I’ve posted my Ohio State presentation online – 11 MB. I’ve done a little extra work and integrated the PPT pictures with the script and provided most of the references in a bibliography. There’s quite a lot of material, but I hit my time point (an hour) quite accurately. (A reader compressed this to 1 MB here and the rendering is OK for some purposes but is imperfect.)
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Climate Audit 
75 Comments
Zotero really reduced the pain of doing a bibliography; it works really well. I may write up similar notes for the parts of my Georgia Tech presentation where I covered different ground – though at this point, it would be notes on the presentation rather than a script.
Steve, it’s great to have the whole story written out so clearly and readably and in such detail. When are you going to write a book?
What a wonderful summary of your OSU talk. Everyone who reads your blog should read every word of this talk. As a 1961 graduate of Ohio State’s Geology department I’m especially pleased and proud you gave your talk at OSU. After reading this I don’t see how anyone with even a single functioning brain cell could still have faith in any of the IPCC work. In the past I’ve directed some pretty harsh comments at Steve. I take them all back. Sorry.
I concur with the commenters who are saying that this is an excellent presentation. This entire controversy make an excellent thesis topic for students in sociology or history.
That’s what I call a visually pretty paper. More generally, there starts to be a real competition pool even among the skeptics. 😉
I agree with the consensus that this is a very nice presentation.
Question: How was the message received and what feedback have you had?
Steve, thanks for this. If you don’t mind, I’ll put the link to this presentation on my blog.
So much material, so little time and space. Great summary!
I look forward to the Ga Tech summary. These should be chapters 1 and 2. I attended the Ga Tech lecture, and gained a much clearer understanding of PC reconstruction process, the weighting of the proxies in the reconstructions, and the spurious regression issues also covered at OSU. My Mathcad program has a tutorial on PC analysis, and I’m slowly working my way through it.
Thanks.
Nice work!
Excellent paper Steve. I strongly recommend CA visitors read it and disseminate it widely.
definitely worth the time to read and to hit the tip jar
I think some under appreciate your nuance. As a hyperbolist, I don’t.
nicely done.
Just as a note, I get a “File Damaged and can’t be repaired” message from Adobe Reader when trying to open the presentation file. Could it be Firefox 2.0 or Adobe 8, anyone else experiencing trouble and any suggestions ? I’d rather not have to revert to MS Exploder.
I use Firefox and just checked – it opened OK. I just inserted a microscopically amended version with a couple of typos fixed.
I’m really enjoying the presentation.
I think in page 28, when you say “younger dendrochronologists realized that this sort of explanation was not unacceptable”, it shoud be read “younger dendrochronologists realized that this sort of explanation was not acceptable“.
Excuse my poor english in case not.
Steve – fixed
I got the “File Damaged”, tried again, seemed to hang (no net traffic), hit “RELOAD” whole PC seemed to lock up.
My guess is a FF issue, but I’m not sure yet.
Re: 13 – Ed
I also ge the same message when trying to open it through Explorer and Adobe 8.
Excellent presentation, deserving of the coveted “BADGE 714” seal of approval! Although it might have been tempting, you resisted retelling the frightful discovery of the “CENSORED…” directory. IMO, this was a good choice, since it would have taken away from your “just the facts” exposure of why BCPs are not to be used as temperature proxies.
BTW, the non-tree-ring Loehle&McCulloch’08 (figure 39) reconstruction looks like it stops at ~1940? I thought these series were 1960ish with calibration and averaging periods. It will good to see that reconstruction updated.
Stupid thing to say. Of course FF has an issue. I tell it to use Adobe.
I tried again, it hung again–decided to try a Micosoft Reset (nee CTL_ALT_DEL). As things shut down, found anohter “file damaged” error.
I got to find the open software PDF reader and trhy that. But I’ll try once more–Adobe usually works once per reboot.
That worked–quickly. I really do need to find a replacement for Adobe.
About the paper: WOW!
No trouble for me in PDF (sometimes it’s better to save it off than to let a browser open it…) but the links don’t seem to work, and sometimes they’re URls and sometimes a hyperlink name CA post_number and sometimes a mix, but Steve did say it was put together without trying to make it perfect. What was that green square in the tree proxy graph for example.
Excellent, concise, meaningful. With references and clear explanations, it would seem even to those not familiar with any of it (although using 6-7 sigma might be a bit daunting for some).
It’s a great paper!
Very accessible even to non-statisticians, I think.
Dear Steve,
this is a great text, I really enjoyed reading it and I will recommend it to as many
people as I can find. Sorry, for nitpicking it.
Please delete this post after looking at it!
I found some typos, mostly missing *space*:
page 3 *space* after 1999
page 6 2005) *space* –
page 10 2x ))
page 13 2x ((
page 15 a *space* to much
page 16 perhaps insert a pagebreak before 1)
page 21 3x *space* before ( missing
page 22 *space* before ( and move the dot
page 24 *space* too much in the bracket in the figure caption
page 25 *space* (Bri
page 31 *space* before (2003) after (2000)
page 33 Schuechter
page 36 double bracket and missing dot
page 38 *space* after (You 2006) and move the dot
All the best and I am truely sorry for doing this to you 🙂
LoN
Steve: Thx. Got most of them and will re-post in next iteration.
Re # 10 Ross’s comments – will do both. Great for the lay person.
Yep. With respect to the graphs, I can translate “6-7 sigma” into, “a big number”.
But I get the drift.
It’s great to see the periodic recapitulations of this evolving story told so well.
The interview / debate was fun to listen to also. Left me wanting to hear more from both sides.
Thanks.
As much as I hate to be part of a “consensus”, I have to agree with the other commenters: this is a great presentation!
I don’t mind being part of a consensus. I only object to being told that a consensus proves anything.
My daddy never used the word that I can recall, but he did say things like “If everybody was hammering on their thumb, would you think hammering on your thumb was a good idea.”
I didn’t learn near as much as I might have, but I did learn that.
Wow, what a piece of work.
Thank You Mr. McIntyre!
I have been trying to learn this stuff for a over a year. This helped me get over the top, I think. When I saw that knarly knot of wood being used for a proxy I knew that I finally got it.
PC’s are simply weighted data, am I right?
If a climate ‘scientist’ refuses to share his scientific methods, he cannot be in a scientific debate.
Incredibly well done…
One more typo that I don’t think anyone has mentioned. Page 20, Figure 16 caption: “bottom” has an “e”.
Very, very good (as was your radio interview). Unfortunately, I get such a whiff of “lysenkoism” in the Mann, et al. and the media response to your orginal HS criticisms that it saddens me greatly.
Keep up the good work!
One hour from transcipt to .pdf? I’m jealous. Great presentation! Attention must be paid.
Regards,
Steve: No, the presentation took an hour. What took the longest was making the PPT. I wrote the script in one pass. Inserting pictures into the script took a long time, as did inserting references.
As an update, Exploder (v6) opened it fine, so maybe it is FF, must try it with safari later.
So having read it I agree with almost everyone, it is an excellent summary of “the story so far”. Succinct and yet packed with the issues that make this whole area so problematic. It deserves a far wider audience, thought of posting it to Climatedebate ?
The only problem I see is that it seems so clear, so decisive, that the usual/general AGW mob can’t read it and believe any of it without having to either perform extraordinary mental contortions or to reappraise their beliefs in this particular area. So they will take the normal course, abuse and ad hom, with visions of petro-dollars everywhere.
Steve…I have not followed the hockey stick issue very closely because I came to this site late and never felt I could catch up with and follow the issues you were raising. As a result, I have been far more (and narrowly) focused on surface temperatures and the historical record. Your presentation at OSU was a wonderfully complete synopsis of the hockey stick topic/saga and it left me feeling newly educated. I have newfound appreciation and respect for your curiosity and insight in this particular matter, and I feel better equipped to follow posts on the subject in the future!
Not trying to butter you up – I really got a lot out of the presentation!
Devastating!
A few minor corrections:
pg 6: “meanwhile in response to being attacked by Mann’s blog realclimate.” Replace period with a comma
Pg 28 In the IPCC Third Assessment Report they did worse than simply ignoring the problem.” Substitute “ignore” for “ignoring.”
Pg 33, “. . .but wish to draw to interesting articles to your attention.” Substitute “two” for “to.”
Pg 36: “But can these proxies be put together in a comparable way . . . ” Add question mark at the end.
Pg 39: One important difference is that climate science typically report their results . . .” Substitute “scientists for “science.”
Re the overall performance? You went into his house and scored 50 points. (He shall go nameless.)
Re: #12
The message came through clear as a bell. This well-done presentation should be linked prominently at CA as a primer for critiquing the problems of statistical (and scientific) applications of some climate scientists. The theme running through it need not be explicitly pointed to.
Page 39
“their results in highly summary form”
Should, I think, be
“their results in a highly summarized form”
Dear Steve, thanks for the kind words on my work. It will be interesting to see how many people download your presentation, which is very thorough and well done.
Steve:
As ever, this is an impressive piece of work. What kind of follow up have you had from the faculty and students in the audience?
There were a few questions, but, as I recall, they were more about “big picture” things, rather than anything in my talk. I’ll defer to any other recollections as I did not take notes of the questions.
The lecture was sponsored by an Engineering department, not Climate Science. Other than Prof Wali, with whom I participated in the radio interview and who was courteous enough to come to the lecture, I have no direct evidence that any other Ohio State climate scientist attended the lecture and certainly not Lonnie Thompson. Some engineers, economists, mathematicians and CA readers introduced themselves to me, but not any other climate scientists. I received a number of requests of copies of my talk, which is one of the reasons why I wrote up the notes.
This is not to say that there may not have been a few climate scientists who remained quiet, but there were none that challenged anything that I said. My guess is that there were a negligible number in attendance.
FWIW, I had no problem opening it with Firefox 3.0b5, which I am running under the current version of Ubuntu (8.04).
I’ll be linking to the paper at my site, some time soon, and plan to write an “executive summary” for those who know no statistics.
And, like others, I would interested to know more about the reaction to the paper.
Ditto!!
Steve:
an excellent summation, that will help both the regular and first time visitor to Climate Audit to better appreciate the various threads and place them in context.
I will be posting a link from my blog in encouragement for readers to download your talk and I have suggested you to my own department as a invited speaker for the upcoming academic year. It will be interesting to see if an invitation to you is extended as my climate realism is a minority perspective within a department fully invested in the global warming grant and publish system. At the same time, we have some good climate scientists and I feel your presentation would be an excellent platform for a productive session.
I had no trouble opening it with FF 2.0.0.14 and Adobe 8 under Vista.
Steve
An extremely readable and well reasoned piece. I am about half way through it now and the Starbucks picture is priceless!
There is an issue that this and many other of your posts here at CA has me thinking about. Climate monitoring. It seems to me that the current climate monitoring network is completely inadequate for climate monitoring. I understand the limitations of the equipment, some of it 100 years old, that is used for this purpose. However, we live in the modern age and embedded computers with correctly calibrated sensors which are autonomously connected to the internet via Wi-Fi, Cell modem, or satellite could render a tremendous service to the nation and the world in providing a well calibrated, real time temperature and other climate monitoring. Since we live in the modern age we should be able to store data on a minute by minute basis as I am absolutely convinced, based upon my own engineering monitoring of remote systems, that taking two or three data points per day and calling that good data is absolutely wrong and cannot be a basis for sound climate policy.
Good job Steve
Steve,
The 11 MB PDF you posted is a little large, I ran it through Acrobat’s Reduce File Size option and now it’s 1.2 MB. I just sent you the new PDF if you’re interested.
#46. Thanks. I’ve uploaded it as pdf/ohio.pdf replacing the large version. The larger version is still online for now, renamed as pdf/ohio.large.pdf, but the larger version is probably redundant.
Indeed a MUST read. Congratulations!
Steve –
On p. 37, I think you give me far too much credit for Loehle and McCulloch (2008). It was Craig who had the idea of averaging together proxies that had already been calibrated to temperature by their authors in published articles, in his 2007 original solo paper. I merely added the standard errors for the 2008 joint paper, in which he corrected a few of his chronologies and modified the smoothing method.
Figure 31 clears up for me the puzzle of why dO18 is considered to be sometimes a proxy for amount of precipitation. What it shows is that there is a strong seasonal in dO18, presumably caused by temperature, either locally or wherever the water is evaporating. Thus it becomes an indirect proxy for the seasonality of precipitation, as well as sometimes being a proxy for annual average temperature. But since some seasons are more likely to be wet than others, it indirectly then also becomes a proxy for amount of precipitation, whence the ambiguity of outcomes like Dasuopu and the lack of an annual average temperataure signal at sites like Mt. Logan, Bona Churchill, Sajama, etc.
Upon reading “These are not circular trees, but are contorted and asymmetric” (p. 18) I was struck by the symbolic irony of Dr. Mann posing with a very round trunk section: http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/Mann/index.html
MDM (#50):
Even with the “very round trunk section” that Mann is holding in that picture, note how asymmetrical it is. You would get very different results from cores taken at different angles. Also, it would be very difficult to know where the “original” ring was, and direct the core towards it.
In light of all that has transpired regarding these tree sections, the guy displays incredible chutzpah in keeping that photo front and center on his web site.
Re # 50-52, Willis Eschenbach told it all in one of the great moments of CA:
in his 10/18/07 post on the Almagre Strip Bark thread.
Re #53,
Re #53, my links to Willis’s post and the Almagre thread got garbled as well as Willis’s image:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2214#comment-149877
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2214
http://homepage.mac.com/williseschenbach/.Pictures/Mann_explains_treemometer.jpg“
Very nice paper, Steve! Overall a good summary of the hockeystick issue – it helped me.
However, I found it a slight bit too much “we vs. them”. I understand that it’s just a script of a presentation…maybe since it is on paper I expect it to be less aggressive – or more professional – than the blog. (I certainly don’t think that this blog is too aggressive.)
Dear Mr. McIntyre,
In your very excellent Ohio State presentation, you ask why the uncertainty in climate sensitivity has not improved from 1979 to now despite the billions of dollars of money spent on the question.
In Science, Vol 318, 26 Oct 07, p. 629, Roe and Baker published an analysis of climate models which showed that the broad uncertainies in climate sensitivity are an inevitable consequence of the positive feedbacks built into these models. The positive feedbacks obviously make the models unstable, and the instabilities inevitably give very wide uncertainties.
The obvious cure – abandoning these ever more baroque positive feedbacks – has not yet occurred to the modelers since, without the positive feedbacks, climate change ceases to be a potential catastrophe.
All best wishes on your climate studies,
Sincerely yours,
Dale R. McIntyre
SteveMc, thank you. That was an excellent presentation!
Re 43 Graham Smith: ” …my climate realism is a minority perspective within a department fully invested in the global warming grant and publish system.”
What this statement says about the current state of academia, at least in climate science, is frightening on several levels. And to think they accuse Exxon Mobile of causing bias in science?
Joe
SteveM:
Your essay provides great insight into this bizarre story. You present the science and statistics clearly, precisely, and unambiguously — an important part of the story. The harder, stranger, part involves humans and their motivations. Why, in the end, did the Hockey Stick happen? Why did it persist? What does it tell us about the nature of (some) science and (some) scientists? Arguably such questions should be left to historians of science — they will eventually reconstruct the complete history from the myriad documents — but some of these issues concern all of us right now.
In any case, let me add my thanks to the many you have already received. Your essay is excellent. I hope everyone reads it.
SteveM,
Your OSU presentation was simply brilliant and illuminating.
Thnak you.
Steve,
Thanks for a useful paper that highlights and summarizes the problems with the climate proxies. Perhaps–somehow–students in future “global warming” classes will have to consider the issues raised in this paper.
A small quibble. Your conclusion begins “In my opinion,” but science is authoritative to the extent that it is not merely a matter of opinion but clear and consistent reasoning based on the facts. A better beginning to your conclusion would be something like: “In light of the issues raised in this paper, it is my considered judgment that….”
Félicitations, Steve !
Depuis la France (Montpellier) mes félicitations et mon admiration pour ce remarquable travail qui devrait contribuer à ouvrir les yeux d’une partie de la communauté scientifique. Cela montre que l’obstination et l’intelligence peuvent combattre les pires obscurantismes.
Merci pour les citoyens du monde !
Re 21: ‘Adobe usually works once per reboot …’
Ummm, get a Mac? Preview can be your default .pdf reader.
Click to access ohioshort.pdf
is such a helpful paper, thank you!
Getting a Mac isn’t necessary. I’ve used acrobat reader for many years as have millions of others on PCs without issues. You’ve got something else wrong.
Steve: No Mac-PC discussions please.
Steve,
I’ve been absorbing CA for at least a year, maybe much more but my memory isn’t what it used to be. I have been slowly reading through the sidebar categories, links, etc… Your summary of the OSU presentation is an excellent synopsis of what is discussed here at CA and what the sidebar links address. I think this summary should be it’s own category near the top of the sidebar as a great place for newcomers to start and an informative refresher for regulars.
Thank you for the summary, and for your website.
Keith
Steve –
As an engineer, I’ve always had questions about the science behind the figures. Thank you for taking the time to look into this and to also present your findings in an easily readable format. I plan to pass this paper around to as many people as I can. I agree with many of the commenters that this is a great starting point to understand the uncertainties in the data records and the effects that can have on the conclusions drawn from that data.
Also, Re: #54, it sure looks to me like the “Actual-Medievil-not-so-warm-period” and the “What-is-falsely-believed-to-be-the-Medievil-warm-period” are different samples of the same ring-set. Kind of a glass-half-full/glass-half-empty distinction dontcha think? Says to me, there’s more to the rings than we can simply infer.
Re: #67 and #54 – I guess I should have looked at the original photo, then I would have better understood the humor.
In the words of Emily Latella: Never mind…j
One typo on p. 28: “justify ignore” – which you may want to correct. Nice summary.
Steve, it’s great to have the whole story written out so clearly and readably and in such vivid detail. Isecond the above^^^ way up^ When can we expect a book from you?
write a book and I’ll read it! Wow great work Steve.
Thanks.
Re: Joohn Peate (#74), mindless character assassination. The classic ploy of an ideological hack.
Yes but it adds greatly to the comedy value of the place. More posts like #78 please, John: watching the head of an deranged crackpot explode is a spectacle one doesn’t get to enjoy very often.
Re: Joohn Peate (#74), ego? your comment only shows that your “ego” is the problem.
give us lurkers facts to back up you views please.
Re: Joohn Peate (#74),
LOL! More!
It doesn’t look like the link to the Ohio State presentation is working. Is there another way to get this presentation?
Thanks!
James
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[…] the persistence of the semi-infinite model assumptions in the structure of the code. In his talk at Ohio State University, Steve McIntyre concludes: Viewed from this perspective, a remarkable aspect of the climate debate […]
[…] 3. Subsequently, countless studies appeared from the Team that not only used the Yamal data in place of the Polar Urals, but where Yamal had a critical impact on the relative ranking of the 20th century versus the medieval era. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3099 […]
[…] 3. Subsequently, countless studies appeared from the Team that not only used the Yamal data in place of the Polar Urals, but where Yamal had a critical impact on the relative ranking of the 20th century versus the medieval era. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3099 […]
[…] McAuley’s World; The following is the link to the original PDF where you are free to read the full presentation: https://climateaudit.org/2008/05/22/ohio-state-presentation/ […]