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1. Hmm — a glance at Wikipedia indicates that Pielke’s bona fides and professional positioning are troublesome…on the verge of schizophrenic, with a tinge of conflict of interest (which he seems to readily acknowledge). And his Ph.D. is in polysci?!

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   Comment by roberthstiver | September 22, 2015 | Reply

   • Is there any problem with this report or just an ad hominem attack based on wikipedia?

     Since the AGW alarmists can’t win arguments based on empirical evidence they have a strategy of simply avoiding having to defend their claims by smearing those that dare to challenge the priesthood. They have an excuse for ignoring every single opponent. “He’s a libertarian”, “she’s been doing paid research for big oil”, “he’s a Christian”, “he’s not a climate scientist”, etc.

     Never mind that none of the alarmist writers or speakers are climate scientists. Sheer hypocrisy.

     Ad hominem is really nothing but anti-intellectualism. Why not utilize the opportunity to present facts and logical analysis?

     Allowing the opportunity of discourse to slip away is only rational if ones argument is baseless and can’t stand examination.

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     Comment by aletho | September 22, 2015 | Reply

2. I really don’t know (whether there is a problem with this report). I’m essentially ignorant of the issue in any sort of scholarly way…all I can write is that, in this summer 2015 in Hawaii, I’m SWELTERING in a way that has not occurred in my 43 years of residence here (I know, I know: 43 years is hardly 43,000 years, or 43,000,000 years). The polar icecaps (and Antarctica, and Alaska glaciers…) are melting at an alarming rate, I understand. My sense (common sense) can only tell me that humankind, AT THE VERY LEAST, is WORSENING the effects of a climate that observably is changing — perhaps due to a natural cycle of Mother Nature — before our eyes and bodies and the precious ecosphere. We need to do something about that, and anyone who refuses even to acknowledge the fact and effects of climate change is as disturbing to me as someone who reflexively lays ALL blame on humankind….

   I do wish more commenters would take advantage of this opportunity to express (sane, reasonable) views on this Aletho service.

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   Comment by roberthstiver | September 22, 2015 | Reply

   • In this case Robert we need to examine the claims with caution due to the vast repercussions of the low carbon regimen.

     After ClimateGate there really has been no reason to see any of the AGW claims as anything but complete frauds.

     In case you have not pursued ClimateGate this video is a quick intro:

     Explanation and interpretation of “hide the decline”

     Realclimate describes the issue as follows:

     Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

     Steve McIntyre has quite a different intepretation:

     Despite relatively little centennial variability, Briffa’s reconstruction had a noticeable decline in the late 20th century, despite warmer temperatures. In these early articles [e.g. Briffa 1998], the decline was not hidden.

     For most analysts, the seemingly unavoidable question at this point would be – if tree rings didn’t respond to late 20th century warmth, how would one know that they didn’t do the same thing in response to possible medieval warmth – a question that remains unaddressed years later.

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     Comment by aletho | September 22, 2015 | Reply

     • Thanks.

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       Comment by roberthstiver | September 23, 2015 | Reply

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