Nov 18, 2017 at 10:58 AM | Radical Rodent

Belief in the Hockey Stick requires faith in Climate Science, and no scepticism, but lots of denial.

Climate Science has thrived on the Hockey Stick, but is now withering, and there is no other means of support as the Hockey Stick collapses, rotten to the core.

If Climate Science had demonstrated honesty about the Hockey Stick, they would not still be stuck with it.

Rhoda

I'm not sure what you think I acknowledged.

If you look at Figure 5 here, the blue in Fig5 is Marcott et al and the black is Mann et al's hockey stick. In the Mann et al graph there is a 0.1C uptick between 1000AD and 1150AD. That is what I acknowledge as the MWP. I am glad that you and Golf Charlie now agree with me in our description of the MWP.

Golf Charlie

You don't do an experiment once and then stop. You use the technique in other times and places, you improve its accuracy and reliability, you use other techniques to check its validity. You use the original work as a step towards further increases in knowledge and understanding.

Consider relativity. It has been the accepted macro description of the physical universe for almost a century, yet physicists still take every opportunity to check it.

The longer I talk to you, the more ignorant of science you seem. What did you say you did for a living?

Rhoda

Skeptic used be a term applicable to any scientist. Unfortunately people like you describe yourselves as sceptics when you are actually deniers.

The meaning of the term has drifted, so a consensus scientist described as a skeptic is likely to feel insulted at being lumped in with you deniers.

Language does this. I remember a time when a gay person was awfully jolly, and nothing to do with their sexual orientation.

Nov 18, 2017 at 8:34 PM | Entropic man

How can Mann's Hockey Stick be used as a benchmark for anything, let alone something to be improved and enhanced? That is what Gergis 2016 demonstrated.

For Marcott, you could try here:
https://climateaudit.org/2013/03/13/marcott-mystery-1/

"Marcott et al 2013 has received lots of publicity, mainly because of its supposed vindication of the Stick. A number of commenters have observed that they are unable to figure out how Marcott got the Stick portion of his graph from his data set. Add me to that group."

"The uptick occurs in the final plot-point of his graphic (1940) and is a singleton. I wrote to Marcott asking him for further details of how he actually obtained the uptick, noting that the enormous 1920-to-1940 uptick is not characteristic of the underlying data. Marcott’s response was unhelpful: instead of explaining how he got the result, Marcott stated that they had “clearly” stated that the 1890-on portion of their reconstruction was “not robust”. I agree that the 20th century portion of their reconstruction is “not robust”, but do not feel that merely describing the recent portion as “not robust” does full justice to the issues. Nor does it provide an explanation."

How can a "graph" of temperature data be accurate without a MWP or LIA? Yet Climate Science still tries to prove Mann right. How wrong is that? You accept the MWP and LIA, but still trust Mann. Is that logical?

I have stated before that I have worked with qualifications in surveying and engineering.

Mann's Hockey Stick was NOT an experiment. It was presented and accepted as conclusive evidence, to prove a theory. Unfortunately, the "evidence" was flawed, but is still approved by Climate Science.

A 0.1 C uptick over centuries amounts to a climate effect known widely albeit anecdotally as a warm period? Pull the other one.

Rhoda

"A 0.1 C uptick over centuries amounts to a climate effect known widely albeit anecdotally as a warm period? Pull the other one."

That is what I've been telling golf charlie for months!

His overactive imagination has amplified a minor temperature variation into a major climate event.

Nov 19, 2017 at 12:36 AM | Entropic man

Wrong again. Mann wanted to prove temperatures had always been stable, and you believed him, despite the evidence. Why should anyone trust those who deny evidence?

EM, fortunately for science, Newton did not start with the idea that his head was the reason the apple fell out of the tree, and then build a theory with his arrogance at the centre of it.

Golf Charlie

An example from your own area of expertise.

Ben Nevis was surveyed in 1949 and its height was measured at 1,344 metres.

The Ordinance Survey took further measurements recently using better technology and the official height is now 1345 metres.

By your own logic Mr Greaves should not have bothered.

"By your own logic Mr Greaves should not have bothered".

Hardly earth-shattering EM.

Radical rodent

Thank you. Mr Cotton's articles are always entertaining.

Oh, my apologies. I attributed your "skeptic " comment to Rhoda.

Supertroll

Yesterday golf Charlie asked me

My Ordinance Survey example was intended to help answer that question, using a context with which, as an ex-surveyer, he was familiar.

Supertroll

Dammit! Second attempt.

Yesterday Golf Charlie asked me

" EM, why was it necessary to keep trying to replicate Mann's Hockey Stick, if the science is settled?"

My Ordinance Survey example was intended to help answer that question, using a context with which, as an ex-surveyer, he was familiar.

EM. How is measuring Ben Nevis again science? You can't definitively say which measurement is correct or if either is. You can't explain the difference, or if the difference is real. Even repeating the measurement proves little. In the case of the Hockey Stick we know inappropriate or inaccurate data was used, and inappropriate statistical methods were employed. Repeated measurements offer nothing.

Nov 19, 2017 at 1:38 PM | Entropic man

How do you know that Ben Nevis has not risen? Or that sea level has not fallen? Some simple visual evidence that anyone can see without adjustments:

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/sea-levels-were-higher-in-the-middle-ages/

Harlech Castle is no longer accessed from the sea. Winchelsea was added to the original Cinq Ports, but you won't get a boat near it now.

Equipment for surveying land, "Levels" and "Theodolites" did not change very much from the Victorian era until the 1990s, when lasers and GPS became available. The Victorians built canals, railways and sewage systems (including London's) using optics and geometry. They knew gradients and flows were critical to their schemes, and got it right. Sewage is a great leveller, if there are man made errors. The Greeks, Egyptians and Romans knew that too, and some of their surveying and engineering is still in use today. Some of their harbour structures are now underwater, whilst others are well above sea level. Very strange?

European Cathedrals are seen as engineering triumphs. They are, but much of it was based on trial and error -they kept collapsing, which is why they took so long to complete. The design of Cathedral Domes, in theory a simple structure, is actually very difficult. Most are slightly "fake" in that non visible engineering has been incorporated to make them appear simple.

Mann's Hockey Stick should have collapsed under Peer Review, but this was a further failure by expert Climate Scientists. I know I fell for its apparent simplicity and dramatic appearance, without realising the subterfuge in its production.

EM, the irony of "classical dome" design, is that St Paul's is the one with the most fakery in its appearance:

https://www.stpauls.co.uk/history-collections/the-collections/architectural-archive/wren-office-drawings/5-designs-for-the-dome-c16871708

St Peter's Rome:
https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter%27s_Basilica#The_Dome_of_St._Peter.27s

Brunelleschi solved much of it, but until recently, no one was sure how:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/il-duomo/cutaway-interactive?_ga=2.248776711.1469535756.1511104977-1569506519.1511104977

The Romans did it with concrete, and it wasn't reinforced:
http://www.aleckassociates.co.uk/structural-engineering/history-of-structural-engineering-the-pantheon/

All of the above were designed without computer models, that could be tweaked to compensate for errors, and they have stood the tests of time, war, abuse etc.

Golf Charlie

You should visit Ely. You can climb up to the roof and see the wooden framing behind the dome.

I did some work in the1970s, pollen counting for the botanists at King's. At that time the best method of estimating past temperature was to take a core of peat from a bog and count the pollen grains incorporated when it formed. The deeper you went, the older the peat.

What came out the other end of the analysis was a list of the wind pollinated plants growing around the bog and how that list changed with time. To infer temperature, you looked at the known temperature range for each plant.

Wild plants tend to occur between maximum and minimum average temperature isotherms. They start to appear in an ecosystem above a recognisable minimum temperature and disappear again when the average temperature gets too high.

The peat at a particular depth might include pollen from a species with a minimum temperature of 5C and another species with a maximum temperature of 6C. Because they were both present, you could infer that the local average temperature at that time was between 5C and 6C. As species appeared and disappeared you could infer how the temperature changed.

The biggest problem with this 1970s technology was its low resolution. You could measure to about +/-1C. This was enough to distinguish between glacial and interglacial periods, but finer detail was harder to see.

In the 1980s Hubert Lamb used archeological information to do the same, with similar problems. I don't know the uncertainties in his information, but I doubt he was doing much better than we did.

In the early 1990s dendrochronology was used mainly for dating, matching grain patterns from wood of known dates with unknown pieces to date bulidings and tools.

Mann et al was the first serious attempt to use the technique to measure temperature. Like most first attempts it was imperfect, but good enough to detect the decline from 1000AD to 1850 and the 20th century rise.

By 2010 the most accurate techniques were based on isotope ratios in ice and sediments, accurate to about +/- 0.1C which is comparable to global averages from direct measurement. This is where Marcott et al got their data. What pattern did all the 21st century workers see? A hockey stick. If Mann et al's technique was as bad as you say, they would not have produced a pattern confirmed by later work.

Don't think of Mann et al 1998 as one paper in isolation. It is one step in an ongoing attempt to describe Holocene temperatures as accurately as possible.

Supertroll

How is isostatic uplift affecting Ben Nevis?

How will you know unless you measure it at intervals?

Is there no movement or is it moving at a rate below your measurement threshold?

How will you know unless you use more sensitive technology as it becomes available?

I wonder if these are your bllind spots?

Do geologists expect everything to remain constant, so they see no point in measuring it more than once.?

Do they think that their technique is so faultless that there is no need for someone else to check their measurements?

Do they think that nothing more can be learned by going to the next decimal point using a later generation of technology?

Would I find the same fossilised thinking among volcanologists or earthquake researchers, for whom geology is a dynamic subject?

Golf Charlie

Don't be smug.

Surveying is as error prone as any other human activity.

I read long lists of possible errors and many procedures to avoid, detect and correct them.

Radical rodent

Speaking of questioning your preconceptions, I was about to write to you.

I keep a running graph from WoodForTheTrees, which updates each month.. It shows GISTEMP monthly global averages since 1970. On it are linear regressions for the periods from 1970 and your supposed pause since 1998.

I just noticed that the post-1998 graph is now steeper than the post-1970 graph.

The period you claim as a pause actually warmed faster.

Nov 19, 2017 at 5:57 PM | Entropic man

Work has taken me into the fields of archaeology, forensics, soils analysis etc so I agree with what you say, and do have some hands-on practical experience, plus I have had to trust those providing me with conclusive evidence.

Dendrochronology is an established science for comparing one piece of timber with others, to establish when it was growing, and potentially the year it was cut.

Jacoby and d'Arrigo "pioneered" the use of dendro for plotting temperatures, and "inspired" Mann, but had already realised there was a bit of a problem:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergence_problem
"The problem of changing response of some tree ring proxies to recent climate changes was identified in Alaska by Taubes 1995 and Jacoby & d'Arrigo 1995. Tree ring specialist Keith Briffa's February 1998 study showed that this problem was more widespread at high northern latitudes, and warned that it had to be taken into account to avoid overestimating past temperatures."

This lead to some dispute between Mann and CRU, including the late Keith Briffa:
https://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/

Dendrochronology is unreliable for plotting temperatures. CRU, including Phil Jones knew that. Did Jacoby and d'Arrigo fail to inform Mann of their own published work?

As I assume you are well aware, the growth of a tree in a single year depends on soil nutrients, sunlight, water etc, not just warmth. The expert peer reviewers should have known that.

You mentioned recently that a 13th Century Volcano may have ended the MWP (Mt Salamas 1257?), now you are suggesting 1000AD. This forensic archaeology suggests 1000AD may be too early.

http://sciencenordic.com/vikings-grew-barley-greenland

I read long lists of possible errors and many procedures to avoid, detect and correct them.

Nov 19, 2017 at 9:36 PM | Entropic man

You are correct. Surveyors and Engineers can be held liable in Court for errors.

Climate Scientists have so far got away with it. Their error seems to be attributable to false assumptions, and forcing evidence to fit theories. Suing "experts" for knowingly giving false evidence does carry penalties.