#91 Muff Potter: Kehl is a well known denialist, and his pages are a prefered choice for his alike, because of the appearance of a serious collection of sources and data. A closer look reveales, that the collection is very one-sided (“Mann’s hockey-stick was found to be false”, “Moberg et al and Loehle provide a correct impression”)
Thanks for your responses, Dave. I agree that a presumption of bad faith is an almost insurmountable impediment, and one needs to remove this obstacle if one hopes to start communicating again.
Gavin, I realize it’s not your responsibility to patrol the skeptic hordes, but could you offer a quick summary of how the data set has been updated and where these changes are recorded? Is there a “readme” file somewhere of the sort that Dave refers to? I think (hope?) that McIntyre would happily “move on” and apologize after a clear statement that you were acting in good faith. It’s sad that it’s necessary to make such statements, but I think it is worth it if it helps people to concentrate on the science rather than the accusations.
[Response: What is the point? The presumption will be that I’ve just made something up and even if I didn’t, I’m a bad person in any case. I have no interest in communicating with people whose first and only instinct is to impugn my motives and honesty the minute they can’t work something out (and this goes back a long way). Well, tough. You guys worked it out already, and I have absolutely nothing to add. If McIntyre was half the gentleman he claimed to be, we’d all be twice as happy. – gavin]
John Masheysays
re: 103 Nathan
Are you familiar with the Data Quality Act, and what it was really intended to do?
Put another way, there’s a line between asking questions, poking at data, looking for code, to do science as normal science …
and engaging in activities designed to use up scientists’ time so they *can’t* do science. The data Quality Act falls in the latter… that’s what it was for, and certain people follow that strategy as well.
[Chris Mooney’s “The Republican War on Science” and David Michaels’ “Doubt is Their Product” are good sources on the DQA.
Hank Robertssays
Those who believe in demons _do_ see them them. Look at the result — stuff like the Data Quality Act:
Several people want to know if any other continent suffered a similar indigenous die-off to the Americas (or claimed that it happened nowhere else).
Australia did, with estimates of at least 50% being wiped out by smallpox and other imported causes. The actual numbers are not accurately known, with a wide range (see e.g. WikiPedia).
There were also select indigenous groups in South Africa that were almost wiped out by smallpox.
These were all relatively isolated populations without exposure to domestic animals that may have co-evolved diseases and immunities with people.
RichardCsays
I’d like to see two things – first, a summation graph with perhaps 95% error ranges (ie, a three-line graph), and second, the same thing for the entire planet. Anyone have anything like that?
Philip, I didn’t say die-offs due to smallpox didn’t happen anywhere else. Kindly don’t put words in my mouth. What I said was that the 90% figure strikes me as very unlikely — and your citing 50% elsewhere does nothing to contradict that; it fact it strengthens my argument.
Mangosays
Any chance you could update your article on the Hockey Stick for Dummies to include the latest findings?
dhogazasays
Philip, I didn’t say die-offs due to smallpox didn’t happen anywhere else. Kindly don’t put words in my mouth. What I said was that the 90% figure strikes me as very unlikely — and your citing 50% elsewhere does nothing to contradict that; it fact it strengthens my argument.
Not really. In most the US, native population densities were higher than in Australia, which has a much higher percentage of desert than the US. I base this on the fact that desert population densities of native americans here in the US were much lower than elsewhere, and I see no reason for it to be have been different in aboriginal Australia (indeed, it’s still true today, in both countries).
Lower population densities make it more difficult for disease to spread.
These were all relatively isolated populations without exposure to domestic animals that may have co-evolved diseases and immunities with people.
Regarding smallpox, I think one can replace “may have” with “must have”. After all, the world’s first vaccine came about because an astute englishman noticed that dairy farmers (or whatever you want to call them) had a lower incidence of smallpox than typical populations, and connected this with exposure to cowpox. Intentional vaccination with live cowpox was then introduced to successfully combat smallpox.
Manny, in Monctonsays
Did you censor my question?
Three days ago, I asked why I could not reproduce the CRU red line with the data from the CRU itself. Where is it?
I have another question: how can the red line, smoothed over 40 years, reach 2006? Shouldn’t it stop at 1986?
[Response: Your question was answered way above (the target was CRU NH Land) and how the smoothing was done was explained in the paper (see Mann (2008)). – gavin]
R Jamessays
I’d like to see this graph with an additional 2,000 years of history on it. I’d also like to see a global plot, rather than just the northern hemisphere. As it stands, it doesn’t show the complete picture. I believe it would put things better into perspective, and further show that the current pattern is nothing unusual.
[Response: The global picture is very similar, but with a little more noise due to less data availability in the south, and we’d all like to see another 2000 years – unfortunately the analogous data is just too sparse. – gavin]
Barton I don’t know why you think I’m attacking you. I was just adding in some additional data.
The 50% figure I quoted is an absolute minimum. The more likely range is significantly higher but I only have time to look this up at WikiPedia, where the article is currently a mess. There is evidence that the Aboriginal die-off in Australia could have been as high as 90%. Stats from that era are poor, as aboriginal Australians people were official fauna until the 1960s (if you can believe that). We are pretty sure of such numbers from isolated populations like the Khoi people in South Africa who were similarly isolated from diseases that had migrated to Eurasians from domesticated animals, so it is plausible that it could happen on a continental scale.
dpsays
Interesting about that drop around 1350. Scientists should look ar historical records. They state that temperature drops around that caused famines and left the population of Europe weakened when the Black Death struck. In England the fall in temperatures at the time are attested to in monastic chronicles.
llewellysays
Interesting about that drop around 1350. Scientists should look ar historical records. They state that temperature drops around that caused famines and left the population of Europe weakened when the Black Death struck. In England the fall in temperatures at the time are attested to in monastic chronicles.
Brian Fagan covers this in two of his books – I think The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization. and The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History .
Both highly recommended, wonderful discourses on the connections between climate and history.
M. Pottersays
#112
Since the spaghettis start at about 200 A.D, what about the time period sometimes called “Roman Optimum” (200 B.C. to A.D. 400)? Any chance to get upper and lower bounds for global or NH temperature? And I dare to ask, what about the so called Holocene climatic optimum (9000-5000BC) ?
[Response: These are collections of data that is either annually or decadally resolved and well-dated. Unfortunately that kind of data gets rarer as you go back in time and so whether the Roman Optimum is real and what it’s spatial extent was will remain uncertain for some while. On longer time scales (multi-millennia) such dating accuracy isn’t as important and so coarser and less well-dated proxies are useful. There is a review paper on exactly this from Heinz Wanner and colleagues in press at the moment. – gavin]
Brisosays
>Now a really stupid question. It looks to me like the only lines which go above the early highs generated from proxy data (~960 AD) are the instrumental record data. Does this not show that the proxy data suggests warmer times in the past than during the more recent proxy period? Comparing that to instrumental data is apples and oranges, no?
>>[Response: No. The proxies are calibrated to the instrumental target just so that they will be comparable. – gavin]
I’ve been looking at the paper again and trying to understand it. First, an important quote in the context of the AGW issue.
“Because this conclusion extends to the past 1,300 years for EIV reconstructions withholding all tree-ring data, and because non-tree-ring proxy records are generally treated in the literature as being free of limitations in recording millennial scale variability(11), the conclusion that recent NH warmth likely** exceeds that of at least the past 1,300 years thus appears reasonably robust. For the CPS (EIV) reconstructions, the instrumental warmth breaches the upper 95% confidence limits of the reconstructions beginning with the decade centered at 1997 (2001).”
Further down on the same page (italics added by me):
“Peak Medieval warmth (from roughly A.D. 950-1100) is more pronounced in the EIV reconstructions (particularly for the landonly reconstruction) than in the CPS reconstructions (Fig. 3). The EIV land-only reconstruction, in fact, indicates markedly more sustained periods of warmer NH land temperatures from A.D. 700 to the mid-fifteenth century than previous published reconstructions. Peak multidecadal warmth centered at A.D. 960 (representing average conditions over A.D. 940–980) in this case corresponds approximately to 1980 levels (representing average conditions over 1960–2000). However, as noted earlier, the most recent decadal warmth exceeds the peak reconstructed decadal warmth, taking into account the uncertainties in the reconstructions.”
OK, some questions.
1. Does the EIV reconstruction represent a forty year moving average as suggested by the part I italicized?
2. Does the instrumental record shown on the graph in Fig 3 represent a forty-year moving average? I say no, because such a plot would have an end point in 1987. It looks like a five year moving average perhaps?
3. It is true that the upper 95% confidence level of the peak warmth centered at A.D.960 of the EIV land-only reconstruction is approximately 0.4. I assume that this means that peak of the five year average temperature at that time would have been considerably higher?
4. Is it not true that whatever the red line in figure 3 is, it is an apple being compared to a pear?
5. “Peak multidecadal warmth centered at A.D. 960 (representing average conditions over A.D. 940–980) in this case corresponds approximately to 1980 levels (representing average conditions over 1960–2000).” Corresponds approximately? Shouldn’t that be exceeds significantly? If my figures are right, 1960-2000 HadCrut NH 40 year average – 0.06 (98-08 app 0.17), 960 PMW central – app 0.25, 960 PMW upper 95% – 0.4?
6. Does this paper really show that “recent NH warmth likely** exceeds that of at least the past 1,300 years”?
Brisosays
In point 5 of my previous post I should have written “(68-08 app 0.17)”. Sorry about that.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
Briso writes:
Does this paper really show that “recent NH warmth likely** exceeds that of at least the past 1,300 years”?
Ask (Hank) and ye shall receive. A different picture than the last one I encountered–thank you!
#91 Muff Potter: Kehl is a well known denialist, and his pages are a prefered choice for his alike, because of the appearance of a serious collection of sources and data. A closer look reveales, that the collection is very one-sided (“Mann’s hockey-stick was found to be false”, “Moberg et al and Loehle provide a correct impression”)
#100 Dave
Thanks for your responses, Dave. I agree that a presumption of bad faith is an almost insurmountable impediment, and one needs to remove this obstacle if one hopes to start communicating again.
Gavin, I realize it’s not your responsibility to patrol the skeptic hordes, but could you offer a quick summary of how the data set has been updated and where these changes are recorded? Is there a “readme” file somewhere of the sort that Dave refers to? I think (hope?) that McIntyre would happily “move on” and apologize after a clear statement that you were acting in good faith. It’s sad that it’s necessary to make such statements, but I think it is worth it if it helps people to concentrate on the science rather than the accusations.
[Response: What is the point? The presumption will be that I’ve just made something up and even if I didn’t, I’m a bad person in any case. I have no interest in communicating with people whose first and only instinct is to impugn my motives and honesty the minute they can’t work something out (and this goes back a long way). Well, tough. You guys worked it out already, and I have absolutely nothing to add. If McIntyre was half the gentleman he claimed to be, we’d all be twice as happy. – gavin]
re: 103 Nathan
Are you familiar with the Data Quality Act, and what it was really intended to do?
Put another way, there’s a line between asking questions, poking at data, looking for code, to do science as normal science …
and engaging in activities designed to use up scientists’ time so they *can’t* do science. The data Quality Act falls in the latter… that’s what it was for, and certain people follow that strategy as well.
[Chris Mooney’s “The Republican War on Science” and David Michaels’ “Doubt is Their Product” are good sources on the DQA.
Those who believe in demons _do_ see them them. Look at the result — stuff like the Data Quality Act:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22data+quality+act%22
Several people want to know if any other continent suffered a similar indigenous die-off to the Americas (or claimed that it happened nowhere else).
Australia did, with estimates of at least 50% being wiped out by smallpox and other imported causes. The actual numbers are not accurately known, with a wide range (see e.g. WikiPedia).
There were also select indigenous groups in South Africa that were almost wiped out by smallpox.
These were all relatively isolated populations without exposure to domestic animals that may have co-evolved diseases and immunities with people.
I’d like to see two things – first, a summation graph with perhaps 95% error ranges (ie, a three-line graph), and second, the same thing for the entire planet. Anyone have anything like that?
Philip, I didn’t say die-offs due to smallpox didn’t happen anywhere else. Kindly don’t put words in my mouth. What I said was that the 90% figure strikes me as very unlikely — and your citing 50% elsewhere does nothing to contradict that; it fact it strengthens my argument.
Any chance you could update your article on the Hockey Stick for Dummies to include the latest findings?
Not really. In most the US, native population densities were higher than in Australia, which has a much higher percentage of desert than the US. I base this on the fact that desert population densities of native americans here in the US were much lower than elsewhere, and I see no reason for it to be have been different in aboriginal Australia (indeed, it’s still true today, in both countries).
Lower population densities make it more difficult for disease to spread.
Regarding smallpox, I think one can replace “may have” with “must have”. After all, the world’s first vaccine came about because an astute englishman noticed that dairy farmers (or whatever you want to call them) had a lower incidence of smallpox than typical populations, and connected this with exposure to cowpox. Intentional vaccination with live cowpox was then introduced to successfully combat smallpox.
Did you censor my question?
Three days ago, I asked why I could not reproduce the CRU red line with the data from the CRU itself. Where is it?
I have another question: how can the red line, smoothed over 40 years, reach 2006? Shouldn’t it stop at 1986?
[Response: Your question was answered way above (the target was CRU NH Land) and how the smoothing was done was explained in the paper (see Mann (2008)). – gavin]
I’d like to see this graph with an additional 2,000 years of history on it. I’d also like to see a global plot, rather than just the northern hemisphere. As it stands, it doesn’t show the complete picture. I believe it would put things better into perspective, and further show that the current pattern is nothing unusual.
[Response: The global picture is very similar, but with a little more noise due to less data availability in the south, and we’d all like to see another 2000 years – unfortunately the analogous data is just too sparse. – gavin]
Barton I don’t know why you think I’m attacking you. I was just adding in some additional data.
The 50% figure I quoted is an absolute minimum. The more likely range is significantly higher but I only have time to look this up at WikiPedia, where the article is currently a mess. There is evidence that the Aboriginal die-off in Australia could have been as high as 90%. Stats from that era are poor, as aboriginal Australians people were official fauna until the 1960s (if you can believe that). We are pretty sure of such numbers from isolated populations like the Khoi people in South Africa who were similarly isolated from diseases that had migrated to Eurasians from domesticated animals, so it is plausible that it could happen on a continental scale.
Interesting about that drop around 1350. Scientists should look ar historical records. They state that temperature drops around that caused famines and left the population of Europe weakened when the Black Death struck. In England the fall in temperatures at the time are attested to in monastic chronicles.
Brian Fagan covers this in two of his books – I think The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization. and The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History .
Both highly recommended, wonderful discourses on the connections between climate and history.
#112
Since the spaghettis start at about 200 A.D, what about the time period sometimes called “Roman Optimum” (200 B.C. to A.D. 400)? Any chance to get upper and lower bounds for global or NH temperature? And I dare to ask, what about the so called Holocene climatic optimum (9000-5000BC) ?
[Response: These are collections of data that is either annually or decadally resolved and well-dated. Unfortunately that kind of data gets rarer as you go back in time and so whether the Roman Optimum is real and what it’s spatial extent was will remain uncertain for some while. On longer time scales (multi-millennia) such dating accuracy isn’t as important and so coarser and less well-dated proxies are useful. There is a review paper on exactly this from Heinz Wanner and colleagues in press at the moment. – gavin]
>Now a really stupid question. It looks to me like the only lines which go above the early highs generated from proxy data (~960 AD) are the instrumental record data. Does this not show that the proxy data suggests warmer times in the past than during the more recent proxy period? Comparing that to instrumental data is apples and oranges, no?
>>[Response: No. The proxies are calibrated to the instrumental target just so that they will be comparable. – gavin]
I’ve been looking at the paper again and trying to understand it. First, an important quote in the context of the AGW issue.
“Because this conclusion extends to the past 1,300 years for EIV reconstructions withholding all tree-ring data, and because non-tree-ring proxy records are generally treated in the literature as being free of limitations in recording millennial scale variability(11), the conclusion that recent NH warmth likely** exceeds that of at least the past 1,300 years thus appears reasonably robust. For the CPS (EIV) reconstructions, the instrumental warmth breaches the upper 95% confidence limits of the reconstructions beginning with the decade centered at 1997 (2001).”
Further down on the same page (italics added by me):
“Peak Medieval warmth (from roughly A.D. 950-1100) is more pronounced in the EIV reconstructions (particularly for the landonly reconstruction) than in the CPS reconstructions (Fig. 3). The EIV land-only reconstruction, in fact, indicates markedly more sustained periods of warmer NH land temperatures from A.D. 700 to the mid-fifteenth century than previous published reconstructions. Peak multidecadal warmth centered at A.D. 960 (representing average conditions over A.D. 940–980) in this case corresponds approximately to 1980 levels (representing average conditions over 1960–2000). However, as noted earlier, the most recent decadal warmth exceeds the peak reconstructed decadal warmth, taking into account the uncertainties in the reconstructions.”
OK, some questions.
1. Does the EIV reconstruction represent a forty year moving average as suggested by the part I italicized?
2. Does the instrumental record shown on the graph in Fig 3 represent a forty-year moving average? I say no, because such a plot would have an end point in 1987. It looks like a five year moving average perhaps?
3. It is true that the upper 95% confidence level of the peak warmth centered at A.D.960 of the EIV land-only reconstruction is approximately 0.4. I assume that this means that peak of the five year average temperature at that time would have been considerably higher?
4. Is it not true that whatever the red line in figure 3 is, it is an apple being compared to a pear?
5. “Peak multidecadal warmth centered at A.D. 960 (representing average conditions over A.D. 940–980) in this case corresponds approximately to 1980 levels (representing average conditions over 1960–2000).” Corresponds approximately? Shouldn’t that be exceeds significantly? If my figures are right, 1960-2000 HadCrut NH 40 year average – 0.06 (98-08 app 0.17), 960 PMW central – app 0.25, 960 PMW upper 95% – 0.4?
6. Does this paper really show that “recent NH warmth likely** exceeds that of at least the past 1,300 years”?
In point 5 of my previous post I should have written “(68-08 app 0.17)”. Sorry about that.
Briso writes:
Yes.