Unwinding “Hide the Decline”
April 28, 2011
After more than 6 weeks of research and mucking through skull-exploding, mind numbing distortions, contortions, and misrepresentations of this story, I’ve finally finished my video on that most toxic meme that came out of the enormous nothing-burger called “climate-gate” — the phrase “hide the decline”.
Like Obama’s birth certificate, the truth will never make a dent on the committed crazies of climate denial, but I think this is worth watching for citizens, bloggers, or researchers who are trying to get their arms around the story, and appreciate how much the media helped, or hurt, understanding of the issue.
Working on this, plus keeping up with the Fukushima story, has been a huge time sink, but I hope now to get back to more regular video releases.
May 23, 2011 at 3:33 am
Haha, I didn’t know that Anthony Watts never received a college diploma, or at least he has refused to give credentials when asked or post them on his blog’s “about” page.
This is all that is mentioned on WUWT.
“While I’m not a degreed climate scientist, I’ll point out that neither is Al Gore, and his specialty is presentation also.”
That is just too funny.
Absolutely awesome video. Lays it out there clearly. I wish I made the time to see it sooner.
May 23, 2011 at 12:14 pm
[…] who thinks that Richard Muller has any credibility at all should see this recent video report by Peter Sinclair, which shows him clearly lying about the science and the scientists. There is no […]
June 13, 2011 at 9:20 am
[…] And read more about it from the creator, Peter Sinclair. […]
August 16, 2011 at 5:17 pm
[…] by darth omar They had no concerns? I though that was the whole point of 'hiding the decline'? Unwinding “Hide the Decline” Climate Denial Crock of the Week The clip above should answer any questions about "hiding the decline"…. In short all […]
October 21, 2011 at 2:49 pm
[…] WMC that this changes basically nothing about my opinion of Muller himself. The charges that Muller grossly distorted the truth about the so-called “hockey stick” controversy, he doesn’t appear to really even understand basic aspects of climate science, etc. stand. My […]
October 27, 2011 at 9:09 pm
I found this video to be rather detailed and interesting. However, since Muller cited a warming of 1.2C since 1900 in his congressional testimony, and since the satellite microwave data have settled on a linear trend of 1.4C per century (using about 33 years of data), then where is the evidence of anomalous, alarming heat?
And isn’t this difference of 0.2C within the error range cited for the ground temperature data sets?
October 27, 2011 at 9:59 pm
not sure what you are asking. the rate of change over the last century is anomalous in the record over
at least the last 2000 years, and is much more rapid than during the changes from glacial to interglacial
in the ice core record. The various records have slight differences – and it should be noted that
Muller’s study is land based temps, if I understand correctly, and the satellite, CRU, and GISS
temps are land/ocean.
October 27, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Nevertheless, admitting that the “divergence problem” remains a problem does weaken the claim that tree ring proxies is a reliable method for reconstructing temperature values. And so long as this problem remains unresolved, caution in its use and full-disclosure of its neglect is scientifically warranted.
This was not done, as Muller notes. Furthermore, in Muller’s original video (neglected in the above), he goes on to adamantly state “this is not Berkeley science.” By contrast, Penn State’s Richard Alley in ETOM accepts your argument.
Clearly, reasonable scientists have dared to disagree about disclosure here. Why is that?
Isn’t “Mike’s Nature Trick” by itself an admission of a failure to exercise full disclosure because to do so would weaken the advocates stance? Isn’t this an unethical nondisclosure? A ‘finger on the scales’ because the audience (presumably) can’t handle seemingly adverse data?
It is to me.
October 27, 2011 at 10:05 pm
you didn’t watch the video closely. All adjustments were fully disclosed in the peer reviewed literature. Tricks not so tricky. Nothing hidden. No decline.
November 26, 2011 at 3:50 am
[…] in case you didn’t get enough of this in Episode 19, here is Peter Sinclair’s excellent take on Muller’s hide the decline […]
January 19, 2012 at 4:12 am
Now all you need is James Earl Jones to do a remake of the audio commentary.
Nice analysis, and the video quality even plays well full screen.
Thanks for the download link, I have saved this.
January 25, 2012 at 2:51 am
[…] These awards are won by popular vote, rather than merit. Those that rouse or manufacture enough support, can engineer a win in the submitted category – in this case resulting in “science” awards for a blog that routinely misinforms on scientific subjects and even slanders scientists. […]