Bishop Hill Will Black react?
Jun 12, 2011 Climate: Jones Climate: Surface This is all getting rather interesting. Some very numerate people have been looking at Phil Jones' claim about statistical significance in the temperature records and the consensus seems to be that Jones has got it wrong.
First out of the blocks was Doug Keenan, who noted in the comments here that using the methodology described in Jones' IPCC chapter and data to the end of 2010, the confidence interval for the temperature trend still covered zero.
Meanwhile, Jeff Id wondered whether monthly data might produce a different result and Lucia looked at a slightly different version of the data - HADCRU3V. Their conclusion was that if you used the alternative dataset and used monthly data, the warming was indeed signficant and there was much tut-tutting over the failure to note these changes.
And lastly, with something of the feel of a coup-de-grace, Doug Keenan noted that Jones has previously inveighed against the use of HADCRUT3V for these sorts of calculations.
It will be interesting to see if we get some sort of a correction.
Reader Comments (84)
I wonder if Black visits the BH blog? His scribblings lead me to the conclusion that he inhabits a bubble in which he sits with his fingers in his ears, eyes jammed shut, all the while repeating the mantra, "Naa naa naa naa naa, can't hear you, can't hear you."
Good, fast-response work by Doug Keenan, and the others. This is the kind of 'let us take a close look at your data and methodology' kind of advice that folks such as Jones and his CRU could do with in their everyday work, before they get to press releases, phoning Mr Black or his chums, or even to the journals. But then, so much of their stuff might have been nipped in the bud...and the world would have been a better place as a result.
I suspect that the first link, for "noted in the comments here", should be
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/6/10/jones-post-1995-warming-significant.html#comments
Why should Richard Black be concerned about the statistical error? Global warming is such a serious threat that it could lead to the extinction of humanity. Phil Jones is working to save us; he is right up there with Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammad. Richard Black knows that. Even Prince Charles knows that.
Respected climate scientist vs chap who can actually knows how to do math. Difficult to know which one to believe I'd have thought?
Thanks to Lucia for taking a look and publishing the email I sent to the Blackboard..
The problem is, this headline will be used to prove the 'sceptics' wrong and it HAS BEEN sent around the world's media, without Jeff'Id's, Keenans, and the Blackboards fact checking.
What also gets lost, is not whether the world is warming, plateauing, cooling, etc, or the rate of which over what timescalele, but none of this Proves the actual cause.. which is of course the whole point. The argument has descended to it's warming, prooof of AGW?!?!?
Not leaste by the Carbon Brief, who twittered and spun this article to the world's media (ie their twitter followeres is a who's who of the AGW media,NGO extablishment, including the Committee on Climate Change and UEA, Climate progress, Guardian environment, washington POst, Time, Independednt, BBC, etc)
Carbon Brief:
"The claim that global warming has stopped - one of the most overused and deeply flawed climate sceptic arguments - can finally be laid to rest today, following the publication of new data analysis by one of the country's leading climatologists"
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/06/global-warming-since-1995-statistically-significant
Comments are open (slow moderation at the weekend - ie paid staff) but no one that it will have been distributed to will ever read the comments...
In answer to the question in the headline I would say with 95% confidence probably not. Not too vague?
Did anyone notice Paul Dennis' comment at Bishop Hill about the BBC article (a UEA colleague of Jones)
"I'm rather bemused by the article. 1995-2009, no significant warming, 1995-2010 significant warming and perhaps 1995-2011 no significant warming depending on this years temperature. Who knows! Adding a year to the trend and suddenly claiming significance as the headline asserts ('Global warming since 1995 'now significant') really shows a complete lack of understanding of linear regression, let alone the nature of the data.
Jun 10, 2011 at 6:32 PM | Paul Dennis "
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/6/10/jones-post-1995-warming-significant.html#comments
Will Black react? I doubt it - AFAIK the BBC never reported the Corrigendum to this headline story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7843186.stm
Steig's own Corringendum at Nature:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7256/full/nature08286.html
The nearest I saw them get was Richard Black's "blog spin" piece here where he references Andy "Advocate" Revkin as an authority - again no mention of the Corrigendum....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2011/02/war_and_peace_making_sense_of.html?page=30
If there is a reaction I expect it'll only be more spinmeistering - shame Black and the BBC haven't got the b*lls or competence to print proper stories:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/2/8/steigs-method-massacred.html
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/a-calmer-conversation-with-the-nail/
The BBC, and Black in particular, will never retract an error. By its own definition, the BBC is never wrong. It rejects all complaints and negative feedback.
See http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2011/06/laughing-stock.html and the reference to the good Bishop (before the work of Doug, Jeff & Lucia).
Will Black react? have the ever before when they got it totally wrong ?
But the purpose of Black's story was not to advice the scientific debate it was to provide support to the AGW viewpoint , in that it was success. Facts had little to to do with what was a PR exercise , it as it its the first time the press as be happy to push the climate doom button for all their worth and dam the reality. You could say that when its comes to climate science, as recent papers have shown , this is the normal approach .
Phillip - thanks for the link but do you think this is what happened?:
"True to style, he has picked one remark by a constroversial climate scientist called Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia and elevated it to the level of a major news story."
Is it that, by chance, Black heard some casual remark from Jones and pushed the story? Or was RB eagerly running the numbers each month and as soon as he managed to get significance he called PJ for confirmation?.. Or was it the other way round?...
I don't know, but somehow this story (along with its photo tagline...) has got onto the BBC website the moment some data could be squeaked to agree...
nby: RD couldn't run the numbers himself. He is no statistician. No doubt, with his inside line to the BBC (see Climategate email 1255352257 where mann says "climate is usually Richard Black’s beat at the BBC (and he does a great job)"), PJ called RB.
I appreciate Doug and Lucia's work very much, like everyone else. But there's something else here. It should be totally unacceptable in 2011 for the BBC or anyone else to publish such a claim from Phil Jones without a link to the code and data Jones had used to come to his conclusion.
Openness in climate is not just for papers published in Nature. It's for any claim at all made my climate scientists with the general public in mind. This should now be an accepted part of the culture. Black should refuse to publish without having the code and data from Jones. But even if Black was going to, Jones should remind him: "Hey, Richard, you forgot to ask for the links to code and data. Here they are."
Then the checking would become a formality. This has got to become the norm. It has got to become the norm. It has got to ... (fade into distance)
If Mark Twain were alive today he'd likely say something like "There are three, uh, four kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, statistics and Phil Jones."
It's not an error, and it corrects a widespread myth, so I wouldn't expect a correction.
"Their conclusion was that if you used the alternative dataset and used monthly data, the warming was indeed signficant"
So what you complaining about?
"and there was much tut-tutting over the failure to note these changes."
Ah right. Well of course there was much tut-tutting. Color me summarized. Any excuse to blame Phil Jones, something wrong, however trite and nitpicky has to be found to counter the elephant in the room that there has been warming since 1995, even if it relies on the absurd notion that a news article should contain detailed math.
The fact is the significance of warming since 1995 is not a scientific issue and never has been. The issue has existed only in the media. It was sceptics who made it an issue in the media and watched as it conveniently morphed into a popular misconception that "even phil jones admits there's been no warming since 1995". I have been presented with such an argument on dozens of occasions online.
The 'take the biscuit' post has to be Barry Wood's:
"The problem is, this headline will be used to prove the 'sceptics' wrong and it HAS BEEN sent around the world's media"
Yes after the 'sceptics' made the significance of warming since 1995 an issue in the first place, so that the public might link the statistic with skepticism of global warming, Barry Woods now has a problem that the public might link the statistic with skepticism of global warming.
Maybe the 'sceptics' should have thought about that before they made the significance of warming since 1995 such a hot issue. I mean what did they expect? This is just deserved blowback.
Bob, do you accept my point that we should know the data and code Jones used to come to his conclusion? As a matter of course, the moment the claim is published. If not, why not?
Here is a positive idea. Bish, you run a major blog and you are well connected with others with common interests.
Why don't you gang up and create "THE INDEX OF RETRACTED CLIMATE PAPERS".
It can have a chapter "Index of retracted climate statements" such as in blogs and press releases.
It could walk along the path set by John Brignell with his compilation of over 800 hyperlinks in "A complete list of things caused by global warming". http://www.spikedonline.com/index.php?/site/article/2045/
Bob/Barry:
"The problem is, this headline will be used to prove the 'sceptics' wrong and it HAS BEEN sent around the world's media"
Not sure you need to worry too much - at the mo. Google makes it look as if the Beeb and Black are the outliers on this story:
http://news.google.co.uk/news/search?pz=1&cf=all&ned=uk&hl=en&q=phil+jones+warming&cf=all&scoring=n&start=0
Anybody seen it elsewhere than Treehugger?
Why should anyone pay the slightest attention to what the disgraced Phil Jones has to say? He needs to remain in his subterranean cave with the rest of the fire demons.
I can't imagine why anybody should take Phil Jones' statistical musings seriously. Recent enquiries stated that the CRU needed more statistical expertise.
Ahhhhh... another bit of minutia to analize, more fuzy logic to ponder... no, no change, all is as it was yesterday, and will no doubt be tomorrow. Can it be? Do you think it is actually so simple? The devil is truly in the details. Perhaps the truth is in the pudding?
Bob
As I would understand it, no *statistically significant* warming since 1995 would mean NO detectable warming. Whereas adding 2010 to the data and finding a warming trend *statistically significant* means that a signal has (just) been detected in the noise. Notwithstanding the possibility of incorrect computation raised by Doug Keenan, the elephant in the room is the divergence from IPCC predictions: and not *statistically significant* divergence but plain-as-a-pikestaff.
Drcrinum - IMO this is just as much about the credibility of BBC news and its environmental team as it is about Phil Jones.
Re Richard Drake
Totally agree. 18 months after Climategate central figures still don't seem able to understand the problem, and why people are sceptical. Science by press release and unsubstantiated advocacy doesn't work. If the press release had been accompanied by data and methodology, any interested person would have been able to reproduce and verify the results. As it stands, independent reconstructions are failing to verify the conclusion, reinforcing scepticism and further damaging the credibility of Jones, Black, the BBC, CRU and climate science in general.
All avoidable, if only Jones had included a short summary of how he did it. Jones may still be right, but without explaining how he came to his conclusion, he's been forced on the defensive again and into a position he really doesn't seem to enjoy, or handle well.
I strongly suspect that Jones does not know how to do the statistical analysis. Indeed, anyone who knows time series at even an introductory level and who has read Jones' research papers would conclude that Jones is grossly incompetent. What happened in the BBC interview is just a more public illustration of that.
Following is what I sent to Richard Black, and Roger Harrabin, on June 10th at 17:30. Thus far, I have not received a reply.
The fact that so much attention is being paid to whether a data trend is just above or below an arbitrary figure shows how far this debate has departed from science. It's now all about scoring points, especially in the field of public perception.
As wiser heads than mine have explained, this is simply a continuation of the centuries-old battle between the Pessimists (humans are intrinsically bad and must be controlled by an enlightened elite for their own good) and the Optimists (humans screw up plenty of things but gradually learn better ways of doing things, by themselves).
In passing, the ultimate Pessimist philosophy is Communism, and perhaps its purest expression was Pol Pot's Cambodia with its resetting of the clock to Year Zero, closely followed by the Soviet Union and "New Soviet Man".
Scratch a Communist dictator or a committed Warmist, and you'll find a pessimist.
Re Doug
I was trying to give Jones some benefit of doubt :)
I think it still demonstrates the failure to communicate in the bunker version of climate science. The BBC is supposed to be all things multi-media, and supposed to inform, educate and entertain us. Yet Black's proclamation failed to use any of the multi-media tools at his disposal to support his case. No commenting allowed, no links to any worked examples supporting the story. The story got picked up by other media and blog commentors as proof of global warming, yet there was no proof supporting the story, just another appeal to authority.
Once again, the climate scientists and their PR people are behind the story because you, Lucia and others dared to actually test the claim, and presented evidence as to why you dispute it. Yet you get criticised as being 'anti-science' for daring to do this.
The egregious Richard Black is merely doing the job he signed on for - climate catastrophe shill. He has demonstrated his utter lack of journalistic credibility time and again and expecting him to change now is, in my opinion, quite unrealistic. The BBC are protecting their corporate pension fund, an item which must be causing the resident bean-counters there some major worries, as the governments of the world appear to be looking for ways to quietly creep away from renewable energy investments and committments. I realise that the UK's politicians, with a few remarkable exceptions, still cling to their comforting green mythologies, but signs that reality is beginning to intrude are beginning to appear on the horizon. At least some members of the MSM are now being critical of the green silliness.
I am a physicist, and I submit any competent physical scientist just looking at the data would tell you there is no significant warming or cooling in the last decade, the data is just too noisy. Period. Playing with the start and end dates on woodfortrees should quickly prove this; the trend goes from positive to negative and back again, with just a change of one year at the start or end of the period. Even undergraduates should know this; to have it discussed seriously among climate "experts", much less let one "expert" (Jones) cherry-pick the period he likes for his own side of the argument, is just obscene. You are all putting too much emphasis on statistics, when only physical insight -- or common sense -- can save the day. Jones should be simply laughed off the stage by any competent scientist.
Harry:
He is laughed off the stage by any competent scientist. His fellow UEA scientist Paul Dennis said this at the previous post Jones: post 1995 warming "significant".
It is only Team (tame) media apologists with no scientific credentials who give it any credence.
We live in the age of the non-statistic and the non-headline. Yesterday, several major American news networks ran the headline: Arizona Wildfire Crosses New Mexico Border. Does that stagger the imagination? In the old days, a small town newspaper that ran such a headline would find itself deeply embarrassed.
Bob
You say:
(Jun 12, 2011 at 12:03 PM)
As a lukewarmer I find your comment puzzling.
The issue (to lukewarmers) is the lack of observational confirmation of the hypothesised rate of warming (eg 0.2C/decade as per the multi-model mean referenced in AR4).
As the apparent lack of statistically significant warming from 1995 - to present is a component of the divergence between projections and observations, it should be welcomed by all.
Or do you want the effects of CO2 forcing to be 'worse than we thought'?
“If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.”
~ Ernest Rutherford
Re Doug
I agree that I don't think statistics is a strong point for Professor Jones, coming from a background of environmental sciences and Hydrology I believe. It is a ridiculous assertion to try a state some kind of significance to 15 odd years of global temperatures. If the temperature did a sine wave you would get certain periods of statistically increasing and decreasing temps but extrapolating this 'significant' trend linearly would obviously be very wrong.
I still can't believe that the head of a research institute was quoted as saying
“will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
I hope he as at least apologised to his fellow researchers who he was conspiring to try and keep out of the journals he was contributing his reviews to.
Rob,
Jones rather become emotional at the release of the CRU emails, instead, that no one came to his support.
I hope Mr Jones gets the intellectual kicking that he so thoroughly deserves.
Typhoon 5:54pm, there is a whole branch of statistics, probably the most important one in my opinion, dedicated to the design of powerful, informative experiments. There is no better way known to do them in order to extract information in an efficient manner. So, while I can see the appeal of the Rutherford quote in this context, I hope readers won't generalise from the works of, how shall we describe them? - 'CO2isbad-committed-climatologists', to the wonderful and under-used subject of statistics itself. And to be fair on Rutherford, the big leap forward in the statistical design of experiments happened in the last 10 years or so of his life, and before, I think, he made his unfortunate assertion.
'It will be interesting to see if we get some sort of a correction.'
dream on...............
There will be no correction because Black is fully aware that many tens of thousands of 'beeb followers' will read his 'ecorrhea' and a few thousand 'others' will read the deserved put downs elsewhere.
They follow...they obey as Guardians (pun intended) of the Planet.
Currently Black has numbers on his side but recent articles in the Times, Express, Telegraph & Mail
all highlight the extortion required to pay for 'pointless' Huhne's windmills and the idiotic Climate Act that encourages their spread. Pressure is building. CBI and foreign based companies intend relocating to a more sane environment abroad, so wave goodbye to '000's of jobs and tax income and say hello to
increased public spending and poverty.
Short of James Henson, or is it Hanson, anyway, one of the climate muppets will have to stand up and say they overdid the warming thing and that they may have exaggerated a bit before Black will back down; in the same way that a losing gambler keeps playing just in case the cards fall his way.
To James, Mikey, Dick and all the others in the gambling den, your luck has run out, cut your losses
and admit your addiction.
John Shade
Having watched far too many Ph.D's handed out, particularly in the social sciences, based on computer rounding error induced eigenvalues and eigenvalues while the statistical consultant at Cornell University's computer center, I will have to disagree with you. One does not need statistics to do "science". Either the effect is there or not. Witness the atomic bomb going off for the first time. No question that it worked. I believe that is what Rutherford was saying.
And in particular I look upon Factor Analysis and its akin Principal Component Analysis with great skepticism -- even with 64-bit computers.
The point is not that there has been no statistically significant warming over the prior 16 years. In fact, there has almost certainly been no statistically significant warming over the prior 160 years: that was the topic of my WSJ article and blog post on Koutsoyiannis [Physica A, 2011].
The point is that using the statistical method endorsed by the IPCC there is no statistically significant warming. (The IPCC method is unjustifiable, but this is another issue.) Yet Jones is one of two Co-ordinating Lead Authors for the IPCC chapter that describes the method. In other words, Jones is so incompetent that he cannot even implement an extremely simple method described in the chapter he himself wrote. And yet we are supposed to trust this same person for his other analyses.
@Atomic Hairdryer June 12, 2:00 PM
Your last paragraph is spot on.
Phil Jones finest Climategate email 1089318616:
Phil Jones, a man of great scientific integrity and a fount of statistical expertise. No wonder only Richard Black believes a word he says.
Oh what a tangelled web they weave.
It's a shame that the sheeple cannot be more well infromed in todays modern communication world.
First he redefined "urban heat island", then "peer reviewed literature", now he redefines "statistically significant".
Just call him, the teflon tutor, cos none of that stuff sticks to him.
Will Black react?
I'm past caring about what comrade Black thinks, I am heartily fed up of the veritable torrent of alarmist, inaccurate and poisonously worded tosh the fellow pens about a very selective array of stories that chime with his patently innumerate and blinkered gweenie activist outlook .
Why doesn't he simply resign and get a job licking stamps at the Green Party / Greenpeace Press Office? Has he no shame? He's almost certainly trousering in excess of £1500 a week plus exes to bombard us with bilge.
It's folk like Black that are blocking the debate.
Somebody (OK Bob it was you) said that there shouldn't be math in news articles - does that mean there shouldn't be a link that interested parties can go to? I think not - that puts the whole thing squarely into the hands of the self appointed experts and dimwit media again. It's my contention that the less than virtuous circles of dumbing down are what landed us in this mess in the first place.
Happy result from my suggestion for "THE INDEX OF RETRACTED CLIMATE PAPERS".
The final compilation has come in.
Retracted formal publications
...........
Retracted climate statements
..........
That seems to complete the exercise.
"Bob, do you accept my point that we should know the data and code Jones used to come to his conclusion? As a matter of course, the moment the claim is published. If not, why not?"
I think he should hold it from you just to spite you. You are only interested in smearing the man, there is no scientific reason for wanting the data and everyone agrees significance of warming since 1995 is irrelevant so there's not even any media sensationism reason for wanting the data. It's simply wanting to be able to smear him so I say if you play games like that, there are no rules.
"I am a physicist, and I submit any competent physical scientist just looking at the data would tell you there is no significant warming or cooling in the last decade, the data is just too noisy. Period. Playing with the start and end dates on woodfortrees should quickly prove this; the trend goes from positive to negative and back again, with just a change of one year at the start or end of the period. Even undergraduates should know this; to have it discussed seriously among climate "experts", much less let one "expert" (Jones) cherry-pick the period he likes for his own side of the argument, is just obscene. You are all putting too much emphasis on statistics, when only physical insight -- or common sense -- can save the day. Jones should be simply laughed off the stage by any competent scientist."
Nevermind that Phil Jones had nothing to do with chosing the 1995 start point - it was skeptics that chose that - and nevermind that Phil Jones would be the first one to dismiss the relevance of such a statistic - nevertheless we find Phil Jones guilty in the Phil Jones Blame Game. I wonder what else we can come up with to try and discredit the man. Could we say he looks rather german and hasn't provided any data on his whereabouts 1939-1945?
"Somebody (OK Bob it was you) said that there shouldn't be math in news articles - does that mean there shouldn't be a link that interested parties can go to? I think not - that puts the whole thing squarely into the hands of the self appointed experts and dimwit media again. It's my contention that the less than virtuous circles of dumbing down are what landed us in this mess in the first place."
Funnily enough I can't find any details about Phil Jones's calculations in the daily mail "There has been no global warming since 1995" article, nor do I remember people asking for them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html
Seems people are only interested now that the "since 1995" statistic has backfired. Trying to find a little smear to administer to lessen the blow.
If it was a scientific issue there would be a paper behind it, or a report or something with more details. It's not Phil Jones fault that this complete non-issue was elevated into a well spread myth.
Meanwhile, it's very cold in Sydney, Australia.
But isn't it winter down there, silly man!
Well, what about the snow and ice in the UK - it's summer there I hear.
But everybody knows that it's ALWAYS cold in the UK!
Except when it's not, I suppose.
bob:
That is amazing, thank you. No rules at all. That is what the movement to open up climate data and code has come to, something agreed by all the inquiries into Climategate, despite their many inadequacies. You can provide the stuff if you want to but if you are feeling 'smeared' you can choose not to. And this is science?