Those of use that have Twitter accounts know that in the past couple of weeks, Dilbert creator and cartoonist Scott Adams has been delving into the question of who has the more credible arguments: Climate Alarmists or Climate Skeptics? One of the issues being discussed was “Mikes Nature Trick” and Steve McIntyre of ClimateAudit tried to help Scott Adams understand what actually happened.
Unfortunately, like many issues in the climate world, unless you have some “inside baseball” knowledge, such things often cause eyes to glaze over as is the case with Scott Adams.
Mann manipulated data in ways both large and small. Mann's Nature trick was to splice proxy data to 1980 with instrumental data after 1980 to calculate the smoothed value. This was different trick to brute deletion of adverse data as in IPCC diagram.
— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) January 17, 2019
clearly tastes vary. This post, which you described as one of your favorites, was described by Scott Adams as "impenetrable nonsense" – a little unfairly IMO.
— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) January 17, 2019
I don’t blame Scott Adams for finding the issue impenetrable, it’s an obscure trick, which is why it got past peer review in the first place and ended up in the IPCC report as “the hockey stick”.
When I read the “impenetrable” comment, I immediately thought that we need to do a better job of communicating the issue, and taking a cue from the beloved “Dilbert” way of doing so, I worked directly with our resident cartoonist, Josh, to do just that.
What follows is the result of that collaboration, along with some relevant links. (Click image to enlarge)
It is important to note that in the above cartoon, Josh focuses on the “near present” part of the hockey stick, and it’s not the entire graph with the long flat blade going back to the Medieval Warm Period and before. It focuses entirely on the fact that the tree ring temperature proxy data in modern times (from about 1980 onward) didn’t cooperate with the viewpoint of the science paper authors (it went in the wrong direction) so they truncated it and used an entirely different dataset in it’s place – surface thermometer readings. Imagine the penalties that would occur in the stock market and financial world if somebody pulled a trick like that to present data for public consumption.
The cartoon is entirely for helping Scott Adams see exactly what we see, it is presented with respect, and in a visual language that I hope helps.
Here is the famous Climategate email that revealed what was going on:
From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxxDear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.Cheers
PhilProf. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
Links:
Keith’s Science Trick, Mike’s Nature Trick and Phil’s Combo
Cartoonsbyjosh (consider a visit to the tip jar for the time Josh spent making this cartoon)
UPDATE: 1/22/19 8:10 AM PST
here are original sources for Josh cartoon. Blue tree ring diagram is cartoon of Briffa tree ring reconstruction: see https://t.co/KbL6r7CtG8. Orange version is cartoon of Briffa series as altered in WMO figure (green) discussed in hide-the-decline email https://t.co/X8CIwADQvg pic.twitter.com/wmF2GGC638
— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) January 22, 2019
2/ over the years and over various papers, a variety of techniques were used by Briffa, Mann and others to "hide the decline" in Briffa's tree ring data. Less discussed code in Climategate mentions "Artificial Fudge Factor" – another trick to hide the decline.
— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) January 22, 2019
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
As a laymen who’s been following the scam since the 1990s, one thing I don’t understand is why do they need to manipulate the data? Is there a reason why we can’t compile the historical data that I see on Heller’s site (and what seems to have piqued Adams’ interest) and see the trend? I don’t understand that and would like to know why we need this entire “climate science” industry when I can just look at a chart of the past 100 years with my basic high school education and say “looks like it’s getting colder”.
A fantasy of mine would be for a Dilbert cartoon to turn the scam into a story somehow. The nature trick cartoon I saw was really good, but I’m thinking more like an arch, or a book by Adams. Adams does the creative and distribution, and the smart people like Heller, McIntyre, etc., hammer out the concepts with him. Adams would know how to illuminate this complex scam and make it palatable for normal folks. It seems with this group communicating, there’s an opportunity to put something together that can really penetrate and shine light on the scam. The impossible part would be getting Adams to do that. Taking the heat for supporting Trump is one thing, but taking on the cash-cow of the elites around would be a dangerous endeavor.
I digress, but I can honestly say I’ve probably never lost a debate with anyone on this topic, and I don’t know crap about it. I just ask questions and after penetrating beyond the inch-thick narrative they parrot, they tap out. 99.9999% of the scam-deniers’ positions are talking points, and in my experience, they’re destroyed with simple questions.
“If we’ve been warming, what should the temperature be?”
“If polar bears are in danger, why are there so many polar bears?”
“Why did the Akademik get stuck in the ice?”
“If Co2 is a pollutant, do plants consume a pollutant?”
“If it were warming, why would that be bad?”
Anyway, just my random two cents.
“what should the temperature be?”
Indeed. I use that one often an it usually shuts them up pretty quick. They try to blather on about “scientists say” and “I believe the scientists” but I have to tell them that, no, scientists don’t know what the “temperature should be” either, so can’t very well tell us what the difference between that temp and our temp now. Which means they also can’t tell us what the temp might be in the future.
Of course, not having to take math after Grade 11 helps selling the apocalypse, doesn’t it?
That’s always a good one. It’s also fun to get them to adjust the temperature for what part of the season we’re in. That drives them crazy.
I’m sure you know, there’s such a delicate process to getting a scam-denier to debate or discuss. It’s like in the movies where they are breaking into some high-tech secure facility. If they make a small mistake, the alarms go off and the entire thing is shut down. Like if you post an article from, say, Breitbart. That’s their shutdown trigger that allows them to bail out and run away. There’s such a process we have to go through to stay gentle, reel them in without triggering them to give them soft, digestible morsels of questions. It really is an art, because if you go tit-for-tat, there’s no hope to penetrate them.
In the end, it’s rewarding when you make it to the heavily guarded thinking-center, where their little brains start to ask questions and figure some things out.