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Watts Rattles Global Warming Theologians

Saturday 18 Aug 2007 | Jacobse | Junk science |

10 Responses to “Watts Rattles Global Warming Theologians”

1. 1) |  Top | Aug 24 2007 | Tom C

   A couple of weeks ago Steve McIntyre - the amateur mathematician that discovered the “Hockey Stick” fraud - won another round against the global warmers when he discovered an error in the method used to calculate US temperatures. He discovered the error while studying the information that Mr. Watts (subject of article) has been publishing on the internet. As a result of the efforts of McIntyre and Watts, NASA has been forced to recalculate US temperatures, and in the process it turns out that the 1930s were probably hotter than the last 10 years have been.

   Probably not many readers of this blog want to get emeshed in the gory details, but this event did expose the weird behavior of the scientists that are pushing doomsday scenarios. The Chief Doomsdayer is James Hansen of NASA. His reaction to having his sloppy work called to task is given here Hansen

   The first 2 graphs that Hansen presents show yet again how dishonest he is in that he abitrarily scaled them differently to give an illusion of rapidly climbing worldwide temperatures.

   This is Steve McIntyre’s take on the significance of his find ClimateAudit

   (Note the first graph of temperatures in Detroit Lakes Minnesota. Hansen has been looking at data like these for 10 years and didn’t see a problem.)

   If anyone bothers to read these, tell me who the scientist is and who the devious ideologue is.

2. 2) |  Top | Aug 25 2007 | Jacobse

   Tom, read the articles. Have to admit I did not understand the boundaries of the entire debate, but I did learn a few things: 1) even tenths of a degree are very important in the aggregate; 2) reporting station integrity is a problem; 3) NASA doesn’t like being questioned; 4) the 1930’s was the warmest decade on record; 5) the research used to make the Al Gore like sweeping generalizations need much verification than they have received; 6) NASA scientists tried to dismiss their error on ideological rather than scientific grounds.

3. 3) |  Top | Aug 25 2007 | Dean Scourtes

   Errors in Mcintyre’s analysis on the Hockey Stick have been discovered as well. I call your attention to Dummies guide to the latest “Hockey Stick” controversy.

   7) Basically then the MM05 (McIntyre) criticism is simply about whether selected N. American tree rings should have been included, not that there was a mathematical flaw?

   Yes. Their argument since the beginning has essentially not been about methodological issues at all, but about ’source data’ issues. Particular concerns with the “bristlecone pine” data were addressed in the followup paper MBH99 but the fact remains that including these data improves the statistical validation over the 19th Century period and they therefore should be included.

   So does this all matter?

   No. If you use the MM05 convention and include all the significant PCs, you get the same answer. If you don’t use any PCA at all, you get the same answer. If you use a completely different methodology (i.e. Rutherford et al, 2005), you get basically the same answer. Only if you remove significant portions of the data do you get a different (and worse) answer.

   9) Was MBH98 the final word on the climate of last millennium?

   Not at all. There has been significant progress on many aspects of climate reconstructions since MBH98. Firstly, there are more and better quality proxy data available. There are new methodologies such as described in Rutherford et al (2005) or Moberg et al (2005) that address recognised problems with incomplete data series and the challenge of incorporating lower resolution data into the mix. Progress is likely to continue on all these fronts. As of now, all of the ‘Hockey Team’ reconstructions (shown left) agree that the late 20th century is anomalous in the context of last millennium, and possibly the last two millennia.

4. 4) |  Top | Aug 25 2007 | Jacobse

   Dean, do you have the expertise to judge the veracity of this claim, or are you just posting something you found through Google?

5. 5) |  Top | Aug 25 2007 | Tom C

   #3 Mr. Scourtes

   We’ve been through all this before and I don’t want to clog up a blog about Orthodox Christianity with arcane arguments about math. But one last time:

   1) The quotes you post about this topic are all from the website RealClimate which is run by the very people who are the authors of the fraud. An independent critique by leading statisticians supported McIntyre unambiguously.

   2) The whole thing is demented even without delving into the math, as the Hockey Stick authors claim that one species of tree in California accurately represents the temperature record of the entire globe for well over a thousand years. They even claim accuracy to fractions of a degree. Note that the first comment on this thread concerns NASA’s inability to figure out US temperatures over the last 10 years with this sort of accuracy.

   3) At least skim the articles I linked to. McIntyre makes careful and modest distinctions, is dispassionate in his analysis, and sticks to the data rather than indulging in ideology. It is no wonder, as he is firmly on record saying he believes global warming might be occurring and might be serious. He argues, though, that a subject so serious ought to be bolstered by good science. Don’t you agree? The article by Hansen, on the other hand, is an unhinged ideological rant. Keep in mind that he is the one who messed up the data analysis. A little humility might have been in order.

   Wishing you a warm September…

6. 6) |  Top | Aug 26 2007 | Christopher

   We’ve been through all this before and I don’t want to clog up a blog about Orthodox Christianity

   He is a hack, a Troll, not a participant. You will be going through this years from now if you allow yourself to…;)

7. 7) |  Top | Aug 27 2007 | Dean Scourtes

   Father: No, I am not an expert, but the point urgently needed to be made that the Hockey Stick theory is not invalidated, but still a matter of lively debate in the scientific community. Tom was trying to create the misleading impression that the theory, which holds that we are witnessing the highest average temperatures in a millenia, had been discredited and with it, all evidence of global warming. That impression could not be left to stand unchallenged.

   Regarding my use of Google, the citing of supporting evidence is neccesary to differentiate comments based on opinion from those based on fact. I am not so arrogant as to think that others are impressed by my opinions, which is why I try and find objective, independent sources to substantiate and bolster my arguments. The source I used in No.3 was in retrospect, a poor choice, since it came from one of the principal parties in the dispute.

   However, one can find other objective sources that support the Hockey stick theory. For example the web site of the National Oceanic and Atmospherics agency, a branch of the United States government, reviews not just the study by Mann that first advanced the theory, but several others as well.

   Paleoclimatic Data for the Last 2000 Years, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html

   Although each of the proxy temperature records shown below is different, due in part to the diverse statistical methods utilized and sources of the proxy data, they all indicate similar patterns of temperature variability over the last 500 to 2000 years. Most striking is the fact that each record reveals a steep increase in the rate or spatial extent of warming since the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. When compared to the most recent decades of the instrumental record, they indicate the temperatures of the most recent decades are the warmest in the entire record. In addition, warmer than average temperatures are more widespread over the Northern Hemisphere in the 20th century than in any previous time.

   The similarity of characteristics among the different paleoclimatic reconstructions provides confidence in the following important conclusions:
   - Dramatic warming has occurred since the 19th century.
   - The recent record warm temperatures in the last 15 years are indeed the warmest temperatures the Earth has seen in at least the last 1000 years, and possibly in the last 2000 years.

8. 8) |  Top | Aug 27 2007 | Jacobse

   Note 7. Dean writes:
   

   No, I am not an expert, but the point urgently needed to be made that the Hockey Stick theory is not invalidated, but still a matter of lively debate in the scientific community. Tom was trying to create the misleading impression that the theory, which holds that we are witnessing the highest average temperatures in a millenia, had been discredited and with it, all evidence of global warming. That impression could not be left to stand unchallenged.

   I don’t recall Tom saying global warming is not occuring. I recall him saying that the man-made-global-warming-movement uses data that is ideologically driven.

   Glad to see though that you have backed off your unqualified support of the hockey stick scenario. Now, if we could just get Al Gore and crew to think more scientifically…

9. 9) |  Top | Aug 27 2007 | Tom C

   #7 Mr. Scourtes

   You wrote
   

   Tom was trying to create the misleading impression that the theory, which holds that we are witnessing the highest average temperatures in a millenia, had been discredited and with it, all evidence of global warming.

   I’ve put up probably 30 posts on global warming. If you can find one where I claim that the Earth has not been warming, please let me know. If you can’t find one, please stop accusing me of saying that the Earth has not been warming.

   The hockey stick really looked like a hockey stick. Not so much that it had a blade, but that it had a straight shaft. The claim was made that for 1900 years the global temperature of the Earth varied hardly an iota, almost like there was a big thermostat in the sky keeping everything at 15 C. Then, sudenly in 1900, the temperature starts to shoot up because of industrial activity and the emission of carbon dioxide.

   To make the claim of the “straight shaft” they had to do away with two well know historical episodes: the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. The strategy here was to enhance the impression that things are just getting out of control now. If the temperature of the globe never varies, but suddenly is shooting up, it must be due to human activity.

   One scientist who had published work on paleoclimate reconstructions received an E-mail from a NOAA scientist which said “we have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”. How’s that for an ideological agenda. Reminds me of the Soviet Union where it was said that the future was not uncertain, the past was. The NOAA scientist, BTW was the same guy who wrote the piece on the website that you linked to - Jonathan Overpeck.

   Anyway, many of the reconstructions referenced are simply recycling of the original Mann paper in that they depend on the magical California tree that records global temperatures. This despite the fact that the National Academy report on this subject explicity warned against using this species of tree. This despite longstanding research that says this species responds to carbon dioxide and not temperature.

   Some of the reconstructions are more valid, and they suggest that it might be as warm now as it has been for the last 400 years. Some say for the last 1000 years. Either way, so what? You are missing the point that if it was this warm 400 years ago, or 1000 years ago, what was it that made it that warm then? No industrial activity to blame it on. Moreover, why did it cool and then start to warm again with no appreciable input from humans?

   You might want to do a little more research on this topic. You will find that there are hundreds of peer-reviewed papers on proxy-derived proof of the existence of a significant Medieval Warm Period and massive historical evidence that suports it as well.

   The Earth gets hotter, the Earth gets colder. It might get a little hotter now because of our industrial activity. Even if it does, calm down.

10. 10) |  Top | Aug 28 2007 | Christopher

    Note #9:

    If you can’t find one, please stop accusing me of saying that the Earth has not been warming.

    Good luck with that. Dean’s participation here is as an left wing advocate (or more accurately, a Troll) - he is not interested in the truth of the matter, thus the inflammatory rhetoric