Inhofe’s Global Warming Book Report Continued…
My deconstruction of the logical fallacies in Inhofe’s recent report, titled Senate Report Debunks “Consensus” on Global Warming drew a whole lot of comments on my otherwise thoroughly-ignored blog. I really wish the report had come out at a more convenient time, instead of when I had the blog on auto-pilot for the holidays. I appreciate everyone’s comments, especially the one’s I disagree with, and whom I hope all catch AIDS and die. : )
It’s important to remember that my response to Inhofe’s report is a rhetorical deconstruction, just as Inhofe’s report is a rhetorical device itself. This isn’t a science blog, it’s a science appreciation blog. If that makes me unqualified to write about Inhofe’s report, then Inhofe is unqualified to write the report in the first place.
So Thpppt!!!
The actual science that many of the legitimate scientists apply in their arguments referenced in Inhofe’s report has all ready been exhaustively debated on websites like RealClimate. I’m not going to rehash them. If AGW skeptics have science on their side, then they will need to start publishing their findings in Peer-Reviewed journals. Until that happens, they don’t have science on their side.
So double Thpppt!!!
Tipping points, Carbon Credits, over-hyped alarmism are all valid debates in the overall scheme of things, but what do these issues have to do with the consensus on AGW Theory, which, very simply states (1) it’s happening (2) we’re causing it?
Nada. Nix. Null. Nil. Naught. Zero. Zip. Zilch. A set of reasons that can be expressed with the symbol 
. Bugger all. Bumpkis. Posting them as responses are purely red herrings meant to distract us from the ridiculousness of Inhofe’s report.
I’m not a Climatologist, I’m a BS detector, and Inhofe’s report is very plainly a great big steaming pile of the stuff. Inhofe’s AGW skeptics are telling us everything, but showing us nothing. AGW theorists have shown us everything, published it, and had it peer-reviewed. That’s what makes it a consensus.
Nah. Nah. Nah.
But to address a few of the rhetorical points made in the comments section:
One commenter took issue with my use of the term “Parrotheads,” which is synonymous with “Dittoheads,” a term NeoConservatives proudly use to refer to themselves. If “Parrotheads” is offensive, then I think Dittoheads need to take an introspective moment and reconsider how they self-identify.
On another note, if calling AGW skeptics “Parrotheads” in anyway invalidates my arguments, then Inhofe’s arguments are also invalidated for refering to AGW Theorists as Nazis. My demeaning and jocular nickname suggests my opponents lack critical thinking, Inhofe’s comparison suggests we want to round up millions of people and exterminate them.
More than one commenter pushed the point that Scientists only push AGW theory to get grant money. Lot’s of AGW Skeptics were turned on to this argument from the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.
But doesn’t this rhetoric cut both ways? If AGW Skeptics believe, illogically, that scientific arguments are invalid because the Climatologists are only trying to get research grants in order to justify their average $84k salaries, then Inhofe’s arguments are, by the same illogic, invalidated several times over for the nearly $1 Million in campaign contributions he has received from the Oil & Gas Lobby in order to justify, through reelection, his $165k salary.
The disqualifier disqualifies based on his own fault, as the Hebrew saying goes. If AGW skeptics really want to keep applying this logical fallacy, then I think it’s very nice of them to give AGW Theorists a free debate point. Boo Yah!
Another commenter made the always hilarious, never gets old, point that it snowed this week somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
It snowed in Winter??? Boy is my face red. According to Parrotheads, it shouldn’t get cold in winter if Global Warming is real. Of course, the science doesn’t say this at all, and I’ve all ready given this argument a good spanking and sent it home crying to mommy, so I won’t bother to repeat myself. Still, thanks for the chuckle.
Multiple commenters blamed the sun, which a lot of skeptics like to blame for Global Warming, but never produce any scientific studies to support it. Probably because they can’t. A report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, found no connection between solar variation and recent warming, and, in fact, there is less sunlight reaching the Earth due to air pollution. So sorry. Please try again.
One commenter cut and pasted the talking points from a recent publication (PDF) in the International Journal of Climatology purported to disprove AGW Theory. Unlike the commenter, I actually bothered to read the report, which doesn’t dispute AGW Theory in any way, shape, or form. It merely questions the accuracy of predicting future warming trends through observed discrepancies between the researchers’ measurements and the existing modeling data.
It’s conclusions are also in complete disagreement with another report published around the same time. Conflicting reports? That’s not bias, that’s just another day at the office for science.
Black Wallaby makes a counter point to my criticism that there were too many economists in Inhofe’s report by pointing out that a very alarmist report from economist Sir Nicholas Stern caught a whole lot of media attention. So why the discrepancy?
Because there is no discrepancy. Stern’s report has nothing to do with AGW Theory, it has to do with the economic repercussions of what climate models predict. The accuracy of those models, his economic predictions, etc. all fall outside the scope of the debate over AGW Theory’s consensus point.
If I were to say, “Did you hear??? Sir Nicholas Stern supports the consensus on AGW!!! OMFSM! Tee-Hee! LOL! WWJD!!!”
You could legitimately retort, “He’s a $%#&ing economist dorkbutt!!!” slap me in the face, and send me home to cry myself to sleep for referencing an economist as an expert on a scientific issue.
However, if I were to say, “Sir Nicholas Stern believes AGW holds serious economic repercussions for the world!”
You could reply, “Yeah, but he’s basing those economic forecasts on climate models that may be over hyped.”
It’s a whole different argument.
He also cites McKitrick and McIntyre, the former of ClimateAudit. These two AGW skeptics had their comments rejected by the Journal Nature, most likely for making false claims, of which, we can see, they have made several. Unfortunately, if these two have anything real to contribute to the debate on AGW, they have all ready spoiled their reputations with what is either dishonesty or sloppiness.
However Black Wallaby also makes important points that I am being very unfair to economists, biologists, et al, and I was being unfairly dismissive of them. I did, however, make the point that all of these disciplines have something to contribute to the AGW debate. One group I did not at all mean to sound dismissive of was Meteorologists, and I thought I made that clear by lumping them in with Climatologists, apparently this was misinterpreted as having the opposite intention. Dammit. Oh well.
Anyways. I do completely agree with Wallaby’s point that it’s wrong to put the opinions of scientists in Ivory Towers and resort to an argument from authority logical fallacy. As Carl Sagan once sagely noted, in science “there are no authorities, at best, there are experts.”
His post was definitely the most collegiate and persuasive of all. He should have posted it at a more respectable blog.
Beyond Wallaby’s quibbles, there really weren’t any major refutations of my core arguments. Inhofe’s book report remains an uncollaborative effort, many of the quotations cited don’t in any way dispute the consensus on AGW, and absolutely none of them have been officially entered into the scientific debate through legitimate peer-review journals. Of course, that could be because of academia’s vast left-wing conspiracy. We liberal illuminati are the real reason climate skeptics don’t get published.
On a final note, I was really happy to see that all AGW skeptics were apparently way too embarrassed to defend Kurzweil’s inclusion in the report, where he doesn’t dispute the consensus, like many of the scientists quoted don’t, but does say AGW doesn’t matter because microscopic robots will fly in to save us from it in a few decades. I totally scored a solid debate point there, and I’m really glad I so nefariously plagerized the argument from Joseph Romm.
Thanks Romm!!!
Carbon Credits VS Tax Penalties are another, very important, purely political debate that falls well outside the scope of my post. As I’ve stated before, it’s very much where I would like to see this debate progress. Stay tuned to this blog if you want to eventually dispute my opinions on that entirely different subject. I’ll be happy to make you all feel very small and puny against my insanely puerile rhetorical genius.
PS – Thanks so much for the encouragement Sheryl!!! Don’t worry I won’t quit my day job!!! You totally rock the casaba! I’m even down to using using just a few squares of toilet paper with each bathroom break! You would be so proud! I’ve also added your comment to my resume!
XX OO XX !!!
Haha, good job. You showed them.
Comment by Clint — January 3, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
The author wrote: “I’m not a Climatologist, I’m a BS detector.”
I’d say he is more of a BS generator, based on this last blurb.
Let’s face it, this whole thing is basically a political issue, and not a scientific debate. If there were no political side to the “climate debate”, there would not be much to talk about. And only a few scientists would be joining in.
The UN is a political body. Its committee, the IPCC, is also a political body. Its 2007 report “Summary for Policymakers” is a political document, backed up with some science, but ignoring or rejecting any science that does not support its hypothesis of potentially disastrous anthropogenic global warming.
Inhofe is a politician. So is Al Gore. So is the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon.
One camp (the alarmists) have attempted to hijack the “science” to warn us that doomsday from man-made global warming is near unless we subscribe to a draconian program of carbon taxes and money-shuffling cap and trade schemes involving hundreds of billions of dollars, that many economists believe will do major harm to the world’s economy and many scientists believe will bring zero change to global climate.
As H.L. Mencken once observed, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
The other camp (the skeptics, or “deniers”, as they are called by the alarmists) say this alarmism is all BS and is not supported by science. Some go as far as to deny the greenhouse theory, itself, but most are only skeptical of the predictions that we are headed for disaster due to AGW.
The alarmists like to paint the skeptics as “crackpots” or “stooges (in the pay of Exxon-Mobil, etc.)” while they are the dedicated “saviors of the planet” from evil industrialization.
The skeptics like to paint the alarmists as fuzzy-headed “chicken littles” or “opportunists” who see this is a chance to gain power or fame.
So, yes, there is a scientific debate. But this debate really only exists within the context of a much broader political debate.
The author wrote: “Carbon Credits VS Tax Penalties are another, very important, purely political debate that falls well outside the scope of my post.”
To attempt to separate the scientific debate from the political one is folly.
Max
Comment by Max — January 3, 2008 @ 3:26 pm
Hi Max,
That’s a good post but I would think it would be way above the heads of the author and Clint.
Ninja,
You have made some quite silly comments based on things you appear to think I have said. The rest of it is silly too.
Clint,
Have you ever made an intelligent comment, or anything of substance. Perhaps direct me to one of your earlier posts that you think is intelligent?
Comment by Black Wallaby — January 3, 2008 @ 6:15 pm
“I’m not a Climatologist, I’m a BS detector”
Does this make you a robot Ryan? I think so.
And because I have ignored the first one, due to it being posted when I was on vacation, I will not give my opinions on this one either, thus I win no matter what.
Comment by Nick Hamden — January 3, 2008 @ 9:00 pm
Hey Black Wallaby — according to the owner of this blog, I get a lot more hits than he does. So, somebody somewhere must think that at least 1 of my 1000 blogposts is intelligent.
You should thank me for not bringing your mom into this.
Comment by Clint — January 4, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
The author of the lead article wrote in part:
“…Black Wallaby also cites McKitrick and McIntyre, the former of ClimateAudit. These two AGW skeptics had their comments rejected by the Journal Nature, most likely for making false claims, of which, we can see, they have made several. Unfortunately, if these two have anything real to contribute to the debate on AGW, they have all ready spoiled their reputations with what is either dishonesty or sloppiness…”
Oh really? You won’t find the following information at RealClimate where it looks like the derision above was prompted!
Steve McIntyre, (geologist), and Ross McKitrick, (economist), were contributors to the IPCC 2007 WG1 report, and their names “and/or” appear 461 times amongst the expert review comments of the first and second order drafts of 1995 and 1996 (by digital search)
For brevity I will quote just one comment from McKitrick to the authors of Chapter 6, choosing one which neatly embraces some of the falsehoods above, but by far, not all the issues:
“The authors seem pretty uninformed about my work with Steve McIntyre. For instance there is no mention of our 2005 GRL or E&E papers, even though these contain the bulk of our arguments; and indeed the paragraph shows that the chapter authors are unaware of what our arguments actually are. The paragraph trots out the straw man that we are selling an alternative climate history, despite our repeated and persistent statements that we are not trying to offer “our” climate history curve. From the outset we have been trying to show what Mann’s [hockey-stick] curve would look like if he had done what he said he had done, using the data he said he used. Lest any reader of this comment think it pejorative for me to suggest that the MBH98/99 data and methods were inaccurately or incompletely disclosed, the Corrigendum ordered by Nature and published July 1 2004 by Mann et al. should settle that. We filed a Materials Complaint with Nature in January 2004, Nature asked Mann to respond, and based on their review of his response Nature ordered a complete restatement of the data and methods of MBH98. The methodology described in the new MBH98 SI differs fundamentally from that presented in MBH98 itself, notably in its use of a highly irregular PC methodology and the splicing of proxy PCs in hitherto undisclosed segments. [Ross McKitrick] “
From this comment alone, it can be seen:
1) McKitrick refers to their three peer reviewed published papers M & M2005, A, B & C, which the IPCC wanted to ignore.
2) Their stated aims are not to discredit AGW, but to seek truthful presentation of the data. (Which McIntyre expertly spotted as false data*)
3) Although originally “uncooperative”, the journals Nature and GRL (Geophysical Research Letters), both of which originally supported Mann et al, and their hockey-stick (MBH99) have accepted that at best, Mann’s work was in gross error.
For a more detailed summary of the MBH98/99 saga, including the infamous use of bristle-cone pines, see the following in two parts, taking it up to 2005:
http://www.junkscience.com/jan05/breaking_the_hockey_stick.html
http://www.junkscience.com/jan05/lone_gaspe_cedar.html
Caution: Supporters of RealClimate, (= Mann et al) may find the reading difficult and distressing. (Don’t be put-off by the website junkscience; they are merely posting good sources)
* McIntyre, a geologist, also recently spotted GISS USA temperatures as false, and caused corrections on GISS showing 1938 as the warmest year etc.
Comment by Black Wallaby — January 4, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
The author of the lead article wrote in part:
“…Black Wallaby also cites McKitrick and McIntyre, the former of ClimateAudit. These two AGW skeptics had their comments rejected by the Journal Nature, most likely for making false claims, of which, we can see, they have made several. Unfortunately, if these two have anything real to contribute to the debate on AGW, they have all ready spoiled their reputations with what is either dishonesty or sloppiness…”
Oh really? You won’t find the following information at RealClimate where it looks like the derision above was prompted!
Steve McIntyre, (geologist), and Ross McKitrick, (economist), were contributors to the IPCC 2007 WG1 report, and their names “and/or” appear 461 times amongst the expert review comments of the first and second order drafts of 1995 and 1996 (by digital search)
For brevity I will quote just one comment from McKitrick to the authors of Chapter 6, choosing one which neatly embraces some of the falsehoods above, but by far, not all the issues:
“The authors seem pretty uninformed about my work with Steve McIntyre. For instance there is no mention of our 2005 GRL or E&E papers, even though these contain the bulk of our arguments; and indeed the paragraph shows that the chapter authors are unaware of what our arguments actually are. The paragraph trots out the straw man that we are selling an alternative climate history, despite our repeated and persistent statements that we are not trying to offer “our” climate history curve. From the outset we have been trying to show what Mann’s [hockey-stick] curve would look like if he had done what he said he had done, using the data he said he used. Lest any reader of this comment think it pejorative for me to suggest that the MBH98/99 data and methods were inaccurately or incompletely disclosed, the Corrigendum ordered by Nature and published July 1 2004 by Mann et al. should settle that. We filed a Materials Complaint with Nature in January 2004, Nature asked Mann to respond, and based on their review of his response Nature ordered a complete restatement of the data and methods of MBH98. The methodology described in the new MBH98 SI differs fundamentally from that presented in MBH98 itself, notably in its use of a highly irregular PC methodology and the splicing of proxy PCs in hitherto undisclosed segments. [Ross McKitrick] “
From this comment alone, it can be seen:
1) McKitrick refers to their three peer reviewed published papers M & M2005, A, B & C, which the IPCC wanted to ignore.
2) Their stated aims are not to discredit AGW, but to seek truthful presentation of the data. (Which McIntyre expertly spotted as false data*)
3) Although originally “uncooperative”, the journals Nature and GRL (Geophysical Research Letters), both of which originally supported Mann et al, and their hockey-stick (MBH99) have accepted that at best, Mann’s work was in gross error.
Comment by Black Wallaby — January 4, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
Further to the above, for anyone interested in a more detailed summary of the MBH98/99 saga, including the infamous use of bristle-cone pines, see the following in two parts, taking it up to 2005:
http://www.junkscience.com/jan05/breaking_the_hockey_stick.html
http://www.junkscience.com/jan05/lone_gaspe_cedar.html
Caution: Supporters of RealClimate, (= Mann et al) may find the reading difficult and distressing.
(Don’t be put-off by the website junkscience; they are merely posting good sources)
* McIntyre, a geologist, also recently spotted GISS USA temperatures as false, and caused corrections on GISS showing 1938 as the warmest year etc.
Comment by Black Wallaby — January 4, 2008 @ 11:49 pm
Further to Black Wallaby’s post showing that Michael Mann used faulty data in his denial of a global Medieval Warm Period (MWP) with temperatures higher than those of today, check a recent report on this subject:
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025
This report confirms the findings of an earlier study:
http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr2003/23/c023p089.pdf
The conclusion is that the Medieveal Warm Period was real, it was global and it had temperatures that were significantly higher than those of today, thereby directly refuting the IPCC SPM 2007 claims that current temperatures are the highest in the past 1300 years.
Max
Max
Comment by Max — January 5, 2008 @ 12:40 am
Max,
I find it ironic that the same ideology that raged against the “moral equivalency” of post-modernist philosophy so enthusiastically embraces the school of thought’s “factual equivalency,” who’s essence is captured in your science is inseparable from politics silliness. I’m sorry but these are non-overlapping magisteria, to abuse Stephen J. Gould’s concept, no matter how many times you reaffirm the point without factual support.
Wallaby,
My apologies concerning your posts getting flagged for moderation. I hope that wasn’t too frustrating…
Accepting that you have disclaimed JunkScience as your source. I still need to point out that I’ve covered Steve Milloy’s grotesque abuse of, not just science, but rationality as well, and his one source cited is the notoriously conservative National Post, but these two stories basically amount to M&M over hyping their own significance in the disputation.
=The whole complicated history of the Hockey Stick Controversy, is a pretty enlightening scientific debate, and is pretty much ancient history as the Fourth IPCC Report relies on a much broader collection of data and “now presents a whole range of historical reconstructions instead of favoring prematurely just one hypothesis as reliable.”
McKitrick’s statements are inaccurate. He has one publication of dubious importance, Energy and Environment lacks recognition by the Institute for Scientific Information, and is not included among the 14,000 journals it cites. His publication in GRL is not considered of particular importance in the “Hockey Stick Controversy” by the Journal of Nature.
Mann’s data is only one of 10 reconstructions of the last 1000 years. You can see a lot of variation in the different results, but a pattern does emerge. There’s plenty of other evidence as well, such as migrating Hardiness Zones and the Vostok ice core and the CO2 Measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory, but I and others have all ready covered these. Mann’s “Hockey Stick” was never the entire basis for AGW Theory, but only represented one piece of data, now justifiably downgraded in importance, in the whole body of knowledge persuading the scientific consensus.
I have cited numerous sources from across a wide variety of publications, all collaboratively working towards an evolving understanding of what is an immensely complex subject. That’s significantly more thorough than your quote from M&M greatly exaggerating their own significance in the singular act of criticizing Mann’s contribution this debate. I think it does say something that you run to JunkScience to find out what your arguments are supposed to be, I run to Wikipedia to formulate my own.
Comment by ideonexus — January 5, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
Hi Ryan,
You wrote: “I find it ironic that the same ideology that raged against the “moral equivalency” of post-modernist philosophy so enthusiastically embraces the school of thought’s “factual equivalency,” who’s essence is captured in your science is inseparable from politics silliness. I’m sorry but these are non-overlapping magisteria, to abuse Stephen J. Gould’s concept, no matter how many times you reaffirm the point without factual support.”
With these words you have again proven your superior skills as a BS generator.
The fact is that the debate which is currently raging, encompasses both the political policy aspects being promulgated by the UN, as well as the scientific studies being used to support them.
The fact is also that IPCC is a committee formed by and operating under the auspices of the world political organization, the UN.
Please demonstrate to me your level of rational skepticism versus niavety and blind faith by answering this question:
Do you believe that the IPCC “charter” is to find scientific truth about climate change or to find scientific proof for the UN’s position on climate change?
To try to separate the “science” from the “politics” is foolish, since the “science” was born from the “politics”.
Max
Comment by Max — January 5, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
Some good news for Ryan (corrected)
In January 2007 the UK Meteorological Office predicted that 2007 would be “the hottest year on record”.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/04/phew_what_a_scorcher/
Met office scientist Katie Hopkins said: “This new information represents another warning that climate change is happening around the world.”
The article went on to say, “The long-term prognosis is alarming. As Reuters puts it: ‘Most scientists agree that temperatures will rise by between two and six degrees Celsius this century due mainly to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.’”
It’s great to be able to predict a whole year’s average temperature, and even to predict that it will be a “record hot year”.
Let’s see how well the UK’s Meteorological Office really did.
Under the eye-catching headline, “2007 ‘second warmest year’ in UK”, BBC tells us what really happened on a global scale.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7169690.stm
Turns out the top 10 were (from hottest to coolest): 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2001, 1997 and 1995.
OOPS! So, despite the eye-catching headline, 2007 was number seven out of ten and not the “record hot year” at all. If you only take the years in the 21st century, 2007 ranked only number six out of seven, so it was kind of a “blooper”.
So much for predicting temperature for a whole YEAR in advance.
But cheer up, folks, as the article said IPCC’s scientists can predict (or project, as they prefer to call it) that “temperatures will rise by between two and six degrees Celsius” a whole CENTURY in advance.
Too bad none of us will be around in 2100 to see how well (or poorly) they actually did.
Max
Comment by Max — January 5, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
Hi Ryan,
Are you feeling OK now?……….. The topic is your earlier comment: “…Black Wallaby also cites McKitrick and McIntyre, the former of ClimateAudit. These two AGW skeptics had their comments rejected by the Journal Nature, most likely for making false claims, of which, we can see, they have made several. Unfortunately, if these two have anything real to contribute to the debate on AGW, they have all ready spoiled their reputations with what is either dishonesty or sloppiness…” they have all ready spoiled their reputations with what is either dishonesty or sloppiness…”
I respond to your latest comments, where item numbers “[#] are yours, and (#) are my replies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“[1] Accepting that you have disclaimed JunkScience as your source. I still need to point out that I’ve covered Steve Milloy’s grotesque abuse of, not just science, but rationality as well, and his one source cited is the notoriously conservative National Post, but these two stories basically amount to M&M over hyping their own significance in the disputation.”
(1) One of the interesting behaviors I see in the worshipers of RealClimate and their ilk, is that if any of “The Hated”, such as JunkScience, ClimateAudit, or Inhofe etc, quote any other source, then that other source will be immediately branded as corrupt. This applies to peer reviewed papers that RealClimate (= the inventors of the fraudulent hockey-stick) do not like. BTW, I think it is a tad strong to wish that people like me whom disagree with your church, would catch AIDS and DIE! Were you on some sort of “substance high”, when you wrote your lead article? (You seem OK this time)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“[2] =The whole complicated history of the Hockey Stick Controversy, is a pretty enlightening scientific debate, and is pretty much ancient history as the Fourth IPCC Report relies on a much broader collection of data and “now presents a whole range of historical reconstructions instead of favoring prematurely just one hypothesis as reliable.”
(2a) Firstly you should ask yourself WHY the hockey-stick was EXCLUDED from the 2007 report, when it was clearly “MANNA” in 2001. In 2001, it appeared in every nook and cranny of the various report sections and press releases. It was a very frightening presentation, PARTLY because it had a GROSS EXAGGERATION by ending with unsmoothed instrumental data at the El Nino high of 1998. This deliberately scary (unsmoothed) spike was about 25% above trend as shown in the global temperature graph nearby in the self-same IPCC report. SO WHY DID THEY DELETE IT, in 2007? Why delete such a devastating warhorse in 2007? Odd eh?
(2b) through to maybe (2zz)…….not enough space here, perhaps another time!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“[3] McKitrick’s statements are inaccurate. He has one publication of dubious importance, Energy and Environment lacks recognition by the Institute for Scientific Information, and is not included among the 14,000 journals it cites. His publication in GRL is not considered of particular importance in the “Hockey Stick Controversy” by the Journal of Nature.”
(3) This is a very confusing paragraph. Are you denying that the IPCC tried to avoid mention of published M & M 2005A, 2005B, and 2005C? Are you aware that the IPCC referred to UNPUBLISHED Wahl & Amman 2006, criticizing M & M, and which was discredited? What has the ISI got to do with it? Your second link; Journal of Nature takes me to a blog: “The decay of the hockey stick”, which I think you would rather I did not see, because it makes your claims look silly. Finally, which of McKitrick’s statements are inaccurate, and why do you say so; carte blanche? (including for instance the corrigendum forced on Mann by Nature?)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“[4] Mann’s data is only one of 10 reconstructions of the last 1000 years. You can see a lot of variation in the different results, but a pattern does emerge. There’s plenty of other evidence as well, such as migrating Hardiness Zones and the Vostok ice core and the CO2 Measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory, but I and others have all ready covered these. Mann’s “Hockey Stick” was never the entire basis for AGW Theory, but only represented one piece of data, now justifiably downgraded in importance, in the whole body of knowledge persuading the scientific consensus.”
(4a) The pattern in the ten spaghetti reconstructions from Wikipedia you quote show a return of the MWP and LIA, which were “Cancelled” with MBH99 in IPCC 2001. The IPCC 2007 equivalent, (Fig 6.10), is similar. Note that there is a downturn in the last 50 years or so which has been making the Dendro’s scratch their heads. It is still known as the divergence problem, where tree-growth rate is paradoxically slowing relative to the published temperatures and increased feedstock from CO2! The dendro’s have tried to make it look better by creating a little up-flip at the end of the smoothed curve, using contrived data. That is to say, if there is say a forty-year smoothing used, then the smoothing, by definition, should end at the averaging centroid, 20 years short of the raw data end. (But it does not, yet there is no data to enable it)……BTW, I look forward to your responses to Max’s post on the most recent paper showing the MWP to be warmer than today.
(4b) If it makes you happy, as you wander further away from the topic, I’ll agree that there has been an irregular upward trend in global temperature over the last century, and CO2 at Mauna Loa is more steadily increasing. However, consumption of hamburgers and various other consumables has also been increasing. I reckon it’s all caused by hamburgers!
(4c) I’m a bit surprised at you showing CO2 and inferred T’s in ice-cores though, because the controversy over why CO2 lags T by hundreds of years only adds confusion to the debate, and is way off the M & M topic anyway*. (Not to mention Jaralowski’s concerns)
(4d) Mann’s hockey-stick has absolutely nothing to do with AGW. It was apparently an attempt to re-write history to meet a political agenda, and scare everyone into thinking that current warming is unprecedented.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“[5] & [6]” : (not relevant.)
Part 2 may follow, where I query the things you did not respond to
Cheers, Black Wallaby
Comment by Black Wallaby — January 7, 2008 @ 3:14 am