[Pants-of-dog]

If you put out an assessment report on the science that doesn't fairly and honestly assess the science then you have committed fraud. If you omit inconvenient data, obfuscate the facts, downplay controversy, and grossly exaggerate the accuracy and reliability of your methods then you're a dirty deceitful fraud, aka a Mike Mann.

Nice list of insults.

Also, I note a complete lack of argument.

It does fairly and honestly discuss the data, and the problems.

The data was omitted not because it was inconvenient, but because it was known to be incorrect. Are you arguing they should have knowingly put in wrong data?

No facts were obfuscated. Instead, the omission and reasons for it were clearly discussed.

As far as i can tell, this discussion is over.

[Sivad]

Here's what other climate scientists think of Mike Mann and his fake science:

From climate scientists, all of whom support the general consensus on climate change:

Wallace Broecker: “The goddam guy is a slick talker and super-confident. He won’t listen to anyone else,” one of climate science’s most senior figures, Wally Broecker of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York, told me. “I don’t trust people like that. A lot of the data sets he uses are shitty, you know. They are just not up to what he is trying to do…. If anyone deserves to get hit it is goddam Mann.”

Eduardo Zorita: Why I Think That Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf2 Should be Barred from the IPCC Process. Short answer: because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore. These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very well aware of. But I am also aware that editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations, even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed.

Atte Korhola: Another example is a study recently published in the prestigious journal Science. Proxies have been included selectively, they have been digested, manipulated, filtered, and combined – for example, data collected from Finland in the past by my own colleagues has even been turned upside down such that the warm periods become cold and vice versa. Normally, this would be considered as a scientific forgery, which has serious consequences.

Hans von Storch: A conclusion could be that the principle, according to which data must be made public, so that also adversaries may check the analysis, must be really enforced. Another conclusion could be that scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process or in assessment activities like IPCC.

Bo Christiansen: The hockey-stick curve does not stand. It does not mean that we cancel the manmade greenhouse effect, but the causes have become more nuanced… Popularly, it can be said that the flat piece on the hockey stick is too flat. In addition, their method contains a large element of randomness. It is almost impossible to conclude from reconstruction studies that the present period is warmer than any period in the reconstructed period.

David Rind: Concerning the hockey stick: what Mike Mann continually fails to understand, and no amount of references will solve, is that there is practically no reliable tropical data for most of the time period, and without knowing the tropical sensitivity, we have no way of knowing how cold (or warm) the globe actually got. I’ve made the comment to Mike several times, but it doesn’t seem to get across.

Tom Wigley: I have just read the M&M stuff criticizing MBH. A lot of it seems valid to me. At the very least MBH is a very sloppy piece of work – an opinion I have held for some time. Can you give me a brief heads up? Mike is too deep into this to be helpful.

From Mann’s collaborators and coauthors:

Phil Jones: Keith [Briffa] didn’t mention in his Science piece but both of us think that you’re on very dodgy ground with this long-term decline in temperatures on the thousand-year timescale. It is better we put the caveats in ourselves than let others put them in for us.

Keith Briffa: I have just read this letter – and I think it is crap. I am sick to death of Mann stating his reconstruction represents the tropical area just because it contains a few tropical series. He is just as capable of regressing these data again any other “target” series, such as the increasing trend of self-opinionated verbiage he has produced over the last few years

Edward Cook: I will be sure not to bring this up to Mike. As you know, he thinks that CRU is out to get him in some sense. I am afraid that Mike is defending something that increasingly cannot be defended. He is investing too much personal stuff in this and not letting the science move ahead.

Raymond Bradley: I would like to disassociate myself from Mike Mann’s view. As for thinking that it is “Better that nothing appear, than something unnacceptable to us” …as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology seems amazingly arrogant. Science moves forward whether we agree with individual articles or not.

Matti Saarnisto: In that article [Science], my group’s research material from Korttajärvi, near Jyväskylä, was used in such a way that the Medieval Warm Period was shown as a mirror image. The graph was flipped upside-down. In this email I received yesterday from one of the authors of the article, my good friend Professor Ray Bradley …says there was a large group of researchers who had been handling an extremely large amount of research material, and at some point it happened that this graph was turned upside-down. But then this happened yet another time in Science, and now I doubt if it can be a mistake anymore. But how it is possible that this type of material is repeatedly published in these top science journals? There is a small circle going round and around, relatively few people are reviewing each other’s papers, and that is in my opinion the worrying aspect.

Rob Wilson: I want to clarify that my 2 hour lecture was, I hope, a critical look at all of the northern hemispheric reconstructions of past temperature to date. It was not focused entirely on Michael Mann’s work. The “crock of xxxx” statement was focused entirely on recent work by Michael Mann w.r.t. hypothesized missing rings in tree-ring records. Although a rather flippant statement, I stand by it and Mann is well aware of my criticisms (privately and through the peer reviewed literature) of his recent work.

Some of the harshest criticisms come from physicists; I’ve selected this one from Jonathan Jones, who I had the pleasure of meeting with last June while in the UK:

Jonathan Jones: My whole involvement has always been driven by concerns about the corruption of science. Like many people I was dragged into this by the Hockey Stick. The Hockey Stick is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence, so I started reading round the subject. And it soon became clear that the first extraordinary thing about the evidence for the Hockey Stick was how extraordinarily weak it was, and the second extraordinary thing was how desperate its defenders were to hide this fact. The Hockey Stick is obviously wrong. Climategate 2011 shows that even many of its most outspoken public defenders know it is obviously wrong. And yet it goes on being published and defended year after year. Do I expect you to publicly denounce the Hockey Stick as obvious drivel? Well yes, that’s what you should do. It is the job of scientists of integrity to expose pathological science. It is a litmus test of whether climate scientists are prepared to stand up against the bullying defenders of pathology in their midst.

Two of the most surprising statements (to me) are from two young scientists associated with Skeptical Science:

Neal King: My impression is that Mann and buddies have sometimes gone out on a limb when that was unnecessary and ill-advised. Mann, for all his technical ability, is sometimes his own worst enemy. Similarly, with regard to “hiding the decline” in Climategate, I am left with the impression that the real question is, Why would you believe the tree-ring proxies at earlier times when you KNOW that they didn’t work properly in the 1990s? Mann et al spent too much time defending what was incorrect, and allowed the totality of the argument to become “infected” by the fight.

Robert Way: I don’t mean to be the pessimist of the group here but Mc2 brought up some very good points about the original hockey stick. I’ve personally seen work that is unpublished that challenges every single one of his reconstructions because they all either understate or overstate low-frequency variations. Mann et al stood by after their original HS and let others treat it with the confidence that they themselves couldn’t assign to it. The original hockey stick still used the wrong methods and these methods were defended over and over despite being wrong. He fought like a dog to discredit and argue with those on the other side that his method was not flawed. And in the end he never admitted that the entire method was a mistake. They then let this HS be used in every way possible despite knowing the stats behind it weren’t rock solid.

This selection of quotes does not include the strongest ‘zingers’, which come from scientists that are somewhat further afield or have made public statements that are critical of the AGW consensus.

JC reflections

So, back to the topic of the lawsuits. In light of these quotes by Ph.D scientists, does Mark Steyn have a strong defense against the charge of defamation for stating ‘fraudulent hockey stick’? This certainly looks to me like the basis of a strong defense. With regards to Steyn’s countersuit, if he makes a lot of money off this book, that would rather argue against large damages from his countersuit. JC message to AGW alarmists and Mann’s supporters: buy Steyn’s book, this will help diminish Steyn’s case against Mann for large damages.

I have written many posts about Michael Mann – apart from my own concerns about the hockey stick (Hiding the Decline), I am greatly concerned about Mann’s bullying behavior inserting itself into the scientific process (collaboration, peer review, public communication). My concerns go beyond the general strategies of adversarial science. to what I regard as unethical behavior.

It is a sad state of affairs for climate science that this book had to be written (it was brought on by Michael Mann’s lawsuit – without the lawsuit, Steyn obviously wouldn’t have bothered). At a time when the U.S. and the world’s nations are trying to put together an agreement to tackle climate change (for better or for worse), Steyn’s book reminds everyone of Climategate, why the public doesn’t trust climate scientists and aren’t buying their ‘consensus.

[Pants-of-dog]

While I am not a huge fan of Curry, I do think she deserves the credit for writing that post.

Here is the link to the original version of the previous post:

https://judithcurry.com/2015/08/13/mark ... hael-mann/

[Sivad]

PoD is a Michael Mann fan. PoD is all like "Yay Michael Mann! Yay! Go Michael Mann! Woooo!" Judith Curry boooooo! Go Michael Mann! "

[Sivad]

When Michael Mann isn't bullying his fellow scientists and hijacking the review process to produce fraudulent assessments he's perjuring himself before congress:

Testifying before Congress, climate scientist Michael Mann denies any affiliation or association to the Climate Accountability Institute despite his apparent membership on the Institute’s Council of Advisors.

CONGRESSMAN CLAY HIGGINS: “Are you affiliated or associated with an organization called The Climate Accountability Institute?”

DR. MICHAEL MANN: “No. I mean I may have corresponded with people.”

CONGRESSMAN CLAY HIGGINS: “You’re not affiliated nor associated with them?”

DR. MICHAEL MANN: “I can provide– I’ve submitted my CV you can see who I’m associated with and who I am not.”

Hearing – Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method
US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
March 29, 2017

But a link to Climate Accountability Institute’s website features Michael Mann as one of the groups’ ‘Council of Advisors.”
http://climateaccountability.org/about.html

[Pants-of-dog]

This thread is just one ling ad hominem now.

@Sivad

You still have not demonstrated that Mann refused to comply with the court order because of willful deception in his data.

This was your original argument, and now you seem to have abandoned it to argue that Mann is a big meanie that you do not like,

[Sivad]

Then there was the other time Mann lied to congress by presenting a totally biased and grossly distorted assessment of the science which was completely at odds with both the IPCC AR5 and the National Climate Assessment:

Truth(?) in testimony and convincing policy makers
by Judith Curry

Some reflections, stimulated by yesterday’s Congressional Hearing, on the different strategies of presenting Congressional testimony.

Yesterday’s Hearing provided an ‘interesting’ contrast in approaches to presenting testimony, when comparing my testimony with Michael Mann’s.



‘Opinion’ or ‘evidence’ for Hearings?

In my own testimony, I referenced (and even quoted) the IPCC AR5 and the US National Assessment report about a dozen times. I also provided my (forthcoming) Report on Hurricanes and Climate Change, which includes about 100 references (nearly all are refereed journal publications) plus links to other review articles that provides further references.

Whatever happened to climate scientists using the IPCC and National Assessment Reports in their analyses, either to support their arguments or otherwise refuting specific statements in these Reports? It seems that only scientists of the non-alarmist persuasion are citing these Reports any more.

Congressional testimony is not the place for scientists to present new, primary research. Rather, it is an opportunity for scientists to present analyses of relevance to the topic at hand, related to their personal expertise. This may take the form of an opinion piece (op-ed) or an analysis supported by evidence.

Mann took a different approach from mine. His testimony reads like an op-ed, and he even cites his op-eds as supporting evidence. Yes, it is readable, but it is not well documented.

Mann did not provide a bibliography for his testimony or any footnotes; rather he included hyperlinks. I clicked on each of these, to see what sources he was using.

His links include 3 references to his own journal publications, plus two links to publications by other authors. One link is provided to a NOAA statement. Several links are made to the StonyBrook University blog, describing unpublished analyses. This selection was criticized by Andreas Schmittner on twitter:


All of the other links (~20) are to news articles, some of which are op-eds written by Michael Mann himself or articles that interviewed Michael Mann. The list of sources used by Mann in his written testimony:

Climate Central, PBS, Time, Slate, LiveScience, PennLive, The Guardian, Scientific American, New Observer, Washington Post, NYTimes, ScienceNews, National Geographic, RollingStone, NewsWeek.

I understand the difficulty that policy makers have in wading through peer reviewed journal articles. This is why Assessment Reports are useful for policy makers (although I am not a fan of the oversimplified, cherry picked conclusions in the Summary for Policymakers). News articles are much more easily read by policy makers, but many of them are misleading at best. And it is hard for me to imagine any of these articles being seriously considered as ‘evidence.’

Now several of these news organizations generally do a credible job in reporting on science, although they invariably suffer from single study syndrome in their individual articles. But such articles are hardly a substitute for published primary journal articles or carefully considered assessments — or better yet, national or international assessment reports.

Although Mann’s testimony extensively referred to hurricanes, there was not a single reference in Mann’s testimony to the IPCC, the U.S. National Assessment Reports or the numerous review articles on hurricanes and climate change that have been written by teams of experts.

Yes, the published literature is sufficiently broad and diverse to support numerous narratives about climate change, and there are many reasons that rational scientists disagree: insufficient data and disagreements about its quality; relative weighting of different types of evidence; and different logics for linking the evidence.

But when you open this up to include in a dominant way news articles and op-eds, then anything goes.

As summarized in the recent review by Knutson et al. on the issues of hurricanes and global warming (discussed in the Extremes blog post), there is a very substantial range of perspectives among scientists who have primary expertise in the climate dynamics of hurricanes.

Is it appropriate in Congressional testimony to present only your own perspective, without acknowledging other perspectives, disagreement, uncertainty? Including both myself and Mann in the Hearing provides ‘dueling’ perspectives, but this hardly represents the range or distribution of perspectives in the community. Unlike a court case, there is insufficient time to probe all this.

Authority

So, which of the dueling experts is the Congressional Committee to believe? Well that is almost certainly predisposed by their political party, to the extent that I have to wonder why we were even invited to this Hearing.

In the follow up to yesterdays Hearing, there has been some discussion on twitter related to Mann’s extensive emphasis on his own credentials in both his written and verbal testimony.


His verbal testimony spent almost a minute listing his own credentials, out of an alotted 5 minutes (the Chair allowed Mann’s testimony to go over the time allotment). Mann defended this by saying


I’m not interested in playing Mann’s little game re expertise. But it is a tough argument to convince anyone that he has greater expertise than I on hurricanes.

Apart from someone’s political bias, that leaves the substance of our written testimony as a basis for being convinced by one versus the other.

I continue to have this naive, idealistic view that carefully crafted and communicated analyses with credible documentation is what policy makers want and need.

So does Mann’s focus on his own credentials and publications trump my analyses, documentation and references to the US National Climate Assessment, etc.? At that Hearing and with that Committee, maybe it did.

Truth(?) in testimony

When testifying before Congress, each Witness signs a Truth in Testimony statement. At yesterday’s Hearing, the witnesses were asked to stand and verbally agree to this (first time I recall doing this in a Congressional Hearing).

What does ‘Truth in Testimony’ actually mean regarding a controversial topic in science? Yes, there is much disagreement about aspects of climate science, that is not what I am concerned about here.

In yesterday’s Hearing, Mann made a factually incorrect statement in response to a question:

90:13 “I want to correct a number of fallacies that we’ve heard here today when it comes to the connection between climate change and extreme weather events. First of all, you sometimes hear this myth about there having been a supposed hurricane drought and there’s some sleight-of-hand going there because what’s going on Superstorm Sandy was a strong category 3 and then weakened to a category 2 hurricane off the coast of the US east Coast now it did go as they say extra-tropical it was technically no longer a hurricane when it made landfall but it was spinning off the East Coast for several days as a strong hurricane building up a very large storm surge and as we know it was this storm surge that was so devastating to the Jersey coast into New York City so its extremely misleading when you hear statements like that”

Mann’s statement misled the Committee with his statements about the drought in major hurricanes, Hurricane Sandy, and about my testimony being fallacious. There was no opportunity for me to speak up in the Hearing. I was shaking my head no, this was noticed by a Republican member, who asked for an opportunity for me to reply, but the Chair gave me no opportunity to respond. Below is my response to Mann’s statement about my testimony.

My written testimony included the following statement:

“However, it was rarely mentioned that 2017 broke a drought in U.S. major hurricane landfalls since the end of 2005 — a major hurricane drought that is unprecedented in the historical record.”

This one is simple to fact check. Go to the NOAA website and count the number of major hurricanes (Cat 3+) between Hurricane Wilma (2005) and Hurricane Harvey (2017). Zilch. Here is a graph of the data from the National Hurricane Center that was included in my written testimony:


With regards to Hurricane Sandy as an alleged ‘drought buster.’ Hurricane Sandy (2012) is included in the list of U.S. landfalling hurricanes with an * since technically it wasn’t a hurricane at landfall. Sandy’s max wind speed at landfall is listed at 65 knots (Cat 1 territory). As stated in my testimony, the large storm surge associated with Sandy was caused by her transition to a horizontally large extra-tropical storm, not by her brief resurgence to a Cat 2.

I remember the details of Hurricane Sandy in excruciating detail, since my company CFAN was forecasting hurricanes (our Sandy forecast was exceptionally accurate relative to government provided forecasts).

In any event, even apart from the classification of Sandy as a hurricane or not, the terms ‘landfalling hurricane’ and ‘major hurricane’ (Cat 3+) have very clear and specific meanings, and Hurricane Sandy wasn’t a major hurricane at landfall, and only briefly reached low-end Cat 3 status near Cuba. See the NHC’s Summary Report on Hurricane Sandy

There is no question that Hurricane Sandy was catastrophic for New Jersey and New York City. Sandy illustrates how unprepared these cities were for even a Cat 1 hurricane with a significant storm surge. Sandy is not a good poster child for manmade global warming, but rather supports the arguments made in my testimony about not being prepared for current or historical hurricanes.

JC verdict on Mann’s statement: Five Pinocchios

Other rhetorically effective but misleading strategies used by Mann’s testimony were to cherry pick a single study and to imply that speculation about a linkage of some storm with global warming is actually a well accepted conclusion. I will give one example here, that arose in the questioning, which is related to the high-profile issue of whether Category 4/5 hurricanes have been increasing:

“I actually co-authored an article in the journal Nature about 10 years ago where we use geological information from sedimentary deposits left behind by ancient hurricanes so we can actually reconstruct the history of landfalling hurricanes along the U.S. East coast along the Caribbean and so we have this rich archive of information that tells us in fact the increase in intensity that we’re seeing today does appear to be without precedent as far back as we can go.”

The paper that Mann refers to is [here]. Perhaps Mann hasn’t kept up with the literature on paleotempestology, which I summarized here. Here is a summary paragraph from my Report on Hurricanes and Climate Change:

“Summary. There has not been a timeline or synthesis of the Atlantic hurricane paleotempestology results for the past five thousand years, either regionally or for the entire coastal region. However, it is clear from these analyses that significant variability of landfall probabilities occurs on century to millennial time scales. There appears to have been a broad hyperactive period from 3400 to 1000 years B.P. High activity persisted in the Gulf of Mexico until 1400 AD, with a shift to more frequent severe hurricane strikes from the Bahamas to New England occurring between 1400 and 1675 AD. Since 1760, there was a gradual decline in activity until the 1990’s.”

So, by cherry picking one paper (his own) that examines geologic data at only one location, Mann misled the committee regarding whether or not the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes has been increasing relative to the geological record.

JC verdict: two pinocchios

In Mann’s Congressional testimony two years ago [blog post], he made two statements in the questioning period that contradicted what was in his written testimony and his c.v.; for documentation of this see the links at WUWT, Warmist Michael Mann tells whopper at Congressional Science hearing.

It was much more difficult for Mann to get away with factually incorrect statements in a Hearing chaired by the Republicans than in a Hearing chaired by the Democrats.

JC reflections

I have often criticized the Congressional testimonies of other climate scientists as being normative, in the sense of advocating for specific policies related to climate change.

In hindsight, normative testimony seems pretty tame when compared with ‘assertion from authority’ testimony from scientists. This style of testimony extensively establishes the witness’ expertise, and then makes a series of assertions with little or no documentation. In short — appealing to their own authority. This strategy is often accompanied by attempts to tear down the credibility of opposing witnesses.

If such testimony by assertion was presented in a legal trial, it would receive a severe grilling on cross-examination. In a Congressional Hearing where the witness supports the majority’s perspective, the witness pretty much gets a pass, even by the opposing party. The minority members tend to focus their limited time on questioning the witnesses invited by their own party.

This Hearing is certainly making me rethink my participation in future Hearings. I very much enjoy the challenge and opportunity of preparing written testimony and communicating my analyses of the issue at hand to policy makers. However, I am not cut out to be a politician. I have a bad habit of answering any question as accurately and honestly as I can, rather than using my 90 seconds to refute my opponent or to emphasize my own point.

This makes me wonder what the Democrats are really trying to accomplish with these hearings on climate change. If they are so convinced the science is completely settled, why do they bother with these Hearings? Do they think they are going to convince the Republicans with a witness such as Michael Mann? The politics surrounding climate change make little sense to me.

It's funny how all Mann's peers and colleagues regard him as a slick ass manipulative lying bully who appeals to his own authority and does sloppy work based on "shitty" evidence. It's no surprise that the establishment would select a joker like Mann to spearhead its CAGW con.

[Pants-of-dog]

I think no one is bothering to read your copy pasties.

Does it have anything to do with the trial?

[Sivad]

I think no one is bothering to read your copy pasties.

You better hope not because your entire case depends on most people being too stupid and apathetic to bother with reading shit.

[Pants-of-dog]

You better hope not because your entire case depends on most people being too stupid and apathetic to bother reading shit.

Since none of what you are uncritically copy pasting from Curry’s blog has anything to do with the trial, I doubt this will affect my claim at all.

You should just invite Ms. Curry here, to PoFo. This way, I could just argue with her directly.

———————

https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.co ... g-bridges/

Judith Curry goes from building bridges to burning them
By Bart Verheggen
In her recent post, Judith Curry takes issue with the politicization of science. But rather than making a well reasoned argument backed up by evidence, her post comes across as a strong but largely unfounded allegation of widespread bias and dogmatism.

What to think of a passage like this:


Once the UNFCCC treaty was a done deal, the IPCC and its scientific conclusions were set on a track to become a self fulfilling prophecy. The entire framing of the IPCC was designed around identifying sufficient evidence so that the human-induced greenhouse warming could be declared unequivocal, and so providing the rationale for developing the political will to implement and enforce carbon stabilization targets.

This sounds like an accusation that the IPCC conclusions were predetermined before it even started assessing the science. That is a far reaching and very bold claim. All that Curry presents in favour of this claim is her narrative of a trio between UNFCCC, enviro advocay groups and scientists. The actual history and mandate of the IPCC however look quite different to me. Btw, that doesn’t mean that no valid criticism could be leveled against the IPCC, see e.g. Eric Steig’s comment at Judith’s or James Annan‘s frequent critiques.

And then:


When I refer to the IPCC dogma, it is the religious importance that the IPCC holds for this cadre of scientists; they will tolerate no dissent, and seek to trample and discredit anyone who challenges the IPCC. Who are these priests of the IPCC?

Excuse me? Is this a respected scientist talking? Someone who is trying to build bridges between scientists and their critics? By calling respected scientists “high priests of the IPCC”?

This kind of accusatory framing, based on mere innuendo and speculation, is the main reason that she gets a lot of flack from other scientists. It increases, rather than decreases, the polarization, and it starts to overshadow those issues where she does (or at least did) make valid points.

I was actually quite sympathetic to Curry’s attempts at building bridges, and see a lot of truth in her criticism of circling the wagons. Keith Kloor, in an interesting post contrasting Judith’s post with Gavin’s at RC, aluded to an over-defensive reaction to criticism which is occurring both amongst those who portray themselves as heretics (such as Judith Curry) but also amongst mainstream scientists (quite understandably so, but probably counterproductive).

Her unfounded allegations are insulting for the whole profession. It increases the polarisation and doesn’t add to the building of bridges (perhaps a one-way bridge). And I’m saying this as someone who, on the “pro-AGW” bloggers side, was probably one of the most receptive to her ideas. I am sincere and anti-dogmatic and I take great issue with her painting a whole scientific field, at the edge of which I work myself, as quasi religious dogma.

[Truth To Power]

It does fairly and honestly discuss the data, and the problems.

Nope. It doesn't mention the fact that the proxies used to show no Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age ever happened also showed recent COOLING, and were consequently omitted from the graph.

The data was omitted not because it was inconvenient, but because it was known to be incorrect.

No. The correct data were omitted because they contradicted Mann's hockey stick fabrication.

No facts were obfuscated.

That's just baldly false. The fact that the proxy data Mann relied on to erase the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age also erased the modern warming, and that is why the late 20th century data were omitted, was obfuscated.

Instead, the omission and reasons for it were clearly discussed.

No. The omission was mentioned, and disingenuous rationalizations for it were offered, but the actual reason for it was carefully omitted from the discussion.

As far as i can tell, this discussion is over.

[Pants-of-dog]

Nope. It doesn't mention the fact that the proxies used to show no Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age ever happened also showed recent COOLING, and were consequently omitted from the graph.

No. The correct data were omitted because they contradicted Mann's hockey stick fabrication.

That's just baldly false. The fact that the proxy data Mann relied on to erase the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age also erased the modern warming, and that is why the late 20th century data were omitted, was obfuscated.

No. The omission was mentioned, and disingenuous rationalizations for it were offered, but the actual reason for it was carefully omitted from the discussion.

Please provide evidence for any of these claims.

[Truth To Power]

Please provide evidence for any of these claims.

Please read what Sivad has posted, and try to remember that there is a difference between evidence (what Sivad posted) and ad hominem dismissals (what you posted).

[Pants-of-dog]

@Truth To Power

Are you claiming that @Sivad posted evidence for one or more of your claims?

[blackjack21]

Furthermore, the biological response to climate forcing may {i.e., we don't know for sure} change over time. There is evidence, for example, that high latitude tree-ring density variations have changed in their response to temperature in recent decades, associated with possible {i.e., we don't know for sure} non-climatic factors (Briffa et al., 1998a). By contrast, Vaganov et al. (1999) have presented evidence that such changes may {i.e., we don't know for sure} actually be climatic and result from the effects of increasing winter precipitation on the starting date of the growing season (see Section 2.7.2.2). Carbon dioxide fertilization may {i.e., we don't know for sure} also have an influence, particularly on high-elevation drought-sensitive tree species, although attempts have been made to correct for this effect where appropriate (Mann et al., 1999). Thus climate reconstructions based entirely on tree-ring data are susceptible to several sources of contamination or non-stationarity of response. {i.e., our data is not reliable enough for us to know for sure}

Bracketed comments mine. Reading the TAR, it was so politically written and so hedged that no reasonable person would be coming to its defense. Yet, its authors want it to be accepted as gospel.

One paragraph buried deep inside the report, that's hardly what you'd call an honest appraisal of the science.

That's the sort of thing I was challenged to do, and did it. I came away deeply unimpressed. I write technical manuals for a living. I've worked with lawyers too. I know the difference between "can" and "may". The reason technical writers use "may" in lieu of "can" when it's the more appropriate word is because of lawyers. I know, because I'm guilty of this practice myself from writing requirements docs and adhering to SHALL, SHALL NOT, MUST, MUST NOT, MAY, MAY NOT to please the lawyers.

There's no mention at all in the summary for policy makers.

Yes. That's what the policy makers read too. The technical summaries have omissions too--which is the nature of summaries. Yet, when you dig deeper into the report, you'd never make the outlandish claims they make with the level understanding they have given the data they have.

There's a vague reference but it doesn't say anywhere in there that the tree ring proxies from the 1960s on are running in the opposite direction of the instrument data.

That's because the reference is trying to provide justification for omitting the data that doesn't agree with their conclusions.

Not only is it buried but the findings for the multiproxy averages are given a confidence rating of "likely" which is extremely dishonest given that combining proxies in that way was a brand new methodology and really shouldn't have even been included in the assessment at all because they hadn't been around long enough for proppper scientific vetting. There's no discussion of any of that.

They also have to use squishy terms such as "likely," because they don't have a sufficient sample size for standard error and confidence interval. When they admitted to having hundreds of samples, but only using 20-30 of them, it was obvious statistically that the standard error would be far higher. What's more amazing to me is that people believe them when they are using these types of data practices. That tells you Pants-of-dog is a good bullshitter, but clearly not a great statistician.

@Sivad

You are now changing your argument.

You originally claimed it was a deliberate lie of omission.

Now you are arguing that they did not clarify the issue as well as you would have liked.

Such shifting of the goalposts is an implicit concession.

Not really. If they were being honest, the text would say something like, "We really don't know what the fuck we're talking about." Do you honestly think you could sell a missile to the Department of Defense with this kind of language and not have the DoJ looking into you for contracting fraud? Do you know what would happen to you as stock broker if you used these methods to forecast a financial future scenario to sell a financial product? That's why someone like Stephen McIntyre would pick this stuff out right away.

The fact is there's zero mention of any of those issues in the summary for policy makers which is by far the most influential part of the report and there are only a couple of vague lines buried deep in the main report that don't even begin to convey the severity of the problems with those proxies.

If you keep digging, you have to read the articles in the bibliography. I'm telling you, if you do that, you just will not believe that anyone can take this stuff seriously.

The confidence estimate is absurdly high given the limited work done on multi-proxy analyses and NAS says as much in its report.

And given the sample size alone... You don't even have to argue the science. Just argue the math.

How would a long winded discussion about the misleading tree ring data have helped formulate better policy?

Because politicians would know that the bulk of the report wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

If you put out an assessment report on the science that doesn't fairly and honestly assess the science then you have committed fraud. If you omit inconvenient data, obfuscate the facts, downplay controversy, and grossly exaggerate the accuracy and reliability of your methods then you're a dirty deceitful fraud, aka a Mike Mann.

And if you believe them, you're an idiot--and apparently, a lot of policy makers are idiots. I remember working on an APR calculator that depended on descriptions in the FDICs interpretation of
Appendix J to Regulation Z of the Truth in Lending Act. The FDIC had transposed Appendix J into a web page and the formulas were scanned as graphics and put in the wrong order. When I went to legal counsel for explanation, they said, "We studied law, because we're no good at math." I finally figured out that the FDIC had screwed up their publication, and they fixed it. However, there were problems in the original text too. You would be amazed how sophomoric lawyers can be.

This is why they say things like "Greenhouse Gas" even though greenhouses do not retain heat, because of the CO2 content in the air; and plants would not be green without CO2-dependent photosynthesis. A scientist wouldn't come up with something like that, but a politician would.

"I don't trust people like that. A lot of the data sets he uses are shitty, you know. They are just not up to what he is trying to do.... If anyone deserves to get hit it is goddam Mann." - Wally Broecker(Grandfather of Climate Science)

The data handling in video games is better than what Mann et. al. are doing.

The data was omitted not because it was inconvenient, but because it was known to be incorrect. Are you arguing they should have knowingly put in wrong data?

They omitted trees that didn't conform to their narrative and kept in trees in the same area that did. Do you really expect us to believe that one tree says the temperature is cooling, but one right next to it says it is increasing, and we should believe the latter one but not the former one for reasons they cannot establish while their discussion is saying things like, "By contrast, Vaganov et al. (1999) have presented evidence that such changes may actually be climatic and result from the effects of increasing winter precipitation on the starting date of the growing season (see Section 2.7.2.2)." Really? So you've got 200+ trees and use less than 30 of them, ignoring what the radically decreased sample size does to dramatically increase standard error and reduce confidence, and then hit us with "likely"? Do you think your professor would let you get away with this kind of shit in a non-political context?

Fast forward to yesterday, here's what Michael Mann had to say on the recent hurricane:

Global heating made Hurricane Dorian bigger, wetter – and more deadly

On a basic physics level, we know that warm waters fuel hurricanes, and Dorian was strengthened by waters well above average temperatures. The fact that climate change has heated up our oceans means Dorian was stronger than it would have been had we not spent the past 150 years dumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere. Sea surface temperatures were more than 1C warmer in the region where Dorian formed and strengthened than they were before we started burning fossil fuels.

On a basic physics level, we didn't have accurate ocean surface temperature sensors with any calibrated consistency until we started launching satellites. It takes a very long time for air temperatures to heat up water temperatures. So the more likely reason for higher sea surface temperatures is solar irradiance, not increased atmospheric CO2. Dorian didn't form in some CO2 hotspot either.

Then, he cites a bunch of studies that are a lot of bullshit.

Over the rest of the tropics, however, possible trends in tropical cyclone intensity are less obvious, owing to the unreliability and incompleteness of the observational record and to a restricted focus, in previous trend analyses, on changes in average intensity. Here we overcome these two limitations by examining trends in the upper quantiles of per-cyclone maximum wind speeds (that is, the maximum intensities that cyclones achieve during their lifetimes), estimated from homogeneous data derived from an archive of satellite records. We find significant upward trends for wind speed quantiles above the 70th percentile, with trends as high as 0.3 60.09 m s21yr21(s.e.) for the strongest cyclones.

Bold and underline emphasis mine. Of course, people who "respect the scientists" will naturally just believe anything they are told. In order for wind speeds to increase, the heat has to move from a warmer place to a colder place. In order for that to happen, heating has to be localized, not generalized. What a dipshit.

[Pants-of-dog]

I find it odd that a clear discussion on the uncertainty of one form of data, used in one graph, s now evidence that the whole field of climate science is wrong.

And typical scientific language used to convey the usual lack of absolute certainty is taken to mean that the findings are inaccurate.

[Truth To Power]

@Truth To Power

Are you claiming that @Sivad posted evidence for one or more of your claims?

For all of them. You just have to be willing to think honestly about what the facts he identified imply (which you aren't). When you have been shown a smoking gun, it is disingenuous to demand evidence that the person who aimed it and pulled the trigger knew the gun was loaded.

[Truth To Power]

I find it odd that a clear discussion on the uncertainty of one form of data, used in one graph,

It's not uncertainty. It's blatant, deliberate, indisputable fraud.

is now evidence that the whole field of climate science is wrong.

No one is claiming climate science is wrong. We are stating the fact that unscientific anti-CO2 hysteria based on absurdly doctored and misrepresented data is not science.

And typical scientific language used to convey the usual lack of absolute certainty is taken to mean that the findings are inaccurate.

No, it is taken to be a justification for ridiculous scare-mongering that takes those "findings" and fraudulently presents them to the popular media as established science, without the careful scientific hedging language.

[Pants-of-dog]

For all of them. You just have to be willing to think honestly about what the facts he identified imply (which you aren't). When you have been shown a smoking gun, it is disingenuous to demand evidence that the person who aimed it and pulled the trigger knew the gun was loaded.

Then please show where he presented evidence for each of your arguments.

Do so clearly.

Each argument that you clearly present and for which you show evidence, I will address.

It's not uncertainty. It's blatant, deliberate, indisputable fraud.

No one is claiming climate science is wrong. We are stating the fact that unscientific anti-CO2 hysteria based on absurdly doctored and misrepresented data is not science.

No, it is taken to be a justification for ridiculous scare-mongering that takes those "findings" and fraudulently presents them to the popular media as established science, without the careful scientific hedging language.

Also, please review the rules on double posting.

I am ignoring this long winded ad hominem.

[Sivad]

I find it odd that a clear discussion on the uncertainty of one form of data, used in one graph, s now evidence that the whole field of climate science is wrong.

It's not one form of data, we can run right through all of it from the proxies to the instruments to the models, it's all a hot load. The case for CAGW is rickety as fuck, anyone trying to pretend otherwise is either an idiot or a fraud.

The proxies are the bedrock of the entire case for CAGW, if you can't even show that the last few decades are the warmest decades in at least a thousand years then what the fuck are we even talking about? If the proxy record is unreliable then the whole thing collapses.

And a thousand years is nothing in climatological time, the warmest decades in a one thousand year time span doesn't really prove all that much. They would need an accurate record for at least the last ten thousand years to show that the last thirty years are well outside natural variability in order to really prove anything.

All of it is highly speculative, they don't fully understand the climate system, they don't have accurate or reliable records of past climate, they haven't even identified, let alone quantified, all the variables, and all their future projections have been way off.