Mann makes friends

New York Times blogger Nate Silver has a book on forecasting riding high in the Amazon US charts at the moment. The Signal and the Noise is a survey of forecasting, and looks to be thoroughly entertaining. I've asked the publisher for a review copy.

Unfortunately, Silver has stumbled into the murky world of climate prediction, and has incurred the wrath of Michael E Mann, who has printed a lengthy critique at Think Progress. It's a lot milder than your normal Mannian critique, but includes many of the normal tactics. His invoking Silver's training at the University of Chicago as a cause for concern almost defies belief:

Nate Silver was trained in the Chicago school of Economics, famously characterized by its philosophy of free market fundamentalism. In addition to courses from Milton Friedman, Nate might very well have taken a course from University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, known largely for his provocative 2005 book Freakonomics and its even more audacious 2009 sequel Super Freakonomics.

Silver sounds deeply frustrated, saying that Mann's piece is not a fair critique of what he wrote. I guess he should have read The Hockey Stick Illusion before deciding that Mann was the go-to guy.

The Signal and the Noise can be bought at Amazon US. It will be published in the UK in a couple of days, but they are letting you preorder the Kindle version.

Ranalli on scientific consensus

A new paper by Brent Ranalli looks at the concept of scientific consensus, how such consensuses are used by the public, and whether they can be trusted. In particular Ranalli is concerned with what he calls a "hard-won" consensus.

Here is the abstract.

What makes a consensus among scientists credible and convincing? This paper introduces the notion of a “hard-won” consensus and uses examples from recent debates over climate change science to show that this heuristic stan­dard for evaluating the quality of a consensus is widely shared. The extent to which a consensus is “hard won” can be understood to depend on the personal qualities of the participating experts; the article demonstrates the continuing util­ity of the norms of modern science introduced by Robert K. Merton by showing that individuals on both sides of the climate science debate rely intuitively on Mertonian ideas—interpreted in terms of character—to frame their arguments.

Click to read more ...

Climategate and the exclusionary principle

A new paper by Garud et al (Social Studies of Science, forthcoming) reviews Climategate and analyses some of the sociology involved. The authors conclude that while climatologists - or at least the Hockey Team - were seeking to protect the space in which they operated, their actions actually led to the destabilisation of that space.

In the case of climate science, as concerns multiplied, the approach taken was one of exclusion, which in hindsight appears to be puzzling given that the post-Climategate investigations failed to find evidence of ‘scientific misconduct’ or fraud. In other words, despite having nothing to hide, those involved employed numerous exclusionary tactics, which later misfired.

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Calling Dr Mann

Michael Mann's threat to sue the National Review over its quoting of a fairly rude Competitive Enterprise Institute article has elicited a fairly blunt response from the Review's lawyers.

Our review reveals that the magazine has published statements that are fully protected under the First Amendment. There is no need for National Review to remove or retract the post.

Dr. Mann complains about two statements: 1) that as "the man behind the fraudulent climate-change 'hockey-stick' graph," he is "the very ringmaster ofthe threering circus" on climate change; and 2) that he "could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet." Neither ofthese statements is actionable. Moreover, if Dr. Mann decides to pursue this matter, he and his research would be subjected to a very extensive discovery of materials that he has fought so hard to protect in other proceedings. Such materials would be required for National Review to defend itself.

Click to read more ...

International Disinformation Agency

This from ESI-Africa, a website focused on energy issues for Africa.

Ambassador Richard H. Jones, deputy director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), opened the IEA's April conference by-lined Clean Energy Progress, by saying global temperatures are "probably" going to rise by "six degrees Celsius" by about 2050.

According to the IEA website, Jones has a degree in mathematics. I guess this was a long time ago.

(The Hockey Stick Illusion gets a mention in the article too)

Update on May 16, 2012 by Bishop Hill

In the comments, Jonathan Jones notes that Bloomberg are reporting a slightly different version of events, namely that emissions by 2050 will lead to 6 degrees of warming.

Grundmann on Climategate and the scientific ethos

Another Grundmann paper looks at whether Climategate demonstrated breaches of what he calls the scientific ethos. The Hockey Stick Illusion is discussed at some length.

I was particularly interested in Grundmann's views on whether anything in the story of the Hockey Stick amounts to scientific misconduct. There was a minor blog tiff between myself and Roger Pielke Jr about this a couple of years back. Grundmann analyses Pielke Jr's position and reckons you can come to a different conclusion. It's all in the definition of what constitutes misconduct.

I must say, I struggle with a definition in which misleading people is not seen as misconduct.

Crok interviews Vahrenholt

Marcel Crok has a lengthy interview with Fritz Vahrenholt in the European Energy Review.

Did you have indications that the dangers of global warming were overblown?

For years I believed the science of the IPCC was solid. I had the famous hockey stick graph (a graph purporting to show that current global temperatures are by far the highest in the last 1000 years, editor) in all my presentations. But then I read the book The Hockey Stick Illusion by Andrew Montford, which is very critical about this graph. Slowly I started to realize we have been misguided by the IPCC about the natural fluctuations in the climate in the past thousands of years. The whole purpose of the IPCC has been to get rid of the so-called Medieval Warm Period, a warm period around the year 1000 when the Vikings settled on Greenland and were able to live there for a couple of centuries. After this warm period we have had the Little Ice Age which coincided with a very quiet sun. Many papers have been published in the last few years which show that the Little Ice Age was not a local European phenomena, as the IPCC suggests. So yes, the IPCC has underestimated the natural fluctuations of the climate and overestimated the role of CO2.

H/T Wijnand on Unthreaded

Hockey Stick Illusion denial

I came across this review of Michael Mann's book in Times Higher Education. The author, Jon Turney, is a green science writer, so you know exactly what to expect, but the thought struck me that it is completely amazing that Mike Hulme's is still the only review of Mann's book to even mention the Hockey Stick Illusion.

Are they all in denial or something?

Scruton on HSI

Roger Scruton's new book, How to Think Seriously About the Planet cites The Hockey Stick Illusion.

...the notorious `hockey stick' graph of global temperature change has been subjected to devastating criticism in Andrew Montford, The Hockey Stick Illusion...

Update on Apr 14, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Bob Ward tweets to journalist Ed West:

Your colleagues should read this article about climate change by conservative philosopher Roger Scruton: http://bit.ly/wt8GxZ

Does this mean Bob is now endorsing The Hockey Stick Illusion? :-)

Singer on Mann

Fred Singer has an article up at the American Thinker discussing the attempts to get hold of Mann's emails and Mann's libel case against Tim Ball. A book called The Hockey Stick Illusion is mentioned in passing.

Thought for the day

As we know, Mann doesn't mention The Hockey Stick Illusion in his new book. Is it a surprise that none of the reviews of his book have mentioned it either?

HSI in Counterpunch

Another Hockey Stick Illusion sighting, this time in political newsletter, Counterpunch.

Anyone who believes groupthink is not a problem in the insular self-righteous climate science community, should read the Hockey Stick Illusion or wade through just a few of the infamous emails hacked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.)

Traces of Hockey Stick Illusion

Jim Sillars is an influential Scottish political commentator and a former UK MP. His latest article in the Scotsman shows signs of having read the Hockey Stick Illusion:

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) launched its infamous 2001 report, its chairman did so in front of a huge blown-up poster of the hockey stick. It got six mentions in the text. It was hailed as proof of the link between CO2 emissions and higher temperatures.

The “stick” was garbage. The long handle supposedly showing no significant temperature movement over 1000 years, missed out the Medieval warming period, and the little ice age. Those who proved it garbage were subjected to vicious attacks.

He also uses the Atte Korhola quote that appears as the epigraph to Chapter 17.

Influential in Germany

According to Pierre Gosselin, the Hockey Stick Illusion is influential in Germany, playing a part in the writing of a new book on global warming that is creating quite a stir over there.

Vahrenholt decided to do some digging. His colleague Dr. Lüning also gave him a copy of Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. He was horrified by the sloppiness and deception he found. Well-connected to Hoffmann & Campe, he and Lüning decided to write the book. Die kalte Sonne cites 800 sources and has over 80 charts and figures. It examines and summarizes the latest science.

Mann of Independent means

Steve Connor, the science editor of the Independent has written something of a hagiography of the Hockeystickmeister today.

You would have thought a serious journalist would want to delve into the aspects of Mann's character that were revealed by the emails. As it is, the article reads more like a press release than a serious attempt to analyse its subject.

There's no mention of the Hockey Stick Illusion (surprise, surprise!). I wonder how many of the reviews of Mann's new book will not mention it?