Tuesday
Jan112011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill How about updating the bristlecone data?
Jan 11, 2011 Bureaucrats Climate: MWP Al Fin, a new blog to me, takes a look at the amount of money the US taxpayer is spending on climate change this year. It's a big number.
I wonder if they could spare a few bob to update the tree ring data, and in particular the bristlecones?
[I've removed the image showing the breakdown of the numbers, as it appears to have been causing some problems. Follow the link to see a copy]
Reader Comments (42)
Indeed, updating the bristlecones might be interesting.
I should mention though that it was when I read that tree rings were being relied on as temperature proxies that my suspicions about the temp record were fully aroused.
In 1976 I was pushing pens for the Forestry Commission, and remarked to a forester that the heat should encourage tree growth. He replied that if the summer continued as hot as it was when we spoke, and drought continued - it did - there would be no growth that season. Without moisture, and he wanted a lot of that, his trees would actually suffer.
The forester also worried about disease setting in. Yep, Dutch Elm disease was already taking hold by way of fungus, but we couldn't find that out until the following year.
Steve McIntye has already updated Graybill's bristle cones
on his Climate Audit website. (under the Starbucks hypothesis I think)
Of course the National Academy of Science in the US strongly advises against the use of strip bark chronologies. If only Michael Mann would listen.
Queenslanders may asking something similar. Why are AUS $billions being spent on mitigating global warming when the entire state is at risk from floods because the authorities federal, state and local have cut funding to data collection programs that are critical to assessing flood risk.
It transpires that current Australian thinking on flood risk is the assumption that the general climatic conditions do not vary, they are non-cyclical. The only impact being considered that would change such thinking is the impact of climate change. i.e. a reduction in rainfall leading to more droughts.
Further the impact of environmentalism and land development has meant that federal, state and local authorities have done very little on flood prevention measures in recent years but have allowed building on flood plains in and around urban areas that were flooded in the near past.
Severe winters in North America, the UK and Europe, and floods in Australia highlights that climate change makes people forget what has happened in the past, extreme weather events, are just as likely to happen now with the same devastating consequences.
It is extremely important that the data scientists collect on climate and weather is as robust as possible and that the theories that evolve from the analyses robust data sets are testable and verifiable.
Poor data, bad data and blinkered scientific thinking is potentially just as dangerous as any storm.
Ah. Hmm. Now, where are we? Yes. Montford. Hockey Stick Illusion. Page, hmm, yes, here we are, page 351, chapter 13: Update the proxies!
Mac : 'Queenslanders may [be] asking something similar. Why are AUS $billions being spent on mitigating global warming when the entire state is at risk from floods because the authorities federal, state and local have cut funding to data collection programs that are critical to assessing flood risk. '
Indeed Delingpole has a devestating article on this quoting an Aussie's comments! See
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100071290/queensland-floods-but-at-least-the-endangered-mary-river-cod-is-safe-eh/
Really though, it's not enough just to update the proxies. As Frank et al. point out in their 2010 review of high-resolution paleoclimatology, proxies need expert assessment.
(http://coast.gkss.de/staff/zorita/Frank_etal_WIRESCllmChange_2010.pdf)
Otherwise, the current situation will continue, with the paleo crew treating a large range of proxies as a bowl of cherries. Pick what serves; ignore what doesn't.
In short, the field needs an injection of rigour.
The image isn't showing...
Shub - ?
The bristlecones are just fuel for the warmist stokers to shovel into the alarmist boiler... the ship? RMS Titanic.
OTT but FYI
BBC Hits UK Govt with Freedom of Information Demand in Cold Winter Forecast Fiasco
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/32017
'Rift between BBC, Met Office and UK Government Grows
Speculation in newspapers and the blogosphere has festered for the past week as Chris Huhne, minister in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) stubbornly remains silent. I contacted the BBC’s Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin, one of the world’s senior journalists on such matters to ascertain if the Beeb had a better handle on the story.'
LB
I wonder if the BBC see the irony of pestering people doing serious work with FoI requests.
Yes, let's fund Ababneh
Updating would likely exacerbate the 'Divergence Problem'.
And solving the divergence problem might involve returning the Nobel (peace) prizes.
Hence cut-and-paste papers until retirement, agitation for legislative change, and hoping that such legislation can be spun as having saved future generations.
Bish: do you really think this would be good use of public funds? it seems vanishingly improbable to me that bristlecones in a small number of locations, with numerous factors influencing their growth, can give us an accurate enough measure of pre-thermometer global climate to be of any practical use. There are so many obstacles to the identification of a really accurate temperature signal that I would not bother to start looking.
Would there be any dendropaleo at all if Mann, Briffa and co had not seized on a carefully cherry-picked selection of pine trees to create a fictitious global record, with all its dodgy smoothing, teleconnection and denial of the geological and archaeological evidence?
@ BBD
There is a 28x30 pixel image that is showing up as a red 'x' mark on my screen (?).
I cannot see the image.
It's on Watts Up as well, BBC Foi'ing the government
John O sullivan apparently contacted Roger Harrabin.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/11/the-plot-thickens-bbc-hits-uk-govt-with-freedom-of-information-demand-in-cold-winter-forecast-fiasco/
"The BBC serves Freedom of Information request (FOIA) on UK Government over weather forecast failures secrecy in worst winter for 100 years.
In an almighty battle to salvage credibility three British government institutions are embroiled in a new global warming scandal with the BBC mounting a legal challenge to force ministers to admit the truth. Sceptics ask: Is the UK government’s climate propaganda machine finally falling apart?"
I wrote this yesterday at Watts Up (a guest post)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/09/the-met-office-secret-prediction-and-the-political-implications/
"Bishop Hill and other blogs report that Freedom of Information request are being sent off for these ‘ so called ‘secret’ Met Office predictions made to the government.
After all it must be true, the BBC’s Roger Harrabin reported it?
I wonder if the BBC have thought to send any FOI requests in themselves, just to check the facts of this story. The BBC just renewed a 5 year contract with the Met Office to provide all the weather forecasting for the BBC. The BBC surely does not want to look as if it is being lax in its investigative journalism? If only to check that the service provided to the BBC by the Met Office is competent and can be trusted, as it is taxpayers money paying for this service.
“The trouble is that we simply don’t know how much to trust the Met Office.” – BBC Roger Harrabin, from the Telegraph"
--------------
I assume the BBC read Bishop Hill and thought they had better send in a FOI or 2 as well.
Shub; Hector M
First, the link is to a PDF of the paper not an image ;-)
Second, I'm baffled. I've just clicked through the link (which I've used many times before) and the PDF downloaded fine.
Not sure what to do here...
Actually, if the worst comes to the worst, just google it directly. This string will take you there:
noodle hockey stick spaghetti plate frank esper zorita
Seriously...
Then you get to find out what the paper's actually called ;-)
Some people seem to be having problems seeing the image. It shows up fine for me though. Not sure what to do about this...
What image Bish?!
It's a link to download a PDF I tell ya!
Maybe because I put the link in brackets?
Here it is without:
http://coast.gkss.de/staff/zorita/Frank_etal_WIRESCllmChange_2010.pdf
Oh how embarrassing. The IMAGE on the HEADPOST. Which I can only now see myself...
Very confused for a while back there.
Very odd, but yes, the image on the headpost. I don't know why you guys couldn't see it...
Now I see it, the image of the budget allocations. Dunno what happened before.
The most likely outcome of further detailed work on Bristlecones would be to demonstrate beyond doubt that they are not reliable proxys (to use classic British understatement). I rather like the term that Steve M uses to describe the field, "paleophrenology".
Do Bristlecones burn well? I have an open fire.
Cumbrian Lad
Yes, 'paleophrenology' is just the word, isn't it?
Al Fin... now that's a name I hadn't read for a good while. What a twat. An intelligent twat, but nevertheless a very rude person who doesn't take any kind of criticism lightly, changes the comments he doesn't like, and bullies them to oblivion. I don't like people like that. For instance, in this blog I haven't been but treated fairly and gentlemanly.
The image comes from climatequotes.com which has an interesting post on UN propaganda techniques, in this case on biodiversity (was I imagining it or did the BBC start banging on about biodiversity a few month's ago?), courtesy of their own document detailing the recommended methods.
http://climatequotes.com/2010/10/23/how-the-un-manipulates-the-media-and-the-public-on-biodiversity-part-2/#more-1501
At least the UN posts it all up in broad daylight. Contrast that with the secretive GLOBE of the Baroness Buscombe post, last weekend.
PS
The UN has a total annual budget in excess of 2 billion dollars per year of which the USA contributes 22 %, the highest contribution, with the UK 6.6 %, 4th highest contributor behind Japan and Germany.
To BBD:
It is very amusing that, when mentioning "so-called ‘Hockey Stick’ debate", authors of article in your link going as far as referencing Wall Street Journal (there are only two references to not peer-reviewed literature -- this one and autobiography of C.Babbage), trying to avoid name McIntyre to appear in press.
What is this:
a) editorial condition for publication?
b) example of self-censorship ?
c) yet another prove that mainstream climate scientists can't shoot straight?
Joe Romm has a piece about the "suspiciously well-informed libertarian James Delingpole".
Ha!
:)
Apparently OT but very relevant to climate "science":
From The Guardian:
"Medical science will benefit from the research of crowds
Sharing data will change the way medical science works and speed up the discovery of new cures
Monday was a great day for public health research. It was also a scary day for researchers. Scary because on Monday, with a minimum of fanfare, the paymasters of public health research put the scientists they fund at the frontline of the data-sharing revolution. We are a reluctant fighting force.
Chivvied along by the UK's biggest charity, the Wellcome Trust, science funders from across the industrial world issued a joint statement that essentially said they expect the data generated by studies they fund to be shared. It might not sound scary, but it could change the face of health research."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/11/medical-research-data-sharing
The Guardian seems to assume that this is a good idea - as I am sure do we all. I wonder if The Guardian will make the obvious step and recommend the same openness in climate "science"? Not holding breath.
I wonder what will be the climate research funders excuse for not following suit?
What reason, do you suppose, the legions of CAGW ocular disconjugates would have for updating their hallowed proxies?
Borssyk says:
I’m not sure I’d be so harsh. The authors simply point out that paleoclimate reconstructions are a work in progress. And, reading between the lines, not yet reliable. Good suggestions for improved methodology are made.
Did anyone notice this piece by Paul Hudson? ... until now nowhere in the sceptic blogosphere it appeared ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2011/01/coal-takes-the-strainagain.shtml
I found it quite .. ehm ... critical to the party line of renewables (and i tell you here in germany they go nuts about it ... wind mills everywhere too)
Meanwhile we have a temporary relief from the darn cold in GER ...
Andrew, enjoying your blog and keep up the good work,
cheers
Roger
(P.S. geoscientist here)
Roger L.
Paul Hudson is one of the secondary characters in the climategate story - google it and read away!
Thanks for that particular link though - the comments make interesting reading.
Hudson didn't receive the whole FOI zip, just the chain of emails that referred to him - sent to him by an insider friend at the CRU. Because of his ability to verify this email, he was able to say early on that the archive appeared genuine. He is not complicit in a BBC cover-up of the archive.
Bish, if you remove the ? and everything after it from the image in the head post it should appear for everyone. The querystring is steering requests to a squarespace cache that may not be accessible to everyone, or may confuse some peoples' browsers into not treating the page element as an image.
Actually the image problem is more likely caused by McAfee or Norton, or whichever antivirus/anonymous browsing add-on, deciding to block the image. An appended querystring on an image in an email is a common way for spammers to track which emails they send out are actually read - thus confirming the email address they're sending to is real and is in use. To protect your identity, spybot applications intercept requests from the internet for inline images with personally identifiable querystrings.
An early riser I see, in more ways that one ;)
Talking about tree rings does anyone know how Doug Keenan is getting on with the oak tree ring data he requested under the Freedom of Information Act from Queen's University, Belfast?