Monday
Apr012013
by 
Josh
Josh No joke - Josh 211
Apr 1, 2013 Climate: Mann Josh 
The Marcott FAQ at Real Climate has been causing comment over the Easter weekend, particularly at Climate Audit. Roger Pielke Jr also has an excellent post, aptly titled Fixing the Marcott Mess in Climate Science.
Roger writes in the comments:
"There are a few bad eggs, with the Real Climate mafia being among them, who are exploiting climate science for personal and political gain. Makes the whole effort look bad."
H/t to Anthony at WUWT for requesting this cartoon.
Posted by Josh
Reader Comments (54)
I just posted this on 'Unthreaded':
I thought Andrew Revkin's recent interview with Jeremy Shakun could be very useful to show to people who have an image of "climate scientists" as mature, serious, people in white coats (as opposed to, say, self-regarding, grinning adolescents).
In fact you could juxtapose Shakun with a video of Lindzen and ask your audience which one they think governments should be listening to.
Lindzen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfWDAmT1bh0
Shakun - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgnMuKuVXzU
If your audience is in any doubt, you can then explain that Shakun's 'uptick' ("BOOM!") was shortly afterwards found to be due to unexplained data (date) changes and statistical tricks, and that when this was discovered, the authors tried to claim that the uptick was "not the basis of any of our conclusions".
Josh's cartoon is very apposite. These guys are crooks and should be treated as such.
The "Fools" are those politicians taken-in by the Alarmists.
Oh! Oh! Oh!
I see the hockey sticks poking out from the bottom of their raincoats!!!!
Do I get a bonus point??
:-)
Apr 1, 2013 at 12:20 PM | Unregistered CommenterAngusPangus
I've just noticed the hockey sticks too. Brilliant!
Angus and Jimmy, yes ;-)
Next cartoon will give you some more clues.
Shakun looks like a good fit to join the RealClimate mob: glib, opinionated, smirk ready at the drop of a hat, able to get the 'right results' (at least, so he thought ...), and conveying the spirit of a smart-alec postgrad rather than that of a thoughtful scholar. If he can also do 'petulant, ill-natured youth', I think RC will be beating a path to his door. Thanks for the link to that gruesome video, SJF!
If Shakun was a witness in a law court, I would have thought that any jury would disregard his "evidence" on body language alone - the child never stops fidgeting.
'"There are a few bad eggs, with the Real Climate mafia being among them, '
True but in some ways what is worse is the silence from the rest of climate science over this behaviour and worse still that is poor behaviour is often rewarded in so many ways .
The 'reason' behind Marcott changes from no 'stick ' to 'stick' was probable becasue doing this, and so putting themselves firmly in camp Mann, is seen has a means for 'career enhancement' in this area. Not that the science justified it but that the political imperative from the IPCC needed it .
While climate 'science' carries on in this way its was going to be fully entitled to have the science part in apostrophes has a sign of how much doubt there is that this is in fact an accurate description of what they do.
Look forward to the next one Josh, this one cracked me up!!!
I suppose it would be difficult to see the hockey sticks were they standing behind a stone wall. On the other hand, maybe they are beyond the pale. or beyond the pale but behind a stonewall?
Josh, you da made man.
Nice one Josh!
Shakun calls it a "Super Hockey Stick" which must be an acronym...
Statistically
Unbelievable
Propaganda for
Environmental
Rogues
Second thoughts...
Statistically
Unbelievable
Propaganda by
Environmental
Rent seekers
Nice one Josh. Next year's calendar will be a cracker. When do you start taking orders?
Josh and Roger should start a comic strip!!!
Nice one Frosty!
Loved the hockey sticks, Josh. And thanks for the link to Pielke.
Fabulous, Josh ... and in the ... uh ... spirit of the day, if you haven't already seen it, folks, do take a look at Derek Sorensen's:
The endangered species nobody talks about
I can't figger out which one's Gavin 'Icepick' Schmidt and which one's Mickey 'The Stick' Mann.
That must be Lew 'Bugsy' Lewandowsky on the right, though.
Heh: hockey stick flashers! :-)
Re: Elevator Shakun. I called him a 'pipsqueaking fabricator' @ ClimateAudit, and was zambonied as expected, but not before Richard D got a laugh over it.
====================
"hockey stick flashers" Bravo, Michael Larkin
It's like the bass case with the cash stash just burst open. Can't wait for the third reelclimate. Oh, Lady be good.
================
Kim (3:39): indeed. Same with your comment on WUWT about RP's 'bad eggs' for Easter. An embarrassment of word play even before Josh starts 'sticking' it to 'em visually.
What does it come down to: who carries the biggest stick, or who has the biggest stick? Seeing all these bold heads Freud might point in the right direction.
I fear the next drawing: scientific exhibitionists forcibly exposed.
I have posted the following on the Met Office's My Climate and Me site.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Marcott and co authors have posted as set of FAQ's on RealClimate (of all places).
They say:
"Q: What do paleotemperature reconstructions show about the temperature of the last 100 years?
A: Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th-century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used. Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions."
(my emphasis)
This means that My Climate and Me's headline "New Analysis Suggests the Earth is Warming at a Rate Unprecedented for 11,300 Years" is false - although presumably like other media, you were mislead by Marcott and Co's press releases.
Apr 1, 2013 at 11:50 AM | SJF
Very well said. Because they published the graph with the uptick then the uptick is one of their conclusions.
Martin A it will be interesting to see if the MET correct their claim over Marcott or will it try to BS its way out of it. 7Of course the press that was very keen to promote the climate doom, will do no such thing has its 'old news ' now . So in that way the authors 'objectives' have been achieved despite the science and the facts , in true 'climate science' style
Apr 1, 2013 at 11:50 AM | SJF
Yes, well said. That video interview of Shakun [Yeah, Super hockey stick. Boom. Outa the elevator] is a shocker, and a cringing contrast to Linzden. I suppose in fairness, Shakun is only a product of the last 20 years - an era which the universities and science in general will soon be looking back on with embarrassment and shame.
"I have built my organization upon fear."
Al Capone.
It can't be good for any "science' to have its main players as mere objects of ridicule. I wonder how they really feel about that?
In climate science, every day is the 1st of April
Not that he doesn't deserve some criticism, but we were all young once, and nerves can come across as cockiness. I wouldn't be surprised if there was far more senior and subtle manipulation.
Ah yes, April 1st, the day (to borrow from Mark Twain) on which we are reminded of what warmists are for the other 364 days of the year!
Wanna buy a real neat timepiece?
Try our Rolex Datejust Oyster - works the tops for us like magic.
Re Apr 1, 2013 at 11:50 AM SJF
& Apr 1, 2013 at 4:36 PM lapogus
Oh, what a tangled web he weaves...! That video interview of Shakun is grotesque--not for his somewhat sophomoric demeanor but for what issues forth from his mouth. The FAQs become surreal when viewed in the context of the video. Practically everything he utters drives home the fact that the paper is about the rebranded (albeit "non-robust") hockey stick ("BOOM") and dim little else. He blathers on about "50-year blips" within the 300 to 400 year resolution handle, when multiple "blips" exceeding the 1980 to 2000 AD warming could easily be concealed therein.
How will he appear to History? Scientist? Catspaw? Or bus chassis inspector?
"This means that My Climate and Me's headline "New Analysis Suggests the Earth is Warming at a Rate Unprecedented for 11,300 Years" is false - although presumably like other media, you were mislead by Marcott and Co's press releases."
Martin A
Marcott et al themselves regard the 20th century part of their analysis as more statistically uncetrain than the earlier data because it is based on less proxy data. They included it for completeness and mentioned the increased uncertainty.
The comparison between their Holocene data and the 20th century warming was made by comparing their pre-20th century data with the instrument record.
Nowhere in Marcott et al's pre-20th century data does the graph even approach the rate of change seen in the instrument record. My Climate and Me's headline is a valid induction from the Marcott et al data and the instrument record.
Entropic Man says:
"Nowhere in Marcott et al's pre-20th century data does the graph even approach the rate of change seen in the instrument record."
Seriously, have you been asleep for the past two weeks?
Marcott et al's pre-20th century data - post-300-year-smooth - says nothing about the rate of change seen over a 50 year period, Shakun's "50 year blip" Cannot, did not. Therefore, the fact is does not is irrelevant; it provides no illumination of the subject.
The Marcott et al paper provides no information on the relative rates of change recent versus deeper past.
Years ago I used to train instrumental chemists, and had a rather nice (if I say so myself) set of diagrams showing the effects of different resolutions on signal reconstruction. Perhaps I should offer Marcott et al a few hours tutoring, at an appropriate fee! Entropic Man could sit in too.
Entropic Man. I suggest you read Bruce's response again.
I suggested you did the same when I made exactly the same point in a previous "discussion" with you.
I'm afraid you have a very shallow learning curve:-)
Combatting the misrepresentation of science is an area where there can be real consensus across the spectrum. Lewandowsky and Cook begin "The Debunking Handbook" with
I have seen no evidence of 50 year blips in Marcott's data.
You sceptics are so keen on the null hypothesis that no change occurs. You demand that climate change be demonstrated by climatologists. By your own logic I see no need to accept the existance of 50 year blips until you have proven that they exist.
Those 'hands in the coats' are in the wrong place, should be much lower down ... like little boys holding on to it !
Given that the resolution is below that (300 years apparentl), this statement is almost tautological, i.e., it does not serve to defend any argument you may be attempting (weakly) to make.
It can't, and that's the point - the resolution is too low to make any claims regarding shorter term variation contained within the instrumental record.
Induction, e.g., extrapolation - doesn't a 300 year resolution over the past 11k years sort of rule out extrapolations regarding the much finer resolution contained within the instrument record? Methinks you need to study the concept of induction.
Mark
Mark T
Please show me the evidence for all these short term variations you claim exist below the detection threshold of Marcott et al's analysis.
Surely you do not expect me to accept them on faith when the null hypothesis requires you to assume they do not exist unless you can demonstrate their presence.
Are you daft? Can you not read? I clearly stated that Marcott's analysis can NOT resolve any short-term variations as we have seen in the instrumental record.
"doesn't a 300 year resolution over the past 11k years sort of rule out extrapolations regarding the much finer resolution contained within the instrument record?"
and
"It can't, and that's the point"
Are you really this stupid?
Since the rest of your moronic rabble depends upon your first premise, which was obviously in error, there is no sense in responding.
Mar
Here's how it works: if your resolution is 300 years, your resolution is not fine enough to make claims regarding scales any shorter than 300 years. It does not matter whether there is any variation finer, it is lost once you've filtered down to such a low frequency. Period. Whether it exists or not is thus immaterial - you simply cannot use the information to make any claims otherwise.
Sakes alive, I thought such things were self apparent. Guess not.
Mark
Entropic Man says "I have seen no evidence of 50 year blips in Marcott's data."
Hold that thought. That is progress. You haven't seen any such things. If there were such things, you would not see them because the methodology ensures anything shorter than 300 years is smoothed out.
Shakun talks about the possibility of such things. All speculation. They may be there, they may not.
So we don't know. I would like to know, but Marcott et al don't tell me.
As a consequence, Marcott et al provide no information as to whether the present pattern of change is normal or not, common or not. They tell us nothing new about our current situation, contribute nothing to our basis for making decisions today. Sure, we have lots of information on which to make decisions; that paper adds nothing.
Bruce Friesen
Mark T
I dont insist you use Marcott et al. If you seek to falsify my point there are lots of other proxies out there . All you need do is use them to provide examples of high temperature transients in the Holocene. I look forward to your evidence.
A high temperature transient in the Holocene:
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There was a very sudden climatic shift in Iceland in 1965, with temperatures falling dramatically. The following six years were known there as the “Sea ice years” and saw major economic upheaval as a result.
This event is well known in meteorological circles, for instance H H Lamb reported that sea temperatures around the Faroe Islands fell by 1.0C and were as cold as at any time in the previous 100 years. ( This series of sea temperatures is one of the longest in the world, dating back to 1867).
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/icelands-sea-ice-years-disappear-in-ghcn-adjustments/
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