Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Recently there have been a number of accusations and bad blood involving myself, David Evans, Joanne Nova, Lord Christopher Monckton, and Leif Svalgaard. Now, I cannot speak for any of them, but on my part, my own blood ended up mightily angrified, and I fear I waxed wroth.
However, I see no point in rehashing the past. What I want to do is to return to the underlying scientific questions. In that spirit, I apologize sincerely and completely for wherever I put in “something extra” in the previous discussion. In Buddhism, there’s a concept called “something extra”, and one is enjoined to avoid putting in “something extra”.
It is explained in the following way:
If I say “I am angry” that is simply a true statement.
But if I say “You made me angry”, that is something extra.
So I ask any and all of you to please accept my sincere apologies for whatever what I said that was something extra, so that we can move past this difficult time and get back to discussing the science. Both sides have legitimate grievances, and I am happy to make the first move to get past all of them by apologizing to all of you for whatever my part was in the bad blood. I hope that the other participants accept my apology in the spirit of reconciliation in which it is offered, and that we can move forwards without rancor or recriminations.
Regarding the science, let me go back to the original question, and see what I can do in the way of making my claims in a more Canadian manner. I’ll start by looking at the recent record of the “TSI”, the total solar irradiance:
Figure 1. Monthly total solar irradiance as measured by the CERES satellite. Vertical blue line shows mid-2004.
Now, if you don’t like the data from the CERES satellite, here’s the SORCE satellite data:
Figure 2. Daily total solar irradiance as measured by the SORCE satellite. Vertical red line indicates mid-2004. SOURCE
Note what is happening in both graphs after mid-2004 (vertical lines in both plots). As in every solar cycle, the TSI declines somewhat, and bottoms out. Then, it starts to rise again. And by the end of the datasets, in both cases the TSI is higher that it was in 2004.
So what was the scientific dispute all about, the discussion that underlies all of the bad feelings?
It revolved around the following graph from David Evans, referenced by both Leif Svalgaard and Lord Monckton, showing the basis of his predicted upcoming global cooling :
Figure 3. David Evan’s graph of TSI (gold line), along with a centered 11-year moving average of the TSI data (red, with dotted blue extension), and a 25 year unspecified smooth of temperature, presumably a trailing average (blue line). (Click to enlarge)
Now, as you can see, the bright red line basically falls off the edge of the earth around 2004. The note says “The recent falloff in solar radiation started somewhere in 2003-2005″.
However, a look at both the SORCE and the CERES data shows no such “falloff in solar radiation”, neither precipitous nor otherwise. In fact, both datasets agree that by 2013 the TSI was well above the level in mid-2004.
Since there is no fall in the underlying data of any kind, why does the red 11-year average line show abrupt cooling starting around 2004?
The answer lies in the various problems with the graph.
• The TSI data is a splice of three datasets, with two of them showing the post-2000 period. This is a huge source of potential error in itself. However, it gets worse.
• One of the spliced datasets is the Lean TSI reconstruction, an outdated dataset that the authors of the reconstruction themselves admit is inaccurate.
• Another is the PMOD dataset. It is known to be reading low by 0.2 W/ms at the solar minimum, introducing a spurious apparently strong recent “cooling” where none exists.
• The 11-year centered average is an extremely bad choice for a filter for sunspot/TSI data. Because the solar cycle varies both longer and shorter than 11 years, at times the 11-year average actually reverses the sense of the data, converting peaks into valleys and valleys into peaks. Look at the period from 1760-1800 in Figure 3, for example. What is happening is that the frequency data is getting strongly aliased into the amplitude data. As a result, the average can end up far from the reality, particularly at the ends of the dataset.
For another example, look at the period just after 1740 in Figure 3. The 11-year average takes a huge vertical jump … but meanwhile back in the real word, the TSI itself is not rising at all. It is falling. Clearly, the large vertical jump in the red line is totally spurious.
• The TSI data has had about 900 days of “data” added to it using an arbitrarily chosen value. This is shown by the blue dots which indicate a continuing drop in the temperature.
So regarding the question of why the red line is acting so strangely, the answer is that we have a perfect storm of spliced data, bad data, arbitrary “data” added to the spliced bad data, and an extremely poor filter choice.
And as a result, the red line doesn’t represent reality in any shape or form. There is no precipitous drop in TSI starting around 2004. It doesn’t exist. Sure, the 11-year average says clearly that there is a huge drop starting around that time … but the actual data says something entirely different, as shown in Figures 1 and 2.
Now, in the heat of the moment Leif described the red line as being “almost fraudulent”. I think this was an over-reaction, but perhaps an understandable one. After all, if the red line were flipped over vertically it would make a lovely hockeystick, and if someone claimed warming was coming based on that hockeystick, people would call them alarmists … and calling someone an alarmist is certainly a close relative of calling them “almost fraudulent”.
However, my guideline is, never ascribe to malice what is adequately explained by error and misunderstanding. So I do not call their red line fraudulent, nor did I do so in the original discussion. Instead, I say that it is an error resulting from a misunderstanding. In any case, let me suggest that we leave out all ascription of motive and intent, that goes nowhere, and that we return to the science.
A more scientifically neutral description of the red line is that it is highly inaccurate and potentially misleading, because the apparent drop starting in 2003-2005 is simply an artifact of a combination of bad data and bad filtering.
Finally, to the degree that David Evans’ model predicts future cooling based on the red line, it is already falsified.
That is what I was trying to say, and I believe (subject to correction) that was what Leif was pointing out as well.
In closing, I will endeavor in this thread to keep my comments on as scientific a basis as possible, to avoid any personal references, and to not ascribe motive or intent. I request that everyone do the same. Many toes have already been stepped on in this discussion. Let’s see if we can simply discuss the science.
My best to all,
w.
VERY IMPORTANT: It is important in general, and in this discussion in particular, that you QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS THAT YOU DISAGREE WITH. Note that this doesn’t mean just referencing their entire comment. Quote the exact words of their comment that you think are in error, and tell us why you think those words are wrong. If you do not quote the exact words that you disagree with, none of us will know what you are referring to … and out of such misunderstandings grows animosity and misunderstanding.
Finally, please don’t delve into the rights and wrongs of what has happened in the previous discussions. I am not interested in the slightest in ascribing blame or responsibility. I have accepted my own responsibility for my own actions and apologized for wherever I was over the line. What I or the others did in the past is a blind alley, so please confine your comments to the science, and as the saying goes, “Let the dead past bury its dead”.
Bill Illis says:
July 18, 2014 at 7:08 pm
Just to use your method of timeline cherrypicking, how much did TSI decline from 2003-2005 to 2008-2009.
See for yourself http://www.leif.org/research/SSN-HMF-TSI-Evans.png
Evans picked 2003-2005 and 2013-2014, not me.
But we can easily answer your cherry picked timeline
Average TSI 2003-2005: 1360.93
2008-2009: 1360.58, i.e. down 0.35
2013-2014: 1361.35, i.e. up 0.77
Do you get and understand that it is Evans who is making the claim that TSI since 2003-2005 to today has fallen off? You have evaded answering twice now.
Reply to Mosher ==> There *is* no justification for this: “why willis and I demand…..”
Nothing whatever gives either of you any right to demand anything of anyone.
You do have the right, like anyone else, to politely contact a colleague directly and privately and ask for clarifications and/or to request copies or pointers to original data sets and code used in a piece of scientific work you are interested in. The preferred public communication on such would be a blog comment something like “I have contacted Dr So-and-so by email and asked for copies of original data and code used in his calculation. I’ll let you know in a few days the results of this request.”
Writing angry or ill-mannered posts on a blog or blogs making demands of others is not collegial science — especially if one already owes others direct personal apologies for public statements made “in the heat of the moment” — although, truthfully, there should *never* be any such.
There are many examples of citizen scientists who exhibit exemplary skills in interpersonal communication — who are careful about what they say, remember to be polite, grant others the respect they would have granted to themselves, etc. You will notice that they seldom get themselves into this kind of mess.
No it’s just BS. The freak in somebody formerly formally normal strikes out, idiotically, as a shitty PR stunt.
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” – William Shakespeare (Macbeth, 1606)
“When I reflect on the fact that I have made my appearance by accident upon a globe itself whirled through space as the sport of the catastrophes of the heavens, when I see myself surrounded by beings as ephemeral and incomprehensible as I am myself, and all excitedly pursuing pure chimeras, I experience a strange feeling of being in a dream. It seems to me as if I have loved and suffered and that erelong I shall die, in a dream. My last word will be, I have been dreaming.” —Madame Ackermann (Pensées d’un Solitaire quoted in The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, 1902)
TomB says:
July 17, 2014 at 6:47 am
“I find that my true friends are the ones with the courage to tell me when I’m wrong.”
I disagree. A true friend knows how to remove a roadblock in one’s thinking, or reveal a blindspot, with love and understanding and tact. Too many people think as you do, that they have an obligation to display the courage you speak of otherwise they are not much of a friend. They might further this thought by saying that if the telling of the wrongness causes offence then the friendship was not very strong anyway. Both thoughts are erroneous and destructive. “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” Proverbs 15:1
Kip Hansen, what a shiny halo you have.
By golly, there’s even a ship with that name.
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/details/ships/370148000/vessel:SHINY_HALO
Lame excuses pathetic attacks.
Lame? No I nailed you as a phoney skeptic. You are warmist through and through.
Pathetic attacks?
No because you are what I said you are. That isn’t pathetic, you are pathetic.
Hunter is exactly correct. Folks should completely disregard any of this incredibly bad, almost criminal advice to “come out” and drop the alias and post in their own name. More often than not I am personally a big fan of Willis but in this regard no-one is wearing a thicker pair of rose-colored glasses. I mean, just review very recent events in real life …
* IRS targeting of certain groups.
* National Security infiltration of every facet of the Internet and beyond.
* Moderately skeptical scientists getting fired and treated like pariahs.
* Discussion (so far just talk) of skeptics’ family life and children.
* Creepy activists showing up unannounced in person (as alluded to by Anthony himself)
… pretty much every possible thing that one should worry about has already occurred and yet the cognitive dissonance is still strong enough in some otherwise brilliant people to pursue the myth of a Marquess of Queensberry ruled debate where everyone argues gentlemanly and then retires to cappuccino and pastries while watching unicorns graze in the sunset.
The enemy plays for keeps, they always have, and they have just barely begun to fight. Let’s not forget that contrary to the big lie that Lewandowsky has pushed all the real kooks are counted among the AGW crowd. They not only have the grassy knollers, Apollo deniers, and 9/11 slimeballs, but even more dangerous are their unabomber and ‘Earth First’ type eco-Nazis. These psychos kill not just dogs, but people as well. Their religion demands it. And that religion is what guides them, not some evolved logic or intelligence, and certainly not some adherence to unwritten rules of decency, and definitely not any scientific principles.
With the bureaucracy of almost all governments, especially that of President DingleBarry infested with these vermin from top to bottom it is pretty dumb for anyone in a paying job to stick their head up. Their groupthink among them is strong and reinforcing, and ousting people from a career is greeted not by thoughtful criticism, but by more cheering. The enemy is collecting scalps, they feel no remorse when they chalk up another, it emboldens them. And “our” guys who counsel us to walk off the cliff voluntarily won’t be waiting to catch you at the bottom.
In this day and age NOT expending every effort at anonymity (as difficult as it truly is) is not only crazy, it is practically suicidal. It is really an act of social darwinism like those stupid kids on YouTube videos riding a bike off a ramp, into a wall, jumping off a ledge and kicking each other in the balls.
As far as this contentious thread goes (and the previous few), I am dumbstruck at all the brainpower being spent on this arguing. Meanwhile the issue of fraudulent temperature adjustment withers on the vine (what was it, one single thread here about it so far?). Mosher himself couldn’t design a better distraction. Here’s hoping that Jo Nova, Willis, Tallbloke, Monckton and Lief spend a few moments on that issue when they grow weary of beating each other up.
P.S. Attacking Anthony does not make any sense at all to me. Do you want him to lock this place down like Gavin’s Unreal Climate? What do you think is going to happen if you keep poking him with a stick? I’m not talking about the AGW trolls that appear here and are trying to accomplish exactly that, I’m thinking of the skeptics that enjoy an uncensored blog here yet still are dumb enough to complain about it. I hope and pray Anthony keeps disregarding the concern trolls that criticize him for his traditional light-handed moderation.
lsvalgaard
You gave a very good scientific points. I would add that:
18) ozone layer delays the effect of sun;
19) cosmic rays is a good proxy for UV.
Kip Hansen says:
July 18, 2014 at 7:37 pm
I endorse Mr Hansen’s approach. Despite Mr Robert in Calgary’s comment. Although science being done looks very much like a food fight, there should be an effort to maintain civility. Civility rarely happens: the stakes are too inconsequential.
July 18, 2014 at 6:58 am | johanna says
—
Hear, hear !
Chris4692,
The problem is, folks like Kip Hansen (and johanna) have a pathological hatred and jealousy of Willis. Instead of ignoring these threads, they pop in to indulge their rage.
Kip wanted to smack someone around and since Willis is traveling at the moment, it seems Kip decided on Mosher as a stand in whipping boy.
His manners lesson is built around one use of the word demand.
willis-
it’s precisely because i am ‘anonymous’ that you can get away with your irresponsible speech.
were i not, i’d have to request mr watts’ publish a retraction and apology and dismiss the party who committed the libel and who has established a pattern of this behavior.
i know you imagine that ‘any press is good press’ and can rationalize your insults as driving traffic to this site:
“And my posts here on WUWT attract about a million page views per year … ”
but guess what- wuwt is already on top. it’s not because of you. to some degree it’s in spite of you.
and now that i realize this is the game, i guess it’s up to an anonymous coward to demonstrate the appropriate response to it.
all the best to mr watts. it’s been great. ain’t no more. bye.
Agnostic says:
July 18, 2014 at 10:01 am
Many thanks for the suggestions, Agnostic. I asked for the out-of-sample tests on Jo Nova’s blog back around post two of eleven, from memory. I was told that they had already done the tests, and that they would release them at some point.
I asked again when Joanne was participating in the “Solar Notch Model Released” thread here. I was roundly ignored.
I’ve asked again here on this thread for both the code setting the arbitrary parameters and their own out-of-sample tests several times on this thread. Again, no reply.
I’m done with these folks. The idea that I should crawl on my knees to them to ask pretty please will they release their hidden information to me personally is laughable. It is up to them to rejoin the scientific community by revealing both the out-of-sample tests and the code for the setting of the arbitrary parameters, not to me personally, but publicly so that anyone can examine them. To date they have chosen not to do so. That’s up to them. I have no further interest in the matter. All that my calls for scientific transparency have brought me is abuse from skeptics who should know better, who should be in the forefront of the calls for transparency.
In addition, we’ll never see the data and code that I asked for back in post two of eleven. In the words of the Hockey Team, they’ve “moved on” to their new whiz-bang model with extra added nuclear test goodness. So for example, the graph that caused so much trouble (Figure 3) is now in the past, Joanne says they have nothing to do with that now.
Joanne is obviously reading this thread, as she posted above.
So they know what they need to do for their work to be considered science. They are choosing not to do it. Up to them.
To me, this whole thing is totally mystifying. I and others have spent literally years fighting for the principle of scientific transparency in the form of the required archiving of code as used and data as used. The motto of this struggle, thanks to Steven Mosher, has been “No Code, No Data, No Science”, and it is perfectly true. Unless we have someone’s code and data as used in their investigation, it cannot be falsified, and thus it is not science.
As an example of what has been accomplished in this fight for honest science, Steve McIntyre and I and others have written repeatedly to Science magazine and the National Science Foundation urging total transparency, and our efforts are finally bearing fruit. Science magazine now (in theory) requires the archiving of code as used and data as used, and the NSF now requires (in theory) the recipients of the NSF grants to archive the results of their funded studies. So we are winning, albeit slowly.
And after all of that, after all the fights with folks like Michael Mann and Phil Jones and Lonnie and Ellen Thompson to get them to release their data and code, after the struggles with NSF and Science magazine to get them to require scientific transparency, for David and Jo to claim that the rules don’t apply to them, and that it is perfectly acceptable for them to not release their code and data until such time as they dang well please, and up until today it hasn’t pleased them to do so, that was … well … an unpleasant surprise.
I have done my best to try to get them to change their minds. I have implored them to release the data and code. I have failed totally. I’m done with it. They can do what they want with their code and data, but it’s not science of any sort until they release it all.
The real tragedy here is that they obviously still think that their model is valid, despite the host of very trenchant and insightful comments by a host of people both here and on the JoNova blog from engineers, scientists, and interested observers. They’ve taken a defensive stand, and have doubled down on their model.
Ah, well. Science is self-correcting. Me, I’m going to go back to doing my own scientific investigations, and let go of trying to get them to do science. All that’s brought me is grief. I post my own data and code with every investigation that I report on, as do Steve McIntyre, Steven Mosher, Anthony Watts, and the rest of the real scientists on the planet. David and Jo can come join us in the 21st century or not, it’s their choice.
My best to you,
w.
LeifI believe that you underestimate the ionization by the GCR. Since many days you can see an excess of ozone in the southern magnetic pole. It’s the middle of the polar night in the south. GCR is only able to ionize oxygen in the area below Australia. Note that this anomaly not in transit.
http://www.temis.nl/protocols/o3col/data/omi/o3doas_yesterday.gif
So to recap:
Evans shows sharp TSI drop.
There is no drop.
Jo Nova said of course there’s no real drop, it shows up in the smoothing.
Thus Evans should have used a different technique that matched reality.
Evans used bad TSI data, including bad TSI reconstructions built on faulty assumptions with said reconstructions in an IPCC Assessment Report (and a million other places) which Monckton notes was not noted by the IPCC as being bad.
Since the IPCC track record is to never admit anything is in error until they are smacked hard upside their heads with a 2×4 of Undeniable Proof, the IPCC not noting that an error they implicitly condoned is an error should in no way be considered confirmation of veracity.
Evans released a spreadsheet that cranks out his predictions when fed a certain set of numbers, whose source is not revealed, and this is called full release of data and code.
When enough info has been released one can program up the thing in anything from Pascal to COBOL using numbers available from either publicly available data or from subroutines crunching what is or is derived from publicly available data, then you have full release of data and code.
What is also noted is Monckton’s commendable loyal defense of a family friend, which has been done very vocally, repetitiously, and repetitiously, including numerous threats of actions both litigious and for the forcible discharge from an academic position, for the making of scurrilous accusations that Evan’s position is not scientifically defensible while it was repeatedly shown to not be scientifically defensible although it was advised by some to wait until Evans scientifically defends himself which was said to have been done although apparently actually attempted by his proxies and indeed some think Evans has remarkably acquitted himself although he has yet to directly address… practically anything.
Good job there, old chap. Quite admirable.
And so it goes. Mend fences, and the deer and the wolves both complain you got no right to do so. Even more so when it’s your own owned fence.
johanna says:
July 18, 2014 at 6:58 am
I’m sorry, johanna, but I fail to see the problem with my apology. I clearly apologized for whatever I said that Jo or David or Lord Monckton thought was over the top, for whatever I said that they thought was “something extra”.
The difficulty is, I don’t know what I said that in their opinion was over the top. They have not said what they found was something extra, although obviously they were upset. Rather than go through the “you said”, “yes, but you said” process that goes nowhere, I simply apologized for wherever and whenever I was over the line.
Now, I’m sorry that you don’t like that, but I don’t see that you have a dog in this fight. If Lord Monckton wants to tell me exactly what he found to be over the top, or if Jo or David want to discuss the question of whether my apology is satisfactory, I’m happy to do so. If they want me to apologize for X, whatever X may be, I’m glad to discuss that.
But I always talk to the organ grinder rather than the monkey, so I fear that the passionate objections of you and the rest of the Apology Police mean nothing to me. I deal with the principals, not with their apologists.
Finally, as I stated above, I don’t take advice on the proper way to take responsibility for my words from someone like you who never, ever has to take responsibility for your words. You can walk away from your words at any time, I’ve never seen you apologize for one single thing, so what would you know about the proper form of a public apology?
So you can howl at the moon all you want. This is not the first time you’ve claimed that you were the spokesmodel for someone else … at least if you are the same johanna, which we have no way of knowing. And I don’t deal with spokesmodels, johanna. I deal with the individuals that I owe the apology to. If they’re unhappy with it, we can talk about it.
But discussing it with you goes nowhere. There is nothing I could ever say or do that would ever satisfy you, so any attempt to do so is a waste of time and effort.
Best regards,
w.
A similar anomaly in the north, with a low solar activity, appears again over Canada and central Siberia in accordance with the Earth’s magnetic field. It will again harsh winter in the Northeast of North America.
Blade says:
July 18, 2014 at 9:10 pm
For those who are reading impaired, please take another shot at this one:
Blade, obviously you think someone here has said that anonymous people should “come out”. However, I find no one on this thread who has advised anyone to “come out”, most certainly not me.
Contrary to your unpleasant fantasies, here is what I actually said about anonymity:
Do you see how foolish you look when you make wild-eyed accusations with no basis in fact? QUOTE THE WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH, otherwise as in this instance all you do is demonstrate that you are both unpleasant and uninformed, a bad combination.
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 19, 2014 at 12:06 am
“I deal with the principals, not with their apologists.”
Fair enough.
The principle here is do the principals have principles? If the problem, as Willis, Leif and Steve have daylighted it, is that there is not enough principal available to assess the principles involved, then not all the principal components are yet available for principal component analysis.
Everything else is just feldercarb.
Without the appropriate data isn’t what has occurred here better described as MatheMANNics?
Or is it that we do indeed have enough data for a Yamal but not enough yet to perform a McIntyre, Svalgaard, Mosher or Eschenbach?
That, ladies and gentlemen, IS the question…….
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 19, 2014 at 12:40 am
“This is not a value judgement on my part. It is a simple fact. You and other anonymous posters never ever have to apologize for what you’ve said, because you can just change your alias and walk away. I cannot do that. I have to take responsibility for what I’ve said, and either defend my words or admit that they were wrong or apologize for them.”
Frankly, just because someone posts under their own name is no guarantee that people will take responsibility for what they’ve said. All you have to do be willing to do, is brazen your way through. Respectfully, Willis, there have been multiple cases where you have not done what you claim here that you **have to** do – see Mosh’s recent criticism of you in the Beer thread or Roy Spencer’s criticism of your originating the thermostat hypothesis several months ago for a couple of examples.
Cheers, 🙂
Leif
Thanks a lot for this. It puts everything nicely into context – really useful.
Steven Mosher forgot to add “childish”.
Mr Eschenbach seems to have departed from all reason. He now says he does not know what it was that I have been questioning in his comments about Dr Evans. Yet I have repeatedly explained that, in surely sufficient detail, in this and the previous thread on the subject. I do not propose to do so again. If he will not, will not, will not be in the least bit reasonable, then I must put his attitude charitably down to the ancient disease of the mind known to the theologians as “invincible ignorance”.
For his own peace of mind, he should desist from attempting to comment on Dr Evans’ work until Dr Evans has published his reviewed papers on his findings. Then, since he seems more than usually determined to do Dr Evans down regardless of the merits of his work, he can attempt to write a reviewed rebuttal of it. However, I must instruct him that in the learned journals the sort of repeatedly malevolent and tendentious language he has unjustifiably used of Dr Evans here will not be tolerated or published.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 19, 2014 at 3:59 am
Dr Evans has published his reviewed papers on his findings.
Let us first see the papers published in ‘learned journals’. So far, Evans’ ‘work’ does not look publishable in any shape or form.
@Willis and Steven Mosher
Right, so you think it sufficient to make your requests for important information on a blog rather than a direct email? Even though you emailed Phil Jones?
Do you not think it is fair to say, from the perspective of outside observers, it seems unfair to admonish Dr Evans for not responding to blog posts for specific information, when you could just as easily email direct? Clearly you think it is reasonable, but I am wondering if you might be able see that from another point of view it can appear unreasonable.
Is it not possible that they are not following your every word that closely, thinking that they have already answered your criticisms? Personally, if you think being directed to the information is vital to be able to test or replicate (which I fully agree is perfectly reasonable) then direct communication with dr Evans seems to me to be the most efficient and reasonable method to use. Is it not?