A third of the world now faces deadly heatwaves as result of climate change

[Theo520]

Lynn, cartoons such as this only highlight how climate alarmists are avoiding the science and instead resort to ad hominem attacks.

There are numerous skeptic climate models in publication that track quite well with the recent temperature record as well as the historical record. In general they assume lower H20 feedbacks in their assumptions.

Why is it that alarmist avoid the topic of H20 feedbacks?

The issue with Mann’s graph is that he did not mention the sources at the bottom of the graph (as is usually required for scholars), but he did give them in the body of the paper. I think because the sources were complicated (some from tree ring proxies, some from instrumental data) he didn’t do that. He probably never in the wildest of his imaginations thought people would make a big stink about it. And really it is up to the editor and peer-reviewers to catch these things and make sure they are corrected.

As for virtually no real scientific studies or models to refute GW, only criticism on the sidelines (mostly of the red herring type), a climate scientist I know and his wife did this cartoon:

http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cartoons/climate-models-vs-skeptic-models-small.png

 

[dvdjs]

Occam’s razor

Mann was no neophyte to climate research and the temperature record, yet evidence shows his research was highly defective and always produced the temperature hockey stick that supported his agenda.

Either he was grossly incompetent or practicing deception. I’ve seen no other evidence he was a moron, hence I must conclude it was intentional deception that supported the political agenda he wore on his sleeve.

So the method is dropped, and speculation on motives and methods reign supreme.

Apart from that:

What is current state of knowledge: what is the best estimate to the true global temperature trend over the past thousand years? Does it recapitulate Mann et al? If so, perhaps he was brilliantly intuitive in his view of the data.

 

[Poptech]

I await proper evidence that Mann et al are guilty of scientific misconduct, s suggested here.

We still await a proper investigation of Climategate and Mann’s hockey stick propaganda.

I would like to see a reference to your graph that details the methodology used. Preferably something from a peer-reviewed journal.

The Hockey stick has been extensively refuted in the peer-reviewed literature.

Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series (PDF)
*(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Number 6, pp. 751-771, November 2003)

• Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick*

The M&M Critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate Index: Update and Implications (PDF)
*(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 1, pp. 69-100, January 2005)

• Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick*

Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance (PDF)
*(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 32, Number 3, February 2005)

• Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick*

A statistical analysis of multiple temperature proxies: Are reconstructions of surface temperatures over the last 1000 years reliable? (PDF)
*(Annals of Applied Statistics, Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 5-44, March 2011)

• Blakeley B. McShane, Abraham J. Wyner*

 

[Theo520]

You seem to be implying that the end’s justify the means and that Mann’s projections, though completely error ridden, can be justified if he is in the right prediction ballpark?

I’d say the current state of knowledge is we are settling in on a CO2 ECS that is below 2.5

So the method is dropped, and speculation on motives and methods reign supreme.

Apart from that:

What is current state of knowledge: what is the best estimate to the true global temperature trend over the past thousand years? Does it recapitulate Mann et al? If so, perhaps he was brilliantly intuitive in his view of the data.

 

[Poptech]

I didn’t say it wasn’t peer-reviewed. I said that the quality of that peer-review was questionable.

An AGW alarmist’s baseless attack on a reputable journal simply because it published papers debunking Mann’s hockey stick is not evidence of anything.

Do the IPCC reports cite scholarly journals with questionable peer-review? Because the IPCC cites Energy & Environment 28 times

In any case, I was not incorrect to say that Loehle’s temperature reconstruction is by no means universally accepted. That is true regardless of the peer-review used at E&E.

The AGW alarmist position in this debate has nothing to do with what is “universally accepted.”

 

[Poptech]

From the little that I have read, Mann et al undertook an ambitious project that mixed many kinds of data over large times scales, with various levels of uncertainties that are correlated with time. While at face value the trend looked reasonably clear, the lack of proper error analysis, and the faulty use of some analytical methods that help find the significant trends in noisy, composite data opened them to criticism. Statisticians are often critical of the way physical scientists handle error analysis; in this situation they have a good point, but it is not clear that these problems invalidate the fundamental result,especially in light of continuing results,

Then you have not read enough.

What is the ‘Hockey Stick’ Debate About? (PDF) (Ross McKitrick, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Economics, April 4, 2005)
Auditing Temperature Reconstructions of the Past 1000 Years (PDF) (Stephen McIntyre, B.Sc. Mathematics, August 20, 2008)

Not understanding the Hockey Stick debate is not an argument.

 

[Poptech]

Where can I find this “corrected” graph? And why does it stop at 1950?

I take it you are new to this debate.

 

[Poptech]

I will discuss any aspect that you can cite via primary sources. This one, for example, purports to show what this UK investigation found. So please use a source associated with the investigating organization. I’m sure it exists. Yet you chose to cite these findings via a secondary source, complete with biased analysis.

No, I am not going to write my own summary of what is wrong with the whitewashed Climategate investigations from the primary sources when this has already been done.

Slanted inquiries (Financial Post, Canada, September 17, 2010) - Archive]

The Climategate Inquiries (PDF) (55 pgs) (The Global Warming Policy Foundation)
Understanding the Climategate Inquiries (PDF) (50 pgs) (Ross McKitrick, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Economics)

To save some time, why don’t you quote what you believe is the most conclusive single fact that proves scientific misconduct by the IPCC that discredits the AGW conclusions they reached. Please no shotgun approach, as if the quantity of items listed can compensate for their irrelevance.

I’ve listed every major problem with the whitewashed Climategate inquires that you are in denial of and have provided two 50 page sources that explain them in detail.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I take it you are new to this debate.

Discuss the issues, not each other.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The Hockey stick has been extensively refuted in the peer-reviewed literature.

The graph, maybe, but not the findings of the report in which it appeared.

 

[dvdjs]

Then you have not read enough.

What is the ‘Hockey Stick’ Debate About? (PDF) (Ross McKitrick, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Economics, April 4, 2005)
Auditing Temperature Reconstructions of the Past 1000 Years (PDF) (Stephen McIntyre, B.Sc. Mathematics, August 20, 2008)

Not understanding the Hockey Stick debate is not an argument.

Instead of this old stuff, about references after the 2013 Nature paper and 2015 corrigenda that I linked?

 

[dvdjs]

You seem to be implying that the end’s justify the means and that Mann’s projections, though completely error ridden, can be justified if he is in the right prediction ballpark?

Not at all. But I do understand the role of intuition in the creation of knowledge.
AFAIK, Mann et al have been criticized for various aspects of their work, and have not been sanctioned for academic misconduct. Is this wrong?

Will people who criticize Mann et al here, hold to rigorous critical thinking in their comments?

And I ask: has the trend that they identified has been vitiated or substantiated in current thinking.

I’d say the current state of knowledge is we are settling in on a CO2 ECS that is below 2.5

Temperature trend is what I am asking about.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The AGW alarmist position in this debate has nothing to do with what is “universally accepted.”

I was referring to your presentation of Loehle’s reconstruction as if it were established fact. It is not. His reconstructions are not universally accepted. So when you use those reconstructions in your argument, you should qualify them by saying something like “There is at least one researcher who speculates that the MWP had higher temperatures than the present” instead of “This is incorrect, the MWP was much warmer than today.” (as if it were established fact)

 

[Poptech]

Instead of this old stuff, about references after the 2013 Nature paper and 2015 corrigenda that I linked?

“Old stuff”, you mean the subject being debated and you claimed to have read?

The paper that uses proxy records upside down?

PAGES2K: More Upside Down?

 

[Poptech]

Occam’s razor

Mann was no neophyte to climate research and the temperature record, yet evidence shows his research was highly defective and always produced the temperature hockey stick that supported his agenda.

Either he was grossly incompetent or practicing deception. I’ve seen no other evidence he was a moron, hence I must conclude it was intentional deception that supported the political agenda he wore on his sleeve.

Exactly.

 

[dvdjs]

“Old stuff”, you mean the subject being debated and you claimed to have read?

The paper that uses proxy records upside down?

PAGES2K: More Upside Down?

Yes. But I do enjoy reading the papers by statisticians critiquing Mann et al. The latest one you cited discusses the technical difficulties in extrapolating backward to 1000, but still shows a set of curves that exhibit gradual declines in T since 1000, with various rates of decline, then change to rapidly increasing temperatures since 1850, with a current temperature well above anything in the last 1000 yrs. The detail here is how flat was the stick in the 1000-1850 era. (BTW nothing like that strange plot of yours.)

While the statistical stuff is interesting, I am much more interested in the current state of knowledge. The paper I gave you has a corrigendum and final version in 2015. Anything since that contradicts the basic features of the trend that I outlined above?

 

[lynnvinc]

Incorrect, the pause is still there in the updated UAH satellite temperature record, even though RSS is desperately trying to adjust it away.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/uah6/from:1998/plot/uah6/from:1998/to:2017/trend

That’s IFF you cherry pick and use 1998 as the start date. Let’s see the trend over a 30 year period, say from 1987.

 

[lynnvinc]

This is incorrect, the MWP was much warmer than today.

http://www.co2science.org/articles/V11/N5/Loehle2007small.gif

A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies (PDF)
*(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 7-8, pp. 1049-1058, December 2007)

• Craig Loehle*

Then how come your rendition of the MWP gets only up to 0.6, when today’s temp is like nearly 1.0 above? (Note the jnl Energy and Environment is not credible by any standard – it is run by and for CC skeptics.)

But that begs the question about GW. The MWP proves GW is real and most certainly can happen, but also notice that it happened over a much longer time period AND it only went up to 0.6 (according to your rendition of it). The GW of today is slated to go up much higher, probably at least 3C by 2100, and perhaps further to 6C, considering that Americans (who per capita emit the most) are not doing what is good, right, and just or Christlike on this issue, and it seems refuse to do so and are snubbing their nose at the world, at least our gov is.

 

[lynnvinc]

Then how come your rendition of the MWP gets only up to 0.6, when today’s temp is like nearly 1.0 above? (Note the jnl Energy and Environment is not credible by any standard – it is run by and for CC skeptics.)

But that begs the question about GW. The MWP proves GW is real and most certainly can happen, but also notice that it happened over a much longer time period AND it only went up to 0.6 (according to your rendition of it). The GW of today is slated to go up much higher, probably at least 3C by 2100, and perhaps further to 6C, considering that Americans (who per capita emit the most) are not doing what is good, right, and just or Christlike on this issue, and it seems refuse to do so and are snubbing their nose at the world, at least our gov is.

It just occurred to me that someone could cherry pick a lot of decades (centuries even) to show the MWP was full of pauses, just full of them, even cooling periods. Ego, there was no warming during the MWP, as the skeptic logic goes…

 

[Theo520]

You seem to be falling back on ‘the temperature record validates Mann by showing we are in a warming trend.’ That is a very poor rationalization of Mann. It has never been disputed that we are in a warming trend, since the last ice age to be more precise. That fact is irrelevant in supporting what Man promoted as science.

I feel I hold my comments to rigorous critical thinking. Instead of making a vague innuendo that skeptics are not rigorous, be specific. But also bear in mind we are debating comments in a general forum, not presenting our case to the US Congress as a global crisis as Mann did.

Yes, the discussion should always have been focused about the degree of warming. My reference to an ECS <2.5 is a climate science appropriate descriptor of CO2’s role in that temperature trend.

Not at all. But I do understand the role of intuition in the creation of knowledge.
AFAIK, Mann et al have been criticized for various aspects of their work, and have not been sanctioned for academic misconduct. Is this wrong?

Will people who criticize Mann et al here, hold to rigorous critical thinking in their comments?

And I ask: has the trend that they identified has been vitiated or substantiated in current thinking.

Temperature trend is what I am asking about.