Press Coverage

Nov 29, 2009 – 5:28 PM

Please discuss press coverage on this thread, rather than OT comments on other threads. I realize that there are many new readers and this site has been patched together quickly to handle overthrow from Climate Audit. Please observe policies on not discussing policy – I don’t want to discuss or speculate on Copenhagen or cap-and-trade – you can do so elsewhere. Please do not editorialize on ethics. I understand the temptation, but please refrain anyway. There are some words and language that are strictly forbidden. Please avoid being excessively angry or piling on.

Here’s a quick start – there are dozens.
The Times Online
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936289.ece

The Daily Express
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Comments (747)

Still Hiding the Decline

Nov 29, 2009 – 1:08 PM

Even in their Nov 24, 2009 statement, the University of East Anglia failed to come clean about the amount of decline that was hidden. The graphic in their statement continued to “hide the decline” in the Briffa reconstruction by deleting adverse results in the last part of the 20th century. This is what Gavin Schmidt characterizes as a “good thing to do”.
Continue reading →

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate | Tagged , , , | Comments (94)

Replicating the “Trick” Diagram

Nov 29, 2009 – 11:44 AM

Michael Mann, Dec 2004

No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum [realclimate].

Phil Jones, Nov 1999

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Gavin Schmidt, Nov 2009

Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all.

I’ve been able to make a very close emulation of Jones’ 1999 WMO diagram. Continue reading →

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (51)

“A good way to deal with a problem”

Nov 28, 2009 – 3:33 PM

In the UEA statement of Nov 24, 2009, Phil Jones said:

CRU has not sought to hide the decline. Indeed, CRU has published a number of articles that both illustrate, and discuss the implications of, this recent tree-ring decline, including the article that is listed in the legend of the WMO Statement figure. It is because of this trend in these tree-ring data that we know does not represent temperature change that I only show this series up to 1960 in the WMO Statement.”

Here is the corresponding figure in the UEA statement. I’ve added a yellow line for 1960. Although Jones’ statement says that he “only showed this series up to 1960”, the series attributed to “Briffa (1999)” obviously continues past 1960 into the 1990s. Jones said that CRU did not attempt to hide the decline in the Briffa reconstruction. And it is true that earlier articles did not take advantage of “Mike’s trick”. However, although the “real” Briffa reconstruction goes down after 1960, the series in the diagram attributed to “Briffa (1999)” goes up. The decline in the Briffa reconstruction is not shown; it is hidden. Gavin Schmidt of real climate says that this is “a good way to deal with a problem”. I disagree (and recorded this disagreement in a related context in connection with IPCC AR4 as discussed elsewhere.)


WMO Original caption: Northern Hemisphere temperatures were reconstructed for the past 1000 years (up to 1999) using palaeoclimatic records (tree rings, corals, ice cores, lake sediments, etc.), along with historical and long instrumental records. The data are shown as 50-year smoothed differences from the 1961–1990 normal. Uncertainties are greater in the early part of the millennium (see page 4 for further information). For more details, readers are referred to the PAGES newsletter (Vol. 7, No. 1: March 1999, also available at http://www.pages.unibe.ch) and the National Geophysical Data Center (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov). (Sources of data: P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa and T.J. Osborn, University of East Anglia, UK; M.E. Mann, University of Virginia, USA; R.S. Bradley, University of Massachusetts, USA; M.K. Hughes, University of Arizona, USA; and the Hadley Centre, The Met. Office).

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (85)

"UEA succeeds in Quest for secure IT access"

Nov 28, 2009 – 1:12 PM

On Nov. 12, 2009, CBR Networking has an article here entitled “UEA succeeds in Quest for secure IT access”.

A university spokesman said:

This gives us peace of mind – for example, we have considerably more confidence that a student is unable to gain unauthorised access to sensitive systems such as the university’s finance system – and simplifies the auditing process.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (29)

The "Climategate" Hockey Stick

Nov 28, 2009 – 11:55 AM

If anyone’s keeping a tab on “climategate” hits, they have a very Hockey-Stick shaped pattern. A couple of days ago, someone observed that “climategate” hits on Google hit the 10 million mark. They’ve now hit 10.8 million. [Note: I got 94.5 million a couple of minutes ago. Dunno why I got a different answer when I did it again. 10.8 million makes more sense.]

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Comments (57)

camirror.wordpress.com

Nov 28, 2009 – 12:01 AM

It’s December 8th. You’re now looking at the NEW Climate Audit website. No need to go to CAmirror anymore.

Please go to camirror.wordpress.com to accommodate present high volume.

[3 Dec IMPORTANT NOTE: We are now exporting all CA content to a new permanent home. This will take a few hours. Please comment at CAmirror above in the meantime. We cannot guarantee your comments will be automatically ported to the new site.]

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in General | Comments Off on camirror.wordpress.com

Another Curry Editorial

Nov 27, 2009 – 3:03 PM

Another good editorial by Judy Curry here.

Dealing with a problem begins by acknowledging it.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (129)

Yet another Upside Down Mann out

Nov 27, 2009 – 4:52 AM

Science published today yet-another-Mann-et-al-reconstruction:

Michael E. Mann, Zhihua Zhang, Scott Rutherford, Raymond S. Bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes, Drew Shindell, Caspar Ammann, Greg Faluvegi, and Fenbiao N: Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly, Science 326 (5957), 1256. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1177303].

Seems to me that Mann has re-discovered the Medieval Warm Period.

I had a quick look at the paper, SI, and the code. What seems to be done this time is that the proxy network of Mann et al (2008) is processed with a slightly modified screening of Mann et al (2008), and then the reconstruction is done with a slightly modified RegEM CFR of Mann et al (2007)! Now to answer the question that seems to be on everyone’s lips: yes, Tiljander series are still used as inverted. This can be seen from the positive screening correlation values reported in the file 1209proxynames.xls. In fact, going quickly through the screening code, it seemed to me that they have really “moved on” from the screening employed in Mann et al (2008): only “two-sided test” is used!

%------------------------------------------------------------------
%% below is for selecting full/screened/1856-1925 screened/1926-1995 screened proxy-network
%% replacing "abs(z(4,i))>=0.165"/"abs(z(5,i))>=0.513" in line 75/84 with the followings for your expected proxy-network
%% abs(z(4,i))>=0 / abs(z(5,i))>=0 (full proxy-network)
%% abs(z(4,i))>=0.162 / abs(z(5,i))>=0.496 (screening over 1850-1995)
%% abs(z(6,i))>=0.195 / abs(z(7,i))>=0.602 (screening over 1896-1995)
%--

This means that if a proxy has a strong inverted correlation to the (two-pick?) local temperature, it gets picked – no matter what the physical interpretation is! Since RegEM doesn’t care about the sign, it is now really so that the sign does not matter to them anymore. Anything goes!

I’m speechless.

By Jean S | Posted in Mann et al 2009 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (141)

Climate Scientists and Preaching to the Choir

Nov 27, 2009 – 12:07 AM

Climate scientists like preaching to the choir, but right now, perhaps they should consider the possibility that a little outreach would be in order.

In normal times, Climate Audit has a large audience; right now, its audience is far larger than normal and includes journalists as well as the public. Given recent events, I made an extra effort to solicit editorial content that would be supportive of IPCC views and asked Jones’ long-time associate, Tom Wigley, to write a contribution for Climate Audit:

Dear Dr Wigley,

Would you be interested in writing a guest post for Climate Audit (see camirror.wordpress.com for recent posts) and responding to comments?

Regardless of how Jones and Mann have portrayed me, I’ve tried to be conscientious. My interest has been primarily in statistical questions that I found interesting and where I was convinced that I was right. Obviously the reception of these points has been frustrating. I notice in the CRU letters that you occasionally considered the possibility that we had made valid points.

I realize that there’s been sort of a community boycott against climate scientists speaking directly to the audience at Climate Audit. Despite this past, I think that it is important that climate scientists now speak directly to this audience (which presently extends far beyond the core audience.) I don’t think that it will suffice to merely present through Real Climate in the present circumstances.

You may write whatever editorial you wish without any restrictions on my part and have an author password.

Regards,
Steve McIntyre

Wigley replied:

No thanks.
Tom.

I’ll try to solicit some other contributions. This situation shall pass. I don’t think that it’s helpful for people in the field right now to merely congregate at realclimate, though that is obviously more comfortable. I appreciate Judy Curry’s editorial and I’ll make some other attempts along this line.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (110)