FMD... I cry for our now truly defunct civilisation. That anyone can pen words like that is such an indictment of our education standards. Trully mind boggling.



And it looks like the stuff that's been spammed here...

http://www.campaigncc.org/aggregator/sources/19

Study: Many mammals won't be able to outrun climate change

Hundreds of species of mammals in the Western Hemisphere may not be able to migrate with the projected speed of climate change, according to a new study released Monday.

"As they have in response to past climatic changes, many species will shift their distributions in response to modern climate change," the authors write in the study. "However, due to the unprecedented rapidity of projected climatic changes, some species may not be able to move their ranges fast enough to track shifts in suitable climates and associated habitats."

The study appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was led by Carrie Schloss, an ecologist at the University of Washington.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/...ies-migration/1

I think its funny that when you suggest CAGW lobbyists are running an orchestrated campaign the "conspiracy theory" tag is rolled out against you, however there is ample evidence of CAGW lobbying by political and corporate groups for anyone who bothers to look.

http://www.campaigncc.org/fundraising

is one example.

I would like to mention that I resigned from moderating in the climate forums a week ago due to the politics involved, the inability to actually moderate the forum properly, and now the relief I have felt ever since of not having to read certain posts...
IMO the climate forums need a break, and I'd like to suggest that they get closed down for the time being. I have a feeling there are several people who would also like to have a break. I'd be interested in hearing what the actual posters think about that.

Why is it that the answer always is to shut the forums down?


Whilst I completely appreciate your position Tim, and thank you for the well balanced effort Tim, the idea of shutting down the forums because - frankly one newish posters behaviour does not strike me as very fair.

There was little angst on these pages and lots and lots of vastly different ideas and approaches to climate were tolerated. Until recently.

Also. what is the purpose of just shutting down the forums temporarily? Nothing will change when and if they re-open. Hasn't worked in the past.

It's the same old same old. These forums are targetted because they have a reputation for being open. Which is as it should be.

My opinion, as long as contributors are not directly or indirectly singled out - let it run. If someone gets offended by someone elses opinion - well that's life and happens allthe time. It's called free speech and is the foundation of our society. No one is forcing anyone to post here or to read this.

If however Fairfax wants to supress - that's a different matter. Let me know that me and my opinions are not welcome, and we'll all be better off.

Topic now re-opened. The position of the Forum Administrators is that they view the climate debate as central to a serious weather forum and as such currently have no plans to close down this section of the forum.

This quote opened this thread some time back:



Can we please return to the debate, keep the spirit of that first post alive, and relish the discussion and differences. Further posts that are off topicand go against forum guidelines will be removed and repeat offenders given time out. I as much as anyone would prefer to avoid that scenario!

The Court Case Continues:


May the Court please, the Hon Counsel for the Defense has offered the “Chewbacca Defense”, a technique so advanced nobody understands it, as proof of innocence.
Under normal circumstances ignoratio elenchi arguments entail many laborious hours to disentangle, but in this case, I fear it will be more so – for it is no less, the “climatescience” variant!

But to it.
Note Bene: This argument is contra the exposition of the Hon Counsel for the defense, and should be read in conjunction with that said exposition, as posted here:
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/ubbthrea...s_a#Post1103732

For the record:
I will agree that the below graph, cited at primum accurately represents that what was in MEA (op cit Exhibit A)

I will however not agree that; the below graph cited at secundum and referred to as “McIntyres altered graph” by the Hon Councel for the Defense, is some nefarious and scurrilous manipulation of the MEA data.


I further refer to the Hon Counsel for the Defense’s attack on a fellow poster who attempted to point out the fact that a rotation does not alter the meaning of the data – it is simply a matter of presentation.



So let’s prove that.

For the record – this is not Steve McIntyre’s graph, it is mine. And I can therefore attest that it was not mannipulated in any way and I can attest that it is indeed a true excerpt of what was in MEA (op cit Exhibit A), simply rotated through 90°.

M’lud, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury, here is a demonstration of how that graph’s orientation was attained – using a graph where the warm (red) and cold (blue) periods are coloured.

I do believe that this demonstration will satisfy the most severe critics – however, should the Hon Counsel for the Defense require additional demonstration, I will be happy to oblige. [Mayhaps looking at the graph sideways?]

On the other hand, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when the Hon Counsel for the Defense says:



Is perhaps the Hon Counsel for the defense (ahem) suggesting that McIntyre “flip” his graph to match the mannipulated Mann orientation?

Just so:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury – please note that after this mannipulation, very conveniently, the previously warm medieval period is now cold, and the glacial corrupted modern period is now in a hot orientation. This is what “flipping” does.

As to the numeric skills subsequently demonstrated by the Hon Counsel for the Defense, I can honestly claim that this portion of the Chewbacca Defense is astounding and this new learning amazes me [you must explain to me how we know from this that the world is banana shaped].

If it now please the court, I will bring in an expert witness at this point. May I please introduce Michael Mann:

As cited in Reply to McIntyre and McKitrick (Exhibit C)

That one of the foremost experts on “climatescience” testifies on behalf of the prosecution should indicate the stratospherically high level of agreement that surrounds this point.

For when the Hon Counsel for the Defense suggests that ALL the experts agree that when the “mannomatic” algore-rhythm mines for hockey sticks, it is irrelevant what is the orientation of the data ... the prosecution agrees . (i.e. whether positively or negatively correlated to temperature the “mannomatic will flip the data so that the hockey blade is positively correlated to instrumental temperature).

And that Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury is the critical point which the prosecution needs to stress:
The “mannomatic” assumes the corrupted modern period is warm, it “flips” the graph into the incorrect orientation, and thus makes the rest of the data (which is of course the key item of interest in any paleotemperature reconstruction) “flipped” as well – and as I mentioned, conveniently making the Medieval Period cold, and the Little Ice age warm.



Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, the inclusion of the Tiljander proxy in any multi-proxy reconstruction will have the effect of lowering the Medieval temperatures and increasing the Little Ice age temperatures – both necessary to ensure the hockey stick is straight. And hence, why when Mann et all are constantly asked “is the modern period calibratable in Tiljander?”, there is evasion, and when asked to create a multi-proxy graph that does not rely on dendrochronological proxies (i.e. the Yamal one tree to rule them all proxy with almost identical problems as Tiljander) and does not rely in Tiljander none are proffered.

[I do however note that Gavin Schmidt does point to the blow graph as being that… however [If I may use the defense’s usual line of argument] “It has yet to be put into peer reviewed literature and Mann et al 2008 does not contain them”. [Hee Hee]
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/supplements/MultiproxyMeans07/NHcps_no7_v_orig_Nov2009.pdf

__________________________________

And as to the Hon Counsel for the Defense claiming that for example the discussion at this site somehow exonerate, or at least confirm the Defenses position.
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/tiljander/

May I please point out to the court that there is little support for the Defense position therein - Ari Jokimäki [the site owner ] states:


As to the claim that the way M&M described this problem is bizarre – may please suggest that it is because the “peer reviewers” insisted that the comment on the Mann et al paper include detail on other non-related criticisms of the Mann et al 2008 and other papers, and that the comment had to be kept to strict length, necessitated a certain amount of brevity:

See Exhibit D
_________________________

And I if I may at this late stage point out one more [laughable] aspersion on the most august persona of Mr McIntyre:


May the court note that it was in fact the defendant Dr Mann that chose to use what was at best a proxy for inflow into lake Korttajarvi – Mr McIntyre is simply pointing out an error?

_________________________
In summary, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, the evidence presented is INCONTROVERTIBLE and can lead to only one conclusion… The use of the Tiljander proxy is not as the authors intended and it reverses (flips if you like) cold for hot in the calibration period, and consequently, reverses cold for hot in the paleo-record.

And this is still not acknowledged and the misuse retracted – as would be customary by normal scientists (see this post passim linky

And thus to accuse Mr McIntyre of misleading and dishonest behaviour and deliberately manipulating data is libelous in the most prejudiced fashion.

The Prosecution demands redress!

Here the Prosecution rests its case – I will however give the scurrilous Defendant a chance to mann up, apologise and retract, or to try to convince the Jury otherwise.

_______________________
Exhibit C
Reply to McIntyre and McKitrick: Proxy-based temperature reconstructions are robust. PNAS February 10, 2009 vol. 106 no. 6 E11
http://www.climateaudit.info/pdf/mann.2009.pnas_reply.pdf
Exhibit D
Proxy inconsistency and other problems in millennial paleoclimate reconstructions. PNAS February 10, 2009 vol. 106 no. 6
http://www.climateaudit.info/pdf/mcintyre_mckitrick.2009.pnas.pdf

With respect Arnost - greater minds than yours or mine have been grappling with this issue for years. Mistakes have been made on both sides it seems.

This post goes over some of the issues...

"If you inspect the traces of the four Tiljander proxies, there is an obvious orientation for each, with respect to temperature. It turns out that "obvious" is correct for darksum, but inverted for lightsum and XRD -- with respect to the orientations proposed by the only relevant authorities, namely Mia Tiljander and her co-workers in Boreas (2003) and her dissertation (2005). (Literature links here ; blog links here.) Tiljander et al don't offer a temperature-related interpretation for their fourth proxy, varve thickness, so that's an ambiguous call.

Tiljander warned that increasing local non-climate-related factors rendered the varve series' use as climate proxies increasingly suspect after 1720. Those factors are mainly farming, peat cutting, road- and bridge- building, and lake eutrophication. Mann08 quotes Tiljander on this general point. They then went on to see if the proxies could be used. The proxies all passed the Mann08 screening and validation tests -- but the increasing deposition of sediments due to these local effects appears to have swamped the climate influences, 1850 - 1995."

I'll leave it for the discerning readers to go over all of these links to make up their own minds on the issue.

http://amac1.blogspot.com.au/2009/11/blog-links-mann-08-and-korttajarvi.html

Climate sceptics and sympathisers put heat on Flannery

FOR line dancing teacher Janene Lawson, Tuesday nights at the Parramatta RSL are more about Roy Orbison and shuffle steps than dire weather predictions. So as a 500-strong crowd gathered to see the climate change expert Tim Flannery appear at a public forum at the club last night, Ms Lawson's mind was elsewhere.

''I try not to believe [in climate change] because I don't like to believe the worst,'' she said.

It's an optimism not shared by Professor Flannery and the federal government's Climate Commission, which predicts western Sydney will bear the brunt of searing heat waves, death, illness and violence as climate change takes hold.

Sceptics and sympathisers sat side by side at last night's forum, which was punctuated by heated debate.

Several protesters who interrupted speakers and decried climate change as a ''hoax'' were removed, and some community activists later claimed they were refused entry to the meeting.

Others in the crowd reacted angrily when the commission declined to enter into the debate on the federal government's carbon pricing regime.

Professor Flannery responded to concerns that Australians were reluctant to act urgently on climate change.

''People have commonsense. They understand risk and how to manage it, and … that you need to listen to experts now and then,'' he said.

''I think we have the capability to make the right decision. [But] I hope we can do it to the right time and scale.''

Businessman Gerry Hueston, a commissioner and former president of BP Australasia, said firms investing in cleaner technology would lead the climate change solution.

He cited the trucking firm Linfox, which had reduced fuel use and reduced costs by upgrading its vehicles.

He dismissed concerns that ''ratbag ideas'' and competing scientific claims were dominating the climate change debate, saying that genuine scientific research would triumph.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climat...l#ixzz1uygaoFB1

Statistical analysis projects future temperatures in North America

For the first time, researchers have been able to combine different climate models using spatial statistics -- to project future seasonal temperature changes in regions across North America. They performed advanced statistical analysis on two different North American regional climate models and were able to estimate projections of temperature changes for the years 2041 to 2070, as well as the certainty of those projections.

The analysis, developed by statisticians at Ohio State University, examines groups of regional climate models, finds the commonalities between them, and determines how much weight each individual climate projection should get in a consensus climate estimate.

Through maps on the statisticians' website, people can see how their own region's temperature will likely change by 2070 -- overall, and for individual seasons of the year.

Given the complexity and variety of climate models produced by different research groups around the world, there is a need for a tool that can analyze groups of them together, explained Noel Cressie, professor of statistics and director of Ohio State's Program in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Statistics.

Cressie and former graduate student Emily Kang, now at the University of Cincinnati, present the statistical analysis in a paper published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation.

"One of the criticisms from climate-change skeptics is that different climate models give different results, so they argue that they don't know what to believe," he said. "We wanted to develop a way to determine the likelihood of different outcomes, and combine them into a consensus climate projection. We show that there are shared conclusions upon which scientists can agree with some certainty, and we are able to statistically quantify that certainty."

For their initial analysis, Cressie and Kang chose to combine two regional climate models developed for the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program. Though the models produced a wide variety of climate variables, the researchers focused on temperatures during a 100-year period: first, the climate models' temperature values from 1971 to 2000, and then the climate models' temperature values projected for 2041 to 2070. The data were broken down into blocks of area 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) on a side, throughout North America.

Averaging the results over those individual blocks, Cressie and Kang's statistical analysis estimated that average land temperatures across North America will rise around 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2070. That result is in agreement with the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which suggest that under the same emissions scenario as used by NARCCAP, global average temperatures will rise 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2070. Cressie and Kang's analysis is for North America -- and not only estimates average land temperature rise, but regional temperature rise for all four seasons of the year.

Ream more here: http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/05...s.north.america

'Fish guts can tell which species will survive climate change'

Washington: Scientists have discovered that the gastrointestinal system of fish is much more sensitive to temperature changes than previously thought, a finding they say could help predict which species would survive climate change and which would not.

"Our work is largely about trying to identify the physiological bottlenecks, in other words which parts of the body will fail first -- whether the heart or the gut is the most sensitive part of the system," study researcher Albin Grans, of the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, was quoted as saying by LiveScience.

The scientists, who studied gut functions of various fish species to better understand what will happen to different species when the climate changes, found that the gut was actually the most temperature-sensitive organ in many fishes.

Grans said: "When the temperature of the water rises, the fish's body temperature climbs, activity in the gut increases, and more energy is needed to stay healthy.

"Since changes in body temperature affect virtually all of a fish's organs, it's surprising that we know so little about how temperature changes impact on their physiology."

For their study, the researchers studied guts of sculpin, sturgeon and rainbow trout in sea and freshwater environments in Sweden, California and Greenland.

As fish don't produce their own body heat, their body temperature is the same as that of their surroundings. When the water temperature changes, so does the temperature of the fish. Some species may find it harder to absorb nutrients as water temperatures rise, while others could profit from the new climate, Grans said.

"If the water temperature in the Arctic rises further, some sedentary species, such as various types of sculpin, will probably struggle to maintain blood flow in the gut during the summer months, which will affect their health," he noted.

Other fish, such as those currently living at the lower extremes (the coldest environments they can survive) of their possible spatial distribution, could instead benefit from a slightly higher temperature. The effects of a rise in water temperature will therefore vary between species, and many of the changes are difficult to predict, Grans said.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/eco-news/f...nge_775515.html

AMac has been banging for years on how the proxies cannot be used in the calibration period, and how the calibration used by Mann results in an inverted of flipped temperature in the paleo record. With respect, Mann and Schmidt and the other climatescience defenders of this use of Tiljander are supposed to be the elite of the scientific elite. The fact that they cannot admit error is an indictment on climatescience. Shows they are more
politcally driven than science driven.

As to Flim Flam Tim - more politics. It's cherry picking at it's best and plays into the sceptics hands in that it confirms the much denied UHI, and stretches credulity to suggest that a degree or two temp increase will drive people insane. So bow does this apply to residents in inland Qld and NT etc? He's lost it...

Arnost I have an interesting question pertinent to your case.

Why is the representation used by McIntyre any LESS wrong that the one used by Mann? Clearly on the evidence presented, as a member of jury I am confused as to why they both didn't just use the vertical orientation of Tjilander. Clearly there were a pair of nefarious purposes here - Mann probably chose his flipped orientation to make people more 'think' of a a warming (given we are talking proxies and to match up with the Hockey stick view of the world), while McIntyre had no interest in showing such a warming hence leaving the graph in such an orientation - its still a proxy and so it doesn't really make an iota of difference on the actual signals (as you said, the modern data is problematic). Perhaps this would just be ripples in the sand if people weren't so hung up on both sides about coming into the argument with preconcieved ideas? Is perhaps the case a mountain over a molehill?

On a broader point, what implications would the juries verdict have on the overall picture of GW/AGW? Does the entirety of the AGW case hinge on the results presented by any of the three parties?

It is completely irrelevant which way the orientation of the presentation is made - whether it's vertical as in the Tiljander paper, rotated as per McIntyre or indeed mirror image / flipped as per Mann.

The key issue is that the blade of the graph is cold. The bottom is the representation as Tiljander intended. Mann's calibration method assumes it is hot - the top representation.



If it is used as Mann did (i.e. assuming the hockey blade is hot) this results in the paleoreocrod being flipped - i.e. where it is cold, it will be warm and v.v.

The inclusion of the proxy in this orientation ijn any multi-proxy ensemble will straighten the hockey stick as it will counter any other correctly oriented periods. Is that too difficult to understand?

Not at all, but I don't think your legal argument made it clear to everyone, just wanted you to come out and clarify what I already knew was the case . After all you did have us playing the lay person in a jury - you can't expect too much .

Lightsum X-ray density graph line is not temperature and it should be shown inverted in comparison to what you show. McIntyre made the same error which is what I've been saying all along!

"If you inspect the traces of the four Tiljander proxies, there is an obvious orientation for each, with respect to temperature. It turns out that "obvious" is correct for darksum, but inverted for lightsum and XRD"

Rotate your graph so that the Grey Value reads from bottom to top and you're on the right track!

As I said above, and as I said earlier - it makes no difference as to how the graph is oriented.



So that is a moot point.

CeeBee - just two quesitons question. Is the blade of the hockey stick graph in Tiljander hot or cold?





And what does Mike Mann assume it is - hot or cold?

My answer and final comment on the matter is this:

Darksum: values are higher during warmer years.
Lightsum: values are lower during warmer years.
X-ray Density: values are lower during warmer years.

Over and out - I've now moved on to more interesting topics.

Final word on this from Ari Jokimäki - you can go argue with him about all this from now on.

Based on Tiljander et al. we know that the relative X-ray density values have negative correlation with temperature (higher values mean lower temperature). This means that in order to use it with other proxies in a reconstruction, the series needs to be flipped. If the algorithm flips it, then it is exactly as it should be and Mann et al. haven’t done anything wrong in that sense – the series is not the wrong way around in the analysis.

http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/tiljander/

http://thestandard.org.nz/loosing-the-debate-on-global-warming/
15/4/12


http://www.thecommentator.com/article/97...e_debate/page/2






Tremendous resources hey? Well I'm a 55 year old semi crippled ex infantry soldier on a pension with access to the Internet, a strong moral compass that compels me to right wrongs, to rail against bullies and to fight for what I believe in to my last breath, but I don't think actually think that I am a 'tremendous resource' or anything.

I believe the "Tremendous resources" mentioned are the combined efforts of Big Oil and Big Coal lobbyists and think tanks that are funded by Big Oil and Big Coal.

In turn many sceptics are doing the bidding of Big Oil and Coal by parroting the misinformation put out by those think tanks along with the flawed science that is put out by sceptic scientist that are also funded directly and indirectly by Big Oil and Coal.

How Big Oil and Big Coal mounted one of ... global warming

http://www.campaigncc.org/denialfunders

http://www.bloomsburypress.com/books/catalog/merchants_of_doubt_hc_104