Wegman has said there is a need for an improved levels of statistical input in palaeoclimate reserach as it places so much emphasis on this skill and greater independence between reviewers. As so much money is to be based on palaeoclimate science, then the the statistics should be of the highest possible standard and beyond repute.

“he results of this study will show that we can probably say a fair bit about [smaller than] 100 year extra-tropical NH temperature variability (at least as far as we believe the proxy estimates), but honestly know f**k-all about what the [greater than]100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know with certainty that we know f**k-all).”

“The results of this study will show that we can probably say a fair bit about 100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know with certainty that we know fuck-all).”

Why can’t scientists write so pithily for public consimption?

‘Friendly’, in this case, means a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences with a Ph.D from MIT who specialises in atmospheric dynamics and ocean-atmosphere interactions, i.e. a bona fide academic collaborator.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6623

I think that if anything you are being a bit hard on Mann. Wegman is not the definitive opinion on the subject – the NAS report broadly vindicated Mann and of course the validity of a particular piece of research does not rest solely on government sponsored reports. Also, whenever genuine problems have been found in his work he has corrected them, with no substantial change to the outcome.

The selection of the data was made by the Russians who provided it, not by Briffa.This is their explanation –

Low number of used for reconstruction subfossil series is explained by standardisation method (“corridor method”). We had to select the longest series. The same concerns to living trees. There are not much old living trees in this area (in contrast to Polar Urals), therefore we used only 17 (not 12) samples from living trees. At that time we had close collaboration with CRU and I sent to Keith Briffa these raw data.

So, selection of samples has been made by me taking into account length of individual series as well as common requirements to increment cores (exclusion samples with compression wood, rotten wood etc.).

For a technical discussion of the issues involved by someone who does this stuff professionally see here

http://delayedoscillator.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/yamal-emulation-i/

(see also follow up post)

Now there are clearly open issues regarding the divergence problem and the use of particular tree ring data but there is not a shred of evidence of any wrongdong by Briffa.

But this has been explained many many times. They can’t release the data without permission from the met services which provided it.

Not really…

While the email hack appears to vindicate some of Wegman’s criticisms as regards the paleoclimatologists being rather isolated and only grudgingly sharing data – in fact there appears to be nothing in the emails that Wegman hasn’t already covered – it remains the case that

a) MBH98 and 99 are, themselves, no long in use, and

b) both models are now ten years old and have been superseded by newer models/research of which all but one appear to vindicate the hockey stick graph within standard margins of error.

You need to be reading the paleoclimatology chapter in the 2007 IPCC report (AR4) not banging on continually about AR3, the 2001 report, because things have moved on.

Um, I was aware of both of these through general reading. This implies either a the most ineffective conspiracy of all time or that I am an influential scientist who is a member of the cabal. Given my O Level results in Physics and Chemistry I am going to have to plump for the former option.

Though the far more relevant volume is Charles Mackay:
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, which is on the shelf below.

Not really an apt analogy. There are really two options. Either global warming is a myth and those who believe in it are subject to a popular delusion or global warming is a verifiable fact and people who disbelieve in it are subject to a popular delusion. The people who believe in global warming tend to be climate scientists the people who disbelieve in it tend to be the right blogosphere. Now climate science is subject to something called peer review which means that before you publish your findings a senior colleague does his or her best to demolish them. Consequently papers submitted to scientific journals tend to be pretty rigorous because there is no way you want to do all that work before someone gets to send it back with ‘could do better’ scibbled over it by the red biro of doom. Now I’m pretty sure that similar constraints don’t operate as far as the pronouncements of Mad Mel and her ilk are concerned. So it’s overwhelmingly more likely that the denialists are mistaken than the scientists because the scientists have to persuade a pretty hard nosed bunch of people that they are on the money whereas the denialists can publish any old rubbish to rapturous applause from people who like having their prejudices confirmed.

A bit middlebrow for my tastes… now if we’re talking Baudrillard’s ‘System of Objects’ and Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’ then we’re getting there.

So can I…if I squint a bit, anyway.

Though the far more relevant volume is Charles Mackay:
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, which is on the shelf below.

The fact that the MBH 98 and MBH99 papers were used so prominently used in the IPCC Report suggests peer review is not as rigorous as it should be. The Wegman report was only commissioned due to extensive criticisms of the statistics used MBH98 and MBH99 and the unwillingness of Mann to reveal his computer code.

Incidentally, I was also at the Wave on Saturday. The official figures were 40k but I can’t believe it. I’d have said there were more than 100k.

a) Because I was referring there specifically to dendroclimatology, which is still a developing field, not to the wider issue of AGW, and

b) Because science is invariably ‘in progress’. Evolution is a fact and Darwinian theory is ‘ settled’ in the sense that its buttresses by such an overwhelming weight of evidence that its undoubtedly the case that natural selection is the primary mechanism that drives evolution. Nevertheless, the field still spawns ream of research directed towards the further investigations of evolution because there’s still a lot of details we’ve yet to uncover.

“its not a guess, its science in progress”

How can something be in “progress” and be “settled” at the same time?

I have no better idea than Michael Portillo who @ 2miutes in, where he says that scientists persue reserch and become single issue lobbyists.

Or where Claire Fox says just after that, ”evidence based reserch is about politicians abdocating responsibility for persuading us politically or morally of certain desisions and hiding behind the science and saying ‘the evidence shows’ which closes down the debate and we’re not meant to argue with them.”