More Evidence Against The "hockey Stick"

[johnholmes]

welcome to NW, I've no idea what your background is but your constructive comments are like a breath of fresh air in this very emotive area of threads on NW.

I will certainly read all the links you quote.

I suppose I am a slight sceptic of some of the IPCC arguments but maybe a strong sceptic of the alternative view would perhaps sum up my position.

trying to disprove something, as you say, is perfectly correct and proper, but slandering, which is what is happening to some extent, of some eminent scientists in their particular fields is quite wrong.

Its very easy, in anything in life to criticise, what is a whole lot more difficult is to constructively criticise.

thanks again for you inputs.

[jethro]

I'm happy to discuss reasoned arguments, but not to discuss unsubstantiated slander of honest scientists. I want to be wrong about all this. I want iot to get cooler, and for the current solar inactivity to spark a new 'Little Ice Age'. I've even given talks about the sun's [/b]connection to climate some years ago, but the trouble is the data is very clear,

SSS, may I ask what you do for a living?

[Solar Cycles]

I don't think you'll get a straight answer - that would involve dealing with real data...

AS TWS has commented, and is the focus of the first of the RealClimate articles, the hockey stick, and most importantly, the late 20th century rise, appears in a plethora of different records and will not disappear because of an internet character assassination job on one tree ring record. It still stands, despite the rantings of people like McIntyre or, god forbid, Crichton (should have stuck to the story writing he was actually good at, rest his soul), who are not capable of putting together a climate argument cogent enough to get published. Unsubstantiuated blog opinions like those of Watts do not qualify as cogent criticisms of recent climate change or the 'hockey stick' either. That people on here believe such unsubstantiated arguments and are so opposed to taking on board views (including those of most trained palaeoclimatologists) contrary to their own is frankly depressing.

I would strongly encourage everyone to read both sides of the argument, but avoid the rhetoric, and look carefully for the real, verifiable data. It is particularly telling that deniers spend their time nit-picking holes in individual records, the nit-picks themselves don't then stand up to examination, and no new data clearly supporting alternate hypotheses are put forward. The most depressing thing of all is that the internet becomes the vehicle for unsubstantiated character assasination attempts, where the author who has suceeded in publishing work in journals and therefore survived the academic review process, has no opportunity or means to defend themselves. The rumours spread like viruses around the web for the uninformed and weak-minded to read, and even the less rigorous/scrupulous journalists see a story. Strangely enough, the rebuttals of the 'critiques' rarely make such a media-worthy story and so many people are left with the (wrong) opinion on the state of the science.

I'm happy to discuss reasoned arguments, but not to discuss unsubstantiated slander of honest scientists. I want to be wrong about all this. I want iot to get cooler, and for the current solar inactivity to spark a new 'Little Ice Age'. I've even given talks about the sun's connection to climate some years ago, but the trouble is the data is very clear, and so yes, SC, my mind is made up... until new, better evidence comes forward, which do date it resoundingly hasn't. There is an excellent test of some ideas given the current deep solar minimum and negative PDO, but so far no discernible impact on temperature.

SC: "It cast doubt on the honesty, and integrity of climate scientist." Erm, no it doesn't. The scientists in question are quite happy to be proved wrong if new, better data comes along, but if they are proven wrong they are no less honest as scientists than they were before. That is the core of the scientific method, or do you not believe that either? Dishonesty is the deliberate falsification of results, something that hasn't happened. A very serious accusation, levelled apparently by you at nearly all palaeoclimatologists.

AF: "Nobody is saying there hasn't been any empirical evidence for warming in the late 20th Century. But there is no evidence for this warming being a "historic" hockey stick shape. It's just regular old warming, and there has recently been some cooling and there might be more. There's no hockey stick. It's an irrelevance that believers in AGW should ditch as it does not help their cause. (Nor does a lack of hockey stick 100% kill their idea, but it certainly doesn't help it...)". Erm... yes there are plenty independent lines of evidence - see the first of the links in my previous post. And temperatures are still rising on average.

SC, I did not specifcally call you a denier. But... if you're going to deny that palaeoclimate science in all it's myriad independently verifiable forms can reconstruct past climate (to varying levels of accuracy and resolution), then it will be very hard to have a cogent debate!

AF: You might want to retract the comment: "up until September 09 nobody knew global warming rested on just 12 trees (and out of that twelve, one in particular). Twelve, which from about 1995 became five trees." If you seriously believe this then you have absolutely not read any of the literature on the topic, and are not in a position to comment. It is comments like these that mislead those who have no prior knowledge of the topic.

sss

Palaeoclimate science for all it's intentions has not accurately reconstructed past temperatures! How do you know, I hear you say? The same as stating that is has! As in we can only second guess with what proxies are available. As for deep solar minimum and a negative PDO, well seen as no one knows much about what sort of lag effect a deep solar minimum would have, I don't know how you can dismiss it so easily!

[Devonian]

Iceberg, your question has already been answered at climate audit. I provided a brief summary for you above (did you read it?). You should start reading it from the source.

When you consider the hockey stick shape requires the recent period to be higher than the MWP the curve is going to depend on treemometers. The curve can be entirely explained by two: Mann's Bristlecone pines (and Mann's hockey stick algorithm) and Briffa's supposedly independent confirmation of this, the Global Warming tree.

...

No, you're simply wrong about that, Real Climate for the source (have you read it?).

Edited October 2, 2009 by Devonian

[Solar Cycles]

No, you're simply wrong about that, Real Climate for the source (have you read it?).

Come off it Dev, it's hardly the most balanced site for neutrals like me!

[Thundery wintry showers]

I'll agree that Realclimate has a pro-AGW stance, but on the other hand, it's also one of the most balanced sites that I've come across, one of the few that doesn't pander to one extreme view or the other. And many of the "comments" sections of the articles, in which some contributors question the views expressed by the owners of the Realclimate blogs, are also very interesting.

SC, if you think it's unreasonable to state that palaeoclimatology has definitely reconstructed past climates well, on the basis of "uncertainty", how does it then become reasonable to state that it has definitely failed to do so? There's a double standard at work there.

The potential lags concerning solar activity and the PDO are still unclear, and I'm particularly interested in finding out how VillagePlank's leaky integrator fares (this being one example of a model made from a 'sceptic' perspective that has a strong scientific basis behind it- which is a rarity it would seem). However, at present, the onus is still on the dissenting voices to come up with something that is comparably, or more, plausible relative to what the IPCC tell us. I, like John above, am slightly sceptical of the IPCC's stance, but I'm also more sceptical regarding the other theories for now.

[Devonian]

Come off it Dev, it's hardly the most balanced site for neutrals like me!

'Neutrals like me' , best joke of the evening SC!

[Solar Cycles]

I'll agree that Realclimate has a pro-AGW stance, but on the other hand, it's also one of the most balanced sites that I've come across, one of the few that doesn't pander to one extreme view or the other. And many of the "comments" sections of the articles, in which some contributors question the views expressed by the owners of the Realclimate blogs, are also very interesting.

SC, if you think it's unreasonable to state that palaeoclimatology has definitely reconstructed past climates well, on the basis of "uncertainty", how does it then become reasonable to state that it has definitely failed to do so? There's a double standard at work there.

The potential lags concerning solar activity and the PDO are still unclear, and I'm particularly interested in finding out how VillagePlank's leaky integrator fares (this being one example of a model made from a 'sceptic' perspective that has a strong scientific basis behind it- which is a rarity it would seem). However, at present, the onus is still on the dissenting voices to come up with something that is comparably, or more, plausible relative to what the IPCC tell us. I, like John above, am slightly sceptical of the IPCC's stance, but I'm also more sceptical regarding the other theories for now.

I quite agree the onus is on sceptics to provide the evidence, but also you could say the same about AGW supporters. Just as sceptics can't give an accurate time scale to the lag effect, AGW supporters can't supply evidence that AGW is responsible for the majority of the warming we had endured. Works both ways TWS, both are theories, both yet to be proven!

'Neutrals like me' , best joke of the evening SC!

Actually Dev unlike you, I would be willing to change my stance, if the evidence for became unquestionable! Till that time I seek the truth! Edited October 2, 2009 by Solar Cycles

[Thundery wintry showers]

I quite agree the onus is on sceptics to provide the evidence, but also you could say the same about AGW supporters. Just as sceptics can't give an accurate time scale to the lag effect, AGW supporters can't supply evidence that AGW is responsible for the majority of the warming we had endured.

Er, yes they can, and a trawl through the latest IPCC report will illustrate this. As I say, I am slightly sceptical myself, and believe that there is a chance that they might be wrong. But for now, the majority of scientific research is supporting their stance on the subject.

It's like that with pretty much any consensus situation. If there's a consensus on something, while it doesn't mean that it is right, it leaves the onus on the dissenting voices to come up with an alternative that offers a serious challenge to the consensus view. Just attacking the consensus view and providing no decent alternative is ineffective.

Just because you might happen to disagree with the evidence, it doesn't mean that the evidence doesn't exist!

[Methuselah]

Welcome to N-W, SSS...As others have already said, your posting is like a breath of fresh air. It's also clear that you research the subject prior to writing about it.

PS: Can the guilty parties please stop bickering?

[Rob]

welcome to the forum

[Gowon]

SSS,

Can you tell me why we should only take on board views from these so called honest scientists when, 1) They told us the Arctic would set a new minimum this year, 2) The Antarctic is supposed to be warming up but there's been more ice down there than previous years, 3) They couldn't even forecast the solar minimum, 4) There hasn't been any warming in recent years and so on and so on, the list goes on. Let me give you other examples, do you remember they said crack cocaine was going to kill everyone? Do you remember HIV was going to kill everyone? Do you remember Mad cow disease? What happened to it? What happened to the bird flu? How about swine flu?What happened to the millennium bug?

Edited October 2, 2009 by Paul
Removed name calling - report posts you have an issue with

[jethro]

SSS,

Can you tell me why we should only take on board views from these so called honest scientists when, 1) They told us the Arctic would set a new minimum this year, 2) The Antarctic is supposed to be warming up but there's been more ice down there than previous years, 3) They couldn't even forecast the solar minimum, 4) There hasn't been any warming in recent years and so on and so on, the list goes on. Let me give you other examples, do you remember they said crack cocaine was going to kill everyone? Do you remember HIV was going to kill everyone? Do you remember Mad cow disease? What happened to it? What happened to the bird flu? How about swine flu?What happened to the millennium bug?

1) I believe the official line was the Arctic may set a new minimum this year.

2) The peninsula is warming and falling apart at a fairly alarming rate, the media portrays this as all the Antarctic, I haven't seen a peer reviewed study which does.

3) Many forecasts were made using various different methods to predict Solar minimum, some more accurate than others - not all of them have failed so far.

4) The long term trend is still upwards although stagnating, so far it's too early to tell if this is particularly meaningful.

5) Crack cocaine kills a fair proportion of users and has the potential to kill all of them if taken in sufficient quantity.

6) HIV has a high mortality rate, modern drugs have lengthened the lifespan of many infected, at the initial time of wide-scale publicity, those modern drugs hadn't been invented.

7) Mad cow disease had the potential to infect and kill many, thankfully for us all that disaster has been averted due to removal of carrier parts of the carcass from the food chain.

Eight) Bird flu, still time for that one yet.

9) Swine flu, ditto especially once the weather turns cooler, viruses prefer cool to heat.

10) Millennium bug? Yup, I'll give you that one

[weather eater]

Welcome to N-W, SSS...As others have already said, your posting is like a breath of fresh air. It's also clear that you research the subject prior to writing about it.

PS: Can the guilty parties please stop bickering? :o

I concur with that, its so nice to read posts that put forward the evidence in a clear, polite, and knowledgeable manner as SSS and a good few others do. Never mind the bickering what’s really needed is for the certain sceptics to put forward genuine evidence that refutes AGW theory if they can. Posts by several protagonists read like Pythons argument sketch, yes it is, no it isn’t, etc etc. What actually happens when reading posts written in that manner, is that the tone puts you off paying attention to any relevant detail it might contain.

[RedShift]

SSS,

Can you tell me why we should only take on board views from these so called honest scientists when, 1) They told us the Arctic would set a new minimum this year, 2) The Antarctic is supposed to be warming up but there's been more ice down there than previous years, 3) They couldn't even forecast the solar minimum, 4) There hasn't been any warming in recent years and so on and so on, the list goes on. Let me give you other examples, do you remember they said crack cocaine was going to kill everyone? Do you remember HIV was going to kill everyone? Do you remember Mad cow disease? What happened to it? What happened to the bird flu? How about swine flu?What happened to the millennium bug?

First, explain what you mean by 'so called honest scientists'

Point 4) Yes there has

Your point about HIV is extremely insulting to the estimated 25 million people who have died (of AIDS) since 1981. In 2007 there were ~33 million people living with HIV/AIDS, and the trend is still upwards. Who exactly said that 'HIV was going to kill everyone?'? Don't you think that's a pretty shocking number of people to have died?

http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm

If you are suggesting that all these deaths mean that 'so called honest scientists' overhyped the potential effects and the numbers of people affected by HIV/AIDS (which was the unwritten intention of your post) then you may want to reconsider.

[Gowon]

First, explain what you mean by 'so called honest scientists'

Point 4) Yes there has

Your point about HIV is extremely insulting to the estimated 25 million people who have died (of AIDS) since 1981. In 2007 there were ~33 million people living with HIV/AIDS, and the trend is still upwards. Who exactly said that 'HIV was going to kill everyone?'? Don't you think that's a pretty shocking number of people to have died?

http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm

If you are suggesting that all these deaths mean that 'so called honest scientists' overhyped the potential effects and the numbers of people affected by HIV/AIDS (which was the unwritten intention of your post) then you may want to reconsider.

I called them so-called because natural influences keeps proving them wrong.

I apologize about the HIV bit, your right more people are surviving nowadays due to new drugs.

[Thundery wintry showers]

The things that have supposedly "proved them wrong" are, at most, things that have challenged the correctness of their assertions (see Jethro's points 1-4 above).

And even in the cases when they are proved wrong (which happens in all branches of science, not just climate science) it doesn't make them dishonest, rather it makes them fallible human beings (nobody is right about something all of the time, unless there's a very high level of certainty over it) and shows that if there's a consensus it doesn't guarantee that the consensus will be right.

[La Bise]

SC, why do you keep saying that you accept the AGW theory yet everything you post here is dismissive of it and you make it quite clear, along a few other posters, that you simply can not bring yourself to have any trust in the scientific community (eg you have a modicum of amateur meteorology knowledge > climatologists are know-nothing, biased, in the pocket of whoever gives them grant, etc, etc - you are a "health professional" > you know more than GPs, etc, etc)?

Each time I read a critique of AGW, the core of the argument is that "anti-AGW" data is censored, that scientists who do not toe the line are censored, that covert groups are influencing minds, in short conspiracy theories about supressing the "truth". As SSS and others have pointed, when actual evidence is presented, it is shot to pieces time after time. The line of attack is always to find one small flaw and then extrapolate from there that everything else if false and then question whoever is involved of dishonesty/incompetence, quite often by people who have nowhere near the academic background to actually judge of the quality of such and such evidence. To read such vehement anti-scientific tirades, time after time, with more often than not hardly any grounding in reality is a little depressing to say the least.

Do you apply this approach to other things in life? Rebute any advice from a qualified chef offering tips on how to cook a particular dish despite just about knowing how to open a tin? Dismiss legal advice by a qualified lawyer on a point of law when you have just a very basic understanding of said law? Rubbish crit lit analys by an academic of a text despite only reading 3 pages of said text? Is it some kind of chip on the shoulder gone nuclear each time you deal with someone who is more qualified than you are when discussing a certain subject? When I go to pass my NNAS course, shall I just dismiss everything my instructor says because I'm quite handy with an OS map and that great big ponce who is at NNAS Gold level and organises expedition all around the world probably has some agenda to follow and I read on the internet somewhere it's all dog biscuits anyway because one instructor got something wrong at some point?

[johnholmes]

SC, why do you keep saying that you accept the AGW theory yet everything you post here is dismissive of it and you make it quite clear, along a few other posters, that you simply can not bring yourself to have any trust in the scientific community (eg you have a modicum of amateur meteorology knowledge > climatologists are know-nothing, biased, in the pocket of whoever gives them grant, etc, etc - you are a "health professional" > you know more than GPs, etc, etc)?

Each time I read a critique of AGW, the core of the argument is that "anti-AGW" data is censored, that scientists who do not toe the line are censored, that covert groups are influencing minds, in short conspiracy theories about supressing the "truth". As SSS and others have pointed, when actual evidence is presented, it is shot to pieces time after time. The line of attack is always to find one small flaw and then extrapolate from there that everything else if false and then question whoever is involved of dishonesty/incompetence, quite often by people who have nowhere near the academic background to actually judge of the quality of such and such evidence. To read such vehement anti-scientific tirades, time after time, with more often than not hardly any grounding in reality is a little depressing to say the least.

can't disagree with any of that

[Methuselah]

can't disagree with any of that

Me neither!

[Methuselah]

...Also, anti scientific I am not, half truths and fudging of data I am!

Are you quite sure that that is what you meant to say?

[VillagePlank]

10) Millennium bug? Yup, I'll give you that one

This is often quoted as some sort of media scare story.

I can assure you it wasn't. I was there, along with many others, correcting source code that would not have worked, correctly, after the year 2000. I contracted out to the insurance industry at the time, and pre-redevelopment testing, demonstrated that systems would fail when such systems tried to process Y2k dates. Not an apocalypse, for sure, but my colleagues, and friends report the same from the nuclear and aviation industry.

The point being, I guess, that a lot of money, and sufficient warning, was enough to prevent any such issues occuring - at whatever level. The insurance company, for instance, started work in 1995, and was completed by 1998 - well before the general populace probably even heard of the problem. A lot of industries werethe same. I accept that there was a little scare-mongering close to the time, but that was by ill-informed media hacks (sounding familiar) who if they'd asked the right question (is it fixable, has it been fixed?) would have known better. It certainly was not by people in the software industry. If you want a detailed description of the problem, PM me. Oh, and btw, Unix/Linux has a similar problem muted for about 2048 (I think)

Anyway, back on topic, if the temperature reconstructions are so inaccurate, how can one test the validity of any theory that tries to recreate such a record? For instance, the LI relies on the HadCru3 set. If that's so bad, then, necessarily, any process that validates itself against such data is also bad, which means searching for alternate solutions is a waste of time.

Should I give up? Should we all give up?

Edited October 3, 2009 by VillagePlank

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Should I give up? Should we all give up?

Science is never 100%. The recent discovery of a 4.4 million year old bipedal hominid fossil Ardipithicus Ramidis has blown paleoanthropology out of the water. There will be more discoveries in the future. Climate science is no different.

The problem is politics has become involved and politics is always 100%. Even when it's 100% wrong.

[VillagePlank]

.... and politics is always 100%. Even when it's 100% wrong ...

Oh yeah - I agree with that :ph34r:

[masheeuk]

The first six are hard to dispute but I think that these could well be classed as scaremongering

7) Mad cow disease had the potential to infect and kill many, thankfully for us all that disaster has been averted due to removal of carrier parts of the carcass from the food chain.

14 May 2001

It may be five or ten years before the rest of the population of those at risk develop the disease.

Professor John Collinge

Professor John Collinge is one of the government's top advisors on vCJD and director of the Medical Research Council Prion Unit in London.

Official estimates predict the final death toll from the disease could be as high as 136,000.

. The last study published tests made on tonsils removed and other organs showed no signs of the prions responsible.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1242914502235

Eight) Bird flu, still time for that one yet.

The government chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, in 2005 said that there would be definately be a pandemic maybe not in 2005 but soon and it would kill 50,000. If a new strain did hit the UK before a vaccine was created, Sir Liam said an extra 50,000 would probably die - and a death toll of 750,000 was "not impossible".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4413096.stm

9) Swine flu, ditto especially once the weather turns cooler, viruses prefer cool to heat.

The chief medical officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, said that in the worst case scenario 30% of the UK population could be infected by the H1N1 virus, with 65,000 killed.

The best case scenario is that 5% of the population contract the virus, with 3,100 deaths.

current mortality level still in double figures

Edited October 3, 2009 by masheeuk