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2012-02-08 06:38:11 | Error in MWP rebuttal | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 121.215.212.33 |
Someone emailed me this critique of our MWP intermediate rebuttal:
You know, that's not an unfair criticism. Is comparing a 300 year period with a decade a fair comparison? On the other hand, hockey stick graphs are essentially a visual comparison of any instant in time with the entire period previous so they implicitly make the same comparison. Thoughts? | |
2012-02-08 12:30:39 | ||
Rob Painting Rob paintingskeri@vodafone.co... 203.173.243.32 |
I'm assuming it's this poster jzk. This is how I replied. "jzk - yes it would be neat if we had a whole bunch of global proxy data with sufficient resolution (detail), say at the annual (yearly) scale, but AFAIK there's not a great deal - and we know how worked up the fake-skeptics get about the tree-ring data. You just have to work with what you have. The real dagger to the heart of the MWP (to my mind) is the global circulations. Mann's reconstruction agrees very well with how we expect the circulations, and their teleconnections to operate. Not perfectly of course, but a warm MWP wouldn't agree at all. For instance ENSO (La Nina/El Nino) was weaker (lower amplitude) then, and the natural oscillation in ENSO was longer (around 80 years?). This is consistent with a cooler tropical Pacific than today. Additionally, the Amazon rainforest was wet - consistent with a more southward displacement of the ITCZ (inter tropical convergence zone) than exists today. Again suggesting a cooler global climate back in medieval times." | |
2012-02-08 20:38:11 | Comment | |
Robert Way robert_way19@hotmail... 142.162.203.214 |
For me it is a fair point that he's brought up. comparing the warmest decade in the MWP to the warmest in the current period would be more appropriate. I personally think we have to redo a lot of our rebuttals to reflect up to date values and new studies... | |
2012-02-08 20:50:53 | Updating rebuttals | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 121.215.212.33 |
For sure we need to update many rebuttals. We also need many more hours in the day! | |
2012-02-09 13:59:22 | We definitely need to update the MWP intermediate argument as a matter of priority. | |
Tom Curtis t.r.curtis@gmail... 112.213.149.122 |
My reasons are given here and here.
As an intermediate step, I recomend the final sentence be altered to read:
and the following image (or some other suitable global reconstruction) be added below:
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2012-02-09 14:12:47 | Tom, why not have a crack at it | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 130.102.158.12 |
Rewrite the rebuttal, post it in the appropriate forum (Eg - basic rebuttals or intermediate rebuttals) and then when green thumbed, update the rebuttal directly yourself, being sure to archive the previous version. | |
2012-02-09 15:04:20 | ||
Tom Curtis t.r.curtis@gmail... 112.213.149.122 |
John, happy to do that when I get some time (about three weeks). But as this is an actual error of argument, not an update or improvement in style. By not correcting it, we may unintentionally mislead people, so an interim edit should be implemented immediately, which I do not know how to do (and do not think I am authorized to do). I did not want to just say this should be done, and leave it in the hands of others, so I have made my suggestions for that edit so that if you or Dana agree it can be implimented immediately. | |
2012-02-09 16:03:05 | ||
dana1981 Dana Nuccitelli dana1981@yahoo... 71.137.109.172 |
What's the source of that figure Tom? | |
2012-02-09 16:58:05 | Dana | |
Tom Curtis t.r.curtis@gmail... 112.213.149.122 |
Mann et al, 2008 Supplementary material Figure S6 http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252.full.pdf+html?with-ds=yes | |
2012-02-19 08:04:45 | Comment | |
Robert Way robert_way19@hotmail... 142.162.203.214 |
Watch out... doesn't validate before 1200... |