That Strange Weather
A new and interesting climate blog from Julien Emile-Geay, a post-doc in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. His area of research is how tropical climate affects the global system, with an emphasis on the ENSO. Emile-Geay does not post often (yet), but his posts are worth reading. The first was his take on An Inconvenient Truth, and his recent two (one, two) posts on Loehle's provocation (open link to paper) in Energy and Environment is worth looking at. Lest you think that provocation is, well, not civil, here is what Loehle said:
My purpose in doing the study was to get my foot in the door that other proxies produce a different result than tree rings, which everyone is hooked on. I have achieved my purpose and if you think I did a crappy job, please repeat the study in a proper manner. I don't have my lifework tied up in this. Maybe we could collaborate on the remake?Emile-Geay also hates Blogger, which speaks well for him.
Posts
17 comments:
So is the topic of this post Julien Emile-Geay, or is it about the Loehle 2007 paper?
It is a good blog. I am waiting for Julien to lose patience with the CA crowd and tell them all to blow it out their nose. I give him until mid-January. (I am waiting for the same thing from Ms. Curry as well)
"The mean series shows the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly, with the MWP being approximately 0.3°C warmer than 20th century values at these eighteen sites."
Warmer than which 20th century values? The values at the beginning of the 20th century or the end?
Apparently, one need go no deeper than the abstract to encounter vacuous drivel.
--T
"In other words, we have confirmed, on new and stronger grounds, that the IPCC's global surface-temperature data is exaggerated, with a large warming bias." -- Ross McKitrick Department of Economics, University of Big Gulp's
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=145245
T said:
"Warmer than which 20th century values? The values at the beginning of the 20th century or the end?"
I thought you would say "Which part of the MWP? The values at the beginning of the MWP or the end?"
All other studies state that the current warming is unprecedented and the MWP/LIA don't exist.
He just put his study together to eliminate the questions about the tree data.
- Micky
Micky said: "All other studies state that ... the MWP/LIA don't exist."
That is simply false.
For example, the Moberg mutiproxy shows a MWP (and LIA) for the Northern Hemisphere, albeit one whose max was still below today's current global mean value.
micky also said:
"I thought you would say "Which part of the MWP? The values at the beginning of the MWP or the end?"
That would make no logical sense.
Of course, if one would choose the maximum value, whenever that occurred during the MWP. Choosing any other value would make no sense in the given context.
But it is not at all clear -- at least not from the abstract alone, which 20th century "values" the author is referring to (and I do not have access to the full paper)
I have no way of determining from the abstract alone that he was referring to the max temp value for the 20th century (ie, at the end of the 20th century).
--T
Well, if McKitrick wrote it, then it must be true.
Mus musculus anonymouse
hmmm. what are the chances that McKitrick didn't confuse degrees and radians (or do something equally inane) this time?
oops, I meant to link here.
I suspect that like the 2004 paper he is confusing NH warming with NH economic development. I glanced at the preprint but it was 49 pages long. I tend to equate increased length in scientific papers with increased fecal content, 49 pages is just too long. If you have a point to make, do it quickly. If you wish to obfuscate, act like Koko and sling feces. Of course, I did take into account McKitrick and Micaels publication history...
T:
If, as you say, it's logical to use the max from the MWP, then it's also logical to compare it to 20th century max.
- Micky
I hope people caught Dr. Emile-Geay's comments (see JEG) and subsequent discussion in a couple of Climate Audit threads dealing with Loehle's manuscript. His blog appears to be one worth following.
Micky said: "If, as you say, it's logical to use the max from the MWP, then it's also logical to compare it to 20th century max.'
In ordinary circumstances, I would agree, but in the case of those who are trying to "prove" that the MWP was warmer than "twentieth century values" one can not be sure.
But perhaps someone who has access to the paper can answer that.
Further discussion of this is a waste of time.
Since Eli provided a link to the paper, I accessed the paper.
"One persistent question is whether the MWP was “really” warmer than the end of the 20th century. Even keeping in mind that Figure 1 shows 30-year running means, it would indeed seem to show the MWP to be warmer than the late 20th century."
You're right, further discussion of this IS a waste of time.
- Micky
You're right, the Loehle paper really is not worth discussing. It's funny that the Climate Auditors didn't pick this baby apart, leaving only the bones.
Troll science is clearly behind the curve still. We should be grateful, because if Trollkind becomes too technologically competent, I think the pressure on the billy goat gruff population might be too much - since they show no signs of learning ecology anytime soon,
Hi Eli and readers...
I'm always a little behind the curve but some googling brought this post to my attention.
I am very honored, needless to say.
I do not post as often as i would like, because of this annoying thing called "work". I wonder how other bloggers survive...
In any case, as you could see, i could not keep up with the Climate Audit textual diarrhea for very long. While some people (like McIntyre) really have something new to say about climate (or at least something worth contradicting), there are all too many dunces out there, and i have no time for this masquerade.
The other thing is that i am prefer to answer their handwaving with a new reconstruction of my own ... Loehle's point was apparently to show that by randomly selecting bad proxies, not weighting them by area, and leaving out the last 30 years of the records with a semi-clever smoothing trick, one could get a MWP that was 0.3 degrees warmer than the last decades.
Well, i haven't done the computation yet, but i bet you i can get just the opposite ;-)
Anyway, thanks for the post Eli, and thanks for commenting on That Strange Weather. Your presence brings down the troll percentage significantly.
Ciao
J.E.G.
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