To Watts’ credit, he also appears to be defending DC’s right to remain anonymous, despite attempts to “out” him.
I’m not so confident this paper will be re-written – not for this same journal anyway.

From the Marx Brother’s Duck Soup
�
================
“This means war”
“And remember while you’re out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we’ll be in here thinking what a sucker you are.”
======================
I wish the same thing could be applied to this entire AGW debacle

#2 asks: “Are the facts in the Wegman report disputed?”
Yes, Sir, they are. Incidentally also by blogger Deep Climate who discovered that the computer code, provided by Canadian skeptic Steve McIntyre, as used by the statisticians Wegman and Said, severely cherry-picks the results from random proxys to support the claim that Mann’s ’89/99 algorithm would produce hockeysticks from red noise.
See the discussion here: http://deepclimate.org/2010/11/16/replication-and-due-diligence-wegman-style/
So not only is the first -paleoclimate- section of the Wegman disputed: plagiarism. The second section -supposedly the real substance- is disputed too: cherry-picking,  as is the last -SNA- section: plagiarism again.
It doesn’t reflect well on a paper itself critical of the behavior of other scholars and intended as political weapon. So, yes, outside science the AGW issue is a real soap.

@ Bishop Hill:
As far as I can tell, nobody is disputing the paper’s findings though.
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@2 Tom Gray:
Are teh facts in the Wegman report disputed?
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Yes.

re 6
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This is not a newspaper story. it is a report of a mathematical investigation that can be evaluated. Plagiarism is a collateral issue that does not affect the issues raised by the paper.
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This obsession with supposed plagiarism and other irrelevancies trivializes a grave issue. Where are the Marx Brothers when we need them?
�
 

Tom,
It should be clear by now that I’m interested in how people react to information that challenges their world views, be it the response to the Nisbet report or the response to the journal retraction of the Wegman paper by prominent skeptics, such as Watts and Hill.

It’s interesting to me how people on both sides of this debate spin/slant news to advance their own agendas or belief. I like pointing it out when it’s patently obvious, as it is now with the reax by skeptics to the Wegman report. it’s like a sport.
 

I don’t know which Tom you’re castigating here, but I’ll take the bait. The findings of Wegman are fairly clear and were supported by the NAS. The later paper written by Said is what is being withdrawn.
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Lifting a description of the network effect from Wikipedia did not affect the findings of the Wegman report, as it was not an academic paper and Congress didn’t care if they did it or not. The rules for academic publishing are (and should be) different.
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Congress got the truth about what happened. Sloppy work rendered the paper unfit for purpose in academia.
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I don’t see much of a problem here, although it may prove to be the controversy of the week.

re 14
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=============
You’re tying yourself in a knot. We’re not talking about grooming habits. It’s about academic dishonesty. How are you able to overlook/rationalize that while still giving credence to the supposed “findings.”
====================
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Because mathematical findings can be replicated and reproduced.
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This is not an issue of assigning credit or priority. it is an issue of determining the merit of reported findings. This can be divorced from personalities
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Perelman recently completed the proof of the Poincare Conjecture. This has major implications in mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, etc etc. The evaluation of a mathematical proof like Perelman’s does not depend on any examination of the mathematician’s personality or character. Perelman was gravely concerned that he was being given credit for the proof that he did not deserve. He saw himself as completing the work proposed by another mathematician (Hamilton). As a result he refused the academic honours and rewards that were offered to him. Does  this controversy on the credit for the proof in anyway diminish its validity or importance?
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If there are issues with Wegman’s findings then they should be dealt with mathematically and not with irrelevancies. The AGW is just too important for academic and political games

@15
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It seems like you’re blocking out the technical criticisms of the Wegman work (see the Ritson link).  Funny that.  If it was just the plagiarism that would be one thing.  Now why are you ignoring the other (more important IMO) bit?
�
“Congress got the truth about what happened. Sloppy work rendered the paper unfit for purpose in academia. ”
�
can you expand on this? it seems to me that congress got no such thing…
�
�
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Also, are you asserting that congressional testimony should be held to a lower standard than academic literature?

Keith, I remember reading all the DC posts on Wegman’s plagiarism and CA’s responses.  DC was being incredibly pedantic about the whole thing, much of the plagiarized information was in descriptive background for the reader, definitions and basics on dendrochronology.  Not the meat of the report at all, but references for people that don’t frequent climate blogs.  For example definitions or descriptions from Briffa’s books on the subject of dendrochronology.
DC’s whole series of posts was every bit as excruciating as reading McIntyre’s most pedantic stuff (rather than his stats work).  DC burned Wegman for not including attribution for textbook / wikipedia references but they had nothing to do with Wegman’s results.
Now as already mentioned in this thread DC also tried to pick apart the statistical work but DC’s work is no more convincing than the other players.
I can appreciate the over simplified point of saying that if Wegman’s a plagiarist he can’t be trusted.  However I’m quite sure that those of us who followed this story closely as it unfolded just came down on our usual side of the AGW / skeptic fence.  No doubt there are plenty of improperly referenced points in AGW papers (climate audit has posted some in response to this attack on Wegman) but DC wanted to discredit Wegman so he resorted to attacking minutiae.
Understandable as it is that the Journal pulled the article, it should not discredit Wegman’s points.
 

re 20
In regard to Wegman’s findings
==============
DC has made a compelling case
==============

Then publish it as a response to Wegman. It doesn’t matter what Wegman personally did or did not do in deriving his results. They are there and published and, if valid, important. Create a response and stop muddying the issue with political irrelevancies.

again, no comment on Ritson then Tom?

I would just like to point out that SNA is not purely a matter of mathematics/proofs. The truly interesting part of SNA is the implications or interpretation of such analysis. If it is true the peer-review took six days (and judging by the quality of the writing), the paper may require some rather serious reworking to pass with qualified reviewers.

As for process, Ritson seems to believe that a congressional subcommittee should play by the same rules as an academic journal. I don’t know why.
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Ritson’s complaints about the work are clearly a follow-on to his previous attacks on McIntyre and McKitrick, and M&M have responded, for example, here:
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http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2005/10/ritson.reply.258826.pdf
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Key quote from that: “Ritson incorrectly claimed to have refuted our demonstration that the biased MBH98 method produced hockey stick shaped PC1s. The tendency of the MBH98 PC algorithm to produce hockey stick shaped PC1s has been independently confirmed by, inter alia, von Storch and Zorita [2005] and Huybers [2005]. Ritson’s failure to replicate this result is due to his confused focus on the mY’s instead of the PCs.
Ritson incorrectly summarized our GRL article as merely claiming that “shortcentering invalidated the MBH98 results.” This is a fundamental misrepresentation. While we strongly criticized MBH98 short-centering, we emphasized the interrelationship of the flawed methodology and the flawed bristlecone proxies. In fact, we originally identified the unique role of bristlecones in MBH98 by following the flawed methodology to see what it picked out in the controversial North American network. It is the interaction between contaminated proxies and flawed methodology that is essential, not simply the flawed methodology.
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http://climateaudit.org/2006/05/29/the-ritson-coefficient-2/
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http://climateaudit.org/2005/12/04/the-ritson-comment-an-update/
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Ritson is merely extending his target to include Wegman. He has not dealt with the response from M&M.
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Ah, let the games begin…

About time!

The Wegman Report has always been a junk opinion piece.  It was commissioned by a politician, wasn’t independently peer-reviewed, contained plagiarized text (exceeded only by gross misrepresentation of others’ work), and was simply a shoddy piece of work.  The fact that “skeptics” (deniers, luke-warmers, whatever) uncritically rallied around it as the great hockey stick debunking is rather revealing of their cult-like mentality.  McIntyre has a long series of posts praising the Wegman Report, which leads one to question his competency as an independent “auditor”.   It was certainly something he was unable to detach himself from.

Free bag of popcorn to the first observer who notes the difference between ‘dispute’ and ‘refute.’ No fair bringing examples over from Joe Romm’s place of business…

pass the pretzels

Well, I am glad to cheer you up, KK. I thought that just a while ago, you were bubbling with moral outrage that the deniers’ duplicitousness. Helps keep the blood pressure down.

DC’s catch on hockey stick selection is a good one. Wegman et al. unthinkingly ran M&M’s cherry picking code and it seems didn’t even consider obvious methodological differences between what they were claiming (AR1[0.2]) and what M&M did (ARFIMA). Wegman et al. were tasked with…
“an independent verification of the critiques of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) [MBH98, MBH99] by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003, 2005a, 2005b)”
The above issue is one of graphical exaggeration. It’s a trick to enhance the incline. Ritson’s criticisms have greater methodological implications, where he’s asking Wegman whether they examined the hockey stick pattern found in the proxy data and tested statistical significance (how unlikely is the observed pattern if the generating process were random noise), and querying their noise model selection process (i.e. what process?).
Wegman report states
“Red noise in the paleoclimatology context is modeled by a first-order autoregressive model.”
M&M2005 used ARFIMA which is not even close to AR1. M&M2005 did not justify their model selection or go through a model selection process, did not test the validity of the model assumptions, did not test whether there was enough data to reasonably constrain the model parameters, and did not validate the model output.
Wegman et al. did not pick them up for any of the above. And that’s just standard statistical modelling work. Even for someone who isn’t a time-series guy. And if they weren’t up to doing time-series stuff, then they should have said so and passed the buck.
The central talking point of Wegman report is that using decentered PCA inflates the variance of hockey stick patterns. That’s a trivially true point. What matters for MBH98, as claimed in M&M2005, is the effect size this technique introduces on the results. Wegman et al. didn’t tackle effect sizes, and they didn’t discuss work which did (Huybers reply to M&M2005).
The SNA stuff is pure fluff.

Tom Fuller,

“Ritson is merely extending his target to include Wegman.”
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The issue was what Ritson asked of Wegman, not something else that Ritson said to someone else.

Nice piece, and a tasteful ref to me.
But: it is “fazed” not “phased”, unless you’re talking about some bizarre star-trek style transportation method.

Wegman’s report still validates the statistical criticisms of the Mann hockey stick paper – correct?
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It is my understanding that the social network stuff which was plagiarized was really Wegman’s explanation as to why Mann and his group-think clique were so wrong on the statistics.
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But the fact that he lifted his group-think analysis from Wikipedia doesn’t change the fundamental statistical flaws in the Mann paper right?
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At least that is my read on this matter.

“This is what Ritson is criticizing, arguing that application of a standard arima function to a tree ring network without previously removing trends is incorrect. Now it seems to me that Ritson has recently argued that VZ’s implementation of MBH made some sort of ghastly error by removing a trend prior to regression ““ so it’s hard to say what Team policy is on when trends should be removed and when trends shouldn’t be removed ““ but that’s a story for another day.”


This response conflates many issues…
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1) estimating the coefficients of a regression model with estimating an autoregressive parameter. One immediate issue with relevance for trend removal, is AR1 and ARIMA class models assume a stationary process.
2) modelling a signal component with modelling a noise component
3) requirements for designing an original model with requirements for replicating someone else’s
And finally, ‘I’m only doing what Mann did’.
?!
Does this mean he has no complaints with decentered PCA?
It’s not a response to Ritson. It’s a muddle.

Tom Fuller,
“irrelevant to Wegman’s criticism of Mann”
Wegman et al.’s duty was not to criticize Mann. It was to conduct…
“an independent verification of the critiques of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) [MBH98, MBH99] by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003, 2005a, 2005b)”
DC’s and Ritson’s highlight several oversights by Wegman et al. in fulfilling that duty.
I believe that those oversights show the duty was not fulfilled.
You may argue otherwise, simply stating they’re irrelevant is not an argument.

@51
McIntyre conflating issues? Surely you jest…

Background from John Mashey.,.
“2) The July 05, 2007 CS&AD Editors shows (as you note) Wegman as Advisor, Said as Associate Editor. Another Assoc. editor is:
C. E. Priebe (Johns Hopkins), who did his PhD in 1993 under Wegman, and has coauthored at least 3 papers with him.
[...]

3) I’ve already pointed out the [Wegman & Said's] amazing belief that little work has been done in coauthor networks.
4) Elsevier *has* a journal called Social Networks, with a higher impact factor than CS&DA.
5) Searching within CS&DA for {social network} or {social networks} yeilds a few hits, and I ahvent’ examined all of them “¦ but the bottom line is:
CS&DA is *not* where people publish social networks research”

Funny that so many people agree broadly with Wegman. Such as the Oxburgh Investigation into Climategate:
“The panel did express considerable surprise at the fact that the unit did not collaborate closely with professional statisticians. This is despite the fact that their work was “basically all statistics”, as one member of the panel, David Hand, of Imperial College, London, put it. The report found that the CRU scientists would, had they been more comfortable with statistics, have done some things differently. But the panel doubted that using better methods would have materially changed their results.

Bloggers and others, mostly outside academia, who criticise CRU’s work and other climate science tend to lay much stress on statistical shortcomings. Dr Hand, who has a particular interest in scientific and financial fraud, has read a lot of this work. Dr Hand admires the meticulous work of Steve Mcintyre, a mining consultant and blogger, who unearthed statistical problems in another climate analysis. This was a 1998 paper, not produced by CRU, that is now known as “the hockey stick”
Or the National Academy of Sciencies:
1. The NAS indicated that the hockey stick method systematically underestimated the uncertainties in the data (p. 107).

2. In subtle wording, the NAS agreed with the M&M assertion that the hockey stick had no statistical significance, and was no more informative about the distant past than a table of random numbers. The NAS found that Mann’s methods had no validation (CE) skill significantly different from zero. In the past, however, it has always been claimed that the method has a significant nonzero validation skill. Methods without a validation skill are usually considered useless. Mann’s data set does not have enough information to verify its “˜skill’ at resolving the past, and has such wide uncertainty bounds as to be no better than the simple mean of the data (p. 91). M&M said that the appearance of significance was created by ignoring all but one type of test score, thereby failing to quantify all the relevant uncertainties. The NAS agreed (p. 110), but, again, did so in subtle wording.

3. M&M argued that the hockey stick relied for its shape on the inclusion of a small set of invalid proxy data (called bristlecone, or “strip-bark” records). If they are removed, the conclusion that the 20th century is unusually warm compared to the pre-1450 interval is reversed. Hence the conclusion of unique late 20th  century warmth is not robust””in other word it does not hold up under minor variations in data or methods. The NAS panel agreed, saying Mann’s results are “strongly dependent” on the strip-bark data (pp. 106-107), and they went further, warning that strip-bark data should not be used in this type of research (p. 50).

4. The NAS said ” Mann et al. used a type of principal component analysis that tends to bias the shape of the reconstructions”, i.e. produce hockey sticks from baseball statistics, telephone book numbers, and monte carlo random numbers.

5. The NAS said Mann downplayed the “uncertainties of the published reconstructions…Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “˜the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium.’

”

CHAIRMAN BARTON: Dr. North, do you dispute the conclusions or the methodology of Dr. Wegman’s report?

DR. NORTH [Head of the NAS panel]: No, we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report.”

Etc., etc.

And if that is the most damning quote, then we can all agree that it is faint damnation indeed.

We note that Tom Fuller did not mention that North made his testimony “under oath”.  But he did cut the quote in a way that the referent of “Wegman’s conclusions” gets a bit fuzzy.  To see that, let’s take another quote from the North Q&A:
> Dr. Wegman’s criticisms of the statistical methodology in the papers by Mann et al were consistent with our findings. Our committee did not consider any social network analyses and we did not have access to Dr. Wegman’s report during our deliberations so we did not have an opportunity to discuss his conclusions. Personally, I was not impressed by the social network analysis in the Wegman report, nor did I agree with most of the report’s conclusions on this subject.
This kind of fuzziness can lead astray.  For instance, it made Joe Barton misrepresent the “central concerns” of his own commission:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/1398629308
Etcetera.  Etcetera.

Social networking is fuzzy stuff–suitable for Facebook or Groupon. Anybody can (and everybody should) see that the tightly knit group of scientists working in paleoclimatic reconstructions of temperature series was a danger to themselves and the work they put forward.
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Capturing it analytically is probably impossible, but certainly unnecessary.

The Wegman Report was analyzed in purposefully-excruciating detail:

http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/strange-scholarship-v1-02.pdf  SSWR

And it was actually the spark that got Vergano going on this last Fall, so somebody took it seriously.

The poor quality of SNA was discussed in pp.143-159, and Prof. Carley was the 2nd SNA expert to comment publicly.  I quoted another expert, Garry Robins, on p.151.  I figured the horse was dead and needed no more beating, but I could have gotten a quote from another senior person in this field, which long predated things like Facebook or LinkedIn.  Garry mentions work by Granovetter&Burt that contradicts Wegman’s claims.  Wegman&co were amateurs in this turf, thinking the person most familiar with it was the student who took a short course with Carley. That makes sense for a report to Congress in which SNA was a major thrust J
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People get confused between Wegman Report (2006) and Said, et al(2008). Using SSWR pages:
pp.118-128 showed plagiarized introductory SNA material, of which the 2008 pieces is a subset of the WR.  This is text DC found.

pp.143-159 describes the actual “research” done by the Wegman team for the WR and the Reply to Stupak (p.146-147).

 That material was then recast into the CSDA article, obviously to get it into the peer-reviewed literature.  The comments that the SNA experts make about CSDA apply to those parts of the WR: egonets insufficient, data doesn’t support claims.
p.149 shows the profile of elapsed days from received to acceptance, showing the weirdness of 6-day turnaround, when eavarege is ~200.

p.148 had Ted Kirkpatrick’s comments from April 2010, and my conjectures on why it was submitted to a statistics journal, not the obvious Elsevier SNA journal. The right answer from E-i-C Azen was “Not this journal.”

Truly, Said(2008) is a rarity: a self-refuting paper.
In any case:

p.1: 2 missions: #1 declare hockey stick broken
I covered much of that; DC then did it it more detail with McIntyre’s code and the cherry-pick:
http://deepclimate.org/2010/11/16/replication-and-due-diligence-wegman-style/
#2 discredit climate science as a whole (the peer review stuff)

That was covered, too, retraction of Said(2008) is simply a confirmation that took a while, since GMU as been dilly-dallying:

http://www.desmogblog.com/gmu-still-paralyzed-wegman-and-rapp-still-paranoid
Elsevier is a credible publisher and cannot afford to do that sort of thing.
 

@70 Tom Fuller
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Sharperoo, as for those who are conflating the various elements of this, I refer you to Lazar, Dana and New York J. above.

They’re pointing out not that not all aspects of Wegman’s criticism have merit and they’re entirely correct. Once you go past “broad agreement” (for example the parts where Wegman and the NAS report agree) then you’re on very shaky ground.

Pointing this out isn’t a defence of Mann and there’s a critical aspect you’re missing: Wegman was supposed be an independent reproduction of McIntyre’s work when in fact he simply copied that too. It’s just that McIntyre and the other skeptics don’t mind because they liked those answers a whole bunch.

The plagiarism charge is important and relevant because Wegman was supposed to be bringing his independent expertise to the table,instead he copied pre-existing work in pursuit of a predetermined conclusion.

Tom Fuller @ 72
A thoroughly disrespectful reply to a lengthy, painstaking and detailed critique.
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Time and again the SNA stuff has been trumpeted as the *main* finding of the Wegman report – indeed the primary distinguishing factor between that and the NAS report (apart from the more partisan tone in the WR). Yet the recent “auditing” and now retraction of plagiarised work casts doubt on the ability of the authors to conduct such an analysis. Indeed, the genesis of the WR and peer-review concerns over the paper leave Wegman et al. on the pointy end of such an analysis.
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In other news – when will Dr Curry comment or apologise for her initial venomous reaction to the accusations made by DC and JM against Wegman et al?

Dave H, the SNA stuff has not been trumpeted as the main finding of Wegman in any article or weblog I have read. I admit my reading is not encyclopedic, but references would be of interest to me.
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The Wegman report is primarily concerned with Michael Mann’s choices of analytical tools and procedures. The Wegman report found significant flaws in them. The Wegman report was supported by the NAS and investigators of Climategate.
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The Wegman report offered up as a possible explanation for some of the poor choices the incestuous nature of the subfield of paleoclimatic research and researchers. It was a sidebar.
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Where do you get this? Really. As for Dr. Curry, she has a website–go ask her.

Fuller: What I think is laughable are the attempts to use this to defend Mann’s hockey stick analysis

Most of us, including Dr. Mann, have moved on from the early groundbreaking multiproxy analysis (MBH 1998).  You might start by noting that Mann has published reconstructions that have improved upon previous analysis, and the many reconstructions over the last decade validate and strengthen the core conclusions.  Yet some hacks are stil obsessing over a past study, as Dana notes in #56.

We do find it amusing that an “analysis” that alleges (without evidence) some social network biases results, was only reviewed by those within Wegman’s social network.

We find it amusing that a self-described “auditor”, praised by loyal followers througout the blogosphere, not only failed to find any fault with such a shoddy analysis, but continues to defend it to date, albeit with various red herrings.

So when you remove the noise, the frothing, and the drooling, all you really have is “NAS has rendered a near-complete vindication for the work of Mann et al.” (the early work) as described accurately by Pielke.

http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000859quick_reaction_to_th.html

Recall, for example, the MBH conclusion of recent temperatures being the warmest of the millenium was only “likely”.  NAS described it as “plausible”.  Stop the presses!  Meanwhile, Mann has improved on previous work, now published in an the PNAS journal (yep, that same NAS).

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/02/0805721105.abstract

Including the recent decade, it’s now described as “very likely” by Juckes.

“The strongest result relates to the temperature of the last decade, which exceeds anydecade prior to 1850 with 95% certainty. The increased certainty compared to the 66% certainty expressed by IPCC2001 is primarily a consequence of the continuing high temperatures which have made the last decade 0.24 K warmer than the last decade of the 20th century, a warming greater than one standard deviation of the reconstruction uncertainty.”

http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/2631/2009/cpd-5-2631-2009-print.pdf

Gentlemen,

I thought most of have long agreed that Mann’s work is of tangential scientific (as opposed to symbolic) importance to the larger issue of AGW.

Those of us who know enough statistics (or know people who know statistics) realize that Mann’s work is crap but it doesn’t really change the big picture.

Now we are having a debate whether Wegman is also crap or not. Who cares?! Mann is crap irrespective of Wegman. Wegman itself is completely unimportant. Can we move on?

Dave H.: In other news ““ when will Dr Curry comment or apologise for her initial venomous reaction to the accusations made by DC and JM against Wegman et al?

Ah yes.  I remember that thread.  I think Judith has since dismissed criticism of her knee-jerk reaction as a “gotcha” moment, which might be interpreted as a back-handed apology.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2010/04/23/an-inconvenient-provocateur/
Let me say that this is one of the most reprehensible attacks on a reputable scientist that I have seen, and the so-called tsunami of accusations made in regards to climategate are nothing in compared to the attack on Wegman.

Except unlike the “ClimateGate” nonsense, the charges against Wegman are demonstrably true.

D. Robinson,
“Does his statement not contradict yours?”
I’m afraid not.
My statement:
“M&M2005 used ARFIMA which is not even close to AR1″
M&M2005 is:
McIntyre S. and R. McKitrick (2005), “Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance”, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L03710, doi:10.1029/2004GL021750
The relevant section describes their noise model thus:
“We generated the red noise network for Monte Carlo simulations as follows. We downloaded and collated the NOAMER tree ring site chronologies used by MBH98 from M. Mann’s FTP site and selected the 70 sites used in the AD1400 step. We calculated autocorrelation functions for all 70 series for the 1400″“1980 period. For each simulation, we applied the algorithm hosking.sim from the waveslim package version 1.3 downloaded from http://www.cran.r-project.org/doc/packages/waveslim.pdf [Gencay et al., 2001], which applied a method due to Hosking [1984] to simulate trendless red noise based on the complete auto-correlation function.”
Hosking (1984) is an algorithm for estimating the parameters of an ARFIMA model. I know because I read Hosking (1984), the docs for hosking.sim, and the hosking.sim C code.
I know that M&M used an ARFIMA model because in their paper that’s what they said they did, that’s what is written in their public code, and when I ran the code I got the same Monte Carlo benchmark levels for the RE statistic as did M&M2005.
The M&M code also contained an undocumented function which ran the simulations using AR1 (ARIMA[1,0,0]) model. A comment in the code says…
“##2. SIMULATION FUNCTION
#two alternative methods provided: arima and arfima; only arfima used in simulations here“
The Stephen McIntyre statement you and Tom reference is from this blog post, which begins…
“Mann has written to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, arguing that we made a fundamental and obvious mistake in how we calculated AR1 coefficients for the North American tree ring network, which exaggerated the HS-ness of the simulated hockey sticks”
But Mann’s letter makes no mention of AR1. The relevant passages in the link provided by Steven McIntyre are:
“Professor David Ritson, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Stanford University, has found error in the way that Dr. Wegman models the “persistence” of climate proxy data. [...] Dr. Ritson has determined that that the calculations that underlie the conclusions that Dr. Wegman advanced in his report are likely flawed. [...] Moreover, the errors that Dr. Ritson has identified in Dr. Wegman’s calculations appear so basic that they would almost certainly have been detected in a standard peer
review.”
SM continues…
“Here’s the “mistake” supposedly identified by Ritson in the calculation of AR1 coefficients. (Now even if Ritson were correct, all this would affect is the HS-ness of our illustration of the biasing effect ““ it doesn’t in any sense disprove the biasing effect.”
But Ritson’s statement makes no mention of AR1. The relevant passages by Ritson addressed to Wegman and linked by Steven McIntyre:
“>>2). M&M used ARFIMA persistent red-noise throughout their published
>>work. You state that your figure 4.4 results from AR(1) .2 red-noise?

>>To facilitate a reply I attach the Auto-Correlation Function used
>>by the M&M to generate their persistent red noise simulations for their
>>figures shown by you in your Section 4 (this was kindly provided me by M&M on
>>Nov 6 2004 ). The black values are the ones actually used by M&M. They derive
>>directly from the seventy North American tree proxies, assuming the proxy values
>>to be TREND-LESS noise.
>>Surely you realized that the proxies combine the signal components on which is
>>superimposed the noise? I find it hard to believe that you would take
>>data with obvious trends, would then directly evaluate ACFs without
>>removing the trends, and then finally assume you had obtained results for the
>>proxy specific noise! You will notice that the M&M inputs purport to show
>>strong persistence out to lag-times of 350 years or beyond.
>>Your report makes no mention of this quite improper M&M procedure
>>used to obtain their ACFs. Neither do you provide any specification data for
>>your own results that you contend confirm the M&M results. Relative to your
>>Figure 4.4 you state
>>”One of the most compelling illustrations that M&M have produced
>>is created by feeding red noise (AR(1) with parameter = .2 into the MBH
>>algorithm”.
>>In fact they used and needed the extraordinarily high persistances contained in
>>the attatched figure to obtain their `compelling’ results.”

Note the parenthesis by SM, admitting that if Ritson is correct it would reduce their (M&M2005) calculation of the bias size introduced by decentred PCA:
“(Now even if Ritson were correct, all this would affect is the HS-ness of our illustration of the biasing effect ““ it doesn’t in any sense disprove the biasing effect.”
SM brushing this off as unimportant effect on an “illustration” does not agree with M&M2005 where the biasing effect size renders MBH98 results for the AD1400 step insignificant, which result is placed by M&M in the title of the paper and as the focus of their abstract.
Finally, to the (full) paragraph you and Tom quoted from:
“Now we’ve done a variety of calculations to show the artificial hockey stick effect. A calculation that’s received the least attention, but is probably the most pertinent is the discussion in the Reply to VZ in which we talk about the impact of 1-2 “bad apples” in an MBH context. Given the concern over potential nonclimatic effect of bristlecones, this is actually a more important issue than the red noise argument. In our red noise discussions, we did two calculations ““ one with ARFIMA noise and one with AR1 noise. The ARFIMA noise produced pretty hockey sticks but introduced a secondary complication and replications have focused on AR1 examples. To set parameters for the simulation, we calculated AR1 coefficients on the North American AD1400 tree ring network using a simple application of the arima function in R:arima.coef = arima(x,order=c(1,0,0))”
The first two sentences reference M&M’s reply to von Storch & Zorita’s comment on M&M2005. But only in relation to the effect on including real bristlecone proxies on the shape of the PC1 (“1-2 bad apples”), which SM claims is a more important issue than red noise simulations. Note that again when SM is pressured on M&M’s noise modelling he attempts to diminish the importance of the modelling work. M&M’s reply to vS&Z contains no simulations and no mention of AR1 and is thus irrelevant.
Steve then says:
“In our red noise discussions”
What does he mean by “discussions”? Where are these alleged discussions?
“we did two calculations ““ one with ARFIMA noise and one with AR1 noise. The ARFIMA noise produced pretty hockey sticks but introduced a secondary complication”
What was the “secondary complication”?
“and replications have focused on AR1 examples.”
Which “replications” are these and where are they?
“To set parameters for the simulation, we calculated AR1 coefficients on the North American AD1400 tree ring network”
What is this “simulation” and where is it?
“This is what Ritson is criticizing, arguing that application of a standard arima function”
No he is not!
Ironically, the blog post is titled “More Tangled Webs”!!!

Tom Fuller,
“Funny that so many people agree”
Citing people who “agree” is not addressing criticisms of the Wegman report.

yep, just the part where you can show that Wegman did any of the stats analysis that you seem to think he did. that would be nice.
�
p.s. simply running McIntyre’s code and saying ‘hmmm….yes that seems right” doesn’t count.

So Fuller/Watts think harsh treatment should be delivered to those exposing plagiarism and academic misconduct.  Nice to know where they stand.

And by “you”, I mean Anthony Watts and Joe D’Aleo.

D. Robinson,

“Does his statement not contradict yours?”

I’m afraid not.

My statement:
“M&M2005 used ARFIMA which is not even close to AR1″³

M&M2005 is:
McIntyre S. and R. McKitrick (2005), “Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance”, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L03710, doi:10.1029/2004GL021750

The relevant section describes their noise model thus:
“We generated the red noise network for Monte Carlo simulations as follows. We downloaded and collated the NOAMER tree ring site chronologies used by MBH98 from M. Mann’s FTP site and selected the 70 sites used in the AD1400 step. We calculated autocorrelation functions for all 70 series for the 1400″“1980 period. For each simulation, we applied the algorithm hosking.sim from the waveslim package version 1.3 downloaded from http://www.cran.r-project.org/doc/packages/waveslim.pdf [Gencay et al., 2001], which applied a method due to Hosking [1984] to simulate trendless red noise based on the complete auto-correlation function.”

Hosking (1984) is an algorithm for estimating the parameters of an ARFIMA model. I know because I read Hosking (1984), the docs for hosking.sim, and the hosking.sim C code.

I know that M&M used an ARFIMA model because in their paper that’s what they said they did, that’s what is written in their public code, and when I ran the code I got the same Monte Carlo benchmark levels for the RE statistic as did M&M2005.

The M&M code also contained an undocumented function which ran the simulations using AR1 (ARIMA[1,0,0]) model. A comment in the code says”¦
“##2. SIMULATION FUNCTION
#two alternative methods provided: arima and arfima; only arfima used in simulations here“

The Steven McIntyre statement you and Tom reference is from this blog post, which begins”¦
“Mann has written to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, arguing that we made a fundamental and obvious mistake in how we calculated AR1 coefficients for the North American tree ring network, which exaggerated the HS-ness of the simulated hockey sticks”

But Mann’s letter makes no mention of AR1. The relevant passages in the link provided by Steven McIntyre are:
“Professor David Ritson, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Stanford University, has found error in the way that Dr. Wegman models the “persistence” of climate proxy data. [...] Dr. Ritson has determined that that the calculations that underlie the conclusions that Dr. Wegman advanced in his report are likely flawed. [...] Moreover, the errors that Dr. Ritson has identified in Dr. Wegman’s calculations appear so basic that they would almost certainly have been detected in a standard peer
review.”

SM continues”¦
“Here’s the “mistake” supposedly identified by Ritson in the calculation of AR1 coefficients. (Now even if Ritson were correct, all this would affect is the HS-ness of our illustration of the biasing effect ““ it doesn’t in any sense disprove the biasing effect.”

But Ritson’s statement makes no mention of AR1. The relevant passages by Ritson addressed to Wegman and linked by Steven McIntyre:
“>>2). M&M used ARFIMA persistent red-noise throughout their published
>>work. You state that your figure 4.4 results from AR(1) .2 red-noise?
[...]
>>To facilitate a reply I attach the Auto-Correlation Function used
>>by the M&M to generate their persistent red noise simulations for their
>>figures shown by you in your Section 4 (this was kindly provided me by M&M on
>>Nov 6 2004 ). The black values are the ones actually used by M&M. They derive
>>directly from the seventy North American tree proxies, assuming the proxy values
>>to be TREND-LESS noise.
>>Surely you realized that the proxies combine the signal components on which is
>>superimposed the noise? I find it hard to believe that you would take
>>data with obvious trends, would then directly evaluate ACFs without
>>removing the trends, and then finally assume you had obtained results for the
>>proxy specific noise! You will notice that the M&M inputs purport to show
>>strong persistence out to lag-times of 350 years or beyond.
>>Your report makes no mention of this quite improper M&M procedure
>>used to obtain their ACFs. Neither do you provide any specification data for
>>your own results that you contend confirm the M&M results. Relative to your
>>Figure 4.4 you state
>>”One of the most compelling illustrations that M&M have produced
>>is created by feeding red noise (AR(1) with parameter = .2 into the MBH
>>algorithm”.
>>In fact they used and needed the extraordinarily high persistances contained in
>>the attatched figure to obtain their `compelling’ results.”

Note the parenthesis by SM, admitting that if Ritson is correct it would reduce their (M&M2005) calculation of the bias size introduced by decentred PCA:
“(Now even if Ritson were correct, all this would affect is the HS-ness of our illustration of the biasing effect ““ it doesn’t in any sense disprove the biasing effect.”

SM brushing this off as unimportant effect on an “illustration” does not agree with M&M2005 where the biasing effect size renders MBH98 results for the AD1400 step insignificant, which result is placed by M&M in the title of the paper and as the focus of their abstract.

Finally, to the (full) paragraph you and Tom quoted from:
“Now we’ve done a variety of calculations to show the artificial hockey stick effect. A calculation that’s received the least attention, but is probably the most pertinent is the discussion in the Reply to VZ in which we talk about the impact of 1-2 “bad apples” in an MBH context. Given the concern over potential nonclimatic effect of bristlecones, this is actually a more important issue than the red noise argument. In our red noise discussions, we did two calculations ““ one with ARFIMA noise and one with AR1 noise. The ARFIMA noise produced pretty hockey sticks but introduced a secondary complication and replications have focused on AR1 examples. To set parameters for the simulation, we calculated AR1 coefficients on the North American AD1400 tree ring network using a simple application of the arima function in R:arima.coef = arima(x,order=c(1,0,0))”

The first two sentences reference M&M’s reply to von Storch & Zorita’s comment on M&M2005. But only in relation to the effect on including real bristlecone proxies on the shape of the PC1 (“1-2 bad apples”), which SM claims is a more important issue than red noise simulations. Note that again when SM is pressured on M&M’s noise modelling he attempts to diminish the importance of the modelling work. M&M’s reply to vS&Z contains no simulations and no mention of AR1 and is thus irrelevant.

Steve then says:
“In our red noise discussions”
What does he mean by “discussions”? Where are these alleged discussions?

“we did two calculations ““ one with ARFIMA noise and one with AR1 noise. The ARFIMA noise produced pretty hockey sticks but introduced a secondary complication”
What was the “secondary complication”?

“and replications have focused on AR1 examples.”
Which “replications” are these and where are they?

“To set parameters for the simulation, we calculated AR1 coefficients on the North American AD1400 tree ring network”
What is this “simulation” and where is it?

“This is what Ritson is criticizing, arguing that application of a standard arima function”
No he is not!
Ironically, the blog post is titled “More Tangled Webs”!!!

Tom,
“If I sound defensive (don’t feel that way, but maybe something dark and deep is hidden”¦) it’s because this is the umpteenth time that people have tried to resurrect the hockey stick”
The problem is not that people are trying to “resurrect the hockey stick”.
The problem is that the Wegman group did work of poor quality.
An implication of that realization may be that some individuals will adjust their opinions of MBH98, and/or the certainty with which they hold those opinions, whilst others will try to avoid doing that by distracting attention away from criticisms of the Wegman group’s work.

My advice to wegman was that he withdraw the papers. Kudo’s to Dave Clarke (DC) for following this with vigor. I have no clue why he doesnt want to take credit.

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/05/return-to-fantasy-island-targets-wthout.html
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In AGW, we are faced with issues like those described by Peilke Jr above. We are facing a potentially grave crisis and have no idea how to deal with it. So what do we do. We run around like chickens throwing accusations of plagiarism about.
�
Who said that climate science is useless? Peilke Junior’s article is a good approximation to that.
�
 

Artifex, a clever and amusing construction, but not actually parallel to what occurred and quite irrelevant. The problems with the withdrawn paper appear in the congressional testimony as well.
�
The paper does not plagiarize any conclusions about MBH 98. Rather, the preamble, which attempts to establish a bona fide understanding of the issues, is apparently lifted wholesale, with some crude alterations, from published texts by others.
�
The subsequent flaws are somewhat harder to understand, but there certainly is no acceptance by the relevant communities that Wegman made a compelling case.
�
Indeed, the NRC commission report headed by Gerry North should be considered the view of the scientific community, notably, that the statistical shortcomings in the MBH analysis were small in effect, and that it remained likely but not proven that the decade of the 1990s was the warmest of the millennium. (This is still the case today.) According to Roger Pielke Jr., hardly a follower of the herd, the National Research Council publication constituted a “near-complete vindication for the work of Mann et al.”
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
 

See, Keith–that’s what I am fighting against. What Tobis says is inaccurate, but is the natural and normal spin. He thinks he has the right to dictate what the view of the scientific community is and to assert with zero evidence that the ‘problems appear in the Congressional report (not testimony)’ as well.
�
That this comes from Michael Tobis, currently fretting about submerged cities at his weblog and someone who has never produced any evidence for any of his oh, so many assertions, is just what will happen for months now.
�
Oh, well. We’ve got thirty years before we have to talk about anything serious like the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of concentrations of CO2. Guess we can just keep throwing rocks at each other ’til then.

Dean.
Yes. And the hilarious thing is that  I can say that it is likely that the 1990s were the warmest of the past 1000 years, AND that  adds absolutely NOTHING to our understanding of how the climate works. the HS is a wheel that does not turn. If the HS were proven false tommorrow MT will still call for the measures he calls for. This is the oddest debate. A hypothesis like the HS which has no bearing on the truth of AGW becomes a huge battleground. Actually, its pretty normal for fights like this.
�
wegman made a mistake and the HS is unimportant.

Mosher is essentially correct in #109. Nobody is proposing a millenial temperature record that would substantially change the policy relevant picture.
�
The scientific community is defending itself. Specifically it is defending the principle that short of actual crime, the community must provide its own incentives and disincentives. The scientific community believes that science is not to be decided in the courts or the blogs or the press or the congress. That is seen as absolutely crucial, and recent events involving climate science have only reinforced that belief.
�
Those opposed to facing the facts at any price have chosen this particular aspect of the science to attack, partly because it is relatively easy to understand (and in fact can be used to implicitly trivialize the whole body of knowledge as a game of thermometers), and partly because of the convenient obsessions of Steve McIntyre. It’s not a bad choice, rhetorically speaking. They can overemphasize the attribution question and then go after a single issue, slinging mud where necessary. This has confused the public quite effectively.
�
So we’re stuck in this proxy debate that has nothing at all to do with climate policy and is pretty much peripheral to most of climate science.
�
But all of this misdirection has taken place with the explicit and fairly prominent participation of Steven Mosher. I find his professed innocent bewilderment about it hard to credit.
 

If mathematics were like climate science:
�
First amthematician: I believe that i have found a flaw in Perelman’s proof of the Poincare Conjecture. it is based on a late result of Gauss.
�
Second mathematician – You’re a fossil fuel funded plagiarist denier. You used the same words as Gauss!!!!

Steven Mosher,
“1. we didnt wegman to explain how the HS is sketchy.”
But the more technical criticisms of the Wegman report lead to interesting and unresolved technical criticisms of M&M2005, which might be felt to be dangerous for a number of positions and deeply held beliefs.

My comments are directed to Wegman’s congressional report and not the 08 paper.  During the skepticgate post, I asked Mashey several times to identify in a simple clear manner how the “plagiarism” [to me technical nitpicking because it was obvious Wegman didn't do his own climate science research] substantively affected Wegman’s results.  Mashey never gave an answer.  All he did was link to pages and pages of trivia.  If he can’t point to basic flaws (I believe I asked for the 3 most important flawed aspects of Wegman’s congressional work,) Mashey’s work is meaningless in the context of the statistical adequacy of Mann’s work.

If the 08 paper does indicate substantial ethical problems with Wegman, I would suggest that another statistical analysis by other statisticians be done.  Having read half of Montford’s book, it is clear that Mann is statistically inept and his 1998 paper was a joke.  Also, the fact that statistical errors were immediately found by bloggers in the 09 paper by Steig & Mann on Antarctica indicates that Mann is at best a 3rd rate scientist.  In what bizarro world should this clearly inept researcher be given government grants and move up the academic ladder to his current position at Penn State.  What the warmists plan on doing is trying to hide the cavernous statistical flaws contained in Mann’s work by saying Wegman is dishonest.  The real issue in the climate arena is whether Mann’s work was substantively correct or not. 

Those criticizing Wegman should welcome a redo by someone else.  I would add that if Wegman did meaningfully plagiarize others in his 08 report, then he deserves whatever condemnation and penalties that are heaped on him. However, Mashey’s work here merely identified trivia and nothing dealing with the substantive statistical merit of either Wegman’s or Mann’s work.  That is the issue, and I say to Mashey and Dave Clarke, bring it on.
JD

mt,

How I read Mosher in 108, his modus operandi re the hockey stick (and perhaps the wider climate debate) is not so much “professed innocent bewilderment about it” (your words), but rather that he enjoys “toss[ing] people from both sides under the bus. Its good sport. has nothing to do with the science.” (Mosher’s words)

In other words, he enjoys playing the man and seeing if he can win. It’s a sport. with the earth being the ball.

Please read the thread.

@ MT (111)

The scientific community is defending itself.

That it does. By redefining peer review and mutual back slapping.

Those opposed to facing the facts at any price

Let’s be concrete hear. What are the facts that Fuller/Mosher or Judy don’t want to face?

Skeptics and ‘lukewarmers’: Interested in whether Michael Mann forwarded an email, in whether Phil Jones deleted emails, in whether journal guidelines were followed, in whether Michael Mann trims his toe nails.
But not interested in plagiarism. Just the facts ma’am. If it doesn’t change published scientific conclusions, we’re not interested.

@ Lasar,

Why should anyone be interested in plagiarism? There is no controversy about it. Everyone knows it is a bad thing. Nobody disputes it. That’s why it’s not interesting.

However the fact of copy-pasting the introduction is orthogonal to the validity of the findings. You went on at length addressing those and it’s fine. But plagiarism is really irrelevant.

I think it is theoretically possible to produce valid science and hide the data, refuse to show  the code, circle the wagons in every way including redefining peer review and deleting emails etc. But it’s not a big confidence builder for us, skeptical types.

@ 130

If this is addressed to me then scroll up: I never said any of that.

Did you ever try to discuss your points at CA? Perhaps SM could clarify things for you.

Sashka #125 in response to me:

>> The scientific community is defending itself.
> That it does. By redefining peer review and mutual back slapping.

�
There’s no redefinition here. Some people think themselves competent to contribute to science who are not; this is not particular to climate science. What is unusual is that some of the incompetents have politically motivated backers. This in no way means they should pass peer review.
�
The von Storch/Soon/E&E episode is instructive.
�
>> Those opposed to facing the facts at any price
> Let’s be concrete hear. What are the facts that Fuller/Mosher or Judy don’t want to face?
�
Those wouldn’t be the names I would choose. Dr. Curry seems intent on keeping every imaginable conversation open, so what she does, while it has the benefit of reducing rancor, has the drawback of avoiding scientific progress. Fuller seems to me well-intentioned but stubborn and confused. Mosher is mysterious to me; I think Bart’s analysis above, that he is basically a troll who is in it for the action, is plausible.
�
But there are people who own otherwise enormously valuable interests in fossil fuels who don’t want to hear evidence that most of those fuels must stay in the ground for a very long time. This is blazingly obvious. Some of their connections to certain parts of  the community of soi-disant science skeptics are also quite apparent.

@ MT

Progress? What progress?

The pronouncements like “fuels must stay in the ground for a very long time” are devoid of any practical meaning. There are much more important “musts” that are nowhere in sight. How about “every child must have sufficient food, potable water and health insurance”? I know it’s not either/or. I’m just saying that some of the must things don’t happen for very real practical reasons, not due to someone’s ignorance, greed or ill will. And it’s not blazingly obvious at all. Not to me and not to anyone outside the tightly-knit alarmist community.

@ Lazar

I don’t disagree about Wegman but I meant Jones and Mann. You knew that, right?

Sashka,
Yes. Good.

�
�
KK: Back to the actual topic of the post.  I know you understand phyiscal placement in newspapers.
�
1) On front page, 1A, Vergano got a Newsline item, just above the fold, visible:
“Statistics journal retracts climate study over plagiarism
Study, which questioned global warming, used material lifted from Wikipedia, textbooks. 3A.”

2) Then 3A, story was in lower-right corner.
I’d guess there was serious armwrestling for space with the story just above it, opening the Morganza spillway and flooding thousands of people, but the cut material ended up on the blog:, which has a useful update within last hour regarding Denise Reeves, who says it’s not her fault:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/05/retracted-climate-critics-study-panned-by-expert-/1
�
3) Then USA Today has opinion piece, today:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-05-16-Report-puts-climate-change-deniers-in-hot-seat_n.htm
”
Coincidentally, USA TODAY’s Dan Vergano reported Monday, a statistics journal retracted a federally funded study that had become a touchstone among climate-change deniers. The retraction followed complaints of plagiarism and use of unreliable sources, such as Wikipedia.
Taken together, these developments ought to leave the deniers in the same position as the “birthers,…
Too bad the title didn’t stick, but still OK.
Thank goodness for good old-fashioned investigative journalism, with reporters who follow leads, call people, check facts.  The selection of Kathleen Carley to evaluate the SNA work will be seen to be especially interesting.

@ 136

Thanks for the clarification.

Be that as it may, I don’t believe for a second that the unwillingness of the industry to listen your side is the problem. At most it’s a symptom. The problem is that the argument is weak and, more importantly, that there are no real alternatives.

Keith Kloor, I didn’t think about that, but you are right.  I’m not sure it matters though.  The point was by being an unsigned editorial, the view of it is assigned to the paper as a whole, not an individual.  This means USA Today is endorsing that position.  Seeing as the position is complete bunk, that bothers me.  If it was a single individual, the credibility of one person would be hurt.
�
But an entire newspaper…

Keith Kloor, I actually do avoid the editorial pages of all papers.  The only time I really read editorials is when people provide a link to them.
�
As for being overblown, (unsigned) editorials are supposed to speak for the paper’s official position on topics.  The news reporters are kept out of editorials in order to maintain their (illusion of) objectivity, but that separation doesn’t change the paper’s official view.  It also doesn’t change the fact the editors are in charge of what gets published, so the separation is one-sided.
�
Anyway, I don’t mind bias in newspapers that much.  I expect it.  I just hate seeing such stupidity get published on a national level.  It makes me feel cheated on the quality of the product.  My high school newspaper would have done a better job.

“As with all things related to climate change: stupidity is in the eye of the beholder.”

Obviously, this is somehow true. I’m feeling more post-normal by the day.

Sashka: “The problem is that the argument is weak and, more importantly, that there are no real alternatives.”
�
The arguments strike me as compelling, but that isn’t very important. What is important is that every major relevant scientific society and every major national academy agrees. Taking this into account, your position requires an immense conspiracy with inconsistent and implausible motivations. This is why comparison to the “birthers” is entirely reasonable, and is indeed the correct position for the mass media to take, not out of political leanings, and perhaps not directly from the scientific evidence which may be too abstruse for them to evaluate, but on the social and institutional evidence alone.
�
As for the existence of “real alternatives”, there may be none that preserve most of the wealth of fossil fuel reserve holders, but there are several that preserve modern civilization. Had there not been a disaster of relatively poor communication confounded by malevolent propaganda, we would be carefully evaluating them and choosing among them, rather than squawking about minutiae.
�
There are certainly pipe dreams being promulgated from all quadrants. I don’t deny that. But ignoring the issue is “not a real alternative” either. It’s just another pipe dream.
 

“Nobody used that paper as a touchstone.  Most people didn’t know it existed, much less care about it. “
– Brandon Shollenberger
�
“Readers interested in a third party view of the matter are far better off consulting the North Report, the Wegman report, (particularly) Wegman’s Reply to Questions and Richard Smith’s account of the 2006 American Statistical Association session.”
– a little-known blogger named Steve McIntyre

@151, PDA, you talk about the Wegman Report, but that isn’t what is being discussed.  You’re conflating two different things.
�
This point has been made multiple times on this very page, so I’m not sure how you missed it.

P.S. Of course, AMS would be relevant if it weren’t so politically engaged.

Wow, good point Brandon. “Social Network Analysis of Author-Coauthor Relationships” isn’t the same exact document as the Wegman Report, so the fact that the paper has been discredited has no bearing on the report.
�
I can’t imagine what I could have been thinking.

PDA, I made a specific point.  You responded by talking about things which had nothing to do with my point.  I pointed this out, and you now attempt to change the subject away from the point I made.
�
For whatever reason, you keep responding to me with sarcasm and snideness.  Do you actually expect anything meaningful to come from this, or are you content to do what is indistinguishable from trolling?

MT.
“Mosher is mysterious to me;”
What is so mysterious? I try to call them as I see them.  Why would I defend wegman? I don’t find his work interesting or necessary to the views I hold. he doesnt share code. His scholarship ( the team actually) was sloppy. Why wouldnt I toss him under the bus. Its good sport. Lets see what positions he held, survive his demise. I’m for throwing all personality under the bus. See what survives.
As a lukewarmer I care about sensitivity. The HS is not a critical constraint on the determination of that number. it’s uninteresting to me as a piece of science. It IS interesting as an example of methods and full disclosure.
�
Now, the troll charge. From one aspect I can see why you and others think that. I like GOOD arguments. I don’t like bad arguments. I dont like weak arguments. they bore me. Defending Wegman is uninteresting. The very best I could come up with was turning the tables and looking at Bradley. That was not very interesting. I’m attracted to good arguments and hard arguments. places were things are uncertain.
Trolls typically interject extraneous matters to generate emotional responses.  We’ve all done that. I don’t think I aim at generating emotional responses. I try to aim at generating thoughts in your head that you never had before.
For example. when I said that mails cant change science, only science can change science. I thought that was brilliant. And its consistent with my view that scientific papers are not science, but advertisments of science.
I’m really not that mysterious. I only look mysterious because I dont think like the crowd, write like the crowd, or hang with a crowd. That’s not always a good thing, so I’m not suggesting that it’s a better position to be in. Just different.
 

PDA, I’ve never said anything like what you are talking about.  Indeed, I’ve never said anything about how the paper’s retraction reflects on anything else.  The entirety of my position has been the editorial said something that was obviously untrue.  You’ve tried to extrapolate from this some position on the inter-relatedness of the the paper and report, but there is absolutely no basis for that.
�
Put bluntly, you’ve completely made this issue up.

@13 KK:

“It’s interesting to me how people on both sides of this debate spin/slant news to advance their own agendas or belief. ”

But, of course, you would never do such a thing, would you, Keith?!

Anyway … As others have pointed out (and as you and those whose views you tend to lean towards – whether you realize it or not – fail to acknowledge) the Wegman Report (to Congress) and the CDSA retracted “study” with which Vergano attempts to conflate it, are two different documents – published two years apart, with (even)Vergano claiming that the latter is an “outgrowth” of the former. 

Furthermore, while I can’t speak to this unnamed study (because I haven’t read it), I would ask Vergano (or anyone else for that matter) to cite the specific paragraphs in the Wegman Report which would support his claim that the “Wegman Report [...] questioned whether global warming was real”.

As for the alleged plagiarism … what seems to have fallen by the wayside in this latest attempt to smear Wegman, is that it was on the Journal’s legal beagles advice that the “study” was retracted. 

To the best of my knowledge, publishers’ legal beagles, in the course of exercising their own “precautionary principle”, are typically more concerned with potential”copyright violations” than with still unproven allegations of plagiarism [a greater concern in academia].

Not to mention that the source of these unproven allegations, if Vergano’s account is to be believed, was material “read” on a far from reputable, anonymous corner of the blogosphere frequented by the complainant.

Roger Pielke Jr. has an interesting excerpt from a recent NYT op ed in which the authors observe:

“a large number of the students showed no significant progress on tests of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing”.

Lack of Quality in University Education
Not sure where or when Vergano might have received his university education; but I’d sure like to see his results on a test of “critical thinking [and] complex reasoning”.

Brandon Shollenberger:
> Nobody used that paper as a touchstone.  Most people didn’t know it existed [...]
�
PDA [paraphrasing]:
> A little-known blogger named Steve McIntyre seemed to have underlined the importance of the matter discussed in the Wegman report.
�
Brandon Shollenberger:
> PDA, you talk about the Wegman Report, but that isn’t what is being discussed.  You’re conflating two different things.
�
PDA:
> “Social Network Analysis of Author-Coauthor Relationships” isn’t the same exact document as the Wegman Report, so the fact that the paper has been discredited has no bearing on the report.
�
Brandon Shollenberger:
> PDA, I made a specific point.  You responded by talking about things which had nothing to do with my point.
�
PDA:
> If you really, genuinely believe that the “Wegman Report” and Said et. al. 2008 are completely different and unrelared documents, then that’s a perspective to discuss.
�
Brandon Shollenberger:
> PDA, I’ve never said anything like what you are talking about.

willard, one of those quotes (the second PDA one) sounds really strange because you left out the part which shows he was being sarcastic.  Other than that, it looks like a pretty good summary of the exchange.

Brandon Shollenberger,
�
Your answer is utterly unresponsive.

Clearly Brandon Shollenberger is horribly biased.

Steven Mosher,
“Your unhappy with my level of interest.”
I wasn’t thinking of you at all. You’re not the only ‘lukewarmer’ and you’re not a ‘skeptic’. There are specific individuals in the ‘skeptic’ and ‘lukewarmer’ camps I did think of. But I’m not going to name names… that ain’t the point. You can find examples in this post and thread if you want.
I would be happier with less interest in the plagiarism issues and more interest in the merits of the scientific content. I would be happier with less interest in whether Michael Mann forwarded an email or whether Phil Jones dodged an FOIA request and more interest in the scientific content.
The point is quite simple… This episode reveals the double standards and the pretence in the claims of unbiasedness by those portraying themselves as genuinely fighting for better ethics and objectivity in climate science. When in fact those concerns are a political football. That’s what pisses me off.

Keith,
�
Sorry, but this is too funny.  I thought I was doing exactly that.  <a href=”http://judithcurry.com/2011/05/10/new-research-from-last-week/#comment-68287″>Lulz</a>.

I didn’t think my position was controversial, but since there’s been so much discussion of it, I have to ask something.  Does anyone actually think the section I highlighted of that editorial is correct?  As far as I can tell, it was a stupid mistake, but I seem to have drawn criticism for calling it that.  On the other hand, nobody has actually said they agree with the contents of the editorial, so I’m not sure what the criticism of me is about.

Double wow!  182 comments.  Now, have we decided: was there a medieval warm period, a little ice age, are current temperaures unprecedented, are they rising alramingly exponentially.

Or not.

Compare and contrast:
> Nobody used that paper as a touchstone.  Most people didn’t know it existed [...]

> None of the work by Wegman and his colleagues was as vital to any cause as this editorial makes it out to be, much less a paper nobody knew or cared about.
If we’re to follow Brandon Shollenberger’s clarification, the first quote was what PDA questioned and the second quote “isn’t what PDA was responding to”.  So according to this clarification, a paper “people did not know it existed” is not the same as a paper “nobody knew or cared about”.
Since the first quote serves as a direct (and perhaps the only one) argument for the uncontroversial position of the second quote, expanded in #182, we can expect more litteralism from Brandon Shollenberger.

Okay willlard, I don’t think I am can respond to you anymore.  Your latest comment is too absurd.  The clarification I offered in no way indicated what you claim.  I explained one paragraph was being discussed, not another.  You’ve now responded by claiming this means portions of the two paragraphs could not have been referring to the same thing.  That is a complete non-sequitur.
�
I’m happy to let my words speak for themselves, as Keith Kloor suggests, but it seems my words have little to do with what some people decide to take from my comments.

lazar:
“I would be happier with less interest in the plagiarism issues and more interest in the merits of the scientific content. I would be happier with less interest in whether Michael Mann forwarded an email or whether Phil Jones dodged an FOIA request and more interest in the scientific content.”
Then we agree on that. My suggestion to both sides on matters like this were really quite simple. Admit the failing, adjust your institutional guidelines to prevent, if possible, similar failings in the future, and get back to the discussion of the science.
Here is what I expect. I expect people who are passionate about plagarism will continue to hound wegman for an admission. That is what I expect. Go for it. I’m passionate about transparency and open science and FOIA. I’ll continue to hound people to adhere to that. why? because I think its the cleanest path back to the science. Simply, I’m unwilling to sacrifice FOIA for the science, because I dont think we have to. Fess up and move on. CRU, stop collecting confidential data when
A. you dont need to
B. you dont have proper document control to handle it.
And if you continue to deny requests for data expect another climategate.
learn a frickin lesson and move on.
 

At least Anthony had the balls to put it up as a topic.  McIntyre is doing his usual imitation of an ostrich whenever things don’t go his way.  He never even linked to Watts’ magnum opus when it was finally published.
 

The original Ritson questions were super sharp and prescient…
“1). Which of the figures derive from M&M work and which were independently derived by you?

4). Any of my colleagues would have routinely checked their results
to see if their derived PC1 (etc) derived from a systematic signal or from
random noise. For example for a 70 member population, all that is required is to use the extracted PC1 vector from the 70 members, and apply it to each member to project out its relative sign (and amplitude). For signal dominated results one sign will predominate and for noise dominated results both signs will be roughly equally present. Needless to say when, a couple of years ago, I checked the M&M work, I did just that.”
1) we now know the answer thanks to DC.
M&M2005 is a benchmarking result, modelling choices are the most relevant issues. 2) and 3) get right to the most vulnerable and crucial aspects of that work.
But the Wegman report refused to address effect sizes (benchmarking results) and instead focussed on one trivial question; does decentered PCA inflate the variance of hockey stick patterns in red noise? All that’s necessary to sink the report’s relevance is to show that the hockey stick pattern in the real proxy data is not an artifact of red noise, and examining signs is a good way to do that. Question 4) has no relevance for M&M2005. but is super sharp in terms of the Wegman report.

Brandon,
“The issue of hockey sticks being created out of red noise was never about the size of the hockey sticks created.”
There are many issues.
I’m not talking about the size of hockey sticks, I’m not even sure what you mean by “size” here. Size could refer to something like M&M’s hockey stick index, which relates the variance (size) of the blade to the variance (size) of the shaft of an individual hockey stick. Or it could refer to the eigenvalue of a principle component.
When I talk of “effect sizes”, I’m referring to the impacts on results which formed a main conclusion of M&M2005…
In the title…
“Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance“
In the abstract…
“Through Monte Carlo analysis, we show that MBH98 benchmarks for significance of the Reduction of Error (RE) statistic are substantially
under-stated and, using a range of cross-validation statistics, we show that the MBH98 15th century reconstruction lacks statistical significance.”
The above benchmarking findings result from decentred PCA inflating the variance of hockey stick patterns in red noise.
“It was, quite simply, that Mann’s methodology gave undue weight to hockey sticks.”
Why do you consider the weighting given to the hockey stick pattern in the MBH98 PC1 to be “undue”? What does “undue” mean in this instance?
“You claim you can sink the report by showing the hockey stick signal [my bold] exists in the proxies, but that point is specifically acknowledged in the report”
Then it sinks itself. Could you provide a quote, specifically talking about the hockey stick pattern being a signal?

“The question is”
That is a question.
“The question is should bristlecone proxies, on their own, be entirely responsible for the hockey stick shape”
The 1400 step reconstruction was heavily dependent on bristlecones. That is a weakness of the study. That MBH98 relied on bristlecones to achieve a skillful reconstruction back to 1400 is a result of limited data. “Should” is hard to interpret here.
“The follow up question is, if so, why even bother having the rest of the proxies?  The bristlecones are all you need.”
Why bother? It’s a process. 1) Collect data. 2) Apply the analysis to all the data. Heavy dependence on bristlecones for the 1400 step is a result of 1) and 2). Retrospectively iterating 1) and 2) only using bristlecones would be somewhat unusual and unecessary.

Brandon,
There is a communication problem here. Let me try from another angle.
All research is flawed to varying degrees.
The fact that flaws exist in a work signifies nothing in itself.
Only when flaws are demonstrated to impact results to a large degree, for a certain value of ‘large’, do flaws matter in the sense of degrading the value and usefulness of the work.
Wegman demonstrated that there is a flaw in MBH98.
The flaw is that decentred PCA inflates the variance of hockey stick patterns.
That fact signifies nothing in itself of any importance to the results of MBH98.
M&M2005 attempted to demonstrate that this flaw matters to the results of MBH98. They claimed it changes the significance level of a result in MBH98. They did this by doing calculations. They demonstrated an effect size. The flaw actually can be shown to matter.
Wegman group restricted themselves to pointing out a flaw.
“decentred PCA inflates the variance of hockey stick patterns in red noise”
All that is necessary to say in response to that is  “yeah, but the hockey stick pattern in proxy data is a signal, not a product of red noise, what’s your point?”
Then the Wegman group would need to say, “yeah, but this flaw impacts your results, see it changes the benchmark significance levels and now your result ain’t significant”.
As M&M2005 did.
Then they would have an effect size.
But then they would also need to look at modelling assumptions used in the generation of red noise and how those effect benchmark results.
And do a more critical appraisal of M&M2005.
Remember their task was to conduct…
“an independent verification of the critiques of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) [MBH98, MBH99] by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003, 2005a, 2005b)”
And then we would have an interesting and important report instead of pointing out a trivially true and in itself irrelevant matter.
“You claim the fact a hockey stick signal (you can call it whatever you like) existing in proxies sinks the report.”
No, I cannot call it whatever I like. Perhaps you do not get what I mean by signal.
Signal is not noise.
Signal is a systematic effect, not the chance produce of random variation.
This is what Ritson was pointing out when he asked Wegman
“Any of my colleagues would have routinely checked their results
to see if their derived PC1 (etc) derived from a systematic signal or from
random noise. For example for a 70 member population, all that is required is to use the extracted PC1 vector from the 70 members, and apply it to each member to project out its relative sign (and amplitude). For signal dominated results one sign will predominate and for noise dominated results both signs will be roughly equally present. Needless to say when, a couple of years ago, I checked the M&M work, I did just that.”

Lazar, I suppose a little further derailment is necessary.  Here is one quote from the report (emphasis added):
�
In the MBH98 de-centered principal component calculation, a group of twenty primarily bristlecone pine sites govern the first principal component. Fourteen of these chronologies account for over 93% variance in the PC1 and 38% of the total variance. The effect is that it omits the influence of the other 56 proxies in the network. In a centered version of the data, the influence of the bristlecone pine drops to the fourth principal component, where it accounts for 8% of the total variance. The MM03 results are obtained if the first two NOAMER principal components are used. The MBH98 results can be obtained if the NOAMER network is expanded to five principal components. Subsequently, their conclusion about the climate of the late 20th century is contingent upon including low-order principal components that only account for 8% of the variance of one proxy roster. Furthermore, the MM03 results occur even in a de-centered PC calculation, regardless of the presence of PC4, if the bristlecone pine sites are excluded.
�
Despite the report clearly stating the impact of the inappropriate methodology of the paper, you say the authors of the report “restricted themselves to pointing out a flaw.”  It is true the authors choose not to detail the calculations involved, but there was no obligation for them to do so.  They were asked to look at two opposing sides and determine which was right.  That’s exactly what they did.
�
As for your last question, it is rather strange.  I said no extra work would need to be done.  That is to say, the product is finished.  Do what I said to do, and you’ll be done.  I’m sorry if my wording caused confusion.

Brandon,
“Here is one quote from the report (emphasis added):”
The quote is a statement of plain fact* and no more.
The bit you highlighted:
“their conclusion about the climate of the late 20th century is contingent upon including low-order principal components that only account for 8% of the variance of one proxy roster”
It is true that the back-to-1400AD reconstruction is strongly dependent on a ‘small’ subset of proxy data.
Whether that subset is too small to support some conclusions in MBH98 is independent of how that subset was selected.
It is not necessary to know that MBH98 used decentred PCA to decide this.
The two are seperate issues.
The quote from the Wegman report doesn’t determine that the subset is too small.
When selecting principal components, the common objective is to select for those which represent systematic effects. That  is usually achieved by using a criteria based on the variance represented by each PC.
The general ‘flaw’ in using decentered PCA is that it can inflate the variance of a pattern generated by a random process beyond that which is expected of a random process.
An additional flaw peculiar to this case, is that the form of the pattern correlates with global temperature better than expected of patterns generated by random processes subject to conventional PCA.
MBH98 tested the skill score of their reconstruction against the skill scores expected from random processes. But the skill that should be expected of a random process is higher than MBH98 thought, because of the above.
MBH98 claimed a significance level for their reconstruction. Whether this claimed level is correct or not depends on whether decentred PCA was used, and if it was used, whether it was corrected for.
Getting the wrong significance level is a flaw, and deciding that it is wrong depends on the use of decentred PCA.
Do you see the differences with your quoted example?
M&M2005 was an attempt to correct for this flaw.
“As for your last question, it is rather strange.  I said no extra work would need to be done.  That is to say, the product is finished.  Do what I said to do, and you’ll be done.”
Let’s retrace to your original question…
“The follow up question is, if so, why even bother having the rest of the proxies?  The bristlecones are all you need.”
This question didn’t make sense to me.
Science is as much, no, in fact more about process and methodology than it is about results.
In empirical statistical work like MBH98, the process is something like:
1) Decide the criteria for collecting data.
2) Decide the methodology for the analysis.
3) Collect the data according to 1)
4) Conduct the analysis according to 2)
5) Record results, draw conclusions.
6) Write up and publish 1-5).
Your question seems to suggest that MBH at 5) should have decided to change the process based upon the results. It is unclear how you think the process should have been changed and why you think this is a good idea. The suggestion is highly anomalous, and usually strongly advised against.
If I have misinterpreted the meaning of your question, please iterate.
* Actually the variance claimed by M&M2005 was effected by additional methodological changes beyond centred PCA, see comment by Huybers which was allegedly read by the Wegman group. It is a shame that the Wegman group spent time stepping beyond their expertise and remit to conduct the SNA fluff, instead of using their expertise to delve deeper into statistical issues and better fulfilling their remit.

… or even appropriatEness, or perhaps propriety.

Brandon,
“You first claimed the report said nothing about the extent of the effect of bad methodology.  I showed this was untrue.”
No, as pointed out above, you confused two independent issues among other errors in logic.
“The report clearly stated the impact of the faulty methodology.”
Nope.
“You now say the report fails to establish the subset was too small.  Even if that were true”
Are you disputing that?
“so what?”
You raised the size of the subset as an issue. That the subset is ‘small’ we can both agree upon. Whether this size matters is what matters. Effect sizes. Now I can see immediately following this statement you are conflating yet further independent issues with the issue we have just been discussing. Again those issues are posed as inadequately formulated assertions. I am trying to dig down deep and examine issues in detail. Instead I am sent down yet more new trails…
“The sensitivity of the 15th century results to slight variations in the data and method of two individual series show a fundamental instability of the results that flatly contradicts the language used in MBH98″
No.The language used in MBH98 is…
“the long-term trend in NH is relatively robust to the inclusion of dendroclimatic indicators in the network, suggesting that potential tree growth trend biases are not influential in the multiproxy climate reconstructions”
Compare…
1) “the sensitivity” “15th century results” “slight variations” “fundamental instability”
2) “long-term trend” “relatively robust” “growth trend biases”
Both statements are trying to paint the results in opposing positive and negative lights.
Both statements are too vague and unquantitative to be considered as contradictions.
It is not even clear that they are measuring the sensitivity/robustness of ‘the same’ quantity or to ‘the same’ quantity.
Yes, this means MBH98 should have been more quantitative, detailed and precise.
Growth trend biases in terms of dendrochronologies usually imply age growth biases introduced by the increasing diameter of a tree trunk with age, which imparts a negative trend bias in the long run.
I agree that reconstructions extending back to 1400AD using the MBH98 methodology are sensitive to the inclusion/exclusion of bristlecones. I agree that this changes the shape, the skill, and the significance level of the reconstruction. I agree that more data is better. It is not clear and a case has not been made that the mere existence of this sensitivity should change any conclusion in MBH98.
I view the sensitivity testing in MBH98 as insufficient. They should have tried publishing somewhere like Journal of Climate where ample page allowances allow examining such issues in detail. More sensitivity tests should have been conducted, and the sensitivity tests should have focussed on the most vulnerable parts where the data is most scarce. This means the paper could have been improved upon. It does not mean the paper is wrong.
Similarly, M&M2005 should not have published in GRL, and should have done sensitivity testing to modelling choices, and justified their model selection, and tested their assumptions, and validated their model outputs. It is difficult at the best of times to be confident that a process is ARFIMA versus ARMA or ARIMA in any or no combination with deterministic trends or step changes, simply because the tools for testing between them are rather rubbish. The literature is rife with examinations of these difficulties. Using ARFIMA with standard model selection and validation is hairy. Using it blind is just crazy. Then there is the issue of what data is considered noise and what is signal in fitting the noise model. This again means M&M2005 could have been improved upon. It does not mean the paper is wrong.
Wegman group should have picked up on it. Any time series type would have picked up on it. My strong impression is that all they were interested in was criticizing-MBH98.
“As for the issue about bristllecones being used on their own, you are reading way more into what I said than is actually there.  I wasn’t talking about what the authors should have done.  I was pointing out you’d get equitable results if a different, much simpler, approach was taken.  As in, why should anyone look to MBH when they could just look at the bristlecone series themselves. The results would be the same, have the same significance, and it would bypass all the fluff in MBH.“
Because, as stated, science is more about process and methodology than results. When I read a paper, I don’t skip to the results section and ignore the methodology. ‘I collected a large sample by these criteria, subjected them to this objective regression modelling process, and these are the results’ is more interesting and convincing than ‘take a look at these bristlecones’… even if the results look similar.

“Climate Audit try to spin many issues into a storyline. This narrative approach hinders rather than helps understanding.”
�
Well put

No, that’s a finding.  A narrative is using a statistical argument to push stories, like, noble cause corruption.

You miss the point and you are proving lazar’s line of logic.  It was a statistical argument.  The narrative was produced from that argument.  Emails and all.  That is a narrative.
�
Your narrative is that “the consensus” “ginned up” a narrative — and also, that “consensus narrative” is false.  This all stems from that argument.
�
So I’ll change my initial line to:
�
“No, that’s a finding.  A narrative is using a statistical argument and emails to push stories, like, noble cause corruption.”
 

The Hockey Stick ‘narrative’ is a post-facto attempt at understanding why scientists made serious errors. Are there other possible narratives? Obviously. But given the context of what was happening in the world, many of the alternative narratives are worse.
�
Remember that, stripped to its essentials, McIntyre’s narrative (as opposed to many who have based their own storylines on his work, and you can include Mosher and myself in that group I suppose), is actually quite forgiving.
�
McIntyre’s bare bones narrative is that Jones and Mann made mistakes that prejudiced their research outcomes–Jones by not verifying station histories and Mann by choosing a biased sample and an incorrect statistical approach to analysis. They refused to admit their errors and most of the rest of the story hinges on their inability to do so.
�
Implied but not stated in McIntyre’s narrative (and he’s free to tell me I’m very wrong) is that because their flawed research results were supportive of a political position, his discovery of their errors were blown out of proportion by defenders of the consensus position, leading to (among other actions) the hasty construction of the weblog Real Climate and much more.
�
Imagine an alternate history where Jones issues a correction to his 1990 paper quickly and goes to work on reconstructing an estimate of UHI’s effects similar to what he did 15 years later. If he does this, Watt’s surface station work can be welcomed by the consensus and not condemned. The emphasis can be returned quite properly to heat accumulation in the ocean instead of songs and dances about real issues in station siting and measurements.
�
Indulge me. In the same alternate history, Mann, Bradley and Hughes accept the broad thrust of McIntyre’s criticisms, are forthcoming with the data and recalculate their work. The Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age are restored to the historical record and we get back to work trying to understand anthropogenic contributions to the current warming. We quit calling it unprecedented. We state that it is, at least, unusual, and frame global warming in its proper perspective–as something real that needs to be addressed, and which early action will contribute to the lessening thereof.
�
What Jones did wrt his 1990 paper was wrong. It culminated in his call for deletion of emails, which was illegal. What Mann did was wrong. His pig-headed refusal to admit it led to his attempts to bias the publication process and influence editors.
�
But global warming since 1880 is real. Even James Inhofe and Marc Morano would admit if pressed that what the human race has done since 1880 has had an effect on climate. Most of us would happily go further.
�
The two positions are not contradictory. What you perceive as building narratives is in fact a completely normal response to a decade of withholding data, facts and the truth about a process that got hijacked.
�
Jones was wrong. His paper used flawed station histories and understated the extent of UHI–something he would find in a paper written 15 years later. But the current warming period is real and we probably contributed.
�
Mann was wrong. Temperatures over the past 1,000 years do not look much like a hockey stick. There was a MWP and a LIA. But there is current warming, and it is quite likely that there is an anthropogenic component to the causes.
�
Why does it make so many peoples’ heads hurt to see those simple declarative sentences coming from one source, as opposed to people throwing them as serial accusations at each other?

If it’s only unusual but not unprecedented it’s hard to make a case for immediate action. (In fact, it’s hard enough even if it’s indeed unprecedented.) That’s why the team will never agree.

Great post, Fuller.

You must really come back on a WordPress platform.

@218 Tom Fuller
�
From my perspective, that’s not really responsive to what I asked. The above claims from you I quoted @216 seem to strongly indicate that your belief is that the MCA was characterized by a hemispheric or global, temporally coherent, warming equivalent to or exceeding the warming of the instrumental record, e.g. your “interpretation” of Briffa, your claims of not unprecedented, etc.
�
Your response here seems to be somewhat backtracking from that position, acknowledging temporally and spatially discontinuous warming, and contrasting it to “what we’re seeing now that is more surprising”.
�
Further, you state that you’re “willing to attribute a component of it to anthropogenic influences even before all the evidence is in” based on this contrast between the present warming and the MCA, which suggests confusion about attribution issues. If we had zero paleoclimatic evidence from the late Holocene, the impact on attribution would be trivial. Attribution has been achieved by exploring theoretical expectations of enhanced anthropogenic GHGs, aerosols, and ODS changes to the climate system vs. observations.
�
Please don’t take these questions as an attack, I am seeking to genuinely follow (what appears from my perspective to be) shifting and possibly incorrect beliefs about these issues. Thanks.

Reposted without the links in order to escape the moderation queue:
 

Tom Fuller Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
May 19th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Gee, Thingsbreak. Why on earth would I assume that anything you say would be an attack? To be sure, you have been sharply critical of our host here, Bjorn Lomborg, Judith Curry and anyone else who has the temerity to question any element whatsoever of the consensus doctrine.
�
But little ol’ me? Why on earth would you attack me? Oh, yeah”“ in September, that was that little episode”¦ “Previously, Tom Fuller demonstrated why he isn’t a serious journalist by making a fool of himself on the issue of polar bears.” Except I was right about the polar bears. We’re shooting 1,000 of them a year, and that’s the gravest problem they face.
�
Or maybe it was when you wrote, “The “most or all” part is obviously where Fuller gets into trouble. This is a claim that he has made and failed to back up over at Michael Tobis’s, because a comprehensive look at the primary literature refutes it.” Except I did back it up with citations to the IPCC, Skeptical Science and Wingham et al. Ron Broberg thought I made cogent points. Even Tobis grudgingly admitted I had found real evidence that supported my claim. But you never walked back from your accusation that I was trying to misdirect people.
�
I’m truly sorry you don’t consider my response to be responsive.  I like how you put my “˜interpretation’ of Briffa in quotation marks.  I prefer to put Briffa’s words in quotation marks: “”I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards “˜apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don’t have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming.
�
I do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter. For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate.”
�
So I guess you’ll just have to use your usual creative imagination to genuinely follow shifting and possibly incorrect beliefs about these issues. Your welcome

I’m sorry thingsbreak. based on what you have written about me in the past, I prefer not todiscuss matters of substance with you. Perhaps you could have a chat with Anna Haynes.
�
Best of luck and all that.

Marlowe, you can join thingsbreak and Anna in whatever conspiratorial cupboard you choose. I don’t really want to talk to you either.

TF continues with the selective quoting of Briffa, long after he was exposed.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2011/02/24/a-climate-claim-in-tatters/#comment-48083

I hope for TF’s sake that it’s just a simple matter of gross dishonesty, rather than a serious memory problem.

@223 Tom Fuller:
I prefer not todiscuss matters of substance with you.
�
Tom Fuller, I am disappointed that you continue to be unable to make a simple declarative statement about your own prior actions or understanding when asked politely. I urge you to reconsider. As I’ve told you previously, there is no upside in you doing this. On some level, I’m sure you understand that.

Thanks.

Maybe we ought to put a stick in this thread.
�
I know what you’re trying to say, Keith, and I have pulled my share of Miss Malaprops… but that’s funny.
�
We’ve all had a stick up our thread at one time or another.

For the “rest of the story,” which hopefully to fix the confusion in which many people posted all sorts of ill-informed comments with apparent certainty:
http://www.desmogblog.com/mashey-report-reveals-wegman-manipulations