Bishop Hill Spiking the Marcott hockey stick
Apr 3, 2013 Climate: MWP Spiked magazine has taken a look at the Marcott hockey stick and is singularly unimpressed:
On Easter Sunday, Marcott and his colleagues published a response on the Real Climate blog. Most notable was this comment: ‘Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the twentieth 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 twentieth-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.’
Wow.
In other words, all that stuff about having the highest temperatures for millennia and about eye-popping warming over the past 100 years appears to have no basis in the paper’s actual temperature reconstruction.
I get a mention too.
Reader Comments (108)
Laurie Childs: Brilliant! But before you sell your house did you check out the rather staid advisors at McIntyre & McKittrick LLC? They seem to be more analytical and propose a very careful, planned strategy for retirement, mainly involving careful saving rather than speculative investment. They also have a clear warning that the value of your investments can go down as well as up - none of the other companies you mention seem to display this caveat, despite it being a regulatory requirement. After all the future is always uncertain isn't it?
Dear Mr ThinkingScientist,
Thank you for your concern, but I have to inform you that, no doubt unwittingly, you are peddling misinformation. Upon reading your comment, I contacted my financial advisors, Schmidt, Steig & Rahmstorf GMBH, and they informed me that the owners of the company you mention are not, in fact, financial experts at all. Apparently, they are nothing but a couple of retired sewage treatment workers employed by Big Banking to spread lies and misinformation. The idea being to prevent people from withdrawing the savings they have invested with the banks. This is because the banks want to keep the money and invest it in this new and exciting market themselves, without passing any of the huge profits on to their customers. I was also informed that one should not refer to the company you mention by name. Apparently, these people are so evil that the mere sound of their names is enough to make God so angry that he invokes 40 days and 40 nights of “sh*t-storms”. I’m not sure what a “sh*t-storm” is, but I’m guessing it has something to do with their previous employment.
As far as my house goes, you need not worry as I’ve already sold it. Mr Halpern came round last night with his colleague Eli. Apparently, Eli is the one who did the actual valuation. I didn’t get to meet him myself (I think he must have been waiting in the car), but he must be really good at his job as Mr Halpern seemed quite taken with him. During our entire meeting, Mr Halpern was full of the chap. It was all “Eli says this” and “Eli says that”. It’s reassuring to know that Lewandowsky & Cook Pty use the services of such professional and knowledgeable experts. Anyway, I signed Mr Halpern’s piece of paper and apparently the cheque’s in the post.
In closing, I’d like to say that my advice to you is that you too should seriously consider making your own investments in this scheme whilst there’s still a killing to be made. Many people will undoubtedly be jumping on this bandwagon, so you should get in early. Indeed, I was only this morning telling my next door neighbour all about it over the garden fence. He seemed quite taken with it all. He had a big grin on his face the entire time. When I told him how much I sold the house for, he dissolved into a sobbing heap on the ground and his wife had to come out and take him indoors for a cup of tea. At first, he appeared to be laughing uncontrollably, but I’ve since realised that he was, in fact, sobbing his poor heart out at missing out on such an opportunity himself. I bet he’s emailing Schmidt, Steig & Rahmstorf GMBH as we speak.
Best wishes
EM Doofus
Dunroamin
Aylesbury Road
Lower Partshitchin
Wiltshire
Entropic person,
"I'm more concerned with what will happen if I'm proved right. I keep prodding you here in hope that you'll provide persuasive evidence that I'm wrong."
Really? You keep posting here because you desperately want us to prove to you that you're wrong? Unlike the vast majority of people, you rise above ego, and want us to show you that you are wrong. What a blessed individual. And here I was thinking that you were entrenched. But no, you are yearning to see that everything is OK.
The thing is, it's not that hard is it? I mean, most of the commenters here are surely just as smart as you. And they are at least as well-informed as you. And they're not (really they're not) in the pay of the Big Oil conspiracy. And they have managed to see that we're OK. But you can't. And you want them to do it for you, apparently. You want them to overpower your fears, and show you that life is just fine really. You might have to do that for yourself.
James Evans.
People here keep telling me I'm wrong, but unfortunately there's a distinct lack of evidence showing I'm wrong.
I notice that Dr. Curry, Dr. Spencer and other scientists on your side of the fence have stopped saying that cAGW is not happening. They are now discussing whether climate sensitivity is 2.0 or 2.5, having accepted the basic cAGW meme.
If it does come out around 2.5, that's good news. It eliminates the worst scenarios and gives a little breathing space
Entropic entity,
"People here keep telling me I'm wrong, but unfortunately there's a distinct lack of evidence showing I'm wrong."
Unfortunately. Oh dear. And yet you continue to search for that evidence, with the passion of one searching for a lost paramour.
Either that or you just use impressive sounding phrases to try to make debating points.
"I notice that Dr. Curry, Dr. Spencer and other scientists on your side of the fence have stopped saying that cAGW is not happening."
You have told me something new there. Judith Curry has changed her mind? She used to disbelieve that catastrophic anthropogenic was happening, but now she does? Wowser. That's a fact that she seems to hide on her blog. Maybe she's embarrassed to admit it.
"They are now discussing whether climate sensitivity is 2.0 or 2.5, having accepted the basic cAGW meme."
Yes, everyone's discussing the downgrading of sensitivity. The Economist is at it. The Telegraph is at it. The Mail is at it.
But, you are saying that Curry and Spencer have recently agreed that we are facing catastrophe? Why wasn't this more widely reported? They suddenly now support the cAGW meme? Perhaps I have misunderstood the lower case "c" that you use in "cAGW". Maybe it stand for "chocolate". Or "casual". "Cheeky"?
"If it does come out around 2.5, that's good news. It eliminates the worst scenarios and gives a little breathing space"
Excellent. Breathing space before we enforce all the changes that some people want anyway.
Not going to happen though. Cos life is just dandy. And we're all OK. Really. Here, let me give you a hug.
The bubble of catastrophe was driven by fear and guilt, deliberately, and we see the sad victims.
=============
Andy Revkin of Dot Earth/NY Times blog is inviting questions to be submitted to the authors of Marcott et al. (2013). Since Revkin is one of the only journalists who might have a chance of getting the study authors to be responsive, this is a good opportunity.
Specifically, he's asked for someone to prepare one list of questions which are "perceived as unanswered."
Folks could start a list here at BH to post at Dot Earth, or simply post questions/points at Dot Earth until we have a good list.
submit questions on Marcott study to Dot Earth/NY Times blog
Skip,
Unfortunately, I’m not sure it will get us very far. Marcott et al are already aware of some of those questions from email correspondence with SteveMc. I can’t believe they’re also unaware of further questions that have arisen at CA and other sites. Yet they’ve continued to be unresponsive thus far. We all know what will happen. They will listen to Revkin’s questions, misinterpret them, answer different ones and then claim all questions have been answered . Standard Team behaviour I’m afraid. They could prove me wrong, but I’m very sceptical that they will.