This is an interesting interview (download MP3). Michael Mann has been vilified by climate change deniers. His work on the so-called “hockey stick” graph is still being misrepresented despite being validated by the US National research council and other researchers.
He’s a bit of a lone voice at the moment but really worth listening to. Point of Inquiry recently interviewed him and describe the interview this way:
“In response to growing public skepticism—and a wave of dramatic attacks on individual researchers—the scientific community is now bucking up to more strongly defend its knowledge. Leading the charge is one of the most frequently attacked researchers of them all—Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann.
In this interview with host Chris Mooney, Mann pulls no punches. He defends the fundamental scientific consensus on climate change, and explains why those who attack it consistently miss the target. He also answers critics of his “hockey stick” study, and explains why the charges that have arisen in “ClimateGate” seem much more smoke than fire.
Dr. Michael E. Mann is a member of the Pennsylvania State University faculty, and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. His research focuses on the application of statistical techniques to understanding climate variability and change, and he was a Lead Author on the “Observed Climate Variability and Change” chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report. Among many other distinguished scientific activities, editorships, and awards, Mann is author of more than 120 peer-reviewed and edited publications. That includes, most famously, the 1998 study that introduced the so called “hockey stick,” a graph showing that modern temperatures appear to be much higher than anything seen in at least the last thousand years. With his colleague Lee Kump, Mann also recently authored the book Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming. Finally, he is one of the founders and contributors to the prominent global warming blog, RealClimate.org.”
Mooney’s biggest problem is the giant pre-industrial warming period. If you do as he does, and ignore this period, it looks almost like we are in an upward spiralling period of warmth. But if you are an ethical scientist, you have to include earlier warming periods. And why wouldn’t you? Would you ignore half a bell curve? Why was there a greater period of warming before the Industrial age? Why has there been no global warming in the past 15 years?
The very fact these people hide their data and shout down scientists who disagree is all I need to know. It is about the politics of money.
Dreadpirate – listen to. the interview. You are confused, mooney is the interviewer, Mann the scientist. His work, particularly the so-called jockey stick, is well vindicated by independent work.
New- perhaps you shiul read the NEC report on Mann’s work. This is authoritative. Deniers have a real hatred for the “hockey stick” and tell all sorts of lies.
Sorry, my mistake.
It was the UK Amazon that has the 21 reviews
Anyway, I know that you won’t want to read it.
however, it is climbing the Amazon charts (no 400 now I think)
Anyway, it is not a “denialist” book, it merely chronicles the efforts by Mann, Ammann and Briffa to get their dodgy hockey stick published
Never mind, it counts for nothing. It belongs to the wastelands of denialist troll rubbish.
Worthless faeces circulating in the public toilet bowl of life.
We all know that all that counts is “peer reviewed” literature.
It’s just a shame that the public don’t see it this way.
Greetings Cedric,
Denying reality as vigorously as ever! Your stamina is commendable.
You asked where the c**p is coming from so here is one of the best sources:
Kevin Trenberth (UCAR), October 12, 2009:
“We can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
At the risk of wading into a “denier/believer brawl,” there’s some hot new actual SCIENCE that turns out to be directly relevant to Mann’s central thesis. This new research doesn’t tell us anything about Mann’s personal life, truthfulness, body odor, or anything “juicy,” but it does provide an independent window on the “hockey stick” view of the temperature records over the last millenium.
I’m talking about “paleoCLAMatology” (joke!), a lovely new method of detecting not just the climate, but the WEATHER over the last two thousand years. Clams live shallow water and build their shells using the minerals and other elements that are in the water. One of the elements that goes into a clamshell is oxygen, and the ratio of oxygen isotopes dissolved in water varies linearly with the temperature of the water. Heavy oxygen (O-18) is more prevalent in colder water.
By slicing ancient clamshells with a microtome and sending those slices through a mass spectrometer, scientists can read the O-18 concentrations down to week-by-week precision. Preliminary results using clams from a bay in Iceland show clear evidence of both the “Medieval Warming Period” (MWP) and a “Roman Warm Period” (RWP).
To give Mann his due, he never said there wasn’t a MWP. He just argues that it was a localized phenomenon that affected northern Europe but not the planet as a whole. Clams from Iceland can’t rebut that argument–but “clamatology” can be used on shells from anywhere. We finally have a methodology that gives us fine-grained information about the temperature of shallow waters anywhere we’d like to look–there are LOTS of clams out there!
Note: shallow-water temperature measurements are NOT the same as surface temperature measurements, so we’ll have to do some new modeling to see how air temperature relates to shallow seas. I think it’s promising work in its own right–a huge amount of heat is stored in the top layer of the ocean, and it’s hard to model planetary climate just by looking at proxies of inland air temperature.
So–is there ANYBODY here who isn’t happy to get a new scientific tool that gives us more information about reality? If so, speak out–I’d like to know who can be unhappy about ancient clamshells!
Cedric, the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones, head scientist at East Anglia, and contributor to the IPCC. Any other questions?”
Nope. My first one still stands.
Where are you getting this crap from?
Where?
Dr Phil Jones made no such admission.
Cite your sources. Give the actual quote.
What did Dr Phil Jones actually say?
Word for word.
Ken, I’m now confused about the “hockey stick.” You say it has been “vindicated.” I’ve seen a LOT of graphs that show a very different story, and I’ve read a LOT of posts that talk about this or that feature of the “hockey stick” being disproved.
I’m not trying to pick a fight with anyone, but I would like to get the basics of recent history straight. I know the original hockey stick graph featured prominently in the 2001 IPCC report. The Wikipedia write-up on this issue says, “More than twelve subsequent scientific papers using various statistical techniques and combinations of proxy records produced reconstructions broadly the same as the original hockey stick graphs, with variations in the extent to which the Medieval Warm Period and subsequent “little ice age” were significant, but almost all of them supported the IPCC conclusion that the warmest decade in 1000 years was probably that at the end of the 2Oth century.”
I’ve looked at a lot of the graphs that support or challenge Mann’s “hockey stick.” The big difference between them all is the flatness of the “stick” part of the graph. All the graphs show a rapid rise in the last few decades, but some graphs show a general zig-zag pattern, in which such a rise is not at all concerning, while others show a thousand year flat graph followed by an unprecedented spike.
If Mann has been “vindicated” by follow-up research that says the 20th century is the warmest in a thousand years, then I don’t have any argument. We don’t have very accurate measurements of temperatures a thousand years ago, and I don’t dispute that our surface temperature measurements are now higher than anything else I know about.
But there’s a big difference between saying that Mann has been vindicated by other research that says the 20th century is the warmest yet and the suggestion that the “hockey stick” itself has been vindicated.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The “hockey stick” graphic makes a powerful claim about reality. If that claim is not well supported by the body of available evidence, we need to throw out the hockey stick and start over.
Ken–is it your position that Mann’s original “hockey stick” graph accurately represents the best evidence we have at present?
To answer Cedric’s question on the Phil Jones quote, the exact quote is here
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
Well, that certainly gives the lie to DreadPirateRobert’s statement:
” “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones”
Jones didn’t “admit” that at all. All the same, it’s a pity he didn’t supply in the interview the confidence level the trend is in fact significant to.
These one-line-crocks get tiresome and obviously operate on the hope that if you repeat a lie often enough then some people will believe it.
In similar vein, “Galloping camel” ought to specify and provide context of what “lack of warming” Trenberth was referring to in the cherry-picked paraphrase he supplied earlier. From what I’ve read Trenberth wasn’t referring to the recent global climatic temperature trend. But those who supply the quote are usually loath to look too closely at the source of their sound bite.
Scott, – I’m not speaking for Ken but it would be foolish to say “that Mann’s original “hockey stick” graph accurately represents the best evidence we have at present”. Mann’s graph was one of the first of its kind. It is only to be expected that subsequent research will modify and improve upon its accuracy.
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008
shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing
system is inadequate.”
Dear Richard,
Yes I am confused, because as you know, I am a worthless troll, and it is so difficult for us flat-eathers to understand these difficult words.
I thank you for your patience, however.
Now, I was merely supplying the requested information. Cedric asked for the exact quote from Phil Jones, which I supplied, and you, I believe, asked for the quote from Trenbreth “quote” (sorry, email) was also provided.
I am sorry if that wasn’t what was requested. Silly me, what a dither these trolls get into..
Apology accepted.
We’ll now wait for “galloping camel” to supply the answer my question. Unless of course, you, instead, wish to explain to readers what Trenberth’s perceived travesty was actually over.
Andy Scrace,
Drop the multi-personality disorder and settle down.
Creating sockpuppets will not lend you any credibility.
Having an argument to make and being prepared to back up your argument will.
“no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones”
Jones didn’t “admit” that at all.
The stupid thing about it is that DreadPirateRobert didn’t do any fact-checking of his own.
He most likely got his science pre-digested for him via a denier site somwhere.
(Unless he comes back, we’ll never know for sure but it’s a safe bet.)
If you really believe that Dr Phil Jones said something electrifying then…do some fact-checking BEFORE you make yourself look like a dill on the interent.
All it really takes is a google search and a hunt for primary sources.
A little bloody research.
It ain’t that hard folks!
The denialosphere just doesn’t get this “statistical significance” thing.
They really don’t get it. Link
For those of you who don’t like statistics yet are curious about what that phrase mean, there’s a really, REALLY simple video to help you all out. Link.
(It won’t do much good though, the “no global warming for 15 years” will become yet another zombie PRATT that will live forever in the Intertoobs. Endlessly coming back to life again…and again…and again…and again…and again…)
Delve into the email.
Explain it to us and provide your sources.
You know you want to.
P.S.
Take your meds first! I don’t think we need a repeat of your previous behaviour around here and elsewhere…Play nice.
116
gallopingcamel – if that was your best way to get our attention, you just made yourself look like a moron. Do some research before you open your big mouth next time. You could have started talking about good way’s of stopping CO2 emissions right from the start without making idiotic comments to wind us up. Now we’ll just leave jakerman to talk to you because in terms of communication, you suck.
Posted by: guthrie | January 23, 2010 7:07 AM From the Scienceblog “Deltoid” by Tim Lambert
Yeah, there’s a novel idea.
Instead of quote-mining sombody and repeating a denialist PRATT, why not actually go to primary sources?
It’s really not that hard.
Google is a beautiful thing.
Stop being a tool.
Let’s hear what Trenberth has to say in plain English…
It is amazing to see this particular quote lambasted so often. It stems from a paper I published this year bemoaning our inability to effectively monitor the energy flows associated with short-term climate variability. It is quite clear from the paper that I was not questioning the link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and warming, or even suggesting that recent temperatures are unusual in the context of short-term natural variability.
The paper on this is available here:
Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001.
This paper tracks the effects of the changing Sun, how much heat went into the land, ocean, melting Arctic sea ice, melting Greenland and Antarctica, and changes in clouds, along with changes in greenhouse gases. We can track this well for 1993 to 2003, but not for 2004 to 2008. It does NOT mean that global warming is not happening, on the contrary, it suggests that we simply can’t fully explain why 2008 was as cool as it was, but with an implication that warming will come back, as it has.
One more thing please.
Can you now provide a reasonable reason why I shouldn’t conclude that you provided the Trenberth quote here as an act of bad faith?
Galloping camel, before I (or anyone else who has read this thread) take anything further you contribute to the debate seriously you have a lot of work to do to convince that you argue in good faith. Your first post in this thread has all the hallmarks of being disingenuous.
Scott – re the hockey Stick issue – read my post on that (search for Hockey Stick and tawdriness – sorry I am in an airport and can’t provide the link).
Re the O isotope ratios in CaCO3 as a proxy T measure. That’s not new. I remebber in my PhD years a colleague of mine working on this. That was the 1960s. This sort of data will have been included in the proxy measures used in the Hockey stick and similar work.
Oh, I see.
You got your crap from FoxNews?
Oops.
🙂
It never occured to you to use google to check your information?
Maybe go beyond the media and consult primary sources?
You never did that?
Wow.
Well, now you look silly for not having done so.
Let me explain it to you in simple terms.
You said… the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
So I asked you to do two simple things:
1) I asked you where you were getting this crap from.
Well, now we know.
You got this crap from…FoxNews.
Hmm.
2) However, I also asked you to give the actual quote.
Word for word. I wanted to know what Phil Jones actually said.
You haven’t done that.
The FoxNews link doesn’t help you.
You cannot provide a direct quote from Phil Jones from that site that supports your claim.
It doesn’t exist.
What was the line again?
…the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
Nope. He didn’t say that. Not in the link you gave nor anywhere else.
Go back and read your link again carefully.
I certainly have.
Read it word for word.
Slowly.
(…awkward silence ensues as the light slowly dawns in DreadPirateRoberts feeble mind…)
You perpetuated a falsehood.
The reason why you don’t accept the science of global warming is because you don’t do any fact checking.
Fact checking is an alien concept to you.
You read something on the Internet, misunderstand it, misrepresent it somewhere else and ended up looking like a rather typical example of how science deniers “think”.
Bravo, you dill.
Here’s how educated people do their fact checking.
Learn.
DreadPirateRoberts. I guess you don’t understand the meaning of statistical significance. Your should really look into this properly. I wrote on it in Deniers distort Phil Jones and there is a simple video there explaining how Jones’ comment has been distorted and misrepresented.
It is really a classic example of how deniers are lying, distorting and misrepresenting the evidence on climate change.
Richard Christie,
I never thought of you as impolite so apology unnecessary. Thanks for the explanation of the long words. Actually these are my sincerely held views; no teasing! Here is a short version:
Has the climate warmed since 1850?….YES
Has the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere risen since 1850?……YES
Did humans contribute to this rise in CO2…..YES
Does rising CO2 concentration cause warming or cooling?……WARMING
How much of the warming was caused by CO2 of human origin?……..I DON’T KNOW
Are the MBH98&99 papers good science?….NO
BTW, don’t get the idea that AGW sceptics want to rape the environment. I worked to clean up the lower reaches of the Thames river. From zero vertebrate species in 1960 to 115 in 2000 is a notable achievement showing that appalling levels of pollution can be reversed. I raised rainbow trout in commercial quantities in Greenwich using Thames water from 1978-1981. Today the salmon are back! Oh, Frabjous Day!
So Galloping – You don’t know about question 5? Have you had a gander at what the IPCC report says about the relative contributions of the different factors? Obviously there are uncertainties in all of them but you can get a rough quantitative idea of each input.
And why do you say no, specifically to question 6? What do you find unscientific about Mann’s work? and have you bothered following up the independent confirmation in the NRC report or in Mann’s more recent work (or indeed other work)?
See Climate change deniers’ tawdry manipulation of “hockey sticks”.
Obviously you must be out of step on your answer to question 6, so could you at least give a specific reason – not a belief?
Galloping camel, the Trenberth quote is inflammatory because it is often deliberately delivered out of context and left to create the impression that a scientist is surreptitiously admitting that global warming isn’t happening.
I suspect that you knew this.
Why did you throw the quote, completely out of the context Trenberth was writing about, into the discussion on Mann’s temperature record, if not to create mischief?
So?
That’s not where you got your information from.
You yourself linked to FoxNews.
Nobody held a gun to your head.
You did that all by yourself.
But hey, go ahead and dig yourself deeper.
Please.
Use the BBC as your source of information.
I don’t mind at all.
🙂
…the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
That’s your claim.
Go ahead and give us the quote…from the BBC…where he says that.
Word for word.
You cannot provide a direct quote from Phil Jones from that site that supports your claim.
It doesn’t exist.
Certainly not from the BBC.
You read something on the Internet, misunderstand it, misrepresent it somewhere else and ended up looking like a rather typical example of how science deniers “think”.
You’re the one that stepped in it.
You should stop eating it.
Ken,
You and I have both made a living as scientists so we should be able to admit how little we know with anything even close to certainty.
On the other hand I do know what bad science looks like. Even if MBH98&99 did not deny history it should be discarded because the data analysis is beyond sloppy. McIntyre & McKittrick have created a cottage industry out of Mann’s incompetence.
The AGW ship is sinking mainly as a result of the blindness of its supporters who still cling to the bad science published by Gore, Pachauri and Mann.
As long as you folks continue to defend the indefensible, your cause is lost.
Ken, there have been some interesting developments in the “skeptic” world lately that merit some discussion. Dr. Roy Spencer has been doing matched-pairs analysis of neighboring surface temperature measurement stations, looking for statistical relationships between population density and temperature differences. He’s come up with some fascinating findings which have made a major impact on my own thinking about climatology.
Would you be willing to take a look at what he’s found? I’d appreciate a post that would allow people to critique Dr. Spencer’s analysis.
“The AGW ship is sinking mainly as a result of the blindness of its supporters who still cling to the bad science…”
Creationist minds think alike. Even the rhetoric is the same.
The theory has so many holes that they must blindly gaze at the figurehead in order to deny that the ship of Darwinism is sinking.
Any bets on which ship will sink first?
🙂
In recent reading of Dembski and other ID proponents I saw them make a claim which has been made for over 40 years. This claim is one that the young-earthers have been making. The claim is that evolution (or major supporting concepts for it) is increasingly being abandoned by scientists, or is about to fall. This claim has many forms and has been made for over 162 years. This is a compilation of the claims over time. The purpose of this compilation is two-fold. First, it is to show that the claim has been made for a long, long time. Secondly, it is to show that entire careers have passed without seeing any of this movement away from evolution. Third, it is to show that the creationists are merely making these statements for the purpose of keeping hope alive that they are making progress towards their goal. In point of fact, no such progress is being made as anyone who has watched this area for the last 40 years can testify. The claim is false as history and present-day events show, yet that doesn’t stop anyone wanting to sell books from making that claim. Now for the claims in chronological order:
1825 [cont.]……
Speaking of creationism, did somebody mention the name of Dr Roy Spencer?
Oh Goody.
Spencer is a proponent of intelligent design, and rejects evolution as the mechanism for the origin of species.
(..)
He publicly promotes his ideas on intelligent design and the weather, including four appearances on Coast to Coast AM.
(..)
On the subject of Intelligent design, Spencer wrote in 2005, “Twenty years ago, as a PhD scientist, I intensely studied the evolution versus intelligent design controversy for about two years. And finally, despite my previous acceptance of evolutionary theory as ‘fact,’ I came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism. . . . In the scientific community, I am not alone. There are many fine books out there on the subject. Curiously, most of the books are written by scientists who lost faith in evolution as adults, after they learned how to apply the analytical tools they were taught in college.” He further states “I finally became convinced that the theory of creation actually had a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution, for the creation model was actually better able to explain the physical and biological complexity in the world… Science has startled us with its many discoveries and advances, but it has hit a brick wall in its attempt to rid itself of the need for a creator and designer.” Link
When asked the question, “Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming”, he replies “Yes, but only just.” He goes on to say that it is a positive trend but does not rise to the level of significance. Exactly HOW was that misquoted or out of context?
Crazy Okie – this quote has been massivelymisquoted by the conservative media. Claims of Jones doing a U turn, that Jones denies any warming, etc., etc.
Even your simple quote really misrepresents it because it doesn’t include his comment on significant effects not showing over shorter time periods.
Scott – why keep jumping from one thing to another. If you are interested in Spencer’s work, look up the journal paper, consider other papers discussing similar areas, etc., etc. This blog doesn’t exist to answer questions like that.
If Spencer has not published in a reputable journal – that tells you something. Any scientist worth her salt would rush to publish significant findings – not post them on a deneir blog.
You still won’t be specific. In what way was Mann’s data analysis “beyond sloppy?”
Why stop with the relatively uninformed criticism of McIntyre & McKittrick ?
Have you had a look at the NRC report? This evaluates the criticism (and finds that despite some weakness in the original papers the conclusions were not invalidated in any way).
That report is very authoritative.
Have you looked at Mann’s subsequent work where he took into account criticisms made in the NRC report?
Have you considered the host of other independent work producing results similar to Mann’s?
If you haven’t done these things you haven’t made a scientific assessment – you have cherry-picked to confirm your bias. You are stuck at the “belief” stage.
Ken,
The NAS/NRC and Wegman reports (2006) have little comfort for Michael Mann. If you think otherwise, my guess is that you are relying on Wikipedia where the relevant sections have been edited by William Connolly.
The Wegman report is quite clear in its rejection of Mann’s analysis and its support for M&M (McIntyre & McKittrick) 2003, 2005a&b.
Just one example; M&M have Mann’s data and they show that when it is properly processed, the Medieval Warm Period is clearly seen with temperatures significantly higher than today.
Now spot the difference.
This is not hair splitting.
“Statistically-significant” actually means something very important.
It really not the same as saying “no significant” or “not significant”.
Try and pull a switcheroo like that in statistics class and your professor will EAT YOU ALIVE.
…the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
No.
He didn’t.
There was no such admission.
It’s a deceitful lie.
Such a lie can be clearly exposed with basic fact-checking like this…
Good video Cedric. Ignorance/ indifference to basic science is widespread. But worse than that is the fear and paranoia of mathematics, and utter cluelessness about statistics.
Only a few science nerds and tree huggers seem to care.
I’d really like to see you try publishing something claiming it is “significant” without providing the statistics to back it up. In biological field that will get tossed immediately. Saying it is significant implies that it has been assessed by some statistical method and meets the parameters for significance in the test.
At best you can say there is a trend – which is in FACT what he says. But without it being statistically significant, it’s meaningless. He makes the same point on the very next question regarding whether there has been cooling over the last several years.
You’re the ones in denial here, plain and simple.
For the record, I’m a scientist. I believe in evolution. I believe most science, including climate science, is good science. But you also can’t convince me that you can predict how things will be 100 years from now based on weather/climate patterns of today. Several years ago, at the height of the mad cow epidemic, it was predicted that England would have by now over half a million cases of human new variant CJD based on the number of cases that had popped up in just a few years. That prediction was just a *wee* bit off.
Crazy Okie,
The bar for statistical significance is necessarily higher when the time period is only 15 years.. Phil Jones was responding with typical caution to the climate data being bandied about.. for identify a trend with such a short time period requires at least a 95% confidence interval.
There is a trend if you look at the last 100 years or so of human industry
“Suppose you have a child, a son — he’s 10. You want to know whether or not he’s growing normally, so every day you measure his height with a tape measure. You’ve done so since he was 5. You even plot the data on a graph, and notice two things about it. First: the measurements show a fair amount of jitter, sometimes they’re a wee bit higher, sometimes a wee bit lower, there’s noise in the data. Second: there’s also a trend. Your kid is a lot taller at 10 than he was at 5, in fact the trend over the observed time span is upward and reasonably steady. You even do a statistical analysis, estimate the growth rate, and determine that it’s definitely statistically significant — so it’s not a false trend due to noise in the data, it’s real. Your son is growing normally.
Then you’re interviewed by a reporter from the Daily Mail. He asks, “Can you prove — with statistical significance — that your child has been growing since last Tuesday?”
You reply that no, even though the trend over that time span is upward, it’s not statistically significant.
The next day you read the article in the Daily Mail which is titled, “Growthgate U-turn as parent admits: There has been no growth since last Tuesday.”
You protest. “I never said my child wasn’t growing! I just said that the data over such a short time span didn’t show it with statistical significance! That’s only because on such a short time scale, the noise obscures the trend.”
Alas, it’s too late, the damage is done, because 3500 blogs have repeated the article from the Daily Mail and child protective services has been asked to investigate your fitness as a parent.
Sorry, that fails to convince me. Nice try, but not convincing.
Scientists use statistics for a reason.
If everything that was a trend turned out to be true, we wouldn’t need statistics. Not all trends turn out to be true!
I have no objections to Phil Jones saying that there is a trend and stating that it isn’t statistically significant. However, that doesn’t invalidate the argument of the other side (that the warming wasn’t significant!) and trying to claim otherwise just makes you look ridiculous. You’re splitting hairs.
After all, if we take your argument – that a trend is significant, even if it isn’t statistically significant, because the time frame is too short – then in fact the climate has been cooling over the last several years (according to Phil Jones in his interview with the BBC) even as CO2 levels have escalated. Therefore AGW cannot possibly account for the warming that was seen in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The phrase ” It isn’t statistically significant” does not equal “warming wasn’t significant”.
The phrase “Warming wasn’t significant” does not equal “It isn’t statistically significant”.
They are two different things.
They have two different meanings.
Don’t abuse the English language nor Statistics 101.
…the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
He never said it.
He never admitted it.
He didn’t even say anything close.
That’s the misquote right there.
If you read the actual interview in full it’s really very clear that Dr Phil Jones believes that global warming is happening.
Yet one would never know that if you just followed the denialosphere sound-bites.
Crazy – statistical significance is not a simple binary situation. Jones’s data may have indicated not significant at 95% level but significant at 90% level, for example. Instead of there being 1 chance in 20 of the data being simply a random result perhaps there was 1 chance in 15.
The cut offs are abritary.
The deniers are effectively saying that the trend is just a chance result – which is completely wrong.
And of course it’s not an accident that the particular time period was chosen. If 1994 had been chosen the 95% level would have been acheived.
OK we have conventions about how to define the statistical significance. This is not an issue here because we are looking at trends. We know results are meaningless over short time periods – so the honest approach is to use longer time periods. This might, in future, show a decline at the current time. If so, and it is significant, that’s good. Currently our time period is far to short to draw conclusions.
After all, if we take your argument – that a trend is significant, even if it isn’t statistically significant, because the time frame is too short – then in fact the climate has been cooling over the last several years (according to Phil Jones in his interview with the BBC) even as CO2 levels have escalated. What???
Okie: After all, if we take your argument – that a trend is significant, even if it isn’t statistically significant, because the time frame is too short – then in fact the climate has been cooling over the last several years (according to Phil Jones in his interview with the BBC) even as CO2 levels have escalated.
Because it was
(a) written in the last week
(b) quotes (correctly or otherwise) Phil Jones
and
(c) raises questions on the accuracy of NIWA records.
(d) raises questions over the MWP (of course, this relates back to the original post on Michael Mann’s hockey stick)
NZs Barry Brill often comments (one of the very few people who do) on the Climate Conversation Group Blog. I have tried to get him to admit that there were site effects in the NIWA data – he refuses to do so. Even Treadgold will admit it but of course still pushes a denier political line. Brill has written for the NZ Centre for Political Research – which is a right wing think tank connected to the Heritage Institute, etc. Nicky Hager exposed their role in the 2005 elections (The Hollow Men). They get some interesting conspiracy theorists participating in there forums (9/11 truthers, for example).
The NZCPR describes Brill as “a former MP who has a lengthy background in energy policy – ranging from being the National Minister who introduced “carless days”, to Petrocorp director, and chairing the Gas Council, Power NZ, ESANZ, and EMCO.”
Interesting that these commenters seem to have energy links.
Having a quick peek, Quadrant magazine (quoted above) seems to be the usual far right denialist publication littered with references to Christianity and Judaism.
Quadrant was founded in 1956 as an initiative of the Australian Committee for Cultural Freedom, itself associated with the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and so was part of the defensive against Communist inspired, subsidised and/or influenced intellectual publications of the post-World War II era.
That’s neither here or there, but the admission that it is set up with a clear political agenda is relevant and undermines any gravitas it may aspire to having in the field of scientific analysis or comment.
” Quadrant is uncompromisingly in favour of freedom of thought and expression. While insisting on civilised discourse, it opposes any political, academic or religious tendency that wants to suppress freedom of speech.”
Exactly – the stench of denialism is overpowering.
Jack, I think you are confused.
Supporting freedom of speech does not at all imply that the publication does not also fulfill its stated purpose, i.e. promote material subject to a political ideology.
I’m not a climate scientist so my opinion isn’t worth much on the science. I rely on the position statements of the world’s major scientific bodies.
Tell you what though, and you’ll assuredly agree with this , since Barry has demonstrated reasoning here that single handedly brings down the house of cards that is climate science he ought to get it published in a high end journal pronto.
I’m sure he’ll collect a Nobel prize.
Jack, Brill slandered our NIWA scientists. He & his mates continue to do this. Their tactics are obvious and extremely confrontational from my perspective.
I have written several posts on the discredited “paper” as has Hot Topic and David Winter. You could do a search (can’t do links from an iPod).
There are dome extra issues. There is something fishy about their (the deniers) data or their methofology. They refuse to provide information, claim they have a “science team” that ” wished to remain anonymous”.
You get the picture.
Anyway, I will shortly be posting my analysis of their data/ methodology problems and their lack of transparency.
It’s interesting to see the level of funding Mann has received. In another thread, Ken refused to answer my question about how much Mann has been paid and I can understand why. Climate change is big business and very lucrative for those fortunate enough to be studying it. The following information pertains to the grants receive by Mann. It doesn’t take into account any payments recived by Mann from Penn Sate or any private donations that may have come his way from vested interest groups.
2009-2013 Quantifying the influence of environmental temperature on transmission of vector-borne diseases, NSF-EF [Principal Investigator: M. Thomas; Co-Investigators: R.G. Crane, M.E. Mann, A. Read, T. Scott (Penn State Univ.)] $1,884,991
2009-2012 Toward Improved Projections of the Climate Response to Anthropogenic Forcing: Combining Paleoclimate Proxy and Instrumental Observations with an Earth System Model, NSF-ATM [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann; Co-Investigators: K. Keller (Penn State Univ.), A. Timmermann (Univ. of Hawaii)] $541,184
2008-2011 A Framework for Probabilistic Projections of Energy-Relevant Streamflow Indices, DOE [Principal Investigator: T. Wagener; Co-Investigators: M. Mann, R. Crane, K. Freeman (Penn State Univ.)] $330,000
2008-2009 AMS Industry/Government Graduate Fellowship (Anthony Sabbatelli), American Meteorological Society [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann (Penn State Univ.)] $23,000
2006-2009 Climate Change Collective Learning and Observatory Network in Ghana, USAID [Principal Investigator: P. Tschakert; Co-Investigators: M.E. Mann, W. Easterling (Penn State Univ.)] $759,928
2006-2009 Analysis and testing of proxy-based climate reconstructions, NSF-ATM [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann (Penn State Univ.)] $459,000
2006-2009 Constraining the Tropical Pacific’s Role in Low-Frequency Climate Change of the Last Millennium, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigators: K. Cobb (Georgia Tech Univ.), N. Graham (Hydro. Res. Center), M.E. Mann (Penn State Univ.), Hoerling (NOAA Clim. Dyn. Center), Alexander (NOAA Clim. Dyn. Center)] PSU award (M.E. Mann): $68,065
2006-2007 Acquisition of high-performance computing cluster for the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC), NSF-EAR [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann, Co-Investigators: R. Alley, M. Arthur, J. Evans, D. Pollard (Penn State Univ.)] $100,000
2003-2006 Decadal Variability in the Tropical Indo-Pacific: Integrating Paleo & Coupled Model Results, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigators: M.E. Mann (U.Va), J. Cole (U. Arizona), V. Mehta (CRCES)] U.Va award (M.E. Mann): $102,000
2002-2005 Reconstruction and Analysis of Patterns of Climate Variability Over the Last One to Two Millennia, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann, Co-Investigators: S. Rutherford, R.S. Bradley, M.K. Hughes] $315,000
2002-2005 Remote Observations of Ice Sheet Surface Temperature: Toward Multi-Proxy Reconstruction of Antarctic Climate Variability, NSF-Office of Polar Programs, Antarctic Oceans and Climate System [Principal Investigators: M.E. Mann (U. Va), E. Steig (U. Wash.), D. Weinbrenner (U. Wash)] U.Va award (M.E. Mann): $133,000
2002-2003 Paleoclimatic Reconstructions of the Arctic Oscillation, NOAA-Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research (CIFAR) Program [Principal Investigators: Rosanne D’Arrigo, Ed Cook (Lamont/Columbia); Co-Investigator: M.E. Mann] U.Va subcontract (M.E. Mann): $14,400
2002-2003 Global Multidecadal-to-Century-Scale Oscillations During the Last 1000 years, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigator: Malcolm Hughes (Univ. of Arizona); Co-Investigators: M.E. Mann; J. Park (Yale University)] U.Va subcontract (M.E. Mann): $20,775
2001-2003 Resolving the Scale-wise Sensitivities in the Dynamical Coupling Between Climate and the Biosphere, University of Virginia-Fund for Excellence in Science and Technology (FEST) [Principal Investigator: J.D. Albertson; Co-Investigators: H. Epstein, M.E. Mann] U.Va internal award: $214,700
2001-2002 Advancing predictive models of marine sediment transport, Office of Naval Research [Principal Investigator: P. Wiberg (U.Va), Co-Investigator: M.E. Mann] $20,775
1999-2002 Multiproxy Climate Reconstruction: Extension in Space and Time, and Model/Data Intercomparison, NOAA-Earth Systems History [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann (U.Va), Co-Investigators: R.S. Bradley, M.K. Hughes] $381,647
1998-2000 Validation of Decadal-to-Multi-century climate predictions, DOE [Principal Investigator: R.S. Bradley (U. Mass); Co-Investigators: H.F. Diaz, M.E. Mann]
1998-2000 The changing seasons? Detecting and understanding climatic change, NSF-Hydrological Science [Principal Investigator U. Lall (U. Utah); Co-investigators: M.E. Mann, B. Rajagopalan, M. Cane] $266,235K
1996-1999 Patterns of Organized Climatic Variability: Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Globally
Distributed Climate Proxy Records and Long-term Model Integrations, NSF-Earth Systems History [Principal Investigator: R.S. Bradley (U. Mass); Co-Investigators: M.E. Mann, M.K. Hughes] $270,000
1996-1998 Investigation of Patterns of Organized Large-Scale Climatic Variability During the Last
Millennium, DOE, Alexander Hollaender Postdoctoral Fellowship [M.E. Mann] $78,000
> since Barry has demonstrated reasoning here that single handedly brings down the house of cards that is climate science he ought to get it published in a high end journal pronto.
So if it was published in a high end journal, you would change your mind about climate change? Didn’t think so.
James – thanks for the list of research contracts awarded to Mann. A correction – I wasn’t refusing to answer your request (which was of course disingenuous becuase you actually had the data). I just wasn’t interested in hunting out information irrelevant to the post.
However, now you have provided a list I have a few comments.
1: As expected the list looks extensive – as we would expect for a scientist of such high standing and reputation. However, I personally would have expected it to be longer. Perhaps it is incomplete – where did you get the list from?
2: Scientists are actually quite proud of these lists – they are always updated in their CVs because they are a good indicator of their professional abilities. This is certainly the case in NZ and I am sure such lists are even more important in the US
3: You seemed to be under the delusion that these funds go into the scientist’s pockets. That is of course silly. They pay for the research, the laboratories, staff, field trips, publications, etc., etc. They pay for research.
Whoever has been telling you that this represents some sort of lucrative business for the individual scientist, that it goes into their pockets, has been telling you naive lies. I recommend you immediately refuse to accept such information from them in the future.
4: Of course this information is readily available. Now I suggest you attempt to find the sources and amounts of funding for the critics of Dr Mann. What institutes, think tanks and corporations help fund the anti-science websites and individuals? Do they get any funding from normal science funding bodies? Is their funding scientific or political in character?
Who is funding well know anti-science individuals to travel to the upcoming international climate denier conference, for example.
Now, that would be a great service. James. I will assume if you don’t provide such a list that you may be trying to hide something.
Thanks again for this list. It does confirm the high scientific standing Dr Mann has. That, together with the fact his work has been amongst the most thoroughly reviewed scientific work ever, does help provide confidence in today’s understanding of climate science.
Jack – I notice that NZ;s most well known conspiracy theorist, Ian Wishart, has reposted Barry Brill’s article on his website see GUEST POST: End Phase of the Climate Wars?).
> >since Barry has demonstrated reasoning here that single handedly brings down the house of cards that is climate science he ought to get it published in a high end journal pronto.
>So if it was published in a high end journal, you would change your mind about climate change? Didn’t think so.
James it appears you are confused about how peer review, journals, scientific consensus and on my how opinion is formed, so unsurprisingly you answered your own question wrongly.
It goes a bit like this, [consensus 101]: Barry submits his masteriece to a scientific journal, it’s published if (big if) it survives peer review. Scientists subsequently read and test his findings, later, meta analysis and literature review determines the current state of scientific thought (consensus) on the topic.
As always, not being an expert in the field, I base my viewpoint on the consensus. At risk of me being presumptuous as to your level of scientific expertise, I say so should you.
Jon, you are clutching at straws. The science report (vol 1) reviews peer reviewed literature. The others (adaption & mitigation) do include grey literature. There is a clear reason for that which is well acknowledged and discussed by the IPCC.
In some regions, particularly the developing countries, there is no peer reviewed literature and we must fall back on what is available, while being aware of it’s limitations.
Of course deniers are trying to makeup stories about that – but they are dishonest. The IPCC conclusions are very tentative, measured and conservative. If anything they underestate the real situation, this is one of the concerns behind the current review of the IPCC process.
Just think about it Jon. Is it at all likely that the IPCC, honest scientists around the world, are going to conspire to falsify information?
Or is it more likely that conspiracy theorists, cranks, and energy/ mining interests will, out of their own interests, distort the truth to invent a convenient story?
This is an interesting interview (download MP3). Michael Mann has been vilified by climate change deniers. His work on the so-called “hockey stick” graph is still being misrepresented despite being validated by the US National research council and other researchers.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png)
Open Parachute 
Mooney’s biggest problem is the giant pre-industrial warming period. If you do as he does, and ignore this period, it looks almost like we are in an upward spiralling period of warmth. But if you are an ethical scientist, you have to include earlier warming periods. And why wouldn’t you? Would you ignore half a bell curve? Why was there a greater period of warming before the Industrial age? Why has there been no global warming in the past 15 years?
The very fact these people hide their data and shout down scientists who disagree is all I need to know. It is about the politics of money.
LikeLike
Why has there been no global warming in the past 15 years?
Not according to the scientific community.
Where are you getting this crap from?
LikeLike
I suggest that everyone should read “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by A W Montford
It gives a very detailed and riveting read as to the debunking of Mann’s hockey stick reconstruction.
Available on Amazon
LikeLike
@DreadPirateRoberts
I’d suggest that it is pointless trying to argue any of these points on this blog.
The fact that they are still trying to defend Mann, Briffa Jones et al says it all.
LikeLike
Good review of The Hockey Stick Illusion
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/the-case-against-the-hockey-stick/
LikeLike
Dreadpirate – listen to. the interview. You are confused, mooney is the interviewer, Mann the scientist. His work, particularly the so-called jockey stick, is well vindicated by independent work.
LikeLike
@Ken
“His work, particularly the so-called jockey stick, is well vindicated by independent work.”
Please read the Hockey Stick Illusion
21 five star reviews on Amazon
Of course, it’s not “peer reviewed”, therefore is a valueless addition to the noise , I expect
LikeLike
New- perhaps you shiul read the NEC report on Mann’s work. This is authoritative. Deniers have a real hatred for the “hockey stick” and tell all sorts of lies.
Jeese.
, talk about ignorant mantra.
LikeLike
Read the Hockey Stick Illusion
It is not ignorant mantra. It contains facts
At some point, the “scientists” will accept that they have made a few mistakes, that they have told a few untruths
Until this happens, no one will believe anything they say.
Keep pumping out the propoganda Ken, because no one is listening.
Repeat NO ONE IS LISTENING
LikeLike
new to denialism: “Please read the Hockey Stick Illusion
21 five star reviews on Amazon”
Heck, “new to denialism”, you can’t even get the number of fanboy reviews right. lol.
LikeLike
Maybe you should get in there quickly and write a few more, say under various names such as “a true believer”, lol.
LikeLike
Sorry, my mistake.
It was the UK Amazon that has the 21 reviews
Anyway, I know that you won’t want to read it.
however, it is climbing the Amazon charts (no 400 now I think)
Anyway, it is not a “denialist” book, it merely chronicles the efforts by Mann, Ammann and Briffa to get their dodgy hockey stick published
Never mind, it counts for nothing. It belongs to the wastelands of denialist troll rubbish.
Worthless faeces circulating in the public toilet bowl of life.
We all know that all that counts is “peer reviewed” literature.
It’s just a shame that the public don’t see it this way.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/11/americans-climate-change-threat
LikeLike
Wow!
Finally, some good news
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/trees-will-not-become-unstoppable-killing-machines%2c-admit-climate-scientists-201002022433/
TREES WILL NOT BECOME UNSTOPPABLE KILLING MACHINES, ADMIT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS
LikeLike
Greetings Cedric,
Denying reality as vigorously as ever! Your stamina is commendable.
You asked where the c**p is coming from so here is one of the best sources:
Kevin Trenberth (UCAR), October 12, 2009:
“We can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
LikeLike
BREAKING NEWS
TREES WILL NOT BECOME UNSTOPPABLE KILLING MACHINES, ADMIT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/trees-will-not-become-unstoppable-killing-machines%2c-admit-climate-scientists-201002022433/
LikeLike
Cedric, the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones, head scientist at East Anglia, and contributor to the IPCC.
Any other questions?
LikeLike
At the risk of wading into a “denier/believer brawl,” there’s some hot new actual SCIENCE that turns out to be directly relevant to Mann’s central thesis. This new research doesn’t tell us anything about Mann’s personal life, truthfulness, body odor, or anything “juicy,” but it does provide an independent window on the “hockey stick” view of the temperature records over the last millenium.
I’m talking about “paleoCLAMatology” (joke!), a lovely new method of detecting not just the climate, but the WEATHER over the last two thousand years. Clams live shallow water and build their shells using the minerals and other elements that are in the water. One of the elements that goes into a clamshell is oxygen, and the ratio of oxygen isotopes dissolved in water varies linearly with the temperature of the water. Heavy oxygen (O-18) is more prevalent in colder water.
By slicing ancient clamshells with a microtome and sending those slices through a mass spectrometer, scientists can read the O-18 concentrations down to week-by-week precision. Preliminary results using clams from a bay in Iceland show clear evidence of both the “Medieval Warming Period” (MWP) and a “Roman Warm Period” (RWP).
To give Mann his due, he never said there wasn’t a MWP. He just argues that it was a localized phenomenon that affected northern Europe but not the planet as a whole. Clams from Iceland can’t rebut that argument–but “clamatology” can be used on shells from anywhere. We finally have a methodology that gives us fine-grained information about the temperature of shallow waters anywhere we’d like to look–there are LOTS of clams out there!
Note: shallow-water temperature measurements are NOT the same as surface temperature measurements, so we’ll have to do some new modeling to see how air temperature relates to shallow seas. I think it’s promising work in its own right–a huge amount of heat is stored in the top layer of the ocean, and it’s hard to model planetary climate just by looking at proxies of inland air temperature.
So–is there ANYBODY here who isn’t happy to get a new scientific tool that gives us more information about reality? If so, speak out–I’d like to know who can be unhappy about ancient clamshells!
LikeLike
Cedric, the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones, head scientist at East Anglia, and contributor to the IPCC. Any other questions?”
Nope. My first one still stands.
Where are you getting this crap from?
Where?
Dr Phil Jones made no such admission.
Cite your sources. Give the actual quote.
What did Dr Phil Jones actually say?
Word for word.
LikeLike
Breaking news:
Climate change ‘makes birds shrink’ in North America
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8560000/8560694.stm
LikeLike
Ken, I’m now confused about the “hockey stick.” You say it has been “vindicated.” I’ve seen a LOT of graphs that show a very different story, and I’ve read a LOT of posts that talk about this or that feature of the “hockey stick” being disproved.
I’m not trying to pick a fight with anyone, but I would like to get the basics of recent history straight. I know the original hockey stick graph featured prominently in the 2001 IPCC report. The Wikipedia write-up on this issue says, “More than twelve subsequent scientific papers using various statistical techniques and combinations of proxy records produced reconstructions broadly the same as the original hockey stick graphs, with variations in the extent to which the Medieval Warm Period and subsequent “little ice age” were significant, but almost all of them supported the IPCC conclusion that the warmest decade in 1000 years was probably that at the end of the 2Oth century.”
I’ve looked at a lot of the graphs that support or challenge Mann’s “hockey stick.” The big difference between them all is the flatness of the “stick” part of the graph. All the graphs show a rapid rise in the last few decades, but some graphs show a general zig-zag pattern, in which such a rise is not at all concerning, while others show a thousand year flat graph followed by an unprecedented spike.
If Mann has been “vindicated” by follow-up research that says the 20th century is the warmest in a thousand years, then I don’t have any argument. We don’t have very accurate measurements of temperatures a thousand years ago, and I don’t dispute that our surface temperature measurements are now higher than anything else I know about.
But there’s a big difference between saying that Mann has been vindicated by other research that says the 20th century is the warmest yet and the suggestion that the “hockey stick” itself has been vindicated.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The “hockey stick” graphic makes a powerful claim about reality. If that claim is not well supported by the body of available evidence, we need to throw out the hockey stick and start over.
Ken–is it your position that Mann’s original “hockey stick” graph accurately represents the best evidence we have at present?
LikeLike
Scott,
Read “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by A W Montford
This is an excellent account of the hockey stick affair.
Currently in the top 100 at Amazon
LikeLike
To answer Cedric’s question on the Phil Jones quote, the exact quote is here
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
There is an interesting analysis of this statement and what is meant by “statistical significance”
by William Briggs here
Regards
Worthless Troll
LikeLike
Well, that certainly gives the lie to DreadPirateRobert’s statement:
” “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones”
Jones didn’t “admit” that at all. All the same, it’s a pity he didn’t supply in the interview the confidence level the trend is in fact significant to.
These one-line-crocks get tiresome and obviously operate on the hope that if you repeat a lie often enough then some people will believe it.
In similar vein, “Galloping camel” ought to specify and provide context of what “lack of warming” Trenberth was referring to in the cherry-picked paraphrase he supplied earlier. From what I’ve read Trenberth wasn’t referring to the recent global climatic temperature trend. But those who supply the quote are usually loath to look too closely at the source of their sound bite.
Scott, – I’m not speaking for Ken but it would be foolish to say “that Mann’s original “hockey stick” graph accurately represents the best evidence we have at present”. Mann’s graph was one of the first of its kind. It is only to be expected that subsequent research will modify and improve upon its accuracy.
LikeLike
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008
shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing
system is inadequate.”
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1048
LikeLike
I’m still waiting. Lack of warming of what?
LikeLike
The lack of warming statement is, I believe the one I referred to above in Phil Jones’s interview with Roger Harrabin.
I have just provided the quote, and a possible explanation from William Briggs as to the meaning of “no statistical warming”.
I haven’t editorialised this. Draw your own conclusions
Best Regards
Worthless Troll
LikeLike
Briggs is referring to the statistical assessment inherent in the Jones interview.
The Trenberth “quote” over lack of warming is a different story altogether.
Are you confused by the compexity of all this?
LikeLike
Dear Richard,
Yes I am confused, because as you know, I am a worthless troll, and it is so difficult for us flat-eathers to understand these difficult words.
I thank you for your patience, however.
Now, I was merely supplying the requested information. Cedric asked for the exact quote from Phil Jones, which I supplied, and you, I believe, asked for the quote from Trenbreth “quote” (sorry, email) was also provided.
I am sorry if that wasn’t what was requested. Silly me, what a dither these trolls get into..
LikeLike
Apology accepted.
We’ll now wait for “galloping camel” to supply the answer my question. Unless of course, you, instead, wish to explain to readers what Trenberth’s perceived travesty was actually over.
LikeLike
No I can’t explain what Trenberth’s perceived travesty was actually over.
That is because I am an illiterate troll who is incapable of rational thought.
Perhaps someone of greater intellect can help me understand this.
The emails are all at http://www.eastangliaemails.com
Best Regards
Worthless Troll,
“faeces floating in the toilet bowl of public opinion”
LikeLike
You could always email Kevin and ask him what he meant
LikeLike
I am getting a bit sick of all these “what did he mean?” questions in regard to the emails
It is not a court of law
LikeLike
Someone there trying to take the P**s of me??
LikeLike
Andy Scrace,
Drop the multi-personality disorder and settle down.
Creating sockpuppets will not lend you any credibility.
Having an argument to make and being prepared to back up your argument will.
“no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones”
Jones didn’t “admit” that at all.
The stupid thing about it is that DreadPirateRobert didn’t do any fact-checking of his own.
He most likely got his science pre-digested for him via a denier site somwhere.
(Unless he comes back, we’ll never know for sure but it’s a safe bet.)
If you really believe that Dr Phil Jones said something electrifying then…do some fact-checking BEFORE you make yourself look like a dill on the interent.
All it really takes is a google search and a hunt for primary sources.
A little bloody research.
It ain’t that hard folks!
The denialosphere just doesn’t get this “statistical significance” thing.
They really don’t get it.
Link
For those of you who don’t like statistics yet are curious about what that phrase mean, there’s a really, REALLY simple video to help you all out.
Link.
(It won’t do much good though, the “no global warming for 15 years” will become yet another zombie PRATT that will live forever in the Intertoobs. Endlessly coming back to life again…and again…and again…and again…and again…)
LikeLike
No I can’t explain what Trenberth’s perceived travesty was actually over.
Neither can gallopingcamel.
gallopingcamel is…special.
However, Andy, you did not bring up the topic so…you’re not in the hot seat. You get to walk away unscathed from the coming trainwreck.
…Calling gallopingcamel, calling galloping camel……
Delve into the email.
Explain it to us and provide your sources.
You know you want to.
P.S.
Take your meds first! I don’t think we need a repeat of your previous behaviour around here and elsewhere…Play nice.
116
gallopingcamel – if that was your best way to get our attention, you just made yourself look like a moron. Do some research before you open your big mouth next time. You could have started talking about good way’s of stopping CO2 emissions right from the start without making idiotic comments to wind us up. Now we’ll just leave jakerman to talk to you because in terms of communication, you suck.
Posted by: guthrie | January 23, 2010 7:07 AM
From the Scienceblog “Deltoid” by Tim Lambert
LikeLike
Richard Christie,
[In similar vein, “Galloping camel” ought to specify and provide context of what “lack of warming” ]
The context can be found here; let Trenberth speak for himself:
Click to access EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
LikeLike
…let Trenberth speak for himself…
Yeah, there’s a novel idea.
Instead of quote-mining sombody and repeating a denialist PRATT, why not actually go to primary sources?
It’s really not that hard.
Google is a beautiful thing.
Stop being a tool.
Let’s hear what Trenberth has to say in plain English…
It is amazing to see this particular quote lambasted so often. It stems from a paper I published this year bemoaning our inability to effectively monitor the energy flows associated with short-term climate variability. It is quite clear from the paper that I was not questioning the link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and warming, or even suggesting that recent temperatures are unusual in the context of short-term natural variability.
The paper on this is available here:
Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001.
This paper tracks the effects of the changing Sun, how much heat went into the land, ocean, melting Arctic sea ice, melting Greenland and Antarctica, and changes in clouds, along with changes in greenhouse gases. We can track this well for 1993 to 2003, but not for 2004 to 2008. It does NOT mean that global warming is not happening, on the contrary, it suggests that we simply can’t fully explain why 2008 was as cool as it was, but with an implication that warming will come back, as it has.
Full statement available here.
Looks like a certain somebody owes Trenberth an apology.
LikeLike
Galloping Camel, thank you for replying.
One more thing please.
Can you now provide a reasonable reason why I shouldn’t conclude that you provided the Trenberth quote here as an act of bad faith?
LikeLike
Richard Christie // March 14, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Did you read Trenberth’s paper? It is more political than scientific.
Trenberth asked “where the radiative forcing has gone…”
He did not have to wait long for an answer but it was not the one he wanted. See Lindzen & Choi 2009.
Trenberth needs to apologise for insisting that “global warming is still happening….” while knowing that it isn’t.
LikeLike
Galloping camel, before I (or anyone else who has read this thread) take anything further you contribute to the debate seriously you have a lot of work to do to convince that you argue in good faith. Your first post in this thread has all the hallmarks of being disingenuous.
LikeLike
Hear hear.
Stop squirming around, gallopingcamel.
LikeLike
Scott – re the hockey Stick issue – read my post on that (search for Hockey Stick and tawdriness – sorry I am in an airport and can’t provide the link).
Re the O isotope ratios in CaCO3 as a proxy T measure. That’s not new. I remebber in my PhD years a colleague of mine working on this. That was the 1960s. This sort of data will have been included in the proxy measures used in the Hockey stick and similar work.
LikeLike
Richard, you will have to stop using those long words if you want us nuckle dragging Neanderthals to understand you.
I plan to pop in from time to time to see whether you guys are recovering your grasp of reality. At least Cedric managed to keep his cool this time.
As you may have guessed I like to debate AGW and energy policy. If you have time I would be interested in your comments on:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
While I get a lot of flack from the denizens, they tend to be polite.
LikeLike
Scott – my post on the history of the “hockey stick” is Climate change deniers’ tawdry manipulation of “hockey sticks.”.
LikeLike
I apologise Galloping Camel, I didn’t realise I was being impolite.
Anyway, for the benefit of the “nuckle dragging Neanderthals” that you identify with, I hope this helps:
Disingenuous (adjective)
1) Withholging information
withholding or not taking account of known information
2) Not genuinely sincere
giving a false impression of sincerity or simplicity
LikeLike
Cedric, please try using Google:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/15/global-warming-insignificant-years-admits-uks-climate-scientist/
LikeLike
Cedric, please try using Google>
Oh, I see.
You got your crap from FoxNews?
Oops.
🙂
It never occured to you to use google to check your information?
Maybe go beyond the media and consult primary sources?
You never did that?
Wow.
Well, now you look silly for not having done so.
Let me explain it to you in simple terms.
You said…
the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
So I asked you to do two simple things:
1) I asked you where you were getting this crap from.
Well, now we know.
You got this crap from…FoxNews.
Hmm.
2) However, I also asked you to give the actual quote.
Word for word.
I wanted to know what Phil Jones actually said.
You haven’t done that.
The FoxNews link doesn’t help you.
You cannot provide a direct quote from Phil Jones from that site that supports your claim.
It doesn’t exist.
What was the line again?
…the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
Nope. He didn’t say that. Not in the link you gave nor anywhere else.
Go back and read your link again carefully.
I certainly have.
Read it word for word.
Slowly.
(…awkward silence ensues as the light slowly dawns in DreadPirateRoberts feeble mind…)
You perpetuated a falsehood.
The reason why you don’t accept the science of global warming is because you don’t do any fact checking.
Fact checking is an alien concept to you.
You read something on the Internet, misunderstand it, misrepresent it somewhere else and ended up looking like a rather typical example of how science deniers “think”.
Bravo, you dill.
Here’s how educated people do their fact checking.
Learn.
Flogging the Scientists
LikeLike
Cedric, again you show your lack of effort. Read the article, it originates from the BBC.
And of course, the BBC is a Right wing tool.
Perhaps you should try to read something before actually stepping in it;)
LikeLike
DreadPirateRoberts. I guess you don’t understand the meaning of statistical significance. Your should really look into this properly. I wrote on it in Deniers distort Phil Jones and there is a simple video there explaining how Jones’ comment has been distorted and misrepresented.
It is really a classic example of how deniers are lying, distorting and misrepresenting the evidence on climate change.
LikeLike
Richard Christie,
I never thought of you as impolite so apology unnecessary. Thanks for the explanation of the long words. Actually these are my sincerely held views; no teasing! Here is a short version:
Has the climate warmed since 1850?….YES
Has the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere risen since 1850?……YES
Did humans contribute to this rise in CO2…..YES
Does rising CO2 concentration cause warming or cooling?……WARMING
How much of the warming was caused by CO2 of human origin?……..I DON’T KNOW
Are the MBH98&99 papers good science?….NO
BTW, don’t get the idea that AGW sceptics want to rape the environment. I worked to clean up the lower reaches of the Thames river. From zero vertebrate species in 1960 to 115 in 2000 is a notable achievement showing that appalling levels of pollution can be reversed. I raised rainbow trout in commercial quantities in Greenwich using Thames water from 1978-1981. Today the salmon are back! Oh, Frabjous Day!
LikeLike
So Galloping – You don’t know about question 5? Have you had a gander at what the IPCC report says about the relative contributions of the different factors? Obviously there are uncertainties in all of them but you can get a rough quantitative idea of each input.
And why do you say no, specifically to question 6? What do you find unscientific about Mann’s work? and have you bothered following up the independent confirmation in the NRC report or in Mann’s more recent work (or indeed other work)?
See Climate change deniers’ tawdry manipulation of “hockey sticks”.
Obviously you must be out of step on your answer to question 6, so could you at least give a specific reason – not a belief?
LikeLike
Galloping camel, the Trenberth quote is inflammatory because it is often deliberately delivered out of context and left to create the impression that a scientist is surreptitiously admitting that global warming isn’t happening.
I suspect that you knew this.
Why did you throw the quote, completely out of the context Trenberth was writing about, into the discussion on Mann’s temperature record, if not to create mischief?
LikeLike
Read the article, it originates from the BBC.
So?
That’s not where you got your information from.
You yourself linked to FoxNews.
Nobody held a gun to your head.
You did that all by yourself.
But hey, go ahead and dig yourself deeper.
Please.
Use the BBC as your source of information.
I don’t mind at all.
🙂
…the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
That’s your claim.
Go ahead and give us the quote…from the BBC…where he says that.
Word for word.
You cannot provide a direct quote from Phil Jones from that site that supports your claim.
It doesn’t exist.
Certainly not from the BBC.
You read something on the Internet, misunderstand it, misrepresent it somewhere else and ended up looking like a rather typical example of how science deniers “think”.
You’re the one that stepped in it.
You should stop eating it.
LikeLike
Ken,
You and I have both made a living as scientists so we should be able to admit how little we know with anything even close to certainty.
On the other hand I do know what bad science looks like. Even if MBH98&99 did not deny history it should be discarded because the data analysis is beyond sloppy. McIntyre & McKittrick have created a cottage industry out of Mann’s incompetence.
The AGW ship is sinking mainly as a result of the blindness of its supporters who still cling to the bad science published by Gore, Pachauri and Mann.
As long as you folks continue to defend the indefensible, your cause is lost.
LikeLike
Ken, there have been some interesting developments in the “skeptic” world lately that merit some discussion. Dr. Roy Spencer has been doing matched-pairs analysis of neighboring surface temperature measurement stations, looking for statistical relationships between population density and temperature differences. He’s come up with some fascinating findings which have made a major impact on my own thinking about climatology.
Would you be willing to take a look at what he’s found? I’d appreciate a post that would allow people to critique Dr. Spencer’s analysis.
LikeLike
“The AGW ship is sinking mainly as a result of the blindness of its supporters who still cling to the bad science…”
Creationist minds think alike. Even the rhetoric is the same.
The theory has so many holes that they must blindly gaze at the figurehead in order to deny that the ship of Darwinism is sinking.
Any bets on which ship will sink first?
🙂
In recent reading of Dembski and other ID proponents I saw them make a claim which has been made for over 40 years. This claim is one that the young-earthers have been making. The claim is that evolution (or major supporting concepts for it) is increasingly being abandoned by scientists, or is about to fall. This claim has many forms and has been made for over 162 years. This is a compilation of the claims over time. The purpose of this compilation is two-fold. First, it is to show that the claim has been made for a long, long time. Secondly, it is to show that entire careers have passed without seeing any of this movement away from evolution. Third, it is to show that the creationists are merely making these statements for the purpose of keeping hope alive that they are making progress towards their goal. In point of fact, no such progress is being made as anyone who has watched this area for the last 40 years can testify. The claim is false as history and present-day events show, yet that doesn’t stop anyone wanting to sell books from making that claim. Now for the claims in chronological order:
1825 [cont.]……
Speaking of creationism, did somebody mention the name of Dr Roy Spencer?
Oh Goody.
Spencer is a proponent of intelligent design, and rejects evolution as the mechanism for the origin of species.
(..)
He publicly promotes his ideas on intelligent design and the weather, including four appearances on Coast to Coast AM.
(..)
On the subject of Intelligent design, Spencer wrote in 2005, “Twenty years ago, as a PhD scientist, I intensely studied the evolution versus intelligent design controversy for about two years. And finally, despite my previous acceptance of evolutionary theory as ‘fact,’ I came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism. . . . In the scientific community, I am not alone. There are many fine books out there on the subject. Curiously, most of the books are written by scientists who lost faith in evolution as adults, after they learned how to apply the analytical tools they were taught in college.” He further states “I finally became convinced that the theory of creation actually had a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution, for the creation model was actually better able to explain the physical and biological complexity in the world… Science has startled us with its many discoveries and advances, but it has hit a brick wall in its attempt to rid itself of the need for a creator and designer.”
Link
LikeLike
A couple of people have asked for the quote from Phil Jones about “no significant global warming”. Here’s the BBC link, courtesy of Google
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm
When asked the question, “Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming”, he replies “Yes, but only just.” He goes on to say that it is a positive trend but does not rise to the level of significance. Exactly HOW was that misquoted or out of context?
LikeLike
Crazy Okie – this quote has been massivelymisquoted by the conservative media. Claims of Jones doing a U turn, that Jones denies any warming, etc., etc.
Even your simple quote really misrepresents it because it doesn’t include his comment on significant effects not showing over shorter time periods.
LikeLike
Scott – why keep jumping from one thing to another. If you are interested in Spencer’s work, look up the journal paper, consider other papers discussing similar areas, etc., etc. This blog doesn’t exist to answer questions like that.
If Spencer has not published in a reputable journal – that tells you something. Any scientist worth her salt would rush to publish significant findings – not post them on a deneir blog.
LikeLike
Galloping.
You still won’t be specific. In what way was Mann’s data analysis “beyond sloppy?”
Why stop with the relatively uninformed criticism of McIntyre & McKittrick ?
Have you had a look at the NRC report? This evaluates the criticism (and finds that despite some weakness in the original papers the conclusions were not invalidated in any way).
That report is very authoritative.
Have you looked at Mann’s subsequent work where he took into account criticisms made in the NRC report?
Have you considered the host of other independent work producing results similar to Mann’s?
If you haven’t done these things you haven’t made a scientific assessment – you have cherry-picked to confirm your bias. You are stuck at the “belief” stage.
LikeLike
Ken,
The NAS/NRC and Wegman reports (2006) have little comfort for Michael Mann. If you think otherwise, my guess is that you are relying on Wikipedia where the relevant sections have been edited by William Connolly.
The Wegman report is quite clear in its rejection of Mann’s analysis and its support for M&M (McIntyre & McKittrick) 2003, 2005a&b.
Just one example; M&M have Mann’s data and they show that when it is properly processed, the Medieval Warm Period is clearly seen with temperatures significantly higher than today.
LikeLike
No, Galloping, I have the NRC report (and the far less reliable Wegmann report- there is some scandal around that committee).
I think you know that. Didn’t you partipate in discussion on my post about the lies told around Mann’s “hockey stick”?
Sent from my iPod
LikeLike
Ken,
Here is a McIntyre presentation:
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2005/09/mcintyre.stockholm.ppt
This presentation includes many interesting issues. Please at least look at slide 2 which shows what the IPCC said in its first (AR1) report.
Slide 3: Deming’s testimony.
Slide 11: Shows what Mann’s “Hockey Stick” would have looked like if the data had been processed correctly.
LikeLike
Galloping- you are determined to ignore the NEC report, the independent work producing dimilarults to Mann, snd the latest Mann paper, aren’t you?
Typical symptoms of denial.
Sent from my iPod
LikeLike
Exactly HOW was that misquoted or out of context?
Look carefully.
“…no significant global warming…”.
“… no statistically-significant global warming…”
Now spot the difference.
This is not hair splitting.
“Statistically-significant” actually means something very important.
It really not the same as saying “no significant” or “not significant”.
Try and pull a switcheroo like that in statistics class and your professor will EAT YOU ALIVE.
…the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
No.
He didn’t.
There was no such admission.
It’s a deceitful lie.
Such a lie can be clearly exposed with basic fact-checking like this…
8a. Climate Change – supplement
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54?blend=1&ob=4#p/a/u/0/_PWDFzWt-Ag
LikeLike
And here’s another good one that explains it all.
Flogging the Scientists
LikeLike
(Apologies if this is a double post.
Ken, please delete one if this is the case.)
Here’s another that does a good job of explaining how the denialosphere lied, misrepresented and obfusticated.
Flogging the Scientists
LikeLike
AAAAAARRRRRRG!!!!!!!!!
LikeLike
Nice video. Should get that up on sciblogs? (Haven’t time to view it all (work…) but the first part is good.)
LikeLike
Good video Cedric. Ignorance/ indifference to basic science is widespread. But worse than that is the fear and paranoia of mathematics, and utter cluelessness about statistics.
Only a few science nerds and tree huggers seem to care.
LikeLike
And you call yourselves scientists?
I’d really like to see you try publishing something claiming it is “significant” without providing the statistics to back it up. In biological field that will get tossed immediately. Saying it is significant implies that it has been assessed by some statistical method and meets the parameters for significance in the test.
At best you can say there is a trend – which is in FACT what he says. But without it being statistically significant, it’s meaningless. He makes the same point on the very next question regarding whether there has been cooling over the last several years.
You’re the ones in denial here, plain and simple.
For the record, I’m a scientist. I believe in evolution. I believe most science, including climate science, is good science. But you also can’t convince me that you can predict how things will be 100 years from now based on weather/climate patterns of today. Several years ago, at the height of the mad cow epidemic, it was predicted that England would have by now over half a million cases of human new variant CJD based on the number of cases that had popped up in just a few years. That prediction was just a *wee* bit off.
LikeLike
Crazy Okie,
The bar for statistical significance is necessarily higher when the time period is only 15 years.. Phil Jones was responding with typical caution to the climate data being bandied about.. for identify a trend with such a short time period requires at least a 95% confidence interval.
There is a trend if you look at the last 100 years or so of human industry
LikeLike
Here’s another nice little illustration of the statistical aspects of this distortion of Jones’s comment:
From a blog posting:
Growthgate -http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/growthgate/
“Suppose you have a child, a son — he’s 10. You want to know whether or not he’s growing normally, so every day you measure his height with a tape measure. You’ve done so since he was 5. You even plot the data on a graph, and notice two things about it. First: the measurements show a fair amount of jitter, sometimes they’re a wee bit higher, sometimes a wee bit lower, there’s noise in the data. Second: there’s also a trend. Your kid is a lot taller at 10 than he was at 5, in fact the trend over the observed time span is upward and reasonably steady. You even do a statistical analysis, estimate the growth rate, and determine that it’s definitely statistically significant — so it’s not a false trend due to noise in the data, it’s real. Your son is growing normally.
Then you’re interviewed by a reporter from the Daily Mail. He asks, “Can you prove — with statistical significance — that your child has been growing since last Tuesday?”
You reply that no, even though the trend over that time span is upward, it’s not statistically significant.
The next day you read the article in the Daily Mail which is titled, “Growthgate U-turn as parent admits: There has been no growth since last Tuesday.”
You protest. “I never said my child wasn’t growing! I just said that the data over such a short time span didn’t show it with statistical significance! That’s only because on such a short time scale, the noise obscures the trend.”
Alas, it’s too late, the damage is done, because 3500 blogs have repeated the article from the Daily Mail and child protective services has been asked to investigate your fitness as a parent.
Sound familiar?”
LikeLike
Sorry, that fails to convince me. Nice try, but not convincing.
Scientists use statistics for a reason.
If everything that was a trend turned out to be true, we wouldn’t need statistics. Not all trends turn out to be true!
I have no objections to Phil Jones saying that there is a trend and stating that it isn’t statistically significant. However, that doesn’t invalidate the argument of the other side (that the warming wasn’t significant!) and trying to claim otherwise just makes you look ridiculous. You’re splitting hairs.
After all, if we take your argument – that a trend is significant, even if it isn’t statistically significant, because the time frame is too short – then in fact the climate has been cooling over the last several years (according to Phil Jones in his interview with the BBC) even as CO2 levels have escalated. Therefore AGW cannot possibly account for the warming that was seen in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
LikeLike
Let’s try again slowly for you.
The phrase ” It isn’t statistically significant” does not equal “warming wasn’t significant”.
The phrase “Warming wasn’t significant” does not equal “It isn’t statistically significant”.
They are two different things.
They have two different meanings.
Don’t abuse the English language nor Statistics 101.
…the “no global warming for 15 years” was a recent admission by Dr Phil Jones…
He never said it.
He never admitted it.
He didn’t even say anything close.
That’s the misquote right there.
If you read the actual interview in full it’s really very clear that Dr Phil Jones believes that global warming is happening.
Yet one would never know that if you just followed the denialosphere sound-bites.
LikeLike
Crazy – statistical significance is not a simple binary situation. Jones’s data may have indicated not significant at 95% level but significant at 90% level, for example. Instead of there being 1 chance in 20 of the data being simply a random result perhaps there was 1 chance in 15.
The cut offs are abritary.
The deniers are effectively saying that the trend is just a chance result – which is completely wrong.
And of course it’s not an accident that the particular time period was chosen. If 1994 had been chosen the 95% level would have been acheived.
OK we have conventions about how to define the statistical significance. This is not an issue here because we are looking at trends. We know results are meaningless over short time periods – so the honest approach is to use longer time periods. This might, in future, show a decline at the current time. If so, and it is significant, that’s good. Currently our time period is far to short to draw conclusions.
Sent from my iPod
LikeLike
After all, if we take your argument – that a trend is significant, even if it isn’t statistically significant, because the time frame is too short – then in fact the climate has been cooling over the last several years (according to Phil Jones in his interview with the BBC) even as CO2 levels have escalated. What???
LikeLike
Okie: After all, if we take your argument – that a trend is significant, even if it isn’t statistically significant, because the time frame is too short – then in fact the climate has been cooling over the last several years (according to Phil Jones in his interview with the BBC) even as CO2 levels have escalated.
What???
LikeLike
This recent article might reopen some old wounds on this topic
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/03/end-phase-of-the-climate-wars
LikeLike
Why Jack?
LikeLike
Why?
Because it was
(a) written in the last week
(b) quotes (correctly or otherwise) Phil Jones
and
(c) raises questions on the accuracy of NIWA records.
(d) raises questions over the MWP (of course, this relates back to the original post on Michael Mann’s hockey stick)
I hope that is a fair synopsis
LikeLike
So I guess this is NZ’s Barry Brill? He a mate of yours?
He is hardly an objective author in these matters, is he?
LikeLike
Not much on google for – “Barry Brill” journalist
not much at all.
LikeLike
NZs Barry Brill often comments (one of the very few people who do) on the Climate Conversation Group Blog. I have tried to get him to admit that there were site effects in the NIWA data – he refuses to do so. Even Treadgold will admit it but of course still pushes a denier political line. Brill has written for the NZ Centre for Political Research – which is a right wing think tank connected to the Heritage Institute, etc. Nicky Hager exposed their role in the 2005 elections (The Hollow Men). They get some interesting conspiracy theorists participating in there forums (9/11 truthers, for example).
The NZCPR describes Brill as “a former MP who has a lengthy background in energy policy – ranging from being the National Minister who introduced “carless days”, to Petrocorp director, and chairing the Gas Council, Power NZ, ESANZ, and EMCO.”
Interesting that these commenters seem to have energy links.
LikeLike
Should have added that Brill is chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition – the local climate change denier group.
LikeLike
Having a quick peek, Quadrant magazine (quoted above) seems to be the usual far right denialist publication littered with references to Christianity and Judaism.
Enough said?
LikeLike
http://www.quadrant.org.au/pages/about-us
Quadrant was founded in 1956 as an initiative of the Australian Committee for Cultural Freedom, itself associated with the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and so was part of the defensive against Communist inspired, subsidised and/or influenced intellectual publications of the post-World War II era.
Not unexpected.
LikeLike
And if you look at the list of online sponsors, it is absolutely infested with Christians and Jews
No surprises there either
LikeLike
That’s neither here or there, but the admission that it is set up with a clear political agenda is relevant and undermines any gravitas it may aspire to having in the field of scientific analysis or comment.
LikeLike
From their website:
” Quadrant is uncompromisingly in favour of freedom of thought and expression. While insisting on civilised discourse, it opposes any political, academic or religious tendency that wants to suppress freedom of speech.”
Exactly – the stench of denialism is overpowering.
LikeLike
Jack, I think you are confused.
Supporting freedom of speech does not at all imply that the publication does not also fulfill its stated purpose, i.e. promote material subject to a political ideology.
LikeLike
(a) Which issues of the stated interpretation of Phil Jones comments do you have a problem with? (If any)
(b) They state that they are “anti-communist”.
How does that statement change their interpretation in (a)?
LikeLike
I’m not a climate scientist so my opinion isn’t worth much on the science. I rely on the position statements of the world’s major scientific bodies.
Tell you what though, and you’ll assuredly agree with this , since Barry has demonstrated reasoning here that single handedly brings down the house of cards that is climate science he ought to get it published in a high end journal pronto.
I’m sure he’ll collect a Nobel prize.
LikeLike
I think Barry Brill’s tone was conciliatory rather then confrontational.
His points are valid, and have been expressed before (i.e he probably didn’t think this first)
Regards
Jack
LikeLike
Jack, Brill slandered our NIWA scientists. He & his mates continue to do this. Their tactics are obvious and extremely confrontational from my perspective.
And they are not honest.
Sent from my iPod
LikeLike
“Jack, Brill slandered our NIWA scientists.”
Ken, can you fill me in with details?
I am unaware of this
LikeLike
Jack – you youself referred to the claims made about NIWA’s work so you must be aware of their attacks and their discredited “paper”.
Are you not aware of Brill’s groups?
Sent from my iPod
LikeLike
Ken – no to all.
I was merely reading from Brill’s post. I have no knowledge of any discredited paper
LikeLike
I have written several posts on the discredited “paper” as has Hot Topic and David Winter. You could do a search (can’t do links from an iPod).
There are dome extra issues. There is something fishy about their (the deniers) data or their methofology. They refuse to provide information, claim they have a “science team” that ” wished to remain anonymous”.
You get the picture.
Anyway, I will shortly be posting my analysis of their data/ methodology problems and their lack of transparency.
I will leavey details until then.
Sent from my iPod
LikeLike
It’s interesting to see the level of funding Mann has received. In another thread, Ken refused to answer my question about how much Mann has been paid and I can understand why. Climate change is big business and very lucrative for those fortunate enough to be studying it. The following information pertains to the grants receive by Mann. It doesn’t take into account any payments recived by Mann from Penn Sate or any private donations that may have come his way from vested interest groups.
2009-2013 Quantifying the influence of environmental temperature on transmission of vector-borne diseases, NSF-EF [Principal Investigator: M. Thomas; Co-Investigators: R.G. Crane, M.E. Mann, A. Read, T. Scott (Penn State Univ.)] $1,884,991
2009-2012 Toward Improved Projections of the Climate Response to Anthropogenic Forcing: Combining Paleoclimate Proxy and Instrumental Observations with an Earth System Model, NSF-ATM [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann; Co-Investigators: K. Keller (Penn State Univ.), A. Timmermann (Univ. of Hawaii)] $541,184
2008-2011 A Framework for Probabilistic Projections of Energy-Relevant Streamflow Indices, DOE [Principal Investigator: T. Wagener; Co-Investigators: M. Mann, R. Crane, K. Freeman (Penn State Univ.)] $330,000
2008-2009 AMS Industry/Government Graduate Fellowship (Anthony Sabbatelli), American Meteorological Society [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann (Penn State Univ.)] $23,000
2006-2009 Climate Change Collective Learning and Observatory Network in Ghana, USAID [Principal Investigator: P. Tschakert; Co-Investigators: M.E. Mann, W. Easterling (Penn State Univ.)] $759,928
2006-2009 Analysis and testing of proxy-based climate reconstructions, NSF-ATM [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann (Penn State Univ.)] $459,000
2006-2009 Constraining the Tropical Pacific’s Role in Low-Frequency Climate Change of the Last Millennium, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigators: K. Cobb (Georgia Tech Univ.), N. Graham (Hydro. Res. Center), M.E. Mann (Penn State Univ.), Hoerling (NOAA Clim. Dyn. Center), Alexander (NOAA Clim. Dyn. Center)] PSU award (M.E. Mann): $68,065
2006-2007 Acquisition of high-performance computing cluster for the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC), NSF-EAR [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann, Co-Investigators: R. Alley, M. Arthur, J. Evans, D. Pollard (Penn State Univ.)] $100,000
2003-2006 Decadal Variability in the Tropical Indo-Pacific: Integrating Paleo & Coupled Model Results, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigators: M.E. Mann (U.Va), J. Cole (U. Arizona), V. Mehta (CRCES)] U.Va award (M.E. Mann): $102,000
2002-2005 Reconstruction and Analysis of Patterns of Climate Variability Over the Last One to Two Millennia, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann, Co-Investigators: S. Rutherford, R.S. Bradley, M.K. Hughes] $315,000
2002-2005 Remote Observations of Ice Sheet Surface Temperature: Toward Multi-Proxy Reconstruction of Antarctic Climate Variability, NSF-Office of Polar Programs, Antarctic Oceans and Climate System [Principal Investigators: M.E. Mann (U. Va), E. Steig (U. Wash.), D. Weinbrenner (U. Wash)] U.Va award (M.E. Mann): $133,000
2002-2003 Paleoclimatic Reconstructions of the Arctic Oscillation, NOAA-Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research (CIFAR) Program [Principal Investigators: Rosanne D’Arrigo, Ed Cook (Lamont/Columbia); Co-Investigator: M.E. Mann] U.Va subcontract (M.E. Mann): $14,400
2002-2003 Global Multidecadal-to-Century-Scale Oscillations During the Last 1000 years, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigator: Malcolm Hughes (Univ. of Arizona); Co-Investigators: M.E. Mann; J. Park (Yale University)] U.Va subcontract (M.E. Mann): $20,775
2001-2003 Resolving the Scale-wise Sensitivities in the Dynamical Coupling Between Climate and the Biosphere, University of Virginia-Fund for Excellence in Science and Technology (FEST) [Principal Investigator: J.D. Albertson; Co-Investigators: H. Epstein, M.E. Mann] U.Va internal award: $214,700
2001-2002 Advancing predictive models of marine sediment transport, Office of Naval Research [Principal Investigator: P. Wiberg (U.Va), Co-Investigator: M.E. Mann] $20,775
1999-2002 Multiproxy Climate Reconstruction: Extension in Space and Time, and Model/Data Intercomparison, NOAA-Earth Systems History [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann (U.Va), Co-Investigators: R.S. Bradley, M.K. Hughes] $381,647
1998-2000 Validation of Decadal-to-Multi-century climate predictions, DOE [Principal Investigator: R.S. Bradley (U. Mass); Co-Investigators: H.F. Diaz, M.E. Mann]
1998-2000 The changing seasons? Detecting and understanding climatic change, NSF-Hydrological Science [Principal Investigator U. Lall (U. Utah); Co-investigators: M.E. Mann, B. Rajagopalan, M. Cane] $266,235K
1996-1999 Patterns of Organized Climatic Variability: Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Globally
Distributed Climate Proxy Records and Long-term Model Integrations, NSF-Earth Systems History [Principal Investigator: R.S. Bradley (U. Mass); Co-Investigators: M.E. Mann, M.K. Hughes] $270,000
1996-1998 Investigation of Patterns of Organized Large-Scale Climatic Variability During the Last
Millennium, DOE, Alexander Hollaender Postdoctoral Fellowship [M.E. Mann] $78,000
LikeLike
> since Barry has demonstrated reasoning here that single handedly brings down the house of cards that is climate science he ought to get it published in a high end journal pronto.
So if it was published in a high end journal, you would change your mind about climate change? Didn’t think so.
LikeLike
James – thanks for the list of research contracts awarded to Mann. A correction – I wasn’t refusing to answer your request (which was of course disingenuous becuase you actually had the data). I just wasn’t interested in hunting out information irrelevant to the post.
However, now you have provided a list I have a few comments.
1: As expected the list looks extensive – as we would expect for a scientist of such high standing and reputation. However, I personally would have expected it to be longer. Perhaps it is incomplete – where did you get the list from?
2: Scientists are actually quite proud of these lists – they are always updated in their CVs because they are a good indicator of their professional abilities. This is certainly the case in NZ and I am sure such lists are even more important in the US
3: You seemed to be under the delusion that these funds go into the scientist’s pockets. That is of course silly. They pay for the research, the laboratories, staff, field trips, publications, etc., etc. They pay for research.
Whoever has been telling you that this represents some sort of lucrative business for the individual scientist, that it goes into their pockets, has been telling you naive lies. I recommend you immediately refuse to accept such information from them in the future.
4: Of course this information is readily available. Now I suggest you attempt to find the sources and amounts of funding for the critics of Dr Mann. What institutes, think tanks and corporations help fund the anti-science websites and individuals? Do they get any funding from normal science funding bodies? Is their funding scientific or political in character?
Who is funding well know anti-science individuals to travel to the upcoming international climate denier conference, for example.
Now, that would be a great service. James. I will assume if you don’t provide such a list that you may be trying to hide something.
Thanks again for this list. It does confirm the high scientific standing Dr Mann has. That, together with the fact his work has been amongst the most thoroughly reviewed scientific work ever, does help provide confidence in today’s understanding of climate science.
LikeLike
Jack – I notice that NZ;s most well known conspiracy theorist, Ian Wishart, has reposted Barry Brill’s article on his website see GUEST POST: End Phase of the Climate Wars?).
I would say that is the kiss of death.
But it does help you connect the dots.
LikeLike
> >since Barry has demonstrated reasoning here that single handedly brings down the house of cards that is climate science he ought to get it published in a high end journal pronto.
>So if it was published in a high end journal, you would change your mind about climate change? Didn’t think so.
James it appears you are confused about how peer review, journals, scientific consensus and on my how opinion is formed, so unsurprisingly you answered your own question wrongly.
It goes a bit like this, [consensus 101]: Barry submits his masteriece to a scientific journal, it’s published if (big if) it survives peer review. Scientists subsequently read and test his findings, later, meta analysis and literature review determines the current state of scientific thought (consensus) on the topic.
As always, not being an expert in the field, I base my viewpoint on the consensus. At risk of me being presumptuous as to your level of scientific expertise, I say so should you.
LikeLike
Alternatively you could be Greenpeace or WWF and submit any old rubbish to the IPCC, not peer reviewed of course
LikeLike
Since when do people “submit” stuff to the IPCC, Jon? That’s not how things work.
LikeLike
Ken, I don’t know the internal processes of the IPCC, but there is a heck of a lot of grey literature in the IPCC AR4 that is not peer reviewed.
The WWF report on the Amazonian rain forest is a case in point.
Nice that the WWF have stitched up a tidy little $60 billion carbon deal there.
That’s what this is all about.
Carbon Scam. Taxpayer to foot the bill
LikeLike
Jon, you are clutching at straws. The science report (vol 1) reviews peer reviewed literature. The others (adaption & mitigation) do include grey literature. There is a clear reason for that which is well acknowledged and discussed by the IPCC.
In some regions, particularly the developing countries, there is no peer reviewed literature and we must fall back on what is available, while being aware of it’s limitations.
Of course deniers are trying to makeup stories about that – but they are dishonest. The IPCC conclusions are very tentative, measured and conservative. If anything they underestate the real situation, this is one of the concerns behind the current review of the IPCC process.
Just think about it Jon. Is it at all likely that the IPCC, honest scientists around the world, are going to conspire to falsify information?
Or is it more likely that conspiracy theorists, cranks, and energy/ mining interests will, out of their own interests, distort the truth to invent a convenient story?
Sent from my iPod
LikeLike
Is it at all likely that the IPCC, honest scientists around the world, are going to conspire to falsify information?
YES!!!!
They are all HARD LEFT MARXISTS.
Scientists are bad.
They want to destroy freedom and kill your grandma.
Don’t listen to them.
Science bad.
And Al Gore is fat.
😉
LikeLike