From Penn State (via Eurekalert) and the ‘bad science keeps coming back from the dead’ department, comes this laughable PR hack which is disguised as a plug for Dr. Mann’s book. This cartoon from Josh sums it up well.
Public Release: 14-Feb-2015
Iconic graph at center of climate debate
The “Hockey Stick” graph, a simple plot representing temperature over time, led to the center of the larger debate on climate change, and skewed the trajectory of at least one researcher, according to Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology, Penn State.
“The “Hockey Stick” graph became a central icon in the climate wars,” Mann told attendees today (Feb. 11) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “The graph took on a life of its own.”
Mann and his coauthors, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K Hughes, created the graph for a paper, “Northern hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: Inferences, uncertainties, and limitations” which appeared in Geophysical Research Letters in 1999. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a version of the graph in its report, pushing the hockey stick depiction of temperature trends to the forefront of the climate change discussion.
“There have been dozens of other climate reconstructions, all very similar to ours,” said Mann. “They are based on different data and different approaches, and of course everyone thinks their approach is best, but they all imply that the modern warming spike is unique. And still the Hockey Stick remains the iconic graph.”
The original paper and the IPCC report demonstrated that temperature had risen with the increase in industrialization and use of fossil fuels. The researchers’ conclusion was that worldwide human activity since the industrial age had raised carbon dioxide levels, trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and warming the planet.
But the iconic graph engendered attacks, including calls for into the validity and veracity of the research. Subsequent investigations by the National Academy of Sciences, The National Science Foundation and Penn State all found the research both honest and solid.
Mann is quick to point out that there are two entirely distinct debates taking place when it comes to climate change research. One is the legitimate scientific challenging of research results that is part of the give and take of the scientific method all done in good faith to help advance the forefront of our knowledge. The other consists of bad faith attacks on scientists and the science, intended to advance some agenda — political, religious or economic.
Mann was thrust into a larger-than-life role in the climate debate because of the notoriety of the Hockey Stick Graph. As a scientist he was dragged along with his research to a place most scientists do not go and generally do not want to go.
“I was forced to take on a role very different than the one that I had envisioned,” said Mann.
In 2012, Mann published “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines,” (Columbia University Press) describing his experiences as a reluctant figure in the climate change debate.
“This was not what I envisioned I would be doing when I chose to be a scientist, but over time I have grown to embrace this role,” said Mann. “I feel privileged to be in a position to inform the larger public discourse over what may be the greatest challenge civilization has faced.”
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In hockey, it is illegal to play with a broken stick.
Yup, gotta leave it on the frozen ice and grab a new one.
Mann talks out of his (tree) ring again
What the post 1960 data tells us is that trees are not responding to global temperature.
Rather they respond to regional conditions, and what “calibration” does is locate those few trees that by chance match global temperatures, while ignoring the much larger set of trees that are telling you it is all a bunch of statistical hogwash.
The nonsense is to believe that somehow trees can ignore regional conditions and magically “sense” global condition, and respond to those instead of what is happening locally. The reality is that calibration is statistical nonsense.
It is “selection on the dependent variable”, a form of circular reasoning that routinely proves whatever you are looking for to be true. While very popular in the social sciences, it remains forbidden in mathematics.
Over on Climate Audit there is a review of yet another example of mathematical circular reasoning as popularized by Climate Science (TM). Used this time “prove” that climate models have it right after all. Only what was actually “proven” was that temperature varies very closely with temperature, and the models have almost zero predictive power in forecasting temperature.
What calibration of tree rings shows is that trees that have been selected by calibration correspond strongly to global temperatures within the calibration period (1860-1960), and do not correspond to global temperatures outside the calibration period. And since climate science does not know the reason they don’t correspond, it must be due to human produced CO2.
ferdberple
To that, Mann has never told us how he “calibrated” his tree ring relationship to the very CO2 BENEFIT he claims most familiar with: A rising CO2 will increase tree growth annually by 15% to 27%, depending on tree species. Thus, even if everything were identical everywhere else in the world and in every local climate – which is obviously impossible in the first place as you point out above! – then “any substantial increase in CO2 since 1950” everywhere in the world’s atmosphere means “every annual tree ring thickness measured since 1950” MUST be corrected by the relative ratio of CO2 (tree ring year)/ CO2 (baseline tree ring thickness).
and you cannot use an “average tree ring thickness” measured between 1920 and 1950 (for example) since EVERY tree ring everywhere on earth is increasing in thickness proportional to CO2 increase each year since 1850. Thus, while a 1/2% CO2 increase between 1825 and 1850 will increase annual tree ring thickness each year (delta thickness 1825-26, 1826-27, 1827-28, 1828-29 will increase if CO2 increased during those times), it will not change global average temperature anomalies very much between 1825 and 1830. Nevermind that global average temperatures decreased in regular intervals between 1825 and 1910, between 1950 and 1976, etc. CO2 kept increasing the entire time, or so we are told. And thus, tree ring thicknesses kept increasing, despite global average temperature changes.
So, what IS the tree ring thickness correction function for increased CO2, and how has Mann applied it to each measurement in every paper made between his first and his last?
well put sir, succinct and accurate
Temperature trends since the Medieval Warming Period (supposedly eliminated by Mann’s Hockey stick) can be easily seen to be correlated with this plot derived from planetary orbits. Magnetic fields from the planets reach to the Sun and may affect insolation and cosmic ray levels that affect cloud formation on Earth.
The Ranque Hilsch vortex tube “provides empirical evidence that a force field acting on molecules in flight between collisions causes an interchange of molecular potential energy (relative to that force field) and kinetic energy. This creates a temperature gradient in the plane of the force field because only the kinetic energy component affects temperature. That temperature gradient in a steady force field represents the state of maximum entropy (thermodynamic equilibrium) which the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us will tend to evolve autonomously. We note that specific heat (Cp) appears in the denominator of the temperature gradient, just as it does in expressions for the temperature gradient caused by the force of gravity in all planetary tropospheres.”
Such temperature gradients continue in sub-surface regions of Earth even down to the core. Because the gradient is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, any additional thermal energy supplied at the ccoler (outer) end will disturb that state. The Second Law tells us a new state will evolve and this obviously entails some thermal energy transfer by conduction or convection towards the warmer regions as explained in our group’s website.
Therein lies the explanation as to how thermal energy from the Sun makes its way to the core of any planet or satellite moon, including our own Moon where core temperatures are over 1300°C.
[trimmed. Stay on topic. .mod]
Debunked in every which way.
Mann’s hockey stick relied on significantly over-weighting these trees. The bristle-cone pine trees. Throw out 90% of the data and just these trees. They are only 10% alive at any one time and the amount that is 10% alive constantly moves around the tree. That is why a reliable tree ring sequence can not be obtained from these trees despite the fact they live for a very long time and that is why the National Academy of Science said they should not be used for climate reconstruction.
http://www.oceanlight.com/stock-photo/pinus-longaeva-bristlecone-pine-photograph-17475-113050.jpg
All the other reconstructions that “verify” Mann’s hockey stick contain some similar problem including continuing to rely on these same trees or, in Briffa’s compilation, one single tree, which gets the over-weighting instead.
Dear Bill,
I too found it very enlightening, to google “Bristle cone pines” and look at the images, one can only imagine how many factors might influence the growth pattern of these extreme condition plants beside temperature or CO2! Mann has yet comment in literature on the fact that he used the tiljander proxies upside down.
Also interesting is his wrong citation of Jolliffe (which he misspelled) to justify his incorrect use of decentered PCA:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/MM-W05-background.pdf
The second presentation cited by Mann is a Powerpoint presentation on the Internet by Jolliffe (a well
known statistician):
“Jollife explains that non-centered PCA is appropriate when the reference means are chosen to have some a priori meaningful interpretation for the problem at hand. In the case of the North American ITRDB data used by MBH98, the reference means were chosen to be the 20th century calibration period climatological means. Use of non-centered PCA thus emphasized, as was desired, changes in past centuries relative to the 20th century calibration period.” ( http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=98)
In fact, Jolliffe says something quite different. Jolliffe’s actual words are:
“it seems unwise to use uncentered analyses unless the origin is meaningful. Even then, it will be uninformative if all measurements are far from the origin. Standard EOF analysis is (relatively) easy to
understand –variance maximization. For other techniques it’s less clear what we are optimizing and how to interpret the results. There may be reasons for using no centering or double centering but potential users
need to understand and explain what they are doing.”
More on that at CA:
http://climateaudit.org/2008/09/08/ian-jolliffe-comments-at-tamino/
Cheers,
LoN
Well, if Mann and Hansen and Ehrlich and Holdren are right, we all died at least 10 years ago. So who’s left to argue?
Smart marketing! Relaunch a fraudulent scientific graph as an icon. Not unlike relaunching Global Warming as Climate Change.
I say we put the hockey stick graph on toilet paper. Then it would receive the use it deserves.
Not in my loo, that would ruin the neighborhood.
How much more obvious can it be. Yes, we know Mann has embraced the role of propagandist. It pays well and he sucks as a scientist.
The only questions remaining is how big of an ego is required, how ignorant do you have to be, how much hubris is needed to think you are leading the fight “…over what may be the greatest challenge civilization has faced.”
And here I was thinking multiple world wars, unending regional wars, mass genocides like the holocaust, the cold war and the brink of nuclear Armageddon, plagues, epidemics, the crusades in Europe, organized crime, mass famines and the like were challenging to civilization. No, not at all, the greatest challenge involves climate scientists creating colorful, simplistic graphs that have little to no real world application.
Bravo, Michael Mann, you are a hero in your own mind.
I think Mann has done more for the sceptic side of the debate than anyone, except perhaps silly Al Gore.
BTW the OZ Academy of Science has a new report that is being widely promoted this morning by the MSM in OZ.
https://www.science.org.au/news/academy-warns-climate-risks-australia
For a discussion of the hockey stick see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/10/commonsense-climate-science-and.html
The shape of the curve of Fig 3(Fig 5 Christiansen) from 1000 – the present should replace the Mann-IPCC hockey stick in the public consciousness as the icon for climate change and a guide to the future i.e. the temperature trends from 1000- 2000 will essentially repeat from 2000- 3000.The post also provides estimates of the coming cooling trend which began in 2003.
The recurring millennial cycle is seen in the ice core data. Fig 4
For interested readers this post also reviews the post Mannian proxy reconstructions.
“Central to any forecast of future cooling is some knowledge of the most important reconstructions of past temperatures after all the infamous hockey stick was instrumental in selling the CAGW meme.
Here are links to some of the most relevant papers-starting with the hockey stick.
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/MannBradleyHughes1998.pdf
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann_99.html
note Espers comments on the above at
http://eas8001.eas.gatech.edu/papers/Esper_et_al_Science02.pdf
and see how Mann’s hockey stick has changed in later publications
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252.full
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/MannetalScience09.pdf
an important paper by Berggren et al relating solar activity to climate is
http://www.eawag.ch/forschung/surf/publikationen/2009/2009_berggren.pdf
and another showing clearly the correlation of the various climate minima over the last 1000 years to cosmic ray intensities -( note especially Fig 8 C ,D below ) is: Steinhilber et al – 9400 years of cosmic radiation and solar activity from ice cores and tree rings:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/30/1118965109.full.pdf
for Holocene climate variability in general there is much valuable data in Mayewski et al :
http://yly-mac.gps.caltech.edu/AGU/AGU_2008/Zz_Others/Li_agu08/Mayewski2004.pdf
Of particular interest with regard to the cause of the late 20th century temperature increase is Wang et al:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/9581/2012/acp-12-9581-2012.pdf
A review of candidate proxy data reconstructions and the historical record of climate during the last 2000 years suggests that at this time the most useful reconstruction for identifying temperature trends in the latest important millennial cycle is that of Christiansen and Ljungqvist 2012 (Fig 5)
http://www.clim-past.net/8/765/2012/cp-8-765-2012.pdf
You seem to have missed a number of analysis at Climate Audit. Any particular reason you would skip such expertise; reasons like bias or falsehoods??
Many of your links are to sites firmly in the grips of alarmism and swilling the CAGW grant money.
Which brings us to, after thorough review, dissection and rebuttal at Climate Audit, why have not these sites thought to require corrections and or withdrawal; not forgetting complete posting of relevant data, code and formulas?
ATheoK- you seem to gave missed the point I was making showing the importance of the millennial cycle
in climate forecasting and basically showing that Mann’s original hockey stick is not fit for that purpose and should be replaced by later reconstructions culminating in Fig 3 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/10/commonsense-climate-science-and.html
which you obviously didn’t look at or didn’t recognize the significance of.
“The shape of the curve of Fig 3(Fig 5 Christiansen) from 1000 – the present should replace the Mann-IPCC hockey stick in the public consciousness as the icon for climate change and a guide to the future i.e. the temperature trends from 1000- 2000 will essentially repeat from 2000- 3000.The post also provides estimates of the coming cooling trend which began in 2003.”
Charles Darwin was also villianized for his findings.
But he had supporters who were willing to debate. They were slightly more confident that than Mann’s men.
Nostradamus was also villainised for his findings. Like Mann he had no defenders in debate either – just the state authority.
Because he also was talking quackery, useful quackery.
So Pippen what findings? This should be interesting and please check out Bill Illis’s points above about bristle cone pines and weighting , plus even the NAS state they shouldn’t be used for that purpose. Please wake up.
I think you inadvertently typed Darwin when you meant Dawson.
Yes, Darwin was attacked by the extreme religious and devout fanatics.
Sound familiar? Just like the hand waving louts and devouts of CAGW alarmism, fresh from the ‘we wish we was educated’ troll schools.
“I was forced to take on a role very different than the one that I had envisioned,” said Mann.
True he thought he be lucky to end up teaching at a third rate high school , but thanks to whoring himself to the IPCC as number one guy for BS he hit the ‘big time’
I have said it a number of times , when he falls we will be surprised to see who lines up to kick him on the way down such is the ‘quality’ of the man.
Interesting coming from a guy who popped a tweet this weekend claiming that the waters off of Cape Cod were 21F ‘below normal’.
Good Lord! 21F below normal? We’d better let our SUV’s idle in the driveways 24/7 till there is enough additional CO2 to fix that!
If not for Darwin, people would be victimizing Wallace.
If not for Mann, people would be victimizing Marcott.
With science, someone will always come along with the idea, eventually.
Are you sure you know what victimizing means? Not one name you list is ‘victimized’.
Now those scientists that Manniacal sued and then subsequently drags out the court procedures, now those people are victimized! By Manniacal.
You dodged my reply to the Darwin issue and started a new thread. I guess this nesting is difficulty to use.
The point being that Darwin’s science could be defended in debate.
But no-one has the courage to stand up and defend Mann in debate.
How is being scientifically indefensible equivalent to being opposed?
Darwin was a scientist. Mann is a publicist.
It is interesting that Mann has any supporters left. From his use of strip bark pines, to tiljander, to the demonstrated bias his algorithm gave to hockey stick data, there may have been no more debunked science in history. The notion that his work has been exonerated by various investigations is preposterous to anyone who bothered to look at them in any detail. They carefully avoided asking any questions what would lead to a direct examination of the science, then declared him clear of wrong doing. Not having asked any questions related to the accusations against the work, they could of course find nothing wrong with it.
But the real skewer in the heart of the Hockey Stick debacle is simple observation of the present. When MBH 99 was published, CO2 levels were at 368 ppm, and are now at 398 ppm:
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_annmean_mlo.txt
So, without even bothering to delve into the many fatal flaws of Mann’s science, or the ridiculous notion that it has been confirmed by other methods (Marcott et al being the most recent, and perhaps the saddest given that in the end it was Marcott himself who debunked it) let’s just ask some rather more obvious questions.
An increase from 368 ppm to 398 ppm is just over 8%. If we merely assume that the blade of the hockey stick is an accurate reconstruction, AND the the blade is caused by CO2 increases, then there’s no reason not to simply extrapolate it from 1999 to now and compare to current temperatures to see if our assumption is reasonable. If we did that, the divergence from reality would make the IPCC models look absolutely stellar by comparison. (Those would be the same models that are so discredited that the IPCC themselves set aside their “projections” and substituted much lower “expert opinion” instead).
This departure between the extension of Mann’s Hockey Stick and Reality leaves us with one of only two possible conclusions. Either;
1. The blade of the hockey stick is completely unrepresentative of temperatures, or, if it is;
2. That the blade is a consequence of natural variability and temps are insensitive to CO2 increases
The departure from actual temperature increases since MBH 99 was published is more d*amning for Mann’s work than it is for the climate models. There is I suppose a 3rd possibility, one which I would favour:
3. The the blade of the hockey stick is unrepresentative of temperatures AND temps are insensitive to CO2.
But for supporters of Mann, they must choose at least one the first two in order reconcile current temps with current CO2 levels. Like the models, there’s no longer a need to figure out precisely what is wrong with them to show that the sensitivity that they project is simply unreasonable.
davidmhoffer,
Thanx for a very well thought out comment. You say:
They carefully avoided asking any questions what would lead to a direct examination of the science, then declared him clear of wrong doing.
It was even worse than that. In at least one of the “investigations”, Mann was allowed to confer with the committee, to formulate what questions he would be asked! And in no “investigation” was there ever an adversarial situation, where Mann could be cross examined.
The whole ‘exoneration’ game was a Potemkin Village, conducted for no other reason than to give Mann cover for his scientific misconduct.
This is only a chapter in the Michael Mann saga. Eventually, he will go down. It is inevitable, as the Greeks would have told us 2,300 years ago.
Brandon Gates–
Re your challenge of the RSS trend of -0.03 degrees C per century:
“Oh, you mean like this fabrication?”
Here’s the same trend plotted by Nick Stokes (-0.026 C/century)
http://www.moyhu.blogspot.com.au/p/temperature-trend-viewer.html
Are you accusing Nick of “fabrication” too?
Lance,
Nick is obviously not fabricating, he reduced the cooling trend by 0.004 C/century.
How’s that for accuracy?
It is truly amusing watching Gates’ hair-splitting and tap-dancing. You would need a microscope to see the difference between one example and the other.☺
And the big question is never answered: why are there no measurements of AGW?
Why does Brandon Gates hate poor people so much that he wants them to be forever in fuel poverty? [trimmed]
[Trimmed – .mod]
Tanya Aardman
We cannot assume Gates is racist (against poor people who are not of his chosen and admired “class” of useful idiots and fellow travelers inside the global Big Government elite circle). Most who do support CAGW “prevention” within the Big Government/Big Science/Big finance elite liberal class of over-educated Big Government employees do want the deaths of many billion innocents however.
RACookPE1978,
Not sure why I’m getting the benefit of the doubt from you on this one. Bureaucratic big-wig nincompoops are going to accidentally wipe out billions with their hubristic incompetence is an argument I might seriously entertain, but on purpose? Doesn’t make sense, especially at my most cynical: wiping out the Third World would get rid of lots of cheap labor for starters.
No, the death of billions is a desired goal – not to be regretted nor criticized at all – by the highest level bureaucrats and leaders of the enviro groups worldwide.
Those that hate poor people are the ones that deny the findings of science — since its Science that’s enabled the modern way of life. Now we have the new anti-science crowd who reject what all peer-reviewed science concludes. Dunning-Krueger perhaps?
warrenlb, RACook is right and you are wrong, as usual. You are part of the mindless crowd that wants to burn corn in gasoline engines. That starves people. But you can’t even understand that, can you?
He doesn’t.
He’s just stirring the pot, to get us punters riled up.
Mann obviously hasn’t updated his Hockey Stick from M1998. Ironically, he published after the first year of the zero warming that has ensued. Even if his stick was representative of what happened to 1998, an update would have bent the stick forward as a new horizontal hockey stick blade. One would have to turn the stick upside down to play the puck. It would have a snazzy zig zag to the shaft. It would have the advantage of righting the Tiljander series, though, which he used upside down in his bundle of proxies. Why would he be plugging the stick when it abruptly bent flat again. It seems we have a one trick pony.
Also, I note the ‘Freudian slip’: “… over what may be the greatest challenge civilization HAS faced.” Use of the past tense is a subliminal sign that he knows it’s all over. This return of the stick is really a historical piece that turned out to not have validity since the point was that this disastrous situation was going to continue. If he wants comfort with his tree proxies, he should put the divergent recent data back in in an update. The decline actually belonged there after all.
If Mann wants to regain his reputation as a scientist, he should repudiate Upsidedown Tiljander. That is the first step. There are many more.
delete last post – clipboard hadn’t updated – should have vbeen :
I take the disclaimer as a subliminal BS alert.
I see sensationalism outranking integrity at this media outlet.
When Mann says others have created the same chart, they should be put up one by one. None of those look like hockey sticks. Brandon Gates has helpfully posted Moberg above. That would not have had the political impact of Mann’s graph, and would not have earned the moniker ‘hockey stick’
“The researchers’ conclusion was that worldwide human activity since the industrial age had raised carbon dioxide levels, trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and warming the planet.”
Please tell me that Mann, et al, weren’t stupid enough to have concluded such boneheaded things:
1. That CO2 traps greenhouse gases,
2. That it traps them in a concentration-dependent manner,
3. That greenhouse gases can be trapped at all,
4. That they can be trapped in the atmosphere.
5. That contrary to over 500,000 years of data showing that temperature increases precede increases in atmospheric CO2 by 600-1000 years, they could maintain that human generated CO2 is the cause of contemporary warming.
In the recently published “Climate Change: The Facts,” discussed on a current thread, Chapter 14 by Ross McKitrick beautifully describes the flaws in Mann’s Hockey Stick and the NAS investigation.