Scientists respond to Barton

In fact, Climate Audit did have something on Moberg, the "Hockey Team" and the use of the CRU instead of the satellite several months ago. I asked them which satellite data-set they were using but they ignored the question.

All this was before the latest S&C correction.

I asked them which satellite data-set they were using but they ignored the question.

I hope someone isn't testy that professionals are busy and usually don't have the time to spend on amateur inquiries.

Kinda like if you keep pestering Barry Bonds for batting tips, even though he can see you're chubby, soft-handed and pale, and you get mad because he ignores you.

Anything else is just a distraction. Or a campaign to impugn. Either way, a justifiable response to those besmirching a name or an icon is: GFY.

HTH,

D

I think the tone of this post is a little inappropriate. The sourcecode et al for the reconstruction should have been published long long ago.

Regardless of your personal views on the validity of the study, it's simply poor science to withhold data or details.

The 'controversy' around Mann et al simply wouldn't exist without the vacuum of real detail that has existed.

Mann et al have done a serious dis-service to science and the study of global warming in their behaviour and the ill becomes anyone to defend it.

I think publishing your source code is a good thing.

But it is absurd to claim that there is a vacuum of detail about his work and that this alleged vacuum caused the controversy.

We will see whether I am right. Will they be satisified with the code, or claim that there is still stuff missing?

Michael, as the NSF said (twice), code is proprietary and there is no obligation to make it public. The algorithm is public as is the data. This is shown by the fact that several people have successfully replicated the results. Among them is Zorita, a long term collaborator of v. Stoch and a co-author on the recent Science paper challenging MBH98.

Er, you mean it wouldn't exist without the astroturf campaign plotted out by Frank Luntz and funded by ExxonMobil etc. One has to look no farther than the tobacco industry's (now failed) efforts to defend itself against mounting evidence of negative tobacco health effects to see exactly what's going on now; heck, even some of the players are the same (Fred Singer/SEPP, junkscience.com). M&M would have had no traction without this support. As things are, the forthcoming Congressional exposure and the fact that M&M do no original work should mean the end of them with regard to any further media credibility (excepting the WSJ editorial pages, of course). The best advice to MBH and all the other climate reconstructionists that McIntyre recently added to his hit list is just what Dano suggested. My only concern is that some of the more troglodyte septics might be capable of asexual reproduction. :) P.S. -- As an American taxpayer, I would be pissed as hell to find substantial public resources being diverted from critical research to providing information to foreign non-scientists like M&M.

I agree with Steve and Dano, there is a time to draw a line in the sand, and this is it. Grovel before a guy like Barton and he'll just use it to move on to more intimidation.
Over at the post on Real Climate they've closed the door to historical analogy, but while American and Stalinist methods still differ, the Vavilov case should not be forgotten in this context.

YIKES! There's really no place to go in this thread, after igniting the Stalin fire? So I guess post 7, ends it? Permit me to write the epilogue in my best Jerry Springer voice. Ahem!

Epilogue:
I knew it was only a matter of time before someone would use a thermonuclear analogy of Rep. Barton as one of the mass murdering dictator and associates of the 20th century. You can't get any worse than the author of post 7 invoking a Stalinist analogy -- beats even drawing on the Austrian Corporal or one of his party mates, whom I guessed would be chosen. The previous poster should be ashamed. But with so many things now tied for #1 as, "... the last refuge of the ignorant," there's clearly nothing anyone could say that would get through to him.

By choosing this despicable analogy, it does disqualify the post 7 author from commenting on the MBH'98, '99 and the IPCC'01 TAR Chapter of Dr Mann's authorship. Capable scientists have struggled with those documents, the science behind them, and what has resulted from a questionable peer-review before elevating their status. This means they are way over his head, as author of post 7.

=====

Postscript to Mr. Lambert-
You also have my sincere apologies. I freely endorse your ownership right to delete this post and its predecessor -- in this case, perhaps we can all agree that the RealClimate policy is the correct one. Should you choose not to, please include this post in its entirety - sometimes it really is better forego the term "anus", and award someone the more coarse title.

Ah, as in the Opera, John has his Jerry Springer moment. Just dip him in chocolate.

Capable scientists have struggled with those documents, the science behind them, and what has resulted from a questionable peer-review before elevating their status.

You bots need to tighten up your talking points. They still look canned and uninspired. And don't ululate when you post.

But I enjoy the chuckle in the morning - implying that amateurs with no knowledge of climate perform unquestionable peer review is priceless. You guys crack me up. Good thing I didn't have coffee in my mouth when I read the italicized phrase above, John.

ÐanØ

Well, John, since you take such offense at my analogy, I hereby retract it. As for commenting on MBH'98, '99 and the IPCC'01 TAR Chapter of Dr Mann's authorship, I didn't and I won't. I'm not competent on the issues. But I know that political intimidation, such as that being practiced by Rep. Joe Barton, has nothing to do with the scientific issues. When I see such intimidation here in America I find it dangerous and frightening even if it's unique and not analogous to anything.

One person's "intimidation" is another "justified oversight" -- that's what is expected in reasoned discussion of topics like this. Though I don't agree, of course I have no problem views which bend toward intimidation -- you make your case, I'll (& others) make the justified oversight case. Your retraction to put this back to a reasoned discussion is appreciated, but as always it's a poster's (in this case your) choice.

=====

Dano -- again your misunderstanding such a simple sentence is betrayed by your critique. Drs. Von Storch and Moberg both disagreed (struggled) with the MBH'98 and '99 reconstructions. Von Storch had problems on both a plot and an error basis, especially in MBH's heavy reliance on tree-ring proxies. Moberg also went a different way because his plot clearly shows a MWP and a LIA, something that all but disappear in the MBH documents in '98, '99 and the IPCC TAR chapters authored by Dr Mann. But if you want to characterize such "capable scientists" as "amateurs with no knowledge of climate perform unquestionable peer review", no one can stop you. In some ways we do think alike: seeing the phrase "capable scientists" in one of your posts (even in requote) did give me "a chuckle in the morning" - you clearly are neither, and have now demonstrated you can't recognize either.

Of course Mann's comments about intellectual property and his code was incredibly stupid. Somehow J.K. Rowling is able to release her writings to the world without losing the property...oh yeah, we call it copyright law. The whole point behind it being so that guys like Mann can release his code without fear of somebody taking it "without just compensation" so that scientific progress can go forward...perhaps you should send Mann an e-mail Tim.

Sure Steve, all commercial software is released in source form. Not.

John, again I think your marketing campaign needs work.

See, the hand-waving about somebody having trouble with a reconstruction hides the fact that subsequent researchers have found that the recent warming is unprecedented in the past 1000 years.

You forgot to mention that, rendering this talking point ineffective at disseminating the context and facts.

Oh, wait: you don't want to disseminate context and facts, do you?

My bad.

D

"somebody having trouble with a reconstruction?" -- you mean, Hans von Storch, Caspar Amman, John Waterhouse, Anders Moberg are only "somebodies" to you? These are respected climatologists -- world reknowned -- much more than "capable scientists," many are AGW proponents -- THEY ARE THE PEER-REVIEWERS of MBH! Yet, you still won't refute your characterization of them as, "amateurs with no knowledge of climate perform unquestionable peer review?"

Disconnect your breathing tube from RealClimate.org -- you are in serious need of fresh air, let alone some actual scientific understanding of the climatology. Let me guess -- you still haven't written off your cold fusion investments of a decade ago, have you?

Steve, in neither the case of v. Storch or Moberg was software the issue. In both cases the data set was different as was the algorithm for reconstruction. If you do not understand the difference between code, algorithmn and data you are being extremely amateur. Notice that neither of them called for the "source code". As a matter of fact, one of the co-authors on the v. Storch paper had previously reconstructed the MBH98 algorithm (Zorita).

By the way, where is Mobergs source code, or that of v. Storch?

John Mc, your reply shows me you don't have command of your talking points.

If you're going to test-market your product, you should be able to address test-subject responses. Trashing some website doesn't address the test-subject response, nor the well-known scientific findings.

It's a non-sequitor. Red herring. Hand-wave. Dissemblation. Something.

Whatever you call it, it is obvious this campaign still needs more work. Talk to your team leader and share your concerns to tighten up your pitch, instead of trying to fix it on your own.

Eli:

another useful corollary is the MSU sounding analyses - S&C should be audited by amateurs (and give up their source code to boot).

Since S&C were Mann-like in their firstness, they too should give up their source code to, say, a group of model airplane pilots (hey, these guys have instruments in the air too).

The pilots can look at the code and dissect where S&C went wrong, open a blog, and besmirch S&C's name. MSUaudit.org is an open domain name.

If the pilots are lucky, think tanks like Heritage and AEI will publish their books for them and hold conferences for them and parade them around the country, fo' free.

ÐanØ

Argh John.. playing smoke & mirrors yet again.

Moberg et al conclude "We find no evidence for any earlier periods in the last two millennia with warmer conditions than the post-1990 period - in agreement with previous similar studies" - M&M's statistical fantasy land didn't even cut it as a study in the author's minds. And von Storch's work clearly shows that the late 20th century is warmer than the medieval warming period (their Figure 2).

I must admit to being surprised that you are heaping praise on von Storch and co... didn't they use a climate model as the basis for their work??? Does this mean you now respect the laws of physics?

David

Still don't get it, Dano & David -- I cite even AGW proponent scientists, because even they assign much greater climate variability in the periods preceding that period associated with the industrial revolution. Mann et al, appear to have oversimplified and perhaps cherry-picked the data in their to present a flat/near-flat period of temperature, followed by a rapid rise associated with their AGW conclusions. All of those AGW peer-scientists show substantially greater error and variability in the periods preceding -- and they're on the MBH side of the issue.

You can reject the skeptic position if you want to. But Rep. Barton's request is on MBH related issues and procedures pursuant to the publishing of MBH'98 -- areas both skeptic and AGW proponent have not been able to replicate, some if only in the MWP and LIA periods well before the MBH blade associated with the industrial revolution. Some skeptics of MBH'98 etc, like M&M, have even been able to use what they believe is MBH methodology to preferentially yield hockey sticks out of random noise.

It appears you both are fully into Dr. Schneider's position of population influence -- scare 'em, even if it's not true; the greater good of your side will win out. Only science is not supposed to work that way (although politics often does). Such thinking goes hand-in-hand with your weak backgrounds in science and especially in climatology. You really should listen to what Dr Von Storch has to say about the dangers of this contemporary defense of climate science -- but as devoted followers of Dr Schneider and MBH, there's little possibility of that.

It's clear to many of us that outside oversight is now the only way to reveal potential flaws in MBH'98, '99, and the IPCC '01 TAR and/or the associated review processes and procedures subsequent to the publishing and use to influence/initiate policy. "The AGW consensus" will not police its own -- and as weak background followers, endorsers and in some cases cheerleaders of these events, you are clearly incapable of generating the groundswell supporting needed accountability. It also looks like the reality is, as long as MBH'98 and it's related events taint AGW issues, other AGW positions are stranded in the eddy currents. It's a bad time to be stuck in eddies -- the IPCC'07 FAR work and release coming up. Who would have thought that Rep. Barton would be doing us all a favor?

"Such thinking goes hand-in-hand with your weak backgrounds in science and especially in climatology."

buzz.. wrong yet again.

BTW many in the mainstream including myself see the Barton letters as a great opportunity for the science, rather than a threat. The observational facts and science will prevail.

Your rhetoric concerning the IPCC shows either a deep miss understanding of the IPCC process, or a desire to confuse. The IPCC reports are a review of the published science, no more no less. You are entitled to act as science reviewer for the AR4... have you taken up this opportunity?

Science is a learning process... for example in the first report the best estimate of historical temperature variability was Lamb's schematic, in the third we had Mann's hockey stick, and in the fourth we will have around 9-10 reconstruction, which differ in the detail but agree on the period around 1000AD being relatively warm, the existence of a temporally discontinuous little ice age, and then unprecedented warmth in the late 20th century. That science evolves is hardly suprising, and certainly not the material for witch hunts.

David

You are entitled to act as science reviewer for the AR4 have you taken up this opportunity?

Sorry to go off topic, but just to ask...what are the requirements for acting as a reviewer for the IPCC exactly? I'm interested in this for a couple of reasons. First, I was thinking that it might be cool to be one myself. Secondly, I've seen some of the "skeptics" who were reviewers for TAR use it as some kind of endorsement of expertise by the IPCC (which is ironic, given that they think that the IPCC are hopelessly wrong about everything else). So it would be good to know what the requirements actually are.

John, John, John Mc.

Guessing and grasping at straws is no way to run a test-marketing campaign.

BTW, many years ago I cashed paychecks that were earned by forecasting weather, and after that I earned 2 science degrees, each with a minor, and on top of that I couldn't complete a bioclimatology degree; this background helps me when I read your silly, silly posts.

Keep 'em coming John. If your talking points and argumentation are the best the contrascientists can do, I feel better.

ÐanØ

Brian J, suggest looking at the IPCC website - ipcc.ch . Even "professional sceptics" can volanteer, but the simple fact is that most of them would prefer to take pot shots as they cannot manipulate the IPCC process to the extent they wish. No desire to improve the IPCC process, only a desire to sink it.

Unfortunately, the only science left for them are non-physical empirical climate relationships which keep falling apart, and the "6-year" cooling trend since the record temperatures of 1998 (even this one might fall apart this year, with the 1998 record a real chance of falling). The weakness of the sceptics science is demonstrated by their fixation on a study (Mann et al) which is now nearly 10 years old.

David

PS "Some skeptics of MBH'98 etc, like M&M, have even been able to use what they believe is MBH methodology to preferentially yield hockey sticks out of random noise."
and the reference is? John, you and I both know that it matters not whether you use the centralised or decentralised PCA method, provided you use more than 1 PC.... This is like shooting fish in a barrel...

re: 19, "And von Storch's work clearly shows that the late 20th century is warmer than the medieval warming period (their Figure 2)."

Such a characterization is typical of RealClmate spin, and wrong! Even if you only read the intro/abstract, it states, "The model also produces a Medieval Warm Period around 1100 A.D., with global temperatures approximately equal to 20th mean values."

But more important is in the body of the paper, the statement in section,
"3. The modeling results"
"The model simulates a temperature maximum around 1100 A.D., the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) (Jones et al, 2001), with temperatures very similar to the ones simulated for the present period."

In addition, Dr. Von Storch commented specifically on the "unprecedented warming" claim in his "hockey stick rubbish" interview (translated) in Der Spiegel, "according to our computer model temperatures fluctuation were significantly larger and took place faster. The temperatures were 900 years ago also once approximately as warm as today."

As for your specific conclusion of "clearly warmer in figure 2," you were referring to the ECHO-G plots where the "NH extratropics" plot was actually higher near 1100 than present, or the "NH annual" that was a bit lower ~.1 K in 1100 vs. present? Are you into mind-reading; can you divine which plot of figure 2, Dr Von Storch was referring to as "approximately as warm as today," if not the ECHO-G plots? Were you you extrapolating the plot upward with temps to 2000 -- with a difference of ~.1 K in fig 2, and given the error bands of such models, that's not exactly "clearly warmer" as you stated, eh? At the very least, it takes no mind-reader to know that Dr von Storch would not agree with your interpretation of fig 2.

John M, late 20th century temperatures are significantly warmer than mean 20th century temperatures.

Barton also has ties to the concrete industry. Concrete production is an important source of CO2. One of the usual persuers of MBH98 on blogs and USENET also does. There are many different industrial groups who oppose action on climate change. While the petroleum business is front and center on this, they are not alone.

John

"Such a characterization is typical of RealClmate spin, and wrong! Even if you only read the intro/abstract, it states" ... how can it be spin when the authors says it in the conclusions... so who is reading minds here John???

Prehaps you stopped at the abstract, and didn't make it through to the conclusions. There is no contradiction between the two quotes... one is specific to the late 20th century, the other is not.

Regardless, on current trends global temperatures will reach those of the warmest part of the pliocene some 3-4.5M years ago by 2050 to 2100.

BTW von Storch et al use a climate model forced with anthropogenic and natural forcing.. I'm gobsmaked that you are willing to quote their model results to an accuracy of 0.1C.. your (new found) faith in climate models certainly exceeds mine.

BTW John please spare us the cheap shots at scientists, it devalues everything else you have to say. We all know this is one of the key tactic of the sceptics industry, and it won't gain traction here.

David

Von Storch also said this "we are not claiming that the present concept of global warming is flawed. We are convinced that greenhouse gases are accumulating in the air, and strongly believe that near-surface temperatures are rising in response"

This is at http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/ and this is the article http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/von_Storch/perspective.pdf

re: 28, david -- lighten up, and do the reading yourself. My 1st quoted reference in #25 (to your #19), wasn't from the von Storch et al paper (Oct'04); it was from the GKSS summary in Dr Zorita's directory: www.gkss.de/staff/zorita/lastmillennium_A4.pdf. The abstract quote from von Storch et al Oct'04 (and an apology for the confusion), will follow in my response to Mr. Lambert in #26.

The 2nd quoted reference, was from section 3 of the Oct'04 paper -- past the abstract and in the content which you implied you read, and accused me of not having read? You're right - I must have quoted it without reading the article??? QED -- and yet another point of yours that doesn't pass muster.

The 3rd was (translated) from Der Spiegel as stated, in case your having trouble following?

All three quotes were in response to your #19 overstatement of the differences between the 12th century MWP and the 20th century warming the GKSS team modeled - the paper which also highlights the (missing) MWP, (missing) LIA, and the methodology flaws of the hockey stick papers and IPCC'01 TAR chapter.

Until you catch up on the reading, feel free to follow the discussion (following)

re: 26 Agreed -- and the cooling period from roughly 1940-70 is significantly less than the mean 20th century temperatures... and the Oct'04 paper's simulated 12th century period of the MWP was both higher (early century) and lower (late) than that century mean. And one could also add, the 11 year solar-cycle mean has higher and lower irradiance levels than that cycle mean. Which is why even the solar variability forcing skeptics must model more than by simply using an 11-year cycle mean -- some modelers (like von Storch et al) have now refined their modeling with many solar flux variations, some clearly cyclic.

Rechecking the Oct'04 von Storch et al paper, it actually makes no mention of "20th (century) mean" value like statements, especially in that abstract where it is stated that,
"The model also produces a Medieval Warm Period around 1100 A.D., with global temperatures approximately equal to present values."
My 1st quote in 25, is from the GKSS summary (as I told David) at www.gkss.de/staff/zorita/lastmillennium_A4.pdf. This is my error -- apologies for mixing the quote sources... especially since that post reads as a common source for the 1st two, though not the 3rd (Der Spiegel translated) quote. Perhaps the GKSS team in the Oct'04 paper has some "mean" temp and language inconsistencies across papers, that are worth reviewing?

Reasoned analysis dictates that none of this is tied in a nice pretty bow -- especially a "hockey-stick" shaped one. This includes von Storch et al, Oct'04. But the fact remains that even AGW proponents like von Storch, integral players in the IPCC'01 process, believe the TAR's heavy reliance on MBH'98 and '99 was a mistake -- and not just because the paper has been found to be flawed. And this position obviously doesn't include other prominent IPCC'01 participants, including AGW skeptics like Dr Lindzen, nor increasingly* credible climate research outsiders like M&M, who have also forcefully made that case.

Let's get this all out in the open - there's plenty to take an open look at - for example, don't any of you want to see what happens when both the MBH data and Monte Carlo generated random noise are plugged into the actual MBH'98 and '99 code? Let's get on with it and compare hockey sticks?

*Yeah, I know --- many of you don't agree. But as has been argued by other posters, climate scientists are reviewing and finding credible points to the M&M argument against MBH'98 and '99 - arguments which never had the degrees/radians nor I might add, the not nearly as famous MBH COS(lat) errors in them!

Correction:
re: 26 Agreed — and the cooling period from roughly 1950-70 is significantly MORE than the mean 20th century temperatures

re: the "mean 20th (century)" temps?
I may have found what we're actually talking about -- the 90 year "SAT deviations from the 1900-1990 A.D mean (Kelvin)" in fig 2, vs. the narrower period means in fig's 3-7? Or were you presuming the quote refers to something else; or were you referring something independent of the paper, entirely?

The untold story of the Barton Investigation:

Barton Investigation Uncovers
Key Puzzle Piece In
Global Warming Mystery

(July 24 2005)

Howling yelps of protest are yipping: "Inquisition"! "Intimidation"!, and "Witch Hunt"! after the sending of some letters by Rep. Joe Barton Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to key figures in the Global Warming Mystery.

Concealed by the volume and hysteria of the biteless bark of protests by promoters of Global Warming Alarmism, was a quiet voice of caution displayed by key figures in the investigation and their most prominent supporters. Carefully hidden in their subdued message was a reluctance to support what once was a major pillar of Global Warming Theory, the claim that

More:

http://www.geocities.com/poncedeleon_1/ClimateChange/Rsquared.htm

"Climate Science Community Fails To Back Key IPCC Finding"

http://www.geocities.com/poncedeleon_1/ScientistsBackDown.htm

Thanks for that weak astroturf, Doug L.

I call the argumentation technique on the oh-so-definitive website you linked to 'ants holding up a crumb and declaring it a picnic'.

You ain't got nothin'.

ÐanØ

Re #35

Oh Great One,

Never underestimate the rumor mill ;-)

More on #35

But seriously, Mr. D, that crumb is likely just the tip of an iceberg. I am reasonably certain that the finding, that 20th century temperature change is unprecedented, is no longer valid. The much more recent Moberg and Von Storch studies show that, do they not?

It is also likely that, seemingly knowledgeable people who discuss climate regularly on message boards are unaware of basic facts such as that the only study that closely parallels the hockey stick graph is the Jones study.

One has to wonder then , if the hockey stick contains a significant math error, how then could the Jones study closely parallel the Mann study? If there are two major errors, the mystery is exponentially more bizarre.

Without an investigation, science would just move on, dismissing the Jones and Mann studies as unimportant because they have been superceded by Moberg and Von Storch. The factors that led to the problem would be left return once again.

Doug L, Moberg shows that late 20th century warming is unprecendented. You seem to be unaware of basic facts about this issue.

DougL: In addition, von Storch's paper only says that there is more variability in Mann's method than previously thought. It also appears that most of the variability takes place on the cold side of things.

So in fact Doug the two studies that you quote actually tend to support the idea that current temperatures are unprescented.

Re #38 and #39
Tim and John,

The relevance of Moberg and Von Storch's recent findings to the Barton investigation is that they may misdirect attention from issues with the hockey stick graph (MBH98) that do not relate to how far along the science had come in 1998.

These issues may be significant errors. The Barton letters refer specificly to certain data sets , computer code, and the calculation of correlation statistics.

As I understand it, one cannot verify if the math was done correctly without the computer code unless two conditions are met: 1. The described algorithm is sufficiently specific. And 2. The results of the verification process turn out to be exactly the same. (we are talking about the math here, not the whole study)

Interestingly, the House Science committee appears to have been caught flat footed on this. Their reaction is to attack Chairman Barton's methods. One has to wonder where the interest in an independent inquiry was before Chairman Barton.

The impression one gets from the climate science community is that they are more interested in proving high temperature projections than they are in disproving them. This bias seems to have infected the media and the public as a whole. Thus one cannot assume that an independent inquiry would not be biased.

The time may come when such an inquiry is appropriate, but in the mean time, it is good to know that someone interested in getting out the facts is on the job.

Back to Moberg and climate variability, One can see the the Hockey Stick graph and the Moberg graph together in figure four at this link:

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2005/03/03/hockey-stick-199…

This graph shows four centuries with increases similar to the 20th: the 10th,14th,18th and the 19th.

One might glance at the graph and unconsciously combine the 19th and 20th century and be fooled into thinking that the 20th century was particularly large.

Doug L, your claim about Moberg is untrue. See this graph showing Moberg, MBH99 and many other reconstructions. The increase in the 20th century was twice as much as in other century. Temperatures at the end of the 20th century are unprecedented in the last 2000 years.

Tim,

Isn't the internet wonderful? We can share graphs and decide for ourselves what they say! ;-)

Thanks for the graph that shows the scale better. On that graph the Moberg reconstruction shows a four tenths degree Celcius increase between 1300 and 1400, the same for 1800 to 1900.

Moberg ends at 1979, the century prior on the graph shows four tenths degree Celsius increase.

This is the same as what I just said, only more specific.

Concerns over the increase shown in the 80's and 90's may not be taking into account the unusually active el nino during that period. Graphs of el nino show a correspondence with warmer temperatures.

It's not clear if reconstructions pick up those kinds of temperature spikes. The most prominent versions of the hockey stick graph show smoothed averages and the gray shaded area reveals enormous error bars.

It's also not clear if anyone is investigating whether heat from centuries past gets recycled by the ocean conveyor creating super low frequency oscillations in the climate.

It is for these reasons that I find the carefully parsed words of scientists significant. Their words are consistent with backing off the claim of unusual rate of temperature increase..

The denialist movement has to get better bots.

Simply asking questions doesn't do it for doubt-sowing - the questions are ignorant and just serve to show how weak the campaign is. Your last three paras, 'Doug L', are a good clue as to the depth of your Team Leader's understanding, as Tim points out in #38.

D

Re #43

Oh Great Master,

Please extend a few crumbs of knowledge for my ignorant mandibles to chew on, so that I may declare them to be a "picnic"!

Gratefully yours,

Grasshopper

Doug L., I'll leave it to others to argue about the graphs, but I was interested in your assertion that the rapid temperature increase of the last few decades could be ascribed to ocean conveyor heat pulses manifesting as el ninos. Interesting speculation, but how would this be physically possible? My understanding is that an input of warm water into the conveyor would simply shut it down. If nothing else, if the conveyor at depth contained warmer water than the layers above it, why wouldn't that warm water pulse rise immediately? As well, wouldn't there be obvious signs of such a heat pulse in the atmosphere a few centuries back? I believe there a couple of papers out of Scripps (Barnett et al) in the last year that were based on actual measurements of ocean heat energy taken from a new network of temperature sensors. Wouldn't these sensors have detected any such pulses? Finally, can you cite to any climate scientist who thinks your speculation has some basis?

re: 39 "It also appears that most of the variability takes place on the cold side of things.

So in fact Doug the two studies that you quote actually tend to support the idea that current temperatures are unprescented."

You've mis-read/interpreted von Storch's discussion on error, the error is up to 2X which calls into question the conclusions themselves. It's one of the reasons von Storch called the Hockey Stick "rubbish" (as translated from his interview in Der Spiegel).

You've also missed the comparatively more pronounced warmer and cooler periods of the Moburg'05 and von Storch'04 -- they have both an MWP and LIA, with MBH they all but disappeared! Re: MWP, von Storch has said on numerous occasions, the period temperatures are roughly the same (and not with a "mean" temp qualifier, except as written, by who knows, in the GKSS summary).

Finally you're missing the warming that has essentially occurred from the last decades of the 1500s and 1600s (in Esper'02, Moburg'05 and von Storch'04) -- this warming occurred prior to the industrial revolution, and which continued through 2000. The warming has been significant, and depending on which reconstruction, more than half of the rise occurred prior to 1850, before the I-R really got rolling with CO2 creation.

So we have warming that is not unprecedented when compared to the MWP, according to von Storch -- a cooling LIA that MBH understated big time -- and finally warming that began ~150-250 years prior to when the MBH hockey stick blade shows it began.

That's 3 very significant events that MBH suppressed, or were otherwise skewed in making their dramatic reconstruction -- which many (including AGW proponents contributors to IPCC'01) now know was overplayed in the IPCC'01 TAR.

re #45

Steve,

The el nino idea and the ocean conveyor idea that I mentioned are separate.

el nino is a well known phenonmen going back centuries, as far as I know, like most things in nature, it has variability that is not well understood, and has been going on long before the recent CO2 buildup.

There are graphs showing the relationship between warming and el nino. The bottom two graphs on the late John Daly's site show this:

http://www.john-daly.com/

When I spoke of heat from centuries past re-appearing today, this was based on pure rumor I heard recently, so far as I know, so I've had no time to see anything about it anywhere. You make a good point about the recent research, it may well be able to catch that, if they are looking. But what are they looking for? Most likely something else. Most likely heat coming down from the top.

My knowledge is purely amature, but I may be able to clear up some of your statements. The shut down of ocean conveyor you refer to pertains to an excess of fresh water in the North Atlantic. This could be caused by excessive melting in Greenland.

The extra heat I'm refering to that is pure conjecture is relative not to the water above it, but to the water that it is behind in the conveyor that eventually rises to the surface after centuries.

You can see in most reconstructions varying temperature levels. They are not pulses, their effects would be more long lived, but you could have a coincidence of more el nino with extra heat from the past (assuming that's even possible).

I do know that the Hansen study on ocean temperatures does say that they need to continue monitering in case the results are only a fluctuation. You can even find a response to this on RealClimate. See comment ten, it's responded to by Gavin Schmidt.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=148

Correction to "~150-250" in 46: "warming that began ~200-300 years prior to when the MBH hockey stick blade shows it began" (MBH's blade starts at ~1900).

MBH'99 (and IPCC'01 TAR) made a 1000 year claim, with 3 periods of significant prolonged error. But that's okay - some here say, let's just focus on the last 30 years of the MBH reconstruction, where it's argued the AGW evidence is clear and repeatable -- you mean the 30 year period where the MBH proxies are uncalibrated?

Please extend a few crumbs of knowledge for my ignorant mandibles to chew on, so that I may declare them to be a "picnic"!

You may feast at any good library. Pulling out a crumb doesn't allow one to savor the slow building of scientific knowledge toward a probablistic conclusion.

Judging from the certitude of prior comments, I should add some won't like the careful, slow flavor of the multi-course meal found at the library.

Libraries are slow, leisurely feasts of richness and variety - complete meals, as opposed to fast-food McWeb sites, laden with fat and filler, with the only dessert the cherry-pick.

Get thee to a library, lil' bot.

HTH,

D

That's 3 very significant events that MBH suppressed, or were otherwise skewed in making their dramatic reconstruction — which many (including AGW proponents contributors to IPCC'01) now know was overplayed in the IPCC'01 TAR.

The ululating over this meme is instructive. Suppressed. Puh-leez.

What the bots want the undereducated to think is that science is like the bug trapped in amber - static.

Early multiproxy reconstructions had less skill than more recent ones.

So what?

All of them still find recent warming unprecedented.

Let's not have the frantic hand-waving create so much breeze our eyes dry out and we can't see.

D

Re: "Early multiproxy reconstructions had less skill than more recent ones."

Doesn't match the record, where both PRIOR TO and AFTER MBH'98 ('99, and the IPCC'01 TAR), reconstructions exhibited both higher overall variability, plus the MWP, LIA and a latest warming period of around 300-400 years (depending on reconstruction)! THe MBH papers were standout reconstructions of the period -- that continues to be cited today. MBH was notable for its OMISSION* (or delay) of both previously accepted variability and and at least 3 well accepted climate events that were documented both before and after MBH'98 through the IPCC'01 TAR.

=====

RE: "All of them still find recent warming unprecedented."

You mean the "recent warming" where there's no MBH proxy calibration? So you're saying that because there are more modern reconstructions than MBH, one can now ignore the first 950-970 years of the MBH reconstructions; the same MBH reconstructions noteworthy for their missing variability and missing/delayed climatic events? PLUS we have to accept the last 30-50 years of the MBH reconstruction, where there's little/no calibrated MBH proxy data correlating to actual measured temps? How can THAT make sense to someone of your technical background? One would expect such logic from a typical science-ignorant AGW contortionist. Puh-leez show some of that scientific background!

*if you prefer that over "suppression."

John McCall:

You say "MBH was notable for its OMISSION* (or delay) of both previously accepted variability and and at least 3 well accepted climate events that were documented "

Do you have a reference for the previous documented studies. I am not aware of many statistical studies before MBH. From my understanding most of the idea of the MWP and LIA came from Lamb's work and he was not very rigorous in his methodology (i.e. the statistics). I believe a lot of his work came from agricultural records and while these are important, they are influenced by many factors.

For example wine quality and growth is taken as a temperature proxy in some work but the amount of sunshine is equally important to a good wine as the temperature.

Regards,
John

Remember the last 100 years or so in any reconstruction are instrumental, so the rise in all the reconstructions over the last 150 years is the same.

The proxies are calibrated against some portion of this and tested against some other part, depending on the details of the method used. What you cannot argue against as part of the reconstruction is the measured temperature rise in the last 150 years. It is not part of the proxy reconstruction.

Another point which appears to have been missed is that since the modern instrumental part of the reconstruction has nothing to do with the proxies, you can simply add on new instrumental data as it is measured. If people went and brought some of the proxies up to date, you could in principle redo the reconstructions. Of course, that would cost a bit of money

Doesn't match the record, where both PRIOR TO and AFTER MBH'98 ('99, and the IPCC'01 TAR), reconstructions exhibited both higher overall variability, plus the MWP, LIA and a latest warming period of around 300-400 years (depending on reconstruction)!

1. Yes, the skill would be that more recent research has found greater variability.
2. Hmmm...I'm interested in the statement about multiproxy reconstructions prior to MBH 98. MBH was a global (not local) multiproxy (not single proxy [borehole, sediment, tree ring]) temp reconstruction.

I searched ISI for multiproxy papers (as my above) prior to MBH and found...none. So, then I went to MBH 98 and looked in the refs for multiproxy paleo reconstructions. There are none. Then I went here and found...none.

You'll have to (or your Marketing Manager will have to) modify that talking point.

You mean the "recent warming" where there's no MBH proxy calibration?

Calibration. With the spatial sampling of M = 1,082 continuous monthly grid-point surface temperature anomaly (that is, de-seasonalized) data used (Fig. 1b), the N = 1,128 months of data available from 1902 to 1995 were sufficient for a unique, overdetermined eigenvector decomposition (note that N' = 94 years of the annual mean data would, in contrast, not be sufficient).

For each grid-point, the mean was removed, and the series was normalized by its standard deviation. A standardized data matrix T of the data is formed by weighting each grid-point by the cosine of its central latitude to ensure areally proportional contributed variance, and a conventional Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is performed,

decomposing the dataset into its dominant spatiotemporal eigenvectors. The M-vector or empirical orthogonal function (EOF) v k describes the relative spatial pattern of the kth eigenvector, the N-vector uk or principal component (PC) describes its variation over time, and the scalar lambdak describes the associated fraction of resolved (standardized and weighted) data variance.

In a given calibration exercise, we retain a specified subset of the annually averaged eigenvectors, the annually averaged PCs denoted by u macr nk, where n = 1, ..., it n macr, it n macr = 79 is the number of annual averages used of the N-month length data set. In practice, only a small subset Neofs of the highest-rank eigenvectors turn out to be useful in these exercises from the standpoint of verifiable reconstructive skill. An objective criterion was used to determine the particular set of eigenvectors which should be used in the calibration as follows. Preisendorfer's25 selection rule 'rule N' was applied to the multiproxy network to determine the approximate number Neofs of significant independent climate patterns that are resolved by the network, taking into account the spatial correlation within the multiproxy data set. Because the ordering of various eigenvectors in terms of their prominence in the instrumental data, and their prominence as represented by the multiproxy network, need not be the same, we allowed for the selection of non-contiguous sequences of the instrumental eigenvectors. We chose the optimal group of N eofs eigenvectors, from among a larger set (for example, the first 16) of the highest-rank eigenvectors, as the group of eigenvectors which maximized the calibration explained variance. It was encouraging from a consistency standpoint that this subset typically corresponded quite closely to the subset which maximized the verification explained variance statistics (see below), but the objective criterion was, as it should be, independent of the verification process. We emphasize, furthermore, that statistical significance was robustly established, as neither the measures of statistical skill nor the reconstructions themselves were highly sensitive to the precise criterion for selection. In addition to the above means of cross-validation, we also tested the network for sensitivity to the inclusion or elimination of particular trainee data (for example, instrumental/historical records, non-instrumental/historical records, or dendroclimatic proxy indicators).

These Neofs eigenvectors were trained against the Nproxy indicators, by finding the least-squares optimal combination of the Neofs PCs represented by each individual proxy indicator during the it n macr = 79 year training interval from 1902 to 1980 (the training interval is terminated at 1980 because many of the proxy series terminate at or shortly after 1980). The proxy series and PCs were formed into anomalies relative to the same 1902-80 reference period mean, and the proxy series were also normalized by their standard deviations during that period. This proxy-by-proxy calibration is well posed (that is, a unique optimal solution exists) as long as it n macr > Neofs (a limit never approached in this study) and can be expressed as the least-squares solution to the overdetermined matrix equation, Ux = y(p), where
is the matrix of annual PCs, and
is the time series Ñ-vector for proxy record p.

The Neofs-length solution vector x = G (p) is obtained by solving the above overdetermined optimization problem by singular value decomposition for each proxy record p = 1, ..., P. This yields a matrix of coefficients relating the different proxies to their closest linear combination of the Neofs PCs;

This set of coefficients will not provide a single consistent solution, but rather represents an overdetermined relationship between the optimal weights on each on the Neofs PCs and the multiproxy network.

Proxy-reconstructed patterns are thus obtained during the pre-calibration interval by the year-by-year solution of the overdetermined matrix equation, Gz = y(j), where y(j) is the predictor vector of values of each of the P proxy indicators during year j. The predictand solution vector z = Û contains the least-squares optimal values of each of the Neofs PCs for a given year. This optimization is overdetermined (and thus well constrained) as long as P > Neofs which is always realized in this study. It is noteworthy that, unlike conventional palaeoclimate transfer function approaches, there is no specific relationship between a given proxy indicator and a given predictand (that is, reconstructed PC). Instead, the best common choice of values for the small number of Neofs predictands is determined from the mutual information present in the multiproxy network during any given year. The reconstruction approach is thus relatively resistant to errors or biases specific to any small number of indicators during a given year.

This yearly reconstruction process leads to annual sequences of the optimal reconstructions of the retained PCs, which we term the reconstructed principal components or RPCs and denote by ûk. Once the RPCs are determined, the associated temperature patterns are readily obtained through the appropriate eigenvector expansion,

while quantities of interest (for example, NH) are calculated from the appropriate spatial averages, and appropriate calibration and verification resolved variance statistics are calculated from the raw and reconstructed data.

Several checks were performed to ensure a reasonably unbiased calibration procedure. The histograms of calibration residuals were examined for possible heteroscedasticity, but were found to pass a chi2 test for gaussian characteristics at reasonably high levels of significance (NH, 95% level; NINO3, 99% level). The spectra of the calibration residuals for these quantities were, furthermore, found to be approximately 'white', showing little evidence for preferred or deficiently resolved timescales in the calibration process. Having established reasonably unbiased calibration residuals, we were able to calculate uncertainties in the reconstructions by assuming that the unresolved variance is gaussian distributed over time. This variance increases back in time (the increasingly sparse multiproxy network calibrates smaller fractions of variance), yielding error bars which expand back in time.

MICHAEL E. MANN, RAYMOND S. BRADLEY & MALCOLM K. HUGHES 1998. Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries. Nature 392, 779 - 787 (23 April 1998); doi:10.1038/33859

Whoopsie! You'll have to (or your Marketing Manager will have to) modify that talking point.

So you're saying that because there are more modern reconstructions than MBH, one can now ignore the first 950-970 years of the MBH reconstructions

Please don't put words in my mouth.

the same MBH reconstructions noteworthy for their missing variability and missing/delayed climatic events?

Latter findings all show variability. What about them?

Ah, well. Hand-waving and red-herringing aside, there certainly is a LIA in the MBH 99, MBH 99 discuss the MWP temps relative to 20th C on pg 762, and the MWP peak is lower in all other reconstructions. And as I said before, the skill is getting better and is finding the variability.

But the ululating and icon-constructing bit is kinda fun to watch. Behind the times and thus easily answered, but still fun.

PLUS we have to accept the last 30-50 years of the MBH reconstruction, where there's little/no calibrated MBH proxy data correlating to actual measured temps?

Latter findings all show 20th C warming is greater than in the past. What about them?

Ah, well. Pg 761 of the GRL, along with Fig 3b discuss your statement, which appears to be a talking point, not an argument.

You, apparently, are talking-pointing that temps are not what they seem - that is, the instrumental record of the...what did you say...last 30-50 years is not warm relative to before that time as expressed in the proxy reconstructions.

Surely you have evidence to back your seeming assertion. That is: You can produce empirical evidence (yes, please- empirical evidence) that states proxy temp reconstructions in the last...what did you say...30-50 yr are higher than current sfc temps. Must be some sort of noise in the data, maybe from CO2 fertilization. Do provide the citation for that, plz, if I have properly deciphered your argument. And not just the Stone Pine (Aleppo Pine, whatever) paper, plz.

ÐanØ

Eli said;

Another point which appears to have been missed is that since the modern instrumental part of the reconstruction has nothing to do with the proxies, you can simply add on new instrumental data as it is measured. If people went and brought some of the proxies up to date, you could in principle redo the reconstructions. Of course, that would cost a bit of money

Ahhh, yes: I seem to remember an old talking point was that Mann just 'tacked on' the instrumental record at the end and didn't do something or other, making the created icon invalid.

D

Dano

It was the late John Daly who said: "At that point, Mann completed the coup and crudely grafted the surface temperature record of the 20th century onto the pre-1900 tree ring record. "

I believe that your post highlights the crudity of the process.

Regards,
John

...'grafted' temps on to tree ring records. Fergot that, thanks John C [hmmm...how does one keep track of all the Johns here?].

That Daly sure could smith the words, couldn't he? Duped half a generation, fer shure.

Best,

ÐanØ

1. It was not crude.
2. It was not a graft.
3. It was not a coup.

Other than that Daly had a point;

Re: 53-57
You've missed previous posts requesting calibration updates against that directly measured for "recent warming", especially for "the warmest decade of the millenium" (1990s) - a favorite of MBH to volunteer, when interviewed. Most proxies for reconstructions used in IPCC'01 (including MBH) stopped by 1980? By implication, 51 reiterates the call for that updated calibration of those proxies, especially the 90s (and 1998) warmest decade (and year) proxy data. This period is a significant and "warmest" noteworthy of the ~30 years where supposedly all agree that direct AGW measurement evidence is decisive?

In case that's not enough, it's in your own post 54, para 5:
"by each individual proxy indicator during the it n macr = 79 year training interval from 1902 to 1980 (the training interval is terminated at 1980 because many of the proxy series terminate at or shortly after 1980). The proxy series and PCs were formed into anomalies relative to the same 1902-80 reference period mean"

The need for updated proxies is obvious, with such "unprecedented" claims, especially in the sound-bite world that Dr. Mann and others are so willing to take advantage of.

The "grafting" criticism is not a criticism I made -- no response nor long cut'n'paste from an entirely different MBH proxy period was necessary. Again my calibration criticism is about (re-)calibrating (or updating) the those few proxies MBH used, to coincide with when we have a satellite record (reminder - the late 70s through present)! This was not MISSED, as Mr Rabett posted in 53; in fact, this necessary updating of proxies is cost-effective given the "unprecedented" claims, plus the fact that there weren't that many proxies in MBH - it shouldn't be that expensive vs. say, one year of Kyoto protocol expense?

Re: 52 and 54 on wider variability and/or extreme temp events prior to MBH? No global temp range references prior to MBH'98, eh? You must not have checked the IPCC SAR - a bit lengthy, I know? Did you check the MBH'99 GRL references, where the millennium reconstruction actually is - much briefer there; should be much easier for you to find at least one? I have more

Finally, have you actually compared the Moburg reconstruction vs. MBH'99? For instance, can you spot all of the significant differences between that in MBH'99 and Moberg's millennium reconstruction found here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7026/extref/nature03265-s5.p…
After studying/comparing those - you still think Moberg simply and completely validates MBH'99?

Side note: with all sincerity (even where I disagree) -- in spite of its length, my compliments on 54; that's a post more in line with your technical background.

John McCall, a substantial majority of the records used in the various climate reconstructions do not extend beyond 1980, and no one is paying for folk to go out and get new samples. This is not an issue for those who create reconstructions but one for the funding agencies and the dendrologists/coral/ice core folk.

To calibrate different records over different periods becomes statistically fraught. Since the instrumental record is determining in all of these reconstructions from about 1900 (or earlier) on, there is no reason not to append it onto the end of the reconstruction into the present. The reconstructions are only used as climate data before the training period and before better instrumental data was available.

There are obviously trade offs in selection of cutoff dates for the proxy records. On the one hand moving the date back in time gives you access to more records and a wider geographic span. On the other, moving forward, you get longer traning periods.

I guess you could, if you wish, use newer proxy data for validation.

After studying/comparing those - you still think Moberg simply and completely validates MBH'99?

Partial red herring. The point is recent warming is unprecedented, not that squiggly lines should completely look the same.

Few with a science education fall for this 'validates' talking point. Perhaps the rubes will, but it's easily refuted. Fix this and try again.

Another reason why tree ring records are commonly not used post-1980 is that some dendro folks think there is a problem with certain sites - the ring characteristics of some sites have changed, due to CO2 fert, temp changes, N fert, who knows? but that's a reason why some drop tree rings (hence my Stone Pine comment). [1]

You've missed previous posts requesting calibration updates against that directly measured for "recent warming", especially for "the warmest decade of the millenium"

This is the weakness of the denialists. If this is so important, get the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out there yourself ('yourself' being the and not anyone in particular) and collect some data, or STFU.

Denialists are content to nitpick, red herring and trumpet crumbs, but when it comes down to doing something to validate their own theory, I can't hear myself think for all the crickets chirping.

No global temp range references prior to MBH'98, eh? You must not have checked the IPCC SAR - a bit lengthy, I know?

The point was, again, multiproxy, which was why I used 'multiproxy' numerous times.

in spite of its length, my compliments on 54; that's a post more in line with your technical background.

Other things suffer when I post like that.

Best,

ÐanØ

[1] Martinelli, N. 2004. Climate from dendrochronology: latest developments and results. Global and Planetary Change 40:1-2 pp. 129-139.

The analyses carried out in the Alpine stands show an increase of radial tree growth in the last decades in 7 of the 15 site chronologies in the form of annular surfaces mean series. Tree growth-climate relationships were defined by response functions in the period preceding the growth increase, to be used subsequently as predictive models for the reconstruction of growth trends. Comparing the observed and the estimated growth rates through transfer functions, the latter calculated by using the ANN technique from the available climatic data, a positive trend independent from climatic factors could be identified (Fig. 3). This trend can be noticed beginning from the forties of the 20th century and becomes more pronounced during the sixties. It might be related to the growth of industrialisation and to the increase of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Nonetheless, a combined effect with other factors of human origin such as woodland management procedures and the emission of air pollutants with a fertilising effect cannot be excluded. Moreover, we have to stress the fact that in one site (Val Sesia 1), the growth rate is lower than predicted.

[ ... ]

Recent widespread diffusion of similar research on many wooden species growing in natural vegetation in various ecosystems shows quite different responses of ring width to increasing atmospheric CO2 [Graumlich, 1991 and Jacoby and D'Arrigo, 1997]. From some studies, it appears clear that the negative impact of drought stress on tree growth in many regions during the warming in the last decades overcomes the positive fertilizing effect of CO2 and may induce a reduced sensitivity of tree growth to temperature [Barber et al., 2000 and Keller et al., 2000].

[Briffa et al., 1998] could identify a decrease in Northern Hemisphere tree growth after 1940 due to the reduced sensitivity to temperature by comparing the decadal trends in recorded summer temperatures with averaged ring density and ring width from more than 300 locations. The reason of this phenomenon—which seems to have begun in the 1930s—is not known, but its syncronicity in all the investigated areas suggests the involvement of factors with a hemispheric-scale influence.

The hypothesis that warmer temperatures and enhanced atmospheric CO2 have promoted increases in plant growth during summer in the northern high latitudes may no longer be retained without further support, although evidence from satellite data also shows that outside the tropics photosynthetic activity of terrestrial vegetation increased in recent years [Myneni et al., 1997].

New scenarios of vegetation distribution, due both to a positive or negative response from the trees, are offered by studies that reconstruct the expected tree-radial-growth in the situation of CO2 doubling. Recent studies have been carried out in Marseille in order to estimate the growth induced by climatic change scenarios by using an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) [Keller et al., 2000 and Rathgeber et al., 2000]. The climatic perturbation induced by a hypothetical atmospheric CO2 doubling was given by the ARPEGE model of Meteo-France.

[footnotes omitted]

and no one is paying for folk to go out and get new samples

I thought that was exactly what the NSF was doing? There seems to be a bit of a problem with public archiving, but folks are definitely being paid to go out and get new samples.

John McCall:

You seemed to miss my point. I was disagreeing with your comment "MBH was notable for its OMISSION* (or delay) of both previously accepted variability and and at least 3 well accepted climate events that were documented both before and after MBH'98 through the IPCC'01 TAR." specifically the part about 3 well accepted climate events.

I am of the view that the LIA and MWP are fairly local (in Europe) and consist of fairly small changes of temperature. Having read the IPCC 01 TAR I think that they agree with me. I suggest that you read Section 2.3.3.

I recently came across this document:
http://www.rmets.org/pdf/qj74manley.pdf
It is one of the earliest reconstructions that is fairly rigorous. Near the end Manley says: "We need to know more, a matter that became clear at the Aspen Climatological Meeting in 1962, about the onset and progress of what some have been inclined to call, not very satisfactorily, the Little Ice Age ..."

Regards,
John

re: 52 & later reiterated in 62, with "multiproxy" emphasis -- "wider variability"

Not a multiproxy study, from MBH'99 references?
Crowley, T.J., and K.Y. Kim, Comparison of proxy records of climate change and solar forcing, Geophysics Research Letters, 23, 359-362, 1996.
Crowley and Kim estimate that over the millennium, variability of global mean temperature varied no more +- 0.5 deg C/century. C&K's range is already greater than MBH'99 using only century estimate; doesn't it stand to reason that it will be greater than +-.5 oC over a millennium?

Not a multiproxy study, from the IPCC'95 SAR references?
T. M. L. Wigley, P. M. Kelly Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 330, No. 1615, The Earth's Climate and Variability of the Sun Over Recent Millennia: Geophysical, Astronomical and Archaeological Aspect (24-Apr-90), pp. 547-558
Where it seems unlikely, given the smaller regional changes, that global mean temperatures have varied by 1 degree C or more in a century at any time during the last 10.000 years (Wigley and Kelly, 1990); doesn't it stand to reason that it will be greater than 1 oC over 10 millennia?

PUBLISHING EVENT SUMMARY, SHOWS WIDER VARIABILITY AND MWP AND LIA PERIODS (except MBH):

ITEM -3) IPCC'90 Figure 7.1 graphically showed both the MWP, LIA, plus showed greater variability -.8 to .5 oC vs. MBH'99. This in spite of revisionist protests of IPCC'TAR, MBH, RealClimate and Wikipedia (as edited by R-C contributors).

ITEM -2) W&K'90 - conclude variability unlikely to exceed 1 oC (or more)/century, over the last 10 millenniums

ITEM -1) So C&K - conclude variability up to a -.5 oC to +.5 oC/century for the last millennium

ITEM 0) MBH'99 - range is -.4 to .1 oC (or .2 oC and growing) with modern warming.

ITEM +1) von Storch'04 - past variations may have been at least a factor of 2 larger than indicated by MBH'99, then certainly this supports the 1.2 oK range - is greater than of MBH'99

ITEM +2) Moburg'05 - shows nominal NH temp range -.6 to .55 oC for the millennium -- with error bars is even greater.

CONCLUSION - a published record of wider variability, plus clear MWP and LIA periods (peer-reviewed and refereed ITEMSs -3, -2, -1, +1, and +2) both before and after MBH'98, '99 and IPCC'01 TAR, is it not?

re: 62 "The point is recent warming is unprecedented, not that squiggly lines should completely look the same."

Please look at the Moburg plot again -- the present warming is NOT unprecedented (at least in the millennium)! There are many places where MBH'99 and Moberg et al '05 disagree, but even the ardent AGW proponent must acknowledge the Moberg plots have HIGHER TEMPS in the MWP (vs "recent") -- the corresponding blue curves are higher, and the red curve is ~.1 oC higher! Only when you project beyond the Fig 3 graph's ~1992 stop, can you project a higher temp (using even the lower S&C of ~.12 oC/decade, or others even higher at ~.2 oC/decade). NOTE: I know .1 oC is small, may not be significant when compared to error - is probably why Dr. von Storch cautiously uses such phrasing (translated) as "roughly the same" or "approximately equal" temperatures, when comparing the two periods.

At the very least, Moberg'05 erodes the MBH (other) claim of "highest (temp) decade" in the millennium -- the claim is immediately called into question, as von Storch'04 pointed out. And von Storch emphasized this even more strongly in subsequent statements including the "hockey stick rubbish" interview. Remember Dr. von Storch is not a denialist, he is a AGW believer and evidence of AGW generator -- I believe he's published even more in peer-review and refereed climatology papers that anyone at RealClimate! His concerns and claims of "rubbish" plus his important IPCC insider claim over-reliance on MBH (in the IPCC'01 TAR), cannot be passed off lightly.

re: 61 and 62
Aren't you the least bit curious about whether MBH's ~15 limited overlapping proxies are able to capture/correlate to "recent warming" by direct measurement (including satellite), especially when tree rings (among others) came under special ERROR consideration by von Storch'04? These proxies are what are being used as the reference foundation to claim "unprecedented warming!" We know that tree ring growth is affected by temperature, H2O, CO2/plant food concentrations! Other proxies have similar variations/dependencies. Updating and re-calibration of the proxies should be one of the first things we insist on, if only when terms like "unprecedented" are thrown about so freely.

Side notes: One becomes especially suspicious when AGW proponents like Dr. Schneider essentially state that overstatements/lies are okay to move the masses, when the cause is just.

OTOH, Dr. Lindzen (skeptic) is an IPCC insider and outspoken critic of the IPCC'01 TAR conclusions and process. He publishing record is about 2X of Dr. von Storch! The concerns of these IPCC contributors must be considered and addressed, lest we have a repeat in the IPCC FAR! To fold this back to Rep. Barton's request (or intimidation, depending on your view), I repeat that I'm glad this is happening well in advance of 2007!

Correction: "OTOH, Dr. Lindzen (skeptic) is an IPCC insider and ALSO an outspoken critic of the IPCC'01 TAR conclusions (e.g. over-reliance on MBH), plus the process itself (key TAR sections and the summary were NOT reviewed by ALL contributors). Dr. Lindzen's publishing record is about 2X of Dr. von Storch! The concerns of these key IPCC contributors must be considered and addressed, lest we have a repeat in the IPCC FAR! To fold this back to Rep. Barton's request (or intimidation, depending on your view), I repeat that I'm glad this is happening well in advance of 2007!"

=====

Re: 64 Mr. Cross -- Dr Mann WAS THE LEAD AUTHOR of IPCC'01 TAR Section 2 Observed Climate Variability and Change - he is by far, the biggest controller of that section; and by virtue of its relative importance, key to the TAR in general. Specifically to your point, no wonder there's no MWP or LIA in the section you mentioned - nor on the RealClimate blog, where they addressed this issue specifically with a thread.

The good news -- both those omitted climate periods (MWP and LIA) are back now, clearly evident in Von Storch'04 and Moberg'05. Please review and compare the link in my post 60.

John McCall, I am amazed by the way you keep misrepresenting Moberg. Look here. Late 20th century temperatures are much higher than any other temperatures in the graph. Moberg and MBH are actually quite close in the MWP. The difference is that Moberg is significantly cooler during the LIA.

John Mc:

Thanks for your comments. I hesitate to point out to you that it was you who brought up the IPCC. To quote "No global temp range references prior to MBH'98, eh? You must not have checked the IPCC SAR - a bit lengthy, I know?" Now you seem to wish to criticize it?

Again my point is that earlier reconstructions based on some form of (fairly rigorous) statistics do not show the MWP and LIA as the prominent features that we recall they are.

Regards,
John

Re: 68 "misrepresenting Moberg"

Dr. Lambert -

My apologies if this seems elementary, but I must assure we are examining the same plots. So please verify this practical direct examination of the curves, and correct my MS-WIN based procedure as follows, if I'm wrong:
1) PrtScrn capture the Connelley/Wikipedia pdf image of 10 proxies + 1 Instrument (overlayed).
2) Then paste it in MS-Paint.
3) Then View > Zoom > Custom > 200% (or larger) the image and scroll to the right of the image.

You will see that the 1979 end of Moberg'05 PROXY RECONSTRUCTIONS (RED 1-1979), are ~.1 oC less than the PEAK temp values found between 1000-1150.

ERROR: it is the Huang'04 reconstruction (RED-ORANGE 1500-1980), that PEAKS in 1980 near the Moberg'05 PEAK values found between 1000-1150. If you already knew this, my apologies - CRT and flat panel coloration can be misleading, without the zoom. This is a mistake I believe many have made in not studying carefully, the small photos/screen shots of Wikipedia/Connelley - attributing the Huang'04 higher temp end of proxy reconstruction to the slightly lower 1979 end of Moberg'05.

Now once we agree that the Moberg'05 PROXY RECONSTRUCTIONS (RED 1-1979), are less at 1979 than the PEAK values during the MWP period between 1000-1150, you will see why I made my statement in post 66:

"but even the ardent AGW proponent must acknowledge the Moberg plots have HIGHER TEMPS in the MWP (vs "recent")" -- apologies for not being clear about comparing the 1979 proxy reconstruction end of the Moberg'05 plot.

Therefore even in the Wikipedia/Connelley figure you linked, the Moberg'05 PROXY RECONSTRUCTIONS are as I have posted, PEAKING HIGHER in the MWP than at end (1979, or even 1990 with a .1 oC/decade rise)!

re: 68 "misrepresenting Moberg" -- Part II

Back to Moberg & MBH -- it is only when one includes the (black) instrument plot of Hadley Centre data (or even the more conservative S&C instrument data set, as I mentioned in my post 66, para 2) that you see 1990s warming higher than the Moberg MWP peaks.* Moberg's proxy reconstruction range (variability) in Connelley/Wikipedia is .9+ oC, MBH'99 is .6+ oC -- and yes I agree, the difference is mostly down to the LIA side; but the MWP diff is still ~.1 oC!

As I said, Von Storch was careful to use such phrasing (translated) as "roughly the same" or "approximately equal" temperatures, when comparing the two periods. But even Moberg et al used careful language when comparing MWP to recent warming (at least before 1990),

"ACCORDING TO OUR RECONSTRUCTION, HIGH TEMPERATURES--SIMILAR TO THOSE OBSERVED BEFORE 1990--OCCURRED AROUND AD 1000 TO 1100, and minimum temperatures that are about 0.7 K below the average of 1961-90 occurred around ad 1600. This large natural variability in the past suggests an important role of natural multicentennial variability that is likely to continue." (my CAPS emphasis)

Given lowerer/narrower (local) MWP(?), MBH would have to move up the timeline of said 1990 claim first to before 1930, then again around 1970 - and of course the (LIA) that was 0.7 K below the 61-90 average, never happened! So given what I've posted, plus the careful language by Moberg et al around 1990, I submit that I have NOT misrepresented the Moberg'05 study -- at least the proxy reconstruction part of it!

*Have I been an (unauthorized) proxy for Steve McIntyre's request for updated proxies beyond 1980, lately?

And now a question matching your background, Dr. Lambert:

Do you believe MBH made Monte Carlo (random analysis) runs on their FINAL code+data+results generated before MBH'98 and MBH'99 were published? Keep in mind what you would immediately produce, if you were suspected/accused of authoring FINAL released code that "preferentially produces XXX when there are no XXX in the data." I sure know what I would produce, given such an suspicion/accusation!

Correction/substitution to 70, para 1:

"1) PrtScrn capture the Connelley/Wikipedia pdf image of 10 multiproxy-based + 1 Instrument-based reconstruction plots (overlayed)."

John McCall, late 20th century temperatures are shown in the black curve on the graph.

I'm afraid I don't understand you question. As far as I can tell the "hockey stick from random numbers" argument is a red herring.

re: 74 "John McCall, late 20th century temperatures are shown in the black curve on the graph."

I know -- I ack'd as much in post 71, para 1 (re: Hadley Centre instrument data) -- and before that in post 66, para 2 (re: S&C instrument data). But these are NOT multiproxy reconstructions in Moburg'05; black is the instrument data (observed temp's, NOT proxy) reconstruction. As stated and confirmed in my past posts, Moberg's (red) multiproxy reconstruction (ending in 1979) never reaches the MWP peaks (it was Huang'04 that matches the MWP peaks -- a nearly indistinguishably same colored RED-ORANGE plot! Moberg's comments (in CAPS) post 71, para 4 make that clear!

If AGW proponents/skeptics want this all tied into a nice bow - get the proxies updated!