Monthly Archives: May 2009

Antarctic Sea Ice Re-visited

May 6, 2009 – 9:43 AM

Jeff Id did an interesting post a few days ago on Antarctic sea ice in which he provided the following interesting graphic of Antarctic seaice area anomalies, which, from the texture, is daily, rather than monthly: Figure 1. Antarctic seaice area anomaly (Jeff Id version) Jeff’s data reference was to the following webpage at NSIDC, […]

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General, Sea Ice | Comments (48)

Undergraduate Geologists and Secretary Chu

May 4, 2009 – 6:47 PM

A few years ago, I noticed some interesting presentations by geology undergraduates at the Keck Symposium – see 4 papers online here – describing fossils from the Miocene and Pliocene (both well after the Cretaceous) in the Arctic. Here’s a tree from the Pliocene – which is not “hundreds of millions” of years ago, but […]

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General | Comments (76)

Will Andy Revkin Tee Off on Chu?

May 3, 2009 – 7:34 PM

I don’t like talking about political appointees, but Chu is supposed to be a “scientist”. If you don’t know the answer to something, it’s a good idea not to pretend that you do. Take a look at Chu’s appearance before the House Energy and Commerce Committee url (h/t reader Gene) [self-snip] Chu was there as […]

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General | Comments (274)

Spot the Hockey Stick #n

May 3, 2009 – 1:06 PM

In a presentation on April 7, 2009, Steven Chu uses the Graybill strip-bark bristlecone chronology (aka the Mann hockey stick) in a presentation. See page 7 here. (h/t to reader Gene). The Chu graphic even uses Mann’s overlay of temperatures, opportunistically ending at the high point of 1998. I wonder how Chu does at identifying […]

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General | Comments (53)

Truncated SVD and Borehole Reconstructions

May 3, 2009 – 12:57 PM

In recent discussions of Steig’s Antarctic reconstruction, one of the interesting statistical issues is how many principal components to retain. As so often with Team studies, Steig provided no principled reasoning for his selection of 3 PCs, statements about their supposed physical interpretation were untrue and, from some perspectives, the choice of 3 seems opportunistic. […]

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General | Tagged , , , | Comments (42)