Try reading this.

I have never watched an internet video before this one. I am glad I did, most interesting.

Ken, your link, where the best project explain away step by step adjustments with technical explanations is interesting.

however it does not help the fact that your team have magicked away the previously reported peak temperatures of the 1930's.

Any signal processing method applied to data that fundamentally changes the data - removing real peaks and troughs and replacing those with artefacts is clearly wrong.

Signal processing is used in many areas of technical life, an end to end view shown here opens ones eyes to what the team have been doing.

An example of a slow step by step change hoping that no one will notice.

Any signal processing method applied to data that fundamentally corrects biases in the data - removing artificial peaks and troughs and replacing those with unbiased data is clearly right.

FTFY

Time of Observation (TObs) bias is a good example. We know that the time of day that the daily readings are taken has shifted over time and that this introduces a bias. Using the unadjusted data would be inaccurate and misleading. When Anthony Watts announced his 'game changing' paper on the US surface record back in gosh, was it 2012?, he engaged Stephen McIntyre at short notice to review the statistics, and McIntyre discovered that they had not accounted for Tobs, and he insisted that they should ...

Whenever I’m working on my own material, I avoid arbitrary deadlines and like to mull things over for a few days. Unfortunately that didn’t happen in this case. There is a confounding interaction with TOBS that needs to be allowed for, as has been quickly and correctly pointed out.
When I had done my own initial assessment of this a few years ago, I had used TOBS versions and am annoyed with myself for not properly considering this factor. I should have noticed it immediately. That will teach me to keep to my practices of not rushing. Anyway, now that I’m drawn into this, I’ll have carry out the TOBS analysis

To my knowledge McIntyre never published his analysis, and four years later the game remains unchanged.

https://climateaudit.org/2012/07/31/surface-stations/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/

PS On a global scale, the raw data has a faster warming trend than the adjusted. Must be the most incompetent conspiracy EVAH.

http://variable-variability.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/homogenization-adjustments-reduce-global-warming.html

Phil Clarke, doesn't McIntyre's unravelling of the Gergis 2016 fiasco, and ber previous failed effort to support Mann's Hockey Stick, and the attempt to smooth away the LIA and MWP, rather prove your consistent pattern of being wrong?

McIntyre's 'unravelling' consisted largely of insults, innuendo, errors and unsupported assumptions. The two substantive points, using regional rather than local temperature and allowing a +/- 1 year lag during calibration, turn out to have negligible effect on the conclusions, so no.

https://climateaudit.org/2016/07/21/joelle-gergis-data-torturer/#comment-770085

Phil Clarke, I tried your link, znd found this .......

Willis Eschenbach

Posted Jul 23, 2016 at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Reply

…and Then There’s Physics said:

Steve,
This has all drifted rather far away from what I was intending. I’m still no closer to really understanding what you would regard as some kind of realistic, contructive, positive, outcome, but I doubt I’m about to get any closer.

Perhaps I can help. Steve has been doing this kind of analysis of shonky climate “science” papers for some years now. And whether you can see it or not, he and others have had a huge influence on the climate discussion.
O
For starters, Steve was among the first to start pushing for publication of data as used and code as used for the various scientific papers. As a result of this push, the major scientific journals now have those policies as part of their standard. They don’t always enforce it … but at least it is in the regs.

Next, it appears that you misunderstand the process of science. Science is not a thing, it is a process. Making new scientific claims is only half of th progress of science. Falsification of incorrect scientific claims is equally and perhaps more important.

The process of science works like this:

• Someone makes a new scientific claim, and they make it public along with all of the supporting data, math, logic, code, and whatever they think buttresses their view.

• Everyone else publicly tries to poke holes in it, to falsify some part of the math, logic, code, or whatever the first person used to buttress their claims.

• If nobody can poke any holes in it, then it is accepted as provisional scientific “truth” … meaning it’s only true until a future date when and if someone does falsify it.

Note that THE PROCESS DOESN’T WORK WITHOUT FALSIFICATION.

But you can’t discredit something like the Gergis claims by handwaving at them and and saying “this is bogus science”. Instead, to falsify scientific claims often requires as much data, math, logic, code and the rest as did the original claim … you know, the exact stuff provided by Steve above.

And his having done so means that anytime someone starts babbling about Gergis, I can just refer them here and be done with the discussion. It’s no longer a question. The study is discredited.

So when you ask what “realistic, contructive, positive, outcome” will come of falsifying bogus science … well, I can only conclude that you are unclear about how the scientific process works.

Finally, another positive outcome from it is that Gergis and her co-authors are shown to be typical of far too many alarmists, willing to say or do most anything to advance their cause … and the more that people notice that fact, the less likely it is that the poor of the planet will be shafted by rising energy prices in a futile fight against fossil fuels. In fighting against the alarmists, demonstrating publicly that they are not only wrong but are lying about being wrong is always valuable.

You also seem to be seeing snarky editorials and jibes in what I write. I’m certainly not intending to write snarky editorials or jibes, so maybe you should consider that I mean whatever it is that I have written.

Mmm … well, reading through your screeds and the responses, I can only say that if I were you … I wouldn’t put that question to a vote of the spectators. I know I’d vote “snarky”, but of course, YMMV …

All the best,

w.

PS—You objected above to a characterization of Gergis as a “whining, self-serving, data tutoror [sic] who isn’t telling the truth”. Apart from the fact that nobody said that but you, it appears you did not pause to consider that in the US (but curiously not in the UK) truth is an absolute defense against libel …

Golf,
I don't really know what you found that interesting. I didn't bother responding to Willis because I've got better ways to waste my own time (like this :-) ). What I was trying to understand was how Steve hoped to actually achieve something. It's hard to see how simply writing blog posts and getting slightly sycophantic comments from his supporters is really going to achieve very much.

This, for example, is partly what I was getting at

But you can’t discredit something like the Gergis claims by handwaving at them and and saying “this is bogus science”. Instead, to falsify scientific claims often requires as much data, math, logic, code and the rest as did the original claim … you know, the exact stuff provided by Steve above.

apart from the end bit, which isn't really what Steve did. If he wants to really discredit Gergis he needs to actually publish something, or engage constructively with others who might actually publish something. Also, poking holes in a piece of scientific analysis without actually illustrating the significance of what you've highlighted doesn't do much. You can probably find things to criticise in any scientific analysis. What's really important is how it would impact the results, or how you would do it differently - or, possibly, a convincing argument showing that you can't actually do the analysis at all (i.e., it's impossible to determine the Australasian millenial temperature history, given the information available).

The goal of Gergis et al. was to try to understand the Australasian millenial temperature history. As it stands, they have a published paper which has an analysis that produces a result. Steve has a blog post with accusations of data torture but no real indication of what this implies with respect to the Australasian millenial temperature histrory. So far, it's Gergis et al. 1, Steve McIntyre 0.

So, my question to Steve was a genuine attempt to understand where he hoped to take this and what he hoped to actually achieve. It may well be that he has highlighted some genuine issues, but until he actually does something more than write a blog post and while it's simply a critique that doesn't really address what the impact would be on the key result, my prediction is that it will simply be ingnored by the wider scientific community. I'd actually quite like to see him engage more thoroughly as it might achieve something interesting. While it stays on his blog, I don't think it will.

The ending from Willis was also rather bizarre.

You objected above to a characterization of Gergis as a “whining, self-serving, data tutoror [sic] who isn’t telling the truth”. Apart from the fact that nobody said that but you, it appears you did not pause to consider that in the US (but curiously not in the UK) truth is an absolute defense against libel …

I didn't really object. I was asking what he hoped to achieve by framing things as he had. It is possible for something to be true, but to still be something one might avoid actually saying if your goal is some kind of constructive exchange. The only reason that I can see for Willis claiming I was the only one to say it was that Steve change his post and the possibility that he's being pedantic about whinge versus whine.

One of the first signs of a non-scientific approach is 'why don't you publish something?' In other areas if science any form of making public a perceived error or problem is enough to have a discussion. In the internet era this is much faster and more effective than the old-fashioned way, with all its problems in getting reviewed or published. Folks who resort to the 'why don't you publish' argument may seem to be saying that because they can't engage in debate because of lack of ammunition.

rhoda,
I didn't say he has to publish something, but if he doesn't it is likely that his critique will not have much impact. I also suggested that he could engage with others who might publish.

In other areas if science any form of making public a perceived error or problem is enough to have a discussion.

Sure, this might be true, but you then also ideally frame things in a manner that makes a discussion possible.

Folks who resort to the 'why don't you publish' argument may seem to be saying that because they can't engage in debate because of lack of ammunition.

Possibly, but that doesn't change that Gergis et al. have a published paper with a millenial temperature reconstruction for Australasia and Steve McIntyre has a blog post. If his blog post is largely ignored by the wider scientific community (as I predict it will be) then it doesn't really matter if he's right, or wrong, or somewhere inbetween, because his work will have little impact. If he wants to have more impact, then he probably has to do something more. If he's happy writing blog posts, that's also fine. He might not be able to have both, though.

Canadian mining engineers (and Texas housewives) are not subject to the rules of academe. You should address what we says, not the medium he uses ( and in which he has been very effective).

Canadian mining engineers (and Texas housewives) are not subject to the rules of academe. You should address what we says, not the medium he uses ( and in which he has been very effective).

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that there are rules of academia. However, noone is really obliged to address what anyone says. If Steve would like his ideas to be considered by the wider scientific community then it is much more likely if he actually engages in a manner where this becomes likely, by discussing it with others who work in the field, by trying to publish it in academic journals, and by going to conferences and presenting his work. There are two advantages to this. One is that it is more likely to be noticed. The other is that it can then be more thoroughly scrutinised. The latter is also quite important. The scrutiny of the wider academic community is an important part of establishing the credibility of what someone presents.

He, of course, does not have to do this but then it becomes likely that it will simply be ignored. This may turn out to be a massive mistake and maybe what he's presenting is ground-breaking and could have enormous impact. However, the choice of how to engage is his, as it is with everyone. I'm simply suggesting that his ideas are more likely to be taken seriously if he does more than simply present them in blog posts.

Heller has constructed an argument supported by a host of evidence sources that recorded data has been altered to support a theory. He has published that. There is no need for him to engage with the data manipulators as if they were wrong in their understanding of it as it is clear that they were not.

This is not a scientific argument but is a criminal one.

aTTP 4:26, you are yet again very quick to be hypocritical. At your own Blog post you have made no attempt to explain the mistakes of Gergis. There is no attempt by you or others to engage with 'oneuniverse'

You have made no attempt to explain why you seek to question McIntyre's motives for posting criticism of bad science. Presumably because you can not fault McIntyre's maths/statistics.

I am no statistician. If you are able to criticise McIntyre's statistics, then do so.

I do not know how many hundreds of thousands of Dollars Gergis has cost taxpayers to date, but it seems that getting published is no guarantee of anything.

There is every opportunity for anyone to examine McIntyre's work. Has Gergis made all of hers available?

Would you support fundng for McIntyre to be published? What is the point of McIntyre being funded to do what all those Peer Reviewers failed to do?

Gergis set out to replicate the conclusions of bad science, and succeeded.

Golf,
You seem to have some trouble understanding my point. I'm not really involved in this dispute; Steve McIntyre is. I make no claims as to whether or not there are problems with the Gergis et al. study. Steve McIntyre is the one who has chosen to critique Gergis et al. I'm not criticising him doing so, or really questioning his motives (I was asking him to explain his goals; I wasn't questioning his motives). I think critiquing other people's work is fine. However, if you would like it to be taken seriously by those who actually work in a field, you probably need to do more than simply write blog posts. You don't have to, of course, but if you don't it probably won't go very far. The choice is his. I would quite like to see him do more, because then I might get a chance to see what others think of his critiques. I don't think the comments on his blog posts are particularly informative in that regard.

Would you support fundng for McIntyre to be published? What is the point of McIntyre being funded to do what all those Peer Reviewers failed to do?

You concede then, that further work is needed to bring McIntyre's 'work' to a publishable standard. One agrees. However there are a growing number of outlets which are basically open access or where costs are low enough that anyone with a genuine contribution to make could easily do so. The correct course of action now would be for McIntyre to submit a comment for review to the journal, we could then all see if his claim that Gergis and coauthors made no useful contribution to understanding past climate change in the Australasian region stands up to scrutiny. He does seem to raise some valid points about proxy validation, but then, unusually for CA, appears to conclude that they don't significantly affect the result.

Of course for publication, he would have to lose the speculations, insinuations and adopt professional language.

CA readers are familiar with this sort of truncation in connection with the trick to “hide the decline” in the IPCC AR4 chapter edited by Mann.  One can only presume that earlier values were also outside the confidence interval on the high side and that Gergis truncated the series at AD1600 in order to “hide” the discrepancy.
Although I haven’t seen the the “dashed” reconstruction in Neukom’s email of June 8, I can only assume that it also diverged upward before AD1600 and that Gergis et al had been unable to resolve within editor Chiang’s deadline of July 2012.

[..]

Since the various rounds of review left the network unchanged even one iota from the network used in the PAGES2K reconstruction (April 2013), one can only assume that Gergis et al eventually wore out a reluctant Journal of Climate, who, after four years of submission and re-submission, finally acquiesced.

One presumes that Gergis et al had done similar calculations for Mount Read and Oroko, but had decided not to use them.  One can hardly avoid wondering whether the discarded calculations didn’t emphasize the desired story.

There is every opportunity for anyone to examine McIntyre's work.

That is not actually the case, for example he says " In cases where there is no sharp spike i.e. high correlation with two or more years, there’s something wrong with the linearity of the proxy (e.g. very U-shaped.) Gergis didn’t check regression relationships between proxy and temperature though such relationships (correlation) are used for screening. Durbin-Watson relationships in some cases are very poor."

We just have to take his word for it. One assumes that McIntyre has a legitimate reason not to submit his blog musing for further scrutiny. Scepticism is a wonderful thing, however it must be applied equally.

Attp. You now claim that your intent is to persuade Steve McIntyre to publish his work rather than confine his critique to his blogsite. This rather ignores two major issues 1) the alarmist gatekeepers who defend journals from unwanted skeptical comment, and 2) the delay before corrective measures against a truly terrible paper can be instituted. The blogosphere offers opportunities for near instant corrections.

However the main point I make is that your initial comments over at CA were very different. You were obliquely criticizing McIntyre for resurrecting the priority dispute over who discovered the flaw in the 2012 paper that was withdrawn. On the 22 July, 2.53pm you wrote " I simply can't see what will be gained by delving into the whole who said what when from 3 years ago". This refrain continued for post after post before you eventually switched tack to your present argument.

I, and I'm sure the majority of CA readers, am fully aware of what your original intent was. It was so so transparent.

I am in agreement with Ken on this point. It would be a very useful contribution if there were some publications addressing these issues. There's the immediate question of the validity of the Gergis reconstruction and the wider point about post hoc screening and data selection. Phil Clarke also makes some useful points. At the very least preparation of the material for a paper forces one to focus on the key points, refine one's arguments and opens up the debate to a wider audience many of whom will not make an effort to read through Steve's blog posts.

Many are worried about academic gate keeping. I don't see that is an issue here. There is a real need for a debate about post-hoc screening and data selection across many disciplines. In essence these are exploratory and useful in defining a hypothesis. However these then need to be confirmed using methods that have pre-defined techniques and data selection rules.

I have deep reservations about post hoc data screening and data selection as a route to robust palaeoclimate reconstructions. It seems that the number of degrees of freedom allowed by such studies are difficult to characterise and allow for when assessing error margins. Moreover, I'm not sure that the calibration and verification periods, detrended or not, are sufficient to support use of a chronology over it's whole time span. One could argue that the fact that screening is necessary invalidates the approach until one can identify the characteristics of particular chronologies that makes them robust as temperature indicators. That way new chronologies can be collected from appropriate sites with those characteristics and the method properly evaluated.

Ideally palaeoclimate reconsructions would be made from systems that are well characterised phenomenologically in terms of their response to temperature (field, laboratory and theoretical calibrations), and that can be understood in terms of physical processes and thermodynamics. However, whilst progress is being made, I don't have the tools to hand, nor do I believe are out there yet, to provide the necessary means for detailed confirmatory studies of millenial climate change.

aTTP 7:39, your blog post on Gergis reflects nothing of what you are now claiming. You have not posted an update.

Phil Clarke 7:54, I have no idea what further work, or indeed how much money, would be required to get McIntyre's work published in the Climate Science approved journals. I am in no position to concede anything. That Gergis has not been honest about the withdrawal of Gergis 2012, just about sums up the state of institutionalised dishonesty that infests Climate Science at every level, especially as you are unable to pass critical comment on Gergis.

As neither of you has challenged McIntyre's maths/statistics/science, but you both want to find fault, and to discredit anything he says, you are not doing much to remove the "snark" out of climate science.

I therefore conclude on the balance of past performance that McIntyre is right, Gergis is wrong, and you won't even consider the evidence.

As neither of you has challenged McIntyre's maths/statistics/science ...

As I pointed out, the Auditor accuses Gergis of truncating a dataset on a graph, complete with the usual assumptions (all his assumptions go in he direction of making the scientist look worse, have you noticed?) and insinuations of bad faith and intent.

CA readers are familiar with this sort of truncation in connection with the trick to “hide the decline” in the IPCC AR4 chapter edited by Mann. One can only presume that earlier values were also outside the confidence interval on the high side and that Gergis truncated the series at AD1600 in order to “hide” the discrepancy.
Although I haven’t seen the the “dashed” reconstruction in Neukom’s email of June 8, I can only assume that it also diverged upward before AD1600 and that Gergis et al had been unable to resolve within editor Chiang’s deadline of July 2012.

But Brandon has an alternative explanation

I don’t think the authors truncated anything at 1600. If you look at the blue line in their figure, you’ll see it extends to a point before 1600. My interpretation of this is that line extends back to ~1577, when the Kauri proxy enters the network. Prior to that point, there is only one proxy in the network (Mount Read), and it is presumably impossible to create a reconstruction via the given method with only one proxy.

The Auditor needs auditing.

Phil Clarke, if you are capable of Auditing Steve McIntyre, then go ahead, but please make sure it is published in a Statistics journal, not a Climate Science one. The Climate Science journalss all have problems with Peer Reviewing statistics, which is what Gergis 2016 has proved. Perhaps she was relying on it, as did Mann.

If you were capable of taking the discussion to Climate Audit, under another pseudonym, to discuss your criticisms, you would have done so. Brandon S is offering an alternative theory about how Gergis made mistakes, not an exoneration.

One steroid boosted team wrestler tags the other. What a crooked racket.
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One thing that has mystified me from the gitgo, lo these many long years, is why it is thought that creating a false climate narrative would ever stand against the power of Nature. Still mystified, but it is the urge for money, fame, and power that has deluded the narrators.
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