Is the Hockey Stick Graph Dead? Novice warmist debunks Michael Mann?

Image by Joanne Nova

For those of us who have followed the climate debate for a long time, the notion that Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick graph might be dead is counter intuitive. For us, the Hockey Stick graph is central to the debate. It’s appearance in one brilliant stroke swept all discussion of the physics of climate change aside, wiped out discussion of sensitivity and natural variability, destroyed in the public’s mind any notion other than climate change was catastrophic and already upon us. Even the climate models played second fiddle to Mann’s tree ring chronology. I submit however, that the Hockey Stick is in fact dead, a symbolic (but important) final blow being struck at WUWT, not by a skeptic, but by a warmist. (Patience, I’ll get to that).

Of course Michael Mann is a major thorn in the side for most skeptics. We gnash our teeth as he takes court action to silence his critics, our blood pressure mounts as he continues to present at major climate conferences, and the increasingly shrill claims he makes drive us batty. But the truth is, the last few years haven’t been t that kind to Michael Mann. No longer does his Hockey Stick graph adorn the front covers of major WMO and IPCC reports. The Nobel Prize committee itself has repudiated his claim to a Nobel Prize. His science has been shredded by Steve McIntyre’s work on Climate Audit, and exposed as flawed in front of the Wegman congressional committee. Even his once comrade in arms, Keith Briffa, has published new tree ring chronologies that restore the Medieval Warm Period that Mann apparently worked so hard to erase. There was a brief moment when Mann thought he would be vindicated and back in the lime light with the publication of Marcott et al, but that paper was savaged almost instantly by McIntyre, Eschenbach and others, to the point that even Marcott admitted that it was not robust enough to draw any conclusions about the modern era. Mann’s presence in the climate debate is a pale shadow of what it once was, though he still shows up at speaking engagements with much the same slides, which it seems he hasn’t bothered to update since 2005. It’s like he isn’t even trying anymore.

But the most cruel blow of all (to date) was dealt to Mann’s Hockey Stick, not by some statistician, or paleo scientist, or physicist or geologist…. But by a warmist who showed up on Sept 3^rd on WUWT, going by the screen name JoNovace. Her (I assume it is a “her”) screen name was an obvious play on Jo Nova’s good name, but the twist on the word “novice” turned out to be the very personification of cruel irony. JoNovace in fact exposed herself as a novice, and quite unintentionally, debunked the Hockey Stick in just two sentences.

It started in the November 2^nd thread by Dr. Tim Ball titled “IPCC Prediction of Severe Weather Increase Based on Fundamental Error”. JoNovace appeared, making the usual warmist troll assertions. She skipped right into appeal to authority, citing the 97% consensus. She asked who readers would accept advice from for cancer treatment, a survey of football [fans] or from medical professionals. A commenter who pointed out the 18 year hiatus to her was rewarded with her claim that this existed only in the blogosphere and the brain dead. In short, the usual warmist talking points presented in the usual fashion sarcastic fashion. A troll so certain she was right, that anything that came out of the mouth of a skeptic must certainly be wrong. Suddenly, everything went sideways very fast for JoNovace. It started with this comment by Alan Miller which I reproduce in full here in italics:

· Alan Millar
November 3, 2014 at 5:04 am

“JoNovace
“…..pontificate that we were actually in a declining temperature period. That is how bonkers your hypothesis is at the moment. ”
I am not as brainy as you guys think you are, I don’t have my own hypothesis plucked out of thin air, I rely on experienced scientist to guide my conclusions”
Ahh so we we have someone who admits that they are just regurgitating someone else’s thoughts and is someone of ‘the Faith’

Well done, very useful!
Perhaps you would like to address my point about the ‘hide the decline’ trees. Mann and others used this paleo record, inter alia, to establish his ‘hockey stick’ As you should know after showing increasing temperatures, in the period from 1960 a period the alarmists are largely basing their AGW hypothesis on the trees actually started to show a sharp decline in temperatures.

They got round this by excising this part of the record and grafting on the actual temperature record. However, even you, in your lack of independent thought, can see that if we looked back at this period from the distant future, without the actual temperature record, you would assume temperatures and the trend were going downwards if you trusted the trees as Mann and his followers have declared they do.

That is why the current hypothesis is bonkers, without actual temperature records for the past, we have no real idea what was happening in such short periods of a few decades a la the period the warmists are currently relying on.

Does that make you think at all or is La La La going off in your brain at the moment?
Alan

And how did JoNovace respond to this well done summary of the “Hide the Decline” debacle? Well, she did so by dispatching Michael Mann and his tree rings to the rubbish heap with just two sentences. Here is her comment in full, in italics, bold mine:

· JoNovace
November 3, 2014 at 5:27 am
“….trees actually started to show a sharp decline in temperatures…..”
Tree rings don’t show temperature, what is your source for this? Tree ring may correlate with temperature if other factors are removed.
“1960 a period the alarmists are largely basing their AGW hypothesis on the trees actually started to show a sharp decline in temperatures.”
…but we know the temperatures were rising so this is nonsense. This is why tree rings dont “show temperature” as you put it.

So there you have it. Mann’s tree rings crushed in just two completely logical sentences, the Hockey Stick graph unceremoniously dumped into history’s dust bin by an erstwhile defendant of the CAGW meme itself. Confronted with Michael Mann’s “science” but without the pomp and ceremony and media spin to give it credibility derives from context and appeal to authority, even a novice to the debate could see the truth. Which is why they (apparently) aren’t including the Hockey Stick graph in Warmist Troll 101 classes anymore.

I pointed out JoNovace’s error to her, that she had just debunked giant tracts of CAGW science. To the best of my knowledge, she hasn’t been heard from since on WUWT. Once can only wonder what kind of epiphany this was for her. But as for Mann and his tree rings…. The warmists don’t drag them out to put on display anymore. Even a Novace can see right through them.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/15/is-the-hockey-stick-graph-dead/