Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Steve McIntyre is at it again, dissecting questionable climate science. If you thought Michael Mann’s original climate hockeystick was interesting, with its intriguing apparent use of upside down proxies and apparent data deletions, check out McIntyre’s deep dive into the product of an entire team of climate scientists who think like Mann.
The IPCC AR6 Hockeystick
Although climate scientists keep telling that defects in their “hockey stick” proxy reconstructions don’t matter – that it doesn’t matter whether they use data upside down, that it doesn’t matter if they cherry pick individual series depending on whether they go up in the 20th century, that it doesn’t matter if they discard series that don’t go the “right” way (“hide the decline”), that it doesn’t matter if they used contaminated data or stripbark bristlecones, that such errors don’t matter because the hockey stick itself doesn’t matter – the IPCC remains addicted to hockey sticks: lo and behold, Figure 1a of its newly minted Summary for Policy-makers contains what else – a hockey stick diagram. If you thought Michael Mann’s hockey stick was bad, imagine a woke hockey stick by woke climate scientists. As the climate scientists say, it’s even worse that we thought.
…
It’s hard to know where to begin.
The idea/definition of a temperature “proxy” is that it has some sort of linear or near-linear relationship to temperature with errors being white noise or low-order red noise. In other words, if you look at a panel of actual temperature “proxies”, you would expect to see series that look pretty similar and consistent.
But that’s not what you see with the data used by the IPCC. You’d never know this from the IPCC report or even from the cited articles, since authors of these one- and two-millennium temperature reconstructions scrupulously avoid plotting any of the underlying data. It’s hard for readers unfamiliar with the topic to fully appreciate the extreme inconsistency of underlying “proxy” data, given the faux precision of the IPCC diagram.
…
Read more: https://climateaudit.org/2021/08/11/the-ipcc-ar6-hockeystick/
Plenty more where that came from, well worth a few minutes read.
One of the most fascinating finds McIntyre interprets as a new attempt to “hide the decline”, though he has grave concerns about the entire reconstruction which was snipped. Read his full article to delve into the details of this latest episode of alarmist data torture.
What can I say, as long as we keep paying them, they will keep on producing.
It’s the same with radiation budgets, carbon budgets, and temperatures. The public and policy makers are presented with data that is implausibly accurate/precise. Of course error bars aren’t presented on ‘their’ pretty diagrams.
The accuracy of a number is indicated by the number of significant digits. If you give a number as 147, that’s three significant digits, 150 is two significant digits and 147.0 is four. So, presenting a number with +/- 10% error bars as 147 is lying.
The graphical designers routinely (always) present imprecise data with a number of significant digits that imply accuracy that is not supported by research findings. The fact that those diagrams are published and not repudiated by the scientists who produced the underlying data means those scientists are OK with lying.
I am well aware that news reporters routinely misquote experts and it’s almost impossible to get a correction. Let’s just say, that when it comes to climate data presented to the public and policy makers, lying is a feature not a bug. ie. dishonesty is built in to the system.
Actually, the number of significant digits tells you the precision of a measurement. In other words, how well you can repeatedly obtain the same measurement. Accuracy is determined by how well an instrument’s measurements compare to an accepted standard. You may have a precise measurement but it may not be very accurate. To have a good measurement, it must first be precise as possible which then can determine how accurate it truly is.
In my last 5 years or so working as an R&D engineer at a major national laboratory, I used to tell colleagues in my times of cynicism, which was most of the time, “the only science that matters anymore is political science” and “integrity is a character flaw.” Sadly, in every single case, I got nods of agreement.
Over my many decades as a solar thermal R&D engineer, I was the focus of over a dozen press releases. In absolutely every single case, the reporters managed to twist my input to the point that it barely represented what I was doing, at best, or to the point that even I didn’t understand the article.
For the record, solar energy engineering is really really hard! I specialized in the thermochemical production of solar fuels and collaborated with nuclear engineers interested in similar approaches. Given the challenges for solar or nuclear fuels production, i.e. hydrogen, there is no one more grateful for the fracking revolution than me.
I have had the same experience when being interviewed on the topic of gun control. I don’t know whether reporters are intellectually incapable of remembering a few words, or if they purposely twist the meaning to conform to their belief set. Most of the time it didn’t even sound like the way I talk.
That IS journalism
Much, perhaps most, of what is written is created from whole cloth
Worse than you Thought
Actually, I’d say [woke] climate modelling hobbyists are way more egregious than I thought
Isn’t that like saying that since one climate model, out of more than a hundred, produced semi-accurate predictions that that means that climate model predictions are accurate.
Just because a stopped clock is absolutely correct twice a day, you can’t claim that it is accurate.
“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence.” Something like that.
Why answer that idiotic provocation ?
Does little Markee down vote itself to appear relevant?
I’m sure mingy upvotes it’s own comments. Likely voting for and getting votes from giffie, silly simon and others of the same ilk.
Unless Ingraham has a special version of the software, you can’t vote for yourself, up or down.
when has that ever stopped leftardeds from doing leftarded sh*t?
Same as leftards always do.
STOP IT !
Stop me.
It means you are a braindead idiot and I wish you would just S.T.F.U
If someone is out to annoy you the best strategy is not to play along.
don’t feed the troll.
STOP IT !
One would have an easier time arguing the veracity of the virgin birth with an Evangelical than attempt to provide facts that refute the gospel of the the Church of Warming with the “woke again” flock that worships the government and believes any sermon they hear.
Constantly claiming the current existence of Peak Oil “Worships the Government”
During “Peak Usage” between 4-9 pm in California, there is no “Peak Oil” power.
There are brown and black outs coming, according to the commercial’s claim, from the Govt.
There is no “Peak Battery” either.
The Commercial claims the people have the ‘power’ to overcome though, and show folks hanging clothes on a line on a grassy hilltop and playing with kids and dogs and the like. The people have the ‘power’ the Govt claims in the commercial, in terms of their ability to continue normal lives during the lack of electricity.
STOP IT !
I’m afraid you’ll have to define “It” if you really want him to stop. Are you concerned he’ll become blind, or grow hair on his palm?
That’s good! I’m going to plagiarize it shamelessly. Thanks.
Me too.
You take one isolated thing and treat it as if it were a universal truth and the explanation of everything.
Hmm.
Irrelevant to you means that you spend substantial time and effort trying to parasitize WUWT commenters to visit your site.
Without WUWT you basically don’t have any site visitors. Yeah, we understand what you mean by “irrelevant”.
It means you drool over WUWT’s many visitors and spend your nights dreaming about how to con people to visit your site.
The irrelevant site is your own worthless site and like typical leftists you project your own failings.
What?!? You mean some readers actually bothered to visit his site?
Hasn’t everyone here seen enough ‘blinding brilliance’ from Ra (the Sun god) to know it’s a waste of time?
I’m curious now, who is mark ingraham? All I could find when I Googled his name was that he worked in a dinner washing pots and then got on to MasterChef.
What does he know about climate science? Like I say I’m just curious.
Like a dog with a Frisbee…
Do not feed trolls. Please!
fire up your other brain cell and use both at the same time
So, you spend an inordinate amount of time reading and commenting on a site that is “totally irrelevant”? I’d say that makes your mental competence seriously questionable.
If this site is completely irrelevant, please shut up and go grazing on other pastures!
What is the point of spending YOUR precious time with things irrelevant???
“Just because a stopped clock is absolutely correct twice a day, you can’t claim that it is accurate.”
Good argument!
Actually, what most people say is that when a clock NEVER shows the correct time, then it is NOT accurate! (mutatis mutandis, if you did not grasp it, the “clock” in here is the multitude of “climate models”).
And he’s back.
And Friday the 13th isn’t until tomorrow!
Your own actions prove you don’t even believe your own lies.
If this site was irrelevant you would not be here every single day posting the same idiotic comment on every thread.
Clearly you know this site is important in exposing the fake science being pushed by pseudo scientific “activist-scientists” who are too moronic to realise that is an oxymoron.
Your cunning strategy seems to be to troll people into reacting in order to distract attention away from the real issues being discussed exposing the blatantly false content in IPCC ARS.
Now that “reply” is not really addressed at the troll but at fellow “denialists” here on WUWT.
Get a grip on your outrage and STOP RESPONDING TO THIS TROLL.
He can’t disrupt discussions here unless you help him.
STOP IT !
Greg: Actions do speak louder than words, and Mr. ingraham spends all day here. Just like folks who mandate masks, then go mask-free to spend time on Martha’s Vineyard before the sea rise gets ’em. If COVID (Delta schmelta) is as bad as they say and the unvaccinated are the only problem, would they let in millions of unvaccinated folks from the south? They don’t believe what they say, on COVID or AGW.
His clock is of the 24-hour variety. Right only once a day.
His display is digital and it’s displaying random numbers.
From Mark I
Just another cunning stunt.
And a shining wit to boot.
If you honestly believe the the “site is totally irrelevant,” why do you bother posting here? You are either a liar, irrational, or both.
Your first two posts are one liners that isn’t open for discussion which means you are a one trick pony.
You are BORING and that is being nice as you push your pet, “peak oil” in thread after thread, which has to stop, focus on the topic instead.
===
Peak Oil, a Specimen Case of Apocalypic Thinking (LINK) Prophets of doom held that looming shortages of oil would plunge us back into a Paleolithic standard of living. What’s interesting is why the prophecies were accepted—and whether we’ve learned anything at all from it
===
Peak oil alarums have been ongoing for over 100 years. We will not run out of oil, it will be the economics that dictate whether we can use it anymore profitably.
There will be no more off topic diversions for your pet topic, GO HERE to talk about peak oil as it IS part of the topic, I will start snipping out your off topic peak oil since you are diverting many here to get off topic following your false trail.
This here is about AR6 and Climate Audit as the topic!
To be a warmista is to be vaccinated against facts.
Their immunity to them is very close to 100%
IF it’s irrelevant, why are you commenting on it?
Off Topic:
Today 12 August 2021 is the 40th anniversary of the Thames TV documentary “Warming Warning” the first “Popular Press” coverage of Global Warming featuring Dr Stephen Schneider.
You can easily find it on the You Tube.
Hilarious – Schneider appeared on In Search Of the Next Ice Age talking about using nuclear reactors to melt the ice caps.
Ironically, he died of a heart attack during international travel to attend a global warming conference. First class (seat) all the way to the end.
From the ever unreliable New Scientist:
…a 1971 paper by Stephen Schneider, then a climate researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US. Schneider’s paper suggested that the cooling effect of dirty air could outweigh the warming effect of carbon dioxide, potentially leading to an ice age if aerosol pollution quadrupled.
This scenario was seen as plausible by many other scientists, as at the time the planet had been cooling (see Global temperatures fell between 1940 and 1980). Furthermore, it had also become clear that the interglacial period we are in was lasting an unusually long time (see Record ice core gives fair forecast).
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11643-climate-myths-they-predicted-global-cooling-in-the-1970s/#ixzz73JvYb5BJ
Schneider featured in the documentary “In Search of the Coming Ice Age”, presented by Leonard Nimoy, in which he told us we were going to freeze to death. The documentary has been largely ‘disappeared’ by YouCensor etc
Then he popped up in the 90s saying….
“On one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but—which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest.” – —Dr. Stephen Schneider, former IPCC Coordinating Lead Author, APS Online, Aug./Sep. 1996
Who takes him seriously?
As I pointed out to you a few days ago, that is a selective quotation. Schneider actually wrote.
This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
Carefully removing the last sentence is highly dishonest in my view, as it shifts the whole meaning of the quotation. That you willingly repeat the dishonesty makes it hard to take you seriously.
Here is Schneider, with a little context:
“Let’s turn to that other “oxymoron” problem: the role of the scientist as popularizer. In the real world, we want to make a lasting impression and ensure that our ideas are heard and our suggestions are followed, yet none of us is granted unlimited time to explain the nuances of complex issues. We are forced to be selective in our disclosure of facts, or we risk being ignored. However, intentionally distorting the likelihoods of certain outcomes is just dishonest. Balancing the need to be effective in sound-bite situations with the responsibility to be “honest” (i.e., fully disclosing complexities) is what I call the “double ethical bind.””
https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Mediarology/mediarology.html
Schneider – as we have seen – blows cold and hot.
Whether you like it or not, that is true
He is not to be taken seriously – except it seems by you.
You also selectively quoted the NS piece
“However, Schneider soon realised he had overestimated the cooling effect of aerosol pollution and underestimated the effect of CO2, meaning warming was more likely than cooling in the long run. In his review of a 1977 book called The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age, Schneider stated: “We just don’t know…at this stage whether we are in for warming or cooling – or when.” […]
The calls for action to prevent further human-induced global warming, by contrast, are based on an enormous body of research by thousands of scientists over more than a century that has been subjected to intense – and sometimes ferocious – scrutiny. ”
“When facts change, I change my mind,” – John Maynard Keynes.
A good scientist presents the facts honestly and effectively, even if new evidence falsifies an earlier hypothesis, as happened with aerosol cooling.
What do you do?
He predicted a coming ice age
Would you say he was right?
Be honest.
Fifty years ago he wrote a paper on aerosols that made a conditional prediction that a fourfold increase in such would lead to a 3.5C decrease in global temperatures. Completely plausible given the state of knowledge a half-century ago. But since then aerosols declined under various clean air legislation and the enhanced greenhouse effect – also discussed in the same paper – became the dominant climate driver.
In other words, the conditionas attached to the prediction never came to pass, instead the facts changed and Schneider changed his mind. To do otherwise would have been dishonest.
So global warming is caused by cleaner air.
Increasing/decreasing aerosols put a negative/positive nudge on the planetary energy imbalance. In other words more aerosols provide a cooling tendency while less aerosols provide a warming tendency. All other things being equal cleaner air warms the planet.
Not cleaner air but one of the results: Less clouds.
And less clouds equals more sunshine.
Up to 200 h more. That is not nothing.
You still can’t quite seem to hit that nail on the head, try as you will. “Climate change” is a logical fallacy. Global warming is a condition of natural variation (as is cooling). There’s no evidence of human causation. Schneider was 100% a political animal, with a conditional understanding of climate. You’re an apologist for science illiteracy and need to start educating yourself with facts soon before your brain locks at permanent dysfunction.
No, but I would also say you were wrong for misquoting him. It doesn’t help your arguments to not admit you were wrong and lashing out at the person who points out your mistake makes it worse. And I think CAGW nonsense is hurting science. Two, wrongs don’t make a right, but two rights make a plane.
When facts, your know they were not matching computer model output.
Hah! To support one junk-scientist (Schneider) with a quote from another (Keynes).
I’m sorry, but there is only one duty in any scholarship and scientific enquiry: honesty.
If you have a desire to be effective, you have moved into politics, and the is an activity best left to political actors who – in a democracy – are responsible to their citizens.
To quote the wonderful New Zealand poet, ARD Fairbairn:
‘What a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive.
And when the art we have perfected,
We’re just the boys to get elected.’
If Schneider wanted to affect political affairs, he should have entered politics. He had no business trying to affect politics from a tenured university position to which he was appointed to pursue the truth.
And of story.
Sorry: ‘End of story’ Damned autocorrect!
Good points, Aynsley.
I’m working in academics for the past couple of years, heading toward the end of my professional career, and the willingness of academics to skirt honesty is one thing that is disillusioning to me, and their reason to do so overwhelmingly originates from their political beliefs.
And, their political beliefs are overwhelmingly leftist and elitist.
Plagiarism?
“what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!”
is from Sir Walter Scott’s poem Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field, published 1808.
You forgot to credit the first two lines to Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Marmion’.
We can argue ’til the proverbial cows come home about the motivation and honesty of Dr Schneider, but he is not the one putting out the biased reports and opinions we see today..
What is important is how his remarks were interpreted by his acolytes, including Holdren and subsequently Mann, Schmidt, Trenberth, Phil Jones and of course the “epitome of ethics” Peter Gleick.
There is not doubt they chose “effectiveness” of their alarmist message.
So “effectiveness of” = “steady income from”?
“I’m sorry, but there is only one duty in any scholarship and scientific enquiry: honesty.” Was it honest to leave out the last sentence of the quote or just more effective at making a point? Answer honestly with out taking into account the effectiveness of your answer. Pretty hard to do isn’t it. I am no exception. I fail to see why we should let politicians off the hook for being dishonest. I think you can be both it just takes more work.
Hi John, You can put whatever spin you like on Dr Schneider’s famous quote, the fact is, he laid out his reasoning why scary scenarios should be considered. And oh yeah he added the CYA (Cover Your Ass) statement that you have pointed out twice so far.
Like the rest of the alarmists, John is interested primarily in the results.
He’s willing to invent any argument that gets him to that goal.
In other words, “the ends justify the means”.
But only when the end is the one leftists want.
What is worse is that “the end justifies any means.”
Definitely there is context to be considered, however, perusing the climategate emails, one gets the impression that Schneider would readily sacrifice honesty to make some point consistent with his beliefs. That’s consistent with fretslider’s sentiment.
Sadly, he died over 11 years ago, so any further explanation of his thinking is at least partially speculation on our part. There is prescience in his statement that none of us is granted unlimited time to explain complex issues.
In his later years, he suffered from cancer and ultimately succumbed to a heart attack during international travel to attend a global warming conference.
The additional line to the quote doesn’t really change the meaning, that he feels that he has the right to push his idea by massaging the description of his results. That’s being political and dishonest.
PCman999 said it way better than I did.
Being honest matters, being effective does not. If the data has been manipulated, if you mask opinion as fact or dishonestly represent guesses as honest data then you are not a scientist, your opinion and work is worthless and your effectiveness is zero as everything you have done is undermined by the lies and dishonesty. There is no ‘double ethical bind’ – promote honest scientific research or get the hell out and become a used car salesman.
Good point, BUT…
… the problem is the meaning of “being honest”. If we don’t know, being honest is to say “We don’t know”, NOT to say whatever is convenient, useful, appropriate, helpful, favouring, etc., for instance, that global warming is a problem, when we don’t know if it is or not, and if it is, how big it is.
“Being honest”: is it an absolute or a limited concept? The old joke applies, the advice of the father to his son: “My son, live your life with honesty, if you can. If you cannot, live your life!”
So, the question is: can you be scientificaly honest while asserting imminent catastrophes? Are you living your scientific life with honesty or are you simply living your scientific life?
Living a higher standard of living than deserved, earned by fraud and just plain lying.
He’s telling scientists that in order to move people, they have to offer scary scenarios that the scientists know aren’t accurate.
If you leave out “the ifs and buts” you cannot be honest.
It’s like being a bit pregnant.
So if I tell my wife I will be home at five but I don’t say if my car starts, if I don’t get a flat, if a protest doesn’t block the road and basically speak so long that she tunes me out and never bothers to listen all I say. I am now dishonest. Ok. You may want to add some if’s and buts to your statement.
However, it allows for the possibility that that some will place more emphasis on being effective than being honest. The implication being that honesty is not the most effective means to scare people.
Schneider had a choice between science and social work. He unfortunately didn’t choose science. We’ve always known that lies will work to achieve results as are scare tactic but that is seriously divergent from science. Like a judge a scientist must be uninterested. They cannot serve two masters.
I suspect he does!!!
He’s dead, Jim.
(StarTrek reference).
Thanks, bones…
As Schneider rightly concluded, effective scientists are not honest.
Effective at what? Promoting the ideological agenda! Ineffective at advancing science and public understanding of the truth.
Congratulations! There have been many distortions on this thread, however only you have managed to credit to Dr Schneider the exact opposite of what he said.
Thanks for that, every Friday @ 19.00 (a year later @ 17.15) in those days I would be sitting behind my desk observing and logging switch over from Thames to LWT.
“You can easily find it on the You Tube”….. Why?
Eric, your comment “as long as we keep on paying them…” is at the heart of the issue. Enough “climate scientists” have discovered where the funding is and are going to ride that gravy train to the end of the tracks. It’s just like our parents told us “if you want to know why somebody does something stupid follow the money”. Of course nowadays we should add “…follow the woke mob racist ideology…”.
Sadly, there’s money in the woke mob racist ideology.
….and power.
…. I don’t think so George. It’s just the money. In many cases, just desperation about the thought of having to function in a real job.
It goes all the way to the top. Imagine Joe Biden ever having to function in a real job?
Ha! His family knew he was useless and shuffled him off into politics as soon as possible.
Getting Joe into politics, was the best business decision his family ever made.
He said he drove 18 Wheelers.
They did find an instance where he rode in an 18-wheeler for a few hours.
That’s close enough for politifact.
How many mansions did the woman who runs BLM buy?
Six too many!
But it didn’t used to be this way. There was a time when scientists were hired by universities to teach and do research. Their paycheck was not dependent on them winning large grants to support their labs. Once this happened, all pretense of ethical behavior and honesty vanished. They also stopped teaching in many schools, another bad idea IMO.
The moment researchers got rich grants, they also got bosses deeply interested in those earnings whose own pay was dependent on their subordinates getting rich grants.
They also got teams of administrators and accountants to track the grant monies and manage the spending.
All of whom put pressure on researchers to get more grants.
Published research by researchers aid in them getting grants, which increased the pressure on researchers to publish and get grants.
Changing what the colleges and universities considered most important when hiring Doctors, professors, researchers and doctorate students.
Grant earnings and potential future grants are high in the list of preferred experience traits.
I’ve been a student in schools where the almighty grant is king and it is not conducive to learning. This is a huge part of why higher education is in so much trouble today.
To put things in perspective, 25 years ago I had a professor tell me that he wouldn’t even bother responding to a grant opportunity unless it was at least $100,000.
As McKitrick notes, this is a case of using stripbark bristlecone pines again. Plus, there is no actual study cited for the basis of the new IPCC hockey stick graph.
But as it looks scary, it remains in use.
The assholes running this charade, I hope, are ultimately going to regret hanging their livelihood on these trees.
In case you ever get the chance to visit this area of Colorado: https://www.5280.com/2017/07/colorado-by-nature-bristlecone-pines/
Bring a parka, it gets cold up there, even in August.
SPM.1 does not use Bristlecone Pines or any tree ring proxy for that matter.
That is disingenuous and false.
The graphic is a multiple author mix of results.
Ah…yes…my mistake. It incorporates PAGES 2K for the most recent 2000 years. PAGES 2K does use tree ring proxies. It is Temp 12K and those periods older than 2000 years ago that do not.
For very obvious reasons cause even the oldest trees are usually not 12k years and petrified samples pretty rare.
The IPCC cites Kaufman et al. 2020 a and b for that graph (AR6 WG1 section 2.3.1.1.2). Bristlecone pines are not used as a proxy. The proxy types used are chironomid, pollen, biophysical, isotope, Mg/Ca, alkenone, biomarker, and microfossil. It does not look very scary to me, but that is subjective so to each his own.
I may be incorrect here. SPM.1 utilizes Kaufman et al. 2020b which incorporates PAGES 2K for the most recent 2000 years. That database does contain tree ring proxies. I’m not sure about Bristlecone pines though. I would assume they are used within the most recent 2000 year period unless someone knows specifically if PAGES 2K excludes them.
Ah, those Bristlecones again. One of McIntyres greatest hits, so good he brings them up and the fact that the NAS panel ‘advised against their use’ every chance he gets.
But wait, panel chairman Gerald North clarified in a followup interview that the problems with stripbark samples were confined to the last 150 years – a period for which we have a wealth of other proxies. And what’s this? Is it possible the problems with stripbarks are not even real?
” (i) The unique 20th-century increase in ring width is specific to the upper forest border and is not associated with a particular elevation. The link to upper treeline rather than to a specific elevation is not consistent with the WUE hypothesis of indirect fertilization by CO2 or fertilization by nitrogen deposition. (ii) The strong modern trend in growth observed at the upper forest border is not the product of any preprocessing or standardization of the data—there was none. (iii) The modern trend is not related to the difference between strip-bark and whole-bark growth forms.”
Recent unprecedented tree-ring growth in bristlecone pine at the highest elevations and possible causes.
Matthew W. Salzer, Malcolm K. Hughes, Andrew G. Bunn, and Kurt F. Kipfmueller
Is it possible Misters McIntyre & McKitrick are being less than totally honest? Surely not!
The temperature graph is still obviously preposterous, so whatever procedure was used is invalid.
Fascinating, how the problems only occur in bristlepark proxies during the time when we have other proxies.
For the time when we have no other proxies, they are perfect.
Well, the source of that conclusion is Gerald North, head of the panel that McIntyre so frequently cites on this.
“The strip-bark forms in the bristlecones do seem to be influenced by the recent rise in CO2 and are therefore not suitable for use in the reconstructions over the last 150 years. One reason we place much more reliance on our conclusions about the last 400 years is that we have several other proxies besides tree rings in this period.”
“…not suitable for the reconstructions over the last 150 years…”
This is the ultimate cop-out. Relatively accurate thermometers were not invented till 1714, and weren’t very accurate for the first 100 years due to solubility of the glass of the day in mercury.
So he is basically saying that the reconstructions are “good” prior to scientists having measuring devices. But you can’t calibrate the proxies against the last couple of hundred years “Cuz antropo-effects”. Completely self validating tripe.
If they aren’t suitable over one time period, and especially if you don’t know why, then they aren’t useful over any other period.
In reality the reason why they are either useful or not useful is because during one time period they support the narrative and in the more recent time period they don’t.
So he is basically saying that the reconstructions are “good” prior to scientists having measuring devices.
No he is saying one particular type of tree ring proxy may have issues. More recent work (Salzer et al) indicates the issue is probably a non-issue.
So? The guy is a apparatchik for the goobermint line.
But John, were the bristlecone proxies adjusted downwards for this non-climate growspurt?
No.
M&M are being quite honest.
Not so are Phillips or the contributors of the new hockeystick cover of AR6.
What if we let Mann be the owner of his original hockey stick fraud, and give another name to AR6’s fraudulent curve? To me, it looks like the scythe of the Grim Reaper!
That could be read in one of several different ways tbh – have you got anything concrete that would support one interpretation over another? Link to a reputable study, for example?
McIntyre ?
Correct, IPCC reports are literally nothing burgers. Good catch, Markeemark!
It is a heaping pile of lies, can’t get worse than that. Unless you believe the lies, that is.
The hockey stick will be the yellow star of this generation…..
Steve McIntyre is at it again, dissecting questionable climate science. If you thought Michael Mann’s original climate hockeystick was interesting, with its intriguing apparent use of upside down proxies,
You are getting your myths in a muddle, the ‘upside down’ Tiljander proxy was not included in the original 1998/99 MBH studies.
It was indeed used in Mann et al 2008. My take on it is that the signal was probably contaminated in modern times which may have reversed the sign during the calibration period compared to earlier years. But you don’t get to change your method on a per-series basis, so the choice was to include proxy as it was or exclude it. In fact they did both, they noted potential problems with the data and did the reconstruction with and without Tiljander, and some other series with potential quality issues. Impact on conclusions? Negligible.
“we also examined whether or not potential problems noted for several records might compromise the reconstructions. These records include the four Tijander et al. (12) series used for which the original authors note that human effects over the past few centuries unrelated to climate might impact records (the original paper states ‘‘Natural variability in the sediment record was disrupted by increased human impact in the catchment area at A.D. 1720.’’ and later, ‘‘In the case of Lake Korttajarvi it is a demanding task to calibrate the physical varve data we have collected against meteorological data, because human impacts have distorted the natural signal to varying extents’’).
In addition there are three other records in our database with potential data quality problems, as noted in the database notes:
Benson et al. (13) (Mono Lake): ‘‘Data after 1940 no good—water exported to CA;’’ Isdale (14) (fluorescence): ‘‘anthropogenic influence after 1870;’’ and McCulloch (15) (Ba/Ca):
‘‘anthropogenic influence after 1870’’.
We therefore performed additional analyses as in Fig. S7, but instead compaired the reconstructions both with and without the above seven potentially problematic series, as shown in Fig. S8.
John, if you have a source for those quotes I’ll consider them. As I recall, and after refreshing my memory at Climate Audit, the problems with Tiljander may have been noted in the SI, but for the study the Tiljander series were used upside down in their entirety:
https://climateaudit.org/2009/10/14/upside-side-down-mann-and-the-peerreviewedliterature/
“The SI to Mann et al 2008 conceded that there were problems with the recent portion of the Tiljander proxies (without mentioning that they were using them upside down from the interpretation of Tiljander and Finnish paleolimnologists), but argued that they could still “get ” a Stick without the Tiljander sediments. However, as I observed at the time, this case required the Graybill bristlecone chronology (where they failed to mention or cite Ababneh’s inability to replicate Graybill’s Sheep Mt results, even though Malcolm Hughes, a member of Ababneh’s thesis panel was a coauthor of Mann et al 2008). Thus their “robustness” analysis used either upside down Tiljander sediments or Graybill bristlecones.”
As for the results being negligible, maybe not:
https://climateaudit.org/2009/02/26/upside-down-tiljander-in-japan/
“At this point, there are also issues of whether the SI actually shows that “none of their central conclusions” relied on their use. One of their central conclusions was that they could “get” a stick without dendro proxies – but their non-dendro recon used upside-down Tiljander. Their SI showed that they could “get” a stick without Tiljander but, as far as I can tell, the non-Tiljander comparandum used dendro series and, in particular, relied heavily on a Graybill bristlecone. It’s a large job analyzing the impact of this sort of thing. At the time, I didn’t have a working version of Mannian EIV; one of the reasons for working through Steig RegEM in such detail was to get a handle on Mannian RegEM and I may well re-visit this matter in the near future.”
See also here:
https://climateaudit.org/2008/09/03/mann-2008-mwp-proxies/
This is why they invented “extreme weather”, although they do seem quite proud of “global heating”. When the old lies no longer work, invent new ones!
Given the calamitous importance of this UN prediction for the end of the modern world in the very near term, I’m just wondering how many billions of spell-bound terrified clamoring members of the tax paying public attended, or tuned-in and watched globally?
What? None? None at all? … they were all busy doing something else that day?
Consider this a hint of your relative significance, United Nations, scummy corrupt politicians, and the vile vermin of the globular mass-media sheet-show.
Not just woke Hockey players (heaven help us!) but the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is driven insane by this report.
It sure does bring the labile to the podium!
Pretty sure China likes to play Ping Pong more than hockey! Russia is leading with Carbon Chess, and India is weaving. Australia’s Carbon Rugby will not buckle to fear porn. Just wonder what NZ’s All Black’s are doing – give the Woke a Haka!
These newer “reconstructions” appear to deviated from recorded history & archeology. The graphs are probably more to do with programming than reliable facts. There are 100’s of samples around the world similar to the Roman & medieval warming periods so not just a small local area. There’s many studies of proxies to give 1000’s of data points around the world but they rely on relative changes not absolute so they’re hard to merge. Further back tends to average values over longer periods so they tend to hide actual variability.
The Norse were raising cattle and growing barley in Southern Greenland circa 1000, which would strongly imply that it was considerably warmer than the present. Old treelines in various other places also have the same indication.
Mann et al apparently thought the LIA was inconvenient for the “CO2 is the thermostat” model, so eliminating it served his purpose.
And old trees showing up under retreated glaciers.
Like I said yesterday, they are not even pretending any more.
Anyone who thinks you can know global average temperature in 1000AD or 550AD to (+\-)0.5C should be in an asylum or prison.
They actually run the asylum – Edgar Poe :
The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether
by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1856)
https://poestories.com/text.php?file=systemoftarr
Many there mention carbon all the time, some even see it!
All one needs to know is the following graphic:
It’s from this paper:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1125786520300965
Therein, plenty of researchers that where part of the 2013 PAGES2K study take another look at the paleoclimotology. They seemed to have been fed up with the data cherry-picking to generate more hockeyschticks and left the consortium cause they didn’t contribute to the 2019 paper.
If you deliberately leave a consortium with a really high chance of publishing in high ranking journals something must have really upset you.
BOEM…?
Bureau Of Evangelical Monkeys?
They joined the WOKE crowd back in 2019
When ingraham can’t think of a good word, he just makes one up.
Hey Eric, has anyone done any work on estimating the real uncertainties of these reconstructions? It seems that yet again they’ve assumed each proxy has random errors and they can just use the standard deviation or something to get their fake 95% confidence interval.
The “hockey stick” curve obscures Earth’s CO2 history. Dinosaurs that roamed the Earth 250 million years ago knew a world with five times more carbon dioxide than is present on Earth today.
Summary: Feeding the world’s hungry ranks among the greatest difficulties humankind has experienced. Greenhouse growers in America and China, are enhancing plant growth as they intentionally increase CO2 levels to around 1,500 ppm, or 4 times today’s CO2 levels to boost plant yield by 25 to 65 percent for the plants they are growing, to produce greater amounts of vegetables and crops for humanity.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/16042021-the-hockey-stick-curve-obscures-earths-co2-history-oped/
…the Earth 250 million years ago knew a world with five times more carbon dioxide than is present on Earth today.
But then the warmunists love to tell us that CO2 hasn’t been this high for 3,000.000 years. It impresses the kids.
Warmunists use whatever time frame supports their story.
The thing is, the ‘actual’ in the chart we can take as faithful recording; the ‘reconstructed’ needs a a whole different leap of faith. How many observers of that chart would just ‘go along’ with the ‘reconstruction’ never knowing what’s missing?
Even the “actual” has too small error bars. Global temperature data sets constructed from land and sea thermometers. They assume errors are random and cancel in thermometers. There is zero evidence for that. They just assume away the uncertainty. It should be (+\-)0.5C or more until the 1960s.
There are two sources of uncertainty, the first as you mention is accuracy in the placement, maintenance and reading of actual thermometers.
The second is the fact that there aren’t enough thermometer, and most of the ones that do exist are concentrated in central Europe and eastern US/Canada, to accurately determine what the actual temperature of the earth is, even if all of the thermometers were perfect.
Can you provide a link a publication with a rigorous uncertainty analysis showing that uncertainty on annual or even monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies is ±0.5C?
How about the graph McIntyre uses from the IPCC report that shows approximately ±0.25C range. Although, it doesn’t specify whether it is one or 2-sigma!
Do you have a link to that McIntyre publication?
Try looking at the top of this page.
Please stop repeating that everywhere with or without purpose!
There is a Portuguese saying, “One swallow does not make spring”. What you are repeating is the ONE exception among the INNUMEROUS warmist/alarmist sentences of the report! One single phrase or example does not change the tune of the whole report!
Enough! If you have nothing else to speak out, please shut down!
The name of Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda of The Third Reich, is unfortunately missing from IPCC materials.
And yet, it’s in the name “Goebbel’s Warming” aka “Goebbel’s Heating”. Go figure.
The whole premise of the 95% confidence level of the proxies used before the invention of the mercury thermometer in 1714 is LUDICROUS…The graph shows it to be 0.5 C wide, when it is actually more likely 2 C wide. Take some pond pollen samples and tree trunk cores and have them analyzed by a local university for the last few decades. Results will more likely match rainfall records rather than temperature.
But if you make that graph gray zone 2C wide, our 1C over the last century doesn’t look very scary for climate caterwaulers.
Is that top figure in AR6??
They’ve crawled all the way back to Mickey Mann’s hockey stick!
Despicable and disgusting, pure fraud.
It’s criminal and tragic that they are destroying the palaeo climate record and replacing it with agenda-serving fiction.
Yes. That is SPM.1. It is not from MBH98/99 though. In fact, it doesn’t utilize any MBH data or even tree rings at all. It’s based on an entirely different reconstruction methodology.
Ugg…this is the 3rd place in the blog comments here I’ve botched this up. SPM.1 does use tree ring proxies for the most recent 2000 years. It is the period prior to that in which tree ring proxies are not used. I’ll try to be more careful in this regard in the future.
You made an honest mistake, you acknowledged it and corrected it – that puts you miles ahead of most climate enthusiasts! Kudos.
Thanks. I appreciate that. Really. My biggest fear though is posting something incorrect and no one says anything and it sits there for all of eternity. Either way posting and engaging in debates on here is really good way to learn about the climate. Mistakes are par for the course.
Zombie Stick. Undead Climate Science.
The marriage of Bernie Madoff to Bernie Sanders.
Cute! Thanks.
Whatever happened to the Medieval Warm Period (circa AD 900-1100) in the AR6 hockey stick graph? Most of the more honest proxy reconstructions show the MWP as warmer than the present.
If the AR6 writers think it’s so much warmer now than during the MWP, why don’t they go live in Greenland to escape the heat, like the Vikings did? They could get beachfront property there for much cheaper than in Florida, which (according to them) will soon be underwater. Somehow, the real estate market, including former president Obama (who said he would stop the seas from rising), is ignoring their warnings!
The MWP isn’t especially discernable in SPM.1 because that is showing a global temperature reconstruction which includes the whole Earth; not just the land areas on the periphery of the North Atlantic. To analyze the MWP proper you need to switch back over to North Atlantic or with slightly less discernability NH reconstructions.
Funny, how a warm period that shows up in proxies from all over the planet, becomes a N. Atlantic only phenomena when that is what the warmunists need.
They needed to get rid of the MWP, and they worked hard until they did.
It was always a North Atlantic phenomenon. Hubert Lamb who pioneered the research and even coined the term (or more precisely the variation Medieval Warm Epoch) in 1965 said so. You can read about what Lamb actually said here. We now know that it was likely the result of the ebb and flow of the AMOC.
The MWP proper does not show up in proxies from all over the world. Different sites certainty have periods of higher temperatures, but they were not synchronous. When one region is cooling another is warming and vice versa. This is the effect of ENSO, SOI, ocean currents, and other cyclic processes in the climate system moving the heat around. When you composite the temperature into a global reconstruction like what Marcott et al. 2013, Kaufman et al. 2020, and others did you see that the global temperature does not exhibit the same bump during the MWP proper period as it evident in more localized reconstructions like for the NH or more specifically the North Atlantic region.The LIA is a bit different though. That was a global event though the magnitude was higher in the NH and especially the North Atlantic region. That’s why it shows up in the SPM.1 figure.
The resolution of the proxies is not high enough to catch those things as century spanning periods as they do with the MWP.
Therefore, this argument is not valid for the interpretation of MWP signals from the southern hemisphere as only local isolated phenomena.
The didn’t start and stop at the same time, however they did have significant overlaps.
You just have to ask the people who left the PAGES2K consortium after 2013.
Here’s a comparison of their recent temperature reconstruction of NH to the PAGES2K 2019 paper:
Obviously, they come to very different results.
If I have to believe somebody’s honesty than it is people who abandon their very good chance to keep publishing in high impact journals cause they are more about the data than their career.
The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change committed the nations of the earth to reducing CO2.
Here we are 29 years later and emissions have never been higher.
Climate Science in action. Their prescription hasnt worked in 29 years. So now it is code red and the solution proposed is to double up the medicine.
To fix what ails us, the very brightest climate scientists tell us the solution is to take even more of the medicine that hasnt worked for 29 years.
“as long as we keep paying them, they will keep on producing.”
Eric – it isn’t possible to stop their funding. But what about alternative funding? It would be interesting to crowd source funding for qualified scientists to start from scratch and do it properly.
The IPCC is a One Trick Pony. They know only one song. Can see only one solution. Their medicine bag contains 100 identical bottles of asprins and nothing more.
Emissions are going to keep rising. 29 years of failed international agreements confirm this. The solution is how to best take advantage. When life gives you Lemons learn to make Lemonade.
Years ago during the first Arab oil embargo the notion of “Peak Oil” was all the rage.
What quickly became apparent is that peak oil only affects cheap oil. Expensive oil is never in short supply for long.
I basically agree with you. However, it is the cheapness that provides the economic ability to improve the standard of living. Expensive energy doesn’t offer that ability.
Where is the Medieval Warm Period around A.D. 1000 in that graph?
Also, the error bars are laughable.
The bump in temperature around the North Atlantic isn’t discernable in the graph because that is a graph of the global temperature. To see the MWP you need to switch back to a graph focused on the North Atlantic or to a lesser degree the NH.
Another wave of cold water will reach the central Pacific.
I’m just overjoyed to see Steve McIntyre writing about these things again.
I’ll enjoy reading his works at my leisure.
As Steve McIntyre writes
“””Precisely why local Cape Ghir (offshore Morocco) temperatures were going down is somewhat of a quandary. Rather than figuring out this quandary, Neukom and the woke just turn the series upside down, following the example of Upside Down Mann by orienting the series according to its correlation with target instrumental temperature, even in their “CPS” reconstruction – a technique that is normally resistant to opportunistic flipping of proxies to enhance HS-ness of a final reconstruction.”””
some methods flip data and uses downtrending data to reinforce a warming trend.
I keep wondering at what stage a scientific unethical behavior like this becomes criminal.
And what could be a likely procedure to stop it in a US court?
The ubiquitous K-T atmospheric heat budget shows 63 W/m^2 LWIR upwelling from the surface.
This value appears TWICE!
Once sourced from the net, net solar energy 161 that arrived from the sun. Since it is not shown it must have slipped behind the sofa.
Second as part of the theoretical, “what if?” calculation for a BB at the surface temperature of 16 C used to calculate emissivity, i.e. 63/396=0.16.
When the music stops the solar 66 has chair in which to sit.
The calc’d 66 does not.
The greenhouse effect is a fifth grade math error.
Nick, this has been gone over by a lot of people and is not easy.
Nonetheless the figures do sort of balance and not in the way you are looking at it?
absorbed at Earth’s surface 161 from sun
Absorbed in earths atmosphere and clouds 78.
Total in 239.
Loss by latent heat and thermals 97. to the atmosphere
Now contains 175 W.
Now 161- 97 leaves 63 W at the surface having to make its way back to space by eventual radiation
But the temperature of the earth surface is 15C which BY SB means it has to be 396 W of energy to be radiated.
This demands an estimated back radiation of some 333 W from the GHG. to warm it, not to radiate to space!!!
Of the 63 left to go back to space 40 goes out direct IR.
The last 23 W goes into the atmosphere to make its way back out from the surface via both clouds and atmosphere.
Altogether 198 W in the atmosphere [plus 40 direct out makes the outgoing 238]
This is not made out clearly in the diagram
Which shows 30 of the 198/199 going out from the clouds and the other 169 going from the atmosphere.
There is 396 surface radiation from the energy in the system leaving the earths system only 63 watts of this is going to go back into space.
There is no extra 333 W of energy created from nothing.
The surface has to reach this temperature to radiate enough of its energy to the higher CO2 and H2O which by the way are radiating the 239 W from molecules at much lower temperatures than a 239 W earth surface would reach as it is much higher up and spread out it is much colder.
The GHG effect is real.
The assumption that warming atmospheres mean more heat retention is wrong.
No 0.9 retention.
The heat comes in and goes out CO2/H2O determine which layer is hot.
I haven’t read the report yet (I did read much of the previous ones) but it sure sounds like the IPCC has decided to completely abandon reality. At least the previous ones acknowledged that things weren’t changing as rapidly as predicted, if at all.