It appears that the #1 requirement to succeed in the field of Climate Science is the inability to read very simple graphs and understand their meaning.
Al Gore first demonstrated this requirement when he produced the Ice Core data to defend his CO2 drives temperature theory.
The problem is, the chart he used as evidence ruled out CO2 it didn’t implicate it. 100% of temperature maxima in Al Gore’s charts are above current temperatures and we have higher CO2 levels.
Additionally, CO2 lags temperatures from between 800 and 1,500 years. For CO2 to be the cause of the temperature variation, the cause always has to lead the effect.
Lastly, there is absolutely no defined mechanism where CO2 would increase before temperatures to pull the globe out of an ice age, and no mechanism by which CO2 would decrease before temperatures to end an ice age.
Michael Mann, apparently inspired by the complete and utter ignorance of Al Gore, decided to improve upon this concept and manufactured the “Hockey Stick” to make his case that CO2 drives temperatures.
In fact, it does just the opposite. If Michael Mann understood how to read a chart, he would understand that his “Hockey Stick” rules out CO2 as the cause.
CO2 between the year 1000 and the start of the Industrial Age was extremely stable. According to ice core records it bounced around in a very narrow range on 275 to 285 ppm.
In other words, CO2 was a constant for the vast majority of the time covered in the Hockey Stick. As a refresher, constants in a model can’t cause variation in the dependent variable.
That is why they are called constants. Constants cause shifts in, not movements along the chart. The standard deviation of a constant is zero, and the variation it causes to the dependent variable is zero.
Let me say that one more time for emphasis. For the vast majority of the time covered in Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick chart, CO2 was effectively a constant.
Now, with an understanding that a constant can’t cause a variation, just look at the Hockey Stick chart.
It suffers from the most extreme case of Heteroscedasticity I have ever seen in a chart claiming to support a theory that passed “Peer Review” and was accepted as the basis for a “Consensus.”
That chart would fail any econometrics 101 class, and most likely fails other tests to qualify as a BLUE Variable (Best Linear Unbiased Estimator).
In the year 1000, temperatures ranged from +0.4 to -0.8, around the year 1350 temperatures ranged between +0.6 and -1.0.
By the time we get to 1902, variations are down to -1.0 to -0.7. In other words, as CO2 increased, temperature variation DECREASED! And was still falling until 1902.
Suddenly then, in the year 1902 in the chart, Michael Mann discovered something called a thermometer and started adding instrumental data. The chart immediately dog-legs.
There is nothing about the physics of the CO2 molecule that would support a dog-leg in temperatures with an increase in CO2.
CO2’s absorption of LWIR demonstrates a logarithmic DECAY! Temperatures wouldn’t dog-leg up, they would gradually flatten.
They must not teach how to use MODTRAN or Quantum Physics where Michael got his Ph.D. Either that, or he failed both miserably.
Many things can cause warming, not just CO2. H2O is by far the most abundant and potent GHG. It is so potent that it makes CO2 irrelevant in the lower atmosphere.
No that is not a typo: CO2 is irrelevant in the lower atmosphere. H2O saturates the absorption of the same wavelengths CO2 absorbs.
Had Michael Mann taken a course on MODTRAN he would have known that 100% of the proxies and instrumental records he used are taken from the layer of the atmosphere unaffected by CO2.
Don’t take my word for it, here are the MODTRAN results for doubling CO2 near the surface. There is a 0.00 change in the Upward IR Heat Flux.
In reality, because Michael Mann doesn’t understand basic science, what his chart really measures is the impact of non-CO2 factors like the Urban Heat Island Effect and atmospheric H20.
Because CO2 evenly blankets the globe, CO2’s influence is evenly distributed. Multiple sources only complicate the issue and greatly increases the error of models and data.
Had Micheal Mann controlled for such factors, his instrumental data post-1902 would have been flat and showed no warming at all.
Antarctica is the ideal control for the Urban Heat Island Effect and atmospheric CO2 and it has shown no warming since 1902.
While CO2 doesn’t correlate well with temperatures controlled for H2O and the Urban Heat Island Effect, the sun is highly correlated.
Most ironic however is that the layer of the atmosphere that CO2 does affect, its influence is to COOL the stratosphere. No that isn’t a typo or a joke, CO2 through its rapid radiative effect speeds transport of energy into outer space.
Michael Mann must also have failed geology 101. CO2 has been as high as 7,000 ppm and never caused catastrophic warming and shows no relationship to temperatures on a geologic scale.
Lastly, Michael Mann must have failed or never taken ethics. He conveniently cherry-picked the past 1,000 years to reconstruct, ignoring hundreds of years of instrumental data.
Ice core, tree ring, and coral proxies go back much further. Had he chosen to reconstruct a more appropriate time, the entire Holocene, he would have found that we are nowhere near the peak in temperatures for the current warming period, and all previous Holocene temperature optima occurred at lower CO2 levels.
In conclusion, Michael Mann is an expert in sophistry, not science. It is that simple. The biggest crime, however, isn’t the piece of garbage Michael Mann produced, it is that his piece of garbage passed “Peer Review” and is the foundation of the “Consensus.”
Everyone on the “Peer Review” panels that reviewed this piece of garbage should be charged with criminal incompetence, and barred from ever reviewing the scientific literature.
As a remedy, Michael Mann should be forced to return any Federal Dollars he used to create this piece of garbage, as well as being barred from ever receiving Federal Dollars in the future.
Michael Mann and his cabal of “Peers” are the scientific equivalents of FBI Agent Peter Strzok. They were granted a position of public trust and betrayed that trust on a scale rarely seen in history.
Time for Trump to do what he is doing to the FBI to the field of Climate Science.
Read more at CO2 Is Life
Michael Mann,Al Bore and Leonardo DiCaprio have been sent to the Pentalty Box for illegal use of a Hockey Stick hitting Lady Liberty
The growth of tree rings is determined by the CO2-content of the atmosphere. So, Michael Mann’s conclusions are right : there is a hockey-stick. For CO2. Period.