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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dbstealey

July 13, 2014 4:01 pm

bluegrue,
I had to go find Hot topic. What did I find?
This:
THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION: A VIEW FROM THE FUTURE
See, that is exactly what I mean. The alarmist cult actually believes that “climate change” is causing a collapse of civilization. Your problem is that there is exactly ZERO evidence for that crazy world view. Nothing being observed is either unusual, or unprecedented. It has all happened before, and tto a greater degree. But I suppose some folks just have a need to scare themselves. That explains the popularity of werewolf movies, no?
I feel like I am debating with swivel-eyed, deranged lunatics who stand on street corners holding a sign:
THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!
The parable of Chicken Little applies here. Every prediction made by those Chicken Little alarmists sounds like Mrs. Keech’s Seekers:
…anyone who follows climate science will recognise that the chain of disaster he traces, from failing food crops in intense heat waves to unmanageable sea level rise as the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets begin to disintegrate is entirely possible if greenhouse gases continue to be pumped into the atmosphere by human activity.
“Anyone who follows climate science”?? What planet is that jamoke living on? Exactly NONE of those things are happening. But as I keep pointing out, the alarmist crowd cannot ever admit that they were wrong. So they just keep digging their hole deeper. Jehovah’s Witnesses have nothing on climate alarmists.
Please, post more links like Hot topic! It provides plenty of amusement for scientific skeptics.

J Murphy

July 13, 2014 4:37 pm

Well, well, well. So dbstealey has been informed previously about using that graph and yet still carries on using it. I call that deception but I wonder whether the blog owner cares about such underhand tactics being used on his site?
Seems like a good example of The Backfire Effect –
The Misconception: When your beliefs are challenged with facts, you alter your opinions and incorporate the new information into your thinking.
The Truth: When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger.
(http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/)
More interesting would be to hear what Lewis P Buckingham now thinks, since he mentioned the graph earlier and seemed open to rational and constructive arguments.

bluegrue

July 13, 2014 4:41 pm

I had provided links to the exact post and graph addressing GISP2. You answer with further Gish Gallop.

dbstealey

July 13, 2014 6:21 pm

J Murphy says:
So dbstealey has been informed previously about using that graph and yet still carries on using it.
Since Murphy isn’t an authority on any of this, I feel confident in dismissing his uninformed opinion. In a moment I will deconstruct his belief system. But first, Murphy says:
I call that deception…
How can openly posting a graph be called “deception”? Only in the minds of deluded eco-religionists…
When your beliefs are challenged with facts…
That is a textbook example of psychological projection. Murphy has posted zero credible facts. On the other hand, I have posted numerous charts constructed using empirical data.
Regarding the chart that Murphy questions, this chart of GISP-2 temperatures is the same chart as this chart. Murphy has convinced Louis Buckingham that the latter chart has no provenance, even though it plainly says “GISP-2” in it.
Buckingham trusted Murphy, rather than verifying. Bad move. The charts are the same, with the second one adding a historical overlay. Therefore, Murphy is wrong again. Has Murphy ever been right? Never on this thread.
I will continue using GISP-2 charts whether Murphy likes it or not, because they are based on real world ice core measurements. And I note once again that the best Murphy and bluegrue can do is carp about the links. They don’t post charts themselves. I wonder why not? Most people would be ashamed to be outed like this, but I’ve found that alarmists have no shame.
I think bluegrue and Murphy will regret mentioning GISP-2, because I have a large folder of GISP-2 charts, which debunk their alarmist position. Everything observed now has happened before, repeatedly, and to greater extremes — and during times when there was no anthropogenic CO2 being emitted. Thus, the alarmists’CO2=CAGW conjecture takes another major hit.
This chart shows GISP-2 overlaid with the Vostok ice core. Note that they move in lockstep. They are both in different hemispheres, so what does this mean?
It means that polar temperature measurements are an excellent proxy for global temperatures. Here is another GISP-2 chart constructed from NOAA and NCDC data. It shows that current global temperatures are routine and normal. There is nothing unprecedented happening. Thus, what we are currently observing is entirely natural.
This is another GISP-2 chart. Note that past Holocene temperatures were substantially higher than now. The alarmist cult keeps pointing at the MWP — while disregarding the even higher temperatures earlier in the Holocene, when there were no human emissions.
Here we see another GISP-2/Vostok overlay, showing two ice cores in the northern hemisphere and two ice cores in the southern hemisphere. Since this is a Wikipedia chart, the alarmist gang will have a hard time claiming it isn’t legit. Note that it shows the same thing as all the other GISP-2 charts I’ve posted.
Now let’s compare the Holocene temperature record with the CO2 record. We see that there is no positive causation or correlation, as is constantly claimed by the alarmist contingent. Recall that Murphy says:
The Truth: When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger.
That is psychological projection in action: Murphy’s deepest convictions are being debunked right here, in real time. But my bet is that he will keep digging his hole. Rational debate is not his strong suit.
Next, let’s look at a chart based on Dr Richard Alley’s data. Notice that current global temperatures are nothing unusual. Alley’s data ends in year 2000. Since then, global T has declined, so that chart would show more recent cooling if T since 2000 was included.
Finally, this animation puts the current arm-waving alarmism into perspective. There is nothing either unusual, or unprecedented happening. In fact, we have been enjoying a “Goldilocks” climate for the past century and a half. The “carbon” scare is a complete false alarm, as anyone not blinded by religion can see.
Rational people would abandon a silly argument like climate alarmism. But that doesn’t account for religion. When someone is converted to the new eco-religion, common sense is jettisoned in the same way that Jehovah’s Witnesses jettison rational thought. Empirical evidence means nothing to the new Chicken Little crowd. The only thing that matters is their True Belief — no matter how many times it is debunked with scientific facts.

Simon

July 13, 2014 7:41 pm

Dbstealy
“Next, let’s look at a chart based on Dr Richard Alley’s data”
I am pleased you are so keen to quote Dr Richard Alley. That would be the Dr Richard Alley who had this to say about some of the issues raised in this thread…

Clearly he does not think the Medieval anomaly was as warm as today. He also comments on why we know it is not other factors contributing to the recent warming. It is well worth watching, if nothing but for the guys passion. One smart man. In stark contrast to the Neanderthal politician asking him lame questions. Is this guy Rohrabacher for real?

dbstealey

July 13, 2014 8:00 pm

Simon,
I commented on Richard Alley’s data, not on his subsequent conversion. He is one of many scientists who understands where his bread is buttered.
That said, I wonder what he — or you — would say about the Holocene in general. The MWP was the most recent warming prior to the current warming. But there were several warming episodes prior to the MWP that were much warmer. How do you explain that?
Maybe it was CO2 being teleported back in time? Or maybe someone fabricated the Holocene record? Or maybe there was a gang of technological Indians who had learned to emit lots of CO2?
Of course the rational explanation is the simplest: CO2 just does not have the claimed effect. Radiative physics shows that almost all of the warming effect from CO2 occurs in the first 20 – 100 ppmv. At current levels of about 400 ppm, any warming effect is so small that it is unmeasurable.
The entire “carbon” scare is based on the failed notion that rising CO2 levels will result in runaway global warming. The real world shows that to be nonsense. Whatever your argument is, it is not based on the real world, and it does nothing whatever to contradict my post above.

Steve Milesworthy

July 14, 2014 2:32 am

Thanks all for the useful discussion. The evidence suggests that the GISP2 site *may* be as warm or warmer than was during the MWP, which is quite a surprise to me.
Presumably one of the reasons that some modern proxies do not appear to show modern warmth is because they are not all fully up to date, and that some are low frequency proxies that need a bit more time to show up the warmer temperatures.

J Murphy

July 14, 2014 3:08 am

dbstealey wrote:
—“Regarding the chart that Murphy questions, this chart of GISP-2 temperatures is the same chart as this chart. Murphy has convinced Louis Buckingham that the latter chart has no provenance, even though it plainly says “GISP-2″ in it.”
So, leaving aside the conjecture as to what someone is supposed to have done to someone else (wherever that came from, who knows), once more we are presented with a chart without references or citations. But because it says “GISP-2” on it and has a red line stuck on the end of it, apparently that means it is acceptable for some people, who will then believe it and forward it on hoping that others will join in with the belief. I thought this was a site for so-called sceptics…!

dbstealey

July 14, 2014 9:29 am

J Murphy says:
…once more we are presented with a chart without references or citations.
Wrong, as always. You are batting 0.000.
Every GISP-2 chart I posted looks the same. All have provenance. Have you run so low on arguments that you nitpick identical charts? If you have a GISP-2 chart of the Holocene that contradicts the numerous, identical charts I have posted, then produce it. Otherwise you are just floundering around, looking for a way to argue.
J Murphy, you have lost the debate. Planet Earth — the only real Authority — shows that you are flat wrong. During the Holocene, global T has been much higher than at present. The biosphere teemd with life and diversity during those beneficial warm spells.
Warm is good. Cold kills. You are on the losing side of the debate.
===========================
Steve Milesworthy says:
The evidence suggests that the GISP2 site *may* be as warm or warmer than was during the MWP, which is quite a surprise to me.
Now there is a man with an open mind. Evidence is produced, and he thinks about it instead of having a knee-jerk rejection of anything that does not fit the alarmist narrative.
Skepticism requires an open mind. Honest scientists are skeptics, first and foremost. This site caters to scientific skeptics. But once in a while someone like J Murphy pops up. Unfortunately, he has a closed mind, so he is not willing to think about the evidence provided. It contradicts his belief, so it is automatically rejected on the flimsiest of pretexts. Sad, really.

Phil.

July 14, 2014 9:42 am

dbstealey says:
July 13, 2014 at 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.
I’ve told you what’s wrong with them for ~4yrs, you think you’d have got the message by now!
The corrected graphs are those that haven’t added any false statements but you won’t post them because they don’t agree with your agenda.
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.
That’s exactly what I have been doing for 4 years, you just won’t take your blinkers off. Constructive criticism coming up.
dbstealey says:
July 13, 2014 at 6:21 pm
On the other hand, I have posted numerous charts constructed using empirical data.
With numerous errors and misrepresentations on them which you refuse to change. They’re even listed in the WUWT “Incorrect/Falsified Graphs Section but you just keep churning them out.
Regarding the chart that Murphy questions, this chart of GISP-2 temperatures is the same chart as this chart. Murphy has convinced Louis Buckingham that the latter chart has no provenance, even though it plainly says “GISP-2″ in it.
Neither of them does have any provenance. The first one is a correct plot of the Alley data minus some arbitrary constant which is not identified (the blue curve) ending in the correct place (1855 AD if the time axis is in AD, it’s not stated). What’s the red curve, which appears to try to attempt to bring the data up to the present day? There’s no provenance for that data, just something that an anonymous author has added. Even Mann told us where the data that was added came from! Previously you’ve argued that it’s appropriate to add global average instrument data to the Greenland data rather than the actual Greenland instrument data because it fitted your bias better.
The second graph you linked to is unidentified too, claims to be relative to current temperature which it certainly is not and identifies the pre 1855 data as ‘Mann Hockey Stick’, which it clearly isn’t.
This chart shows GISP-2 overlaid with the Vostok ice core. Note that they move in lockstep. They are both in different hemispheres, so what does this mean?
That following the D-O events the climate changed at both poles about 10-20 thousand years ago plus or minus a few thousand, not very relevant to what we’re discussing. In any case it’s isotope frequency changes not temperature and according to the lines (black) drawn by the anonymous author (you?) he or she has a very flexible idea of what constitutes ‘lockstep’.
Here is another GISP-2 chart constructed from NOAA and NCDC data. It shows that current global temperatures are routine and normal. There is nothing unprecedented happening. Thus, what we are currently observing is entirely natural.
It shows nothing of the sort, it is constructed using the same Alley data unto 1855 AD by another anonymous author who has added an arbitrary 0.5º via a dotted line which purports to account for the last 150 yrs warming in Greenland, more unsupported nonsense. For good measure it has an added CO2 plot which is completely fictitious and unattributed with a nonsensically compressed scale, if Mann did that everyone would be all over him on this site.
This is another GISP-2 chart. Note that past Holocene temperatures were substantially higher than now. The alarmist cult keeps pointing at the MWP — while disregarding the even higher temperatures earlier in the Holocene, when there were no human emissions.
The only accurate plotting of the Alley data you’ve given without embellishment so what do you do? You claim that it shows something it does not, presumably pretending that the data in 1855 represents today’s temperatures at the Summit camp?
Here we see another GISP-2/Vostok overlay, showing two ice cores in the northern hemisphere and two ice cores in the southern hemisphere. Since this is a Wikipedia chart, the alarmist gang will have a hard time claiming it isn’t legit. Note that it shows the same thing as all the other GISP-2 charts I’ve posted.
No it doesn’t, it shows isotope abundances not temperature and indicates that something major changed between 10-20 years ago not like the altered Alley charts you keep posting covering the last 10,000 years up until 1855.
So there’s something of substance for you to chew on, hopefully this time you’ll actually do something about it and stop posting the same old nonsense.

dbstealey

July 14, 2014 10:00 am

Phil. says:
…The corrected graphs are those that haven’t added any false statements but you won’t post them
Apparently you won’t, either.
As I wrote above: “All you are both doing is whining.” Phil. responded:
That’s exactly what I have been doing for 4 years…
Finally, we agree!
I note all the opinions about the numerous charts from the numerous different sources that I posted. Phil. doesn’t like any of them, because they contradict his belief. But I also note that Phil. doesn’t post any charts himself. He just says that everyone and everything is wrong, if it does not fit in with his beliefs.
I told Murphy that the only real Authority is Planet Earth, and that is true. Planet Earth disagrees with the catastrophic AGW narrative that Phil. and others promote. Despite the steady increase in [harmless, beneficial] CO2, global warming has stopped. And not just recently. Global warming stopped many years ago.
So, to summarize:
Phil. disagrees with Planet Earth.
Planet Earth disagrees with the alarmist crowd.
So who should we believe? Phil.? Or Planet Earth?
Because they cannot both be right.

bluegrue

July 14, 2014 12:41 pm

Regarding the chart that Murphy questions, this chart of GISP-2 temperatures is the same chart as this chart.
That statement is at variance with the truth. The first chart (hologisp2.png) has the GISP2 data correctly ending in about 1850. The second chart, which was the GISP2 plot you put up first, contains three lies.
a) The data has been shifted along the time axis by 50 years and pretends the data ends in about 1910 (you can verify by pixelcounting).
b) The period 1790-1850 is labeled “Mann Hockey Stick”. The blade of the actual MBH98 hockeystick starts about 1910.
c) The 1850 temperature is labeled “current temperature”.
And I note once again that the best Murphy and bluegrue can do is carp about the links. They don’t post charts themselves.
That, dbstealey, is a bald-faced lie, if I have ever seen one: In my very first comment on this post I linked this GISP2 plot, which shows the data on a proper timescale.

Simon

July 14, 2014 12:43 pm

dbstealey
“Planet Earth disagrees with the alarmist crowd.”
According your hero to Dr Alley (I’m assuming you watched his movie) the planet is telling us loud and clear we have a problem.

Phil.

July 14, 2014 12:50 pm

dbstealey says:
July 14, 2014 at 10:00 am
Phil. says:
“…The corrected graphs are those that haven’t added any false statements but you won’t post them”
Apparently you won’t, either.
As I wrote above: “All you are both doing is whining.” Phil. responded:
“That’s exactly what I have been doing for 4 years…”
Finally, we agree!
Thereby proving your dishonesty to all and sundry!
I note all the opinions about the numerous charts from the numerous different sources that I posted. Phil. doesn’t like any of them, because they contradict his belief.
No I disagree with the graphs of Alley’s data which you’ve posted because they either misrepresent the original data, are unattributed or contain falsehoods. I quote facts about their misuse which you chose to pretend are ‘opinions’. The only temperature graph based on Alley which you’ve posted and is honest is:
http://mclean.ch/climate/figures_2/GISP_to_11Kybp.gif
His discussion of the data isn’t however.
If you want to talk about the Alley data go here:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
Don’t use anonymous third-party graphs that misrepresent it.

richardscourtney

July 14, 2014 12:54 pm

Simon:
At July 14, 2014 at 12:43 pm you say

dbstealey

Planet Earth disagrees with the alarmist crowd.

According your hero to Dr Alley (I’m assuming you watched his movie) the planet is telling us loud and clear we have a problem.

Alley is not my “hero” and the planet is giving no indication of any kind that there is a global warming problem. Indeed, there has not been global warming for nearly 18 years and previous warm periods were warmer.
You can proclaim any “hero” you choose but that will not affect the planet’s indications in any way.
Richard

dbstealey

July 14, 2014 2:39 pm

bluegrue says:
That, dbstealey, is a bald-faced lie, if I have ever seen one
Oh, get off your high horse. So I missed a comment, one out of more than 400. That certainly does not make me a “liar”; I do not lie, ever. Like anyone, I can make a mistake, or miss a post. You, bluegrue, are just a presumptuous ass.
Next, Simon says:
According your hero to Dr Alley…
Dr. Alley is no hero of mine. Testable, measurable scientific evidence is my hero. Planet Earth is my hero. Also, I note that Alley has been furiously backing and filling regarding the “carbon” scare <–[I wonder what Phil. thinks of that chart?]. Alley’s earlier work makes it very clear there was in fact a medieval warming period — and several even warmer periods before that during the Holocene. But now Alley is tapdancing; trying to make sure his funding is not cut off, as has happened to other apostates of the global warming religion. I liked Alley’s early work, but I am no fan of tapdancers who ride the gravy train by dishonestly fanning the flames of CAGW. There is no catastrophic AGW, and if AGW exists, it is simply too minuscule to measure.
Next: Simon, do you actually believe that “the planet is telling us loud and clear we have a problem” ??
You seem to have zero understanding of the Null Hypothesis; a corollary of the Scientific Method. Ignoring the Null Hypothesis is a hallmark of climate alarmists everywhere. They desperately want to believe in climate catastrophe. But it just isn’t happening, sorry about that.
Our present global climate parameters have been exceeded in the past, and by quite a lot. Global T has been much higher, and lower, than over the past century and a half. We have truly been living in a “Goldilocks” climate. Yet you see a catastrophe. How is that? You are seeing something that is just not there.
There is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening. Can you understand that? It doesn’t appear that you do.
Next: So Phil. finally agrees with this chart. Now we’re getting somewhere. Note that there have been regular warming episodes during the Holocene. The MWP was relatively minor warming; prior warming events exceeded both the current global T, and the MWP. That happened when CO2 was relatively low. Thus, CO2 has no measurable effect on T.
But skeptics already knew that. The alarmist crowd got their causality backward. They thought that CO2 was the cause of global warming, when all the availble evidence shows that temperature changes are the cause of CO2 changes. Because they got their initial premise backward, their conclusion will obviously be wrong. And that is exactly what happened.
One more time: the planet is proving the alarmist crowd wrong. People can believe their CAGW nonsense, but that only indicates they are low information voters. The intelligent folks are the scientific skeptics, who have repeatedly shown that climate alarmism is 100% wrong.
And once again, since no one is willing to answer this:
Who should we believe? The always-wrong alarmist contingent? Or Planet Earth? Because they cannot both be right.

bluegrue

July 14, 2014 3:23 pm

So I missed a comment, one out of more than 400.
You replied to that comment. Your reply is even right beneath it. Am I to assume that you do not actually read the comments you are replying to?

dbstealey

July 14, 2014 5:20 pm

@bluegrue,
So I didn’t recall the graph you posted. That doesn’t make me “a balddfaced liar”, and you are still a presumptive ass.
You keep avoiding the central issue: Planet Earth is debunking your religious Belief system. The planet is showing everyone that you are wrong. No wonder you keep avoiding the only important point in the debate.
You have decisively lost the debate. Your belief in catastrophic AGW fails: there is no scientific evidence supporting that errant nonsense.
When skeptics are wrong, they generally admit it. If global warming had started up again, I would reassess my thinking. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I missed something. But that has not happened. Global warming stopped many years ago.
But when alarmists are wrong, they back and fill, and they pontificate, and they argue incessantly. They never admit they were wrong, even when everyone else can see it. That’s the case with your own CAGW nonsense. It has been thoroughly debunked. But you are incapable of admitting it.
There is no catastrophe happening, as I have repeatedly demonstrated: the Null Hypothesis has never been falsified. Further, every alarmist prediction has failed. ALL of them are wrong. That makes you wrong. But you will never admit it. Glaciers could once again cover Chicago a mile deep, and you would still be spouting your globaloney nonsense.
Tell us: why is that? Why are you incapable of admitting that you are wrong about CAGW? Are you that insecure? Did your mommy treat you bad? What, exactly, would it take for you to admit that your runaway global warming nonsense has been debunked? Because it has been, in spades.
Get back to us if you can think up an answer…