Broken Hockey Stick! (Global Warming Scam Busted)

Still Waiting for Warming ^ | Oct 29, 2003 | John Daly

[Dan Evans]

Broken Hockey Stick!   (29 Oct 03) In a stunning scientific paper just published in Energy and Environment, the infamous `Hockey Stick' as developed by Mann, Bradley and Hughes in 1998 has been comprehensively discredited - using the same data sources and even methodology used by the Hockey Stick's original authors. According to McIntyre and McKitrick [Energy & Environment ref]; " The data set of proxies of past climate used in Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998, “MBH98” hereafter) for the estimation of temperatures from 1400 to 1980 contains collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects. We detail these errors and defects. We then apply MBH98 methodology to the construction of a Northern Hemisphere average temperature index for the 1400-1980 period, using corrected and updated source data. The major finding is that the values in the early 15th century exceed any values in the 20th century. The particular “hockey stick” shape derived in the MBH98 proxy construction – a temperature index that decreases slightly between the early 15th century and early 20th century and then increases dramatically up to 1980 — is primarily an artefact of poor data handling, obsolete data and incorrect calculation of principal components." On this website, the Hockey Stick's conclusions about past climates were challenged (see `The Hockey Stick: A New Low in Climate Science') on the basis of direct comparison with numerous other scientific studies which found that late 20th century climate was in no way remarkable when compared with previous `pre-greenhouse' centuries, especially the warmer Medieval period. However, McIntyre and McKitrick have challenged the `Hockey Stick' on its own turf by subjecting it to an `audit’, using the same data and assumptions, and developing a temperature reconstruction from similar principles.  It was a classic replication exercise, so necessary in science.  The result is shown below - The McIntyre-McKitrick reconstruction (blue) shows earlier climates to be warmer than the late 20th century, a conclusion supported by numerous other scientific studies, whereas the `Hockey Stick’ denies this reality.  It seems that through a combination of tabulation errors, truncating data series for no valid reason, and `bridging gaps’ in data with little more than guesses, the `Hockey Stick' authors created a thoroughly false picture of past climates, which was instantly embraced as policy by the UN-IPCC and the greenhouse industry it leads.  It became influential in convincing pro-Green policy-makers like former US vice-president Al Gore, that late 20th century climatic warmth  was without precedent in human history.  Not only did the `Hockey Stick' fly in the face of a mountain of evidence from other sciences which contradicts its conclusions, but thanks to McIntyre and McKitrick, we now know that the Hockey Stick is internally flawed as well, since its own data sources, properly read, do not support its conclusions either. This raises the question of the scientific bona fides of climate science itself.  McIntyre and McKitrick have exposed fundamental scientific flaws in an influential scientific paper which was fully peer reviewed by `experts' from the greenhouse industry and published in a top journal.   Their audit of the databases and statistical processes which lay behind the `Hockey Stick’ called for first-order statistical skills above all else, and it is here that they have exposed the incompetence which lay behind the original `Hockey Stick' concept.  There have been many other instances of deeply flawed science being given an uncritical green light for publication by reviewers from this science, but the question must now be asked whether their pretensions to scientific status can be justified by their performance.  Energy and Environment is one journal that has stood up for free debate on this and other issues of public importance, and is to be commended for publishing this long-awaited and damning critique of the `Hockey Stick'.  To facilitate public debate, the journal has taken the unusual step of making the full McIntyre-McKitrick paper freely available online. Download the full .pdf of the McIntyre-McKitrick `Hockey Stick' critique here

[E.G.C.]

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[alloysteel]

This is just “Saul Alinsky” tactics applied to scientific data. A great deal of bogus or unsubstantiated “data” is dumped in with a few smidgens of real factual evidence, then the entire mix is “weighed” statistically, with the outcome already concluded, then plugging in the “data” to extrapolate BACKWARDS from that conclusion.

It looks almost like good solid work.

Until the foundations of a lot of the “data” is examined.

One biggie that is missed, is the peculiar nature of the very common substance, water, which can exist as a solid, a liquid and a gas, simultaneously, with each state having very different characteristics. When changing from one state to another, HUGE amounts of heat energy are either gained or lost, which is a factor insufficiently considered in terms of rate of heat changes.

In order to change into ice, a LOT of heat has to be lost. Conversely, to melt ice to become water, requires an equal amount of heat to be put back INTO the mass of water molecules. To change from water to water vapor, an even greater amount, some nine times as much as needed to change ice to water, for a given mass of water molecules, is needed to effect that change.

The heat absorbed is from the sun. The heat lost is radiated out to space during the hours when that face of the earth is turned away from sunlight. There is an almost even amount of heat lost at night as there is heat received during the day, on a day-to-day basis. But small increments of gain or loss are cumulative over time, resulting in global warming or cooling. NEITHER CONDITON IS FATAL. Most life here on earth adjusts nicely.

[Carry_Okie]

As you can see, the man you are referring to is 36 years old, blond and is British. The man who wrote this article is older, dark-haired, a little gray around the temples and lives in Tasmania.

No, he died several years ago.

[palmer]

No, he died several years ago. True, in 2004, but that was after this thread was posted.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Outstanding post. Thank you.

[palmer]

New thread picking up the hockey stick story (much worse than we thought). /focus/news/2352516/posts?page=34#34

[palmer]

Be that as it may, McIntyre has a specialty. I think he's doing a good job of keeping the practitioners on their toes and accelerating some necessary introspection. If he's finding errors that need to be corrected, I hope to h*ll they are corrected, ASAP.

Are they going to go back and correct the truncation of Briffa's reconstruction at 1960? Is Briffa going to explain what he meant by

"For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate. (Briffa, Sep 22, 1999, 0938031546.txt)"

http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/10/ipcc-and-the-trick/#more-9483

[palmer]

The tobacco industry started responding particularly in the 1950s with propaganda.

Simple question: is truncating Briffa's reconstruction at 1960 propaganda (albeit a small example) or not? No need for a PhD in paleoclimatology, just read the emails and give your answer.

[cogitator]

As far as I can tell, they have to stop about 1960 because of the divergence problem. I haven't devoted a lot of intellectual resources into trying to understand why the divergence problem happens, I only know that it means that the tree ring methodology for correlation with temperature stops working around 1960. If they are attempting to present a realistic depiction of what global temperatures did over the 20th century and the tree rings stop being useful to depict that around 1960, then it isn't propaganda to utilize a different temperature record to finish the depiction.

It would be propaganda to depict global temperatures over the 20th century without indicating that there was a change in the methodology used around 1960. I haven't seen examples of that. Usually the instrumental record is clearly delineated.

As for Briffa, I don't know if he'll further explain what he said in the quote you provided. I like what he says at the end. Proving the first part of the statement, however, is different than proving the second part of the statement.

[Mr Rogers]

“I haven’t devoted a lot of intellectual resources into trying to understand why the divergence problem happens, I only know that it means that the tree ring methodology for correlation with temperature stops working around 1960.”

If they have just cause to believe the correlation doesn’t work from 1960-2009, then how can we be confident the method DID work for 1000 AD?

[palmer]

As far as I can tell, they have to stop about 1960 because of the divergence problem

What about the email from Mann that states:

everyone in the room at IPCC was in agreement that this was a problem and a potential distraction/detraction from the reasonably concensus viewpoint we’d like to show w/ the Jones et al and Mann et al series. (Mann 1999)

It would be propaganda to depict global temperatures over the 20th century without indicating that there was a change in the methodology used around 1960. I haven't seen examples of that. Usually the instrumental record is clearly delineated.

Why did they leave out any discussion of the divergence problem? Why is the 2nd standard error also truncated after 1960? Doesn't the divergence indicate that there may be errors in the proxies themselves (see previous post by Mr Rogers). Don't give me the cop-out that you are not an expert on divergence, just address Mann's statement above.

The IPCC caption states in part: "The recent instrumental annual mean Northern Hemisphere temperature record to 1999 is shown for comparison." Where is the explicit statement that they changed their methodology in 1960? The full caption is available at the link I gave above. How can their statement not be interpreted as stating that the proxies and the instrument record are "comparable"? They are not at all comparable, they diverge.

Is this propaganda, or not?

[cogitator]

While being amused that you're trying to force-feed me stuff off ClimateAudit (and I'm really not interested), and while I am not someone who responds positively to badgering and pestering, I'll respond -- with a story.

A teacher wants to get her class to understand the scientific method and process, particularly how it is sometimes necessary to reach provisonal conclusions on the basis of limited data.

She gives her students a can containing white marbles and black marbles, with a cover that has an aperture which allows one hand to be inserted and to remove a few marbles. The teacher instructs them to shake the can thoroughly every time before they collect a sample, and to sample the marbles five at a time (and return the marbles to the can after they have been removed and counted). The requirement is that the class give her a single report on what the can contains, after they have discussed their results.

All of the students (lets say 30) reached into the can, pulled out five marbles, and reported their results. 24 of the students pulled out five white marbles. Five of the students pulled out 4 white marbles and one black marble. One student pulled out five black marbles.

So now the class had to write its report. They selected one of their best writers to compose an initial statement. The statement said, "Based on our collections of marbles from the can, we believe that the can is filled mostly with white marbles, and a few black marbles."

But then one of the students that pulled out 4 white and 1 black said, "Wait. Somebody else pulled out five black marbles. That might indicate that there are a lot more black marbles in the can. I got one, too."

The writer of the original statement replied: "But based on what we know -- so many of our class pulled out 5 white marbles -- we have to say that we think most of the marbles are white."

Another student said, "But you don't know that for sure. What if the black marbles are heavier? What if most of the students didn't reach into the can far enough to get more heavier black marbles near the bottom? There could be as many black marbles in the can as white marbles -- we just didn't grab them properly."

The statement writer then said: "No, we don't know for sure. We can't look into the can and count all the white marbles and all the black marbles. But if I rewrite our report to say that there could be a lot more black marbles in the can, that would make it sound like we pulled out more black marbles than we actually did, doesn't it?"

The student that pulled out 5 black marbles then says, "I can't tell you if they felt any heavier, because I didn't pull out any white marbles. But it's possible that they were."

The student trying to write the statement throws up his hands in frustration and says, "OK, we're trying to write the best report we can. We should first say that most of our collections were all white marbles. That seems to show that most of the marbles in the can are white marbles. But because there was one collection with all black marbles and five others with one black marble, we'll also say that there are definitely some black marbles in the can. We can't say anything else because we didn't do anything else!"

The students think this over. One student then says, "If you don't at least mention that there could be a lot of black marbles in the can, because one student collected five black marbles, then it'll look like you're trying to hide something."

The report writer says, "Like what?

The student replies, "It'll look like you're trying to hide that there might be a lot of black marbles in the can."

The report writer says, exasperatedly, "But most of the collections were all white marbles! It has to be clear in our report that our collections showed that most of the marbles in the can are white!"

The students discuss and discuss and discuss for another hour. Finally they agree on this report:

"Each of the students in the class collected five marbles from the can. Most of these collections were five white marbles. A few students had collections with one black marble and four white marbles. One student collected five black marbles, which seemed unusual. Based on our results, we conclude that the contents of the can are primarily white marbles with a much lower number of black marbles compared to the number of white marbles."

Is that report propaganda? If so, then so also is that part of the IPCC TAR being discussed in the email messages.

(By the way, one student in the class went home and complained to his parents that the class was biased toward white marbles, because they added the part about the collection of five black marbles being unusual, which made it seem like collecting five black marbles wasn't very important, when it really was the most interesting thing that happened, and they should have said more about it!)

[Gene Eric]

Interesting that no one accounted for the red marbles.

[palmer]

A better analogy would be 2 white, 2 black and one white-painted marble (Mann PCA), 2 white, 2 black and a white marble borrowed from Mann (Jones, uses Mann) and 3 black, 2 white (Briffa). There were just those three series in the 2001 IPCC graphic. After some browbeating by Mann, Briffa agrees to toss one black marble and show a 4 marble study.

The part you don't seem to understand is how few independent proxy studies were used in the 2001 IPCC version of the hockey stick. It was mostly based on Mann PCA, shown to be flawed.

[cogitator]

A better analogy would be 2 white, 2 black and one white-painted marble (Mann PCA), 2 white, 2 black and a white marble borrowed from Mann (Jones, uses Mann) and 3 black, 2 white (Briffa). There were just those three series in the 2001 IPCC graphic. After some browbeating by Mann, Briffa agrees to toss one black marble and show a 4 marble study.

The part you don't seem to understand is how few independent proxy studies were used in the 2001 IPCC version of the hockey stick. It was mostly based on Mann PCA, shown to be flawed.

Your question asked if what was done amounted to the release of propaganda. My analogy addressed that, by showing the difficulty of reaching "summary" conclusions when working with limited data, some of which seems particularly contrary to what most of the data seems to be indicating. I get the whole thing about the limited number of proxy studies; We can always wish there were other ways to "look back in time" to get decent information, but there may not be.*

Mann dominated the conversation, and Folland was encouraging a strong conclusion. Thus, the strong conclusion emerged from the discussion.

* Furthermore, two things about the tree rings bear repeating. 1) Any conclusions about the maximum of medieval warmth compared to modern day have little bearing on the processes causing current warming. The drivers (then vs. now) are different and the time-scales, based partly on anecdotal reports and partly on different data sets from the era, appear quite different. The main driver for the MWP was probably ocean circulation variability. Last night I found this really interesting recent paper:

Termination of the Medieval Warm Period: Linking sub-polar and tropical N Atlantic circulation changes to ENSO (it's a PDF)

which puts a lot of perspective on that mechanism. Very "cool" -- and not even a single occurrence of the word "tree".

2) Whatever the tree rings do or don't do in the 20th century, we have all sorts of indicators that it was cool from the 1950s to the 1970s, and warmed up after that. All of this discussion of the "hide the decline trick" seems to miss the fact that the "hidden" curve shows the same decline as the other records, including the instrumental record, into the '60s. Did it keep going down after 1960? I haven't seen any extension of it, only discussion of it. But "everything else" -- including my own anecdotal memories of four-month-long frozen skate-able ponds in central Wisconsin in the 1970s that just don't happen anymore (hmm, I wonder about a different phenological record...) -- indicates that it warmed up since the 1970s. Nobody being realistic disputes that, no matter the putative cause. So if the tree rings didn't show warming from the 1970s through the 1990s, they were screwed up.

[cogitator]

Interesting that no one accounted for the red marbles.

You're still free to theorize their existence in the can. The blue and green ones too. But I'm going to point out that there's no evidence for red, blue, or green marbles in the can. So you'll probably call me a white marble alarmist, even though I concede the existence of black marbles in the can.

[Gene Eric]

>> I concede the existence of black marbles in the can.

So it’s a concession, how white of you...

Well, the red marbles were hiding for fear of being attacked by ignorant school children.

Which reminds me, two pretzels were walking down the road...

[palmer]

The drivers (then vs. now) are different and the time-scales, based partly on anecdotal reports and partly on different data sets from the era, appear quite different.

Yes, one big difference is there was a lot more warming in Greenland in the MWP than now. Another difference was the MWP lasted off and on for centuries compared to the current single century on and off. Sea levels were the same or higher (up to 1/2 meter higher) then along with other long term warming indicators.

we have all sorts of indicators that it was cool from the 1950s to the 1970s, and warmed up after that

Nothing but a distraction from the MWP. There were decades of relative cooling and warming in the MWP. Warm is warm, but you say the drivers are different, meaning evil CO2 is causing warming now but it didn't then. Your cool 1970's memories are matched with skatable ponds in the MWP followed by decades without. The trees are quite irrelevant looking "all sorts of other indicators" available along the ample documentation of historians.

I read the paper, it has interesting data although the authors start with the assumption that the MWP was regional or NH which precludes a more thorough study of worldwide factors (e.g. the Pacific). It obviously helps you eliminate that one driver from modern warming to support your must-be-CO2-SUV theory, but it excludes many other natural driver behind MWP and modern warming so doesn't support CO2.

[cogitator]

Yes, one big difference is there was a lot more warming in Greenland in the MWP than now. Another difference was the MWP lasted off and on for centuries compared to the current single century on and off. Sea levels were the same or higher (up to 1/2 meter higher) then along with other long term warming indicators.

Yep.

Nothing but a distraction from the MWP. There were decades of relative cooling and warming in the MWP. Warm is warm, but you say the drivers are different, meaning evil CO2 is causing warming now but it didn't then. Your cool 1970's memories are matched with skatable ponds in the MWP followed by decades without. The trees are quite irrelevant looking "all sorts of other indicators" available along the ample documentation of historians.

That's a little confusing. I say definitively that during the MWP, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were not changing appreciably, whereas now they are, in the direction expected to increase radiative forcing and contribute to warmer global temperatures. That's a driver now, and wasn't then (ice cores show stable CO2 -- you know that; by the way, have you read Precise climate monitoring using complementary satellite data sets?)

Any variability in the MWP was caused by processes inherent to the climate system then. We do not have any evidence that the proposed primary driver of MWP warmth, ocean current variability, is a factor now --- and ocean current variability operates on longer time-scales than greenhouse gas driven warming, hence the longer MWP time-scales, and also the out-of-phase response in the Southern Hemisphere (Goosse et al. 2003). A lot of MWP discussion overlooks that.

I read the paper, it has interesting data although the authors start with the assumption that the MWP was regional or NH which precludes a more thorough study of worldwide factors (e.g. the Pacific). It obviously helps you eliminate that one driver from modern warming to support your must-be-CO2-SUV theory, but it excludes many other natural driver behind MWP and modern warming so doesn't support CO2.

Did you read the whole paper closely? Check the Mohtadi reference (abstract only, unfortunately) and evaluate it next to the Goosse et al. link. The MWP was warm first in the NH, then in the SH (while the NH was cooling). Multiple lines of evidence support that ocean circulation was the main driver. We do not have a similar situation now.

[bluray]

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