Global Warming Scam

[rockoon]

So given that McKitrick's criticism of Mann et al. was that Mann's method produces a hockey-stick with just about any data, you are presumably saying McKitrick's was wrong then?

Even they couldnt reproduce his graph. They claim to be able to reproduce hockey sticks using the alleged flawed methodology, but not the actual specific graph.

The thing about numbers applied to a well defined algorithm is that you get the exact same output given the exact same input, every single time.

Nobody has gotten the exact output, even though Mann allegedly provides the exact input. This is because Mann hasnt provided enough information, especialy in regards to his proxy inclusion and exclusion method. For all we know his selections were cherry picked.

Given recent news this seems very likely, as the very recent NAS expert panel assembled to verify Mann's claims concludes that the extent of his claims are can not plausibly be deduced from existing data.

You know what else is alarming? Computer climate models are calibrated based off the very same proxy data. So now there is another reason to be skeptical of those, too.

 

[Buckaroo]

Nobody has gotten the exact output, even though Mann allegedly provides the exact input. This is because Mann hasnt provided enough information, especialy in regards to his proxy inclusion and exclusion method. For all we know his selections were cherry picked.

Do your homework, Rockoon:

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/refs/WahlAmmann_ClimaticChange_inPress.pdf

And this from an NCAR press release on the same research:

"Ammann and Eugene Wahl of Alfred University have analyzed the Mann-Bradley-Hughes (MBH) climate field reconstruction and reproduced the MBH results using their own computer code. "

Given recent news this seems very likely, as the very recent NAS expert panel assembled to verify Mann's claims concludes that the extent of his claims are can not plausibly be deduced from existing data.

You mean this NAS panel?
Here's the headline in case you don't feel like reading the article:

"Academy affirms hockey-stick graph"

So, Rockoon, are you lying, or just deliberately ignorant? Either way, why should we pay attention to anything you say?

 

[DeviousB]

You know what else is alarming? Computer climate models are calibrated based off the very same proxy data. So now there is another reason to be skeptical of those, too.

What's even more alarming, you're arguing using that data too! So you must be wrong as well!

1. That a model is right or wrong does not affect the validity of the inputs to that model. Presumeably, you imagine that if you add up your household budget wrong that none of the cheques you wrote can be accurate.

2. There were calibrated climate models long before Mann's paper, how prescient of them to calibrate themselves to an unwritten paper. Perhaps you could tell me how they did that, as I have a lottery number guessing program I wish to calibrate against next Saturday's draw?

3. My quote was from the NAS panel's final report. It says the conclusions are supported by an "array of evidence". Clearly you have not read the report, nor Mann's paper, nor even McKitrick's, nor Rutherford's (2005), nor much of anything else from the sound of it.

To be sceptical, a person must be informed. Otherwise they are merely being ignorant.

 

[delphi_ote]

For all we know his selections were cherry picked.

For all we know, you're never take showers and smell like rotting fish.

See how it's not cool to package an accusation like that and not include any evidence to back it up?

 

[rockoon]

Do your homework, Rockoon:

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/refs/WahlAmmann_ClimaticChange_inPress.pdf

And this from an NCAR press release on the same research:

"Ammann and Eugene Wahl of Alfred University have analyzed the Mann-Bradley-Hughes (MBH) climate field reconstruction and reproduced the MBH results using their own computer code. "

Did you bother to look at the graph? They arent the same.

Same data in -> same data out.

Why isnt it the same? Why isnt Mann's work reproducable? Its an honest skeptical question isnt it?

Shouldn't 'science' be reproducable?

You mean this NAS panel?
Here's the headline in case you don't feel like reading the article:

"Academy affirms hockey-stick graph"

So, Rockoon, are you lying, or just deliberately ignorant? Either way, why should we pay attention to anything you say?

Instead of reading the headline of a 'news' source who wants to increase sales, I read the actual NAS report. You did know it was available online, right? I guess not!

Wouldnt a skeptic be interrested in the actual paper rather than someones interpretation of it? I am doubting your skeptical abilities. You seem to swallow whatever fits your current opinion without question.

Is your 'science' based on headlines and sound bites, or facts and figures?

"well gee george.. it sounded like he knew what he was talking about.. and they got a cool slogan.. lets adopt their stand.. down with da man!"

An attack on Mann's methods is responded to by an attack on peoples character. Amazing. Especialy from people who don't even bother to take the simple step needed to learn the facts. This isnt the politics forum where you can get away with demanding to be spoon fed. The paper is only 142 pages. Have fun actualy reading it sometime. I can tell already that you would only enjoy the overview as that would be the best source of soundbites and headlines.

 

[a_unique_person]

There are researchers around the world using different models to predict the global warming effects, none of them agree exactly either.

The study was not to reproduce Mann's work, but to do what others are doing with modelling. Use what you believe is the best way to get this answer, and see how closely it agree's with the other guy's.

 

[rockoon]

What's even more alarming, you're arguing using that data too! So you must be wrong as well!

Incorrect conclusion. M&M were not showing that the source data was incorrect.

They were (A) showing that the interpretation method (MATH) that Mann used is incorrect (B) That the Bristle Cone source, known to not be a good proxy, can significantly effect results, and (C) That Mann's data set (the one he provides) inexplicably double-counts some samples.

To be sceptical, a person must be informed. Otherwise they are merely being ignorant.

Indeed. Informed also means knowing logic. You are either misinformed or incorrectly applying logic since "What's even more alarming, you're arguing using that data too!" is just random noise that doesnt at all respond to anything remotely logical.

I am not using the data at all. I am questioning the confidence of the conclusions which both Mann and the IPCC are highly confident of. Now the NAS is suggesting that the confidence is not nearly as high and place a high level of doubt about any extrapolations before the 1600's.

The Mann 99 graph goes back 1000 years, not 400. It covers the 'little ice age' and 'midievil warm period', whereas the NAS is saying that we cannot cover the global temperatures of either climate event with confidence. 400 years is precisely when the little ice age is thought to have bottomed out.

 

[rockoon]

The study was not to reproduce Mann's work, but to do what others are doing with modelling. Use what you believe is the best way to get this answer, and see how closely it agree's with the other guy's.

Agreed. Please tell Buackaroo that. He seems to think that they set out to reproduce Mann's work.

The people who have set out to reproduce Mann's work have failed to do so. It is quite alarming. Mann used an unprecidented technique (combining proxies) which the IPCC claims was vigorously reviewed by 'peers'

Is the peer review process so faulty that a 'vigorous' effort to validate an unprecidented technique will fail to find the flaws that the NAS so easily found? The NAS point-blank says that the IPCC and Mann greatly underestimate the uncertainties of Mann's work.

 

[DeviousB]

1. Earth's atmosphere exhibits the so-called 'greenhouse effect'.
True
2. The greenhouse effect warms the Earth's climate.
True
3. This warming is dependent upon the amount of 'greenhouse gasses' in the atmosphere.
True
4. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.
True
5. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes a significant contribution to the level of the greenhouse effect.
We don't know
6. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing.
True
7. The increase in carbon dioxide is anthropogenic in origin.
We don't know
8. The Earth's climate is warming.
True

I should have made (5) a bit clearer; CO2's contribution to the greenhouse effect is a matter of radiation physics, CO2's contribution to GW is a climate issue. I'll treat the question as meaning both.

So would it be fair to say your two main areas of concern/doubt are 'the sensitivity issue' and 'the attribution issue'?

The two toughest topics at the moment. Gee, thanks!

 

[a_unique_person]

Agreed. Please tell Buackaroo that. He seems to think that they set out to reproduce Mann's work.

The people who have set out to reproduce Mann's work have failed to do so. It is quite alarming. Mann used an unprecidented technique (combining proxies) which the IPCC claims was vigorously reviewed by 'peers'

Is the peer review process so faulty that a 'vigorous' effort to validate an unprecidented technique will fail to find the flaws that the NAS so easily found? The NAS point-blank says that the IPCC and Mann greatly underestimate the uncertainties of Mann's work.

They did, they were never going to produce his exact results, but they bumped into the hockey stick too.

 

[DeviousB]

A technique so 'unprecedented' that it appears in the standard texts on PCA (see index).


A technique so 'unprecendented' that it crops up in the fields of computer graphics, document management, network management and genetics (to name but a few).

 

[Buckaroo]

Did you bother to look at the graph? They arent the same.

Same data in -> same data out.

Why isnt it the same? Why isnt Mann's work reproducable? Its an honest skeptical question isnt it?

Shouldn't 'science' be reproducable?

Which figure are you talking about? This one?


Maybe this one?


What alternate universe are you living in, Rockoon? Why would you make such a statement, that is so easily checked and so clearly and unambiguously false?

Instead of reading the headline of a 'news' source who wants to increase sales, I read the actual NAS report. You did know it was available online, right? I guess not!

I'm speechless. The " 'news' source" (scare quotes yours) was the journal Nature, and was quoting the actual panel participants, as you'd know if you'd bothered to read it. I have read the report. Having seen your re-imagining of Wahl and Ammann, it does not surprise me in the least that you have also twisted the conclusions of the NAS panel.

Since you seem incapable of comprehending these publications, again I ask, why should we pay attention to anything you say?

 

[Piggy]

You keep going back to popular opinion. You can claim that a bunch of scientists beliving the same thing isnt popular opinion, but instead a 'scientific concensus' but you would be wrong.

Actually, I would be right. Popular opinion is what ordinary people think, based on what they've heard. Scientific consensus is when the vast majority of technical experts agree, based on the research, as they do regarding the question of whether human activity is helping to drive the current warming.

You claim zero doubt, out of faith. Faith isnt science. Science can be independently confirmed. Manns graph hasn't.

No, I don't, and anyone who can read knows it.

And you'd do well to stop focusing on one knot on one branch of one tree, and start looking at the forest. You're still stuck in conspiracy-theory mode.

 

[Buckaroo]

Agreed. Please tell Buackaroo that. He seems to think that they set out to reproduce Mann's work.

Now you're just making stuff up. Show me where I said this.

Have you actually read Wahl and Ammann? Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

The people who have set out to reproduce Mann's work have failed to do so. It is quite alarming. Mann used an unprecidented technique (combining proxies) which the IPCC claims was vigorously reviewed by 'peers'

The IPCC doesn't "claim" this. Versions of the Mann diagram have appeared in Nature, Geophysical Research Letters, and Eos, (among others) all of which are peer-reviewed journals. So what are you saying here? That these results have not been peer-reviewed? That there is some vast conspiracy among scientists to validate MBH's results?

 

[varwoche]

The strongest 'evidence' of global warming are the ones most likely to be tainted by unrelated variables such as the heat island effect.

I've been meaning to get back to this. Studies have shown that urban heat islands do not significantly contribute to global warming:

NOAA 2003

Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures.

Hadley 2004

Large-scale warming is not urban

 

[oponol]

7. The increase in carbon dioxide is anthropogenic in origin.

This one is definitely true. Annual anthropogenic emissions of co2 are about twice as much as co2 in the atmosphere is rising.

 

[BobK]

Some of those that are unsure about what is going on might be interested in this article. Climate chaos? Don't believe it

Here is more info in the pdf he has linked in his article. A well reasoned presentation.

 

[anduin]

Ice Age?

Here is a direct quote from a Newsweek 4/28/1975 article entitled 'The Cooling World':

The thing about the Ice Age in the 70's is largely a myth from the popular press. See:

http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

 

[anduin]

Yes I'm ingnorant. I'm ignorant of exactly what about your quote of me is ingorance?

Casebro, meet the argumentum ad ignorantiam.

 

[a_unique_person]

Some of those that are unsure about what is going on might be interested in this article. Climate chaos? Don't believe it

Here is more info in the pdf he has linked in his article. A well reasoned presentation.

He attacks the UN? The UN is not the IPCC, the IPCC is following the standard scientific process. The UN does not produce the report. He seems to be working on the basis that if you say UN often enough, people will agree that he is right. Can I repeat, it is not the UN putting this report out. His repeated reference to the sins the UN is committing is so laughable it would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

He parrots the same misrepresentation of Charles Hansens presentation to the US congress again. How seriously should I take the word of an out and out liar.

Hanson in 1988 presented to congress three scenarios, using what was then the available science, the worst, most likely, and best outcomes of global warming. That is standard risk management procedure, yet this same lie is being brought out again, that the worst case scenario is the only scenario presented.

Four years passed before a leading scientific journal would publish the truth about the graph.

Leading scientific journal. Another blatant lie.

He also leaves out the independent reproduction of the hockey stick, including the most recent report to do so. Will we be seeing any 'leading scientific' journals debunking that. I am betting the author will not present the screw ups that are present in this 'truth' he refers to.

Before you can call it well reasoned, I would pull out the lies and distortions of people's work.