Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
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
The trackback from climateaudit to this troll weblog was marked as spam, which is what it was.
Bob Carter did not reproduce his own figure either but its here: http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-images/carter14.gif
He did not reproduce the Mann Hockey Stick, but then you knew that already. He did state (entirely correctly) that temperatures had been static for eight years. In case any of your dittoheads don't think that's a long time, compare that with the baseline of less than five years of ocean observations done by Hansen and Schmidt in 2005 (and miraculously stretched to a thousand years by Schmidt when he was interviewed by the BBC). Keep watching ClimateAudit where you'll find a couple of nice diagrams showing how well Hansen and Schmidt's model actually came to the observational record.
Just in case your deluded brain can handle complex information, the rise in the temperature of the satellite record can be seen at: http://www.john-daly.com/nasa.gif and as Bob Carter rightly said, temperature peaked in 1998 has been static since. Still, why let a few choice facts get in the way of your delusions?
By the way, Bob Carter has forgotten about paleoclimate, climate change and basic physics than you'll ever know. I look forward to your first scientific presentation on climate change, statistics or thermodynamics. I'm sure Bob will turn up for a good laugh (although he might have a to wait a long time).
Posted by: John A | April 9, 2006 12:22 PM
If readers are unfamiliar with John A's unusual beliefs about thermodynamics you can read them here. John A insists that entropy is a form of energy and he says he can prove it, but he's just been too busy for the past nine months.
And John A, you can, if you wish, delete critical comments and trackbacks, but such things are not spam.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | April 9, 2006 12:48 PM
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/2005/2005Hansenetal_1.pdf
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
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...
I look forward to John A.'s conclusive re-analysis of our results.
PS. For 1998 to 2005, the linear least squares trend line through the annual mean temperature is still positive.
Posted by: Gavin | April 9, 2006 1:47 PM
Re John A's marking of the Climateaudit trackback to this post as spam, it's worth quoting Steve McIntyre: "Unlike realclimate, opposing views are not censored here."
Apparently this is not always the case.
Posted by: John Fleck | April 9, 2006 2:38 PM
John F. get real, only the subject thermodynamics is censored on CA. There is a good debate on tree proxies going on.
Posted by: Hans Erren | April 9, 2006 3:09 PM
Hans -
John A censored the trackback to this particular post. He just said so.
Posted by: John Fleck | April 9, 2006 3:17 PM
Good lord, this is too funny.
Sometimes these arguments are all a bit difficult for the non-specialist; this one is of course obvious. Could cherry picking be more obvious?
And John A., to defend it? Please tell me that you are joking. Ah, too funny. Please, really, you're killing me. That chart does makes a good straight man to this "John A." character, though. Good stuff.
Posted by: Erik | April 9, 2006 3:32 PM
This wins my sentence of the week award.
Posted by: Steve Reuland![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/nav-commenters.gif)
|
April 9, 2006 3:35 PM
Thanks for posting the CRU temperature graphic. It is very interesting and I'd like to know more. Can you point me to the raw station data that formed the basis for this chart?
Posted by: nanny_govt_sucks | April 9, 2006 4:10 PM
http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/?p=1448
Now which year is prominently present in the original hockeystick??? eg http://www.mcfreedom.com/images/hockeystick.jpg
Over to you Tim!
Posted by: Hans Erren | April 9, 2006 4:45 PM
Hans -
As I'm sure you're aware, the original hockey stick was published in Nature in April 1998, and used instrumental data from 1902-1905.
Posted by: John Fleck | April 9, 2006 4:59 PM
Hans -
As I'm sure you're aware, the original hockey stick was published in Nature in April 1998, and used instrumental data from 1902-1995. (The previous comment was a typo.)
Posted by: John Fleck | April 9, 2006 5:01 PM
sorry, I was referring to the IPCC TAR updated hockeystick, adapted from Mann et al. (1999)
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig2-20.htm
Posted by: Hans Erren | April 9, 2006 5:25 PM
Again, why all the fetishization of an 8 year-old first paper?
D
Posted by: Dano | April 9, 2006 5:57 PM
The paper that wouldn't replicate will be forever famous.
Posted by: Hans Erren | April 9, 2006 6:03 PM
"Is that an appropriate way to do things? Not according to one Bob Carter."
Isn't it your argument that Carter does see this as appropriate?
Posted by: tim | April 9, 2006 8:34 PM
Tim (Blair): No, Tim (Dunlop)'s point is this: He says the only way Carter could derive a downward trend is to use only the data from 1998 (an anomalously high year against the surrounding ones) and 2005. He then points out that Carter argued against deriving trends from anomalous years in the following quote.
Posted by: Peter Hollo | April 9, 2006 10:12 PM
Peter,
Oh, I see. Thank you. Hey, how did Dunlop get in here? We're close to violating the ALP's three Tims policy.
Posted by: tim | April 9, 2006 10:58 PM
Argh... Too many Tim's! You have a point. Maybe I was confused because I thought "Hm, wonder if anyone will confuse me with my brother (another Tim) because of my surname?"
Posted by: Peter Hollo | April 9, 2006 11:03 PM
aarrghhhh! JohnA you've just done in my credibility around here! Tim Lambert wins, I concede complete defeat:
"Mildly amusing anyway that JohnA has at least gotten a bit shy about trumpeting his ummmm mastery of thermodynamics (I infer from his neglecting to rubbish it above as one of Tim's areas of expertise). "While we live we grow" and all; good for him.
Posted by: frankis | April 4, 2006 09:30 PM
frankis, I think that you are overestimating John A. If you are wondering what his comment is about, he has been deleting all the comments I post at climateaudit.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | April 4, 2006 10:36 PM "
Posted by: frankis | April 9, 2006 11:50 PM
Tim, you are being disingenous. It's perfectly clear that Carter is using the 1998-2005 "trend" as an example of cherry-picking the start point:
"In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate."
It's a fair point and leads itno a discussion of how much natural variability there is in the climate system.
Posted by: James | April 10, 2006 1:26 AM
No James, it's not a fair point, it's a straw man. Mainstream science does not say that CO2 is the only factor affecting climate. If you look at the black line on the graph you'll see that there has not been a cooling trend since 1998. Carter isn't presenting his cheery picking as an example of doing something wrong, he is falsely claiming that there has been such a trand. And notice that John A repeated the claim citing CArter as an authority and ignoring what the graph showed.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | April 10, 2006 2:25 AM
But Tim (Lambert), aren't you cherry picking your global temperature chart? There are a few that I know of, the CRU chart is just one. Why did you pick that temp chart over any of the others?
Posted by: nanny_govt_sucks | April 10, 2006 2:54 AM
The message I derive from Tim Lambert's pretty graph is what a fuss about nothing: the blues are up to 0.5C below an average over an unstated period, and the reds are up to 0.6C above that average. We did not freeze to death during the blues, and we are not roasting in the reds. If we were how come the main population migratory trend in Australia is from relatively blue south-east to much warmer red west and north-east, with similar long term trends for people to seek out warmer areas in the UK, France and USA. In short, what's wrong with even a 2C increase? Of course some like the mad monk Lord May will bleat about extinctions, but then what became of Lambert's credo, survival of the fittest? But I predict that most species will adapt to that shocking 2C as they mostly have to the +0.6C shown by Lambert - and that homo sapiens will live longer and eat better as temperatures rise.
Posted by: Tim Curtin | April 10, 2006 3:39 AM
Tim , you are wrong.
Carter is right, the trend 1998-2005 is downward. But it's a nonsense trend based on cherry-picking the start date. That's his point, is it so hard to understand?
Posted by: James | April 10, 2006 3:59 AM
Tim Curtin (no, not another Tim!), humans will deal fine with 2 degrees warming, or even more. It is the highly sensitive ecosystems that humans rely on that will most likely suffer.
"survival of the fittest" - the problem being that climate change is faster now than it has ever been, so species might not have the chance to adapt, and we could see mass extinctions.
Posted by: fatfingers | April 10, 2006 4:00 AM
Tim Lambert,
The trend 1998-2005 is clearly downward. That doesn't mean anything, but that's Carter's point.
Posted by: James | April 10, 2006 4:24 AM
nanny, I didn't pick the CRU data, Carter did. That's what he was referred to in his article. If Carter had chosen to use GISS, then, even with his cherry picking he would have got an increase because in the GISTEMP data, 2005 is the record high.
James, are you blind? The black curve shows the trend and it goes up from 1998 to 2005.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | April 10, 2006 4:51 AM
Dano: "Again, why all the fetishization of an 8 year-old first paper?"
It's just a red herring to distract from Bob Carter's blatant cherry-picking. Plus, it's all they have left.
Posted by: Brian J | April 10, 2006 5:03 AM
James wrote:
James, we discussed this in June 2005. Have you done the little calculation I suggested back then? BTW, I note that back then (three posts above the one I just linked) you said Carter was wrong about a cooling trend and that you'd describe it as flat. You've changed your mind and now you think it's "clearly downward"?
Posted by: Robert | April 10, 2006 6:55 AM
Tim,
If you pick 1998 as your start, the trend is down. That's Carter's point. It doesn't "mean" anything, but highlights the importance of the time-scale with which you choose to highlight a trend.
Posted by: James | April 10, 2006 7:00 AM
What fatfingers said (well done).
As I have discussed about a million times before, but is constantly ignored by the environmentally and ecologically illiterate sceptics (Tim Curtin comes to mind), two things:
A mean increase of 2 C in global temperature over the coming century constitutes a serious problem across much of the planet. In rate of change, it is unprecedented for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years; moreover, humans have already slashed and burned their way across much of the biopshere already, simplifying natural systems which are thus already severely stressed. Climate change thus represents another enormous constraint on complex systems whose functioning we barely understand. Furthermore, there will be regional increases in temperature that far exceed 2 C; there already are areas in higher latitudes where this is the case.
Instead of parroting unscientific garbage from the think tanks, corporate-funded lobbying groups, and other sceptics, learn some basic ecology. To reiterate: HUMANS ARE NOT EXEMPT FROM THE LAWS OF NATURE. Tim Curtin, repeat that phrase 50 times each night before bed. Over variable spatio-temporal scales, conditions emerge from natural systems that enable human society to exist and persist. Climate change threatens to simply complex systems by exerting disproportionate effects on species and populations in food webs; the result is that these webs unravel and, over time, critically valuable ecosystem services disappear.
But what's the point reiterating this basic message? Tim Curtin and his ilk contine to perpetuate the "AGW is good for us" myth while having no clue whatsoever about the effects (already documented, with a growing data base) of warming on natural systems and on a suite of interacting biotic/abiotic processes. I have said this before in response to TC's utterly simplistic nonsense, and then he comes back with it in another thread.
Posted by: Jeff Harvey | April 10, 2006 8:04 AM
Furthermore, the average temperature in Australia has been dropping since December!
Posted by: z | April 10, 2006 10:36 AM
"If we were how come the main population migratory trend in Australia is from relatively blue south-east to much warmer red west and north-east, with similar long term trends for people to seek out warmer areas in the UK, France and USA"
Which happen to coincide with the emergence of low-cost domestic airconditioners onto the market.
I wonder how the inhabitants of Kalgoorlie; Mount Isa and Brken Hill would regard a 2 degree increase in peak summer temperatures.
Posted by: Ian Gould | April 10, 2006 10:46 AM
Meanwhile: "GE supports congressional action now," David Slump, the top marketing executive in GE's energy division, said at the hearing. "It is critical that we start now," said Elizabeth Moler, an executive vice president for Exelon. "We need the economic and regulatory certainty to invest in a low-carbon energy future."
Tuesday saw a tectonic shift in the climate-change debate during an all-day Senate conference on global-warming policy. A group of high-powered energy and utility executives for the first time issued this directive to Washington: Bring on the carbon caps!
The Energy and Natural Resources Committee heard statements from leaders representing eight big energy companies, including General Electric, Shell, and the two largest owners of utilities in the U.S., Exelon and Duke Energy. Six of the eight said they would either welcome or accept mandatory caps on their greenhouse-gas emissions. Wal-Mart too spoke in favor of carbon caps. The two outliers from the energy sector, Southern Company and American Electric Power, delivered pro forma bids for a voluntary rather than mandatory program, but they, too, broke with tradition by implicitly acknowledging that regulations may be coming, and offering detailed advice on how they should be designed.
The conference was "remarkably devoid of the climate-skeptic malarkey that usually derails the debate at these sorts of events,"
http://grist.org/news/muck/2006/04/06/griscom-little/index.html
Posted by: z | April 10, 2006 10:51 AM
(link for the previous) http://grist.org/news/muck/2006/04/06/griscom-little/index.html
Posted by: z | April 10, 2006 11:26 AM
"The paper that wouldn't replicate will be forever famous."
Funny how Hans uses the word "forever" in anything. That is, after saying:
"Why is it that we worry about temperature in 2100? The effects in 2100 are caused by emissions in 2080. Everybody in this forum will be dead by then, and also their children."
to which Eli Rabett replied:
"Hmm...it seems that Hans Erren has adopted the French king strategy, apres moi le deluge. This tends to end badly, cf 1790."
BTW, speaking of hockeystick replications, how's you reading of Wahl and Amman's replication going Hans?
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | April 10, 2006 11:33 AM
The paper that wouldn't replicate will be forever famous
But Chris, it WON'T replicate - even though the dozen-ish or so papers afterward show 20th C temps unprecedented, the 'blade' is not straight.
By gum, that's good enough, don'tcha think? They have to have some straw to grasp at, let them have it. Meanwhile, the rest of humanity on the planet has moved on. Let the dead-enders crow about their little perceived victory. I like the picture of some nerd walking around with his chest all puffed out, acting important. It's amusing.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | April 10, 2006 11:44 AM
Tim Lambert stated:
"Is that an appropriate way to do things? Not according to one Bob Carter."
Tim Blair asked in response:
"Isn't it your argument that Carter does see this as appropriate?"
Sometimes Carter does and sometimes Carter doesn't. His choice depends on the conclusion he wants to reach.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | April 10, 2006 11:48 AM
uh oh
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4880328.stm
"Reduced air pollution and increased water evaporation appear to be adding to man-made global warming."
Is all the clear air doing us in?
Posted by: jerry | April 10, 2006 1:03 PM
So, no global warming from 1860 to 1920 and 1940 to 1980? Guh?
Plus, what's the deal with this?
Our article, has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, copyright 2005 American Geophysical Union (doi: 2004GL012750). Further reproduction or electronic distribution is not permitted.
This article identifies what is almost certainly a computer programming error in the principal components method used in MBH98. The error causes their PC method to nearly always identify hockey stick shaped series as the "dominant pattern" in a data set (the so-called "first Principal Component" or PC1), even when the data are just random numbers. We carried out 10,000 simulations in which we fed "red noise", a form of trendless random numbers, into the MBH98 algorithm and, in over 99% of the cases, it produced hockey stick shaped PC1 series. The figure below shows 3 simulated PC1s and the MBH98 reconstruction: can you pick out the reconstruction?
http://www.climate2003.com/
Posted by: TallDave | April 10, 2006 1:48 PM
Does anyone know what the final outcome, if there was one, of the accusations of academic misconduct and fraud leveled against Mann and his refusal to release the details of his hockey stick model work for investigation?
Posted by: Paul G | April 10, 2006 2:38 PM
"his refusal to release the details of his hockey stick model work for investigation"
Er. Does the original raw data and the source code used for the analysis not count as "details"?
Really, this story is a new one on me. How could McIntyre and McKitrick have even made their argument that MBH98 used a flawed methodology in the first place if the "details" of MBH98 weren't available?
Posted by: brokenlibrarian | April 10, 2006 4:16 PM
"nanny, I didn't pick the CRU data, Carter did."
But he cherry picked the period 1998-2005, and you cherry picked the period 1850-2003. The "black line" for the two periods is not the same, and wouldn't line up exactly if the two charts were overlaid.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 10, 2006 4:23 PM
"you cherry picked the period 1850-2003" - that's all the data that's available - if you use all the data how is that cherry picking?
Posted by: SimonC | April 10, 2006 8:26 PM
"Really, this story is a new one on me. How could McIntyre and McKitrick have even made their argument that MBH98 used a flawed methodology in the first place if the "details" of MBH98 weren't available?"
Because they took a couple of years figuring out what Mann had done, until they had a very close emulation. A process that would have taken a week, if the "details" had been available.
Posted by: James | April 10, 2006 10:45 PM
James wrote:
James, how do you smooth the CRU data so that the 1998-2005 trend is "clearly downward"?
Posted by: Robert | April 11, 2006 1:27 AM
Robert, you get a downward trend if you cherry-pick 1998 as a starting point. Which is Carter's point.
I do agree that it's fair for Tim to quote the whole CRU record. It's hardly cherry-picking to cite the entire instrumental record.
Posted by: James | April 11, 2006 2:36 AM
But the instrument record has an arbitrary starting point in climactic history. There's no justification in "because that's where we started" if you're trying to prove a point. There's always the question of "what was happening before that?". At least Carter is saying "let's see what happened since the peak in 1998". And Mann also claimed, I beleive, that 98 was the warmest of the millenium. So that has some justification as a starting point.
Posted by: nanny_govt_sucks | April 11, 2006 2:49 AM
James answered:
Well, I've been trying to find a simple smooth that makes the 1998-2005 trend "clearly downward" and I'm having difficulty, which is why I asked.
And, if you're saying Carter's point was that the only way to be able to say that global temperature had stopped its increase (he didn't claim a clearly downward trend) was to cherry-pick the endpoints, then I'd say he chose an odd way to make it.
Posted by: Robert | April 11, 2006 3:20 AM
Nanny (and Tim), IPCC TAR cited MBH1999 as claiming 1998 was the hottest year using the hockeystick.
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/069.htm#fig220
Posted by: Hans Erren | April 11, 2006 8:05 AM
"Because they took a couple of years figuring out what Mann had done, until they had a very close emulation. A process that would have taken a week, if the "details" had been available."
You mean like these "details", which include all of the original data, the matrixes used for the analysis, and a complete description of the algorithm?
Posted by: brokenlibrarian | April 11, 2006 8:45 AM
That ain't complete,
because there was a corrigendum which showed that some datasets were wrongly quoted,
and also some essential algorithm steps were not documented.
dream on...
Posted by: Hans Erren | April 11, 2006 8:53 AM
Note that even if you cherry pick 1998 as the starting point anc compute the least squares trend, it is is still increasing. To get a decreasing trend you have to cherry pick 1998 and ignore all the years between 1998 and 2005.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | April 11, 2006 8:54 AM
MBH will be forever famous as an example how cherrypicking data lead global decision making astray.
BTW McIntyre is continuing to show that even the hockey stick shaped treering proxies themselves cannot be replicated when the sites are revisited...
Let alone the fact that hockeystick shaped bristlecones proxies do not agree with local temperatures.
Posted by: Hans Erren | April 11, 2006 8:58 AM
Gosh, it is amazing how the septics steer every discussion to the hockeystick. Not long ago, all were being steering to the satellite "cooling" until that disappeared and turned into warming once we had a few more years and RSS corrected S+C's algorithm. Notice how none of these so-called "audit" folk have the least interest in auditing S+C's processes, now why might that be?
Anyway, W+A is now available: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/refs/WahlAmmann_ClimChange2006.html "demonstrate that the Mann et al. reconstruction is robust against the proxy-based criticisms addressed. In particular, reconstructed hemispheric temperatures are demonstrated to be largely unaffected by the use or non-use of PCs to summarize proxy evidence from the data-rich North American region. When proxy PCs are employed, neither the time period used to "center" the data before PC calculation nor the way the PC calculations are performed significantly affects the results, as long as the full extent of the climate information actually in the proxy data is represented by the PC time series" and so on.
Posted by: William Connolley | April 11, 2006 9:57 AM
I seem to have walked into one of Hans Erren's favorite talking points (yay Google), and given that others have already made all of the arguments I could make and they haven't done any good, I will not attempt to repeat them. Luckily, MBH98 isn't actually terribly important.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that MBH98 is somehow methodologically flawed and therefore not useful to cite. Do you or M&M have anything to say about all of the other various papers which replicate the "hockey stick" using different methodologies?
I can give you a list.
Posted by: brokenlibrarian | April 11, 2006 10:03 AM
Tim,
Your reference to the Jones et al "temperature" graph is a furphy.
As a "Temperature Anomaly" representation, it merely graphs departures from a predetermined mean, and enhances the effect by referencing them from zero.
Que?
Posted by: Louis Hissink | April 11, 2006 10:24 AM
"As a "Temperature Anomaly" representation, it merely graphs departures from a predetermined mean, and enhances the effect by referencing them from zero."
You could completely remove the mean line and Tim's point would still stand: "temperatures have not been static for the past eight years, but have continued to increase steadily."
Posted by: brokenlibrarian | April 11, 2006 10:55 AM
"you get a downward trend if you cherry-pick 1998 as a starting point."
Wrong. A regression starting from 1998 and going to 2005 gives a small upward trend.
"Which is Carter's point."
Carter's claim that there was a slight decrease is simply based on two years, 1998 and 2005. Out of 150 years that he could have chosen from the instrument record for the first year in his argument he just happened to choose the only one that may be warmer than the last year. What is the chance he made the right choice? One in 150 (if he's lucky I'd say).
Alternatively, maybe Carter's title is correct, i.e. global warming stopped in 1998. Gee we're so lucky. We can forget about it now.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | April 11, 2006 11:19 AM
brokenlibrarian:
RE your 'redirection' point, you also get a clue as to what poor hapless Hans wishes for when he wrote: forever famous as an example how cherrypicking data lead global decision making astray.
Just fear leaking out and projecting...
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | April 11, 2006 11:28 AM
Louis Hissink wrote:
Aha. So you're saying this is a better representation? Well, that would explain things.
Posted by: Robert | April 11, 2006 11:49 AM
To Nanny, Anonymous, and others who are complaining about the CRU and the "hockey stick" data:
The 1850-2003 record in the CRU data is completely logical, since this is the whole of the reliable instrumental record. Bob Carter's cherry-picking of the 1998-2003 is absolutely unscholarly and throws his whole argument into disrepute.
Also, the criticism of the "hockey stick" is completely off-base. McIntyre and McKitrick argue against it and have come up with a different graph. However, you must ask yourselves, why it isn't published anywhere but the non-peer-reviewed journal "Energy and Environment". Is it because it is flawed beyond recognition?
You must also ask yourselves how the MBH studies have successfully passed the peer-review test. Is it because it is statistically accurate and correct beyond any reasonable doubt? As far as anyone knows, YES!
Quit acting like a little kid who can't get their way!
Posted by: Stephen Berg | April 11, 2006 12:34 PM
"MBH will be forever famous as an example how cherrypicking data lead global decision making astray."
Sure, and there's hasn't been another El Nino year like 1998 in the last 1000 years.
"BTW McIntyre is continuing to show that even the hockey stick shaped treering proxies themselves cannot be replicated when the sites are revisited..."
Yes just like he showed results from using Principle Components Analysis are sensitive to choice of centring.
"Let alone the fact that hockeystick shaped bristlecones proxies do not agree with local temperatures."
No-one ever said they were just thermometers. In spite of being sensitive to other conditions as well as temperature, reconstructions using bristlecones proxies give a very good result when compared with reconstructions not using bristlecones proxies that go back to 1450, as Wahl and Ammann show in their paper. I made this point and others in the "Which global warming skeptic are you" thread but apparently that was ignored. I think Hans and other skeptics should spend less time writing ill-informed comments on blogs and more time reading professional scientific soure material like Wahl and Ammann's papers.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | April 11, 2006 12:40 PM
In honor (honour) of reading all the pathetic rube comments in this thread, I have introduced the following:
Willful Misleader Index (WMI)
Scale: 1-10
1 = Ideologue who selectively reads work with words that appeal to narrow worldview; dimwit or semi-intelligent.
5 = Innocent, new to issue, seeking information.
10 = Shill, paid mendacicizer, employee of PR/fossil energy firm.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | April 11, 2006 1:18 PM
By the way, Carter refuses to bet over his statement that temperature changes are random. I offered 2:1 odds that temperatures will increase in 10 years, and he won't take the bet. More info here:
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2006/04/bob-carter-wont-bet-over-global.html
Posted by: Brian S. | April 11, 2006 2:23 PM
Steven Berg:
If I may, I respectfully disagree with your 'you must ask yourselves' argumentation.
They must NOT ask themselves, as that would disagree with their already-chosen worldview and their self-identity, chosen as a component of that worldview.
Rationalism isn't an effective strategery against such a wall, sir.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | April 11, 2006 2:30 PM
William,
"Notice how none of these so-called "audit" folk have the least interest in auditing S+C's processes, now why might that be?"
Perhaps it is because the S+C chart was not highlighted about 5 different times in the IPCC TAR which was used as a justification for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and continues to be used by fearmongering politicians to destroy free-society economies and impoverish people all over the world?
"Anyway, W+A is now available:"
And this "replication" shows dismal r2 values in table 1S. How does provide us with any more confidence in Mann's claims about anomalous warmth in the 20th century?
Posted by: nanny_govt_sucks | April 11, 2006 3:07 PM
Re: "How does provide us with any more confidence in Mann's claims about anomalous warmth in the 20th century?"
Nanny, if you do not have "confidence in Mann's claims" that the 20th century is anomalously warm, then I don't know how anything could convince you. All the data is there and available.
You can check out the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/recons.html and see for yourself. Essentially every study in the database shows what the "hockey stick" study shows.
As for this comment:
"Perhaps it is because the S+C chart was not highlighted about 5 different times in the IPCC TAR which was used as a justification for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and continues to be used by fearmongering politicians to destroy free-society economies and impoverish people all over the world?"
Completely wrong.
Posted by: Stephen Berg | April 11, 2006 3:14 PM
"All the data is there and available."
And now the r2 values are there and available, but will you bother to look at them? See Table 1S in W&A.
Posted by: nanny_govt_sucks | April 11, 2006 3:30 PM
. nanny (apparent WMI = 1.78)**:
aside from the fact that the ants here wish to quibble about an old first paper to make a picnic out of a crumb,
MBH98 had a figger that showed where the r^2s were very low and not worth mentioning. Your dupedness about their not publishing the value is noted.
Any non-layperson reading the paper would have phoned M, B, or H and asked for the data & likely got it.
It's not that hard, really.
Best,
D
**Willful Misleader Index (WMI)
Scale: 1-10
1 = Ideologue who purposely selectively reads work that contains words that appeal to narrow worldview.
2.5 = Rube/dupe.
5 = Innocent, new to issue, seeking information.
7.5 = Wordsmith, ex-journo., spreading the gospel, not paid.
10 = Shill, paid mendacicizer, employee of PR/fossil energy firm.
Posted by: Dano | April 11, 2006 4:10 PM