Revival of the Hockey Stick

I just thought that this might interest some people.

Hockey Stick Link

A new paper which details the changes in temperature as shown by considering 1200 proxy records, including tree rings, ice cores and various other things.

What does this show?

The paper suggests that we in the northern hemisphere are in the warmest period for at least a thousand years. Of course these numbers are averages of some kind for half the world and so they do not take into account that maybe my village in the UK was actually warmer than now 200 years ago, but the general trend seems to be that we are warmer now than for a long, long time.

Will this finally stop all the claims that it was warmer in the near historic past? I doubt it, but at least this paper has science, and a peer review process, behind it where-as I guess others have their own ideas

Hey Iggus you may be interested in reading my thread on the current climate trends of the next decade, especially as their is a great likelihood of global cooling occurring in the next decade, there are some good links from there to climate change related articles. I posted mainly in response to this thread. many people were suggesting this is evidence against man made global warming. Personally I feel it shows how much man made global warming has affected the climate, last time there was a lull in sunspot activity this great the River Thames froze over.

The article you linked to is a good sign as it helps to knock down some of the counter arguments to the hockey stick graph, mainly unreliable sources of previous global temperatures. There is a great article here giving a little insight to how scientists use natural artifacts from the past to determine what the environment was like before records were made.

So this doesn't affect Sidney Crosby's chance at holding the Stanley Cup next year, the year after, and the year after that, and so on and so forth until Malkin leaves? Scared me there for a second.

On a serious note, that's interesting. It's a great time to be alive, even if we die because of radical climate changes. I'd never seen nor heard of that graph before. Pretty neat stuff. Great to see the MSM is keeping up with science

Ah, spring, the season of new life. No, not seasonal spring, with the Easter Bunny, but a spring of sorts. A spring of GW nonsense reports. We went though the winter, with precious few of these coming to light, now we have a resurgence it seems.

Let's leaf through this scientific article, shall we?


(emphasis mine)

Probably, and possibly. Very exacting scientific terminology, indeed.


(emphasis mine)

So we have the conclusions of a scientist who was not involved with the research stating the purpose of the research. Great idea, let everyone play.



And apparently we are researching how the greenhouse gases affected the atmosphere before they existed. Oh, well, perhaps this will tell us something about how non-existent CO2 is affecting the climate on Mars.

I also noticed a definite lack of data connecting the CO2 levels with the temperature anomalies. Isn't that what we are apparently investigating? Dr. Hegerl seems to think it is.

In short, this article shows little new info. This is a prepackaged, bite-sized, fortified pill to keep the masses concerned over the latest global agenda. Dr. Hegerl's comments make me discount the article's accuracy, since she was not involved, yet seems to be an authority on that which she was not involved in.

I require a few things before I start agreeing with a set of results:

• Exacting data from the sources studied, not just 'conclusions'
  
• A full description of how, where, and when any data was collected.
  
• A lack of phrases such as 'probably', 'maybe', 'possibly', 'could have', etc. If you're not sure, don't say it.
  
• Conclusions made by those who did the study.
  

Now, start showing me this, and I'll sit and rummage through it and come up with an unbiased opinion on it. But show me an article like this, and I will reflect the article's bias with my own.

TheRedneck

Couldn't have said it better myself. As many are starting to realize...it's a solar thing. We're so small, and insignificant. Those Carbon Credits Al Gore has been going on about are really going to change a lot.

tree rings are not a reliable proxy, because they are affected by a combination of temperature, precipitation carbon dioxide and, if you wrap your mind around it, duration of vegetative periods. many combinations of these will result in the same ring width.

excess heat has a stifling effect, btw, but a cool summer with lots of rain, lasting until late September will do wonders, while a humn being wouldn't characterize the same period as particularly warm.

[edit on 2008.9.3 by Long Lance]

TheRedneck, don't get confused about the article. The interesting bit is the papaer, not the medias take on the paper. I would suggest if you want to review the paper then you go and purchase a copy and download it. You seem to consider yourself an expert on climate issues, certainly more than Dr Hegerl, so you can probably download it without any problems. As to mentioning CO2, I don't believe that the actual paper, to which the article refers, does anything but show various temperature proxies and these show that we are living in the warmest period of recent history (ie the last 1000 years). Dr Hegel is simply stating the standard scientific view that greenhouse gases explain the current increase in global average temperature as shown in the hockey stick. Lastly, I don't actually think that anyone is capable of an unbiased opinion.

DocEmrick, can you explain exactly how the sun is affecting the climate at the moment and to what degree? Is it through solar irradiance or some other way? Many people outside of the climate change community seem to want to believe this, but unfortunately inside the scientific community the consensus view is that man is to blame.

Long Lance, you are right about the tree rings as not being the best proxy for temperature but then the paper did use 1200 different proxies. In fact it ran the proxies through two different statistical methods and performed them with and without the tree ring data. They all gave the same result that we are living in the warmest period of recent history. So to complaim about the tree rings and then say that therefore that the whole research is wrong is way off the mark.

Thanks for looking in though

Originally posted by Iggus
DocEmrick, can you explain exactly how the sun is affecting the climate at the moment and to what degree? Is it through solar irradiance or some other way? Many people outside of the climate change community seem to want to believe this, but unfortunately inside the scientific community the consensus view is that man is to blame.

I'm no expert, but I'd say that the sun affects our climate by the nanosecond. Proof? When the sun goes behind a cloud, it gets cooler. What is going on here is that a few wealthy people are getting rich off of the Global Warming hoax, using puppets to facilitate gas prices, energy prices, and a general sense of doom and gloom in the public causing consumption rates to soar. The reality? Things are indeed changing. As to what is causing the change, I'd venture to guess only a select few have the answers.

If you want more information on it, please visit www.globalwarminghoax.com. There are articles on the site that can better explain it then a simple laymen like myself.

DocEmrick, thanks for the web page (could it be a link next time) but I couldn't find anything from that page. Probably because I am rubbish at finding things, as my wife always tells me.

Anyway, as far as I can tell from googling (again badly) there are two ways that people suggest the sun affects our climate. The first is by direct heating of the planet. As the sun changes in intensity it warms to a greater or lesser degree the earth and therefore changes the average global temperature. This link is just to point out a paper which concludes that the changes in natural solar irradiance produce about 0.2C change in global average temperature. Obviously the sun could change in a greater way than just over its natural 11 cycle but this paper shows something of how the sun affects. This is not however great enough to explain our current warming trend.

The second explanation offered is that the suns cosmic rays tend to generate more clouds in the atmosphere and thus increase the global temperatures through this indirect method. However this has never been shown to happen (link and click on 3.4). Also if this is the cause of the warming on earth then the arguement about the whole solar system warming cannot be used as I don't see much cloud formation taking place on Mars.

The sun does play a fundamental role in determining the climate but the current warming trend cannot be adequately explained by the sun alone.

reply to post by Iggus

TheRedneck, don't get confused about the article. The interesting bit is the papaer, not the medias take on the paper. I would suggest if you want to review the paper then you go and purchase a copy and download it. You seem to consider yourself an expert on climate issues, certainly more than Dr Hegerl, so you can probably download it without any problems. As to mentioning CO2, I don't believe that the actual paper, to which the article refers, does anything but show various temperature proxies and these show that we are living in the warmest period of recent history (ie the last 1000 years). Dr Hegel is simply stating the standard scientific view that greenhouse gases explain the current increase in global average temperature as shown in the hockey stick. Lastly, I don't actually think that anyone is capable of an unbiased opinion.

First of all, I have too many other projects going to waste my money purchasing a copy of a research paper. If I were to start purchasing copies of every research paper that is created by people on this issue, I would not only have to quit my job to read them all (much less verify their veracity), but I would also be indigent from the expense. If the report is online publicly, I will be happy to bookmark it and get back to you with my opinion, if you desire.

I do not claim to be any kind of expert on climate. My specialty is more along the lines of chemistry and electromagnetism. Any of the physical sciences, however, overlaps the others. As such, I am fairly well-versed in all the branches of science (perhaps a bit weak in medical technology, to be honest). Yet I would decline to comment in a news article based on any study I had no connection to, as Dr. Hegerl should have. To use others' work to promote one's own beliefs is in itself a moral violation of ethics and shows bias. The proper course of action would have been to defer to those involved with the study. Dr. Hegerl is no more an 'expert' on this particular study than anyone else.

Instead of being an expert, I am a thinker. The ability to examine information and form intelligent opinions on it does not somehow magically appear when one is handed a degree. Every person on this forum is capable of reading and critiquing papers as long as they have some familiarity with the scientific methods and procedures and nomenclature being used. That familiarity is available through either University or private study; the option of which to use depends on the desires, drive, and determination of each individual.

You may well be right about the difficulty of having a totally unbiased view. Humans as a species do seem to have a problem with that. Yet, decorum does dictate that bias should be minimized whenever possible, not exaggerated.

Edit to add: The problem is indeed with the media reporting rather than the actual report. Scientific reports are peer-reviewable and easily challenged for further verification; media reports are regularly gobbled up by the masses without any challenge to their veracity. I have no problem with scientific research; I have a huge problem when that science is propagandized, as in this media report.

TheRedneck


[edit on 3-9-2008 by TheRedneck]

Originally posted by Iggus
T

Long Lance, you are right about the tree rings as not being the best proxy for temperature but then the paper did use 1200 different proxies. ..

So to complaim about the tree rings and then say that therefore that the whole research is wrong is way off the mark.

i did not claim it was all bogus, just that what might look like a good and conclusive indicator on the surface, tree growth per year in this case, depends more often than not on a variety of factors.