Over Christmas, I thought good thoughts.
It is disappointing to be dragged back to reality by another stunt at realclimate. Pierrehumbert made a number of very strong allegations about the integrity of the Courtillot et al analysis, and, in particular, contested whether Courtillot had even used Phil Jones data in their analysis.
Pierrehumbert said:
there is the Ugly. These papers cross the line from the merely erroneous into the actively deceptive. Papers in this category commit what Damon and Laut judiciously call a “Pattern of strange errors.”. Papers in this category often use questionable (and often hidden and undocumented) data manipulations to manufacture correlations where none exist. .. We’ll leave it to the reader to decide, after the discussion to follow, whether Courtillot’s paper is merely Bad, or has crossed over into the Ugly.
and
and now for the really ugly part… Bard and Delaygue uncovered a number of errors of a more troubling nature…. The piece de resistance of Courtillot et al., is the following graph, which purports to show that for almost all of the past century, temperature correlates tightly with solar activity and magnetic field variability. The three curves on the graph are, according to the paper, Phil Jones’ global mean temperature record (Tglobe, in red circles) ,…
Pierrehumbert observes that the Courtillot curve does not match the most recent Jones global temperature curve (a point that I agree with) and says:
So if Courtillot’s data is not Jones’ global mean temperature, what is it that Courtillot plotted? We may never know. In his response to Bard and Delaygue, Courtillot claims the data came from a file called: monthly_land_and_ocean_90S_90N_df_1901-2001mean_dat.txt. Bard and Delaygue point out, however, that Jones has no record of any such file in his dataset, and does not recognize the purported “Tglobe” curve as any version of a global mean temperature curve his own group has ever produced.
Pierrehumbert goes on to genially observe:
Between the embarassing showing at the Academie debates and the travesty of science exposed by Bard and Delaygue in the case of the EPSL paper, You’d think that Courtillot would want to fine the nearest hole and go hide in it. Far from it, he was recently spotted giving a talk called “What global warming?” at this prestigious event gathering several famous physicists and chemists. Some people have no shame.
Pierrehumbert continues:
In the revised “Response” Courtillot now admits that the temperature record called “Tglobe” is not from any of Phil Jones’ datasets at all. Courtillot now claims that the data came from a study by Briffa et al. (2001), giving the address of a file stored at NCDC.
In a recent post, I reported that the Courtillot graphic could be easily replicated from column 7 of the data at ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/briffa1998/briffa2001jgr3.txt, which is entitled:
Observed temperatures from Jones et al. (1999) Rev Geophys
the latter being the source cited in the original article. In the same post, I observed that Jones was a coauthor of Briffa et al 2001 and that, contrary to Pierrehumbert’s allegations, the series almost certainly derived from Jones’ data, although it appeared to be a 20-90N composite calculated by the authors for Briffa et al 2001, rather than a version published in Jones et al 1999 (as indicated in the Briffa et al 2001 archive), while agreeing that it was inappropriate for such an obsolete version to be used in 2007 and noting that the failure of climate scientists to provide accurate data citations (with detailed provenance) contributed to the problem.
On Dec 24, 2007, I sent a short note to realclimate temperately pointing out to them that some of the statements in the Pierrehumbert post were incorrect as follows:
You say:” So if Courtillots data is not Jones global mean temperature, what is it that Courtillot plotted? We may never know.”
It is actually very easy to determine what Courtillot plotted. The Courtillot Tglobe plot can be replicated by using the column entitled Observed temperatures from Jones et al. (1999) Rev Geophys” from the data archive for Briffa, Jones et al 2001 located at NCDC at ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/briffa1998/briffa2001jgr3.txt, and by carrying out the following operations: filter using a an 11-year running mean without end-period paddding, then normalizing on 1900-1990. This is shown at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2522.
Even though Briffa, Jones et al 2001 was published in 2001, it only contained temperature data to 1997 – something that should have been picked up by reviewers at the time. Authors in 2007 should obviously not be using this sort of vintage data version, as modern versions are readily available, as others have observed. However, I note that this is far from the only instance where climate scientists have used obsolete data versions and other cases have typically not drawn similar opprobrium.
As others have observed, it appears that the data is a 20-90N composite. The description in the Briffa, Jones et al 2001 archive is not as precise as one might like, as it only says that the series is Observed temperatures from Jones et al. (1999) Rev Geophys”. Jones et al 1999 only illustrated GLB, NH and SH indexes. The archived version for Briffa, Jones et al 2001 differs from vintage versions of these three series, being most similar to the NH version. The most plausible interpretation of the archive is that it is a 20-90N composite calculated in the course of Briffa, Jones et al 2001 (rather than one of the series from Jones et al 1999 itself.)
Given that Jones is a coauthor of Briffa, Jones et al 2001 and the data in Briffa, Jones et al 2001 used data from Jones et al 1999, it is incorrect for Dr Pierrehumbert to say that the Courtillot temperature record is not “from any of Phil Jones’ datasets” regardless of Jones’ unhelpful and inaccurate communication on the matter. In my opinion, these allegations in Dr Pierrehumbert’s post should be withdrawn.
Between 5 pm Dec 24 and now, despite Christmas, a number of batches of RC posts have cleared, including (at least) some on Dec 24 and some already today. 9 posts have been cleared on the Pierrehumbert thread, including most recently a discussion of the date of the Council of Nicaea, which observed:
date of the (first) Council of Nicaea … was 325. Among its decisions on dogma was that angels are non-physical beings, hence unsexed. Sneers at what appear, taken out of their cultural context, to be absurd beliefs or disputes, are tokens of ignorance rather than sophistication.
It is perhaps appropriate that RC have turned their attention to theological matters as realclimate censored my post, which pointed out an incident of realclimate fallability, as opposed to admitting and correcting that part of their post which was in error.
UPDATE: After this post was placed online, Gavin cleared my post with two deletions. The first deletion was the link to CA showing that the Courtillot figure could be obtained from the Briffa et al 2001 dataset, the following sentence:
This is shown at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2522.
The second deletion was the following sentence observing that Courtillot et al were not the only climate scientists to use obsolete data:
However, I note that this is far from the only instance where climate scientists have used obsolete data versions and other cases have typically not drawn similar opprobrium.
Indeed, I’ll probably post up some quotes sometime showing how Mann and Juckes have almost gloried in the use of obsolete data.
UPDATE #2: In the same RC thread, NASA employee and spokesman Gavin Schmidt published a defamatory statement by Eli Rabett, in which Rabett simply invented an account of the original submission by M&M to Nature and then censored my reply to the defamatory statement, which stated:
Re #40. Eli Rabett has, as all too often, simply fabricated calumnies against us, when he stated here :
The Mcs submitted a garbage can full of issues and the editors at Nature worked to define what was an error, what was a controversy, and what was just silly, all requiring a voluminous correspondence. I guess that the editors told the Mcs that some of their issues were better dealt with in a submitted paper.
All these statements are untrue.
We submitted a short and clearly written article to Nature, online here which did not require a “voluminous” or even any correspondence to review. The initial submission received favorable reviews, also online here including the following:
I find merit in the arguments of both protagonists, though Mann et al. (MBH) is much more difficult to read than McIntyre & McKitrick (MM). Their explanations are (at least superficially) less clear and they cram too many things onto the same diagram, so I find it harder to judge whether I agree with them.
and
In general terms I found the criticisms raised by McIntyre and McKritik worth of being taken seriously. They have made an in depth analysis of the MBH reconstructions and they have found several technical errors that are only partially addressed in the reply by Mann et al.
and subsequently:
I am particularly unimpressed by the MBH style of ‘shouting louder and longer so they must be right’.
Rather than simply spreading calumnies, I would urge Eli to either investigate the facts, and, if he is not sufficiently interested in a matter to ascertain the facts, there is always the option of saying nothing on the matter.
And BTW, Gavin, if you’re going to allow Eli to post false speculations on realclimate, please have the simple courtesy to allow me to respond.
If you’re going to permit adverse comments on people on a blog, then simple fairness requires that you permit them to respond. On the few occasions that Schmidt posted here, I haven’t touched a comma of his posting.
Schmidt’s dishonest application of his posting policy probably does his cause more harm than good.
Climate Audit 