What happened to global warming then?

[ASC1951]

Well I'm not English, and neither is he (I think)

I wouldn't let that get out in Weybridge - you'll be prodded down to the station with rolled-up Daily Telegraphs and "sent back to where you belong". You may have to help them with the spelling, of course.

so was trying to make him feel at home.

A kind thought, but conducting increasingly bitter arguments is what keeps our FM so young.

 

[VamP]

I wouldn't let that get out in Weybridge - you'll be prodded down to the station with rolled-up Daily Telegraphs and "sent back to where you belong". You may have to help them with the spelling, of course.

Well, I only go out after dark, and keep my head down but, you're right, I think my time is running out.

 

[lukesdad]

So far, I'm scoring this to VamP.

Me too crax, but there maybe a long way to go yet !

 

[Yellow Fang]

Erm.... anyone can edit Wikipedia!

Your post shows a chronic lack of understanding how Congressional hearings work. As for following up the sources, I have read MBH97, the Wegman Report, The North Report, and the transcript of the Congressional hearings, amongst many others papers and literature relating to this matter. Have you?

You cannot edit Wikipedia pages directly unless they have an edit tab.

Wegman later submitted a paper based on his report to a journal, which was later retracted amid claims of plagiarisation. One of the sources Wegman et al. was said to have plagiarised was Wikipedia.

 

[Mad at urage]

the answer to global warming is to turn the thermostat down

Hang on: It's -2C outside, I'm sitting here with no heating and with the window open (well, the window is E facing and it's morning with a clear sky); yet you are telling me to turn the thermostat down ?

 

[VamP]

You cannot edit Wikipedia pages directly unless they have an edit tab.

Wegman later submitted a paper based on his report to a journal, which was later retracted amid claims of plagiarisation. One of the sources Wegman et al. was said to have plagiarised was Wikipedia.

This relates to the Social Network Analysis done by one of Wegman's students, who hadn't listed all his sources. This is a side show to the Report, and it's biggest significance is to highlight quite how much Wiki, Nature and RC (actually same people operating within all three environments) have invested into trying to discredit anyone who might be critical of Mann. Also note that no one has actually questioned the findings of the Social Network Analysis, just the listing of the sources...

If you'd actually read the Wegman Report rather than keep half reading Wiki, and then (badly) parapharasing it here, you would see how spectacularly unimportant that whole issue is.

The Wegman page on Wiki has an edit tab, and I am allowed to edit it, if I want to... I am really not sure why you think something written there is more substantive than a sworn testimony by one of the world's leading statistics authorities to the most powerful democratically elected body in the world?

But you know what, let's not mess around here - if you think that Mann was legitimately decentering his analysis of tree core data, to amplify the bristlecone pine data, please tell us why you think this. And while you're at it, it might be worth explaining why IPCC removed references to MBH 98 from AR 4, and subsequent Annual Reports. Nothing to do with being embarassed to be associated with a study that relies on mishandled data?

 

[Yellow Fang]

This relates to the Social Network Analysis done by one of Wegman's students, who hadn't listed all his sources. This is a side show to the Report, and it's biggest significance is to highlight quite how much Wiki, Nature and RC (actually same people operating within all three environments) have invested into trying to discredit anyone who might be critical of Mann. Also note that no one has actually questioned the findings of the Social Network Analysis, just the listing of the sources...

Not just that. He plagiarised an expert on tree rings called Raymond Bradley but distorted his conclusions (link).

"Much of the Wegman report plagiarized the work of Raymond Bradley (one of the "hockey stick" co-authors), but with significant errors and distortions interspersed in the text. Basically Wegman copied and modified the text to make it seem like Bradley was saying tree rings can’t be used as a temperature proxy (without attributing the plagiarized sections to Bradley), even though Bradley is an expert at doing just that – using tree rings as a temperature proxy."

The Wegman page on Wiki has an edit tab, and I am allowed to edit it, if I want to... I am really not sure why you think something written there is more substantive than a sworn testimony by one of the world's leading statistics authorities to the most powerful democratically elected body in the world?

The Wiki page I referenced on the hockey stick controversey didn't have an edit tab. I doubt the page would have lasted very long in its present state if it had.

[/quote]

But you know what, let's not mess around here - if you think that Mann was legitimately decentering his analysis of tree core data, to amplify the bristlecone pine data, please tell us why you think this. And while you're at it, it might be worth explaining why IPCC removed references to MBH 98 from AR 4, and subsequent Annual Reports. Nothing to do with being embarassed to be associated with a study that relies on mishandled data?

[/quote]

I can't say whether Mann techniques were legitimate or not. The American National Research Council said there were statistical shortcomings in the paper but that they did not affect the results very much. There is no evidence of deliberate distortion so far as I am aware.

The IPCC may have removed MBH 98 from AR4 because a) the graph has become very politicized and controversial, and b) the graph was by then nine years old and newer, better reconstructions had become available.

 

[VamP]

Not just that. He plagiarised an expert on tree rings called Raymond Bradley but distorted his conclusions (link).

I dunno dude. It seems you're determined to dig yourself a hole. Here is Wegman's Report. If you can bring yourself to read that, rather than ''some website'' you might be surprised to find, a) that Wegman attributes his tree ring background reading, and the portions in text that he used to Bradley (who is incidentally the B in MBH98), b) that he makes no effort to discredit use of tree ring data as a temperature proxy and c) that his criticisms of MBH98 center squarely and explicitly on Mann's (more properly MBH) statistical manipulation of the data, not the data itself.

Wegman goes out of his way to point out that he does not necessarily believe Mann's conclusions to be incorrect. Merely that Mann's methods of reaching them are incorrect.

The reason I do not respect Mann is not because he believes that climate change is occuring due to human activity. I share that belief. I do not respect him, because he perverted science to get the results he wanted. That is counter to everything the scientific method should be.

 

[VamP]

IPCC and RC are very different things.

 

[VamP]

IPCC represents worldwide climate scientists with diverse backgrounds, and opinions, and includes a number of sceptics in it's ranks.

Real Climate is a very small clique of contributors, all pretty closely linked to Mann. Here they are:

The current permanent contributors to content on this site are:

• Gavin Schmidt
• Michael Mann
• Caspar Ammann
• Rasmus Benestad
• Ray Bradley
• Stefan Rahmstorf
• Eric Steig
• David Archer
• Ray Pierrehumbert
• Thibault de Garidel
• Jim Bouldin

William Connolley was a contributor, but has now left academia, although his posts are still online.

William Connolley, quite interestingly is a a Wikipedia Admin, an admin on RealClimate, used to be a climate modeller at the British Antarctic Survey, and is a political candidate for the Green Party in the UK.

 

[User482]

As it happens there is quite a lot of evidence out there, and Mann is ostracized by a significant portion of the climate science community, as it is well known that he has manipulated data. But I really do not feel that I have any need to do your reading for you on demand...

Could you provide some links for this? All I can find is the usual contrarian rubbish, so if there are criticisms from actual climate scientists, I'd be very interested in reading them.

 

[VamP]

Could you provide some links for this? All I can find is the usual contrarian rubbish, so if there are criticisms from actual climate scientists, I'd be very interested in reading them.

Because the debate is so hugely politicised and polarised, it's quite rare for people to be openly critical of their peers. Read this interview with Judith Curry, and then google her to get an impression of how much crap she got for speaking her mind.

She is someone for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect BTW. Compare with the Mann interview in the same place.

 

[Yellow Fang]

The Wegman report is an odd document. It starts off with a lot of aggressive demands regarding Michael Mann's sources of funding and the whereabouts of his data and source code. There's an emphasis in the recommendations section on the use of public money, basically implying that climate scientists are passing each other's homework and not letting their methods and data be examined by other people. These seem more like arguments a right wing climate-sceptic congressman such as Joe Barton would make rather than an academic. After the intro and background, it immediately starts plagiarising Raymond Bradley's work on tree rings while at the same time distorting it. Then the report starts attacking Michael Mann's work, which it does almost entirely by referring to McIntyre and McKitrick's work, not by analysing the dataset and methods themselves, which Mann had previously made publicly available. Then there's a section tacked on at the end that implies the entire climate science community is a clique who referee each others' work and keep out any dissenters. This was the section that Wegman later blamed a student for when it was found to be plagiarised, even though her name appears nowhere in the report.

The decentering of the data only causes a 10% exaggeration of the curve so far as I can tell. McIntyre and McKitrick could not reproduce Mann's findings because they implemented his method incorrectly (Wahl and Ammann). There is a lot of talk about pine cones and tree bark, but even accounting for the suspect samples has been found by others not to affect the results much. It does look like Mann's software was a bit of a mess and not very portable.

People seem to forget the hockey stick graph has error bars that get bigger the further back in time you go. The main thing I would criticise it for is the choice of the colour red for the thermometer data, because red denotes heat and danger.

 

[jonesy]

I

Because the debate is so hugely politicised and polarised, it's quite rare for people to be openly critical of their peers. Read this interview with Judith Curry, and then google her to get an impression of how much crap she got for speaking her mind.

She is someone for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect BTW. Compare with the Mann interview in the same place.

I've had a read of both interviews in the link you provide. There really isn't anything there to support the claim of lying and cheating you made earlier. You might conclude Mann is more abrasive and confrontational, though big egos and personality clashes are scarcely headline news in science; on the other hand he had his emails stolen and misrepresented, so is understandably rather pissed off. Also, I noted this bit in the Mann interview:

There’s an investigation at Penn State, where you work, into your own role in this. How is that going?
Technically it’s not an investigation. It’s an inquiry to determine if there is a reason for an investigation. [Editor’s note: The inquiry subsequently reported that it had found no credible evidence that Mann had suppressed or falsified data.]

 

[VamP]

I

I've had a read of both interviews in the link you provide. There really isn't anything there to support the claim of lying and cheating you made earlier. You might conclude Mann is more abrasive and confrontational, though big egos and personality clashes are scarcely headline news in science; on the other hand he had his emails stolen and misrepresented, so is understandably rather pissed off. Also, I noted this bit in the Mann interview:

You know what? You're right. Mann is an upstanding pillar of the scientific community and we could all learn from him. There, happy?