Intellectually Bankrupt

Steve McIntyre takes apart the "FAQ" about the "extended hockeystick".

Real Climate Science™ is intellectually bankrupt.

[Update] Ross McKitrick weighs in:

This isn’t just a filibuster, they are defending themselves on the grounds that their paper made an incredibly subtle misrepresentation and it’s the reader’s fault for not noticing. Without the closing uptick, the main implication of their reconstruction is that, in the 20th century, we experienced the coldest conditions of the Holocene. With the uptick, we experienced nearly the warmest. The sharp uptick in the instrumental record can only be compared against their reconstruction if they can show their low-frequency proxies are capable of registering such events. If the 20th century portion of their reconstruction does not have the same uptick as the instrumental record, we would conclude that it could have missed similar swings in earlier centuries as well, so the absence of such swings in the earlier part of their graph tells us nothing about the presence or absence of decadal and century-scale warming events. Likewise, an annual or decadal observation from the modern instrumental record cannot be compared against values from their reconstruction, if their reconstruction is not capable of resolving events at that time scale.

But that is precisely what they do in Figure 3 of their paper, and it is the basis of their claim that “Global temperature, therefore, has risen from near the coldest to the warmest levels of the Holocene within the past century, reversing the long-term cooling trend that began ~5000 yr B.P.” Without the uptick in their proxy reconstruction this kind of statement could never have been made. The presence of the uptick in the proxy graph validates their comparison of the instrumental record against the proxy record. By admitting that the uptick is not robust and cannot be a basis for any conclusions they have undermined their own findings, root and branch.

Moreover, they can’t conceal the fact that they defended the robustness of the uptick in their paper. Marcott et al. stated that a RegEM variant reconstruction eliminated 0.6 of the 0.7 C closing uptick, but that due to data limitations the difference between reconstructions was “probably not robust” (p. 1198). In the context this implies that they consider the size of the closing uptick to be insensitive to choice of methodology, in other words that the uptick is robust.

But now they say the 20th century uptick is not robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and is not the basis of any of our conclusions. Did they know this prior to drawing Figure 3 and inserting it in their paper, and if so, how could they not have been aware that it would convey a false impression to the reader? Contrary to Revkin, the issue isn’t just the definitive statements they made in the media but the claims they made in the paper itself.

[Update] But let's hear what Mike "the man" Mann has to say: (via)

This is an important paper. The key take-home conclusion is that the rate and magnitude of recent global warmth appears unprecedented for at least the past 4,000 years and the rate at least the past 11,000. …

But, again, the take-home conclusion: the rate of warming appears to be unprecedented as far back as the authors are able to go (to the boundary with the last ice age). And the rate of warming appears to have no analog in the past, as far back as the authors are able to go.

But, again, the take-home conclusion: Real Climate Scientists™ like Mike Mann are intellectually bankrupt, while so called "citizen scientists" like Steve McIntyre (he hates the term, BTW, because he *IS* scientifically trained and not a "mere" citizen from the street) or Ross McKitrick do their very best with their analysis and their nagging questions to keep the field scientific. Or let me paraphrase Bill Hicks:

Misrepresent your study like that, you’re off the scientific roll call forever. End of story. Everything you say is suspect. Every word that comes out of your mouth is like a t*rd falling into my drink.