According to the article
This would imply that observed sea level rises are 1.2 / 0.13 = 9.2 mm in that 3 year period.

If I go down to Ocean Beach in San Francisco, I notice that the sand gently slopes towards the ocean at about 1/2 degree. It steepens a little at the water's edge.

Using a little trig, a=9.2 / sin(0.5) = 1000 mm, or 1 meter. So for every rise in sea level of 9.2 mm, the waves should be breaking about 1 meter further inland on average. Assuming we can extrapolate this rate (I've been hearing for years about the rising sea levels), that's 3 meters over the last decade, and about 10 meters over the last 30 years, when I have my first memories of Ocean Beach.

So why don't I notice that the ocean is advancing upon the land? The beach is hundreds of meters wide in places and only 10s of meters wide in others. Maybe 10 meters isn't enough for me to notice, but its significant to the parts of the beach where the high tide washes up to rock outcrops, preventing you from walking from one part of the beach to the other. I've never seen a study done to demonstrate sea level rises in this manner. It seems to me that people worldwide (not isolated local events)should have tons of examples of the encroaching sea taking out parking lots, claiming small beaches that used to be secluded getaways, etc. But the evidence that the sea level is rising is always in the form of data that someone in the general public couldn't possible comprehend, like gravity field studies.

Or perhaps I'm not correct to extrapolate this 3 year period to 30 years.

So basically you ignore your own previous statements, dismiss all studies, and provide nothing of your own.
I was not out to disprove dgruss' point, I have often said that solar variance is a major player in climate change, and I don't claim that there was no change in the past.
I was showing that your QED post, on the other hand, was incorrect in different ways, and certainly did not deserve the "QED" label: you did not and still haven't given any evidence to support your statements (my links don't support your claims), and I have given evidence to the contrary.
For all clarity, this was your "proof":There hasn't been a swing of several degrees C, the shift from MWP to LIA did not happen in a century, the decline wasn't very drastic, and we have not seen worse even once within the last 1000 years.

For fun, some nitpicks from your last post:
Well, yes, as that is exactly the line I quoted from it. How you happen to know that the tree rings dominate this study isn't clear though.
Next:
But that wasn't your point, your point was exactly that the changes back then were worse than now. I repeat your previous quote:
Finally, I find it quite amazing that you dismiss Moberg 2005
because
Even worldclimatereport, one of the fanatic anti-hockeystick reporters and one of the critical blogs about AGW, praise this study as one of those that disprove the hockeystick and show the real face of MWP, LIA, etcetera.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

Sorry? Could you up-date me on "hockey-stick" as used in last post? Not that I belong to any anti-defamation league or even the NHL, it sounds like a code word for tree people.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

I didn't look if he has already done so, but maybe Taks should post (or this should be moved) to the conspiracy theory section. the reason I suggest that is that, if I understand his point, he is proposing that there is a conspiracy on the part of the editors of Nature and Science, plus NASA, plus the various science associations both National and International and their publications and public statements.

It seems to me that if ice is melting now, ice that survived through several previous interglacials, that should be telling us something. It also seems like I recall seeing that the current interglacial is lasting longer than the previous ones did.

Examples of articles in recent issues of Science News, just through some browsing of recent issues, last 5 months, which would be candidates for evidence for the conspiracy theory? Each of these links has references for further reading:

Global Warming may already be a killer

Krakatoa stifled sea level rise

Warming climate will slow ocean circulation

China deserts expand due to human activity

2005 was warmest year on record

Greenland's ice loss doubled in 2005

Global wetting and drying

runaway heat, was a cover story on arctic ice loss

Major eruptions can reduce sea level

To forestall the question on why I included two links on volcanoes and sea level, I included them because it is related to how much sea level rise we have seen historically. The major eruptions may have temporarily masked rising sea levels.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

The article states that Greenland's total ice mass increased.

The article states that the amount of melting corresponds to 60 microns per year.

And the headline is "Say goodbye to the polar ice sheets".

It's that kind of hyperbole that makes me wonder what has happed to critical thinking in this world.

I suppose you are referring to this paragraph:

This is explained by increased snowfall in the hinterland as the ice melts on the coast. But you must look at the whole picture:

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

What makes you think I didn't look at the whole picture? When I said
"The article states that the amount of melting corresponds to 60 microns per year." I thought I was displaying an understanding that the net loss/gain was a loss of ice, and a gain in sea level.

I just don't think that that level of net loss deserves the headline "Say goodbye to the icecaps".

I mean, if you can trust wikipedia, melting of the icesheets would raise sealevels by ~ 70 meters. At 60 microns/year, we have 1.2 million years before the icecaps are gone.

Obviously the rate might increase. Obviously the rate of recent melting might be more than 60 microns/year (the article states that they don't understand why only 60 microns/year worth was melting since other data shows 3mm rise in sea level / year). But the new data presented hardly justifies the headline. Heck, even at 3mm/year, we still have till 25006 (+/- a year or two ) before we say goodbye.

As I said, hyperbole is a big turnoff for me. I quickly lose confidence in someone's assertions when they exaggerate.

edited to change "2mm/yr" to "3mm/yr" and to change the goodbye date accordingly.
edited again to say, hey why doesn't the software indicate that I edited my post. I edited after DA posted, so it should automatically flag it.???

That reminds me... I couldn't find the 60 micron figure in the article. Where did you see it?

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

They say the melting ice amounts to 2% of the 3mm yearly increase.

Which makes me realize that my mind mis-remembered this as 3% of a 2mm total increase -- I'll edit my previous post accordingly.

Sorry I'm so stupid, but where is the "dag-burn-it" HOCKEYSTICK? No matter how I hold the graph, I still can't see it. As a NHL fan I am disturbed that a reputable science magazine would "mis-inform" people about one of my favorite sports! It don't look like a stick. It don't have nothing to do with hockey! Is this a petard because the Hanson Brothers dissed Einstein? If so, this means WAR! (kidding.)

David Stockwell did one here... doubt anyone will be referencing it, however... he used the same methodology, just input random noise. ut oh.

oh, Steve McIntyre did one as well... turns out he actually used tree rings, too! he just picked a different set, out of those that the hockey stick team throw out regularly, and managed something quite different... turns out they really do pick and choose the proxies that match their desired outcome. so much for statistics.

taks

PS: unfortunately, i'm a blues fan. first year in 26 they won't be in the playoffs. man am i POed.

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

hmmm, of course, increased pressure on the middle of a glacial mass of ice causes it to flow more rapidly (ice under heavy pressure acts like a slow moving fluid), thereby depositing more of its edge ice in the ocean. not really as clear cut as you would lead everyone to believe.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

The first one shows that if you pick random series and add a rising line at the end, you'll get a rather flat line for the random series and a rising line at the end. This is something extremely trivial, and does not show anything about the Hockeystick. It is not because there is a dumb method to get the same result that the method and result from Mann e.a. is invalid. If A then B, and if C then B, does not make A = C.

The second one shows that if you take biased series, you'll get biased results.
And those results are markedly different from Mann e.a. This only shows that contrary to what is often claimed, you don't get the same results no matter what data you use as input, but that the data input is important. What it does not do is invalidate Mann e.a.

Anyway, the hockeystick is far from the only or most recent reconstruction.

Any follow-up, by the way, on your "QED" post?

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

i think you should restudy what david stockwell did... obviously you do not understand.

david literally took the method used by mann, et. al. and input red noise. nowhere does it say he "took a straight line" at all. to even suggest that is, at best, disingenuous.


BINGO, thank YOU for making my point!

exactly what do you think mann, et. al. do? steve mcintyre took his data from the same collection that mann, et. al. use. he just chose the series that mann threw out. see now? mann chooses different tree rings, those that specifically support his opinion. this is a point that it regularly made by dendroclimatologists and is pointed out specifically by esper and was a primary discussion at the recent NAS panel.

if you had actually bothered to read steve's post you would have known that he specifically chose different data series, from the same set, to show why it is bad for dendroclimatologists to "throw out" the series that don't fit their model.

where did i say you get the same result no matter what data you use? i said you can get the same results using noise. in other words, the statistical connection is meaningless. it's up in the air.

yes, this does refute mann because steve mcintyre use mann's data. he just cherry picked different pieces to make his graph which show a different trend. in other words, again, belaboring the simple point, using the same statistical methods, but choosing from the same data set a different collection of proxies, steve mcintyre was able to show completely different result.

c'mon fram, this is getting ridiculous.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

i've ignored none of my own previous statements. you, on the other hand, have apparently never read them.

and to date, all of your "evidence" still relies on the same flawed studies that have been shown to a) not correlate well with temperature and b) dominate the principal components analysis.

uh, no.

first of all, the MWP and LIA information you are relying on is, well, based on the tree-rings.

i said worse changes... more drastic, not warmer, nor cooler. the decline from the MWP to LIA was in about a century and nearly 2 degrees C (depends upon who you read). we've seen less than a degree in a century, more likely less than a half a degree. the MWP change to LIA was much worse.


bad science is bad science no matter who says it, fram. i read the papers and the methods.

of moberg's analysis is so spot on, why doesn't he release his data and methods?

also, note, he's relying on the same, unreliable tree rings as the others.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

Taks, you have said several times that the tree ring studies are unreliable, but I don't see that you've explained this comment or provided any corraborating evidence. Could you give us an understanding of why you think these studies are unreliable?

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All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.~ Carl Sagan ~

Humanity must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will we fully understand the world in which we live.~Socrates, 500 B.C. ~

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him. ~Albert Einstein~

nearly every other thread i have, and i get a little frustrated when folks such as fram call my analysis "tired" (or whatever) and then ask the same question over and over.

anyway, for the record:

1) no definitive study has ever shown the actual linear relationship between tree-rings and local temperature. i think we can all agree that there is a dependency upon other things such as soil moisture, sunlight exposure, humidity, CO2 content in the air AND, finally, temperature. nobody has ever shown which of these dominates. it is, more than likely, very complex. also, there is strong evidence that the relationship is NOT linear, but rather some sort of "optimum" exists. if this is true, then there is a "hump" or sorts in the curve. how is it possible to know which side of the curve you are on? on side implies a warming climate, the other cooling.

2) the tree-ring data mostly stops around 1980 from what i've read. there is a new issue (this is a new point) that the climatologists seem to be noticing some sort of "divergence" within their models. this is showing as a model divergence from actual recorded temperatures. if a model (uh, typically some sort of linear regression analysis, the primary one being known as the principal components analysis) diverges from the known record, then it is not very accurate.

3) tree-rings literally dominate nearly every analysis they are used in, particularly the PCA papers by mann, et. al. remove the tree-ring proxies from the model, and suddenly you have noise. the resulting data series don't correlate during their calibration period, let alone outside for past temperatures or future predictions.

4) the multi-proxy studies with tree-rings have a near zero r2 statistic during the verification period. this is new as well since amman will be the first to publish the actual numbers this summer. mann refused even the barton committee when asked. this, btw, in spite of claiming significant skill with the r2 in mbh98.

the r2 is a cross-validation statistic (presumably lower-case r to mean "out of range" of the calibration period, which used the R2 statistic). it measures a confidence in the results. it should never be relied upon wholly as a true indicator of "goodness", but it does not bode well for an analysis if the result is near zero (which implies no correlation).

5) belive it or not, those using the tree rings really do "cherry pick" their series. note how fram says that using biased data (ala steve mcintyre) will result in a biased output. does he also concur that if the climatologists are picking and choosing their data we should also distrust it? if not, we have a double standard that is appalling. of course, in esper's own words on page 92, first paragraph:

this point was also made by d'arrigo at the recent NAS panel conference.

this is a new point as well, btw, though it has been implied by my posts on more than one occasion. in short, they take all the tree-ring series and throw out the ones that don't correlate! simply amazing. my question is this: if there is a provable cause-effect relationship between tree-rings and temperature, wouldn't it show up in all trees in an area? at least, wouldn't there be some correlated signal common to all the trees assuming other variables are equal? if all other variables are not equal, why then, can we not account for them?

6) also, rather oddly, the record that is used back to pre-MWP times is rather spotty. in some instances, one tree was used for an entire block of temperatures over considerable time.

7) finally, one of the primary tenets to science is the concept of reproducibility. for whatever reason, some of the primary players in all this, mann and jones, continually fail to post their data and methods as required by the magazines they publish in. mann has finally posted his data after specific request from the barton committe this summer, but jones will not. given that their research is often paid for by taxpayer dollars, and certainly is being used to drive public policy, this is ridiculous at best. there has been other misconduct, but not necessarily related to tree-rings. just the players that swear by them.

in the end, the tree-rings were used to reduce the overall impact of the MWP and LIA. in other words, the tree-rings were used to make them look less impressive, raising the statistical significance of current trends. by their own admission (all of the climatologists at the NAS panel except mann), we cannot even measure past temperature within a half a degree, and some are arguing over a few tenths. we can't even accurately determine current temperatures to a degree according to NASA GISS!

also, for the record, "warmer" or "cooler" is not even close to the issue. even a 100 mV rms noise voltage across a resistor has a chance of an infinite voltage assuming a gaussian distribution. what matters is whether or not we are in some sort of statistical anomaly. the past trends tend to look rather sinusoidal with variations a degree or two either side of some "normal" value. temperatures within a couple standard deviations are, statistically, not unusual. even if we are a tenth or two higher than the MWP (we can't measure it), it's just not significant.

enough?

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

oh, FWIW, moberg has also had a corrigendum issued for failure to post data. the results are ongoing, though m&m did get SOME of his data.

moberg simply applied wavelet filters to analyze his data. wavelets are a special sort of orthonormal basis set used to reproduce time frequency data as opposed to a fourier analysis which only provides frequency. we have not figured out the significance of using wavelets, but he uses some of the same data as mann. mcintyre discusses his use of the CWT, assuming Continuous Wavelet Transform, but i am more inclined to believe the C stands for Complex. i do not have access to his data or methods to verify.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

Oh, I do understand Stockwell. He took those random series that fitted the observations of the last 150 years, and got a hockeystick. No surprise there, as they were random series.
Mann e.a. took actual datasets, and retained those that fitted the observed temperatures of the last 150 years, because that showed that they were reliable indicators of temperature. The actual data from before 1850 then showed a hockeystickpattern, although one with a clear MWP and LIA (but not as clear as you would like). This is a markedly different approach. That the actual data gives a result that comes close to what random data would give does not mean that the actual data or the method are wrong.

And I did not say he "took a straight line", please don't make quotes that are incorrect (if it wasn't intended as a quote, then don't put quotation marks around it).

Second point: I did not make your point. You just assume things. McIntyre says "if I make a mistake, I get wrong results: hence Mann is wrong." This is extremely faulty logic. He makes no point, but still people fall for his empty rhetoric.

Third: I have addressed this above. It is not because your result matches a random result (which it doesn't, by the way) that your result is meaningless or invalid. What McIntyre has shown is that it is not true that whatever data you use, you'll always end up with a hockeystick. So if you do end up with one, it is because of the data, not because of the method.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

Do you mean this corrigendum? They hadn't realised that one series of their data was discussed but unpublicized, have noted this, and make the data available now? I don't see why that is worth noticing, and to call that a "failure to post data" is quite strong.
The rest of your post is one baseless assumption. Have you even tried to get access to his data?
By the way, who is the "we" in the "we have not figured out ..."?

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

I'll te everyone decide for themselves after rereading the posts involved. But if this is your defense, a blanket statement and a wild accusation, then so be it.
So, still no evidence from you, not in support of your own earlier statements, and not in support of these new ones. You have not shown that in the multiproxy studies, the treerings "dominate the PCS", you just assume so because they give similar results. Similarly, you have not shown that tree ring proxies do not correlate well with temperature (even though they do so for the observed temperature of the last 150 years).
No, see above. Some of it is, some of it isn't. And at least I have shown what my statements rely on.
Ah, a first retraction, from several degrees to "nearly two degrees". Still no sources though, and still the same other claims, and new unfounded ones: "more likely less than haf a degree"? And this doesn't address your own contradictions.
So you are the one deciding what is bad science, even if this peer reviewed article is praised even by even staunch critics of AGW? Not a very good basis to have a discussion...

Moberg has released his data, but, as has been noted above, he had forgotten one set, for which he erroneoulsy thought that it was already released. He has released it when that was pointed out to him. His method is discussed in his article. And anyway, if you have the data, you can do your own research on it. If it gives a drastically different result, then it can become time to discus methods. But as long as you can't show that his data do not support his results, is it very weak to attack him on such spurious grounds. By the way, if you have "read the methods", then why do you ask them to release it?
And he's not relying on the same tree rings, but on different sets. It's only your opinion that those are unreliable. Magically, they are reliable for the last 150 years, but not before.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

We can discuss "definitive" ad nauseam, of course. But there have been studies to which aspects of tree rings mainly indicate temperature, like this 1995 one of Dr. Epstein (Cal. Institute of Technology). The studies of tree rings wrt temperature are well aware of the other factors involved in tree growth, and try to reduce their importance as much as possible. See e.g. this introductory page by the University of Lleida. People like Dr. Briffa know this well enough:
Sorry, but then you haven't read enough. Recent studies take tree ring data set that go until 2003. E.g. Briffa (2001) and Osborn/Briffa (2006) has data until 1995, Jones/Mann (2004) has tree ring data ending in the year 2000, and Esper (2002) goes until 1992. Also more localized studies work with recent data, like Hantemirov (2002), with tree ring data until 1996, or Luckman (2006), with data until 1994, or finally (as I think the pattern is clear) Salzer (2005), with data until 1996.
Any source for this?
What do you mean, the first to publish the actual numbers? As far as I know, all data from those temperature reconstructions presented in Nature, Science, the Journal of Climatology, ... are available for every scholar. Mann did not refuse the Barton Committee his data (they were already available), but his software, as was his right. Mann is supported in his response towards the Barton Committee by the AAAS.
Some trees don't match in their growth the temperature records very well, as you noted above in point 1. In those trees, the importance of other factors is stronger than the importance of the temperature. So indeed, as could be expected, all variables are not the same. It is only logical to throw these trees out of your study (otherwise you would claim that they don't take your point 1 in consideration). What they do is take those trees that match in their growth the known, measured, more recent temperatures (last century or so), and recalculate older temperatures from those trees (and extend the set by matching those trees with older ones, etcetera). This is not "cherry-picking". Cherry-picking would be if they only took those trees that have no LIA or that have the current temperature as at least 1 degree higher than the MWP or so.
What they are doing is checking which trees look like the most reliable ones, and reconstructing the temperature from there. Nothing amazing there, just serious science.
In the studies I have seen, I have noticed that they most of the times clearly indicate where the reconstruction is based on a significant sample of trees, and where it is based on a limited set. Better, more elabora studies, spanning longer periods and with more datasets are appearing all the time. Nothing odd there.
As noted above, you are wrong. Mann had posted his data before the Barton Committee asked for it. Other studies using tree ring data (see the examples given above, or look at the many other ones) do give their data.
About Mann, this text from the House Science Committee Chairman in response to Barton says it all:
The tree rings were not "used to do" anything except reconstruct a reliable temperature history. If the result of that was that the overall impact of the MWP and the LIA were reduced, then so be it.
As for measuring temperatures and the precision of it, you have argued this before. There is a difference in measuring temperature and measuring temperature changes. There is also a difference in measuring temperature in one place or from one source, or averaging it over many sources. Both these differences make the temperature record much more reliable than you seem to imply.
More than enough, thanks. Not much left of it though. I notice we are back to "a degree or two either side of some "normal" value", which gives again a 4 degree change. Sources?
You seem to imply in the last part here that the MWP and the LIA may be some statistical anomalies and insignificant, which contradicts your earlier points about the current change being not as drastic as the changes in the MWP and the LIA.
Anyway, calling the temperature measurements and changes a "statistical" anomaly is a cop out. Current temperatures are an anomaly, that's correct, and I'm glad you acknowledge it, but the reason is probably not statistical. Temperature isn't caused by the throw of a dice, but by a lot of factors, and if we have an anomaly know, then wehave to search which factors are responsible for it, not trying to ignore and obscure the issue.

EDIT: added two urls.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

and, as i noted, those that do go past 1980 are experiencing divergence. i.e. they've flattened out compared to current temperatures. post 1980 or so they don't correlate any more.

i've linked to it multiple times in this thread alone. amman is posting the r2 statistic numbers this summer. if you're going to call my argument tired, at least read it.

i didn't say mann refused the barton committe, i said mann did not oblige until the barton committe requested the data. and no, jones' data is still not available, nor is all of moberg's.

nonsense. this is the only field in which it takes a congressional committee to release data. nature, science, et. al. REQUIRE both data and methods be published prior to publication. not all of them even sufficiently describe their methods.

REPRODUCIBILITY. i've seen you argue for it w.r.t. other fields, yet you defend the lack of it here. unbelievable.

unbelievable. you really buy this tripe. why is it that only those that favor your view are acceptable to keep? this isn't just disingenuous, it's intellectually dishonest to claim a correlation when they purposely throw out the results that don't agree with the theory.

d'ya think, maybe, it could be that since they don't correlate, the relationship doesn't hold? if they have to go through and only use certain data sets, perhaps the data is questionable, and, as a result, so are the conclusions based on said data?

based on expected outcome.

in your world, sure. at least now i got you on record supporting such a joke.

hook, line, sinker. go realclimate, eh?

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

btw, this paper seems to think the MWP had minimums over 3 C warmer, and maximums about 2.5 C warmer... gonna start quoting them, fram? oh wait, they don't show the pretty graphs the way you want 'em.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

if you can get the same results using random data, then the methods are at best, questionable. the point i've always tried to make. of course, you don't mind fitting data to the desired outcome.

it's ok for mann, et. al. to choose data biased towards their outcome, but when steve did it, ut oh, that's bad.

unbelievable.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

Guys (Taks in particular), please check your tone. You are becoming increasingly abrasive. Stick to the facts and try not to let the other's point of view send you into insult mode. Molto grazi.

Josh

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1·618033988749894848204586834365638117720309179805 76286213544862270526046281890244970720720418939113 74

The question of "cherry-picking" could be resolved by determining when the cherry-picking occurred.

If I had good data on temperature and tree rings for 150 years, and wanted to extrapolate this into the past, then if I were a good scientist I would:

a) determine which sets of tree rings correlate well with temperatures for the past 150 years.
b) use these tree rings, and these rings only, to extrapolate back in time.

If were disengenuous, I would
1) first collect all tree ring data back in time.
2) use only the tree rings that match my theory, and throw out the rest

Taks,
Are you claiming that Mann et al used the latter strategy (steps 1, 2). Or are you saying that they used the first strategy (steps a, b), but that that is flawed?

pgh, it's hard to say which. there are claims they throw out rings based on actual biological data, but esper's quotes tend to imply they look for a specific signal and if it is not there, they toss the data. one can infer method 2 from such quotes.

method 1:
i don't necessarily agree... you said what about the tree-rings that don't correlate well with temperatures? why do they not? if there is a linear relationship between tree-ring width, shouldn't they all show it to some degree? i.e. if the relationship is there, then the signal will be present in all tree-rings. if the signal is not present in all tree-rings, then maybe the relationship is not that strong (which may be why they fail the verification statistics).

in other words, disqualification based on statistical relationships is, by definition, circular. you're biasing the pool even with this method. in reality, how do you know a-priori that the "out of range" signals are out of range from bias, or just the overall variance of the data?

however, if they really do throw out samples based on known biological problems (say, a tree resides in a particular place that gets less sunshine, or rain, or whatever) then there is a better argument. as i noted regarding esper's comments, however, this is not what they are doing. they look at it, see if it correlates, and toss it if it doesn't.

method 2: yes, disingenuous.

the point about stockwell's analysis, btw, is that if a model can reproduce similar results using random data (red noise is random, just constrained in frequency, also known as colored noise) then the model is not very reliable. it does not mean the model is necessarily incorrect, just unreliable. the confidence intervals are "floor to ceiling", or so large that you cannot tell where the true mean lies.

since these guys are the ones writing papers that the IPCC (and likewise most governments) is taking as gospel to drive public policy, i would think that we'd see something a bit more reliable, at least, a model that is unlikely to produce similar results by chance.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...