Nothing reveals the delusions of climate scientists more than this :
Mann said that the tree-ring data stopped reflecting true temperatures 50 years ago for reasons that are not yet fully known
Astonishing that any individual scientist or group of scientists could be basing a theory on such a thought process. The only logical conclusions are :
- Tree ring proxies don’t work
- or the “true temperature” data is flawed
What doesn’t make sense is trying to claim that the trees have changed behaviour, and justifying a stupid nature trick based on it.
he added that it was a mistake not to show the data anyway. “That was bad,” he said
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/11/08/5426675-life-after-climategate
“Mann said that the tree-ring data stopped reflecting true temperatures 50 years ago for reasons that are not yet fully known.” I think he’s hinting that the trees are in the pay of Big Oil, it’s the only answer that fits their facts.
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025 non-tree proxy looks very different ?
Remember cold fusion, if you have a big claim you should back it up. There are millions of records on the medieval warming. Saying it didn’t exist is like saying we didn’t land on the moon!
We landed on the moon?
Hey cold fusion dude. Try knowing what your are talking about before you suggest that cold fusion is a fantasy.
http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/videos/suppressed-technology/cold-fusion-a-story-of-suppressed-technology.html
Is Mann going to find that CO2 has altered the “tree ring data”
I wonder. Can you waterboard a tree to make it confess?
The other theory of course is that the “true” temperatures might not be true?
Isn’t the rationale that the increased CO2 in the last 50 years affects the growth patterns so now it doesn’t work LOL?
When Mann said “the” tree ring data, he wasn’t referring to “all tree rings,” as that implies. The divergence problem mainly affects certain high-latitude Northern Hemisphere trees.
There’s an obvious third “logical conclusion” that you’ve omitted from your list:
– Something in their climates or environments changed and caused these trees to start behaving differently.
And, in fact, there are good reasons to believe that this is probably the correct conclusion, beginning with the simple fact I already mentioned: the divergence problem mainly affects trees in high Northern latitudes. If it were either of the two conclusions you provide, why doesn’t it affect all trees?
Whether this is correct or not, your claim to have provided the only possible logical conclusions is clearly wrong.
If this is the case, then quite clearly the model becomes unreliable and should not have been published in the first place.
Mann knew this but went ahead anyway, which does not say much for his honesty or objectivity.
If this is the case, then quite clearly the model becomes unreliable ….
Why?
PS: It’s not a model.
ChrisD
Yes it is a model! The magical graph from Mann is the results of a model!
If something changed in the Northern Hemisphere to change the way trees respond to temperatures in the last 50 years the possibility exists the same situation happened in the past during the trees growth. By admitting this you and Mann are admitting that trees are not a good representation of temperature
No, it’s not a model. Sorry. It’s a chart of historical proxy data.
As to the rest, we know this:
1. From the start of the instrumental record through ~1960, tree rings everywhere match instrumental temps quite well.
2. From the start of the instrumental record through ~1960, tree rings everywhere match each other quite well.
3. From ~1960 to the present, trees other than the divergent high latitude NH trees match instrumental temps quite well.
4. For historical periods older than the instrumental record, tree rings match other proxies quite well.
Put all this together, and what any normal person would conclude is that tree rings provide a pretty good proxy for temperatures and that something recent and specific has happened to cause some high latititude NH tree rings to stop responding to temp changes the way they used to.
So for half of the instrumental record the tree ring data matches, and for the other half it doesn’t. In other words it is a coin flip. But they trust it for the previous 1,000 years with no verification. What a load of crap.
“No, it’s not a model. Sorry. It’s a chart of historical proxy data.”
Actually, it is a graph of multi-proxy data that has been put into series, then had the group series replaced with a weighted average of those series, where the weights chosen so that the new vector (called the principal component or PC) explains as much of the variance of the original series as possible. This leaves a matrix of unexplained residuals, but this matrix can be reduced to a PC as well. Run through some computer code, it produces a graph. In this case, the code has been shown to preferentially select weighted series that yield hockey stick shapes.
So, no it is not a chart of data. It is an interpretation of data using computer code that has been documented to overweight specific series – namely strip bark pine trees.
Gman:
You just described a type of model!
ChrisD:
Items 1 through 4 of your comment are all wrong.
Further evidence that you do not understand what you are saying and are getting your information from someone that also does not know.
Items 1 through 4 of your comment are all wrong.
Plenty of meat in that response, eh?
So for half of the instrumental record the tree ring data matches, and for the other half it doesn’t.
What a load of crap that is.
A few decades of rings from some high latitude NH trees is “half” the data?
Chris,
Don’t be ludicrous.
It is a MODEL which tries to theoretically reconstruct temperatures for past centuries based on 20th C correlations of proxies and temperatures.
If some of the 20th C proxies don’t correlate properly because of other factors then it makes the reconstruction meaningless.
If you don’t understand this, I suggest you consult a statistician.
Chris D
In theory, trees should be indicating greater tree ring growth due to extra warmth, longer growing seasons and extra CO2, this is not happening. In fact, many of the trees show a cooling trend which is probably not an accurate reflection of local conditions.
AFAIK many tree ring proxies are from high latitudes and from specific tree species because they were supposed to be free from too many external factors. The Hockey sticks rely on Graybill & Idso’s bristlecone pine series (dodgy), the Gaspe cedars (dodgy), Thompson’s ice core data (secret), the Polar Urals series(dodgy) and upside down Tiljander lake sediment proxies. The different sticks include some or all of these series or do not cover a long enough time period to disagree with a MWP. In Mann’s recent papers he attempted to prove that a Hockey stick was still possible without bristlecone pines but this was due to including Tiljander, when Tiljander was removed he still left in bristlecones. When both are removed, a skillful reconstruction is no longer possible prior to AD 1500, which is the bit that matters. (These are my impressions from reading around the subject, without any pretence at true understanding).
Explanations for dodgy tree rings include-
Tree ring growth increases up to certain temperatures but then declines, sort of heat stroke. This would apply to earlier temperatures too.
Trees hate extra CO2, which is highly unlikely.
The instrument record has been over or under adjusted and does not reflect local conditions accurately.
Trees respond greater to another factor than heat. Eg Cosmic rays. Recent studies in Scotland indicate that cosmic rays are the most significant growth factor. Cosmic rays/sunspots also seem to affect temperatures. This may be why there is a partial correlation, ie common cause, rather than cause and effect.
The tree samples aren’t numerous enough to eliminate random factors (eg food, space, pests, rain, etc)
Some as yet unidentified pollution that has started limiting tree growth since the 50s but which did not exist in large enough quantities before and has not been identified.
Until there is a good, provable explanation for the divergence, the logical conclusion is that trees make poor thermometers.
Steve said;
“So for half of the instrumental record the tree ring data matches, and for the other half it doesn’t. In other words it is a coin flip.”
No not at all. Instrumental records are not the only thing that tree rings can be compared to, there are many other sources of proxy data. These particular trees diverge with them all.
It does seem very strange that you are criticising scientists for not including data they know to be wrong when you so frequently claim that they include such data.
Complete drivel. If the proxy record doesn’t work for the past 50 years then it is beyond absurd to use it for 700 years ago.
Complete drivel. As explained above.
Please continue to post. Your dissonance and illogical thought process is on display for all to see.
So after millions of years the trees have just started acting differently um the last 50 years. Just like after that time the 800ish year lag between CO2 and Temperature, where Temperature drives CO2 have changed magically now, to CO2 driving Temps in a much faster fashion, like immediately. Yeah.
So after millions of years the trees have just started acting differently
No. Something has changed in the environment of some trees in specific locations that has caused them to act differently.
ChrisD:
The temperature records are wrong or the tree ring data is not reliable.
The answer is both!
the tree ring data is not reliable.
You’re not paying attention. It’s not “the” tree ring data. It’s some tree ring data, just a subset of high lattitude NH trees, and only recently.
Which are the ‘reliable’ tree series that give a hockey stick?
MikeD
Yea, I know, but thought I would use different words. You know, that computer code that has been programed to select series that give the desired result and weight them so no other data really matters, but you can claim you used a lot of series, is easy to dazzle people with.
It is interesting that it came about just in time for IPCC 2001 to completely change their opinion of climates of the past and set the stage for the push for rationing energy.
I find it interesting that climate science uses model outputs to verify models outputs that are based on data from model outputs used as inputs. It is also interesting that model outputs with a wide range of outputs are thought to be consistent with each other and the average of diverse outputs is considered to be consistent with historical reproductions based on model outputs.
GIGO!
the comment ” not a model” is interesting.
My understanding of the proxy process for tree related weather data is that cores are taken from a tree in a selected location ( multiple locations actually). The core is then analyzed for specific weather frealted characteristics from those characteristics an estimate of the temperature is determined.
So unless the tree rings have little labels on them that say 15*C on this particular data they can be nothing other than a model based on assumptions regarding the particular characteristics of the particular tree.
The only solid assumption available would be the estimated dates of the temperature estimates, assuming the tree is alive when sampled, counting tree rings would give you an accurate time line if the rings were counted accurately.
Anything using assumptions to generate an result that can not be independantly verified is a model almost by definition.
Given the uncertainty surrounding the claims and the obvious errors to date( medival warming period vanishing, cooling period in the late 1700’s notexisting) I would need to have some kind of independant verification using a different process.
But then again I kind of like my science to follow the scientific method, perhaps I am just a little strange
Glen,
It is a very complicated subject, and obviously not an excel spreadsheet of data graphed up nicely for all to see, as some here would try to infer. Start here: http://climateaudit.org/multiproxy-pdfs/
Mann’s work is confirmation of the infinite monkey theorem which states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. If it types for half that time it is likely to create MBH98.
If it types for half that time it is likely to create MBH98.
And he’ll create lots of other hockey sticks made by different people using different methodologies on different kinds of proxies, too?
Had the Vikings consulted Mann, they wouldn’t have settled in Greenland. They would have known that it was much too cold.
ChrisD:
Are you the only person in the world that believs that the so called “Independent” papers used different methods AND proxies?
You did not read the Wegman report that showed the lack of independence as the number of proxies used is limited to those that provide the desired results.
Most of the Independent reports were produced by persons that are co-authors of Mann’s works. Not independent at all. That is why they are referred to as the Hockey team and Mann in his latest comments referred to them as a Hockey League.
Which different proxies?
Historical records show that temps were much higher during the MWP, but Mann’s proxy reconstruction says it wasn’t. Which are more accurate, actual evidence from people who were there, or tree rings run through Mikey’s magic computer code?
Are you the only person in the world that believs that the so called “Independent” papers used different methods AND proxies?
Uh, no, I’m not.
You did not read the Wegman report that showed the lack of independence as the number of proxies used is limited to those that provide the desired results.
Oh, I read the Wegman report. Apparently you haven’t read that Wegman and his report are under investigation by his own institution for academic fraud, nor looked into the shoddy scholarship and methods it contained, nor understand that Wegman is completely clueless about climate science.
ChrisD:
That is funny! Bradley who is guilty of not providing proper references to work he used is complaining about someone who was asked to do a review of his work. A review is not an academic endeavor and the standards are not the same as he should have used in his own academic work that he failed to do.
Wegman’s results are not affected by Bradley crying foul which may become another case for a civil case based on an attempt to defame Wegman
Mann is being investigated for fraud and the University is with holding requested records because they are afraid they will implicate their shoddy practices in allowing Mann to defraud the state. If that was not the case the University would have turned over the records to get it over with and show it was nothing more than a “Witch Hunt”. The delays prove there is something worth hiding.
ChrisD:
Your claim that Wegman is clueless about “Climate Science” is proof you are clueless what you are talking about because Wegman’s report was about “statistics” and NOT Climate science.
Exactly!!
Steve McIntyre proved that using Mann’s dodgy algorithms, inputting numbers out of a telephone directory produced a hockey stick.
A review is not an academic endeavor and the standards are not the same
Plagiarism is plagiarism. The Wegman report contains whole sections that are copied with only minor wording changes and without attribution.
Wegman’s report was about “statistics” and NOT Climate science.
And yet he managed to screw up the statistics, too.
Mann is being investigated for fraud and the University is with holding requested records because they are afraid they will implicate their shoddy practices in allowing Mann to defraud the state.
No. Mann is the target of a political witch hunt that is being pursued despite the facts that the one remaining grant had nothing to do with paeloclimate at all, that its results are not in dispute, that it was obtained before the applicable law was passed, and that there is no chance whatsoever that Counsellor Kenny’s ridiculous demands will be upheld in court.
And UVA is defending itself and its academic freedom, as it damned well should.
inputting numbers out of a telephone directory produced a hockey stick.
And half of the red-noise hockey sticks point down, not up. Strange that no one ever mentions this. Why do you suppose that is? Because it ruins the fable, that’s why.
50/50? Same odds as Mann’s claimed accuracy of proxy data vs thermometers.
UVA has something to hide, so hide it does.
Michael Mann has something to hide, so hide he does.
The IPCC has lots to hide, so hide they do.
CRU has lots to hide, so hide they do.
The e-mails from CRU gave a peak at what and how they are hiding..
How many times have you or any other “skeptic” pointed out that fully half of the red-noise runs produce a totally different result? Zero, to the best of my knowledge. All we ever hear is “You can feed it a phone book and still Mann’s hockey stick.” Yeah, well, not really.
And let’s also not mention that the eigenvalues of the Mann and red-noise hockey sticks are completely different. That would really spoil the fun, wouldn’t it?
UVA has something to hide, so hide it does.
UVA is doing exactly what it should, and what any research university would do. It is mounting a proper legal defense against a proceeding that it believes to be improper.
I notice that you didn’t even try to refute any of the four salient facts.
ChrisD:
There were not any SALIENT FACTS. I was just replying to the least obvious Bull excrement you are trying to spread.
Wegman was correct in his results and North, while under oath, agreed with Wegman’s results. The statement from Northe was , We came to the same conclusion as Wegman!
There were not any SALIENT FACTS.
Oh, I see. None of these facts are salient:
1. The only remaining grant had nothing to do with paleoclimate.
2. The conclusions of the research funded by the only remaining grant are not in dispute.
3. The only remaining grant was obtained before the law Counsellor Kenny is using was passed.
4. Counsellor Kenny’s action has zero chance of succeeding and is costing the taxpayers of Virginia far more than the amount of the grant in question, and all this at a time when the state is facing a $1.35 billion budget shortfall.
None of these are salient? Are you serious?
That is pretty cool, getting to pick which data you choose to ignore. You should try that with your income tax.
Wegman was correct in his results
Uh-huh. There is so much wrong with the Wegman report that it beggars belief. He screwed up, people noticed, and now he’s stonewalling.
ChrisD – Please educated us on exactly all the problems with the Wegman report – citing sources and references please.
Otherwise, grow up.
You can start here, but there’s plenty more where that came from.
Let’s try that again.
You can start here, but there’s plenty more where that came from.
You are spamming again. Post after post after post where you provide no useful information.
He asked. I answered. Not spam by any conceivable definition except yours.
No, you just put in a link. Lame again. You made the claim HERE, now defend it HERE.
I rarely use links for this purpose, but in this case I felt that the issue was too technical and too detailed for a blog comment and that the point is best made with a fuller discussion. In addition, it’s not really on topic for this post (and, no, I wasn’t the one who dragged Wegman in).
Just because you do not understand what you are talking about, do not assume as much of others. In the words of a famous forgotten spokesman – put up or shut up. And stop assuming. You know what that makes of you.
And stop assuming. You know what that makes of you.
Seems like you’re assuming that I don’t understand what I’m talking about.
ChrisD:
No one is assuming that you do not know what you are talking about. You do a very good job of supporting that conclusion!
Chris, you’re totally wrong here. The point about the red noise is that it naturally produces up and down graphs, but Mann’s method preferentially selects the up graphs. Using white noise of course would not produce this effect. The point is that the method is erroneous, as M&M, and Wegman (supported by North) confirmed.
The story about Wegman being investigated is misdirection. Bradley is trying to smear Wegman and as a consequence of his email to a third party, it is clear that he is also attempting to blackmail Wegman into withdrawing his testimony. Firstly, Wegman cannot withdraw testimony and secondly Bradley may be engaging in a criminal act by attempting to get him to do so (witness tampering). Moreover, Bradley himself is guilty of using the same conventions Wegman did in his report (in Bradley’s text). Not only that but a copyright claim is limited to 3 years, so Bradley can’t sue because he’s known about Wegman for over 4 years.
Overall this is a poor and, frankly cretinous attempt at discrediting Wegman. The text Bradley complains about makes absolutely no difference to Wegman’s conclusions in any case.
How right you are.
WUWT just published another stunning example of data denial.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/09/study-says-sst-convection-threshold-rising/
It wouldn’t surprise me if Dr Hookeyschtick is right though, I mean, come on, if I were a tree I’d be behaving as badly as only a proud tree can what with all them tree hugging hippies trying to dry hump us like there’s no tomorrow.
There seems to be part of the equation that most people are missing in my opinion, consider if you will that the UN has just released a statement asking governments to stop their climate manipulations programs, some governments the Germany specifically have admitted to such programs, and the UK admitted to doing it in the 50’s and the 60’s onward. So if your looking for the reason as to why some trees are behaving differently you might want to start by looking at what they are spraying in to the atmosphere and how that is affecting plants life on all levels. The problem with climate models is they don’t take this in to consideration either.
I helped chop down the Sahara Forest . . .
My Dad was a surveyor and often said, of matters larger than surveying, “When the land and the map disagree –the land is never incorrect.”
Mann should think about that.
“I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”
Dr. Seuss (another famous climatologist!)
ChrisD,
You’re using typical obfuscation tactics I’ve seen elsewhere from the CAGW crowd.
First you pick a word; “model” and argue about that.
Then you pick a fight about Wegman and plagiarism and argue about that.
The post is about the validity of inferring temperatures from tree ring proxies. If SOME types of trees in SOME locations imply falling temperatures FOR REASONS UNKNOWN and against a “consensus” of rising global temperatures, how can you have confidence that ANY other tree ring proxies do not exhibit this effect?
To deny this incongruence is to commit an unconscious selection bias i.e. “I’ll pick [SELECT] the tree ring proxies which demonstrate a temperature trend consistent with what I KNOW the temperture was doing in the past. I don’t know why some of the proxies show the opposite of my inferred relationship with temperature but I’ll ASSUME robustness anyway. I won’t consider that maybe some tree ring proxies show the opposite of my inferred relationship because that does not suit my purpose.”
If a drug company did this with clinical trial data, you’d be outraged. And rightly so.
First you pick a word; “model” and argue about that.
I said, “PS: It’s not a model.” That was it. The argument came from the other side.
Then you pick a fight about Wegman and plagiarism and argue about that
Mike Davis brought up Wegman, not me. Apparently disagreeing is “picking a fight” in your view?
If SOME types of trees in SOME locations imply falling temperatures FOR REASONS UNKNOWN and against a “consensus” of rising global temperatures, how can you have confidence that ANY other tree ring proxies do not exhibit this effect?
Asked and answered.
Either Mann is an idiot, or he believes the rest of us are. Polar bears have survived numerous warm spells in the past and some warmer than now. I guess this is just more of the narrative attempt to erase epochs such as the MWP.
How I long for a return to real science, this crap is giving me a headache!
It never ceases to amaze me that some people still seek to defend and justify Mann’s tree rings. Any honest biologist will agree that trees make terrible thermometers; their growth rates are determined by a number of factors, i.e. availability of nutrients, light, water, and then there’s also the added complication of competition for these resources, from surrounding trees and other plants. So temperature is just one of many factors affecting growth rates. And if someone could find a forest where all these factors were equal for a prolonged period, even then the growing season is only usually 4 or 5 months of the year, so potential cold springs, autumns and winters are precluded from the data. One of my near neighbours is a Professor of Forestry at one of the leading universities in the UK; he told me he spent years on his PhD (this will probably have been in the 60s or 70s) trying to establish historic climate patterns from old English oak rings – but he concluded that was just too much variation and no useful data for climactic research. So trees do not make good thermometers, and tree rings are a totally unreliable proxy for historical climate research. But it seems that someone forgot to tell that to Mann.
“Proxy: an ally or confederate who can be relied upon to speak or act in one’s behalf.”
ChrisD can (and will!) spew until the cows come home, but a proxy which can be relied upon only for a portion of the period being observed is no proxy at all. Worldwide thermometer record goes back no farther than 1851, and very scant data until 1900’s, so, yes, only half the period.
Here is a simple observation about CO2, temperature and tree-rings…
Tree-rings: Proxies for Temperature or CO2?
The weird thing about this interchange is the ongoing obsession with Michael Mann. Here are some other names that might be considered: Leavitt, Diaz, Hughes, Keigwin, Stahle, Cleavland, Bradley, Lamb, Henry–this list is too long for this comment. There are multiple studies by different researchers using different proxies for temperature and varying analytic methods with the essentially the same results as Mann’s original study. If Mann is completely wrong, then somehow, a whole series of independent researchers made the same mistakes using different measures and different statistical methods. And please, please, do not tell us that they all conspired and falsified their results.
Whytee:
Essentially there was a warmer period that stared about 800AD and it transitioned into a cold period around1200 AD. the cold period transitioned again to warming around 17 00 or 1800AD. The evidence is in regional biological factors that do not require any fancy statistics to see and can be seen all over the globe.
Yes you and your so called scientists are FOS. Mann was wrong, is still wrong and all of the paleo graphs used n the IPCC reports after 1995 are wrong. If you would like we can go back 10 thousand years to see evidence of a warmer globe at that time also.
The progeny of the Hockey stick are affected by their lineage as the father is a deranged Ego Maniac and the mother is a Strip Bark Bristle Cone Pine Tree. This is worse that the researchers trying to mate with Polar Bears and we have seen how that turned out.I almost pity the poor mother!
My, my. You are a poet, Mike. But have you taken the time to read any of the studies? And also, FOS? That’s original.
Whytee:
As a matter of fact! Yes I have read studies about historical climate change.
FOS is a common acronym. I could have used equally proper FUBAR or SNAFU to describe the current state of the IPCC and climatology!