Tree Ring Circus
James
Thursday, July 28, 2005
By Steven Milloy
Is it really possible to determine the change in global temperatures over
the last 1,000 years by examining tree rings?
We may finally learn the answer, thanks to the efforts of Congressman Joe
Barton, R-Texas -- who has had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him
by the global warming lobby in its fierce opposition to his recent inquiry.
On June 23, Rep. Barton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and
Commerce, sent letters to the climate researchers responsible for developing
the notorious "hockey stick" graph, which purports to show a dramatic rise
in global temperatures during the 20th century after a millennium of
supposedly little change in global temperature.
The hockey stick graph has been key weapon in the arsenal of the global
warming alarmists in their efforts to scare the U.S. into signing the Kyoto
Protocol and clamping down on greenhouse gas emissions and energy use.
The graph has been criticized for many reasons, including its reliance on
dubious estimates of historic temperatures based on the size of tree rings.
Not only is temperature merely one factor that contributes to tree growth
(as evidenced by the ring size), but a 15th century portion of the hockey
stick graph is based on tree ring measurements from a single tree.
Noting that "sharing data and research results is a basic tenet of open
scientific inquiry" and that the hockey stick research was paid for with
public funds, Chairman Barton asked Dr. Michael Mann of the University of
Virginia for the computer code used to generate the hockey stick graph. Dr.
Mann had previously refused to provide his computer code to other climate
researchers who had requested it.
Dr. Mann apparently decided that he cannot withhold his data and computer
code any longer from the public and agreed in a letter to post his data and
computer code on the Internet -- but not without squealing about it first.
Before Dr. Mann turned over his data, virtually the entire spectrum of
global warming alarmists attacked Chairman Barton for requesting access to
the data and code.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, long a proponent of
global warming alarmism, chided Chairman Barton in a July 13 letter that Dr.
Mann's hockey stick had already been accepted by the United Nations' global
warming organization and that Congress ought not interfere with that
process.
Although the AAAS apparently believes that the UN should be the final
arbiter on scientific matters, it's not at all clear that political
organizations have any special insight into what constitutes scientific
fact.
Dr. Ralph Ciccerone, the president of the National Academy of Sciences,
wrote in a July 15 letter to Chairman Barton that "a focus on individual
scientists can be intimidating."
But congressional committees send out requests for information from private
parties routinely. Moreover, I doubt that Dr. Mann felt "intimidated." He
has previously testified in person before Congress about global warming
without complaining of any intimidation. It's more likely that Dr. Mann
doesn't want to run the risk of more criticism directed at his hockey stick
graph.
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, the Chairman of the House Science Committee,
melodramatically wrote Chairman Barton claiming that, "The only conceivable
explanation for the investigation is to attempt to intimidate a prominent
scientist and to have Congress put its thumbs on the scales of a scientific
debate. The precedent your investigation sets is truly chilling."
But Chairman Barton merely asked Dr. Mann to provide some information to
Congress, including his computer code - something that Dr. Mann had
previously refused to do when asked by private parties. Chairman Barton isn'
t trying to influence scientific debate. He's trying to make scientific
debate possible -- a good thing in a free society. What's chilling is Dr.
Mann's past stonewalling and utter refusal to permit the public to see how
he concocted the hockey stick -- research that was paid for by the public
and that is being used by global warming advocates to restrict the public's
access to affordable energy.
In his request for information, Barton had also asked Dr. Mann to provide
records of the grants and other sources of funding that had financed his
research, no doubt fueling suspicion about the intentions of Barton's
investigation. But these records would have established that the research
and methodology that Dr. Mann was refusing to share had been publicly
funded.
The Washington Post seized upon this point when it chimed in on the debate
with an editorial likening Chairman Barton's request for information to a
"witch hunt." The Post added that ". to pretend that [Chairman Barton] is
going to learn something useful by requesting data on 15th century tree
rings is ludicrous; to demand decades worth of financial information from
scientists who are not suspected of fraud is outrageous."
Well, a scientist's refusal to provide colleagues with his data and
methodology is suspicious. Chairman Barton's request for publicly funded
scientific data concerning a major public policy issue isn't ludicrous; but
estimating global temperature data based on a single tree certainly is.
The global warmers are trying to demonize Chairman Barton to make him the
bad guy out to harass and intimidate Dr. Mann, now a martyr for global
warming hysteria. But it appears that just the opposite is the case.
For the sake of national energy policy and the global economy, let's all
thank Chairman Barton for his reasonable inquiry into the questionable
hockey stick.
W. D. Allen Sr.
data on 15th century tree rings is ludicrous...."
But Dr. Mann, however, did learn something useful?
Is the quoted statement above typical of the objectivity of journalism
school grads employed at the Washington Post?
end
"James" <king...@iglou.com> wrote in message
news:42eba...@news.iglou.com...
Raymond Arritt
> an Barton ... going to learn something useful by requesting
> data on 15th century tree rings is ludicrous...."
>
> But Dr. Mann, however, did learn something useful?
>
> Is the quoted statement above typical of the objectivity of journalism
> school grads employed at the Washington Post?
Mann has sufficient training and experience to make use of such data.
Please tell us the extent of Barton's coursework and professional
experience in statistics, dendrochronology and exploratory data analysis.
James
"Raymond Arritt" <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:y8PGe.225157$nG6.191452@attbi_s22...
So you think he wants it for his own personal use? ROTFLMAO
Joshua Halpern
Actually Hughes is the one who has the professional experience in
dendrochronology.
Coby Beck
> Thursday, July 28, 2005
> By Steven Milloy
> Is it really possible to determine the change in global temperatures over
> the last 1,000 years by examining tree rings?
>
> We may finally learn the answer, thanks to the efforts of Congressman Joe
> Barton, R-Texas -- who has had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at
> him by the global warming lobby in its fierce opposition to his recent
> inquiry.
A strange characterization of a handful of mildly written letters and
undelayed compliance with his requests. Also rather a stretch to hope that
Congressman Barton will contribute anything substantive to this field of
science.
> On June 23, Rep. Barton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and
> Commerce, sent letters to the climate researchers responsible for
> developing the notorious "hockey stick" graph, which purports to show a
> dramatic rise in global temperatures during the 20th century after a
> millennium of supposedly little change in global temperature.
>
> The hockey stick graph has been key weapon in the arsenal of the global
> warming alarmists in their efforts to scare the U.S. into signing the
> Kyoto Protocol and clamping down on greenhouse gas emissions and energy
> use.
>
> The graph has been criticized for many reasons, including its reliance
> on dubious estimates of historic temperatures based on the size of tree
> rings. Not only is temperature merely one factor that contributes to tree
> growth (as evidenced by the ring size), but a 15th century portion of
> the hockey stick graph is based on tree ring measurements from a single
> tree.
Typical slimy journalism: "has been criticized". No disclosure of where the
criticism has come from. Reminds me of the OutFoxed video highlighting of
the "Some people say" technique of reporting what ever personal opinion you
wish to emphasize. "Some people say" the moon is made of green cheese too.
> Noting that "sharing data and research results is a basic tenet of open
> scientific inquiry" and that the hockey stick research was paid for with
> public funds, Chairman Barton asked Dr. Michael Mann of the University of
> Virginia for the computer code used to generate the hockey stick graph.
> Dr. Mann had previously refused to provide his computer code to other
> climate researchers who had requested it.
Why does this author not mention the other extremely invasive and
unwarranted requests about financial disclosures and material spanning the
entire careers of these researchers? This was by far the most important
reason for the small outcry there was.
> Dr. Mann apparently decided that he cannot withhold his data and computer
> code any longer from the public and agreed in a letter to post his data
> and
> computer code on the Internet -- but not without squealing about it first.
> Before Dr. Mann turned over his data, virtually the entire spectrum of
> global warming alarmists attacked Chairman Barton for requesting access to
> the data and code.
The handful of responses can be read here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=172 and it is easy to see the
objection is the form and tone of the request and the extraneous iformation
that put peoples hackles up. Also the request is entirely one-sided. If it
were truly an attempt to assess the Hockey Stick controversy, similar
material should have been requested from M&M, the referenced critics.
> The American Association for the Advancement of Science, long a
> proponent of global warming alarmism, chided Chairman Barton in
> a July 13 letter that Dr. Mann's hockey stick had already been
> accepted by the United Nations' global warming organization and
> that Congress ought not interfere with that process.
Actually what the letter said was:
"There were more than 100 authors of Chapter 2 in the IPCC's 2001
"Scientific Basis" report, where the Mann et al. work was cited, and two
extensive rounds of review by scientific experts and government
representatives were conducted after those authors agreed on their initial
draft. It should be added that the Mann et al. work was far from the only
basis for the conclusion that Northern Hemisphere temperatures in the last
part of the 20th century were likely the warmest in 1000 years; a variety of
independent lines of evidence, summarized in a number of peer-reviewed
publications, were cited in support of this conclusion."
and this:
"We very much appreciate the Committee’s interest in this important field.
Your letters, however, in their request for highly detailed information
regarding not only the scientists’ recent studies but also their life's
work, give the impression of a search for some basis on which to discredit
these particular scientists and findings, rather than a search for
understanding. With all respect, we question whether this approach is good
for the processes by which scientific findings on topics relevant to public
policy are generated and used."
> Although the AAAS apparently believes that the UN should be the final
> arbiter on scientific matters, it's not at all clear that political
> organizations have any special insight into what constitutes scientific
> fact.
Indeed. So is the House of Representatives not a political organization?
Is Barton's House Energy and Commerce Committee not a political
organization? This is a remarkably shallow and transparently flawed point
as a defense of Barton's letters.
> Dr. Ralph Ciccerone, the president of the National Academy of Sciences,
> wrote in a July 15 letter to Chairman Barton that "a focus on individual
> scientists can be intimidating."
>
> But congressional committees send out requests for information from
> private
> parties routinely. Moreover, I doubt that Dr. Mann felt "intimidated." He
> has previously testified in person before Congress about global warming
> without complaining of any intimidation. It's more likely that Dr. Mann
> doesn't want to run the risk of more criticism directed at his hockey
> stick graph.
>
> Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, the Chairman of the House Science Committee,
> melodramatically wrote Chairman Barton claiming that, "The only
> conceivable explanation for the investigation is to attempt to
> intimidate a prominent scientist and to have Congress put its thumbs
> on the scales of a scientific debate. The precedent your
> investigation sets is truly chilling."
>
> But Chairman Barton merely asked Dr. Mann to provide some information to
> Congress, including his computer code - something that Dr. Mann had
> previously refused to do when asked by private parties.
A contemptible effort at feigned innocence here, "merely asked Dr Mann to
provide some information". Here are the requests Barton made:
1. Your curriculum vitae, including, but not limited to,
a list of all studies relating to climate change research
for which you were an author or co-author and the source
of funding for those studies.
2. List all financial support you have received related to
your research, including, but not limited to, all private,
state, and federal assistance, grants, contracts (including
subgrants or subcontracts), or other financial awards or
honoraria.
3. Regarding all such work involving federal grants or funding
support under which you were a recipient of funding or principal
investigator, provide all agreements relating to those underlying
grants or funding, including, but not limited to, any provisions,
adjustments, or exceptions made in the agreements relating to the
dissemination and sharing of research results.
4. Provide the location of all data archives relating to each
published study for which you were an author or co-author
and indicate:
(a) whether this information contains all the specific data
you used and calculations your performed, including such
supporting documentation as computer source code, validation
information, and other ancillary information, necessary
for full evaluation and application of the data, particularly
for another party to replicate your research results;
(b) when this information was available to researchers;
(c) where and when you first identified the location of this
information;
(d) what modifications, if any, you have made to this
information since publication of the respective study; and
(e) if necessary information is not fully available, provide a
detailed narrative description of the steps somebody must
take to acquire the necessary information to replicate your
study results or assess the quality of the proxy data you
used.
5. According to The Wall Street Journal, you have declined to release
the exact computer code you used to generate your results.
(a) Is this correct?
(b) What policy on sharing research and methods do you follow?
(c) What is the source of that policy?
(d) Provide this exact computer code used to generate your results.
6. Regarding study data and related information that is not publicly
archived, what requests have you or your co-authors received for
data relating to the climate change studies, what was your response,
and why?
7. The authors McIntyre and McKitrick (Energy & Environment, Vol. 16,
No. 1, 2005) report a number of errors and omissions in Mann et. al.,
1998. Provide a detailed narrative explanation of these alleged
errors and how these may affect the underlying conclusions of the
work, including, but not limited to answers to the following
questions:
a. Did you run calculations without the bristlecone pine series
referenced in the article and, if so, what was the result?
b. Did you or your co-authors calculate temperature
reconstructions using the referenced “archived Gaspe tree ring
data,” and what were the results?
c. Did you calculate the R2 statistic for the temperature
reconstruction, particularly for the 15th Century proxy record
calculations and what were the results?
d. What validation statistics did you calculate for the
reconstruction prior to 1820, and what were the results?
e. How did you choose particular proxies and proxy series?
8. Explain in detail your work for and on behalf of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, including, but not limited to:
(a) your role in the Third Assessment Report;
(b) the process for review of studies and other information,
including the dates of key meetings, upon which you worked
during the TAR writing and review process;
(c) the steps taken by you, reviewers, and lead authors to ensure
the data underlying the studies forming the basis for key
findings of the report were sound and accurate;
(d) requests you received for revisions to your written contribution; and
(e) the identity of the people who wrote and reviewed the historical
temperature-record portions of the report, particularly Section
2.3, “Is the Recent Warming Unusual?”
What was that again? "Chairman Barton merely asked Dr. Mann to provide some
information"? Yeah, what's the big deal, he just wants to learn a little
about dendrochronology.
> Chairman Barton isn'
> t trying to influence scientific debate. He's trying to make scientific
> debate possible -- a good thing in a free society. What's chilling is Dr.
> Mann's past stonewalling and utter refusal to permit the public to see how
> he concocted the hockey stick -- research that was paid for by the public
> and that is being used by global warming advocates to restrict the
> public's access to affordable energy.
>
> In his request for information, Barton had also asked Dr. Mann to provide
> records of the grants and other sources of funding that had financed his
> research, no doubt fueling suspicion about the intentions of Barton's
> investigation. But these records would have established that the research
> and methodology that Dr. Mann was refusing to share had been publicly
> funded.
So why was it for
"all financial support you have received related to
your research, including, but not limited to, all private,
state, and federal assistance, grants, contracts (including
subgrants or subcontracts), or other financial awards or
honoraria."
rather than just about funding for MBH98? The request was similarily for
"all data archives relating to each published study for which
you were an author or co-author"
again far beyond MBH98.
> The Washington Post seized upon this point when it chimed in on the debate
> with an editorial likening Chairman Barton's request for information to a
> "witch hunt." The Post added that ". to pretend that [Chairman Barton] is
> going to learn something useful by requesting data on 15th century tree
> rings is ludicrous; to demand decades worth of financial information from
> scientists who are not suspected of fraud is outrageous."
>
> Well, a scientist's refusal to provide colleagues with his data and
> methodology is suspicious.
Yes it would be. But this never happened. Nothing was unavailable with the
exception of the exact code used, which is normal. The algorithm, methods
and data were *all* publically available for some time before this "request"
from Barton. And it is a stretch to call M&M "colleagues".
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Acolleague
> Chairman Barton's request for publicly funded
> scientific data concerning a major public policy issue isn't ludicrous;
It is ludicrous to request that which is publically available to anyone with
a web browser or ftp program.
> estimating global temperature data based on a single tree certainly is.
This is not even remotely descriptive of MBH98.
> The global warmers are trying to demonize Chairman Barton to make him the
> bad guy out to harass and intimidate Dr. Mann, now a martyr for global
> warming hysteria. But it appears that just the opposite is the case.
>
> For the sake of national energy policy and the global economy, let's all
> thank Chairman Barton for his reasonable inquiry into the questionable
> hockey stick.
Once again, the Hockey Stick is 7 years old and there are numerous other
studies with a variety of methodologies and variety of datasets that
corroborate the conclusions of MBH98.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
The obsession about MBH98 is approaching comical.
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ bigpond . com")
Coby Beck
The proper way to investigate a scientific issue like this would be to
request a report from the NAS or some similar entity. One must assume if he
requests this info on behalf of his committee it is for his committee's use.
If it was his sole intent to get it to pass it on to undisclosed persons I
think this is more questionable behaviour. There are no scientists on his
committee, so why is he asking for this?
See this for good reasons this action is inappropriate.
http://www.realclimate.org/Boehlert_letter_to_Barton.pdf
Ian St. John
> Tree Ring Circus
> Thursday, July 28, 2005
> By Steven Milloy
> Is it really possible to determine the change in global temperatures
> over the last 1,000 years by examining tree rings?
Yes. It is called the science of dendrochronological climate reconstruction.
And it has confirmation is sea sediments, borehole temperatures, and ice
core sampling.
James
"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote in message
news:vFPGe.149133$HI.74799@edtnps84...
>
> "James" <king...@iglou.com> wrote in message
> news:42ebc30f$1...@news.iglou.com...
> >
> > "Raymond Arritt" <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:y8PGe.225157$nG6.191452@attbi_s22...
> >> W. D. Allen Sr. wrote:
> >> > an Barton ... going to learn something useful by requesting
> >> > data on 15th century tree rings is ludicrous...."
> >> >
> >> > But Dr. Mann, however, did learn something useful?
> >> >
> >> > Is the quoted statement above typical of the objectivity of
journalism
> >> > school grads employed at the Washington Post?
> >>
> >> Mann has sufficient training and experience to make use of such data.
> >> Please tell us the extent of Barton's coursework and professional
> >> experience in statistics, dendrochronology and exploratory data
analysis.
> >
> > So you think he wants it for his own personal use? ROTFLMAO
>
> The proper way to investigate a scientific issue like this would be to
> request a report from the NAS or some similar entity. One must assume if
he
> requests this info on behalf of his committee it is for his committee's
use.
> If it was his sole intent to get it to pass it on to undisclosed persons I
> think this is more questionable behaviour. There are no scientists on his
> committee, so why is he asking for this?
>
has been under a microscope with no complete data and it's finally time to
look at the stuff with an unbiased eye whether the stuff is looked at by by
undisclosed people or not as long as they are reputable people that know the
stuff. Why in hell would anyone care if it is what he says it is? Mann
should be questioned as well. There are bound to be some.
James
Barton's reasonable request
TODAY'S EDITORIAL
July 28, 2005
When talking science, especially global-warming science, civility is a word
rarely used these days. Take, for instance, what happened to House Energy
and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton recently. In June, Mr. Barton
requested research information from the authors of a controversial
global-warming study, because "this dispute surrounding your studies bears
directly on important questions about the federally funded work upon which
climate studies rely."
Sounds reasonable, but to House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood
Boehlert, this constituted "intimidation" of the scientific community. The
New York Republican responded to Mr. Barton's inquiry with another letter,
saying that it was a "misguided and illegitimate investigation." The
Washington Post and columnist David Ignatius quickly followed. "This is a
bizarre episode that deserves much wider condemnation from congressional
leaders," The Post editorialized. Nonsense.
Using historical climate data and computer models, the study claims that
for the past thousand years the earth had experienced relative little change
in temperature until the 20th century, when temperatures suddenly spiked --
a phenomenon called the "hockey stick." It was principally authored by
Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, who was a co-author of the U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2001 report. It isn't surprising,
then, that that report claimed the 1990s was the warmest decade in a
thousand years, citing Mr. Mann's research.
The problem is that the study is an outlier -- it dramatically overturns
the accepted view of paleoclimatologists, who generally believe that the
planet has experienced many warming and cooling trends in the past 1,000
years. Some scientists think that the 14th century, which came at the
beginning of the Little Ice Age, was warmer than the 20th century. Other
critics have found flaws in the study's use of certain data sets and
methodology. But since the study fits perfectly with the argument of
global-warming supporters, they don't want to see it robustly debated.
As chairman, Mr. Barton is responsible for making absolutely sure that
the science used to justify legislation is thoroughly vetted. Any changes to
the energy policy of the country to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions would
cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American jobs. President Bush
wasn't exaggerating when he said that the Kyoto Protocol would derail the
U.S. economy. So, instead of angry condemnations, how about a little more
civility?
Coby Beck
>> The proper way to investigate a scientific issue like this would be to
>> request a report from the NAS or some similar entity. One must assume if
>> he requests this info on behalf of his committee it is for his
>> committee's
>> use. If it was his sole intent to get it to pass it on to undisclosed
>> persons I think this is more questionable behaviour. There are no
>> scientists on his committee, so why is he asking for this?
>
> He is asking for it to make sure this is accurate or not.
And he is as qualified to judge this as you are. I think the point sailed
right over your head.
Coby Beck
>
> Barton's reasonable request
> TODAY'S EDITORIAL
> July 28, 2005
>
>
>
> When talking science, especially global-warming science, civility is a
> word
> rarely used these days. Take, for instance, what happened to House Energy
> and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton recently. In June, Mr. Barton
> requested research information from the authors of a controversial
> global-warming study, because "this dispute surrounding your studies bears
> directly on important questions about the federally funded work upon which
> climate studies rely."
> Sounds reasonable,
Sounds reasonable except this is by no means all that was requested. So
this article starts out with a straw man, and the next paragraphs
predictably tear it down.
> Using historical climate data and computer models, the study claims
> that
> for the past thousand years the earth had experienced relative little
> change
> in temperature until the 20th century, when temperatures suddenly
> spiked --
> a phenomenon called the "hockey stick." It was principally authored by
> Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, who was a co-author of the
> U.N.
> Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2001 report. It isn't
> surprising,
> then, that that report claimed the 1990s was the warmest decade in a
> thousand years, citing Mr. Mann's research.
> The problem is that the study is an outlier -- it dramatically
> overturns
> the accepted view of paleoclimatologists, who generally believe that the
> planet has experienced many warming and cooling trends in the past 1,000
> years.
This may well have been the case a decade ago, maybe when the study came
out, I don't know, but as this article was written a few days ago it is a
blatant untruth. The study fits right in with numerous other
reconstructions based on different methods and different data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
> Some scientists think that the 14th century, which came at the
> beginning of the Little Ice Age, was warmer than the 20th century.
How about some substantiation of this statement?
> So, instead of angry condemnations, how about a little more
> civility?
How about a little more intelligence?
James
Yes, he is. He wants all the data upon which to determine. He will make a
decision based on feedback he gets from those that are qualified that are
not part of the obstinate crowd that insist no more data is necessary other
than what they have been given.
It's pretty obvious that you, as well as many others here, are sticking to
the original conclusions that have not been given a decent Q & A. It's your
way or none at all. Why haven't we heard yet that Barton is an oil man that
takes campaign money from evil oil companies. Any other time we would have
heard about it ad nauseum.
Apparently, the science can only be questioned by those that agree with the
minority conclusion but the science isn't settled and never has been, though
that has been preached for years. You want the NAS to pass judgement, when
they are on record as supporting it. I'm tempted to say you just don't get
it but I think you do very well and want to keep wagging the same advocates
with false indignity.
Coby Beck
> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote in message
> news:xeYGe.165236$9A2.6899@edtnps89...
>> "James" <king...@iglou.com> wrote in message
>> news:42ec1fd4$1...@news.iglou.com...
>> > "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote in message
>> > news:vFPGe.149133$HI.74799@edtnps84...
>>
>> >> scientists on his committee, so why is he asking for this?
>> >
>> > He is asking for it to make sure this is accurate or not.
>>
>> And he is as qualified to judge this as you are. I think the point
>> sailed
>> right over your head.
>
> Yes, he is.
So what's this? A Ronald Reagan "mediocre people deserve a chance too"
argument? I guess for you any opinion is as valid as the next? This data,
methodology and study are very technical and the plain fact of the matter is
that few people can truly judge MBH98 on its scientific merits alone. That
is why you ask a scientific body for their analysis and don't ask for the
data to be sent to you (an action which by itself demonstrates incompetence
considering it is frely available).
> He wants all the data upon which to determine. He will make a
> decision based on feedback he gets from those that are qualified that are
> not part of the obstinate crowd that insist no more data is necessary
> other
> than what they have been given.
Hint: if you can't find a single scientific organization that disagrees with
a scientific conclusion and you do not have any new and contradictory
finding you should accept the conclusion and move on.
> It's pretty obvious that you, as well as many others here, are sticking to
> the original conclusions that have not been given a decent Q & A.
Actually, the original conclusions can be ignored if your concerns are
sincere. Look instead to other reconstructions for their conclusions.
(Hint: they are largely the same: late 20th temperatures are likely the
highest in 2000yrs and the 20th warming trend is anamolous when compared to
the last 2000 years of temperature flucuations)
> It's your
> way or none at all. Why haven't we heard yet that Barton is an oil man
> that
> takes campaign money from evil oil companies. Any other time we would have
> heard about it ad nauseum.
What's your point here? Barton's actions speak for themselves?
> Apparently, the science can only be questioned by those that agree with
> the
> minority conclusion but the science isn't settled and never has been,
> though
> that has been preached for years.
No, the science can be questioned and study by anyone. But in terms of
people or organizations acting in governmental capacity, the science should
only be questioned by scientific bodies. The House Energy Committee is not
a scientific body and thus not qualified to interpret the information they
are requesting. It is thus highly suspect that they make this gesture.
> You want the NAS to pass judgement, when
> they are on record as supporting it.
I am not aware of any NAS examination of MBH98.
James
LOL This is precious. And obvious of being scared of flaws being discovered.
Being so bloody science minded, you should be welcoming examination into
such an important science thing rather than protesting it. Isn't that what
science is all about? Always examining the science? The fact that you don't
like the methodology is irrelevant.
Roger Coppock
Barton, R-Texas has an unbiased eye! This
takes the prize for the stupidist post of the month.
Jonathan Kirwan
wrote:
>James actually thinks that Congressman Joe
>Barton, R-Texas has an unbiased eye! This
>takes the prize for the stupidist post of the month.
Barton is a politician and it is consistent and rational to consider
his requests to be pursuing a political agenda. Those suspecting a
politician of being political doesn't amount to an accusation that
should be taken with any shock or mental agitation, for gosh sake!
James almost seems disturbed that anyone might dare suggest
Barton-the-politician might actually be acting politically.
It's possible that he is seriously trying to understand things, but
his requests don't support that belief.
By the way, the response letters were quite clear, surprisingly so in
some cases. For example, with Mann's reply, where it was possible to
provide a reasoned response, he did. And where it was important to
retain rights, he did so while at the same time providing the
information requested as a matter of volunteering it, but written
clearly so it wasn't to be taken as a matter of being forced to do so.
The other responses were generally excellent and spoke in general
concert. Yet, also each as individual and human and varied as one
might expect from people speaking for themselves.
If Barton and his office were serious about trying to understand the
science, then that fact would be demonstrated by their approach. So
far, they done everything they possibly could to confirm the opposite
-- it wasn't a respectful inquiry about the science itself at all and
wasn't looking for a comprehensive viewpoint. And the fact that it
garnered a response from the AAAS expressing "deep concern" about the
apparent attempt to "discredit these particular scientists and
findings" supports the point that Barton's request carries a political
message and no real desire to examine the facts.
But Barton's narrow focus on just a few scientists and Barton's
failure to recognize that their work is only one small part among a
very large body of work -- albeit one chart of theirs is one of the
more highly popularized parts of it -- shows that Barton is focusing
on tarnishing exactly those messages that are somehow reaching the
public and not at all exhibiting a serious desire to understand the
comprehensive body of climate science. If he were serious about it,
he wouldn't focus so much attention here.
It's all about the message reaching the public, for Barton, and not
about gaining a comprehensive view. But such concerns are the meat
and potatoes for politicians, so it's not like this is new behavior.
Jon
Coby Beck
>> No, the science can be questioned and study by anyone. But in terms of
>> people or organizations acting in governmental capacity, the science
>> should only be questioned by scientific bodies. The House Energy
>> Committee is not a scientific body and thus not qualified to interpret
>> the information they are requesting. It is thus highly suspect that
>> they make this gesture.
>>
>> > You want the NAS to pass judgement, when
>> > they are on record as supporting it.
>>
>> I am not aware of any NAS examination of MBH98.
>>
>
> LOL This is precious. And obvious of being scared of flaws being
> discovered.
> Being so bloody science minded, you should be welcoming examination into
> such an important science thing rather than protesting it. Isn't that what
> science is all about? Always examining the science? The fact that you
> don't
> like the methodology is irrelevant.
This reply is competely non seqitur and more than a little non-sensical.
Steve Schulin
Jonathan Kirwan <jki...@easystreet.com> wrote, in part:
> ... the response letters were quite clear, surprisingly so in
> some cases. For example, with Mann's reply, where it was possible to
> provide a reasoned response, he did. ...
Mann's reply didn't seem so laudible to me. The claim that Zorita et al.
was a replication of MBH seems to me to require a quite peculiar
definition of replication. And I was disappointed that Mann didn't
actually say yes or no to the question about whether r2 had been
calculated. It turns out, from the old code he released in another venue
this month, that the answer is, yes, MBH did calculate r2. Had MBH98
paper actually reported r2, perhaps the peer reviewers would have asked
a question or two more. I'm grateful that aspects of MBH methodology
continue to be made publicly available. That the IPCC embraced the Mann
et al. hockey stick is a big deal. I'm grateful that Rep. Barton asked
many of the questions he did, and am looking forward to follow-up.
Very truly,
Steve Schulin
http://www.nuclear.com
James
"Roger Coppock" <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote in message
news:1122838992.5...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> James actually thinks that Congressman Joe
> Barton, R-Texas has an unbiased eye! This
> takes the prize for the stupidist post of the month.
>
I believe he is looking to see what is unbiased and what is not regardless
of his position.
Raymond Arritt
> That the IPCC embraced the Mann et al. hockey stick is a big deal.
Not really. It's just one of many studies that come to essentially the
same conclusion.
Steve Schulin
Raymond Arritt <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
The MBH graph selected by IPCC to highlight in Fig. 1 of the policymaker
summary had at least two features which I don't recall as being included
in any other construction of NH temperature at the time: MBH spliced the
older construction with modern records, and MBH included an estimate of
uncertainty. Would any of the many studies you have in mind have had the
same visual impact as IPCC's choice?
The summary for policymakers was leaked to public almost 9 months before
the full WG1 report, with its explicit discussion of data which tends to
conflict with the hockey stick. When the full WG1 report was released, a
blowup of the Mann et al. hockey stick, complete with the two features I
mentioned, was quite prominent in the background of photos of folks at
the speakers' table and at the microphone.
The climate science community, and the IPCC, had so little interest in
what MBH actually did that, until non-climate-scientist Steve McIntyre
tried to replicate the research, nobody apparently knew that the Nature
article listed some datasets that weren't included and failed to list
others that were. Pray tell what solace you get from knowing that
there's other published works which may have received no better review
than MBH98.
Raymond Arritt
> In article <JefHe.207029$x96.60313@attbi_s72>,
> Raymond Arritt <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Steve Schulin wrote:
>> > That the IPCC embraced the Mann et al. hockey stick is a big deal.
>>
>> Not really. It's just one of many studies that come to essentially the
>> same conclusion.
>
> The MBH graph selected by IPCC to highlight in Fig. 1 of the policymaker
> summary had at least two features which I don't recall as being included
> in any other construction of NH temperature at the time: MBH spliced the
> older construction with modern records, and MBH included an estimate of
> uncertainty. Would any of the many studies you have in mind have had the
> same visual impact as IPCC's choice?
Re-read my comment. Since you are attempting to change the subject to
"visual impact", it can be safely presumed that you cede the larger
point; i.e., that late 20th century warming is confirmed in numerous
other studies.
Jonathan Kirwan
<steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>Mann's reply didn't seem so laudible to me.
It was well done.
>The claim that Zorita et al. was a replication of MBH seems to me
>to require a quite peculiar definition of replication.
That's not what he said. Your implication is an example of setting up
a strawman.
Quoting, "The initial description of the work was sufficient to permit
researchers to independently produce the key algorithms." Where here
in his comment does he characterize it as a replication? I took the
comment to mean exactly what Mann said it meant, namely the point that
Barton's question makes a false presumption. Mann wrote, "The key to
replicability is unfettered access to all of the underlying data and
methodologies used by the first researcher. My data and methodological
information, and that of my colleagues, are available to anyone who
wants them." And he cites what you are referring to as an example
demonstrating his point.
>And I was disappointed that Mann didn't
>actually say yes or no to the question about whether r2 had been
>calculated. It turns out, from the old code he released in another venue
>this month, that the answer is, yes, MBH did calculate r2. Had MBH98
>paper actually reported r2, perhaps the peer reviewers would have asked
>a question or two more. I'm grateful that aspects of MBH methodology
>continue to be made publicly available. That the IPCC embraced the Mann
>et al. hockey stick is a big deal. I'm grateful that Rep. Barton asked
>many of the questions he did, and am looking forward to follow-up.
I stand by my points, none of which you did the least damage to in
your reply.
Jon
Jonathan Kirwan
<steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
><snip -- I'm sure you won't mind my snipping as freely as you do>
>Would any of the many studies you have in mind have had the
>same visual impact as IPCC's choice?
><snip>
So you admit Barton's choice is about the visual impact, then, and not
about gaining a comprehensive view, at all. Your admission is noted.
Jon
Steve Schulin
Raymond Arritt <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I respectfully disagree that my comments represent a change of subject.
And I'm puzzled at your apparent notion that the late 20th century
portion of the hockey stick is somehow a larger point than the whole
Mann-made warming schtick.
Steve Schulin
Jonathan Kirwan <jki...@easystreet.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 31 Jul 2005 21:12:00 -0400, Steve Schulin
> <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>
> >Mann's reply didn't seem so laudible to me.
>
> It was well done.
>
> >The claim that Zorita et al. was a replication of MBH seems to me
> >to require a quite peculiar definition of replication.
>
> That's not what he said. Your implication is an example of setting up
> a strawman.
>
> Quoting, "The initial description of the work was sufficient to permit
> researchers to independently produce the key algorithms." Where here
> in his comment does he characterize it as a replication? ...
That's a fair question. And my answer is to look at all the mentions of
words like replicate and replication in Mann's response, including the
paragraph from which you quote, and the later use of plural in Mann's
claim that "other scientists have used the methods we described and the
data we archived to replicate our results".
> ... I took the
> comment to mean exactly what Mann said it meant, namely the point that
> Barton's question makes a false presumption. Mann wrote, "The key to
> replicability is unfettered access to all of the underlying data and
> methodologies used by the first researcher. My data and methodological
> information, and that of my colleagues, are available to anyone who
> wants them." And he cites what you are referring to as an example
> demonstrating his point.
And what did you take the later plural to mean?
> >And I was disappointed that Mann didn't
> >actually say yes or no to the question about whether r2 had been
> >calculated. It turns out, from the old code he released in another venue
> >this month, that the answer is, yes, MBH did calculate r2. Had MBH98
> >paper actually reported r2, perhaps the peer reviewers would have asked
> >a question or two more. I'm grateful that aspects of MBH methodology
> >continue to be made publicly available. That the IPCC embraced the Mann
> >et al. hockey stick is a big deal. I'm grateful that Rep. Barton asked
> >many of the questions he did, and am looking forward to follow-up.
>
> I stand by my points, none of which you did the least damage to in
> your reply.
Didn't you say something about how clear Mann was in answering? He was
asked a quite clear question about R2. Yet his answer in no way hinted
that yes, MBH did calculate r2. Thus, I respectfully disagree with your
overall conclusion about clear answering. Whether you consider your
praise for clear answering to be one of your "points" is entirely up to
you.
Ian St. John
> On Sun, 31 Jul 2005 23:48:19 -0400, Steve Schulin
> <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>
>> <snip -- I'm sure you won't mind my snipping as freely as you do>
>
>> Would any of the many studies you have in mind have had the
>> same visual impact as IPCC's choice?
>
>> <snip>
>
> So you admit Barton's choice is about the visual impact,
Illustrating the facts is about visual impact. That is not a derogatory
claim. You do not print reports with the intent of 'obscuring the facts'
unless you are a fossil fool or political spin master.
> then, and not about gaining a comprehensive view, at all
Illustrating the facts is the process of 'gaining a comprehensive view', so
that is not a derogatory claim. The whole point of a comprehensive view is
to see the forest, not the trees.
> Your admission is noted.
Admitting to making the graph clear and comprehensive is not derogatory.
Why would you think that?
>
> Jon
Eric Swanson
>
>In article <JefHe.207029$x96.60313@attbi_s72>,
> Raymond Arritt <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Steve Schulin wrote:
>> > That the IPCC embraced the Mann et al. hockey stick is a big deal.
>>
>> Not really. It's just one of many studies that come to essentially the
>> same conclusion.
>
>The MBH graph selected by IPCC to highlight in Fig. 1 of the policymaker
>summary had at least two features which I don't recall as being included
>in any other construction of NH temperature at the time: MBH spliced the
>older construction with modern records, and MBH included an estimate of
>uncertainty. Would any of the many studies you have in mind have had the
>same visual impact as IPCC's choice?
I think RA was pointing to the other studies since the TAR. Science isn't
a static thing and the TAR is not the latest effort, as it was a summary.
>The summary for policymakers was leaked to public almost 9 months before
>the full WG1 report, with its explicit discussion of data which tends to
>conflict with the hockey stick. When the full WG1 report was released, a
>blowup of the Mann et al. hockey stick, complete with the two features I
>mentioned, was quite prominent in the background of photos of folks at
>the speakers' table and at the microphone.
Ever heard of "in press"? It takes a long time to produce the final printed
version of anything book which was as nicely done as the TAR. Lots of lovely
color graphics that were printed very well. The Summary for Policy Makers
could have been produced much more quickly as a PDF, thus it appeared much
sooner than the final report. But, since Old Nuke doesn't write for
journal publication, he ignores this aspect of the issue.
>The climate science community, and the IPCC, had so little interest in
>what MBH actually did that, until non-climate-scientist Steve McIntyre
>tried to replicate the research, nobody apparently knew that the Nature
>article listed some datasets that weren't included and failed to list
>others that were. Pray tell what solace you get from knowing that
>there's other published works which may have received no better review
>than MBH98.
Same Old Nuke BS. M & M have been throrughly debunked, as they made some
rather serious errors, yet, Old Nuke still takes their work as Gospel.
I suppose that's what one should expect from an anti-scientific Creationist.
--
Eric Swanson --- E-mail address: e_swanson(at)skybest.com :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Schulin
swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote:
> In article <steve.schulin-A06...@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
> steve....@nuclear.com says...
> > Raymond Arritt <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> Steve Schulin wrote:
> >> > That the IPCC embraced the Mann et al. hockey stick is a big deal.
> >>
> >> Not really. It's just one of many studies that come to essentially the
> >> same conclusion.
> >
> >The MBH graph selected by IPCC to highlight in Fig. 1 of the policymaker
> >summary had at least two features which I don't recall as being included
> >in any other construction of NH temperature at the time: MBH spliced the
> >older construction with modern records, and MBH included an estimate of
> >uncertainty. Would any of the many studies you have in mind have had the
> >same visual impact as IPCC's choice?
>
> I think RA was pointing to the other studies since the TAR. ...
Maybe you're right. But he was replying to comment about IPCC's embrace
of the hockey stick.
> ... Science isn't
> a static thing and the TAR is not the latest effort, as it was a summary.
I agree that science is not settled. The A in TAR stands for assessment
-- and if it had better lived up to its name, perhaps the Mann et al.
hockey stick would not have been so enthusiastically embraced.
> >The summary for policymakers was leaked to public almost 9 months before
> >the full WG1 report, with its explicit discussion of data which tends to
> >conflict with the hockey stick. When the full WG1 report was released, a
> >blowup of the Mann et al. hockey stick, complete with the two features I
> >mentioned, was quite prominent in the background of photos of folks at
> >the speakers' table and at the microphone.
>
> Ever heard of "in press"? It takes a long time to produce the final printed
> version of anything book which was as nicely done as the TAR. Lots of lovely
> color graphics that were printed very well. The Summary for Policy Makers
> could have been produced much more quickly as a PDF, thus it appeared much
> sooner than the final report. But, since Old Nuke doesn't write for
> journal publication, he ignores this aspect of the issue.
LOL - I've previously noted how the IPCC process (finalizing the
policymakers summary and then revising the scientific text) is properly
characterized as the political tail wagging the scientific dog. If you
have any evidence that the revisions to the body of the report were
complete when the policymakers summary was leaked, your ranting might
have more basis in reality.
> >The climate science community, and the IPCC, had so little interest in
> >what MBH actually did that, until non-climate-scientist Steve McIntyre
> >tried to replicate the research, nobody apparently knew that the Nature
> >article listed some datasets that weren't included and failed to list
> >others that were. Pray tell what solace you get from knowing that
> >there's other published works which may have received no better review
> >than MBH98.
>
> Same Old Nuke BS. M & M have been throrughly debunked, as they made some
> rather serious errors, yet, Old Nuke still takes their work as Gospel.
> I suppose that's what one should expect from an anti-scientific Creationist.
M&M have been quite vindicated. And I highly value the scientific
method. Not nearly so much as I value God's Word. That doesn't make me
anti-scientific. But your take on the matter sure makes you sound like
an unreasonable demander -- demanding that others share your apparently
anti-religious assumptions.
Lloyd Parker
> Tree Ring Circus
>Thursday, July 28, 2005
>By Steven Milloy
>Is it really possible to determine the change in global temperatures over
>the last 1,000 years by examining tree rings?
>
>We may finally learn the answer, thanks to the efforts of Congressman Joe
>Barton, R-Texas -- who has had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him
>by the global warming lobby in its fierce opposition to his recent inquiry.
>
"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the scientific community?"
>On June 23, Rep. Barton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and
>Commerce, sent letters to the climate researchers responsible for developing
>the notorious "hockey stick" graph, which purports to show a dramatic rise
>in global temperatures during the 20th century after a millennium of
>supposedly little change in global temperature.
Read what Rep. Boehlert said to him.
>
>The hockey stick graph has been key weapon in the arsenal of the global
>warming alarmists in their efforts to scare the U.S. into signing the Kyoto
>Protocol and clamping down on greenhouse gas emissions and energy use.
>
>The graph has been criticized for many reasons,
Big Oil money.
>including its reliance on
>dubious estimates of historic temperatures based on the size of tree rings.
>Not only is temperature merely one factor that contributes to tree growth
>(as evidenced by the ring size), but a 15th century portion of the hockey
>stick graph is based on tree ring measurements from a single tree.
>
>Noting that "sharing data and research results is a basic tenet of open
>scientific inquiry" and that the hockey stick research was paid for with
>public funds, Chairman Barton asked Dr. Michael Mann of the University of
>Virginia for the computer code used to generate the hockey stick graph. Dr.
>Mann had previously refused to provide his computer code to other climate
>researchers who had requested it.
>
>Dr. Mann apparently decided that he cannot withhold his data and computer
>code any longer from the public and agreed in a letter to post his data and
>computer code on the Internet -- but not without squealing about it first.
>Before Dr. Mann turned over his data, virtually the entire spectrum of
>global warming alarmists attacked Chairman Barton for requesting access to
>the data and code.
>
>The American Association for the Advancement of Science, long a proponent of
>global warming alarmism,
OK, Idiot Alert!
>chided Chairman Barton in a July 13 letter that Dr.
>Mann's hockey stick had already been accepted by the United Nations' global
>warming organization and that Congress ought not interfere with that
>process.
>
>Although the AAAS apparently believes that the UN should be the final
>arbiter on scientific matters, it's not at all clear that political
>organizations have any special insight into what constitutes scientific
>fact.
IPCC is not the UN. Idiot alert raised to level orange.
>
>Dr. Ralph Ciccerone, the president of the National Academy of Sciences,
>wrote in a July 15 letter to Chairman Barton that "a focus on individual
>scientists can be intimidating."
>
>But congressional committees send out requests for information from private
>parties routinely. Moreover, I doubt that Dr. Mann felt "intimidated." He
>has previously testified in person before Congress about global warming
>without complaining of any intimidation. It's more likely that Dr. Mann
>doesn't want to run the risk of more criticism directed at his hockey stick
>graph.
>
>Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, the Chairman of the House Science Committee,
>melodramatically wrote Chairman Barton claiming that, "The only conceivable
>explanation for the investigation is to attempt to intimidate a prominent
>scientist and to have Congress put its thumbs on the scales of a scientific
>debate. The precedent your investigation sets is truly chilling."
Q: when 2 Republicans are on opposite sides of something, how does Fox News
know how to slant its coverage?
>
>But Chairman Barton merely asked Dr. Mann to provide some information to
>Congress, including his computer code - something that Dr. Mann had
>previously refused to do when asked by private parties. Chairman Barton isn'
>t trying to influence scientific debate. H
Yeah, and Exxon isn't trying to drill in ANWR.
>e's trying to make scientific
>debate possible -- a good thing in a free society. What's chilling is Dr.
>Mann's past stonewalling and utter refusal to permit the public to see how
>he concocted the hockey stick -- research that was paid for by the public
>and that is being used by global warming advocates to restrict the public's
>access to affordable energy.
>
>In his request for information, Barton had also asked Dr. Mann to provide
>records of the grants and other sources of funding that had financed his
>research, no doubt fueling suspicion about the intentions of Barton's
>investigation. But these records would have established that the research
>and methodology that Dr. Mann was refusing to share had been publicly
>funded.
>
>The Washington Post seized upon this point when it chimed in on the debate
>with an editorial likening Chairman Barton's request for information to a
>"witch hunt." The Post added that ". to pretend that [Chairman Barton] is
>going to learn something useful by requesting data on 15th century tree
>rings is ludicrous; to demand decades worth of financial information from
>scientists who are not suspected of fraud is outrageous."
>
>Well, a scientist's refusal to provide colleagues with his data and
>methodology is suspicious.
Peer-reviewed scientific journals. Maybe someone can read one to Barton.
>Chairman Barton's request for publicly funded
>scientific data concerning a major public policy issue isn't ludicrous; but
>estimating global temperature data based on a single tree certainly is.
>
>The global warmers are trying to demonize Chairman Barton to make him the
>bad guy out to harass and intimidate Dr. Mann, now a martyr for global
>warming hysteria. But it appears that just the opposite is the case.
Or you're a doofus. Much higher probability.
Lloyd Parker
Lie. Science doesn't work that way. Of course, James has as much experience
with the workings of science as he does with the workings of warp drive.
>and it's finally time to
>look at the stuff with an unbiased eye whether the stuff is looked at by by
>undisclosed people or not as long as they are reputable people that know the
>stuff.
Bush requested and got a report from the NAS. Nuff said for intelligent folk.
Lloyd Parker
>
>"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote in message
>news:SxPGe.149079$HI.132184@edtnps84...
>> "James" <king...@iglou.com> wrote in message
>> news:42eba...@news.iglou.com...
>> > Tree Ring Circus
When talking science, especially global-warming science, civility is a word
Irrelevant, as been pointed out to you dozens of times.
>Some scientists think that the 14th century, which came at the
beginning of the Little Ice Age, was warmer than the 20th century.
James, that's a lie. It's like saying "some scientists think the earth is
6000 years old."
>Other
critics have found flaws in the study's use of certain data sets and
methodology.
Creationists make the same claim about evolution.
>But since the study fits perfectly with the argument of
global-warming supporters, they don't want to see it robustly debated.
James, you are a liar. Present something worth debating. You're a
creationist, pure and simple, and you cannot stand the light of day.
>
As chairman, Mr. Barton is responsible for making absolutely sure that
the science used to justify legislation is thoroughly vetted.
No he isn't. Let him introduce some legislation first, and I doubt it would
go to his committee first.
>Any changes to
the energy policy of the country to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions would
cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American jobs.
James, you are lying.
>President Bush
wasn't exaggerating when he said that the Kyoto Protocol would derail the
U.S. economy. So, instead of angry condemnations, how about a little more
civility?
How about a little more intelligence and a little less regurgitating
right-wing swill?
Eric Swanson
>
> swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote:
>> steve....@nuclear.com says...
>> > Raymond Arritt <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Steve Schulin wrote:
>> >> > That the IPCC embraced the Mann et al. hockey stick is a big deal.
>> >>
>> >> Not really. It's just one of many studies that come to essentially the
>> >> same conclusion.
>> >
>> >The MBH graph selected by IPCC to highlight in Fig. 1 of the policymaker
>> >summary had at least two features which I don't recall as being included
>> >in any other construction of NH temperature at the time: MBH spliced the
>> >older construction with modern records, and MBH included an estimate of
>> >uncertainty. Would any of the many studies you have in mind have had the
>> >same visual impact as IPCC's choice?
>>
>> I think RA was pointing to the other studies since the TAR. ...
>
>Maybe you're right. But he was replying to comment about IPCC's embrace
>of the hockey stick.
>
>> ... Science isn't
>> a static thing and the TAR is not the latest effort, as it was a summary.
>
>I agree that science is not settled. The A in TAR stands for assessment
>-- and if it had better lived up to its name, perhaps the Mann et al.
>hockey stick would not have been so enthusiastically embraced.
Science has always been directed toward increasing knowledge and understanding
of the universe. As such, it is almost never a done deal. The TAR was a
summary report of the state of published climate change science as the date of
the cutoff for consideration. MBH was the best information available at that
time.
>> >The summary for policymakers was leaked to public almost 9 months before
>> >the full WG1 report, with its explicit discussion of data which tends to
>> >conflict with the hockey stick. When the full WG1 report was released, a
>> >blowup of the Mann et al. hockey stick, complete with the two features I
>> >mentioned, was quite prominent in the background of photos of folks at
>> >the speakers' table and at the microphone.
>>
>> Ever heard of "in press"? It takes a long time to produce the final printed
>> version of anything book which was as nicely done as the TAR. Lots of lovely
>> color graphics that were printed very well. The Summary for Policy Makers
>> could have been produced much more quickly as a PDF, thus it appeared much
>> sooner than the final report. But, since Old Nuke doesn't write for
>> journal publication, he ignores this aspect of the issue.
>
>LOL - I've previously noted how the IPCC process (finalizing the
>policymakers summary and then revising the scientific text) is properly
>characterized as the political tail wagging the scientific dog. If you
>have any evidence that the revisions to the body of the report were
>complete when the policymakers summary was leaked, your ranting might
>have more basis in reality.
That depends on what you call "revisions". There are always last minute glitches
to be fixed in the editing process. Was there a wholesale re-write of the
other parts of the TAR after the SPM was released? I really don't know, but as
I recall, the only gripe was that the SPM was revised by higher ups in the IPCC
after the scientific reviewers were finished. I never thought it was a big deal.
>> >The climate science community, and the IPCC, had so little interest in
>> >what MBH actually did that, until non-climate-scientist Steve McIntyre
>> >tried to replicate the research, nobody apparently knew that the Nature
>> >article listed some datasets that weren't included and failed to list
>> >others that were. Pray tell what solace you get from knowing that
>> >there's other published works which may have received no better review
>> >than MBH98.
>>
>> Same Old Nuke BS. M & M have been throrughly debunked, as they made some
>> rather serious errors, yet, Old Nuke still takes their work as Gospel.
>> I suppose that's what one should expect from an anti-scientific Creationist.
>
>M&M have been quite vindicated.
Sorry, they screwed up. They didn't understand that the programming language
they used required radians as input instead of degrees.
>..And I highly value the scientific
>method. Not nearly so much as I value God's Word. That doesn't make me
>anti-scientific. But your take on the matter sure makes you sound like
>an unreasonable demander -- demanding that others share your apparently
>anti-religious assumptions.
Creationists are anti-scientific, as they do not accept the scientific results
regarding the age of the Earth. I've just read most of Robert Gentry's 1986
book about polonium halos, which is full of errors, IMHO. Yet, he concludes that
the science is wrong and goes round and round about what he considers to be
"proof" of instantanious creation. His conclusions have been rather firmly
debunked, AIUI. Do you accept the science that debunks Gentry?
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/>
Lloyd Parker
Coby Beck
news:steve.schulin-A5C...@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
>
> Mann's reply didn't seem so laudible to me. The claim that Zorita et al.
> was a replication of MBH seems to me to require a quite peculiar
> definition of replication.
Zorita's name only comes up twice in the same place in a footnote. The
footnote is referenced here:
"My data and methodological information, and that of my colleagues, are
available to anyone who wants them.[3] As noted above, other scientists have
reproduced our results based on publicly available information."
The "other scientists" here clearly refers to Ammann and Wahl. The part of
footnote 3 that refers to Zorita is:
"The initial description of the work was sufficient to permit researchers to
independently produce the key algorithms. See, e.g., Zorita, E., F.
Gonzalez-Rouco, and S. Legutke, Testing the Mann et al.(1998) approach to
paleoclimate reconstructions in the context of a 1000-yr control simulation
with the ECHO-G Coupled Climate Model, J. Climate, 16, 1378-1390 (2003); Von
Storch, H., E. Zorita, J.M. Jones, Y. Dimitriev, F. Gonzalez-Rouco, F., and
S.F.B. Tett, Reconstructing Past Climate from Noisy Data, Science, 306,
679-682 (2004)."
The key phrase is "independently produce the key algorithms". This does not
seem to me to be a claim of replication. So what is peculiar here, Mann's
claim or your presentation of it?
> And I was disappointed that Mann didn't
> actually say yes or no to the question about whether r2 had been
> calculated.
This is true, but his point was very clearly that r2 is not relevant and
therefore the question is not relevant.
> It turns out, from the old code he released in another venue
> this month, that the answer is, yes, MBH did calculate r2. Had MBH98
> paper actually reported r2, perhaps the peer reviewers would have asked
> a question or two more.
Judging this on its own merits is definately over my head. Reading Mann's
letter it is clear that a good r2 result does not tell you if your
reconstruction has "skill" but it is not clear whether or not a bad r2 is a
reliable indicator of a lack of skill. Perhaps if it is, and if the r2
result were bad, then hiding that fact is a way of claiming more confidence
than warranted.
Is this the case in MBH98?
> I'm grateful that aspects of MBH methodology
> continue to be made publicly available. That the IPCC embraced the Mann
> et al. hockey stick is a big deal. I'm grateful that Rep. Barton asked
> many of the questions he did, and am looking forward to follow-up.
It is still not clear to me why this would be a big deal for anyone trying
to understand GW. Even if this study were flawed and fraudulently so, it
would be a "victimless crime" as the fraudulent conclusion appears to be the
correct conclusion. If this study were flawed, fraud or not, it should be
an issue of concern for the IPCC process and then the investigation should
be focused on that process, not on MBH98, and on verifying all the *other*
studies relied on by the IPCC, not on MBH98.
So I see only the following possibilities as to Barton's motive and method:
1 He wants to understand climate science and is therefore misguided
in focusing on a single study.
2 He wants to understand the IPCC process and is therefore misguided
in focusing on the science.
3 He wants to uncover a fraud and is therefore simply attempting to
score political points and is way outside of his jurisdiction.
4 He hopes to create confusion and noise and thereby hinder any possible
progress on climate change policy.
Taking him at his word, we must believe it is a combination of 1 and 2 above
and he is therefore misguided in focusing on the science and on a single
study and it is inappropriate to be taking this directly to climate
researchers. Examining his letters, it is apparent that his public focus is
3, even if that is not his publicly professed focus. His requests are
without a doubt those of a prosecutor trying to expose criminal behaviour -
all kinds of financial disclosures requested, history going back decades,
insinuations of conflict of interest in his role as lead author etc.
But the bird's eye view of the whole affair leads me to conclude the major
effort is the number 4 possibility. He may well believe there has been some
fraud, that is hard to know, but he probably does not care, the 4 result is
the main goal, if 3 happens that is just gravy.
Any other possibilities I may have missed?
Lloyd Parker
>
>"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote in message
>news:xeYGe.165236$9A2.6899@edtnps89...
>> "James" <king...@iglou.com> wrote in message
>> news:42ec1fd4$1...@news.iglou.com...
>> >
>> > "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote in message
>> > news:vFPGe.149133$HI.74799@edtnps84...
>>
>> >> The proper way to investigate a scientific issue like this would be to
>> >> request a report from the NAS or some similar entity. One must assume
>if
>> >> he requests this info on behalf of his committee it is for his
>> >> committee's
>> >> use. If it was his sole intent to get it to pass it on to undisclosed
>> >> persons I think this is more questionable behaviour. There are no
>> >> scientists on his committee, so why is he asking for this?
>> >
>> > He is asking for it to make sure this is accurate or not.
>>
>> And he is as qualified to judge this as you are. I think the point sailed
>> right over your head.
>
>Yes, he is. He wants all the data upon which to determine. He will make a
>decision based on feedback he gets from those that are qualified that are
>not part of the obstinate crowd that insist no more data is necessary other
>than what they have been given.
So he won't ask the scientists but the lobbyists?
>
>It's pretty obvious that you, as well as many others here, are sticking to
>the original conclusions that have not been given a decent Q & A.
Liar.
> It's your
>way or none at all. Why haven't we heard yet that Barton is an oil man that
>takes campaign money from evil oil companies. Any other time we would have
>heard about it ad nauseum.
>
>Apparently, the science can only be questioned by those that agree with the
>minority conclusion but the science isn't settled and never has been, though
>that has been preached for years.
Goebbels tactic -- repeat a lie often enough and hope people accept it.
>You want the NAS to pass judgement, when
>they are on record as supporting it.
I bet they're on record accepting evolution too. And atoms.
>I'm tempted to say you just don't get
>it but I think you do very well and want to keep wagging the same advocates
>with false indignity.
>
I'm tempted to say you have no business debating science when you're unarmed.
>
>
>
Coby Beck
I think he means the point that late 20th century warming is unprecedented
in the last 2000 years and it is warmer now than at any time in the last
2000 years. Do you disagree that this is the larger point? Do you disagree
that this is true?
Coby Beck
> M&M have been quite vindicated.
What makes you say they have been vindicated? (As opposed to right all
along...)
Steve Schulin
swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote, in part:
> ... The TAR was a
> summary report of the state of published climate change science as the date
> of the cutoff for consideration. MBH was the best information available at
> that time.
MBH was unreplicable as published. How can you possibly contend that it
has ever been the best information available? I hope everybody
interested in climate policy understands that the IPCC process was not
scientifically up to the task of adequately assessing MBH in the Third
Assessment Report.
> ... Was there a wholesale re-write of the other parts of the TAR
> after the SPM was released? I really don't know, but as I recall,
> the only gripe was that the SPM was revised by higher ups in the
> IPCC after the scientific reviewers were finished.
> I never thought it was a big deal.
After the SAR controversy, immortalized by such as the editorial board
at Nature, IPCC developed a number of corrective actions. One of these
was that all changes made late in the process (I don't recall the
trigger, but I'm sure it covered at least changes made after the
policymaker summary was adopted by the national representatives at
plenary) would be documented. Alas, the IPCC didn't specify that the
documentation would ever see the light of day.
> >> >The climate science community, and the IPCC, had so little interest in
> >> >what MBH actually did that, until non-climate-scientist Steve McIntyre
> >> >tried to replicate the research, nobody apparently knew that the Nature
> >> >article listed some datasets that weren't included and failed to list
> >> >others that were. Pray tell what solace you get from knowing that
> >> >there's other published works which may have received no better review
> >> >than MBH98.
> >>
> >> Same Old Nuke BS. M & M have been throrughly debunked, as they made some
> >> rather serious errors, yet, Old Nuke still takes their work as Gospel.
> >> I suppose that's what one should expect from an anti-scientific
> >> Creationist.
> >
> >M&M have been quite vindicated.
>
> Sorry, they screwed up. They didn't understand that the programming language
> they used required radians as input instead of degrees.
There was a McKitrick and Michaels paper which included such an error.
McKitrick's prompt attention to the error, and the recalculations
published as part of the journal erratum, was a stark contrast to Mann
et al's reaction to apparent errors identified in their paper. It was
McKitrick and Michaels' disclosure of their methods which allowed the
error to be discovered, BTW. In fact, Tim Lambert found the apparent
error before he obtained a copy of the paper.
> ... Creationists are anti-scientific, as they do not accept the
> scientific results regarding the age of the Earth. ...
LOL - the data can be interpreted in different ways. You appear to
demand that everybody share your assumption that radioactive decay rates
have been constant or close to constant. That seems an unreasonable
demand to me. A much better indicator of anti-scientific perspective is
whether folks think that science needs to be replicable.
> ... I've just read
> most of Robert Gentry's 1986 book about polonium halos, which is full
> of errors, IMHO. Yet, he concludes that the science is wrong
> and goes round and round about what he considers to be
> "proof" of instantanious creation. His conclusions have been rather firmly
> debunked, AIUI. Do you accept the science that debunks Gentry?
>
> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/>
It's been many years since I've read much about the implications of the
evidence of radioactive decay within primordial rock. I recall that
Gentry had a lot of his research published in mainstream peer review
science journals. I'm sure the essays by talk.origins aficianados are
interesting, but could you recommend something in the peer review that
criticizes any of his papers which were published in Science or Nature?
ponced...@yahoo.com
The untold story of the Global Warming Fiasco:
"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
"It is likely that the rate and duration of the warming of the 20th
century is larger than any other time during the last 1,000 years"."
continues===>
http://www.geocities.com/poncedeleon_1/ClimateChange/Rsquared.htm
Not mentioned in the link, is that the House Science committee has been
caught flat footed on this, so their response is to attack Joe Barton!
Eric Swanson
>
>In article <dclmns$7e6$1...@news3.infoave.net>,
> swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote, in part:
>
>> ... The TAR was a
>> summary report of the state of published climate change science as the date
>> of the cutoff for consideration. MBH was the best information available at
>> that time.
>
>MBH was unreplicable as published. How can you possibly contend that it
>has ever been the best information available? I hope everybody
>interested in climate policy understands that the IPCC process was not
>scientifically up to the task of adequately assessing MBH in the Third
>Assessment Report.
Where is there a requirement that all scientific studies be replicated?
At the time, as I recall, thee were no other such studies which extended
as far back in time as MBH. Of course, now there are several others.
Nuke, have you considered that by repeating a complicated analysis step-
by-step might mean that one simply repeats any errors which may be included?
That's why other efforts have used different approaches and different proxy
data sets. There appears to be overall agreement among these different
analytical efforts.
[cut]
>> ... Creationists are anti-scientific, as they do not accept the
>> scientific results regarding the age of the Earth. ...
>
>LOL - the data can be interpreted in different ways. You appear to
>demand that everybody share your assumption that radioactive decay rates
>have been constant or close to constant. That seems an unreasonable
>demand to me. A much better indicator of anti-scientific perspective is
>whether folks think that science needs to be replicable.
While it's not my field, I suspect that only the creationist would suggest that
radioactive decay, which is central to radiometric dating, has varied so much
that 4.55 billion years of radioactive time can be compressed into less than
10,000 "orbital years". Here's further discussion:
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html>
>> ... I've just read
>> most of Robert Gentry's 1986 book about polonium halos, which is full
>> of errors, IMHO. Yet, he concludes that the science is wrong
>> and goes round and round about what he considers to be
>> "proof" of instantanious creation. His conclusions have been rather firmly
>> debunked, AIUI. Do you accept the science that debunks Gentry?
>>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/>
>
>It's been many years since I've read much about the implications of the
>evidence of radioactive decay within primordial rock. I recall that
>Gentry had a lot of his research published in mainstream peer review
>science journals. I'm sure the essays by talk.origins aficianados are
>interesting, but could you recommend something in the peer review that
>criticizes any of his papers which were published in Science or Nature?
Gentry says that he intentionally toned down the implications of his findings,
by simply presenting the results. When he actually included his creationist
interpretation in his later submissions, they were not accepted. BTW, he
includes several of his papers in the book. He also includes some
correspondence between himself and other researchers. The book ends with a
description of his presentation at a trial about teaching Evolution in Arkansas
schools. He was apparently fixated on the fact that science had not been able
to reproduce granite in the lab, which he had proposed as an ironclad test of
his hypothesis. The mere fact that it was technically impossible to re-create
the conditions which were thought to be necessary to do so was something he
ignored. As I looked at it, Gentry had by then drifted far from the usual
scientific debate realm, having become a "believer" instead of a scientist.
As for your call for published peer reviewed rebuttal, I suggest that the
rejection of his later work accomplished the same thing. After that, Gentry
went into the public arena and presented his case outside the scientific
publication process. Of course, you blow off the link which I presented, as
if the comments presented have no merit just because they aren't in a peer
reviewed setting. However, the comments include references to peer reviewed
reports, as support. As usual, Old Nuke ignores scientific discourse, perhaps
because he is incapable of understanding the details.
Steve Schulin
"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
> "Steve Schulin" <steve....@nuclear.com>...
> >
> > Mann's reply didn't seem so laudible to me. The claim that Zorita et al.
> > was a replication of MBH seems to me to require a quite peculiar
> > definition of replication.
>
> Zorita's name only comes up twice in the same place in a footnote. The
> footnote is referenced here:
>
> "My data and methodological information, and that of my colleagues, are
> available to anyone who wants them.[3] As noted above, other scientists have
> reproduced our results based on publicly available information."
>
> The "other scientists" here clearly refers to Ammann and Wahl. ...
And that's not the only place that the plural is used. That's a lot of
plurals for referring to one as-yet-unpublished paper. Mann chooses his
words carefully, so I guess it's fair to presume that he chose to refer
all those times to all those other scientists instead of saying "hey,
there's one paper that, although not doing some of the stuff we did, was
able to use the information we provided since McIntyre & McKitrick's
first paper to replicate much of what we did. And at least the initial
submission of that paper didn't report r2 either!"
> ... The part of
> footnote 3 that refers to Zorita is:
>
> "The initial description of the work was sufficient to permit researchers to
> independently produce the key algorithms. See, e.g., Zorita, E., F.
> Gonzalez-Rouco, and S. Legutke, Testing the Mann et al.(1998) approach to
> paleoclimate reconstructions in the context of a 1000-yr control simulation
> with the ECHO-G Coupled Climate Model, J. Climate, 16, 1378-1390 (2003); Von
> Storch, H., E. Zorita, J.M. Jones, Y. Dimitriev, F. Gonzalez-Rouco, F., and
> S.F.B. Tett, Reconstructing Past Climate from Noisy Data, Science, 306,
> 679-682 (2004)."
>
> The key phrase is "independently produce the key algorithms". This does not
> seem to me to be a claim of replication. So what is peculiar here, Mann's
> claim or your presentation of it?
LOL - do you recall if replication was mentioned in say, the line
preceeding "the part of the footnote" you quote? I do. And please don't
forget Mann's repeated use of plural form regarding such as those who
have replicated methods and results. But as you say, maybe Mann was just
referring to one paper those times.
> > And I was disappointed that Mann didn't
> > actually say yes or no to the question about whether r2 had been
> > calculated.
>
> This is true, but his point was very clearly that r2 is not relevant and
> therefore the question is not relevant.
Yes, that seemed to be the point he exclusively discussed rather than
actually admitting that yes, they did calculate r2.
> > It turns out, from the old code he released in another venue
> > this month, that the answer is, yes, MBH did calculate r2. Had MBH98
> > paper actually reported r2, perhaps the peer reviewers would have asked
> > a question or two more.
>
> Judging this on its own merits is definately over my head. Reading Mann's
> letter it is clear that a good r2 result does not tell you if your
> reconstruction has "skill" but it is not clear whether or not a bad r2 is a
> reliable indicator of a lack of skill. Perhaps if it is, and if the r2
> result were bad, then hiding that fact is a way of claiming more confidence
> than warranted.
>
> Is this the case in MBH98?
That would have been an interesting topic for Mann to discourse upon.
McIntyre's July 20, 2005 discussion of the matter is a real rip-roar.
Here's how he ends it:
"I have no doubt, as Iąve mentioned recently, that, if the IPCC had
reported that the MBH98 reconstruction had a cross-validation R2 of ~0.0
(rather than claiming that it had łsignificant skill in independent
cross-validation tests˛), the MBH98 hockey stick graph would not have
been featured in IPCC. If it had been reported in the original
publication, itąs possible that the original article would not have been
published in the first place. It will be interesting to see what the
various learned societies and individuals will make of this."
The full post and comments are available at
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=268#more-268
> > I'm grateful that aspects of MBH methodology
> > continue to be made publicly available. That the IPCC embraced the Mann
> > et al. hockey stick is a big deal. I'm grateful that Rep. Barton asked
> > many of the questions he did, and am looking forward to follow-up.
>
> It is still not clear to me why this would be a big deal for anyone trying
> to understand GW. Even if this study were flawed and fraudulently so, it
> would be a "victimless crime" as the fraudulent conclusion appears to be the
> correct conclusion. ...
I'm regularly amazed that folks take solace in the fact that other
papers, each of which may have received even less thorough assessment
than did Mann et al., have some similarities. The presumed flatness of
century scale unforced variation in global mean is an assumption, not a
settled scientific issue. And the notion that we are warmer now than
during the periods often referred to as Medieval Warm Period or Roman
Optimum is not a settled scientific issue either. Heck, the warming in
earlier part of 20th century appears comparable in extent (about 20% of
CRU grid cells showed statistically significant warming then, compared
to 19% in the most recent Jones and Moberg J. Climate update).
> ... If this study were flawed, fraud or not, it should be
> an issue of concern for the IPCC process and then the investigation should
> be focused on that process, not on MBH98, and on verifying all the *other*
> studies relied on by the IPCC, not on MBH98.
MBH98 is the starting point. I was glad to see Barton asking about IPCC
process as it related to Mann et al. hockey stick, as I was glad to read
that at least one of the current IPCC lead authors thought it important
to find out how some of the flaws in Mann et al. research were not
identified during the IPCC TAR assessment process.
>
> So I see only the following possibilities as to Barton's motive and method:
>
> 1 He wants to understand climate science and is therefore misguided
> in focusing on a single study.
> 2 He wants to understand the IPCC process and is therefore misguided
> in focusing on the science.
> 3 He wants to uncover a fraud and is therefore simply attempting to
> score political points and is way outside of his jurisdiction.
> 4 He hopes to create confusion and noise and thereby hinder any possible
> progress on climate change policy.
>
> Taking him at his word, we must believe it is a combination of 1 and 2 above
> and he is therefore misguided in focusing on the science and on a single
> study and it is inappropriate to be taking this directly to climate
> researchers. Examining his letters, it is apparent that his public focus is
> 3, even if that is not his publicly professed focus. His requests are
> without a doubt those of a prosecutor trying to expose criminal behaviour -
> all kinds of financial disclosures requested, history going back decades,
> insinuations of conflict of interest in his role as lead author etc.
>
> But the bird's eye view of the whole affair leads me to conclude the major
> effort is the number 4 possibility. He may well believe there has been some
> fraud, that is hard to know, but he probably does not care, the 4 result is
> the main goal, if 3 happens that is just gravy.
>
> Any other possibilities I may have missed?
LOL - the hockey stick scandal stinks. Maybe he just hates that the
stench hasn't prompted more action by the climate science community. For
example, immediately following publication of McIntyre and McKitrick's
first article, Mann told journalist that the ballocksed data file was
created in attempt to be helpful to McIntyre, and that the correct data
had long been available in an ftp directory. It turns out that the
particular ftp directory cited had never been mentioned in any public
document, and that it included the same file, dated long before
McIntyre's inquiry, that Mann claims was created for McIntyre. Within
days, the file was removed from the ftp directory.
James
"Lloyd Parker" <lpa...@emory.edu> wrote in message
news:dclks6$oq8$1...@puck.cc.emory.edu...
I'll bet you think you are unbiased.
James
You are a pretty stupid person Lloyd. You don't know if I am a creationist
or Beelzebub. The arguments you come up with are almost as good as pointing
out missspellings. Your conclusions (when you have one) are laughable.
>
> >
> As chairman, Mr. Barton is responsible for making absolutely sure that
> the science used to justify legislation is thoroughly vetted.
>
>
> No he isn't. Let him introduce some legislation first, and I doubt it
would
> go to his committee first.
You know nothing of the process either dumbass.
>
> >Any changes to
> the energy policy of the country to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions would
> cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American jobs.
>
>
> James, you are lying.
Show us your numbers stupid.
Coby Beck
news:dcmnj0$mej$1...@news3.infoave.net...
>>MBH was unreplicable as published. How can you possibly contend that it
>>has ever been the best information available? I hope everybody
>>interested in climate policy understands that the IPCC process was not
>>scientifically up to the task of adequately assessing MBH in the Third
>>Assessment Report.
>
> Where is there a requirement that all scientific studies be replicated?
> At the time, as I recall, thee were no other such studies which extended
> as far back in time as MBH. Of course, now there are several others.
> Nuke, have you considered that by repeating a complicated analysis step-
> by-step might mean that one simply repeats any errors which may be
> included?
> That's why other efforts have used different approaches and different
> proxy
> data sets. There appears to be overall agreement among these different
> analytical efforts.
Thanks for making this important point. I actually had not thought of that
before but it is quite correct. Replication in the sense M&M seem to be
seeking is in fact a very superficial way of verifying any scientific
finding, just a small step above checking the arithmetic.
It is much more convincing to understand the method, use the same data and
have an independantly developed run at it. Convincing as in reproducing,
that is. But even more important is to have different data, different
methods and different people arrive at the same conclusion.
As this latter has happened now several times it really makes the obsession
with checking MBH's arithmetic rather irrelevant.
Lloyd Parker
ponced...@yahoo.com wrote:
>More support for Joe Barton:
>
>The untold story of the Global Warming Fiasco:
>
>
>"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
Huh?
>
>"It is likely that the rate and duration of the warming of the 20th
>century is larger than any other time during the last 1,000 years"."
>
>continues===>
>http://www.geocities.com/poncedeleon_1/ClimateChange/Rsquared.htm
>
Your blog is not science.
Coby Beck
> In article <litHe.175650$tt5.157604@edtnps90>,
> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
>
>> "Steve Schulin" <steve....@nuclear.com>...
>> >
>> > Mann's reply didn't seem so laudible to me. The claim that Zorita et
>> > al.
>> > was a replication of MBH seems to me to require a quite peculiar
>> > definition of replication.
>>
>> Zorita's name only comes up twice in the same place in a footnote. The
>> footnote is referenced here:
>>
>> "My data and methodological information, and that of my colleagues, are
>> available to anyone who wants them.[3] As noted above, other scientists
>> have
>> reproduced our results based on publicly available information."
>>
>> The "other scientists" here clearly refers to Ammann and Wahl. ...
>
> And that's not the only place that the plural is used. That's a lot of
> plurals for referring to one as-yet-unpublished paper. Mann chooses his
> words carefully, so I guess it's fair to presume that he chose to refer
> all those times to all those other scientists instead of saying "hey,
> there's one paper that, although not doing some of the stuff we did, was
> able to use the information we provided since McIntyre & McKitrick's
> first paper to replicate much of what we did. And at least the initial
> submission of that paper didn't report r2 either!"
Searching for the word "replicate" and discarding the couple of times it is
used in a general way (ie not as a claim about this or other particular
studies) we end up with this:
pg 1, introductory material:
"Other scientists have replicated all facets of my research and have found
it accurate and reliable."
[A general claim that seems to be justified. AW replicated the study
itself, others have replicated different facets. A reasonable summary.]
pg 2, Answering "the most serious contention" regarding lack of
replicability
"an independent team of scientists has used the research data my colleagues
and I have made public to replicate our research and confirm the reliability
of our findings. See Wahl, E.R., Ammann, C.M., Robustness of the Mann,
Bradley, Hughes Reconstruction of Surface Temperatures: Examination of
Criticisms Based on the Nature and Processing of Proxy Climate Evidence,
Climate Change (2005) (forthcoming) and associated website:
http://www.cgd.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/MBH_reevaluation.html."
[A very specific claim with a very specific example. No false pretense
here.]
pg 3, Answer to Q4 regarding provision of data and methods
"sufficient to permit other researchers to replicate the research"
pg 4, part of footnote 3
"we replicated our results with a different methodology (Rutherford, S.,
Mann, M.E., Osborn, T.J., Bradley, R.S., Briffa, K.R., Hughes, M.K., Jones,
P.D., Proxy-based Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature Reconstructions:
Sensitivity to Methodology, Predictor Network, Target Season and Target
Domain, Journal of Climate (2005) (to appear in July issue)"
[Note replicate is used even though it is specified to mean using different
methodology. Clearly "replicate" for Dr Mann does not mean "duplicate" in
the sense M&M are attempting.]
pg 4, part of footnote 3
"an independent group has replicated our original methods and results (See
Wahl, E.R. and Ammann, C.M., Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes
Reconstruction of Surface Temperatures: Examination of Criticisms Based on
the Nature and Processing of Proxy Climate Evidence, Climatic Change (2005)"
[again a specific claim with the same specific example]
pg 5, Answer to Q5 about why computer code was not provided.
"Since other scientists have used the methods we described and the data we
archived to replicate our results, the issue of whether my computer program
is available has no bearing whatsoever on the veracity of our results."
[Here, take it how you choose, "precise" replication and "other scientists"
means A&W, or "general" replication and "other scientists" means all of the
others cited.]
So I think Steve, you may have a beef about what the word "replicate" means
to you as opposed to Dr. Mann, but clearly you have no basis to denigrate
his response because of it. Further I would suggest that the onus is on you
to show that Dr Mann's use of the word, in the obvious and specific context
of scientific research, is "peculiar".
>> ... The part of
>> footnote 3 that refers to Zorita is:
>>
>> "The initial description of the work was sufficient to permit researchers
>> to
>> independently produce the key algorithms. See, e.g., Zorita, E., F.
>> Gonzalez-Rouco, and S. Legutke, Testing the Mann et al.(1998) approach to
>> paleoclimate reconstructions in the context of a 1000-yr control
>> simulation
>> with the ECHO-G Coupled Climate Model, J. Climate, 16, 1378-1390 (2003);
>> Von
>> Storch, H., E. Zorita, J.M. Jones, Y. Dimitriev, F. Gonzalez-Rouco, F.,
>> and
>> S.F.B. Tett, Reconstructing Past Climate from Noisy Data, Science, 306,
>> 679-682 (2004)."
>>
>> The key phrase is "independently produce the key algorithms". This does
>> not
>> seem to me to be a claim of replication. So what is peculiar here,
>> Mann's
>> claim or your presentation of it?
>
> LOL - do you recall if replication was mentioned in say, the line
> preceeding "the part of the footnote" you quote? I do.
Do you? That line is "For these reasons, charges that our work is not
subject to replication are unfounded." This is not even a claim that it
*has* been replicated by anyone just that it is *subject to* replication.
This sentence refers to the preceeding listing of where all of the material
required is available, and as that material is available, it is a simple,
well founded conclusion. The quote I provided is complete for the purposes
of debunking your claim that Mann is distorting anything. The line you
object to having been left out does not help your case.
> And please don't
> forget Mann's repeated use of plural form regarding such as those who
> have replicated methods and results. But as you say, maybe Mann was just
> referring to one paper those times.
I prefer to focus on the more detailed presentation I made above, but I must
question why you think it is strange to refer to Ammann and Wahl as "other
scientists", not withstanding that there is only one relevant paper
(according to *your* interpretation of replicate). This is hardly an
exageration or whitewash, it is merely proper English grammar. It is not
like this is a 1000 page document and the fact (according to *your*
interpretation of "replicate") that only one paper is actually relevant is
buried deep in the appendix to section 20.
Yes, I've read that thanks. McIntyre should move on, this is a mole hill
built up into a mountain long since trampled flat to the ground. MBH98 is
ancient history in the search for understanding. You and McIntyre are not
searching for understanding. If including MBH98 in the TAR was wrong and
due to a break down in process, then devote your energy to improving or even
policing the process. It is reasonable to try to find and expose other
problems. But this just is not the smouldering bomb crater you try to
portray it as. There are a thousand other studies and scientists that all
make up this big picture, get your head out of this squirrels nest and have
a look at the forest all around you.
I repeat:
What you have here is a 7 year old study whose conclusions have been well
coroborated many times over. So regardless of any flaws there may be, the
conclusion is still correct. If the conclusion is correct, and science has
moved on who cares?
The only possible remaining issue is whether or not we have a fraud, and a
fraud that produced a correct conclusion at that. So this is *not* a GW
issue any more, it is simply one of alledged ethical violations. The fact
that this is still hauled out to attack AGW theory is ample evidence that no
one doing so really cares about the science of the issue.
> I'm regularly amazed that folks take solace in the fact that other
> papers, each of which may have received even less thorough assessment
> than did Mann et al., have some similarities. The presumed flatness of
> century scale unforced variation in global mean is an assumption, not a
> settled scientific issue. And the notion that we are warmer now than
> during the periods often referred to as Medieval Warm Period or Roman
> Optimum is not a settled scientific issue either. Heck, the warming in
> earlier part of 20th century appears comparable in extent (about 20% of
> CRU grid cells showed statistically significant warming then, compared
> to 19% in the most recent Jones and Moberg J. Climate update).
It is not clear to me what you think this means in terms of this discussion.
>> ... If this study were flawed, fraud or not, it should be
>> an issue of concern for the IPCC process and then the investigation
>> should
>> be focused on that process, not on MBH98, and on verifying all the
>> *other*
>> studies relied on by the IPCC, not on MBH98.
>
> MBH98 is the starting point.
How many more years before we get off the blocks then?
Joshua Halpern
>
> You are a pretty stupid person Lloyd. You don't know if I am a creationist
> or Beelzebub.
Thought we settled that ages ago.
josh halpern
James
"Joshua Halpern" <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:bBUHe.7651$4e6.1614@trnddc04...
Just like the climate science Josh. Without a clue.
Joshua Halpern
josh halpern
Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt
>"James" <king...@iglou.com> wrote in message
>news:42ebc30f$1...@news.iglou.com...
>>
>> "Raymond Arritt" <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:y8PGe.225157$nG6.191452@attbi_s22...
>>> W. D. Allen Sr. wrote:
>>> > an Barton ... going to learn something useful by requesting
>>> > data on 15th century tree rings is ludicrous...."
>>> >
>>> > But Dr. Mann, however, did learn something useful?
>>> >
>>> > Is the quoted statement above typical of the objectivity of journalism
>>> > school grads employed at the Washington Post?
>>>
>>> Mann has sufficient training and experience to make use of such data.
>>> Please tell us the extent of Barton's coursework and professional
>>> experience in statistics, dendrochronology and exploratory data analysis.
>>
>> So you think he wants it for his own personal use? ROTFLMAO
>
>The proper way to investigate a scientific issue like this would be to
>request a report from the NAS or some similar entity. One must assume if he
>requests this info on behalf of his committee it is for his committee's use.
>If it was his sole intent to get it to pass it on to undisclosed persons I
>think this is more questionable behaviour. There are no scientists on his
>committee, so why is he asking for this?
>
>See this for good reasons this action is inappropriate.
>http://www.realclimate.org/Boehlert_letter_to_Barton.pdf
One would have thought that as firstly, Mann's work was publicly
funded and, secondly and more importantly that it and similar models
are being used to justify what may turn out to be catastrophic
economic effects on both the developed and developing world, that he'd
be duty-bound to put all his work - computer code, parameter sets,
data sets, etc - into the public domain in order that it be given the
widest possible degree of scrutiny, by as many people as possible.
Witholding such work on the basis that "you aren't qualified to
understand it" makes Mann et al appear to be not much more than
snake-oil salesmen.
Ian St. John
> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
>
<snip>
>> See this for good reasons this action is inappropriate.
>> http://www.realclimate.org/Boehlert_letter_to_Barton.pdf
>
> One would have thought that as firstly, Mann's work was publicly
> funded and, secondly and more importantly that it and similar models
They are scientific studies, with both support from different approaches and
different proxies.
> are being used to justify what may turn out to be catastrophic
> economic effects
I'm glad that you included the 'what may turn out' as it indicates that you
at least understand that you are predicting catastrophe without a firm
foundation of logic.The fact is that people will probably choose ways to
reduce emissions that are the least damaging and which may prove profitable,
such as increasing efficiency in power generation. But do go on. I am happy
to see that you are using some part of your brain.
Steve Schulin
swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote:
> steve....@nuclear.com says...
> > swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote, in part:
> >
> >> ... The TAR was a
> >> summary report of the state of published climate change science as the
> >> date
> >> of the cutoff for consideration. MBH was the best information available
> >> at
> >> that time.
> >
> >MBH was unreplicable as published. How can you possibly contend that it
> >has ever been the best information available? I hope everybody
> >interested in climate policy understands that the IPCC process was not
> >scientifically up to the task of adequately assessing MBH in the Third
> >Assessment Report.
>
> Where is there a requirement that all scientific studies be replicated?
> At the time, as I recall, thee were no other such studies which extended
> as far back in time as MBH. Of course, now there are several others.
> Nuke, have you considered that by repeating a complicated analysis step-
> by-step might mean that one simply repeats any errors which may be included?
> That's why other efforts have used different approaches and different proxy
> data sets. There appears to be overall agreement among these different
> analytical efforts.
LOL - you appear to be confused about why replicability is a fundamental
characteristic of scientific method. I don't claim that anybody must
replicate anything. But, to be considered science, enough information to
allow replication must be provided. And in the case of MBH98, it is
clear that the authors' methods were unreplicable as published, and in
fact appear to remain unreplicable in several important facets to date.
>
> [cut]
>
> >> ... Creationists are anti-scientific, as they do not accept the
> >> scientific results regarding the age of the Earth. ...
> >
> >LOL - the data can be interpreted in different ways. You appear to
> >demand that everybody share your assumption that radioactive decay rates
> >have been constant or close to constant. That seems an unreasonable
> >demand to me. A much better indicator of anti-scientific perspective is
> >whether folks think that science needs to be replicable.
>
> While it's not my field, I suspect that only the creationist would suggest
> that
> radioactive decay, which is central to radiometric dating, has varied so much
> that 4.55 billion years of radioactive time can be compressed into less than
> 10,000 "orbital years". Here's further discussion:
> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html>
I encourage scientific inquiry. Yet I reject your apparent insistance
that I must share your assumptions. I've never claimed to know how old
the universe or the Earth is. When I look at research that dates things
older than is compatible with my best understanding of the Bible, I keep
my own assumptions in mind, and keep an eye out for assumptions in the
article.
Does he include copies of papers which were rejected?
> As for your call for published peer reviewed rebuttal, I suggest that the
> rejection of his later work accomplished the same thing. ...
LOL - do you apply the same interpretive standard to rejection of Amman
and Wahl article?
> ... After that, Gentry
> went into the public arena and presented his case outside the scientific
> publication process. Of course, you blow off the link which I presented, as
> if the comments presented have no merit just because they aren't in a peer
> reviewed setting. ...
You mentioned that you had been reading about the subject. I was
genuinely curious if you had found refutation of Gentry's Science and
Nature articles in the peer review.
> ... However, the comments include references to peer reviewed
> reports, as support. As usual, Old Nuke ignores scientific discourse,
> perhaps
> because he is incapable of understanding the details.
Gee whiz, Eric. I'm glad you have enthusiasms and want to discuss
radioactive halos. I'm not sure how I've incurred any obligation to be
considered one who must discuss it with you. Have I written anything
which you find relies on Gentry (or the competing creationist hypothesis
by Snelling) being right about the implications of his findings?
Steve Schulin
"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
> ... Replication in the sense M&M seem to be
> seeking is in fact a very superficial way of verifying any scientific
> finding, just a small step above checking the arithmetic.
It is quite a simple matter. The big deal is the lack of replicability
of method in this case, and that IPCC embraced it as it did.
> It is much more convincing to understand the method, use the same data and
> have an independantly developed run at it. Convincing as in reproducing,
> that is. But even more important is to have different data, different
> methods and different people arrive at the same conclusion.
>
> As this latter has happened now several times it really makes the obsession
> with checking MBH's arithmetic rather irrelevant.
The Mann et al. hockey stick was iconized by the alarmists. I appreciate
the apparent current desire to de-couple, and I sure don't mind folks
pointing to some other studies they now claim to be more persuasive.
I've previously mentioned Loehle's criticism of multiproxy methods which
tend to smear variability out of the record. Do any of the studies you
find persuasive account for that criticism?
Steve Schulin
"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
> "Steve Schulin" <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote in message
> news:steve.schulin-E55...@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
>
> > M&M have been quite vindicated.
>
> What makes you say they have been vindicated? (As opposed to right all
> along...)
Here's one example: In 2004, Nature published a Corrigendum correcting
some apparent errors in MBH98, and allowing more of the initial method
to be understood.
Steve Schulin
"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
As best I can tell, the claims that recent warming is unprecedented are
quite controversial. The question about IPCC's embrace of the Mann et
al. hockey stick is an important matter in and of itself. As to whether
it's a larger point, I wish I could answer yes or no, but "It depends"
is better description of my opinion on the matter. If the alarmists are
substantially wrong, then the schtick is more important. If the
alarmists are substantially right, then the stick may be more important.
Eric Swanson
Experiments done in the lab should certainly be repeatable and this is often
done when there is controversy regarding the findings of original research.
MBH was not the first nor the last to analyze tree ring data. The other
efforts have nto been challenged, to my knowledge. The data is there for
others to work with. Why pick on MBH (1998) to the exclusion of these other
efforts, which have been consistent with MBH's results.
>> [cut]
>>
>> >> ... Creationists are anti-scientific, as they do not accept the
>> >> scientific results regarding the age of the Earth. ...
>> >
>> >LOL - the data can be interpreted in different ways. You appear to
>> >demand that everybody share your assumption that radioactive decay rates
>> >have been constant or close to constant. That seems an unreasonable
>> >demand to me. A much better indicator of anti-scientific perspective is
>> >whether folks think that science needs to be replicable.
>>
>> While it's not my field, I suspect that only the creationist would suggest
>> that radioactive decay, which is central to radiometric dating, has varied
>> so much that 4.55 billion years of radioactive time can be compressed into
>> less than 10,000 "orbital years". Here's further discussion:
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html>
>
>I encourage scientific inquiry. Yet I reject your apparent insistance
>that I must share your assumptions. I've never claimed to know how old
>the universe or the Earth is. When I look at research that dates things
>older than is compatible with my best understanding of the Bible, I keep
>my own assumptions in mind, and keep an eye out for assumptions in the
>article.
Gentry's claim is that there is a massive change in the laws of nature, as
we know them. He claimed that it happened some 6,000 years ago and that the
entire geololgical history of the Earth could be compressed into that time
span. There are many geological records, not just the radiological one, which
point to a very old Earth. Gentry's supernatural interpretation of the
overall record appears to ignore all the other information which has been
integrated into a coherent time scale describing the Earth's history.
Where is the evidence which indicates all this is wrong? Where is the
exhaustive analysis of the alternative scenario which would fit all the data
into the Young Earth ideas of the Fundamentalists?
Just one example for Old Nuke to ponder. We know that Uranium has several
isotopes, primarily 238U and 235U. We know that 235U decays much more rapidly
than 238U and that at one time there was a greater percentage of 235U in
naturally occuring uranium than is true today. This is evident from the
existence of the products of 235U decay found mixed in with the uranium. So,
what would the Earth have looked like if all that initial 235U had decayed
over a short period of orbital time, say 2,000 years? Would the surface of
the Earth been inhabitable, or would the surface temperature been too hot
for life as we know it? Would the oceans have boiled away from the heat?
I hope that your assumptions don't include the possibility of people surviving
at surface temperatures above 100 deg C or living in an atmosphere which
had been polluted by the great numbers of volcanic eruptions and bolide impacts
recorded in the geololgical stack, but compressed into a period of only 2,000
years.
Not in the first edition I looked at. I saw a comment about there being a 3rd
edition, which may have more of Gentry's work included...
>> As for your call for published peer reviewed rebuttal, I suggest that the
>> rejection of his later work accomplished the same thing. ...
>
>LOL - do you apply the same interpretive standard to rejection of Amman
>and Wahl article?
I don't know anything about that one.
>> ... After that, Gentry
>> went into the public arena and presented his case outside the scientific
>> publication process. Of course, you blow off the link which I presented, as
>> if the comments presented have no merit just because they aren't in a peer
>> reviewed setting. ...
>
>You mentioned that you had been reading about the subject. I was
>genuinely curious if you had found refutation of Gentry's Science and
>Nature articles in the peer review.
See below.
>> ... However, the comments include references to peer reviewed
>> reports, as support. As usual, Old Nuke ignores scientific discourse,
>> perhaps
>> because he is incapable of understanding the details.
>
>Gee whiz, Eric. I'm glad you have enthusiasms and want to discuss
>radioactive halos. I'm not sure how I've incurred any obligation to be
>considered one who must discuss it with you. Have I written anything
>which you find relies on Gentry (or the competing creationist hypothesis
>by Snelling) being right about the implications of his findings?
My reply was to your statement asking for references:
"I'm sure the essays by talk.origins aficianados are interesting, but
could you recommend something in the peer review that criticizes any of
his papers which were published in Science or Nature?"
The URL reference I gave points to several peer reviewed articles. As I have
not read them, I can't comment on what they say. However, that they exist
would seem to have answered your question.
Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt
>Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt wrote:
>> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
>>
>
><snip>
>>> See this for good reasons this action is inappropriate.
>>> http://www.realclimate.org/Boehlert_letter_to_Barton.pdf
>>
>> One would have thought that as firstly, Mann's work was publicly
>> funded and, secondly and more importantly that it and similar models
>
>They are scientific studies, with both support from different approaches and
>different proxies.
Doubtless, and I'm sure they have been. In what way does that make
them imune to "open" review and inspection? Especially MBH98 - which
appears to have achieved truly iconic, not to say mythical, status.
>> are being used to justify what may turn out to be catastrophic
>> economic effects
>
>I'm glad that you included the 'what may turn out' as it indicates that you
>at least understand that you are predicting catastrophe without a firm
>foundation of logic.
I was predicting nothing. Merely commenting upon the changes to policy
that have been mooted as a result if the IPCC predictions.
>..The fact is that people will probably choose ways to
>reduce emissions that are the least damaging and which may prove profitable,
>such as increasing efficiency in power generation.
One would indeed hope that this would be the case, however...
>... But do go on. I am happy
>to see that you are using some part of your brain.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of you... You appear to have
completely missed (or failed to address it as you appear to have no
sensible answer) the main point of my original comment - "should the
details of Mann's work be put into the public domain?". And if not,
why not?
If you wish to add further comment, please be a good chap and engage
your brain (assuming you have one) before posting further
non-sequiturs.
Lloyd Parker
"Roger Coppock" <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote:
>James actually thinks that Congressman Joe
>Barton, R-Texas has an unbiased eye! This
>takes the prize for the stupidist post of the month.
>
1. There is no global warming.
2. There were WMD in Iraq.
3. Saddam was responsible for 9/11.
4. Bush has cut spending.
5. The Iraqis are welcoming us as liberators.
6. Everything is going fine in Iraq.
7. Universal health care is socialism.
8. We'd be energy independent if we drill in ANWR.
9. Anything to the contrary is a fabrication of the liberal media.
Joshua Halpern
> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
>>"James" <king...@iglou.com> wrote in message
>>>"Raymond Arritt" <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>W. D. Allen Sr. wrote:
>>>>>an Barton ... going to learn something useful by requesting
>>>>>data on 15th century tree rings is ludicrous...."
>>>>>But Dr. Mann, however, did learn something useful?
>>>>>Is the quoted statement above typical of the objectivity of journalism
>>>>>school grads employed at the Washington Post?
>>>>
>>>>Mann has sufficient training and experience to make use of such data.
>>>>Please tell us the extent of Barton's coursework and professional
>>>>experience in statistics, dendrochronology and exploratory data analysis.
>>>
>>>So you think he wants it for his own personal use? ROTFLMAO
>>
>>The proper way to investigate a scientific issue like this would be to
>>request a report from the NAS or some similar entity. One must assume if he
>>requests this info on behalf of his committee it is for his committee's use.
>>If it was his sole intent to get it to pass it on to undisclosed persons I
>>think this is more questionable behaviour. There are no scientists on his
>>committee, so why is he asking for this?
>>
>>See this for good reasons this action is inappropriate.
>>http://www.realclimate.org/Boehlert_letter_to_Barton.pdf
>
> One would have thought that as firstly, Mann's work was publicly
> funded and,
This does not mean that all work products belong to the public or that
the public has a right to them. In fact, as Mann states and is
reinforced by the letters from NSF, intellectual property, such as code
belongs to the person(s) who create it. Moreover, in the US, the
Bayh-Dole act mandates that if there are any inventions of economic
significance, the grant holder (the universities) have an obligation to
patent it and may retain any profits. The government gets a free
license for its own use.
One of the problems is a lot of people are getting all upset and
posturing about things they know nothing about. Whether you think the
situation is right or wrong, it is the law and the regulations
administering the law.
> secondly and more importantly that it and similar models
> are being used to justify
predict would be more accurate
> what may turn out to be catastrophic economic effects on both
> the developed and developing world, that he'd
> be duty-bound to put all his work - computer code, parameter sets,
> data sets, etc
The parameter sets and the data sets WERE available at Mann's and
Bradley's FTP site. Data was available through or at Hughes' web site
and the various databanks listed in the MBH98 paper. A few of the data
sets were personal communications (at least at the time of publication)
and parts of the code were not available. Anyone who wanted could go
get the data. The code issue is a total red herring as the algorithm
was described in sufficient detail that one familiar with the field
could reproduce the results. This is the requirement for a publication
in the scientific literature. Again, you are trying to impose a
condition which is NEITHER contractual or customary.
> - into the public domain in order that it be given the
> widest possible degree of scrutiny, by as many people as possible.
>
Right, every man a dendrologist in his basement. Not. You may have
noticed that the result HAS been subject to a great deal of scrutiny,
some of it even by qualified investigators.
> Witholding such work on the basis that "you aren't qualified to
> understand it" makes Mann et al appear to be not much more than
> snake-oil salesmen.
>
He didn't withold it on that basis, he said he didn't have the time to
hold the hand of ever clown locked in an attic with issues.
josh halpern
Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt
"economic significance"? One would assume that that meant that the
invention may have some earning potential for its inventor - not
something that one would expect of a climate model.
>One of the problems is a lot of people are getting all upset and
>posturing about things they know nothing about. Whether you think the
>situation is right or wrong, it is the law and the regulations
>administering the law.
Assuming that MBH98 etc has "economic significance" to its creators,
yes. Otherwise, no.
>> secondly and more importantly that it and similar models
>> are being used to justify
>
>predict would be more accurate
No. Its predictions are being used to justify...
>> what may turn out to be catastrophic economic effects on both
> > the developed and developing world, that he'd
>> be duty-bound to put all his work - computer code, parameter sets,
>> data sets, etc
>
>The parameter sets and the data sets WERE available at Mann's and
>Bradley's FTP site. Data was available through or at Hughes' web site
>and the various databanks listed in the MBH98 paper. A few of the data
>sets were personal communications (at least at the time of publication)
>and parts of the code were not available. Anyone who wanted could go
>get the data. The code issue is a total red herring as the algorithm
>was described in sufficient detail that one familiar with the field
>could reproduce the results. This is the requirement for a publication
>in the scientific literature. Again, you are trying to impose a
>condition which is NEITHER contractual or customary.
So what you're actually saying is that the full details are in fact
*not* available. The code issue is far from a red herring, knowing
the algorithm does not imply replicating the code in exact detail.
>> - into the public domain in order that it be given the
>> widest possible degree of scrutiny, by as many people as possible.
>>
>Right, every man a dendrologist in his basement. Not. You may have
>noticed that the result HAS been subject to a great deal of scrutiny,
>some of it even by qualified investigators.
The *result* may have been subject to scrutiny, but not the "engine".
>> Witholding such work on the basis that "you aren't qualified to
>> understand it" makes Mann et al appear to be not much more than
>> snake-oil salesmen.
>>
>He didn't withold it on that basis, he said he didn't have the time to
>hold the hand of ever clown locked in an attic with issues.
That sounds just like "you aren't qualified to understand it" to me.
Lloyd Parker
Then you'd agree any publically funded research which discovers a new drug
must make if available free of charge?
Coby Beck
message news:c381f15fbcpt7sto0...@4ax.com...
First and foremost, you are under the misimpression that all of what you
mention was "withheld" and this is just incorrect and a matter of easily
verifiable public record. There was only one component not released before
and that is the actual source code of the computer programs used. So we
really need to tone down the rhetoric and let go of this suspicion of
malfeasance, it is uncalled for, unsubstantiated and unproductive.
Secondly, I don't disagree that we may want to impose higher standards of
auditability on science that has direct bearing on important policy
decisions but this is a very messy issue, much more complicated than you
might think. There needs to be a balance between freedom to research
quickly and dynamically on the one hand and the rigors of producing detailed
audit trails and documentation on the other. Should a paper in the field of
paleoclimatology that relies on tree-rings be published complete with a
course on dendrochronology and statistical analysis? Clearly not. But
where will the line be drawn? Should Mann et al. have presented
documentation of what RE statistical analysis is and why they relied on it?
Who will be the audience for this audit information and how much should you
cater to non-specialists?
As things already stand scientific standards require transparency of data
and methods, enough so that other *experts* in the field (not congressmen or
non-researchers from other fields) can understand and replicate (in the
scientific sense - ie not duplicate) the results. This was done. Should
all computer code be released? This can be problematice because of issues
of intellectual property, the code most likely was not all written by Dr
Mann, it may rely on proprietary libraries where rights of use were granted
but not rights of public release. It may rely on specific hardware
configurations and not run anywhere else other than Dr Mann's own lab
machine. How do you propose to audit that? All that is necessary is the
algorithm that can then be reimplemented by anyone interested. This is
sufficient and is not encumbered by the problems above. So data, methods
and algorithm are the norm.
In the case of MBH98 this standard was met (granted after discovering some
errors in documentation uncovered by M&M).
I think the focus on auditablility represents a misunderstanding of how
science works. And while I agreed above that higher standards of
auditability are probably a worthy goal, you must understand that in this,
as in all things, you will not get something for nothing and any such moves
towards auditability will result in the loss of other aspects of the current
scientific process. And I think that, in general, the current system is
proving to be very successful for the progress of human understanding. So
really, before mucking around with this process we should be sure it is
really broken and before pursuing a change favoring one goal, paper trail,
we must understand what effect it will have on the other goals, producing
sound and timely conclusions that will lead to further sound and timely
conclusions.
This is why for me this obsession with a single 7 year old study is
completely misguided. If there is a problem with the process, we should
examine the process and not tear apart the minutiae of which FTP site
changed when and what email was unanswered by whom. If there is a problem
with the science, scientists will find and correct it. MBH98 has been
coroborated, not overturned, in the ensuing years, so the Fortran code Mann
used is irrelevant.
If a new process is desired, it needs to be carefully considered. Real
problems must be identified, rational solutions proposed and discussed. To
my mind, there is only a single problem and that is one of public relations
and unfortunately I see it as a deliberate effort of some to use the
misconceptions the public has about the scientific process to sow doubt and
mistrust. The solution to that *will not* be found in a new scientific
process. Nor is this peculiar to climate science, science as a whole is
facing an onslaught of distrust and marginalization in the US.
I fail to see how seeing Dr Mann's Fortran code will relieve this problem.
Jonathan Kirwan
>I believe there is a cabal of these right-wingers who believe in wierd things.
>
>1. There is no global warming.
>2. There were WMD in Iraq.
>3. Saddam was responsible for 9/11.
>4. Bush has cut spending.
>5. The Iraqis are welcoming us as liberators.
>6. Everything is going fine in Iraq.
>7. Universal health care is socialism.
>8. We'd be energy independent if we drill in ANWR.
>9. Anything to the contrary is a fabrication of the liberal media.
10. The Earth is less 10,000 years old and in no way older than 20k.
11. Evolution is entirely wrong and heretical, besides.
Coby Beck
I've read this, as I'm sure you have. I think it is dishonest of you to
describe it simply as "errors in MBH98", the error was one of documentation.
None of the errors in data set listings affect the result.
"It has been drawn to our attention (S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick)that the
listing of the ‘proxy’ data set in the Supplementary Information published
with this Article contained several errors. In Table 1 we provide a list of
the records that were either mistakenly included in the Supplementary
Information, or mistakenly left out. A small number of other corrections of
the original listing include (see Table 1) corrections of the citations
originally provided, or corrections of the start years for certain series.
The full, corrected listing of the data is supplied as Supplementary
Information to this corrigendum. Also provided as Supplementary Information
are a documented archive of the complete data (instrumental and ‘proxy’
climate series) used in our original study, and an expanded description of
the methodological details of our original study.
None of these errors affect our previously published results."
http://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/shared/articles/MBH98-corrigendum04.pdf
Robert Grumbine
Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt <j.thrupp...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Joshua Halpern <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt wrote:
>>> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
>>>>"James" <king...@iglou.com> wrote in message
[snip]
>>This does not mean that all work products belong to the public or that
>>the public has a right to them. In fact, as Mann states and is
>>reinforced by the letters from NSF, intellectual property, such as code
>>belongs to the person(s) who create it. Moreover, in the US, the
>>The parameter sets and the data sets WERE available at Mann's and
>>Bradley's FTP site. Data was available through or at Hughes' web site
>>and the various databanks listed in the MBH98 paper. A few of the data
>>sets were personal communications (at least at the time of publication)
>>and parts of the code were not available. Anyone who wanted could go
>>get the data. The code issue is a total red herring as the algorithm
>>was described in sufficient detail that one familiar with the field
>>could reproduce the results. This is the requirement for a publication
>>in the scientific literature. Again, you are trying to impose a
>>condition which is NEITHER contractual or customary.
>
>So what you're actually saying is that the full details are in fact
>*not* available. The code issue is far from a red herring, knowing
>the algorithm does not imply replicating the code in exact detail.
Red herring. Or worse.
Science is about the real world. It is not about lines of programming
code. The practice of science has developed a number of ways
of making sure, or at least improving the probability, that a paper
is about the real world rather than various other possibilities.
For the 7 year old paper that certain people obsess about for solely
political reasons, the parts about the real world were:
* Data sets
* Algorithms used to analyze the data sets
Practice of science says that both have to be described in sufficient
detail for people knowledgeable in the field to understand both.
Peer review is part of the process of ensuring that; it was done, and the
paper was accepted.
The later, and more significant, part of the process is to examine
the scientific literature and see if, indeed, other people successfully
used the data or algorithms in other areas, or in the same one. Both
have been done repeatedly.
Another step on algorithms/methods is for people to beat on them to
see whether there are loopholes, pathologies, biases, etc. ... anything
that might lead to results _not_ being accurate (as accurate as possible)
reflections of nature. This, too, has been done.
In the course of doing the preceding, scientists learn more about the
data, and about methods for analyzing it. In time, long since past
in this case, the original paper is of concern only for historical
interest. MBH 1998 introduced some interesting methods, and showed
that there were now (a surprise itself) sufficient data usable to
answer certain scientifically interesting questions. We now, however,
have more and better data, and more and better methods. If you
are interested in the answers to the questions they approached 7 years
ago, you should read the more recent papers.
At no point is the code implementing the algorithms required, or even
helpful.
If you want to find an error in an algorithm, that causes it to not
represent nature, the original source code is the _last_ thing you want
to look at. All that does is let you run it and get the same (wrong,
it will turn out) answer. Big deal. You find the errors in scientific
algorithms by directly analyzing the algorithm -- which is (and
required to be) described in detail in the paper. You find errors in
the implementation of scientific algorithms by writing your own
implementation and discovering that you don't get the same answers as
the original.
This is a far more stringent test, which is why scientists use it.
It is appallingly easy to use an erroneous program without finding
the errors in it. It is nigh on impossible to independantly implement
an algorithm and get the same wrong answers.
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
Coby Beck
news:7102f15i8m5b9bvgd...@4ax.com...
12. Environmentalism has killed millions by banning DDT use against malaria.
13. There is no discernable reality, only left-spin and right-spin.
14. FoxNews is "fair and balanced"
owl
<steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>As best I can tell, the claims that recent warming is unprecedented are
>quite controversial.
Okay, how about the warming is only the most severe in the last 1,000
years. There, feel better?
> The question about IPCC's embrace of the Mann et
>al. hockey stick is an important matter in and of itself.
This 'embrace' thing is the overshoot talk of the critics. It's a
small part of the IPCC effort and deliverable - best efforts for an
unrecorded snapshot of the last 600 years.
> As to whether
>it's a larger point, I wish I could answer yes or no, but "It depends"
>is better description of my opinion on the matter.
It's small, it's petty, unless the historical record showed and the
existing data records showed no impact whatsoever. Even the M&M
reconstructions haven't put a dent in agw. Climate Audit sneaks back
into the 'solar activity' pile, but M&M are too busy being flies to
actually state their 'big picture' about what is or isn't happening.
> If the alarmists are
>substantially wrong, then the schtick is more important. If the
>alarmists are substantially right, then the stick may be more important.
Bah. The pro-pollution forces think there's a decisive victory if any
other curve but MBH98 has more evidence. That's why it's reached the
point of Joe Barton's witchhunt.
owl
<steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>In article <aFPHe.177504$tt5.148051@edtnps90>,
> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
>
>> ... Replication in the sense M&M seem to be
>> seeking is in fact a very superficial way of verifying any scientific
>> finding, just a small step above checking the arithmetic.
>
>It is quite a simple matter. The big deal is the lack of replicability
>of method in this case, and that IPCC embraced it as it did.
>
>> It is much more convincing to understand the method, use the same data and
>> have an independantly developed run at it. Convincing as in reproducing,
>> that is. But even more important is to have different data, different
>> methods and different people arrive at the same conclusion.
>>
>> As this latter has happened now several times it really makes the obsession
>> with checking MBH's arithmetic rather irrelevant.
>
>The Mann et al. hockey stick was iconized by the alarmists.
Rubbish. No such thing happened at the time. It was a curious poster
attraction to everyone who had a look at it. Actually, you're the
sole person I've ever heard talk about poster-gazing at the 2001 IPCC
Conference (and frankly. it comes across like a grassy knoll angle).
It became an icon when M&M turned it into their scratching post four
years after the fact. The MWP and LIA didn't fully 'disappear' until
the attack on MBH98 was in full swing. The issue of bristlecones and
gaspe rings and 12-minutes of missing model didn't show up until much
later ... when M&M needed the stuff.
Why do you rewrite history on a whim - you're not friends with Oceana
again, are you?
> I appreciate
>the apparent current desire to de-couple, and I sure don't mind folks
>pointing to some other studies they now claim to be more persuasive.
Yo, Mr. Wishy-washy. It's not some other studies claiming strength -
it's independent methods and mixes of data old and new leading to the
same station.
>I've previously mentioned Loehle's criticism of multiproxy methods which
>tend to smear variability out of the record. Do any of the studies you
>find persuasive account for that criticism?
Which Loehle are you talking about? He grabbed on the more complex
Moberg study to jump all over Joy and claim the hockey stick was
broken:
"Sir, I need a new hockey stick. Mine is broken."
http://greenspin.blogspot.com/2005_02_06_greenspin_archive.html
However, it shows poor observation and bad judgement - the Moberg
study has its own leading-edge controversies (ex. calibration). It
adds more variability than MBH98:
http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/02/moberg-et-al-highly-variable-northern.html
... but so does Von Storch ... and all three trains end up at the same
station - human-sourced pollution is gaining a global reach.
Mr StS, if you need a petty victory that bad ... go play bingo.
Jonathan Kirwan
wrote:
>13. There is no discernable reality, only left-spin and right-spin.
You know, on this point, I'd expect the evangelical/fundamentalist
Christian element to actually believe in absolutes, perfections, evil
and good, and that there must be an absolute truth to be had and
sought-for. But they also seem the best at demonstrating their belief
that everything (other than the dogma they swallow without question
from their particular choice for religious authorities) is just spin
and so it all amounts to just a free-for-all fight to see whose view
gets to dominate and nothing about a search for reality, at all.
What drives me nuts, though, is the silliness of these 6,000 year old
Earth beliefs!!?? It's a sad day in the world when someone is that
unwilling to think for themselves and that willing to completely
discount fact and embrace their Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy fictions.
I mean, what common basis can there be for any discussion at all? Oh,
well.
Jon
Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt
>13. There is no discernable reality, only left-spin and right-spin.
Probably not... Try "up", "down", "strange", "charm", "bottom",
"top" and for not flavour "red", "green" and "blue". :-)
>14. FoxNews is "fair and balanced"
*Definitely* not..!!
Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt
MBH98 is *all* about lines of programming code you fool! It's a
*computer model*...!
Jonathan Kirwan
<j.thrupp...@btinternet.com> wrote:
><snip>
>MBH98 is *all* about lines of programming code you fool! It's a
>*computer model*...!
Oh, my. You conflate everything into a mush and can't otherwise
think, can you?
Jon
Steve Schulin
"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
LOL - if they had better described their methodology and findings in the
first place, the paper might not have made it past the referees. And if
they had actually done what the paper said they did, their results would
surely have been different, as shown by Fig. 1 in the M&M E&E 2005
follow-up.
McIntyre was apparently much more diligent in following up his curiosity
about the Mann et al. methodology than any of the hundreds or thousands
or however few or many professional climate scientists participated in
elevating the hockey stick to Fig. 1 policymaker summary status. You're
sure free to talk about obsession. Your attitude sadly mirrors the
derisive approach by the folks who should have identified the can of
worms long before McIntyre tried to replicate MBH98.
Steve Schulin
"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
> "Steve Schulin" <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote...
> > "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
> >> "Steve Schulin" <steve....@nuclear.com>...
> >> >
> >> > Mann's reply didn't seem so laudible to me. The claim that Zorita et
> >> > al. was a replication of MBH seems to me to require
> >> > a quite peculiar definition of replication.
> >>
> >> Zorita's name only comes up twice in the same place in a footnote. The
> >> footnote is referenced here:
> >>
> >> "My data and methodological information, and that of my colleagues, are
> >> available to anyone who wants them.[3] As noted above, other scientists
> >> have
> >> reproduced our results based on publicly available information."
> >>
> >> The "other scientists" here clearly refers to Ammann and Wahl. ...
> >
> > And that's not the only place that the plural is used. That's a lot of
> > plurals for referring to one as-yet-unpublished paper. Mann chooses his
> > words carefully, so I guess it's fair to presume that he chose to refer
> > all those times to all those other scientists instead of saying "hey,
> > there's one paper that, although not doing some of the stuff we did, was
> > able to use the information we provided since McIntyre & McKitrick's
> > first paper to replicate much of what we did. And at least the initial
> > submission of that paper didn't report r2 either!"
>
> Searching for the word "replicate" and discarding the couple of times it is
> used in a general way (ie not as a claim about this or other particular
> studies) we end up with this:
>
> pg 1, introductory material:
> "Other scientists have replicated all facets of my research and have found
> it accurate and reliable."
>
> [A general claim that seems to be justified. AW replicated the study
> itself, others have replicated different facets. A reasonable summary.]
There's a lot that hasn't been replicated, even with the benefit of the
correction of some errors which materially and substantially prompted
Nature to require Corrigendum in 2004.
> pg 2, Answering "the most serious contention" regarding lack of
> replicability
> "an independent team of scientists has used the research data my colleagues
> and I have made public to replicate our research and confirm the reliability
> of our findings. See Wahl, E.R., Ammann, C.M., Robustness of the Mann,
> Bradley, Hughes Reconstruction of Surface Temperatures: Examination of
> Criticisms Based on the Nature and Processing of Proxy Climate Evidence,
> Climate Change (2005) (forthcoming) and associated website:
> http://www.cgd.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/MBH_reevaluation.html."
>
> [A very specific claim with a very specific example. No false pretense
> here.]
>
> pg 3, Answer to Q4 regarding provision of data and methods
> "sufficient to permit other researchers to replicate the research"
>
> pg 4, part of footnote 3
> "we replicated our results with a different methodology (Rutherford, S.,
> Mann, M.E., Osborn, T.J., Bradley, R.S., Briffa, K.R., Hughes, M.K., Jones,
> P.D., Proxy-based Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature Reconstructions:
> Sensitivity to Methodology, Predictor Network, Target Season and Target
> Domain, Journal of Climate (2005) (to appear in July issue)"
>
> [Note replicate is used even though it is specified to mean using different
> methodology. Clearly "replicate" for Dr Mann does not mean "duplicate" in
> the sense M&M are attempting.]
>
> pg 4, part of footnote 3
> "an independent group has replicated our original methods and results (See
> Wahl, E.R. and Ammann, C.M., Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes
> Reconstruction of Surface Temperatures: Examination of Criticisms Based on
> the Nature and Processing of Proxy Climate Evidence, Climatic Change (2005)"
>
> [again a specific claim with the same specific example]
>
> pg 5, Answer to Q5 about why computer code was not provided.
> "Since other scientists have used the methods we described and the data we
> archived to replicate our results, the issue of whether my computer program
> is available has no bearing whatsoever on the veracity of our results."
>
> [Here, take it how you choose, "precise" replication and "other scientists"
> means A&W, or "general" replication and "other scientists" means all of the
> others cited.]
>
> So I think Steve, you may have a beef about what the word "replicate" means
> to you as opposed to Dr. Mann, but clearly you have no basis to denigrate
> his response because of it. ...
Well, I was responding to a poster who lauded Mann's clear response. I
think your own position, that one unpublished paper is the basis for all
the claims about scientists replicating, tends to clearly show the basis
for my objection to the claim which my reply addressed.
> ... Further I would suggest that the onus is on you
> to show that Dr Mann's use of the word, in the obvious and specific context
> of scientific research, is "peculiar".
Actually, Coby, you claim that there was no claim that Zorita et al.
replicated MBH98. You claim that all those plurals Mann used are
referring to one unpublished paper. So I'm not sure what difference you
think I could resolve. I would like to take the opportunity to note that
Dr. Zorita seemed every bit as surprised as everyone else I've seen
comment regarding the post-M&M disclosure that MBH used more time series
than the 112.
>
> >> ... The part of
> >> footnote 3 that refers to Zorita is:
> >>
> >> "The initial description of the work was sufficient to permit researchers
> >> to
> >> independently produce the key algorithms. See, e.g., Zorita, E., F.
> >> Gonzalez-Rouco, and S. Legutke, Testing the Mann et al.(1998) approach to
> >> paleoclimate reconstructions in the context of a 1000-yr control
> >> simulation
> >> with the ECHO-G Coupled Climate Model, J. Climate, 16, 1378-1390 (2003);
> >> Von
> >> Storch, H., E. Zorita, J.M. Jones, Y. Dimitriev, F. Gonzalez-Rouco, F.,
> >> and
> >> S.F.B. Tett, Reconstructing Past Climate from Noisy Data, Science, 306,
> >> 679-682 (2004)."
> >>
> >> The key phrase is "independently produce the key algorithms". This does
> >> not
> >> seem to me to be a claim of replication. So what is peculiar here,
> >> Mann's
> >> claim or your presentation of it?
> >
> > LOL - do you recall if replication was mentioned in say, the line
> > preceeding "the part of the footnote" you quote? I do.
>
> Do you? That line is "For these reasons, charges that our work is not
> subject to replication are unfounded." This is not even a claim that it
> *has* been replicated by anyone ...
Was the paragraph about replication? I think so. Did you choose to start
your quote a sentence after the replication talk? Yes. So what's your
beef with me?
> ... just that it is *subject to* replication.
> This sentence refers to the preceeding listing of where all of the material
> required is available, and as that material is available, it is a simple,
> well founded conclusion. ...
Lots of info has been made available since November 2003, including the
information necessary to discover than Mann et al's analytical choices
tend to result in hockey stick shaped results, even when analyzing
noise. How do you think 10,000 runs of noise-into-hockeysticks would
have gone over with the Nature referees in 1998 or the IPCC TAR
reviewers?
> ... The quote I provided is complete for the purposes
> of debunking your claim that Mann is distorting anything. The line you
> object to having been left out does not help your case.
Mann is an intelligent guy. If all the plural talk about other
scientists replicating is, as you suggest, referring to a singular
paper, I am glad that our exchange here has helped to highlight that
alternative explanation.
>
> > And please don't
> > forget Mann's repeated use of plural form regarding such as those who
> > have replicated methods and results. But as you say, maybe Mann was just
> > referring to one paper those times.
>
> I prefer to focus on the more detailed presentation I made above, but I must
> question why you think it is strange to refer to Ammann and Wahl as "other
> scientists", not withstanding that there is only one relevant paper
> (according to *your* interpretation of replicate). This is hardly an
> exageration or whitewash, it is merely proper English grammar. It is not
> like this is a 1000 page document and the fact (according to *your*
> interpretation of "replicate") that only one paper is actually relevant is
> buried deep in the appendix to section 20.
LOL - zero is a number. With that in mind, could I disagree with
somebody who claimed MBH98 has been replicated a number of times?
> >> > It turns out, from the old code he released in another venue
> >> > this month, that the answer is, yes, MBH did calculate r2. Had MBH98
> >> > paper actually reported r2, perhaps the peer reviewers would have asked
> >> > a question or two more.
> >>
> >> Judging this on its own merits is definately over my head. Reading
> >> Mann's
> >> letter it is clear that a good r2 result does not tell you if your
> >> reconstruction has "skill" but it is not clear whether or not a bad r2 is
> >> a
> >> reliable indicator of a lack of skill. Perhaps if it is, and if the r2
> >> result were bad, then hiding that fact is a way of claiming more
> >> confidence
> >> than warranted.
> >>
> >> Is this the case in MBH98?
> >
> > That would have been an interesting topic for Mann to discourse upon.
> > McIntyre's July 20, 2005 discussion of the matter is a real rip-roar.
> > Here's how he ends it:
> >
> > "I have no doubt, as I¹ve mentioned recently, that, if the IPCC had
> > reported that the MBH98 reconstruction had a cross-validation R2 of ~0.0
> > (rather than claiming that it had ³significant skill in independent
> > cross-validation tests²), the MBH98 hockey stick graph would not have
> > been featured in IPCC. If it had been reported in the original
> > publication, it¹s possible that the original article would not have been
> > published in the first place. It will be interesting to see what the
> > various learned societies and individuals will make of this."
> >
> > The full post and comments are available at
> > http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=268#more-268
>
> Yes, I've read that thanks. McIntyre should move on, this is a mole hill
> built up into a mountain long since trampled flat to the ground. MBH98 is
> ancient history in the search for understanding. ...
> ... You and McIntyre are not
> searching for understanding. If including MBH98 in the TAR was wrong and
> due to a break down in process, then devote your energy to improving or even
> policing the process. It is reasonable to try to find and expose other
> problems. But this just is not the smouldering bomb crater you try to
> portray it as. There are a thousand other studies and scientists that all
> make up this big picture, get your head out of this squirrels nest and have
> a look at the forest all around you.
I'm just a guy interested in understanding the scientific basis for all
the hubbub about CO2-climate. Claims like you've been making about the
hockey stick being right even if MBH98 was a shoddy excuse for science
(and I stress to any and all that those are not your words) seem quite
exaggerated to me. A new paper by Mangini et al., for example,
[Reconstruction of temperature in the Central Alps during the past
2000 yr from a d18O stalagmite record. Earth and Planetary Science
Letters 235:741-751, 15 July 2005, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2005.05.010]
discusses advantages of non-biological proxies over tree rings and
whatnot for example. Here's an excerpt from the conclusion paragraph:
"The similarity between records in Europe, Greenland and from the
Bermuda Rise suggests that the MWP had a major impact on the Northern
Hemisphere climate. The temperature difference between the LIA and the
MWP is about 1.7°C on average. This difference is in good agreement with
those derived from sediment cores from the Bermuda Rise but is larger
than the reconstruction of temperature for the Northern Hemisphere from
low frequency stacks and significantly larger than that in the IPCC
report." And here's an excerpt from introduction whic adds some
perspective: "The statistical uncertainty in the IPCC curve in the
section around 1000 AD is about +/- 0.5 °C [1]. However, another major
source of uncertainty is that biological samples, which are the
foundation of climate reconstructions, tend to accommodate with climate
change, and the accuracy of the temperature estimates based on
biological proxies is not likely to be better than 1.3 °C [5]. Several
other climate archives, such as ice cores [6], sediments from high
accumulation sites [7] or mountain glaciers in the Alps [8], suggest
that the Northern Hemisphere has undergone major climatic changes during
the last 2000 yr. The Roman Period about 2000 yr before present as well
as the MWP, lasting from about 800 to 1300 AD were recognized as phases
of glacier retreat, whereas the Little Ice Age (LIA), from about 1400 to
1850 AD, marked a period of generally positive glacier mass balances
[9]. Recently, Moberg et al. [10] have reconstructed temperatures for
the Northern Hemisphere from low and high resolution proxy data from
eleven archives. Their multi-proxy reconstruction reveals a relatively
large multicentennial variability which clearly contrasts the
reconstructions which have mainly used tree-ring data sets of annual and
decadal resolution [1]. The amplitude of temperature variations between
the LIA and the MWP in their stack is about 0.9°C."
A pdf of the in-press version of the paper is available at
www.nersc.no/MACESIZ/Papers/man05.pdf
> I repeat:
> What you have here is a 7 year old study whose conclusions have been well
> coroborated many times over. So regardless of any flaws there may be, the
> conclusion is still correct. If the conclusion is correct, and science has
> moved on who cares?
>
> The only possible remaining issue is whether or not we have a fraud, and a
> fraud that produced a correct conclusion at that. So this is *not* a GW
> issue any more, it is simply one of alledged ethical violations. The fact
> that this is still hauled out to attack AGW theory is ample evidence that no
> one doing so really cares about the science of the issue.
>
> > I'm regularly amazed that folks take solace in the fact that other
> > papers, each of which may have received even less thorough assessment
> > than did Mann et al., have some similarities. The presumed flatness of
> > century scale unforced variation in global mean is an assumption, not a
> > settled scientific issue. And the notion that we are warmer now than
> > during the periods often referred to as Medieval Warm Period or Roman
> > Optimum is not a settled scientific issue either. Heck, the warming in
> > earlier part of 20th century appears comparable in extent (about 20% of
> > CRU grid cells showed statistically significant warming then, compared
> > to 19% in the most recent Jones and Moberg J. Climate update).
>
> It is not clear to me what you think this means in terms of this discussion.
Claims that recent warming is unprecedented are not so well supported in
by the available data.
> >> ... If this study were flawed, fraud or not, it should be
> >> an issue of concern for the IPCC process and then the investigation
> >> should
> >> be focused on that process, not on MBH98, and on verifying all the
> >> *other*
> >> studies relied on by the IPCC, not on MBH98.
> >
> > MBH98 is the starting point.
>
> How many more years before we get off the blocks then?
For the House Energy Committee? I don't know. If the Hockey Team and big
science lobbyists like AAAS keep acting like Mann et al. are victims, it
could be that we'll be well into the next cooling cycle before
lessons-learned are incorporated into consensus-science projects.
Eric Swanson
>
> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
[cut]
>> ... You and McIntyre are not
>> searching for understanding. If including MBH98 in the TAR was wrong and
>> due to a break down in process, then devote your energy to improving or even
>> policing the process. It is reasonable to try to find and expose other
>> problems. But this just is not the smouldering bomb crater you try to
>> portray it as. There are a thousand other studies and scientists that all
>> make up this big picture, get your head out of this squirrels nest and have
>> a look at the forest all around you.
>
>I'm just a guy interested in understanding the scientific basis for all
>the hubbub about CO2-climate. Claims like you've been making about the
>hockey stick being right even if MBH98 was a shoddy excuse for science
>(and I stress to any and all that those are not your words) seem quite
>exaggerated to me. A new paper by Mangini et al., for example,
>[Reconstruction of temperature in the Central Alps during the past
>2000 yr from a d18O stalagmite record. Earth and Planetary Science
>Letters 235:741-751, 15 July 2005, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2005.05.010]
>discusses advantages of non-biological proxies over tree rings and
>whatnot for example.
[cut]
>>A pdf of the in-press version of the paper is available at
>www.nersc.no/MACESIZ/Papers/man05.pdf
Mangini et al. appear to have a serious flaw in the date model used in their
temperature reconstruction in the Alps. I'm waiting for a reply from Dr.
Mantini regarding my analysis of the problem. Stay tuned...
>> I repeat:
>> What you have here is a 7 year old study whose conclusions have been well
>> coroborated many times over. So regardless of any flaws there may be, the
>> conclusion is still correct. If the conclusion is correct, and science has
>> moved on who cares?
>>
>> The only possible remaining issue is whether or not we have a fraud, and a
>> fraud that produced a correct conclusion at that. So this is *not* a GW
>> issue any more, it is simply one of alledged ethical violations. The fact
>> that this is still hauled out to attack AGW theory is ample evidence that no
>> one doing so really cares about the science of the issue.
>>
>> > I'm regularly amazed that folks take solace in the fact that other
>> > papers, each of which may have received even less thorough assessment
>> > than did Mann et al., have some similarities. The presumed flatness of
>> > century scale unforced variation in global mean is an assumption, not a
>> > settled scientific issue. And the notion that we are warmer now than
>> > during the periods often referred to as Medieval Warm Period or Roman
>> > Optimum is not a settled scientific issue either. Heck, the warming in
>> > earlier part of 20th century appears comparable in extent (about 20% of
>> > CRU grid cells showed statistically significant warming then, compared
>> > to 19% in the most recent Jones and Moberg J. Climate update).
>>
>> It is not clear to me what you think this means in terms of this discussion.
>
>Claims that recent warming is unprecedented are not so well supported in
>by the available data.
Not so. That's what all the fuss is about.
>> >> ... If this study were flawed, fraud or not, it should be
>> >> an issue of concern for the IPCC process and then the investigation
>> >> should
>> >> be focused on that process, not on MBH98, and on verifying all the
>> >> *other*
>> >> studies relied on by the IPCC, not on MBH98.
>> >
>> > MBH98 is the starting point.
>>
>> How many more years before we get off the blocks then?
>
>For the House Energy Committee? I don't know. If the Hockey Team and big
>science lobbyists like AAAS keep acting like Mann et al. are victims, it
>could be that we'll be well into the next cooling cycle before
>lessons-learned are incorporated into consensus-science projects.
What next cooling cycle? Do you mean the end of the present interglacial
and the start of the next Ice Age resulting from the Milankovitch Cycles?
Or are you still pushing Loehle's models from his paper in Ecological Modeling?
I've got news for you, Loehle's models have been debunked. Guess who did it?
Steve Schulin
owl <o...@moonlite.com> wrote, in part:
> <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
> > ...
> >The Mann et al. hockey stick was iconized by the alarmists.
>
> Rubbish. No such thing happened at the time. It was a curious poster
> attraction to everyone who had a look at it. Actually, you're the
> sole person I've ever heard talk about poster-gazing at the 2001 IPCC
> Conference (and frankly. it comes across like a grassy knoll angle).
>
> It became an icon when M&M turned it into their scratching post four
> years after the fact. The MWP and LIA didn't fully 'disappear' until
> the attack on MBH98 was in full swing. The issue of bristlecones and
> gaspe rings and 12-minutes of missing model didn't show up until much
> later ... when M&M needed the stuff.
>
> Why do you rewrite history on a whim - you're not friends with Oceana
> again, are you?
You're still a hoot, owl. The speakers weren't gazing at the blown up
Mannmade warming schtick. It was behind the speakers. It was the
backdrop. What will the next calamitology icon be? I don't know. Maybe
some graphic showing progress on narrowing down the consensus range of
climate sensitivity values.
> > I appreciate
> >the apparent current desire to de-couple, and I sure don't mind folks
> >pointing to some other studies they now claim to be more persuasive.
>
> Yo, Mr. Wishy-washy. It's not some other studies claiming strength -
> it's independent methods and mixes of data old and new leading to the
> same station.
LOL - is there any one in particular yu find most persuasive to date?
> >I've previously mentioned Loehle's criticism of multiproxy methods which
> >tend to smear variability out of the record. Do any of the studies you
> >find persuasive account for that criticism?
>
> Which Loehle are you talking about? He grabbed on the more complex
> Moberg study to jump all over Joy and claim the hockey stick was
> broken:
>
> "Sir, I need a new hockey stick. Mine is broken."
>
> http://greenspin.blogspot.com/2005_02_06_greenspin_archive.html
This page you cite isn't by a Loehle, although it does reference papers
by Craig Loehle -- the same fellow to whom I referred.
> ...
owl
<j.thrupp...@btinternet.com> wrote:
Your understanding of the issues doesn't seem to be up to scratch.
There's a big issue of inclusion or exclusion of data, types of data,
and reliability of data.
There's another issue of the weighting placed on different data sets.
The bristlecone pines and the gaspe cedars have nothing to do with the
computer code - but they're the heart of the disagreement from M&M's
point of view.
There's another issue of massaging the data prior to be used in the
computer model to reduce noise or establish its timeline.
And most real modelling systems I've seen don't have push-a-button
results. They're series of computer apps with off-line decision
junctures.
Unsure why you think it would be nothing more than code.
Joshua Halpern
IPCC TAR about MBH 98..
In the summary for policy makers
------------------------------------
New analyses of proxy data for the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the
increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely* to have been the
largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. It is also likely*
that, in the Northern Hemisphere, the 1990s was the warmest decade and
1998 the warmest year (Figure 1b). Because less data are available, less
is known about annual averages prior to 1,000 years before present and
for conditions prevailing in most of the Southern Hemisphere prior to 1861.
---------------------------------------
*likely is defined as a 66 - 90% chance on the same page.
In constrast to the claims often heard, the SPM specifically and clearly
indicates uncertainties in the claims about the 20th century warming and
temperatures in the 1990s wrt the millenium.
In the technical summary (Figure 5 is the MBH98 curve)
-----------------------------------
Surface temperatures during the preinstrumental period from the proxy
record It is likely that the rate and duration of the warming of the
20th century is larger than any other time during the last 1,000 years.
The 1990s are likely to have been the warmest decade of the millennium
in the Northern Hemisphere, and 1998 is likely to have been the warmest
year. There has been a considerable advance in understanding of
temperature change that occurred over the last millennium, especially
from the synthesis of individual temperature reconstructions. This new
detailed temperature record for the Northern Hemisphere is shown in
Figure 5. The data show a relatively warm period associated with the
11th to 14th centuries and a relatively cool period associated with the
15th to 19th centuries in the Northern Hemisphere. However, evidence
does not support these “Medieval Warm Period” and “Little Ice Age”
periods, respectively, as being globally synchronous. As Figure 5
indicates, the rate and duration of warming of the Northern Hemisphere
in the 20th century appears to have been unprecedented during the
millennium, and it cannot simply be considered as a recovery from the
“Little Ice Age” of the 15th to 19th centuries. These analyses are
complemented by sensitivity analysis of the spatial representativeness
of available palaeoclimatic data, indicating that the warmth of the
recent decade is outside the 95% confidence interval of temperature
uncertainty, even during the warmest periods of the last millennium.
Moreover, SEVERAL DIFFERENT ANALYSES (emphasis added-jh) have now been
completed, each suggesting that the Northern Hemisphere temperatures of
the past decade have been warmer than any other time in the past six to
ten centuries. This is the time-span over which temperatures with annual
resolution can be calculated using hemispheric-wide tree-ring,
ice-cores, corals, and and other annually-resolved proxy data. Because
less data are available, less is known about annual averages prior to
1,000 years before the present and for conditions prevailing in most of
the Southern Hemisphere prior to 1861.
-------------------------------------------
and finally in the report itself.
Section 2.3.1 of the WGI report 2.3.1
-------------------------------------
........
The SAR examined evidence for climate change in the past, on time-scales
of centuries to millennia. Based on information from a variety of proxy
climate indicators, reconstructions of mountain glacier mass and extent,
and geothermal sub-surface information from boreholes, it was concluded
that summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere during recent
decades are the warmest in at least six centuries. While data prior to
AD 1400 were considered too sparse for reliable inferences regarding
hemispheric or global mean temperatures, regional inferences were
nonetheless made about climate changes further back in time.
Since the SAR, a number of studies based on considerably expanded
databases of palaeoclimate information have allowed more decisive
conclusions about the spatial and temporal patterns of climate change in
past centuries. A number of important advances have been in key areas
such as ice core palaeoclimatology (e.g., White et al., 1998a),
dendroclimatology (e.g., Cook, 1995; Briffa et al., 1998b), and
geothermal palaeo-temperature estimation (e.g., Pollack et al., 1998).
Moreover, the latest studies based on global networks of “multi-proxy”
data have proved particularly useful for describing global or
hemispheric patterns of climate variability in past centuries (e.g.,
Bradley and Jones, 1993; Hughes and Diaz, 1994; Mann et al., 1995;
Fisher, 1997; Overpeck et al., 1997; Mann et al., 1998, 1999). Such
estimates allow the observed trends of the 20th century to be put in a
longer-term perspective. These have also allowed better comparisons with
possible physical influences on climate forcings (Lean et al., 1995;
Crowley and Kim, 1996, 1999; Overpeck et al., 1997; Mann et al., 1998;
Waple et al., 2001), and for new evaluations of the low-frequency
climate variability exhibited by numerical climate models (Barnett et
al., 1996; Jones et al., 1998; Crowley and Kim, 1999; Delworth and Mann,
2000).
2.3.2 Temperature of the Past 1,000 Years
The past 1,000 years are a particularly important time-frame for
assessing the background natural variability of the climate for climate
change detection. Astronomical boundary conditions have strayed
relatively little from their modern-day values over this interval (but
see Section 2.3.4 for a possible caveat) and, with the latest evidence,
the spatial extent of large-scale climate change during the past
millennium can now be meaningfully characterised (Briffa et al., 1998b;
Jones et al., 1998; Mann et al., 1998; 1999; 2000a; 2000b). Moreover,
estimates of volcanic and solar climate forcings are also possible over
this period, allowing model-based estimates of their climate effects
(Crowley and Kim, 1999; Free and Robock, 1999).
---------------------------------
This is followed by a discussion of the various types of proxy
indicators, their strengths and weaknesses.
------------------------------
2.3.2.2 Multi-proxy synthesis of recent temperature change
Since the SAR there have been several attempts to combine various types
of high-resolution proxy climate indicators to create large-scale
palaeoclimate reconstructions that build on earlier work by e.g.,
Bradley and Jones (1993); Hughes and Diaz (1994) and Mann et al. (1995).
Overpeck et al. (1997) and Fisher (1997) have sought to combine
information from ice cores, varved lake sediment cores, and tree rings
to reconstruct high latitude climate trends for past centuries. Jones et
al. (1998) estimated extra-tropical Northern and Southern Hemisphere
warm-season temperature changes during the past millennium using a
sparse set of extra-tropical warm-season temperature proxy indicators
(10 and 8 respectively). Mann et al. (1998) reconstructed global
patterns of annual surface temperature several centuries back in time.
They calibrated a combined terrestrial (tree ring, ice core and
historical documentary indicator) and marine (coral) multi-proxy climate
network against dominant patterns of 20th century global surface
temperature. Averaging the reconstructed temperature patterns over the
far more data-rich Northern Hemisphere half of the global domain, they
estimated the Northern Hemisphere mean temperature back to AD 1400, a
reconstruction which had significant skill in independent
cross-validation tests. Self-consistent estimates were also made of the
uncertainties. This work has now been extended back to AD 1000 (Figure
2.20, based on Mann et al., 1999). The uncertainties (the shaded region
in Figure 2.20) expand considerably in earlier centuries because of the
sparse network of proxy data. Taking into account these substantial
uncertainties, Mann et al. (1999) concluded that the 1990s were likely
to have been the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, of the past
millennium for at least the Northern Hemisphere. Jones et al. (1998)
came to a similar conclusion from largely independent data and an
entirely independent methodology. Crowley and Lowery (2000) reached the
similar conclusion that medieval temperatures were no warmer than
mid-20th century temperatures. Borehole data (Pollack et al., 1998)
independently support this conclusion for the past 500 years although,
as discussed earlier (Section 2.3.2.1), detailed interpretations
comparison with long-term trends from such of such data are perilous
owing to loss of temporal resolution back in time.
The largely independent multi-proxy Northern Hemisphere temperature
reconstructions of Jones et al. (1998) and Mann et al. (1999) are
compared in Figure 2.21, together with an independent (extra-tropical,
warm-season) Northern Hemisphere temperature estimate by Briffa (2000)
based on tree-ring density data. The estimated uncertainties shown are
those for the smoothed Mann et al. series. Significant differences
between the three reconstructions are evident during the 17th and early
19th centuries where either the Briffa et al. or Jones et al. series lie
outside the estimated uncertainties in the Mann et al. series. Much of
these differences appear to result from the different latitudinal and
seasonal emphases of the temperature estimates. This conclusion is
supported by the observation that the Mann et al. hemispheric
temperature average, when restricted to just the extra-tropical (30 to
70°N band) region of the Northern Hemisphere, shows greater similarity
in its trend over the past few centuries to the Jones et al.
reconstruction. The differences between these reconstructions emphasise
the importance of regional and seasonal variations in climate change.
These are discussed in the next section.
--------------------------------------------
2.3.3 Was there a “Little Ice Age” and a “Medieval Warm Period”?
--------------------------------
.............
Mann et al. (1998) and Jones et al. (1998) support the idea that the
15th to 19th centuries were the coldest of the millennium over the
Northern Hemisphere overall. However, viewed hemispherically, the
“Little Ice Age” can only be considered as a modest cooling of the
Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C relative to late
20th century levels (Bradley and Jones, 1993; Jones et al., 1998; Mann
et al., 1998; 1999; Crowley and Lowery, 2000). Cold conditions appear,
however, to have been considerably more pronounced in particular
regions. Such regional variability can be understood in part as
reflecting accompanying changes in atmospheric circulation. The “Little
Ice Age” appears to have been most clearly expressed in the North
Atlantic region as altered patterns of atmospheric circulation (O’Brien
et al., 1995). Unusually cold, dry winters in central Europe (e.g., 1 to
2°C below normal during the late 17th century) were very likely to have
been associated with more frequent flows of continental air from the
north-east (Wanner et al., 1995; Pfister, 1999). Such conditions are
consistent (Luterbacher et al., 1999) with the negative or enhanced
easterly wind phase of the NAO (Sections 2.2.2.3 and 2.6.5), which
implies both warm and cold anomalies over different regions in the North
Atlantic sector. Such strong influences on European temperature
demonstrate the difficulty in extrapolating the sparse early information
about European climate change to the hemispheric, let alone global,
scale. While past changes in the NAO have likely had an influence in
eastern North America, changes in the El Niño phenomenon (see also
Section 2.6), are likely to have had a particularly significant
influence on regional temperature patterns over North America.
The hemispherically averaged coldness of the 17th century largely
reflected cold conditions in Eurasia, while cold hemispheric conditions
in the 19th century were more associated with cold conditions in North
America (Jones et al., 1998; Mann et al., 2000b). So, while the coldest
decades of the 19th century appear to have been approximately 0.6 to
0.7°C colder than the latter decades of the 20th century in the
hemispheric mean (Mann et al., 1998), the coldest decades for the North
American continent were closer to 1.5°C colder (Mann et al., 2000b). In
addition, the timing of peak coldness was often specific to particular
seasons. In Switzerland, for example, the first particularly cold
winters appear to have been in the 1560s, with cold springs beginning
around 1568, and with 1573 the first unusually cold summer (Pfister, 1995).
The evidence for temperature changes in past centuries in the Southern
Hemisphere is quite sparse. What evidence is available at the
hemispheric scale for summer (Jones et al., 1998) and annual mean
conditions (Mann et al., 2000b) suggests markedly different behaviour
from the Northern Hemisphere. The only obvious similarity is the
unprecedented warmth of the late 20th century.
...............
As with the “Little Ice Age”, the posited “Medieval Warm Period” appears
to have been less distinct, more moderate in amplitude, and somewhat
different in timing at the hemispheric scale than is typically inferred
for the conventionally-defined European epoch. The Northern Hemisphere
mean temperature estimates of Jones et al. (1998), Mann et al. (1999),
and Crowley and Lowery (2000) show temperatures from the 11th to 14th
centuries to be about 0.2°C warmer than those from the 15th to 19th
centuries, but rather below mid-20th century temperatures. The long-term
hemispheric trend is best described as a modest and irregular cooling
from AD 1000 to around 1850 to 1900, followed by an abrupt 20th century
warming. Regional evidence is, however, quite variable. Crowley and
Lowery (2000) show that western Greenland exhibited anomalous warmth
locally only around AD 1000 (and to a lesser extent, around AD 1400),
with quite cold conditions during the latter part of the 11th century,
while Scandinavian summer temperatures appeared relatively warm only
during the 11th and early 12th centuries. Crowley and Lowery (2000) find
no evidence for warmth in the tropics. Regional evidence for medieval
warmth elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere is so variable that eastern,
yet not western, China appears to have been warm by 20th century
standards from the 9th to 13th centuries. The 12th and 14th centuries
appear to have been mainly cold in China (Wang et al., 1998a,b; Wang and
Gong, 2000). The restricted evidence from the Southern Hemisphere, e.g.,
the Tasmanian tree-ring temperature reconstruction of Cook et al.
(1999), shows no evidence for a distinct Medieval Warm Period.
--------------------------------
2.3.5 Summary
--------------------------------
Since the SAR there have been considerable advances in our knowledge of
temperature change over the last millennium. It is likely that
temperatures were relatively warm in the Northern Hemisphere as a whole
during the earlier centuries of the millennium, but it is much less
likely that a globally-synchronous, well defined interval of “Medieval
warmth” existed, comparable to the near global warmth of the late 20th
century. Marked warmth seems to have been confined to Europe and regions
neighbouring the North Atlantic. Relatively colder hemispheric or
global-scale conditions did appear to set in after about AD 1400 and
persist through the 19th century, but peak coldness is observed during
substantially different epochs in different regions. By contrast, the
warming of the 20th century has had a much more convincing global
signature (see Figure 2.9). This is consistent with the palaeoclimate
evidence that the rate and magnitude of global or hemispheric surface
20th century warming is likely to have been the largest of the
millennium, with the 1990s and 1998 likely to have been the warmest
decade and year, respectively, in the Northern Hemisphere. Independent
estimates of hemispheric and global ground temperature trends over the
past five centuries from sub-surface information contained in borehole
data confirm the conclusion that late 20th century warmth is anomalous
in a long-term context. Decreasing temporal resolution back in time of
these estimates and potential complications in inferring surface air
temperature trends from sub-surface ground temperature measurements
precludes, however, a meaningful direct comparison of the borehole
estimates with high-resolution temperature estimates based on other
proxy climate data. Because less data are available, less is known about
annual averages prior to 1,000 years before the present and for
conditions prevailing in most of the Southern Hemisphere prior to 1861.
------------------------
RTFR
josh halpern
Joshua Halpern
>>code.
>
> MBH98 is *all* about lines of programming code you fool! It's a
> *computer model*...!
>
assimilation as there is no underlying dynamical model.
The problem with this whole hoo-hah is that most of the antis don't know
enough to even be wrong.
josh halpern
Joshua Halpern
> Joshua Halpern <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt wrote:
>>>"Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> wrote:
>>>>"James" <king...@iglou.com> wrote in message
>>>>>"Raymond Arritt" <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>>>W. D. Allen Sr. wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>One would have thought that as firstly, Mann's work was publicly
>>>funded and,
>>
>>This does not mean that all work products belong to the public or that
>>the public has a right to them. In fact, as Mann states and is
>>reinforced by the letters from NSF, intellectual property, such as code
>>belongs to the person(s) who create it. Moreover, in the US, the
>>Bayh-Dole act mandates that if there are any inventions of economic
>>significance, the grant holder (the universities) have an obligation to
>>patent it and may retain any profits. The government gets a free
>>license for its own use.
>
> "economic significance"? One would assume that that meant that the
> invention may have some earning potential for its inventor - not
> something that one would expect of a climate model.
>
patentable, although the practice to date appears to be limited to the
former. There is obvious economic value in all of this.
>
>>One of the problems is a lot of people are getting all upset and
>>posturing about things they know nothing about. Whether you think the
>>situation is right or wrong, it is the law and the regulations
>>administering the law.
>
> Assuming that MBH98 etc has "economic significance" to its creators,
> yes. Otherwise, no.
>
>>>secondly and more importantly that it and similar models
>>>are being used to justify predict would be more accurate
>
> No. Its predictions are being used to justify...
>
>>>what may turn out to be catastrophic economic effects on both
>>>the developed and developing world, that he'd
>>>be duty-bound to put all his work - computer code, parameter sets,
>>>data sets, etc
>>
>>The parameter sets and the data sets WERE available at Mann's and
>>Bradley's FTP site. Data was available through or at Hughes' web site
>>and the various databanks listed in the MBH98 paper. A few of the data
>>sets were personal communications (at least at the time of publication)
>>and parts of the code were not available. Anyone who wanted could go
>>get the data. The code issue is a total red herring as the algorithm
>>was described in sufficient detail that one familiar with the field
>>could reproduce the results. This is the requirement for a publication
>>in the scientific literature. Again, you are trying to impose a
>>condition which is NEITHER contractual or customary.
>
> So what you're actually saying is that the full details are in fact
> *not* available.
Depending on what you claim are the full details, no, but sufficient
details were available to reproduce the method and the results, which is
the contractual and customary condition.
> The code issue is far from a red herring, knowing
> the algorithm does not imply replicating the code in exact detail.
>
>>>- into the public domain in order that it be given the
>>>widest possible degree of scrutiny, by as many people as possible.
>>>
>>Right, every man a dendrologist in his basement. Not. You may have
>>noticed that the result HAS been subject to a great deal of scrutiny,
>>some of it even by qualified investigators.
>
> The *result* may have been subject to scrutiny, but not the "engine".
>
As Bob Grumbine points out above, the code is not the engine, the
algorithm is, the data is the fuel.
>>>Witholding such work on the basis that "you aren't qualified to
>>>understand it" makes Mann et al appear to be not much more than
>>>snake-oil salesmen.
>>>
>>He didn't withold it on that basis, he said he didn't have the time to
>>hold the hand of ever clown locked in an attic with issues.
>
> That sounds just like "you aren't qualified to understand it" to me.
>
No, it just means that time has a value. The necessaries were available
to anyone. Whether you could use it or not depends on your training.
It is not the job of anyone who publishes to help you at your demand.
josh halpern
Coby Beck
That is not my position. There are various uses, quoted above, of
replicate. Sometimes he specifically says "replicated methods and results"
sometimes he specifies "replicated results". It seems to me that when he is
talking about replicating methods and results, he means A&W. When he is
talking about replicating results, he is referring to the many other studies
he mentions. When he means replicated a facet of their study, it is
referring to the various facets and studies in his footnote 3.
>> ... Further I would suggest that the onus is on you
>> to show that Dr Mann's use of the word, in the obvious and specific
>> context
>> of scientific research, is "peculiar".
>
> Actually, Coby, you claim that there was no claim that Zorita et al.
> replicated MBH98.
Yes.
> You claim that all those plurals Mann used are
> referring to one unpublished paper.
No.
> So I'm not sure what difference you
> think I could resolve.
Mann uses "replicate" to mean apply similar methods to similar data sets and
arrive at the same conclusion. You claim he is lying or misrepresenting
because you take "replicate" to mean apply the same computer code (or at
least algorithm, maybe you would be satisfied with that) to the same data
and get the same numbers. You further claim that Mann's use is "peculiar".
I think you need to substantiate that or accept his usage as legitimate.
I just called you on your accusation that I hid something relevant. You
tell me where's the beef.
>> ... just that it is *subject to* replication.
>> This sentence refers to the preceeding listing of where all of the
>> material
>> required is available, and as that material is available, it is a simple,
>> well founded conclusion. ...
>
> Lots of info has been made available since November 2003, including the
> information necessary to discover than Mann et al's analytical choices
> tend to result in hockey stick shaped results, even when analyzing
> noise. How do you think 10,000 runs of noise-into-hockeysticks would
> have gone over with the Nature referees in 1998 or the IPCC TAR
> reviewers?
>
>> ... The quote I provided is complete for the purposes
>> of debunking your claim that Mann is distorting anything. The line you
>> object to having been left out does not help your case.
>
> Mann is an intelligent guy. If all the plural talk about other
> scientists replicating is, as you suggest, referring to a singular
> paper, I am glad that our exchange here has helped to highlight that
> alternative explanation.
You're using your "I agree with what you never said" tactic again.
"Replicate" is used in different senses clear from the context. Many
studies were cited along with the reasons they were significant. Sometimes
the plural "scientists" meant A&W. This is correct English grammar.
>> > And please don't
>> > forget Mann's repeated use of plural form regarding such as those who
>> > have replicated methods and results. But as you say, maybe Mann was
>> > just
>> > referring to one paper those times.
>>
>> I prefer to focus on the more detailed presentation I made above, but I
>> must
>> question why you think it is strange to refer to Ammann and Wahl as
>> "other
>> scientists", not withstanding that there is only one relevant paper
>> (according to *your* interpretation of replicate). This is hardly an
>> exageration or whitewash, it is merely proper English grammar. It is not
>> like this is a 1000 page document and the fact (according to *your*
>> interpretation of "replicate") that only one paper is actually relevant
>> is
>> buried deep in the appendix to section 20.
>
> LOL - zero is a number. With that in mind, could I disagree with
> somebody who claimed MBH98 has been replicated a number of times?
Very weak. Only you can read deception into using an "s" when mentioning
two scientists. See above, there are 5 or 6 places "replication" is
discussed, sometimes it is in a specific sense and about A&W, sometimes it
is in a general sense and about all the other studies mentioned.
Please substantiate your implied claim that "replicate" must mean the narrow
sense in which you use it. Or at the very least provide us with your
definition of the term in the context of scientific research.
>> >> > It turns out, from the old code he released in another venue
>> >> > this month, that the answer is, yes, MBH did calculate r2. Had MBH98
>> >> > paper actually reported r2, perhaps the peer reviewers would have
>> >> > asked
>> >> > a question or two more.
>> >>
>> >> Judging this on its own merits is definately over my head. Reading
>> >> Mann's
>> >> letter it is clear that a good r2 result does not tell you if your
>> >> reconstruction has "skill" but it is not clear whether or not a bad r2
>> >> is
>> >> a
>> >> reliable indicator of a lack of skill. Perhaps if it is, and if the
>> >> r2
>> >> result were bad, then hiding that fact is a way of claiming more
>> >> confidence
>> >> than warranted.
>> >>
>> >> Is this the case in MBH98?
>> >
>> > That would have been an interesting topic for Mann to discourse upon.
>> > McIntyre's July 20, 2005 discussion of the matter is a real rip-roar.
>> > Here's how he ends it:
>> >
>> > "I have no doubt, as Iąve mentioned recently, that, if the IPCC had
>> > reported that the MBH98 reconstruction had a cross-validation R2 of
>> > ~0.0
>> > (rather than claiming that it had łsignificant skill in independent
>> > cross-validation tests˛), the MBH98 hockey stick graph would not have
>> > been featured in IPCC. If it had been reported in the original
>> > publication, itąs possible that the original article would not have
If that is what you think the above means, you are using a very narrow and
unreasonable sense of recent. I would think common sense would suffice, but
to spell it out, the "recent" and unprecedented warming means *all* of the
20th century, so calling the claim of "recent" not supported because it
warmed as much in the early 20th century is a joke, and a bad one at that.
Please refer to this graph as a detailed picture of "recent and
unprecedented warming"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png and
stop being deliberately obtuse.
Steve Schulin
swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote, in part:
> steve....@nuclear.com says...
> >
> >... A new paper by Mangini et al., for example,
> >[Reconstruction of temperature in the Central Alps during the past
> >2000 yr from a d18O stalagmite record. Earth and Planetary Science
> >Letters 235:741-751, 15 July 2005, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2005.05.010]
> >discusses advantages of non-biological proxies over tree rings and
> >whatnot for example.
>
> [cut]
>
> >>A pdf of the in-press version of the paper is available at
> >www.nersc.no/MACESIZ/Papers/man05.pdf
>
> Mangini et al. appear to have a serious flaw in the date model used in their
> temperature reconstruction in the Alps. I'm waiting for a reply from Dr.
> Mantini regarding my analysis of the problem. Stay tuned...
>
> >> > ... The presumed flatness of
> >> > century scale unforced variation in global mean is an assumption, not a
> >> > settled scientific issue. And the notion that we are warmer now than
> >> > during the periods often referred to as Medieval Warm Period or Roman
> >> > Optimum is not a settled scientific issue either. Heck, the warming in
> >> > earlier part of 20th century appears comparable in extent (about 20% of
> >> > CRU grid cells showed statistically significant warming then, compared
> >> > to 19% in the most recent Jones and Moberg J. Climate update).
> >>
> >> It is not clear to me what you think this means in terms of this
> >> discussion.
> >
> >Claims that recent warming is unprecedented are not so well supported ...
> >by the available data.
>
> Not so. That's what all the fuss is about.
>
> >> >> ... If this study were flawed, fraud or not, it should be
> >> >> an issue of concern for the IPCC process and then the investigation
> >> >> should
> >> >> be focused on that process, not on MBH98, and on verifying all the
> >> >> *other*
> >> >> studies relied on by the IPCC, not on MBH98.
> >> >
> >> > MBH98 is the starting point.
> >>
> >> How many more years before we get off the blocks then?
> >
> >For the House Energy Committee? I don't know. If the Hockey Team and big
> >science lobbyists like AAAS keep acting like Mann et al. are victims, it
> >could be that we'll be well into the next cooling cycle before
> >lessons-learned are incorporated into consensus-science projects.
>
> What next cooling cycle? Do you mean the end of the present interglacial
> and the start of the next Ice Age resulting from the Milankovitch Cycles?
> Or are you still pushing Loehle's models from his paper in Ecological
> Modeling?
It was the heuristic value of Loehle's models that I found useful, not
any predictive skill. He showed that it is quite plausible that the
magnitude of recent warming was nothing unusual, given best fit of
cycles revealed in past variation. And he showed it is quite plausible
that a significant cooling trend could follow. Very cool stuff.
As for _what_ next cooling cycle, I don't pretend to be able to predict.
But the past seems to show that the phrase climate change is redundant,
since change is what climate seems to do. It's always getting a little
hotter or a little colder. There's several forecasts for cooling in
coming decades. The UN report by fisheries researcher Gary Sharp
discusses some. The solar-weather forecast by UK commercial company,
Weather Action, is another. I've missed the late Dr. Landsheidt's
climate comments in recent months, and would not be surprised if the
solar minimum he predicted for about 2030 occurs, preceded by the steady
predominance of La Nina instead of the El Nino predominance that seemed
to peak a few years ago. I don't prefer any one of these predictions
over any other, nor do I rule out the possibility that greenhouse gas
effects might reach levels projected by GCMs.
> I've got news for you, Loehle's models have been debunked. Guess who did
> it?
LOL - are you exaggerating again? If not, I'd sure be surprised if it
was any of the real(biased)climate folks. They don't seem real
enthusiastic about even discussing Loehle's criticism of extant
multiproxy methods (and I see that Mangini et al. also discuss the same
criticism: "... Moberg零 reconstruction, resulting from a stack of
several different archives with independent age control, loses amplitude
as a consequence of the uncertainty in the ages of the single curves.")
Raymond Arritt
> In article <dcmnj0$mej$1...@news3.infoave.net>,
> swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote:
>> While it's not my field, I suspect that only the creationist would suggest
>> that
>> radioactive decay, which is central to radiometric dating, has varied so much
>> that 4.55 billion years of radioactive time can be compressed into less than
>> 10,000 "orbital years". Here's further discussion:
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html>
>
> I encourage scientific inquiry. Yet I reject your apparent insistance
> that I must share your assumptions. I've never claimed to know how old
> the universe or the Earth is. When I look at research that dates things
> older than is compatible with my best understanding of the Bible, I keep
> my own assumptions in mind, and keep an eye out for assumptions in the
> article.
Creationism is not merely bad science; it is bad theology.
Phil Hays
>Creationism is not merely bad science; it is bad theology.
So is astrology, but that doesn't stop steve.
--
Phil Hays
Phil-hays at comcast.moc (remove moc and add net) should work for
email
Raymond Arritt
> I'm just a guy interested in understanding the scientific basis for all
> the hubbub about CO2-climate.
This is disingenuous. It is abundantly clear from your prior postings
that you have reached your conclusions and are searching for evidence to
support them. Science works in the opposite direction. The fact that
you recently acknowledged yourself as a creationist is consistent with
the "conclusions first, evidence afterward" approach.
Steve Schulin
Joshua Halpern <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Steve Schulin wrote:
> > owl <o...@moonlite.com> wrote, in part:
> >><steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
> >>
> Boring as it might be let us actually look at what was written in the
> IPCC TAR about MBH 98..
>
> In the summary for policy makers
> ------------------------------------
> New analyses of proxy data for the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the
> increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely* to have been the
> largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. It is also likely*
> that, in the Northern Hemisphere, the 1990s was the warmest decade and
> 1998 the warmest year (Figure 1b). Because less data are available, less
> is known about annual averages prior to 1,000 years before present and
> for conditions prevailing in most of the Southern Hemisphere prior to 1861.
> ---------------------------------------
> *likely is defined as a 66 - 90% chance on the same page.
>
> In constrast to the claims often heard, ...
I agree that there's lots of folks who suggest that the science is
settled in the manner that Josh specifies. I took exception to Coby's
recent caricature for exactly this kind of claim. The "likely" language
is also what MBH used in their 1999 article. M&M's claim is that the
Mann et al data does not robustly support this conclusion which was
echoed in the TAR. In fact, if not for a combination of intially
undisclosed and misdescribed operations, Mann et al's methodology would
have shown that a period hundreds of years ago was likely warmer than
what Mann et al and IPCC claim to be the warmest.
> ... the SPM specifically and clearly
Reading the references is good advice. The body of the TAR also included
mention of evidence -- regarding the onset of glacial retreat -- which
was characterized as incompatible or somesuch with the CRU surface
record and the late uptick shown from shaft of hockey stick.
owl
<steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>In article <k6u1f1pt12lspdtfn...@4ax.com>,
> owl <o...@moonlite.com> wrote, in part:
>
>> <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>> > ...
>> >The Mann et al. hockey stick was iconized by the alarmists.
>>
>> Rubbish. No such thing happened at the time. It was a curious poster
>> attraction to everyone who had a look at it. Actually, you're the
>> sole person I've ever heard talk about poster-gazing at the 2001 IPCC
>> Conference (and frankly. it comes across like a grassy knoll angle).
>>
>> It became an icon when M&M turned it into their scratching post four
>> years after the fact. The MWP and LIA didn't fully 'disappear' until
>> the attack on MBH98 was in full swing. The issue of bristlecones and
>> gaspe rings and 12-minutes of missing model didn't show up until much
>> later ... when M&M needed the stuff.
>>
>> Why do you rewrite history on a whim - you're not friends with Oceana
>> again, are you?
>
>You're still a hoot, owl. The speakers weren't gazing at the blown up
>Mannmade warming schtick. It was behind the speakers. It was the
>backdrop. What will the next calamitology icon be? I don't know. Maybe
>some graphic showing progress on narrowing down the consensus range of
>climate sensitivity values.
I'd give the horse you rode in on the same advice.
There's no dispute that MBH was up on the wall in the background.
That's all it was. It was no more 'the symbol' of global warming than
the picture on the cover. Not until M&M made such a pant-smell about
it.
But it's still you and PP's that start tagging the iconoclastic label
on the the other side. It's actually kinda weird to see stuff go thru
the threads, disappear ... and then come around from you later in it's
old-and-unimproved form.
Josiah Thrupp-Mabberley Bt
No. I think that the "whole hoo-hah" is due to Mann's preciousness
about details of his model. Unless and until it's put into the public
domain there's going to be fuel for conspiracy theorists, gain-sayers
and nuts of all flavours to continue their agitations.
As long as it's not *all* fully available for scrutiny it's easy for
congressional committees and the like to state "we don't believe you".
Not so easy to do if the thing has been examined by everyone and his
brother - some of whom will even know what they're talking about.
Eric Swanson
>
>In article <dcrjib$3bcn$1...@news3.infoave.net>,
> swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote, in part:
>
>> steve....@nuclear.com says...
>> >
>> >... A new paper by Mangini et al., for example,
>> >[Reconstruction of temperature in the Central Alps during the past
>> >2000 yr from a d18O stalagmite record. Earth and Planetary Science
>> >Letters 235:741-751, 15 July 2005, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2005.05.010]
>> >>A pdf of the in-press version of the paper is available at
>> >www.nersc.no/MACESIZ/Papers/man05.pdf
>>
>> Mangini et al. appear to have a serious flaw in the date model used in their
>> temperature reconstruction in the Alps. I'm waiting for a reply from Dr.
>> Mantini regarding my analysis of the problem. Stay tuned...
No comment from Nuke.
Loehle's analysis would pick up some cycle out of the data, even if there
isn't one. His conclusions are flawed because his analysis is flawed.
>As for _what_ next cooling cycle, I don't pretend to be able to predict.
>But the past seems to show that the phrase climate change is redundant,
>since change is what climate seems to do. It's always getting a little
>hotter or a little colder. There's several forecasts for cooling in
>coming decades. The UN report by fisheries researcher Gary Sharp
>discusses some. The solar-weather forecast by UK commercial company,
>Weather Action, is another. I've missed the late Dr. Landsheidt's
>climate comments in recent months, and would not be surprised if the
>solar minimum he predicted for about 2030 occurs, preceded by the steady
>predominance of La Nina instead of the El Nino predominance that seemed
>to peak a few years ago. I don't prefer any one of these predictions
>over any other, nor do I rule out the possibility that greenhouse gas
>effects might reach levels projected by GCMs.
>
>> I've got news for you, Loehle's models have been debunked. Guess who did
>> it?
>
>LOL - are you exaggerating again? If not, I'd sure be surprised if it
>was any of the real(biased)climate folks.
No exaggeration.
See:
Ecological Modelling - Article in Press,
doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2005.05.017
Letter to the Editor
Comments on "Climate change: detection and attribution of trends from
long-term geologic data" by C. Loehle [Ecological Modelling 171 (4)
(2004) 433-450]
Richard E. Swanson,
------
>They don't seem real
>enthusiastic about even discussing Loehle's criticism of extant
>multiproxy methods (and I see that Mangini et al. also discuss the same
>criticism: "... Moberg零 reconstruction, resulting from a stack of
>several different archives with independent age control, loses amplitude
>as a consequence of the uncertainty in the ages of the single curves.")
Moberg's reconstruction looks to have a problem. And, he uses Loehle's
technique to boot.
Steve Schulin
Raymond Arritt <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
You are mistaken about my approach to science. I am quite open to new
evidence. It's true enough that I've come to conclusions about the
scientific basis for all the hubbub, and I have been quite forthcoming
in defending those conclusions and the uncertainties associated with
them. As for my religious faith, it is not at all a hindrance to use of
scientific method. Some of the secular guys seem to think it reasonable
to demand that I share their assumptions. I don't make that kind of
unreasonable demand on others.
Coby Beck
message news:o4n3f1t4d6q68tq20...@4ax.com...
> Joshua Halpern <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>The problem with this whole hoo-hah is that most of the antis don't know
>>enough to even be wrong.
>
> No. I think that the "whole hoo-hah" is due to Mann's preciousness
> about details of his model. Unless and until it's put into the public
> domain there's going to be fuel for conspiracy theorists, gain-sayers
> and nuts of all flavours to continue their agitations.
You are ignoring the fact that everything is now in the public domain. The
single part that was not was the actual computer code. Your insistence that
this code is essential for scientific transparency is a misunderstanding of
how scientific research progresses.
> As long as it's not *all* fully available for scrutiny it's easy for
> congressional committees and the like to state "we don't believe you".
> Not so easy to do if the thing has been examined by everyone and his
> brother - some of whom will even know what they're talking about.
This is an entirely political problem and has to do with the interface
between science and public policy. Please see my previous message
news:rB6Ie.156346$HI.125106@edtnps84 which I am still hoping will get some
response from you as it *seems* you don't agree with what I expressed
judging by other posts you have made since.
Steve Schulin
swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote:
> steve....@nuclear.com says...
> > swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote, in part:
> >> steve....@nuclear.com says...
> >> >
> >> >... A new paper by Mangini et al., for example,
> >> >[Reconstruction of temperature in the Central Alps during the past
> >> >2000 yr from a d18O stalagmite record. Earth and Planetary Science
> >> >Letters 235:741-751, 15 July 2005, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2005.05.010]
>
> >> >>A pdf of the in-press version of the paper is available at
> >> >www.nersc.no/MACESIZ/Papers/man05.pdf
> >>
> >> Mangini et al. appear to have a serious flaw in the date model used in
> >> their
> >> temperature reconstruction in the Alps. I'm waiting for a reply from Dr.
> >> Mantini regarding my analysis of the problem. Stay tuned...
>
> No comment from Nuke.
I'm staying tuned. If you want to post your analysis now, I'd be happy
to read it.
LOL - have periodicities been observed in climate-related data sets
around the world? The answer is a resounding yes, and Loehle cites some
of the peer reviewed climate science in this regard, including papers by
such folks as Wally Broecker. Loehle poses the issue in quite
appropriate terms: "If there are underlying climate cycles or patterns
(e.g. Genty et al., 2003), whether due to solar, orbital, or internal
earth system forcings (e.g. Foukal, 2003), it is possible that (1) 20th
Century climate changes could be the partial result of such cycles, and
(2) underlying cycles could influence future climates, either amplifying
greenhouse warming or ameliorating it. The Earth's climate has left
various types of evidence. This means that we can work with historical
data to assess the patterns of behavior that the Earth零 climate has
exhibited in the past in order to determine whether recent climate
behaviors are normal or anomalous. If anomalous, then we can perhaps
attribute the anomalies to anthropogenic forcings. It is not valid,
however, to treat climate as random and lacking any pattern, and then
conclude that any change in climate is automatically due to human
influence. Another way to put it is that the proper null model for
climate change is not 'no change' but a continuation of the patterns of
behavior that have been exhibited in the past. In this report,
historical climate data are used to characterize the patterns of climate
over the recent past."
Loehle showed that it is quite plausible that the magnitude of recent
warming was nothing unusual, and that it is quite plausible that a
significant cooling trend could follow. This conclusion is in no way
affected by the flaw you describe.
That's great, Eric. I look forward to reading it.
> ------
>
> >They don't seem real
> >enthusiastic about even discussing Loehle's criticism of extant
> >multiproxy methods (and I see that Mangini et al. also discuss the same
> >criticism: "... Moberg零 reconstruction, resulting from a stack of
> >several different archives with independent age control, loses amplitude
> >as a consequence of the uncertainty in the ages of the single curves.")
>
> Moberg's reconstruction looks to have a problem. And, he uses Loehle's
> technique to boot.
Loehle's technique involved choosing the two datasets with best
combination of long age and reliable dating. He did this to minimize the
smearing out of variability inherent in multiproxy constructions such as
Mann et al's. Moberg et al's use of "seven tree ring series and eleven
low-resolution series" doesn't strike me as using Loehle's technique in
this fundamental regard. To what part of Loehle's technique are you here
referring?
Eric Swanson
>
> swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote:
>> steve....@nuclear.com says...
>> > swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote, in part:
>> >> steve....@nuclear.com says...
>> >> >
>> >> >... A new paper by Mangini et al., for example,
>> >> >[Reconstruction of temperature in the Central Alps during the past
>> >> >2000 yr from a d18O stalagmite record. Earth and Planetary Science
>> >> >Letters 235:741-751, 15 July 2005, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2005.05.010]
>>
>> >> >>A pdf of the in-press version of the paper is available at
>> >> >www.nersc.no/MACESIZ/Papers/man05.pdf
[cut]
My understanding is that the possibility of cycles in climate is well known.
Some may be truely periodic, such as the orbital cycles of Milankovitch.
Others may be chaotic in nature and should properly be called oscillations,
since there is no obvious cyclic period. Loehle's analysis assumed that all
variations were periodic, which is false, IMHO.
>Loehle showed that it is quite plausible that the magnitude of recent
>warming was nothing unusual, and that it is quite plausible that a
>significant cooling trend could follow. This conclusion is in no way
>affected by the flaw you describe.
How would you know? You haven't seen the Letter, if I read the following
correctly.
Me too. I've not seen the corrected proof yet.
>> ------
>>
>> >They don't seem real
>> >enthusiastic about even discussing Loehle's criticism of extant
>> >multiproxy methods (and I see that Mangini et al. also discuss the same
>> >criticism: "... Moberg零 reconstruction, resulting from a stack of
>> >several different archives with independent age control, loses amplitude
>> >as a consequence of the uncertainty in the ages of the single curves.")
>>
>> Moberg's reconstruction looks to have a problem. And, he uses Loehle's
>> technique to boot.
>
>Loehle's technique involved choosing the two datasets with best
>combination of long age and reliable dating. He did this to minimize the
>smearing out of variability inherent in multiproxy constructions such as
>Mann et al's. Moberg et al's use of "seven tree ring series and eleven
>low-resolution series" doesn't strike me as using Loehle's technique in
>this fundamental regard. To what part of Loehle's technique are you here
>referring?
I question your use of the term "reliable dating", what ever you think it
means. There is considerable error in most techniques used for construction of
date models. That's what my Letter (above) speaks to. Moberg used Keigwin's
data from the Bermuda Rise, as did Loehle and Mangini. Mangini et al. call
their time series "precisely dated", however, as they note in Table 1, some
of their U/Th dates have combined errors of upwards of 60 years. Note also
that their time series ends in the year 1935, thus it says nothing about the
climate of the past 60 years, when most of the impact of the AGW would have
been visible. The stalagmite was harvested in 1998, surely there were samples
available closer to the present than 1935.
As for Mangini et al.'s use of Loehle's work, check out Figure 6.
Steve Schulin
swa...@notspam.net (Eric Swanson) wrote:
If he had made such an assumption, I would agree that it was false.
There is a big difference between what he did and what you appear to
claim he assumed. It's true enough that he did identify some best fit
cycle combinations, and in every case he included all the variation.
This seems quite more reasonable an approach than the apparent consensus
to use close to zero as the definition of normal century-scale variation.
> >Loehle showed that it is quite plausible that the magnitude of recent
> >warming was nothing unusual, and that it is quite plausible that a
> >significant cooling trend could follow. This conclusion is in no way
> >affected by the flaw you describe.
>
> How would you know? You haven't seen the Letter, if I read the following
> correctly.
You provided a description of a flaw in your post. It was your post to
which I was responding, nothing else. If you have a better description
elsewhere, I look forward to reading it.
I'm still not clear as to why you say Moberg uses Loehle's technique. As
to what I mean by reliable dating in the phrase "best combination of
long age and reliable dating", I mean the same thing as Loehle discusses
in describing why he chose the series. He wanted a series with minimal
dating error.
As for Mangini et al's description of "The precisely dated isotopic
composition" of the stalagmite, they do mention that this particular
stalagmite had a high uranium content -- which apparently allows for
more precise dating than would be the case for stalagmites with lower
uranium content. I also note that much more went into their age-depth
model than just the U/Th dates, and the temperature series they created
from it has separate values each representing slightly more than a year.
I didn't notice the 1935 end date. The paper mentions that the top of
the stalagmite had estimated date of 1950 and that there was some liquid
on top of that when it was harvested. As best I can tell, they used as
much as they could, using 100 micron sections. They describe their
calibrations for converting isotopic results to temperature, and their
conclusions about temperature variability are interesting enough even
without post-1935 or 1950 values.
Eric Swanson
He used a mathematical package to analyze the time series for cycles. He found
cycles in the two time series. Then, he arbitrily added 88 year cycles to the
cyclic models the math package generated. If that's not what he did, then
I would like to know about it. BTW, in another later analysis of Holmgren's
speleptherm , the time series was subjected to a time series test. No 88 year
cycle was detected. From that, one may conclude that there was no global 88
year cycle, therefore Loehle should not have added one.
>> >Loehle showed that it is quite plausible that the magnitude of recent
>> >warming was nothing unusual, and that it is quite plausible that a
>> >significant cooling trend could follow. This conclusion is in no way
>> >affected by the flaw you describe.
>>
>> How would you know? You haven't seen the Letter, if I read the following
>> correctly.
>
>You provided a description of a flaw in your post. It was your post to
>which I was responding, nothing else. If you have a better description
>elsewhere, I look forward to reading it.
There is a difference between "projected" and "plausible". As for a more
complete description, please do read my Letter to the Editor of EM.
>> years. Note alsothat their time series ends in the year 1935, thus it says
>> nothing about the climate of the past 60 years, when most of the impact of
>> the AGW would have been visible. The stalagmite was harvested in 1998,
>> surely there were samples available closer to the present than 1935.
>>
>> As for Mangini et al.'s use of Loehle's work, check out Figure 6.
>
>I'm still not clear as to why you say Moberg uses Loehle's technique. As
>to what I mean by reliable dating in the phrase "best combination of
>long age and reliable dating", I mean the same thing as Loehle discusses
>in describing why he chose the series. He wanted a series with minimal
>dating error.
Repeating:
1. Moberg used Keigwin's data from the Bermuda Rise, as did Loehle and
Mangini.
2. As for Mangini et al.'s use of Loehle's work, check out Figure 6.
>As for Mangini et al's description of "The precisely dated isotopic
>composition" of the stalagmite, they do mention that this particular
>stalagmite had a high uranium content -- which apparently allows for
>more precise dating than would be the case for stalagmites with lower
>uranium content. I also note that much more went into their age-depth
>model than just the U/Th dates, and the temperature series they created
>from it has separate values each representing slightly more than a year.
Repeating: Look at Mangini's Table 1 for absolute errors of 50-60 years
for some samples. Tell us, what else went into their date model besides
the U/Th dates? I've analyzed their data and you are incorrect about
their data giving values separated by slightly more than one year.
>I didn't notice the 1935 end date.
That's because you haven't looked at the actual data.
>..The paper mentions that the top of
>the stalagmite had estimated date of 1950 and that there was some liquid
>on top of that when it was harvested. As best I can tell, they used as
>much as they could, using 100 micron sections.
That's what they wrote. It would appear to be wrong, IMHO
>...They describe their
>calibrations for converting isotopic results to temperature, and their
>conclusions about temperature variability are interesting enough even
>without post-1935 or 1950 values.
Did they say anything about how many years of data was missing during the
coldest years of the Little Ice Age? Were the surface temperature to drop low
enough over a year for permafrost to form, there would be no water flowing into
the cave, thus, no new layer(s). Absent yearly layer counting, which they do
not mention, how would they know if there were any missing years?
Joshua Halpern
> In article <dTeIe.32850$Tk6.16137@trnddc02>,
> Joshua Halpern <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>Steve Schulin wrote:
>>>>
>>Boring as it might be let us actually look at what was written in the
>>IPCC TAR about MBH 98..
>>
>>In the summary for policy makers
>>------------------------------------
>>New analyses of proxy data for the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the
>>increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely* to have been the
>>largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. It is also likely*
>>that, in the Northern Hemisphere, the 1990s was the warmest decade and
>>1998 the warmest year (Figure 1b). Because less data are available, less
>>is known about annual averages prior to 1,000 years before present and
>>for conditions prevailing in most of the Southern Hemisphere prior to 1861.
>>---------------------------------------
>>*likely is defined as a 66 - 90% chance on the same page.
>>
>>In constrast to the claims often heard, ...
>
> I agree that there's lots of folks who suggest that the science is
> settled in the manner that Josh specifies. I took exception to Coby's
> recent caricature for exactly this kind of claim.
You might notice that we are 7 years further on with a lot more evidence
for these two claims. OTOH, you might not.
> The "likely" language is also what MBH used in their 1999 article.
It is fundamentally different as the IPCC associated ranges of
probability with likely, very likely, etc in the SPM. MBH99 did not
associate numerical ranges of probability with their use of likely.
> M&M's claim is that the Mann et al data does not robustly support
> this conclusion which was echoed in the TAR.
There you go again. Remember in the SPM, likely is used to reflect a
range of probability between 66 and 90%. The TS and the WGI report
carefully caveated their use of MBH98. What has changed since then are
additional reconstructions that reinforce the key conclusions that
"the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely* to have been
the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. It is also
likely* that, in the Northern Hemisphere, the 1990s was the warmest
decade and 1998 the warmest year (Figure 1b)."
> In fact, if not for a combination of intially
> undisclosed and misdescribed operations, Mann et al's methodology would
> have shown that a period hundreds of years ago was likely warmer than
> what Mann et al and IPCC claim to be the warmest.
Give that one up.
josh halpern
Joshua Halpern
> owl <o...@moonlite.com> wrote:
>><steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
SNIP....
>>>The question about IPCC's embrace of the Mann et
>>>al. hockey stick is an important matter in and of itself.
>>
>>This 'embrace' thing is the overshoot talk of the critics. It's a
>>small part of the IPCC effort and deliverable - best efforts for an
>>unrecorded snapshot of the last 600 years.
>
> In 1999, former IPCC chair Watson said that "the philosophy of the TAR
> will ... embrace the concept of sustainable development". So that
> 'embrace' thing has linguistic ties to IPCC itself.
Ah, I see, as in embrace your girlfriend. Come on he also used the word
concept, does that mean concept has linguistic ties to the IPCC itself.
Is is used frequently by Bob Watson, does that mean that is has
linguistic ties to the IPCC itself? An amusing game. I suppose at some
point, having been born in Australia, Watson used the word barbie, and
we know that Klaus Barbie was responsible for autrocities in France
during WWII. I guess that means the IPCC has embraced the war criminal
Klaus Barbie. And so it goes in Schulin land.
>
> A recent refereed paper published in Nature [Moberg et al., Nature
> 433:613, 10 Feb 2005] discusses the prominance of the Mann et al hockey
> stick in TAR and media: "Although differences in the amplitude of
> centennial temperature variability have been discussed in the literature
> [8,15], the picture with relatively small variability (shown by
> multi-proxy reconstructions [1-4,7]) is arguably best known by a wider
> audience. One reason for this is the prominent role that the multi-proxy
> reconstruction by Mann et al. [1,2] had in the latest IPCC report [15]
> and in public media."
You are the guys that made it famous by making it a target..
Congratulations
josh halpern