McIntyre uncovers fraud in the "hockeystick"?

[BethesdaWX]

http://wattsupwithth...-another-trick/

http://climateaudit....11/03/23/13321/

Brand New discussion on the hockeystick, quite interesting.

data after 1402 deleted too?

[valkhorn]

http://wattsupwithth...-another-trick/

http://climateaudit....11/03/23/13321/

Brand New discussion on the hockeystick, quite interesting.

data after 1402 deleted too?

The Hockey Stick graph is one of the most heavily scrutinized works in climate science. Isn't it sort of odd to you that someone who isn't a climate scientist, and who works in the mining industry and for The Heartland Institute brought this up? How come no real experts were whistleblowers?

This did happen in 2004, and was heavily refuted:

http://www.realclima...e-hockey-stick/

False claims of the existence of errors in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction can also be traced to spurious allegations made by two individuals, McIntyre and McKitrick (McIntyre works in the mining industry, while McKitrick is an economist). The false claims were first made in an article (McIntyre and McKitrick, 2003) published in a non-scientific (social science) journal “Energy and Environment” and later, in a separate “Communications Arising” comment that was rejected by Nature based on negative appraisals by reviewers and editor [as a side note, we find it peculiar that the authors have argued elsewhere that their submission was rejected due to 'lack of space'. Nature makes their policy on such submissions quite clear: "The Brief Communications editor will decide how to proceed on the basis of whether the central conclusion of the earlier paper is brought into question; of the length of time since the original publication; and of whether a comment or exchange of views is likely to seem of interest to nonspecialist readers. Because Nature receives so many comments, those that do not meet these criteria are referred to the specialist literature." Since Nature chose to send the comment out for review in the first place, the "time since the original publication" was clearly not deemed a problematic factor. One is logically left to conclude that the grounds for rejection were the deficiencies in the authors' arguments explicitly noted by the reviewers]. The rejected criticism has nonetheless been posted on the internet by the authors, and promoted in certain other non-peer-reviewed venues (see this nice discussion by science journalist David Appell of a scurrilous parroting of their claims by Richard Muller in an on-line opinion piece). The claims of McIntyre and McKitrick, which hold that the “Hockey-Stick” shape of the MBH98 reconstruction is an artifact of the use of series with infilled data and the convention by which certain networks of proxy data were represented in a Principal Components Analysis (“PCA”), are readily seen to be false , as detailed in a response by Mann and colleagues to their rejected Nature criticism demonstrating that (1) the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction is robust with respect to the elimination of any data that were infilled in the original analysis, (2) the main features of the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction are entirely insensitive to whether or not proxy data networks are represented by PCA, (3) the putative ‘correction’ by McIntyre and McKitrick, which argues for anomalous 15th century warmth (in contradiction to all other known reconstructions), is an artifact of the censoring by the authors of key proxy data in the original Mann et al (1998) dataset, and finally, (4) Unlike the original Mann et al (1998) reconstruction, the so-called ‘correction’ by McIntyre and McKitrick fails statistical verification exercises, rendering it statistically meaningless and unworthy of discussion in the legitimate scientific literature.

The claims of McIntyre and McKitrick have now been further discredited in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, in a paper to appear in the American Meteorological Society journal, “Journal of Climate” by Rutherford and colleagues (2004) [and by yet another paper by an independent set of authors that is currently "under review" and thus cannot yet be cited--more on this soon!]. Rutherford et al (2004) demonstrate nearly identical results to those of MBH98, using the same proxy dataset as Mann et al (1998) but addressing the issues of infilled/missing data raised by Mcintyre and McKitrick, and using an alternative climate field reconstruction (CFR) methodology that does not represent any proxy data networks by PCA at all.

He was completely wrong in 2004, so why would he be right this time? Plus, he's obviously a shill for the mining industry, so why do you listen to him?

It's about as logical as getting 'fair and balanced news' from Sean Hannity.

I'll also add that while he could be right, his track record and his bias would lead me to conclude that he is probably not telling the whole story, and that if he is right that climate scientists would eventually find out (why haven't they already, since a breakthrough like this could make someone famous?). I'm 100% certain that the real experts will look into his claims.

Even if he happens to be right, it doesn't destroy the field of climate science, and doesn't destroy the consensus of anthropogenical global warming. All it would do is change how we think about the past climate record, which doesn't really change the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that there is know current source of warming apart from the increase of CO2 - which is directly attributable to man.

[skierinvermont]

Boring.. the shrillness of the WUWT folks is getting overboard. If Anthony Watts and McIntyre want to dress up and play scientist, they should at least have the decency to be professional about it.

Even if their claim is true.. I'm sure that there's a good reason for terminating the series prior to 1550. For example if I have good data 1550-present and then only a few pieces of data prior to 1550..I'm not going to display the crap data on the same graph as the good data. That's pretty standard.. and anybody familiar with scientific literature sees this happen all the time.

HadCRUT and GISS do the same thing.. we have instrumental temperature data prior to 1880 (GISS) and 1850 (HadCRUT) but it's total garbage... which is why GISS and HadCRUT chose to start their analyses in 1850 and 1880, respectively, instead of 1820, or 1800. Where's the faux outrage from Watts and McIntyre on that omission of data?

The Supreme Court ruling on the availability of information drug companies must give to investors is completely unrelated. A pretty silly comparison there. It's a poor analogy, despite some superficial similarities.

The whole hockey stick debate is so last century. We have tons more data than we did back then and it all confirms the general picture of current temperatures most likely exceeding those of the MWP globally. Some individuals really just need to let it go and move on instead of perpetuating what has become a pretty transparent personal vendetta.

[Clifford]

The "hockey stick" appearance is highly based on the time period chosen.

If you go back a few thousand years, you hit the Medieval Warm Period as well as the Little Ice Age (which somehow showed up quite flat).

Go back 20,000 years, and you hit the last glacial period, as well as a temperature spike at the beginning of the Holocene.

Go back a few hundred thousand years, and you see repeated glacial/interglacial cycles.

Go back 50 million years, and Antarctica is ice free, and it looks decidedly un-hockey stick like.

As far as the pink line (vs dotted line).

If the data set does not match observed 20^th century records. Then perhaps the entire data set should be thrown out.

However, there have also been notes that 20^th century pressures might actually affect the Tree Growth, including changing water distribution and changing nutrients, including CO₂ in the air. Any isotope based measuring system is likely heavily contaminated since WWII and various nuclear programs, and tests.

The use of Fossil Fuels also changes the atmospheric isotope distribution.

[BethesdaWX]

Boring.. the shrillness of the WUWT folks is getting overboard. If Anthony Watts and McIntyre want to dress up and play scientist, they should at least have the decency to be professional about it.

Even if their claim is true.. I'm sure that there's a good reason for terminating the series prior to 1550. For example if I have good data 1550-present and then only a few pieces of data prior to 1550..I'm not going to display the crap data on the same graph as the good data. That's pretty standard.. and anybody familiar with scientific literature sees this happen all the time.

HadCRUT and GISS do the same thing.. we have instrumental temperature data prior to 1880 (GISS) and 1850 (HadCRUT) but it's total garbage... which is why GISS and HadCRUT chose to start their analyses in 1850 and 1880, respectively, instead of 1820, or 1800. Where's the faux outrage from Watts and McIntyre on that omission of data?

The Supreme Court ruling on the availability of information drug companies must give to investors is completely unrelated. A pretty silly comparison there. It's a poor analogy, despite some superficial similarities.

The whole hockey stick debate is so last century. We have tons more data than we did back then and it all confirms the general picture of current temperatures most likely exceeding those of the MWP globally. Some individuals really just need to let it go and move on instead of perpetuating what has become a pretty transparent personal vendetta.

Agree 100% regarding the "fraud" issue, which is why I'm not making a big deal out of it yet, since there is really no proof that it was fraud. WUWT tends to jump to extreme conclusions sometimes.

As for the MWP, I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree, there really is evidence on both sides, as to whether the global was warmer or colder, or the same, and I'd prefer not to go into it all again. The issue with the MWP is the Southern hemisphere, as proxy data sucks down there. The Area specifically in question is the Souther Ocean, Australia, and parts of South America, which are the deciding factor.

I guess what is more important, throughout the holocene, temps have Jumped around all the time, all naturally, most likely solar related.

[ORH_wxman]

The hockey stick graph has already been shown several times to have been exaggerated. This doesn't really change that. Maybe its just more proof of something we already knew...the proxy data is questionable and has massive error bars.

[Ed Lizard]

Questioning someone's background as far as being skeptics, its not like the Socialist Internationale or Greenpeace are going to pay any scientists for studies that would tend to refute AGW.

I'm only marginally knowledgeable on the actual hockey stick debate, but dismissing someone out of hand who might have an interest in refuting AGW as automatically dishonest seems weak.

[valkhorn]

Questioning someone's background as far as being skeptics, its not like the Socialist Internationale or Greenpeace are going to pay any scientists for studies that would tend to refute AGW.

I'm only marginally knowledgeable on the actual hockey stick debate, but dismissing someone out of hand who might have an interest in refuting AGW as automatically dishonest seems weak.

That's how science works. If someone were to tell you that you needed new brakes on your car and they weren't a mechanic, would you believe them, or have a real mechanic look at them?

[BethesdaWX]

That's how science works. If someone were to tell you that you needed new brakes on your car and they weren't a mechanic, would you believe them, or have a real mechanic look at them?

Real scientists have said the same thing. The hockeystick has long been refuted.

Now thats not the Same thing as Accusing someone of Fraud without basis, as has been done here By WUWT, but point regarding the Innacurate Hockeystick has been re-stated.

[mempho]

The Hockey Stick graph is one of the most heavily scrutinized works in climate science. Isn't it sort of odd to you that someone who isn't a climate scientist, and who works in the mining industry and for The Heartland Institute brought this up? How come no real experts were whistleblowers?

Why is your opinion based on what other people "think"?

[tacoman25]

I'll also add that while he could be right, his track record and his bias would lead me to conclude that he is probably not telling the whole story, and that if he is right that climate scientists would eventually find out (why haven't they already, since a breakthrough like this could make someone famous?). I'm 100% certain that the real experts will look into his claims.

Even if he happens to be right, it doesn't destroy the field of climate science, and doesn't destroy the consensus of anthropogenical global warming. All it would do is change how we think about the past climate record, which doesn't really change the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that there is know current source of warming apart from the increase of CO2 - which is directly attributable to man.

This same argument could be used against James Hansen and GISS.

[tacoman25]

That's how science works. If someone were to tell you that you needed new brakes on your car and they weren't a mechanic, would you believe them, or have a real mechanic look at them?

You don't have to be a mechanic to recognize the need for new brakes. Just like you don't have to be a scientist to examine/analyze scientific issue.

It's this sort of "leave the science to the scientists" attitude that leads to above-reproach elitism...a very bad thing for science.

[tacoman25]

Real scientists have said the same thing. The hockeystick has long been refuted.

Now thats not the Same thing as Accusing someone of Fraud without basis, as has been done here By WUWT, but point regarding the Innacurate Hockeystick has been re-stated.

It's more that the original presentations of the hockey stick were shown to be a bit misleading, and some of the data used was certainly questionable.

[BethesdaWX]

It's more that the original presentations of the hockey stick were shown to be a bit misleading, and some of the data used was certainly questionable.

I was being too vague, I apologize. I meant the "hockeystick", as in its Shape, not that the Graph itself has been refuted

I personally prefer ice core data, simply because of the lower potential for error through direct atmospheric Deposits.