which are to be considered meaningless or at least questionable before youve been able to replicate the results of the paper
so are all the climatologists
which you and everybody else who seems to like that paper arent intellectually able to
theoretically no
but unless youve beeen able to replicate the results yourself its impossible to know whether the paper is honest or not (the peer reviewers usually have to assume the results are honest due to time constraints and focus more on the correctness of the methods described in the paper)
Thanks for all your one liners Shot. Although I assume you're just being snarky, I'll try to answer them.
What is immediately interesting about this paper (and what was interesting to me) is that it is independent confirmation/replication of the conclusions that Steve McIntyre came to when auditing Mann, that the proxies used were found to be unreliable indicators of past temperature, confirmed by the authors result that random (red) noise actually gives a better model fit than when using the actual proxies. Really, this is a replication of an already established result, though ignored by climate scientists.
Since all the data and code are provided, there's no issue that this paper can't be replicated. This is already behaviour worlds away from the long drawn out fights over basic data and methods that has extensively been covered in Climategate and elsewhere. As I said, anybody with the chops to do so can do this work. It's certainly not going to be done by me. But cheers for pointing that out again.
PS, the intention of the authors is not in offering up their own version of the hockeystick- which is a point being missed on various pro-climate blogs. They are saying that the proxies are useless for the purpose assigned to them, that of determining historical temperatures with any degree of certainty or skill. The proxies fail.
Climatology relies on statistics. (edit: and perhaps in this case, not being climatologists should really work to the benefit of the authors as they would likely be immune to any potential biases and preconceived notions about results).
See above. Also, I did have a go at reading the paper. Did you? Just how many papers have you been able to replicate before you accepted the findings of the authors? Do you not accept anything that you haven't put in the work to replicate personally? Let's see where you show Mann is right and these new authors wrong. Do you not 'like' the new paper? Why?
Apparently there's this maxim in science which goes something like 'trust, but verify'. Which sounds sensible. What I don't accept (and you can see that this has been my basic argument in this whole thread) is this new idea of 'trust, I'm a scientist', and then withholding the means by which to verify. As far as I can tell, anyone can get on board that, you don't need to be a scientist to see there's something wrong with that. Verification is a straight forward process. If you can't verify, then it makes it that much harder to trust.
Explained above. (the author's honesty is relatable to them immediately putting up all material and methods for easy public access). The paper itself may be heavily contested in both climate and statistics journals.
i was under the impression that these already "established" results were published on a blog
dont blame the scientific community for ignoring someone who isnt willing to use the proper channels
which means that any properly educated climatologist will have been taught a strong foundation in statistic methods during his math education
it seems a little like youre missing something important here but climatology is a physical sciences branch
these people know how to do math very well
all the ones that are relevant to my work
it seems like you predictably arent familiar with the way science works
are you aware of the process of how an idea evolves through the stages of conjecture to hypothesis to theory?
the same process applies to papers that try to do soemthing truely new
at this point this singular paper represents something between the stages of conjecture and hypothesis
as neither i or you are familiar enough with the subject to form any sort of educated oppinion on the content of the paper i choose the only sensible thing to do which is to wait things out until the paper either gets debunked or gets backed up by a lot more work on the subject
if the latter happens the thing has matured to the point where it can be compared to the stage of theory
then and only then will be the right time for anyone not specialised in the content of said paper to get on the bandwagon and accept it as correct without replicating the results himself
[QUOTE]What I don't accept (and you can see that this has been my basic argument in this whole thread) is this new idea of 'trust, I'm a scientist', and then withholding the means by which to verify.
while i agree that is a bit shakey the fact of the matter is there is no point in sharing data with citizen "scientists" who wouldnt know the first thing what to do with it
[QUOTE]the author's honesty is relatable to them immediately putting up all material and methods for easy public access[/QUOTE]
you do realise that the material is there for scientists who know the math not for dick and jane to add further noise to the debate without having anything of value to say?
[QUOTE]From the recent Oxburgh enquiry.
The Wegman report, 2006[/QUOTE]
which talk about one single reasearch group in a rather large field
If you'd read the new paper you could have simply checked the supplied references for yourself. This is the last time I'm going to hand you out information you could have easily gotten yourself. You've shown nothing but laziness and offered nothing but impressions and assumptions all the way though this discussion.
I've never said they weren't good at math. I'm saying that statisticians should be able to do statistics better.
This isn't plate techtonics. This is shining a light on some dodgy math.
How about sharing the data with scientists?
Who cares what I say. The point is that CRU and others have a history of not providing their data to anyone, scientists included. Unless you're friends with the guy who wrote the paper. Then that's o.k.
If you'd read Wegmen then you'd have some idea just how incestuous the paleoclimate field possibly is. But of course you haven't read it. I can't be bothered hunting it out for you.
You lack the proper context for this paper and where it fits into the overall history of the hockeystick controversy and the literature. I forgive you for imagining that this is something which has just come out of left field, but I can assure you that's not the case. Various conclusions and concerns of this paper have already been articulated through previous papers, expert panels and congressional hearings. For the lazy, here's a wiki entry for the history of the hockeystick so far. Of course, this can only begin to scratch the surface.
All I'm conveying to you are the conclusions that I've been able to draw from my reading on the robustness of these constructions. They do not look good. This is pretty much confirmed even by the original authors themselves. They admit a great deal of uncertainty and have recently quietly admitted that sans a number of contentious proxies (bristlecone pines and the contaminated Tiljander series) the reconstructions show no statistical skill prior to 1500. Statisticians have consistently been at pains to point out that the proxies are pretty much useless as indicators of past temperature, and this new paper is further verification of that. I'm just telling you what they told me
and im trying to point out to you that since you lack any education in any relevant field to the subject you should do the only smart thing there is and wait things out while the topic is still under discussion from people who do know the math instead of flapping your mouth in support for one side when in fact you dont understand either side
also for what its worth a congressional hearing is not a scientific publication
So at first we had a worldwide scientific consensus. Now we have a topic still under discussion.
I say we're making some sort of progress. I hope the policymakers have not taken sides yet and will 'wait things out' as it is the smart thing to do from dumb people.
I'm extremely happy to wait things out. Where was I 'flapping my mouth off?' or where did I say this paper was correct beyond reproach? All I offered was that this papers conclusions are consistent with previous papers in the lit, and then I pointed out that you seemed to be unaware of this. You can check that my 'enthusiasm' for this paper lies in the fact that the authors haven't hidden anything away to be second guessed by anyone else. All data and methods are available, and I contrasted this with the prior behaviour of Mann, which I find deplorable in this regard. This 'discussion' as you put it has been ongoing since 1998, in the literature and outside of the literature, and I've tried to follow it all the way along and I've listened to both sides with extreme interest. I am educated on the issue, even if the finer mathematical points elude me. But there is nothing at all 'shocking' about this paper for me to assume that it is a wrong footed approach. Again I point out that these things have been said time and time and time again. I will wait for an official rebuttal from the original authors along with everyone else. That's what you do.
The problem with this approach is that as has been demonstrated in the past (e.g. hockeystick graph) some of the people who are supposedly experts in the field are not being objective in their methods or analyses. When you have people being given research grants and funding from governments (e.g. the CRU) the chances of getting data back that's objective are in question. I'm not saying that "citizen scientists" have the expert knowledge in the field (or even the authority to attempt to invalidate what has already been published). What I'm saying is that one of the foundations of scientific research (namely objectivity) is compromised when governments are funding research when they already have extensive work under-way that relies on a particular outcome from that research.
I would disagree with this. I see the problem as being one where a branch of experts, in this case the statisticans, are not being given their proper dues- and then people are not being objective about their arguments or are made simply unaware of or are willfully unaware of the arguments, for whatever reasons. On blogs and in the media you hear an awful lot of people defending climate scientists from the point of 'when I need my car fixed I don't call a climate scientist. I call the mechanic. But when I need to know about the science of climate change, I listen to and trust the climatologists'. Similarly, in this new paper, the statisticians have made no judgment on the quality of the data being used...
What the statisticians have done is simply attend to the area of their expertise. If you can't accept statements made by the statisticians on the quality of statistics being performed by non statisticians, that their arguments are invalid because they are not climate scientists, but then you are also making arguments on the authority of climate scientists, then you are not being symmetrical in your argument.
This 'citizen scientists' term is misleading here. Both the Wegman panel and the North panel were in sum representative of the top experts in the fields of both paleoclimatology and statistics. They both came to similar conclusions.
Let's be real here. Critics of Mann are not simple backyard statisticians with delusions of grandeur. They are respected in their field. They have shown to be correct, even by scientists in close personal connection to Mann. Where Mann's supporters generally tend to differ is in their take on whether the criticisms matter... not that they are somehow wrong.
What would you say about practices such as selecting data specifically to fit an ideology (as occurred with the Yamal sampling)? If the raw data you pass on is intentionally filtered to fit a particular ideology then no amount of good, honest work in the future can account for this. Fruit of the poisonous tree.
To put an end to the discussion so to speak, forget what you hear on the news, other people, etc, when you walk outside, do you notice a bloody difference in the climate?
Because climate (whether it's goin tits up or not) affects everyone, everyone can judge for themselves, by going outside, taking their own tempreature readings over a period of time, and they will see that, all the CRU and other organizations do, is manufacture government fueled shite.
To anyone who believes in climate change : do you not think it's strange how this benefit's any government that uses it?
As many dictators have said and will continue to say, fear is the most powerful emotion, if you strike fear into your populous you can get them to do what you want, instead of using religion to control the citizens they are using science, which is effectively a religion as it's manufactured to create the maximum effect.
It's been happening since the beginning of time, the governers would say if you do this, this, this or this, the gods will smite you. Effectively it's the same thing happening now, they are basically saying the world is ending to get you to pay more tax.
Edit : Take F1 for an example (something we can all relate to on here), some of the circuits they have been going to for decades, and have they ever said that the track tempreatures were abnormally high or low? No, they haven't. It's the same each year they go to these places unless there's a weather difference of course.
Your post does not "put an end" to anything (well, perhaps to anyone who read your first sentence with a sense of anticipation for an enlightening post).
What you call cherry picking Keith Briffa would probably call a problem arising from a limited sampling of cores. Steve M has recently posted on the issue of the existence of another set of data (an updated Polar Urals chronology) which has been available since 2000. These are valid measurements according to Briffa and should really be used to gain a more reliable result in his reconstruction. So far, Briffa has not done any re-analysis taking into account these other measurements.
Remember, this data has been available since 2000. But according to Briffa (in answer to Muir Russel), there has been no time in which to do the work, and alternatively (to Steve Mc) that he hadn't even considered it. This is all very strange. I'd recommend reading through the post linked above. If you come away from it with the feeling that Briffa isn't interested in updating his data, which might then give differing results to those included in IPCC, ie- it's basically a case of cherry picking and ignoring evidence- then I wouldn't hold it against you. I also get the same feeling.
The article is correct but only by taking into consideration certain datasets. Reality is a little bit more complicated than that. Makes a good headline though...
Here's GISS
Here's Had_Crut
Here's UAH
Here's RSS
3 out of 4 data sets disagree about the announcement that "So far, this has been the hottest year in recorded history."
I'd suggest an actual check of the data before believing what the papers tell you. But I understand you're a smart guy, you already know that. I agree completely that this is a hot year globally. No complaints there.
(not having a dig at you, just providing perspective and data).
the worldwide consensus that the climate is warming still stands and so does the consensus that co2 is a greenhouse gas
how large the spike in warming compared to the past and how much of an effect co2 has are is still subject to ongoing research
i cant be bothered to read through all of the discussion again and i might have attributed some of sams rubbish to you when i wrote that
i think you did a little more than that but again you do realises that there are more climatologists in this world than that one guy and his colleagues?
while you may not have said it as such you certainly did imply that it had any sort of relevance in the ongoing scientific discourse
this may just be a case of you never having seen a university from the inside but research is usually largely state funded
particularly in fields like eg particle physics (lhc) or paleontology where unlike with eg engineering research there is very little chance of getting marketable results and thus no interest from short term oriented businesses in any way that would case them to throw money at the scientists
and even in fields like engineering industry money is an issue as it stops any research into the fundamentals dead in favour of improving already existing technology which amounts to merely scratching the surface of the science
Of course I don't ascribe the behaviour of one or a few men to be representative of the behaviour of the entire field. But on the other hand we were not talking about these other men/women- I don't think we have the entire thread, which is probably a great shame. In fairness, the point should be made that the people we have been talking about do enjoy great power and influence within the climate community- they are lead authors of IPCC, head of CRU, etc. My opinion on that is that it is regrettable. As leaders in their field they should acknowledge some kind of responsibility in being better role models for openness and transparency and fairer play with critics. My problem with climatologists is really a problem with these few people, and you are certainly right to point out that not everybody is like this.
I believe it's relevant. It was made up of scientists who were critiquing and giving recommendations on the current state of science at the time. In my definition that is a scientific discourse (if it wasn't relevant I don't think they would have bothered).
Been out of action for a week or so. I had no idea this thread had re-ignited.
Yes, I read the paper in one night. It was pretty easy to do, which you'd see if you read it, and already being familiar with many of the papers cited made fairly light work of it. I get time on an evening to do things like this.
No, not really. I understand a great deal about the science behind proxy reconstruction, I know the basics of principle component analysis. I understand the use and purpose of red noise to test a methodology, I understand holdout blocks and most of the other tests that are applied to the proxy reconstruction data. I'm not a statistician, doesn't mean I'm stupid.
It means the writing style is good, and it means that many of the results of this paper address issues that I'm already familiar with as being previously identified deficiencies in the work of Mann 98-08.
If, by AGW, you mean paleo reconstruction, then I would agree with you that most of the work is based on statistical analysis. And this is actually why the MW10 paper is so significant, because this is the first time that an in-depth analysis of the proxy data has been performed by professional statisticians. If you didn't know already, paleo scientists like Mann, Ammann etc. are not statisticians, and don't pretend to be.
