'Fountains' of methane 1,000m across erupt from Arctic ice

[IanC]

Because the MWP was nowhere near as warm as we are right now.

I think it is a coin flip whether the present or the MWP is warmer. what isnt in doubt is that they are both very close to the same temp. without Mann's bogus hockey stick graph, and the downstream efforts to prop it up using the same distorted methods and data, there wouldnt even be a discussion of which was warmer.

if methane release was going to cause some tipping point, it would have done so during some previous warm period.

It is no longer just Mann's hockey stick graph. There are about a dozen differant studies, and they all come out the same. A very lumpy hockey stick, but a hockey stick, none the less.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7097/full/4411032a.html

But it criticizes the way the controversial climate result was used.

It's probably the most politicized graph in science — an icon of the case for climate change to some, and of flawed science in the service of that case to others — and it has coloured the climate-change debate for nearly a decade. Now the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has weighed in with a report on the ‘hockey-stick’ plot, which it hopes will finally lay the controversy to rest.


The Hockey Stick is Accurate « Oxford Kevin

The Hockey Stick graph along with 12 other Temperature reconstructions from IPCC Fourth Assessment Report

The paper “Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures: Examination of criticisms based on the nature and processing of proxy climate evidence” by Wahl and Ammann assesses the results of the MBH98 by using principal component analysis in the appropriate way. Wahl and Ammann also looked at the impact of removing the Bristlecone and Foxtail Pine proxy data which McIntyre and McKitrick had criticized the use of in both MBH98 and MBH99. They published the results of their work and you can see the impact that this had on the shape of the Hockey Stick in the graph below.

Seems to me what is bogus here is your continued prevarication concerning the hockey stick graph.

Mann's data and methodology were bad. the paper should be retracted with publicity, and all subsequent papers that used his results should be amended or retracted as well.

I am too lazy to go over the history again. the papers that use the principal component method to exaggerate hockey stick shapes seem to bolster Mann's original but every time a mistake is fixed the results get closer to looking like Lamb's graph in the first IPCC report which distinctly showed the MWP and LIA. just the simple fact that Mann and his cohort continue to use bristlecones and the upsidedown Tiljander cores should be enough to convince anyone that they are only trying to support a particular viewpoint, not searching for the truth. the fact that the updates to many treering data sets have been hidden away from public view is also a giant black eye to climate science.

using outdated, incomplete and contaminated data, combined with inappropriate statistical methods, just to support preconceived conclusions is not how proper science is done. period

 

[saveliberty]

They call it stupid for a reason Ian. Poor science has a great friend in poor intelligence.

 

[IanC]

I just wish the cleansing property of openness could be used. I have no idea why the NAS, Wegman, Penn State, and British inquiries didnt get to the bottom of this scandal but the politics involved are very disappointing. the second set of climategate emails show that the 'right questions' were not asked, even though the sceptics were screaming them to high heaven. sooner or later it will all come out.