Eric Worrall writes: Mann’s thermometer spliced hockey stick has taken even more damage in the last few days, with Steve McIntyre helpfully providing reconstructions based on tree rings which demonstrate how, without the benefit of Mike’s scientifically dubious “nature trick”, the hockey stick simply disappears – tree rings demonstrably don’t correlate with temperature.
According to McIntyre;
The new information shows dramatic failure of the Sheep Mountain chronology as an out-of-sample temperature proxy, as it has a dramatic divergence from NH temperature since 1980, the end of the Mann et al (and many other) reconstructions. While the issue is very severe for the Mann reconstructions, it affects numerous other reconstructions, including PAGES2K.”
What is worse, in my opinion, is that Mann and Briffa can’t even claim they weren’t warned. As early as 1998, the very Russian Scientists who Briffa hired to collect the tree ring samples, tried to alert Briffa that the samples didn’t show what they wanted them to show. The difference is, the Russians weren’t measuring tree ring width, their favoured metric was the polar timberline – the northernmost edge of the great Arctic forests.
According to Rashit Hantemirov, of the Russian Academy of Science;
According to reconsructions most favorable conditions for tree growth
have been marked during 5000-1700 BC. At that time position of tree
line was far northward of recent one.
[Unfortunately, region of our research don’t include the whole area
where trees grew during the Holocene. We can maintain that before 1700
BC tree line was northward of our research area. We have only 3 dated
remnants of trees from Yuribey River sampled by our colleagues (70 km
to the north from recent polar tree line) that grew during 4200-4016
and 3330-2986 BC.]
This period is pointed out by low interannual variability of tree
growth and high trees abundance discontinued, however, by several
short (50-100 years) unfavorable periods, most significant of them
dated about 4060-3990 BC. Since about 2800 BC gradual worsening of
tree growth condition has begun. Significant shift of the polar tree
line to the south have been fixed between 1700 and 1600 BC. At the
same time interannual tree growth variability increased appreciably.
During last 3600 years most of reconstructed indices have been varying
not so very significant. Tree line has been shifting within 3-5 km
near recent one. Low abundance of trees has been fixed during
1410-1250 BC and 500-350 BC. Relatively high number of trees has been
noted during 750-1450 AD.
There are no evidences of moving polar timberline to the north during
last century.
Some of Mann’s own colleagues warned Mann about the unreliability of tree rings – this email from Tom Wigley, discussing how his son’s high school project falsified Mann’s research.
“Also, stationarity is the key. Let me tell you a story. 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, and that the temp/width correlation arises via the temp/precip correlation. Interestingly, the temp correlations are much more ephemeral, so the complexities conspire to make this linkage non stationary.”
On this occasion though, Keith Briffa decided to support his friend Mann with some helpful advice (from the same email as the Wigley quote) – Keith’s suggestion is that Mann could dismiss the relevance of previous warm periods being warmer than today, by spinning the suggestion that the current warm period is different, because it is anthropogenic;
“Mike there is often no benefit in bandying fine points of emphasis and implication- Hence , I think that what you have already drafted is fine. Do not start to dilute or confuse the issue with too much additional detail. The job , as you state , is to place on record the statement of disagreement with the “science(!)” and spin. To this end , it may also be worth stating in less couched terms that merely eyeballing the relative magnitudes of recent versus prior period(s) of large scale warmth, is in itself very limited as a basis for claiming the reality OR OTHERWISE of anthropogenic forcing of the recent warming , if this is done without reference to the uncertainty and causes of these differences. The points you make to Tom are of course very valid , but do not be tempted to guild the lily too much here – stick with your current content
Has any piece of scientific research ever been so thoroughly discredited? Tom Wigley’s son’s high school project falsified the hockey stick. The latest Sheep mountain study shows the hockey stick disappears, unless you use Mike’s trick of splicing in the thermometer record, to hide the divergence problem. The Russian scientists who collected the original tree ring samples, tried to warn Mann he was measuring the wrong metric. Yet somehow this nonsensical analysis became a central icon of the climate alarmist movement – and is still widely reproduced by the more scientifically illiterate alarmists.
Well it is getting bad for Mann,it’s worse than he thought.
Laughed out loud when I read that.
Eugene WR Gallun
Hi Eugene. Summer is suppose to be here in NZ. However,crops are late due to cold nights. I don’t like to criticize other countries leaders,but I can’t help thinking the POTUS has lost his marbles. I would like to wish all readers here a merry Christmas and a happy new year. I read this site regularly,and get great pleasure reading the comments. Oh,do you know where NZ is? I would be willing to bet that the majority of Americans don’t even know who we are. Best wishes from NZ.
I know where NZ is.
LOL
BTW, I am a NZ citizen too!
Hi Patrick,no reply on your post,so do it here. Yep,we are very small by world standards. We like to think we are big,but we are very small. We do have lots of sheep,and also lots of warmists who think we are doomed. Our climate is very cool by world standards,and would benefit with a few degrees of warming. Temperatures here are below normal,and maize and other crops are not living up to expectations,but may recover as the weather improves. All the best to you commenters over there,and have a good Xmas. Cheers from NZ,Best wishes,Billy NZ.
My post is more for others, it made me laugh when it was broadcast! Shbangabang! LOL Thanks! Lived in Wellington for about 9 years. All the best to you, family and friends over the Chrimbo hols.
NZ is near Belgium
Thats where they speak New Zealander said our POTUS
If it was I wouldn’t be standing upside down
No it isn’t. NZ is Near Zealand not to be confused with those scum in Far Zealand. Splitters! 🙂
I lived in Belgium too.
Yes, in deed; instead of being at Penn State, he should be in the state pen. Crooked as a dog’s hind lag. By the way, isn’t New Zealand south of New England? Just guessing.
Yes you are right Patrick, NZ is south of New England, NSW, AUSTRALIA. LOL
We Septics know where New Zealand is …….. we learned it from watching documentaries……
watch your spelling- neither John Cook nor Obama need any help with ad homs. Thanks, great video.
Well put, sir!
Damned good read. We know Mann’s a fraud. Mark Steyn has his measure, and I hope he has his measure legally too. This article is some icing on the cake.
Once again, “Tree ring, meet Mount Doom.)
Dr. Fraudpants as Mark Steyn has amusingly dubbed him, is becoming an increasingly isolated, Captain Queeg like figure. Things will not end well for Mr. Mann, from a professional point of view at least.
Mann the goal posts to stop this new embarrassing information slipping through to Steyn and Co.
…or to the judge.
Further confirms mannequin is a dummy!
I recall Jerry North, a climate modeler at Texas A&M University, relating that he and other modelers were “euphoric” when Mann’s hockey stick (HS) came out. It showed exactly the trend their climate models said should be happening: an unprecedented rise in air temperature since the early 20th century.
Mann’s HS was a huge relief to them. It completely validated their climate models, and so was immediately and uncritically accepted throughout the community of modelers.
I remember seeing a picture of Tom Stocker holding up a transparency of Mann’s hockey stick, looking at the camera with grim certainty equally mixed with I-told-you-so on his face.
For me, that picture iconized the fixated attitude of the modeler community. The HS was everything for which they could possibly have hoped. They couldn’t give it up any more than a biologically disposed heroin addict could abandon the drug. The modelers have conquered climatology, climatology controls the AGW narrative, and so it all went.
I searched but unfortunately didn’t find that picture again.
If ye seek diligently for what you want to find ye shall find it.
Seek and ye shall find; ask and it shall be given. Screw up and it shall never be forgotten.
Alas, modelists will always suffer from not wanting to see real-world data.
And modern climatologists will always suffer from not wanting to wait to accumulate real-world data.
Put them together and what do you get…
Not sure what you get… but the cause is government funding.
So your response to my challenge is that there is a vast conspiracy involving thousands of hard-working scientists in collusion with the media and governmental administrators to perpetuate a lie to all of us?! Good luck with that. I suggest you start by reanalyzing the data, publish it in a peer-reviewed scientific paper and refute the conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences. I guarantee the media will pick it up and you will be famous!
Michael Mann
Dr Mann is a reasonable, but by no means outstanding scientist, who unfortunately has been instrumental in over promoting the value of a branch of paleo proxy reconstructions-tree rings.
Other proxies do not always agree with Dr Mann. It entirely depends on which cherry tree you want to pick from and whether you then turn the cherries upside down or not.
Here is a graphic I created showing the advance and retreat of glaciers over the last 3000 years taken from thousands of references from Ladurie and Pfister. On to it has been placed the hockey stick which manages to sail on serenely at virtually the same temperature, whilst all around it glaciers advance and retreat. As regards glacier lengths, they are a reasonable temperature proxy bearing in mind we can not capture the nuances when movement is limited.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/clip_image010.jpg
The link below goes to the borehole database held by the University of Michigan.
http://www.earth.lsa.umich.edu/climate/core.html
It illustrates rising temperatures since 1500. Due to sampling problems I think we are safe to say from 1700, but 1500 seems doubtful. CET shows this 300 year rise as well.
What are we to make of this as Dr Mann shows declining temperatures for the last thousand years until the sudden rise in the last century when he swapped cherries for oranges.(instrumental records are far more variable than paleo proxy reconstructions)
Well, if you would like to look at the borehole data shown in the link, which is a pretty good proxy for other novel paleo methods, it seems you could reconstruct whatever temperature scenario you wanted.
tonyb
Borehole temperature reconstructions in different publications from the maintainer of the University of Michigan’s database, Shaopeng Huang, who is considered one of the top experts in this field. Looks like there is lots of room for interpretation but there is a MWP in the data unlike what is shown in the hockey stick.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/boreholes/huang-pollack-97-2000-2008.gif
Then, how much variation there is individual boreholes from Harris and Chapman 2005.
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/borehole_harris_chapman2005.jpg
tonyb
Calling Mann a “reasonable…scientist” seems a stretch. Frauds and cheats usually get called…wait for it…frauds and cheats. Doubly so when they blatantly use their tax-payer funding to ruin other, legitimate “reasonable scientists” who disagree with them.
Reasonable? No.
“Dr Mann is a reasonable, but by no means outstanding scientist, who unfortunately has been instrumental in over promoting the value of a branch of paleo proxy reconstructions-tree rings.”
Yikes. Such a thing as being too polite. I get that you want to be collegial Tony, but come on! A reasonable man does not act like a lunatic…by definition. Also I must take issue with your somewhat passive construction…as in “(Mann’s) been instrumental in over promoting…”
This is not something that somehow…as if by bad luck….happened to him. Mann’s chosen the low road, a route he seems determined to pursue all the way to the bottom.
Chip and poker guy
I meant ‘reasonable’ in the sense of being a scientist that is better than poor but not as good as brilliant. Perhaps mediocre would be better?
I didn’t mean reasonable as in the sense that he is all sweetness and light in all his dealings.
Tonyb
Mann is a B_ _ _t_ _d who deserves to be pilloried. You don’t sue Dr. Tim Ball and Mark Steyn because you’re reasonable. Let’s call a spade a spade.
Dr. Mann has never demonstrated the quality of “reasonableness” to me, in my only interaction with the man, he demonstrated the qualities of pettiness and narcissism; perhaps I encounter him on a bad day, but my impressions have been reported by many.
“Other proxies do not always agree with Dr Mann. It entirely depends on which cherry tree you want to pick from and whether you then turn the cherries upside down or not.”
This is such a misrepresentation that either it’s written by someone intent on spreading misinformation, or it’s written by someone who really doesn’t have a clue, and shouldn’t be writing about things he has failed to investigate with even moderate diligence.
Tonyb
I’m a retired CFO, so my opinion on the totality of Dr Mann’s scientific academic work is meaningless. However, I suspect with the passage of time, Mann’s having relied on selected tree rings as a temperature record (accurate to 0.1 Celsius degree) will literally be view as a willful fraud.
In my mind, this explicit and continued malpractice is of such gravity as to render his prior performance meaningless. I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.
Chip
Why not speak to Will who seems to imagine Dr Mann has been misrepresented and the hockey stick lives on.
tonyb
Pat Frank:
It should be noted that Gerald North was the head of the NAS panel that investigated the hockey stick and who made the quote about how they “just kind of winged it”.
Wasn’t this one was it?
http://ipccreport.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/stocker.png?w=604
from: http://ipccreport.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/thomas-stocker-tries-to-hide-the-decline/
The big question is why on earth anyone would think that temperature, rather than moisture, was the major determinant of tree ring growth. Any farmer could have told him he was nuts.
Mann oh Mann!
Exactly! No one who has a clue about trees ever thought there was a relationship between mean annual temperature and tree rings.
The greenist summers are the wettest summers around here but I’m not a farmer or a climate scientist.
@ arthur4563: December 6, 2014 at 7:55 pm
“The big question is why on earth anyone would think that temperature, rather than moisture, was the major determinant of tree ring growth. Any farmer could have told him he was nuts”
——————
(Just some trivial information that might interest WUWT viewers.)
True, ….. but, ….. in actuality the major determinant of tree ring growth is light intensity ….. because light intensity determines the rate of photosynthesis ……. and the rate of photosynthesis determines the amount of sugars that are produced for use in tree ring growth.
Except the early Spring growth, …. those sugars were produced the previous growing season and were stored in the roots. Think of …… Springtime Maple Syrup production.
To wit:
“The main factors affecting rate of photosynthesis are light intensity, carbon dioxide concentration and temperature.”
In that order of importance, ……. but don’t panic, …… moisture is more important than temperature. But it is the soil moisture …. or …. amount of moisture in the soil.
And don’t be forgettin that the growth rings get a “jump” start on their growth in early Spring when there is normally adequate soil moisture available (unless it was a cold dry winter).
And I really don’t know of any means or methods one could use for determining per se proxy data for soil moisture content of bygone years, be it for one (1) year or one hundred (100) years.
Reference: http://www.rsc.org/learn-chemistry/content/filerepository/CMP/00/001/068/Rate%20of%20photosynthesis%20limiting%20factors.pdf
Cheers
Trees grow well if they get light, there’s moisture in soil, and the temperature is within certain limits. Both dry sunny and cloudy cold summers may be detrimental to tree growth. The treeline – location of northernmost trees – movement, OTOH, depends on warm summers because seeds won’t develop nor saplings grow in less-than-optimal weather.
I’m all for Anthropogenic Global Warming, let’s make this a better warmer world.. All I see are people shivering and grey skies. rain and sleet, it’s basically miserable, sometimes snow and ice. Winter sucks and it will suck a thousand years from now, that’s my scientific opinion.
I’d imagine winter’s a lot of fun if you’re rich.
If you don’t have to get up before the crack of noon.
Don’t have to slop your way through the traffic to get to work.
You snowmobile into town to have brunch at the local tavern.
You spend an afternoon cross country skiing and have a warm cozy chalet to return to at night.
You can drive your 4 wheel SUV to the airport and fly your private jet to spend a few weeks at your West Palm Beach winter home.
“It’s good to be da king”
Mel Brooks
Are you talking about our good buddy named AL
And a very reasonable, but depressing opinion it is. Cold, gray….winter. My local sunset is currently 432pm…in 4 days it is 431pm….YES!!!
Our local sunset was a whole 10 seconds LATER yesterday than it was the day before. Hallelujah, we’re over the hump (since I cannot also measure the sun rise, which will take another month to catch up).
Ooops, I stated that wrong….SS is currently 431pm and in 4days it will be 432pm…YES!! (I sorta feel like a Mann now ;-))
I wudda manned up to it also. 🙂 🙂
Why is Mann getting so much attention for being wrong?
Because his iconic graph galvanized the world, including me at the time. I distinctly recall thinking, wow, this must be the real deal. It was all a lie.
I agree pokerguy, but how is it that attention is now accomplished by the lack of scientific achievement?
He told a lot of people what they wanted to hear – so they told all their friends.
If only Mann’s proxy carried on forward in time. Here’s big Mc
Why did the mathematician and physicist, Michael Mann, decide he was better at reading tree rings? The above is the end result. Mann’s proxy – the HOT year of 1934 is a down spike. Sad.
Because the science is ‘settled’ – honest, guv….
Ralph
Matt Ridley also says he was fooled:
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-case-against-the-hockey-stick
“Because his iconic graph galvanized the world”
—————-
The only “fake” that has been pictured more often than Michael Mann’s “Puckwhapper” is most probably the ones of the “Wrongheaded Dinosaur” …… (Brontosaurus).
Sparks:
“Why is Mann getting so much attention for being wrong?”
Because people still believe the documents he has cranked out over the years claiming that his work proves CO2 is the major cause of temperature change, and that mankind’s burning of ‘fossil fuels’ is largely responsible for those changes – in CO2 and temperature. What he has tried to show (using highly irregular methods) is that trees contain a temperature record in their growth patterns.
As his 1998 work has been shown to be defective and has not yet been withdrawn, even though it can be and has been demonstrated that he knew at the time his results were not representative of the facts available (which alone is ‘good cause’ to withdraw) the paper is still cited as ‘evidence’ confirming the AGW hypothesis.
Withdrawal of the ‘hockey stick papers’ would drive a wooden stake through the heart of the climate alarm blood-sucking vampire. Before that happens, the ‘Team’ has to find an alternative that is more believable and of approximately the same shape. In the absence of net warming for the past 18 years, there is no recent work that can produce such a temperature curve so they are ^creek -paddle.
They tried to move the argument to ‘the heat contained in the system’, but that creates other problems the movement is ill prepared to solve. The error bar on the ocean heat content number is larger than the signal, for a start. The ‘imbalance’ is very much smaller than the error bars on the ground and satellites, and there is a viable alternative explanation that is related to solar CR, CFC’s (and their analogues) and ozone.
See http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~qblu/qblu_website/Welcome.html if you have not encountered this work before. The Team has slipped a couple of (pretty bad) rebuttals into the mix but is staying away from making a lot of public noise about this guy’s ideas because it has a 0.96-0.97 correlation coefficient (1970-2012) with temperature. In other words, it ‘explains the rise and the pause’ – no CO2 required. The conversation in the articles continues, 2009-2014.
In order for a workable ‘counter argument’ (that the data did not support that such a mechanism exists or could work) Muller et all 2010 had to go to Mannian lengths, using similar data from a satellite that does not cover the areas of the globe where the effect takes place (!) which prompted an interesting exchange, to say the least.
Because Mann keeps running his mouth in very public places, and some people seem to listen!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2014/12/05/a_record_year_for_climate_action_347111.html
Because the National Academy of Sciences (2006) and many other analyses support his conclusions.
“The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century
warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000
years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that
includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced
changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and
the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented
during at least the last 2,000 years.”
Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council.
This free PDF was downloaded from:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html
Everything you state has been falsified. Appeal to consensus as well as politically motivated leaders of various Science Academies does not mean that the CAGW meme is real. As I stated it has been falsified so many times that your stance should be an embarrassment to you — what is your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid.
2006?! You’re kidding, right? Why are you citing a report from 2006 to support your claim when there are many studies since then?
“Melting on ice caps”. There are exactly two ice caps. Exactly one has melted somewhat from a given start point. That is exactly half of the ice caps. The other one has grown to record levels from the same given start point. None of what you have quoted is, “unprecedented”.
I suspect there are a lot of honest climate/atmospheric physics professors out there who would refuse to read a paper with Mann as a co-author. His lies may have initially worked, as few would have thought such a big Lie would have been possible, but they are not stupid. The Mann climate science FAIL is coming.
The famous “vomit letter” Climategate email from Ray Bradley shows that a lot of scientists haven’t been able to stand him for quite some time.
http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/1364.txt
This picture at the Fall 2013 AGU meeting in SF implies Bradley recovered from his nausea in fine form.
Seeing it made me a bit ill, though.
No they are nasty little selles. They used the mann hockey stick to up their funding and then quietly disown him when the merde hits the fan. Really nice people the Climologues.
The fraudster has trouble with language as well. See ‘insure’ rather than ‘ensure’.
Although best known to the general public, like me, for his hockey stick paper he has written or co-authored more than 160 papers and his standing with students at his university is apparently amongst the highest. He is clearly not just a one trick pony – has anyone done a critical review of his overall contribution to climate science ? He must be approaching that stage in his professional academic career, common for distinguished professors , when students and colleagues mount a symposium in his honour , recalling achievements and presenting like contributions of their own .
Haha nice try Mike! I’m here at Penn State, his reputation does not match your description.
Mann’s legacy will of statistical gamesmanship, a failure to embrace falsification, failure of replicable results, and massive egotistical outbursts, petulance, censorship on Twitter and RealClimate and his oppressive lawsuits will insure his reputation as a shoulder-less midget.
There is a telling parallel to Church & White’s splicing of linear sea-level tide gauge data to (also linear) satellite data but adjusted to a different slope. The satellites don’t have the resolution accuracy of the tide gauges, yet they are gleefully “joined” to become “semi-empirical” – just what we always wanted!!!
since tree rings have to be calibrated with more recent thermometer records I wonder how they manage to diverge … if you are calibrating with the last 100 years thermometer data then wouldn’t the last 100 years of trees rings almost exactly match the thermometer record ? isn’t that what it means to calibrate … year x temperature = y then year x’s tree ring width = y temperature … my bet is that they stopped calibrating at some point because it would cause the older tree ring data to have much higher temperatures … and that would kill the AGW myth …
The “divergence problem” appeared in the 1950’s or 60’s depending on which specific proxy. Basically before that time, tree rings seemed to track the instrumental record. Since the instrumental record only began about 1880, this means that for nearly half the instrumental, tree rings do NOT track temperature, calling into question their validity prior to 1880. If they can’t get 1950 to 2010 even close, there’s no reason to trust them from 1000AD forward.
Mann’s “nature trick” was to hide this divergence from the instrumental record by replacing the tree ring data post 1950 or so with the instrumental record itself. That way nobody noticed (at first) that the tree rings “declined” while the instruments went up, falsifying the use of tree rings as proxies for temperature. This became known as the “trick” to “hide the decline”. Without it the 1000 year temperature reconstructions by Mann, Birffa, Jones, etc would been seen as completely useless from day 1.
“… before that time, tree rings seemed to track the instrumental record …”
========================================================
Please correct me, but I thought they actually selected the tree-ring proxies which tracked the temperature records (at least as far as ~1950) and threw out the rest thus guaranteeing a hockey stick blade shape at the end of what was, in effect, (almost) a linear trend line handle — the average of widely divergent proxies before ~ 1880.
Christopher Hanley December 6, 2014 at 11:11 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well that too. It is actually a rather complicated trail, and trying to summarize in a paragraph or two results in many chapters being left out. Essentially the Hockey Stick is one story line, and Hide the Decline a different (but over lapping) story line. If you want the full details, Climate Audit goes into excruciating detail, and there are a number of good articles archived on this site as well.
Could be. But. Consider the following as well.
Mann’s Theory of Tree Ring Temperature Proxies requires that tree ring width (amount of growth each year) be proportional to local temperature – which is turn is assumed equal to global temperatures as measured by thermometers and inferred by other proxies, right?
Now, Mann either corrects for local precipitation, or assumes all precipitation in a single area is always the same for every tree in that area. (Or he manually selects out trees which do NOT follow the assumed temperature-tree-ring-width profile so precipitation variations are excluded for every tree that Mann reports data about. The rest? Not revealed. Did he measure 12 trees in Yamal – and only use one? 60? 120? )
But … Tree ring width is ALSO proportional to the amount of CO2 available to that tree in every summer that the tree experiences.
Thus, more CO2 over time (1860 – 1998) -> Faster growth each summer between 1860 and 1998 -> Wider tree rings as the tree gets older -> Conclusion: Higher Temperature each summer between 1860 and 1998, with the fastest growth in the ytears AFTER 1960!
A simple method of linear calibration is to cross plot measured temperature versus tree ring. The slope of that line is the calibration factor. You could also remove the later diverging years from the data set and recompute the slope of the line for a better fit. If you then spliced the later measured temps onto your calibrated proxy data the fit would look even better. But that would be cheating.
The whole aim of Mann’s shenanigans is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety through endless funding — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary and manufactured by sleight of hand, pen and schticks..
~ After H. L. Mencken
“To this end , it may also be worth stating in less couched terms that merely eyeballing the relative magnitudes of recent versus prior period(s) of large scale warmth, is in itself very limited as a basis for claiming the reality OR OTHERWISE of anthropogenic forcing of the recent warming , if this is done without reference to the uncertainty and causes of these differences.”
What a wonderfully scientific sentence, ummm, What? I would retire from public life before ever uttering such a sense-free four-line balderdash…
In general science, weasel words are our most important product. Seriously.
I wrote this a few years ago and every once in a while I re-post it.
THE HOCKEY STICK
There was a crooked Mann
Who played a crooked trick
And had a crooked plan
To make a crooked stick
By using crooked math
That favored crooked lines
Lysenko’s crooked path
Led thru the crooked pines
And all his crooked friends
Applaud what crooked seems
But all that crooked ends
Derives from crooked means
Eugene WR Gallun
I wonder how many $ he as earned from grants
Probably a lot. Mann also got half a million dollars from Obama’s stimulus fund, for no specific reason, other than a general suggestion he use the money to perform more research into climate change.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703657604575005412584751830
But I don’t think the evidence supports the idea that they are just in it for the money. I think its more likely, that they are so sure they are right about global warming, they discard or disregard any evidence which contradicts their idea of what is true. Their mission to save the world supersedes their duty as scientists to report all the facts, including adverse evidence.
That was back in the days when half a mil was considered quite a lot of money…..
sarc.
Agreed, Eric. They CARE about the planet. Not like those fossil fuel funded deniers. We should listen to them, and accede to their demands, because their MOTIVES are un-reproachable. If they have to lie a little, well, it’s all for a good cause.
Well, Hansen became a $multimillionaire as a result of his public offerings so I guess Mann did, and is still doing, quite well.
We must never forget the harm that this person has done, the reputations of fine scientists needlessly attacked, the science put to one side so that this guy can have his ego stroked by his fellow travellers in the alarmist church.
He should be hung out to dry as a prime example of despicable behaviour, and stripped of his ill gotten gains.
He had the opportunity many times to admit his culpability, or mask that with an acknowledgement he made an “honest mistake”. He chooses to continue to deny his work is substandard and promote the big lie that he and his pal reviewers actively promoted and defended.
This would be “Emperor of Climate ” is nakedly exposed as nothing more than a rent seeking opportunist, and in reality Climate Parasite No 1 in a long line waiting to be exposed!.
“He had the opportunity many times to admit his culpability, or mask that with an acknowledgement he made an “honest mistake”. He chooses to continue to deny his work is substandard and promote the big lie that he and his pal reviewers actively promoted and defended. ”
/////////////////////
Now a lot of people dislike accussing the warmists of fr**d, and instead suggest that they exhibit incompetence, and all is perhaps an honest but negligent mistake. May be it was originally, but as Ken points out, the plain fact is that there have been many opportunities to correct the record, to withdraw the paper and to own up/fess up to the mistaken science. Why is this not being done? Surely, one could expect honesty in science to do this?
The Hockey Stick is no longer the poster child of the IPCC because they know that it is unsound and discredited work, but this is kept quiet from the media and the public.
As can be seen from the similar article on Bishophill, the problem is that honest scientist are not sticking their heads above the pulpit and calling out this work for what it is; nemely fundamentally flawed. This should be shouted from the hill tops. Climate science cannot move on until this is acknowledged.
The problem is that the true history of climate in the NH needs to be restored, ie., that there is in fact no lengthy uniform handle, and that it consists of ups and downs with the MWP being warmer than today, and that all we are seeing today is a recovery from the LIA, which recovery in the late 20th century may or may not be added to by CO2 emisssions.
Scientists also need to be honest and admit that we do not know what the past history is on a global basis simply because there is little reliable data covering the SH. We can only deal with the NH, and we know that there were a number of warmer periods in the NH, namely the Minoan, Roman and MWP. The AGW/GHE theory has to explain the pattern of the NH waring and cooling.
In a long line waiting to be exposed.
I’m glad you mentioned that. That line must be exposed all the way to the top and have them held accountable for their lies. The ramifications must be so severe it would never happen again.
this comment has very little to do with my post at Climate Audit. Nor is “Mike’s Nature trick” relevant to the topic discussed at CA. Nor has Mike’s Nature trick been correctly described in the above article.
Steve, I apologise if I have misunderstood what you wrote – that wasn’t my intention.
My comment about the “thermometer spliced hockey stick” was a reference to this post;
http://climateaudit.org/2009/11/20/mike’s-nature-trick/
“When smoothing these time series, the Team had a problem: actual reconstructions “diverge” from the instrumental series in the last part of 20th century. For instance, in the original hockey stick (ending 1980) the last 30-40 years of data points slightly downwards. In order to smooth those time series one needs to “pad” the series beyond the end time, and no matter what method one uses, this leads to a smoothed graph pointing downwards in the end whereas the smoothed instrumental series is pointing upwards — a divergence. So Mann’s solution was to use the instrumental record for padding, which changes the smoothed series to point upwards as clearly seen in UC’s figure (violet original, green without “Mike’s Nature trick”).”
Perhaps “thermometer spliced hockey stick” was insufficiently concise, but I wasn’t trying to describe the nature trick in detail – that has been covered elsewhere.
And the understanding I had from your post about the nature trick, was that the instrumental record was used to adjust the slope of the hockey stick reconstruction – and that your post about Sheep mountain indicates that the divergence problem shows no sign of letting up, with at least some out of sample proxies.
Saw this coming. I’d suggest withdrawing the post and reworking it until it is an honest interpretation of Steve’s work. That work, btw, stands on its own merit. This just looks bad – for you and for Anthony’s blog.
In what way have I been “dishonest”?
Don’t take Steve McIntyre’s comment too hard, Eric. Steve noted previously that one has to be “microscopically correct” when dealing with the Team’s oracular science, otherwise they play gotcha over some small thing to discredit one’s entire analysis. Steve’s quite right about this. We’ve all noted it
So, Steve has to dissociate himself from a post that doesn’t get his work exactly right. Doing so prevents anyone from using such a post as a straw man, as a means of discrediting Steve.
The hockey stick in MBH98/99 depended on Mann’s use of short-centering in the PCA analysis to elevate the White Mountain strip-bark pine series into PC1. Strip bark pine series provided the entire HS. As Steve noted, without the strip-bark pine series plus the fake PCA method, the MBH98/99 network just produced trendless noise.
Your post has the right overall judgment. Steve’s new post shows a huge new problem for the MBH corpus. The critical MBH98/99 White Mt. series ended in 1980. Sheep Mountain is part of the White Mountain range.
Steve’s new post shows that tree ring width series from south-facing Sheep Mountain pines, which are out-of-sample with respect to MBH98/99, show a decline past 1980. That is, they show the divergence problem, now found in many places across the northern hemisphere.
That result pretty much discredits the entire thermal signification of the White Mountain strip-bark series themselves, as used in MBH98/99, completely apart from the statistical mummery used to promote them. They are now known to not signify anything about air temperature, no matter how strong one’s wishful thinking otherwise.
The Sheep Mountain north-facing pines don’t produce a very exciting correlation, either, by the way, with the canonical global air temperature record.
dp
Steve McIntyre has done outstanding work in investigating the construction and faults with Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ and it is undoubtedly true that his work “stands on its own merit”. You are also right to say an intervention of the type provided by Steve McIntyre could have been expected but NOT for the reason you state.
Steve McIntyre has come to see scientific exposure of Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ as his personal domain, and he always objects when others step into what he now considers to be his territory. This is not the first time he has done it on WUWT and it can be anticipated to not be the last.
The entire post from Steve McIntyre says
That post is not criticism but is what is commonly called ‘knocking copy’. It consists of a series of unsubstantiated and unspecific complaints that – if true – cannot be answered because there are no stated faults to answer.
“very little to do with [McIntyre’s] post at Climate Audit”?
Perhaps “very little” but some and Eric Worrall quotes it verbatim in his article.
“Nor is “Mike’s Nature trick” relevant to the topic discussed at CA.”?
Really? In what way is it “not relevant” when Eric Worrall explains his cogent understanding of the relevance?
“Nor has Mike’s Nature trick been correctly described in the above article.”
Really? Steve McIntyre states no fault in the description in the article of “Mike’s Nature trick” so how is Eric Worrall supposed to respond to that?
But Eric Worral did not take understandable umbrage at the post from Steve McIntyre: instead, he attempted to ‘smooth ruffled feathers’ by posting a gracious response which began saying
Then, in the tradition of cowardly thugs kicking a man when he is down, you join in by falsely asserting the article by Eric Worrall was not “an honest interpretation of Steve’s work”.
Eric Worrall did no wrong but had the good grace to apologise for any misunderstanding he may have had of the writings of Steve McIntyre.
dp, your false accusation of dishonesty by Eric Worrall was thrown from behind the coward’s shield of anonymity and is despicable. Many people around the world are watching and waiting for your grovelling apology and withdrawal.
Richard
Richard, thank you for an excellent post. You stated my perspective better then I could.
Hello Richard,
Glad to see you are feeling a bit better.
Best wishes, Allan
When referring to MBH 98, “thermometer spliced hockey stick” is completely wrong. That’s the problem. Mann achieved his HS by overweighting bristlecone time series by 391 times, thus overwhelming the effects of any of the other non-HS proxies.
So yes, you need to amend your post consideranbly.
Jeff Alberts
You wrongly assert
YOU ARE WRONG. There is no need to amend the article.
The fact that MBH 98 was a “thermometer spliced hockey stick” was the first fault observed in MBH98, and the ‘climategate’ emails revealed that Mann was trying to mislead about this fact long before many (including Steve McIntyre) began to investigate MBH98. The matter has been much debated in the past including in a dedicated thread on WUWT.
The splicing of dis-similar data sets was only one of many faults with MBH98. Your citation of another fault with MBH98 does not alter the fact that the first fault to be observed with MBH98 is that it was a “thermometer spliced hockey stick”.
Richard
Steve,
I think a more gracious response would have been in order. Common courtesy and all that. Perhaps a private email to Eric so he could correct this post if needed? After all, he was complementing your work.
My above comment meaning no disrespect to Steve whatsoever, The skeptic community would not be where it’s at today without the tireless work of McIntyre,
Complimenting or complementing?
Steve, why then don’t you bother to explain Mike’s Nature trick, or offer a link to a better explanation!
This question is crucial to the larger mainstream debate and you only obscure the issue further, with comments, that at least for my part, appear cryptic.
My understanding is that the proxy construction (As composed by Mann) declines and therefore it was difficult to splice a climbing instrumental record onto it. The lack of a match between the proxy and the instrumental temperature record, for a layman at least, would logically falsify either or both!
The claims made by Mann’s graph are far more mundane and far reaching in the public domain than the esoteric subtleties you appear to be at pains to point out.
A quick search at ClimateAudit will quickly lead you to posts explaining the various tricks.
He has an entire site… knock yourself out:
A few more words would have helped. That comment was almost Mosheresque in its inscrutability. Almost. Nobody out mumble Mosher.
I was also puzzled that Anthony did not get what “mike’s nature trick” was all about, but now I understand that it was someone called Eric Worrall who wrote this post. As others have said, this post should be amended or withdrawn.
The “nature trick” was to use the instrumental record to pad the tree proxy smoothing algorithm, to hide the decline – to change the downslope, which might have cast doubt on the validity of tree rings as a proxy, into an up slope. So “thermometer spliced” seemed a reasonable way to capture this process, in just a few words.
http://climateaudit.org/2009/11/20/mike%E2%80%99s-nature-trick/
But “Mike’s Nature Trick” is not what happened with the original HS, which is what SM’s post was about.
pax
There is no Law which decrees Steve McIntyre has right of veto over what is said or who can discuss MBH98.
And there is absolutely no need – none, zilch, nada – to amend or withdraw the article.
Your suggestion of such a need is either ‘false flag trolling’ or is as mistaken as the comments by Jeff Alberts, so I refer you to my above refutation of his assertions in this thread: this link jumps to that refutation.
Richard
Steve: That was immediately obvious from having previously read multiple threads on Climate Audit. But not everyone is able to keep up with the facts in this complex area, especially when “Mike’s Nature trick” continues to be incorrectly (and frequently) cited elsewhere. Thanks for putting in a word to keep the record accurate. It’s important.
I think Steve McIntyre meant exactly what said.
mpainter
You say
Perhaps. But if you think that then perhaps you can help the discussion by explaining what Steve McIntyre meant.
I refer you to my above post which is here and lists the imponderables of what Steve McIntyre meant.
Richard
I wonder….
What is the shape of a graph (time on the x-axis, total dollars spent on the y-axis) of the total taxpayer dollars spent by Mann and his organizations to hide his data, methods, and computer programs from the people who were forced to finance his ‘studies’?
THIS might be the REAL ‘Hockey-Stick’!
By the way, am I correct in my basic understanding that publicly-funded scientific studies are supposed to be available to the public? …. that the people who provided the money get to see what their money was spent to create?
wait a minute…
There should have been increasing width of tree rings as CO2 increases…unless the climate is cooling even worst than I can imagine, or there was less rain, or essential nutrients were used up, or older trees grow slower, or…..never mind.
Apparently the planet threatening increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations does not even register as plant food.
Oh well.
One tree broke Mann’s hockey stick?
The Mann hockey stick ‘problem’ is more than incorrect proxy data.
The Mann hockey stick problem has four components: 1) cherry picking proxy data to create the hockey stick, 2) incorrect non-standard data analysis techniques which appears to be specifically done to create a hockey stick temperature graph (this interpretation of what transpired is supported by ‘scientist’ to ‘scientist’ climategate email communication (hide the decline emails), 3) efforts to withhold the incorrect data and analysis techniques from third party analysis to validate or invalidate the analysis, and 4) finally most importantly calling those who point out other proxy data sources unequivocally supports the assertion that planetary temperature cyclically warms and cools, ‘deniers’.
Nor is the hockey stick ‘problem’ which is called ‘climategate’ limited to Mann’s data and analysis. There is a select group of ‘scientists’ who it appears obviously have and continue to manipulate data/analysis to push the extreme AGW paradigm. For example, there has been a steady change in recent temperature records for example where past temperature records are reduced and recent temperature records are raised to create a ‘hockey stick’, to hide the fact that planetary temperature is not significantly increasing. The scientific evidence does not support the IPCC predicted extreme AGW.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf
http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/cg.pdf
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/LandseaResignationLetterFromIPCC.htm
There are a whole lot of environmental variables that could influence tree growth/ring width. Precipitation, soil nutrients, aspect, to name some; as well as interactions between them. Is there anywhere published that temperature was shown to be the primary driver compared with the other possibilities.
Who are you to question Mann’s authority? He is a Nobel Prize winner, after all, is he not?
Just like Ivan Gorchev. In The 14-Carat Roadster, I mean.
The statement ‘discussing how his son’s high school project falsified Mann’s research’ is sloppy.
It implies that the son’s research was somehow used to falsify or alter Mann’s results.
It would be better to say that the son’s project showed that Mann’s data was flawed, or based on a false premise.
“It would be better to say that the son’s project showed that Mann’s data was flawed”
It doesn’t even show that. The son cored some trees at NCAR, in Boulder Colo. That’s not Mann’s data. There’s a reason why Mann’s data comes from places like Yamal and Sheep Mtn, rather than somewhere more convenient like NCAR. It’s what they do to try to separate temperature effects. Of course in a place like Boulder, they won’t be separated.
The email discussion is quite interesting. Omitted here is the final para:
” I have not seen any papers in the literature demonstrating this — but, as you point out Mike, it is a crucial issue.”
It’s a serious discussion about stationarity assumptions.
Nick: I made my comment in order to highlight the use of poor English rather than enter a discussion as to what was or was not shown.
I notice the use of the term ‘stationarity’. Presumably this refers to the location or position of the trees. It could be that ‘stationarity’ appears in the American Webster’s dictionary, but it’s not in my Concise Oxford Dictionary here in the UK.
Why use words like this when the English language language contains other which immediately convey the correct meaning? I have an American general science textbook from the mid-1970s which is in excellent standard English, easily understood internationally.
Much as I admire a lot about America and its culture, the desire to invent unnecessary new words to replace existing ones has me puzzled, and at times irritated because the meaning is not clear!
Carbon500:
“I notice the use of the term ‘stationarity’. Presumably this refers to the location or position of the trees.”
No, it refers to the stability of random variable distributions over time, the random variables being the various proxy measurements of tree ring dimensions and such. Distributions are said to be strongly stationary if the distribution mean and variance do not vary over time. Or weakly stationary if the covariance does not vary over time.
The advantage in assuming stationarity is that such systems can be characterized by simple linear, time-invariant operators.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_system_theory
The disadvantage is that “interesting” systems (e.g. climate) are usually not stationary in the strong sense.
So compromises are made, assuming weakly stationary processes, synthesizing piece-wise stationarity. Also ‘cyclic’ stationarity is useful for analysis and modeling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stationary_process
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclostationary_process
Carbon, most real scientists and engineers still use standard English as they have no need of the obfuscation and misdirection that others create new words to accomplish. (Written as an engineer who is in no way, shape, manner or form a proper user of the English language… according to every English teacher who ever attempted to teach me.)
Carbon 500 says; “… in order to highlight the use of poor English…”
I bet you meant “… the poor use of English…”
Johanus
“No, it refers to the stability of random variable distributions over time, the random variables being the various proxy measurements of tree ring dimensions and such. Distributions are said to be strongly stationary if the distribution mean and variance do not vary over time. Or weakly stationary if the covariance does not vary over time.
The advantage in assuming stationarity is that such systems can be characterized by simple linear, time-invariant operators.”
But does not one first have to prove, or at least assume, that the “random” variables are independent? Salzer et al collected to cores from each of four very close growing trees at four different elevations. It is obvious that, at best, they had only sixteen independent tree width readings. Although they have thirty-two cores, there are only eight North facing and eight South facing trees. As the authors themselves very honestly wrote “We recognize this is a small number of trees that is approaching the lower limit of sample replication that should be averaged in mean time series and processed in dendroclimatic analyses. While the time series statistics suggest a strong common signal (table 1), for future research and subsequent analyses we recommend sampling more trees.”
Because of thIs lack of data and in order to obtain their 95% confidence limits the authors resorted to “bootstrapping”, a process that is only valid if it is first proved that each reading are independent and that there is no serial correlation.
I believe that the authors should have placed more emphasis on the word “suggest”, particularly since for the last fifteen years North facing and the South facing showed significantly different results.
Solomon Green:
“But does not one first have to prove, or at least assume, that the “random” variables are independent? “
Not really. The only thing that has to be “proved” is the skill of the model. If it explains or predicts everything as it should, then its allegiance to ideal technical assumptions is moot. Because these technical ideals (linearity etc) don’t exist in the real word in a pure form anyway.
Anyway, the measurements taken from these four trees, closely collocated, will probably be imprinted with common meteorological and climatological patterns on a synoptic scale and larger. Also we’re looking for a common signal from the CO2 density. So there’s a lot of built-in dependencies.
The skill of model is the bottom line. Period. Doesn’t really matter how it was created, as long as it reliably predicts or explains itsad-hoc model of the world.
I’d like to thank everyone who’s responded to my comments about the use of English, I’ve enjoyed reading your varied views and input very much. Clearly my well-thumbed mid-1970s copy of ‘Mathematics for Scientific and Technical Students’ by H.G. Davies and G.A. Hicks is not enough to ‘cover all the bases’ as the saying goes!
I disagree with the quibbles about this post. The post is an opinion piece that tries to tell the common man about this important new development in the “hockey stick” story.
The “hockey stick” graph did galvanize political action across the industrialized world and led to much higher energy costs, less industrial productivity, increased poverty, and the deaths of many people in the winter due to these factors. This “hockey sticky” con game needs to be talked about at the level that the common person can understand and then relate to friends and relatives.
I realize that Steve McIntyre has a much more technical (and technically correct) take on this issue, but he loses me sometimes and I have been guilty of teaching statistics before. So, let us remember that the appropriate level at which to teach or impart information depends on many factors (like age, ability, preparation, and so on).
It is important to remember that opinion pieces play an important role on this web site and that many readers are not professional data manipulators. (I tried to flip my checking account data upside down but my bank was not amused for some reason)
For the above reasons (and more) I say good job Eric Worrall.
What markstoval said.
I have nothing but admiration for Mr. McIntyre’s persistence and analytic ability, and the world owes him a lot. But his writing is frustrating, and I almost never have the time to run down all the acronyms, allusions, and terms of art necessary to comprehend his posts fully. Mr. Worrall is to be thanked for attempting to convey Mr. McIntyre’s work to a wider audience, and we would all be much better informed if Mr. McIntyre could collaborate with someone like Mr. Worrall to translate all of his posts into English.
+1 to that. I hope Eric isn’t put off contributing. I am an expert in my particular field of engineering, and I often try to help others for free on forums. Today, I posted a lengthy, helpful piece, which took up a part of my restful Sunday. The piece received a snide comment from a peer who isn’t as knowledgeable as myself (from what he wrote). It just makes you want to give up helping, because you think, what’s the point? I often get to the point where I will never contribute to any forum, because people can be such $hits.
Steve McIntyre actually is better than average in his scientific writing, with very few glitches. There are quite a few others who do need the collaboration you call for, but it wouldn’t hurt for Steve to have someone give his posts a quick looking-over for clarity, as well.
Malfeasance by proxy?
I really couldn’t care less who did what and how and by how many. When, where it [man made warming from CO2] became a problem is, when Governments started to use my money [taxes] to prove a myth [CAGW]. Penn State et al, UEA[CRU], the Met Office – if you swallow up public funds then you are on the payroll – Goddammit: should we not at least expect some, even a glimmer of objectivity?
The alarmist cabal and particularly certain individuals, are so cocksure of themselves, so right – always and will brook with no arguments. With straight faces and all sense of humour bypassed, shouting, “the science is settled” they piously exclaim but how is any of this ‘science’ – this is Art and the black arts at that.
Most good scientists, even some of his crony conspirators now deem him a leg iron, a pariah if you like.
But because, in political circles were it not for some very red faces and attempts to save face and with a president who does not listen to anybody – ever. With a corporate blob and noted investment banks, the green megalomaniacs are baying for new emissions targets, the man made warming myth is [has to be] perpetuated. Thus, the media and Washington [Westminster/EU/UN in cahoots too] bubble close ranks and certain individuals remain bullet proof. A cynic may suggest, “man, it’s a good job he ain’t a representative of the Tea Party”.
And a man would, should be presently seeking new employers, if……… anybody would have him.
Here is something from the paper.
See the Sheep Mountain divergence from the Hockey Stick (North and South faces)
Of course Mann’s cut off in 1980 but since then the world warmed. Chuck the tree rings.
Herbaceous plants such as crops and flowers are sensitive to temperature and other variables, but trees not nearly as much. Trees are used to dramatic and sudden temperature shifts and like most plants are photothermoperiodic. It’s obvious to those working in those areas whether or not they’ve had basic plant science. While several factors may affect tree growth(and tree rings), assuming temp’s are withing normal bounds that trees easily handle and mineral availability hasn’t suddenly changed(no reason for sudden changes), the primary limiting factor will be moisture. Mann should’ve known that and probably did.
Also, some tree families are very sensitive to moisture conditions and it’s availability and develop vascular disease such as anthracnose, especially those in the maple family(Acer). Verticillium wilt causes massive damage to the vascular tissue and that is apparent when tree rings are studied. The rings are hardly a proxy for temperature and limiting factors and disease are apparent upon close examination. When moisture sensitive disease or stress is dominant, other variables have important parts to play, such as a hot year that intensifies the condition. And when some trees are stressed or diseased, moisture uptake for respiration will be diminished.
I think it`s fine Jimbo to get a constructive discussion of tree rings and temperature. Could it be a proposal to get a serious presentation of tree rings and temperatures from a scientist who know the difficulties with making proxies.
This is turning out to be a real tree-ring circus. The star of the show is our favorite clown, Dr. Michael Mann. He sure makes me laugh.
From WUWT sept 17. “…scientists are putting the growth acceleration down to rising temperatures and the extended growing season. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen are other factors contributing to the faster growth.”
Piltdown Mann.
The Piltdown analogy deserves explication for the newcomers.
In the late 19th, the science of “evolution” was hotly debated. It was assumed that if the science were correct, samples of ancient animals of “transitional form” would sooner or later be dug up. A sample was produced from a region called “Piltdown” that possessed jaws and fangs similar to an ape’s, but a large skull similar to a human’s. This sample was widely hailed as proof of evolution. Some critics argued the sample was fraudulent, “spliced together” (so to speak) from the pieces of two different specimens. Supporters, over time, argued variously that (1) the producers of the Piltdown sample were all honorable men, would never make mistakes of this sort, and certainly would not knowingly “splice” samples; (2) other researchers in other regions and with other species had ALSO found “transitional fossils”, therefore, since these replicated the Piltdown sample’s general role in the argument, and since these OTHER fossils were genuine and uncriticized, THEREFORE Piltdown fossils should also be regarded as genuine; (3) many of the critics were unscientific, even religiously biased against the whole concept of evolution, and therefore their critiques should be rejected without any consideration at all (4) EVEN IF the Piltdown samples were fraudulent, “evolution” was true.
Eventually the Piltdown Man sample was revealed to conform to a pattern later summarily applied to Michael Mann’s work: “Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.”
Personally I would not be upset if the word wrong were considered synonymous with “fraudulent”.
I also note that while “Evolution” as science is settled, the political consequences of assuming “something must be done” because of the “looming catastrophe” implied by that science resulted in the Nazi Holocaust –among other enormities– sprung from the minds of eugenicists, phrenologists and tribalists rallied under the banner of “science”.
When actual fossils of transitional apes were found, they proved to be the opposite of the fraud. Australopithecus, discovered in South Africa in 1924, had the brain capacity of a chimp but walked upright.
Did Australopithecus walk upright? Richmond and Strait (Nature 404:382–5 Jan., 2000) reported that Australopithecus was a knuckle walker, not bipedal. This calls into question whether Australopithecus was a transitional ape, or just an ape.
SR
All fossils, all species, are transitional.
He has also been called “Siltdown Mann” for his persistent upside down use of the “Tiljander sediment” proxy, documented here by Steve McIntyre:
http://climateaudit.org/2008/10/02/its-saturday-night-live/
As I recall, the term was coined by Steve Mosher:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/22/sea-level-hockey-stick/
And the results are not claire cut. Other studies (from Canada) show ftree growth decline with more warming.
“Our results show an unexpected widespread tree growth decline in temperate and boreal forests due to warming induced stress but are also suggestive of additional stressors. Rising atmospheric CO2 levels during the past century resulted in consistent increases in water use efficiency, but this did not prevent growth decline. These findings challenge current predictions of increasing terrestrial carbon stocks under climate change scenarios”
From: Recent Widespread Tree Growth Decline Despite Increasing Atmospheric CO2
Lucas C. R. Silva, Madhur Anand, Mark D. Leithead ,2010
I agree. There are a number of variables affecting growth and most species have a preferred zone/region/climate. Although daily/seasonal temp changes are something they’re adapted to, climatic shifts meaning temp/moisture changes outside of their normal bounds may become a limiting factor. Limiting factors can change over time and once stressed some species are slow to recover and may not. Trees of the same species in a lot or area that adapt better could become the survivors and repopulate.
Am wondering….many species in temperate and boreal forests are evergreens which means they are transpiring water all year. It’s possible that during Winters that are warmer the moisture loss is increased and the evergreens have a limited ability to slow that down by closing stomata which may lead to stress and tree rings may reveal that. Trees are grand water pumps, esp the Redwoods and Sequoias pumping many thousands of gallons per day up hundreds of feet and out into the atmosphere.
I would think that it is good reasons to be more sceptic to tree rings proxies after 1960. With more acis rain, more pollutions and increased co2 ( with greater stressors), the data is far more difficult to interpret. The greatest problem with Mann`s presentation is perhaps his smoothing of temperatures in the LIA period.
Steve’s objection – ” Steve McIntyre December 6, 2014 at 10:02 pm” came immediately after my comment and I make no apology for what I said. I am sick and tired of the Mannian antics, withholding data, stalling and hiding behind tactical law suits, the labelling of good people and scientists who dare to question Mann’s confection dished up as serious science.
I just want this farce ended and Mann to feel the way that some of us do, having been ill treated, mocked in a drawn out wasteful process, a process, that does nothing to help those of us that are trying to do our best to improve the lot of those countries and people less fortunate in economic terms.
My comment was a personal plea. Mann could have ended this farce shortly after the CRU emails became public, the ball was in his court and for me he can for ever remain in that court as the jester or village idiot.
I appreciate that Steve’s meticulous work is the ideal and proper way to unravel the mess of Mann and I applaud him for that dedication and purpose. It remains to be seen how academia..politicians and the media will respond and recognise his brilliant dissection of data and deduction.
But the IPCC remains in place and there are determined people involved in framing this debate for political purposes and they do not give a damn for truth, for them propaganda spin and lies are the way to achieve an agenda.
I am personally tired of the nonsense and the damage to science and scientists.
When this whole saga is over perhaps we will look back and in time realise that underneath all the shenanigans there has been real progress in unravelling the mysteries of climate, so many fine minds looking at the issues! B,ut for the good of all, this faux “battle” should have been over years ago had the media done its job and agenda put aside.
Thanks Eric for your articles they are speeding up the process as ordinary people look and decide for themselves.
Right on, KenB. This is wearying.
I agree with you Ken, as is apparent from my response to your earlier post.
Christopher Booker, in the Telegraph, has written an article on the politics of declaring 2014, the ‘hottest’ year on record, and the need to promote this to kepp the gravy train rolling on. See:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11277024/Billions-wont-satisfy-warmists.html
Mann obviously knew from the divergence issue, that (i) trees are not a good proxy for temperature, and/or (ii) that the temperature record post 1960 was wrong, possibly due to contamination by UHI, station drop outs or corruption caused by incorrect adjustments/homogenisation; and/or (iii), that the divergence is a combination of (i) and (ii). That must be an inescapable conclussion of his work, since it is not that he was unaware of the divergence issue. .
What is not often commented upon is that in the tuning process, Mann must have tried many different tuning scenarios, and would have gone with the one that best fitted his pre-conceptions, ie., the one, for whatever personal reasons he considered to be the most appropriate. But the fact that different tunings would have resulted in significantly different results only goes to confirm that trees are not good proxies for temperature. He must have realised that from his work on the tuning process.
Why other scientists are not calling him out, and are not pressing for the record to be corrected is truly shameful, and in the long run there will be severe negative consequences to their turning of a blind eye.
Other scientists have reviewed his work. The National Academy of Sciences reviewed the data and concluded:
“The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century
warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000
years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that
includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced
changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years.”
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676/surface-temperature-reconstructions-for-the-last-2000-years
If you want to publish a peer-reviewed paper that refutes their analysis I encourage you to do so. Until then, I will trust the opinion of a dozen PhD climate scientists over a high-school project and a few bloggers.
Luke’s an ijut, guys. They’re a naturally occurring phenomena.
Streetcred
I see no reason for your unsubstantiated and unsolicited insult to “ijuts”.
Richard
The tree line evidence is damning, final, conclusive, and loud. Mann will just scream louder. Spread this around as much as you can.
And I shall say it again.
If tree-rings do not measure climate, via world or regional temperatures, then none of dendrochronology can work either. This was my WUWT post, back in 2011.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/23/john-l-dalys-message-to-mike-mann-and-the-team/#comment-806171
If trees within one small region (Yamal) have such different tree-ring profiles, there is absolutely no chance that you can measure a ship’s beams from Scandinavia or Italy, and compare them with a reference tree growing in Ireland or California. Dendrochronology is pseudo-science at its best.
Ralph
Instead of all the handwaving above maybe someone (s) should be writing to NATURE( with the proof) to withdraw all of Mann’s work or at least retract
arthur4563 December 6, 2014 at 7:55 pm
The big question is why on earth anyone would think that temperature, rather than moisture, was the major determinant of tree ring growth. Any farmer could have told him he was nuts.
_______________________________________
No, no. no, you are wrong. Can you not see how vibrantly trees grow, in hot climates……
http://ppcdn.500px.org/66122447/2173e97105bc8ea47e502e4ef124eced7df88f57/2048.jpg
/sarc
Ralph
OT but surely this snow cover is way way above normal for Autumm NH 2014
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
The albedo effect could be devastating (or is it just normal)? On the side it actually looks like at half of the NH is white!! I shiver to think what your winter will be like if this stuff remains there and actually expands more!
It’s still going to be the hottest year evaaaaaah!
The killer blow is when you read Email 1553 which is Briffa forwarding it to our mate Harry.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1553.txt
“date: Mon Oct 12 12:10:26 1998
from: Keith Briffa
subject: copy to a safe place!!and leave original there
to: i.Harris@uea”
Shows that They did not want the email to get circulated.
I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed that falsification was left to a high school project and then ignored. Not only “where was the media?,” but “where were the scientists skeptic or otherwise that should have been looking to test the data and conclusions”? Seems to this non-scientist that they might and should have come up with something similar. It was probably even Mann’s responsibility to test his pet before publication. Oh yeah. I forgot. He’s not a scientist, he just pretends to be a Nobel winning one in court.
How, in the name of science, does something this false and so openly inviting suspicion by being obviously motivated by opinion. escape appropriate scrutiny in the first place and then get so far? “Tree ring circus” indeed.
Would any arborists care to comment on the effect of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere on tree rings while keeping temperature and hydrology constant? I would think that it would increase the ring width, but that is a wag.
I’m only a horticulturalist, which includes forestry, plant sciences, etc., but will take a stab at it. All things remaining constant, which is impossible, but for sake of argument, increased CO2 will enhance tree growth, although that won’t be constant among all species. So, it’s possible the increased growth could reflect in tree ring analysis.
I’m an arborist of some 15 years of tree work, and before that I was an orchardist of 15 years of experience in Israel. I raised most stone fruits, apples & pears, walnuts, pistachios and persimmons. The reason for so growing so many species is because our area of the Judean Mountains has an unusual climate and soils and no one was really too sure of what would grow up here. Anyway, In these parts we get no rain whatsoever between April and November so we’re completely beholden to drip irrigation and fertilization via the drip system. When I heard that the Alarmists were correlating tree rings to temperature for a whole year it was such a silly notion to me that I was chortling inwardly for nearly a day of hearing of it. Truth be told that plants and trees need a number of inputs to grow. Among them are water, heat, primary fertilizer elements (N, P & K) along with trace metals such as iron, copper, zinc, boron, magnesium, etc, and sunlight. Changing any one of those inputs will cause greater or lesser growth. Water, either too little or too much, will cause changes in the rate of growth. Temperature increases the metabolic processes of plants, for sure, but if the other inputs are lacking temperature will not be the limiting factor. More or less fertilizer will also influence the width of tree rings.More or less sunlight will also influence the rate of growth. As a farmer here I had control over water & fertilizer as inputs and it’s impressive how much tree growth is influenced by just those 2 factors. In the wild trees may be affected by both grazing animals, such as goats, which can climb into trees and perform a crude pruning that can spur growth OR goats can wreak such destruction that the tree is seriously damaged and that will retard growth. In the wild nearby trees die and rot which will provide fertilizer elements for younger trees so to assume constant inputs of fertilizer is absurd. Grazing animals foraging around trees (assuming that they are sheep or horses which don’t do any damage) will fertilize the area and boost tree growth. And when it comes to tree rings the assumption is that there will only be one ring per year. This last assumption is a far cry from reality, as trees definitely develop new rings after a period of dormancy, but dormancy is not limited to just a winter sleep. Even deciduous trees can go dormant when a drought forces them to drop their leaves in a bid to conserve water, I’ve seen deciduous trees do that here when a homeowner gives barely enough water to their fruit trees in their yard and then a a serious hot spell overtakes us. When the rains or drip irrigation is restored the trees will wake up again and have a growth spurt, and that will produce another tree ring. So it can not be stated with certainty that there’s only one growth ring per year. In sum, to assume that tree growth, expressed in the width of rings, is due only to temperature is one of the silliest notions I’ve ever heard in 30 years of working with trees.
But no one is suggesting that temperature is the only factor affecting the width of tree rings. Read the literature and then post an informed comment.
Dale,
You forgot co2!
I like the bit where you point out
There is so much that can go wrong. I hear the White Mountains of California (bristlecone pine country) also has herds of Bighorn Sheep, mule deer, marmots and feral horses. I also hear that Bighorn sheep live in large flocks. Take from that what you will.
http://dwiki.csbs.utah.edu/PDFs/broughton_and_grayson_qr_93.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440383710204
I found this comment interesting, so Luke, besides being a prat, what are your other qualifications?
Dale
I would tend to agree with your observations. In Spain where I am, we have had only a few days of modest rain between January and mid October, it is precipitation more than anything else that determines tree growth where trees are not growing on the extreme of habitat survival conditions.
In my back garden, I have many trees of similarly age (I have seen them growing since small sapplings) and their size, height, girth, how straight they grow, their canopy etc varies enormously although they are sunject tio the same temperatures, but some are in shaddow of other tres at key times of the day, or get little rainfall since they are in shaddow of other trees, or are subject to prevailing winds whereas other are sheltered from prevailing winds etc.
Had Mann actually watched trees grow, or performed some experiment to see how temperature dependent growth is, he may well have had a very different take on the suitability of tree rings as an acceptable proxy for temperature. .
Thanks Dale Baranowski. I have been waiting for a long time for someone to post the suggestion that more than one tree ring a year can occur. Despite Luke’s posts below I do not remember seeing any other dendrologist making this point.
I farmed fruit in a similar climate for some years. I remember one row of citrus that contained a tree which grew at almost twice the rate of all the adjacent trees from the same batch that had been planed at the same time. It turned out that this particular tree had been planted over the carcase of the donkey, which had towed the cart carrying the saplings and which had died of a heart attack during the planting. The duration of the excess growth did not appear to extend much beyond ten years.
So far as I have seen in the literature, as applied by climate dendro-climatologists, none of the points that you have made are adequately covered, if covered at all.
I have talked to a number of dendrochronologists and have observed them analyzing and quantifying their data. They have known for years that trees occasionally produce two rings/year or may even skip years. These guys (and gals) know what they are doing, none of the objections listed here call into question the conistent pattern of rapid warming in the past 150 years observed in many different kinds of proxy data.
Looking at metrics like the northern tree-line to try to reconstruct the temperature history of the Holocene is actually incredibly interesting. Sad that it’s bogged down in such bitter politics.
We can all say that Michael Mann is a serial fraudster, without fear now, as real science and real data has shown him to be a liar.
Let’s get real folks. The National Academy of Sciences reviewed the data that Mann and others used to reconstruct temperature records over the past 2,000 years. This is their conclusion re Mann et al.’s work:
“The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century
warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000
years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that
includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced
changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and
the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented
during at least the last 2,000 years.”
John R. Christy was a coauthor on that report (url is below). I trust the opinion of a dozen climate scientists over the report of one high-school student.
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676/surface-temperature-reconstructions-for-the-last-2000-years
Luke, you say the NAS reviewed Mann’s data and then you give us a quote, but the quote doesn’t say “we checked out his data and they’re good” it says “a bunch of other people with unrelated data think there’s been exceptional warmth, too”.
The data sets Mann et al. used in their study were included in the reanalysis.
Re-using data does not constitute a review of the data.
Wahl and Ammann did a thorough review of Mann et al. in 2007. Here is their abstract:
Abstract The Mann et al. (1998) Northern Hemisphere annual temperature reconstruction
over 1400–1980 is examined in light of recent criticisms concerning the nature and processing
of included climate proxy data. A systematic sequence of analyses is presented that
examine issues concerning the proxy evidence, utilizing both indirect analyses via exclusion
of proxies and processing steps subject to criticism, and direct analyses of principal component
(PC) processing methods in question. Altogether new reconstructions over 1400–1980
are developed in both the indirect and direct analyses, which demonstrate that the Mann et
al. reconstruction is robust against the proxy-based criticisms addressed. In particular, reconstructed
hemispheric temperatures are demonstrated to be largely unaffected by the use
or non-use of PCs to summarize proxy evidence from the data-rich North American region.
When proxy PCs are employed, neither the time period used to “center” the data before PC
calculation nor the way the PC calculations are performed significantly affects the results,
as long as the full extent of the climate information actually in the proxy data is represented
by the PC time series. Clear convergence of the resulting climate reconstructions is a strong
indicator for achieving this criterion. Also, recent “corrections” to the Mann et al. reconstruction
that suggest 15th century temperatures could have been as high as those of the late-20th
century are shown to be without statistical and climatological merit. Our examination does
suggest that a slight modification to the original Mann et al. reconstruction is justifiable for
the first half of the 15th century (∼+0.05–0.10◦), which leaves entirely unaltered the primary
conclusion of Mann et al. (as well as many other reconstructions) that both the 20th century
upward trend and high late-20th century hemispheric surface temperatures are anomalous over at least the last 600 years. Our results are also used to evaluate the separate criticism of
reduced amplitude in the Mann et al. reconstructions over significant portions of 1400–1900,
in relation to some other climate reconstructions and model-based examinations. We find
that, from the perspective of the proxy data themselves, such losses probably exist, but they
may be smaller than those reported in other recent work.
and the link:
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Downloads/09e4150ba3067d285f000000.pdf
Luke, was the report checked by statisticians? Was it peer reviewed? The Hokey Schtick is dead.
Yes it was peer-reviewed and some of the best stasticians in the world contributed. Take a look.
This free PDF was downloaded from:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html
Luke,
Thanks, but I see a book! Can you point me to the relevant sections?
Luke,
I started at the Summary and found this.
Some of this is not surprising when you consider that much of the Climastrology research public funds tends to be unprecedented!
Luke, I also read
Some of the claims in that publication are challenged on an ongoing basis by newer and OLDER research too! It has been 8 years since 2006 and as you know people are still researching and looking and bringing in papers that the publication may have missed as well as new findings.
Medieval Warm Period (Antarctica) — Summary
Hall et al. (2010), Lu et al. (2012), Bertler et al. (2011), Hall et al. (2006), Williams et al. (2007), Hall (2007)…..
http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/summaries/mwpantarctica.php
WUWT posted it up too.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/11/evidence-for-a-global-medieval-warm-period/
Mann insists that the Medieval Warm Period was regional in the NH. The top link above suggest otherwise.
How do you thing figs grew in Germany in the Medieval time? That is what Michael Mann used as a reference below.
Mann:
“Some of the most dramatic evidence for Medieval warmth has been argued to come from Iceland and Greenland (see Ogilvie, 1991). In Greenland, the Norse settlers, arriving around AD 1000, maintained a settlement, raising dairy cattle and sheep. Greenland existed, in effect, as a thriving European colony for several centuries. While a deteriorating climate and the onset of the Little Ice Age are broadly blamed for the demise of these settlements around AD 1400,”
Moore et al (2001) says Baffin Island temperatures were highest during the last 1250 years from 1195-1220, at the same time Europe saw a sharp downturn in temperatures. While from the late 14th century the Arctic cooled strongly, but Europe became very warm, especially in 1375 when the most rapid Arctic cooling occurred in the Baffin Island lake samples. The late 10th century was also a very cold period for the mid latitudes.
So Mann does not seem to realise that the temperatures of the northern Temperate and Frigid zones move in opposition and not in unison. What a hoot!
It starts with the assumption that the warm period in GISP around 1000 AD was also warm in the mid latitudes. From that error, it is then assumed that all previous warm spikes in GISP were also warm in the mid latitudes, the most laughable being the Minoan Warp Period of ~1350-1150 BC. Which was the period of the demise of the Minoans and several other cultures.
How do they get away with such nonsense? Did they not even look at the history of the Minoans in Wikipedia?
little bit of common sense would have gone a long way here re tree rings.
some of us cut wood to survive in the cold. literally life and death issue.
we saw south facing and north facing slopes (with equal precip and soil conditions) had different ring sizes.
we also saw years when trees gained more height than width (hybrid poplars good for this) so tree rings made it look like low growth year.
way too much crap that affects growth to use these things. poor soil, poor brush/tinder control,large canopies, fungus/worms, etc.
sophomoric idiots with too many letters behind their names.
You are right, a lot of factors influence tree ring width including temperature. If you have a sufficient sample size and account for other sources of variation (the main one is precip), the temperature signal is there. As I have suggested to others, I encourage you to reanalyze the data and publish it in a peer-reviewed scientific publication. The data are available on the web.
Luke
My understanding of the scientific method is since Mann claims the “temperature signal” exists, it’s his responsibility to perform (or cite) credible analysis to support the claim.
Just because you “really believe” in the tooth fairy doesn’t make it real.
Luke, there is a pot of Gold at the end of a rainbow somewhere. There are lots of rainbows, you only have to find the right one(s). Organize a movement to locate and investigate all the rainbows and their ends, and I’m sure you’ll find one with the treasure. Honest!
Prat.
Yes, the rainbows are the data sets. Some very good scientists have taken the time to mine the gold out of those datasets and they have revealed consistent and unmistakable working over the past 150 years. You are welcome to use the data and mine them for the information they provide. Like I said before, reanalyze the data, submit your paper to a peer-reviewed scientific publication and refute the National Academy of Sciences- you will be famous!
I have been looking at climate reconstructions since 1960. Mann’s chart is a complete fabrication that contradicts everything before it.
Even the IPCC started off presenting some science: http://i39.tinypic.com/dcxzwh.jpg
That is their original depiction of the past which concurred with what I have read. Kind of hard to pin warming on CO2 when compared to reality isn’t it?
Indeed the IPPCC did start by doing good science. Then the climate deteriorated.
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/IPCC%20-%20an%20opinion%20changes%20results/IPCCMWPopinions.jpg
Jimbo,
Note also the slope of the line coming out of the Maunder Minimum, the depths of the Little Ice Age. It’s steeper & makes a bigger move than any phase of the Modern Warm Period.
Thank you for your post JImbo.
We knew that Piltdown was wrong at the time his papers were published (MBH98, etc.).
I published the following article in E&E in early 2005, in defence of several legitimate climate scientists.
“Mann eliminated from the climate record both the Medieval Warm Period, a period from about 900 to 1500 AD when global temperatures were generally warmer than today, and also the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1800 AD, when temperatures were colder. Mann’s conclusion contradicted hundreds of previous studies on this subject, but was adopted without question by Kyoto advocates.”
Regards to all, Allan
Full article at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/28/the-team-trying-to-get-direct-action-on-soon-and-baliunas-at-harvard/#comment-811913
Drive-by shootings in Kyotoville
The global warming debate heats up
Energy & Environment 2005
Allan M.R. MacRae
[Excerpt]
But such bullying is not unique, as other researchers who challenged the scientific basis of Kyoto have learned.
Of particular sensitivity to the pro-Kyoto gang is the “hockey stick” temperature curve of 1000 to 2000 AD, as proposed by Michael Mann of University of Virginia and co-authors in Nature.
Mann’s hockey stick indicates that temperatures fell only slightly from 1000 to 1900 AD, after which temperatures increased sharply as a result of humanmade increases in atmospheric CO2. Mann concluded: “Our results suggest that the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, at moderately high levels of confidence.”
Mann’s conclusion is the cornerstone of the scientific case supporting Kyoto. However, Mann is incorrect.
Mann eliminated from the climate record both the Medieval Warm Period, a period from about 900 to 1500 AD when global temperatures were generally warmer than today, and also the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1800 AD, when temperatures were colder. Mann’s conclusion contradicted hundreds of previous studies on this subject, but was adopted without question by Kyoto advocates.
In the April 2003 issue of Energy and Environment, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-authors wrote a review of over 250 research papers that concluded that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were true climatic anomalies with world-wide imprints – contradicting Mann’s hockey stick and undermining the basis of Kyoto. Soon et al were then attacked in EOS, the journal of the American Geophysical Union.
In the July 2003 issue of GSA Today, University of Ottawa geology professor Jan Veizer and Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv concluded that temperatures over the past 500 million years correlate with changes in cosmic ray intensity as Earth moves in and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. The geologic record showed no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperatures, even though prehistoric CO2 levels were often many times today’s levels. Veizer and Shaviv also received “special attention” from EOS.
In both cases, the attacks were unprofessional – first, these critiques should have been launched in the journals that published the original papers, not in EOS. Also, the victims of these attacks were not given advanced notice, nor were they were given the opportunity to respond in the same issue. In both cases the victims had to wait months for their rebuttals to be published, while the specious attacks were circulated by the pro-Kyoto camp.
*************
Luke says “You are right, a lot of factors influence tree ring width including temperature. If you have a sufficient sample size and account for other sources of variation (the main one is precip), the temperature signal is there.”
And just how might you “account for other sources of variation”, bearing in mind that they may be related, unrelated or, indeed, change their relationship over time?
What the serial fraudster, Mann, did was to run all the data he could find against recent temperature series, from far and wide and inevitably found some trees that showed a correlation with some temperature series. They were then given the largest weighting in his subsequent “analysis”.
It’s called a spurious correlation, just like saying that more people are living longer because they have been watching more television.
It is not correct, Mann knew it wasn’t correct and deep down, so do you.
Then tell me how the National Academy of Sciences in their reanalysis of Mann’s data other data sets got it wrong too.
The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years.
This free PDF was downloaded from:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html
Luke @December 7, 2014 at 8:54 am
I don’t believe that the committee did a full-scale reanalysis of Mann’s opus.
From p.115 from the NAP document you linked to above (bold mine):
Apparently, “plausible” is not exactly “was unprecedented” when one takes the inherent statistical uncertainty into account…
So you’re saying the NAS is just as wrong as Mann?
Time for school!
D.R. Tucker and Betsy Rosenberg conducted an interview AGW believer Dr. Richard Muller, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley in August of 2012. This is what he had to say about the hockey stick:
Interviewer ”…now that you have validated the information that was in dispute, supposedly, in the Climategate matter, is it fair to say, once and for all, that that is a settled matter, that should be all be [inaudible] and set aside?”
Prof Richard Muller: “No, no, no. Just the opposite. Actually, that’s not really accurate at all. The data they used in Climategate was proxy data. I wrote a book on the using of that. What they did was, I think, shameful. And it was scientific malpractice. If they were licensed scientists, they should have to lose their license.” [at minute 13:00 in the interview]
Further in the interview at time 14:30:
Richard Muller: “What’s wrong is what they said. The conclusions that Michael Mann drew, that it’s the warmest it’s been in a thousand years – I was on an international academy review panel that looked at that. Our conclusion was: he could not draw those conclusions.”
Here is an mp3 of the interview:
http://bradblog.com/audio/GreenFront_RichardMuller_080112.mp
Luke, you say
Sorry for the poor quote-formatting …
The Mann hockey stick was completely discredited by Wegman’s non-partisan committee (Committee on Energy and Commerce Report).
The North committee (National Research Council Report) reached similar conclusions as stated below, but attempted to soften its stance and has often been misinterpreted.
____________________________________________________________
Here are some excerpts from the Wegman Report:
The debate over Dr. Mann’s principal components methodology has been going on for nearly three years. When we got involved, there was no evidence that a single issue was resolved or even nearing resolution. Dr. Mann’s RealClimate.org website said that all of the Mr. McIntyre and Dr. McKitrick claims had been ‘discredited’. UCAR had issued a news release saying that all their claims were ‘unfounded’. Mr. McIntyre replied on the ClimateAudit.org website. The climate science community seemed unable to either refute McIntyre’s claims or accept them. The situation was ripe for a third-party review of the types that we and Dr. North’s NRC panel have done.
While the work of Michael Mann and colleagues presents what appears to be compelling evidence of global temperature change, the criticisms of McIntyre and McKitrick, as well as those of other authors mentioned are indeed valid.
“Where we have commonality, I believe our report and the [NAS] panel essentially agree. We believe that our discussion together with the discussion from the NRC report should take the ‘centering’ issue off the table. [Mann’s] decentred methodology is simply incorrect mathematics …. I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway.
Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.
The papers of Mann et al. in themselves are written in a confusing manner, making it difficult for the reader to discern the actual methodology and what uncertainty is actually associated with these reconstructions.
It is not clear that Dr. Mann and his associates even realized that their methodology was faulty at the time of writing the [Mann] paper.
We found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling.
Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.
[The] fact that their paper fit some policy agendas has greatly enhanced their paper’s visibility… The ‘hockey stick’ reconstruction of temperature graphic dramatically illustrated the global warming issue and was adopted by the IPCC and many governments as the poster graphic. The graphics’ prominence together with the fact that it is based on incorrect use of [principal components analysis] puts Dr. Mann and his co-authors in a difficult face-saving position.
We have been to Michael Mann’s University of Virginia website and downloaded the materials there. Unfortunately, we did not find adequate material to reproduce the MBH98 materials. We have been able to reproduce the results of McIntyre and McKitrick
Generally speaking, the paleoclimatology community has not recognized the validity of the [McIntyre and McKitrick] papers and has tended dismiss their results as being developed by biased amateurs. The paleoclimatology community seems to be tightly coupled as indicated by our social network analysis, has rallied around the [Mann] position, and has issued an extensive series of alternative assessments most of which appear to support the conclusions of MBH98/99… Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface.
It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent.
Based on the literature we have reviewed, there is no overarching consensus on [Mann’s work]. As analyzed in our social network, there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis. However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility.
It is clear that many of the proxies are re-used in most of the papers. It is not surprising that the papers would obtain similar results and so cannot really claim to be independent verifications.”
Especially when massive amounts of public monies and human lives are at stake, academic work should have a more intense level of scrutiny and review. It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers.”
*********************************
Did Wegman and North Disagree?
There’s obviously been a lot of spinning here, as Wegman’s language was much more forthright. The realclimate crowd have tried to marginalize the clear statements in Wegman.
At the July 19, 2006 House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee hearing, Barton asked North very precisely whether he disagreed with any Wegman’s findings and North (under oath) said no as follows:
CHAIRMAN BARTON. I understand that. It looks like my time is expired, so I want to ask one more question. Dr. North, do you dispute the conclusions or the methodology of Dr. Wegman’s report?
DR. NORTH. No, we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report. But again, just because the claims are made, doesn’t mean they are false.
CHAIRMAN BARTON. I understand that you can have the right conclusion and that it not be–
DR. NORTH. It happens all the time in science.
\CHAIRMAN BARTON. Yes, and not be substantiated by what you purport to be the facts but have we established–we know that Dr. Wegman has said that Dr. Mann’s methodology is incorrect. Do you agree with that? I mean, it doesn’t mean Dr. Mann’s conclusions are wrong, but we can stipulate now that we have–and if you want to ask your statistician expert from North Carolina that Dr. Mann’s methodology cannot be documented and cannot be verified by independent review.
DR. NORTH. Do you mind if he speaks?
CHAIRMAN BARTON. Yes, if he would like to come to the microphone.
MR. BLOOMFIELD. Thank you. Yes, Peter Bloomfield. Our committee reviewed the methodology used by Dr. Mann and his coworkers and we felt that some of the choices they made were inappropriate. We had much the same misgivings about his work that was documented at much greater length by Dr. Wegman.
There’s no way they couldn’t have realized it. They had to create their own “novel” statistical method to get the result they wanted. They had to give one proxy grossly more weight than all the others to get there. That can’t happen by accident.
A repeat: One takes a look at the vortex’s and flows and one just has to realize that if there is ANYONE who believes they can model and predict based on the number of variables present is this amazing world of ours is either an idiot, has an ego that will not quit or really needs the money and is willing to sell their soul to sell ice to Eskimos.
http://earth.nullschool.net/
correct me if I’m wrong but hasn’t he also refused to release all the data and methods he used?
I may be remembering wrong.
I may be wrong but I think you’re right.
Why else would he fight so hard to avoid his tax-payer-funded emails related to his work from being released?
Plausible is enough for me especially given that so many on this site have said Mann’s analysis was debunked. In addition, the pattern has only gotten stronger with additional data. Mann’s only overstep was making an inference to a short time scale (the decade of the 1990’s and 1998). The overall pattern is clear.
Uh….Just how can what you said be construed as a reply to dmacleo or me?
PS “Plausible” is enough for you? Beam me up, Scotty!
Interesting, where is your work published?
Luke, in re your response at 8:32 am, I am not sure which above response you are responding to, so I have to guess at your point. Are you suggesting people should only respond on this site if they are referencing their own published works? My guess is supported by your responses at 7:30 am, 7:52 am and 8:14 am.
If that is your opinion of appropriate behavior, why have you not applied it to yourself?
SR
You can start with
http://content.csbs.utah.edu/~mli/Economics%207004/Marcott_Global%20Temperature%20Reconstructed.pdf
Luke, I checked the link you provided, and did not see a “Luke” credited with the paper. Why did you provide that link instead of answering either of my questions?
SR
Luke. You post a reference to Marcott et al 2013? A paper that’s been seriously debunked by McIntyre at Climate Audit.
Methinks you’re a SkS shill.
“and is still widely reproduced by the more scientifically illiterate alarmists.”
Because so many of the alarmists are well aware of the fatally flawed hockey stick, having been alerted repeatedly in recent years just as as Mann was warned earlier, it is not their illiteracy causing them to reproduce the stick.
It is wholesale, institutionalized mendacity which purposefully distributes the falsehoods.
Unleashed limitless lying has taken hold of countless people in every conceivable position.
Graphic: How We Know We’re Causing Global Warming.
BY CLIMATE GUEST CONTRIBUTOR POSTED ON AUGUST 10, 2011 AT 10:30 AM UPDATED: AUGUST 24, 2011 AT 4:05 PM
by John Cook, in a Skeptical Science cross-post.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/08/10/286691/global-warming-graphic/
What’s interesting about this article is what it leaves out. There is no mention of Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph. This is because it has been discredited. But the point is this a major reason why the great alarm bells went up about the rate of temperature increase in the second half of the 20th-century. It was known that the global temperatures had been rising for some time, but the hockey stick graph seemed to showed it accelerated grossly in the late 20th century.
But without this graph the rate of temperature increase is not significantly greater than what had already been happening for hundreds of years, i.e., prior to the time of fossil fuels. Oddly, AGW supporters still keep referring to an “unprecedented” rate of temperature increase without saying what is the evidence for this.
The reason why they don’t is because the evidence was the hockey stick graph which has now been discredited.
So it remains like a ghost in their arguments without being specifically stated yet still acting like its conclusions were still true.
Bob Clark
On the subject of damage done by GW activists.
Remember this?
“Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. (SCOTUS – Mass v EPA 2007). A well-documented rise in global temperatures has coincided with a significant increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Respected scientists believe the two trends are related.”
“According to the climate scientist Michael MacCracken, “qualified scientific experts involved in climate change research” have reached a “strong consensus” that global warming threatens (among other things) a precipitate rise in sea levels by the end of the century, MacCracken Decl. ¶15, Stdg. App. 207, “severe and irreversible changes to natural ecosystems,” id., ¶5(d), at 209, a “significant reduction in water storage in winter snowpack in mountainous regions with direct and important economic consequences,” ibid., and an increase in the spread of disease, id.,¶28, at 218–219. He also observes that rising ocean temperatures may contribute to the ferocity of hurricanes.” ¶¶23–25, at 216–217.
One has to wonder what evidence was used to support the “strong consensus”. A “Hockey Stick” maybe?
This is also the time that CO2 became a “pollutant” rather than the life blood of plant life and life on this planet for those of us dependent on O2.
How any angels can dance on the tip of a needle?
Wrong blog for that question. You want Judy Curry’s place. http://judithcurry.com/
May Mann-Made glo-bull warming suffer an ignominious and richly deserved demise, never to rise again.
Temperature aside, ask a typical AGW devotee what is the percentage of carbon in the atmosphere. Rarely do they have an idea and often default into “it doesn’t matter because it is forcing…etc.” Then follow up with how much MAN MADE carbon is in the atmosphere followed by how much of that can man be expected to stop using and when you get to something around a couple of 10,000th of a percent they will give you the finger and walk away.
Luke, first know yourself.
Do not use a mirror.
Go and sin no more.
And leave the Passion to St. Michael.
Didn’t Bach write something like “Mann in B minor”?
At what point did Mann know and ignore or avoid mentioning the post-1980 divergence problem? As a “top” tree-ring climatologist, he should have been aware in intimate detail of tree-ring data that showed his premise to be false, that showed his hockey stick graph to be misleading. He hasn’t been updating his work – on purpose?
Steyn says that Mann has been producing “fraudulent” content for the world, in the legal sense that he is producing material he knows to be misleading and designed for, and resulting in, actions by other people who would not otherwise do so. Even this year, in Britain, his continued use of non-updated graphs has been observed. If he has been not updating his material because it would invalidate the “narrative”, then I would say that Steyn is righter than right.
Being technically negligent or professionally incompetent is not a crime, but it is cause for censure and the termination of employment. The time-line of Mann and his tree-ring proxies and subsequent opportunities for updating the work is critical to whether fraud has been committed.
Luke, here are some more snippets from your wonderful reference.
As has been shown above bristlecone pines are responsive to precipitation. They can lie almost dormant during arid times.
Yes, there are other sources of variation- especially with tree ring analysis but with sufficient data and careful analyses the warmining signal is cleaar. It is also helpful to look at other data sources (marine, lake, and cave proxies, ice isotopes, glacial length and mass balance records) all of which show the same pattern that Mann et al. found.
Luke,
Mann’s hockey stick was all noise in the shaft. The other proxies are all examined at Climate Audit, very meticulously, and there are problems with all of these.
You seem quite uninformed on the matter of temperature proxies and their misuse.
It’s not the temperature rise that’s the issue, it’s the HOCKEY STICK ‘BLADE’ which forgot the MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD. That’s the gripe I and many here have.
Yes Luke, the warming signal in the last 150 years or so is clear. Even if those data sets have their issues too. But that was not the issue with MBH. (They didn’t even manage to establish that their ‘reconstructions’ managed to recreate the modern warming.) And the real issue is whether they can say anything meaningful about temperatures many centuries even a millennium ago? And with what confidence-
Luke,
don’t forget about Mann’s tree ring failure after 1960. If they responded so well to temperature BEFORE 1960, then what went wrong AFTER 1960? If they are no good after 1960 then what level of confidence should we place on them before 1960? Hung by own petard.
Jimbo
December 7, 2014 at 12:29 pm
“….or the possibility that surface instrumental temperatures are affected by an upward bias (Hoyt 2006).”
//////////////////////////////
This is a useful post since it well describes some of the problems with the data, as well as the reliability and worth of the proxy.
Ever since Climategate (when I became more interested in this subject), I have been posting comments to the effect that Mann had found something interesting from his studies, and he should have published a paper on the divergence issue, and the implications of the divergence issue and what it suggested. I have frequently pointed out that his study (and data collated by Briffa) supports the view that by the 1960s onwards the land based thermometer record had become polluted by UHI, station drop out and/or incorrect homogenisation/adjustments.
One should not overlook that whilst the satellite data does not go back to the 1960s, post 1979 through to the run up to the super El Nino of 1998, it shows no warming. Had the satellite been up earlier, it is quite conceivable that it would have shown no warming betwen the 1960s and the run up to the super El Nino of 1998 (especially since there is, in the land based thermometer record, some evidence of cooling post 1940s through to the late 1960s).
The tree ring data is evidence that there are problems with the land based thermometer record, and I was not previously aware that Hoyt (in the 2006 paper) has noted this very point. It is an important point worth noting, and should be mentioned whenever one considers the reliability and worth of the land based thermometer record.
WATER!
Luke,
Marcott is not credible.
Please find a better source, because Marcott has been thoroughly debunked.
Sorry, a reference to a WattsUp post is not credible. Show me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that debunks Marcott et al.
Who needs a “peer-reviewed scientific paper that debunks Marcott et al.” when MARCOTT DID IT HIMSELF!!! LOL.
LOL. Marcott himself admitted to the criticisms against his paper, the published version of which didn’t even match his actual thesis, with no explanation to date as to why. No need to debunk it, the author already did that.
Hey Jimbo.
…
What Marcott says does not invalidate the reconstruction from 11,000 year bp until 1900
David Socrates stated: “What Marcott says does not invalidate the reconstruction from 11,000 year bp until 1900
Huh? Stopping at 1900 eliminates the 20th century uptick. The graph then would indicate the MWP being warmer than today. It would also indicate that the temperatures from the MWP back 10,000 years are warmer than the MWP.
Can you please quote me exactly where I said words to the effect that what Marcott said invalidates the reconstruction from 11,000 year bp until 1900? The issue is with his late 20th century HOCKEY STICK BLADE? Which Marcott disowned. See dating.
But first can you please explain the cause[s] of one of the two periods of greatest warming in the 20th century 1925–1944? (Phil Jones et al 2010)
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/marcott-a-10001.jpg
David Socrates,
Here is a the graph from the IPCC’s FAR showing the Medieval Warm Period. Whatever the debate about temperature since mid-1970s the Little Ice Age and MWP were clear. Now Warmists want to unclear it. This has made many into sceptics.
http://www.realclimate.org/images/ipcc_1990_panel3.jpg
Postings on WWUT don’t “debunk” anything.
…
Show us a peer reviewed scientific paper that debunks Marcott.
Visit CO2 science and you’ll find several hundred.
http://www.co2science.org
co2science.org is not a peer reviewed publication.
..
It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, but then, you don’t know where they get their funding because of that
…
Got something from a reputable scientific journal?
Try this post on ClimateAudit for more information:
http://climateaudit.org/2013/04/04/marcott-monte-carlo/
If you understand the math and stat, please tell me where I went wrong. If you can’t understand the concepts, I’ll be happy to explain them to you.
For more posts at CA on the subject, search the term “Marcott” and you will read of more flaws in the paper.
David Socrates I showed Marcott at Real Climate (in his OWN WORDS) disowning his Hokey Schtick blade. Once he did that there is little left.
David Socrates,
Co2Science is a repository of peer reviewed science. By all means IGNORE their interpretation on anything, but visit the papers where available online by visiting http://scholar.google.com . Simply stating that Co2Science is not peer reviewed is called ‘ducking and diving’ in my book.
Here are some proxies brought to you by Dr. Michael Mann. Where are these trees and crops today? These proxies cannot easliy be manipulated (unless you use a glass greenhouse). 😉
The obvious conclusion that any sane, rational thinking person would come to is if the tree rings “lose correlation” to temperature after 1980, then how can anyone state with any confidence they EVER HAD any correlation to temperature? Anyone that continues to stand behind this frauduent science have zero credability anymore. Unfortunately, it appears the damage is done, as the hokey stick continues to be paraded out time and time again by the warmists.
Will Mann have to relinquish his Nobel for this?
Luke,
I learn something new everyday. I have been reading a bit about bristlecone pines (STRIP-BARK and FULL-BARK). Co2 fertilization etc. Luke dear boy, this whole tree ring circus is ‘bristling-cone’ with issue after issue. I think I’ll move on now. Michael Mann’s proxy is a proxy of something other than temperature.
http://climateaudit.org/2009/11/16/luckman-at-the-canadian-society-for-petroleum-geologists/
I am no scientist, an engineer and i believed most of the ‘ temperature is rising ‘ scare until , Al Gore came out with his move and it started me thinking , something ‘ fishy ‘ here as a perhaps corrupt politician starts flailing the drums i turned to looking for rebuttals and found sites such as WUWT and in couple years realized it was all about the money, just follow the money .
I too was alarmed and believed the Climastrologists. Then I had had enough of the alarm and decided to take a closer look, as many here had done. Pooof! I am no longer alarmed and sleep well without worrying about tomorrow. I just do the best I can to convince people not to worry. They are being fooled.
One thing in back of my mind was ; engineers design and build things that can ‘ crash ‘ so, i suspected scientist could do the same thing then when the money angle entered the picture of climate it convinced me it was ‘ crashable ‘ .
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/us_heartland_spending.jpg
The ironically named “Socrates”:
Look at Table 1 on page 8 in this document for some of the annual US wasted spending on climate:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
Notice where the document originates. $2.5 billion (plus) … and that is not all of it!
Jimbo
Go to this site and you can see wind, temperature ,ect. in real time all over the globe .
When news hypes a category 1 Typhoon to a Super Typhoon i look for myself.
http://earth.nullschool.net/
Jimbo, the $627 million spent by the DOE was not spent on climate change research.
A hell of a lot of it was — much more than Heartland ever gets.
Spending on clean energy technology is not the same as spending on “Climate Change Research”
..
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf