|
|
|
August 18, 2010
Hockey Stick Shattered For Good?
This is possibly the second-biggest climate science news of the past ten years: some statisticians did a full rework of Mann's infamous hockey stick papers, and he results were... not pretty.
We find that the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature. That's despite the study's very generous assumption that all the proxy and measurement data is valid. The news for AGW believers isn't all bad as they still find a trend of warmer recent temperatures, but any claims of certainty about "unprecedented" warmth now go out the window. The study is probably most damning for the "the science is settled! we must act now!" crowd, because, as others have noted, you can draw a straight line through the whole reconstruction. That means we don't know with much certainty whether temperatures have changed at all over the last 1000 years. posted by Dave on 08.18.10 at 12:22 PM
Comments
The deal is that you cannot tell a trend from a cycle with data that's short compared to the cycle, just owing to the mathematics. Obviously a cycle cannot support the idea of AGW, and we've been having a lot of cycles. So the AGW theory is completely without support. The point of the hockey stick was to preclude the warming being a cycle: obviously recent explosive growth is not a cycle, and that gets around the mathematics problem. Now that the hockey stick is dead, we're back at no evidence for AGW. Any warming is by Bayes a cycle with overwhelming odds. rhhardin · August 18, 2010 07:43 PM Post a comment
You may use basic HTML for formatting.
|
|
August 2010
WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR
Search the Site
E-mail
Classics To Go
Archives
August 2010
July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 May 2002 AB 1634 MBAPBSAAGOP Skepticism See more archives here Old (Blogspot) archives
Recent Entries
• Tipping Point
• The Jewish Burden of the Israeli Paradigm • Hockey Stick Shattered For Good? • It's not about rights • Rights vs. What's Right • A Third Of Your Adult Life On The Dole • the mandatory unconstitutional emissions of the bulletproof bureaucratic superstructure • Stocking Up • The Power To Do Good • the war against fun just got funnier!
Links
Site Credits
|
|
I find it hard to believe we know how much the temperature has changed over the last 100 years, much less the last 1,000.
First, of course proxy data is suspect. Trees aren't automatons, there are natural variances.
And, more importantly, I don't think their measurements had as great a degree of accuracy 100 years ago.
I'm pretty sure they couldn't measure in the ten thousandths of an inch reliably, I doubt they could have tolerances that tight and we routinely go greater than that for fine measuring instruments.
I would be surprised if they had a margin of error of much less than 1%, while I would think they had one greater than that. As much as 2 or 3% would be my guess.
And more, they can't have any data at all for most of the world.
Who knows what was going on in the Andes, the Amazon, most of Asia and Africa and they had absolutely no data whatsoever from the poles except that they were "effing cold" from the poles. Even if they had some of the best thermometers of the era, the explorers weren't taking long term numbers, just for the months of their trek and one set of data points is about useless.
It's only been since we had good satellites that we could get useful data on the whole world.
All they know from more than 75 years ago is generally what the temperature was for some of America and most of western Europe as well as possibly from some dilettantes in some colonies.
We've been getting good numbers for no more than 40 years and probably a lot less.