In a 1988 paper James Hansen presented three scenarios (A, B and C) for future climate change, saying that Scenario B was the most plausible. In 1998 Pat Michaels committed scientific fraud when he erased scenarios B and C from Hansen's graph to argue that Hansen's predictions was out by 300%. In fact, as you can see from the graph below (updated to include 2007 temperatures), his predictions have been pretty close to reality. (More discussion at RealClimate.)
You can bet that if a mainstream climate scientist had done anything one tenth as bad, Steve McIntyre would be all over it, but not in this case. He's defending Michaels:
In the right panel, only Scenario A is taken through to 2050 and in both panels, Scenario A is plotted as a solid line, which could be taken as according at least graphic precedence to Scenario A. Hansen has subsequently said that Scenario B was said by him at the time (in his testimony) to have been the "most plausible", although the article itself contained no such statement.
and
You can see for yourselves that, in the article, Scenario A was arguably more prominent graphically.
None of this could excuse erasing scenarios B and C from the graph, but in any case, scenario A is not plotted as a solid line, and the article does say that B is the "most plausible".
Scenario A is actually plotted as a dotted line, it only looks like a solid grey line in a low resolution image. Click on the image below to see a high resolution scan.
More importantly, in four full page colour plates where there was only room to display one scenario, it is scenario B that is shown. There is no question that scenario B is more prominent graphically in the paper.
Here's what Hansen wrote about the scenarios in his paper:
These scenarios are designed to yield sensitivity experiments for a broad range of future greenhouse forcings. Scenario A, since it is exponential, must eventually be on the high side of reality in view of finite resource constraints and environmental concerns ... Scenario C is a more drastic curtailment of emissions than has generally been imagined ... Scenario B is perhaps the most plausible of the three cases.
See if you can spot the words that McIntyre claimed were not there.
No reasonable person can read Hansen's paper and conclude that A was his preferred scenario.
Oh and for some reason, McIntyre wants you to know that Gavin Schmidt works for NASA, because he tells you this nine times in his post.
NASA's been discredited don't you know.
I don't know who by, or when or anything, but they've been discredited.
guthrie - NASA was discredited when McIntyre found a mistake in their US temperature data that PROVED the warmest year on record was 1934 and not 1998, statistical significance be damned. I don't know why those suckers persist in trying to do research. They should fold up their tents and give all their funding to Steve.
MacIntyre makes the following justification in the comments:
Therefore, it follows that NASA scientists ... cough cough cough whatta load o'crap
And MacIntyre's accusations that Gavin is ripping off his employer continue...
"NASA's been discredited don't you know.
I don't know who by, or when or anything, but they've been discredited. "
Well, when they faked the moon landing of course, as has been proved beyond doubt.
dhogaza #3- Thus proving exactly why people should step very carefully when doing stuff outside their expertise.
It would be like turning up at a re-enactment event here in Scotland and bashing 3 people on the head before being forcibly ejected, whilst complaining "We use head shots back in my country."
And of course, the always voluble Roger Pielke Jr. will ignore the Pat Michaels fraud as well. Now if Jim Hansen should make any move that could be interpreted as stepping over the line....
I guess I'm not a "reasonable person", but it seems to me the word you overlooked was "eventually". Neither finite resource constraints nor environmental concerns seem to have really kicked in yet, so a Hansen reader still ought to expect something along the lines of Scenario A if human CO2 production were our primary concern.
This other graphic from Hansen's testimony certainly makes scenario A seem more prominent than the other two.
Glen, I can't tell if you are a "reasonable person"; too small a sample. I can tell that you don't like reading source material or searching for it.
It doesn't matter what you think different line styles mean in the plot, even having an argument about it reveals your lack of seriousness. Particularly when the written comments accompanying these plots are so simple to understand. Scenario A is presented for unrestrained growth of emissions, which is unlikely, leaving Scenario B as most likely. This is what it says. Why are is anyone still having this stupid debate?
In the 1998 testimony Hansen only talked about Scenario B, presumably to keep things simple to explain (http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200604/viewpoint.cfm).
I find it depressing that anyone would defend deliberately misrepresenting anyone's work in this way, when the facts and their explanations are so trivially easy to find.
About 9 am this morning, well before your blog posting, I noticed the sentence in the article and amended the sentence that you quote above to:
During the day, a reader sent in a copy of Hansen's 1988 testimony and Hansen's 1998 statement that he "used" Scenario B in his testimony is highly misleading. In his oral testimony, he describes Scenario A as Business-As-Usual and refers to Sdenario B only in the context of illustrating projected extreme warming in SE USA.
And I do not agree that it was appropriate for Michaels not to have illustrated Scenarios B or C, nor did I say that. They should have been shown. It was open to Michaels to take Scenario A as his base case but he would have had to justify it.
I mentioned the Michaels incident in passing during this post; it is false for you to say that I "defended" Michaels' graphic as I did not. So that there is no misunderstanding, I've added language to the post, stating that I do not "defend" the exclusion of Scenarios B and C from his graphic. This exclusion is yet another example of poor disclosure practices in climate science.
I do not see how you or anyone who condemns Michaels is not logically bound to also condemn Michael Mann and Keith Briffa for their withholding of adverse results.
Here is Hansen's 1987 testimony, which was largely identical to his 1988 testimony. I tried to find the '88 testimony, but either I was looking in the wrong place or it was missing.
http://cce.890m.com/hansen-nov87-sen-en-nat-res.pdf
On the first page of the pdf he says, "These scenarios are designed specifically to cover a very broad range of cases. If I were forced to choose one of these as most plausible, I would say Scenario B. My guess is that the world is now probably following a course that will take it smowhere between A and B."
Note that one of Crichton's criticisms from "State of Fear" was that in 1998 Hansen wrote a paper saying that you shouldn't focus on just the "business as usual" scenario and you should include multiple scenarios. Crichton took this as Hansen backpeddling, although if he had bothered to actually look this stuff up (and not rely on Michaels' baloney) he would have seen that Hansen was doing exactly that. Apparently, history is a bit different when it isn't rewritten.
Trends from 1984 ("base year") to 2007 in degrees per decade:
Scenario A: 0.37
Scenario B: 0.25
Scenario C: 0.25
GISS Met Data: 0.24
GISS Land+Ocean: 0.21
Hadley/CRU: 0.21
RSS: 0.22
UAH: 0.20
Scenario B vs Observations:
vs GISS Met Data: +2%
vs GISS Land+Ocean: +20%
vs Hadley/CRU: +18%
vs RSS: +12%
vs UAH: +22%
So, excluding the GISS Met Data figures (which were the original basis for comparison), Scenario B overestimated warming by 12% to 22%, a far cry from "300%". The CO2 sensitivity of that model was about 4 degrees, and most current estimates are about 3 degrees. The model also did not take into account anthropogenic aerosols, and the emissions scenarios overestimated Methane (which has tapered off) and CFCs (which were largely banned). So the fact that it has overestimated warming slightly is to be expected.
caveats: GISS Met Data and scenario trends are based on yearly data, not monthly data. Scenario data taken from the file on Climate Audit.
http://www.climateaudit.org/data/hansen/hansen_1988.projections.dat
Others are based on monthly anomalies ending in December 2007, except for Hadley/CRU which ends in October.
HAnsen 1988 oral testimony here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/others/Hansen.0623-1988%20oral.pdf
written here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/others/Hansen.0623-1988%20written.pdf
"NASA's been discredited don't you know.
I don't know who by, or when or anything, but they've been discredited."
I think it had something to do with making a hockey stick out of bristle pine wood.
Who plays hockey?
Canadians.
Everyone knows they're all a bunch of commies - look at that RED maple leaf on their flag.
"I guess I'm not a "reasonable person", but it seems to me the word you overlooked was "eventually". Neither finite resource constraints nor environmental concerns seem to have really kicked in yet"
US carbon dioxide emissions have fallen for the past two years largely due to high oil prices.
That sounds like a "finite resource constraint" to me.
McIntyre says: "About 9 am this morning, well before your blog posting, I noticed the sentence in the article and amended the sentence that you quote above"
In other words, McIntyre posted his "critique" (before he amended it) without even reading the Hansen paper in its entirety.
Perhaps that is his idea of "auditing"?
It saves time, that much is for certain.
Notice how McIntyre then tries to twist the subject back to his favorite obsession, Michael Mann:
"I do not see how you or anyone who condemns Michaels is not logically bound to also condemn Michael Mann and Keith Briffa for their withholding of adverse results."
They are engaging in "re-aligning' those graphics as well - shifting the individual curves up and down to make actual warming look lower. This has been discussed before, in depth, on CA. I participated in those conversations. Stevie Mac knows how the alignment was done by Hansen. Hew once again shows his dishonesty.
I also note that Stevie Mac, when he made the change in text text that he mentions above here, removed the previous version entirely, WITHOUT COMMENT. He does this all the time - change his articles by replacing the previous version, rather than with strike-through and correction. Another example of Mac's willingness to change history to make himself look better.
ahh, I see a comment there now mentioning the edit, that he changed the sentence. Not an edit trail, though. some audit.
Ian, US CO2 emission have fallen primarily because manufacturing has gone overseas and increased efficiency in producing electricity.
Some comments on actual and observed forcings relevant to all this.
McIntyre has a bad case of double-standarditis. He'll go off like an attack-chihuahua against some trivial and inconsequential flub by Mike Mann or NASA, that doesn't have any significant implication for the result. But then, when it comes to people whose conclusions he's predisposed to, he'll defend errors or deceptions of any magnitude at all.
A case in point is raised in connection with my recent critique of Vincent Courtillot's paper on RealClimate. Courtillot used a dataset which he called Tglobe in his paper, referred to as a "global temperature trend twice" and claimed came from a global dataset when first challenged about it. In the end Courtillot admitted that the dataset wasn't global, wasn't annual mean, wasn't even hemispheric. It was actually from a dataset of Northern Hemisphere land poleward of 20N, in the growing season alone. The data set was made originally for calibrating tree ring proxies. The data set header clearly described the data set this way, and gave the reference to the paper in which it was used. Last time I checked, trees don't grow in the ocean, so it could hardly have escaped Courtillot's notice that this was not a global dataset.
Yet, McIntyre defends Courtillot's substitution of data sets on the grounds that the Briffa data set used the same stations as the Jones data set that was cited in Courtillot's paper! This was McIntyre's famous "Christmas Eve Surprise." Quite a piece of work, Mr. McIntyre.
It should also be mentioned that the reduction in emissions and hence temperature below what Hanson predicted in A and B was partly due to the sudden collapse and economic implosion of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Hardly something he could be expected to predict, even in 1987.
With his usual abject dishonesty, McIntyre, who is not a scientist (he refuses to be bound by any of the rules of science), and most certainly not a climate scientist - COMPLETELY LEAVES OUT THE FACT THAT, IN ADDITION TO THE CONSTRAINTS ON EMISSIONS, SCENARIOS B AND C BOTH INCLUDED ONE MAJOR, LARGE VOLCANIC ERUPTION - WHICH HANSEN EXPLICITLY STATED WAS EXPECTED - AND SCENARIO A DID NOT. AND IN FACT, WE HAD ONE. AND FURTHERMORE, IN FACT, SOME IMPROVEMENTS IN EFFICIENCY WRT GDP GROWTH / GHG EMISSIONS DID OCCUR.
The only good thing about mcintyre is, anyone who cites him or has anything to do with him is wearing a tattoo that reads "I hate science and facts and I am a gullible cultist, disregard all further communications." That is a valuable service to mankind, if the warning is heeded.
markg: you clearly didn't follow my provided link. The issue wasn't about "different line styles", it's about the fact that the *other* graphic Hansen provided - on the same page at the same time as the one featured above - shows "Scenario A" extended into the far distant future but only shows the other two scenarios for a much shorter range of time. As if B and C were an afterthought. It implies somebody considered A more significant or worrisome or certain or perhaps just plain interesting than the other two. Though it could just be an oversight, it's an odd one. As I read it, B is extended roughly to 2027, C is extended to 2037, and A goes all the way to 2060.
The issue is that scientists use graphics to illustrate points made in the text of a paper. The paper isn't made to illustrate points made by graphs.
It is Hansen's words, not pictures, which matter.
Even if we look at the graphs to determine what Hansen considered more plausible, rather than read Hansen's words, scenario B obviously is iven graphic precedence both in the paper and in Hansen's presentation before Congress. In four full page colour plates where there was only room to display one scenario, it was scenario B that was shown. One of those plates was in his presentation, and figure 3b was not included at all.
McIntyre is simply being his usual misleading self.
[All the following post refs can be seen in their entirety by following Tim's link above.]
"Thoughts on Hansen et al 1988" (#1), posted by SMcI 16/1/08 @ 11:56 pm
"Here's a script to generatre [sic] the above graphic" (#2), posted by SMcI 17/1/08 @ 12:02 am
"... three projections of the system's condition, ordinarily these are best case, worst case, and most likely case. So I think it's reasonable to take Hansen at his word that case B was his most likely estimate, and not to read too much into his color choice.
...
Steve: In mineral promotions, red is nearly always used to highlight the spot of interest." (#13), posted by Hu McCulloch 17/1/08 @ 8:02 am.
"Another posting by NASA employee Gavin Schmidt defending Hansen" (#19), posted by SMcI 17/1/08 @ 9:27 am
"I've been browsing some of the controversy over Hansen's projections. NASA employee Gavin Schmidt said: [some GS quote]" ... "I agree entirely with Mhaze characterization of Hansen's 1988 testimony..." ... "Scenario B is only mentioned in the following context in the oral presentation..." ... 'Yes, he used Scenario B to illustrate regional effects, but there is no indication in his testimony that he regarded Scenario B as the "most plausible".' (#28), posted by SMcI 17/1/08 @ 11:02 am
'Hansen writes on p. 9345 of his 1988 paper: "Scenario B is perhaps the most plausible of the three cases."...' (#34), posted by Roger Pielke Jr 17/1/08 @ 11:29
"On which scenario was primary: I think you should take Hansen at his word that he always thought scenario B was the main one at least in some sense. ..." (#52), posted by lucia 17/1/08
"I've added the following paragraph: [displquot]...I do not agree that it was appropriate for Michaels not to have illustrated Scenarios B or C, ....[\displquot] I wrote this post late last night [presumably #1] and about 9 am this morning, I noticed that Hansen et al 1988 had included a sentence that Scenario B was the 'most plausible'; I inserted this in the post above and amended an incorrect statement. I've also inserted an update referring to the Hansen testimony which MHaze has made available." (#96), posted by SMcI 17/1/08 @ 6:16 pm
The "Michaels update" para is dated and timed in the OP (#1) manually as "Jan 17 6 pm". The "Hansen update" para is undated/untimed.
I wonder why, when SMcI says 'and about 9 am this morning, I noticed that Hansen et al 1988 had included a sentence that Scenario B was the "most plausible"; ...' does he not say this in his posts of 17/1/08 @ 9:27 am and @ 11:02 am?
It would have been particularly opportune if SMcI had been aware of the 'I noticed that Hansen et al 1988 had included a sentence that Scenario B was the "most plausible".' info at ~9:00 am to have included mention of it in #28 @ 11:02. At least I think so.
Are these sensible questions to be asked by and of an auditor?
I suppose one has to take SMcI at his word and that he has cogent reasons for not mentioning it in his 11:02 am post, but I also suppose we can all have our own unvoiced suspicions.
Am I interested in any cogent reasons? Not really. Anyone who read/reads the original peer-reviewed paper (and IIRC an earlier one with Lebedeff? in that same year?) can be in no doubt what was in Hansen et al's mind with regard to the different scenarios.
I don't care what Hansen intended. I wanted him to emphasize scenario A as the most important, and thank God and the Second Amendment we still cherish freedom in this country, despite the socialists like Hansen trying to tell what to think.
I am a bit surprised that even the commenters here have somehow been drawn into a discussion about whether Hansen picked the correct emission scenario as most likely. Hansens intuitions about future emissions are totally irrelevant. He is a climate scientist not a political scientist. All he can do is present if-then scenarios that capture a broad range of possible futures, exactly has he has done in the paper and his testimony. So, if evaluating Hansens models (rather than his political intuitions), it HAS to be done on the basis of the scenario that fits best to the actual emissions.
AFAIK, models A and B fit the actual emissions best, and so does the actual warming. Good model, case closed. Everything else is misdirection.
Paz "Hansens intuitions about future emissions are totally irrelevant. He is a climate scientist not a political scientist."
...or a soothsayer.
Climate models are not meant to "predict" future emissions.
Climate models and the state of knowledge have also come a long way over the last 20 years -- and Hansen's model did very well indeed, given the state of the art at the time.
McIntyre obviously can not debate the current science, so he focuses on the papers that are 10 (MBH) and even 20 (Hansen 88) years old.
It's just pathetic.
Oops! I know all you erudite readers can probably work it out for yourselves, but somehow my initial line got missed off my cut and paste from Notepad in #26 above.
There should have been the following initial line:
"I beg your patience. The following is a bit difficult to follow, but pay attention to this timeline (I don't think I've missed anything of importance off)."
And I somehow missed lucia's timestamp off (her #52 at CA), which is 1:29 pm.
Sorry folks.
"Graphic precedence"? Give me a break. That's idiotic. I've never even heard the term before. Most scientists are indifferent graphic artists, and give little thought to such things as line color and weight; often they just use whatever defaults are built into their graphing program. You have to be nuts to draw conclusions from things like line weight and color as to what the author thinks is most important.
On the other hand, when making projections that depend upon external factors that cannot entirely be anticipated, pretty much everybody does the same thing--they generate three projections: an optimistic "best case" projection, a pessimistic "worst case" projection, and a "likely" projection, which is normally the one in the middle. Even if Hansen hadn't bothered to explain this, most scientists would interpret the graph correctly.
[Copied from a CA post before McI deletes it](http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2620):
>In 2006, Willis Eschenbach digitized Hansen A,B and C scenarios to 2005 (see here ). I used these values together with my own visual digitization extension to 2010 in my recent post. Subsequently Lucia drew my attention to a digital version of the NASA data placed online at realclimate here , referenced in a realclimate post here.
>I carried out a routine comparison of the two versions. The realclimate version of Hansen Scenario C was 0.166 deg C warmer than Wilis' digitized version. In reviewing the data, realclimate Scenario C was higher than realclimate Scenario B, so an error has been introduced somewhere in the process.
>Which raises the question: how did this error get introduced into the NASA data published digitally for the first time at realclimate? Did it get introduced in digital copying? Or did NASA itself digitize the Hansen scenarios from print media and introduce the error then? In fact, exactly what is the provenance of the digital version presently archived at realclimate? Gavin did not say in his post. Did Gavin digitize the print media? Did someone else digitize it? Or is it digital data?
The error is, in fact, in Willis' digitization. That's one fine bit of auditing.
Lambert: "The error is, in fact, in Willis' digitization. That's one fine bit of auditing."
ahem....
Glen Raphael said:
One should certainly not equate the length of time for which each scenario is projected into the future with the significance that Hansen wished to attach to it!
Hansen considered scenario A to be the extreme case in which the yearly increment in emissions showed exponential growth. Because there was no attempt on Hansen's part to match the emissions of this scenario with what might actually happen, Hansen (and anyone else) could feel free to project forward to pretty much any time in the future but there would really be no significance to that.
Under the assumptions of Scenario C, emissions stopped in 2000, so what Hansen is showing on the graph thereafter for this scenario is how the global mean temperature anomaly (under the model) would respond to that. There is a certain response time of the climate system so that the temp continues to climb even after the emissions cease, but other than to illustrate that 9and to show the effects of "noise"), just when Hansen chose to stop the graph for this scenario has no significance.
Finally, with scenario B, which Hansen considered most plausible, Hansen was actually making an attempt to match emissions assumptions with what he thought to be a likely future emissions scenario.
But since Hansen is not a soothsayer, there was no point in his projecting such a scenario far into the future because emissions are cumulative and the divergence between the assumed atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and the actual concentrations would therefore be likely to increase as time goes on. Even the most "plausible" emissions assumptions (based on what is (happening today) are only plausible over the short term.
The exercise of trying to decide what Hansen considered most important based on the graphics is just absurd. Read what he said, for goodness sake.
Re the newest Stevie Mac absurdity, MikeB says over there:
The error is in one frickin year, and in Willis' version, it seems. Surprise.
Amazingly, an hour and a half after this, and with just one intervening post, Stevie Mac says:
As if it were never said....
No, there are most mistakes in Willis digitization that 1994. 1981, 1984 and 1985 are wrong too. But McI assumes that the NASA one must be wrong...
For the record, I did check the digitised values I posted, and they do match the original publication as a brief glance at Fig. 3b would have shown. (pdf available [here](http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf) )
It may also be worth pointing out that in the next CA post he accuses Hansen et al of not disclosing the forcing scenarios properly.
None of this is true. As usual, McI does not appear to have read the paper, for if he had he would have seen:
(appendix on p9361, discussing Scenario A). This was also mentioned in my RC post on the subject.
ref:#23
I did follow your link. Again: it doesn't matter what you, I or anyone else interprets from a given figure. Without reference to the accompanying text such activity is worse than useless. Not all scientists are particularly accomplished graphic artists, and not all graphic artists are particularly accomplished quantitative scientists. My point is that the words are easily available, you should probably check what they say.
All this discussion has reinforced is that 20 years ago someone had a model (scenario B) that has turned out to be a reasonably good prediction. And I guess I'm not really very interested in trying to work out what anyone thought about it at the time; this is 20 year old work! The scientific and political world have moved on since this was published.
The problem is skeptics can (and do) Google Pat Michaels' 1998 testimony, or they pick up a copy of "State of Fear" and read how warming was "4X less," off by "300%," and how models are "an astounding failure." Just another reason why AGW must be a fraud!
And speaking of Crichton, compare what he says:
http://cce.890m.com/page-273.jpg
to what Hansen says in the cited paper.
http://cce.890m.com/hansen-1998.jpg
Gee, if only Hansen provided "multiple scenarios" and didn't rely on a "Business as Usual" scenario back in 1988!
Full paper
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/95/22/12753.pdf
It's an election year in the United States.
We'd like to apologize to those who have in the past
generally accepted our accounting practices.
http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/18bush_337.jpg
Previous performance does not guarantee a future.
This incident is proof no good deed goes unpunished!
Doer of good deed: Gavin.
Asker of favor: Me.
For the record: I asked Gavin whether a data file of temperature already existed-- as it would save me time digitizing. I asked on Saturday, Dec 22.
I'm not quite sure precisely when Gavin provided the files, but I noticed the inline response to my comment on Christmas Eve.
Not only that: Gavin provided the data I asked for and pro-actively provided additional data describing the forcings. This is awfully nice, as Gavin doesn't know me from Adam. So: He provided complete stranger data during a major holiday!
Like Steve, I think provenance with data is worthwhile. That said, these are particular files posted at a blog. Yes, it's a well respected blog, but it's still a blog that accepts. If I (who asked for the data) had wanted more details on the provenance, I would either have
a) emailed him or
b) asked again at RC!
Evidently, there are now 'questions' about the provenance of other data that Gavin supplied on at RC Christmas Eve. < sigh >
Yes he doesn't appear to give any consideration to how even a nine year old paper (MBH99) deals with his favorite subject (bristlecones). Maybe climate science ended for him 10 years ago.
I've been lurking at Climate Audit for a few weeks and followed all the "Hansen" threads. Since CA referenced that Gavin Schmidt had posted a response here, I came over and had a look. I figured I needed to see what the "competition" had to say. I'm always on the lookout for the holes in the skeptic's arguements. I didn't find any here.
A couple of comments:
Main post - Tim Lambert "Oh and for some reason, McIntyre wants you to know that Gavin Schmidt works for NASA, because he tells you this nine times in his post."
And
1 - "NASA's been discredited don't you know."
Obviously, McIntyre wants you to know that Schmidt works for Hansen and helps run realclimate in his spare time (which apparently often happens between 9 and 5). McIntyre seems to think there's something not right there (and I agree). But, that said, McIntyre's continual harping on the fact distracts from what he is trying to say. Anybody familiar with McIntyre knows the reason he harps on this. It has nothing to do with NASA being "discredited".
2 - "McIntyre found a mistake in their US temperature data that PROVED the warmest year on record was 1934 and not 1998, statistical significance be damned."
McIntyre corrects people that claim 1934 as the hottest year by pointing out that it only affects the U.S. I never hear any of the "2nd, 3rd etc. hottest year" announcements from AGW backers mentioning statistical significance.
3 - dhogaza quotes McIntyre as saying "In mineral promotions, red is nearly always used to highlight the spot of interest" as if he was saying that this "proved" that scenario A was primary. Actually, quite a bit of (IMO, pointless) speculation on colors etc, had taken place and SMc was responding casually what the practice had been in his profession.
15 - In other words, McIntyre posted his "critique" (before he amended it) without even reading the Hansen paper in its entirety."
So, noting something that you missed on a first reading and correcting it constitutes "without even reading the Hansen paper in its entirety"?
22 - "With his usual abject dishonesty, McIntyre, who is not a scientist (he refuses to be bound by any of the rules of science), and most certainly not a climate scientist - COMPLETELY LEAVES OUT THE FACT THAT, IN ADDITION TO THE CONSTRAINTS ON EMISSIONS, SCENARIOS B AND C BOTH INCLUDED ONE MAJOR, LARGE VOLCANIC ERUPTION"
Well, no. From CA 1/17 3:08 pm. "Volcanoes - The final difference between Scenario A and Scenario B is that Scenario B assumed a major volcano in 1995 (and an actual major volcano, Pinatubo, occurred in 1992.)"
32 - Quoting CA: "I carried out a routine comparison of the two versions. The realclimate version of Hansen Scenario C was 0.166 deg C warmer than Wilis' digitized version."
This is almost certainly a CA typo. Elsewhere this error is noted as having occurred in 1994. McIntyre notes that, in the Gavin's "digitized" data, scenario C is warmer than scenario B in 1994. He notes that Willis's version does not match, but thinks that there must be a mistake in Gavin's data since this is the only instance in which scenario C is warmer than scenario B. He's curious about the history of the data. He explained to Lucia that he didn't expect Gavin to verify the data before passing it on to her.
It's interesting watching an apologist like BillBodell's mind at work, as he's laid it out here.
So, BillBodell, since you give McIntyre the benefit of the doubt to such a large degree, do you also give climate scientists the same benefit of the doubt.
If so, why do you agree with McIntyre's statement that it is suspicious that Gavin posts to Real Climate between 9 to 5 (McIntyre's "suspicion" being that Real Climate is, in part, a clandestine effort by NASA to avoid accountability rules).
That borders on paranoia.
And on this specific point:
1. It's part of a pattern of behavior, not a solitary event. Statistical significance vs. anecdotal evidence, if you will.
2. He claims to be AUDITING the science. Auditors aren't supposed to make claims based on "first readings" without putting in the effort to make sure they've not simply missed something. Indeed, having owned a corporation and been on the board of a fairly large NGO, both of which were audited annually, I can state with some assurance that auditors present their preliminary findings internally BEFORE publishing them, to give the entity being audited the chance to correct stupid blunders like misreadings, failure to find the right document, etc.
McIntyre doesn't act like an auditor. He acts like a loose cannon. Yet you defend him.
Why?
BillBodell, McIntyre didn't just miss that Hansen had said that B was "the most plausible" in his first reading, he asserted that it wasn't in the paper despite his referencing clear statements from Hansen and Gavin Schmidt that it was in the paper. Nor was it, as McIntyre claims in his update, "an aside" -- it's right there in the second paragraph of section 4 which describes the scenarios. A reasonable person would have read Hansen's description of the scenarios, instead of making McIntyre's silly argument about A being drawn with a solid line (it isn't, you know).
As for his post about an error in the RC version of the temperatures, he just assumed that the RC version was wrong, without bothering to look at Hansen's graph. Pretty sloppy, don't you think?
This seems to reflect a general ignorance of science. Almost all scientists of my acquaintance work considerably more than 9 to 5. When somebody is working considerably more hours than they are paid for, nobody is particularly inclined to be concerned about what is done at what time of day.
But even if there were actually something wrong with it, obsessing over it in a discussion of graph interpretation is sheer ad hominem. There is definitely "something not right" about somebody who would do that.
Hansen's paper did. And are you seriously arguing that two wrongs make a right?
And of course it never even occurred to him that somebody might highlight the warmest projections with the warmest color. The appropriate response, of course, is not to speculate based on conventions in some other field, but simply to note that the meaning of the different lines is given clearly in the text, as is the standard for all scientific work.
His errors all seem to go in the direction of supporting his position. Like a cashier who frequently overcharges customers but almost never undercharges them, after a while one begins to doubt whether mere sloppiness is an adequate explanation, and suspect that there is something "not quite right" about him.
trrll wrote:
"His errors all seem to go in the direction of supporting his position. "
What do you think his position is?
His position:
Climate scientists are stupid and probably corrupt.
Tim wrote:
BillBodell, McIntyre didn't just miss that Hansen had said that B was "the most plausible" in his first reading, he asserted that it wasn't in the paper despite his referencing clear statements from Hansen and Gavin Schmidt that it was in the paper. Nor was it, as McIntyre claims in his update, "an aside" -- it's right there in the second paragraph of section 4 which describes the scenarios. A reasonable person would have read Hansen's description of the scenarios, instead of making McIntyre's silly argument about A being drawn with a solid line (it isn't, you know).
1) If you read the report and failed to see the statement about scenario B being most plausible, why would you NOT "assert that it isn't in the paper"? It sounds like you are trying hard to depict a mistake as a lie.
2) Whether or not the statement is an "aside" is a matter of opinion, no? It's one sentence out of a four paragraph description of the three scenarios. "Scenario B is perhaps the most plausible of the three cases." There is that troubling word, "perhaps". And on top of that, there is this statement AFTER the "most plausible" statement:
>"Note that our scenario A goes approximately through the middle of the range of likely climate forcing estimated for the year 2030 by Ramathan et al 1985 and scenario B is near the lower limit of their estimated range." What is the purpose of that statement, if not to lend more weight to A than to B?
AND, Figure three in Hansen et al 1988 shows the three scenarios and "A" is indeed the one shown in a solid line.
So the notion that Hansen et al 1988 clearly expresses scenario B as the main scenario is not as clear-cut and unequivocal as you seek to position it in your effort to ridicule Steve McIntyre.
And then we have Hansen's 1988 testimony, which describes the scenarios this way:
"We have considered several scenarios because there are uncertainties in the exact trace gas growth in the past and especially in the future. We have considered cases ranging from business as usual, which is scenario A, to draconian emissions cuts, scenario C, which would totally eliminate net trace gas growth by the year 2000."
In that statement, at least, Hansen certainly does not promote scenario "A" as being some sort of upper limit to the possibilities, now does he?
Steve Mcintyre said:
Well, prima donnas are very "prominent", so does that mean we should listen to them?
Though one must admit, McIntyre does seem to be enamored with "prominence".
Another word (with the same latin root as "prominence") that comes to mind (mine, at least) in the context of Climate Audit is "promenade": a square dance figure in which couples march counterclockwise in a circle
BillBodell, re your
The talk about colour (at least on this particular thread being discussed) consists of SMcI's statement in CA #1 that
and of Hu McCulloch's (HMcC's) observation about this point in CA#13, to which SMcI responded in line:
So it's hardly
having taken place is it? A mention by SMcI, a mention by HMcC and an SMcI in-line reply.
SMcI's initial comment about colour is insubstantial and is clearly a red herring. Indeed, I propose a new dictum: "It's another SMcI green herring".
And SMcI's in-line response to HMcC is a case of argumentum ad antiquitatem because that is the convention that is ostensibly used in the narrow field of reporting on minerals. Not only that, by implication of SMcI's actual response to HMcC we have that red is not necessarily used in minerals reporting anyway "to highlight the spot of interest". It's a feeble argument initially and a feeble point in reply.
Also, is any consideration given to the ~8-10% of the population for which the noted colour change makes no difference at all (well, very little in truth, rather than none)? Perhaps Hansen is part of that population that suffers from protanopia, deuteranopia, protanomaly, or deuteranomaly (or perhaps whoever possibly helped prepare his graphics does) and it's just a nice mid-grey shade (like it is in the original 1988 Hansen et al paper). Or perhaps he's part of that population that actually looks at the key when they see a plot they wish to analyse.
As I've noted before, his "mistakes" all seem to go in the same direction. I won't speculate as to the mental state that results in this outcome, except to note that it seems that "something is not right."
It escapes me what is so troubling about a scientist admitting to some uncertainty regarding his own judgement, particularly when it depends upon guesses as to future emissions standards and things like volcanic eruptions.
As I've noted before, it is a virtually universal practice in science when making projections that are dependent upon external factors that cannot entirely be predicted to do 3 projections: a "worst case" scenario, a "best case" scenario, and a "likely case" scenario. I cannot imagine anybody with even a slight familiarity with scientific practice honestly mistaking these 3 curves as anything else, even if it were not explained in the text.
I would presume that the purpose would be the standard scientific practice of describing how your methods compare to those of other investigators who have carried out similar studies. This is generally expected, and frequently demanded, by peer reviewers.
So since scenario A is the scenario without any affirmative effort to reduce fossil fuel use (or any effect of depleting stocks), you are arguing that the worst case scenario should have been based on what? The assumption of an international effort to increase fossil fuel use? Unanticipated discovery of massive oil stocks?
BillBodell, re your
Well, when something forms one of the central planks of one's attack on something, then one is usually best advised to double check one's facts before committing to print (cue something I've probably overlooked below). And I seriously doubt it's his first reading of the paper anyway, since he's referred to it before in other posts. But ... it may well be the first time he's (almost) actually read it (rather than referred to it), in which case the moral is clear.
But picking up on this point again generally, I initially said I wasn't interested in cogent answers to a slightly rhetorical question I raised (in #26 and #30 above), but perhaps I've changed my mind now.
If SMcI knew at ~9:00 am (17th) that his statement about Hansen's choice of scenario was in error, then why did he wait until his 6:16 pm (17th) to make mention of it and correct the original post?
I would accept with good grace that it might have been/was physically impossible to change the original post before 6:00 pm (17th), but he had ample opportunity to make note of it during the day, since he found time during the day to make two posts, one of which was specifically making a comment about Hansen's statement on Scenario B (in CA's #28 @ 11:02 am, 17th).
I find it suspicious that having specifically taken this opportunity to make a comment about Scenario B which is at odds with what he claims he knew (at the ~6:00 pm correction/6:16 pm comment mind you) at ~9:00 am earlier that day, that he then decided to make no mention of it at this point or until people like RPJr and lucia started commenting to the effect of what Hansen actually had said about Scenario B.
It seems to me that either SMcI knew at ~9:00 am (17th) that there was a mistake in the position he'd attributed to Hansen and purposely withheld his knowledge of it at the 11:02 am post (and possibly earlier) for reasons known only to himself, or SMcI did not know at ~9:00 what he says he knew until people like RPJr and lucia started pointing this out (and I don't need to spell out those implications).
Now I'm not condemning without a reply, because I always favour cock up over conspiracy and I always favour forgetfulness over artfulness, and there may be some reason unknown to me whereby I've misconstrued the timings (I'm fallible). One explanation could be that there is a third party making comments under SMcI's name, for instance. I'm sure there are other possible reasons. So, if there is another possibility I would be truly glad to hear about it, wouldn't you BillBodell?
Obviously, McIntyre's entry into later entry into climate science was spurred by some sort of mid-aged crisis. But hasn't the man heard of 29 year-old women and bright shiny sports cars?
Where's Ben, our resident expert on the Canadian health care system.
He'll probably tell us they don't provide free viagra ...
trrll:
You are taking my post completely out of context -- i.e. you are ignoring the fact that it was specifically addressed to certain of Tim's comments.
Specifically, I was addressing 1) Tim's implication that Steve McIntyre was not merely mistaken about Hansen's paper not containing a reference to scenario B but was deliberately lying about it, and 2) Tim's effort to depict Hanson's statement as sufficiently unequivocal to make Steve's description of it as "an aside" sound ridiculous. My comments were addressed to those points.
But by ignoring that, you make it sound as if I'm trying to prove that Hansen's "main scenario" is indeed scenario A -- and you then attack my comments from that angle. That is known as making a straw man argument.
Just to review, since people seem to be focussing on irrelevencies apparently to obfuscate what Hansen actually said.
The 1988 paper did say that scenario B was the most plausible.
The 1988 oral testimony only used scenario B to describe an example of warming.
The 1987 oral testimony said that scenario B was the most plausible.
The 1987 written testimony said that scenario B was the most plausible.
What this apparently revolves around is the mistaken belief that "Business as Usual" means "the most likely scenario," which it doesn't, and the fact that Hansen didn't utter the words "most plausible" in his 1988 oral testimony.
No matter how much you stare at these graphs, Michaels was wrong to ignore the other scenarios. He was wrong to say the model was "an astounding failure," and his calculation of "4X less" warming by comparing a single modeled year to a single yearly observation is nothing short of incompetent. And yet, somehow, we are made to believe that Hansen and Michaels are "both wrong." Crichton's contribution to this "controversy" shows that he is both incompetent and illiterate.
Did you guys see the horrendous blunder Lucia made in her calculations? Well, she acknowledged it, fixed it and moved on. MacIntyre "appears" to have acknowledged his errors as well. Now, Lambertoid, can you get Mike Mann to correct the horrendeous errors he made in publishing the positions of various stations. He's been apprised of this stupid mistake and refuses to correct it
So you do agree that no reasonable person would regard scenario A as the "main" or most likely scenario in Hansen's estimation, even if they were so careless and slipshod as to skip over Hansen's explanation in the text?
What, then, is the point of all of this obfuscatory verbiage about the color and weight of the lines and what Hansen meant by "perhaps"?
> shown in a solid line
So were people looking at a badly scanned blurry copy, a bad low-fi fax, or pixels on a computer screen, to make this error?
Getting something faxed? Tell the sender to check "high resolution" for the fax machine, for line art, or "photo" quality for real pictures.
Getting something scanned? Choose the highest dots per inch number you can.
Acknowledge you're editing, not copying. You're sending or receiving or looking at a degraded image.
Folks, even cheap ink is approximately analog, it's 300 to 600 or more dots per inch. Printer's ink is effectively real natural analog-quality high resolution visual source material. Computer scanners, and computer screens, are digital, the pixels grossly restrict how much detail you can see.
Looking at the poor reproductions of the original shown online, it's easy to see how someone could mistake line A for a solid line. But that's exactly why people look up cites, check references, and make sure they are seeing the real information, not anyone's second-hand or worse copy.
Blur happens. Deal with it.
Rule one of database: ONE record, many pointers.
Check sources, not other people's copies.
[link](http://web.uvic.ca/akeller/pw401/img/google_dumbQ_large.png)
More than incompetence. Michaels was lying.
And, let's not forget, a liar.
Because you realize your reading might not be perfect and that you might have "failed to see the statement". Duh. Anyone trying to maintain a skerrick of credibility would at least say that they failed to see the statement. At least then they wouldn't be risking saying something plainly wrong. McIntyre apparently doesn't have a problem with people thinking his statements are unreliable.
44 - dhogaza, I mentioned SMc's comments about Gavin and NASA as being "continual harping" and that it distracts from his main point.
26 & 53 - P.Lewis I think you're missing something here. His 6 pm correction doesn't mention the "Scenario B topic". Higher in the post he says "[following sentence revised at Jan 17, 2008 about 9 am] Despite the graphic precedence to Scenario A in the right panel graph, Hansen mentioned in the running text (9345):... and, then inconsistently with the graphic shown on the right side only showing Scenario A out to 2050, said (p 9345) that Scenario B was 'more plausible'" So that's at 9 am. It mentions the running text which I'm guessing means the written testimony. Then, in an undated update, he says "[Update: The testimony is now available and Hansen's statement that Scenario B was "used" in his 1988 testimony is very misleading: Hansen's oral testimony called Scenario A the "Business as Usual" scenario and mentioned Scenario B only in maps purportedly showing extraordinary projected warming in the SE USA" which I would guess is from the oral testimony.
In any event, McIntyre never said that Scenario A WAS Hansen's preferred scenario. He engaged in a bunch of (IMO, pointless) speculation about what line colors, solid lines and scenario A being extended further than B & C that he thought "might" mean that Hansen did think that scenario A was "most plausible". He made corrections and updates as they became available (a good practice). The post about preserving previous comments with a line through them is correct in pointing out that that would be a better practice. I see all the focus on this issue in this blog as well as claims of "abject dishonesty" to be overblown. Personally, it seems to me that Hansen was saying that scenario B was most plausible in the "long run". But, that's just speculation and I really don't see the point of beating this to death here or at CA.
44 - Tim Lambert. Actually, looking at the original graph, it's pretty hard to see where the 1994 points are for scenarios B & C, But, it does seem that C is higher, It also seems odd that scenario C would be higher than B. If that's "sloppy", then you've got a point.
46 - trrll "And are you seriously arguing that two wrongs make a right?" No. But the side that doesn't do the wrong thing increases its credibility.
All of this focus by CA on what Hansen thought was the "most plausible" scenario and all the responses here are causing the main point to be lost. It appears that, since 1990, with the exception of 1998, all the GISS surf and RSS sat observations seem to be at or under scenario C (the scenario where greenhouse gases are presumed to have stopped increasing in 2000). This seems odd. Any explanations (and I do think people here might have thoughts worth hearing on this topic)?
BTW How do you do the indented quotes stuff?
No, responses here are in no way responsible for CA's bullshit.
Causing the main point to be lost is the reason CA exists.
Sorry, BillBodell (and regular Deltoid readers who this must be boring the pants off), but I think you need to follow the timeline a little more closely.
The official Steve McIntyre (SMcI) position until his 6 pm update and his 6:16 pm post on the 17th was that Hansen's scenario A was supposed to be Hansen's preferred scenario (and we all know it is scenario B in the Hansen et al 1988 paper).
The new official position, stated in SMcI's 6:16 pm (17th) post at CA (and, indeed, in #10 on this very web page), was that he'd realised scenario B was Hansen's "preferred" scenario at ~9 am (17th).
(As I said, I fully appreciate that the practicalities of website update of his #1 might be a factor in his #1 not being updated until 6 pm (17th) -- I don't know that this is the case, since I don't maintain a blog/update websites and can't comment on the possibilities of remote updates; but, until informed otherwise I can see it is a possibility.)
However (and I think it is a rather large "however"), at ~11 am (17th), i.e. after the ~9 am that SMcI claims he already knew about scenario B now being Hansen's preferred choice (but didn't post on until 6:16 pm), SMcI made a comment about Hansen's preferred choice not being scenario B:
Question
If, as SMcI says, he knew about Hansen's actual view on scenario B at ~9 am, then why did he make the 11:02 am statement about scenario B not being Hansen's preferred scenario?
Possible answers
(1) SMcI's lied about the time he knew about Hansen and scenario B to save face (since, by dint of #10 on this page, Tim's blog post on this issue was already up and perhaps RPJr and lucia had already had input -- I don't know the latter for a fact, because I don't know what the time difference between the two blog timestamps is; perhaps someone could inform us and we can expand the audit trail).
(2) SMcI didn't lie, but allows someone else to post in his name.
(3) That at ~11:02 am SMcI had already "forgotten" that he was going to say at 6:16 pm that day that he knew at ~9 am that Hansen's preferred scenario was B (perhaps "conveniently" forgotten until RPJr and lucia later chimed in).
Not one of these possibilities could be said to put SMcI in a good light. But perhaps there is another possibility that would. Knowing how fond of the audit trail SMcI is, perhaps SMcI himself would like to expound on why there seems to be a discrepancy between what he said he knew at ~9 am on his site at ~6 pm/6:16 pm (17th) (also confirmed in his post #10 on this site above) and his commentary in his 11:02 (17th) post.
The two situations (i.e. "knowing" at ~ 9:00 am, but not "knowing" ~ 2 hours later) should be evidently anomalous to the blindest of acolytes. Something is obviously amiss. I'm quite prepared to accept that there is a rational explanation (or still that I have it wrong somewhere), but I'd just like to know what that explanation is.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
PS "blockquote" and "/blockquote", where the inverted commas are < and >.
Appearances can be deceiving.
BillBodell, looking at the original graph it is not at all hard to see that C is higher. Maybe it's hard if you look at a blurry lowres version. If you don't understand why C can sometimes be higher with a lower forcing, then you should be more worried that A goes down as well as up despite monotonically increasing forcing.
LAMBKINS.... you are avoiding the question. Lucia made a horrendeous error in a blog post ( a log error) Steve Mc also made an error in a blog post. You slammed Steve Mc. Good for you lambkins. Well done. Now slam lucia. You can see the error she made on CA and her own blog. But finally, I want to see the lambkins slamm Mann for screwing up the latititude and longitudes of stations. TIMMAH! you cant be so mentally handicapped as miss the opportunity to correct The Mann.
TIMMAH!!!!
come on lambkins, come on timmah. correct dr. mann. He screwed up in a published paper.
Get out of your intellectual wheelchair and correct Mann error.
depp=true
notiz=[Disemvowelled. Please stop trolling.]
Agreed. This is one of many reasons why Hansen, who acknowledged from the outset that the difference in US temperature between 1934 and 1998 is statistically nonsignificant, has vastly more credibility than the guys who tried to make a big deal out of a minuscule correction that changed the ranking of those two years from a statistical dead heat to... still a statistical dead heat.
And you think these small differences, which are almost certainly statistically nonsignificant, are the "main point"? The effects of CO2 emissions have a certain degree of "intertia." So B and C take a while to diverge--as of the present date, they are barely beginning to separate.
P. Lewis, I know everyone must be bored by now, but I'm having a hard time letting go (I get like this with a lot of things). Reading over the CA thread (and spending WAY too much time doing so), SMc made 3 updates to his original post.
Update 1, dated 1/17 at 6 pm.
This update only addresses Lambert's claim that SMc was "defending Micheals' fraud". SMc clarifies that he was NOT defending Micheals. It says nothing about the "scenario B" issue.
Update 2, 1/17 at about 9 am
This is where SMc acknowledges that the written 1998 testimony included the statement that Scenario B was "more plausible". SMc did not acknowledge it gracefully. But, unless there is some question about the self -labeled 9 am timestamp, this is the relevant update.
Update 3, 1/17 (undated)
This referred to the transcript of Hansen's 1988 oral testimony, which SMc had just gotten a copy of.
Post #28 11:02am
Too long to quote here, but this deals only with Hansen's oral testimony.
Post 96 at 6:09 pm. McIntyre says:
Along with noting the "not defending Micheals" update, he also points out the earlier (9 am) update about Scenario B.
In conclusion. I see no reason to suspect that McIntyre did not acknowledge that Hansen had mentioned in his 1988 written testimony that Scenario B was the "most plausible" at 9 am as stated in his post here.
P.S. Thank for the "blockquote" tip.
luminous beauty,
I checked your link and didn't see what you seemed to be hoping I would. If there was something in particular that you wanted me to be aware of, let me know what it was.
The observations labeled Land-Ocean (presumably Hansen's GISS data) track at or below Scenario C (except for 1998 and, slightly, in what appears to be 1997) . Observations are only plotted through 2005. Observed forcings appear to be tracking with scenario B. Since Scenarios B & C are so close to each other until about 2007, within a reasonable margin of error one could say either:
Observations are a good match for Hansen's "most plausible" scenario.
Or, observations are a good match for a scenario in which CO2 was stabilized in 2000.
Using RSS sat observations instead of GISS land-ocean, the observations are lower and raise more questions.
As McIntyre points out in his conclusion to the post in question:
You have to remember the tactic: matroishka argument.
Each claim is nested in a larger claim and contains a smaller claim, so you end up falling for one if not the next.
> Scenario C supposes that CO2 are stabilized at 368 ppm in
> 2000 - a level already surpassed. So Scenario C should
> presumably <---- [included assumption, I think]
> be below observed temperatures
As I read the science, warming goes on for decades after CO2 from forcing (and feedbacks) stops increasing.
"Committed warming" is already in the pipeline and continues after CO2 quits going up.
Dotted line? solid line?
Yes, I can't see the point of lying about it, if he is going to correct it as soon as he is caught (which he surely would have know was inevitable). I can understand why people assume that he must have been lying, however. Any reasonable, halfway responsible person would surely have checked carefully before making such an assertion. For that matter, any reasonable person would have known that when 3 projections are shown, they are inevitably optimistic, pessimistic, and likely scenarios.
But I've seen this kind of selective blindness before. Sometimes, people are simply so biased that they literally do not see statements and evidence that do not fit their preconceived notions. Admittedly, it would take a pretty extreme level of bias not to immediately realize the implausibility of the notion that Hansen would do an expected projection, an optimistic projection, and a more optimistic projection, but I see no other explanation.
However, I find it interesting that he only says this after he was challenged on it, and after he has been shown to be incorrect in his core argument that Hansen did not identify the preferred scenario. It is difficult to understand what the point of the post is, if it is not to defend Michaels. If it is not the point, why was there all of the discussion of the back-and-forth between Michaels and the NASA team? And why did he not acknowledge in the original post that it was unethical for Michaels to omit the other two traces without so much as acknowledging their existence? Can there really be any doubt of this?
Oh yeah, another one:
Mann was not THEN Michaels' colleague at UVa. Mann got there a year latter (1999), but Drama McQueen does like creating an image.
trrll,
I seems that you are conceding the point and then moving on to other topics.
It is difficult to understand the point of the post only if you don't know the context. The latest topics on CA have concerned evaluating the predictions of models. Hansen 1988 was brought up as an introduction to an evaluation of the model (which is only just begun on CA). He mentioned Micheals only in passing and he does seem to suspect that Hansen was "selling" scenario A and spends quite a bit of time in trying to look for clues that that was the case (all of which, IMO, was pointless and distracting).
Hank Roberts
BillBodell, I personally think that whilst you may be technically speaking correct (that the point of his post at CA #28 was talking about the testimomy to the Senate hearing), it was at the very least remiss not to have mentioned something of major importance to the substance of the initial post (else why update it at all in the final analysis?), especially as the actual paper is mentioned and linked to in the first line of the post and discussion of the paper is made in his OP. Still, funny things happen to people when they're minds get stuck on a single track: one finds they even read through and over critical passages sometimes.
I can't say I'm convinced by your argument, but unless anything new pops up on this, then there's nothing more really to say on it.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Links: #a href = "url here"# text here #/a# (where # = < and >)
You know, poor Eli dug out all this stuff on Hansen's testimony and the paper over a year ago, and Drama McQueen actually LINKED to the posts on the paper There was another post that pointed out that Hansen SAID EXACTLY THE SAME THING in his congressional testimony. So do I think we are dealing with an innocent and cute puppy here? (Well OK on the cute)
Really? What point do you imagine me to be conceding? I thought we were exploring the question of what is behind McIntyre's misstatements, intentional dishonesty or bias and carelessness. I have always favored the latter explanation.
The interesting thing from my point of view is that his notion of "looking for clues" is not to read Hansen's writings carefully, but to draw strained inferences from triva like the color of the line or how far he carries out a particular projection into the future. And I'd say that 13 lines of discussion (doubled now with his corrections and explanation) constitutes a bit more than an "in passing" mention.
I suspect that Steve is simply suffering from McIntyre's Demon.
A relative of Morton's demon:
Thus was born the realization that there is a dangerous demon on the loose. When I was a YEC, I had a demon that did similar things for me that Maxwell's demon did for thermodynamics. Morton's demon was a demon who sat at the gate of my sensory input apparatus and if and when he saw supportive evidence coming in, he opened the gate. But if he saw contradictory data coming in, he closed the gate. In this way, the demon allowed me to believe that I was right and to avoid any nasty contradictory data.
trrll,
The point that McIntyre did correct his statement at 9 am about Hansen and Scenario B being "most plausible" in his 1988 paper. I know it seems like a small point, but McIntyre was accused here of lying about it and I wanted to try and set the record straight.
My "in passing" comment was in reference to his mention of Micheals. He did indeed spend way too much time (IMO) looking for evidence that Hansen really preferred scenario A. Personally, I too suspect that Hansen was "selling" A and his mention of scenario B being more plausible was in reference to the"long term". But, Hansen did say several times in 1987 & 1888 that scenario B was more plausible, So that's that.
How could Hansen be "selling" scenario A in his testimony if he not once referenced the modeled results of scenario A? He talked about what might happen if the climate followed scenario B, he said nothing of scenario A.
Not by me. It has always appeared to me that his problem is bias rather than active dishonesty.
Yes, this is what I mean by bias. Anybody who has ever looked at projections of any kind knows that when somebody shows three projections, they are invariably a worst case projection, a best case projection, and a "best guess" projection. And Hansen even went so far as to point out that scenario A is overly pessimistic, since it neglects the effect of resource depletion. But some people clearly very badly want that to be Hansen's favored projection (since it is the furthest off from the data), to the point of such idiocy as ignoring what he wrote and trying to judge the "graphic precedence" of the line styles.
Let me toss in one vote for active dishonesty, then and add that lying, being caught on it, and then revising without mentioning it shouldn't count as honesty. Especially when it's a constant pattern.
You have to understand McIntyre's mindset.
He is convinced that climate science is, in essence, a fraud, and that leading climate scientists - in particular, Hansen and Mann - are guilty of scientific misconduct. Not just in one or two instances, but throughout their careers.
Oh, and "scientific misconduct" is a serious charge, especially when federal funds are involved.
Once you understand McIntyre's essential bias, it's easy to understand why he would immediately assume that Gavin and others are lying when they said Michaels was wrong and that Hansen referred to Scenario B in his Congressional testimony, etc.
Over on Tamino's blog, McIntyre was asked directly, several times, to answer straight-up whether or not he personally believes that leading climate scientists like Hansen and Mann are guilty of fraud.
He refused. He posted evidence which at face value would support the idea, until that (like the "evidence" in this thread) was shown to be just a tad bit wrong. Asked again, "fraud or not?" - no answer. Asked if he agreed with the claims of fraud posted by others on his blog - no answer.
Now, it seems to me that a straightforward answer to such a question ought to be possible for a man who spends so much of his time trying to disprove papers that are 20 years old in the hope of causing the entire edifice of climate science to come tumbling down.
It seems to me that if he personally doesn't believe them to be guilty of fraud, he'd inform the participants and Climate Audit.
And he'd quit hinting over and over again that various scientists are lying.
Well, I've never seen a photo, so I'll answer "no" to the first, and "no idea" to the second :)
Point of order BillBodell: SMcI did not (as you say in #81) correct his statement about Hansen at 9 am (17th). He corrected it at ~6 pm/6:16 pm (17th), a full 9 hours after he said it had occurred to him, and at least 6.5 hours after RPJr (and later lucia) pointed Hansen's statement out to him. That is what the time line says. You tell me where the time line says anything different and I'll agree with you if at all possible.
P. Lewis,
My post 70, Update 2, 1/17 at about 9 am. At 6:16 he notes his update concerning Micheals and also notes the earlier change.
trrll,
I'm happy to hear that you do not consider it active dishonesty. Even if it was (and I think it highly unlikely that it is) one would be best off not making the claim as it reduces the accuser's credibility.
If nothing else, McIntyre's "misread" of the Hansen paper in this case throws into doubt his claim to be "auditing" climate science.
If it was an honest oversight, it still makes him look sloppy in the extreme, given that the scenario considered most plausible by Hansen is the focus of the McIntyre critique.
But if it was done purposefully (which I actually doubt), he would appear downright idiotic (since it would indicate that he assumed that no one had actually read the 88 Hansen paper)
Either way, he comes out looking foolish -- and quite unlike an "auditor" (at least unlike a careful auditor)
There's another nitwittery attack on graphics livening up at CA now, the old one where whoever collected imagery from Thompson's material to illustrate text in Gore's book picked the wrong one of two very similar images.
McI is now asking people to complain to the administration about Thompson.
Same basic crap, ignore the text, try to make as much confusion and noise as possible about anything that confuses the crowd, carefully don't explain anything, pretend it's a new problem.
A few weeks ago it was attacking the reports of cold ocean water upwelling -- solid work -- without any pretense at understanding it, as though it disproved rather than supported results from models.
McI just over and over manages to destroy any credibility he attains, it's so self-destructive it's sad to watch happen.
It's like watching someone with an insect phobia try to be the world's best butterfly collector -- occasional grabs at something appropriate, but far more flinching and flailing and inappropriate behavior.
The only way to change behavior is to reward appropriate behavior, punishment doesn't work, it only reinforces stupidity on all sides. But finding the appropriate behavior is sometimes very difficult.
Doghaza,
2 & 3, yes. 1, doubtful.
It's absolutely crazy. This mistake was possibly made by Gore, more possibly by a collaborator, and very possibly a copy editor or compositor.
Yet they're trying to attack Thompson professionally.
It shouldn't be surprising. McIntyre must know he has no card of substance to play in this climate science game, so he's trying to discredit and intimidate scientists instead.
It's a Two Cultures thing, redlining and data deletion.
If a exploration geophysicist fudges the assays of a (non existent) 100 megaounce gold deposit, he is customarily thrown out of a helicopter in headhunter country.
If a State Climatologist or mining economist deletes 100 gigaflops worth of climate model output, he may get a call from a headhunter or a heliskiing vacation at Whistler.
Russell, I think that you ought to revise that this way:
If an obscure scientist with hardly any publications to their name and who has done hardly anything in the field of climate or environmental science boldly claims that human impacts on the biosphere are minimal, and that the current warming episode is trivial and natural, while expressing significant doubts about the magintude of the current extinction spasm, and they write a shallow book about it, he/she are likely to be promoted strongly by think tanks, lobbying groups and public relations firms that are on the corporate payroll. This person will probably become a household name without any kind of scientific pedigree, simply because their views blend with those who have power and priviledge and who are anxious to promote the status quo.
On the other hand, if you are one of many thousands of scientists working in a university or government institution, and you actually experiment on testable hypotheses, and are author or co-author on numerous peer-reviewed publications in rigid journals which argue that human activities are driving climate change and the current extinction episode, then in all likelihood no one will ever hear of you. You'll just be 'one of the crowd'. You can forget invites to give expensive after dinner speeches at any one of dozens of think tanks, and will have to accept the fact that the media is not going to be knocking on your door any time soon.
This may explain why a lot of pseudo-scientific scribes with hardly a publication to their name have become quite prominent whereas I could list here hundreds of names of scientists with many hundreds of papers and thousands of citations who you have never heard of. In other words being a climate-change denier is the first step to a significant jump up the academic queue - sort of 'how to succeed in science without really trying'.
Jeff:
I'm afraid I can't revise it that way because I started saying as much about the polemic abuse of models as a bipartisan disgrace, starting in Foreign Affairs in 1984. Scientists seem to have learned less, seriatim, from The Club Of Rome Report, the CONAES study ,Nuclear Winter/SCOPE-ENUWAR, and the present climate war than have publicists.
I hope you find the Climate Wars archive on the blog sidebar edifying as well as infuriating.
Russell Seitz writes:
[[If a State Climatologist or mining economist deletes 100 gigaflops worth of climate model output, he may get a call from a headhunter or a heliskiing vacation at Whistler.]]
You mean a "State Climatologist" like Pat Michaels?
Jeff Harvey --
Too true. How many people, and especially how many AGW deniers, know who Syukuro Manabe is? Or Gilbert Plass, or V. Ramanathan, or even G.S. Challenger? These are people who did major work in climatology, and their reward for it was recognition by the scientific community, and obscurity to the public at large. Now, how many people know who Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter is? Or Michael Crichton? But millions of people believe what they say about climatology. It depresses a fellow.
I wish I could find the cartoon, but the exchange just above reminds me of a political cartoon where there are two theaters, one showing An Inconvenient Truth with a couple of people in line, and the other showing A Reassuring Lie where the line goes around the block.
Best,
D
A Reassuring Lie
AGW proponents seem to think that the media is constantly bombarding us with the views of AGW skeptics. AGW skeptics think that the media is is constantly bombarding us with the views of AGW proponents. It can't be both. My personal experience is that I hear very little in the MSM that is skeptical. Has anyone done a study of this?
P. Lewis
Any response on the "9 am" issue? I'm not really all that concerned about what really happened. It's mostly an matter of testing my ability to communicate or discovering an error I might have made.
Dano,
I think you're a little paranoid.
"An Inconvenient Truth" was very successful and Al Gore won a Nobel Prize. "The Global Warming Swindle" was never even shown on TV in the US.
Interestingly, I was just checking out CA and McIntyre has made a correction about "the error in the NASA data". But the most interesting thing is that, this time, he preserved the original text by striking through it as suggested on this thread.
Tim Lambert,
CA now acknowleges that the error in digitization was Willis'.
It's still a valid point that didn't originally mention Willis as the possible source of the error.
> the polemic abuse of models
It's become easy to forget the ozone 'wars' -- the most embarassing originals have faded from originally linked pages and can't be found any longer.
Fortunately both skeptics and true believers kept copies, like
"OZONE AND GLOBAL WARMING: ARE THE PROBLEMS REAL?~ Sallie Baliunas"
http://web.archive.org/web/20040628140006/http://mentalspace.ranters.ne…
and the bizarre claims banning freon would ruin businesses:
http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/reststory/bronfmanfreon.html
It's good to be remembered. And to remember.
Lest we repeat.
"My personal experience is that I hear very little in the MSM that is skeptical".
Really? The truth is that the corporate MSM has played a major role in promoting a small coterie of sceptics, who otherwise would disappear into the academic obscurity from whence they emerged. Countless articles juxtapose the views of a climate scientist arguing in favour of the AGW hypothesis against another person - often someone like Myron Ebell from the CEI or another unqualified person - presenting a counter view. Controversy sells in the media; consensus does not.
As scientist and writer Sharon Beder has also explained, the media might talk about the serious consequences of AGW, but they very rarely explain how much industry is funding efforts to twist and mangle the empirical science to bolster a pre-determined worldview. This could be because the media is either owned by large corporations that have a vested interest in denial, or else they depend on corporate advertising as the major source of their funding. One can not underestimate the amount of coverage given to the denial lobby in the MSM. Its huge.
Over here in Holland, a few days after the IPCC report came out last January, several of the papers here went into 'adaptation and denial' mode within a few days. One of the broadsheets ran much of their front section on articles explaining how the Dutch have the technology to prevent flooding as the sea level rises from AGW. This was followed by an op-ed by a British climate change sceptic in the editorial section arguing that climate change was natural anyway, so that there was nothing to worry about. It was a classic example of 'A & D' in practice.
BillBodell- it would be worth doing a study on media reporting. In my own limited experience here in the UK, you have several broadsheets which will report the science, however the journalist mangles it, and the scientific consensus. However they tend to also allow people like Lomborg to have a say in the opinion pages, and certainly kooks are forever writing letters to the papers saying global warming is all bunk. But in pursuit of profits and their mythical balance, the papers do tend to print a fair bit of disinformation. How much, I cannot tell.
Hank -- I think you have a good point about past industry anti-regulation campaigns. Didn't they also say passing the Clean Air Act would destroy the American economy?
Thank you P Lewis!
Best,
D
Bill:
You seem to have a head on your shoulders, to be fair, and to be "discover the truth" versus "help my side" focused.
At one time, I was very intrigued and politically sympathetic to Steve's writings. But I have seen a pattern of significantly skewed behaviour. Criticism of his skewedness may itself have errors (Steve is awfully opaque and meandering and his opponents are not always precise in pinning him down.) But the main point is that when you go down the rabbit hole, you find equivocation, mischaracterization, confounded variables, failure to ask key questions, etc. (and with Steve, they slant in his favor).
Check out this series of posts:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1933
http://atmoz.org/blog/2007/08/20/audit-the-auditor/
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1975
You are very good at looking at timestamps and such, so will let you figure this out on your own, but I do call your attention to these things:
-now in-line correction on first post was added several days after the issue was first surfaced and only after significant embarressment (i.e. grudgingly). Note also that this correction is undated, that it is written in such a way as to give the false impression that ASOS is close to the parking lots, and thus attempts to still have people see his post as significant (rather than as a blatantly false impression). Note also how the comment is inline, rather than up front.
-the last post had major portions changed after it was first posted, with no comments that that had been done (this is common Steve behavior).
Hank,
The thing is, irrespective of where he started out on the issue, or where he could've ended up under different circumstances, he's now a hero to a movement, and that's pretty potent stuff. Of course, the challenge for him is going to be to diversify. Endlessly tilting at the Hockey Stick isn't going to keep the peanut gallery interested. Hence, that other bete noir of the conspiracy minded right: Hansen. I wonder the extent to which the ambition to keep and build upon the accolades that he has received is leading to more overt fudges like this one. Irrespective, it's nice to see Lambert, Eli and co have him well boxed in.
Welcome to the RBC, TCO.
Best,
D
What's up little Dano?