Replies

You raise a number of interesting points. However they seem to be based mostly on the Soon and Bilanius paper in Climate Research. While this paper does contain a number of references, they turn out to be the type we were already dealing with. For example they use Keigwin to show that the Sargasso had cooler temperatures during the LIA without mentioning that Keigwin thinks this is due to a shift of currents. And they use deMenocal work to show cooling without noting that this was also due to a shift in currents and more upwelling.

There are a number of problems with this paper. As an example, they present the following in their methodology (this is a direct quote, please check me if you don’t believe it ) “Table 1 and Figs. 1 to 3 summarize the answers to the questions posed here about local climatic anomalies. For Questions (1) and (2), we answered ‘Yes’ if the proxy record showed a period longer than 50 yr of cooling, wetness or dryness during the Little Ice Age, and similarly for a period of 50 yr or longer for warming, wetness or dryness during the Medieval Warm Period.”

Read that again!!!!!!!! So if the record is warm OR wet OR dry it supports a warm spell. And if the record is cold OR wet OR dry it supports a cold spell. Consequently any change in precipitation (wet or dry) can support either warm or cold. Add to that the fact that they did not try to establish the magnitude of either warming or cooling. Not surprising this paper did create a lot of stir in the field at the time.

However this was not for the politics but for the bad science. In fact, the Publishers of Climate Reaearch (the journal who published this) had to print a retraction that says:
“Major conclusions of Soon & Baliunas are: ‘Across the world, many records reveal that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millenium.’ (p. 89) and ‘Overall, the 20th century does not contain the warmest anomaly of the past millennium in most of the proxy records which have been sampled world-wide’ (p. 104). While these statements may be true, the critics point out that they cannot be concluded convincingly from the evidence provided in the paper. CR should have requested appropriate revisions of the manuscript prior to publication.” In other words, it is an opinion with no science to back it up! It is very rare for a publisher to have to do this and it led to a change in the way CR reviews papers.

If you are interested in an overview of the topic I would refer you to this article:
http://w3g.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/storch/CR-problem/Chronicle%20of%20Higher%20Education.030904.pdf

Anyway, in regards to S&B vs Mann, I will be pleased to stick with Mann. S&B’s work is interesting but from it they can conclude nothing!. I can’t see how you can state that it is solid? Mann’s methodology is complex but it is a complex subject and it is far, far less subjective than S&B’s work.

BTW, since the Chronicle of Higher Education is an organ of academic orthodoxy, it is only fair to present a viewpoint that points out what was left out of the reports on the controversy. Note that this was written before M+M were editorially 'destroyed', yet predicted exactly what Mann et al would do to them:

http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/Calen2/debunk.html

EDMONTON JOURNAL ,12 November 2003
Lorne Gunter, Columnist, Edmonton Journal

Too many scientists have based their research, their reputations and their incomes on the greenhouse theory.

So rather than debate the growing evidence that the greenhouse theory is fundamentally flawed, many greenhouse-believing scientists have begun viciously attacking those who question its conclusions and denouncing any agnostic as a heretic -- especially ones presenting uncomfortably challenging proof.

Witness Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Both are noted solar physicists. Earlier this year, they published an exhaustive study of the climate of the past 1,000 years or so in the journal Climate Research. They examined more studies on historic climate trends -- 240 in all -- than any previous researchers, and concluded the 20th century was not unusually warm. In the past millennium there had been at least one other period when, worldwide, temperatures were as much as 2 C to 3 C warmer than the 1990s.

This was not a particularly startling conclusion. There have been dozens of papers written by geologists identifying a Medieval Warm Period running from about 800 to 1300 AD and a Little Ice Age spanning 1300 to about 1850. Soon and Baliunas merely confirmed that these earlier studies were right.

But Soon and Baliunas were both vehemently attacked. Myths were spread that they had cooked their findings (as good scientists do, they acknowledged in their article the very limitations in their results that have been used to try to discredit them). Three junior editors at the journal that published their study resigned claiming embarrassment that their employer published shoddy research. Then the controversy sucked down the editor-in-chief.

However, when an independent review was conducted of the Soon/Baliunas article, no misrepresentation was found nor any shortcomings with Climate Research's peer-review process. (These latter facts are often left out of news stories on the controversy, though.)

The reason for the hissy fit over Soon/Baliunas is simple though. The pair do not shy from drawing obvious conclusions from their research: if the warming of the 20th century is not unusual, then it is likely natural, meaning the Kyoto accord is an exercise in futility. And even if the warming is not natural, it is not extreme and thus nothing to worry about.

This is a threat to the greenhouse religion. Therefore the pair must be burned at the stake.

The same fate is likely to befall Canadian researchers Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who have just destroyed the "hockey stick" theory on recent global warming for the British journal Energy & Environment. (Questioned the theory, or called it into doubt might be less-charged wording, but I'll stick with destroyed.)

The "hockey stick" has been among the holiest of holies in the greenhouse priests' liturgy. It purports to show relatively stable climate for the 900 years from 1000 to 1900, then a sharp spike upward from 1900 to today. Its implications for the greenhouse theory are so central that it formed an integral part of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's vaunted 2001 report, the one that claimed to confirm disastrous manmade greenhouse warming.

We have known for a long time that the hockey stick compared apples and oranges -- reconstructed temperatures from 1000 to 1900 (temperatures deduced from studying tree-ring growth and ice cores, et cetera) and measured temperatures from 1900 onward. When the 20th century's temperatures are "reconstructed," they don't show the warming the hockey stick shows.

But what McIntyre/McKitrick also reveal is the data used to craft the hockey stick are based on "collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation ... obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation ... and other quality control defects." The wrong places, the wrong dates and the wrong numbers were jumbled together to produce the results the authors desired -- that industrial societies are threatening the planet and only global regulation by the UN can save it.

Three "unjustified truncations" were uncovered by McIntyre/McKitrick. Of 112 temperature records used to create the hockey stick, 13 were incorrectly copied down, 18 mismatched the year and temperatures, 19 made unjustifiable extrapolations to cover missing data, 24 contained obsolete data and all 28 that used tree-ring data miscalculated the information obtained by reading the rings. That's a total of 105 records with errors, although some contained multiple errors, so there were more than seven data sets that were error-free, but not many more.

Emperor Kyoto has no clothes. It's time we called him on it.

Then there is this editorial comment, from Prof Legates, on the controversy:

http://eteam.ncpa.org/commentaries/global_warming/082203dl.html
August 22, 2003
By: Dr. Legates, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware. He also serves as a Review Editor for the journal Climate Research.

While most of official Washington was captivated with the fight on the Senate floor to pass an energy bill before they left town for their August vacation, a vicious campaign was underway behind the scenes to smear two prominent scientists for pointing out serious flaws in the science behind the theory of human-caused climate change.

The targets were Drs. Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, both astrophysicists at Harvard, who were characterized as fringe scientists whose work should be ignored. What did they do to attract such characterizations? They had the audacity to pull back the curtain on the wizard of global warming.

The issue focuses on a paper by Drs. Soon and Baliunas that supports the widely held view that the climate of the last millennium has been quite variable and includes a Medieval Warm Period and subsequent Little Ice Age. This is only controversial because it, and the wider body of scientific literature that exists, directly contradicts recent research by Dr. Michael Mann, a leading global warming proponent. Mann argues global air temperatures have been stable over the last 1,000 years, with the exception of the last 100. It is the 'Mann-made' warming to which Soon and Baliunas have objected.

While most of these arguments are confined to academic discussions that the general public would find less than boring, this fight played out recently in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works (EPW). It has also been echoed in several news accounts from academic journals to the New York Times.

Dr. Mann testified before the Senate committee that his research is the "mainstream view" because it is featured prominently in a chapter of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, of which Dr. Mann was also a lead author. Soon and Baliunas challenged Mann's claim by reviewing the large body of literature that shows his claims to be unsubstantiated and his research to be fatally flawed. In truth, Mann's work is the scientific outlier - the one study that does not fit with the wealth of scientific evidence.

Soon and Baliunas argue that Mann's conclusions rest on a dubious manipulation of data. While many of the problems in Mann's work require scientific expertise to understand, one flaw is so basic that everyone can understand it. Mann and his colleagues compiled a historical climate reconstruction - called the "hockey stick" because of its shape - primarily using tree ring records to infer air temperature trends. Their use of proxy data is not novel, but the methods they used and thus the results, certainly are. For example, Mann and his colleagues simply attached the surface temperature record of the 20th century to the end of the proxy record. This is an apples-to-oranges comparison as air temperature readings are not directly comparable to proxy records. However, putting the two different sets of data together in this way makes a stunning visual display for the average reader.

In addition, in his analysis for the Northern Hemisphere prior to A.D. 1400, Mann uses data from nine locations in addition to statistical summaries derived from data for the western US only. Four of these additional locations are in the Southern Hemisphere, including Tasmania and Patagonia.

The widespread acceptance of this revisionist history was possible because the global warming community was eager to accept the "hockey stick" as proof of human-caused climate change.

If it remained merely a disagreement about science and research methods, there wouldn't be much of a story - or reason for concern. Unfortunately, it turned into a scientific lynching of Soon and Baliunas and anyone associated with them. For example, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of Climate Research that published the paper, was criticized for having failed in his responsibilities of quality control, even though the paper passed an extensive peer-review process and the publisher defended de Freitas' handling of the paper. It was argued de Freitas should be removed from his position simply for having published it. Even Mann, in his Senate testimony, dismissed de Freitas' credentials solely because he "frequently publishes op-ed pieces in newspapers attacking IPCC and attacking [the] Kyoto [protocol]." The Editor-in-Chief of Climate Research declared that Soon and Baliunas should be barred from publishing their work in the future.

Why is all this important? Global warming alarmists would have governments impose significant regulations with tremendous economic implications. The Bush administration is under attack simply for stating that the science is uncertain whether human-induced global warming is occurring. At the same time, scientists that add credence to that assertion are being silenced.

Yet if recent global warming is largely a result of natural climate variability, policies to reduce global warming would be unnecessary, costly and ineffective. Before we are asked to incur the pain, we should better understand whether there would be any gain.