New pinnacle for climate sceptics
Steve McIntyre reaches new heights in his resolute scrutiny of climate science and raises the bar for fellow sceptics. For the lead author of a new paper has acknowledged McIntyre’s work in identifying an error so serious it may alter the paper’s results and has certainly forced a delay in its publication.
But note that although McIntyre “also” identified “this data processing issue”, he wasn’t first – the team beat him to it.
Anthony at WUWT describes the story and Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit is the story. Here’s the letter to Steve from the paper’s senior author, David Karoly.
Dear Stephen,
I am contacting you on behalf of all the authors of the Gergis et al (2012) study ‘Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium.’
An issue has been identified in the processing of the data used in the study, which may affect the results. While the paper states that “both proxy climate and instrumental data were linearly detrended over the 1921–1990 period”, we discovered on Tuesday 5 June that the records used in the final analysis were not detrended for proxy selection, making this statement incorrect. Although this is an unfortunate data processing issue, it is likely to have implications for the results reported in the study. The journal has been contacted and the publication of the study has been put on hold.
This is a normal part of science. The testing of scientific studies through independent analysis of data and methods strengthens the conclusions. In this study, an issue has been identified and the results are being re-checked.
We would be grateful if you would post the notice below on your ClimateAudit web site.
We would like to thank you and the participants at the ClimateAudit blog for your scrutiny of our study, which also identified this data processing issue.
Thanks,
David Karoly.Print publication of scientific study put on hold
An issue has been identified in the processing of the data used in the study, “Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium” by Joelle Gergis, Raphael Neukom, Stephen Phipps, Ailie Gallant and David Karoly, accepted for publication in the Journal of Climate.
We are currently reviewing the data and results.
Views: 126
It is of interest to NZers in that most of the tree proxies seem to come from this country, as you can see from the map on CA
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/06/gergis-significance/
I’ll just note that it was Jean S on the ClimateAudit blog who first reported the issue, which was then confirmed by Nick S., Steve McIntyre, and others.
Quite right, Armand, thanks. So raising the bar was actually a team effort, and that’s not a bad thing.
Also worthy of note is Nick Stokes input ( as mentioned by Armand above ) who is with CSIRO and not exactly noted for being a sceptic
I wonder if there is any use made of the NZ instrumental record, since most of the tree proxies are from here.
I have no idea whether this is relevant or not
More intrigue, via commenter at Bishop Hill
“Most of the tree proxies are from NZ where there is a pending court case against NIWA.
It’s more ironic than that. As I’ve noted elsewhere the recent NIWA revision has changed the Hokitika instrument record that was used by Cook to develop the Oroko proxy t(one of only two covering the MWP in Gergis). NIWA added that the per-1900 series was too unreliable to include in the series, but these measurements had been used by Cook to validate their proxy model.
Jun 9, 2012 at 9:27 PM | HAS
The error escaped:-
#1 Self checking by Joelle Gergis, Raphael Neukom, Stephen Phipps, Ailie Gallant and David Karoly (that’s 5).
#2 Peer-review (who were they and how many?).
But didn’t escape just ONE out-of-the-loop interested bystander with a few skills:-
So much for peer-review.
If the same sloppiness was the norm in say structure design and engineering, major projects would never come together e.g. the channel tunnelers would still be digging but side-by-side and heading away from each other.
My early work years were as a drafty on civil and structural projects. At that time (many changes since then) there were rigourous checking systems and most works proceeded as planned but with the inevitable minor hitches. But I did witness some major foul-ups.
Best I can think of was a railway (NIMT) overbridge at Taupiri, north of Hamilton. The NIMT was closed amid NZ Rail grumbling, the trucks rolled up with the precast spans, the cranes lifted the first into place only to come up about 900mm short or thereabouts.
The plans were correct in this case but surveyors, estimators and pre-casters had misread them when it came to construction.
Sequence repeated, NZ Rail even more grumpy.
Deafening silence on this at Hot Topic – except for one andyS:-
Yes I am getting a bit sick of the endless abuse. They have a thread about “crossing the divide” and all they want to do is prattle on about their solar panels, hybrid cars and how few flights they take a year.
300,000 dollars and three years to produce a paper that lasted three weeks: Gergis
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/300000-dollars-and-three-years-to-produce-a-paper-that-lasted-three-weeks-gergis/
And as C3 Headlines puts it:-
Smackdown of Bimbo Climate Scientist Joelle Gergis: Her Ballyhooed Southern Hemisphere ‘Hockey Stick’ Study Flawed
http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/06/smackdown-of-bimbo-climate-scientist-joelle-gergis-her-ballyhooed-southern-hemisphere-hockey-stick-s.html
From the JN link:-
Arrogance and petulance then, what now?
rat cornered springs to mind
Read this
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/hokitika.an.unworkable.example.pdf
Then imagine using the Hokitika data to validate the proxies.
Not even correlated with the opposite coast.
7. There are no studies to indicate that New Zealand climate is regionally coherent. Both
Salinger and NIWA recognise that Christchurch is poorly correlated with the West
Coast.
From Joelle Gergis’ deleted blog:-
She should have left the blog up – would have gone ballistic.
I frequently lurk at McIntyre’s blog, Climate Audit, and and have been following this affair avidly and regard it as a brilliant example of the work done by the group of incredibly astute and forensically-inclined individuals who congregate there, who must give authors of dodgy climate science papers nightmares. Cartons by English cartoonist Josh, who is as astute and as cutting with his pencil as Daumier ever was, usually follow and must make life particularly galling for those who are unmasked as charlatans.
I am also addicted to the Bishop Hill blog, run by the author of the excellent and meticulously-researched ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’, which hit the market at about the time of Climategate 1 and lays bare the appalling ‘science’ with which Mann created his notorious hockey Stick.
I am unsurprised that Renowden’s camp followers are silent, as they must be now almost hors de combat, if you will pardon the awful pun, at the sudden fall from grace of the Gergis et al paper.
There also seems to be no mention of this at Skeptical Science
Some more background to NZ tree rings here
http://www.niwa.co.nz/publications/wa/vol16-no1-march-2008/running-rings-around-climate-change
Note the familiar names
Anyone else look askance at this?
Can’t wait to see the revision if it ever emerges given that the project initially had a water management focus for a South-east Australia in a drought crisis:-
In 2009 “South-eastern Australia is in the grip of a severe water crisis due to the worst drought in recorded history” was probably reasonable. In the 3 years it took to compile the paper though, the climate changed (but not as they thought it would). As Bolt pointedly points out:-
Not just Gergis et al feeling the “heat”.
I gave up holding my breath while I waited for the MSM to take note of the fallout from Jean S’s initial plea on Climate Audit; some journalists MUST at least flick through the blogosphere.
At least Karoly’s heads-up to SM was polite, even if he did claim that his team had already spotted the cock-up they had made. It’s interesting that the antipodean warmista blogs have switched from ‘crow mode’ to absolute silence now this hugely expensive and fatuous piece of pseudo-research has been ‘withdrawn’ while the figures are reworked. The funniest piece from this entire comedy is that Gergis (who seems to have slid down the memory hole) et al seem to have no idea of what constitutes confirmation bias and circular reasoning
The other issue with MSM coverage of the original “story” was that the obvious question to ask is “how much warmer are we today that 1000 years ago” (with this hockey stick in place), and the answer is 0.09 degrees C link at Jo Nova
So all things said, this is pretty much a non-story from the global warming perspective
SMH has caught up with it and Karoly is spinning it their way (inevitably):-
Possibly a little premature. McIntyre et al (actually statistician Jean Sibelius did the first work that uncovered the detrending issue) haven’t got hold of the proxies yet to my knowledge – then they’ll REALLY get to work.
Karoly’s ethical high ground (spin) may turn out to be just a pile of guano.
SMH’s Morton studiously avoids addressing the peer-review that by appearances, didn’t go beyond a spelling and punctuation check i.e. pal-approval.
Peer review rarely checks the actual workings of the underlying paper. I think this is one of the major failings of academia – once you are a PhD or Postdoc,, you are left to your own devices and peer review for a journal seems to be a rubber stamping exercise to determine whether the paper is of interest and sufficient superficial quality to pass into the journal
Phil Jones famously stated in the climategate parliamentary inquiry that no one ever checked his workings because no one ever asked to do so.
I find that astounding coming from a construction engineering background. The veracity of the paper then, really is only subject to subsequent blog review (by sceptics essentially) in this era, or to those that can actually allocate time, resources, energy etc to make a formal published comment and get it past the gatekeepers.
Warmists cannot now cite “peer-review” as some sort of authority until a paper passes the peer-review of internet-based cooperative scrutiny.
A new paradigm.
Willis Eschenbach commented on peer-review at WUWT:-
Josh is in fine form again
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/12/bury-before-publishing-josh-172.html
Comment from Jean S on Revkins page
For many years, I have been interested in the historical timing and scope of the migratory waves that apparently began in the region of Southern China and culminated in the settling of New Zealand by Polynesians and in the linkages between the Pacific coast of South America and this country as evidenced by the locations of various sub-species of Kumara, for instance. Many people point to the most basic element required for repeat extended sea voyages reliant on Stone-age technology – some hundreds of years of fair weather.
The Medieval Warm Period, so troublesome to some climate scientists and so propitious for Viking voyages of exploration in the Northern hemisphere, would seem to have been the world-wide fair-weather phenomenon that allowed such voyages to be satisfactorily concluded.
And how could the MSM be so incredibly incurious?
I am fascinated that Gergis et al could discard accurate climate data from the Law Dome series in favour of dodgy treemometry extracted from logs dragged from a Kiwi swamp.
It’s very plausible Alexander, but it’s not PC. Therefore the media and the scientists ignore what is potentially the most fascinating periods of pre-European history in NZ and potentially one of the greatest voyages ever undertaken.
Thanks Andy.
I really became interested in this after I became aware that the the coming of the Maori in the Great Fleet was a myth promulgated by nineteenth-century academics who considered the Maori a noble but doomed stone-age savage, ably assisted by approved artists of the day such as Goldie and Steele with their large painting ‘The coming of the Maori’, which was largely a recreation of an earlier European painting; Goldie and Steele’s epic painting was so widely copied and publicised that it became embedded in the public consciousness as historical fact.
Perhaps our MSM is full of lazy gossip-merchants focussed on press releases and who have no idea of what being an investigative journalist is, or for that mater, any sort of journalist.
Josh gets better!
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/12/science-by-lucia-cartoon-by-josh-173.html
Steve M has a new post:-
An Unpublished Law Dome Series
…
On its face, Law Dome, which was screened out by Gergis and Karoly, is an extraordinarily important Holocene site as it is, to my knowledge, the highest-accumulation Holocene site yet known, with accumulation almost 10 times greater than the canonical Vostok site.
…
On a personal level, I understand that people can’t do everything in the world. But nonetheless, the deep Law Dome hole was drilled between 1987 and 1992. It provides the highest resolution ice core for the two-millennium period. And remains unpublished. Amazing.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/12/an-unpublished-law-dome-series/
See the postscript highlighted at Climate Depot
Postscript: Here is a reminder of what the 2003 O18 version looked like. An annual version for two millennia was provided to Gergis (who screened it out.)
Looking at the graph, I think it is less amazing, more crystal clear, why it hasn’t been published and was screened out.
Or as Steve M puts it:-
A Climategate email shows that Phil Jones asked about the omission of the Law Dome series from the IPCC illustration in the AR4 First Draft. I asked the same question about the AR4 Second Draft. They realized that the Law Dome graphic had an elevated medieval period and thus, including it in the graphic would – to borrow a phrase from the preparation of AR3 – would “dilute the message” and perhaps provide “fodder to skeptics”.
Comment from Steve M
Nevertheless, the exclusion of Law Dome is somewhat odd
It comes back to the screening process of Gergis et al (other than the wider AR context) which S.M. highlights in his “More on screening” post and quotes Gergis:-
S.M. comments:-
The “Screening Fallacy” being (as S.M. describes):-
Hard to see (for me) though, how Law Dome 2003 O18 does not fall into Gergis’ (albeit fallacious) “most temperature sensitive” proxy class given that was their eventual criteria.
Looks pretty darn temperature sensitive to my untrained eye.
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/ld2_1kyr1.png
Selecting records that correlate with the “global warming signal” is one thing. When that “signal” consists of records like Hokitika that are based on rather dubious statistical techniques themselves, we have another layer of obfuscation to deal with.
Ah yes, the late 20th century “clear signal”.
I’m curious as to whether the rest of the CSIRO Mk3L model simulations outputs for the 21st century (2000 – 2012) as for Gergis Figure S4.2. page 66 Forced (blue) and unforced (red) simulations of Australasian mean SONDJF temperature for the period AD 1001-2000 is available at CSIRO or somewhere.
Gergis cites Phipps et al. (2011) on line 1220 and in the references:-
975 Phipps, S. J., L. D. Rotstayn, H. B. Gordon, J. L. Roberts, A. C. Hirst and W. Budd, 2011: The
976 CSIRO Mk3L climate system model version 1.0 – Part 1: Description and evaluation.
977 Geoscientific Model Development, 4, 483-509.
But that’s seems to be just background without actually looking at the paper. In the body of the paper:-
480 3.5. Climate model comparison
481 From the start of industrialisation around 1850, the influence of solar and volcanic forcing on
482 global climate begins to be overwhelmed by the rapid increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas
483 concentrations (Hegerl et al., 2007a; Hegerl et al., 2007b; Jansen et al., 2007). Figure 6 shows
484 reconstructed Australasian SONDJF temperatures and the ensemble mean of three transient CSIRO
485 Mk3L model simulations relative to the 1961–1990 reference period to match the reconstruction.
1109 Figure 6. Comparison of the 30 year filtered Australasian SONDJF ensemble mean temperature
1110 reconstruction (solid black line) with the ensemble mean of three model simulations derived from
1111 the CSIRO Mk3L model developed by Phipps et al. (2011). The 2SE combined ensemble and
1112 calibration reconstruction uncertainties are denoted by grey shading. All anomalies are calculated
1113 relative to a 1961–1990 base period.
But I can’t see a reference to the simulations outputs, who actually ran the simulations (was is it Gergis et al, Phipps, CSIRO ?). The abstract indicates it was Gergis et al:-
A preliminary assessment of the
48 roles of solar, volcanic, and anthropogenic forcings and natural ocean–atmosphere variability is
49 performed using CSIRO Mk3L model simulations and independent palaeoclimate records.
But “Data and Methods” indicates Gergis was using pre-existing simulations:-
303 2.4. Climate model simulations
304 To assess the role of climate forcing on our ‘best estimate’ warm season Australasian
305 temperature reconstruction over the past millennium, we compared our temperature reconstruction
306 results to a three-member ensemble of the CSIRO Mk3L climate system model version 1.2, a fully
307 coupled global atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (Phipps et al., 2011; Phipps et al.,
308 2012). The model incorporates a 5.6 x 3.2 degree atmosphere with 18 vertical levels, a 2.8 x 1.6
309 degree ocean with 21 vertical levels, dynamic-thermodynamic sea ice and static vegetation and soil
310 types (Phipps et al., 2011). Three transient simulations are considered here which incorporate the
311 effects of changes in orbital forcing, greenhouse gases (MacFarling–Meure et al., 2006), solar
312 irradiance (Steinhilber et al., 2009) and volcanic aerosols (Gao et al., 2008) over the last
313 millennium (Phipps et al., 2012). We also considered CSIRO Mk 3L 1000-year sections of a
314 10,000-year control run simulation to assess the relative roles of forced and unforced climate
315 variations in driving changes in Australasian temperature changes over the past 1000 years.
316 Although there are a number of model simulations that are currently available, in this study we
317 require the following two criterion be satisfied: i) availability of millennial length control
318 simulations to adequately characterise internal or unforced climate variability and ii) a multi319
member ensemble of 1000-year simulations forced with solar, volcanic and anthropogenic
320 greenhouse gases to distinguish between unforced and forced climate variability. Currently there are
321 very few Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and Palaeoclimate Model Inter322
comparison Project (PMIP3) climate models that have ensembles of simulations for the last
323 millennium or extend past 1850 with a full suite of forcings. As such, we restrict our preliminary
324 comparison of variations in 3000-member Australasian temperature reconstruction ensemble to the
325 CSIRO Mk 3L model that has an ensemble of three simulations with the same forcings over the full
326 period of our temperature reconstruction ensemble (A.D 1000–2001). This allows us to better
327 estimate decadal variability due to internal noise from forced responses seen in the ensemble mean
328 of the model simulations. For a more extensive comparison of the Australasian temperature
329 reconstruction with climate model simulations, the reader is referred to Phipps et al. (2012).
Great, in the references Phipps et al. (2012) is:-
971 Phipps, S., J. Gergis, H. McGregor, A. J. E. Gallant, R. Neukom, S. Stevenson, T. van Ommen, J.
972 Brown, M. Fischer and D. Ackerley, 2012: Palaeoclimate data–model comparison: Concepts
973 and application to the climate of Australasia over the past 1500 years. Journal of Climate, in
974 review.
Unfortunately (“in review”, nothing at Google Scholar yet) Phipps et al. (2012) is a “Work in progress” according to this web page maintained by Steven J Phipps last updated 17 May 2012:-
The CSIRO Mk3L climate system model
Getting access to the model
Standard reference papers
Other model description and evaluation publications
Special issue of Geoscientific Model Development
Other publications featuring Mk3L
Works in progress
2012 – 2006 Works
http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~sjphipps/mk3l.html
I look forward to reading Phipps et al. (2012) when it comes available to see if they address the early 21st century.
MacFarling–Meure et al., 2006 cited in Gergis below just measures GHG concentrations in the ice – no simulations:-
Three transient simulations are considered here which incorporate the
311 effects of changes in orbital forcing, greenhouse gases (MacFarling–Meure et al., 2006),
Law Dome CO2, CH4 and N2O ice core records extended to
2000 years BP, MacFarling–Meure et al., 2006
https://webfiles.uci.edu/setrumbo/public/Methane_papers/Macfarling%20Meure_Geophys.%20Res.%20Lett._2006.pdf
On the page 1 abstract of the Reference Paper at the Phipps web page ‘The CSIRO Mk3L climate system model version 1.0 – Part 1: Description and evaluation’, Phipps et al 2011:-
Didn’t see that qualification in Gergis et al.
For 21st century simulations the place to start looking would be The Garnaut Climate Change Review 2008:-
http://www.garnautreview.org.au/index.htm
Chapter 5: Projecting Australian climate change
Only found projections starting at 2030.
http://www.garnautreview.org.au/pdf/Garnaut_Chapter5.pdf
CSIRO & BoM 2007, Climate Change in Australia: Technical report 2007,
http://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/
Is there an inconsistency between observed and modelled patterns of warming in the lower atmosphere?
2. In detail
http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Are-Climate-Models-Inconsistent/In-detail.aspx
References
Douglass DH, Christy JR, Pearson BD, Singer SF. 2007. A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions [external link]. International Journal of Climatology. 28(13).
http://www.blc.arizona.edu/courses/schaffer/182h/Climate/climatemodel.pdf
20th century not 21st but Includes #15 CSIRO MK3.0 Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research. Australia. Page 5 Figure 1
But
In short, it is only at the surface that there is model – observation agreement in the 20th century. Above the surface, models disagree with reality, getting progressively divergent with altitude (0.4 C/decade, 4 C/century at 150 hPa, 13 km). Which brings me back to Gergis:-
Only at the surface, nothing consistent above that.
Still can’t find any models vs observations for early 21st centy. These guys sure dine out on the “clear signal” era.
Best I can find for 21st century is this C3 Headlines blog post:-
***********************************************************************
Is Global Warming Happening? IPCC Climate Models Predicted Huge Warming But Reality Happened Instead
http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/04/is-global-warming-happening-ipcc-climate-models.html
The adjacent chart [See plot http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0168e987ee9d970c-400wi%5D documents the facts on the ground, so-to-speak, and easily answers the question: Is global warming happening?
The simple answer from the empirical observations is ‘No.’
The IPCC climate models, using the business-as-usual CO2 emissions scenario A1F1 predicted a best estimate of global temperature increase of +4.0 degrees by year 2100. That prediction was based on year 2000 being the starting point.
Thus, per the IPCC model(s), by February 2012 the global temperatures should have already increased to 14.75 degrees C (pink dotted line) based on a 12-month moving average. Instead, since 2000, the HadCRUT global temperature has only slightly increased (red dotted line).
********************************************************************************************************
I suspect that the trajectory of the CO2 line (black) that intersects the 2012 model projection (pink dotted line) is similar to the trajectory of Gergis et al Figure S4.2. page 66 Forced (blue) simulations.
There are the other comparisons recently covered on this blog but this C3 plot probably explains as good as any why climate science and the media are a bit reticent in publicizing 21st century model temperature simulations vs observations.
Here we go:-
Panel and Multivariate Methods for Tests of Trend Equivalence in Climate Data Series
Ross McKitrick, Stephen McIntyre and Chad Herman. 2010
http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mmh_asl2010.pdf
Abstract
We explain panel and multivariate regressions for comparing trends in climate data sets. They impose minimal restrictions on the covariance matrix and can embed multiple linear comparisons, which is a convenience in applied work. We present applications comparing post-1979 modeled and observed temperature trends in the tropical lower- and midtroposphere. Results are sensitive to the sample length. In data spanning 1979 to 1999, observed trends are not significantly different from zero or from model projections. In data spanning 1979 to 2009 the observed trends are significant in some cases but tend to differ significantly from modeled trends.
Figure 2: Modeled and estimated trends (1979-2009, C decade-1) in the tropics, lower troposphere (LT)
layer
Figure 3: Modeled and estimated trends (1979-2009, C decade-1) in the tropics, mid-troposphere (MT)
layer
Those last 2 figures (2 & 3) from data spanning the end of the 20th century “clear signal” era and early 21st century quash any inference that the models are consistent with observations above near surface.
And once again in this paper, Steve McIntyre is at the forefront of a alternative to insider climate science that refutes the insiders findings. Santer08 in particular in this case. Santer08 was held up as the gold standard by Ministry for the Environment, Climate Change, Science and Evaluation Manager, Dr Vera Power who was either unaware of or chose to ignore MMH10.
Best of all, MMH10 spanned up to the latest available data (2009) unlike the predilection of climate science to truncate at 2000 for obvious reasons.
A nice lecture from Professor Salby at the Sydney Institute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrI03ts–9I&feature=youtu.be
Anthony Watts now reports that Gergis et al has been permanently withdrawn
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/18/gergis-et-al-hockey-stick-paper-withdrawn-finally/
I reckon this is just how science is meant to work, Mr. Andy; thousands of papers refining AGW are published and checked every year, and mistakes are acknowledged and fixed.
I don’t see any science papers that disprove AGW though, apart from rubbish from the likes of Carter and de Freitas that no-one takes seriously ‘cos they’ve rigged their “evidence”, just like in that recent Court case you guys are always grizzling on about.
Man, what a dog’s breakfast THAT was – it’s just as bloody well that, as a taxpayer, I’ll be getting my money back…
So science works by independent unpaid bloggers finding mistakes in papers?
What exactly is your objection to the court case then, since there appear to be some parallels to be drawn?
🙂
Nah, not usually, but look at it this way – if some primitive tribe somewhere has a plant that helps cure something, you can bet that doctors are going look at to using it as part of medicine.
If, however, some tribe believes that illness is caused by not sacrificing enough chickens to the ghosts of the dead, the doctors won’t have a bar of it.
There sure seem to be a lot of headless chooks on this site!
Looks like McIntyre actually knows his stuff, unlike whatever clowns were advising NZCSET.
Bet they’re none too popular now, eh?
Quite correct, so I take it you accept his debunking of Mann’s hockey stick graph in MBH98 and MBH99? Better run over to Hot Topic and let all your mates know you’ve joined the dark side.
Hot Topic? Is that one of those sites with sheilas getting their gear off?
I think it was a statistician called Jean Sibellus (sp?) who picked up the issue with Gergis et al. He described this as a basic error, not some deep convoluted issue
(basically, they were pre-screening data to give weight to hockey sticks)
The issue should have at least been picked up by the various authors who put their name to the paper, long before peer-review.
it’s just as bloody well that, as a taxpayer, I’ll be getting my money back…
Do you work for NIWA?
No, mate, they work for me. Which part of “public servant” do you not understand?
Which part of “public servant” do you not understand?
The latter word
Too deep for me, mate. Don’t they let you have a dictionary?
No surprises there.
>”…thousands of papers refining AGW are published…”
Rubbish.
How it possible to “refine” a hypothesis that has NEVER been documented?
They just make it up as they go along, ACO2 explains everything – hot weather, cold weather, life, the universe, everything.
JN Too:-
Gergis hockey stick withdrawn. This is what 95% certainty looks like in climate science.
“Thanks to help from the Australian Research Council it only took 300,000 dollars and three years to produce a paper that lasted all of three weeks. But it scored the scary headlines!”
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/gergis-hockey-stick-withdrawn-this-is-what-95-certainty-looks-like-in-climate-science/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JoNova+%28JoNova%29
If I were an Australian taxpayer, I’d be demanding my money back.
🙂
Yeah, and if I was an Auckland Uni geography student, I’d sure be demanding MY money back!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10738739
>”if I was an Auckland Uni geography student”
If only.
Brandoch, technically, you should say
if I were an Auckland Uni geography student
which is known as the subjunctive mood
So let’s get this right. Professor Glenn McGregor says:
Yet we know there’s been no global warming over the past 16 years. So what “recent warming” is the good Professor referring to? The pre-1997 warming? But that’s hardly recent, and why has this warming stopped for the past 16 years?
I agree that the Auckland Uni geography students should be demanding their money back, but it’s the 101 students that Prof McGregor teaches who should be doing the demanding, based on the solid scientific evidence.
Here’s another Professor’s opinion
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/RickyRood/comment.html?entrynum=239
I still can’t understand how anyone can look at the HadCRUT4 time series and honestly say “It’s not warming”.
Take the most recent 15 years of data. Draw a linear regression over that time. Note error bars in case Ken or someone gets upset
Can we talk about something else now?
>”Note error bars in case Ken or someone gets upset”
Had a chuckle at the GWPF article re Met Office/HadCRUT4 – that read like a Ken Perrott lecture.
Amazing, Andy, even you seem to have learned something from my criticism of past attempts by characters here making claims which ignore the statistics. Very gratifying for me (especially as you and the others claimed this wasn’t important at the time).
Now we just have to get through to you the complexity of climate change. The number of both natural and anthropogenic factors involved. That we cannot understand what we are measuring without taking all those factors into account. And especially we should not substitute wishful thinking or ideological prejudice for the facts.
I see Doc Ricky Rood (Simon’s link) is pushing Nuccitelli et al 2012 too.
These guys will be feeling a bit crestfallen when they eventually discover that although there may be heat accumulation in the ocean, the anthropogenic signal is absent.
>”…even you seem to have learned something from my criticism”
Even the UK GWPF too Ken – word gets around:-
—————————————————————–
The Met Office says that the world has warmed by 0.03 deg C per decade since 1997 based on their calculation of the gradient in the Hadcrut4 dataset. But what the Met Office doesn’t say is that this is statistically insignificant. The gradient of the trendline in Hadcrut4 is very sensitive to the start and end dates used as temperatures vary significantly month-to-month, so the Met Office is being misleading in quoting trendlines for a particular start and end date without taking into account how the scatter of the data, the errors in the temperature measurements, and short-term changes affect the statistical confidence in the resulting trendline.
Trendlines from 1997 to August 2012 vary between 0.04 to 0.02 deg C per decade with an associated error of 0.04 deg C per decade. This has to be considered along with the error in annual global temperature measurements of 0.1 deg C. Hence there is no case to be made for a statistically significant increase in global temperatures as given in the Hadcrut4 dataset between 1997 and August 2012.
Quoting trendlines without errors can mislead. For instance the trendline between January 2002 and August 2012 in Hadcrut4 is negative, being minus 0.04 deg C per decade: Between January 2003 and August 2012 it is minus 0.05 deg C per decade – that is global cooling. Would the Met Office be happy to quote such figures in the same way they have for 1997 onwards and state that the world has cooled in the past decade? Only when the errors are incorporated, which the Met Office did not do, can these be seen to be statistically insignificant.
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-mail-on-sunday-and-the-met-office/
# # #
Don’t you hate it when that happens Ken?
Hi Bob D,
Richard C points out there is a strong warming signal in the oceans.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0375960112010389
Full text here http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Comment_on_DK12.pdf
So while we may argue over attribution, your claim that “we know there’s been no global warming over the past 16 years” is incorrect.
Nick,
DK12 is a journal paper, the other is simply a Comment, and doesn’t have the same standing. I have downloaded the ARGO dataset and have been looking carefully at the data. It is true that the top 700m of ocean has seen no heating.
Now the Comment authors have claimed that the layer 700-2000m HAS in fact warmed, but they don’t dispute that the top 700m hasn’t. The warming below 700m is very slight, and in fact contradicts Hansen (2005), as I pointed out before. The Comment authors want to look at data outside ARGO, but ARGO is the only accurate dataset we have, and starts in 2003. Looking at pre-2003 data is pointless (see Hansen 1997). Also, they claim that DK12 ignored land and aerosol/volcano effects, but these are minor in comparison (Hansen 1997a, 2005).
The big question is: since AGW predicts that greenhouse warming affects only the top few metres of ocean, how do they suggest the ocean depths below 700m have warmed due to GHGs while the top layers have cooled? No mechanism is advanced for explaining why the top layers are cooling while the depths are warming.
I must say it’s amusing to watch all the warmists scrambling desperately to try to find some warming. After all, they have been going on for so long about how “it’s worse than we thought”, and “we have only a few years to act”. Now they’re reduced to looking in the deepest part of the ocean, even though finding heat down there doesn’t help their argument at all.
Where, oh where is all that heat?
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/candid-comments-from-global-warming-climate-scientists/
>”Richard C points out there is a strong warming signal in the oceans”
I did? Where?
The ocean is several layers of heat sinks – which layer is exhibiting “strong” warming? 0 – 700m (where any atmospheric non-solar forcing – if that were possible – would show) isn’t exhibiting any ARGO-era warming of note let alone strong warming. Once you get down past the planetary boundary layer (pbl) or mixed layer depth (hmix, varies 10 – 1000+m) , the time scales of heat influx become indeterminable because horizontal heat transports are operating and therefore it is impossible to determine what heat accumulated when in the 700 – 2000m layer. Also, the minor ARGO-era 0 – 2000m warming is not global-wide but confined to the northern Atlantic and strong enough to skew the global metric.
Once you get down past 2000m, there’s time scales of centuries and any warming is entirely consistent with solar activity and long-term heat transports. To include that depth in anthro-centric attribution studies (as has been suggested) is getting very desperate.
What Nuccitelli et al (and also Douglass and Knox) ignore is that O-GCM modelers don’t use 700m or 2000m from which to calculate upwards heat flux to the surface. They use pbl or hmix determined from observational climatology that – as stated above – varies from very shallow (10m), to predominant (around 200m) to rare (1000m).
Aside from all that, an anthropogenic signal is absent from 0 – 2000m OHC in the last 50 yrs
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/OHC-inferred-energy-imbalances-0-700m-1955-2010.gif
If an anthro signal is present, a “more monotonic” rise is “expected” (Palmer et al via Nuccitelli et al) amounting to about 1 W/m2 – not happening.
These chaps have an uncanny ability to put words in our mouths. Ken claims that I said that error bars were not important. I can’t remember ever claiming any such thing
Oh well..
Bob, have you seen Bob Tisdale’s Oct 13 post?
Where’s The Anthropogenic Global Warming Signal in the NODC Ocean Heat Content Data (0-700Meters)?’
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/wheres-the-anthropogenic-global-warming-signal-in-the-nodc-ocean-heat-content-data-0-700meters/
What I find intriguing is the contrasting trends (negative vs positive) between UKMO EN3 and NOAA 0 – 700m OHC (not to mention Hansen’s model mean trend):-
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/figure-7.png
I think this illustrates the effect of Josh Willis discarding “impossibly cold” floats early on.
That doesn’t explain the 2008 – 2012 discrepancy though, what’s going on there?
>”That doesn’t explain the 2008 – 2012 discrepancy though, what’s going on there?”
Partially explained by another Tisdale post:-
‘UKMO EN3 Ocean Heat Content Anomaly Data Disappeared From The KNMI Climate Explorer As Suddenly As It Appeared’
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/ukmo-en3-ocean-heat-content-anomaly-data-disappeared-from-the-knmi-climate-explorer-as-suddenly-as-it-appeared/
Specifically this plot of UKMO EN3 vs NODC before and after 2010 modifications:-
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/figure-4.png
Who to believe – UKMO or NODC?
Also an intriguing pdf (“C” = Circulation):-
‘The 2009/10 AMOC minimum and subtropical cooling in NEMO-based ocean reanalyses’
US AMOC PI meeting, Boulder, 15th August 2012
http://www.usclivar.org/sites/default/files/meetings/roberts_presentation.pdf
Unfortunately I can’t get all the graphics in the pdf but page 4 shows:-
Associated cooling of the subtropical North Atlantic, 2009 – 2012 [#1, see below]
Page 13 shows:-
Sub-tropical heat content anomalies in state estimates [spectacular cooling]
And page 15 shows:-
Sub-tropical heat budget: surface heat fluxes [sfc flux/OHC mismatch]
#1 is a good illustration of a two-heat-sink model, 0 – 875m (20 C – 8 C) and 875 – 1700m (8 C – 4 C)
You know, you guys are so quick to throw straw men around, you should come down to Kaponga and give us a hand with the hay baling this Xmas!
The way it looks to me and the missus, your minds are made up already so, when some real science comes along that you don’t understand or like, you just play a little game together of knowing more you really do, and build on each other’s ignorance until you can safely ignore the scary facts.
My friend Wayne Kerr calls this a “circle jerk”, but I was never in the Boy Scouts, so don’t really know what he’s getting at.
Anyway, I was up at sparrowfart this morning with the cows, so it’s time for bed – with a bit of luck, the missus will be in a subjunctive mood…
Mate, if your getting your climate “science” from bent pennies like Watts, Tallbloke and Tisdale, then it’s no wonder you’re so easily confused and taken for a ride!
These guys are plain embarrassing to themselves and their wannabes, by making elementary errors that show why they never made it in the real world.
Here’s one of a truckload of examples:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/tisdale-fumbles-pielke-cheers/
In his current drivel, Tisdale puts up a number of straw men, then – big bloody surprise – manages to shoot them down. He could have saved himself the time.
Yet you get your climate science from the milk delivery guy…..
Also from Tamino’s blog:-
From Peru | May 31, 2012 at 5:35 pm |
Will you ake a post defending yourself and Dana1981?
His arguments are strong because of the use of graphics. For me is difficult to challenge them despite having all the info I could get about global warming for many years (at least since 2006).
I suspect that other people wil found Tisdale arguments reasonable, so it will be great if you clarify this thing.
*
barry | June 1, 2012 at 9:37 am |
I went a few rounds with Tisdale on this topic (an earlier post of his) and likewise found it difficult to rebut him.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/through-a-picket-fence/#comment-62135