The Blackboard

Nine links? I don’t see one for the Peter Sinclair bullet. Thanks!

Sorry Earl. I’ve been getting sooo many 403 and 505’s all morning. I’m trying to figure out what’s up. I think I have the link in now. (Sometimes, things aren’t “taking”.)

Gordon Lightfoot fan are you Lucia?

AJ– I do kinda like that song.

Sometimes I think it’s a sin
When I feel like I’m winnin’ when I’m losin’ again

Great post here.

Why we want the code:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/200.....more-13197

Lucia,

The link at Bishop Hill’s place to AJ Strata is breathtaking. It is one thing to say that the models don’t agree with Hadley, but if Hadley doesn’t agree with the raw data, where are we? What makes sense anymore?
I have not yet seen an explanation as to how RSS and UAH have been calibrated? Does it involve any of the Hadley datasets? They can no longer be trusted.

Does anyone know where I can download the UAH MSU code? Thanks. Edit Also, RSS if anyone knows, thanks.

Boris,

Can’t seem to find it.

Looking forward to our ‘free the code’ enthusiasts finding it for us!

Morano subject to FOIA? What Federal Agency does he work for?

Yeah and the big losers were the Australian people

http://www.twawki.wordpress.com

As Joanne Nova said ; “Australia is in the extraordinary position of passing legislation that is known to be based on fraudulent science“

And Terry Mc Crann said “We had a prime minister who declared economic war on his own country. And an opposition leader who spent the rest of the day trying desperately to make it unanimous

Boris– Find out who has it and see if you can file a request under FOI.

Peter Sinclair,

“these ideas are most certainly wrong”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Peter Sinclair also throws up a couple of Strawmen that only the most clueless Denier would stoop to propose!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Kuhkat–
The main negative with those videos is they are so slow and boring. I always wish I had a gizmo that would let me speed them up 50% (even if it would make Peter Sinclair sound like a chipmunk.)

Maybe that speed is ok on tv when I’m sitting and knitting booties. But on the web?

Simon and Boris, try e-mailing Roy Spencer or posting the question at his web site. He is very responsive to interested people.

Personally, like sea level satellite measurements, I do not believe they can actually reach the precision that is displayed. I could be wrong though.

KuhnkaT,

One can’t post at his website (comments: off). If one could I’d probably be wasting my time arguing with him rather than with you guys

Lucia,

I have to agree about the speed. I am still occasionally looking for a simple tool to capture the video so I can replay it with speed control locally.

I usually do not watch the videos, but, today was an exception. I watched the Hide the Decline from another site and skipped the Edmund Fitzgerlad.

Simon,

scroll down to the bottom of his blog page. He displays his e-mail address there.

simon,

“If one could I’d probably be wasting my time arguing with him rather than with you guys ”

Well, it might be a waste of Dr. Spencer’s time…

KuhnKat–
I opened The edmund fitzgerals in one screen and did work in another.

Lucia, in the interest of taking a short break from all this Climategate hubbub, would you care to hazard a prediction as to the probability of Steve McIntyre & Company ever getting back to the mundane day-to-day work of auditing the actual climate science data and climate science research processes?

Boris (Comment#24732) November 25th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Does anyone know where I can download the UAH MSU code? Thanks. Edit Also, RSS if anyone knows, thanks.
Simon Evans (Comment#24734) November 25th, 2009 at 3:43 pm

Boris,
Can’t seem to find it.
Looking forward to our ‘free the code’ enthusiasts finding it for us!
Kasmir (Comment#24736) November 25th, 2009 at 3:46 pm

lucia (Comment#24743) November 25th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Boris– Find out who has it and see if you can file a request under FOI.

Dear friends, your sneering at scientists and those who wish to audit their work is not deserved, and does not reflect well on you. Not all climate scientists are frauds, and not everyone who would like to “free the code” is foolish enough to do anything for you. These things you have to do for yourself.

John Christy at UAH is a reasonable man. He has worked closely with his main competitor, RSS, to find errors in his code.

You should start the way all of these inquiries should start, the way my inquiry to Phil Jones started — with a polite request to the scientists involved for the information you want. Starting with an FOI request is stupid and insulting.

Bear in mind that RSS is Remote Sensing Systems, which is a business and not a university. As such, you may not get far by threatening them with an FOI request …

I should also warn you that the MSU code will be an order of magnitude more difficult to understand than the CRU code. CRU is merely taking a group of existing temperature records and combining them to make a global dataset.

MSU records, on the other hand, are records of microwave strength. Converting them to temperature requires digging a signal out of a host of noise from path length, wave height, time of day changes, orbital decay, and many other things.

So if you want to dig into it, go ahead, I can only wish you well ..

Scott:

would you care to hazard a prediction as to the probability of Steve McIntyre & Company ever getting back to the mundane day-to-day work of auditing the actual climate science data and climate science research processes?

I’d say you will be seeing posts of that sort within 2 weeks.

This is a bit OT but …

In a defence on the BBC Watson(?) UEA, uses that the HadCRUT agrees with too American datasets (NASA and NOAA ?).

Also on RC Gavin points out that HadCRUT correlates (.97) with GISS (NASA?).

I queried on RC whether due to the common use of Hadley data HadISST (CRU uses HadSST2) we should take the correlation at face vale. My comment did get published (smile) but passed with out an inline comment.

I read that NOAA does also use HadISST as well as regular ICOADS data (in the prodution of climatologies at least).

My point is that although Wigley and Jones were discussion SSTs (blip email) it is not clear to me if they have any influence on the production of SST data sets. HadISST and HadSST2 are Hadley products not CRU ones (or are they?) Are there revolving doors between HC and CRU? If adjusting ISST data falls solely to the MET, then they (Wigley & Jones) can theorise about what would make sense as much as they like, if CRU guys change hats and do ISST work for HC then it is a different matter. They could just be about to amend the ISST records in a way that would effect HadCRUT and NASA datasets directly and also possibly NOAA as well.

I have never seen a graphic that indicates how the Temp datasets are related, of course they share a lot of raw data, but do they also share a lot of value added (adjusted, homogenised) data. If they do then they could all be subject to the same errors and importantly adjustments made in the ISST or other datasets.

If they all share value added data then they are not independent reconstructions of the temperature record. The sea is most of the planet and NASA uses Hadley Data for most of the period of the record (until sat data takes over?). So the datasets that perhaps need the most vigilance are the HadIey ones.

There has been some critisism about confusing CRU and Hadley but to be honest I am a little confused as to who does what.

Alex

Willis Eschenbach (Comment#24899)

Not all climate scientists are frauds

I don’t know of any climate scientists who are frauds. Do you?

Some may well employ questionable methodology, as you did yourself here -

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=796

- but that doesn’t make a person a fraud.

Perhaps you didn’t credit the irony in the points you’ve responded to, Willis. I have no wish to access UAH code. The folks at UAH and RSS are professionals. They may make mistakes from time to time, but I think they’re doing their best (I don’t personally have much choice – I wouldn’t know what to do with their stuff anyway), and since their results don’t flash any obvious warning lights my interest lies elsewhere.

The point of the comments, which I expect you probably realise, was to point out that the pressure is all upon ‘one side’ of the field. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ask for CRU stuff if you’re interested, of course you’re welcome to (AFAIC). It does mean though that in practice, and regardless of the motivations of any individual, there is a calling to account of those whose work gives evidence of AGW and no calling to account of those whose work does not. That’s not your personal responsibility, but it is the way of things.

Simon Evans,

” It does mean though that in practice, and regardless of the motivations of any individual, there is a calling to account of those whose work gives evidence of AGW and no calling to account of those whose work does not. That’s not your personal responsibility, but it is the way of things.”

are you taking any hallucinatory substances currently??

RSS and, to an even greater extent, UAH, have been hammered for years over their respective products and how they are produced.

Simon Evans (Comment#24951)

Willis Eschenbach (Comment#24899)
Not all climate scientists are frauds

I don’t know of any climate scientists who are frauds. Do you?
Some may well employ questionable methodology, as you did yourself here -
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=796
- but that doesn’t make a person a fraud.

Perhaps you didn’t credit the irony in the points you’ve responded to, Willis. I have no wish to access UAH code. The folks at UAH and RSS are professionals. They may make mistakes from time to time, but I think they’re doing their best (I don’t personally have much choice – I wouldn’t know what to do with their stuff anyway), and since their results don’t flash any obvious warning lights my interest lies elsewhere.

The point of the comments, which I expect you probably realise, was to point out that the pressure is all upon ‘one side’ of the field. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ask for CRU stuff if you’re interested, of course you’re welcome to (AFAIC). It does mean though that in practice, and regardless of the motivations of any individual, there is a calling to account of those whose work gives evidence of AGW and no calling to account of those whose work does not. That’s not your personal responsibility, but it is the way of things.

First, the idea that there is “no calling to account of those whose work does not” give evidence of AGW is a joke. Read the emails. Jones and his friends try every means, foul or fair, to call scientists they disagree with to account. They do what scientists do, try to poke holes in the scientific arguments they disagree with. Search the emails for their comments on MM’s work, or Soon and Baliunas. They are doing everything possible to call them to account … including all kinds of unethical things.

Next, I say that any “scientist” who hides his data and his methods and his code is a fraud. Here’s a quote from a fraud:

Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. … (Phil Jones to Warwick Hughes)

The thing these “scientists” seem to be missing is that a scientist not only has to reveal their data for his work to be scientific, but also that he should give his data and methods to his worst enemy. Because if his worst enemy can’t punch holes in his theories, then he can bet that they are solid. That’s why I post my ideas in public, so that you and others who disagree with me (often violently) can point out the flaws in them. And they do.

A scientist should never have to face an FOI request as Jones and Mann and the rest have. Why not? Because making the data public is PART OF EVERY SCIENTIST’S JOB DESCRIPTION. I did not want to file an FOI, it’s a hassle for everyone concerned. But I was forced to because Jones and the other scientists are afraid to make their data public, claiming that someone will want to poke holes in it. Poor babies …

Science is not some namby pamby childrens’ game. It is a tough blood sport, where the participants are expected and required to throw their data and their methods and their claims and their reputations into the public arena, to subject them to the merciless glare of public view, and to watch as other ravenous scientists try to rip their favorite ideas to shreds. It’s ugly, I know, because I play the game from both sides. But that’s how science works.

Science stops working when some wimpy imitation scientist goes “Oh, I don’t like what those bad boys and girls at ClimateAudit are up to, they harass people, I’m not going to show my work to them, they just want to find holes in it, I’ll keep it secret.” Or as Phil Jones said, “I’ve managed to persuade UEA to ignore all further FOIA requests if the people have anything to do with Climate Audit.” What’s his justification for not releasing anything to CA? Because we want to find holes in it …

Damn right we want to find holes in it, that’s the whole point of science. Especially when that want to spend my money based on their “scientific” ideas. The only way that science advances is by a scientist poking holes in someone’s favourite theory. Jones and Mann want to poke holes in other people’s work, but shield their own work from public examination. If you can’t stand it when it’s your turn, when it’s your theory that the bad scientist boys and girls want to find holes in, go become a novelist. Science doesn’t progress when scientists hide their codes and data. That’s scientific fraud, and Jones and Mann and Lonnie Thompson and Briffa and Amman and Wahl and their ilk, the people who hide their ice cores and backdate their papers and conceal their tree rings and shield their computer codes are scientific hucksters of the worst kind.

Want some scientific fraud? Read “<a href = "”>Caspar and the Jesus Paper”. Do I know of climate scientists who are frauds? What do you think this whole CRU email revelation has shown? Re-read my paper, the link is in Lucia’s head post. In Jones’ case, advising someone who is facing an FOIA request to delete the evidence is not just illegal … it is scientific fraud.

First, the idea that there is “no calling to account of those whose work does not” give evidence of AGW is a joke.

I meant by those who style themselves as being ’skeptics’ and who make out that they have, simply, an even-handed interest in discovering the scientific truth.

So, may I conclude from your argument that any scientist who does not release all his/her code and data upon request is a fraudster? Does that make Professor Edward Wegman, for example, a fraudster in your book?

Regarding my question as to whether you define Wegman as a fraud (I don’t judge anyone to be a fraud, to be clear) , here is my reference:

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann.....quests.pdf

I have received no reply to the e-mails below. At this stage, in light of previous requests, one can only conclude that Wegman et al blankly refuse to provide any item whatsoever to my requests for information relative to key inputs to their calculations. This is a sad commentary on people who have so strongly and publicly attacked others for supposed failures to provide such information, and their report must accordingly be judged in this context.

Lucia, I haven’t posted here before, but thought you might be interested in this recent exchange on RC:

QUOTE
#728 When I was a computer programmer (of commercial – not scientific – applications) in the 1960s it was gradually realised that use of the “GO TO” instruction led to “spaghetti” code that by dint of its impenetrability was virtually impossible to debug thoroughly. The correct working of such programs could not be demonstrated other than in response to necessarily limited sets of specimen data. See “Go To Statement Considered Harmful” by Edsger W. Dijkstra (Communications of the ACM, Vol. 11, No. 3, March 1968, pp. 147-148).
Gavin, can you assure me that times have moved on similarly in the scientific community and that GCM programs are properly structured into hierarchies of “IF THEN ELSE” and “DO UNTIL” subroutines, each properly annotated in terms of its input, output and function?
Since we’re talking about programming practice that has been accepted for 40 years I’m sure my misgivings must be groundless. I should still like your reassurance though.
simon abingdon
[Response: It's a work in progress. - gavin]
Comment by simon abingdon — 26 November 2009 @ 2:11 PM

#743 Sorry Gavin, it won’t wash. You have to structure your programs properly from the outset. You can’t incorporate good practice retrospectively.
Every “spaghetti” program has untold errors waiting to rear their ugly heads (or remain forever unsuspected while erroneous results are acted upon with misplaced confidence).
[Response: Thanks! I'd never have thought of that. All legacy code should be tossed out immediately, and then everyone can wait 10 years while we start again from scratch. Brilliant! -gavin]
Comment by simon abingdon — 26 November 2009 @ 3:35 PM

Sorry if I touched a raw nerve.
simon
Comment by simon abingdon — 26 November 2009 @ 4:16 PM
UNQUOTE

Best regards

simon abingdon

Speaking of links, here’s Reuters spinning like a top.

http://www.reuters.com/article.....TW20091125
What better way to “smear” someone than their own words?

Simon Evans (Comment#25021) November 27th,

2009 at 7:10 am
Regarding my question as to whether you define Wegman as a fraud (I don’t judge anyone to be a fraud, to be clear) , here is my reference:
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann…..quests.pdf
I have received no reply to the e-mails below. At this stage, in light of previous requests, one can only conclude that Wegman et al blankly refuse to provide any item whatsoever to my requests for information relative to key inputs to their calculations. This is a sad commentary on people who have so strongly and publicly attacked others for supposed failures to provide such information, and their report must accordingly be judged in this context.

Simon, many thanks for that link. I do not see that Wegman is under any obligation to respond to Ritman, as Wegman’s work is clearly replicable. So I see no fraud at all in that.

I do note that the questions asked by Ritson start with a question about which figures were made by Wegman and which by MM:

>>1). Which of the figures derive from M&M work and which were >>independently derived by you?

This is very clearly spelled out in the Wegman Report, so it’s not a good start if one wants to get an answer to scientific questions. Each of the figures is labelled and discussed in the Report.

Wegman gave plenty of information to replicate his work. His work, in turn, was replicating the work of Steve McIntyre. How much information do you want? Ritson’s questions are of interest, but there is nothing stopping him from replicating the work of either man.

Ritson raises no flags about the work of either man. In fact, he makes no claims that there are any errors in the work. Most importantly, Ritson also does not say that he is unable to replicate either man’s results.

As a result, I don’t see that Wegman is under the slightest obligation to respond to Ritson. The information was available for Wegman to replicate the work of McIntyre. The information is there for Ritson to replicate the work of Wegman.

So I don’t see any parallel to CRU, where replication is impossible because the data is being withheld. It seems to me that Ritson, RealClimate, and you are all trying to divert attention from the conclusions which MM came to and which Wegman reinforced, that the Hockeystick used incorrect methods and thus cannot be relied upon, as it is fatally flawed.

Scott asked, “Lucia, would you care to hazard a prediction as to the probability of Steve McIntyre & Company ever getting back to the mundane day-to-day work of auditing the actual climate science data and climate science research processes?”
.
Lucia replied, “I’d say you will be seeing posts of that sort within 2 weeks.”
.
Yes, if we think about it in light of past history, we can reasonably predict that the ClimateGate Happening will have a product lifecycle of about a month, after which things will pretty much go back to business as usual for all parties concerned.
.
What I would really like to see, as a means of stirring up the climate change debating pot, would be for the EPA to formally declare a Carbon Emergency and to make a serious attempt at enforcing a program of significant and mandatory across-the-board reductions in CO2 emissions from all sectors of the economy.
.
This would get the general public’s attention in a way that isn’t possible with piecemeal debating opportunities such as those afforded by the ClimateGate incident, and would bring the whole question very quickly and very decisively to a boil.

THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION
We have been given a powerful tool in the form of GlimateGate.
It now has a name and has the potential to get a life of its own.
So if the mains stream media is not going to report on this then let us use the social Facebook and emails to spread the news.
Send the following two YouTube videos to two people that you know and ask them to send it onto at least 2 others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu_ok37HDuE
And
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk

If you have a Facebook page post the two links.

Will

Willis,

You say:

Ritson raises no flags about the work of either man. In fact, he makes no claims that there are any errors in the work. Most importantly, Ritson also does not say that he is unable to replicate either man’s results.

On the contrary, I quote from his emails:

“I am again forwarding to you my previous requests for information essential to evaluate and replicate elements of your report to Congressional Energy committee.”

“Obviously the information requested below is essential for replication and evaluation of your committee’s results. I trust you will provide it in timely fashion.”

Actually, I don’t think you made claims of errors in your FOI submission to CRU, but evidently Ritson does in ther second quotastion above, contrary to your assertion.

I am finding your relative standards very surprising. Or perhaps not.

Willis,

Incidentally:

It seems to me that Ritson, RealClimate, and you are all trying to divert attention from the conclusions which MM came to and which Wegman reinforced, that the Hockeystick used incorrect methods and thus cannot be relied upon…

I have nothing to do with RC (I don’t even post there) or Ritson. I simply wanted to check out your peculiar assertion that anyone who doesn’t release data is a “fraud”.

FYI, I think that MBH 98 & 99 did use unsatisfactory methods. I have no interest in ‘diverting attention’ from that, though it’s true I am more interested in more recent work.

Simon Evans (Comment#25250) November 29th, 2009 at 8:28 am

Willis,
You say:
Ritson raises no flags about the work of either man. In fact, he makes no claims that there are any errors in the work. Most importantly, Ritson also does not say that he is unable to replicate either man’s results.
On the contrary, I quote from his emails:
“I am again forwarding to you my previous requests for information essential to evaluate and replicate elements of your report to Congressional Energy committee.”
“Surely you realized that the proxies combine the signal components on which is superimposed the noise? I find it hard to believe that you would take data with obvious trends, would then directly evaluate ACFs without removing the trends, and then finally assume you had obtained results for the proxy specific noise! You will notice that the M&M inputs purport to show strong persistence out to lag-times of 350 years or beyond. Your report makes no mention of this quite improper M&M procedure used to obtain their ACFs. Neither do you provide any specification data for your own results that you contend confirm the M&M results.”
“Obviously the information requested below is essential for replication and evaluation of your committee’s results. I trust you will provide it in timely fashion.”
Actually, I don’t think you made claims of errors in your FOI submission to CRU, but evidently Ritson does in ther second quotastion above, contrary to your assertion.
I am finding your relative standards very surprising. Or perhaps not.

Thanks, Simon. My apologies, I had only looked at Ritson’s first email, not the second. In the second one, he claims Wegman made an error. Ritson says that it is improper to use trendless red noise to check whether the (mathematically incorrect) Mann method mines for Hockeysticks.

But the point was exactly that! The point was that the Mann method mines for hockeysticks in trendless red noise. Since Ritson doesn’t understand that basic point, I’m not sure what he is even asking, or why he is asking Wegman.

Wegman was able to reproduce McIntyre’s work. It seems to me that if Ritson questions that, the proper thing is to see if he (Ritson) can replicate McIntyre’s work. Since he apparently has not tried that, I fail to see why he is asking Wegman anything at all.

One thing that differentiates Steve’s work from that of many climates scientists is that Steve puts it all out on the web for everyone to see. If Ritson is having a problem replicating Steve’s work, the proper person to contact is Steve.

Steve was the one who used trendless red noise. All Wegman did is replicate that, using Steve’s methods. Attempting to bust Wegman for using the methods used in the original paper is misdirection. Of course he used trendless red noise, it’s a replication, duh.

If using trendless red noise is truly an issue (and I don’t see why or how), the person to ask about it is Steve. Attacking Wegman is a red herring.

Willis,

I think you are misunderstanding my challenge to you. You asserted, way above, that “any “scientist” who hides his data and his methods and his code is a fraud.” I think that was an absolutist statement that doesn’t stand up. You can say that Wegman didn’t need to communicate his data and his code to Ritson, for whatever reasons. I would probably agree with you, but that would be because I reject your absolutist statements.

I think your assumed definition of ‘fraud’ is, frankly, meaningless.

Simon Evans (Comment#25289) November 29th, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Willis,
I think you are misunderstanding my challenge to you. You asserted, way above, that “any “scientist” who hides his data and his methods and his code is a fraud.” I think that was an absolutist statement that doesn’t stand up. You can say that Wegman didn’t need to communicate his data and his code to Ritson, for whatever reasons. I would probably agree with you, but that would be because I reject your absolutist statements.
I think your assumed definition of ‘fraud’ is, frankly, meaningless.

Aaaah, I see the problem, my bad, Simon. My writing is not clear. What I meant was that any scientist who hides his data and methods such that his work cannot be replicated is a fraud. Both Wegman and Steve McIntyre provided enough data and methods to replicate their work. Neither Michael Mann nor Lonnie Thompson nor Phil Jones have done so, despite repeated requests. That’s trying to pass off anecdote as science, and on my planet, that’s fraud.

Hope that clarifies it. I thought that was clear from the context, but then no surprise, I always think my own writing is clear … and all to often, I’m wrong about that.

Willis:

Bear in mind that RSS is Remote Sensing Systems, which is a business and not a university. As such, you may not get far by threatening them with an FOI request …

Isn’t RSS funded by federal dollars though?

Carrick (Comment#25349) November 30th, 2009 at 1:42 am

Willis:

Bear in mind that RSS is Remote Sensing Systems, which is a business and not a university. As such, you may not get far by threatening them with an FOI request …

Isn’t RSS funded by federal dollars though?

I find one NOAA grant to RSS, might have been others. Work done under that grant would likely be subject to FOIA.

Willis,

No, we simply don’t have a common understanding of the word ‘fraud’. You could argue that withholding data is improper (misconduct, perhaps), that it could facilitate fraud/prevent the exposure of fraud, but it is not fraud in itself. Your use of the term is in itself improper, in my view, which weakens your critique of the impropriety (in your judgement) of others.

If/when (I think when) the HadCRUT data and code is fully released and if then there is evidence of intentional deception then you can declare fraud, and your suspicions will have been vindicated. If there is no such evidence then your charge will have been false, defamatory and reprehensible.

Willis,

No, we simply don’t have a common understanding of the word ‘fraud’. You could argue that withholding data is improper (misconduct, perhaps), that it could facilitate fraud/prevent the exposure of fraud, but it is not fraud in itself. Your use of the term is in itself improper, in my view, which weakens your critique of the impropriety (in your judgement) of others.
If/when (I think when) the HadCRUT data and code is fully released and if then there is evidence of intentional deception then you can declare fraud, and your suspicions will have been vindicated. If there is no such evidence then your charge will have been false, defamatory and reprehensible.

Ah, I see the problem. I was not saying that withholding data constitutes fraud. As you point out, it does not.

The fraud consists in passing off unverified and unverifiable results (because the data is hidden) as verified and verifiable scientific fact. For Michael Mann to refuse to allow his results to be checked, while at the same time promoting them via the IPCC as results that are scientifically established, is fraud. In his case, it is particularly fraud because in the Hockeystick paper he hid results that contradicted his thesis.

That is what I’m calling fraud. Using your position and your friends to pass off unverifiable results as science. Not ok on my planet. Hiding the data, as you point out, is just hiding the data. Hiding the data specifically so that you can sell unverifiable results as real science is fraud.

in the Hockeystick paper he hid results that contradicted his thesis.

This is a familiar false claim. I quote from MBH 99:

These few indicators thus take on a particularly important role (in fact, as discussed below, one such indicator{ PC #1 of the ITRDB data{is found to be essential)…

and

It is furthermore found that only one of these series{PC #1 of the ITRDB data{exhibits a signicant correlation with the time history of the dominant temperature pattern of the 1902-1980 calibration period. Positive calibration/variance scores for the NH series cannot be obtained if this indicator is removed from the network of 12……
….Though, as discussed earlier, ITRDB PC#1 represents a vital region for resolving hemispheric temperature trends, the assumption that this relationship holds up over time nonetheless demands circumspection.

It’s pretty ironic that you should be promoting falsehoods via the internet in such a way. Does that meet your own definition of fraud?

Simon Evans (Comment#25504) December 1st, 2009 at 6:04 am

in the Hockeystick paper he hid results that contradicted his thesis.

This is a familiar false claim. I quote from MBH 99:

These few indicators thus take on a particularly important role (in fact, as discussed below, one such indicator{ PC #1 of the ITRDB data{is found to be essential)…
and
It is furthermore found that only one of these series{PC #1 of the ITRDB data{exhibits a signicant correlation with the time history of the dominant temperature pattern of the 1902-1980 calibration period. Positive calibration/variance scores for the NH series cannot be obtained if this indicator is removed from the network of 12……
….Though, as discussed earlier, ITRDB PC#1 represents a vital region for resolving hemispheric temperature trends, the assumption that this relationship holds up over time nonetheless demands circumspection.
It’s pretty ironic that you should be promoting falsehoods via the internet in such a way. Does that meet your own definition of fraud?

Simon, you haven’t done your homework. He knew that his results were totally dependent on the bristlecone pines. However, he hid that fact when he wrote up his results, claiming that they were robust. But if you take out the bristlecones, you don’t get a hockeystick …

Before you accuse someone of “falsehoods”, you should do some research. For this particular issue, a good place to start would be here.

I have done my homework, Willis. Can you please explain the contradiction between the MBH 99 statement I have quoted -

PC #1 of the ITRDB data is found to be essential

and your statement that he hid that fact? What does “essential” mean to you (I realise that you use the word “fraud” according to your own peculiar definition, so perhaps you understand “essential” differently also?).

Simon Evans (Comment#25691) December 2nd, 2009 at 7:11 am

I have done my homework, Willis. Can you please explain the contradiction between the MBH 99 statement I have quoted -
PC #1 of the ITRDB data is found to be essential
and your statement that he hid that fact? What does “essential” mean to you (I realise that you use the word “fraud” according to your own peculiar definition, so perhaps you understand “essential” differently also?).

My definition of scientific fraud is not “peculiar” in any sense. I said:

The fraud consists in passing off unverified and unverifiable results (because the data is hidden) as verified and verifiable scientific fact. For Michael Mann to refuse to allow his results to be checked, while at the same time promoting them via the IPCC as results that are scientifically established, is fraud. In his case, it is particularly fraud because in the Hockeystick paper he hid results that contradicted his thesis.

How is that defintion in any sense “peculiar”?

Next, what does Mann’s 1999 paper (the MBH99 paper you cited above) have to do with anything? I thought we were talking about Mann’s Hockeystick paper from 1998. In it he says:

We emphasize, furthermore, that statistical significance was robustly established, as neither the measures of statistical skill nor the reconstructions themselves were highly sensitive to the precise criterion for selection.In addition to the above means of cross-validation, we also tested the network for sensitivity to the inclusion or elimination of particular trainee data (for example, instrumental/historical records, noninstrumental/ historical records, or dendroclimatic proxy indicators).

Now, where in there does he say “If you take out the bristlecone pine tree ring records, you don’t get a Hockeystick”? I can’t find it, and the CENSORED directory clearly establishes the fact that he knew the reconstruction was totally dependent on the bristlecones. Despite all that, he calls the results robust to the elimination of certain proxies, which is most definitely and provably not true.

Willis,

what does Mann’s 1999 paper (the MBH99 paper you cited above) have to do with anything? I thought we were talking about Mann’s Hockeystick paper from 1998.

Are you serious? Where does the Hockey stick graph reproduced in the Third Assessment Report come from? You know, the one extended back to year 1000 and thus covering the MWP? It’s hardly from MBH 98 now, is it?

But hey-ho, now you want to talk about MBH 98. Ok! -

The context of the quotation you give (p.786) is a discussion of the selection of the group of eigenvectors as a subset, and the comment on inclusion/elimination refers to the impact on training the eigenvectors during the 1902-1980 interval. So it is not saying what you imply it to be saying!

If that’s your best effort then I’d love to see you charge fraud in a court of law where the loser pays the costs. Of course, it doesn’t cost you anything to be promulgating defamations on the internet.