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'Claims' or 'conclusions'

There have been a few attempts recently to characterise all the claims made by Hans von Storch et al as 'conclusions', citing WP:WTA. This says, 'Acceptable use: "Scholar Smith claims that absolute truth cannot exist. Philosopher Peters claims that it must exist in order for the universe to function."' as well as, 'Do not use "claim" for one side and a different verb for the other, as that could imply that one has more merit.'

The point here is that one side does have merit, as shown by the fact that we have two or three men finding fault with peer-reviewed science, getting disproved or proved irrelevant (despite considerable US political and big-business backing) and every scientific body (of national or international standing) on the planet supporting the established facts (Scientific opinion on climate change‎).

This is a serious issue, it is not the place for every half-baked enthusiast to be given equal billing to those who have to advise those who will decide on the future survival of much of the life on this planet. --Nigelj (talk) 17:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Nigelj this is Wikipedia just publish the facts. Your argument mentioning the importance of the topic is irrelevant. 152.65.94.167 (talk) 01:24, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Intro

This page could really use an intro that succinctly explains what the controversy is about without needing a great deal of scientific knowledge.Infernallek (talk) 04:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

CRU whistleblower relevant

Oi, just on first glance there seems to be a concerted effort to rmv all mention of the CRU whistleblower. Cool yer jets. The topic is relevant. It will get inserted into the article anyway, as time goes on, and will be fully documented. Ling.Nut (talk) 02:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Your English fails you. There was no whistleblower. -Atmoz (talk) 03:32, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Time will tell. Ling.Nut (talk) 04:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
The Republican response to everything. Even if it makes no sense, like here. -Atmoz (talk) 04:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

And the Ends Justifying the Means is the Democrat response to everything. Just 'Hide the Decline'. Veritas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.241.14 (talk) 01:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

All you need to know about LN is this [1] William M. Connolley (talk) 08:33, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that the CRU emails are legitimate, they will affect this article. For instance they show that Mann purposely withheld data from MM and the lied to Nature saying they had all the data to perform their analysis. Also there will need to be some explanation of how "hide the decline" fits into all of this. Is it correct that Mann did not use data that correlated poorly with the tree/temp relationship so as to show a stronger correlation?24.211.252.171 (talk) 07:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC) That comment above is meJfischoff (talk) 07:08, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The "hide the decline" thing is blown out of proportion. Clearly, if you put all-caps comments in code that say "VERY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION ... !!" you're marking code as non-final and rudimentary. There's no evidence this was ever used in any paper. The correction refers to a problem known as tree-ring divergence. Basically, while temperatures measured with thermometers have increased considerably since the 1970s, temperatures estimated from tree-rings have declined a little. This is the decline that Terry Jones wanted to "hide" with a "trick" (maybe not the best choice of words.) Whether tree-ring-based reconstructions are good or bad is a different subject altogether. Joseph449008 (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


It is also appears in the emails Mann realizes that they did use the data upside down like McIntyre had stated for the 2008 paper. I can find the reference if anyone is interested.Jfischoff (talk) 07:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't think that even makes sense. But if you have refs, do post them William M. Connolley (talk) 11:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Okay I did a little research and discovered that Kaufman already publicly admitted he mistakingly flipped the Korttajarvi series, so I guess that is not news. It is also here, http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1010&filename=1252154659.txt . There is another email that shows Mann working out a strategy on how to deal with a correction to a paper in Science in which I think he is speaking in reference to the Korttajarvi series. I'll try to find that one tomorrow.Jfischoff (talk) 08:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Eric Raymond's take. He claims the hockey stick was hard-coded into the program, so it would appear regardless of which data goes in. Unfortunately, he is merely a software expert, and not a professional journalist, so he does not count as a reliable source here at wikipedia. Here is how to make a hockey stick out of any data you like:

valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,- 0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.170.79.36 (talk) 21:58, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I looked at that source file. The correction is actually not used. The correction array is commented out later. Joseph449008 (talk) 18:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Which, of course, doesn't mean it was never used. See Eric Raymond (et al.)'s analysis, here, et seq. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 17:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
But why does his code even matter? At this point all the data has been made available, so his methods can be checked. That is what is important. He could have been using it as a stub to test another part of his program, or who knows. Jfischoff (talk) 00:13, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Wow, you liberal wiki admins are really in a panic, aren't you? Your dogma has been shown to be a fraud. 75.150.245.241 (talk) 14:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

What about adding a reference to this take on the matter?

Millions of measurements, global coverage, consistently rising temperatures, case closed: The Earth is warming. Except for one problem. CRU’s average temperature data doesn’t jive with that of Vincent Courtillot, a French geo-magneticist, director of the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris, and a former scientific advisor to the French Cabinet. Last year he and three colleagues plotted an average temperature chart for Europe that shows a surprisingly different trend. Aside from a very cold spell in 1940, temperatures were flat for most of the 20th century, showing no warming while fossil fuel use grew. Then in 1987 they shot up by about 1 C and have not shown any warming since. This pattern cannot be explained by rising carbon dioxide concentrations, unless some critical threshold was reached in 1987; nor can it be explained by climate models.

It's just one source but it seems to tackle the issue head on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.134.101.230 (talk) 22:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be directly related to Hockey Stick controversy, or maybe I missing its relevance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jfischoff (talk • contribs) 07:40, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Wegman report addition

There seems to be some debate over this proposed addition

The report claimed that the MBH method creates a hockey-stick shape even when supplied with random input data (Figure 4.4), and argues that the MBH method uses weather station data from 1902 to 1995 as a basis for calibrating other input data. "It is not clear that Dr. Mann and his associates even realized that their methodology was faulty at the time of writing the MBH paper. The net effect of the decentering is to preferentially choose the so-called hockey stick shapes." (Section 4)

The quotation is certainly accurate, though that is of course only the beginning of the debate. Perhaps those who favour removal could explain why? Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

In section 4, Wegman makes few claims of his own, but rather only references M&M. As for the quote, it certainly demonstrates a lack of understanding of the physical reality, as it only affects the blade of the stick - which is known to be essentially correct because of direct measurements. Of course we want to preferably select shapes that conform to measured data - that's the whole point. But the quality of Wegman is neither here nor there, of course. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm confused here. The quote was taken from the Wegman report, and included in a section full of comments from the Wegman report. This one is unusual only it the fact that an extensive direct quote is used rather than a paraphrase with quoted snippets. Whether or not what Wegman says is True is a different matter, but as you yourself say not one which is relevant to this discussion. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
I am also confused. The suggestion that MBH gives hockey stick from red-noise input is the reason I read the Wegman report in the first place, and to my mind it's the single most important issue in the entire controversy. The Wegman report illustrates the result of feeding red-noise to MBH by plotting graphs. They devote a dozen paragraphs, distributed through the report, to explaining why MBH picks red-noise inputs that have upward trends. They argue that such picking is inevitable. So I came to this page and I found thousands of words describing the controversy and only one mention of what I believe is the controversy's central issue. Whether the report is accurate or not is, as already stated, irrelevant. It is not Wikipedia's business to censor the Wegman report for its readers. The fact that the Wegman report spends so much time explaining the random-input response is sufficient reason to declare the issue to the reader.Kevanhashemi (talk) 14:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Who asked you to JUDGE if it is correct or not????? Further excerpt removals by you or William M. Connolley will be reported. Your behaviour is unacceptable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.218.59.143 (talk) 13:44, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
The quote is accurate. On the technical grounds that I removed it, I was in error (I'd got it mixed up as a dupl of the PC1 stuff lower down). Sorry, should have replied here earlier. As Stephan says, Wegman is largely a rehash of M&M. We can't repro the entire report, nor should it be given equal space with THe NRC report William M. Connolley (talk) 23:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

NASA Indicates 1934 was the hottest year in North America

I am fairly new to Wikipedia but I have read several news articles that indicate NASA recently corrected the record of temperature data for the last 100 years that indicates 1934 was the hottest year in the US. This would seem to invalidate many of the claims that the last half of the 20th century is the hottest in the last millenia. Even if this is not true, I have not seen any graph in this section that shows 1934 as the hottest year.

Reference:http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/aug07/article.html?id=WebExtra081607_2.html The issue didn't end there, however. The corrections made almost no difference to global temperature trends, NASA reported, while U.S. mean annual temperatures from 2000 to 2006 were all reduced by about 0.15 degrees Celsius. Most significantly for climate change skeptics, however, the year 1934 now edges out 1998 as the hottest year in the United States. Geotimes Aug 2007, Carolyn Gramling

Has this already been dealt with here on wikipedia. If so I can't find the discussion. LloydofDSS (talk) 22:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

  • If true, this item might be a decent submission to the Guinness Book of Records. It's hardly relevant to the hockey stick, which is (if I recall correctly) about global average temperature trends. --TS 23:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, it has been discussed several times already. The NASA GISTEMP data showed 1998 and 1934 in the US with statistically insignificant differences both before and after the correction. It's only if you ignore the uncertainty that the "switch" took place. It does not affect the global temperature reconstruction in any meaningful way. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It does indeed affect the "hockey stick" concept which is that the last decade of the XX century is the hottest of all the decades.It is relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.82.234.134 (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about "concepts", but no, it does not affect the hockey stick (BTW, the term is usually used for millenium scale reconstructions, not for the instrumental temperature record). US temperatures are only a small part of the global climate record, and this was only a small correction. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:37, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

The correction pertains to an error that Steve McIntyre discovered several years ago in GISS's version of the US instrumental temperature record. The hockey stick is not an instrumental temperature record, and is unaffected. At any rate the correction was quite small in magnitude.

Speaking as a skeptic who long ago gave up on Wikipedia due to WC's influence, and will now return, I hope that any first time skeptic editors take time to learn, understand and abide by Wikipedia's standards of conduct. Have faith that, through the good faith efforts of all involved [and the reduced role of WC], the articles on global warming will eventually reach a state that accurately reflects our knowledge, and accords due weight [which is not the same as equal weight] to the various points of view.

When in doubt, please err on the side of compromise and politeness. It is of little consequence what any particular article looks like tomorrow morning.

Wikipedia should not be a proxy for the climate blog wars. Anyone from either side who attempts to make it one is bringing discredit to their side.


WC's efforts, IMNSHO, were made in good faith. But they nonetheless brought discredit to him (and unfortunately to Wikipedia). I hope something is learnt from the experience of the past several years.

I suspect that, one year from now, the climate articles will not have changed nearly as much as some might presently expect. 71.243.119.32 (talk) 19:45, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

history missing

I think this article should make clear that the MBH paper was 'controversial' well before the MM03 paper. The HS controversy did not start with their involvement, although the previous criticisms/attacks are no longer cited as much. Soon and Baliunas (2003), Esper et al (2002) for instance were used widely to attempt to discredit the paper. Some of the controversy was about real scientific issues, but much of it was simply politically motivated iconoclasm. CEI at one point had a list of five papers they claimed discredited MBH that actually had nothing to do with it much. This history is important context in understanding the subsequent use and abuse of the Mc+Mc input. 96.250.216.18 (talk) 15:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Problem with the whole article

The article, as presently constructed, is narrowly focused on the original hockey stick (MBH98) and on statistical criticisms thereof.

Certainly, because of its prominence in AR3, and subsequent use, the MBH98 reconstruction is especially important.

But there are now a number of hockey sticks, and a number of often cited problems with those hockey sticks that go far beyond the initial M&M paper.

Let me suggest that the article could be improved by moving away from the (more or less) sequential format of the present article.

A possible replacement article might look something like this:

1) A 1-2 paragraph summary, applying a broader focus than the current intro (which is narrow in comparison to even the article's current contents)

2) A list of the various hockey sticks, giving prominent but not exclusive coverage to MBH98, its coverage in AR3, and its subsequent role in discussion about climate change.

3) A taxonomy of the various criticisms made against the hockey sticks, grouping together with each criticism the responses.

I'd like to get comments on this proposed approach71.243.119.32 (talk) 22:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


The article doesn't appear to be written from a neutral perspective. The first report's findings are written as indisputable facts. The second report section uses language such as 'claimed' etc. and has a response section regarding what this report found. I'd suggest the language regarding the second report be changed to exclude emotive words such as 'claims', and include words similar to the first report such as 'found'.

Secondly both reports should have a 'response' section in order to maintain a neutral perspective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.70.142.221 (talk) 22:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

IPCC Chart and the MBH98 reconstruction

Okay, explain this to me: people criticize the IPCC chart for "being flat from 1000 to 1900" based on "MBH98 being proven wrong" — but the MBH98 reconstruction only starts in 1400. 91.195.78.59 (talk) 12:22, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

ah. You weren't hoping that the crit would be informed and intelligent, were you? William M. Connolley (talk) 08:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
To avoid such generalizations, perhaps this page could include a table giving the generations of the hockey stick chart, and the versions of the analysis used to obtain each chart, together with whatever critical reports about that version exist. The opening chart on this page is "The hockey stick graph as shown in the 2001 IPCC report," which might lead people to assume this is the one and only chart being talked about. As to drafting the table, I'm sorry to say that I don't have adequate familiarity with the evolution of the chart to do a good job of it.Kevan Hashemi 03:38, 11 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevanhashemi (talk • contribs)
I agree with this suggestion too. At the same time, could we clear up the current status of the 'controversy'? Maybe reduce the need to wade through the personal opinions of dozens of spokespeople, and give a simple ("takeaway") summary of the final (i.e. current) scientific consensus. What this is is not at all clear from a casual reading of the article. --Nigelj (talk) 13:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the entry is a bit long, which clouds the issue. A friend of mine read through it and said as much also. But how to go about cutting it back to quarter-size, when it's such a sensitive issue?--Kevan Hashemi 04:25, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
You carefully apply existing WP policies, like WP:NOTE and WP:WEIGHT, to weed out the irrelevancies. --Nigelj (talk) 10:30, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
There would be little point in composing a table of methods and graphs unless we can add to the table a column that describes the substantial changes made in the methods. For me "substantial change" would be "changes the response to random inputs." I looked for substantial changes, but found none. There appears to be no backing away from the principle component regression analysis that gives rise to the hockey stick graph in response to random data. Someone else who understands the methods better may be able to point out important changes in method and resulting graphs and produce a nice table. I said earlier that the entire page is too long, but re-reading it today, it seems to me that it does its job well enough.--Kevan Hashemi 21:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevanhashemi (talk • contribs)

this comment: 'Of course we want to preferably select shapes that conform to measured data - that's the whole point.' seems to completely miss the point of the scientific method, can it be explained please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.16.108.10 (talk) 21:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

If you have measured data and you're trying to measure the trend in the data, then you choose among all the possible shapes the one that most closely fits the data. Why do you think that "[misses] the point of the scientific method?" ---TS 21:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Maybe it's worth discussing this. We have 1000+ years of various tree rings. We have about 150 years worth of temperature data. The PCA analysis selects those tree ring series (or combination of series - this is one of the differences between various reconstructions) that show the best correlation between tree ring size and temperature. These selected series are then used with the detected correlation to extrapolate temperatures back to the time we only have tree ring data. Because the blade is in the temperature data, the method will always preferably pick series that also show a fairly consistent increase (or drop - the method looks for correlation, not simple match). If you have random series, you will select those series that randomly rise or decrease during the correlation period. Of course they, being random, will have no trend outside the correlation period, thus producing the shaft of the hockey stick. So it's no surprise that the method will produce hockey sticks from random data. But here is the rub: The method is not applied to random data. We know there is a positive correlation between temperature and tree ring size for certain kinds of trees. To show that the method does not work one would have to feed it structured data and show that it still produces a hockey stick. The surprising thing of the hockey stick is not the blade - that is in the measured temperatures. The surprise is the shaft. To show the method is invalid you must produce shafts from non-shafty data, not shafts from shafty data. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Stephan, the scientific argument in hockey stick is essentially: "If methodology X produces result Y then non-random conclusion Z". If, when applied to random data, methodology X also produces Y, that directly falsifies the argument. I think this would be an over simplistic characterization of the M&M approach, but it directly rebuts your argument.
I would also point out that the following is false: "We know there is a positive correlation between temperature and tree ring size for certain kinds of trees." There are numerous examples of trees which were selected by dendrochronologists because they were supposed to correlated positively with temperature but which either did not, or which only did some of the time.
The now famous phrase "hide the decline" referred to precisely this. Some of Briffa's trees correlated positively with temperature up until the early 1960s, and then started correlating negatively with temperature. Michael Mann said that the data should be removed or otherwise hidden because "Otherwise, the skeptics have an field day casting doubt on our ability to understand the factors that influence these estimates and, thus, can undermine faith in the paleoestimates." (Mann Sep 22, 0938018124.txt) So the period showing a decline was deleted from the IPCC report, and its deletion rendered difficult to detect in the accompanying graph.
Finally, you say that "To show the method is invalid you must produce shafts from non-shafty data, not shafts from shafty data." Respectfully, I suggest that this is exactly the opposite of the truth. MBH98 is undeniably a shaft created from non-shafty data. That is NOT an adequate basis for claiming that MBH98 is false. It is completely plausible that a multiproxy study could be created from non-shafty data and prove that the temperature over this period of time was shafty, with the non-shafty elements being regional and/or random variations that cancel each other out. There are many good reasons why the Mann series of hockey sticks should be considered flawed, but creating a shaft out of non-shafty data is not one of them.146.115.64.86 (talk) 13:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
You kinda get the point, but not quite. Any reconstruction method of any worth will show the blade, since that is the measured temperature record. Any reconstruction method of any worth will not show any trend from random data outside the correlation method. The aim of the PCA analysis is to identify those trees that correlate best with temperature. If that correlation is random, then the result is random and worthless. That can happen, of course. But there is good evidence that the correlation between tree rings and temperature is not random, even if we do not fully understand all aspects of it. For random noise with no long-range self-correlation, on the other hand, the result is always random. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand where you are going with this.
You seem to assume that the correlation between tree rings and temperature is statistically significant. That is an assumption that must be tested scientifically. "In statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance." The obvious and most basic test of statistical significance is to determine how likely it is that random processes could have produced an identical or even more significant result. M&M have done that. Specific criticisms may be mounted against their methodology, but there shouldn't be any question that using random data to test the statistical significance of supposedly non-random data is a valid and appropriate methodology. Mann's collaborators did as much in subsequent follow up papers.
One other point: "The aim of the PCA analysis is to identify those trees that correlate best with temperature." Not really. PCA is just a data mining technique. Its goal is to identify a set of orthogonal signals (principal components) constructed such that just a few signals contain the vast majority of the information. In most fields, after applying PCA the various principal components are compared with subsequently generated data to determine if the correlations calculated in the original PCA (between the principal component and the input series) are real or spurious. Mann compares the PCs to temperature to determine which PCs to keep. No input series are discarded. Several input series have a correlation that (if MBH98 is correct) actually imply a negative relationship between local temperatures and average northern hemisphere temperatures. Subsequent Mannian papers did play around with discarding data that didn't fit. But that's not what happens in a PCA. 71.243.119.32 (talk) 16:32, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Article probation

Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 03:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

National Academy of Sciences report

This article cites a "pre-publication" report from 2006. The first issue here is that there is no actual ref cited, only [26] and [27] (copy/paste error perhaps?). The second problem is that we're citing a pre-publication report. Was similar content in the final report? If so, shouldn't we cite that? Oren0 (talk) 03:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, it's identical to the published version, which is also dated 2006 and available in full here. Pre-publication only seemed to refer to the printing delay. I'm busy right now - if nobody else manages to update the ref, I'll do so in the next few days. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Mann testimony

I reverted Oren0's [2]: the edit summary remove Mann senate testimony. This doesn't mention the hockey stick is bizarre. The relevance of More than a dozen independent research groups have now reconstructed the average temperature of the northern hemisphere in past centuries... The proxy reconstructions, taking into account these uncertainties, indicate that the warming of the northern hemisphere during the late 20th century... is unprecedented over at least the past millennium is obvious William M. Connolley (talk) 20:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

More specifically, what is "bizarre" about Oren0's edit is that Mann explicitly refers to the hockey stick phenomenon at the outset, namely as "the anomalous warmth of the late 20th century." "Hockey stick" is not Mann's term for the phenomenon, that came later. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 08:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement Request

I am appalled at the amount of wanton edit waring on this article since the probation has been implemented. Rather than contribute to the problem I have decided it is better to simply ask for blocks for anyone that has reverted anything that was previous contested in a manner consistent with this warning on a different article: [3]. I mention this not because I think it is binding here, but rather to make the point that these sanctions need to be applied uniformly across all of the affected pages.

The enforcement request can be found here. --GoRight (talk) 09:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

For the record, this request was dismissed and GoRight was warned not make further frivolous requests. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Correction, that was "frivolous or vexatious" requests. --GoRight (talk) 03:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Wegman report criticisms, WP:PRIMARY, and WP:WEIGHT

Many of the criticisms listed are sourced only to a primary source. Shouldn't there be secondary sources to demonstrate the WP:WEIGHT of these criticisms? Oren0 (talk) 03:53, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. --TS 03:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
The quote "Dr. Thomas Crowley, Professor of Earth Science System, Duke University, testified at the committee hearing, "The conclusions and recommendations of the Wegman Report have some serious flaws." -- would appear to have WP:Weight problems, and quite a bit of this section looks like "piling-on". --Pete Tillman (talk) 19:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
This sounds okay to me. If he made that statement in open testimony then it's probably fine to use it here. Presumably the Committee thought his opinion on the matter to be worth hearing. The only concern I would have here is the risk of cherry-picking juicy morsels and not paying due attention to the totality of the testimony. --TS 07:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Maybe I'm being unduly harsh here but I interpreted the Wegman report as saying in essence, there are lies, damned lies, and paleoclimatogists. What is unclear to me is why statistics is being brought in here as the attack dog. Scientific disciplines relevant to paleoclimatology include statistics, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. It seems highly suspicious to me that the statistics community has been singled out in this way, especially when their accusation that the paleoclimatologists did not come to the statisticians for help could be turned around: why are the statisticians passing judgment on their own within their narrow focus of pure and applied statistics instead of participating more even-handedly in a larger debate involving all subjects impinging on paleoclimatology? It seems to me that the statistics community is at risk of shooting itself in its own foot here. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 07:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Passing judgement on these interdisciplinary brawls and their participants is not really our concern here. We're writing an encyclopedia, not righting the wrongs of the world. --TS 07:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
If you know a way to separate the two I'm all ears. Wikipedia aims to present the consensus view, which entails judging bias when it exists, as may be the case here for all we know. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 08:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
What? The report is regarding the statistical methods used in paleoclimatology, particularly the temperature reconstruction. Statisticians (particularly Wegman, who is extremely well regarded) are the experts to go to for a question like this. Saying that statisticians should have been consulted is a quite reasonable suggestion - if you want to make sure your scientific papers which make a heavy use of complicated statistics are doing the statistics right, you should maybe talk to a statistician. It is extremely common in the field of physics, for example, to consult a mathematician. Ignignot (talk) 18:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Certainly. But for such a visible and nontrivial engagement it is customary to move more cautiously than has been the case for this particular report, which comes across as shrill and one-sided. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 17:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
The claim is quite silly, because the Wegman Report itself is just a single source, so the extensive quoting of it would also break WP:Weight. Lars T. (talk) 18:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's another way of saying what I was saying. When the relevant scientific communities have had a chance to exchange their perspectives and reach some sort of consensus there should be a more representative set of sources for Wikipedia editors to draw on. When there's only one report it is very natural for those whose position is supported by that report to insist that it be included, but as Lars points out that's not how Wikipedia is supposed to work. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 17:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Richard Muller reaction

I posted the following in the "Update" section:

In an October 2004 article in the MIT Technology Review, Richard A. Muller, Professor of Physics at UC Berkeley wrote that "the hockey stick, the poster-child of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics." "That discovery hit me like a bombshell," Muller said. He continued, "Apparently, Mann and his colleagues never tested their program with the standard Monte Carlo approach, or they would have discovered the error themselves." Source: "Global Warming Bombshell" by Richard Muller, Technology Review, published October 15, 2004.

WMC reverted, commenting (in essence) "wrong place" -- which I wondered about, but no other place seemed right either.

It's an important reaction, impeccably sourced, by a scientist with a lot of intellectual horsepower. I'm kinda surprised it's not already in the article. So, what do you think, "Reactions by distinguished physicists"? Or just rename the "Update" section, which is an awkward section title anyway? Or... ? TIA, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Pete, I reverted an SPA edit but that doesn't mean I support the version reverted to over yours. But on that question, what is the significance of Muller's statement? His biography suggests that he is a distinguished and recently retired physicist, but his relation to this affair seems tenuous. --TS 07:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
I would have thought that an author of a book on paleoclimatology would be among the few dozen people most qualified to pass judgment on this controversy. Certainly more so than statisticians who have never even written a paper in the field let alone a book. See http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Ages-Astronomical-Causes-Environmental/dp/185233634X/ . --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 09:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Seem okay. --TS 09:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Your text was in the wrong place, obviously. It isn't an update. More, it says nothing (or substance) that isn't in either the Wegmann report or the NAS report (unless you're particularly fond of the provocative language, of course). It is also incorrect (no, I don't expect you to agree with me or even understand the issue; I'm just pointing out that if you believe without question that M is correct, then your opinion is open to doubt). So in what sense is this an "important reaction"?

Muller is the author of another theory of the ice ages (not part of the std one); see I think Milankovitch effect for the details; no, it doesn't push him nto the few dozen most qualified to comment. [added 03:51, 3 January 2010 William M. Connolley]

WMC, you clearly don't agree with Muller. But I hope you will grant that he is a distinguished physicist who has worked in climate science, and done quite a lot of other interesting earth and planetary science as well. Perhaps more pertinent to his take on this controversy, he appears well-grounded in mathematics and statistics, as one would expect of a first-rank physicist. My remarks that follow will (hopefully) answer Tony's question as well.
One of the things that's always struck me as odd about this affair is, why did Mann & colleagues go so far astray in pretty elementary statistical work? As it happens, for my MS thesis I used a similar statistical technique to handle noisy geochemical data, and from reading Mann et al's HS papers, it's pretty clear to me, these fellows were using canned routines without any real clue as to what they were doing. I'm no statistical whiz (and very rusty now), but I'm pretty sure I understand geostatistics, and its pitfalls, better than (in particular) Mann seems to.
So Muller's remarks really hit home for me, and I think for other statistically-literate outsiders who've looked into the affair. These guys were fundamentally clueless on how to use statistics to solve real geological problems, and boy does it show. So, yes, Muller's remarks are important, and provocative, and he knows his stuff. And we're certainly not using my ruminations here....
As to where to put Muller's stuff, somewhere in or near the Wegman section, I would think, since he's basically supporting Wegman's conclusions. Best regards, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I concur that the material belongs somewhere in the article. Where is a good question, as well as how it is written. While there is no doubt that Mann et al, using their methods, clearly found a "hockey stick". However, unaffiliated scientists reviewing his work have been able to duplicate the "hockey stick" using random data as the source in place of Mann's temperature data. Perhaps Dr. Muller's insight could be part of such a section? [cut personal attack --Kim D. Petersen (talk)] --Knowsetfree (talk) 04:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I would like to thank Kim D. Petersen for leaving an indication that my responce above was edited by her. She also started a section on my talk identifying the edit and her PA assertion. I strongly disagreed with her "personal attack" characterization and invited her, or anyone else here, to discuss the issue there. When cuting my remarks Kim D. Petersen essentially reverted my immediately prior revert of of the edit by user 2/0 when he hid the entire section. I don't know the significance of such "indirect" reverting on a talk page which I thought was on probation and a 1RR restriction. Most important to me is that we focus on the content in the context of an article and its talk page. And to the new anon editor, please don't be dissuaded from registering, learning more about Wikipedia, and contributing as a fellow volunteer editor. --Knowsetfree (talk) 21:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Unsupported statements like "Muller is the author of another theory of the ice ages (not part of the std one)" and "no, it doesn't push him into the few dozen most qualified to comment" are more like the illogic we've come to expect routinely from the AGW denier community. It is bad enough when both sides of the global warming debate resort to the same content-free polemics to attack each other, but when those arguing for global warming start launching invective against their own in this way it puts the whole case for global warming at risk. My apologies for stating this so strongly, but I found myself thoroughly offended by it. (I should add that my second last Ph.D. student wrote his thesis on applications of PCA so I'm no stranger to it.) --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 07:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Editing restrictions?

Are there any applicable editing restrictions on this page related to the climate change probation? --GoRight (talk) 03:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Editing restrictions are (or should be) entered into the log, which can be reached by typing the rather unwieldy shortcut WP:GS/CC/L. --TS 04:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I guess I am being too terse today. I note that some pages are under a consensus only restriction, some are on a WP:1RR restriction, etc. My query is meant to ascertain whether there are any such special restrictions associated specifically with this page? One has to be careful now. --GoRight (talk) 04:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Try WP:GS/CC/L#Log of sanctions. The 1RR on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is there. Obviously nobody should be wading into the middle of disputes and performing problematic edits. --TS 06:20, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Just to clarify, that's the only 1RR sanction in force at the moment. I suppose this posted at that page? [checks] Yup. --Pete Tillman (talk) 17:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

A kind offer of assistance moved from the wrong place

In the Climategate emails there are many relevant documents that shed light on the Hockey Stick controversy. For example, there are couple of emails where Briffa and Wigley openly concede that M&M were right in criticizing Mann et co. I can reference these things in "updates" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Katonus (talk • contribs) 14:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I've dumped the whole ridiculously large "External links" section so we can start again by selecting links that really belong there, with careful reference to the External links guideline. It seems to me that the section had become a bit of a dumping ground for stuff that weren't significant enough to make it into the references section. --TS 02:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

That was a good idea, but someone has now restored the entire section. I agree it had become something of a dumping ground. So, let's try to sort this out here SPLETTE :] How's my driving? 16:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with above comments so chopped and brought here for discussion. What among these deserves to be re-instated and why? Which can be used as refs? Or are they already?: Vsmith (talk) 17:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

==External links==
This still looks like a massive link farm to me. Somebody has restored it "Restore valuable External Links section (minus Mann's homepage which was objected to) so editors can work to make this article NPOV." I don't think any good can come of this. --TS 19:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the above. It has ended up as a link-farm. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

BROKEN LINK: Not sure if this is the appropriate way to report this, but the article has a broken link for footnote [1]. The current link is http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.mckitrick.2003.pdf (missing) - I believe the correct link is http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/MM03.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djb95054 (talk • contribs) 19:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done Lars T. (talk) 02:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I reverted this edit since the target article says nothing about this topic. "See also" is for articles that supply related information. There's nothing of the sort in that article. Guettarda (talk) 02:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Divergence of tree-ring proxies from instrumental temperature records

The divergence of proxie and instrumental temperature records after 1960 (see Briffa) has not been mentioned (so I believe after reading the volumes on this issue so far). If some tree-rings are not accurate proxies for temperatures after 1960, why are they considered accurate proxies for temperatures prior to instrumental records? The same factors that cause tree rings to show no warming or even cooling during recent warming could have been in play during previous warm periods, such as the Medieval Warm Period. Steve McIntyre has done the heavy lifting on this http://climateaudit.org/2009/09/27/yamal-a-divergence-problem/ 67.174.210.108 (talk) 08:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)Miohael B. Combs

McI just snipes; don't trust his stuff. You want divergence problem - it must be linked from this article William M. Connolley (talk) 08:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
These sources would appear to be relevant to this article. Also note that the medieval warm period appears to be before the earliest period covered by tree ring reconstructions. dave souza, talk 12:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
This talk page is not the place to educate ignorant editors about well-known matters such as "why are they considered accurate proxies for temperatures prior to instrumental records". -- 98.108.199.134 (talk) 02:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Rv

I reverted a recent addition related to a story from today's Daily Mail.

  • Much of what was added isn't directly related to this article, and its addition seems rather coatracky.
  • The only vaguely related bit is "Colleagues of Jones have reported the raw data has been "lost" resulting in the Unit's refusal to comply with the law." But the article used as a source only says that unnamed "colleagues" said that "the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers". That's pure speculation, and doesn't belong in an encyclopaedia article. Guettarda (talk) 06:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Nonsense. The refusal of the raw data claimed to result in the hocky stick plot is directly related to the hockey stick controversy. Here is the quote from the article "Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers." --74.248.39.141 (talk) 07:26, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I quoted the article, above. It does not agree with what you added. Compare: the raw data has been "lost" (your text) with he may have actually lost the relevant papers. Guettarda (talk) 08:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
74.248.39.141: You don't explain why it's nonsense; in fact your response is a complete non sequitur to what Guettarda wrote. Your additions are inaccurate, unencyclopedic, and grossly POV; you appear to have simply invented some of it. Please act in good faith. -- 98.108.199.134 (talk) 02:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I see you have removed the worst misrepresentation. Your addition is still problematic though:

  • Additionally, the raw data used in the analysis allegedly yielding the hockey stick result has been refused to other researchers seeking to provide peer review reconstruction. - Not in cited source. If you want to make that claim, you need to find a high-quality source. Not a blog. Not gossip.
  • Despite repeated requests under the Freedom of Information Act, the data has not been provided by the data repository, the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit - an official arm of the government of the United Kingdom. - Again, the article says nothing about data repositories, or that the CRU is "an official arm of the government of the UK".
  • The unit's director Phil Jones resigned in fallout of the Climategate scandal. - really? Resigned? I take it you have a source for that? And, by the way, "climategate scandal"? We don't use political spin like that in articles. Anyway, it's off topic and doesn't belong in this article.
  • Colleagues of Jones have reported the raw data may have been "lost" resulting in the Unit's refusal to comply with the law. - the article says "comply with the request". "Comply with the law" is putting an inappropriate spin on it. The law, it would appear, is so flawed that you almost can't fall afoul of it. Anyway, doesn't belong here.
  • According to the Times of London "Graham Smith, the deputy information commissioner, ruled that by failing to release requested data Jones and his colleagues breached FoI regulations. The affair is now the subject of a review led by Sir Muir Russell, former vice-chancellor of Glasgow University." - utterly off topic. This doesn't belong here at all. Guettarda (talk) 08:33, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Agree with Guettarda and restored to a sane version. The CRU data has little to do with the Hockey stick - note that the data for the Hockey stick was held by Mann, not by Jones. Mann did eventually release it, AFAIK. Please also note that many of these data sets are not universally available for a number of reasons - e.g. that the originating agencies only provide them under non-disclosure agreements. Yes, having them all available online would be great. But that became technically feasible only in the last 10 years, and culture changes slower than technology. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:16, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
The main confusion here, as Stephan says, is that the CRU stuff has nothing to do with the Hockey Stick. And let us not fall into the trap of personalising this - the instrumental data isn't held by Jones, but by CRU. The palaeo data I'm less sure about - but I think that of MBH, Bradley and Hughes were the main data folk - Mann did much of the analysis. There are other errors too (Jones hasn't resigned, the FOI didn't name him) but as Guettarda says, these are simply off-topic) William M. Connolley (talk) 11:06, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, sorry. My point was that the MBH data is not the CRU data. I didn't want to imply that either set is kept in a folder under the pillow of one particular researcher. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Even this is not quite right. There is a link between CRU and the hockey stick, but it is not to do with data. The ICO's ruling on mishandling of FOI requests by CRU was related to a request for docuuments concerning Keith Briffa's participation in the IPCC assessment of the hockey stick. I suspect that something might be included about this at some point, but the version I have just reverted was nonsense. The ICO has not yet ruled on the handling of FOI requests for data. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:07, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
As you say, the ICO has not yet ruled on the issue, but the specific request seems to have been for emails rather than documents. The requests by Holland, made in May 2008, did concern Briffa's participation in the 2007 AR4,[4] but that's rather after the main hockey stick issues. . . dave souza, talk 18:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Booker's book

Any sentence that is new-information-free and ends "... in his bestselling 2009 book [title]" is WP:BOOKSPAM in my book, so I agree with the recent revert of this sentence from the lede. If this book contains any important new facts or theories, then this sentence does not tell us what they are; it just exhorts us to buy the book and read it. If there is something that is not found in the other sources referenced here, then let's hear what it is, in the relevant part of the body of the article, properly weighted, balanced and put into context next to what others have had to say on whatever matter is. (Then we can add that, if its very important, in summary form, into the lede.) If this author merely has 'a way with words' and makes some of the facts already discussed here sound more compelling to some readers, then maybe there is no benefit. --Nigelj (talk) 20:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

A section on media coverage of the controversy at the end of the article, perhaps including a mention of Booker's book, might be in order. This article which is a Featured Article has a media section near the end, which includes a mention of one book on the subject which caused some controversy on its own, including a lawsuit. Cla68 (talk) 10:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
If you want to start an article on ill-informed media reports about global warming then go ahead; but I can't see why we need to mix such into a primarily science article William M. Connolley (talk) 17:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
If you can demonstrate with WP:RS that the book had some notable impact on the hockey stick controversy, then go for it. Otherwise, it is, like Nigel says, just bookspam.— DroEsperanto (talk) 19:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

When the source provides new information to the article, Bookspam doesn't apply. There's seems to be a misunderstanding that attributing the source to a book as required for balanced POV, is Bookspam The requirement for reliable source attribution should not be avoided by a flimsy bookspam claim. A simple footnote contribution could put the obstruction to rest. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 00:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The reverted sentence didn't add new information. It just states that Booker talks about it in his new book. That is hardly news and certainly not something that should be mentioned in the lede. If the book gives a new insight or new information to the controversy that can be mentioned in the article, but certainly just saying ow btw Booker has a chapter on this is just bookspam.83.86.0.82 (talk) 10:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

POV title

The title and the introduction focus on the M&M dispute started in 2003, but the main issue is the graph in the Mann et al. 1998 paper and its use, as well as the subsequent claims by critics. Any reason this isn't titled "hockey stick graph" or "hockey stick climate graph"? Propose a move to one of these titles, probably the latter. . . dave souza, talk 18:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The title is on the right track. Maybe "global warming hockey stick graph controversy" or something along those lines. This is probably the most balanced of the AGW articles. I see both sides represented and i think people who read it will be satisfied that the authors have worked to include the various facets of the controversy. My frustration with most AGW writing everywhere is that it is now so politicized that it's hard to believe anyone is studying and debating the issue from objective and fair viewpoints.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 19:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I suppose it might seem that way to someone who only reads blogs and newpaper reports but not the peer-reviewed literature. Worse, you are clearly in no position to talk about "objective and fair" when you write things like "Now the air is leaking out of the balloon. The hockey stick graph has been laughed out of science". -- 98.108.199.134 (talk) 02:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Title seems fine to me. The main (only?) reason that there is an article about this in Wikipedia, as opposed to the thousands of other statements/graphics from various IPCC reports is the controversy associated with it. That is the main source of notability. David.Kane (talk) 17:32, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Shall we mention the controversy in the intro?

I didn't see anything in the intro describing what the 2 sides in the dispute are. If I understand correctly, those who accept the accuracy of the graph believe it provides evidence for the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW). Those on the other side say that the graph ignores natural, worldwide variations such as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age - and therefore it does not provide evidence for AGW.

How early in the article shall we introduce these points (if at all)? --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Ed. As raised at #Less of an Encyclopedia article and more of a report above, it's an incoherent mess, trying to present a "controversy" first and the science a poor second. Clearly against weight policy. Your two sided version is rather inaccurate, in my understanding. If anything, the graph summarises certain evidence which, combined with other scientific work on the subject, has helped to form the current scientific understanding of the subject. If the Medieval Warm period and little ice age were worldwide, contrary to recent studies, that implies that the climate is more unstable and possibly more prone to forcing by influences such as human activities. Interesting stuff, eh no? . . dave souza, talk 19:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, then the article is not named very well - or we need two separate articles.
I take it that the "scientific mainstream" is considered by the majority of Wikipedia editors to have endorsed the correctness of the hockey stick graph and that accordingly the way Wikipedia is going to report the situation is that it is only a "fringe" of scientists (or public policy POV pushers) who "disagree with the science".
If so, then perhaps the way to do it is to have two separate articles:
  1. Hockey Stick graph - explains the mainstream of scientific opinion about the graph: that it represents the established view that temps have been steady and ever-so-slightly declining until mid-twentieth century (the shaft), when AGW caused a significant sudden jump (the blade);
  2. Controversy over the Hockey Stick graph - neutral article about the conflicts between (A) those accepting the scientific accuracy of the hockey stick graph and (B) those denying its accuracy: presumably, Fred Singer's tiny group of deniers.
Anyway, I agree that there's no way to present the controversy first and "the science" second. But I think a neutral article would have to say that there's a disagreement about what the science is. Side A says the graph is accurate and Side B says it's not.
This is sometimes presented as a conflict between The Science and the "deniers". Is that how you see it? --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
No, that is not a correct description of the situation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
By deniers I take it that you mean sou/12 . . . dave souza, talk 16:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

New hockey stick graph released

...here.

NB the yellow curve for "Geeks who obsessively scan the Internet 18 hours a day."

Have fun, Pete Tillman (talk) 22:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

LOL. I love the green line - it seems that 'people who are only vaguely aware of current events' made time itself travel backwards in 1996! Who makes this stuff up? --Nigelj (talk) 18:26, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Funny, better than those start-up company hockey-sticks on revenue that lead to the internet boom. Same effect, different context and construct. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 17:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Rv: why

There are no previous reconstructions William M. Connolley (talk) 15:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

von S

von S has an interesting perspective, which I've added: Hans von Storch regards that paper as of little consequence, and believes his paper of 2004 to be the first significant criticism [5]. See-also http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/05/another_perspective_on_von_sz.php William M. Connolley (talk) 16:20, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

It's clear that the Soon and Baliunas paper was at the centre of the original "hoax" speech by Inhofe, which makes no mention of M&M, and von S. resigned because of that controversy before Inhofe's speech. There had obviously been a considerable political debate for many years, particularly after the Kyoto agreement, and the graph was quickly picked up as evidence to persuade the public. Articles suggest there was a quick response, but I've not yet found evidence of it being disputed before 2003. The body of the article needs to be developed to cover these points, including the various statements by von S. . dave souza, talk 16:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

The opening paragraph is incorrect - the hockey stick is not the first quantitive global temperature estimate.

The opening paragraph claims there were no quantative estimates of global climate prior to the hockey stick graph. This is untrue, there are plenty. The hockey stick graph was unique and important only in so far that it suggested sudden anomalous warming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.167.73.95 (talk) 16:25, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Not what the source says. It was clearly a pioneering study which brought together various proxies to show the long term trends, including the late 20th century anomaly. Got proposals for improvement, based on the sources, or got additional reliable sources? . . dave souza, talk 16:36, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Ugh. That's wrong. It even says so in Mann et al. (1998); "A variety of studies have sought to use a ‘multiproxy’ approach to understand long-term climate variations, by analysing a widely distributed set of proxy and instrumental climate indicators1,5–8 to yield insights into longterm global climate variations. Building on such past studies..." -Atmoz (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I may well be misinterpreting Pearce's enthusiastic description. Have tried to find a form of words based on Weart's wording. . . dave souza, talk 19:41, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

There are numerous examples of climate reconstructions in climate textbooks published prior to the hockey stick graph. If you do not think this is true, how do you account for the popularity of the terms "medieval warm period" and "little ice age" implying a consensus already reached? I state as before, there is plenty of previous research, look in any climate textbook to see examples. To claim the hockey stick is the first global climate reconstruction is more than false, its patently absurd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.167.73.95 (talk) 16:54, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

It's also not claimed in the current wording. As I say, proposals for improved phrasing based on reliable sources will be welcome. . . dave souza, talk 16:58, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Did you actually look at *any* books as requested? Or do you just arbitrarily assume to know it all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.167.73.95 (talk) 17:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

You'll just have to bear the WP:BURDEN . dave souza, talk 17:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Can we go back to the 16:19 version? That had a quite careful statement "There is an ongoing debate about the details of the temperature record and the means of its reconstruction. The "Hockey stick" graph has a weaker medieval warm period and little ice age from previous "reconstructions", though as the first fully-quantitive reconstruction it has no real precedent; the earlier versions were schematics based on historical and other information." which I thought rather helpful. This got removed in the 16:43 edit. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 17:25, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
While I don't have any issue with that particular paragraph, it could do with a source and makes the common assumption that the debate is about the specific '98 (or '99) graph rather than the numerous later graphs which show essentially the same points. The '98 graph didn't show the medieval period at all, if we accept 15th century as early Renaissance, and that dispute seems to be a more recent issue. . . dave souza, talk 17:32, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

There are numerous examples of climate reconstructions in climate textbooks published prior to the hockey stick graph. - no. There are no quantitative hemisphere scale reconstructions prior to MBH. Or so I say; why else do you think the papeer was so heavily used. But if you think there are others... feel free to provide refs William M. Connolley (talk) 22:16, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Experts

Not a place for general discussion about the topic
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Actual email on the subject from Michael Mann, when asked to provide data so his results could be verified: Removed per Wikipedia:PRIVACY#Private_correspondence. Hipocrite (talk) 23:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

What's mikey so afraid of, Hrm? Such an attitude is so contrary to basic scientific procedure and methodology that words can hardly express it. Fell Gleaming(talk) 21:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You're soapbxing and ranting, as well as being deliberately disrespectful. In this case, however, Mann's sin (according to you) appears to be not giving persons unspecified a copy of the dataset he digitised by hand from a J & D'A paper. This looks very similar to the spurious (and now indeed found to be spurious) complaints against Jones - that he wouldn't give others peoples data when not allowed to do so. Do you have any intent at all to improve the page itself? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Providing data to somebody with a disposition to beat evidence out of shape to support a prior position is a pointless exercise indeed. There are plenty of examples of this―where scientists have told McExperts to "hop it"―outside of Climatology. Wikispan (talk) 21:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
How is an email from Mann himself, on his attempts to prevent others from verifying his Hockey Stick results -- not relevant to the Hockey Stick controversy? Whitewash much? Fell Gleaming(talk) 21:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
His quoted fear, "There is no reason to give them any data, in my opinion, and I think we do so at our own peril!" of allowing others to check his work is also quite notable. No doubt it would be in the lede in any other article in another subject area. My guess, it won't even be considered a legitmate area of discussion here by Zealots.99.141.241.135 (talk) 22:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
As far as this article is concerned, information on how Mann and the CRU advised each other on how to avoid giving data to McIntyre probably should be mentioned in this and the CRU emails article. We need to get some more sourcing together and start proposing wording. Cla68 (talk) 00:29, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Are you really suggesting that Mann was obliged to give people a copy of a dataset he obtained by digitising someone else's graph? That is so bizarre it is really hard to understand William M. Connolley (talk) 08:36, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

" There are plenty of examples of this―where scientists have told McExperts to "hop it"―outside of Climatology." -- Name one.

Outside this field, no researcher would even *think* of denying anyone a chance to look over their data and methodology. In fact, except in cases where the experimental data can be exactly and easily duplicated, researchers have an ethical duty to provide it, to assist others in replicating their results. In the history of science, the only time I can remember s similar case was during the 1930s, when Rhine spawned the "parapsychology" craze. Numerous researchers published grandiose claims, and either hid, destroyed, and distorted their experimental data to such a degree that verification remained impossible. And countless newspaper and magazine articles told millions of credulous readers that the fields of ESP and precognition were now "proven science". Fell Gleaming(talk) 00:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

You are wrong, obviously. There are vast areas of commerically sensitive research etc William M. Connolley (talk) 08:36, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Discussion of Censorship in this section

If editors wish to rely upon policy to censor - do not choose only the bits that you need to manipulate the discussion to form a directed conclusion.

First: the policy that was mis-quoted here on this page applied to Harrassment[6]:

It required an un-involved administrator to invoke. No uninvolved admin has made any such determination.

Second: the community explicitly rejected[7] censorship of records in the public domain. There was no consensus found to censor such knowledge from our encyclopedia readers. "No consensus found" = rejected idea.

Third: The correspondence is unequivocally, irrevocably and famously in the public domain and is clearly allowed by the arbcom editing principle referred to above.

In short, the policy quoted does not apply - as one can clearly see from the distinctions made regarding on-wiki harassment and the rejected proposal, and secondly as involved editors in the subject ... it is not your place.99.141.241.135 (talk) 13:52, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Private emails do not lapse into the public domain because they are stolen and sent around. Hipocrite (talk) 13:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Public Domain of CRU documents

A concerted effort to suppress free-information has been made made by "the usual suspects" devoted to anything but neutral dissemination of knowledge and more interested in directing pre-ordained conclusions into the readers mind. Suppressing quotation of the CRU documents in the Public Domain is but the latest. Here's a supporting ref from the Times Higher Education "when the emails entered the public domain,"[8].99.141.241.135 (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

That does not refer to "public domain" in the copyright sense. Posting full text of the emails is a copyvio. Hipocrite (talk) 14:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

|}

WTF?

OK, I'm baffled.

By the late 1990s a number of competing teams were using proxy indicators to estimate the temperature record of past centuries, and finding suggestions that recent warming was exceptional.

is sourced to http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm. I can't see the text there that supports this - could someone point it out, please? William M. Connolley (talk) 22:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

"This consensus was sharply attacked by a few scientists. Some pulled out the old argument that the advance of urbanization was biasing temperature readings. In fact, around 1990 meticulous re-analysis of old records had squeezed out the urban heat-island bias to the satisfaction of all but the most stubborn critics. Moreover, long-term warming trends showed up in various kinds of physical "proxy" data measured far from cities. To be sure, in urban areas whatever global warming the greenhouse effect might be causing got a strong addition of heat, so that the combination significantly raised the mortality from heat waves. But the larger global warming trend was no statistical error.(39*)" Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 22:38, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
That, as I'm sure you've noticed, is totally irrelevant to the point at hand. Why not quote another random peice of text from the page? William M. Connolley (talk) 23:10, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
OK ... WTF? Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 23:20, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
As William said, your quote is completely irrelevant to the point at hand. It's talking about the instrumental temperature record, not about proxy-based temperature reconstructions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Blind faith is what I hear. I made the Proxy statement BOLD to make it clear. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 14:17, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
What does "Blind faith" have to do with anything? The statement that you bolded is about the temperature record (as Stephan correctly states), more specifically about UHI. It actually pays to read the context, and attempt to understand the subject. It is not enough just to search for "proxy" and think that it must be related. Proxies are many different things... A recent interesting one for instance is an English houseowner who wrote down every time he had to mow his lawn, meticulously over years. (can't find the link though) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Come come, you are being unfair. Obviously the word proxy can have only one meaning, and must at all times refer to exactly the same thing. How could it possibly be otherwise? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:00, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps unsuccessfully, I was trying to summarise a fairly long argument from "But looking at the world as a whole, in the late 1990s the great majority of experts at last agreed. Yes, a serious warming trend was underway" onwards. Specific points;

A variety of new evidence suggested that the recent warming was exceptional even if one looked back many centuries.
Fortunately there were other climate proxies, and scientists worked to derive past temperatures entirely without the use of tree rings. Ingenious analysis of coral reefs, lake sediments, layers in stalactites, and so forth engaged experts from a variety of obscure specialties. Unexpected sources of error turned up here too. But years of analysis by different and often rival groups produced increasingly reliable numbers, all pretty much in agreement with each other and with tree rings.

The source then mentions glaciology results from 2005 before returning to "A group headed by Michael Mann combined a variety of measures to construct a graph of estimated temperatures averaged over the Northern Hemisphere over the past ten centuries." There's no indication of whether or not graphs had been used to present the individual findings, but the comment in the section above makes reasonable sense;

It even says so in Mann et al. (1998); "A variety of studies have sought to use a ‘multiproxy’ approach to understand long-term climate variations, by analysing a widely distributed set of proxy and instrumental climate indicators1,5–8 to yield insights into longterm global climate variations. Building on such past studies..." -Atmoz (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)"

Haven't looked at that quotation yet myself. As always, suggestions for improved wording welcome. . . dave souza, talk 10:24, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

more info: from Mann et al. (1998);

A variety of studies have sought to use a ‘multiproxy’ approach to understand long-term climate variations, by analysing a widely distributed set of proxy and instrumental climate indicators1,5–8 to yield insights into longterm global climate variations. Building on such past studies, we take a new statistical approach to reconstructing global patterns of annual temperature back to the beginning of the fifteenth century, based on the calibration of multiproxy data networks by the dominant patterns of temperature variability in the instrumental record.

So, they were claiming novelty in the statistical approach, not in simply using multiproxy records. Which presumably explains Fred Pearce's Grauniad description of pioneering work. . . dave souza, talk 10:47, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I think we might be better taking the ref from Mann et al. in that case William M. Connolley (talk) 11:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Another ref would be Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years (2006), Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the United States National Research Council;

Starting in the late 1990s, scientists began combining proxy evidence from many different locations in an effort to estimate surface temperature changes averaged over broad geographic regions during the last few hundred to few thousand years. These large-scale surface temperature reconstructions have enabled researchers to estimate past temperature variations over the Northern Hemisphere or even the entire globe, often with time resolution as fine as decades or even individual years. This research, and especially the first of these reconstructions published in 1998 and 1999 by Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes, attracted considerable attention because the authors concluded that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the late 20th century than at any other time during the past millennium. Controversy arose because many people interpreted this result as definitive evidence of anthropogenic causes of recent climate change, while others criticized the methodologies and data that were used.

Not sure if that covers the preceding studies as well, but we should acknowledge their innovation at the same time as showing that they built on numerous studies pointing towards the same conclusions, as shown by Weart. Maybe the Mann et al. summary is a good source for that introductory statement. . dave souza, talk 12:27, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Lost refs, fix please?

In Discussion of the MBH reconstruction, this text has lost its refs:

More recently, the National Academy of Sciences considered the matter. On June 22, 2006, the Academy released a pre-publication version of its report Report-Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years,[27]... . . . "the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium" because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods, and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales." [28]

Would someone who is more familiar with the article please restore the refs? Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 01:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Downward trend

I see that an anon editor at 87.74.14.139 has spent best part of the last 24 hours changing the emphasis of much of this article and adding nonsense like "Global temperatures over the past 10 years have generally been in a downward trend, in contrast to the predictions of Mann's computer models." I have reverted once, but under the terms of the article probation there is not much more that I can do about this. --Nigelj (talk) 16:17, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

This was just one of a series of edits promoting fringe views and giving inaccurate unsourced statements. I've undone these changes and advised the IP editor of sanctions. . . dave souza, talk 17:48, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Article issues

1. Lost/missing refs: see item 9, above and tags in text.

2. Duplicate and confusing text: the discussion of the NRC/NAS investigation and report is split into two sections, and discusses separately the preliminary and final report. This is very confusing -- all the NRC/NAS stuff should be discussed in one section, and probably a fair bit of the fine detail can be trimmed. This is intended to be an encyclopedia article, accessible and informative to the general (educated) public.

There are (fairly minor) POV issues with these two sections -- in general, I got the impression that the NAS/NRC criticisms were downplayed a bit. I've started fixing these & will continue. Also see the Cuffey discussion, below.

3. Item 1 (top of this page) has never really been addressed: the article still "looks like a committee report with too many fine details and is not quite readable for those outside the field."

Please feel free to add to this list -- or just pitch in! The article really is a bit of a mess at present. Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 03:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Add Cuffey quote, criticism of IPCC use of HS graph

I proposed adding this sentence to The HS section of the IPCC article (proposal updated a bit from the discussion there, Pete Tillman (talk) 17:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC))

"In 2006, glaciologist Kurt Cuffey of the University of California at Berkeley, a member of the US National Research Council panel that reviewed the Hockey stick controversy, criticized the way the graph had been used by the IPCC: "I think that sent a very misleading message about how resolved this part of the scientific research was." Source: Nature's news report, 2006

Two editors pointed out that this quote, if we use it, should first be added to this article. Objections to this quote and the complete discussion are available at the IPCC article Talk page.

We're hampered because the primary reference to Cuffey's remarks, the 2006 Nature news report, has gone behind a paywall. Cuffey's comments were from a press conference at the release of the 2006 NRC/NAS report, and were widely reported at that time. It does look like Nature led with the Cuffey criticism -- if so, we should too.

If a reader has a copy, could they archive it, or email a copy to me, pdtillmanATgmailDOTcom ? TIA, Pete Tillman (talk) 03:51, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll check Infotrac for the quote, as I believe it carries Nature articles. I think the quote is appropriate for this article. Cla68 (talk) 03:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
No, Nature didn't lead with the Cuffey criticism, its one of 3 quotes at the end of the article. My question would again be: Why the Cuffey quote? Why not not one of the North quotes (the chair of the NAS panel) or the Bloomberg quote? This is a question due weight and whether a quote is representative. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 06:19, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Nature and Science have always been behind a paywall, though that's slowly changing.[9] A balanced and fully representative analysis of the report will be welcome, in the interim the full title seems reasonable. If this one quote is added, the others must also be added for balance. Regarding the tag, a great deal of improvement to this article is needed, I corrected obvious problems with the lead and will try to assist with improving the body text. . . dave souza, talk 07:49, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Kim D. Petersen kindly emailed me a copy of the Nature article -- thanks, Kim! So I (or he) can copy anyone else who'd care to read it.
As for the Cuffey quote: I hate to add in something else in a section that's already a mess. So I'll put this cleanup on my to-do list, probably in a few days, and propose to revisit the quote(s?) then. Unless someone else beats me to it? Hopefully, we can improve the article without stirring up too much controversy here.
I feel pretty strongly that the Cuffey quote belongs in the IPCC HS section; less strongly for here. If the consensus is we need more quotes for balance, so be it. Arguably that would be good, since the average reader won't be able to see the original Nature item. If we can integrate them into a good, readable, encyclopedic article.... Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 17:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with including other quotes in addition to Cuffey's. Cla68 (talk) 23:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

David Hand comments

Some recent comments from David Hand:

"The particular technique they used exaggerated the size of the blade at the end of the hockey stick. Had they used an appropriate technique the size of the blade of the hockey stick would have been smaller," he said. "The change in temperature is not as great over the 20th century compared to the past as suggested by the Mann paper."

Prof Hand praised the blogger Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit for uncovering the fact that inappropriate methods were used which could produce misleading results. "The Mann 1998 hockey stick paper used a particular technique that exaggerated the hockey stick effect," he said.

Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

New Scientist places David Hand's remarks in context. "The upwards incline on later versions of the graph has been corrected to be shorter and less exaggerated. [...] Hand said he was 'impressed' by McIntyre's statistical work. But whereas McIntyre claims that Mann's methods have 'created' the hockey stick from data that does not contain it, Hand agrees with Mann." [10] Wikispan (talk) 16:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The two articles are saying pretty much the same thing: the key word is "exaggerated" in both cases. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The Hand study clearly should be referenced in this article. However, there appears to be a bit of whitewashing going on. My attempts to add it are being persistently reverted Fell Gleaming(talk) 09:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
WP:ABF much? You inserted it into the lead where it certainly doesn't belong. The panel did not check the HS - so therefore while it may be interesting perhaps to get Hand's opinion, it is a minor detail for somewhere in the body. (and we have a problem with WP:NOT#NEWS here as Stephan points out). The lead is a summary of the article - and Hand's opinion summerizes nothing.
Of other problems with your changes:
  • "dismissed as faulty" => "challenged" - is a completely wrong summary of the S&B paper. POV [and a misleading editsummary to boot]
  • "More than a dozen" => "Nearly a dozen" - please look up what "upwards of" means.
--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 09:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
It would seem to merit a sentence or two somewhere in the middle, but it's not quite clear to me exactly where best to put it. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The keyword is "personal opinion" of someone who hasn't A) been involved in the research B) examined the research [nope that wasn't what the panel did] C) Not an expert D) Diffuse (we have no idea what he means or by how much) E) Sourced only to news. Seems to be quite WP:UNDUE. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
"The Hand study clearly should be referenced in this article." Which study are you referring to? Wikispan (talk) 17:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I see a lack of consistency in this position. Citing personal opinion of uninvolved individuals is standard journalistic and encyclopedic practice. As for "not an expert", Hand analyzed only the statistical techniques being used. On this topic, he is verifiably much more of an expert than Mann himself. Fell Gleaming(talk) 15:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

What lack of consistency? Yes, we cite personal opinions when and iff the opinions are notable within the context of the issue in question. Hand (afaikt) has not analyzed the "statistical techniques being used" - since it wasn't a CRU paper [and there is nothing in the report about this]. And Hand is definitively not more of an expert on this particular issue than "Mann himself". Otherwise you would be able to claim that any statistician should be an more of an expert on topics where statistical methods are used. Hand's opinions are certainly notable within the context of the CRU debacle - but my argument is that it isn't here. Opinions that are notable in this context is von Storch, Mann etc. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Please explain why you believe the opinion of perhaps the most eminent statistician in the world -- and certainly the most eminent one in Britain-- is not competent to comment on statistical methods being used, after he has reviewed them. Your argument is like complaing a Supreme Court Justice can't comment on the legality of your speeding ticket, because he wasn't there when the officer wrote it. Fell Gleaming(talk) 17:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
What study? All we seem to have is a brief news report of an apparently off-the-cuff verbal statement, made by the kind of reporters who commonly misunderstand or misrepresent scientific issues. If Hand wants to make a significant statement, he should make it in writing, preferably in a peer reviewed journal. . . dave souza, talk 19:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
So your position is we should remove from all WP articles all statements made in interviews by scientists? The only thing admissable should be peer-reviewed journal papers?
As for the contention that it was an "off the cuff" remark, that is clearly contradicted by the source. Hand was specifically tasked to study the material as part of the CRU scandal. Do you need to see another source on this? Fell Gleaming(talk) 19:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh really? Why, then, is there no mention of Mann in the report? . . . dave souza, talk 19:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Or of the hockey-stick for that matter. The only thing that comes close is a comment on lack of mention of uncertainties on tree-ring studies... and that was specifically for presentation usage (by others) - where as they note in the report that all scientific papers had sufficient disclosure of such. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Hand appears to have been expanding on the otherwise somewhat cryptic comment "Although inappropriate statistical tools with the potential for producing misleading results have been used by some other groups, presumably by accident rather than design" in the report. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
He might have - then again - he might not. Not really an hypothesis that we can use, unless we get a confirmation of it. On the other hand, both the Wegman and the NRC reviews said that methodologies chosen were problematic - Wegman doesn't go further - but the NRC panel states that it had little to no effect.. Since they [CRU panel] apparently only looked at CRU material, we can't use Hand as an expert source on something that he hasn't examined. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

This is torturous pseudo-logic. Hand looked at the material. Are you suggesting he lied, when he said that, when using proper statistical techniques, the hockey stick became flatter, but the underlying signal still existed? We have a reliable source, the subject is preeminently notable, and the comments extraordinarily apropos to the article's topic. Any other viewpoint is POV pushing. Fell Gleaming(talk) 20:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, your reasoning is indeed tortuous pov pushing. Some unclear comments in a press conference about a different topic don't count for much. . . dave souza, talk 20:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Editors and journalists at several of Britain's largest news organizations found them clear enough to report. And you feel I'm POV pushing? Fell Gleaming(talk) 22:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The particular technique they used exaggerated the size of the blade at the end of the hockey stick is odd. Remember, the "up" bit of the HS at the end is the instrumental temperature record - you can't alter that with different reconstructions. The "shaft" bit is the bit we all have such fun arguing about William M. Connolley (talk) 21:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

a) It's quite clear You exaggerate the blade by altering the baseline of the shaft, rather than its slope, and b) you're attempting to do original research. Hand's statement was that the effect was exaggerated, period. Fell Gleaming(talk) 22:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
No, because if (a) is correct the size of the blade of the hockey stick would have been smaller, makes no sense at all. Your OR stuff is just running away from the argument William M. Connolley (talk) 22:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

"Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, said that a graph shaped like an ice hockey stick that has been used to represent the recent rise in global temperatures had been compiled using “inappropriate” methods.... Wednesday’s report – commissioned by UEA with advice from the Royal Society, the UK’s prestigious national science academy ... criticised climate experts for failures in handling statistics."

“It is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians,” the report concluded.

I have to agree with the others here that this obviously has no relevance whatsoever and should be prevented from any inclusion in Wikipedia.99.142.15.173 (talk) 01:33, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hand's criticism is legimate and credible. He agrees that the hockey stick is basically sound, but that it's somewhat exaggerated. The source (New Scientist) is solid. We're going to have to come up with compromise sentence or two about it to include in this article. Cla68 (talk) 01:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Temperature variations during the last 1000 years
Hand hasn't said anything that isn't already thoroughly included in the article. Despite Mann et al 's 1998 paper having made clear that better reconstructions are needed (since provided by many other scientists with further work still in progress), it has been well criticized for excessive smoothing of the presented curve, both in the RSs and here in the WP article. The more recent reconstructions are well discussed and well shown both in the text and in the composite reconstruction graph (at right--which somehow still looks a bit like a hockey stick?-- or maybe it's just me). Hand's off-the-cuff comment appears to add little or nothing compelling that isn't already thoroughly discussed. I'd say a brief one-sentence mention of Hand's criticism of the statistical methods used in the Mann study would be more than adequate, say something like "Statistician David Hand has also criticized the statistical methods used in the Mann et al study." with a link to the quote. ... Kenosis (talk) 14:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Let me see if I'm reading this right. In the Telegraph article, Hand is quoted as saying The change in temperature is not as great over the 20th century compared to the past as suggested by the Mann paper and Had they used an appropriate technique the size of the blade of the hockey stick would have been smaller. Now, setting aside the necessary caveat that I've never seen a journalist get a quote exactly right (even when they use quotation marks, my experience is that they're paraphrasing), what he's saying is that join between the temperatures at the beginning of the 20th century are, in his opinion, too low. Looking at the graph, it would appear that he's talking about that little dip, right before the steep climb for the 20th century. That dip and climb come right around the time that the instrumental record begins.

Now look at two other comments in that article: the graph would be more like a field hockey stick than the ice hockey blade it was originally compared to and the graph do not make clear when these different sets of data are used. Now look back at the graph. How does a field hockey stick differ from an ice hockey stick? And ice hockey stick meets the blade at an angle, while a field hockey stick has a curve. Again - two different data sets were used and blade of the hockey stick would have been smaller. In other words, it appears that Hand is saying that the pre-20th century data was fitted separately from the 20th century data, and the two plots were joined. If they had been treated as a single data set, that final dip would have disappeared and the curve-fitting algorithm would have smoothed that angular change. I don't know if the appropriate response is "duh", or "given the difference in confidence intervals around different measures, is that really appropriate". Though, if that is the case, he's right in saying "they should have said so", if that is, in fact, what they did. Guettarda (talk) 21:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the caveats re journalists are important. But again disregarding them for the moment, The change in temperature is not as great over the 20th century compared to the past as suggested by the Mann paper only makes sense if you reverse it to: The change in temperature is greater in the past as compared to the 20th century as suggested by the [MBH] paper (compared to the past, the 20C (and a bit further back) is far better known; so that bit isn't in doubt at the moment). So I think the issue is not the join at the start of 20C, but the variability before then (this has been the question all along). So I think as Kenosis has suggested, Hand is saying nothing new, and isn't saying it in a very illuminating way. I can't make any sense of the graph would be more like a field hockey stick at all William M. Connolley (talk) 22:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
YES. As WMC already knows, the proxies are developed by correlating a given proxy measurement (ice cores, tree rings, etc.) to the instrumental temperature record. It's how they're derived in the first place, which is why the curves tend to align well in the years after instrumental temperature records began. Only after developing such correlations can they be extrapolated farther into the past. ... Kenosis (talk) 02:27, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally I'm puzzled where the Torygraph gets Prof Hand singled out a 1998 paper by Prof Mann of Pennsylvania State University, a constant target for climate change sceptics, as an example of this. He said the graph... from. Is that supposed to be a quote from the report? Also He agreed the graph would be more like a field hockey stick than the ice hockey blade it was originally compared to. - as said above, that is hard to understand. But "he agreed" suggests that the journo threw a suggestion at him and he didn't say no William M. Connolley (talk) 22:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

This is indeed worrying – if Hand is correct and the graph should look more like a Field hockey stick,[11] the graph instead of turning up sharply at an angle, curves round past the vertical and begins heading backwards. Time travel or end times? I do recall some variation in sticks when I played it at school, but none the less... Even more worrying, the most eminent statistician in the world, as recorded by the Daily Telegraph, "singled out a 1998 paper by Prof Mann of Pennsylvania State University, a constant target for climate change sceptics, as an example of this. He said the graph, that showed global temperature records going back 1,000 years, was exaggerated..." – but MBH98 only goes back to 1400, which by my amateur arithmetic is going back 610 years. Can it be that Hand can't count? Or is it more likely that the newspapers have mangled his statements? . . . dave souza, talk 22:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
And why does he say "would be smaller", "would be more like" — it sounds like he didn't actually bother to check it out. His point would have been much more convincing if he actually produced a graph himself — like M&M did. Lars T. (talk) 23:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The situation is very clear. The entire controversy is over whether or not M&M's claims of inappropriate statistical methods being used are valid. When one of the most preeminent statisticians in the world says they are, that's a crucial part of the debate. Hand's conclusion was not "off the cuff"; it came after he studied the graph and the methods used. To say his conclusion that the methods were flawed, and the graph exaggerated is "already covered elsewhere in the article" is whitewashing. Some of us may just not like the fact, but its a valid part of the debate -- made even more valid by the fact the conclusion was reached by a person with no interest in the debate, rather than another climate scientist with a vested interest. Fell Gleaming(talk) 02:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

As of the last time I checked in here I'm sure I'd advocated that a sentence like ''Statistician David Hand has also criticized the statistical methods used in the Mann et al study." would be more than adequate. IOW, by all means add Hand to the list of Mann's critics. But please be extremely brief, as Hand hasn't said anything that adds substantively to the various criticisms of Mann et al 's excessive smoothing of the curve on the comparatively limited data set they worked with leading up to their 1998 paper. ... Kenosis (talk) 02:57, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Please reflect on due weight. FG's claims are (from what i've read in references) bogus. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
A reasonable point too. Well short of reasonably starting something like a List of critics of the statistical methods used by Michael E. Mann in his 1998 paper, it seems to me, as I said, that there's nothing new here--Mann has already been well criticized for the excessive curve-smoothing. But if it's to be included in the article beyond merely adding Hand to the list of Mann's critics, perhaps such an inclusion should also mention Hand's statement that even under his estimation of the preferred yield of state-of-the-art statistical methods to the data set with which Mann et al was working (conveniently pointed out by the later studies in the composite graph shown in the article and above on this talk page) the graph still looks to him like a hockey stick, :-) IOW, by Hand's account, the real dispute is "what kind of hockey stick does it look like? ... Kenosis (talk) 03:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict)If we had such a list - then it would be due weight to include. Inclusion here seems to be based only upon: This is a critic thus we must include - which is undue weight, if its not notable critique. And so far (including your arguments) it isn't a notable criticism. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
" ...it came after he studied the graph and the methods used" <- Erm? Where do you get this from? Hand hasn't (according to any of the things i've seen) done so. He also doesn't seem to mention M&M anywhere (and they weren't part of the investigation either), so where does that come in? Perhaps there is some reference i haven't seen? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
No one said Hand mentioned M&M. The fact remains the controversy began with their criticism of the statistical methods used. As for Hand's comments, how do you believe he can conclude inappropriate methods were used, unless he knew what those methods were? And how would know what methods were used, if he didn't examine the methodology? Still further, how could he conclude what the correct shape of the graph should be, had he not looked at the data? When one of the world's most eminent statisticians is asked to review the statistical treatment of data, the remarks he gives upon presenting his report are the results of that review. Trying to suggest Hand perhaps lied or shirked his duty is outrageous.
The facts are incontrovertible. Despite obfuscatory contortions to the contrary, when a scientist states they've found flaws in someone's else work, then they've studied it. We can only surmise about the degree or accuracy of their analysis, but that analysis certainly exists. Fell Gleaming(talk) 03:22, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Thats a rather extreme amount of speculation (in other words 100% WP:OR). None of your "facts" are incontrovertible - in fact they are all extrapolation based on assumption. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:47, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
A direct quote in a reliable source is not WP:OR The original research here is the reasoning used to fabricate a belief that verifiable quotes aren't really verifiable, unless we know personal details about the person who said them. Fell Gleaming(talk) 04:22, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Press conferences aren't reliable sources for the analysis of statistical methodology. Guettarda (talk) 05:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I see that the silliness still goes on. The invented ideas of undue weight and equal validity - neither of which are actual concepts or they'd have articles - are being used to justify circumvention of Wikipedia's original neutrality policy.

Why not let each side in the controversy present its arguments and evidence, and let the reader make up his or her own mind? --Uncle Ed (talk) 04:08, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Ed, if you want to change policy, you are well aware what the proper venue would be. Guettarda (talk) 05:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok, it has been a few days now. What is the proposed sentence(s) that have been proposed on Hand's opinion? If no one has offered one, I'll do so soon. Remember, the recent CRU investigative report noted that the CRU had failed to consult with professional statisticians to help them with their work. This seems to be a recurring theme surrounding the hockey stick controversy. Therefore, Hand's opinion is germane to this narrative. Cla68 (talk) 11:57, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Cla - perhaps its because you aren't familiar with the research - but the CRU investigative report has nothing to do with the hockeystick (and doesn't mention it at all). Hand hasn't examined anything about the HS, and he isn't an expert on the subject. The reason for this is that it the HS paper isn't CRU research (which was what the panel examined). This has been mentioned several times in this section - so please take some time and read it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Why the hell are we not arguing if a throw-away sentence even can be considered a critique? It's not like Hand has written a paper on the issue — that would have a foot to stand on. Lars T. (talk) 16:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Hand did write a paper on the issue.[12] "Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, said that a graph shaped like an ice hockey stick that has been used to represent the recent rise in global temperatures had been compiled using “inappropriate” methods.... Wednesday’s report – commissioned by UEA with advice from the Royal Society, the UK’s prestigious national science academy ... criticised climate experts for failures in handling statistics."

“It is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians,” the report concluded. [13] 99.141.241.135 (talk) 19:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we have read the report - and it is not about the Hockey-stick. It is about the CRU, and the purported scientific problems there ... which it incidentally dismisses rather thoroughly. In case you've missed it: The MBH paper is not a CRU paper. [its purely US science] --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Please contact the Financial Times of London. We are not able to "second guess" their reporting. Their reliably sourced, notable, germane, and neutral report is clear:
"Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, said that a graph shaped like an ice hockey stick that has been used to represent the recent rise in global temperatures had been compiled using “inappropriate” methods.... Wednesday’s report – commissioned by UEA with advice from the Royal Society, the UK’s prestigious national science academy ... criticised climate experts for failures in handling statistics."
“It is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians,” the report concluded."
Any debate regarding the "correctness" of the FT's reporting is beyond our purview.99.141.241.135 (talk) 20:50, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Well - since we can verify the information in the FT from the actual report (and read that the FT is doing second hand reporting based on the Telegraph source) - we do not need to contact them. The CRU investigative team did not check the hockey-stick, because it is not a CRU paper - or CRU research. That Hand (probably answering a question from a journalist) states some personal views on the issue - is rather irrelevant, when he hasn't done any research on the issue.
Nb: Verifying and making sure sources are chosen that are correct, is part of the editorial process on Wikipedia - we do not blindly put in erroneous or suspected erroneous text - just because it can be verified. That in fact would be a perversion of the Wikipedia ideals. We use only verifiable information - we do not use all verifiable information. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:16, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Agree, "a perversion of Wikipedia ideals" is clearly at hand. The most obvious and blatant being your interpreting the source document to re-write the secondary report. Please read Wikipedia policy on primary and secondary sources. It's crystal clear:
Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.
99.141.241.135 (talk) 21:22, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the specific policy w.r.t. using primary sources is:

Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source can be used only to make descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge.

Note the statement "A primary source can be used only to make descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge." That's one issue. Another is the basic editorial decision whether to use this material at all in this article (which is what the discussion has largely been about thus far) and also about how might we do so if we were to use it at all.

As to your assertion that resistance to the use of the Financial Times material is a perversion of WP ideals, to be frank it's ridiculous and amounts to nothing more than your insistence that we follow your POV here. We're discussing, and thus far in this discussion there's no credible case for the use in the article of material from the report of the CRU inquiry (a primary source for the seven member panel's official view) because the seven member panel made no reference whatsoever to the Mann hockey stick. However, as WP editors we have every right to double-check David Hand's off-the-cuff remarks to a reporter from the Financial Times to try to discern whether he was speaking for himself or for the panel, and it's pretty clear he was speaking for himself and that the Financial Times is not a secondary source w.r.t. anything to do with the hockey stick per se, but is instead a secondary source for the panel's report on their CRU inquiry, to the extent that the FT selectively quotes one statement from the report.

The Financial Times article is, though, a primary source for Hand's remarks. In this context, this discussion is, again, about our editorial decision whether to report these remarks, and if so, how to report these remarks such that they can be double-checked by anybody with a general education. ... Kenosis (talk) 23:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you think that bold makes you more correct? Sorry but the CRU report is there for all to read - please do so - and once you find a single mention that they have studied the hockey-stick - then come back. Until then, its just Hand's personal opinion. And while Hand's opinion is relevant in Climatic Research Unit email controversy, because the report is directly involved with that - it isn't relevant here. Please stop beating that unfortunate cadaver of an equine. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:16, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Your claim that Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, and published author this week on a report commissioned by the CRU criticizing the statistical interpretation represented by the hockey stick graph is somehow not-relevant to this article on that self-same hockey stick graph just boggles the mind. It is absurd.99.141.241.135 (talk) 22:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Yep. If the report on the CRU had been reviewing the hockey-stick - then it would have been relevant. But it wasn't - it didn't even touch upon it. What we have is Hand's purely personal views - in a newspaper article. And Hand's personal views when he hasn't researched or touched upon the research topic is WP:UNDUE. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Your biased manipulation of Wikipedia for directed conclusions is transparent. There is no basis in any Wikipedia practice, policy or existing article to block such relevant, reliable and well reported comments from such a central figure speaking with absolute topicality on this very subject. This is like seeking reason at Alice's Tea Party. 99.141.241.135 (talk) 22:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Your promotion of fringe views is blatant and unsustainable. Hand's comments are not well reported, clarification when he's actually studied the subject will be welcome. . . dave souza, talk 22:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society comments being reported in the Financial Times of London's newspaper is anything but fringe. Your claim otherwise is without basis and demonstrates all the hallmarks of editing without even the pretense of neutrality or good faith.99.141.241.135 (talk) 22:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
It is perfectly obvious that The Telegraph—and consequently the FT and Fox News—erred by conflating the CRU report with impromptu remarks made during presentation. Nowhere does the aforementioned study touch on this temperature reconstruction, which is clearly outside of their remit (the British panel had no business critiquing the work of a University in the United States). A majority of news outlets reported the story correctly. That is the most important consideration. Wikispan (talk) 01:31, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Ok, I propose the following sentences be added to the end of the "Updates" section so that if falls in chronological order, "David Hand, president of the UK's Royal Statistical Society and a member the Oxburgh panel which investigated the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit regarding its involvement in the email controversy, criticized Mann's methods of statistical analysis in producing the hockey stick graph which Hand says produced an exaggerated result. Hand stated that the hockey stick shape is genuine, but that the shape should look, "More like a field-hockey stick than an ice-hockey stick."[ref NewScientist]. Now, the president of the UK's most prestigious statistical institute is not fringe. Two sentences on his opinion in an article of this length is not undue weight. Please give your thoughts on my suggestion. Cla68 (talk) 07:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
How is it that you are still unable to grasp that the CRU investigation has nothing to do with the HS? This is Hand's personal view - and it has no relevancy here (no matter how much one inflates his credentials). In fact you've addressed exactly zero of the comments given above on relevancy and weight - instead you've chosen to present a straw-man with the fringe comment (which as far as i can tell - no one has brought up [except the anon contrib. who is for inclusion]). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 08:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Sory kim, are you saying that Hands critique of the hockey stick should not be in the Hockey stick controversy article? How peculiar. Of course this should be in this article, it is highly relevant to the article mark nutley (talk) 08:32, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
How is it "highly relevant"? He is not an expert on the topic. He hasn't published any papers/reports or any other such scientific material on the topic. He hasn't examined the research professionally. etc. Just because someone has a view on something, doesn't mean that it is relevant. What exactly is his critique, and how does it differ from what is already in the article? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 09:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Erm, are you really saying that David Hand, the president of the Royal Statistical Society is not expert enough to comment on the statistical methods used in mbh98? That`s a joke right? mark nutley (talk) 09:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
You are not answering my question. But just to comment: No just because Hand is a statistician - and a rather notable one - doesn't mean that his views are relevant. They would be relevant if he had actually studied the subject and published something about it. We are now at the 3rd or 4th iteration of this particular circular argumentation. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 09:14, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
From what I understand, the two subjects (CRU emails and hockey stick) are related because the leaked emails reveal that the RealClimate blog authors, who spend a lot of time defending the hockey stick, and CRU traded advice on how to stymie requests from Stephen McIntyre for data. McIntyre is a respected statistician. I assume that this is at least part of the reason that Hand recommended adding the criticism of the CRU for not consulting with statisticians to the investigative report and why he brought up the hockey stick graph in his post-report comments. Currently, this is speculation on my part. Nevertheless, I'm still not seeing any reason not to include Hand's, who is an expert on statistics and statistics is at the heart of the hockey stick graph controversy, opinion in the article. Right now it appears to be three-to-one (counting the IP) to include. Cla68 (talk) 12:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
"McIntyre is a respected statistician." ((tl|faact}}. Hipocrite (talk) 12:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
McIntyre's work was praised by the President of the Royal Statistical Society, Professor David Hand - and by Professor Richard A. Muller writing in MIT's Technology Review[14] amongst many others. These are eminent, distinguished and qualified experts speaking with unmistakable clarity. Your opinion obviously differs - publish it and we can give it all the consideration it's due.
Blocking Hand's comments as "fringe", "amateur", or "irrelevant off-topic" is bizarre. To deny the notability of Hand's comments on this article's subject is beyond the pale and of absolute and pure bad faith editing -it's tendentious and detrimental to the neutral and encyclopedic mission of the project. It is absurd.99.141.241.135 (talk) 18:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
You are starting to invent things. No one here has been "Blocking Hand's comments as "fringe", "amateur", or "irrelevant off-topic"" --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Well Cla. you understood wrong. The hockey-stick is a particular temperature reconstruction, that has nothing to do with the CRU, since it was a purely US work. What has or hasn't been going on in the emails has nothing to do with the temperature reconstruction. When Hand is making a statement on the HS - then he isn't talking about something that he has examined or in other ways been professionally involved in... He is stating his personal views. And while these may be interesting - they are just views. It doesn't really matter how much you (or others) puff or boldface his credentials (he could have a nobel price for that matter) - if he hasn't examined it in a professional aspect, or published on it - then his views are rather irrelevant. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
How do you know he has not? mark nutley (talk) 20:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Proving a negative --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
So you're unable to prove that your negative claim is true? Did you just make it up or did you read his mind? Or do you just know it? Maybe you just want to believe it might be so? 99.141.241.135 (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
KDF, perhaps you should read the article on intellectual honesty.99.141.241.135 (talk) 20:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Frankly, I find it ridiculous that Hand's notable, expert and on-topic comments are rejected with such ferocity and absolutism until now. I just read the article on you in the National Post, "if you have read a climate change article on Wikipedia -- or on any controversial subject that may have its own Kim Dabelstein Petersen -- beware. Wikipedia is in the hands of the zealots."[15] This discussion of Hand is a Textbook example, and you are its poster child. .99.141.241.135 (talk) 21:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm gong to file a content RfC on it later today or tomorrow. Cla68 (talk) 00:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
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