So, what is the true curve?

As a proud Canadian, I am shocked and...thoroughly confused.

Go to http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
for an analysis of the "Hockey Stick."

Here's a dirty little secret--most scientist are about as talented in computer programming as oj is at math. And I say that from my experience with astronomers, which is a VERY computationally intensive science.

Reading the entire article is not nearly as damning as oj's excerpt.
In fact the author maintains his "faith" in human caused global warming.
Mike

brian;

Here's another dirty little secret - most programmers aren't very good at programming. How I loved code reviews when I point at some bit of code and ask "How could this possibly work?". The nonplussed expression that signified the question "how am I supposed to know?" was always a joy. Or sometimes the victim would pull his printout closer, picking at it fearfully with his eyes as if it were the simple but beautiful language of an Incan monkey god rather than code he typed up the previous week. But nothing matched the thrill of victory when their spirit would fail them and they'd ask me to explain their code to them.

Oddly, management stopped letting me do code reviews. Too Nietzchian for them, I guess.

Oh, how I miss those days when I would crush my co-workers, see them shrivel before me and hear the lamentations of their friends!

P.S. This was actually an endless source of social problems bewteen us and the California office. They were touchy feely concensus based. We were hardy MidWesterns who were just plain brutal. But we always figured it like combat training - the more you sweat in development, the less you bleed from customers.

Mike,

If you scratch the portions of the prediction model that happen to cause the hockey stick, then the predictions of 11 degree increases in temp. by 2100 go away, in which case policy like Kyoto become yet more absurd.

----

OJ,

How come you attribute the article to "Technology for Presidents". It's just "Technology Review" isn't it?

You have a point, Brian. I consider myself the world's worst programmer, and most techies I know will not argue with me about it.

Anyone who has ever actually studied climate history would know that for about 300 years of recorded history from 1000-1300 CE, the earth was significantly warmer than it is now. The earth also had a warmer period at the time of the Early Roman Empire, followed by massive droughts in the third and 4th century CE. At both junctures the earth was warmer than it is now. I guess it was all those hydrocarbons the ancient Romans and the Dark Ages Europeans were throwing into the air.

Climate change is like sh[stuff]t.

It happens.

The problem cuts a few different ways. Was the original study accurate? It seems that it was not, insofar as Nature has subsequently published a correction of sorts. The MM team that discovered the errors complain that the correction is, in itself, incomplete and incorrect.

Various bits of data that would permit a complete analysis of what has happened are not being made available to others in order that the original "hockey stick" work can be properly replicated/debunked. Nature apparently is not requesting that all the original data and code be provided in order to settle things definitively and is leaving many with the mistaken impression that what is incomplete original data is, in fact, complete.

Nature's actions with regard to the MM teams efforts for publication in nature can reasonably be construed to be based on issues other than what is proper. How often do submissions gain additional reviewers during the peer review process? How often do space limits get revised downward during review in the manner that the MM submission was?

Given the central importance that the hockey stick analysis was given in the IPCC and its use in the Kyoto negotiation, signature, and ratification process, Nature has an obligation to the world to not hide behind ever shorter limits on article space to the point where truth is sacrificed to word count fetishism and there is no publication whatsoever. The lives and livelihoods of literally billions ride on us getting global warming science correct.

Put on your Jimmy Neutron pajamas, folks, the geek pajamahadeen are needed.

The problem cuts a few different ways. Was the original study accurate? It seems that it was not, insofar as Nature has subsequently published a correction of sorts. The MM team that discovered the errors complain that the correction is, in itself, incomplete and incorrect.

Various bits of data that would permit a complete analysis of what has happened are not being made available to others in order that the original "hockey stick" work can be properly replicated/debunked. Nature apparently is not requesting that all the original data and code be provided in order to settle things definitively and is leaving many with the mistaken impression that what is incomplete original data is, in fact, complete.

Nature's actions with regard to the MM teams efforts for publication in nature can reasonably be construed to be based on issues other than what is proper. How often do submissions gain additional reviewers during the peer review process? How often do space limits get revised downward during review in the manner that the MM submission was?

Given the central importance that the hockey stick analysis was given in the IPCC and its use in the Kyoto negotiation, signature, and ratification process, Nature has an obligation to the world to not hide behind ever shorter limits on article space to the point where truth is sacrificed to word count fetishism and there is no publication whatsoever. The lives and livelihoods of literally billions ride on us getting global warming science correct.

Put on your Jimmy Neutron pajamas, folks, the geek pajamahadeen are needed.

The "hockey stick" analysis was the prime evidence of global warming cited by the last IPCC report. Yet it claimed that there was no medieval warm period, no little ice age, and no indication of a time in the past when temperatures were warmer than the present. This is so at variance with accepted climatic records that it should have been dismissed immediately, and yet Nature doesn't even see fit to publish the criticisms because it doesn't fit in their 500 word limit!

Guess what folks. Mann cooked the data, cherry picked the interval and diddled the code.

McIntyre and McKitrick caught Mann with both paws in the cookie jar.

Nature is doing a CBS pre-internet coverup. Stonewall the evidence, hide the data.

Muller is attempting a CBS post-internet coverup. "It's fake but authentic".

Bret -- If you actually look at the article, you will see:

Global Warming Bombshell

A prime piece of evidence linking human activity to climate change turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics.

By Richard Muller
Technology for Presidents
October 15, 2004

(italics mine.)

Mike --

As you point out Muller has 'faith'.

The problem with this article is that Muller buys 'Global Warming' and the Kyoto Protocal.

While he does understand that the MM paper destroys the 'hocky stick' argument he still thinks that 'careful science' will restore GW and KP to their previous glory.

The bottom line is that Muller supports Mann and is attempting to mimimise the (obviously inadvertent) error Mann made. Actually Mann uses one of the 'standard' junkscience techniques to make a pre-ordained case by abusing statistical methods.

By all means do as Bill suggests and check this out. It will be heavy sloging for some folks and it is long.

If you are a true believing dupe of GW, the science doesn't really matter. It's the faith that's important, the underlying belief structure. Everything must conform to that, somehow.

But isn't the recent warming trend real? We see glaciers receding all over the northern hemisphere.

Why is it a northern hemisphere phenomenon (where most of the industrial activity is) and not a global one?

The globe has been warming for 12,000 years, Eugene.

The issue is whether human activity is increasing the rate; or staving off the next Ice Age; or having no effect.

Nobody has any idea what the answer will turn out to be, because we do not know what the temperature is right now.

Harry,

There hasn't been a straight-line warming trend for the past 12,000 years. Different centuries in the past 2000 years have been colder, and others warmer. At least that much is known.

The northern hemisphere is getting warmer. Look at the glaciers -- I know I am repeating myself -- they are receding! It doesn't take a genius to conclude that if the ice is melting, it must be of the temperature.

So, why only the northern hemisphere? Could it be because this is where most of the industrial activity is?

... please note that I am asking a question, and not a rhetorical one either. Nor am I suggesting any particular policy yet such as "Kyoto".

I would simply like to know more about the causes of warming, which may turn out to be entirely non-man-made, but I also believe it makes sense to explore how human activity affects the climate.

If the "hockey stick" is an artifact, then let the scientists step back and do a better analysis of the available data, which are plentiful.

Eugene, I again refer you to the phenomenon in the high Middle Ages of southern Greenland actually being green enough to sustain an Archdiocese.

Bart, O.K.

Maybe it'll help if I bullet my questions:

• Why the northern/southern hemisphere split?
• Could it have to do with industrial activity being greater in the northern hemisphere?

There is a split between the hemispheres and climate differences are not unusual in our history. We don't have anywhere near enough data about the Southern Hemisphere to engage in serious analysis.

Given that there have been periods of our history where it has been warmer in the Northern Hemisphere than it is today, it is a safe assumption to say that current climate change involves more variables than the behavior of people. Once we correct for those other variables, then we can analyze the effect of industrial behavior on the climate.

Glaciers aren't receding in the Southern Hemisphere? Says who?

Some in the northern hemisphere are growing.

It depends, in part, on local conditions.

It may not be a straight line warming, Eugene, but obviously the temperature in every period you want to name during the past 12,000 years has been warmer than the temperature during any period during the previous 100,000 (or more) years.

In fact, over close to 4 billion years, there has been NO TREND.

If there had been a trend, even of one-ten/billionth/deg/year, we wouldn't be here

Looks like a job for CSI: Academe.

Hey, I've written code that brought full professors
to tears, but it did what I wanted. So did MM.