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Again, climate science accepts the use of proxies.

If you actually read the back and forth on the various proxies you will find that climate science accepts all of the issues I noted as legitimate issues which undermine the usefulness of the proxies. The debate occurs because different groups choose to ignore the deficiencies in their preferred proxies while using the other deficiencies to criticize those with different reconstructions.

In any case, I don't really give a damn what the alarmists think about their proxies because I have worked enough with the statistics involved to know they are either ignorant buffoons or liars because their methods are bogus and don't do anything other than mine the data for the signal they want to see.

The tree ring example really doesn't make a difference. As we said, if you reject tree rings outright then you go from a 1700- year anomaly to a 1300- year anomaly.

I don't have a clue what you are talking about. Did you write that properly? All we really know for sure is the planet has warmed a bit in the last 200-400 years. That is not a particularly interesting fact.

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And they do so using proxy data. The idea that no proxies can be used is pretty unique - I don't think any of the skeptical climate scientists say that.

There are 4 main troubles with proxies:

1) Noise that is larger than the "signal";

- Tree ring proxies have this problem so the scientists "mine" their data for the samples with the "right" signal.

2) Poor time resolution

- Proxies that can only average climate over 50-100 years would filter out peaks like the current warm period.

3) Poor dating

- Proxies that cannot be associated with a specific date make it hard to compare to other proxies.

4) Regional

- Ice cores provide the most relable proxies but they can only be found in Greenland and Antarctica.

Any reconstruction will be criticized for one of those reasons if the reconstruction does not produce the critic's desired view of reality. Tree rings are preferred by alarmists because all of the noise causes the samples to average to zero in the past which is their desired result. They get the hockeystick by picking only those samples which correlate with modern temperatures - a correlation that could easily be a coincidence.

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Junk ? But without tree ring data, you still have the recent temperature records showing as a 1300 year anomaly.

Excuse me? I know of no temperature records that show temperatures earlier than 1700 or so (the invention of the thermometer was a necessary prerequisite). There is no data prior to that point and no claim can be made about the temperatures prior to that point in time.

If the other proxies aren't reliable then what are you using to determine that there was a medieval warming period?

I am saying the data on the MWP is inconclusive. People who say there is no MWP are as wrong as people who say that there was one. The correct answer is 'we don't know' and there is no data available that can answer that question. All we can do I make a rough guess about a plausible range for MWP temps and that range is large enough to plausibly claim that MWP could have been warmer than today (but we don't know it).

One of the problems in climate science is people on both sides of the fence can't seem to accept that sometimes the 'we don't know' is the only answer that science can provide. More importantly, "we don't know" is not the same as "whatever I want it to be". This means the onus is on the people claiming that the current warming is unprecedented to prove their case. The onus is NOT on critics to prove the opposite.

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But that data doesn't make or break the theory, from what I have read, so the analogy breaks down.

The data shows that the reconstruction used in the WMO and IPCC reports was most likely junk. They knew that and that is why they sought to hide it. It was a deliberate attempt to decieve.

If you leave out the tree ring data, you still have the recent period being anomalous over the past 1,300 years.

Actually, you don't know that. Leave out the tree ring data and some proxies show a MWP that is as least as warm as today but we cannot say for certain because the other proxies are not that reliable either. The only accurate thing we can say about the MWP is "we don't know but it could have been warmer than today". OTOH, it is not possible to justify any policies based on the assumption that the current warming is unusual because there is no evidence to support that assumption.

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Hiding means concealing, but not necessarily deceiving.

It would be deception if those tags had evidence that you stole those pajamas. Hiding a decline in data is hiding evidence and is only done with an intent to deceive. It is one thing to give people the benefit of a doubt. It is another to twist words beyond any possible reasonable interpretation in order avoid having to acknowledge that they engaged in dishonest behavoir.

The quote where he talks about the deception of blending data, I mean.

You mean this quote:

No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum.

Of course you will likely try to parse the words and declare that he does not mean what is obvious to all readers.

Unprofessional and unethical are different things too.

I don't make distinction when unprofessional behavior leads to negative consequences for others (in this case, harmful government policies adopted based on false pretenses).

I'm not interested in a character study of people whom I will never meet, but rather a discussion of the facts of what the scientific community is saying about these issues.

The facts are that they removed adverse data from a graph because they knew it undermined the argument that they wanted to make. They try to rationalize that removal by claiming the data is wrong but they have no evidence to support that claim. I know they have no evidence because I have actually read the scientific paper with the claim and that probably makes me more informed that many of the 'scientists' expressing an opinion on the topic.

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Tree rings do give us a way to approximate temperatures, but they are not always accurate.

No. That is an assumption that is only considered reasonable because the rings of *some* trees appear to be correleated with temperatures. If the correleation breaks down there is absolutely no reason to believe that the trees in question measure temperature at any time.

The phrase 'hide the decline' does not make it clear that the intent is to mislead, not by a longshot.

Then you obviously have you own version of the English language. The intent is obvious. People don't use the word hide unless deception is intended.

Provide the Mann quote from 2004, pls, I'm interested.

I already did - twice. Try clicking on the links I provide.

Yes you do. These are called outliers and it's perfectly valid. This practice makes sense to me if you have more reliable data that you can use instead.

Only IF you have solid reason to believe that they are outliers and not evidence that your entire hypothesis is wrong. In this case the deleted data is evidence that the hypothesis that tree rings measure temperatures is wrong.

What does that have to do with what I said. My complaint is you are twisting yourself into knots trying to convince yourself that these scientists did not act in a unprofessional manner. The discussion about what this says about the wider community is a seperate issue.

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After that time, we have several sources so we can use one or the other.

You are missing the entire point. The problem is those additional sources are telling us that the estimates of temperature prior to 1850 are likely bogus because tree rings do not really measure temperatures.

You lose me when you jump past the discussion of the matter and hand and attribute motives to people.

This is what they said:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps

to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from

1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

The use of the phrase 'hide the decline' makes it pretty clear that the intent was to mislead. If they just wanted to leave the 'bad' data out they would trunacted the series and plotted the actual temps as a *seperate* line. Smoothing the two series together is dishonest and Mann himself agreed in 2004.

Right. But it was left out because it was wrong, so.

Good grief. We are talking about good scientific practice. You do NOT leave out data simply because it raises inconvenient questions. Drug companies that tried do that with a medical studies would be charged.

It really puzzles me why you are twisting yourself into knots trying to rationalize what these guys did. Why is so hard to accept that these particular scientists are bad apples that let their political agenda interfer with their science?

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Mutual fund people do that all the time, to explain a particular bad patch for a fund.

To be clear - there is nothing wrong with offering an explanation for adverse data. The problem is removing any evidence of that adverse data from the graph in order make the data look better than it is. That is deceptive.

Surely what you're talking about is pretty simple and straightforward, so I'll take a little time to look into this.

Yes it is simple. A group of scienctists sought to mislead people by removing adverse data from a graphic with the full knowledge that removing the data would make people think that the reconstruction was more reliable that it actually is. Scientists are human.

Here is a very good explanation for how they spliced the data series together to create a deceptive graphic.

Here are graphics that show what was left out.

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But they had other data - real temperature readings so why use tree ring proxies then ?

They use the proxies because they wanted to show that the temperatures over the last 1000 years or so were cooler than today. They claim to be able to do that because tree rings are, in theory, correlated with temperatures. The problem is the correlation breaks down after 1960. That could mean one of two things:

1) Some factor unique to the 20th century caused the correlation to break down.

2) The assumption that tree rings are correlated to temperature is wrong.

The scientists in question do not want to consider 2) because it means they cannot use the data and if they cannot use the data they don't have papers to publish. So what they did is *assume* that 1) is true without any real evidence to support that assumption. They then deliberately hid the data that would have warned any astute observer that all is not necessarily right with these tree ring reconstructions.

What they did is no different from a mutual fund sales person that shows a graph of the fund's performance until 2007 and then buried in the text below added a comment that performance after 2007 was omitted because the authors believe that the 2007-2010 meltdown was a 'unique event'. I am sure you would not trust a mutual fund sales person that did that and you should not trust a scientist that resorts to similar tactics.

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From my reading on this, it`s my impression that they`re wrong. This is the point to be resolved, I suppose.

Whether it is resolved in the future is irrelevant. The problem is at the time the graphs were created they did not know why the decline occurred. They had some theories but with little supporting evidence. Given the lack of explaination it is deceptive to leave it out - just like it would be deceptive to show short price chart that ended in 2006.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we talking about estimates of real temperatures here and not a model?

Technically, estimating temperatures from tree rings is a model that relies a large number of assumptions about the biology of trees.

It's not extremely deceptive if there's a reason for using some datasets in some cases and others in other cases.

It is not deceptive if you make it clear that there are two datasets plotted on the same graph. It is deceptive if you take the two datasets a splice them together to make them look like a single series. That is why Mann bristled when he was accused of doing that in 2004 yet in 2010 he is arguing that it is 'standard scientific practice'.

For 20th century tree ring data, they know that the temperatures indicated were wrong, so why use them?

Do we know they are wrong? Trees measure local temperature - not global temperatures and the local temperature records in remote areas are spotty at best. It is quite possible that the trees are correctly measuring temperature for the region where they were found.

Even if the divergence is real it is deceptive to omit the decline because we do not know that the decline was unique to the 20th century. Leaving the data in correctly conveys the potential unreliability of the reconstruction. Leaving it out conveys a false sense of reliability.

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Thanks - I didn't look at that link earlier. I see that they are still looking into one of the allegations, but the report on the others seems to offer an adequate response.

It is not even close to adequate. For example this claim:

The so-called “trick”1 was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field.

Is complete BS. Splicing smoothing two different sets of data in order to make them look like a single series is an extremely deceptive practice and there is no legimate scientific justification for it. In fact here is what one climate scientist said in 2004 about that practice:

No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum.

Any guesses on who said it?

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The figures speak for themselves: according to data gathered by Munich Re, weather-related natural catastrophes have produced US$ 1,600bn in total losses since 1980, and climate change is definitely a significant contributing factor.

There is absolutely no science that supports that claim. It is self serving rubbish dreamed up by insurance companies as a excuse to charge more money for insurance.

Aside: You would laugh if I presented a quote from the CEO of Exxon as an argument. The CEO of a insurance company is no more credible than the CEO of Exxon and I am amazed that you are blind to your own hypocrisy..

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like I said - apparently... Steve McIntyre, and his minions don't agree

I would say the only people who think the ruling means anything are the blind AGW fanatics like yourself. People with or more balanced view of the world can understand that a university that receives millions in funding due to a prominent scientist is in no position to determine whether that scientist violated any ethical rules. Relying on the university to conduct an honest assessment is as dumb as relying RCMP investigate when their own officers are involved in a death.

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allegations against the IPCC in regards "disasters & climate change"

And here Pielke debunks the IPCC spin doctoring.

RESPONSE: Asserting balance does not make it so. The facts here are what the IPCC should respond to: The IPCC report highlighted a single non-peer reviewed study to make a claim that (a) that study did not support, and ( that was countered by the entirety of the peer reviewed literature (much of which went uncited). My work was misrepresented in the text and in the IPCC response to reviewers. The latter included an outright lie. The only balance that was achieved was between misrepresentation and error.

RESPONSE: This statement is remarkable for its untruths. (1) The "one study" did not detect a trend over the full period of record, only a cherrypicked subset, and when that paper was published it explicitly stated that it could not find a signal of increasing temperatures in the loss record, (2) The IPCC report did not note that other studies had not found a trend, except when citing my work in passing, and then undercutting it in error by mistakenly citing the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons to suggest something different (and untrue). (3) The Chapter includes the following figure, which has absolutely no scientific support whatsoever:

The only pattern I see here is the appalling combination of ignorance and arrogance exhibited by the IPCC and its defenders.

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NO evidence of a violation could be found. However, a second phase will proceed to ensure public trust in Penn State's research procedures

Mann - the OJ Simpson of climate science.

This inquiry was joke. They did not contact a single critic of Mann. All they did is let Mann explain himself (a.k.a. lie and spin) without cross examination. Charles Manson would be aquitted if he was offered such accomodating judges.

SteveMc has an initial post up illustrating at least one blatant lie in the report.

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"the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)"

Here are the primary sources of information that the USGCRP uses. You will note that the IPCC is included in its list of primary sources which demonstrates that it does rely on the IPCC assessments, although there does seem to a lot of incest going on where the USGCRP produces a report which the IPCC references which is turn referenced by the USGCRP.

As for the other primary sources they appear to be a selection of politically motivated material. For example. This report's editors was so biased to promoting the catastrophe AGW view that Pieke Sr. resigned in disgust from the committee.

Another report produced by the US government had similar problems.

The bottom line I do not trust anything produced by the US government anymore than I trust the IPCC because there is too much evidence of ideological biases and politically motivated conclusions.

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Although I truly wasn't aware of your suggested dotted-line association between the EPA and the U.S. Department of Defence

Provide some evidence that the DOD has sources other than the IPCC or shut up. There are simply no other sources being used by governments. All of the analyses come from the same poisoned font.

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Assessments conducted by the intelligence community..."

The EPA relies almost entirely on the IPCC as a justification for its rulings. There really is not any other source available for governments to use. You cannot credibly argue that the 'intelligence community' did not do the same as the EPA. As I said, garbage in garbage out.

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clarification please: given this U.S. Department of Defence's most emphatic reinforcement of the imminent dangers of AGW climate change

The DOD does not do its own climate research. It relies on sources like the IPCC to tell it what the impacts of climate change will be. If those sources are shown to be unreliable then the DOD conclusions cannot have any merit. This is not because the DOD did anything wrong other than trusting unreliable sources if information. The formal term for this problem is GIGO.

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from the just released U.S. Department of Defense's

An analyses that means nothing if it relied on the IPCC as a source for the potential impacts of climate change.

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I look at the overall state of AGW climate change balanced against the report

At what are your sources of information for that? The IPCC report? Greenpeace flyers? Blogs? The only thing that the science tells with any degree of certainty is CO2 will cause the planet to warm. Everything else from the effect on water supplies to hurricaine strength is pure speculation with little scientific support. That is why WG2 had to use all of these dubious sources. If it had limited itself to the peer reviewed literature it would not be able to make the claim that warming is a danger to human society.

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not sure why you continue to attempt to make something over the trivial and inconsequential reference to a single paragraph subgroup WG2 report reference concerning (Himalayan) glacier retreat

It is about trust. The IPCC is asking that people trust that its processes produced an scientifically accurate and unbiased report. This failure is one among many that show that the IPCC processes do not work and that its reports are slanted toward exaggerating the effect of warming.

It really does not make a difference if you think it is inconsequential and that you are willing to trust the IPCC anyways. The fact is a growing number of people are looking at these failures and coming to the same conclusion as me: the IPCC is not a trustworthy organization.

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waldo,

Nobody is buying your spin doctoring efforts any more and even long time AGW promoters like the Financial Times are calling for a indepedent audit of IPCC reports.

It closed with this comment:

The IPCC must learn from this gaffe. Not only is its own credibility at stake, but possibly the cause of climate science also.

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why do you foresee/project a repeat of the Kyoto Protocol... is that your takeaway from Copenhagen?

Prentice just signed on to promise will not be met no matter how much the AGW crowd complains. The only question what governments will do in order to pretend to meet those promies and how jobs will be lost as a result.