Discussion > The Moral and Intellectual Poverty of Climate Alarm
The IPCC themselves quietly buried the hockey stick but some people just won't let it rest peacefully in its scientific grave.
The HS studies were MBH98 and MBH99. The numbers are the years of publication. IPCC AR4 (2007) was still giving the graph pride of and discussing it in the text.
McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) reported that they were unable to replicate the results of Mann et al. (1998). Wahl and Ammann (2007) showed that this was a consequence of differences in the way McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) had implemented the method of Mann et al. (1998) and that the original reconstruction could be closely duplicated using the original proxy data. McIntyre and McKitrick (2005a,b) raised further concerns about the details of the Mann et al. (1998) method, principally relating to the independent verifi cation of the reconstruction against 19th-century instrumental temperature data and to the extraction of the dominant modes of variability present in a network of western North American tree ring chronologies, using Principal Components Analysis. The latter may have some theoretical foundation, but Wahl and Amman (2006) also show that the impact on the amplitude of the fi nal reconstruction is very small (~0.05°C..)
Mann et al published an update in 2008, and this was widely cited in the subsequent IPCC report.
Phil Clarke
Mann et al published an update in 2008, and this was widely cited in the subsequent IPCC report.
Oct 9, 2019 at 9:47 AM | Phil Clarke
Which goes to prove that nothing endorsed by the IPCC should be trusted.
Perhaps if the IPCC renounced the Hockey Stick and all the corrupted science intended to prove it, some integrity could be restored.
They should have done so 20 years ago.
golf charlie
Oh how the unedifying examples roll in. I'm sure we could have a daily listing of awfulness from climate alarm zealots here if anyone, or enough of us, could put in the time. Here are two recent examples:
1) The Andrew Neil interview of an Extinction Rebel: https://cliscep.com/2019/10/10/andrew-neil-interviews-xr-spokesperson/
2) The Guardian calling for what amounts to book-burning (a socialist tradition dating back at least to the 1930s in Germany): https://www.aei.org/economics/environmental-energy-economics/the-guardian-wants-a-uk-climate-skeptic-book-burning/
The first example is of someone not capable of debate, and the second is of a newspaper wanting to silence debate.
John Shade
Yeah, the XR bloke is a bit of a nutter, no shortage of those on both sides of the fence.
But the 'book-burning' claim is absurd. Apparently the Guardian wrote a letter to the IEA suggesting they should considering retracting some of their publications. We only have the IEA's word for this as they don't post the actual letter, nor do they state which articles or books the Guardian objects to.
Speaking of nutters, If requesting a paper be retracted equates to socialist book-burning, then Lord Monckton of Benchley is a socialist:
The journal, its editors named supra and the three authors of the purported “study” are guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud by misrepresentation and by abuse of public trust on multiple counts evidenced later herein. Unless within seven days I shall have received from each of the addressees a written apology for their role in the fraud and an undertaking that the offending “study” has been removed permanently from all forms of circulation and will not be reissued under any circumstances or in any form, I shall report the fraud to the Serious Fraud Office, to the Chief Constable of South Gloucestershire, and to Interpol, and shall request that the addressees hereof be added to the list of those under investigation for scientific and financial fraud in connection with the systemic and profitable international over-promotion of the imagined problem of “global warming”
(That was 8 weeks ago, Interpol have yet to express a position.)
Phil Clarke
Well Phil, you do have a bit of a point, but you got carried away with your reaction. There is a world of difference from people or organisations publishing their opinions on something or other (and that Guardian article you link notes some excellent and well-expressed opinions at the IEA on the climate hooha), and the publication of papers purporting to be science. The latter are intended to be a contribution to the construction and development of our knowledge of the world, whereas the former are merely contributions to political debate - it being of interest to know what other people think on a given topic. So the inestiimable Viscount's annoyance about a paper that is a disgrace to science is quite reasonable. Here is something which tarnishes and diminishes the subject, and which ought to have no place in a respectable journal. There are also legal aspects which he draws attention to , and which he reckons are tantamount to fraud and abuse of public funding/trust.
John Shade
John,
Monckton is a greenhouse-effect-denying clown. None of his objections had the slightest basis in reality.
Hope this helps,
Phil Clarke
We all know “greenhouse gas” has been going inexorably upwards, don’t we?
Mind you, it is known that Prof Arrhenius measured CO2 in 1910 to be 1 part per 2,500. As one of the “fathers” of greenhouse theory, he must be right, mustn’t he? I wonder how that works out as part per million…?
We also know the “greenhouse effect” is provable, don’t we?
Radical Rodent
Other scientists are poking their heads over the parapet. Who knows, perhaps there is no “greenhouse effect”? Wouldn't that be embarrassing, eh?
Radical Rodent
We all know “greenhouse gas” has been going inexorably upwards, don’t we?
Yes we do. Direct measurements since 1958, bubbles in ice cores before that. Your 'sceptical' article relies on the almost certainly never happened 'testimony' of the late Zbigniew Jaworowski to the US Senate. This is unwise.. Actually very unwise
Mind you, it is known that Prof Arrhenius measured CO2 in 1910 to be 1 part per 2,500. As one of the “fathers” of greenhouse theory, he must be right, mustn’t he? I wonder how that works out as part per million…?
I've read Arrhenius's papers and I don't recall him doing that measurement (he relied more on the fieldwork of others). 1/2500 is 400/1,000,000 (ppm), about the modern value. In 1920 it was around 300ppm.
Life is too short to respond to Principia Scientific (the 'Slayers'). Not even Anthony Watts gives them houseroom.
Other scientists are poking their heads over the parapet. Well, that's one scientist, singular.
Mototaka Nakamura, so far as I can tell (I don't read Japanese, and I am not sure I trust the paraphrased translation), does not dispute the greenhouse effect. His cooling prediction from 2013 did not turn out too well, that's for sure.
Phil Clarke
True to form, you just respond with ad homs. You never fail to disappoint, Mr Clarke.
Radical Rodent
"True to form, you just respond with ad homs. You never fail to disappoint, Mr Clarke.
Oct 13, 2019 at 11:22 PM | Radical Rodent"
Yes, correct, but
"Oct 13, 2019 at 10:24 PM | Phil Clarke"
was typed by a substitute Phil Clarke. Same messgae, different style
golf charlie
Nothing remotely, ad hominem, eg. My second link was to an article authored by the great paleoclimatologist Professor Hans Oeschger, published in the journal Env Sci and Pollution, debunking Jaworowski's pisspoor paper. Hint: the relevant section starts 'Now to the paper of Jaworowski....' and ends 'I find the publications of Jaworowski to be not only incorrect but irresponsible'.
Phil Clarke
Re my October 11 comment, item (2), here is a good response from the IEA to the shoddy schemings of the Guardian:
'On 2 October 2019, the Guardian wrote to the IEA accusing us of having “a long history of climate denial”, setting out a small number of historic publications, going back to 1994, which the reporter implied supported this claim, and proposed we might wish to “retract” them.
This in the context of an article the Guardian intends to publish in a series about the “climate crisis”, accusing us of having an “unbalanced slant”.
We have declined the Guardian’s invitation to delete books, reject their polemical assertions, and are publishing this piece in response. We regard their inquiry and improper suggestion as both an attempt to mislead their readers, and as strong evidence of a growing and dangerous trend in public discourse on climate change to stifle debate, delegitimise dissent, and wilfully confuse matters of science with matters of policy, by denying uncertainty and trade-offs.
We find their approach ideological, and entirely unworthy of the paper’s proud history of inquiry and fair treatment of opponents.
IEA staff and authors hold a range of views on climate issues, but the organisation itself does not have a corporate position. We do, however, collectively regard freedom of expression as an institution of our free society worth defending. Not just for ourselves, but for newspapers like the Guardian to assert contrary views, however much we might disagree.
That ‘battle of ideas’ is hugely important to improving public policy, which includes educating the public and decision makers about alternative points of view. It is vital that we challenge the kind of wooly thinking that can lead to adverse outcomes.'
Read it all here:
https://iea.org.uk/iea-declines-the-guardians-invitation-to-delete-books/
John Shade
…it was not until the mid seventies we realised that mankind was faced with a serious problem. Using a new model…Hmmmm…. How scientific.
Anyhoo… The smooth rise of the Keeling curve should be brought into question, too.
Radical Rodent
How do you make predictions (or projections) without constructing a model of some sort? Tea leaves?
Phil Clarke
Georg Hoffman on CO2 and Beck.
Phil Clarke
Nope. Still looks like ad hominems dressed up in suitable scientifically-sounding gobbledegook. However, it keeps you happy, and that’s what really counts…
Radical Rodent
What a shame that modellers don't have some investment in continuing employment based on the veracity of their "predictions" - we'd be rid of some noisesome twerps if that worked....
Fred
How do you make predictions (or projections) without constructing a model of some sort? Tea leaves?
Oct 14, 2019 at 11:38 AM | Phil Clarke
Tea bags would have been more useful than Mann's Hockey Stick. Use once, throw away. Quickly forgotten
golf charlie
Here's another site I have discovered. Be interesting to see this one being dissed, other than being a bit "old", now... https://globalwarmingsolved.com/
Radical Rodent
What a shame that modellers don't have some investment in continuing employment based on the veracity of their "predictions"
http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/climate-lab-book/files/2014/01/fig-nearterm_all_UPDATE_2018-panela-1.png
Phil Clarke
Here's another site I have discovered. Be interesting to see this one being dissed …
Phil Clarke
Aaahhh... the echo-chamber of aTTP and Ken.... whatever his name is. How convincing.... NOT!
Radical Rodent
I'm not going to break the guy's anonymity, but it's not hard to discover he's a Professor in the Physics department at Edinburgh University.
And one could hardly wish for a better example of the ad hominem fallacy.
Hey ho.
Phil Clarke
>>The IPCC themselves quietly buried the hockey stick but some people just won't let it rest peacefully in its scientific grave.
The HS studies were MBH98 and MBH99. The numbers are the years of publication. IPCC AR4 (2007) was still giving the graph pride of place and discussing it in the text.
Mann et al published an update in 2008, and this was widely cited in the subsequent IPCC report.