Names That Cannot Be Said

Continuing the petty practice of refusing to cite HS critics, Johann h. Jungclaus, writing in Nature Geoscience, “Lessons from the past millennium”, discusses the “debate about the ‘hockey-stick’ curve” without citing the critical MM articles:

Knowledge of past climate evolution is essential for understanding natural climate variability. The debate about the ‘hockey-stick’ curve — a reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the past millennium[1 – MBH]— revolved around the extent to which recent climate warming is unprecedented in a longer-term context. The controversy calmed down after several reassessments [2 – IPCC AR4, 3 – NAS Panel] that confirmed the unique magnitude of warming since the late twentieth century, but the amplitude of multi-centennial temperature changes over the past millennium is still not well understood.

As CA readers realize, all that 2 and 3 confirmed is that Graybill bristlecone chronologies have a unique uptick in the 20th century, but that is of no interest to the “Community”.

16 Comments

  1. Kohl Piersen
    Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 1:22 AM | Permalink

    Who is “Johann h. Jungclaus”? Is he just another sloppy journalist who would rather sell the beat up than the story? Or is he an academic with an agenda?

    Steve: “Johann H. Jungclaus is at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstrasse 53, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.”

  2. John A
    Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 1:26 AM | Permalink

    Of course, they haven’t lost their knack of mischaracterizing what the Hockey Stick debate was all about. At least they’re consistently misleading.

  3. TAG
    Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 7:09 AM | Permalink

    NAS Panel] that confirmed “the unique magnitude of warming since the late twentieth century”, but the amplitude of multi-centennial temperature changes over the past millennium is still not well understood

    This statement is interesting in at least two ways:

    a) firstly it is self-contradictory – it describes “the unique magnitude of warming since the late twentieth century” but also indicates that “the amplitude of multi-centennial temperature changes over the past millennium is still not well understood”. If the amplitude of the temperature changes is not understood, how can the purported 20th century warming be unique? The NAS report said something quite different than this.

    b) It does not seem to contain an understanding of what the hockey stick controversy was/is about. The statement describes a hockey stick. Hockey sticks have blade but also flat shafts. The statement above indicates that not enough is known about temperature in the past millenium to know if the shaft is flat or not. CO2 contraptions in the atmosphere are hockey stick shaped with a flat shaft. The flat shaft temperature hockey stick has been matched to that of CO2 and the implication of causality has been claimed. If the temperature curve does not have a flat shaft then this claim of causality is cast into doubt.

  4. TAG
    Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 7:38 AM | Permalink

    That should be CO2 “concentrations” in 4 not CO2 “contraptions”. Spell checkers have minds of their own

    • D Johnson
      Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 8:21 AM | Permalink

      Re: TAG (#4),

      Too bad! I thought they might have invented a hockeystick shaped device for extracting CO2 from flue gas.

      • John M
        Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 5:12 PM | Permalink

        Re: D Johnson (#5), and TAG #4

        Almost.

        I think this guy wanted to invent something that sort of looks like he does.

        http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080929123941.htm

      • Geoff Sherrington
        Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 7:09 PM | Permalink

        Re: D Johnson (#5),

        Don’t laugh. We have one Tim Flannery in Australia, selected for greatness at the coming Copenhagen, stating that coal burning electrical utilities should capture the CO2, chemically remove the oxygen, make “biochar” and spread it on the soil, where, among other thngs, it would both remain sequestered forever and also enhance crop growth. I kid you not.

        http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2611906.htm

        Three difficulties.

        1. If the carbon is sequestered forever in the soil it cannot assist in plant nutrition.

        2. Enhanced plant growth increses the flux of CO2 in the atmosphere, especially at death when it rots.

        3. The cost and energy of removing the oxygen from CO2 is far greater than adding it on, as we do by burning coal in an exothermic reaction. For simple Tim, the simple solution would be to sprinkle coal over the soil before it’s burned, but that’s a bit stupid when other forms of biogenic waste are available, rather than needing diggin up.

        Sorry this is OT, but it highlights more of the stupidity that CA so effectively exposes.

        • Craig Loehle
          Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 7:22 PM | Permalink

          Re: Geoff Sherrington (#12), Fortunately for our entertainment there is an endless supply of such stupidity. My favorite is that we are going to beat global warming by burning natural gas, followed closely by painting roofs white.

        • Pat Frank
          Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 7:53 PM | Permalink

          Re: Geoff Sherrington (#12), Tim Flannery is one of the deep-thinking guys, along with Al Gore, who convinced Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine and renowned skeptic, to become an AGW believer.

        • Posted Jul 2, 2009 at 11:53 AM | Permalink

          Re: Pat Frank (#14),

          I lost a LOT of respect for Mr. Shermer when I found that out a couple years ago.

        • Pat Frank
          Posted Jul 2, 2009 at 5:55 PM | Permalink

          Re: Jeff Alberts (#15), Michael Shermer is only human, Jeff. Even though a believer, he did go ahead and publish my critical article in Skeptic, so he deserves some slack. Maybe we’re all susceptible to just the right conversion experience. A chastening thought.

  5. Antonio San
    Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 9:36 AM | Permalink

    Why is it these kind of papers always seems to pass the peer reviewed test at Nature Geosciences?

  6. Kazinski
    Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 2:03 PM | Permalink

    multi-centennial temperature changes over the past millennium is still not well understood

    What? I thought Mann has pinpointed the temperature within .2C over the last thousand years. That’s better that what GISS can do for last months temps.

  7. Thomas J. Arnold.
    Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 2:46 PM | Permalink

    I have read this statement quite a few times and still find it fuzzy. Thought MM alog’s were debunked. Is he talking about the Mediaeval warming?- which did not fit the ‘hockey stick’???

  8. Bill Jamison
    Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 4:47 PM | Permalink

    Ironically they use the exact opposite tactic used here on CA and WUWT etc. where you always name names!

    I noticed the same thing as far as other resources are concerned, on sites such as this you provide a link to RealClimate but the AGW sites never provide a link to CA, WUWT, etc. Seems very telling to me.

    One side is open to debate and stresses full disclosure and the other side not so much.

    • RomanM
      Posted Jun 30, 2009 at 5:03 PM | Permalink

      Re: Bill Jamison (#9),

      One side is open to debate and stresses full disclosure and the other side not so much.

      Yes, but one side has little to gain, and can’t afford to lose…