1
sunny starry skies, on 08 July 2010 - 15:53 , said:
methinks the black helicopters are on therir way... Yes, Y.S., it's obvious you subscribe to Climate Fraudit, and it's also obvious that you credulously believe everything they have to say. Five independent investigations find no evidence of scientific misconduct, yet clearly Fred Pearce, a journalist who has money to make over a very dubious book on the climategate story is obviously right where the inquiries are all wrong! Riiiiiight... WIll someone please tell the glaciers to stop melting [see links lower down], the boreholes to stop warming, the instrumental temperatures to stop rising etc etc, they can safely stop now that Steve MacIntyre has said there's been a load of whitewashes.
For an alternative view (with evidence):
http://climateprogre...te-science-cru/
There's no evidence that incriminating emails were actually deleted, and hence no evidence of an actual crime, but that's not enough to quell your suspicions is it or crucify Jones, and clearly you're happy to cry "guilty" without and direct evidence of a crime. Fortunately the multiple independent inquiries are able to do so, and while criticising Jones' comments, they categorically state that no crime was comitted. If I say I'm going to, or can my friend Mike please drive at 120mph down the A1 a.s.a.p., does it mean a crime has been comitted?
http://www.realclima...russell-report/ [among many others]
Quoting Y.S.:
"The published critisisms made by McIntyre have not been refuted in this area [1]. Also, the use of Tree-ring proxy data is also universally accepted as being very questionable (and I am being charitable with this statement) [2]. Yet it is used in the majority of papers supporting the original Mann publications.
Why on earth did the hockey stick need to splice 20th century temperature instrumental records on top of the proxy data when they had proxy data to 1980 if not to hide the fact that the 20th century proxy data they had showed a downturn in temperatures [3]. This would have sort of questioned the value in the tree-ring proxy data to begin with."
[1] Er, yes they have - MacIntyre critcises the original paper, but numerous subsequent papers have found Mann's conclusions to be basically OK, by using a variety of different methods and proxies. Some of these are linked to in the NAS report, others are more recent than that.
"As part of their statistical methods, Mann et al. used a type of principal component analysis that tends to bias the shape of the reconstructions. A description of this effect is given in Chapter 9. In practice, this method, though not recommended, does not appear to unduly influence reconstructions of hemispheric mean temperature; reconstructions performed without using principal component analysis are qualitatively similar to the original curves presented by Mann et al. (Crowley and Lowery 2000, Huybers 2005, D’Arrigo et al. 2006, Hegerl et al. 2006, Wahl and Ammann in press)." [NAS report] Bristlecone Pines affect the early part of the 1999 curve, but not the later part too.
[2] "universally accepted" err, by who, the denier community? MacIntyre? Certainly seems alive and well to me, and to the wider climate science community who are happy to use it. See the NAS report among others, and numerous peer-reviewed publications. The 'Divergence problem' is specific to some trees in some regions, but does not show up in other tree records, instrumental records, and crucially other long timeseries proxies - hence why you can still use the tree rings alongise other methods.
[3]All you have to do is look at a load of these reconstructions to see that this one is blatantly false. The reconstructions, whether tree-ring derived, or specifically not tree-ring derived do not show a downturn at their cut-off in the 20th Century. See the many figures in links here. As I linked to in my previous post, and you can do for yourself, you can reproduce the 20th Century's kinked rise very nicely with just proxy records. The only difference when adding the instrumental record is it tends to produce a higher spike at the end of the 20th Century. But all this does is take the temps from as high/slightly higher than the MCA up to much higher than the MCA. That's still a valid line of debate, but with Arctic temperatures and some individual retreating glaciers/ ice caps proving locally higher temperatures than in thousands of years, I suspect the instrumental record to be the best on here.
http://climateprogre...atural-cooling/
http://www.realclima...switch_lang/in/
http://bprc.osu.edu/...20al%202009.pdf [Quelccaya Ice Cap smallest in 5000 years]
Anderson et al 2008: A millennial perspective on Arctic warming from 14C in quartz and plants emerging from beneath ice caps. GRL:
http://www.agu.org/p...7GL032057.shtml [Arctic ice caps melted for first time in >1700 years]
Here's all the data that went into the Mann et al 2008 PNAS paper:
http://www.meteo.psu...tiproxyMeans07/
http://www.meteo.psu...rig_Nov2009.pdf
Note the specific figure that shows what the curve is without tree rings and 7 'problem series'.
Seriously, Y.S., when you can go yourself and reproduce the results reasonably well of both the instrumental records and the 'Hockey Stick' from the raw timeseries, and this has been done by many independent research groups, researchers and bloggers, you wonder at the competency of those who bleat that they could not get access to the data, or could not do the reconstructions.
Prof Peter Clarke's comment seems particularly pertinent to Steve MacIntyre and his ilk:
"It's very clear that anyone who'd be competent enough to analyse the data would know where to find it. It's also clear that anyone competent could perform their own analysis without let or hindrance."
Competent? MacIntyre? Aye right!
sss
For an alternative view (with evidence):
http://climateprogre...te-science-cru/
There's no evidence that incriminating emails were actually deleted, and hence no evidence of an actual crime, but that's not enough to quell your suspicions is it or crucify Jones, and clearly you're happy to cry "guilty" without and direct evidence of a crime. Fortunately the multiple independent inquiries are able to do so, and while criticising Jones' comments, they categorically state that no crime was comitted. If I say I'm going to, or can my friend Mike please drive at 120mph down the A1 a.s.a.p., does it mean a crime has been comitted?
http://www.realclima...russell-report/ [among many others]
Quoting Y.S.:
"The published critisisms made by McIntyre have not been refuted in this area [1]. Also, the use of Tree-ring proxy data is also universally accepted as being very questionable (and I am being charitable with this statement) [2]. Yet it is used in the majority of papers supporting the original Mann publications.
Why on earth did the hockey stick need to splice 20th century temperature instrumental records on top of the proxy data when they had proxy data to 1980 if not to hide the fact that the 20th century proxy data they had showed a downturn in temperatures [3]. This would have sort of questioned the value in the tree-ring proxy data to begin with."
[1] Er, yes they have - MacIntyre critcises the original paper, but numerous subsequent papers have found Mann's conclusions to be basically OK, by using a variety of different methods and proxies. Some of these are linked to in the NAS report, others are more recent than that.
"As part of their statistical methods, Mann et al. used a type of principal component analysis that tends to bias the shape of the reconstructions. A description of this effect is given in Chapter 9. In practice, this method, though not recommended, does not appear to unduly influence reconstructions of hemispheric mean temperature; reconstructions performed without using principal component analysis are qualitatively similar to the original curves presented by Mann et al. (Crowley and Lowery 2000, Huybers 2005, D’Arrigo et al. 2006, Hegerl et al. 2006, Wahl and Ammann in press)." [NAS report] Bristlecone Pines affect the early part of the 1999 curve, but not the later part too.
[2] "universally accepted" err, by who, the denier community? MacIntyre? Certainly seems alive and well to me, and to the wider climate science community who are happy to use it. See the NAS report among others, and numerous peer-reviewed publications. The 'Divergence problem' is specific to some trees in some regions, but does not show up in other tree records, instrumental records, and crucially other long timeseries proxies - hence why you can still use the tree rings alongise other methods.
[3]All you have to do is look at a load of these reconstructions to see that this one is blatantly false. The reconstructions, whether tree-ring derived, or specifically not tree-ring derived do not show a downturn at their cut-off in the 20th Century. See the many figures in links here. As I linked to in my previous post, and you can do for yourself, you can reproduce the 20th Century's kinked rise very nicely with just proxy records. The only difference when adding the instrumental record is it tends to produce a higher spike at the end of the 20th Century. But all this does is take the temps from as high/slightly higher than the MCA up to much higher than the MCA. That's still a valid line of debate, but with Arctic temperatures and some individual retreating glaciers/ ice caps proving locally higher temperatures than in thousands of years, I suspect the instrumental record to be the best on here.
http://climateprogre...atural-cooling/
http://www.realclima...switch_lang/in/
http://bprc.osu.edu/...20al%202009.pdf [Quelccaya Ice Cap smallest in 5000 years]
Anderson et al 2008: A millennial perspective on Arctic warming from 14C in quartz and plants emerging from beneath ice caps. GRL:
http://www.agu.org/p...7GL032057.shtml [Arctic ice caps melted for first time in >1700 years]
Here's all the data that went into the Mann et al 2008 PNAS paper:
http://www.meteo.psu...tiproxyMeans07/
http://www.meteo.psu...rig_Nov2009.pdf
Note the specific figure that shows what the curve is without tree rings and 7 'problem series'.
Seriously, Y.S., when you can go yourself and reproduce the results reasonably well of both the instrumental records and the 'Hockey Stick' from the raw timeseries, and this has been done by many independent research groups, researchers and bloggers, you wonder at the competency of those who bleat that they could not get access to the data, or could not do the reconstructions.
Prof Peter Clarke's comment seems particularly pertinent to Steve MacIntyre and his ilk:
"It's very clear that anyone who'd be competent enough to analyse the data would know where to find it. It's also clear that anyone competent could perform their own analysis without let or hindrance."
Competent? MacIntyre? Aye right!
sss
Starry Skies,
Chill me old mate
I do not subscribe to climate audit. I use it to gain information. Its a crap site because it questions the science of certain papers ? Don't quite follow your reasoning on that one. I think its great that folks do question things, that how progress is made.
We have gone round and round in circles on this one. Most of the papers that support Mann use the same sets of flawed proxy data (see earlier posts on the other thread). I believe I am right in thinking the Hockey stick is a load of crap and I have provided plenty of evidence and links and papers to suggest that there is a least major controversary over the Mann papers, but you have just as much right to state your views.
The Mann 2008 paper uses a dodgy set of lake bore hole proxies (see my earlier posts about a circulat argument), Without this or the tree-ring proxy, .... you don't get the graph (here's an exert from my earlier post on this paper again ....)
"Mann et al 2008: Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia. PNAS, abstract here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa...008.html</span>
[this one's particularly useful as it takes on board the findings of the reviews regarding the statistical criticisms of Mann et al 1998, No tree rings, so no bristlecone pines here YS!, many more proxies, different stats]"
This paper was an attempt by Mann to take on board some of the critisism levelled at his earlier papers and to resurrect the Hockey stick. But I am afraid that this paper has been exposed to the following flaws:
1) It still uses a load of tree ring proxy data (relying on no less than 112 Oak tree proxies):
"Doug Keenan has received a favorable decision from the FOI Commissioner in his lengthy FOI/EIR battle for tree ring data collected by Mike Baillie of Queen’s University, Belfast. The data is from Irish oaks and was collected mostly in the 1970s"
"Baillie and Wilson argued that oak chronologies were “virtually useless” as temperature proxies and “dangerous” in a temperature reconstruction. Nonetheless, as I report below, no fewer than 119 oak chronologies (including 3 Baillie chronologies) were used in Mann et al 2008 without any complaint by Wilson or other specialists"
And of the author of the original oak tree study that was used In Mann 2008:
"Although ancient oaks could give an indication of one-off dramatic climatic events, such as droughts, they were not useful as a temperature proxy because they were highly sensitive to water availability as well as past temperatures"
“It’s been dressed up as though we are suppressing climate data, but we have never produced climate records from our tree rings,” Professor Bailee said.
“In my view it would be dangerous to try and make interpretations about the temperature from this data.”
2) Almost all of the non tree proxy data do not even show a 'modern warming', one major exception being a group of four lake sediment series from Finland known as the Tiljander proxies.
However, again, the original paper was written by a pHD student (a thesis paper), author Mia Tiljander. It turned out that the 20th century up-tick (hockey shape) in these proxies was actually caused by artificial disturbance of the sediment caused by ditch digging rather than anything climatic.
Mann acknowledges this fact but rather than reject the series, he stated that the disturbance did not matter. He provided a 'sensitivity' analysis, showing that he still could get a 'hockey stick without the Tiljander proxies.
The BIG selling point of this paper was exactly this point. You could get a hockey stick shape even if you looked at non-tree ring proxies. And here is the slight of hand:
This claim rests on a circular argument:
Mann had shown that the Tiljander proxies were valid by removing them from the database and showing that you still got a hockey stick. However, when he did this test, the hockey stick shape of the final reconstruction came from ...... BRISTLECONES (universally accepted as flawed). Then he argued that he could remove the tree ring proxies (including the Bristlecones) and still get a hockey stick ......... and of course he could, because in this case the hockey stick shape came from the Tiljander proxies.
His arguments therefore rested on two sets of flawed proxies in the database but only removing one at a time and arguing that you get a hockey stick either way !!!!
3) Briffa's discredited tree ring proxy series is also included in this paper, with the same inconvenient divergence in the latter part of the 20th century truncated down to 1960. The data series actually shows a down-tick therafter (there's a lot on this from previous publications - see Climate audit for more information).
4) One of the 'new' proxy series included is a documentary record of temperatures in East Africa dating back to 1400. If true, this would have overturned everything known about the history of the continent ....... but it was discovered that Mann had inadvertantly swopped the the latitude and longitude, and the series should have been located in Spain. It became farcically apparent that the proxy was not a documentary record at all ...... but a rainfall record.
To be fair to Mann on this point, once this error had been made public, he corrected the data, with the effect of a change in 0.5 degrees C in the 18th century.
5) McIntyre and McKitrick published (late 2008) in the same journal a short comment dealing with the major flaws as they saw them:
a) The use of confidence levels in the statistics used - they pointed out that using conventional statistical methods, they could show that Mann's uncertainty bounds were infinately large prior to 1800 ..... in other words that his new reconstruction was of no use prior to that date.
the calibration process producing hockey sticks from 'red-noise'c) the Tiljander issue
d) the use of proxies which were not responding to temperature, including Bristlecones.
There's a load more, but I think you get the point !!
Its funny dude, but you really seem to want to take an aggressive line with me as though I am in some way responsible for the mess that is the Hockey stick. You do read some of the contradictory papers don't you, and you seem an intelligent sort of person. If you are happy with it then that's your view and your welcome to it.
I am a scientist by trade and I publish and review several papers on a yearly basis. In submitting papers for publication you must include all relevant data and make clear what you have done with the data to achieve your tables, summary graphs etc. In addition, you must keep any other relevant data which includes e-mails etc that could have any relevance to decisions taken and archive these with the raw data. In this way, you are making it possible for a second party to recreate your work ...... this is good science and forms the basis for GLP (Good Labortaory Practice). Mann and his cronies have done absolotely everything possible not to provide the data that is needed to attempt to replicate their original findings ..... (by not releasing the computer code or indeed revealing what they did and did not do with certain data) this would be unacceptable in the field of medicine.
I am not a complete denier and believe that Man is influencing the climate (I am not a 'denier' of greenhouse gas effects EITHER), but my belief is that the greenhouse 'power' of Co2 is limited and that natural cycles have a major part to play in what we are currently seeing. This is just my personnal view from the papers and data I have looked at (not to say that I do not have more to learn).
As a scientist it is my view that the climate change science in terms of the proxy data and how this has been presented in published papers has been poorly handled. There are the books, the blog and the papers that question this . In regards to the Hockey-stick, then we have an old saying round these parts:
"You cannot polish a turd" !!
So, lets keep things friendly Starry Skies. Have a great weekend and lets do battle another day ?
Y.S
Edited by Yorkshiresnows, 09 July 2010 - 12:40 .
