Sunday, January 06, 2008

Steve, set the Wayback Machine to October 29, 2003

UPDATE: N3xus6 says it in pictures. Ear tip to Deltoid

As some of you may know Steve Mc has thrown a hissy fit about how Gavin Schmidt didn't stay up Christmas Eve to allow Steve's comments through on Real Climate post haste. Eli was involved in this because he had noted in a discussion about comments in journals that

FWIW, journal editors have the role of bringing the maximum information to the readers not acting as judges between the parties with the sole and vital exception that they must make an editorial decision that the the correction is worthy of consideration. It is all to easy in a controversy to try and cut it off (which is the mistake that the editor here made), but I see nothing wrong with showing the information to the original authors for their comments. There is no “deadline to meet” and the process takes as long as it takes. That does not mean that when one of the parties starts sprouting nonsense the editor cannot rule the nonsense offsides, or cut off the process when no new information is being added.

I have been on both sides of this, and consider myself fortunate in the editors that handled the situations. I have, through the guidance of those editors, learned a lot about these situations. A word of advice to those submitting comments - keep it short, only comment on things you definitely can prove.

There was a bit more, but RC cut a paragraph because Steve was whining (UPDATE #2)
In the same RC thread, NASA employee and spokesman Gavin Schmidt published a defamatory statement by Eli Rabett, in which Rabett simply invented an account of the original submission by M&M to Nature and then censored my reply to the defamatory statement, which stated: adding in a paragraph that was edited
The Mc’s submitted a garbage can full of issues and the editors at Nature worked to define what was an error, what was a controversy, and what was just silly, all requiring a voluminous correspondence. I guess that the editors told the Mcs that some of their issues were better dealt with in a submitted paper.
Steve claims that
All these statements are untrue.

We submitted a short and clearly written article to Nature, online here which did not require a “voluminous” or even any correspondence to review.
Well you can go read climate audit for more of this at the UPDATE #2 link, but Steve, start the Wayback Machine and let us go to your Climate2003 site where we read

The Audit and Audit Issues

The errors in the data base is here at the audit page. The following audit questions [to the authors of MBH98] summarize the findings and a response to these questions is what is required to resolve the audit issues. Further questions may arise from the responses to these questions.

1. Does the database contain truncations of series 10, 11 and 100? (and of the version of series 65 used by MBH98)?

2. Are the 1980 values of series #73 through #80 identical to 7 decimal places? Similarly for the 1980 values of series #81-83? And for the 1980 values of series #84 and #90-92? What is the reason for this?

3. Where are the calculations of principal components for series in the range #73-92 that would show that these have been collated into the correct year? Do you have any working papers that show these, and if so, would you make them FTP or otherwise publicly available?

4. Do the following series contain "fills": #3, #6, #45, #46, #50-#52, #54-#56, #58, #93-#99?

5. How did you deal with missing closing data in the following series: #11, #102, #103, #104, #106 and #112?

6. What is the source for your data for series #37 (precipitation in grid-box 42.5N, 72.5W)? Did you use the data from Jones-Bradley Paris, France and if so, in which series? More generally, please provide, identifications of the exact Jones-Bradley locations for each of the series #21-42. Where are the original source data?

7. Did you use summer (JJA) data for series #10 and #11 rather than annual data. If so, why?

8. Does your dataset contain obsolete data for the following series: #1, #2, #3, #6, #7, #8, #9, #21, #23, #27, #28, #30, #35, #37, #43, #51, #52, #54, #55, #56, #58, #65, #105 and #112?

9. Do you use the following listed proxies: fran003, ital015, ital015x, spai026 and spai047? If so, where?

10. Did you commence your calculation of principal components after the period in which all dataset members were available for the following series: #69-71, #91-92, #93-95, #96-99?

11. What is the basis for inclusion of some tree ring sites within a region in regional principal component calculations and others as individual dataset components?

12. Did you commence your calculation of principal components before the period in which all dataset members were available for the following series: #72-80, #84-90? If so, please describe your methodology for carrying out these calculations in the presence of missing data and your justification for doing so?

13. What is the explained variance under your principal component calculation for the period of availability of all members of your selected dataset? Would you please make your working papers that show this FTP or otherwise publicly available?

which is a lot more than what made it into the manuscript that M&M submitted to Nature in Fall 04. Many of these are multiple issues. In addition to the manuscript M&M also made a Materials Complaint to Nature (UPDATE: found it. The link now points there. The whole bowl of spaghetti) the text of which Eli does not have. All of these issues were, at a minimum raised by McIntyre and McKitrick in the Energy and Environment 03 paper. We now will have a back and forth about how much of this the editors at Nature were confronted with. Of course they could not possibly have known about any of the E&E stuff and those claims.

Our experience with complaints to the editor is that they take some time and involve multiple discussions, Emails, etc. McMMV but probably not

Eli submits this is a garbage can full of issues and Steve Mc is a drama queen

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Shhhhhhhh, be vewwwy, vewwwy quiet; I'm hunting wabbits, heheheheheheh" and shmits.

Cymraeg llygoden

Anonymous said...

And don't forget the time that McIntyre got all in a huff when Jay Famiglietti at Geophysical Research Letters made some comments that McIntyre didn't like. Of course McIntyre threw a fit and started seeing signs of a conspiracy.

Drama Queen.

Oh, and Pielke "I don't talk about the science just the policy" is talking about the science. For which he has no expertise. Of course.

That's not drama queen. Just typical Pielke dishonesty.

Anonymous said...

How many ways can one say "piffle?"

Anonymous said...

Know any good skeptics? Who publish papers and avoid sophistry (legalistic advocacy). I'm really skeptical of quality and honesty of the AGW crew. But Steve doesn't even write papers. What a pussy.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Rabbit
Theory that can not be replicated due to lack of archived data is falsified.
Falsified theory used to support other theory falsifies that theory.
AGW false.
GCM= Genetic Cranial Myopia
also known as CHIA= Cronic Head in Ass

EliRabett said...

Dear MED,

Explain the universe.
Give two examples.

You mean you can't replicate the universe. That means it does not exist.

However, in the case of paleoclimate reconstructions there have been many replications, both with the data that MBH98 used and other data. You can see some of the results here.

As the AR4 says

"McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) reported that they were unable to replicate the results of Mann et al. (1998). Wahl and Ammann (2007) showed that this was a consequence of differences in the way McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) had implemented the method of Mann et al. (1998) and that the original reconstruction could be closely duplicated using the original proxy data. McIntyre and McKitrick (2005a,b) raised further concerns about the details of the Mann et al. (1998) method, principally relating to the independent verification of the reconstruction against 19th-century instrumental temperature data and to the extraction of the dominant modes of variability present in a network of western North American tree ring chronologies, using Principal Components Analysis. The latter may have some theoretical foundation, but Wahl and Amman (2006) also show that the impact on the amplitude of the final reconstruction is very small (~0.05°C; for further discussion of these issues see also Huybers, 2005; McIntyre and McKitrick, 2005c,d; von Storch and Zorita, 2005)."
So your assumptions seem wrong.

Anonymous said...

If the data and methods are not archived so that the output can be verified by independent means in any other field it would be discarded as junk.
I don't know but I would think that you are involved in the scientific comunity. If you had submitted a paper or a student had submitted a paper to you without documentation as to how you or they had arrived at the end results what would have become of that paper.
I don't need to replicate the universe. If anyone in the solar community attempted to submit a theory without the data and methods being archived so that theory could be independentaly reproduced that paper would be buried so deep that it would never be refered to unless as a refrence as how not to do science.

Anonymous said...

By the way I have been noticing a lot of comments by the real climate scientists. It seems that the gist of the comments is that GCms are the current joke as there failure to reproduce past, current and future climate.
There seems to be an error regarding solar, and the various stages of H2O

Anonymous said...

Well you did mention paleo. yes if you use the same data that the group uses you should be able to get the same results. The problem is that the data they used ie ice cores, dedro, and some others were never archived so the original work that they are relying on can not be verified therefore they are using jusk to support a theory and that makes their theory junk. It goes back to what I learned in the 60's regarding data GIGO. Otherwise garbage in garbage out is the current status of Gcm's.
I forgot to mention historic temp and the fact that noaa site advises that local temp has a known error and is only good if you want to know what the temp is within 5 ft of device. Also due to varied methods of obtaining SST and missing historical data there is no way to reproduce historical SST with out guessing.
Deny the facts and defend all you want. The truth is coming out.

Anonymous said...

Hey Rabett, heavy stuff here. Pussys and drama queens everywhere. Reminds me of some clubs I may have visited in my wilder times.
I'm just here to say Arctic ice almost at 12 m sq km. Growing nicely.

I'm looking forward to the day when they hold the summer and winter olympic games a couple of months apart at the same arctic facing city. Imagine long distance smimming across the north pole in October, long distance ski race in following January.

Sorry, go back to name calling again

JohnS

Anonymous said...

"GCM= Genetic Cranial Myopia also known as CHIA= Cronic Head in Ass"

Oh, snap. I see your decades of research and raise you one unclever acronym with a misspelling. Game Over.

More:

NASA= National Authoritarian Socialist Agenda

AGU=Assuaging Guilt Universally

NOAA=Nutty Opinions Absent Audit

IPCC=Individuals Promoting Communist China

And since deniers have no scientific acronyms, they win. Take that, Scientits!

Anonymous said...

John S : "I'm just here to say Arctic ice almost at 12 m sq km. Growing nicely."

You are totally off topic and totally clueless.

If all that ice is 1 foot thick at the end of the winter, what do you suppose will become of it by the end of the summer melt?

No one (except you?) ever claimed all the ice would be gone in winter due to climate change. What climate scientists have referred to -- and what is historically significant -- is an ice free arctic for part of the summer.

To MED, who said "The truth is coming out." (and who forgot to take his/hers)

Yes, it is but unfortunately, it is not working out the way you had hoped.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous,

It seems that Artic ice pack is thick, at least thicker than in 1980 or comparable years if I look at the satellite pictures on .

If the Artic ice pack is thinner than in 80's, I don't understand the satellite pictures and the legenda explaining the thickness (i.e sea ice concentration (%)) of the ice pack.

Only actual measurements and observations will reveal whether the thickness of the Artic Sea ice is more or less than in, say, 1980 or even before.

Anonymous said...

Timo said: "It seems that Artic ice pack is thick, at least thicker than in 1980 or comparable years if I look at the satellite pictures on ."

You are wrong on two counts.

1) Satellite images do NOT indicate sea ice thickness (or "draft").

They show extent and sea ice concentration and the latter is NOT thickness (or draft, as it is also called) sea ice concentration is the proportion of the ocean area actually covered by ice in the area of the total sea ice extent. "


2) Direct measurements have been performed for over 4 decades:
From national Snow and Ice Data center
"Sea ice thickness has likewise shown substantial decline in recent decades (Rothrock et al. 1999). Using data from submarine cruises, Rothrock and collaborators determined that the mean ice draft at the end of the melt season in the Arctic has decreased by about 1.3 meters between the 1950s and the 1990s."



The satellites do not show thickness but what they do show is this:

"Examination of the long-term satellite record dating back to 1979 and earlier records dating back to the 1950s indicate that spring melt seasons have started earlier and continued for a longer period throughout the year (Serreze et al. 2007). Even more disquieting, comparison of actual Arctic sea ice decline to IPCC AR4 projections show that observed ice loss is faster than any of the IPCC AR4 models have predicted (Stroeve et al. 2007)."

You should not pay any attention to what John S and a few other Climate Audit cheerleaders are saying here about "ice recovery" based on what the ice is doing this winter. It's total nonsense. As ice continues to decrease in thickness, it eventually reaches a point where it ALL melt in summer leading to open water.

EliRabett said...

If you look at the maps (posted some a while ago) there is an obvious decline in the peak winter sea ice cover recently at the periphery of the Arctic. With time the decline is growing. That is scary.

Anonymous said...

"Steve Mc is a drama queen."

Specifically, Cleopatra.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Frank-N-Furter from Rocky Horror strikes me as more apt.

Anonymous said...

We all know who Bugs is (well, I do); and we can all guess who Elmer is (well, I have); but suggestions for Daffy...?

Rabbit Fire

Cymraeg llygoden

Anonymous said...

Anon of above highlights the Rothrock study. A small thing first. Ice thickness and draft are not the same(google Rothrock + ice thickness) and Rothrock was reporting ice draft. Comments from the NASA Earth Observatory site have the following of the 1999 Rothrock study.

"The most probable cause(of the decrease in the draft) that Rothrock cited is the strong North Atlantic Oscillation index that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s."

"Perhaps the major obstacle that Rothrock and his colleagues are up against in defining a cause for thinning sea ice draft is insufficient data. "There is not yet a good temporal record of ice draft over the Arctic Ocean; what we have constructed here is better thought of as two climatologies, one for 1958 to 1976 and another for 1993 to 1997," said Rothrock."

So Rothrock's probable cause is a natural climate change, and he reasonably asks for more study.

Has there been more study since the 1999 paper.

Anon warns people against reading too much into ice recovery. Lets put it this way Anon, while there is ice forming over ocean, ice thickness and ice draft can grow. However if the lessening draft is natural, which is the probable cause suggested in 1999, then what is there to worry about. Why are you afeared, old Rabett. No A in the AGW faith science.

JohnS

Anonymous said...

High interannual variability of sea ice thickness in the Arctic region

Laxon et al., Nature 425: 947.

Abstract

"... Our data reveal a high-frequency interannual variability in mean Arctic ice thickness that is dominated by changes in the amount of summer melt11, rather than by changes in circulation. Our results suggest that a continued increase in melt season length would lead to further thinning of Arctic sea ice."

Cymraeg llygoden

Anonymous said...

"while there is ice forming over ocean, ice thickness and ice draft can grow"

Guess what, John S?

That's what happens in winter. Ice freezes.

But the critical thing you are missing (or more likely purposely ignoring) is that the thickness to which the ice freezes in winter is a function of how thick it started out (and whether there was even any ice there to begin with).

And if the thickness to which it freezes is less than some critical value, it will all melt away in summer.

Most people can see that, but you choose to ignore it. You are fooling no one (excpet perhaps yourself) by doing so.

Anonymous said...

Staggering, Anon. We agree that ice grows in winter and melts in summer. I'm not sure why you think I disagree. Even in the heady days of no AGW, ice melted in summer. Brilliant.

However old Rabett's site here, and all the friendly mice comments, are all about the A causing increasing melt. Rothrock's probable cause was not AGW.

All you Anons look the same, but if you want to present your faith warmer science, don't highlight Rothrock type articles that are a little more cautious and try to examine all causes- proper science that.

Meanwhile, Bering Sea ice growing nicely.

JohnS
JohnS

Anonymous said...

John S.

All I can say is Wow!

I made the mistake of believing that you might actually be able to understand the effect that ice thickness at the end of winter has on how much open ocean there will be the following summer.

Forgive me. My mistake.

It won't happen again. I promise.

Anonymous said...

There appears to be one candidate for Daffy.

Anonymous said...

Read it and weep, John S (if you can read, that is)


Older Arctic Sea Ice Is Giving Way To Young, Thin Ice, Says CU-Boulder Study
Jan. 10, 2008

"A new study by University of Colorado at Boulder researchers indicates older, multi-year sea ice in the Arctic is giving way to younger, thinner ice, making it more susceptible to record summer sea-ice lows like the one that occurred in 2007."

The team used satellite data going back to 1982 to reconstruct past Arctic sea ice conditions, concluding there has been a nearly complete loss of the oldest, thickest ice and that 58 percent of the remaining perennial ice is thin and only 2-to-3 years old, said the lead study author, Research Professor James Maslanik of CU-Boulder's Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research. In the mid-1980s, only 35 percent of the sea ice was that young and that thin according to the study, the first to quantify the magnitude of the Arctic sea ice retreat using data on the age of the ice and its thickness, he said."

Anonymous said...

Ah, but, but, ... if this new ice hangs around for another couple of years then it will be old ice, won't it? All it'll take is a cold summer for a couple of years (there's one due) or maybe a major volcanic eruption putting all those nasty aerosols into the str..atmosphere and we'll be back to square one. Well, ... you have to admit it's a possibility. Don't you?

I don't think John S will be giving in yet. There's always another nonsensical septic argument around the corner.

(Any more nominations for Daffy?)

Cymraeg llygoden