tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post800044459203877817..comments2024-03-28T06:43:02.954+00:00Comments on Variable Variability: Testimony Judith Curry on Arctic temperature seems to be a misquotationVictor Venemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-26424916902585417652014-01-30T16:36:08.861+00:002014-01-30T16:36:08.861+00:00I would personally have indicated that the paragra...I would personally have indicated that the paragraphs are not consecutive. Just three dots at the end of the paragraph would do so. ...<br /><br />However, as long as that does not change the interpretation of the text, I feel that not doing so is acceptable. Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-49196254794502422382014-01-30T16:12:51.694+00:002014-01-30T16:12:51.694+00:00Paul - oh my! I just saw Sou's post about this...Paul - oh my! I just saw Sou's post about this as well at HotWhopper. The fact that she joined those three paragraphs together as if they were together, and OMITTED various sentences in them that detract from her claims is that much more damning. This is very clearly a case of deliberate misquotation. No excuse at all.Arthurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06249922708053689717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-70929238598907725272014-01-30T14:56:44.616+00:002014-01-30T14:56:44.616+00:00Paul S: "I think treating this as a clear cas...Paul S: <i>"I think treating this as a clear case of misquotation is going a bit far. The sentence is ambiguous even with the context of the surrounding paragraph. By the same token I can't see why we would expect Judith to include the previous sentence in her quote - it isn't obviously relevant to her point."</i><br /><br />I was a bit careful yesterday, as I like to sleep a night over a post, but in this case thought it was too newsworthy to wait a day. <br /><br />Today, I would say that Curry made a clear misquotation. It makes an enormous difference whether we are talking about the last few years (before 2013) or the years before 2007. Given the strong increase in Arctic temperature seen in Tamino's figure, these six years are very important. <br /><br />Interpreting the claim as being about the situation before 2007 is already at the boundary. Already in 2007, I would have chosen a formulation that makes clear that the most recent temperatures are higher, but with some good will that vague formulation was still acceptable for the situation then. (Like you wrote at <a href="http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/judith-curry-responds-sort-of/#comment-84365" rel="nofollow">Tamino</a>: That the formulation turned out that way is most likely because originally the sentence was about the 1990s and in a later stage the 2000s was added. Had it been written from scratch about the 2000s as well, it would likely have been formulated differently.)<br /><br />The formulation is surely not acceptable as describing the situation now and that is what Curry made it into by leaving out the important first sentence.<br /><br />In scientific writing you do not expect to find such misquotations. I will read texts written by Curry the way I read a WUWT post, expecting every single sentence to be wrong until proven innocent.Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-71643739756721913742014-01-30T14:34:37.204+00:002014-01-30T14:34:37.204+00:00Rachel, yes your formulation sounds much better, i...Rachel, yes your formulation sounds much better, if it still fits to the references. (I do not know whether they just showed some graphs or also gave their thoughts about the temperature difference between then and 1990s-2000s.)<br /><br />I do not think you can write such a long report, while making sure that none of the sentences can be taken out of context to make wrong claims. Even if that is possible, the scientist writing that part will not have expected such behaviour, that is simply not done in science.<br /><br />I think is is clear that the IPCC intended to write about the situation in 2007 and not about the most recent temperature observations because the references are: "Ahlmann, 1948; Veryard, 1963; Hegerl et al., 2007a; Hegerl et al., 2007b". In other words, the newest reference was 6 years old.Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-88123735284604625222014-01-30T14:29:20.000+00:002014-01-30T14:29:20.000+00:00Arthur, at her blog, Curry put such long quotes an...Arthur, at her blog, Curry put such long quotes and also the paragraph in question is so long, that I see no excuse for leaving out an important and quite short first sentence.<br /><br />HotWhopper now also has a long post on <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/01/how-expert-is-arctic-climate-expert.html" rel="nofollow">Curry and the Arctic</a> and also shows the part missing at the end of the third quoted paragraph, Paul S is talking about.Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-16839620671119411032014-01-30T14:25:52.429+00:002014-01-30T14:25:52.429+00:00Arthur,
Those paragraphs (three in total on her b...Arthur,<br /><br />Those paragraphs (three in total on her blog post) aren't adjacent in Chapter 10. The first one is actually in a different section. She hasn't copy and pasted one chunk but three separate chunks.<br /><br />While the second paragraph is quoted in its entirety the third paragraph is also missing a couple of sentences off the end.<br /><br />I'll admit it is strange to miss off just the header sentence from that paragraph since that would generally provide important context for what's being said.Paul Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15275182941476518621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-60622732428635720052014-01-30T14:02:03.449+00:002014-01-30T14:02:03.449+00:00Paul S - but in this post Curry claims the full qu...Paul S - but in <a href="http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/27/early-20th-century-arctic-warming/" rel="nofollow">this post</a> Curry claims the full quote is:<br /><br />"Gillett et al. (2008b) detect anthropogenic influence on near-surface Arctic temperatures over land, with a consistent magnitude in simulations and observations. Wang et al. (2007) also find that observed Arctic warming is inconsistent with simulated internal variability. Both studies ascribe Arctic warmth in the 1930s and 1940s largely to internal variability. Shindell and Faluvegi (2009) infer a large contribution to both midcentury Arctic cooling and late century warming from aerosol forcing changes, with greenhouse gases the dominant driver of long-term warming, though they infer aerosol forcing changes from temperature changes using an inverse approach which may lead to some changes associated with internal variability being attributed to aerosol forcing. We therefore conclude that despite the uncertainties introduced by limited observational coverage, high internal variability, modelling uncertainties (Crook et al., 2011) and poorly understood local forcings, such as the effect of black carbon on snow, there is sufficiently strong evidence to conclude that it is likely that there has been an anthropogenic contribution to the very substantial warming in Arctic land surface temperatures over the past 50 years.<br /><br />Arctic temperature anomalies in the 1930s were apparently as large as those in the 1990s and 2000s. There is still considerable discussion of the ultimate causes of the warm temperature anomalies that occurred in the Arctic in the 1920s and 1930s (Ahlmann, 1948; Veryard, 1963; Hegerl et al., 2007a; Hegerl et al., 2007b). The early 20th century warm period, while reflected in the hemispheric average air temperature record (Brohan et al., 2006), did not appear consistently in the mid-latitudes nor on the Pacific side of the Arctic (Johannessen et al., 2004; Wood and Overland, 2010). Polyakov et al. (2003) argued that the Arctic air temperature records reflected a natural cycle of about 50–80 years. However, many authors (Bengtsson et al., 2004; Grant et al., 2009; Wood and Overland, 2010; Brönnimann et al., 2012) instead link the 1930s temperatures to internal variability in the North Atlantic atmospheric and ocean circulation as a single episode that was sustained by ocean and sea ice processes in the Arctic and north Atlantic. The Arctic wide temperature increases in the last decade contrast with the episodic regional increases in the early 20th century, suggesting that it is unlikely that recent increases are due to the same primary climate process as the early 20th century. […]"<br /><br />And the sentence Steve and Victor have pointed out is missing. Why? Is she using a different source, or did she deliberately drop that sentence???Arthurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06249922708053689717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-35702751695333235062014-01-30T11:13:30.296+00:002014-01-30T11:13:30.296+00:00Steve Bloom,
If 'the referenced study' me...Steve Bloom,<br /><br />If 'the referenced study' means Serreze et al. 2007 note that it doesn't talk about 1930s temperatures at all, so linking that paper to a comparison of either 1990s or 2000s temperatures doesn't fit.<br /><br />Nevertheless it does make sense if you understand '2000s' to refer only to the portion of the 2000s visible from 2007 i.e. 2000-2005/6. In some datasets the early-2000s are roughly comparable to the 1990s and the 1930s. Also, the two opening sentences were copy & pasted around together between drafts which would suggest they are intended to be a couplet.<br /><br />I think treating this as a clear case of misquotation is going a bit far. The sentence is ambiguous even with the context of the surrounding paragraph. By the same token I can't see why we would expect Judith to include the previous sentence in her quote - it isn't obviously relevant to her point.Paul Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15275182941476518621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-15790239097582922142014-01-30T09:08:30.890+00:002014-01-30T09:08:30.890+00:00The report is riddled with clumsy verbiage, Rachel...The report is riddled with clumsy verbiage, Rachel. They are scientists, not English majors. :)Steve Bloomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12943109973917998380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-49445320417294077532014-01-30T02:18:37.110+00:002014-01-30T02:18:37.110+00:00I do think the wording used by the IPCC could have...I do think the wording used by the IPCC could have been better. Rather than use the word "apparently" (which I must admit confused me when I first read that sentence), it would have been more difficult to misquote had they instead said, <br /><br />"Arctic temperature anomalies in the 1930s were thought to be as large as those in the 1990s and 2000s."Rachelhttp://quakerattled.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-50203663584152511522014-01-30T01:37:26.417+00:002014-01-30T01:37:26.417+00:00Thanks for the clarifying fix, Victor.
Arthur, I ...Thanks for the clarifying fix, Victor.<br /><br />Arthur, I noted the first of those issues over at ATTP. The second would seem to be explained by the fact that the referenced study indeed covers part of the 2000s, i.e. the correction seems appropriate.Steve Bloomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12943109973917998380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-6491424096255886242014-01-29T21:01:08.517+00:002014-01-29T21:01:08.517+00:00Hi Victor,
Judith Curry quotes a longer excerpt...Hi Victor,<br /><br /> Judith Curry quotes a longer excerpt from the draft IPCC report that does NOT include your prefacing sentence, in her latest blog post on the matter (response to Tamino). Also on Tamino's post <a href="http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/judith-curry-responds-sort-of/" rel="nofollow">here</a> Paul S notes that the "and 2000s" was not there in early drafts. Something fishy here?Arthurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06249922708053689717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-74457117976734376912014-01-29T20:11:32.455+00:002014-01-29T20:11:32.455+00:00I wrote: "my emphasis and paragraphs", t...I wrote: "my emphasis and paragraphs", to make clear the paragraphs were mine, but I guess I should solve that problem differently. <br /><br />I wanted to highlight the part Curry cited, but could not use italics as it is already in italics. Let's see if I can add some colour.Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-45262490812482569252014-01-29T20:07:57.744+00:002014-01-29T20:07:57.744+00:00Thanks again, Victor!
You may want to make it cle...Thanks again, Victor!<br /><br />You may want to make it clear that in the AR5 there's no paragraph break between the missing sentence and the bit Judy quotes.Steve Bloomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12943109973917998380noreply@blogger.com