A picture is worth a thousand words

Bob Carter has a piece in the Telegraph where he claims:

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society’s continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Due to some unaccountable oversight, Carter did not include a graph of global average temperature from CRU. Let me show you what it looks like:

It’s obvious to anyone who looks at the graph that temperatures have not been static for the past eight years, but have continued to increase steadily. The only way you could contrive a decreasing trend is if you just looked at the two years 1998 and 2005 (the warmest and second warmest years ever recorded in the CRU data) and ignored everything else. Is that an appropriate way to do things? Not according to one Bob Carter. In 2004 he wrote a Tech Central Station article where he claimed that satellite measurements

show little or no long-term trend of temperature change.

I emailed him to point that the satellites actually showed significant warming. He replied that this didn’t count because:

this trend is most likely produced by the single exceptionally warm 1998 El Nino year.

Meanwhile, Steve McIntyre seems to have no problem with Carter’s misleading claim, because he linked approvingly to Carter’s column.

(My thanks to Wayne Sanderson for sending me the link.)

Comments

#1 brokenlibrarian
April 18, 2006

Hans:

sure, why mention it then?

Because I’d like to see McIntyre distance himself from those arguments. He is currently in bad company, but it’s not fair to attribute to him the views of people who are attempting to use his work, for what should be obvious reasons.

On the other hand, you seem to be claiming very specifically that McIntyre’s criticism of the methodology of MBH98 automatically discredits all other studies that used any sort of proxy data. Would that be a fair description of your position?
#2 Dano
April 18, 2006

Hans (WMI = 7.441) blathered:

and the mantra is: where is the underlying data, and how was it selected. Grey datasets, subjective selection, and even when sites are revisited unreproduceble source data.

That’s the mantra all right, repeated by a few gullible rubes, hapless ideologues, and shills.

It does, indeed, make one think: how long will the dead-ender tactics last?

Best,

D
#3 Stephen McIntyre
April 18, 2006

Debunking MBH does not, in itself, directly say anything one way or the other about the other multiproxy studies. From an audit perspective, the existence of so many defects in what was publicized as being presumably the “best” of the models available in 2001 indicates that the other studies need to be examined in detail before any reliance can be placed on them, especially given the high degree of overlap of authors and proxies. While studies after 2001 are often described as “advances”, the later studies continue to rely on similar underlying data sets and continue to rely on unreported selection criteria, so I see no reason why they can be regarded as “advances”. I’ve discussed most of the other multiproxy studies on climateaudit.org, although I have not formally published these findings yet. I don’t think that any of the other multiproxy studies are any good either. However, this conclusion is based on assessing each one on its own merits rather than extrapolating from MBH problems.

As Hans Erren mentioned, there are continuing difficulties in even getting access to the data for the other studies – MBH is by no means the worst in this respect. Right now, I don’t even know what sites were used in Briffa et al [2001] – even though the network was used in multiple publications in many different journals – as the authors have refused to disclose the information; last month, after months of trying, I got a partial data set for Esper et al [2002], but I still do not have a complete data set. Same with Osborn and Briffa 2006. Crowley says that he lost his original data and doesn’t know where he got it all from. Moberg’s data became available only last month after a corrigendum was issued. To my knowledge, no one has seriously examined these other studies, which I hope to get to in the near future.
#4 Dano
April 18, 2006

I’ve discussed most of the other multiproxy studies on climateaudit.org, although I have not formally published these findings yet. I don’t think that any of the other multiproxy studies are any good either.

No one cares about your opinion, Steve, except the hapless characters I describe immediately above. If you want play for people to consider your ideas you know what to do, and it isn’t relaying your squash scores to the amen chorus that leads folks to make up excuses to withhold the data that will likely cause you to trash their name on your little vanity site.

Affecting policy by agitatin’ the grass roots to change public discourse is no longer working for this topic. It’s a dead-end.

The political will is not there, however, which is what makes it seem to the gullible as if there is some success somewhere.

As soon as Fortune 500 companies’ bottom lines are affected, your site hits will plummet (unless certain folks there get a new dosage). But that will give you time to go out and take some cores so you can publish something interesting. Old growth after the latewood is ready to core has the best mushrooms and if you get good data, that’s a bonus.

Best,

D
#5 brokenlibrarian
April 18, 2006

McIntyre:

the authors have refused to disclose the information

Crowley says that he lost his original data and doesn’t know where he got it all from.

These are very strong accusations of scientific misconduct, so I hope you can back them up.
#6 Dano
April 18, 2006

They are the excuses that Steve got, bl, when he asked for data. Nothing more. What you or I would say to the malefactor neighbor when they want to borrow the hedge shears.

Best,

D
#7 Stephen McIntyre
April 18, 2006

BL, my correspondence with Crowley is posted up here http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=246. I posted this up in response to remarks and publication by Crowley about the tone of my correspondence with him, which, as you can see, was entirely professional on my side. If you scroll down to the Oct responses from Crowley, you will see his statement that he cannot locate the source data and could not identify all of the data sources.

Dano, you can’t blame Crowley’s correspondence on climateaudit which didn’t exist at the time of the correspondence.
#8 brokenlibrarian
April 18, 2006

My opinion of McIntyre just dropped several notches.
#9 Dano
April 18, 2006

Dano, you can’t blame Crowley’s correspondence on climateaudit which didn’t exist at the time of the correspondence.

Who said I did?

Didn’t you have a ‘paper’ in a faux ‘journal’ prior to this correspondence, making quite a little name for yourself in the process?

After that Heritage/CEI-worthy stunt, it would be preferable to give great-grandma’s good china to a blind person with palsy than waste time on someone on such an obvious mission.

So a few gullible rubes lapped up the constructed narrative for a while and the Wurlitzer got to, briefly, play a new tune. How long do you think most reg’lur people want to watch an old, tired monkey dance to a mean-spirited lyric with a cr*ppy beat and no melody?

Best,

D
#10 Dano
April 18, 2006

My editor tells me I should emphasize the minkey is figurative and not literal.

D
#11 Hans Erren
April 19, 2006

Hey Dano I have seen better arguments from you.
http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/tcscrichton.htm
#12 John A
April 19, 2006

Gavin, how nice that you deign to reply (but not on CA, of course because you can’t hide)

The comparisons to ocean heat content changes in the Hansen et al paper were over the last 10 years of data (not ‘less than 5′) but the results are comparable to the changes over the last 30 years of (less well constrained) observations as well.
The original paper is available here: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_1.pdf

Well as you can see from our re-analysis, your model fails R2 verification tests over most of the data. Which means your model can not be distinguished from a set of random numbers in a random walk. Rather like your friend Mikey, you’ve failed to produce adverse results like conscientious and ethical scientists should.

The reference to “less that 5″ was the use of the new ocean buoy measurements started in 2000.

As might have been expected, John A. a little confused in referring to in my BBC interview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4495463.stm

There’s no confusion about what you said. If you think that a set of model runs over just ten years worth of data constituted proof of anything then you’re seriously deluded. Since the model fails to reproduce the previous 40 years’ data by a fair margin, your assertion about the last thousand years being unpredecedented is, to put it bluntly, bullshit.

Significant radiative imbalances of ~1 W/m2 cannot persist for long periods of time without substantial climate change and they only occur when radiative forcings are changing much faster than the planet can respond. There is no evidence from either millenial forcing or temperature reconstructions that such imbalances have existed in the relatively recent past. It is hardly ‘miraclulous’ that conclusions can be drawn from that…

You have no basis for that claim, Gavin. Radiative changes of 1W/m^2 cannot be measured to that accuracy.

Why not step up to the Climate Audit plate and face the music instead of hiding behind RC?

PS. For 1998 to 2005, the linear least squares trend line through the annual mean temperature is still positive.

…but not significant. Remember significance, Gavin?
#13 John Cross
April 19, 2006

John A: Why don’t you step up to the Climate Audit plate and face the music in regards to your assertions about thermodynamics? Oh, wait I remember why – you are hiding behind Steve’s desire not to discuss it on his site.
#14 Tim Lambert
April 19, 2006

John A, before you can talk about forcings and the change in the heat content of the ocean, you must first learn that entropy is not a form of energy.
#15 Spence_UK
April 19, 2006

I note Tim Lambert has not amended his claim that Steve McIntyre approvingly linked to Bob Carter’s article, and attempts to insinuate that McIntyre somehow endorses all of the claims within the article.

Contrast this with the far more honest approach by John Fleck at inkstain, who has removed the word “approvingly” from his article.

Also interesting to note that John’s trackback remains at CA, whereas Tim’s doesn’t. I wonder if this has anything to do with honesty, integrity, things like that?

I also wonder whether this will cue another tu quoque justification for Tim’s methods…
#16 Tim Lambert
April 19, 2006

McIntyre generally approves of the article and Carter. That doesn’t mean that he agrees with everything in the article. But there doesn’t seem to be anything that he disagrees with, so I believe that the word “approvingly” is warranted.

Yes, I think John A’s trackback deletion has something to do with his honesty and integrity.

Now Spence, do you think there has been a cooling trend since 1998?
#17 z
April 19, 2006

Eureka!
If total energy = thermal energy + entropy
and total energy is constant
and entropy is always increasing
then thermal energy must always be decreasing
ergo, Universal Cooling!
which must overrule mere Global Warming!
#18 Spence_UK
April 19, 2006

“McIntyre generally approves of the article”

I can see McIntyre has made positive comments about Bob Carter, but beyond saying that he got a favourable mention, I haven’t seen any anything that supports your statement above, and it would appear John Fleck hasn’t either. Is this just your opinion of someone else’s opinion or can you point to some words that justify this claim?

“Now Spence, do you think there has been a cooling trend since 1998?”

OK, let’s see what we can make of this. Let’s state some assumptions first: we are referring here to the estimated trend, rather than the “true” underlying trend (assuming such a thing even exists in the first place – but that’s another topic). Nobody knows this “true” underlying trend, not you, not Bob, or anyone else.

If we’re talking about the estimated trend, then it is likely to be dependent on how you calculate it. There is more than one way to estimate a trend. If you simply apply a linear regression, I suspect you will find that you cannot reject the null hypothesis that there is no significant trend at any sensible level of significance. Given the linear regression is pretty close to zero, and other estimation techniques may give a different answer, I would be wary of saying you cannot get a negative estimate. I’m sure I could feed the monthly data into an appropriately tuned extended Kalman Filter or Particle Filter with some dynamic model of temperature “gradient” and come up with a different (possibly negative) estimate, that would probably also be indistinguishable from “no trend”.

If I was reviewing Bob’s article in a scientific context, I would certainly want to see an explanation of how he reached the conclusion that the temperature has a decreasing trend (with calcs), and I would strongly recommend he drop that observation and just stick with “no significant trend” (which he does subsequently state in the article). This small change would be to prevent nit-pickers from steering away from the more important reductio ad absurdum argument that he is trying to make.

So after all that boring waffle, my summary is this: I don’t like the way Bob has worded that particular piece of the article, it is scientifically very “loose”; but it isn’t in a scientific journal, so some looseness is justifiable. However, I don’t think we have enough info to claim he is clearly wrong on his estimate. I guess to confirm/deny this, we have to move into Audit territory

I would like to add that I don’t think the smoothed graph above is a good way to compare the data either; Bob was talking about data from 1998 to 2005, and if you apply a smoothing filter you implicitly include data outside these bounds (including some kind of extrapolation beyond 2005, which is really not on safe grounds). I believe your point would have been stronger had you simply performed a linear regression as others (Gavin and Chris?) have done here.
#19 Tim Lambert
April 19, 2006

Oh please, “no significant trend”? What do you expect if make your data set small enough? “Global Warming stopped in 1998″ is a dishonest claim and you know it.
#20 Dano
April 19, 2006

Atomistic quibbling.

D
#21 Stephen Berg
April 19, 2006

And then we have this garbage:

“Aussies’ Suzuki heavier on rhetoric than on science

Tim Ball, For The Calgary Herald
Published: Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Unknown to most Canadians until this week, Australians have their very own David Suzuki, a self-promoting zoologist who has garnered a large and loyal following for his sensationalist views on climate change.

Like Suzuki, Aussie zoologist Tim Flannery has no professional credentials in the field and so blunders regularly while pushing governments to save the world from global warming.”

…

http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=d622e9fa-cdc8-4163-8292-a1a554f58f94

I can’t believe this crap still exists, this libel or slander. Tim Flannery is most definitely qualified to speak on this matter. I heard him speak yesterday and he was definitely much more “on the ball” than Tim Ball is, despite his last name.

These contrarians are no “Friends of Science” as they proclaim they are, but toxic to science as they are badmouthing and denegrating all true climate scientists and their reputations.

Also, with the April 6 letter to the Canadian Prime Minister by some of these contrarians, there has been a more rational response yesterday:

http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2006/04/19/climate-change060419.html

What appalls me is that certain politicians and “think-tankers” will listen to economists, mathematicians, and former mining executives (McKitrick, Essex, and McIntyre) on the topic of climate change over those who are actually climatologists (Mann, Bradley, Hughes, etc.). That’s like trusting a plumber to perform open-heart surgery on a patient. Completely irrational.
#22 Hans Erren
April 19, 2006

Stephen, posting once in this blog will do, somebody may think it’s spam.
#23 Spence_UK
April 19, 2006

“Oh please, “no significant trend”? What do you expect if make your data set small enough? “Global Warming stopped in 1998″ is a dishonest claim and you know it.”

Where did I say global warming stopped in 1998? I don’t think I ever said anything of the sort. I was just explaining some basic maths, abstracted from the issue in question.

Just to repeat some of your own words, Tim:

“What do you expect if make your data set small enough?”

Bingo! We have a winner. This is exactly Bob’s point. Eight years is insufficient to form a meaningful trend. Bob’s next question, is twenty-nine years long enough?
#24 Spence_UK
April 19, 2006

Sorry for the double posting, but couldn’t resist this little observation. Let’s listen to a bit of Bob Carter’s article:

“In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say “how silly to judge climate change over such a short period”.

Followed by Tim Lambert:

“Oh please, “no significant trend”? What do you expect if make your data set small enough?”

But as you can see, BOB CARTER DONE AN’ GOT IT WRONG AGAIN, Tim clearly didn’t chuckle!

:^)
#25 Stephen Berg
April 19, 2006

Re: “Stephen, posting once in this blog will do, somebody may think it’s spam.”

Sorry about this. There were other threads I thought may have been a better place for the message after I sent it. I hadn’t seen the thread for the Flannery review until a few minutes later.
#26 brokenlibrarian
April 19, 2006

Spence_UK:

Bob’s next question, is twenty-nine years long enough?

To determine a thirty-year trend, yes. You can use eight years to determine an eight-year trend, oddly enough.

Here’s the trick. Carter takes 1998 and 2005, and uses them to create a fake eight-year “trend” that ignores all of data from the intervening years. He knows this is bullshit, or at least I hope he does.

He then says, “in response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say “how silly to judge climate change over such a short period”", which suggests that scientists are criticizing him solely because his “trend” is only eight years long, and not because he is taking two arbitrary data points and making a “trend” out of them.

It’s a pre-emptive strawman argument. He knows that people are going to criticize his data set, so he attempts to portray that inevitable criticism as being targeted at the length of his fake “trend”. He can then take this strawman (“they say my trend is too short to be meaningful”) and use it to imply hypocrisy (“their trend is not much bigger”).

When Tim says “what do you expect if make your data set small enough”, he is not referring to the length of Carter’s “trend”, he is referring to the fact that Carter’s data set consists of two arbitrary points and ignores all of the data in between. You cannot generate an eight-year trend out of two data points at either end of the period. That does not mean that an eight-year trend cannot be made at all, and it certainly does not suggest that a thirty-year one cannot be made.

The largest pile of bullshit coming out of Carter here is something different, though. He accuses climate scientists of ignoring all of the data prior to 1970, when in fact he is ignoring all of the data prior to 1918. There’s about 900 years worth of data that modern climate modeling is using that he is completely ignoring.

The recent thirty-year warming trend is not anomalous because is is being compared to 1918-1940 or to 1940-1965, but rather it is anomalous because it is being compared to an entire millennium worth of temperature data. For him to suggest otherwise means either 1) he is ignorant of why the current warming trend is considered anomalous, or 2) he knows the truth and is lying to his audience.

Either way we need pay him no mind.
#27 Lee
April 19, 2006

people, people, people…

Picking ANY two arbitrary time points in a time series (if there is any noise at all in the time series) leads to an artifactual result, almsot by definition.

One avoids this kind of artifact by fitting trend lines, preferably with error ranges but at least with the noise indicated.

All this discussion about “time periods” completely misses the point. In fact, it is arguing an inapplicable point.

Carter’s claim about picking time points, (whether he meant it to argue for declining temepratures as real, or as an illustration of the artifactuality of results derived from two time points) is fundamentally mislaading in form, NOT in its details. IT doesnt matter how far apart two chosen time points are, the error is in picking ANY time points, rather than analyzing trends in the time series as a whole.

And the time series as a whole is clearly trending upwards from about 1910 to 1940, flat from 1940 – 1975, and trending upwards 1975 to the present, with some interesting dynamics and maybe a few years uncertainty in the inflection points, and the inherent uncertainty over the last few years that comes with fiting a trend to teh end of a time series. Stating anything different that this, is simply clearly false, and Carter not only stated somethig different, he acted as if thet different kind of statement actually meant something. TRHAT is the most fundamental error in his claim.

Discussions about the lenght of the time series and its applicibility outside the times covered by the time series, is a DIFFERENT discussion than the time between arbitrarily chosen points in the time series (which always gives a necessarily artifactual result). But a lot of people here are treating them as if they are equivalent analyses, or worse, making an argument based on one analysis and applying it to the other analysis as if it had anything to do with it.
#28 Lee
April 19, 2006

brokenlibrarian,

Actually, the argument is bogus even if Carter included the data between those time point.

The end of a current time series is necessarily arbitrary; one can’t include data from events that didnt happen yet. And the beginning is necessarily at the earliest time data was collected. Those are necessariy constraints.

The trend fitting at the end points of a time series are necessarily subject to more uncertainty than at internal data. As illustration, when we add a nother year’s data to the end of the series, and recalculate the trend, the noise in the new point is likely to move the trend line appreciably at the end, but wont affect point more than a few years old more than just a tiny bit.

When Carter arbitrarily picked a date internal to that time series, and then TREATED IT AS IF IT WERE AN ENDPOINT, he arbitrarily added more error to the trend line at that beginning point that actually existed in the time series. He did this by removing known data that mattered for the trend-line certainty at that time point, namely the years immediately preceding that time point. Adding error to a time series OF COURSE reduces the significance of any slope in the trend line. But if the error is artifically added, then that is an artificial, even dishonest, reduction in the significance.

Even worse, he didnt actually pick an ARBITRARY start point. He picked a carefully selected start point with the maximum observed positive deviation from the trend line, so he not only increased the error in the trend line at that point, he also artificially shifted the error in a positive direction, a direction carefully chosen to artificially reduce the slope of the trend line, at the same time he was applying artificially increased uncertainty to it.

No wonder he found the trend wasnt significant.

What he did, even granting that he calculated a trend line through those years, had nothing whatsoever to do with the length of the time series. It had everything to do with the scientific dishonesty inherent in artificially throwing away known data in order to get the desired result.
#29 brokenlibrarian
April 19, 2006

Lee:

I think we’re using the term “arbitrary” somewhat differently, and we’re attacking from different directions, but obviously I completely agree.
#30 Lee
April 19, 2006

b-librarian – Yep. I just wanted to make it clear that the critique was valid whether he simply looked at the end points, or if he in fact included the rest of the data between those points.

Either way, for someone who claims scientific knowledge and authority, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this kind of cherry picking represents either incompetence or scientific dishonesty.
#31 Hans Erren
April 20, 2006

bl:
“The largest pile of bullshit coming out of Carter here is something different, though. He accuses climate scientists of ignoring all of the data prior to 1970, when in fact he is ignoring all of the data prior to 1918. There’s about 900 years worth of data that modern climate modeling is using that he is completely ignoring.”

Any ideas why?

(hint: http://www.climateaudit.org )
#32 James
April 20, 2006

Tim, how come you condemn Carter for selective use of data, ingnoring the full instrumental record, yet over at CA, you give Hansen a free pass for charting ten years of model fit when the full record shows the fit is hopeless?
#33 Tim Lambert
April 20, 2006

James, you seem to have fallen for one of John A’s misreprentations. There are only ten years of detailed measurements of the heat content of the ocean. Hansen et al charted all of them. It is not true that the fit to the less detailed measurments is hopeless. I already explained this at CA. Didn’t you read my comments?
#34 brokenlibrarian
April 20, 2006

Hans:

Any ideas why?

(hint: http://www.climateaudit.org )

If Carter believes that the various pre-1800s temperature reconstructions are faulty, then it is his perogative not to use them when forming his own trends. He can argue against their accuracy all he wants.

But it is a complete misrepresentation to act as if these reconstructions do not exist in the first place, which is what Carter is doing in the Guardian piece. He would have you believe that scientists are basing climate charge theory solely on data from 1918 onward, and ignoring everything else. He accuses climate science of cherry-picking, when in fact they are using more data than he is; if he believes that data is faulty in some way then he ought to argue that.

Of course, it’s obvious that Carter believes that temperature reconstructions are perfectly legitimate, given his statement that “more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder”. It’s odd that he acts as if climate science doesn’t know this, given that it’s climate scientists who told him this in the first place.

Disputing a theory is fine. Misrepresenting a theory is intellectual dishonesty, or in Carter’s case, propaganda.
#35 Spence_UK
April 20, 2006

“Here’s the trick. Carter takes 1998 and 2005, and uses them to create a fake eight-year “trend” that ignores all of data from the intervening years. He knows this is bullshit, or at least I hope he does.”

No, you’re making assumptions that is what he has done. I’m not so presumptuous. I have no idea how he formed his estimate, since he did not provide this information.

NB: I’m not endorsing his estimate, merely pointing out I don’t know how he came about it. It clearly isn’t the most common method, but that in itself doesn’t make it wrong.

My approach to this argument would be different. I would point out that estimating 30-point trends in an auto regressive variable (or worse, a variable that is most likely the product of a fractional noise process) is a futile endeavour and teaches us little. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that is ultimately Bob’s point. Of course, most of the Telegraph readership are unlikely to understand fractional noise processes, so it is impossible to make such a point so succinctly in that arena.
#36 brokenlibrarian
April 20, 2006

Spence_UK:

No, you’re making assumptions that is what he has done. I’m not so presumptuous. I have no idea how he formed his estimate, since he did not provide this information.

By this argument, we should be ignoring him not because his methods are faulty, but rather we should be ignoring him because his methods are unknown and unverifiable.

Okay, I can live with that.
#37 Stephen Berg
April 20, 2006

Re: “Any ideas why?

(hint: http://www.climateaudit.org )”

Hans, then the McIntyre and McKitrick “analysis” of the Medieval Warm Period must be wrong and must be thrown out (as it has by any reasonable scientist), since it occurred before 1918. (However, it has been thrown out for another reason. It is not scientifically accurate.)

These contrarians cannot suck and blow at the same time. There’s a HUGE double standard here! They’re grasping at straws and gasping their last breath, because they have no hope in hell that they’re correct. They’re just fighting over nit-picky stuff to delay action.
#38 Spence_UK
April 20, 2006

“By this argument, we should be ignoring him not because his methods are faulty, but rather we should be ignoring him because his methods are unknown and unverifiable.”

This is probably the best counter argument to Bob’s piece I’ve seen on this site so far. Perhaps “ignoring him” is a bit extreme, asking him for his methods would be a better start. The decreasing trend is not an essential component of his argument (he points out subsequently, rather more accurately, that there is no significant trend) but I have no doubt that stating there is a decreasing trend is designed to influence the reader, and the article has much less punch without it.
#39 Chris O'Neill
April 20, 2006

McIntyre gives us this quote: “Even WA agree that high 15th century results are “computable using the MBH algorithm”"

Sure they said those words. Here is the context of that quotation:

“More generally, our results highlight the necessity of reporting skill tests for each reconstruction model. Taking this consideration into account, there is strong reason to conclude that the 15th century reconstructions reported in MM03, which show hemispheric temperatures much higher than those of the mid 20th century, do not have climatological meaning. This double-bladed hockey stick result, while computable using the MBH algorithm, does not pass standard validation tests (RE scores less than 0 for both calibration and verification). These validation results indicate that the annual climatological mean of the 1902-1980 calibration period would be a better predictor over 1854-1980 (the period of available instrumental values that can be used for comparison) than the reconstruction models of this (MM03) scenario.”

So even though high 15th century results are “computable using the MBH algorithm” this can only be achieved by choices that cause a large failure of validation. No-one expects those choices to work. Those choices are a botch-up. Wahl and Amman also say:

” The same result holds for the somewhat lower-amplitude double-bladed hockey stick reconstruction reported in MM05b over 1400-1449, which also fails to pass calibration and verification tests for this period.”

Not as big a failure of verification as MM03 but still a failure and a botched choice. Wahl and Amman continue:

“Thus, the primary climatological argument offered by MM for rejecting the uniqueness of high late-20th century temperatures is found to be without merit, based on examination of the empirical quality of the reconstruction models these authors report.

Overall, the primary outcome from our results is that the work reported in MM03, MM05a, and MM05b does not provide substantive reason to invalidate the general conclusion of anomalous warmth in the later 20th century derived from the MBH reconstruction method and proxy data framework. We find that this result is neither an artifact of selection of the proxy series nor the result of formation or application of PC summaries in the reconstruction procedure. ”

McIntyre says about W&A: “They can hardly make that claim since our methods reconcile so exactly.”

The only reason they reconcile so exactly is because W&A have intentionally copied MM’s choices that produce invalid reconstructions.

” Bürger and Cubasch 2005 cited our studies approvingly and generalized our observations about MBH non-robustness to demonstrate non-robustness to many other issues.”

Being a fairly new set of results we’ll have to wait to see whether B&C’s results can be confirmed.

“”With more context the above should be ” W&A asserted in effect that the MBH98 reconstruction before 1450 without bristlecones lacks statistical or climatological merit.”" OK, let’s build on that. That in itself is enough to refute any ability to make claims about the 20th century in a millennial context using MBH98 proxies and methods.”

Not really, all it means is that it’s enough to refute any ability to make claims about the 20th century in a millennial context using MBH98 proxies and methods without the bristlecone proxies.

McIntyre says “We’ve made it clear on many occasions that we did not present an alternative reconstruction of climate history.”

I’m quite aware of this. The problem is that when you start out by calling something a correction to a reconstruction, you’re going to have to subsequently contradict what you first said to then say it’s not a reconstruction. The contradiction has a harmful effect on credibility.

” Mann et al represented that their reconstruction had statistical skill (including r and verification r2) and that it was robust to the presence/absence of “all” dendroclimatic indicators. Both claims are false.”

Thank McIntyre for his opinion. In relation to the above I’d like to point out something W&A said:

” It also must be noted that indirect verifications of the MBH reconstruction actually
suggest quite good interannual performance, potentially raising the question of the quality of the truncated-grid instrumental values used for validation testing in the verification period (219 grid points versus 1082 grid points in the calibration data set). A spatial subset of the MBH annual temperature reconstruction for European land areas (25°W-40°E, 35°N-70°N) compares very well with an independent CFR reconstruction for that region, using a regionally much richer, fully independent set of different instrumental series in combination with documentary proxy evidence (Luterbacher et al. 2004; Xoplaki et al. 2005). Over the 1760-1900 period of this comparison, the r 2 between the regional annual temperature averages of these two reconstructions is 0.67, corresponding with excellent visual temporal tracking of these time series (not shown) at interannual, decadal, and centennial scales.”

So perhaps Mann was referring to the limited subset where reliable r2 data could be determined. W&A also point out:

” For use in gauging the quality of climate reconstructions, however, these angle-retaining properties (of the r statistic)–which express themselves empirically in terms of highest frequency (in this case interannual) tracking between two time series–can lead to incorrect assessments of reconstruction fidelity over both multi-decadal and interannual time periods.”

So W&A are pointing out that r2 is sensitive to interannual noise which is likely to cause a false negative judgement. The statistic that really matters is RE and as McIntyre knows W&A have so far been thwarted in publishing their work on this because they tried to publish it in a paper that was mainly about something else. In the meantime we’ll just have to be content with how well the reconstructions match up with validation in W&A’s graphs.
#40 Spence_UK
April 20, 2006

Isn’t it funny how Chris O’Neill brushes off B&C as “a new study awaiting confirmation” yet W&A can be quoted verbatim and at length without a hint of critical thought?

If you’re going to apply such blatant double standards Chris, can I suggest it is less obvious if you do so in separate posts.

:^)
#41 Lee
April 21, 2006

So Steve claims he doesn’t censor opposing viewpoints at Climate Audit? I emailed this to Tim this morning to let him decide if he wanted to say something about it, but decided to post it here now because I just read the posts pointing out Steve’s statements on the topic of silencing his opponents. BTW, as of now several hours after my first try, my post is not up in tht thread, and I am stil spam-blocked from Climate Audit.
—

I have recently been taking a tour of blogs presenting science regarding AGW.
Among the blogs I looked at were Deltoid and Climate Audit. It was hard to
miss that there was some mutual antipathy here; I am emailing you (Tim) because CA
seems to have acted in a way that is discrediting to them and vindicates at
least in some part the general tone of what you have claimed. They called me
out by name, and appear to have simultaneously censored my response (indeed,
any ability to respond) by adding me to their spam list. There does not appear
to be any way to email an admin at that site, or Steve himself, and the “Contact
Steve” link simply launches another thread which is also subject to the spam
filters. I would like to get my response and experience documented, so I am
sending this to you, for whatever it is worth, in case you might be interested.

Steve McIntyre posted this article:
Hegerl et al in this week’s Nature
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=638#comment-20943

I made a post in that thread, and a couple follow ups (with no spam filter
problems then), which can be read there. The core is that I argued
(paraphrasing) to Steve that his insinuation of dishonesty on the part of the
authors did not follow from what he said and didn’t reflect well on the CA site.

This morning, I found this article posted at CA:
Reverse Engineering Hegerl et al.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=642

The first sentence of the new article reads:
“Lee, a new poster, thought that it was insulting to Hegerl et al. for me to
predict, sight unseen, what proxies they used.”
That would be me they are referring to. And it incorrectly states what I said.

So I composed a response (see below, with the spam filter message it got when I
tried to post it) which was immediately rejected by their spam filters. Thinking
it might be an issue of the length of my message or the quotations I used, I
sent a short note, also reproduced below, asking for access so that I could
respond, and it was also rejected by their spam filters. So it appears that
Steve responded to me BY NAME in a new article, not just a response, while
simultaneously removing my abilty to post and respond to him. All while
claiming dishonesty on the part of others.

This is not evidence in any way on the validity of Steve’s scientific arguments,
but it certainly indicates that in his discourse, he is being very intentionally
less than honest. I would certainly like and deserve a chance to put my
response in the record. As of now, 30 minutes or more after my attempt to post,
the messages are not there, so they are not being pushed through the filter by
the admin.

My two attemtps at posting, and the spam filter messages, are here:

Attempted response:

Well, no Steve. That is a misrepresentation of what I said.

What I said was that I found it distressing to read, as a stated reason for your
making those guesses, implications of dishonesty. It wasn’t the precise guesses
I was objecting to, or even the fact that you were guessing at all. It was your
assumption that the selection would be based on fraudulent grounds that I
objected to.

You said:
Just for fun, I’m going to try to guess what the Hegerl et al sites are, from
the limited information available and from the other guiding Hockey Team
principle -maximum non-independence of data.
-and-
“…there’s a good chance that they used the Yang composite – it has the added
attraction to the Hockey Team of including the Dunde and Guliya ice cores, which
impart a HS to it.”

These constitute statements that you are guessing based on an assumption that
they are choosing so as to get the data that gives them their desired ends, for
the reason that it gives them their desired ends. This is a direct claim that
they are selecting their data for particular results, and it was that claim,
which IMO constitutes a veiled accusation of academic dishinesty, made in the
ABSENSE OF DATA SUPPORTING YOUR CURRENT CLAIM, to which I objected.

My initial statement regarding this, in my first post in that thread, was as
follows, embarassing typos and all:
“The fact that it is obviosu that this is critical information, it is referenced
as not yet published, is referenced as being submitted, and is clearly a
sufficient body of work to deserve independent publication, argues strongly
agaisnt the imputation that anything is shady here, as Steve strongly implies
and as some of the responses are pretty overtly saying.”

And further down the thread:
“I was referring to a first impression of style and substance. And the entire
middle of Steve’s post contains guesswork based on an hinted on (at least)
assumptions that the authors were going to be cherrypickng data based on desired
conclusions. How on earth is that NOT an implication of dishonesty.”

Note that I am not complaining about the “guessing” of the series. I am talking
directly about the imputations insinuated or made toward the authors. Not the
complaints that we’d like to see the data, nor the complaints about about
withholding of data, which may or many not be valid and are valid criticisms,
nor about their choices or their analysis, which may or may not be valid, and
not about attempts per se to guess the series. But rather, about what to me
looked like a pretty overt imputation of dishonesty made in THAT article, with
no supporting evidence for a claim of dishonesty there to back it.
-
And now, you choose to mention me, by name, in the first sentence of a new
article, and in doing so misrepresent what I said and what my point was. And
this, as you mention, after I’ve made only a handful of posts as a new poster
here. I could care less about your guessing at which proxies they used, I did
not say or insinuate that yor guessing was itself insulting to anyone. I did not
complain in any way about your *guessing* of the proxies. My argument was based
on the REASONS you were using for guessing the proxies, and the imputations
behind it. And that holds whether or not you guessed the series correctly; if
you are in fact correct in your guesses, the fact that you picked the set for
one set of reasons is NOT in itself any kind of evidence that they used the same
reasons, and imputations of dishonesty require and deserve a lot more evidence
than that. And yes, I’m belaboring the point; I want to make sure it is
perfectly clear.

Now you did, IMO, accuse them of dishonesty. When I pointed that out, and that
the evidence in your article does not support such an accusation, you respond in
the first sentence of a new article by misrepresenting what I said, in quite a
fundamental (and if I may say so, insulting) way.

For someone who is evaluating whether this blog (as opposed to the literature
itself, which is always worth understanding and evaluating) is honest, accurate,
and rigorous enough to be worth the effort of digging through it and
understanding the arguments, this is not a promising start. At least. And an
apology would be nice.
————

Spam filter message when I attemtped to post this response:

Sorry, but your comment has been flagged by the spam filter running on this
blog: this might be an error, in which case all apologies. Your comment will be
presented to the blog admin who will be able to restore it immediately.
You may want to contact the blog admin via e-mail to notify him.

——————-
And my attempt to send a short message and get my response into the record:

My response to your misrepresentation of what I said has just been blocked by
your spam filter. I can not easily find an email address or admin response link
to use in order to get my response posted. Please provide, or point to if I am
missing it, such a method.
————–

And the spam filter again:
Sorry, but your comment has been flagged by the spam filter running on this
blog: this might be an error, in which case all apologies. Your comment will be
presented to the blog admin who will be able to restore it immediately.
You may want to contact the blog admin via e-mail to notify him.

—-

-Lee

PS, after composing this email I tried again with a test message; I am still
spam blocked. And amused by the transparency of this.
#42 Stephen McIntyre
April 21, 2006

Lee, James Lane drew my attention to your message. You got picked up in the Spam Karma filter which assigns negative points to suddenly active new posters. Sending more and more posts in frustration just increases the penalty as this is what the spammers do. Whatever our other differences, Tim will vouch that you need Spam Karma or its equivalent to operate these sites; in fact, I learned about Spam Karma from a post that Tim put up. I’ve recovered your posts.
#43 Lee
April 21, 2006

Are you seriously telling me that a poster who makes three posts in one day (with no problem) is marked as a spammer by your filter for that alone, and the next, fourth post, made the next day, knocks him out as a spammer?

After that one was filtered, I tried ONCE more, then tried a short message to ask you to post my message, also blocked, and tried two test posts later in the day. So your claim is that you guys have a system (a system configurable by you) that you claim kicks new users out after three posts over a couple hour period, when they try a fourth post the next day. I have NEVER encountered this on any site I’ve posted to, ever. But I suppose.

BTW, I also followed the link to the Spam Karma site, and it pointed out that the filter settings are controlled by the administrator of the site. It also recommended that I contact the administrator of the site. Unfortunately, there is no (easily apparent, at least) way to do so; being no email link.
#44 Dano
April 21, 2006

Welcome, Lee. Now you know.

Steve doesn’t wonder why he gets no play, it’s the path he chose.

Royal Society Nails New Wave of Skeptic Attacks

Best,

D
#45 Lee
April 21, 2006

Steve, you edited your article, removing the first sentence and its reference to me, before allowing my posts through, and therefore rendering them sanitized because you had removed what they referred to and made them look somewhat incomprehensible.

I am once again spam blocked at your site, so this response was blocked:

OK, enough. I’m out of here after this.

Steve, are you seriously arguing that “the other guiding Hockey Team principle” and “it has the added attraction to the Hockey Team of including the Dunde and Guliya ice cores, which impart a HS to it” are not “comments about what their motives were” and (at the very least) overt insinuations that they are selecting their data in order to get the desired result?

And JerryB, before Steve edited it out (thanks for the additional display of basic dishonesty, Steve), the very first phrase of the very first sentence of the article by Steve that leads this thread refers to me by name and attributes to me a particular statement. IF Steve has nay honesty a tall he will put that first sentecne back into the article. It seemed that my first post responding to an article that mentioned me by name, where I respond to Steve by name, might have been interpreted by any reasonable reader as referring to the article to which it was posted as a response. No mindreading required. But Steve (that paragon of honesty) edited the article before finally the spam filters, which he claims accidentally trapped me as a spammer after a total of three posts to the site.

I beleive I have learned everythign I need to know about the honesty of this site, and I’m gone.

————-
Steve, it is becoming very hard to escape some very basic conclusions about the basic honesty of your site’s operations.. not that I’m imputing anything, of course.

-Lee
#46 Peter Hearnden
April 22, 2006

Humm, I wondered what happened to Lee. I have to say I’ve encountered similar problems – though not the concerted attack on someone and the blocking of responses (humm, thinking about it I have…).

SM, your excuses are wearing thin.
#47 Tim Lambert
April 22, 2006

Lee, it’s possible that Spam Karma automatically blocked your messages. But John A and/or Steve M also manually mark comments as spam that they don’t like — see the first comment to this post for one such example. I don’t know for sure what happened in this case.
#48 Chris O'Neill
April 22, 2006

“B&C as “a new study awaiting confirmation” yet W&A can be quoted verbatim… If you’re going to apply such blatant double standards Chris”

Thank you for your opinion. In case you haven’t noticed the vast majority of W&A’s work is actually meant to be a confirmation unlike B&C. Applying a validation test is not particularly new.
#49 Lee
April 22, 2006

Tim, thanks.

My apologies for hijacking part of this thread for this issue; given that the first two comments were in part about deletions on CA, I couldnt find any better place even if this wasnt perhaps the best choice.
#50 Spence_UK
April 22, 2006

Thank you for your opinion
No, thank you for yours

In case you haven’t noticed the vast majority of W&A’s work is actually meant to be a confirmation unlike B&C

Oh yes, all their umm.. let me see, ah yes opinions on verification statistics are merely repeating views expressed elsewhere by other scientists. Ermm.. except they aren’t. Their view on verification statistics (which their whole argument hinges upon) is not supported by other peer-reviewed science, in fact on the contrary, their view is relatively unique. I’d love to see them try to get that view published in something like the Journal of Applied Statistics, or similar – it’d be rejected even quicker than it was from GRL.
#51 Chris O'Neill
April 26, 2006

“”Thank you for your opinion”

No, thank you for yours”

What’s the matter? Don’t you like being thanked for your opinion?

“”In case you haven’t noticed the vast majority of W&A’s work is actually meant to be a confirmation unlike B&C”

Oh yes, all their umm.. let me see, ah yes opinions on verification statistics are merely repeating views expressed elsewhere by other scientists.”

Most of my quotation from W&A was from their demonstration of the validation failure of every M&M choice using the 1400 proxy network; not much room for opinion there. The minority of my quotation from W&A is mainly their reference to other work calculating r2 values that shows it is useful in some (unfortunately limited) circumstances; nothing controversial there. The only part of my quotation that contained W&A opinion was where they pointed out a drawback of using r2 for verification. I didn’t quote it but W&A go into a fair level of detail elsewhere in their paper explaining the drawbacks of r2. I really can’t see the problem with the verbatim quotes I made of W&A. There just wasn’t anything controversial in any quote I gave. On the other hand B&C does generate controversy. Also, when it comes to McIntyre saying:

” Bürger and Cubasch 2005 cited our studies approvingly and generalized our observations about MBH non-robustness to demonstrate non-robustness to many other issues.”

we should check what B&C actually said about MM03 before we come to a conclusion about the “approval” that B&C actually gave. B&C said: “after several critical remarks [cf. McIntyre and McKitrick, 2003] led to the publication of a corrigendum.”

So B&C said MM03 made ” several critical remarks” but that’s not the same as saying they think MM03′s pseudo-reconstructions should be expected, according to MBH methodology, to give valid reconstructions. An attempted reconstruction has to pass validation in order to conform with MBH methodology, and nothing in MM03 does because of the erroneous choices made.

“I’d love to see them try to get that view published in something like the Journal of Applied Statistics, or similar”

I’d love to have seen McIntyre and Mckitrick try to get their 2003 paper published in something similar too.

“- it’d be rejected even quicker than it was from GRL.”

Not half as quick as MM03.
#52 Spence_UK
April 26, 2006

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like being thanked for your opinion?”
Only as much as you like being thanked for yours, apparently.

“Most of my quotation from W&A was from their demonstration of the validation failure of every M&M choice using the 1400 proxy network”
Yes, something that M&M pointed out in their paper (rolleyes) M&M’s point was that MBH98/99 is not robust. This is a concept you still seem to be struggling with, it has a different statistical meaning to “not as good”. I explained it in the previous thread. So we have two studies observing a lack of robustness in MBH98/99. You cannot re-instate robustness by demonstrating there are other cases which do seem give the same result.

“The minority of my quotation from W&A is mainly their reference to other work calculating r2 values that shows it is useful in some (unfortunately limited) circumstances; nothing controversial there.”
This is all irrelevant: the only point that I can see that is relevant, is that their RE statistic for their emulation of MBH98/99 fails the benchmark significance. The only support for a benchmark of 0 has been falsified. Not only does MBH98 fail r2, it also fails RE. It also fails the other raft of skill scores listed in W&A.

What is novel in W&A therefore, is that MBH98 fails all significance scores, and yet they still claim it is a good reconstruction. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that claim before. And that is without due consideration to its lack of robustness. I see no point in debating lack of robustness in a statistical study with you since your previous posts have illustrated you do not even understand what that means.
#53 Dano
April 26, 2006

Attention all totem fetishizers:

Please take your wierd fetishes back to your paysite.

Decision-makers do not make their decisions on single bits of data, esp. when they are outdated first papers.

Now, some folk who opine while clothed in Cheeto-stained boxers may wish for a world that stopped in 1998, but heck we have animé for that kind of wierd fetish.

Really. Why all this attention over an outdated first paper? Are you hot for balding paleoclimatologists?

Are you stalking Mann because he rejected your advances?

Don’t they have therapy for that kind of thing?

Best,

D
#54 Chris O'Neill
May 3, 2006

“”What’s the matter? Don’t you like being thanked for your opinion?”

Only as much as you like being thanked for yours, apparently.”

Where did I say I didn’t like being thanked for my opinion?

“”Most of my quotation from W&A was from their demonstration of the validation failure of every M&M choice using the 1400 proxy network”

Yes, something that M&M pointed out in their paper”

So what’s your problem with me quoting them? Producing a validation-failing reconstruction such as MM03 doesn’t prove anything about reconstructions that pass validation.

“(rolleyes)”

You took the words right out of my mouth.

“M&M’s point was that MBH98/99 is not robust.”

And they failed to show that in MM03.

“This is a concept you still seem to be struggling with,”

You seem to be struggling with the concept that MM03 didn’t show anything other than their lack of competence.

” I explained it in the previous thread. So we have two studies observing a lack of robustness in MBH98/99.”

Leaving out a whole swath of proxies is not an appropriate test of robustness when they quite likely negatively correlate with the small number of proxies elsewhere.

“”The minority of my quotation from W&A is mainly their reference to other work calculating r2 values that shows it is useful in some (unfortunately limited) circumstances; nothing controversial there.”

“This is all irrelevant”

It’s a pity you didn’t realise that when you said “yet W&A can be quoted verbatim”.

” the only point that I can see that is relevant, is that their RE statistic for their emulation of MBH98/99 fails the benchmark significance.”

And what benchmark might that be?

“The only support for a benchmark of 0 has been falsified.”

Sure, if you say so. And McIntyre has written a whole series of thoroughly-peer-reviewed papers.

” It also fails the other raft of skill scores listed in W&A.”

Like CE? Yeah sure that’s a whole raft isn’t it? Pity you didn’t mention that W&A also say:

“Although we find Pearson’s r and CE not germane to use in this paper for decision-making purposes–for the reasons described above and in Appendix 1, we include the values of these measures in Appendix 1 for all the scenarios we examine so that they are available to the community.”

“What is novel in W&A therefore, is that” using part of the 1400 proxy network of “MBH98 fails all significance scores and yet they still claim it is a good reconstruction.”

Since when do they claim that any attempted reconstruction that fails validation is a good reconstruction?

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that claim before.”

I don’t think you’ve seen it anytime.

“you do not even understand what robustness means”

Adding more independent uncorrelated samples reduces the variance of the sample mean. When are you going to realise that something more than this is going on and that this doesn’t necessarily compromise robustness?

I notice Spence_UK is not contesting that Burger and Cubasch is controversial. Good choice considering the mistakes they made in their pseudo-reconstructions. I’m waiting for a retraction of “If you’re going to apply such blatant double standards…”.
#55 Spence_UK
May 3, 2006

Chris,

Glad to see you’re still struggling with the basics. Is there not an evening course on basic statistics that you could attend to get up to speed on this stuff?

“Where did I say I didn’t like being thanked for my opinion?”

I’m toying with you here. I’m testing how you respond to your own style of writing. Seems you take offence. Perhaps you should think about that.

“So what’s your problem with me quoting them? Producing a validation-failing reconstruction such as MM03 doesn’t prove anything about reconstructions that pass validation.” and “Leaving out a whole swath of proxies is not an appropriate test of robustness when they quite likely negatively correlate with the small number of proxies elsewhere.”

I don’t have a problem with you quoting them, I have a problem with you building your little straw man about their argument. Leaving out a small portion of the sample data is a well known method of testing robustness. If you knew anything about statistics you’d realise this. If you take 10% of the data away and the result changes by 7 sigma, how do you know another 10% of sample data won’t change the results again? Answer: you don’t. Simple sampling logic.

“You seem to be struggling with the concept that MM03 didn’t show anything other than their lack of competence.”

That is just funny coming from someone who doesn’t understand what robustness in statistical analysis means.

“Sure, if you say so. And McIntyre has written a whole series of thoroughly-peer-reviewed papers.”

No, the peer-reviewed literature says so. Once again, please show me in the peer-reviewed literature something that falsifies an RE significance level set by the MM reply to Huybers. Of course you could always write your own, Chris. I’ll even review it for you. Then I can whinge about how little peer-reviewed stuff you have on the topic, just like you do. I don’t suppose you’d like that little parody of your own argument, either.

“Since when do they claim that any attempted reconstruction that fails validation is a good reconstruction?”

Simple. They present the RE scores for their reconstruction. It fails the current benchmark for RE significance. I’ve told you this time and time again. I’m still waiting (and waiting… and waiting…) for you to point me to the peer-reviewed literature which sets this new benchmark which they pass.

“When are you going to realise that something more than this is going on and that this doesn’t necessarily compromise robustness?”

What, taking 10% of the sample data away results in a 7 sigma shift, and it isn’t lack of robustness? (Chuckle)

“I notice Spence_UK is not contesting that Burger and Cubasch is controversial. Good choice considering the mistakes they made in their pseudo-reconstructions.”

I would never just assume that a paper is wrong or right. I’ve seen good papers and bad papers. I always check the arguments and make my own mind up. I certainly didn’t just believe M&M when they published their paper. I was interested so I wrote sections of the MBH98 algorithm in MATLAB (my preferred tool) to see if M&M’s arguments held water. Only then did I decide they made a valid point.

All of my claims are backed up with some understanding of the underlying problem. I don’t assume B&C are correct, I assess their arguments and decide if they have merit. If they have made a mistake which compromises their results, then I will recognise that. I have yet to see an error in their analysis, but if you can point me to one please do. But note that the detrending issue does not affect the Burger and Cubasch case since they test both methods. If both methods have been applied in different multi-proxy reconstructions, then it is fair game based on their philosophy. (I don’t know if both techniques have been applied or not – do you? I have posed the question though, and hope to have an answer soon). If you have some other error in Burger and Cubasch, let me know. None of us have a monopoly on being right. Not me, not you, not Mann, not Wahl, not McIntyre, not Burger and Cubasch.
#56 mjrizzuti
January 14, 2007

Hi all,
I am a layman with alot of interesdt in this subject. Not because I’m a believer or a detractor; but, because its interesting. I can tell you that about 50% of what you get from both sides is bunk. The only thing that I can say conclusivly from the extensive works I have read is that there is a correlation that exists between CO2 and temperature during the commencement of glacials and interglatials. All the talk of correlations beyond that depend on the starting point of the study. All the trends depend on the period in which the trend is measured. The latest bunk coming from AGW faithful seems to be to insure whichever study is done starts at a cool period in history and ends in the present. It seems obvious to me that Mann’s “hockeystick” is garbage. Studies have been done using the same methodology and it shows that any warm period or cool period in the Holocene can be erased by it. Studies have also shown that inputting random data produces the same result. Hansens energy storage paper is equally bunk. In the very paper he wrote it he posited an alternate theory which he dismissed because it would call for a lowering of SST’s. It didn’t take long for the in SITU data to show just that. The GISST datat used by him and others overestimates SST’s and that hea become obvious when the data are compared to actual in SITU measurements.

On the other side of the coin AGW detractors seem to like to do the exact opposite and extend the time period out so far into geologic time that the argument becomes meaningless as the earth has changed. Bottom line seems to me that GW is happenong, we do not know the cause and more study is needed to determine it. Personnaly my money is on a combination of increased solar variance, incrreased GCR’s, increased cloud cover (at night), decreased salinity in the northern oceans, DWOC, ocean oscillations and to a very minor extent GHG’s.

Does it seem strange to anyone that the three great ages of civilization coincided with the three periods in history that were even warmer than it is today? We are entering a new golden age of civilization, enjoy it while it lasts. Either of two things will happen. The current Ice age will continue in which case the temperature will again drop and the curent intersticial will end; or, the current ice age will end and the earth will continue to warm until it reaches the temperatures it has held for most of its history when thier was NO POLAR ICE at all.
#57 Marion Delgado
April 11, 2007

mjrizzuti:

you come off in the above post as completely missing every single point discussed about global warming and climate change in the last 10-15 years. In a sense, congratulations are in order.