Evaluation of the Hughes emails
David W. Schnare, Esq. Ph.D.
This is a lengthy article and covers several related topics. As previously reported, we have now received the Malcolm Hughes emails discussing issues related to the 1,000-year temperature reconstruction presented in the Mann, Bradley, Hughes 1998 & 1999 papers (MBH98 & MBH99). The collection contains 7,511 pages of emails and attachments and other records, of which 93% (6,999 pages) were withheld and subsequently ordered to be released. The 512 pages that were voluntarily released are in a file entitled:
Malcom_Hughes_email_production Non-Privileged
https://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Malcom_Hughes_email_production-Non-Privileged.pdf
can be downloaded from there and are paginated as “ABOR/MH/Non-Priv-001” through “ABOR/MH/Non-Priv-00512”.
The previously withheld documents are in a file entitled:
Malcolm Hughes Withheld Documents
https://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Malcolm-Hughes-Withheld-Documents.pdf
can be downloaded from there and are paginated beginning with “ABOR/MH/Priv-000037” and ending with “ABORF/MH/Priv-007274”, but are not fully sequentially ordered.
The University was permitted to continue to withhold 275 pages. Those pages involve student records, ongoing research, and peer review evaluations. My comments below cite to the “Priv” pages and can be quickly found using the Adobe search function on the page numbers.
An Introductory Note
I do not know and have never spoken with Professor Malcolm Hughes. I once saw him in a courtroom but we were never introduced. I wish we had met. I think we would have found much in common and might have forged a friendship, being of the same generation and formal academic background. Based on a review of Dr. Hughes public records alone, I find he is a thoughtful man and genuinely honest as regarding his science. He is not the instigator of emotional arguments and in the 7,511 pages of his public records, I found not a single mean-spirited statement from him. Nor did I see him encouraging attempts to remove editors or even criticize them. Rather, he tends to be the adult in the room, entering the fray when Michael Mann attempts to push beyond the bounds of proper academic behavior (as established in the American Association of University Professors’ Ethical Guidelines), and otherwise leaving to Mann and others the braggadocio and crankiness that resulted in a handful of unhelpful criticisms and the resultant mea culpa’s necessary to maintain some level of working relationship amongst this small group of co-authoring academics.
Topics covered below include Dr. Hughes professionalism, how to protect confidentiality when needed, the failure of many to keep research logs, inconsistencies between the Hughes collection and the Mann collection recently made public, civility, the MBH versus the McIntyre & McKitrick papers, and a never-before seen (and failed) effort by Mann to explain away the divergence of tree ring data from actual temperatures. Because WUWT is best when presenting and discussing science, I begin with the divergence and borehole issues.
Divergence and the Need to Hide the Decline
ABOR/MH/Priv-005599 & ABOR/MH/Priv-005613 & ABOR/MH/Priv-005620
The “hide the decline” divergence issue is directly addressed here in a paper that was prepared for that purpose. It claims the MBH reconstruction does “predict” the 1990s temperatures. However, Hughes and Bradley were against submission of the note to Nature and it was never published.
Notably, this does not show the actual tree ring proxy data from after 1980 that Briffa and Osborne published that shows the divergence. The scientific question that remains 20 years after MBH98 is as to why the tree ring data diverges and what this means with regard to the pre-1900 reconstruction of MBH98 & MBH99.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005618 & 005624
Mann argues that, taking Bradley’s concerns into account, his reconstruction methods still work. Actually, he graphs this and it shows the adjustments do not work well. Of course, he doesn’t show uncertainty on the graph and provides no analysis of statistical association between recorded temperature and the proxy reconstruction.
The chart below is from email ABOR/MH/Priv-005618. Note, the dotted line (Mann’s tree-ring temperature reconstruction) is well below the actual temperature record after 1980 and does not show the clear divergence known to exist after 1992, something it seems he was unwilling to show for that reason.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005628
Notably, Mann admits only the high elevation bristlecone pine chronologies do “a good job in calibrating/cross-validating against the instrumental record . . .” Hence, Bradley’s comment that the note and its failure of the 1990’s reconstruction to track the actual temperature “well enough” condemns an effort to send a note to Nature as not worthwhile.
Hughes agrees with Bradley and is against publishing. See ABOR/MH/Priv-005632. This is a rare instance when Hughes chooses to hide data that would have moved the discussion forward within the scientific community. It would have encouraged others to take a harder look at the utility of proxy data and spur new work on a high-quality proxy data set that comes out nearer to present. He stated:
That this new version of your post-1980 calculations should be so sensitive to the omission of a single record is very worrying indeed. It should also be noted that nothing much happens in the ‘new’ reconstruction until the last three years. I fear this would give a wonderful opportunity to those who would discredit the approach we used in MBH 1998 and 1999. They would almost certainly seize it to attack the use of the MBH99 reconstruction in the IPCC. On reflection, I think it would be much wiser for us to keep our powder dry, and if challenged in a creditable forum point out that we are working on assembling a dense and high quality proxy data set that comes out nearer to present.
Mann’s response indicates why he agrees to not publish, “While I actually think it does disprove the assertion they often make, I’m inclined now to agree that there are enough weak points that it might just open up other holes for them to attack us on.” At ABOR/MH/Priv-005633 This is different from “negative findings” being unpublishable. It is a clear desire to hide negative results that would have otherwise moved the scientific discussion forward.
The Borehole Debate
Borehole data impeaches much of the tree-ring data used in MBH and a paper that challenged MBH98 also opens the door to what appears to be selection bias in the borehole data MBH used. I don’t follow this work closely so I don’t know if this is new information to WUWT readers or is a rehash of an old discussion. Nevertheless, it shows the extent to which Mann goes to try to protect MBH98.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005538
Esper and Mann disagreed on how and when to use borehole data. When a third party enters the discussion, providing data to support Esper over Mann, Mann’s reaction is to dun the Science Letters Editor. See ABOR/MH/Priv-005543. Yet, this is exactly how scientific discussions are supposed to be handled – through subsequent publication of confirming or impeaching observations. Mann claims the Pollack contribution has been “soundly discredited” in a Mann paper that Science rejected and was subsequently to be published in the “technical” literature. However, Science and J. Geophysical Research have two different audiences; Science has a responsibility to support a discussion of a paper it had already published and Science was giving Mann the opportunity to engage in that discussion by preparing a response letter to be published with the Pollack letter. Mann simply did not want the Pollack data to be seen and he succeeded. See ABOR/MH/Priv-005571
ABOR/MH/Priv-005542. Again, the Mann versions of the emails fail to include the related and relevant graphics.
Showing how different Mann, Esper and Pollack reconstructions are.
In another example (at ABOR/MH/Priv-000082), Tom Crowley argues “if we cannot make a case to our colleagues, why muddy the waters further”. It is one thing to recognize that you cannot demonstrate new knowledge. It is entirely another to begin from a presumption of knowledge and realize you do not have the observations necessary to convince others. The correct approach is to admit ignorance and highlight to your colleagues that this is an avenue worth of pursuit. Mann seems not to recognize this as how scientists should behave.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005686
Bradley arguing that borehole data that does not support their approach should not be used. The manuscript should indicate that kind of decision. It calls into question all use of borehole data, one would think.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005688
This is a good example of the (potential? Actual?) biases entered into their paper. They simply did not include anything that altered their prior planned outcome and did not explain why.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005811
When Nature did not accept the attack on Pollack, they sent it to Science. There is harsh criticism of both the Nature editor and the Pollack paper, neither appropriate, and Hughes calls Mann out on that. See, ABOR/MH/Priv-005813. Bradley calls him out as well, wanting the following taken out: “but are based on what many in the paleoclimate research community feel are deep flaws in methodology and data quality.” Obviously, Mann does not “speak” for the entire community and Bradley believes Mann is not in step with the “community” in that regard.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005941
Hughes demonstrate the position of a responsible scientist, writing “We should avoid all appearance (and reality) of pressuring any journal or organization.” This is a very strong indication of his integrity and commitment to good science and the proper means to engage the scientific community. But, Mann isn’t having any of it. See, ABOR/MH/Priv-005944. Bradly and Hughes cave on this. See, ABOR/MH/Priv-005950
Professional Demeanor
A good example of Dr. Hughes’ performance of good scholarship is found at ABOR/MH/Priv-000309 thru ABOR/MH/Priv-000315 (read from the bottom up). Therein he explained to his colleagues that for the paper on which this team was working, he was shifting the tree-ring part of the dataset they would use, explaining why and opting for the dataset containing only those that meet chosen a priori standards, apparently rather than choosing a dataset that would produce a desired outcome. Normally, this effort would not be a cause for meritorious celebration, but amongst this coterie, it was an unusual success for good science and Dr. Hughes should be recognized for that result.
In another example of laudable scholarship, Dr. Hughes realized Mann had not properly archived the data used in the MBH98 paper. In November, 2003, five years after publication of MBH98, Hughes makes it clear that the team needs to do what it should have done in 1998, make available a “well documented and thoroughly checked file containing the data we used in MBH98.” See, ABOR/MH/Priv-001385. As Dr. Hughes explains, “I think it is important that we dispose of the data problems completely, and, if any errors crept in during the original collation of the dataset, we document them. I fully understand and agree with your approach of not being drawn into a guerilla campaign with these guys. They are not my main concern. I am concerned, however, about how our scientific colleagues view our work in the future, and I believe we need to do this for this reason. This affects all three of us [Mann, Bradley and Hughes].”
During the litigation, when accused of asking for these public records for the exclusive purpose of harassing these academics and seeking to cherry-pick emails intended to embarrass them, I responded that we had no idea what was in the emails, but that their release would allow the public to see how they engaged in their scientific pursuits. Further, the emails of an honest scientist would exonerate them from any accusations of misbehavior. I believe Dr. Hughes’ emails do just that, and I commend him to you as an example of a good scientist. I leave to others evaluation of Hughes’ correspondents.
As I explained to the Court, release of these emails would do more than open to public view the processes by which academics produce important scientific papers. It would also explore core behaviors on which there has been argument amongst Constitutional lawyers regarding academic freedom and the need for a scholar’s privilege. I briefly address these below, citing to emails for that purpose.
Ability to have confidential discussions
The University argued that emails should not be released as they constitute the means by which confidential discussions took place, and their release would chill such discussions. Our expert testimony dispelled that argument, but these emails do so as well. Notably, Dr. Hughes resorts to the telephone when he finds a need to address interpersonally sensitive topics (see, e.g., ABOR/MH/Priv-000202). In his decision in the legal matter that resulted in release of these emails, Judge Marner specifically noted that where the need for confidentiality in communications arose, the telephone was available, indicating that emails are neither a complete nor necessary replacement for voice-to-voice communications, and thus release of the emails would not harm the ability of academics to cooperate or necessarily chill the research effort.
Lack of a Research Log
Scientists are taught to keep research logs that chronical their work and allow for two things, duplication of the work and full recollection of what is done. In 2011, I asked the University of Virginia for documents from 15 of their faculty scientists that evidence the keeping of a research log associated with each of those scientists’ most recent peer-reviewed papers. Not one of them kept any discernable research log. As a result, no one could duplicate their work and they had no basis by which to make authoritative statements as to what they did. Mike Mann was one of those 15.
The Hughes documents shows the problem with this kind of misbehavior. Apparently the MBH99 paper stated that they used 28 chronologies for the western U.S. Keith Briffa and Jan Esper, who were preparing their own reconstruction, wanted to know which were used. Dr. Hughes was able to identify only 27 that were used (see ABOR/MH/Priv-000292). Mann, without a research log, had to rely on Scott Rutherford (then at Roger Williams University, but one of Mann’s Post-Doctoral research assistants) to reconstruct what they had done, thus independently confirming Dr. Hughes research notes or files. While Mann kept no log, Dr. Hughes appears to have done so, or at least the practical equivalent.
Inconsistencies between the Hughes and Mann email collections
In an effort to blunt our release of the Hughes emails, Michael Mann released the emails he claimed were withheld in the Virginia litigation. Unlike the Hughes collection, the Mann collection does not include attachments. As mentioned below, some of these attachments are highly valuable historical presentations of how they achieved their results. One example of note is the repeated efforts by Mann to impeach the borehole data that significantly undermines the MBH99 temperature reconstruction. See, ABOR/MH/Priv-005542. In another, at ABOR/MH/Priv-005618, Mann does his best to revive the legitimacy of his hockey stick reconstruction by attempting to unhide the decline – that is, to find proxy data that did not suffer from the divergence between post-1980 the proxy-based temperature reconstruction and measured temperature. Mann’s repeated efforts to salvage something out of his approach was eventually cashiered by both Professor Hughes and Professor Bradley. The Mann collection does not include all this material. The Hughes collection does.
The Mann collection is also missing interesting emails that are in the Hughes collection. At ABOR/MH/Priv-000425, and nearby, is a continuation of the discussion on which tree-ring datasets to use. This is an October 2002 discussion that appears to be the underpinning of a 2002 AGU Fall Meeting presentation entitled “Proxy-Based Reconstruction of Surface Temperature Variations in Past Centuries”, where the U.S. team and the U.K. team try to find common ground on northern hemisphere hot and cold periods. This is missing from the Mann collection, as is a discussion on how Mann and Crowley disagree regarding a recalibration of the tree ring data used in MBH98 and MBH99 that undermines the hockey stick. See, ABOR/MH/Priv-000523.
ABOR/MH/Priv-006407. This is an example of an improper redaction (“Henry’s student” was redacted.). The Mann email release does not contain any redactions and should have (e.g., phone numbers and private email addresses).
Civility
In late 2000, efforts to replicate the MBH98 & MBH99 temperature reconstructions had already begun to invalidate the hockey stick output. Of particular concern by Mann was the efforts by Tom Crowley, Phil Jones and Keith Briffa. Dr. Hughes describes the contretemps as rising from a “mental block accepting the basic idea of your [Mann’s] methods.” In contrast, Mann describes this as
“Phil and Keith (and sadly, Tom) simply just don’t seem know what the hell they’re doing here or, if they do, they are being intentionally deceptive.” See, ABOR/MH/Priv-000523 – ABOR/MH/Priv-000529.
Michael Mann has demonstrated a lack of civility in the past and that behavior is on full display in the Hughes collection. In comparison, Dr. Hughes does not engage in such behavior.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005461
The Esper/Mann disagreement was not completely civil. Mann directly accuses a Science Journal editor of “bad judgment” for allowing publication of a paper with which Mann disagrees. The appropriate response is a letter in science pointing out weaknesses in the paper, which Mann and Trenberth attempt to get published (independently). Trenberth’s letter was not published. Mann’s was.
MBH versus MM
For those of you interested in the interactions among the MBH threesome as regards the critique of their work by McIntyre & McKitrick, you may wish to look at ABOR/MH/Priv-001717. Clearly, the MBH team was in need of a competent statistician and probably wished they had one to work with them in 1998. In addition, the emails contain the unpublished “REPLY TO ‘Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcings over the past six centuries: A comment.’ By S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick”. Nature published the M&M Comment but chose not to Nature did not publish the comment or the MBH reply. The M&M Comment is available at: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/fallupdate04/MM.resub.pdf
An interesting side note that I have not seen mentioned previously was the response of Nature to the M&M critique. Nature wanted a correction to MBH98:
“Having carefully gone through your responses and after discussing the matter with my colleagues, we feel that we will need you to publish a correction to your initial paper (MBH98), stating the differences in the data sets used compared to those listed in the Supplementary Information of the original paper. The full data, as available on your ftp site, will be published as Supplementary Information to that correction.” See, ABOR/MH/Priv-001935.
Additional Notes
For those without the time to read the 7,511 pages of Hughes’ material, below are some call-outs that I believe help reveal the nature of work done by this small team of academics during this seminal period of time.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005436
An example of normal discussions between scientists. They were within the norms for civility, addressed specific scientific questions, challenged each other’s analysis, and recognized the strengths and weaknesses in the work. Clearly, each side was defensive, but no ad hominem.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005445
Concern about keeping funding agencies happy is made clear, but with regard to credibility, not outcomes.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005448
Interestingly, Hughes notes that reconstructions of 1000 years ago, “should be viewed as very preliminary” but this is not how the MBH99 is portrayed. Notably, Hughes also identifies what is needed to shore up the utility of these reconstructions.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005528
Hughes contributions to this dispute were small, even tempered and professional.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005641
Hughes rarely discloses his concern about defending his work, unlike Mann. He does, however, have such concerns about his work holding up. “It seems that you and Tom did a pretty good job, as, for readers without knowledge of what was going on, the effect on our work is probably no worse than neutral”. The previous emails in the chain indicate they had to defend their work against reviewers and beat back criticisms enough to get the paper accepted.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005642
Showing how Mann picks peer reviewers.
ABOR/MH/Priv-005669
Bradley showing problems with the proxies
ABOR/MH/Priv-006406
Reference to talks Hughes had in Japan makes clear why this kind of record is valuable. He identifies individuals who have new ideas, ones that would significantly caution the utility of Hughes own work.
ABOR/MH/Priv-006408
Example of a pay to publish behavior.
Finally, the Overpeck collection will become available in January. It is a much larger collection (~95,000 pages) and, in the main, addresses preparation of the IPCC Fourth report. That collection contains a large amount of formatting code which makes much of it unreadable. As soon as I have removed that coding and taken an initial look at the collection, I’ll make it available in the same manner as we did the Hughes collection.
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“Clearly, the MBH team was in need of a competent statistician and probably wished they had one to work with them in 1998.”
No, I’m sure Mann did NOT want a qualified statistician on the team. If they did, the paper probably would never have been published, Mann would not have gotten away with his shenanigans of grossly overweighting the bristlecones in order to get a hockey stick. If the intent was to perform science, then yes, they should have had one. Clearly science wasn’t the intent.
For many who are struggling with the meaning of all this, may I quote from the penultimate Chapter of A.W.Montford’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion,”
“…the chief importance of the Hockey Stick lies not in that it is central to the case for manmade global warming,but in the fact that the IPCC promoted it as if it were….
The fact that the IPCC promoted a Hockey Stick that was not central to the scientific debate simply because it was a good sales tool,and then defended it in the face of all criticism shows us that it is not a disinterested participant in the debate.It has chosen to be an advocate rather than a judge.It has an agenda.How then,can those who are undecided on the global warming issue accept anything it says as an unbiased judgement on the facts rather than a statement of a political position?
They can no longer be sure.”
At 11:28 PM 3/16/2005, mhughes@ltrr.arizona.edu wrote:
I hope tomorrow to check up on the
JApanese tree-ring del C13 record. If it’s the one I think, it’s worthless as
it’s based on only a single tree
One can only wonder of Hughes’ disdain for a single tree study is why Briffa surrounded his “one tree” with a whole bunch more trees that wound up adding up to nothing so that the “one tree” dominated the final result.
A bit like YAD 061, up in the Yamal peninsular.
That was also a single tree study.
Looks like they have form on cherry-picking the data.
Was the Japanese study on a cherry tree?
R
It wasn’t a one-tree study. One tree ended up dominating that grouping, but there were many other trees in the study. It was still BS.
I still don’t get how tree-rings can be used as a tamperature proxi. Tree ring growth is effected by moisture, canopy cover, pests, nutrients, and then perhaps by temperature. So tamperature is only one growth factor among many.
In addition, tree rings are not even symmetric around the trunk. On the following tree trunk, a sample core taken in the 3-oclock position (yellow arrow) will show 15 years of very cold tamperatures (thin rings). But if you took the core in the 12 o’clock position (blue arrow), the rings would show warm tamperatures.
So what was the real tamperature? And how can we use tree-rings as a tamperature proxi?
Ralph
P.S. These datasets have been amended so often, they are now called tamperature records, not temperature records.
.
It would be nice if WUWT could display images again….!!
R
They cannot in reality like much in this area this is ‘better than nothing ‘ at work . A situation is itself which has come about because of a lack of information, issues with past measurements and poor coverage of the whole planet what measurements there are.
Oddly despite this approach coming from a serious issues in the areas ability to offer basic scientific validity , this approach which has proved to offer a real benefit to climate ‘science ‘ for together with ‘models ‘ proxies have provided an endless source of ‘useful ‘ results to AGW proponents.
Another point is that CO2 is well known to enhance plant growth.
At the same time these trees were allegedly showing enhanced growth due to warmer temperatures, CO2 levels were also going up.
There was no attempt to correct for enhanced CO2, it was just assumed that all of the growth increase was from temperature and temperature alone.
P.S
WUWT is being hijacked by that spam page again, saying ‘you have won an iPhone’ or a ‘Google prize’.
It is very insistent, and will not let you go back to WUWT.
You have to close the page, and open a new one.
R
This is the URL:
http://game7914.qteamff64.life/1843643068/?u=gg4p605&o=5ffwrnh&f=1
ralfellls, if on a PC, putting:
127.0.0.1 game7914.qteamff64.life
as a line in your “hosts” file will stop that site, tho spammers will change the address often to get around such tactics. On a phone or such, I have no idea.
I think it’s time to donate to WUWT and Mark Steyn.
David, thank you for an excellent article. I must disagree with your conclusion that Hughes was trying to adhere to the scientific method, no matter that I might agree that he was not as corrupt as Mann. The appropriate scientific response to Mann should have been, “YOU CANNOT DELETE OR IGNORE CONTRARY DATA, PERIOD!
He should have delivered this message unequivocally, over and over, until Mann understood it, and complied. Short of that, he should have withdrawn his credibility from Mann’s papers. He should have informed the “hockey team” or “cause” or “community” (as Lewandowsky calls it) that Mann’s methods were innappropriate, and totally unacceptable. He should have shamed Briffa into standing up for himself, that his questions and uncertainties were the “Real” science waiting to be understood, and Mann’s bullying certainty was wrong and cult-like, and totally wrong for their given careers. Unless of course, Hughes career wasn’t really science, but careful and measured protection of a small sphere of power and wealth that comes from the academic community.
Hughes was only slightly less condemnable than Mann for his lack of understanding of these issues, and for the milk-toast responses he managed to utter to corruption, bullying and wrong-doing.
Good comment Mickey. It seems to me that Hughes has watched the movie about the Nuremberg trials after WW2. When this whole ugly episode is over and if trials are held he will be able to claim that he tried to be fair and hope to be on the other side of the line that will be drawn as to who should be punished with jail time and who should be shamed.
On Topic for those that may have veered Off Topic (defence of the Mosh maybe even)
Harvested from MSN UK this morning:
My personal addendum:
It seems that The Cure (caffeine) is actually worse than The Disease (Ethyl Alcohol)
Do be clear that when doctors talk about ‘Recommended Daily Limits, they are talking about what will not trash your physical body.
As far as your brain, mind, memory, thinking, problem-solving skill and (not least) personality go, the Recommended Limit is Zero.
Trust me, I’m a T-shirt wearer of 15 years+ experience and exactly what I found from the very earliest days of Forums, Social Media & Groups, Message Boards and Comments Sections
(How’s that for an Authority Appeal?)
What is described above is, to my mind, where AGW came from and why ‘Science’ seems to have gone completely off the rails. Politics also – witness Macron and Brexit not least.
Even before cooked starch & refined sugar are low potency mimics of Ethyl Alcohol but consumed in much greater quantity. Not least as there is nothing else to eat..
What were you saying Prof Ehrlich………
Then:
3 cans of Soda-pop?
Daily?
For every single one of you?
Jeez
It is difficult to take anyone who styles themselves ‘Esq.’ seriously.
fos, Esq. in the U.S. is shorthand for indicating the person is an attorney at law and licensed to practice law before courts of competent jurisdiction. I use it when before a group when I am speaking about the law so that they know I have qualifications on the subject. The same goes for the Ph.D. suffix, used to alert an audience who does not know me that I have academic qualifications. I take comments from others seriously, including yours, and hope this helps you understand why I use the suffix. I don’t expect you, or anyone, to take seriously any personal thoughts I have shared on the basis that I am an authority. Cheers, David.
I’ve learned something now, thank you.
You might consider, though, that in informing (some of) the US visitors to WUWT that you are a lawyer through the US (mis)use of this historical rank, you are baffling all the other ignorant English speakers who come here. I suspect I am not the only one.
Is all this labelling necessary?
I have no idea what subject your PhD covers, so that too is meaningless to me. Michael Mann has a PhD and distinctions galore.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not attacking you or your article personally – just suggesting that for a lot of readers ‘Esq’ doesn’t have the effect you think it has and the label ‘PhD’ without the subject is meaningless, unless you are writing on a narrowly focussed academic topic.
Anyway, I have said my piece. David W. Schnare is a nice name, without need of decoration.
Some clarification of ‘Esq.’ – in the UK, this means an abbreviation for ‘esquire’, a title added to the name of a person regarded as a gentleman by birth, position, or education.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1976 edition) also mentions that ‘esquire’ can be used as the title of a law officer.
“The chart below is from email ABOR/MH/Priv-005618. Note, the dotted line (Mann’s tree-ring temperature reconstruction) is well below the actual temperature record after 1980 and does not show the clear divergence known to exist after 1992, something it seems he was unwilling to show for that reason.”
What Dr. Schnare fails to note is that this graph is not the first draft. There is another, earlier graph that shows an increase during the 1980s that is more in line with the temperature record, but Mann was uncomfortable with this because it reflected an outlier proxy (a Red Sea coral) that had great influence on the results, mentioning the fact that this has happened in the past with tree rings. He believed this coral outlier was an effect that was anthropogenic but not climatic, and CHOSE an analysis in which the 1980s reconstruction was below the instrumental one.
After 1992 there were very few proxies available (6, IIRC), and that is why the line did not extend past that date. This is clear from the emails, so why does Schnare assume some other reason?
The more I look at this, the clearer it seems that at least some of the post is misleading. It may not be deliberate, and there may be much truth to it, but it can’t be taken as true overall.
Pop Piasa,
“Fair”? I think it’s legitimate to append the instrumental record to a reconstruction when the proxy data are know to produce fallacious results in recent decades, as long as it’s made clear that one is doing so. This wasn’t always made clear, and that was, indeed, a grave mistake. That was Jones’s doing, and it’s just one reason I don’t trust his judgment and believe he acted unprofessionally and unethically.
Ach! This comment got totally put in the wrong place! Sorry, I’m going to copy it and put it where I wanted it.
Kristi, logically if you have a modern divergence problem then how can you know that the trees ‘behaved’ properly in the other 950 yrs? This anomaly throws the entire record into doubt. This was one of the first problems that a lot of scientists and statisticians had with the work. Moreover, even keepers of these proxies have not long ago rejected stripbark pines because of unreliability and they are still being used.
Gary, Kristi and many others lack the logic that you & I take for granted.
“Fair”? I think it’s legitimate to append the instrumental record to a reconstruction when the proxy data are know to produce fallacious results in recent decades, as long as it’s made clear that one is doing so.
Kristi, if the proxy is producing fallacious results in recent decades, then why trust that it isn’t doing the same in past ones as well?
Gary Pearce and John Endicott,
The divergence is widespread, but confined to high latitudes. Lower latitudes don’t show this pattern. High and low latitude specimens show the same pattern prior to about 1960, going back to the Medieval.
The last few decades have been affected by anthropogenic change, and it is not unreasonable to assume that this has resulted in oddities in tree growth. There are a number of hypotheses; I’m aware that the causal mechanism is still the subject of some debate; it could be a combination of factors.
There seems no reason to doubt that the tree ring proxy record before 1960 is untrustworthy. It’s possible, but until there’s evidence, we might as well use what we have (a multi-proxy record), keeping in mind, of course, that there is always going to be some uncertainty associated with proxy records of the past.
A huge ‘tell’ in one of Mann’s emails as to the integrity of his work is to agree with Hughes to leave out a single proxy that steers the latter part of the record into too good of a congruence with expectations BECAUSE critics would be attracted to pick holes in other parts of the construction! Now a good poker player would read this as there is a lot of bluff in the other ‘hands’ he has been holding.
Actually it would appear that climate science ‘findings’ are believed to trump history. If the proxies don’t reflect well known historical periods where climate was a major player.
The Little Ice Age was real. George Washington had soldiers sneak cannons from a warehouse in Manhattan, which at the time was held by the British, and they rolled them out onto sea ice and all the way to New Jersey. Similarly the Bosphorus froze over, 1/3 of Finns died from cold and crop failure, etc. etc. Mike erased this with his reconstruction. Similarly the Medieval Warm Period which had Scots growing grapes for wine and Greenlanders growing barley and hay on farmsteads still buried under modern ice, and etc. etc. Were he to be real smart and not just tricky he would have had proxies verify those indelible periods and fooled us all til the end of days! The takehome here is if you want to fool people on a climate record a 1000yrs long, you’d better be an old fashioned Renaissance Mann.
Gary,
You mean the Red Sea coral? My understanding is that it’s an outlier that has undue weight on the record because there are few proxies at that point. If a single proxy has a really huge effect on the results, while the others are in pretty good agreement, it’s legitimate to omit it.
Of COURSE Mann is sensitive to other’s reasons for picking holes in the reconstruction! And of course a single proxy with undue influence would be attention-getting. He knows that their work is likely to be scrutinized, and wants to avoid giving people excuses for criticism. Geez, I’d be hypersensitive, too, if I were him! What scientist would ever want to be under the microscope like he has been? What scientist wants to be the mascot for skeptics’ distrust of science? I don’t much like Mann, but I feel bad for him even if he has brought some of it on himself.
I can’t imagine having thousands of pages of my emails made public for people to cherry-pick and place the worst possible spin on, regardless of the context, with no attempt to get at the truth. People are utterly convinced of their interpretation no matter what alternative is presented, so badly do they want to condemn these guys. It’s reprehensible, and has done terrible damage to people’s trust in science. This is why I find Schnare’s justification so pathetic. Enough damage has been done, and he just wants more. Hughes is the good guy, he claims, which just throws into contrast his judgement about the others. It’s like he wants to show how unbiased he is by praising one of them. Makes me mad!
He’s been trying since 2011 to get his hands on these emails. Think of all the money spent!
Scientist can resort to the telephone for confidential communication??? You can’t pass figures and drafts over the telephone. You have no written record of the conversation without taking notes (and those, too, could be demanded). You can’t sit and mull over your questions and replies. It’s despicable. And look at the precedent set. Someone should someone will sue for Willie’s Soon’s emails, and Happer’s, and Ridd’s, and all the other contrarians out there working to undermine climate science.
Schnare – After quitting the EPA in 2012, he’s evidently back there in some capacity, or at least was in 2017, after suing them over coal plant regulation. Another person working for the EPA who’s against the EPA. It’s like having Gandhi as the Secretary of Defense.
David Schnare, I appreciate your efforts here and the other post, but you got a bit wordy in your introduction on this one. It could have been condensed to “IMO, Malcolm Hughes is a decent scientist and person”.
“Lack of a Research Log”
I recently cams across two of my old AT&T/Lucent log books and realized that when they changed the patent law from “first to invent” to “first to file”, the need for these log books evaporated in most of these organizations.
In an earlier post, Kristi Silber stated that ‘Maybe it’s because I have a very solid background in plant physiology and ecology, but it seems to me that the “working knowledge” one needs for dendroclimatology is not too hard to master.’
I have a question for her.
How many factors influence tree ring thickness, with the question addressed from the viewpoint of genetic changes (DNA mutations, for example) and biochemistry (for example, enzymatic activity over a range of temperature variations)?
Why didn’t Mann discuss such factors ?
The links to the Malcom_Hughes_email_production Non-Privileged data no longer work.