∆T causes ∆CO2, not vice-versa.
Finally, I should correct the misinformation presented by J Murphy, claiming that this graph has no source. Look in the lower left corner.

dbstealey

July 12, 2014 10:48 am

Pamela Gray says:
Because of lack of funds, these items have been barely maintained for typical weather, not climate extremes, and that is where we have failed.
Sorry I wasn’t more clear. Funding for infrastructure has been starved due to redirecting money into “climate study” grants. Many $Billions are wasted every year on those grants, when a tiny fraction of that money would provide for all infrastructure needs.

Pamela Gray

July 12, 2014 11:09 am

There ya go.

J Murphy

July 12, 2014 1:55 pm

Well, dbstealey, you certainly know how to spread an argument! And at no time have you ever linked to the original data – you have simply scattered links containing graphs, some of which claim to use that data. I prefer to look at the original data; you obviously prefer others to say that they have used it and then produce graphs which you can use as you feel fit.
Anyway, your first link claims to be Yearly Average Temperature going back to 1900 but has no references. Explain where it’s from and what it represents, e.g. Global, Regional? What data source?
Your second link claims to be Raw Monthly Temperature going back to 1950 but has no references. Explain where it’s from and what it represents, e.g. Global, Regional? What data source?
Your third link claims to be United States Annual Average Temperature from 1895 to 1997 but has no references. Seems to be from a blog that hasn’t been updated for nearly two years. What data source?
Your fourth link claims to be Hadley, UAH and CO2 data from 2002 to 2009, and is from a blog.
Your fifth link is from Wood For Trees and you give HADCRUT, HADSST, RSS in two ranges: one from 1987 and one from 2002.
Your sixth link is from WUWT and shows a graph labelled “Total 50-State Record High Temperatures”, from 1884 to 2000.
Your seventh link is again from Wood For Trees and you give HADCRUT and GISTEMP from 1880 to 2010.
Your eighth link is again from Wood For Trees and you give HADCRUT in two ranges: one from 1912 to 1942, and one from 1982 to 2013.
Your ninth link is again from Wood For Trees and you give HADCRUT again in two ranges: one from 1975, and one from 1997 to 2013.
Your tenth link claims to be CET Extended: 1538 to 200, and is from a blog. So it’s Central England Temperatures. Where did the extended data come from?
Your eleventh link claims to be HADCRUT3 data, from 1850 to 2010, and is from a blog, albeit with lots of data available. It seems to claim that the Little Ice Age ended around the Summer of 1908 – going by the graph.
Your twelfth link is again from Wood For Trees and you give HADCRUT again, as well as CO2, from 1959.
Your thirteenth link claims to be a record of temperatures and CO2 going back about 425,000 years, and is from a blog. No references, so where did the data come from?
Your fourteenth link claims to be a record of Global Land-Ocean Temperature and CO2 Rates of Change from 1959 to 2009, and is from a blog which hasn’t been updated for nearly two years. No references, so where did the data come from?
I presume you will know all the answers to those questions, as any true sceptic would if he or she wanted to check properly what he or she is posting and asking others to accept. But what relevance does any of it have to Greenland and GISP?
As for your last link, which is what this is all about, and is the only link you give with any relevance to this discussion : Can you explain what the most recent date is for data given in that graph? And do you have a link to a graph that contains the same information but with temperature data up to date? Two simple questions, I think you will agree.

dbstealey

July 12, 2014 3:55 pm

J Murphy is certainly amusing. One by one, he goes through all fourteen (14) links I posted, and he finds fault with every one of them. Not one of them can be acceptable to J Murphy. What are the odds, eh? ☺
The reason I posted all those links was to avoid any accusation of cherry picking. So I posted numerous charts from numerous sources, all of which deconstruct the swivel-eyed alarmist nonasense. You know, the endless predictions of catastrophic AGW — not one of which has ever happened.
When someone like Murphy becomes a religious convert, nothing that contradicts his True Belief is acceptable. As far as Murphy is concerned, the charts I posted are the spawn of Satan. Science does not matter; they cannot be allowed to stand. Otherwise, cognitive dissonance would cause Murphy’s head to explode.
As I offered, here are a few more charts and graphs to educate J Murphy:
click1 [Time to panic… NOT.]
click2 [The biosphere is starved of harmless, beneficial CO2]
click3 [Another chart showing that T causes CO2 changes.]
click4 [chart of GISS data]
click5 [Global T flat, past 17 years]
click6 [More evidence that GW has stopped]
click7 [Current climate very mild v past climate]
click8 [No causation, CO2 v T.]
click9 [Trend lines, several data sets, vs CO2]
click10 [Warming effect of CO2 – too small to measure]
click11 MWP v CO2 – no correlation]
click12 [Human CO2 v natural emissions]
click13 [8 separate countruies, from LIA. No acceleration in T.]
click14 [Earth has usually been much warmer than now]
click15 [There was natural global warming. Now the planet is cooling.]
click16 [Alarmist predictions debunked; many data sets]
click17 [No global warming.]
click18 [Forget tenths of a degree. That is just noise. This tells the real story]
click19 [Another CET chart, by J. Curry. No recent acceleration.]
click20 [Greenland (NH) and Antarctica (SH) overlay. Both hemispheres show the same warming/cooling trends, proving that ice cores are a good proxy for global T]
Those charts are not for the benefit of J Murphy, because his mind is made up and closed tighter than a drum skin. He simply cannot accept reality. But for new readers, the record must be kept straight despite the incessant, mindless arguments of climate alarmists.
Murphy deviously attempts to put skeptics into the position of having to prove a hypothesis. But skeptics are not required to prove anything, because the CAGW conjecture belongs solely to the alarmist clique. They own it. The onus is entirely on the alarmist crowd, but they have failed to provide credible evidence that AGW exists. That is why skeptics are laughing at them: they’ve got nothing but their Belief.
Also, as stated above J Murphy has zero understanding of the climate Null Hypothesis. That is why he avoids commenting on it. The Null Hypothesis supports the fact that there is no “fingerprint of AGW”. It simply does not exist. The entire CAGW conjecture is based on one big evidence-free head fake. So Murphy avoids trying to debate the Null Hypothesis [a corollary of the Scientific Method], but instead, like a maniac Chicken Little he attacks numerous charts by numerous sources, many of them peer reviewed and all data based. None of them can be acceptable to the CAGW religious folks. If they accepted reality, their arguments would fail.
Unbiased readers can decide which charts are the most relevant. They all make it clear that the alarmist crowd is wrong, but some charts will appeal to some folks, and others will appeal to different people. None can appeal to J Murphy, because to accept even one of them would dangerously raise the pressure in his skull. ☺

J Murphy

July 12, 2014 4:21 pm

OK, dbstealey, you want to carry on Gish Galloping, insulting, belittling and…not answering questions or admitting that you prefer to rely on unsourced and unreferenced graphs, and blogs, rather than go directly to actual, real scientific data. Fine.

dbstealey

July 12, 2014 4:27 pm

OK J Murphy, you want to carry on Gish Galloping for a thoroughly debunked global warming scare, and never answering questions about the Null Hypothesis, or the complete failure of the alarmist crowd to produce any verifiable evidence of AGW based on any real, actual data? Fine. In that case, you lose the debate.

bluegrue

July 13, 2014 8:57 am

An old blog post at HOT TOPIC deals with all the “Oh look at Greenland” nonsense. It extends the temperature record at the GISP2 site to the present day using data from Box et. al., 2009. The uptick at the end of all the GISP2 plots that dbstealy linked to covers the 1790-1850 period, not the “Mann Hockey Stick” as one of them claims. All of them get the “current” temperature wrong. Current temperatures at the GISP2 site are about 1.5°C higher today (2000-2009 average) than they were in 1850, the time at the end of the uptick shown by dbstealy. 1.5°C above 1850 is the highest temperature for the last 2000 years and surpassesed only for a few, short periods over the last 10000 years. (image from HOT TOPIC).
What’s more, temperature variability in the Greenland temperature record is about 60% larger than the temperature variability of the Northern Hemisphere. (Box et. al., 2009)
As an aside, the above post by Gareth on HOT TOPIC was referenced and discussed extensively on this WUWT post by Easterbrook in December 2010. dbstealy moderated comments on that WUWT page.

dbstealey

July 13, 2014 1:20 pm

bluegrue,
I posted numerous links, and I can post at least as many more. Just ask — if you want to learn.
Here is your problem: you must deconstruct every link, because every link I posted debunks the CAGW scare. J Murphy can’t do it, and neither can you.
The basic debate is over the question of CO2 causing runaway global warming. The goal posts have been moved constantly by the alarmist crowd, as skeptics destroyed each alarmist argument in turn. Exactly none of the alarmist predictions have come true. None of them. So why should anyone pay attention to what you claim now?
‘Runaway global warming’ and ‘climate catastrophe’ — the original scare — has morphed into “climate change”. Skeptics didn’t do that; your folks did it. Your problem is that skeptics know that the climate has always changed. In truth, it is the climate lemmings, led by Michael Mann, who have bought into the nonsese that the climate never changed, prior to the industrial revolutiuon. That misinformation was promoted by Mann’s frightening MBH99 chart; a chart that was issued a Corrigendum by the journal Science. It is completely bogus. That is why Mann is still stonewalling the publication of his data, methods, metadata and methodologies that he used to creat his Hokey Stick chart — fifteen years later!
The whole debate is based on the alarmists’ psychological projection, claiming that skeptics don’t believe in changing climates, when in reality that is the specific position of alarmists: they still believe the climate was unchanging until human CO2 emissions ramped up. That is why your side lost the debate. The science is settled: the rise in CO2 did not cause runaway global warming, as was incessantly predicted.
So now you are reduced to nitpicking irrelevant points like the putative Monckton chart, and cherry-picking only items that you believe will support your CAGW scare. That isn’t science, that is only confirmation bias. You have decided that CO2=CAGW, and you arrange your arguments to come to that conclusion. Your problem isn’t skeptics. Your problem is that Planet Earth — the ultimate Authority — is proving you wrong.
There is no testable, measurable scientific evidence to support the belief that CO2 is harmful in any way. It is a minuscule trace gas, which has risen from 3 parts in ten thousand, to only 4 parts in ten thousand, over a century and a half. In the process, the added CO2 is measurably greening the planet. CO2 is every bit as essential to life on earth as H2O. But H2O can’t be easily taxed, so you demonize “carbon”.
On net balance, the rise in CO2 is a good thing. There is no identifiable downside. It is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere. More is better, at both current and projected concentrations.
You are flogging a dead horse with your “carbon” scare. It is unscientific nonsense. But once something like that becomes a religion, the newly converted cannot ever admit that they were wrong. They would be considered apostates, and cast out into the wilderness by their co-religionists. So you have no choice. You must toe the Party line. Thinking for yourself, based on all available evidence, is simply out of the question. You are trapped, and it’s easy for rational folks to deconstruct each and every lame argument raised by the alarmist clique.
The central question of whether the rise in CO2 has caused, or will cause runaway global warming has been settled by Planet Earth. You lost that debate decisively, and everything else is irrelevant backing and filling.

bluegrue

July 13, 2014 2:22 pm

dbstealey, I’d be happy to discuss just one plot at a time and let you go on a Gish gallop. You have consistently promoted plots of GISP2 temperatures that misrepresent the data as containing data for the majority of the 20th century and the current temperature. The plots only support your narrative because of these distortions. You seem to either not know or not care. Why?

bluegrue

July 13, 2014 2:23 pm

The above should read “not go on a Gish gallop”, of course.

Phil.

July 13, 2014 2:37 pm

dbstealey says:
July 12, 2014 at 10:44 am
Finally, I should correct the misinformation presented by J Murphy, claiming that this graph has no source. Look in the lower left corner.
Yes the source of the data which is misplotted in the graph by some unknown person is given, this graph has no given source. The graph also falsely identifies the rise in the data prior to 1855 as the ‘Mann hockey stick’. You were told this in the thread 4 years ago (referred to above) but stubbornly keep trotting out the same graphs. The very graphs that are identified by WUWT as:
“Classification: Incorrect – Move to Incorrect/Falsified Graphs section – Label Incorrect Graph – The x axis label, “Years Before Present (2000 AD)”, should read Years Before Present (1950 AD)”

dbstealey

July 13, 2014 3:30 pm

If it were not for baseless assertions, bluegrue and Phil. wouldn’t have anything to say here.
I posted numerous graphs. However, neither one of you has posted any so-called ‘corrcted’ graphs. All you are both doing is whining. You are about as credible as a computer climate model. You say I “stubbornly keep trotting out the same graphs.” But what do you post? Nothing of substance. You just object, that’s all. Weak objection noted, either start posting verifiable facts, or move on.
If you would like to learn something, just ask. I can post numerous additional graphs. But you will get to the point of looking like fools, because you will have to object to all of them. Your True Belief does not allow for anything else; anything else meaning you cannot admit to the truth, that all the predictions of runaway global warming were flat wrong. I’ve posted at least thirty (30+) graphs here, showing that the objections of the alarmist cult are 100% wrong. Your response was to cherry-pick a couple of graphs, and vaguely object to them.
But do you post a ‘corrected’ graph? No. All you do is complain about it. You really have no credible argument.
You will have to debunk every graph I posted, because they all show the same thing: that CAGW is nonsense. And CO2=CAGW is your basic argument, because without runaway global warming and climate catastrophe we are pretty much back to natural climate variability, and your false alarm is defenestrated.
Instead of moving the goal posts in every comment, either man up and admit that the ‘runaway global warming’ scare has been debunked by Planet Earth, or continue with your indefensible argument. It makes debating you easier than shooting fish in a barrel.