Is the Hockey Stick Graph Dead?

Novice warmist debunks Michael Mann

Guest essay by David Hoffer

Image by Joanne Nova
Image by Joanne Nova

For those of us who have followed the climate debate for a long time, the notion that Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick graph might be dead is counter intuitive. For us, the Hockey Stick graph is central to the debate. It’s appearance in one brilliant stroke swept all discussion of the physics of climate change aside, wiped out discussion of sensitivity and natural variability, destroyed in the public’s mind any notion other than climate change was catastrophic and already upon us. Even the climate models played second fiddle to Mann’s tree ring chronology. I submit however, that the Hockey Stick is in fact dead, a symbolic (but important) final blow being struck at WUWT, not by a skeptic, but by a warmist. (Patience, I’ll get to that).

Of course Michael Mann is a major thorn in the side for most skeptics. We gnash our teeth as he takes court action to silence his critics, our blood pressure mounts as he continues to present at major climate conferences, and the increasingly shrill claims he makes drive us batty. But the truth is, the last few years haven’t been t that kind to Michael Mann. No longer does his Hockey Stick graph adorn the front covers of major WMO and IPCC reports. The Nobel Prize committee itself has repudiated his claim to a Nobel Prize. His science has been shredded by Steve McIntyre’s work on Climate Audit, and exposed as flawed in front of the Wegman congressional committee. Even his once comrade in arms, Keith Briffa, has published new tree ring chronologies that restore the Medieval Warm Period that Mann apparently worked so hard to erase. There was a brief moment when Mann thought he would be vindicated and back in the lime light with the publication of Marcott et al, but that paper was savaged almost instantly by McIntyre, Eschenbach and others, to the point that even Marcott admitted that it was not robust enough to draw any conclusions about the modern era. Mann’s presence in the climate debate is a pale shadow of what it once was, though he still shows up at speaking engagements with much the same slides, which it seems he hasn’t bothered to update since 2005. It’s like he isn’t even trying anymore.

But the most cruel blow of all (to date) was dealt to Mann’s Hockey Stick, not by some statistician, or paleo scientist, or physicist or geologist…. But by a warmist who showed up on Sept 3rd on WUWT, going by the screen name JoNovace. Her (I assume it is a “her”) screen name was an obvious play on Jo Nova’s good name, but the twist on the word “novice” turned out to be the very personification of cruel irony. JoNovace in fact exposed herself as a novice, and quite unintentionally, debunked the Hockey Stick in just two sentences.

It started in the November 2nd thread by Dr. Tim Ball titled “IPCC Prediction of Severe Weather Increase Based on Fundamental Error”. JoNovace appeared, making the usual warmist troll assertions. She skipped right into appeal to authority, citing the 97% consensus. She asked who readers would accept advice from for cancer treatment, a survey of football [fans] or from medical professionals. A commenter who pointed out the 18 year hiatus to her was rewarded with her claim that this existed only in the blogosphere and the brain dead. In short, the usual warmist talking points presented in the usual fashion sarcastic fashion. A troll so certain she was right, that anything that came out of the mouth of a skeptic must certainly be wrong. Suddenly, everything went sideways very fast for JoNovace. It started with this comment by Alan Miller which I reproduce in full here in italics:

· Alan Millar

November 3, 2014 at 5:04 am

“JoNovace

“…..pontificate that we were actually in a declining temperature period. That is how bonkers your hypothesis is at the moment. ”

I am not as brainy as you guys think you are, I don’t have my own hypothesis plucked out of thin air, I rely on experienced scientist to guide my conclusions”

Ahh so we we have someone who admits that they are just regurgitating someone else’s thoughts and is someone of ‘the Faith’

Well done, very useful!

Perhaps you would like to address my point about the ‘hide the decline’ trees. Mann and others used this paleo record, inter alia, to establish his ‘hockey stick’ As you should know after showing increasing temperatures, in the period from 1960 a period the alarmists are largely basing their AGW hypothesis on the trees actually started to show a sharp decline in temperatures.

They got round this by excising this part of the record and grafting on the actual temperature record. However, even you, in your lack of independent thought, can see that if we looked back at this period from the distant future, without the actual temperature record, you would assume temperatures and the trend were going downwards if you trusted the trees as Mann and his followers have declared they do.

That is why the current hypothesis is bonkers, without actual temperature records for the past, we have no real idea what was happening in such short periods of a few decades a la the period the warmists are currently relying on.

Does that make you think at all or is La La La going off in your brain at the moment?

Alan

And how did JoNovace respond to this well done summary of the “Hide the Decline” debacle? Well, she did so by dispatching Michael Mann and his tree rings to the rubbish heap with just two sentences. Here is her comment in full, in italics, bold mine:

· JoNovace

November 3, 2014 at 5:27 am

“….trees actually started to show a sharp decline in temperatures…..”

Tree rings don’t show temperature, what is your source for this? Tree ring may correlate with temperature if other factors are removed.

“1960 a period the alarmists are largely basing their AGW hypothesis on the trees actually started to show a sharp decline in temperatures.”

…but we know the temperatures were rising so this is nonsense. This is why tree rings dont “show temperature” as you put it.

So there you have it. Mann’s tree rings crushed in just two completely logical sentences, the Hockey Stick graph unceremoniously dumped into history’s dust bin by an erstwhile defendant of the CAGW meme itself. Confronted with Michael Mann’s “science” but without the pomp and ceremony and media spin to give it credibility derives from context and appeal to authority, even a novice to the debate could see the truth. Which is why they (apparently) aren’t including the Hockey Stick graph in Warmist Troll 101 classes anymore.

I pointed out JoNovace’s error to her, that she had just debunked giant tracts of CAGW science. To the best of my knowledge, she hasn’t been heard from since on WUWT. Once can only wonder what kind of epiphany this was for her. But as for Mann and his tree rings…. The warmists don’t drag them out to put on display anymore. Even a Novace can see right through them.

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Stephen Richards
November 15, 2014 1:14 am

It’s walking dead !

Harold
Reply to  Stephen Richards
November 15, 2014 7:36 am

A dead walking stick?

Barry
Reply to  Stephen Richards
November 15, 2014 8:26 am

Tree ring arguments aside, what many folks don’t understand is that tree rings are just one of many types of proxy data:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/what-are-proxy-data

Reply to  Barry
November 15, 2014 9:50 am

Thanks Barry. Good point that we have to throw out all the many types of proxy data if we throw out the tree rings.
Quoting from ‘How Do Scientists Study Ancient Climates?’ at the link you provide,

Scientists can then take the records left by many different types of natural records and combine them to get an overall picture of the global climate.

If they are all combined with junk they are all calibrated on junk.
They area all useless if the tree ring data is useless..

Eamon Butler
Reply to  Barry
November 15, 2014 4:56 pm

Thermometers are pretty useful too.

November 15, 2014 1:21 am

Weren’t you ever told that it’s sadistic to torture small, defenceless creatures? One almost feels sorry for the poor creature after your dissection without anaesthetic – but only almost.

klem
Reply to  Kevin Lohse
November 15, 2014 5:34 am

I know what you mean, I sort of feel sorry for JoNovace in a way.
But I endure this kind of angry contradictory science denial so frequently on alarmist websites that the feeling quickly vanishes.

Norbert Twether
Reply to  klem
November 15, 2014 6:42 am

Anyone with a garden knows that plant growth depends on a number of factors, i.e. (inter alia) temperature, amount of rain, available UV light, level of CO2, fertility of soil, etc. The width of tree rings therefore depends on a complex mixture of all these things, not just temperature. For example a warm, but cloudy, very dry year may give rise to less growth than a cold sunny but wet year. So to rely on the width of tree rings as a proxy for only the temperature appears to be naive. Has anyone kept close records of all the variables over long periods of time to find out what actually are the best parameters for tree ring growth or is tis all based on an”old wives tale”?? Surely the wider tree rings show that the overall conditions for growth were good in that year?

Reply to  klem
November 15, 2014 7:06 am

Norbert, indeed. I pointed this out some years back, as I am a gardener when time allows. I have grown a number of trees, and they are dependent on so many variables. Two trees of the same variety, growing just a few metres apart can vary greatly. I have seen this time after time. I actually think it’s a lot to do with genetics, but sunlight, water, and wind plays an enormous part. Actually, I don’t find that temperature has anything to do with it.

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  klem
November 15, 2014 9:51 am

We need to come up with a new symbol other than the cross for the CAGW religion – any ideas?

Reply to  klem
November 15, 2014 9:53 am

A burning globe?

milodonharlani
Reply to  klem
November 15, 2014 2:31 pm

A double cross?

Steve Reddish
Reply to  klem
November 15, 2014 5:28 pm

Spoken as “double cross” written as “XX”
SR

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  klem
November 15, 2014 9:10 pm

Broken Hockey Stick?

Reply to  klem
November 15, 2014 9:26 pm

For Norbert and Ghostly Jim:
For many years the PFRA in Canada provided trees for shelter belts around farm houses in the wide open prairie. (PFRA= Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration). Somewhere I have several pictures that show how trees planted in a north-south line around a farm house grow tallest at the south and shortest at the north end of the line due to shading from the trees to the south. You could draw a straight line along the tree tops sloping down from south to north. In some places, the difference in growth from south to north was quite dramatic. And that is just one variable. It would be interesting to go and “assess” the tree rings in those lines using a “blind” test on someone who didn’t know the trees were all from one location and see what “temperatures” they came up with. Often there were three species of trees in three lines, Poplar, Spruce, and Willow, Caragana or Elm. I had all of them on my farm.
http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/prairie_farm_rehabilitation_administration_pfra.html

November 15, 2014 1:26 am

Well there is progress of sorts. For years and years it was boldly declared that the atmosphere continues to warm. Now they seem to be admitting to themselves that the atmosphere has stopped warming for a while, because they are quick to point out that they believe that the warming has switched to the oceans instead.

Ian H
Reply to  Will Nitschke
November 15, 2014 1:50 am

If the land based climate record is patchy it is nevertheless far better than the ocean temperature record. We just don’t have a clue what the extent of the previous natural variation in ocean temps looked liked.

Tim
Reply to  Will Nitschke
November 15, 2014 3:12 am

Why apply a marketing/PR term like ‘The Pause’ as if it’s a temporary phenomenon? It could just as well be: ‘The Retreat’, ‘The Disappearance’ or ’The Revaluation.’

CodeTech
Reply to  Tim
November 15, 2014 3:35 am

In the future we will recognize it as “the peak”.

Reply to  Tim
November 15, 2014 5:47 am

It is a “plateau” in the record.

Reply to  Tim
November 15, 2014 1:28 pm

The planet has warmed sporadically for 300+ years. Unless you can see into the future, or believe the planet is fond of the Christian calendar, the sensible assumption will be that the planet will continue to do what it’s been doing until it’s clear observationally that it’s definitely started doing something else.

StuartMcL
Reply to  Tim
November 15, 2014 2:49 pm

Let me correct that for you:
The planet has cooled sporadically for 8000+ years. Unless you can see into the future, or believe the planet is fond of the Christian calendar, the sensible assumption will be that the planet will continue to do what it’s been doing until it’s clear observationally that it’s definitely started doing something else.

Steve Reddish
Reply to  Tim
November 15, 2014 6:18 pm

Will, I don’t get the reference to the Christian calendar. Please explain.
SR

Reply to  Tim
November 15, 2014 10:04 pm

Steve, my comment was based on the often repeated claim that the warming “stopped” in the year 2000. Over the last 10,000 years the climate has been relatively stable within 5C or less of change. I’m not sure what the 8,000+ year cooling claim is all about. Certainly on more humanly comprehensible time scales (which is what interests humans), it’s been warming for three centuries. If we look at data sets such as Greenland ice cores, it’s strongly suggestive of the possibility that we’re still in a short term cool period, so it’s reasonable to assume we will continue to warm, on and off, for a while yet.

Michael Wassil
Reply to  Tim
November 15, 2014 10:49 pm

Will Nitschke November 15, 2014 at 10:04 pm
I’m not sure what the 8,000+ year cooling claim is all about.

It’s about the ice core record showing that the ‘Holocene Optimum’ occurred immediately after the ‘Younger Dryas’ cooling. The Holocene Optimum peaked about 8000 years ago and the climate has been trending cooler since, with the occasional uptick along the downtrending trajectory. To the unbiased, it’s pretty clear we’re heading to the end of the Holocene Interglacial with a whimper not a bang. Previous interglacials showed the same general profile. A relatively quick jump in temperature out of the preceding glacial max followed by a slow but steady decline in overall temperatures, with occasional upticks, to the start of the next glacial max. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Reply to  Tim
November 15, 2014 11:01 pm

You don’t say what data set you’re referring to. I didn’t see that that 8000+ cooling trend in the Greenland ice cores. And I don’t see it in the Vostok station ice cores either. I’ll take your word that there is a data set out there that shows this cooling trend you’re referring to, but if it’s only in one data set and not the others, if I were you, I’d be more skeptical before jumping to conclusions like that. On the other hand, you’re also talking about time scales that have nothing to do with the subject of this post, which is the hockey stick graph, so I think you are confusing the issue rather than clarifying it.

Michael Wassil
Reply to  Will Nitschke
November 16, 2014 1:54 pm

Will Nitschke November 15, 2014 at 11:01 pm: “… data set you’re referring to. I didn’t see that that 8000+ cooling trend in the Greenland ice cores.”
Really? I see it quite clearly:
http://openyoureyesnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Icecaps_and_Glaciers.jpg
Will Nitschke “I don’t see it in the Vostok station ice cores either.”
Really? The scale is quite different from the GISP2 core, but the trend is still clear to me:
http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/graphs/vostok-ice-core-50000.jpg
Will Nitschke “I’d be more skeptical before jumping to conclusions like that.”
Hardly a jump. The Holocene Optimum is not controversial. Nor is the downward temperature trend from it through the rest of the Holocene to the present. Google it for yourself.
Will Nitschke “… you’re also talking about time scales that have nothing to do with the subject of this post, which is the hockey stick graph…”
I think it is always worthwhile to keep things in perspective. It clarifies issues. When you look at the Holocene as a whole, you are better able to keep that perspective when considering the past 1000-1400 years of it. Keeping the last 1000 years in perspective makes the present look pretty normal to me. Although, if you consider the following graph, you can put the Holocene in its proper perspective and note that temperature and CO2-wise we are living at the bottom of the scale.
http://www.biocab.org/Carbon_Dioxide_Geological.jpg
Keeping things in perspective, I’d hazard the assertion that a warming climate and increasing CO2 are nothing to worry about. Which is why I advise you to enjoy it while it lasts. We are still in the Pleistocene which doesn’t look likely to end any time soon.
Cheers.

Reply to  Michael Wassil
November 16, 2014 6:06 pm

Sorry I don’t know where you are getting the GISP2 graph from, you don’t offer a citation. But did you go to the actual web site of the researchers who created GISP2 and look at their graphs?
http://www.gisp2.sr.unh.edu/
Because they don’t look like what you are showing here.
And the graph you show of the Vostok ice cores contradict your claim that we’re in an 8,000 year cooling trend as far as I can see. Looks relatively stable to me with no trend in that data set for the last 10,000+ years.

Michael Wassil
Reply to  Michael Wassil
November 16, 2014 7:13 pm

Will Nitschke November 16, 2014 at 6:06 pm
The citations of the graphs are on the graphs, with the exception of the one I got from Jo Nova and I don’t think she made it up.
Look more closely at the Vostok graph (open it in a new tab and it will enlarge itself for your benefit); you will see that the trend is down from about 8k years ago. It even has temperature spikes corresponding more or less to the Minoan, Roman and MWP (apparently). The scale is quite different, as I mentioned, but you can still see the downward trend to present.
What we’re talking about here is the Holocene Climate Optimum and it petered out 8k years ago. I didn’t just make it up to try to fool you. Google it for yourself if you don’t like what I’m showing you.

Reply to  Michael Wassil
November 16, 2014 9:15 pm

I’m sure you’re not making it up, but random googling on the internet is not particularly useful for obvious reasons. I’m just pointing out that the GISP2 graph you found looks nothing like the GISP2 graphs made by the researchers who collected and analysed the actual GISP2 data. There could be a valid reason for the difference but until I know what it is, I wouldn’t give the uncited graphic any credibility.
The other point, although I’m repeating myself, is that when we’re talking about trends, it’s reasonable to talk about trends in the context of the hockey stick graph which is the subject of this post. Such proxy reconstructions tend to cover 1-2 thousand years, so when we’re talking about trends, we should be talking about things that are likely to happen in hundreds of years. You’re citing data that looks at trends in tens of thousands of years. Obviously you’re going to get different answers, depending on what the trends are for hundreds of years, thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, or millions of years.

Michael Wassil
Reply to  Michael Wassil
November 16, 2014 9:34 pm

Will Nitschke November 16, 2014 at 9:15 pm
Maybe you’ve forgotten that this little side show started with YOUR November 15, 2014 at 10:04 pm:

I’m not sure what the 8,000+ year cooling claim is all about.

I’ve addressed your obvious ignorance of the Holocene Climate Optimum, first very simply then in detail. Yet, instead of saying “thank you, Mike”, you troll on. Well, you can troll on as long as you like. I’m over and out.

Reply to  Michael Wassil
November 17, 2014 1:04 am

Actually Michael, your own data refuted your claim. The only graph I saw (unless I missed something) was uncited and contradicted the graphs I pointed you to, which were probably cited. You’re the one who wanted to argue that we’re in an 8000+ year cooling trend. I didn’t bring this up, you did. When I asked for how you arrived at this information, you failed to produce, so far, any credible sources for the claim. No point calling me names because I’ve embarrassed you. It’s only the comment section of a blog posting and it’s not likely that many people are still paying attention to this exchange except me and you.

November 15, 2014 1:31 am

Typo:- Once can only wonder –
Back when I still believed in Global warming doomsday, I went to edit Wikipedia global warming. After finding it impossible to add even one sensible link (to peak oil), I realised that there was a huge problem between these groups we now call alarmists/academics (by the bucket full) … and a few individual sceptics.
And they were arguing about this thing called the “HockeyStick”. And reading up on it, there was clearly a good case to have the issue included in the article, but no matter how I tried to act as a go between, the warmists would not let anything through. I literally spent a few weeks trying to encourage common sense on a single sentence, which the alarmists just sabotaged.
And that is the type of behaviour which forced me to say “unless I can show for myself this global warming is true, I cannot trust these alarmist/academics”.
The moral: When you confront someone with the truth about the hockey stick, even in 2007 you had to accept the sceptics have a strong point.

Reply to  Mike Haseler
November 15, 2014 6:20 am

I had a similar experience. As I was looking into the veracity of the alarmist claims and trying to understand the actual science, according to all the evidence, instead of the cherry-picked bits from either side, alongside applying the pure Feynman approach to hypothesis vs evidence… I soon discovered to my disgust that the Alarmist side simply would not entertain the scientific approach at all. The only side who engaged in rational analysis, with an open mind, with the ability to look at evidence in itself AND entertain the scientific approach of “what else could it mean” and recognise where evidence is suggestive of different things, and look at how any evidence effects the veracity of the hypothesis, was the sceptical side of the argument.
When the alarmists relied on models of their hypothesis, and deleted any data which contradicted it, I knew they were a religion. I noted how the alarmist’s manufactured falsities to spread alarm with blowing up children, polar bears falling out of the sky and deserts with monkeys starving to death. I stuck by the evidence, while alarmists stuck by photoshop and fairy tales.
Now we can look back over the last 20 years of predictions when we “months from the tipping point” and yet we are still supposed to believe the appeals to those same authorities who kept making all these palpably absurd predictions which have still not happened over a decade after we were “months from catastrophe”
Oh… and I am still waiting for the precise mechanism by which increasing heat magically decided to switch from the surface temperature to the seas. Oh… and how this heat knows where the satellites are looking, so can keep hiding from them in the troposhere and where the ARGO buoys are so that they can be avoided too while all this massive amount of very clever, intelligent heat sinks so deep into the oceans where it can hide.
Occam’s razor tells us that a simpler answer is that all this excess heat simply is NOT there! More heat is escaping back into space by unknown mechanisms that we are conveniently not measuring… or wilfully avoiding…. one or the other.

November 15, 2014 1:31 am

JoNovace was obviously a climate change denier masquerading as a dumb alarmist. On second thoughts, I didn’t need the word “dumb” – it is self-evident.

richard
Reply to  phillipbratby
November 15, 2014 4:23 am

I wouldn’t be surprised if she also posts under “village idiot”

Skiphil
November 15, 2014 1:32 am

dream on, the Zombie Stick walks on and on and on….

Admin
November 15, 2014 1:42 am

The hockey stick was debunked by Tom Wigley’s son 🙂
Climategate Email 0682.txt
(Wigley writing to Mann)
A few years back, my son Eirik did a tree ring science fair project using trees behind NCAR. He found that widths correlated with both temp and precip. However, temp and precip also correlate. There is much other evidence that it is precip that is the driver

Expat
Reply to  Eric Worrall
November 15, 2014 8:47 am

Precip as a driver of ring growth would certainly be true at NCAR, but not necessarily true in a more humid and less UV intense environment. The amount of humidity as well as ground moisture is the limiting factor on tree growth in the mountain west.

Jimbo
Reply to  Eric Worrall
November 15, 2014 2:22 pm

Michael Mann’s tree proxy graph showed 1934 (US) as a down spike. 1934 is one of the hottest years in the US.

Bristlecone Pines: Treemometers or rain gauges ?
It looks like, at least for 1934, BCP’s in the USA desert southwest are better at being rain gauges than “treemometers”. Given “Liebig’s barrel”, it makes one wonder whether BCP’s are a good proxy for temperature at all.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/19/treemometers-or-rain-gauges/
===========
Here’s the MBH98 PC1 (bristlecones) again marking 1934. Given that bristlecone ring width are allegedly responding positively to temperature, it is notable that the notoriously hot 1934 is a downspike.
http://climateaudit.org/2008/03/17/principal-components-and-tree-ring-networks/

No wonder JoNovace called the Hockey Stick nonsense from 1960.

Gary in Erko
November 15, 2014 1:47 am

Is this what’s called pee review?

Doug UK
November 15, 2014 1:55 am

This is happening more and more on social media and discussions “down the pub”. Those of the alarmist persuasion try to bully and bullshirt their view at people – and then when people politely but firmly point out the facts – they melt away.
There will be lots of mutual admiration society meetings where they try to prop themselves up by excluding any dissenting voices – but the wheels are definitely coming off the gravy train.

Bloke down the pub
Reply to  Doug UK
November 15, 2014 2:27 am

I do my best.

View from the Solent
Reply to  Bloke down the pub
November 15, 2014 2:43 am

😉

GeeJam
Reply to  Doug UK
November 15, 2014 2:34 am

Doug, I see it too. When I first questioned, researched and concluded that AGW was a scam, I viewed the ‘debate’ between both sides much like a sophisticated, intelligent and strategic game such as backgammon, bridge or chess.
The AGW ‘game’, however, has gradually changed in the last eighteen months. Whilst us sceptics continue to try and play the best game of chess we can, the alarmists now want to play tiddlywinks or ‘Twister’* – games which are simpleminded and frivolous.
*For those who can’t remember the game ‘Twister’, see link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twister_(game)
Read it. The description is pretty accurate for warmists.

Reply to  GeeJam
November 15, 2014 3:48 am

I think Whac-A-Mole

The term “Whac-a-mole” (or “Whack-a-mole”) is used colloquially to denote a repetitious and futile task: each time an adversary is “whacked”, it only pops up again somewhere else.[5][6] In a military context, the term is used to refer to ostensibly inferior opposing troops who keep re-appearing,[7] while in a computing and networking context, it refers to the process of fending off recurring spammers, vandals or miscreants. Whac-A-Mole

is a better analogy because no matter how many papers are shredded, discredited or retracted, they just keep coming.

Sweet Old Bob
Reply to  Doug UK
November 15, 2014 5:01 am

Yes. Where they listen to Mutual Admiration Society Sermons…..their MASS…..

Brute
November 15, 2014 1:58 am

The (in)existence of god is not based on who wins an argument.
The fact is that temperatures have stalled (so far). All else is noise, amusing at times, but noise.

Reply to  Brute
November 15, 2014 3:06 am

A couple of warmish days, but far from record breaking, here in Oz land and the warmists are frothing at the mouth. The poor dears are working themselves into heart attack territory. I can only hope.

Jim Francisco
Reply to  Steve B
November 15, 2014 11:41 am

Did those folks who burried their heads in the sand ever take them out?

Michael 2
Reply to  Brute
November 16, 2014 6:49 pm

Brute says “The (in)existence of god is not based on who wins an argument.”
Its definition, however, DOES depend on winning an argument.

Editor
November 15, 2014 2:03 am

Makes me smile when I see that Mann, has juggled with figures, deleted some and added others to make his theory appear to be correct, but was wrong on the basic supposition that it is only temperature that influences tree ring growth. A sixth former involved in a science project wouldn’t have made an error as huge as this. However as we all know,promoting and defending the “Cause”, does not rely on science!

November 15, 2014 2:15 am

It may well be that the “hockey stick” is dying, but I know for a fact that it is still shown to youngsters in schools. The most mythical and unscientific versions of the alarmist religion are spewed forth in schools by teachers who are convinced by the “experts” that the magic molecule CO2 is going to fry us all and do that sooner rather than later. Heck, even using the term “the greenhouse effect” plays into the hands of the master propagandists on the alarmist side. Rather than some neutral phrase such as “the atmospheric effect” we see people on both sides talk about hot-houses and blankets of CO2.
It is going to take a long time before science returns to the study of climate.

GeeJam
Reply to  markstoval
November 15, 2014 2:46 am

Mark, is that secondary schools? Certainly in primary education (in the UK anyway), it is not compulsory to teach pupils AGW. My wife’s primary school refuses to have anything to do with the subject.
PS My last post (see above) went in to moderation – probably because I used the word ‘sc@m’. Sorry Mods.

Reply to  GeeJam
November 15, 2014 4:58 am

I was referring to both private and public schools. I know Catholic schools the best, but hear reports from the public schools also. (via teacher friends)

GeeJam
Reply to  markstoval
November 15, 2014 7:16 am

Thanks Mark.

Reply to  markstoval
November 15, 2014 12:08 pm

There is a Greenhouse effect. Market gardeners pump several times atmospheric CO2 content into their greenhouses to produce bigger, better, healthier crops. By a process which is beyond me, the effect of increased CO2 levels on the burgeoning plant growth planet-wide becomes evil.

November 15, 2014 2:21 am

Try extending the hockey stick graphs. I mean REALLY extending them. Take their catastrophic predictions of another 2-4C rise when CO2 doubles to 560ppm and keep going! Follow the mathematical line along its trajectory past 1000ppm, past 2,000ppm. Watch as the mean temperature rises compound themselves the further you go along the mathematical line.
By the time your graph line is predicting earth’ surface temperatures higher than those on the surface of Venus, you should be wondering to yourselves why you wasted so much time arguing hard core physics with these people, when falsification was just a simple line of a pencil away!

ConfusedPhoton
November 15, 2014 2:32 am

Although the Hockey Stick was an attempt to wipe out the Medieval Warm Period, you could accept that it was borne through sheer incompetence. Some may consider it fraud but seeing Mann’s lack of p anything remotely scientific, I would give him the benefit of the doubt.
However, “Hide the Decline” cannot be viewed in that way and I believe that was a deliberate attempt at deception.

Dodgy Geezer
November 15, 2014 2:37 am

…Even a Novace can see right through them….
No, she can’t!
Warmist supporters do not ‘see through’ anything. As Jo herself says, their ‘conclusions’ (read ‘beliefs’) are ‘guided’ (read ‘provided’) by ‘experienced scientists. The warmist supporters DO NOT THINK. They are TOLD what to say.
What has been brought into sharp focus here is the process of ‘doublethink’ which is used to support warmist arguments. The tree rings are treated both as undeniable proof of warming when they show warming, and as poor proxies which can be ignored when they show cooling. In microcosm, this is the entire warmist argument. Any area of the world which is warming is comprehensive proof of AGW, while any area which is cooling is a minor weather-related glitch.
There is a sub-set argument which states that cooling is also proof of warming, but that is advanced doublethink, and I won’t go into that here…

AndyG55
November 15, 2014 2:55 am

And of course tree rings and tree growth rates are also greatly affected by atmospheric CO2 levels..
Oh Dear, poor mickey mann.

nobodyknows
November 15, 2014 3:18 am

I hink there are many scientists who do a good job with tree rings. They know that there are many factors affecting them. There will be better analysis of these factors. So I hope that tree rings as proxies will contribute to our knowledge. The last 50 years are most uncertain, with increased CO2 level, acid rain in forests, and pollutions that affect tree growth in Asia. My Primary question is what knowledge JoNovace has of tree rings proxies. Has she better undersanding of this than of climate change?

Nigel S
Reply to  nobodyknows
November 15, 2014 3:38 am

Perhaps she was really ‘she who is best ignored’. Her degree was Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Honours).

November 15, 2014 3:26 am

I had a good laugh at this rebuttal of Dr Mann’s thesis. The funny part is that we all knew this all along and didn’t know we knew it.
Well done.

November 15, 2014 3:26 am

I had a good laugh at this rebuttal of Dr Mann’s thesis. The funny part is that we all knew this all along and didn’t know we knew it.
Well done.

Steve Keohane
November 15, 2014 3:30 am

I remember that interchange, and wondered what JoNovace’s stand was after the last post, which seemed to contradict the previous ones..

CodeTech
November 15, 2014 3:46 am

By the way, this is why I keep saying that MOST warmists simply need a single, solitary fact to get them on the road to recovery.
Most will recognize BS (bad science) when they first grasp UHI, or the “sea level rising” myth, or the “Antarctic melting” myth, or the “heat is hiding in the deep ocean” myth, or any of the other key things. Once one of these falls, any person of average or better intelligence will eventually make the logical leaps required to figure out the lie.
As I’ve pointed out many times: the majority of regulars here at WUWT used to be believers. So when a believer thinks they know better, they need to be aware that we had our intellectual conversion, and they likely will as well.

emsnews
Reply to  CodeTech
November 15, 2014 4:18 am

One more super cold, super long winter over 90% of the US will drive the warmists to move to California where they can happily whine about how warm it is.

Legend
Reply to  emsnews
November 15, 2014 8:47 am

Well said.

Reply to  emsnews
November 15, 2014 11:57 am

That’s happening now… how else do you think Gov. Moonbeam could get re-elected… oh yea, “medical” marijuana, that’s the other reason.

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  CodeTech
November 15, 2014 4:23 am

I wouldn’t say the majority were believers, but perhaps assumers. Prior to late 2007, I simply assumed that all I’d been hearing on the news about manmade warming was true. I wasn’t even aware that there was another side debunking the whole thing. It wasn’t until I searched on the web for arguments to counter someone I considered a climate crank, a task I thought would be easy, that I started seeing problems with the Warmist claims. Believers have an emotional and psychological stake in Warmism, which is why it is so difficult for them to see facts.

latecommer2014
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
November 15, 2014 6:48 am

For me it was Al Gore. I already had a distrust for him based on his politics, but when he started in on CAGW , I started to do my own research. With my geology background I studied paleo climates and compared atmospheric gases and found that suddenly it was all on man, and the history of climate was all wrong.
Then it went from Man to Mann and my own records and CLIMATE AUDIT and WUWT and my many questions to qualified experts, and their kind answers (without showing impatience ) directed me to more papers and sources. Through all of this since 2004, my opinion became that any human influence on the atmospheric changes were too small to measure, if they exist at all.
Thank you all for the free education….and thank you Real Science for showing me that even simple physics that dispute their POV, were censured. I learned through this that they had created a religion and true believers only need comment.

TYoke
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
November 15, 2014 12:49 pm

For me it was CO2 fertilization. My degrees are in biology, chemistry, and biochemistry and as soon as I heard the words CO2 induced “global warming” in the mid 1990s, I wondered about CO2 fertilization.
The fertilization effect is extremely clear and important. It is supported both by theory and a massive number of experiments. Those experiments can be done by gold standard, controlled experiment methodologies. By comparison the climate models are incredibly complex, and with no way to test the model by true controlled experiments. The only way to really test the GCMs is by waiting a few decades to see whether the model predictions agree with observations.
Despite this obvious rejoinder to the alarmist claims, there was, and largely still is, an almost perfect blackout of public commentary on CO2 fertilization. That made me very suspicious indeed. A conservative estimate is that the biosphere is 10% more productive because of CO2 induced fertilization. With 7 billion people on the planet, in strictly human terms it means that 700 MILLION people are currently being fed as a consequence of CO2 fertilization. Nonetheless we are supposed to freak out about dubious claims of 10s of thousands of “climate change victims” with the huge benefits completely ignored. Not buying it.

November 15, 2014 3:52 am

Using medical professionals as an analogy for climate scientists was unwittingly self-defeating. Very few orthodox physicians have done any original research or any critical thinking. They don’t even understand the nature of the medications they prescribe.
If your profession is all training and no thinking, it is not worth much. I’ll go with the football fans.

Professor Gavin Kenny
Reply to  Karim D. Ghantous
November 15, 2014 7:58 am

No – the essential difference between cancer doctors and climate “scientists” lies in the simple fact that cancer therapy is guided by double blind studies, or evidence based medicine. Climatology is not. If it was, then the fact that there has been zero warming with CO2 increased by about 10% over the past 18+ years would be regarded as conclusive evidence.

CC Reader
Reply to  Professor Gavin Kenny
November 15, 2014 10:41 am

Medical Science is “evidence based science”? I will bet “news” reporters raved about “Dr.” potty…
“… Dr. Anil Potti … became the face of the future of cancer treatment at Duke … when other scientists set out to verify the results, they found many problems and errors… Duke’s so-called breakthrough treatment wasn’t just a failure — it may end up being one of the biggest medical research frauds ever.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/deception-at-duke-fraud-in-cancer-care/

Reply to  Karim D. Ghantous
November 15, 2014 9:35 pm

I just listened to a review of a survey of medical practitioners (GP’s) versus the public on allergies and other medical conditions this week. It turned out that the GP’s got a LOWER mark on what to do or take or what caused allergic reactions than the general public. So every time I hear that comment about who would you believe, a medical practitioner or the general public, it gives me pause. More so since I have been misdiagnosed by both heart and cancer specialists. But… “It’ll be ok in the end, and if it’s not ok, it’s not the end.”

Terry
November 15, 2014 4:00 am

“few years haven’t been t that kind to” needs fixing.

Steve from Rockwood
November 15, 2014 5:06 am

While we’re pointing out the errors of others, the graphic in this post depicts a polished tomb stone with raised lettering which is impossible. It should have sunken lettering. Unless it was a subtle way to expose Mann’s fraud, in which case, I missed it. Must be the early snow fall looking to form the same horrible winter as last year. If you want your warming, you can keep your warming.

CodeTech
Reply to  Steve from Rockwood
November 15, 2014 5:23 am

No one can take that away from you?

Frank Kotler
Reply to  Steve from Rockwood
November 15, 2014 8:34 am

… and is it Alan Miller or Alan Millar?

commieBob
Reply to  Steve from Rockwood
November 16, 2014 5:31 am

Most folks will look at the illustration and get the disquieting feeling that something is wrong but not be able to say why.
It’s a lot like CAGW. It doesn’t look quite right to most people.
The IPCC doubled down on alarmism just before the election, and I wonder if it didn’t cost the Democrats a lot of votes. Many voters felt like they were being lied to, even if they couldn’t say why, so they stayed home or voted Republican.

u.k.(us)
Reply to  commieBob
November 16, 2014 5:31 pm

“Most folks will look at the illustration and get the disquieting feeling that something is wrong but not be able to say why.
It’s a lot like CAGW. It doesn’t look quite right to most people.”
===========
Yep, I felt “it”.
What is “it”, a sixth sense ?, survival instinct ?, or just the BS meter pegging ?

Editor
November 15, 2014 5:11 am

Doug L. Hoffman, you wrote about JoNovace, “To the best of my knowledge, she hasn’t been heard from since on WUWT.”
JoNovace appeared here at WUWT from November 1 through November 7. JoNovace’s last appearance was on the thread of the post “ClimateProgress’s Joe Romm Translates the IPCC’s 2014 Synthesis Report”. See the comment here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/07/climateprogresss-joe-romm-translates-the-ipccs-2014-synthesis-report/#comment-1782606
JoNovace was from Australia…from a town southeast of Adelaide. I’ll leave it to others to speculate about the true identity of JoNovace.

richard
Reply to  Bob Tisdale
November 15, 2014 7:54 am

If you travel far and wide on the internet and go through the comments you will find a character that post under many, many names but sings with the same identifiable voice.

Reply to  Bob Tisdale
November 15, 2014 9:34 am

Thanks Bob, I had missed that thread.
(I’m the author of this post, not Doug Hoffman, Anthony got the attribution wrong).
[Fixed. ~ mod.]

Jimbo
Reply to  Bob Tisdale
November 15, 2014 3:11 pm

Is JoNovace actually Miriam O’Brien of HotWhopper (a.k.a. Sou)?
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/p/about-us.html
http://www.miriamobrienconsulting.com/aboutus.php
[Doesn’t seem to be the same person. ~mod.]

Reply to  Bob Tisdale
November 15, 2014 6:10 pm

LOL, you’re kidding me … couldn’t have been, must have been her incontinence nurse sidekick!

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