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Ian1
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Ian1 to Wolfie00

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Re: [Weather] Arctic sea ice melts to record low

said by Wolfie00:

I take it from your comment that the publications of the National Academy of Sciences, just like those of the IPCC which are drawn from a wide range of peer-reviewed literature, must be dismissed if you personally don't like them.

Did I dismiss or say I didn't like them? No. My criticism was based on the work in question being remarkably generic in tone, often stating the obvious.
said by Wolfie00:

Actionable at this time? No, but dismissing it as irrelevant seems less than rational or wise.

Also not dismissed. In fact I said "got it". The earth's climate may change abruptly at any time. Yep. Good to know. Still not much I can do about it beyond worrying, which isn't particularly helpful. Although some seem to think enough worry and hand-wringing are worth brownie-points of some kind or or what-not. Enough and some cereal box tops and you get a junior eco-warrior decoder ring or something.
booj
join:2011-02-07
Richmond, ON

booj

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said by Ian1:

said by Wolfie00:

I take it from your comment that the publications of the National Academy of Sciences, just like those of the IPCC which are drawn from a wide range of peer-reviewed literature, must be dismissed if you personally don't like them.

Did I dismiss or say I didn't like them? No. My criticism was based on the work in question being remarkably generic in tone, often stating the obvious.

You vapidly dismissed the entire sum of their research findings because some of their statements are obvious. Wolfie's right to call you out on it. I know you don't lose much sleep when you are dead wrong on an issue, but it deserves to be pointed out.
vue666 (banned)
Let's make Canchat better!!!
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vue666 (banned)

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Why is it right?

They have differing opinions on this topic...however if we go by your logic then anyone who disagrees with you should be allowed to call you out on it... and you them...

AND then this thread will simply spin out of control and perhaps result in name calling, insults and intimidation/embarrassment posts...

Would it not be better to simply acknowledge and respect the fact people have differing opinions on this topic? And would it not be better to debate these differences?

Ian1
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Ian1 to booj

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said by booj:

You vapidly dismissed the entire sum of their research findings ..

Nope. Not here, or ever. Do I misremember you saying that you worked in some kind of technical field?

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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join:2005-03-12

Wolfie00

Premium Member

said by Ian1:

said by booj:

You vapidly dismissed the entire sum of their research findings ..

Nope. Not here, or ever.

I could have sworn I saw nothing but a litany of dismissals in your reply. Maybe I misinterpreted it -- tell me, what exactly does "I hope the taxpayers who paid for this load of bullshit don't get wind of it" mean?
Wolfie00

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to Ian1
To relate this to the other discussion in the Epic Thread on this subject, one of the very few things that we can agree on, at least in principle, is that we should be reducing GHG emissions and mitigating climate change, and your complaint there is, why aren't we doing anything? Hence the relevance of this:
said by Ian1:

Although some seem to think enough worry and hand-wringing are worth brownie-points of some kind or or what-not.

It's not the "worry and hang-wringing" that is the objective of those who translate the science into terms that can inform the public. The objective is to get our politicians on side with it, by helping to educate the public. And the constant agenda-driven undermining of the science is directly and intentionally obstructive to that goal. And, sad to say, you participate in that far too often. For instance, right in that same post:
said by Ian1:

Given that the statistical approaches within the climate science community have been ham-handed at best...

What is the point of that incorrect and grossly misleading generalization? I mean really, think about it -- as extensively discussed in that thread in almost painful detail, it is (a) completely untrue, and (b) wouldn't make the slightest damn bit of difference even if it WAS true, because the end results of the particular methodologies in question remain the same and are now universally accepted. So what the hell is the point of bringing it up, except to try to undermine the science in the public perception?

You claim that you believe that continuing the present rate of emissions is a "bad idea", yet you constantly try to undermine all the evidentiary basis for it. In an area that the public incorrectly perceives as "controversial", that is a public disservice.

Ian1
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said by Wolfie00:

said by Ian1:

said by booj:

You vapidly dismissed the entire sum of their research findings ..

Nope. Not here, or ever.

I could have sworn I saw nothing but a litany of dismissals in your reply. Maybe I misinterpreted it -- tell me, what exactly does "I hope the taxpayers who paid for this load of bullshit don't get wind of it" mean?

In proximity to a quoted sentence of taxpayer funded bullshit? I give you three guesses. That's not the same of dismissing the "entire sum" of a group of scientists' research efforts, and you know that. Or I would hope so.....

I looked, but couldn't actually tell who wrote the report. It's attributed to various committees. That would be a logical place to start in reviewing the "entire sum" if I were interested in doing so. I'm not.
Ian1

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said by Wolfie00:

It's not the "worry and hang-wringing" that is the objective of those who translate the science into terms that can inform the public. The objective is to get our politicians on side with it, by helping to educate the public. And the constant agenda-driven undermining of the science is directly and intentionally obstructive to that goal.

Does the fossil fuel industry have an interest in protecting their business, and would they engage in manipulation and such to do so? Sure. Never denied that. I'm not surprised when businesses do so, by whatever means. Doesn't make it right. It's just the way things are. Similarly, there is exaggeration, and misinformation coming from sectors in the global warming lobby. The reasons range from the purely financial (i.e. alternative energy schemes and 3rd world nations) to the political, but only the truly naive think that there is no undue influence from that quarter as well.

So, the task is to separate the wheat from the chaff, to indeed influence people and policy. I'm fine with that, depending on what those policies are, and the costs, etc.
said by Wolfie00:

You claim that you believe that continuing the present rate of emissions is a "bad idea", yet you constantly try to undermine all the evidentiary basis for it. In an area that the public incorrectly perceives as "controversial", that is a public disservice.

No. I don't. That's you mis characterizing my position, and quite often, indeed my words. I'm selective in what I criticise and what I believe. I don't believe "any damned thing the IPCC trots out" sure. But I also don't disbelieve everything either.

Take for example, Climategate and the Michael Mann shenanigans. To you, this was me "attacking scientists". To me, the opposite. I believe such things did far more harm to the legitimate cause of actual CO2 reduction or mitigation efforts as Exxon Mobil has ever done, or will ever do. Why? Because it's like politics. It's not the people at the extremes of the distribution that are important, it's the ones somewhere in the middle. And it's a lot in the middle that were soured on the CRU, IPCC, and other institutions. So that when they DO publish some sound work (and they do), the initial skepticism will be at a (rightfully) elevated level.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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Wolfie00

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said by Ian1:

Take for example, Climategate and the Michael Mann shenanigans. To you, this was me "attacking scientists".

What shenanigans?

This is an excellent example of just what I meant. We're not going to repeat here the very extensive discussion from the Epic Thread, but let me quickly summarize. It's obvious now that Mann's main offense was to be the first to publish evidence of the reality and the extent of anthropogenic global warming that was of such stunning clarity even to the average non-technical reader that the denialists had no option but to attack him. Since the underlying science was necessarily complex, there was no lack of opportunity to trump up all kinds of reasons why his results were allegedly wrong.

Unfortunately for denialists, it's now clear that his results were not wrong. As usual, it's the denialists who were wrong. It's now more than a decade later and his results have been replicated by many others and remain among the most important and widely cited temperature reconstructions, while Mann himself has risen to the stature of one of the preeminent scientists in his field. And his chief critic, Steve McIntyre, a rank amateur who by his own admission was just a hobbyist dabbling in climate science because he was opposed to Canada participating in Kyoto, and who tried to make a career out of attacking Mann, is now pretty much in disrepute. I can tell you first-hand that no serious climate scientist pays any attention to him any more -- he mainly runs his disreputable website, continues to make fatuous claims, and has a hard time getting published in anything outside vanity journals.

So while it's wonderful to be appropriately selective in what one reads and accepts, that fact is that "attacking scientists" is precisely what you were doing, with essentially zero justification, and the problem with "being selective" is that you're selective with an extreme bias that seems unable to distinguish good science from bad. Which is why, when the rubber hit the road and we've delved into the facts, you've never been able to substantiate your attacks against Mann. I refer you once again to my current sig.

Ian1
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Ian1

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said by Wolfie00:

said by Ian1:

Take for example, Climategate and the Michael Mann shenanigans. To you, this was me "attacking scientists".

What shenanigans?

This is an excellent example of just what I meant. We're not going to repeat here the very extensive discussion from the Epic Thread, but let me quickly summarize. It's obvious now that Mann's main offense was to be the first to publish evidence of the reality and the extent of anthropogenic global warming that was of such stunning clarity even to the average non-technical reader that the denialists had no option but to attack him. Since the underlying science was necessarily complex, there was no lack of opportunity to trump up all kinds of reasons why his results were allegedly wrong.

Unfortunately for denialists, it's now clear that his results were not wrong. As usual, it's the denialists who were wrong. It's now more than a decade later and his results have been replicated by many others and remain among the most important and widely cited temperature reconstructions, while Mann himself has risen to the stature of one of the preeminent scientists in his field. And his chief critic, Steve McIntyre, a rank amateur who by his own admission was just a hobbyist dabbling in climate science because he was opposed to Canada participating in Kyoto, and who tried to make a career out of attacking Mann, is now pretty much in disrepute. I can tell you first-hand that no serious climate scientist pays any attention to him any more -- he mainly runs his disreputable website, continues to make fatuous claims, and has a hard time getting published in anything outside vanity journals.

So while it's wonderful to be appropriately selective in what one reads and accepts, that fact is that "attacking scientists" is precisely what you were doing, with essentially zero justification, and the problem with "being selective" is that you're selective with an extreme bias that seems unable to distinguish good science from bad. Which is why, when the rubber hit the road and we've delved into the facts, you've never been able to substantiate your attacks against Mann. I refer you once again to my current sig.

I was mainly referring to his complicity in e-mail destruction and "hide the decline" in omitting inconvenient tree-ring data. And I know you disagree. Apparently you're entitled to your own set of facts...

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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Wolfie00

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said by Ian1:

I was mainly referring to his complicity in e-mail destruction and "hide the decline" in omitting inconvenient tree-ring data. And I know you disagree. Apparently you're entitled to your own set of facts...

More excuses and falsehoods. That certainly wasn't the main thrust of your very long -- and ultimately futile -- arguments about Mann in the other thread, which tried to allege that his conclusions were basically questionable. Good to see that you've given up trying to peddle that nonsense.

Next, the tree-ring data. Also discussed at length before, also shown to be routine science, and despite your claims that the IPCC dropped the late-20th-century tree-ring proxies "without explanation", I in fact showed you where they devoted several detailed paragraphs -- in both the 2001 TAR and the 2007 AR4 -- explaining how and why the different proxies were used. This is routine science in merging temperature records from different sources and ONLY became an issue when scientific illiterates started going through the stolen emails and thought they had "found something" just because they didn't understand it. I explained this at length until you gave up and decided you didn't want to talk about it. Let's keep it that way, OK?

Finally, the alleged "email destruction." The kind of nonsense that I don't pay a lot of attention to, but this was one of the allegations that the Penn State inquiry looked into so I can just quote from the final report. Specifically, the Final investigation report of the Penn State Investigatory Committee, composed of a number of distinguished outside members as well as Penn State academics and officers, issued June 4, 2010:
quote:
On January 15, 2010, Dr. Foley conveyed via email on behalf of the Inquiry Committee an additional request to Dr. Mann. Dr. Mann was asked to produce all emails related to the fourth IPCC report ("AR4"), the same emails that Dr. Phil Jones had suggested that he delete. On January 18, 2010, Dr. Mann provided a zip-archive of these emails and an explanation of their content. In addition, Dr. Mann provided a ten page supplemental written response to the matters discussed during his interview.

On January 26, 2010 ... the Inquiry Committee found as follows ...

"Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal, or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?"

Decision: The Inquiry Committee determined there was no substance to this allegation and further investigation of this allegation was not warranted.

Amazing, eh? He's accused of nefariously deleting secret incriminating emails, and there they are in a goddam ZIP file, provided to the committee complete with a handy guide explaining what they're about -- why, it's almost as if Michael Mann had been an ordinary scientist of the non-evil kind with no monsters in his basement and the whole allegation had been a smear tactic by an assortment of denialist lunatics!

BTW, the Committee of Inquiry, and the secondary Investigative Committee on scientific practices, cleared Mann of all other allegations, without exception, as did the two other committees that were convened overseas to look at the similarly bogus allegations against the UEA Climate Research Unit.

I hope we're done with this crap once and for all.
vue666 (banned)
Let's make Canchat better!!!
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vue666 (banned)

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Wow I can see this thread is going in the same direction of a similar one in Canpol...

Wolfie, not everyone in the world is going to agree with your point of view. Get over it, move on...

Robert4
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Robert4

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said by vue666:

Wow I can see this thread is going in the same direction of a similar one in Canpol...

Wolfie, not everyone in the world is going to agree with your point of view. Get over it, move on...

pot, meet kettle

Ian1
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said by Wolfie00:

This is routine science in merging temperature records from different sources and ONLY became an issue when scientific illiterates started going through the stolen emails and thought they had "found something" just because they didn't understand it.

Nope. The so-called illiterates made it an issue because they did understand what was going on. And if they didn't understand it, e-mails circulating in the CRU release helped to explain it. Specific to one of the Spaghetti graphs was the deletion of proxy data post 1960 that went in the "wrong" direction. It wasn't that the tree-ring data was collected wrongly, it was just that they didn't like it. In fact, in the e-mails it was clear why they wanted it gone. Whatever pseudo-scientific reasons were stated as cover (and dubious in their own right) for deleting the data, the "why" was actually quite clear. Mann supported removing it because to not do so would give "fodder to the skeptics" (his exact scientific words) and would cast doubt on the reliability of the science of Paleoclimatology and tree-ring reconstructions in general. Yeah. Whups. Can't have that.

The way the data was handled, any science under-grad would know was wrong. Period. The end. Rationalizations are just that.
said by Wolfie00:

I explained this at length until you gave up and decided you didn't want to talk about it.

Uh huh. Or stopped trying. If I rate the probability of changing your own, well-made-up mind at zero, there's a limit (my boredom) to how much time I want to spend trying.

Parroting Michael Mann's climate blog is hardly "explaining something". You were convinced (apparently) of certain things, I was not. In other words, you were working with your "set of facts", I with mine.
said by Wolfie00:

Finally, the alleged "email destruction." The kind of nonsense that I don't pay a lot of attention to, but this was one of the allegations that the Penn State inquiry looked into so I can just quote from the final report. Specifically, the Final investigation report of the Penn State Investigatory Committee, composed of a number of distinguished outside members as well as Penn State academics and officers....

We know Mann did nothing wrong, because we asked him, and he said he didn't. Yes, the silly Penn State "Inquiry" has been discussed to death. Nothing to see here, please ignore the actual e-mail evidence to the contrary..... Penn State had no desire to find anything wrong, and therefore did not. Does it sound like "standard investigative practice" to you, to ask the accused to provide the zip file with all the "evidence"?

Perhaps I am indeed more scientifically literate than most, but I don't need Penn State, Michale Mann or Lord Oxburgh to sort through some e-mails and tell me what I ought to think about them. And by the way, criminal charges would have been filed in the UK had the statute of limitations not expired by the time of the email release.
said by Wolfie00:

I hope we're done with this crap once and for all.

We're probably not at all done with it, which was my point. Because collectively the climate science community elected to white-wash and ignore misdeeds within their community. We'll be seeing this sort of thing again....and again. And it will serve to continue to lower trust, and to damage proper policy objectives. If you're ok with that I'm beginning to wonder how firm your belief is that we actually ought to be doing something about it. Since protecting and rehabilitating personal scientific reputations seems to trump that.
booj
join:2011-02-07
Richmond, ON

booj

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said by Ian1:

Yeah. Whups. Can't have that.

The way the data was handled, any science under-grad would know was wrong. Period. The end. Rationalizations are just
that.

Whooptie fucking shit Ian. Splitting hairs over the what Mann's decision to include one subset of data amongst a sea of observations doesn't change Mann's results. Even this reconstruction you are fuming about holds up whether the data is included or not. You use this one blip in reasoning on Mann's part to discount ALL his work, and anyone who's ever cited him. You don't have the mathematical justification to do so, just your hurt feelings.

Mann made a mistake, his career's work is still valid even after his hacked emails were poured over by the finest of combs. Apparantly your feelings have been hurt and you can never trust Mann again, but the scientific community still trusts him, and for good reason. His math is sound.

Ian1
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Ian1

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said by booj:

said by Ian1:

Yeah. Whups. Can't have that.

The way the data was handled, any science under-grad would know was wrong. Period. The end. Rationalizations are just
that.

Whooptie fucking shit Ian. Splitting hairs over the what Mann's decision to include one subset of data amongst a sea of observations doesn't change Mann's results. Even this reconstruction you are fuming about holds up whether the data is included or not. You use this one blip in reasoning on Mann's part to discount ALL his work, and anyone who's ever cited him. You don't have the mathematical justification to do so, just your hurt feelings.

Ummmm what? Thanks for adding that. Clears a lot up.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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Wolfie00 to Ian1

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I'm afraid that you've descended now to a level of polemic that's become completely devoid of facts, so I see this kind of winding down. For the record, the most fundamental issues here are not even particularly complex in principle.

News flash -- the divergence of some high-latitude tree-ring proxies from the instrumental temperature record has been known for more than 20 years, and typically called the "divergence" or the "decline" problem. It's equally well known from corroborating proxies that they're accurate throughout other periods, and they are valuable because of their detailed temporal resolution. So they're used, but we have to cut off certain high-latitude datasets after about the 1960's because it's bad data, period. The statistical methodologies are a bit more complex but that's essentially it. Science -- that is, the real world -- is full of anomalies and imperfections, and we deal with it through the appropriate transparent and peer-reviewed methodologies to make the best use of the information we have. The conspiratorial interpretation is sheer fabricated nonsense with no basis in fact. It's noise in the blogosphere, not science.

Of course to denialists, any anomaly of any kind represents a smoking-gun indictment of their delusions. Recall the example of Max Planck that I gave in the other thread -- that would be the one that you never responded to. If there had been denialists around questioning his methods, they could have had a field day. Science is often creative, but most of these "controversial" metholologies, like Mann's principal component analysis, are tame and boring in comparison.

As for Mann, I find it curious that the emails he was supposed to have "deleted" were there for all to see and examine. I guess you don't. The concept of "deleted" is not hard to understand. It means "no longer there". Mann's stature in the scientific community and the fact that his results are widely used and cited is explained, according to you, by some kind of ongoing crooked conspiracy in the entire scientific community. His vindication by a total now of half a dozen different committees is explained as a "whitewash" by the same conspirators. What a strange world you inhabit -- one where a lone blogger or two alone carries the burden of scientific truth!
said by Ian1:

Perhaps I am indeed more scientifically literate than most

You are, but that seems to be unfortunately offset by an extraordinary gullibility with respect to certain Internet bloggers, perhaps exacerbated by the same lack of familiarity with the subject matter as the bloggers themselves. Some of us approach this with a better grounded sense of reality and a closer familiarity with the subject which, incidentally, we don't get from blogs. Curiously, every single argument you make can be found (usually verbatim) in the blog of Steve McIntyre, a quack who's become almost comically irrelevant. When it comes to evaluating the relative credibility of a few lone quacks versus the corroborated findings of the global scientific community, I'm afraid you're not on the winning side of the argument. I have two words for you: Occam's Razor.

Ian1
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Ian1

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said by Wolfie00:

As for Mann, I find it curious that the emails he was supposed to have "deleted" were there for all to see and examine. I guess you don't. The concept of "deleted" is not hard to understand. It means "no longer there".

So...your logic is, because we found "some" e-mails. Some indeed incriminating, we can infer that Mann, Jones, and others didn't delete others? You don't know much about e-mails and e-mail storage. I have some e-mails in my inbox too. There are also some that aren't....because I deleted them (although not as a means of avoiding a FOIA request). Without talking to the relevant IT personnel at the institutions in question, I don't think any of us can say for sure that the emails leaked, or the ones provided my Mann represented an accurate and complete record.

One of the email chains in question was...

Jones to Mann.

"Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise… Can you also email Gene [Wahl] and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise.
Cheers, Phil"

Did Mann indignantly reply and refuse to comply with this illegal request? Nope. He happily forwarded the request.

"Hi Phil,
… I’ll contact Gene [Wahl] about this ASAP. His new email is: generwahl@xxx
talk to you later,
mike "

So are you absolutely certain that these (obviously incriminating) e-mails regarding AR4 weren't deleted? If so, please share your evidence and reasoning for the rather bizarre belief!

In fact, Wahl later told an Inspector General that he complied with Michael Mann's request to delete e-mails, and did, in fact do do. Oops. There are those pesky "facts" again!
Ian1

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said by Wolfie00:

News flash -- the divergence of some high-latitude tree-ring proxies from the instrumental temperature record has been known for more than 20 years, and typically called the "divergence" or the "decline" problem.

Yes it's a problem. And when and where the rings are accurate temperature barometers is not really known. So simply keeping a part you like, and getting rid of one that you don't because...and I quote "It would give fodder to the skeptics" isn't science, it's public relations. There IS a difference.
said by Wolfie00:

When it comes to evaluating the relative credibility of a few lone quacks versus the corroborated findings of the global scientific community, I'm afraid you're not on the winning side of the argument. I have two words for you: Occam's Razor.

Uh huh. You're speaking in very general terms again. It's your usual fall-back. What point has the "global scientific community" (Since when was there such a thing? How often do they meet and give pronouncements? Hmmm) corroborated that I apparently disagree with?

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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Wolfie00

Premium Member

said by Ian1:

said by Wolfie00:

News flash -- the divergence of some high-latitude tree-ring proxies from the instrumental temperature record has been known for more than 20 years, and typically called the "divergence" or the "decline" problem.

Yes it's a problem. And when and where the rings are accurate temperature barometers is not really known.

You misunderstand the use of the word "problem." It's a problem as in, "an interesting puzzle", nothing more, and there are a number of good hypotheses for it including the effects of climate change itself, like drought stress and atmospheric changes.

The second sentence you made up is total unmitigated BS. It only affects a small subset of high-latitude trees. The consistency of the vast majority of tree-ring proxies with the instrumental record and their corroboration by other proxies leaves no doubt as to their accuracy going back as far as the MWP a thousand years ago.
said by Ian1:

One of the email chains in question was...

Which proves what, exactly? If I was being intellectually assaulted practically every day by the likes of McIntyre and friends I'd probably be saying things about them that you'd need a bulldozer to clean up. I love how these meaningless innuendos are thrown around in a desperate effort to try to discredit the science, basically in the time-honoured tradition of throwing mud all over and seeing what sticks, because in the minds of the uninformed, certainly some of it will be remembered.

It comes down to the inescapable fact that, try as you and the other denialists might, certain basic facts are incontrovertible. To wit:

If there were secret nefarious emails impugning the IPCC AR4, why have the conclusions -- which span thousands of pages in three basic reports and several more supplements -- never been invalidated or even credibly challenged?

And it seems strange that Michael Mann is accused of such shoddy and "manipulated" science since he runs one of the most prestigious paleoclimatology centres in the world and his climate reconstructions (and methods) have been widely replicated and used to support major new research.

Part of the reason for Mann's stellar reputation, incidentally, as anyone actually familiar with his work and not merely reading McIntyre's fatuous blog would know, is that few have approached reconstructions with as much fastidious attention to the quality of the proxies as Mann did. That McIntyre claims the opposite just shows how clueless he is. Unlike others, Mann rejects proxies that don't meet minimum replication requirements, and proxies are tested for fidelity and consistency. The bristlecone pine proxies were unusual because of the short-term variance, so (a) their influence was tested by running reconstructions without them (as previously discussed, and as confirmed by Amman et al.), but they were included in the final run because (b) they contain a strong long-term temperature signal and so add very important information to the record (see, for instance, Salzer et. al, 2009), especially when using Climate Field Reconstruction (CFR) methods.

And finally, Mann was one of the few to validate his principal component methodologies by running them against so-called "pseudo-proxies" derived from climate models where the temperature record is precisely known, essentially working backwards to show that the methodology recreates the reference record.

You may feel free to continue to get your [mis]information from Mcintyre's denialist blog, but here is where I'm going with this, in an effort to wrap up what has become a fact-free harangue on your part...
said by Ian1:

You're speaking in very general terms again. It's your usual fall-back. What point has the "global scientific community" (Since when was there such a thing? How often do they meet and give pronouncements?

Well, one example would be a very important group that meets and issues a comprehensive assessment of the science every 5 to 7 years, and that would be the IPCC. Ah, but despite the involvement of some 2500 of the most distinguished independent climate scientists around the world for each assessment cycle, they are merely the tool of third-world tin-pot dictators. Ok, fine.

The national academies of all advanced countries in the world, who have issued several different joint statements on the unequivocal reality of anthropogenic climate change and the urgent need for action on GHG mitigation? Discussed before, so I already know that that's no good, because it's just "glib" statements with no actual meaning!

No, Ian, the "glib" statements are from those whose objective seems to be to win Internet debates rather than deal with actual facts. I probably wouldn't care so much if it wasn't so ruthlessly smearing actual scientists trying to advance our state of knowledge, who deserve our respect and not the contempt being heaped on them by self-serving denialist loons like McIntyre and Watts, and if the issue itself wasn't so crucial to our well-being on this planet.

Ian1
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Ian1

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said by Wolfie00:

Well, one example would be a very important group that meets and issues a comprehensive assessment of the science every 5 to 7 years, and that would be the IPCC. Ah, but despite the involvement of some 2500 of the most distinguished independent climate scientists around the world for each assessment cycle, they are merely the tool of third-world tin-pot dictators. Ok, fine.

Uh huh. The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change is not the "global scientific community". And there's much they produce I don't disagree with. But they're a self-selecting body, indeed influenced politically, so there's that too. Sorry, no dice there.
said by Wolfie00:

The national academies of all advanced countries in the world, who have issued several different joint statements on the unequivocal reality of anthropogenic climate change and the urgent need for action on GHG mitigation? Discussed before, so I already know that that's no good, because it's just "glib" statements with no actual meaning!

OK, and I disagree that the climate is changing, and we ought to be doing something about it? No again. Nice try as well.
said by Wolfie00:

No, Ian, the "glib" statements are from those whose objective seems to be to win Internet debates rather than deal with actual facts.

Agreed. I suggest that you stop that behaviour?
Ian1

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said by Wolfie00:

The second sentence you made up is total unmitigated BS. It only affects a small subset of high-latitude trees. The consistency of the vast majority of tree-ring proxies with the instrumental record and their corroboration by other proxies leaves no doubt as to their accuracy going back as far as the MWP a thousand years ago.

So.... your contention, is tree rings are hyper-accurate temperature proxies, despite the fact that tree ring is influenced by numerous conditions other than temperature. And that this is proved because certain tree ring proxies (but not all) correlate reasonably well with "A" span of a very short time period (the instrumental record). Therefore, we can confidently decide they're good back 1000 years?

Interesting.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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join:2005-03-12

Wolfie00

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said by Ian1:

said by Wolfie00:

No, Ian, the "glib" statements are from those whose objective seems to be to win Internet debates rather than deal with actual facts.

Agreed. I suggest that you stop that behaviour?

Hey, I'm not the one who confuses self-serving Internet blogs run by armchair amateur denialists and assorted lunatics with actual science. I've tried to point out to you -- in vain -- that the vast body of peer-reviewed scientific literature that reports on actual research findings is what constitutes science. And when you glibly argue that there isn't any kind of general agreement there on things like the extent of anthropogenic influence, perhaps because you don't read much (or any) of said literature on the subject of climate science, I point you to the IPCC and the world's leading national academies which summarize those findings. Which you also find reasons to dismiss. Apparently no one can be trusted except Internet bloggers. As we all know, if you read it on the Interwebs, it must be true. Carry on.
said by Ian1:

said by Wolfie00:

The second sentence you made up is total unmitigated BS. It only affects a small subset of high-latitude trees. The consistency of the vast majority of tree-ring proxies with the instrumental record and their corroboration by other proxies leaves no doubt as to their accuracy going back as far as the MWP a thousand years ago.

So.... your contention, is tree rings are hyper-accurate temperature proxies, despite the fact that tree ring is influenced by numerous conditions other than temperature. And that this is proved because certain tree ring proxies (but not all) correlate reasonably well with "A" span of a very short time period (the instrumental record). Therefore, we can confidently decide they're good back 1000 years?

Interesting.

Would be "interesting" if that had been what I actually said. What I said was that the small number of high-latitude tree-ring proxies that diverge are in general agreement with all the others for all other periods going back 1000 years, so we know that the late-20th-century limited high-latitude divergence is a unique event unprecedented in that period.

Ian1
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Ian1

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said by Wolfie00:

And when you glibly argue that there isn't any kind of general agreement there on things like the extent of anthropogenic influence, perhaps because you don't read much (or any) of said literature on the subject of climate science, I point you to the IPCC and the world's leading national academies which summarize those findings.

Which you also find reasons to dismiss. Apparently no one can be trusted except Internet bloggers. As we all know, if you read it on the Interwebs, it must be true. Carry on.

Wolfie00 See Profile I'm tired of you exaggerating my stance on this. It's tiresome, silly, and frankly, quite immature. Not everyone in this thread is familiar with your long antics in another thread on this in another section. But suffice it to say, for those interested, Wolfie00 See Profile's assertion here is flat-out exaggerated. And he knows it. And I think I actually read more actual scientific papers on this topic than wolfie does. Wolfie, you, not I are the one routinely quoting blogs as a source.
booj
join:2011-02-07
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booj

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said by Ian1:

I'm tired of you exaggerating my stance on this. It's tiresome, silly, and frankly, quite immature. Not everyone in this thread is familiar with your long antics in another thread on this in another section. But suffice it to say, for those interested, Wolfie00 See Profile's assertion here is flat-out exaggerated. And he knows it. And I think I actually read more actual scientific papers on this topic than wolfie does. Wolfie, you, not I are the one routinely quoting blogs as a source.

Wolfie's not 'up to antics', he's defending textbook level science. You are the one claiming that it's there's been scientific misconduct, but dismiss all evidence to the contrary.

I'm glad that you read a lot of papers on this subject, why not post a few links in the other GW thread of ones you think are interesting?

Ian1
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join:2002-06-18
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Ian1

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said by booj:

I'm glad that you read a lot of papers on this subject, why not post a few links in the other GW thread of ones you think are interesting?

I'll continue to do so. I won't be replying to the antics any more though. Feel free to start contributing as well.
vue666 (banned)
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vue666 (banned) to booj

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to booj
said by booj:

said by Ian1:

I'm tired of you exaggerating my stance on this. It's tiresome, silly, and frankly, quite immature. Not everyone in this thread is familiar with your long antics in another thread on this in another section. But suffice it to say, for those interested, Wolfie00 See Profile's assertion here is flat-out exaggerated. And he knows it. And I think I actually read more actual scientific papers on this topic than wolfie does. Wolfie, you, not I are the one routinely quoting blogs as a source.

Wolfie's not 'up to antics', he's defending textbook level science. You are the one claiming that it's there's been scientific misconduct, but dismiss all evidence to the contrary.

I'm glad that you read a lot of papers on this subject, why not post a few links in the other GW thread of ones you think are interesting?

Why post links that are often dismissed by Wolfie citing the author is a lackey of big oil or believes the earth is flat.... People who do so (dismiss others opinion) are not really interested in the truth but merely data that supports their own beliefs...
booj
join:2011-02-07
Richmond, ON

booj

Member

said by vue666:

Why post links that are often dismissed by Wolfie citing the author is a lackey of big oil or believes the earth is flat.... People who do so (dismiss others opinion) are not really interested in the truth but merely data that supports their own beliefs...

Papers are rarely dismissed out of hand, personally I think Wolfie does a good job of digging into the data and conclusions of scientists when discussing a paper. The type of criticism you allude to above is more for links that aren't really that scientific.

I admit it's part of the circular argument that happens on this site, no one trusts each others links. But all things being equal I think a group of scientists which different opinions on an issue can still discuss a scientific paper objectively. The reason it rarely happens is because the links most often discussed come from news publications or blogs, not the scientists themselves.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
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join:2005-03-12

Wolfie00

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It isn't the link that's important, it's the quality of its content, as reflected in citations to actual research, generally in the form of peer-reviewed publications. Denialist blogs like those of McIntyre or Watts tend to proffer a sort of incestuous closed loop of their own ruminations and references to other blogs, posts, comments, emails, etc. -- just about anything qualifies if it suits their agenda. References to actual scientific papers, when they occur, tend to be much like those we've seen in the other thread or published in right-wing popular media, where the meaning or conclusion of the paper has been grossly distorted or misunderstood. That's the difference between science and propaganda.
Wolfie00

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There is no exaggeration on my part of your stance on this. The fact that you acknowledge that we should be reducing our GHG emissions is not an exoneration when you continue to attack the underlying science and the scientists without basis, and merely state that it seems "intuitively a bad idea" (your words) to dump all that CO2 into the air. What is truly tiresome and silly is the relentless attacks on sound science, using minor controversies exaggerated out of all reason or entirely falsified to try to cast doubt on well established conclusions.

You may be sincere in believing the accusations you make, but it doesn't change the facts or make them any more valid. I really don't care where you get the information for the claims you make -- the point is that the only backing for them is from disreputable blogs like that of Steve McIntyre, and the claims are either extremely misleading or, in most cases, entirely wrong.

Just some of the examples mentioned recently, which I provide for the edification of anyone interested.

---------------------------
- the claim that Mann inappropriately used decentred PCA which created an artificial "hockey stick" pattern, and the claim that "the statistical approaches within the climate science community have been ham-handed at best..."

The decentred PCA technique in this context is arguably controversial, but absolutely does not lead to any of the erroneous results claimed. This was established by multiple sources including the National Academy of Sciences 2006 review, the Wahl and Amman 2007 paper, and others. It was far less controversial than many other methodologies that have been applied in pursuit of solid science, and became a theme of denialists because of McIntyre's false accusations. Furthermore, while you (or more precisely, McIntyre's blog) cites I.T. Jolie as claiming that it's bad statistics, Jolie's own book describes non-centred PCA as "a fairly well-established technique in ecology" and that " ... if the data are such that the origin is an important point of reference, then this type of analysis can be relevant." But the real point is it makes no substantial difference to the shape of the reconstruction, as one would expect from a properly applied PCA.

Climate scientists also work regularly with statisticians, recognizing the value of interdisciplinary collaboration -- that's why collaborations like the NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) Geophysical Statistics Project were started.

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- the claim that "the analysis with and without the Bristlecones pines was substantially different" and that it's "a series that even the dudes that published the data stated was a terrible temperature proxy, and should never be used as one."

No, it wasn't. First of all Mann himself did exactly that comparison, and Wahl and Amman replicated those results and published them in the 2007 paper that was peer-reviewed and published in a leading journal (Climatic Change) with their detailed methodologies. Furthermore, no one stated that it was a "terrible" proxy, only that the bristlecones had shown unusual growth since about the mid-19th century, and whether they are useful as proxies depends on the reason why. Salzer et al, in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009", concludes that the growth was indeed a response to temperature, and that therefore "multimillennial bristlecone pine ring-width time series at the upper forest border are a potentially valuable resource for information regarding past variability in temperature."

In other words, they are valid proxies, and their exclusion makes little substantive difference to the reconstruction anyway. Indeed, what their inclusion does is improve data quality, specifically the RE (reduction of error) in the PC regression.

---------------------------
- the claim that "hiding the decline" was some nefarious conspiracy to eliminate "inconvenient" data without reason

The divergence of some high-latitude tree ring proxies from the temperature record in the second half of the 20th century was already discussed above. It's been known for more than 20 years and indeed one of the early papers on the subject was authored by Keith Briffa at CRU. The IPCC discusses it at length. The entire subject is a trumped-up pretext by denialists who either don't understand the concept or see it as a malicious opportunity to try to discredit good science.

---------------------------
- this preposterous claim, quoted verbatim from you, which is a good way to wrap this up: "Nature likely didn't publish M+M 2003 for the reason that had they done so they would have looked like complete assholes ... for publishing MBH98"

For the readers, M+M is the dynamic duo of comedy, McIntyre and McKitrick, the former an economist and the latter a retired minerals prospector, both of whom are lobbyists against GHG regulation, and both of whom have been attacking climate science (and Mann in particular) for about the past decade. MBH98 is Mann's original long-term climate reconstruction paper.

The interesting thing is that M+M have a hard time getting anything at all published these days, have never and still do not do any actual climate research nor are they trained for it, and McIntyre spends most of his time running a disreputable blog. While meanwhile MBH98 is considered a landmark paper in climate science and has been verified and replicated by many other investigators and is now considered a foundational contribution to climate reconstructions. Mann himself runs a prestigious paleoclimate research group and has garnered numerous personal awards, as well as his share of the Nobel Prize awarded the IPCC. The claim that Mann was trying to "hide" the magnitude of the Medieval Warm Period is absurd since no reputable reconstruction shows a significantly elevated MWP temperature nor provides any evidence that it was more than a regional phenomenon mostly distributed around some parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Nor would it make any difference, since the (internal) causes and the spatial and temporal distribution of the MWP are reasonably well established. There are still a few denialists sufficiently disconnected from the science that they are still trying to push the implicit notion that whatever caused the MWP is now causing present warming. Nothing could be more ridiculous.